WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 190: Under Black Water (8)

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The two of them fitted suppressors onto their firearms.

Pequod was sinking fast. They were only climbing from the middle level to the upper deck, but even that was difficult. Every time the stairs turned at a landing, the angle changed. One half of the stairwell gradually leveled out, while the other half grew steeper and steeper, until they had to climb it like a ladder.

Kiiiiing. The ship shook like a building in an earthquake. It was not an impact from outside. Once the vibration died down, the sound of water pouring in grew louder than before. Somewhere below deck must have torn open under the pressure. Joanna reached the top of the stairs and spoke with worry in her voice.

“This is bad. It looks like the watertight bulkheads are still open. I don’t know if we’ll have time to look for survivors...”

Even if the double hull broke, closing the bulkheads in time would greatly reduce the chance of sinking.

But with the evacuation nearly complete, there should not have been anyone at the damaged location, and the internal infection had apparently kept the situation room from responding properly.

Gyeoul and Joanna hid around a corner and checked the way out.

The upper deck was not quiet like the levels below. A commotion he had heard many times before, though not for a while, echoed through the corridor. Kyaaaak, kyaak! Bang bang bang! Starving things hammered desperately at doors. The narrow passage was packed with screaming corpses. Every face that flashed in and out of view was familiar.

Was someone trapped inside? Gyeoul signaled Joanna and took out a fragmentation grenade.

Tick. The delay fuse ignited. He did not throw it right away, but waited for the fuse to burn down. The way he judged the time left until detonation was through the linked action of 「Crisis Detection」 and 「Survival Instinct」. If he kept holding it like this, when would he die? The moment the warning surged, Gyeoul threw the explosion one second into the future.

Thousands of fragments burst above dozens of heads.

A violent roar swept through the long, narrow space, and the shockwave alone shattered the ceiling lights in a row.

When the storm passed and he peeked out, not one of them was still standing. Only bleeding things lay collapsed and twitching. If he had simply thrown it or rolled it along the floor, the result would have been different. No matter how many fragments scattered, they would have had trouble piercing even a single torso.

“Excellent. You cleared out that many with one grenade.”

As Joanna said that, she delivered the finishing shots. She had been skilled to begin with, but now she was faster and more accurate than before, even exhausted as she was. How much practice had that taken? Perhaps it had been her way of holding down her anxiety.

They now stood before the door the dead had been pounding on. Was the one trapped inside a survivor? Bang bang bang. The sound of pounding from inside was not so different from the pounding the starving things had made outside.

“Is anyone there?”

A rough answer came back through the door. Kyaaak, kyak!

The sequence of events was easy to picture.

‘They went in and locked the door, but they’d already been bitten by then.’

Suicide was not an easy choice. Even when someone knew they were going to become a monster. If they were going to die anyway, they still wanted to draw breath for even one more meaningless second. Gyeoul did not share that mindset, but after seeing it so many times, he had come to understand it. Sometimes the mere act of living could be the meaning of life.

Joanna recovered ammunition and grenades from the armed corpses and handed Gyeoul his share.

“How about we just move on?”

Despite her suggestion, Gyeoul pressed himself against the side of the door.

“It might be Chadwick.”

The agent accepted that. Chadwick was a man with many secrets. There was a real chance he carried a clue connected to the Patriots, or something else. He had also been in charge of Operation Fair Strike, which meant he would have been one of the last to evacuate.

Since the variant on the other side could not open the door, it was probably an ordinary one.

Gyeoul switched weapons. He took out his pistol and twisted the doorknob.

Clatter!

The impact came the instant the door opened, with the weight of an adult and the strength of the plague behind it. But as a regular variant, it could not overpower Gyeoul’s hold. Joanna joined in as well. Kreeeeek! Through the gap, just wide enough for a suppressor to fit, only pale fingers crawled out. Like a person starved for outside air, the variant pressed itself against the crack with bloodshot eyes. But it was not the Chadwick they had expected.

Even if the breathing corpse wore body armor, its face was unprotected. Gyeoul aimed between the clattering teeth. Thuk! The muffled gunshot became the plague patient’s euthanasia.

