WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

Chapter 118

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April Vengeance (6)

There was a Gymnasium on the 11th deck.

Three routes led in. One staircase connected to the 10th deck, and two corridors led into the ship’s interior. The passageways were narrow. It was the kind of place where you could hold off a large group with limited firepower. If things went well, they could even block the corridor with mutant corpses. Gyeoul had already gone through something similar at Atascadero State Hospital.

‘Back then, they were more of an obstacle.’

That was when he had chased the first Trickster, climbing over walls of living corpses.

Farther in from the Gymnasium were the massage room and the fitness room. The massage room had one entrance. The fitness room could only be entered through the massage room.

The cabins still had power. And inside the fitness room, there was a large audio system.

[Do you really think this will work?]

The FBI agent questioned Gyeoul’s plan to lure the hungry things and trap them.

[Mutant intelligence has increased a lot compared to before. You can see it in how the size of mutant groups drawn by Noise Makers keeps shrinking day by day. I do not know how many we can still lure with simple noise...]

Noise Maker. A noise-emitting device the Department of Defense had installed at thousands of contaminated sites. At first, mutants swarmed every time one activated. Not anymore. Mutants that had learned the Noise Maker’s sound pattern no longer got swept up in mobs. Sometimes they even destroyed them.

That did not mean the devices were useless. They still masked the sound of operational units.

“It is still worth trying. If it works, great. If not, we find another method. We have enemies of unknown size hiding here, we do not know the internal layout, and searching blindly is too risky. We should prevent as much danger as possible. How about your side? Still quiet?”

[Yes. I am in a safe place. I am more worried about you, Lieutenant.]

She was inside a boiler room. Not one supplying the engines, one that generated steam for the sauna. There was one beside each corridor leading into the Gymnasium.

If Gyeoul successfully lured in a mutant group, she would come out immediately and pull down the corridor-side fire barrier bulkheads, trapping them more securely.

“Then I am starting.”

After radioing, Gyeoul switched on the audio. He had to pick music... why was there classical music here? He tilted his head. Between titles for yoga and aerobics, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 felt completely out of place. Probably a test track.

Good timing, actually. If the music kept playing after the lure was done, that would be its own headache. A symphony was long and would end after one track, so it was the best option. He set it to maximum volume.

Bwaaaaaam! Bwaaaaaam!

The volume was monstrous. Even Gyeoul flinched after pressing play. It felt like the sound had punched him.

He ran and hid in the locker room. He could count anything that passed by under the gap in the door. He put his ear to the floor and waited for footsteps.

The footsteps overlapped. Judging by distance, some were on the same deck, some below.

The number was lower than expected. It seemed even the Australian mutants had already divided roles. The ones arriving now were likely scouts from each subgroup. The light leaking under the door shook a few times.

Silence after they went in. He needed them to make their distinctive calls. He needed them running around and shouting in every direction. There was a new host here. It had to be infected. Without the howling of searchers, the rest of the pack would not gather.

As expected. He waited, but no sign of additional arrivals came.

‘Come to think of it, the fitness room had lots of mirrors, right?’

Could these things recognize mirrors? Even animal-level intelligence varied wildly. Gyeoul remembered dogs and cats getting startled by their own reflections.

The mutants on this ship had not had skin rot yet. Which meant they were like newborn wild animals.

There was a chance. Gyeoul carefully pushed the door open. Fitting for a luxury passenger ship, the well-maintained hinges made no old creak. The corridor was empty. With boosted correction from 「Movement」, the boy moved without a sound, leaned his back to the wall, and checked the massage room.

One mutant was peeking around. The rest had gone into the fitness room. He approached from behind and twisted its head. Crack! He gripped the jaw and back of the skull and snapped it in one motion. It could not make a sound, only rolled its eyes and found Gyeoul. A black tongue crawled out, writhing like a worm.

Now Gyeoul faced a mirror from a distance.

Kieeeeeek!

Three mutants clung to the mirror. Bang bang! They punched it until cracks spread. Just as he thought, they still did not understand mirrors. Gyeoul turned and ran without hesitation. Maybe they were furious that the boy had vanished into a world they could not chase into, because he heard them pounding and shattering the glass.

The lure worked too well. That became the problem.

How long had it been since the scout sprinted back through the corridor? A massive number and mass rushed in. Far beyond the original estimate. The plan had been to cut them off with bulkheads once the fitness room and massage room filled, but they overflowed outside and packed the corridor too.

[Lieutenant, what is your situation? Did you block that route?]

“No, hold for a moment. There are too many. I ended up trapped instead.”

[What?!]

The FBI agent sounded horrified.

[Are you okay?!]

“For now.”

[Do you have a way out?]

“Well, maybe two options. Hold out here until they scatter, or force a breakout somehow.”

Both were risky choices. In the first case, there was no guarantee the mutants would simply disperse. Beasts in a group acted in organized ways. If they started sweeping the area, a defensive fight in isolation would become unavoidable. Even if he survived, he would burn through a huge amount of ammo.

The second option hardly needed saying. The only thing Gyeoul hoped for was that in a confined space, mutants would get in each other’s way.

