The Little Prince in the Ossuary
Chapter 68

00068

#Seventh California, Camp Roberts (5)

Gyeo-ul awakened just as the dawn arrived.

A dark blue morning light leaked in from outside the tent. It was too early for him to open his eyes, he thought. Still, Gyeo-ul moved his heavy arm and grabbed at his gun before slowly standing up.

His physical and mental fatigue had been accumulating for two days in a row now. So it took some time to get his mind fully awake, his sleep seemingly not having had much effect on his exhaustion.

Gyeo-ul woke up the soldiers who were in the same tent. Of course, it was quite hard to do so.

“Uh… what the hell is going on here?”

“Get armed.”

As his condition neared normal, Gyeo-ul was finally able to detect the dull warning of “sense of survival.” There was a sensation of intermittent numbness in the nerve endings. The level of activation was still low, but it was clear that there was a threat.

‘I don’t think it’s a fatal one.’

It hadn’t been very helpful at Camp Roberts, but there was little chance that a “sense of survival” that had entered the realm of genius would allow him to die while sleeping. However, the response had been delayed due to fatigue, so they needed to hurry a little.

Knowing that Gyeo-ul’s mood was unusual, the soldiers desperately attempted to awaken themselves. Their trust in the boy officer was now close to the level of superstition.

Poof!

…Wasn’t it a bit harsh to hit yourself on the head with bulletproof equipment? The soldier who had struck himself and his sleeping partner at the same time fell on his stomach for a moment and mimicked their stillness. Gyeo-ul approached and grabbed his shoulder.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m all right…”

It didn’t seem so, but he was soon ready, anyway.

A sergeant and some senior-level soldiers who were staying together acted quickly. They spread word of the situation throughout the company without any instruction. Repeated cries of “Wake up! Wake up!” spread to the mountain and echoed in the damp wind. Soldiers could see what was going on in other companies’ lodgings, their faces now stained with anxiety. It was only a day after the previous night’s attack.

Eventually, Gyeo-ul had unintentionally woken up all the regiment-level troops. Rain sprinkled over the light fog while the soldiers in their raincoats looked around in disorder. They looked more anxious because they didn’t know why they had been woken up.

In the meantime, Gyeo-ul called in a radio soldier to communicate with the sentry. He wanted to make sure that the boundary of the lodging area was safe.

The company commander, who was among the early wakeup, asked Gyeo-ul, “What the hell is going on?”

Now that he was asked, Gyeo-ul found he didn’t have much to say.

“I don’t know what to say, but… somehow, I didn’t feel good.”

Captain Escher made an incredulous expression. “Wasn’t that just a wild dream?”

Gyeo-ul didn’t have to answer; the gunfire across the fog provided the explanation.

Gyeo-ul frowned. The radio had exploded in the receiver plugged into his ear. There had been a flurry of requests to check what was going on from solidarity, battalion, and critical channels.

The gun went off again. There was semi-automatic fire, which eventually shifted into fully-automatic fire. “Battle sense” caught the approximate distance from the direction of the gunfire. However, the distance was a little inaccurate because of the fog. High humidity greatly expanded the range of sound diffusion.

Captain Escher immediately spat out orders. Troops to strengthen the border, troops to protect the campsite, and troops to be dispatched to the scene were all divided instantaneously.

Gyeo-ul was already on his way out inside a vehicle.

Arriving promptly at the scene, he confirmed that the fighting had already ended. Mutant bodies were scattered sparsely near the border of the campsite, not even in large numbers. The soldiers were checking and killing them one by one. In the meantime, the noisemaker itself was loud. It seemed to be ringing in at least three directions at the same time.

‘Is it a systematic attack?’

Gyeo-ul examined the battle trace. It would have been dangerous if the response had been late, but it was nothing compared to the first night’s attack.

However, there were people missing. Two vigilantes, who had been placed in the section where the mutants had invaded, had disappeared. The captain, who had been in charge of this, had a dark expression. Like everyone else from Camp Obispo, he looked like he was under too much stress.

“I thought it was over… why is this happening again…?”

He wiped his greasy face, then called in a radio soldier and radioed the battalion headquarters to get permission to search for missing persons. Gyeo-ul then made a suggestion.

“I’ll take the lead.”

“You?”

It was their first time seeing Gyeo-ul, but everyone already knew him. The company commander gave his offer a moment of thought and nodded slowly. There was little antipathy toward the fact that Gyeo-ul’s affiliation was to another officer. They couldn’t allow pride to get in the way. He would not be the one to permit that.

The battalion headquarters easily allowed Gyeo-ul to join.

Based on the testimony of the soldiers who had last taken turns, Gyeo-ul had slightly missed the patrol route that the missing people would have walked through.

