Dispatch — Biomass Collection

It was nearly three in the morning when he finally got the door of his studio open.

The order entry had snarled. Park Hyejin had punched in last week's order on pure gut feeling, and not a single figure matched between the system inventory and the boxes in the freezer. Just digging through the receiving slips one by one, forcing the numbers to line up, had cost him another hour.

Two extra boxes of bulgogi patties, and she left the chicken off entirely. Let the stock come up short and it'll be my fault again.

That bitch.

Kwon Sion dropped into the chair without even turning on the light. He couldn't spare the strength to peel off clothes steeped in fryer grease.

Under the desk the tower started up with a metallic whine, and beside the monitor the Black Mask flushed a faint red in time with it.

He set the mask against his face.

He opened his eyes in the worn leather chair of the Command Room. It creaked under him.

"You're here! Administrator! But hey — bad news!"

Redi popped straight up off the screen. It was not the voice of someone delivering bad news.

One side of the screen cut over to the Underground Dungeon. The solitary cell was empty. Between two bent bars a gap had opened wide enough for a person to slip through — the same gap the orc had pried apart on its way in.

Pale scrape marks left by the chains ran out through that gap. Along the line, palm prints and knee prints alternated, and between them thick yellowish semen had dropped in clumps. Enough time had passed that it ought to have dried. It still glistened.

Crawled out.

Her trail into the corridor wandered this way and that, then broke off, semen and all, in the dark at the far end of the hall. Crouched at the spot where the marks began was an orc.

It peered into the empty cell, snorting out hot breaths. Those bean-sized eyes wandered a long time over the bare iron floor.

"Gruk..."

The face on it was pure grievance.

You're the one who bent the bars. And you have the nerve to look wronged.

"She slipped right out while you were gone! What a waste! She was our first prisoner!"

"I expected it."

The escape chance had cleared eighty percent. It would have been stranger if she'd still been in there.

"But one good thing! The refined Magical Power is ready to use now!"

"And guess what? Add it to what was left over from last time, and we just barely cleared the line!"

"What."

"A summon! We can pull once! Let's spin one before we deploy, okay?"

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On the console, an entry that had been stamped Insufficient in red had turned white.

"What about deployment."

"Don't worry about that! The deployment gate doesn't open on stored Magical Power. It opens on the Administrator's Vessel!"

Something like action points, then. Straight out of the trash-game manual.

Sion looked down at the text for a moment. Five hundred Magical Power. Nearly everything he had wrung out of breaking Park Hyejin, and he was supposed to dump it all in at once.

One deployment a day. That doesn't change no matter how many subordinates I have. What does change is how much they haul back in a single run.

"Spin it."

"That's the spirit! Come on, come on!"

Most of the incubation vats in the Summoning Room were still empty. In the nearest of the glass cylinders standing in a row, green amniotic fluid began to boil.

"Dun-dun-dun-dun..."

From inside the screen, Redi supplied the sound effect with her own mouth. Foam packed the cylinder until nothing inside could be seen.

Honestly, he wasn't entirely without expectations. He had spent twenty-five years among people who melted their paychecks into phone-game pulls. In the store break room he had heard part-timers scream that an SSR had dropped more times than he could count, and just as often the crack of a forehead hitting the table after a pity pull ruined them.

Not hoping for legendary. Not even an SSR. But this time, at the very least, something passable...

Color showed through.

Gray-green. A grade? No.

"...Fuck."

A hunched back. Arms hanging to the knees. Two yellowed tusks. Eyes the size of beans.

Passable, my ass. It's a straight copy-paste.

The glass cylinder hissed open and amniotic fluid poured across the floor. The new orc took its first step, and the Summoning Room boomed — thunder, rolling out of the thing's stomach.

It looked down at its own belly, then lifted its head. Bean-sized eyes swept a full circle of the room, hunting for something to eat. Drool slid between the tusks and hung from the point of its chin. A sniff, then another, and the nose stopped. The eyes stopped with it, on Sion.

"...Don't look at me."

"Gruk..."

Instead of an answer, the stomach growled again.

"...Hah."

A long, deep sigh leaked out of him.

"Waaah! Two orcs! Brothers, they're brothers!"

"...Trash game."

