The Shopping Mall 4
"Phew, finished."
Mannequin Armor (E): Minor Regeneration
It was bigger than I’d expected, big enough to cover my torso, so it had taken longer than I’d thought.
Because I’d layered several materials over one another to make it, the finished armor had come out as an E-class piece from F-class materials.
The vambrace, which hadn’t shown any description at first, now sat beside the torso armor like part of the same set and was recognized that way.
And on top of that, it even had a special ability: minor regeneration.
"Didn’t think gear effects would show up too. Lucky bastard, huh?"
Originally, I’d just figured it’d be a solid piece of protective gear.
In a surprisingly good mood over the unexpected effect, I headed toward the main store with light steps.
"If you’re calling it fashion, then... yeah, this much is only right."
I struck a pose in front of the mannequin standing under the bright lights.
The pure, wholesome beauty of the human form, with absolutely zero exposure! That was the holy ideal.
The armor’s smooth nude-toned curves glittered brilliantly in the storefront lights.
Ah, but this was, well... yeah, a little awkward.
Since the basic outer frame would break if I tried to modify it too much, the original female mannequin shape was still there.
Which meant...
It had boobs.
Of course, they were just smooth, blank mounds, a bare hillside with nothing important on it, but still, that was the shape.
I should’ve split it apart and just attached the back panel pieces.
I realized the mistake only now, but rebuilding it would be a pain, and anyway, nobody but me was going to see it. So what did it matter?
Actually, this was better! I decided to think of it as a hybrid with crash protection for the vital points and built-in storage.
"All right, then. Let’s begin, ladies."
One hour before closing.
Perfect time to crack some heads.
The mannequins standing there had already been whittled down fast by my now-familiar one-hit, one-brainpan routine.
Only one remained.
Kim Ye-eun, that stubborn little brat who never knew how to listen.
♪ Thank you for using our shopping mall today ♬
It started.
The lights turned red along with the music.
Without looking directly at her, I kept my gaze turned away, and caught sight of Ye-eun’s shadow moving.
I was a little tense, honestly.
I mean, it was just for testing, but even I thought this was kind of insane.
Still, what else was I supposed to do? Stuff like this needed a proper performance check.
I thrust out my left arm, the vambrace already on it, and gripped the hammer in my right hand, waiting.
"Kim Ye-eun, you gonna keep doing this? Starting to rebel now too?"
I tried to shake off the nerves while watching the shadow draw near, but sweat beaded in my palm and made the hammer handle slick.
When the shadow lunged, I caught the position at a glance and blocked with the vambrace, feeling claws scrape and latch against it.
At least it didn’t seem like the vambrace was about to get torn off or anythi-
"Heuk!"
A sudden yank nearly threw me off balance, and I toppled over.
What the hell, that much force?
I rolled sideways as the shadow spread across the floor, and for an instant I saw Ye-eun with her fingers dug into the ground.
These mannequin aberrations were way stronger than I’d expected.
As my spinning vision caught up, I heard the floor crack.
I hurried to get back up, but then an arm slipped into my chest from the front.
Thwack-!
"Hoo... I nearly died right there."
Ye-eun, her hand clenched around my chest, froze when she met my stare.
So aberrations were aberrations, huh?
I was 185 centimeters tall, and not even the sort of guy who got street hawkers trying to reel me in, but the strength in that arm as it dragged me was ridiculous.
Ye-eun, you’ve got talent for selling phones.
With strength like that, you could drag anyone straight into a mobile shop.
"Still, the performance is solid."
There were claw-like scratches on the vambrace now, but it had blocked the hand that could even punch through the floor.
And at the center of the armor, there was a slight dent where her hand had dug in hard, as if squeezing my chest.
"Y-you pervert! Where the hell are you touching, ahhh!"
Ye-eun, who had dallied around so much she’d finally gone and degenerated into a sexual harasser.
You gonna grab somebody else’s chest like that?
I fixed that rotten brain of hers physically with the hammer of proper discipline.
