The Moving Gun Hunts Humans (6)
The Moving Gun took aim at Baek Sa-ra.
Baek Sa-ra, who had been moving with effortless grace, dropped low and kicked off the floor.
She hurtled forward as if slicing the distance clean out of existence, and with her twin machetes she brought them down without mercy on that thing's tangled mass of arms.
BOOM—!
Blade met gun — so why did it sound like an explosion?
The Moving Gun swayed once, then swung its muzzle back toward her.
But it was too slow.
No — Baek Sa-ra was simply too fast.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Slipping past the muzzle, she hammered it down again and again.
I know nothing about swordsmanship.
Even so, I could tell that what Baek Sa-ra was doing wasn't kendo, or any sword art. What she was displaying right now was disassembly and mincing. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Under the relentless onslaught, rifle barrels came clattering loose from the Moving Gun's arm one after another. Backed into a corner, it flailed its limb in a desperate last gamble.
Baek Sa-ra drove both machetes into its shoulders, planted her feet, and launched herself. Her supple body traced a perfect parabola over its head, and the moment she landed she swept around and kicked its legs out from under it.
CRASH—!
The Moving Gun went down in a thunderous heap, and Baek Sa-ra climbed atop it without hesitation. She reached for the machetes she had left embedded in it and gripped them once more.
Crossing her arms, she hauled back with all her strength. The razor-edged blades locked together like scissors and sheared clean through its upper body in one long cut.
Perhaps it felt pain — its steel-ball head thrashed as the thing convulsed. Then that metal skull caved in with a crunch. There was no sound, but it looked for all the world like a scream.
Clack— clack— clackclackclack—
Its arm warped and twisted, and still more rifle barrels sprouted from the wreckage.
Something about it felt very wrong. It was time, apparently. The thing was preparing to fire indiscriminately — and Baek Sa-ra had to know it too.
But instead of retreating, she flung one of her machetes aside and seized the monster barehanded, chopping at its arm like she was splitting firewood.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
She seemed intent on severing the whole arm outright.
Despite her savagery, though, its upper arm only swelled larger and larger. Dozens of rifles fused onto it in half-melted lumps, and red and blue vessels spread across them like a web, locking the guns in place. Those repulsive components began grinding against each other, clicking into alignment.
A dark premonition seized me and I threw myself flat. A heartbeat later, gunfire came pouring down like rain.
RATATATATATA—!
Amid the suffocating barrage, everything around me shattered to pieces. Stone dust rained down over my head. I clamped my hands over my ears and hunched as small as I could manage, face buried in the corpse of the darkness. It was all I could do.
After an eternity, the nightmarish din finally stopped. I lifted my hands from my ears and slowly raised my head.
The hospital lobby had been beaten into a wasteland. And beyond the billowing clouds of dust, I could see the Moving Gun, split nearly in two. It was torn open from shoulder to abdomen, and Baek Sa-ra's machete was buried deep in the wound.
Baek Sa-ra, meanwhile, stood before it without a scratch.
Did she finish it...?
Hope swelled in me as I stared at her.
CLANG—!
Then, with a metallic crash, her blade dropped to the floor. Baek Sa-ra, who had been standing perfectly straight, staggered backward. Blood spattered with every step she took.
Sssss— zzzzsss—
The Moving Gun's severed halves, on the other hand, began crawling back together. The mass of flesh squirmed with a sound like wet meat.
It was an obvious opening — and yet for some reason, Baek Sa-ra didn't reach for her weapon. She simply turned her head quietly toward me. Her behavior was strangely calm, like someone who had already accepted the outcome and made her peace with it.
I met her gaze for a long moment... then forced myself to my feet.
Oh, right. Now that I'm upright, I feel even more like dying. My head is spinning and my stomach is heaving. Every part of me wants to sink right back down—but I gritted my teeth and raised the pistol Baek Sa-ra had given me.
To say it again: I have no idea how to shoot this thing. My vision still won't focus properly either.
But that's fine. I'm not exactly planning to hit anything.
BANG—!
I pulled the trigger at empty air, not at any target. At the crack of the shot, every eye in the room swung toward me — especially the Moving Gun, which turned to stare at me like it was hypnotized.
Fair enough. My mask was off. I was showing my bare face.
Clack— clackclackclackclack—!
The moment it saw my face, the Moving Gun twisted its muzzle around in a hysterical frenzy. Even Baek Sa-ra looked at me in visible shock.
My face stamp went through perfectly, it seemed.
After that, I turned away without a shred of regret and hurled myself in the opposite direction from both of them. Just as I was rolling recklessly over the pile of concrete—
THUD—!
That vibration again. I was getting used to it by now: the concussion of the Moving Gun firing a high-powered round. I tumbled all the way down, and without even registering the pain, looked back. A round hole gaped in the concrete pile where I'd just been.
Called it. That thing only fired at targets whose face it had seen. I'd rolled out of the way, but there was no time to breathe a sigh of relief.
RATATATATATA—!
A sound like popping popcorn erupted behind me, and the concrete pile I'd rolled off of was being pounded to gravel.
Excellent. The Moving Gun had abandoned Baek Sa-ra and started chasing me.
I sprinted from the lobby toward the corridor, planning to lure the monster. Then — oh no. Now that it had begun its indiscriminate barrage, its movement speed had gotten faster too. As the gunfire closed in on me in seconds, I threw myself around the broken bend of the corridor.
RATATATATACK—!
Bullets came spewing after me by a hair's breadth.
Wow. I genuinely just survived dying.
