WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 414: Wind from High Places (12)
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The wall that twisted and collapsed with a crunch and a crack was actually three enhanced variant Whippers, their bodies layered over one another as they mimicked even the graffiti, cracks, and bloodstains. What they had taken for cracks were the gaps between individual bodies. From behind them, a swarm of smaller things poured out.
“Grenades!”
The moment the platoon leader screamed, grenades fired all at once tore mercilessly through a wide horizontal area. The explosions murdered every other sound. In that noisy silence, Gyeoul kept firing, a little dumbfounded despite himself. He had suspected as much, but the Whippers’ camouflage was beyond anything he had expected.
‘I did think an enhanced variant’s camouflage might be enhanced too, but-!’
The graffiti he had seen earlier had crossed over the split boundaries. In other words, different individuals could create a single continuous camouflage pattern together.
When he shifted his footing, he stepped on the heap of spent casings scattered across the floor. They had come from the light machine gun blazing away beside him. The belt was being swallowed at a frightening speed, and brass and links spat out just as quickly. An unbroken roar of fire, the force to shred everything in its line of fire. The flood of lashing whips was neutralized. A Whipper with a damaged appendage let out a scream no one could hear.
Yet even under that much firepower, some of them slipped out of the kill zone to the left and right. The front line had served as a shield for the rear. At that instant, every window across the airport front shattered at once.
“Go to hell, bastards!”
The ones charging in with that curse over the radio were airborne armored vehicles that had been waiting after receiving word. The moment powerful, overlapping lights illuminated the swarm of bony dwarfs, a violent trio of machine guns, autocannons, and recoilless rifles erupted in direct fire. The few remaining panes of glass shattered and sprayed everywhere.
“Kill them all!”
The order to kill every last one of them came harshly. Each weapon in the trio had its own pitch. After firing high-explosive rounds as the first shots, the second rounds from the recoilless rifles contained 2,200 tungsten pellets each. The mutants’ bodies dissolved like sugar dropped into water. Dozens of pairs of Scamper reverse-jointed legs kicked up against gravity.
The radio grew noisy. Fighting had broken out elsewhere inside the building too. As expected, there had not been only one camouflaged wall. After hearing the concerto of gunfire here, the ambushers must have realized their hiding places had been exposed.
The troops deployed on the outer defensive line had already been told not to move.
‘If I were the Trickster, I’d attack from inside and outside at the same time too.’
Once this side saw through the trap, the diversion plan fell apart, but the enemy would at least be ready to rush in. They could not show any opening in the defensive line.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!”
Nothing in sight was moving anymore. Gyeoul heard a sigh and turned his gaze. It was the machine gunner. In that short time, the man’s support weapon, an M240L, had poured out six hundred rounds, and the middle of the barrel was glowing red-hot. Faint smoke rose from it. Even so, its reliability was far better than the old M60, whose barrel began warping after only two hundred rounds of sustained fire.
While the gunner quickly changed barrels, Gyeoul took in the slaughtered mutants. The gunfire that had been coming from other directions and the upper floors gradually faded as well.
‘Maybe I didn’t need to come personally.’
He had left battalion command to Major Singh and come here because he had judged that his individual combat ability and quick response might be needed. If the graffiti-covered walls were curtains holding plague, there was no telling what might be beyond them. If even a Grumble ran wild indoors, one Gyeoul would be better suited to responding than armored vehicles with limited maneuverability.
Kakakang!
A three-round burst flashed from Gyeoul’s muzzle. A Whipper that had looked like a corpse convulsed. It had been changing its skin color to imitate bullet holes and bleeding wounds. Less than half of its wounds had been real. It must have been waiting for its final chance before death, one last attack. If it quietly infected even one person, luck alone could turn that into a disaster.
“Wow, seriously...”
The Ranger platoon leader clicked his tongue. His expression said he had no words. The other soldiers nervously fired confirmation shots into the dead Whippers. It was closer to venting anger.
“This is Sun Dance 3-1 to command post. Second floor secured. We will check for additional ambushes.”
“This is Sun Dance 1-1...”
Sun Dance was the call sign assigned to Charlie Company of the 2nd Ranger Battalion. Reports followed one after another, saying engagements had ended at three locations without casualties.
Even so, the graffiti had been the blind spot. Nobody had imagined that walls covered in graffiti, prayers, despair, and curses would be Whippers. At first, even Gyeoul had only found them eerie. If they had not found the stone fragments that should have been here outside the building, they would likely have been ambushed in the end. This camouflage exceeded what had been reported.
“These things were enhanced variants, right?”
Gyeoul nodded at the approaching platoon leader’s question.
“Definitely.”
Otherwise, they could not have disrupted Gyeoul’s senses so perfectly. When he had seen them during the day, there had practically been no gaps at all. Gyeoul realized that a brush with death had passed without him even noticing, and a corner of his chest went cold. He had nearly been separated forever from the world where Anne was. He could not put a system insurance policy in place, and Bom had declared there would be no interference in this world until the day Bom heard his answer.
He must have let his guard down. There had clearly been signs. Somewhere deep down, he must have thought this mission was only a preparatory stage for the Ground Zero Vacuum.
A sudden flood of sensation poured toward the secluded blind spot in the space where the wall had disappeared and the tiny things had been hiding. Gyeoul caught a dark outline.
“There was one more...!”
The exposed shadow thrashed as if having a seizure. A Whipper dyed pitch-black and melted into the shade lashed out, crossing paths with Gyeoul’s instinctive return fire.
“Sir! Fall back!”
Urgh! Gyeoul blocked the blow with his rifle and tried to dodge sideways, but the appendage that had bounced away dropped exactly where he was moving. Crunch! The corpses lying there were crushed in a line. With a contraction of muscle, the whip snapped back like a flexible sawblade, horribly ripping apart the dead mutants.
