WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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Chapter 437: Dawn, or Twilight (17)

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One of the headquarters staff officers immediately lashed out.

「Have you lost your mind? Is this really the time to sit around spouting that kind of nonsense?」

It was not a bad deal for the U.S. forces by any means, but they pushed back anyway because the situation was that absurd, and that urgent. Even if the second-line redeployment had gone off safely, the withdrawal had only just begun. For the command structure itself to waver at such a sensitive moment was beyond bewildering.

「No.」

Haha. Major General Kapralov laughed aloud, accepting the criticism.

「Do you not understand? I can make this demand because I know this is not the time.」

In effect, Kapralov had taken the rapidly worsening battle situation hostage.

「You have no other choice anyway. You have no way to force us to move. I doubt you want us all to dawdle around and die together!」

「Enough!」

Lieutenant General Rogers cut off the wasteful exchange.

「That is enough time wasted. The U.S. forces will withdraw first. But what happened here today will absolutely be brought up later.」

For a lieutenant general who rarely showed emotion, Rogers' voice was unusually strained with suppressed anger.

「Do as you like.」

That was Major General Kapralov's reply.

After the transmission ended, Gyeoul found that confidence strange.

'If testimony about this situation comes out, it will undermine the whole meaning of the airborne troops' sacrifice.'

Whatever the purpose was, at the decisive moment, Kapralov had threatened the U.S. forces by holding the safety of the entire task force hostage. Kapralov had even ignored the command structure they had agreed on in advance.

Was there some kind of insurance?

It had certainly been a little strange that Lieutenant General Rogers had listened in silence when Major General Kapralov first raised the allegation. Even Gyeoul had wondered for an instant whether it might be true.

The deaths of Gyeoul and Rogers, the two leading figures who had brought about the miracle of Olema, would clearly be a national loss for the United States. Yet from the standpoint of a country that had suddenly found itself sharing a border with a potential nuclear-armed enemy, there was at least a chance someone had made a strange calculation in an effort to pay less for this operation.

Different people read the scale of national interest in different ways.

But judging by Rogers' eventual anger, the chance that the "government policy" Major General Kapralov mentioned actually existed seemed low. Gyeoul came to that conclusion because he knew Lieutenant General Rogers to some degree. Rogers was far from a skilled actor.

So it was more reasonable to view that brief silence as evidence of momentary conflict.

「I did not want to come.」

「What could be easier than dying like a hero?」

Those were the drunken truths Lieutenant General Rogers had let slip in the past, after the people at the table had drunk vodka and left Rogers half-unconscious. There was more than enough room for Rogers to agonize over being told that the U.S. forces should go first.

Yet Rogers also had an even stronger sense of responsibility. In that sense, the lieutenant general could fairly be called rigid. If Rogers had truly wanted to avoid dying, there would have been ways to make an excuse and get out of it, as Gyeoul himself had once considered. But the lieutenant general had not done so, and even after coming here, Rogers had insisted on risky ground command. That was Rogers' idea of a soldier's duty and a commander's role.

So that anger was justified. This was only Gyeoul's guess too, but perhaps there had also been disgust toward Rogers' own wavering mixed into it.

Then what was the certainty Kapralov had shown?

As Gyeoul turned over the conversation in his mind between issuing orders, one chilling realization suddenly flashed through his head.

'This might be the result of an operation in itself!'

Previously, the Central Intelligence Agency agent who had spoken to Gyeoul over the phone in Leadville had gone so far as to say it was off the record before telling him a secret: 「There were many operations and backroom agreements in the process of persuading the Russians.」 The agent had also said, 「Please make sure you return safely. By then, Lieutenant Colonel, you will have become a god to the people who follow you.」

Had that been a hint about this very moment?

If so, the United States had used deception in order to bring its soldiers and war heroes home as safely as possible. In other words, to induce the Russian side to volunteer for the sacrifice. Of course, there would also have been Russian officials who deliberately let themselves be deceived in the process.

