episode_0078

‘I made a mistake.’

After a huge uproar that was difficult to ignore even for a small town like Guldari, where hundreds of people died in a short period of time, Pop admitted his failure.

‘I thought I’d be fine if I just got the gist of how to make drugs, but who would’ve thought I’d see it with my own eyes and imitate it? Even though it was crude.’

I’ve never dealt with people before.

You see, in the old town, Pop was more like a drug-making slave.

‘I’m excited. Yeah. If I hold onto everything, there’s a problem. I share it with my subordinates, let them go… Anyway, this isn’t how you treat people.’

It failed. I found out why.

Then you can learn and reflect, and then you can put it to use next time.

If there is a problem.

‘I don’t think there will be a next time.’

Beyond simply destroying the brain as a side effect, we were hunting down the people who were making the kind of drugs that were destroying the brain from the start.

The detection speed was so fast that even if they hid in places that were not captured by the camera, they would catch them one by one. Fortunately, Pop felt unmarried right after the drug war broke out and went into hiding, so he was not caught… … .

‘I’m sure he’ll get caught soon.’

Harmon.

Pop knew how sophisticated the leader was behind his brazen antics, such as getting into a hand-to-hand fight with a powered suit guy in the middle of town.

Did you say that you used to live close to being a slave to the Guldari Guild?

‘If you look at the speed at which Guldari Village developed, it must have already had this much power back then.’

Pop, who didn’t know about the existence of the basement, couldn’t help but think so.

Why did he hide such great power and remain a quiet slave?

‘He would have tried to take over everything in the village at the most opportune time. If he could easily endure humiliation for that, he would not have just quietly left me, the one who could be said to be the cause of this incident where some of the villagers were massacred.’

You can’t run away from the village.

The wall was a barrier that protected the village from outside machines, but it was also a prison that prevented the villagers from ever going outside.

This village was his garden.

The people living in the village were like the flowers in the garden he grew.

Those whom he likes are well taken care of. He gives them money, buildings, work, and subordinates.

Those who are not to your liking are weeded out. They are uprooted and disappear.

‘Where should I go. Where should I go… … .’

The fear of being in the clutches of the devil. Pop wanted to escape anywhere. Anywhere was fine.

But, in the end, I got caught.

“Huh! Did you get caught when you crossed the barrier?!”

The barrier has doors for internal maintenance, except for the heavily used entrances, which are maintained by Safe Maker.

Pop gave the manager some drugs and money and hid inside the second barrier… but did he get caught on camera? A drone follows him.

Pop turned around in a panic when he saw the drone’s gun aimed at him, and the bullet fired by the drone grazed Pop’s side.

“Bam!”

Flesh is torn off and blood pours out.

But Pop kept running.

Normally, it would be normal to be unable to move due to shock and pain, but Pop, who manufactured drugs every day and gradually became addicted to drugs, had dulled his senses compared to an average person.

He had already remodeled various parts of his body with the money he had earned in advance.

The best thing about the establishment of Dahlia General Hospital is that it allows us to implant machines with minimal side effects on the body.

When Pop learned that mechanical transplants were possible without side effects, he spent money in advance to replace his own joints with machines, added separate signals to his muscles to speed up their reactions, and injected a substance that sent pleasure signals to his brain so that his body could ignore danger signals and move violently.

‘The inside of the second wall is a place where Harmon, during his early days of domination, was developed in a way that captivated people’s hearts by demonstrating his construction skills! It’s more complicated than the third wall!’

Drones were probably closing in on them from all sides, but the only way to escape was to run wildly through these complicated alleyways.

Pop, who was running with his body twisted in a hurry and almost fell over, activated the cylinder built into the palm of his hand.

Boom!

A metal bar shot out from his palm and hit the floor, and Pop, who had been raised by the impact, started running again. Electricity kept tingling from the signals inserted into his joints and muscles, making his whole body tingle.

The reckless movement of the machine would certainly leave behind great aftereffects later on, and even now, blood was gushing from his nose, but Pop couldn’t pay any attention to it.

After running and running like that.

Kwajik!

The drone chasing Pop was suddenly destroyed.

“Huh?”

“[Flora, I found it.]”

