Chapter. 13. The Hunter, the Scavenger, and the Swordsman (3)
****
Ian’s face began to distort as he was reading the president’s request.
Most of the content was similar to usual. Type 3 variant outbreak, damage details, location, various factors have created a hole in the defense line, so please do something, etc….
However, there were many things that were bothersome about this request.
“Let’s see… am I correct in what I just read? “The goal is not to catch and kill this three-headed bastard, but to secure his body?”
Slurp-
“To be more precise, it would be correct to say it is securing and investigating the body. “The injured guy went quite far away from the defense line.”
“No, that… Hey, Young. Despite my appearance, I’m a pretty smart guy, so I know that there are times when you have to kill a chicken with a cow-killing knife. But isn’t it a bit different now? “There are a lot of people who can do that without us having to do it, right?”
“Normally, that’s true. “It would be a different story if we didn’t kill him with our own hands.”
“….no way?”
“okay. “There’s a good chance it could be ‘that guy.’”
At those words, Ian flipped through the documents with a more wrinkled face.
Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that the mutants died while fighting each other.
Variants are only called ‘variants’ for convenience, but strictly speaking, each individual is a different species.
There are aggressive ones, and there are those who have secured intelligence like W or the Artists’ Union, but there are also harmless and gentle ones, and as the density of variants has increased, cases of overlapping living radii and killing each other have been frequently observed.
Palak, Palak, Palak-
Text, text, text, text, photo.
Ian found what he was looking for in a rather thick document and stopped.
[Attachment 1: Three-headed variant]
“Have you given it a name yet?”
“We were going to attach it, but it’s on hold because there’s a strong possibility that he’s dead.”
As its name suggests, the guy in the photo had a head that looked like it had three faces attached to it. If he had had more arms, he would have looked like an Asian Asura.
The second photo was of the guy running away with two of his three faces blown off and his torso in tatters.
The third thing… wasn’t a photo, but a map. A map showing the defense line of Area 45 and its movement route.
“It’s a tracker… Is it still in operation?”
“The tracker is alive. “It’s because he stopped moving.”
“How many days?”
“One week and one more day.”
Ian thought about how many immobile variants there were at those words. The Mugler body, the shabby 2.5 type called ‘Jibakryeong’ or something that I caught two months ago, and the chamber maid… Oh, this isn’t it.
Anyway, since he looks completely different from those guys, it would be correct to assume he is dead.
The question is, who killed it?
“All the nearby Type 3 variants have location trackers, right?”
“Golems, gobies, silk stages, Amundsen, paparazzi and even salesmen are all being tracked in real time. “You could say we’ve secured almost everything except for the Coalition guys and a few small Type 3 variants.”
“If you count such exceptions, there is no end to it, so let’s assume that the one you don’t know doesn’t get caught. It’s not that common to see three types getting along with each other. Then… it means that someone killed the guy who escaped nearly 40km in a straight line from the Area 45 defense line… It must be him, right?”
“okay. Other than that corpse tiger, there is no one who can kill a Type 3 mutant in that mutant-infested wasteland. “Even though he was seriously injured, he was so tough that he couldn’t even be scratched by a regular firearm.”
Hearing Ian’s words with a sigh, the president threw another document he had prepared in advance from under the desk.
This is the subject of so much research that it’s so thick it’s almost like a book.
The name [Buru] was attached to the thick material.
Noho buru. Corpse tiger. Also known as ‘Claw’ Buru. He was a member of the Artists’ Union, and before Professor Park became like that, he was a crazy person who chased after Professor Park, saying, “He will kill me, he will be the end of me!”
The guy who had been missing since the Battle of Area 38 reappeared the day after he succeeded in connecting Professor Park’s brain with GG’s save data and broadcast the play for the first time.
『Ugh! my death! Bring back my death! He is not my opponent who will fall to that level when he dies! Come out now! Come out and greet me! Professor Park!』
The Corpse Tiger appeared, literally ‘pulverizing’ the waves of mutants rushing over the defense line, jumped over the defense line, and began slaughtering the soldiers inside.
Even as he ran away from the hastily dispatched exosuit and concentrated fire, his only request was Professor Park.
“What a damn idiot. Why are you jumping out if you want to go after it? “If he had died then, both he and we would have been happy.”
“You seem to have a strong image of your own death. Death by the majority doesn’t seem to fit that ideal.”
The president closed his eyes, recalling the horrors of that time. Engagement time approximately 15 minutes. 130 deaths. Considering that they were all trained soldiers, the damage was enormous.
At that time, the Electro Pole had not yet been activated, so if the exosuit was concentrated in one area, other defense lines would be breached.
