Duel of the Tech-Feudal Lords
Will Bates and Leon Dusk. …………… Leon Dusk seems to have thought the three of them would obey his command immediately. But reality turned out completely different. There must have been some major misunderstanding about the chain of command.
The glasses-wearing kid summed up the situation.
> [Leon Dusk must have exchanged words with the Korean VIPs, so he issued the order as if it were natural. Are the attachment humans ignoring it due to personal feelings? Or—]
Who knows. Maybe they think Leon Dusk is arrogant, or perhaps there's some other scheme at play.
An awkward silence blanketed the rooftop. The wind tousled neckties, skirt hems, and hair strands in their own directions, but no one moved even a single step.
No response to his command. Leon Dusk's eyebrow twitched upward on one side. The emotion flickering across his face was quite intriguing—half incredulity, half irritation, and beneath it all, an extremely faint bewilderment. This guy has almost never experienced defiance before. Living as the king of Texas, it's been so long since a command of his went unheeded that he's subtly fumbling on how to handle it.
"Tch, you're all so slow. With that level of perception, you'd be thrown to Texas and lose your head before three days were up."
Leon Dusk clicked his tongue.
> [Whoa, what a scary country!]
> [What kind of place is it?]
I think I know. It's probably that post-apocalyptic vibe where mohawk guys pop out from everywhere, like Will Bates's Washington. Though I could be wrong.
Leon Dusk shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't usually give second warnings—but I'll make an exception."
The second command from the dictator who gripped overwhelming wealth and power fell.
"Kill that old man."
……………
Silence descended on the rooftop. Leon Dusk's command floated in the air before crumbling to the ground.
Han Min-seo looked at Yeom Hana, who shrugged and passed the gaze to Lee Se-hee. Hmm, check out that subtle game of hot potato with their eyes. It seems like they're figuring out who holds the floor in the Korean party.
Eventually, the woman in the black power suit stepped forward. Lee Se-hee. So she's the representative of the Korean group.
Come to think of it, among the Korean awakeners here, she's overwhelmingly superior in negotiation skills. As the chairwoman of Oseong Group, and thanks to the immortal jellyfish and tardigrade genes I implanted, her combat prowess is no joke either.
"You're mistaken, Dusk."
Lee Se-hee's voice pierced through the rooftop wind. At her words, the corner of Leon Dusk's mouth twisted slightly, and a faint sour note mixed into the sweet whiskey scent of his emotions. That stung. Hearing the word "mistaken" straight from someone he naturally assumed was beneath him.
"Oh? So I'm the one who's mistaken."
Leon Dusk lightly spun his cigar in his hand.
"Tell me what I'm mistaken about, three-digit billionaire lady."
Three-digit billionaire. Come to think of it, Ma Hyuk-su of Cheolung Group was called a one-digit billionaire. In Leon Dusk's head, asset size determines class hierarchy, huh.
"Korea's goal is a show of force."
There wasn't a hint of hesitation in Lee Se-hee's voice.
"We thrust our blade right up to Will Bates's nose. We infiltrated this place, the heart of Microgenics. That's all it took to achieve our objective."
Hmm, so that's what it was. The time the Korean VIPs were nearly kidnapped by Will Bates at Grand Ark. I thought it had been brushed under the rug, but apparently not.
"We don't take orders from anyone to begin with. Our alliance agreement extended only to accompanying you to this rooftop, and we have no further obligation to help."
With a gesture from Lee Se-hee, Yeom Hana and Han Min-seo stepped back.
"Handle your own salvation."
Salvation(舊怨). Old grudge. There seems to be a long history between Will Bates and Leon Dusk that I don't know about.
Lee Se-hee's gaze flicked to the opposite side of the rooftop. Toward Will Bates.
"You understand too, Bates."
Not "Chairman Will Bates," just "Bates." Even their forms of address carry heavy political implications. As the representative wielding Korea's blade here, Lee Se-hee has dropped formality for weight.
Will Bates, receiving the gaze, adjusted his glasses.
"Of course. As you put it with your analogy, Dusk—if one of America's corporate nations broke the taboo and mobilized outside forces, you could certainly shake the balance. The warning is duly received."
What a flat tone. If this bland uncle has one virtue, it's that he doesn't hesitate to acknowledge facts.
