CH 185

Deep inside the Kuzusuhara ruin, Tiol was having his meal, or to be more precise, collecting more resources. His face was filled with pain.

Tiol ate all kinds of weird things, like the wreckages of dead monsters, carcasses of dead biological monsters, rubbles from buildings, Hunters along with their equipment.

He did not really care that much back when his consciousness was still a part of the system. But now that he had regained his consciousness, he also regained some of his humanity. As such, he could not help but get bothered when he ate raw meat, scrap metals, and rubble. He would have chosen to eat rotten leftovers given the chance, but this was torture that surpassed common sense.

If he let the system take over, it might be easier for him. But if he misjudged how much of his consciousness was to be relinquished to the system, there was a chance that his mind would be once again drowned by the system. Tiol, who understood that very well, made sure not to cross the dangerous line while harvesting resources.

Every time he took a bite of the carcass, it sent an unpleasant sensation throughout his body. Every time he tore off a metallic scrap with his jaw, he could not help but feel terrified of himself for being able to do it. He kept telling himself that he had no other choice but to do it in order to replenish his ammo and to reach his goal. He cursed the situation that he was in as well as everything that led him into that situation.

Tiol’s body changed in response to his feelings. The hatred inside him broke a part of the system restriction, allowing him to break through the limit on his body. Thus turning him into a giant, powerful, and vicious monster.

His hatred fueled his desire for power. Even if he constructed a lot of those simple robots that he could remotely control, Akira would be able to destroy them single-handedly. And even if he also brought along a swarm of weapon dogs, they would be taken care of by the other Hunters. In order to reach his goal, to defeat Akira and those Hunters, Tiol needed more power. And for the sake of gaining that power, he had to eat those corpses and wreckage. Thus fueling his hatred even more.

The effect of Tiol’s hatred reached the semi-autonomous drones around the area. The other drones that were also collecting resources were pushed to surpass the restriction from the system. When those drones were done with harvesting the pile of resources, they were transformed into giant monsters. Some of them turned into giant humanoid robots or heavily armed tanks. Their bodies had no sense of aesthetic as if they were made of forcefully combining mechanical parts and biological flesh, it was a pure expression of power and force.

These monsters started to move pushed by their insatiable desire to grow bigger and more powerful. Tiol, who now had turned into something that looked like a heavily armoured powered suit from the outside, also started moving.

—*—*—*—

Akira had returned back to the forward base in order to replenish his ammo when he received a call from Kibayashi to meet him in the cafeteria.

Kibayashi sounded really disappointed when he explained why he had called Akira, but in contrast to that, Akira was listening to him with a big smile.

“It’s finally done, huh!”

“Dammit, you look so happy. You really hated this job until the very end, huh?”

Akira’s request to increase his Hunter Rank ended that day. For Kibayashi, it was bad news, but of course, for Akira, it was great news.

After all, Akira had a hard fight just the other day. As a matter of fact, he used that as an excuse to buy expensive expendables without even glancing at their prices. He basically filled the warehouse of the forward base with the expensive mini-missiles and anti-forcefield armour magazines.

The ratio between Akira’s expense and achievement finally surpassed what Kibayashi could handle.

“As expected, you’re spending too much money. Unless you’re planning to use those in the frontline, they’ll no longer pay for your expense.”

Akira lightly laughed as if he was completely ignoring Kibayashi’s complaints.

“Well, didn’t expect splurging on the expendables to actually work.”

“Good grief! You’re basically the only Hunter that I know who would make the City Management cancel its Hunter Rank-up request for a trivial reason like that, you know. Though, to be honest, that’s so like you.”

Yatsubayashi glanced at Akira and sent a bitter smile, although, there was also a bit of delight too in his smile.

“To be honest, I was hoping that you would do something crazy on your last day. But unfortunately, I guess that won’t happen now. Starting from today, you’re assigned to guard the forward base. Well, you can just randomly roam around the forward base.”

“Is that good enough?”

“The weather forecast says that it’ll be raining for the next few days after all, so there are no plans for a huge battle anytime soon. The effect from the colourless mist will get thicker with the rain, so I bet you’ll be just holding yourself in the forward base for a few days. Well, actually that’s also one of the reasons why they cancelled your rank-up request though.”

It was common sense in the eastern district to only go explore the ruin when the weather was clear. After all, not only did rain reduce the sensitivity of the information-gathering devices, it also reduced the Hunters’ visual range. No one would go picking a fight with the monsters in that situation out of their own volition.

