Chapter 19
Episode 19 [Cheonggyecheon (1)]
The sky over the ruined city was very cloudy, as if it was about to rain.
The Namdaemun Market sign was still on the ground, and only a few bone fragments remained of the lizard monster’s corpse.
Kyung-hoon checked the disappeared lizard monster and quickened his pace.
The disappearance of the body meant that there were monsters inside this building that were eating lizard monsters down to their bones.
Because the Awakened Center was buried, it came through the gates of Namdaemun Market. But this place wasn’t safe either. It was difficult to find a safe place in this city.
After checking the navigation, Kyunghoon started walking northeast. It was in the direction of Cheonggyecheon.
He was planning to head to the [Item Manufacturing Complex] located in Cheonggyecheon 3-ga.
After learning the location of the Awakened facilities at the Awakened Center, he wondered whether to go to the [Awakened Training Center] or the [Item Manufacturing Complex].
[Awakened Training Center] was quite attractive, but unfortunately, the training center was located south of the Han River. It was too far away, and I couldn’t tell what condition the Han River and the Han River bridge were in.
Kyung-hoon decided to go to the nearby [Item Manufacturing Complex] first.
If you started from the Awakened Center near City Hall, you could easily get there, but you had to go 1km from Namdaemun Market.
Still, it was a distance that could easily be reached before evening.
Of course, if there are no special interruptions.
Patter.
However, as soon as I left the Namdaemun Market building, it started to rain.
“It’s raining.”
Kyung-hoon faced the rain with a curious expression. The rain was no different from the other world. But he couldn’t keep getting hit like this. Kyung-hoon
took out a raincoat and put it on over his clothes.
As expected, the priest was good. The dampness wasn’t that different, but it was much better than the poncho raincoat. It was good to move.
It was when I put on my raincoat and tried to walk again.
Pud-pap-pap.
Countless wings were heard in the sky, and the dark sky became even darker. Surprised, Kyung-hoon looked up at the sky.
“Is it a flock of birds?”
Numerous birds were flying this way. Kyung-hoon was able to see them with his enhanced eyes.
‘They were inside the building, right?’
They resembled the flying squirrels that were rarely seen inside the Namdaemun building. They were flying in groups of tens of thousands or more.
‘Could it be possible to fly?’
With that number, it seemed like they could eat dinosaurs, not just lizards.
Gyeong-hoon started running in the rain. It seemed like there wouldn’t be any bones left if he stayed near the Namdaemun Market building. It wasn’t the time
when they were coming back, but the rain made it hard for them to leave the house. It seemed to be returning.
At that time, the flying ones suddenly scattered in all directions.
Flash!
At the same time, lightning fell from the clouds. Strangely, the lightning did not fall to the ground, but hit a flock of flying squirrels.
Beep!
Screams filled the sky . The sound rang, and hundreds of flying squirrel monsters fell down.
At that time, a huge monster appeared through the clouds. It was a monster that looked like a dragon from a fantasy movie.
Including the wings, it was a monster that was tens of meters long. Monster. The sight of the monster descending looked like a large airliner falling vertically.
Sparks were still flying from the monster’s forehead, its mouth grew incomprehensibly large,
and the monster snatched up the falling little guys and went back into the clouds. .
It seemed as if a typhoon had passed.
Gyeong-hoon looked up at the sky blankly. In the clouds, at first glance, huge black shadows were moving.
“It’s a ridiculous world, after all.”
As I got stronger, my confidence, which had grown slightly, shrunk again. Here he had no choice but to realize once again that he was a weakling.
After a while, the little monsters that had dispersed flocked into the building again, and Kyung-hoon carefully walked away from the building.
The sound of the rain masked the sound of him moving, but he was as careful as he could.
That afternoon,
“Is this really Cheonggyecheon?”
Kyung-hoon stood next to the remaining road and looked at the navigation and the road alternately.
Cheonggyecheon was definitely supposed to be here. Although it is made of cement, there should be a river, but what you see in front of you is just a road.
Plus, there are overpasses that are broken here and there. No matter where you looked, it was just a downtown street.
Kyunghoon scratched his head.
‘Could it be that Cheonggyecheon collapsed before it was restored to a stream?’
For Gyeong-hoon, who did not know the exact time of restoration, it was just something unknown.
The right answer was to put off unknown matters first. Kyung-hoon compared the address number on the navigation system with the actual location.
He looked around with a frown and sighed when he saw the ground full of rubble.
The item manufacturing complex in Cheonggyecheon 3-ga was filled with only the remains of collapsed buildings.
It was the remains of a building that looked even more depressing due to the pouring rain.
“How can I be so lucky?”
The first building we arrived at, and the Awakened Center we arrived at next, maintained their form. Thanks to that, we were able to get some useful things…
Moreover, whether it was because of the rain or because we moved carefully, there were monsters on the way here. I was able to avoid encountering it even once. But there was no way that luck would last.
‘If I had known this would happen, I would have headed straight to the Han River.’
Sighing deeply, Kyung-hoon walked towards the pile of buildings. Now that he was here, he had to salvage something.
Time passed. Fortunately, there were no monsters in sight, nor was there anything useful.
In the end, Kyung-hoon was about to give up, but at the last moment, he headed toward the half-collapsed basement. He saw a staircase. It seemed like his luck wasn’t over yet. But Kyung-hoon couldn’t go down the stairs right away.
‘It couldn’t be a trap or something, right?’
Because of what happened to him once at the Awakened Center, he couldn’t help but be suspicious of this passageway.
He kept glaring at the stairs. He stared at it for a while, but at some point he let out a laugh.
“You idiot. “Are you scared?”
He pounded his head with his fist.
