WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 262: Valley of Death (8)
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Mountain nights cooled quickly, even with hot steam spraying nonstop into the dry valley. Maybe that had created a local low-pressure zone. Lightning kept striking the parched ground all the way to midnight.
When the temperature finally dropped below thirty degrees, the army of diseased dead appeared.
An army. It was an army. A full-scale offensive, charging in with organization and numbers unlike anything before. But the most threatening part was neither its organization nor its size.
Pudududuk-
“Damn it! It died again!”
The Humvee engine sputtered out. The driver angrily flipped the starter lever to the left of the wheel again and again. The battery voltage indicator on the dashboard wavered uneasily. After taking several electromagnetic pulses (EMPs), the vehicle would not come back to life so easily. Bang bang bang! Amid the deafening heavy machine gun fire, Gyeoul raised his voice.
“Dismount! Fight on foot! Defend around the vehicle! Radio operator! Follow me!”
Spent casings poured down from the roof even as he opened the door and got out. The night aiming equipment had gone bad, but the heavy machine gun itself was fine. At the edge of the firing line, mutants in body armor were torn to pieces. Severed limbs flew through the air.
The air outside did not feel much different from inside the vehicle. The air conditioning had not worked properly since the battle began. That was why the soldiers were soaked through. Not just the air conditioning, but even equipment with strong EMP resistance could not withstand the endless shock waves. How many times had this been already?
‘How in the world...’
Even as he blew mutants’ heads off, Gyeoul felt deeply confused. The number of Tricksters had fallen sharply. They should not have been able to keep making suicide attacks like this. He thought he had prepared for every possibility, but the mutants had not dug tunnels, nor had they held hundreds of thousands in body armor in reserve.
Had an enhanced variant appeared that could release shock waves without self-destructing?
No. That made no sense. That would be too sudden an enhancement. Wasn’t organ rupture through overload the condition for generating the shock wave in the first place? They would need a recovery period just to regenerate the organ.
Amid the chaotic waves of sensory correction crossing through him, Gyeoul soon found the answer.
“Gunner! Private Kang! Enemy Trickster at eleven o’clock! Hurry!”
He shouted urgently, but with a clack, the heavy machine gun’s bolt locked back.
“Hey! Ammo!”
Private Kang, the gunner, yelled toward the rear seat. The assistant gunner pushed up an ammo can.
Tatatatang! Tatatang!
Gyeoul’s rifle flashed with sharp bursts. But it was no use against the target. The enhanced variant Trickster was using a dead Trickster’s body as a shield. Given its intelligence, it must have waited until it had measured the heavy machine gun’s ammunition consumption on this side.
‘Too late.’
Gyeoul hurled a grenade with all his strength, but the moment it hit the ground, an ordinary mutant covered it with its body. Bang! The rotting body jumped.
In that time, the dead Trickster’s body swelled, giving off faint electrical discharges. Peong! At the same time as the explosion, an invisible shock wave swept across the bare mountain. Since every tree had been cut down, there was no cover for the mutants to hide behind, but there were no obstacles to block the shock wave from spreading either.
Just as Gyeoul had done to escape the Pequod, the Tricksters in this valley were overloading dead members of their own kind and using them as shock wave bombs.
The cunning enhanced variant that had thrust its hand into the corpse took several rifle rounds, lowered itself while covered in blood and chunks of flesh, and quickly withdrew. As if swallowed by a wave, it vanished among the mutants that had once been U.S. soldiers. The ones wearing body armor carried things like car doors as shields.
How many corpses of cunning creatures had they hauled up here?
Many corpses probably had gone unrecovered lately. From hunting, and from bombing too. Aerial bombs did not always score direct hits, so there must have been plenty that bled to death or survived half-dead.
Unlike ordinary mutants, the corpses of enhanced variants that had overcome immune rejection did not rot easily. Mosquitoes that sucked mutant blood died from the toxins, fly eggs necrotized, and bacteria did not multiply well. They did decay eventually, but they stayed intact longer than ordinary corpses.