The City Management made sure that all the important points had enough guards to hold on their own in any weather. Of course, their budgets were already decided beforehand. And in the case if they employed a high-ranking Hunter, the City Management would have to pay a lot of money for that Hunter. Now that Akira had raised up his rank considerably, the City Management had no budget left to employ him.

“Well, if you don’t like the idea of doing nothing for a whole day, you can instead join the Hunters working to secure the frontline.”

“No thanks!”

“Yep, knew you would say that.”

Kibayashi fully expected that answer from Akira, so he smiled disappointedly but also gleefully at the same time.

***

Akira was driving his bike around the forward base. Behind him was an unmanned truck. Alpha was sitting leisurely on top of the covered truck.

The truck was filled with ammo taken from the forward base. After the last fight, Akira was worried if he would run out of ammo in the middle of a battle again, thus he decided to splurge his money on a small truck.

The truck itself was not armed and not well armoured. It was basically the polar opposite of Akira who was armed to the teeth. The only thing that he considered when choosing that truck was whether it was better than carrying the ammos using his bike.

Akira glanced at the truck.

“If this is everything for today, there was no need to buy the truck. I guess that was an unnecessary spending.”

“If the money you spent to prepare yourself for a danger turned out to be unneeded, it’s something that we should be happy about, right?”

“Well, you have a point there… Hm?”

Akira noticed the falling droplets and looked up, it had started raining lightly. He could see the sky blocked by a thick cloud.

“Oh, it started raining.”

Alpha passed through the ceiling of the truck and dropped to the driver assistant’s seat of the truck. She then pointed at the driver seat and called Akira.

“Akira, how about coming here? There’s no need to keep driving on your bike under the rain.”

“Good idea… Hm!??”

Akira, who was still looking up at the sky, noticed something. He spotted something flying under the thick cloud.

Akira extended his information-gathering device to zoom in on that spot. He could see something that looked like a humanoid robot and an aircraft.

“Oh, they’re flying… Wait, isn’t this bad?”

Akira remembered that a flying object in the eastern district would attract powerful monsters that roamed the sky. So he continued to stare at that flying object with a stern expression.

Right at the next moment, Akira noticed missiles flying past him, which went straight for that aircraft. Those missiles came from the anti-air tanks posted in the forward base. The aircraft was hit with explosives and fell down together with the humanoid robot.

At this rate, they would crash close to him. So Akira accelerated his bike and immediately evacuated from the crash point.

The aircraft that was falling free under the mercy of gravity suddenly slowed down as if it pulled the brake right before it crashed into the ground. After floating a few centimetres above the ground, it landed with a loud bang.

Akira watched that scene unfold with wide eyes, but Alpha suddenly shouted at him.

“Akira!! Shoot it down!!”

The A4WM automatic grenade launchers fixed on Akira’s bike immediately released mini-missiles. Akira reacted accordingly by pulling his SSB multi-weapon and immediately emptied its magazine at that humanoid robot.

The humanoid robot aimed both of its giant arms at Akira and took a stance as if it was about to shoot, but before it could do that, Akira’s bullets reached it first.

The shockwave from the bullets threw the humanoid robot off-balance, but that did not stop it from releasing shots accompanied by loud bangs. One of the warheads went straight at a building, blowing off the half-crumbled building into smithereens in one shot. While the other warhead travelled astray into the wasteland before landing with a loud explosion.

The bullets barrage from Akira pierced through the robot’s armour, leaving its body riddled with holes, splattering its oils and sending its body parts flying into the air. But that did not stop Akira from shooting at that robot, showering it with bullets and its own body parts.

Even with its balance broken, the robot kept shooting with both of its arms. It kept trying to fix its aim at Akira while releasing stray warheads into the wasteland. Echoes from the explosions ran through the wasteland, raising a cloud of smoke with every explosion.

While Akira was in the middle of shooting the robot, the missiles that were launched first finally reached their target. They slipped through the holes on that robot’s armour and exploded, blowing its mechanical part to pieces and releasing its body fluid that looked like blood from its body container.

Akira who saw that raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“…a biological monster?! Not a humanoid robot?!”

“It’s still a type of humanoid weapon, but its species is much closer to the greedy crocodile. You can just think of it as a heavily armed powered suit.”

“So what is that thing flying in the sky?!”

While Akira was still confused. Another round of explosions burst on top of his head. When he looked up, he could see multiple similar aircraft flying in the sky as well as the missiles that were trying to shoot them down.

