Rust - Chapter 731



Only Krnovel

RUST [RUST]-731

An organism with a human form. It was a lump of flesh in the shape of a human being.

The skin had melted due to the effects of corrosion, and the melted skin was covered with gray volcanic ash and dust, hardening to form a scab.

Both humans and animals.

A beast in the shape of a fawn trembled and stared into the air. Its hide had melted and was covered in dark gray volcanic ash.

The birds also lost their feathers and were covered in volcanic ash. Every time the bird flapped its wings, the heavy shell fell off and the volcanic ash reattached itself to the flowing bloody tissue.

Even in that miserable state, Kim Yang’s eyes did not waver.

[Preparing a small nuke.]

[Chi-ji-ji- Are you talking about the nuclear weapon you brought this time?]

[immediately.]

[ancient. ]

Ah- See-

‘I was shocked, thinking the communication was cut off.’

Kim Yang frowned at the crackling noise.

A red warning light blinked in the corner of the HUD (Head Up Display). It was a warning of a psychic attack. It meant that the psychic blocking device was activated.

‘Even a psychopath?’

Mental waves are a type of energy wave. It is best to avoid them as the powerful mental wave blocking device can overheat.

Among the organisms rising from the floor, clumped together and tangled, a corpse of a distinctly different material came into her sight.

A headless exosuit slowly decaying, its arms reaching out into the air.

Tsk-

Ting-

Teeing-

She fired up her rocket engine with the sound of two clips snapping.

■▮▮▮▯▯▯▯▯▯——

Behind the roar of a long rocket engine, a small seed fell and sprouted a mushroom in a tangled mess of organic matter.

Two mushrooms that grow and swallow up a radius of 300 to 400 meters.

‧

The stronghold fortress that Kim Yang had prepared in advance was busy with the Royal Guards retreating at full speed.

[Where is the automatic turret?]

[You placed it at the 3 o’clock position.]

[There are more in the supply window, so install them additionally.]

[What happened?]

[What the heck. You’re telling me to prepare a nuclear weapon?]

[Small nukes? Are those nuclear grenades and nuclear mortars?]

[okay.]

[Why all of a sudden? There was nothing there.]

[Do you understand? Set up the mortars first.]

[Hey everyone, come and get the grenades.]

No matter how small it was, a nuke was a nuke. Even a hand grenade had a range of 300 to 400 meters. If you made even one mistake, it would be no different from self-destruction.

The new recruits who joined the guards were all guys who had been through the training camp, but they had no real combat experience. It would have been different if they had had experience fighting spiders, since they were guys who had joined after that.

The Sacred Kingdom once again confirmed the importance of numbers through the battle with the spiders. It was a battle that confirmed that no matter how good your technology is, if you are pushed back in numbers, it is ultimately dangerous.

This was especially true of the fights against mutant monsters. The number of rats, the number of ants, and the number of spiders. Even if they were monsters that could be affected by His Majesty the King’s power(?), there was no answer if the units were in the tens or hundreds of millions.

The number of bodyguards was rapidly increasing, as at least enough were needed to support His Majesty the King.

This expedition was the first operational experience for these new recruits, and no one expected that they would ever use the infantry nukes they had brought along.

[Hey, chicks, take this.]

[Yes, I have used it several times in simulation training.]

The top-performing recruits at boot camp eyed the nuclear grenades, but their superiors dismissed them as nothing more than napalm grenades and flashbang grenades.

[Stop talking nonsense and take this and go back.]

[···yes.]

As infantry nuclear weapons were issued, tension began to rise in the once busy stronghold. The atmosphere was so tense that it made your hair stand on end.

[What about Mick and Sanchez in the back?]

[The signal was lost.]

Bitter curses escaped the mouths of the guardsmen at the news that their comrade at the rear had lost his vital signs.

[Uh. Wait. Are you getting vital signs again?]

[what?]

Survival signal transmitted via repeater.

[I’m sure my heart is beating.]

[What about the captain?]

[Moving at high speed.]

The situation unfolded on the HUD screen. Current information was coming in through the densely packed repeaters. Kim Yang’s identification signal was approaching at high speed, leaving behind two signals that were blinking precariously.

Beep-

The two flashing signals were erased with a low sound. All the repeaters placed around the area also disappeared from the screen at once.

[400m range?]

[Not one foot!]

