episode_0037

“For metal cell treatment, equipment that can first disintegrate the human DNA structure is needed.”

“What? Then you won’t die?”

“It’s similar to an insect pupa.”

“What is a pupa?”

“Ah. I don’t know since the insects are extinct.”

Undine was shown as a hologram.

“The intermediate stage that a larva goes through before becoming an adult is the pupa stage. The larva that becomes a pupa turns into a liquid, leaving only the shell behind.”

“Hmm.”

“Oddly enough, this liquid transforms into a butterfly… an adult, and it retains all of its larval memories.”

“Metal cell treatment is similar to this.”

“Yes. A normal human being is reborn as a human being with metal cells.”

Harmon realized.

‘If this goes wrong even a little bit, I’ll be in trouble?’

And I felt something strange.

“Undine, how do you know this?”

“This is military knowledge.”

“This?”

“Yes. The beginning of metal cells was the mass production of superhuman soldiers.”

“Hmm. Why? You can just use robots. Or machines. They must have the technology to do that. The technology to completely replace humans.”

Undine nodded at Harmon’s words.

“There is plenty. But only in countries that have that much money.”

“Ah.”

“Because humans are cheap. Poor countries joined hands to research superhumans made of metal cells, hoping to maintain military power and operate the military cheaply while achieving machine-like performance.”

“I see. I understand.”

Humans are cheap.

It was really easy for Harmon to understand.

As the saying goes, humans are cheap. Perhaps the world is cheaper now.

“Okay. If there are metal cells, then there must be a machine inside here that can perform metal cell treatments. I hope it’s okay.”

“Lucky and I will search. You can go about your business as usual, Master. We will do all the hard work.”

At Undine’s words, Harmon smiled and patted her head.

“Okay. Please take care of it.”

Undine smiled faintly as she felt Harmon’s attitude become softer than before.

* * *

During the day, Harmon went up to work as usual.

Normally, it would be time to conduct various research with Lucky, but now that he had the metal cells in his hands, there was something more important than conducting metal cell experiments with Lucky.

Finding a machine that can perform metal cell treatment on Harmon.

Because it was created through collaboration between many countries and because they secretly conducted additional experiments separately with their allies, there were various ways to implant metal cells into humans.

However, the best method was still the cocoon procedure that Undine had mentioned.

A procedure that unravels the DNA structure, adds metal cells to it, and reassembles it back into an original human being.

It may seem like the most dangerous method, but it is actually the most reliable, and with the right equipment, it has a 100% success rate.

“Let’s take a look over there today, lucky you.”

“King!”

Luck is someone who finds human speech annoying and responds by barking like an animal.

“Speak human language.”

“Arrr.”

“Please do it.”

“Yes… .”

“Well done. Okay, here’s the reward.”

The lucky one who receives the sausage that Candy made and throws it to him and eats it deliciously.

“Yum yum.”

“If you listen well, you will get more rewards. Remember that.”

“Yeah!”

“He clearly lived for 340 years, but how did he live?”

“Um.”

Lucky thought as he and Undine cleared away the debris blocking the door.

“I opened my eyes in the dark. I was underground.”

“It was an underground facility. Is it an artificial creature?”

“There was a father and a mother.”

“Hmm. It wasn’t an artificial life form. So it really was born with metal cells as a result of mutation.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought maybe your biological parents didn’t actually exist.”

“???”

I was lucky enough to receive a sudden slap, but I didn’t suffer much damage because I didn’t have the intelligence to understand the slap and didn’t have the emotions.

I just felt a little bit bad.

“My father was badly injured. So he died quickly.”

“I see.”

“I lived with my mom. Um. Until I grew up about 10 times.”

“Until I was 10. I understood. What happened after that?”

“My mom tried to eat me. So I ate it.”

“I see.”

“And I came out because I was frustrated. I came out and just lived. There were a lot of people attacking me. There were a lot of machines.”

Lucky’s life journey was simple.

A fight for survival. A fight that is fought without knowing that his body is made of metal cells, or that he has the ability to extract metal cells from the extremities of his body.

Fight after fight.

Then, after he discovered that he could extract metal cells, he created a bio-suit to strongly camouflage his appearance.

“My body didn’t grow after that.”

“Indeed. The short stature is a side effect of using the bio-suit for a long time. The body is under pressure and cannot grow.”

