WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

Chapter 65

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Seventh California (2)

The Humvee jolted violently. The unpaved road had been bombed so many times it barely counted as a road anymore. Military vehicles already had terrible ride quality, so everyone inside felt every dip and ridge in full. Sometimes it was honestly better to leave the road entirely.

From the front passenger seat, Gyeoul opened the window. He rested his arm on the frame and let the winter wind hit his face, hoping it would chase off at least some of the 「Drowsiness」.

Fatigue was eating through his stamina. He could feel his overall performance dropping. No surprise there. He had fought all night, stabilized the refugee zone, helped put out fires, and now he was on a rescue operation.

Camp San Luis Obispo had failed to survive last night's crisis. Battlefield Control Aircraft deployed by Blockade Command had identified troops moving north out of the garrison, along with refugees and civilians, and massive mutant hordes chasing them.

The pursuit was unfolding across a vast area, dozens of kilometers wide in both directions. 「Trickster」 jamming had been spread across key points. They were sticking close to survivors to avoid airstrikes. The scattered regimental combat teams still had not restored their chain of command. At least, that was what Gyeoul had been briefed.

"Want one, sir?"

A driver from Bravo Company held out a pill bottle to Gyeoul. The plastic bottle was full of white tablets stamped Provigil. It was a stimulant issued to U.S. troops.

He hesitated, then took it. At least so far, no side effects had been found.

'Though for that, it works way too well.'

Three Provigil pills could keep someone awake for three days.

Gyeoul put a tablet in his mouth and took a long pull from the tube connected to his Camelback. (Camelback: a backpack-style water pouch, like carrying a camel's water sack on your back.) The enemy showed up before the drug even kicked in. The turret gunner shouted a warning about a mutant group.

"12 o'clock! Large mutant group on the move! Special mutants 「Grumble」 confirmed! Distance about 400!"

The terrain around them was lined with low ridges. They had just crossed a watershed and started down the slope, so they could clearly see the opposite ridge hundreds of meters away. Just as the gunner said, a dense mass of mutants crawled in the distance like a swarm of insects. The large outline among them was 「Grumble」.

But Gyeoul did not need to get ready to fight. A static-filled radio call came through.

「TF David. This is Big Bird 3. Mutant group approaching your position confirmed. Hold briefly. We'll rain fire on those bastards.」

At their 6 o'clock, behind them in the sky, a large aircraft was circling slowly. It was a gunship (AC-130), the one the U.S. government had boasted about deploying in large numbers for blockade operations.

That aircraft could fly in a wide circle and keep pouring fire into its center point.

The moment the driver slowed, fire support began.

It was exactly what it sounded like: a rain of fire. Mutants were blown apart in huge numbers. Three different kinds of explosions swallowed everything. Chunks of human-shaped things flew dozens of meters into the air.

The heavy cannon blasts, booming every ten seconds, targeted only 「Grumble」 from start to finish. House-sized explosions chased the monster across the ground. Because the fire came from the sky, not a single direct hit landed. But they were not really missing either. The indirect shock alone carried more destructive force than alpha-grade Physical Resistance could handle.

「Grumble」 kept rolling under the impacts, unable to stand, then reached a point where it could not rise at all.

Finally, three airbursts detonated in succession. Shells exploding overhead scattered fragments across a much wider area. Mutants that had survived in scattered pockets up to that point dropped in heaps every ten seconds.

An area the size of a school field filled with blood, flesh, and the smoke of burning propellant.

The driver whistled.

"The Air Force is really backing us up."

"Sure is."

Gyeoul took his finger off the trigger guard.

Horrified by last night's losses, Blockade Command had committed its air assets without holding back, even those originally reserved for containment-cutoff operations. Their judgment was simple: since the 「Trickster」 self-destruct EMP radius was estimated at around 1 km, aircraft flying above that altitude would face little threat.

Thanks to that, the rescue mission became much easier.

Their first rescue target was a tank platoon that had run out of fuel. West of Paso Robles, along a winding path between ridges, four tanks had stopped in disarray.

Mutants were swarming all over them. Even mutated, they still only had human hands and feet, yet they were frantically trying to claw open armored steel with them. They were packed so densely the inside was hard to see. Maybe because of the noise they were making themselves, they failed to hear vehicles slowly rolling down from the ridge.

This was one situation where air support was hard to use. If they blanketed the area, the tank crews would be torn apart too. Bravo Company prepared for dismounted combat.

"Can we contact the crews?"

When Gyeoul asked, Company Commander Captain Esher nodded.

"They're all alive. Don't think they're in a good mental state, though."

Of course not. Tank interiors were cramped. They had spent hours trapped inside, listening to mutants scrape at the armor, with no certainty rescue was coming.

The fight was very short. Bravo Company spread wide to left and right and opened fire. One of the center Humvees carried a high-speed automatic grenade launcher. It spat forty grenade rounds a minute, each one comparable to a hand grenade. Sweep that across a line and it could kill hundreds.

Small explosions rolled from left to right. Compared to Air Force bombing, "small" was the right word. But the result was clear. The mutants died where they climbed uphill.

As the company moved in, the tank crews crawled out at last. Some cried. Others laughed nonstop while greedily breathing outside air. The platoon leader looked a little more composed than the rest.

"Thank you for rescuing us."

The tank platoon leader was a lieutenant named Edmund Durant. He looked terrible. He saluted Captain Esher, then noticed Gyeoul and looked stunned.

"So you were real?"

"..."

Not exactly stable. Gyeoul questioned his mental state. Thankfully, he was not insane. He just seemed so worked up that unfiltered words were spilling out.

