episode_0007

The high-speed elevator arrived at the lowest floor, and I ran to the car, following the instructions of the client worth 100,000 credits.

Confirming it was indeed a wealthy neighborhood, I whistled at the sight of the parking lot filled with sports cars and got into the car, listening to the savage explosion sounds coming from outside.

“Just to inform you, regarding any unavoidable property damage that occurs during the mission, we…”

“Understood! Understood! I won’t charge you, so just go!”

Luna naturally sat in the driver’s seat and grabbed the steering wheel, while I sat in the back, loading shells into the shotgun, which was completely out of ammo.

Clack clack clack clack. The regular mechanical sound as shells were loaded into the magazine had a magical quality that both calmed my mind and made me excited.

“They’re stalling for time outside, so not many will be able to pursue us directly, but that doesn’t mean we’ll escape easily either.”

“You want me to cover you?”

“Right.”

Perhaps I was cut out for being a mercenary. My heart pounded as if listening to 150 RPM rock music, along with the sound of the engine!

Vroom!!!

The supercar engine roared with a fierce exhaust sound like a storm, hitting zero to one hundred in a mere 0.7 seconds.

The director’s car began speeding through the parking lot at an incredible speed, charging towards the closed garage door. The AI system, monitoring the driving conditions inside the parking lot with dozens of sensors, opened the garage with precise calculations.

Crash! The low chassis scraped its bottom as it sped, going airborne before slamming onto the dark yet dazzling city road.

The former director screamed as his head furiously slammed into the ceiling, not having buckled up. But Luna skillfully jerked the steering wheel, lightly grazing past the wall of vehicles surrounding the building.

The Neo Shinsengumi, who had been toyed with by the rampaging Blake and Raleigh, stopped and stared at us with faces like salarymen chasing promotion, then blundered, getting holes blown through their heads.

“Whew! My driving skills haven’t gotten rusty yet, have they?”

“Most of it was handled by the auto-drive system.”

“Don’t you know that in car racing, the performance of the driving system determines everything?”

Usually, unless you’re a retro racer serious about car driving, or a rigger who thinks they’re better than autonomous driving systems, most people just rely on the built-in driving system. In fact, a system in a car this expensive probably drives much better than most riggers.

Anyway, after easily escaping the scene, we sped wildly down the road at an incredible speed, far exceeding the speed limit set by the EPSB, heading towards the EPSB sub-branch.

The countless buildings and neon signs whizzing past instantly appeared as lines.

“It would be great if we could arrive this comfortably.”

“It’s not that there’s no chance to easily earn 100,000 credits, but it probably won’t be now.”

Luna pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. The direction, of course, was behind us.

When I turned my gaze, there was a sedan with front armor modifications chasing us at a terrifying speed, so fast that despite us flooring the accelerator, the distance between us wouldn’t widen.

And on the roof of that car, truly boldly, stood a strange figure, with a haori flapping, taking the full force of the wind resistance with his bare body.

That crazy bastard seemed to insert something into his arm, then pulled his arm back as if to throw a punch.

It was truly an idiotic act, but in this Eclipse Point, idiotic acts usually lead to horrible results. In other words, it was ominous.

“That crazy bastard seems to be doing something strange…!”

Boom!!!!

In an instant, with a tremendous explosion, the back of the car was lifted by the blast pressure, spinning approximately 400 degrees in the air before barely landing on the road, then zig-zagged to dissipate the physical force of the impact.

Despite my head repeatedly slamming into the roof due to the nauseating ride, Luna bit her lip tightly and forced herself to try and control the vehicle.

“It’s a Smash Grenade!”

“Damn it! What’s that?!”

“It’s a cyberware that can fire all loaded grenades at once using the recoil of a punch! Its operating principle is old-fashioned, but it’s cool, so it’s popular among collectors and strongsolos!”

“Thanks a lot for the explanation!”

So, it’s scattered grenades fired from the body!

Thinking that for a cyberware, it was incredibly crude, I opened the window.

“What are you doing!”

“Damn it! You said cover! He’s reloading again, and if we get hit one more time, it won’t be the car that’s wrecked, but that director over there!”

When I pointed at the half-dead director, who was in the passenger seat and had buckled his belt, Luna had nothing to say and merely clicked her tongue.

After all, mercenary work meant risking one’s life.

I took a deep breath, leaned my upper body out the open window, and climbed onto the car roof.

Whoosh!!! The fierce wind swept past my auditory sensors, bothering my nerves, but as I frowned slightly, the sensors automatically adjusted, and the noise was canceled.

“Hey, you gorilla bastard!!!”

Taking the full force of the wind resistance blowing from behind, it felt like I’d be blown off if I relaxed even a little, but I stood firm and called out to him. The guy who was loading grenades looked at me with an indifferent face.

A samurai failure of a gorilla, wearing the Neo Shinsengumi’s symbolic polyethylene transparent haori, yet not even carrying a katana.

I drew his attention, dividing his target from just the car to the car and me, two targets.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

‘Is that bastard the boss?’

His equipment’s quality was different; he must not be a low-level grunt.

He looked at me as if asking why I called him, and was once again inserting what looked like grenades into his arm.

