WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 221: The End of April (8)

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Fourth day of the hunt. Gyeoul and the mobile unit had expanded their area of operations to the outskirts of Santa Rosa, roughly seventy kilometers north of the base, and with solid air and intelligence support, they had eliminated nineteen Tricksters and two Grumbles. The mutants’ movements had fallen into widespread confusion. Thanks to that, there were now too many surviving troops alive to count one by one. There might still be living Tricksters in the region they had pierced through, but even if they were not 「The Silent One」, they would have no choice but to keep quiet.

Taken purely as results, it was extremely encouraging.

Even so, the mood among the mobile unit members was not especially bright. It was not simply because they were tired and worn out.

The problem was the enemy’s nature. Ever since they had witnessed the infected birth, the monsters appearing before them had been anything but ordinary. Their combat strength was weak, but they were enemies that wore people down mentally.

At present, only one person showed symptoms of lethargy, and those symptoms were mild. Still, combat fatigue was best prevented before it set in, so at some point Gyeoul had stopped leaving fire support requests to the soldiers.

‘What we’re about to see won’t even be usable for propaganda.’

The helmet cameras replaced through aerial resupply boasted outstanding performance. They had apparently been made by a top company without regard for time or cost. Gyeoul had learned the story from a letter enclosed in the product box. It seemed the manufacturer’s executive had written it by hand.

It read, 「We have not accepted payment. It is enough that I, the employees of our company, and all the people of the world can see and hear your battlefield more clearly. This company is always grateful for your devotion. Please kill every last bastard child of the plague.」

Bastard children of the plague. It was a figurative expression, but now it was closer to the truth. The Department of Defense public affairs office would edit this footage. Gyeoul picked up the handset of the satellite communication terminal.

“Marigold, Marigold. This is David Actual. Requesting fire support. Over.”

Gyeoul’s call sign had become David, as it had been once before. This, too, was guidance from above. Apparently, many people thought of David when they saw him bringing down giants, Grumbles.

[David Actual. This is Marigold. Your request is accepted. Send fire data. Over.]

A reply came at once from Beale Air Force Base near Yuba City. It was the place relaying every support request for the survivor rescue operation. The call sign Marigold was said to have come from an aggregate quarry north of the base.

A bulky measuring device would get in the way of urgent movement in an emergency. Right now, they were using TRIGR. The telescope-like measuring device reported the enemy’s shifting position in real time. Across a field where the curtain of twilight was falling, the advanced device detected the target clearly despite the darkening view.

“Coordinates, Papa X-ray 5-3-0-2, 4-8-3-7. I repeat. Papa X-ray, 5-3-0-2, 4-8-3-7. Target, approximately two hundred immature individuals including ghouls. Dispersed movement west-northwest. Do you read?”

[Solid copy. Are you certain most are immature individuals?]

“Affirmative.”

[Please confirm whether there are friendlies near the bombing point. Over.]

“None visible from current position. Judging by enemy movement speed and behavior, there are no survivors at close range. Over.”

The slow steps unique to mutants conserving energy. Only a few were moving actively. They were probably serving as scouts. Marigold would be seeing this too. The moment they received the coordinates, they would have adjusted the focus of a surveillance satellite. There were more than enough satellites donated by governments around the world.

[Understood. We will pass on the data. Stand by.]

They waited, and after about twenty seconds, the result of the request came back.

[Marigold FAC to David Actual. Call sign Reaper 1, two AC-130s are entering the airspace over the area of operations via IP Hood. Break. Two 105-millimeter howitzers, two 30-millimeter autocannons, four cluster guided munitions, and two laser firing systems are ready. Effective immediately, activate your beacon. We will regard every living, moving thing within a radius of one click, one kilometer, as hostile.]

Beacon meant the infrared identification device issued to every soldier. The mobile unit members followed Gyeoul’s hand signal. Click. Nothing seemed to change from the outside when they flipped the switch. But on the monitors of the winged artillery, the AC-130s, it would look like glittering starlight. Even from more than ten kilometers up, they could pour down precise artillery fire this way.

‘By the way... lasers?’

A weapon far too extravagant for monsters had appeared.

Thinking it over, though, it did seem necessary in the present situation. As long as they had beacons, supporting fire would be possible even when enemies and friendlies were extremely close, or even mixed together. Burning through reinforced human tissue did not require especially high output either.

Flash.

