Fortune Cookie (22)

"What are you doing? You look as pitiful as if you were abandoned."

"I really was abandoned."

"What? By whom? Who would abandon you? Why?"

When I let out a deep sigh, Licorice, who had been walking toward me, suddenly stopped in her tracks.

"Kyle abandoned me."

"......"

Licorice's eyes, which had gotten a little wider in surprise, instantly cooled down. She looked back and forth between me and the workshop behind me, then snorted.

"I bet I know how this went. You probably made some ridiculous demand. Let me guess—you asked him to make you equipment that could kill monsters with just a click."

"... That's not true, you know?"

"Oh, please. Do you think I don't know you? I even know what you mumbled in your sleep last night."

That's odd. Isn't that something she shouldn't know?

Though I shot her a grumpy look that said as much, Licorice didn't so much as blink.

"So, am I wrong?"

"......"

She was right, so I had no comeback and just chewed the rest of my jelly. She'd be shocked if she found out where I got this from. An endlessly chewable jelly... as tasty as it was, I wondered if I should be eating something like this.

I let my mind wander for a moment at how things were getting oddly off track, but then a sudden thought struck me and I sprang to my feet. Kyle had told me that to make equipment, he at least needed blueprints and materials. Building something from zero took far too much time.

I could get the materials from the store or by going into the mining sector under the town and digging them up myself. But blueprints were out of my reach. I'd heard of something called reverse engineering, where you take apart a finished product to figure out how it's built, but without the manpower or time, that didn't seem feasible.

But really, did I have to acquire them myself? That was the question. Right before my eyes was someone who treated Titan like her own backyard.

"... What, what is it?"

As I strode over, Licorice flinched and stepped back. She tried to glare at me but gulped nervously at my earnest plea.

"Licorice, please help me."

"... With what?"

"You're the owner of the Multi-Legged Tank and the Alpha Series—only you can help me."

"And... with what, exactly?"

"Don't you know any equipment blueprints?"

I asked her cautiously, watching her reaction. Licorice gave a weary-looking sigh.

"Ah, blueprints... I could get them, I suppose."

"Really?!"

"If you had a tail like Woof-woof, you'd be wagging it right now. And I bet you couldn't even tell who your owner was, you'd just cozy up to anyone."

Licorice, not exuding her usual smug aura, suddenly reprimanded me. Surprised at her abrupt criticism, I looked at her in confusion.

She let out a small sigh.

"Never mind, not that it matters. I'll tell you in advance, though—military equipment is impossible. With the current town facilities, there's no remote access to military data. You'd have to go to a military base and attempt a direct hack to snatch data or maybe get your hands on a decent weapon, but..."

"That's way too dangerous. Even just the mining tool series would be more than enough. Something like a polar impactor."

I couldn't even get to the cargo sector, so how could I manage a military base? If the soldiers who went through all sorts of procedures had turned into ghouls, a military base was bound to be a hell beyond imagination.

Plus, the security robots there were much differently armed than the ones from Heaven. If those merged with mimics, the risk would skyrocket.

I still hadn't seen a mutant combined with a robot, but you never know. I had to leave room for worst-case scenarios.

"I could probably get something like that..."

"Come on, where did all that confidence go? Don't give up!"

"When did I say I was giving up? Stop making things up."

Licorice flicked my forehead. Since the shield was up, I no longer had to wear a respirator for protection, which meant there was nothing between my forehead and her finger.

"All the data is in the archives at Titan, but that's off-limits—and anyway, with the current system, it can't be accessed. That leaves only one option: retrieving the data stored in my office in the residential area."

"... I really don't want to go back there."

If anyone told me to return to that hellhole, I was ready to punch them, whoever they were. If it went beyond a suggestion into an order, my fist would deliver swift justice.

"I'm not telling you to go there, so relax. I'll do it remotely. Even though the system is down, my facilities have emergency power. With the right code, I can bring it up temporarily."

"Then..."

