The Archmage’s Destruction Strategy - Chapter 102

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#102. Apocalypse

-Weeeeeeeeeeeeeng!-

As D-day began with the loud wailing of sirens, Santa Maria where Geoseuwin lived instantly plunged into extreme chaos.

House-sized monsters that suddenly appeared from who knows where and attacked humans.

Small monsters that smiled while stabbing knives into the backs of screaming, fleeing people reminded one of goblins from fantasy novels, and humanoid monsters that slashed at National Guard soldiers firing bullets with fearful eyes using massive swords looked like demons crawling up from hell.

“Mr. Geoseuwin! Please! We’re coworkers!”

Hearing the siren while at work, Geoseuwin immediately grabbed the survival bag he had stored in his drawer and headed outside.

Even drawing the pistol he had safely stored with a fingerprint lock.

Then a coworker who had been mocking Geoseuwin until now approached him and pleaded desperately.

“Please take me with you! You said you prepared for days like this, right? Don’t you have one or two spare spots?”

“When did you mock me, and now you’re asking for help? No. Take care of your own life.”

Someone might call him heartless, but since one of the most essential elements for a survivalist was coldness, Geoseuwin firmly rejected his coworker’s request.

The coworkers who gave up persuading Geoseuwin due to his firm attitude ran toward where the National Guard was following the announcement, while Geoseuwin moved in the opposite direction toward where he had parked his vehicle.

Not to escape by vehicle, but to obtain more proper escape equipment.

‘Trying to escape by vehicle in this situation would be foolish.’

Sure enough, what Geoseuwin encountered when he shouldered his survival backpack from the car trunk and stepped onto the road was an endless line of vehicles honking loudly.

Worried that the loud noise might attract the monsters’ attention, Geoseuwin deliberately moved away from the road and took out his radio.

-Crackle crackle crackle!-

“Damn. It’s dead.”

In a situation where no communication worked as if radio waves were being jammed, Geoseuwin began acting as he had trained with community members beforehand.

Moving to the intermediate rendezvous point while avoiding areas with people as much as possible.

In this situation, it was best to avoid directions with marts or convenience stores as much as possible.

Passing through excited looters was an act that required risking one’s life.

Geoseuwin moved to the first assembly point while retracing the movement route he had practiced many times in his head.

“Mr. Furman.”

The familiar member who had first joined the community he created, Greg Furman, was waiting for Geoseuwin.

His shirt was stained with thick blood, showing he had experienced several battles on his way to the rendezvous point.

“Mr. Geoseuwin. Thank goodness. You’re safe.”

“Did you wait long?”

“About an hour. Oh, you don’t need to worry about the wounds. It’s not my blood.”

Greg Furman, a former soldier, said that unlike Geoseuwin who moved avoiding people as much as possible, he deliberately sought out the most dangerous areas to gather information.

It was a risky action, but also one that only Greg Furman, confident in his combat abilities, could take.

“You deliberately trained us to take routes where people wouldn’t gather, but you yourself sought out the most dangerous areas?”

“We need information. If not me, then who? Hahaha!”

The information Furman had gathered at great risk was shocking.

The National Guard forces, including a small number of Awakened and armored vehicles, had been annihilated by the monster attacks.

The sight of a monster deflecting anti-tank shells and tearing through an A1 tank’s armor like orange peel with its massive teeth was terror itself.

“I watched that scene from afar with binoculars. Then immediately withdrew from that location. The city is a mess right now. Humans looting marts thinking this is their chance, humans grabbing guns to fight monsters only to be torn to shreds, humans who realized it’s easier to deal with other humans than monsters and started stealing from others – all kinds of human types are mixed with monsters in one place, creating hell.”

“Will the camp be safe?”

“It should be fine. It was originally built in preparation for such situations, and if we combine all the community members, we should be able to easily repel most outlaw groups.”

Firearms, food supplies, self-sufficiency facilities, defensive structures positioned to block enemy attacks while allowing allies to shoot safely.

Geoseuwin let out a sigh of relief at Furman’s explanation that unless someone brought tanks or bulldozers to push through everything, it wouldn’t be easily overrun by looters armed with civilian firearms.

Since it was the judgment of Furman, a former soldier, there was no room for doubt.

The two who met at the assembly point were able to carefully reach the survival camp while avoiding people by changing direction several times.

***

“Fortunately, there wasn’t a single straggler, so we’ve been able to hold out safely so far.”

Sung-jun, who heard about the situation from Geoseuwin, requested to meet Furman, the former soldier community member.

According to Geoseuwin, Furman was the person who knew the most about information outside the camp.

Furman, who came at Geoseuwin’s call, had a very familiar appearance.

The bearded man who had fired bullets at Sung-jun from atop the steel watchtower – that was Furman.

“Greg Furman. You called for me?”

“Nice to see you again. I’m Ma Sungjun.”

“What are you curious about?”

“I need comprehensive information about what happened in the United States after D-day.”

After finishing his words, Sung-jun took out supplies from subspace and placed them in front of Furman.

Mainly sugar and salt that were difficult to be self-sufficient in the camp, canned fruits, and medical supplies.

Then he smiled at Furman, who was looking at him with a very surprised expression, and said.

“I might give you more depending on the value of the information you provide.”

“These are all precious items in the current situation. We have plenty of sugar and salt in stock, but securing more won’t hurt since they don’t spoil.”

Furman took out a small utility knife from his pocket, picked up a can of fruit, and looked at Sung-jun.

