Chapter 71 – Eureka

Chapter 71 – Eureka

I paused for a moment upon hearing the Cellphone speak.

‘Did it react to his scream just now?’

I was half in doubt. Unlike the Villains who could communicate, I had never conversed with a Mutant.

They weren’t in human form. The various The Mans sometimes grumbled as if they were talking, but……

It was because there was no way we could communicate in the first place, and we didn’t have the luxury of having a conversation.

“I need to dig deeper into this…”

I immediately started formulating a plan.

“Minju, I need your help with something.”

* * *

“Hup, hup! Hup!”

The massive Mutant started to flee.

‘I’m alive! I’m alive! I survived!’

When his entire body was crushed by the heavy lumps of iron, he thought he would surely die. But for some reason, the lumps of iron hesitated for a moment.

He took that moment as an opportunity and began to run away.

On the other hand, perhaps because he was from the Creator Race, he quickly recognized the material covering the surface of The Man.

‘The Man was Adamantite!’

Adamantite. It was a material that required immense heat to smelt and was notoriously difficult to obtain.

Even though they were the ones who established the Magitech Civilization, Adamantite was a material that only incredibly high-ranking officials like kings and emperors could barely use, and even then, only for ceremonial purposes.

However, the opponent was using this material normally for military purposes. This was a level that The Man could never even imagine.

“I can’t win. I can never win.”

The Man’s spirit was already completely defeated.

Boom! Thud-thud!

As the lumps of iron began to move again, The Man was startled and started to run even faster.

Even while doing so, he did not stop analyzing the situation.

‘I felt complex mana patterns from those lumps of iron! Those are machines moved by mana… in other words, a type of Artifact!’

Being a creator by nature, The Man, who soon realized the true identity of the Breakers, felt even more helpless.

However, The Man was not one to give up.

‘I have to survive somehow!’

The Man ran to find the spear he used to favor.

Though the battle had raged for a long time, The Man believed that The Man’s mutant body, enhanced with mana, wouldn’t stand a chance against Castle.

“Found it!”

The Man, having found the spear-

Splat!

He channeled mana and brought it down, but…

Clang!

It was no use.

“Is there really nothing I can do against Adamantite?”

The Man was plunged into even deeper despair.

‘I’m giving up the fight! I need to at least escape!’

In the end, The Man completely gave up on the fight and tried to escape multiple times using an artifact, but he failed every single time.

‘He’s much faster than before!’

No matter how skillfully he used the artifact, it was thanks to the Breakers who matched his speed every time, maintaining a similar distance as they followed him.

‘What the hell is this!’

It felt as if his opponent had been going easy on him from the start.

‘I don’t have any more artifacts!’

Just as The Man was running in despair for some time, a short-statured alien was waiting for him directly ahead.

“Is that the main body?”

It was at that moment, as The Man shouted.

Whoosh-

An enormous amount of mana engulfed them, and-

Flash!

The two vanished without a trace.

***

Meanwhile…

“Oh. Is that the window to The Man?”

I was smiling pleasantly, examining each artifact The Man took out. Six artifacts he said he found in this dungeon.

The Mutant tried to fight them one by one, then tried to run away. But it was no match for the heavy Breakers.

‘No… it’s even better.’

I was even grateful.

Because he was frantically finding and using artifacts without me having to go look for them myself.

‘Go on… roll around as much as you can.’

I decided to let him be, especially since it was The Man.

A little later.

“To think there were two more…”

I chuckled, examining today’s harvest.

I got not 6, but 8 artifacts. It seemed there were more artifacts that the previous team hadn’t found.

But that wasn’t all.

I still had the biggest harvest of the day in front of me.

It was the Mutant I had kidnapped with Minju’s Spatial Teleportation.

I turned on the Apoin Translator and started asking questions.

“So, who are you, The Man?”

His eyes widened when an incomprehensible gurgling sound came from the smartphone.

“The Man, is that machine an artifact?”

“Let’s just say it is.”

“I don’t even feel any mana… it’s amazing.”

“Answer the question. Or should I pull out your nerves this time?”

His face turned pale at my words.

“Oh, no! I’m sorry. My name is… Tekteras.”

The Man slowly began to converse.

He was a member of the same race as The Man, a species that was generally devoted to creation in a mild manner.

Starting with The Man, he developed the Magitech Civilization, but at some point, Monsters began to invade. He then became a Villain and fought on the side of the Monsters, achieving victory.

‘Does Mutant mean another race that has become a Villain…?’

I thought silently.

Meanwhile, there were more important questions.

“Are there more Artifacts?”

“No more… but my body is hot! Please, just spare my life!”

‘Tch, has it started now?’

I clicked my tongue.

Since he was a Villain of another race, The Man, I had some hope that he might be different. But it seemed there wasn’t much difference from a human Villain. I pressed The Man further with questions.

“How do you make Artifacts like The Man?”

“I don’t know. But there’s a library owned by the Workshop Guild nearby! The Man, but my body! Please! Something’s wrong!”

The guy who started trembling-

“Please let me go-.”

Paaak!

With a strong impact, the core exploded.

I shook my head.

