WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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Chapter 155: A Bridge Too Far (3)

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Kugung. The door was sealed.

But it was not enough. Hell seemed to be closing in from the other side of the blocked door. The starving, enraged things shrieked in chaos. Each time the door rattled, the gap widened a little more. Countless fingers crawled through it. Red light from the emergency lamps leaked out with them. Gyeoul kicked the outdoor unit. Bang! The roar of crumpling steel mixed with the screams of the ones whose fingers were crushed. Dozens of severed finger joints twitched like insects. Tan Guosheng shuddered. He braced his back against the outdoor unit and shouted.

"Li! Drag over another one! I will hold this place! Hurry!"

Gyeoul ran. He secured another outdoor unit. Pulling it strained his entire body. Sweat ran down him. Ggrrg, ggrrg. The sound of metal grinding against stone. White streaks marked the path it took.

"Move aside, sir!"

The Chinese officer hurriedly stepped back. Gyeoul knocked over the metal lump he had dragged over. The ground shook beneath his combat boots. He shoved the fallen machine with all his strength, pressing it tight against the first. Double the weight and contact area meant more than double the stopping power. The gap no longer widened. Only blood sprayed now and then, and wet crushing sounds came through. The force of countless bodies pushing had turned into the conditions for death by compression.

It was fortunate the other side was a narrow stairway. If it had been broad and level, even this much weight would not have stopped them.

Guuuh, kuhuk. They sounded like wounded people groaning. On closer look, they were some of the mutants that had climbed up and been knocked down. They had not died even after being struck by a crowbar and having vital points caved in. They had only been unconscious.

The Chinese officer recoiled in horror.

"My God!"

Bang! His gun fired a single shot downward. Gyeoul had grabbed it and forced it aside.

"Save your ammunition. There is not much left."

Gyeoul himself had only one grenade, two rifle magazines, and three pistol magazines remaining. He had brought plenty, but the expenditure had been severe. Tan Guosheng was no better off. Even if he had fired less often than Gyeoul, the trigger he pulled under tension and fear had mostly been held down in automatic fire.

"I will take care of them. Please step back."

The senior officer backed away as quickly as he could while still preserving his dignity.

The ghoul with a bootprint sunk deep into its rib cage regained its senses first. It flailed for a moment, then found Gyeoul with its wandering gaze. It seemed to grasp the situation. It spat blood and flipped itself over. It was so agile it hardly looked like a living thing struggling to breathe. It crawled toward him on both arms, babababak. At last, it sprang with sheer arm strength. Tdadadak! Its teeth snapped at the air.

But it flew in an honest arc. The crown of its head was fully exposed, and Gyeoul brought the crowbar down. Blood sprayed. With a clunk, the mutant's weight caught on his wrist. Its body shook while its head stayed pinned. Thin blood ran down over the mutant's pale head. It looked like a person standing in red rain. The monster, which must once have been a boy his age, looked up at Gyeoul with discolored eyes, then sank to its knees. The crowbar blade came free on its own.

He cleaned up the rest. None of the ones still breathing were normal. The one with the upper part of its forehead shattered kept beating the floor. It was anger at a body it could no longer control. Pink folds showed through the crack in its skull. Gyeoul stamped down hard with his heel. The brain was destroyed.

He had focused on their heads from the beginning. They were monsters made from corrupted humans, so their brain damage symptoms were the same as a human's. Most of them could not keep their balance or were retching.

There had not been many survivors in the first place. It took barely over a minute to finish them all.

"Are we... are we safe now, Li?"

Tan Guosheng panted, almost groaning. He was soaked in even more sweat than Gyeoul. Enough to make dehydration a concern.

But it was still too early to relax. His nerves were still tingling. That meant the crisis was not over. Gyeoul scanned the area. What threats were there? His senses sharpened in several directions. In each of those directions, there was ventilation equipment. The fans were still turning. They seemed to be powered by the rows of solar panels covering the roof.

His heightened hearing caught a clanging metallic sound. Its direction shifted in real time, and the distance shrank.

"Lieutenant Colonel."

"What is it?"

"I think we need to run."

"What?"

Gyeoul grabbed the drained officer and started running. Tan Guosheng staggered once and barely regained his balance. He turned back with a look of complete confusion, then saw a smashed fan burst upward along with chunks of flesh. A mutant had slammed its body into the rotating blades.