Gripping my pounding heart, I glanced around. Signboards hung here and there, but the letters on them were, as expected, unreadable. Still, that was fine too — I remembered the hospital floor plan Baek Sa-ra had drawn for me.
I took a moment to map my surroundings and the corridor's layout, picked a rough direction, and ran. I shouldered through one door and found a fairly wide space beyond. This was the emergency medical center. Complicated medical equipment and folding hospital cots were spread out in every direction.
I dragged one of the wheeled cots outside.
Clatter— clatter—
Then I shoved it with all my strength toward the far end of the corridor. The cot raced down the smooth floor and slammed into the wall. I repeated this several times until a flimsy barricade had formed at the corridor's far end.
RATATATA—!
But before six cots could even stack up, bullets came pouring over the top of them. The steel-frame beds collapsed as light as straw.
Hey, seriously, cut it out already...!
Anxious now, I hurried back into the emergency center, loaded a white cylinder onto a cot, and shoved it out with all my might again.
Screeeeech—!
It rolled slower than the others and came to a stop at just the right spot. By then, the Moving Gun's muzzle was hanging over the pathetic wreckage. The moment I confirmed it had arrived, I dove back into the emergency center and threw myself flat.
PING— KRAANG—! TING—!
Metal shrieking, something shattering — and then a colossal roar tore through everything.
KA-BOOOOM—!
The floor lurched like an earthquake had hit. Every pane of glass in the vicinity burst and came cascading down, and a hideous wave of heat washed over me once.
Eeeeeee—
A whistle-like ringing bored through my skull. I'd dodged, and the shock still wasn't kind. Fighting down the dizziness, I looked back toward the corridor.
It was coated in black soot — the scar of flames that had licked their way across it.
That last cot I'd rolled out had an oxygen tank loaded on top. The Moving Gun, true to its habit, had fired at it until it detonated. It had blown itself up.
I staggered upright and peered cautiously toward the far end of the corridor. Where the explosion had occurred, everything was pitch black, the light completely blotted out. The air hung thick with the acrid stench of gunpowder and a sickening smell of burnt flesh.
This time, did I really finish it?
...I shouldn't have thought that.
Something shifted in the dark, and then the thing rose, shedding ash in a cascade. It was the Moving Gun — shell melted away, limbs blown off.
Impossible. It survived that explosion?
It bent at the waist and twisted its body, and the missing pieces of it began to grow back.
Sssss— zzst—
The Moving Gun convulsed as it repaired itself. Am I imagining that the motion looks painful? No — I think I'm right.
Its smooth head turned toward me. No eyes, no expression, and yet unmistakable hatred poured off it. The revived thing raised its muzzle.
I spun on my heel immediately, and the nightmarish sound rang out yet again.
RATATATA—!
Damn it! How long am I supposed to keep doing this?
I bolted for the emergency exit at the back of the center. But it was too fast. With a burst of automatic fire, the direction I'd been heading sprouted holes. I had no choice but to duck behind the nearest wall.
The moment I hid, the Moving Gun opened up with everything it had. Every piece of equipment in the emergency room burst apart as merrily as fireworks. The walls and floor were melting away bit by bit, like cotton candy caught in the rain.
At this rate, the wall at my back wouldn't hold for long. Damn it — how much time had passed? How much longer did I have to hold out...!
BOOM—!
While I was pacing in place, a piece of scrap metal fell from above. I looked up — the ceiling was a wreck too. The panels had long since been blasted away, and even the structure inside them was coming down. What had already fallen was a recessed ceiling-mounted air conditioner unit. What was about to come crashing next was a huge slab of concrete.
"Ghk—...!"
I shoved off the floor in a panic.
KRAANG—!
I rolled clear of being crushed by a hair. But beyond one line of fire lay another. Flat on the ground, I froze solid.
I could see the Moving Gun. And between us there was nothing at all. Ten meters — that was the entire distance, with absolutely nothing left to block its path. Its muzzle swung toward me.
It wasn't even slow motion, and yet every movement seared itself into my brain. It felt as if time were deliberately crawling, carving my death into me before it arrived.
No — I...!
At that instant, the Moving Gun erupted.
No — it was shot.
BANG. BANG. BANG—!
Eardrum-tearing gunshots rang out in rhythm, precise as a metronome. Under that mechanical fusillade, the Moving Gun's limbs flew off one after another. An arm spun away; a leg was severed. Its main body was driven back inch by inch until it vanished from my sight — and in its place, a crowd of men in special-forces gear came pouring in, filling my vision.
Even after suppressing the Moving Gun, they kept firing. I couldn't tell if this was a dream or waking life, and just stared blankly. Eventually, the man at the front raised his arm. The gunfire cut off all at once, and silence settled around us.
Then the man with the raised arm spoke in a voice I knew.
"The Moving Gun is silenced."
I lifted my head. His face was hidden behind a helmet. But what was with that long hair spilling out from under it?
There is exactly one man I know with that voice and that mane of hair.
I stared stupidly at the man who was unmistakably Cha Si-eon, and he glanced at me in return and muttered:
"Otter rescue complete."
...What is this indescribable feeling? He's undeniably the man who saved my life, and yet I want to strangle him. And it felt like I could do it — like I should do it. For my own sake, for the sake of a better world.
The will and the justification were both in ample supply, but in the end I couldn't so much as lift a finger. My body was as heavy as waterlogged cotton.
Damn it... I'll deal with you later...
Already past my limit, I wailed silently in sheer frustration — and then I spectacularly passed out.