CH 263

Even after receiving such an assault, seeing how Akira did not die and instead was closing in on the APC, Latis could not hide his astonishment.

[To tell me that he is a Rank 55 Hunter!? You gotta be kidding me. Even Rank 60 is not high enough. He might as well reach Rank 65!]

The way Akira raised his Hunter Rank caused it to not be properly reflected. Even Latis could tell that Akira’s true strength was not something reflected on his Hunter Rank.

Whether by selling relics or hunting monsters, normally Hunters raised their Hunter Rank slowly over time. Even when a Rank  55 Hunter defeated a monster only a Rank 65 and above Hunter could take down, that did not immediately raise their rank to 65. Under normal circumstances, Hunter Rank would rise through selling valuable relics multiple times or defeating powerful monsters multiple times.

In short, no matter how much Akira contributed during the inter-city transport-escort mission. Even if he got posted in the front during that mission, it would not immediately greatly increase his rank. Moreover, Akira chose his reward to be mostly in the form of new equipment, not a raise in his Hunter Rank. Thus, Akira was once again, way too strong for his current Hunter Rank.

Then there was also Alpha. With her help, Akira could proficiently use equipment that required rigorous training.

Akira’s bike was one that was created in Zegelt city. Even high ranking Hunters would consider it to be an exceptional bike. Thus, even common Hunters from that city would normally have trouble using his bike. With the culmination of Alpha, his bike and his current equipment, Akira’s battle prowess skyrocketed.

Latis, who was unaware of this till now, made his conclusion based on everything he had gathered.

[That guy, he’s a bike specialist, huh!?]

In the eastern district, there were individuals who had a special affinity and proficiency toward a certain skill or equipment. Just like how some preferred the long-range gun while others preferred the close-range combat with blades. There were also those who preferred to use their fist, complemented with their superhuman strength. Such individuals might not even use guns nor an augmented suit.

Bike specialists were those who were proficient with fighting on top of a bike. Normally, instead of a bike, most would prefer a tank or a powered suit. Those offered them full-body protection and better weaponry. But for some reason, there were still some who performed better on top of a bike.

There were many narrow alleys in the old-world ruin where only a bike could pass through. So, from that point of view, it was understandable that a bike has an advantage in those kinds of situations. This was the reason why there were still manufacturers that produced expensive advanced bikes; though, a tank would be more powerful.

[That would explain how he was able to escape that battle back in Mihazono ruin! He did not have the leeway to get on his bike during the battle. The jamming smoke prevented him from remotely controlling the bike. The moment he could control his bike, he quickly got onto it and escaped.]

It would not be strange for those who specialized in bikes to have powerful equipment designed to be used on their bike. It was not strange for Akira, who was currently on his bike, to be far stronger than he was back then. Latis frowned after he drew out his conclusion. He shot another barrage of missiles at Akira.

However, this time, they were shot down way sooner than before. Before he knew it, the cluster missile warheads had already been destroyed.

The safety feature caused the mini-missiles to simply fall off. It was to make sure that they would explode too close to its user. Although not all of them were shot down, their number was greatly reduced. It was impossible for them to completely surround a speeding bike in the middle of the wasteland. Akira guided what remained to collide into rubble and wreckage around him. Once he was done, they were effectively rendered useless.

[He adapted to it so quickly! He is very good at this! Is this why Milady gave me such an order? So, it was an order to basically kill him as soon as possible, with the greatest firepower that I have right from the start, huh?]

As if to not miss even the slightest opening, as Latis was thinking, Akira’s bullets flew and struck him. Although he was unharmed thanks to his forcefield armour, it still diminished some of his energy reserves. Latis frowned. He roared. Though, it seemed to be directed towards himself.

“…This is not the time for that!! I will kill him first and ask Milady afterwards!”

