Rust - Chapter 605



Only Krnovel

RUST -605

Mid-December.

The weather quickly dropped to minus 20 to minus 30 degrees Celsius, and a blizzard swept through, making it virtually life-threatening to travel by airship.

“it’s crazy?”

Hee-yeon, who didn’t want to make a tongue-tie sound, even tried to stop Ki-sun by linking him, but it was no use.

“It’s worth a shot if you can get through with a high-speed blimp. But you’ve already linked up, and your tongue is short. Am I your friend?”

“Stop talking nonsense and just send the clones to Detroit! With Najuyeon’s pharmaceutical abilities, wouldn’t you be able to make an antidote?”

Ki-soon was moved by Hee-yeon’s sensitive reaction.

“Oh my. Why are you so interested in me? I’m embarrassed.”

“If you die…. Because he hates it.”

Ki-sun raises his eyebrows as if he knows something about Hee-yeon’s answer.

“Oh, that’s what happened.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re going to the empire alone in this weather?”

‘Oh my gosh-oh my gosh- is that so?’ Ki-soon changed her expression and spoke in a serious voice.

“There’s nothing we can do. Even if Na Ju-yeon could make the medicine, it would take time.”

“······.”

“Until then, we need samples and we need to know what the Empire did to them. And the best way to do that is to go and see for yourself. If you hesitate and time passes, it will only make it more dangerous to come and go.”

“···Why didn’t they tell me what their condition was?”

“I told you. Think back to when you first met them.”

When did you first meet? A memory that came to mind was Heeyeon.

‘Seniors, your group escape was truly amazing.’

‘Thanks to our seniors, we even got a biochip implanted.’

‘I’ve been brainwashed a lot.’

‘Ah, it’s been pickled in medicine too.’

Huh? That’s what it sounded like?

Ki-sun sighed, knowing that Hee-yeon had recalled the memory.

“So I had a health checkup and a detailed diagnosis, but nothing really came up.”

“···You did it to avoid being caught by the inspector?”

“Maybe. The clones didn’t know that they would become like that either.”

“···Then isn’t it dangerous? You used the clone as bait. And you still want to go alone?”

A distance that would take only a few hours to travel by airship would take at least one night and two days if traveled by snowmobile, no matter how fast. If there was a blizzard in the middle, there was no telling how much longer it would take.

“I don’t know if you were using it as bait or if you were letting it happen naturally once the clone was stolen, but you know it’s impossible to take you. There’s no point in taking your main body, and if you take both your main body and clone, it’ll only reveal that you took Director Yu’s clone.”

“···Is the Naru clone that important to you?”

Ki-soon smiled faintly.

“Then. Aren’t they all chubby? And our king said it. Clones with personalities are just like people. So I guess I’ll try as much as I can. Then again, who knows? The Naru who only looked for the king will see me again.”

“Get out.”

“···I guess I forgot. This is the Governor’s office.”

“······.”

Ki-soon’s smiling face turned cold as she saw his back turn around.

‘I’m saying that it’s not that simple.’

Marushak made excuses and said that clones with egos are like people, but in fact, Heeyeon’s words were right.

It’s only been a day since I saw the Naru clone. It was literally just a clone.

If you really think it’s a shame and a pity, you could just scan his brain and put him in Detroit’s virtual reality. Can’t you just make a body and put him in later?

However, the reactions were completely different from Naru, who had killed and killed thousands of people in the virtual reality. Ki-soon felt strange seeing that each clone seemed to be holding a fragment of the past.

Conflicting thoughts. The thought that I would just have to pick a new one anyway even if I died, and the thought that I would turn into death were mixed together.

Even for Ki-soon himself, it was true that his perspective had changed. His values ​​regarding death and humanity had changed. The world was changing too quickly.

‘So, Mr. Den Brown. I think you should take a serious look at what you’re doing.’

It would be known that he had a crush on Naru, and no one would doubt the plausibility of him doing something crazy for a Naru clone.

‘Finishing things about the Naru clones, and checking on Chancellor Dan Brown and the Imperial atmosphere. If necessary···.’

Ki-sun took a fountain pen filled with a light green liquid.

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The distance from Ottawa to New York is approximately 720 km. It took 7 to 8 hours by car and 1 hour and 30 minutes by regular airplane.