"Just wait for the blueprints. In the meantime, I'll try to reconfigure the equipment installed on the Alpha into suit specs for you—so just wait. Got it?"

"Any kind of equipment upgrade would be great... By the way, how much credit do I owe you?"

"Why would I take credit?"

Licorice frowned.

"You always do. 'Every job has its price, there's no such thing as a favor with no strings attached,' that kind of thing."

"... If nothing else, at least now I know exactly what image of me you have in your mind."

Only now did you realize? I swallowed those words. If I'd said them aloud, today would have been my last.

"It's a misunderstanding."

"Enough already; just follow me."

Dragging me somewhere, Licorice started scolding me, saying she hadn't expected receiving credits from the central tower to lead to this kind of situation, and that since we'd keep working together I shouldn't worry about such trivial things.

When she said she'd be good to me from now on, warning me not to get distracted, Nadia—who'd been helping with construction nearby—pricked up her ears and looked up. As she seemed about to call out to me, she glanced around to check her surroundings.

Not wanting the attention, Nadia chose to open a private channel.

– Hyun-woo, where are you going?

– Getting kidnapped.

– Kidnapped?! That woman's finally showing her true colors! I'll save you right away!

Ordering Carry to charge, a fuming Nadia abruptly cancelled her command after my next reply.

– That was just a joke. I'm going to talk about what happens next and where we stand. Want to join?

I said she could come if she wanted, and Nadia nodded immediately. Or, I think she would have. Unless the other worker next to her, realizing Nadia was about to leave, clung to her.

Even though I couldn't hear, I could guess the atmosphere was like, 'If you leave, we're doomed!'

The person saying it looked even more haggard than a ghoul—very persuasive.

So, Nadia hesitated. Normally she'd have shrieked and run off, but this time...

In the end, with sad eyes, Nadia told me she'd stay. Guess they're not such bad people after all, appearance aside.

I waved briefly to Nadia. After that, when I turned my gaze, I met Licorice's exasperated stare.

"You didn't listen to a word I said, did you?"

"I did."

"Then tell me."

"We're in the same boat?"

"... If only you'd stop talking altogether."

She scolded me and yanked my hand, fussing that we had to get moving because everyone was already gathered.

Soon after, we arrived at the warehouse that had now become a full-fledged lab. The precision measurement equipment Nadia had collected was neatly arranged, along with other facilities.

"Welcome."

Carrot paused his work and greeted me, but Celestia, who'd been in the middle of a conversation with Eric, acted as if she didn't even see me—or, more accurately, ignored me.

She and I locked eyes for a moment, and she responded with an obvious huff and turned away. For someone with such an intimidating look, her actions were pretty cute—but I knew she was reacting to me, so I kept quiet.

Licorice, who glanced back and forth between me and Celestia, whispered in a low voice.

"What's up with her?"

"Well..."

I recounted what happened yesterday. I'd just asked her to explain a word, but things suddenly got weird. Licorice's brow furrowed further.

"A word? What word?"

"The thing you asked me about—something about 'benefit' and so on."

"You... you asked her about that?"

"Yes."

"What in the world..."

Licorice gave me a look usually reserved for Roxy. I felt wronged—how was I supposed to know what she really meant? If she'd just told me in the first place, none of this would've happened.

"Ahem—Ahem."

Only after Carrot cleared his throat did Licorice and I stop whispering. Maybe it was my imagination, but those sharp glances seemed full of disdain.

We did our best to hide our embarrassment and sat down. Carrot straightened up, and Eric and Celestia also turned their attention to the meeting.

"Have you all rested well?"

Carrot asked.

"Yes."

"That's good. Thanks to your risking your lives to retrieve the core parts, the town is much safer than before. The new samples and observation data were also a great help. This may be overdue, but I want to thank you now."

I guess the effort I put into recalling and recording everything in detail when I couldn't sleep paid off.

"Well... We did it to survive ourselves, really."

"That doesn't diminish the value of your sacrifice."

His words left me with a feeling too ambiguous to reply to, so all I could do was smile awkwardly.

