Chapter 83
Chapter 83
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 83
Chapter Title: Time Tracker (2)
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“Choi Ho-min! I'm asking you right now!! What the hell is that thing!!!”
Perhaps because the second lieutenant's voice rang out the loudest among the countless soldiers, the wolf slowly turned its head toward him, mouth agape.
Its hollow eye sockets, flickering with static, locked precisely onto the lieutenant.
“Huh? Wha...?”
Realizing he had become the new target, the lieutenant panicked and fumbled for his pistol from inside his uniform.
His hands trembled like aspen leaves, and his aim was a complete mess.
“D-don't come any closer! Stay back, I said!”
He pulled the trigger on the monster.
Bang!
A sharp crack echoed as flames burst from the muzzle. But the sound that followed plunged everyone into despair.
Clang!
Like a bullet ricocheting off thick steel plating, the 9mm round failed to pierce the wolf's tough hide and sparked off harmlessly.
The bullet rolled feebly across the ground. The monster wasn't scratched in the slightest.
“Aaaargh!!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Lt. Ha lost all reason and squeezed the trigger madly. But the successive shots were just as useless as the first.
That futile resistance only ended up irritating the wolf. It swung its forepaw dismissively in front of the lieutenant.
Lt. Ha cried out toward the approaching death, his heart clenched in terror.
“St-stop...!”
But the claws didn't even graze him, let alone strike. For a moment, he let out an absurd sound.
“...Huh?”
And with that, his final words were spoken.
Crunch!
The lieutenant was torn into five pieces right there on the spot, meeting his end.
“L-Lieutenant!”
Witnessing their commander's pathetic death, the soldiers recoiled in horror at the gruesome sight before them and began screaming and fleeing.
The headquarters unit turned into a hellish pandemonium in an instant. Amid the chaos, Choi Ho-min dashed to the makeshift radio room, grabbed the handset, and shouted.
“Don't run! If we fight here, we all might live!”
In the heart of the turmoil, Choi Ho-min made the best choice he could. With Lt. Ha dead, he held the highest rank in the unit now.
To survive, he had to take command.
“Everyone, listen up! There's only one enemy! Hide behind cover and aim your rifles at that thing's head—fire on my mark!”
At Choi Ho-min's desperate shout, the panicked soldiers began snapping out of it one by one. They pulled K2 rifles from their backs or the armory lockers and took aim at the monster.
“Ready marksmen, fire!”
Dozens of rifles erupted in unison.
Rat-tat-tat!
Rifle rounds far more powerful than pistol bullets rained down on the wolf. This time, they had an effect. The bullets pierced its tough hide, burrowing deep into the black flesh.
Kieeeek—!
The wolf let out its first cry of pain. Emboldened, the soldiers poured on even more fire.
“It's working! Keep shooting!”
But that hope didn't last long.
The wolf's body, riddled with dozens of bullets, suddenly began flickering with static noise. Its tough hide vanished, and the embedded rounds clattered to the ground.
Now, the soldiers' bullets passed straight through the wolf's body without harm, just like before.
No physical attack could touch an enemy without form. The brief spark of hope turned to despair in a flash.
“Fuck...”
Choi Ho-min muttered in a daze.
The wolf, now a mass of noise, floated through the air like the Grim Reaper with its scythe, closing in on the terrified soldiers one by one.
“I-I don't wanna die! Fuck...! I haven't even been with a girl yet...! Gaaah!”
The wolf only materialized for the split second it attacked, ripping into its prey.
“Fuck! Dying in the army is such a dog's death!! I'm outta here!”
The situation spiraled into the worst possible mess. As more soldiers got devoured, the survivors fired wildly into the empty air, gripped by the terror of not knowing when or where the next attack would come.
“...Gaaah! My leg!!”
“S-sorry! I was aiming for that bastard and...”
“Don't shoot your own! I said don't shoot!”
The wolf's movements had long surpassed the reaction speed of any ordinary human.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ ...30 minutes later.
