WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 231: Suspended Sentence (3)

──────

5 p.m. After finishing his rest in the air-raid shelter, Gyeoul left the forest and stepped onto the riverside road leading east. The slow river glittered in the late spring light. Warm wind blew through village after deserted village. Despite intermittent attacks by lone mutants, the march carried no real tension.

There were probably still Tricksters alive, but their numbers seemed to have fallen so low that they could not even jam communications. To avoid Homing Missiles, they needed multiple individuals to reveal themselves in sequence.

On the move, they kept running into defeated troops heading south. Battlefield Control Aircraft flew overhead at lower altitudes than before. Helicopters evacuating the wounded appeared frequently.

"Another bombing. They just keep pouring it on."

Schultz clicked their tongue. A bomber broke through the clouds and dumped several bombs in a rattling cascade. A vineyard near the horizon erupted like a volcano. Smoke surged upward and billowed into a mushroom, and the warped shock wave swept across abandoned farmland. The opaque wind rasped like sandpaper.

Gyeoul could see the fallen mutants. Their bodies were shredded all over, like slabs of meat dragged across a grater. Some struggled back to their feet, only to collapse again moments later. No matter how strong or tough they were, they were still only warped human bodies. The lethal radius of aerial bombs was far wider than it looked. Past the direct blast radius, the broad circle where fragments kicked dust into the air was already a domain of death.

"The ones that should be leading the packs have gone into hiding. The remaining mutants are moving in instinctive clusters. It is a good time to sweep them away from the sky. It will be noisy for a while."

Even as Gyeoul spoke, horizons in other directions flashed one after another.

The cavalry passed along dirt roads between the vineyards and went by several ruined wineries. They finally reached their destination, the ranch, at 6:11 p.m. They still had two hours until sunset.

"Marigold got it wrong. This place is only a ranch in name."

Alejandro pointed at a broken piece of signboard. The place was actually a Catholic retreat center. The walls and barbed wire, likely put up in preparation for the end, gave it a grim air, but beyond them, a cross and a bell tower rose in the distance.

Rattle, rattle.

The team flinched. Gyeoul, who sensed no danger, was the only exception. When they looked back, they saw a supply crate being dragged around by its parachute. Around the collapsed wall, there were dozens of empty crates and dozens more sagging parachutes within sight alone. The parachutes lay sprawled like jellyfish washed in by the waves, then swelled as if coming back to life whenever a wind mixed with dandelion seeds blew through.

'Why? They would not have needed to wipe everyone out... Did they say signs of survivors disappeared here five days ago?'

Gyeoul inspected the empty crates and thought from the monsters' point of view.

As he had heard several times, the Department of Defense's Quarantine Strategy Institute had assessed that the mutants were likely keeping civilians alive on purpose. Like ants milking aphids for honeydew, they were after the relief supplies dropped for the civilians. The mutants did, in fact, scrape up and eat relief food.

This place was covered with traces of that. To avoid a Trickster's self-destruction, aircraft had to maintain a safe altitude, and dropping parachutes from that height inevitably reduced accuracy. In the end, more supplies had fallen outside the wall than inside. Far more mutants than civilians must have filled their bellies.

Five days ago was when the Trickster hunt had not yet produced major results.

In other words, focusing only on pursuing defeated troops had been enough to create control problems in places like this.

Then again, with special mutants concentrated near the blockade line, it would not have been strange if things had been stretched thin from the start.

Having convinced himself, Gyeoul rode toward the collapsed wall.

"It was not broken by something like Grumble. Looks like ordinary ones pushed through as a mob."

Morales frowned. There were a staggering number of crushed bodies beneath the pile of stone.

Then came grumbling. If they were going to build a wall, they should have made it thicker. Only two bricks thick? Seriously?

It was not hard to understand. In that chaos, what would have been easy to find?

"These bloodstains are recent. Probably from after the wall collapsed."

Gyeoul spoke while examining a piece of brick smeared with concrete. He sniffed it. There was none of the plague's distinctive stench. Two to three days. 「Tracking」 detected the blood and gave him a rough elapsed time.

"Are you saying there may be survivors?"

"I don't know. Maybe people who escaped the disaster came out afterward, or maybe new survivors came in after the mutants disappeared... Harper, Ale. Secure an escape route here. The rest of you come in with me."

Hooah. The two who received the order cleared away obstructing stones and secured positions for cover. Several Claymores were laid down. Without special mutants, they had enough firepower to repel even hundreds charging in.

