Episode 43. [ Seoul, the city of the 4th wave – 1 ]
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The downhill of the military road on the northern side of Namsan Mountain A line of trucks was passing along the road.
It was a steel company.
Woowoowoo—-
The leading K-153 armored reconnaissance vehicle was alone as a scout and was ahead by about a hundred meters.
After that, there were four trucks loaded with weapons, a command vehicle, three trucks loaded with troops, and a rear guard vehicle, and they were moving at a speed of 40 km/h, keeping a thorough guard over the surrounding area.
Hyunwook Lee was in the passenger seat of the command vehicle.
“…Oh, Sergeant Lee Hyun-wook, it looks like that big bird over there has been following me since a while ago.”
Park Jun-mo, who was watching out the window in the backseat, said and
Lee Hyun-wook turned his head to follow his finger.
Beep—
A clear cry that echoed through the sky. A bird of prey was flying with its wings spread wide.
“It looks like an ordinary bird, but maybe it’s just a bird .” “I told you because I didn’t know.”
“No, it’s not normal.”
“Yes?”
“That’s not like any other bird on Earth.”
“Ah! No way, the battalion commander…”
Park Jun-mo said as if he had noticed, and Lee Hyun-wook nodded.
That was the ‘Great Condor’, one of Battalion Commander Kim Kang-seok’s ‘fellows’.
The wingspan is 12m. When its wings were spread, it was bigger than most trucks, so
if you saw it up close, you would believe it was a dinosaur rather than a bird.
It was flying over the steel company and guarding the surroundings.
Of course, you can’t get far away from the owner, so you won’t be able to keep following him.
And two ‘magic drones’ were flying under the shadow of the Great Condor.
Weeee-ing –
The magic drone is a state-of-the-art item made with magical engineering technology, and is connected to the wizard player who imbued it with mana, sharing its line of sight and being able to detect the mana emitted by monsters.
– Chick – This is Steel 3. There are no abnormalities identified so far, and it will soon enter the city center. more.
It was Taeyong Choi’s voice. He was in the front of the armored search vehicle and was watching the surroundings.
Watching the end of Namsan come into view, Lee Hyun-wook lifted the radio.
This military radio, commonly called a walkie-talkie, normally communicates through radio waves, but was modified to enable ‘mana communication’ when radio waves are interrupted due to mana scattering.
Chik-
“This is Sergeant Lee Hyun-wook, commander of Operation Steel.”
His voice rang out from all 10 vehicles of the Steel Company.
-Chik- We are now entering the city center of Seoul.
Everyone couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of heterogeneity as he heard those words. I couldn’t
believe I was this anxious about entering Seoul, the capital of Korea. ..
It was an unfamiliar feeling.
– …To find the cause of erosion, we have no choice but to go to a place where there are a lot of monsters. That means there will be many battles. And as we all know, our enemies are not just monsters that come out of the gate. Lee Hyun-wook
said Although it was not mentioned, the company members thought of ‘vampires’.
Terrorists who infiltrated the unit and massacred the 5th squad.
However, only Lee Hyun-wook knew that their true identity was villains.
‘The world is still unaware of the existence of villains.’ It’s better not to know. It’s a fact you can’t handle…’
Two of the five butchers, Carol Choi and Yang Hee-ju, were captured alive, but they suddenly died before they could be interrogated. According to what the medical officer observed, their brains were burned by some ‘latent magic’. He said that it appeared to be the case.
Lee Hyun-wook knew that it would happen. It was a kind of ‘safety device’ installed by Ki Baek-jun. He had taken extreme measures to prevent his subordinates from being captured and the veil of the villain organization being revealed. – …cliché
. It’s an expression, but it will be a long, long march to find the ‘erosion factor’ in this vast city of Seoul. However, I hope you will be nervous, but not panic, and always focus on my command. A long, long
march… It was originally going to be like that.
But Lee Hyun-wook said, ‘That’s it.’ ‘I knew their location.
In other words, it was going to be a lucky march.