When traveling by high-speed airship that can reach an altitude of 10-11 km and reach a top speed of 250 km, it takes about 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Ki-sun flew to New York using a high-speed airship controlled by an AI assistant. Because it was flying at such a high altitude, Ki-sun was disappointed that he could not take reconnaissance photos due to the thick snow clouds below.

Just as Detroit had changed completely in just over a year, so had New York, the center of the empire.

‘rampart?’

The combination of the massive walls made by connecting the buildings on the outskirts and the flashy LED billboards seemed like something straight out of a cyberpunk universe.

‘There’s a wall in New York…’

It was said to have been created to prevent the invasion of large monsters, which meant that the empire was struggling against large mutated monsters.

The reason New York was surrounded by a wall just in case was because they assumed that there was a chance that it could be breached, even if it was just one in a million.

When the Governor General of the Holy Kingdom of Canada came in person, the Imperial Foreign Affairs Office was shocked. Contrary to their excitement, President Dan Brown made them wait in the reception room for a long time, which made Ki-sun laugh bitterly.

‘You mean you know why I came?’

I requested an urgent interview, but the fact that he was taking too long meant that he knew about the problems the Naru clones were having.

At the same time, Ki-soon felt relaxed. If you think about it the other way around, isn’t it because he was calculating that even if he wasted time, the Naru clones wouldn’t die?

If we stall for time and all the Naru clones die, how are we going to deal with the aftermath? It’s not like war will break out just because Naru or the Naru clones died, but it will make both sides uncomfortable.

It was clear that General Dan Brown would keep the proper line. So instead of waiting around, Ki-sun began to personally observe the changes in the empire.

The most noticeable thing was the snow removal equipment and snow removal work, and the patrolling of armored exosuits that were modified from the power loader type exosuit imported from the Holy Kingdom.

Perhaps because they didn’t want to see Ki-soon wandering around, someone quickly joined them.

“I will take you to the visiting room.”

Even though the Vladinaru clones were suffering from the side effects of the medicine and had to be flown in in a hurry, Gyun-sun maintained her composure, and General Dan Brown was secretly impressed.

“Thank you for coming.”

“I wish you hadn’t made things difficult for me.”

Ki-sun took out a fountain pen from her bosom and answered. The atmosphere was comfortable, not like a conversation between the President and the Governor-General. Above all, the President’s tone of voice, which used to be formal or informal, had changed.

“Do people carry fountain pens these days?”

“Isn’t there always a time when you feel like writing?”

Since Dan Brown was a veteran field agent for the Department of Homeland Security, he had a feeling that the fountain pen that Ki-soon took out was not just a simple writing instrument.

‘I feel like writing for some reason.’

It seemed like a simple answer, but Ki-soon didn’t hide it. And President Dan Brown also noticed it.

He couldn’t help but chuckle as he recalled the time when he had once cleaned out the old members of a powerful family who had become cannibals.

“You should write when you want to write. Okay.”

“I think so too. When you write, you have to write boldly.”

Two people holding teacups like decalcomania drank the tea in one gulp.

In that silence, when Den Brown and Gi-sun’s eyes met, the corners of their lips hidden behind their teacups rose up simultaneously. The two people, who intuitively felt that they had no need to see each other, got straight to the point.

“Is the Governor fit for the job? I remember it was the Holy Kingdom’s suggestion to use the St. Lawrence River as the benchmark.”

“It’s okay because there’s an AI helping you out. What do you do with the river as a reference point? The monsters are coming up north across the river.”

Horruk-

Ki-soon straightened the gun at Den Brown, who was pretending not to know while drinking tea.

“If this continues, the monsters coming from the north might also head south. Here, too, when buffalo, moose, and elk came down, wolves and bears followed them down, causing chaos. It’s a shame that while we were trying to stop the monsters coming up from the south, we ended up missing the monsters coming down from the north.”

“Are you threatening me now?”

President Den Brown responded directly.

From the moment you use the word threat, it means that it is a threat. That is to say, the wall that Ki-soon saw outside of New York was not built out of mere hysteria.

That’s why Ki-sun was able to answer calmly.

“This is not a threat, this is a statement of fact. If the Empire does not capture the monsters that inhabit the south side of the St. Lawrence River, this is what will happen soon.”

“So if you can’t punish me, then spit it out?”

“Isn’t that a given? Otherwise, we’ll have to deal with the monsters coming down from the North to the South.”

“That’s right. That’s why I wanted to mass-produce clones.”

