The Little Prince in the Ossuary

00065

#Seventh California, Camp Roberts (2)

The Humvee shook violently upon reaching the unpaved roads, which, having been bombed frequently, were now in a state where they could no longer really even be called roads.

Since they were riding in a military vehicle not made for comfort, everyone within felt every small rock or hump on their path. It was as if they were riding an off-road vehicle.

Gyeo-ul was sitting in the front seat. He opened the window and hung his arm outside, feeling the winter wind. He hoped the cold would help him fight his sleepiness.

Fatigue was eating away at his stamina. He could feel the overall decrease in his abilities, and it was just too much. Despite staying up all night in a fierce battle, calming refugee zones, and extinguishing fires, now he’d been deployed for rescue operations.

Camp San Luis Obispo had failed to overcome the previous night’s crisis. The wired controller deployed by the Containment Command had identified troops moving northward away from the station, along with refugees and citizens, and a large group of infectious mutants chasing after them.

The chase had taken place over a wide range, tens of kilometers across. Every space had now been sprayed with Trickster jamming to avoid bombing as they were chasing the survivors closely. The scattered regiment fighting team had not recovered its command system, after all. At least, that was the case with Gyeo-ul’s briefing.

“Would you like one?”

A driver from Bravo Company was holding a medicine bottle out to Gyeo-ul. In it were plastic vials filled with Provigil, a stimulant that was being distributed to the US military.

He was thinking about what to do but decided to take one. After all, no side-effects had been discovered, at least so far.

‘It works so well.’

Three pills of Provigil could keep you awake for three days.

Gyeo-ul put the pill in his mouth and sucked the tube connected to the CamelBak (a water bag like a camel’s pocket, which was carried on one’s back).

The enemy appeared before the medicine had a chance to take effect.

The turret gunner warned of the appearance of a mutant group. “Twelve o’clock! A large mass of mutants on the move! About four hundred of them! Including the special mutant Grumble!

They turned out to be on terrain with shallow ridges around it. As the mutants had just begun to cross the watershed and go down the slope, they could be seen on the opposite ridge from hundreds of meters. As the gunner had said, Gyeo-ul could see small mutants from afar like a swarm of insects. The big outline was the Grumble.

However, Gyeo-ul didn’t have to prepare for the fight. There was a noisy radio call that was now coming in.

「TF David. This is Big Bird 3. Identify the mutant groups that’re approaching your location. Stop for a moment. I need to put out some fires.」

There was a large, slow-moving aircraft in the sky behind them. It was the AC-130 that the US government had advertised would soon deploy large quantities of the containment operation.

The plane was able to fire continuously toward the center in a large circle. As soon as the driver slowed down, fire support began.

It was literally a firebolt. Mutants burst out forcefully. Three different explosions engulfed everything, and human-like pieces flew tens of meters high.

The loud gunfire, which rang out every ten seconds, aimed only at the Grumble from beginning to end. An explosion as big as a house followed the monster. It wasn’t a direct hit since it came from the sky, but it wasn’t a miss at all. The indirect shock alone was a destructive force that could not be handled by alpha-class physical resistance.

The Grumble couldn’t stand up after having rolled all along the ground.

Finally, three consecutive air explosions occurred. The shells that burst in the sky sprayed debris in a much wider range. The mutants that had survived so far collapsed every ten seconds.

Blood, flesh, and gunsmoke filled a space the size of a playing field.

Upon seeing this, the driver whistled. “The Air Force is really supportive.”

“I know.”

Gyeo-ul pulled his finger from the trigger.

Frightened by the previous night’s losses, the containment command had generously deployed their air forces. Since the radius of the Tricksters’ self-destructive EMP was estimated to be about one kilometer, it had been judged that flying above would pose no threat.

Thanks to this, the difficulty of the rescue operation had been greatly reduced.

The first rescue target was a tank platoon that had run out of fuel. Four tanks had stopped randomly along the side road of the winding ridge west of Paso Robles.

There were people stuck in there, with mutants trying to get in. No matter how deteriorated it was, they only had human hands and feet, and they were trying to open a solid tank. It was so stuck that the soldiers couldn’t even see the inside well. Perhaps because of the noise they were making themselves, they couldn’t hear the sound of the car slowly rolling along the ridge.

This alone meant it would be hard to get air force support. If they shot, the tank’s crew would be smashed. Thus, Bravo Company prepared for a fight.

“Can I talk to the crew?”

Captain Escher, the company commander, confirmed that he could. “Everyone is alive. I don’t think they’re okay, though.”

The inside of the tank was cramped. They’d been trapped for hours, listening to the scratching of the armored plates, without any certainty of being rescued.

The battle was very short. Bravo Company fired widely from side to side. Among the Humvees, there were high-speed grenade machine guns. Each shot was equivalent to a grenade, and they could shoot up to forty bullets per minute. If you took it all the way, it would kill hundreds of people.

Subtle explosions continued from left to right. It was sensible to be restrained compared to the air force’s bombing, but the results were still clear—the mutants were all killed while climbing uphill.