No other monster pushed after it. Unexpectedly, however, there were human voices.

“My God! Lieutenant Han Gyeoul! Supervisor Gibson! Did you come to save us? Thank God!”

“...Agent Talbot?”

Oliver Talbot crawled out from under a desk inside the cabin with one other agent. Another person came out of a locker. Three survivors had been trapped in the same sealed room as a monster. Joanna, who had suggested moving on, looked bewildered as she asked,

“How long have you been in there?”

“Four hours. When did the two of you get back? What about the rest of the support troops?”

“Get back...? We never left this ship.”

This time, Talbot was the one who looked confused.

“What do you mean? I heard you were included in the second evacuation.”

“Oh, really? Did Chadwick tell you that?”

As expected of an Intelligence Agency agent, Talbot caught on quickly.

“What happened?”

“It’s a long story. First, it doesn’t look like you know that person’s secret. I don’t know about the other two. I’d like to move quickly, but I don’t want to leave any uncertainties behind us.”

Even at that moment, the sea was swallowing the whaling ship. The deck had tilted so far that they would lose their balance unless they crouched.

At Joanna’s sharp warning, the two people reacted no differently from frightened civilians. They only shook their heads, insisting they knew nothing. Joanna stared at them for a while, then sighed and shook her head.

“We have no choice but to trust them for now. What do you think, Gyeoul?”

“I agree. Even if there’s reason to suspect them, we can’t leave living people behind. They don’t seem like much of a threat either.”

Was this the limit of administrative agents? The fact that three of them had hidden from a single variant meant there was no need to worry about their combat ability. Even if they tried something, they could be subdued easily. An amateur’s frontal shot was far slower than Gyeoul’s shot from behind.

Would they even be confident they could get out alive without Gyeoul? They had possessed neither the ability nor the nerve to deal with a colleague the moment that colleague transformed. Until they reached safety, staying alert would be enough.

“What are your names?”

Gyeoul asked. There were many people stationed in the situation room whose faces he did not know. These two were among them.

“Sean Tucker.”

“Samantha G. Kelly.”

Gyeoul nodded and gestured at the corpses with his chin.

“Good. Agent Tucker, Agent Kelly. Arm yourselves first.”

Each of them carried a pistol. But if they had still had ammunition, they would not have remained trapped. They must have used it all while fleeing here.

There were plenty of corpses that had once been strike team members, so even after Joanna took what she needed, enough weapons and ammunition remained. That included radios, night vision goggles, and other undamaged electronics.

Tucker and Kelly scrambled to follow Gyeoul’s orders. But their hands were busy without accomplishing much. Joanna, watching the passage, snapped at them.

“Desk jockeys. You don’t get infected just by touching them! Hurry! Do you want to drown?”

If they were repulsed by even touching the bodies, they were no different from Li Ailing back in Bradley.

Talbot was better, at least. He armed himself at a speed comparable to a field agent. But that was separate from confidence. Gyeoul could feel the gap in field experience that no amount of training could fill. The composure Talbot had shown every time they had met before was gone without a trace.

“Agent Talbot. Talk. How did this happen?”

Joanna questioned him while they resumed moving. Gyeoul had been about to ask too.

“I don’t know how the infection started. It was after sunset, and the fog was so thick we couldn’t see anything. I heard screams from a distance and knew something was wrong, and then gunfire suddenly came from the submarine receiving the seventh evacuation group. After that, something climbed onto the deck. We made an emergency retreat into the ship, but somehow infected people appeared inside too.”

Agent Kelly added in a trembling, halting voice.

“It, it really happened in an instant...! By the time I came to my senses, I was alone. If I hadn’t found Tucker and Talbot, I don’t know what would have happened...!”

“I understand, so stop pointing your muzzle this way. And lower your voice. This is driving me insane.”

Joanna’s hushed response was still sharp. But in a situation where she could not relax despite being exhausted and worn down, the fact that she did not curse was already remarkable restraint.

As they moved again, the lights that had been flickering more and more went out completely. Joanna said,

“I’ll use infrared illumination. Everyone put on night vision goggles.”

