Change (2)
Seon Yul applied the Unique-grade Enchant Soul, ‘I Can Endure’, to the ordinary bulletproof vest he normally wore layered under his clothes.
Users could equip a total of eight pieces of gear, and they were free to choose the composition of those eight slots.
However, there were detailed conditions attached. For example, accessories like rings or earrings could be worn only up to two pieces; bracelets and necklaces, only one each; tops could be layered up to two types, but bottoms were limited to just one, and so on. Still, broadly speaking, a user could select eight pieces of equipment.
The eight pieces of gear Seon Yul had currently selected were:
Head (helmet) / Face (mask) / Back (cloak) / Top 1 (bulletproof vest) / Top 2 (high-grade defense suit top) / Bottom (high-grade defense suit bottom) / Finger 1 (ring) / Finger 2 (ring)
…That was his setup.
Here, the target of Seon Yul’s enchantment was the bulletproof vest worn inside the defense suit.
Most users recommended setting their equipment slots to include two earrings, two rings, one necklace, and one bracelet because they were easy to equip… but Seon Yul had no intention of doing that.
He skipped earrings because he didn’t like the idea of piercing his ears, and he passed on bracelets and necklaces because he wasn’t used to wearing them in the first place.
Though unlike earrings, he was willing to wear bracelets or necklaces later if he obtained good items.
But for now, he didn’t see any reason to buy and wear something he didn’t even have.
[You are using the Enchant Soul ‘I Can Endure.’]
[The Unique-grade chest armor ‘Bulletproof Vest That Can Endure’ has been created.]
[Bulletproof Vest That Can Endure <Unique>’
— A bulletproof vest capable of enduring a fatal blow.
[Base Effect] None.
[Granted Skill] Impact Dispersion (Passive): When you suffer fatal damage, this damage is immediately absorbed and then applied gradually in 30 instances over 30 seconds. However, this passive can only activate once every 5 minutes.
[Penalty] While Impact Dispersion is active, you cannot use stealth-type abilities or skills that require mental concentration.
After creating the vest, Seon Yul immediately equipped it.
When it had just been an ordinary bulletproof vest, he hadn’t felt anything special… but after upgrading it to a Unique-grade item and wearing it, it somehow felt more reassuring.
Now clad in yet another reliable piece of defensive gear, Seon Yul moved on to filling the storage rooms that had been left empty.
The first storage to be filled: the ammunition storehouse.
In the past, replenishing ammunition required going through tedious steps, and acquiring large quantities took time.
But things were different now.
The All-Purpose Tool Shop.
With this alone, all supplies could be obtained directly.
First, he registered a single 5.56×45mm NATO round in the shop, and the price appraisal came out to 0.002g.
That meant roughly 200 won per round. In reality, 5.56×45mm NATO rounds were sold online or on the market for about 350–420 won.
Much cheaper than the market price.
“But do I really need to buy these one round at a time?”
Seon Yul realized he had done something foolish and instead registered a 100,000-round ammunition belt set used for the Minigun.
The price appraisal came out to 213g.
It was slightly more expensive than buying 100,000 individual rounds, but that was natural since ammunition belts were originally more expensive.
After purchasing as many 5.56×45mm NATO rounds as he found satisfactory, he moved on to buying 12.7×99mm NATO rounds.
As expected, these were more expensive than the 5.56×45mm rounds.
He registered a 70,000-round ammunition belt set of 12.7×99mm NATO rounds in the shop for appraisal.
The result: 502g per set.
Again, it was significantly cheaper compared to market prices.
Seon Yul bought more than enough 12.7×99mm NATO rounds as well.
He used about 5kg of intermediate magic stones to purchase both types of ammunition. Even though that equaled 500 million won, Seon Yul kept smiling.
He couldn’t help it… if he had bought them on the market, it would have cost nearly 800 million won, or 8kg of magic stones.