– …I hope we can meet in Seoul later, even after this operation is over. That was it.
It was a promise that could only be kept if Seoul did not disappear.
“Hmm . “I can see the city center over there.”
In this way, the Steel Company left Namsan and faced the city of Seoul, which may soon disappear, and
headed north along Jangchungdan-ro between D University and S Hotel.
– Rule – Be sure to keep a thorough lookout for the range ahead – That’s it.
Soon we came to the Jangchung Gymnasium intersection.
Unlike usual, there was only silence in that wide intersection.
“Well, thank goodness. There aren’t as many cars blocking the road as I thought.”
A driver belonging to the Headquarters Company said.
As he said, even though Seoul is a city of 10 million people, the roads were quite quiet.
“Sometimes something happened early in the morning, and citizens must have been walking.”
Thus the march of the Iron Company could go on without frequent pauses.
It was then.
– Identification of monsters in the progress lane – I will stop and check! more.
It was an emergency radio call from the front.
Lee Hyeon-wook made a one-to-one communication with the leader, Private Choi Tae-yong.
“Choi Taeyong, this is a personal communication. Report the situation.”
– There is a zombie standing on the road. But… something is a little strange.
“Report the facts concisely, not what you feel.”
– There is only one zombie with red skin. It just spins around in place.
At his report, the sound of dry swallowing could be heard from the backseat.
– How… do you just get rid of it when it’s only one?
Lee Hyun-wook was worried.
The ‘inhabitants of hell’, commonly called zombies, were of quite diverse types.
Therefore, it was not a good idea to lump it in as a zombie without properly understanding its characteristics.
‘But I don’t have time now… I can deal with no matter how many hell residents come.’
While I was thinking about that, I heard Choi Taeyong’s voice again.
– Oh, there’s something else. That… is a person. They come towards us waving their hands, which seems to mean don’t shoot. Judging from the fact that he is armed, he appears to be a player. How do I do this…?
Player….
“……Wait a minute, I’m coming.”
Lee Hyun-wook took off his rank as a sergeant and got out of the car. And he raised his K2C1 rifle.
Then Park Jun-mo, who was riding in the back seat, also got off and covered Lee Hyun-wook.
Lee Hyun-wook walked forward and detected nearby metal-moving metal.
There were a total of 7 that actively approached the friendly procession.
However, there were much more if you add up the small, uncertain movements.
‘It’s a fairly small group of at least 16 people.’
About 50 meters ahead, Taeyong Choi got out of the car and was talking to the taller man among them.
As Lee Hyun-wook approached, Choi Tae-yong and the man turned their heads.
Behind the man, six players were sending wary glances.
The rest seemed to be hiding somewhere.
“…Are you the person in charge of this unit?”
a man asked
Judging by the fact that he was holding a long wooden staff, he seemed to be a wizard.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“You must never touch that zombie. “You almost got into big trouble.”
Without answering, Lee Hyeon-wook took the binoculars from Choi Tae-yong and looked at the zombies about 200 meters away.
It was an unusual appearance. He was short, about 160 cm, but had a very large head.
But strangely enough, there were no eyes on that head.
Instead, it had an unusually large mouth and a swollen neck like a frog.
“…Siren zombies.”
“Yes, if you touch just one, they will all come. There are a lot of them near the intersection over there.”
Siren Zombie is an entity that summons other zombies by making strange cries when it detects an external threat. If you are not confident in handling hundreds of zombies, it is best not to mess with it. “Thank you for the advice
. “We are the AMT unit in Namsan. Where are you from?”
“Oh, we are just small guild members. We are subcontracted to the Cheonghwa guild.”
Subcontracting guilds were those that signed contracts with large guilds and took care of various chores.
Examples were ‘porters’, ‘gunmen’, or ‘dungeon dismantling teams’ during large guilds’ attack operations.
However, they were not weak. At least AMT. I was treated better than a soldier.
The man took a step closer.
“I don’t know what operation that unit is going on right now, but it looks like they’re heading north, but like I said, it’s a zombie field, so we can’t go there. Would you please go south with us instead?”
