The Little Prince in the Ossuary - Chapter 50

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

00050

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#Omens (6), Atascadero

The next day, Gyeoul returned to Atascadero. The mission: find the missing.

A larger force had been deployed than the day before, with additional support arriving from a camp to the south. Those troops had come first, established a bridgehead in the city's southern end, and put reconnaissance drones in the air to assist with the search.

The missing had become the undying dead, wandering the streets.

Thud.

A blunt gunshot. Gyeoul gave an infected soldier his rest. For appearances' sake, he had aimed for the heart, not the head. The body dropped onto the asphalt and convulsed.

"Bravo Company really took a beating."

Elliot grumbled, dragged along again today. All the missing from Atascadero were from 2nd Company. Not a concentrated loss by chance, just a matter of mission rotation.

"Setting American soldiers aside, how are we supposed to identify the Chinese missing?"

A fair point. American infected were easy to spot. They wore combat uniforms. Aerial reconnaissance alone was enough to confirm them.

Chinese refugee volunteers were a different matter. No markings whatsoever. Command had practically written them off. Gyeoul knew the answer, though.

"It's not impossible. We can narrow the search to East Asian infected, and above all, they'll have tattoos."

"Tattoos? What, like the Red Mafia?"

Another soldier frowned, confused. Russia's criminals, the Red Mafia, tattooed their affiliation and criminal history onto their bodies. In exhaustive detail. If they had killed, how; what sentence the court handed down; how many years they served. A kind of service record, carved into skin.

"Something like that," Gyeoul said. "Most of the Chinese missing are Triad."

The soldiers shook their heads. The Triad had been a notorious criminal organization even before the catastrophe. From where they stood, refugees who openly claimed to be criminals didn't sit well.

Finding the Chinese missing proved difficult. Even after Gyeoul shared what he knew, everyone in the operation dragged their feet, from enlisted men to NCOs and officers alike.

So from the point when all the American missing had been confirmed, the search effectively continued only in the sector Gyeoul was handling. Cold calculation lay behind it.

'A group that invokes chivalry while being a criminal organization. I should put them in debt while I have the chance.'

The further a group strays from social norms, the more it leans on principles to hold itself together. The organization's leadership would think differently, of course. But they couldn't afford to deny the organization's identity. That would be suicide.

Soldiers who didn't know any of this admired Gyeoul's character.

"You're searching this hard for people who aren't even your countrymen. You really are something else, Ensign-nim."

Gyeoul genuinely believed the living took priority over the dead. Part of why he didn't spare himself when making roses bloom.

Still, no reason to shatter their good impression of him. He kept quiet and devoted himself to the search. If a glance said non-Asian, he shot for the head. If it looked Asian, he tried to bring it down with as little damage as possible.

"Found one."

He opened the dead man's shirt and gestured for the soldiers to look. Inside a triangle, a single character had been tattooed.

"What writing is this?"

Chinese characters were difficult for Westerners. To Gyeoul, it was a character that needed no skill compensation at all.

"Hong (洪). Means 'vast.'"

One of the Triad's most recognizable symbols. The three strokes of the water radical (氵) represented the three founding organizations: the Qingbang (靑房), the Honghuahui (紅花會), and the Heishehui (黑蛇會, distinct from 黑社會). Together. United. That was what the character meant.

"So these three dots stand for the three founding organizations? Ha. That's something. How do you even know that, Ensign-nim?"

Gyeoul shrugged it off.

"China and Korea share a lot of the same cultural roots. Picked it up somewhere."

Plausible enough. The soldier nodded and left it at that.

The dead man's back and chest were covered in tattoos. Even Gyeoul couldn't read them all. But the sheer elaborateness told him enough. Not a common foot soldier. A dragon alone, however flashy, meant nothing in particular. These markings were different. Unmistakably distinct.

'Senior figure.'

