Rust - Chapter 214



Only Krnovel

RUST [RUST]-214

As National Guard and FBI agents searched the house, survivors were found one by one, people who had been hiding in the panic room.

“Huhhhhh- Happy! Happy!”

“I survived. I survived!”

“Mom- sob sob- Mom-”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

Some people were mentally shocked and some were distraught, but what was important was that there were survivors.

The National Guard commander and the FBI agent exchanged a pleased look. Yes, they were right.

What if we had set fire to it like the guy covering for the Department of Homeland Security said? If we had just burned it without searching, all those people would have died. And after the fire was out, if people were found suffocating in the panic room during the aftermath, there would have been chaos.

Political reasons aside, the pride that came from saving people filled the hearts of the National Guard and FBI agents.

The pride and joy were fleeting. Hell had begun.

[Crash- Aaaah- Rat… Rat!]

[Beep, beep, beep]

Suddenly, one of the squads lost contact. The radio transmission from the additional squad members was a mixture of gunfire and screams. There was only one word: rat.

“Tell everyone to come out!”

The response was quick. Rather than sending in additional rescue teams, they first retreated the remaining men. However, none of the five squads that participated in the search succeeded in retreating.

“Light the fire. It’ll catch the rats!”

They set fire to the village in a shape that surrounded it, ignoring the firebreak that was not yet complete. They first created a barrier with fireworks and concentrated their forces at the entrance to the village.

“panzer!”

“Flamethrower. Standby.”

Three wheeled armored vehicles block the entrance to the village. Flamethrowers mounted on the armored vehicles are ready.

“Send the survivors to Detroit.”

“3rd Platoon, forward.”

“Prepare flamethrower.”

“preparation!”

“preparation!”

Flamethrowers took up positions between the armored vehicles. And for a moment, rats began pouring out of the empty house.

A swarm of rats so overwhelming that it was hard to believe where all those rats had been.

“radiation!”

“Shoot!”

Whoosh whoosh!

At first, it was simple. Just spray it with a flamethrower and burn it. The napalm left over after burning the rat melted the road. The smell of burning asphalt and cement. Black smoke rose into the sky in an instant.

“Armored vehicles advance. Flamethrowers behind.”

The armored vehicle slowly advanced, shooting out sparks. Just when it seemed like it was neat to circle the village like that and set it on fire, the armored vehicle sank down.

The road suddenly sank as if a sinkhole had formed. The wheels spun for a moment, and as I regained my balance and tried to get out of the hole, rats began to escape through the gaps in the hole.

Rats poured into holes in the ground that had not been set alight by napalm and clung to the armored vehicle.

In an instant, the rats ate through the tires and climbed up the side of the armored vehicle, then rushed at the soldiers who were firing flamethrowers. In an instant, the armored vehicle was covered in rats.

The scream was short, and the sound of metal gnashing filled the night sky.

“Light a fire at the entrance.”

“But there are still soldiers trapped in two armored vehicles.”

“Light the entrance! What if they get out? Light it!”

“···yes.”

A fire was lit at the entrance to the village, and behind the village, where flames were rising here and there, the commander of the National Guard picked up the phone.

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[···That’s what happened.]

Maru slowed down his motorcycle when he heard that the survivors had been rescued, but that many people had died because monster rats had poured out.

‘There were survivors?’

It was a bit uncomfortable that they decided to set fire to the place even though there were survivors. If a swarm of rats had attacked, they wouldn’t have been able to survive… Chief Dan Brown immediately responded to Maru’s muttering.

[These were people who had taken refuge in the panic room.]

So you didn’t hear any noise outside? I thought there would be no one since there was no response when the grenade exploded.

It’s a mistake to overlook that in the US, there are homes that have separate panic rooms or have their basements decorated like bunkers.

‘But whether it’s a panic room or an emergency bunker, don’t they install CCTV or something like that so that you can see outside?’

The operation to burn the area around the village was successful, but there were many casualties, especially soldiers trapped in armored vehicles.

The soldiers aboard one of the three armored vehicles that fell into the trap were killed, but the other two survived because they closed their hatches in time.