And even then, it was likely he wouldn’t have been able to secure this much quantity.
“Ah, this is seriously convenient.”
The most important point was that if he ever ran low on ammo, he could immediately purchase more and refill.
Fast and reliable supply.
That was extremely important.
In truth, the biggest reason Seon Yul had been able to freely spray the Minigun and GAU-19 without restraint was that, taking advantage of the emergency, he had squeezed a bit… no, quite a lot, out of Cha Seong Hyeon, or rather, out of the Republic of Korea Gate Management Bureau.
Given the circumstances, the Bureau had sent him an enormous quantity of ammunition without complaint… but he could no longer expect such freebies.
Rather, he would eventually have to repay the debt from that free usage. Of course, that was something to worry about later.
After filling the ammunition storehouse, Seon Yul began filling the food storage next.
In truth, there was no need to stockpile much food.
As long as items were registered in the All-Purpose Tool Shop, he could simply purchase them with magic stones whenever needed.
In fact, what mattered more right now was registering as many different varieties of goods as possible from outside.
Items containing even a trace of mana could not be registered in the shop, so it was better to gather and register as many mana-free items as possible.
So Seon Yul exited Absolute Space and began purchasing all kinds of groceries online, one by one.
Before long, he found himself buying not just food but various miscellaneous goods as well. As a result, he purchased an enormous variety of food ingredients and consumables.
Since all of it was meant for shop registration, the money didn’t feel wasted.
As for food alone, he bought everything… from basic seasonings like salt, pepper, and gochujang, to nearly every cut of pork, beef, and chicken, along with various rare meats… countless vegetables… practically every ingredient available online.
He even bought small quantities of premium ingredients like truffles, caviar, and foie gras, registering them all in the shop.
“It’ll be convenient to just buy and use them later.”
Seon Yul enjoyed cooking, so having such things would never be a bad thing.
Of course, he bought every kind of ramen, snacks, and beverages available and registered them all.
You could say he practically looted an entire supermarket in terms of how much he bought and registered.
The number of item types he registered in this way exceeded nearly 16,000.
The All-Purpose Tool Shop had truly become worthy of its name.
“Whew… this feels like I just uploaded a whole supermarket.”
And not just any supermarket… a supermarket offering nearly half-price discounts.
The unfortunate part was that he couldn’t take these items out of Absolute Space. For various reasons, Seon Yul had run several experiments.
He had been curious what would happen if he took items purchased from the shop outside Absolute Space. The results were as follows:
- If he brought out salt, sugar, or a kitchen knife, the salt and sugar would turn into completely tasteless white powder, and the kitchen knife’s blade would become entirely dull, unable to cut.
- Once dulled in that way, no matter how much the blade was sharpened, it would never regain its edge. It was as if the knife’s fundamental purpose had been blocked.
- Ammunition, on the other hand, functioned normally as long as it was used within Absolute Space and then discharged through a firearm; the fired bullets retained their proper effect.
- If food was eaten inside Absolute Space, stepping outside afterward did not make the consumed food disappear from his stomach or make him hungry again, since the act of eating had occurred inside.
- In conclusion, items purchased from the shop had their fundamental purpose completely sealed when taken outside Absolute Space, but if they were used inside before exiting, there were no major issues.
There appeared to be no problematic results from the experiments.
After confirming everything, Seon Yul neatly stacked the registered items to one side. Since they had already been purchased, there was no reason to throw them away… he simply organized them within Absolute Space and planned to use them one by one.
Of course, the sheer quantity of goods made the residential area somewhat cramped, but that was unavoidable.
“The loot’s sorted… the storehouses are stocked… time to rest.”
With everything handled, Seon Yul lay down on the bed inside Absolute Space. After hard work, it was only natural to rest well.
Tomorrow’s tasks could be handled tomorrow, and future concerns could wait for later.
***
Jeju Island.
Jang Jun Hyeok, the deputy team leader of Woosung Group’s User Team 5, was inspecting equipment with his partner before deployment.