The rival factions competing with the Triad for influence, the Heishehui (黑社會) among them, were under the protection of Captain Markert, the 1st Company commander. That was why Gyeoul had pegged the Chinese missing as Triad to begin with.

He turned the numbers over in his head. The Triad had already admitted to suffering severe losses. Lose close to a hundred members, seniors included, and there would be nothing left for self-defense.

When he got back, there would be contact again. Probably.

His train of thought cut off. A warning crackled through the receiver from the command post.

「Stop at current position. A group of infected mutants is approaching from the alley to your left-front. Estimated size: approximately 50. No special mutants or enhanced mutants confirmed.」

The soldiers dropped to one knee, following the young officer's lead.

The first mutant died the moment it stepped out. Gyeoul didn't give the soldiers a single chance. He shot them as they came, and the mutants fell without knowing what was happening. Exactly fifty-three. Two magazines.

He turned to the soldiers and held out his hand.

"Why are we even here?"

Elliot grumbled as he handed his over. Instead of answering, Gyeoul asked something else.

"Elliot. Doesn't something feel off to you?"

"Off? What does?"

Elliot batted away a cockroach as he asked. Gyeoul gestured at the corpses.

"They're all adults."

"What?"

"Don't you remember the infected babies from yesterday?"

At that, not just Elliot but all the listening soldiers grimaced. Distorted as they had been, they were still babies. And they had shot at them. The kind of thing that stays with you. But Gyeoul hadn't brought it up to torment them.

"There were so many babies yesterday. Why aren't there any today?"

"Well... now that you mention it."

Yesterday the infected babies had swarmed thick enough that rifles couldn't handle them, and they'd had to deploy scatter mines. Facing their uneasy expressions, Gyeoul reframed the question.

"Why did the Trickster only call out babies to begin with? If it was testing our firepower, calling adult mutants would've been far more effective."

The Trickster. That was the mutation code assigned to the special mutant that manipulated radio waves. Formally designated just that morning. A fitting name for what it had pulled.

"What do you think the reason is, Ensign-nim?"

"Generational difference."

The soldiers went quiet. Then they fell into step, hurrying to catch up with the young ensign already moving ahead.

"I don't follow. What generation are you talking about?"

"Talk while you work."

Gyeoul stripped the shirt off a male East Asian corpse. Reminded of their duties, the soldiers scattered half-heartedly. Going through the motions, they asked again what he'd meant.

"Think about it. That many babies appearing together in a group is already strange. My read is that the mutants are reproducing."

"What the f..."

Even in front of an officer, Elliot caught himself. Another soldier who had gone rigid stumbled over his words.

"Well... that's not impossible, actually. These things run on human biology. There's no reason pregnancy would be off the table. My god..."

Gyeoul laid out the rest.

"My hypothesis is this. The Trickster didn't choose not to call adult mutants. It couldn't."

A chill moved through the quicker soldiers. Gyeoul confirmed what they feared.

"Right. Children who surpass their parents. New abilities in a new generation. The Trickster is a special mutant that handles radio waves. The newly born mutants might, at minimum, already possess the ability to receive those same signals."

"Is that even possible?"

One soldier pushed back. When something horrifying stares you in the face, denial comes naturally.

"Isn't the possibility high? The Trickster already makes no sense to begin with. A living creature that tunes its own frequencies using bioelectricity and fires jamming signals. Did anyone imagine that was coming?"

"......"

"Don't make that face. If you're always prepared for the worst, whatever comes your way, there's nothing to despair over. That's how I see it."

A life lesson, learned young. Even before, Gyeoul had always lived with the worst in mind. He had never once expected anything from his parents.

Elliot sobered. "That's a sound point. We need to report this to the higher-ups."

"Don't worry. I have to file a report anyway."

After confirming nine more Chinese corpses, Gyeoul noticed a spot where the cockroaches had gathered especially thick. A few shots scattered them in every direction.

He and the soldiers went over and sifted through the pile. A soldier looked up.

