WeTried Translations
Translator: [IncomeElastic]
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◈ I Became a Genius Engineer That Mega Corporations Are Obsessed With ◈
Chapter 42
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A Promise I Can't Make
Click.
Rita's suppressor was something Gordon had made for her.
Long ago, when she'd come to fear her own power, Gordon had built it so she could control that power.
The suppressor had six buttons in total.
Each one stood for a single tier.
Press one and she was tier 1, press two and she was tier 2, and so on.
Click-click.
For now, Rita pressed two more buttons in a row.
Blue sparks leapt from her fingertips, numbing them.
Tier 3. Up to here, the power was something Rita could control perfectly.
"Don't forget our promise, client."
With that, Rita opened the door and stepped outside.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
The moment she stepped out, the gunfire hit her, far louder than before.
So the room in there had been surprisingly well soundproofed.
Probably because the thick walls and door had been built for hiding, the soundproofing had come with them.
Realizing that, Rita quickly shut the door behind her.
With it shut tight, it would be hard for anyone to force it open.
The hallway was already thick with dust kicked up by the fighting.
Through the dust, two bodyguards held their ground with their backs against the wall, each gripping an unidentifiable gun.
Dex would have recognized which company's lineup it was and what technology went into it, but all Rita could tell was that it was a gun.
"What's the situation?"
Rita asked the two bodyguards.
"...Wouldn't it be better if you went back inside? There's no need for you to get dragged into a family fight."
"Hasn't the enemy already dragged us in, by getting this far?"
The two couldn't deny even that much.
"Twenty or so. Most are mechanized mercenaries carrying firearms, but a few Baekdu employees who use body arts are mixed in. And..."
"And?"
"The Blackhorn Captain came in person."
"Who's that?"
"The Vice Chairman's right hand. Aside from the Chairman and the young ladies, the strongest one there is."
"Meaning the young lady could beat this Blackhorn Captain, right?"
"...Yes. That's correct."
"Then our job is settled. Hold out."
The two bodyguards glanced at each other.
"That's not easy..."
Before the bodyguard could say more, Rita stepped out ahead of them.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Beyond the dust, muzzles spat fire as if they'd been waiting.
Rita raised a hand at the sight.
When the gun smoke cleared, a blue curtain of lightning stretched the full width of the hallway. Every bullet that had poured in was lodged in it, suspended.
On the far side of the curtain came the sound of someone swallowing a breath.
Rita swept a hand through the air once, and the caught bullets flew back the way they'd come.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat...
Bullets aimed at their own owners turned part of the mechanized unit into casualties in an instant.
* * *
Bzzt.
Through the thick wall came the faint sound of electricity crackling.
No idea what was going on out there to make a noise like that carry in here.
Honestly, I didn't want to know. I just wanted to repair the client quickly and safely and put this whole situation to rest.
"Big bro, the mana reaction outside is huge."
"Whoever it belongs to, I hope it's on our side."
That would buy me time.
Thinking that far, I shook my head. What needed my attention right now wasn't outside the door but this spine.
Through the Spellbreaker's Magic Eye, I felt my way around the inside of the control unit. The authentication circuit tied to Geumgang, and the monitoring circuit that never stopped watching it. Both were locked behind a lock called the security circuit, and traps were wound thick around them.
One slip, even a small one, and the trap would trigger on the spot. This time I was going after the security circuit itself, so the spine might even blow up. If that happened, there'd be nothing left for any of us.
In my hands right now were my life and the client's, yes, but also the lives of the bodyguards outside, of Rita who'd just gone out, and of Zino.
Somehow the feeling going into this repair was a little different from every one before it.
"...Seol Gye-hyeon."
"...Yes?"
"Do not be nervous. Even if this fails, it is not your fault. It is rather my fault, for putting you in danger."
Baek So-ha's words left me speechless, and I frowned slightly.
"Fault or no fault, I'm nervous because everyone in here dies if it fails, isn't that the point?"
"Heh."
Baek So-ha let out a short laugh. It was the first time I'd heard her laugh.
"...I see. Come to think of it, it was a situation in which nervousness was unavoidable."
In the end, a laugh slipped out of me too.
"If you were trying to calm me down, you succeeded."
"Then I am glad. Good. Let us all live."
"Yes. Let's all live, together."
I started the work.
* * *
That happened one more time, give or take.
Bullets flew in, Rita stopped them with the lightning curtain, and sent them back.
One of the bodyguards, watching from behind, muttered.
"...That's an assistant?"
Rita answered without turning around.
"As you've seen, I can block the bullets. You two should start shooting."
Instead of an answer, there came the click of a gun being loaded.
And this time the shooting started from the bodyguards' side.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Corporate bodyguards, as expected, and their marksmanship was first-rate too. The rounds they fired blew off the heads of several mechanized mercenaries in an instant.
After that, the gunfire from the other side stopped. They'd figured out guns wouldn't work.
Three figures tore through the dust and charged in from the far side.
