Master Smith Under Ministry of National Defense

Master Smith Under Ministry of National Defense

176 – A More Difficult Distinction Than Expected

After escaping the supply warehouse, Myung-jun roughly threw the female officer into the empty cargo hold and, along with Kei, began driving the 2.5-ton truck across the parade ground. It was like a scene from a zombie movie, with numerous soldiers in uniform screaming and rushing towards the truck. Myung-jun swerved the truck wildly to avoid injuring the soldiers as much as possible.

“Damn it! This is something Byung-tae would be good at!”

“Can’t we just plow through them, even if it means some of them get hurt?”

“Hey, those guys were dragged into this against their will and forced into military service! It’s bad enough they have to serve at the prime of their lives, but they got infected by those creatures too! Don’t you feel sorry for them? If there’s a way to save them, we should try to save them!”

The reason Myung-jun opted for a kidnapping scenario rather than an aggressive elimination protocol was precisely because of this. One of the characteristics of the Inspectors that Myung-jun remembered was that they would annihilate all infected victims if they saw no chance of winning.

Therefore, this operation had to be staged as if they were fleeing after a failed attempt. Since the synapse entity’s connection with the infected female officer was completely severed, the synapse entity wouldn’t be able to determine whether the female officer had been captured through conventional means.

While there was a possibility that the synapse entity might realize an infected individual had been captured if no body was found, Myung-jun judged this to be unlikely. Despite their excellent memory utilization, Inspectors had significantly poorer reasoning abilities compared to humans. Unless the captured entity directly reported its capture, Myung-jun believed the synapse entity wouldn’t have the intelligence to deduce that an infected individual had been captured just because one was missing.

‘Moreover, even if the synapse entity realizes one of its creatures has been captured, it’s likely it won’t care much.’

Creatures with potent defenses often had weaker vigilance. In nature, some venomous creatures would even saunter in front of predators. For the Inspectors, their defense mechanism was the self-destruct function that caused their bodies to explode internally.

Even if some infected creatures were in danger, the self-destruct mechanism, which involved their highly acidic blood, was the ultimate defense mechanism, preventing any physical analysis of the infected body.

The reason Myung-jun was enduring this ordeal was to circumvent that defense mechanism, and he was confident that the Inspectors hadn’t prepared any other special defenses.

“When we reach the safe zone, the first thing you need to do is check for any unusual smells. If you can identify the infected body part with your nose, that would be ideal. If we can’t locate the parasite while it’s frozen…”

“If we can’t?”

“We’ll figure it out then.”

Fortunately, the infected soldiers didn’t follow the truck outside the base. It was as if someone had called them back; they suddenly stopped and turned around. Although Soo-bin was still inside, Myung-jun wasn’t worried about her. Unless they had some special means to penetrate her bionic suit, it was nearly impossible for the unit’s firepower to subdue her.

As expected, Soo-bin, aided by her power armor, escaped the base at an astonishing speed and quickly caught up with the truck.

“Good job.”

“Well, it was noisy but not much of a workout. It was a bit disgusting when they ran out of bullets and started trying to bite me.”

“Like a scene from a zombie movie.”

“Exactly! It felt like something I’d seen before!”

With the three of them and the frozen female officer on board, the truck headed to the safe zone where Soo-jeong was waiting. Upon arrival, Myung-jun placed the frozen female officer into a preservation device that Soo-jeong had prepared. After a quick scan, he immediately began a strategy meeting with EDA Director Yoon Se-ah regarding their next steps.

“We’ve confirmed that the officer we brought in frozen is indeed infected.”

“How did you confirm that?”

“Her appearance matches one of the suspected infected individuals you provided. She’s likely the female officer seen by the escaping soldier. Moreover, she approached me on-site and attempted to infect me with the parasite.”

Intrigued by Myung-jun’s explanation, Soo-jeong asked,

“Attempted to infect you? How exactly?”

“She lured me to an empty supply warehouse and tried to seduce me. She probably injected the parasite from her mouth into the mouths of the soldiers who fell for her. But she didn’t know that our clan members were already lying in wait. Just before she could attempt the infection, we used the rapid freezing capture device to restrain her.”

“Rapid freezing? Is thawing possible?”

“Strictly speaking, thawing isn’t feasible. When the body’s fluids freeze rapidly, sharp ice crystals form, destroying the cells.”

To make it easier to understand, Myung-jun explained how the texture of meat changes when it’s thawed after being frozen. Similarly, fruits and vegetables become mushy as their cells are destroyed during the freezing and thawing process. He explained that it’s difficult to preserve the human body during rapid freezing. EDA Director Yoon Se-ah looked momentarily disappointed.

She quickly changed her expression and said to Myung-jun, “I’m sorry. Hearing your explanation made me realize it’s difficult to save her life.”

Myung-jun nodded understandingly and replied, “Of course, what I mentioned applies to her current state. Our Liberal Clan has medical equipment capable of perfectly restoring even severely damaged cells.”