Those aircrafts were not only carrying similar humanoid monster that Akira defeated just now, but they also carried other types of monsters. Although they were of different species, all these monsters shared the same characteristics, all of them were gigantic with abnormally thick armour and powerful weapons.

The aircrafts that the missiles missed just went past the forward base and headed straight to Kugamayama city. While the transport aircraft that got shot down unloaded their cargo one by one.

Akira stood frozen as he watched the destroyed aircrafts and monsters that were raining down from the sky with a stern face, but the blaring alarm coming from the terminal lent by the City Management pulled him back to reality. As he checked the contents of the notification, his already tense face turned even sterner.

“It’s telling me to fight the best I can without going back to the base.”

“Akira, whether you plan to fight them or not, we should go into the ruin. This place is no good.”

Although the missiles were able to shoot down some of the aircrafts, the huge monsters that those aircrafts carried were mostly able to land on the ground just fine. But after they landed, those monsters immediately headed back to the ruin instead of going in the direction of Kugamayama city.

The monsters started shooting their gigantic guns toward the forward base and the area around it. The tanks and the powered suits guarding the forward base reacted by fighting back.

As for Akira, he rode his bike and paced it toward the ruin.

“…In the worst-case scenario, isn’t it safer if I go back to the base?”

“You have your ammo here with you. Aren’t you glad that you decided to take them with you?”

Alpha said so and smiled teasingly. Akira returned that smile with an annoyed look. He then spotted a warhead landing on a building not too far from him, tearing that building down. Seeing that, Akira knitted his eyebrows.

“…Why does this happen on my last day working here?! As I thought, my luck really sucks.”

Akira spitted out a complaint as he immediately accelerated his bike.

***

The forward base was filled with the shouts from the guards and the sounds of the battle.

“Detected more aircrafts!!”

“Shoot them down!! Activate all the anti-air units!! Get the anti-air weapons for the powered suits too!!”

“The monsters that fell from the transport aircrafts are attacking the supply route!! Also, I’m detecting more monsters coming out from the ruin!”

“Gather everyone who can fight and get them to set up a defence line!! We just need to hold out until reinforcement from the city arrives!! Use all the reserve ammo! Get the high ranking Hunters to hunt the big ones!! Tell them that it’s their chance to earn money!!”

All the staff present spared no effort in handling the emergency situation. Yanagisawa was there watching calmly how the situation evolved. One of his men noticed him and sent a curious glance at him while asking a question.

“Commander, did you do something again this time?”

Yanagisawa looked surprised, but it was obvious that he was acting. He then smiled and shook his head.

“No no no, I didn’t do anything this time. Even for someone like me, I can’t lure transport aircrafts, you know.”

“I see, although, I know better not to trust your words.”

“I really have nothing to do with this incident though.”

Yanagisawa was smiling like usual. Seeing that, his curious men knew that his answer could not serve as proof to whether he was related to what was going on or not.

“…But if it’s not your doing, then it’s purely an invasion, huh? With aircrafts too, this might be pretty dangerous, no?”

“Nah, it’ll probably be fine. Though it still bothers me that they didn’t bring out their full force and number, they won’t be able to crush the forward base nor the city.”

The skies of the eastern district were controlled by powerful flying monsters, it was exactly the reason why the people of the eastern district did not use aerial transportation. That was just how strong the monsters that roamed the eastern district’s sky were.

Although that kind of monster was mixed in among the transport aircrafts, Yanagiwa said that it would be fine. That was why that curious guy sent a doubtful glance at Yanagisawa.

Yanagisawa noticed it and laughed.

“Well, it’s true that most of the flying monsters are dangerous. But most of those monsters are either weapons from the old-world era or their derivations. Basically, they are the drones that are normally assigned to watch over the old-world ruin’s sky. If they seriously wanted to crush Kugamayama city, they would have come with stronger monsters. So in short, this invasion did not originate from the old-world system. That’s why their aircrafts are not that powerful. Well, although I said they’re not that powerful, it’s relative to the other monsters that usually roam the sky though. But even so, the city defence squad should be able to handle them just fine.”

“But it seems that those aircrafts are coming from the ruin. So at least the system supports this invasion.”

“Nope, I bet they’re either ignoring the system or they have broken their restrictions to fly. These are either mechanical or biological monsters, which turned into a completely different species after multiple mutations but are still more or less controlled by old-world nanomachine. That’s why those monsters that seem unable to fly, can fly. While on the other hand, that nanomachine also installed a system restriction on them. This includes the directive not to fly, that’s why those monsters never mutate into flying monsters. But of course, there are exceptions.”

