The Legendary Mechanic in Marvel Universe

Chapter 217 Drones and War

TL: Kyous

Rewinding the time a bit, just before the rock thrown by Leo hit Wakanda’s protective shield, a brief conversation took place within the Wakanda Defense Department, located in one of the border tribes.

Inside a house on the southeastern border of Wakanda, a large group of tribal warriors was on duty. The house was constructed of wood and stone, which, from Leo’s perspective, would undoubtedly appear rough and unsightly.

However, the interior of the house was a completely different story.

It was spacious, covering an area of over fifty meters square, and had stone benches where dozens of people could sit or stand. The house was circular in shape, and around the walls were tables made of interlocking stones, which were filled with various sci-fi-like instruments.

Compared to the one Leo usually used, these instruments were peculiar in that they had very few wires as if they didn’t require any power source at all.

Apart from that, the appearance of these instruments was bizarre and their purpose was unclear.

There were strange glowing spherical objects hovering up and down, tiny beads the size of thumbs emitting light to create lifelike 3D holograms, and semi-transparent displays flickering with incomprehensible characters.

Especially in the center of the room, there was a large circular stone platform with only one holographic projection that glowed with a faint blue light and had a dome-like shape, which was quite eye-catching.

Suddenly, a dim red light flashed at a certain point on the dome, causing the on-duty warriors to become tense immediately. They promptly operated the semi-transparent displays in front of them to check for details.

“A level-five collision has occurred at coordinates 62.3, 32.9, 92.0 in the Azure Firmament.” One warrior swiftly verified the situation and stated.

Another warrior instantly followed the instructions in the operating manual and released a reconnaissance drone to investigate the collision at the coordinates.

Thus the scene when Leo and Bucky arrived at the ‘firmament’, an abrupt flicker of light blue hexagonal shadows appeared and a monstrous object burst out of the protective shield.

The drone was entirely black with pale gold edges, and bright purple lights shone from underneath and on both sides, indicating its power source.

When Leo saw the drone, he quickly shrank his size from the size of a palm to the size of an ant and pulled Bucky with him to hastily retreat hundreds of meters away. Fortunately, the black drone didn’t notice Leo and Bucky.

It hovered steadily in the position where the rock had collided with the dome just moments ago and a bright red beam shot out from its front, scanning the surroundings carefully.

Leo finally heaved a sigh of relief, seeing that the drone had been sent to investigate the collision and hadn’t discovered their traces.

Bucky suspended in midair with his left arm held by Leo was both intrigued and startled by the unfamiliar drone. He asked through the communicator in his helmet, “Leo, what’s that?”

“That should be Wakanda’s surveillance equipment, which was attracted here by the giant rock that hit the shield just now,” Leo replied, carefully choosing his words.

“They are too quick on it, aren’t they? It’s just less than half a minute.” Bucky paused for a moment and added, “With such tight security, can we still slip in quietly?”

Remaining silent, Leo’s eyebrows furrowed tightly.

‘Something is off, not normal. Wakanda’s defense measures are too tight!’

More than two years ago, even a non-superpowered illegal arms dealer like Ulysses managed to successfully sneak into Wakanda and steal Vibranium. It made no sense that he, Leo, just throwing a rock at the shield would instantly attract a reconnaissance drone.

And with such a vast expanse of Wakanda, birds must accidentally collide with the shield all the time. Would they really send drones to investigate every time? Were they really that free?!

In fact, Leo wasn’t aware that when a regular bird hit the shield, the collision alert level wouldn’t exceed two. But the rock he used to hit the shield was the size of a human head and after free acceleration of two hundred meters, the impact on the shield was far beyond what a bird could produce.

And that was just the first reason.

The second reason was that Wakanda just experienced a war two weeks ago and was still in a state of war, so the defense level was naturally incomparable to that of normal times.

But little did Leo know about all this, and he thought that Wakanda’s defense measures were overly strict. His original plan to infiltrate was now completely useless. Getting into Wakanda had become quite tricky.