Latis aimed his gigantic gun at Akira. The aiming system quickly locked onto him, even though Akira was moving haphazardly at high speed. The gun, designed to be used with Latis’ heavy augmented suit, started spewing large warheads. Each blast shook the ground

Akira was chasing after Chloe’s APC on his bike. He was moving in an unpredictable, complicated manner. The bike’s ability to project forcefield armour below its tire allowed the bike to run on air. It was a crude function, and it would have been better to install a flying device on the bike instead. However, with Alpha’s advanced support, the bike was able to smoothly ride on both the air and the ground.

The bike made sharp turns, which would have been impossible with a flying device. It avoided the incoming missiles. It ran as if it was inside a tube, a tube created from the narrow openings between rubble and missiles. Such maneuvers even caused the missiles to collide into the rubble around him.

Utilizing everything second, Akira used his rifle to shoot down the missiles that were coming from above him. With his advanced skills to evade, even when missiles were raining down on him, destroying everything around him, he was still able to slip past them unharmed.

It would not be strange for Akira to get thrown off his bike, considering that it was moving around rapidly. It was only thanks to his augmented suit that he was able to stay on top of his bike.

Even so, this was still not a comfortable situation. Akira frowned from the pain.

[It’s still the usual battle.] Thanks to that, Akira was able to stay calm even while his body was pumped with adrenaline. He even had room to complain, just like usual.

“Alpha!? Can you do something about this!? You said that you would show how good your support is, right?!”

Thanks to his time perception compression, Akira was barely able to keep up with how fast the scene in front of him was changing. If it was not for his extrasensory sense, he would have completely lost orientation, unable to tell where was left or right.

“I’m pretty sure I’m showing you just how good it is right now, no? The next one is from the top-right!!”

Following her instruction, Akira temporarily compressed his time perception even more and aimed his rifles in the instructed directions. Once the TPL fixed onto his targets, he pulled the trigger. He managed to hit all the large warheads that Latis shot at him. But due to the difference in firepower, Akira’s bullets simply ricocheted off the warheads.

Even so, they did well to throw those warheads off their original trajectories. All of them were aiming at Akira’s bike but flew past their target and landed on the ground, away from Akira. The shockwave was released when they hit the ground, causing it to tremble, and even threw the bike off.

Normally, the bike would be a sitting duck once it was off the ground. The dirt and dust that enveloped the area would even throw a bike’s flying device off balance. However, with Alpha’s perfect control of the bike, aerial fight was not an issue. She was able to harden the dust and the dirt to create stable footing for the bike’s wheels.

Akira was able to tell just how powerful the shots were. Especially after seeing the rubble and dust that were blasted into the air. He could not help but frown as he commented.

“Whoah! That was close! One hit from that would be enough to finish me off! Just how accurate are they? I’m already moving this fast!”

“You were only able to deflect them because of me, you know? Aren’t you glad?”

“Of course, thank you very much!”

Akira got a bit irritated and partially shouted out his reply unlike Alpha, who was smiling as if she was teasing him. She continued.

“Now then, I’ll show you one more great thing I can do. Let’s go!”

Alpha only said as much and suddenly accelerated the bike. It then turned straight down, landing hard, and accelerated even more.

“Whoah!?”

Akira’s yelp was completely buried by the sound of the bike diving into the wreckage and rubble under it.

Latis frowned. He suddenly lost Akira’s signal. Though he did not think he made a blunder and went straight under the rubble. Just to be safe, he shot several bullets toward the area where Akira’s signal had suddenly vanished. The large warheads dove straight into the mountain of rubble and wreckage. It blew the dirt and rubble up into the sky. It was akin to water sprouts, though made of concrete and sand. It had completely destroyed the contour of the area. Even so, Akira’s signal still had not returned.

[If he’s hiding with some kind of camouflage, that should have flushed him out. What’s going on?]

Just to be extra safe, he went to the location where Akira’s signal vanished and checked around the area again. He used his advanced information gathering device to check underground as well. However, he still could not find Akira’s signal. There was a chance that it was because Akira had been completely shredded into dust, but Latis could not afford to be that naive this time.