The measures the president came up with for this guy who is sure to come back are not things like dedicated defense personnel or railgun turrets…
The documentary about Professor Park that was being edited at the time was played exactly as it was.
Ian grinned when he saw the incident at that time among the disorganized information.
“Young, if you look closely, it looks like you are also in Professor Park’s department.”
“…I think we all know too much about that friend’s eccentricities to hear it as a compliment.”
“That’s right. “It was the administrative broadcasting facility that the Dome’s president was heading to, rejecting all those who questioned the enemy’s predicted attack.”
Ian couldn’t confirm it because he was supporting the opposing defense line at the time, but he said the uproar was no ordinary uproar. Right now, just a mutant wave is enough to kill you, but now an organized attack by ‘adapters’ will begin. Rather than sticking together like this, you should spread out and hide, etc…
Slurp-
“Because he was the one who came to Professor Park after watching the game broadcast in the first place. “I expected that if I could confirm that the object of my obsession was a slanderer who was doing it today and tomorrow, and that I could be in that state forever if I didn’t clear that game, at least they wouldn’t make a fuss demanding that the professor be kicked out right away.”
result? There was no need to check. After the image of the chest being wide open and all internal organs exposed was broadcast, its attacks stopped, and the members of the inspection department confirmed that the ID [Noho Buru] appeared in the so-called ’47 Area Chat Room (2)’.
It appears that he watches [Professor Park’s Game Saeng (Real Death)] regularly, as the connection is confirmed every time he monitors.
‘That guy too. ‘It’s only popular with strange people…’
Anyway, this is how the guy named Buru showed up again. If you look at it up to this point, it probably won’t be that much of a problem. Anyway, he must be a fan of broadcaster Professor Park and pray to clear it every day.
The problem is that the guy must have gotten bored waiting like that and started looking for a strong person nearby. Just anything that you can handle. Regardless of whether it was a type 3 variant or an exosuit that came out on a mission, they started killing them to kill time.
There were two Type 3 variants, four exosuits, and twenty-one armed vehicles that were cut down by that guy.
A guy who moves around at a fast pace with no specific place to stay.
If a type 3 mutant suddenly died, it could be considered a trace of it.
“….no wonder. “I thought it would give people who are cold-blooded animals some rest.”
“If it is Buru who killed the three-headed mutant, shouldn’t he have some time to recover?”
“yes. My body also recovers. Now that you’ve made money, you should have some time to spend it. People with families see their faces too. Erai three beol.”
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Gulp- Gulp-
Percussion!
“so. What are we to do? Just check the facts and go. “If you want me to kill you, give me half of the exosuit you have.”
“It’s neither.” “Your mission is to secure the body of the ‘three-headed variant’ that has currently stopped moving.”
“A corpse? Of the dead type 3 variant?”
“…Didn’t I tell you? ‘A new era.’”
The president said that and gestured, and the escort standing behind him took out two more bottles of alcohol from the cupboard.
‘Two bottles.’
Somehow, it didn’t seem like it would be a short story.
****
“Keueook-eup! Wow, Mr. Jesu. I’m sorry. “I need to…”
“are you okay. When I saw that the conversation with the president was getting longer, I knew it would end up like this. Vex? “I’m fine. Could you please move Ian to the bed?”
….Tuk-tuk.
[Drunk / Ground / Suitable]
When Dana tried to get up from the bed, Bex quickly used sign language and responded by roughly placing Ian against the corner of the room.
Late evening. The group returned to Dana’s hospital room after the scheduled visitation time, and only after several hours had passed were they able to greet Ian, who returned in a drunken state.
His face, which had become red and drunk to the top of his head, was full of some kind of defeat and resentment.
“Cynthia. Could you please empty the vase by the window over there? Bex, if you could give me a pat on the back-”
“Ahhh. Because it’s not that much…. Wow! Throw up… I don’t want to, so don’t do that. “Why do you waste precious alcohol and spit it out?”
Ian, who had been leaning against the corner of the room and croaking for a while, looked like he was going to live for a while after burping enough to fill the room with the smell of alcohol.
Ian was a tough guy both physically and mentally, but I felt a little embarrassed as I listened to the sound of the air purifier running next to him as if I had met the enemy of my life.
“Kuhuhhh… I guess I’ll live a bit. No, I’m definitely not the type of person who gets swayed by alcohol. Alexander Young What kind of alcohol does that person drink so much when he bites his desk? “Your damn complexion hasn’t changed at all?”
“President Young, your drinking skills are famous. I don’t accept any other gifts, but I do accept alcohol. “Most people in the administration know that it is important to keep the president’s office out of the way.”
