episode_0028

Above the rooftop of the building, where pitch darkness had settled.

A man spinning a modular weapon he had reconfigured into an axe, and Raleigh, whose rough breaths could be heard through the gas mask covering a thick tactical robe and combat suit that obscured her figure.

Perhaps they had pushed the performance of their Speedware to its limits, as blood dripped from the man’s nose and mouth, and from Raleigh’s gas mask filter, falling to the ground.

“Hahaha! It’s a little embarrassing to say it myself, but there are almost no guys who can fight me to this extent! Impressive, aren’t you?”

Whoosh— “…”

Click. A syringe embedded in the suit injected its contents, rapidly calming the overheated pulse.

But this was the daily dosage limit.

Any more would be dangerous, but Raleigh realized she couldn’t fight the man before her while being constrained by such limits, so she released the suit’s restrictions.

Moreover, the man was not only fighting Raleigh but also skillfully fending off Jay Q’s combat drone suppressions, so it was uncertain whether she could win even after releasing the restrictions.

“Still~ if I drag this out any longer, I’ll miss him.”

The man’s gaze turned towards an individual resembling Bram Stoker, who was fleeing far away in the darkness.

Perhaps an infrared detection system was built into his eyes.

Boom!!!

At that moment, a massive explosion sound that shook the building echoed.

Swept by the shockwave, the man grimaced, covered his ears, and stopped confronting Raleigh to walk to the edge of the building and look down.

“Ugh~ that must hurt. I don’t want to end up like that! Can’t be helped. See ya!”

“…”

And then the man leaped directly from the building.

As if he hadn’t even considered a subsequent ambush, only a cool breeze, generated by convection from the air purification system, blew through.

“…Situation over.”

[“Damn it, I was completely played with. It’s troublesome that even monsters like that are joining the fight.”]

“Cough! Cough! Ugh… Blake, you’re alive!”

Thud! After barely pushing aside a large piece of the collapsed ceiling, a bald black man was found lying there docilely.

Of course, it was quite unbalanced for someone who looked like Dwayne Johnson to be wearing a maid outfit with a lot of frills, but in the PC Eclipse Point, where individual personalities are respected, it wasn’t even surprising.

Though it could be a target for ridicule.

“Shit! I feel like I’m gonna die.”

“You look fine considering how many times you got hit by something like that. I almost died from one hit.”

Perhaps because his entire muscular system was replaced with metal fibers, even a light jab felt more painfully piercing than a full-swing sledgehammer.

In fact, wasn’t it more like a combat machine that could no longer even be called human?

Though it was human, for now.

“It’s drug power. I don’t have the strength to move a single finger now.”

Even though he was holding his hand up and wiggling his finger despite saying that, people should have the sense to understand perfectly even if something is explained poorly.

“Rest.”

“Ok…”

After asking Jay Q to retrieve Blake, who had slumped back down, I returned to the rooftop.

The battle on the rooftop seemed to be over, as Raleigh was seen taking off her gas mask and wiping the blood from her face.

“Did you kill that guy?”

“…Negative. I report failure in the elimination of the hostile target.”

“Huh. Yeah, he looked ridiculously strong.”

The comrade, that open-faced guy, didn’t seem to be losing that badly to Raleigh, our team’s strongest, so they must be a very high-level mercenary team to begin with.

A level too early for me to fight, who had only obtained fraudulent equipment due to good luck.

“Ah~ I miss Luna.”

With the appearance of a formidable competitor, I desperately wanted to return to Centum Street immediately, randomly fondle Luna’s breasts, and spend one of the few healing times in this damn city, but unfortunately, I couldn’t abandon the bounty shimmering before my eyes.

I even promised to earn the bounty and cook her a meal with fresh ingredients.

Whoosh. “…”

[“Whether you’re making love with Luna or whatever, it’s your business, but it’s time to start tracking again.”]

“Right.”

It was a battle of less than a minute, but the drooling vampire was already about to disappear into the distance.

The victim seemed even more like a bloody mess and probably wasn’t alive.

Raleigh and I, without a word, raced down the building again, chasing after him.

Wherever our feet landed, the street glowed brightly with neon light as if stage lights were turning on with the return of electricity.

-“Screech!”

The vampire, who had been running at an immense speed, soon leaped towards a skyscraper.

Thwack! Not only his fangs but also his claws seemed specially treated, as they lightly dug into the outer wall, fixing the vampire’s body to the vertical exterior like ice picks stabbing into an ice wall.

And then the vampire climbed the floors at a rapid speed, as if he were a spider.

On the outer wall, an enormous number of marks, as if done hundreds of times, remained like pockmarks, making the skyscraper look like a monstrous sight.

The reason such obvious marks hadn’t been discovered until now was probably due to the thick smog blanketing Tonyboni.

“He was someone who could have been easily caught just by running the air purification system once.”

[“Who would have thought he’d kidnap someone so brazenly and leave so many traces? They probably didn’t even think to look for him until the situation escalated like this.”]

