Chapter 7. A Madman's Scribbles

  District 34, on the outskirts of Arc City. A wasteland scarred by the Magi-Tech Wars of the past.

  The darkness here, untouched even by the glow of neon signs, was thick and heavy. The headlights of the patrol car speeding down the dirt road illuminated the floating dust in the air.

  “Ugh. Dammit. I just bought these shoes. Now they're covered in mud.”

  Stepping out of the car, Tom looked down at the slushy ground and grimaced. The metallic stench of blood mixed with the acrid scent of ozone stung their noses.

  The scene was already a disaster zone. A massive crater had formed in the middle of the wasteland, and lodged at its center was a chunk of metal the size of a house. Sporadic sparks danced across its charred, blackened surface.

  “That's a flying object? Looks like a giant piece of scrap metal to me.” Tom said, shining his flashlight on it.

  Ren pulled his hat down and silently set up the police tape. His eyes scanned the interior of the metal chunk.

  The structure was unfamiliar. It wasn't a design from this planet. An alien architecture that belonged neither to magic engineering nor mechanical engineering.

  However, there were no life signs. The power source was already destroyed, its output having dropped below the critical point. In other words, it wasn't dangerous. Just a very expensive piece of garbage that fell from the sky.

  “When's the Hazmat Disposal Team getting here?” “Thirty minutes.” “Haa... So we just have to stand guard in the middle of nowhere until then? In the rain?”

  Tom grumbled, pulling his collar tight. Ren didn't reply, simply staring into the darkness.

  Unfortunately, the nights in the wasteland were never quiet. Where the city lights couldn't reach, there were always beasts prowling for rotting meat.

  Vrooom. Vroooom.

  Sure enough, the harsh roar of engines echoed from beyond the darkness. Not just one. Three, no, four. Modified buggies were charging toward them, kicking up dirt with their searchlights blazing. The vehicles were adorned with skull insignias and rusted saw blades.

  ‘Scrap Sharks.’ Armed scrap hunters who used the wasteland as their base of operations.

  “You gotta be kidding me. Why now?”

  Tom instinctively rested his hand on the pistol at his waist. The buggies skidded to a halt, surrounding the patrol car. Men armed with chains, pipes, and modified plasma cutters hopped out, snickering. The leader, a massive brute, had one arm modified into an excavator claw.

  “Hey there, officer boys. Looks like you picked up something nice.” The brute approached, clacking his metal claw. “Step back. This is a city government restricted zone.” Tom shouted, but his voice was trembling slightly.

  There were ten of them. And they were more heavily armed than the police.

  “Restricted, my ass. This is District 34. Finders keepers. Move. Unless you wanna get hurt.”

  The brute stomped his foot threateningly. His underlings closed the net around them, tapping iron pipes into their palms. Tom stepped back and grabbed the hem of Ren's jacket.

  “Hey. Ren. What do we do? Even if we call for backup, these guys are faster.”

  Ren stared at the brute with an apathetic expression. His gaze wasn't on the men's faces, but on the beat-up buggies they rode in and the crude weapons in their hands.

  It was annoying.

  If they fought, he'd have to write a report. Even if he subdued them, they didn't have a vehicle to transport them. Even if they transported them, he'd still have to write a report. The best option was to make them screw off on their own.

  “That thing.” Ren gestured toward the scrap in the crater with his chin. “It still has an active current.” “Huh? So what? You trying to scare me?”

  The brute sneered and strode toward the edge of the crater. He pulled out the portable plasma cutter slung over his back.

  “Current? I'll just fry it with my cutter. Gotta be some expensive alloys inside this baby.”

  The brute flicked the switch on his cutter.

  Vvvvrrrr! Blue sparks flew.

  Ren didn't stop him. He had given the necessary warning. If they chose not to listen, that was on them. Honestly, he had warned them hoping they wouldn't listen.

  Ren wiggled a finger ever so slightly. He gently nudged the residual mana lingering inside the scrap—energy that was like a dying ember. He guided its direction. Very naturally, toward the path of highest conductivity.

  “Alright. Let's start the dismantling process...”

  It was the exact moment the brute pressed his cutter against the surface of the scrap.

  KZZZT!

  The scrap let out a high-frequency shriek, almost like a scream. Simultaneously, the residual current condensed inside surged backward through the plasma cutter.