When Sung-jun nodded, Furman skillfully opened the can lid and began sharing the information he knew while eating the pineapple inside.

“I’m not sure what you’re curious about, but I’ll start with information I think is important. First, I heard that the National Guard has set JBLM as their final assembly point and most of the western National Guard forces are gathering there.”

“JBLM?”

“Don’t know since you’re Korean? Joint Base Lewis-McChord. It’s the largest joint base in the west, located in Washington state.”

“Isn’t Washington on the east coast?”

“That’s Washington D.C. Washington state is on the west coast. All the remaining National Guard will be concentrated there.”

“Does concentrating forces in one place mean abandoning defense of other regions?”

“Can’t help it. They’re not beings that bullets work on anyway. The U.S. Military doesn’t have that many mutant forces. Rather than dispersing and dying one by one hunting monsters, they needed a more efficient way to operate them.”

Initially, the U.S. Government had tried to protect citizens with their prepared Awakened forces.

However, protecting the entire vast American territory with limited Awakened forces was impossible, so they eventually modified their strategy to concentrate deployment in specific areas.

“Things have gotten somewhat better recently though. For some unknown reason, monsters suddenly started falling to bullets fired by humans, so the National Guard began full-scale regional recapture operations. I heard they’ve reclaimed quite a wide area now.”

“You’ve been saying mutant – does America call Awakened ‘mutants’?”

“That’s right. They’re humans but have power beyond human limits, so we call them mutants. I don’t know who started calling them that, but it’s a familiar term here.”

“Come to think of it, Japan called Awakened ‘adventurers.’ America calls them mutants.”

Sung-jun nodded while listening to Seoa, who had joined the conversation.

“I heard China calls them by the term ‘martial artists.'”

“So, what abilities do these mutants have?”

Unlike other countries’ Awakened cultivation institutions that exchanged their graduates with Awakened from other countries in the form of dispatches, detailed information about American Awakened, whose graduates were all military personnel under the U.S. Government, was not well known to other countries.

Only stories spread like urban legends that they all used special armaments without exception, and that civilians who weren’t Awakened couldn’t use those armaments.

Then Furman, who had witnessed the combat scenes of actual U.S. Government Awakened with his own eyes, said to Seoa.

“They can shoot guns.”

“Guns? Can’t anyone shoot guns if they know how to pull the trigger?”

“The guns they use are special. They’re incredibly large, and civilians can’t even lift them.”

“Then are they strength enhancement types?”

To Seoa, who was muttering curiously, Furman said.

“You’ll know immediately when you see them. They all have very conspicuous appearances.”

After obtaining the necessary information from Furman through continued questioning, Sung-jun took out additional supplies from subspace and gave them as thanks, then left the camp with Seoa.

Then he moved to the base camp where other companions were waiting.

There, companions who had spent the day wandering the city gathering information were waiting for Sung-jun and Seoa.

“We didn’t find any survivors.”

“We found several survival underground bunkers though. We didn’t bother talking to the people inside. We couldn’t force our way in anyway…”

Most survival underground bunkers were structured to only open from the inside to prevent external intrusion.

Of course, for the pilots who had received mythic-grade artifacts from Sung-jun, blowing up bunker entrances was no trouble at all, but since there was no need to destroy bunkers where others were hiding, the pilot who found bunkers had only marked their locations on the map before returning to camp.

“I didn’t have much success either. It would have been nice to find some soldiers, but they all seemed to have left long ago.”

In a situation where Shirasaki Miyu had also returned without much success, Sung-jun informed them that he and Seoa had discovered a survivor camp by following a dog searching through the ruins.

And that inside, he had confirmed the location of an area expected to be the current U.S. Military assembly point.

“JBLM…”

The pilot who spread out the map to check the location took out a small measuring tape from his front pocket to measure the distance.

“It’s about 1,700 kilometers away.”

“Truly America – even though it’s in the same western region, the distance is no joke.”

“We probably won’t need to actually go all the way there. According to the former soldier at the camp, the U.S. Military has also started moving in earnest to reclaim territories.”

“They might have already reclaimed places like Salem or Portland that are on the way.”

Since joining the U.S. Military was the priority to receive support from the Awakened forces in the United States, Sung-jun immediately made plans to join the U.S. Military.

“First, the pilots should go to the Survivor Camp I discovered today tomorrow. I’ll ask them to let you join in exchange for supply materials. With the artifacts you have, you can handle most mid-grade Corrosion Entities, so they shouldn’t refuse.”

“Won’t they judge us as a threat? Or maybe covet our artifacts and attack us at night…?”

“That’s something you’ll have to persuade them about. There’s also the option of moving the Base Camp to the nearby Forest and leaving just you four behind, but you’re too few in number. With four people guarding the camp, two would always have to stay awake, and maintaining the camp in two shifts is very exhausting. Besides supply materials, we can also provide conventional weapons received from the Japanese Government, so use the Americans at the camp as guards to protect you.”

“Understood. We don’t want to become burdens either, so we’ll follow your opinion, Sung-jun. So the ones leaving here are you, Seoa, and Shirasaki?”

“For now, yes.”

“Where are you planning to head?”

“We’ll keep going north until we encounter U.S. Military Awakened.”

JBLM, where the U.S. Military base was located, was over 1,700 kilometers away, but Sung-jun had an idea.

If the target was too far away, he could just make the target come toward him.

“While we’re at it, I’m thinking of doing some cleaning along the way.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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