Chapter 90: Episode 9: Death is a Mercenary's Friend

Jang Shin’s mouth widened into a grin in the middle of helping, and he kneeled towards the east where the Mecca lay.

“Allahu ekbar! Allah’s grace saved our sergeant. Mecca, be forever. Allahu ekbar!”

Jang Shin repeated the rising and falling prayer as he shouted Allah’s name. He looked as though he was about to convert into Islam.

“Hey, Burimer’s Muslim, not you. I almost went mad listening to Black Mamba’s weird prayers. Now you’re driving me up the wall.” Mike spat his complaints without ill will as he felt his chest unclench.

He could guess how much stress Jang Shin had been under.

“Sergeant, Allah’s the best. I cried for Yuanshi Tianzun when the intruders came, but it didn’t work. But the sergeant came to life when I shouted for Allah.”

“Yeah, right, this b*stard’s finally gone out of his mind. What the hell is he talking about?” Mike grasped the back of his neck.

There was no way he’d know who Yuanshi Tianzun was.

“Uuuugh, it hurts, it f*cking hurts. You quack b*stard, did you even use anesthesia?” Burimer began to fuss once he regained his senses.

“Look at this guy talk. Black Mamba doesn’t even give a peep when I’m stitching bare skin. You’re a big guy, suck it up. Should I put you to sleep for the rest of your life?”

“You b*stard, your specialty’s in non-anaesthetic procedures. I’m a human. Why are you comparing a human to a monster? Compare that monster to its own kind.”

“It looks like you won’t die, since you’re talking your head off.”

“Ha, I lose every ounce of affection I have toward you every time you talk. Go treat Jang Shin. His close combat skills were rather good, actually. I lived thanks to him.”

Bell Man sewed up Jang Shin’s falling ear and bridged his nose by filling it up with cotton.

“It’s a miracle, a miracle! Hahaha!”

He had become odd-eared, but Jang Shin kept laughing. His dead mood had risen immediately after hearing Bell Man’s assertion that there wasn’t a problem.

Bell Man slapped the back of Jang Shin’s head after treating him.

“Crying and laughing, what are you doing? Trying to audition for French comedies? Besides, what’s up with this hotel?”

They had used silencers and cold weapons, but there still had been a commotion. However, the hotel workers didn’t seem to have any reaction. It was either that the workers didn’t care at all, or they were in cooperation with the intruders.

They had received a surprise attack, but the whole ordeal had blown over without much loss. Everyone regained their balance.

“There’s nothing normal in this country. Oh right, how’s the captain?” Mike shouted, startled in the midst of his whining.

“I’m here.”

The captain entered the room, panting, with Emil right behind him.

“How’s Burimer?”

“Astounding. The bullet had been fired at such close range that it went through without rollback, a phenomenon in which the bullet flips around, as the back of the bullet is much heavier than the front with the loss of momentum. There weren’t many soft tissue injuries, either.”

“He was blessed by Allah, then. And Black Mamba?”

“He’s going after the hitman.”

“Ahhh!”

The captain expelled a vague huff of air that was between a sigh and a cry. The masks that were all over the floor filled his sight, to his distaste.

He had understood the situation while he was climbing up the stairs from the first floor’s communication room. His wrong decision had nearly demolished the team. He couldn’t raise his head due to guilt. Not knowing how to face Black Mamba when he returned, the captain kept sighing.

“It’s a relief. There’s nothing to it but Allah’s grace. We should all become Muslims at this rate. Allahu ekbar!”

Mike offered an Arabian prayer with a solemn face, but it was too early for Mike to be praising Allah.

They didn’t know that a greater threat was approaching them after this minor incident.

Black Mamba jumped over the hotel’s fence in a single jump.

He could see the red rear lights growing further away. Black Mamba threw his body like the wind, kicking off the fence.

‘It’s too late!’

He ran as fast as he could until the roadblocks were crushed under his feet, but it wasn’t enough. The bike had already sped up. Not even the great Black Mamba could catch up to a speeding motorbike.

A Glock didn’t have the necessary range, and the darts weren’t adequate for long-distance throws. He searched for something to throw while running, but nothing stood out. He couldn’t even find a pebble because the streets were lined with bricks on either side.

