Genius Engineer in the Labyrinth - Chapter 95
Only Noblemtl
Outside temperature: 20℃
Alan checked the temperature in the corner of his eye. The cold air of -30 degrees on the snowfield and -10 degrees on the stairs disappeared, and a warm current began to surround the surroundings.
Alan wiped his visor himself to clear the momentary fog. The labyrinth’s temperature was relatively constant, so there was little contrast.
Taylor’s hunched shoulders straightened, and the ice that Shiva had been carrying on his beard melted.
The toads were running down the hallway, and the snow that had run away had melted and turned into water. It was a landmark in the hallway that had no signs and was tangled like a spider’s web.
The elf’s shoes, which ran first, left a long imprint on the water. The toad must have run faster than him, as there were no traces of combat at all.
Alan thought about the movement and speed of the toad.
‘It’s more sophisticated than the cave automaton. If we were to make a combat version with that skill, it would be much more threatening.’
The term automaton existed in the past, but after the appearance of the Labyrinth, it mainly referred to the machines that came out of it.
Since it was relatively easy to obtain in the labyrinth, many people, like Alan, fixed it and used it.
Shiva pointed that out.
“It’s like an automaton from the labyrinth. I understand that the owner of this place has entered the labyrinth. It’s been a little over a hundred years since the labyrinth was discovered, so he might be alive.”
“hmm···.”
Alan had a different idea. He had his visor open so he could hear the sound clearly.
“Brother, do you have any idea what this is about?”
“It’s pure.”
“Please explain in detail for my pure brain.”
Alan often kept his words extremely short, thinking that others would know this much. Even now, the look in his eyes as he looked at Shiva seemed to imply, ‘I’ve explained it clearly enough…’
Shiva waited for an answer, as he was used to it.
“That means it hasn’t undergone any additional processing. So it feels similar to an automaton that was just made by an underground person.”
Because I need more information to make an accurate judgment, I used the vague expression “feeling” rather than “confidence.”
As he ran along the water, he naturally looked at the ground, and as he did so, Alan’s eyes caught sight of something. His left eye displayed a small piece of information.
Type: Synthetic fiber
Features: Same material as Harsh’s clothes
Alan paused for a moment and picked up a piece of clothing that had fallen at the junction of the hallway wall and the floor. He stopped suddenly, drawing attention, and Harsh’s mouth fell open slightly.
“Oh, my······.”
Judging from Harsh’s reaction, it was clear that there was a trace of the cousin who had gone in first and lost contact. While he was putting the piece of clothing in his bosom, he heard a loud noise from far away.
It was the all too familiar sound of battle. The leopard that had been following Alan around as if it were there and not there ran forward, brushing past its owner’s legs.
Allen and his party also increased their speed. When they went down the stairs in front, a huge circular hall appeared. In the center of the ceiling, an unidentifiable pure white cylinder was hanging.
Below them stood three bear-like automatons and the elven party that had advanced ahead. They reared up on their hind legs and threatened the intruders.
At that moment, Harsh’s finger pointed to the bear at the back.
“Do you see the skewer stuck in his shoulder? It’s definitely my cousin’s spear gun.”
A torn piece of clothing, a broken harpoon.
There was a reason why the blood relatives did not return. There was no guarantee that the bears would be the end, but their presence was clear, so Harsh’s anger was directed at them.
“Whoa, whoa. Stand back for a moment. If you rush in excitedly, you’ll only increase the workload for the undertaker.”
Taylor stopped Harsh. The employer was someone who needed to be protected.
The one dwarf that follows each party is a watcher and a guarantor. If they die, they will be questioned about the circumstances and their reward will be greatly reduced.
“This is why the adults there hired us, so just stay still. An excited ally is also an enemy.”
“Ugh···.”
Harsh easily stepped back. Shiva’s hand, standing behind him, suddenly glowed white. It was clear that he had a method to calm his excitement.
While Taylor and Shiva exchanged greetings, Alan watched the battle of the leopards he had dispatched in advance.
As the leopard approached, the harpooned bear turned to the side. Standing at nearly 3 meters tall, it looked incredibly intimidating.
That was Alan’s brief impression, and the leopard didn’t feel even the slightest fear. It was a ruthless fighting machine that moved according to its master’s design.
A bear rearing up on its hind legs might look threatening to a human, but to the leopard’s algorithm, it was a good target.
Kiing-
The hatch between the front legs opened and a magic bullet launcher popped out. The gun was aimed at the bear and the magic bullet was fired without a moment’s hesitation.
The horse, spinning around and running through the air, hit the bear in the chest.
“Alan, is it a dud?”
“no.”
The visual effects were so lacking that Taylor had to ask. There was a risk that the leopard, made for close combat, would get swept away when it fired a powerful magic bullet.
Allen clearly separated the roles of the leopard and the box, and what the leopard fired was the so-called debuff magic bullet.
Even though the bear’s exterior looked fine, the effects of [Corrosion], [Weakness], and [Slowdown] were slowly spreading from the impact site.
The leopard, having finished its work, crouched down and galloped. The bear’s right forepaw struck the spot where its tail had passed.
The leopard slid to the right of the bear and stood up straight with Manaclaw. He hit the ground to apply the brakes and turned 180 degrees, so that he was facing the bear’s butt.
The bear, still lying down, could not cope with the speed of the leopard. Manaclaw tore the outer skin of the hind legs and cut the artificial muscles inside. The muscle fibers that protruded out curled up like grilled squid.
