WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

Chapter 87

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Night by the Lake (5)

“Attention, unidentified armed personnel! You are currently attacking the United States Army! Drop your weapons and come out! If you surrender, you will be treated fairly!”

His clear voice cut through the rain. Still, no response came from the woods across the hostile line. Had suppressive fire hit them? No. In the direction he was watching, Gyeoul spotted a red outline. The infrared sensor in his night vision picked up a heat source around human body temperature. Only part of an arm was exposed. It looked like someone was leaning behind a tree.

They could be Mexican refugees who crossed the border, or military or police personnel. They could even be Americans who did not speak English. Could they be infected mutants that got their hands on automatic weapons? No, probably not. In every run he had been through so far, that had never happened. Even if the Days after Apocalypse setting had been revised, that would still be true. Right now, mutants were barely at the level of using blades.

After thinking that through, Gyeoul shouted again.

“¡Ríndete! y serás tratado justamente! no tienes salida!”

To avoid wasting resources, he gave the warning from memory without technical correction.

At last, the heat source moved. It leaned its upper body out from the tree and seemed to be cautiously looking this way. The shape blurred in reddish orange, but it still had shadows. Even at that distance, he could make out the rough build, facial features, and clothing. At least it was not a soldier.

“Who are you people?! State your unit, rank, and name!”

Even hoarse and rough, it was a woman’s voice. Distrust, anxiety, and extreme fatigue were all clear. Gyeoul answered as ordered.

“I am Lieutenant Han Gyeoul, assigned under Blockade Command to the 160th Regiment of the 79th Regimental Combat Team at Fort Roberts! There seems to have been a misunderstanding, so drop your weapons and come out first! I guarantee both of your safety!”

“...Damn it, how are we supposed to trust that?!”

Gyeoul deliberately answered with force.

“You will have to trust it! If you do not surrender, we will blow you up with rockets!”

It was not a bluff. A soldier had already finished launch preparation and was waiting for the order.

After a short silence, a new voice spoke. This one was male.

“Fine! Let’s do this! I will come out alone first! I want to see your faces!”

It was a strange condition. Why faces of all things? Gyeoul quickly ran through the possibilities.

‘Visibility was good enough. They attacked even though they knew we were soldiers. That means there are other soldiers they are hostile to... what happened here?’

While he was thinking, the man revealed himself. An old man with a beard. He came out with both hands raised, then slowly set down his weapon. He turned in a full circle, showing he had no other weapons on him.

It took him some time to approach. Once he reached a reasonable distance, he knelt on his own. He put both hands behind his head. There was no warning from survival-type sensory correction. It did not look like a suicide attack. Gyeoul lowered his guard slightly and approached slowly.

He could feel countless eyes on his back. The platoon soldiers and combat engineers were all on edge.

“You said you wanted to see our faces?”

Gyeoul asked from a few meters away. The old man nodded. Gyeoul lifted his night vision device.

The old man gasped.

“Oh... this cannot be. You are that person I saw on TV. Even after hearing your name, I still thought no way...”

Then he looked at the wounded man still groaning. Then at Jeffrey’s soldiers, who were making no effort to hide their hostility, and the three combat engineers as well. The medic had no time to spare for this side. Guilt crossed the old man’s face. Lowering his head, he said:

“We made a terrible mistake.”

In a calm voice, Gyeoul reined in the soldiers’ hostility.

“I will hear the details in time. Please tell the other person to come out as well.”

“Very well.”

The old man turned and shouted behind him.

“Kathleen! Come this way! These people are not Captain Harris’s men!”

From behind the tree she had been hiding behind, a woman stepped out hesitantly. She threw down her weapon. Still visibly anxious, she came closer. She wore a dark olive uniform with a gold sheriff’s badge. When she got close enough and saw Gyeoul, she froze for a moment. Then, with a dark expression, she knelt.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”

Jeffrey let out a heavy sigh. He ordered two soldiers to collect the old man’s and the sheriff’s weapons. Two military rifles and one pistol. There was not much ammunition left. Other soldiers conducted body searches, but found no spare magazines or grenades.

From the sheriff’s and old man’s side, it had been a deeply desperate resistance. The whole situation was easy to read.

After the search, the soldiers restrained both of them. Their hands were pulled behind their backs and tied tight.

The medic reported the wounded man’s condition to the young officer.

“His life is not in danger. The bleeding has stopped. The bullet passed through his thigh, but it did not hit the artery. We do need to be careful about maintaining body temperature. I recommend evacuation as quickly as possible.”

Gyeoul was against it.

“If we evacuate him now, we have to split our forces. That is risky. It will be difficult to send him out right away. Still, understood. I will consider it. Good work.”