It couldn’t have been a somewhat out of the blue proposal.
When Lee Hyun-wook looked like he couldn’t understand, the man continued speaking.
“The magic shield at the Jangchung-dong community center shelter right next door stopped working, and more than a thousand residents who had taken refuge were blown away. Since they couldn’t stay there forever, they tried to move to Dongguk University Station or Yaksu Station… “There are only 18 players out of the total.”
They were asking for support as they were planning to move a large number of residents to a large shelter.
It was clearly a good intention, but it was not something that could be requested by blocking military forces on operation.
“I’m sorry, but we have to go north.”
Hearing Lee Hyun-wook’s words, the man let out a long sigh.
“Hey, didn’t I tell you… There are at least five to six hundred zombies of all kinds gathered near DDP over there. We can never go that way.”
“Yes, I understand. I plan to break through. “That is our mission.”
“…….”
The man frowned and glanced at the AMT troops behind Lee Hyun-wook.
The attitude was to gauge your strength. Then he shook his head.
“Look, I’m sorry, but if I do that, you’ll all die. It’s not just the siren zombies.”
“What else is there?”
“…Do you know what a zombie troll is? “There are two of them in front of me.”
Lee Hyun-wook’s expression changed significantly at the man’s words.
“Are you sure you saw that zombie troll in person?”
“Haha, are you finally losing your will to move forward bravely?”
“…….”
“Yes, I saw with my own eyes that they were knocking on the DDP Line 2 shelter up there. “It looks like you have a lot of troops, but… you know, numbers aren’t important, right?”
They even subtly disparage the level of AMT.
Well, I could see it as reasonable.
In the case of AMT, unless it was an attack platoon, most of them were not at the level of catching zombie trolls…
But Lee Hyun-wook’s thoughts were elsewhere.
‘found. First food….’
Lee Hyun-wook had a hunch that the zombie troll must have a special item. This was because elite monsters that appeared during waves unconditionally ‘dropped’ high-value items.
“If you evacuate to the north instead of the south, we will escort you.”
The man and his companions looked blank at Lee Hyun-wook’s words.
“Yes? Do you really understand what I’m saying? Hey, what is your rank? “You seem young, but you don’t have a rank insignia. Are you in charge?”
However, Lee Hyun-wook passed by him without responding.
And then he told a completely different story.
“Is it true that there is no one between here and DDP?”
“yes? Of course, they are all still in the community center shelter. “Why do you ask that?”
Hyunwook Lee nodded and pressed the walkie-talkie on his shoulder.
“Everyone ready for battle-”
At those words, the man was startled and approached.
“What? Are you going to fight now? “Are you crazy?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t need you to give me any more advice. “We are not stupid.”
“Aren’t you trying to do that stupid thing right now?”
At that moment, something shot out from Lee Hyun-wook’s waist and flew along the street.
Whoosh–
it was a pale note.
“Oh no, what are you doing now…”
Suddenly,
it cut into the side of the siren zombie in front.
However, no matter how you look at it, it was not very effective damage and was only enough to irritate people.
Then its huge mouth opened wide, its neck swelled…
and it
let out a loud roar that was hard to believe coming from such a small body.
It was a siren that sounded like a brass instrument.
When the roar stopped, there was a brief moment of silence.
And…
ke-e-e-e-e-
disgusting screams began to echo like a chorus from the DDP intersection in the distance.
And… it started to get closer.
Just as the man said, hundreds of zombies heard the siren and began to flock.
Ke-e-e-e-e-
That voice devoid of reason that resonated in the quiet city center… I suddenly cringed.
The faces of the players, including the man, turned pale.
“Are you fucking crazy? Do you know what you just did? If you’re going to attack me, I should at least kill you right away. What are you doing-” “
No, I did it on purpose. “Please stay back.”
“What on earth…”
Lee Hyun-wook lifted the walkie-talkie again.
“Truck number 4 moves forward and opens.”
