Chapter 362 – Exile (4)
Pyotr and his group returned the way they came and pondered their anxiety.
I witnessed three teams being destroyed during just one night in the destroyed village.
“Don’t be too anxious. “Isn’t our village located in the south?”
Alexei tried to comfort him, but it didn’t work.
“Monsters appeared on the road we came too, right?”
“Soldiers with good equipment were massacred. “How long will the village barricades hold up when a military vehicle is hit and overturned?”
Even during the infection war, the world did not change in just one day. In the sense of a cataclysm, I felt a greater sense of crisis than before.
“Still, there is a difference between being attacked and maintaining a position. “I feel sorry for the dead, but the people in the sawmill village don’t know how to fight.”
Life in Siberia after the war is a state of emergency every day.
Those selected for the investigation team were particularly good at using weapons, but the Siberian survivors basically knew how to use firearms.
All men were required to serve as village guards, and if they took on more dangerous outside work, they received preferential rations.
Small-sized men did not apply, but instead had to be ripped off by their wives. The wives of such families had a weakened voice in women’s society.
The reason why the sawmill village is located in the northernmost part is because, to put it positively, there are many peaceful people, and to put it negatively, there are many people who do not know how to fight.
Since it was the coldest and most inhospitable place, neither infected organisms nor looters were found. It was possible to feed one’s mouth by just cutting down a tree without seeing blood.
‘Even though we were the best armed in the village, two people died.’
The words got into the crew’s throats, but they held back. Anything more than this would be interfering with the authority of the unit commander. This is a crisis, and we must unite.
Mikhail rode next to Pyotr. Because he was a commander, he was given preferential treatment and was given a horse.
“Where did those monsters come from? “He rolls his head like a fox, seemingly unaffected by the cold.”
Mikhail took out a half-smoked cigarette and lit it. I hand it to Pyotr, who thinks carefully.
“Do you still think it’s some kind of wight?”
“Whoa.”
Pyotr pushed the spicy scent of cigarettes deep into his lungs.
I expressed my gratitude and returned it, and this time Mikhail took a sip.
“I don’t think of myself as a wight anymore.”
Peter said.
“I knew it! Trust my hunter’s instincts. They are beasts. They are also very big eaters. Going back to the beginning, where did they come from?”
“Would you like to hear a legend from my hometown?”
“There is no hunter who doesn’t like legends.”
Mikhail gave the last puff of his cigarette to Pyotr. The amount called story value.
“Don’t legends sometimes contain surprising truths? Mistaking a dugong for a mermaid or a whale’s dick turning into the Loch Ness Monster. “If you have ears to hear it, a hunter can touch the money.”
“Well, if you make money from dugongs or whales, I guess you’d be a poacher rather than a hunter?”
Mikhail grinned at Pyotr’s words.
“I’ve tried both poaching and smuggling.”
After tasting the last cigarette, Pyotr looked north.
“In a foggy and unpredictable battlefield, it is important to think clearly. “The cold brought these monsters.”
“It definitely looked like it had been swept away from the north. Are you talking about an ancient creature that was frozen and buried tens of millions of years ago or something like that?”
It’s a setting that seems like something out of a movie, but what’s the problem? It’s a world where even alien civilizations have been discovered and things worse than monsters in movies are rampaging.
“They don’t seem like they have such a long history to have been buried since the past.”
Peter denied the theory of ancient species.
“Why do you think that? Because of that ridiculous strength or appearance?”
“No. To tell you another story for a moment, I majored in ecology in college. “I originally didn’t plan on becoming a soldier.”
Not only Michael, but also the surrounding investigation team members looked at him in surprise.
Not only is it true that Pyotr, who appears to be a born soldier, is an aspiring biologist, but this is also the first time he talks about his past.
“It is natural for someone to spread the leaves, someone to gain weight by tearing them, and someone to maintain balance by chewing the flesh. “No violent animal on Earth can avoid this law.”
Pyotr looked back toward the sawmill village. As if he was reliving the battle with the monster.
“But the monsters we encountered were beings that directly denied this. Should I say that it looks like the plague has sprouted hungry teeth? Like a being that moves by burning the ecosystem itself as fuel.”
“It’s a plague with teeth…”
Mikhail thought it was an extremely accurate expression.
