Chapter 289
Jiiing-
Rodrick Smith, an artist to his core, is unable to hold back and tries to grind everything in his sight to dust with overwhelming firepower.
But I won’t just let him be. When you seize the winning momentum, you have to push even harder!
However, that wasn’t my role.
If I, in a free role, have done this much tanking, it’s about time the other roles earned their keep.
Swaaaaek!
The Cutting Wire shot from underground hooked onto the beam cannon, pulling it and twisting its trajectory.
―――――――――――!
―――――――――――!
A blood-red straight line of destruction cleaved through the empty air.
Kali Haywood dropped straight down after emerging from underground, unleashing a continuous barrage into the front of the Chrome Monster with a small hand machine gun.
[That tickles!]
It didn’t have much effect on the full-body prosthetic monster, but thanks to that, it bought time for the real Tank to arrive.
Kwaaaaang!
The monster’s grasp, which was about to snatch Kali Haywood, faltered at the concentrated Shockwave shot from underground.
Iron Dog Invincible Maximus landed, swinging an Iron Fist that spewed thruster flames from his elbow joint like a flying rocket.
Kadeudeudeuk.
Even in the midst of that, the Chrome Monster drew the wristblade built into his cyberarm and blocked the battering-ram-like fist.
The decisive blow only succeeded in making Rodrick Smith stagger and take a few steps back.
However, it should rather be seen as an optimistic result. The very fact that the bulldozer-like Chrome Monster took a step back held meaning.
The Chrome Monster was ultimately human like us, and he was bound to get tired. The monster’s physical strength was slowly approaching its limit.
“This is doable.”
The main Tank and sub-Tank I had painstakingly recruited were playing their necessary roles well in the monster raid.
With Phantom Thief Kali Haywood as my right arm and Iron Dog Invincible Maximus as my left, I couldn’t feel more reassured.
The stage was already well set. All I had to do now was wait calmly and aim for the right timing.
Aiming my pistol from a fair distance away, I carefully took aim within the Territory of Super Concentration.
With my feet spread shoulder-width apart, I gripped it with both hands and carefully aligned the glowing green sights.
What differed from normal aiming methods was that my target wasn’t the current Chrome Monster, but the Chrome Monster 0.2 seconds in the future.
It was the microchip-applied marksmanship I had used during the Chainsaw Man Murder Case when facing the corporate soldiers of Dysis Waste.
It had been incredibly effective back then.
If my prediction wasn’t wrong this time either, it would definitely yield results.
I pulled the trigger.
Taaaang!
The bullet, fired at the perfect moment, traveled toward the back of Iron Dog Invincible as a flanking shot.
It was a perilous moment when I almost hit an ally, but the trajectory drew a breathtaking arc and grazed past Maximus’s ear.
And then, it obliquely pierced the large pupil of the Chrome Monster, who was swinging a heated saw blade toward the toes of the leaping Kali Haywood right on time.
Ting!
“This bastard - a crazy, fucking crazy monster bastard!”
Curses naturally came out of my mouth. Even if he was tired, a monster was a monster.
It was a Supersonic Bullet aimed at an unconscious blind spot in that split second.
Moreover, the point of impact was a vital spot around the eye, which couldn’t help but be fragile even on a full-body prosthetic.
I thought it was a truly perfect attack, but Rodrick Smith deflected the bullet simply by lightly blinking his right eye.
He wasn’t called the Chrome Monster for nothing. It was hard to believe, but even his eyelids were lined with titanium!
Of course, as long as he was human, even with eyelids that deflected bullets, he couldn’t help but flinch when a bullet flew at his pupil.
Thanks to that, I achieved my intended goal of saving Ms. Kali from danger, but seeing him completely fine without even a scratch after being shot left me dumbfounded.
“Is this for real?”
Enraged at being interrupted at a crucial moment, the Chrome Monster ran and leaped.
With his sheer, brute mass, he lightly shoved away Iron Dog Invincible who was blocking him, sending him flying, and with a single bound, he surged right under the crown of my head.
All of this happened in a single breath, the time it takes to take just one breath.
In the split second my life flashed before my eyes, right before I was crushed to death, my body was wrapped in a transparent wire and sent flying with a shuuuuk-.
Kung!
The mass of Iron that fell a hair’s breadth away crushed the floor.
I flew out of the crater and squirmed like a caterpillar, attempting to peel off the Cutting Wire binding my legs.
Seeing me terrified that my body might get sliced if I made a mistake, Ms. Kali pulled the wire and shouted.
“It won’t hurt you if you touch it right now! And catch this!”
Using the wire she handled like her own limbs, she tossed me a heavy tech rifle and a bundle of magazines from who knows where.
“It’s mine. I’ll lend it to you for a bit. You seem to know how to shoot, but that flimsy pistol of yours just doesn’t have the firepower!”
I lit up with joy. I was just in need of one anyway.
Seeing him deflect a bullet in the blink of an eye made me feel it acutely.
This mere standard issue pistol wouldn’t cut it. A gun, a bigger gun. I needed much stronger firepower!
