Chapter. 10 Lead and Silver Coins (8)
****
If you go southeast from Area 47, you will find Area 45, and if you go northwest, you will find Area 46. Above it are areas 44, 42, and 41, and below them are areas 43 and 40. Don’t ask me why it’s such a mess. It’s a regional division that the Gedreuts Company divided into regions as they pleased, just like they divided the African territory.
Doo doo doo doo doo!
“Three o’clock! Three o’clock! Look at 3 o’clock! “The Muglers are rolling in!”
You can reach the target area, Area 41, by turning straight north from the center of Area 46, but at the northern end of Area 46, there is a type 3 variant called [Working Kane], which is extremely famous, so you can’t just go there.
“Crack the product and throw it! Ezel! Go get the bomb!”
“Kwiiik!”
“Quick! Kuehek!”
Quang!
“Where is it!”
Taang! Taang! Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!
“Green weapon box bastard!”
“Here are two trucks with green weapon boxes, you idiot!”
“Hepburn, help me!” “My side will soon be breached!”
“Fuck you guys, it’s three o’clock!!!!!”
Quaaaang!
“Kwaeeeeek!!!!”
The Type 3 variant, which looks like a giant old tree with limbs, has been collecting building debris 24 hours a day to create a Wailing Wall comparable to the Great Wall of China. When approached, it reacts very aggressively, usually taking the highway west of Area 46 and bypassing the wall it created. This is the standard route. This highway is jokingly called the ‘Silk Road’ as it is an important trade route connecting the 40th and 30th districts, which are the main survival areas. It is a road frequently traveled by medium-to-large caravans and dome trade transport teams, so it is very well-maintained compared to the surrounding areas and has no variants. There are no mutations, and instead there are a lot of scavengers who specialize in plundering and targeting caravans.
“hey! Let’s not worry about what happens later and just write! “Exosuit sortie!”
“Ugh! Damn it! Inspection Department Exosuit No. 7! “We’re heading out!”
Wooooow! Sure!
Tsuuuuuuung- Paching!
“Plasma lance chaaajiiiiii!!!!”
“Kwiiyik!”
“Kkuek! “Quaaaaaaa!”
“Kwieeeeek!”
“The road has been cleared! Everyone jumps into the driver’s seat and steps on it!”
“The round bastards broke the trailer hitch!”
“Just jump out! Are you planning to throw away all this and use your old money to bring about inflation in the afterlife?”
The Scavenger didn’t have to worry. The smaller ones will jump out when they see the dome’s seal on our armored truck, and the larger ones… The customer from District 41, whom we are going to meet in the first place, is the leader of a very large scavenger group that dominates this area. It’s you. Until at least 41, I had to go comfortably as a very precious guest, escorted by these guys….
“Geuaaaaaa!”
“Woow! “Aaaah!”
“Professor! “The Horde is behind us!”
What on earth does this current situation mean?
Doo doo doo doo doo!
“correction! The Horde is also there!
Area 44. The middle of the famously clean Silk Road, where there is nothing to worry about as long as you watch out for people.
There, a chase was taking place with three desperately running vehicles and all kinds of monsters swarming in like clouds.
I heard there were a lot of variants in the neighborhood, so I brought the mounted machine gun that I thought would sell well, and it’s been a long time since I stuck it on the roof of the car and ground the gun barrel until it melted.
“Ezel! “Limited operation!”
“7 minutes! Burn it quickly-”
“I’ll be back in 7 minutes!”
Bua-
ah-
Residential shield generator brought for sale? It is running at full power with the battery plugged in. High explosives already reserved? ammunition? I am writing consistently. why? If you shop around and look around, it’s all useless!
Good!
“If you’re inside the valley, the engine heat will be blocked by rocks!”
“Cool down as much as possible while you hold on!”
“Professor Parkuuuu-! As I die-! “I will curse you forever!”
“…I’ll bring that over, so power on the ‘bubble’ as soon as we arrive!”
Kwaaaaang!
A loud bang rings out again, and the professor kidnaps Ezel, who says he can’t leave his suit even if he dies, and throws himself into the parked area.
