Rust - Chapter 619



Only Krnovel

RUST -619

The Naru clones’ plan to run away from home was caught by Heeyeon.

Even if Director Yu had battle memories, the memories that were at the center of his plan to run away were those of Naru.

If you reverse infiltration, it would be escape. I could just sneak out. That wasn’t wrong, but the luggage I was carrying was the problem.

As I packed everything I had to prepare for the extreme cold, I ended up carrying gear that was bigger than my torso, so no matter how much I lay down, it would still stick out.

The sight of four soldiers crawling out in a huddle, sticking out like turtle shells, caught Hee-yeon’s eye, who had been linking them in a hurry.

“All actions stop!”

A suppressed cry of anger echoed through the night sky. The Naru clones, who had been crawling slowly in a low crawl while carrying their military gear like a bundle, suddenly stopped.

!!!

A confused expression on their face as if they didn’t know why they were being caught. Hee-yeon burst into anger when she saw that.

“Are you all crazy?”

“······.”

“······.”

“······.”

“······.”

Seeing her with her mouth tightly shut and her eyes rolling around makes me feel sick. That’s understandable because Hee-yeon was in charge of managing the Naru clones.

“If you just want to die, just put a gun in your mouth. Why are you trying to tire out a lot of people? Okay?”

Heeyeon looked at the Naru clones with eyes that looked like ‘shoes full of athlete’s foot.’

‘How did you get caught?’

‘There was surveillance.’

‘What surveillance?’

‘why?’

“Did you want to experience the bitter cold with your body like that?”

““······””

“If that’s the case, why don’t you just say it nicely? Who are you trying to fuck!”

That’s not it… The Naru clones just thought this place was killing them.

“Yeah, that’s right. So you wanted to go outside and feel the cold?”

The eyes of the clone linked by Hee-yeon turned sinister. According to Director Yoo’s memory, they had to do some proper cold weather training at some point.

Yeah, you guys had such a comfortable time.

“I’ll make sure you sleep well every night.”

Fall asleep without thinking about anything.

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An empire frozen in the bitter cold.

New York, the city that never sleeps, could not sleep in another sense.

Square square square

Knock knock knock

The passage leading down to the basement was blocked by pouring cement, but the sound of gnawing echoed from deep underground darkness.

It was the end of the year, but the streets were deserted. The flashy advertisements on the LED billboards made the deserted streets even more eerie.

General Dan Brown unconsciously bit his molars. He even joked a little when Bernard Greene arrived.

Diplomacy is not about saving face, but about practical gain. That’s how he succeeded in capturing the body of Vladimir Kalin by joking around like that.

The study found that while rat infestations were a problem in large cities like New York, they were less likely to occur in smaller cities.

Rats needed enough food and space to reproduce, or else they would end up cannibalizing their own kind and destroying themselves.

‘Even if it increases to a certain number, I thought it would eventually self-destruct.’

Experiments on rats and space have been around for a long time. John B. Calhoun’s social density experiment is one of them.

The experiment was simple: 160 animals were housed comfortably in a space with ample food and water.

The experiment observed what would happen to a group of rats that started with four pairs in a space that could accommodate up to 3,840 rats.

When given space and plenty of food, the rats reproduced very quickly. Four pairs of rats were able to double their numbers every 55 days, but after 315 days, the population reached 620 rats, after which the growth rate slowed down significantly.

And as time went on, the birth rate of the rats dropped dramatically, and after the number increased to 2,200, new births stopped.

Violence among the rats increased. There was fierce competition for space, food, and females.

In the cramped, cramped space, the males were unable to protect their females and their young, and the females began to get angry at the males.

In a society where a leader is born when a group is formed, the collapse of the rats happened in an instant. Even if the high-ranking male rats gave birth to offspring, the cycle of the offspring growing normally and reproducing again was broken.

As order broke down, male rats lost interest in mating, grooming themselves, and showing interest in members of the same sex, while female rats began killing, expelling, and even eating their young.

And soon after, the experiment results in the rat colony self-destructing. Dan Brown attempted to replicate the experiment by sealing off the underground of New York.