He saw a road blocking barricade. The three pod barricade, made of arm-width thick iron rods, was rusted red.

“Great!”

He ripped out the metal rod without slowing his speed. The connecting points ripped out at the immense strength as though the road had cracked open. The distance between the bike grew to 820 feet as this happened.

Black Mamba’s back bent like a bow. His resonance whirled around before concentrating in his right arm. The moment his left arm shot forward, his back, which had been curved as the full moon, straightened, and his twisted hips twisted to the opposite side. It was the perfect throwing posture. The metal pipe that was boosted with momentum and power flew out at a fearful speed.

The hitman turned around at the sound of the air being sliced, and his pupils dilated. An increasing dot, something with tremendous bloodlust, was coming at him. He had suffered through many experiences as a DGSE clean-up member. This meant death.

‘Putain, I didn’t want to do this in the first place. To think they’d provoke a monster like him, the DGSE’s losing their touch.’

Thwack—

The rusted metal pipe with the width of an arm shattered his spinal cord and poked out of his chest.

Crash—

The bike slid across the ground as it threw across the road. The hitman, who had lurched to the ground, bounced around before coming to a stop.

A rush of pain, as though he had been skewered by a hot metal stick, was the last thing he felt. Both the bike and the human crumpled like tissue paper. The unnamed DGSE hitman finished his life like this despite his perfect escape. It was all due to meeting such a monster.

“Sh*t, he died.”

Black Mamba clicked his tongue. Anyone who survived after being skewered by a two-inch-thick pipe was a zombie, not a human.

All the hitmen who had attacked the hotel had died. His attempt to figure out who was behind the attacks went up in smoke. He took off the hitman’s mask. He was a mixed-race man with a healthy physique.

That was it.

Black Mamba retrieved the Beretta and didn’t bother touching the corpse. There would be nothing but dust on such a person even if he rummaged through his belongings. All it would do was add to his nightmares.

Black Mamba looked down at the ruined corpse. He looked back at himself anew, as he had skewered a man who was running away in order to live without hesitation. He was no different from insect exterminators.

“Ha, I should live by whatever means in order to live like a human! But am I a complete human when I’m making graves for other people in order to live myself?”

Wherever he was, a blood storm was bound to follow. He had erased six people from his hit list that day alone. The asura his master had talked of, the spirit of death, was him. Was there achievement associated with killing the living?

After killing whom he had to kill, Black Mamba’s shoulders fell as he walked back to the hotel.

By the time Black Mamba’s team arrived in Paya, Ocelot had touched down at N’Djamena’s airport runway.

It had taken a day to travel from Singapore to N’Djamena. There was no route from Singapore to N’Djamena. If there wasn’t, he just had to create one. Ocelot wasn’t a moralistic human who abided by the rules of other humans.

He used slightly illegal methods but killed no one. All that happened was the pilot and co-pilot losing their bladders, and the Parisian passengers returning home at a slightly later time.

“You pathetic existences! You should be praising my benevolence.”

Soldiers were crowded around the runway, chattering like alligators. He supposed it could have been surprising, the fact that a hijacked passenger plane as large as that had landed safely.

An adequate object came into view.

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It was a plane that was being tailed by an aircraft refueler. It was a Douglas C47 Skytrain, a medium-sized transport. It was an antique that had been produced 30 years earlier, but long-distance travels were its advantage.

Silently, Ocelot slid up the rear ramp.

He was fast. Others would have mistaken him as the shadow of a passing cloud.

Kalim was a medium transport aircraft pilot in Habre’s army. His beloved Douglas C-47 Skytrain had been serialized 20 years ago, but it was still energetic.

The day’s mission was to relocate the stored military supplies at Cameroon’s Duala airport to N’Djamena. The French government had started to supply weapons and rations to the Habre army last November. They had stocked rations that were rotting away in storage, but they were enough to use in the war against Chad.

It was 1,330 miles to Duala in a straight line. He could slap a woman’s butt once he finished the six-hour return flight and was safely at the Meridien Hotel.

Kalim finished filling up the tank and took off in a happy mood.

