Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Clack, clack, clack.
The sound of aluminum crutches striking piles of scrap metal echoed hollowly through the ruins.
My armpits were chafed raw, blood seeping through, but I could not stop.
Drops of sweat formed on my forehead and fell from my chin.
My breathing rose all the way into my throat.
Several hours passed like that.
My swollen ankle throbbed, sending pain that seemed to rattle my brain, but I gritted my teeth.
Ten years of persistence ingrained in me from working as a carrier.
Compared to the absurd injustice of the shelter, this kind of pain was nothing.
I had to survive.
I had to prove that I was not a useless human being.
That single determination was the only fuel driving me forward.
Then something caught the edge of my vision.
Beneath a massive pile of scrap metal that I might have passed by without noticing was something clearly different from the surrounding waste.
“Hm…?”
I stopped walking and narrowed my eyes.
Through the dust, a worn military camouflage pattern faintly appeared.
I approached and scraped it with my knife.
Beneath it, gray cement appeared.
I scratched again.
Not even a mark.
This was…
Reinforced concrete, the main material used for shelters.
“Found it…!”
The supply warehouse Section Chief Choi had mentioned.
The very one even the Capital Defense Corps had abandoned.
Instinctively I stepped back, tightening my grip on the crutches.
I needed to see the full shape of what I had discovered.
Between the mountain-like piles of waste, the camouflage pattern appeared here and there.
What I had seen earlier was only the tip of the iceberg.
“Hm.”
It did not take long to locate what appeared to be the entrance of the warehouse within a sunken gap in the waste.
It was completely buried beneath enormous mountains of scrap metal and debris weighing dozens—perhaps hundreds—of tons.
The problem was the collapsed cars, twisted H-beams, and fragments of destroyed buildings tangled together into a massive wall.
Looking at the scene, I immediately understood why the Capital Defense Corps had abandoned the site.
“In a world without heavy equipment, how long would it take to clear all this?”
Even with manpower alone, it would take months.
And if mutants attacked during that time?
Total annihilation.
Perhaps they had also doubted whether the effort was even worth it.
For them, this place had been an impossible fortress.
A literal wall of impossibility.
I had finally found the supply warehouse, only to face this situation.
For another survivor, it would have been a scene of pure despair.
But a faint smile appeared on my lips.
“This kind of thing can’t stop me.”
I placed my hand on the massive pile of debris.
Then issued a command in my mind.
[Disassembly]
In that instant, the entire mountain of waste was engulfed in an enormous blue light.
Crushed cars, rusted steel bars, and chunks of concrete silently turned into particles of light and poured into my hand like a waterfall.
The absorbed waste immediately reassembled, neatly stacking at my feet.
Scrap metal with scrap metal.
Concrete powder with powder.
Glass shards with glass shards.
It looked as if an invisible giant had perfectly sorted everything.
Ten minutes.
Work that would have taken the Capital Defense Corps months was finished.
A section of the waste mountain disappeared without a trace.
In its place stood the steel blast door of a military supply warehouse, covered in dust but imposing.
I approached the heavy blast door.
Beside the handle was an electronic locking device with a fingerprint scanner and numeric keypad.
A relic from the early days of the collapse, when electricity and fuel still existed.
Now, everywhere—including shelters—doors were secured with heavy latches and padlocks.
It was a little disappointing that I could not fully disassemble such a rare relic of advanced technology.
But there was no choice.
I placed my hand on the lock and activated [Disassembly] again.
Crack.
Without a sound, the advanced device turned into scrap metal and a small amount of circuit components, falling to the ground.
Creeeak—
With a heavy grinding noise, the door that had remained closed for ten years opened.
Inside the warehouse, dust filled the air.
Yet everything was preserved perfectly, as if time had stopped.
The sight that filled the interior made me gasp.
Unidentified streamlined metal bodies.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of them were arranged in rows like aircraft inside a hangar.
As if hypnotized, I approached one of them.
I ran my finger across the thick layer of dust.
A cold surveillance camera lens and sharp propellers emerged.
“…Drones?”
I muttered unconsciously.
