Chapter 46
Chapter 46
The Capital Defense Command underground bunker, installed 200 meters beneath Yongsan.
The main screen covering the wall of the command and control room displayed a true hellscape—one that could not even be compared with what was happening in Mapo District.
The Uijeongbu Defense Line.
Along the mountain ridges blanketed in white snow by abnormal weather, countless black ant-like masses were pouring down without end.
North of the Armistice Line.
Hundreds of thousands of mutants crawling out of contaminated land.
Rooooar—
At the front of the horde, three colossal beasts the size of mountain peaks were hammering against the defensive wall.
[Mountain Walker]¹
An [A-Rank Mutant] that caused earthquakes with every step.
Tank shells bounced off its hide like pellets, and the soldiers at the front line were so terrified they could not even scream.
But—
“Fall back.”
A low voice came through the communication network.
At the center of the screen.
A man rose into the air through the blizzard.
A figure standing calmly in the middle of the battlefield with a black coat fluttering.
Shin Gyu-hwan.
Commander-in-Chief of the Capital Defense Command.
One of the very few [S-Rank Awakened] in South Korea.
He quietly pressed his palm downward.
With that single motion—
An invisible pressure crushed the air itself.
KWAANG!
Several thousand tons of gravity dropped vertically onto the head of the massive [Mountain Walker] that had been smashing the Uijeongbu wall.
Kiiieeek!
The scream was short.
The enormous mutant body was flattened like a crushed tin can.
Blood and metal fragments burst outward like a fountain, staining the snowfield red.
“Oooooh…!”
“Nice!”
The officers inside the bunker burst into cheers.
“As expected of the Commander-in-Chief. To defeat such a monster with just a gesture…”
Colonel Park Jin-seop, the operations staff officer, watched the screen with an ecstatic expression.
At that moment—when everyone in the command room was completely focused on the northern battlefront—
BEEP! BEEP!
A red warning light flashed on a secondary monitor shoved into the corner.
Colonel Park frowned and turned his head toward the noise.
“What is it? The mood’s good—why are you throwing cold water on it?”
“Sir, sir! There’s an abnormal signal in the rear area!”
The intelligence officer frantically typed on the keyboard.
“Vital signals in the Mapo management sector have disappeared! Managed targets Do Gicheol (C-Rank) and Lee Seong-min (E-Rank) have both lost vital readings simultaneously!”
Pig Do Gicheol and Karambit Lee Seong-min.
The military constantly monitored the vitals of such individuals who were useful for maintaining order.
So that abnormalities could be detected immediately.
Hearing the report, Colonel Park snorted.
“Looks like the rats killed each other fighting over scraps. Leave it alone for now. Vacancies like that fill themselves naturally. What matters is the front.”
“That’s not it, Colonel! Look at this!”
The intelligence officer pulled up a satellite image.
A red slime was melting buildings along Mapo Boulevard while multiplying.
“Analysis result… estimated B-Rank [Aberration]!”²
“B-Rank?”
Colonel Park let out a laugh of disbelief.
He pointed at the main screen.
“Hey, if you’ve got eyes, look over there. There are three A-Ranks. The Commander-in-Chief made killing one look easy, but he’s fighting at full power. The frontline might collapse at any moment. And you’re reporting a single slime in the rear? Should we call the Commander-in-Chief? Or pull the magic corps off the front line?”
“But—!”
“Enough! Tell them to handle that themselves! How many units are under the Capital Defense Command? Do we have to wipe their asses too?”
At Colonel Park’s shout, the intelligence officer fell silent.
At that moment, a middle-aged officer who had been watching quietly stepped forward.
Lieutenant Colonel Kang Cheol-min, logistics officer.
“But Colonel… if Mapo Boulevard is blocked, the western and southern supply routes will be cut.”
Kang’s voice was calm, but his eyes were desperate.
“If food trucks from Incheon Port and ammunition convoys coming up from Cheonan and Pyeongtaek can’t cross Mapo Bridge, the troops fighting in the north will starve within three days. Fuel will run out too.”
No matter how well an army fought, if supply lines were cut, it would collapse.
That was undeniable fact.
But to Colonel Park, Kang’s words sounded like cowardly whining.
“Seriously, Lieutenant Colonel Kang. Isn’t clearing supply routes logistics’ job? Why are you whining in the operations office?”
“It’s physically immune! Mechanized firepower alone can’t handle it! At least send minimal magical support—!”
“Can’t you see we’re barely holding the front line as it is? And you want to send mages to the rear?”
