NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 17
“Calm down, Fräulein!”
Sarah’s pistol spewed fire a few more times.
The splintering concrete stopped the soldiers of the Empire in their tracks.
“We mean no harm! We’re here to escort – ugh!”
– Bang, bang, bang.
Sarah ran.
She ran, and she ran some more.
Following the white marks she had left behind in the passage.
She didn’t forget to shoot bullets to prevent anyone from following her.
“Permission to fire, Zugführer!”
“We were ordered to capture her alive – dammit!”
The soldiers wearing steel helmets recoiled under the suppressing fire.
Nonetheless, the squad leader, gripping his submachine gun, gritted his teeth and waited.
– Bang, bang, click, click, click.
“Shit…!”
As soon as the ammunition ran out, the eyes of all locked in a premeditated exchange.
“They’re moving!”
The riflemen immediately adjusted their steel helmets and started to sprint.
The rest of the squad members chased closely, including the squad leader.
The countless sounds of marching boots quickly rose to Sarah’s chin and squeezed out tears.
However, rounding the corner revealed a bright orange light.
“Dad! Dad!! Grandfather!!!”
Immediately, Sarah shouted at the top of her lungs.
But, in front of the orange light, there was no movement to be seen.
There were two veteran soldiers, ready in position, who had already finished their preparations to shoot.
“Get down!”
At his brief and decisive command, Sarah dropped to the ground, clutching her head.
Those who had been in hot pursuit immediately found themselves unable to proceed further.
As they used the fallen bodies as cover.
Moving her arms and legs skillfully, Sarah quickly reached the barricade.
Pulling out a magazine from her pocket, Sarah loaded it and pulled the slide.
“I’m ready!”
“Wait!”
– Click.
The sound of the bolt locking was followed by the magazine hitting the floor.
The Velcro of the bulletproof vest was torn off, and a new magazine was taken out.
The bottom of the magazine was struck once, and the bolt catch was hit.
The actions were plentiful, but the sounds of metal striking metal were so fast that they almost seemed like a single sound.
“Move!”
The pistol aimed at the corridor returned to its holster, and the hand gripping it tightly held onto the barricade.
With one powerful push-off, her body gracefully vaulted over the barricade, and James resumed pulling the trigger.
“Where’s Xuan Woo?”
“He’s been captured. They grabbed him. That guy really was a Nazi…!”
“Damn.”
The sound of empty casings dropping onto the floor echoed.
The orange flashes of light continued to light up the corridor.
Occasionally, tracer bullets illuminated the silhouettes of the pursuers, glowing red.
“Stop! Stop! STOP!!!”
The voice of a man pierced through the gunfire.
A steel helmet swaying at the end of the corridor.
The finger that had been pulling the trigger let go.
“We have no intention of harming the lady, please listen to us!”
The gun barrels still pointed forward.
Curtis’s unwavering gaze slowly moved to his steadily raising arm.
“You will understand if you hear our explanation. We have no intentions of hurting the person under our custody, so please don’t shoot!”
“Zugführer, you shouldn’t go out!”
There were murmuring voices, but soon a man in a spotless gray uniform appeared at the end of the corridor.
While most people who lack knowledge or interest in history might have focused on how strangely clean he looked amidst an apocalyptic scenario,
The elder’s hand on the trigger knew the outfit well, with its nauseatingly familiar design.
“I am – ”
An explosion interrupted the speech, and the head speaking it shattered into pieces.
The body without a head took a step or two before falling.
“Shit, shit, shit…!”
“The Zugführer’s been hit, retreat, retreat!”
Blocking the incoming rifle bullets one final time allowed his team to escape quickly.
“So it was the squad leader.”
“…Do you understand German, Father?”
“The Nazi bastards could speak basic English. Especially some officers were fluent. James, check if any others are coming. There might be trouble with the gunfire, so keep your ears sharp.”
“Yes.”
Clutching the shivering granddaughter with his wrinkled hands, Curtis met her eyes.
“Calm down. Inhale deeply and exhale.”
“F-Frau? Fraulein? What does that mean, Grandfather?”
“Fräulein. It means young lady. Whenever the Germans saw a pretty woman, their eyes lit up, and they called out Fräulein, Fräulein with a groaning voice. Did they do that to you?”
“Hans, that man, Hans Schultz.”
“…Hmph.”
“Mr. Xuan Woo has been captured, grandfather. The Nazis were there. They were saying they needed Mr. Xuan Woo, that he was some kind of talent they required…”
Curtis and James couldn’t help but frown after hearing this.
Xuan Woo’s firm stance that he would never allow the workshop to be entered by outsiders.
