Chapter 3
Chapter 3
What I currently had was [Blueprint Fragment: Portable Emergency Water Purifier (1/5)].
In this vast waste hill, finding more portable emergency water purifiers would not be easy.
The eerie howls of wild dogs echoing in the distance snapped me back to my senses.
The sun was beginning to set.
“Damn it. Forget ability growth—if night falls like this, it’ll be dangerous.”
Humans struggle to function without light.
Mutants, however, were not hindered by darkness.
My survival instinct wiped away every stray thought in my head.
What I needed right now was the bare minimum: a bunker that could protect me from their teeth and claws through the night.
Limping, I approached the old wrecked car I had noticed earlier nearby.
Placing my hand on the door, I issued a command in my mind.
[Disassembly]
Without even a creaking sound, the massive car dissolved into blue particles.
In an instant it was converted into pure scrap metal and appeared before me.
If my level had been higher, I might have obtained internal components or even blueprints.
Unfortunately, extracting such complex items was impossible in my current state.
Now I would use this scrap metal to create a steel box large enough for me to enter and move inside.
Around the shelter, mutants powerful enough to pierce iron were rare.
At least for tonight, I could remain safe inside it.
Several iron plates with holes.
Heavy hinges to connect them.
And bolts and nuts.
Since the structure was simple, I could create them.
[Manufacture]
Clang—! Clang!
With a loud metallic roar, the scrap metal melted like glowing molten steel.
Then it instantly reassembled, falling to the ground as parts precisely matching the size I had imagined.
“Whew… Even if it’s not my hands, having an injured leg still makes this tough.”
Groaning, I began assembling the thick iron plates.
When I tightened the final nut firmly, the steel box was complete.
It even had a steel door and window.
Looking at it, I couldn’t help but laugh.
To create something like this normally required several production-type Awakened who could handle iron.
Someone with flame abilities to melt metal.
And someone capable of designing structures.
It would take days of work.
Yet I had done it bare-handed in just a few minutes.
Once again, I realized just how absurdly powerful my ability was.
Now that safety was secured, I also needed a way to hunt mutants.
What if they surrounded the box while I was inside?
I would simply starve to death.
At that moment, something Section Chief Choi had said resurfaced in my mind.
The Capital Defense Corps emergency supply warehouse.
If that story was true, there was a high chance explosive weapons remained nearby.
The existence of such a warehouse meant the surrounding area had been a battlefield around the day of the collapse.
I began walking around the steel box I had built, thoroughly searching through the waste.
Before long, I spotted a military duffel bag among a pile of rotting rags.
Next to it lay…
A disturbing white skeleton.
Found it.
After briefly bowing my head in respect, I searched around the remains.
Then I discovered a piece of metal hanging from its belt like a final hope.
A severely corroded fragmentation grenade.
In the early days of the shelter, I had once helped make crude improvised bombs using pipes and gunpowder.
Back then even the hands of a kid like me were needed.
Because of that, I understood the basic principle of grenades.
This would definitely help me obtain a blueprint.
I placed my hand on the grenade and activated [Disassembly].
The fragmentation grenade partially dismantled into particles of light, and information about its structure poured into my mind like a waterfall.
[Scrap Metal] 22 g
[Low-Grade Gunpowder] 5 g
And [Blueprint: Grenade]
Not a fragment.
A complete blueprint.
A new entry appeared in my manufacturing list, accompanied by a notification.
[The higher your understanding of the target’s structure, the higher the probability of obtaining blueprint fragments.]
So that was how information was given.
That explained why even Awakened couldn’t fully understand each other’s abilities.
Thinking about it, there had been plenty of people in the early days who hid or lied about their powers.
“Good.”
Immediately, I focused on the new faintly glowing item in my mental manufacturing list.
A Crude Fragmentation Grenade.
The required materials appeared before me.
[Scrap Metal] 100 g
[Low-Grade Gunpowder] 10 g
[Crude Iron Case] x1
“This much… should be doable.”
I turned my gaze toward the surrounding waste.
After several rounds of [Disassembly] and [Manufacture], the necessary materials were quickly gathered.
Every material requirement now displayed a green indicator showing it was sufficient.
At last, I would obtain enough firepower to deal with D-Grade mutants.
Without hesitation, I executed [Manufacture].
At that moment, red text appeared.
[Work Protocol] Level 2 required.
“Ah…”
The disappointment lasted only briefly.
It did not take long to recognize the contradiction in the situation.
To level up, I needed to manufacture complex items.
But to manufacture those items, I needed the level first?
What kind of nonsense was that…
“Hah.”
A hollow laugh escaped.
A ridiculous chicken-or-the-egg situation.
I had thought obtaining blueprints would solve everything.
But my plan had already fallen apart from the very beginning.
“Whew… No choice. I’ll just have to work a little harder.”
The smell of rotten blood pierced the air.
A faint scent of its own kind mixed into the wind.
And the pheromones of fear left behind by death.
A hungry contaminated wild dog following that scent suddenly stopped and sniffed the air.
But another smell overwhelmed all the unpleasant odors.
Fresh.
Intense.
The scent of a human.
Humans were the most delicious prey to mutants.
But recently humans rarely came outside the shelters.
Grrrr.
A low growl leaked from the creature’s throat.
Following the scent up and down the mountain of scrap metal, it eventually found a strange object.
A steel box of unusual shape.
Something it had never seen before.
An artificial form that did not exist in nature triggered instinctive caution.
The pack leader circled the box carefully.
The other dogs followed behind it while keeping their distance.
The human scent leaking through the crack of the door was much stronger inside.
The prey was inside.
“Kyaaak!”
