Low-Orbit Reconnaissance Satellite (1)
The elite wyvern’s nest was located about halfway up the cliff.
Up until now, Seon Yul had hunted wyverns by waiting on top of the cliff and picking them off when they flew upward.
But with the elite wyvern, it seemed like that method would take far too long.
There was no telling when it would fly up to the top of the cliff, and even if it did, it didn’t look like he would be able to kill it with sniping alone.
So instead, Seon Yul decided to target it while it was resting in its nest.
With Cheon Li Yu’s help, Seon Yul opened an entrance to Absolute Space in midair in front of the elite wyvern’s nest located on the cliff face.
For others, even approaching such terrain would have been difficult enough that they wouldn’t have dared attempt hunting it at all. But for Seon Yul, this kind of geography posed no restriction whatsoever.
Whenever moments like this happened, Seon Yul always found himself thinking again and again, as he opened the entrance to Absolute Space, that accepting Cheon Li Yu as a companion had been one of the best decisions he had ever made.
Without her, no matter how incredible Seon Yul’s Absolute Space ability was, it would inevitably have had clear limitations.
Cheon Li Yu’s Divine Eye ability perfectly covered the weaknesses of Absolute Space, and because of that, the Absolute Space ability had become a completely out-of-spec power that far surpassed even the EX rank.
Tzzzzzt.
An entrance to Absolute Space opened in midair roughly 200 meters away from the elite wyvern’s nest.
If it were opened too close, the elite wyvern might notice in advance and escape, so he had intentionally opened it at a moderate distance.
As the space opened, Seon Yul prepared to use the railgun.
At first, he had planned to use the GAU-8 Avenger. However, since he didn’t know the defensive power or evasion capability of the huge wyvern that looked like an elite monster, he chose the railgun instead, aiming for a single decisive strike.
At close range, firing a railgun with Cheon Li Yu’s target designation made its power terrifying.
Because of that, no matter how elite the wyvern appeared to be, it didn’t seem like it would be able to withstand this attack.
“Ready?”
“Yeah.”
Standing beside the railgun, the two of them aimed at the elite wyvern through the Absolute Space entrance opened in midair.
And then…
Wiiiiing, thoooom!
Without hesitation, they fired the railgun.
Shwaaaak! Kwadudduk! Poooom!
The tungsten projectile, fired at an incredible speed capable of traveling 2 km in a single second, struck the wyvern’s head almost instantly.
Naturally, the wyvern’s head exploded and disappeared, and the shockwave from the explosion blasted away the nest and even the cliff face.
KWA-GWAAANG!
In an instant, the railgun punched a hole through the cliff.
And the wyvern, now headless, fell straight down the cliff.
Whoooooosh KUUUUNG!
The elite wyvern’s corpse crashed onto the ground, and Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu moved back down to the surface.
Seon Yul quickly descended, collected the corpse, and entered Absolute Space.
“It’s definitely big.”
“There isn’t any chance the magic crystals were in the head that got blown away… right?”
“I watched the Shadow Workers butchering once before, and most of the loot seemed to gather around the heart area.”
Seon Yul had already carefully checked the butchering process before, which was why he had blown off the head with the railgun.
He placed the enormous wyvern corpse into the slaughter area(?) and ordered a Shadow Worker to dismantle it.
As always, the Shadow Worker skillfully began disassembling the wyvern’s body, and in only about ten minutes, it had separated the bones, flesh, and hide, and even organized the loot, such as magic crystals and Soul Stones.
As expected of what they believed to be an elite monster, the large wyvern contained a considerable amount of magic crystals and Soul Stones.
Magic crystals: 5.4 kg
Soul Stones: 0.5 kg
However, what Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu were truly interested in was not these.
The presence of a Return Stone.
That was the important thing.
And…
The Return Stone… was there!!
“Oh, so this is… a Return Stone.”
No one had explained it to them, but simply looking at it caused information about the Return Stone to appear in their minds.
It seemed to be something like a remnant of the settings left behind by the system.
The Return Stone obtained from the elite wyvern’s body was one piece.
Just as expected, it seemed that you had to hunt at least elite-level monsters, not normal ones, to obtain Return Stones.
“In that case… finding special monsters instead of normal ones will be the key.”
Because of the Return Stones, Seon Yul decided he should focus on hunting special monsters at least at the elite level.
For other magic users, hunting elite monsters itself would be far from easy, so they might have thought differently. But for Seon Yul, the difficulty between hunting normal monsters and elite ones was almost the same.
“It’s a shame the Divine Eye ability got weakened.”
If Divine Eye had remained normal, they would have been able to adapt to Earth-001 far more easily.
“Hmm…”
While listening to Cheon Li Yu, Seon Yul fell into deep thought.
Then he slowly lifted his head and looked upward toward the sky.
“What do you think… the space above Earth-001 is like?”
What Seon Yul was thinking about, surprisingly, was outer space.
More precisely, low-orbit space is around 400 km above the surface.
If possible, Seon Yul wanted to deploy a reconnaissance satellite there.
In fact, inside Absolute Space right now were seven Korean reconnaissance satellites that he had practically extorted from Cha Seonghyeon.
Before the Great Cataclysm began on Earth-104, Seon Yul had asked Cha Seonghyeon to give him all the aerospace equipment that would end up being discarded anyway. He had actually visited the Aerospace Research Institute with Cha Seonghyeon and thoroughly looted the laboratories and warehouses there.
The reconnaissance satellites were among the items they brought back then.