His pathological behavior of repeatedly checking every place touched by suspicious strangers at any given time.
It wasn’t hypersensitivity.
Perhaps, the lowered vigilance due to the courtesy of some ‘kind outsiders’ had come back to haunt them.
“We have to rescue him. I tried to buy time to let me escape, father, grandfather…!”
“Do you know where they went?”
“I secretly marked my way as I went. They couldn’t have noticed.”
“Shall we depart immediately, father?”
“…If they call him necessary talent, they won’t kill him easily.”
The earnest explanation from Xuan Woo was subtly imbued with a strong sense of caution and fear.
The armaments carried by the silhouettes disappearing down the corridor.
Even in America, everyone had guns, but their outfits were meticulously prepared and supplied, suggesting something more organized.
“I’m beginning to think the guys we’re up against aren’t just role-playing bald Nazis.”
“Then what?”
“A systematically run organization. With squad leaders managing their personnel… possibly former military personnel in armed groups would be a more fitting description.”
The old man’s head whipped around.
The bullets brushing past the trench.
The miserable cries of English and German echoing through the air.
The artillery fire and gunshots vibrating his body, the roar of tank exhausts.
“…You mentioned you had bullets stored in the workshop, right?”
“Yes, father.”
“Sarah, the shotgun.”
“It must have been taken.”
“…Bring the ammunition first. James, fill your magazines as tightly as possible with bullets. Also, grab a tin of bullets. Sarah, go fill your magazines. All of them.”
“Y, Yes, grandfather.”
The steel door creaked open.
Precisely the spot they vowed never to let outsiders enter, Sarah and James passed through, catching a whiff of sour sweat, pungent adhesive, and a burnt, salty smell of iron.
“Is this it?”
“…A few boxes full.”
A man who stayed seated and only moved his hands nonstop without rest.
The empty tin had already received James’s sigh before falling into Sarah’s hands, which pulled it powerfully.
“It’s all pretty tightly packed… right?”
Struggling to lift two at first, something fell to the ground.
“Hold on, this is….”
The outlines of objects materialized in the light leaking through the door crack.
A long metal rod.
A crude frame wrapped in bandages, with rubber padding added where it touched the shoulder, and what could be called a trigger despite looking like an unattached hinge, complete with a trigger and hammer.
“Is this…a gun?”
James felt it a few times.
Trying it out like a double-barrel shotgun by folding it, and indeed.
“…Single barrel.”
“Did you make this gun too?”
An experiment, perhaps.
Made for himself to use.
Or perhaps for Sarah, who always carried a pistol.
Or maybe, preparation for a situation like now, where ammunition might run short.
The firearm stood there without any name or marking carved onto it.
Except for the ones Sarah had picked up, four more tins remained.
Even considering the .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun hidden away in the corner, there would be a total of five firearms.
Four of which could penetrate armor vests and kill people.
“If you want peace, prepare for war…”
James muttered the phrase under his breath.
Recalling the instructor’s explanation about the origin of the bullet named Parabellum during his military training.
The faint moan echoing through the corridor broke the reverie.
“…He’s not dead yet?”
The hand gripping the assault rifle tightened, but it was Sarah’s voice that blocked his way.
After loading a single paper-cased bullet into the break-action shotgun, Sarah stepped confidently forward and stuck the barrel out into the corridor.
“W, wait, please…!”
– Boom.
Wrapped in rising smoke, the steadfast expression of the young girl tossed the empty shell onto the floor.
Inhaling the gunpowder fumes like cigarette smoke.
Exhaling.
In front of her father and grandfather, the granddaughter stared with a firm gaze at the other side of the corridor.
“I’m ready.”
“No, not yet.”
Nevertheless, Curtis shook his head while throwing the bags to the floor.
“Not rescuing might be an option.”
“…What?”
Unlike James, who slightly tilted his ears, Sarah’s expression changed dramatically.
Trust, respect, and loyalty.
These were replaced with an expression named disappointment.
“If they took him because they needed him, he’ll likely be safe for a while.”
“Grandfather!”
“Listen without getting excited.”
“If you’re suggesting betrayal, I -”
“Listen!”
“No, this time it’s you, grandfather!”
“I KNOW AS WELL!!”
The young cub’s roar couldn’t match the roar of the old lion.
“…A prisoner is just that. It means they keep him alive because he’s valuable. If he were like the Jews in my time, they would have snapped his neck or shot him in front of you. But since they took Xuan Woo for the facility’s sake, unless they’ve trained a replacement—which they wouldn’t do easily even if they had—they won’t kill him quickly.”
However, the young cub was full of energy.
Brave and full of fighting spirit.
“So you’re just going to leave him to the Nazis? After everything he’s done for us?”