—*—*—*—

Pamela was standing guard in Chloe’s APC when a call suddenly reached her.

“Pamela, I lost his signal.”

“Just to confirm. It’s not like you’ve killed him and it’s not because he ran away, right? You simply lost him, right?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I completely lost his signal the moment he dove straight down into the ground.”

Latis then told Pamela what happened without leaving any details. This included the fact that Akira’s fighting power might as well reach Rank 65. That there was a good chance he was a bike specialist. After listening to his report, Pamela could not help but frown.

“…He’s that good, huh? Our men really did well to corner someone that strong. Now, if only I was able to kill him back then… This is so frustrating…”

“I can say the same as well. I’ll keep trying to look for him. Whether he’s already dead or just hiding, either way, I need to confirm it. Just to be safe, you be careful too.”

“Roger that. Anything to say to Milady?”

“In case I still can’t find anything, I’ll assume that he’s hiding with a powerful camouflage. Just to be safe, I’ll demolish the area one more time. Just like Milady ordered me to before returning back and give her my after-report.”

“Alright… Hm?”

As Pamela had her eyes fixed on the 360 degrees radar scanner around the APC, she found something that she did not expect. Akira suddenly jumped out of a pile of rubble in front of the APC and went straight towards it.

—*—*—*—

Under the eastern district, there were more tunnels than what most people would have believed. Former subway lines that were not completely buried, underground passages that were once part of underground cities, tunnels made by monsters. There were numerous reasons why one could find tunnels underground. Alpha took note of them during the fight. She identified each individual route and decided on the path. The battle had made the layer of rubble and soil covering these tunnels weaker. Alpha took advantage of that to break through and enter the tunnel.

There was no light inside. Under normal circumstances, riding a bike at max speed in complete darkness would have been suicidal. But thanks to Akira’s extrasensory senses, he could do so without issue. Moreover, he was completely used to crazy situations like this. With Alpha’s control of the bike, Akira had no hesitation to go try and go faster.

“Akira! We’re breaking out!”

“Roger that!”

Akira had already known the details of their strategy since Alpha had already told him through telepathy. So, he once again readied himself to break through another part of the tunnel that was already weakened. Though already weakened, it did not change the fact that the layers of the rubble and soil above were still quite thick. At least, thick enough for monsters to go over them without collapsing. Thus, Akira had to prepare himself to break through it.

Akira used the momentum of the bike to jump up. He sliced the ceiling of the tunnel with his liquid metal blade. With a powerful kick from his augmented suit, the sliced ceiling burst apart. A moment later, his bike shot out of the hole and escaped from the darkness.

Chloe’s APC was rushing ahead at high speed through the wasteland. It went past Akira, who had just flown out of the ground.

Akira reconnected the blade’s handle to its container. Inside this compressed time perception world, where rubble and dust flew in slow motion, Akira swung his blade toward the passing APC with Alpha’s support.

The blade sucked an enormous amount of energy from the bike; boosting its slicing power to its utmost limit. At least, for a short time until the blade crumbled. The forcefield armour that hardened the liquid metal shone slightly as it reached its target. It was made to only last for an instant. It just needed to cut through everyone on top of the APC and inside.

The blade finally made contact with the APC. After releasing a loud bang, and a blinding flash of light, the blade crumbled. But it did not accomplish its goal. During its clash with the APC’s defences, the blade lost. The hardened liquid metal slowly reverted back to liquid as it fell and splashed over the ground.

The people on top of the APC had already started their counterattack. They barraged Akira, who had just passed by them. Even when they could no longer see him, their barrage continued.

With the help of Alpha’s advanced driving skill, Akira was able to slip out of that barrage as he accelerated away from the APC. Although he got hit, the forcefield armour of the bike completely neutralized those attacks.

Akira, who had expected that slash to splice through the APC, could not hide his surprise.

“That thing is really hard! Forget the APC, the people on top of it are still fine, you know?!”

