Chapter 21 – Military Base (2)

Running towards the sound of gunfire, I found the ammunition depot as expected.

Behind the base, dug into a low hill and enclosed by concrete walls, the ammunition depot still looked very sturdy.

I stopped our group at a distance from the depot. We couldn’t rush in without checking, as bullets were flying everywhere.

With the group, I hid behind a building that looked like a warehouse to observe the ammunition depot.

The depot was located at the foot of a low hill to the north, in an open area devoid of surrounding buildings, like other bases.

It looked like an ordinary ammunition depot, but the sturdy-looking door was now open. In front of the door was a shallow barricade hastily built with sandbags.

Dozens of undead were advancing towards the depot in the open area.

Tututatatata!

Those undead were being blown apart by bullets fired from behind the barricade in front of the depot door.

If it were ordinary guns without mana, the undead wouldn’t fall so easily,

But the bullets being fired now weren’t from rifles, but from machine guns.

The bullets sprayed from the machine guns were literally shredding the undead.

“Hahahahaha, die! All of you die! Die!”

Amidst the machine gun fire, screams that sounded like shouts could be heard.

A half-hoarse voice. Crazed shouting.

Seeing the bullets fired in all directions, it wasn’t just crazy-sounding, it was actually crazy.

‘Judging by the lack of other presences, it seems there’s only one mad soldier firing the machine gun.’

I sighed at the continued bizarre laughter.

The first living person we met, and it’s a madman.

“Should I be grateful it’s not an evil spirit at least?”

“A lone soldier driven mad… It’s been a while since we’ve seen this.”

Hoffman immediately understood the situation without me having to explain.

After all, going mad like this wasn’t unusual when fighting the Demon King.

The battle against the Demon King. Fighting the undead was that difficult.

Even ordinary wars cause PTSD, but fighting the undead was several times more traumatic.

Comrades and friends you knew becoming corpses trying to kill you,

Evil spirits whispering in your ears, overflowing malice constantly corrupting your mind – it was impossible to stay sane.

In fact, even drug addict Hoffman and I could hardly claim to be normal.

“Can we bring him back? Holy water won’t work since it’s not corruption from evil spirits or malice.”

I agreed with Hoffman’s assessment.

“Kekekeke, Sergeant Choi is here, and Private Kim is here too. Die Sergeant! Die Private!”

While malice likely played a role, the soldier firing the machine gun at the undead was clearly driven mad by excessive stress rather than external factors.

He needed long-term psychiatric treatment and observation, not holy water or a priest’s healing, but we didn’t have time for that.

“But it feels wrong to just leave him…”

He was the first person from this world we’d met. It was hard to simply ignore him.

Hoffman spoke up again at my words.

“But it would be difficult for us to travel with a madman right now. And his weapon makes it hard to approach…”

Hoffman had a point. It was hard enough traveling with sane civilians, let alone a madman.

Moreover, rushing into that hail of bullets to save a madman wasn’t an easy task either…

Plus, the sense that made me stop our group was still warning me.

As I pondered this, I heard the elf girl Zahina speak up beside me.

“I may be able to treat mental illness.”

Both Hoffman and I looked at the elf at Zahina’s quiet words.

“If it’s not due to the Demon King, I should be able to stabilize him somewhat as a nature mage.”

The nature mage profession seemed similar to the spirit magic I knew – did she have a mental spirit or something?

I looked Zahina up and down before agreeing with her words.

“It looks like you could do it even without being a nature mage.”

Zahina gave me a puzzled look, but Hoffman nodded at my words.

Any soldier would have to come to his senses seeing the elf’s pretty face.

Or maybe he’d lose his mind even more.

Either way, we now had sufficient reason to save the mad soldier.

Just then, the gunfire stopped.

There were no more intact zombies left in the open area in front of the ammunition depot.

Even zombies that could withstand rifles without mana couldn’t withstand the armor-piercing rounds of a machine gun.

It would be different for the Demon King’s forces that had crushed this base’s troops from outside, but the undead gathered in front of the ammunition depot were zombies created from the dead soldiers of this base.

Ordinary zombies couldn’t regenerate shattered flesh.

“Well then, shall we go meet our mad soldier?”

Looking at the cleared open area, Hoffman tried to take the lead as usual.

“Wait, hold on.”

I quickly stopped him.

Hoffman looked at me.

“Are there more undead left?”

I shook my head at his words.

I hadn’t stopped him because more zombies were coming.

“Kekekeke, did you see? Did you see! Even if you come back to life, you can’t touch me! It’s useless even if you bring the battalion commander or division commander!”

It wasn’t because of the mad soldier still ranting either.

I stopped him because of my mana detection.

