Lakefront Night (10), Santa Margarita Lake

The battle continued.

The enemy resistance was halved. The other half was dead—or soon would be. It was hard to find camaraderie among criminals. They were retreating, leaving the dead and wounded behind, towards the east where Captain Harris's main force was likely positioned. The decision itself was rational. Gyeo-ul was to the west, the squad members to the north. If they wanted to keep both in check, they had to herd them in one direction.

But that didn't go as planned. Gyeo-ul kept circling them. He didn't let go of their flanks. It was something that was nearly impossible by common sense. If you drew a large-diameter circle centered on the criminals, Gyeo-ul's path traced the outside of that circle. Even running ten steps made it hard to close a single step's distance. Yet he managed it.

As Gyeo-ul ran between the gaps in the trees, gunfire erupted like a seizure.

Tdadadada! Tdadat!

Most of it was wild shooting. However, one set of threatening automatic fire stood out. The line where bullets struck, the earth spattered in succession, getting closer. It felt like he would be hit before reaching the next cover. Gyeo-ul dropped to his knees with a crash! In his weight's shock against the ground, he quickly aligned his sights and fired instinctively.

Tududuk! -Bang!

A thunderous blast hit his eardrums. The boy's vision spun. His ears rang with a whiiing—a sharp ringing and trembling in the eardrums. Gyeo-ul crawled forward, pressing his back against a tree stump. He touched his helmet. Even with gloves, he felt the bumpy dent. It seemed a bullet had grazed the side.

'Should I call this bad luck...?'

The three-round burst Gyeo-ul fired had hit the enemy. At that moment, the opponent's muzzle jumped, and the line of fire clipped Gyeo-ul's helmet. It was a random variable beyond the 「Insight」 of 「Combat Sense」.

He had nearly died. His head throbbed belatedly. This was why ranged weapons were dangerous.

Still, though he was calm at heart, his body wasn't. The hand trembled from situational computation. Gyeo-ul clenched his fist to steady himself. The wasted time was five deep breaths. The radio crackled.

[David Actual! David Actual! This is David One! Engaging enemy now! Break!]

Jeffrey was calling Gyeo-ul. There was heavy static. Gyeo-ul seized the radio immediately.

"Proceed, Jeffrey!"

[Enemy strength, about fifty infantry! They're receiving mortar support! Mortar position unknown! Lost the first line of defense! Moving to the second! Request confirmation for possible support, over!]

"Wait just a little! I'll be there soon!"

Ending the transmission, Gyeo-ul dashed out. The enemy's response was slow. Six survived, but their positions were scattered. Their formation, disrupted by Gyeo-ul, wasn't recovered in time.

Meanwhile, the squad members pressed the front. Thanks to this, Gyeo-ul was able to run a much longer distance than before. Finally, he reached a diagonal rear angle on the enemy. Now, the enemy couldn't avoid in any direction. Shocked enemies filled Gyeo-ul's scope. The trigger was pulled.

Tudududududuk!

Shell casings scattered everywhere. A half-empty magazine was spent in one second. That second killed two men. Gyeo-ul jabbed the magazine release, twisting the weapon. The empty magazine bounced free from inertia. A new magazine was slapped in with a single motion. Then, another burst of full auto fire.

Clack!

On the fifth shot, there was a metallic sound. Like paper getting jammed in a copier, a live round was lodged in the chamber. Gyeo-ul racked the charging handle repeatedly. Still, it wouldn't come free. He stuck his finger in and forcibly scraped it out. A dented bullet popped out.

He hurried to aim again, and a shout—absent before—burst out belatedly.

"Aaaargh! Surrender! I surrender! No, I'm surrendering! Don't shoot! Please have mercy!"

Total chaos. But the fire pouring from the front didn't stop. The squad used suppressors, so the sound of wood splintering was louder than the gunshots. Gyeo-ul pressed his radio.

"David Three! Cease fire, cease fire! The enemy is surrendering!"

The brutal noise abated. Still, the surrendering man kept shouting, another wailed at the top of his lungs, and two more hid out of sight in silence.

There was no time to wait for the squad. Distant gunfire echoed continually. Gyeo-ul charged in alone, alternating aim left and right at a near-jog.