“I see.”

“It’s a bad habit to pretend to understand something when you don’t.”

“Your words are too difficult.”

“You’re not stupid. If you study more, you’ll understand.”

As we talked, we cleared away all the debris blocking the door.

“Hmm. The entrance is twisted.”

“There are many places like this.”

“Yes, let’s clean it up.”

With those words, Undine grabs the twisted door and slams it shut.

Kkuuguguguguk!!

There was a creepy sound of metal being forcibly twisted as a huge force was applied.

“Ugh!”

Lucky cowered in fear at the sound, and Undine slowly ripped the entire metal door off.

“ done.”

“That big robot.”

“Huh?”

“Tank.”

“Yes. That’s crab meat.”

“I think I could have caught it by myself.”

“It’s a crowd.”

“Really?”

“Yes, that’s strong. In fact, if you and Candy hadn’t bought me time when I overheated, I would have been hit before I cooled down.”

The two people who entered the room first had Undine scan the surroundings and make emergency repairs to the damaged electrical wiring to restore electricity to the core in the basement.

“Yes, it’s fixed. Please lift the lever.”

“Yeah.”

Lucky grabs the lever and lifts it. Kuung! A heavy sound is heard and the lights come on in the large room.

Lucky closed his eyes as a bright light suddenly struck him, and Undine turned over the nearest piece of debris to examine what was underneath.

There were human bones there, the lower body bones turned to dust.

“The equipment needed for the cocoon procedure is quite large, so let’s quickly search only the places where large equipment is likely to be hidden.”

“Yeah.”

After quickly scanning the room, he leaves for another room.

The search progressed very quickly, as Undine had the luck of having tenacious stamina that did not require rest, and they succeeded in searching more than half of Area 2 in just one day.

However, there was a problem.

“Since it is a facility that mainly researches machines, there are no facilities for humans except for living facilities.”

According to the information Harmon found, the lab exists for the purpose of defining machines as independent living organisms.

Perhaps metal cells also have that purpose.

‘I guess they were trying to see if machines based on metal cells could become independent life forms. However, since there were no metal cells other than that one and they were poorly managed, it seems like they failed and left the remaining metal cells behind.’

Metal cells were initially developed for military purposes, and after the Allied collapse and the recipe for making them was lost, they were sold expensively to the rich as an elixir of longevity.

The metal cells in this lab must also be worth ten million gold coins.

It wasn’t hidden in an important place, and I could tell that it was managed roughly since I only found it after a quick search.

“Hmm. I guess we’ll need another solution.”

She could have given up like this, but Undine didn’t want to do that.

“How?”

“If there is no way out of this basement, we should look outside. Candy, this is Undine. Candy.”

As soon as Undine sent the signal, Candy quickly received it.

[Hello! Senior Undine! What’s going on?]

Candy’s lively voice is heard directly by Undine’s artificial intelligence core.

“Are you busy now?”

[Um, the meeting just ended and now it’s free time! Flora is busy managing the expanded village these days! A rather large group came in recently!]

“I see. Do you have any other work to do?”

[Yes! I already took care of it!]

“Okay. If you don’t mind, could you send me some information about the medical facilities in the Guldari Guild?”

[There will be some information sent to the owner!]

“Yes, I just looked into it.”

As she spoke, Undine, who was looking at the data, explained again.

“I want information about the medical facility itself, not information gained from using the medical facility in the Guldari Guild.”

[Hmm. Wait a minute. Given my previous behavior patterns, it seems odd for me to be so close to a medical facility.]

“Isn’t there another way?”

[If there is no way, then make it! It is for the master, right?]

“Yes.”

[I will definitely do it!]

With those words, a SD Candy hologram appeared in front of Undine’s eyes, striking a salute pose while winking and waving hearts.

Undine, who saw that, smiled and sent a holographic greeting to Candy as well.

* * *

“Hoohoohoo.”

Candy contacted the SD Undine hologram that appeared in front of her, greeting her politely.

‘Isaiah.’

Let’s convey the message without using our mouths so that it would be awkward if someone overheard the conversation. Isaiah, who received the signal, hurriedly received Undine’s call.

[Uh, yeah. What’s going on?]

“Are you okay? You seem surprised.”

[No. I’m training my subordinates right now. Why?]

‘Please help me!’