WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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Chapter 274: Boar Hunt (2)

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Gyeoul boarded the command armored vehicle (M1130). Its white-painted interior was packed tight with command-and-control computer systems and all kinds of communications equipment. In an environment sealed off from the outside, sensory correction was reduced, but for a unit commander, it was an unavoidable choice. In an offensive maneuver meant to pursue and kill mutants, the independent company's deployment range, or combat frontage, could extend up to one kilometer. There was also the problem of commanding temporarily attached branches, such as the engineers.

The armored vehicle could hold nine people even excluding the driver and gunner. In other words, it could carry the entire company staff, but in practice, only half had boarded.

'Because there is a chance the Trickster will jam us.'

Gyeoul confirmed that Captain Singh, the executive officer, had appeared on the video link connected to the reserve command armored vehicle. Operations officer Foster and communications officer Evans were riding in this vehicle, while First Sergeant Merriweather and intelligence officer Murray had been sent to the other one. Since the reserve command armored vehicle had been deployed off to one side, even if one vehicle happened to enter the jamming range, part of the unit would not be paralyzed.

Foster, fastening his safety hook in preparation for impact, made a displeased face.

"Tch. These damn bloodstains won't come off."

A faint stain remained in a gap in the wall near where he sat. It was probably a trace left from around the time Manifest Liberation failed. This armored vehicle had been abandoned then and repaired later. In truth, most of the vehicles owned by David Task Force had gone through something similar.

"Raven 1, Raven 3 launching."

Gyeoul nodded at the report from the drone operator riding with them. On the screen, beside a Humvee whose engine had started, soldiers could be seen powering up the drones. The drones owned by the company were closer to powered gliders with observation equipment attached. The motor came on, and the propeller spun with a buzzing sound. The soldier holding the fuselage flung it up toward the sky. At the same time, the feed from the two drones shot upward.

The control device was connected to an external antenna. The soldier operating it guided the drones in the direction the company would advance. Gyeoul gave an order.

"Switch to IR."

"Aye, sir."

The field, dyed in twilight colors, shifted into gray infrared vision. The hotter something was, the whiter it appeared, and the colder, the blacker. The plants swaying in the wind looked like white noise.

The communications officer reported the progress of other units.

"Cascade Task Force has approached to within five clicks."

"Let's move too."

Since they had the command computer, radio was unnecessary. Tap, tak. Click. Orders were passed down through typing and clicks. The unit's movement appeared as dry symbols and lines on the tactical map.

Wooooooong-

The acceleration of multiple vehicles shown on the separate split screens overlapped into one engine roar. Dry earth rose in a pale cloud, leaving traces of their charge. Thump. Gyeoul's body bounced. Even with eight wheels, the heavy armored vehicle's ride quality was not very good.

Once dusk crossed the western mountains, the plague that had been holding its breath began coming down the slopes. Because the continuously mass-produced decoys had been placed first in rough terrain, the mutants had to pass through the corridor formed on the central plain if they wanted to go south.

[David 2-1. Contact with the rear of the boar herd.]

Gunfire followed the calm report at once. The helmet camera sharing a soldier's view flashed violently. Tatang! Tatatatang! Tatatang! At the end of the aiming line, a mutant with a red laser dot on its back tumbled forward at the same speed it had been running. Its limbs bent every which way.

Guuuuuuuh!

The mutants screamed and scattered. Humvees that had been granted freedom of action within a set range split off to pursue the divided mutants.

"No matter how many days pass after deployment, I still can't get used to this. I have never seen a movie where zombies run away from humans."

The operations officer sounded rather sour. Gyeoul picked up the radio.

"First Platoon, Vehicle 3, maintain proper engagement distance. You are too close to enemy depth."

[We will correct it.]

The tense reply came back from the temporary platoon leader replacing Yura. Even if the plagues were running away right now, casualties could happen if some turned around to buy time, like a lizard cutting off its tail.

