Euljiro Tool Street (2)
I tilted my head back toward the sky. A bruised, blood-red sunset had already begun to bleed across the horizon.
As the daylight bled away, an unsettling gloom crept in from every angle, preparing to swallow the world whole. Before long, my coordinates would be painted bright red—a glaring homing beacon for every Abyss species prowling the surrounding ruins.
"It's just about time. Would you two gather over here for a second?"
At my call, the sisters hurrying near the Highway Rest Stop's cafeteria trotted over on quick feet.
"Is something wrong?"
"I'm planning to make some preparations for tonight's hunt."
Seo Hyun nodded, her fingers habitually checking the gear slung at her hips.
"They'll be swarming us in droves," I continued. "Charging into that head-on with nothing but bare flesh and blades would be idiotic. I'm going to set up some traps."
"Is there anything we can do to help?"
"Seo Hyun-ssi, please head over to the convenience store and bring back as much butane gas, fishing line, and batteries as you can carry."
A flicker of genuine curiosity lit up Seo Hyun's eyes.
"You're going to build traps with those?"
"Yes. If we plant them along the access road where they'll enter the clearing, we can deal a fairly substantial blow right from the opening bell."
"Understood! I'll clean out the shelves right away!"
With an energetic bark of acknowledgment, Seo Hyun spun on her heel and darted off.
I turned my attention toward Seo Seol, who was lingering beside the truck. Seeing me look her way, she puffed up slightly, her pale face flushed with eager anticipation as if expecting her marching orders.
"Ahem! As for you, Seol-ssi... I need you to climb into the truck's passenger seat and lock the door as tight as it goes..."
"Hmph... You're just worried I'll get in the way of the fight, aren't you?"
...Even when she pouts, she's ridiculously pretty.
"Well, it's not that you'd get in the way. It's that our precious chef absolutely cannot be allowed to get a scratch on her, so we must enshrine her in the safest sanctuary available. You shouldn't even have to ask such an obvious question!"
At my shameless grandstanding, the nervous tightness vanished from Seo Seol's face, replaced by a soft, blooming smile.
"Then I'll stay inside and keep praying that both of you return completely unharmed."
"Good. Once you're inside, don't open that door under any circumstances, no matter what happens out here!"
"Yes! Oppa!"
Oppa...
The word lingered warmly in my chest. I watched until Seo Seol climbed into the cab, pulled the heavy door shut, and engaged the deadbolts from within.
A moment later, Seo Hyun returned, her arms overflowing with blue butane canisters and assorted junk.
"I scraped up every single can of butane left in the mart!"
"Thank you. Shall we get to laying the field along the entrance road, then?"
I fished electrical tape and wire nippers from my portable toolbox. By stripping the leads on the batteries and wiring them into exposed contact points, I fashioned improvised detonators engineered to spark the instant tension was applied. Binding bundles of canisters tightly together, I mounted the detonators securely against the valve heads, then tied long filaments of fishing line across the road to serve as concealed tripwires.
"So the moment they brush against this wire, the canisters will detonate and hit them with a massive blast, right?"
"Sharp eye. If we can disrupt their footing and scatter their momentum even a little, the cleanup will be ten times easier."
"You really are remarkable. To craft such lethal weapons out of everyday knick-knacks!"
"Flattery won't earn you pocket money, you know."
"Goodness! As if I'd ever ask you for an allowance!"
Then what exactly are you hoping for?
The cheeky retort crossed my mind, but I prudently kept it behind my teeth. Working in seamless rhythm, the two of us positioned several improvised claymores across the choke points of the access road, dusting them lightly with gravel and loose earth to break their outlines.
"Seo Hyun-ssi, please take position in the center of the open lot and prepare for close-quarters engagement."
"Where will you be stationed, Ido-ssi?"
"I'm heading up to the roof to provide sniper overwatch."
"Understood. Fire on my call."
Slinging the long-barreled tacker gun over my shoulder, I caught the drainage pipes running up the rear wall and hauled myself onto the roof. Laying flat across the gravel-topped concrete slab, I settled behind the scope and swept the access road and the clearing below.