This one was also an enhanced variant. It seemed to be a rank above the ones that had died first. Gamma-class at minimum. Its appendage was fast, and its swing radius was wide. On top of that, it grew faster toward the end. That was the nature of a whip made entirely of enhanced muscle. The farther the distance, the worse the match-up became. If he retreated, it would only get more dangerous.
Avoiding the wind ripping sideways, Gyeoul rolled forward instead.
Kieeeeeek!
The formless monster raged. The closer the appendage was to the root, the slower and weaker it became. The tip also had to travel a longer arc, making its movements easier to read. It would have been impossible for an ordinary person, but Gyeoul could see it and dodge. Perhaps the Whipper knew that too, because it tried to retreat. Yet this deformed monster had developed its body’s stability for the ferocity of its appendage. In other words, it lacked the ability to move nimbly at point-blank range.
Gyeoul pulled the trigger.
An ominous metallic sound. Click. A round jammed in the chamber. His sensitive fingertips picked up the subtly twisted center of balance. When he had blocked the whip, the magazine had bent and thrown the rounds out of alignment. Gyeoul let out a short groan, immediately switched to his pistol, and fired five shots. His body reacted to the approaching sound of tearing air. He advanced, using the movement as an evasion. Clenching his teeth, he landed seven more shots. The appendage twisted in pain. Its movements grew even more irregular.
Tang! Ranger support fire struck home. Even if rapid fire was impossible, accurate single shots were still possible. The designated marksman had that much skill. Blood sprayed from the monster’s tough body.
With a pistol holding nine rounds in one hand, Gyeoul drew his sword for defense. Since Sacramento, he had believed he would never again have to use a sword in actual combat, but-
Kagagak!
At this moment, it was useful for both defense and keeping the enemy in check. Sparks flew from violent friction, and the infection wedges attached to the whip were shaved off by cold steel and fell away with a patter. Blood sprayed everywhere from the living whip. No matter how hard the spikes were, this blade was made of titanium alloy. He was not being pushed back much in raw strength either. In the instant bought by the sword strike, Gyeoul fired his pistol again. Tatang! Gunshots of another caliber mixed in. Again, from the designated marksmen behind him.
Thanks to that, the distance closed by two more breaths.
By then, the appendage’s power had visibly dropped as it bent far backward to strike. The sword shaved off another spike, and the pistol that had been spitting out casings finally exposed an empty chamber. Gunsmoke rose. The shrieking whip coiled around the forearm of Gyeoul’s pistol hand. Ignoring the pain squeezing tight around him, Gyeoul brought his longsword down with all his strength. A vertical slash with his body weight behind his arm strength. The root of the appendage lay inside the half-circle cut. Drrrk! The taut bundle of muscles tore apart with a horrible sound. A diagonal rising slash followed straight from the vertical chop and completely cut off the remaining base of the whip.
Kiiiiiii!
The monster convulsed. Beneath many thick eyelids, small, black, numerous eyes fixed on Gyeoul. The whites of every eye were bloodshot. Though it had lost its means of attack, the monster still had its pathetic teeth. It flailed its sluggish body, trying somehow to bite, and the blade he thrust hard into it sank deep. Crunch! His grip twisted sharply after stabbing. The Whipper’s struggle traveled all the way to the handle.
Gyeoul yanked the sword out roughly, then stabbed and struck the dying body again and again. The Whipper’s mollusk-like limbs clung to Gyeoul’s legs. Soon, though, they lost strength and drooped.
Gunfire rang out, and the shade flashed. The dead Whipper was battered by bullets. It was Gyeoul’s continuous fire after leaving the sword stuck in the corpse and changing pistol magazines. Gyeoul stopped shooting only after the chamber was empty again.
Then he realized there had been emotion in the violence just now. The locked-back slide was soaked in filthy blood. Dark droplets dripped down along the grip.
“Are you all right?”
At the tense question from behind him, Gyeoul answered that he was fine. When he looked back, the Ranger platoon leader was staring at Gyeoul’s forearm with a wary expression. A blood-red mark remained where the living whip had coiled around him. But his combat uniform had not been torn. The skin beneath it was even less likely to have been damaged.
“How... Your combat uniform blocked it.”
As the platoon leader slowly lowered the muzzle, it was clear he had been tense because he thought Gyeoul might have been infected. Gyeoul retrieved the longsword from the corpse, shook off the blood, and pointed its tip at the floor. The sword point trembled slightly. His breathing was still rough.
“Look.”
The yellow infection wedges he had cut away throughout the fight were scattered there. The platoon leader looked stunned.
“Did you calculate all that and deliberately give up your arm?”
“Not deliberately, but haah, I knew it was an attack I could allow. It worked out well in the end. I ended up pinning down its attack by accident.”
Gyeoul sheathed his sword and inspected his rifle while hiding his unease. He scraped out the warped live round and inserted a new magazine. Still, it felt less stable. That was only natural. Even if the armor was aluminum, he had blocked an attack capable of scarring an armored vehicle with the rifle body. He had reflexively let the pressure slide off, and that was the only reason it had survived. Otherwise, the whole thing would have been scrap.
A communications soldier held out a receiver to Gyeoul.
“Sir. Command and control room.”
From the faint static on the radio net and the difficult-to-understand echoes of the past mixed into it, he could guess that a Trickster was watching from a distance.
The person who had sent the radio message was Colonel Davydov. Leave the cleanup to the Rangers and come to the control room, he said. Gyeoul replied that he would be there soon. He thought the most lethal trap had been neutralized, but with an enemy like this, there was no telling what other variables might appear.
Footnotes:
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