WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 139: Trial (4)

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Gyeoul was reminded of an old showdown from a Western.

But only the abilities required were the same. The purpose of the trial was entirely different. The 21 feet from the firing position to the target was the boundary where automatic weapons and blades became equal. If the engagement distance got any closer than that, the odds of a knife wielder beating a gunman increased sharply.

“If it’s all right, I’d like to go first.”

Joanna asked to switch the order.

“Why?”

At the question from the temporary instructor, Lieutenant Skyler, the FBI investigator glanced sidelong at Gyeoul.

“Because I know Lieutenant Han Gyeoul’s ability. Going next would be burdensome.”

Then she turned and asked him instead. “That’ll be all right, won’t it, Gyeoul?” Gyeoul nodded. The instructor agreed as well.

“As you wish, Agent Gibson. This isn’t the kind of test you can prepare for just by watching beforehand.”

Joanna took her position. The instructor explained the procedure.

“The fixed-target test will proceed in the order of unguarded shooting, handgun shooting, and rifle shooting. If you wish, you may also record an additional score with another weapon that is your specialty. Be aware that the records produced here will be reflected in future operations. This follows the Intelligence Agency’s mission-specific threat assessments.”

That meant the personnel and equipment deployed each time would be decided by Chadwick and the CIA agents under him. However, Joanna, as an inspector, had the right to act as an observer on every mission. Therefore, Skyler’s words could also be interpreted as meaning he intended to restrict her supervisory authority under the pretext of skill and safety. Talking about threat assessments and pushing responsibility onto the Intelligence Agency was just an extra bonus.

Joanna was trying to break through that kind of check with pure ability.

‘If she started arguing principles and regulations, she could probably smooth it over somehow... but it would be hard to get proper cooperation. The relationship between the Intelligence Agency and the strike team doesn’t seem all that good either.’

How nice it would be if the world worked according to principle. Justification was justification, and resistance was resistance.

Gyeoul recalled the organizational structure here. Something from a passing page during the briefing surfaced through the Intelligence correction provided by 「Memorization」. It was a hologram image, blurred and erased in places. The incomplete parts could be supplemented by Gyeoul’s own memory and inference.

The hierarchy was unclear. Command authority ultimately belonged to Chadwick of the Intelligence Agency, but the mobile strike force aside from White Skull had belonged to a different organization from the outset. In other words, the team leader’s command authority only went so far as requesting the strike team’s cooperation. Seen positively, it was horizontal. Seen negatively, it was a loose cooperative relationship.

Considering the importance of the mission, it was enough to make one wonder how such a structure had come into being.

‘The more important something is, the more people there are who want to meddle.’

It might be a power struggle between the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Agency, or perhaps a reflection of the CIA’s diminished standing. In a world with the end approaching, how much value could conventional international espionage really have? Most of the global network they had built must have collapsed, and they would have lost just as much manpower.

There were probably still active agents. Many countries would want American support, and understanding the reality of those places would be important. There was also a need to gather information on special mutants spread across the world. Those were probably the reasons the CIA still existed.

“I’m ready.”

Joanna’s voice came as she stood with her back to the target. Both hands were raised to head level. Her pistol remained in its holster. It was a posture and condition that assumed complete defenselessness. The looseness in her relaxed shoulders showed her expertise. There was such a thing as composure born from tension.

Lieutenant Skyler moved the remote behind his back.

A taut silence settled over the room.

Beep-

Clack! The pistol snapped free of its holster. Joanna spun around like a cut in a film. The instant the arm holding the gun stretched into a straight line, the sight was already perfectly at eye level. A flash of flame. Thud, and a hole opened in the target. It was at the edge of the vital area highlighted by the red light.

Hoooo. Letting out the breath she had been holding, she checked the time. The timer had recorded it in response to the gunshot.

“0.92 seconds. Fail.”

Skyler declared it coldly.

Gyeoul thought again how harsh the standard was. On average, it took an adult man 1.5 seconds to charge 21 feet. The time needed to aim and fire a handgun was similar. So if someone could draw, turn, and aim at a vital spot in less than that, they were already at the level of a skilled firearms instructor.

Joanna’s time of 0.92 seconds was about 60% of 1.5 seconds. In other words, even by simple calculation, she could put down an enemy behind her at 13 feet, barely around 4 meters away, with a single shot.

Maybe it would be different if the imaginary enemy were something like an Olympic track gold medalist.

They had said nobody in White Skull took longer than 0.8 seconds, but Gyeoul suspected that might not be true.

