WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 338: Sunlit Shade (5)

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What Branch Chief West had expected of Gyeoul was a member of the command headquarters who could provide combat support in an emergency. In other words, Gyeoul had been brought in as a high-ranking commander who would handle control from headquarters when a situation arose, then deploy to the field if needed.

The existing command headquarters and the Saints Church settlement security force were made up of personnel pulled from the Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Operations Group (SOG). They came from various special forces units, and they were top-tier veterans who had been through every kind of environment, but when it came specifically to the quarantine war against mutants, they had relatively little experience. The infected believers of the Saints Church were not complete mutants, though, so until now, their methods for dealing with people had been enough to keep everything under control.

In a manner of speaking, Gyeoul was a safety measure for the worst case. Apart from his nominal role, the actual duties given to him were nothing special.

At least, until today.

“What in the world happened?”

When Gyeoul stepped into the command control room and asked, Security Chief Gregory Grimm pointed at a cabinet.

“Prepare for field deployment first. The explanation comes after.”

The control room staff saluted Gyeoul with stiff faces. Even though they were inside a safe zone, they were in chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear protection posture. They had only removed their gas masks because this was a sealed space where filtration and positive pressure were maintained. Gyeoul quickly put on the protective clothing prepared for him. The new CBRN combat suit, made with advanced materials and tailored to his body, was far lighter than the existing standard issue and allowed much more agile movement. Its defensive performance had improved just as much.

Meanwhile, urgent movement continued across the split screens covering the front wall of the control room. Several agents were monitoring the closed-circuit footage at once, so even Gyeoul could not take it all in at a glance. A monster-like shape flashed past in one feed, and another seemed to show a firefight.

“Has air contamination been confirmed? Did the believers seize weapons?”

Grimm shook his head at Gyeoul’s rapid questions.

“No air contamination so far. We’re just preparing in case, because the target’s characteristics still aren’t clear. As for weapons being seized... for now, I suppose I have to say yes.”

“The target’s characteristics? And what do you mean, for now?”

“Sorry, but hear the rest from Schreiber here. Sandoval! Put Zone 3, Screen 11 in the middle! Tell Team 5 to block the route! Judging by its movement, the target’s objective seems to be the church! Team 1 cuts off the rear! Avoid engagements in enclosed spaces! If the enemy reaches the final stop line, then ignore whether the hostage lives or dies! Don’t forget! The top-priority protection target is still the cult leader!”

Hostage? As Gyeoul stood there confused, one of the control operators approached him.

“You’re Schreiber?”

“Yes. I’ll brief you on the situation. Please look at this screen.”

The operator worked a rugged laptop and showed him an electronic map of the Saints Church settlement. The situation was divided by color, and about thirty percent of the map had been dyed yellow and red. Even at that moment, one blinking blue section changed to yellow. Places where alarms had been triggered were marked by ripple-shaped notifications. Only then did Gyeoul get a sense of the scale of the incident.

“The first security risk occurred here, in the reserve laboratory located in Zone 5 on the map. According to the research team’s report, it was a low-potential-risk location, so no separate troops were deployed there. It was protected only by an unmanned security system. But it seems there was an unregistered specimen... a managed subject, inside. Whatever appeared from somewhere disabled the laboratory’s security system.”

“They didn’t know?”

Schreiber’s expression sharpened.

“That’s what I don’t understand either. Unless the research team did it deliberately, there’s no way a specimen we didn’t know about could exist. First, please look at the target’s initial identification footage. This was about seventeen mikes, minutes, ago.”

A monster appeared on the thirteen-inch screen. There were traces of what had once been human, but those traces only made it more horrifying. In addition to its original arms, it had three more arms of different lengths, and its heavily muscled body bulged and writhed in uneven imbalance. Sagging breasts dangled from its exposed torso. Its center of gravity seemed badly off, and every axis of its movement was twisted. That made it even more grotesque. White horizontal lines kept streaking across the screen. It looked like a scene from a horror movie.

