The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 60

“Disliking only the aristocrats rather than all of Hanseong… this is a little unexpected.”

Skimming through what Mooyoung had recorded, the butterfly effect of saving Yoo Sanghyeon had been far greater than I anticipated.

Before my eyes appeared the footage of the city Mooyoung had sent.

A video filled with all the necessary information: soldiers deployed at the wall, military equipment, and more.

‘I sent him out for a walk since we’d come all this way, but why is he working this hard.’

Even so, thanks to him, I could grasp the current situation.

Tanks and armored vehicles interspersed among civilians were most likely units that had come out of their bases in advance to stand by in preparation for any possible incursion.

Given that monsters came charging in almost immediately after… it had been a sound precaution.

“The readiness posture and troop morale are far better than I expected, but… the quality of the equipment is a bit low?”

I muttered as I recalled the Iron Tiger Army’s equipment from my past life.

The equipment currently deployed inside the great wall was reserve materiel, each grade lower than what should have been there.

In other words, the main battle tanks and elite soldiers serving on the front line had all gone out somewhere beyond the fortress.

‘Imae mask. He didn’t bother to tell me that either.’

Even for a collaborator, revealing secrets this critical was out of the question, it seemed.

Looking loose while being unknowingly thorough, through and through.

But if my guess was right, the Iron Tiger Army was currently in a considerably more dangerous situation than I had assumed.

“The main force of Iron Tiger Fortress pulled away, and then a monster incursion on top of it. With the wall still standing, holding them off won’t be a problem, but… with the main force absent, the casualties will be significant.”

In other words, now was precisely the right moment to make an impression.

A smile settled on my face as I finished the thought.

“I was going to sleep in for once, but it looks like things won’t go as I’d like.”

The moment I said that.

Thud!

With a single thunderous crash, the wall beside the cell I had been sitting in was cleanly cut away.

A gap wide enough for two people to pass through at once.

Beyond it, Mooyoung was waiting for me, hwando sheathed at his side.

“I’ve come to collect you, Young Master.”

“Did you eat well? Looked like you were getting fed all sorts of things.”

“I should have saved some. My stomach still feels heavy…….”

I chewed on a strip of jerky Mooyoung had handed me and stepped out of the cell.

An armored vehicle was already waiting beside the collapsed prison wall.

“Oh ho, so you’ve finally arrived.”

When the door opened, out popped traveling merchant Gwak Cheolgon, the man I had been indebted to on the way here.

Pipe between his teeth, he flashed his grin at me.

“Your rickshaw is ready, Young Master. Where to?”

A rickshaw, he says.

Who does he think he is, some old tale character.

I let out a slight laugh at the passing nonsense and climbed slowly into the armored vehicle.

“The northernmost point of Iron Tiger Fortress. Inside the great wall.”

“My goodness, you want to go to that hell?”

“I have to. I need to see firsthand what the monster front line they keep talking about looks like.”

This was unknown territory I had never visited even in my past life.

Which was exactly why I needed to know.

What the Iron Tiger Army, who would become the driving force of the revolution, had been fighting.

What on earth had driven them to the choice called revolution.

And how to work my way in so that I could use them as my own hands and feet.

---

Huff… huff…….

A soldier gripping a worn rifle was drawing ragged breaths.

The reason his breathing was so labored was not only that his body was exhausted.

His first real combat since enlisting in the Iron Tiger Army.

He had steeled himself again and again, but his trembling body showed no sign of settling.

“Hey, recruit. Scared?”

“N, no sir!”

“Sure you’re not. Heh heh heh.”

When the senior soldier in the machine gun seat jabbed him in the side, a reflexively loud yelp burst out of him.

The veterans around him, apparently finding the recruit’s stiffness quite amusing, began snickering one by one.

“God, what is this at this stage of my service. I thought I’d been reassigned to rear duty and would never have to worry about dying again….”

The one cracking jokes to ease the mood was Sergeant Kwon Malseok.

He had served at the forward base for seven years, and now that his discharge was approaching, he had been assigned to the rear.

“Let’s eat something one last time before we die. Did anyone sneak out any canned peaches?”

“Of course, sir.”

“……Something like this.”

The recruit swallowed a dry lump in his throat and forced himself to speak, and Corporal Kwon, who had been eating canned food, looked over at him.

“Does something like this… happen often? Monsters pushing all the way to the wall…….”

“No, it’s pretty rare. This is my first time fighting here too.”

The corporal said this and pulled a cigarette out and put it between his lips.

He was pretending otherwise, but he was just as tense facing real combat as anyone.

Thud! Thud!

While he was thinking that, a heavy footfall sounded from behind them.

Military officers armored in artificial bodies and reinforced exoskeletons.

The ones wearing black military uniforms and pressing military caps down on their heads were the core of the Iron Tiger Army’s monster defense.