“I’ll try again.”

When Joanna requested another attempt, Skyler nodded. He seemed surprised by her skill.

The position of the target was readjusted. It was meant to prevent her from shortening her time by relying on bodily memory.

Hoo! Joanna’s presence quieted as she prepared. It was the process of drawing her focus from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.

Beep-

Clatter! Bang! It felt as if the wind had blown. The moment the muzzle jumped with recoil, the target shook with it. The new hole was closer to the center of the vital area than before. Gyeoul sensed the shortened interval. A reduction too slight even for a blink. But in real combat, it was an instant that separated life and death.

Lieutenant Skyler delayed a moment.

“...0.84 seconds. Fail.”

Perhaps she had thought, This time for sure. Joanna showed a brief flash of emotion. Tap. Her forehead bumped against the pistol slide. She tapped it like that several times.

Because Gyeoul could see the broader picture, he noticed reactions that she, in her concentration, could not. Surprise disguised as calm.

The FBI agent tried again several more times after that. But in this test, the hundredths of a second below one second were a realm where world-class experts competed in innate talent.

Even after repeated attempts, Joanna could not break through the wall of 0.84 seconds.

In real combat, it was a record that would let her kill an enemy lunging in to stab her from only 3.5 meters behind. If the enemy were in front of her, it meant she had enough skill to draw and fire even at a distance where a direct stab would already reach.

Though she had not cleared the passing line, that was not how the White Skull members present saw it. So that was it. Gyeoul felt his earlier hunch had been correct. Even if it was true that every member was under 0.8 seconds, that was probably each person’s personal best.

Joanna accepted the incomplete result and asked them to prepare the next stage. Aptitude changed depending on the method. She seemed to be steadying herself.

‘Was the original name of this training the Tueller Drill?’

Gyeoul searched through the memories of a loop where he had failed to stop the end. The first person to teach him this training had been a police officer at a precarious survivor outpost. While teaching Gyeoul marksmanship, the officer had said that he used to work in the birthplace of the Tueller Drill.

That birthplace had been Salt Lake City. Gyeoul had found that strange and asked about it. Wasn’t that the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? He had never imagined public safety there would be bad enough to require training like this.

At that, the officer, whose name Gyeoul could no longer remember, had burst out laughing. He said there was no city more boring and quiet than that one. Then he added that only two police officers had died in the line of duty since the 2000s began. One sergeant, one detective. In a country where firearm possession was unrestricted, that was an astonishing record.

Then the officer had gone on to say that this shooting method had originally been created so that people would not shoot.

“Kid, put simply, this is a kind of discipline. The more familiar you get with this training, the more confidence you gain that if someone’s outside 21 feet, you don’t have to shoot. It was created in the first place to reduce police firearm abuse, and there were even opinions that it should be spread to civilians too, so excessive self-defense with guns could be reduced. Murder and self-defense are separated by a single sheet of paper. Well, that’s just how life is, right? Of course, it was hard to see results unless someone was pretty well trained....”

But regardless of its original purpose, it was now recognized as one of the major combat techniques. What Joanna was undergoing now was also far removed from a pure Tueller Drill. To begin with, it had never been a drill that required vital-point shooting.

Then again, that was true. Of all the things people created, what had ever remained exactly as it was first intended?

Gyeoul turned over several examples in his mind. Afterlife Insurance was one of them.

A rash thought came to him here. Wasn’t this the difference between one person and people? A person could be pure, but people could not. The more people there were, the farther they moved from being human.

After dwelling on that far, Gyeoul laughed inwardly. He just wanted to believe in human nature. To believe there was still hope outside. He had no basis for it. Other than a single rose.

Click. The sound of a pistol slide being pulled snapped his attention back. Joanna was gripping the pistol with both hands, her upper body leaning forward as she waited for the signal. It was still a fixed-target shooting test. The difference from the first round was that she began with the pistol already in hand.

The timer sounded. Joanna half-turned and pulled the trigger with one hand. Bang! The ballistic measuring device judged it a hit. The time was 0.82 seconds. Even with the drawing stage omitted, not much time had been shaved off.

Retry, retry, retry, retry.

The hand was faster than the eye. Aiming took more time than drawing.

In truth, at Joanna’s level, the role of the eyes had been reduced almost to nothing. Just as Gyeoul relied on skill correction, she relied on experience engraved into her body. Vision merely recognized the target, while the actual aiming was handled by learned unconsciousness. People usually called that muscle memory.