Thanks to that, the bear that was lifting its upper body lost its balance. The bear is also a machine equipped with combat intelligence. The guy who doesn’t know pain spread his front paws as much as possible, inflated his size, and tried to crush the leopard with his back.
The leopard reacted, but was struck in the rump area by a forepaw. Perhaps due to the weight difference in size, the leopard slid long. The friction between the ground and the outer armor caused sparks to fly.
The bear turned over, checked the leopard’s position, and bent its forelegs. The artificial muscles bulged greatly, as if it were a wild beast about to leap out.
Even though his legs were not normal, the bear jumped high. He spread his legs wide and turned into a giant to try to crush him.
However, the bear’s target was not the leopard, but another bear. The bear, which was about to attack the elf party, rolled around on the ground without even reacting to the allied attacks.
The traitor who trampled his allies remained in that position, and the bear, unable to move, was turned into scrap metal by Taylor and Shiva. The traitor also ended up in the same situation.
As soon as the traitor bear stopped moving completely, the spider hanging on the back jumped down and returned to Alan.
Harsh asked as he watched the spider crawl into the drawer of the box.
“Is this hacking?”
“Yes. I stuck it on the leopard’s lower belly and let it stick.”
“To take control in such a short time···.”
Harsh was a miner, so he didn’t know the details, but he vaguely knew that hacking itself was extremely difficult. Instead, the effect was great. The enemies decreased and the allies increased.
After speaking, Alan helped dismantle it. The bear’s soul stone was protected by a black box-like structure, which was so strong that even mana swords could not scratch it.
“The soul stone is important, but why was it so protected?”
“If you don’t know, how can I know?”
Alan shrugged at Taylor’s answer and turned his gaze to the center of the hall. A party of elves who had killed a bear were observing something.
Alan also quickly approached. In the center of the hall floor, there was a circular door that was tightly interlocked like fingers.
The muscular elf who had been exchanging warm words with Taylor blocked Alan’s path.
“What? We come first.”
There was a hint of greed in his voice. Alan looked up at the ceiling, his attention drawn to the door. It seemed difficult to open that door by force anyway.
Alan looked at the white cylinder hanging from the ceiling and called out to the box. He pressed the cane he was given to press against the surface of the cylinder, and a blue hologram unfolded.
“What did you do?”
“The passage of magic was intentionally blocked, so I put it back. Judging from the way it connects when touched, I guess the owner of this place had that intention as well.”
“I can’t tell even if I look… You guys, move away. I can’t see you.”
Taylor waved his hand and drove the elf party away. As they retreated, the hologram took on its proper form.
The model of the building in the center looked very similar to the facility that Allen had seen.
“This is where we are now. And the line extending outwards is···.”
Following the line that was supposed to be the road, there were three other facilities. Each facility was located at the vertex of an equilateral triangle, and the center of the shape was the current location.
The blue of each facility faded and turned white. The color of the central building became darker, and the door on the floor of the hall opened.
The hologram kept showing the same scene.
“So doing something at each facility means that this place opens up down here.”
No one disputed Alan’s opinion, not even the late-arriving party.
The muscular elf, Rollo, stepped forward again.
“There are three parties here, so we can each get one.”
“Do you know how?”
Rollo pointed behind him with his finger. A hologram repeatedly played, telling him to insert the soulstone from the bear’s body into some device.
If they are of the same ethnicity, it would have been okay to leave it in writing, but since it was made in detail as a video, it means that it was assumed that there would be cases where communication was not possible.
Alan took out his wand again and tapped the cylindrical holographic player. Rollo frowned.
“Are you crazy? Are you going to take responsibility if it breaks?”
“I need to check something. I can’t just trust the contents of the hologram to see if it’s real.”
After several taps with his staff, like hitting a fruit, the generator fell from the ceiling. Alan took out the soul stone from inside. It was perhaps a natural result, since the soul stone served as the central processing unit.
When I gently rubbed the soul stone with my finger, a galaxy unfolded where I could input star characters. As if I had encountered a black hole, many of the star characters had disappeared.
It was difficult to read properly because it was disappearing in real time even now.
“Seed, collapse···.”
Alan could only get two words out. Rollo, who noticed that he was deciphering the star script, asked.
“What else? Don’t keep it to yourself, tell me.”
“Kkut kkut kkut.”
“······??? What do you mean? Are you kidding me?”
“I read the broken letters as they are. It means that they cannot be deciphered.”
There was no additional information, and the door in the floor could not be destroyed no matter how hard they tried, so there was only one way left for them: to operate the suspicious facility as the hologram had instructed.
As Alan came back outside, a letter appeared in the corner of his vision.
Outside temperature: -30℃
Compared to the inside, the difference was as much as 50 degrees. Everyone let out a sigh. Their breath turned into ice powder and fell down.
Ice hung again from Shiva’s beard.
“It’s the kind of weather that makes you miss your mother’s embrace.”
“Are you a mama’s boy?”
“Brother.”
Taylor, hearing Shiva’s serious voice, reflected that his joke had gone too far. He had made a joke about God to a religious person. Even though Shiva seemed like a fool, he was fundamentally a devout religious person.
But Shiva’s expression was bright.
“We follow our mother’s will, so that’s a really good expression. I can’t think of a word that can compare to that.”
“Then that’s good.”
Unlike Taylor, who took it lightly, Harsh, who had never experienced anything like this before, began to worry that his people’s brain cells were frozen from the cold and that they were believing in a cult rather than the Mother Church.
End