Chapter 91
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 91
Chapter Title: Lakeside Night (10), Santa Margarita Lake
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The battle continued.
The enemy's resistance was half of what it had been. The other half was dead. Or would be soon. It was hard to find any camaraderie among criminals. They were retreating, leaving bodies and wounded behind. Toward the east, where Captain Harris's main force was likely positioned. The decision itself was reasonable. Winter was to the west, the squad members to the north. To keep both in check, they had to herd them in one direction.
But that's not how it played out. Winter kept flanking them. He didn't miss a chance at their side. Something incredibly difficult by any normal standard. If you drew a large circle around the criminals, Winter's path traced the outer edge. Even ten steps of running barely closed one step of ground. And yet he pulled it off.
As Winter darted between trees, bouts of frenzied gunfire rained down on him.
Rat-a-tat-tat! Tat-tat!
Most of it was sloppy. But one burst was genuinely threatening. The bullets' trajectory dug in, dirt kicking up in a continuous line drawing closer. It would hit before he reached the next cover. Winter dropped to one knee like he was collapsing. Thump! Amid the jolt of his body weight slamming the ground, a split-second alignment of his sights and an instinctive shot.
Thud-thud! -Bang!
The roar hammered his eardrums. The boy's vision whipped around. His ears rang. A high-pitched whine—tinnitus—and the throb of his eardrums. Winter crawled forward and pressed his back against a tree trunk. He touched his helmet. Even through his gloves, he felt the ridges. A bullet had grazed the side.
'Bad luck, I guess...'
Winter's three-round burst had nailed the shooter. But in that instant, the enemy's muzzle had jerked upward, sending the line of fire clipping his helmet. A random variable beyond "Combat Sense"'s "Insight." He'd nearly died. His head started throbbing belatedly. That was the danger of projectile weapons.
His mind stayed calm, but his body didn't. His hands trembled from the situational calculations. Winter clenched them steady. It took five deep breaths to recover the lost time. Then the radio crackled.
[David Actual! David Actual! This is David One! Currently engaging the enemy! Break!]
Jeffrey was calling Winter. Heavy static. Winter snatched the radio.
"Go ahead, Jeffrey!"
[Enemy strength, infantry about fifty! They're getting mortar fire support! Can't pinpoint the mortar position! Lost the first line! Falling back to the second! Check if you can support this position, over!]
"Hold on just a bit! Be there soon!"
He ended the transmission and bolted. The enemies' reaction was sluggish. Six survivors, scattered all over. They hadn't recovered their disrupted formation, thanks to Winter.
In the meantime, the squad kept pressing from the front. That let Winter cover a much longer distance than before. He finally took up position on their diagonal rear. Now they had nowhere to run. Panicked enemies filled Winter's sights. He squeezed the trigger.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Casings sprayed wildly. The half-spent mag emptied in a single second. That second claimed two lives. Winter hit the mag release and twisted the rifle. The empty mag flew free on inertia. He slammed in a fresh one in one smooth motion. Full auto again.
Clack!
On the fifth round, metal ground against metal. Like a paper jam in a copier, a live round had stuck in the chamber. Winter yanked the charging handle repeatedly. It wouldn't budge. He jammed a finger into the chamber and scraped it out by force. One mangled cartridge tumbled free.
He rushed to re-aim when a belated scream erupted from the one who hadn't waited.
"Uwaaaah! Surrender! Surrender! No, I surrender! Don't shoot! Please spare me!"
Total mess. But the gunfire from the front kept pouring in. The squad was using suppressors, so the splintering wood was louder than the shots. Winter keyed the radio.
"David Three! Cease fire, cease fire! Enemy's surrendering!"
The lethal racket faded. But the surrenderee kept yelling "surrender," one wailed at the top of his lungs, and the other two stayed silent out of sight.
No time to wait for the squad. Faint gunfire echoed from afar. Winter charged in alone, sweeping left and right at a near-jog.
There was one fewer survivor than Winter had counted. A throat-slashed man lay sprawled over tree roots, blood pooling in his gaping mouth. The surrenderer, the crier, and a final one struggling off to the side. He clutched a grenade with the pin pulled.
"Freeze! Don't move!"
Winter barked. He held fire only because the other two had given up resistance. The approaching squad quickly sized it up. They fanned out menacingly. Their muttered curses reached Winter's ears. Even the would-be surrenderee drooled as he scrambled away. Only the crying one stayed in the danger zone, seemingly lost in a daze. Winter eased pressure onto the trigger. It inched back. On the verge of breaking when he finally stopped.
But the grenade man wasn't aggressive. His hands shook, but his face was calm, at least. A dark calm. He stared at Winter, then gave a hollow smile.
"Sorry."
A spring uncoiled. He hugged the grenade to his chest and pitched forward.
"Emily."
His final word before death. The blast was a small heave. Without the boom, you might've thought he'd just twitched. Clotted blood laced with flesh seeped out. Rain diluted the red to a hazy shade.
Even in the press, Winter's gaze was stolen for a moment.
Gurgle, gurgle, hack. The unlucky soldier didn't die right away. The boy pulled the trigger. His head burst.
"Restrain them."
At Winter's order, the squad secured the two POWs.
"Any other survivors on the way?"
Elliot gave a heavy reply.
"Hopeless cases. We eased their suffering."
Yeah, in this weather and terrain. Anyone with limbs torn off or guts spilling was just a delayed death. Elliot pulled the dog tags from the suicide grenade soldier. The others scavenged ammo and grenades nearby. Even scraps were vital. The squad had burned through far more ammo than Winter.
To the geared-up squad, Winter said,
"We're running six hundred meters from here. Grit your teeth and keep up."
