The Little Prince in the Ossuary

Chapter 21

# High Risk High Return (8), Paso Robles

It wasn’t hard to find Able Company’s last known whereabouts, as the roads had been cleared just up until that point. Gyeoul climbed on top of an abandoned SUV and took a look around. Creston Road, the direct continuation of 13th Street, was the road that passed right by Daniel Lewis Middle School, and Walnut Drive, the road leading to the residential area, was located about two blocks away from the school. Where the two roads met, the battered wreckages of the U.S. military vehicles were strewn.

Bullet holes, bloodstains, and skid marks. The traces of the battle were scattered all over the place. 「Insight」 and 「Combat Eyes」 automatically analyzed the traces. Rough images of how the battle had transcurred emerged through an augmented reality interface. Although the images had static noise here and there due to Gyeoul’s low skill level, it was enough to catch a glimmer of the story.

The view to the south of the intersection was blocked by fences, houses, and streetlights. That was presumably the reason why Able Company had allowed a surprise attack from the side. The Humvee, that had a dent on its side as if it had been hit by a large iron club, was also proof of that. Another Humvee and a transport truck were lying on the road, crushed flat. Gyeoul approached the vehicles and inspected the punch marks left on their steel plates. They were around one and a half span long. Fortunately, it was a kind of variant Gyeoul was already familiar with.

‘Mutation code 「GrumbIe」. Judging by the size and depth of the dents, its enhance level should only be at Alpha. But it looks like there were two of them here.’

The variant mutants found in the game were named according to their appearance and characteristics. Grumble was named after the thunderous roar it let out before it commenced attacking.

Gyeoul searched through the wreckage and the bodies of the soldiers. He grabbed some ammunition, grenades, extra pistols, and suppressors. The two sets of army rations he found from the flattened vehicle were also a good find.

Gyeoul glanced around, wondering if he could find other clues or something he could use. His eyes lit up upon finding an auto shop on the left side of the intersection. It wasn’t an automobile mechanic, but more of a retail store that handled satellite TVs and other auxiliaries.

Despite its front window being shattered, the store seemed serene. The store had a quite few items Gyeoul wanted to take with him, but his bag had limited space, so he packed a small-sized TV to use it at the camp and a rechargeable radio for decoy.

The building on the opposite side seemed like it was used as a restaurant and a gas station altogether. Gyeoul checked the oil pumps to see if they were working and left the place.

Not long after he started heading north, he found the first clue Sergeant Cohen had talked about.

“That should be the health department.”

One of the clues leading to Sergeant Cohen. The health department was a strangely simple single-story building that, if not for Gyeoul’s Map Reading skill, it would’ve been impossible to notice. Literally, the only visible clue that showed it was the health department building was a sign that read ‘Health Agency, Public Health’.

Gyeoul decided to take a look inside the building. If there were any survivors, and if they were injured, they would’ve most likely entered in search of medical supplies. Even if not, he had to find supplies for himself so that he could treat Sergeant Cohen’s injuries.

The health department had a structure quite vulnerable to outside attacks. All the entrance doors at the front were made of glass, not to mention the huge windows beside the door, placed all along the wall.

There were a couple of mutants moping around the side entrance. With his machete in one hand, Gyeoul drew close to them from behind and hacked at one’s head. The blade went straight through its skull and into its brain, presenting it an immediate death. The other one responded to the noise and turned around, but Gyeoul quickly elbowed its chin. While it was staggering from the brain shake, Gyeoul pushed the mutant over with his foot and stabbed the center of his forehead with his full body weight. The mutant splashed a handful of rotten blood and dropped dead.

Gyeoul moved the corpses out of the way and pulled the door. The door, however, didn’t budge, as though it was locked from the inside. Finding no other way in, Gyeoul approached the window, put the tip of the machete against the glass and began tapping the hilt with his other hand.

Tik. Tik. Crack.

Once a fine crack formed on the window, the rest of the glass cracked much faster. When the cracks finished spreading, the glass crumbled into fine pieces, making very little noise.

After cracking an appropriate-sized hole, Gyeoul spread the gap between the window blinds and peeped inside. After watching for a short while, he finally pushed his hand in and groped for the window latch. Though the blind blocked his view, it didn’t take him long to unlock the window and enter.

The interior of the health department was in a lot bigger mess than what he saw through the blinds. There were all kinds of equipment and materials lying around, and the floor was littered with charts and some other documents.

