Chapter 154
Blood and brain matter splattered. Chunks of flesh dropped with a thud. Bloodstains even reached my clothes, despite I was quite far away.
The head of a person who had been talking and thinking just like me until a moment ago - even if he seemed to have lost his mind a bit - exploded in the blink of an eye, leaving only fragments of his skull.
It wasn’t my first time seeing someone die. But I don’t think I have ever witnessed such a graphic and gruesome sight.
Nausea rose at the sight of the shattered head tilting and pouring out fresh blood and fragments of brain. Dark Dragon, who had approached at some point, helped me calm down, telling me to take a slow, deep breath.
He was in a terrible state as well. Naturally.
At least I was a bit of a distance away, but wasn’t Dark Dragon in close contact with the crazy scientist, holding him by the scruff of his neck?
He didn’t just witness it like I did; the head of the person right next to him exploded, and he was covered in all the debris. Slime and blood, bone and flesh dripped stickily down his Dragon Suit.
It was a situation that would shock anyone, but he remained calm without much change, as if he had experienced something like this before.
No, perhaps the fact that his usual playful demeanor had disappeared and he was showing such a subdued side meant he had changed from before.
I couldn’t see his expression because of the Dragon Helmet, so I had no idea what he was thinking.
I took a deep breath and asked.
“…What happened?”
[He was sniped. Someone shot at that scientist from very far away.]
I had expected it, but still.
I felt relieved that it wasn’t something like an auto-reacting bomb planted inside a person’s head, but then again.
I got goosebumps wondering what kind of messed-up gun could so easily and simply turn a person’s head into a handful of bloody pulp, like popping a tomato or a watermelon.
If that had targeted my head instead of the scientist’s, would I have survived?
It would have been impossible unless the microchip had undergone activation with truly miraculous timing.
Life and death were decided in an instant, and my only role there was to watch.
[It’s a military weapon.]
Dark Dragon asserted in a stiff voice.
“Military?”
[I had a chilling premonition… I reacted in my own way and moved to push that scientist. I was definitely one step faster, but when I looked again, the scientist’s head had exploded.]
What that meant was…
[Either the unidentified sniper is a world-class monster of a crazy caliber who anticipated my reaction and fired, or he made a mistake but had the ridiculous luck of the bullet coincidentally flying exactly where I pushed him-]
Or the bullet curved mid-air and headed for the target on its own.
Surprisingly, the latter case was the most likely to happen.
[It’s a possible story if it’s a sniper rifle equipped with an auto-homing module, though all such advanced weapons are strictly managed for military use.]
Only then did I realize the seriousness of the situation.
No matter if the opponent was a terrorist, a group with the guts and authority to openly kill a person by aiming a military weapon in the middle of the city…
They were not common. You could count them on one hand. Whichever one it was, encountering them like this could hardly be seen as good news.
Why did they target the scientist? Because of what he was about to say at the end?
If they were cold-blooded people who would blow up people’s heads just to silence them over that, they had plenty of reason to try and kill us, who had also tried to learn about the scientist’s circumstances.
Come to think of it, Dark Dragon was leaning toward me, blocking my line of sight.
He wasn’t bending down out of concern for my condition, but for a much more practical reason.
He was shielding me from the direction the bullet came from to protect me from the sniper.
[They’re coming.]
As soon as Dark Dragon spoke, the sound of shattering glass rained down.
The windows of that building broke and opened, and pitch-black figures grabbed onto rappel ropes and dropped at a terrifying speed. Their numbers easily exceeded ten at a rough guess.
The mechanized soldiers, landing on the ground in an instant without stopping at all, aimed and surrounded us with their red laser aiming scopes.
Armed with semi-exoskeletons that covered their lower halves in artificial muscles and protected only the vital areas of their upper halves, the soldiers' combat suits bore the logo of the DCPD.
The pitch-black lens eyes attached to their head visors turned toward us eerily, like those of ants.
City Police? No, it was somewhat ambiguous to call them that.
Look at their level of armament.
It was too much for mere patrols, but it made no sense to say that every single one of them was a DCPD patrol officer.
They seemed to fall right in the middle of that line, but did the DCPD have such troops?
Come to think of it…
My thoughts did not last long.
RUUUUMBLE―――.
A magnificent driving sound and wind pressure swept across the ground. It was so intense that it was hard to even keep my eyes properly open.
Even in the midst of that, the enhanced soldiers surrounding me and Dark Dragon didn’t twitch a single finger and maintained their existing alert stance.
It would be really nice if someone could at least explain what this situation is right now.
[That’s…]
Dark Dragon let out a groan as he looked up. I also overcame the slightly weakened pressure and raised my head, but I couldn’t see anything.
'There’s nothing there?'
[No. Look more closely, test subject.]
I was already going crazy because of the wind, so would looking closely make me see anything?
I tried to retort like that, but my body, honed by the microchip, rebelliously presented me with the experience of observing further and more closely.
