Rust - Chapter 617
Only Krnovel
RUST [RUST]-617
Indeed, a million units was a number that could squeeze Maru’s limits.
‘There’s no end. There’s no end. Sigh-‘
Maru wasn’t crazy enough to think about fighting a swarm of over a million rats in a field. If the fight didn’t work out, why not just use a jetpack and escape to an airship?
But that was wrong from the start. Even though it was disguised as a stealth feature, the combustion marks from the jetpack engine could not be erased.
Even as they were dying, the rats would sink their teeth or slam their claws in the direction of the jetpack. The jetpack was blown away at the first impact.
‘I’m going to turn around.’
I tried to reduce the number by repeating the hit and run, but it just ended up running wild.
While killing time by reducing the number of troops by about 100,000, I thought that the unit commanded by Ki-soon could take up the battle line and concentrate firepower to attack from the outskirts, but the plan to approach gradually like that went awry.
[Chijijijik- chijijik-]
Even though the airship was hovering directly overhead, communications were completely cut off and the HUD (Head Up Display) screen became violently distorted at times.
Beep-beep-beep—
The sensors have also reached their limits and the taste has gone away.
Squeak!
Maru kicked a rat that was trying to bite his ankle through the ice.
Creak!
The area around it started to shake as the rat, its neck broken by the blunt impact, was sucked back into its hole.
My heart was pounding with warning. The slightly tense feeling made me think that the rat pups were about to collapse the entire floor.
Where.
Let’s take a step forward and dodge out of the collapse range, the field mice trying to block our movement by building a wall with their bodies. Even though a wall of over 3m in height rose in an instant, it couldn’t block the floor.
With one long, drawn-out slash, the wall made of living bricks split horizontally and crumbled down.
The field mice that were after the floor collapsed in a hurry, but what was sucked into the deep hole were pieces of torn flesh.
And the field mice, who were waiting in the pit for the floor to fall in, ate the pieces of corn that fell from the ground without hesitation.
Among them, there were still some alive ones, but Maru was astonished at the sight of them being torn apart without leaving a single bone fragment behind.
Tsk-
They say that these rats are a daily occurrence in cannibalism, but isn’t this the case where they eat each other whenever they get the chance?
The fact that they were able to maintain numbers in the millions while eating each other and moving in one direction with one purpose meant that there was something that could control them.
‘When I looked back at the airship, there wasn’t anything particularly large···.’
‘Surely the leader digs a hole to move? That must be tiring.’
A leader who controls a million units while hiding his body. It became uncertain whether he was trying to grab their heads and kill them.
Maru kept running because he couldn’t stay in one place. With every step he took, a red carpet was laid. The waves of rats that kept coming in no matter how many he killed eventually turned red.
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■—–
It was a drop of blood that should have frozen in the bitter cold of minus 45 degrees, but the hot blood that poured down ended up flowing and forming a puddle.
Does that even mean anything?
yes-
Maru suddenly felt his body become heavy.
‘What?!’
A warning heartbeat.
Even though I looked around with my heightened senses, I couldn’t find anything that looked unusual.
Is this the result of a million field mice uniting with the sole purpose of killing Maru? Or is it because one of the field mice has awakened its psychic powers?
The invisible force that was binding Maru’s entire body grew stronger.
‘These kids···.’
Maru, who had been clinging to Eclipse with a sticky force, shot a bullet at it. As the vibrations were added to Eclipse’s already sharp blade, a terrible ranged attack began.
An unrealistic sight where a large area is cut off simply by pushing the blade forward. Where the unreal and the absurd collide, all that remains are traces of what were once field mice.
Sizzle!
Sizzle!
The widely spread out field mice began to cling together and form a bumpy mound. It seemed as if they were trying to increase their size and sweep away everything at once.
Maru’s eyes sparkled when he saw it. If it was spread out widely, the effect would be small, but if it was piled up like a hill like that, it was a different story.
□□□□□□□□□□□□□□!!!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps because they thought it was absolutely impossible, the hills of the field mice came together to create a gigantic tsunami. The tsunami of living destruction crashed down on Maru, but Maru did not dodge.
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■—–
Death descended after the typified murderous intent, the collective murderous intent of the group, and the murderous intent of Maru clashed.
======
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The rats who experienced an inevitable death were divided into two: run away or surrender.
“Now is the time. Attack!”
The 30,000 troops commanded by Ki-sun were already divided into three groups and waiting. The soldiers occupying the left, right, and rear pulled their triggers at the field mice that were scattering in disorder.
Even if you desperately try to escape by digging through the snow and ice, the moment you emerge from the long furrow dug like a firebreak, you are greeted with a hail of bullets.
It was a thin siege net that could have been easily broken through if they had huddled together and escaped, but the rats could not huddle together. This was because of the trauma they had suffered from being annihilated by Maru’s murderous intent when they had huddled together.
“Die, you little rats!”
“There are so many of them.”
“Change barrels here!”
“We’re out of bullets!”
“Move quickly. Move quickly.”
Nearly 200,000 field mice lay flat on one side of the piled corpses, trembling thinly as they watched their compatriots dying in vain while running away.
It was an inevitable death.
If a million of them passed by, they could sweep away anything, be it a solid building or a giant monster.
The smallest and weakest group will grow into a group that will devour everything. Their experience and belief was that even if one is weak, the group is strong.
And in the face of absolute death, my previous experiences and beliefs about the group completely collapsed. I ended up going back to the days when I ran away from my natural enemies.
The field mice, who have fallen from being hunters to being prey, have lost all will to fight and hope for life. Look at those who run away to survive. They die so meaninglessly.
