Chapter 494
Chapter 494
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: Gedroits's Heir, Deul (9)
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I opened my eyes. Massive body, massive bed, the sting of alcohol in my nose, beeping ECG monitor.
"Fuck."
Why the hell, with this ridiculously tough body I ended up with, do I always wake up like this?
"You idiot? You're hesitating over going to war with the Raptors? Did your balls shrivel up and atrophy from all that?"
"No, man, even so—"
"Oh dear~ Oh dear, my leg! Why's the leg those Raptor bastards chopped off aching so bad today? Ah, this isn't for your ears, but could you pass a message to those pussies fidgeting in their baggy pants because they don't wanna fuck up any Raptors? 'Hi! I'm the leg of a 60-year-old dude reborn as biofuel in the compressor!'"
"Th-that! Of course it's revenge for you, old man, I was planning on it! But we can't just think about it emotionally like—"
"War! War!"
"War for sure! Revenge before we kick the bucket!"
"No...."
And why the fuck had these two lunatics—this crazy doctor who'd somehow put my indestructible body in a hospital bed and his assistant—evolved into a pair of batshit war maniacs in just a few hours?
Sure, just a few hours ago, I'd thought it'd be worth talking to them about this. Ian used to be a legendary Raptor commander, and Woojin was a legendary merc from World War III. Guys who'd felt war up close and personal—I figured they'd think objectively and give me a solid conclusion, unlike my emotional ass.
"Listen! At least three-tenths of our guys are gonna die, you hear? Raptor dude, you think the Raptors are pushovers?"
"Of course! You don't see how those dick-sized shits scurry around hiding? They're total pussies, I tell ya!"
"Don't talk shit!"
"As an expert in the relevant field, those fuckers are literally dick-like. Leave 'em be and they'll grow big and strong, so you gotta chop 'em off quick."
"Uwaaa#@#$!_%#@!!"
But instead of what I'd hoped for, all I got was this vulgar-ass conversation.
These guys were fucked in the head. No matter what I said, they weren't gonna get it. Hell, they were spewing demonic shit that'd make the devil weep, like "Zerg-rush? A million people dying? Let's do it now!" How the fuck was I supposed to get any advice from these retards to base my decision on?
In the end, with my body already wrecked and now my mental state turned to mush too, I threw up my hands.
"Fine! I get it! Yeah, let's fuck up the Raptors! You win! I'm going!"
"That's right!"
"Not a total dumbass after all!"
Jesus Christ.
Not only that, but seeing them high-five like they'd just dramatically settled a negotiation on "Let's go to war!" made all my morning head-scratching and agonizing feel like total bullshit.
Me, asking these assholes for serious advice.
"It's the end times, end times. All I've got around me are these pro-war psycho maniacs. If my dead mom saw this, she'd be heartbroken."
"She'd be heartbroken for sure. Seeing her fine son still acting like a pussy with two great guys like us right here, she'd be like 'I gave birth to a daughter with a dick!' and stomp the afterlife flat."
"You little shit?"
"That hormone imbalance we checked earlier might be your body's freakout over your mental defects. Like your flesh is thrashing to fix your increasingly pussy spirit."
"Oh, old man! That makes sense?"
"Wanna both eat a fist and see if it makes sense?"
Fed up, I raised my heavy fist, and the two backed off giggling like they'd rehearsed it.
Goddamn. It's been so long since wasteland banter that my firepower's off. Me, losing a verbal spar to some Metal Gear wannabe! Resorting to violence instead of my three-inch tongue to shut down the convo!
I wanted to reclaim my honor somehow, but to shut up these two now debating the "androgynous charms of the wasteland's top heartthrob" right next to me, I had no choice but to swallow my pride and change the subject. Damn it, I'll pay this humiliation back tenfold!
"Ticat. Can you connect to the transport drone network now?"
Diriririk—
The latest-model drone, idling on standby, activated at its owner's command. Floating and lighting up the dim hospital room with green light, it drew the attention of all three guys inside.
[Connected.]
"Good. What about the investigation on those tank tracks I mentioned before?"
[Diririk— In progress, but expected completion is 48.7% later than previously estimated.]
"Not 10 or 20%, but almost 50% delayed? Something wrong?"
[Yes. Issue A—transport drones are designed for cargo up to 150kg, so their built-in cameras are only spec'd for basic terrain mapping and recipient facial recognition. These missions mostly happen in dust storms with particles under 20㎛—calcium, iron, aluminum, magnesium soil components—so finding faded tank tracks with a camera not built for fine observation is—]
"Tough, yeah. That damn dust storm's the culprit, huh."
