Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Mapo Boulevard.
A vast ten-lane road stretched wide and open.
Under normal circumstances it should have been blocked by abandoned cars and debris, but this place was different.
It was territory managed by Pig, the ruler of this area—commonly called the Supply Route.
A hunting ground for raiders, and a Silk Road traveled by merchants authorized by Pig.
“Ah, damn it. What a pain. What are those brats doing, not clearing the road, huh?”
Hammer stopped in the middle of the road and frowned.
Perhaps large mutants had crossed the road and shoved them aside—several abandoned cars were sticking out into the lane.
He could have gone around them, but Hammer didn’t slow down.
He lowered the heavy sledgehammer resting on his shoulder and adjusted his grip.
“Move.”
With a short shout, the muscles in his massive forearms bulged.
Like a golfer making a swing, he swung the sledgehammer without hesitation.
The moment the hammer struck the car’s body, his entire body emitted a metallic clang as it hardened like steel.
BOOOOM!
A thunderous explosion-like sound shook the road.
The side of the abandoned car, struck squarely by the cold steel hammer, crumpled like paper.
CREEEAK—BANG!
The one-ton sedan lifted straight into the air and flew toward the sidewalk before crashing down in a twisted heap.
That wasn’t something simple strength alone could achieve.
Even Awakened with the same ability showed completely different power depending on their level of training.
True to his name, Hammer possessed a refined striking technique that concentrated power into a single explosive point.
The three lesser raiders following behind him stared in amazement.
“Whoa! Boss, your strength really is… incredible every time I see it!”
“Is he even human? He’s like a damn excavator!”
Hammer smirked at their exaggerated flattery.
He casually rested the sledgehammer back on his shoulder.
What a wonderful world.
Whether you smash a car or a person, people admire you all the same.
With a smug shrug of his shoulders, he flicked his hand.
“Road’s clear. Let’s go.”
But before he could finish speaking—
Shrill screams erupted from the dark alleys nearby.
Kyaaaak!
Kieeek!
Perhaps the massive noise of the flying car had acted as a signal.
The mutants hiding among the nearby ruins began pouring out.
More than a dozen [Giant Rats], each the size of a cat.
“G-gh! Mutants!”
Hammer’s subordinates panicked and instinctively raised their rifles.
“You idiots!”
Hammer shouted, veins bulging in his neck.
“You’re going to waste precious bullets on rats like those? Should I deduct it from your pay, huh?”
Bullets in this world were as valuable as gold.
Ignoring his resentful subordinates, Hammer stepped forward himself.
“Save your ammo. You’ll need it if we run into something big.”
“Th-then what about these…?”
“Stay back. I’ll crush them all.”
The moment he finished speaking, the sledgehammer cut through the air.
WHOOOSH!
An instant later, the upper body of the leading Giant Rat vanished.
CRACK!
“Kyaaak?!”
Its skull shattered with a sickening sound, blood spraying as it collapsed.
Death came before it could even scream.
Hammer didn’t stop.
He swung the massive chunk of steel as casually as if it were a pair of chopsticks, harvesting mutant heads one after another.
He was proving exactly why he was called Hammer.
“Hyaaa!”
CRUNCH! THUD!
Every swing filled the road with the sound of bones breaking.
After the Collapse, Seoul had few cars and fewer people.
But an Awakened’s hearing could clearly pick up the constant explosions coming from Mapo Boulevard.
“What’s that?”
I narrowed one eye and connected to the Central Control System, sharing Honeybee’s vision.
On the screen, Hammer was smashing through walls of abandoned cars with his sledgehammer—something even a tank would struggle to break.
Because of that, every mutant in the surrounding area was being drawn toward him.
“He’ll reach here quickly using the boulevard, but…”
No matter how strong Hammer was, dealing with that many mutants would slow him down.
“I left a bit later, but luckily…”
I had gained some time.
I changed direction and entered the complex maze of alleyway ruins.
I knew the terrain around the waste hills like the back of my hand.
Without slowing down, I sprinted through the alleys.
Just as I rounded a corner—
“Grrr…”
Two pairs of glowing eyes appeared in the darkness.
Two Contaminated Wild Dogs, stimulated by the noise from Mapo Boulevard, had emerged at the same moment.
The distance between us was barely five meters.
‘Since I have some time now… should I fight them?’
Their teeth contained venom glands, and their tendons were valuable materials.