Kraaaaaa-

The mutant that burst out of the vent roared savagely. A metal blade was embedded in its shoulder. One arm was gone. But it came running. It was not alone. From the pitch-black hole leading indoors, mutants and mutants and more mutants kept bursting out, throwing their whole bodies forward with strength beyond human limits.

The other vents were the same. The building was large, so there were many of them. Mutants burst out from every direction. If they were surrounded in open terrain, even Gyeoul would be in danger. Above all, the safety of his escort target came first. The general's son had to survive.

"This is insane!"

Tan Guosheng's scream was mixed with a sob.

There was a water tower in the direction they were running. Since it stood on the roof of a building, it was not very tall, but there was only one ladder leading up the tank. If they climbed up and held out, they would be safe for the moment. They would not be able to avoid being isolated, but it was the only possibility 「Survival Instinct」 offered.

When they reached the foot of the ladder, Gyeoul grabbed his escort target by the ammunition belt and shoved him upward as if throwing him. Then he followed with a leap. Even though Gyeoul had helped him up first, he quickly caught up to Tan Guosheng. Gyeoul hung on with one hand and drew his pistol. He shot the foreheads and crowns of the things climbing over the railing. Tuk! Tutuk! He shot the ones with unstable balance, so they collapsed in a heap.

The ghoul leading the group was cautious. It crouched low in the rear, keeping out of his line of aim.

"Climb up quickly!"

Tan Guosheng, who had reached the top, held out his hand. Gyeoul kicked off and cleared the remaining distance in one motion, making the offered hand awkwardly pointless. After a short, sharp scream rang out below, the mutants stopped following. Even with their intelligence, they understood the disadvantage of a narrow path leading upward. Still, Gyeoul gripped his crowbar tightly. For one with good stamina, even if it was not a ghoul, the gap was something that could be overcome in a moment.

"Damn it. We are completely trapped..."

Tan Guosheng was right. Gyeoul could not see a solution either. More than two hundred had gathered around the water tower. Why was the proportion of ghouls among them so high? Even among the ordinary mutants, many had sturdy male bodies. His guess was that only the ones capable of overcoming the ducts' vertical structure had made it up. As proof, even though the vents were not blocked, no more were coming out.

‘The ones already here are enough of a problem, but...’

Their remaining ammunition was dangerously low. They could try fighting from the terrain, but it was not a good option. Tuk-tak, tang. The mutants began throwing junk. Pipes torn from somewhere, blades they had carried up, broken bricks, and the like. When large numbers of enemies were armed with projectiles, the difference in fighting power widened sharply.

For now, it was fine. The top of the water tank was fairly wide. As long as they stayed on it, the mutants would not be able to see their targets. Things falling in arcs would be dangerous now and then, but Gyeoul's senses would not miss them.

"What do you plan to do now? I do not see a way."

It was not the kind of question a senior officer should ask a subordinate. But the despairing Tan Guosheng had not lost his mind because he was relying on Gyeoul. Everything he had already experienced must have been overwhelming in more ways than one.

At any rate, right now he was looking only at Gyeoul. Trust built where life and death hung in the balance was qualitatively strong. Joanna had grown close to him in a short time for the same reason. Considering the mission, it was a positive development. Whether they could escape safely from here was a separate problem.

At present, Gyeoul had nothing to suggest either. He could only say this.

"Why not rest for now, sir? You are exhausted. At this rate, even if an opportunity comes, you will not be able to use it."

"Rest? Do you think that is possible in this situation?"

"I will keep watch."

Tan Guosheng weakly shook his head and sprawled out on his back. His attitude was close to giving up. He drank water while lying down, choked and sat up for a moment, then lay down again and closed his eyes. He did not fall asleep. Each time something thrown hit the tank with a clang, he flinched.

A little later, the savage attack thinned out. The mood shifted to waiting for this side to tire. Time was on the plague's side.

Gyeoul sat down and searched his pockets. He found a few energy bars. He had picked out only the easy-to-carry parts of his combat rations and brought them with him. Since the airdropped supplies included combat rations, there was no room for suspicion.

At the sound of nuts being chewed, the senior officer opened his eyes.

