WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 200: Survivors (3)

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A little over half an hour had passed since they abandoned the helicopter and started moving.

The marching column reached the edge of a village where a narrow stream flowed. Under the indigo light of dawn, the mountains and fields were wet with trees and grass, and the buildings lined up along a single road made for a lonely, empty scene.

A blocking operation seemed to have taken place here too. Concertina wire had been strung across the entrance. Beyond it, they could also see a machine-gun position built from stacked sandbags. But that was all. There was nothing useful to find, no weapons or ammunition. It did not look as if many troops had been stationed here in the first place.

At Gyeoul's gesture, the platoon members cleared the wire. It gave off a bright metallic clatter. The work was not difficult. Everyone was wearing ballistic-fiber gloves, the kind made to keep hands safe even if they were shoved into a mutant's mouth. There had also been talk for a long time that improved combat uniforms would be issued, but since there was still no news, the plan must have been delayed for some reason.

Even America was short on many things now.

After they passed through the entrance, they put the wire back in place. It would be useless against a mutant horde, but at least it would stop a few stragglers from slipping in quietly.

Next, they searched two houses half-buried in the woods. Gyeoul always entered first, and the squads took turns following after him. It was hard to call that normal platoon command, but it was the best option.

Tat-tat-tang!

In the second house, loud gunfire rang out from the kitchen they had already searched. No way. Gyeoul, who had gone up to the second floor, hurried back down, but it was not the situation he had feared.

"I'm sorry. I mistook the curtain for something."

The soldier who had fired let their shoulders droop. A faded curtain swayed inside the open window. No matter how they looked at it, it was hard to mistake it for a person, or for a mutant, but...

"It's okay. When you're tired, you can see things wrong."

Worn-out fear warped the senses. Gyeoul did not blame the soldier.

Still, the gunshots were unfortunate.

Not a single soldier in the whole platoon had a suppressor. They must have had trouble bringing every piece of equipment when they fled Fort Baker in such a hurry. If the base had not been off alert ahead of the final solution, things might have been even worse.

The search resumed.

They found only a small amount of food. Neither building was suitable for Company troops to stay in.

'We need to find somewhere to rest quickly.'

Among the soldiers worn down physically and mentally, some were already showing signs of mild fever and aches. Joanna, who had collapsed from exhaustion at the landing point, worried him too. If her condition worsened, they would be stuck. They needed time and a place to prepare for a long-distance move anyway, but having patients was still unwelcome. They did not know when the enemy might appear.

Even Gyeoul, who was in comparatively good condition, was far from perfect.

His enhanced body needed more calories to maintain combat power. The reason he was holding out without much trouble was that his baseline ability was that high, and because he possessed combat skills that had entered the realm of the superhuman. Rank 16 "Firearms Mastery." It demanded even fewer calories than before, and the correction it provided would likely remain at more than half efficiency even if he reached a near-death state.

Even so, he still needed to recharge. If time kept passing like this, things would become dangerous in several ways.

Before long, the village center appeared.

Oddly, most of the buildings were stores or inns. There were almost no normal homes. It was a small, lopsided settlement where most of the space was commercial. Gyeoul soon understood. This was an entrance route to a national park. The village must have formed naturally as lodgings were built here.

That also meant there was a building large enough to hold the whole Company.

One of the noncommissioned officers assigned to Gyeoul's platoon, Sergeant Stephen Cornelius, said, "Looks like this was the headquarters for the blocking operation in this direction."

The basis for that guess was the double layer of concertina wire set up all around it. One nearby building had even been blown up entirely, perhaps as part of clearing a field of fire.

The wire had been crushed in several places. Black bloodstains remained. Evidence that a mutant horde had once swept through this village. They must have come in from a direction other than the road. By now, they had probably moved east, toward wherever more humans were.

The inside of the building was full of signs of a hurried withdrawal. It did not look as if fighting had taken place.

"Place guards at the key points. I'll suggest using this building as a temporary base."

The platoon members brightened at Gyeoul's words. They thought they could finally rest, though nothing had been decided yet.

Captain Langford accepted the suggestion, of course. He was also having trouble even controlling his expression.

Still, he had a sense of responsibility as an officer. After assigning the watch order and allowing the troops to rest, he gathered the platoon leaders and checked the food they had secured while searching the village.

In the guest room chosen as the temporary command room, the Captain sat before a table and gave a bitter smile.

"At this rate, we'll sit down from hunger and never get back up. Should I tell them to spoon down sugar?"

