Rust - Chapter 638



Only Krnovel

RUST -638

A scene where the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of Paris, has collapsed.

A city frozen in plain sight, as if it had been bombed.

Although there were clear signs of fierce street fighting here and there, the place was clean without a single corpse.

“To scout around Paris.”

[Autonomous reconnaissance operation begins from ships 15 to 20.]

The reconnaissance results were surprising.

[There are no people around Paris.]

“Are you sure?”

[No heat source was found on the ground.]

“The underground couldn’t be confirmed by airship. Okay.”

‘Is this any good?’

Since Paris was empty, I could just grab the gold and go, but I felt uneasy for some reason.

‘They say the French government has abandoned Paris.’

There must be a reason, right?

The reason why the Eiffel Tower, the symbol of Paris, collapsed.

Why the villages and small towns around Paris are empty.

‘It’s hard to get information when there are no people.’

That doesn’t mean I was going to seek out the French government.

‘There’s nothing we can do. We have no choice but to take a look with psychometry.’

I felt sorry for Erica, but I felt like I needed to check out the empty Paris first.

‧

‧

‧

The 40 Naruz were divided into teams of five and prepared to land. In other words, there were eight teams.

“You all confirmed it, right? Brother is sensitive to performance.”

“The escort team there, don’t be too obsessed with performance.”

“Yes. Just escorting Psychometry safely is a bonus.”

“Ah- why don’t we have some kind of psychometry ability between us?”

“Psychometry?”

“Yeah. I think you can understand what I’m thinking.”

“Kids. Even if we don’t have that ability….”

“I see···.”

The Naruz nodded. Before we land in Paris and disperse, we must become friendly with Psychometry.

“What. Is. What’s going on?”

“What do you want to eat?”

Erica wanted to avoid the eighty eyes staring at her. She hesitated and stepped back, slightly tired of the strange heat radiating from the forty clones surrounding her in a semicircle.

“Ah. No.”

“Don’t be nervous.”

“We’re saying this because we’re really curious about something.”

“Yeah. Let’s be friends.”

“How are you, Your Majesty?”

‘hey.’

‘What if it suddenly happens?’

The sight of the same faces taking turns speaking one word at a time was like a scene from a horror movie, but Erica clenched her fists and held on.

This scene will probably be captured on CCTV or tactical cameras. If it’s really dangerous, he’ll come. Thinking that, Erica calmed down a little.

“Do you know what the King is thinking?”

“You know, it’s psychometry, right?”

“I want to know what you think of us.”

“It’s nothing else. The girl really has no answers.”

Erica blinked at the clones’ story. It seemed like they were worried that the king was thinking negatively of them.

‘Ah-. Now that I think about it, you said I was your little sister’s clone.’

How would she feel if her own blood relatives were mass-produced as clones? Erica didn’t think she would feel good.

If there were not just one, but mass-produced and used as a weapon, even more so. Honestly, even just one would be terrifying.

Naruz’s mood suddenly darkened as he noticed that Erika’s expression had darkened. Erika, bewildered by this, shook her head.

“No. That’s not it. It’s just that my ability doesn’t work.”

“Isn’t your ability working?”

“Psychometry?”

“Yes. Strangely, the King’s traces are not readable.”

“okay?”

“That’s strange. Our traces can be read.”

“That. Right?”

The mood in Naruzu, which had been completely subdued, began to rise again. After all, isn’t the King an entity that cannot be known even through psychometry?

“As expected of your majesty.”

“Brother, are you immune to the mental world?”

Groan, groan.

There was a strange atmosphere where the younger sister clones were happy to hear that Maru was special. Erika thought that it was similar to the feeling of an idol fan club.

“I think I should go to work now.”

“······.”

“······.”

“······.”

“······.”

The clones who had been chatting about the King noisily shut their mouths at the same time.

“Which team will escort us?”

“Let’s cut it off from the front.”

“Again? This time I have to cut you off from behind.”

“Yeah, that’s right. It’s not like I always hang up in the front because it’s annoying.”

It was decided to do it from behind. Golf and Hotel would escort Erica, and the rest would search for gold based on information read by psychometry.

‘Is this okay?’

Erica looked up at the sky after seeing Naruz holding a bubbling operation meeting. 23 airships were floating leisurely.

‧

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[Alpha. Lee Sang-moo.]

[Bravo. Everything is fine.]

[Charlie. Found evidence of an explosion. Looks like a booby trap. Everyone, be careful.]

[···Delta. Traces of booby traps confirmed here as well.]

‧

[Delta. Traces of napalm.]

[Booby trap with napalm?]

[That’s strange.]

[Not even Claymore.]

[Is it hastily made?]

[The traces are like that.]

‧

[Echo. Begin constructing a defensive line in Area 4.]

[Foxtrot. Booby traps installed at the entrance to Area 4.]

Contrary to my concerns about the meeting being held as if deciding on a dinner menu, Naruzu’s operational capabilities were excellent.

Naruz, who had secured the safe zone in an instant, waited for Erica to contact her. She took a deep breath and placed her palm on the traces of the booby trap.

Who set the booby trap, who got caught? If the incident hadn’t happened long ago, there would have been residual thoughts.

‘?’

Erica focused again.

‘Huh?’

There was no trace of who set it. So what about the person who died when the booby trap exploded?

‘This side···.’

What is this?

A vague thought that remains as time passes.

That was not a human thought.

‧

Maru, who received the report from Naruz and Erika, became lost in thought.