Leon Dusk had broken the taboo of not bringing outside forces into America's civil war, so the power dynamics in America would be permanently reshuffled now. Will Bates seems to have accepted that instantly and started calculating his next move.
With Will Bates's confirmation, the Korean awakener party began to slowly retreat. I slipped subtly into their group as well.
Now, the only one left in the center of the rooftop—Leon Dusk, alone.
"Ha, well now. Betrayal at the perfect timing."
Leon Dusk let out an incredulous chuckle. I took a quick lick at the emotion forming at his lips. Scorching anger. And mixed incongruously within it—a flavor of delight.
Strange. This guy just got betrayed, and he's enjoying it.
> [There are types like that.]
>> [Humans who stay at the top too long grow bored with the solidity of their own power. So when a variable shakes them, they feel displeasure and ecstasy at the same time.]
"A knife in the back after half a century? This is really amusing."
Leon Dusk tossed the cigar from his mouth onto the rooftop floor.
"This doesn't happen in Nikola. I've clamped down too hard. It's refreshing for a change."
This is Microgenics's home turf, and the Korean party he thought were allies betrayed him. Logically, retreat should be the only option. So I figured he'd turn tail and run without looking back.
But Leon Dusk's footsteps headed not backward, but forward.
Thud, thud. With Washington's nightscape at his back, he crossed the center of the rooftop toward Will Bates.
And Will Bates—didn't evade, but walked toward Leon Dusk.
"Old man. It's been quite a while since we've met face-to-face like this. Since it's come to this, why not have a proper go at it."
"No reason to refuse."
The moment the dramatic duel agreement formed between the two tech-feudal lords—
Dramatic changes occurred in the bodies of the two duelists.
First, the nanomachines that had vanished beneath Leon Dusk's skin awoke all at once. Liquid metal crawled up his skin, swiftly reconstructing into the form of a power suit. It was like living mercury wrapping around a person's body of its own will. The metal flow covered his jaw and cheekbones in sequence, passed over his forehead, and gathered at the crown of his head. The instant the helmet's visor closed—
Two lines of blue glow shone fiercely from inside the visor.
And Will Bates. This man didn't draw a suit, weapon, or any external gear. He simply spread his feet shoulder-width apart and inhaled.
Will Bates's shoulders swelled.
Then his chest puffed out.
Finally—
The suit he wore tore apart with a rip.
Riiip. Beneath the shredded suit scraps falling to the floor emerged muscles too densely packed for a human body. White steam billowed thickly over that overwhelming muscle density. It was the excess heat from a hyper-accelerated metabolic system that the body couldn't contain, expelled entirely outward.
Whoa. Those lats, those pecs, those erector spinae. Muscles that remind me of Terrachad.
But you know, I can feel it. There's an insurmountable gap between Will Bates and Terrachad.
Nikola's ruler, armored head to toe in liquid metal.
Microgenics's ruler, his very body—the pinnacle of biotechnology—a weapon in itself.
These two. Among all humanity I've seen so far, they're by far the strongest.
Excluding Dr. Stein, that is.
Peeking into the mental world, the little kids were already gathered in a cluster. Spectator seats of unknown origin were neatly lined up, and the little ones had taken their places one by one.
The stillness flowing between the two on the rooftop shattered with a subtle shift in air pressure.
Who struck first? Before I could decide, their forms had already clashed in the center of the rooftop.
Where the nanomachine suit and mountain of muscle collided, the concrete floor sank a beat later.
Boom.
A massive roar shook the top of Microgenics headquarters.
Wow, what a spectacle. A sight like this might happen once in a lifetime, if at all.
As the two tech-feudal lords exchanged blows, suddenly one face popped into my head.
……Come to think of it, I wonder how Karen's doing.
At the end, she grabbed me as I was heading out to watch, yelling 'Wait—!' She must be worried for sure.
No way to know where the slime girl who vanished so suddenly is or what she's up to.
But anyway, Karen herself should be safe. The glasses-wearing kid guaranteed the bunker's safety.
Said even a mohawk thug banging on it for a year wouldn't leave a scratch. Even a direct nuke hit, and Karen would be fine.
Once this duel spectatorship ends, first thing—head back to Karen.
And since I can't apologize with words—I'll bring a ton of French toast ingredients instead. Real sugar, not sweetener, and real maple syrup.
She'll love it for sure. Hehe. Whee.