Horizon (3)

No telling how it would turn out, but it was more than worth a try.

I slipped out of the lab with a convenient excuse and headed toward the section where no one ever came.

This should be far enough from prying eyes.

Caution, and more caution — this was inside the Magic Tower, of all places. Only once I'd found a spot with minimal foot traffic and pushed out a domain that interfered with mana detection could I finally relax.

"Let's give it a shot."

After one last sweep of my surroundings, I activated the skill.

My appearance shifted in a heartbeat, and vast, distant mana came flooding in.

"Wiz."

[Yes!]

"Fire up Magic Creation."

What I called to mind was the battle in the Hall.

The attacks and functions Deus Ex Machina had hurled at me — above all, the War God Mode it had unleashed toward the end was etched into my mind with painful clarity.

"The blueprints of Deus Ex Machina."

[...Confirmed.]

[Creating the magic.]

Fshhhhh—!

A scene unfolded before me much like the one I'd seen before: lines of mana and theoretical formulas embroidering the empty air, weaving together like a spiderweb until they birthed a single result. It was beautiful, as ever — but this time, too, there was no room to enjoy the view.

"Ghk—?!"

My mana was draining faster than ever, gushing out like water through a burst dam.

Th-this much?!

I'd been shocked enough by the consumption when I created the Frost Dragon Seal, but this didn't even compare. It felt like being thrown alive into a dryer and wrung out until every last drop of moisture was gone.

Worse, that enormous reserve of mana hit bedrock and Dragon Transformation shut down involuntarily. Probably because I'd burned through so much at once — my head spun, and my condition deteriorated rapidly.

"Hahh... ugh..."

That peculiar hollowed-out sensation — the bone-deep lethargy that came only when mana had been drained to nearly zero.

"What? Zero point one percent?"

I'd burned through all that mana in an instant, and all I'd managed was 0.1 percent? I'd had some inkling, but it still knocked the wind out of me.

[I-I'm so sorry...] [(´•̥ ᵔ •̥`)]

With my mouth still hanging open, Wiz began her explanation.

[Deus Ex Machina is... a being you could call another 'Pinnacle of Magic' — designed and built by countless sages over several hundred years.]

[So, um... recreating it is quite diffic— difficult...]

Listening to Wiz, it did make a certain kind of sense. The thing had been a machine packing power on par with upper-tier S-Rank hunters — think of it in War God Mode and even more so.

Something like that would never have been built overnight.

Looked at another way, Wiz had reproduced a full tenth of a percent of blueprints that took sages centuries to complete — in mere minutes. This was hardly something to fault her for.

"No, you did more than well enough."

[Tae-hyun...! ฅ(՞៸៸> ᗜ < ៸៸՞)ฅ]

Still, inching up 0.1 percent at a time was hopelessly inefficient. Once mana hit zero, recovery took considerable time, and I couldn't afford to abandon everything else while building the blueprints.

...Which meant.

"Wiz, think you could adjust the design a little?"

[Yes! Of course!]

[How would you like it changed?]

"First — strip out all the miscellaneous functions."

I carved away every function of Deus Ex Machina and left behind only the fundamental form. Not a self-moving war machine, but a suit of powered armor a human could wear.

And on top of that—

A Mana Cartridge to supply a continuous feed of mana.

"Will this do?"

A magitech suit that granted physical capabilities rivaling an Awakened simply by being worn.

"Hmm."

After brief deliberation, I entered the name.

"Gah."

A full tenfold increase — but still only one percent. It stung a little, yet it was unquestionably a number worth challenging now.

[Tae-hyun, what is this suit for?] Wiz suddenly asked. [The superhumans of this world — your 'Awakened' and 'hunters' — can wield great power without it, can't they?]

[And since they can store mana in their own bodies, the Mana Cartridge seems all the more unnecessary.]

Her question was a fair one. Machina was useless to active hunters; with enough training and stat growth, they could attain superhuman strength without such a thing. It might have been more practical to craft other high-tier artifacts instead.

But this had never been equipment designed for the Awakened or hunters in the first place.

"Because this isn't meant for ordinary hunters."

The ones who would use it were those who had failed to awaken. The ones who would have to stand against the monsters crawling out of the gates in days to come.

No more one-sided slaughter.

One of the goals — the long-cherished ambitions — I had set for myself since regressing. Cultivating the Non-Awakened Hunters. And the first button of that plan was this: Magicarapace: Machina.

Non-Awakened Hunters. Just hearing it, the phrase probably sounded absurd. By definition, anyone who failed to awaken could not become a hunter.

Granted, ordinary civilians could enter gates — or rather, it was less a matter of entering than of being swept up in gates that materialized without warning.

But an ordinary person who can't use mana dies easily to even the weakest monster.

Arm ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yourself to the teeth with every weapon imaginable and you might resist a little — but how many people walk around like that? And to begin with, monsters barely take damage from attacks that carry no mana. That was precisely why so many had been massacred before my regression.

Hunters are limited in number, but the people who need protecting are countless.

Among them were those who had the will to fight back and yet were forced to flee, simply because they'd never awakened. No matter how many bullets they fired or bombs they dropped, nothing landed meaningfully against those creatures.

And so, I had planned.

