WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

Chapter 94

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Night by the Lake (12)

Cold had always been a soldier's oldest companion. On a deep winter night, men standing in the rain shook violently.

Bang!

A gunshot echoed along the riverbank. It was the fifth shot. The boy who had fired into the dark clouds slowly lowered the muzzle.

A soldier watching the darkness beyond the water raised his hand.

"They're coming."

The sentry had spotted the first one. Gyeoul saw more. A hot swarm was rushing in. In the green world of advanced night vision, death in human shape stood out in hot metallic tones. At least hundreds were coming down the slope.

'It might pass a thousand.'

While he counted, a rotting scout spotted them. Kuwaaaak! It let out a long scream, rushed in blindly, then was stopped by the rough river. The current was only about ten meters wide. Close enough to make out every facial feature. The mutant screamed again and paced left and right like an angry man.

The squad leader asked, "Should we fire?"

"Wait, Hernandez."

They could have shot everything on sight, but there was no need to rush. Gyeoul said, "Our mission is to lure them. Wiping them all out is not a bad idea either... but it will take time for all of them to gather anyway. Let's watch for a bit. We rarely get a chance to observe mutant group behavior this close."

"Observe them?"

"Yeah. Observe. We've already seen individual intelligence increase. I want to see how that shows up when they move in packs. Their level of communication, how they cooperate to overcome obstacles, things like that. It could help us later."

"Hmm, sounds like an animal experiment. Whatever it is, I hope this ends quickly."

"Hang in there a little longer, everyone."

Gyeoul encouraged the soldiers. With no immediate fight in sight, the machine gunner who had been lying prone shivered and changed position. The ground was probably too cold.

The first mutant to arrive tried to cross. One foot into the current, then another, then it hesitated on the third step. White foam had already climbed to its waist. Wobble, wobble. It barely held on, then backed away in the end. Back on land, it roared viciously at hosts it could not reach. The sound drew in even more mutants. The numbers kept growing.

Gyeoul remembered the church in Paso Robles. If they had been at that intelligence level, they would have charged in without thinking. Or even if the front stopped, the mass and inertia behind them would have pushed them in.

"Tsk. Those bastards are annoying even after death."

Guilherme's grim complaint was aimed at Captain Harris's subordinates. Corpses in combat uniforms and body armor, already overtaken. Some still had rifles slung, but only hanging from their necks and shoulders. No memory of life remained, and their intelligence had regressed. It was the end of killers.

One soldier carefully suggested, "Lieutenant-nim. Shouldn't we at least take those ones out first?"

"Just a second. I'll do it."

"No, you don't have to-"

Without waiting for him to finish, the boy stepped forward. He pushed his night vision goggles up. The range was clear even without them. It was a striking sight. White steam rose from the mutants' bodies. Their body temperature was high.

Gyeoul bowed his head in silent prayer. It was for the squad behind him.

'Li Qinzhen said it before. Rites are for the living.'

A few breaths later, he opened his eyes.

Tak, tak, takadadak! Teeth clattered. One of the infected soldiers twisted its neck and stared this way. It stuck out a long black tongue and licked the air.

Gyeoul counted the targets in his head, waited until all of them were inside his firing arc, then opened Snap Fire.

Every aim point was a face.

Twenty-two different faces were pierced at burst speed. Forehead, brow, eye, nose, philtrum, throat. The one that had been licking with its tongue out was hit in the soft palate behind the roof of its mouth. It stopped moving the instant it was struck. Blood ran from its mouth, then it collapsed to its knees first.

His hands were faster than sight. By the time all targets were dead, the remaining pack grew noisy a beat late. They had never been quiet to begin with, but now they were frenzied. Like the first one, they strode left and right and screamed threats.

Soon they started trying to cross the river. Sergeant Hernandez said, "Creepy. I see why you said we needed observation."

He was watching mutant cooperation. They grabbed each other's wrists and formed chains into the water. It did not work well, of course. The far end needed enough strength to hold against the current. The chains never stretched far.

"Ghouls! Multiple ghouls at 11 o'clock!"

A warning from the sharp-eyed designated marksman. Gyeoul traced that direction with his eyes. Soon he found the gray enhanced mutants mixed into the pack. They had no special abilities, but they were tougher and smarter than ordinary mutants.

One of them, though, was not a normal ghoul.

The soldiers could not tell, but Gyeoul could. There were several tells. Its grade was one step higher than anything he had seen so far.

'Beta Ghoul. Well, it was about time one showed up.'

He had suspected they existed before, but this was his first real confirmation.

Gyeoul noticed it later than the soldiers because he had been watching somewhere else. A heavy movement showed beyond the woods. It was only a shadow in darkness, and without the warning from 「Combat Sense」, he would definitely have missed that presence. Not a Grumble. The circumstances said no. If it had been a Grumble, it would already have been Throwing mutants or trees.

Then what was it? Why was it not revealing itself?

'I can't even guess. This world has too many things that are different from before.'

This was not the first unknown he had faced, but it was happening too often. Instead of forcing it into old knowledge, Gyeoul concluded it was one of the special mutants he did not know.

"What do we do? Should I blow its head off now?"

As if it sensed being targeted, the Beta Ghoul slipped backward and used other mutants as shields.