Five hundred. Five hundred Magical Power. The price of grinding Park Hyejin down once, in full — one hungry orc.

That was when a bang came from the elevator, followed by heavy footsteps. With a head that had no business knowing how to press a button, it had somehow made it all the way up.

And how did that one get up here.

The two hulks faced each other in the middle of the Summoning Room. They shoved their noses together and sniffed for a long while, then tilted their heads at the same time.

"Gruk?"

"Gruk?"

Intelligence E. Both of them.

Sion went back to the Command Room and threw himself into the worn leather chair. It creaked, as if the chair were sighing too.

Fine. No brains, then make up for it with numbers.

Thud, thud — the two hulks trotted after him into the Command Room and squatted side by side in a corner. One started picking between its toes. The other rubbed a growling stomach with the flat of its hand.

Sion glanced at the corner.

"...Why are they in here."

This was the Command Room. The place where you spread the map, chose a deployment, and ran the base. It was not, at the very least, a place for a toe-picking orc to squat.

"They don't have anywhere to go! There's no separate space for the monsters to rest!"

Redi floated an arrow toward the locked iron door on the right side of the room.

"We have to open a barracks in there! Somewhere for the monsters to wait! Park them in there and morale goes up, and they won't wander off making trouble on their own!"

"Open it."

"About that... it takes Materials! Hehe."

Materials again.

Fixing the dungeon took Materials. A place for two subordinates to sleep took Materials. Whatever he tried to do with this base, it ended in a demand for scrap metal. Until then, those two would be picking their toes in the corner of the Command Room.

Sion turned his head. Once a day. Today's once was still left.

"Deploy."

"Yep! Dispatch? Kidnapping?"

What he'd already settled on was biomass. Even so, it was a once-a-day. Worth confirming one more time.

"...Which one's better."

"Oh? Since when do you ask?"

Redi spun a circle inside the screen.

"Hmm! This time, Dispatch! And of those, Biomass Collection!"

"Bring back meat and the like, and we can enhance them. Get them stronger, and the next time we send them on a Raid they'll sweep up way more! Then the Materials come in one huge haul!"

Raise them on biomass. Sweep Materials with the ones we've raised. The order checks out.

He needed something to do about those empty heads anyway.

"Dispatch. Biomass Collection."

The screen split in two, and one side lit red.

Sion drew the three-dimensional map on the round dais toward him — past the shopping streets, across the main road, toward the old traditional market. Shops with their shutters down lined a narrow alley. At one of them, a sign hung beneath a red awning.

He spread his fingers, and the view plunged inside the shop. Glass display cases in front. On the back wall, a large walk-in freezer with a stainless-steel door, and beside it a narrow rear door leading out to the alley. It was dawn, the lights were off, and no one was inside.

The time in the corner of the map had already passed four in the morning.

Late.

Markets woke early. Out on the main road at the end of the alley, a one-ton truck was already parked with its headlights on.

That order ate an hour.

If he'd logged in just an hour sooner, this alley would still have been fast asleep.

...Does it matter.

All they had to do was haul a few boxes of meat. In through the back, clean out the freezer, and done.

Telling those things to keep quiet is a reach. Then the only option is for the two of them to finish fast.

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"Both of you. Go."

"Gruk!"

"Guh... gruk?"

One shot to its feet. The other, still rubbing its stomach, got up a beat late and followed.

The alley behind the market was narrow. In front of every shop's back door, empty crates, styrofoam, and tied-off trash bags were stacked waist-high, and the stink of raw fish and meat blood rose off the damp ground. Through it, two gray-green hulks twisted their shoulders and stepped in.

The one in front stopped at the butcher shop's rear door, gripped the iron handle, and pulled.

Crunch. Only the handle came off.

The orc looked down at the handle in its palm, flung it back over its shoulder, and seized the whole edge of the door. The hinges screamed. The door bent outward, and somewhere a dog started barking.

In the Command Room, Sion clicked his tongue.

The shop was dark. Only the freezer door on the inner wall gleamed, cold. The first orc threw it open, and white cold poured out in a rush. Halved pigs hung in a row from the hooks of the ceiling rail, and the shelves of the inner compartment were packed tight with boxes of frozen meat.

The first orc moved as ordered. It stacked the boxes by twos, threes, fours, and heaved them onto its shoulder.

