Chapter 184: At Least One (2)

A three-story building near the Gate had been quickly constructed with the combined power of skills and magic. Hope, an inhabitant of the Patera Dimension, returned to her temporary lodgings after finishing her volunteer job organizing the forward base's warehouse. Instead of resting, she ran out onto the third-floor veranda to watch the battle taking place in the distance.

"They've actually won..." she gasped.

The battle was so far away that it was hard to make out any details, but she could tell who had won by the sight of the mechanical monsters fleeing back into the city. This meant their saviors from another dimension, the ones who called themselves Hunters, had defeated the mechanical monsters in their first large-scale battle.

Hope let out a relieved sigh as she sank into a nearby chair, taking in the chaotic hum around her. Like her, the other residents of the Patera Dimension who had returned to their lodgings after completing volunteer tasks for the Hunters were erupting in cheers, celebrating the Hunters' confirmed victory.

"

Aaaaaah!

"

"They won!"

Perhaps because they had finally seen the hope that had long been denied to them, some smiled brightly while others shed tears of joy.

"

Arrrrgh...

"

As the inhabitants gathered on the veranda, hugging each other and celebrating the huge victory, a pained groan suddenly came from beside them. Turning their heads toward the source, they all started in surprise when they realized Kim Ki-Rok had arrived at some point during their celebrations.

"Hunter Kim Ki-Rok?" Hope yelped.

"Oh my, it's been a long time. Have you all been well? Ah, it's fine, it's fine. Please sit, everyone," Kim Ki-Rok insisted, waving his hands to stop Hope when she looked like she was about to stand up to greet him, making her sit back down.

She bowed her head respectfully. "Thanks to your care, we've all been very comfortable."

"That's a relief," he said with a pleased nod.

"Ah... um..." Hope hesitated, wanting to ask the reason for his sudden visit, but after seeing him pull out a potion and noticing his current state, she fell silent.

Kim Ki-Rok's arms and waist were wrapped in bandages. His armor was cracked and battered. Even the daggers on his belt were hanging askew, some missing. Anyone could tell he had just returned from a serious battle.

In a serious tone, Hope asked, "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Ah, yes. There are a few things I'd like to ask," he admitted.

"Please feel free to ask me anything," she replied.

He began slowly, "It's about the keep... Do you know anyone who has worked in the castle where the First Mechanical Monster resides? Or anyone who has ever ventured inside the keep?"

"The keep?"

"Yes."

Since the inhabitants had been kept far from the battle, they wouldn't have been able to observe the Aberrant Mechanical Monsters in detail, so there was no point in asking about them. That was why Kim Ki-Rok began by bringing up the "keep" where the First was situated.

Hope quickly searched her memories for an answer. Then, as a name sprang to mind, she got up and said, "Ah, please wait here for a moment. There

is

someone who matches your description."

She walked over to an open window and leaned over the railing to look down at the street below. When she found the person she was looking for, she called out.

"Tase-hyungnim. Could you please come up here for a moment?"

The man named Tase soon climbed the stairs to the third floor.

"Oh? It's an honor to meet you, Hunter Kim Ki-Rok," Tase greeted with a bow.

"Hyungnim, Hunter Kim Ki-Rok is looking for someone who has worked in the keep or entered it before," Hope explained.

"Ah!"

Tase had been puzzled by the sudden summons just as Hope had been, but now realized why he had been called and snapped to attention.

"I didn't work inside the keep, but I did enter it once to repair part of the wastewater system," he reported.

"So that's the case," Kim Ki-Rok said, nodding. "Do you mind answering a few questions, Mr. Tase?"

"Of course, Hunter Kim Ki-Rok."

"Let's see..."

Kim Ki-Rok thought about what to ask first. If Tase had known anything about the Aberrant Mechanical Monsters, he surely would have provided that information along with the rest that the inhabitants had offered, so Kim Ki-Rok had to presume Tase simply hadn't recognized their significance.

"Maybe he thought they were statues?" Kim Ki-Rok muttered aloud.

"Huh?" Tase blinked, not understanding.

"When you entered the keep, did you ever see something that looked like a statue?" Kim Ki-Rok clarified. "Or was there perhaps a room the mechanical monsters forbade you from approaching?"

Tase searched his memories, recalling his work in the keep and trying to remember if there was anything like a statue, perhaps part of a huge decoration, or a room he had been forbidden to enter.

Eventually, he exclaimed, "Ah! I do remember seeing a few statues."

"How many were there in total?" Kim Ki-Rok leaned forward.

"I saw three."

"And what did they look like?"

