The Little Prince in the Ossuary-Chapter 124 : April Vengeance (13)

April Vengeance (13)

I'm sorry. One word of apology and a little time; that was all it really took to persuade the FBI agent. She quickly let go of any lingering attachment. As if nothing had happened, she calmly guided Gyeo-ul to the center of the management compartment.

Was it because it was an area reserved for the crew? The frequency of encountering mutants was less than expected.

Gyeo-ul slid down to the lower floor through a vertical passage.

—I've closed off the rear and front passageways on the fifth deck, but this is as much as I can do.

The guidance came at the lowest volume. It sounded like a whisper.

—Go out through the door toward the bow. Cross the boulevard and you'll reach the casino entrance. From there, going down the central stairs is the shortest route. If you can't use that way, head toward the grand theater. Contact me through the internal line before you reach the atrium, and I'll open the front passage for you.

Boulevard, as she told him, was a broad road in the literal sense. Unlike the higher decks packed with cabins, from this deck on—where entertainment facilities were concentrated—there was a lot of open space in every direction.

Joanna Gibson hadn't warned him for nothing. There were few bulkheads in open spaces. The ones that did exist could only seal off the rear lounge, the front atrium, and as far as the grand theater. This was the same from the fifth to the third deck. If he wanted to turn back, it would be best to do so before making a full entry.

—I wish you the best of luck.

Gyeo-ul opened the door to leave.

He found himself inside a circular bar. An infected bartender stood frozen, facing forward. A stiff back, shoulders neither rising nor falling. Gyeo-ul realized this meant the bartender was under metabolic suppression. There was no urgent need to kill him, but also no reason to let him live. Kwadeuk! He stuck his machete into the back of the man's head. He quietly laid the trembling body down.

He leapt over a table. Then scanned his surroundings—a club with emergency lights lit in scattered spots. Black stains splattered everywhere under the ominous red lighting. Tick tick tak-tak-tak. The sound of teeth clacking echoed from somewhere.

The boulevard leading to the casino felt like this ship's logbook. Moving corpses and unmoving corpses. A simple glance told him about life aboard while alive. Information gathering through 「Insight」 ran automatically. When needed, it would come to mind.

Most of the mutants stood like mannequins. Many were gathered by the windows—it seemed they'd partially woken at the sound of the helicopter's rotors.

At the moment, there was no engine sound. Perhaps the timing of the shift had not matched up. It would be hard to expect precisely timed mission changes in such a sudden operation. The admiral had also mentioned cumulative loss of life and fatigue.

For Gyeo-ul, in his current state, this might actually be a good thing. Even with armor-piercing rounds in a medium machine gun, it would be difficult to support fire by shooting through the hull.

It was better, then, to move quietly now.

However, there were still mutants that were active. Their roles were clear; they were their own kind of sentinels, perhaps even establishing rotation. With animal intelligence, such a thing was possible—even mere wolves follow role division; how much more would monsters based on human forms?

'It might be better to kill them all here...'

On the deck below, the fourth deck, lifeboats were stacked left and right. The level was also open at the sides and at the bow. It was the best place to lead survivors.

Gyeo-ul guessed he could silently take out the sentinels. After that, he could kill the rest, one by one, as long as they didn't wake up.

Walking among those open-eyed and asleep felt surreal. Avoiding the field of view of moving mutants by using unmoving ones as cover, he crouched low and moved, until he found a ravaged woman. A blood-soaked dress, a pearl necklace, an elegant watch around her wrist. Under the red lights, her handbag gleamed. In this crowd of eaters and the eaten, she must have been one of the predators.

What caught Gyeo-ul's attention was not her decaying state, but her scent. Besides the stench of decayed meat, there lingered an unusual aroma. A harshly chemical jasmine fragrance—intense. Not normally used so heavily; had she been unable to wash?

Given the kind of rations they carried... To keep someone alive until eating, they'd need a lot of water.