Why were unmanned aerial vehicles—the kind I had only seen in news before the collapse—here?
Between dusty shelves and crates, hundreds of drones stretched endlessly.
From tiny toy drones children might play with…
To sleek carbon-finished military reconnaissance drones.
Their sizes and types varied wildly.
As I surveyed the warehouse, an old military terminal in one corner caught my eye.
Naturally, the power was off.
Next to it lay a stack of dusty documents.
Carefully, I picked them up.
The yellowed cover read:
Operational Status Report and Supply Inventory.
Perhaps I could gain some information.
I began reading.
The contents were brief.
These drones had been gathered from all over the capital region immediately after the Day of Collapse.
The Capital Defense Corps had collected them for survivor searches and mutant reconnaissance.
They were meant to be humanity’s only hope for aerial surveillance during the chaos.
But I soon realized why these precious assets had been abandoned for ten years.
In the specification column of the supply list.
One decisive word caught my eye.
[Rechargeable]
Every drone was the same.
With most power generation facilities destroyed, these were nothing more than scrap metal incapable of flight.
The excitement that had filled my chest cooled instantly.
A sense of emptiness washed over me.
“A bird that cannot fly… is just a chicken.”
I had opened the warehouse expecting hope.
Instead, what lay before me was not a relic of salvation.
It was a massive grave proving how powerless humanity’s technology had become.
Even after searching the warehouse, I did not find a single can of food.
Honestly, it would be more accurate to call it a drone hangar rather than a supply warehouse.
“Sigh.”
Forcing away my disappointment about the drones, I began evaluating the value of the warehouse itself.
First—perfect concealment.
Buried beneath a mountain of waste, it was impossible to detect from outside.
Even if someone passed nearby, they would never imagine a facility existed beneath that massive trash heap.
Second—strategic location.
If the steel box where I had spent last night lay at the center ridge of the waste zone, this place was located in a distant tributary area.
It faced the direction of the Han River, but not along any bridge route.
A perfect blind spot.
Neither shelter hunting parties nor raiders would risk their lives coming here.
Third—overwhelming defensive capability.
This was a military facility built during the early collapse.
Its protective strength would rival that of a shelter.
It offered far greater safety than the crude steel box I had made.
And finally…
I looked again at the countless drones filling the warehouse.
“Even chickens that can’t fly can still become meat.”
Drones were precision machines.
They contained countless components and complex circuits.
Their types were varied, and their numbers overwhelming.
There could not be a better place to grow my ability.
“If I disassemble them all, I’ll definitely get blueprints.”
Since drones were complex machines, disassembling them might raise my [Manufacture] level.
When I changed my perspective, the tomb of despair became a mine of opportunity.
From useless scrap…
Into the best possible source of experience.
Good.
Decision made.
I would turn this place into my first workshop.
I took out the [D-Grade Core] I had kept deep in my pocket.
The moment I did, the entire old warehouse responded, glowing blue in resonance with the red orb in my hand.
[Modifiable target detected.]
[Target: Capital Defense Corps Emergency Supply Warehouse]
[Result: Workshop Lv.1]
[Required Materials]
[D-Grade Core] ×1 (Owned)
[High-Purity Iron Ore] 100 / 100 kg (Owned)
[Reinforced Concrete Powder] 500 / 500 kg (Owned)
[When evolved into a Workshop, new functions will be unlocked.]
“Good thing I held back from using the core yesterday. That could’ve been a huge mistake.”
The crude steel box would have turned into a Temporary Workshop using an F-Grade Core.
But this massive military facility would evolve into a proper Workshop Lv.1 using a D-Grade Core.
All required materials were already prepared.
I had obtained them earlier when I disassembled the entire debris mountain blocking the entrance.
Without hesitation, I commanded:
[Modification]
Wooooong—
With a massive resonance, the entire warehouse began breaking down into enormous particles of light.
Dust-covered concrete walls.
Rusty steel shelves.
Even the floor tiles.
Everything disassembled at the atomic level.
Then, in the blink of an eye, it reassembled into a new form.
Cold metallic walls filled the space.
Faint blue lines stretched across the floor like guiding pathways.
