WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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Chapter 427: Dawn, or Twilight (7)

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Not many mutants stayed active on a subzero night with a biting wind. Only the ones serving as the sleeping horde’s eyes and ears wandered about as if on patrol.

Because of that, the army’s organized killing proceeded quietly.

Gunshots suppressed by silencers vanished into the wind before they had traveled even thirty meters.

By contrast, the average engagement distance was about a hundred meters. In the view provided by night-vision goggles, countless infrared lasers wove dizzily as they aimed at their targets. Whenever the snow piled here and there scattered like fog, the beams stood out sharply. The mutants died without even realizing they were dying.

Once a provisional defensive line had formed, the communications soldiers got busy. To communicate without risking exposure, they had to set up a wired network. They also installed antennas for exchanging directional radio signals. The command armored vehicle carried the same equipment. The advantage was that there was no risk of radio leakage, but the drawback was that communication would suffer if the transmitting and receiving angles drifted even slightly.

‘A drawback worth accepting.’

Thinking that, Gyeoul turned back at a tickling sensation. Three mutants were sniffing at unfamiliar tracks from 170 meters away.

Alpha Company’s 1st Platoon was closer, but it would be faster to kill them himself than to order someone else to do it. Gyeoul aimed his rifle. As the staff flinched, he pulled the trigger three times in short bursts.

Tuk, tuk, tuk. The ejected casings punched deep into the snow.

There was no smell of gunsmoke, thanks to the gas mask. The recoil felt a little muted too. They had tried to make the suit light, but a CBRN protective suit made to withstand the cold as well could not help being thick.

“Sir.”

Communications officer Evans called to Gyeoul.

“This is a report from Bravo 3 Alpha. They say they killed some strange mutant, and it would be best if you confirmed it personally.”

“A strange mutant?”

Gyeoul tilted his head, glancing toward the direction where Bravo Company’s 3rd Platoon should be.

“Is it a special mutant that has never been observed before?”

“If they are asking you to confirm, the possibility seems high, does it not?”

“Any losses during the engagement?”

“None, they say. At the very least, that means it was not a monster born for combat.”

Hearing that, Gyeoul narrowed his brow. An unknown special mutant, here of all places? If something like a Keshik or Kagan had appeared, the quiet battle would have been over, but from a commander’s perspective, that was still better than a completely unknown variable.

“I will go take a look... Evans, come with me. Major, stay here and coordinate the overall situation.”

Major Singh nodded. It was hard to find anyone with more insight into mutants than Gyeoul.

They arrived quickly.

After getting out of the armored vehicle, Gyeoul made contact with Bravo Company’s 3rd Platoon. Platoon leader Li Ailing greeted Gyeoul with visible tension.

“Where is the one I need to check?”

When Gyeoul asked, she gestured to one side.

“Here.”

The scene he soon found was deeply strange. There were signs that mutants had deliberately cleared some of the snow around the area. At the center lay five ragged mutant remains. Four were ordinary mutants, but the last one was swollen like bloated flour dough. The fat mutant lay on its back facing the sky, buried in the ground with only half its upper body and face exposed. Its skin gleamed with thick, sticky mucus, and traces of vomit had overflowed around its mouth. Bullet marks were stamped into its chest.

Asbestos plates, wooden boards, and other such things were scattered around as well, gathered from who knew where.

‘Were those used as rain covers?... I can write off the mucus as something like antifreeze secreted to endure the cold, but what about the vomit? It is rare to vomit after death.’

As expected, the one who answered that question was Li Ailing, who had discovered it first. She gave her account with open disgust.

“This monster was eating what the other mutants vomited up.”

“It was?”

“Yes. Seeing them go out of their way to feed something that looked like it could barely move on its own, I judged that it must be an individual with some important role among the mutants.”

“Could barely move on its own...”

Gyeoul thought it was a little different. If it had buried its bloated body in the last few days, pieces of broken frozen ground should have been scattered around. But the ground around the buried body was uniform and hard. It looked as if the mutants that had come to feed it vomit had trampled it down, and then it had frozen that way.

In other words, this monster had not moved for quite some time.

What if that meant it had no need to move at all?

“First, dig this thing out.”

Everything should have been recorded on helmet cameras, so there was no need to preserve the scene. At Gyeoul’s order, Li Ailing selected one team of riflemen. The other half of that squad took charge of the surrounding perimeter.

Digging into frozen ground was never going to be easy. They had to break it first with pickaxes, then drive in field shovels. They also had to worry about the noise from the pickaxe work. Realizing it would take a long time, Gyeoul took a shovel from one soldier. He stripped away the frozen earth with pure strength. Chunks of soil cracked and collapsed as he cleared them away again and again. In only a few breaths, Gyeoul exposed most of the special mutant.

Most, not all, because the monster’s limbs gradually split into thinner strands and burrowed into the ground.

‘What the hell is this?’

Gyeoul narrowed his eyes. Where hands and feet should have been, there were things like twisted threads connected to it. When he chopped one off with the edge of the shovel, a faint smear of mucus and blood came away. Tough muscle fibers formed the core.

Seized by a chilling premonition, Gyeoul dug up the surrounding ground with terrifying speed. The plague-stricken roots stretched horizontally at a certain depth. No matter how much he dug, he could not find their end. The faces of the soldiers watching hardened. Even with only their eyes showing, their expressions were easy to read.

“Evans.”

