NoveLight ™
“...But it’s surprising that this engagement is going to blow everything up. I don’t remember any of the previous operations dropping bombs in the city.”
“Tijuana is a city in Mexico, not U.S. territory. And to elaborate a bit more, there won’t be any civilians left around here.”
“Why?”
“Because of the virus and the radiation.”
San Diego.
It took two heavy punches of a virus and nuclear missiles to extinguish the glorious past of this military city, which was once the strongest naval power in the world. The statistical fact that it was one of the wealthiest cities in America and its slogan as the most livable city had turned to ashes.
The result was predictable. The first punch, the Omega virus, left the densely packed houses vacant. They may not have been entirely empty, but only the remnants of people would remain on the beds.
In that state, those who somehow survived and formed sporadic communities to struggle through day by day had to witness two mushroom clouds rising from the place they once called home, and San Diego was left more devastated than any other city.
This was also the case for Tijuana, the Mexican city located just below San Diego.
No one would want to live in a place hit by two nuclear bombs, so it was only natural.
The reason the commander spoke about missile strikes without hesitation as soon as they arrived at Miramar Military Airport was not without merit. Since there would no longer be citizens to report incidental damages, it seemed he aimed to decisively eradicate the enemy during this opportunity.
In conclusion,
“From this point on, you can consider anything moving as an enemy.”
“Now that you mention it, that certainly makes sense. Anyway, we’ll keep moving. We’ll maintain radio silence… like this, right?”
“Good job. See you later.”
At this point, in virtual reality, it was around 3 AM.
The six personnel infiltrating the sea via a stealth high-speed boat began to scatter into pairs and officially started to stir things up in Tijuana.
Among the enemies, quite a significant number had decent outfits. They were likely gifts from the Chinese. While we kept that in mind, it didn’t matter much. After all, they lacked night vision goggles and professionalism. In short, they were too busy sleeping to be vigilant.
Even if they were awake, they were probably high on drugs or smoking.
“Waypoint marked. 129 meters southeast from your location. A considerable number of heat sources are detected at that position. It appears to have been a movie theater previously.”
“How many times has this been? I hope this isn’t a false lead again. What’s the checklist status?”
“Waiting a moment.”
At the same time, we sat in the thick darkness, waiting.
How many minutes passed? Owens let out a satisfied breath and responded.
“Bingo. Multiple enemy vehicles are clustered in an open area nearby. It seems the enemies are operating that movie theater as some sort of multipurpose building.”
“Confirmed. Disabling the bombing coordinates, we’ll infiltrate now. Can you come down to help when you’re free?”
“I’ll think about it.”
After a slight chuckle and confirming, I turned towards the designated waypoint.
On another note, some of you might be curious about what the checklist was—essentially, it was a process to determine whether it was simply an enemy concentration area or a place where information needed to be obtained through direct infiltration.
If it was the former, there was no need to waste bullets running around. After all, missiles were scheduled to sweep everything clean. However, if it was the latter, the story would be different—there were remnants of a Chinese naval carrier task force in the Cortez Sea, and they were providing military training and weaponry to the cartel.
We needed to secure those coordinates precisely because, under normal circumstances, those missiles would likely reach there, and that’s why the intelligence-gathering process was necessary.
“Entering the movie theater.”
From the outside, it didn’t look much different from any other building, but as I carefully opened the door and stepped inside, I was surprised to find that electricity was still running. However, since the lights were almost off, it didn’t make much difference.
As I fully entered the interior, I could see enemies sprawled around like corpses. They seemed deeply asleep, giving no indication they were aware of anything. It was quite absurd to see that there was a drum used as a stove, yet no heating was circulating through the building.
Under normal circumstances, one would either suffocate or burn to death, but seeing them left unscathed was truly bewildering.
At first glance, it seemed like nothing could be gained in such a shabby place, but its true value lay elsewhere.
A suspicious smell was in the air.
In a destroyed world, the mere existence of communication indicated that it was a reason to approach. It was impossible unless they carried the entire minimal infrastructure—unless, of course, we knew those who could manage that.
And we did know who they were.
They were the military.
This fact was quickly relayed to Owens, who halted his steps towards the theater and mentioned that he would check if there were any functioning communication towers nearby.
From now on, it was time for serious infiltration.
───Thud!
“Cough…!”
