Chapter.7 Masquerade Ball (10)
***
Foot-sigh!
Quaaaang!
“next!”
“Hey, let me shoot you once, okay? “Are you really going to do it right this time?”
“Don’t talk nonsense! next! “Give me the next ammo!”
Looking blankly at Vex, who was having no effect on his earnest request, Hyde inserted the RPG warhead that was in the box into the launch tube.
“It’s petty… I didn’t come all the way here to do something like this… With something that only a person can do once in a while…”
Foot-Shia!
“You like it for once! Everything you shot missed! Thanks to him, he was able to get this far! If you had just kept a safe distance the first time, there would be no need to be so urgent-”
[Quuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-!]] – the a-!) -!) -!)
Wow!
[Ouch!]
“There wasn’t one! next!”
The RPG bullet fired by Vex exploded exactly at the corner of the monster’s neck, cutting off its voice as it was about to scream. Firing an RPG through the wide open tailgate in the cargo compartment of a rough-running truck. Even though the target was large, it was not something anyone could do. This was only possible for Vex, who has an unusually good sense of balance.
Bang bang!
Ian’s harsh voice was heard along with the clang sound as the two people was hastily installing the warhead.
“Hyde! “Fork in the road ahead!”
“Uh…left! “Go into the alley on the left and go uphill!”
Wow!
“Ugh! Joe! “Drive carefully!”
“Hyde came to Conor and taught me, so what are you going to do with me?”
Whoosh!
As the direction changed sharply, boxes and guns piled up in the cargo bay poured out, and Bex and Hyde, who had tied themselves to the cargo bay with harnesses, were struggling to somehow load the RPG-7 amidst the waves of angry cargo.
“Ugh! “It’s 4.5kg of metal dumped!”
“hey! helminth! “Hurry up and ask for the next ride!”
“The box fell over! The last thing I give you now is what I put in my pocket! “If you want to go get the bullets, you have to unpack this!”
“what? So there’s an RPG warhead rolling around in the cargo hold now? Take off the harness right now and pick it up! The goal is! “How many goals are left?”
“Uh…”
With a face covered in bruises here and there, Hyde desperately searched through his memories as he untied the rope that held him to the cargo bay wall.
This is a method I came up with to deal with Old Picture, which seems to have no effect whatsoever, no matter how many regular RPG bullets you give it, it only causes you to flinch for a moment in shock.
Apart from the professor’s quick judgment, this plan was made possible thanks to Hyde’s incredible memory retrieval ability, which allows him to recall everything he has seen thanks to his ability to observe the unconscious!
“Two places! One is right across the alley here! “Vex, please catch me!”
“Damn it! How dare you come up with such a dangerous and unstable plan! “When Hepburn wakes up, I’m going to beat you up!!”
“I guess it was because I was in a hurry! Because I was out of my mind hahahaha….”
‘Uh… Anyway, it’s the plan that came from the professor’s head, so it’s correct, right? ‘When I was inside, I wouldn’t have even thought of such a plan!’
With that thought in mind, Hyde leaned out of the truck the moment the truck slowed down while turning a corner.
“Ugh!”
Bex holds on to the rope fixed to the truck with one hand and the rope tied to Hyde’s body with the other.
Hyde leaned out of the truck, almost hanging on to the rope, and grabbed the box lying around inside the executive branch’s makeshift camp that he had memorized in advance, with his hands firmly grasping the handle.
Because I grabbed the heavy box at the speed of a moving truck, my arm felt like it was going to break off, and because I pulled it up in an unstable position, a few of the contents inside fell out…
“I got it!”
“There are a few steps left!”
“One, two, two, you… seven shots!”
Anyway, I succeeded in salvaging it.
A plan to make up for the lack of firepower that Hyde came up with after a long struggle.
“Seven more mortar shells! “I collected 42 shots!”
It was a play, and it was about clearing out the mortar positions of the executives who had launched the mortar shells and collecting the remaining shells. Hyde retrieved from his memory the location of the mortar position that the professor had glimpsed out of the corner of his eye as he rushed down the main street with the lump of shoe, and then ran away after the members of the executive branch were killed, searching for the empty position and collecting the remaining shells.