They blocked the entrance and sealed all the holes leading down to the basement. There were incidents of refugees going missing, but in the long run, it was an unavoidable sacrifice.

It took time to completely block the entrance, and sacrifices had to be made to prevent the rats from overflowing from the underground before troops could be brought in.

And just before the bitter cold set in, they managed to mobilize some of the troops stationed on the outskirts. Now, all they had to do was block all the holes leading up to the surface and kill the occasional rat that managed to escape.

In four to five years at most, the rats trapped underground would naturally self-destruct. That was what the imperial leadership, including Dan Brown, thought.

“They’re coming up through the road.”

“There are no reserves left.”

“There are holes in Bath Beach, Gravesend and Bensonhurst.”

“The 7th Guards Division is retreating to the 2nd line.”

But they were mistaken. The New York underground was larger than they had realized, and the rats that colonized the city’s underground were not as weak as the rats that John B. Calhoun experimented with.

Teeth strong enough to gnaw through reinforced concrete. Claws sharp enough to cut through any equipment. And thumb joints that sprout.

The small, protruding thumb was more dangerous than teeth and claws, because it allowed rats to use tools made by humans.

“Ammo depot. The rats blew up the ammo depot!”

“······.”

“······.”

“The 7th Guards Division supply depot has been raided. The depot has been completely burned down! Supplies have been lost!”

“······.”

“······.”

I knew they were smarter. Just last year, they were cutting off power and communication lines.

If we didn’t know that they were cutting off the power grid and communication networks, we could have responded. All we had to do was lay special wires and build a short-range wireless communication network.

But blowing up the ammunition depot and raiding the supply depot were different stories. Blowing up the supply depot meant that they had access to the detonator.

Moreover, the fact that they targeted the supply depot before anything else meant that they had some understanding of human tactics.

“Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge collapses, 7th Guards Division isolated.”

The bridge, the lifeline of the 7th Guards Division, which had retreated to the second line, was cut off. The division’s 8,000 men were not the problem. The entire population of the area from Bath Beach to Gravesend and Bensonhurst was about to become prey to rats.

“Communication lost with the 7th Guards Division!”

“21st Regiment, 42nd Regiment, communication has been lost.”

“Radar failure!”

“Underground detection is impossible due to sensor malfunction.”

“What about the wired network?”

“The communication controller and repeater were attacked.”

The story is that the data relay was attacked because the communication line made of special materials did not break.

“oh my god.”

“You know about the repeater?”

“······.”

Although General Dan Brown was gritting his teeth at the urgent reports coming in at every moment, he did not lose his cool.

‘They drove us in from three sides and cut off the bridge. Are they trying to surround and destroy us?’

It was ridiculous. Even if you surround and destroy, you still end up being surrounded and destroyed.

‘The radar and motion detector failed at the same time.’

As the density of mutants increases, communication failures occur, and beyond communication failures, electronic devices are also malfunctioning. This means that the number that has increased is significant.

‘It means that at least ten thousand units have moved.’

‘Maybe more than 100,000.’

The Empire was preparing its clone troop to fight the Confederate cannibals and werewolves.

If you use exosuits imported from the Holy Kingdom, thermobaric bullets, and special bullets made from monster byproducts, you can catch even those who have shed their human form.

“We’re using the Bloody Mary program. How many are operational right now?”

“2,752 people.”

A program to train clone soldiers based on Naru.

“Bring everyone out.”

“Stability has not been verified yet···.”

Would it be okay to deploy a clone that had a history of attacking the main body and escaping into actual combat? In Dan Brown’s judgment, whether it was ‘okay’ or ‘not okay’ was not important.

“It doesn’t matter. After we clear out the outskirts and drive the rats in, we can’t spread them, and then we blow them up with thermobaric bombs.”

The thermobaric bombs were meant to blow away the Confederate cannibals, but right now they needed to stop the rats first.

“Tactical nuclear weapons on standby.”

“Your Excellency the President!”

“There’s a nuclear bomb in New York…”

“Please think again.”

“Even if it is a small warhead, it cannot avoid radioactive contamination.”