The aircraft stabilized 18,000 feet in the air. He switched the flight into auto mode and chatted with the co-pilot. Kalim’s good mood didn’t last long.

“I believe you should go to Paya!”

Kalim and the co-pilot fell into silent panics at the sound of a third voice.

A golden-haired ghost appeared in the cockpit.

It had to be a ghost, as there was no other existence that could appear so suddenly, like smoke rising from the cockpit’s floor.

“Who-who are you?”

“Ahh, Kanma!”

They were in a standoff. The N’Djamena airport was filled with security measures. How he made it through security and entered the sealed cockpit were questions that didn’t help, even with answers. The reality was in their faces, threatening them.

The co-pilot reacted more realistically.

He took out his pistol in a flash. Kalim’s eyes widened. The ghost’s movements were faster than the trigger, as it had already grasped the wrist in which the pistol was held.

Crack—

The wrist bone cracked, and the scene of the ghost’s hand wrapping around the co-pilot’s neck registered slowly in his eyes.

Cr-ack.

The co-pilot’s neck was broken like wooden chopsticks. Kalim became an abiding lamb that very second.

The Skytrain that had been heading to Duala changed directions 18,000 feet in the air and headed east. The mission to head towards Duala’s airport had been wiped from Kalim’s brain.

Kalim thought of himself and his tribe as more important than the nation. He didn’t have a single iota of intention to have his neck snapped by the ghost.

Kalim’s plane arrived in Paya’s skies two hours and thirty minutes later.

– Approach control, this is Skytrain 167, altitude 4,000 feet. Requesting landing.

– Skytrain 167, your landing is denied. I repeat, Skytrain 167, your landing is denied.

The control center denied his landing with certainty. There was no control center that would welcome a foreign flight with open arms.

Panicked, Kalim turned to the ghost.

The damned ghost simply stared at his unspoken question of what to do. It was a silent order to fix things himself.

– There’s a problem on board. I request an emergency landing.

– Skytrain 167, wait at your altitude.

“Go down to 930.”

Kalim followed the damned ghost’s orders without a token of protest.

When the Douglas that was circling the airport once more began to lower its altitude and approach a landing speed, the control tower flew into action.

– Skytrain 167, raise your altitude.

“Get down to 310. Speed 250, and flap 23 degrees,” ordered the ghost as though he was the control center.

– Control, I have no choice. The airlift is dropping. Please open a runway.

Kalim followed his orders like a puppet.

Grumble—

When the aircraft lowered its altitude even more, the control center threw down a warning.

– Skytrain 167, raise your altitude. You will be shot if you don’t abide. I repeat. You will be shot down.

“Targeted? Very well. Flap 32, gear down.”

Kalim followed the orders with cold sweat running down his back.

The Paya airport had long entered FROLINAT’s control. He would be arrested the moment he touched down.

Kalim didn’t care about that.

He was from the northern Lumumba Tribe. Even if he was arrested, all he had to do was switch sides. He could even be treated as a hero since he had an aircraft.

“Insect, is there a weapon onboard?”

Kalim turned to look at the ghost with a strange face.

“What about a weapon?”

Kalim’s face paled in the middle of his question. The ghost was wearing a parachute and putting on its harness.

“Well, it doesn’t matter if there is or isn’t, I suppose. There should be enough fuel after all.”

“You, you crazy b*stard!”

Long, thin fingers wrapped around his neck.

“Good work, insect.”

Crack—

The ghost who had snapped his neck like a twig jumped off the rear ramp.

Kalim, who was far from the ideal soldier, was the traditional African soldier who cared most for himself and his tribe, so he finished his life meaninglessly. And he was soon fated to turn into a pile of ashes.

Grrrrrr—

The Skytrain had already entered its landing phase. It headed onto the runway at a tremendous speed.

Ocelot, who floated in the sky, looked down as though he was admiring his own masterpiece before floating down.

Crash—

The aircraft crashed into the runway. The plane, which had turned into a ball of fire, rolled into the control tower as its momentum dictated.

A small personal aircraft on standby at a spare runway attempted to move away, but it was too late. With a resounding crash of collision, an even larger explosion followed.

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