Pistol

"That was gentle, the part being."

"You call that gentle? We nearly lost the office."

The pillar of ice had come to a stop mere inches from the ceiling.

Just as he had predicted, the spell woven into the prayer was one that summoned a pillar of ice — the very same magic the Arctic Giant had used to blow the Trailer to pieces.

Because he'd seen it coming, it didn't shock him. What startled him was something else entirely.

Mu Beob-sa's mana was deepening faster than Won-goo had anticipated.

Magic was one of those disciplines that grew more potent the longer the apocalypse dragged on.

But it carried one enormous weakness — unlike the enhancement type, which adapted instantly to every new stage of growth, magic took time.

Every coin enhancement forced the mana circuits to readjust, and the stronger the mana grew, the worse that tendency became.

Mu Beob-sa's Gift inflated his mana pool. It didn't simply add to what he had — it granted him additional mana on top of everything he already possessed.

The more his power grew, the bigger the bonus that came with it, which meant his mana circuits needed that much more time to settle back into place.

"Still, it's usable at this level, the part I'd say."

"What did I tell you? I said it was good. It's exactly what you old-timers need right now. But it's too long. Why do you talk so damn slow? Let's cut it down to one minute."

"How exactly would you cut a five-minute incantation down to one, the part I ask?"

"Where's there a will there's a way. Drill it until it's second nature, that's all. You planning to stand around for five minutes every time you cast that thing? People will be dropping dead while you're still reciting."

"You're viewing the situation far too extremely, the part I note. By the way — when does this thing disappear, the part I wonder?"

It was a strange sight, a pillar of ice planted square in the middle of the office.

Pacific, oblivious to all of it, was dead to the world. Looking at him asleep, you'd never guess he was a man lost in a nightmare.

"It'll vanish on its own."

How long a spell held was closely tied to the caster's mana. That was why the pillar lingered instead of winkling out on the spot.

"I have a question, the part I do."

"Which is?"

"Could this stone tablet be enhanced, the way capsule monsters are, the part I wonder?"

"That one's already a finished product."

"A shame, the part being."

"But there are things that change depending on your mana, old man."

"Is that the case, the part being?"

"It is. Now, if you're done checking, get out and go have fun."

"What are you scheming to do alone, the part I ask?"

"Then stay put."

"I'll be going, the part I am."

Mu Beob-sa slapped his lower back and shuffled out of the office.

The moment he was gone, Won-goo fished a Weapon Enhancement Sticker out of his pocket.

The sticker had always been part of the plan he'd drawn up. But he'd half given up on that route.

It simply hadn't shown up during his playthrough of the apocalypse.

And now, here it was in his hands. If the right one had dropped, something very interesting was about to happen.

The sticker was an equilateral triangle filled with strange, intricate patterns.

These, too, were all modeled on the abilities of the countless races scattered across the universe.

In that sense, they shared the same origin as Seals.

The Dullahan, for instance, was a construct built on the Dulla species as its template.

In theory, every star floating in the cosmos represented its own race.

And those races each tended to carry a defining trait.

Take humanity: unmatched, for better or worse, in sheer imagination.

Judged by universal standards, humans counted as remarkably intelligent lifeforms.

The standard assessment, however, was that precisely because of that intellect, their civilization had failed to develop quickly.

Who would believe a claim that intelligence so exceptional actually ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hindered a civilization's growth?

And yet this was one of the truths Won-goo knew firsthand, having walked to the very end of the apocalypse once before.

Earth's people had been too clever to handle the end properly.

Unable to accept anything at face value, they had failed to prepare — and so the apocalypse caught them flat-footed.

Won-goo peeled the sticker off and pressed it against Ternon's Warhammer.

The hammer glimmered for a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moment, and a message bloomed in his mind.

"That's it!"

He shouted it out loud. The sticker he'd wanted was finally in his grasp.

"Haaah... so it finally shows up now..."

He muttered to himself, giddy as a kid.

