Chapter 42
Tomorrow morning.
After waking up outside Ansan, I sat in front of the cockpit panel in Car No. 1, lost in serious thought.
All the fires had been put out.
I'd shaken off the Yeouido bastards' pursuit, and I'd brought Gallery Star back safely, too.
Now it was time to carry out the exterior turret upgrade that had been unlocked by meeting the satisfaction requirement through transporting survivors.
My expression as I stared at the panel was clouded with worry.
"Hmm..."
Perhaps because of the maker-type evolution, the newly unlocked modification options weren't just the usual stat boosts anymore.
Most of them took the form of high risk, high return.
---
[Manual Turret]
- Removes the existing automatic turrets and converts them into a single manual turret. The shell's destructive power and range increase by 300% compared to before, but the automatic function is lost, and the engineer can manually operate and fire it from the cockpit.
- Monster drop loot from kills made by the manual turret is automatically stored in the designated train car. (Current designated car: Car No. 2 storeroom)
---
"Three times the destructive power is nice, but I'd lose auto-hunting..."
It was a bit of a dilemma, but definitely worth considering.
Even with just the drones and Spike, the auto-hunting was running well enough, and personally I felt the turrets' range was lacking.
I looked over the other skills as well.
---
[Lightweight]
The train's maximum speed increases significantly, but the durability of the outer armor decreases by 20%.
[Expandable Passenger Car]
The interior space of Car No. 3's passenger compartment expands, doubling transport capacity, but the train's movement speed decreases by 15%.
---
Most of the modifications now involved gaining something at the cost of losing something else.
Even so, they seemed well worth choosing.
"I'll hold off for now."
Just as I was scratching my head and closing the window.
A rustling sound came from beyond the Car No. 1 curtain, and Ha-seon carefully stepped out.
"Ah... good morning. I overslept, didn't I?"
Her white hair was a little tousled as she greeted me, her face red with embarrassment.
It seemed she'd gone to bed late last night after handling the backlog of users she had to block and managing the exchange.
"No, not at all. Did you sleep well, Ha-seon?"
"Yes. It's been a really long time since I've slept this peacefully and soundly."
We exchanged morning greetings that were still cautious, a little awkward, and quite polite.
After eating a light breakfast, I turned the cockpit chair to face her on the sofa.
In her hands was a cup of hot chocolate I'd kept instead of selling.
Warm drinks and sugar are supposed to put people at ease.
It was my own preparation for having a good conversation with her.
"Come to think of it, from now on it'll just be the two of us traveling together, so I think we should decide what we'll do going forward."
At my words, Ha-seon fiddled with her cup and nodded.
"I don't really have any big personal goals or ambitions. I just want to keep the gallery running with my skill the way it is now, have lots of people share information there, trade, and sometimes even have silly chats. So if I had to say what I want to do going forward... I want to keep the gallery going and, by your side, help with what you do, Sowon."
"Me?"
"Yes. Unlike me, you directly help people, Sowon."
She said that while managing the gallery, she'd been reading about my exploits.
From moving survivors to safe zones to trading things like water at low prices on the exchange.
An admiring light shone in her eyes as she looked at me.
Embarrassed, I averted my gaze for no good reason and stated the immediate goal I'd set.
"For a while, I'm going to keep strengthening this train... and keep moving people to safe zones. And save up credits..."
"Credits?"
"Huh? Yes."
At my answer, Ha-seon's eyes began to gleam strangely.
As if she'd made up her mind, she leaned her upper body slightly toward me and said.
"Sowon. If your goal is to gather credits, I actually have a very good idea for you."
"A good idea?"
With a faint smile, Ha-seon brought up that heavy, troublesome position she'd once suggested to me over smartphone messages.
"Would you like to become a sub-manager?"
"If you mean a sub-manager... the blue one..."
"Yes."
In response to my flustered reaction, Ha-seon answered calmly with a faint smile.
"If you become a sub-manager, I think the benefits you'd get would be helpful to you, Sowon."
Holding up her white fingers, she began listing those benefits one by one.
"First, you'll gain the authority to permanently ban malicious accounts in the gallery in real time, just like I do."
That wasn't an attractive benefit at all.
Permanently banning them meant I'd have to read their posts and whatever story lay behind them.
I might even end up seeing with my own two eyes the minefield-like posts I'd somehow been lucky enough to avoid until now.
"Some of the credits I earn through the exchange and the gallery will be automatically paid to you every day."
"Credits?"
"Yes. If it were up to me, I'd give you all of them, but upgrading the gallery's functions takes quite a lot of credits..."
This benefit was tempting, too.
The more credits, the better.
"And third, if you become a sub-manager, we'll be able to check each other's locations accurately at any time. Whether I'm on the train, or whether you're in danger outside..."
Having said that much, Ha-seon added the most important final reason.
"More than anything else... for my gallery skill to level up to the next stage, there's a condition that there must be at least two managers, including me. You're the only person in the world I can trust with this authority, Sowon."