"If I remember correctly... there was a statue of a mechanical monster with four arms, and another that looked like a mix between the humanoid and Animaloid Mechanical Monsters."

The command center staff, who had followed Kim Ki-Rok and were now listening intently, felt a thrill of excitement as his suspicions were confirmed. Of the three statues Tase had seen, two resembled the Aberrant Humanoid and Chimera-like Mechanical Monsters they had seen today.

However, their excitement didn't last long as Tase continued.

"There was also another statue of a Humanoid Mechanical Monster, but this one had five heads."

One of the command center staff members started in surprise and asked, "Are you sure it wasn't a statue of a giant-sized mechanical monster?"

Tase shook his head. "A giant? No, it wasn't a giant. Like the four-armed statue, it was larger than an ordinary Humanoid Mechanical Monster, but not large enough to be called a giant."

The staff realized this meant there were at least four Aberrant Mechanical Monsters.

"Ah, and also..." As Tase began speaking again, everyone's attention returned to him. "Just like Hunter Kim Ki-Rok asked, there were also a few rooms that were kept off-limits."

"How many rooms?" Kim Ki-Rok asked quickly.

"Um... that's..." Tase furrowed his brow, thinking. "Two, no, maybe three?"

"Three of them..." he muttered thoughtfully.

"Yes. There were three rooms the mechanical monsters strictly controlled access to," Tase said, sounding more certain.

Three statues and three rooms would account for six Aberrant Mechanical Monsters.

"Could you tell if any of those rooms were larger than one of the temporary shelters we've provided for you and your people?" Kim Ki-Rok asked.

The staff turned to stare at him in shock. From the Hunters' reports, they knew the Giant Mechanical Monster had been larger than any of the temporary shelters.

"No. None of them seemed that large," Tase said firmly.

That meant the Giant Mechanical Monster couldn't have been in one of those rooms. So it wasn't disguised as a statue or hidden in one of the three forbidden rooms. However, Kim Ki-Rok knew it had to be hidden somewhere in the keep, just waiting for the First Mechanical Monster to order it into action. Along with the others, that made seven Aberrant Mechanical Monsters.

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

A Hunter who had tagged along muttered, lost in thought, "Seven of them..."

Kim Ki-Rok shook his head. "No, this means there's

at least

seven. There might be even more hidden away inside the keep without leaving any obvious traces, just like the Giant Mechanical Monster."

"This is fucking crazy," a Japanese staff member muttered under his breath, his artificial interpreter letting him follow the conversation.

Hope asked anxiously, "Is something going on?"

Kim Ki-Rok replied with a question of his own. "Did you happen to see the Giant Mechanical Monster?"

"The Giant Mechanical Monster?" Hope repeated, blinking.

"Yes. From how far away you were, you probably couldn't get a good look at the others, but you should have been able to see the giant one because of its size."

"Ah, yes. We did see it..." Hope nodded, then trailed off as she stared at Kim Ki-Rok in shock.

Hope and Tase had just assumed it was a newly designed mechanical monster, like the siege-type that had previously been deployed.

"Could it be...?" she gasped.

Kim Ki-Rok nodded. "During this last battle, Aberrant Mechanical Monsters that were difficult to classify as either Humanoid or Animaloid appeared on the battlefield, like the Giant. Judging from their extremely high defense and attack power, I suspect they belong to a very special class, different from the hastily designed siege weapon-types that appeared last time."

Hope and Tase realized that the appearance of these Aberrant monsters, along with the length of the battle, must have been why Kim Ki-Rok was so gravely injured.

"M-my apologies, Hunter Kim Ki-Rok," Hope stammered.

"No, there's no need to apologize. In fact, you've provided us with very important information. Thanks to you, we've confirmed that even more of these special types exist. But there's no way you could have known that beforehand, so you don't need to feel guilty about not telling us. Really, there's no need to apologize," Kim Ki-Rok reassured her, taking a moment to collect his thoughts.

He knew there were a total of eight Aberrant Mechanical Monsters the Hunters would later call the mid-bosses. As he combed through his memories, recalling the appearances of each, he noticed Tase and Hope still looked anxious.

With a smile, he comforted them again. "Like I said, it's okay. Also, Mr. Tase?"

Tase straightened up nervously. "Yes! What is it, Hunter Kim Ki-Rok?"

"I'm asking just in case, but while you were in the keep, did you see any mechanical monsters that were

smaller

than the average Humanoid or Animaloid?"

"Are you asking if there were any short mechanical monsters?"

"That's right."

Tase paused, thinking. "Ah, I remember now. There was one mechanical monster that seemed to be keeping an eye on me, and it was smaller than the others."