Baekdu employees who used body arts.
Wearing prosthetics that looked like Baekdu's upper-tier lineup, they ripped through Rita's electric curtain in an instant and came inside.
At that moment, two shadows shot out on either side of Rita.
Boom!
The bodyguards. One of the attackers swung a kick, and a bodyguard met it with the same kick. The sound of two combat prosthetics colliding echoed down the hallway.
One Baekdu employee remained in front of Rita.
The attacker looked her up and down once, probably checking what kind of prosthetics she had. Then their eyes went to the suppressor around her neck.
At that very instant, the attacker vanished from in front of her.
Thwack!
A kick buried itself in her flank in no time. Rita raised an arm on reflex and blocked it, but the force of the kick seeped faintly into her body.
The kick from the other side followed right away.
Crack!
This time too she barely managed to block it with a raised arm. This one hurt far more than the last.
Rita swung the lightning gathered in both hands and fell far back.
At the sight of an attack they'd never seen, the enemy drew back for a moment, wary.
Both of her arms had started to tingle faintly. They might even have cracked.
These weren't kicks she could take again and again.
She couldn't take any more of them.
Rita steadied her breath once, then closed her eyes.
Click.
She pressed down on the 4th button, with a little force.
Bzzzzt...
Her hair lifted bit by bit, as if charged with static. Blue light spread thinly beneath her skin along her veins.
The inside of her eyes grew hot. Rita's amber pupils narrowed vertically, like blades.
The numbness in her fingertips climbed all the way to her elbows. The sparks that had leapt between her fingers now wrapped the backs of her hands like spiderwebs.
A familiar sensation. And still, an unwelcome one.
Bzzt.
At the same time, she spread the lightning around her body thin across the entire hallway. Fine as a spiderweb, scattered through the air.
And then she could sense the attacker. How they'd move, where they'd strike from.
Rita waited for the attack to come, then reached out.
The magnetic field that stretched from her hand stopped the attacker's leg in midair.
With the leg held there, she sent an electric field out from her other hand.
Bzzzzzzt!
The attacker fell straight back, body shuddering.
"Haah..."
A hollow, emptied-out feeling swept her belly, along with dizziness, and Rita pulled one of Dex's nutrient tubes from her pocket and bit down on it.
She'd asked Boss why he ate such awful stuff, but when it came to using psionic powers, there was no recovery item better than this.
She was about halfway through sucking down the tube when it happened.
The footsteps beyond the dust stopped dead. The mercenaries stepped aside on both flanks, opening a path.
A man walked out between them.
Black hair, black eyes. But traces of Western blood remained in his face, so he looked mixed.
"...Blackhorn Captain."
The bodyguard spoke the man's identity aloud.
The man looked down once at the employee lying on the floor. Then he looked at Rita.
"A psionic, huh... Tier 4, maybe? Must've cost a fortune."
Rita spat out the tube instead of answering.
Her hand rose to the suppressor on its own.
Just from sensing the man's presence, she knew. To trade even a single exchange with this man, she'd have to press at least five buttons.
But...
Rita's hand wavered, about to press the 5th button. Once she pressed five, she might cross into a realm she couldn't control.
And because of that hesitation, Rita ended up letting an attack through.
Wham!
Struck by the man's leg, Rita's body flew off to the far side.
* * *
Thud.
The door rang heavily. Something had slammed right into it.
My fingertips nearly twitched from the shock.
Luckily, I'd managed to disable the security circuit without setting off the trap.
What remained was fooling the monitoring circuit's eye and opening the authentication circuit.
The monitoring circuit watches the beat that the authentication circuit keeps. Regularly, without rest. If that beat falters even once, the trap wakes up.
Then all I had to do was keep the beat going. Real or fake.
"Zino. Can you feel this beat?"
"Yeah. Tick, tick, tick... it's like a heartbeat."
"While I open the authentication circuit, I need you to beat that rhythm in its place. Exactly the same."
"Z-Zino does?"
"Yeah. Of course. You can do it, Zino."
At my words, Zino's camera lens squeezed shut once and opened again.
"...Okay. I'll try. Because big bro believes in me."
The mana Zino gave off trembled thinly, then overlapped with the authentication circuit's beat. Tick, tick, tick.
I opened the authentication circuit as carefully as I could.
"You're doing great, Zino. It's really being fooled. Just keep it up like that."
I carefully cut the wire inside the authentication circuit.
"Done. Zino. You can stop now."
"Okay. Did Zino do well?"
"You did great, Zino. Really."
I'd been about to ask Rita to pop a bit of jelly into my mouth, then realized she was outside the door.
My head clearly wasn't working right.
"Client. It's finished. The legs are only a temporary fix, so it won't be good to use them too hard."
Baek So-ha slowly pushed herself upright.
"Seol Gye-hyeon."
'What? Why is she suddenly calling my name?'
"Though you are the one who mended these legs, I cannot make you the promise that I will use them carefully."
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