  “Uwaaaagh!”

  The brute's body glowed blue. Like an electrocuted frog, his limbs locked up stiffly as he was blasted backward.

  Bang! The cutter battery on his back exploded, spewing black smoke.

  “B-Boss!” His underlings rushed toward him in terror.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  The brute's hair was standing on end like he'd been hit by a cartoon bomb, and white steam puffed from his mouth. He wasn't dead. Just a full-body paralysis and a shock severe enough that he wouldn't be able to hold chopsticks for a few days.

  “W-What the hell is this! Is that thing gonna blow?”

  The underlings scrambled backward in panic. Ren nudged Tom's shoulder.

  “Tell them.” “Huh? Uh... T-Tell them what?” “That it's dangerous.”

  Tom hurriedly grabbed the megaphone.

  “H-Hey, you there! Step back immediately! There are signs of a secondary explosion! If you don't evacuate right now, you'll all be roasted alive!”

  With perfect timing, Ren stimulated the scrap's residual mana one more time.

  Crackle. BOOM! A menacing spark violently erupted from the surface of the scrap once more.

  “Eeeeek! Run!” “Grab the Boss! Move!”

  The scrap hunters completely lost their minds. They tossed their foaming boss into the back of a buggy like a sack of potatoes and slammed on the gas. Leaving behind only a thick cloud of dust, the thugs vanished into the darkness.

  Silence and the sound of rain returned to the wasteland.

  “Whoa... That thing really almost blew up. Ren. If it wasn't for you, we would have been in deep trouble. How did you know?” Tom let out a sigh of relief. “Machines don't lie.”

  Ren answered briefly and walked back toward the police tape. Truthfully, there was no way it would explode. Ren had simply gathered the current and shot it at them. But Tom, and the Disposal Team that would arrive later, would record it as a ‘spontaneous discharge from unstable scrap.’

  Ten minutes later. With a deafening roar from the sky, a city government transport ship and the Hazmat Disposal Team arrived. Agents in hazmat suits began moving busily. Ren and Tom handed the scene over to them and stepped back.

  “Good work, 7th Department. You're cleared to return to base.”

  The field director's words were sweeter than a choir of angels. Ren knocked the mud off his shoes and got into the patrol car.

  “Ah. I'm exhausted. Hey. Ren. Wanna grab that bowl of udon we missed earlier?” “Go eat by yourself. I just want to go wash up.” “Aw, come on. So stiff. Fine. Let's go.”

  The patrol car drove out of the wasteland. In the rearview mirror, the sight of the Disposal Team cautiously approaching the scrap faded away. Ren leaned his head against the window. The night view of Arc City outside the car window sparkled as apathetically as ever.

  *

  Upon arriving home, the moment Ren stepped into the entryway, he looked down at his mud-covered shoes.

  An ordinary person would have pulled out a brush and scrubbed them, then wiped them down with wet wipes. But Ren simply stared at his shoes.

  Swoosh.

  The mud and dust particles clinging to the leather disintegrated at the molecular level and floated into the air. They formed into a small sphere and flew perfectly into the trash can. In an instant, the shoes were gleaming like products in a display window.

  This wasn't even a task for him. Understanding and interfering with the structure of matter. It was merely the foundation of his authority.

  Fresh out of the shower, Ren grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down at his desk. On the desk sat a piece of junk he had been building for three years. On the outside, it looked like an old radio with a tangle of complex circuits, and it functioned perfectly as a radio, too. But in reality, it was a ‘Dimensional Coordinate Calculator.’

  Ren popped the tab on his beer and sighed.

  “Another bust today.”

  He twitched a finger, turning the radio's dial.

  Bzzzt. Hmmm. White noise flowed from the speakers.

  His senses expanded. Every radio wave in Arc City, the magnetic field of this planet, even the microscopic ripples traveling from beyond the cosmos brushed across his mind. A sensory perception bordering on omniscience.

  But nowhere could he catch the frequency of his ‘original world.’

  ‘Still blocked, huh.’ Ren smacked his lips bitterly.

  Right after falling into this world, he had gauged the magnitude of the power he possessed. The conclusion was: ‘Almost akin to a God.’

