WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

Chapter 91

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Night by the Lake (9)

The battle went on.

Only half the enemy was still resisting. The other half was dead, or soon would be. There was no camaraderie to be found among criminals. They were falling back, leaving their dead and wounded behind, heading east toward where Captain Harris's main force was likely positioned. The decision itself was rational. Gyeoul was to the west, the squad to the north. To check both at once, they had to force everything in one direction.

But it did not go that way. Gyeoul kept swinging around. He never gave up the flank. By any normal standard, it should have been impossible. If you drew a wide circle around the criminals, Gyeoul's route stayed outside it. Even after sprinting ten steps, gaining even one on him was hard. Even so, he did it.

As Gyeoul ran through the gaps between trees, frantic gunfire poured down.

Tat-tat-tat-tat! Tat-tat!

Most of it was sloppy. One burst, though, was dangerous. The bullet trail, the dirt kicking up in sequence, it was getting closer. It looked like it would hit him before he reached the next cover. Gyeoul dropped to one knee as if collapsing. Thud. In the jolt of his weight hitting the ground, he lined up his sights for an instant and fired on instinct.

Tududuk! -Crack!

The blast slammed his eardrums. The boy's vision whipped sideways. His hearing dulled. A high whine rang in his ears, and his eardrums trembled. Gyeoul crawled forward and pressed his back to a tree trunk. He touched his helmet. Even through his gloves, he could feel an uneven groove. A bullet seemed to have grazed the side.

'Should I call that bad luck...'

Gyeoul's three-round burst had hit. At that moment, the enemy's muzzle kicked up, and the line of fire scraped his helmet. It was a random variable outside the 「Insight」 of 「Combat Sense」. He had almost died. A throbbing ache hit his head a moment late. This was why firearms were dangerous.

His mind was calm, but his body was not. The hand tremor imposed by Situational Computation. Gyeoul forced it down. He lost the time of five deep breaths. Then the radio screamed.

[David Actual! David Actual! This is David One! We are currently engaged with the enemy! Break!]

Jeffrey was calling him. The static was heavy. Gyeoul grabbed the radio at once.

"Go ahead, Jeffrey!"

[Enemy strength, around fifty infantry! Enemy receiving mortar fire support! We cannot identify the mortar position! First line lost! We are moving to the second line! Request confirmation whether you can support this position, over!]

"Hold on a little longer! I'll be there soon!"

He ended the transmission and sprinted out. The enemy reacted slowly. Six were still alive, but scattered in different positions. Gyeoul had disrupted their formation, and they had not recovered yet.

Meanwhile, the squad kept pressure on them from the front. Thanks to that, Gyeoul ran much farther than before. At last, he reached a diagonal rear position on the enemy. Now they had nowhere to run. Faces twisted in shock filled Gyeoul's optic. His trigger tightened.

Tududududuk!

Shell casings sprayed everywhere. The half-used magazine emptied in one second. That one second killed two men. Gyeoul hit the magazine release and twisted the rifle hard. The empty mag snapped free from inertia. He seated a fresh one in a single motion. Then full-auto again.

Clack!

On the fifth shot, metal choked. Like paper jamming in a copier, a live round had snagged in the chamber. Gyeoul yanked and released the charging handle again and again. It still would not come out. He jammed his fingers into the chamber and scraped it out by force. A crumpled round dropped out.

He hurried to aim again, and only then did a shout burst out, belated and ragged.

"Aaaah! Surrender! Surrender! No, I surrender! Don't shoot! Please spare me!"

It was a mess. But the gunfire pouring from the front did not stop. Since the squad was using suppressors, wood splinters flying off trees were louder than the shots themselves. Gyeoul pressed the radio.

"David Three! Cease fire, cease fire! The enemy is surrendering!"

The brutal noise died down. But the surrendering man kept yelling surrender, another man was sobbing at the top of his lungs, and the remaining two were quiet out of sight.

There was no time to wait for the squad. Distant gunfire still echoed faintly. Gyeoul moved in alone, alternating his aim left and right, moving at nearly a run.

There was one fewer survivor than Gyeoul had counted. A man with his throat torn open lay sprawled across tree roots. Blood pooled in his open mouth. The one surrendering, the one crying, and the last one farther away who looked barely steady. He held a grenade with the pin already pulled.

