WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 344: Sunlit Shade (11)

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A fierce wind swept in through the smashed front doors of the church. Grains of sand flung inside rattled across the floor. Dry dust clung even to Esther’s gasping wounds. After taking so many hits, her bones were broken and her ligaments torn. She could no longer stand on her own two legs.

She had only fallen over.

The temple of mistaken faith was stained with polluted blood. The fanatics who rushed in, thinking this was their chance, became remains scattered through the air. Torn intestines sprayed out like a midday nightmare. Together with the gunfire Esther sprayed from the heavy machine gun, the screams cut short by death formed a dissonant chorus dedicated to the dead.

Through it all, Park Tae-sun survived beneath the cross. A nearby believer had thrown himself in and shoved him away. As though there was a separate space farther inside, he fled in a frantic half-run, half-crawl. The line of fire chasing him shook wildly. Esther swung her arm in irritation. Even now, as Gyeoul’s sniper rounds burst open each of her wounds, her presence was still vicious.

“Get away! Get awaaaay!”

The believer clinging to the heavy machine gun was struck by a brutal blow, coughed blood, and tumbled away. The pain must have been brief. His neck snapped when he hit the floor. There were blisters on his hands.

Thump, thump, thump! Esther crawled on her knees and pushed herself forward with both arms. Toward the false savior who had hidden himself away. There was no longer any weak point to aim at from behind. Gyeoul stopped firing, changed magazines, clenched his teeth, and ran through the sloshing pools of blood.

‘With this much bleeding, even the body of a special mutant...!’

There was no way she could still be normal.

Even now, Esther’s movements wasted too much effort. It was an injured body moving on pure venom. Once he closed the distance, Gyeoul tossed a grenade beneath Esther’s body, stomped hard on her ankle, and jumped.

“Aaaagh!”

The monster girl screamed from the terrible pain. Her anklebone, already hanging in shreds, had been crushed under the boot of a fully armed soldier. No matter how thick it was, it had to hurt. Jagged bone fragments were digging into raw flesh.

Because of that, the girl missed the grenade rolling under her belly and right before her eyes. Gyeoul clung to her back. Her abnormally developed muscles had so many split ridges that it felt like climbing a rock wall.

Her swollen body, that back, was a blind spot even for Esther herself.

His vision flashed with the roar.

Gyeoul felt as if the whole world had lurched. The scream of the girl who had become a monster was no longer even sound. His radio blared wildly.

He could not miss this moment. Before Esther came to her senses and reacted, before she shook Gyeoul off, he had to accomplish his goal. Her spine was half-buried in writhing curves. Gyeoul drove the muzzle brake of the anti-materiel rifle between the massed muscles. It looked like a hunter mounted on a giant beast, stabbing it with a spear. He hammered the stock with his fist, forcing the muzzle in as far as it would go. Then he hooked his thumb on the trigger.

Boom!

He fired into a weakness that was rarely exposed, at an angle of incidence close to vertical. Dark red blood splashed across the lenses of Gyeoul’s gas mask. A moment later, Esther crashed into a pillar. Gyeoul was flung away and rolled across the floor in an ugly heap. The impact of the fall hit before he could brace himself. His breath stopped in his throat. For a moment, he could not move.

But that was better than the alternative. The church, for all its splendor, was made of wood, and part of the roof above the broken pillar collapsed. If the falling rafters had hit him, he would have been hurt far worse.

“Lieeeutenannt Cooooloneeel!”

Barely pulling himself together, Gyeoul saw a hand thrust up through the tomb-like wreckage. The pale arm had two elbows. In the dust-filled interior, the sunlight leaking through the broken roof formed a strangely clear line. All the more so because the church had lost power. Bathed in that light, Esther shook savagely.

“If yooou! Wannt to die that badlyyy! I’ll kill yooou! For yooou!”

A frenzied charge followed. But she was slow compared to her momentum. The hand that whipped out to seize him barely brushed his protective suit. Gyeoul dodged and looked at her lower body. It hung limp and dragged along the floor. She could no longer even crawl on her knees. Paralysis from the rupture in her spine.

Gyeoul aimed the rifle he had slung over his shoulder, where it hung at his side. Tatang! He had pulled the trigger on full auto, but only two casings popped out of the chamber.

“Damn-”

A malfunction. The magazine was dented.

“U, u, uuuuugh!”

Esther howled with both eyes shut. She had lost her sight when the grenade exploded. Blood streamed from beneath her closed eyelids. Even so, the arm she swung was no blind attack. Even without eyes, her radio-wave vision remained intact. It was a kind of sight beyond sight.

But in agility, she could no longer keep up with Gyeoul. After avoiding the attack and opening up some distance, Gyeoul changed magazines. His targets now were the wounds where the bleeding was about to stop. Cruel or not, it could not be helped. Forcing her to bleed until she could no longer move was the only path that might lead to a relatively gentle ending.

‘Only a possibility, though.’

Thin streams of blood spurted all over the monster girl’s body. They looked thin only compared to her massive frame. In truth, the blood loss was severe. Even more so when counting all the blood she had lost on the way here. Gyeoul knelt to fire, and his knee sank into bloody water half a finger joint deep. The wide church had become a sea of blood.

“Yes! Good! Kill it! Kill it! Kill that spawn of Satan!”

