Rust - Chapter 579



Only Krnovel

RUST -579

The reason Roy Stern reached for the gun the moment he saw the man in the suit was because of a peculiar feeling. A unique atmosphere that monsters have. Like John Foren, the man in the suit was something that looked human.

The thing that calmly handed over the water bottle was clearly something other than a human being. Having lost his subordinates so absurdly, Roy Stern could not die in vain.

He shouldn’t have died. At the very least, he had to avenge his subordinates who had died in vain. He had to survive until he could get his revenge. Yes. Roy Stern had to choose a choice that would allow him to survive in front of a monster in human form.

John Foren was going to kill me the moment I refused to hire him. Why would he do that to a guy in a suit? He knew he had refused to hire John Foren.

When he asked out of the blue how John Foren died, he didn’t know if he would be killed the moment he answered. Roy Stern had no choice but to tell the story that gave him the best chance of survival. That way he would have a chance to get revenge.

‘If it’s for revenge…’

‘You have to survive to survive.’

‘If it’s for revenge…’

‘Something must be done.’

Suddenly, I remembered what happened when I first arrived in San Francisco.

The incidents where he maintained order with his subordinates, and the incidents where he saved people whose lives were being plundered because the gangsters and cartel leaders were cannibals.

Those who helped and saved him and their friends were the ones who killed his subordinates, their families. Could it be that they weren’t them?

Maybe not.

Maybe not.

But the fact remains that the militia attacked. It is an undeniable fact that they annihilated them without giving them a chance to surrender.

Why? It must be because of the Charlotte Group warehouse. The warehouse collapsed and was buried by the earthquake and tsunami, killing people. 23 soldiers.

Is that something that little kids would do?

Roy Stern could not die here, even if it meant joining hands with the monster before his eyes.

“···The recruitment offer. Is it still valid?”

I felt like my trachea and lungs were being scratched.

Sniff. Sniff.

A smile appeared on the face of the man in the suit as he savored the scent of blood in that scratched voice.

“It’s the thick smell of vengeance.”

“······.”

“Welcome to the Confederacy, Major Roy Stern.”

The man in the suit held out his arm and asked softly.

“Then, Major Roy Stern. What happened to John Foren?”

“···He was killed by Vladimir Kalin.”

“Haa- If the King of the Holy Kingdom had personally moved, there would have been nothing that could be done.”

“······.”

The man in the suit, shaking Roy Stern’s cast-wrapped hand, whispered softly.

“I think we’ll become close friends in the future. Don’t you think so?”

“······.”

“Because we’re all interested in revenge.”

“······.”

Revenge against humanity, you know.

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The airship that carried passengers from San Francisco to Detroit day and night never rested a single day. In the case of a normal aircraft, there were many things to check after takeoff and landing, but the airship was relatively less sensitive.

Phew-

Kwaaaaang-

“That sounds like something exploding. Is that a mortar or an artillery?”

“Send the crows over there.”

The explosions continued for nearly five minutes without stopping, so I sent out a crow reconnaissance mission in that direction, but I stumbled upon something strange.

[Eh- I heard the crows found the Charlotte warehouse?]

“Logistics warehouse?”

[Yes. They say humans are taking items out of the collapsed warehouse.]

“What are these things?”

[Ah- They say there are guns too. Clothes, shoes, rolled up mattresses? They say there are a huge variety.]

“Send the reconnaissance footage this way.”

[yes-]

A crow flew in from the airship, spread its wings, then closed them and bowed its head. It was a posture that was surprisingly polite and dignified.

‘Where did you learn this?’

Maru nodded in greeting to the crow, then replaced the memory card in the reconnaissance camera hanging around his neck.

Maru, who had stopped the crow from flying away again, handed it a bag of special jerky that he had as a snack.

Caw! Caw!

When I gave it to a crow that was crying out, “No,” “It’s okay,” and saying, “It’s okay,” and “Take it,” the crow grabbed it with its talons and flapped its wings happily.

Now that I think about it, since the airship travels back and forth 24 hours a day without stopping, the escorting crows must also be mobilized without rest. It was right to provide them with everything from special meals to snacks.

“Wouldn’t it be better to just give them more special allowances? Even crows and wolves use the store on their own.”

“You should also give them a special allowance. You should also provide them with snacks and special meals.”

Maru thought that if someone worked, they should be paid for their work. Whether it was a person or an animal. He put the memory chip in the tablet and turned on the screen, and a half-destroyed warehouse was visible.