Those who were in the path of the blade, quickly raised both of their arms to block it, even before it touched them. The blade managed to slice through their arms and legs, even the weapons that they had. However, it did not slice through all of them.

Alpha frowned and told Akira the reason why they were that strong.

“Their forcefield armour has assimilated with the APC’s forcefield armour to strengthen their defences. They are also remotely controlled bodies. That’s why they are tougher than normal flesh and bone.”

Akira raised his eyebrows and looked back at the leftover of what he had just cut. No blood was coming out from them, when he took a good look at them, their insides were pure metal. Even when their bodies were cut into two, they were still standing up straight.

The maids that came out from the APC were all remotely controlled by Pamela, just like those dolls. The reason why she did not use those automaton dolls back in Mihazono ruin was because they were originally the property of the Lion Steel facility. Moreover, the more automaton they brought out, the more shame it brought their master.

But this time, Chloe had permission to use these automatons outside. She did not care about shame at this point and she was free to use as many automatons as she wanted.

The automatons that had lost their fighting capability returned back inside the APC. Their replacements, meanwhile, marched out from the APC. Akira, who noticed their numbers not dwindling, frowned and said.

“…It seems that they still have a lot of extra automatons, huh? Alpha, what’s our plan?”

“It seems that it’ll take more effort to destroy the APC, so let’s start by cleaning out the smaller targets first. That heavy augmented suit has less energy than the APC. If we get close enough and slice it again and again, I’m sure we’ll be able to eventually cut it into pieces.”

“That one can fly though. I wonder if we can get close enough that easily.”

“It won’t even be a problem.”

Akira confusedly frowned and saw Alpha pointing in a certain direction. From that direction, Latis was closing in from afar. He extended his heavy augmented suit’s blade, closing in as fast as possible.

“You bastaardd!!!!”

Since Latis was shouting on top of his lung through the general close-range communication frequency, Akira could easily hear him. However, he simply gave a firm nod toward that chilling shout.

“Ah, I see, it seems that it really won’t be a problem, huh?”

Akira readied the liquid metal blade on his right hand and used the LEO multi-rifles in his left hand to shoot Latis. Although the bullets landed on their target, Latis kept charging forward, undeterred by them.

“…He is pretty tough as well. Alpha, I’m counting on you.”

“Leave it to me.”

Seeing Alpha smiling confidently, Akira kept on shooting, feeling reassured by that confident smile. Latis came closer while still under the barrage and eventually got within Akira’s reach. Akira swung the blade in his hand and Latis reacted accordingly and swung his own blade.

The blades clashed with a loud bang and released a fiery spark followed by a blinding flash of intense light.

Akira was fighting against Latis in front of him while Chloe’s APC was behind him.

Latis had powerful weapons, which meant that he could not afford to miss his shots. The advanced aiming system of his weapons could automatically lock his weapons the moment the APC got into its line of fire. He could also set the aiming to automatically lock when the trajectory line was a few millimetres away from the APC. However, there was still fear of Akira deflecting his shot. Thus, Latis could not afford to use long-range weaponry.

The only option left for Latis was to use his blade. He knew that Akira had the ability to accurately predict his shots. If he tried to shoot Akira from afar, who kept positioning himself to get the APC in the trajectory of stray bullets, there was a good chance his shots would hit the APC.

Even if he tried to mauver to Akira’s side and try to shoot him, Akira could just reposition himself. Therefore, his only option was to challenge Akira in melee combat. With his blade, he could push Akira into a position where he was free to use his big guns.

Because of that, Akira and Latis kept trading blows while circling around the APC, they were locked in an intense high-speed melee combat.

The blades sparked every time they made contact. One of the blades had forcefield armour to harden its blade, while the other had anti forcefield armour to cut through the other’s protection. To defend themselves while they attacked, they were both using a huge amount of energy. Because of that, the path of the blade reacted with the particle in the air and drew arcs of light. Right at the next moment, they were erased by a flash of light when they clashed with each other.

