Rust - Chapter 734



Only Krnovel

RUST -734

Miss Kim was depressed.

Is this what they call dead blue? Dead blue depression.

No, if you’re depressed, then you shouldn’t be depressed. Why are you depressed?

It was all Baekjeong’s fault.

‘You don’t know Upham.’

It was a character from a classic war movie. There are so many clips on Newtube, and even the people summarizing the movie don’t cut out Upham, so I was shocked that he didn’t know about it.

Not knowing Upham means not knowing the horrors of war!

huh.

It was clear that he didn’t even know that the entire expedition was on the verge of death.

You seem like a cruel consequentialist.

‘It was a real crisis.’

Upham didn’t even yell at his own side to blow himself up, but that little shit went crazy with the nuclear grenade. It wasn’t Upham, it was clearly the ham next door.

It wasn’t in Kim Yang’s mind that Maru was a war hero.

She kept swearing.

This time when I go back, I absolutely, truly will not go this far.

[Captain. The area covered by volcanic ash and dust is wider than expected.]

“It doesn’t matter if it takes a long time. Just go around and around and go far, far away. The kids need to get some rest too.”

[ancient.]

There was no problem since supplies could be received by high-speed airship anyway.

‘I’m going to rest and relax.’

Since they had all died and come back to life, it was obvious that they would all be physically and mentally exhausted, even without saying anything. It seemed best to give them as much time to recover as possible.

It was never because he wanted to rest.

huh.

In this way, Kim Yang’s expedition team headed south from Honshu, where Tokyo is located, and continued on even further south from Kyushu.

[Sir, this is the Northern Marina Islands.]

As I slowly came down, I arrived at Guam.

‧

‘Guam?’

Aren’t Guam and Bali famous tourist destinations?

Even when I was working at the company, I was always busy cleaning up the sweltering riversides near the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet, and I never took a break at a tourist destination.

Japan and China were also fighting against the triads, yakuza, Russian and Vietnamese mafia, and they were always going around in circles. But now they come to a resort like Guam.

‘Did it come down too much?’

Of course, what do you think? Since Ms. Kim came all this way, she was thinking of resting in Guam for a while before she left.

[Is this okay? Guam was hit hard in the last war.]

During the war between the US and China, Guam was the number one target for China’s preemptive strike. At that time, the 7th Fleet was blown up by a preemptive nuclear attack, so Guam would have been in shambles.

“No problem. Find a suitable spot and land. Rest for a few days and then go.”

It was unfortunate, but Ms. Kim was focused on taking a break.

[Okay. I’ll get ready.]

The condition of Guam upon arrival was not good.

This was because China destroyed the 7th Fleet by surprise detonating several hydrogen bombs, completely destroying Guam and the surrounding waters.

The concentrated attack was on an area (549km²) smaller than one-third of Jeju Island’s area (1,849km²), and even now, three years later, the devastation from that time remains.

[Radiation concentration is within the safe level.]

[Drone reconnaissance results show there are survivors.]

A distress signal flare blared as if the airship had been spotted.

[What should I do?]

Kim Yang’s brow furrowed.

Looking at the drone’s reconnaissance footage, it was just a bunch of warts. If I were to land and tear off the ones clinging to me, begging for help, it wouldn’t be good for my morale. It seemed like it would only be tiring in many ways.

Survivors?

We were all living well before the expedition came here.

“Landing cancelled. We’re just going.”

Ms. Kim had no choice but to change her plans to get some rest and go.

[Excuse me. How about giving them some supplies?]

In the drone reconnaissance footage, a guard member who saw survivors wearing US military uniforms suggested giving them medicine and other necessities, perhaps because he felt bad about just leaving them.

Kim Yang scanned the surroundings with clear eyes. Most of the guards who had seen the drone footage seemed to want to give them some supplies.

The new recruits were all those who had fought within the walls of the Holy Kingdom. Most of them were royal guards who had not yet seen the bottom of humanity due to continuous replenishment.

The only things I see as the lowest level of humanity are things like siding with the spider-controlling guys in Richmond, and creating a human farm town in Texas.

They had never seen cannibals eat people directly, so many of the guards had never seen anything like what happened on the human farm.

I only saw it as material during mental education classes, but I had never experienced it in real life, so it was natural for my thoughts to be this soft.

Huh-

I had an experience where I almost got killed by a monster in Japan.

I guess we need some practical education too.

Ms. Kim readily accepted the opinion.

“Okay, send it with a supply drone. If you’re going to give it, give it generously.”

When the drone carrying supplies from the expedition ship arrived in Guam, a sea of ​​blood swept over the once quiet island. A fight to the death to secure the supplies.

Even though they had sent enough supplies, the slaughter to take more did not stop. In a situation where the balance of power was balanced, the abundant supplies were enough to turn the island into a battlefield.

[······.]

[······.]

The new recruits now fully understand what Ms. Kim meant when she told them to just go.

‧

The expedition heading west from Guam again encountered an area covered in volcanic ash and dust near the Philippines.

[High concentration of volcanic ash and dust.]

[Acid rain is expected to fall.]

The Philippines is also a country with active volcanic activity.

“Send a rocket drone.”

A reconnaissance unit consisting of four drones has begun searching the eastern coast of the Philippines. The results are dismal.

Coastal cities and towns were completely devastated by the tsunami, and most of the plants were dead and withered under the thick layer of volcanic ash and dust.

[Volcanic activity is outside the normal range.]

Analysis of the footage brought in by the drone revealed that it was clearly an anomaly.

“There is no corrosion?”

[No special corrosion phenomena have been found so far.]

“Take some samples and send them.”

