Hiding a Logistics Center in the Apocalypse – Chapter 34
(Gravity and Grace (1))
That evening, we headed to Yongsan, where the Joint Chiefs of Staff headquarters was located.
As expected, we weren’t the only ones who had received the Chamber of Commerce’s message.
Looking up at the dark night sky over Yongsan, Yoo Seong-cheol spoke.
“We’re preparing a response as well. As soon as the 1st Corps area is fully secured, we plan to formally incorporate Awakened into military units. Of course…”
The military was making thorough preparations.
But,
“We still have no idea what those bastards mean by this ‘Bid Competition,’ but…”
For now, information was lacking.
The new destruction announced to arrive in a week.
We had no choice but to fill that time productively.
Meanwhile, Chief of Operations Yoo Seong-cheol remembered his promise to me.
The deal where, in exchange for sweeping through the 1st Corps area, he would lend me equipment that the military recovered from time to time.
Yoo Seong-cheol asked for my understanding.
“Since so much equipment is currently in active use in the field, I think it’ll be difficult to gather everything at once to lend to you.”
It was only natural, really.
The world was in utter chaos; there was no way military equipment was sitting idle.
“So… how about we lend them to you one by one as they become available? As long as it isn’t an unreasonable request, we should be able to lend you various pieces of equipment besides what we recovered from the 1st Corps this time.”
That was actually better.
Even I couldn’t gobble up all that equipment at once.
Because
Rather, as he suggested, it would be much better to receive different pieces of equipment as I needed them.
I nodded quietly, then asked him,
“I understand. Let’s proceed that way, then. What about that…?”
My gaze glinted with greed.
A vehicle standing tall.
With a tank-like body equipped with radar and missiles on top.
Yoo Seong-cheol said with a smile,
“Haha… you recognized it right away. As you expected, this is what I’m lending you this time. It’s an armored vehicle called the K-31 Cheonma, capable of firing anti-air guided missiles through its radar.”
“Oh…”
Just as he said, the radar spinning tightly in place caught my eye.
Cheonma.
Guided missiles.
Truly magnificent words.
Of course, to use it properly, I’d have to enhance both the ammunition and the armored vehicle separately, just like with a rifle… but I decided to think about the detailed applications later.
“Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. Compared to what you’ve done for us, this is nothing. Which is why I was thinking, Colonel Kim, perhaps this opportunity to forge a hundred-year alliance with us…”
“I’m incredibly grateful.”
I quickly cut him off and bowed my head.
Then I strode up to the armored vehicle with its busily spinning radar.
Pax scanned the new item,
[This product will be accepted into the ‘Military Unit’ category.]
[Calculating registration cost…]
Ding!
[The cost required for registration is 96 Magic Stones.]
And so, I welcomed the Cheonma into my subspace.
***
The preparation period granted by the Chamber of Commerce was one week.
Long if it was long, short if it was short, that time passed like the calm before a storm.
Of course, many things happened.
Under cooperation with the Joint Chiefs headquarters, we hunted monsters in the surrounding areas and formally procured Magic Stones.
We exterminated the troll tribe entrenched at Dongnimmun, wiped out the half-goblin variants hiding in Baeknyeonsan, and showed the drakes roaming Sinchon the taste of fire.
The family members’ growth also continued without pause.
Kim Sol’s
My sister-in-law had also begun developing buff potions, and my father obtained new turret schematics, each continuing their own path of growth.
And so time passed,
and when we finally reached the day before the ‘Bid Competition,’
we gathered in the crisis response room prepared by the Joint Chiefs headquarters.
And when only 24 hours remained until the time they had announced…
“…!”
“It’s here…”
A message arrived.
---
We inform you regarding the content of the Bid Competition to be held in your dimension by the Multidimensional Chamber of Commerce.
[Bid Competition (Korea–Seoul)]
Registration Number: 0471
Location: Yeouido
Time: In 24 hours
Conditions:
- Only 100 people, including the regional representative, may participate.
- Participants must enter the designated location 1 hour before the Bid Competition begins; entry and exit will be impossible after that time.
Content:
At the start of the competition, a ‘Gate Nucleus’ will spawn at the Emeth dimension’s starting point. The Nucleus will automatically hatch after 12 hours. Upon hatching, a Gate Portal connected to the Emeth dimension will form. Stop the Gate Nucleus from hatching within the given 12 hours.
