Chapter 39: 40

Chapter 40

# Journal, Page 65, Camp Roberts

Once again, an award ceremony was held to confer me a medal. As Captain McGuire had predicted, I was awarded the Silver Star Medal.

The officer dispatched for the ceremony was the same one who came to deliver the Bronze Star. Brees was his name. He’s a major of the public affairs department. He was still wearing a nervous and edgy-looking face, but unlike last time, he wasn’t wearing a gas mask. He must have heard that the pathogen isn’t airborne.

The major looked at me with lowered brows. Though his lips didn’t budge at all, I almost felt like I could hear him saying ‘what’s with this kid that makes me come to this place over and over?’

Also, it was then that I realized that the boss Captain McGuire had talked about was, in fact, Major Brees. I now understood what he meant when he said that his boss hated it when I received a medal. Even before the ceremony commenced, his eyes were already sunk with fatigue.

Same as last time, the dedicatory letter was read by the battalion commander. As for me, I was dressed in a full dress uniform and called to the front of the podium. Though I only had one more badge on me, they felt quite weighty on my chest.

Cameras, many more than last time, were installed in front of the podium to catch the ceremony on tape. The reporters that crossed the blockade at the risk of their lives clung to me like hungry beasts.

“Please tell us how you feel about being the youngest lieutenant in the history of the States!”

“Could you give us a little recount of the Santa Maria operation?”

“What are your plans for the future?”

The questions they asked weren’t too bad in the beginning. However….

“Do you have a girlfriend? If you don’t, could you tell us a bit about the kind of girls you like?”

“What kind of food do you like?”

“Please say a word to your fans!”

I couldn’t understand why they would ask this kind of stuff. What’s up with the fan thing anyway?

While I was being barraged with questions, Major Brees stuck next to me and contained the reporters, telling them which questions were inappropriate, demanding them to show him what they wrote down or to fix some parts, and so on. It could be viewed as an infringement to the freedom of speech, but none of the reporters seemed to be bothered by it. It was one of those chauvinism things that Lieutenant Capstone talked about.

Oh, I should call him Captain Capstone now. He got his promotion just today, I keep forgetting to call him captain.

They said his promotion was for discovering a great soldier. But despite the good news, the person concerned didn’t look happy at all—ashamed was what he said. He complained that I should’ve received more rewards.

Other soldiers who came to congratulate me also said similar things.

“I can’t believe they got away with just a Silver Star. You should’ve gotten at least a Medal of Honor.”

“That’s what I mean. I reckon no one has ever achieved such a great service in battle like our shavetail, right? Well, maybe except for John Basilone and Audie Murphy.”

“Those two are… yeah…. But I personally think Lieutenant Gyo…ul is better.”

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It was Latchman and Siris’s conversation. I only gave them a smile in return.

“It’s because they’re playing politics,” Master Sergeant Pierce stepped in.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious what they are thinking. They wanna make a refugee leader, but they’re afraid of giving too much power to one person. They must’ve learned something from Afghanistan, right?”

He had a point with his argument. They couldn’t let another uncontrollable armed group appear. Eggs were not to be put in the same basket.

“Whoa, you’re surprisingly clever. You look like a brainless macho on the outside tho…” Said Guilherme, chuckling for a moment until he got slapped on the back.

“Do you realize how many years I’ve been in the army? There’s a lot of things you can hear if you have friends in other regiments or divisions. Surviving in the army, it’s all about politics. You gotta be good at it if you ever wanna be called general. Do you remember what happened to William Swenson? No matter how hard you work, you’ll never get a promotion if you get on the wrong side of people, like him.”

I didn’t know who William Swenson was, but judging by the other soldiers nodding at him, he must have been one of the soldiers that went through unfair treatment.

“But Lieutenant Han, is this really it? I mean, no promotion, no money, no nothing?”

I shook my head at Guilherme’s question. I told him that my promotion was scheduled for a later date. According to Major Brees, it would be after I obtain the ‘suitable qualifications’.

A formal officer training was what he meant by suitable qualifications. I was told that I would receive additional education and training, and would have to be tested to get my promotion.

A celebration was held in the U.S. citizen’s district after the ceremony. It wasn’t in the official schedule, but it was added due to the citizens’ request.

I was given a huge bunch of flowers from a lot of people, including little kids. Many of them thanked me with a handshake.

“Thank you for your service, sir.”

The sentence that American soldiers hear the most from civilians. Hearing it directed at me made me feel strange. It took me a while before I could figure out what to say in return.

“Thank you, I appreciate your support.”

Some kids asked me to take pictures with them. They called me a ‘hero’. It wasn’t anything special in the U.S. Children here grow up being taught to respect soldiers, firefighters, and police officers as heroes. It’s part of their government policies. But to me, it was just too strange. We didn’t treat our soldiers like them back in Korea.

The atmosphere there was very alien to me. It’s almost like a completely different world compared to the refugee camps. They weren’t exactly living on an easy street. However, their lives there weren’t as miserable as those from beyond the barbed wire fences. People hadn’t lost their smiles. The fences were serving as the boundary separating civilization from barbarism.

I got to see the people I rescued from Paso Robles. Those who had been unfriendly to me came to me apologizing. It must have been the effect of the news about the ‘Miracle of Santa Maria’. I accepted their apology with a good heart.

Principal Hamilton still thought of me as a kid. Though his lips were smiling, it seemed somewhat bitter. He’s a good man, but he’s stubborn about his beliefs.

While I was taking a rest, an old man who introduced himself as a Vietnamese war veteran came to speak to me. He asked me about the battles I went through at first, but then he brought up his past story.

“The war I went through wasn’t as honorable as people think.”

His story was heavy. A battlefield where it was impossible to tell apart civilians from enemies. And mistakes he made blinded by hatred and anger. He then finished his story with a word of advice.

