The Retired Max-Level Worker Wants to Rest - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Medium Base

TL/ED – Miso

Sim Ji-hyeon.

She was stoic by nature, and her perpetually cheerful twin sister had always been a nuisance.

“Unnie! Unnie! Let’s go to Apgujeong! There’s a new restaurant that just opened!”

“……Go by yourself.”

“Come on~ Let’s go together~ I’ll pay! I got my part-time paycheck! It’s been forever, let’s have a date~”

Her younger sister, Sim Ji-yun, grabbed her arm and shook it.

It was annoying.

She just wanted to stay home.

But Sim Ji-hyeon knew.

‘She’ll throw a fit for a whole hour, and if I don’t go, she’ll sulk for a whole week.’

But if she went to Apgujeong with her?

‘Half a day of suffering and it’s over.’

It was the supremely efficient decision.

She threw on a hat and got up.

Her sister seemed unhappy about even that.

So.

“Fine, I’m not going then.”

“No! I’m sorry! Let’s just go!”

Ji-yun shut her mouth immediately.

And so they headed to Apgujeong.

And then.

Fwoosh-

They were transported somewhere strange.

“Huh, unnie- what the heck is-”

“…….”

Sim Ji-yun fell into a panic.

Her older sister, Sim Ji-hyeon, was calm.

No, they were already in a strange place. Worrying and fretting here wouldn’t change anything. The efficient thing to do was to assess what lay ahead and how the situation might develop.

Strange words appeared before her eyes.

‘Awakening? Survival? Escape?’

She processed that information.

And also the ability she had Awakened.

[Sixth Sense]

The sixth sense.

Apparently, it was also called intuition.

“H-hey, those people over there are running!”

Her younger sister, Sim Ji-yun, said.

But her older sister, Sim Ji-hyeon, deliberated.

‘Should I follow them?’

They seemed the most promising.

They acted like they knew something.

Her Sixth Sense told her she should follow them.

But she missed the timing.

Grrr-

Monsters burst out,

and they killed people.

Crackle-

Some man discharged electricity.

Several of the creatures were paralyzed.

The younger sister hid behind the group in terror.

The older sister was swept along with no choice.

But that was a mistake.

“Huff- huff-”

Six people survived in total.

Three of them were men, and three were women.

At first, they seemed fine. Reasonably polite and well-mannered. They took charge of the group, saying they needed to find shelter.

But her [Sixth Sense] sent a feeling that was good and not good at the same time. A vague sensation that following these people was the right call for immediate survival, but that things wouldn’t end well.

Still, they found a hideout with a barrier.

They could block the door and keep the monsters out.

They found food, too.

The problem was what came next.

“Listen, you crazy bitch, we saved your life, so you’d better pay us back.”

The men who had killed a few monsters at the start.

Their Levels had gone up.

Only to around 2 or 3.

But that alone was enough to make the women unable to resist. On top of that, the man’s lightning magic was literally ‘magic.’

“Stop it, they’re still just kids!”

Sim Ji-hyeon, Sim Ji-yun.

It was a woman older than them.

She stood up to the men.

But.

“Who the hell do you think you are-”

Crack!

They lost it and killed her.

Perhaps excited by their first murder, they started fighting among themselves. Arguing over who should be the leader, over which women belonged to whom.

The older sister, Sim Ji-hyeon, pulled her younger sister, Sim Ji-yun, away.

The ability she had Awakened was [Sixth Sense].

She knew that staying here meant death.

A gruesome one, at that.

So they ran.

The place they reached was the [Air Raid Shelter].

They were lucky.

But.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The men didn’t give up.

They pounded on the door with their enhanced strength.

They even fired guns they’d gotten from somewhere.

They found a welding torch and tried to burn through.

But they couldn’t break in.

“……Unnie, unnie. Should we just die?”

“No.”

“I’m scared, I’m so scared. And I’m hungry.”

There was a small amount of food.

It was a shelter, after all.

But it was only enough for a few days.

“Unnie.”

“……Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. This is all because I said let’s go to Apgujeong.”

“It’s fine. Anyone who was going to get caught up in this was going to get caught up in it.”

Spilled milk.

Regretting it wouldn’t change anything.

What mattered was keeping a clear head.

“You’re all I have, unnie. If I’d been alone, I think I would’ve gone crazy. I would’ve thought dying was better and opened the door.”

Sim Ji-hyeon stroked her sister’s hair.

She felt the same way.

If she’d been alone, she wouldn’t have held out like this either.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The men didn’t give up.

Yesterday, she’d heard monster sounds. She hoped the creatures had killed them, but they must have dealt with them, because the next day they were back alive, pounding on the door.

To a maddening degree, they refused to give up on them.

