Railgun (1)
“AbsoluteSafetyFirstt is the one we’re getting cooperation from, so why is the Korean Administration sticking their spoon into this? Is this really something AbsoluteSafetyFirstt also knows about?”
Director Iron asked Lewis, who had come to receive approval for the final negotiation proposal.
“Yes, it’s something we confirmed, and apparently AbsoluteSafetyFirstt was the one who requested it first. It seems the relationship between the Korean Administration and AbsoluteSafetyFirstt is closer than we thought.”
“Hmm… a railgun… Why would they request that?”
“Korea has been conducting quite extensive research under the name Project R on an artificial mana ability system. Perhaps they’re planning to use the railgun as a supplementary firepower system for that artificial mana ability framework.”
“Something similar to the M-Type we’re researching?”
“It’ll probably be similar but slightly different. In any case, the railgun itself is one of the weapons capable of exerting the strongest physical force once you exclude gunpowder-based weapons, so it seems they need it for research purposes.”
“What do you think? Can we give it to them?”
“I think we can. The railgun is already a completely abandoned project. We did some additional research when its initial potential was first mentioned, but the analysis concluded that it’s completely useless inside a mana field, so it was immediately scrapped.”
“Then why would Korea specifically ask for something like that?”
“They probably haven’t fully analyzed it yet. At first glance, the railgun does appear to be one of the more usable weapons inside a mana field.”
“Well, if that’s the case, we’ll give them that. And AbsoluteSafetyFirstt asked for one S-grade Wish Box?”
“Yes. Since the Korean Administration and they are requesting two things together, it feels like AbsoluteSafetyFirstt conceded a little.”
“We were even prepared to accept up to two S-grade Wish Boxes… but the more I think about it, saving the Wish Box doesn’t seem like a gain.”
“That’s right. What we confirmed is that the relationship between AbsoluteSafetyFirstt and the Korean Administration is stronger than we expected… Honestly, it would’ve been better if AbsoluteSafetyFirstt had demanded two S-grade Wish Boxes. That’s a bit disappointing.”
“With them being this tight-knit, can we really sway them?”
“It may take a bit more time, but it’s possible.”
Lewis nodded as he answered, confident in his awakened ability.
“Alright then. Proceed like this.”
Director Iron nodded at Lewis’s confident answer and approved the final negotiation proposal he had brought.
And while they were still struggling over that final proposal…
Seon Yul was already standing in front of the Cave of Extreme Cold to begin its conquest.
Since he already knew that the reward he requested would be accepted by the United States without any objections, he planned to finish conquering the Cave of Extreme Cold right around the time the reward negotiations concluded.
After roughly estimating the size of the cave entrance with his eyes, Seon Yul began concentrating his mind.
‘Alright, let’s go!’
The strategy Seon Yul had planned for conquering the Cave of Extreme Cold was extremely simple, but certain.
If this worked, it seemed like the raid might actually end far more easily than the Arachne raid.
Ziiiiing.
What Seon Yul was doing right now was Overrun.
The target size was large enough to block the entrance of the Cave of Extreme Cold.
Since he had to open it even larger than the entrance to Absolute Space he had opened before for ‘God’s Hammer,’ it seemed like a considerable amount of mid-grade magic stones would be consumed.
But this was the alpha and the omega of conquering the Cave of Extreme Cold.
If this alone were completed, the rest wouldn’t be particularly difficult.
Ziiiiiiiiing.
The entrance to Absolute Space began gradually expanding.
Seon Yul kept enlarging the entrance while focusing his mind.
After a little more than about ten minutes passed, the entrance to Absolute Space reached roughly 15 meters in diameter, large enough to almost completely cover the cave entrance.
The amount of mid-grade magic stones consumed was 19.1 kg.
In an instant, 1.9 billion had vanished, but he didn’t feel it was a waste.
The position of the opened Absolute Space entrance was almost directly connected to the Cave of Extreme Cold. However, since overlapping the openings was impossible, a small gap remained.
Seon Yul carefully sealed that gap with Arachne’s thread.
Shraak, shraaaak!
After blocking every opening, Seon Yul created a second entrance to Absolute Space beside it and entered Absolute Space himself.
The first entrance to Absolute Space opened through Overrun was perfectly connected to the cave, and since he had already sealed the gap, it was no longer possible to enter through that entrance.
“The entrance is complete…”
Now that the entrance was finished, the next step was preparing the attack.
According to the information Seon Yul had received, the Cave of Extreme Cold was about 3–4 kilometers deep.
Inside it was a gate that released the hive-type monsters known as Glacier Bats, and it was assumed that the Glacier Bats were currently all hanging from the cave ceiling deeper inside.
The first attack was not very different from what he had done during the Arachne raid.
An attack meant to draw the Glacier Bats’ aggro.
For that attack, Seon Yul had positioned three K9X units and one K3 stealth tank facing the Absolute Space entrance.
All of them were placed toward the back of the combat area.
The reason was that near the entrance, he had already set up preparations for the second battle, so he had pushed these as far back as possible to avoid disturbing those preparations.
‘Since the first attack doesn’t really need damage anyway, I’ll just set the angles roughly…’
The K9X was originally a self-propelled artillery piece designed primarily for indirect fire, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t perform direct fire.
However, the high-speed glide shells clearly produced proper power only with indirect fire.
Still, the power wasn’t really the issue.
As mentioned repeatedly, the purpose of the first attack was simply to obtain aggro.
So as long as the shells flew far enough and landed somewhere inside, that was enough.
Seon Yul went inside one by one, input appropriate firing data into the three self-propelled guns and the tank, and prepared them in auto-fire mode.
If Seon Yul went outside and used Absolute Space like a subspace, he could manipulate this auto-fire mode through mental concentration.
