Hiding A Logistics Center In The Apocalypse Chapter 179

Hiding the Logistics Center in the Apocalypse Chapter 179

Into the Storm (2)

Immediately after talking to the refugees in Gradiva,

We headed to the spaceship he came in on.

His tattered gloves were still there, but he was still contained in the subspace he had come from.

“This is······.”

The refugees looked surprised to see the missing spaceship lying there intact.

But soon he came to his senses, ran into the cockpit, and took out a thin piece of plate that was stuck in the steering wheel.

On the cold, shining silver plate, a vivid diagonal line was felt.

“Well, is this how it goes back?”

“That’s right. The route we’ve taken so far is recorded.”

The board was lined with zigzag lines in a dense row.

It was an analog coordinate board drawn with a thin needle. When the board was reversed and inserted, the return path was immediately input into the hull.

The refugee added, patting the old spaceship's armored hull.

“It’s a hull made from the remains of destroyed transport ships and other pirate ships. Even though it looks like this, the system isn’t all that different… so I think it’ll probably be compatible with the item you brought.”

It was just as he said.

The navigation system of Cheonkong Island shared the same facilities as the transport ship.

When I flipped the coordinate board over and inserted it, the path leading to the dimensional gap unfolded like a hologram.

Of course, the outline of the Sky Island was still just an ugly lump of rock······.

Crunch!

Drrrrrr!

“Heh heh heh heh heh.”

This time again, Lee Yong-soo had to take charge of driving.

Swish! Bang!

I jumped through space several times at the point where the straight line on the coordinate board broke.

The hull shook several times due to the dimensional wind flowing from Gradiva,

Still, we sailed straight for about half a day, following the direction indicated by the coordinate board.

But even during that time, 'Gradiva' was rarely seen.

As I stared blankly into the empty universe, Buendia explained to me as follows:

“Gradiva is a place where the magic stones of the Chamber of Commerce gather, but… it is not a single physical entity. Rather, it is a concentration of a huge desire that draws them all together. It is like a drain that swallows up the current, but is actually empty.”

It was like a black hole.

It swallows up the surrounding area with its enormous gravity,

Because it swallowed up even the light, I couldn't see it with my own eyes.

But the story seemed to be different on the precarious border surrounding Gradiva.

As if diving into the water, when the straight line on the coordinate board penetrates below the horizon,

"······ah."

Because we could observe Gradiva's appearance with both eyes open.

Kugugugu······.

A huge blue wave dotted with yellow and purple hues.

The waves rose up in a circular motion like a whirlpool, and the clumps of magic stones that poured upward each burst out, forming clouds of pale blue gas that enveloped the surrounding area.

It feels like you're in the middle of a thick oil painting abstraction.

The appearance of Gradiva was a 'beauty' in itself that I had never even imagined.

It was too large to be captured in one glance, but from one side, a translucent straight line could be seen spiraling out like a cloud path.

In one of them······.

"······person?"

Dozens of unidentified people were walking down the thin road in a line.

“It was a familiar sight,” the refugee added to me.

“They are job seekers. They are people who are working to become employees of the Chamber of Commerce.”

“Job seekers······?”

They took a step forward, opened their eyes, stared at Gradiva for a long time, then closed their eyes again and muttered something over and over again.

He looks like a pious monk calmly walking down the path of suffering.

As if he had something to say, this time Buendia explained.

“To become an employee of the Chamber of Commerce, you must embody a unique sensitivity to magic stones. You must be able to read the entangled and tangled world as a pure difference of magic stones. Gradiva is neither ahead nor behind… It is the very synthesis of pure differences. Family, friends, and even personal relationships. Only those who can throw them away without hesitation for the sake of pure beauty can become employees of the Chamber of Commerce.”

The mysterious and noble inside story of the Chamber of Commerce.

Buendia gritted his teeth and added softly.

“Only those horrible guys······.”

And then,

Hwaaaaah!

CLANG!

“Ugh!”

Yongsu Lee, startled, turned the steering wheel abruptly.

Something suddenly came out of the Gradiva's whirlpool and attacked me.

We floated on the capsized hull, watching the black mass passing precariously.

The refugee added, his chest heaving.

“It’s the plasma that Gradiva is spewing out. This almost caused a big problem······.”

A situation where a dimensional storm is imminent.

The unexpected surge of plasma was one of the precursors to a major disaster.

"haha······."

I felt like I went to and from the afterlife in an instant.

Towards the dazed Lee Yong-soo, Buendia slowly patted his shoulder.

“Just hold on a little longer. It looks like we’re almost there······.”

As he said, we were at the end of the coordinate board.

As a result of flying for about 10 minutes······.

“······Is that the place?”

Dimensional gap.

That is, a settlement located on the border of Gradiva came into view.

***

Shoooooo······.

The refugees sent a landing signal containing a code,

Thanks to this, we were able to land safely in the settlement without any obstacles.

Woof woof!

If you add them all up, there would be about fifty people?

At the news of the return of the refugees who had gone far away, it seemed as if they all came rushing out.