Maybe even the airborne troops generals had already been bought. They might have secretly agreed to receive compensation on the condition that they later revealed it had been a baseless, hasty judgment.

The Intelligence Agency had a strong motive too. They had invested a great deal in Gyeoul, and they expected even more from him. It was in their interest for Gyeoul to come back alive.

But for now, this line of inquiry meant nothing. It probably would continue to mean nothing. Even if his guess was true, who would testify that it was true?

Even so, the suspicion was not easy to erase, and Gyeoul tried to shake off the unpleasant feeling that kept distracting him.

Coming here to Ground Zero had been an incredibly difficult decision for Gyeoul. Now it felt as if mud had been splashed over that hard-won choice. He hated the muddy current that was flowing in irreversibly from beyond his reach, from beyond his limits.

Reporting it to Lieutenant General Rogers would be pointless. What would he gain by raising a suspicion without any evidence? It would only waste more time.

The best thing was to forget the problem he could do nothing about for now and focus on the responsibility he had been given.

Before long, the east began to brighten.

The sky turned indigo, and change came to the battlefield soaked in blue.

"Transmission from Avalon! The additional inflow of the mutant horde is rapidly decreasing!"

This was an observation result relayed by the aerial battery. After hearing the communications officer's report, Major Singh lowered the longsword, exhausted enough to seem almost convulsive. The Teratomas had been infiltrating even the battalion command post without pause, thanks to their tiny size.

Between rough breaths, Singh muttered wearily.

"So the strategic nuclear weapon worked..."

Singh had not directly taken part in the decision to launch the nuclear weapons, but an officer of Singh's level could not have failed to know why strategic nuclear weapons had been used. The terrifying power of the multiple-warhead nuclear missile still left enormous swelling updrafts in the sky beyond. Beneath them, the scorched earth was covered in remains all the way to the vanishing point.

With the pale colors of dawn and the deepening cold added to it, the barren plateau had turned into a landscape that seemed to lay out the frozen end of the world exactly as it was.

Yet that landscape was anything but still.

At a glance, the shape of the battle seemed unchanged.

Of course it was. Cutting off additional inflow only meant they had prevented the situation from racing toward the worst possible outcome. Even if the horde's waist had been severed, the mutant hordes already on the battlefield would not vanish right away. And after repelling all of those, they would have to face the Teratomas, which had no other hosts to devour and would all come surging toward this side. They would have to fight the entire number remaining in this area.

Still.

'There isn't much left now.'

They did not need to kill all of them. This side only had to leave by air.

The problem was that the farther the withdrawal progressed, the weaker the defenses of the troops left behind became.

He had never wanted to volunteer for that role, and he had not wanted things to turn out this way either... But should he be grateful that they had at least avoided being wiped out while fighting over who got to escape first?

While Gyeoul assessed the battle situation from inside the command armored vehicle, parked with its rear open, an urgent report from 3rd Platoon, 3rd Squad came through on Alpha Company's channel, crackling with radio interference from radiation.

「David 1! This is 1-3 Charlie! Our IAAV has also been disabled! There are no mobile vehicles left in the squad now!」

IAAV was short for Interim Armored Airborne Vehicle. Most of them had held up well until now, but perhaps because they had been overworked amid severe contamination by foreign matter, vehicles were beginning to throw tracks or break down. It made sense, since they had been stopping the Teratoma waves by brutally trampling them. Even aside from that, many had lost practical combat ability after damage to external observation equipment.

Company commander Jin-seok asked irritably.

「Damn it! Emergency repairs?!」

「Impossible, sir! We cannot even identify what is causing the problem!」

「Then use it as a fixed battery and abandon it! 1-3 Charlie will be pulled back into reserve at the next position change!」

At this point, the company commanders' orders were mostly like that. Among them, Jin-seok was the best, not because of a difference in ability, but because of the calm and mental strength that came from real combat experience. If that counted as ability, then it was ability too.

