Chapter.7 Masquerade Ball (19)
***
“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Ughhhhh!”
“Fuck you! hey! Wake! “I’m not dead yet, I’m not dead!”
Ian hugged Bex’s small body and hurriedly rolled the body to the back of the armored vehicle. When Vex met him, her eyes seemed to have lost strength and were falling apart, as if she had let go of something.
‘late.’
He killed countless people and many more died beside him. It was simple to distinguish between those who would live and those who would die. A person with a strained neck. The person who endures the pain, grits his teeth, and struggles somehow is the one who still has the strength to endure. On the other hand, a person who is drooping helplessly and trying to convey something to an acquaintance with eyes as clear as glass…
“I’m sorry… I, I…”
“Shut up! “I mean, breathe with the strength to say shit!”
Green onions! Pabababak!
While he was holding Vex and trying to block the hole in his side, enemy bullets were pouring down behind him. It appears that while he was hesitating for a moment, he moved to the location where the shots were fired.
“You damn dogs…!”
First aid is needed. But not here, where you never know when and where bullets will fly.
Ian hurriedly entered the armored vehicle next to him, holding Bex. Items such as tanks and armored vehicles are difficult to penetrate from the outside once the hatch is closed.
‘It’s a Raptor armored vehicle that has replaced the shield with a simple coating of armor, so it could buy us some time.’ As
he was about
to take out the anti-styptic spray he brought from the dome and spray it on Bex’s side, he felt many eyes focused on him and Bex.
‘Enemy…no, it’s kids. This is the waiting room for expendable pilots.’
Cheeeeeek!
Bubbly!
Hemostatic spray. It is an item containing a protein that swells rapidly when it comes into contact with moisture. Although they are spraying it in a hurry, it is far from enough for first aid for Vex, whose internal organs are in tatters.
“Oooh. This can’t happen… in the end…!”
An old man in the center of the children rushed to the side of the fallen Vex.
The fact that Ian was gritting his teeth and looking away was reflected in the despair dripping from the old man’s face. Vex dies. A few minutes maybe right now.
“So I told you to just go… This is a world where the righteous cannot survive! “I said I should have done that much, but why did it have to happen like this…!”
Ian quietly walked to Bex’s side, knelt down on one knee, and wiped his blood- and sweat-soaked forehead.
I was having convulsions. Even though the outside skin was blocked, the guy was gutted. It must be cold because the blood is pouring from the inside. Because the body of a person whose blood has been drained is much colder than expected.
‘He was a guy who hated the cold.’
———
‘Anyway, it’ll be warm! ‘What about this winter?’
‘What kind of nonsense are you talking about? Every year, winter gets longer and colder.’
‘You idiot! I lived in an abandoned building in District 45! ‘Have you ever applied mud to your body and hardened it because you didn’t want to freeze to death?’
‘Are you… that much of a beggar?’
‘Kihihi! Back then, I felt guilty if I had a lot of something! You will spend this winter in a warm shelter! This Christmas, for the first time, I’m going to ask Santa for a different gift!
‘…I asked for something last year.’
‘Morning! ‘I want the sun to rise even just one minute sooner!’
———
In the end, he had to go on a long journey without being able to enjoy the warm winter.
‘This is a world where it is difficult for the righteous to survive.’
This is a phrase that people in the wasteland say out of habit. The words you recite like a mantra the moment you have to cut your conscience to survive. I could roughly understand why the Vex remained here. Except for the first moment, the small eyes filled with this armored vehicle were only looking at the Vex.
Crumbling –
Vex’s eyelids, which had been closed, lifted with difficulty as if she felt his touch.
“…Joe.”
“Bex.”
His timid, stupid and clumsy friend was about to breathe his last.
“The car… you pulled out the car…”
“Then why didn’t you listen? “I told you to come out on the tram.”
“The tram is… narrow… it can’t fit everyone…”
Ian gritted his teeth and raised his head. It was just one of the many deaths that passed through his life. A death that will bury him if he does not live on the edge of a cliff that he will never forget.
I was trying to save these children. Vex. Even when that wasn’t possible, I couldn’t give up and continued to deal with enemies who gradually narrowed the distance until I ended up like this.
“….no wonder. The artillery fire missed so many times that it cannot be explained by luck. “Compared to the number of tanks, the number of drops was small.”
The bodies outside. There will be infantry, but there will also be a significant number of tank crews. Since the number of troops to operate tanks has decreased, it is natural for artillery fire to become less frequent.
‘I owe you. ‘I’ve already received a lot.’
Ian cupped Bex’s face with one hand and put the other into his arms. The old soldier knew very well what that meant.
The old soldier with a weak leg ran towards him at a kneeling pace and clung to Ian’s clothes.
“Look! What now…!”