Bang bang!
“Hey! “How did it happen?”
“Gotcha! “Now I just have to stop by one more place!”
“The damn firepower has been replenished! How are you going to use that many mortar shells? If you just leave it on the ground and blow it up, at most you’ll just blow up its body and that’s it! “I won’t be able to inflict fatal wounds!”
“I know! Since I have everything in mind, let’s go straight ahead! “Over that hill!”
“Damn it… the professor must have something in mind! “I never lost anything by listening to that guy!”
Buaaaaang!
The engine of the Raptor Mountain armored truck runs with a harsh roar and shouts,
“Hyde!” shot! hurry!”
“This is the last one!”
“what? rest of it?!”
“I guess he turned a corner and fell out of the truck!”
“Hey! “Nothing is going right!”
“no! Everything is working properly! “Everything!!!”
Buaaang!
Wow!
The truck ran up the hill as if flying, with Hyde shouting in joy, and came to rest on the hill, leaving behind tire marks.
“Hyde! “Where do we go now?”
“Thank you for your hard work, Metaljo! “There’s no need to run away anymore!”
“what?”
“This is Dead End!”
A place where you can see the model garden at a glance on a fairly sloping hill. A redevelopment district on a hill built as it was in the past, which people in the olden times would have called a ‘moon village.’ The place where Hyde stopped the car was in front of an observation deck made of concrete and metal railings that jutted out from the top of a high hill.
“When I was in kindergarten, the deer class teacher said. “Conversation is a thing of the past!”
[Kwaaa kahaa aaaaaaaaa!]
An old picture of an old picture of a man climbing up a hill on his arms, unable to even scream properly due to his tattered neck.
“I mean, face to face!”
The giant monster’s head was now at eye level with them.
“Hey Metal! “You like things that explode, right?”
“hmm?”
Ian suddenly had an ominous feeling. It’s obviously at the same height, but a mortar shell isn’t something you can explode by throwing, and if you look at where its head is located, it’s about 20 meters away from the observatory. There is no way to blow the explosives you worked so hard to collect at his head.
Hair, hair, hair –
except for one thing.
“Step on it.”
“Hey wait a minute. Hyde, you can’t believe it….”
It’s strange. I think I’ve seen a scene like this before…
“Step on it with as much force as you’ll ever have in your life!”
As he watched Hyde getting out of the cargo hold carrying a loaded RPG-7, Ian recalled a time long ago when he was driving a Hummer with all his might to avoid monsters deep underground.
An observatory on a high hill with a panoramic view of an underground bunker and model garden located deep underground.
The accelerator you step on to get away from the Abomination and the accelerator you step on to hit the Old Picture.
In the basement, he got a new car, but here, the car is about to be thrown into a cliff along with explosives.
It’s an ironic situation where everything is so symmetrical that you wonder if it was made like this on purpose.
The person who planned it all was Professor Park’s other personality, who uses the same face and body, but has completely different content.
“Wahahahahahah! This is it! This excitement! This pleasure! Ah, the world is truly so beautiful!”
Hyde.
“Nimiral. “It’s been a while since I decided not to believe in fate or anything like that…”
Looking at the monster climbing up the slope with his tattered body and Hyde laughing like a madman holding an RPG, Ian unconsciously squeezed the steering wheel so hard that his fingers turned white.
***
Again. Again. Ttook –
The sound of water drops falling regularly. Pitch-dense darkness everywhere. I was left alone inside.
“Here again?”
The professor stood up from his now quite familiar ritual space and looked around.
That space that I was drawn to sometimes when I lost my mind. The difference from before is that every time he lands here, there is no Hyde guy floating and giggling in front of him.
“…If he’s not here, it means he’s switched places with me.”
It’s half success. The best situation assumed before being hit by Old Picture’s mental wave is that just as Hyde prevented the curse in the game, the guy gets hit by the mental wave and the professor himself is fine.
