Hunt-Dog (2)
Dust billowed up in a thick cloud.
It was a mass of metal that had leapt down barehanded from the height of a five-ton truck bed.
For an ordinary machine, the suspension would have shattered or the drive shaft would have bent.
But where the dust settled, an odd silence lingered.
I lightly stroked the cold head of Hunt-Dog, its sensor dome, and looked toward the command stand.
Vice President Kim Hyungseop, his mouth hanging open; Doctor Choi Hun, pushing his glasses back into place; and even the reporter, frozen with a finger still on the shutter release.
The reactions were worth seeing.
“This way, Director.”
Director Yoon Taeseok, who had followed me down, spoke in a voice taut with nerves.
I straightened my clothes and walked slowly toward them.
“...Huh. Well.”
As I drew near, I heard someone let out a dry laugh.
He set down the crumpled paper cup he had been holding and spoke with deliberate ease.
“You’ve got a real flair for showmanship. But if you take that kind of brutal impact, your internal sensor calibration will be all over the place. You’re full of flash and no substance...”
He said it like that, but his eyes were trembling uneasily.
The ID badge hanging at his neck said he was Vice President Kim Hyungseop of Taesung Heavy Industries.
So he must be the one in charge.
Even to someone like Vice President Kim, probably an engineer by training, it would have been obvious.
At the exact moment of landing, the dampers had swallowed the impact perfectly, and the frame had retained its spring-like elasticity.
That was why he was coming out so defensively.
“Sorry I’m late.”
I greeted him politely, but without the slightest trace of timidity.
“I took a bit of time to warm up on the way over. I’m Baek Gunwoo, head of Hanseo Defense’s technical audit team.”
Director Yoon added from beside me.
“He’s here to support this robot project. He reports directly to the chairman and oversees the technical audit team.”
Kim Hyungseop’s eyebrows twitched at my title.
“Ah, I’ve heard about you. Rumor has it there’s someone over in Hanseo Defense’s ground systems division who’s been flying around lately. I’m Kim Hyungseop from Taesung Heavy Industries.”
He introduced himself properly at last and extended a hand.
I took it.
There was a quiet measure of resistance in his grip.
“I hear you’re an expert in composite armor for tanks, and now you’re looking at robots too? That’s not your field, so this must be hard on you. The robotics world has so many variables.”
“Machines are machines, aren’t they? I look forward to working with you.”
My flat response made the corner of Kim Hyungseop’s mouth curl slightly.
Then Doctor Choi Hun from the Agency for Defense Development, who had been watching us with his arms folded, suddenly cut in.
I recognized him at once, thanks to having reviewed the materials on everyone taking part in today’s test.
“I’m Choi Hun. So you’re Baek Director... You’re the one who turned that robot into a skeleton?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Doctor Choi shot me a sharp look over the top of his glasses.
“When I saw it from a distance, I thought it lacked fundamentals. But up close, that wasn’t it at all. The way you stripped it down to the absolute minimum was impressive. And the structure that bleeds off impact on landing too. This is a design that’s reached a higher level.”
As expected, an expert could tell at a glance.
At Doctor Choi’s praise, Kim Hyungseop’s expression stiffened strangely.
The man beside him stepped in with obvious interest.
“Hello, I’m Yang Seokjin from the Defense Daily. The scene you just made an entrance with was very impressive. Did you prepare it as the deciding move for this evaluation?”
“Not exactly. I was weighing the hassle of bringing a lift, and in the end it was easier to just have it jump. It wasn’t much of a burden for Hunt-Dog, either.”
“Haha, is that so?”
While Reporter Yang laughed and asked his question, the staff came over with access badges for me, Director Yoon, and the rest of our side.
It was the preparation phase before the real test began in earnest.
“Shall we talk again in a bit?”
“By all means.”
Reporter Yang was looking at me with a face full of anticipation.
*
With the evaluation committee chair’s signal, Taesung Heavy Industries’ Titan, the first contestant, rolled up to the starting line.
“Titan, start!”
Vroooom—!
With a thunderous roar, the six-wheeled unmanned vehicle shot forward.
It was undeniably overwhelming.
The sight of six massive wheels tearing through the dirt and blasting across rough terrain was forceful enough to leave a strong impression.
Crash, bang, bang!
It crushed the gravel field and shoved its way through the puddles by brute force.
Rough, but undeniably powerful mobility.