As the company approached, the tank crew crawled out. Some people cried, and some people laughed endlessly and enjoyed the fresh air. The platoon leader looked rather numb.

“Thank you for saving me.”

He was a lieutenant, his name was Edmund Durant, and he looked terrible. Saluting Captain Escher, he was surprised by the sight of Gyeo-ul.

“You were real, weren’t you?”

“…”

He was definitely not all right. Gyeo-ul doubted his mental state, but fortunately, he wasn’t crazy. It seemed that unfiltered words were just popping out in excitement.

While the tank was being refueled, Lieutenant Durant asked Captain Escher, “How’s everything with Camp Roberts? Given your support up to here…”

Captain Escher shook his head as the meaning of the words became clear.

“No, you’re not the only ones who were attacked. We’ve been through a lot, too. Who would have imagined it? A creature using EMP and infiltrating other mutants.”

“Huh? Did they do that there, too?”

“You have no idea what’s going on.”

“No. It’s been hell all night. I don’t even remember how I got on the horse. I couldn’t get in touch with the higher ranks, the mutants were pouring out from all sides, and the civilians were shouting for help… In the meantime, the 1st Battalion of [Second California] must have seen a lot of blood. They stayed until the very end and helped the refugees.”

His face had gone dark while reminiscing about the previous night. He asked again, “Then what damage has been done to Camp Roberts?”

“Thanks to Lieutenant Han here”—Captain Escher pointed to Gyeo-ul with his chin—“it’s not that bad.”

“What do you mean?”

“He caught a Trickster, and it was pretty suspicious. He asked the watchman to tighten the guard, but he was rejected, so he moved his troops on his own.”

“On his own? A lieutenant? No, that’s unheard of, isn’t it?”

“It’s not weird at all, considering his record. It’s a shame as a company commander, but there are times when I think there are soldiers in my company who’re more like lieutenants than me.”

‘You’re talking like this about yourself in front of me.’ Gyeo-ul formed a strained smile for the company commander, who had looked over at him.

After filling the tank, the platoon joined Bravo Company’s rescue operation. The companies seemed very pleased to have the tank platoon join in.

“They’re pigs that eat three liters of gasoline at the start, but there’s not much more reliable than those. They’re hard and tough.”

Clearly, there were no infectious mutants left to handle a moving tank at this point. Against a tank gun, even a Grumble was just a game.

Gyeo-ul touched the tracker monitor a few times. The vehicles used by the US military were connected to the network, allowing them to locate each other in real-time or even exchange information.

Fortunately, the tank platoon’s equipment didn’t seem to have been wrecked by the EMP. Their location was properly marked, and it was also possible to look at other directions through the camera on the tank. It was a system created by the US military, which fought wars in all kinds of places and battled city wars and terrorism to survive.

“Who did you learn that from?” the soldier in the rear seat asked curiously. It was interesting to see Gyeo-ul, who had just become an officer, handle such complicated equipment so easily.

Gyeo-ul answered, “From Captain Capston.”

“Aha.”

‘Of course, that can’t be true,’ the soldier thought. ‘This boy must think that it doesn’t matter anyway because nobody’s gonna ask the captain to confirm.’

The coordinates of the rescue targets had been given as west of Templeton, a city under Paso Robles. The mission forces crossed several ridges and entered the western plains of the city. Gyeo-ul then spoke up.

“No matter where you look, you’ll see a vineyard and an orchard.”

Then the driver replied, “This is California.”

The vineyard that ran west of San Miguel, down which they had chased the Trickster the previous night, had been very large, but this place was even more fully developed.

At one point, a fallen mutant blocked the road in a diagonal direction. It must have been left behind by the crowd—the intelligence of an ordinary mutant was not great yet.

They just drove over it, regardless of the collision.

However, the mud and fallen leaves on the body were noteworthy. Gyeo-ul judged that the mutants had their own camouflage techniques.

Just then, the car shook, causing the shooter to miss his shot. Damn it; the driver had hit and run instead of considering the grumbling shooter. Boom! Then again, Humvees were strong, so the shock delivered into the car wasn’t that great. The driver shrugged.

“Don’t you think it would make us seem like beggars to clean the glass?”

Gyeo-ul tilted his head.

“What do you mean, beggars? You should feel ashamed for saying that!”

“You’ll understand if you get a few scratches on the car.”

He could feel a subtle longing from the soldier who had said such hateful things. Maybe while driving, waiting for the signal to change, a beggar had jumped in, asking for the price of the windshield. He’d refused, even running away after scratching the car. It almost seemed to be like part of the past he wanted to get back.

For the sake of the soldiers, Gyeo-ul agreed.

“I thought that only happened in New York.”

“No way. It’s better in this neighborhood, though, cos you’re unlikely to get shot.”

Gun ownership was common in the US, and California, which had a strong pro-gun stance, had a rather high crime rate.

“Well, it’s all just an old story now.”

The noise of the jet engine interrupted the conversation. A bomber passed over the vehicles and unleashed its bombs close to the horizon.

Boom!

The force of the air bomb created a visible shock wave.

“We’re almost there.”

At this, Gyeo-ul checked his firearm.