Skill correction also felt, in part, like a kind of muscle memory that surpassed human limits.

“This seems to be my limit. I regret that I could not clear the passing line.”

Joanna, having finished even the rifle shooting, raised her hand. But though she said she regretted it, her eyes were alive. The pride of someone who had built their skill through effort and done their best.

Some of the White Skull members watching whistled.

With his enhanced senses, Gyeoul could hear their muttering.

“That woman’d be wild in bed.”

Captain Fowler sighed. He had not moved at all until now, standing there with his arms crossed.

This dismay was also one of the grounds for the conservatism he had shown.

Regardless of men and women, the mere presence of a small number with a different nature could disrupt the mood of the majority. That was even more true for a group fashioned as a tool for a specific purpose.

Even though it was not a test that consumed much physical stamina, beads of sweat had formed on Joanna’s forehead. Exhaustion caused by physical tension. The fact that she could focus this intensely was itself exceptional ability.

“Agent Gibson. You seem quite tired. How about taking a short rest before moving on to the letter target? In the meantime, we can record Lieutenant Han Gyeoul’s fixed-target score.”

Lieutenant Skyler, saying this, sounded noticeably gentler than at the start.

But Joanna refused flatly.

“Training is combat without bloodshed, isn’t it? I’ll continue.”

The enemies they would meet outside would not go easy on her because she was tired, and they would not show consideration because she was a woman. She did not even bother to voice such stale words.

Every test after that became a process of proving perseverance more than skill.

Half an hour on the letter target, and even longer on moving targets. Her knack for repeating short bursts of concentration over a long period was impressive.

She intentionally did not finish the final stage. To Gyeoul, it looked like a kind of demonstration.

Sweat kept dripping.

“That’s enough.”

Captain Fowler groaned the words out. It was after he had checked the mood of his team members. Joanna answered with a refreshed expression.

“Depending on your evaluation, Captain, I can show you an even greater willingness to work.”

“I said that’s enough. You may be lacking as a combatant, but you’re more than sufficient as an inspector.”

“Is that so? Thank you.”

The investigator gave a slight nod and lifted her chin a little. She straightened her disheveled hair. Gyeoul handed her a handkerchief.

The captain still had his arms crossed. This time, he seemed displeased with his subordinates.

To Gyeoul, it looked like an excuse.

============================ Author’s Note ============================

#Recommendation

Readers as unspeakably evil, great, and blasphemous as ancient gods. This is Tunguska, the one and only purity, hope, conscience, and childlike innocence in this world.

Please do not recommend The Little Prince in the Ossuary in the comments of other novels.

How hurt must that author feel?

I do not want anyone to be hurt because of my novel.

I found myself pathetic too, for feeling improper joy from such comments.

Of course, it’s fine to recommend The Wind and Star Cluster in the comments of The Little Prince in the Ossuary.

Because it’s The Wind and Star Cluster.

#Q&A

Q. ZERO4-nim: @ No, where are you going on such a cold day; moving? It seems like the author needs a nice warm ondol floor to cultivate childlike innocence. Hurry and come in here!

A. Reservations for packing movers were full, so I had to pack everything myself, and it was hard. Please comfort me. T_T

Q. RGZ95-nim: @ Moving on such a cold day... 8.8

A. I wrote until dawn, slept for barely over an hour, and then moved, so I felt, wow, people really don’t die that easily. Haha.

Q. Dd1010-nim: @ By the way, what’s the clear condition for this worldview?

A. It’s when the possibility of the worldview’s end converges to 0% in the Control AI’s Situational Computation. This question keeps coming up. :)

Q. Sueopneunssibak-nim: @ Good old thing, huh... Like they said in the late frontier days, the only good old thing is a dead old thing.

A. You didn’t know...? I died once. I resurrected after three days, though.

Q. [Anti]Kid-nim: @ I enjoyed reading. What do I have to do to become an old thing?

A. ???... Aren’t you all already old things?... It’s been a long time since you all passed the age of 40,000, so why are you pretending to be ancient humans...? You can’t possibly have only two legs.

Q. qoewh-nim: @ Also, author-nim, have there been any problems with your health or surroundings lately? Compared to the refugee camp period, your pace seems to have dropped noticeably, so I’m worried something might have happened. I hope everything is okay.

A. Physically, there’s nothing particularly wrong. Other than numb finger joints when I type, shoulder pain bad enough that I can’t lie on my side to sleep, insomnia, and irritable bowel syndrome. Haha.

Footnotes:

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