There were many footprints on the ground that had been preceded by the rain. Although hidden by the puddles, that was not an obstacle to Gyeo-ul, who had fourth-grade tracking.

However, there were too many questions. The soldiers’ footprints had overlapped enough to be messy, and on top of that, the traces of mutants who crossed the boundary had been added. Some of the dead must have dragged their feet. There were many crushed marks from the push.

‘Is it a little short…?’

“Insight” recommended “tracking” above the level of an expert.

Using experience resources was a useless skill. Of course, it did help to have it at times. When you had to survive in the wild, being able to capture animal tracks was a great strength.

However, the opportunity to use that ability was limited. The end was not close enough to have to procure food by hunting, and events like this did not often happen now.

The number of times such skills were learned in the first place was small. The “Talent advantage” was low, so it was less efficient.

Given the emergence of new mutants that had never been seen before, which had eventually led to an increase in difficulty, Gyeo-ul wanted to invest in more of these efficient skills.

The experience he had gained over two days in a row was quite significant. Evaluating their influence on others was more rewarding than fighting.

This would be enough to put “Movement” into Superman’s domain.

However, ten people who would be saved later would not replace the one who could be saved now. It was a virtual character, a virtual life, anyway, but if you didn’t want to lose yourself in a false world, then you had better keep your way of life.

Gyeo-ul let go of his disappointment and pushed “Trace.” Each time the rating went up, the information provided as augmented reality changed qualitatively.

“This way.”

When Gyeo-ul beckoned, the platoon followed a few steps behind, keeping their formation intact. At a certain interval, three platoon members advanced carefully while still scattered.

Protecting civilians was a priority, so it was difficult to deploy more troops.

In the dawn, the rainy forest road felt gloomy. Raindrops hanging from the tree dropped heavily onto the fallen leaves, stimulating the soldiers’ nerves with percussion-like sounds. A noisy environment was not good for Gyeo-ul. If there were something in the forest, its noise would eventually get muffled.

Even if sound spread easily on a rainy day, it would be meaningless if it was small or similar to the sound of raindrops. In addition, the noisemakers let off occasionally as a defense mechanism for the campsite were loud.

The search continued along a dim side road, around the descending foot of a mountain. As the beach neared, the fog gradually thickened. Originally, visibility had been reduced to thirty meters. The dense trees cast a blurry shadow in the fog. Sometimes, a nervy soldier would mistake the shadow for a mutant.

In this environment, the thermal night-vision goggles were also useless. This was because the fog quickly devoured up the heat. Gyeo-ul found it hard to move forward quickly because he was wary of the possibility of a mutant lying within the fallen leaves.

It was windy. Gyeo-ul raised his fist.

The soldiers were wary of kneeling in the surrounding area. But when the dense fog swirled for a short time, Gyeo-ul saw the figures of two humans lying on the floor.

The bodies seemed to be a decoy.

There were two smells in the thick atmosphere: one was bloody, and the other…

‘The stench of not washing.’

It smelled sour and disgusting.

This smell was a little different from the rotten smell of the mutants. If you overcame the immune rejection, then there was only the stench of Ghoul.

Gyeo-ul whispered into the radio. “We’ve found the bodies of the missing persons right in front of us. They’re both dead, and it’s suspected that there’s a group of ghouls nearby. They might be in a tree, so be careful.”

Then, there came a rustling sound. Several soldiers were trying to stay away from the tree nest while a platoon commander and a communications officer reported the current situation to headquarters. Perhaps it was because all the sentries were dead that his expression worsened.

There was a sudden crack in the wind. Gyeo-ul shot at it reflexively.

T-ing!

An unidentified projection broke through with a spark. It split into two pieces, swirled, and fell into the fallen leaves. The soldier nearby freaked out. Gyeo-ul gestured for him to find out what it was, and the soldier crawled over, looked around, and groped at a pile of fallen leaves.

It was not long before he found something. The soldier lifted it up to show the others.

It was the handle of a knife.

The hardened platoon leader mumbled embarrassingly while radioing in.

“The mutant is using a weapon?”

There was a considerable amount of agitation. Primates usually used basic tools, so mutants who stole from humans might have the ability to do so as well, but it was the first time they had ever witnessed it.

It seemed to have been picked up from an abandoned city.

Now, dozens of additional knives were flying in. Gyeo-ul intercepted some, but it was difficult to get them all because they were coming from a close distance and through the fog.

The growling, roaring, and fast-running footsteps of animals could be heard through the veil. Tense soldiers shot or threw grenades at random.

However, shooting without anything to aim at was not very effective. In a similar environment during the Vietnam War, statistics showed that the U.S. military used more than 20,000 bullets to kill a North Vietnamese soldier. Furthermore, the opponent was a mutant stronger than humans, of a reinforced species called Ghouls.