“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuux. “They were talking about some kind of machine human, but they must have taken out their liver and installed the latest detoxification engine.”
Tuk-tuk.
[Pointless battle / Avoidance / Loss of combat power / Negative]
“What the heck. However, that person held his head upright and said, ‘There is no water. People say things like, ‘I have milk, so if you’re having a hard time,’ but how can I get it out of there? You treat the human Metal Joe like a child. Ugh… I’m dying.”
[Action alone / 1300 to 1800 / What are you talking about / ?]
“hmm? Ah, that’s right. “I need to explain that.”
Instead of digging through all the complex stories and memories that had faded amidst all the drunkenness, Ian handed over the file folder that the president had prepared for him.
Fluffy-
Documents scattered on the floor due to drunkenness. Meanwhile, pictures of all kinds of variants, their characteristics, and complex formulas were all over the place.
“What is this?”
“sport. The variant that has been giving Dom trouble so far and its characteristics. Materials captured and dissected, etc. “Something like that.”
At that moment, Dana took a breath without realizing it. Data dissecting the variant. A record describing its characteristics and uses.
Since this is the hottest controversy in the community recently, it was impossible not to know what it meant.
=========
[Is it ethically right or wrong to use some of the types 2.5 and 3 variants?]
=========
It all started with the recent rapid increase in the number of corpses of unusual strains and the incinerated by-products from their incineration.
Among the variants that became Type 3, the most common are those that have evolved in a self-protective direction.
Their outer shell was as light as a wooden board, but hard and tough enough to deflect large-diameter bullets, and it was not so much that it could not be processed using a laser cutter, so it was quite easy to use.
As a result, there were people who secretly sold these by-products from incinerators, and people who had their firearms confiscated due to the firearms restrictions of the inspection department started buying these mutant by-products to secure suitable protective gear and weapons amid the unstable security of the refugee camp. will be.
At first it was crudely woven armor. After it was confirmed that the person wearing this could actually withstand the mutant’s sharp claws as a line of defense, it included claws, eyeballs, endocrine glands, and even meat. They started tearing it down and using it at random.
Although it is currently banned in the dome, the soldiers on the front lines who come face to face with mutants every day could not ignore its performance after seeing it with their own eyes, and there was a trend of wearing ‘New Scale Mail’, which had mutant shells woven under their uniforms. .
From an ethical standpoint, this is nonsense. Even though types 2.5 and 3 are monsters with completely different forms, the originals were ultimately human.
To put it a little harshly, it is at the level of making accessories and clothes using human femurs and ribs, just like cannibals did in the past.
A topic that goes beyond ethics and touches on the edges of humanity. Is it okay for humans to cut and carve the human body and use it?
“You mean… you’re going to do it officially in the dome? A group that wants to restore the justice of the past?!”
Hearing Dana’s shocked voice, Ian took out a cigarette and was hit by Bex.
“Ouch… Well, after hearing it, I realized that wasn’t true. Even though the mutation may seem like a great monster, it was concluded that it is not a mystery that violates the laws of physics. “When it turns into a large creature, the proof is that it sucks in a lot of organic matter around it.”
“If it’s not a mystery… does that mean it can be scientifically proven? “Those?”
“Some of it. If you look at it that way, does this mean that this is a huge biological evolution? When they die, their bodies turn into powder and disappear. They say it has something to do with the complete efficiency of energy. It is said that that hard outer shell is also the result of the combination of carbon in the human body and other surrounding objects. “Just as research into the fiber structure of honeycombs and trees has become the basis for the latest materials, we hope that studying the bodies of well-evolved variants will be able to dramatically increase the current level of technology.”
Creating new technologies, not restoring past technologies.
That is why the president emphasized ‘a new era.’
“what. It is true that this is also an uncomfortable thing. In fact, it is said that even in the old days, as soon as Einstein died, a scalpel was taken to his head. It’s okay to use it as research material. “It’s okay to look at it not through the eyes of a scavenger, but through the eyes of a good child in the Dom.”
“That’s… but. In the end, what matters is people’s perception, right?”
“yes. ‘DOM’, which stands for the last definition of this era, officially used ‘variant by-products’ for research or anything else. “It’s unclear how this will be reflected in people’s eyes.”
Write it-
Ian trailed off and swallowed the words he had been holding inside. At times like this, I really need a cigarette.
As of now, a new profession called ‘cleaner’ has been created that specializes in collecting and dismantling mutant corpses. There are even ‘fin-de-siècle blacksmiths’ appearing in the black market who classify and process a variety of mutant by-products by characteristics. If the rumor spreads that DOM officially used by-products, the by-product market will go beyond the black market and even reach the GG exchange.
ethics? In the first place, it was a world where there was constant demand for very suspicious meat called ‘cheap meat’.