As Myung-jun explained the medical pods established in Liberator and Liberty City, Yoon Se-ah sighed in relief and apologized to him.

“I’m sorry. I had my doubts for a moment, but it seems you have a plan.”

“The issue isn’t reviving her. Putting her in a medical pod to reverse the freezing isn’t difficult. The real challenge is locating the parasite hidden somewhere in her body. What we need now is a way to immediately identify infected victims without complex procedures.”

“Do you think it’s possible?”

“It’s hard to say for sure. As you know, this type of creature is the first of its kind discovered worldwide.”

Myung-jun recalled that even Russia, one of the superpowers before his regression, had failed to find a way to distinguish infected individuals despite massive sacrifices and extensive biological experiments. However, Myung-jun now had access to equipment that far surpassed modern science.

He had Soo-jeong, who could design and create new equipment as needed, the world’s best tracer Ito Kei, who could detect even the slightest scent differences, and the alchemist Park Seung-ho, who could identify any chemical reaction and create numerous substances unknown to the world.

Believing that they could solve this problem by combining their strengths, Myung-jun moved with Director Yoon Se-ah to the Shadow Hawk, where the frozen female officer was kept.

“Senior, what are the scan results?”

“Amazingly clean. Of course, a few minor pre-existing conditions were detected, but there’s no sign of a parasite. Is it possible she’s not infected?”

“No, that’s unlikely… Actually…”

Myung-jun paused mid-sentence and looked at Soo-jeong.

“Senior, did you check inside her mouth?”

“Huh? No, we did MRI, CT, PET scans, infrared imaging, and X-rays, but we didn’t check her mouth. She’s completely frozen, so we couldn’t use an endoscope…”

“I wasn’t asking about an endoscope. I meant did you physically look inside her mouth? Just before we escaped from the infected base, Kei found a parasite trying to escape from her mouth.”

Upon hearing this, Soo-jeong, looking surprised, examined the frozen female officer’s open mouth. She then turned to Myung-jun with a frustrated expression.

“Ha… We relied too much on the scanning equipment and missed something we could have easily checked with the naked eye. But the parasite is attached to the mucous membrane inside her mouth. Forcibly removing it could tear the inside of her cheek. How do we remove it while keeping her frozen?”

After a moment of contemplation, she seemed to have an idea and clapped her hands together. She then fetched a large flathead screwdriver from her tool shelf in the Shadow Hawk.

“Wait a minute, Soo-jeong. You’re not planning to forcibly remove it with that, are you…?”

Before Yoon Se-ah could stop her, Soo-jeong roughly inserted the screwdriver into the female officer’s mouth. With a cracking sound, she forcibly pried the frozen parasite off.

“Didn’t you just say that forcibly removing it could injure her mouth?”

“On second thought, if we’re going to revive her, we’ll have to use the medical pod, which can easily heal any wounds inside her mouth. Right now, she’s closer to a frozen corpse than a living person. If we thaw her as she is, she’ll die immediately. So, it doesn’t matter if she gets injured during the analysis process.”

Soo-jeong examined the parasite she had removed, holding it in her palm. It had a transparent body like a jellyfish, but its opaque internal organs resembled those of a small rodent.

“I’m not a biologist, but it’s clear this isn’t a creature from Earth. It looks like a slug, but its internal organs are more like those of a mammal. How can it withstand highly acidic body fluids with a body like this?”

After finishing her observation, Soo-jeong handed the parasite to Kei. As Kei began to remove the helmet of his bionic suit, understanding what Soo-jeong wanted, she stopped him.

“Don’t take off the bionic suit. We gave you new equipment for situations like this, remember?”

“But it doesn’t seem like there’s any threat of infection.”

“Just like ants communicate with pheromones, this creature might release a special substance that could control your consciousness the moment you smell it. These creatures can’t be judged by human standards.”

Though Kei wondered if Soo-jeong was being overly cautious, he followed her instructions and took out the Puppet Nose Mk-1. He aimed it at the parasite and pulled the trigger.

[Initiating olfactory signal analysis. Detection radius: 1 meter. Collecting airborne chemicals… Analysis complete.]

Kei looked at the extensive list of substances displayed before his eyes and sighed.

“Sis, just listing the names of these substances doesn’t help me identify them. It’s hard to tell which of these molecules came from the parasite’s body.”

Kei explained that smells are not composed of single molecules but are detected as a combination of various particles in the air, which he senses as a kind of intuitive feeling.

“Detecting salt in the air doesn’t tell you whether it came from roasted Jerusalem artichokes or kimchi. You need to combine it with other sensory information to identify the smell. Let me take off the equipment. If I smell it directly, I’ll know what it is right away.”

Soo-jeong pondered for a moment after hearing Kei’s explanation. Then, she spoke to him with a tone of caution.

“Alright. But change into your specialized suit and keep a distance. That way, if something goes wrong, only the suit’s sensory sensors will be contaminated.”