The number of survivors was one less than Gyeo-ul counted. Someone with a torn throat was sprawled on a tree root, mouth gaping and filling with blood. The man who surrendered, the one crying, and, some distance away, the last one barely holding on. He was holding a primed grenade.

"Stop! Don't move!"

Gyeo-ul barked a stern warning. He chose not to shoot immediately and move because of the other two, who had given up resisting. The approaching squad assessed the situation quickly and spread out threateningly. Gyeo-ul heard their muttered curses. Even the man who said he would surrender spit and tried to crawl away. Only the crying man remained in the danger zone, seemingly having lost his mind for a moment. Gyeo-ul's finger slowly tightened on the trigger. As it neared the breaking point, he finally stopped.

The man holding the grenade wasn't aggressive, though. His hand trembled violently, but at least his face was calm—an eerie calmness. He looked quietly at Gyeo-ul, then gave a helpless laugh.

"I'm sorry."

A spring thudded. He hugged the grenade and fell forward.

"Emily."

His last word before death. The explosion that followed was a mild thump. If not for the sound, it would have seemed he merely flinched. Bloody flesh oozed messily out, the red shade blurring in the rainwater.

Even in such urgency, Gyeo-ul was momentarily entranced.

Grrrk, grrrk, eek. The unlucky man didn't die immediately. The boy pulled the trigger. The man's head shattered.

"Secure them."

On Gyeo-ul's command, the squad restrained the two prisoners.

"Were there any other survivors on the way?"

Gyeo-ul asked, and Elliot replied heavily.

"They were hopeless cases. We eased their pain."

Considering the weather and environment, it made sense. Survivors with severed limbs or protruding guts were just death deferred. Elliot took dog tags from the suicide's corpse. The others gathered ammo and grenades nearby. There wasn't much left, but it had to be done. The squad had burned far more ammo than Gyeo-ul.

Gyeo-ul spoke to the ready troops.

"We're going to run 600 meters from here. Grit your teeth and keep up."

"Haaa."

Squad leader Elliot sighed. Everyone was exhausted, trembling. The prisoners were worse off, with their arms tightly bound behind their backs. It didn't look like they could really keep up.

'Can't abandon them. The radio static is too loud.'

It was uphill from the start.

Still, they began running. The soldiers followed without complaint.

The pace slowed constantly. A semi-delirious prisoner kept collapsing, and the others looked near death. Eventually, their speed was little more than a walk. Sprinting up a 200-meter incline was realistically possible only for Gyeo-ul now.

After cresting the hill, things improved. A gently sloped dirt road appeared. Gyeo-ul, climbing first, observed the battlefield. Captain Harris still hadn't broken through the defensive line. Even under this rain, smoke rose from various places. Gyeo-ul could read the traces of the captain's attacks and failures.

Boom! A heavy gunshot mimicked thunder. Moments later, a random bush below the ridge was blown apart.

'How many shells do they have left?'

From their pace not being rapid, probably not many. They were only carrying what they could bear from the start.

Meanwhile, the soldiers barely up caught their breath, hands on knees.

"Can we rest for a minute?"

"No...! *Cough!* I can... do it!"

"Understood."

Gyeo-ul didn't ask twice.

The squad moved around to the enemy's rear and flank. Following the direction of the mortar fire, Gyeo-ul looked for tracks. The trails highlighted by 「Tracking」 were everywhere. He had honed this skill last Christmas to look for the missing around another lake.

At last, the footprints he found were shallower than expected.

"David One, david One. This is David Actual."

[David... David... David Actual... you hero-playing... bastard brat...]

"David One. Do you copy? This is David Actual."

Gyeo-ul repeated his call for Jeffrey, but the radio was now dead air. Unless they were close enough to see each other's faces, communication was impossible. As he was about to give up, a sudden idea occurred. The boy asked his soldiers for the now-useless radios.

"Give me two."

"What are you... planning to do?"

"I'm going to use them as bait."

Gyeo-ul took restraining ties and wrapped one around a radio's transmit button. With this, it would absorb surrounding sounds until the battery died.

Then he tied in the other spare radio, with its button unpressed.

"Ha! The mutant bastard... You're going to rebroadcast the message...!"

