Genius Engineer in the Labyrinth - Chapter 56
Only Noblemtl
Old soldier (4)
The underground man, reprimanded by the same underground man, began to fit the lion’s head into its proper body.
A mysterious scene that was difficult to explain caught Alan’s attention.
“They make mistakes too. I always saw them as aggressive, but now I see them as human.”
“Them? Call them that. They are enemies that you have to deal with anyway, and as you go down the labyrinth, you will have to kill countless lives, so don’t waste your energy on unnecessary sentiments like pity.”
“Of course I know. Then let’s get ready.”
Alan returned to the wagon and gathered his gear. He took out the grenade launcher, but Taylor stopped him.
“Let’s seal it. It’ll be convenient to use, but the magic stone and soul stone will all be destroyed. A sea of fire will be a bonus.”
“I’ll take it with me just in case.”
Alan fitted the launcher into the thigh of his reinforced exoskeleton. The groove fit snugly and did not move.
“What weapon are you going to use?”
“There’s a cane for times like this.”
Alan waved his long staff gently and immediately carved a rune character into the tip with his rune pen.
“Um… I get goosebumps whenever I see runes that look like worms. They all look the same, so I don’t know how the idiots can tell them apart.”
“This is a superposition of [repulsion].”
“Then is it useful?”
“If you want a complex result, it is better to link different runes together, but stacking is also simple and effective. Stacking is possible thanks to the magical training I recently learned.”
“Thanks to the ‘Taylor’ method? The ‘Taylor’ method is truly amazing.”
Taylor emphasized his own name. Alan pretended not to know and waved his cane around.
“If you hit it with your staff, the target will fly away.”
“You’ll know when you see it for yourself. But your posture is really sloppy. When I get my body fixed later, you’ll check my posture. I need to fix this baby-like behavior that’s trying to catch a baseball bat for the first time in his life.”
Whenever gratitude welled up in his heart, he would always add an extra note. Alan, knowing full well that he was weak, simply shrugged his shoulders.
“I would rather spend that time practicing magic engineering.”
“Nonsense. If you move even once, you’ll remember it later. Let’s stop talking nonsense and go.”
Taylor held a semi-automatic shotgun with one hand and operated a lever with the other. The shotgun was mounted on his wheelchair, but he preferred to fire it himself.
The two reached the end of the passage again and looked at each other.
“Go.”
The signal flare was fired by Taylor. The target was an underground man who had come to collect parts from a nearby shelf.
I shifted to battle mode and pulled the lever to full, and the wheelchair started to race. The modified wheelchair, which ran at 50 km/h, was a weapon in itself, so if I pushed it, the underground man’s body would be crushed.
The underground man suddenly turned his head without motivation at the sound of the floor being scraped, then froze when he saw the wheelchair.
It was a human reaction. A normal underground person appearing in a cave would have attacked or screamed without hesitation.
To Taylor, they were all the same monsters. He took his hand off the lever for a moment, aimed the shotgun with both hands, and pulled the trigger.
Taang!
The body of the underground worker, who was wearing only a thin sleeveless shirt because he was hot from working, was filled with lead beads, and his lifeless body was thrown onto a shelf.
Taylor moved to find his next target, planning to reduce their numbers as much as possible before the enemy could arm themselves or the guard automatons could move forward.
Alan looked to his left. An underground man was rushing over the conveyor belt, a large spanner in his hand glowing menacingly.
Alan also moved towards them. As the distance grew closer, each other’s images were reflected in their pupils.
No matter how long the spanner is, it can never overcome the reach of the staff. Alan swung the staff in a clumsy manner and struck the underground man in the side.
Even though the lower body was firmly secured with a reinforced exoskeleton, the upper body was loose.
‘I need to extend the reinforced exoskeleton to the upper body.’
Since the chronic disease he was born with was not something that could be easily solved by learning from Taylor, he had no choice but to rely on the power of equipment.
Anyway, the result was good. The underground man who was hit by the square of [Repulsion] flew away and fell down with his comrade.