The wall seemed to have gotten smaller because of the sight I saw in the morning.
There was no need to come to this world to worry about these things. There was no need to buy a factory, and it was enough to live normally with the money from selling gold bars.
Kyung-hoon took off his raincoat and checked his weapon.
Holding a pistol with an empty magazine and a long sword with an engraved pattern in both hands. I checked the dagger at my waist.
Inside the backpack was the shotgun I bought last time, and several homemade bombs were also packed and prepared.
And, some additional equipment.
Preparations were elaborate.
Kyung-hoon checked the silencer on the front of the pistol once again and started going down the stairs.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The stairs were cold and damp. Water continued to flow down the walls and ceiling of the half-collapsed staircase.
‘Is it because of the rain?’
It felt like entering a deep cave.
Kyung-Hoon went down the stairs and tilted his head.
‘Isn’t this a staircase that survived by chance?’
There were traces of tampering with the pile of buildings that partially blocked the stairs.
Traces of being broken by force and traces of being cut with tools. Although it was a rough mark, it was not a naturally occurring mark.
‘Who broke through here after it collapsed?’
Unfortunately, it was not a recently created trace, but the traces left after the building collapsed gave me a bit of hope.
Kyunghoon’s steps became a little faster.
The stairs that seemed long have come to an end. The stairs led to a small, half-open door.
Of course, there was no light here either. Kyunghoon carefully checked the inside of the door.
[Cheonggyecheon Item Mall]
[B2F]
Thanks to the sign next to the door, Kyung-hoon knew that he had come to the right place.
The hallway looked quite dangerous. There were cracks in the walls and large and small holes in the floor and walls.
But fortunately, the wide doors on both sides of the hallway were intact. These were the large doors often seen in factory-type buildings.
[Same type blacksmith]
[Create SS-class jackpot items. Yushin]
[Seongil Hi-Tek Co., Ltd.]
[Silla Blacksmith]
[…]
Various business names ranging from childish names to old names were written on the doors.
Fortunately, it seemed like I had come to the right place. These are objects with patterns engraved on them. It was clear where the items were made.
‘Surely this won’t be a disaster either?’
Although I managed to get the bag on my back, only empty stores remained at the Awakened Center. He did not feel relieved even after seeing the names spread out before his eyes.
Kyung-hoon carefully moved down the hallway. Unlike the stairs, the hallways did not have water flowing, but they were still damp.
The doors were all rusted, and the floor was sticky with a slime that seemed to have been made from rusty iron doors.
Kyung-hoon avoided the holes and approached the first door.
[Dong-type blacksmith shop]
Fortunately, the half-closed door was easily opened.
Although it was collapsed and had holes in many places, the appearance inside was not that different from the blacksmith shop he knew.
On one side, there was a fire pit with a thick chimney for blowing out the fire, and it was full of various tools.
Gyeonghoon immediately searched the blacksmith shop.
“Oh, there it is!”
Gyeonghoon was soon able to find items with patterns engraved on them. There were piles of items with patterns on one side of the blacksmith shop. After looking at the items with joy, Gyeonghoon was soon disappointed. Unfortunately, the items
here
were not normal items. .
The pattern engraved on the shield was not completely engraved, and the spear with the pattern engraved on it was greatly bent.
“Are they broken or made-up items?”
It was very disappointing, but it wasn’t bad for a first income.
Although they were not proper items, they were useful in and of themselves with the patterns engraved on them. You could study the patterns, or scrape them off and recycle them.
Kyung-hoon stuffed the items with the patterns on them into his backpack one by one.
Amazingly, this backpack allows you to take out the items you want right away, so it doesn’t matter how you put them in.
With his regrets behind him, Kyung-hoon moved to the next shopping mall one by one.
There were doors that couldn’t be opened and stores that were completely buried. However, many shopping malls maintained their original appearance. Some of the shops had modern machine tools and some blacksmith shops remained.
Kyung-hoon searched the shopping mall one by one and eventually became angry.
“What on earth happened? Why is there nothing left but junk!”
All the things he could find in the shopping malls were incomplete.
The owner may have taken them all with him when he left, but some tools that seemed important were still there. Traces of what he had
seen on the stairs came to Kyung-hoon’s mind. Someone had blocked the wall. A trace that passed through.
“Surely that person took it?”
I was happy to have found traces, but the results were actually disappointing.
He sighed and entered the inner shopping mall without any expectations.
The shopping mall looked dangerous and had holes in many places, but the items remained intact.
Tools, objects with broken patterns and drawings.
Kyunghoon cheered. There was a drawing.
“As expected, there was one. There’s no way you wouldn’t have a blueprint to make something.”
He ran to where the drawings were and started checking them one by one.
This time, there was no need to be disappointed.
They were all correct drawings. They were drawings with the dimensions and patterns of various items drawn. He
looked at the drawings with excitement . He suddenly stopped moving.
Cuo! Cuo!
An unfamiliar sound was heard.
The sound was not coming from just one place. Kyung-hoon’s eyes rolled to the side.
The sound was coming from a hole in the wall. And then, to this place. This wasn’t the only place that had holes on the way.
“Where did the hole lead to?” In the darkness. Cheonggyecheon, which was covered in the past and now buried underground. Many toad monsters that had been sleeping there opened their eyes at the instructions of their owners.
Kkuok! Kkuok!
– An intruder came in.
The owner . At his command, some of the toads began to move, and one of the scouts who was resting stood up. A
scaly monster with a thick, long tail, an elongated mouth, two thick legs, and strong arms began to move.
Boom. Boom.
2 meters away. As the monster moved with its sword in hand, the toad monsters stepped aside.
– Check the intruder and kill it!
The owner’s voice was heard.