Finally the most impatient dog lost its restraint and lunged at the door.
Its sharp claws scraped against the steel plate.
Screech!
A horrifying grinding noise tore through the quiet night as sparks flew.
But the thick steel plate was left with nothing more than shallow scratches.
Frustrated, the wild dog growled in rage.
That became the signal.
The others began biting and clawing at the box as well.
Clang!
At that moment, a sharp metallic sound shattered the silence.
The frenzy stopped instantly.
All the dogs turned toward the source of the sound.
About one meter above the ground.
A small window that hadn’t been there before had opened.
Inside the dark opening, barely lit by moonlight, a human silhouette appeared.
It was Kang Sinhyeok.
Like a spectator at a zoo, he leaned against the window and looked down at them.
“Grrr…”
Living prey.
The fresh flesh behind the iron bars completely paralyzed the dogs’ remaining reason.
The first one regained its senses and charged toward the window with its mouth wide open.
It leapt high from the ground.
Bang!
A dull impact.
Its head slammed into the iron bars, and it collapsed to the ground without even a cry.
The prey was right in front of them.
Yet the sturdy bars clearly showed the gap between desire and reality.
The dogs drooled helplessly beneath the window.
But the greediest one eventually forced its snout through the bars.
At that moment—
Thud!
Something shot out like lightning from the darkness beyond the bars.
A long iron spear.
With a dull cracking sound, the steel spike pierced through the dog’s open palate and burst out the back of its neck.
“…Kuh.”
The dog died without even screaming.
Its body twitched briefly before going limp.
The meaningless death of the first companion.
The remaining dogs stepped back in instinctive fear.
The strong smell of blood stirred their frenzy again, but their primitive intelligence had already learned the danger.
A deadly attack shooting straight out from behind the bars.
They no longer charged recklessly.
Instead they circled beneath the window, glaring up at me.
The contaminated wild dogs moved cunningly, as if searching for blind spots in the iron bars.
But it was useless.
One dog suddenly rushed to the side of the window and leapt.
I instinctively thrust the spear like a harpoon striking a jumping fish.
But the creature twisted its body lightly, as if predicting my movement.
“Not that easy, huh.”
Workshop Owner was not a combat-type ability.
I didn’t possess the dynamic vision or reflexes required to perfectly pierce a fast-moving target while wielding a heavy spear.
I thrust several more times, but the dogs cleverly dodged and baited my attacks.
Watching their cunning movements, a faint sneer appeared on my lips.
“Good. That’s how it should be.”
Six dogs remained, including the leader.
They glared at me from what they believed was a safe distance beyond the spear’s range.
Mutants were not ordinary wild dogs.
They had already learned two concepts.
A bending spear.
And a safe distance.
I thrust the spear toward the nearest one.
It was an expected attack.
Having learned the spear could bend, the dog retreated backward rather than sideways.
Whoosh!
But the spear did not stop.
It stretched like rubber, instantly doubling its reach and piercing the dog’s throat exactly where it thought it was safe.
The red eyes of the other dogs filled with shock.
The safe distance they had identified had become meaningless in an instant.
I immediately retracted the spear.
After failing to manufacture the grenade, I had executed my backup plan.
At Work Protocol Level 1, complex manufacturing was impossible.
But the [Mutant Tendon] obtained from the contaminated wild dog earlier—
I used that material not on the wrench, but on the spear meant for hunting.
Normally tendons might simply be tied to a spear to create a harpoon-like weapon.
But my ability was on another level.
I could imbue an item with the inherent properties of a material.
That was how this weapon had been created.
[Elastic Control Iron Spear]
The reason I hadn’t imbued the wrench earlier was obvious.
What would I even do with a stretching wrench?
At that moment one clever dog learned the new rule—“the spear stretches”—and attacked from the side rather than the front.
When I thrust again, it dodged sideways as if expecting it.
“Good. Just like that.”
I twisted my wrist holding the spear.
The extended shaft bent through the air like a whip, ignoring the laws of physics.
The unpredictable trajectory smashed into the dog charging from the side.
With a sickening crack of bones breaking, it was slammed into the ground.
That was the end.
An attack where both range and trajectory defied common sense.
The dogs’ primitive intelligence completely lost its will to fight in the face of incomprehensible terror.
I easily finished off the remaining ones.
Even the fleeing pack leader was pinned when the extending spear pierced its hind leg.
Six corpses.
The metallic scent of blood filled the cold night air.
I looked back and forth between the long spear in my hand and the bodies scattered across the ground.
“I… hunted six D-Grade mutants?”
Simply being an Awakened should not make such a one-sided slaughter possible.
Even Kim Cheolmin, a D-Grade ignition-type Awakened, couldn’t kill six of them.
He might scare them away with flames.
But not slaughter them.
From the beginning I had sensed that the Workshop Owner class had overwhelming potential.
But understanding something in theory and proving it with my own hands were completely different things.
It was clearly a production-type ability.
Yet it could easily be used in combat as well.
The satisfaction lasted only briefly.
Looking at the dog corpses on the ground raised another concern.
“The tendon from the first one was pure luck.”
Simply repeating [Disassembly] was gambling on probability.
Now that I knew how valuable special materials were, I wanted as many as possible.
Then I remembered the shelter’s technicians.
When they butchered mutants, they didn’t chop them apart recklessly.
They carefully followed the lines of bone, flesh, muscle, and tendon, precisely extracting only the parts they needed.
Couldn’t I do the same?
Just like when I obtained the grenade blueprint—
Instead of simple disassembly, what if I understood their structure and dismantled them precisely?
“…Let’s try it.”
Immediately, I created a knife from scrap metal.