While the tanks were being refueled, Lieutenant Durant asked Captain Esher:

"Did anything happen at Camp Roberts? No, if you came this far out to support..."

His meaning was obvious even as he trailed off, and Captain Esher shook his head.

"No. Your unit wasn't the only one hit. We went through something just as bad. Who would've imagined an ordinary organism using EMP? And infiltrating other mutants on top of that."

"Huh? It happened there too?"

"You really have no idea what's going on."

"Don't even ask. It was hell all night. I barely remember how I even got into my vehicle. We couldn't contact higher command, mutants were pouring in from every direction, civilians were screaming for help... In the middle of all that, 1st Battalion of 「Second California」 probably took heavy losses. They stayed to the end guiding refugees."

His face darkened as he remembered the night. Then he asked again.

"Then how bad was the damage at Camp Roberts?"

"Thanks to one ensign here, we avoided major losses."

Captain Esher jerked his chin toward Gyeoul.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Ensign Han was the one who brought in the 「Trickster」, and he must have found something off about it. He asked the duty commander to raise alert status, got denied, then moved troops on his own initiative."

"On his own? A mere ensign? Isn't that pointless?"

"Considering this guy's record, it isn't strange at all. Embarrassing for me to say as a company commander, but sometimes I feel like more soldiers in my company like Ensign Han better than me."

They're really having this conversation right in front of me. Gyeoul forced an awkward smile at his company commander.

After refueling, the tank platoon joined Bravo Company's rescue mission. The company welcomed the addition with obvious relief.

"They're pig bastards that drink three liters of gasoline just to start, but there's not much as reliable as those things. Solid and tough."

At this point, there were no infected mutants that could handle a moving tank. In front of a tank main gun, even 「Grumble」 was just prey.

Gyeoul tapped the Tracker monitor a few times. U.S. military vehicles were networked, so they could track each other's positions in real time and share information.

Luckily, the tank platoon's equipment did not seem to be damaged by EMP. Their position showed up correctly. Through cameras mounted on the tanks, they could also watch other directions. It was a system the U.S. military had built to survive after fighting wars in all kinds of places and enduring urban combat and terrorism.

"Who taught you that, sir?"

A soldier in the rear seat asked, impressed. Gyeoul had only recently become an officer, yet he handled complex equipment with ease, so the soldier looked curious. It also helped that they were not as familiar with him as Charlie Company was. Gyeoul gave a casual answer.

"Captain Capston taught me."

"Ah."

Of course that was not true. He had simply known it. The soldier was not going to walk up to the captain and fact-check it, so it did not matter.

Their next rescue coordinates were west of Templeton, the town below Paso Robles. The task force crossed several ridges and entered the western plain near the town. Gyeoul said:

"Everywhere we go, it's vineyards and orchards."

The driver answered:

"This is California, sir."

The vineyards they had raced through last night while chasing 「Trickster」 west of San Miguel had been huge, but this place was even more extensive.

As they drove along the road, a wandering mutant cut in diagonally and blocked their path. It looked like one that had fallen behind the main group. Normal mutants still had poor intelligence. It just charged straight in, not caring about collision.

The mud and leaves caked on its body were worth noting, though. He had seen something like that before. Gyeoul judged that they had developed basic camouflage habits of their own.

Right then, the vehicle bounced and the gunner's shot missed. Damn it. Cursing under his breath, the driver ran the mutant over. Thud. True to the Humvee's toughness, the impact inside was not too bad. The driver shrugged.

"Doesn't it look like one of those bums who jump at your windshield to wipe it?"

Gyeoul tilted his head.

"A bum... If you put it that way, doesn't it sound kind of pitiful?"

"Get your car scratched a few times, sir, and you'll understand how I feel."

There was a quiet nostalgia in the soldier's bitter words. Driving along, stopping at a light, some drifter jumps out and suddenly starts wiping your windshield, asks for money, and when you refuse, scratches your car and bolts. Even that now felt like part of a past he wanted back.

For the soldier's sake, Gyeoul pretended not to notice and played along.

"I thought that only happened in places like New York."

"No way. It's actually easier around here. Lower chance of getting shot."

Gun ownership was so common in the U.S. that California, with stricter gun laws, ended up with relatively higher crime rates.

"Well, it's all old stories now anyway."

The roar of jet engines cut off the conversation. A fighter-bomber passed over the vehicle column and dropped bombs near the horizon.

Boom! The aerial bomb's power sent out a shockwave strong enough to see. Vegetation rippled outward over a wide area like wind moving through grass.

"We're almost there."

Gyeoul checked his weapon. It was habit.

============================ Author's Afterword ============================

1. If something comes up during the day, time gets extremely tight. It was like that yesterday, and today too. I went out during the day and ended up writing until dawn again.

Ugh... this is hard...

2.

Q. Ghozt: @Whoever it is, we need a male TS. We're out of TS.

A. ...?...????

What am I even supposed to say to comments like this? Why is there an @ mark here? (confused)

Q. graycrow: @I had some free time during a business trip and binge-read the whole thing. Same with Sealve and this story, thank you as always for the great writing. I'm really enjoying it. Thanks to you, my dried-up childlike innocence is full of dreams and hope again. It seems like you'll become a commercial writer now, and I hope it goes well. You probably won't have much time, but please keep taking care of Sealve too. Maybe because you're writing this with commercial publication in mind, it felt like you held back your childlike innocence a little on this side........

A. Is that so? I thought this worldbuilding was pretty full of childlike innocence... Whew, I still have a long way to go. I heard a game called Darkest Dungeon is good for recharging childlike innocence, so I should wait for a sale.

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