A man who had never once reacted this way to any reward, no matter how grand — his reaction now meant exactly one thing: what he'd been craving was finally within reach.

A Weapon Enhancement Sticker.

And among them, the one that granted fusion.

Won-goo studied the fusion sticker's pattern one more time, committing it to memory.

Seals, items — from here on out, anything even remotely related to this he intended to hoard ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without exception.

Had he known what the fusion-granting pattern looked like, he could have secured it ages ago — a dozen times over.

The apocalypse was unfriendly that way.

It rarely bothered with explanations in advance.

It preferred to explain only after you'd used something — and even then, half the time it explained nothing at all.

It didn't stop there. Some powers came locked outright, refusing to activate unless their holder could 'recognize' the force sealed within.

The massive Seal engraved across Won-goo's back was exactly like that.

A reward from the Waterspout / Dragon's Ascendance achievement — an accomplishment that in the old timeline only those who'd ascended to superhuman ranks ever managed to attain, and he'd claimed it absurdly early.

And yet he could draw on only the tiniest ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fraction of its power.

Because he couldn't recognize the force sleeping inside it.

At most, he managed to use its one supplementary option — Perfect Communication.

Such was the apocalypse: it gave you nothing kindly, nothing for free.

The sticker Won-goo had just applied was one that fused weapons together.

Among the myriad options a Weapon Enhancement Sticker could carry, this one sat at the very top tier.

Enhancement stickers were graded by complexity — the simpler the effect, the lower the tier.

Conversely, the more intricate the transformation, the higher the grade.

Won-goo stepped out of the office at once and climbed into the Trailer.

Because the weapon he intended to fuse with Ternon's Warhammer was none other than —

The Meaty Dagger was a fine weapon in its own right, but it simply wasn't in the same class as Ternon's Warhammer.

More to the point, even if the Meaty Dagger had been the superior blade, Won-goo would never have fused it with the hammer.

He'd finally found the means to fix the Warhammer's fundamental flaw. Throwing this chance away would have made him a fool.

Fusion transformed a weapon while faithfully preserving the abilities and characteristics of the original. Which meant Ternon's Warhammer could become a weapon far better suited to stacking its debuff.

So Won-goo entered the Trailer and spent his coins.

A gold coin purchase — ten coins.

He bought a gun.

It looked somewhat different from the firearms he'd purchased before, though.

This time, it was a pistol.

A big, chunky revolver.

Thunk!

With a heavy clunk, a fortune in coins vanished from his account in an instant.

In the same breath, a bundle of options settled onto the revolver.

Infinite Magazine (20), Rapid Reload (10)

He bought Rapid Reload on top of it because Infinite Magazine didn't actually eliminate reloading.

Reloading still existed. All it meant was that you never had to worry about running out of bullets.

But Won-goo knew how maddening that option could be in practice.

The refill rate was painfully slow.

After burning through all nine rounds, you had to wait more than three minutes before the magazine filled again.

At that point you'd be better off skipping Infinite Magazine entirely and just paying for ammo as you fired.

So Won-goo bought Rapid Reload as well.

Needless to say, for all its performance, the thing was obscenely expensive.

Call it one of the godawful quirks of the Blessing of Machine Civilization Gift.

Once you committed to a path and poured your Milestone Traits into it, everything from every other branch came at a punishing premium.

Had Won-goo specced into [Combat — Firearms] instead of the Trailer line, this exact item would have cost him a tenth of what he'd just paid.

In seconds, a pistol-class weapon was resting in Won-goo's hand.

The moment he gripped it, a number floated up: [23:59].

Even after all that coin, it was nothing more than a disposable item.

If not for the Enhancement Sticker, Won-goo would never have used this ability — not even with a gun barrel pressed to his own temple.

At that price, plain coin enhancement was simply the better deal.

Ask anyone, and you'd get the same answer.

Vreeeee!

He held the revolver in his left hand and pressed it against the warhammer in his right.

Light spilled out, and the revolver began to be absorbed into the hammer.

