Tank! (2)
"Well, damn... we’re screwed."
Looking at my tank, stranded and immobile with its track torn off, I let out a heavy sigh.
No matter how powerful a one-man army hero might be, once he loses his legs, he’s helpless in an instant.
He’d be unable to move, pinned in place, then swallowed by the advancing tide of enemies and butchered without mercy.
A tank was no different.
They called tanks the princes of ground warfare for a reason; they were devastating weapons, central to modern combat. But the moment they lost mobility, they lost their worth.
If you just sat there in place and fought, then it wasn’t a tank anymore. It was a bunker, or a pillbox.
Usually, a tank with a broken track would be judged combat-ineffective and abandoned or towed to the rear.
If the damage was minor, you could repair it in the field and then withdraw.
"But there isn’t even the option to withdraw..."
The problem was that this game’s campaign was forcing me to repair the tank in the field and keep moving.
In other words, they wanted me to patch up the already-damaged tank just enough to make it mobile again, then push through a deathtrap of a city street.
"Are the developers even military-exempt...?"
In any sane, rational army, a tank with drivetrain trouble wouldn’t be sent back into the front line.
There was no point recklessly throwing in an expensive tank and a trained crew, only to lose both. Better to pull back for a while, prepare properly, and redeploy after everything was in order.
Apparently they’d sacrificed realism for the sake of fun and campaign progression, but that only meant I was the one suffering for it.
"You seriously want me to get out and repair this?"
Because that was exactly what I had to do for this godforsaken game: dismount the tank and repair the track.
And not just anywhere, either—right in the middle of an open apartment complex, with visibility in every direction.
"Ah... I’m going insane..."
"Ha ha ha..."
Even as I clutched the back of my neck at this ridiculous mission, the viewers were merrily fanning the flames, completely ignoring my suffering. That made me snort a laugh despite myself.
Right. That’s what internet stream viewers were like.
As long as they were entertained, even if I suffered mentally and physically, I should throw myself into the fire with glorious abandon.
It’d hurt like hell right now, but just look.
"...Puhihit."
What a beautiful parade of nonstop donations!
Money really was the best!
It was always thrilling! Always new!
I forcibly reined in the corners of my mouth, which were twitching upward on their own, and placed my hands on the keyboard.
"If it’s just getting out and fixing it, that should do it, right? Since we’re already here, I’ll move right away instead of wasting time."
Click—
After I clicked the dismount button, the screen went black for a moment before lighting up again.
By then, the monitor was showing the ruins of the city center.
I immediately checked the character’s hand protruding in the lower-right corner of the screen.
The protagonist of this mission, the tank commander I was controlling, was holding a welding torch.
"So I guess they’re just skipping the repair animation?"
After reading the viewers’ chat, it seemed the repair process wasn’t nearly as complicated as I’d feared.
"All right then..."
I moved up to the tank, activated the welding torch, and...
Fsssssh—
"...?"
...astonishingly, nothing happened to the tank.
"What the hell? Is it bugged?"
For a moment I suspected a system error, so I kept left-clicking the mouse to activate the welder again and again. But on the tank armor where the torch made contact, all I got was the effect of sparks flying. The broken track remained exactly as it was.
Was the game really going to get stuck because of a bug?
"H-Hey, this isn’t good."
My heart plummeted as I worried I might ruin today’s broadcast, and I tried every possible way to repair the tank.
Activating the welder on the tank wheel. Activating it while crouching. Activating it at a slight distance from the tank. Hammering left-click to make it work, and so on.
"Grrr...!"
Just as both the viewers and I were wearing ourselves out with no progress to show for it,
Fsssssh—
Clank—
"Huh?"
On a hunch, I brought the welding torch to the cut end of the broken track—and something changed.
With a heavy metallic sound, the track partially reconnected.
"..."
No way.
Did the repair only progress if I aimed the welder precisely at the damaged section?