Fully equipped to deal with Hammer, I could easily kill them now.
But…
I didn’t have time to butcher them.
Carelessness was dangerous.
I was on my way to confront an Awakened.
I’d hunt them on the way back.
Maintaining my sprinting momentum, I twisted my body toward the wall instead of the ground.
‘Going up.’
The lever of the Hydraulic Greaves wrapped around my legs detected the motion of my muscles.
HISSS—
Compressed oil passed through a narrow channel as the valve opened.
With that sharp release, the cylinder expanded explosively.
After installing a damping device on the valve, the noise had been reduced.
Before that, the valve opening sound was so loud it attracted too much attention.
Having all the blueprints didn’t automatically mean achieving 100% performance.
How the finished technology was applied depended entirely on the user.
BANG!
I kicked off the ground and launched into the air.
Not the jump of a pure Awakened—
But propulsion created by mechanical engineering.
In an instant my body soared three meters upward, landing on the second-floor balcony of a decaying building.
“Woof?”
The wild dogs stared upward in confusion.
Too late.
I pushed off the railing and leapt onto the roof.
Normally impossible movements for someone with a production-type Awakening.
But with powered assistance, my body felt light as a feather.
This was a skill I had acquired over three days running through the city ruins.
Of course, pushing it too hard sometimes caused oil leaks or heavy durability loss.
If it malfunctioned at a critical moment, that would be disastrous, so I had developed the habit of constantly checking the exoskeleton.
Frequent inspections and repairs were enough.
Right now, my only goal was to arrive quickly and decisively.
Even if something broke, I could just make another.
Carefully concealing myself, I ran across rooftops until a gap appeared between two buildings.
About four meters.
A risky distance for a normal jump.
But I didn’t hesitate.
I threw myself into the air.
An old drainage pipe hanging along the opposite wall rushed toward me.
Reachable.
I extended my right hand and grabbed it.
[Hydraulic Gauntlet] activated.
SCREEECH!
A horrifying metallic grinding sound rang out.
The steel claws of the gauntlet closed tightly, crushing the thick drainage pipe like soft candy.
With my natural grip strength alone I would have slipped immediately—
But by crushing it and embedding my fingers into the pipe, falling became impossible.
“Ha!”
Using the gauntlet’s pulling force, I hoisted myself onto the rooftop.
A parkour maneuver beyond human limits.
Everything happened exactly as I intended.
Without the slightest error.
The exoskeleton truly felt like part of my body now.
Perhaps I could even defeat an Awakened in close combat.
Of course, I had no intention of doing something that insane.
Besides, revealing the exoskeleton itself would be a problem.
Even now I had repeatedly reduced its weight and worn clothing over it to conceal it.
If I hadn’t been a Workshop-type Awakened, I wouldn’t have been able to produce breathable fabrics…
And I would have been drenched in sweat by now.
After sprinting across rooftops, I reached the back side of a building overlooking Gongdeok Station.
But an obstacle blocked my path.
A massive chunk of concrete debris from the collapsed neighboring building had completely blocked the rooftop passage.
Two meters high.
Over a meter thick.
Going around it meant descending and circling the building.
At least five minutes lost.
I’d break through.
Without slowing down, I reached the obstacle and placed a hand on the concrete.
[Disassemble]
A faint resonance sounded as my vision turned blue.
The bonds between the concrete particles dissolved, crumbling like a sandcastle.
FWOOOSH!
A large hole wide enough for a person opened in the debris.
I didn’t forget to use [Manufacture] to erase the traces.
I passed straight through the dust cloud and emerged from the hole.
Finally—
An open view.
The ruins near Gongdeok Station spread out before me.
I had arrived.
Checking Honeybee’s vision, Hammer’s group still hadn’t reached the area.
Just then, a notification window blinked in the corner of my vision.
Even in the middle of this urgent situation, I checked it without stopping.
[Modification Complete: Poison Bee]
[Production equipment is idle. Repeat the same task?]
“…Huh?”
While running, I involuntarily gasped.
“So it works?”
Whether I was fighting, sleeping, or even taking a dump—
As long as there were resources and power, my army would keep growing.
I had already been worried about relying on only one unit.
There was no reason to hesitate.
If I had known this, I would have manufactured more Honeybees beforehand.
Manual manufacturing created them instantly.
Using the Production Module took longer.
Back in the workshop, Honeybee Unit 3 had already begun assembling.