“Three flashes! “Put down a smoke bomb!”
“Raise the bubble! “Three two one!”
“Don’t even breathe!”
Jiying –
With the familiar sound of the shield activating, a transparent film rose around the vehicle, instantly erasing the group’s appearance in the wasteland.
“Kkuek? Squeak! Kuiik!”
“Gaaaa! Wow! “Aaaah!”
“Kwiiik! Kwiik! “Quaagh!”
The monsters, who were confused by the flash of light and thick smoke, were confused for a moment and then began biting each other and fighting bloody.
After the fight, the group hid in place, not even breathing, until the group of mutants who had killed all the Muglers disappeared.
“…Whatever it is, there is no possibility that our friends who left for Area 38 before us remain missing.”
In response to Ian’s empty voice, the other three unanimously expressed their approval.
****
In the end, Ezel laid down on the pretext of repairing the exosuit, and the group decided to hide in this small valley and spend the night. Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything I can’t do if I go further… but I was too mentally tired to do the same thing I did earlier during the day twice. With the sound of Ezel’s
welder
in the background, the remaining three decided to sort out the current situation.
“How is the ‘bubble’ status?”
“Maybe it’s because the dome gave it to me, but it’s still fine even though it was pretty rough. No problem for both vehicle and personal use. “Do you want to check?”
When I turned on the small stick device that Ian had given me, I felt a transparent film-like material creeping up around my body. As a test, I took a deep breath on the smoke rising from the bonfire, but I couldn’t even smell the smoke and couldn’t breathe.
“Puh-haa! “It certainly seems to be working well.”
bubble. The official name is Bubble Shield Device. This is environmental protection equipment for anti-radiation areas provided by Dome, and was originally a failure created when shield technology was in full development.
The effect is to scan the user’s appearance into the device in advance, enter a 3D outline, and the device will apply a very thin shield over it. Not only does it completely block the user’s body from the outside, but the shield follows the user’s movements with a delay of about 0.001 seconds, so it is possible to move perfectly as if ‘wearing’ the shield.
The reason why this is a failed technology is because it is too thin for a shield, so it has almost no defense, and if it breaks upon impact, it has to be regenerated according to the body pattern entered into the device, so the regeneration speed is extremely slow. Due to the nature of shield technology, when two different types of shields are activated, the wavelengths become entangled and both do not work, so using this was essentially giving up defense power.
Also, since it completely blocks the user from the outside world, it also blocks the air, so in order to breathe, there is a disadvantage of having to install something with a pore connected to the outside of the shield.
Shortly after its development, the current blue shield, a short-wavelength shield with adjustable permeability and strong defense power, was developed, and the bubble shield, which had relatively many disadvantages and was inconvenient, disappeared into history, but later on, the bubble shield consumed less power in the dome. After discovering the amazing benefits of environmental protection, we ended up reusing it as equipment for use in polluted areas. If you just use it, it becomes a personal type, and if you additionally connect a refractive type concealment field to it, it becomes a bubble shield for vehicles.
A bubble shield that blocks radiation and a skin mask that blocks polluted air and allows breathing inside the bubble shield with a tube that extends from the back, similar to a car hood.
These were two essential items for outdoor activities in polluted non-survival areas, and if you did not want to die, you should check their condition frequently.
“What materials have you consumed so far?”
“Let’s see…. Two boxes of grenades, six boxes of 500 rounds of 7.62mm, two mounted machine guns that I brought for sale were installed on the roof, and to fix them, I also dismantled the lower outer wall fixing device of the small shelter kit that I brought for sale. So I couldn’t use it. I survived thanks to Professor Park. His hands were fast. “You’re pretty good at working with those hands, right?”
“As the tentacles of the Mugler bastards approached my nose, my superhuman strength began to surge. Anything else? “I think I spent more.”
“Well, in the midst of the chaos, there were explosives that were thrown out of the boxes, and the burned boxes were opened and used at random, so I must have used additional things. Still, it is possible to cover it to some extent since it is for sale here… but the side of the trailer where it fell is a bit larger.”