“I’m the only friend left in the world. As for the funeral. “I have to pay for it.”
I saw it clearly with my own two eyes. The figure wandering through the sorrowful memories of the Type 3 mutant. Ian had no intention of letting his friend do that.
“Still… still alive! If this armored vehicle starts up and we can get all the way to the dome, wouldn’t we be willing? “You guys are from the dome!”
Ian unbuckled the leather pouch containing his wife’s mementos, which he wore 24 hours a day, a holster held close to his heart. A derringer smaller than his palm. The gun he always carried with him in the hope that one day, when he could no longer hold on, he would be able to go to her side if he decorated the end with this gun that still had her warmth.
‘Go tell him you’re my friend and he’ll be nice to you. ‘Because Molly is a good girl.’
Since he lived alone most of his life, I didn’t want to leave him alone even when he died.
A doctor. If Woojin had been here, would the outcome have been different? The doctor who saved him with half his face blown off could have been…
Fire seemed to fall from his eyes. I will let you go without pain. I will send the Vex and tear all the trash you have created into pieces that even the most skilled undertaker cannot match!
A gun with the same warmth as Ian’s body temperature came out of his arms. At
that
moment
, something inside his holster slipped out, perhaps because the old man was desperately clinging to his decrepit body.
A small ampoule the size of two fingers. I completely forgot about it. It could break the moment it falls on the floor…
Slam!
hope.
“God….”
God.
A being who has been resentful all his life. The reason it lives forever is because it receives criticism from all survivors. They say that if you get criticized, you will live longer. My stake in its lifespan will be quite large.
But it seems like it does exist after all. When you see these ridiculous miracles happening.
Ian unconsciously fumbled for the holster in his arms with trembling hands. there is. Needleless syringe. A gift from Old Man Woojin that I had put away with the ampoule and completely forgotten about.
“Fuck God!”
I won’t express my gratitude. Because there was too much he took from me to say thank you.
So this must have been a gift from God to him in return.
What he holds in his hand is a precious item that is said to be able to lift up people who are on the threshold of the underworld, which Woojin gave to the two people in District 43 a long time ago when he asked them to teach him.
It was a revival kit.
***
“Oh my… that…! “I can’t believe it was still out there!”
Hearing the old man’s astonished voice, Ian wasted no time injecting an ampoule filled with the opaque purple liquid right above Vex’s heart.
Push!
An unidentified drug that flows into Vex’s body in an instant with the unique sound of air escaping from a needle-free injection.
‘I can’t guarantee that he survived.’
On the battlefield, it was called by exaggerated names such as miracle medicine and the spring water of Siloam, but in the end, it was a man-made medicine. It’s a product that contains narcotic painkillers, hematopoietic cells, and all sorts of other miscellaneous cutting-edge biotechnology, but if you immediately wake up a person whose intestines were torn by a large-diameter bullet, it’s no longer the realm of science.
‘But it bought me time.’
I’ve never used it, but I’ve heard about it. There is a ridiculous story about a soldier who was on the verge of death when a 7.62mm bullet penetrated his liver or kidneys and walked for two hours on his own to return to his unit after being hit by a single shot of this revival kit. Even when he returned to the unit a month later, the sound of hymns he sang all the time was too loud to be dismissed as nonsense.
The effect was visible. My body, which had been convulsing as if I would stop breathing at any moment, calmed down, my breathing became stable, and my heart beat like a horse, so much so that my body was shaking. Effects of narcotic drugs. The power of the revival kit that somehow saves lives. I don’t know the exact time, but it will last for about two hours like that soldier did then.
“This can’t be right…. This can’t be right!”
Ian grabbed the collar of the old man who was shaking his head next to him. There is no time. We need to get Bex to the doctor as soon as possible while the drug is still taking effect.
“Explain the situation. right now!”
Instead of reprimanding him, the old soldier briefly summarized what had happened here to the strange man with half a metal face.
“I was trying to save the children. Ronnie was driving the tank in front, and I was driving the armored car behind. But unlike tanks, armored vehicles did not start. “I tried every method I knew, but it didn’t work!”
With those words, the old man’s eyes scanned the panels of the driver’s seat of the armored vehicle next to them. It wasn’t a random attempt, but it felt like I knew a lot about it.
“you. “Are you a Raptor charioteer?”
“He was a tank soldier! I know too. No matter how analog it looks, it has a biometric lock! “My identification code that I used a long time ago when I was serving in the military and the emergency tank crew’s common identification code didn’t work!”
Ian frowned as the old man continued his rapid-fire words. Tanks are unlocked because the expendable driver keeps moving in and out, but armored vehicles are a different story. That’s why I told them to get on the tram and escape. Even so, the fact that even the emergency response code is blocked…
“Noisy pack… I guess that means they are managing it thoroughly as the electronic warfare unit follows them. “They found out that someone had captured your vehicle before you left and blocked your access.”
