Mobile Fortress, Part 1

Brilliant morning sunlight filtered softly through the gaps in the battered steel shutter, casting fractured golden ribbons across the concrete floor.

“Ugh…”

The sting of daylight dragged my consciousness back from the void.

“Son of a… feels like I took a beating from a gang with crowbars.”

Prying open my leaden eyelids, I clutched my screaming lower back and forced my upper body upright. Whether it was the backlash of recklessly burning through mana last night or the adrenaline tax from running around like a cornered rat, every tendon and fiber in my body throbbed in agony. Yet beneath the pain, a savage, intoxicating warmth bloomed in my chest: I was alive.

“Haha… hahahaha! I actually made it. Through that nightmare, through that sickening bastard of a monster… I survived!”

Relief surged through me, bursting out in manic, ragged laughter. I sat amidst the dust and scattered tools, cackling like a lunatic, until my gaze locked onto the translucent blue window still hovering quietly in the empty air—the one that had surfaced right before I blacked out.

In a world gone to ash overnight, turning down free leverage was a fool's errand.

“Perks?” I muttered, rubbing my gravel-rough chin. “If they're handing out bonuses, there's no reason to say no.”

Points are easy enough to understand—they're currency. Pinned post tickets? Could be useful down the line. But what the hell is 'first-clear prestige' supposed to do for me?

I weighed the options for a brief second before deciding to post it. But right as my finger hovered toward the confirmation prompt, I froze.

“Hold on. If I'm broadcasting an epoch-shattering feat to every desperate soul left alive, doing it as an anonymous string of numbers is pathetic.”

I needed a handle. Something grounded. A moniker forged from the stubborn resolve to build, bolt, weld, and overclock whatever scrap I could scavenge until I dragged myself out of this apocalypse alive.

Gongdori. TechGeek.

A melodic chime echoed against my skull.

The moment the server registered the milestone, a flood of replies erupted. Panicked, terrified survivors across the city were clinging to the board like drowning rats to driftwood.

“Look at that firestorm,” I murmured, a faint smirk tugging at my lips. “Now, where's that special war trophy?”

I scanned the floor. Right in the center of the patch of scorched black grease where the beast had shrieked and disintegrated, something glinted. Resting atop the fine ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ash was an obsidian, fang-shaped shard.

Wary of lingering curses, I reached out and gingerly lifted it. The surface was cold as dry ice, pulsing with a faint, malevolent hum that made the hairs on my forearm prickle.

“So this is an Abyss Core. A special crafting material… though even with Mechanical Engineering hardwired into my skull, I don't have the slightest clue what recipe this slots into yet.”

Without an immediate use for it, I slipped the obsidian shard into the deepest pocket of my work coveralls and checked the third reward.

According to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the prompt, I had unlocked the Mechanics Board. Sure enough, hovering beneath the category tabs on the Midnight Gallery's main display, an unfamiliar icon titled [Mechanics] pulsed with an amber glow.

“A board strictly for engineers? Are there that many poor bastards stuck with production classes?”

Since the prompt had called it a class privilege, traffic here was bound to be far thinner than the chaos unfolding on the main Abyss board. Driven by curiosity, I tapped the glowing virtual tab. The interface rippled like liquid crystal before snapping into a sleek, streamlined forum.

Right at the top, an official notice pinned in blood-red text caught my eye. The rules were draconian: strictly discussions regarding engineering, blueprint fabrication, material properties, and crafting. Any casual chatter or unrelated garbage would be subjected to immediate system censorship.

I checked my account ledger. My balance currently sat at a clean 158 points.

They gave me 10 at the start. Then 100 from the achievement announcement… so that extra 50 must have been the bounty for turning that shadow beast into ash.

“I burned two points reading posts yesterday, which brings me to 158. If reading costs one point, how much does it cost to post a thread?”

Unable to quell the itch, I decided to test the waters and fish for high-tier intel at the same time. One specific word hovered at the edge of my memory—something dredged from pop culture and myth.

“Cthulhu… if these shadow bastards are cosmic horrors, maybe someone out there knows how to forge gear specifically designed to butcher them.”

Bringing up the holographic keyboard, I typed: [Subject: Anyone got blueprints or weapons for hunting Cthulhu-type shit?]

I hit the submit button with confident swagger.

BEEP—!

The blue interface violently convulsed, bleeding into a blinding, crimson strobe. A shrill klaxon shrieked directly into my auditory nerves, rattling my teeth as jagged red text violently tore across my vision.

“…What?” My jaw dropped, my brain seizing up. “A target? You're going to paint a bullseye on my forehead and blare my address to every freak within ten kilometers? Are you out of your goddamn minds?!”

The lingering euphoria of survival evaporated like mist over a furnace. I clawed at my hair, a desperate, suffocating scream tearing from my throat. It wasn't just a beacon; if I dug my heels in and tried to hunker down, the system would summon even bigger monstrosities straight to my doorstep.

“You sadists! You're basically telling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me to abandon my hardware store today! I was going to fortify this place!”

Every evening, thirty minutes before the sun slipped below the horizon, an alarm bell would ring in the ears of every creature within ten kilometers, pointing straight at me. Trapping myself behind a single, warped corrugated steel shutter while a ravenous horde converged from every alleyway wasn't defense—it was suicide.