The ceiling was covered with panels emitting a gentle light.
When I blinked, the old relic had vanished.
It had transformed into a futuristic facility, as if it had dropped straight out of the future.
“…Unbelievable.”
My eyes widened automatically.
Just as I was about to explore the newly reborn workshop—
Pop!
The lights illuminating the workshop suddenly shut off, leaving only faint blue afterimages.
The low mechanical hum disappeared as well.
Complete darkness and silence.
In the dark, only one thing remained visible.
The translucent interface floating before my eyes.
[Central Control System]
At the top of the system, a red warning message glowed ominously.
[Workshop Rank: Lv.1]
[Power Status: 0% (Operation Suspended)]
[Warning: Power supply interrupted. All workshop functions are halted.]
“Power?”
My gaze moved downward.
[Power Conversion]
When I selected the menu, a message appeared.
[Warning: No cores in possession.]
Only then did I understand the fundamental truth of this world.
“The core… was the energy source?”
For ten years I had worked in the shelter warehouse handling countless rare materials.
Yet I had never known about cores.
“…Those bastards.”
At last I realized something.
The ruling class of the shelter had completely concealed the existence of cores—and their overwhelming value—from non-Awakened people.
Once I realized cores were energy sources, countless inconsistencies from the past fell into place like puzzle pieces.
While non-Awakened people lived filthy lives due to water shortages…
High-ranking Awakened always wore clean clothes and remained spotless.
Even the private quarters of the ruling class, who never fought in battles, had faint light leaking from them late at night.
All of that luxury had been powered by cores.
The cores, which should have belonged to the entire community, had been monopolized by a small ruling class for personal comfort.
Ten years of sweat and sacrifice for the shelter suddenly felt completely denied.
“Sacrifice? Noble mission? All bullshit.”
The hypocrisy of those who preached about risking their lives for the shelter’s safety made my blood boil.
Emptiness and betrayal spread through my body.
Someday.
Without fail.
I would expose their disgusting truth to the world and judge them with my own hands.
I took a deep breath.
Suppressing my rising anger had become familiar.
For ten years, I had learned first how to swallow my rage.
There was no time to be consumed by emotion.
First, I needed to fully understand this workshop system, my only hope and tool for revenge.
In the darkness, like someone learning how to operate unfamiliar machinery, I calmly examined the system interface menu categories one by one.
The first was [Production Module].
When I selected it, submenus and a short explanation appeared.
– Core module that executes item production and modification based on registered blueprints.
There were four submenus.
[Production Process]
[Processing Process]
[Blueprint Library]
[Mass Production]
It wasn’t hard to understand.
This was simply the systemized version of [Manufacture], [Modification], and [Blueprints].
However, under [Mass Production], a requirement appeared.
[Required Facility: Automated Process Protocol]
It seemed that once I obtained it, I could produce things in large quantities.
The second category was [Technology Laboratory].
– Research module that combines acquired blueprints and special materials to develop new higher-grade blueprints that do not yet exist.
I swallowed hard reading this.
This wasn’t just an ordinary laboratory from before the collapse.
Just looking at the [Elastic Control Iron Spear] created by imbuing the [Contaminated Wild Dog Tendon] proved it.
This was the power of creation.
The ability to make things that had never existed.
Things that even ignored the laws of physics.
Finally, I opened the [Workshop Facilities] menu.
– Expands physical facilities inside the workshop for specialized purposes, unlocking new systems or maximizing the efficiency of existing systems.
“So it’s not a software upgrade… it’s hardware.”
It was like expanding the workshop’s body itself and attaching new limbs.
However, instead of submenus, it simply showed labels such as [No Facilities Installed] and [Inactive], so I couldn’t see the details yet.
After reviewing every menu, I realized something.
The power of Workshop Owner was far greater than I had imagined.
“This… is definitely S-Grade.”
There was no doubt.
But to develop the ability, I needed two things first.
Power—in other words, mutant cores.
And blueprints.
I had no immediate way to obtain cores.
But I did know how to obtain blueprints.
Right in front of me were mountains of drones.
However—
There was something I needed to do before dismantling them.