[The exosuits have all been sent to Ukraine and Guam, and the main parts manufacturing plants are in California and Seattle, making it difficult to conduct rescue operations in time.]

It wasn’t easy to deploy exosuits and armored personnel carriers. They were only producing one unit every 12 hours, and even that would take over 24 hours to transport.

In the end, it was said that Ms. Kim was needed to rescue the soldiers trapped in the armored vehicle, enduring the swarm of rampaging rats and the blazing heat.

“I have to go back to the village.”

‘No, why?’

Miss Kim protested with her eyes, but it was no use.

“It’s still strange.”

‘I’m more of a Baekjeong.’

“Whether it’s a panic room or an emergency bunker, wouldn’t they have installed something like a CCTV that allows people to see outside?”

“?”

“I can’t hear the sound of a grenade exploding because it’s a closed space, but what about the CCTV camera footage?”

“?”

“What about the landline?”

“Landline?”

He said that America still uses a lot of landline phones.

“Yeah. Landline.”

There must be a house that uses a landline, but the connection is lost?

Isn’t the reason you went to that town because you lost contact?

Kim Yang tilted her head slightly at Maru’s meaningful voice.

“electricity?”

“That’s right. The electricity is weird too. When we searched the empty houses, the lights weren’t on.”

“!!!”

Yes, it was connected by wires, whether it was a landline or electricity.

But that?

Kim Yang’s eyes gradually grew larger.

“I think the rats cut the wire.”

‘Huh? Really? Is what I just thought really true?’ Maru slowly nodded his head towards Kim Yang, whose eyes were wide open.

“It seems like they knew what the rats were and cut them off. They didn’t just cut off one house, they cut off the entire village. How can you say they cut them off by mistake?”

“Really? Is it true?”

“Really? Huh? You cut off the electricity and the CCTV camera cable to the landline because a rat accidentally gnawed at it?”

“?!”

“Listening to what the manager is saying now, I think it’s a trap. The rats dug the ground and trapped the armored vehicle.”

“!!!”

Infected subjects infected with the mutant virus gradually showed symptoms of dementia, but their intelligence improved when they ate the brain and heart.

At the Japanese Theft Hospital, a monster cat ate the rats that Ms. Kim killed, and then became smarter and went on ambushing and hunting hunts.

But what if the rats did that? It would be right to assume that there was a leader in the group, even if not all of them. The rats that cut the front lines, ambush, and make surprise attacks by surrounding them would not be ordinary rats.

I couldn’t let the monster rats grow so close to Detroit. If I wasn’t going to have a siege with a bunch of smarter monster rats, I had better get rid of them early. So. You go.

Maru’s motorcycle made a U-turn.

The exosuit grabbed Maru’s waist tightly. Kim Yang turned her head away.

I pushed the 250km limit and arrived in no time.

Soldiers sprayed napalm to keep the flames that had risen along the outskirts of the town from dying out. The flames were emitting a blazing heat that had dyed the dark night sky red.

On the surface, the operation seemed successful, but it wasn’t. The outskirts were set on fire, but the inner part, including the main road and the vacant lot, was intact. We had to spray napalm all the way there to burn it completely.

And in the distance, there were rats gathered together as if waiting for the flames to die down. A few stood with their backs straight like meerkats, observing the humans.

Fight!

A heavy gunshot.

puck!

The 12.7mm bullet fired by Kim Yang crushed the rat that was observing this way.

[That little rat.]

I don’t know what that kid is, but he shot it well. Maru nodded in satisfaction at Kim Yang’s sudden acceleration.

[It’s the first time I’ve seen that guy.]

Huh? How can you tell the difference between rats? Another one could have stood stiffly. As if reading Maru’s thoughts, the four baby rats raised their bodies toward me.

[···Are you kidding me?]

The extremely angry Kim Yang fired his gun.

Kim Yang, who was grinding down the rat and its surroundings to the sound of thick bullet shells hitting the floor as background music. After that, if she saw any rats that seemed to be standing up, she would immediately start grinding them down.

Maru headed towards the National Guard command post, leaving behind Yang Kim, who was sparing no effort in firing $60 high-explosive incendiary armor-piercing shells per shot.

