Rust - Chapter 392



Only Krnovel

RUST -392

A silent silence followed.

Director Den Brown’s gaze shifted from the floor to the video.

The culprit of this incident was caught on tactical camera.

Brett Bayden. Head of the Bayden family.

He pauses in front of the telepath Julia Burton. Then, a frozen telepathic woman. Then, a video of the surviving members being swept away by waves of cockroaches follows.

-Kiririk- Kiriririri-

Brown chitin covered Jerome’s tactical camera. Jerome did not give up even though his face was chewed and his scalp was torn off. Even through the video, it could be felt that he was enduring the pain and tenaciously holding on to life.

A desperate situation. What are you waiting for when death is certain?

Director Dan Brown’s eyes were wide open as if he would not miss a single scene.

Jerome shouted, piercing the chitinous grinding sound as he glimpsed the scene between the cockroaches that covered him. With a cry that sounded like he had expelled all the air in his lungs, he rose up as if he had burst out of a grave. The blood flowing down told of the pain he was going through.

There were only a few bullets left. Where the gun was aimed.

Sparks flew from the gun barrel aimed directly at the telepathic Julia Burton.

Tudadadang!

!!!

An involuntary sigh escaped Brett Baden’s lips.

The footage ended with Jerome Randall’s final gunshot, buried in the brown waves.

“Agent Jerome shot Julia Burton last. It appears he decided that even if he shot Brett Baden, there was no guarantee that he would be able to kill him with the remaining bullets.”

Even as he was bitten by cockroaches, Jerome Randall saved his spare bullets until the very end. He would have liked to shoot them right away and knock down a few. He endured the excruciating pain. And the last choice he made was to kill Julia Burton, the telepath.

The Director immediately understood the choice Agent Jerome had made.

What if telepathy fell to a cannibal? A cannibal who controls cockroaches, combined with telepathy? What if he also fell to psychometry?

The combination of the two women’s abilities and the method they thought would allow them to easily deal with the cannibals with their pursuit team must have turned against them.

“I took advantage of that gap to kill Brett Vaden. The cockroaches were out of control and scattered, and the only one who survived was Erica Lisbon.”

The director was silent.

It was all twisted and turned. Julia Burton was killed by Jerome Randall on video. Of course, what he did was right, but in the end, he shot a Vladimura-affiliated power user.

The content of the video was troubling, but that was why Director Den Brown was able to believe Vladimir Kalin’s words to about 80%. This side’s pursuit force was annihilated, but the other side lost an important capable person.

He didn’t just wait for the pursuit party to be annihilated, but he took advantage of the telepath’s death to kill Brett Baden… I was speechless.

“As it turns out, the person the Homeland Security agent killed at the last minute was a psychic telepath, Julia Burton.”

“······.”

“And the one survivor, the psychometrician Erica Lisbon, survived. For whatever reason, she was the only one who survived last time and was about to be punished. I couldn’t just leave her like that. I don’t know what might happen.”

Director Den Brown’s expression did not change even after hearing Maru’s story.

“That’s why I told you to come here. I thought it would be dangerous if you were dragged anywhere. Anyway, since she survived alone this time, I was worried that she wouldn’t be harmed.”

“······.”

Maru had a point. It was probably true, but regardless of whether I understood it or not, my emotions were boiling over.

Yeah, I knew that.

What Vladimir Kalin seeks is his own safety.

His own safety. And a little further, the safety of those he had touched. There seemed to be nothing more to him. But he thought it didn’t matter. It would be beneficial to have a give-and-take relationship with him.

Director Dan Brown suppressed his boiling emotions.

Because it was true that a fake Homeland Security agent shot a telepath working under Vladimir Kalin, just looking at the results.

It was pointless to ask why he didn’t get a pursuit party. What could he say if Vladimir Kalin was only targeting the higher entities, as Agent Jerome had shot with telepathy?

