Chapter 68
Chapter 68
The workshop was peaceful.
The soft white noise of the air circulation system humming steadily.
A cup of instant coffee enjoyed after finishing a hot shower.
In a ruined world, it was a rare and perfect moment of rest.
“Boss! Some unbelievable guys just showed up!”
Picker’s urgent voice shattered the silence.
I frowned and set down my coffee cup.
“Stop overreacting. Another mutant?”
“No! This time it’s real! It’s war!”
“War?”
Picker projected a feed onto the main screen.
The display split into three sections.
The locations were three ruined apartment complexes nearby, including the Dohwa-dong Waste Hill close to the workshop.
Large trucks bearing an unfamiliar logo had gathered there.
A crude emblem of a gear overlapped with a hammer.
It was Guro Foundry.
But what caught my attention wasn’t the trucks.
It was the bizarre equipment placed beside them.
Thud. Thud.
A massive hydraulic cylinder drove a two-meter steel stake into the ground.
Above it, a five-ton metal weight repeatedly slammed down in a steady rhythm.
“Picker, what is that?”
“Hold on! Zooming in!”
Picker magnified the image and attempted to read the machine’s information.
[???]
[Grade: C]
[???]
Question marks?
I narrowed my eyes.
Since my Work Protocol level had risen, I could identify most objects.
The grade was visible, but the details were not.
That meant they had assembled the device using unfamiliar technology—an irregular custom machine.
“Boss, isn’t that just a construction pile driver? Looks like they’re digging. If I go over and stick a missile in it, I can turn it into scrap.”
“You don’t have a missile launcher. And something’s different… analyze the mana pattern and internal structure again.”
“You’re overreacting.”
Picker grumbled but activated the Mana Resonance Lens.
It was indeed not a simple hydraulic device.
The moment the stake struck the ground, a faint mana vibration wave radiated outward.
When the internal schematic appeared, I understood its purpose.
[Seismic Wave Analyzer]
Grade: C
A device that amplifies vibration waves generated by physical impact with mana in order to survey underground structures. Capable of identifying underground cavities and dense metal regions with a 92% probability.
“…Huh.”
An impressed sound escaped me.
No radar.
No ultrasound.
They simply struck the ground and analyzed the echo.
“It looks crude… but it works. That’s actually impressive.”
“Boss… are you feeling okay? That pile of scrap is impressive? Compared to what you build, it’s primitive—”
“It’s not primitive. It’s an invention.”
I watched the Guro Foundry technicians moving busily on the screen.
Oil-stained work clothes.
Crude welding marks.
Yet with the limited resources and knowledge left after the apocalypse, they had forced awakened abilities into a working device.
That grotesque machine was likely a reconstruction of technology that existed before the collapse.
My ability specialized in disassembling existing items to obtain system blueprints and then reproducing them.
But they were different.
They created something from nothing using accumulated experience.
To be honest, I had underestimated Guro Foundry.
My original plan had been simple.
Recruit Steel Legion soldiers and eliminate the rest if they interfered.
I believed my abilities could completely replace their production capabilities.
But seeing that vibrating machine changed my mind.
Those engineers… would be a waste to kill.
Since the Day of Collapse, the population had dropped drastically.
Intellectuals in particular had vanished.
They lacked physical ability, and even when they awakened, their abilities rarely helped in combat.
Back then, before shelters stabilized things, people had to run from mutants every single day.
It was hell.
Thinking about that, those people were valuable.
Even with my superior system, I couldn’t match their accumulated knowledge and experience.
If I could recruit them?
It would greatly help my ultimate goal.
Restoring civilization to its pre-collapse level.
“Picker. Change of plans. Capture the Guro Foundry personnel alive as well.”
Picker’s lens widened.
“All of them? Boss… how are you planning to feed that many people? Wouldn’t it be easier to wipe them out and loot their wallets?”
“People are resources. Very high-value resources.”
“…In that case we’ll need a prison first.”
“Then we’ll build one. Picker, send the Honeybees to recon. Deploy the Toads and Poison Bees in separate groups.”
I had already produced 100 Toad units and 100 Poison Bee units whenever my stamina allowed.
“Send the Porter to the Dohwa-dong Waste Hill. The key figures will definitely head there.”
The Dohwa-dong waste hill.
It was the place where I had consumed the most resources while expanding the workshop.
If their detection device kept pounding the ground, they would soon discover the underground emptiness.
“They’re exploring separately. If we attack one side, they’ll react. Strike all three locations simultaneously.”
“Ugh… nightmare difficulty. Understood!”
With Picker’s frantic shouting, the workshop monitors split into one hundred screens.
Each showed the view from a Honeybee drone.
Whir—
The Honeybee squadrons poured out of the workshop’s secret hatch.
Picker’s voice rang out dramatically.
“Targets confirmed in zones A, B, and C! Synchronizing distances between units! Activating mana scan module! Here we go!”
Red targeting markers appeared across the screens.
Mercenary positions.
Engineer movement routes.
Truck engines.
Picker processed all the information in real time while issuing commands to the drones.