[Yes. An alternative is lowering the transport drone's standard flight altitude to reduce observation distance, but for genuine Gedroits Company transport drones—]
"They sell for a fucking fortune at the exchange. That's why the scavengers lug around scrap metal and stare at the sky 16 hours a day."
[Accurate assessment. The survivor groups colloquially called 'scavengers'—]
Taeang!
"Stop! Summarize, only the info I need."
[....Diririk. Understood.]
Fed up with Ticat's endless spiel, I gave the order, and the new explanation-bot drone shut its trap, looking kinda deflated for some reason.
"Dust storm, right. Can't do shit about that. Any other reasons?"
[Based on some tracks spotted during the mission, extrapolating the target's path shows issues with further observation.]
"Why?"
[Electromagnetic storms.]
Dust storms followed by EM storms. No wonder Ticat's taking forever. Good news is, the first was just bad luck, but the second's something we can work with.
Dust storms are everywhere post-WWIII, but EM storms are regional.
Mostly in the hottest war zones, blasted with every missile type. Old maps: northeast China through all of Russia. Now it's—
"They headed up into the 30s zones, huh?"
North of Zone 47, Zones 39 and above.
High radiation, tons of mutants bred on it, survivors squeezed in between mostly unhinged.
Until last year, Zone 38 Dome was a survivor stronghold at the center, making it passable with effort, but now it's two levels worse than when I visited.
"Kack, ptui! The 30s zones, full of shitty memories."
"Ahh, one of the worst stretches of my life."
Totally agree.
Just mentioning it scrunched Ian's face like a wad of paper—the upper 30s are shit with zero upsides.
From the 30s up.
Used to be just big aggressive mutants, now it's "2.5-type mutant territory" packed with uniquely twisted freaks.
Cause? That Happy Blind cult bullshit, obviously.
The Chinese lady researcher, Gedroits's colleague, turned ideologue in wasteland life and rebuilt the worst area-denial non-lethal killer weapon, "Orpheus." Professor Park—me—took the full mental-collapse wave from it head-on to stop it, ending up with this freakish body that's half-man half-mutant, unlocking the unimaginable "Data Soul Professor Park" playstyle.
Thought it was over, but the Zone 38 Dome admin—thought he was one of ours—shoved the wrecked Orpheus into the radio tower and fired it up, "ending" it at "not the absolute worst" level. Fallout collapsed minds in Zones 38 plus 2-3 around it, turning survivors into colorful 2.5-types. Raptors, scheming with Zone 38 all along, snatched the central generator amid the chaos and bolted.
"...that's the precise summary of the Zone 38 incident. The colorful mutants pouring down from up there, survivors desperately clustering around Zone 47 Dome to escape 'em, those survivors forming something bigger than a city, excess mutant corpses reborn as mutation tech for the new era—all trace back to that Zone 38 fuckup as the trigger."
"Jesus. While an old civilian like me was clueless, shit like that was going down...."
Old man Woojin perched on my bed, groaning and nodding.
"The world's spinning too fast for this old body. Rumors floated among the refugee influx about Zone 38, but they were all over the place and too wild to believe...."
"No way you'd know properly. Old man, this is top-top secret. It's not that no one knows—it's that everyone who does got rounded up and vanished. Only Dome Inspectorate agents knew the truth, and if word leaks outside, it means one of us talked. Can't have some loose-lipped PTSD case spilling state secrets, so someone like Chief Oh just watches 'em? Nah."
"Ahem. Heard some shit I shouldn't have."
Woojin grimaced like he'd stepped in trouble, puffing his cig hard.
"So. Why bring it up outta nowhere? Want me to tour the Dome prison too?"
"Point is, post-that-day, even the poorest scavenger raises hell before setting foot up in the 30s—it's monster land."
Rough count: 18 zones totaled. Low pop, but most survivors mutated, some even speciating and breeding among themselves. The mutant horde we barely held off right after with full defenses? Just overflow from up top—no need to say how bad it is there.
"Radiation, EM storms, not regular mutants but swarms of quirky 2.5-types, no survivors left for Raptors to eat. Unless their heads are fucked and they're drunk at the wheel, no reason to head up there."
"Hmm...."
"Headache."
We can wait for more intel on their goal, but for hitting Raptors ASAP, them holing up in a minefield zone like that's awkward as hell.
"Predicted our moves and hid in the 30s where we can't launch a big Dome assault?"
"Make sense? I cleared GG and got transport drone access yesterday."
"Professor. Those drones can haul decent weight, right? Load 'em with 100kg of explosives each and carpet bomb—"
"They're on city-grade generators now, high-output area shields. Shields eat explosives especially—disperse the shock. Can't pierce without solid shells like tank rounds or matching-wave optical weapons. Why Raptors always drag tanks when hitting Domes?"
