I Have Returned, but I Cannot Lay down My Gun

Chapter 709

"Fuck, this is a total hornet's nest, here…!"

"Even in the Brazilian favelas, there was nothing this crazy, but this is absolutely incredible… Left! The 4th floor window of the building on the left! There's an enemy in every window you can see!"

"Dagger 1, send fire support or evacuation helicopters to the Valentine Avenue area immediately! A battalion of rioters are rushing towards this place!"

A large number of enemies were coming from the front, back, left, right, and even above and below.

The vibration detection was so messy that it was dense that it was being picked up from all directions. However, the excellent hardware called the country was visualizing it as a kind of… 3D map and was tracking the approaching enemies in real time.

That wasn't the end of it. The pulse that the Dagger team was using at regular intervals was much better than my 3D map, and I could tell right away how many enemies there were, whether it was because of it or not.

The enemies were rushing in with a momentum and density that made me think of androids, not people.

"Aim for the head! Don't use Mozambique drills, just shoot two bullets into the head! You won't die properly if you don't blow up the head!"

"I have no idea who the hell made that, you damn thing...!"

"Bow down!"

Doo doo doo doo doo!

A loud noise and a flash of light before my eyes. I knew there was no time to explain. At that moment, I fell down on the spot, just like my muscle memory had told me.

There was no need to explain what happened next. About fifteen bullets pierced the space where my head had just been. The .277 Fury bullets pierced the heads of about four enemies rushing through the air.

Leaving the corpses behind, the scattered Dagger teams began to gather in one place. From now on, it was time to somehow survive here.

Until something comes that can get us out of here, whether it's a helicopter, a drone, or a transporter.

"We're going up to the rooftop! Get your flares ready!"

"Move quickly! Before the stairs are covered in corpses!"

I step on the corpses that seem more like clones than humans and leave the room.

I feel a squeaking sound and a horrible sensation under my feet, but I try to ignore it. The gang coming up the stairs collapses on the spot as soon as our eyes meet, their heads exploding.

As I go up each floor, the smell of blood fades, and the damp outside air fills the place. In the hallways, I often see not the freshly dead corpses of the rioters, but rather the dried corpses that look like they've been dead for quite some time.

It didn't take long to get through that horrible sight and reach the rooftop door.

???Kwaaang!

The door is locked with a thick, rusty chain. But the moment Laurentina kicked the door, it burst open and the next moment, seven people, including me, were swept onto the rooftop like a tsunami.

As I said earlier, the enemies were coming from all sides, front, back, left, right, above, and below, and here, the rooftop was full of enemies. That meant that the rooftop was also full of enemies.

However, I just had to kill them all. It didn’t matter how many enemies there were. I just hoped that I could get out of here safely by killing them.

I put the enemy in my crosshairs and pulled the trigger. I always feel this way, but the scene after the bullet passed through the person’s head was not as gentle as in a movie.

It was too unrealistic. I literally collapsed on the spot with all my strength drained from my body. It was to the point where I wondered if it was okay for someone to die so easily.

However, I could only finish that impression in less than a second. In order to survive even one more second on the rooftop with almost no cover, I had to kill all the enemies on all sides.

"Mobile cover deployed, countermeasures activated."

"Fuck, grind them all down!"

Kwung!

Laurentina put down her bag, unzipped it, and slammed it hard with her fist.

At that moment, it literally swelled up into a bulletproof shield large enough to cover several people, and a 40mm automatic grenade launcher attached separately rose from underneath.

There were several bangs, as if empty cans were being hit, and explosions occurred here and there. The entire path leading up to the rooftop was destroyed and collapsed, and flames continued to burst out from the rooftop of another apartment complex across the street.

But that didn't last long. Because of the weight, volume, and safety issues, the number of grenades that could be held was only about 30.

Still, it was fortunate that nearly 40 rioters were torn to pieces in the meantime.

Meanwhile, four others who had gone back to the other side were barely able to join us.

Mr. Logan, who was covered in blood all over his body, was breathing hard, and at that time, I was loading a signal flare from my multi-purpose pouch and pulling the trigger in the air.

It was right after that that I heard the transmission.

-Dangso Photon 1, I could see the red light with my eyes. Looking down, it seems like the entire town is hell-bent on killing them. Turn on the shield. I will prepare a wide-area smoke charge.

"Wait, if it's smoke, then no way…."

-That's right. It's the new white phosphorus bullet you received while you were on the mission. If you don't want to burn to death, hold your breath for as long as possible.

"…Ready, Photon 1!"

-Confirmed.

A stern sentence was heard.

And then, a blazing white smokeball fell from the sky.

Hundreds of white balls fell so slowly that you could see their trajectories with your eyes, covering our operational areas of Bricks Avenue, Bainbridge Avenue, Valentine Avenue, etc.