Thudding noises he couldn’t hear from the outside came from somewhere. Following the sound, Gyeoul ventured deep inside the building. Upon reaching a foul-smelling blood-drenched corridor, he found five mutants banging against a blood-stained door far inside the dim corridor.

As soon as Gyeoul spotted them, he grabbed a wheeled bed that was turned over on the floor, put it upright, and began to run towards the mutants with the bed in front of him.

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Grawr…

The mutants’ heads jerked in reaction to the sound of the rolling wheels. In spite of such creepy scenery, Gyeoul kept on sprinting. And once he arrived just a few steps away from the mutants, the boy let go of the bed’s railing. The bed’s momentum continued to push it forward at a fast speed, producing a loud rumbling noise, until coming to a stop as the bed crashed into the mutants standing next to the door.

Gyeoul quickly approached the mutants that were now lying down on the floor and stomped on a couple of their heads. As their heads exploded, the mixture of brain water and blood stuck to his boots, painting them red.

The rest of the mutants struggled to grab hold of Gyeoul’s leg, but he easily dodged them as he climbed to the fallen bed. Gyeoul took out his machete and slashed right across one of the mutant’s eyeballs. The mutant grabbed its bleeding eyes and tumbled down to the floor.

The desperate struggle of one mutant caused the others to trip over and fall back on the ground. Watching them tussle with vacant eyes, Gyeoul lifted his machete and struck each one in the head. The stench of old death wafted through the hallway.

Gyeoul kicked the dead bodies aside and stood in front of the door. The mutants couldn’t have been banging at this particular door for no reason, so there must’ve been something in here.

“Anyone inside?” He asked, knocking at the door. But there was no answer. Gyeoul composedly asked a couple more times but still to no avail. He tried pulling the door’s handle, but, obviously, it was locked.

Fortunately, the door was crooked thanks to the mutants’ relentless banging. Gyeoul brought an IV hanger from a nearby room, stuck it into a small gap between the door and its frame, and applied force to it, using it as a lever. The hanger bent little by little, but the door didn’t hold for much longer. But just when he was about to push the door open,

Brrrrrt-

The sound of a suppressed rifle.

Unlike Gyeoul, who managed to duck in time, the door he was holding was now full of bullet holes. Had it not been for the projectile prediction portrayed in the air, the boy would’ve shared the same fate. The raucous noise of the scattering empty shells echoed all across the quiet hallway.

As the noise subsided, Gyeoul snuck his head out to look into the room. Through the tattered door, he saw a soldier gasping for breath and a corpse with several bullet holes in it. Next to them were fallen shelves with medicine and various medical supplies spilled across the floor.

Gyeoul slowly laid down his weapon and took off his gas mask.

“Calm down. I’m not here to hurt you…”

The boy then quickly ran his eye over the man’s uniform, looking at his insignia and name tag.

“…Staff Ashford.”

The rifle that the staff sergeant was holding fell flat on the floor. The hand that had been previously holding the gun was trembling. Gyeoul noticed that his pupils were oddly constricted.

The staff sergeant rubbed his eyes with force and looked at the boy again.

“You’re not a hallucination, are you?”

“Well, what do you think?”

“Damnit! Don’t say that! I saw my dead teammates calling for me just a while ago, standing right where you are! Those fuckers… If you’re dead, stay fucking dead, goddamnit!”

The staff sergeant didn’t seem like he was in a normal state. It was understandable, for he had just witnessed his teammates dying with his own eyes. And to make matters worse, he got trapped inside a room, the door of which was slowly being smashed open, and with a corpse next to him. Anyone in his situation would’ve gone mad.

‘He also got shot in the arm,’ Gyeoul thought as he looked at an empty morphine tartrate tube laying at his feet.

The soldier’s arm was wound in a poorly wrapped bandage. It seemed it needed some fixing.

Now was the time to use the experience points he had stashed away. Gyeoul opened the skill window and poured his points into 「First Aid」. Next to the filling-up gauge, a number slowly counted up until it reached 5.

“Keep still. I’m gonna have to redo the bandage on your arm.”

The bandage was more tangled than wrapped around the arm. The blood that seeped into the bandage clotted up and made bandage stick to the man’s flesh. If he unwound the bandage recklessly, it could cause his wound to open and make it worse. Therefore, Gyeoul removed the bandage as carefully as he possibly could. This sole process took him several minutes. Once the old bandage was taken care of, he poured some hydrogen peroxide onto the wound. White bubbles formed on top of the wound and dripped down the man’s elbow.