Psychometrically, Paris was attacked twice. The first attack was by a slimy cannibal. It was an attack by a slug cannibal.

The slimy, mucus-covered skin was surprisingly strong. Not only was it resistant to heat and cold, it also offered considerable protection against bullets and shrapnel.

Although considerable damage was inflicted, the Paris government managed to repel the slug-eaters’ attacks.

The problem was the second attack.

In Maru’s view, the second attack hit Paris’ weak point precisely.

When the refugee camp in the Calais area northeast of Paris was dismantled, the refugees scattered here and there. The scattered refugees, immigrants, and criminals mixed together and became the darkness of Paris. And when religious and racial issues overlapped, bloody clashes broke out.

That’s why I wasn’t interested in the refugee population decreasing and the violence disappearing.

‘A refugee is missing? He’s not missing. He must have gone somewhere.’

‘The number of pieces of trash that freeze to death has decreased? It would have been better if they hadn’t died.’

‘You don’t see the ones looking for Allah? That’s good.’

The results improved without any action taken when the cause of the problem remained the same? The French government in Paris should have been suspicious of that.

‘It’s like refugees are missing in New York.’

The same way refugees took over abandoned factory areas and disappeared.

Yes, that’s right.

The second wave of attacks that swept through Paris were caused by a swarm of rats.

How many people live in Paris, where the streets are teeming with people? 8 million? 10 million? Most of them are tourists, but the actual number of people living in Paris is around 2.5 million.

So how many rats live in Paris? Based on research conducted before the mutant virus outbreak, the minimum estimate was 4 million.

Now, a few years later? Even assuming that the minimum number of 4 million rats that had mutated and become stronger would have multiplied, it would have been in the hundreds of millions. Even at the very least, hundreds of millions.

‘That’s a swarm of rats mixed with slugs, numbering in the hundreds of millions…’

The rats in the Newport News Shipyard were able to use acid saliva. They developed this ability through eating and being eaten by the acid gulls.

Likewise, the rats of Paris would have mutated as they ate and were eaten by the slug-eaters. In this way, the hordes of rats that gradually expanded their power by eating refugees and the poor in the darkness would have targeted the surface.

There was no way to stop the hordes of rats that poured out of the sewers and manholes like water flowing back out. Paris became an empty city.

“This is driving me crazy.”

If Paris was eaten in an instant, what about the government forces that are now fighting the anti-government forces? Did they succeed the Paris government?

[Chiik- Slug rat discovered on the 3rd basement floor.]

[Chick- He’s in a deep sleep. Should we capture him?]

You’re sleeping at this hour?

‘Hibernation?’

Even if it wasn’t hibernation, if it was sleeping so well that it didn’t know that Naruzu was approaching, it meant that it had developed a metabolic control ability similar to hibernation.

‘No. Maybe he’s just pretending to be asleep.’

“Don’t touch me. Back off.”

[Chick- Yes.]

[Chiiik- Okay.]

The slug rat’s eyes turned towards Naruzu’s back as he retreated, his sound muffled. His tightly shut eyelids slowly opened.

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Gold hunting using psychometric abilities was definitely effective.

Gold was something that aroused human greed, and the greater the greed, the stronger the residual evil thoughts, so it was easy to find the location of the gold.

“Just a moment. I’ll check to see if there are any traps.”

Erica took her hand away from the scattered red marks. They were the marks of someone who had come to find gold, but had met their end here.

“There are traps. The electronic traps are safe because they are powered off, but the mechanical traps are a problem. Follow me, stepping only on the tiles I step on.”

[Wait a minute. It’s dangerous to go ahead. If you tell us, we’ll go first.]

[I think that’s right. We’re escorts.]

“No. I have to go first because I don’t know what kind of traps are behind here. If I use psychometry before moving, I can avoid the traps, but you can’t.”

[······.]

[······.]

That’s what happened.

Before Naruzu, who was momentarily speechless, could protest, Erika took the lead. The Naruzus followed her lead, hustling and trudging.

After breaking through the traps that you would only see in movies, you finally come across the final gate, the safe. A dial and a key. The old-fashioned safe with a double locking mechanism looked sturdy enough to not allow intruders, but it was not a good match.

“094 to the right, 112 to the left.”

“Next is the key. You have to turn both at the same time.”

3.2.1.

Clang- squeak-

The huge vault door opened and a yellow light filled the surroundings.

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They said there were over 2,400 tons, but in reality, there wasn’t that much gold in the vault. It was around 1,200 tons. So, there was only about half of it.

[Oh. So I think it was stored in a distributed manner.]

“Distributed storage?”

[Yes. I checked because there was quite a large empty space. That’s what it was.]

The Empire also distributed its gold in New York. Maru nodded.

“Where did you go?”

[In order of most visited places, they are Nantes, Toulouse, Montpellier, Marseille, and Lyon.]

The place you go to the most is Nantes?

A city where rebels and self-proclaimed government forces are fighting? Even though the flies flew away, it seemed like rebels and government forces were fighting, but there was another reason.

Maru cut off the nerves cleanly. After all, it was difficult to load everything they had with 23 ships anyway.

“I feel uneasy, so I’ll just load it up and leave.”

In the place where 23 airships had left the sky, a single slug rat, raised like a meerkat, looked at the airships shrinking in the distance.

Jjiik-

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Five missing.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Dick Herold cried out inwardly.

It’s been just a week since we parted ways with Prince Vladimir Kalin. Five mercenaries have already disappeared without a trace.