My eyes turned completely white, and the concentration of toxic smoke in the air literally soared like a mountain range. In the meantime, two or three blazing white phosphorus balls fell inside the mobile cover, so I hurriedly grabbed them and threw them.

Fortunately, the armor was also covered with an energy field, so I was able to throw them outside without getting burned. Long live the shield.

After about 30 seconds of the toxic smoke and high heat simultaneously covering all directions, the enemies caught in the scan began to decrease one by one.

They artificially blocked pain sensation through machines and manipulated the motor cortex, but in the end, they were also people. It was a message that I had to inhale and exhale.

The mindless enemies whose trachea and lungs were burned would die without even knowing why they were dying.

"Move! Now it's time to get out of this shitty place! Fire the flare again!"

"Understood!"

Pfft!

The surroundings were literally a white darkness, but with familiar hand movements, I took out the flare from the pouch, quickly loaded it, and fired again. The flare gun was melting, so I had to do something quickly.

It wasn't Danger Close (fire near friendly forces), but Broken Arrow (fire inside a mixed area of ??friendly and enemy forces), so the shield was slowly shrinking.

Click. With a very natural hand movement, I put a bullet in the chamber near the cylinder and pulled the flare gun toward the sky - at that moment, a red flare exploded through the rising white smoke.

The transport plane that was circling the sky began to descend quickly. The white smoke was swaying wildly due to the tremendous power of the tiltjet’s engine.

In an instant, it became much larger than the point, and it didn’t take long for it to land on a flat rooftop about 50m away.

It was a good idea to charge the smoke around. The enemy still had some non-guided rocket launchers, although they didn’t know how long they would be worried. It was right to block their view like this.

It was time to move.

“Let’s go, Eugene!”

“Yes!”

I ran away from the mobile cover.

With a thud, the transporter landed carefully on the rooftop. There was water up to my knees on the rooftop. There were also corpses of rioters of a shape I didn’t want to describe. It was because the grenade had hit this area too.

I thought I could finally get out of the Bronx, but on the contrary, I felt a little sorry about it. I had no choice but to retreat, so I had to retreat… I was a little upset.

But I guess I'll just come back. That's what we're here for. I thought to myself as I ran through the water up to my knees.

"Logan! Get on first! We'll be on guard!"

"Wow, those are nice words."

Mr. Logan, who had hurt his wrist last time, was the first to board. The people who had been running ahead of me also boarded quickly. The transport plane was scheduled to take off in about 5 seconds at most.
It was inevitable that I, who was in charge of the separate cleanup, such as picking up the white phosphorus and firing the signal flare, would be the last. Furthermore, Ms. Laurentina no longer had to carry the mobile cover and grenade launcher that combined weighed over a hundred kilograms.

But that was the end of it. The distance to the transport plane was only 20 meters. It was a distance that could be reached in 5 seconds at most.

I ran through the water with a splashing sound. Almost everyone was on board, and Ms. Laurentina was holding out her hand to me.

"Let's get out of this damn place quickly, youngest!"

"Yes!"

20 meters, 15 meters, 10 meters, 5 meters.

Was it because of the splashing water, or was it something else? I felt something ticking in my ears and something shaking under my feet.

But it didn't matter. Now, there really wasn't much left - but at that moment, I witnessed a truly bizarre sight. Specifically, it was a sight that seemed to suddenly rise upward.

It was like an escape transport that continued to soar into the sky with each step, as if it were sinking into a swamp.

Of course, that wasn't exactly it.

The ground beneath my feet was sinking.

???Squeak!

"Wow, whoa-!"

"Youngest!?"

For a moment, time began to flow slowly.

The rooftop collapsed, and after crashing into the rooftop with a thud, the transporter that was half-floating in the air again - and everything except the Dagger Team inside it went down.

I could guess why. The weight of the water that had accumulated up to my knees must have been enormous. The ground could have been weakened by the explosion of the grenade, or the transporter could have driven a wedge in as it landed.

But the only thing that mattered was the result.

I started falling.

"Ugh, ugh…!"

Unfortunately, the rooftop didn't collapse parallel. It collapsed obliquely.

As a result, I fell down as if I was sliding down a slide. The rooftop floor was dirty from the accumulated water and covered with seaweed or something, and there was nothing to grab onto, and since I fell with the water, I couldn't secure a view.

And the end was the avenue floor about 15 meters below.

Free fall began.

"Youngest-aeeeee-!"

Boom!

That was the last sound I heard.

The moment I touched the ground, I lost consciousness.

"…Jin! Eugene! Wake up! There are about 15 people heading in your direction right now! Get on the roof right now! Hurry up!"

My head hurts.