‘Since it has something in common as an attack that affects consciousness, I was wondering how something that could be seen as an extra consciousness… would halve the effect. Rather, I was hit directly by the mental wave, and only Hyde escaped safely.’
“I’m just glad I didn’t die… Wait. Have I regained consciousness now? The current situation is understood. The accident is fine. My memory is still intact. “I fully regained consciousness, but I still haven’t returned to my body… I’m here?”
I need to correct the damn thing. It was not half, but about half of the success. I don’t know how much time has passed outside, but I thought that at least when I regained consciousness, control of my body would return to me, but Hyde was still outside.
‘Just stay still. Isn’t this usually a serious thing?’
It’s not the worst since you’ve avoided death, but isn’t it close to the worst?
Even though my consciousness has fully returned, the fact that Hyde is sitting in front of the main control means that he may still be in control in the future.
“Every day I say, ‘I want to go outside! Just one day! ‘Let me play for an hour!’ He’s the one who did it, so he’s not going to give it back easily. “This… seems like a big mess.”
The professor jumped up from his seat. There is no information and the only assumptions we can make are about the worst case scenario. Rather than sitting like this and waiting for Hyde to turn around, doing something suited the professor’s temperament better. If it was taken away, you can take it back.
The professor relieved his sore, or at least sore, body and looked around to see if there was anything he could use in this space of consciousness.
A darkness so thick that it feels like you can grab it if you stretch out your hand. Useless.
Drops of water that fall regularly and fall somewhere. Well, if I’m imprisoned here for a long time, it will serve as a replacement for a clock or calendar. Be terrible. This is also useless now.
his body. Although it is as white as a ghost, the light is unusually bright… the left hand.
“The inside and outside have been turned over, so does this mean I can move this hand in the opposite direction this time?”
Well, okay. This might be useful.
The professor slowly focused on feeling the sensation in his left hand. Foreign body sensation. It feels like I’m holding something even though there’s clearly nothing there. A lukewarm, smooth metal that seemed to be warmed by body temperature, and a relatively cold metal hanging at the tip of the index finger. Familiar form.
‘Is this…a trigger? ‘Is Hyde holding a gun?’
hmm. I could understand it well. He was the guy who sang about wanting to shoot guns all day when he got out of the game. Because of his personality of being obsessed with fun things, if he saw a gun, he would have grabbed it first.
As the sensations of the hands became synchronized, slowly, other sensations that Hyde was feeling also began to be shared. Auditory, olfactory and visual sensations feel blurry, as if you are only seeing a silhouette through frosted glass.
‘Hyde was looking at the world this way.’
Well, I’ve decided. Next time, when the situation calms down, I’ll have to lend myself to Hyde for a day. It’s not visible properly, nor is it invisible. Even if I just look at this for 10 seconds, it’s annoying, but it means that this guy has been sharing my senses in this way his whole life, ever since he was born.
Leaving aside his random thoughts, the professor focused on the opaque sensation he was becoming increasingly familiar with. A familiar voice is raising its voice… and equally familiar… Ah, this is the Vex. What the Vex are saying with their anger.
“….hurry…! This guy… is going crazy…!”
The more I listen, the clearer it becomes. Just as the eyes adapt to the darkness, Hyde’s vision slowly begins to be shared…
‘…..What?’
In front of you is the huge head of Old Picture.
‘What are your escape plans? Did it fail at all? No, the group’s condition is too good for that? Well…except for one person. Since mental waves are wide-area attacks, you can’t make just one person go crazy with a pinpoint, right?’
In one corner of Hyde’s vision, he caught the image of Ian flopping around, tied tightly with a thick belt used to tie luggage to a truck. His face had a desperate look, like a man who had witnessed the end of the world and was trying to stop it.
“Nein! Nein!! Was zum Teufel machst du denn? Hoer dich auf! Ich bin sicher dass es noch bessere Wege geben! Bitte! Lass mich frei !!!!!
.I don’t know what you’re saying, but I’m sorry! “It’s the professor’s plan!”
