Chapter 179: The Eternal Colonel and Dingo
He had shown many things to the people of this era, but he had never revealed the Settler and the Assault Armor.
Now it was time to lift the curtain on the Assault Armor.
It was necessary to deal with the Plague Swarm, and it was the right moment to make it public.
But he had no intention of exposing the Settler until the end.
He had to find a way to go to the Prophet’s homeland.
“This is an Assault Armor. It’s one of the weapons that the United Human Federation created to fight against the Plague.”
Bae Seong-min lifted his head and looked at the giant robot.
It had a bird-like appearance, with a wire-like body and six wings.
“People ride in this thing?”
“More precisely, only trained pilots with psychic abilities can ride it. Ordinary people can’t even move it.”
Yu Ji-ha had revealed his identity when he said that.
He was a soldier of the United Human Federation.
At that time, Bae Seong-min thought he would fight in a spaceship, but he was surprised to see him control this robot.
“It’s a bit big, but it looks kind of cute.”
“This is the result of decades of improvement by humanity to fight against the Plague. It was originally in the form of a fighter jet.”
Despite its cute appearance, its performance seemed very fierce.
The astonished Blue House staff came out and watched the Assault Armor.
They were immune to most things because they worked with Yu Ji-ha, but they couldn’t help but be amazed by the Assault Armor.
“What kind of robot is this? I can’t even guess…”
“Doesn’t it look a bit weak?”
“Shh, the president will hear you. He has very sharp ears.”
Whether they said that or not, Yu Ji-ha took off his upper clothes and said.
“Its role is like a motorcycle in this era. It delivers antimatter bombs to the Plague-filled space.”
“…A motorcycle?”
Then what about the pilots who ride on that motorcycle?
Yu Ji-ha handed his clothes to Bae Seong-min and said.
“That’s why pilots like me were nicknamed deliverymen. We deliver antimatter bombs, so it’s not a wrong name.”
He said it casually, but Bae Seong-min knew how hard it was.
The Plague that attacked France and America were unimaginable monsters.
Countless soldiers died and cities were destroyed.
And those monsters were nothing compared to the higher ranks.
And although it was not publicized, when the war started in earnest, they had to survive the attacks of hundreds or thousands of those monsters.
Bae Seong-min couldn’t even guess what level that was.
He was a chief secretary, so he could look into some of the projects of the Management Bureau, which included the game developed by Silla Entertainment.
It was a metaverse game that implemented a near-perfect space map.
It was so hard that most gamers forgot about it, but he knew that a few gamers who achieved good results were invited to Megacity.
‘They must be pilot candidates…’
Would they ride on this Assault Armor soon?
The smart factory could produce anything, so it seemed like this robot would be mass-produced soon.
‘Now that I think about it, the 2180 Human Extinction game was a direct copy of the future.’
He couldn’t guess the Plague and the current situation from that game because there was a lot of distortion.
The Plague had only the same name, but looked completely different, and the Assault Armor was not like this either.
The purpose of making that game was to select pilots, so they didn’t care about the details.
Anyway, the uber pilot of the United Human Federation in that game was definitely President Yu Ji-ha.
Gamers saw his record and said that even if he was a fictional character, he was too much.
—He fought hundreds of times for 40 years without being hit? He should lie more moderately.
—This character is like a myth. He is a legendary hero who can never be reached. It’s impossible to reproduce his achievements, but try hard. Something like that. But it wasn’t true.
Yu Ji-ha was a real soldier from the future United Human Federation.
So this Assault Armor must be special too…
He asked him, but he got an unexpected answer.
“No. This is a fourth-generation Assault Armor, mass-produced.”
“Mass-produced? Does that mean other pilots ride the same thing?”
“The appearance or cockpit configuration may vary slightly, but the performance is exactly the same.”
Looking closely, there were scratches on various parts of the body, showing signs of wear and tear.
Even with future technology, time took its toll.
‘Didn’t he get an overhaul since he came to this era?’
Anyway, it was amazing to see one of the weapons made by the future United Human Federation that could resist the Plague.
The Blue House staff also came closer and watched it with curiosity.
“So this is like a fighter jet?”
“President, you flew in space with this thing… That’s awesome…”
“It’s not awesome, it’s very dangerous. I saw the game, and there were lasers raining down like crazy.”
“I played that game too, and I felt like I needed eyes on the back of my head to barely play it.”
Yu Ji-ha detached the Reflector Bit and used it as a stepping stone to get into the cockpit.
The eyes of Bae Seong-min, who peeked inside, sparkled.
‘There are three symbols on his rank insignia… Was he a colonel?’
Or something similar to that.
He hesitated and asked, but he said he was a colonel.
“Really? Your final rank was colonel?”
“I was a colonel for over 20 years. I’m not saying this because I’m misunderstood, but I wasn’t demoted. There was a military rule that pilots could only go up to colonel.”
That could be changed, but neither the United Human Federation leadership nor Yu Ji-ha seemed to care.
After all, they were in a crisis of extinction, and what mattered was not a mere rank.
Yu Ji-ha put on his helmet and a familiar voice came from inside the cockpit.
