The Returner

The main tactic of the Gate suppression operation was quite a simple one to explain.

Extermination of everything within the location.

Simply put, it was to empty the surrounding area of the Gate of people, enclose the area with soldiers, and then, before the appearing monsters could spread out, exterminate them where they stand.

This was the accepted strategy many, many nations had come up with, after suffering through many trials and errors in the past five years.

The first thing to do on the list: evacuate civilians.

The second: position several ability users near the Gate, and before monsters could form large packs, kill them as quickly as possible.

And finally, if any monsters found a gap and escaped the cordon, soldiers waiting at the rear surrounded and massacred them completely.

These three steps formed the backbone of the strategy.

Of course, in those cases where more time was afforded to the defenders, the location surrounding the Gate would be blocked off in a dome with either strengthened concrete or styrofoam, to decrease the possibility of monsters running loose. And depending on the situation itself, variations in tactics would be introduced, such as claymores and mines being installed to initiate the first strike, etc. Still, in most cases, the three basic protocols were adhered to rather religiously.

However, this strategy was built upon two ‘premises’.

One, all Gates only appear above ground.

Two, the minimum of three days between the appearance of a Gate and it fully opening up.

It was only because these two premises that the strategy was established in the first place. And now, with the advent of a simple-enough complication, the KSF and the Defcom faced the horrifying prospect of the trusted strategy becoming utterly useless and pointless to follow.

A Gate had opened up underground.

That little but significant fact alone caused the discovery of its existence to be delayed, and everyone involved was about to pay the hefty price.

*

“Fire!!”

“Sh*t!!”

Blamblamblamblam!!!

K7A1 full-auto rifles continuously spat out bullets and flames. (TL: I honestly do believe I know a little bit about guns, but even I struggled to remember if there was a rifle called K7A1. Turns out, there isn’t one, according to Google.)

And the monsters trying to rush out of the underground storage’s doorway: the Trandal, no. 7th in the Monster Classification Index. (MCI)

Also known as ‘Builder Monkeys’, these monsters were spewing blood from all the wounds inflicted by the rifles, yet they continued to rush forward regardless.

With no support provided by the encirclement of targets, the limited firepower of these rifles couldn’t penetrate past the thick arms of the Builder Monkeys.

“Euhahahck!!”

A soldier with one of his legs captured by a Builder Monkey screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Get away!!”

The moment he got captured, he was a dead man.

There was no way to rescue that guy now. If one wanted to save him, then guns needed to fired, but imagine shooting at a monster using the hostage as a meat shield – it’d end up as the soldiers killing their own ally, instead.

“F*ck this!! Why did it open already?! Why!!”

The soldiers knew there was no one here to answer their questions. Still, they couldn’t help but cry out anyways.

*SFX for a harsh impact*

A soldier was flung away; he collided against a wall in a sickening manner and bounced off of it.

Lieutenant Colonel Gong Jung-Shik could only shout out desperately while praying that the unfortunate soldier had survived that throw somehow.

“To the rear!! Rear!! Widen the gap slowly!! Focus your fire at the doorway, you idiots!!” (Gong Jung-Shik)

Did this qualify as a fortunate development?

Rather unexpectedly, the number of Builder Monkeys rushing out of the storage’s doorway was quite low. Even if their thick skins could almost stop bullets fired from a rifle, there was no way for these monsters to endure the damage accumulated gradually from getting struck by hundreds of bullets.

The few Builder Monkeys were finally overpowered and fell to the floor one by one.

“First platoon, secure the passage to the entrance! The rest, provide support cover, ASAP!” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“Yes sir!!”

With the command from the leader of the platoon, it was split into two squadrons, and they pressed their backs against either side of the entrance.

If they could help it, they didn’t want to enter the storage area, but they also couldn’t stand there staring at the door forever, either. At a bare minimum, they had to confirm what the heck was going on inside.

“Breach, now!”

“Breaching!”

Two men from each squadron pointed their rifles at the entrance, while the rest entered the storage.

