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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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In that brief moment, tens of thousands of thoughts raced through Werner’s mind.
In fact, subduing them wasn’t difficult.
A pair.
No threatening weapons, and they were approaching them without any vigilance.
Of course, they would become vigilant after confirming the open door of the laboratory, but it would be too late by then.
A simulation ran through his mind.
Immediately jump out and shoot a bullet each into their hearts.
It would take 1 second to subdue them.
It was a special operations pistol equipped with subsonic bullets and a silencer.
Its overwhelming noise reduction performance had already been proven once in Branberg.
But… even Werner couldn’t easily control what would happen after that.
‘They are personnel sent with the thought that someone had already infiltrated. They will be thoroughly monitoring with CCTVs.’
Perhaps they were already watching this area.
Even if they overlooked the fact that Werner and Durand were disguised researchers, the moment they killed the two men, all the security forces of the Armaments Bureau would rush out.
He was confident he could escape.
But he wasn’t confident he could handle the situation.
At that moment, he would surely suffer the same fate as Charlotte.
Not only would he be unable to return to the Strategic Security Agency, but it would be difficult to even shake off the persistent pursuit.
Then what should he do?
Pretend and act it out?
Hide and run away?
Both options were ambiguous.
Thud, thud.
Even in the midst of that, the two outside kept narrowing the distance.
“What’s this, why is the door like this?”
“Is there an error in the system?”
“…No, wait a minute. Could this be…?”
Werner turned his head to look at Durand across from him.
Durand just nodded his head with his usual expressionless face.
A silent signal to do as he pleased.
In the end, just as Werner reached the conclusion to subdue the two men before they noticed something unusual and requested reinforcements, and escape.
Thump.
Bzzt!
Woooooooo—.
His view suddenly turned pitch black.
In the darkness that descended in an instant, only the test tubes containing the strange lifeforms scattered a faint light.
‘What the…?’
It was a power outage.
Werner wasn’t the only one surprised by the completely unexpected situation.
“Uh, what!? What the fuck!”
“Power outage!? All the generators are out?”
The two men outside shouted in shock.
Soon, the faint sound of a walkie-talkie could be heard.
[Emergency, emergency. All personnel quickly assemble in the auditorium. The Armaments Bureau is under attack!]
“What, an attack?!”
[The location of the intruder has been identified. The location is the East Building! The bastard blew up the substation and is running away. All research personnel and security personnel, assemble in the auditorium!]
Waaaaaaang!!
The sound of a siren echoed throughout the entire facility.
“Senior, what should we do!?”
“What the fuck should we do! We have to catch them! If we linger here and get caught in some strange misunderstanding, we’re fucked!”
In the end, they ran away in the opposite direction, hesitating.
Werner had a dumbfounded expression at the incident that had hit like a typhoon.
But he couldn’t just be surprised.
Now that the entire facility was on alert, they had to leave as quickly as possible.
If they lingered any longer, as the approaching people said, it was clear they would be suspected.
Werner and Durand, without anyone taking the lead, almost simultaneously dashed out of the laboratory.
There was no time to change clothes.
They immediately retraced their steps and sprinted towards the parking lot.
“I can’t see anything!”
“So-someone bring a flashlight or something!”
“Even my cell phone is out of power! Did an EMP go off or something!?”
Voices of confused people in the darkness could be heard from various places, but it was rather fortunate for the two of them.
The night vision trained for night operations could be sufficiently used even in the underground where all power had been cut off.
Like that, they safely boarded the food truck parked in the parking lot.
“We’re getting out of here like this. Hold on tight.”
Without even catching his breath, Werner started the truck.
Vroom!
Screech—!!
He skillfully drove the vehicle out of the parking lot.
He literally rammed and blew away the blocked barrier and passed through the suddenly empty checkpoint.
Only after the sound of the siren blaring outside also died down.
They could finally let out the breath they had been holding.
Screech!
Werner pulled the truck over to the side of the road.
Then he got out of the car and kept dry heaving.
“Ugh, cough, ack…!!”
“Commander Luthers!”
Durand, who had followed him out, hurriedly supported Werner.
