Chapter 47
Chapter 47
“—Oh. Boss, it’s an artifact!”
Picker made a fuss as he pushed the camera lens closer.
But instead of focusing on the box, I closed it and picked up the notebook beside it.
The moment I flipped open the first page, a surprisingly detailed set of “management guidelines” appeared.
[Management Guidelines]
– Maintain the temperature at all times below −5°C.
– When it becomes cold, the slime turns blue and enters a hibernation state.
– If the temperature rises above 10°C, its activity increases exponentially and it mutates into a red form.
[Emergency Manual in Case of Freezer Failure]
– Immediately remove the [Frost-Bound Orb] from the safe and supplement the cold.
– Operations must be carried out in teams of three under Manager Oh’s supervision. (No solo action)
– When feeding it, spray a large amount of [Pheromone Spray] to lower agitation.
I closed the notebook and let out a dry laugh.
It felt like the puzzle pieces had finally come together.
“Pig wasn’t controlling the slime.”
—What? Then what was it? Wasn’t he raising it like a pet?
“No. He just stuck it in a freezer and kept it half-frozen.”
He never had the power to control the slime.
He had merely shackled it with cold, suppressing it so it could not rampage.
That was the true nature of the “breeding facility.”
—Ha! That’s ridiculous. Then why did things go crazy earlier?
“Think about it. When Karambit’s group attacked, the power must have been cut or the freezing system destroyed.”
Once the electricity went out, the freezers stopped.
The underground temperature would have risen rapidly.
“The sleeping monster woke up. Hungry and furious.”
Only then did the scene I had witnessed earlier in the underground corridor make sense.
Pig frantically spraying [Pheromone Spray] as he ran.
But against an awakened giant slime, it would have been useless.
“Picker. Replay the footage of Pig’s death that the Honeybee recorded earlier.”
—Roger! Get your popcorn ready, playing now!
“…I’m not perverted enough to eat popcorn while watching a snuff film.”
Although I had heard there were quite a few people like that nowadays.
The holographic screen replayed the horrifying scene.
In the darkness of the underground corridor.
When the slime first appeared, it clearly had a faint blue glow.
Just as the management log said, it was close to hibernation.
But the moment it swallowed Pig—
The instant it absorbed the dense energy of a [C-Rank Awakened] along with the heat flowing down from the surface, its color changed dramatically.
“Look at that.”
The slime in the footage turned crimson red as it rapidly expanded.
Like boiling lava.
—Wow… that’s real. It was blue and then instantly turned dark red. Even the infrared data shows its internal temperature skyrocketing!
“So it absorbs heat to become active, and hardens when it gets cold…”
Simple but deadly information.
It was the only clue for defeating it—or at least surviving it.
I shoved the box containing the [Frost-Bound Orb] deep into my bag.
This was not merely an artifact.
It might become the key to hunting the slime.
At that moment, as I packed the orb and the management log into my bag, Picker shouted urgently.
—Boss! This is no time for reflection! Large military force entering from the north side of Mapo Bridge!
“The army?”
—Yes. But… their equipment looks strange.
On the screen, a convoy of trucks was racing toward Mapo Boulevard.
[KM202 Portable Quad Rocket Launcher]
[Vehicle-Mounted Medium Flamethrower]
[Thermobaric Incendiary Bomb]
And on the equipment, in one corner, I noticed a familiar logo.
“…So the military is involved.”
Well, that was obvious.
There was no way the army had maintained its own production infrastructure intact.
Partnering with the largest manufacturing group in southwestern Seoul would have been inevitable.
But what caught my eye was the small red lettering beside the logo.
[Prototype]
“Prototypes…”
I rubbed my chin thoughtfully.
Why bring out flame-type prototypes right now?
Did they copy me?
The firepower demonstration I showed at Hyochang Park.
Did they rush to prepare something after hearing about how I burned the raiders alive?
If that was the case, then Union Tech’s information network was far beyond imagination.
Or… had they seen the fireworks at Mapo Police Station earlier?
No, that was impossible.
Only one hour had passed since the Mapo Police Station siege ended.
In that short time, analyzing the situation, manufacturing equipment, and supplying it to the army would be physically impossible.
So either it was coincidence, or it was a pre-planned weapon system.
But that wasn’t the problem.
“Ha… damn.”
A deep sigh escaped me.
The army’s intention was clear.