"Stop! Don't move!"

Gyeoul barked the order. He did not shoot and evade at once because of the other two who had already given up resisting. The squad members coming up quickly read the situation. They spread out harshly. Their muttered curses reached Gyeoul's ears. The soldier who had declared surrender drooled as he scrambled away. Only the crying soldier remained in the danger zone. He looked briefly out of his mind. Gyeoul slowly added pressure to the trigger. Little by little it tightened. Just as it was about to fire, he stopped.

But the soldier holding the grenade was not aggressive. His hand shook violently, yet his face was still. A dark stillness. He looked quietly at Gyeoul, then gave a hollow smile.

"I'm sorry."

A spring snapped. He hugged the grenade and pitched forward.

"Sarah."

One final word before death. The explosion that followed was a small jolt. If not for the blast itself, it might have looked like he had only twitched. Blood mixed with flesh seeped out in thick clumps. Rainwater washed the red thin.

Even in that rush, Gyeoul's gaze caught there for a moment.

Grrk, grrk, kk. The unfortunate soldier did not die right away. The boy pulled the trigger. His head burst.

"Restrain them."

At Gyeoul's order, the squad secured the two prisoners.

"No other survivors on the way here?"

When Gyeoul asked, Elliot answered heavily.

"They were hopeless. We eased their pain."

Fair enough, in weather and terrain like this. Survivors with severed limbs or spilled entrails were only delayed deaths. Elliot pulled the dog tags from the soldier who had killed himself with the grenade. The other soldiers collected ammunition and grenades nearby. Even if little remained, it had to be done. The squad had burned through far more ammo than Gyeoul had.

Gyeoul addressed the men once they were ready.

"From here, we run 600 meters. Grit your teeth and keep up."

"Haa..."

Squad leader Elliot sighed. Everyone was exhausted. Their bodies were shaking. The prisoners looked even worse. Their arms were tightly bound behind their backs. It did not look like they could keep up at all.

'Can't leave them. The radio static is too bad.'

It started with an uphill climb.

They ran anyway. No one complained.

Their pace kept dropping. The half-delirious prisoner kept falling, and even the squad looked like they were about to collapse. Later, their speed was almost a walk. A full sprint up a 200-meter incline was only possible for Gyeoul right now.

Things improved once they cleared the slope. A dirt road with gentler curves appeared. Gyeoul, first to the top, surveyed the battlefield. Captain Harris still had not broken through the defensive line. Even in this rain, smoke rose in several places. Gyeoul read the traces of the captain's attacks and failures.

Boom! A heavy blast mimicked thunder. Right after, a random shrub below the ridge exploded apart.

'How many shells do they have?'

Since they were not firing in succession, they probably were not stocked well. In the first place, it was likely only what men could carry on foot.

The soldiers who had just climbed up bent over, hands on knees, dragging in breath.

"Need one minute to rest?"

"No... we don't! Cough! We can... do it!"

"Alright."

Gyeoul did not ask twice.

The squad pushed into the enemy's rear flank. Following the direction of the artillery sound, Gyeoul tracked the traces. Marks highlighted by 「Tracking」 were scattered everywhere. It was the skill he had pushed last Christmas while searching for missing people at another lake.

The footprints he finally found were shallower than expected.

"David One, David One. This is David Actual."

[David... David... David Actual... hero-play... bastard son of a bitch...]

"David One. Do you copy? This is David Actual."

Gyeoul called Jeffrey again and again, but the radio was dead now. Unless they were close enough to see each other's faces, radio communication had to be considered impossible. Just as he was about to give up on comms, an idea flashed through him. The boy asked the soldiers for radios that were no longer useful.

"Give me two."

"What are you... trying to do, sir?"

"Use them as bait."

Gyeoul took out restraint cord and tied down the transmit button on one radio. That radio would now keep broadcasting nearby sound until its battery died.

Then he tied the one remaining radio to it. That one had no button pressed.

"Ha! So you'll... rebroadcast the message... those mutant bastards are sending!"

Pale-faced Elliot gasped in admiration, then doubled over and vomited stomach acid. A side effect of overexertion.

