Chapter 155
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 155
Chapter Title: Distant Bridge, Alermider (3)
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Thud. The door was sealed shut.
But it wasn’t enough. Hell itself seemed to be closing in from the other side of the blocked door. A pandemonium of starved, enraged creatures. Every time the door rattled, the gap widened just a little more. Countless fingers crawled through the crack. Red emergency lights leaked out with them. Winter kicked the outdoor unit. Bang! The deafening crunch of buckling metal sheets mingled with the screams of crushed fingers. Dozens of severed finger joints writhed like insects on the floor. Tan Guo Sheng shuddered. He shoved the unit with his back and shouted.
“Li! Grab another one! I’ll hold here! Hurry!”
Winter ran. He secured a new outdoor unit. Pulling it strained his entire body. Sweat poured down. Grind, grind. The sound of metal scraping stone. White trails of dust trailed his movements.
“Step back!”
The Chinese officer retreated in a hurry. Winter toppled the new hunk of metal. The floor shook under his combat boots. He shoved the fallen machine with all his might, pressing it tight against the first one. The doubled weight and surface area provided more than twice the resistance. The gap stopped widening. Still, blood occasionally splattered, accompanied by wet crushing sounds. The relentless pressure was a death sentence in itself.
It was a blessing the space beyond was a narrow staircase. If it had been a horizontal expanse, even this weight wouldn’t have held.
Groan, ugh. Sounds like the moans of the wounded. On closer inspection, they came from some of the variants Winter had dragged up and knocked out. Ones that hadn’t died even after their vital spots were caved in by the crowbar. They were merely unconscious.
The Chinese officer gasped in horror.
“My God!”
Bang! His pistol fired a single shot downward. Winter had grabbed and twisted his arm.
“Conserve your ammo. We don’t have much left.”
Winter himself had only one grenade, two rifle magazines, and three pistol magazines remaining. Even though he’d stocked up generously, the consumption had been ferocious. Tan Guo Sheng wasn’t in much better shape. He might have fired less often than Winter, but in the grip of tension and fear, most of his trigger pulls had been bursts.
“I’ll handle it. Step back.”
The high-ranking officer’s backward stumble was the fastest he could manage while saving face.
The ghoul with a boot print sunk deep into its chest was the first to regain consciousness. It flailed for a moment, then its wandering gaze locked onto Winter. It seemed to grasp the situation. Spewing blood, it rolled over. It moved with a nimbleness that belied its labored breathing. It crawled toward him on two arms—baraba-bak—then leaped with raw power. Clack-clack-clack! Teeth snapping at the air.
But it was a straightforward arc. Its crown exposed, Winter brought the crowbar down. Blood sprayed. Thunk—the weight of the variant caught on his wrist. Its head fixed, only its body twitched. Thin blood trickled over the pale skull. It looked like a man bathed in red rain. The monster, once a boy its age, glared up at Winter with discolored eyes before its knees buckled. The crowbar blade slipped free on its own.
Winter finished off the rest. None of the survivors were in normal condition. The one with its forehead smashed kept pounding the floor. Rage at its uncontrollable body. Pink folds peeked through the fractured skull. Winter stomped down hard with his heel. The brain matter pulped.
He’d targeted heads before, too. Since these were humans turned monsters, brain damage showed the same symptoms as in people. Most lost balance or retched.
Not many had survived to begin with. It took barely a minute to clean them up.
“Are we... are we safe now, Li?”
Tan Guo Sheng wheezed like he was moaning. Soaked in more sweat than Winter. Enough to worry about dehydration.
But it was too soon to relax. His nerves still prickled. A sign the crisis wasn’t over. Winter stayed vigilant. What threats were left? His sharpened senses pointed in multiple directions. Ventilation units in each. The fans were still whirring, powered by the solar panels crowding the rooftop, it seemed.
His enhanced hearing picked up clanging metal. The bearing shifted in real time, distance closing.
“Major.”
“What?”
“We need to run.”
“What?”
Winter grabbed the limp officer and bolted. Tan Guo Sheng staggered once, barely regaining his balance. Looking back with a bewildered expression, he saw a shattered fan hurl chunks of flesh into the air. A variant had slammed its torso into the spinning blades.
Raaaaagh—
The variant bursting from the vent roared ferociously. A metal blade embedded in its shoulder. One arm missing. Yet it charged. It wasn’t alone. From the pitch-black duct leading indoors, variant after variant after variant poured out, hurling their superhuman strength to launch themselves.
The other vents were the same. The massive building meant plenty of them. Variants erupted from every direction. Getting surrounded in open terrain would be dangerous even for Winter. Above all, the VIP’s safety came first. The general’s son had to survive.
“This is insane!”
Tan Guo Sheng’s wail carried a sob.
Their path led to the water tower. Not tall for a rooftop structure, but the ladder to the tank was the only one. Climbing up would buy immediate safety. Isolation inevitable, but it was the sole option his Survival Instinct offered.