At Lee Hyun-wook’s command, a truck came out of the procession and came right behind Lee Hyun-wook.
There, 4 soldiers disembarked, 2 guarded the surroundings, and 2 opened the cargo compartment door.
Hyunwook Lee still looked straight ahead and extended his left hand toward the truck behind him.
Hung –
Two steel boxes flew out from inside the cargo hold and were placed on either side of Lee Hyun-wook.
When he moved his finger, the lid opened by itself with a clanging sound.
It contained a lot of shiny things.
The contents of the two boxes simmered and began to soar into the air.
It was… a huge number of iron beads made of dungeon steel.
‘550 per box, a total of 1,100.’
They rolled on the asphalt floor and made a loud noise.
Cho-la-la-la-la-
The sight almost looked like a flock of white rats moving along the road,
or like a rising tide.
‘Auror-’
Lee Hyun-wook gave some of them ‘Auror (Saint)’.
After digesting the ‘mana tank’ I obtained from Heo Young-tae not long ago, my total mana amount and recovery increased significantly, so I was able to use mana boldly.
The moment the 1,100 iron balls endowed with divine power rolled furiously, overlapped with the swarm of hundreds of zombies coming this way, and were placed under their legs – Lee Hyun-wook’s mouth moved
.
“Crushing-”
T-that-that-that-that-that!
Blood mist rose up with an explosion.
“Ah….”
Hundreds of zombies collapsed in the blink of an eye.
Enormous . This was because the number of iron balls exploded at the same time, blowing off their ankles. Their
flesh flew in all directions and fell off their heads.
Wow,
since they are zombies, they won’t die from that alone, but they will never stand up on their own two feet again. In other words, he had no choice
but to crawl across the floor, so he was no longer a threat.
Then…
“Ahn Min-tae, from now on, I’m going to get experience points.”
At those words, the soldiers who had been waiting behind Lee Hyun-wook came forward.
They advanced toward the group of neutralized zombies with eight shields at the head.
“What? “You’re saying you’re eating experience points now?”
The AMT troops advanced like that and began to finish off the zombies one by one, wielding sacred weapons.
Yes, they were really eating them.
It was so easy to suck experience points.
“……”
The players who were watching this felt dizzy.
To think that a horde of zombies of that size was just experience points rather than a disaster to be avoided was something that only a B-level player could say with half-bluff.
No, no matter how B grade it was, it couldn’t handle that many zombies at once.
‘…What on earth are these people? AMT right?’
The man couldn’t help but be honestly surprised.
To the point where I felt ashamed of myself for talking out loud just a moment ago…
But I soon came to my senses.
‘No matter what, this is not the time to be like this!’
Zombies are zombies, but the biggest threat is different.
He swallowed his saliva and ran to Hyunwook Lee.
“That one shot just now was really amazing. Yes, I admit it! But…”
He looked left and right with an anxious expression.
“Yes, we need to run away right now! It’s coming! Zombie troll-”
But his warning didn’t last long, because with an earth
–
shattering tremor, a huge head rose up on top of the building in front… It was.
Ugh…
The 5m tall green giant slowly rolled its half-decomposed eyes and looked down at them.
That was the zombie troll.
“Ah… I’m screwed…”
The players retreated hesitantly and advanced. The AMT forces that were there also quickly retreated.
Trolls were giant monsters with ridiculous recovery powers.
How could troll blood be used as a key ingredient for a top-class recovery potion?
But if such a troll had become a zombie…
It was better to give up the idea of killing it in the first place.
Boom –
It took a step towards this direction.
Each time it did so, maggots fell out of the flesh here and there.
“…What are we going to do now? Tell me to turn the car around quickly!”
The man shouted, trembling. It wouldn’t be easy to run away.
But Lee Hyun-wook just smiled.
‘As expected, there is one.’
This was because he sensed some ‘high-quality metal’ inside that giant zombie’s body.
Lee Hyun-wook pressed the walkie-talkie.
Beep –
and gave only one command very briefly.
“…All remaining trucks are opened.”
