"Plowing" "Jumping"

??

"What... what was going on?"

Sears and the others froze on the spot.

They had seen Leon put two rounds in the man's chest and one in his head. Even without military knowledge, they knew an ordinary person could not possibly survive that.

Yet even with the villager's head blown apart, several blood-red "vines," some half a meter long and others a full meter, had crawled out from his neck.

?!

Leon was equally shocked.

However, everything he had been trained for was meant to handle situations like this.

After only a brief hesitation, Leon strode forward, raised his left foot, and stomped hard on the villager's chest, preventing him from struggling back to his feet.

At the same time, the USP's muzzle aimed downward at the mass of flesh on the villager's neck.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Crisp rapid shots rang out.

Splurt! Splurt! Boom!

After taking several .40 S&W rounds with strong stopping power at close range, the fleshy mass finally could not escape the laws governing carbon-based lifeforms and exploded outright.

Blood sprayed one or two meters forward like a dropped cup of milk tea, while the tentacles went limp and powerless.

It looked like it was truly dead this time.

Bang!

But Leon still put another round into the body.

Once he confirmed that the villager had stopped moving entirely, he swiftly removed the magazine with only a few rounds left, slipped it into the pouch hanging at his lower back, then pulled out and loaded a full magazine.

He completed the reload in less than two seconds. After scanning the area and finding no immediate threats, Leon freed his right hand, pulled back his sleeve, and tapped the personal computer strapped to his left forearm, immediately calling the ARS company for emergency support.

When the screen showed that the distress call had been sent successfully, Leon gripped the USP again and said to Sears and the others out of the corner of his eye, "Stay close. Survival comes first now."

"Sorry for the trouble, Mr. Joseph. If it weren't for you... we'd all be dead here." Sears was both ashamed and grateful.

The students had never expected that the "second-rate mercenary" they thought they had hired for his greed would handle rebel soldiers and mutant villagers beyond their comprehension with such effortless precision.

"Don't waste your breath. Just remember to pay me later. Move."

Leon did not bother being overly modest. He kept thinking about the payment, as if he had been cheated out of money before and had become particularly sensitive about it.

He then led Sears and the others quickly along the rows of thatched huts and entered an alley between them.

At the mouth of the alley.

He crouched halfway down and observed.

Looking toward the village square outside, Leon's group saw that among the mixed ranks of rebel soldiers and villagers were numerous mutants whose heads had been replaced by blood-red vines.

Moreover, the mutants could operate firearms and fire at the actual rebels in the jungle, though their accuracy was rather terrible.

When Leon took out his monocular and zoomed in for a closer look, he found that they still looked human on the outside, but their eyes were entirely blood-red, with no pupils in sight.

Based on those obvious traits, Leon could conclude that both the rebels and villagers were Infected.

Combined with the villager he had killed earlier, he could also infer that once an Infected sustained excessive fatal damage, the "blood-red vines" residing within the body would take over control. That was the second stage of the disease—

Mutants.

And the only thing capable of causing such a scene was God's Flower.

As for how it had brought villagers back from the dead and assimilated and infected the rebels, Leon had no idea. They could only wait for reinforcements and let the technicians reverse-engineer the process.

Putting away the monocular, Leon pointed toward a sheet-metal shack on the left, signaling that they would hide inside.

Sears and the others all nodded, understanding his intent.

Seeing that, Leon took a deep breath, steadied his rhythm, and was the first to rise and rush out of the alley.

Maybe it was luck?

They were not noticed by the Infected along the way.

After all, the rebels trying to seize the village were still attacking with everything they had, drawing almost all the attention away from Leon and Sears's group.

However, when Leon kicked the door open and had Sears, the teachers, and students enter first to take cover, their luck seemed to run out. An Infected carrying an RPG-7 turned around and aimed at the sheet-metal shack, about to pull the trigger.

Screech!

Yet for some reason, this Infected's body ruptured from the chest to the head, blood and muscle tissue splattering in every direction.

Boom!!

Only then did the distinctive booming report of an anti-materiel rifle come from the southwest.

That was not where the rebels were concentrated, and in the midst of such fierce fighting, nobody would pay attention to who had fired that shot.

Bang! Bang!

As for Leon, who had already entered the sheet-metal shack and completed a search, he was crouched beside the door, firing controlled shots at the growing number of Infected trying to approach.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Bullets whistled through the air.

Clang! Clang!

The sheet-metal walls were easily pierced.

Fortunately, Sears, the teachers, and the students were all lying prone on the ground. Combined with the Infected being even worse shots than the rebels and civilians had been before infection, everyone was safe for the moment.

Only Leon had to keep changing positions, darting out of the sheet-metal shack, then sliding and rolling over to a fallen giant tree to use it as cover. Kneeling on one knee, he exchanged fire with the infected and the rebels who occasionally charged into the village.

Bang... click!

Hearing the slide lock back, Leon had no time to think. He tapped the magazine release with his right hand and flung out the empty magazine, while his left hand reached for his lower back and pulled out a loaded replacement.

As his right thumb flicked the safety, the silver slide snapped forward with a click, chambering a round.

"..."

But Leon's expression had turned grim.

This was his last magazine. Even the magazines he had recovered earlier were empty. If the reinforcements...

Whoosh...

Just as Leon wondered when the reinforcements would arrive, he heard a faint roar.

He looked up.

Boom!

A gray-white A-10 Warthog loaded with ordnance swept low overhead.

It slowed and circled around, adjusted its angle, and from Leon's perspective flew from left to right. Then—

Riiiii~ brrrrrrrrt!!

In only a few seconds, the GAU-8 seven-barreled 30mm rotary cannon plowed through all the Infected and rebels threatening Leon, along with a third of the village.

When the pilot turned the A-10 around and flew overhead again from right to left, it unleashed a barrage of air-to-ground missiles into the rainforest.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Three football-field-sized stretches of rainforest were flattened outright, with trees and soil blasted skyward, let alone the rebels within.

Immediately afterward, a CH-53E Sea Stallion arrived over the village under the escort of an AH-1W Super Cobra and hovered roughly twenty meters above the ground.

Then, without a rope, a soldier leaped from the cabin alone and fell freely toward the ground.

But the expected sight of him stumbling and crashing never came. Instead, with a dull thud, the soldier landed steadily.

Thud! Thud!

More and more soldiers jumped from the cabin, carrying out rope-free aerial insertions.

(End of Chapter)