“Take this too! You said you needed it.”
Far away, Iron Dog Invincible Maximus was being pinned down and beaten to a pulp by the Chrome Monster.
As expected, it seemed he couldn’t hold out for long in a one-on-one. Kali Haywood hurriedly ran to help Iron Dog Invincible, tossing me a leather case with her wire this time.
I barely caught it and set it aside.
It was the supply I received from Team Leader Hank. It was also an indispensable item for hunting the monster.
But not right now. I had to wait longer.
Instead, I got down on the floor and aimed the rifle.
Since I had done a bit of shooting practice at the gym after the Chainsaw Man Murder Case, at least I knew how to shoot it.
As I pressed it against my shoulder and rested my cheek on it, the ballistic calculator attached to the top of the gun predicted the bullet’s trajectory and displayed it as a red line.
I was already starting to like this gun. Gripping the smooth handguard tightly, I watched the situation for a moment before pulling the trigger.
Taaaaaaaang――――!
The firing sound was on a whole different level. My body tingled from the heavy recoil.
The bullet, fired in a straight line, coincidentally struck the force field generator the Chrome Monster was just about to activate - the cylinder engine near his exoskeleton spine.
Kwadeuk-.
It was so tough that even after taking a direct hit from this new model tech rifle, it only suffered a thin hairline crack.
But even that would be a huge burden for the Chrome Monster.
With a weapon of Over-Technology that was so powerful yet delicate, he couldn’t help but become cautious in handling it if even the slightest abnormality occurred.
If it were to cause an explosion by any chance, the entirety of Mirror Castle might be blown away.
No matter how crazy he was, there was no way he would risk such a danger, so in effect, I sealed away one of the Chrome Monster’s most powerful weapons with just a single bullet.
Rodrick Smith’s face stiffened hard.
He must have felt like he had been stung by a gnat, and very painfully at that, by a mere bug that would die instantly if stepped on.
If Maximus and Kali were the Tanks, my role right now was the damage dealer.
This involved completely unpredictable gunfire that cut off an opponent’s momentum at every crucial moment. It was bound to be as annoying as a mosquito buzzing around an opponent’s ear.
And the Chrome Monster Rodrick Smith had a temperament that couldn’t stand not to swing his hand at a buzzing mosquito.
He immediately reached out his arm To Fire his Photon Cannon at me from afar, but there was no way I would just stand by and watch that happen.
Iron Dog Invincible Maximus immediately aimed for the opening and thrust his Iron Fist into its side. The monster’s opposite arm moved on its own as if it had a will of its own and absorbed the impact, but his aim was already thrown off.
On top of that, there was Kali Haywood. Holding a hyper-Vibration Knife, she climbed onto the monster’s shoulders and boldly tried to stab its vitals.
By the time Rodrick Smith barely managed to peel them off, I was already preparing my next shot.
This time, I pulled a coolant cartridge from the bundle of magazines Ms. Kali had thrown and attached it to the side of the gun with a clack.
As I placed my finger on the trigger, a blue light indicating firepower began to rise in stages near the rail-like split barrel.
After being pulled tight to the maximum level and let go, a cryogenic ion bullet scored a direct hit on the joint area of the Chrome Monster’s exoskeleton. The power cables froze solid and shattered.
A thin layer of ice formed and his movements stiffened, as if he had been doused in liquid nitrogen. Since the opening was not missed, the Steel arm and Cutting Wire were shot out once again.
The Chrome Monster was once again stripped of the initiative, cornered into a position where he had to endure a one-sided offensive.
Chiik-
The casing was ejected, and the spent coolant and liquid fuel cartridges automatically fell away.
Feeling like a lethal reporter, I pulled out a new fuel cartridge.
I liked this one too.
Clack. As I swapped the ammo type and pulled the bolt, the tech rifle’s capacitor activated, emitting a bright yellow flame.
I released the trigger right before the energy level reached its maximum. A flash of light followed the optimal path I had found with a sensation that burned my brain.
The projectile shot out like lightning, and the Chrome Monster, as if refusing to be caught defenseless this time, even activated his thrusters to change direction mid-air and drop down with a whoosh.
Shrewdly, he was using Iron Dog Invincible Maximus as a shield to cover his body. He was clearly wary of my shooting, showing a willingness to use any means and methods to evade.
However, there was a reason I fired the gun while activating the microchip to its absolute limit.
The current-flowing bullet dug into the vicinity of Iron Dog Invincible Maximus’s severed left shoulder. It passed by with a gap of about 1cm and shot out from between his armpit like a cannonball.
And then, it grazed with a shuuung- through the small groove between the overlapping arms, the armored part of the cyberarm that the Chrome Monster had raised like a shield just in case.
And.
Kwajijijijik!
Along with the bullet, hundreds of thousands of volts of high-voltage current flowed through the exoskeleton. Blackening rose around the monster’s trembling body.
It was a direct hit. It worked perfectly.
[―――――――――――!]
[―――――――――――!]
The wounded artist monster let out a roar with his eyes glowing red.
It was time. It was about time to see the end.