Sorting Things Out
Clatter! Tap! Ta-tak!
The moment Du-ho stepped into the Garage, a keyboard clacking so frenzied it sounded almost deranged reached his ears.
How dare they!!
Isto was hunched over an old laptop, utterly absorbed.
“…Isto?”
When Du-ho called out, the machine turned its head.
At once, the LED eyes bent into a seagull shape.
Oh!
The two of them started bickering the instant they laid eyes on each other.
Du-ho quietly skimmed the laptop screen.
It looked like a community board.
“What were you doing?”
“Trouble?”
Isto spun the laptop around toward Du-ho as though presenting a trophy.
Hoguai narrowed his scope-eye and looked as well.
They were screenshots of the portal site's top headlines, time-stamped by the hour.
As you can see, the afternoon had been all Cheoncheon, all the time, hamda.
Then he flipped to the next set of images.
Isto brought up the final screenshot.
By now, most of the articles were openly recognizing Ghost and singing his praises.
Du-ho frowned.
“Ahem!”
Isto cleared his throat and puffed out his chest.
“What’s an embargo?”
Du-ho tilted his head, and Hoguai calmly cut in.
No, not even close.
Still, Isto continued his explanation.
Since the media had spent all day licking Cheoncheon’s boots, I kept pouring fuel on the fire by roaming the community boards, didn’t I, hamda!
“Fuel?”
“Stoking the flames!”
In other words, he had been spreading the facts about Ghost in a way ordinary people could understand.
Even dragging overseas awakening communities into it.
In the end, the media hadn’t lasted even a day before it burst like a dam and flooded the world with Ghost stories.
Look!
Isto proudly displayed part of his handiwork.
Those sorts of posts were circulating all over the communities.
Du-ho’s lips twisted when he saw the username “SteelHead.”
“……”
When he looked up, Isto’s LED eyes were sparkling, desperate for praise.
Meanwhile, Hoguai muttered as he adjusted and readjusted his scope.
“Should I… make a Robot Liberation Front community too…?”
Du-ho stared into space for a moment.
Not a pine tree, and not especially subtle either.
Our Isto never changes.
He sighed and asked, “Aren’t you worried about getting traced?”
“No problem, hamda! I’ve got multiple virtual IP layers!”
“…What the hell does that mean?”
“The more they trace me, the more hundreds of millions of dummy IPs get mixed in, imda. Hehe~~.”
With a thumbs-up, the creature beamed.
Du-ho gave up on the spot.
“Anyway, what brings you here, hamda?”
“I was going to tidy things up.”
Du-ho nodded toward one corner of the Garage.
Five treasure chests.
Beside them was a mountain of Hunter loot they had gathered from the first floor of the Abyss.
That stuff…
I should drop it off at the lost-and-found center soon.
Anyway.
For now, the chests came first.
Du-ho focused and tried to sense mana, but there was no response.
As expected.
Hoguai was right.
Was there really treasure in there?
As if reading his thoughts, Isto hurried over with the laptop in his hands.
“Du-ho nim! Look at this, hamda!”
On the screen was a Hunter community board titled Dungeon Loot Verification Board.
“Pulled a B-rank skill book from a chest on Abyss Floor 4, let me tell you about it.”
“Chests from quests have great odds.”
“Honestly, mimics are just good EXP snacks. lol”
It was full of flashy, baiting titles.
“There’s all that?”
“Huh, you didn’t know, hamda?”
He was more surprised that Isto knew.
Excited, Isto kept going.
Just look!
“We’ve got five jackpot boxes, hamda!”
“Oh…”
“Even if it’s not treasure, it’s still experience!”
Just as the corner of Du-ho’s mouth began to lift—
“Hey, metal head.”
Hoguai stepped forward, tightening his scope.
“Stop selling nonsense to the Mechromancer. Community rumor credibility is below 10 percent.”
“Huh?! What are you talking about, imkka?!”
“The community is a cesspool of exaggeration, fabrication, and distorted memories.”
“The long one doesn’t know anything about dreams and romance!”
Isto ignored him half-heartedly and picked up one of the chests.
“You can tell by shaking it and checking the weight.”
Rattle.
He shook it with his ear pressed against the box.
Oh! Oh!
“Doesn’t it sound like coins, hamda?”
“Sounds like bones knocking together to me.”
“…It does sound dull.”
After that, Du-ho reached a conclusion.
You two.
“Pick two each and open them.”
Isto’s LED eyes erupted with a fireworks effect in advance.
He strode up to a chest.
“I’ll prove I have the golden hand first, hamda!”
Click.
With a cheerful sound, the lid opened.
And then—
Gya-gya-gya-gya-gya!!!
A mimic burst out of the chest lid, baring sharp teeth as it lunged for Isto.
Crunch!
One punch from Isto ended its fate.
“Hehe. A bust, hamda.”
Embarrassed, sweat drops appeared in the LED eyes.
Du-ho lifted a shoulder.
The experience is pretty high.
So the community posts weren’t total nonsense after all.
This time, it was Hoguai’s turn.
Hah.
“I’ll show you.”
Carefully, he opened the second chest.
Gya-gya-gak!!
“...Damn it.”
Tak, tak, tak, tak!
Gyak! Gyak! Gyak!!
Hoguai unleashed a hail of steel arrows on the mimic. In the end, the thing was beaten into a bloody pulp.
Oh.
Mimics really were tasty, in the EXP sense.
The rest went no differently.
The third and fourth chests were mimics too.
At last, in front of the final chest.
Isto and Hoguai looked at each other and let their shoulders sag.