That unknown variable made Gyeoul hesitate. It might have changed too.

"Wait for orders, Fleming."

"Yessir."

The designated marksman kept Tracking the target through his sightline.

Enemy numbers were still increasing. Eventually, as expected, they would probably pass one thousand. If the Trickster had not died, they would not have scattered this much.

He planned to draw in as many as possible without leaving stragglers.

The mutants kept repeating the same failure, entering and leaving the torrent in lines again and again.

Then the change came suddenly. After a uniquely broken shriek echoed long through the air, mutant behavior changed visibly.

It was, in essence, an adaptation of what they were already doing. One chain of mutants stretched to its limit. Then a new chain moved in beside it. Because the current had slowed after hitting the first line, the second line could step one pace farther. The third line followed the same method.

At the deepest point, the water was just below their noses. The fifth line passed that point.

It happened in moments.

"Lieutenant-nim! Orders!"

The squad leader shouted urgently. It looked like the mutants would cross the river any second. With their numbers this high, they were trying this in multiple places at once.

How many steps had the first mutant taken when it first reached the river?

Gyeoul gave his command calmly. "Ignore the front. Cut the middle. Let the rest get swept away on their own."

The soldiers understood at once. They focused fire on the section where the links connected back to shore.

Papapapak! Bullets hammered the water in rapid succession. Heads above the surface shattered in a line.

The first line to collapse immediately became a burden on the next. Then the whole mass was swept away. It looked like an overflowing embankment, or dominoes toppling. Kkeuwoooeok! Uwoooeo! Flailing mutants drifted away with white foam.

Total chaos. The only straws the mutants could grab were other mutants in the same situation. They thrashed, trying to climb over each other. The river boiled with living corpses.

Then, once again, a loud and distinct shriek rang out.

The ones still on the surface trembled and froze in place. Only a few that had not heard it kept thrashing.

For a moment, Gyeoul did not understand.

'Metabolic suppression? Even so, that only delays drowning.'

The mutants on land started jumping in by the masses.

From upstream to downstream, in order.

It was not group suicide. At the peak of each leap, they puffed their chests and stiffened. Splash! They sank under the surface, then quickly floated back up from buoyancy. Footholds. They drifted fast, but the entire riverbank was packed with mutants. Stepping on those floating down from upstream, dozens threw themselves in every second. The sound of splashing never stopped. A wave of diseased flesh covered the river.

The surface was filling with corpse-like floaters.

In real time.

New mutants ran over them while glaring at this bank.

Without orders, the soldiers were already firing. Grenades flew one after another.

"Frag out!"

At the warning, everyone dropped low. Grenades exploded underwater, on the surface, and on the far bank. Columns of water shot up, spraying droplets thicker than rain. The black river in the dark night turned even darker.

"Wow, fuck. Hold on. What kind of bullshit is this...!"

Swapping ammo boxes, the machine gunner cursed.

For a moment, even Gyeoul was stunned. Rare agitation. The sight was simply overwhelming.

He sensed something was wrong after emptying three magazines in ten seconds. Clack! The striker hit an empty chamber. There were no more enemies to suppress in his direction. Instead of reloading, he immediately pulled out a grenade. He removed the safety clip and pulled the pin. He planned to throw it toward another urgent flank.

Gyeoul froze because he could not find anywhere to throw it.

The soldiers also realized what was happening, one by one. Their intense fire briefly fell into a lull.

"What is this...?"

Guilherme muttered in disbelief.

Ordinary mutants had strong muscle power but rough movement. No matter how many floaters there were, they could not keep running across them all the way through. Every foothold shook and sank with each step. This would be hard even for a healthy human. At minimum, it required skilled-level 「Movement」 correction.

They fell and fell again, and only the number dropping into the river increased.

Even the floating mass had limits.

Gyeoul reflected. My vision got narrow.

Even while firing, he had to keep a wide view. Just now, he had failed to do that. During that whole burst, his field of view had been trapped inside his sightline. A commander was not the same as a single combatant. It was a bad mistake.

'It's been a while since I got this rattled.'

The mutant group across the river dropped sharply. Naturally. Even if there were over a thousand, losing dozens every second would burn them out quickly.

Only then did the Beta Ghoul cry out. The mutants stopped their reckless leaps.

Even so, only a handful remained. They were scattered thinly.

He threw the grenade there. The pin had been pulled earlier, but he had still been holding it. Boom! Across a kill zone wider than the blast itself, seventeen infected mutants collapsed at once.

The soldiers wiped out the rest.

A gray enhanced type crawled on the ground. Injured but alive, it still tried stubbornly to escape. Gyeoul considered shooting it himself, then called the designated marksman.

"Fleming. Take that one."

A thicker-than-usual round slammed into the enhanced type's head in rapid succession. Broken skull, sticky brain matter spraying out.

============================ Author's Note ============================

#Just the afterword

This episode will end in the next chapter. Looks like it's time for viewer chat and a past arc.

#Fan signing event

Signed books already feel like pressure, and now a fan signing event... what is this...

I don't look like Won Bin, so why do people want to see me...

My face is closer to Cthulhu than Won Bin...

#Heat-detection night vision

I'll upload how it looks in this story's setting. Only check it if you cannot picture it well.

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