Chapter 36
Chapter 36
Whiiing—
The alley still held the lingering heat of battle.
Within the field of vision secured by the Honeybee drones, Picker moved busily. The little drone stretched out its mechanical arm and began snatching up the equipment scattered around the fallen mercenaries.
Night Vision Goggles.
Thermal-Blocking Poncho.
Even the Grenade Launcher used by their leader.
All of them were prime loot.
Picker casually dropped the equipment onto Porter’s back.
The moment they left his grip—
Woooong—
Space rippled and a blue wave spread outward.
Before the items could even touch the ground, they were pulled into the air and vanished.
It was Spatial Tethering.
A ridiculous ability that directly connected the Storage and the space surrounding Porter.
It was truly like having a vacuum cleaner.
“Good. Collection’s done. Now erase the traces.”
At my command, Porter moved its heavy body.
This time, objects were ejected from its back instead.
They were Strong Acid Chemical Solution and Ignition Accelerant, which I had previously manufactured and stored specifically for situations like this.
Shhhhh—
The corrosive liquid poured over the mercenaries’ bodies.
Ssssss—
A chilling sound followed as flesh and bone melted instantly.
When black smoke began to rise, Picker—waiting overhead—sprayed water immediately, suppressing the smoke.
It was a thorough cleanup.
“Boss. Cleanup complete. Beginning burial.”
Porter rotated its tracks and turned toward a crumbling concrete wall beside the alley.
The machine extended its ram and slammed straight into the wall.
With a thunderous crash, the old wall collapsed.
Dust and debris cascaded down, completely covering the spot where the bodies had dissolved.
That was the end of it.
After ten years of war and weathering, the city had already become a massive ruin.
No one would question the addition of one more collapsed wall.
The traces of six mercenaries had vanished completely from the world.
Watching the tidy aftermath on the monitor, I leaned back in my chair and let out a relieved sigh.
“Picker, keep monitoring the war situation. Porter, relocate.”
Now it was time to inspect the loot.
I reached into the air and opened Storage.
Thud.
A worn leather canteen landed in my hand.
Endless Spring Water
Grade: α-F
A leather canteen imbued with mana from the Island of Time.
When the lid is closed, clean water gradually fills the internal subspace.
Feeling the rough leather texture, an old memory surfaced.
After the collapse, the scarcest resource in the shelter wasn’t food.
It was clean water.
Wells and rivers on the surface had long been contaminated by mutant blood and toxins.
The only drinkable water came from rain.
Whenever it rained, the women of the shelter climbed onto the roof with buckets.
And carrying the heavy tanks filled with rainwater down to the underground storage was the job of porters like me.
My back felt like it would snap.
Even after hauling dozens of containers, I couldn’t drink the water freely.
When the work ended, all I received was a single cup of rainwater mixed with purification tablets that smelled like disinfectant.
A few years ago, the military drilled down two hundred meters and connected underground bedrock water to the shelter.
People celebrated.
But that cool, clean water belonged only to officers and high-ranked Awakened.
For the lower-class non-Awakened like us, rainwater was still the only option.
And now—
In my hand was something that mocked the very logic of the shelter.
I opened the lid and poured water into a cup.
Splash—
Clear water poured out like a faucet had been opened.
One sip washed away my thirst instantly.
It was first-grade drinking water—no purification required.
“The output… about one liter per hour.”
With the lid closed, water accumulated in the internal subspace.
Twenty-four liters per day.
Enough for a family of four to drink and wash comfortably.
For raiders or wandering survivors outside the shelter, this would be an item worth more than life itself.
“And the kind of people carrying something like this…”
They were definitely not ordinary mercenaries.
The α-F grade bothered me too.
I activated U-Link to search for information.
The moment it turned on, notifications exploded across the screen.
Notification: Your post has been selected as “Post of the Day”!
Notification: 50,000 views reached!
Notification: 3,000 recommendations reached!
Congratulations! Your rank has increased based on community contribution.
Rank: Bronze → Silver
“Did you see that, Boss? This Picker’s perfect trolling skills!”
“….”
“I even controlled the comment sentiment perfectly! Now Thunder is a named figure on the Survivor Forum! A celebrity!”
Ignoring the drone’s excitement, I dismissed the notifications.
Still, I should give him some credit.
“Yeah, good work. The rank went up quickly thanks to you.”
Silver rank.
I immediately opened the Survivor Forum search window.
Two keywords needed confirmation.
Alpha Grade.
Island of Time.
A notice appeared saying activity points (AP) would be consumed for the search.
But thanks to Picker’s antics, I had more than enough AP.
Soon the results appeared.
I slowly scrolled and read.
Information: What is Alpha (α) Grade?
Items that cannot be explained by the conventional F–S ranking system.
Usually possess OOPArts properties.