But...

“Ahahahahck!!” 𝐟𝓇ℯ𝒆we𝒃𝘯𝒐νe𝑙.co𝚖

“Ahahck!!”

The entering soldiers got thrown outside like a bunch of toys. The men providing cover outside couldn’t evade in time and got struck by the flying bodies, and rolled on the ground in a messy entanglement.

Blamblamblam!!

“Ahahack!! F*ck!!”

“Get away!!”

It seemed that the soldier losing his consciousness ended up pulling the trigger inadvertently, and the rifle began emptying its load.

Although no one got hurt, no one had the time to celebrate it.

That was because the Builder Monkeys responsible for throwing the soldiers out were busy dashing out from the doorway to pounce on the remaining soldiers outside.

In an instant, the formation broke down completely.

Lieutenant Colonel Gong Jung-Shik screamed until his voice became hoarse.

“Do not engage!! Disengage, you idiots!! Retreat!!” (Gong Jung-Shik)

The soldiers also knew they needed to retreat, but the Builder Monkeys possessed far greater speed and agility compared to the mere grunts. The monsters were upon their prey before anyone could do anything.

It was now impossible to shake them loose.

In the blink of an eye, four or five soldiers became a bloody mess and got thrown away. Gong Jung-Shik grabbed the walkie talkie and began pouring out colourfully explicit words.

“Hey you f*cking mutant sons of b*tches!! Will you only come after every one of us is dead?!?!” (Gong Jung-Shik)

The reply didn’t come from his walkie talkie, but from behind his back.

“Really now, I might get my ears chewed up because I’m late, but ahjussi’s attitude is making my position even worse, you know?”

Surprised, Gong Jung-Shik quickly turned around to look, only to find a thirty-something man wearing a rather distinctive T-shirt walking awkwardly towards him.

“You a Psycher?” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“What if I’m not?”

Gong Jung-Shik shouted out again.

“Do something already!!” (Gong Jung-Shik)

The new guy clicked his tongue and walked past Gong Jung-Shik, heading straight towards the Builder Monkeys.

“Tsk. Where’d you get the balls to think that you could stop them with guns in this confined space?” 𝐟𝗿𝚎𝐞𝓌e𝒃𝑛𝒐ѵ𝒆𝑙.c𝚘𝓶

The new guy then grabbed both arms of a Builder Monkey that had grabbed onto a soldier’s leg and was just about to tear him in half.

*SFX for bones breaking*

Right away, the arms of that Builder Monkey, each of them almost twice the size of the new guy, got broken and were bent at a weird angle.

KYAHGAHGAHGAHCK!!!

The Builder Monkey screamed in pain, and when the new guy heard it, he frowned deeply. Quite literally, he threw a punch at the monster’s face.

Kwadeuk!!

The monster’s face got penetrated, and it became limp soon after.

The new guy tossed the carcass of the Builder Monkey hanging on the end of his fist, and then, raised his finger towards the rest of monsters surrounding him now.

“C’mon.”

Builder Monkeys spat out weird cries as they pounced on the new guy, but he only issued a slight smirk, before welcoming them with his fists.

“Seriously now...” (Gong Jung-Shik)

Gong Jung-Shik looked at that spectacle and spat on the floor.

No matter how many times he had witnessed it, it still felt surreal to him.

The scene of those monsters that were capable of ripping apart human beings getting ripped apart in reverse and pummeled into a bloody mess by a human, still did not feel ‘good’ to him, even now.

‘Just who is the real monster here...’ (Gong Jung-Shik)

If one were to dig into the actual meaning of the word ‘monster’, then those Builder Monkeys were much closer to its original definition, but from what the career military man could feel, the ability users seemed far more monstrous to him.

“Lieutenant, sir!”

Gong Jung-Shik broke out of his thoughts after his subordinate called out to him. He quickly shifted his gaze back to the new guy who had already turned all the Builder Monkeys into a messy pile of broken meat.

“Is this all, ahjussi?”

