Chapter 89: The Siege of Jeju Naval Base (２)

****

Meanwhile, at the Foundation’s Seoul Branch.

Section Chief Gwon of the Precognition Division stood with his arms crossed. The remote-viewing team and the sorcery support team were also out on the floor, watching the rite.

“Uh, hey, we’re running low on pigs over here.”

“Honestly. Dr. Chae told us not to deploy them too hastily. What are you doing?”

“Hey, we don’t have a choice. Go grab some fertilized eggs or something. Scrape up whatever we can — goats, chickens, anything.”

“Fertilized eggs…”

“No, wait — the altar for offerings isn’t some slop bucket. Does that even make sense? Let’s wake Dr. Chae up and ask her.”

“Dr. Chae is using her clone technique. If we wake her, the clone will collapse. What do we do about that situation? We have to decide among ourselves.”

“Understood.”

Section Chief Gwon let out a sigh.

“Everyone shut up. We proceed as Dr. Kim suggests! Goats, chickens — bring in every beast with red blood!”

The living sacrifices needed for the rite.

****

I sank down onto the ground.

“Aide An. Please patch me through to Foundation Headquarters.”

[Uh, that’s a landline, so I can’t do that. If you tell me what you need, I’ll relay it.]

“Hold this phone up to the receiver.”

[Ah. On it.]

She hadn’t thought of that, apparently. A moment later, Foundation Headquarters picked up my call.

[Hello, Director Geum. Having a good day? What do you need?]

“It’s the worst. As you all at Headquarters are surely aware, the employees of the Foundation’s Jeju Branch are currently trying to kill me for some reason.”

[We already made it rain for you — we can’t help beyond that. Once the situation is resolved, we’ll help with the cleanup.]

I hung up.

Razor wire ran along the top of the enemy facility’s fence. To be fair, a modern military has plenty of ways to deal with razor wire, and none of them are particularly difficult.

They all take time.

If you’re charging an enemy position, the one minute it takes to pull out a pair of wire cutters might cost hundreds of lives. Bringing in a military bulldozer costs money, too.

That applies here as well. There are countless ways to remove razor wire. But I needed to figure out how to get over it, and what was waiting behind it.

I waited for a moment—

“Hm. Interesting.”

At the thorny voice, I hid myself first. Metal — probably a gas mask or something similar. A man’s voice.

Beyond that, I couldn’t tell. It sounded like it was coming from above my head. I glanced around, and wooden dolls dropped from the sky.

“Can’t see where you are, only sense your presence. Doesn’t seem like reality manipulation, though. What kind of anomaly are you?”

I rechecked the scope on the Gauss musket. How was something like this even made? The round was just a standard 12.7 NATO.

The trigger mechanism was unchanged — was there an acceleration spell or a self-accelerating device running along the barrel? I mulled it over. How much firepower did it have?

“Show me your face.”

Forbes’ #1 most meaningless phrase of the year. Did they hand out scripts somewhere? How did everyone have the exact same repertoire?

“I’m Blue Rose-12. Long time no see.”

My opponent stood in midair. Gray military uniform. Nothing in their hands. They seemed to be avoiding the rain through some method or other.

“Blue Rose-13. My little sister.”

Given the wooden dolls, they were probably connected to the Anomalous Artists among the Group of Interest. How do I kill them? Were they a reality bender like the Anomalous Artist I saw last time? That would be hard to deal with.

“Friday the 13th. Your tantrum ends here. Alive or dead, it’s time to come back to the Blue Rose. The Foundation wants you.”

A gesture. The surrounding objects shattered and reconstituted themselves into a staircase. Blue Rose-12 walked down it. The dense underbrush and trees crumbled apart to make a path for Blue Rose-12.

Hitting them wouldn’t be hard. But I wasn’t sure the bullet would do anything. And I might just expose my position for nothing.

Should I take the shot? For now, I settled for looking at the enemy’s head through the scope.

“I know what you are.”

“You might have fooled every other human. You might have fooled the Foundation bureaucrats, the scientists at Seoul Branch. But we know.”

“Return to your rightful place.”

“Stupid thing. A worm like you. A failed experiment, what makes you so proud, transferred to another branch, ‘Director’ this, ‘scientist’ that…”

“Your little outing ends now.”

“You, like the other test subjects, will die in agony, bound in the Foundation’s chains, becoming toys for the white coats, dying in a laboratory.”

I raised my head. I also threw back the cloak draped over me like a poncho.

“Blue Rose-12. I surrender. Come down.”