"What about drone speakers blasting noise max volume to lure a mutant horde and slam 'em into the shield? That'd drain their power fastest...."
"Huh, old man, that actually has merit...."
Talk had gone from war or not, to enemy location, to strike methods.
All three with war experience and Raptor encounters, we heatedly debated using our battle know-how.
[___Dirik. Dik, Dirik____Dik____]
Ticat, quietly watching our debate, suddenly blinked green and approached the Professor.
[Master. Search on the question is complete.]
"Since exposure equals loss in this setup—huh? Question? What question?"
[+Question: Effective strike and approach methods against a group with city-grade shields and triple-reduction core generators hiding in radiation, EMP, biohazard contaminated zones. Currently pending.]
"Oh, you were still on that? Hold up. What about Raptor tracking?"
[On hold.]
"What the...."
Looks like I need to tweak basic settings even if it means handing it to amateurs. Packed with high-value unit armor, three heavy weapon mounts, anti-grav float panels for the weight, and ultra-long-range comms to the orbital server room—guess no space left for smooth thinking circuits.
[Dik___Dik___ Dirik____]
While the Professor missed Corduro's natural thinking anew, Ticat plowed ahead with the query regardless.
Eeeng—weeeng—
Its state-of-the-art lens dilated and contracted like a living pupil, capturing the Professor's image.
[Dik_Dik_ Dik_]
『30s Zones』
『Mutants』
『Orpheus』
『Answer』
As specific keywords repeated oddly, signals linked to orbital sats bent toward somewhere on the ground.
[Supreme....admin.... 'professor'.... Zone 38 incident.... Mutants', flesh....ㅊ....]
Ticat's AI judged: something interfering with its onboard data, climbing up.
[Dik_Gik_Geek_Giiiik!]
"Wh-what? Search broke it?"
"Hack! It's a hack! Fuck, take it down! That's a heavy-armed drone!"
Clank! Clank clank!
Ticat activated emergency circuits to halt the process.
Defense panels opened, particle cannon heated, golden ammo belt unraveled with a shrrr!
In that instant, the three men flipped the bed, aimed muzzles, heart-stunners, and metal-hard fists.
[Di______]
Finally, everything prior in the green drone's circuits was wiped.
Kwaaang!
Pierced, scorched, crumpled, the drone slammed into the hospital room door, spewing smoke, arduously opening its voice panel.
[Youjjj#&** for the ___ an*___swer: Prime&**&**&&* comple___tionist Park___Professor has en##### counter__ed.]
Tap tap tap!
"Gunfire! Gunfire from the VIP room!"
"Guard squad, live ammo! Live ammo!"
Amid the sudden gunfire chaos in Woojin's black market. The wrecked room's drone spat its final words.
[An----swer____ end-game_de__vice____ colle___ctor delive__red###.]
Chijik, chijik!
The Professor's shell-like attack shattered the screen, but still the drone strained to draw something on the fractured display.
[Youuuu___forrrr-]
Bang!
Kwachak!
"Director! Professor! Mr. Ian! Everyone okay?!"
The drone's last words ended as the roughly flung-open door smashed it to bits.
"F-fuckin' hell. Saw a whole 2050s robotics horror flick...."
"Hack attack via drone.... In the black market's weak-signal basement, who the hell could...."
As guards stormed in one after another amid the uproar, Ian and Woojin voiced their takes.
The Professor's eyes were still glued to what Ticat had drawn on the screen at the end.
Somewhere in the shattered display.
White walls, countless screens. Dozens of wires per screen, thick cables twisted from them gathering into dozens more, leading somewhere.
The girl hooked to dozens of wires on her back—he'd never seen her before.
But every sense screamed he knew her.
[....Please take care of my sisters outside.]
Memory and voice seeped in.
The girl's face, surely a first sight.
"World Tree.... Lady?"
She resembled the silver-haired girl from the now-vanished data world, observer and guardian of all realms.
The girl's eyes faced not him, but the screens.
More precisely, the single place all screens filling the white room showed.
The broken drone's view: the Professor's image.
"Sisters.... huh."
Truth was, during the Zone 38 talk, I'd skipped something telling Woojin.
Too outlandish, no clue how to explain it—brushed it off vaguely.
3rd-type mutant groups: talking, thinking, purposeful, acting in unions.
Artists' Union. Twisted minds manifested—who, where, why unknown.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The busted drone broadcast distress signals per protocol.
Not this location's coords, but far-off somewhere.
A bona fide invitation.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The signal urged impatiently. As if Gedroits's game—thought fully gone—had begun a new countdown.
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