One of them was a heavy augmented suit equipped with a flying device, while the other one had the abnormal skill to fight with a blade while on top of a bike. They kept exchanging blows with uncommon sword fighting styles. To cut down the opponent, to avoid the slices, to block the incoming attack. They swung their blades in all kinds of disorienting positions. It was as if there was no meaning in the words up, down, left and right.

Akira raced atop a transparent loop-like path to get on top of Latis. When he was right on top of Latis, he swung his blade to split open the opponent’s head. Even in this situation, Latis quickly thrust his large blade straight up. Instead of clashing, they both passed each other without contact and went straight toward their respective target.

The hardened metal liquid blade struck Latis’ heavy augmented suit’s forcefield armour, bent it inward and eventually crushed a part of it. The broken pieces turned into rays of light due to the light conversion of the forcefield armour. It was as if the blade dug through Latis’ heavy augmented suit, but this was only in appearance. Latis was still completely fine.

Akira bent his body to avoid Latis’ blade. But of course, it was not enough to completely evade it. His speed was compensated by the sudden acceleration of his bike. It helped remove his body and his bike away from the passing blade. Akira knew that a strike from that powerful blade would definitely be the end of him. Without a question. Thankfully, it just slashed empty air. Although the resulting shockwave alone was strong, with the combination of the bike’s energy tank and Akira’s augmented suit, he was able to withstand it.

Latis was more skilled in melee fighting than most of the Hunters. As a butler from Lion Steel, he was trained to fight in a room filled with speed filters where rifles were not effective. Even so, at this moment, in terms of trading slashes, he was losing his ground against Akira.

The sword fighting style that Latis had learnt was to engage with his opponents on the ground. Although it was still usable to some extent in this case, it was not the most optimal fighting style against someone who was flying around. The blade that the heavy augmented suit had was also, in the end, just a reserve weapon. The structure of the heavy augmented suit was not ideal for him to make full use of the skills that he had learnt.

More than anything, with the help of Alpha’s support, Akira was not just swinging his blade around while on his bike. It was as if his ability to use blades was made specifically tailored to when he was on a bike. It was as if Akira and his bike had become one, and he had full control of his bike.

Latis thought that this was going to be easy. After all, Akira and his bike were basically one big target. Therefore, he naively thought that at the very least, he would hit the bike. This was even after considering the novelty of fighting in his current heavy augmented suit. Naturally, his expectation was completely overturned.

Even when they were exchanging blows with their blades, they were also exchanging shots. In a range where a swing of their blade would normally reach their opponent, they were also trying to shoot at each other using their rifles, powerful enough to kill any monsters in one shot.

Akira used the LEO multi-rifle on his left to shoot a fully charged C-bullet at Latis. Moreover, the rifles on the arm of his bike also used the openings in between each slash to shoot at Latis. Thus, countless bullets were exchanged in close proximity during that battle.

But even after receiving that barrage, Latis was still standing strong. His equipment was special, only to be used inside the Lion Steel facility and it was not something that he could freely use without permission from the upper echelons. There was no surprise it was an extremely strong piece of equipment. The generator he had was as powerful as those used by expensive powered suits. Such a generator was paired with a mighty forcefield armour suitable. As such, it was able to withstand a barrage of C-bullets without issue.

But, as expected, Latis could not just receive that barrage and shrug it off as nothing. Although only slightly, he was thrown off balance. Akira did not let that opening slip away and moved in to finish him off. However, Latis managed to evade it.

Just before Latis managed to aim his large gun at Akira, Akira quickly prevented it from targeting him using the LEO multi-rifle in his left hand as he leaned his bike to one side and accelerated away. He swiftly moved away from the warhead that the big gun spewed out at him.

The other arms of the heavy augmented suit were also carrying rifles, which were also trying to shoot him down. Although they were smaller compared to its main gun, they were still bigger than Akira’s LEO multi-rifle. A barrage of bullets was coming at Akira each containing considerable destructive power.