A soft-looking female human appeared in front of the flat-lying field mouse.
“Ah-again- do you understand what I’m saying?”
Take? (Huh?)
Jjiiik? (A human female speaking our language?)
Sizzle. (Not our word.)
“Nod your head if you understand.”
The nurse felt goosebumps at the sight of the rats, which must have numbered at least 200,000 to 300,000, nodding their heads at the same time, but held it back. It was because Maru was nearby.
“I- I understand. What should I do?”
“Tell them to bring me the leader. Then I’ll let him live.”
The nurse relayed Maru’s message to the lying mice. Then the mice started communicating with each other.
Click!
Sizzle!
Huh?
“Huh? Really? Just a moment.”
The nurse who spoke to the field mouse immediately explained.
“I- They say that originally they weren’t a single group, but rather several groups that banded together and moved. Many of them died, but they don’t know which leader they’re supposed to capture?”
“Tell them to bring me all the survivors.”
As soon as the nurse gave the order, hundreds of mice fell out, dug through the ground and disappeared inside.
“What if I just run away?”
“You can just send it again.”
“They might run away too.”
“Do you know the scriptures that PD gave to the tribute rats?”
The old rat tribe believed in and worshipped them, but these people feared them and did not worship them as gods.
“Huh? Yes.”
“Tell that to these guys.”
ah?
The story goes that once you have faith, you won’t run away.
The nurse’s eyes turned into a question mark.
You used to hate being worshipped as a god. Have you changed your mind?
Her gaze suddenly turned to the field. The ground was covered with dead mice, the red-frozen mud, the gunshots ringing out from all directions, and the flames shooting up – it was like a scene from hell.
What I saw a little while ago seemed like a dream. The sight of a single person squashing a huge tsunami. No matter what anyone says, that wasn’t something a normal human could do.
Stories of people who are human but not human are common in Japanese folktales. There are stories of monsters that take the form of humans, and stories of onmyoji or sorcerers who catch such monsters.
That’s why nurses have been easy to trust since long ago. You just have to think that the characters in the stories really existed.
The same was true for the HOLLY believers. If you think of it that way, it wasn’t strange to believe in Marunim, the guardian who protects humanity in the end times, the ark that protects life from death.
If there was one thing that was regrettable, it was that Marunim avoided becoming an object of faith. Crows and wolves also believed in Marunim as a divine being, but he never said so himself.
But when I see that he told the mice to preach the scriptures, I wonder if he was aware of it.
‘It’s dangerous to pass over things, though.’
The nurse promised that if someone was needed to take care of Maru-nim, she would be the first to do so.
?
A sound from the floor. At first, it was a loud shout and anger, but it gradually changed into a plea, and eventually it became a helpless scream.
The field mice that suddenly appeared dragged plump rats to the front of the porch. The rats, whose front and hind legs were all torn off and only their bodies were left, struggled desperately, but that was all.
Sizzle! (Save me!)
Jjiiiiiik! (Do you think you can survive like this?)
Maru stabbed a wriggling rat with Eclipse. As Eclipse gently pierced through its head and shuddered, the rat, which had been noticeably plump compared to the other rats, began to slim down in an instant.
Even though its head was pierced, the rat’s body was still throbbing and not dying, but Eclipse greedily sucked up its energy.
The mice nearby shivered as the once glossy leather began to turn soft and the fluttering movements gradually subsided.
Chi. Chii! Chiiik! (Ah. No! That’s not it!)
Pook- Maru tilted his head as the blade went in smoothly. It wasn’t just Eclipse’s blade that had become sharper. The speed at which it was sucking something in was also getting faster.
‘Is this okay?’
Eclipse crying as if it’s okay.
“Huh? It’s completely changing color!”
“······.”
Eclipse, who had absorbed several of the leader-level field mice alive, completely changed color. What had already been a dull dark red was now a deep dark red.
‘Not only has the blade become sharper, but the vibrations have also become stronger?’
Woooooooooo-
As if it had sensed Maru’s thoughts, the blade began to vibrate and a blade of sonic waves began to rise. The blade of sonic waves rose even though no bullets were fired.
Is that so?
Maru’s gaze turned towards the red-tinted field.
======
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The nurse’s mission caught on in an instant.
“Uh. Everyone just believed it?”
Perhaps because they had experienced the inevitable death themselves, the field mice easily believed in the god of death.
“Suddenly, there are 300,000 believer rats? How are you going to feed over 300,000 rats the size of an adult man’s thigh?”
“Don’t worry, there’s plenty to eat. There’s plenty of food out in the fields.”
Ki-soon made a ‘Oh my.’ expression at Maru’s answer.
“With 300,000 people, it’s hard to even afford medicine. The same goes for bombs.”
“It doesn’t matter. You said you believed, so prove it.”
“to?”
“what?”
Maru marked it on the map.
“Move along the St. Lawrence River, supply, and attack Toledo.”
The story is about sweeping away the cockroach breeding grounds and mushroom and mold farms in Toledo’s basement. A plan has been started to wipe out all the rats hiding in Toledo using field mice.
Jjiiik! (Kill them! They’re apostates!)
Jeeeek! (We can be independent, you fanatics!)
The war between the rats of Toledo, who once worshipped the god of death but lost faith in it over the generations, and the field mice, who had just experienced death, ended in a bland victory for the field mice.
It was an impossible story from the beginning for a pack of rats armed with fanaticism and a pack of stray rats without any weapons or bombs to win against the hordes of rats in the midst of fear, despair and death.
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