“Deputy Team Leader, have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“They say a dungeon has finally formed on Hallasan.”
“Wasn’t that basically inevitable? An S+-grade legion-type gate appeared, and it hasn’t been cleared for two months. Of course, a dungeon would form.”
Legion-type gates were automatically classified at A++ grade or higher, meaning they were extremely dangerous.
Their scale was massive, and since a single species of monster poured out in the form of a legion, the scale of the damage was immense.
In particular, legion-type gates always had a monster often referred to as the ‘queen.’ For example, an Orc Legion gate would have an ‘Orc Queen,’ and a Goblin Legion gate would have a ‘Goblin Queen.’
The queens’ role was simple:
Continuous reproduction.
The queens reproduced at tremendous speed, constantly expanding the legion’s size. That was what made legion-type gates so terrifying.
Even weak monsters had their rank effectively elevated when forming a legion, and numerous elite variants appeared as well. No matter the species, legion-type gates were extremely dangerous.
This time, the S-grade legion-type gate that had formed in the Hallasan area of Jeju Island was a ‘Drake Legion.’
And the queen of that legion was called the ‘Drake Queen.’
It was that very Drake Queen who had created her dungeon in Baengnokdam Crater atop Hallasan. Once a dungeon was established, the queen’s reproduction speed multiplied several times over.
“Won’t that mean more drakes appearing?”
“Probably.”
“Then won’t things become seriously dangerous? Flights already can’t approach Jeju because of the drakes…”
Drakes were capable of flight. Although they couldn’t travel far enough to leave Jeju Island, they constantly flew around the island, completely blocking aircraft takeoffs and landings.
“Hmm… do you really think so?”
Jun Hyeok smirked as he continued.
“Sang Beom, do you really think the users currently in Jeju ‘failed’ to prevent that dungeon from forming?”
“They didn’t fail?”
“It’s not that they couldn’t stop it… they chose not to.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Do you know how many users have gathered in Jeju right now?”
“Well… I know quite a lot has come.”
“Not just ‘quite a lot.’ Corporate teams, major guilds, even independent users… they’ve all swarmed to Jeju.”
“That many?”
“Of course. They’re drakes. Not only do they drop top-tier material items like Drake leather, but they also give an incredibly sweet experience and magic stones. That’s what drakes are; pure gold.”
Jun Hyeok didn’t bother mentioning that, although extremely rare, drakes could also drop ‘Legend’-grade items or Enchant Souls.
That was a distant fantasy for people like them.
“So the dungeon was allowed to form on purpose?”
“Obviously. If someone had tried to hunt the Drake Queen before the dungeon formed, other users probably would’ve stopped them.”
“That extreme?”
“It might’ve been worse. Everyone gathered in Jeju wants to hunt as many drakes as possible… and if you interfere with that, they won’t sit quietly.”
“Then how long will this go on?”
“Usually, the Management Bureau steps in eventually. No matter how valuable the Drake Legion is, they’ll tolerate it for at most six months. After that, they’ll order the gate destroyed.”
“Huh… I thought gates were supposed to be eliminated as quickly as possible…”
Jun Hyeok’s partner, Jeon Sang Beom, had recently been discharged from a strike team and had only just joined Woosung.
Naturally, he didn’t fully understand the complex ecosystem surrounding the gates.
“Gates are dangerous threats to humanity… but at the same time, they’re mining sites for magic stones, humanity’s new possibility. That’s why people sometimes call them ‘mana oil fields.’”
“Sigh, I don’t get it. I just have to do what I’m told, right?”
“That’s about right. You and I are just salaried workers, do the job assigned to us and get paid accordingly.”
They were merely common mana users hovering between Walker-class and Soldier-class, with little interest in grand strategic interests.
But sometimes, because of these tangled interests… accidents that might never have happened…
Ended up happening.
Comments (0)