"You fucking..."
As expected, the bastards who made this game were severe degenerates.
.
.
.
.
Once I figured it out, the tank repair went by in a flash.
I’d been briefly stumped because I hadn’t realized the track and the wheels were separate parts in the system, but with help from the viewers, I solved it quickly.
After repairing the last remaining wheel and pressing the tank embark key...
> Tank mobility restored!
The driver’s bold, forceful voice welcomed me.
"Jesus fucking Christ..."
Having nervously welded the damaged section the whole time, terrified of being sniped, I was completely drained and let out another curse. The viewers, meanwhile, were practically dancing in excitement over it.
Even so, the game kept moving forward, and on the monitor I could see infantry heading into an alley at the front, the view framed through the observation port.
I tried to get the tank moving and follow the infantry, but the enemy reacted faster.
Dudududu—
"Oh, come on, this is getting ridiculous..."
I let out a dry laugh as I watched the infantry being shredded by tracer rounds flashing red like laser beams.
The streamer was exhausted, the viewers were wired, and the in-game NPCs were shouting like lunatics.
And on top of that, the donation alerts kept chiming nonstop.
This was chaos. The true meaning of a total mess.
"Tch..."
I lightly massaged my throbbing temples and moved the tank forward, toward the mouth of the alley where the infantry were waiting.
Clunk—
"Whoa."
Maybe because the track had already taken damage once, the chassis was noticeably bumpier than before.
As a result, the scenery beyond the observation port shook even more violently, making it much harder to keep a clear view.
"Weird... the tank keeps drifting to the right?"
It couldn’t even drive straight anymore; the chassis kept veering toward the right side, the same side where the track had been damaged.
It had to be some accumulated damage system the developers had put in to penalize tank hits.
"Tsk... this game is really unfriendly."
Why on earth would they bother making games care about details like this?
Feeling complicated, I shook my head and drove the tank toward the entrance of the alley, where the infantry were waiting.
Thump—!
Thoom—!
"Whoa, what a grand welcome. Is that a heavy machine gun?"
The instant I rounded the corner, a hail of red tracers burst across the view through the observation port.
Bullets hammered the tank’s armor, ricocheting every which way with sharp, metallic shrieks.
It wasn’t just one machine gun; a wave of red fire from the front flooded my sight.
If this had been infantry depending only on body armor and helmets, they would’ve been shredded without even a chance to resist.
"Heh."
But no matter how many bullets they poured out, it was still only an infantry machine gun.
It wasn’t enough to pierce the tank’s thick armor, not even with cannon shells.
I moved the mouse with leisurely composure and pointed the barrel toward the machine gunner hidden in the darkness inside the storefront, who was desperately spewing bullets in our direction.
The steel beast slowly, gently turned its massive neck and stared down its prey.
I offered the enemy soldier a prayer for the dead, then clicked the mouse.
BOOOOM—!
The T-72M1’s 125mm smoothbore cannon spat fire.
The smoke, dust, and fragments that burst out immediately after the shot swallowed the view in an instant.
A little later, once the gray haze blanketing everything had settled, a brutally shattered storefront and red smears of blood came into view.
"Holy shit, yes."
At that horrifyingly destructive power, I smiled in satisfaction.
Always being the one facing tanks as infantry, then finally becoming the one inside the tank and facing infantry...
"This is a tank!"
...I was overflowing with an intoxicating sense of omnipotence.
It was only something happening inside a game, and yet it felt this thrilling.
Yeah. Tanks were the best.
"Kill them all! Just kill them all!"
I sent the tank surging forward while the coaxial machine gun rattled like crazy at the fleeing enemies.
Crush—!
The body of the hulking steel monster, rushing forward with murderous speed, stomped down and burst the body of the fleeing enemy infantryman.
Kim Seong-hyeon, who had for the first time in his life taken the wheel of a tank in a game...
At this moment, I was the king of ground warfare.
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