Chapter 186, (1/2)

Chapter 186, Nelia’s Powered Suit

The secured route to Kuzusuhara ruin was fortified by a series of walls made from the repurposed buildings along the route. The soldiers posted along the secured route peeked out through the window slit with raised eyebrows. They were desperately fighting the small monsters outside the wall up until just now, but their rifles’ muzzle had stopped producing smoke for some time now. It was not because they ran out of ammo, but it was because there was no longer any target to shoot.

Countless dead monsters were scattered in front of them. Although their number and strength had put an immense strain on the defending soldiers, a particular man who just appeared not too long ago cleaned them up easily.

Rather than cheering on their victory, the soldiers were still surprised by that man’s prowess. Half of the swarm as well as the swarm made of relatively big monsters were all defeated by that man.

“W-who the heck is that…?”

“The IFF indicates that he’s a friend but he seems to be using different equipment, a Hunter maybe?”

“The IFF signal doesn’t show that he’s a Hunter though. But he’s not a soldier from the temporary base either. I wonder which squad he belongs to?”

“No idea. I heard nothing from the base either… Either way, I’m glad that he’s on our side. Let’s get ourselves ready while we have the time.”

The commander of the guards there gave his order and the soldiers started to get busy again.

On top of the countless dead monsters, a man stood and contacted his friend through wireless communication. His communication device still worked just fine despite the effect of the rain. His other equipment was also better than usual Hunters, and of course, he has the skill suitable for his equipment. It was the exact reason why he was able to clean up the monsters so easily.

“I’m done here, how about over there?”

“Yup, I’m done over here too.”

“I see. Just a question though, how were the monsters over there?”

“Hm? Just a normal swarm. Nothing out of the ordinary, anything wrong on that side?”

“I won’t go that far, but it feels like they are ordered to fight and not to withdraw. Although this is just my guess, the bigger monster is not the boss of the swarm, they’re more like the commander of the swarm. Not to mention that there are both biological and mechanical monsters mixed in the swarm. I bet these monsters have evolved to be able to take command of the other monsters. I didn’t go for them first, so I can’t really confirm it.”

“Hmmm, the boss said that this attack is not from the ruin’s defence system though. But to think that they have a commander like that, it’s becoming really fishy. Alright then, I’ll at least let the boss know about it. Tell the others to be careful too, later then.”

The call ended there and the man mumbled.

“…If the bigger monsters are the commanders, then there’s a good chance that there’s another higher command up the ladder. In that case, wouldn’t that mean that this attack might be because of that higher commander? And here I thought this would be an easy job, goddammit!”

That guy who belonged to Yanagisawa’s squad sighed.

—*—*—*—

Akira was using the buildings as covers while closing in onto the multi-legged monster, but another monster suddenly ambushed him. Right now, he was riding his bike on top of the buildings to keep his distance from the monsters while shooting at them with his SSB multi-weapon rifle.

The monster that ambushed him had a wolf-like appearance. Although its head was as big as a small shop, it had a big enough body to suit its head. Its legs were covered in fur, but it did not hide its muscular flesh as it ran toward Akira, crushing the rubbles under its feet.

The mini-missile pods fixed on Akira’s bike launched multiple mini-missiles at that monster. The explosion that engulfed that monster was only able to strip off a small part of its fur and flesh, it hardly injured the monster at all. It then jumped out from the smoke and chased Akira with great vigour.

Akira kept shooting while gritting his teeth. When he noticed that he had run out of ammo and was about to reload a new magazine, Alpha suddenly gave him an order.

“Akira, anti-forcefield ammo doesn’t really work, so don’t use it.”

“Is that so…? Wait, that thing is so strong although it’s not using a forcefield armour?!”

“At least, it’s not using forcefield armour projection like your coat or your common tank’s forcefield armour.”

“So basically it’s just simply that strong, huh!! What a pain in the neck!!”

Akira reloaded an augmented armour piercing magazine to his SSB rifle and started shooting again, driving multiple augmented armour piercing bullets to the monster wolf’s head. The monster roared from the pain, but instead of slowing down, it ran even faster. It opened its mouth, showing its red-blooded fang and its ferocity.

In contrast to that, Akira looked even more concerned. His face turned even grimmer as if to erase the concerned look on his face.

“Just how much vitality does that monster have? Alpha, can you do something about that thing? Like, you know, concentrating the missiles just like you did back then against the tank tarantula? You can control the mini-missiles, right?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t do that. To be more precise, I can’t fully control the missiles, not to mention that the rain is reducing the accuracy of the guiding system too. To be honest, I believe I deserve an award for even making them hit their target.”

“So it’s all the rain’s fault, huh!! Seriously, can it just stop already?! Or at least let off even for a bit!”

Akira started cursing at the rain. But instead of letting off, the rain that got weaker a moment ago suddenly started pouring even harder. Akira smiled bitterly at Alpha, who replied likewise.

“Akira.”

“It’s not my fault.”

“I know, I just want to let you know that you’ll need to resupply soon.”

“…Roger that.”

The bike accelerated to open up more distance from the monster wolf. It then went into an alley where his truck was hiding and was running parallel with that truck. Akira then jumped from the bike and into the truck, as he brought the huge payload of mini-missiles to the backside of his bike, the arms fixed on the backside of the bike threw away the empty payload, grabbed the new payload, and loaded the mini-missiles.