The same went for grenades. No matter how wide their effective range was, the killing effect was greatly reduced due to the curved terrain and the tree-filled environment.

As expected, as if to laugh at them, the monster’s intentional sounds did not stop.

“Is it a move to exhaust this side’s ammunition? Strangely, I’m thinking… Do you think it’s beta ghouls?”

Gyeo-ul didn’t know the numbers over there. There was “Insight” provided based on the sounds, but most of the animals that hunted in groups could easily distinguish their roles. Therefore, it was difficult to believe in their ability and just go forward recklessly.

Looking at the lingering fog like living things in other worlds, Gyeo-ul came up with a good idea. “Lieutenant.”

“Hmm?”

“Does the grenade launcher have a flare?”

The U.S. infantry platoon had received six M32s for each squad, and there were also single-shot grenade launchers that were used as accessories under rifles. The range of bullets that could be shot with a grenade launcher was surprisingly diverse, and some of them were even flare-ups.

However, they were difficult to use in earnest due to their small size. The platoon leader also pointed that out. “What about the flare? It’s for signaling. Who are you going to signal? Anyway, we can contact the main office by radio.”

Gyeo-ul shook his head. “No, I’ll literally use it as a light.”

He pointed out the fog as they walked.

“It’s still dark around here. It’s foggy. Wouldn’t a bright light source create the outline or shadow of a mutant in the fog? Then we shoot them with full force.”

“But it’s only seven seconds per shot… Wouldn’t you rather ask for help?”

“What if that’s what they want us to do?”

“Huh?”

“Maybe this is a trap to lure the missing, lure troops with the bait, and dig ourselves into a hole.”

The platoon leader felt embarrassed. Gyeo-ul continued trying to persuade him.

“Of course, it’s unlikely. But it’s important that it’s not impossible. There are thousands of civilians in the camp. You’ve had one experience the day before yesterday, so you’re not going to take even a little risk, of course. I’m responsible for thousands of civilians. You’d rather ask me to give up the remains.”

Eventually, the platoon leader agreed with Gyeo-ul. They agreed that after firing the flare, they would advance and secure the cover, then secure the remains.

The grenade shooters moved their hands busily, emptying the ammunition and reloading it. Unlike rifles, they had to be loaded individually. The white, green, and red-colored shells originally had separate uses but were not distinguished now. They would shoot to the ground anyway.

Gyeo-ul designated the defense and distance for the grenade shooters.

“If I signal… let’s have a time difference one by one and shoot three shots from this side to that side. The distance is twenty, forty, sixty. It’s an environment full of obstacles.”

The order was that the location of the flare should be three-dimensional.

“Shoot!”

Tuu-tuu-tuung!

As the flare rose, Gyeo-ul successfully struck five targets. He quickly aimed at the center of the shadow the rising flare had made and fired five times in one breath.

‘Did I miss one?’

A scream rang out, echoing for a long time. It seemed as if Gyeo-ul had hit the target, but it hadn’t died.

Gyeo-ul continued running and firing at every shadow he saw. Every time he shot at the center of an overlapping shadow, a monster’s scream inevitably followed. It was more effective because each flare had a different color. The soldiers were making it easier than he had initially expected.

He crossed more than ten meters in seven seconds, emptying one and a half of his magazines.

“Next!”

Another flare shot was fired. In the mist that glowed in three colors, the humans who had secured the range overwhelmed the mutants with their firepower.

By the third time, the advancing soldiers had finally secured the bodies. While checking whether they were actually becoming mutants, the rest of the troops unilaterally pushed at the ghouls.

Their screams and the sound of the running beasts’ footsteps quickly drifted away.

“We did it!”

The platoon leader raised his hand and rejoiced. Gyeo-ul approached the soldiers who had secured the bodies.

“Are they okay?”

There was a double meaning to the words. It was a question about whether there were any defective parts, and it was also a question to confirm that they were not infected. The squad leader nodded.

“They were stabbed to death. I think they were trying to use them as bait from the beginning… To be honest, it’s creepy. They’re no longer the stupid mutants they used to be.”

“Can’t help that. We have to adapt.”

Gyeo-ul patted him on the shoulder.

While the bodies were recovered and returned, the sun rose sharply above the fog.

The battalion commander ordered the entire unit to depart once the fog cleared. The twenty-kilometer trek to Camp Roberts had taken them all the previous afternoon, but today, if nothing unexpected happened, they could even have lunch at the camp.

Gyeo-ul felt that he had been focused for far too long now. He knew he needed a break. Hopefully, the rest of the journey would be uneventful. The boy pressed his elbow against the frame of Humvee’s window and gently closed his eyes.