“Huff… hoo… So-sorry.”
“…No, it’s okay.”
“I’m fine now. Just… a little startled.”
Werner gently pushed away the hand supporting him and took out a cigarette pack from his pocket with trembling fingers.
Click, inhale—.
Only after inhaling the smoke he had desperately lit did reason return.
At the same time, the countless experimental subjects sleeping in the underground of the Armaments Bureau came to his mind.
It was terrible.
He had no idea where things had gone wrong and what he should fix first.
Moreover, that power outage just now….
Wasn’t the timing too mysterious to be a coincidence?
“It seems like there was someone’s intervention. Like an insider…”
“That could be.”
In fact, come to think of it, that was the case.
Unless Charlotte had foreseen everything, she couldn’t have stolen the hydrogen bomb alone.
There must have been collaborators in the Armaments Bureau and the Technical Research Institute.
“…”
Did everything happen intentionally?
Whoosh—.
Every time the eerie winter wind blew, the cigarette in Werner’s mouth burned away.
“What are you planning to do now?”
“…I don’t know.”
“Is there something even the great Commander Luthers Edan doesn’t know?”
Werner didn’t answer.
No, he couldn’t.
Durand didn’t know.
The fact that the reason he was able to achieve victory in this cycle was because of the deaths of dozens of comrades.
There were mountains of things he didn’t know, and there were times when he gave up, thinking it was an impossible situation to solve.
He wasn’t perfect.
He wasn’t a superhuman.
Every time he regressed, he was a man who regretted that it would have been better if someone more capable than him had this ability.
Even though he said he wouldn’t regret it, he ended up doing things he would regret, and in the end, he regretted it again, like a fool.
But just because he didn’t know, it didn’t mean he could do nothing.
Rather, his goal was clear.
“…We’re going against the President.”
“I will gladly join you.”
Durand said in a calm voice.
“That is an insult to the countless comrades who were massacred on the battlefield and those who left the battlefield with wounds that will never heal.”
His brass-colored eyes flickered.
A calm anger settled on his expression.
“How many more people will die? It hasn’t even been a year since we enjoyed peace.”
The President was a beast.
A cunning serpent that deceived people and ultimately led them to death.
To catch such a bastard, don’t they need skilled hunters?
“I will gather the wolves.”
“…You were in contact with them?”
Wolf.
It was the nickname used to refer to the Reconnaissance Battalion in the Graveyard.
Surely they had all scattered with the dissolution of the Graveyard.
“How can a wolf leave its pack? Unless it’s time to die of old age, it silently guards its place.”
“…”
Werner looked at Durand.
Yes, that was the case.
It wasn’t just Durand.
Even in this cycle when he acted more fiercely than ever, there were comrades who trusted and believed in him.
Just because he disbanded them didn’t mean their duty had disappeared.
Among the people of the Graveyard, if the world was said to be in crisis, how many of them wouldn’t return?
No.
There wouldn’t be any.
None of them would hesitate to return to the Graveyard.
Because it was a cemetery where everyone’s hearts were buried.
Misfortune, happiness, sadness, pain, despair.
And the hope that they were moving towards a better future was also buried together in the cemetery of warriors.
Werner clenched his fist and stepped on the finished cigarette with his foot.
“Durand, you drive this car.”
“Huh? What are you planning to do, Commander?”
“I have somewhere else to stop by. If I go back to the Strategic Security Agency and come back, some strange guy might follow me.”
“…?”
“For now, just drive. And for communication… let’s use the Graveyard Morse code. Every night at 11 o’clock.”
“Understood. I’ll keep the HAM radio on standby.”
Amateur radio communication.
It was because if they used the regular military line, there was a risk of the signal being intercepted.
Now that he realized the President was already scheming something under the surface, there was no room for hesitation.
“Be careful.”
After Durand got in the vehicle and disappeared from sight.
Werner took out his cell phone from his pocket and called someone.
Ring ring.
Click.
“…What’s the matter at this hour? And you’re the one calling first.”
“I have something to discuss. Please make some time for me.”
Werner added, his eyes flashing.
“Supreme Commander Arthur Philias.”
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