“I don’t believe that this beautiful Earth, in the past, present or future, will give birth to such a monster.”
“He was a lot more sentimental than I thought.”
Everyone, including Mikhail, looked at Pyotr with a look of surprise and strangeness.
If I’m not mistaken, I got the feeling that he was slightly embarrassed.
* * *
Since leaving the sawmill town, the Coalition investigation team has been lucky.
I was not ambushed by monsters while driving on the road, and I was safe while spending the night in an abandoned mine cave.
However, he faced an unexpected situation.
“Captain.”
The subordinates looked at Pyotr with puzzled faces.
About 70 to 80 people are moving a few hundred meters away from the hill where they stopped.
Not in the north.
It is a place connected to the road they came from. Pyotr quickly put the telescope to his eyes.
“… Damn it.”
Everyone looked at the captain, who was strict but always polite, and was scolded.
“They are the people of the watermill village. Armed men are rarely seen. “Most of them are women, children, the elderly, and the injured.”
At those words, a stir spread among the investigation team.
This was especially true of Isaac, a young scout dispatched from the watermill village. He originally had one more man, but he was killed in the Battle of Sawmill Village.
“I’m sure there will be trouble in the village, and they will run away.”
Alexei said.
“I guess so. In the current situation, there won’t be any looters who will rob people like me.”
Everyone thought of the monsters they had faced yesterday morning.
At that moment, someone among the refugees screamed. The screams of one or two people soon became contagious and turned into the screams of dozens of people.
“It’s them!”
Isaac, who has good eyesight, pointed to the snow line beyond the refugees. A white snow storm was rising from the pure white snow field.
It’s a scattering of snow that can’t be caused by strong winds or anything like that. Nightmarish monsters were running towards me.
Even without a telescope, I could tell that the number was at least close to 100.
“The refugees haven’t found us yet.”
Alexei said.
“Are you going to turn the nose? “We are all riding horses, so if we run away in another direction right now, our lives will be saved.”
Mikhail asked Pyotr.
The four soldiers who joined looked on with nervous faces, and the 12 members of the investigation team waited for the captain’s orders with stern faces.
“Pyotr!”
“Colon! “Order!”
Mikhail and Alexei urged him to look through the telescope in silence. It took three more seconds before Pyotr put down the telescope.
“The distance between the monsters and the refugees is far enough. The refugees will pass us by before they catch up. We make time here.”
“Oh my, I knew it would be like this. Did everyone hear it?”
Mikhail shook his head and looked at his immediate subordinates.
All four shrugged their shoulders and took out their guns. His hands are shaking, but his expression shows no cowardice.
“Isaac. Raise the flag and wave it high. Let the refugees see this way and come running.”
“I understand!”
Isaac, with his young face, saluted with a solemn look.
Shwaaak!
Shoo!
The investigation team members fired signal flares without any special orders. A red flash burns and soars into the sky.
Life in Siberia is a war of wits. Immediately, refugees came running towards us.
“Conrad. “Unload the horses and prepare them to pick up the wounded and elderly.”
“Yep!”
“Alexei. Place the explosives you brought at the bottom of the hill at the point where the monsters will come up. We distribute dynamite to everyone.”
“Please leave it to me.”
Alexei, a miner before conscription, took out explosives from his horse. I went down with another member who was also a miner.
“Mikhail. You and his machine gunners will form a crossfire on both sides of the hill.”
“I would have done the same. “I won’t let a single one come close to you.”
Mikhail, grinning, slung his PKP machine gun over his shoulder and ran towards the hill.
The distance from refugees has been reduced to less than 100 meters. I could vividly hear the cries of monsters approaching twice as fast.
“Aaaaah!”
“Help me! Please save me!”
The more the monster howled, the louder the refugees’ screams became.
When the screams of the group that wants to kill and the group that does not want to die mix, it is truly a bloody battle.
I feel like there’s a hole in the world connected to hell.
“Installation completed.”
At Alexei’s words, Pyotr held his shoulder tightly.
“Thank you for trusting and following me all this time.”
“Why are comrades who deserted from the same hometown doing this? “If it weren’t for the company commander, I would have been killed protecting the tough guys in Moscow.”
These two were always together on the journey from the eastern end of Russia to the western end and then back to the east.
Alexei was willing to welcome death in the same place as his respected brother and superior.