“For now. However, the Gate is inside that place and we haven’t figured out what’s going on in there yet.” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“Really? Then, I should check it out.”

“Be careful.” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“Wow. I sure have lived for a long time. I mean, a career military man is being worried about my health and all.”

“You die, then we will be in a serious bind, too. Remember that.” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“Gotcha, gotcha.”

The new guy chuckled heartily and walked towards the entrance of the storage. Before he entered it, though, he still found a room to throw a question out.

“By the way, ahjussi. I heard this Gate is rated at Level 2, so have you seen higher class monsters than these losers yet?”

“What you’re seeing is every creature we’ve encountered so far.” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“But that’s odd, don’t you think? A Level 2 monster wouldn’t just sit back pretty inside a storage like that.”

The new guy tilted his head and took large strides towards the storage.

As soon as the new guy entered through the doorway, Gong Jung-Shik turned to ask the soldier in charge of intelligence.

“Who was that?” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“He must be the one called ‘Iron’.”

“Iron? The ‘Iron’ Park Sung-Chan?” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“Yes, sir.”

With a short “Ho-oh”, Gong Jung-Shik looked at the doorway with renewed lights in his eyes.

If that man was the Iron Park Sung-Chan, then even he had heard of this ability user’s name. Since he was famous even among the countless ability users out there, it was a safe bet to assume that his abilities were definitely good enough to earn that acclaim.

“What a relief, seeing the first user to arrive is someone even I’ve heard of.” (Gong Jung-Shik)

However, it seemed that Mr. Iron didn’t really care about the relief felt by the soldiers gathered here.

“Excuse me, ahjussi!”

Only if he could change the way he addressed the Lieutenant Colonel, other people might have looked at him in a far more favourable light, but, oh well.

“What now?” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“Uh, looks like you gotta come inside and take a gander. I think the problem will get really huge from now on.”

“What?!” (Gong Jung-Shik)

Gong Jung-Shik ran inside the storage.

His subordinates also tried to run in after him, but they failed to account for Gong Jung-Shik abruptly stopping on the doorway, and thus ended up colliding among themselves and fell on the floor in a heap.

“What the, Lieutenant?!”

The intelligence chief was about to voice his dissatisfaction, but then, not only him but the rest all had to shut their mouths after spotting what the shocked Gong Jung-Shik was seeing right there.

At the spot Gong Jung-Shik was looking at...

It was the ceiling of the storage room.

And there was a massive hole in the middle of it, one big enough to drive a tank through.

“Jesus, Joseph and Mary...” (Gong Jung-Shik)

Gong Jung-Shik’s powerless mutter was echoed by the rest of the soldiers.

“What, what should we do now, sir?!”

Although that wasn’t something a man in charge of gathering intelligence should say, Gong Jung-Shik still felt sympathy for him.

Even he was about to sink into a panicked state of mind, too.

Before, he was expecting the worst outcome, but eventually, grew suspicious of the fact that the loss of his men, as well as the number of monsters, seemed far lower than usual.

“Call the KSF people and describe the situation. Call for more reinforcements from the Defcom too, and make sure they secure the perimeter with any means possible!! Especially the subway lines – do whatever it takes to block access to those!! If these damnable monsters enter the subway line and spread out, you’ll see a real hell on Earth today!!” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“Yes sir, understood!!!”

“Hurry up!!” (Gong Jung-Shik)

“Sir!”

The ‘Iron’ stared Gong Jung-Shik barking out several orders, and then, he jumped up into the hole overhead.

“I’m gonna just go after them for a bit, so please take care of the clean-up.”

“Do your best, you hear?” (Gong Jung-Shik)

Gong Jung-Shik then pulled out the walkie talkie.

And just from where should he begin so he could wrestle back control of this situation?

He massaged his pounding forehead and brought up the walkie talkie to his mouth several times, only to put it back down again and again. Then, he let out a long, long sigh.

“Son of a b*tch...”

< 21. The price for disrupting my leisure time will be huge -3 > Fin