The Non-Awakened Hunter. A way to let even the unawakened project combat power on par with a hunter. And the answer was to harness magic artifacts.

Ordinary artifacts activated by drawing on the user's mana, so ordinary people still couldn't use them. But what if you stored mana first, then supplied it on demand?

Humans can use electronics not because their bodies generate electricity. The machines draw power from an external source to run. There was no reason that same principle couldn't be applied to magic artifacts.

The Mana Cartridge. Store mana inside it, then feed it into an artifact at the moment of need. With a system like that, there was no need to build up mana in one's own body — meaning even the unawakened could wield magic artifacts.

And if you raised physical capabilities with the Magicarapace on top of that—

Even without awakening, a person could become a fighting force comparable to a hunter. The birth of the Non-Awakened Hunter.

Of course, they could never replace hunters entirely. They couldn't use skills, the physical enhancement from the Magicarapace would have its limits, sensory-type stats were beyond what any suit could compensate for, and above all, with no ability to charge their own mana, they'd have to recharge their cartridges on a fixed schedule.

Even so.

Non-Awakened Hunters would become a vital force. With them in the ranks, at the very least, the countless people of humanity would no longer be slaughtered so helplessly, so completely.

And for that day, if nothing else—

Horizon had to become a company that spanned the entire world.

"Thank you for your patience."

A few weeks after I'd been drifting in and out of Gong Gi-hyun and Ji Yeon-ha's lab, I went with the two of them to see my father.

"You're ahead of schedule."

"You think? I felt it took longer than it should have."

"Technology that will bring innovation to the world. It would have been strange for it to take months, not weeks."

That was a man who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had weathered a hundred battles to raise Cheonseong to where it stood.

"Then, let's get straight to business."

I drew the prepared goods out of my subspace.

"This is Cheonseong's new future — the items that will open a new era for hunters. About to step out into the world: hundreds of magic artifacts."

"These are Horizon artifacts."

In an instant, the chairman's office filled with artifacts.

"Th-this is...!"

Genuine astonishment flickered across my father's face. He wasn't a hunter, but decades in this industry had given him an eye that rivaled one.

So he understood. He understood exactly how superb the quality of the artifacts before him was.

"C-Rank at minimum. A few of them we've pushed all the way to A-Rank."

"Good grief... I can't believe it even looking right at it."

Dozens of the same artifact lined up in rows — no one could look at this and think it was anything but mass production.

"You really can manufacture magic artifacts, then?"

"Why don't you see for yourself?"

With that, I called Gong Gi-hyun forward.

"Gi-hyun?"

"Y-yes, sir!"

Flustered at standing before the chairman, Gong Gi-hyun shuffled sheepishly to the side — then set a long iron rod on the table. It looked like a wand, but it was a lump of scrap metal with no trace of mana in it whatsoever.

"Phew."

Gong Gi-hyun exhaled softly and raised mana into a form fine and densely woven.

A tool conjured from pure mana appeared in his hand, and he began tracing circuits across the iron rod in swift, practiced strokes.

Krzak!

Having built the structure dozens of times already, he knew it by heart — and in the blink of an eye, a finished artifact sat on the table.

"It- it's done!"

"Already?!" my father exclaimed, his astonishment deepening. "Barely a few minutes have passed...!"

"Honestly, I had him throttle his speed — for your benefit."

"You're joking..."

I pulled a few dozen more iron rods out of my subspace.

"Gi-hyun, if you would."

"Yes, sir!"

Of the three skills that had made Gong Gi-hyun the Magic King, one was Magic Crafting — acquired after the fact through a skill book. But even before that, he'd been an Awakened carrying tremendous potential. When I remembered how effortlessly he'd built the Gate Recorder I'd requested, I could only wonder how a man like that had ever stayed hidden in that tiny little workshop.

Around him, small spirits resembling blue cogwheels sprang into being.

"Go get 'em, kids."

"Clack-clack!"

The spirits meshed their cogwheels together in what sounded distinctly like a reply, then lined up before the dozens of iron rods waiting ahead of them.

Fzzzzzt!

And then — just as he had a moment ago — they traced out mana circuits at astonishing speed. This was Gong Gi-hyun's skill, Paste: the ability to copy something intangible and transplant it elsewhere without the slightest damage. It was precisely this skill that had delivered the final piece of the Gate Recorder technology — live video transmission.

And—

Gear Spirits were a production-assist skill that repeated a given command endlessly — and they could use any of the skills their master possessed.

Spirits wielding Magic Crafting, pasting down mana circuits at incredible speed.

In other words, they were mass-producing magic artifacts.

Dozens of wands completed in even less time than before. At this rate, we could build inventory enough to generate serious sales revenue.

"As for the design work on the other artifacts, she's agreed to handle it."

"A pleasure, Chairman Cheon."

Ji Yeon-ha smiled sweetly. Her design work was nothing short of spectacular — Wiz had verified that much firsthand.

"Well? Feeling confident now?"

"Ha... hahaha! You really do love keeping your old man on his toes."

My father wore a soft smile. Then he spoke with a voice full of conviction.

"Yes. Let's do it."

It was the moment Horizon — the company that would reshape the future of humanity — truly began to stir.