Convict Unit: Black Parade-Chapter 136 : Mission 10: The Hunters of Old (9)

“Wait!”
Just before the count hit zero, Concierge raised a hand. “If we start a bloodbath now, both sides will suffer heavy losses.”
Despite being completely surrounded, the convicts weren’t particularly tense. They were confident they would win. Still, it was obvious that even an ace team from Deck 8 would take some damage in a fight like this.
“How about we settle this with a one-on-one duel?” Concierge proposed.
The old soldiers exchanged bewildered glances.
“…Pfft.”
“Heh.”
“Puhahahahaha!”
They laughed.
“One-on-one? You want to fight one-on-one?”
“Are you serious, you bastard? Heheheh…!”
Frowning, Concierge struggled to grasp the situation.
The old soldier who had been counting down turned and yelled over his shoulder. “Vice-Commander! These fellas want to settle it one-on-one!”
“…”
“What’s the call?”
Then,
clank, clank, clank
.
With the sound of grating armor, a figure began to walk slowly from the rear of the formation to the very front.
The vice-commander of the Hunter guild, The Knights.
A warrior in full plate, the Hunter known as Chevalier, let out a low chuckle from within his helmet.
“One-on-one? I like it.”
Shing—
Chevalier drew his long, massive weapon—a claymore.
Supporting the flat of the blade with a gauntleted hand, Chevalier tilted his helmeted chin. “Who’s stepping up?”
Concierge’s expression turned grim as he adjusted his gloves. “The menial jobs fall to me.”
“Same here. My commander’s dirty work falls to me.”
Slowly lowering his stance, Chevalier tilted his head slightly.
“By the way, you boys have decent abilities… but you look like you’ve been taking it easy.”
“…?”
“You’ve got that well-fed sheen on your faces. Looks like you’ve been eating well, resting well, and playing well.”
A chilling aura poured from Chevalier’s entire body.
“We’ve been catching what sleep we can, crouched on a field of blades. No need to guess which of us is sharper, is there?”
“You talk too—”
Just as Concierge started to reply, a flash of steel split the air.
In the next instant, Chevalier was standing behind Concierge. His movements were impossibly swift for someone in such heavy armor.
And Concierge was missing both arms below the elbow.
The massive claymore, swung like a beam of light, had shorn off his forearms.
“Huh?”
Unable to process what had just happened, Concierge let out a dumb sound.
But the pain was honest. Blood gushed from the stumps of his arms, followed by an excruciating agony.
“Aah… AAAAARGH!”
As Concierge screamed and collapsed, the other convicts, who had been so relaxed moments before, were stunned.
Concierge handled the dirty work for the Deck 8 inmates. While not as strong as the deck’s main residents, he was still a formidable fighter—stronger, at the very least, than a typical Deck 7 convict.
And his ability was physical enhancement.
To not even be able to react in a head-on fight, to have both arms severed so easily…
He’s no ordinary opponent.
But more importantly, that move Chevalier had just made.
That cleaving strike, delivered in the same instant he moved behind his enemy.
Even the other three convicts hadn’t been able to properly
see
it.
No, he’s a master…!
Chevalier flicked his gauntleted fingers at the remaining, now-tense members of the Deck 8 team.
“What are you doing? You said one-on-one, didn’t you? Aren’t you going to take turns fighting me?”
Chevalier laughed cheerfully from within his helmet.
“Next!”
***
December 11, 2050, 12:30 AM.
Cheongnyangni Gate, lower level abandoned railway.
The Deck 5 team—convicts in animal-themed combat suits, led by Gomgomgom—was engaged in a fierce battle.
They were completely surrounded by The Knights, trapped in the abandoned subway tunnel with no way forward or back. Under the relentless assault, defeat seemed imminent.
But the suits they wore were performing perfectly, boasting superb protection that couldn’t be pierced by ordinary blades or bullets.
What’s more, all five were ranged specialists.