“Captain Jer······!”

“······What on earth is going on?”

Among them was the head of a refugee settlement, Jerdo.

He has the ability to sense dimensional waves and predict weather in nearby universes.

It was also his talent to read the prognosis of dimensional storms.

The refugee explained to Jer the situation so far,

I introduced Buendia, myself, and Lee Yong-soo to him.

Just as he was about to bow his head to us······.

“Jer, you little shit!”

“B, Brando?”

Through the portal I opened, the prisoners of the camp appeared.

Jer was dumbfounded at the sight of his hometown friend returning alive.

“What happened? Weren’t you in jail?”

“Why, are you trying to push me and get me put back in?”

“No, that’s not it······.”

Brando resisted the Chamber of Commerce and ended up in prison.

It seems that Jer was not very pleased with the fact that he was helping the Chamber of Commerce.

Jer confessed the circumstances as if he had no choice.

“There was no place for me to go. I had to get involved in the free development or be indebted to another intermediate dimension… I didn’t want to participate in the invasion, and the other dimensions wouldn’t accept me either.”

Did you say that the dimension was completely destroyed?

After losing all their lands to invaders, they wandered as homeless nomads.

Then, by making use of Jer's special ability to read Gradiva's diary, they ended up building a nest on this border.

However, because of the constant dimensional winds pouring down from Gradiva, they had no choice but to rely on the Chamber of Commerce for support.

“I had to install a barrier. I had to do it to survive. It sounds cowardly, but… It wasn’t so bad. I got a fee from the Chamber of Commerce for my climate survey, and I could do some small business with the job seekers coming and going from Gradiva.”

The houses were made from the remains of spaceships that were blown away by dimensional winds,

In the shade of a thin curtain that lined the path of job seekers, stands were lined with cheap groceries, walking sticks, sleeping bags, and other items.

There were undeniable traces of a fierce life······.

“Honestly, I was just waiting for the day to die.”

Jer let out a heavy sigh.

A dimensional storm will soon arrive and engulf the settlement.

The Chamber of Commerce lightly ignored their pleas for help, and job seekers passing through Gradiva also watched their fate indifferently.

From the beginning, they were cold-blooded people who had to give up human feelings in order to become employees.

Then Buendia asked Jer.

“Look here. What caused the sudden storm? I understand that the dimensional storm cycle still has several decades left.”

“Ah, that’s it······.”

According to Buendia, the dimensional storm was a natural phenomenon.

The magic stone that the Chamber of Commerce carries inevitably contains impurities.

Gradiva is said to be purified into pure magic stone material through an internal melting process, from which the filtered impurities burst out.

Small impurities are ejected through the plasma waves we saw earlier, but

However, the impurities that were not filtered out piled up and piled up, and eventually were released through a huge dimensional storm.

In other words······.

“As you might expect, the amount of impurities has increased dramatically.”

That process has accelerated recently.

The colorful dots embedded in the vortex were the impurities.

It was ironic.

In the midst of danger that seemed like it might explode at any moment, Gradiva showed off the most beautiful colors in history.

Accordingly, the number of job seekers dreaming of becoming chamber of commerce employees has also increased unusually rapidly.

If by any chance they miss the escape point, they will all be caught in the storm and burnt alive.

“I don’t know why the impurities have increased. However, all the precursor symptoms, such as plasma, color spot emission, and vortex overlap, are appearing. Judging by the wavelengths leaking out, it wouldn’t be strange at all if a storm were to start tomorrow.”

The exact cause was unknown,

Jer was certain of one thing.

The Chamber of Commerce also knew a storm was coming.

“Even when we reported the warning signs… the staff in charge didn’t seem that surprised. Rather, they reacted as if they were annoyed by us for predicting a storm. As if they were telling us not to gossip about the fact that we had performed… After that, we couldn’t contact them at all.”

He ended his story like this.

Common sense dictates that we should get out of this area as quickly as possible.

But what I wanted was a solution, not an escape, so I went straight to asking Jer a question.

“I heard there is a way to stop the storm.”

“Ah······. That was just something I said in passing. It’s only theoretical, but it’s not a realistic method.”

Jer waved it off, saying it was just his fantasy, but when I persisted, he eventually explained the method.

“······As you know, the cause of the storm is the impurities accumulating in Gradiva. Right now, there are six vortices that are interlocking in a chain, and there will be a point where half of them will merge at once, causing the storm to accelerate rapidly. It may sound ridiculous, but if we could just instantly remove the impurities that surfaced at that time······The storm would lose its power and slowly die down.”

Then, with another sigh, he added to me:

“I asked you to do so, but… How can we remove the impurities that have risen to the center of Gradiva? If we even get close, we’ll be swept away by the dimensional wind and turned to dust.”

“Well······.”

Not only the refugees in the settlements, but also the job seekers wandering around the area.

Gradiva was a dangerous sanctuary that no one dared approach.

but······.

“You can just buy those impurities.”

At least I could survive.

If you have money.