This was probably why the president needed so much alcohol to talk about the new era.
“Maybe the president is expecting it too. “For now, it is only used as a material for research, but when the day comes when people no longer have aversion to mutant corpses, Dome will also start making products using the by-products.”
“Ian. I’ve never been in a situation as extreme as the people out there, so I don’t blame them. However, is it okay for the values of the group called Dom to collapse? “It is said that public opinion was tilted in that direction due to the influx of new refugees, but in the end, this place was created by people who saw the values and justice of the past and gathered here.”
“yes. Morality and justice. But Jesu, reality hits like a truck, but it also seeps in like rainwater. When you go to the front line every day and fire truckloads of bullets, you can’t help but feel it naturally. Ammunition, which had been piled up like a mountain, is now being distributed only in the amount needed for each day. Every day, they struggle to repair the overheated electropole, which is red-hot. Everyone feels it. ‘Ah, if we keep going like this, we will wither and die. ‘You need a different number.’ In such a situation, mutant by-products became the perfect ‘other number’ to relieve their vague anxiety.”
With those words, Ian rummaged through the documents and took out a piece of paper with a photo on it.
The paper Ian held out was full of bizarre equipment that looked like something from a game.
=========
*Example No. 7. Detoxification and milling device using the cloaca of type 3 variant ‘Cocoon Bird’.
=========
“This is an air purifier using the type 3 variant that my kids made out of rags and threw into the incinerator, which I thought was thrown away. “I heard that all you need is the power to run a child’s tricycle.”
=========
* Enhancement No. 3.
A flamethrower using type 2.5 endocrine glands.
=========
“This is… a weapon captured during a skirmish with a raptor scouting party that we happened to encounter. “I guess they’re using that damn bio diesel.”
At the end of the document, which detailed the power, pros and cons, along with photos, there were signatures along with overall reviews from the gunsmiths working at the dome.
[Most of them are completed to the point where they can be deployed to the front lines at this point]
Palak. Palak.
“We are the Chief Executive of District 38. I thought I had escaped the effects of the mutation wave created by that madman, but… maybe not. He’s already changed the ecosystem around here. “The world we live in.”
Ian, who was rummaging through the papers with drunken hands, finally found what he wanted and pulled it out.
=========
* Certificate No. 1. Professor Park.
– Approximately 97% of the body has been transformed. It is assumed that part of the brain and consciousness still remain in humans.
– ‘Box’ is the object most exposed to Orpheus’s energy, and the body exposed to energy close to the original appears to be fixed as damaged.
– Attempts were made to compensate for the defects with metals and artificial bodies of various characteristics, but were temporarily halted due to severe rejection.
– Similarities were discovered between the body tissue of the recently discovered ‘tri-headed variant’ and the body tissue of the subject. It is estimated that the effect of alleviating rejection reactions can be expected.
=========
The same look as Professor Park I saw during the day.
A photo that looks like a half-assembled plastic model, with only the parts ready to be transplanted and not yet started.
This time, Bex couldn’t stop Ian from taking out a cigarette, so Ian was able to vent his frustrations with smoke.
“this. President Young, that f*cking guy is like this every time. Bring something you can’t refuse, then ask a favor you can’t refuse. They said our job this time was to bring the body of that three-headed brother. Regardless of issues such as morality and ethics. This is something we have no choice but to do. yes?”
Whoa-
Ian laughed and puffed on his cigarette, and ended up spitting out smoke mixed with complex emotions.
“…We leave in two days. “It is quite deep beyond the defense line, and it must be especially dangerous as there is something that killed the Combat Type 3.”
Stumbling – stumbling!
Ian stood up with difficulty and snapped his finger at Dana’s forehead, who was trying to say something with a very complicated face.
“Tsk-!”
“Hehehehe. Don’t think too deeply. Mr. Jesu – So that the professor in the game can come back alive. We – so that the professor in reality can come back alive. Let us all do our best where we can. First of all, just think about that. “Keuo-”
“….Yes. “We are too small individuals to change the world.”
“But don’t be too discouraged. “The idiot lying over there right now is the one who changed the world with that small, personal topic.”
In the end, Ian, who was unable to control his body and was helped by Bex and Cynthia, lowered the sunglasses that were hanging on his disheveled head.
“Let’s move forward without looking too far or too close. “Like that guy.”
Slam!
‘Not too far, not too close….’
Ian’s last words as he left left Dana lost in thought. small individual. However, he is a ranker who has great influence externally. What can she do?
Dana was troubled as she heard Ian vomiting and Cynthia swearing in the next room.
****
fantasy,