After leaving the collapsing Ye-eun behind, I held the armor up to the mirror and saw the dent in the chest, shaped almost like a handle.
The wound was slowly, gradually healing, like fresh flesh growing back over it.
After confirming the effect of Minor Regeneration properly, I dismantled Ye-eun and added her to the material pile before heading back to the register.
After posting my survival check-in to the gallery, I brought back another pile of materials to make use of the time I had left.
Since I’d confirmed the performance, now I just needed to make the remaining parts.
When I got tired of hammering, I’d hop onto the gallery.
When I got hungry, I’d tear open an energy bar and drink some coconut water.
"Ah, damn it... put too much force into that one."
I tossed aside the vambrace that had cracked right before completion and reached for a fresh piece of material, only to find my hand feeling empty.
No way, already?
Once I’d sorted through the scraps I’d broken in-between and thrown out everything too ruined to use, the materials I’d gathered were gone.
I still needed two leg greaves.
"Guess I’ll leave a few alive for tomorrow."
Tomorrow’s mannequins would be there when tomorrow came.
Fresh materials were better anyway.
After pushing the junk materials into a corner, I walked another full lap around the shopping mall for the first time in a while.
Hmmm... the others at least seemed to have some kind of exit condition, but did I have anything like that?
I’d thought something would happen once I wiped out all the aberrations.
Maybe I’d see a hidden door, or maybe something would just look different from before.
"The escalator’s suspicious, though..."
The shopping mall’s stores always looked the same, but the escalator only moved during business hours and stopped at closing time.
During business hours, I’d ridden it up from the bottom and down from the top, gone up normally, run on it, even tried sprinting down the opposite way. It never mattered.
After closing, I’d used the stopped escalator like a staircase, going up and down on it, but it still always led to this floor.
Since escalators equal movement, that was the most likely place for a no-clip route, but it still wasn’t working.
"...Should I just smash it?"
No.
There was still one method I hadn’t tried yet, so I’d leave that for last.
I’d test it once each hour, and if it still failed, then I’d go all in.
* * *
"I finished it!!! But does this thing have no set effect?"
A perfect suit of armor that didn’t lose to full plate mail!
I’d completed the whole thing in just one week after being trapped here.
Now nobody could stop me.
At this point, I felt like I could probably take on every mannequin aberration here in a straight fight and still win.
"A helmet would’ve been nice, though."
If I was going to start by smashing heads, then I needed something left over, right?
Even the best-looking ones were still mannequins, and in the end, their heads were just too small.
Good for you, you little bastard. Small head and all.
The gallery users, who had been horrified by my material farming, were now a little more indifferent when I said I was going back to fight the mannequins.
But even that dulled reaction went into convulsions at my final line.
That’s right.
Today, I was going to fight properly against the first full set of mannequins without breaking a single one.
Now that the full set of armor was complete, and after leaving half of them alone before and trying them again, I had a pretty good handle on what I could do.
And honestly, this was better exercise than just swinging at mannequins, plus it helped me get better with the hammer.
Basically, it was sparring. That was all.
"Hey there, ladies! I’ll take everything from here to the end, so why don’t you bring it on?"
I stepped down from the escalator frozen by the closing music and kicked the store door open with swagger.
If I knocked out the one on the left first and took a position in the corner, I could keep everything in my sight li-
"Huh? Where’d they all go?"
The mannequins that should have been in the display window were gone.
What the hell? This had never happened before.
Could they not have respawned?
No, I’d definitely seen mannequins when I passed by earlier.
The changed situation sent a prickle of gooseflesh down my spine.
What was it? What had I missed?
Thrown off, I raised my hammer in front of me and scanned the surroundings.
Were they hiding? Did I need to check the other stores?
I figured I should search somewhere else too, and the moment I started to move, I heard a faint sound above my head.
At once, I lowered my body and looked up. A long, white thing was hanging from the ceiling, reaching toward me with its hand.
"Shiiit, it’s a human centipede!"