At that moment, a cartel member, either drunk or high, staggered up, and I landed a light punch to his solar plexus. He fell without even letting out a scream, the sound escaping his lips as he crumpled. His ribs were likely shattered, turning his lungs into a rag.
Even if I left him as he was, he would soon die, but I made sure to finish him off before moving towards the emergency stairs. The emergency lights were off, making the stairs eerily quiet. However, I couldn’t go directly up to the roof because I heard a noise coming from above the stairs.
It was time to employ some tricks from here on out.
“There’s one floor up to the roof. So…”
Instead of going up further, I opened a door and stepped into the building. There were only ordinary rooms like a lounge, but the important thing was to devise a way to lure the guards on the roof.
The method was simple. I needed to create repetitive noise to draw the enemies close. Fortunately, there were no people on that floor, the lights were out, and there were spray cans likely used by the cartel for murals scattered around. I lightly tied a fishing line to a can and dropped it from a distance to make it rattle continuously.
Click, click, click. That annoying sound echoed through the corridor for several minutes. Repeatedly annoying sounds had a way of making people anxious, and the result appeared quickly.
“Must just be a mouse playing with a spray can; why would they send someone down to check on that?”
“Just hurry and confirm it.”
Two individuals came down.
Leaving the fishing line I had been holding behind, I carefully turned around.
One of them fell unconscious after I struck his thigh with a stun grenade, while I carefully pressed a tomahawk against the neck of the other and activated the hologram.
“Please say it’s nothing serious.”
He answered quite professionally that there was nothing wrong, and the next moment, he collapsed with a foamy mouth as the stun grenade struck his thigh.
What a ridiculous thing.
In any case, less than a few minutes later, the Chinese troops stationed on the roof were met with the cold edge of a blade, and not even five minutes after that, they divulged the location of the beached aircraft carrier, the cartel's main activity points, and even what sides they had for their combat rations the day before before entering eternal rest.
The destination was Punta Bandera, a small village located right off the coast to the west of Tijuana.
“Operation in Tijuana is halted. We’ll start searching for vehicles to ride from now on.”
Operation Chariot was nearing its end.
4 AM. At the moment when the world was completely enveloped in darkness.
I—Harmony, along with Dais and Owens, a friend of Yujin—were observing the beached aircraft carrier through the scope from a not-so-high mountain range. The distance was about 400 meters. In front of the beached point, what was originally presumed to be a small village had transformed into some sort of military base.
And when I turned my gaze slightly to the right of the aircraft carrier, IFFs blinked beneath the sea surface, indicating that Yujin, Logan, and Lorentina were slowly approaching the aircraft carrier.
“Those three will handle anything complicated or difficult. Just hit the visible enemies, and when there are no more targets, we’ll attract attention with the mortar turret we’ve hidden. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Yeah, we can do it.”
In simple terms, it was a sort of decoy operation.
I, Owens, and Dais would draw attention, while the other team would sweep through the now careless interior of the aircraft carrier. It was similar to robbing an empty house. Of course, it was on a much larger scale.
Regardless, I felt lighthearted knowing I didn’t have to worry about hiding and just had to catch whatever was in sight. While I kept my finger on the trigger until the operation start command dropped, I finally received the long-awaited shooting command.
“Starting autonomous fire as of now. Focus on harassing the friends with night vision goggles.”
“Understood. Autonomous fire commencing.”
“Opening fire.”
───Piiing!
Boom!
I placed the crosshair on the moving enemies hundreds of meters away and fired. The impact points were automatically calculated by the Icarus gear, so I didn’t have to worry; just placing the enemies in the crosshair meant most of the shots hit.
One bullet at a time, but with three people, three bullets were fired almost simultaneously. Thus, three enemies were pierced somewhere in their bodies and fell to the ground, while those smoking or on guard were startled and set off alarms.
With the loud sirens blaring, enemies began pouring out from all directions.
“Focus on firing. I’ll prioritize marking friends holding dangerous objects with the reconnaissance drone. Let’s take them out first.”
“Got it!”
Pick, pick, pick.
I didn’t have to worry about ammo consumption. After all, the ammo can was stuffed with an immense amount of spare rounds. Just the number of magazines I brought was close to 90, so I could just enjoy target shooting.
In the meantime, Teacher’s team began to move gradually. They were heading behind the beached aircraft carrier. They did their best to fire more intensely, ensuring no one noticed that someone else was infiltrating.