“I called you to eat this. Why?”

The moment the shotgun’s barrel went up, he raised his arm at an absurd speed to guard his face. Given how much money he had poured into himself, his reflexes were extraordinary. But with the flame bursting from the muzzle, dozens of pellets, gaining additional speed, pounded his body.

Ping ping ping ping! Steel pellets, all ricocheting with small sparks, as if they had hit a tank.

He seemed to be in pain and frowned, but that was all.

I let out a roar that was closer to a scream, and slammed into him until all the loaded shotgun shells were expended.

The pellets, scattering as I fired continuously, caused minor collateral damage like breaking the windows of the car he was on, slightly scratching the hood, or ricocheting elsewhere to shatter a traffic light. But he inserted the last shell with a displeased look, as if asking if I was finally done.

“Ah, damn it! Son of a bitch… How much money did he spend?!”

Chrome was like this. The more money you poured into it, the more it became something incredibly hard and incredibly strong.

Despite hitting him with a full 12 rounds from a magnum shotgun, his clothes were a bit tattered, the hit areas were a bit scratched, and there was a slight trace of blood on his face where the pellets grazed him, but otherwise, he was completely fine.

It truly was a damn frustrating thing.

“Luna! How much longer?!”

“We still have to go another five minutes from here.”

Five minutes. In seconds, 300 seconds.

It was a short time, but for me now, it felt longer than the 30 minutes a salaryman working 16 hours a day, six days a week, longs for before clocking out to go home.

“Damn it! If I come back alive, get ready for me to take your chest!”

“What are you talking about, you crazy bastard!”

Judging by the car’s condition, if it gets hit by another grenade, it will either explode or become undrivable. In that case, we’d either be caught by those guys and have our pinky fingers cut off, be forced to commit seppuku, or be put into a drum full of genetically modified, mass-cultivated crabs.

Motivating myself with Luna’s chest once more, I ran and jumped from the car.

“Hey! Hey! Wait! You crazy bastard!!!”

With Luna’s frantic voice behind me, there was quite a distance between the director’s car and the Neo Shinsengumi’s pursuit vehicle, but because they were chasing at an incredible speed, his face rapidly approached me during my time in the air.

Jumping off a car driving over 300 km/h. It truly was an insane thing to do. Still, I successfully reached the front of him. His surprised face was a bonus.

“Get down, you bastard.”

The shotgun’s stock precisely struck his jaw.

***

“Gaaah…!”

It hurts! And it hurts like hell!

Feeling a pain as if my entire body had been flattened by a road roller, I stumbled to my feet.

“Oh, damn… Am I alive? I am alive…”

Seeing my fingers wiggling, it seemed I was still alive. My combat program had terminated due to excessive impact, and one of my arms was completely shattered, though.

When I struck his jaw with the shotgun’s stock, although he was a highly modified human, it seemed impossible for him to remain standing after taking a blow to a vital spot and my tackle at an accelerated speed, which, due to his implants, must have been almost 100kg.

Both the gorilla and I fell from the car and tumbled wildly across the road.

Still, I had sent Luna off safely, so my mission was as good as accomplished.

“…You’re just a mere mercenary, yet you provoke my anger. Seppuku is too good for you.”

“That idiotic Wapanese bastard is making a big fuss.”

The gorilla’s situation didn’t seem much different from mine. Tearing off his completely ripped haori, he emerged, pushing through the debris of the building he had burst through. However, it seemed almost his entire body was chrome, as he looked relatively fine, except for one leg that had been ripped off.

I had lost my shotgun and didn’t even know where it was, so the guy with the loaded Smash Grenade was in an overwhelmingly advantageous situation.

‘Damn it. I should have seen Luna wear that before I went.’

Lamenting my regret, I regretted meddling for no reason.

Clack. The gorilla clenched his fist as if to fire the loaded grenade. If I got hit by that, even with the highest-level subcutaneous bulletproof plates inserted, among civilian grade, I would be blown to pieces and die.

‘In my next life, never…!’

Splat! The gorilla’s head exploded.

“…Huh.”

The head above the jaw was cleanly gone, a corpse frozen in the posture of raising its fist. It slowly fell forward, spilling cerebrospinal fluid, and cooling down in the cold night wind of Eclipse Point.

The gorilla, who had been showing off his bizarre prowess, met an utterly futile death.

At that sight, my legs gave out, and I plopped down onto the ground. It didn’t particularly hurt. Could it compare to that gorilla?

Thud

And right in front of my stunned self, something landed with a heavy sound.

It certainly didn’t look like civilian-grade: high-grade cyberware arms and skeleton, and a stealth suit, slightly torn from the effects of combat, clinging to a body.

Even more surprising was the long, smooth black hair edged with red, and a voluptuous body.

The one who instantly brought death to the gorilla looked down at me with emotionless, hard, gray eyes.

“Hostile entity Kondō Layton eliminated and John Doe’s survival confirmed. Raleigh. I will assess the current situation as combat concluded and return.”

“Holy shit…”

“Does this unit detect any injuries or hostile entities that I have not perceived?”

She was a woman.