“Current status?”

“All garrison troops deployed and in position. Artillery is also set. The tank company is coming up the inner wall now.”

The one nodding at the report from a subordinate officer was Garrison Commander Jeong Hyoyeong, the officer in charge of defending the wall.

He issued a few brief instructions, then walked to where the soldiers were waiting.

Soldiers deployed at intervals throughout the wall.

Looking at their faces through his interface, the fear they were feeling seemed to be contagious.

“Troops. Can you hear my voice?”

At the garrison commander’s voice coming through the broadcast equipment, the murmuring soldiers fell quiet all at once.

But he could not leave them like that.

To give them strength to face their fear.

To erase the dread and fill its place with fighting spirit.

That was his role as their commander.

“Combat has finally come. There will be fresh recruits who just finished training, and there will be those picking up a rifle for the first time today. Some will die, and some will survive.”

His voice was flat and dry.

It might have been expected, from an inflexible superior who was quick to be called an iron face or a demon.

But that was fine.

Showing no sign of wavering even in this situation.

That alone was enough to visibly ease the tension among the soldiers.

“I have no intention of spouting nonsense to you about loyalty or honor. We are the abandoned, and Joseon will not remember us.”

“…….”

“So. Let us remember each other.”

Sound came from the distance.

The rumble of the earth shaking. For some soldiers, a sound they knew well.

At the same moment, the desolate plain beyond the horizon began to turn black.

Tens, hundreds of millions of deaths were surging toward the wall.

“Hold until we die. Fight with everything we have so that one more person can survive! Let one more person survive, so that those who live can remember you!”

Taking the commander’s words to heart, soldiers gripped their weapons one by one.

Loading high-explosive shells into self-propelled artillery, engines of tanks roaring, waiting for the next order.

And the moment the black swarm of monsters entered the firing range of the great wall.

“Let as many lives as possible remember our deaths! All gun ports open! Begin bombardment!”

A single cry, like the credo of the wall garrison, rang out, and thousands of howitzers mounted on the exterior of the wall belched fire.

The self-propelled artillery deployed behind the wall poured shells without pause, and mortars positioned throughout began spitting round after round.

Incendiary shells, cluster munitions.

Wide-area lethal weapons that could never be used in populated areas rained down on the no-man’s-land spread before the wall.

BOOM!

Blast pressure, fire, shockwaves.

Every describable form of destructive force began grinding the monsters that had entered the front line to dust.

-Large-type contact ahead! Eight hundred meters!

-2nd Armored Company is on it!

As one of the non-commissioned officers called out amid the endless muzzle flash, a radio transmission came back immediately.

Multi-angle tanks crawling up over the wall, moving their legs like spiders.

Dozens of tanks fixed their chassis to the wall surface, then stabilized their posture one by one.

“All vehicles in the company follow my command! Armor-piercing rounds loaded! Aim for the legs!”

“Number one, begin firing!”

“Number five, begin firing!”

BOOM!

When shells from dozens of tanks converged on it, a large-type monster rivaling a five-story building buckled to its knees, spraying blood and flesh.

When one fell, move to the next target.

When another fell, another target.

The dozens of vehicles moving in perfect unison were suppressing the large-type monsters with precise coordination, as though they were a single body.

ROAR!

Large-type monsters toppling over one by one with hideous cries.

The moment they were pinned, attack helicopters waiting in the air began pouring white phosphorus shells onto their backs.

Screams, bestial howls, artillery fire and the sounds of machinery.

A curtain of smoke and flame was incinerating every monster charging toward the wall.

“Assault-type monster cluster at the front! Bearing down on us!”

“All positions, open fire!”

What awaited the monsters that survived the first barrage was a kill zone blanketed in razor wire and landmines.

Heavy machine guns and autocannons mounted throughout the wall were tearing monster bodies apart.

“Come on then, you insane monsters! I’ll kill every last one of you……!”

But at that moment.

Thud!

“……Ugh?!”

“Sergeant Kwon!”

Something enormous that flew in from within the thick smoke pierced Corporal Kwon Malseok through the chest.

A long, elongated carapace shaped like a spear.

When the soldier beside him raised his eyes, there was a black creature shining with red eyes.

“Wh, what……?!”

“How did it get through that wall of fire……?”

Unlike the twisted and contorted other monsters, this one was covered in clean carapace.

Even with his heart run through, Sergeant Kwon Malseok squeezed out his last strength and raised his voice.

“Special individual in Sector 3!”

“Damn it all!”

“Fall back!”

Stopping the special individual forcing its way inside the wall was the duty of officers in military uniform.

Not a shred of phase power, but his whole body encased in artificial body plating to match.

“……!”

The officer who caught the thrusting spear plunged straight into the monster’s chest and seized it by the head.