「Aaaaagh!」

One of the researchers rattled like a broken doll, caught by the scruff of the neck. Only the tips of the researcher’s feet barely touched the ground, dragging along. When the person struggled and resisted, the long-haired monster lost its temper and beat them. It struck only a few times, but blood already stained its fists. The hostage’s face had been crushed along with the mask, to the point that identification was impossible. The monster let out a roar like grinding metal.

「Does it hurt? Hurrrt? Does this hurt, huhhhh!」

Then it grabbed the convulsing researcher’s head and shoved it hard against an iris scanner. When the door opened with a clear signal tone, it grabbed an emergency weapon locker next. There was a lock on it, but the monster tore it off by force. Gyeoul watched the monster arm itself, troubled. At the very least, it seemed to have been someone who knew how to handle a gun.

‘That wouldn’t be strange in a refugee zone.’

At the last moment, the deformed believer’s fist punched through a thin part of the wall and tore into the hidden wiring. The wires were ripped out, and the closed-circuit feed went dark too.

“Who was captured?”

Schreiber pressed at their temple.

“Campbell, Dr. Elijah Campbell.”

“...”

Instead of saying anything unnecessary, Gyeoul rewound the last few seconds of the ended footage. When he clicked through frame by frame with the spacebar, he could see the back of the monster’s head, its long strands of hair rising one by one as if defying gravity. As if they were filled with static electricity.

‘A special mutant?’

There was no other way to think of it. Even if it had originally been human, right now, it was practically a special mutant with human intelligence and language ability.

“Between the noise on the screen and its ability to locate wiring beyond the wall, I think we have to see it as having characteristics close to a Trickster, for all practical purposes.”

When he asked Schreiber that, Security Chief Grimm suddenly shouted.

“You idiots! I told you to avoid contact in enclosed spaces! Do my orders sound like a joke to you?”

Right after that, a sharp, unpleasant noise filled the control room. An operator quickly lowered the volume. On the front screen Grimm was glaring at, combat agents were shown clutching their ears in pain and falling back under a hail of gunfire. Another split screen showed that monster with its mouth gaping wide, using the hostage as a shield while spraying automatic fire. Blood ran from Campbell’s ears.

[Baaang!]

A Flashbang exploded. One of the combat agents had thrown it. The monster flinched from the impact, but only slightly. Its later movements showed no sign that it had lost its vision.

“Damn it. Does that thing even have radio-wave vision? Earlier it was emitting jamming signals... It has every feature of a Trickster!”

As the security chief spat out those words, one of the control operators offered another opinion.

“It’s screaming that loudly, so it may be echolocation. Sonar, I mean.”

Echolocation was the ability to grasp surrounding structures and objects through reflected sound waves.

“Whatever it is, stop it first! That position! Remote turret! Lower every nearby barrier and pour suppression fire into it! Hit it with the .50 caliber and drive it into the trap!”

“The mines... What if Dr. Campbell is injured?”

“Then deactivate the anti-tank mines and bounding mines! Shut off the Claymores too! Use only the ankle mines! That damn doctor only needs to live. It doesn’t matter if Campbell’s knees get blown off!”

It was extreme command suited to an emergency. Grimm’s voice was boiling. Subordinates had already been killed or injured. It seemed Grimm, too, had doubts about this situation. Grimm suspected Campbell.

The control operator nodded right away and worked the console. They typed to connect to the turret in that zone, then manually operated the controller. When they pressed the button down, the center of the crosshair began shattering into pieces. Bang, bang, bang, bang! Yet the monster did not retreat even slightly before the heavy machine gun barrage.

「Aaaaaaaaaaah!」

As if making a show of it, the monster held the doctor out in front and shook Campbell wildly. It was hard to tell whether it had done that because it knew they could not shoot openly, or whether it was an unconscious reflex. Either way, it showed no fear at all. Gyeoul felt that its gestures were filled with rage. Like a beast charging with its eyes rolled back.

Gregory Grimm immediately corrected the order.

“Aim for an opening and put live rounds into it!”

“There’s a slight delay in the video! Is that all right?!”

“I’ll take responsibility! Shoot!”

The operator clenched their teeth and quickly adjusted the aim point. The moment the monster advanced into the sudden silence where gunfire had stopped, a single shot pierced through the gap where Campbell’s body tilted aside.

