novelraw Chapter 36
Chapter 36
Chapter 36
A gigantic, massive body bearing the appearance of a knight writhed amid tangled, defiled debris.
Grrk, grrrk…….
As if it was not over yet, the thing tried to raise its body while bursting with killing intent, but with its limbs torn out, it could do nothing beyond squirming.
“Phew, damn thing’s got an unnecessarily tough hide.”
Looking down at it, Kim Cheol gazed at the creature with an expression that seemed refreshing yet somehow regretful.
At first, he had thought it was just another ordinary monster, but after trading blows directly, it turned out to be one with plenty of mass and stiff hide—quite satisfying to beat on.
Of course, he eventually got sick of it and ended the fight by ripping off its limbs, but at this level, it would undoubtedly be recognized anywhere as an excellent living sandbag.
“That said, I can see why they lost an entire planet. This must’ve been a real pain.”
In other words, even Brigadier General Kim Cheol, a Penta Gear, had taken quite some time.
On the outside, as always, he wore a friendly, easygoing smile, but his eyes alone were honed with cold sharpness for a reason.
It was just then, as he was looking down at the wheezing knight.
‘Beep.’
The watch sounded.
〔Brigadier General, it seems a problem has arisen.〕
“What is it?”
〔They say the colony’s outer shielding wall is about to be breached. It looks like we should be heading back soon.〕
“Already?”
Just how poorly had they built the colony for it to fail to withstand mere monster-fired spikes for even thirty minutes?
If the engineers heard that, they would feel wronged enough to go berserk, but Brigadier General Kim Cheol genuinely thought so as he asked again.
“Then the cadets?”
〔Whether they were smuggled out by the enemy or escaped on their own, there were losses, but we secured the target number. Moreover, since we seized part of the Defense Force personnel and around ten ships, I believe it’s fair to say the objective has been achieved, Brigadier General.〕
It was not a bad report to hear.
Of course, replenishing cadets, troops, and ships was merely an additional factor, and the real objective was the colony itself, but…….
“If we can’t have it, smashing it isn’t so bad either, kekeke.”
Either way, it was a satisfying blow dealt to the Human Composite State, overflowing with disgusting traitors.
Murmuring that, Kim Cheol told his adjutant he understood and cut the communication.
No, he was about to cut it.
That was, until he heard the adjutant’s voice add something afterward.
〔……And we failed to capture Captain Satra alive. I apologize.〕
“Hm. Killed her?”
Even if things had gone awry unavoidably, he had inwardly liked her spirit, so his voice carried regret.
But the reply that came back was unexpected.
〔She broke through the encirclement and escaped. We attempted pursuit, but the hangar ceiling suddenly collapsed, and we lost her……〕
“Heh heh, interesting to the very end.”
It would be a lie to say there was no regret, but were not such variables also part of the joy of the battlefield?
‘Still, giving up pursuit just because a hangar ceiling collapsed. I should put them through some guerrilla training after so long.’
Chewing over a thought that would horrify his subordinate special-duty officers if they heard it, he turned and walked away, leaving behind the knight whose killing intent had already faded.
‘Captain Satra, and Jin Crow. I’ve picked up quite a few interesting connections this time.’
He etched the names he must not forget into his mind.
After rolling around battlefields for a long time, there were always names one regrettably let slip away.
‘Someday, when we meet again, I’ll bring it to an end.’
And Kim Cheol…….
“Hahahahahaha!”
He was a war maniac who lived for the pleasure of erasing their names one by one.
‘……Where is this?’
When he opened his eyes, mistaking it for hell was not all that strange.
Squish-.
As he stepped forward in his combat boots, something soggy soaked his foot.
When he lowered his gaze, what came into view was dark crimson blood pooled up to his ankles.
And that was not all.
Beneath that sea of blood, countless corpses lay strewn everywhere, dead in all manner of poses.
‘……!’
He almost let out a scream reflexively, but no scream came. It was as if something were forcibly sealing his mouth shut.
How much time passed like that.
Barely regaining his senses, he suddenly felt that the height of the piled corpses was steadily increasing.
‘……There’s so many.’
Was it because he instinctively realized this was not reality?
Or because, from some point on, the personality of Jin Crow that had begun to overlay him helped make him indifferent to such things?
With a slightly colder gaze, he stared at the piled corpses, and only then did he realize something strange.
‘They’re mixed together?’
The first things snagging his feet were the corpses of people who looked, at a glance, like lower-class civilians.
The gaunt hand of someone who had died miserably, wrapped in ragged clothes.
But as the pile grew higher, there were uniforms mixed in navy, brown, and black.
And above them, countless uniforms bearing what looked like imperial insignia, along with knights’ armor, were tangled together in chaos.
‘……Just what is this place.’
Feeling relieved for only a moment that this was not reality, he slowly raised his head along the mountain of corpses, as if opening a Pandora’s box that should never have been opened.
The corpses were piled a little higher than a small hill.
And atop them, a man was kneeling, quietly with his eyes closed.
‘Wait.’
The faint silhouette looked familiar.
Jin Crow stepped forward to get a closer look, and soon had no choice but to stare blankly.