‘Hard to bet my life on just that.’

The agent was negative too.

[That is way too dangerous! I would rather do the luring!]

“Do not do it. That would be even more dangerous.”

At this scale, even Gyeoul could not guarantee survival once they got on him. Even after boosting his combat power right before boarding. No matter how strong one person became, the limit stayed clear. In a confined environment, overwhelming numbers made it meaningless. Unless at least one combat skill had reached a godlike level.

Loud tearing and rummaging noises. Gyeoul quietly pushed the door and looked through a narrow crack. Just for a moment. Then he closed it and exhaled.

Something was sniffing like a dog. An individual with heightened smell? Could it track him all the way here? If yes, how much time was left before discovery?

Then another transmission came in.

[I think I can help you.]

The agent said she would blow the boiler.

[I will raise pressure to the maximum, then attach explosives to the pipes and wall and detonate. With a boiler this size, steam should spread through the entire corridor. We can use it instead of smoke cover. Since it is a steam blast, fire risk should be low. I want your opinion, Lieutenant.]

Gyeoul had considered smoke too. He just did not have enough smoke grenades. Two were nowhere near enough to cover this space.

If it was a boiler supplying steam to a large sauna, it might work.

Even if it failed, it would at least draw attention.

“Good. Let’s do it. How long?”

Raising pressure would take time. Asked that question, the agent trailed off.

[I do not know. I have never handled this kind of machinery... I managed to figure out how to operate it somehow.]

“Understood. I will wait.”

[If smoke cover forms, are you confident you can get out?]

“Leave that to me.”

[...]

Agent Gibson did not ask more.

Time passed in silence. Clunk, bang! Sounded like a door getting smashed somewhere. The mutants were searching relentlessly. The idea that the scout might have seen something false was too distant a thought for beast intelligence to reach. Imagining a failure you had never experienced and despairing over it was human territory.

Thud, thud, thud! The rough breaking sounds kept coming closer.

No contact from Agent Gibson yet. Well, it was a large facility. Reaching pressure limit would take quite a while. Through all of that came thud, thud, thud. It felt like part of the symphony.

It looked like he could not avoid a fight. Gyeoul checked his weapons. This would be a fight with no room to step. One malfunction could lead straight to death.

He had to hold until the smoke cover went off.

If only there were enough room, it would be easier.

At last, the sniffing sound pressed right up behind him. To Gyeoul, sitting with his back against the door, it sounded like a whisper in his ear. He shifted posture and brought the muzzle to the door. Tok. He bumped it on purpose to make a light sound. Too small to be sure, but too noticeable to ignore. Tok tok.

Then he counted in his head.

Three, two, one.

Bang! The gunshot echoed indoors. Then a dull vibration through the soles of his feet. There would be a hole in the sniffing thing’s head. He had knocked and told it to put its ear right there.

The door shook violently. Dark room, shaking door. A situation that dragged up childhood memories by force. Back then too, Gyeoul had been inside a room. Door locked, trying to keep the monster from coming in. His father, dead drunk, had been a monster. He screamed sounds that were not human and acted in ways that were not human.

I think I came to a world I know very well.

Here, he could fight things that looked human but were not. Even if it was only an illusion, Gyeoul liked that.

No, he had liked it.

With the locked door between them, Gyeoul fired through to the other side. Bang, bang, bang! The goal was to stack corpses in front of the door. It opened inward, so his way out should not be blocked. Though he would still have to break through a wall of dead things. Dead blood oozed under the door, sticky.

Crack! A hand punched through the bullet hole. White spots were embedded on the back of the hand. He fired by reflex, but only cracked bone. The filthy hand groped around the inside of the door. Before it reached the handle, Gyeoul drove in a knife. Into a gap between mottled patches, a fissure filled with muscle instead of bone.

Kyaaaargh!

One of the special mutants screamed, its hand nailed in place. Gyeoul aimed toward the clearest source of sound and emptied one full magazine. If he could kill the one with the exoskeleton, it would never be a waste.

Continuous fire blew the hole wider. Through the broken opening, his eyes met a mutant’s. Only one eye was intact. Grrrrr. The monster growled with a blood-boiling throat. Gyeoul switched weapons. Right before the pistol spat fire, the monster dropped low in a flash. Then boom! The door shuddered. Enough force to make the hinges groan.

Gyeoul kept kicking against the door and kept firing.

Beethoven still thundered on.

============================ Author's Afterword ============================

#Q&A

Q. Guaaaaak-nim: @How many, seriously, 40,000-year cycles do we have to spend to finish this whole work lololololololol

A. Hmm... about ten? You know how it takes ten nights to become an adult.

Q. SiwonSeopseop-nim: @Star of Espionage lololololol the tank had the power of three high school girls, so if Gyeoul’s combat power is measured in high school girls, how many is he?

A. It would vary a lot depending on the situation. You cannot beat a tank with raw strength alone, so maybe under three high school girls... haha.

Q. PAM-nim: @MagicConch-nim How long can Gyeoul survive in this run?

A. zkqkel-nim: @Soragodong: No.

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