If Vladimir Kalin had not been present, the psychometric and telepathic abilities of the psychic world would have fallen to Brett Baden. With the combination of the cockroaches he controlled and the two psychic abilities, the entire East would have become a living hell. Yes.

‘after-‘

Whatever the circumstances, the calculation had to be certain.

That was Dan Brown’s idea and decision.

There was another brief silence before Director Den Brown took out a file and placed it on the table.

“···This is a research report on the current abnormal climate and the situation in Korea.”

Climate change? The situation in Korea?

“Bernard Green. I thought you might be curious about the situation with Kim Ki-soon and his fiancée. You can take a look at this summary that I compiled before the satellite communication was cut off.”

Is this a gesture to sort out the situation?

I thought Maru had gotten over it well. I wasn’t lying.

I just deleted Julia’s nonsense. Wouldn’t it be awkward for both of us if we found out?

Director Den Brown continued his story to Maru, who nodded.

“···Even if there is footage from the tactical camera, we still need to confirm the scene and retrieve the remains and belongings. We need to return them to their families. That’s why we need guidance from someone with psychometric abilities.”

“I’m currently treating your wounds, so I’ll have you ready once the treatment is done.”

“And the issue of transferring the airship must be revisited.”

“······.”

The original conditions for transferring the airship were as follows. They were to lend psychometry and telepathy for a certain period of time. In addition, if there was a need for the two abilities in the future, Maru’s side was to cooperate as much as possible.

After various negotiations, it was decided to transfer the airship, but for the time being, the new airship would be used for regular cargo transport between Detroit and New York.

“I would like you to attach a crow to this airship.”

The DHS blimps were operating only at night to avoid possible bird strikes. With crows as escorts, they could operate during the day, increasing their transport capacity by two or three times.

‘Tsk- Shouldn’t they have bombed it while Homeland Security agents were there? Nope. It was going to come out anyway.’

It was a well-known fact so he didn’t pay much attention, but Maru felt sick at the sight of them targeting crows so blatantly.

“That would be difficult. After all, I don’t think there’s anyone in the Department of Homeland Security who can communicate with animals.”

“Wouldn’t it be okay if you sent that person along as well?”

The Department of Homeland Security was also an intelligence agency. They came in like this and tried to extract information. This question revealed that they did not know that nurses could communicate with crows.

Maybe it was a question that made him misjudge it. That’s why he was tired of dealing with the intelligence agency. So Maru decided to just go out and say it.

“You don’t think that makes sense now, do you?”

“···If they knew that bombing was possible, the military would take action. Would that be okay?”

“If you had such a thought, would the military come? As you know, the road is rough, and something unfortunate might happen on the way. Would you waste your precious manpower like that?”

“······.”

Director Den Brown was momentarily speechless. How should we interpret this?

‘It’ll be difficult for the crow.’

Still, since the intended purpose was achieved, it wasn’t a bad idea to wrap things up here.

Additional airships that could be used as air carriers were restricted to regular cargo transport. Direct mention of crows was made to restrict their mass operation in New York.

Of course, it was a condition that could be easily broken if Vladimir Maru wanted to break it, but it was a sufficient achievement in that he had attached a drop that could be confirmed the moment it was broken.

The conditions for dispatching Psychometry remained the same, and the conditions for mobilizing Vladimir Kalin were also confirmed, so if they weren’t fighting each other, it wasn’t a bad result.

This is especially true when hardliners have something to bite when they bark.

Marudo avoided the worst.

I avoided a falling out with the Department of Homeland Security, prevented the airship transfer from being canceled, and prevented Psychometry from being forcibly taken away. Plus, I learned about the abnormal climate report and the situation in Korea, so it was a pretty good ending.

======

======

Inside the elevator going down, the faces of the Homeland Security agents were not good.

“Director, can you trust Vladimir Kalin?”

“······.”

“The pursuit party was annihilated. Only one psychometric person survived. Does it make sense that we can’t hand over the psychometric person?”

“······.”

“Yes. Instead of dispatch, the affiliation should have been changed to Department of Homeland Security.”