"These are air-dropped emergency ration wrappers."

A lot of them. Enough for dozens of people, at least. No matter how he looked at them, they had been opened recently. The mass of insects had kept them from blowing away.

"Might've been the missing persons' last supper."

Something sad in Elliot's voice.

Inwardly, Gyeoul shook his head. This time, though, he kept the thought to himself.

#Unread Messages (3)

「Владимир : After finally breaking through the cursed ActiveX wall, the very first thing I experienced was the horrifying sensation of cockroaches crawling all over my body...」

「activeXfuckoff : God...」

「YeminROCK : Real talk, that was a genuinely horrible experience. Now I understand why "Days after Apocalypse" is so niche.」

「unitythroughzen : Did any of you feel it when Jeffrey caught the bugs? That crunch as they gave way. Wasn't it awful? Everyone, this is the weight of taking a life.」

「ElectronicBracelet : Shut up, you fake monk.」

「KILL : Who was that host anyway. Cockroaches crawling all over them and not even a flinch? I would've passed out.」

「storm224 : Same. I wanted to pass out just watching.」

「AntiClique : Idiots. Then just unsync.」

「RetiredYouth : 22222222」

「MarkIsGood : 33333333」

「Doochi : Seriously lol why would you stay synced through that, dumbasses lmao」

「ZzaraPappa : It's not that easy to unsync...」

「storm224 : Agreed. Couldn't do it.」

「Ppukku : Why? Why couldn't you? System error?」

「KILL : Not a bug. We just didn't want to break the immersion, you idiot.」

「Ppukku : Why? Why didn't you want to? Proving you're morons?」

「AekDda : You're the one proving something. Watch your attitude.」

「AntiClique : Can't even explain yourself lmao and you're taking it out on everyone else lmao」

「KILL : Hey, AntiClique. Do you even know what it means to be truly immersed in something?」

「KILL : I want to forget that this isn't real.」

「KILL : People like you, who only ever skim the surface, wouldn't understand in a hundred years.」

「まつみん : Why is everyone fighting? After such a wonderful experience, too.」

「AngryNeeson55 : ...A wonderful experience?」

「AekDda : Oh! まつみん! Hii!」

「まつみん : Hello!」

「FrankSausage : Our sex diplomat is here! Thought you'd gone quiet and left!」

「KimJongUnIsABastard : More importantly, まつみん, what did you mean just now? Wonderful experience?」

「MagnaCarta : Did まつみん break again?」

「まつみん : I did not! I meant it literally! It was a wonderful experience!」

「まつみん : I synced with a cockroach!」

「PooDongDong : Wait, what?」

「OldSpice : Were cockroaches a syncable object?」

「GrapesOfWrath : My god.」

「まつみん : They were! Only sight and smell synchronize, but that was more than enough!」

「まつみん : I peeked inside Gyeoul-ssi's clothes! Sniffing away at Gyeoul-ssi's scent, all mixed with sweat! Sniff! Sniff! Sniff! Ah, まつみん is okay dying now! はあはあはあはあはあはあはあ#!%[email protected]#%」

「MagnaCarta : She finally broke...」

「LendMeYourStrength : Syncing with a cockroach. I genuinely never would have thought of that.」

「MarkIsGood : What kind of drug do you have to be on to think of that?」

「まつみん : How rude! まつみん doesn't do drugs! I simply read the Sensory Synchronization manual! Everything is in the manual!」

「AngryNeeson55 : More surprising that you actually read those hundreds of user-hostile pages.」

「TasteZoomLaw : Facts」

「Don't_NickPun : To think anyone would actually read that.」

「NationalBreadDuty : I didn't even know there was a manual for it.」

「まつみん : Ahem! Japanese people are thorough!」

「GrapesOfWrath : I want a girlfriend like her...」

「KILL : Knowing about it won't help you though.」

「KILL : Who could actually immerse themselves in a bug. It'd just make the disconnect worse.」