  If he wanted to split a continent, he could. If he wanted to reverse gravity and launch the city into space, he could do that, too. But even with that overwhelming power, there were exactly three things he could not do.

  First, Return. This world was like a massive glass bottle. Inside, he could do almost anything, but he couldn't break the bottle and leave. He had tried a few times, but every time he tried to forcefully tear the dimensional wall, the entire world showed signs of collapsing. He couldn't just destroy this universe just because he wanted to go home.

  Second, Perfect Time Reversal. It was possible to put spilled water back into a cup. Reversing an event that happened a few minutes or hours ago was also possible, if he was willing to take the risk. But returning to the exact moment three years ago when he closed that novel? Impossible. If he tried to swim upstream against the river of time, a massive dam called ‘Causality’ blocked his path. If he broke that dam, the very origin of existence would be eradicated.

  Third, Resurrection. Fixing a dead body was easy. He could make a heart beat again, repair brain cells, and reconnect severed nerves. But calling back a departed ‘soul’ was beyond his authority. A body without a soul was just an elaborate puppet.

  If this were truly the world inside a novel, a dead person would be revived with a single stroke of the author's pen. But this place was already an independent reality. Death was the most absolute rule reality possessed.

  “Omnipotence, my ass.” Ren muttered with a self-deprecating scoff.

  If he couldn't go home and couldn't bring the dead back to life, what use was the power to shatter continents?

  So, he decided not to use his power. If it was a destiny he couldn't change anyway, the best thing to do was just let it flow. Rather than playing God and messing up the world, living as a patrol cop with a steady paycheck was much more comfortable.

  He turned off the radio.

  Click. Silence filled the room.

  Ren opened a drawer and pulled out a small toolset. Machine repair. This was the one hobby he could enjoy without using his superpowers. Of course, when precise work was needed, his abilities triggered subconsciously, but to anyone else, he just looked like a ‘mechanic with insane dexterity.’

  There was no reason to reveal it, but no need to actively hide it either. This world was crawling with capable people like magic engineers and artifact crafters. Being good with machines served as a useful camouflage rather than arousing suspicion.

  ‘Guess I'll take a look at the engine in Tom's patrol car tomorrow.’ Thinking about tomorrow's chores, Ren threw himself onto his bed.

  Saving the world was Kyle's job. Traversing space and time was something Archmages could worry about. The only things he needed to worry about were what to eat for lunch tomorrow and how to let Tom's inevitable whining go in one ear and out the other.

  He closed his eyes. Hoping he wouldn't dream of the hometown he couldn't return to.

  Magic. The absolute power that ruled this world and the measure of one's social standing.

  Some might ask. With such omnipotent power, why not learn magic to find a way back? If he explored the origins of magic, wouldn't he find at least a clue to opening a dimensional gate?

  To put the conclusion first: he was skeptical. Actually, it was more accurate to say he had zero interest.

  It had been three years. Perhaps because he served as a patrol cop, he had witnessed the magic wielded by the so-called pinnacle of this world—the Archmages and the scholars of the Academy.

  But not once had he been impressed. It was the absolute peak of inefficiency.

  The heat energy of the ‘Fireball’ they created by chanting spells and burning mana for ten minutes was roughly equal to the frictional heat he could generate just by rubbing air molecules together with a single finger. Even when a mage sweat bullets to perform a ‘Teleport,’ it was only enough to skip across a single city.

  Crossing the cosmos and tearing dimensions with that level of power? It was like saying an ant could cross the Pacific Ocean by building a raft. Racking his brain to learn a technique that didn't even reach his ankles was a waste of time.

  If he had witnessed a transcendental magic that surpassed or even rivaled his own abilities, he might have considered it.

  Wasn't it possible that he would be different if he learned it?

  It wasn't like he hadn't tried. In his first year after falling into this world, out of curiosity, he had stopped by a bookstore and skimmed through an ‘Introduction to Magic’ and similar books.

  He closed the book ten minutes after opening it.

  To him, this wasn't an academic discipline; it was closer to the scribbles of a madman. There was no logical system or rules—only bizarre, incomprehensible ciphers and abstract metaphors. Rather than wrestling with bizarre ciphers he couldn't understand, fixing a broken toaster was far more productive.

  Since that day, he had erased the word ‘magic’ from his mind.