In the warehouse, which was a mess of debris and mud caused by the tsunami, there were at least a hundred people clinging to each other like ants.

“There seems to be a lot of stuff in that warehouse over there. Should I send the kids there?”

Kim Yang’s eyes were filled with greed, but Maru stopped him.

“Okay. People here also need to eat and live.”

There must be at least several hundred thousand people left in San Francisco, and they will need supplies salvaged from warehouses like this to survive the long winter.

“But isn’t that an exosuit?”

Kim Yang, who was analyzing the screen with her greedy eagle eyes, pointed to a certain spot. What was there was definitely an exosuit. And it was an exosuit used by the Federation Army.

When he saw the exosuit, Maru’s intuition began to tingle. A feeling like he had just taken a dump began to well up in his mind.

Tsk-

Maru, who was clicking his tongue, spoke to Ms. Kim, who was focused on the screen.

“Check out why that exosuit is there. If anything seems strange, contact me right away. I’ll take a look around.”

“Okay.”

Kim Yang, who answered in a somewhat bright voice, had her gaze directed at the various firearms that were very small and visible in the video.

She watched intently as boxes containing various firearms adorned with gold, silver, jewels and ivory were pushed to one side, then summoned the guard.

Normally, it wouldn’t have been a good idea to go down with one or two exosuits rolling around among the civilians, but Maru didn’t ignore his intuition.

Even if it doesn’t seem like a big risk to feel lukewarm, it’s still a problem if you leave the itchy feeling alone and it turns into constipation.

“So you’re going to go yourself?”

“Hey- So how much is left?”

Maru changed the topic to Ki-sun’s bowl.

“Whew- It’s going to take another two weeks to move. It’s going to take six weeks to move people and get the supplies from the bunker. It could take longer.”

“Is that so?”

I thought the bunker storage was spacious, but even with all the airships mobilized, it would still take 6-7 weeks to make a round trip.

“All the airships combined are nowhere near the amount that a large container ship can carry. The amount of goods accumulated by operating over 20 of those container ships is something we underestimated.”

“······.”

“The bunker warehouses were bigger than I thought. This is really crazy. When I checked the Charlotte data, I found that they were operating four external logistics warehouses. They were close to the port, so they would have been swept away by the earthquake and tsunami, but if we could salvage even half of them, hundreds of thousands of people would have no problem getting through this winter.”

“Is that it?”

Ki-soon’s squinted eyes became narrower.

“If the reason you want to go there is because of the warehouse, then there’s no need to go. Even if there are no supplies there, we are already well off. Very much.”

“I know. People here also have to eat and live. I’m not going to raid the warehouse, but I have a bad feeling about it, so I just wanted to check it out.”

Ki-soon’s eyes widened slightly at Maru’s answer.

“Again? What does it feel like?”

“I took a dump, but I still feel uneasy?”

Ki-soon was startled. She had experienced firsthand that Maru’s intuition was considerable, so her reaction naturally grew louder.

“Could it be that there are still some tentacles left?”

“I don’t think so. It would have felt even more fucked up if it had been.”

“You’re not going alone, are you?”

“I’m going to send Ms. Kim and the guards to the warehouse and take a walk with the crows.”

“If there’s any problem, please contact me immediately. Be prepared, as the communication failure seems to be getting worse.”

“Hey. You too, you must be working hard.”

“Confiscate! Confiscate!” While Kim Yang ran towards the warehouse with the guards, Maru started to look around with the crows.

Kaaaak! (Say anything!)

“If you see any strange traces or suspicious behavior while flying low around, let me know.”

Caw! (Okay!)

“If it’s dangerous, get out immediately.”

Knock! (Yep!)

The crows quickly found the place that had been hit by the mortar shells. Scattered bloodstains and pieces of meat that had not been cleaned up showed the true picture of the tragedy.

And on one side, a small grave was piled up. There was a name tag hanging on the place where the rebar and metal fragments were used as gravestones. Maru knelt down slightly and touched the blood on the floor with his fingertips.

As you can see from the stickiness, it wasn’t long before it started.

‘Hmm- So the survivors made graves for their comrades?’

This means that the gunfire that was heard earlier was from here. The problem is that the soldiers who were attacked by mortars were soldiers with ID tags.

Maru looked at the shattered pieces of the exosuit and was lost in thought.

Caw- Caw-Caw! (I found some suspicious guys nearby.)