“This is too much firepower.”

Even as the murmuring among the cabinet grew, Dan Brown’s voice remained firm.

“If the Bloody Mary program fails, we’ll use tactical nukes. We need strong firepower to prevent them from coming out.”

“I think just spraying napalm over the area would be enough.”

napalm?

Okay, napalm.

But these rats had experienced napalm attacks several times. Would they still be afraid of napalm? The rats had become smarter.

They would retreat for a while and then come back up when the fire died down. Or they would dig new tunnels in other areas.

“You can use Bloody Mary to find the mouse hole.”

“Yes, if you find a mouse hole and use napalm on it, it might be possible.”

Let’s find a rat hole with a Bloody Mary and blow up napalm? Possibility? What possibility? A deep wrinkle formed between Dan Brown’s eyebrows.

“If it’s as predicted, their number is over 800,000. Even if they only increased by half, it would be 200,000. Even if they increased by half, it would be 100,000. Are you claiming that you can break through that and solve it?”

“······.”

“······.”

During that meeting, 2,752 clones were deployed to the battlefield.

Kwaaaaang!

A burst of flames, followed by a shockwave!

Even the rats that chewed through 9mm bullets and regular rifle bullets couldn’t withstand the strong flames and shock waves. The rats were bleeding from their snouts and ears, as if their internal organs had burst from the shock waves.

Even if they struggle to keep their balance, their limbs give out and they just struggle in place. A long sword gets stuck in the windpipe of those little rats.

Pu-geuk-

The movements of the rat that had been struggling to survive gradually subsided.

‘Clean up this side.’

‘This way too.’

‘Move to SMAW-NE.’

‘Reload. Standby.’

Thermobaric grenades were effective in urban combat. Even the rats who instinctively hide and take cover were blown away when they were hit by thermobaric grenades.

The clones began blocking the path of movement by circling the outskirts to prevent the rats from spreading as planned. The rats were busy eating the people inside the house, so they were not spreading widely.

‘Check the hole in the underground.’

The problem is that holes that were expected to be only in the center were also found on the outskirts.

‘Report the current situation. Depart.’

As one of them left to report because of the loss of communication, the clones prepared to attack as usual. The clones were targeting a mouse hole on the corner of the road from the fourth floor veranda of the five-story building.

‘The border guard rats are flying away first.’

‘Napalm standby.’

‘NE launch.’

Kwaaaaang!

A thermobaric grenade blew away the sentry rat guarding the entrance, and soon after, a napalm grenade sank into the hole.

——-

The flames shot up as if they were going to fill the hole. The long black smoke was mixed with the screams of a rat burning to death.

‘movement···.’

As the clones were about to move to their next operation area, the fifth floor collapsed, showering them with debris and a swarm of rats.

A pack of rats targeting the ankles and wrists of a clone who was hit by falling debris, preventing him from getting up.

One of the clones that was being eaten whole set off a thermobaric grenade, blowing up the surrounding area, and another one in the corner blew itself up by hitting the napalm fuse.

In the midst of the burning hot flames, the clones who were not yet dead felt cold. A cold that felt like their entire bodies were freezing.

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Heeyeon was rolling the Naru clones.

“Is your fortune really bright? Bright? Running away? Aren’t you afraid of freezing to death?”

The cold weather training began in extreme cold with temperatures dropping below minus 45 degrees Celsius.

‘Ah- I want to run away.’

‘Should I shoot?’

‘Are you crazy? That’s Link. The main body is fine.’

‘The little body was cute.’

‘She looks cute on the outside. She’s a devil on the inside. A devil on the inside.’

‘······.’

Number 7, who had been silent, suddenly stopped.

“Hey. What’s wrong with you?”

“Go quickly. Do you want to see me being bullied again?”

“Wake up.”

“······.”

‘Hey. Is this hot?’

‘Do you have a fever?’

‘Did you lose consciousness?’

“That- ah- ah-”

“Ouch! Aah!”

“There is evil here. Evil!”

The Naru clones grumbled as they remembered that if they had something to say, they should say it evilly.