WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 341: Sunlit Shade (8)

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The monitor showing the scene went dark. The speaker that had carried the conversation fell silent as well. More and more sectors of the unmanned surveillance system were going dead. At least some of the things Esther had “shed” were clearly capable of sensing the flow of electric current, just like the mother body. Gyeoul pictured something small and quick gnawing through wires in narrow gaps. Not even understanding what it was doing, just repeating the same action over and over with an immature mind.

The control room had to rely on the field personnel’s helmet cameras, but even those were thick with noise. Radio interference blurred even urgent reports into indistinct voices. Only the wired network remained clear.

A concentrated force had been hard-pressed from the start to handle a crisis this dispersed. Chief Grimm, who had been pouring out a flood of orders, ripped off the headset and turned around.

“That conversation just now. What was it about?”

Gyeoul explained as briefly as possible. They had reconfirmed her objective. The odds that she was lying were slim. She could decode Trickster transmissions, and rapid pregnancy and childbirth were possible. But how many she had given birth to was unknown. She also understood her own strategic value. Chief Grimm grimaced.

“I need to go out there myself. Lieutenant Colonel, head to the final defense line!”

In other words, he was handing Gyeoul command of the church sector. Protect Pastor Park Tae-sun.

“Orders?”

“I’m leaving it to you! I’ll take responsibility! Schreiber! Take two with you and follow him!”

It was an immediate decision. Three armed control agents were attached to Gyeoul.

That did not mean the control room was being abandoned. More than half of the unmanned turrets and remotely controlled minefields were still functioning. The same went for their surveillance methods. Most of all, the final safeguard could still be activated even if every other system was disabled. Branch Chief West now held the key.

West looked like he had a great deal to say, but he respected the security chief’s authority. This was no time to waste with pointless questions and demands.

‘If it comes down to it, though, he’ll burn everything.’

Perhaps that was why West gave Gyeoul the obvious warning as he headed out, pointing to his own ear.

“Maintain communications if possible.”

A warning that otherwise he could get swept up in the incineration procedure. The CBRN protective suit was made of flame-resistant material, but not enough to guarantee survival inside a fire that would consume the entire residence district. A death like that lay somewhere between burning alive and suffocation. Gyeoul gave a single nod and moved at once. He would try, but if circumstances made it impossible, there was nothing to be done.

Even so, the radio was not completely dead, and intermittent communications and situation updates came through on the way.

[Oscar 3-1 here! Fifth Laboratory secured! Multiple cages confirmed in the materials warehouse! Unknown hostiles estimated at no fewer than twenty-two!]

[Contact! Contact! New target identified! Fleeing toward Zone 7! Request permission to pursue!]

[No! Hold there and wait!]

[3-1! What does the one over there look like? We confirmed an acid blast on this side!]

There was also word that two more divisions were being deployed nearby. Sending fresh troops into an area where a formation of strategic bombers was already in the air meant they were prepared to accept friendly fire if the worst happened. The entire force stationed at Fort Robert had already been shifted to alert status as well.

It was an unavoidable measure. Even if the crisis was brought under control inside the base, they still had to prepare for what came after.

‘This may be the rear, but there could still be a Trickster somewhere within radio range that’s been silent for a long time. There was also that mutant horde found nearby recently... They’ll have to seal off the whole region. The longer they wait, the bigger the hole gets.’

A monster that manipulated electricity released a massive burst of radio waves the moment it faced death. It passed on its final experience to others of its kind somewhere nearby.

If Esther did the same?

How much information a Trickster could pack into a dying scream was still unknown. So they had to assume the worst. In other words, there was a possibility that mutants could acquire human language. Human thought was precise because it was linguistic. The threat of the plague would spike at once.

Would that twisted girl really go that far? Gyeoul asked himself, and he could not confidently say no. How deep would her grief be if she died without achieving her revenge? If she cursed God, would she not curse the world as well? Would she not entrust her hatred to the starving apocalypse...?

