WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 291: Sacramento (6)
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[1st Squad, 2nd Squad! Disconnect the power cables! Cut them off from the stairwell and elevator shaft first!]
Jin-seok’s shout crackled over the radio.
[Don’t get scared! As long as the enemy isn’t Grumble, we’re invincible! There’s no way that huge bastard is in a place like this! Hey! Park Jae-won, you son of a bitch! Whether they’re clinging to you or not, crush them and keep moving! Sergeant Im! Shoot that bastard! What? I mean Park Jae-won! Shoot him! He won’t die! Fuck!]
It was an order to trust the armor suit’s protection. Sergeant Im Ho-jin of 2nd Platoon, who had received the order, aimed at one of the squad’s own members and sprayed the area with a light machine gun. The mutants swarming over the pinned-down soldier like maggots were brutally peeled away. Flesh tore, bones shattered, and severed limbs went flying. The layer of dust on the floor darkened with infected blood. Churned by the mutants’ frenzy, it became a black-red mass.
“Aaagh, aaaaaagh!”
Private Park Jae-won, barely freed from the jaws trying to rip off the armor, fell into delirium. Gyeoul had once judged armor suits as equipment meant for experienced soldiers. Even with added power, that was still true. When discolored teeth were clattering right in front of someone’s eyes, losing their mind was normal.
[Get a grip! Where are you pointing that muzzle? Stand up!]
Jin-seok advanced through friendly fire and struck the platoon member. Bang! Even through an armor suit, a punch reinforced by artificial muscles carried a real shock. The armor plate caved in.
[You! We’ll talk when we get back!]
Even over the speaker, the sound of grinding teeth came through clearly.
This kind of browbeating worked better than expected. It felt like using fear to suppress fear. It was hard to call it the best method, but it was Jin-seok’s way of leading. Nothing would get done if every little thing needed intervention.
“Kyaaaaaak!”
The horde of plague broke through the smoke and charged fiercely. Some came pouring down through the shattered ceiling. They were even using the ventilation ducts. Their scale had slipped past surveillance. This was clearly a prepared trap.
Gyeoul, still watching from outside, gave another order.
“2nd Platoon, 3rd Squad! 4th Squad! Enter the east corridor! Block the path leading to 1st Squad and 2nd Squad’s flank!”
Jin-seok’s reply came back at once.
[We can’t! They’re the reserve force! What do we do if the entire platoon’s batteries run dry at once?]
Heavy Infantry took a long time to charge. To fight without gaps, half had to be kept in reserve.
But it made no sense to leave that reserve idle either.
“It’ll only be for a moment! There’s still time before the rotation anyway! If they fight briefly and pull back, they should be fully charged again by the time they need to rotate! About ten minutes! 3rd Squad and 4th Squad will engage for the next ten minutes!”
[Ugh... Understood!]
Jin-seok must have memorized the equipment specs out of a sense of responsibility, but the same was true for Gyeoul. There was no rebuttal. There was also no guarantee the battle would last that long. If the fight ended before they even had to rotate, the reserve squads would become surplus force.
That was why a commander had to judge exactly when to commit strength.
The Heavy Infantry of 3rd and 4th Squads, who had been hesitating between the Company commander and platoon leader, moved swiftly.
The mutants rushing in like mad died like mad, too. At this point, the Heavy Infantry they knew must have been slow prey, even if tough. They would not yet have built up experience against the improved armor suits. One-sided losses could be forced on them.
‘If none of them get out alive... no, that won’t help.’
It would be hard to stop the information from spreading. This was not the only place they were fighting.
Gyeoul kicked Lieutenant Foster.
“Guh!”
The moment the operations officer tumbled backward, something whitish grazed Gyeoul’s military boot before he could pull it back. Crack! It struck the asphalt and broke. The fragments that scattered with sparks were yellow-stained ivory. Shattered pieces bounced across the ground.
Right after that, Gyeoul took a firing stance toward the direction where sensory correction had drawn a line-of-fire warning. But before he could even pull the trigger, the special mutant’s head burst. A distinctive gunshot rang out from the rear a split second later.
[I’m sorry! I could have gotten it a little faster!]
It was Han-byul over the radio.
“No. That was excellent. Shoot every one of them that sticks its head out.”