"Ah..."
I let out a short sigh and nodded.
Authority, credits, location sharing, and even the skill's evolution condition.
I couldn't refuse.
On the other hand, with conditions like that, it also felt unnerving to let someone else be the sub-manager.
"I guess I have no choice."
I put on a solemn expression and acted like I was shouldering a heavy burden.
"It's all... for the development and peace of the gallery."
"Sowon! Thank you so much!"
Truthfully, I thought it was pretty doable, but Ha-seon was moved by my words.
In that case, I guess things worked out.
After she tapped the laptop keys a few times, something appeared next to my gallery nickname.
A blue sub-manager badge.
At the same time, the users who practically lived in the gallery immediately sensed the change.
Because of that, the gallery started buzzing over it for a while.
---
[Title : Holy crap, Choo-Choo got a blue mod badge lolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Comments]
ㅇㅇ : The me who saves people by day and exterminates malicious users in the gallery by night as a blue mod?!
ㅇㅇ : Yeah, yeah, you've become an unpaid slave now, huh. Want me to show you some spicy treatment?
ㄴ 스윗 : Isn't that person a girl?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Dude.
마법소녀 : Fighting^^!
생존왕 : I knew they'd become a blue mod.
---
"Haah... the troll bait's already here..."
I let out a bitter smile as I looked at the blue badge icon clearly attached next to the gallery ID Choo-Choo.
Contrary to people's expectations, thankfully it wasn't a life of unpaid servitude.
I sank deep into the sofa and read through the posts pouring in in real time.
Seeing dozens of posts appear when I searched my nickname wasn't exactly pleasant.
"...This—"
My gaze slammed into one post among the countless chatter threads, a post that gave off an especially heavy and urgent mood.
Just from the title, it was calling directly out to me.
---
[Title : Choo-Choo, please save us. The city has been swallowed by fog.]
The whole Paju Jungang-ro area we're in has suddenly been completely swallowed by thick fog.
It's a pure white fog so thick you can't see an inch ahead.
It's so bad I don't even know whether to call it fog or a smoke screen.
But from inside that fog, we keep hearing screams as if someone is hurting and suffering.
Three Awakened who couldn't stand it any longer and went out to save people entered the fog, and not a single one has come back even after a full day has passed.
Since you have a train, Choo-Choo seems like the only one who can probably break through the fog along the tracks, so I'm asking as the representative of the Paju Jungang-ro safe zone.
We'll give you whatever you want, so please help us.
[Comments]
ㅇㅇ : Oh-ho, now that our Thomas here is a blue mod, is he really at the level where he's saving people?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Seriously, have you ever seen a blue mod save people? Blue mods are the ones who do the killing.
ㄴ 생강차 : No, seriously, this person is in a crisis, so why are the comments reacting like this?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : How are we supposed to know if they're actually in crisis?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : What if it's a trap when we go? Can't lose our blue mod...
생존러 : What if it's not fog but some kind of hallucinogen? You start hearing voices and seeing weird things...
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Oh?
---
"Hmm..."
After reading the post, I thought for a moment.
Fog, huh.
I already had the memory of clearing a city filled with toxic fog once.
I suspected that maybe this time too, some kind of monster was spewing out the fog.
And if it was a monster of that kind, I was confident I could handle it.
"Are you sure you're okay with this? It's a weather anomaly where you can't see an inch ahead, and even Awakened have gone missing..."
Her red eyes were filled with worry.
"Don't worry. Since it's a train, the fog won't affect operations all that much. And—"
If the thing causing the fog was a monster, all I'd have to do was lure it out with the bait and wipe it out.
My only concern was that the fog might be so thick the drones wouldn't be able to operate properly.
'We can't rely on the drones alone.'
I decided to strengthen the turret.
It didn't have to be automatic.
If it was a monster lured in by the bait, I could just intercept it with the turret in front of the train.
And there was something else I wanted to test while I was at it.
Rumble-rumble—!
As I spent fuel to modify the turret, the entire train gave a heavy shudder.
"...The turret."
The machine-gun-shaped turrets hanging from the train roof all retracted at once, and the middle of Car No. 1's roof split open with a crack.
Then, from that gap, a long steel barrel rose up, revealing its imposing form.
It had a ferocious look, like the main gun of a sci-fi battleship had been mounted right on top of the train.
At the same time, a new tab appeared on the cockpit panel where I was sitting.
A tab for operating the turret.
"S-Sowon! The train is shaking like crazy...!"
Ha-seon, who was sitting there, cried out in alarm.
"..."
I didn't answer Ha-seon properly and quietly waited, concentrating.
For any additional changes that might happen.
And then—
Flash!
The moment the red light briefly enveloped the train, I smiled.
It worked.
The turret upgrade had received the artisan's touch.
I lightly fiddled with the newly appeared lever, curling up the corners of my mouth.
The moment the red light wrapped it, changes appeared on the screen that controlled the turret.
Just the zoom and infrared functions I wanted were there.