A mysterious giant monster—slime.
Since physical attacks didn’t work, they planned to burn it.
A very logical, textbook decision.
If the opponent were a normal mutant.
“They’re heading there to serve it dinner.”
—Exactly. What should we do?
The fact we had just discovered.
The slime absorbs heat and uses it as an energy source.
And they were about to attack it with incendiary rockets and flamethrowers?
That wouldn’t kill it.
It would be like injecting the creature with the finest steroids.
It had already grown to the size of a building after swallowing Pig.
If it absorbed all that firepower—
“The entire Mapo District will be covered in red jelly.”
At that point, the army would be annihilated.
The even larger slime would start devouring everything in its path.
My precious workshop—and all the resources I had stored there—would inevitably end up in its stomach.
—Uh… Boss. Then what do we do? Should we broadcast a warning telling those idiots not to go?
“Would they listen? The enemy is already right in front of them.”
I stood by the penthouse window, looking at the black smoke rising in the distance.
There was no choice.
If things continued like this, everyone would die.
“In the end, I’ll have to step in.”
I tightened the straps of my bag and turned around.
They say incompetent allies are more frightening than enemies.
That was exactly the situation.
Without delay, I headed to the rooftop of the penthouse.
Rows of massive outdoor air-conditioning units stood there, appropriate for a building of this scale.
“Found it.”
These were on a completely different level from the crushed junk I had scavenged from garbage heaps.
Since they had been installed for Pig and his subordinates to live luxuriously, they were still in excellent condition.
The refrigerant pipes were surely still full.
—Boss? Why are we fixing air conditioners all of a sudden? Are you hot?
“I’m not repairing them. I’m extracting materials.”
I placed my hand on the outdoor unit’s cover.
[Disassembly]
Wooooong—
A blue glow enveloped the unit, and the steel cover oxidized and vanished instantly.
The tangled copper pipes and heavy compressor were revealed.
At the same time, a flood of knowledge surged into my mind.
[High-Pressure Gas Control Theory]
[Understanding Refrigeration Cycles]
I wasn’t just obtaining parts.
The pressure of gas flowing through the pipes.
The principle of heat release through the condenser.
Even the drastic temperature drop when passing through the expansion valve.
It felt like a 3D engineering blueprint unfolding in my mind.
I see. If the pipes are physically cut, the gas instantly vaporizes into the atmosphere.
That would be the case for ordinary Awakened.
But I was different.
Maybe this would work.
Let’s try it.
“Don’t disperse.”
I focused my will.
The transparent gas that had begun escaping from the pipes suddenly froze in midair as if blocked by an invisible membrane.
It worked.
Refrigerant gas R-410A.
The gas trapped within the blue glow of the system floated upward and formed a giant sphere.
Like a droplet in zero gravity.
—Wow! Boss! What is that? A transparent slime?
“Don’t say unlucky things like that.”
[Disassembly]
[Manufacture]
One air conditioner was dismantled, and its components were redesigned into a high-pressure grenade casing capable of containing gas pressure.
I pushed the floating gas sphere into the casing.
Whoosh!
The swirling gas was sucked inside and filled the container completely.
After sealing the valve, one grenade was finished.
But I wasn’t satisfied.
“This isn’t enough.”
Air-conditioner refrigerant alone was no more than lukewarm water.
To forcibly halt the creature’s cellular activity, we needed an impact approaching absolute zero—beyond the limits of physics.
[Frost-Bound Orb]
—You’re using that here? What a waste!
“Of course I’m not using the artifact itself. I’m borrowing the cold accumulated in it.”
I pressed the grenade against the orb.
Now it was time to mix science and magic.
[Imbuement]
The intense cold emitted by the orb began mixing with the refrigerant inside the grenade.
Supercooling.
A phenomenon where a gas or liquid remains unfrozen even below its freezing point, existing in an unstable liquid state.
That was exactly the situation inside the grenade.
The artifact’s mana was forcibly preventing the gas from freezing solid.
Molecules almost motionless from extreme cold—but still fluid.
This was essentially a cold bomb on the verge of detonation.
The grenade’s surface began turning pale blue.
Geometric frost patterns like snowflakes formed on the metal surface.
Even without touching it, the deadly cold felt like it would freeze skin to it instantly.
Then the system message appeared.
[Supercooled Grenade]¹
Rank: D
Upon detonation, releases intense cold within a 5m radius.