[This is 3-3 Alpha. Special mutant Acrid identified. Permission to use TOW?]

A new report. A hint of tension clung to it. Gyeoul rejected the request to use an anti-tank missile.

"3-3, that is excessive force. An M2 heavy machine gun is enough for that target."

[Confirmed. Engaging with armor-piercing incendiary rounds. Out.]

A new screen appeared even though he had not touched anything. It was Lieutenant Foster's doing. Their consoles were linked, making it possible. Bangbangbangbang! Sharp, intense gunfire made the speaker crackle. The heavy machine gun mounted on the Humvee turret poured out a brutal burst. Tracers and incendiary rounds drew straight bundles of heated iron light through the darkness. The same scene was captured from the air as well. The engagement site appeared from multiple angles. The target observed through infrared thermal imaging was a flat white shape without depth. Its blurred, wavering outline looked bizarre.

As the shower of armor-piercing rounds punched through its torso, blood and bits of flesh, also shown in white, sprayed out. Its physical defense was soft. The weight of the rolling corpse peeled up a layer of ground.

'If it had appeared earlier, it might have been troublesome...'

Special mutant classification code, Acrid. The name meant sharp and choking, and it was a new monster that lived up to that meaning. These creatures sprayed phosphorus compounds outside their bodies and ignited them, creating thick smoke screens. There was not much information yet, but their heat resistance was said to be abnormally high as well. Perhaps that was fitting for a monster born in a scorching season.

The moment the ground breaking under heavy machine gun fire caught up to the fleeing monster, white blood and flesh sprayed from the body shown on the black-and-white screen.

The operations officer somehow looked disappointed.

"Well. I heard the briefing and got my hopes up, but it doesn't explode even when hit by tracers. What kind of secretion mechanism does this thing have...?"

It did catch fire. But it was a slow-burning flame.

Gyeoul's task force had only encountered Acrid through information passed down from the upper unit, and this was their first actual contact. Even so, the operations officer showed no fear toward the unfamiliar monster. The company, the whole task force, and even the U.S. forces deployed for Boar Hunt shared that mood. Just yesterday, the complete recapture of Washington State had been declared.

The new special mutant had appeared at a terrible time.

'I hope it just disappears like this.'

Monsters with low utility were no longer produced. The same went for monsters that were never even given a chance to prove useful.

Boom! The vehicle shook hard. The passengers who hit their heads grimaced. The communications officer grabbed the internal radio.

"What happened? Enemy attack?"

[No. The terrain is just bad. And there are too many mutant corpses.]

Then came another thump. Since they were driving across open country, impacts came often. His vision shook as if he had been punched from below. Whenever a corpse burst under the wheels, there was also a slipping sensation. A few people looked pale. They were personnel, including the communications officer, who had suffered from motion sickness for several days. Even with motion sickness patches stuck behind their ears or on the napes of their necks, it still seemed miserable.

In fact, Communications Officer Evans had vomited inside the vehicle on the first day. It had happened right as the vehicle shook, scattering vomit through the air. Fortunately, the electronic equipment had been fine.

While looking at the command terminal, Gyeoul asked,

"Lieutenant, are you having a hard time?"

"I am fine. And there is no other way, is there?"

"Hmm. I could force you to sleep."

"..."

"I am joking."

"That was a joke, sir...?"

The next moment, a roar struck the vehicle body. Like thunder. Kwaang, rrrumble! The frame shivered with vibration. Since the sky was full of stars without a single cloud, it was obviously not real lightning.

The command terminal showed that the Air Force had dropped multiple large thermobaric munitions a long distance ahead. Impacts followed one after another. Rrrumble, rumble, rrrumble! The armored vehicle surged as it pushed through a wall of wind, making it feel as if they were driving over rippling ground.

In the end, the communications officer opened a vomit bag.