A shadow fell over the two bodies struggling to get up, and cold forepaws and blade-like claws attacked them. The blow alone left deep scratch marks on the corpses, whose ribs had collapsed.
The leopard’s camera eye moved absentmindedly, searching for its next target. Its opponent was the lion automaton. The one that had just come down from the assembly line had its head dangling, as if it had been combined incorrectly.
The leopard had the advantage in strength and speed, but with that flaw, it had no chance of holding on.
The leopard simply lunged at him with its body, causing his head to fall off and roll around, and the underground man hiding behind the assembly line was met with cold teeth.
As the emotionless combat weapon looked for its next turn, a roar erupted from the edge of the factory. Armed underground men and guard automatons approached, destroying the assembly line.
“It appeared.”
“I saw it too!”
As Taylor wheeled the wheelchair to where Allen was, he held the lever and cocked the semi-automatic shotgun.
Behind the wheelchair, there was a barrel containing a speedloader, like a quiver, and he took out a long speedloader from it and pushed it into the shotgun’s chamber.
Looking at his skillful movements and quickness, I felt like he was indeed a veteran.
“What the fuck! I got caught!”
If only those last words weren’t there.
Taylor, who had joined in, tapped the body of the shotgun with his palm. Regardless, Allen manipulated the handles of the wheelchair.
Woof!
Taylor said, looking straight ahead as a blue shield unfolded before him.
“Oh, if you have this feature, you should have told me about it from the beginning.”
“I was afraid that if I had believed in the barrier, I would have just taken it in. Even though the wheelchair looks sturdy, it’s still a fragile child inside, so you have to be careful when handling it.”
“A guy this strong? Is this how a parent feels when looking after his own child? Wait, why are you just standing behind me? Am I the shield?”
“Let’s focus on the enemy.”
“I am a patient···.”
They were already in a battle stance, even though they were just saying that.
The automaton runs towards them and the underground man hides behind them to avoid the line of fire. The anger from the attack on the factory flows out through each and every rough movement.
Alan aimed the grenade launcher forward. The grenade loaded into it was focused on special effects rather than destructive power.
“Please refrain from explosions···.”
Before Taylor, who didn’t know the details of the situation, could finish speaking, Matan released the results.
The magic bullet inscribed with the runes of [Confusion] and [Infiltration] emitted blue rays of light in all directions, and an abnormality occurred in the exposed body of the automaton.
The effect of the runes, which had been further strengthened by the magical training method learned this time, penetrated the enemy’s magical circuits and consumed their entire bodies like poison.
“Manapulse grenades aren’t even worth a business card. I thought you were a little dizzy because you were always alone, but there was a reason.”
Taylor, tongue out, pulled the trigger as the scorpion the size of a large dog approached. The metal body buckled mercilessly with each bullet.
While Taylor fended off enemies who avoided the mana pulse with their small size and high speed, Allen focused on the buffalo running behind him.
A guy who was 2 meters tall at the shoulder exerted more psychological pressure than a truck.
‘Of course, it would require enormous destructive power to stop it···.’
Then, a significant portion of the factories and loot would be destroyed. It was the dilemma of the dungeon explorer. The enemy was so strong that even if you tried your best, there would be nothing left to salvage later.
After finishing his calculations in his head, Alan took in the surrounding scenery with his eyes. His brain was calm despite the sudden surge of visual information. This wasn’t even a warm-up.
‘Assembly stand, pipe, crane···.’
It only took one second to catch the clue and make a plan. Three seconds to engrave [Humanity] on the glove. One second to reach up.
In the five seconds that passed, the buffalo came closer, the heavy hooves resonating through Alan’s leg bones.
Taylor held his ground against the buffalo’s charge, dealing with the small automaton. And Allen lived up to his expectations.
The crane hook came down and caught the flank armor of the charging buffalo. The steel wire was pulled taut like a fishing line.
The winner was the buffalo’s momentum and the tension of the iron rope. The bull lost his balance and fell down with a thud, and the enemies who were right behind him were swept away as well, causing chaos.