“Unit 1, flank from the one o’clock direction!”
“Units 2 and 3! Target truck tires!”
“Porter! Break through the wall at ten o’clock!”
But before a minute passed, Picker’s voice began to tremble.
“H-hold on… wait! No! Not there! Unit 12, flank!”
Several Honeybees on the screen flew in the wrong direction and nearly collided.
“What’s wrong?”
“Controlling 300 units isn’t as easy as it sounds! Ah! Ballistic calculations falling behind!”
At that moment, warning alarms blared through the workshop.
[Central processing unit usage: 98%]
[Data processing delay detected – 0.5 seconds]
[Mana scan module and combat command protocol conflict]
I immediately understood the problem.
For simple reconnaissance or small battles, Picker alone was sufficient.
But now?
Three battle zones.
Three hundred drones.
And Porter’s movement path also needed monitoring.
On top of that, the mission required capturing enemies alive.
That meant avoiding vital points and targeting limbs precisely.
The processing load had exceeded Picker’s hardware limit.
“B-boss! My head— I mean circuits— are going to burn out! Ah! Honeybee Unit 14 crashed into a power pole!”
Crash!
One screen went dark with static.
“Overload! Overload!”
I clicked my tongue.
Picker was an excellent scout and analyst.
But commanding hundreds of units in real time like a battlefield general was too much.
Command flow looked like this:
My command → Picker’s analysis → Picker’s command → Drone execution.
The bottleneck was Picker’s processing capacity.
Watching him panic under overload, I made a decision.
“Picker. Stop the operation. Focus on reconnaissance only.”
“Boss! Thank you! I thought my processor was going to explode!”
Analysis and command had to be separated.
Picker would remain in the rear, reading the battlefield map and providing information.
Then what about the front line?
Someone needed to lead the drones directly in the chaos of combat.
A field commander capable of infiltration, assassination, and disruption.
A new blueprint began forming in my mind.
Invisible stealth.
Mobility capable of traversing any terrain.
And a network hub capable of linking multiple drones.
Yes… I need a shadow drone.
A ghost of the battlefield.
An invisible hunter with offensive capabilities.
As Picker resumed stable data processing, the drones regained control.
I stared at the monitor and refined the design of the new summon.
The base… that will work.
In the corner of the workshop sat the X-1 Ghost.
A sleek wingless stealth drone.
[Blueprint: X-1 Ghost]
After upgrading the workshop to Level 2 and mass-producing Honeybees, I had spent spare time analyzing it to fill the two remaining unit slots.
Its design was very different from ordinary drones.
Wingless.
Streamlined.
Its core was the Ion Propulsion Propeller.
Instead of spinning blades to generate wind, it ionized air molecules using tens of thousands of volts.
The plasma was then expelled backward by a powerful electric field, creating thrust.
No mechanical friction.
No rotor noise.
The ultimate silent flight.
Zero noise.
Minimal heat emission.
In theory, the perfect stealth aircraft.
But there was a problem.
Adding weapons and processing hardware inevitably made the frame larger and heavier.
Even if silent, a larger body would still be visible.
“Hardware alone won’t deceive the senses of Awakened and mutants.”
Even the faint mana fluctuations emitted by machinery had to be hidden.
Proper camouflage was required.
Not only visual invisibility—
but materials capable of absorbing or refracting mana waves.
Metal had limitations.
That left only one answer.
Borrow power from mutants.
“Picker. Search the data. Remember those creatures that only appeared as noise in the mana lens during reconnaissance?”
“Oh! Those guys? One moment!”
Picker searched the database and displayed a video with red warning lights.
The location was the entrance to an underground parking lot of a half-collapsed department store not far from the workshop.
Static crackled across the screen.
Thermal imaging and night vision both malfunctioned.
But through the Mana Resonance Lens, something appeared within the noise.
Hundreds of dark shapes hanging upside down from the ceiling.
[Ghost Bat]
Grade: D-
“Those are the ones! Boss, remember? When I approached them, my sensors malfunctioned and I nearly crashed into a wall!”
Picker shuddered.
“Their skin is valuable. It refracts light to become invisible and passively absorbs surrounding mana waves like a sponge, creating natural radar jamming.”
“Right. If we hunt them, they’ll definitely drop special materials.”
Combine the silence of ion propulsion with the stealth of Ghost Bats?
That would create the perfect assassin.
No sound.
No presence.
No trace.
“Going hunting? They sleep during the day and hunt at night, so now is perfect!”
I nodded and zoomed in on the footage.
Hundreds of bats clinging together in a disturbing mass.
But one creature in the center looked different.
“Wait. Zoom in on that one.”
Picker enhanced the image.
The outline appeared through the distortion.
It was one and a half times larger than the others.
More importantly—
the mana waves around its body were strangely distorted.
Not just absorption.
It was warping space itself.
“Bingo.”
That wasn’t a normal specimen.
It was a named mutant.
If I killed that one, it would definitely yield rare materials.
“Picker. Leave the waste hill operation to the Honeybees and locate the bat colony. Porter and I will head there.”