Chapter 24
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 24
Bzzt.
At some point, static began to crackle through the communicator built into my helmet.
Whether it was interference from the Arcane ruins or simply the depth of the earth around us, external communications had been cut off completely.
Thud, thud.
I checked the underground map projected across my retinal display as I advanced. Gunfire echoed in the distance like a hollow refrain, the reverberations warping and scattering in every direction, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint the source of the shots.
One thing was certain, though—an engagement had already begun somewhere in this labyrinth. We would run into the enemy soon.
Whirrrr.
At a gesture from my hand, the recon drone glided ahead.
About five minutes had passed since we breached the underground. The suffocatingly narrow passage had gradually widened, now broad enough for vehicles to pass.
Slick.
Stopping at a corner, I raised a hand to signal a halt. The platoon members froze in silence. They were probably all staring at me with puzzled expressions.
Even through the feed from the recon drone, bristling with precision sensors, nothing showed.
But something's off.
I couldn't put it into words, not even to myself.
It was pure instinct—an unshakable unease. It felt as if my toes were teetering on the edge of a cliff. One more step, and I'd plunge to my death.
The silence dragged on. There was no reaction. Unable to wait any longer, Kodrak edged toward me, about to offer some advice.
Ting!
At that instant, the sound of a metal wire snapping rang out.
Thoom!
A thunderous roar erupted from the ceiling, and a shower of metal ball bearings rained down. Caught in the storm, the recon drone was pulverized by dozens of them. The ones that missed embedded themselves deep into the floor with terrifying force.
Had we marched forward without suspicion, several of us—myself included—would have been killed instantly or crippled.
A classic trap.
The cruder the trap, lacking any electronic components, the easier it was for a recon drone to overlook.
"How did you know?"
Kodrak muttered, startled. He wasn't expecting an answer, and I had no intention of giving one.
This is going to be a headache.
If every passage was rigged like this, our advance would crawl. Impatience surged through me.
I...
Thoughts unbecoming of a soldier crept in. My brow furrowed in self-disgust.
...I want to find Lillian Ramones before Ilay does. Assuming she's still alive.
I wanted to keep Ilay and Lillian from ever meeting. Ilay would undoubtedly try to save her.
Ilay was an excellent soldier. If he resolved to 'expend' his platoon members, he could blast through traps like these in no time at all.
I could do the same.
If I threw my platoon members to the front and expended them one by one, I could reach the bottom faster than anyone. If the mission truly demanded it, I would have done exactly that. But my haste now was purely personal.
I didn't want to sacrifice loyal soldiers for my own private feelings and goals.
In that case, I'll just have to take the risk myself.
Closing my eyes, I dialed up my senses one at a time. Normally, sharpening one sense dulls the others.
But I expanded my perception through the Akies Combat Style. That let me push every sense to its peak all at once. Like flipping mechanical switches, I turned up my hearing, touch, smell, even taste.
I parted my lips slightly and let my tongue slip out. When the scent particles drifting through the air brushed my taste buds, they surrendered a wealth of information.
Slick.
I cracked my eyes half-open. Sight carried the greatest volume of data. Vision too sharp was enough to trigger a headache on its own.
My brain churned through the flood of information from my heightened senses. My awakened mind hungrily devoured energy.
Thump, thump, thump.
My heartbeat swelled, dilating my blood vessels. The surging blood relentlessly pumped glucose up into my brain.
Here I go.
I signaled with my hand and moved forward.
Suddenly, the sluggish movements of the platoon members trailing behind me began to grate on my nerves. No—they weren't actually that slow.
Damn it. It was maddening. Everything around me had abruptly become infuriating. A surge of rage welled up, tempting me to drive my elbow into Kodrak's face as he followed. On an emotional level, I wanted to kill him.
...All of it came from the extreme strain on my brain. Knowing that, I crushed the impulse and reined in my emotions. The irrational, senseless anxiety and fury I felt right now were the price of this power.
My brain was groaning in pain—practically screaming.
There was a reason people who practiced the Akies Combat Style for too long went mad. Anything breaks when pushed past its limits. I'd understood that in the abstract before. Now I was living it.
On the battlefield, the volume of information to process skyrockets to the extreme.
The platoon members seemed to sense the ferocity radiating off me. And I, in turn, could feel their unease.
Bang!
I whipped my hand out and fired my pistol. The automated turret mounted on the ceiling shattered. Like a machine, I eliminated every threat the instant I detected it.
We passed the corridor guarded by the turret and reached a door. Kodrak no longer bothered warning me of danger.