Perhaps that final scream was an instinct bundled into the ability itself. In that case, she might leave behind a bitter legacy regardless of her own will. For Esther, that too would be one more tragedy.

Or the transmission might already have gone out.

A formation of electronic warfare aircraft was flying in to lay down counter-jamming, but even once it reached the airspace overhead, it would not be able to act easily. Jamming did not distinguish friend from foe, and the Trickster’s communication bands covered a wide range of frequencies. Even so, it would be effective at preventing further spread.

Before long, the church steeple drew near. A faint hymn began to drift over.

Gyeoul heard teeth clacking.

“Enemy! Nine o’clock!”

Schreiber shouted and sprayed a burst. But it missed. The target was simply too small, and the shot had been rushed. Gyeoul deliberately did not fire. He raised a hand to stop the control agents.

“Wait.”

He wanted to observe it, even if only for a moment. He was curious about an enemy that had slipped past sensory correction.

The premature infant, its pink flesh split open, panted in exhaustion. It was small. In its tiny mouth, two rows of sharp, jagged teeth had sprouted. Its skull was long and slanted. It had no eyes. Yet as though it could see perfectly well, it turned its head toward where Gyeoul and Schreiber stood.

Keeeeek-

A feeble cry. Then it crawled forward slowly. Its knees and elbows had already been scraped raw. A long smear of blood trailed through the dirt behind it. Then it crumpled. A moment later, it stopped breathing as well. Its tongue, bristling with Infection Protrusions, lolled out between its teeth. That was the end.

“What the...”

Schreiber muttered in shock.

Bang!

Gyeoul put a finishing shot into it. A hole burst open in the infant’s torso.

“Stay with me.”

Because it was a special enemy, he had wondered whether it possessed 「Presence Concealment」. But rather than sensory correction having been blocked, it seemed more likely that the threat had simply been too small and gotten buried. Hwangbo Esther’s presence was too overwhelming for him to pick up something that subtle.

When they reached the front of the church, an absurd sight awaited them. The hymn had been audible from a distance, so he had guessed there were still believers inside, but he had not expected them to be standing hand in hand and blocking the church entrance.

「We overcome hardship through the pastor’s love」

「The pastor’s great love lets us know the Lord’s grace」

「Enduring pain, we shall enter through heaven’s gate」

「Ah, ah, for us there is only the pastor, only the pastor」

Schreiber was too dumbfounded to speak, so Gyeoul looked for the person in charge of the final defense line.

“Over here. Who’s the senior officer?”

Two people came out from the defensive position. One was the commander, and the other was a radio operator. Even with protective suits on and their faces hidden behind masks, the gear made the distinction obvious.

“I’m Sergeant Doyle. I heard you were coming and have been waiting. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Sergeant?”

“We use the ranks we held before discharge for convenience.”

“All right. Then Sergeant, why are those people still doing that?”

They should have been evacuated, obviously. They were civilians, but they also had to be preserved as research subjects. From the government’s standpoint, which could not afford to create any more victims of religious fanaticism, the people already infected were bound to be important. Once all of them were lost, research methods would become severely limited. Orders to evacuate them should have come down long ago. That was what made this scene so hard to understand.

“We did try to move them elsewhere, of course.”

Sergeant Doyle let out a long sigh.

“But Pastor Park went and pulled something useless...”

“Something useless?”

“I don’t know whether you know this, but that bastard doesn’t trust us. He’s paranoid too. We told him we were taking him to a panic room, and he suddenly lost it. He started shouting all kinds of things... From the situation, it felt like he was telling the believers to protect him. The believers turned aggressive all at once.”

“So you just left them there?”

“What else were we supposed to do? Not one of them is an ordinary person. Their strength is practically on the level of mutants. We nearly had our guns taken. With no way of knowing when the real enemy would come crashing in, we couldn’t stand here wrestling with fanatics.”

“...All right.”

“Will you take command here?”