“If it was a trailer connected to the armored truck you and Bex were driving…”
“Fresh food. Plus drinking water.”
Ahhh. A mutant who will be struck by lightning. Mutant.
Aside from the rice, I ran out of water. Because of my strong claims and my reckless use of power as the leader of the group, I brought in more water than necessary. A blue water tank full of water! It’s not there anymore!
Ian shook his head, looking at the dejected professor, like a man who left his lover behind on the battlefield.
“Well, there is something I put in a small wooden container when I eat during the day, so if I drink it sparingly, I should be able to last for about three days. “Can you reach your destination, the home base of the snake-headed scavengers, within three days?”
“Three days while drinking only the minimum amount of water… It must have been possible.”
Percussion.
I said as I marked our location and destination, the home base of the scavenger ‘Hydra’, on the unfolded map.
“We are now on the outskirts of Area 44, so if we run about 70km, two days will be enough, not three. But…”
The professor turned his head and saw Vex outside, swinging a knife and butchering a mountain of Mugler corpses.
“Unless we know how many more such things there are, we can’t set the minimum time it will take for the journey.”
Phew!
Vex wiped his forehead with a bloody hand and cut open the stomach of a Mugler the size of a basketball.
The tarpaulin he laid out behind him was piled high with Mugler meat and respiratory organs.
Empty!
“Whoa! Maintenance complete! “What were you talking about?”
“Future schedule. About how many more Horde or Mugler groups we will encounter like today.”
Ezel, who was sitting by the fire wiping the sweat from his forehead, roughly threw the welder he was holding behind him and poked his head up at the map I was looking at.
“Muggler… I saw it in the information sheet for the inspection department. That’s a type 3 variant? “Can Type 3 occur so often in the same form?”
“I didn’t read it properly. What followed us today was the body of a Mugler. The main body is located in Area 32, and it is a true muggle who is spewing out powdery substances that grow like acne on his body like some kind of mushroom.”
According to community information, the main body is a medium-large variant with a height of over 7 meters. I heard that unlike the powder body, which throws sharp teeth at the sight of something alive, the body is surprisingly quiet and dull.
“Are you dull? Then you just have to kill the main body.”
“Well… there are some complicated interests involved.”
“Make a skin mask out of their respirators.”
Before we knew it, Bex, who was dragging a blood-soaked tarpaulin with him as if the cleanup had been roughly completed, received the call.
“Those fanatics in District 32. Their only source of income is these skin masks. “I don’t know what and how they make it, but they say a skin mask is a half-living mask made by processing a Mugler’s respiratory system.”
“Make a living mask using a respirator? “Is that possible?”
“I don’t know either. But you made it that way and you’re using it well, right? Shall I show you?”
Bex released the bubble shield, took off his mask, and gently rubbed a few drops of blood from the tarpaulin onto the gray mask.
….I flinch.
“Huh!”
“oh.”
Twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch!
As Vex said, the gray, odd-looking mask was moving slightly, turning white only where the blood had soaked in.
“Uuuuuu! “Gross!”
“Kihihi! Even though it’s disgusting, I can’t help it, Angel. Everyone who lives in the 30th district uses this, from infants to the elderly. But killing the Mugler’s body? “That is tantamount to threatening the right to survival of people living in polluted areas.”
“You know this strangely well, right?”
“There is no wasteland creature, including a scavenger, that does not have knowledge of things that make money. In winter, when all the scavengers who manage the Silk Road are confined to their homes, sometimes up to the 40th Mugler comes rolling in. It’s easy to catch one or two, and if you catch them, the dome buys them expensive respiratory tracts for research purposes, and there are a lot of people looking for the meat, so we even call them ‘rolling silver coins.’ “I’ve collected this many respirators, so if I sell them to that blind fanatic who hangs around in the 30th District, I’ll be able to recover a lot of the losses I incurred today.”
“If you make it there alive.”
The professor spoke as he nervously wiped a drop of blood from the map and connected the black dots that had appeared here and there along his travel route with charcoal.