Fortifying a static stronghold was officially off the table. A safe zone simply didn't exist for me.

Panic clawed at my throat. I bit my lip until copper flooded my mouth, my frantic gaze darting around the dim shop. Desperation searched for an answer, finally slamming into the hulking shadow parked against the entrance.

My father's legacy: an old, beat-up one-ton Hyundai Porter truck.

“Right… if I can't stay put for a month, then standing still is a death sentence. I'll load every usable tool, every scrap of steel, and turn that truck into a rolling fortress. If I have to keep running, I might as well fight on wheels.”

A chill of pure survival instinct electrified my spine. Moving like a man possessed, I tore through the hardware shop, ransacking the shelves. Heavy car batteries, an electric arc welder, thick galvanized steel pipes, angle grinders, and full toolboxes were hauled out and tossed onto the flatbed with deafening clangs.

“No time to waste. Before that damn sun dips, I need heavy armor plating, fuel, and enough food to last.”

I booted the battered shutter aside, wrenched open the driver's side door, and turned the ignition. The diesel engine coughed once, rattled, and roared to life. Dropping the clutch, I slammed the accelerator and barreled out of the hillside shantytown, hurtling straight toward the downtown center.

SCREEECH!

The tires howled as I stomped on the brakes. What met my eyes downtown was a slaughterhouse on an industrial scale, an apocalyptic canvas that dwarfed my worst nightmares.

Dozens of sedans and buses were crumpled like tinfoil, overturned and tangled into massive barricades across the multi-lane boulevard. Plate-glass storefronts had exploded outward, leaving glittering carpets of jagged shrapnel across the asphalt.

“Christ almighty…”

Broad smears of coagulated crimson stained the streets, interspersed with shreds of clothing torn as if by the jaws of feral predators. It was the visceral proof of a brutal truth: last night, thousands of people had been hunted and devoured where they stood.

Not a single living soul stirred. Not a stray dog, not a sparrow. Just a dead metropolis rotting under the morning sun. I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went bone-white, resting my forehead against the plastic rim as a hollow groan escaped my chest.

“Did the shop foreman make it? No… snap out of it, you idiot. You're barely clinging to life yourself. You don't have the luxury to play guardian angel.”

Seeing that cruel scarlet timer ticking downward in the sky shattered my hesitation. There wasn't a single second to squander on grief. I ground my back teeth together and slapped my cheeks until they burned.

“If I'm building a mobile bunker, I need raw industrial steel and structural reinforcement.”

I combed the surrounding streets, targeting half-collapsed auto body shops and battery distributors. Prying open mangled overhead doors with a crowbar, I stripped their racks of everything with high utility: deep-cycle marine batteries, heavy-duty suspension springs, hydraulic jacks, and solid steel tubing.

In my mind's eye, the blueprint shifted, taking inspiration from the old itinerant peddler trucks that used to rattle through rural villages—crammed to the brim with hardware, tools, and provisions, every square inch maximized for self-reliance.

“I'll weld these cold-rolled steel plates along the exterior flanks to armor the flatbed, seal the cab's blind spots…”

With the mechanical haul secured, I diverted to a nearby hypermarket to tackle the most critical bottleneck: rations. Sprinting through the smashed glass entrance into the dark grocery aisles, I swept boxes of long-life canned tuna, spam, ramen packets, and gallons of bottled water off the shelves, tossing them into flat cardboard cartons.

Laden with supplies, I rushed toward the exit—only to freeze in my tracks before the blood-splattered checkout counter.

The cashier's booth was empty, save for dark, dried stains across the conveyor belt. Slowly, without a word, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reached into my leather wallet, pulled out a thick wad of crumpled banknotes, and neatly placed the exact retail value of the scavenged goods onto the counter. Then, without looking back, I stepped out into the daylight.

Logically, I knew paper fiat had become worthless kindling the moment the sky tore open. But leaving that cash behind was an anchor—a small, desperate stubbornness to keep my own sanity and humanity from unraveling.

By the time I finished packing, the sky was already bruising into a deep violet, the late afternoon sun bleeding into long, crimson shadows across the high-rises.

Steering clear of the congested urban corridors, I drove the loaded truck to an abandoned industrial lot on the outskirts of the district—a wide, barren expanse of cracked tarmac offering clear three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sightlines.

“A few hours left before the system transmits my coordinates and pulls every beast in the sector straight toward me.”

I climbed onto the flatbed and looked down at the mountain of cold steel plating, the heavy batteries, the welding rig, and the rows of cutting tools. Rolling up the grease-streaked, blood-dotted sleeves of my coveralls, I pulled out a pocket notepad and a carpenter's pencil, rapidly sketching out the structural geometry of the mobile fortress.

“You can do this, Shin Ido. Time to become the ultimate post-apocalyptic merchant.”

Stay alive, no matter what. Seek out survivors along the road, trade for high-tier resources, stockpile scraps, and raise our odds of survival one weld at a time.

That was my new mandate.

Whether having a clear purpose had restored my nerve or I had simply gone mad from the stress, a fierce grin stretched across my face. I pulled the heavy welding helmet down over my eyes, the dark visor snapping into place with a sharp click.

“All right. Time to build the general store from hell.”