Examples:
Infinite ammunition
Infinite durability
Self-replication
Items that cannot be reproduced through modern science or production-type abilities.
Then came information about their origin.
Information: Island of Time
A spacetime fracture zone located deep within a Dead Zone.
Areas where advanced research facilities, military bases, or unknown installations from before the collapse became isolated in the time of the catastrophe.
Upon entry, time flow may differ from the outside world, and one may become permanently trapped.
Multiple S-Grade parties have disappeared there.
The final line caught my attention.
Warning: Upon discovery of this zone, coordinates must be reported to the military immediately. Civilian access strictly prohibited.
My suspicion was confirmed.
The mercenaries I encountered today were almost certainly connected to the military.
That explained why they possessed α-F grade items.
“…Hmm.”
I thought this was just a power struggle between Pig and Karambit.
But the situation seemed far more complicated.
Outside the shelter, enormous secrets lurked everywhere.
And someone like me—who had spent ten years just carrying cargo—knew almost nothing about them.
“This is giving me a headache…”
For now, I would watch how the situation unfolded.
Mapo Garden Hotel – Lobby
Crash!
The glass walls of the Seoul Garden Hotel lobby shattered as a massive man stepped outside.
A tactical vest covered his upper body, and wrapped across it were specially manufactured explosive belts.
He looked like a walking ammunition depot.
Pig’s right hand—Vulcan.
“Rats.”
Vulcan snorted.
“Bastards who survived by eating scraps thrown by the Chairman… and now they dare bite their master?”
He despised Karambit and his followers.
They were thugs who relied purely on instinct with no real training.
He was different.
D-Grade Muscle Reinforcement.
Among physical enhancement abilities, it increased strength, durability, and recovery simultaneously.
Combined with his pre-collapse career as a shot-put athlete, his throwing ability was extraordinary.
His equipment was also top-tier.
Even ten E-Grade fighters attacking at once wouldn’t worry him.
“Let’s clean things up.”
Vulcan didn’t draw a gun.
Instead he pulled a metal sphere the size of a baseball from his belt.
A C-4 improvised explosive.
His shoulder muscles bulged as he pulled his arm back.
Like throwing a shot-put, he used the rotation of his entire body to launch the bomb.
Whoosh—
It flew far beyond normal grenade-throwing distance.
The bomb traced a huge arc and landed directly above Karambit, who was slaughtering Pig’s men in the middle of the battlefield.
BOOM! BOOM!
“Argh!”
“What the hell?!”
The explosive force crushed armored vehicle plating like paper, sending nearby Awakened flying while coughing blood.
Friend and foe alike were hit.
This wasn’t combat.
It was cleanup.
“Hahaha! Die!”
Vulcan hurled bombs like a madman.
Each one struck key positions among Karambit’s forces.
The tide of battle flipped instantly.
Then—
A dark figure burst through the smoke and heat.
Karambit.
Vulcan’s lips twisted.
“Oh? Crawled into your own grave, have you?”
He stopped throwing bombs and drew a vicious weapon from his back.
A large titanium machete, thicker than a grown man’s thigh.
“Karambit, you bastard. A dog dares bite its master?”
He swung the machete casually, producing a heavy slicing sound.
“I’ll skin you nicely and turn you into a hotel carpet.”
Karambit didn’t react to the provocation.
Instead he calmly scanned the giant in front of him.
Tactical vest.
Ballistic pads.
Explosive belt.
Fuse locations. Muscle movement. Weapon trajectory.
Every piece of information processed instantly in his mind.
A frontal clash meant certain defeat.
The weight difference was overwhelming.
D-Grade Muscle Reinforcement didn’t just increase strength.
Skin hardened to leather-armor levels.
Bone density increased.
Ordinary blades would bounce off.
One moment.
He needed a single opening.
That was his only chance.
WHOOSH—
Vulcan swung the massive machete horizontally.
A simple but brutal strike.
Even a glancing hit would split a man in half.
Karambit didn’t retreat.
He waited until the blade nearly touched him, then pushed his E-Grade Reflexes to the extreme.
His upper body bent backward at an impossible angle.
The blade skimmed past his nose.
A hair’s breadth.
“Oh?”
The instant Vulcan’s eyes widened—
Karambit’s body sprang forward like a coiled spring.
An opening.
His twin daggers slashed toward Vulcan’s wrist artery.
Scrape!
But the sound wasn’t flesh being cut.
It was the unpleasant scrape of a blade against tough leather.
The thick tactical gloves and Muscle Reinforcement hardened skin.
Only a shallow scratch.
The attack failed.
Karambit’s eyes flickered.
It didn’t go through.
Vulcan didn’t miss that hesitation.
He grinned.
“Got you, rat.”
Instead of retrieving the machete, he grabbed a bomb from his belt with his free hand.
He pulled the pin.