"Since you all made time for this, let's get right to the point."

Carrot manipulated the table to bring up several holographic screens. Each window contained status updates on the town, facility construction, the residential area data we'd uploaded, information about the bizarre bio-organism now named the Creep, and more.

I paid special attention to a file titled 〈On Ghouls and Mimics〉. It had a recent timestamp—probably a revised version.

When I touched the file, a prompt asked if I wanted to see only the updated sections. I hit 'yes'.

「A few new items of data have been added. With the aim of revising and supplementing the hypothesis, the file has been updated.

Updates:- It has been confirmed that they possess emotions other than hostility and a will for destruction. For now, it seems their attempts to mimic those emotions are crude, but time may bring clearer expressions of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure.

They are imitating humans. Or perhaps, since they are mutated lifeforms originally based on humans, remnants of humanity just remain. Whether this is due to residue or manifestation effects remains to be seen.

The ghoul is the basic form of all mutants—a mutated lifeform with the potential to branch off into many variants. The mimic is a mutated form of the ghoul, and a ghoul at that stage can be merged with specific parts to become even more threatening.

Once that happens, the creature can use the function of the object. Its energy is supplied by a blue crystal embedded in its body—just like when the energy field is deployed using the core part of the shield generator.

That's different from the mimics. Mimics simply use inorganic material as a shell—their real power is still their innate abilities.

Additionally, a new form of biological tissue has been discovered. It's a bizarre organism that looks like you spread out all of a human's blood vessels and stuck a film covered in mucus between them. From now on, it will be called Creep.

The Creep exudes mucus that doesn't freeze even in extreme cold. It seems the material for this mucus could be any organism. Whatever it is—human, ghoul, anything—when exposed to the Red Lake, it liquefies and becomes a kind of fuel.

That fuel is then distributed everywhere via tiny channels in the Creep, gradually occupying the area. It has not been determined what role the Creep has for ghouls, or how it affects their mutations.

Additional samples and detailed observational data are needed.」

"I've made most files available to anyone whose bracelet is synchronized with the town system,"

Carrot said.

"Even those who've never encountered ghouls directly should at least be able to grasp the situation, and who the enemy is."

After saying that, Carrot broached the question of what we would do next. Everyone fell silent—not because they lacked things to say, but because there were so many it was hard to know where to start.

The energy supply issue. The facilities in town were being powered by energy from the mining base, Heaven. Thanks to Heaven's sun reactor, things were still running, but no one knew how long that would last.

There was also a limit to how much energy could be drawn at once. In a proper place, there'd be cables for a main power supply running underground, but this town was a forgotten colony. No such thing existed. Currently, the town was scavenging the leftover energy being released by Heaven.

The engineers were struggling to even put together a small solar reactor, but if that were easy, the solar reactor wouldn't be classified as a high-priority facility.

The problem of constructing defenses. Even if we wanted to talk about defense, it's not like we could just put turrets on the outer walls. We couldn't even if we wanted to.

Titan, the ice moon, is home to the blue crystal refinery. After the past crisis, the SSTC stripped away almost all weaponry in fear of another incident.

The only heavy weapons were who knows where in the military base. It was nowhere near safe to assume the military base hadn't already been overtaken by ghouls. How long could we last without weapons? No one could guess.

The store issue. The store system was one of the most unique systems of Titan, growing on its own using the inverse icicle principle. As long as there's a certification data board and some credits, it'll sell goods. It was thanks to the store that we got supplies and built up what we have.

But our enemies weren't just ghouls. There were also the pureblood supremacists, who had some connection to how all this began. Monsters might not care about the store, but humans—knowing their survival depended on it—might try to wreck it.

So if they figured out we're alive, it was easy to guess they'd attack the town or at least try to kill us indirectly.

'They've probably caught on.'

As much as I'd like to slip by quietly, the chaos we caused in the residential area would have tipped them off.

Good grief.

One problem after another.

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=Yeah, one problem after another indeed.【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】

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