"Haa."
Squad leader Elliot sighed. They were all spent. Bodies shaking. The POWs were in worse shape. And with their arms zip-tied tight behind their backs, keeping up seemed impossible.
'Can't ditch them. Radio static's too bad.'
It started with an uphill climb.
Still, they ran. The soldiers followed without a word.
Speed dropped steadily. The half-delirious POW kept stumbling, and the squad wore death masks. By the end, it was barely walking pace. Sprinting a two-hundred-meter incline was Winter's feat alone right now.
Things improved after cresting the slope. A gently winding dirt road appeared. Winter, first to the top, scanned the battlefield. Captain Harris hadn't breached the line yet. Even in this downpour, smoke rose in spots. Winter read the traces of the captain's assault and its failures.
Boom! A heavy cannon blast mimicked thunder. Right after, some irrelevant shrubbery below the ridge exploded.
'How many shells do they have left?'
No follow-up fire meant not many. It was man-portable to begin with.
By then, the straggling soldiers clutched their knees, gasping.
"Rest for one minute?"
"No......! Gah! We can... do it!"
"Got it."
Winter didn't ask again.
The squad infiltrated the enemy's flank and rear. Trailing the direction of the cannon fire, Winter followed the signs. "Tracking"-enhanced traces littered the area. The same skill he'd used last Christmas to hunt for the missing by another lake.
The footprints he finally found were unexpectedly shallow.
"David One, David One. This is David Actual."
[David......David......David Actual......Hero bullshit......bastard spawn......]
"David One. Do you read? This is David Actual."
Winter repeated calls to Jeffrey, but the radio was dead now. Unless they were close enough to see faces, comms were impossible. As he gave up, a stray idea hit. The boy demanded the useless radios from the soldiers.
"Two of them."
"What're... you... gonna do?"
"Bait."
Winter wrapped a zip tie around one radio's transmit button. It would suck up ambient noise until the battery died.
He lashed the remaining radio to it. This one's button stayed unpressed.
"Ha! That mutant little shit......rebroadcasting......the intercepted messages!"
Pale-faced Elliot marveled, then doubled over to vomit bile. Overexertion backlash.
"Exactly. With all the jamming, no one's using radio. Makes this the only signal source around."
"Even if someone picks it up......they won't tell it from the jamming......right."
"Anyone got explosives?"
While he was at it, Winter pocketed some C4 plastic explosive. Normally you'd cut off a dab, but not this time.
Boom! Another cannon blast. Closer now, the sound was different. Winter led the squad in quietly.
"Make a sound, you die."
One squad member whispered a threat to the POWs.
Corpses littered the area. Winter rigged a trap on one. Propped it to clutch the radio, wired with explosive. Anyone tracking the signal would eat it the moment they touched. The soldiers' faces were dark and uneasy. Recent comrades. Elliot hesitated.
"Lieutenant. Back in the day, this'd violate the Geneva Conventions..."
"I know it's nasty. But left alone, it's mutant chow."
"......Yeah, put like that."
"Move."
A bit farther, and they reached the battlefield. Mortar position dead ahead. Plus about twenty more crawling up the slope. From here, every back was in view. Winter spread the squad and assigned targets. No sense wasting shots on overlaps.
All set. Winter shouted.
"Fire!"
============================ Author's Notes ============================
# Hing
Today's update is a bit short. No excuses... But I'm too sleepy to write more. Haha. Please forgive me while recalling the days with hefty chapters.
# Q&A
Q. Xedrions: @Take some of my innocence here! 7 coupons from Joara!
A. Got it, innocence received safely. I'll use it to fast-forward the Haego City injury arc.
Q. Qing Li Lian: @Innocence levels seem low today. Probably from the civilian massacres and the shameless human behavior... Already gave all my coupons, so I offer recommendations, ratings, and comments as sacrifice.
A. Oh no... A novel with no innocence left is nothing, and now innocence is low...
Guess I need a summer vacation to recharge my innocence.
Q. Master Calsolum: @Bulletproof mentality!!!!!! Pro tip on spaghetti sauce: "Peperoncino" peppers. The little ones that give pepperoni pizza that subtle spice. Toss 'em in your sauce for a tomato kick that whets the appetite. Great powdered in stews or mixed with salt for grilled meat dips. There, Calsolum's Cooking Corner (?)
A. My mentality's ordinary glass. When something happens, it shatters once, then I glue it back.
Pepperoni pizza has peppers? Never tasted spice in one all these years... Heh...
Q. Sky Blue Pencil: @What about people on space stations or Antarctic bases? Stuck up there?
A. Honestly haven't thought that far. Not relevant to the plot yet... Sorry. The author's innocence is that deficient.
Q. Donkatsu Menya: @Even tough-looking Han Gyeowul's innocence will shake someday? Looking forward. And old effects with romance? Original sin? Lololol
A. Uh... There's a really good incident lined up, but I'm worried it'll crack the readers' innocence before Winter's.
Q. qoewh: @Space war veteran for real?!
A. Well... A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
Q. Peach Blossom Garden: @Carnivals are baseline! Let's see... Shooting your own to buy time? Still too tame?! Is my innocence overflowing, or is Dreamland short on it lately?
A. Dreamland bills electricity in innocence. Got hit with progressive tax bomb... Sob sob...
Q. RGZ95: @Thanks for the innocence today. Already crossed the line, so chose resistance over surrender @[email protected] ;; Better than dying...
A. Thanks for reading every time. Even rolling in shit, this life's better.
Q. PAM: @Gyaack Guwaaack
A. Ah, of course. No summer vacay, so planning zero writing over Chuseok— just play, eat, sleep. Thanks for worrying about the author.