The first barrage resembled lightning. The half-formed night flashed, then the ripping sound of shells plunging down and the roar shaking the ground surged in one after the other. Rumble! Bang! A pair of airbursts with a faint time gap between them. A rainstorm of steel fragments battered a wide stretch of ground. The mutants’ broad spacing must have been meant for moments like this, but this was excessive firepower that simply ignored it. More than forty were caught in that alone. Torn flesh, shattered bones, and scattered organs sprayed like hail. To Gyeoul, who had now acquired 「Environmental Adaptation」, the field of view was bright as day.

Kyaaaaaaaaak!

Young screams overlapped and echoed from afar. A thinner death began pouring down toward that outcry. The explosions were smaller than before, but still stronger than grenades, three or four of them bursting with every breath. Each round seemed to kill at least one. Considering it was being fired from very far away, it was excellent aimed fire, and the killing efficiency was incredibly high. The gunship launched every round with murderous intent, muzzle flashes rippling against the night sky as it drew burning trails.

The few ghouls were completely wiped out by this. Among the smaller bodies, they were unusually sturdy enhanced ones, which made them easy to pick out.

Night shook once more. A tooth-rattling blast stirred the wind as it passed. Across the plain, where small fires remained here and there, little shadows ran in every direction. With control gone, there was no consistency to any escape. Knowing that, the sky beyond attempted a Driven Hunt. Suppressive fire poured down on every path they tried to flee through. The dull-witted things only ran from death, but as a result, they ended up trapped among the bars of the firing lines, spinning in circles.

It might have been his imagination, but Gyeoul could feel the crew’s anger.

“They’re really pouring it on with intent. We’ve rarely received support on this level.”

The faint remark that slipped between the roars belonged to Schultz. There was a shadow on Schultz’s face that the darkness could not hide. Was there another reason Schultz had become especially gloomy since the death of the baby mutant? Gyeoul did not look for long. There would be time later.

Once the number of mutants plummeted, faint rays were drawn across the sky. Laser fire against the isolated ones. It seemed to be an attack combined with an operational test, checking how effective an advanced optical weapon would be against monsters. In a movie, it would have been drawn in a deep color, but in reality, it was quiet, transparent light. The visible trail was only dust or moisture in the air scattering the light.

The targets hit by it, though, were a different story. They burned white and brilliant. A burning at the stake without bound hands or feet. Because of the precise automatic aiming, no matter how they ran, they could not escape. None of the screams scorched by the beam lasted long. Five seconds at most. Sizzling corpses piled up one after another.

Some of them just had to sprint toward the mobile unit’s ambush point.

With its correction, Gyeoul’s eyesight surpassed that of Sicilian fishermen. It meant the young deaths with boiling blood and burning flesh were clear even without binoculars. Naked bodies, gaunt frames with ribs jutting out, running and screaming. Each of them called to mind a scene from the Vietnam War. That famous photograph of a girl whose whole body had been burned by napalm.

After the final corpse fell, a radio transmission came in from Beale Air Force Base.

[Marigold to David Actual. Please confirm target status.]

Gyeoul calmly surveyed the battlefield and answered.

“This is David Actual. Fire mission complete. Confirmed annihilation of the target group. Thank you for the support.”

[Copy. Fire mission complete. We will send firefighting aircraft shortly. Marigold out.]

“Major. This doesn’t make sense, does it?”

Alejandro asked as soon as the transmission ended.

“Since three days ago, somehow we’ve only been running into kids. I can understand it if that’s enough to chase survivors limping around without ammo. But the more I look, the stranger it gets. I don’t think they’re ordinary infected children.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because while we killed several thousand of them, I didn’t see a single one wearing clothes.”

“...”

The Private’s words matched Gyeoul’s expectations, and they were also the anxiety shared by the unit. That was probably why Marigold had asked again with slight doubt when receiving the target information. Were they only young ones this time too? It did not add up for there to be so many young individuals.

“There’s no way things that can’t even untie shoelaces took off their own clothes. Even less chance they stripped each other. Maybe if they tore them off because they got in the way. But no matter how I look at it, all of those things being naked is abnormal. At the very least, shouldn’t there be elastic underwear or the ankle parts of socks left?”

“Then, Ale, what do you think this situation means?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you, Major. I even...”

“Even?”

“I’ve had the crazy thought that maybe they were carrying out human experimentation on children before the West Coast infection.”

Only a little over a year had passed since Morgellons made landfall. In other words, it had not been enough time for things born through mutant reproduction to grow to elementary or middle school age. So the Hispanic Private’s concern could not simply be dismissed as absurd.

Even before the mainland infection, America had been suffering under the strain of refugees and illegal immigrants. Children were easy to abandon in dark times. For a Hispanic person, it was an even more urgent subject.

