Chapter 18
Phew, after all that tumbling around, I should rest for a bit.
I sank deep into the plush cockpit sofa and stretched.
Today, I decided to drink milk.
Even with a refrigerator, I still felt uneasy about storing milk for too long.
When I looked out the window, I could still see drones flying busily through the toxic fog.
They were hunting poisonous plant monsters and transporting mana stones and items.
It wasn't simply that I had them work just to farm mana stones and items.
Because every time I looked out the window after a hunt, one interesting phenomenon caught my eye.
Tutututung-! Kwa-jik!
Whenever the combat drone's gun shattered the stems of plant-type monsters, and the scout drones uprooted them by the roots,
the thick, nauseating poisonous fog pressing down on that area seemed to thin ever so slightly.
“If my guess is right... then those guys are the source of this fog...”
If my drones wiped out every plant-type monster in this radius, wouldn't this poisonous fog clear away completely too?
“Good. Let's keep pushing them all the way.”
While the drones normalized the ecosystem, I planned to leisurely gather information inside the train.
I took out my smartphone and accessed the Survivor Gallery.
I hadn't really felt it because of the train, but objectively speaking, the situation here was quite difficult.
Could there be somewhere else like this too?
I attached photos of the plant monsters and the poisonous fog I'd just captured from the drone's point of view and posted them.
---
Title: Anyone else have a situation like this?
Author: Choo Choo
(Photo)
Setting aside the fact that the plant-type monsters are swarming everywhere, the poisonous fog has filled the entire city.
Even other monsters were inhaling the fog and collapsing or dying.
Does anyone have a similar situation?
[Comments]
WWEMania: I feel like I've seen this somewhere...
ㅇㅇ: But how are you even moving around there?
ㅇㅇ: That poisonous fog is fucking brutal... if the front of my house were like that, wouldn't I die screaming about a status window whether I awakened or not?
ㅇㅇ: But monsters really are appearing more and more; it feels like the difficulty's going up;
ㄴ Survivor King: Our neighborhood was the same too—at first it was just one or two monsters wandering around, but today I saw those bastards moving in packs of five or six.
Magical Girl: Newbies really need to be careful! ㅠㅠ They're getting stronger and stronger!!
---
"..."
My fingers, which had been reading through the comments, came to a stop.
Everyone seemed to be in a similar situation.
Survivors scattered across the country were all noticing the monsters' changes.
The ones that had acted alone.
Now they were even changing the environment.
“Is this... really getting harder and harder?”
If that was the case, it was really annoying.
“The harder it gets, the better mana stones and items will drop, though...”
From dungeon experience, I knew that stronger monsters dropped better items and mana stones.
But if monsters got stronger faster than Awakeners could grow—
Beep.
The drone report sounded from the monitor.
When I looked out the window, the poisonous fog that had been suffocating the area was melting away like it was a lie.
The murky view cleared, revealing the original colors of the polluted asphalt and the crumbling buildings.
Around the train, the poisonous fog had completely disappeared, and the air conditioner shut off naturally, letting me know the contamination level had returned to normal.
“It really is clearing.”
I set down the cola I'd been drinking and nodded in satisfaction.
Suddenly, a dazzling golden system window flashed into existence before my eyes.
[The first corrupted and mutated location has been restored to its original form.]
[Skill: Status Ailment Resistance LV.1 acquired.]
“So it gives me something too, huh?”
Like when I first cleared a dungeon, I was recognized for the achievement and rewarded.
I read the skill called Status Ailment Resistance and nodded.
It was a skill that granted resistance to various status ailments.
Since it was marked as Level 1, I couldn't expect a huge effect, but it was better than nothing.
Just as I was happily checking my achievement reward,
Zzzzt—!
Another message window cut in over the blue window that had just been displaying the achievement.
And then the text began pouring out like a waterfall.
[A number of entities are paying attention to your achievement.]
[The Secret Schemer feels a sense of kinship seeing you kill monsters without lifting a finger.]
[The Guardian of the Forest expresses gratitude for purifying the ecosystem.]
[The Swamp Observer admires your achievement.]
[The Mechanical Demon God wants to see inside the train.]
"..."
A drop of cold sweat trickled down my spine.
Not one, but four.
It was a little unsettling that beings I didn't even know were sending me their attention.
“...Still, they can't see inside the train, right?”
They definitely said that no one I didn't permit could ever come in.
That seemed to apply to those guys too.
Whether they were constellations or something else, they couldn't break that rule.
I forcibly acted nonchalant and flicked the message windows aside.
I didn't have the leisure to respond to things like that one by one right now.
The monsters are getting stronger.
Then I have to bring my own power up too.
Even for the sake of living this peaceful life I have now.
