Chapter 126
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 126
Chapter Title: April Vengeance (15)
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Hunger is the force that turns parents into devourers of their own children. The flesh of those no longer human would have been far easier to tear into than that of their young. So there was no reason to find it strange that the filthy man wasn't alone. A taboo broken together was no longer a taboo at all.
Thud! Thwack! Thud-thud-thwack!
Marble was soft stone. It crumbled dully under the hail of bullets. The entrance to what had once been a luxurious hall. Sharp hailstones of off-white rained down on Winter, who was hiding behind a statue. The heavy warning of [Survival Instinct]. Winter hunkered down. Boom! A massive head landed right where his legs had been a moment before. A face twisted in agony. Eyes without irises seemed to pose a question to the boy.
What to do?
The clamor of gunfire echoed loudly. Dozens of furious men and women were armed with automatic rifles. Rolling rockets lay scattered about. But all they unleashed were small-caliber rounds. They apparently didn't know how to use anything besides rifles. Without proper shouldering, their aim was abysmal. Not that it was surprising—they were ordinary civilians once. It was impressive enough that they could handle rifles with their rotting brains. Still, their numbers made them a threat.
Have to kill them?
He pondered with a finger on the trigger guard. Even if they were sane people, starting a conversation in this situation would be impossible. Let alone with brains riddled by lesions.
If he got lucky, he might subdue a few without killing them. But he couldn't get past without doing something. Beyond the shattered barricades and the hall littered with empty ammo crates lay the Grand Gallery, his final destination. There would be a group of survivors inside. Mad cannibals, and the unidentified rations they had hoarded. All he could do was hope the rear was clear...
Winter felt no motivation. He mulled it over alone. Maybe he should have listened to the FBI agent.
In any case, he didn't have much time. The statue he leaned against was already unrecognizable. Even its base was precarious. Five more minutes would be fortunate. Had he dragged it out too long? Blind variants were descending the central staircase. Stumbling and groping, they surged forward relentlessly. Their flow resembled viscous liquid. The roulette of spent casings had ultimately failed in its role.
Winter aimed his rifle at the approaching variants. His sights aligned swiftly. But he didn't pull the trigger. After a moment's thought, he subtly lowered the muzzle.
'The commotion is behind me.'
The blind ones were in an agitated state. They jerked their heads about. Rat-tat-tat. Filthy saliva sprayed from clashing teeth. To these beings that had learned of human weapons, gunfire signaled the presence of a host. Winter waited for the group with melting faces to pass by.
Screeeeech!
The shot ones were the leaders. Hearing the screams, the rest of the horde locked onto the direction. Behind the statue was a safe zone. The variant horde split apart right before Winter's eyes. Some came perilously close. Pushed aside or simply heading straight. They ended up forming a wall. No gap to slip through.
Winter leaped backward. He vaulted off the marble statues, flipping his body. He cleared the wall of living corpses, dodged flailing hands in the air beyond, and landed messily. But it was fine. Thud. The sound of his foot hitting and knees buckling was buried in the cacophony of gunfire.
Now Winter was wedged into the midst of the blind variant horde. A maze howling with starvation—this was the second time today. The hailing bullets made conditions even harsher, but it was possible. He initiated combat using the living corpses as cover.
Bang-bang-bang!
He blew off a woman's head with a three-round burst. Winter dodged swiftly right after. Nearby variants swarmed in. This formed a thick shield wall. It wouldn't hold long, but it gave Winter time for several more shots. Bang-bang-bang! Bang-bang! Bang-bang-bang! He fired two or three rounds per target because of their tumors. The swollen lumps had the thickness to absorb bullets.
And yet some survived instant death.
Yes. They were human. One wailed bitterly at the sight of a dead comrade. Different from the survivors in the Grand Gallery and the monsters he now used as shields.
"Wha—ere—arrrre yoooou! Cooome oooout!"
A man collapsed over his dead wife's body, sobbing. Bang! Winter put a round in his head and felt deeply uncomfortable. Each trigger pull intensified the aversion.
But halting the fight was impossible. [Crisis Detection] warnings were so numerous they caused confusion. He started regretting the earlier sneak attack meant to knock out the rotten man. But it had been the best choice then, and he would make it again.
Unavoidable resignation demanded haste.
Meanwhile, the variants desperately sought the invisible Winter. Every burst of gunfire from among them required quick movement. He took cover behind clusters of variants, delivering sustained aimed fire. Variants exploded before Winter's eyes. It was the firepower from those who wanted him dead.
Even their nonexistent aim was effective against clustered variants.
Blood and flesh sprayed like a midsummer downpour. The boy couldn't stay clean. Better that way. It was the gap between scent-blind things. Reeking of the plague from head to toe was no drawback. A detective would freak out, but whatever.
Just keep it out of his mouth. He'd already seen the rotten man.
'Need to control the pace.'
Winter now modulated the tempo of the engagement. He held back on killing the ones across from him. Accounting for the speed at which variants fell. Ideally, the cover would vanish just as the enemies were neutralized.
Then came a bloodcurdling scream echoing through.
"Whyyyyy! Why! Why—won't—you—diieee!"
It was that man. Unlike when he'd fled from Winter, he was now in a blind rage. Bloodshot eyes visible even from afar. Unable to contain his fury, he hobbled forward rapidly. His wound must have healed enough for that new leg to bear weight. A body that had truly transcended humanity.
Variants clung to the man. He shoved them aside wildly as he advanced. In truth, using variants as shields was more advantageous for him than Winter.
Bang! Winter shot his knee. Crunch. The leg bent grotesquely.
