Chapter 13 - Beginning of a new life 2
After a short while, Hunter had to calm down and stop himself from getting too ahead of himself. It was true that he can easily become wealthy from selling high tier magical weapons and luxurious magical equipment to nobles, but he was still too weak to protect himself, and at his current situation of trying to be low key, it was foolish to attempt to sell any of those things right now. On top of being weak, Hunter had nobody to rely on, so there was nothing preventing him from ending up as an easy prey to powerful individuals like large merchants and nobles. With the market for magical weapons and equipment currently at the center of attention right now due to the monster waves, if Hunter tried to sell anything too expensive or high tier, he will surely attract the attention of other merchants and they will certainly look into how he procured those expensive mana artifacts.
Hunter did not have to imagaine very hard about what would happen when his lack of a powerful background becomes apparent to all, as he will likely end up in danger from some shady merchants trying to force the information out of him, to try and find how someone like him managed to obtain those expensive artifacts. So, before Hunter even think about making any amount of money from selling high tier magical artifacts, he first needed to establish himself and build his own strength up.
Hunter had to give up on becoming rich overnight, but he still needed some wares for his identity as a travelling merchant. He printed just a small number of basic magical equipment that the average adventurer would use, such as mana lamps, mana stoves, basic armor with some utility runes like self cleaning/repair/increased durability, and generic magical weapons with the same utility runes. He was not 100% certain those were going to be at the level that the average adventurer could afford, however, considering the immense strength of the monsters that the adventurers and mercenaries were going to face, most of them will probably be at the level where they will consider his wares to be low tier or average. From what he concluded from the theory of magic, even high leveled adventurers would still need basic gear with utility spells, since those extra spells would otherwise take up valuable space in their mana circles. The stark difference between his golem (mech) and his low tier/average wares might raise some suspicion, but it was much better to explain, than selling higher leveled gear that was guaranteed to catch unwanted attention from other merchants.
Finished with all the miscellaneous stuff, it was time for Hunter to switch his focus to his most important weapon, his mech. He started by looking for a suitable design in the database to use as the base for his new mech. A mech was a lot more complicated than his power armor, so even with Glados's assistance there was a limit to what he could currently design, so Hunter decided to use the established designs of people who have much more experience in mech design than him. The Terra database was truly massive, with thousands of mech designs from hundreds of companies, ranging from utility mechs used in mining/space/underwater construction, to full size 6m tall mechs designed for heavy infantry fire support in harsh alien terrain. Looking over all those cool weapons and designs, Hunter cursed at himself for not upgrading Glados sooner, since after her upgrades, she was now able to go past any protections placed on the virtual plans. Large and extremely complex things like large military vessels were still out of bounds with Glados's current capabilities, but the important fact was that, Hunter now had access to much higher tiered weapons. Even if Hunter did not have nowhere close to enough resource and manpower needed for most of those weapons, it was only a matter of time and money before he could eventually build everything he saw in the database.
All the fancy scifi weapons distracted him from his goal, but eventually Hunter found a suitable 3 meter (10 foot) trainer mech that fit his goal. The main reason why he went for such a small size was because of the kinds of golems that were prolific in Vorcorve, and also the smaller size allowed it to be a smaller target and also require much less alloy for the armor.
All kinds of golems existed in this magical world, ranging from human sized drones to behemoth 20m tall golems used as mobile fortresses on the battlefield. Golems in this world was quite similar to how they were depicted in popular fantasy fictions back on earth, and were psuedo magical creatures/robots mimicking the human form, created by mages. Advanced golems were depicted to be able to speak and be autonomous, but for the most part, golems were just mindless robots following the user's commands and its programming, powered by the user's mana or its manacore. Golems required immense amounts of mana; the more complex and powerful they were, the amount of mana needed increased exponentially. So, due to their inefficiency, large golems had very limited uses in the battlefield, since mages could use that same amount of mana more efficently in the form of spells. Pilotable golems existed, but they were extremely expensive, requiring complex manahearts* like the one in the chimera to power them. Pilotable golems were mainly used to fight large monsters and serve as a morale boosting figure for allies on the battlefield, and outside of battlefields, they were used for duels between nobles and sports entertainment for both the rich and poor.