[···It’s nuclear.]

[You detonated a nuclear grenade?]

[Two feet?]

[oh my god-]

The sound of rocket engines descended into the dark gray sky above the roaring guards. Thanks to the CCTV of the relay stations scattered everywhere, the image of Kim Yang’s core armor was captured on the guards’ HUDs.

[How long does it take for the Black Drake?]

[It’s 37 minutes.]

The straight-line distance from the monster organisms was at least 6~7km. If the ones that had eaten the nuclear grenade were coming at a staggering speed, there would be enough time to take off, but if they could run like mutants, there was no guarantee.

Kim Yang immediately released the unedited footage of the fight that he had filmed, which also included the final moments of Mick and Sanchez.

Even looking at the video, the two people’s exosuits were clearly corroding. The guards were silent as they aimed their guns at Kim Yang while making an unknown sound.

[Fuck···.]

[FUCK···.]

But that was just the beginning. The bodies of the two people whose heads had been blown off began to move again. They stretched out their arms, their protective plastic sheets tearing and melting.

And then, behind the gray dust, the dark shadows slowly revealed themselves. Melted skin and leather. Organic masses covered in scabs of volcanic ash and dust clung to their battered and bloody surfaces.

Some were shaped like humans, others like animals. The sight of them reaching out towards Kim Yang, who was floating in the air, was mind-boggling.

[oh my god···.]

[···What is that?]

Even the guards who fought the mad spider were dumbfounded by the unimaginable situation.

[Demon… That’s a demon!]

[That hole was a hole from hell.]

[You have to run away. You have to run away right now!]

The new recruits who had just joined the SS fell into a panic.

[shut up!]

Kim Yang’s voice rang out loud.

[Do you want to die? If you want to die, keep opening your mouth.]

If you panic and shoot at your own troops, I’ll blow your head off first.

[Did you stop the assistant AI and change it manually?]

[ancient.]

[Paused.]

Deleting is not allowed by the AI ​​preservation right, but it is possible to temporarily suspend it. It was a policy to prepare for electronic warfare.

[Secure the auxiliary artificial intelligence device separately.]

[The automatic turret is also converted to the basic program and the AI ​​is removed.]

Under Kim Yang’s command, maintenance began in an instant. If there was one thing I learned from traveling with Maru, it was that I tried not to miss even the smallest thing.

In her view, Maru wasn’t just a swordsman. He made mistakes and was overly cautious, but he was always preparing for the worst.

So they survived, and so the Holy Kingdom was able to survive. So what was needed now was to be prepared for the worst during the 37 minutes it would take for the Black Drake to arrive.

[Check the power supply circuit breaker and replace it immediately if there is a problem.]

[Check the mental blocking device!]

[Check power!]

[No more.]

······

[There is no power failure.]

37 minutes. No, now 33 minutes.

I wish nothing had happened, but Kim Yang could tell because she had seen the organism’s obsessive gestures firsthand.

I knew that 33 minutes would be a long time.

[Stand by at 1 o’clock for the mortar.]

[The shell is a small nuke.]

[As soon as the signal is picked up by the repeater, correct the location. Fire.]

She relayed the situation to the Holy Kingdom as it was.

‧

‧

‧

The urgent report sent by the expedition team reached the Vladislav Tower in an instant. This was possible because the airship that had been launched into the stratosphere was acting as a communications satellite.

Due to interference from multiple causes, we had to launch more communication airships than expected, but considering that we can now receive emergency communications, we are glad we did.

“You’re really good at improvising.”

Hood had no choice but to acknowledge Kim Yang’s improvisation, both in creating a base in the midst of a volcanic ash and dust pit, and in communicating with the airship when communications should have been cut off.

Ki-sun was also evaluated in the same way. Just like in the previous encounter with the spider, Kim Yang was definitely showing the appearance of a field commander.

[Exchanging information using a rocket drone in a situation where communication is impossible.]

It is a method that could have been thought of if only there was time, but the important thing is that it was responded to immediately even in a situation where there was no time.

The information that Kim Yang’s expedition team sent back was shocking. It was a report that there was a huge sinkhole in Japan and that unidentified monsters were swarming out of it.

Maru thought of the black tentacles that had eaten Chairman Shim. Perhaps something similar was eating the corpses.

Should I have studied the thing that was eating away at Chairman Shim? I thought it was eating away at people, so I threw away all the samples and research, and this is what happened.