Bleeergh-

A sour smell spread. The cries of mutants coming from multiple channels overlapped with the retching, creating a grotesque impression. The operations officer silently activated the ventilation system. This time, the stench of corpses scattered across the field flowed in, along with the distinctive burnt smell of combusted air and a faint trace of gunsmoke.

They had swept a wide area with an intense artificial storm to detect ambushes. Even if a mutant horde was crouching in Metabolic Suppression, the impact would strike their bodies, wake them, and make them go berserk. Of course, it would be even better if they simply died on the spot.

There was also the purpose of removing other threats that might exist.

[Whoa!]

A cry of shock rang over the internal radio. A roof suddenly came flying toward the armored vehicle from ahead. The sound of it shattering came from behind. There must have been some farmhouse within the thermal blast range.

Right after that, a transmission came in from the Air Force Battlefield Control Aircraft.

[We have an asset on the ground.]

It meant they had found something on the ground. Calling it an asset meant they had not yet identified its specific nature.

The company staff tensed for a moment, but a new notification came in soon after.

[Multiple Grumbles in ambush discovered. Assigning targets to Alamo.]

Alamo was a formation of close attack aircraft, A-10s from the Air Force's 81st Fighter Wing, new faces deployed to the western quarantine front. Until recently, they had been deployed in Georgia to guard the East Coast.

'Which means the government is accepting risk...'

Few things were as good as airpower for guarding a long coastline. It seemed the U.S. government had decided to settle things in the west, even if the safe zones became somewhat more dangerous.

Gyeoul set the auxiliary communications channel to Alamo's frequency.

The attack aircraft approached at low altitude, passed over the independent company's heads, and fired missiles all at once. Gyeoul could confirm the sight through the soldiers' views. The missiles separated from the wings, identified enemies by infrared, and struck like lightning. Each shot was on a different level from ordinary anti-tank weapons. The explosive pressure from 125-pound large warheads was enough to tear even the largest mutants apart with the shockwave alone.

Only after the flash of flame and several breaths had passed did a thin explosion finally reach them.

That was not the end. The formation banked in an elegant arc and checked the targets' condition.

[Surviving individuals confirmed. Finishing with cannon fire.]

One aircraft broke away from the formation. It was a confident low-altitude run. It must have had EMP countermeasures.

The soldiers who had been firing out the windows looked up at the sky. In the dark sky, the attack aircraft, which had been only a faint outline in the starlight, lit up bright yellow for an instant.

Baaaaak!

Heavy cannon fire broke into second-long bursts. The cannon rounds plowed up the earth in a line. Accelerated by the aircraft's speed, the cannon shells had enough force to leave tanks in tatters. The head and torso of the Grumble roaring toward the moon's empty place shattered like porcelain.

All that remained was for the attack aircraft to leave the battlefield and return. Then a sudden beeping alarm rang through the communications channel. The pilot's sharp shout followed.

[I'm being locked! Surface-to-air missile warning!]

"Surface-to-air missile?"

Operations Officer Foster repeated it with an expression closer to rage than confusion. They had already expected this might happen.

"Those bastards finally..."

Gyeoul almost passed the situation to the company, then stopped. Considering the positions of allied units maneuvering around them and the paths of the mutants, it was impossible for remnants of Shangjiang Yang Yongbin's faction to be near Gyeoul's task force.

The updated order from Marigold was the same. Continue the mission as is. Even during the preliminary briefing, there had been an instruction that each task force should prioritize its existing mission if a situation occurred. It meant they could not ruin the greater task by worrying about minor losses.

Four surface-to-air missiles flew in from beyond the horizon with delays between them. The attack aircraft entered evasive maneuvers and descended while scattering massive amounts of flame and smoke into the night sky. They were flares, a deception measure meant to disrupt tracking. The sight was spectacular, and many soldiers watched it closely. To Gyeoul, who shared their vision, it appeared clearly across several windows.

The missiles chasing the exhaust heat of the attack aircraft wavered before the waterfall of fire and smoke.