Before answering, Gyeoul looked over the deployment. The force blocking the road that led to the church was fewer than two platoons. The guards with singing fanatics at their backs all wore expressions full of irritation. Under those conditions, even facing the enemy was absurd.

Gyeoul shook his head.

“No. With this much manpower, it’s better if I move separately. A commander who doesn’t know each soldier’s specialties or abilities is only half a commander. It looks better if you keep command, Sergeant. I’ll just decide the overall policy as the responsible officer. Coordinate everything else with Schreiber here.”

“Understood.”

“For the main target, subdual takes priority if possible. I’ll handle that one first. We can change our response depending on the situation.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes. If I need something, I’ll ask you.”

Security Chief Grimm had said he would take full responsibility for Gyeoul’s decision. But that was not a complete pardon. If things went wrong, Gyeoul too would bear some responsibility as the one who had exercised that discretion.

“That aside.”

Gyeoul had a question.

“Why was the Heavy Infantry gear left unused?”

Sergeant Doyle let out a groan.

“We deployed the Heavy Infantry while trying to calm the believers down. There was some physical fighting. We burned through the batteries getting personnel out safely after they were surrounded by believers, and when we came back and connected the power cables, the power feed had already been cut.”

“Is it completely unusable?”

“Not completely, but most of them have less than ten minutes of operating time left. I judged it would be better to take the suits off than lose power in the middle of combat. Mobility seemed more important than defense... Should I order them to put the suits back on?”

Once the battery ran dry, Heavy Infantry became dead weight. They had to carry the mass of the armored suit with nothing but raw strength. Unless they were Gyeoul, all they could manage was a slow walk. If the enemy surrounded them, the burden only grew worse, so even in the armor, it was hard to expect them to function as Heavy Infantry. As the sergeant had said, defense was all that remained.

Even so, ten minutes was not necessarily short.

“Those ten minutes assume combat consumption, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then how about keeping five or so in reserve? At the very least, they should be able to carry us safely through one breach.”

“Hmm...”

Gunfire was coming closer. He could also see black smoke rising. Somewhere, they seemed to be using a flamethrower. Since the facility had a fire suppression system, it would not spread into a major blaze.

‘Unless that runs on electricity too.’

If it was only an ordinary fire spreading, not the residence district incineration measure, it would not threaten the survival of the security troops.

After a moment of thought, Sergeant Doyle accepted Gyeoul’s suggestion.

“We’ll do that. Excuse me for a moment.”

While the sergeant called out several names, Gyeoul checked the communications network.

“Schreiber. Can you get through to the control room?”

“The wired network is fine. The satellite terminal is only worth anything if we hook it up to a directional antenna, and the wireless network is usable only at short range. Reception is terrible.”

That meant the source of the interference was close. How close, Gyeoul did not know either.

A new warning joined his sensory correction. It was distinct enough from Esther’s presence that it could not be a minor threat. Gyeoul judged the direction, and after a few breaths, the threat revealed itself. One of the guards shouted.

“Suspicious figures ahead!”

People who looked monstrous appeared. But given the location, he could not immediately conclude they were mutants. Whether they wore suits or patient gowns, their clothes were mostly neat, so they had to be Saints Church members. Their vacant faces showed no violent urge to bite into human flesh. Why they had not attended the prayer meeting, he did not know.

“Stop! Stop!”

The guards shouted in clumsy Korean. It seemed they had picked up a little while trying to control the believers. But proper communication was out of the question. So Gyeoul stepped forward.

“You there. You can’t come any closer. Stop where you are for now.”

Even as he spoke, he rested a finger on the rifle trigger. If they were ordinary people, 「Crisis Detection」 would not have reacted.

As expected, one of the leaders, a man, murmured as though in a trance.

“In my head... A voice...”

At the back of his neck was a bite mark, left by two rows of teeth. Gyeoul thought of the premature infant he had shot on the way here. And of trait transmission through reinfection.

Footnotes:

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