Pyotr looked at everyone standing in their respective positions.
“We protect this place!”
He stretched out his index finger and pointed at the refugees running up the hill and the monsters chasing them beyond.
“Send everyone away! “I’m not sending a single one!”
Now I could see the faces of the refugees even without a telescope. There is great fear and despair, but also a little hope.
“You are all the best men I have ever led! Let’s throw them all into hell!”
The 18-member death squad raised their weapons and shouted with fighting spirit.
They could clearly see that their shouts drove despair from the faces of the refugees.
It gave courage to even the most timid of the 18.
It was an instant for the refugees to pass by the hill. Even though it must have already been an arduous journey, they used their legs as if they were putting up a last spurt.
The injured and the elderly get on the waiting horses and start running.
In the process, the refugees’ screams completely disappeared.
The last words to be told to the warriors who look after them with solemn faces.
Even a 10-year-old child instinctively knew that it should not be a scream.
A little while after that.
The decisive battle has begun.
* * *
Ta-ta-ta-tang!
Countless bullets rain down from the hill and hit the charging monsters.
“Claralak-!”
“Yaaaaa!!!”
The warriors shouted and pulled the trigger, as if they could not be defeated by the screaming monsters.
The adult came running, stepping on the corpse of the subadult monster that had become a beehive.
“Throw it away!”
A gunner holding an AK-74M fired 5.45 mm bullets.
Then the adult monster brought the tentacles on its back forward. At the end of it was the shell-shaped shield that I had seen in the sawmill village.
Toupapapapapak!
If you shoot a gun at a very thick oak tree, will it make a sound like this?
Every time the 5.45×39 mm bullet hit, broken fragments flew, but the shield did not break.
“It won’t break through! It won’t break through!”
Slam!
The half-empty magazine was depleted, and the hammer hit the empty compartment.
“Why don’t you try blocking this too?!”
As if taking over the baton, Mikhail struck with the PKP machine gun.
The 7.62×54 mm bullet with three times the kinetic energy shattered the monster’s carapace shield and smashed its head.
However, there were far more people running than those falling down.
“Blast it!”
At Potre’s signal, Alexei pressed the detonator.
Wow!!!
With a huge explosion sound, snow, dust, and monster limbs fly in the sky.
Monsters outside the area of influence were also temporarily unable to advance due to the flying sand and stone fragments.
The moment everyone took advantage of the opportunity to exchange magazines, the corpse of a subadult monster flew through the dust.
“What?”
A military machine gunner crashed into a corpse and fell out.
“Ian!”
Mikhail shouted
Machine gunner Ian fell to the ground and pulled his pistol from his belt.
And then I shot the subadult approaching right in front of me.
Bang bang bang!
But when I looked closely, I saw that half of the body was already gone. The monster was charging at him using the corpses of its compatriots as shields.
Slam!
The moment the pistol hit the empty compartment, the monster’s grip pierced Ian’s chest.
The guy lifted Ian, who was coughing up blood, into the air and swung his arms back.
Since it is a fatal wound anyway and there are many people to kill, it seems like they are planning to pull it out with the power of inertia.
But the monster underestimated Ian too much.
“Off!”
Even though Ian was struggling, he held on to the monster’s grip with all his strength. Don’t let your hole-filled body fall away from that guy.
“Krrr-?”
The monster turned around as if wondering, and faced the smile of a soldier holding a grenade with the pin pulled out.
Kwaaang!
The flesh of two hostile races at war mixes and pours out.
In between, more monsters rushed in.
The crew collapses with blood gushing from the cut arm.
His finger was still stuck on the trigger of the submachine gun that had fallen to the ground, spitting out bullets.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-tang! Slam!
Alexei, who had used up his magazine, looked at the subadult monster charging in front of him. He didn’t have time to change the magazine.
“Ryaaaaa!”
I thrust the bayonet in with all my might.
The strength used as a miner is concentrated on one point and directed towards the top of the monster’s head.
Kwasik!
As the skull was crushed, and the brain was torn apart, the subadult monster fell limp.
He pulled out his bayonet, changed the magazine, and fired at the monster approaching from the side.
But it was an adult. Even though he was bleeding, he swung the tentacles on his back.
“Wow!”
The hook was driven deep into Alexei’s chest, and he fell to one knee.