‘Nothing moved on the way to the giant sinkhole.’

That means everything around there was in the sinkhole. I don’t know how they crawled out of the vertical sinkhole.

Even if they had come out, it was questionable how they could have tracked the expedition team in an environment where visibility was poor and sound could not travel far.

The scariest thing of all is that they encroach. So we have to make it inaccessible. In reality, it wasn’t an easy task.

Ki-sun Do also raised the issue, wondering if he had similar thoughts to Maru.

[···The most dangerous thing is that they can penetrate the exosuit and eat away at the pilot.]

It was a truly dangerous situation, as it not only dug into the new exosuit, but also consumed two guards in an instant.

“What if we used the hydrogen bomb preemptively, as we did against Britain and France?”

The idea is to blow up Tokyo like PD blew up London and Paris.

“It’s dangerous because there’s not enough information.”

Hood said, uploading the data to the monitor.

“In preparation for the unexpected occurrence of the Altar fragments, the United States used a hydrogen bomb on Tokyo, Japan. And that is the result of what is happening now.”

So the story was that the sinkhole incident might have been caused by an attempt to erase the abnormal situation in Tokyo by using a hydrogen bomb.

A single hydrogen bomb can create a huge sinkhole and cause a ton of crap, so it’s reasonable to suspect that pouring a hydrogen bomb into it would be unthinkable what would happen.

[Maybe this isn’t the first time a hydrogen bomb has been dropped on Tokyo.]

Ki-soon, with her eyes narrowed, drew a line on the map. The line that connected the border between North Korea and China headed toward the Japanese mainland below Hokkaido.

[Japan was targeting China’s northern theater?]

Although it is now independent as a Manchurian warlord and one of the seven Chinese provinces, the northern theater was the one that put the most effort into conquering Japan.

[What if the US was trying to figure out what they were trying to erase with the hydrogen bomb?]

So what if we had salvaged the fragments of the altar that even a hydrogen bomb could not blow up? Where did Chairman Shim of the Charlotte Group get the information about the fragments of the altar?

[First of all, it is impossible for a single hydrogen bomb to create a giant sinkhole. It wasn’t like we used a 120-130 Mt hydrogen bomb, but at best a 10-25 Mt hydrogen bomb.]

“Then the remnants of China and Japan discovered traces of something, and because they couldn’t control it, they dropped hydrogen bombs on Tokyo? I understand that China’s nuclear weapons and nuclear facilities were completely destroyed by the US counterattack.”

Ki-soon nodded at Maru’s doubts and drew a circle around Dong-hae.

[What if a nuclear submarine carrying hydrogen bombs was alive?]

“Without retaliating against the United States?”

[If the goal was to become a militaristic country after the war, would there have been any reason to bother with the United States?]

Indeed. I thought it was strange that China was split into seven parts in an instant, but it made sense.

With satellites continuously down due to radio interference and electronic device interference, hiding a few nuclear submarines would not have been a problem.

[If you look into it, there is a possibility that Russia intervened.]

It was also possible that Russia used a hydrogen bomb.

[Anyway, I don’t think that a sinkhole like that could have been created by just the hydrogen bombs fired by the US. There was an additional nuclear attack. I guess that didn’t work.]

“And then you gave up on the nuclear attack when you saw the problem getting worse?”

[I think that’s the most likely possibility. Otherwise, the kids in that neighborhood would have tried to clean it up with a hydrogen bomb.]

“···Would the small infantry nuclear weapons that the expedition team brought be a problem?”

If it were Ms. Kim, wouldn’t she start from the beginning by planting a small nuke?

======

======

Beep— beep-beep-beep-

The relay station sent out information noisily.

As the motion detection sensor started to operate, black shadows began to form on the CCTV screen.

pop!

The repeater exploded like a landmine, and the adjacent repeater took over the scene.

bang!

Organisms running in a straight line as if they knew where the expedition was.

[Mortar fire.]

A nuclear mortar shell flew towards the location of the repeater. The shells, which could easily scorch a 450-550m radius, exploded simultaneously.

[Keep firing mortars.]

[The repeater was engulfed in an explosion.]

[Unable to acquire location signal.]

[Stop talking like an idiot. Keep shooting at the area.]

[ancient.]

Wouldn’t it be okay to just burn everything nearby?

huh.