「The synchronization rate is stabilized at 94.95%.」
Is this Arma’s voice?
Bae Seong-min was confused, but Yu Ji-ha rolled up his sleeve and said.
“I did some research and found out that I can be a psy-field blocker myself. It’s hard to operate remotely, so I have no choice but to go to where Cocon fell. Arma will control most of it, but please take care of the rest of the complaints, chief secretary.”
Without Yu Ji-ha, he became the acting president.
It didn’t mean that he had the position, but that people asked him.
“I’ll do my best.”
Yu Ji-ha controlled the Reflector Bit and tapped his shoulder.
“Oh my.”
“Psychics can do that too?”
“Someone said that. Our president is the strongest psychic in the world.”
Soon the hatch closed and the cockpit disappeared.
The Assault Armor slowly rose, and one word was visible on the corner of the body.
「DINGO」
“Dingo…?”
Was that the name of the machine?
An ether reverse field spread out and the Assault Armor Dingo, with the eternal colonel on board, disappeared in an instant.
Bae Seong-min, the chief secretary, waved his hand at the staff and entered the main building.
He felt like he would never forget what he saw today.
***
Yu Ji-ha’s Assault Armor was floating in the air above the Sea of Okhotsk.
This was where the most Plague cocoons had fallen, almost 15 of them.
Yu Ji-ha sensed that the psy-field density from the cocoons was not good.
‘The cocoons will open soon.’
He had never experienced the Plague Swarm before.
He was in a training session at the space station when the raid occurred.
The United Human Federation, which suffered a terrible defeat, started to use black metal in earnest, and since then, battles were mainly conducted with battleships and Assault Armors.
But he had information about the Plague Swarm.
「I will predict the dispersion direction of the pods. The accuracy is 93%…」
Hundreds of lines stretched from each cocoon to the cities.
The whole earth was covered with lines in less than 30 minutes.
That meant that those pods were faster than Earth Fleet, despite their small size.
“The bio-ion propulsion system is too good.”
「They don’t need any combat power, so they put all their ether into propulsion.」
“They are indeed the originators of ether technology.”
It was fortunate that they couldn’t make antimatter bombs.
After waiting for a while, Arma sent him the optimized interception sequence data through his biochip.
Yu Ji-ha’s vision became dizzy as information was inputted into his brain.
“67%… As expected, it’s impossible to intercept them all.”
「Your body won’t be able to handle it.」
There was no problem with the hardware, such as Dingo and the ether receiver.
The problem was this body, which couldn’t digest ether properly even after undergoing surgery.
In the best situation, that is, if he overloaded the Settler’s ether fusion reactor and risked injury.
Then Dingo could reach a speed of 20,000 kilometers per hour.
This was an incredible speed that could reach Mars in two hours on average.
But that was assuming he used his original body, and with this body that hadn’t undergone proper modification, he couldn’t even achieve 10%.
‘I have to go back to my original body.’
The United Human Federation would be left to the Supreme Council and Arma, and he would have to return as a soldier and a pilot.
As time passed, people who knew him would die, and he could use a dummy instead without being noticed.
By the way, were the countries well prepared?
He asked Arma, but he got an absurd answer.
「The only countries that fully followed your suggestion were Russia and Germany, and some states in America.」
“I thought France had a better image of me.”
「Their image improved, but they are too reluctant to leave their cities. They don’t have enough time or manpower.」
“They don’t listen even after I warned them that they would die?”
「I warned them again in a strong tone, but they finally refused.」
“They’re doomed.”
Paris and other cities with strict altitude restrictions were better off.
The real danger was modern cities with high-rise buildings and apartments.
When wire disease spread, it would destroy not only the metal frames of buildings but also the rebar inside concrete.
Countless buildings and apartments would collapse.
Of course, each country tried their best to operate 100% of their air defense network, but that was not enough.
‘At least millions of people will die.’
The victims, such as refugees, could reach billions.
It was scary to think what damage would occur when the Plague started to raid in earnest.
Should he have used a more aggressive method?
‘Maybe it would have been better to conquer the world.’
But then there would have been other side effects.
He couldn’t take risks when his future was not guaranteed.
Yu Ji-ha shook off his thoughts and focused on the cocoons deep in the sea floor.
He felt the psy-field density getting thicker in his body.
“Arma, there’s not much time left.”
「I will warn the governments of each country one last time.」
“Use all of the world’s radio networks… No, never mind. Just leave them alone.”
If they didn’t listen until now, they had to experience it for themselves.
When Yu Ji-ha’s Assault Armor was floating above the Sea of Okhotsk, a crack appeared on a cocoon that fell near Bahamas.
The US Coast Guard detected it but did not take any action.
They planned to feed it with hafnium-2 warheads when it came out.
They said that Plague Swarm had no intelligence or strong combat power.
They would only cause a strange phenomenon called metal death, so they had to destroy it before that.
President Bernstein had a weak base of support and was distracted by Megacity, so he couldn’t evacuate the citizens living on the east coast.
No one knew what disaster that would be.
Bubbles rose from the water surface and the patrol ships dropped hafnium-2 torpedoes and started to run away at full speed.