Maru immediately took out the reconnaissance camera memory chip and connected it to his smartphone. Indeed, suspicious guys were moving around.

There were five of them. Four in dark suits and one in a federal uniform. Suits in the middle of a mess of San Francisco. They were definitely suspicious.

Maru, who activated the stealth function of the Ripper suit, disappeared into the shadows.

A man in a dark suit stopped dead in his tracks.

“We’re almost there. It stinks. The smell of dirty humans. The smell of dirty pigs and dogs.”

It was the man and the agents who had headed to the collapsed warehouse, promising to avenge Roy Stern. Roy Stern was breathing heavily, perhaps because they had run almost at full speed after creating the grave.

In contrast, the breathing of the man and the agents was calm. Roy Stern, who barely managed to stabilize his breathing, smiled bitterly. After all, these people were not human.

“Big. To take revenge on Major Roy Stern, you have to have high emotional purity. If you waver like that, the taste of revenge will be…”

Sniff- sniff-

Suddenly, the expression on the man’s face, who had been carefully sniffing the air, turned serious.

“Death? The smell of death?”

The three agents who had been sitting quietly with the man’s words suddenly stood up at the same time. As if they had made a promise, all four of their eyes turned to the sky at the same time.

There was a crow quietly gliding at a low altitude. The man in the dark suit spat and spoke in a low voice at the sight of the crow quietly circling like a glider without flapping its wings.

“I got my tail stepped on.”

Roy Stern knew from looking into the man’s eyes that he was sending signals to the other three by rolling his eyes.

Cackle-

Four people simultaneously aimed their guns in one direction.

I pulled the trigger without a moment’s hesitation, shooting into the empty space.

bang!

Tadadadada!

The bullet struck the empty air and bounced off with sparks.

‘What is this?’

The sight of a sword that appeared in the air and then suddenly disappeared again. Unlike Roy Stern, who looked like he was going crazy, a long smile was torn across the lips of the man in the dark suit.

A unique feat of stopping bullets with a blade.

The smell of death is so thick it makes your head spin.

All of this tells us one thing.

“It’s Vladimir Kalin!”

With that shout, the agents’ momentum changed.

“Catch me here.”

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He could count the number of dead agents on one hand. How many times had an Aegis ship been robbed, and how many times had an important research center been attacked?

Even so, should we sign a non-aggression pact and stick our tails up like dogs? If we are going to stick our heads down like ostriches, what kind of new humanity are we and what kind of true nobility are we?

“Major Roy Stern. We’ve come to avenge you, and we can do it first.”

Ugh-

Big-

Crackle crackle-

The bodies of the three agents next to him swelled up into huge masses, their joints twisting in an instant. Their coarse fur stood out stiffly and their mouths turned into pointed snouts.

‘A… werewolf?’

Roy Stern confirmed his feelings. These people were not human. The man who now retained his human form must also be a monster.

Awwww-

With a long howl, three werewolves and a man in a suit glared into the air, baring their teeth.

“There’s no use hiding. You can’t erase that smell.”

In the space where only shadows floated, something fell with a small thud.

Roll roll roll—

Krr?

Crunch?

“Grenades are useless!”

As if mocking the man’s cries.

Puhwaaaaak-

Tear gas exploded.

“FUCK!!!”

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Break it.

Kew.

As the werewolves held their noses and howled, Roy Stern turned his head in the direction of the wind and quickly turned to the side.

In that brief moment, the pilot’s characteristic body vision caught the swaying shadow moving against the tear gas.

At the end of the tear gas crack was a distressed werewolf.

Pu-geuk-

A small sound buried in the squealing. The blade pierced the werewolf’s eye and emerged from the back of its head, then drew an S-shaped curve and tore apart its head and torso.

As the werewolf struggled, his nose numb and vision lost due to tear gas, even as blood droplets splattered beside him, Roy Stern realized that the werewolf was not all good. The heightened senses were a clear weakness in a battlefield where tear gas was exploding like now.

Big-

The werewolf’s neck rose and fell. Only then did the last one raise its sharp claws and flail at the air, but that was it.

Boo-wook-

He fell to the floor, spilling his entrails as the blade passed through his stomach.

Kiing-kiing kiing

The pitiful sound was short-lived, as the last werewolf’s head was cut off by a blade that fell from the air.

Gulp gulp-

The blood flowing from the three werewolf corpses began to form a red slurry.