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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Xrecker
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Screeech!
A sudden, piercing shriek.
The people screamed and raised their personal firearms.
My consciousness snapped back into focus.
A shiver ran down my spine.
My vision became clear.
I gripped Sung Ga-yeon’s shoulder and instinctively looked back.
The giant monster wild boar’s corpse.
Beyond it, the riverbank.
The half-severed monster bat, with one wing submerged in the river, was thrashing, its brains splattered.
“Shoot!”
Sung Kyu-hyuk shouted and pulled the trigger.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
Guns and artillery erupted in flames from all around.
A hail of bullets rained down on the monster bat’s body.
Screeech!
The monster bat, its mouth wide open in a frenzy, threw itself into the river.
A dull roar and a huge spray of water.
And the monster bat disappeared into the river.
“Damn it, keep shooting! Shoot!”
Sung Kyu-hyuk shouted and advanced towards the river.
He kept pulling the trigger.
Dozens of special forces members, special ops team members, and American soldiers swarmed from all sides, replacing their magazines and firing a barrage of bullets at the river.
Whoosh!
The half-collapsed roof of the barracks.
Someone fired an anti-tank rocket into the river.
Boom!
A dull drumbeat and a huge spray of water.
But the monster bat was nowhere to be seen.
“There it is!”
One of the special forces members shouted.
Where he pointed was the middle of the river.
A current was forming where there was nothing.
The current drew a V-shape as it went up the river.
Without a second thought, everyone shot at the current.
An anti-tank rocket flew in again and exploded in the water.
A huge spray of water.
But the current didn’t disappear.
On the contrary, it went up the river even faster, creating a wake as it followed the bend in the bank and disappeared.
Then, human limbs floated up from the river and drifted downstream.
…The limbs of the human beasts.
I, and everyone else here, knew what that meant.
The monster bat had swept up and eaten the human beasts that had been at the bottom of the river as it went up.
“Fuck!”
An American soldier threw his helmet to the ground and swore.
I saw it all, supported by Sung Ga-yeon.
I could have done something if I had chased after it.
But I couldn’t move at all right now.
Even though I was healing, with several broken ribs and my stomach pierced by claws, my whole body felt like it was going to die.
While the American soldiers were looking at the river, Sung Kyu-hyuk came over to me and supported my other arm. “We lost the bat leader. It’s best to go back and rest for now.”
Right, damn it.
Let’s just rest.
I had done enough, hadn’t I?
As I was walking towards the barracks, supported by the two of them, the US military commander walked out of the collapsed debris.
He, too, was being supported by an American soldier, a rifle in one hand.
Blood was dripping from his head, past one eye, and onto his chin.
The eye with the blood flowing down was closed.
He saw me and smiled, babbling something in English.
“He says he was trying to lure them out one by one and take them out individually, but you wiped out all three leaders at once. He’s sorry about the bat.”
I chuckled as I listened to Sung Kyu-hyuk’s translation.
“I didn’t know the commander was fighting with us.”
The US military commander smiled and said something.
“When it was a matter of life and death, I had to fight. But thanks to you, we were able to minimize the damage. Considering all three leaders appeared at once.”
…Damage.
Ah, I was dizzy, damn it.
I was covered in blood, and it was sticky and unpleasant.
I barely opened my eyes and asked,
“The barracks collapsed quite a bit. Did anyone die?”
The US military commander smiled wryly and said something.
“Several died when the roof collapsed. Some team members are missing. They’re probably buried under the debris, but we won’t know for sure until we clean it up.”
“…I’m sorry to hear that.”
The US military commander shook his head.
“We are soldiers. What’s regrettable is that the apocalypse happened, not that we died in battle. They all fought bravely.”
The US military commander said,
“The soldiers who died in today’s battle will be recovered and given a military funeral. I’d like you to be there.”
I didn’t answer.
I just nodded a few times.
The US military commander smiled.
“But today is a good day. Isn’t it? We won the battle, we defeated the master of the mountain, and we greatly weakened the bat’s forces.”
Hmm.
So the sky was clear now.
If that thing had been left, the Chinooks would never have been able to take off.
The US military commander smiled and said,
“This is all thanks to you. You really are a superhero. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed that a person could fall from the sky and walk away on two feet.”
I didn’t care about being a superhero anymore.
The monster bat was still alive.