"Miss..."

The communications officer's nervous prayer. As if answering it, two missiles that curved off after dying flames exploded almost at the same time. The small flashes felt like matches being struck against the sky.

The rest rushed straight at the attack aircraft.

The attack aircraft was caught in two close explosions. When it broke through the smoke, long trails of smoke clung to one engine and its fuselage.

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

#Today's recommended song - Ashtar Command, "Deadman's Gun"

This song is from the OST of a game called Red Dead Redemption. I imagine the bourgeois readers who own PlayStations probably know it. Even if it is unfamiliar to you, it has a calm feel, so give it a listen. It won't be bad.

#Q&A

Q. no name: @Since there are more and more kinds of mutants, I was wondering, are there no mutants armed with biochemical weapons? Even without going as far as radiation, nothing would be as troublesome as a virus spreading through the air or water...

A. Yes, there are none yet. At least on the U.S. mainland.

Q. Kimnyagi: @I want to see the reality part, but ugh, I also think this balance is good, ugh.

A. You can just like all of it. :)

Q. LewdDemonF: @If Panama is landed on, normalizing the canal seems possible within a year given the Panama Canal's characteristics... (It is a shallow and narrow canal where ships are carried by locks and trains, so ships probably did not crash and sink there. Restoration should be faster than when our Middle Eastern friends sank ships in Suez in the past. There are only a few ships anchored in the lake at the center of the canal, so they should be easy to handle too.)

A. Uh... so you are asking whether normalizing the Panama Canal is possible?...

If that is what you mean, all I can answer is that the U.S. intends to do so. Anything beyond that would be spoilers.

Q. GreenTurtle: @Question 1. You said that if mutants adapt to NBC weapons, special mutants that use them as weapons instead will appear. In a slightly different direction... if mutants learn enough to strip and use ballistic equipment from dead soldiers, meaning they learn that humanity's ballistic equipment protects against the weapons humans use, could their skin develop, or imitate, something like the fibers of a bulletproof vest? For proper ballistic protection, they would need skin like the Grumble's ballistic plates, but if individuals of ghoul class or higher evolved like that, I think it would be quite threatening. Question 2. I remember content saying that even in the many apocalypses Gyeoul has already experienced, the sky was always humanity's. At least in the apocalypses Gyeoul has gone through so far, did mutants have no anti-air capabilities except the Trickster's EMP?

A. A special mutant with bone tissue formed in its skin has appeared before in April Pacific. So the answer would be that it is possible. But on that side, Grumble is so overwhelmingly specialized... / Yes. There were no anti-air capabilities. In the setting, individuals with flight ability have appeared before, but even then, something flapping its wings cannot fight attack helicopters or fighter jets.

Q. Bug: @From now on, 100+100 side story 50 chapters.

A. Please just look forward to the next work. I will write the next novel with childlike innocence too.

Q. svjk: @This came to mind because it was described as devastated land, but was there almost no damage to the Great Plains in the work?? (Omitted)... What is the current perception of the plague among eastern or noncombat units?

A. First, desertification is progressing in the Great Plains. It was a region that compensated for low rainfall with irrigation facilities to begin with, so if human hands disappear, it is natural for it to turn into desert. However, not even two full years have passed yet, so the degree is not severe.

As for the perception of the plague, you can think of it as having changed wildly depending on the state of the war. Right now, they are pushing it back one-sidedly, so the mood is more optimistic than before.

Q. fnlshsk: @Author, what are you going to do on Chuseok? I think you will ★mass update★ and then go to your hometown.

A. Mass update? There is no way something like that is possible. I will go on hiatus for 40,000 years.

Q. Guaaaaak: @Will the physical book bonus not be included in the Joara serialization?

A. Yes, that is correct. But it is not Gyeoul's story, and it is not particularly important content either. As I said in a previous Author's Note, it is just a little extra reward for those who want to own the book.

Footnotes:

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