“For now, when it came to entering dungeons, I still had to join in myself...”
If I could break into a dungeon with drones alone.
If I upgraded the drones before the dungeon difficulty went up and let the drones clear dungeons on their own, it would make for highly efficient automated hunting.
“What's needed is... firepower?”
I muttered as I stroked my chin.
From the drones' movements, their speed and judgment were enough to survive in a dungeon.
What I needed was one shot that could finish off the boss.
“Come to think of it, I could make a new drone by upgrading the hangar.”
Without hesitation, I headed for the second car.
The drone hangar I'd upgraded by dumping mana stones into it greeted me with a majestic mechanical rumble.
I operated the hangar panel and brought up the newly unlocked list of drone blueprints.
“Found it.”
I touched the blueprint for the sniper drone.
[Manufacture: Sniper Drone]
- Required materials: 30 low-grade mana stones, 20 kg of metal, 10 kg of plastic, 1 kg of lowest-grade monster material (Condition: Drone Hangar Level 2 or higher)
- A sniper-specialized drone designed to eliminate a single target from long range.
Luckily, the low-grade mana stones I'd received from a sponsor last time were just enough.
And I also had plenty of monster materials I'd gathered by trading for various things at the market.
“Materials are plenty. Let's start manufacturing right away.”
I poured the materials and mana stones into the input chute without hesitation.
[All materials have been confirmed.]
[Starting manufacture of Sniper Drone.]
[Estimated time: 30 minutes]
Wiiiiing—
Inside the hangar, robotic arms moved busily and began throwing off sparks.
“Its appearance is quite different from the previous drones too...”
I looked at the cold metallic surface of the assembling sniper drone and grinned.
***
Chiiiiik-!
Exactly 30 minutes later.
The drone hangar opened to the left and right.
Through the white gas billowing out, my newly born third drone revealed its form.
“...Oh.”
An exclamation escaped me without my realizing it.
Its overall body was coated in a matte black finish that didn't reflect light, and it had sleek ray-shaped wings that seemed to minimize air resistance to the extreme.
Compared to the other drones, it was quite large.
I could understand why when I looked at the underside of the drone.
What was mounted on the underside was an absurdly long barrel.
A huge sniper rifle was integrated directly into the drone's body.
I stroked my chin and met the drone's red main lens with my eyes.
“Move up.”
Wiiiiing-!
The sniper drone let out a brief operating hum as if responding to my voice and lifted into the air.
It was a flawless maneuver, with almost no sound at all.
“Wait here for a moment.”
I had the sniper drone stand by and returned to the cockpit of the first car.
I needed to see with my own eyes just how much firepower this thing had and to learn the difference between it and the other drones.
“Scout drone. Find the monster that looks the toughest within a 500-meter radius.”
As soon as I gave the order, the scout drone waiting on the train roof shot up into the sky like an arrow.
A map transmitted by the scout drone spread across the monitor.
Thanks to the poisonous fog having lifted, my view was wide open.
A little while later, an especially huge red dot blinked in one corner of the map.
When I zoomed in on the screen, I saw a giant boar the size of a small truck rooting around in the ruins of a collapsed building with its snout.
The boar's back and sides were covered in a grotesquely thick carapace, as if iron plates had been layered on.
“Now that the poisonous fog is gone, an animal-type monster shows up right away...”
Because it was digging through the collapsed debris, a store sign that had been hanging precariously fell onto the creature's carapace.
Thunk!
But apparently the carapace wasn't just for show, because the creature only staggered slightly from the impact before casually thrusting its snout back toward the building.
It was exactly the sturdy one I'd been looking for.
I sent the sniper drone out of the train.
“Can you hit it from here?”
Whirr-
The sniper drone shot high into the sky and silently aimed its barrel at the target.
I switched the cockpit's main monitor to the sniper drone's point of view.
“Ah... it hid behind the wall.”
As the beast kept moving around through the ruins, now only part of its tail was visible, peeking out from behind the wall.
Even so, the sniper drone did not stop aiming.
“...Is it going to fire?”
The moment I finished speaking, a burst of flame erupted from the end of the barrel with a sharp crack.
Kwaang—!
It wasn't an ordinary gunshot.
The sound was so clear that it could be heard even inside the train, which blocked out almost all outside noise.
And then, the next moment.
Crack—!
The boar's body on the monitor exploded.
Even though it was behind a wall, it was useless.
The bullet flew through the wall and blew the creature's torso apart.
At that level of firepower, I thought it could probably even clear dungeon bosses.
“Good. Go and recover the mana stone.”
The scout drone and combat drone set off side by side, and the sniper drone, as if it had spent a lot of energy on that one shot, flew slowly for a moment before following the other two drones and starting to transport the mana stones and items.