"Hmm-hmm~"
Whir! Shing!
Down in the lot, Seo Hyun hummed a breezy tune, casually testing the balance of the saw and driver in her hands. Having safely reclaimed her sister and feeling the revitalizing surge of the chef's buff coursing through her veins, she looked distinctly more relaxed and poised than usual.
The moment our preparations clicked into place, a crimson system warning window flared to life in the corner of my vision.
[30 Minutes Before Nightfall]
The Abyss species have marked your location as a crimson beacon.
Along with that chilling prompt, a nauseating psychic pulse radiated outward from the center of the rest stop lot. From this moment on, every monstrous shadow within a ten-kilometer radius would turn toward us like a school of frenzied sharks smelling blood in open water.
"Seo Hyun-ssi. They'll be on top of us any second."
"My condition is peak today. It doesn't matter how many crawl out—I'll mince them all."
Her voice came through the walkie-talkie crisp and brimming with cool, unshakeable confidence.
Chime! Chime!
Barely a minute after the warning chime faded, a harsh, screeching din like grinding metal began echoing through the dusk, accompanied by the guttural baying of predatory beasts.
Skrrr-clash! Clang!
Creeping out from the encroaching shadows, a pack of Twilight-grade Abyss species slipped into the perimeter, pairs of crimson eyes burning in the gloaming.
"About ten of them?"
"Fewer than expected. That's a relief."
"Yeah. They're entering the killzone right now. Get ready."
Hunting my scent straight toward the open tarmac, the lead beasts bounded heedlessly across the threshold, their heavy paws snagging the taut fishing line.
Twang—!
The stretched monofilament snapped, releasing the striker pins. In a heartbeat, the clusters of butane canisters buried along the curb erupted in a chain reaction of blinding, concussive fury.
BOOM! KA-BOOOOM!
A thunderous roar shook the ground as plumes of searing orange fire blasted toward the sky. The sheer concussive shockwave launched three of the point monsters straight into the air like ragdolls.
"KIEEEEK!"
Engulfed in clinging flames, the twisted beasts shrieked, rolling frantically across the asphalt. The blast wasn't enough to reduce them to ash—only mana or core-treated edges could permanently kill them—but the blunt kinetic trauma visibly cracked their carapaces and shattered their momentum.
"Hunting season is open."
The instant I muttered the words, Seo Hyun crossed her weapons before her chest. With practiced precision, she slammed the shank of the heavy driver into the receiving slot at the heel of the wide-toothed saw.
Click.
A metallic locking sound engaged, immediately overtaken by a ferocious mechanical shriek.
VZZZZZZZZT!
The core-infused driver acted as a supercharged mana motor, driving the ink-black teeth of the saw into a blinding, circular blur. Whining like a furious chainsaw revving at full throttle, it sliced through the air with a vicious hum.
Without a split second of hesitation, Seo Hyun kicked off the ground with superhuman acceleration, plunging straight into the heart of their scattered pack.
"Evening, boys!"
SHRRRRK! SPLAT!
The screaming blade tore through the monsters' thick hide as effortlessly as hot steel parting tofu. Her footwork was visibly faster, sharper, and more lethal than before. Fueled by Seo Seol's culinary buff, she showed not an ounce of fatigue, dancing gracefully among the monstrosities while systematically lopping off limbs and severing heads with ruthless efficiency.
"Can't let her hog all the spotlight."
Clack—
Laying flat behind the scope, I keyed into the mechanical regulator I had retrofitted to the tacker gun. To immediately compensate for my wretched thirty-percent baseline marksmanship, I had rigged an adjustable pressure-release valve onto the expansion chamber. My logic was ruthlessly pragmatic: if my aim was garbage, I would simply crank the muzzle velocity of the heavy spikes so high that the targets wouldn't even have time to twitch, let alone dodge, thereby minimizing the error margin.
I cranked the overclocking dial all the way to its absolute mechanical ceiling.
Creak!
I could feel the violent vibration humming through the alloy stock as raw mana bonded with the compressed gas inside, swelling to the razor edge of critical pressure.