As expected, searching her bag produced a bottle of perfume. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Gyeo-ul continued spraying it across the carpeted floor. Then stepped back, crouched behind the wide skirt of the woman's body with her hair tied up. Quietly set down his backpack to lighten the load. His body, now lighter, could fully show his superhuman agility.

The fragrance-soaked floor marked the path that the awakened mutants would take. Pairs moving together would be a slight bother—so he'd have to use his hands quickly.

As expected, they fell for it. Sniff sniff. A pair approached, noses twitching. One male, one female about Gyeo-ul's age. They hadn't found a new host yet, so it was too early for a howl. They just wandered around in search of the scent, finally bending down towards the floor. They were tracing the scent to its source with their hands on the ground.

Crunch. Crack.

Gyeo-ul, catching them from behind, quickly snapped both of their necks. It was a strength surpassing human limits. Even a short snap was enough to break cervical vertebrae. Grabbing the nape before they fell, he lowered the two limp corpses gently, as he had done with the bartender.

The girl mutant gazed at Gyeo-ul. Her thin neck had twisted around one and a half times. Blood seeped from torn flesh. Her dull eyes overflowed with disgusting longing, and her tongue lolled out. A powerless reproductive instinct from a mutant on the verge of death. The dead girl shed tears. It was difficult to think of it as a true emotional response.

Laying the body down, Gyeo-ul counted the remaining ones.

If he did well, he could handle it all without wasting a single bullet.

After quietly eliminating five more pairs of sentinels, it became a monotonous but silent routine. All the same, he hurried—there would not be a long gap before the next helicopter. Agent Gibson could only buy so much time.

Then—a monstrous man appeared.

"...?!"

Gyeo-ul jolted in surprise. His sensory adjustment gave him no warning whatsoever. At an average mutant's reflexes, this distance could be closed in three breaths. The man sat huddled in a shadowed corner, chewing his fingers while watching the repetitive killings, work nearly akin to labor.

Why hadn't Gyeo-ul noticed? He wasn't someone who relied solely on his senses—he knew the system's limits. In a moment brimming with certainty, the system would reflect that certainty.

Could it be 'Conceal Presence'? No, impossible. That required both Survival Sense and Combat Sense to be significantly enhanced; even the present Gyeo-ul could barely consider attempting it.

The remaining possibility was that the man had been there from the start. If he neither moved nor was hostile, there was no reason for 「Survival Sense」 or 「Combat Sense」 to detect him. But even that felt lacking—why would the mutants just leave him alone?

A bearded man approached. Facing the muzzle Gyeo-ul aimed with fierce caution, he raised his hands with a frightened expression.

"P-please help. I know y-you. H-h-Han Gyeo-ul, F-First Lieutenant. Heh!"

His voice was loud. The things Gyeo-ul hadn't managed to kill yet reacted—there were quite a few. Crack, crack, crack. The sharp sound of stiff joints being forced to move.

Judging that the man wasn't a monster, Gyeo-ul grabbed him by the scruff and threw him into a kiosk—a convenience-store-like facility. Waaah! The man cried. Gyeo-ul thrust his gun at him again.

"Quiet!"

The low, growling threat worked. The man covered his own mouth. He whimpered quietly, crying between his fingers. Outside, heavy footsteps passed by. Even within the display cases, there was movement. Gyeo-ul leapt over the counter, landing right in front of a newly awakened mutant—before it could even make eye contact, he struck up with his weapon.

Pak! A skull shattered under the stock. The mutant collapsed. Before it could hit the ground, Gyeo-ul grabbed its collar and kneed it while pulling it down. Pak! Hit again, its eyes rolled back. As the limp body collapsed, Gyeo-ul finished it with a boot to its neck. Under the silent, pressing military boot, flesh and blood squished together. Crunch, crack, crunch.

A chilling sensation made Gyeo-ul snap his head around. The bearded man was watching him with swollen eyes. Famished footsteps echoed outside, but he stood there blankly, as if feeling no sense of danger.

"Get your head down!"

The man looked puzzled. Once more, Gyeo-ul had to yank him down by force. Thud. He shoved the man to his knees behind the counter, then used the shadow to keep watch on the outside.