Akira, who understood that it was impossible to completely evade every single bullet, kept repositioning himself in between Latis and Chloe’s APC. This caused the gun’s security system to lock itself, which in turn, allowed Akira to produce gaps. He then took the route where there were the least bullets and limited the bullets that hit him.

However, that meant that he took some shots. Alpha, with her advanced calculation ability, accurately predicted where those shots would land and strengthened the forcefield armour on those particular locations. She temporarily increased the suit’s power consumption and output when receiving those shots.

If it was purely their equipment, Akira had zero chance of winning. But with Alpha’s support, Akira was somehow able to manage to fight evenly.

But even with Alpha’s help, Latis still had the upper hand. One direct hit from Latis was enough to kill Akira, but that was not the case for Akira. As a matter of fact, Latis was completely fine after all this time. Akira has been desperately evading his attacks while he had been taking on Akira’s attack head-on. This was the difference between them.

However, Latis was the first to waver. He knew that he only needed one clear hit to kill Akira, but that just would not happen. He thought that if he kept attacking, it was only a matter of time before one of his attacks went through. He was also trained in patience as well. Therefore, he was not that weak as to start getting impatient in this kind of situation.

But even so, his mind still wavered. The reason being, that Akira was slowly overwhelming him. Every time Akira blocked his attack, Akira’s moves became sharper. As time went by, he was becoming faster, sharper, and keener as he kept evading Latis’ attack and launched counters of his own.

Against Akira’s unexpected fighting capability, in order to withstand his assault, the energy of the heavy augmented suit was being rapidly shaved away. At the moment, he still had the upper hand, but at this rate, it would not take that long before things would change. That knowledge only made him even more anxious, causing panic to rise.

[[At this rate, he will be pushed into a corner. If I can maintain the current situation, I can win.]] That difference in thought was one thing that both Latis and Akira agreed on.

But the situation itself quickly changed. Pillars of light rained down from the sky followed by huge explosions.

The shockwave also reached Chloe’s APC. Even with the powerful suspension in the APC, the shaking still could be felt from inside as Chloe inadvertently said.

“Whoah, that was a rather huge tremor. It seems that the fighting is getting worse outside, huh?”

Chloe did not seem startled at all. As a matter of fact, she was smiling as if it turned out exactly the way she wanted. That was why she could calmly give Pamela, who was flusteredly running to check on her, an order.

Chloe was smiling as if she was immensely enjoying the situation, Pamela who saw that, felt a shiver because of that smile.

The pillar of lights from the sky were chasing Akira and Latis. But right before they rained down, Akira suddenly sensed a disturbance and immediately drove away from the area. Alpha also accelerated the bike away as fast as she could in order to get Akira away. Thanks to that, the light pillars, which seemed like never-ending walls to Akira, did not hit him.

A moment later, somewhere far away from them was blown apart. A powerful gust of wind hit Akira, but the bike’s forcefield armour quickly projected out before it truly reached him, thus neutralizing them. Even so, it still blew him and his bike away.

Akira somehow managed to regain his balance while clamping down on the brake on top of the invisible footing. He could not help but get surprised by what just happened as he exclaimed.

“Alpha! What was that!?”

“A monster. The fight must have attracted one of those flying monsters that roam the sky.”

It was normal for monsters to get attracted the more they fought. Of course, normal monsters were also attracted to that area, but they were blown away by the stray bullets and explosions. That was just how intense their battle was.

Both Latis and Akira were equipped way beyond the difficulty level of the area around Kugamayama city. But even so, they did not hesitate to use them in their high-speed battle. They threw stray bullets all over the place. The shockwave from the explosions of the mini-missiles used by Latis also reached the sky. Thus, there was no surprise that their fight attracted one of those flying monsters.

Akira inadvertently looked up. He could see floating points from where the light pillars came from. He then scanned in that direction using his information terminal. The thing on his display caused him to frown. The monster above him was a 50 metres long wasp-like monster.