“Mortar team! Mortar team! Do you hear me?!”
Gyeoul shouted into the radio, but there was no answer. This side’s radio was fine, but apparently the mortar position was not. Illumination rounds had to go up. Only a few night vision devices were still working. The soldiers were firing by relying on their night sight. There was only so much the engineering corps could do while straining to restore the searchlights.
That was also why they had abandoned the situation room. It was half-blind. Wired communications to each position were alive, but with most of the battlefield surveillance system useless, what could they do? He was not commanding a division-level force right now. It was better for the commander to be on site. Better for receiving sensory correction too.
Fortunately, the mortar team knew what was needed.
Fwaaak-
In the air above the mutants’ heads, the combined light of several illumination rounds, bright as millions of candles, burst at once. That was the trick to illumination support: hide this side and reveal the enemy. In the brightened mountain shadows, Gyeoul spotted a new threat. He frowned and looked back. Kwarung! Lightning struck the lightning rod.
“You there! Does anyone have a working radio?!”
At Gyeoul’s gesture, one tense soldier stepped forward.
“Should I give it to you?”
“No, run to the mortar team and give it to them!”
“Understood!”
The Private who received the order rushed toward where the mortar team should be. They were in such a hurry that they tripped and dropped their rifle, but they quickly got back up and ran like mad.
“Grenadiers! Grenadiers! Suppressive fire twenty meters behind the enemy rear! Airburst rounds! Now!”
At Gyeoul’s shout as he ran, the Humvees mounted with high-speed grenade launchers shifted their aim. Their rounds traced gentle arcs, enough to target the ground behind the enemy.
What Gyeoul had discovered was ground dug up in zigzags.
As he had thought before, the monsters lacked the ability to dig tunnels. Even if they dug, the quality would be poor, they could not do it on a large scale, and they could not use it for an attack. But trenches were another matter. If they dug diagonally, bending their approach as they advanced, direct-fire weapons could not hit them at all. They seemed to be ignoring damage from mines.
Airburst rounds were special ammunition that exploded in midair and scattered fragments downward. The gunners who had changed ammo cans all pressed their triggers at once. The low night flashed in a line. Once a rainstorm of steel fragments poured down, the dirt being thrown out of the trench dropped sharply.
Gyeoul’s aimed rapid fire filled the gap between grenade bursts. At a speed little different from automatic fire, he killed enemies with perfect efficiency for every round he spent. At that point, his combat power surpassed most crew-served weapons.
Illumination rounds fired one after another steadily lit the sky. They still had plenty of ammunition in stock.
“Two o’clock! Recoilless rifle! Fire!”
The heavy weapons squad leader was doing their job. A group that had happened to bunch together was shattered by one shell fired directly. As he ran, Gyeoul emptied magazines and checked the soldiers’ deployments and the state of their engagements. At last, he reached the field telephone and picked up the receiver.
“Technical team! Report signal beacon status!”
The answer came from the engineering platoon leader attached to the task force.
[The control board burned out! We can restore it, but we don’t have many spare circuits! If we replace them every time an EMP goes off, we’ll run out fast! How long do you think this will keep going?! Is it ending soon?!]
The exposed antenna was hard to protect from shock waves.
Tatatatang! Gyeoul wedged the receiver between his ear and shoulder and poured out point shooting. Three ghouls approaching with car doors held at an angle in both hands died and toppled over. Half the sprayed bullets punched between the two doors and smashed the faces beneath their filthy ballistic helmets.
“I can’t guarantee when it’ll end! Leave the signal beacon and restore the laser battery first!”
[Understood!]
The lasers had stopped working, but power was still alive. That was thanks to the civilian technicians who had sweated to reinforce the power plant’s EMP resistance. They had even built frames around the external substation and covered them with silver foil. In truth, the power plant itself had basic EMP resistance to begin with.
America was a country that had prepared for nuclear war for a long time.
Baaaaaak-!