"Gas pressure locked at absolute maximum."
Just in case the violent kickback shattered my cheekbone, I had stuck a foam door-bumper pad—salvaged from the mart's home goods aisle—right where my face met the stock.
Alright. One down to start.
Centering the crosshairs dead on the temple of a beast attempting to flank Seo Hyun from her blind spot, I squeezed the trigger.
BANG!
What echoed across the roof wasn't the modest pneumatic pop of an industrial tool, but a deafening explosion that rattled the concrete under my chest. Propelled by the overcharged pressure, the heavy steel spike tore through the air like a railgun projectile, leaving a vapor trail in its wake.
Before the beast could even register the sound, the spike punched through its skull, obliterating bone and brain tissue in a spray of dark ichor.
CRACK!
"Guh, my jaw! But damn... at this velocity, missed shots won't be an issue at all. Absolutely magnificent!"
Pushed to such an absurd velocity, the projectile struck before the beasts could even perceive the trajectory. I methodically swept the scope across the lot, picking off the beasts that slipped past Seo Hyun's guard or attempted to encircle her.
THWACK! BOOM!
Each time an overcharged spike struck home, another Abyss species let out a strangled shriek before collapsing into a dissolving mound of black ash.
"Whoa! Ido-ssi, what kind of firepower is that? Did you bring a portable railgun up there?!"
Seo Hyun shouted in breathless admiration as the devastating fire support paved an open lane for her saw. Within minutes, the pack of ten had dwindled to a ragged three or four survivors.
Enraged by the annihilation of their packmates, the surviving remnants abruptly abandoned the ground fight, wheeling toward the building and clawing up the outer brickwork toward my rooftop perch.
"Whew... might as well close the curtain in style."
Clack-chunk—
Without an ounce of panic, I slotted a secondary compact tacker gun onto the underbarrel rail of my primary rifle. With a solid metallic snap, the two tools integrated into a single, bulky shotgun configuration.
"Last call, bastards. Enjoy the ride down."
KABLAMMMM!
A broad, fan-shaped cloud of dozens of heavy spikes erupted from the integrated muzzle in a lethal cone of buckshot. The three Abyss species scrambling up the brick wall took the spread point-blank, instantly turned into punctured pincushions before peeling off the masonry and plummeting to the tarmac below.
As the final corpse dissolved into fine black dust on the wind, a deep, settling silence blanketed the open lot.
"Threat neutralized. Excellent work down there."
"It was so much easier thanks to your sniper cover, Ido-ssi!"
Sliding down the drainage pipe, I hopped down into the clearing. Seo Seol, who had been listening intently from within the truck, cautiously cracked the passenger door and peeked out.
Scattered across the scorched tarmac where the monsters had fallen lay ten murky, ink-black Twilight-grade cores, gleaming with dim, otherworldly light. We combed the lot, scooping them up and tucking them securely into our pack.
"Ten whole cores in one go..."
"We hit the absolute jackpot today."
Seeing my satisfied grin as I hefted the weighted satchel, Seo Hyun leaned in with wide, sparkling eyes.
"What are you planning to craft with these cores this time?"
"Well, I have quite a few ideas to mull over."
As I replied, my gaze drifted across the asphalt, eventually settling on the far edge of the rest stop parking lot. Resting by the rusted guardrail was a rugged, heavy-framed motorcycle, long abandoned and battered by the elements.
It was caked in a thick layer of grime and highway dust, clearly forsaken since the first days of the fall, but beneath the dirt, the structural frame and chassis looked remarkably sturdy.
"Hm?"
Noticing my eyes locked onto the rusted two-wheeler, Seo Hyun tilted her head quizzically.
"What is it?"
"Seo Hyun-ssi, by any chance... do you know how to handle a motorcycle?"
"A motorcycle? Why do you ask? Well, I did work a delivery gig on a scooter for a while during college."
Hearing her affirmative answer, a broad smirk tugged at the corner of my lips as I pointed toward the abandoned machine.
"Then how about we build ourselves a proper set of wheels?"