300PS Bonus
Hello everyone. Once again, thank you all so much for your support so far. In the next chapter, we'll be returning to the world of Danmachi!
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
The healing sessions lasted until seven in the evening. The remaining work—post-op recovery and physical therapy—was left to the veteran doctors.
On the way back, Commander Jas personally drove August ho. They cruised along a quiet riverside road until August suddenly broke the silence.
"Hold on a second. Pull over."
Jas blinked in confusion but tapped the brakes, steering the military vehicle to the curb. Weren't they heading straight ho?
August threw open the rear door, stumbled toward a public trash can on the sidewalk, and imdiately started dry heaving. The violent nausea that had been building finally caught up with him, and he threw up.
Jas and the ard guard in the passenger seat exchanged startled glances. They had not expected the kid to lose his lunch so quickly. Then again, as battle-hardened soldiers, they had long since forgotten the shock and revulsion of their own first brush with real gore.
Hestia guessed at once what was wrong and stepped out of the car. She stood quietly beside August, gently rubbing his back in slow, soothing strokes until the retching finally eased.
"Commander, what's wrong with him?" the guard whispered, baffled.
"Think back to the first ti you saw a mangled, bloody ss," Jas replied quietly. "Did you feel like puking?"
August was not a trained soldier or a trauma surgeon. He had never been exposed to flying gore, shattered bones, or the grotesque reality of flesh being forcibly regenerated. For a normal civilian, that much blood and exposed anatomy was enough to trigger a primal wave of revulsion.
"Yeah, definitely," the guard admitted without hesitation.
He rembered his first real firefight in the wild—watching bullets tear through his comrades, the endless bleeding. If it weren't for his rigorous training, the fear and disgust alone would have paralyzed him.
Jas watched August spit into the bin. "It's a miracle he held it in this long."
To endure that visceral horror for hours without breaking composure showed remarkable willpower.
Jas's gaze shifted to the trash can.
"Radio the trailing vehicle. Tell them to burn that bin," Jas ordered.
He wasn't taking any chances. August's vomit contained his genetic material. Jas had sworn to protect this asset, and he wasn't about to leave the DNA of a dinsion-hopping, magic-wielding anomaly sitting on a public sidewalk.
"Yes, sir," the guard replied, grabbing his radio to relay the order.
Hestia helped a pale August back into the car, and Jas pulled away from the curb.
Monts later, a military jeep pulled up to the exact sa spot. A soldier stepped out wielding a heavy flathrower.
"Burn it," the squad leader ordered from the passenger seat.
A stream of liquid fire engulfed the trash can. The intense heat incinerated the contents, reducing everything to unrecoverable ash.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
Back in the car, August stared out the window, slowly catching his breath as the cityscape rolled by. He grabbed a tissue and wiped his mouth.
"Sorry you had to see that," August muttered. It was the first ti he had embarrassed himself in front of them.
"Nothing to be embarrassed about," Jas said, keeping his eyes on the road. "Saving lives and dealing with raw trauma is brutal work for a civilian. We're deeply grateful for what you did today."
He ant every word. Helping those broken veterans return to normal life was an act of real grace.
"By the way, I have your approved requisition list," Jas announced, instantly snapping August to attention. "Since this is coming straight from a regional military cache, we can only supply active-duty equipnt."
"1,000 active-duty assault rifles. 500,000 rounds of ammunition."
"10 modern main battle tanks, equipped with 1,000 shells."
"20 mobile rocket launchers, stocked with 5,000 missiles."
"50 recon drones."
"1,000 suicide drones."
August's eyes widened. It was a far cry from his original request, but it was still an overwhelming amount of firepower.
"Command reviewed the logistics," Jas explained. "Since you're heading into a subterranean labyrinth, the space down there is likely to be tight. We couldn't authorize any large-scale strategic payloads, so we had to prioritize tactical safety and maneuverability."
Even scaled down, it was an arsenal of mass destruction.
"Understood." August had not expected a single regional base to hand over that much hardware in the first place.
"Honestly, if my base had access to the strategic arsenal, I would have pulled a Minuteman III ballistic missile for you just to be safe," Jas joked.
"No, no, please don't," August quickly waved his hands in refusal.
Firing a ballistic missile underground? Did this guy want to bury him alive? That was a nation-level deterrent, using it for pest control was asking for a cave-in.
"There is one more thing," August added. "Could you requisition a batch of standalone computers with a closed local network for ?"
"I'm not worried about raw firepower. The real problem is dealing with Dungeon monsters one-on-one, in situations where I can't just carpet-bomb the whole area. I need to figure out how effective the weapons will actually be."
"If I run into a monster that uses wind magic, standard bullets might get deflected without heavy concentrated fire. I need to test penetration against different monster hides and magical defenses."
He couldn't afford to be careless. He valued his life.
"You want to run ballistic tests on fantasy monsters?" Jas's eyes lit up. "No problem."
This was massive. Modern physics and ballistics colliding with mythic magic and monsters. The resulting data would be priceless.
"Lucas, hurry!" Jas barked at his guard. "ssage the tech division! Tell them to prep a batch of combat-grade laptops and a short-range LAN router. Give them half a day. I want it ready!"
"Yes, sir!" The guard imdiately pulled out his encrypted phone and started typing the orders.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
For every 100 Power Stones = I'll drop an extra chapter
Add to your Library!
User Comments
0 comments from readers