Rust - Chapter 598



Only Krnovel

RUST -598

Naru gave the order to rescue at least one more clone that had been pushed inside.

“Everyone, come back. Stop what you’re doing and come back!”

Naru was ready to start over again for the incentive. Her strong focus and obsession became a mental wave that forced the clones to move.

The order to stop what they were doing and come back was the same as telling them to stop fighting and retreat for a while.

When the order was given, most of the clones were engaged in close combat with swarms of rats, and in such a situation, the only thing that should have been done very carefully was to retreat, which was the beginning of a tragedy.

The clones were armed with a Karimbit knife made from rebar and monster claws, and a custom-made .45 caliber submachine gun, but they were powerless when faced with the sudden order to retreat.

Jeeeeek! (They’re running away!)

Crap! (Catch meeeeeeeee!)

It wasn’t a monster rat that would just watch the disorderly retreat.

The rats lived in the dark culvert, constantly killing and dying with the rats and cockroaches from other areas. The information and knowledge accumulated at the countless crossroads of life and death whispered.

‘The prey that runs away must be pursued.’

The moment the enemy they were fighting turned their backs, the rats whispered that the enemy was no longer an enemy but prey, and attacked the retreating clones. Tenaciously and viciously.

“What? Why is this all you have?”

Naru frowned at the sight of several battered clones.

More than 30 went in, but only 9 retreated?

I didn’t tell you to fight, I told you to retreat, but you can’t do that?

Are these incompetent creatures clones made from my DNA?

Her irritation turned into a mental wave and was directed at the clone.

Brrrr-

One of the clones, his helmet removed and covered in chewed and torn scars, trembled as if he had a fever.

Naru felt extremely uncomfortable. Not only did she look like a beggar, but she also looked like she had been chewed by a rat and spit it out, and she was trembling.

Brrrrrr-

Naru was dumbfounded when he saw the clone having a seizure. What good did he do by changing the table top?

Tsk-

‘This is fucking crazy. This is fucking crazy.’

If it were the first time, I would have asked them to scrap it and make a new one, but now there was an incentive at stake.

“Take that guy floating over there to the medical team. Turn in your tactical camera and disperse.”

They were clones carrying out a trembling clone on a stretcher.

Limp, limp.

Staggering.

Even just looking at it, the clone states are a bit bad, but…

Anyway, since I’m alive, I’ll probably do well in the performance evaluation.

Major Brooks looked at the tactical camera footage and thought he was going crazy.

‘You’re crazy. What on earth did you learn?’

Even though they shortened the training period, they said they completed the OTS (Officer Candidate School) course. What is the judgment on that now?

Is this a human wave tactic by the Chinese army? Human wave tactic is only possible when you have that many troops. Are you just going to push in a platoon-sized force like you are doing now and end it?

It wasn’t like we secured an entry point. It wasn’t like we secured an entry route through force reconnaissance either. We just crumpled it up.

‘The clone’s fighting power was better than expected, so they did well.’

The clones in the combat footage were showing considerable fighting prowess. Considering that this was their first real combat, it was surprising.

Although the need for clones was emphasized in the Imperial High Command, there was actually a lot of skepticism about clone troopers in the military.

Let’s say that forcing them to grow to the size of a 16-18 year old in 6-8 months is true, because there are many animals that grow almost to their full size in 6-8 months.

But just because you’re big doesn’t mean you can become a soldier.

They had to be able to understand orders coming from above, assess the current situation, and flexibly apply the results to operations.

Even if a clone that was only 6-8 months old had such a high-level judgment ability, the problems were just beginning.

Firearms training? How to drive a vehicle? Survival knowledge? Squad, platoon, company tactics?

With so much to learn, how much longer will it take to train?

As if to prove that this conservative military’s thinking was wrong, memory extraction technology and the technology to refine, process, and inject extracted memories were developed. The clones quickly learned the injected technologies based on the main body’s memories.

Major Brooks submitted his opinion along with footage of clone combat to his superiors.

“Although the main body with command authority has problems with memory and judgment, when looking at each clone individually, I evaluate that they have considerably excellent combat capabilities.”

[Do you think clones can replace regular soldiers?]

“If we only consider individual combat power, it seems that the odds of victory would be high even if you fought a soldier armed with an exosuit alone. However, there is not enough data to judge what to do in a large-scale battle.”

[Individual combat ability… I understand. I will report that it is premature to reorganize around clone troopers, so you should keep a close eye on it.]

