Chapter 5 - Trip to the City
It was a bit weird to be able to feel hungry but not really need it. While I was experimenting with my powers and building a few gadgets I kinda just zoned out for a few days not really registering the need for food, and even when the fugue ended it didn't really feel like a 'must' to eat. I could probably go without for a few more days, but it was kinda distracting and I liked eating.
Jogging along the road leading towards the city I had a thought, I should probably think of a name, huh? In my old world I just introduced myself as SR because, you know, street rat, but it would be pretty awkward to use my old name now. It worked then because I barely interacted with people, but I have a feeling I will be meeting a few people multiple times in this world and if I 'did' introduce myself as SR I can already picture the eventual conversation about what it stood for.
"Hey SR I never asked, but what's your name stand for?"
"Oh, uh... S... Something R?"
Yeah... I'd rather avoid that awkwardness. I'll think of something during the day and see what I come up with.
Seeing the forest gradually getting more sparse as I approached the city, I slowed to a walk. A few minutes later I had a decent sense of where everything was thanks to a small drone I made, and had already found my destination for this trip. The grocery store... though I did need some money to actually buy the food so...
Time to look for a target.
---
Goro Hyoudou was having another normal day. Walking on the sidewalk on the way to work was a routine at this point, checking his watch to make sure he would be on time he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Looking up and to the side he saw a... box... doing backflips?
"Huh?"
Staring in confusion, he was suddenly startled by a loud sound of something flying towards him from the opposite direction.
Letting out a surprised yell he reflexively crouched and brought his arms up to protect his head. After waiting for a few seconds with nothing happening, he slowly lowered his arms and looked around carefully. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he scratched his head and wondered if he was still half asleep.
Feeling the adrenaline pumping through his body, he took a shaky breath to calm down and continued on his way to work, intending get a coffee from the shop down the street to really wake up, the box suddenly forgotten.
Though he could have sworn he saw a flash of red during all that chaos, it was probably nothing.
---
"Hehehe... sucker."
Strutting down the street on the way to the grocery store was a familiar red headed girl with a smug look on her face like she'd just successfully pulled off a prank. In one of her hands she held a box which suddenly pixelated before disappearing, while in the other she held another box with a speaker installed on one side which quickly followed.
Shoving a hand down into one of her pockets she picked up a brown leather wallet, opening it up she started rifling through it, finding a stack of paper notes and the personal information of it's previous owner.
"Hmm this is... yen? I think? That's from Japan, right? I had a few inklings from the signs I saw while scoping out the city, but I wasn't sure. I don't really know how much this is, but it's probably enough for a few days worth of food, right?"
Seeing the store gradually getting closer she opened her hand and what looked to be a segmented black metal armband appeared, which she quickly put on before entering the store.
---
After getting back to the scrapyard I removed the translation bracelet and pixelized it before putting the groceries into a temporary cooler I made before. I then started working on modifying a fridge that kept food fresh much longer than it was realistically supposed to and thinking back to when I had a genius idea while walking around in the store.
I was just walking around looking for the meat section when I went passed the dairy section and my eyes locked onto something. Chocolate milk. The superior drink, the holy grail of dairy products. And so I got to thinking, chocolate, choco, coco... Koko? Koko.
Yep, I've decided. My name is now Koko. Koko, The Pugilistic Machine Empress. Well not really, but maybe eventually? Anyway, my new fridge is done and with a quick teleport using my gun, into the base it went.
Now there's just a stove and then I can start preparing for the eventual encounter with the supernatural.
---
Four steaks later, I guess I eat more now, and I was ready to rumble. Now then, seeing as I don't really know what kind of supernatural there is in this world, I thought I'd start with a sensor able to pick up on various energies in the surroundings. I started with gathering a few old radios and some scrap metal, before sorting through the options that popped up.
Settling on a design that focuses more on accuracy than range, I set to work. Starting with the inner workings, I first made a module which would pick up on the various frequencies the energies generated, I also added in a very special chip that would make it much easier to use. Then I started on the power source which in this case was a super-charged battery cell that would let it function for at least a few years at my estimations before making the exterior and viola. A supernatural radar. It kind of reminded me of a box like tv with a few odd pieces sticking out here and there. However the weirdest thing was that it didn't have any visible operating methods, which is where the chip comes in.
See I had a thought, what if I made an administrator chip that could control other machines through a smiliar chip emulating technopathy to an extent? And since I didn't want anyone else be able to just knock it off me and therefore cut my connection with the machines I was controlling, I decided to make the administrator ship styled as a mask that encompassed the lower half of my face from upper nose to my chin. And on top of that, since I made it in my Workshop I could just summon it whenever I wanted.
The mask itself was made out of a black metal I called Scrappal, since it was literally made out of various different metals I synthesized together, with glowing red lines running through the top just underneath my eyes. On the cheeks of the mask sat two speakers that could be dialled up to the extreme, anyone getting too close was in for a nasty surprise, and just for intimidation purposes I fashioned the mask after a shark's jaw completed with jagged teeth. It looked positively badass.
"Hehe~ I'm a genius!"