Kim Hyungseop seemed to regain his confidence, raising his voice as he looked toward Reporter Yang.
“See that? That’s power! The battlefield needs something that can dominate it cleanly like that. It has to be something soldiers can trust and rely on.”
“Oh... yes, it definitely has presence.”
Reporter Yang nodded and kept pressing the shutter.
Screeeech—!
When it entered the firing lane, Titan came to a sudden stop.
The chassis rocked front to back, unable to fully defeat its own momentum, but once it settled, the firing was stable.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
The machine gun spat fire, and the target area was reduced to a wasteland.
Brutal fire suppression.
To anyone looking on, it was a perfect, fully refined weapons system with no obvious flaw.
“Excellent.”
“Stable. It could be fielded immediately.”
The judges’ praise drifted over.
Beside me, Director Yoon’s face had gone sallow.
“Ha... It’s airtight. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be that polished. Can Hunt-Dog really compare?”
Director Yoon was already losing heart.
I set down my teacup and said calmly, “It’s well made. There’s nothing lacking in it for a frontal assault role.”
There was no need to put the other side down.
Something well made is well made.
It was simply aimed at a different genre than what we were about to show.
After Titan’s evaluation ended came the interval while our turn was being prepared.
The atmosphere at the command stand had already tilted toward Taesung’s side.
Then Doctor Choi approached me.
He nodded toward Hunt-Dog, standing lean and still at the waiting line, and asked, “Baek Director. Tell me honestly. Why did Hanseo choose legs in the first place?”
“...Excuse me?”
“Even the U.S. military gave up and switched to wheels. Why insist on quadrupedal locomotion anyway? Maintenance is difficult, control is complicated, and payload capacity is lower. The risk is too high for this to be just a showpiece.”
Doctor Choi’s question was sharp.
It wasn’t merely about demonstrating technical skill. It was asking the essential question: Why does this technology need to exist?
I looked at Hunt-Dog for a moment before answering.
“Based on our internal materials... if the goal is operation on flat ground or in desert terrain, then, as you said, wheels are the right choice. But as you know, seventy percent of the Korean Peninsula is mountainous.”
I pointed down at the ground with a finger.
“Wheels need roads. Legs only need points. Steep slopes, rock crevices, dense forest. Hunt-Dog advances by stepping on those points.”
“Hmm.”
Doctor Choi muttered with interest.
Reporter Yang, listening from the side, jumped in.
“Oh... so the tactical use is completely different?”
“That’s right.”
I answered with certainty.
“If Taesung’s Titan is a hammer that breaks down the door, then our Hunt-Dog is an awl that slips through the gap in the window. Its main mission is to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines in stealth, snipe commanders, mark coordinates, and provide fire support.”
Director Yoon seemed to draw courage from my explanation and added, “Th-That’s right! It makes almost no noise, so the enemy won’t even know we’re there until they’re dead!”
“A plausible reason.”
“Indeed. In a full-scale war scenario, there are actually far more efficient options than unmanned robots.”
After Doctor Choi, Reporter Yang nodded in agreement.
The government officials around us also nodded as if they found it reasonable.
As the mood drifted in that direction, Kim Hyungseop, who had been listening, gave a snort and cut in.
“Baek Director, your theory is excellent. Awl, assassin. Very stylish.”
Kim Hyungseop folded his arms and shook his head.
“But we’re engineers, not novelists, are we? You expect that thin leg structure to absorb the recoil while moving? Physically impossible. Instead of getting greedy and wasting research funds on something unrealistic, you’d be better off admitting the limits.”
Kim Hyungseop’s criticism was valid.
With conventional technology, it was impossible.
I smiled and nodded.
“You’re right. As you said, it would be impossible with ordinary technology.”
“That sounds like Hanseo used technology that isn’t ordinary.”
“Yes. As you can probably tell, we abandoned the ordinary approach.”
“...Really?”
I shrugged lightly and signaled the test controller.
And a minute later?
“Hunt-Dog, start!”
The signal dropped.
Swish—
Kim Hyungseop’s eyes widened.
Unlike Titan, which had roared forward with a deafening blast, Hunt-Dog slipped out as silently as a ghost.
All you could hear was the faint hum of its hydraulic motors and the soft scratch of its feet touching the ground.
“Huh...? It’s moving that fast and making no noise?”
Kim Hyungseop muttered in confusion.