Once it finished, it would be modified into a Poison Bee through the Enchantment Process.
For now I still had to press the buttons manually.
But the Mass Production menu showed:
[Required Facility: Automated Process Protocol]
The day I installed that—
My army would literally grow while I slept.
By the time Gongdeok Intersection came into view—
Hammer’s situation had begun spiraling out of control.
“Kieeek!”
“Grrrr…”
Thanks to Hammer’s enthusiastic hammer-smashing earlier, mutants from every direction had swarmed onto the road.
If there had been a dozen, it would have been exercise.
But now the number had exceeded a hundred.
“Why are there so many?!”
Hammer looked confused.
Mapo Boulevard was a raider hunting ground.
Usually mutants were hard to find because they were hunted constantly.
Yet today there were far too many.
The endless mutants clinging to them like fish caught in a net were too much for Hammer to handle alone.
“Aaaah! Stay back! Get away!”
One terrified subordinate panicked and made a mistake.
Instinctively switching his rifle to automatic, he pulled the trigger completely.
BRRRRRRT!
Flames burst from the muzzle.
An entire magazine emptied into the air in seconds.
Four or five charging mutants collapsed into riddled corpses.
But Hammer’s face twisted into something even more monstrous.
“YOU SON OF A—!”
THUD!
Hammer’s massive combat boot slammed into the subordinate’s ribs.
“Gah!”
The man rolled across the ground screaming.
Hammer snarled furiously.
“Are you insane?! Who told you to use full auto?! Burst fire! Single shots! Did I teach you or not?!”
“S-sorry, boss! There were too many mutants—!”
“Sorry?! That’s it?! Don’t you know Union Tech raised ammo prices again this month?! One magazine equals a week’s worth of food for you, you useless parasite!”
Hammer spat on the ground.
In present-day Seoul, all ammunition supply was effectively monopolized by Union Tech, a massive corporation based in Gangnam.
Other companies existed, but only Union Tech could reliably supply high-quality ammunition.
They regularly raised prices, tightening the leash around shelters and raiders alike.
Every bullet was blood-money.
“Damn it… all this trouble and they don’t even drop cores.”
Annoyed to the limit, Hammer grabbed the radio at his waist.
If he handled everything himself, even retrieving the drone wouldn’t cover the ammunition costs.
Krrsh—
“This is Hammer. Entering Gongdeok Intersection. Small fry are getting annoying. Clear them out. This was your job anyway.”
An arrogant request for support.
The transmission reached lookout raiders hidden on rooftops along Mapo Boulevard.
They too served Pig, the ruler of Mapo Boulevard, just like Karambit.
Technically they were equal in rank.
They could ignore Hammer.
But in this world, strength ruled.
“He stirred them up himself and now he’s whining.”
One sniper lying on a rooftop railing muttered as he switched off the radio.
“Yeah. Complaining about ammo while telling us to shoot. What a pig.”
Of course Pig was also their boss’s nickname—
But this time it was an insult aimed at greedy Hammer.
“Still… isn’t this strange? Even if Hammer stirred them up, that’s too many mutants.”
“Stop talking and focus. I’m firing.”
The sniper aimed through the scope at a mutant’s head.
BANG!
A dry single shot.
The mutant’s skull exploded like a watermelon.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Other buildings joined with precise single shots.
No automatic fire.
Everyone valued ammunition.
Calculated support fire began dropping mutants one by one.
After ten minutes of battle—
The concentrated shooting finally wiped out the mutants.
Hammer glanced around and gave orders.
“Hmm… there were some Named Mutants, right?”
“Yes, boss. We got lucky.”
“Good. Collect the cores.”
“Understood. Take a rest for a moment.”
While Hammer’s men began farming on the road, nearby raiders cursed.
“Those bastards are like bandits.”
“Stop complaining and pick up the shell casings. That’s money.”
Then it happened.
Bzzzz—
A faint but chilling vibration passed by their ears.
Almost lost beneath the sound of the wind.
“…Huh?”
Something had just passed by his face.
Squinting upward, he saw three black objects the size of thumbs flying in formation between the buildings.
“What the hell are those? Never seen them before.”
“Mutant hornets from the mountains have been appearing lately.”
“Hornets? That must be it. They look nasty.”
This world was full of strange mutants no one had ever heard of.
Some carried poison.
Some attacked in swarms.
But if they were just passing by—
There was no reason to bother them.