Colonel Park waved his hand irritably.
“Send a cooperation request using my name! Tell logistics to deal with it!”
As if it were no longer worth listening to, Colonel Park turned back to the main screen.
His eyes were fixed solely on the Commander’s battle.
To him, the war was a game where “the Commander-in-Chief handled everything,” and he simply collected benefits behind the scenes.
“….”
Lieutenant Colonel Kang Cheol-min clenched his teeth.
His fists trembled.
But disobeying orders was not permitted for a soldier.
“…Understood.”
He gave a stiff salute and left the command room.
Lieutenant Colonel Kang Cheol-min sank into the worn leather chair in his office and desperately dialed the secure line.
Colonel Park’s so-called cooperation order was essentially telling him to “use your own connections to gather troops.”
“Hyung! It’s me, Cheol-min!”
The moment the call connected, he shouted urgently.
The other party was Brigadier General Ma Dong-pal, commander of the 1st Armored Brigade.
A senior officer he had served with since before the collapse.
“Please lend me just one tank company for the Mapo area… no, even a platoon will do. Slimes have physical immunity—normal weapons won’t work. We need the explosive power of tank high-explosive shells.”
On the other end of the receiver came the sound of someone chewing on a toothpick.
—Ah, Lieutenant Colonel Kang. Sorry about that. My boys are in maintenance week right now. Engines are all disassembled. Can’t deploy.
“Sir, what are you talking about? I know you conducted maneuver training just yesterday.”
—Haha, you’re not very perceptive, are you? You know my tanks can’t even start without the Commander-in-Chief’s permission.
At the mention of Shin Gyu-hwan’s name, Kang fell silent.
“The Commander-in-Chief is at the front right now! This is an emergency situation approved by Colonel Park of Operations!”
—Cheol-min. Haven’t you been in the army long enough? Don’t you know what kind of man Colonel Park is? He probably gave verbal approval but didn’t write a single order.
That was exactly right.
—If I send tanks based on his word and they get scratched, when the Commander returns Park will deny everything and I’ll be the one losing my head. Sorry. Hanging up.
Beep—beep—
The cold mechanical tone echoed in his ears.
Kang bit his lip.
Ma Dong-pal was not wrong.
Colonel Park would be the first to sacrifice a subordinate if something went wrong.
But he could not give up.
He pressed the next number with trembling hands.
Major General Lee Young-sik, commander of the 56th Division at Bukhansan.
“Sir! This is Logistics Officer Kang Cheol-min. Please send infantry support. We need Awakened personnel—especially mages!”
—Oh my, Lieutenant Colonel Kang. Why do you sound so desperate?
The general’s voice sounded relaxed.
But the thorn hidden behind it was sharp.
—My boys can barely eat properly. They’re weak as it is. And you say it’s not just a B-Rank but an unknown [Aberration]? If I send them and they die in droves, the Awakened soldiers will start a riot calling us incompetent non-Awakened commanders. If they revolt, my head will roll instantly.
“But if Mapo falls, your division’s supply will be cut too!”
—Exactly. That’s why I asked to buy some Union Tech automatic turrets. If we’d installed a few, we’d have some breathing room right now. Who was it that rejected that request?
Kang’s face stiffened.
He had been the one who rejected it.
Union Tech equipment was normally not even for sale.
The military could purchase it—but only at absurdly inflated prices.
With the already strained military budget, buying automatic turrets had been impossible.
The general was getting revenge for that decision.
—And we’re dealing with wave aftereffects here too. We’re on emergency alert. Goodbye.
Click.
The second call ended.
Kang set down the receiver and laughed bitterly.
“Haha…”
Completely isolated.
No one was coming.
“…Without the Commander here, everyone is protecting themselves.”
The South Korean military after the collapse was not an organization run by systems.
It was a distorted group that functioned only when the overwhelming fear of the S-Rank Awakened Shin Gyu-hwan held the leash.
The moment he was absent, the army turned into a free-for-all.
“Damn it.”
Kang slammed his fist on the desk.
No reinforcements were coming.
In the end, his logistics support battalion would have to go out and stop it themselves.
“Administrative officer! Open the armory!”
He burst out of the office.
“Bring out every prototype sent from Guro Foundry! Don’t leave anything sitting there!”
They would have to fight a physically immune aberration with conventional weapons—without a single mage.
All they could rely on was firepower.
Soldiers groaned as they loaded huge weapon crates onto trucks.