6m (20 feet) was the most common size for pilotable golems since it was the most ideal size to be able to fit all of the necessary runes to operate the mech. There were smaller pilotable golems, but due to their lack of space for more complex runes, they were vastly inferior in every aspect compared to the larger 6m class golems. Since Hunter's mech was not actually a golem and thus did not need a lot of those runes, he was able use a much smaller frame and allow it to masquerade as somthing much cheaper and inferior than it actually is; nobody was foolish enough to put a mana heart in a pilotable golem that was so small, that it wouldn't be able to utilize that mana. 6m class pilotable golems were expensive because of their mana hearts and complicated runes; the 20 foot tall golems were so expensive that they were usually transported around in magical airships to reduce wear and tear, and, due to the immense cost and logistics required along with the ships and the support crew needed, they were mainly only used by powerful organizations such as the military, nobles and elite mercenaries/adventurers. Nobles were only considered wealthy if they owned at least one on their territory, and even the most powerful nobilities only had a few dozen at most.
Hunter designed his mech primarily to be the new physical body for Glados, making its role as a pilotable mech secondary, only including the bare amount of space needed to accomodate a pilot and adding its own inferior version of Glados (sacrificing the last vial of nanomachine blood). After messing around with the design adding magitech elements to streamline the design and replacing all the armor and exterior components with armor with runes on it for its disguise, Hunter went ahead and printed his very own first mech. The new industrial printer was quick, taking just a day to finish printing the new mech that weighed at least 3 tons. Hunter came close to running out of the alloy, but thankfully, there were plenty of scrap metal scatted around in the lair from the battle and the chimera's past victims, and with the increased power from the mana heart, he was able to replenish all the alloys he needed.
The finished mech was unimpressive looking, resembling a metal garbage can with large metallic arms and legs sticking out of it. Due to the limitation in height, the pilot's legs slightly extended below the waist line of the mech, with the mech's digitigrade legs attached to a shaft below the seat, right behind the pilot's feet. The manaheart and electronics were located inside the cockpit at the empty space right in front of the pilot and was attached to the seat via a metal cage, staying stationary with the lower half of the mech, while the upper half of the hull rotated. Instead of hydraulics and servos, the mech's limbs was powered with the same synthetic nanotube muscles like his combat suit removing any need for a hydraulic powerpack, so besides some electronics for the optics and life support systems, nothing else was in the cockpit besides the the manaheart supplying the power (heat) to operate the suit. The mech lacked a physical head, and instead, an optical array on a ball mount was mounted on the front of the hull right in front of the pilot's head and a hemispherical cupola with magical cameras (like his helmet) facing in all directions was installed on the very top of the mech to act as a 360 viewing system.
The mech had an armored backpack that contained storage space for the ammunition, heat vents, two retractable arms with weapons and two turbine engines. The thickly armored legs contained hoverplates, and together with the tubine engines on the backpack, allowed the mech to glide over the ground at a decent speed. Hunter added a mana circle to the mech, to act as an auxillary power source, and with the larger area compared to his suit, could achieve 3rd mana circle when powered by a supply of monster cores. (the crimera's core is a 5th circle).
The entire mech was extremely bulky with thick armor and muscles, with the main focus being on armor protection, mobility and long range firepower rather than agility; while the mech could still get up to a decent speed even without the hoverplates and turbines with the powerful muscles, and was powerful enough to rip monsters in half, it was no way close to being agile with all the bulky armor on its limbs and torso. Even if Hunter was able to make the mech as nimble and agile as possible so it is able to dodge attacks and use melee, he would still not be able to efficiently use that agility, since he did not have any mana techniques (i.e. sword arts, martial arts), and his unenhanced body would still not be able to keep up with the faster monsters like the wolverines without Glados assisting him, which was not very ideal as a permanent solution. Hunter decided not to make a shield this time, since the armor on the mech was thick and well covered enough that a shield was going to be redundant. So now that both hands were free, the mech coupled together with Glados being able to fully utilize the 360 view, was now completely ambidexterous, able to fight using both hands separately.
To compensate for the mech's lackluster melee, Hunter mounted as many weapons as he could on the mech, including a 20mm chaingun, 8.6mm machinegun, a plasma cannon, 4 cell rocket pod, flame thrower, and two powered combat knifes.
* The main weapon was a belt-fed steampunk fantasy looking 3 barreled 20mm chain gun that the mech could wield two handed, and a powered combat knife that could melt and slice through metal (through intense heat and vibration focused on the blade tips) was mounted on the gun as a bayonet.
* The plasma cannon and the 4 tube missile pod was mounted on the two retractable arms on the backpack, with each tube holding three magitech missiles.