It was not a joke. Her skill was genuinely outstanding. She had spotted the target almost at the same time Gyeoul detected it. He had heard her shooting alone was the best in Fort Benning’s sniper training course, and apparently that was true.
The corpse of the Hunter, its head erased by an armor-piercing high-explosive round, slumped over the outside of the wall. Thick blood ran down the granite.
“Ugh... What in the world?”
Foster, rubbing the place that had been hit with a very pained expression, felt something through the clothes and picked it up without thinking. It was a fragment of enamel where Infection Protrusions writhed.
“Eek!”
Foster panicked and brushed off the clothes. But even if someone touched Infection Protrusions, they would not be infected without a wound. The only exception was direct contact with a mucous membrane, and even that had a lower probability than wound infection.
Foster hurriedly checked for cuts, then belatedly realized there were gloves on and finally sighed in relief. Gyeoul helped the officer up.
“I’m sorry. It was too urgent.”
“No, sir. My God. I nearly fell into hell.”
“Are you okay where I hit you?”
The operations officer hesitated, but the expression from just now had been too openly pained for a lie to work.
“It feels exactly like I was in a traffic accident.”
“...”
Foster’s breathing looked strained. Even though Gyeoul had hit body armor, a bone might have broken. For Gyeoul, it had been a reflexive response, so he had not controlled his strength well enough. The communications officer relaying comms from inside the rear hatch of the command armored vehicle stared at them with a stunned expression.
The closer a Hunter’s air-pressure projectile was, the stronger it became. At this distance, even if it could not penetrate body armor, it was close enough to pierce the new combat uniform. Captain Singh said,
“That attack just now seemed to be aimed at the officers.”
“Probably.”
Since there were Tricksters that detected radio transmissions, locating the commanders would have been easy. It was also possible the target had been Gyeoul and the shot had missed due to poor accuracy.
The staff pulled back a little. They leaned against the armored vehicle, into a blind spot.
At any other time, Gyeoul would have noticed faster, but the dense smoke was an environmental 「Presence Concealment」. It was the same as Melville Rays beneath the water slipping away from sensory correction. The range at which sensory correction worked shrank, and there was a time delay as well.
The smoke was growing thicker. Even though the shockwaves from the tank shells had shattered every window, far more smoke was rising from underground than the outside wind could ventilate.
The building had plenty of windows for its size, both in number and scale, yet it had still come to this. He had no idea how many Acrids were spewing smoke. The assumption that the basement was already a sea of fire was out of the question. If that were true, the mutants’ path would be blocked too.
‘I need to break more of the wall...’
It became risky to bombard sections where indoor observation was impossible. They did not know what might be beyond them. If a hostage died to a tank’s main gun, it would be a literal disaster.
If he went in personally, sensory correction would become clearer.
But a commander was not someone whose only duty was to fight well alone. He had declared that he would fight personally if it came down to it, but for now, he needed to watch a little longer.
“We need to pull 3rd Platoon off support duty.”
Captain Singh understood Gyeoul’s meaning right away.
“Are we securing additional entry routes?”
“Yes. Send 3rd Platoon around to the left, and send 4th Platoon, the reserve unit, around to the right. Tell the other Companies to hold their current positions. There’s a chance we’ll be ambushed from another direction while attention is focused here.”
Gyeoul was wary of a feint. As long as unknown underground routes remained, a large mutant horde could burst out from any corner without warning.
“Will that be all right? The order from above is only Reconnaissance in Force.”
The captain had a point. Major General Rogers had not assigned a rescue mission. In other words, now that they had judged the intensity of enemy resistance, they were free to withdraw. If damage occurred after sending in troops who were not Heavy Infantry, the responsibility would fall entirely on Gyeoul, the field commander.
“We don’t need to go deep. Opening a path is enough.”
“Understood. But if we do that, the burden on 1st Platoon will...”
The captain was worried about splitting their force, but could not finish.
Rumble!
The explosion happened at the intersection where the tank was. Dry ground coughed up acrid dust. In the aftermath, the middle of the road sank in, and the surrounding asphalt cracked like a field in drought. Visibility worsened in an instant. Since there was almost no wind today, it would not improve easily.
“What? What happened?”
The flustered communications officer immediately tried to make contact.
“Valor 1-3. Valor 1-3. Are you safe?”
[Ugh, this is Valor 1-3. David Actual?]
“That’s right.”
It was a reply from the tank that had fallen into the collapsed hole.