At the ladder’s base, Winter seized the VIP’s belt and heaved him up like discarded trash. Then leaped after. Despite the head start, he caught up quickly. Winter hung one-handed, drew his pistol, and shot the foreheads and crowns of those scaling the railing. Pop! Pop-pop! They toppled in heaps, balance shattered.
The leading ghoul hung back cautiously. Too small a target to line up.
“Hurry up!”
Tan Guo Sheng reached the top and extended a hand. Winter surged the remaining distance in one bound, making the gesture pointless. A final screech echoed, then the variants stopped pursuing. Even their intelligence grasped the disadvantage of the narrow vertical path. Still, Winter gripped the crowbar tight. A fit one—even not a ghoul—could close the gap in moments.
“Damn it. We’re completely trapped...”
Tan Guo Sheng was right. Winter saw no way out. Over two hundred clustered around the tower. Why so many ghouls? Plenty of sturdy males among the regular variants, too. Likely only those who’d overcome the vertical ducts made it up. Proof: no more climbed despite clear vents.
‘Even this number is plenty burdensome...’
Ammo running low. He could fight relying on terrain, but not ideal. Thunk, clank, bang. The variants started hurling debris. Pipes ripped from somewhere, blades they’d carried, broken bricks. When enemies wielded projectiles in numbers, the power gap widened fast.
For now, it was fine. The tank’s top was spacious enough. As long as they stayed up high, the variants couldn’t spot targets. The occasional arcing projectile posed a risk, but Winter’s senses wouldn’t miss.
“What’s your plan now? Doesn’t look like there’s a way.”
Not a question a superior asks a subordinate. But Tan Guo Sheng clung to sanity by leaning on Winter. The overwhelming experiences so far demanded it.
In any case, the man now looked only to Winter. Trust built in life-or-death forged strong bonds. Like his quick rapport with Joanna. Positive for the mission, all things considered. Whether they’d escape intact was another matter.
For now, Winter had no proposals. He simply said:
“Why not rest a bit? You’re exhausted. Won’t do us any good if an opportunity arises and you can’t seize it.”
“Rest? You think that’s possible here?”
“I’ll keep watch.”
Tan Guo Sheng shook his head weakly and sprawled out starfish-style. Near self-abandonment. He sat up coughing after gulping water lying down, then lay back and closed his eyes. Not asleep. He flinched at every thud of thrown objects.
Soon, the barbaric barrage eased. They were waiting for exhaustion to set in. Time favored the plague.
Winter sat and rummaged his pockets. A few energy bars. He’d picked the portable ones from combat rations. No suspicion since airdrops included them.
The crunch of nuts made the officer open his eyes.
“You’re something else. Food going down in this mess.”
“Too early to give up. You’re holding up surprisingly well yourself, Major.”
“...Who knows.”
He started to reply, then suddenly burst into tears. Trying to stifle it. But these weren’t sobs he could hold back. Hard to call him weak-hearted. The situation justified it.
“Will Mom send a chopper?”
A tearful murmur. A grown man on the cusp of youth invoking “Mama” sounded childish, but those facing death always regressed to seeking parents. Winter had seen it countless times yet never felt it himself—from his earliest memories, he’d yearned for such feelings.
At the same time, his rational mind weighed the possibility. General Xie Ru’s faction had scant aviation fuel reserves. Only a few destroyer helos, maintenance laughably poor. Parts cut off over a year ago.
‘Military aircraft rely on frequent upkeep for reliability...’
Reliability and durability weren’t the same. Extreme example: WWII B-29s swapped all engines every three days. Yet within lifespan, they aced any op with top performance.
Still, a general might launch a recon bird to save her son. Descending to Grumble-throw range was another story.
The radio was dead. Too much jamming from Alermider’s south coast to here. Even Ork Black patrols couldn’t use them on fringes. Winter couldn’t estimate the tricksters lurking in coasts, swamps, and ruins.
‘Why send her son on such a risky mission to begin with?’
Xie Ru’s leadership seemed flawed.
Even a mob boss wouldn’t throw her only daughter into battle to secure power. Li Airing’s duality might stem from parental contradictions.
Assuming Winter’s guess held, survivor hunts would face opposition. No grand excuse needed. Scarce fuel stockpiles made perfect rationale.
“Of course we have nothing. That’s why we’re so scared. Let me ask: have you really never seen people desperately hiding clean clothes, useless dollar bundles, unopened cosmetics, pristine razors or toothbrushes?”
The voice in his head was Min Wan-gi’s. Different context, same psychology.
Winter decided to wait a little longer.
Not just hoping for a chopper.
He sought inspiration from sensory augmentation. Stuck long on a problem, new senses sometimes emerged.
Like this: someone of this caliber needs this much time to devise a solution... An old system of thought.
But he didn’t slack. Pinning hopes on uncertain rescue was always last resort. He might think of something himself. Effort required. To leave no regrets, even if this world ended here.