Fusion's greatest drawback was that the weapon being absorbed vanished forever — but in this case, it was a disposable item destined for the scrap heap anyway, so who cared.

Strictly speaking, it was a loophole — a trick that abused the system itself.

Knowledge like this was one of the hacks Won-goo had picked up over the long apocalypse while working as an engineer in the Resistance.

When performing any fusion-type technique, a disposable item could serve as the base and the fusion would persist.

About a minute later, the warhammer's shape changed into a pistol.

A gun was born with every one of Ternon's Warhammer's overpowered functions intact.

The Warhammer's fundamental weakness was that a single stack required you to physically smash the target.

For a crew like Won-goo's — people who prized profit and fought only battles that paid off — that had always been a quietly infuriating design.

By position, Won-goo was the control tower. And in a pinch, he was expected to cover every position at once.

When the vanguard buckled, he reinforced the front; when the rear guard was in danger, he pulled them out. That was his role.

But his main item, Ternon's Warhammer, kept dragging him toward the front line whether he liked it or not.

If, however, the Warhammer could strike from range the way it now could, he could hold the control tower position as long as he pleased.

"Hefty thing."

Best of all, the pistol in Won-goo's grip was far larger than an ordinary sidearm.

Big enough that he could grab it by the barrel and swing it like a club if the mood struck.

Fusion complete, Won-goo left the Trailer and stepped back into the office.

Then he rummaged through the Subspace Backpack of the soundly sleeping Pacific.

Clang! Thud! Clatter!

"You little... how much junk did you cram in here?"

Sifting through the haul, he pulled out an item he'd seen before.

A fairly sturdy iron shield.

Heavy, solid — the kind of thing that would do its one job of shielding without complaint.

Knock! Knock!

He rapped the shield with his knuckles to check its durability.

"Nine rounds or so ought to do it?"

Ternon's Warhammer's true function was to weaken whatever it struck, asking no questions and making no exceptions.

And that weakening stacked infinitely.

In other words, in theory, Ternon's Warhammer could reduce anything — god, demon, whatever higher power you cared to name — into a drooling idiot, no questions asked.

The drawback was that the mightier the target, the more times you had to smash it. But even so, it was more than worthy of being called the Resistance's final failsafe.

Ting!

He propped the shield up at a proper distance and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger of the piece that had been Ternon's Warhammer and was now Ternon's Pistol.

Unlike the old guns, there was no crack of tearing air — just a clean, sharp sound of air being pierced clean through.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

A strange, muffled sound, as if a suppressor had been fitted — but it had a certain charm of its own.

Nine rounds spat out in an instant and hammered against the shield.

Naturally, the shield came away unscathed.

By this stage of the apocalypse, the grim reality was that conventional firearms couldn't punch through even a survivor's armor, let alone a proper shield.

Won-goo's original shotgun couldn't even crack an enhanced survivor's body — the idea of a pistol piercing a Fisher's dedicated shield was laughable.

Not so much as a scratch appeared.

Even so, Won-goo kept firing.

Around the time he'd reloaded and emptied it three times, the sound coming off the shield changed.

With a noise like shattering glass, the once-solid iron burst apart.

Won-goo watched it break with an expression of deep satisfaction.

Then he bought a fresh batch of rounds and loaded them in.

Won-goo's Gift and fusion were a match made in heaven.

With the warhammer's traits fully preserved, he could now fire the specialized munitions purchased from the Trailer through it.

In a word: every bullet leaving that pistol from now on came with the weakening debuff built in, standard.

Expensive rounds, to be sure — but Won-goo was convinced these were the perfect match for Ternon's Pistol.

He ejected the old magazine, slapped the nano-bomb magazine home, and reloaded.

Then he aimed at the pillar of ice — badly melted by now, but still standing.

Thoomp!

The round punched through the ice with a sizzling crackle.

Three seconds later — detonation.

BOOM!

The bomb buried inside the ice went off, blasting the pillar of ice into glittering fragments.