[David Actual. We have no casualties, but... even with the engine alive, we can’t get out under our own power. Damn it, please confirm what kind of attack hit us.]
Gyeoul took the communications officer’s headset.
“It is currently unconfirmed. Stand by in your current state. Do not come outside. Wait for the recovery tank.”
Gyeoul gave the order while thinking quickly. Did the mutants have a way to cause this kind of explosion?
‘Since the tank wasn’t destroyed, it wasn’t a proper explosive.’
No matter how tough a tank was, not every part was thick. If the mutants had picked up abandoned shells or bombs and detonated them, the tank crew would be meeting whatever gods they believed in by now. In the end, that meant the explosion’s force had not been concentrated...
Ah, methane.
Gyeoul barely realized it. The toxic gases that might have pooled underground. Some of them were flammable. All a mutant had to do was jump in while holding a spark. The tank’s weight would also have worsened the collapse. The Trickster must have foreseen this much when choosing a place to stage the hostage situation.
[David Actual! David Actual! It’s them! We’re under attack!]
Of course they were. A fixed tank was a good target. Gyeoul shouted.
“Captain. I’ll leave this side to you!”
“Understood!”
The moment he entrusted the original operation site to Captain Singh and turned around, small special mutants burst out of the cracks in the ground. Their eyes were fixed on Gyeoul.
This had happened suddenly inside the outer perimeter formed by the other Companies under his command. They could not shoot carelessly for fear of hitting Gyeoul and the command staff. That was why their fire was weak.
“What the...!”
The operations officer raised a weapon in shock. The rest of the staff did the same. Taking refuge in the armored vehicle was not an option. At that distance and speed, the creatures would reach them before the door could even close. With his nerves pulled taut, Gyeoul felt as if time had slowed slightly. It was on a different level from the system’s correction.
With one breath of aimed fire, Gyeoul killed nine Scampers. The command armored vehicle’s unmanned turret began indiscriminate fire a beat late. Friendly troops beyond the line of fire hurriedly found cover. The staff joined in, and the two platoons still in front of the main lobby also turned their lines of fire this way.
But the small, fast monsters bounced in zigzags, so many bullets missed.
“Reloading!”
The operations officer’s request for cover came out like a scream. But before the reload could finish, the front ranks were already closing in. Gyeoul was about to enter close combat, then slammed the brakes on his whole body with a groan. Captain Singh had thrown that whole body in the way of the monster leaping toward Gyeoul from a full six meters away. It was the will to protect a superior officer without regard for personal safety. The clacking personal firearm had an empty magazine.
Crunch!
The captain rammed the rifle butt into the teeth falling in an arc, let go of the gun, and drew the longsword at the waist.
“Long live Khalsa! Victory belongs only to God!”
Discolored blood sprayed along the flashing steel arc.
========== Author’s Note ==========
#BodyAches
I came down with body aches. Whoever cursed me, please turn yourself in.
Meanwhile, my friend told me to eat a ton of wasabi. Said it would clear my blocked nose...
I really do seem to have a good friend.
#Q&A
Q. GreenTurtle: @Can a mutant form that wasn’t weeded out early on and was successfully introduced once be weeded out later?
A. Of course. So to speak, mutation patterns are tools. It’s normal to throw away a tool that has stopped being useful.
Q. NeoGGM: @That book full of childlike innocence... not Al Azif... that... the one that starts with N.... Um... Necronomicon... no... n, na, na... Nine Personality Manual... not that either... Ah! Ossuary! The Little Prince in the Ossuary. Right. Anyway. Before Volume 3 came out, I was rereading Volume 2 and found a typo. Volume 2, Signs, chapter 113, page typo. Marvin “Boar” Lieberman. The quotation marks (“ ”) there are not 66 99, but both 66 66.
Also, a typo I found while rereading, I think, in episode 179. Nuclear daodan 〉 nuclear ballistic
A. Thank you for the report. I’ll check Volume 2.
Episode 179 is not a typo. Daodan is the Chinese expression for missile.
Thank you for reading so carefully. :)
Q. Calpis: @If he saves the child here through another heroic deed, could he become president? Is founding the Winter Kingdom possible?
A. It’s impossible unless the constitution is amended. There are many obstacles to amending the constitution. The power-crazed ghosts mentioned in the story won’t just sit still.
