Hiding a Logistics Center in the Apocalypse – Episode 35
(Gravity and Grace (2))
“Retreat! Retreat!”
The haughty voices of the paladins who had been mocking us were nowhere to be found.
The [Piercing] rounds tore through their silver armor like paper, and startled by the unfamiliar marvels of modern warfare, they tumbled onto their rear ends and scrambled to flee.
Of course, our bullets were faster than their flight.
Thanks to that, we had gunned down about half of the paladins who had been jeering at the front, and the ensuing Hellfire missiles we fired caught the rest, sending the great majority of them to a different fate.
However, because there had been priests among them displaying healing abilities, we were unable to prevent a few from somehow escaping.
“…It’s not like they can leave Yeouido anyway.”
They could not escape Yeouido.
After all, the Gate Core they had to protect was sitting right there in the National Assembly Building.
*Clunk!*
*Clunk!*
I deployed six Black Hawks in a line in front of the Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market.
*Clack-clack!*
The rhythmic sound of military boots.
The special forces operators moved in perfect unison to their positions.
Each and every one of them was an expert marksman who never missed a shot, but…
That wasn’t all they had.
“To your positions!”
A considerable number of them were also specialists capable of piloting helicopters.
Two pilots climbed into the cockpit of each helicopter, and six more soldiers boarded the transport cabins.
As for the helicopter I was in, Yongsu took the controls once again.
However, since we needed a technician to fire the mounted missiles, a fire control officer from the JCS side strapped himself into the gunner’s seat.
Kim Sol, Bedivier, and I boarded the transport cabin with enhanced rifles.
Meanwhile, Lancelot, Big Sis, and the remaining soldiers stayed behind to suppress the enemies on the ground.
*Thwump-thwump-thwump-thwump!*
The six Black Hawks took flight.
A truly magnificent sight.
For a brief moment, I caught sight of the paladins sneering at the helicopters, but…
*Boom!*
*Crash!*
They were given an immediate lesson.
The glass of the high-rise buildings in Yeouido shattered.
Beneath them, a paladin clad in thick armor was swallowed by a sea of flames.
Hellfire missiles imbued with [Piercing] and [Explosion].
Each helicopter was loaded with sixteen Hellfires.
“Hii… hiiiik!”
The paladins’ faces were painted with terror.
The hellfire falling from the sky.
It was more than enough to instill fear in them.
*Thwump-thwump-thwump-thwump…*
Now fully airborne,
just as we were slowly approaching the National Assembly Building, where their base was located—
“What’s… that?”
I spotted an unfamiliar sight.
I had clearly seen the National Assembly Building collapsed into rubble.
Yet rising atop that very spot was the framework of an unfamiliar structure.
*Clang!*
*Clang-clang!*
The sound of hammers reached me through the wraiths.
So clear and resonant that it pierced right through the helicopter’s rotor noise.
That was when it happened.
*Boom!*
*Bang!*
The source of the sound was Helicopter Two, flying beside us.
The second Black Hawk’s frame shook, spewing black smoke.
A long spear enveloped in dazzling light was impaled in the helicopter, and pitch-black flames began to surge up beside the engine room.
“…You bastards.”
The culprits were the paladins on the ground.
They were hurling spears with their monstrous strength, intercepting the helicopters.
The sacred energy emanating from them made them truly Holy Lances (聖槍).
—Down! Down!
The frantic voice of Helicopter Two’s pilot came through the radio.
I too sent a signal over the radio.
“Bail out!”
Unlike fighter jets, helicopters had no ejection systems.
Being intercepted meant it was essentially a death sentence.
But it was fine.
The maximum capacity of my Level 4 Subspace was a whopping hundred people, and I had already registered every soldier participating in this operation in the subspace.
*Clunk!*
Without a moment’s hesitation,
the pilots and the soldiers in the transport cabin leaped from the helicopter.
As if answering their faith, I rescued them all without exception via
*Swoooosh!*
The ownerless helicopter immediately began to nosedive.
And then…
*Boom-boom!*
*KABOOM!*
It vanished without a trace due to the chain explosion of its mounted missiles.
*Swish!*
*Bang!*
The enemies’ spear throws continued, and more helicopters fell as well.