"Right. With jamming this bad, nobody's using radio. Which means this will be the only transmission source around here."

"Even if someone hears it... they won't be able to tell it from interference..."

"Anyone carrying explosives?"

While he was at it, Gyeoul took plastic explosives (C4) too. Normally you cut off only what you need, but this time that would not matter.

Boom! Another artillery blast. Maybe because they were closer now, it sounded different. Gyeoul and the squad approached in silence.

"Make a sound and you die."

One squad member whispered the threat to the prisoners.

Corpses were strewn everywhere. Gyeoul set a trap on one of them. He made the corpse hold the radio, then planted explosives on it. So that if a Trickster followed the signal and touched it, it would explode instantly. The soldiers wore dark, uneasy expressions. That corpse had belonged to someone who had been their comrade not long ago. Elliot hesitated before speaking.

"Lieutenant-nim. Back in the old days, this would violate international law..."

"I know it feels wrong. But if we leave them, they're just one meal for mutants."

"...When you put it that way, you're right."

"Move."

After moving farther, they finally reached the active battle site. A mortar position was directly ahead. Around twenty more troops were crawling up the slope. From here, they could see all of their backs. Gyeoul spread the squad out and assigned targets to avoid wasting fire on overlap.

Preparations were complete. Gyeoul shouted.

"Fire!"

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

# Hng

Today's amount is a little short. I have no excuse... but I am too sleepy to write more. Haha. Please forgive me while remembering the days when the chapter lengths were bigger.

# Q&A

Q. Xedrions-nim: @Please accept my childlike innocence! Here are 7 coupons I got from Joara!

A. Yes, I have received your childlike innocence well. I will use it to speed up the rise of the undersea city.

Q. Cheongnyuryeon-nim: @My childlike innocence does not seem to be in good shape today. Maybe because of the civilian massacre and shameless humans... I already gave all my coupons, so I offer recommendation, rating, and comment as tribute.

A. Oh no... this is a novel with nothing left once childlike innocence is gone, so hearing that your childlike innocence is in poor condition...

I may have to go on summer vacation to recover my childlike innocence.

Q. MasterKalsolum-nim: @That mental is bulletproof mental!!!!!! One spaghetti sauce tip: there is a chili called "pepperoncino." It is a tiny chili that gives the gentle heat like pepperoni on pizza, and if you add it when making spaghetti sauce, it goes with tomato flavor and gives appetite-boosting spice. Besides spaghetti, you can put the powder in stew, or mix it with salt and dip grilled meat in it. This has been Kalsolum's cooking class (?) A. My mentality really is ordinary glass. When something happens, it breaks once, then I glue it back together.

By the way, does pepperoni pizza have chili in it? I never felt heat from it even once all this time... haha...

Q. SkyBluePencil-nim: @What happened to people on space stations or Antarctic bases? Can they not return from the space station?

A. Honestly, I have not thought that far yet. It was not content needed for the plot... sorry. The author's childlike innocence is this lacking.

Q. TonkatsuMania-nim: @Even for Han Gyeoul, who seems strong, there will be an incident that shakes his childlike innocence, right? I am looking forward to it. And romance from old-item effects... is this original sin lol

A. Uh... hmm... there is one very good incident, but I am worried readers' hearts may crack before Gyeoul's childlike innocence is shaken.

Q. qoewh-nim: @Is it true you are a space war veteran?!

A. About that... A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

Q. Dohwawon-nim: @Carnival is a given! Let me see... whoa, shooting a comrade to buy time, and even that is weak?! Is my childlike innocence overflowing? Or is Dreamland running short of childlike innocence these days?

A. In Dreamland, they collect electricity bills in childlike innocence. I got hit by a progressive tax bomb, so... sob...

Q. RGZ95-nim: @Thanks for the childlike innocence today too. Since they already crossed the line, they chose resistance over surrender @[email protected] ;; still better than dying..

A. Thank you for reading every time. Better alive in this world, even if you have to roll in filth.

Q. PAM-nim: @Gyaaah guaaah

A. Ah, of course. Since I did not take summer vacation, during Chuseok break I plan to write not a single character and just eat, play, and sleep. Thank you for worrying about the author.

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