“I’m not sure.”

Gyeoul saw it differently.

“Looking back now, there were quite a few naked ones among the adults too. Only some of them, but I think they were always noticeable in a certain proportion. It also feels like that number increased over time. Were that many people infected while naked?”

“Then...”

“I think the numbers are hard to explain with human experimentation. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to assume that these things grow much faster than humans, or that something makes them grow faster?”

Of course, this was the far more horrifying assumption. Morales let out a deep sigh.

“Ha. That is extremely... bleak. Damn it. You’re saying that no matter how many of those things we kill, their numbers might actually increase.”

“No. Not necessarily. This is probably the first time young ones have appeared on such a large scale.”

The fetal mutant was the same. If they appeared commonly, the soldiers would not have been shocked only now. Atascadero and April Pacific had been exceptional cases.

“Ale said it might be because small ones are enough to chase routed troops... But even if that’s true, if they had the room, it would be normal to send mostly adults. Would it be too much of a stretch to interpret this as them lacking enough strength that they have to mobilize ones that haven’t even fully grown for the hunt?”

“Uh...”

“You know what state the blockade line is in right now. Above all, even if Manifest Liberation was a failure, that’s only limited to the California front.”

When Gyeoul had said this much, the noise of propeller engines crossed the night sky and approached. Aircraft that corrected their route by watching the embers left on the ground passed at high altitude, spraying water. They were the firefighting aircraft Marigold had said they would send. With survivors scattered around and bombing already difficult to use freely, if a major fire burned hundreds of acres, the people who had barely survived would be turned into charcoal.

The smell of burning meat spread with the smoke.

After the foul wind passed, Gyeoul finished with a soothing encouragement.

“Everyone, keep your spirits up. If my guess is right, the war situation may not be quite that bad.”

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

#Physical Book

According to my editor-in-chief, physical books barely sell now, but ours still passed the break-even point. Not just based on pure production costs, but total production costs including labor and advertising.

By physical book market standards, this counts as a success.

I was worried we might lose money on every copy we put out, so that is a relief.

Thank you for your support.

#Q&A

Q. CurryRice: @I’m asking seriously. Do you have any plans to switch The Little Prince to premium? These days, Noble tickets have gotten expensive, but there isn’t much worth reading, so the tickets feel like such a waste. T_T

A. Please use Naver for per-episode payment. It comes with the advantage of not needing to see the author’s notes!

Q. SilentCicada: @Since I recently paid for Noble on Joara, this was the most impressive work I’ve read. It took me four whole days to read up to episode 220! And now all I have left is to be sad that there are no more chapters after it. T_T As someone from a 40,000-year-old ancient one, I’m throwing 27 coupons to help. I hope you have no trouble buying candy! I’ll go buy the book too!

A. This is still not a small amount, and you read it all in four days... trembling... the author cries...

Q. Whitefield: @This is something I suddenly got curious about. In the Author’s Note of episode 198, you said the identity of the Humpback would appear between 10 to 20 chapters later, so what is its identity? I’m curious what exactly I missed!

A. You did not miss anything. I only misjudged the chapter count.

Actually, something similar happened around episode 100 too. I said that a very childlike innocence-filled incident would happen soon. I said that with General Yang Yongbin’s nuclear missile launch in mind, and back then, I really thought it would come within 20 chapters. But reality was 79 chapters later... (...)

It is very hard to get a feel for how much volume the plot in my head will become once I turn it into actual writing.

Q. Guaaaaak: @Sine, cosine, and tangent in a dream. Handling that kind of high-dimensional mathematical knowledge. That alone is enough of a nightmare.

A. That is right. It is an even more horrific nightmare for this author, who gave up on math even though my homeroom teacher in my third year of high school taught math.

Q. MasterKalsolum: @Finished rereading after a long time. Looks like you had a dream where the trigonometric function demon plundered your childlike innocence. I’ll share my childlike innocence with you in proportion to the coupons. Pouring sauce is evil!

A. Pouring sauce is evil and dipping sauce is evil too, so eliminating sweet-and-sour pork itself, the source of the problem, would be the solution best suited to Korea.

Q. KTH: @Among special mutants, ghouls command groups, so do they control them through radio waves like Tricksters? Or do they set rank and command through communication? Also, ghouls seem to evolve from regular variants, so is there something else that manufactures Grumbles, Tricksters, Melville, and so on?

A. Only Tricksters use radio waves. I will neither confirm nor deny the question in the latter half.

Footnotes:

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