“It ends up like this again, after all.”

Kidnapping a Villain was something I had done many times in previous rounds.

It was to ask countless questions to The Men who had sided with the Monsters, but not much information was obtained from The Men.

This was because the Villain’s core had a Self-Destruct function, and if I tried to harm the Monsters, it would explode before I could even speak properly, just like this time.

In many cases, when I asked about the conditions for becoming a Villain, the identity of the Monsters, or the goals of The Men, the core would explode the moment The Men opened their mouths.

This time, I deliberately avoided such sensitive questions, and The Man even managed to hold out for quite a while.

Thanks to that, I was able to gain considerable insight.

‘Artifact… so it could be made after all.’

My eyes sparkled.

* * *

Afterward.

We focused on exploring the surroundings for a while.

We spent time clearing out the monsters in the Underground City and exploring the surrounding buildings one by one, but it wasn’t easy since the city was so large.

Rumble-rumble rumble-rumble-rumble-

Meanwhile, Seongjae, who was looking around with me, seemed to suddenly remember something upon hearing the earth-shaking sounds of the Breakers.

“The Spanish bullfighting festival… I’ve always wanted to go!”

It seemed that seeing the Breakers roaming the streets reminded him of the bullfighting festival where enraged bulls charge through the streets.

“Ah! Passionate Spanish ladies!”

“Oh, Seongjae, you’re really disgusting.”

Minju shook her head, laughing at Seongjae.

“Oh, by any chance, Minju, can you take me to Spain?”

“Forget Spain, I’ve never even been to Europe.”

“Ah…”

Seongjae, who had been so disappointed, then-

“Huh? Wait a minute.”

“Why?”

“That building smells like a library.”

“What’s a ‘library smell’…?”

“I may look like this, but I’m an engineering enthusiast. Even though I wasn’t good at school and my academic background is just so-so. I’ve still visited most libraries looking for rare books.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“That building somehow looks like a library.”

After saying that, he suddenly started running towards a building. Then he opened the door and… shouted with a triumphant expression.

“Eureka!”

***

“Why does this place, which looks like a library, smell like that?”

Minju looked at Seongjae with an incredulous expression.

Meanwhile… I couldn’t help but smile contentedly.

‘He’s doing a good job again.’

“Seongjae, I’ll definitely take you to Spain someday.”

“Really?! Seriously!”

He was overjoyed.

I put my hand on Seongjae’s shoulder and said,

“But… you have quite a lot to do right now.”

I explained that we might find a clue to Artifact creation in the library we found, and added that I hoped he would find that clue.

Seongjae understood the situation and began to ask questions.

“Can’t Apoin translate this book?”

“Hmm, the Castle Translation Function works, and text translation works, but… this is a picture, right? It would be difficult unless someone types it on an electronic device.”

“Certainly… I guess so. But then, couldn’t we just create a system to type these characters?”

“Can you do it?”

“Hmm… It’s not my area of expertise. It’s probably related to cryptography or linguistics, I think? We’d also need a programmer. So, I guess… it would be best to take it to Seoul National University, right?”

Seongjae immediately found a solution.

***

In late winter, as winter deepened. Despite the unusually cold winter this year, the shopping district near the Dungeon was bustling with activity.

“Speed Artifact! Cheaper than shoes!”

From merchants with exaggerated advertisements, even though a Speed Artifact could not actually be cheaper than shoes.

“Buying large quantities of Monster Material! We’ll definitely pay more than the shop next door!”

To dealers buying Monster Material.

“Magic stone! Magic stone! Magic stone! Magic stone!”

Or there were merchants who bought and sold Mana Stones, drawing out the pronunciation of “Mana Stone” like the “Chapssal-tteok” vendors in the market.

All of them were…

Artifact Crafters.

A new world was opening up.

I smiled as I watched these people.

‘It’s still not as good as what’s directly obtained from Dungeons, but…’

It was due to the still low level of technology.

The characters used by the Creator Race were ideograms, similar to Chinese characters, and thus had far more variations than phonetic characters.

As a result, it took considerable effort to create a system for inputting them into electronic devices. And then, an enormous amount of manpower was required to input the books later on.

But the results were astonishing. A new market opened up as the method of crafting Artifacts spread.

Due to the lack of technological advancement, the effects weren’t incredibly powerful yet, and the materials required were immense, but for Humanity, struggling against Monsters, this much was more than enough.

Not many people would haggle over their own lives. So, even Artifacts that only slightly increased speed sold like hotcakes, to the point where supply couldn’t keep up with demand.

Of course, it wasn’t without its downsides.

As Artifact crafting and utilization began in earnest, the consumption of Mana Stones surged, causing their price to rise.

Thanks to that, it became a bit harder for me to profit solely from the Mana Stone Refinery as I had been, but it wasn’t a big problem.

This was because the demand for Mithril, Adamantite, and Aetherium also skyrocketed. Along with Worker Bug Coins, the mining rights for these resources belonged solely to me.

So, financially, I was in a much better state. After all, increasing the mana supply was always an option.

More than that, people were becoming more lively.

And I loved how the world was changing.

‘This time, it’s definitely different.’

I grinned.