***
Plague was an intelligent life form, but there were cases where some individuals had no intelligence.
Swarm was such a case, and the research institute concluded that it was because the size of the individual was too small.
But if someone asked if Swarm was inanimate, there would be no one who agreed.
They had no intelligence, but they had an algorithm close to instinct.
They judged how to inflict the most damage on the enemy.
In that respect, the 50 cocoons that fell on Earth exploded simultaneously, making the interception attempt useless.
The cocoon that exploded near Bahamas sent hundreds of pods to Florida.
「The pods are heading to Miami. Speed 25km per second, current altitude 5km.」
It didn’t take 20 seconds for the pods to reach Miami’s sky.
There was no consideration for ether reverse field or anything, and the shock wave tore through the city and shattered the windows of high-rise buildings.
“Damn it!”
“Aaaah!”
The citizens screamed and ran away from the streets.
The anti-aircraft guns installed all over the city were activated, but they exploded before they could be detected by radar.
Bang.
With a somewhat disappointing sound, a huge number of Swarm overturned the city.
The Plague Swarm that stuck everywhere spat out particle beams and decomposed metal elements.
Soon, the buildings in Miami’s business district began to make ominous noises.
Screech―
“Huh?”
“What’s that sound…”
While people were confused, the particle beams quickly penetrated the concrete and turned the steel frames into sand.
As the steel frames that supported the load became useless, the building collapsed under its own weight.
A crack appeared in the middle of the concrete, and it slid down like a slide.
The result was a collapse.
Rumble―
A huge amount of dust rose and part of the building crashed to the ground.
People who were looking at the sky wondering what the noise was, opened their mouths in horror.
“Aaaah!”
“God!”
But there was nowhere to run.
Buildings that couldn’t withstand the load collapsed all over the city.
Then, street lamps and vehicles turned into sand, and airplanes were no exception.
A passenger plane that happened to be flying near the pod explosion was disassembled in mid-air and scattered more than 100 people.
The people who fell without parachutes died on impact.
And a man who was driving a car had a strange experience of rolling on the ground.
He felt something licking his car, and it broke like a sand castle.
He was dumbfounded, holding only the steering wheel.
“What the hell is this?”
A huge noise and vibration swept through the city as if an earthquake had occurred.
People who lived in low buildings were not completely unaffected by the damage.
Everything metal in their homes, from forks to refrigerators, was smashed.
The whole city was collapsing, and this situation was just the beginning.
Pods that arrived at other destinations sprayed Swarm at once, and the same phenomenon occurred as in Miami.
In one port city, a cruise ship that was docked was disassembled as a whole, dropping hundreds of passengers into the sea.
Meanwhile, in a zoo in China, tourists were attacked by a pack of tigers when their cages evaporated.
That’s when Yu Ji-ha’s Assault Armor moved.
「Ether pump activated, fusion reactor at maximum output.」
Ether sent from Settler was delivered to Assault Armor through the receiver.
As ether spewed out from the booster, Assault Armor wrapped in gold disappeared somewhere, leaving only an afterimage.
「Current speed 70km per second, altitude 2km.」
‘Got them.’
There were dozens of pods flying in formation above him.
「Calculating ejection position, ether blocker activated.」
Just before they detected Assault Armor and released Swarm, hafnium-2 warheads were ejected at precise locations.
Boom!
The seawater split open with a huge explosion and the pods evaporated.
But Assault Armor had already escaped from the blast radius.
‘Next.’
Yu Ji-ha’s eyes pointed to the distant sea and Assault Armor quickly changed direction.
Most physical laws were ignored in ether reverse field, but inertia was not gone.
Yu Ji-ha endured the pain that felt like his whole body was crushed and succeeded in changing Assault Armor’s direction.
「Booster at maximum output, current speed 250km per second.」
‘Ugh!’
Blood rushed to his head and his vision became faint.
His modified heart pumped blood backwards with reverse pumping, causing severe pain.
He didn’t miss the image information sent by Arma even in this situation where his body felt like it would explode.
It was a skill that only Uber pilots who had fought against Plague for decades could have.
「Ejection」
A pod cluster evaporated by hafnium-2’s explosion and Assault Armor had already moved hundreds of kilometers away.
An image of Seoul appeared on Yu Ji-ha’s eyes, then blurred and changed to Shanghai.
He moved so fast that he could only see a golden line instead of a shape.
Bae Seong-min, chief secretary, rushed out of the bunker after hearing news of a huge explosion in Sea of Okhotsk.
There was a golden line drawn in the sky.
“Is that…”
Then he received a report through his headset.
“Ch, chief secretary! There was a huge explosion near Shanghai… No, no, Southeast Asia…”
Bae Seong-min sighed and threw off his headset.
He knew who was causing the explosions without looking.
President Yu Ji-ha.
He was flying over Earth’s sky with Assault Armor.
Thanks to him, United Human Federation hardly suffered from wire disease.
But he couldn’t say the same for major cities of other countries.
He entered the bunker and saw images taken by artificial satellites occupying dozens of monitors.
The staff groaned at the terrible sight.
Humanity’s doom was approaching.
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