WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 229: Suspended Sentence (1)

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“Major. Here come those white aristocrats.”

Morales sounded tired, looking at the eastern sky through binoculars.

Gyeoul, who had been mulling over the change in the Star Child, returned to being Major Han Gyeoul and looked the same way. Beyond clouds pierced by sequoia branches, a small black dot was approaching. There was no sound yet. It was an unusual aircraft with short wings and a massive propeller on either side. A V-22. Its duralumin fuselage flashed silver in the morning sun. An armed helicopter followed as escort.

White aristocrats referred to the officers of the Medical Service Corps. They were soldiers in name, but they stayed well away from danger and ordered already busy combat troops around with all kinds of tedious requests. The nickname came with a sneer.

[David, David. This is Hospital Nine. Request confirmation of landing site.]

Schultz popped a smoke grenade. Gyeoul answered over the radio.

“David Actual to Hospital Nine. Do you have visual on green smoke?”

[Visual confirmed.]

“The landing site is clear. You’re good to come down.”

As the transport drew closer, it raised its horizontal propellers upright. The aircraft combined the advantages of a conventional plane and a helicopter. It had a long cruising range and needed no runway.

The strong wind scattered the smoke. Two coyotes had been prowling between the bushes, waiting for a chance to tear into the corpses, but the roar startled them into flight. The defeated soldiers rescued during the night got awkwardly to their feet and took up an uneasy guard. Lubricant still dripped from rifles only recently removed from their packaging.

The transport landed, pushing aside the damp wind, and opened its rear ramp. The white-lit cargo bay looked like a compact laboratory: a freezer for preserving specimens, shelves that always stayed level, and several pieces of experimental equipment of unclear purpose. Everything necessary had been packed into the limited space.

‘They’ve come a long way since before.’

It was a positive change. The Medical Service Corps helicopter he had seen in Atascadero had been nothing special. Even the collected Trickster corpse specimens had merely been placed in transparent bags and secured to the cargo bay floor.

Personnel in biochemical protective suits came down through the open door. They looked like medical workers entering an epidemic zone. At the grand display, the mobile unit members let out dry laughs. The dachshund wagged its tail at the strangers. Schultz complained that the dog had no loyalty.

The leader looked around and soon spotted Gyeoul. They hurried over and held out a protective-gloved hand.

“It is an honor to meet you, Major Han. I am Major Elijah Campbell. Please call me Dr. Campbell.”

Despite being a soldier, Campbell spoke and carried themself like a civilian. Sense of belonging varied from person to person, but this was best understood as a researcher attached to the military. The other personnel Campbell introduced were the same.

“As you have already been informed, we are here to obtain research specimens of the acid mutant. When I reviewed the combat footage, I saw slight differences from the individuals confirmed on the western coast of the Pacific.”

Gyeoul looked at the boxes the others had unloaded from the cargo bay.

“First, let’s see what you brought.”

At first, he had thought they might scrape up soil from where the things had burst, but judging by the mood, they wanted the mutants themselves. Since these were baby monsters that exploded when they died, they would not have come unprepared.

Campbell nodded.

“I was hoping for your opinion anyway. We brought several kinds of capture equipment, but someone who has actually fought them should decide what will be useful in practice.”

With that, Campbell opened one of the weapon cases. The first thing out was a grenade launcher. Its fire-control computer measured the distance to the target and input that value into the ammunition. The round burst in midair to maximize lethality. The muzzle diameter was larger than any Gyeoul knew. A prototype, probably.

The ammunition was even more unusual than the weapon. Dr. Campbell took out one grenade and showed it to him.

“First, this is an airburst round filled with quinuclidinyl benzilate. In plain terms, sleep gas aerosol. It also has a small parachute built in. For humans, the LDC 50... ah, in other words, it contains a murderous dose well past a fifty percent lethality rate, but against ghouls, it only put them to sleep for a short time.”

“Not bad right out of the gate.”

“The ones with three blue bands are liquid nitrogen aerosol, also airburst rounds. They were failures, really, and had been shoved into a warehouse corner, but this time the capture target is small, so I thought they might work. If body temperature drops, it induces forced Metabolic Suppression. They won’t wake up until their temperature rises again.”

As Campbell explained, one grenade’s worth of liquid nitrogen would have trouble suppressing even one mutant, no matter how effectively it dispersed. For capture, they would need a lot of shots.

There were also shotgun-fired taser cartridges. Loaded into the automatic shotguns carried by the mobile unit members, they could fire thirty-two rounds in succession.

There was other equipment too, but Gyeoul considered the sleep gas grenades and tasers enough.

“Are you planning to come with us yourself? We still haven’t completely cleared the whole forest.”

Despite Gyeoul’s warning, Campbell asked to accompany them.

“If we send only non-specialists, they may miss something. In the pre-deployment briefing, I was told the mutant threat in this area had dropped very low. If you absolutely refuse, I cannot help that, but I would prefer to go along if possible. Just me.”