The wasp was partially mechanical and was equipped with powerful weapons. The flying device that extended from its body looked like a layer of wings made of light. Its body and limbs were equipped with a large-size gatling gun and missile pods. While its stinger was replaced by a large calibre laser cannon.

Akira, who was basically overtaken by the frenzy to kill Chloe, regained some of his calm after seeing such a monstrosity. Since it was an insect-like monster, it reminded him of the giant bug swarm that he had to fight against during the inter-city transport-escort mission and thought that it was futile to try and fight it.

“Alpha, what’s the plan now? Should we call a temporary retreat?”

“That sounds like a good idea, but that’s only if it will let us go. My bet is that it came here because of the explosions caused by the mini-missiles. So, its main aim should be not you. Well, it should at least let you go, but…”

Akira glanced at Latis and frowned. He was already shooting at that huge monster using his heavy augmented suit while moving closer to Akira.

Latis was also able to evade the pillar of lights that were raining down from the sky. He noticed the monster above him and quickly thought of his options.

Although it was weaker than the monsters further to the east, it was a monster that came from the upper region. There was no doubt that it was still a formidable opponent. As expected, he could not fight Akira and that monster at the same time. The best option would be to get that monster to fight Akira, but it was not strange if Akira had the same idea. It was enough of a reason to worry that they would end up trying to push the monster to each other just to get killed all the same.

Latis also thought of working with Akira to fight that monster, but he quickly canned that idea. If Akira was that composed and clever enough to accept the deal, he would not be here in the first place.

He kept analyzing his options. The worst-case scenario was that both of them tried to get the other side to fight the monster and Latis was the first one to fall. Afterwards, Akira would lure that monster to attack Chloe’s APC. If that happened, he would bring more danger to Chloe, that was the one thing that he needed to avoid no matter what.

If he ignored his own safety and kept focusing on Akira, Akira would not have the leeway to deal with the monster as well. Once that monster killed them both, there was a good chance that it would have accomplished its goal and just leave. It came down most likely because it was seeking to eliminate both Akira and him, or maybe only him. Therefore, in order to keep it away from Chloe’s APC, he could not afford to return back with this monster in tow.

[I guess I have no other choice. Double suicide it is. Sorry, Pamela. I won’t be coming back.]

Latis quickly made the decision to throw away his life. Although he did not want to die, if it was necessary, there was no hesitation to do so. Just like how his men had died fighting Akira because of their conviction, Latis made the same decision based on the same conviction.

The difference between Latis and his men was only how bad the situation was until they were forced to make such a decision. Right now, it was what the situation demanded. If by doing so, he would be able to guarantee Chloe’s safety, kill Akira, and fulfill Chloe’s order, then there was no place for hesitation.

With the decision in mind, Latis went straight at Akira, but suddenly a call from Pamela reached him.

“Latis, this is an order from Milady.”

“I know. I leave the rest to you.”

“…No, that’s not it.”

Latis thought that Pamela understood him without him even needing to tell her everything. Although he was not mistaken, the reply from her surprised him. After he listened to the content of the order, he was even more confused as he asked her.

“Pamela, if I do that, there’s a good chance that monster will come over there as well…”

But Pamela replied firmly.

“Latis, I’ll say it again. This is an order from Milady.”

“…Understood.”

Since he had failed once after disregarding Chloe’s order, he was not in a position to go against her order again. Latis replied with affirmation while putting aside all of his still lingering questions and worries. He could hear Pamela sigh in relief before she closed the call. Latis was a bit bothered by that reaction, but for now, he put it for later and focused on executing his master’s order.

The heavy augmented suit opened up its back and Latis was ejected out. A moment later, the heavy augmented suit released one of the missiles from its missile pod toward Chloe’s APC. Latis quickly held onto that missile and used it to carry him back to Chloe’s APC.

The unmanned heavy augmented suit then just kept on going. The autopilot controlling the suit moved to empty its ammo toward Akira and the monster as if it was covering for Latis’ retreat.