Drawing my blade with my left hand, I sheared through the hinges. Then, with a front kick, I sent the iron door flying.
"Argh...!"
A scream, cut short. A rebel struck by the hurtling door slammed into the wall and was crushed instantly.
"Wh—!"
The enemies could barely force out a single syllable. That was how fast I moved, and how slow they were to react.
I leaped inside with cold indifference. Then, as if I'd known their exact positions from the start, I fired my gun and swung my blade.
Slash!
My blade swept across a rebel's throat. I kicked the cleanly severed head, sending it flying straight into the face of another bastard standing there in a daze. Weak-willed as he was, the moment the head struck him he slipped and tumbled backward.
Amid the chaos, a rebel who looked like a veteran tried to bring his gun to bear on me. But aiming at me was an impossible task for him.
Drawing on my high-output prosthetic body, I ricocheted between the walls and the ceiling. His muzzle and my body never once lined up.
Suspended in midair, I calmly squeezed the trigger.
Bang!
Along with the shot, a bullet hole bloomed in the forehead of the rebel who'd been aiming at me. As I landed, I stomped down on the head of the weak-willed bastard who had fallen earlier.
Crack!
Beneath my boot, the enemy's skull caved in, the flesh inside turning to mush like tenderized meat.
Every rebel beyond the door was dead. I flicked my blade through the air to shake off the blood.
"...Stop standing around like idiots and keep moving."
I spoke as though I were angry. In truth, I was. It was only that my rage had no clear target.
I couldn't help letting this much slip out. My nerves were so frayed that I wanted to scream for no reason at all.
The platoon members, who had been watching like spectators, finally filed through the door with bewildered faces. They fell in close behind me, utterly clueless.
The same thing happened twice more. Leading the charge, I met and repelled every ambush and surprise attack alone. Eventually, even Kodrak shed his last shred of worry, his expression shifting to sheer disbelief.
The faint hostility the platoon members had been aiming at my back vanished entirely.
This was my way. No—the Empire's way. Overwhelm them with raw power until they had no choice but to accept it.
* * *
The deeper we descended into the fortress's underground, the wider it opened up. In some sections, rooms lined both sides of corridor-like passages. From here on, it was no longer just a network of tunnels but a residential district, a place where people had lived and moved.
And the resistance grew fiercer to match. The rebels had taken cover in the open spaces, unleashing a relentless barrage.
They've formed a defensive line here. A tactically sound decision.
Our unstoppable advance ground to a halt at the mouth of a large cavern. I used a reflector mirror to check the enemy's line.
Bang!
The mirror shattered under a bullet the instant I raised it. But that split second was more than enough.
I processed the visual snapshot I'd captured like a camera. Roughly a hundred soldiers manned the defensive line. Behind them, non-combatants were retreating, and among them were figures who appeared to be nobles.
I've caught up. Lillian may well be in that crowd.
I racked my brain for a way to break through.
"Platoon Leader, reinforcements will arrive soon. The platoons that entered through the other routes should be converging on us. Or a platoon might come up on their rear from over there—the passage structure loops around."
Kodrak offered his advice, tireless as ever. His persistence was admirable, and his reasoning was sound.
But my platoon had advanced faster than any of the others. It would take quite a while for another to link up with us.
Waiting might not be a bad idea.
I shut my eyes to cool my head. I'd pushed myself hard. It had been a long time since I'd overtaxed my brain like this. The load on my nervous system rivaled pain-tolerance training.
Indeed—I was essentially torturing myself right now.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out from the rebel line. It wasn't aimed at us.
Commotion broke out at the rear of the rebel formation. Just as Kodrak had suggested, another platoon was pressing in from behind them.
It seemed another platoon had cleared the underground labyrinth at a pace much like ours. And it was obvious who that would be.
Ilay Kartika!
I bit down on my lower lip. I was certain of it. He was the only other platoon leader who would charge in like this. The rest, even those with the ability, would pace themselves to match the average.
Either way, the enemy's firepower was now split between the front and the rear.
"Now's the time. We're moving in."
I signaled quickly. The instant I gave the platoon their entry order and their assigned sectors, we breached.
Two men hoisting shields as large as their own bodies took the lead—the shield-bearers, one assigned to each squad. It was a role many avoided, given its brutal mortality rate.
We pressed in tight behind them as we pushed through the narrow passage. The moment it opened out, we would scatter and counterattack.
Bang! Thud!
Fire from the defensive line hammered down onto the shields.
No single metal can withstand explosions, gunfire, and energy weapons all at once. So the Empire fielded laminated shields, layering metals with differing protective properties.