A sound of automatic fire in a different class from ordinary heavy weapons. A vibration strong enough to make flesh tremble. The air-defense Centurion spat firing flames toward the starless sky. The brightly burning autocannon rounds looked like hundreds of meteors heated to a metallic glow. The babies in the barrage were ripped apart, shattered, and exploded. Powerful acid rain poured down over the mutants’ heads. Melting mutants screamed and thrashed. Scalps peeled away and bones melted. Countless ones kept walking until even their brains were exposed, then collapsed.
‘Even so, it’s only 1,500 rounds.’
That was the number of rounds the Centurion loaded at once. If it did not fire in bursts, it would run dry in thirty seconds at most. Reloading took time. That was why he had told them to hurry with restoring the laser battery. The laser firing system was originally a naval air-defense weapon. It could burn the incoming babies to death.
Gyeoul threw down the receiver and shouldered his rifle. Targets had slipped through the net of autocannon shells. Distorted baby faces broke under rifle rounds. They lost balance, spun, and exploded. But inertia still scattered their bodily fluids. The soldiers in the vehicle fighting positions along their trajectory ducked in terror.
Hududuk!
The Humvee’s armor plate stayed intact even after being hit by sizzling bodily fluid. It had a special coating.
Soon, the Centurion’s anti-air fire stopped.
Grumble did not show itself. The babies were being thrown from 1.5 kilometers away, beyond the ridge, from a blind spot. On top of that, the throwing point kept changing. Grumble’s movement was long and irregular. It was hard to designate coordinates. They had no choice but to wait until all the babies with membranes on their limbs were used up. The other babies had shorter flight ranges. In the end, Grumble would have to come over the ridge too.
It was fortunate this side had built positions as well. Otherwise, several people would already have melted or burned to death. Babies thumped into positions here and there, suppressing the soldiers’ fire.
In the end, a scream came. Two riflemen rolled on the ground, clutching their faces and arms.
“Fuck! Company commander!”
Hearing the shrill curse, Gyeoul changed magazines and called D’Angelo.
“Corporal! Request fire support from Alpha Battery! Gamma 3-1, minus 120! Battery-wide fire for effect! Dual-purpose high-explosive rounds! Danger Close!”
“Yes sir!”
Alpha Battery was the unit that had been firing Excalibur during the day, located at another base. The coordinates Gyeoul called were in the direction where Yura’s platoon was fighting. Because the elevation was low and the slope was short, the mutants’ trench line had gotten fatally close. Better to accept the danger of close artillery than leave it alone.
Even so, no fire request had come. They seemed busy stopping a greater threat in a direction he could not see. Or they had been swallowed by the fight and had no room to think.
Corporal D’Angelo ran in low and grabbed the receiver.
“Brimstone 1! Brimstone 1! This is David Actual! Do you read me!”
It went against protocol, but perhaps because she was with Gyeoul, she referred to herself as Actual. She might have thought that would get a faster reply.
[This is Brimstone 1. Speak, David Actual.]
“Base point Gamma 3-1, minus 120, Danger Close, battery-wide dual-purpose rounds, fire for effect!”
[Gamma 3-1, minus 120, Danger Close, battery-wide dual-purpose rounds, fire for effect. Stand by.]
In the meantime, Gyeoul spread the warning by radio to prepare for artillery fire. A working radio still remained on Yura’s platoon’s side as well.
[Shot, over. Time of flight one niner.]
“Time of flight one niner confirmed!”
That meant the shells would fall in nineteen seconds. Gyeoul shouted to the Corporal as she looked back.
“Stay here and direct the fire!”
The attached observer was also directing fire in another direction. Although it was not her original role, D’Angelo could still identify targets and call coordinates.
The exhaust sound of a Humvee came racing through the explosions and gunfire. A sharp braking sound. It was the company commander’s command vehicle that Gyeoul had left behind. It had moved according to the direction of the mutant offensive.
Peong- dadadadadak!