Pale Elliot was impressed, then hunched over to vomit bile—the aftereffect of overexertion.

"That's right. With all this jamming, nobody's using their radios. So this'll be the only radio signal in this area."

"Even if someone hears it, it would be indistinguishable from jamming anyway..."

"Anyone have explosives?"

While he was at it, Gyeo-ul retrieved some plastic explosives (C4). Normally you'd cut a suitable amount, but this time, that wouldn't be necessary.

Boom! Another shell burst. The distance seemed closer, the sound different from before. Gyeo-ul quietly advanced with the squad.

"Make a sound, and I'll kill you."

A squad member whispered a threat to the prisoners.

Corpses were scattered everywhere. Gyeo-ul rigged a trap on one of them, placing a radio on the corpse and setting explosives there. Once Trickster, tracking the radio signal, touched it, it would detonate instantly. The soldiers wore dark, uneasy faces. A few moments ago, those corpses had been comrades. Even Elliot hesitated, then spoke.

"First lieutenant, in the old days this would be a violation of international law..."

"I know it's unpleasant. But if we leave them, they'll just be a meal for the mutants."

"... Now that I hear it, you're right."

"Let's move."

They advanced a bit more and finally reached the battlefield. The mortar position was straight ahead. About twenty more soldiers were climbing the slope. From here, all their backs were visible. Gyeo-ul scattered the squad and allocated targets, to avoid wasteful overlap.

Once preparations were done, Gyeo-ul shouted.

"Fire!"

---------------------------= Author's Postscript ---------------------------=

# Ugh

There's a bit less today, sorry... Still, I'm too sleepy to write any more. Haha. Please forgive me, thinking back to the days when I wrote more.

# Q&A

Q. Xedrions: @Here, take my childhood innocence! I give you seven coupons I got from Joara!

A. Yes, I've received your innocence well. I'll use it to speed up the Atlantis injury arc.

Q. 淸流蓮: @Today, it seems my innocence isn't in good shape. Perhaps due to civilian massacres and shameless people. I've already spent all my coupons, so here's a recommendation, rating, and comment as offerings.

A. Oh dear...this story is nothing without innocence, but you say your innocence is not faring well...

Maybe I need a summer vacation to recharge my inner child.

Q. MasterKalsolumn: @This is bulletproof mental fortitude!!! By the way, a tip for spaghetti sauce: try peperoncino, a little chili pepper that gives a gentle heat to pizza pepperoni. If you add it when making spaghetti sauce, you get a nice spicy touch with the tomato flavor. You can also use the powder in stews, or mix it with salt for grilled meat. That was Cooking Class with Kalsolumn(?)

A. My mental strength is just ordinary glass, actually. If something happens, I break first and then piece myself back together.

By the way, did pepperoni pizzas originally contain chili pepper? I've never tasted spice in them...hmm...

Q. SkyBluePen: @What happened to people in space stations or Antarctic bases? Can't they come back from the space station?

A. Honestly, I haven't thought that far ahead. It's not necessary for the plot... Sorry for the lack of innocence from the author.

Q. PorkCutletMenya: @Even the tough-looking Han Gyeo-ul must experience something that shakes his innocence, right? I'm looking forward to it. And romance as an "old thing" effect—what, is this original sin or something? LOL

A. Uh... well... there is one particular event, but I worry readers' hearts may break before Gyeo-ul's innocence is shaken.

Q. qoewh: @Is it true you're a veteran of the space war?!

A. Well, you see... A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Q. Dohwawon: @Carnival is a given! Let's see... Oh my, buying time by shooting comrades? This is light? Is my innocence overflowing or is Dreamland running out?

A. In Dreamland, electric bills are paid with childhood innocence. I got hit with a progressive tax bomb and—sob, sob...

Q. RGZ95: @Thanks for the innocence as always. Already did it, so they chose to resist rather than surrender @[email protected] ;; Guess that's better than dying...

A. Thank you for reading as always. Even rolling in a pile of crap, life is better, right?

Q. PAM: @GYAAAH GUAAAH

A. Yes, of course. Since I didn't use summer vacation, during the Chuseok holiday I plan to play, eat, and sleep without writing a single letter. Thank you for worrying about your author.

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