One fanatic who had somehow survived until now cheered Gyeoul on.

Enraged, Esther roughly overturned the pile of collapsed roofing. She was looking for the buried heavy machine gun. It did not take long. The heavy machine gun, coated white in dust, saw sunlight once again.

“A-aahhhhhh!”

With a monstrous scream, Esther poured out lethal firepower.

Gyeoul did not move a muscle. He had sensed that the line of fire would pass over his head. Even as he returned fire, doubt rose in him. Something was strange. No matter how exhausted Esther was, that last attack had missed far too obviously.

‘Come to think of it, the casualties have been too low this whole time.’

Could it really be explained as simple luck?

Another predicted line of fire from 「Survival Instinct」 drew itself out. If he did not dodge, he would be injured. He would lose one leg. But Esther could have aimed for Gyeoul’s heart easily enough. Gyeoul rolled, but he had no time to dwell on his suspicion. The monster girl had turned her back again. She poured all her remaining ammunition into the space where Pastor Park Tae-sun was likely to be. At times she swayed unsteadily, but her fire was still destructive. The walls broke apart with dull cracks. Esther ignored Gyeoul’s interference. Even if it was only wood, the rest of the church, with its splendid interior, turned to rags in an instant.

Then came a hollow click.

The other heavy machine gun she dug out of the wreckage was the same. Since the weapon fed from a long exposed ammunition belt, a malfunction had been inevitable from the moment it was buried under the collapsed roof.

She began crawling toward the cross, as if burning away the last moments of her life.

The end came without warning. Just like the beginning of this whole affair.

Kwa-kwa-boom!

The pressure slammed harshly into Gyeoul’s whole body. Just as he was about to rush out and stop Esther somehow, a flash flew in from the front doors. His vision blacked out. It was an instant knockout check. His thoughts continued, but he could no longer feel his body. For a short moment, only thought remained.

It had probably been artillery fire. A little later, when Gyeoul regained control of his body, when the pain set to match physical reality returned, a person who looked like a medic was in front of his blinking eyes. With clear worry on their face, the medic asked, “Sir! Are you conscious?”

“Ah... I’m fine...”

When he staggered and sat up, he was just about to be moved onto a stretcher. His protective suit had been removed. Since the armor had ruptured anyway, they must have decided it was useless now.

His whole body ached as if covered in bruises, but he was not bleeding anywhere. For now.

“Huh? You must not move!”

The medic tried to stop him, but Gyeoul shook off the hand and got up.

“I’m really fine. Wait here.”

His vision spun halfway around. But after stumbling once, he managed to find his balance. Pressing a hand to his aching side, Gyeoul took in the situation. Reinforcements seemed to have arrived a little early. Engine noise came from outside the front doors. Probably the armored vehicle that had fired the shot. A tank, or an armored car.

Maybe it had been a portable anti-tank weapon, but that did not matter right now.

Beneath the silver cross, Esther lay fallen in blood.

It seemed she was not dead. The area near her ribs expanded and contracted in a regular rhythm. The anti-materiel rifle was still lodged tight in her back, rising and falling slightly with each breath. The pulse in her bulging veins was visible too. Her lower body, which had been paralyzed, was now so ruined its shape was unclear. The deep shell mark carved into the floor behind it indirectly showed the power of the explosion. Blood kept leaking out.

Gyeoul approached. The soldiers watching Esther panicked and blocked him.

“It’s dangerous. The monster is still alive-”

“Move.”

It was unreasonable irritation. This mess was not these people’s fault. The soldiers stepped back from the violent 「Threat Level」, and Gyeoul apologized in a softer voice.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get angry... It will only take a moment. Nothing will happen.”

It was not much of an explanation, but rank had a force of its own. The soldiers looked troubled as Gyeoul simply passed by. One of them ran somewhere. Judging by the terrible static flowing from the radios, a radio blackout seemed to be in effect. So if they wanted to report to the person in charge, they had no choice but to go in person.

Shaaak, shak.

The closer he got, the louder Esther’s strained breathing became. Gyeoul knelt on one knee beside her head. Then he quietly looked down at Esther’s unexpectedly peaceful face.

He had come as if drawn there, but he had nothing to say. So Esther spoke first, in a voice so faint it could barely be heard.

“Could yooou, maybeee, be Lieutenant Colonel Han Gyeoul...?”

“Yes. It’s me.”

“...”

Her limp, malformed hand twitched. Hostility surged behind him. Gyeoul raised a hand. A signal not to shoot. When he glanced back, more than one muzzle was stuck halfway up.

“Everyooone, must be, surprised...”

Esther muttered gloomily. Even in this state, her radio-reflection vision seemed to be fine.

“Welll, I suppose, someone like, meee, would be, frightening...”

After a sigh, she suddenly recited a verse from the Bible.

“Those who are wise shall shiiine, like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn maaany, to righteousness, like the stars, forever and everrr... Book of Daniel, chapter 12, verse 3...”

“...”

Turning many people to righteousness meant spreading faith. Esther wore a painful smile.

“Lieutenant Colonel. You seeee, I thought, I would become, a star. In God’s, kingdom, high abooove... But nowww, I do not, sparkle, at all.”

The greatest pain of the girl who had become a monster was that she had lost the star.

Not that she herself had become a monster.

Footnotes:

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