Akira quickly finished grabbing the ammo for his SSB rifle and immediately jumped back to his bike. His truck then drove away from him and vanished between the rubbles.

The monster wolf had its sight on the truck, but Akira forcefully shifted its attention to him as he started shooting at that monster. The bike slowed down to provoke the monster even more and he kept on shooting armour-piercing bullets at its head to keep its attention.

The monster chased Akira even harder, its face that was scary enough on its own, looked even more intimidating with the blood oozing from it. Every time it swung one of its 4 huge legs, it sent rubbles and debris into the air.

Seeing how the monster was getting closer and closer, Akira thought that it was about time to speed up the bike, but strangely the bike would not go any faster. Akira tilted his head and sent a glance at Alpha.

“Alpha?”

“We’ll get closer this time since we know for sure that it has no ranged attack. After all, it doesn’t seem like we can defeat that monster without shooting from closer range. So Akira, you should get yourself ready.”

Although Akira understood the logic, he still could not help but frown.

“…I know that part is my responsibility, but make sure not to get too close, yes?? I don’t want to get eaten again like back then with that big snake.”

“That’s a good idea, shooting from the inside is a sure-fire way to kill it. Want to do that instead?”

“No thanks. It’s obvious that one won’t just swallow me whole!! I’m sure it would give good chewing before swallowing its food!!”

“That’s not what I meant though. It’s coming.”

The wolf monster had closed the distance, enough to take a chomp on Akira. Right when it opened its big mouth, Akira suddenly jumped from his bike and leapt toward that big monster.

In his compressed time perception, Akira saw the wolf slowly closing its jaw to get a good bite of its prey.

But its jaw was suddenly forced open before it could close. Akira had raised his augmented suit power to max and delivered a powerful kick to the wolf’s jaw.

He could feel the kickback from that powerful kick as he was momentarily floating in the air. That was when mini-missiles went past beside him and straight into the monster’s opened mouth before exploding.

With no other direction for the force to escape, the explosions had enough force to blast open the wolf’s innards. Some of the shockwaves went out from the wolf’s mouth, towards Akira who was right in front of its mouth. But thanks to Alpha’s support, he was able to safely land on the ground.

Akira then looked up at the monster as it writhed and roared before falling to the ground.

“Alright then, that went easier than I thought, we should have done that sooner.”

Hearing what Alpha said casually, Akira immediately raised his objection.

“The heck! I’ll keep my distance even if it takes a whole load of bullets to kill that monster next time, okay?!!”

“I see. But considering the ammo expense, I don’t really recommend that. There are so many of them after all. So I hope you understand.”

“Can you do something about the aim to reduce the ammo usage? It’s not the time to be holding back right now.”

“I’m already doing my best, but it’s not that easy with this rain, you see. I can’t increase the accuracy no matter what.”

“Dammit!! If only this rain would stop!”

Akira once again looked up to the sky. The rain felt like it got slightly stronger. Alpha smiled bitterly at Akira.

“Akira, you should stop make it rain harder, you know.”

“…It’s not my fault.”

Akira frowned, showing that he was not so sure if what he said was true or not. But then he noticed something in the ruin and quickly banished any unnecessary thoughts to the void. As he focused his vision in that direction, he spotted another huge wolf monster running fiercely in the rain.

“Again?!!”

Akira who was taking a break on top of his bike immediately accelerated to keep his distance away from that monster, but Alpha hijacked the control and stopped him from doing so.

“Akira, wait, there’s a friendly signal coming from that direction.”

“Is it chasing someone??”

Helping other Hunters was one of his jobs. So Akira was not sure if he should go and help that Hunter instead. But it seemed that it was unnecessary.

“Nope, it’s the opposite.”

“The opposite?”

Right in the next moment, the big wolf monster that came pretty close to Akira was suddenly sliced by a blue light blade and fell down. Its head that was separated from its body continued to roar even as it rolled over the ground. While the rest of its body followed its inertia and crashed until it finally stopped right before Akira.

Akira was pretty amazed by what happened. When he looked at the monster’s head, it was then cut to half by a blue light blade from behind, revealing the owner of that blue blade which was a black powered suit.

Akira tensed up the moment he saw that powered suit since it somehow looked familiar to him.

“Alpha, that powered suit…”

“It’s either the very same powered suit that you fought back in Ezont Family’s base or a different powered suit of the same type. But it’s true that the IFF identified it as a friend.”

“Not a foe then… right?”

“Probably, yes.”

Akira still had his guard up. The black powered suit turned off its blade and folded it. Once it was folded to the length of its handle, the black powered suit put it away to show that it had no wish to fight before waving casually to Akira.

Akira was a bit surprised since he did not expect that at all. But when the backside of the powered suit opened up and someone came out from it, Akira frowned. He found that person somehow familiar to him.

“Y-You…”

“Long time no see, Akira.”

It was Nelia.

Nelia jumped from the powered suit and landed in front of Akira, who immediately aimed his SSB rifle at Nelia by pure reflex. But even so, Nelia smiled amusedly at him.

“Oh my, it’s not a good idea to aim your rifle at a friend, you know?”

“…Do you really expect me to believe that?”