Master Smith Under Ministry of National Defense

050 – SCV Appearance

“Break it? That building? It would cause chaos in the surroundings, wouldn’t it?”

Byung-tae stared at the massive building in front of him with a puzzled expression.

Of course, his disbelief didn’t stem from the fact that Myung-jun’s firepower was insufficient to destroy the building. If Myung-jun set his mind to it, a building of that size could turn to rubble in an instant.

However, this “powerful firepower” was something that could be used freely within the confines of the gate, without causing harm to the surroundings. Using it in the midst of a crowded city was an entirely different matter.

Seeing Byung-tae’s concern, Soo-Jeong stepped forward, as if understanding his worries, and said.

“Currently, most of the battles with the monsters take place inside the gate. However, in the future, there will be many situations where we have to fight while protecting specific targets within the city. This equipment was made in preparation for such times.”

As she spoke, Soo-Jeong extended her hand, and eight drones appeared around her. These drones, about the size of soccer balls, had a triangular-shaped frame with four antennas protruding like antennae.

“Anti-damage barriers, deploy.”

Upon Soo-Jeong’s command, the eight drones flying around her began to fly around the building simultaneously. They then started forming a rectangular formation, enclosing the giant building.

Once each drone arrived at its designated position, triangular-shaped antennas mounted on the drones began to emit a translucent purple energy field.

Vrrrrr

As the immense energy field enveloped the building as if it were wrapped in a ribbon, Soo-Jeong looked at her tablet screen and said to Myung-jun,

“The operation is complete.”

“Then is it my turn?”

“Yes.”

Soo-Jeong nodded, and Myung-jun walked forward. He began to concentrate and gazed at the building.

“My senior wanted me to destroy the building as quickly as possible to make a lasting impression on the audience.”

Suddenly, images that were invisible to others but appeared in Myung-jun’s field of vision began to emerge.

In his mind’s eye, he saw various types of turrets developed by Soo-Jeong, stored in his “storage space”.

Myung-jun selected the most suitable turret from among them and mentally determined the locations to summon the turrets around the building.

Then, he uttered the activation command to summon the turrets.

“Hell Blaster, summon.”

At that moment, blazing red flames erupted in all directions, and massive cannons with orange barrels emerged as if rising from within the flames. The towering turrets had an appearance that hinted at their colossal destructive power, with blazing orange radiance emanating from them as if they could fire at any moment.

“Turrets!”

“Isn’t it much bigger than what I saw on YouTube?”

“Is that Cha Myung-jun’s turret!?”

“I’ll bet my life it is.”

“But there are only two? Didn’t he summon about a hundred last time?”

“You fool, they are way larger than what he summoned back then!”

The audience watched in awe and simultaneous fear as the turrets emitted a louder rumble than their excited chatter. It was a mix of reverence for the larger-than-life turrets before them, coupled with the terror of confronting an entity beyond the scope of human understanding. The complex emotions they felt stemmed from the fear of a human being who could summon such things seemingly out of thin air, just like them.

As the crowd marveled at the massive turrets, the climax was reached when Myung-jun initiated the attack with the Hell Blasters, instantly reducing the towering building to a melting heap.

“Commencing fire.”

[Confirming designated clearance area. Commencing target elimination.]

In an instant, with a dazzling white radiance, the two turrets began firing crimson beams. The building struck by these beams started to dissolve like a sandcastle in water.

This spectacle was highly shocking for ordinary people worldwide watching it in real-time, as the Hell Blasters possessed a level of power far beyond what they understood as conventional ‘thermal weapons’.

“Wow!?”

“Is this real!?”

“Is that even possible?!”

Amid the gasps of the spectators, the news anchor broadcasting the scene struggled to regain composure and explained the current situation,

“Viewers, can you see it? This newly constructed reinforced concrete building, barely standing for long, is melting away as if it’s being erased by an eraser!”

“Screams!”

“Wow!”

Sudden screams echoed as the announcer turned to look behind her, and simultaneously, the people gathered in front of the building screamed too. The upper part of the building, which had lost its support after melting in the middle, was collapsing toward the gathered crowd.

However, just as it seemed it might crush the tens of thousands of citizens gathered here, the upper structure of the massive building collided with the transparent purple energy field that Soo-Jeong had deployed earlier and came to a halt, frozen in mid-air.

“Did that huge thing just get stuck?”

Amazed by the sight, Ho-chang exclaimed, and Soo-Jeong smiled contentedly.

“Exactly. Who do you think made it?”

“By the way, isn’t this even more powerful than what we saw during the last gate attack? I don’t think it was this strong when used against the boss back then.”

Myung-jun, who had been operating the turrets without saying a word, finally spoke up in response to Byung-tae’s question.

“That’s because of the ‘difference in ranks’ that occurs when abilities clash.”