The rest of the way was not long. The changing air told them that much. The smell was one thing, but the rising humidity meant fog was flowing in from outside. It was so thick that breathing felt stifling.

When they reached the door leading to the outer deck, they killed the two variants guarding it, and Gyeoul let out a long sigh.

Tucker asked cautiously, frightened.

“What’s wrong? Were they close to you?”

“No. It looks like the thing we have to deal with is a new class of special mutants.”

“What?”

“Look at the wounds on the bodies.”

The boy pointed at the two corpses. The wounds that had caused the infection were unusual. There were two rows of teeth, upper and lower. When he smelled the wounds, a strong fishy odor still lingered.

‘Mutation Code 「Melville Ray」. I’ve been uneasy for a while, but I thought there was no way...’

Did they have to fight this monster in a maritime city, of all places? The combination of fog and sea was creating the perfect hunting ground for a sea monster. If nothing else, if this ship, Pequod, were still intact, they could at least use the terrain and height to their advantage, but...

Kooong! Pequod lurched. Beyond the fog, on the far side of the deck, red light smeared through the air. It looked as if a small boat had crashed and exploded. And that was not all. Chaos closed in from every direction: screams and shouts, desperate cries for survival, gunfire, cannon fire, explosions, collisions, and kyaaaaaaak!

“C-couldn’t it just be a deformity? Or maybe two things, one big and one small, bit the same spot...”

Joanna answered Tucker.

“Say something that makes sense. The width alone is abnormal. And if two different things had bitten it, the spacing between the teeth wouldn’t be this regular.”

The bite marks were more than a handspan wide. It was not as large as Grumble, which would swallow a person without even chewing, but it proved the thing’s mouth was at least bigger than a Trickster’s. There was no way it was merely some deformity.

Above all, Gyeoul knew why inefficiently shaped deformed variants did not appear.

Puzzled by Gyeoul’s behavior, Joanna smelled the wound and frowned.

“Fishy?”

“It’s too early to be certain, but it’s probably a special mutant optimized for underwater activity.”

For now, that was the most he could say. His only evidence was the smell. Gyeoul could not tell them everything he knew. It would help right now, but the problem would come after they survived.

‘Being treated like a prophet or a psychic has never ended well.’

Thump-thump-thump. Kyaaaak! The sound of starving things sprinting across the deck reached them. Then came someone’s scream. Automatic fire raked through the air, and the darkness and fog flashed like lightning. Talbot bit his lip.

“Damn it! If it really is a new special mutant, what are we supposed to do?”

As he said it, he looked at Gyeoul. Gyeoul had been the first to hunt Grumble, and he had also dealt with the Trickster in an encounter battle with no prior information.

But could there be a more pointless question?

“Whether there’s a variant or not, the urgent thing is getting out. Does anyone know when the nuclear strike is?”

Based on the circumstances, the final solution would definitely be carried out, but he had not yet been told when. The higher-ups had only given the evacuation order.

He asked in case the Intelligence Agency agents knew something different, but everyone only shook their head. Agent Kelly cautiously mentioned two people.

“Team Leader Chadwick or Agent Kowalski might know. The team leader is branch chief level, and Kowalski handles communications security, so she reviews incoming and outgoing messages.”

“And do you know where they are?”

“...No.”

Had tension paralyzed their judgment? For now, all they had were useless words.

At some point, the slope had reached nearly thirty degrees. With its bow raised, the ship looked as if it might snap in half at any moment.

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

#Event

I don’t know why you’re all so disappointed about the signed books, but since you want them that badly, I suppose it can’t be helped.

I’ll draw one person from among those who leave comments on this chapter and send them a signed book.

The entry period lasts until next Sunday, March 19.

(Additional notice added at 6:11 p.m. on March 11: There are more comments than expected, so I’m closing the event early.) Unlike the event posted as an announcement, this one is for people who absolutely must have a signed book, who say their ramyeon only tastes good if they use it as a pot stand so the trembling energy of Tunguska rises from it. If you don’t need a signature, please withdraw.

But if the number of recommendations is lower than the number of comments, I’ll cancel the event. :)

Footnotes:

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