“Bex! The monster’s throat is almost completely regenerated! If you delay, you will be directly hit by a zero-distance shout! “Leave that idiot alone and step on it!”
“If the damage is too great, regardless of victory in battle, it is a meaningless victory!” They are my colleagues and family! Fuck fate! My car doesn’t work, you guys!! Vex you bastard! “Do you think I taught you to drive like that?”
‘It’s not that I didn’t hear it, it was just something I couldn’t understand. Ian, that guy also has some similarities to Vex. When I get excited, foreign words or German come out. ‘There’s only one thing I don’t understand.’
Buaaang! Buaaaaang!
The sound of the truck’s engine was fierce as it stepped on the accelerator and prepared to jump out. It is not yet clear what happened, but what is certain is that Hyde either did not see the memories he left behind or simply ignored them. Instead, he came up with his own plan to deal with the guy and reached the final stage of it.
Giggigigigigig-!
The truck began to drive away with the sound of wheels scraping the floor.
“helminth! Hyde! If we miss again this time, it’s really the end for all three of us!”
“Don’t worry – drink it! Failure is the mother of success! “I don’t have a mother, but after two failures, I’m sure I’ve figured it out!”
Buaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Rattling – Paba Park!
Bex presses the accelerator almost to the end of the observatory, then quickly opens the door and escapes.
Kwasik!
A black armored truck running at terrifying speed breaks the railing of the observatory and flies towards the face of Old Picture in front of it, yelling,
“Hey, it’s metal!” Say Goodbey to your old friend!!”
“I thought you, Hyde, were my true friends!”
“If you gain one, you lose one! “If you give a toad a new house, if you give away an old house, if a person makes a new friend!”
Foot-sigh!
“You have to let go of old friends!”
Ian looked like Caesar had been stabbed by Brutus. When Hyde winked at Ian and pulled the trigger, a heartless RPG warhead that had no way of knowing their circumstances flew towards the armored truck stuck between Old Picture’s eyes.
A warhead that is sucked into the cargo compartment of an armed truck. And then-
Kuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh
Big explosion.
[Hey Hyde. What did you… do?]
“Oh? ah! husks! did you sleep well? “It was a bit loud for a wake-up alarm, wasn’t it?”
The professor held his forehead as he read the memory of Hyde lying face down at the bottom of the observatory, avoiding the aftereffects of the explosion and the debris.
‘Damn it! How dare you come up with such a dangerous and unstable plan! When Hepburn wakes up, I’ll beat you up!!’
‘I’m sorry Joe! ‘It’s Hepburn’s plan!’
“Nein Mein LKW!! NeinNNNNNN (No my truck! No eeeeee)!!!”
….scary. This is a guy who came alone to Area 45 and crawled into the underground bunker just because of a car.
[….Stay with your body until you can handle that.]
‘Giggle, giggle, giggle! Ah, I’m dizzy~ My consciousness is blurred~ ‘
Whaaaaaaa!
The ritual space begins to gradually become brighter as a ray of sunlight shines along with Hyde’s words. What this meant was clear.
[Are you going to run away ‘inside’ after causing this mess?]
‘Well, as long as the results are good, it’s okay, right?’
The senses and vision become clearer as if the fog is clearing. The professor, who had fully regained control of his body, saw an old picture of Ian, tightly tied to one side, foaming at the mouth and glowing in German, slowly falling apart with the part where his head had been blown clean off.
Patter patter!
An old picture with a head blown off that would have been taken care of if it had been left to the Exosuit Unit of the Inspection Department.
“Uuuuuuu! Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Ian weeps loudly as if he just witnessed his close friend explode in front of his eyes.
Good results. It’s a good result… We’re closer to resolving this situation, but this
…
.
.
.
‘No matter what happens, Hyde, I will find you a new body.’
[oh! Are you impressed? I did a good job!]
No, since I share the same body as you, I can’t beat you up.
The sky seemed to turn blue as the professor saw how he was so deeply involved in something that would have taken care of itself if he had simply left it to others.
***