“Difference in ranks?”

As they listened to the citizens, who had returned after screaming and causing a commotion, Myung-jun calmly explained to Byung-tae.

“Let’s say there’s a name for someone who can cut through anything with a sword. Can that person easily decapitate someone with an ability level eight times higher than theirs?”

“If it’s an ability that can cut through anything, it should literally be an ‘ability to cut through anything,’ right?”

“Well, if you interpret it in plain text, yes, but in reality, it doesn’t work that way. Even if the rank difference is just one rank, ‘absolute cutting’ becomes as weak as ‘ignoring defense’, and if it’s two Ranks higher, it drops to the level of ‘reduced defense’. If there’s about a three Rank difference, it’ll only have the effect of a regular attack of the same rank.”

In summary of Myung-jun’s explanation, it was because abilities were essentially concepts of invading the opponent’s abilities with one’s own. So, if the opponent had a higher rank than oneself, the damage would be offset accordingly.

That’s why, even for an Awakener who could transform their entire body into flames and take no damage from fire attacks, they could still be harmed by the fire emitted by a more powerful opponent.

Therefore, abilities had a more significant effect when used against objects created by humans or civilians, who were not of a different type.

“While water can extinguish fire, a stronger flame can instantly evaporate water. The supremacy of abilities can be reversed depending on the rank difference, so you should never let your guard down just because you have the upper hand.”

“Does that mean the Sigma equipment I used in the Poisonous Gate wouldn’t be absolutely invulnerable to poison?”

Recalling the past when they unilaterally defeated a seemingly powerless boss immune to poison, Ho-chang asked Soo-Jeong’s question.

“That’s right. Of course, there would be a dampening effect, but you could still suffer damage from poisons emitted by Rank 5 or higher.”

“What would we do in that case?”

“In that case, we would have to make MK-2. We would use materials from more powerful types and process them with superior technology to create better equipment.”

Ultimately, since Myung-jun’s ability significantly influenced equipment created directly by him, Myung-jun’s strategy would have to proceed in a manner resembling an arms race. If the opponent brought a weapon that surpassed the equipment on their side, they would develop better equipment in response.

While the three of them conversed as if they were on a casual stroll, the Hell Blasters summoned by Myung-jun from hell were literally “melting away” the building within just three minutes. A time frame that was almost unbelievable considering the enormous size of the building.

In front of Byung-tae, the massive 15-story building that had been there just a while ago had disappeared without a trace.

All that remained within the purple quarantine space was the dense black smoke filling it. The black cloud created by the powerful heat source that evaporated even the reinforced concrete covered the audience’s view, blocking the inside of the quarantine barrier.

“If there were no barrier, they’d fine us for illegal waste incineration. It looks pretty harmful to the body, though.”

“Well, that’s right. Basically, it’s a gas produced when metals, stones, glass, and the like evaporate. If it gets into your lungs, you’d probably die instantly. Plus, the internal temperature would be tens of thousands of degrees.”

“So, what do we do? We can’t start construction unless we clear the clouds.”

Myung-jun thought it would take quite some time for those black clouds to solidify.

Then, as if trying to dispel Myung-jun’s concerns, Soo-Jeong confidently said to him in her self-assured voice,

“It’s okay. When I heard about the gate that would be difficult to clear without purification abilities, I prepared something similar. Choose the Purification Tower from the turret list and summon it inside the space.”

“How many?”

“One should be enough for that size.”

Myung-jun concentrated and checked the summoning list. He soon found something that looked like a giant air purifier. He quickly summoned it inside the barrier and activated it. With a tremendous sound of rushing wind, the black clouds that had filled the space were instantly sucked into the purification tower’s intake ducts.

Upon checking the internal conditions on her tablet, Soo-Jeong promptly retrieved the barrier drones and summoned the construction robots she had prepared in advance.

“It’s robots!”

“They’re SCVs!”

“Really?! Aren’t those SCVs from StarCraft?”

“Well, technically, they’re unmanned, so it’s not entirely wrong to call them SCVs.”

Soo-Jeong muttered to herself, and the SCVs she deployed inside the barrier totaled ten. Unlike the “thing” from the game, these construction robots were equipped with particle printers on one arm to release the necessary particles for building structures instead of a drill. On the other arm, they had atomizer devices for disassembling unnecessary materials and sending them to storage, capable of disassembling anything they touched.

The first action of the construction robots deployed at the scene was to begin disassembling the entire 15-story building that had melted into a solid mass and reduce it to debris. PCV’s atomizer, which could disassemble anything it touched, quickly broke down the solid debris as if vacuuming it up like a vacuum cleaner. Furthermore, it penetrated underground and started disassembling the building’s foundation.

The construction robots, having dug much deeper than a typical underground parking lot, summoned and assembled the building’s components stored in the subspace like Lego blocks.