* The flame thrower along with the belt fed 8.6mm machine gun was attached to the left arm together with the power fist, and the remaining powered combat knife was attached magnetically to the left thigh of the mech
* All of his weapons besides the magitech flamethrower and the power fist, were entirely tech based except for the runes used to increase the durability and better cool the weapons, and like the 20mm chaingun, were changed aesthetically to appear magitech.
Looking at the fully armed mech, Hunter was thankful that firearms already existed in this world, the dwarves in particular having a liking for them, since he otherwise would had to give up on his weapons for how many guns the mech was armed with. Hunter designed new magitech ammunition for his weapons that had runes printed on it, which when precharged with mana from the mana core, powered the various spell runes that converted the physical energy and the stored mana into penetrating through manashields and armor. The new ammunition was also was much more destructive, with the projectiles exploding after penetration with the remaining mana. With all the new magitech ammo, Hunter could now face monsters up to 4 circles with no problems, and the magitech rockets and the plasmacannon alone were powerful enough to kill the porcupine monster with just a few hits.
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With the mech finally completed, filled with excitement, Hunter quickly got into the cockpit of the mech through the hatch on the top of the mech, eager to test drive his new mech. He sat silently in the cockpit, admiring the design of mech, and started to look back at the past two months reminiscing all the life and death battles he fought with his hand on the mana heart. Suddenly as if jolted awake from a long dream, his good mood disappeared along with whatever mental block Glados had on him and all the supressed shock from the past two months of near death experiences came rushing to him like a tsunami wave. It was an overwhelming and suffocating feeling, with all the brutally killed people in his mind screaming and seemingly pushing him down into the seat making him unable to move a muscle, and Hunter was suddenly back to being the old Kyung Min back on earth, a coward weeping and scared shitless from facing the horrors he has never experienced before in his short life. The fear was nothing like the time when he almost drowned in the dark cruise ship as a child, and the absolute despair and crippling fear blacking out everything else but the never ending loop of screams from the tortured souls who burned alive, the unending waves of horrfying monsters and feeling the same pain from his fatal injuries over and over again. His conciousness faded on and off, deep in the depths of despair, until he was pulled out from the darkness slowly taking over his mind by the muffled sounds of Glados in his head slowly getting louder, until he could clearly hear her worried yells.
Hunter woke up drenched in sweat, his heart beating so hard that it was sending ripples of pain to his head, threatening to split his head with every beat of his heart, and the faintly remaining phantom pains reminding him of the fact that he almost died multiple times. His hands were no longer on the manaheart, and his hands were dripping blood from Hunter clutching his hands so hard. He was back to his usual errily relaxed state, and fighting back his inner self which was still riled up from the shock, Hunter calmly tried to figure out what just happened to him.
After finding out what happened from Glados during the brief episode, Hunter had to curse at himself; somehow the damaged soul/conciousness of the chimera remained in the heart after its death, and attempted to take over his body during his brief moment of weakness, when his psycological block was overwhelmed from its attack. He should have seen this coming, there were stories of this exact thing happening where sentient mana artifacts took over bodies when a careless non-mana user touched a mana artifact, but Hunter never took those stories seriously, treating it like complete hogwash, even when he was currently in a fantasy world. Hunter was weak enough that an inanimate object almost managed to kill him, and Glados was only able to save his life from the mental attack by stopping his heart, killing him before the conciousness of the chimera was able to take over, and restarting his heart to revive him after his hands were free from the mana heart.
Hunter was not going to be piloting the mech anytime soon, so with his hands still shaking from the shock, he let out a long sigh and began to design new bodyguards to pretect him, since relying on the mech's armor was no longer an option. Back to square one, Hunter decided to build a fire team of four man sized golems (androids) equipped with simple AIs, that was commanded by one of the four androids installed with the downgraded version of Glados removed from the mech. The androids looked just like traditional knights in full plate armor, and were completely identical to each other, with the team leader only able to be differentiated by the color of its helmet and pauldron. Glados was powerful enough to control the androids by herself, but Hunter wanted autonomy, so that the androids stayed operational, even when Glados was not avaliable.
The entire internal structure of the androids were able to be covered in runes, in addition to the runes on its armor, allowing the androids to have three mana circles. While they did not add too much to Hunter's overall strength compared to the mech, their strength in numbers could not be underestimated when they were equipped with magitech weapons. Hunter was still unhappy about not being able to pilot the mech, but looking at the bright side, the androids, besides acting as his guards, could also perform mundane tasks like cooking, butchering the animals, and other chores, allowing him to save his time. There needed to be regular replacement of monster cores during battle, but with the ammo already precharged using the mana heart, the androids did not really require a lot of mana for combat.
