Rust - Chapter 238



Only Krnovel

RUST [RUST]-238

The blade extended out as if brushing against the gaping mouth of the tree.

A noise ran down the blade that was neither the sound of metal rubbing nor the sound of leather cutting.

Maru let out a little strength at the resistance he felt at the tip of the sword.

Let’s twist the angle. The blade slips between the scales.

Shh …

A thick-bodied, striped snake stared at the floor.

[Individual identification complete.]

[Identified as a garter snake (Thamnophis elegans vagrans).]

[A snake found throughout Yellowstone Park, inhabiting moist areas.]

[The size is··· an error.]

It was impossible to guess the length just by looking at the thickness. Maru held the sword in reverse and stood slightly away from the front.

The bright yellow snake’s eyes scanned the floor. There was a sense of doubt and caution in its cold gaze. How did you stop it? The scales stung. Is this dangerous? That’s the feeling.

A menacing hissing sound and a murderous aura felt all around.

‘There are two people left to live besides this guy? No… three.’

Look at these.

In Japan, cats used to party, and now baby snakes are partying too.

“Hey- I caught you hiding. Stop looking and come in.”

Since snakes are meat, I’m sure Kim Yang would like it if I brought it to him. It’s quite big, and there seems to be a lot to eat. Its hide looks sturdy, and its color is pretty.

Okay. Let’s just slowly cut off the head. Maru’s determination changed to murder.

As if responding to Maru’s rising life force, I thought I heard sounds from all directions – hiss, hiss, hiss – and then something shot towards the back of Maru’s head!

“There you are!”

Headshot- Maru turned his body while spreading out the sword he was holding in reverse. A thick chunk was torn apart in midair with a low cutting sound.

While cutting with his arms, he looked around with his eyes, but unlike what he expected to attack at the same time, there was no response. Almost at the same time, he felt a subtle sensation in his hands. It was a completely different feeling from when he cut meat.

‘Ivy.’

The thick vines were cut and dry leaves were scattered. Between them, the snake and the living thing disappeared without a trace.

These are running away?

“Diana!”

[···Motion detection sensor, not captured by camera.]

“······.”

[······.]

At Diana’s silence, Maru turned the sword he had been holding in his hand around and said,

“Big- It’s okay. That could happen. It’s okay. It’s because the sensors are all turned off. Was there any other movement around?”

[···There was no movement detected by the motion detection sensor or camera.]

“Really? You said garter snakes earlier? You said they usually live in humid places, right? Where’s the closest one around here?”

[I will display it on the screen.]

A map and arrows appeared on the HUD indicating the direction. It was quite close. Maru checked the direction indicator and the direction ahead, then climbed up the tree.

“If you need to install a repeater, indicate it in advance.”

[All right.]

Pak- Maru kicked up the tree and landed on the next branch before flying again.

‘The leather was fine.’

When I parried the initial attack, it felt pretty good. No matter how lightly I cut, it would have been enough to cut a person, but it wasn’t enough to cut the scales.

9mm or shotguns probably won’t work. The armament of the search party that came in here… The regular infantry is armed with a basic 5.56mm rifle, the exosuits with a 7.62mm machine gun, and the armored soldiers with a 20mm Vulcan.

‘I don’t know about the basic rifle, but it looks like it would be difficult to withstand the firepower of an exosuit or armored personnel carrier.’

If there had been a surprise attack following a covert maneuver and a fight with the search party, there should have been traces everywhere. But there was no such trace at all.

Then what is it?

Suddenly, I remembered what Kim Yang had said. The proud story of how he had caught a wolf that had been using its brain.

‘They lured me.’

‘invitation?’

‘After luring one of them to the ambush point by pretending to kick its leg, we made a surprise attack.’

Maru, who had reached the area indicated on the HUD, rose high above the trees.

Looking down from a high place, the place where the river and wetlands intertwined came into view at a glance. And in the distance, there was a riverside where the bushes were overturned.

What would soldiers think when they see such terrain? Even if they are chasing animals, they probably wouldn’t think about it. But what if that overturned bush was a trap? What if that was the trace of a trap?

Could it be a snake trap? Maru had been through too much to ignore it.

Cats that hunt in packs, rats that cut off power, ambushes, monkeys that attack from a distance with a boulder, and even monsters that use psychic waves.

Just a little while ago, weren’t the snakes playing a party game to catch Maru? They were the ones who stabbed him and ran away without looking back because they thought it was dangerous.

‘Let’s go for now.’

Maru didn’t want to let his guard down because he thought they were beasts. So he climbed trees and moved through the air as much as possible. The ground would be easier for snakes to detect.

On one side, there was a river flowing, and the bushes were thick enough to reach from the calf to the waist. It was the perfect place for snakes to hide. There were no large trees nearby, so I had to go down to check.

‘This is dirty from the start?’

Thinking about traps and ambushes, the terrain was definitely dirty. Maru always carried a few tear gas canisters with him after meeting the rats in the Japanese secret research lab. He also told Kim Yang to always carry one.

“Diana. Will this work on snakes too?”

[It had a significant effect in experiments on reptiles.]

Tear gas was mainly made using chloropicrin or chloroacetophenone agents, either of which caused significant pain in the animals’ mucous membranes and induced vomiting.

[Snakes smell with their tongues… The tongue is a very important organ for snakes. CS bullets cause strong irritation to the snake’s tongue…]

I pulled out the safety pin of the CS bullet while listening to Diana’s explanation.

Just one thing for now.

Ting- With the sound of a clip popping, white smoke began to rise from the bushes. The gas began to disperse, carried by the gentle wind and carried down the bushes.

No response? Am I being too sensitive?

Knock knock knock knock-

The bushes began to sway along with the sound of tree roots twisting. Ss …

Shh …

A snake as thick as a thigh leapt from the bushes.

