The gunfire echoing from beyond the snowfield was menacing beyond words.
No matter how enhanced an agent's body is, the power of a gun is still deadly.
"Get down!!"
To avoid it, Chang-ho immediately gave the order.
At the same time, Jae-hwan asked Jun-young a question.
"What, did your superiors already give the order to open fire?"
"No! They definitely said to capture you alive! I don't know what this is either..."
They stayed flat on the ground in the tense air for a while.
But no bullets passed over their heads.
After a while, the gunfire began to fade, buried under the fierce howl of the wind.
'...What, they're not aiming at us? Then where were they shooting?'
Jae-hwan felt puzzled.
So did Chang-ho.
He quietly got up and spoke to the others.
"I'll go take a quick look, so you all stay hidden. Especially you, Lee Ji-yeon. You'll have to heal anyone who gets hurt right away, so keep your head down."
In the tense atmosphere, the others nodded.
Creak.
The faint scrape of the door opening could be heard.
Chang-ho stuck his head out the door and looked around.
There was no sign of gunfire anywhere near the guard post.
As expected, the shooting earlier didn't seem to have been aimed at them.
Relieved, Chang-ho motioned for the others to come out.
The group dragged Jun-young out of the abandoned guard post.
At that moment.
"Uwaaaaaah!!!"
A silhouette burst out from beyond the snowfield with a bizarre shriek.
Whoever had shrieked was smeared in blood from head to toe.
But he paid it no mind.
The man lunged at the group like a wild beast.
"Wha..."
While Ji-yeon shielded Jae-hwan and Jun-young, Chang-ho quickly charged the attacker.
The man glared at the group with bloodshot eyes, their tiny vessels burst.
The attacker seemed to have already lost his mind.
The moment the attacker aimed a pistol at the group.
Ji-yeon quickly knocked his wrist aside.
The impact made him drop the pistol.
But the attacker kept thrashing and refused to stop attacking.
'...He's gone crazy.'
Jae-hwan's amazement lasted only a moment.
Jae-hwan and Ji-yeon joined Chang-ho in subduing him.
"Uwaah, aaaaagh!"
"That's enough of your fucking fit! You're already subdued! It's no use!"
"His eyes are already gone! Let's just knock him out!"
In the middle of it, Jae-hwan recognized the man's face.
"Wait, Team Leader! Isn't this the officer who escorted us?"
"What? Seriously?"
"Gyaaaaaagh!!!"
"But he doesn't seem to be in his right mind!"
The attacker thrashed endlessly, resisting restraint.
In the end, Jae-hwan had no choice but to form a nail of blood and drive it through the man's palm.
Even so, the escort officer showed no sign of pain.
"He's not in his right mind."
"No kidding. Looks like the aberration did something to him?"
While Jae-hwan and Ji-yeon talked briefly about the officer's condition.
Chang-ho looked lost in thought.
"Isn't something off?"
"Everything's off, isn't it?"
"That's true, but... Wasn't the ability of the aberration we saw one that kills people by making them spew blood? I don't think it turned people into rabid crazy guys like this..."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I think this aberration has gotten a lot stronger than we thought..."
At that moment.
"Ugraaaaagh!!!!"
The escort officer tore his nailed palm free and lunged at the group.
"What...!"
The moment Chang-ho twisted away in shock.
Bang, bang, bang!!
Gunshots rang out across the snowfield once more.
The group slowly turned toward where the shots had come from.
There stood Private First Class Hong Jun-young, trembling, a smoking pistol in his hand.
"Uh... ah..."
"You..."
"I'm sorry... I just..."
"No, forget it... It can't be helped."
There'd been no other choice.
Chang-ho let Jun-young's rash act slide as if it were nothing.
"Looks like things are a lot more serious. Hand that gun over for now."
"...Yes."
As Jun-young nodded heavily at Chang-ho's words.
Ji-yeon quietly approached the officer's corpse.
"Hey, soldier."
"Y-yes?"
"Didn't you fire just three shots a minute ago?"
"Y-yes, I did."
"This guy's got more than eight gunshot wounds, though?"
At the unexpected information from Ji-yeon, the group froze like stone.
"What?"
"Just what I said. It seems the gunfight earlier was these guys..."
As Ji-yeon spoke, the snowy wind began to die down.
Only then could the group see what had happened a short distance away.
Soldiers' mangled corpses lay strewn across the ground there.
Countless gunshot wounds.
Bloodshot eyes.
And blood smeared around their mouths.
Witnessing the horrific sight with their own eyes, the group was left speechless for a moment.
"This is insane."
Chang-ho barely managed that brief remark.
"It seems the gunfight earlier was the soldiers among themselves..."
"Probably."
Jae-hwan bit his lip, lost in thought.
Jun-young had clearly said the entire unit had bullied Private First Class Lee Jin-hyuk to death.
He could fully understand the aberration's grudge.
Of course, some of them surely deserved to die.
The officers and NCOs who'd let it happen, the senior soldiers who'd dished out the violence directly, and so on.
But did even the soldiers who'd stood by only because they were powerless all have to die?
The thought that it was far too much wouldn't leave Jae-hwan's head.
"Team Leader. I think we need to get back to the unit fast."