Inside the wall, several buildings stood at wide intervals. Since this had originally been a retreat center, each building had a neat, modest air. Against that, the swimming pool, dyed with blood and filled with floating corpses, looked grotesquely out of place. Gyeoul drew his pistol.

Bang! Bang bang!

Every time he pulled the trigger, mutants floating like corpses spasmed. Morales and Schultz saw Gyeoul distinguish the living ones instantly and simply accepted it as usual.

They searched the first building. It had an open terrace and ivory-colored bricks. Ivy clung to the outer wall, sprouting lush new shoots. While Schultz watched the rear, Gyeoul covered Morales as Morales opened the door. Morales lifted the latch and pushed, minimizing the noise. The problem was the plank floor. A fully armed soldier was heavy, and every step made the boards creak.

A small child crouched in front of the fireplace flinched at the sound of footsteps, as if waking from sleep.

It was only a crouched back, but the clothes were neat. The nape of the neck was pale enough to look white.

Gyeoul shot the back of that head.

"Shit!"

Morales jerked at the sudden gunfire.

"Damn it, was that a mutant?"

The question came small and trembling. Instead of answering, Gyeoul flipped the corpse over with the toe of his combat boot. Only then did the waterfall of blood down the front of the white dress come into view. The girl had been bitten on the face. Teeth marks marked both sides of her nose.

Schultz grimaced.

"If the flesh has not rotted, that means she was infected recently..."

Gyeoul nodded.

"She may have been hiding and got caught later. Let's hurry."

The corpse was bony and hollow. Most likely, she had been hiding somewhere like a wardrobe, then came out because she could no longer endure hunger and fear. That meant there might be other survivors. Gyeoul took the lead and quickened the pace. Even if sensory correction became less efficient in unknown territory, he was certain there were no special mutants.

"Down!"

The warning came a little late. Tatatatang! Gunfire burst from beyond a locked door. Gyeoul avoided the line of fire, but Morales was hit twice. Thankfully, the bullets failed to pierce the ballistic plate. Morales only fell, hitting their head, and let out a groan. Gyeoul grabbed the Sergeant by the shoulder and yanked hard, sliding Morales all the way into a safe area.

"Damn it! Who's there?! Are you human?!"

That was probably the shout of the person who had fired. The voice was deep and cracked. Judging by the raw shout, the speaker was terrified. Gyeoul pressed himself to the side of the doorframe and raised his voice, stopping Schultz from returning fire.

To tell the truth, Gyeoul had almost fired back too. He had been on guard for the possibility of a mutant using an automatic weapon.

"Don't shoot! We're rescuers!"

"...Rescue? What kind of fucking rescue comes all the way here?"

Even so, after a moment, the door creaked open. The room had been dark without power. As light seeped in, the first color they saw was bright orange. Then it became a man in a prison uniform, holding a pistol.

A prison uniform?

The man did not lower his aim. Behind him, several children huddled together. Small, frightened faces. Eyes that had not seen light in a long while narrowed naturally.

"Put the gun down first. If you disobey instructions, we may shoot you."

Only after hearing the warning did the dazzled prisoner barely recognize Gyeoul.

"God almighty! Lieutenant Han Gyeoul? For real? You're not kidding?"

"I am. I am a Major now, though. Anyway, when are you going to drop that gun? Do you want to die?"

"...Fuck. Guess I can't run. What rotten luck."

The aim fixed on Gyeoul kept shaking. The warnings from 「Combat Sense」, 「Survival Instinct」, and 「Crisis Detection」 were almost nonexistent, but there was no way Schultz and Morales could see that.

"Drop the gun! Now!"

Pressed by the force of the command, the prisoner loosened his grip. Okay, okay. With one hand raised, he slowly set the pistol down with the other. Then, without being told, he kicked it toward Gyeoul.

"Morales. Are the places you got hit all right?"

"Not enough for a Purple Heart."

The low groan seemed to come from bruising. After answering, Morales got the children out of the room, which reeked of piss and shit.

"All of you, come this way. It's okay. You know the crazy strong Major Han Gyeoul here, right?"

The gloomy, haggard children nodded blankly. Gyeoul made himself smile and waved at them.

While Schultz tied up the prisoner and searched him, Gyeoul checked the prisoner's pistol, a Sig Sauer P239. It was not a standard service weapon. The Coast Guard and some Navy special forces received deliveries from the same company, but they used different models.

'At the very least, there is a good chance he did not get this weapon by hurting a soldier.'

Of course, he could not be certain. It might have been something a soldier owned personally, or perhaps the prisoner had taken it from someone who had obtained it somehow while running unarmed.