With all the obstacles out of the way, Hunter began his final prep to leave. To better fit in with the locals, he learned the language of the country he was headed into, which having its roots in the Federation, shared a lot of similarities with its official language; so much so that the enclave's scouts did not have any problems communicating with the locals. Five hundred years did pass since the records ended, so the language was certain to be different, but it was better to sound old fashioned than use the language translation which was not perfect, and the whole ordeal was only a chore anyway, with his instant memory.
Using the short few days while he was recovering from his mental shock, Hunter trained using his weapons against the fast moving androids since being proficient in firearms was his only way of getting stronger, and simultaneously began to send out drones to scout the route prior to leaving this safe area. The new magitech drones were much more resilient, with anti-detection skills allowing it to avoid predators and when he saw the footages, Hunter was in shock at how many monsters were headed towards the fort, some even larger and powerful looking than the massive porcupine. There were no longer separate groups of monsters, but more of a steady stream and it was not going to be easy getting past the stream of monsters into the small path that was the only way out of this hellhole. Fortunately none of the monsters were at the level of the chimera, which was a 5th circle monster, so his mech was not in danger, but if he ever ran out of ammuntion, he could easily get overwhelmed by the sheer number of monsters.
It was when Hunter was trying to come up with a plan, when the drones spotted a small group of people trying fight their way through the stream of monsters, and head towards the lair. It was hard to miss the small group of eight, even when they were completely surrounded by the monsters, since the adventurers? were shooting flashy magic left and right, blinding the surroundings with bright light, visible far away, even during daylight.
For every swipe of the warrier's sword, large monsters were sliced in half, and entire groups of monsters were vaporized every time the the mage lifted her arms. The spear whielder disappeared in a flash, and when he reappeared a few meters away, every monster in his path was left with a large gaping hole. A knight of intimdating stature, holding a shield and mace stopped all the monsters in their tracks with a thunderous slam into the ground with his mace, stunning them, and arrows unleashed from the archers and the second mage's AOE attacks finished off the stunned monsters. The group of eight trudged on, leaving behind a bloody path, full of broken bodies
However, no matter how many monsters they cut down, the group was eventually, completely surrounded by the monsters, and their formation was broken when the ranged mana users got assaulted by a pack of wolverines who managed to get past the frontline. With the mages and archers no longer able to focus on the large groups of monsters, there were just too many monsters for the frontline to deal with, and just when he thought they were going to be completely overwhelmed, all eight brightly lit up with a spell from their healer.
Suddenly, the direction of the fight changed, and the group of eight burned like wildfire through the black swarm of monsters, and quickly began to retreat back the way they came from. For a brief moment, it looked as it they would be able to breakthrough and retreat towards safety, but the buff did not last long enough, and one by one, the light on their bodies flickered off. With dispair visible on their faces, it all ended aburptly when a pack of porcupine monsters managed to get throught the barrage of spells and unleashed their barrage, depleting all the remaining protection spells the party had. While, the dumb creatures ended up killing themselves and their allies, that was all the opening the thousands of monsters needed as they piled on to the defenceless group, finishing the job.
Hunter had to look away at the gruesome sight of the eight getting torn to pieces, and he began to consider giving up on the small path, and find another way out. A sliver of regret began to creep up, and he started to wonder if he overracted too much and should just have left with the other summoned heroes. The regret was only brief, with the ship already sailed, and Hunter had to distract himself by coming up with new ideas to escape, to avoid having another panic attack from the the gruesome scenes.
The party was certainly not from the summoned hero's group he met before; compared to the crude but practical equipment the summoned used that were given by the AI gods, their armor and weapons were exquisite, and it was clear they were made by extremely competent blacksmiths, even with Hunter's untrained eye. They must be the local adventurers who unfortunately got too ambitious, since he could not imagine the summoned being crazy enough to come back here so soon.
Judging from the idiot's gear, they were obiously someone with some influence, so he wondered if a search party for them would arrive. Hunter was getting real sick and tired of this valley, and wanted to leave right now, but it was possible he was going to end up just like the party he called idiots so Hunter decided to wait a little bit, at least until the night where his night vision equipment gave him an advantage.
Death was becoming a such a routine occurance and being helpless and just witnessing people dying was starting to seriously degrade his mental health. He did not know any of those people who died, but they were the first local people he 'met' since he arrived on this planet, and now, they were dead. Tonight was the last day he will ever spend in this valley. Hunter can't take this anymore, and he would rather die then spend another day in this place.