What should he do? Gyeoul hesitated, then slowly agreed. The mobile unit members clearly disliked it, but he judged that it would give him a chance to ask a few questions on the way.

‘For someone who regularly handles classified information, Campbell seems a little careless.’

Even with the same rank of Major, someone in the Medical Service Corps would know more.

“Understood. It’ll be a somewhat long walk. Schultz. Let Dr. Campbell ride behind you. Share the radio frequency too.”

The Private’s expression, already sour, twisted further. A horse with a heavier back still pawed the ground all the same. Campbell ignored the hostility. The researcher looked used to it.

When the mobile unit began moving, the dog came running, barking pitifully as if it thought it was being abandoned again. One of the rescued personnel who had stayed behind to guard the supplies and the transport snatched its leash. The motion was rather rough, the gesture of an exhausted person. Schultz watched until the end, then turned away with a sigh.

Once they left the air-raid shelter wall, the stench grew sharply stronger.

[This is... incredible. It’s like looking at Hamburger Hill. How did you kill all of them?]

Campbell spoke over the radio, and Gyeoul answered.

“After they lost organization, it wasn’t a difficult fight. We didn’t need to hunt them down one by one. They heard the sound of fighting and came to die on their own. We had enough ammunition to maintain a net of fire all through dawn. Though there are probably still some hiding.”

A ghoul would never act like a moth to flame. Once their carefully planned trap failed and all the Tricksters were slaughtered, they would have gone to ground with the surrounding packs. If any individuals were smart enough to look beyond immediate survival or spreading the infection, they might have already fled.

Alejandro cut in.

“No matter how similar it looks, this isn’t Hamburger Hill. None of us died.”

Pride showed through the uneven accent.

At the battlefield called Hamburger Hill because corpses had piled up like patties, the U.S. military had taken heavy losses. In many ways, the Vietnam War had been America’s nightmare.

“We killed almost ten thousand here, didn’t we? That’s Medal of Honor material, right?”

Harper badly exaggerated the results. In reality, the piled corpses numbered roughly eight hundred.

Still, there was a high chance the personnel of Operation Preventive Scalping would receive something beyond the standard recognition. There had been the battle in the forest, and the mutant horde they had guided toward Hammer Fall had been large as well.

“I’d be grateful for any medal they give us. My pay would go up. Not that I have anywhere to spend it. Damn it.”

Morales’s flat grumble.

“Look forward to it. If the war situation improves, you may get a chance to spend it soon.”

After playing along, Gyeoul asked Campbell a question.

“Doctor. Have there been any abnormalities in the blood test results?”

[Blood tests...? Ah, if that is what you mean, there is no need to worry. Morgellons is a biological weapon that infects only humans. No cross-species infection or carrier case has been reported so far. So nothing strange will happen just because the rescued soldiers butchered and ate a few pigs when they were hungry.]

This was the first and relatively minor thing Gyeoul had been curious about.

[FOB Olema has already been notified, but it seems you did not know yet, Major Han.]

“Yes. I’ve been out here continuously since before May.”

By now, the force would have increased greatly, but if Campbell was right, there would be no shortage of food for the time being. That meant they could reduce food transport and increase the transport volume for other supplies, allowing for rapid reorganization.

“But Doctor, are you certain Morgellons is a biological weapon? I understood that it was still only a hypothesis. Was new evidence discovered, by any chance...?”

[What more evidence do you need when the initial origin point was a Chinese military ballistic missile base?]

“That isn’t confirmed information either. The government’s official position is that China is also highly likely to be a victim.”

[Of course, that is what they say to save the refugees, especially the Chinese. A disease like Morgellons could never, absolutely never, arise naturally. That level of precision is human malice itself.]

Campbell’s voice rose, perhaps from agitation. Anger trembled in it.

[A missile base in western China means the Tibetan region, does it not? That place has had massacres and disappearances for a long time. They probably conducted an enormous amount of human experimentation there. Who knows? Perhaps Morgellons was developed for ethnic cleansing. Or perhaps armed guerrillas attacked the Chinese military base and caused this whole mess...]

All of it was groundless speculation, but Campbell’s heated tone reflected complete certainty.

“Quiet.”

At Gyeoul’s hand signal, the formation fell silent. The team members began scanning every direction, and Campbell, who had been cursing the Communist Party, also shut up. The researcher looked around busily, but being unable to see anything only seemed to make them shrink further.

The targets Gyeoul sensed were numerous, crouched beyond a fallen tree. Most of them were hidden, but their shins were visible. With the warning from sensory correction, he could estimate their numbers. The distance was about seventy meters. There were many obstacles in between, making them hard to spot even if their position was pointed out, unless one was Gyeoul.

There were enemies above the canopy too. They had not come this way at dawn.