Success.
I lifted the glowing blue grenade.
The cold transmitted through my gloves cleared my head.
—Wow… just looking at it makes me cold. But Boss, can that really kill that giant thing?
“Well. One won’t be enough.”
But outdoor air conditioners were everywhere around me.
“You keep watching the slime. I’ll keep working.”
—Roger, Boss!
KWAANG!
The sky above the north side of Mapo Bridge was engulfed in crimson flames.
Lieutenant Colonel Kang Cheol-min’s voice rang out through the explosions.
“Pour it on! Burn it until nothing remains!”
Following his orders, the logistics support unit concentrated its firepower.
[KM202 Quad Incendiary Rockets] fired continuously.
The [Medium Flamethrowers] mounted on trucks spewed thick streams of fire.
Sssss—
The slime’s surface was engulfed in flames.
Normally, its moisture should have evaporated and its cells burned away.
But—
Fwoooosh—
A strange sound echoed.
Like a gigantic lung inhaling.
“Huh?”
The soldier operating the flamethrower widened his eyes.
The blazing inferno surrounding the slime was instantly sucked into its body.
It wasn’t burning.
It was drinking the flames like juice.
At the same time, exactly as the management log warned—
Its bluish body turned dark crimson.
Its mass inflated like a balloon.
The creature that had been three stories tall grew to five stories almost instantly.
“W-what?! Why is it getting bigger?!”
“Lieutenant Colonel! Flame attacks aren’t working! It’s absorbing the energy!”
Kang Cheol-min’s face turned pale.
The military had fought countless battles over the past decade.
They had encountered slimes thousands of times.
But this was an [Aberration].
A creature outside the standard combat manuals.
It was his mistake.
He had relied solely on the report of “physical immunity” and ignored elemental compatibility.
“Grrrr…”
The energized slime extended its tentacles.
A whip-like stream of red mucus lashed out and struck the leading military truck.
Sssss—
The steel hood of the truck melted like ice cream.
The soldiers screamed and abandoned the vehicle.
“Retreat! All units retreat! Increase distance!”
Kang shouted desperately.
But the slime, now enlarged, was far faster than before.
At this rate, they would all be wiped out.
Then—
On the rooftop of a ruined building beside the battlefield, a single figure appeared.
—Boss! Those idiot soldiers just fed it a full course meal!
“Just give me the coordinates.”
I pulled back the rubber band of the [High-Tension Bio Sling].²
The projectile loaded inside it was the blue canister I had just made.
[Supercooled Grenade].
“Picker, activate the mana lens. Where’s the core?”
To my eyes, it was just a giant red mass.
But Picker’s vision was different.
If energy condensations like cores existed in my body, Pig’s, and Karambit’s—
Then the same must apply to mutants.
Picker’s lens flashed red.
—Scan complete! Energy vortex detected inside the body! Slightly below the center! That’s the weak point!
A red target marker appeared on my HUD.
I held my breath and aimed.
The moment the creature raised its tentacle toward the soldiers—
TWANG!
The grenade left my hand in a perfect arc.
Straight toward the center of its body.
Splat.
The grenade sank deep into the slime.
There was no explosion.
Instead—
With a chilling cracking sound, the heat blanketing the battlefield vanished instantly.
A blue frost mist exploded outward.
“KIIIEEEEK!”
For the first time, the creature screamed in pain.
The center of the slime’s body instantly turned gray.
The near-absolute cold froze its cellular activity.
The liquid monster hardened like a giant stone statue.
Of course, not entirely.
Only the 5-meter radius of the grenade.
But that was enough.
Without hesitation, I loaded the next projectile.
This time it was a normal [Fragmentation Grenade].
TWANG—BOOM!
It detonated precisely on the frozen section.
Then something unbelievable happened.
The creature’s body—previously immune to physical attacks—shattered like glass.
Crack.
Frozen slime fragments fell to the ground.
A massive hole opened in the creature’s body.
As if someone had scooped out a huge spoonful of pudding.
“Kiiik…”
The slime writhed and sealed the hole with the remaining mass.
But it was clear.
Its total size had visibly decreased.
—Boss! It’s working! Its mass has decreased!
“Right. It may not die in one shot, but we can shave it down little by little.”
I had prepared plenty of [Supercooled Grenades].
Standing casually on the railing, I pulled out the next one.