"Was the difference really large enough that you noticed it immediately?" Kim Ki-Rok asked.

"Yes, it was about half the size of the others."

"Alright, was there anything else? Any other strange mechanical monsters, forbidden rooms, or statues?"

"No, those are all I remember. The three rooms, the three statues, and the one small mechanical monster."

"Then there have to be at least eight Aberrants..." Kim Ki-Rok muttered.

"Couldn't the short one have just been an ordinary Humanoid?" the Japanese staff member challenged.

Kim Ki-Rok reminded him, "We're dealing with mechanical monsters. They're all carefully designed, not born biologically."

"I see, so any abnormally large or small mechanical monsters should also be considered Aberrant," the staff member said, nodding.

"That's right. If a problem occurred during production and a smaller or larger mechanical monster was accidentally created, the factory would have just scrapped it so it could be melted down and rebuilt."

"So that's why you believe there are eight."

"At

least

eight," Kim Ki-Rok emphasized. He knew they had to prepare for the possibility that more Aberrant monsters were still unaccounted for.

The Japanese man sighed. "This really is fucking crazy."

Kim Ki-Rok shrugged. "Well, in a few moments, it'll be down to at least seven again."

In order to ensure a safe and quick retreat for the others, one of the Aberrant Mechanical Monsters had remained on the battlefield to delay the Hunters. The staff from the command center, as well as a few tag-along Hunters, turned to look over the battlefield.

"We should have defeated the three Aberrant monsters when we had the chance," the Japanese staff member said with another sigh.

"No, it wasn't even an option," Kim Ki-Rok replied, though he couldn't help feeling disappointed. "Too many mechanical monsters were still active. If the Aberrant Mechanical Monsters had tried to retreat, we couldn't have stopped them."

If the number of Animaloids and Humanoids had been cut in half, things might have gone differently. But the enemy had mobilized in greater numbers than expected, and because of that, the Hunters missed their chance to strike a decisive blow. Still, from another angle, it could be seen as a narrow victory, since the Hunters had survived a major crisis.

***

Three days had passed since the brutal, almost genocidal battle between the Hunters and the mechanical monsters, a battle that had included the appearance of special units whose very existence had been kept hidden even from the inhabitants of the Patera Dimension.

"They're not coming," Yoo Seh-Eun observed, leaning her back against one of the siege weapons.

Kim Ki-Rok nodded as he stood beside her and watched the city. "They really aren't. It seems like they won't be venturing out today. I guess they suffered more losses than we thought."

In this Gate, with the mechanical monsters' ability to burrow beneath the desert, no one could know when or where the enemy might appear. The raid team was also heavily outnumbered. For those reasons, they hadn't tried to surround the city, but instead deployed their siege weapons in front of the Gate and attacked from a distance.

Lately, however, the mechanical monsters had shown no signs of leaving their city. It seemed they'd grown cautious after losing so many units in the massive offensive three days ago. Maybe they'd realized that another clumsy assault would only get their forces picked off one by one. Still, the Hunters wondered whether the machines truly possessed the intelligence to come to such a conclusion.

Kim Ki-Rok knew for a fact that they did. Unlike the others, The First possessed a level of artificial intelligence that allowed it to think rationally and make its own decisions.

"On top of that..." Kim Ki-Rok muttered, turning his head to observe the mechanical monster stationed outside the city.

The Giant Mechanical Monster was standing outside the walls, intercepting the projectiles fired by the raid team's siege weapons. It couldn't block all the shells, but it was clearly buying time for the others to conduct repairs and maintenance on the city walls. Perhaps due to the effectiveness of this strategy, the five-headed Aberrant Mechanical Monster was now also standing on the walls, joining the giant in intercepting the incoming projectiles.

Thanks to the cooperation between these two Aberrant monsters, the assault of the siege weapons was becoming less and less effective.

"Guildmaster?" Yoo Seh-Eun called, noticing his eyes fixed on the machines in the distance.

He turned. "Yes. What is it, Miss Seh-Eun?"

"Is the situation just going to stay like this?"

"No, it definitely won't."

Yoo Seh-Eun perked up. "So you think the mechanical monsters will make some sort of move?"

"Nope," he said, shaking his head.

"In that case, will we be making a move first?"

"That's right."

"So the command center has given new orders?"

"I'm afraid not," Kim Ki-Rok said as he slowly turned to face her with a big smile.

Every time he smiled like that, something major had happened.

"Ah... fuck..." Yoo Seh-Eun muttered unconsciously. Trying to ignore the sense of impending doom, she asked, "So what are you up to this time?"