Success: Victory compensation and separate rewards.
Failure: Installation of an Emeth dimension Gate Portal in Yeouido.
We wish for the prosperity of your dimension.
---
In addition, preliminary information on those who would become our enemies was provided.
Ding!
[Emeth is a mid-ranked dimension registered in the multiverse, possessing holy knight order forces that worship the Emeth Goddess. It is characterized by divinity-based architecture and weapon production, and is evaluated as a sound dimension due to steady recent growth.]
Their grand ambition was also conveyed.
Ding!
[Preliminary notification message from the Emeth dimension.]
— O barbaric beings of savagery. Receive the holy hammer of the sacred Emeth Goddess.
“Hah…”
What an ill-mannered opening.
Seeing them end with a hammer in just two sentences, they were clearly hot-tempered bastards beyond the ordinary.
It seemed there were rules to this fight after all.
The information provided by the Chamber of Commerce contained a detailed record of the enemies participating in this battle.
[Participation List]
Schuhram Bayer [8th Rank]
Ramirus Henike [8th Rank]
Dif Dabrek [8th Rank]
Madianis Honz [8th Rank]
Tore Arman…
…
“Damn it…”
Chief of Operations Yoo Seong-cheol gripped his head.
We had already shared information with him once before.
He too understood what it meant for enemies to possess rank and repulsive force.
The number of enemies listed was a full one hundred.
Government forces that had been suffocated by even a single Skeleton Knight.
For one hundred such bastards to swarm out in a group, the despair was suffocating.
While everyone was submerged in tension…
“…?”
An additional message flew in, addressed only to me.
---
This is a notification from the Multidimensional Chamber of Commerce.
You have been confirmed as the entity who earned the highest profit in the ‘Seoul’ region during the previous free pioneering period.
The Chamber of Commerce has selected you as the ‘Seoul Representative’ for the Bid Competition to be held in 24 hours. If you accept the representative position, you may directly select the 100 participants (including yourself) for the Bid Competition.
If the representative position is refused, selection rights will be granted to the next highest profit-earning entity. If the representative position is refused more than three times, the Seoul region’s Bid Competition will be automatically processed as a defeat.
Do you accept the representative position? [Y/N]
---
'So that’s why it popped up only for me…'
It seemed I had become the top profit earner without even realizing it.
Thanks to that, I had become Seoul’s representative, and I could form a team with members of my choosing.
'This is actually better.'
[YES]
It was something to be welcomed from my perspective.
Achieving the #1 profit ranking in Seoul.
It probably also meant that I was the strongest person in all of Seoul.
The further back the order, the more Seoul’s chances of victory would fall as well.
But…
'That’s a lot of people.'
One hundred.
Even counting our whole family, the Awakened didn’t even number ten.
The dilemma didn’t last long.
Chief Yoo Seong-cheol was pitifully tearing at his hair.
I told him that I had become Seoul’s representative and needed to recruit up to one hundred participants.
“Th-that’s true?”
He clenched his fist.
The enemy force was still overwhelming, but now we could organize our own fighting force to oppose them.
He rummaged through the file folders he had prepared.
Then he began listing which Awakened the Joint Chiefs possessed, what abilities they had, and what help they could offer.
But…
“No.”
I cut him off.
“Sharpshooters will do.”
“Ex… excuse me?”
Yoo Seong-cheol made a blank expression like a deflated doll.
Sharpshooters.
The strict standard of hitting eighteen out of twenty shots.
It was a glorious title that anyone who had fired a gun during military service could claim.
That was enough.
The newly enhanced K2C1 rifles.
I planned to deck all one hundred of them out with gear.
***
The next day came.
The list of one hundred names.
First, I included myself, Lee Yong-su, and my two sisters.
After excluding the Knights of Camelot who were not included on the list, ninety-six spots remained.
All of them were filled with special forces members selected by the Joint Chiefs headquarters.
Clack clack.
Soldiers moving by squad.
Each held an enhanced K2C1 rifle, and their magazines were loaded with three [Electrocution] rounds each.
A few hours before the ‘Bid Competition’ began.