"You feel sorry for these guys?"
"Yes. Even so, not everyone needs to die like this. I think it's too much."
"That's true. But going back now is suicide. This is the army. Guns aren't something to take lightly. No matter what anyone says, our safety comes first."
"......."
Unable to come up with any real rebuttal, Jae-hwan bit down on his lip.
Looking at him, Chang-ho went on.
"Got it? So for right now, we have to be careful..."
KABOOM!!!
A massive explosion on a whole different level from before.
Frozen, the group all turned toward the source of the sound.
Pitch-black smoke filled the sky.
Red flames swept over the pure white snow.
Bang! Bang-bang-bang!
And gunfire followed.
It was the signal flare announcing that the horrific slaughter had begun in earnest.
"What... on earth...?"
At the sudden turn, Ji-yeon muttered to herself in a daze.
Chang-ho immediately grabbed Jun-young by the collar and roughly demanded answers.
"Uwah... aaah..."
"Hong Jun-young! What's over there?! Get a grip and tell me now!"
Jun-young was trembling and letting out unintelligible moans.
"Talk, now! Before it's too late!"
"Ahh... the ammo depot... That's where the ammo depot is..."
Chang-ho turned to Jae-hwan and spoke.
"The ammo depot, he says. You know full well how dangerous that is. Going down there before that fucking mess ends is suicide. Got it?"
"...No objections."
"Then that's that. Wait until the blizzard and the gunfire stop. Don't worry. We're going down anyway. We have to see what's happening down there. But we go down when it's safe."
The others nodded heavily at Chang-ho.
And a little later.
The dying blizzard no longer blocked their view.
Only then could they see the carnage unfolding below.
Blood.
Frenzy.
Violence.
Madness.
Smeared in blood, the soldiers were killing one another.
With guns; when the bullets ran out, with bayonets; when the bayonets broke, with teeth.
They tore into anything that moved.
When there were no more enemies left to attack, they turned on themselves.
As if they couldn't control their own aggression.
"......."
"What the hell is this...?"
It was truly a scene of hell descended upon the living world.
Behind them came the sound of Jun-young vomiting.
But Jae-hwan and Ji-yeon had no room to care about that.
As they stared blankly at the tragedy before them.
Ji-yeon noticed something was off about Chang-ho.
"Team Leader. You were trying to say something earlier, weren't you? Is something bothering you?"
"Yeah. The scale's changed too much. This wasn't the kind of aberration that carried out slaughter on this scale, I think."
"It's definitely the first time the method and danger have changed this suddenly."
Chang-ho nodded and went on.
"This is unprecedented. But is something like this even possible? Did someone artificially strengthen the aberration or something?"
Jae-hwan didn't want to believe Chang-ho.
But the hellscape unfolding before his eyes made it impossible for him to deny it.
As a tense silence settled once again.
"Like I said before, we go down once the gunfire stops. Either way, we have to take out the aberration."
Chang-ho instructed them in a heavy voice.
As soon as he finished, Chang-ho stepped toward Jun-young.
"H... hiik! What are you doing?! I'm..."
"It's nothing. I'm just going to erase your memory."
The moment Chang-ho reached for Jun-young.
"Team Leader, wait. I think it's better to leave him be for now."
"What are you talking about all of a sudden?"
"If this guy gets left behind in this mess with his memory wiped too, who knows what'll happen to him. He might die if we just leave him without thinking, so let's take him with us for now."
"That's a fair point."
Chang-ho readily agreed.
"Follow us. And don't try anything stupid."
"Yes... yes..."
Trembling like an aspen leaf, Jun-young kept nodding.
Seeing that, the group began heading into the barracks.
***
Pools of blood and marrow, severed arms and legs.
The group was picking their way carefully around the human remains.
"Is this the right way?"
"It should be. The bodies keep increasing the farther we go. And these bloodstains, don't they look like they're leading somewhere?"
Chang-ho was certain the aberration would be at the end of the bloodstains.
They followed Chang-ho for a long while.
The group reached a barracks room thick with the mingled stench of blood and gunpowder.
"This must be it. Careful, everyone."
In the tense atmosphere, Chang-ho opened the door to the barracks room.
Creeeak.
The utterly dark barracks room gave off a dank, sinister air.
With a trembling hand, Chang-ho reached for the light switch.
Click.
The hollow sound of the switch flipping on.
The barracks room was awash in blood.
But at a glance, there didn't seem to be any bodies.
Puzzled, they took a careful look around.
And the group found strange objects stuffed inside the lockers.
Corpses with crushed bones and twisted joints.
"......."
His stomach churning, Jae-hwan spoke.
"I've heard of it. There used to be a kind of hazing where they made you sleep inside your locker."
"So you think the aberration stuffed the bodies in here on purpose?"
"Yes. That's what I think. He's paying them back for what was done to him, I'd guess."
The moment Jae-hwan finished speaking.
"That's right."
At the end of the barracks corridor, the gun locker began to open.
Eyes, nose, and mouth soaked in blood, still spewing dark red liquid.
Eyes rolled back, showing only the whites.
And the back of the head, completely shattered where a bullet had passed through, likely the mark of his suicide.
Clutching his own rifle, the aberration revealed himself from inside the gun locker.