How many days had passed like that?

The food had run out long ago.

Their drinking water was nearly gone, too.

Sim Ji-hyeon and her sister grew gaunt.

This time, it didn’t seem like they could hold out.

‘Should I just die?’

Sim Ji-hyeon thought.

But.

“……Unnie, I just want to die.”

She couldn’t let her sister die.

So she became even harder.

“No. We can endure it.”

“Until when?”

“……Soon.”

She didn’t know either, of course.

But she had to say it.

Several more days passed like that.

‘It’s quiet.’

The Air Raid Shelter.

They called it a shelter, but there was nothing inside. Just a place to sleep and a restroom with no running water. No spare clothes, and the food had run out ages ago.

She felt like she was losing her mind.

She’d rather just die.

That would make it all easier-

But then, at that moment.

Thump-

Her heart lurched.

It was her Sixth Sense.

Aaaargh-!

Screams came from outside.

Someone had attacked.

It sounded like the men had been taken down.

‘These people could be enemies too.’

But there was nothing left to lose.

Die here.

Or take the chance.

Besides, she had her Sixth Sense.

‘It’s safe to go out.’

Just as she thought that.

“We’re here to help!”

Someone shouted from outside.

Her sister grabbed hold of her, but.

Sim Ji-hyeon opened the door.

.

.

.

“……And that’s what happened.”

The twin sisters looked clean.

That was thanks to me getting the Control Room operational and Yu-ra taking them both to wash up and giving them fresh clothes.

‘These guys were showering with their drinking water.’

Since the Control Room hadn’t been activated, the plumbing wouldn’t have worked. That was why their drinking water had been nearly gone.

“You’ve been through so much.”

Cha Yu-ra stayed beside them, watching over them.

The sisters were probably more comfortable with Yu-ra than with us.

Then I asked.

“But why did you open the door right away? What if we’d been dangerous?”

At that, Sim Ji-yun.

The younger sister spoke first.

“It’s because unnie’s skill is Sixth Sense!”

“Ji-yun, I told you not to tell people that.”

“So what, they’re the ones who saved us. I’m seriously so, so grateful. Being locked in there was so scary!”

I smirked.

The older sister was blunt, and the younger sister was emotional.

The older one neither cried nor laughed, carrying herself like an adult, while the younger one had bawled her eyes out and now, her mood apparently much improved, kept chattering away with a smile.

‘Good. I’m glad.’

They had just turned twenty.

Happy when things were good, sad when things were sad.

In a way, that might have been proof they’d once been happy.

“What Level are you both?”

“……We’re both Level 1.”

“So you got trapped right away.”

“Yes, more or less.”

Maybe I should teach them how to operate a Turk.

I’d been needing extra hands anyway.

“What are your abilities?”

“……Mine is Sixth Sense. I think my intuition is just sharper, but I’m not sure how useful it is.”

The older sister answered first.

Then the younger one spoke.

“Mine is [Healing]. It does heal minor wounds, but I don’t know if it’s all that great. Mana? I don’t have nearly enough of it, so I can barely use it.”

Healing.

One might think it wasn’t much.

But that was a problem that would solve itself with Levels.

They were useful people in more ways than one.

‘And I need Turk workers right now anyway.’

Their Levels were low, so I’d put them on resource gathering.

Even that alone would make things much easier.

‘More importantly, what do I do with the men?’

Normally.

In the previous life.

‘I’d throw them in the Barracks and have them converted.’

Turning them into Penal Marines.

They’d make good fighting power.

And they couldn’t disobey orders.

Because there’d be a bomb in their bodies.

‘That might be a bit much.’

I thought about it for a moment.

It was worth considering the moral gap between my past life and this one…… never mind. If I brought it up carelessly, I might be mistaken(?) for a psychopath.

‘Should I build a prison?’

That wouldn’t be bad either.

It’d be a waste of food, but they could be useful as bait later.

……That’s also a bit much, isn’t it.

‘Right, let’s just kill them.’

That was the cleanest solution.

I was in the middle of deliberating when.

“What happened to them?”

Yu-ra asked.

Sim Ji-hyeon and Sim Ji-yun hesitated.

“……It was my fault. I’m a terrible person.”

The younger sister spoke first.

The older sister tried to stop her.

But the younger one shook her head firmly.

“Let me say it. We abandoned her. When those bastards tried to assault us, she protected us, but we abandoned her and ran- hic.”

It came out jumbled, but I understood.

It seemed there had originally been three women.

“……Oppa.”

“Yeah, Yu-ra.”

“Can I kill those bastards?”

Cha Yu-ra’s eyes turned red.

Should I say her eyes were reddening with tears?

Or should I say they were tears of blood?