Watching the ten construction robots summon dozens of steel blocks each from their respective positions and gradually complete the building felt like watching a time-lapse video.

“What is this? Am I really on Earth in the 21st century?”

The astonishment at the unbelievable sight was not limited to the audience gathered here.

Currently, the “show” being staged by the Liberal Clan at this location was being broadcast live worldwide. Among those paying great attention to this event were the heads of awakening management agencies operated by governments worldwide. Among them, the Central Military Commission’s Records Department in Beijing, China, showed tremendous interest in Myung-jun’s performance being broadcast.

In the midst of the deteriorating international situation following the US semiconductor sanctions, Myung-jun’s equipment, which appeared to possess technology superior to that of the US, made it impossible to even estimate its value just by watching.

Wang Chengming, the head of the Records Department, watched the live broadcast with a serious expression and said, “What do you think?”

“I’m thinking and analyzing as I watch. In terms of rank, versatility, and value, it exceeds any ability that has been reported so far.”

“Even compared to the records we have?”

“Just from the performance of melting down the building, it outperforms our strongest record-holder, Lu Yang, in terms of combat power. And the equipment level is several ranks higher than our top producer in the production industry, Wei Chenbo. Moreover, although it’s an estimate, it seems that the materials were obtained from hunting Rank 3 monsters.”

“Rank 3?!”

Wang Chengming slammed the table.

In the vast Chinese territory, only one Rank 2 gate had been discovered, and even that resulted in complete annihilation for the Awakeners who entered it. The idea of coming out with equipment made from materials from a Rank 3 gate was simply unbelievable. Furthermore, based on the stories from the advisory team, it was speculated that the opponent’s materials were a massive amount that could build entire buildings.

The consensus was that the materials that went into the building had a distinctive and unusual color, indicating that they were alloys containing a large amount of monster materials.

Currently, all the highest-ranked Awakeners in China have reached the same conclusion, so it was likely true. And that meant that a single Awakener in Korea was stronger than all the Communist Party-affiliated Awakeners in China combined.

“This is unbelievable!”

“We can’t help but believe it when we see it. Based on the information currently available, it is clear that the Korean government is the one leading in the era of dimensional gates, thanks to this young man named Cha Myung-jun.”

“What should we do in response?”

This was a crucial matter. The Communist Party leadership saw this extraordinary situation, which was completely beyond human comprehension, as an excellent opportunity to potentially overturn the world’s geopolitics led by the United States.

The existence of superhuman abilities that might be even more powerful than nuclear weapons. Only governments that could control these abilities effectively could seize the next course of international relations.

In such a situation, the sudden appearance of an absolute power like Cha Myung-jun was causing Wang Chengming tremendous anxiety.

“If we attempt to eliminate him, what are the chances of success?”

“Just-released information is available for you to see.”

A YouTube video began playing on the huge screen in the meeting room. It showed Myung-jun surrounded by U.S. military personnel and Korean EDA members, using hundreds of turrets to clean up the scene.

“If that’s real, even if we mobilize all 142 Awakeners in the Records Department, our chances of success are slim. Even if we manage to assassinate him somehow, it would be impossible to break through the Korean government’s siege and escape in a weakened state.”

“Elimination is impossible. What about containment?”

“It’s difficult. Currently, the anti-Chinese sentiment among Korean youths in their twenties is close to hatred for China. It’s likely that this young man shares the same view as ordinary Korean youths and would be averse to the Chinese government’s proposals.”

“Why not use money or beautiful women?”

“Money doesn’t hold much meaning for Awakeners, as you well know. Besides, beautiful women…”

One of the officers turned on the video feed, and there, standing next to Myung-jun, was Soo-Jeong. Even through her sunglasses, her beauty overflowed to the point where it could be sensed.

“Of course, there may be beautiful women in China who are superior to me, but the probability is slim.”

“So, what are you suggesting? Should we allow a small country like Korea to hold the balance of power in future international relations?”

“I don’t think there’s a need to worry about that.”

At that moment, a man who had been sitting quietly in the corner, looking at his tablet without saying a word, spoke up.

“According to reports in the Korean media, his relationship with the Korean government is not very good. There are stories of him rejecting offers from the Korean government’s Awakener management agency, the EDA. There’s even information that he avoided a conflict with the Korean government and received assistance from the U.S. military in Korea. And now, as a private-affiliated Awakener, he has declared that he will help with gate expeditions for any government around the world, provided the conditions are met.”

“A declaration? What kind of declaration?”

“It’s the content written on the official website that was just opened. It says that he will go to any government worldwide to help with gate expeditions if the conditions are met.”

The man turned the tablet he was holding to show Wang Chengming.

On the screen was a website with the guild name “Liberal Clan” and detailed information about the Liberal Clan’s goals and activities.

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