Vex guy. As the enemy closed the distance with the children inside the armored vehicle, it seems they were trying to bide their time while the old man struggled to start the car. And then it ended up like that.
“….Damn it. “How is it that there is nothing easy in this world?”
I have no time to hesitate, and I have no intention of doing so. Didn’t you decide to just give up rather than live with any more regrets?
“Come out.”
“I don’t have time for this! “If it’s the drug I know that was injected into that young man just now, then don’t waste time on this immovable junk and get on the tram and escape from here right now!”
“Come out!”
Ian pushed aside the old man who was blocking the driver’s seat, as if he was going to send Vex to the tank at any cost.
One corner of the pilot’s seat. A biometric recognition device that recognizes when you place your wrist on a screen with a blinking green cursor.
Ian placed his wrist on the device without hesitation.
Beep beep. Bibibig –
The biometric device read his code and started comparing it with the codes stored in the database.
It was impossible to start this armored vehicle using normal methods. The Noisy Pack has completely locked the system, so if you don’t unlock it with a code that only those nerds know, the tank won’t start no matter who comes.
Only one. Except with exceptions.
Beep beep!
The biometric identification device that was confirming his identity with a flashing red light turned on green, and solid letters without any curves welcomed his return.
[Check code. Welcome Ian Desmont.]
“Okay. Nice to meet you too. “It’s not a very pleasant situation to meet an old lover again, though.”
Purr purr purr –
purr!
As soon as the connection was confirmed and the start button was pressed, the armored vehicle started to run the engine with a powerful sound.
The old man who was watching him from behind was startled as if he had been struck by lightning the moment he saw the green light, looked at the letters on the screen closely, and sat down.
“If this is Ian de Desmont, then that betrayal…..”
“Let’s leave it at that, old man. “Old people say that when they open their eyes, they say it’s an old story, but you have to think about the listener’s perspective as well.”
“Is it really Ashfield? Are you-”
Quang!
“Go to the front and take turns with the kid who looks like Ronin or Coleman. “If you want to jump out faster than me, you have to be at least an experienced soldier.”
After violently interrupting the old man’s words and sending him up, Ian pulled the lever with familiar movements, raised the RPM, and was ready to depart.
Kaang!
Let’s go!
Something flew in and the tank shook a little, but that was it. Even at a glance from the outside, it was a solid armored vehicle with neatly covered tracks. Unless you have tank-level firepower or anti-tank weapons, you won’t be able to inflict damage easily.
‘Since there were tanks in abundance, they probably didn’t have that much anti-tank level firepower. The exosuit is weak to mass shock, so it would have brought more large-diameter ammunition than explosives. This means that there is some time until equipment capable of dealing with armored vehicles arrives.’
After leaving the line, we will be bombarded with artillery fire just like when we came in, but we also used combat vehicles, but they are more like armored vehicles. it will work out somehow.
A moment of free time waiting for the train in front to pull out. Ian, whose blood had cooled slightly in his head, traced the surrounding panels as a vague memory rose like smoke.
It’s been a few years and I haven’t used it often, but I remember this one clearly. If you open the small lid about your knee under the steering wheel, a cigar jack will appear, and if you open the side next to it, you will find a cigarette case. I pushed it gently and found a cigar box finished with Raptor’s scale pattern trademark.
click!
Raptor
‘s Nest, where about 80% of the members were soldiers, was a city of rough men addicted to nicotine, and it was a place where they were incredibly good at making cigarettes.
That unique, harsh tobacco scent that I had long forgotten.
“okay. “The damn past has finally caught up to me.”
Grrrrrr!
As he watched the tank begin to move forward, Ian stepped on the armored vehicle’s steel plate-like accelerator pedal with all his might.
When he looked back at Bex, who was breathing heavily surrounded by children, his eyes showed anger, sadness, or madness. Or something that could be described as a combination of all of them was creeping in.
“You gave me back my old name, so you will have to pay for it! “You reptiles!”
New letters appeared on a peacefully blinking green screen next to Ian, who was driving with his eyes shining like a madman.
[Noisy pack. Check administrator connection attempt. Denied. Request from higher command authority.]
Noisy pack that oversees all of the Raptor’s meager electronic equipment.
There was only one group of Raptors that had higher authority than them when it came to electronic equipment.
The five highest-ranking Raptor executives have the authority to cancel Noisy Pack’s electronic access rights if everyone agrees in the event of Noisy Pack’s betrayal.
Beep –
[Swarm Alpha Connecting]
Ian Desmont It was the moment when one of the legendary founding members of the Raptors, also known as the devil who lives on ashes, finally appeared after a long life on the run.
***