Originally, those satellites were supposed to be launched into space over the course of two years, but once the Great Cataclysm was announced, they were all destined to become useless junk.
So Seon Yul had managed to take everything for free.
“Let’s go to space.”
To climb up to 400 km altitude, where reconnaissance satellites typically settle into orbit, it would require about 10 kg of mid-grade magic crystals.
And if the environment up there turned out to contain mana unlike Earth-104, then he would simply end up wasting magic crystals worth one billion won.
But Seon Yul believed that confirming it was more important than the cost.
Once the two of them made a decision, they were both the type to act very quickly.
So they immediately began creating stepping-stone entrances of Absolute Space, heading toward space.
Ten kilometers at a time.
Connecting a total of forty stepping points, the two of them climbed upward.
They had used this stepping-stone movement method so often back on Earth-104 that they moved upward through the sky skillfully and quickly.
After repeating this about forty times, they finally reached an altitude of 400 km above Earth-001.
Naturally, that place could truly be called outer space.
From there, Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu looked down at the planet known as Earth-001.
“…Isn’t it much bigger than the Earth we live on?”
“Seems like it. It definitely feels like the size is different.”
They weren’t experts, so they couldn’t measure the exact size.
But even to non-experts like them, Earth-001 looked much larger than Earth-104.
Even the shapes of the continents visible below looked clearly different.
“First, let’s check the conditions outside.”
The most important thing was confirming whether mana influenced outer space.
Seon Yul tied a fully loaded magazine of ammunition to a rope and sent it outside the entrance of Absolute Space.
Then, after waiting about five minutes, he pulled the rope and retrieved the magazine.
It was simple, but the most reliable way to confirm.
Gunpowder was a substance that disappeared the fastest when exposed to mana. So if the ammunition inside the magazine remained intact, it meant there was no mana influence. If the gunpowder inside the bullets had vanished, it meant mana was present.
Click.
Seon Yul personally removed a round from the magazine and separated the bullet tip.
Chrrr…
Gunpowder spilled out from inside.
“Oh, nice!”
The moment they confirmed that the space around Earth-001 also had no mana influence, both Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu nodded vigorously in satisfaction.
“Are you going to deploy it right away?”
“Launching the satellite alone isn’t the end… Let’s leave this Absolute Space entrance here for now, go back down, prepare things on the ground, and launch it from there.”
To be honest, due to various physical limitations, even if they launched reconnaissance satellites around Earth-001, it would be impossible to use them as perfectly as they had on Earth-104.
But at the very least, basic reconnaissance and exploration functions would still be usable.
So Seon Yul intended to deploy them as soon as possible.
Through those satellites, he planned to scout and explore the entirety of Earth-001.
If Divine Eye hadn’t been weakened, reconnaissance satellites would have been unnecessary.
But now, getting help from satellites was definitely the better option.
They already knew that other intelligent beings existed in this world, so moving recklessly would be far too dangerous.
Although Seon Yul’s title as a strict safety-first person had already been half stripped away, he was still extremely sensitive about safety. That was why he preferred investigating everything in advance before acting.
Anyway, Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu left an entrance to Absolute Space open at 400 km altitude and returned to the ground.
Then, on the ground, they began constructing a small “control center” to receive signals from the reconnaissance satellites.
More precisely, they built it in one corner of Absolute Space.
Since the control center required electricity, they had no choice but to borrow some power from the railgun’s generator equipment.
Fortunately, when they seized the reconnaissance satellites earlier, they had also taken the basic system equipment that linked with them, allowing them to build at least a minimal control center capable of performing essential functions.
It was truly a minimal control center, so the satellite functions could only be used in a limited way.
They also lacked the proper expertise to operate it properly.
“When we go back to Earth-104, I should ask the Administration Bureau to connect us with an expert in this field.”
“Yeah… we’ll need to study a bit.”
“For now, let’s just be satisfied with setting up the basics.”
When they retrieved the equipment from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, they received some basic explanations.
But naturally, it wasn’t enough.
So for now, they simply installed everything in a basic configuration as they had brought it.
In any case, after completing their small but functional control center, the two of them opened the Absolute Space entrance again at 400 km altitude.
Normally, a rocket would be required to place a low-orbit reconnaissance satellite at that position.
But Seon Yul didn’t need that.
He simply went up to the orbit himself and threw the satellite out of Absolute Space.
If aerospace scientists saw this scene, they would probably be dumbfounded.
But compared to launching with a rocket, it was far more efficient and far safer.
“Is this how you’re supposed to do it? I did learn roughly… but I’m not confident.”
After placing the reconnaissance satellite into a 400 km low orbit, Seon Yul tilted his head with an uneasy expression.
Since he wasn’t an expert, everything inevitably felt clumsy.
But at the same time, it wasn’t completely sloppy either.
The satellite plan had actually been something he had been considering even before the Great Cataclysm began. With Cha Seonghyeon’s help, he had seized—no, obtained—a lot of equipment and learned as much related knowledge as possible.
That was how he was able to launch satellites here on Earth-001.
Still, since it was such a specialized field, he couldn’t help but appear inexperienced.
“Let’s just try it first. If something doesn’t work, we’ll learn more when we go back.”
Cheon Li Yu’s words were correct.
Whether it worked or not, the important thing was to try.
If it didn’t function properly, they could simply learn more and try again.
Other magic users might not have the luxury.
But Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu had plenty of time.
Because of that, the two of them could afford to think so comfortably.
That was their greatest advantage.
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