“Hmph. This is interesting too. You’d best not try any tricks. As you know, I’m a reality bender, and with that popgun of yours, you can’t—”

Popgun, my ass.

One, two, three.

“HIYAAAAAAP!”

She moved so fast the trees swayed from the wind pressure. A moment later, Blue Rose-12’s body, cleaved into six pieces, scattered in all directions.

At the center of it, Nanami’s pitch-black meteorite greatsword flashed. And that’s why you shouldn’t come down to the ground to monologue when you could just stay in the sky.

Nanami, like a madwoman, was smashing Blue Rose-12’s head with her sword.

“What are you doing?”

“She might come back to life.”

“…”

There is a chance she could revive.

“Understood. Let’s move.”

The objective is right ahead now. I don’t know how many people Nanami has killed, but nothing can stop us anymore.

“We never even got to hear what her ability was.”

“What would you do with that info? Let’s hurry.”

The Wooden Dolls, having lost their puppeteer, were staggering around without much action. Who knows. Do they collapse when there’s no one controlling them?

****

The wind and rain were growing fiercer. Lightning and gales raged madly across the sky. Enough to call it a storm or a thunderstorm.

Most of the forces guarding the facility had been dealt with. Only the main facility remained. We looked around the perimeter again.

“The defenses are standard. There are turrets, guards patrolling the perimeter, and the main entrance is… some kind of mech guarding it.”

I looked at the front gate through the scope.

“It’s real, alright.”

A machine like some kind of giant walking tank was guarding the gate. A bipedal giant robot about the size of a forklift.

“How do we get through that?”

“Beats me.”

“Should we try going through a window?”

“Unless the enemy are idiots, the windows will be sealed. There won’t be any windows in important areas anyway, and their leadership will have all gone down to the underground bunker by now.”

“The rooftop?”

“Same deal.”

Besides, this is a naval base.

It’ll be built sturdy enough to withstand naval gunfire and missile strikes. Going through the front gate is the best option.

“Let’s head in, then.”

The Director’s Office—or is it the Commander’s Office here?—will be tucked away in a corner somewhere. Either way, we’ll have to fight a long gun battle inside the Foundation facility.

Let’s go in.

“Let’s keep it simple. I’ll smash everything, so Dr. Geum, you run to the command building as fast as you can. Get inside first if possible.”

Wind blew, and fog blanketed the area. Dr. Chae’s avatar must still be alive. Thanks to that, getting to the command building should be easy.

“Then. Let’s go again.”

I reloaded my weapon. Nanami ran off with her greatsword. For now, I use the darkness as cover to move toward the front gate. Hiding behind Nanami.

BOOM!

Explosions followed in succession.

At this point, the enemy might as well give up.

They probably can’t communicate properly among themselves. If they knew their opponent was a human who slices ships with a sword, or a human who killed over a hundred humanoids at Yulje-myeon.

They might have run away long ago.

The chain guns of the walking tanks targeted Nanami. The muzzles spat fire, and sparks flew in every direction wherever the bullets struck.

Blue flames engulfed the entire area.

Horrifying. I held my weapon and moved along the edge of the base. Nanami was rampaging like a madwoman.

The mechs used flamethrowers to block Nanami’s approach and fired chain guns to restrict her movement, but it didn’t seem very effective. One mech got sliced apart.

How the hell do you even catch something like that?

Being Foundation staff, she’s immune to most of the poisons and cognitohazards the Foundation uses. Can’t catch her with heavy machinery, can’t catch her with humans…

Well. Let me just do my job for now.

The command center was guarded by Foundation security forces. Since they didn’t need to march, they were carrying fairly heavy armor and equipment.

Whoa…

On the rooftops, around the building. A considerable number of soldiers were guarding the structure. Can I take them with a Gauss musket?

I hid behind a concrete ventilation duct. They didn’t seem to have pinpointed my location yet. I’d need to think about how to respond.

Should I kill the two guarding the entrance? Having to aim around the ballistic shields is annoying, but if I kill just those two, I can get in.

BANG!

I took down two soldiers with a quick burst. Bullets poured toward my direction, but I paid them no mind and sprinted for the entrance.

Getting in shouldn’t be difficult. I’m the Foundation’s Director. The facility’s own security won’t be designed to exclude me.

Even more so, if the enemy doesn’t know who I am. I touched the keypad at the command center’s front gate, and it lit up with a mechanical voice.

[Please identify yourself.]

“Geumbari. Doctor. Director.”

[Identity confirmed. Have a pleasant visit.]

The command center’s door opened.