Chapter 47
Thick steam billowed from the drop hangar, and the system chimed with a bright completion tone.
"Oh, finally finished... huh?"
Something clattered out from where the smoke had cleared.
But its shape was extremely strange.
There were no wings or propellers to make it fly, and instead it looked oddly like a crab with heavy, thick steel armor.
No, I should correct that.
Four steel legs and a steel breastplate... more than a crab, it wasㅡ
like one of the slightly foolish units from a space-themed strategy game.
"It definitely was a dra-"
A cannon sat squarely atop the steel shell, clad in a gleaming breastplate.
"You're a bombing drone, right?"
Clatter, clank.
As if reacting to my voice, it struck the floor with its heavy steel feet and stared up at me.
"At least it seems to listen. Come up to the armory."
The moment my order fell, it briskly moved its four steel legs and scuttled up onto the workbench.
Every step it took made Car 2's floor thud under the weight of its immense mass.
I tried using the armory's appraisal.
---
[Artillery Golem]
- The result of combining the blueprint for a bombing drone with the core of a heavy golem.
- It cannot fly, but it can glide slowly.
- It can mix the mana stored in its core with nearby materials to manufacture shells on the spot. (It can be charged with mana stones.)
---
"I definitely made a bombing drone..."
It was neither bombing nor drone.
Artillery Golem.
It had turned into a golem with four legs that crawled around on the ground.
Honestly, it didn't even look like the kind of golem I had in mind.
"...I tried to make a drone and ended up making a steel crab."
It was while I was chuckling and tapping the golem's hard shell that it happened.
A familiar golden message flashed cheerfully in midair.
[The Hammer Warrior notices that a golem has been born and laughs so hard he clutches his stomach!]
[The Hammer Warrior is certain the golem is skilled at crafting and will be a big help.]
'Skilled at crafting?'
As I looked at it half in doubt, the Artillery Golem, which had been obediently following my orders, suddenly busied its legs and clattered off ahead toward the control cab of Car 1.
"Huh? Hey, where are you going!"
I hurried after it and found it at the panel in the cab, lifting a steel foot and tapping one spot on the screen.
It was checking the panel one section at a time, as if verifying something.
Then it jabbed at one spot.
What it singled out was, of all things, Spike Reinforcement, one of the train upgrade options I'd been putting off.
It was a firm gesture, as if to say, what have you been doing without upgrading this?
"No... this takes a lot of materials, and even if I upgrade it, it still feels kind of uselessㅡ Huh?"
Looking closer, I saw that the upgrade's description had changed.
Before, it had only said that the spikes would be applied over a somewhat wider area.
Now it said the spikes would become a grinder that would immediately crush the byproducts and items from monsters it killed and send them straight into storage.
It seemed like a description that had changed after the train was upgraded into a crafting type.
"I guess I needed to check even upgrades I'd already seen again..."
Thanks to the golem, I learned something new.
I decided to upgrade this next, just as the golem suggested.
Howeverㅡ
"...It's been a while since I ran out of mana stones."
I had thought I had plenty, so I'd neglected mana-stone farming for a while, and now I had finally reached the point where I was short on them.
I still had a decent stockpile of the lowest-grade mana stones used as fuel, but I was short on the low- and mid-grade stones used for crafting.
Up to now, mana stones of low grade and above had mostly been dropped by dungeons or by monsters that burst out of them...
For now, I decided to leave Spike Reinforcement for later and do a few more tests on the golem.
"You said it can glide slowly..."
It had been made based on the bombing drone blueprint to begin with.
So, according to the description, flying was impossible, but it could glide slowly.
No sooner had I spoken than it bent its four steel legs and sprang upward as if it might hit the ceiling of Car 2.
Considering how heavy it was, that jump was absurdly powerful.
And the next momentㅡ
Ssshh-
Instead of crashing down with a thud, a blue, jet-pack-like light burst from the golem's underside.
Suspended in midair, it slowly—very, very slowly—descended toward the floor as if it were in zero gravity.
'It feels more like slow falling...'
It couldn't freely fly through the sky, but this was enough to leap from high places and rain down aerial bombardment, or to negate fall damage.
On top of that, being able to manufacture shells on the spot was a huge advantage.
Even if it could make them itself, I decided to craft a few dedicated bombs for it.
My skill-enhanced bombs were better anyway.
This time, I made bombs using only materials pulled from the dismantler and the lowest-grade mana stones, without investing any special monster byproducts.
[Lowest-Grade Mana Stone Bomb]
- A bomb that detonates the energy compressed in mana stones.
- The target hit by the explosion becomes heavier.
"Not bad, actually."
As I set the mana stone bombs I'd just made on the workbench, the Artillery Golem approached, transformed one of its legs into a pincer, and snatched the bombs up.
Clank, click-!
It quickly loaded the mana stone bombs into the cannon mounted on its shell and finished loading on its own.