"Aaaaah! It huuuurts! You bastaaaard! Uwaaaah! I'll—kiill you! Kill you, you rotten braaat!"
Comrades rushed to save the man. A few awkwardly shielded him with their bodies; the rest fired in fury even as variants grabbed them. Their accuracy plummeted. Click, click. Some acted as if they'd forgotten how to reload.
Eventually, they all did. Low intelligence combined with extreme agitation—a tragic comedy. Their curses and invectives at the boy were monotonously simplistic. Idiot, moron! Childish words that didn't match their furious expressions. Not a single one captured the intensity of their rage.
And then the variants began tearing into them.
'What?'
Winter was taken aback. He'd thought these monster-like people were immune to attacks. Back on the fifth deck, the man had run through variants unhindered. Because of the guns? The gunpowder smell? Screaming like a human? Or... had they learned in the meantime?
Before Winter could react, the rotten man and his comrades were shredded. It was a savage fight over food. Hungry beasts tugged at bodies, spraying blood in arcs as flesh stretched taut in midair. Sounds of bones dislocating and meat ripping.
They were treated not as hosts, but as prey. To variants that infected the living and devoured the dead, the man and his group were no different from corpses.
What did this astonishing scene mean? Winter frowned. Nothing had gone right since boarding this ship. The circumstances that led him here weren't pleasant either.
"You…you…bastard…!"
The man being devoured spat rage at Winter passing by. Blood frothed in his throat. He wouldn't last long. Winter passed silently and picked one of the weapons the rotten man and his comrades hadn't used. A single machine gun, bloodied and rusted.
Click. The charging handle was stiff, but it functioned.
Empty magazines littered the inside of the shattered barricade. The governor's final defensive line before being chased into the Grand Gallery? Winter kicked through the piled magazines. Crash. A clamor of collapsing metal. The variants' attention revived.
He ignored it. His foot caught on something heavy. A full magazine's weight. Five of them. Enough. He placed the machine gun with the mag loaded atop the barricade. And pulled the trigger.
Kakakakang! Ka-kak! Kakakak!
An unusually sharp roar of gunfire. Winter unleashed indiscriminate fire on those who had chased him from the casino. Squeak—when rounds jammed, pulling the handle to clear was a hassle. Fitting for a weapon that malfunctioned after a day in poor conditions.
Blind monsters charged anyway. Few flat paths existed, so they merely snagged on obstacle corpses. Their numbers had dwindled anyway. One that somehow ran straight was dismantled mid-stride.
He didn't even need the fifth magazine. Just in case, he loaded it. In preparation for failed negotiations with the governor.
Crossing the now-quiet hall, Winter approached the rotten man once more.
He was dead. Not that Winter had expected otherwise.
Winter tilted his head. Unpleasant. A world of repeated delusions had long numbed him to both positive and negative stimuli. A life without regrets shouldn't shake him anymore. So he'd thought.
'People who became monsters but didn't eat humans. And people who ate humans and survived as monsters. The ones with human hearts... no need to even distinguish.'
But could this dead man be called human?
He thought again. Himself: mind without body. The outside world: bodies without minds. And virtual personalities without essence. To Winter, none seemed fully human.
Body, mind, essence. None lacked in defining humanity. That was his belief. A world without people, whether here or out there.
He shouldn't hate like this. Winter sighed.
Time to vent. It would feel good to kill something human-like but not human. The refreshing weight of crushing a grudge-bearing stone. A sensation growing harder to attain.
Could the governor save his own neck? He should have picked at least one useless bone to spare. Winter hefted the machine gun and approached the passage to the Grand Gallery.
============================ Author's Note ============================
#Q&A
Q. Kalligos: @My innocence is charging up! Author, I have a question. Up until now, only up to gamma had been mentioned for variant reinforcement levels, so I thought gamma was the end, but another level appeared this time. Do variants go up to omega? Or beyond? Also, if plague immunity grants antibodies for Morgellons, does that completely eliminate game over from infection during game overs? And has Winter ever achieved a clear in any previous playthrough? Finally, I hope this innocence-filled story comes out as a physical book or ebook!
A. Yes. The final grade for reinforced variants is omega. To avoid misunderstanding, note that grades can increase based on criteria other than direct combat ability improvement.
Plague immunity is a condition for vaccine development, but without a faction base capable of researching it, it's a pointless benefit for the player alone. After vaccination, death from infection is gone.
Finally, Winter has never cleared this world once.
Q. Spinmit: @I thought my brain was rotten, but reading your work made me realize my innocence was fermenting and overflowing. Who should I give this overflowing innocence to? Demon Sultan isn't responding, and creeping Chaos curses me on sight. Recommend just one.
A. Obviously give it to me. I'm dying from innocence deficiency and sleep deprivation. :)
Q. JangSEE: @If it's not a spoiler, can you answer? Are the original creators still alive? Or did they get wiped out already, not just frying chicken?
A. Some are alive, some are dead.
Q. NovelJason: @If you wrote wuxia, it'd be authentic Jin Yong-style, right? If you did, would you create your own original world? (Personally love Jin Yong's wuxia, so it'd make me happy. lol)
A. Authentic wuxia isn't popular... Saw buyer stats for a certain work—74% were over 50. It's become a far more niche genre than even columbarium stuff. Doubt I'll ever write authentic wuxia.
Q. RGZ95: @Enjoyed today's battle scene too! Your fights always play out naturally in my head without any resistance. Thanks for filling me with innocence again!
A. This part dragged on longer than expected since I referenced actual cruise ship interior maps. Hmm...
Now that I'm thinking of writing a chat part after so long, I'm excited but also worried.