'What on earth is with this guy?'

Up close, the stench of rot hit Gyeo-ul so strongly that his instinct gripped his fingers tighter. The hand he grabbed was greasy with pus. The man's clothes were soaked with foul secretions—far more than sweat. What did his clothes look like beneath?

Huff, huff. With each breath the man took, Gyeo-ul's hands tensed instinctively.

It was a habit. The habit of dealing with mutants. The smell was just too similar, so the reaction came out instinctively.

Even as he kept alert, Gyeo-ul couldn't help but repeatedly glance at the man. There was nothing normal about him. Tufts of missing hair exposed flesh, already turning mushy and beginning to rot. What hair remained was stuck to his scalp with oil and pus, like it had been glued there.

Was he a plague patient? Heavy anxiety crept in. He had no capacity to acquire 'Disease Resistance'—and 'Plague Immunity' required it as one condition; it was an even more draining skill than 「Insight」.

Whirrrrr. The sound of spinning rotors. The distance shrank rapidly—a new helicopter's arrival. With a searchlight, maybe? Fierce light poured in through the windows, sweeping from bow to stern.

Gyeo-ul signaled to the man to keep still and pressed up against the convenience store entrance. Broken shards of mirror made it easy to peek outside.

The mutants had already learned from experience with the helicopter. Though they reacted to the light and noise, they no longer rushed blindly toward the sound. They just peered out the window, watching the situation.

Still, the attention focused on Gyeo-ul's position faded away.

Wait. There must be an internal line here somewhere. It was only natural for every staff facility to have a way to communicate. Gyeo-ul planned to make the detective hold the helicopter off for a while. If the mutants entered metabolic suppression again, he could try what he'd done before...

Crunch, crack. Nom nom.

Slurping, chewing came from inside the display case. What was the man eating at a time like this? Frowning deeply, Gyeo-ul looked back.

The filthy man was gnawing on the mutant Gyeo-ul had just killed. With no hesitation, he tore flesh with both hands and stuffed his cheeks until they bulged. Then, munch munch. Crunch crunch. The sound of sinewy, tough flesh—firmer than ordinary human meat—being crushed.

The mutant Gyeo-ul had killed by stomping the neck was now torn apart worse than a butchered pig. The man stretched out the remaining leg and bit into the thigh.

"What are you eating right now?"

At Gyeo-ul's hostile question, the man's eyes widened. Watching for a reaction, he pulled the leg to either side. The joint snapped. He did it with pure arm strength—superhuman force.

The man, neither human nor mutant, offered Gyeo-ul a favor.

"D-do you want some? It's delicious..."

What was held out was a knee with wobbly cartilage and the toes below.

Gyeo-ul narrowed his eyes.

---------------------------= Author's Note ---------------------------=

#IllegalSharing

It's pointless to say anything about it. Heh heh.

#Q&A

Q. RGZ95: @Mutants are only different because it's a different continent; if this landed on the mainland it'd be terrifying.

A. The most horrifying one mentioned so far is the anthrax-resistant mutant from China. Anthrax is truly terrifying. If that appears, you'll have to give up on contaminated areas entirely.

Q. jaldoegireul: @I know there are people who dislike it, but as someone who likes the audience commentary, aren't they showing up much less these days? It helps reduce the tension, so could you bring them back for relief?

A. They will appear within three chapters. It's really a matter of taste, isn't it?ㅠㅠ

Q. binujomjuseyo: @Take my love! Refusal is not an option!

A. I'll accept it, so could you please pick up the soap over there? :)

Q. Guaaaaak: @I send 27 warm manuscript coupons filled with gratitude, love, respect, and childlike wonder to the author!

A. Yes, thank you.

Q. bangawoonmiso: @What do you think Korea is doing now? Considering the capabilities of those in charge, I feel like the country would have completely lost function due to a delayed response... And if you think about the population density, even with a good response, it would have been hell. It's a small land with explosive population density.

A. Will Korea show up in this novel or not?

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