Gyeoul set down the shovel and gave an order, his face stiff.

“Relay this situation to each Company. Tell them to pick locations at random and check under their feet. Also inform command that we have discovered a new special mutant, and request a sample transport drone to these coordinates. I will leave drone guidance to you.”

“Understood.”

Evans hurried off. Communications with command had to use the directional antenna.

If Gyeoul’s guess was right, however, preventing further radio exposure no longer had any meaning.

‘This is probably a communication network made of nerve bundles.’

Eurasia was vast, even more so than the Americas. On this wide continent, even maintaining direction was not easy for the mutants. So he had expected it. Someday, a special mutant with abilities similar to the Trickster would appear.

But he had never thought it would be like this...

“Haha.”

Gyeoul laughed because it was simply too absurd.

The giant airship holding position above the operation area as both aerial battery and control headquarters, Patrick Henry-class ship No. 2 「Gyeoul Han」, was difficult to see with the naked eye despite its overwhelming size. That was because its gasbag and hull had been coated in pitch-black paint.

A small experimental area existed inside the airship. Originally, it was a simple facility prepared to identify components when soldiers were exposed to unfamiliar chemical agents, but it was more than enough to examine the composition of the 「Root」. It had a microscope and samples, and the person in charge was a doctoral-level researcher dispatched from the CDC. If they could not reach a conclusion there, they could also send the data back to the mainland.

Gyeoul attended the remote meeting from inside the command armored vehicle.

“In conclusion, this is highly likely to be their real communication network.”

The commanders on the screen let out long and short sighs, one after another.

「That is correct.」

Lieutenant General Rogers confirmed it in a mechanical tone.

「The large-scale movements of mutants detected a little while ago across the Tibetan Plateau and Southwest China would fit the same pattern. The movement routes of every group are aimed precisely at this location.」

It was circumstantial evidence that, at least within that range, a neural network resembling that root was connected. Given the method, it seemed likely to spread slowly.

If the ones on patrol had been periodically reporting that nothing was wrong, there was no way the cunning things failed to notice when that contact was cut off all at once. In that case, it would not be strange if they had guessed this side’s scale, even roughly, and begun moving on a large scale.

Or the root itself might have the ability to detect changes in pressure or vibration.

「Most of them will likely have difficulty becoming a direct threat in time, but the number expected to reach this place by sunrise alone is estimated to exceed 100,000 at maximum. It seems they pushed quite a few of them this way while using the fire as cover. In roughly two hours, we should be able to visually observe the vanguard.」

Quantity became quality. Even without counting the special mutants mixed in with them, it was a scale that could not be ignored.

Colonel Brusilov of the airborne troops (VDV) 217th Regiment grumbled.

「Damn it. Releasing the Tricksters was like handing a wireless network to bastards already laying down a wired one. What the hell are these sons of bitches?」

Major General Zverev replied.

「I do not know whether that filthy nerve bundle can break through even Siberia’s frozen ground, but if it can, then even without the Trickster, the Russian mainland would have been in danger someday. If those things no longer lose their way, our quarantine front is finished that day. We will see them pouring in by the hundreds of millions.」

In the end, that meant Russia had made the wise choice by accepting the deal with America.

‘Necrotoxin is a problem too.’

Likhoradka and Chernobog. Mutants contaminated with radiation, appearing in the Russian region. Because of them, the necrotoxin concentration on the Russian quarantine front was rising bit by bit every day. The cycle for rotating units deployed to the front line had no choice but to grow shorter and shorter. At that rate, the day would eventually come when they had to shrink the front.

「Do not worry too much.」

Lieutenant General Rogers said.

「In the worst case, we will use nukes as planned. This is not our land anyway.」

The lieutenant general had been given authority to use a limited number of nuclear shells at Rogers’s discretion. They were low-yield tactical nukes, and there were only five, but a nuke was still a nuke.

As China’s collapse had proven, a nuclear strike against a dense mutant horde generated a tremendous amount of toxin. The amount shed by Likhoradka or Chernobog was truly nothing compared to that.

For the U.S. government, concerned about the negative effects of toxins accumulating in the ecosystem, it must have been a decision reached after long deliberation. They would have taken into account the fact that this place was inland, far from the coastline.

Gyeoul hoped they would not truly be driven so far that he had to see a mushroom cloud.

「How far has the search of the ballistic missile base progressed?」

It was Major General Zverev’s question. Lieutenant General Rogers answered dryly.

「They are still breaking through the blast door at the entrance. It will take a little more time to enter the facility.」

Major General Zverev smacked his lips. He did not look especially disappointed. Only around twenty minutes had passed since the search team began trying to break in, and there was no way a blast door made to withstand nuclear attacks, as well as various infiltrations and sabotage operations, would be breached that easily.

Gyeoul wore a bitter smile.

‘I thought it might be open if we were lucky.’

The fact that the original plague had spread meant that it had somehow leaked from the place where it had been stored. Because of that, he had thought it was fair to hope the door had been abandoned while still open.

「Hmm...」

Lieutenant General Rogers suddenly furrowed his brow. Judging by the unclear voice coming through, a message seemed to have reached Rogers through internal ship communications.

「Our Lady says there is something new she would like to relay.」

Lady was the call sign assigned to Hwangbo Esther.

「She does, personally?」

Colonel Davydov asked, slightly flustered, and Lieutenant General Rogers nodded yes.

Footnotes:

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