The wounded man, Private Gregg Gardner, was placed on a stretcher.

Gyeoul ordered movement and tighter perimeter security. They needed to move quickly. The firefight had been loud. If a large mutant group or an unidentified hostile U.S. military force was nearby, things could get ugly fast.

They could talk while moving. The young officer walked close to the two disarmed captives. Both looked deeply anxious, scanning their surroundings like frightened animals. Gyeoul asked them:

“Now, let’s hear it. Where are you from? Who is Captain Harris? And why did you attack us?”

The three separate questions were really one question. The sheriff answered quickly.

“We do not have time, so I’ll be brief. We are survivors from Camp San Luis Obispo. Captain Harris and his men are survivors from there too. We escaped together when the camp collapsed at dawn on Christmas.”

Had not all survivors from Camp San Luis Obispo already been rescued? Blockade Command had declared the operation complete. Gyeoul decided to hear the whole story first. The sheriff continued quickly.

“Even after we escaped the camp, we kept getting chased. Strange static kept coming through the radio while we were running. Normal transmissions and screams all mixed together in chaos...”

“Trickster.”

“Yes. So we could not even call for rescue. We saw recon aircraft a few times, but they did not find us. Which made sense. We hid in the mountains. I think the captain was a coward. He insisted we had to hide in rough terrain no matter what, to avoid mutants we could not even see.”

The sheriff criticized the captain’s judgment, but it was not necessarily wrong. Tricksters did not move alone. There was no guarantee there was only one. If his forces were small, and there were many civilians to protect, then avoiding combat was rational. It also meant they could not receive support from fellow U.S. forces.

Without showing anything on his face, Gyeoul continued.

“How did you end up in conflict with the soldiers?”

“It started with food. We had to run out in such a hurry that we could not pack anything. By day two, we ran out of fuel and had to abandon the vehicles too. Captain Harris argued that if they wanted to maintain combat power, food had to go to soldiers first. He said nobody knew when a fight might break out. Civilian survivors pushed back. They said food should be shared equally. Everyone was hungry, and the mood got worse by the day. Then...”

The sheriff squeezed her eyes shut. But in that short silence, what came next was not hard to guess.

“Did soldiers kill civilians?”

“Exactly.”

That answer did not come from the sheriff. The old man spoke of the tragedy.

“I think it may have started as an accidental killing. We do not know the exact trigger either. At dawn that day, when we woke up and realized something was wrong... the captain’s men were slaughtering civilians. They were out of their minds. Adults, children, they killed all of them. If not for a few soldiers with a conscience, we would not have survived either. They are dead now too...”

“Insane.”

The curse came from Corporal Liberman. It was rare for someone so even-tempered. When Gyeoul looked back, every soldier listening looked sick. Given everything from the first clash to now, the testimony seemed unlikely to be false. The soldiers seemed to feel the same. Much of the hostility had eased.

Even so, Gyeoul kept a sliver of doubt. It was simply his habit when dealing with people. You had to hear both sides before judging. If they met Captain Harris, they would need to attempt dialogue at least once.

Jeffrey spoke.

“Lieutenant-nim. If even half of this is true, we need to warn Meerkat. Tell them to watch out for a serial-killer group in U.S. uniforms.”

He was worried about the tank crew left behind to guard the vehicles. They also had to prevent those vehicles from being seized. But Corporal Liberman opposed it.

“That is dangerous. The Trickster that chased them might be nearby. We are not the only ones who can keep radio silence. And that bastard Captain Harris probably has a radio too, right? We could end up transmitting for nothing and just feeding information to the enemy.”

He had already decided Captain Harris was the enemy. Jeffrey frowned.

“Come on, Corporal. Even if they had one, it should have died long ago. It has been over a month since Camp Obispo fell. They have been wandering ever since. How would the battery still be alive?”

The sheriff cut in.

“No, they have portable solar chargers.”

“Jesus...”

Jeffrey groaned.

“We warn them.”

Gyeoul made the call.

“Assuming all their testimony is true, Captain Harris will keep chasing them to the end just to eliminate witnesses. Otherwise we would not have been attacked. Sheriff, am I right?”

“Yes. They have been chasing us the whole time.”

“Then we cannot leave Meerkat undefended. Even if we transmit, Meerkat’s position will not be exposed. We will use call signs, so they still will not know what is where. Even if there is a Trickster, that is better than letting Captain Harris kill our tank crew and take nine Humvees. He would become an even worse enemy than a mutant group.”

The Corporal shook his head, but did not object again. Gyeoul called the radio operator.

‘Could this transmission stay hidden?’