It was not a joke. Among the food left abandoned for over a year, little was still edible. The village was so small that the Company alone probably outnumbered the people who used to live here.

'For a short period, it's not impossible to survive on sugar alone...'

Gyeoul knew that from experience too. In a disaster, few foods were as useful as sugar. He had only done it once, but he had survived that way while alive too. If used as a long-term means of staying alive, it would bring all kinds of side effects, but as a way to secure calories quickly, it was fairly good.

The problem was that they did not have enough sugar either. Even issuing only 100 grams per person would take eight kilograms. And even that would fall far short of the calories needed by sturdy soldiers.

Ensign Escamilla spoke.

"We need to secure drinking water first. Many soldiers are showing signs of dehydration because we don't even have water to drink. Fortunately, there was a carpentry shop nearby. It looks like it supplied firewood to the lodging businesses. There should be enough left to boil water. If you permit it, my platoon will select workers for the task."

With the water supply cut off, that was their only way to secure drinkable water. Drinking straight from the stream had to be left as a last resort. There was the threat of parasite infection, of course, and other possibilities beyond that. April Pacific had been one example.

After Ensign Escamilla, Gyeoul made his own proposal.

"I'll go hunting."

"Hunting? Alone?"

"I'll need one or two people to help."

Captain Langford shook his head.

"I did mention the possibility myself when we chose to head inland, but hunting isn't that easy. It's different from the vague picture ordinary people have in their heads. We can't use our already scarce food as bait, and the smell coming off us must be awful too. If we absolutely have to hunt, I think it would be better to commit people properly after we finish resting and try a Driven Hunt."

That was the orthodox answer. But it did not apply to Gyeoul.

"I'm saying this because I'm confident. I have a lot of hunting experience."

"Huh..."

The Captain's doubt was natural. At Gyeoul's age, it was hard to believe he could be a seasoned hunter. Even if that was true, guaranteeing results in a hunting ground he was seeing for the first time was a separate issue.

But Captain Langford's opinion also had a flaw. The qualifier "if we absolutely have to" had not been attached for no reason. He saw hunting as a last resort. Gyeoul pointed that out.

"You know a Driven Hunt is dangerous. It spreads a lot of people through terrain with limited visibility, like mountains and forests. If we run into the enemy, controlling the troops will be difficult, and the risk of friendly fire will rise too. Even if it's inefficient, we have no choice but to send out a small number of people."

"..."

"Visibility gets shorter for mutants in the forest too. If a mutant horde appears by some chance, and our numbers are small, we should be able to shake them somehow. We'll make a wide detour so they don't head toward our encampment. I think that's the safest... no, realistically, the only method."

Captain Langford probably knew that too. He knew it, but that did not make the decision easy.

"There's another settlement an hour away from here."

The Captain turned on the tactical PDA that provided geographic information. A map of the area linked to GPS coordinates appeared on the small screen.

"Point Reyes Station. It's a much larger town than Olema, where we are now. There's also a residential area beyond the marshland. I can't be sure, but if we search it, we should find quite a bit of food. What I mean is, well..."

He stopped talking, covered his face, and sighed.

Uncertain hope was not enough to persuade even himself.

Ensign Novak backed Gyeoul up.

"I agree. Unless we feed the Company stimulants, we'll need to stay here for at least a few hours, and their hunger will only get worse during that time. If we factor in the stamina needed to move to the next settlement in that state and search the whole town... if we fail to secure food, there may not be anything after that. The soldiers' morale is terrible too. I'm already worried about non-combat losses."

Mental fatigue and extreme tension sucked stamina like leeches attached to blood vessels. It did not matter whether the next settlement was near or far. The moment Novak mentioned morale, Gyeoul knew the Ensign was also thinking about the despair repeated failure would bring.

'There probably isn't a single soldier who didn't lose a comrade when the base fell.'

Hungry, exhausted soldiers were prone to depression. It was also true that the road ahead looked bleak. Gyeoul judged that it would not be strange if someone committed suicide.

The Captain asked, "Lieutenant Han, aren't you exhausted too? You are an important combat asset. I'm worried this might cost us more than it gains us. You know from experience, but tracking wild animals takes a lot of stamina."

He had known Gyeoul for less than half a day, but the combat ability he had confirmed during their escape was enough for him to say this. Many people had survived thanks to the cover Gyeoul had provided until the last moment.

As the commander, he must have wanted to conserve Gyeoul in case of an unexpected situation.