Taylor wiped the sweat from his forehead as the headaches were all sorted out at once.
“I believed.”
“Your pants look damp.”
“Oh no! This is sweat!”
Taylor screamed and steered his wheelchair forward, the tangled targets unable to avoid the hail of lead bullets.
“Wow, it’s been a while since I last ran, so it’s tough. I don’t know how I came down every time when I was young.”
“There is still some finishing touches to be made. It will be a perfect ending only after the loot is collected.”
“I’m sorry to say this, but I’m starting to feel the reaction.”
His eyelids were drooping, his pupils were getting blurry. Taylor’s taut back was slowly slumping forward.
“You’re not activating it now because you’re annoyed, are you?”
“···.”
Taylor’s mouth opened quietly. Some might say that was too harsh a statement for someone who was sick, but Alan could clearly see her pupils trembling.
Anyway, the patient was a patient, so I understood and tied the chick bib around his neck.
It seemed like he had used a little too much strength in his hands when he tied the string, but that was a symptom similar to exhaustion after a fight. If you were to ask if he had any intention of strangling her, you could say no. In any case, that was correct.
‘When I’m with you, I feel like I become childish.’
So, if you were to ask if it was bad, it wasn’t. Alan put the wheelchair in a relatively clean place and brought a cart.
‘There’s more than I thought.’
There was enough loot to make the expedition supplies I had prepared pale in comparison, and I could just return.
As I was loading the magic stone and soul stone onto the cart, I started to think that it would be nice to have more hands.
‘If I’m going to do it, I’ll make it strong and put it on a reinforced exoskeleton.’
The guy Alan wanted would take a long time to build because he needed both precision and strength, but that didn’t matter.
Because every single process is enjoyable, whether it’s failure or a new discovery.
‘There’s also a magic stone.’
Stones containing high-purity energy were hard to come by because everyone wanted them and they could be used anywhere. Naturally, there was no intention of selling them.
Next was a book. It was assumed to be an assembly manual, as Jihain had been glancing at it and assembling the lion earlier.
However, inside there were only pictures and no text.
‘It looks like an instruction manual made for children. Are the underground people low-intelligence?’
It was too early to make a hasty judgment because there were complex automata and soulstones. However, it was true that there was a sense of dissonance. The difference in level was too great.
As the questions continued to pile up, Alan’s left eye quickly turned toward the passageway. His right eye was still looking at the book.
My increasingly sharp senses caught something fishy. The fog-free scenery of the secret passage seemed somehow hazy.
‘Something feels awkward.’
As I infused more magic power into it, my field of vision expanded and my enhanced clairvoyance allowed me to see through things.
‘Transparency···.’
The eyes recognized the existence within them.
Name: Unknown
Race: Orc
Characteristics: Green blood, bald, tattooed
It was the gang member I saw on the 9th floor. The sphere rolling in front of them.
‘Is that a scent-tracking golem? That would be more credible than footprint detection.’
The labyrinth will eat up all traces within 30 minutes to an hour if there are no explorers around, and the same goes for scent. So it means they followed along while checking the concentration.
It would be good to check their intentions, but there was a patient here. I wanted to make sure they were taken care of so that they wouldn’t get hurt.
If you survive the process, you can just report it, if not, you can.
‘I guess I’ll have to open the auxiliary storage device.’
After thinking it over, Alan pretended to fix the grenade launcher and loaded it with grenades. Unlike the type he used while cleaning the factory, the grenade was packed with destructive power.
Taylor teased him about being a pushover, but Alan didn’t think it was that bad.
‘Goodness is bestowed only on those who are worthy of it.’
Transparency, stalking, and tracking golems.
If you consider just one of the three, it would already be a red card.
The Matan containing Alan’s determination went straight into the passage. It was a distance that the cards he had used before would have been impossible to reach.
They also noticed the presence of Matan, but the passage was narrow and the flames, which had swelled to their full size, filled the place.
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