Clink-.
As he took a single step, hundreds, thousands of chains that had been invisible just moments before came into view, all connected to the back of the kneeling man’s neck atop the mountain of corpses.
At that bizarre sight, as he was left at a loss for words.
Then, the man slowly opened his eyes, looked down at him, and spoke.
“-. --.”
The sound did not reach him, and his consciousness drifted away.
Beyond the surging pressure and fading reason, Jin Crow tried to at least remember the shape of the man’s mouth as he spoke, but it was impossible.
Yet one thing alone burned itself into his mind.
‘Jin Crow?’
The one atop the mountain of corpses was none other than Jin Crow.
Himself.
“Guh-!”
When he opened his eyes once more, what entered Jin Crow’s view was an unfamiliar ceiling.
Because of that, he instinctively furrowed his brow and turned his head to check his surroundings.
“…….”
“You are……?”
Soon, his eyes met those of Judith, who was staring down at him blankly.
Her characteristically dreamy blue eyes followed his movements as he turned his head, and thanks to that, there was one thing he could be sure of.
‘So I wasn’t captured by the Red Hand.’
If he had been caught by them to begin with, he would have been stuffed into a corpse storage bag and tossed into a freezing warehouse, not lying in a medical facility like this.
Or he would have been getting electrically grilled in a damp basement, needles driven under his fingernails.
Still, did that mean he fully understood the current situation?
That was not the case either.
‘What in the world happened.’
He remembered as far as dumping Kim Cheol—that brutish war maniac—onto the knight, but after that, his memories were hazy.
That said, it was not like asking Judith would yield any meaningful answer.
Despite being older than her outward appearance of a lower elementary schooler, her communication ability was hopelessly poor.
Because of that, instead of speaking to her, Jin Crow directed his question to Dido, the Military Police captain standing nearby.
“Why is Instructor Judith here?”
“She did not explain her reasons, so I do not know either. However, it seems she has taken some kind of interest.”
Dido replied in gentle, florid language reminiscent of a butler, but the conclusion was simply ‘I don’t know.’
There was not a single instructor or military policeman here who seemed sane.
Suppressing the irritation that surged up inside him, Jin Crow instinctively slid his hand into his clothes, searching for a cigarette.
Swoosh-.
But since he was wearing a patient gown, there was nothing to grab.
As that peculiar atmosphere continued, then—
“Huh? Instructor, you’re already awake?”
With a whiiing sound, the door opened and familiar faces entered the hospital room.
Obia Timist, the Military Police of the Central Special Service Academy, and First Lieutenant Lee Hana.
“…….”
“Then, we’ll take our leave.”
The moment they entered, Judith tugged at Dido’s sleeve, and Dido gave a light bow before leaving the hospital room with her.
‘What was that?’
He furrowed his brows at the incomprehensible behavior for only a moment, then looked at Obia, who was grinning broadly while staring straight at him.
He considered pressing her first, but soon shook his head.
What mattered right now was not right or wrong, but understanding the situation.
He was about to question Obia and the Military Police, but soon gave up and shifted his gaze to First Lieutenant Lee Hana, who was standing there blankly.
“Lieutenant.”
“Yes? Ah! Yes!”
Perhaps because she had spent a week together with Jin Crow, Lee Hana quickly realized why he had called her and opened her mouth.
“Well, um…….”
Her explanation was quite long, but since all of it was necessary information, it was not boring.
“Huff, huff. That’s how it happened, Instructor.”
No sooner had First Lieutenant Lee Hana finished speaking than she accepted the water a Military Policeman handed her as if she had worked hard, and drank it.
Meanwhile, Jin Crow silently continued his thoughts, engraving the current situation she had explained into his mind.
‘Atla Colony was effectively scuttled, the Federal Army was reorganized under the leadership of the 73rd Regiment Commander and the instructors of the Top-tier Special Service Academy, and escaped the colony through hangars that had not been occupied.’
The command structure had been shaken by the surprise attack, but with roughly thirty thousand troops who had participated in the coup to begin with, that was their limit.
Because of that, once the situation was somewhat brought under control, the Federal Army immediately evacuated the residents and soldiers—at least, that was First Lieutenant Lee Hana’s explanation.
They had even taken care of him in the process, so it was fair to say they had done their best.
Of course, it was true that they had foolishly failed to detect the coup, but when even the adjutant beside Lieutenant General Regchap had been a spy, what could they do?
‘About half of the cadets were taken by the Red Hand, and quite a number of the Defense Force joined them. But Captain Satra is missing?’
Of course, in name it was “missing,” but in a colony that had been attacked by Creatures and had even lost control authority, the chances of survival seemed slim.
“What about the Red Hand?”
“Ah, they say the adjacent 15th Fleet is pursuing them, but…….”
Judging by how she trailed off, it was clear there had been no particularly positive results.
Tap, tap-.
He lightly drummed his fingers on the bed’s armrest.
“Then.”
“S-Salute!”
Realizing that was a dismissal, the Military Police and First Lieutenant Lee Hana immediately left the hospital room, and Jin Crow looked at Obia, who was rolling her eyes like a scolded puppy, and asked.