“You’re saying that when you tried to mass-produce it, it ended up being a clone made from Vladinaru Kalin, right?”

If you use Naru to create clones and say it was a coincidence, that’s a weak excuse.

“I have no intention of making excuses. Of course it was intentional. I thought that if he was Vladimir Kalin’s younger brother, he would have at least a lot of potential for development. And his clone productivity was also top-notch.”

Clone productivity refers to the characteristic of having less DNA damage or deviation during mass production. Even though the process involves culturing in a test tube, which has a 25-30% chance of defects, clones based on Naru had defects in less than 1% of cases.

“Until now, we haven’t been able to find a better clone mother than that.”

“Isn’t there a clone based on Director Yoo?”

“If you only consider the combat power of the clones, it’s not bad, but the productivity is too low. The probability of defects is too high in mass production. But if you produce them individually, the control is low.”

It was Dan Brown who was looking at Ki-sun with a meaningful look, along with the story of her lack of control.

“It’s hard to find traces of where the U+ program clones who escaped en masse from the Seattle front went. They didn’t go to the Confederacy, but if they went to another state where it was hard to make a living, rumors would have spread. So where did those clones go?”

“So what are you trying to say? The place where Director Yu’s escaped clone is is the Holy Kingdom by elimination? Is that what you’re saying?”

“You’re saying that even though you had such a suspicion, you held on to it. You may have had your suspicions, but you didn’t want to break your relationship with the Holy Kingdom.”

“Okay. So?”

“I will hand over the original Canadian territory. And I will also keep my hands off the clone of Vladinaru Kalin who escaped to the Holy Kingdom.”

It was surprisingly refreshing to see General Dan Brown in action.

“However, I cannot hand over the research based on the Vladinaru Kalin and destroy the research data. I wonder if the Holy Kingdom can hand over a suitable cloning body that is easy to control and has potential for development.”

“Are you really going to use the King of the Holy Kingdom’s younger sister as a clone? If Vladimiru goes crazy, it’ll be hard to handle.”

“To be honest, I was hoping he would come. Not you.”

“···Do you want to die?”

Even at the word death, Dan Brown’s stern gaze did not change.

“Even if you infiltrate the fortified New York and kill me, at least you’ll shed some blood. And that’s a good deal. We’re not going to have an all-out nuclear war anyway, right?”

President Den Brown did not hide his desire for Maru’s DNA. Gi-sun was about to say something but kept her mouth shut at Den Brown’s reaction, which was perhaps bordering on madness.

“Even if we don’t go to war with each other, if we continue like this, it won’t be easy to last long. Either this side or that side.”

Dan Brown continued his story, holding the tablet out toward Kisun.

“As the Holy Kingdom knows, monsters become stronger and mutate faster when they eat humans. What would happen if there were monsters that ate over ten million citizens of the Empire? Could the Holy Kingdom handle such monsters alone?”

According to the information that came up on the tablet, the situation on the Empire side was not good. The most dangerous thing was the exhaustion of troops. Before winter passed, they were preparing to abolish the conscription system and introduce a conscription system.

At first, it was a report that the conscription should be maintained for those in their 20s, then for those in their 30s, even while selecting clones.

The Confederacy was the same. Even if they became cannibals, werewolves, and vampires, if all the humans were eaten by monsters, they would be finished too, so they were too busy fighting monsters.

“So you sent the clone corpse? To study the clone? And provoke me while doing it?”

Instead of answering, Dan Brown lifted his teacup.

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Number 4 suddenly came to his senses.

‘Where is this?’

It was a makeshift igloo-like space made by digging out the eyes. If I suddenly lost consciousness, I would be transported somewhere. So it was like sleepwalking.

As I tried to concentrate my mind to send a distress signal using my psychic waves, I got a terrible headache. It was as if my frontal lobe was being forcibly scratched.

Ugh-

As he relaxed, No. 4 closed his eyes for a moment as his headache slowly subsided. He really couldn’t remember anything. It felt like something had erased his memory.

‘After warning the others, I tried to run north to the Holy Kingdom.’

Number 4 tried to get out of the snow hole.

huh?

Somehow my body feels dull.

I felt around here and there on her body and saw that she was wearing many layers of clothes.

Where did the clothes come from?

I don’t even remember wearing it.

Number 4 searched his pockets for medicine. Two packets of medicine came out.

?

One was No. 4’s own, and the other was No. 18’s.