“A calorie bar shell supplied by the Inspection Department found at the entrance to Area 46. Additional exosuit footprints found in the middle of the Silk Road are traces of several vehicles passing through rocks melted in plasma. “Our travel route matches the traces left behind by the ‘missing persons’ mentioned by the president.”
“You mean…?”
“The point is that the Dome’s convoy moved along the same route we had previously planned, and that they also fought in the middle. Even the Type 2 mutant Horde and Mugler groups that are hanging out together right now should be able to see at least some traces of the missing person team. “Exosuit battles are accompanied by a lot of noise, and as you know, mutants rush at the noise.”
Ji-Iik-
Professor used a black pen to trace the movement path of the transport unit ahead of him all the way to Area 39.
“The convoy’s signal was lost in Area 39. In other words, the advance team that pushed up first and made the loose wasteland very tight went up to Area 39, making all kinds of battle noises, and at least up to there, there would be a bunch of Horde and Muglers gathered there. Fortunately, if you bring an abundance of bullets and explosives for sale, there is nothing you can’t do if you decide to push forward…”
“There is no water.”
“….okay. “I was chased today and ended up dropping a water-filled trailer, so I can’t continue like this.”
The professor’s hand, which had been drawing the group’s movement route along the transportation route with chalk, went sideways at the beginning of Area 42 and stopped at the green dot
.
“So, let’s just push through here and resupply at Station 42-a. The management agents stationed here and in contact with the Dom will know why the number of mutants has increased so suddenly and what has been happening around here recently. Let’s fill up the water there, relax, and rest a bit.”
“42-a… It’s running quite a lot, right? You also have to worry about the temperature. “If you delay too much, you might not be able to return home until the cold front hits, right?”
“If I have to, I should close my business and just do the quest given by the president and come back. Let’s not forget. This means that somewhere up there, there is a monster that blew away the Dome’s elite troops, including two exosuits, right? “I also want to rush, but let’s proceed cautiously.”
Sabbak, sabaak, swoosh!
The meeting concluded with the professor folding the map.
****
two days later.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
“It’s an enemy attack! Enemy attack! “A medium-sized variant of unknown shape is approaching the station!”
Hazan, a ranger at Station 42-a outside the dome, saw a vehicle covered in blood, bodily fluids, and flesh slowly rising on the horizon with its back to the sunlight, and frantically rang the emergency alarm without even thinking about using the wired receiver for reporting.
[Chiik- Sentry post. This is headquarters. The emergency response team departed. Report the shape, size and distance of the enemy.]
“Hey, this is Namdong Elementary School! Distance 2km….I have no idea! Approaching at high speed! “Three medium-sized objects!”
[Chiik – please recheck. Object three. Is it something other than the usual Horde or Mugler? Please answer carefully.]
Hazan held the receiver with trembling hands. Why did I apply to such a remote place after training? I wasn’t tempted when I heard that a passing caravan scavenger was offering a good price for rice cake! I wasn’t told that if I served for just one year, I could buy a small house in the Upper Dome!
The hand holding the receiver gained strength. You have to see and report to survive. I could never kill something like that alone!
His eyes, filled with fear, looked towards the horizon once again.
As I got closer and closer, I saw a variant that seemed familiar.
[Chiik- Namdong Elementary School. I want an answer. The emergency response team is on the way. Report the exact shape and size of the enemy.]
“Hey, Infested Terran….”
[….Check again.]
“Infested Terran! “Three vehicles infected with variants!”
Hazan, an external station recruit from the Dom. In his blurry eyes, the vehicle of the generation rushing towards the station with mutant blood and flesh tentacles dangling from it was the ‘mutant-infected machine’ itself that appears in one of the ghost stories of the external station, which is full of all kinds of ghost stories.
“We have arrived! We did it! hey! Open the door! “I’m thirsty! Give me water! Water!”
Slam!
Slam!
Slam!
Slam!
Slam!
“….huh?”
Of course, the car of that generation was a group of professors who had no power to remove the body of a mugler who had died with his teeth stuck in the car in a desperate struggle, and what greeted them was not a warm welcome but dozens of gunshots.
****