“Alexei!”
Pyotr fired a barrage of assault rifle fire, but the guy lowered his stance and caught it with his strong shell.
His blood was spattered, and his shell was broken, but with only about 10 rounds of ammunition, he could not be killed.
Tuta tata!!!
However, a soldier with a machine gun opened fire afterward.
Alexei narrowly escaped the falling monster with blood spurting from his entire body.
“Thank you…”
Alexei saw his lifesaver die, with his shoulders and stomach torn apart by two monsters. A blood-soaked machine gun falls to the ground.
The defense line has already collapsed.
I killed over 50 monsters, but the number of monsters was increasing.
Our troops are falling one by one here and there.
Quang!
Boom!
But he didn’t just die. Everyone exploded with dynamite and took away at least one more person.
Isaac was the youngest at the party. No, he is only 17 years old, so it would be more accurate to say he is young.
He realized that all three of his colleagues who had been fighting in his area had disappeared.
“Kill! Kill me!”
Judging by the gunshots and shouts of our troops coming from the other side, it appears that they have not been annihilated yet. But it will only be a matter of time.
“Kyaarrrrva!”
I poured the last of my ammunition into the monster charging in front of me.
I guess I was lucky enough to make eye contact and the guy collapsed, spewing out blood. However, two more appeared after that.
Slam!
The ball hit the empty chamber.
“…”
Isaac took out his revolver.
Bang bang bang!
I fired five shots, but the monster came without any hesitation. It’s not something that can be pierced by a pistol bullet.
Now all that’s left is one last step.
Isaac aimed his gun at his temple. He fought as long as he could.
It was a shame that he didn’t have the courage to even fire one last shot at the monster, but his friends he would see in the afterlife would pat him on the shoulder for his hard work.
“Huh.”
Isaac closed his eyes, choking back tears.
The moment you pull the trigger.
Tak!
A cold hand flew from somewhere and wrapped around Isaac’s hand. Even though he was big and strong, he was careful to control his strength.
Unlike violent monsters that cut off guns and fingers without distinction with one blow.
When Isaac opens his tightly closed eyes, there is a being with glowing red eyes.
“Monster.”
A word that came out without me realizing it.
However, it is different from the murder-crazed monster we fought just now. The being in front of him had the same discipline as himself.
The arm, which looks like several twisted black ropes, has a steel grip that can tear off a human face in one fell swoop.
It was holding Isaac’s revolver firmly.
Not human. A strange being that is neither a robot nor a monster as seen in movies.
His finger ripped Isaac’s finger off the trigger.
“Kyaarrrr!”
What brought Isaac to his senses in this unrealistic situation was the voice of the rushing monster.
An unidentified being stretched out its other arm toward the monster.
At the end of it is a heavy gun that looks good enough to be used as a hammer. It is a heavy weapon with a futuristic design that can only be seen in games or movies.
Bang bang bang!
Wow!
The adult monster, which was not easily defeated by rifle bullets, turned into a piece of meat. It falls to the ground and rolls with the same momentum as it was running.
Isaac even hiccuped as he saw the monster’s corpse stopping just 2 meters away.
“Kyaooooo-!”
The other one jumped up and tried to attack, but was shot down in the air. Pieces of meat fall into the rainwater.
Boom!
Coo!
At the same time, two identical beings descended on either side of him. Like a black angel.
It fell from such a high height that the snow flies as if a bomb had exploded.
“Oh!”
It was only then that Isaac came out of his panic and could hear the sound of a helicopter hitting the air in the sky.
Just by looking at it, there is a combat helicopter floating above with reassuring weapons arrayed at the bottom.
The monsters stopped charging because they were distracted by the helicopter that suddenly appeared.
“Yaaaaa!!!”
The cheers of colleagues could be heard from all directions. I don’t know where the helicopter came from. But everyone was convinced that it was an ally.
Isaac’s perception could not keep up with the sight, which was so unrealistic.
But I felt it instinctively. That they were saved.
Boom!
Another black angel fell from the helicopter.
Unlike other individuals, it wears epaulettes on both shoulders and has the symbol ○, meaning commander, drawn on its head.
[The death of a child soldier who fought bravely will never happen before my eyes.]
A male voice filled with both joy and anger. It penetrated into Isaac’s ears.