After I had pulled all the falling soldiers into my subspace,
“…It’s just us now.”
Only one helicopter remained in the sky: Helicopter One, the one I was riding in.
The reason we were unscathed was thanks to Kim Sol in the transport cabin.
*Clang!*
*Cling!*
The result of leveling up over the past week.
She could now form a barrier even at a short distance from her body, and using her dynamic vision, she alternated between watching the left and right doors of the transport cabin, nimbly deflecting the incoming spears.
*Thwump-thwump-thwump-thwump!*
The ground forces led by Lancelot suppressed the enemies’ spear throws,
*Clang!*
and after Kim Sol deflected the spears in the transport cabin for some time,
we finally reached their starting point.
The spot where the National Assembly Building once stood.
Atop the central stairs, a priest in extravagantly ornate vestments was bellowing at the top of his lungs.
A priestly robe so white it was blinding.
He wore a crimson shoulder mantle and a cap embroidered with golden thread.
He shouted.
“People of the Earth dimension, hear me!”
*Groooan…*
His voice boomed as if the earth would tremble.
His shoulder mantle flared skyward, and as if carrying his voice on the wind, he began to preach their logic to us.
“The benevolent Goddess Emes has spoken! There was a prophecy since the beginning of time for Earth and this Korea of yours! Hear me, leaders of your people. I have come to declare that you are the chosen people!”
For a moment, the otherworldly fanatic had started treating us with kid gloves, but…
“Your Earth is livestock granted to our Emes! You are two-legged cattle! Lick Emes’s holy feet to prove your worth, and bear witness to the heaven that shall be built upon this land! So has Goddess Emes decreed!”
He then treated us to the unique brand of lunacy that only fanatics could spout, making my head throb.
“What the hell is wrong with these crazies…?”
The Knight King who had wanted to pickle Earthlings into kimchi, and the primitive tribe Tonatiuh who had wanted to roast us alive—this was a different approach altogether.
It seemed invasions came in all sorts of justifications and rationales.
They were all utterly blind.
What was nonsensical and absurd to us was, to them, a clear future laid out like rails on a track.
“Target in range!”
The voice of the fire control officer in the gunner’s seat came through.
We had drawn quite close to the unidentified building framework—
the place set as the Emes dimension’s starting point, where the Gate Core waited to hatch.
What we had to smash to pieces.
I grabbed the radio and replied.
“Fire!”
*Fwoosh!*
*Fwoosh!*
Sixteen Hellfire missiles flew in rapidly.
*BOOM!*
*BOOM!*
The roar crashed in like raging waves, but…
“It’s not breaking…?”
The target was intact.
Their building did not even waver.
Instead, it was slowly being covered with steel plates on all sides.
Given that less than an hour had passed since the battle began, this was an utterly terrifying construction speed.
“Deploy.”
I tried dropping a helicopter loaded to the brim with Hellfire missiles vertically, but…
*KABOOM!*
“…Damn it.”
It only trembled from the explosion; the majesty of the unidentified structure surrounding the Gate Core remained intact.
As if to mock me, the priest’s sermon continued.
“Blasphemous ones, descendants of Earth! Do you truly believe you can destroy the holy temple blessed by the Goddess? Its frame is built of white timber and divine steel infused with the Goddess’s grace. It shall become an ark that you slaves of Earth must bear forth with your own bodies. So too has Emes decreed!”
Each and every syllable grated cleanly against my eardrums.
Just as irritation was beginning to well up…
“……?”
My eyes caught a massive tent erected nearby.
It was enormous, easily half the size of the former National Assembly Building.
Only here were no paladins visible.
Only workers from the Emes dimension busily moving about the construction site.
The framework rising quickly.
Workers scurrying beneath it like ants.
I could easily guess what the tent was.
“…It’s a materials warehouse.”
*Swish!*
*Swish!*
Spears flew in fiercely one after another.
Through the radio, I relayed the plan to the cockpit.
“We’re going down!”
*Clunk!*
Without a second’s delay, the cockpit door opened.
Via
*Crash!*
The ownerless helicopter slammed straight into the ground.
***
*Whirrr.*
We immediately squeezed back out through the portal.
Over forty special forces operators took the lead in a disciplined formation.
