MIT 77

The road to Takra was both quiet and hectic. In the small aircraft they boarded alone, Joo-oh sat quietly without bothering Mu-hae, but he didn’t keep his mouth still.

“Heu-eung, eu-eueum, heum…….”

He hummed strange tunes that sounded familiar as he looked out the window.

Rustle, munch.

Despite the short amount of time, he reached into his bag several times to take out food.

The palm-sized food, neatly wrapped in paper, was definitely a fried meat sandwich. The unique mustard smell faintly tickled his nose.

It seemed he had packed his bag full of only his favorite things, knowing there wouldn’t be a bag check.

“Waaam, nom…… heu-eum, eu-eu-eung.”

“Either eat or sing, do one.”

“Heu-eum. Does Jin Mu-hae want some too?”

“It’s not like you’re offering, are you?”

Even after being told off, Joo-oh only tilted his head.

For a moment, Mu-hae’s pride was slightly hurt. This guy is supposed to be smarter than anyone?

What Teacher Jung had said floated around in his head, slowly raising his blood pressure. There are other guys to compare me to, why this guy…….

Could it be that he didn’t understand his explanation well enough? Maybe he was politely telling him that his head was just for decoration.

No. Unlike his gentle face and soft tone, Teacher Jung was quite direct in what he said.

He had explained that it was because of the patients whose treated wounds would burst open almost every day if he didn’t accurately convey what they shouldn’t do…….

But that was just self-justification, and according to CEO Gil’s secret history, he didn’t seem to have been a very warm and gentle person in the past either.

So, discomfort welled up for no reason. Whenever Joo-oh did something strange, whenever he spaced out with a blank face, the thought of ‘That guy? Smart?’ would come to mind.

Mu-hae glared at the sandwich offered to him with cold eyes and shifted his gaze to the window. He didn’t want to waste his mental energy on such unproductive thoughts.

Just then, a large island began to appear in the middle of the sea. It was almost time to land.

Shiiing-.

“If you’ve wiped your hands, let’s go down.”

“This.”

“Who are you giving the trash to? Throw it away inside.”

Mu-hae threw a tissue at his sauce-covered hand and pulled the bike out from under the Small aircraft.

Seeing six sandwiches disappear in the blink of an eye, he felt bloated even without eating any.

How many of those did he buy? Following Joo-oh, who was proudly leading the way, to buy the fried meat sandwiches, Mu-hae had been annoyed by the long line and told him to buy them himself, stepping back.

He remembered Joo-oh appearing with a load of them back then. Thinking about whether he should have stopped him in case these, like those disgusting meat skewers, appeared endlessly, he felt a belated regret.

‘At this point, he must be out of money.’

Thanks to his extravagant spending habits, Joo-oh probably had almost no money left.

So, how many more sandwiches could he have bought? He had brought two or three more sets of the quite expensive fruit pies, excluding CEO Gil’s, so at best, it would only be the bundle he had in his hands that day.

Soon, he would be begging Mu-hae for money. Then Jin Mu-hae could put on an act as if he wouldn’t give him any, and watch Joo-oh fidgeting.

“Hehe.”

Not knowing what the other was thinking, Joo-oh wrapped his neatly wiped hands around Mu-hae’s waist and sat on the bike.

He seemed happy to be hugging Mu-hae, letting out a foolish laugh.

Even with stiff equipment wedged between them, he stubbornly stuck close, rubbing his cheek against Mu-hae’s shoulder.

Joo-oh’s unique sweet scent subtly mixed into his breath. It was a fragrant scent, as if he had never put anything like food in his mouth.

“It’s cramped in the back.”

“Don’t touch the emergency rations. If you eat them, I’ll leave you at the shelter.”

“I won’t eat them. And even if you leave me, I’ll follow you.”

“Swim after me, then.”

Finally getting the better of him made his upset stomach feel better. Mu-hae finished the childish banter and drove the bike along the cracked road.

If he quickly visited all three places, he could go to the coordinates on the memo before sunset.

He had no intention of staying another night in Takra. The sooner he could leave work, the better. A well-organized home was, of course, several times more comfortable than the crumbling mattress in the shelter.

Grrr-.

Inserting his hand into the hole in the shelter to activate the power, the house-sized door slowly opened.

Breathing in the stale air flowing from the gap, Mu-hae strode inside.

Flicker. The lights came on, revealing the simple and old interior. Perhaps because it was managed by the Company, it definitely felt less like a ruin than the shelter in Iron Horse Valley.

Jin Mu-hae brought up the request comparison table on his tablet PC and began to examine the facilities essential for survival one by one.

There were no problems with opening and closing the entrance. Even if the opening speed was a bit slow, the closing speed was quite fast when operated manually.

Judging from the deep scratch marks all over the exterior, there might have been an attack. Still, there didn’t seem to be any cracks or collapses.

The lights were fine, and more than half of the emergency rations remained. He couldn’t tell if the soundproofing was working properly, but since it wasn’t on the Company’s checklist, they must have judged that any sane miner would keep quiet.

The camera monitoring the exterior was presumed to be broken. This was also not managed by the Company.