As someone with younger sisters of her own, their story must have hit her especially hard.

“Sure-”

“But still, is it really okay for us to kill them?”

I was about to answer when Dong-cheol cut in.

So he was finally stepping up.

The first clash of opinions they’d had.

“Oppa.”

“U-uh, yeah?”

“Do you want to die?”

“……N-no. It’s just-”

“Dong-cheol.”

“…….”

“You wanna die?”

I added a word of my own.

In a world like this, causing headaches was grounds for forced removal. Of course, even if the two of us teamed up, we probably couldn’t take Dong-cheol.

At times like these, the best move was an interrogation.

I brought the two of them outside.

Rip-

I tore the tape from the half-unconscious man’s mouth. He’d been screaming to be spared so loudly that I’d shut him up.

“What happened? I’m asking why those women were locked in there.”

I asked.

Looking him straight in the eye.

He rolled his eyes.

The kind of eye movement that comes with fabricating a lie.

“Those bitches- they tried to kill us, so we had no choice- we were just trying to catch them. No, wait, they went in there on their own!”

He was a terrible liar.

No, he was terrible at talking, period.

I asked one more thing.

“Why did they try to kill you? There had to be a reason.”

“Th-that’s- we, no, our food-”

“What was that thing the guy with the hole in his head said earlier? Something about how people give EXP too.”

“Th-that was! He did that on his own. Yeah, he did it all on his own. I don’t know anything-!”

I gave him a chance.

But it went as expected.

I looked at Dong-cheol.

“……I’ve heard enough.”

Dong-cheol nodded.

And then I.

Grab.

Seized the man’s jaw.

And.

Crack-

Twisted his head around.

When killing, kill with certainty.

The other one, too.

Crack-

This was a battlefield.

Weak sympathy was suicide.

Cha Yu-ra, Park Dong-cheol.

They both needed to fully understand that.

* * *

A day passed like that.

I woke up early in the morning.

‘Let’s have a look around.’

What would be here?

I headed to the Control Room first.

‘Is the computer intact?’

From its exterior, it was a Quantum Computer.

If it worked, it would be like hitting the jackpot.

Clatter-clatter.

It booted up.

Once I got it running-

-Greetings. I am AI Operator ‘Lisa.’ Identity verification is required.

The AI was alive.

That was a relief.

Identity verification?

Bypassing that kind of thing was my specialty.

Clatter-clatter.

It didn’t take more than a few minutes.

In the previous life, it was something he’d done on every battlefield. It had been difficult the first time, but after doing it a few times, he could wrap it up as easily as taking a stroll.

-Greetings, new Commander. What should I call you?

Done.

As expected, it wasn’t difficult.

“Ho-cheon. Kim Ho-cheon.”

-Understood, Commander Ho-cheon. How may I assist you?

“Let’s check the power first.”

-Power Room: offline.

-Would you like to activate it?

“Yeah.”

-Activating power systems.

-Checking resource status.

.

.

.

Those messages appeared on the monitor.

After the check was complete.

There was an already-depleted mine nearby, with only a small surplus of minerals left. The Barracks, Heavy Armor Workshop, and Mechanization Lab he’d seen on the way in were out of the question.

-Current remaining power: 3%

-Using remaining minerals for power generation can raise it to 7%.

Not bad.

But using this place as a permanent base would be tough.

“No other mines, right?”

-The radar is currently malfunctioning. No additional mines found in the database.

“I’ll give you a link. Sync it with that radar.”

The radar from our home base could reach this place. That meant communication was possible, too, and they could exchange information.

-Radar connection confirmed.

-Scanning for nearby mines.

.

.

.

-Mineral scan results: none.

There was no point asking about the defense systems.

Without minerals, the place couldn’t last long anyway.

Unless they found gas.

“No gas either, right?”

-No, there is none.

“What available forces are there?”

-Searching.

-8 Turks confirmed.

-3 Light Tanks confirmed.

-1 Heavy Tank confirmed.

-5 Mobile Anti-Air Turrets confirmed.

-1 Transport Ship confirmed.

.

.

.

Jackpot.

A Medium Base, through and through.

A Heavy Tank ‘Titan’ and even a Transport Ship ‘Mast.’ With just these, a few weeks’ worth of Trials would be no problem.

In that case-

“Are there any body regeneration medicines or facilities?”

He needed to treat Park Dong-cheol’s arm.

A Medium Base should have more than enough.

-Full stock confirmed for all medicines: [Neo Serum-9], [Biomorph-Alpha], [Helix-Core Capsule], and [Regentis-Prime].

Yes!

He’d finally found them.

A Medium Base really was a goldmine.

He’d have to strip it clean, down to the last scrap.