Something shimmered in the middle of the vortex like the eye of a storm, something massive and transparent
It didn’t take long to realize that it was a tiltrotor aircraft covered in active disguise optical panels.
The flying object cast off its optical disguise and approached this way while shooting out red flashes.
The underbelly of the descending tiltrotor opened, and a few small human shapes dropped down.
“…!”
It was high. Incredibly high. The flying object had stopped at a height of tens of meters above the ground.
People were free-falling at an immense speed from a place higher than most building rooftops, without any sign of deploying parachutes.
The reactions of the surrounding enhanced soldiers were so bland that they did not see it as a new method of suicide. They seemed to think of it as a perfectly natural airdrop method.
The shapes that were close to dots gradually became closer and larger. On the side of the flying object above the falling figures, rough English letters were written.
'MILI-TAC'
The joint special tactical unit of the Police Department and the Militia.
Thud, thud, thud.
At the exact same moment, the Mili-Tech special tactical unit members landed. There were five of them in total.
Some landed gently like feathers, while others landed heavily, shaking the ground. They were all different, but all of them wore the enhanced exoskeletons of the DCPD patrol officer rank, effortlessly turning their gazes not only to the front and sides but also to the back with eight mechanical lenses.
So, simply put…
That patrol officer I had crossed paths with on my first day of work and at the Kabuki Game Center was the one.
There were a whopping five monsters possessing the same level of force as that person who had instilled fear in me with overwhelming violence.
Furthermore, all of them were surrounding me and Dark Dragon.
To put it even more simply, we were fucked.
Swish-
Something thin glinted, and Dark Dragon unnaturally raised his arm.
A thread as thin as a spiderweb wrapped around the gauntlet area of his Power Armor was visible in the dawn light.
Sparks flew as the thread and metal rubbed against each other.
When Dark Dragon pulled his arm, a special forces member with a petite physique was dragged along until the thread snapped with a twang and they stopped.
The sight of them flicking their tongue out from under the helmet, where only their mouth was barely visible, as if amused, was inhuman.
[It doesn’t get cut by the cutting wire? What material is that armor made of? I covet it. Should I cut it once and take it apart?]
Disks the size of a firm grip slid out from both sides of the glossy black arms. A red hue circled around the slowly rotating disks, emitting an eerie light.
[It’s a monomolecular blade thinner than any knife in this world. It’s made of only a single element.]
Words full of pride, as if boasting.
[With this, there’s nothing in the world I can’t cut and cleave. If there’s a downside, it’s that it’s actually too sharp, so even though I definitely cut something, the wound sometimes closes back up on its own due to intermolecular interaction? It sounds like a joke, but it’s real, hehe.]
As soon as they finished speaking, they threw the disk in a surprise attack. Dark Dragon pulled me in and ducked his head, dodging the monodisk that rushed in the blink of an eye.
He dodged it well, but it was quite a shock just from the fact that Dark Dragon, who had never even dodged trivial attacks until now and simply blocked them trusting in his defense, had evaded for the first time like this.
Didn’t that mean even the Dragon Powered Armor would be cut by that monomolecular cutter?
The disk that flew silently returned after smoothly slicing through a traffic light and an artificial street tree like cutting tofu, with equal, effortless precision.
It felt like a dream due to the unrealistic sight, but as the top part of the traffic light smoothly slid down and collapsed, it was an undeniable reality.
If they caught it wrong, their own hand would be cut off, but the special forces member elegantly caught the disk and flicked it once, looking completely unbothered, as if they didn’t have an ounce of such fear.
[Oho, you dodge? That makes it fun. Then let’s see―]
[Fox. That’s enough. Have you forgotten the lieutenant colonel’s instructions?]
Another equally fearless Mili-Tech agent firmly grabbed the hand holding the disk. The member using the monomolecular cutter fiercely shook his or her arm to pull it out, and when it didn’t come out easily, he or she got annoyed.
[I got it, I got it. I just have to leave you alone until that great lieutenant colonel arrives. I was trying to have some fun for the first time in a while…]
Only then did they let go of the hand.
The arm of the one who restrained the monomolecular agent was unusually thick. artificial/mechanical muscles close to those of a gorilla were surrounded by a carapace, instilling a sense of dread that they could send anyone flying with a single blow.
That’s why the grabbed hand couldn’t be pulled out. Anyone’s anger management issues would likely be automatically cured in front of that fist.
They were indeed the infamous Mili-Tech special tactical unit members. Every single one of them was a monster.
In the latter half of the original game, the player character used to massacre even these kinds of humans in droves… Thinking about it now, I realize it’s a truly unrealistic story.
[lieutenant colonel?]
While I was completely tense, Dark Dragon casually spat out a remark after hearing the Mili-Tech agents' conversation.
Cryptically, the bright yellow artificial eyes of the Dragon Helmet were grinning.