“Where did you go?”
“Ah, well, you know. All of a sudden, a Creature went kaboom! and fell from the sky, so I panicked!”
It was an excuse that sounded as if it had been prepared in advance.
Since it was sloppy even so, Jin Crow let out a dry laugh and said,
“Will you say that the same way at a court-martial?”
“Ugh…….”
Given the circumstances, there would not be any major punishment, but if he pressed the issue, he could certainly make it troublesome.
After all, she had failed to fulfill the reason the Military Police accompanied her—VIP protection.
Obia knew that well too, so she stuck out her lips, then rolled her red eyes and spoke quietly.
“That alcohol that got confiscated back then, it’s still in the warehouse…….”
“That should be adequate as interest for now.”
“You morally bankrupt bastard.”
“If you testify the same way at the court-martial.”
“……I was wrong.”
In the end, for once, the matter ended with Obia backing down.
As if to show how displeased she was, she shot him an exaggerated glare and rose from her seat, heading out of the hospital room.
Of course, to Jin Crow—who knew that even that behavior was an act—it did not stir a single feeling.
“At least it wasn’t a total loss.”
Murmuring that to himself in the now-empty hospital room, excluding himself, he felt the creaking Triple Gear.
“Recognition information.”
■User_Jin Crow(Jin Crow)
□Rank : Major
□Service Number(S.N) : SMCO55-1113027
□Gear(Gear) : Triple(Error)
□Health Status : PTSD, chronic fatigue, chronic headaches, drug addiction, persecution delusions, anger control disorder
As expected, his Gear had risen to Triple.
However, the word Error attached beside it had not disappeared.
On average, once a superhuman’s Gear reached a certain limit, its growth rate dropped to nearly zero from that point on.
Yet his Gear level had increased in a short period of time.
Considering how much he had suffered, this was not exactly a small reward.
‘……It’s a shame.’
After clashing with Brigadier General Kim Cheol, he had felt it keenly.
If he continued to recklessly push his body relying only on drug addiction, he would not even get the chance to stop annihilation by Creatures before an acquired natural death came knocking.
Because of that, it was true that he still felt lingering attachment toward Oparts.
……Moreover, that was not the only thing bothering him.
‘That dream.’
He had felt it for some time now, but there were too many troubling points to dismiss it as a simple nightmare.
Because of that, while chewing over the fragments of the dream he remembered in pieces, he closed his eyes as he felt the vibrations of the ship entering hyperspace.
‘The Free Planet Alliance will have to wait until next time.’
It was regrettable, but that was all.
Unlike the Oparts of the Holy Galactic Empire, whose approximate location was at least known, the Oparts of the Free Planet Alliance were items regarded as half-fiction even within the story.
Since his Gear had increased, even low-efficiency awakening drugs should have some effect, and if that did not work, there was still one spare Pentacle left.
‘No, is it a spare life?’
With a week-long schedule, he had bought vigilance and his life.
In the end, he had not lost anything.
Yes—just as he was about to suppress his lingering feelings with that thought.
Knock, knock-.
Along with a quiet knocking sound from outside the door, First Lieutenant Lee Hana, who had just left, slipped back in and raised a salute.
As he turned his gaze, about to ask what was going on—
“Well, um! There’s something I forgot to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“They say the testimonies that the cadets escaped thanks to you, Instructor, and that you repelled Brigadier General Kim Cheol, a Penta Gear and a Class-1 wanted criminal, have both been verified as fact, so they’ll probably be added together in this commendation. Also, the bounty payment for the Liberto incident has already been completed…….”
At her words, Jin Crow blinked for a moment to process them, then slowly lowered his gaze and opened the account on his watch.
And the number that soon filled his vision was remarkably simple.
[500,000,000. USD/CREDIT]
“……You may leave.”
“Ah, yes! Please rest well!”
As expected, a Central Special Service Academy instructor was something else.
First Lieutenant Lee Hana left her seat with admiration at the sight of Jin Crow, who showed not a shred of agitation even after receiving the equivalent of a house on a decent inland planet for a single operation.
Once she left, he slowly reread the number, then closed his eyes.
……Why was it?
The reason the corners of his mouth kept lifting.
It was surely a side effect of his injuries.
‘Calm down.’
Even if it was five hundred million Composite State dollars, at best it meant getting some good alcohol and good cigarettes…….
〔Entering hyperspace shortly. All crew members aboard are to remain at their stations.〕
For some reason, it felt like he should not think any further, so he stopped.
Then, listening to the broadcast ringing in his ears, he closed his eyes again and turned his thoughts elsewhere.
Thankfully, just thinking about the cadets who would be resting comfortably caused his emotions to settle in an instant.
‘A full week has passed beyond the expected date.’
The cadets’ discipline would have loosened considerably.
Judging from experience, Sub-instructor Ginatio would not be able to keep them in line.
He recalled something Baek Hwi-young had once said.
All cadets of the Central Special Service Academy were elites.
Therefore, having been unable to conduct proper lectures for an entire week, should there not be ‘make-up lessons’ befitting that?
‘I’ll need to pay a bit more attention.’
It was absolutely not venting his anger.
……Probably.