「Ack!」

That scream, at least, sounded human. Enough that the operator who had fired flinched in surprise.

「Hurthurthurthurthurthurrrrts-」

Blood mixed with flesh and bone fragments sprayed out. A chunk the size of a fist had been blown from its torso. Even so, that alone showed tremendous durability. The heavy machine gun round that had just struck it could penetrate a Humvee’s armor plate. The deflected bullet bounced off the floor and still punched through the wall.

Seeing the monster fall, Gregory Grimm sliced sharply through the air with a fingertip.

“Fuck! Turn off every mine! Every mine! Cut the signal!”

As the monster writhed from pain and began crawling across the floor, Campbell was dragged along bodily as well. They had ended up in a situation where an ankle mine could shred Campbell’s organs.

“Minefield A9 deactivation complete! Team 2, Heavy Infantry is requesting permission to enter!”

“What kind of bullshit is that! Tell them to stand by outside!”

“Requesting confirmation! The team leader reports that they will trust the armored suits’ defense and extract the hostage!”

“Denied! Do they want to get the hostage killed by provoking it for nothing? Keeping it trapped like this is the best option!”

It was a rational judgment in its own way, but luck was not on their side. When the monster found a door leading to an underground maintenance passage for pipes, Grimm’s face twisted badly. Even the security chief did not have every internal design memorized.

“Check that passage! What isolation measures does it have?”

“Incendiary sprayers and thermobaric munitions!”

“...Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Nothing’s going right!”

Under ordinary circumstances, those would have been sufficient countermeasures. But hostage-taking had not been considered. Incendiary agent and thermobaric munitions were safeguards they could not use unless they meant to burn both the monster and the doctor together, or kill them through organ rupture.

The surveillance measures seemed thorough, at least. Thermal sensors marked the monster’s position in real time. The passage should have been extremely narrow for its size, yet its movement speed was grotesquely fast.

“What about bulkheads? Are there no bulkheads?”

“It’s a route where wiring and pipes pass through... so there are only locked iron grates or so.”

“...”

Grimm nervously swept back his hair. The protective suit hood went back with it. Given the monstrous strength that had torn open the gun locker, a locked iron grate would only buy time.

“Show me the inside first! On Screen 1!”

The assigned screen caught the monster with a streak of blood in its mouth. Under the limited lighting, the instant it irritably whipped its head around, Gyeoul saw part of a face he remembered between the splitting strands of hair. Literally only part of it. The rest was festering and rotting badly enough to expose muscle.

“Chief Grimm.”

At Gyeoul’s call, the security chief turned back with a sour expression.

“I’m busy! Please refrain from interfering with command until I request it.”

Apart from any personal goodwill, Grimm deeply disliked Chief West’s decision to make Gyeoul a tactical advisor. It was probably because Grimm took pride in his own ability.

Gyeoul shook his head.

“I’m not trying to interfere with your command authority.”

“Then what is it?”

“Can you connect a speaker over there?”

“...Why are you asking for that?”

“I think it might be someone I know.”

“Someone you know? Don’t tell me you mean that monster.”

“Yes.”

Grimm looked dumbfounded. Silence fell around them too.

“In any case, we don’t have a way to suppress it right now. If it goes well, we might be able to buy time. We may also be able to get information. Isn’t it worth trying to talk?”

If it went really well, there was even a chance of ending the situation. At Gyeoul’s persuasion, one operator raised a hand.

“It is possible.”

“It is?”

When the security chief turned back, the operator confirmed it again.

“Wireless doesn’t work well there, so a wired network exists for emergency contact during maintenance work and other situations. It’s a zone prepared for almost every case.”

“Except for cases like today, you mean.”

Grimm let out an irritated sigh, then rubbed his chin for a moment while watching the monster on screen grab the iron grate and strain against it. A murmur followed. Talking to that thing? In the end, Grimm gave permission.

“Fine, Lieutenant Colonel. Give it a try. Nothing to lose.”

Grimm ordered the operator to connect the speaker.

Footnotes:

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