“All right.”

The military could not abandon its characteristically conservative views.

This was because stability and reliability were life and death issues for the military. Therefore, no matter how cutting-edge a weapon was, if its stability and reliability were not certain, it was reluctant to be introduced.

So it was difficult to accept the idea of ​​replacing the main force with a clone made with a cloning technology that suddenly appeared.

‘There is an element of anxiety.’

Looking at the scenes where they pass off tasks to each other and hesitate to enter despite having overcome the fear of death, it seems that it is still premature.

‘The fact that it wasn’t properly controlled despite the presence of a squad leader is also a problem. The fact that it didn’t respond immediately even though the main body gave orders is also a problem.’

Properly trained soldiers were quick to respond to orders. The clones replaced that training process with memory implants, which could have led to errors in actual combat.

‘Executing orders can be corrected through training, but… The main body’s command is not good. Did you ignore the fact that you learned that retreating increases damage?’

If you didn’t learn it, it means the problem of the shortened curriculum is serious, and if you learned it but ignored it, there was no answer.

‘It was hopeless to push in with human wave tactics, and now they are retreating without thinking.’

Major Brooks was the one who wrote the performance evaluation scores with a lot of emotion. If there is no dramatic turnaround, he will receive a pretty strong financial treatment.

======

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To confirm Hee-yeon’s story that clones seem to form an ego, Maru, who had psychometry performed, asked about the results.

“What did Erica say?”

“They say that the ego is not certain, but memories are accumulating.”

What is self? A question that has been talked about and criticized for a long time, and is likely to become a bombshell at any time. Can we say that AI Diana and Samantha have self?

There was a case of Tria that was so bad that it was hard to say that it had no ego. The artificial intelligence Tria tried to help Dr. Jack Neese even at the risk of being disposed of.

If AI were simply a product of artificial circuits and programs, this would not have happened, and so the problem continued.

If AI has a self, what about clones?

The answer to this question was in order.

What would it mean for Ki-soon, who had memories pasted into a clean body made by cloning using virtual reality, to question whether the clone has a sense of self or not?

If it doesn’t exist, then in a broad sense, the existence of Ki-sun would also be denied, and on the contrary, if it does exist, then the idea of ​​the clone with Director Yoo as its main body would also have to change.

“······.”

“why?”

Maru, who was hesitant to bring up the story, looked at Gi-sun.

“······.”

“The way you look at me is wicked, Your Majesty.”

Don’t worry about it. It’s just Ki-soon being a brat.

Maru answered with strength in his eyes that had been vaguely open.

“What would you like to do with the clones?”

“The ones that Hee-yeon intercepted from the Empire? Or the ones that were just born?”

But Heeyeon is treated separately.

As Maru nodded, Ki-soon shrugged.

“That’s for the King to decide. If we try to approach it philosophically or classify it psychologically, there will be endless controversy. It’s a topic that is constantly debated even among scholars. And in a broader sense, it’s also my job. So it’s not easy to judge objectively.”

“······.”

As Maru’s silence grew longer, Ki-sun added to the story.

“If you put aside everything else and look only at it from the perspective of profit and loss, then clones should not be treated as persons.”

It didn’t mean that they weren’t individuals, nor that they didn’t have egos, but that they ‘should not be treated as such.’ The moment you say that clones have egos, their utility is bound to decrease.

Why did Hee-yeon connect to the clone? It was for battle. She linked to fight in place of her younger body. In other words, she used the clone to go to dangerous places and do dangerous things.

But what if we acknowledge the clone’s ego? Hee-yeon’s link was an act of stealing the body of a clone with an ego, and it was just a matter of forcing it into battle.

“So I was thinking, why don’t we start by picking more of me?”

There was no sign that the shortage of administrative personnel would be resolved in the short term. Even though assistant AI was helping, humans were absolutely necessary for important tasks, including administrative work.

Natural disasters could paralyze AI, and power grids could be disrupted for a variety of reasons.

If an unexpected accident were to occur while all work was being carried out with artificial intelligence, the entire national administration could collapse from a single accident.

So, since he had already thrown away his body, Ki-sun was seriously considering extracting his own clone and deploying it to each task.

“If you were to pick me, wouldn’t it be me? If it were me, no matter how many people I pick, if you explained the current situation, I’d understand.”

“······.”

“I told you last time. If you die and are ‘resurrected’, your memories may be the same, but it’s hard to get the same specs as you have now.”