“I know you’re fighting for a just cause. But sometimes, the right thing for you is the wrong thing for someone else. So please, don’t make choices you would regret making as I did.”

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I engraved his words in my mind.

# Journal, Page 68, Camp Roberts

Today’s news had some information worth listening to.

First, the government officially gave a name to the strange mutants I encountered in Santa Maria.

「Ghoul」

These mutants have an appearance similar to normal mutants but possess a significantly enhanced physical ability.

The Centers for Disease Control also announced that 「Morgellons」 has gone beyond adapting to the host and is confirmed to be something completely different from any other disease, viruses, or parasites found so far. Just as humans use, develop, and create tools from resources in the environment, 「Morgellons」 also uses and develops its human hosts and turns them into their tools.

As such, the criteria for classifying mutants have also been redefined. They classified whether a mutant is ‘enhanced’ by their physical ability and whether it is ‘special’ by their abilities, and marked each type of mutant with a grade and name.

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense announced a new measure to deter the mutants. The plan is to set up more than 3,000 「Noise Maker」 units beyond the barricade to lure the mutants with the noise. To this end, they said they have been conducting experiments in the field so far.

A plan to secure safety by disrupting the mutants in the surrounding areas before deploying ground forces. If it is brought to realization, the refugee camps will also be much safer.

DOD further announced plans to reclaim the contaminated areas. They are planning to establish advanced bases and deploy artillery in each of the areas to eliminate the mutants.

# Stabilization (1), San Miguel.

Few days after the training began, Gyeoul decided to conduct training in the field. The refugees were too afraid of going outside the camp’s confines. They needed to get over this psychological resistance to be able to fight the mutants.

There was a person who refused to step over the border. It was a girl, and she was so scared she completely lost her ability to think rationally. Gyeoul knocked her out without hesitation.

Gyeoul brought the rest of the team to San Miguel. Despite being the ‘field’, it was much safer than anywhere else. As it was the closest base to Camp Roberts, units on mission passed through this area several times a day even.

“But don’t let your guard down. They keep coming in from other areas. According to the air reconnaissance report conducted this morning, a few mutants were roaming around the city. There could be more considering all the buildings here.”

Some people gulped at the boy’s warning.

Along the road running side by side with the railroad, Gyeoul’s team entered the northern part of the city. The partially destroyed flour factory was the first thing that came into their view. The train wreckage had been left unattended. The traces of the fierce battle also remained the same. The specks of blood and the traces of explosions were still clearly visible on the road. If anything was different was that there was a big pile of burnt bodies in the vacant lot next to the factory.

“This is the place where you had your first fight, right, little boss?”

“Yeah. We were here packing up the food we found here, but then a train came in, derailed next to the factory, crashing into the wall. Each car was loaded with mutants.”

The members carefully examined the site. Walking in a straight line with their eyes fixed on the train, they seemed like a group of tourists visiting a war exhibition.

“They were citizens evacuating the city, right?”

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“There must have been an infected one among the passengers.”

“There’s a doll over here. Looks like there were kids on board too. Poor kids…”

The streets were awfully grim and dreary. There were signs left by the soldiers from place to place. They denoted the locations of the shelter, weapons, and food prepared for emergencies. There was also a means to contact the military for possible survivors.

“Try to get acclimated first.”

“O-okay!”

One of the volunteers nervously shouted out. It was so loud that an echo of his voice resounded back to them. He was soon the focus of the others’ eyes.

“Oh, I see a mutant there,” Gyeoul said, almost joyfully.

Towards the direction where the boy’s finger was pointing at, a mutant was coming from around the corner of a motel. Both the refugees and the mutant screamed out loud, but with different purposes.

Gwerrgh!

“I’m gonna go capture it, so don’t shoot,” Gyeoul said before springing out towards the mutant.

“Okay… Wait, what?”

The mutant clattered its teeth at the food that was approaching by itself. However, the boy, who already possessed level 10 Close Combat, took one step to the left to dodge its arm and raised his leg to hit its lower jaw with his heavy boot. With a loud thud, its tongue that was flailing out of its mouth was severed by its own teeth and fell helplessly onto the ground.

After smashing its face a few more times, Gyeoul took out a piece of cloth he had prepared in advance and shoved it into its mouth, and tightly tied the two ends of the cloth at the back of its head to stop it from making more sound. Once he was done, the boy dragged the mutant back to the refugees.

“The f….”

The faction members just stood there with their mouths agape. To them, the mutants were an object of dread. Scarier because they didn’t know what they really were. But now, they had seen the boy subduing their source of fear in less than a minute. And thanks to that, the fear that had been overinflated due to their imaginations crumbled down.

“Come closer and have a look. This is what the mutants look like.”

One by one, the people approached the mutant. The mutant’s occasional spasms scared them off a few steps, but seeing the boy’s hand tightly clenching its neck, they came right back to study the mutant.

“If you’re done watching it, let’s get to the training. Come out here one at a time and I’m gonna have the mutant grab your arm.“

“Yes?!”

“We’re here to teach you how to overcome fear. Since Yura-ssi is the leader, you’ll be the first. For the rest of you, let’s take turns from left to right. Now, come on out Yura-ssi.”

It took some time before Yura stepped up. With teary eyes, Yura approached the mutant, one step at a time. And just when she got to arm’s reach, a pair of rotten hands quickly snatched her arms.

Gasp!

Yura soon went completely stiff. Shaking the mutant’s arm off was supposed to be part of the training, but she didn’t budge an inch. Gyeoul swiftly struck the back of the mutant’s head. The mutant lost his grip on her arm and Yura quickly stepped back, but after a few steps, she dropped down on the floor and began to whimper. The other girls came from behind to comfort her.

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