Deserters from the military, they fought tenaciously even in this situation, inflicting cumulative losses on The Knights.
During a lull in the fighting, Gomgomgom’s voice boomed from behind his bear mascot head.
“These suits we’re wearing are made from monster byproducts. They laugh off pathetic little things like bullets.”
“On the other hand, your casualties are mounting!”
“…”
“I have a proposal. Cease fire and open a path for our retreat. We’ll leave quietly. There’s no need for either side to suffer any more losses, is there?”
After a brief silence, an old soldier’s voice came from The Knights’ side.
“So, armor made from monster byproducts, you say?”
“That’s right. It’s incredibly tough and durable, not to mention aesthetically pleasing.”
“I see…”
Suddenly, the old soldier asked, “By the way, do you know where you are?”
“…?”
“This is Cheongnyangni Gate. A Permanent Gate where we hunt monsters year-round.”
With a heavy metallic
clank
, the thing The Knights had been waiting for appeared at the far end of the tunnel.
A large cannon.
“And this is a shell specially designed to tear those monsters to shreds, you dumb fucks.”
The old soldier fired the cannon without hesitation.
“Wai—!”
Gomgomgom tried to say something, but the shell had already been fired.
It struck the Deck 5 team’s position with perfect accuracy.
BOOM!
Black Parade Convict Unit, Deck 5 Team.
Annihilated by anti-monster artillery fire during engagement.
***
The body cams of the Deck 5 team flashed brightly before the connections were severed all at once.
“…”
Each time a team was wiped out, Hae-eun activated their bomb collars—their Guillotines—without a second thought. It was to destroy any of their intel and, if possible, inflict a little more damage on the enemy.
The Deck 8 team…
As she switched her view to the Deck 8 convicts’ body cams, the screen spun wildly, showing a brief glimpse of the ceiling.
A decapitated head, still wearing the body cam choker, had been sent flying into the air.
Wiped out.
The Deck 8 convicts were undoubtedly an elite force, but they’d had the misfortune of running into the wrong opponent.
Chevalier. Vice-commander of the Hunter guild, The Knights. Within the guild, he was considered second in strength only to Iron Knight himself.
Excluding the ten S-Rank Hunters, he was one of the most powerful individuals in the entire country.
Of all the people for the Deck 8 team to run into.
Hae-eun activated the Guillotines for the Deck 8 members as well. The body cam feeds dissolved into static and went dark.
Black Parade Convict Unit, Deck 8 Team.
Killed in a series of one-on-one duels against The Knights’ vice-commander, Chevalier.
Black Parade Convict Unit, Deck 5, 6, 7, and 8 Teams.
All members KIA.
Four of the nine teams dispatched by the Black Parade—the four from the upper decks—had been cleanly wiped out within thirty minutes of deployment, but Hae-eun’s expression remained untroubled.
“Far more survived than we initially expected,” she said to Director Yang, who sat across from her in the conference room.
“Half of them successfully infiltrated.”
Director Yang pressed a hand over his eyepatch, then looked at Hae-eun.
“What about the ones who survived? Can we count on them?”
“Of course,” Hae-eun replied with a placid smile.
“Every last one of them is completely reliable.”
***
December 11, 2050, 12:45 AM.
Cheongnyangni Gate outskirts, sewage treatment facility.
Bubble, bubble…
The sewage in the tank connected to the septic system began to churn violently.
Then, with a series of retching sounds…
“Pwaah!”
“Uweck!”
“Gwaaaack!”
Five convicts shot out with a backflow of raw sewage.
They scrambled and flailed, barely managing to crawl out of the facility.
“Geghh! Urk! Aaack! The smell!” Razor, leader of the Deck 1 team, ripped off his wetsuit and dry-heaved.
“Goddammit, seriously! I never thought I’d end up swimming upstream in a river of shit! Fuck!”
Beside him, Jae-hee and Status Window were speechless, continuously gagging.
Rabid Dog, whose sense of smell was particularly sensitive, had already passed out in the wave of filth.