The National Guard commander and the FBI agent didn’t hide their discomfort when they saw Maru. Maru didn’t care.

I wasn’t interested in political dynamics or the battle for dominance. As long as they didn’t sit on my head and try to shake me, I wouldn’t care.

Wasn’t the reason I came back so cool in the first place to get rid of the rats swarming in my front yard? So it didn’t matter whether I was the National Guard, the FBI, or a post-impressionist.

Although the formal greetings and self-introductions were over, Maru listened to the other person’s name with one ear and let it go out the other.

“So you’re saying we should rescue the soldiers trapped in the two armored vehicles. Burn down the houses that aren’t on fire. Spray napalm on the main road, the town square, and wherever the rats are gathered?”

“···exactly.”

“······.”

“Do you have tear gas?”

“···Are you talking about CS? No.”

I told you that tear gas was very effective in Japan. They said that it was because they were just searching and burning, but they were not prepared.

“There probably won’t be any white phosphorus bombs.”

“Do you think the National Guard would ever use white phosphorus bombs?”

To begin with, the white phosphorus series was a banned weapon.

It was a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who was watching Maru and the Commander’s conversation closely. Maru turned his head away from the persistent gaze.

“Do you have anything to say?”

“no.”

A Federal Bureau of Investigation agent responds with a stereotypical smile.

What are these? I was trying to do some pleasant work while cleaning the front yard, but…

“First of all, distribution is necessary.”

At Maru’s words, the commander of the main defense force nodded as if to tell him to continue his story.

“I need 12.7mm rounds and grenades. As many as I can get.”

“···Sergeant! Here, give me as many grenades and 0.50 cal bullets as you want!”

“Okay! Where should I take it?”

“There will be an exosuit near the village entrance.”

The distribution problem has been solved.

“How about bombarding them as soon as the structure is successful?”

If napalm bombing causes a lot of damage due to bird strikes, what about artillery fire? Ripping down this entire village with self-propelled guns.

“It would take at least three to four hours to get the National Guard artillery here, and the napalm fire surrounding the village can only be maintained for an hour at most, so it’s not realistic.”

It happened.

The idea was to take napalm and blow it up.

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As the exosuit burst through the blazing fire at the village entrance, a swarm of rats began to swarm it as if they had been waiting for it.

[I hate neither shrimp nor rats!]

Kim Yang, who had brought plenty of 12.7mm regular bullets and replacement barrels, fired bullets without sparing a single moment.

Thud, thud, thud!

Rats that turned into meat wherever the diagonal line passed. Even though dozens of them were cut at a time, the rats still rushed at them.

Kim Yang took advantage of the exosuit’s flame-retardant properties to attack the rats by slightly moving back into the flames when surrounded, creating space, then moving back in slightly to shoot.

While Kim Yang was making a fuss, Maru climbed up the hill overlooking the village and wrapped a chain around a plastic can containing napalm. The plastic can containing the napalm had explosives, including C4, attached to its outside.

“Shot put in the 21st century?”

It was Maru who thought that the building should be equipped with catapults and ballistas in advance. Who would have thought that it would take 3~4 hours for the National Guard to call up the artillery, deploy, and arrive at the operational area? They even said that it would take longer because it was on standby.

Boom-boom-

Hey, hey—!

Boom-boom-

Hey—!

Maru was throwing napalm canisters tied with chains, spinning them around like shot put. After throwing more than 10 napalm bombs into the village, Maru started running down the hill.

Dadadadak-

Pak- Rats greeted the floor they entered by jumping over the wall of flames.

“Hey. This- were you waiting for?”

Even the Seongdong-guksa didn’t work.

I thought that if Kim Yang made a fuss at the entrance, they would flock to that side. When I looked, there were quite a few there, so I thought they had been eaten, but they were waiting.

Sparkling eyes reflecting the flames.

Click-click-click-

A mocking cry.

“Huh? These.”

Srrrrrrrr-

Mungkul-

The wall of flames, burning fiercely with soaring murderous intent, shook.

It looks like something is pressing down on the flames and shaking them.

Take?

Jeobuk-

One crimson step.

The rats who had been licking their lips in the front row froze stiff as blocks of wood.