Possible, if none of their radios matched the frequency. But the odds were slim.

If a silent Trickster was nearby, the odds were worse. Those things copied transmissions and sprayed them across every frequency. If they intercepted this and started hunting, Gyeoul’s voice would mix with jamming noise and repeat endlessly over the air.

Holding the handset, Gyeoul hesitated, then finally pressed transmit.

“Meerkat, Meerkat. This is David Actual. From this point on, do not respond. Just listen.”

A skin-crawling noise bled into the once-clear channel. It was not very strong. He had expected this, so Gyeoul continued calmly.

“There is a high chance a group of U.S. military stragglers is operating nearby. They are suspected of massacring civilians. If you encounter U.S. soldiers with unclear affiliation, treat them as potential hostiles. First priority is to deny approach. If they ignore that, you are authorized to use live fire. This is a direct order from your commander. I will take full responsibility.”

Gyeoul transmitted the same message two more times. On the final repeat, his voice came back with a delay, overlapping like a distant echo. That echo would keep getting closer.

After finishing the transmission, Gyeoul called to the sheriff.

“I need information on Captain Harris. How many men he has, what weapons and equipment they carry, what kind of person he is...”

“Wait.”

The sheriff cut him off anxiously.

“Judging by your direction, it looks like you are heading for the dam. I am sorry, but please send me ahead first. The rest of my group is waiting up there. If they see military forces approaching, they will panic and run. I need to tell them what is happening. Otherwise they might think I sold them out.”

“There are more survivors? Shouldn’t you have said that earlier?”

“...”

The sheriff lowered her gaze. Gyeoul drew his Bayonet. She flinched, and he grabbed her and cut the restraints binding her arms behind her back.

“If you go still tied up, you will not convince anyone. Where are they?”

The sheriff pointed down the road ahead. Through the trees, the roof of a one-story building was visible. It was not far at all. Gyeoul checked his wristwatch.

“Go. You have three minutes.”

Sometimes the longer route was faster. If the civilians ran, it would be hard to ignore them and carry out the mission.

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

#The Romance the Author Dreams Of

Putin: No one’s at my place today... want to stay for a cup of black tea?

Author: Sureee!

#Q&A

Q. RGZ95: @Even in the middle of all that, seeing the platoon leader order LAW rounds, U.S. troops are still U.S. troops(...)

A. I heard that in Iraq they used 300-million-won anti-tank missiles to kill infantry. Makes you understand why U.S. debt keeps rising day by day.

Q. CaMo: Does Gyeoul not have an English name? I really love the time I spend reading The Ossuary. Keep it up, author!

A. The name Gyeoul itself carries intended meaning, so I try not to use another name. Thanks for the support. :)

Q. asdfh: There is a typo, in the first Q&A answer I think you wrote 3 times a week by mistake instead of 3 times a day, please correct it^^

A. It is not a typo. 3 times a week is correct.

But this novel was originally serialized 3 to 5 times a week... I guess people do not feel that because the author says it and then does not keep it. From now on, I will work hard to do 3 updates sometimes so readers can feel it too! Aja!

Q. MasterKalsolum: @Reserve training after an all-nighter... I feel like I am going to die. I enlisted late, so I am over 40,000 years old and still not in civil defense yet, still in reserve duty.

A. This year is my 6th year. No training next year, right? Wow lol nice

Q. Cheongnyuryeon: @Thank you again for another great chapter today! Still, please take care of your health while serializing.

A. I should set a summer vacation date. Right, from August 20 to August 20, a true summer vacation connecting summer to summer... the author’s twisted desire...

Q. cyanpile: @People who dislike chat sections probably dislike them because story volume goes down, so all of this can be solved with marathon updates. For reference, I like the chat log parts.

A. Writing the chat sections is actually pretty tricky. Haha.

Q. GeomjeongGongpan: @I like both the chat and the prose. Waiting for both. >_o

A. I like both recommendations and comments. I wait for both. >_o

Q. EojinGwangdae: @Not sure about anything else, but this is the only break I can enjoy in Italy, please take a coupon.

A. I want to visit Italy at least once too... so far the only place I have reached by plane is Jeju Island...

Q. Rafheim: @Ah, at first I read this and swore I would stockpile to chapter 100 before reading, but I ended up reading it today..... ha.... now the one-chapter-at-a-time hell is coming back again;; thinking about coming back in 4 million years

A. Please come often. Authors are old beings who die when lonely.

So on my birthday I almost died... no, never mind.

Q. YuryeongSwagyul: @I am curious if you will keep going in this same setting. Has Gyeoul played many other games too?

A. I planned to try them, but I could not. There is a separate setting usage fee.

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