But they were not invincible. The layered plating was fracturing under the accumulating damage. It wouldn't hold more than a few seconds.
"Wait. Not yet. A little more."
From behind the shield-bearer, I scanned the enemy. I sorted them by threat level and mapped the firing lines of their heavy, high-output weapons. There were about eight of them—enough to blow me apart with a single shot.
"I'm pushing straight up the center. The moment their fire converges on me, scatter left and right and take cover."
Kodrak's eyes went wide at the order. But I was already gripping the shield-bearer's shoulder, coiling to spring.
Kodrak was a capable second. Once I moved, he would adapt and follow.
Whoosh!
I vaulted over the shield-bearer's head, curling my body to shield my head and torso.
Ping!
Small-arms fire couldn't pierce my limbs. The only things to fear were the high-output weapons. So I lunged forward, timing my leap for the precise moment when about half of those heavy weapons were reloading.
Thud!
The instant I landed, I kicked off the ground and surged ahead. I had roughly two seconds to charge straight in safely. Rattled, the enemy poured their fire onto me.
I ignored the pistol and rifle rounds. Between my helmet and chest armor, I only needed to protect my face. Shielding my neck and head with my left hand, I raised my pistol in my right and took aim.
Bang! Bang!
I dropped the soldiers manning the high-output weapons first. With each shot, they crumpled like puppets with their strings cut.
Screams and panic erupted beyond the line.
My arm moved in a predetermined sequence, trigger pull after trigger pull. Not one of the enemy's high-output weapons managed to fire.
Eliminate the most immediate threats first. Do that, and no matter how many enemies there are, it's no different from facing a handful.
In theory, anyone with a prosthetic body like mine could do it. In practice, nine out of ten would fail. Real combat is riddled with countless variables. It never unfolds as cleanly as a rehearsed routine.
But if you can calculate and account for even those variables, it's another matter entirely.
The Akies Combat Style.
That was what turned possibility into reality.
...And with that, my part was done. Seizing the window while the enemy's fire fixated on me, my platoon members moved into position.
They advanced, fanning out to the left and right, methodically dismantling the defensive line. Against the rebels, our suppression force was elite and far better equipped.
That didn't mean we came through untouched. One man was dead, and three or four were too badly wounded to move. Still, against what we'd achieved, the casualties were negligible.
"S-Surrender! We surrender!"
As I closed on the very edge of the line, a man who looked like a noble shrieked. He gave himself up along with his remaining soldiers.
"Kodrak! Bind them!"
I accepted the surrender, fighting down the urge to take the noble's head. He would die under horrific torture regardless. If he had any sense, he'd have chosen suicide instead.
Leaving Kodrak to the prisoners, I pressed further forward. The line on the opposite side was collapsing too.
A moment later, I spotted the platoon that had broken through the enemy's rear. As expected, it was him.
"Ilay."
At my voice, the figure standing among the corpses lifted his head. He looked at me, face spattered with blood. The welcoming smile he offered was gentle—but it was nothing more than a mask.
"I figured the one fighting on the other side would be you, Luka. You've still got quite a few of your men left. I've thought this for a while now... but you really are a softie."
I looked past Ilay's shoulder. Only about a single squad remained of his platoon. He had made it this far by 'expending' half his men.
"Regroup with us here and reorganize, Ilay Kartika."
At my words, the faces of Ilay's platoon brightened. They must have driven themselves to the absolute limit to reach this point.
"Luka, remember when I said I'd ask you for a favor soon? This shouldn't be too much. Take care of the cleanup here. I'm going to keep after them."
I sensed the urgency in him.
"...Did you see her?"
He'd likely found traces of Lillian Ramones—or perhaps laid eyes on her directly.
Ilay gave an apologetic smile and rubbed his blood-stained neck.
"Haha, I suppose we've gotten too close. You know me better than my own family does. See you around."
Before I could even try to stop him, Ilay marched his platoon deeper down. If I'd been alone, that would've been one thing—but I was a platoon leader with subordinates of my own. I couldn't simply give chase.
"Phew."
I let out a slow breath and sat down for a moment. Then I pulled out my canteen for a drink.
Damn you, Ilay Kartika. Curse you too, Lillian Ramones.
I truly didn't want to care. Yet the two of them kept clawing at my mind. What a pain in the ass.
Crunch!
I never got a single drop. Without realizing it, I'd clenched too hard, and the canteen burst in my grip like it had exploded.
Wipe.
I wiped the water off my face with the flat of my hand.
There was no time to waver. On the battlefield, decisions had to be made in an instant. If you've thought it through, you should already be moving.
"Kodrak!"
At my call, Kodrak came running.