The Returner

Chapter 431: Ah, shucks... This might not work after all? (1)

“The entire formation is being annihilated, sir.”

Christopher McLaren stared dazedly at the giant monitor.

“Son of a b*tch.” (Christopher McLaren)

The end result for China’s unwise choice was too horrifying to behold. However, something else proved to be even more horrifying to him. And it was the unavoidable fact that China’s response to the situation had been a rather sensible one.

They proceeded to rain down anti-ballistic missiles at the incoming ICBM, then deployed fighter planes to shoot the nuclear warhead down.

Christopher McLaren had chosen to utilise the same method against the incoming ICBMs as well. It wasn’t just him, though, as all the other targeted countries were preparing the same tactic, too.

However, it didn’t work.

The ICBM acted like a living entity and blocked everything flying in its way. Such a thing wouldn’t have happened if the demon king merely countered the nukes and changed their headings.

The demon king of Sichuan attached a large monster bird on each of the warheads. And these birds were responsible for either deflecting or interfering with the humans’ attempts to shoot the ICBMs down.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

The d*mn demon king even made an appearance using the monster bird’s body and began pouring out merciless attacks to worsen the already-deadly chaos.

The absolute worst imaginable attack that combined the demon king’s magic and humanity’s technology was now tightening around the throat of humanity like a noose.

“What is Beijing’s response to this development?” (Christopher McLaren)

“Sir, it’s unknown if they can do anything at this stage. We don’t see any noticeable movement from them, either...”

That made sense.

Every fighter plane deployed had been destroyed, while the anti-air missiles meant to shoot down the nuke got shot down instead. So, what else could they do, realistically speaking?

It was like being a prisoner trapped under the guillotine, waiting for the blade to fall...

China, and the rest of humanity too, couldn’t do anything and wait for the end.

Wait, until the accursed blade fell and severed their necks.

Christopher McLaren tightly clenched his fists.

China was responsible for this blunder. He told himself that, once this crisis was sorted out somehow, he’d make an example out of those fools.

However, this was not it.

There was no way he’d feel happy about countless innocents losing their lives because the higher-ups made a fatal mistake in their judgements. He’d never accept this outcome. And separate from the issue of blaming someone, he as a fellow human being found the deaths of countless humans caused by a demon king’s scheme truly unforgivable.

“F*ck.” (Christopher McLaren)

Christopher McLaren couldn’t continue staring at the monitor. His head faltered to the floor.

The last thing he saw on that massive screen was the far-too clear image of a missile falling on top of Beijing.

“...Sir, the nuke is descending.”

Christopher McLaren squeezed his eyes shut.

He couldn’t carry on watching anymore.

The absolute weapon of destruction that had only ever been deployed twice in human history – on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – was now falling on one of the greatest cities on Earth, Beijing, home to twenty million, maybe even as many as thirty million people.

He felt a flash of light momentarily break through his closed eyelids. Even though he kept his eyes closed, he thought he could clearly see the images currently being played out in that giant screen.

Drip.

Blood trickled down from his lower lip as he bit down hard on it. However, he couldn’t feel any pain. Rage boiled over and rushed to the top of his head, causing him to almost lose all his reasoning and not give a d*mn about some measly little pain like that.

“City of Beijing, it... it’s... gone.”

That report sounded so far away.

The voice entering his ears sounded so awkward and indistinct like badly dubbed voice-overs from a film shot in the 50s.

“Director, sir.”

“Gimme a minute.” (Christopher McLaren)

Christopher McLaren raised his hand when one of his subordinates called out to him.

He knew full well that now was not the right time to be like this. Only one warhead had fallen so far. Meaning, there were seventeen others left to worry about. So, he must stop mulling about the one that had detonated already and quickly come up with another plan of action.

However...

Even if people often called Christopher McLaren a cold-blooded or cold-hearted man, he still found it extremely hard to get over the shock of witnessing the deaths of thirty million lives in a single moment.

“Fuu-woo-wooph.” (Christopher McLaren)

He sucked in a deep breath, then raised his head.

“China just proved to us that standard methods cannot stop that thing.” (Christopher McLaren)

“Yes, sir.”

“We need to come up with a better solution. Is the task force ready to act yet?” (Christopher McLaren)

“Experts from every related field have been dragged in, sir.”

“Show them that footage and tell them to come up with a plan. What about the potential impact zone? Still can’t figure it out yet?” (Christopher McLaren)

“...Apologies, sir.”