The place we arrived was the Emes dimension’s materials warehouse.
“…Die!”
The workers greeted us by raising their blades.
*Bang!*
Bedivier swung his powerful arms to receive their greeting,
*Ratatatatat!*
and the special forces operators’ [Electrocution] rounds pierced between the enemies’ eyebrows.
Thus, when we reached the interior of their materials warehouse,
“Wow…”
I couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration.
Piled high were construction materials emitting a soft glow.
Massive H-shaped steel beams like those seen at construction sites.
Blessed rebars stacked like bundles, boasting a panoramic sheen.
And even an unidentified cement shining like sand on a beach.
“Wait…”
A flash of inspiration crossed my mind.
“If only this warehouse were gone…”
Their temple, whose sturdiness was impossible to even estimate.
We would be able to stop that very temple from being built.
Furthermore…
“…We might even smash the Gate Core to pieces.”
The fanatic priest’s words came to mind.
Had he not called it a temple blessed by the Goddess?
Seeing how every single material emitted a radiant glow, it was clear that the so-called Goddess had pre-imbued them with blessings.
However…
“The Goddess clearly doesn’t know a thing.”
This wasn’t a totem faith, so what did she mean by smearing blessings on steel pillars?
Therefore, I intended to teach them properly.
Those fanatics, and of course, the Goddess Emes as well.
What true grace really was.
“Pax, put this materials warehouse in the subspace.”
Following the logistics center, this would be the second warehouse to enter the subspace.
Pax spoke.
[Target designated. Would you like to save?]
‘Yes.’
[Initiating save.]
“Urk!”
Nausea washed over me, and Bedivier, Little Sis, and the soldiers with rifles did their utmost to protect me.
And finally, when I came to my senses,
a familiar emptiness after a meal filled my vision.
Beyond the vanished materials warehouse, the empty horizon of the Han River was visible.
I moved urgently.
“It’s done! Let’s go!”
I immediately deployed a helicopter, and Yongsu and Little Sis scrambled aboard.
There was no time to load Bedivier and the fire control officer.
*Thwump-thwump-thwump-thwump-thwump!*
Perhaps because the materials warehouse had vanished entirely,
the enemies’ confusion could be felt implicitly.
*Swish-swish!*
As if to represent this, the spears they threw were growing noticeably more numerous.
*Clang!*
*Cling!*
There was no room to breathe.
Kim Sol madly deflected the flying spears,
and we spun the rotors with all our might.
Higher, higher we kicked off into the sky.
“Maximum altitude!”
Without even bothering to turn on the radio, Yongsu tore his throat shouting…
and I intoned.
“Deploy.”
Like offering up a small prayer.
And then…
*Thud.*
Beneath the helicopter’s skids, a massive lump of steel in the shape of an H appeared out of nowhere.
An H-beam of faint white light, floating like a cloud.
*Swoosh…*
That massive object slowly began to fall.
For true blessings have always descended from the heavens.
How heavy that grace would be, I could scarcely fathom.
Moreover…
“Deploy.”
They were beyond counting.
*WHAM!*
A sound that threatened to tear my skull apart.
That sound continued endlessly.
*WHAM!*
*WHAM!*
*CRASH!*
H-beams rained down like rain, and in another sense, like light.
That blessed weight crushed the iron frame of the Emes temple like a toy.
And then…
It was not difficult to imagine what would follow.
*Crack!*
A sound absurdly light.
Beneath the collapsed temple framework, the yolk of the Gate Core spread out like blood.
“…!”
I couldn’t help but furrow my brow.
The yolk of life.
Within that sticky golden mucus were jumbled messes of tiny blood vessels and the organs of unknown creatures all mixed together.
It was truly a bizarre sight.
Enough to make one retch involuntarily.
And then…
What remained was administrative procedure.
[Registration Number 0471. In the bid competition held in the ‘Seoul’ region, residents of the Earth dimension have emerged victorious.]
[Victory reward of 5,000 magic stones will be distributed differentially according to contribution.]
[Dimensional accounts will be issued to all 100 participants.]
[The business rights in the ‘Retel’ dimension previously held by the Emes dimension are transferred and vested to the Seoul representative.]
Those incomparably rigid Chamber of Commerce bastards.
They announced our victory.