Then dropped it at his own feet.
Right in front of Karambit.
Click.
Mutual destruction.
A brutal tactic—rely on his durability to survive the blast while killing the rat before him.
Karambit’s face twisted in shock.
Workshop – Monitoring Feed
The monitor flickered violently.
As Karambit and Vulcan moved faster, the video from Picker began breaking into frames like a lagging game.
“Boss! He’s too fast! The frames are shattering! I can’t collect data!”
Picker’s scream blasted from the speakers.
“At this rate we’ll miss the highlight! My visual sensors—no, my lens specs—can’t keep up!”
“Damn.”
I clicked my tongue.
Picker was a reconnaissance drone.
Its E-Grade optical sensor simply couldn’t track Awakened fighting at full speed.
If this continued, we’d miss the decisive moment.
“Stop whining. I’ll send something right now.”
I sprinted to the workbench.
There was no time for automatic production.
Manual crafting.
I dug through a pile of advanced video equipment and extracted a high-performance camera module and a motion-tracking sensor from an old gaming device.
Manufacture.
The components fused into particles of light within my hands.
Appearance didn’t matter.
Only performance.
Maximum frame rate.
External High-Speed Camera Module
Grade: E+
Crude looking.
But powerful.
I tossed the finished module into Storage.
“Porter! Catch!”
At the same moment, space rippled above Porter, who was hidden among the battlefield ruins.
The module popped out.
Picker swooped down, grabbed it, and attached it over his main camera.
Click.
Like putting on ridiculous sunglasses.
But the effect was immediate.
“Ohhhh! I can see it! Even individual sweat droplets!”
The monitor switched instantly to high-definition slow motion.
10,000 frames per second.
Karambit’s movement—previously a blur—became clear frame by frame.
And at that exact moment—
Vulcan dropped the C-4 bomb.
Click.
In the 0.01 seconds between the pin being pulled and the detonator firing, I noticed something.
Vulcan’s muscles hardened into a gray stone-like state.
What was that?
A defensive stance to survive the explosion?
Then—
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
Picker and I gasped simultaneously.
Karambit’s pupils shrank to needle points.
His leg muscles expanded grotesquely and then contracted.
The surrounding air distorted.
BOOM!
The explosion flashed.
But Karambit was unharmed.
Moments later—
His body vanished like a mirage.
“Afterimage?”
Before the shockwave even reached him, he had already moved.
Even the high-speed camera captured only a fading afterimage.
“That speed isn’t just Reflex Enhancement!”
Picker was right.
The instantaneous acceleration seemed to ignore physics.
Karambit pierced through the blast faster than the explosion itself and appeared behind Vulcan.
I clenched my fist.
Jackpot.
This footage wasn’t just a battle record.
It was treasure.
“Aaaaagh!”
A scream echoed through the workshop.
Inside the smoke, Vulcan—the giant who should have been standing—collapsed to his knees.
Both Achilles tendons were severed.
Even a body reinforced with muscle couldn’t support that.
“Ghk…!”
Karambit now stood still, blood dripping from his nose.
The recoil of exceeding his limits had burst his blood vessels.
But he didn’t stop.
He climbed up Vulcan’s back like a squirrel.
Vulcan thrashed and reached behind him, but Karambit was faster.
“Let me show you how terrifying a dog that bites its master can be.”
He gripped his twin daggers in reverse.
Then drove them mercilessly into the giant’s exposed neck—straight into the carotid artery.
Thud!
He twisted the blades with his full weight.
Muscle tore.
A fountain of blood erupted.
Boom.
Vulcan collapsed like a falling mountain.
The end of the man who once dominated Mapo Boulevard.
“Wooooaaah!”
“Long live the boss! Long live Karambit!”
Standing atop the fallen giant, drenched in blood, Karambit declared victory.
The surviving raiders roared.
An E-Grade had defeated a D-Grade despite overwhelming disadvantage.
A miraculous victory.
I trembled.
This proved that skill and mastery could overcome trait rank.
“Karambit… you really did have a hidden card.”
This information was revolutionary.
For countless low-grade Awakened who despaired at their rank, this footage would be salvation.
Almost scripture.
I can’t rely on my ability too much either.
I needed to be even more careful about hiding my identity.
Then another thought occurred.
If I uploaded this footage to the paid information board on Union Market—
“Picker. That acceleration scene. You saved it frame by frame, right?”
“Yes. It’s visible in high-speed playback. Want to see?”
“No need. This video… might be worth whatever price I name.”
I smiled.
They fought the battle.
But I would take the real profit.
That was my way.
But my calculation stopped there.
Behind Karambit, who stood basking in victory—
Something moved within the collapsed hotel lobby ruins.
“Boss! Behind him—!”
Picker’s words cut off.
A black shadow burst from the darkness—
And lunged at Karambit.