“No, it’s fine. If there’s a major city within the radius of the impact, tell the task force to set that as the target and come up with a potential defensive line.” (Christopher McLaren)

“Yes, sir.”

Christopher McLaren massaged his face.

‘The nuke fell right in the centre of Beijing.’ (Christopher McLaren)

That result was far too artificial to be called purely coincidental.

Indeed, he should assume that the monster bird, or more correctly the demon king’s will, was in full control of the nuke’s descent at this point.

Which meant that in order to shoot the ICBMs down, the demon king’s defences had to be breached first. Christopher McLaren rubbed his face even harder at this exasperating development.

“The next missile?” (Christopher McLaren)

“...It’s currently headed to the East Sea.”

“East Sea?” (Christopher McLaren)

“It’s an oceanic area located between South Korea and Japan, sir.”

“Mm...” (Christopher McLaren)

Christopher McLaren chewed out his next words.

“Connect me to Korea. Right now.” (Christopher McLaren)

*

“...Beijing has been annihilated.” (defense minister)

A silence akin to icy hell descended in the conference chamber.

“Hundreds of ABMs and fighter planes were deployed, but...” (defense minister)

The defense minister sucked in a deep, deep breath.

“...What are we even supposed to do now?” (defense minister)

The Korean air force should have gotten the news by now. And no doubt they would be in a panicked state, too. The methods they thought of employing were tried first by the Chinese and the end result was this.

An utter annihilation.

There was a reason why the characters in horror movies repeatedly did stupid things. And that was to ensure that the audience members didn’t feel any sense of helplessness while watching the film. In other words, it was to give that psychological assurance of “I’m not as stupid as them, so if it was me, I’d not get killed like them.”

Unfortunately, that assurance was denied from the people currently present in this conference chamber.

China at that moment of firing the ICBMs was at the height of its own hubris. But China’s response to the nuke heading to Beijing was quite realistic in its approach.

But all that ‘realistic’ approach turned out to be in vain, ultimately resulting in the nuke dropping on Beijing in the end.

‘I don’t know what to say.’ (Song Jeong-Su)

Song Jeong-Su quietly grabbed and squeezed his thigh.

He knew that he shouldn’t be imagining this, yet the situation in Beijing seemed to be a premonition of the future waiting for them. He felt queasy and wanted to empty out his stomach.

Although, he hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday and probably wouldn’t be able to throw up in the first place, anyway.

“Mm, so here’s the thing...” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

The one to break the silence was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Yi Ji-Hyuk.

Song Jeong-Su heard that unperturbed voice and two thoughts immediately popped up in his mind. One, he wondered if Yi Ji-Hyuk didn’t know the meaning of being tense, and two, the latter maintaining his calm was helping the others to find some comfort in this dire situation.

One thing’s for certain, though – without Yi Ji-Hyuk’s presence, the level of panic in this room would’ve been far worse, regardless of what the others thought about him.

“For now, I think it’ll be better to tell our fighter planes to come back home.” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

“But, they have already arrived in the mission area...” (defense minister)

“I’m saying, it’ll be better to recall all those planes that arrived in the area or whatever. You know it’s not going to work anyway, so telling them to stay there is no different than telling them to die a dog’s death.” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

The defense minister lowered his head, his complexion stiffer than ever. It was at that point that the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff replied instead.

“But if we recall all of our fighters, we will no longer have a way to stop the ICBM.” (chairman of the JCS)

“Oh, and they can stop the missile, then?” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

“But...” (chairman of the JCS)

Yi Ji-Hyuk spat out a sigh then shifted his gaze over to Choi Jeong-Hoon. The latter nodded and took over from there.

“I understand your sentiment of doing whatever we can even if it’s ultimately in vain since our country is about to get trampled on. If I was in your shoes, I’d definitely try to grasp at straws if that helped.” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)

The defense minister slowly nodded in agreement.

“However, surely you know by now that that’s a needless sacrifice, the proverbial dog’s death. We all saw what happened, didn’t we? If the demon king wanted to, it can destroy every single plane of ours in one second or less. And not to forget, there will be other events in the future that might require our air force. There’s no need to needlessly weaken our own combat potential, sirs.” (Choi Jeong-Hoon)

‘...That is, if we’ll have a future at all.’ (Choi Jeong-Hoon)

Choi Jeong-Hoon worked hard to swallow back his real thoughts threatening to jump out of his mouth.

“I understand what you’re trying to say, but... Do we have an alternative response, then?” (defense minister)

This time it was Choi Jeong-Hoon’s turn to be rendered speechless.