As a result of calculating with a quantum computer and a bunch of grapes, it was said that if Maru himself were to die, his memories would remain the same, but his abilities would likely be at rock bottom.

“So I thought about it in a different way. What if a clone with half of your abilities came out? When I thought about it that way, it seemed okay.”

“what?”

Maru opened his mouth wide at Ki-sun’s sudden story.

“Honestly, if we could only extract 10% of the King’s fighting power, wouldn’t that be no joke? That would be even more true for Kim Yang, who relies on firearms as his main weapon.”

“······.”

“So, if the King, Miss Kim, and I were to select about 100,000 people and put them to work, our hearts would feel splendid and the problems of administrative vacuum and military reinforcement would be solved. What do you think?”

“···crazy.”

“No. Your Majesty. Let’s think realistically. When you say ‘100,000 Maru,’ you get a strong feeling. A heart-pounding sound. Isn’t that ‘100,000 Maru?’?”

“So, let’s go with 100,000 Maru, 200,000 Kim Yang, and 1 million Ki Sun?”

Ki-soon changed the subject slightly at Maru’s look that said, ‘Are you really crazy?’

“Even if you don’t do it, you should prepare for what you can do. You never know what might happen in the future.”

“Stop it. Stop it. Ao.”

Maru, who had covered Ki-sun’s mouth, decided on the clone’s treatment.

As a result of checking with psychometry at regular intervals, clones that do not have a clear ego are now considered weapons. On the other hand, clones that have developed a clear ego when checked…

“What about the clone?”

“You have to look at him as a person.”

Ki-soon laughed at Maru’s answer.

“What if later all the Director Yu clones say they are Director Yu?”

“They should figure that out on their own. Or, set a time limit and name the person with the highest performance as Director Yoo, and have them give the others different names based on their ranking.”

======

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There were only nine surviving Naru clones.

Despite having overcome the fear of death, the clones who were touched by death had no choice but to link up with each other in order to survive.

As the critical moments of life and death were repeated, everything began to change in order to survive. Except for the emotional backlash, the mental waves that used to flow vertically changed to flow horizontally.

In this way, the clones were able to send and receive mental waves from each other. It became a type of telepathy that only the clones could use.

‘You b*tch. Should I kill you?’

‘yet.’

‘If I remember correctly, we were addicted to drugs. Even if we ran away, it wouldn’t last long.’

‘Let’s kill him anyway. If we kill him, we can buy some time.’

‘Yeah. If this continues, I don’t know what crazy thing that girl will do next.’

I wasn’t afraid of dying, but I didn’t want to be rat food.

‘If you kill that bitch, I’ll use her face.’

A clone whose face was eaten by rats sent a psychic wave from the infirmary.

‘Uh- um- I don’t think that’s right.’

‘That’s right. If it’s the main body face, it’s rare.’

‘There’s only one.’

‘Then let’s draw lots and divide it up, and whoever wins will have their face changed.’

Naru’s clones were bickering over ownership of the main face.

‘Weren’t we talking about how to escape?’

One of the clones raised his hand slightly.

‘Let’s hijack the airship.’

‘That. Even if I steal it, it’s useless without a crow, right?’

‘I remember it like that too.’

‘Even if you have an airship, if you get attacked by another bird, it’s over.’

‘I need a crow escort, is that possible?’

‘I have a crow friend. How about I go to the Holy Kingdom first?’

‘Through the crow? Will it work?’

‘Yeah. They’re really smart.’

‘What if the Holy Kingdom refuses?’

‘Will the King refuse?’

‘That might be the case.’

‘It seems like the relationship between you and that person is not good.’

The clones chewed on the main body again.

‘Then let’s send a signal to Ki-sun.’

‘Kisun? Tentacles?’

‘Since you liked the main body, you’ll like us, which looks just like the main body.’

‘I want to see the king.’

‘Just go and see.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Let’s check when the drug’s effectiveness starts to decline and whether we can reduce the dose.’

The Raven, having received the clones’ request for asylum, departed for the Holy Kingdom as a regular ferry escort.

‘Let’s not all die.’

‘one.’

‘two.’

‘three.’

”’go for it!”’

Naru’s command came as if in response to the clones’ silent cries.

[Everyone, secure a foothold on the entrance.]

[There is no rest until the base is secured.]

[Operation begins.]

Eight clones, excluding the badly injured one, stepped into the deep darkness.