The snake, which had been at a loss with its tongue sticking out into the air, writhed and rolled around on the floor.

Starting with one, snakes burst out from all directions. The bushes were crushed and the snakes were glowing.

■■■■■■!

■■■■!!

Among the writhing snakes, several escaped into the river.

“Do snakes swim?”

[···yes.]

One of the snakes that had been writhing around disgustingly opened its mouth and vomited. Crunch – a completely undigested human being came out.

A corpse whose skin has dissolved in digestive juices, resembling a sausage with its skin torn off.

The baby snakes, who had been twitching their beaks and screaming, began to spit out corpses one by one. In an instant, the floor was filled with slimy digestive fluid and corpses.

It was these kids.

Those who have tasted human flesh do the same thing, don’t they? Maru threw CS bullets into the river to prevent them from escaping and jumped down from the tree. Chubbuck- The ground that sinks in like a soaked sponge.

Srrrrrrrr-

Maru stepped on the floor that reached up to her ankles and approached the snakes. The snakes were writhing in terrible pain and even more terrible murderous intent.

Swish-swish-

The scales broke and blood and flesh splattered everywhere. The ground was soggy with grass and dirt that it was difficult to apply force properly.

Scales and hide were harder than expected. Even the muscles were denser than those of a coyote.

“Why are you so stubborn!”

Kwajijijijik-

I got annoyed and started cutting with a knife, and Maru’s excitement subsided as the cross-section was torn as if it had been cut with a saw. I told him not to use force, but he got excited and started cutting with force again.

‘Okay. Let’s cut it seriously.’

Kkujik- Kwajik-

The sound of the blades breaking slowly began to smooth out. The snakes desperately tried to escape, but due to their numb senses, they were unable to fight back properly and were cut down alive.

Kushik- Kasik-

···

···

Seogeogeokguk-

three-

It didn’t take long for dozens of giant snakes to be slaughtered.

White smoke dispersed in the wind.

The bushes, where the toxic smell of tear gas had disappeared, were filled with the pungent scent of blood. Snakes with severed heads were strewn everywhere. Maru, who was cutting into the bodies that were twisting around without heads and peeling off the skin, said.

“Diana. Position yourself here. Send her to the situation room. Tell them to send a helicopter or a rescue team, because we found several bodies.”

[I told you.]

Even though I cut off its head, it had been struggling for quite some time, so everything was a mess. I thought about it while peeling its skin, but it was strange.

Let’s say that it’s because it has scales that it doesn’t work as well as when you catch a monster cat, but it wasn’t enough to stop a 7.62mm machine gun or a 20mm Vulcan. Then where did the exosuits and armored soldiers armed with machine guns and Vulcans go?

Did they run away after seeing the infantry being eaten? Did they not shoot because they were afraid of accidentally firing at their own troops? Even if it’s not the armor-type exosuit that Kim Yang uses, but a power loader-type exosuit that can be wrapped around snakes and killed, what about the armored soldiers?

After neatly stacking the snake skins and by-products on one side, the floor headed toward the overturned bushes I had seen from above the tree. Perhaps because it was in the opposite direction of the wind, there was no smell of blood or tear gas on this side.

As I got closer, a leg suddenly went in up to my knees. I felt down with my toes and saw that the front part might have sunk in even deeper.

I pulled out my sword and stabbed downwards. Nothing caught my eye.

pit?

Doo doo doo doo doo-

I started hearing helicopter sounds.

[You must fire a signal flare.]

“Really? I sent you the location?”

[You must shoot a signal flare to find the exact location.]

“It feels really uncomfortable.”

Maru, who had been poking the dirt floor that was sinking like a swamp with his sword drawn, pulled back and fired a signal flare. The signal flare rose like a meteor and exploded, causing red smoke to rise.

The helicopters that had approached began to circle and search for a landing spot, and soldiers and medics began to disembark from the helicopters that were flying low, hovering over the bushes, and then taking off repeatedly.

Maru led the soldiers and medics to the empty lot where the bodies were. The people, speechless at the sight of the horrific scene, began to collect the bodies.

Woof-

A soldier vomits as he lifts up a melted corpse, unable to hold it back as the flesh falls apart. There were so many corpses, as dozens of snakes were swallowing nearly twice as many people.

Maru frowned. The sound of helicopters, soldiers vomiting, people sobbing as if they had found the bodies of their acquaintances, and soldiers swearing revenge. It was noisy and chaotic.

Tsk-

Maru, who had gathered up the snake meat and leather he had prepared, took a step to leave the place.

As people disembarked from two of the five helicopters and the third was about to descend to drop off people, a giant snake emerged from the bushes and wrapped itself around the tail of the helicopter.

Squeak-

Ewww

The helicopter sank with the tail twisted and the sound of metal bending. I pulled out my sword, throwing down my load as screams erupted from all directions.

Two helicopters flying at low altitude were hit by large pieces of wood. Snakes covered the helicopters as they fell, their propellers twisting and wobbling.

At that sight, the soldiers and medics who were collecting the bodies screamed and ran away. As several people ran away like that, the soldiers began to scatter in all directions.

“You idiots! Unite!”

The explosion of murderous intent and the few people who were running away collapsed.

“If you run away, you die. Gather!”

“Gather together and shoot. Aim for the head. Eyes. Mouth. Got it?”

“CS grenade. No tear gas grenade?”

Soldiers shaking their heads

“Fuck. Don’t run away, shoot me.”

Maru ran towards the snakes, leaving behind the trembling soldiers with their guns drawn.

The snakes that used to coil around people, twist them to death, bite their necks and break their cervical vertebrae, opened their mouths toward the floor.

Kyaaaa-

Crunch-

A head fell off.