“Wow, there are a lot of them…!”
“It looks like we really poked a hornet’s nest.”
There were so many of them that I didn’t even need to bother searching for enemies.
Most of the smarter ones realized they shouldn’t stay still and sought cover inside the building or against the walls, but some who misjudged their direction were instead shot through the head and turned into cold corpses.
Because I used a suppressor and subsonic rounds, it took the Chinese troops over seven minutes to even begin to guess our actual location, and by then, we had already begun operating the mortar turret.
───Boom!
With a bang, the thick bomb that flew through the air obliterated the wall. Those hiding inside would typically burst out through the windows upon getting hit by incendiary rounds. While it was quite challenging to hit moving targets, I didn’t mind too much.
After all, it wasn’t important to hit anything.
And how long had it been?
“...Ah, I see the teacher on the deck of the Fujian. He’s waving at us?”
“Those idiots…”
Of course, in the meantime, Lorentina was showering bullets on the enemies who had climbed up the stairs after her.
In any case, it didn’t take long to seize control of the bridge. The enemies were slowly pulling out mortars from somewhere and even attempted to launch a reconnaissance helicopter, but unfortunately, the pilots were gunned down by shots through the windows before they could even start the engines.
And how long had it been?
“This is Shark. I’ve secured the communication logs. When I fiddled a bit with the satellite communication module, it easily spit out the locations of the remaining carrier task forces wandering in the Cortez Sea.”
“Target acquired. Sending to Miramar Military Airport; let’s get out of that junk carrier quickly. We’ll meet at the evacuation point.”
“...It feels like we’ve only been shooting.”
“That’s how those guys operate.”
It was indeed a ridiculous statement, but it was true.
As the mortar fire from the Chinese troops began, we hurriedly gathered our firearms, activating the turrets and launchers we had previously deployed into autonomous mode. We dashed several hundred meters to board the truck we had ridden just a few dozen minutes earlier.
As the truck roared to life, it sped through the darkness. With the night vision feature activated, even the pitch-black darkness could not block our way. We navigated the winding mountain roads, driving down an unpaved path that wasn’t even on the map. The old truck rattled violently, threatening to break apart as we descended the steep slope.
“Ouch, my butt…!”
“Why on earth did we choose such a vehicle!?”
“If the ladies had found a vehicle with a bit more fuel, it might have been a bit easier.”
After bumping along for about 20 minutes, I had no idea which path we had traversed, but at some point, the coastline came back into view.
And how long had it been?
“I was about to doze off waiting. How much longer do we have to go, Captain?”
“The traffic here is worse than the shooting.”
We finally joined Yujin’s team, who had been waiting for us for quite some time.
Costa Hermosa, a small town located to the west of Tijuana, and the Mexico-1D highway running through it. If you move north along there, the border between Mexico and the United States appears—and at one of the vast open spaces nearby, a stealth Black Hawk awaited to take us to U.S. soil.
As we cut through the dust and boarded, the pilot immediately spoke.
“This area is about to become a sea of fire. Get on quickly.”
“I see you’ve even equipped a Geiger counter on the wall; what a mess.”
“It’ll be the first time I actually see a mushroom cloud in my lifetime, you know?”
Clank!
The door closed, and the helicopter took off.
At that moment, a message popped up on the UI: <Launch Complete>. It was likely that terrifying weapons waiting hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away had sent missiles with nuclear warheads toward this location.
And how long had it been?
The countdown timer to impact appeared before my eyes, and as it converged to zero, a vivid flame burst forth, cutting through the darkness.
───!
“Wow.”
“They said it was 150 kilotons, and it’s indeed powerful. Two of those hitting Tijuana is enough to completely obliterate the city.”
“I can hear the land prices in San Diego converging to zero from here.”
…Is this the level of conversation among Yujin’s acquaintances?
It was ridiculous, but rather than digging deeper into that, I chose to just let it go and laugh.
And how long had it been?
“Of course.”
“Did you say something?”
“No, I just thought that as long as I follow Yujin, I won’t have to worry about being bored.”
Hah.
Saying that, I exhaled deeply.
Turning my back on the rising mushroom cloud, the tank operation came to a close.
Of course, the nuclear-night ending of Operation Chariot left plenty of reactions to be talked about.
Naturally, Yujin wrapped up the broadcast after watching the cutscene without much thought.
It was an everyday occurrence.