He was certain that once he connected his shield decoder to Wakanda’s shield, then the one coming wouldn’t be a reconnaissance drone, but the Black Panther himself. Instead of being afraid of being unable to fight the Black Panther, Leo was more afraid of the trouble it would bring.

Once the Wakandan discovered Leo and his ability to shrink, they would deploy measures specifically designed to prevent him from invading. If that happens, Leo would lose his chance to make easy money and would have to resort to robbing them forcefully.

While Leo was lost in thought, the reconnaissance drone had already scanned the area around the point of impact and transmitted the live video back to the monitoring room. The warriors on duty didn’t notice any anomaly, but because of the recent war, no one dared to take it lightly.

After discussing the situation, the team leader decided to order the drone to continue patrolling. It circled in the place for a moment, then began to descend and fly towards the primitive forest on the ground.

All of a sudden, an idea came to Leo’s mind. Grabbing Bucky, he chased after the drone as he chose to abandon his original plan and execute Plan N!

Although the drone wasn’t slow, it was no match for Leo’s speed. Soon, he landed on top of the drone with Bucky. In a low voice, he said, “Grab onto the drone, Bucky. When it returns to Wakanda, it’ll also bring us in. And remember to keep your voice down when we use our helmets to talk, in case the drone has a recording feature.”

Facing the unfamiliar high-tech product, Bucky didn’t have much of a say. He listened to whatever Leo said and immediately lay down on top of the drone, using his hands and feet to secure himself firmly in the gaps of the drone.

Leo, on the other hand, was more relaxed. He could not only stand steadily on top of the drone but also move back and forth.

The drone seemed to continue its reconnaissance, circling around Wakanda. And the closer it got to the ground, the slower its speed became. When it was only three or four meters above the ground, its speed was almost the same as a person riding a bicycle.

At this point, Bucky was no longer lying on the top of the drone. Squatting down, he scrutinized the environment from this unique perspective.

Suddenly, Bucky’s gaze sharpened and he whispered, “Look at the left-side trees, there are bullet holes and dried bloodstains on the ground.”

Leo, whose mind was wandering, was alerted by Bucky’s warning and quickly focused his attention on the left side. There indeed were dozens of towering trees with trunks wide enough to encircle a person, riddled with bullet holes. Some trees also bore marks that looked like they were caused by spears or curved blades.

On top of that, some of the large trees had their trunks half-blasted off, clearly the work of some heavy weapons.

On the ground, one could see occasional large patches of dark brown bloodstains, vaguely resembling the shape of a human figure, but not a single corpse was found.

Leo couldn’t help but feel puzzled, unsure of what exactly had happened here. 

Two minutes later, the drone flew over the devastated forest and reentered the deserted wilderness.

“Looking at the color of the bloodstains, they were left at least ten days ago. And based on the size of the fight, I think the total number of people on both sides wouldn’t be less than eight hundred. And from the bloodstains and casualties on the ground, the number of dead and wounded shouldn’t be less than five hundred!” Bucky made a reasonable deduction based on his extensive battlefield experience.

After listening, Leo nodded slightly but his eyes were filled with even more doubt. 

Bucky’s judgment was unlikely to be wrong, but the question remained as to which group had the audacity to attack Wakanda in such a violent and large-scale manner. With such a massive battle, significant casualties, and even the use of heavy weapons, this was no longer a conflict caused by ordinary poachers. It was almost a full-blown war.

Despite the bloodthirsty nature and combat prowess of the Wakandans, combined with the evidence left behind at the scene of the battle, Leo believed that the attackers were utterly decimated.

Nevertheless, the fact that such a large-scale war occurred without any country detecting it through satellite or other observation was perplexing. The whole conflict unfolded and ended without anyone noticing.

It’s safe to say that Wakanda’s technological advancements in terms of concealment are truly remarkable!