“The same goes for crows. Aren’t crows actually an air force? If a crow can bomb and travels on an airship, isn’t it essentially an air carrier? It has a monopoly on that.”

“There is a potential threat to security. At the very least, all airships should be recovered, or control of the crows should be transferred.”

Even after watching the battle footage, he was saying such things. It was obvious that he was a hardliner. He was thinking that he had to catch Vladimir Kalin by any means necessary to recover everything he had, and that he had to be put on a leash by any means necessary.

If it was possible without much damage, that wouldn’t be so bad.

But is it possible to do so without causing much damage? It took twenty to thirty rounds of bunker busters to destroy the fortress building that the cannibals had built in imitation of Vladislav Tower.

But how many shots would it take to bring down a building that had been heavily reinforced from the beginning? There was no guarantee that shooting would kill Vladimir Kalin right away. The moment he survived, New York would become a sea of ​​blood.

Don’t you know that?

The problem was that the hardliners insisted on it even though they knew it. They had fun catching the cannibals right away, so they wanted to target Vladimir Kalin later. They kept shaking it like this even though they knew they would be opposed anyway.

‘You’re after the director position.’

It must be building a pretext to run for the position of Director. Building a pretext that the Director of Homeland Security is not putting the nation’s security first.

Only after getting off the elevator and into the Homeland Security van did the director open his mouth.

“Everyone needs to be re-educated. What kind of nonsense is that in a public place! Your security awareness is completely rotten. It’s completely rotten! Hey, what do you think, Deputy Director?”

“sorry.”

Since the director was away from the headquarters, there was a reason why the deputy director followed him here even though he should have stayed behind. He must have been waiting for an opportunity.

But the deputy director couldn’t do anything because he didn’t expect Vladimir Kalin to be here. If he hadn’t been there, he would have tried to cause trouble by causing conflict.

“Send all the agents who were talking in the elevator back to the camp and have them start basic training again. I hope they complete the security training thoroughly.”

“Director, we are currently short on manpower. Sending our experienced agents back to the camp is….”

Director Den Brown’s eyes lit up.

“If you’re short on manpower, you should hire more. If you’re short on training, you should do more. Are you just going to let Homeland Security agents leak information in public? That’s dereliction of duty, dereliction of duty. Isn’t it? Send them all to camp. They’ll get better if they go through basic training again.”

“···All right.”

We’ve sent those hardliners who play around as they please to a training camp, so when the camp is over and they come back out, we can send them to the front-line village where they fight the monsters.

Since you’re talking about patriotism and security like that, you’ll either show half the determination that Jerome showed, or you’ll just live there playing hide-and-seek.

‘Fuck.’

This was a taste of reality, but it was a taste that was difficult to get used to.

======

======

Psychometric Erica Lisbon was nervous. Her heart was pounding, wondering if she was going to be sold to Homeland Security, if she was going to be abandoned or disposed of.

“You don’t have to worry.”

The nurse held her hand tightly, hugged her body, and patted her. As her anxiety began to fade away, a strong thought came to her mind.

‘I want to live!’

‘Don’t be fooled!’

Erica hugged the nurse tightly as her thoughts surged up without her knowing it. Maru shook his head as he looked at the two people who were stuck together like gum.

“Wouldn’t it be hot if we were stuck like that?”

The nurse quickly denied it with a look that said, ‘Surely that’s the kind of taste you have?’

“No, that’s not it.”

“No way!”

Oh my. I guess he’s starting to feel better now. He raised his voice. Maru chuckled.

“I’ve resolved it with the Department of Homeland Security, so don’t worry about them.”

“ah-”

“It went well.”

“Go. Thank you.”

The nurse’s voice was filled with relief.

Erica said thank you.

“Get ready to go to the culvert, find the remains of the pursuit team, and organize their belongings.”

“···yes.”

Maru said calmly, picking up his knife.

“Okay. Now tell me. Where is the U+ program that the powers stole from the secret laboratory of the Department of Homeland Security?”