“RAAAH!”

With a sound like cracking bone, he brought his fist down on the monster’s face and reduced it to pulp.

“Rotate the gunner! Move!”

“Yes, yes!”

While the recruit standing by the machine gun steadied his grip on it, the wounded soldier was immediately moved behind the guard post.

One non-commissioned officer, his face set hard, approached him.

After confirming Corporal Kwon’s wound, he let out a heavy sigh and pulled a small recorder from his chest.

“Soldier. Rank and name.”

“Identification number 01-772987. Sergeant Kwon Malseok. I have… kgh. I have one child, and a wife.”

Black tumors spreading out from the site of the monster’s wound.

Not even ten minutes had passed since he had been struck, and the monster-transformation had already begun to take hold.

“In accordance with Iron Tiger Army regulations, your discharge procedure will now be processed. Your final words?”

“To my wife…. please tell her there’s emergency money behind the family photo. The last time she found it I told her it was a wedding anniversary gift, but honestly I’d been saving it to buy a gaming console. Heh heh heh…….”

“And?”

“To the kids…. cough!”

After coughing once, dry, Corporal Kwon drew a long breath and spoke.

“That I love them. That being there with our Haeun… made dad so incredibly happy. Please tell them that. That’s all.”

“…Understood. 01-772987. Recording ended.”

The non-commissioned officer who had captured the last words in the small recorder looked out at the state of the battlefield and continued.

There was still time for about one more exchange.

“Our Malseok. You’ve worked hard.”

“You’ve worked hard too, Staff Sergeant Kim. In the end… I’m going first.”

“Right. Don’t worry about the family, and go in peace.”

After the brief farewell, the non-commissioned officer collected the dog tags and the watch and a lock of hair to serve as keepsakes, then drew a pistol from inside his uniform.

“We will remember you.”

Bang!

With a short gunshot, the soldier’s body went slack.

The moment the keepsakes were collected, the soldier’s remains were incinerated with a flamethrower.

“Sergeant Kwon……!”

“Damn it, damn it……!”

Tears filled the eyes of the soldiers clenching their teeth, but there was nothing that could be done.

A body that had made contact with a monster’s mucous membrane would transform into another monster, and an infection once spread like that would threaten the entire wall.

If not burned immediately, the entire wall could be put in danger.

“Casualties mounting all across the line. We’re holding for now, but if this keeps up, the front line could collapse……!”

“We’ve been caught off-guard.”

In the garrison command post, where the defensive battle was at its height.

Watching the monsters’ breach route appear on his interface, Garrison Commander Hyoyeong narrowed his eyes.

“An assault like this, at the very moment the main force has pulled out for the rift expedition.”

“The warning signal coming in one beat too late was the biggest mistake. If we’d known the monsters’ movements in advance, we might have been able to request air support, but….”

“Which forward base was closest to the monsters?”

At the commander’s question, one of the adjutants slowly spoke.

“The 3rd Forward Base, sir.”

“……Is that the one managed by the Defense Commander?”

Defense Commander Seong Ryeoun.

At the mention of that name, the officers around him made no effort to hide their discomfort.

“The 3rd Base again?”

“How many times is this now….”

“This is not something that can be brushed aside lightly. No matter that the General is on expedition, this is……!”

“Enough.”

Stopping the complaints erupting among the adjutants, Hyoyeong spoke.

“It’s already happened. Blaming anyone won’t change a thing.”

“But, Garrison Commander……!”

“Think of the soldiers. If they see us splitting apart, what will those fighting with their lives on the line think of us!”

Hyoyeong cut the matter off, though his own anger was rising just the same.

If only it had been a little faster. If only they had known a little sooner, so many more could have survived…!

“That’s correct. It’s not a good look for the Iron Tiger Army to be seen fracturing among themselves.”

“……!”

An unfamiliar voice from one corner of the command post.

The startled garrison commander and adjutants turned sharply in that direction.

“Who are you!”

“This is a restricted area! If you enter without authorization……!”

Before the reprimand could finish.

Seeing the man standing in the doorway, Garrison Commander Hyoyeong’s eyes narrowed.

A young boy in a black durumagi.

A face with sharp eyes…. one that had never been seen anywhere in Iron Tiger Fortress.

“However, a forward base that should be monitoring and keeping watch for monsters failing to fulfill its duty… is something difficult to simply overlook.”

“……Who are you?”

“Did no report come in from the checkpoint?”

Checkpoint.

Just as the garrison commander’s eyes widened at those words, Changwoon reached into his chest and withdrew a horse tablet, displaying it to them.

Not the usual toy he always carried, but a genuine tablet stamped with the Administration’s recognition code.

Presenting the Administration’s emblem floating in the air, Changwoon opened his mouth.

“A secret royal inspector has arrived.”