“And these flying units are those exceptions?”

“Probably, yes. Well, since they broke that limitation, I’m sure the other monsters identify them as foes so they would normally get killed in no time. Even if they manage to survive and evolve into a powerful monster, the system would identify them as a dangerous entity and take care of them.”

Yanagisawa frowned before continuing.

“…That’s why normally you won’t see something as half-baked as this. It somehow bothers me. But well, it doesn’t change the fact that they pose no threat to the city.”

The guy who was listening to him was dumbstruck, normal people would know nothing about what Yanagisawa said just now.

“…How do you know that?”

Yanagisawa smiled mischievously.

“That’s a secret.”

The guy sighed.

“…Very well, so then, what should we do?”

“Let’s see. You can go ahead and decide for yourself whether to defend the route or the forward base, but remember that the supply route is not equipped to defend against an aerial attack.”

“If you’re okay with that order, I have a feeling that guy would use the powered suit though, should we expect anything from him?”

“Hm? Just leave him be. In the first place, we’re planning to check if we can use that powered suit in the inner part of the ruin. So this might be a good chance to test it. I guess we can let him hunt those bigger monsters and see how well it will fare.”

“Roger that!”

The guy bowed and left.

Yanagisawa’s face turned serious.

[…I’m sure it’s not because of them either. They should not be able to break their limitations. And even if it’s possible, it should be incredibly difficult, there’s no way they can get those small aircrafts flying without permission. If they had the ability to do that, the forward base and Kugamayama city would have been destroyed by now… I should still have some time…]

The bigger the rights that an area manager had, the stronger the restriction would be. The bigger and the more powerful the area it managed, the stronger and more detailed the restriction would be. Yanagisawa knew that fact very well.

As Yanagisawa rejected the possibility of his worry, his face returned back to his usual smile.

—*—*—*—

Back in the ruin, Akira was riding his bike on the side of a crumbled building. Warheads landed behind him as if they were trying to catch him.

The monster that Akira was fighting was a type of weapon dog but with a huge body. It had 6 legs and a gigantic upper half of a humanoid robot that grew out from its back. Instead of a head, it had a gun that grew out from where its head should be. It was also the same for its arms. The vulcan cannon rotated intensely as they kept spewing bullets in Akira’s direction.

As each bullet left a hole in that building, it eventually started to crumble down. Akira climbed up the wall to get away from his opponent’s shooting range before making a sharp turn and pulled out his SSB multi-weapon.

The SSB multi-weapon released a barrage of bullets at the weapon dog. The bullets that Akira shot from a short distance packed enough punch to crush the humanoid robot part and tore it off from the weapon dog’s back. But the bullets did not stop there as they also pierced through the beast and killed it too.

Akira’s bike landed sooner than the crumbling building. He did not spare even a split second as he immediately accelerated his bike away from that place getting away from the collapsing building.

Even after he defeated his enemy, Akira still had a stern face.

“That makes it 5 already!! They’re too strong and too many to be roaming around outskirts of Kuzusuhara ruin.

A loud explosion suddenly happened not too far from him. It came from the missiles that were launched from Akira’s A4WM automatic grenade launcher beforehand. The explosion blew off rubbles together with the flesh, mechanical parts, and a firestorm.

“And that makes it 6. Akira, you’re running out of ammo. Let’s resupply first.”

“Roger that!”

Akira’s small truck that carried his supply was under Alpha’s control and she evacuated it away from the monsters. Akira was fighting monsters to make sure that they would not destroy his truck.

Akira rushed toward his truck that was hiding in an alley. He then parked his bike right in front of the truck’s container and took out mini-missiles as well as huge rifle magazines out from the truck’s container in a rush.

While he was in the middle of taking out ammo from the container, Akira suddenly ran off, reloaded a new magazine to his SSB rifle, jumped out the alley, and immediately started shooting.

His SSB rifle released an anti-forcefield armour round and anti-armour frag grenades at the same time from its muzzle. They ripped through the air at a high speed and landed at the spider monsters that he was aiming at.

The spider monster had the upper half of a humanoid monster. The anti-forcefield bullet tore a hole in that humanoid part of the monster and even pierced through the spider part of the monster too. Then, the frag grenade slipped through that hole, exploded inside the spider body, and wreaked havoc inside its innard.

Akira did not stop shooting even after that. The huge hole that the first grenade opened provided a way for the next grenade to get inside the monster’s body. After a few seconds, the grenades made quick work of the monster.