The boxes bore the clear logo of Union Tech.
[High-Pressure Flamethrower (Prototype)]
[Thermobaric Incendiary Bomb (Prototype)]
Union Tech.
The massive defense corporation that semi-monopolized military weapon supply.
But Kang did not trust their technology.
Don’t be fooled by fancy packaging.
Why had the military expedition to Maebongsan recently been wiped out?
Because Union Tech weapons had overheated and exploded during combat.
They were using the army as a testing ground for their new weapons.
But Kang had no choice.
Suppliers were limited, and if Union Tech cut supply entirely, the military would be paralyzed.
Reluctantly, they had to use the company’s unreliable equipment.
“…All we can do is pray they aren’t defective this time.”
Executing the operation as safely as possible was the only solution.
Kang put on his ballistic helmet with a bitter expression.
The deployment siren shook the bunker.
“7th Logistics Support Group, deploy. Target: north end of Mapo Bridge.”
Where the massive crimson tide had swept across Mapo Boulevard.
The Seoul Garden Hotel, now without its master, had become a giant haunted ruin.
From the cracks in the lobby floor, mutants were still crawling up from underground.
They were the stubborn ones that survived even after the slime swept through.
“Porter.”
I called the reliable carrier behind me.
—Standing by, Boss.
“Anything crawling out of that hole, crush it. Especially [Corrupted Wild Dogs].”
I had lost too many Honeybee units.
To restore reconnaissance assets, their venom glands and teeth were essential.
Those were the raw materials for [Mutant Acid Batteries].
—Understood. I will crush them thoroughly.
Porter rumbled forward on its tracks and blocked the underground entrance.
While it slaughtered mutants and collected resources, I headed upstairs.
The elevator had long stopped working.
But with the help of the [Mechanical Reinforced Exoskeleton], climbing high floors was no problem.
BANG!
I kicked open the penthouse door.
“Oh.”
A whistle escaped me.
Once the kingdom of Do Gicheol, ruler of Mapo District.
The wind blowing through shattered glass windows made expensive curtains flutter like ghosts.
Wine worth millions lay spilled across the floor like blood.
Expensive furniture was scattered everywhere.
The master had melted away, but the shell he left behind was still extravagant.
“Two corpses…”
Probably Do Gicheol’s close aides.
The fact that dead bodies no longer bothered me meant I had fully become someone who lived outside the shelter.
Buzz.
Picker flew in through the broken window.
“Picker. Where’s the safe?”
—Bedroom, Boss!
I headed straight there.
A vulgar self-portrait of Pig covered an entire wall.
Terrible taste.
When I tore the frame away, a massive steel door appeared.
It looked far more impressive than the mechanical safe Karambit had used.
Blue mana circuits glowed faintly across the surface, and a palm-shaped recognition device was installed on the central panel.
[Gold Bunker]³
Rank: B
“GF-500? Using something expensive.”
To open this, I would need Pig’s severed finger or gouged eyeball.
Or someone capable of unlocking mana pattern locks.
But Pig had already been digested in the slime.
And I had only just learned such abilities even existed.
Still, it didn’t matter.
If you didn’t have the key, you just removed the doorframe.
This wasn’t something easy to analyze anyway.
Instead of touching the door, I placed my hand on the hinge supporting it.
[Disassembly]
FLASH!
The steel hinge instantly broke apart into screws, bolts, and iron powder, all absorbed into my inventory.
Creeeak—THUD!
The heavy door lost its support and collapsed forward.
An absurdly simple solution.
In this world, no security device could stand against my ability.
Inside the safe—
20 [F-Rank Cores].
5 [E-Rank Cores].
“Jackpot.”
Probably blood money extorted from traders and raiders passing through Mapo Boulevard.
“There should be more safes somewhere else.”
There was no way this was all Pig’s wealth.
But the man who knew the answer had become slime food.
I hummed as I stuffed the cores into my backpack.
Just as I thought the safe was empty, I noticed a separate box placed in the innermost corner.
A metal container wrapped in thick insulation.
“What’s this?”
I carefully opened it.
FWOOSH—
A blast of white cold air poured out.
“Ugh—cold!”
Frost instantly formed on my eyebrows and the surface of my suit.
Inside the box was a fist-sized blue orb emitting a brilliant glow.
Even the surrounding air froze into falling white particles.
[Frost-Bound Orb]⁴
Rank: β-F
Just then, a worn leather notebook placed beside the orb caught my eye.
The cover read:
[Management Log]