Although the rocket drone discovered living plants and animals along the way, Ms. Kim decided not to take the risk.

Wouldn’t it be possible for animals or plants to survive in a volcanic ash and dust pit for two or three years and still be normal?

Since Ms. Kim was a student in Japan, they only allowed her to film the video and issued a restraining order.

“Don’t get too close. Keep your distance.”

[All right.]

It was confirmed within a few hours that Kim Yang’s response was correct, as footage of plants and animals fighting each other was captured.

[The vines move.]

[The leaves are used like sticky spatulas.]

Plants that had difficulty photosynthesizing due to volcanic ash and dust mutated to eat animals, becoming semi-carnivorous.

[Isn’t that weird?]

And the plants began to behave strangely.

[It looks like the vines are stretching towards the drone.]

They started targeting drones that film from the air.

Even though the plants were moving, the movement was somehow organized(?).

[They’re driving the drone to one side.]

There’s even a scene where plants try to hunt down drones.

Kim Yang’s brow furrowed as he watched the video. There was no such plant in North America.

There was a hypothesis that plants could also change since mutant monsters are created, but it is surprising that plants that move and hunt so blatantly have emerged.

‘Oh really. Why does this keep happening?’

More than anything, Ms. Kim felt very uncomfortable about encountering something like this.

Is there something wrong with it?

“Destruct the drone.”

[Drone self-destructs.]

The screen went blank.

[What should I do?]

“We need to check the animals too.”

Mr. Kim ordered further reconnaissance.

The animals in the Philippines were also a bit strange, just like the plants. So, either because of the change in environment, or the influence of the mutated virus, or the energy of Japan(?), they had changed into peculiar forms.

While the mutant monsters in North America tended to grow larger while maintaining their original form, the animals in the Philippines were not like that.

There were animals that had changed in strange ways, such as a lizard with three pairs of legs, a monkey with arms that were twisted like a locust, and a chicken with an elongated neck like a snake.

And the strangest thing was the tarsier, one of the representative animals of the Philippines and Indonesia.

[He may be small, but he’s a bully in his weight class.]

[Because with its small size, it can catch and eat a giant locust.]

[If they’re similarly weighted, they’ll even kill a lizard.]

It was surprising that a giant mantis, which is known to catch birds, was eaten by a tarsier, but nothing was as surprising as the video I am watching now.

[That. Isn’t that spectacled monkey weird?]

[Yeah. I think I definitely saw a snake, but I guess I’m pretending not to.]

The snake lunged at the baboon as if it was going to swallow it in one bite.

[!]

[?]

The snake targeting the spectacled monkey suddenly stopped without closing its gaping mouth, as if it had been struck by a petrifying ray.

And then there was the tarsier, who grabbed the stopped snake’s head and started eating it, starting with its eyes. The snake’s tail shook desperately, but after the brain behind its eyes was eaten, only a faint trembling spasm remained.

[······.]

[······.]

“······.”

Weighing only 100 to 140 grams, these small mammals have survived in an extremely changing environment, and because they have survived, they have established themselves as predators.

[The snake is frozen?]

[That’s right. I definitely couldn’t move my head or torso.]

[Is it a paralyzing ability?]

Whatever it was, it was a dangerous ability.

If the flora and fauna in the Philippines are like this, what about South America, India, Australia, and Africa? It wouldn’t be strange if something really appeared there.

‘China doesn’t seem to be an easy target either.’

Kim decided to head north toward Taiwan and Okinawa.

‧

‧

‧

The artificial intelligence Diana uploaded data to the monitor.

[Reports have arrived from a reconnaissance of Guam and the eastern coast of the Philippines.]

Mr. Kim was doing a very good job as the expedition leader.

I thought they would go straight to Korea, then head north and come back, but they ended up going south and scouting all the way to Guam and the Philippines.

hmm-

Maru was secretly pleased with Kim Yang’s behavior of finding work on her own. As the saying goes, the position makes the person, and she was doing quite well from the commander of the Royal Guard to the commander of the expeditionary force.

‘I was worried because the number of guards was increased so much.’

Kim Yang was in charge of the guards, so there was definitely some leeway. In fact, the guards were playing a role similar to a mobile strike force. They will continue to play that role in the future.

With a vast territory and a severely limited population, the Holy Kingdom had to secure as many soldiers as possible for even the bare minimum of national defense.

‘First of all, we need to create an absolute defensive line starting with the floating city.’

Maru was planning to reorganize the entire system by building an absolute defense system based on electricity produced by nuclear fusion power generation.

Although they were currently inducing volunteers to enlist using the offer of a ticket to a floating city as bait, they were planning to pursue a strong policy that was practically a conscription system once the defense system was in place.

Ki-soon made a worried voice.

[···Are you really going to do that?]

“I told you I would do it.”

I had said that I would pursue a similar policy from the beginning of the Holy Kingdom. It was just that I did not pursue it because the conditions were not right.

Starting with giving voting rights only to those who had served in the military, and a policy of giving priority to those who had served in the military in the right to reside in major cities and fortress towns with absolute defense systems.

The minimum service period is 3 years. Age and gender do not matter. Regardless of age and gender, as long as you wear the exosuit, you can do the job of one person.

“In the long run, this is absolutely necessary.”

[···Well, things have changed now.]

Humans’ enemies weren’t just humans. There were cannibalistic vampires, mutated animals, and even insects and bugs.

There was one reason for not promoting a conscription system but rather enlisting through voting rights and residency rights. It was to properly establish choice and responsibility, duties and rights.

If the Holy Kingdom was to survive the apocalypse, its foundations were essential.