Akira then immediately ran back to his truck.

“That would be 7!! Damn, I just can’t catch a break! Alpha, was there really a need for me to immediately take out that spider?”

“It would be troublesome if they get the chance to launch missiles at you, right? That’s why I told you to kill it quickly. Although it turns out that it doesn’t have missile pods, it was faster to just kill it instead of taking time to check if it had missile pods. But it’s not important now, hurry up with the resupply. We have another one coming.”

“Alright alright, I got it!”

After Akira returned back to his truck, he finished replenishing his ammo and immediately got back on his bike. Without missing a beat, he paced his bike to face the 8th monster.

As he skillfully blazed through the bad road of the alleys between the crumbled down buildings, he spotted a large monster right in front of him. Akira stepped off his bike and hid under the shadow of the building around him. He reloaded an armor-piercing magazine used for sniping into his SSB multi-weapon and aimed at that monster. As he looked at that monster through the rifle’s aiming device, he noticed something.

The monster resembled a multi-legged tank, but the legs were not of the usual multi-legged tank’s legs, they were more like cyborg legs. The metallic legs had a complete body part of a usual leg which included thigh, ankle, foot and even the fingers too. On top of its multi-legs, a huge gun that did not fit the size of its body was perching.

“…This one is another strange-looking humanoid monster… Or is it even a humanoid monster? That spider also had a humanoid body part too, these monsters are having weird peculiarities.”

“That’s not important, let’s just take that monster out. Just because it has a humanoid body part, it doesn’t make it harder for you to shoot it, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

Akira pushed that thought aside and fixed his aim, but before he pulled the trigger, he suddenly stopped. The rain that was falling down lightly suddenly turned stronger. The heavy rain cut his visibility and hid the enemy that was in front of him.

“…This rain has a similar effect with the colourless mist, doesn’t it? But I have your detection support, so, I basically have the upper hand in this condition, right?

“If it’s about detection skills, then yes. But this rain will kill most of the bullet’s momentum. So considering that both of you lose your long-range shooting capability, it means that you’ll have to get close to fight the monsters. Judging from that point of view, your situation is actually worse.”

Thanks to Alpha’s support, Akira was still able to spot his enemy. He pulled the trigger with a stern face.

The bullets ripped through the water beads from the rain, leaving a traceable trajectory path all the way through the monster’s armour and inner parts.

The monster immediately made it move to shoot back at Akira. Its huge cannon swooped with such intensity and fixed its muzzle at Akira before starting to shoot warheads where Akira might be based on its calculation.

Its huge cannon released a shell that was more or less as big as the cannon’s muzzle, the shell flew through the air and blew the raindrops with its powerful momentum. It pierced through the wall of raindrops, leaving a gaping hole behind its track, and landed on a building not too far from where Akira was, pulverizing it in one shot.

Akira, who witnessed that force from a close range could not help but knit his eyebrows, but at the same time, he was able to confirm that the rain was severely affecting his opponent as well. Nonetheless, he immediately started shooting again. Each armour piercing bullet that he sent left a hole in that big monster’s body.

Every time a bullet pierced its body, the shockwave sent the big monster reeling. But it did not stop it from shooting its cannon despite its aim getting worse and worse. The stray shells landed on the buildings around him, crushing them one by one. As some of the rubbles fell right on top of Akira, Alpha let him know about them beforehand, so he was able to evade the falling rubbles before starting shooting again.

After that short exchange that showed the difference in their firepower and accuracy, the monster eventually stopped shooting.

As Akira thought that the big monster ran out of ammo after shooting that many shells haphazardly and was about to press on the offence, he noticed a change in the monster’s body. The base of the monster’s multi legs purged and exposed something that looked like teeth.

It then moved its huge legs to latch on a nearby building and started nibbling on it. After it finished, it shook its body as if to chew on the rubbles and started shooting again.

Akira frowned with surprise.

“…It’s replenishing its ammo by feeding on the rubbles, huh! Give me a break already!!”

“It seems that waiting for it to run out of ammo is not a choice here. Akira, retreat for now. Let’s snipe it from another direction.”

Alpha controlled his bike that he had left not too far from him to approach Akira. Akira jumped on his bike and left that place. Right after that, another shell landed on a nearby building, sending it crashing down to the ground.

Now that the monster had lost Akira, it seemed to be hesitating for a bit while shifting its focus between the forward base and Akira, but it then decided to chase after the latter.