Still, the children did not seem to have suffered anything terrible. They showed no sign of hating the man either. Judging by the trash scattered around the room and the amount and shape of the waste, they must have had very little food.

The fact that he had not killed the children in an extreme situation meant that, for a prisoner, he was not bad-natured.

"You. Where did you get this pistol?"

The prisoner, whose hands were tied behind his back, answered hesitantly.

"From a broken plane..."

"Ah."

A federal air marshal's weapon.

There had been the wreckage of an international passenger plane on the way to the air-raid shelter too. Since there was a county airport nearby, aircraft that had made emergency landings or crashed were scattered everywhere. The runway had filled up with planes that landed first. The lucky pilots who had arrived one step ahead must have been too busy running to think about what came next. Frightened people could not help it.

"I will ask about the rest later. If there are any other survivors, do you have any idea where they might be?"

It was not the man who answered Gyeoul's next question, but one of the children.

"That night, when the zombies came in, Mom said we had to go to the church!"

"The church? Okay. Thank you for telling me."

The child looked satisfied with Gyeoul's smile.

The church was about the size one might find in a small village. It was similar in scale to the church in Bradley that he had visited with Li Ailing and the Triad fighters. Its visible outer structure was similar too. What stood out was that every door and window had been locked with iron bars. If not for the cross and bell tower, it would have looked like a prison.

Clank. Schultz, pressed against the door, curled their lip.

"This is locked from the inside..."

Knock knock knock. Knock knock knock. They knocked on the door again and again, but there was no response. The children grew anxious. The windows were stained glass and opaque, so they could not see inside. Gyeoul checked every direction and nodded, and Schultz shouted loudly at the door.

"Rescue! If anyone is alive, respond!"

Dudududu! Thud! Kraaaaagh!

The response was immediate. Schultz jumped back, and Gyeoul fired his rifle in their place. Dudududuk! The wooden door beyond the iron bars was punched through. Then came a sliding sound, and blood flowed from the lower holes and the gap under the door.

'We need a dog.'

The children began crying for their moms and dads. It was a moment when the dachshund, reduced to luggage in the saddlebag, was sorely missed. Sturdy Morales was helpless before the children's tears.

"Cut the hinges."

At Gyeoul's order, Schultz fitted a cartridge into a torch shaped like a lightsaber. Then ignition. Fwoooosh. The hinge heated in an instant. One cartridge per hinge. The third hinge tore apart on its own from the heat and the weight of the iron bars.

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

#KakaoTalk - Harmful Things

Tunguska: Maybe it is because I have not been drinking lately, but my head hurts.

Comic artist friend: Do you need to do something harmful to your body to feel better?

Tunguska: That is why I am talking to you.

Tunguska: And playing Heroes of the Storm.

Comic artist friend: Ah, harmful.

#Q&A

Q. RANDEL: @You said some content was missing from the published version because of an editing mistake by the publisher. If I want to buy the book, when should I buy it?

A. Well... the missing content is probably an ebook issue. Since the physical book is coming out later, it should be corrected before release. Probably...

Q. chashercat: @Forest, damage, rapidly vaporizing pustules, the bomb mutant that popped out this time, non-combat purpose. Don't tell me it is a living engineering bay... (This reader has been dragged away.)

A. It is not. I thought enough clues had appeared that the Humpback's identity was almost confirmed... and the correct answer came up several times in the past too. Haha.

Q. Kyogre: @I thought the Humpback would be a Supply Depot or Academy, but was it a Barracks? Ddd

A. It does not give birth directly.

Q. UnlimitedOne: @One way or another, it feels like the Humpback's role is slowly being confirmed. More importantly, Tomahawks... They seem like equipment suited for scalping. The DEVGRU guys also with that... hm-hm... Anyway, I do not know if this chapter is nearing its halfway point or the end, but the first lid-opening seems to be almost over. Will the Gyeoul Alliance join the cavalry?

A. DEVGRU with that... hehe... As for questions about future developments, it is hard to confirm or deny.

Q. GreenTurtle: @It feels like you spent a whole episode answering my question, so thank you very much. What is the situation in other countries like? Outside the United States, I am curious how many countries are properly maintaining government systems and order, and how much territory they have secured.

A. Among other countries, Russia is about the only one that will appear with much weight, so detailed settings like secured territory only exist up to Russia. It would be difficult to tell you in advance.

There are more countries maintaining governments than you might expect. Japan and Korea still have governments too. The problem is that there are several of them spread across mountain and island regions. None of them have supply capability, so most fleets rely on the United States. A small number of warships remain in their home countries, and some have defected to other countries.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried