Dirty Sweet Baby Chapter 82

A swarm of flying creatures clumped together like a cloud, covering the sky in black. If left alone, they would crash directly into the unmanned helicopter.

‘Damn it.’

This was clearly no time to be calmly assessing the situation.

Heeheon calmly lowered his stance, shouldered his loaded rifle, and shot down the winged abominations one by one. The bullets flew without delay, accurately piercing the creatures’ cores. It was truly a perfect record. Every time Baek Heeheon fired a single bullet, a creature’s corpse fell.

Standing beside him, Cha Moogyul also pressed his rifle firmly to his shoulder and shot the creatures one by one. The swarms of creatures flying toward the helicopter began to fall one after another like rain. The two continued their conversation while destroying cores side-by-side as if in a competition.

“Cha Moogyul. What are you going to do now?”

Honestly, he felt devastated.

Now that he had arrived on the scene, the situation was far more grim than what he had seen on the broadcast screen. The creatures covering the ground alone were swarming like insects, too numerous for the AI to even estimate, and now an even greater number of creatures were flocking in from the sky.

“What’s the plan?”

He hoped Cha Moogyul was right.

He hoped the conviction he had seen was still intact.

But… if the situation was this dire, there might be no other choice but to abandon and seal off the 3rd Residential District. Literally abandoning this area and fleeing. At this rate, all that would be left would be countless casualties and irreversible damage.

And even that was a scenario only possible if the evacuation was carried out properly and on time. If it wasn’t enough to lose the hard-won residential district to the creatures, if they couldn’t even buy enough time for the civilians to evacuate safely, then…

‘Everyone will die…’

“It’s simple.”

Cha Moogyul, holding his rifle in a stable, textbook posture, fired with speed and precision. As expected, it was a perfect aim. Screeeech! Another flying creature shrieked and plummeted. His marksmanship was improving beyond recognition.

“Simple?”

Still, it wasn’t enough to catch up to him yet. Heeheon, who emptied his magazine faster with quicker shots, glanced at him out of the corner of his eye while reloading with a new magazine. With eyes burning fiercely like flames, Cha Moogyul was calmly drawing out his blue ability.

“Utilizing the infrastructure.”

In the clear sky, the electric currents of his ability system crackled, and static electricity rose with a tingling sensation.

At that moment, a realization like a bolt of lightning pierced through his head.

Heeheon blinked rapidly as he thought.

‘Ah. That’s right.’

The city was filled with electricity.

All Cha Moogyul had to do was pull it out and use it.

So, to Cha Moogyul, this entire residential district was no different from his personal storage unit.

“Hyung. Can you manually pilot the helicopter?”

…Pilot a helicopter?

“Are you telling me to fly an unmanned helicopter right now?”

“You can’t?”

Can’t… No, what was he talking about?

He had to. He had to do it. The great wavering in Heeheon’s eyes subsided calmly.

“I can. Probably.”

The memory from training was extremely faint, and he had only skimmed the manual once or twice, but he felt he had to manage it somehow.

“Look. Due north.”

Amidst the black swarm of creatures, a large steel structure came into view. The dark, frantic flapping of wings obstructed his vision, but Heeheon could clearly identify what it was.

A transmission tower.

A towering transmission tower stood as if to show off, with high-voltage power lines dangling from it.

“Go there.”

“…”

“Just do that, and I’ll unleash a thunderbolt for you.”

A clear-cut voice without hesitation, unwavering eyes filled with conviction, and the flow of immense energy leaking from Cha Moogyul…

His every word, his expression, his minor attitudes and gestures, kept pulling Heeheon in. It was as if an invisible force was beating against Heeheon’s chest like a drum.

Heeheon muttered softly.

“…You really.”

How.

How on earth could Cha Moogyul.

“Have no openings at all?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re never shaken by anything. You’re never flustered, not even once.”

Even at a time like this, he was indifferent, nonchalant, and utterly perfect.

‘Is this what it means to be overwhelming?’

Heeheon found his decisiveness, drive, and judgment to be beyond the point of envy and simply admirable. He made the optimal decision in an instant and carried it out casually, as if he had a complete plan from the very beginning.

Moreover, to him, something of this level wasn’t even worth boasting about. It was utterly natural, as if it was meant to be from the start.

He let out a smirk.

“This is ridiculous.”

Following up, Cha Moogyul, who had fired until the very end, lowered the muzzle of his gun. The fierce wind blew his black hair about spectacularly.

“I’m not shaken? Me?”

Cha Moogyul took off his shoulder strap and carelessly tossed his rifle aside. The weapon fell to the helicopter floor and slid into a corner.

“Says the one who shakes me up so much.”

“What…?”

“You understood me. More importantly, First Lieutenant Baek Heeheon.”

Cha Moogyul called Heeheon by his rank. He was staring beyond the cleared patch of sky, at what lay past the remaining creatures.

“I need to get a feel for this. Can I leave it to you?”

Letting out a single, quiet, low breath, Cha Moogyul stood in a relaxed posture with both arms hanging down. A tingling, flashing blue ability began to swirl and spread out from him, who stood stock-still like an old tree. Light began to gather from him.

Like lightning gathering in the sky, a high-voltage current formed, enveloping Cha Moogyul’s entire body. And it was compressed, radiating an increasingly stronger energy. An extraordinary power gathered, condensed, and took form with Cha Moogyul’s body as its focal point.

“…Alright. Leave it to me.”

Leaving the concentrating Cha Moogyul, Heeheon’s expression changed completely. Now that he had a concrete grasp of what he needed to do, there was no time to delay.

Gunshots erupted in succession from Heeheon’s reloaded rifle muzzle. His head, focused to its limit, grew hot, and his lips became parched. At this moment, nothing could distract him.

It was a strange experience. Heeheon did not blink, nor did he breathe carelessly. He performed only the necessary tasks without any waste whatsoever. That wasn’t all. Time seemed to slow as if a rubber band were being stretched, and his five senses became sharpened to their limit, giving him a sense of omnipotence, as if he could do anything.

‘Right now, I feel like I could hit the target even with my eyes closed.’

As if possessed, Heeheon fired his rifle wildly. The rifle spat fire repeatedly, and the flapping creatures fell helplessly. Every shot he fired, without any preparatory motion, caused a creature’s core to burst like a firecracker, and a path opened.

‘Cha Moogyul entrusted his back to me.’

For now, his only thought was to open the path he needed.

Opening the way.

Heeheon had not yet realized it, but that was much like the essence of a guide. To lead an esper, muddled by imbalance, in the right direction. To guide and take them to the right place. The very purpose and definition of a guide’s existence. It was a realization he would naturally come to on the day he became a veteran guide in the distant future.

Heeheon fired wildly in a state of self-annihilation until the new magazine was empty, and when the northern route to the transmission tower opened, he abruptly came to his senses. The clear autumn sky, wide open, was guiding him.

‘I see it.’

The spiky steel tower.

The thick high-voltage power lines.

The path Heeheon had to take was revealed.

Leaving Cha Moogyul, who was concentrating and drawing out his powerful ability with unprecedented care, Heeheon jumped into the cockpit. If he had known this would happen, he would have thoroughly memorized the combat helicopter piloting manual! Gripping the controls with both hands, Heeheon clenched his teeth hard.

‘Coordinates. Input coordinates!’

He scanned his ID tag to link it with his goggles and initiated manual control. The helicopter advanced rapidly northward. And of course, as soon as the unmanned helicopter began to operate manually, communications from the Center headquarters came flooding in.

Heeheon urgently accepted the communication to share the situation. The propeller was so loud that he had to practically shout his report.

“5th Administrative, Task Force, First Lieutenant Baek Heeheon! I will commence video broadcast!”

Crackle-zzzzzzzt!

Meanwhile, the ability Cha Moogyul was drawing out swelled like an avalanche, sending a chill down his spine. The tips of his hands and feet tingled and stung as if he were being electrocuted, and to make matters worse, the core in his chest, resonating with the powerful Awakened, overreacted as if it would explode at any moment. Heeheon, almost in a trance, piloted the helicopter, communicated with headquarters, and shouted sharply.

“Cha Moogyul! Don’t overdo it!”

Wait a minute. Isn’t this a bit too much?

No matter how unmeasurable an S-rank he was, was it okay to draw out his ability to this extent?

Cha Moogyul was an esper who had just awakened, to the point that he couldn’t even perceive his own core yet…

“Cha Moogyul!”

But there was no reply.

As if he was too focused to hear anything, even more power flocked to him. At that moment, as if on cue, the helicopter stopped above the transmission tower, and the ability under his control instantly snatched the current flowing through the high-voltage transmission lines.

The wires used for transmission towers are generally not insulated. Covering them with something like rubber sheathing would make them heavy and cause load-bearing problems. Connected to the uninsulated wires, Cha Moogyul himself began to emit a pure white light.

At some point, the creatures that had been covering the sky, unable to withstand the ominous energy, turned and fled in the opposite direction. The creatures gathered on the ground were also fleeing. Fleeing creatures were indeed very easy targets to attack.

Now, the preparations were complete.

A high-temperature, brilliant light like nuclear fusion floated in the sky.

The once-blue sky was now stained pure white.

A white night.

From the white, swirling ability, a high-density electric current burst out all at once as if exploding. The lightning generated from it connected the sky and the earth, striking down in a single instant.

RUUUUUUUUUUUMBLE!

Everything was a brilliant blue light.