As the defensive line kept shrinking, the battle itself became simpler, and there were fewer opportunities for Gyeoul to exercise command as the battalion commander.

As he had reminded himself when the battle intensified, now he only had to carry out his first and last duty as a commander.

Kiiiiii!

A Teratoma that had crawled across the ground bit the toe of Gyeoul's combat boot. Crack, crunch. The sound of tiny teeth being crushed in rows. It was an unusually weak one. It had no eyes, only two holes for a nose, so only the bright red mouth stood out on its round head. Their proliferation and division were so fast that deformities from radiation already seemed to be appearing.

Even as Gyeoul stomped it to death, he felt nothing beyond being sick and tired of them.

They were a terrible enemy that made superhuman combat power nearly worthless.

The ballistic missile base search unit was the first to leave Ground Zero. Since they included civilian specialists, they had to be protected as top priority regardless of the mission's success or failure.

Among the remaining U.S. forces, the Independent Battalion's turn came last. Even so, that turn arrived surprisingly quickly. The U.S. forces did not make up a large proportion of the task force. As Major General Kapralov had said, the Russian airborne troops were the true main force on the ground.

'If they had trusted Esther, we would not have had to suffer this much.'

Esther had the ability to block the inflow of the mutant horde from the beginning. If she had, the nuclear strike would not have been needed, and conflict would not have broken out between headquarters and the airborne troops. The withdrawal operation would never have had a reason to become this difficult in the first place.

He had personally stepped forward to persuade Esther, but that had only been to represent the consensus of the officers. As someone who trusted her, Gyeoul could not help feeling regret.

If the airborne troops ended up suffering enormous losses, how much pain would that leave in the heart of a girl who was barely holding herself together by helping people through faith? It would also be a crack in the calling she believed in.

Esther would agonize over it. If the Lord truly gave me a calling, why did He not create a role for me at the moment when people truly needed to be saved?

Of course, she had already saved many people on the Central American quarantine front. Even after she returned, there would be many people for her to save for some time.

But she, too, must know that today's battle was special. Was this not literally an operation to save humanity?

Even if her body was that diseased, what was inside was still a girl. There was no way she had not held great expectations. In the end, the powerlessness she felt today would slowly gnaw away at Esther's heart.

And she did not have much life left as it was...

Gyeoul had a premonition that her end would be far from restful.

"Sir! It is our turn! It is finally our turn!"

Evans, who had received the notice from headquarters, cheered with both fists clenched. Without knowing the hidden circumstances, anyone would have no choice but to rejoice at the fact that they were escaping this hell, whatever happened to those left behind.

Gyeoul picked up the radio.

"David Actual to all David units. Withdrawal will proceed in the order of Charlie-Bravo-Delta-Alpha. Repeat, Charlie-Bravo-Delta-Alpha. Break. David 1, 2, and 4 will hold present positions until further orders. Break. David 3 will hand over defensive positions to Stolichnaya 1 as of this moment. Report when handover is complete. Over."

Vehicles and soldiers of the airborne troops' 331st Regiment covered the Independent Battalion's withdrawal. As they gradually filled the empty spaces left by the battalion, the battalion moved to the transfer point while abandoning every vehicle it had. There was no worry of the mutants or Teratomas capturing them anyway, so the surplus armored vehicles would be useful for the Russian forces to hold out until the very end.

The Russian soldiers they occasionally passed glanced at the departing Independent Battalion soldiers with envy, jealousy, fatigue, fear, and other feelings they could not quite hide.

It seemed that even among the airborne troops, only a handful of people knew the exact circumstances.

At last, when the time came, Gyeoul climbed into the helicopter with a troubled heart. Ground Zero, which he looked back on one last time before leaving, was still a battlefield where the life and death of humans and monsters fiercely crossed.

Footnotes:

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