"I'm fine. I'd like you to trust me with this."

"Hmm."

Langford looked steadily at Gyeoul. He looked like someone searching for something.

"Well, fine. If you're that confident, give it a try. It should be better than having the whole unit stall out."

"Thank you."

"I wish you luck. The key will be how much the mutants that passed through here left behind."

That was another reason the Captain had been negative about hunting. The mutants hunted and ate animals too. Even bears, the apex predators, became prey when they encountered multiple mutants.

He had not said it aloud because everyone already knew.

Even so, Gyeoul had room to spare. He already had high-level "Tracking," after all.

There was also plenty of room to strengthen the skill.

Was it because the immediate danger to his life had vanished when the helicopter landed? The control personality had evaluated the reward for the process of escaping the bay. It should be seen as a kind of interim settlement.

Maybe because he had crossed the line between life and death several times, the reward was correspondingly large.

"Ensign Escamilla. Secure the carpentry shop. I'm sorry to take away your rest, but we can't leave dehydrated soldiers unattended. Tell the people assigned to the task that they'll be guaranteed extra rest time. That includes you, of course. It would be a problem if a commander collapsed."

"Yes, understood."

"Ensign Novak, adjust the watch order. Ensign Krueger, I'd like you to take charge of 1st Platoon while Lieutenant Han is out. Keep checking on the condition of the platoon members. Ensign Barker, gather the soldiers with health problems separately."

Orders were handed down to the Ensigns one after another. There was no way none of them desperately wanted to rest, but naturally, officers carried heavier responsibility than ordinary enlisted soldiers.

============================ Author's Note ============================

#CringeHistory

I looked through posts I wrote somewhere more than ten years ago, and wow, calling it embarrassing does not even cover it.

All kinds of careless remarks, chuunibyou, acting cute with baby talk, terrifying nonsense like, "I'm the cutest one here!"...

Was that really me...? Was high school me really that childish...? The self-loathing was intense.

And why did I write so much of that stuff too...

#Q&A

Q. Calpis: @I'm curious what level Gyeoul's combat power is at! Is he strong enough to win a frontal engagement against a heavily armed infantry platoon alone? If not, how far can he go?

A. It depends on the conditions. If they run into each other in an empty open field, of course he gets shredded instantly. Conversely, if they encounter each other at a distance in an urban area or mountainous terrain, he has a solid chance of winning even if Company- or battalion-level forces come at him, never mind a platoon.

Q. jemes: @This suddenly occurred to me, but could Humpback be the entity or process that develops new mutants? (omitted) Special mutants like Trickster appeared when the mutants' intelligence was still subpar. Even if low-intelligence ones somehow knew humans communicated with each other, knowing that the method was radio waves? I think that would be hard. (omitted) But what if there's a mutant specialized in creating special mutants? If that mutant's ability lets it absorb human memories, or if it has high intelligence, couldn't it understand the relationship between radio waves and communication and create special mutants?

A. Trickster is a little different. The way it detects radio communication is similar to how whales hear a submarine's sonar. Humpback isn't that amazing either.

Q. John_Doe: @No quizzes these days? Quizzes? It was fun digging through Department of Defense public documents haha

A. Quizzes? Hm, well. Assuming a 72-hour operation without resupply, would you like to guess the types and total number of batteries basically issued to U.S. Army soldiers? (...)

Q. LewdDemonF: @I don't think any merchant ships, not warships, made it through the minefield. There's also a good chance Melville Ray might surface, so fishing boats and yachts have no answer, and merchant ships are literally for commercial use, so one mine would cave in the hold wall and split them in half. Even if, by some crazy chance, they reached grounding on land, a lot of people couldn't disembark with two 30-meter pilot ladders on port and starboard, and those could be shorter too. It's lucky for Gyeoul in many ways.

A. Hehe. What would really happen? I'm not sure if it'll be described in the story.

Q. chatterbox: Ah, the Trickster that committed suicide inside the ship... Only now am I wondering whether Trickster recognized Han Gyeoul even though he was disguised. Maybe there was a previous contact while he was disguised and I just don't remember... (omitted) I first encountered this through the ebook, and Joara is nice in another way because I can read these Author's Notes. I hope the next ebook volume comes out soon too.

A. The same question has come up before, and it's because Trickster's main vision is radio-wave reflection. Special makeup doesn't change the eyes, nose, and mouth, so...

The next ebook volume came out today. It's out up to Volume 5 now, so please check it out. :)

Footnotes:

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