With its back broken and a large hole in its head, it wouldn’t be able to recover in a day or two.
I should have finished it off.
I wish I had ordered the Shadow Warrior to cut its throat. I couldn’t think straight because I was being held by the creature and my ribs were being crushed.
The US military commander limped over to me.
His ankle seemed to be broken.
He held out his hand to me.
“You are a great warrior. I express my gratitude with respect.”
As I listened to Sung Kyu-hyuk’s translation, I lowered my arm from Sung Ga-yeon’s shoulder.
The US military commander’s face.
He must have been hit by some shrapnel, as he had scratches all over.
With such a face, he was smiling broadly and holding out his hand to me.
I smiled and shook his hand.
The US military base hospital.
It took about a day for my wounds to heal completely.
They were going to stitch up the gash in my stomach, but I asked them to treat the other injured people first.
It may have looked like altruism to others, but how was I supposed to explain that I would heal on my own with the Soul Tattoo?
Fortunately, or unfortunately, there were many others who were more seriously injured than me, so the few remaining medical staff at the US military base were busy with them, and I was able to avoid being stitched up.
I carefully got up so as not to wake Sung Ga-yeon, who was dozing off next to my bed in my hospital room, and went to the bathroom.
And I turned on the water in the sink and washed my body from head to toe.
The nurses and special forces members had cleaned me up, but it still felt sticky.
I was covered in the blood that the monster had coughed up.
It would have been nice to be able to take a proper shower.
I looked down at my hands as I washed.
I had acquired a new specialization.
Spatial Seeker.
And a new skill.
Spatial Claw.
It consumed 5 Agility points each time it was used with Acceleration.
Seeing that it was immune to impact, I could use it for ramming, and also as a powerful mobility skill.
It was fast even in an accelerated state, but I had thought it would be nice to be able to move faster in a situation like the one with the wild boar earlier.
I had acquired the right ability at the right time.
I opened my status window and put the 3 points I had gained from the wild boar into Agility, bringing it to 15.
That meant I could use Spatial Claw 3 times.
Since I had a new skill, I had to experiment with it to see how I could use it.
I had used it in a half-conscious state when I was falling from the sky, but it was a very versatile skill, so it was best to become completely familiar with it.
…Come to think of it, the specializations and skills.
Melee attack, ranged attack, recovery, mobility, and acceleration… that’s how it was structured.
I had been curious and frustrated when I didn’t know what the stats corresponded to, but now that they were all unlocked, it made sense.
After washing, I dried my body with a paper towel from the dispenser next to the sink and left the bathroom.
No one had come in while I was washing and drying myself naked.
Because there were no longer as many people in the large hospital as there should have been.
They were all probably being treated in their own hospital rooms.
The uninjured were probably on guard duty.
I returned to my hospital room and found Sung Ga-yeon asleep, her head on my bed.
She must have been very tired.
On the stool next to the bed, there was a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt, presumably for me to wear.
I changed my clothes so as not to wake Sung Ga-yeon and left the hospital.
As I went downstairs, there were quite a few people walking around.
The medical staff in white coats and nurse uniforms were busy.
Was there a reason to dress up in this situation? Or was it because they had returned to the hospital to care for the patients as medical staff?
I didn’t know.
As I was walking towards the entrance, a white female doctor saw me and approached me.
She said something in English, but I couldn’t understand a word.
I tilted my head, and then I heard a familiar voice.
“She’s asking why you’re down here when you haven’t fully recovered. She wants you to go back to your room.”
I chuckled and looked back.
Sung Kyu-hyuk was walking over with a rifle.
“Please tell her I’m fine. I didn’t expect to see you in the hospital, special forces leader. What happened?”
The special forces leader had a conversation with the female doctor.
The blonde female doctor looked back and forth between me and the special forces leader with a skeptical expression, then reluctantly nodded and walked away.
The special forces leader said,
“The American soldiers are still cleaning up the collapsed building. There are still bodies trapped under the debris. Since there aren’t enough people on guard duty, we volunteered to guard the hospital.”
I nodded and asked,
“Did many of them die? The American soldiers?”
“I heard about twenty. Most of them died when the building collapsed. I think they’ll have all the dead American soldiers recovered by today or tomorrow. I heard they’ll be holding a simple funeral after that.”
…So many had died.
Twenty of them.
Well, that monster wild boar had almost completely demolished the building.
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