But when inside, he had to move around personally and manage everything one by one.
In some ways, being inside was more troublesome… but it didn’t require mental concentration, allowing him to handle more tasks.
After busily finishing all the settings, Seon Yul didn’t hesitate and immediately activated auto-fire mode, beginning the bombardment.
Boom! Boom-boom-boom-boom!
Through the entrance of Absolute Space, the tank and self-propelled artillery began launching shells deep into the Cave of Extreme Cold.
KWA-A-A-A-A-A-ANG. KWA-GWA-A-A-A-A-A-ANG.
The sound of explosions began echoing through the cave like reverberating thunder.
And then.
Just as expected.
Exactly as Seon Yul predicted, the Glacier Bat swarm reacted immediately.
Flap-flap-flap-flap!
Hundreds of Glacier Bats at once, heavily drawn by aggro, began flying toward the entrance of the Cave of Extreme Cold.
Many mana users had come to the cave and tried various methods up until now, but no one had ever struck deep inside the cave from the entrance like Seon Yul had.
Because of that, the Glacier Bats’ reaction like this was also the first of its kind.
‘They’re coming!’
As soon as Seon Yul heard the sound of the Glacier Bats flying toward the entrance, he left the artillery and tank firing as they were and immediately prepared the second attack.
Shrrrk, shraaaak!
He spread the Arachne threads wrapped around both arms to the sides and attached them to the triggers of two flamethrowers installed facing the entrance.
If you magnified Arachne’s thread under a microscope, tiny hooks could be seen hidden within it.
Using those hooks, it was possible to attach the web to walls or objects.
Right now, he had attached two strands of spider thread to the flamethrower triggers.
If Seon Yul pulled those two strands, the flamethrowers would spew flames.
This flamethrower was something called ‘K-Flame,’ created by the Korean Defense Research Institute by slightly modifying the U.S. military’s M2 flamethrower.
It wasn’t meant for field deployment… only an experimental model.
And this too was something Seon Yul had quietly registered earlier when he visited the Defense Research Institute.
In fact, Seon Yul had placed six of them.
Since the fuel tanks weren’t infinite, he had prepared three sets, switching to the next two whenever the fuel ran out.
The fuel inside the tanks had also been purchased through the General Store from the Defense Research Institute’s supply.
Its main composition was a mixture of gasoline, heavy oil, kerosene, and napalm.
After connecting Arachne’s threads to the flamethrowers, Seon Yul next held a minigun in his left hand and a GAU-19 in his right.
In terms of sheer destructive power, using a GAU-8 might have been better.
But since the Glacier Bats were hive-type monsters, their terrifying numbers were the real threat… so he prepared weapons with the highest possible rate of fire.
‘Come!!!’
With that, preparation for the second attack was complete.
Seon Yul waited for the Glacier Bats to pass through the cave entrance and enter Absolute Space.
And exactly five seconds later…
The swarm of Glacier Bats he had been waiting for rushed in all at once.
FLAP-FLAP-FLAP-FLAP!
At that moment, Seon Yul pulled the two strands of Arachne thread wrapped around his arms while simultaneously pulling the triggers of the minigun and GAU-19.
FWOOOOSH!!! FWOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!
WHIIIIIRRRR–DUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDU!
From the left and right, massive streams of flame shot forward.
From the front, the minigun and GAU-19 poured out a storm of bullets.
And they weren’t just ordinary bullets.
They were incendiary rounds that Seon Yul had specially prepared at a higher cost specifically for the Glacier Bats.
From the sides came gigantic flames.
From the front came incendiary bullets.
Seon Yul burned the Glacier Bats to ashes.
Psssss…
Naturally, the Glacier Bats possessed extremely powerful cold attributes, which made them weak to fire.
And this wasn’t just ordinary fire.
The massive flames released from K-Flame looked like they could burn everything around them, and even the Glacier Bats that barely endured the flamethrower heat were immediately ignited by the incendiary rounds from the minigun and GAU-19.
Inside the combat space, the heat was so intense that simply standing there was painful.
Even Seon Yul himself would likely have taken gradual damage while attacking if it weren’t for his hyper regeneration ability, his enchanted leather mask, and his leather armor set with excellent insulation properties.
That was how tremendous the firepower was.
All of it concentrated at the entrance of Absolute Space.
And the Glacier Bats endlessly pouring in were endlessly annihilated right in front of the entrance.
On one side, the swarm is rushing in.
On the other… Seon Yul exterminates them.
For now, the extermination side was holding the line.
But the side endlessly pouring in was no joke either.
The Glacier Bat swarm kept increasing.
Deep within the Cave of Extreme Cold, the raid gate opened there seemed to be a determination to prove why it was an SS-grade hive-type raid gate, pouring out Glacier Bats in numbers completely different from before.
The expression ‘pouring out’ was truly accurate.
Blue bats crawled and flew out from every part of the gate’s surface, squeezing through without even space to exit.
At this rate, it seemed like they could fill an entire city with Glacier Bats.
Was it because of the SS-grade hive-type raid gate’s full-power bat summoning?
Until now, Seon Yul had been annihilating the Glacier Bats the moment they entered the Absolute Space entrance, maintaining a defensive line at the entrance.
But that defensive line began to be pushed back very slightly.
‘This is getting pushed back?’
Seon Yul had thought that with the firepower he prepared, blocking the Glacier Bat swarm wouldn’t be very difficult.
He had prepared incredibly powerful firepower.
In fact, it seemed almost impossible to produce any more firepower than this.
But in reality, even if just slightly, the defensive line began moving inward.
And if it moved just a few more meters, the situation could become quite dangerous.
Would it be pushed back… or would it hold?
At this critical crossroads,
Seon Yul finally brought out the last card he had been saving.
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