Intense malice rising from the open area strewn with shattered flesh, bones, and blood.

A primal dark energy different from the malice felt from corpses or flowing through the air was rising up.

Before long, it seemed the others could sense that energy too.

Zahina frowned, and Hoffman glared at the open area, clicking his tongue.

“Damn, is it that?”

I nodded at his words.

“That’s right. A Hulk.”

“Tch, I thought it was too peaceful.”

Hoffman grumbled as he put away his crossbow and drew his sword.

“Ah, a Hulk. You mean a giant corpse, right?”

Zahina belatedly realized what we were talking about.

“Leaving a trap behind. Whichever of the Demon King’s generals passed through here was quite the nasty one.”

As I listened to Hoffman’s words, I stood up.

The dark energy, the mana corrupted by malice, had reached the surface.

Puhak!

A mound of earth erupted from amidst the sea of flesh and blood.

Through the rising dirt, I saw a black skeleton, a black skeleton, leaping out of the ground.

The black skeleton landed on the ground, radiating corrupted mana.

Drrrrr.

At the same time, the blood, flesh, and bones scattered across the open area began to move.

Blood surged towards the black skeleton at the center, with bones and flesh rushing in.

Kwagwagwagwa!

Other bones attached to the black bones, with flesh and blood filling in on top.

It was like rewinding time to revive a body that had been reduced to bones.

We could only watch this scene from outside the open area.

“Damn, without a mage, we have to just stand by and watch this.”

If we had a mage, we might have been able to interfere somewhat with magic from afar.

But swordsmen like me would just get caught up in that black mana and become undead flesh if we approached carelessly.

The same went for Hoffman, and I didn’t expect anything from the elf girl.

Slap, slap.

Watching the flesh being filled in from here felt like being a villain forced to watch a magical girl’s transformation scene.

As we watched, the flesh, bones, and blood strewn across the open area disappeared from view.

They had all become materials for the new undead.

In the center of the now-clean open area stood a giant over 3 meters tall.

A massive bipedal monster with flesh, blood, and bones haphazardly tangled together. The vaguely human-like monster raised its head and looked at the ammunition depot.

This monster was the type of Demon King’s troop that soldiers called a Hulk and elves called a giant corpse.

A giant made by mashing together shattered corpses, a corpse golem.

It was actually closer to an undead chimera, but due to mages’ protests that the term chimera couldn’t be applied to undead simply mashed together, it came to be called a corpse golem.

We just called it a Hulk regardless of what name was given from above.

Looking at the completed undead, Hoffman muttered quietly.

“Since the materials were blown to bits, this one’s actually not too bad to look at.”

It was a terrible thing to say, but I agreed with Hoffman.

The Hulk before us was quite painful to look at, but

The Hulks we saw in our world were far more horrific.

Thinking of the mess with screaming human faces embedded all over the skin and human limbs protruding here and there,

The Hulk before us was just an ordinarily disgusting undead.

In any case, this undead was a trap of the Demon King’s army that we would encounter when cleaning up battlefields or pursuing fleeing undead.

How many soldiers and knights had fallen victim to this trap while pursuing the Demon King’s army or collecting soldiers’ corpses?

As I clicked my tongue softly, shouts were heard again from the direction of the armory.

“Kekeke, what is this, some kind of combining robot? Can’t do it alone so you’re ganging up on me? But it won’t work, I tell you.”

Tudadadada.

The sound of the machine gun rang out again.

Simultaneously, chunks of the Hulk’s flesh exploded.

The Hulk’s flesh was being torn apart along with the sound of the machine gun.

“Kyakakaka, it’s the same I tell you!”

An even louder laugh.

But that laughter soon stopped.

Chuk, chukchuk.

The exploded flesh and blood didn’t splatter on the ground, but reattached to the Hulk’s body.

“Hahaha, now what’s this?”

The gunfire continued along with the dumbfounded voice, but it didn’t last long.

“Damn it!”

The gunfire stopped, and white smoke rose from behind the sandbag barricade.

“Argh! Hot!”

It seemed the machine gun barrel had overheated.

Well, after firing so recklessly, of course the barrel wouldn’t be fine.

And judging by the scream, it seemed he had touched the barrel with his bare hands trying to cool it.

“No. *sob* No. Save me. Save me.”

Then crying could be heard.

What was he doing?

I couldn’t help but sigh.

I knew it was because he had lost his mind, but it was still pathetic.

He should have gone into the ammunition depot to get another weapon instead of wasting time crying.

Then again, if he could think like that, he wouldn’t be mad in the first place.

Still, I was somewhat grateful that he had drawn the Hulk’s attention.

I launched myself towards the Hulk moving towards the ammunition depot.