...Oh. Would you look at that.

The second orc did not move. It stood on the freezer's threshold with its nostrils flared as wide as they would go, and its head turned slowly toward the hanging pigs. Thunder rolled inside the freezer.

Don't you dare.

A wet crack. The hind leg of a half-pig tore clean off. The second orc stuffed the cold raw meat, bone and all, into its mouth and started to chew.

"Hey."

Crunch. Crunch.

"Carry the boxes."

A voice from the Command Room feeds straight into the head of any monster on deployment.

Crunch. Crunch. A gulp.

The thing didn't so much as pretend to listen. It tossed aside a hind leg picked down to the bone, then sank its tusks into another half-carcass on the next hook.

You fucking pig.

Sion gripped the edge of the console. The black panel creaked under his fist.

Sent them to collect biomass, and they're eating the biomass. My five hundred Magical Power is out there holding a company dinner in somebody else's butcher shop.

"Wow, it eats so well! Bones and everything? Do you hear that crunch? Must be incredibly fresh!"

Redi was genuinely impressed. There wasn't a grain of malice in the voice.

Sion stared for a long time at the blood-smeared tusks on the screen.

"...If I raise their intelligence, will they actually listen."

"Hmm? Even so, it's the first meal of their lives! Just let this one time slide!"

A first meal, eaten out of someone else's freezer. Let it slide, she says.

A grind. A thin seam drew itself across the lower half of Sion's face, a breath short of baring teeth.

On the screen, the first orc — boxes still on its shoulder — tilted its head. At the sound of chewing beside it, its nostrils began to flare too. One of the boxes tipped, sly and slow, toward its tusks.

Beneath the words, the dual-layered voice settled low.

The first orc flinched and set the boxes straight. Only then did the second stop chewing and stare blankly up at the empty air the voice had fallen from. Blood glistened at the corner of its mouth.

"...Pick it up. The whole thing."

Still biting down on the chunk it had been chewing, the second orc ripped the tooth-marked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠half-carcass off the hook and slung it over its shoulder.

At least it's leaving with it. Leaving with it.

That was when it happened.

From the front of the shop came the rattle of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a shutter going up. It was the man from the truck — fifty or so, a rubber apron on, boots on his feet, a ring of keys in his hand as he ducked under the half-raised shutter.

The fluorescent lights snapped on. His eyes went past the display case and stopped on the freezer, standing wide open.

Two gray-green hulks. One had meat boxes stacked clear to its shoulder. The other had a half-pig slung across its back and was working something around in its mouth.

Crunch.

The keys hit the floor.

"...U-uaaaaaagh!!"

The man rolled out under the shutter. One boot came off, and he ran for the end of the alley, screaming.

"M-monster! A monster!!"

The barking doubled, then tripled. One by one, lights came on in the second-floor windows above the alley.

This is why they should have finished fast.

"Out."

The two hulks turned. The first orc went out through the bent-open rear door, and the second, half-pig on its shoulder, followed. Stacks of crates in the narrow alley collapsed in a clatter, shoved aside by the two bodies. From the main road at the end of the alley, a siren began to wail, faint and far off.

The two orcs shoved themselves into the rift that stood open, and only after they had passed all the way through did the tear in the air slide shut.

What they had hauled back was moved into the storeroom beside the Command Room, meat boxes spilling across the floor as if they'd collapsed. The half-pig must have been torn into on the way — ribs showed white in patches — and the orc was still sucking on the bone held in its mouth.

"The market side got a little noisy! Better steer clear of there for a while!"

Sion looked down at the boxes piled on the storeroom floor.

One. Two. Three. Four.

He was counting. No one had told him to. His eyes simply followed the corners and put numbers on them of their own accord. Four boxes of meat. One half-pig. Tooth marks: numerous.

This is an inventory count.

They were the same eyes that, a moment ago, had been counting patty boxes in the store freezer. The habit had followed him all the way to the base.

The arithmetic didn't take long. The freezer had been packed shelf by shelf, and all they'd brought back was the four boxes the first one had grabbed in a single load. The half-pig had been eaten down to half of a half. The rest was in that gray-green stomach.

I never even placed the order, and the moment it comes in, half of it's already loss.