As I watched the vampire, shaking my head at the EPSB’s investigation methods, the creature ascended smoothly without obstruction, entering the top floor and disappearing.

-“Catch him! Stop him even if you have to cut off his legs!”

-“This is our prey.”

-“What the hell are these bastards! Get your guns out!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

As we, having confirmed the vampire’s destination, tried to enter the skyscraper, rough voices and gunshots echoed from the surroundings.

Perhaps fellow hunters pursuing the same target were also closing in, as they followed frighteningly close.

“Tch, should we clear them out?”

[“Dealing with those small fry is a waste of time. Besides, it’d be an even bigger mess if guys at the level of that duo were mixed in.”]

“Indeed, Blake’s already out, so if we run into them again, we’ll be in trouble.”

Letting the fellow hunters fight amongst themselves, Raleigh and I quickly entered the skyscraper.

[Security System Deactivation Complete.]

Ayakashi opened the skyscraper’s security system in real-time, neutralizing all security traps and barriers, let alone contacting the security company, helping us ascend the skyscraper without obstruction.

[“What? How did you do this?”]

“It’s my livelihood. Don’t ask.”

Jay Q was flustered by the super-AI’s incredible hacking speed, but soon, like a pro, he temporarily neutralized the security and surveillance cameras of floors not yet reached, further accelerating our entry speed.

And combat drones ascended, spiraling around the skyscraper’s exterior, providing us cover.

If there weren’t any excessively violent individuals, we would be able to smoothly secure this skyscraper, which could be called Bram Stoker’s stronghold.

-“Graaaaah!”

-“Gasp!”

“Is that scrap metal cage on their head a fashion statement?”

As we rapidly raced towards the top floor, two vampires, adorned with prosthetics, suddenly leaped out from hiding around a corner, as if to block our way.

Raleigh grabbed the arm joint of a vampire lunging to bite, kicked its knee, spun it in the air, slammed it to the ground, and I, pulling the trigger of the sawed-off shotgun I held, granted peace to the creature that had become a vampire by neatly clearing its brain.

Although they weren’t silver bullets, in a world where even demons were caught with lead bullets, I didn’t think mere vampires would require expensive silver.

Namu Amida Butsu.

[“Be careful. There are quite a few ahead.”]

“The cleaner in charge of this section is going to have a tough time, huh?”

After quickly subduing two of them, twice that number of vampires came rushing down the long corridor.

Skeletal bodies with abnormally long limbs, glaring eyes, and even prosthetics that made their already ugly faces even uglier.

“They look more like bio-chupacabras than vampires.”

A chupacabra is also a blood-sucking monster, but they were too shabby to be compared to vampires, who were sex symbols of an era.

Clank! A shotgun shell, smoking from the chamber, ejected, and the next round was loaded.

The corridor on the 65th floor of the Tonyboni skyscraper was thickly coated with vampire blood and flesh.

***

Trickle trickle. A vampire was pouring liquid collected in a keg, through a hose connected to its abdomen.

A thick smell of blood spread throughout the penthouse, but the middle-aged man paid no mind, as if he had no interest in it, and gently stroked the glass of the bio-pod, clinging to it as if embracing it.

“Ah… Mina, just a little… just a tiny bit more and I could have met you again!!”

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Violent explosions and the trembling building sounded from directly below.

Perhaps the bugs trying to hinder his reunion had already broken in this far, as the noise grew closer by the minute.

“How dare you how dare you how dare you how dare you how dare you interrupt interrupt interrupt interrupt interrupt interrupt!!!”

Bram Stoker screamed, tearing at his skin, then suddenly burst into tears, weeping like a child, and then lay on the floor, smiling happily and laughing brightly.

Bram Stoker, whose emotions flipped rapidly every few seconds, stumbled to his feet, moved with hazy eyes, plunged a syringe from the table into his arm, and trembled as he felt the foreign substance enter his bloodstream.

He only needed to think of one thing.

Unlike other bugs who died crushed by the inorganic footsteps of corporations, he could achieve his dream.

“Mina…”

Once again, his emaciated hand touched the cold glass wall of the pod.

“What’s that now?”

“!”

Bram Stoker hastily spun around at the voice from behind him, grabbing the pistol from his pocket, but!

Crash! His neck seized, he hit his back against the pod, and the awkwardly held pistol fell to the floor and slid away.

“Gasp…!”

A vampire lay fallen on the floor, its neck broken, seemingly dead.

“H-how… the s-security alarms…”

“There are always ways.”

A young man with black hair, like a crow, whose kind had been culled as a measure against infectious diseases and could no longer be seen on the streets, leaned his face close to Bram Stoker.

Along with the coolness of the metallic hand strongly pressing his neck, the young man’s black eyes curved with amusement.

“You’ll have to come with me, Bram Stoker.”

It was John Doe and his companions who secured Bram Stoker first, without incident.