The iron plate barrier that even the monstrous spiders created by radiation couldn’t cross.
The barricades prepared against human-sized monsters.
The faint scent of soap lingering in a space filled with the smell of corpses and gunpowder.
“I cannot accept that.”
“This is the apocalypse, Sarah. Law, morality… all gone a long time ago.”
“That’s why you and grandpa said it’s important not to become monsters like those.”
“But survival gives meaning to those principles.”
“Mr. Xuan Woo sacrificed himself to save me.”
“…At least he managed within that principle.”
“Where did the grandpa who liked the idea of living like humans go? Where did dad go?”
James inhaled a little.
The departed wife.
The failed marriage.
The only thing left from that life, a daughter.
“…Living doesn’t necessarily require such flashy things.”
“Hmph.”
Running away would lose the trust of his daughter and the lifestyle they have now.
Attacking the well-armed and trained group of racists could lose much more.
And yet James’s scale was tilting due to this.
“So, that’s why I’m giving you an option.”
Curtis settled into a seat by the bag.
“…There was a time I abandoned a unit asking for our help. During the war. On that very day, when we landed on the beach.”
Rushing forward under the claim of a noisy but inaccurate machine gun. As comrades fell apart.
Even the veterans who discarded their teachings and instructed everyone to keep low and move carefully were dying, the elder returned to the battlefield.
“Throwing my body onto a hill that barely concealed me, listening to the bullets whizzing overhead -”
“…So, you’re going to tell us that you abandoned your comrades and survived, aren’t you? When you always said you sliced Nazis.”
” – Survivors gathered around me. Forgetting our teams and units, we came together, quickly sorted ourselves by rank, and prepared to follow orders from the higher-ups.”
Continuing the story steadfastly, Curtis patted his gun uneasily.
As if the double-barrel shotgun was an M1 Garand.
As if the paper-cased bullets were the 8-round clips.
“But always, there were those who fell behind; small teams crouched awkwardly behind steel structures that immobilized tanks. And coincidentally, their positions caught the eyes of machine gunners, who were giving them suppressing fire. ”
“…”
“Trapped by the gunfire, one by one they were hit in their arms and legs. Those who weren’t hit were turned into minced meat by the continued barrage of bullets. If they moved, startled by the splattered blood and flesh, they were hit again and died. Then, a muddy man in a steel helmet shouted at me for cover.”
Sigh.
And a head he couldn’t bear to lift.
“It would have been simple to merge the man and his small team with my unit. If I had shot at the bunker right in front of me, catching the attention of the enemy instantly, then regardless of what our newly encountered superior said, I could have saved at least four lives. But.”
The finger trembling against the trigger was shaking consistently.
The soldier who had killed countless enemies was shaking his trembling lips, biting them.
“I’m still here, they’re not. That’s what choices mean.”
“…”
“And the time to make that choice has now come to you.”
The bag was nudged by the muzzle of the gun.
“The gear’s all packed. If we run in the opposite direction now, the comrades we killed won’t find us. They’ll be distracted looting this place.”
Then, his finger pointed towards the corridor behind them.
“There’s an M2 Browning in the room. Heavy, and you’ll probably need two people to carry it and move. If you set it up in a good position while rescuing Xuan Woo, you can buy enough time. But, only assuming we can locate Xuan Woo, if he’s not in some place we don’t know and assuming he’s not dead.”
“If it has meaning.”
Sarah snorted and kicked the bag with her foot.
The long explanation didn’t have any impact on the decision-making time.
“Did it have meaning for him to give me the antidote? For him to break apart the church goons risking his life? Does it matter that he tried to fight a monster alone because it meant something? Have we ever given something back for all the efforts Xuan Woo exerted?”
“…”
“All we know how to do is shoot and cook. And whose fault has it been that we can’t even do that freely?”
Sarah picked up the gun.
She swatted James’s hand away and entered the room.
The groaning sound.
And the sound of metal scratching the ground several times.
The components of the heavy machine gun in the wooden box rolled out, along with a bullet canister.
“Even you, dad. It seemed like you were enjoying doing your part as a father by coming down here, but both of you are just messed-up people who can’t show a decent family, aren’t you?”
“Sarah.”
“You veterans who receive favors but don’t even acknowledge them properly, how disgraceful. Looks like you’re just like the folks grandpa cursed at day and night on TV.”
Sarah turned her back.
She dumped out the contents of the bag onto the floor, picked up two bullet canisters, inserted them, and closed the bag.
“I’m going alone if I must. Because when I got bitten by a spider without Mr. Xuan Woo, I would’ve been dead anyway.”
And thus, the decision was made.