Reporter Yang let out an exclamation.
“Wow... it really does look like a ghost.”
Hunt-Dog entered the rough terrain course.
A field crowded with jagged rocks and puddles.
Ordinarily, the chassis would have been jolted violently.
But Hunt-Dog was different.
While its four legs moved like mad, absorbing every contour of the ground, the body atop them kept perfect horizontal balance, as if it had been fixed in midair.
And then, at last, the firing lane.
Tap, tap-tap.
Hunt-Dog did not slow down.
“W-What? It isn’t stopping?”
Kim Hyungseop shouted in alarm.
“Baek Director! It’s going to topple over! Tell it to stop!”
He sounded genuinely shocked.
From an engineer’s point of view, it should have been impossible to withstand the recoil from that state.
But I replied quietly, “It won’t stop. It can handle it just fine.”
“...It can handle it? That?”
Kim Hyungseop was in the middle of asking back in disbelief when...
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The K4 grenade launcher mounted on Hunt-Dog’s back spat fire.
A massive recoil slammed into the robot.
“Ah—!”
Just as Kim Hyungseop was blurting out his shock,
Hunt-Dog’s legs shifted back by a fraction and bled the impact into the ground.
Like a boxer turning his head at the moment a punch lands to let the blow slide off, the robot was canceling recoil through the full chain of its joints.
And the muzzle didn’t budge an inch.
“......!”
Doctor Choi had his binoculars lowered halfway and his mouth hanging open.
“You’ve completely separated the control loop between the legs and the upper body... It’s bleeding the recoil through its own frame. Truly... artistic.”
Boom!
The target three hundred meters ahead was obliterated.
Hunt-Dog didn’t stop. It glided smoothly across the finish line.
*
The evaluation was over.
The result was overwhelming.
Kim Hyungseop stood staring blankly at Hunt-Dog.
I had expected excuses or anger, but he was unexpectedly calm.
As an engineer, he had accepted the technical gap he had just witnessed.
“...We lost.”
Kim Hyungseop shook his head with a bitter smile.
“I’ll admit it. That kind of technology... Taesung doesn’t have it right now. It’s a complete defeat.”
“Titan was excellent too. It was just built for a different purpose.”
When I offered that half-consolation, Kim Hyungseop gave a snort and held out his hand.
“Next time, we won’t be so easy to deal with either. We’ll see then.”
He accepted the loss cleanly and turned away.
Somehow, I had the feeling that when we met again, it might not be as enemies, but as colleagues.
Then Doctor Choi came up to me.
“Baek Gunwoo.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Hanseo didn’t waste its money. You’re the real thing.”
Doctor Choi patted my shoulder with his rough hand.
“I’ll be in touch soon about ADD’s next-generation defense robot project. I look forward to working with you again then.”
“Thank you. I’ll be waiting.”
Watching Doctor Choi, Reporter Yang, and the evaluation committee leave, I let out a long breath.
“D-Director... did we survive?”
Director Yoon, standing beside me, asked in a tearful voice.
I smiled and nodded.
“We survived. In spectacular fashion, too.”
Director Yoon and the researchers grabbed one another and cheered.
I left their shouts behind and looked up at the distant sky over Seoul.
The external threat had been dealt with.
The technical problems that had kept tormenting me and our engineers were being solved one by one.
Only one thing remained.
Just wait, finance line.
The numbers you loved so much.
Now it was my turn to use those numbers to squeeze you dry.
And the next morning.
Thud.
A morning newspaper was thrown rough-handedly onto the desk in Vice President Yoon Taejin’s office.
Decorating the bottom of the front page were headlines from the Defense Daily and major business papers.
On the monitor beside the newspaper article, Hanseo Defense’s stock chart was displayed.
The heavy, sluggish defense stock was from the morning onward climbing more than eight percent, erecting a red pillar.
Even the trading volume had already exploded to more than five times normal.
And what irritated Vice President Yoon the most was the securities report sitting in the corner of the screen.
Hanseo Defense:Restructuring concerns? Breakthrough on technology strength!(Rating:Buy)
“......”
Without a word, Vice President Yoon took off her glasses and placed them on the desk.
The robot division she had tried to cut out as a money pit using financial yardsticks had, overnight, become the golden goose the market was watching most closely.
The board she had set up was collapsing completely because of one variable named Baek Gunwoo.