The bombing drone had mutated into a steel crab, but at this rate, it was a pretty satisfying result.
While I was watching it, the train slowly came to a stop.
It looked like we'd arrived at the destination we'd stop at briefly before heading to Yeouido.
What I was after was a vending machine.
I'd stumbled across it while browsing the gallery, and rumors said it sold skill random boxes and monster material boxes.
'Normal survivors wouldn't even look twice at a monster material box.'
But for someone with crafting-related skills like me, it was a little different.
If I got a good monster material, I could make excellent equipment.
The fact that it was also very close to the station was another reason I'd come here.
"Could that be it?"
"Ah, found it."
"But what's the green stuff around it?"
Ha-seon, seated in the passenger seat, pointed out the window.
A glowing vending machine stood alone in the middle of an empty lot.
But there were green, slime-like masses around the vending machine.
"Slimes?"
Glorp, glorp.
What occupied the lot around the vending machine was a mass of translucent, sticky liquid blobs.
They were writhing side to side, whether they were alive or not.
"There are quite a few."
I stroked my chin and looked back.
Behind me, the Artillery Golem was staring blankly at Dongle in the tank.
I couldn't tell whether it was looking at Dongle or at the picture drawn on the tank, but it was staring from a distance that was a little too close for comfort.
Dongle would feel uncomfortable.
"Nice, this is perfect. Want to do some testing?"
I picked up my spear and lightly tapped the golem's legs before opening the door to Car 1.
It followed after me with surprising intuition.
"Please be careful, Sowon!"
With Ha-seon's encouragement at my back, I boldly stepped into the slime-infested lot with the thundering Artillery Golem in tow.
"First, want to try firing a bomb at those things?"
Clank.
At my command, the four-legged Artillery Golem climbed the surrounding wall and aimed the cannon mounted on its shell straight into the middle of the slimes.
And thenㅡ
KWA-BOOM-!
With a scarlet flash bursting from the cannon, the mana stone bomb slammed squarely into the middle of the sticky slime horde.
"Oh..."
The jellylike slimes hit by the blast's aftermath vanished without a trace, popping like soap bubbles.
It was a cleaner debut than I'd expected.
So it couldn't fly, but it could climb walls well.
An unexpected advantage.
"Good job."
I patted the Artillery Golem's sturdy shell as it clattered over to me, then walked over to the vending machine in the center of the lot.
I paid with credits for three Skill Random Boxes and one Monster Material Box.
The golem seemed to want to carry the boxes itself and struggled to lift them onto its head, so I stacked them there for now.
Though a little unsteady, it kept its balance and marched briskly back toward the train.
"You've got some strength."
That kind of strength was very golem-like.
I wasn't going to open those boxes right away.
After all, I had an acquaintance who was even better at gacha than I was.
With its business done, the train ran again along the tracks and finally arrived at Singil Station, in front of the Yeouido Safe Zone.
"All right, everyone. You've worked hard. Grab your things and get off carefully."
"Engineer! Thank you, really, truly thank you! I'll never forget this kindness for the rest of my life!"
The Paju survivors kept bowing to me and thanking me as they got off the train.
I exchanged nods with the soldiers, but this time I didn't leave right away.
I told Ha-seon to stay hidden safely on the train, and decided to walk into the Yeouido Safe Zone with the drones.
I left the golem inside the train for now.
The train interior would be quite safe, but I left it near Ha-seon just in case.
Ha-seon seemed a little afraid of the gun-mounted drones, but oddly enough, she seemed fine with the golem.
Compared with guns, cannons somehow felt less real, so they were less scary.
"This way, right?"
I had already contacted the person I was supposed to meet.
"They said it was a convenience store not far from here..."
The scenery of Yeouido as I walked with the drones was different again from when I had come here before.
The wreckage of the destroyed roads had now been almost completely cleared away, and some of the shops had their lights on.
The sight of people busily working to slowly reclaim the everyday infrastructure of the pre-apocalypse world was extremely impressive.
The people themselves just stared blankly at my appearance and the drones.
Following the road in front of the station as instructed, I spotted a familiar back inside a nearby convenience store.
"Mother...?"
"Oh my...! Student!"
The mother of the siblings, who had been sorting things on the convenience-store shelves, spotted me and ran out to grab both my hands.
"Have you been well? What were you doing here?"
"Oh, yes! The Safe Zone management office gave me some work, so I've been sorting the food left in convenience stores and supermarkets by expiration date."
The siblings' mother had a skill that sharpened her eyesight, so she said she could do the work quite comfortably.
The Safe Zone seemed to be running quite well thanks to the survivors' efforts.
"I just happened to be finishing my shift, too. Let's go to our apartment together! The kids have been waiting for you forever!"
The mother hurriedly called someone over to take her place, then led the way and guided me to her nearby apartment.