Chain explosions erupted in Yura’s platoon’s defensive sector. The shells, M864s, fired by a distant artillery unit burst in midair and poured down seventy-two small bombs, submunitions. Twenty-four of them had enough power to be dangerous even to Grumble. They might not kill it, but they could at least punch through whatever part they hit. The sight of hundreds of submunitions pouring down looked like a burning shower. Explosions burst even inside the ground the mutants had dug up. Blood fountains of dirt, heads, arms, and legs surged upward.
The edge of that lethal rainfall landed just barely outside the defensive position. But it was so close that someone might have been hit by fragments.
========== Author’s Note ==========
#Q&A
Q. fnlshsk: @I didn’t know the author’s childlike innocence was being crushed, roasted, torn apart, split open, and falling to its death. Han Gyeoul, who lives inside this childlike innocence of yours... If that was irony, then I understand why you kept emphasizing a happy ending...
A. As I’ve said many times, the happy ending is not irony. Actually, even before I changed the route, it wasn’t a bad ending. It was half sadness, half hope.
Q. John_Doe: ...@Tunguska. What is The Three-Body Problem? I can’t find it by searching T_T
A. If you search for Three-Body on online bookstores like Kyobo, it’ll come up. It’s not an ebook.
Q. SmileInShadows: @I strongly recommend playing Dark Souls 3 online. Use Ember too. You’ll get to meet a peaceful world and kind residents that will make your childlike innocence even richer. If you leave occasional live-play reports in the Author’s Note, our childlike innocence will grow richer too.
A. Yes, I’ve already experienced it. Neighbors kept coming to kill me nonstop. Neighbors trying to stop them came too. Progressing through the story was almost impossible. T_T
Q. FrozenMaster: @How about Darkest Dungeon? This game is full of childlike innocence too!
A. If I go that far, I might clutch the back of my neck and collapse...
Q. BlueWave2: @Huh, is Three-Body a Chinese SF novel? No wonder.
A. It’s fun. It really is. Though if it had come out in Korea, I think it would have been quietly buried.
Q. Gwangseoja: @Nuclear Buldak Bokkeum Myeon is also deliciously spicy. As proof, they say Mala Buldak Bokkeum Myeon, which is even more full of childlike innocence and even more deliciously spicy, will be released. And I’ll give you all ten coupons I currently have.
A. Even if you give me coupons, I’m not eating Nuclear Buldak...
Q. ModifiedSoul: @ Throwing 13 coupons!
A. Yes, thank you.
Q. GreenTurtle: @I think the author’s work, full of childlike innocence, should be introduced as a textbook for early childhood education majors!
A. Uh... that’s also a bit... Why are you all like this... Children should stay far away from childlike innocence...
Q. Morton: @After reading Volume 1 of the physical book, I got curious about what came next and bought the ebook, then subscribed to Noble and reread the whole thing twice. Please keep writing good stories.
A. Thank you. I’ll work hard to live up to your expectations.
Q. qgegegqe: @I gave up on Children of the Rune Part 3, and the scene where Isolet and him part for the last time was T_T They say Dark Souls gets easier with each sequel.
A. My hands are awful, so even the third game is too hard for me...
Q. LadderTree: @Did I come here because I know that game, or is it natural that I hear that game’s name because I came here... Which came first?
A. They have nothing to do with each other!
Q. PumpkinPumpkin: @Please say your platform is PlayStation. As a Rosaria, I want to come give you childlike innocence.
A. As if I could own a luxury item like a PlayStation... It’s the PC version.
Q. kaley: @If you ever hold a signing event, please announce it haha. If possible, hold it on a Saturday, and unless something major comes up, I’ll bring the books and come ☆☆☆
A. I’ll consider it. But a signing event is still kind of... scary.
Q. SteelSoul: @It’s a game with the satisfying feel of hitting butts with a blunt weapon. One Pot PD I watch sometimes plays while shouting “Butt!”
A. I didn’t think one Author’s Note saying I played Dark Souls would get this many @ replies... The readers must definitely be Dark Souls newbie abusers...
Footnotes:
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