A man who had reached out from the side of the alley and destroyed the drone walks out with a voice mixed with a strong mechanical sound and stands in front of Pop.

“[But there are a lot of drones.]”

The man was wearing a powered suit, but unlike the armor-like powered suits that Harmon made, it had a very thin design that left the body’s lines vivid.

[Can you get out?]

“[It’s difficult. Drones… Turrets… . I don’t think we can hide the traces at all.]”

[Then let’s just make sure the video data isn’t detected. Let’s give up on hiding our traces.]

“[Okay.]”

A man who was talking to someone, then got down on one knee in front of Pop and brought his face close to him.

“[Hey.]”

“Who, who are you?”

As he approached, Pop noticed that he was shorter than he had thought. In terms of physique, he seemed to be more like a teenager than a grown man.

“[If you want to live, follow me. In return, help us fuck that pig.]”

“… … ?”

Pig. It wasn’t hard to figure out who he was talking about.

Although it was absurd to call Hamon a pig physically, judging by the hostility in his tone, it seemed like the truth wasn’t important to him.

“… … .”

“[Hmm. Hey, I’m trying to kill you. What are you thinking about?]”

“If I join your hands, I don’t think I’ll be successful. I want to make money. If I can get a position in this Guldari Village, I’ll be happy for the rest of my life.”

Pop said through gritted teeth.

“I’m sorry, but I have no merit in being with you.”

“[Are you being honest about that?]”

“This is a reward for saving my life. Think carefully. President Harmon has everything. Science, technology, power… and above all, hope. The hope that I can live happily and like a human being in this world. ”

All the people of Guldari Village are people who have been deceived by that hope.

There are many reasons for Harmon’s absolute power, but above all else, his hopes were great.

You don’t have to fear that you will be attacked and killed by a machine.

You don’t have to worry about when the accumulated pollutants in your body will explode and make you sick or poisoned and die.

If you work hard, you can earn money in proportion to the amount of work you do, and if you earn money, you can enjoy life in proportion to the amount of money you earn.

“You can buy food. You can buy clothes. You don’t have to carry around that heavy baggage. You can drink alcohol, laugh and have fun with friends. You can have fun with safe women who don’t have STDs, and most of all, you can have your own home, your own nest.”

This hope is also embedded in the capitalism that Harmon built by throwing money around.

Hard work pays off.

Labor has its rewards.

It is different from the ordinary life where you don’t get any rewards for your efforts and your lifespan is shortened even if you work hard. Every drop of sweat you shed helps you move forward toward a positive future.

“You can do this? Huh? I see you’re trying to be an enemy of President Harmon. You’re only thinking about destroying this town? Then you’re an idiot.”

No matter how much I hate it, no matter how much I hate it.

“If you have even a little bit of brain power, you should just hold it in and just sit there. Isn’t that right?”

“[… … .]”

The man, who had been scratching his chin with his finger for a moment, said:

“[You know, you idiot.]”

Kwajik!

“[If that’s the case, you should have been working instead of selling drugs. You ended up getting in trouble for being greedy, so don’t talk like you’re so great.]”

The man’s fist struck Pop’s head, and Pop, unconscious, was dragged towards the man.

* * *

“He disappeared from here.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Are there any cameras around? I tried my best to make sure there were no blind spots.”

“I checked, but it seems like someone has spread out a field and blocked the view from the surrounding cameras.”

In the video data that Undine provided, the area around where the incident occurred was dark and invisible.

“… … .”

“If the camera had entered the field, it would have been able to transmit video data, but unfortunately the drone was destroyed beforehand, so the data could not be retrieved.”

“Haa. I installed cameras mainly on the wall, so this is the problem… . I thought I could cover the rest with drones and robots.”

“Yes. I never thought someone could destroy a drone with one blow.”

“Yeah. I think there’s someone with a higher level of skill than I figured out.”

Harmon thought for a moment.

“Well, it would be Flora.”

“Yes.”

“Information will be updated next time Candy goes to deliver it, so I guess I’ll have to wait until then.”

Harmon gestured.

“You know the drug content of pop, right?”

“I know.”

“Track the drug ingredient, because they might be messing with it.”

“Okay, master.”