"You are remarkable too. To think you can eat in this situation."

"It is too early to give up. You are surprisingly calm too, Lieutenant Colonel."

"...I do not know about that."

He started to say something, then suddenly began to cry. He tried to stop himself. But those were not sobs that would stay hidden just because he held them back. It would be hard to call him weak. The situation was what it was.

"Will Mom send a helicopter?"

It was a tearful monologue. For an adult standing at the end of his youth, the way he called for mama sounded young, but people always became children when death drew close and they called for their parents. Though Gyeoul had seen that state of mind countless times and still failed to find the same feeling inside himself, he could empathize with the officer's tears. Since the earliest past he could remember, he had grown up longing for that kind of heart.

At the same time, his reason was judging the possibility Tan Guosheng had raised. Lieutenant General Xieru's faction had little aviation fuel stockpiled. They possessed only a few destroyer-based helicopters, and even speaking generously, their maintenance condition was difficult to call good. It had already been more than a year since their supply of parts had been cut off.

‘Military aircraft usually secure reliability on the premise of frequent maintenance...’

Reliability and durability were different concepts. As an extreme example, American bombers from World War II, the B-29, had all their engines replaced once every three days. But within their designated lifespans, they could handle any operation with outstanding performance.

Still, he thought a general trying to save her son might send out a search aircraft. Whether it could descend to an altitude reachable by Grumble's Throwing was another matter.

The radio was dead. There were far too many jamming signals all the way to the southern shoreline of Alameda Island. Even when they patrolled Orca Black territory, radios were unusable along the outskirts. It was difficult even for Gyeoul to estimate how many Tricksters were lurking along the coast, in the wetlands, and through the city streets.

‘Why did Lieutenant General Xieru send her son on such a dangerous mission in the first place?’

There seemed to be a problem with her leadership.

Even the boss of a mere violent organization had sent an only daughter into a battlefield just to stabilize their own position. Li Ailing's dual nature might have been born from the contradictions of her parents.

Assuming Gyeoul's guess was right, a survivor search would run into resistance from the opposition faction. They would not need a grand cause. The shortage of aviation fuel would be reason enough to oppose it.

"Of course they have nothing. Because they have nothing, it gets worse. Let me ask first. Clean clothes, bundles of dollars they cannot even use, cosmetics with the lids still on, razors or toothbrushes left brand-new. Have you really never once seen people desperately hiding things like that?"

The voice echoing in his head belonged to Min Wan-ki. The context was different, but the psychology it pointed out was the same.

Gyeoul decided to wait a little longer.

It was not that he was only waiting for a helicopter to come.

What he wanted was the inspiration sensory correction might offer. When someone stayed stuck on one obstacle for a long time, senses that did not exist before sometimes formed.

It was that kind of concept. A person with this level of ability would need this much time before arriving at a solution... The idea itself came from an old system.

Still, he did not stop thinking. Leaning on uncertain salvation was always a poor move. He might be able to think of a good method himself. He had to try. So that even if this world setting ended here, he would have no regrets.

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

#Q&A

Q. kthhyung-nim: Well... I understand that Gyeoul is the protagonist, so he gets to show off some flashy action, but... in that situation, would it not be normal for even an excellent mercenary to run away alone? It makes me wonder how important this officer must be.

A. I will quote part of Chapter 153.

-

"Still keeping to the contract in a situation like this? Ha, why not just leave me behind instead?"

That would be a problem.

The CIA had intercepted Lieutenant General Xieru's communications. Among them was information about the Beidou satellites. Gyeoul had to infiltrate an information-gathering vessel under her command. Tan Guosheng was his stepping stone.

-

The reason the CIA wants the Beidou satellites will appear later in the story.

In truth, readers with a certain level of nerd knowledge probably already know.

Q. BlueWave2-nim: Would it be possible to add DLC from outside...?

A. If you mean intervention from the gallery... it is possible when the world setting host agrees.

Q. Narihyungnim-nim: Haa... I read it all... How am I supposed to wait now... Anyway, this novel, full of childlike innocence, hits my tastes dead center, so I would like to buy it if it comes out as a physical book. Are there plans for that??

A. There are. It is not certain, but I think the first volume may come out sometime next month.

Footnotes:

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