We crossed the Mapo Bridge by car and entered Yeouido.
A barrier of yellow light of unknown nature covered all of Yeouido, and surprisingly, not a single person, let alone the common monster, could be found inside.
Thanks to that,
Yeouido, once the center of politics and finance,
we could now take in the full view of that place turned to ruins.
The most symbolic of these was none other than the National Assembly Building.
“…It’s completely wrecked.”
Lee Yong-su clicked his tongue.
Its characteristic sky-blue dome was nowhere to be found even if one washed their eyes.
The rectangular building body had collapsed, merely laying there displaying the Han River water behind it.
But there was something more important.
“…What’s that?”
A large red hologram floating above it.
An arrow pointing downward displayed huge text:
[Gate Nucleus Installation Zone]
Just as the Chamber of Commerce had announced.
If we failed to break through their defense, a Gate Portal leading to their dimension would be installed right there.
Before long, their forces would push past this Yeouido into all of Seoul.
Vroom…
The car drove in the opposite direction.
Because our starting point was right there.
Upon reaching the destination, this time we found a hologram arrow marked in blue.
[Earth Dimension Starting Point]
What lay beneath it was…
“…How strange.”
It was the Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market.
It seemed all of Yeouido had become the enemy’s defense zone, and our starting point had formed at the closest location to it.
[One hour before the competition. Participants, please enter the Starting Point.]
The empty fish market.
The stench of rotting, abandoned seafood assaulted our noses.
Thinking that we were stepping on their Yeouido soil, there had never been such an underdog.
A few minutes passed.
[Emeth dimension entities are entering.]
The enemies had also begun stepping on Earth’s soil.
Respawned in central Yeouido, they would now block our invasion while hatching the ‘Gate Nucleus’ at the former site of the National Assembly Building.
But…
“What the hell are these bastards…?”
They were far beyond our expectations.
They should have been building a defensive line in Yeouido.
But with less than ten minutes until the start, they had already begun making a racket right in front of our noses.
“Whew!”
“In the name of the Emeth Goddess!”
A transparent barrier stood between us.
Since the battle had not yet begun, attacks against each other were fundamentally blocked.
Beyond it were dozens of holy knights.
They banged on their tin-can armor with swords, sang hymns to their goddess, or gave long speeches about how they would torture and enslave us.
Provocation and mockery.
The climax came when we took firing stances toward them.
“Hehe, as expected, country bumpkins never fail to disappoint. Did you think you were the only dimension that ever pointed gun barrels first? Shoot all you want with those toys. See if you can leave a scratch.”
The one giggling suddenly added with a fierce expression.
“Well… if you don’t know, you die.”
I know.
That they are all 8th-rank monsters.
Ordinary bullets cannot pierce their repulsive force and armor.
Normally, anyway.
Shing!
They drew their swords.
And then…
“Kih kih…”
They stuck out their tongues and licked the blades.
Quite a provocative performance for holy knights.
Meanwhile, we merely observed their performance through our rifle sights.
And…
as you know, this was no ordinary gun.
It was a silver ‘gun’ specially prepared to enlighten these crazy fanatics.
[The Bid Competition begins.]
[10, 9, 8…]
The countdown began.
[3, 2, 1…]
Ziiing.
The moment the curtain separating us was lifted.
Tududududu!
Fierce bullets poured from over one hundred gun barrels.
Ping!
Pwing!
Bullets that easily pierced their armor.
And it wasn’t just that.
“Ack!?”
“Ugh?”
The [Electrocution] option bestowed on the rounds.
It passed through the holy knights’ armor, delivering a thrilling shock.
Though the magazines held only three rounds…
this too was no problem.
Whish!
The squad members threw their rifles backward.
Then they picked up new rifles stacked in piles before them.
Naturally, they were already loaded with rounds.
Tududududu!
Continuous firing.
“Aaaaargh!”
It was more than enough to bestow a thrilling grace upon them.
Their limbs bent every which way.
Regret and despair filled the eyes of those frozen stiff.
Pwing!
A ricocheting bullet plunged into the fish tank.
Flop! Flop!
As the rotten bodies of fish in the tank danced,
before our very eyes…
Chiiii—
dozens of holy knights were rolling around in their armor.
Flop!
With a thrilling sensation.