My whole body feels like it's been hit with a hammer, and my knee joints creak. I could hear something like tinnitus in my ears, but when I came to my senses a little, I realized that it was a warning message from the Icarus Gear.

The content was simple. It was roughly… that most of the nanomachines were lost while trying to offset the damage from the fall. It couldn’t be helped. If I were naked, it would have resulted in immediate death or serious injury.

I struggled to get up from that spot and looked around hurriedly.

I could sense a huge number of people.

‘… I have to go up!’

I didn’t necessarily need to know where and how many people were. There were more than ten people caught in the vicinity.

The gun I was holding was dented in places due to the fall and had long since become unusable, and the magazine was the same. I threw away all the unnecessary things and took out my tactical knife and pistol. That was the only thing that was okay.

The apartment door right behind me. It was firmly locked, but I kicked it open and started to climb the stairs with all my might.

My whole body ached.

???Bang! Bang! Bang!

As if it were a lie, the enemies still inside the building rushed to interfere with me, but I ran while shooting them all in the head.

In the meantime, I couldn't avoid getting shot, so my remaining shield was rapidly consumed, and by the time I got to the rooftop, it was on the verge of being completely destroyed.

As soon as I opened the door, white phosphorus smoke surged in. It still hadn't cleared up, suffocating the surrounding rioters, or burning them with the flames that were still there - or just starting.

Gunshots were heard from the sky. The Dagger Team members on the transporter were shooting all the modified rioters rushing in from the surroundings.

A holographic mark appeared before my eyes, and the path to get there and the remaining distance were displayed. At the same time, a ladder came down from the transporter.

A voice burst out.

"Run, Eugene!"

I ran through the white phosphorus smoke.

My body quickly became hot. Oxygen was already running low. I couldn't see the path ahead. But if I didn't want to die, I had to run. Fortunately, the smoke was quickly dispersing by the tiltjet engine.

However, the speed at which my shield was consumed by the bullets fired by the enemies around me and the white phosphorus smoke was much faster than the speed at which I was running.

The end of the rooftop was right in front of me.

I ran at a tremendous speed on the rooftop of an apartment building that was almost connected to each other. Of course, it was by no means satisfactory by my standards. I had to be faster than this. However, the aftereffects of the crash were still on my body.

The transporter made a "Kuuuuu" sound and circled at a tremendous speed. It was like a helicopter. The problem was that it was much heavier than a helicopter and yet it was doing such a maneuver.

It stopped in an instant at the end of the rooftop and soon turned the ladder sticking out like a tongue toward me.

I heard Mr. Logan's voice.

"Run-!"

With a warning sound, the shield that could no longer withstand bullets and white phosphorus smoke broke.

And I jumped down from the rooftop.

My body began to accelerate downward due to gravity. The ladder that didn't seem that close suddenly came right in front of my nose, and I reached out my hand - and with the pilot's precise distance control, I barely managed to grab the ladder.

The direction of the transporter's tilt jet suddenly became parallel to the ground, and the aircraft began to accelerate at an incredible speed.

"Okay, I've caught the youngest! Pull him up!"

The sight that accelerated in an instant, the sound of gunfire continuously heard from behind

At that moment, all my strength left except my fingers, and I almost let go of the tension in my lower body. I was able to do it because I prevented that.

But-

???Bam!

"Ah...?"

Warning, abdominal penetration.

Warning, partial liver damage.

Warning, blood loss. 9ml per second. Considered severely injured.

Warning, high blood pressure. The time it takes to stop bleeding increases.

Warning, warning, warning… .

The dull pain that followed, as if I had been punched in the stomach, made me realize that my abdomen was soaking wet with warm liquid. It was a place that the bulletproof plate couldn’t completely cover.

Thanks to the Icarus Gear, it didn’t take long for the excruciating pain to ease into bearable pain, but it was also the same with the intuition that something was wrong.

I had to block my stomach.

“G-g-stopping function…”

My head wasn’t working well. The first gunshot wound I had received was terribly painful. Even then, the ladder automatically closed and my body was pulled up.

The moment the ladder, which was slowly being pulled up, reached the top of the transport bay, I fell to my knees in front of the Dagger team who were happily welcoming me.

Red blood dripped down the floor.

“…Eugene?”

"That, that, my stomach, my stomach…."

It hurts.

But I couldn't say anything else. I don't know if it was because the excessive tension was released, or because the fatigue from the past had completely disappeared, but I held my arms on the floor with difficulty to prevent myself from collapsing.

My strength drained, and only fragments of words came out of my mouth. I couldn't do any more. The words were leaking out of my mouth on their own.

"That, my body, isn't moving properly…."

My vision faded.

The sounds around me became quieter.

The last thing I heard was someone urgently calling Mr. Chester's name.