Silence hung over the checkpoint. Including Choi Ho-min, only five or six soldiers had survived. They all stared blankly out the window with shell-shocked expressions.
At the center of the hellscape stood the wolf, now vastly larger than before. Having devoured dozens of soldiers, it had swollen to the size of a small elephant.
Its enlarged body seemed even tougher; even lucky rifle shots now ricocheted off harmlessly.
“Fuck... fuck... How the hell are we supposed to deal with that thing...? No, where the fuck did it even come from...?!”
Choi Ho-min spat curses while clinging to his crumbling sanity. Just as he thought it was all over, static crackled from the radio in the building where he was hiding.
[This is Command Control. Checkpoint. Respond.]
It was a call from the upper command center.
Choi Ho-min snatched the handset with trembling hands.
“Th-this is... Checkpoint 5. Sergeant Choi Ho-min speaking.”
[Sergeant? Where's Lt. Ha? Alarms have been blaring non-stop, but we haven't gotten a proper report! Give us a sitrep right now!]
At the irritated voice crackling over the radio, Choi Ho-min hesitated. How could he even explain this unreal situation?
“The lieutenant... is KIA. The checkpoint is currently... under attack by an unidentified monster.”
Choi Ho-min described everything he'd seen as calmly as possible. The ability to shift into noise form, the tough hide that deflected bullets, and how it grew larger by devouring people.
There was a long silence on the other end.
[...Copy that. Hold out as long as you can. Dispatching the nearest unit's Awakener your way. ETA ten minutes. Just stay alive until then!]
'Awakener...'
Maybe they could handle this monster.
“Roger!”
“You all hear that!? Ten minutes! Just hold for ten minutes, and reinforcements are coming!”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 'But... even if an Awakener shows up, can they really kill that thing?'
The wolf before them was on a whole different level from ordinary zombies.
Especially in its noise form—no physical attack could touch it.
'To land a hit, we have to catch that split-second when it materializes to attack.'
But for a normal human, timing that was next to impossible. Even if they did, a rifle round wouldn't even dent its tough hide.
Suddenly, the ammo depot flashed through Choi Ho-min's mind. The place storing grenades or even more powerful explosives.
'One big boom. Yeah, that's exactly what we need.'
The problem was getting there. Sneaking dozens of meters past the wolf's gaze was suicide. Even if he made it, there was no guarantee he could carry the explosives back.
'...Wouldn't it be better to just stay put?'
Rationally, yes. The enemy was invincible. No need to rush to his death.
But the brutal deaths of his comrades—who he'd laughed and suffered with for a year and nine months in this hellhole of an army—flashed before his eyes.
'...I can't just sit here and run away.'
Even if he died, he wanted to give that dog of a monster a taste of its own medicine. That was Choi Ho-min's honest feeling.
He approached the surviving soldiers and said,
“Anyone wanna come with me to the ammo depot and take that bastard out? Volunteers only. Fair warning: 99% chance of dying.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Cpl. Park stared at him like he'd heard the dumbest thing ever. The others looked just as incredulous.
But Choi Ho-min didn't blame them. It was only natural. He chuckled dryly and shouldered his rifle.
“Fine. I'll go alone. You guys hold here as best you can until the Awakeners arrive.”
He was reaching for the door when—
“...I'll go too.”
It was Cpl. Park. His face was still pale with fear, but now resolve burned in his eyes.
“...Gotta avenge Min-su from that fucker before I kick it.”
Choi Ho-min silently clapped his shoulder. That was enough.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ “While I draw its attention, you head to the ammo depot and set as many Claymores as you can.”
“Ugh... This feels insanely sketchy... But got it. Don't you die on me either, Sergeant Choi. I really wanna live.”
Choi Ho-min burst out of the building and split off in the opposite direction from Cpl. Park. He immediately bellowed at the top of his lungs.
“Hey, you mangy monster fuck! I'm right here!”
At his shout, the wolf—mid-feast on a corpse with only its lower half left—turned its empty sockets toward Choi Ho-min.