The staff sergeant let out a low groan. It looked like the morphine wasn’t able to kill all the pain.

Morphine was a medicine known as “the last painkiller” due to its high addictiveness and other severe side effects. There was also a written memoir of a man who, in his youth, got shots of morphine during a war and ended up having those experiences stuck in his head until the day he died.

“How did you get yourself hurt?”

“I was sitting at the turret on top of the Humvee, but we got ambushed and the car went tumbling on the ground.”

“Woah, you’re lucky to be alive.”

It should have been a long time since he got the injury, but blood still oozed out from the wound. The boy’s body moved on its own thanks to the technical correction. Though he wasn’t the one in control, he was feeling everything his body was doing. It was such a strange feeling. He presumed that this must be what the viewers experienced when having Sensory Synchronization active.

While Gyeoul’s hand was busy treating the wound, Staff Sergeant Ashford asked, “I know I should’ve asked this way earlier, but who the hell are you? I see no rank, no name…”

“Would you know who I am if I told you my callsign is Banana?”

“Oh, you’re the monkey the Captain was talking about.”

Knowing that he was on drugs, Gyeoul merely shrugged it off.

It only took a couple of minutes for Gyeoul to apply first aid to the staff sergeant. The boy thought about what he should do with him. Currently, he could communicate just fine, but he wasn’t in a state that allowed him to travel a long distance by himself, not to mention battling, because the adverse effects of morphine use included visual problem and loss of judgment.

“Are there any other survivors?”

“How the fuck would I know?”

The staff sergeant threw a small tantrum. Ignoring it again, Gyeoul raked up some pill bottles and bandages into his bag, grabbed a crutch he found inside the room and tied it to his duffle bag. Then, he helped the staff sergeant to stand up.

“Let’s get you moved to another room. I can’t have you stay in a room without a door to close.”

“I feel lazy as heck… and dizzy too.”

Despite his words, he obediently followed Gyeoul’s order. After relocating the staff sergeant to a safe room, he seized all the morphine tubes from the staff sergeant’s carry-on first aid kit.

“Wait here. By the way, I’m taking the morphine with me.”

“Huh…? H-hey, wait a second. Where do you think you’re going?”

The staff sergeant desperately—but also in vain—attempted to grab the boy’s hand that was taking the morphine tubes away.

“You’re not coming with me right now. Do you remember Sergeant Cohen?”

“Cohen? Of course I do.”

“I was actually on my way to save him.”

“Hold on. You mean, he’s still alive?”

Tears began to well up in the staff sergeant’s eyes. Despite the drug’s effects, he was sober enough to rejoice after hearing the news about his teammate. Gyeoul answered with a nod.

“It’s about time to check on him. Just give me a second. I’ll put you through to him.”

Gyeoul called Sergeant Cohen through the radio. The answer came in less than a few seconds.

[Hey, kid! Where are you? Are you almost here?]

“Calm down. I’m still at the health department building.”

[Oh… Is that so?]

Even though he couldn’t see it, Gyeoul could almost guess what kind of face Cohen was making right now. So without any more delay, Gyeoul delivered the good news to him.

“Guess what, I have good news for you.”

[Good news?]

“Yup. I have Staff Ashford with me, alive and well.”

[Oh, thank god! That son of a bitch is alive?!]

“… and listening to this conversation.”

[Oh shit.]

Staff Sergeant Ashford reached out his hand with a chuckle. As soon as he was handed the receiver, he spat out a string of curses. Of course, it wasn’t because he was angry, but because he was happy to know he was alive. His pronunciation was a little off because of the drugs, but that didn’t prevent his joy from showing.

“How fucking dare you, Weekend Warrior, speak of me like that? You have a death wish or something?”

Weekend Warriors was the nickname of the National Guard, who only served for a certain period of the year. Even within the same National Guard, commissioned officers and core personnel had to be on duty twenty-four-seven, so they jokingly used that nickname for the regular soldiers.

Gyeoul stopped them midway before they could get carried further away in conversation.

“I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to stop you there,” He said, as he tapped on his wristwatch.

“All right. I guess I’ll talk to him later then.”

Gyeoul then gave the staff sergeant two 30-round magazines.

“You know why I took away the morphine, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, just go. I’ve already embarrassed myself enough with those drugs. Just promise me you’ll come back for me, that’ll be enough.” The staff sergeant scratched the back of his head as he averted his eyes.

“Of course,” said Gyeoul with a smile.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Gyeoul cast a glance at him before leaving the room.