An alternative, he asked?

Of course there wouldn’t be such a thing.

All modern day scientific methods to stop an ICBM had become useless. So what other method could there possibly be left to try?

“The Americans are requesting for the hotline to be connected, sirs.”

“Okay, connect the call.” (Yun Yeong-Min)

Yun Yeong-Min sighed after Christopher McLaren’s hardened face showed up on the large monitor.

– “Mister President. First of all, allow me to express my condolences.” (Christopher McLaren)

“Well, thank you for the sentiment at least, Director McLaren.” (Yun Yeong-Min)

– “According to the information we have, the nuke’s impact zone is estimated to be South Korea’s East Sea, or more correctly, somewhere between the East Sea and the southern coast. However, judging from how the missile accurately fell on Beijing, we’re now assuming that an external force is manipulating the weapon’s trajectory. Which means...” (Christopher McLaren)

“It means there’s not much point to predicting the potential impact zones.” (Yun Yeong-Min)

– “That’s what we believe as well. However...” (Christopher McLaren)

Christopher McLaren stopped there and seemed to be pondering something, before carrying on with the rest of his sentence.

– “Although this is not an official stance of ours, if I’m allowed to make a guess... taking into account the characteristics of the demon kings as well as their behavioural patterns observed so far, there is a greater chance of the nuke falling on a major city with a lot of people living in it. Which major South Korean city falls within the radius of the projected impact zone?” (Christopher McLaren)

“...That will be Busan.” (Yun Yeong-Min)

Yun Yeong-Min spat out a long sigh.

By a stroke of pure bad luck, the city of Busan, arguably South Korea’s second most important city, was located in the southern coastline.

‘Half of Seoul’s gone, so if Busan is destroyed on top of that... It won’t be an exaggeration to say that Korea will lose almost all of its abilities to function as a nation.’ (Yun Yeong-Min)

Seoul’s residents had been evacuated somehow on time, but doing something similar when a nuke was falling on top of Busan would be next to impossible to carry out. How many people could realistically be crammed into the subway stations and the evacuation shelters, anyway?

Besides, there were no guarantees of their survival just because they hid down there.

– “Our side has already concluded that it’s impossible to respond via conventional defensive measures. And this is why I’m asking you this... Mister Yi Ji-Hyuk.” (Christopher McLaren)

“Yes?” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

For a moment there, Yun Yeong-Min was overcome with a strange feeling.

Yi Ji-Hyuk wouldn’t know this, but Christopher McLaren used to openly pressure the South Korean government into handing the former over for the purpose of human experiments. Yet someone like that was pretending that nothing had happened and was conversing ‘normally’ with Yi Ji-Hyuk, which in turn caused this bitter aftertaste in the mouths of everyone watching this scene unfold.

– “It looks like we’ll have to request you for your help one more time, Mister Yi Ji-Hyuk. It’s impossible to stop those nukes with humanity’s technology. And that’s why I need to ask you. Is there any way to stop them?” (Christopher McLaren)

“Hmm...” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Yi Ji-Hyuk’s head cocked this way and that.

His action indicated neither affirmation or denial.

“Well, you can think of it as almost impossible.” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

– “Is that so...” (Christopher McLaren)

“But that doesn’t mean we must give up, right? We should try to stop them somehow. As for our odds, I’ll say maybe fifty-fifty?” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

– “Fifty, you say...?” (Christopher McLaren)

It was indeed a massive improvement for the percentage to shoot up from zero all the way up to 50.

– “Do you have to personally step up, Mister Yi Ji-Hyuk?” (Christopher McLaren)

“I guess. Looks that way.” (Yi Ji-Hyuk)

Christopher McLaren furrowed his brows.

He was more or less aware of how grave the situation was with Yi Ji-Hyuk thanks to Alpha’s warning. Wasn’t he told in no uncertain terms that one wrong move could result in the destruction of humanity by Yi Ji-Hyuk’s hands?

Although Christopher McLaren didn’t know the exact meaning of that warning, he still understood that he must do his best to discourage Yi Ji-Hyuk from exerting his powers as much as possible.

But now, Yi Ji-Hyuk had to personally step up again?

Christopher McLaren couldn’t help but feel that he was inviting a lion just to stop a wolf. In the end, though, he had to ask.

– “What is the method you’re thinking of?” (Christopher McLaren)

< 431. Ah, shucks... This might not work after all? -1 > Fin.