Overall, it was a safe bunker to stay overnight. Getting here was the problem, but there were no major issues with the shelter itself.

“Do you hear any strange noises outside?”

“No.”

“Then go out.”

Joo-oh, who had been bouncing his butt on the old mattress, smacked his lips as if he was disappointed and got up again.

He had been inside for almost 30 minutes, but he said it was already over. It’s not like they came here to play.

Come to think of it, Joo-oh always followed him to work with a look on his face as if he was going somewhere to play. Maybe it was because he was strong and healthy, but he didn’t seem to feel a sense of crisis in most situations.

Only once, when he encountered the Stonemason, did he lose his mind and babble about ‘crushed Jin Mu-hae’…… Joo-oh was an unusually fearless type, even among mercenaries.

The second and third shelters were in almost the same condition. It didn’t seem like the miners used them that often in the first place.

Well, unless they were left stranded in Takra after the plane left, who would bother staying here?

Using this place often meant they were constantly in danger. If crises were that frequent, two or three people would die every month.

“When will we arrive?”

Joo-oh, sitting behind him, put his mouth to his shoulder and mumbled. Even though there was tough leather in between, it felt like his voice was transmitted as a vibration.

Mu-hae didn’t even turn his head and checked the GPS. They were expected to reach their destination after traveling about 1 kilometer further.

[Takra 33.289 126.367]

[I wanted to meet you in person closer, but this seems to be the limit for now.]

The memo he saw in his father’s records kept swirling around in his head.

He strongly felt like he was going there with vain hope, wondering if anything would really be left there.

Whoooo-.

Finally, the bike slowed down, and Mu-hae applied the brakes in front of a gentle hill.

From here, there was no road and native plants grew densely, so they had to walk up.

From the moment he confirmed the coordinates, Mu-hae pulled out the machete he had packed in his bag and swung his arm wide with a whoosh.

The stubbornly growing mutant plants were cut by the sharp metal blade and fell here and there with a thud.

“Wow. A knife.”

“Follow me.”

Mu-hae, who would follow him even if he abandoned him, deliberately grabbed the hem of his clothes and pulled him up.

Each time he got closer to the predetermined location, his heart pounded a little.

Then, finally reaching the spot. Mu-hae frowned slightly at the space where only a lush forest was spread out.

“Do you hear any sounds?”

“No.”

“What about smells?”

“Um. The smell of grass. And Jin Mu-hae.”

In short, there were no suspicious or unusual signs. If Joo-oh said so, then it was so. Jin Mu-hae clicked his tongue softly and looked around.

It was full of grass and trees, but not so dense that light couldn’t enter. The sparse rays of sunset implied that the sun would set soon.

‘It would be better to leave before it gets dark.’

Fortunately, the current location was somewhat far from the Crystal Zone, so no Aberrant reactions were detected.

But there was also the Beast problem, and there was no guarantee that Aberrants only roamed around the Crystal.

He had hurried as much as he could, but the distance between the shelters was quite far, so it ended up being this late. It was better to leave this place and get on the Small aircraft in about an hour at most.

Or spend the night in an uncomfortable shelter.

‘It’s a waste of time.’

Chwaak, Mu-hae swung the machete again, cutting the vines tangled around the area. The fact that thin blades of grass were so tough was probably due to the influence of Crystal Blue.

Even though his vision was clear, he couldn’t find any particularly noticeable signs. As Mu-hae rubbed the back of his neck in disappointment, he heard a short whistling sound in his ear.

It was Joo-oh. He puckered his red lips and made a whistle-like sound. When he turned around, wondering what he was doing, his clear face smiled innocently.

“I just tried it. Haha. It sounds good.”

“Why are you just trying it now, here?”

“There. There’s something there.”

His beautiful and smooth hand pointed to one corner on the left. Even when he followed his gaze, there was nothing particularly visible, but Joo-oh seemed to have found something that Mu-hae hadn’t seen.

Jin Mu-hae walked straight there. Kicking the grass that wrapped around his feet with a loud thud, he approached in one direction, and sure enough, something small was sticking out from among the overgrown weeds.

A long, thin metal object with a slightly rusted exterior. An antenna. Mu-hae immediately bent down and tore away the grass with a rustling sound.

“Yeah. That.”

What was half-buried there was a cylindrical object about the size of an adult’s fist. It was covered in dirt and roots, making it difficult to find unless you looked closely.

On top of it was an antenna about a hand span in size that seemed to have lost its function. This must be the part that Joo-oh found.

Mu-hae carefully picked up the object and wiped the dirty surface with his hand. Then, he looked around and brought the battery he used to open the shelter to the bottom.

Zwooooong.

The device, receiving power, made a strange operating sound, and then a dot of light flashed on the plain surface.

Ziiing! His left wrist vibrated. When Mu-hae quickly checked his Link Watch, a message popped up saying that an unauthorized access request had been transmitted.

“……Damn.”

It was disgustingly suspicious, but there was no need to hesitate any longer. Mu-hae immediately accepted the connection.

At the same time, light burst out from the object he was holding. Paaat, a blurry Hologram Window appeared in front of his eyes, trembling as if it would fall.