“Hey everyone~ why the long faces?”
Only one person was smiling amidst the sewage-drenched hellscape: the tattooed woman with a soju bottle, callsign Soju Bottle.
“They say smiling brings good fortune, you know~?”
“How can you smile in a situation like this… Urrp.”
Jae-hee had nothing left to throw up, but he kept gagging anyway.
Soju Bottle put a hand on his shoulder.
Fwoosh!
All the filth caked onto his body instantly transformed into a clear liquid.
“Huh? What the?” Jae-hee gawked in shock.
Soju Bottle grinned, her braces flashing. “This is my ability.”
“H-holy moly, Soju Bottle sis! That’s an amazing ability! What is it? Purification?”
“Nope? It’s ‘Making Soju from Water.’”
“…?”
“Heeheehee.”
Indeed, the sewage on Jae-hee’s body had all turned into soju. The smell of alcohol was potent, but it was a vast improvement over the septic tank.
Once Soju Bottle had cleaned off the whole team, a look of relief spread across their faces.
“Ahh~ smells good. Maybe I’ll have a little taste…”
Soju Bottle then stuck out her long tongue, aiming to lick Jae-hee’s neck.
Horrified, Jae-hee yelped and pushed her away. “What do you think you’re doing?!”
“I just wanted to taste the booze I made…” Soju Bottle pouted.
The A-Rank convict Soju Bottle’s ability was Brewing.
With a single touch, she could turn most liquids into soju.
And the green bottle she always carried could turn any liquid inside it into a medicinal liquor.
This liquor could be imbued with various effects, from temporary physical enhancement to making someone’s entire body explode after ten seconds—the applications were wildly unpredictable.
“A potion~ to make you feel~ good~!”
Most of the time, however, she just cranked up the alcohol content and chugged it herself.
Soju Bottle looked blissful as she drank straight from the green bottle.
Ignoring the alcoholic, Razor pressed his eye to a crack in the door and quickly scanned their surroundings.
“The sewage treatment facility itself has guards. But it looks like they don’t check this deep inside… where it connects to the septic tank.”
“Why not?”
“Because who wants to stand guard while smelling shit all day?”
“Ah.”
Just outside their room, a single Hunter from The Knights could be seen slowly patrolling the corridor.
Peeking through the crack, Razor watched the old soldier’s back recede down the hall before letting out a sigh of relief.
“Anyway… For now, we’ve successfully infiltrated.”
Peering out alongside him, Jae-hee asked, “You think the other teams made it in safely?”
“If a bottom-feeder team like us got in, I’m sure they did.”
Razor slumped to the floor and leaned comfortably against the wall.
“The high-level pros from the upper decks will handle a tough mission like this. We’ll just lay low, kill some time, and go back in one piece.”
Just then, Status Window started rummaging through the waterproof bag he’d brought.
“By the way, all that swimming made me hungry, you know desu?”
“The hell are you talking about… You still have an appetite after swimming against a river of shit?”
“They say life is good even when you’re rolling in shit, and the best part of being alive is the food desu. You gotta eat to live desu.”
“I swear, this guy isn’t human. Bet his real ability is pig-ification.”
Ignoring Razor’s insults, Status Window pulled something from his bag.
“I even have a warm sandwich that Patissier packed for us desu!”
In front of a dumbfounded Razor, Status Window actually unwrapped the sandwich and began to munch on it.
“Delicious… I can feel the warmth… I can taste Patissier-kun’s love in every bite desu…”
“Hey! Save the emergency rations!”
“Don’t worry desu. I’m saving my sandwich desu.”
“What? Then whose are you eating right now?”
“Razor-kun said he didn’t have an appetite, so I’m eating his for him desu.”
“Is this bastard a real psycho?!”
While the two bickered, Soju Bottle chugged from her bottle, and Rabid Dog remained unconscious.
Jae-hee kept watch through the crack in the door, biting his lip.
Master… she’s all right, isn’t she?