Both of them were walking proof of bad luck.
Isto turned his head and looked at Du-ho.
“How about you open it, Du-ho nim?”
“You crazy metal head! Do you want to put the Mechromancer in danger?!”
Hoguai barked in outrage, but—
“Move.”
“Mechromancer-nim, it’s dangerous!”
“I’ve got this.”
With a soft rustle, Du-ho extended his hand, and silver nanobots poured from his fingertips.
It didn’t matter if it was a mimic.
He could open it from a distance.
And if it was a mimic, Isto and Hoguai would deal with it.
Clack.
The nanobots slowly disengaged the lock.
Sweat beaded on Du-ho’s palm.
Please, let this be treasure…
Creeeak…
The lid lifted little by little.
Silence.
“No gyagygya sound, hamda?”
And then—
A silver-blue light bloomed from inside the chest.
“…What is this?”
The light surged up to the ceiling and colored the whole Garage.
“T-this is!!!”
Isto lunged forward.
He snatched something from inside the chest.
“Mi-mithril, hamda!!!”
Fireworks exploded wildly in his LED eyes.
In his hand was a raw mithril ore.
“Woooow!”
“Kyyyyoooot!”
Du-ho and Hoguai shouted in delight right along with him.
Du-ho peered into the chest.
Five chunks of mithril ore, each about the size of a fist!
“Jackpot!”
Refined mithril went for 400 million won per kilogram.
Just by eye, there had to be at least 10 kilograms here.
“4 billion?!”
Even accounting for refining losses, 2 billion was easy money.
The three of them circled the treasure chest in a little loop, dancing like idiots.
Of course, the material would need refining.
But I can ask my master about that.
Hm?
A thin slip of paper lay at the bottom of the chest.
Du-ho carefully picked it up.
It was a small sheet etched with geometric patterns.
“What’s this?”
It wasn’t a mana circuit pattern.
Just as he wondered and lifted the paper higher, a System window appeared.
Dimension Ticket
Allows entry into Floor 1 of another dimension’s Abyss.
※ Uses remaining: 3
As Du-ho read it, his eyes widened slightly before narrowing again.
Another Abyss… that was surprising, sure.
But did he really need it?
I’d rather climb to Floor 2 than waste time on that.
So he set the dimension ticket on a shelf.
Once the cleanup was done and he’d perched on the workbench, Isto came over and asked,
“Ah, right.”
He had forgotten because of the treasure chest commotion.
Like when he used Dimension Control, Du-ho brought the Parts Shop to mind.
At that instant, a new window opened in midair.
He waited with his expectations running high.
“…Why isn’t anything showing up?”
That was when it happened.
Kiiiiiiing— CLANK!
With a deafening metallic groan, one side of the Garage wall seemed to be sliced away and vanish entirely.
In its place appeared a set of fairly large double doors.
OOOOOOOOO!!!
Kyoyoyoyoyoyoyoot!!!
Isto and Hoguai reacted even more excitedly than they had when they found the mithril.
What the hell is so great about that?
Du-ho approached the newly appeared double doors and pushed them open slowly.
A cool draft brushed his face.
His vision filled with rows upon rows of neatly arranged parts on endless shelves.
“Wow….”
The words escaped him before he could stop them.
It was a space that felt like a giant warehouse store.
By sheer scale alone…
“You could fit a few soccer fields in here.”
Then he suddenly realized something.
The Abyss got harder the deeper you went.
They would hit their limits too, sooner or later.
Well…
Come to think of it, the hidden quests have been a lot tougher than the main quest line.
In other words, he’d need to keep upgrading them steadily here.
Shaking off the thought, he turned around and noticed a kiosk standing beside the entrance.
The moment he stepped closer, a hologram rose into the air.
Beneath it was a small line of guidance.
Please make use of the Mechromancer’s unique skill, Part Detection.
“……”
Du-ho activated Part Detection and looked toward Isto.
Crackle!
A HUD spread across his vision like augmented reality.
Analyzing…
Huh?
“This never showed up before.”
It must be a special feature of the Parts Shop.
Then Isto’s information surfaced.
It looked a lot like the “Main” tab in Du-ho’s status window.
“Mm… so even after swapping to non-crystalline joints, that still wasn’t enough.”
Flexibility had limits.
What he needed now was a structure that could absorb impact itself.
An arrow appeared before his eyes, pointing toward one direction.
There stood a sign.
Tank-Only Zone
Wow….
“This is seriously amazing.”
This time he looked at Hoguai, who was standing on the opposite side.
Then—
Another arrow appeared, along with the issue.
Dealer-Only Zone
Du-ho nodded.
Of course they’d like this.
A place where you could diagnose a weakness and directly fix it to become stronger.
And only the Mechromancer could use it.
Hah.
“The Parts Shop… this thing’s insane.”
Du-ho was smiling like a kid.
Across the neatly organized shelves, the parts stood in orderly rows.
They varied in size and shape, but all of them seemed to be saying the same thing.
Attach me, and you’ll grow stronger.
Suddenly, he remembered being little.
The day he saved up his allowance to buy a plastic model kit and finally finished assembling it.
But assembly had only been the beginning.
The real fun came after that: modification.
Oh! Oh! Oh!!
He turned his head and saw Isto busily examining parts near one shelf, while Hoguai was already shopping by rapidly tightening and loosening his scope.
Yes…
That was exactly the feeling.
Not just running a finished product, but taking what was lacking and steadily shaping it into something complete with your own hands.
Du-ho slowly raised his hand.
Countless part data from Part Detection layered over one another.
Now then…
“Whose should I look at first?”