And the presidency is a position that can only draw criticism. In the story’s world, even more so. So I do wonder whether Gyeoul becoming president at this point would really be a good thing.
Q. qgegegqe: @There really is DLC for everything. Well, if there’s demand, they’d develop it right away. Does Star Child get the four major insurances?
A. AI does not receive labor law protections. In other words, the story’s world is a paradise maintained by child labor close to abuse... cough cough...
Q. Guaaaaak: @Looks like a fox is needed for a happy ending. Is humanity’s extinction another element needed for a happy ending?
A. I can neither say yes nor no. Please refrain from questions that would become spoilers. T_T
Q. sj8077: @Seeing Putin still alive in the future, he really does seem to be His Imperial Majesty from 40,000 years ago.
A. Uh, these days I’m suspicious of Uncle Xi Jinping...
Q. OneChance: @Zombies that can even handle hostage situations... Reading the novel, zombies that may be cunning but lack information are already this troublesome, so wars between nations that can read each other’s moves through intelligence must be even more difficult and hopeless.
A. The CIA is famous for all sorts of screw-ups, but I think the things that don’t come to light must be truly incredible. Probably not something human beings should be doing.
Q. Strawberry Munch Munch: @I suddenly got curious. From what I remember, Gyeoul played a few rounds alone before starting the broadcast. If it’s all right to ask, how much time has Gyeoul spent inside the game since entering Afterlife Insurance?
A. It’s a secret. Hehe.
Q. Heika: @I was reading Rice Breaker and thought the writing was pretty good, so now I’m reading Little Prince... Eit, take my coupon.
A. I have never written a novel called “Rice” Breaker. I think you’re mistaking me for another author. Still not giving the coupon back, though.
Q. Deathandeath: @Oh my! You pervert. Eating Tunguska! What were you thinking?
A. I meant literally eating. Deathandeath, what exactly were you thinking? How indecent.
Q. Bug: @Oh, then can he release things where the patents have expired? Like playing scientist only to the extent it doesn’t trigger rollback... or saying he picked them up while looting a secret research lab.
A. As I already answered, it would be judged a Situational Computation error. Do you think the current Afterlife Insurance would tolerate tricks like that? Shake shake...
Q. Third_Wing: @Sob sob.... I offered coupon tribute. O great old one, could you maybe do 100 chapters in a row?
A. Bring me 100 different new works by author Lee Yeongdo, and I’ll do it.
Q. Otakri: @I should’ve bought Noble late-night tickets... I bought a one-day pass for nothing... I... like that... again... today... underestimated myself... Finished the reread! It was so good after so long, and so many things happened to you! This is really a work worth owning... so my taste... as expected of the great old one! My childlike innocence is being drained! Then... I’ll see you in four months...(wistful / Ah, once I get paid, I’ll buy the physical book too! Keep writing!!!!!(excited
A. Seems like you read in four-month batches... then that’s roughly 50 chapters in one day... tears... I wish the time it takes readers to read was the same as the time it takes the author to write...
Q. Newtype: @As I read, I get the feeling that the world where Gyeoul’s real body exists is not the far future, but not the near future either, more like a future society. (A world where DirectX still openly dominates even though it’s a future society, chills;) The apocalyptic world Gyeoul is playing in actually seems similar to the world of us readers reading the novel. Am I seeing that right? / (Omitted) I think there needs to be a background reason why Gyeoul ended up playing a game that recreates an era far removed from the era he lived in... like maybe there was some impactful event in the era that became the game’s setting in the novel’s world? Then it would be like the Napoleonic Wars, an era with events popular among people, so it gets recreated a lot in games.
A. First, the answer to your first question is “yes.” There was a description that the Days after Apocalypse worldview is a reconstructed past. The 2010s.
Next, as for why it’s set in the modern era, which didn’t have much going on... from the developer’s position, it’s because making the worldview is that much easier. They mine and reconstruct big data to create the foundation of the worldview, and data is richest after the information age. Since humans handle the planning and the Control AI handles most of the actual production, that’s even more true.
In other words, in terms of development cost, development period, and operational difficulty, setting it in the modern era is advantageous. That is why many of the worldviews provided by Afterlife Insurance have modern settings.
Of course, there are many worldviews that are not like that, but those worldviews are basically expensive.
Conclusion. The world is ruled by capital. :)
Footnotes:
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