Gyeoul lifted the grenade launcher loaded with sleep gas rounds. When he aligned the sight’s crosshair with a tree trunk, the distance appeared at once and the weapon was ready to fire.

Th-th-th-th-thump!

Multiple targets. Accounting for the wind, he fired five shots in succession. Because the magazine fed in toward the buttstock, the weight balance shifted sharply, but 「Firearms Mastery」 and 「Heavy Weapons Mastery」 maintained accurate aim and trajectory. Small explosions followed. Pale mist spread over the canopy.

The effect was clear. One acid baby dropped and burst with a crack. The rest seemed to be hanging there unconscious.

“Everyone, gas masks. Just in case.”

They had taken stimulants, but they were soldiers who had fought all night. Even faint gas might make them doze off for a moment and fall from their horses.

The ones in ambush stayed quiet. Gyeoul switched to his rifle and aimed at the legs and crouched knees exposed beneath the sequoia trunk. Du-du-duk! Du-duk! Du-du-du-duk! Controlled bursts from a tapped trigger broke bones and ruptured blood vessels and muscles.

The scenery beyond shook. That was how many came bursting out. Campbell gasped. But the mutant horde rapidly moved away. It was a full retreat, not one of them looking back. Even at a glance, there were more than fifty. A scream with clear meaning guided the monsters.

“...What are they?”

Morales sounded dumbfounded. Gyeoul silently adjusted his aim. One of them had a different tone. A Beta Ghoul. It kept low and fled using ordinary mutants and the terrain as shields, giving him no chance to pull the trigger. In the end, Gyeoul gave up and shot the other targets. When there was nothing left to shoot, he lowered the muzzle and spoke.

“Looking at the terrain, chasing them will be difficult. Let’s recover the acid mutants.”

Gyeoul raised his head and looked high up. How were they supposed to get that down?

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

#Q&A

Q. Pare: @Does China have any surviving bases or survivors left that could serve as a starting point?

A. You seem very interested in China. It is not an important setting, but... the land is so vast that, as of the starting point, there are some. The difficulty is not something you can start on without quite a bit of cash spending.

Q. UnlimitedOne: @This is a part that reminds us there is a wide gap between an observer outside the world and a party inside the world. Whether or not one treats a virtually created personality sincerely... More than that, the Control AI is becoming “human” through Gyeoul. It seems like a heartwarming sight where the childlike innocence of the early developers is being fulfilled. :)

A. This is originally a novel written with childlike innocence, so of course it is. :)

Q. LunarKarma: @Trinity and Han Gyeoul... The Little Prince was not a simple meaning. This is a late question, but... with the protagonist’s current skills, is it impossible to create special effects like the previously mentioned Presence Concealment or whatever it was?

A. Presence Concealment is an advanced survival-type technique. Because of the inertia of skill acquisition caused by Talent Benefit, Gyeoul’s skills tend to lean toward combat.

Q. Grubalt: @(Omitted) This is something I feel while reading The Little Prince lately, but if a system like Afterlife Insurance really appeared, I think it would be unbearably sad and hateful. For death, which should be wholly mine and mine alone, to happen through another’s will...

A. Unless it is an exceptional case like Gyeoul’s, not many people in the world of the story die through another’s will. Though they are guided into consuming their life before death in exchange for the afterlife.

Q. Calpis: @Gyeoul doing ing-ya ing-ya... Maybe it is because I lack childlike innocence, but I cannot imagine it. Is it impossible even with the author’s childlike innocence??

A. Actually, I was planning to punch holes in the readers’ stomachs by depicting Gyeoul having unwanted ing-ya ing-ya out of pity, but the plot was revised, so now there is no need to imagine it.

Q. Nesstor: @If you pour Schrodinger onto Han Gyeoul’s box...

A. Inside the box, instead of a heart, there is a cat...

Q. Gliese581: @Was Sergeant Morales named with Moral less in mind? At first, I thought he might become the Ossuary’s Upham, losing morale just like his name, but he is the complete opposite, haha. // @Hey, over there even horses do the deed, and even zombies do the bumping and thumping and see their descendants, but I... why... ...

A. Morales does not have that meaning. It is a common name among Latinos. When naming characters in the story, I refer to statistics on surnames and given names among white people, Black people, and Latinos. For example, 90.1% of Americans with the surname Wood are white, and 89.9% of Americans with the surname Washington are Black. I do not give any other meaning to the names themselves. :)

Q. Habika: @Uh... this may be something someone else already asked... so you do not have to answer, but... could the radiation from the early nuclear explosions have helped trigger the appearance of special mutants among the mutants? I suddenly thought of it while rereading for the second and third time... Radiation can cause cellular mutation, you know, lol.

A. Partially, yes. I do not know whether I will have a chance to explain in the story why it is partial.

The afterword seems to be getting long, so I will stop here. :)

Footnotes:

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