Predators (1)
"Goddammit! Son of a bitch!"
Dylan cursed under his breath, over and over. Beside him, his men watched him with uneasy eyes.
I underestimated the enemy way too much!
After running for what felt like an age, they were now catching their breath behind a cluster of boulders. Only six of them were left in this place, Dylan included.
He had no way of knowing what had become of the others.
But the gunfire that had echoed from the distance until only minutes ago had gone utterly silent, and it wasn't hard to imagine what kind of end they must have met.
Damn it all!
Thirty-two men, including himself and the vice-boss, plus five Heavy Walkers — and all that remained were six.
Even if they somehow escaped with their lives, there was no way the boss would let slide someone who had botched a job this badly.
...I'll contact the cruiser.
That was exactly why Dylan chose to reach out to the cruiser — because it was the option that gave him the best odds of survival.
Dylan was the type who believed that living, even under torture, beat dying every time.
He pulled the cable from the terminal strapped to his wrist and connected it to a jack on the corner of his mask — the one shaped like a death mask.
The moment he pressed the button on the terminal, the line to the cruiser connected. A short connection tone chimed from the device, and a comms officer picked up.
"It's Dylan. Where's the boss?"
"Is that so?"
At the comms officer's words, Dylan let out a sigh of relief.
The pirates listening anxiously beside him also visibly relaxed.
Without the boss around, the highest authority in the Humanity Cartel present here was Dylan himself.
If he could hunt down the monster and present it to the boss with the cruiser's forces before he returned, the punishment awaiting them would surely be lighter.
"There's a maximum-threat Dangerous Organism here. I'm transmitting the data — log it into the ship's database."
「Y-yes, sir!」
Dylan operated the terminal, and the footage of the monster recorded by his mask flowed straight into the cruiser's computer.
「All data received in full.」
"Good. Our lives are in danger too, so get over here right now—"
「KRZZT-KZZT」
He was about to request support when sudden static flooded the line and the terminal went dead.
"You piece of shit! Get that cruiser over here NOW!"
「KRZZZZT-KZZT」
"Fuck!"
Just as he raised the terminal to smash it against the ground, the sound of trees snapping came from somewhere nearby.
That sound — the one a massive beast made as it moved — was one every pirate in this place knew all too well.
"......"
Trembling, they all clamped their hands over their mouths.
It wasn't that they had nothing among their weapons capable of hurting the thing.
A grenade launcher detached from one of the Walkers, the Purple Spray Gun and Auto Plasma Gun Dylan carried.
The problem was they could wound it — just not kill it.
And they all knew exactly what had happened to the other pirates when the wounded thing had counterattacked.
So instead of fighting back, they chose to hide and endure.
Hoping — praying — that it would pass by without realizing they were there.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Every time its massive foot came down, the damp ground heaved and trembled.
As the footsteps grew louder, Dylan could no longer tell whether the sound he heard was the thing's footfalls or his own hammering heart.
The footsteps, which had seemed like they would stretch on forever, finally stopped. Dylan's heartbeat, meanwhile, hit its peak.
「Grrrrrrr」
The thing growled.
It sounded very close — close enough to tell exactly where it was.
It was right behind the boulders where they were hiding.
Shit, what do I do? What do I do? Fuck, should I just charge it now? No. What if that goes wrong? Goddammit! I don't want to die!
Pushed to the very edge of tension, Dylan felt like he was going out of his mind. His men beside him must have felt much the same, their limbs shaking hard enough to see.
「Grrrr」
Then the very author of the pirates' terror shifted its footing once more.
The vibration he'd felt through the soles of his boots slowly faded away.
Only then did the pirates dare to breathe, letting out long, shuddering sighs of relief. One of them had been so wound up that he pulled off his helmet and vomited on the spot.
The stench of it rolled over them, but Dylan didn't blame the man.
True to his Cult nature, his own physical constitution was weak, and he too wanted nothing more than to throw up — he was barely holding it down.
The pirates hiding behind the boulders rose one by one, scanning their surroundings, and Dylan took a deep breath before standing as well.
The thing was nowhere to be seen — perhaps it had already gone far off.
Thinking themselves lucky, he tilted his head back to stretch —
"......"
In that instant, Dylan learned firsthand what people meant when they said their heart froze solid.
On a dead tree beside the boulder, a purple mass was glowing, vivid and unmistakable.
「Found·You·」
The moment that fact registered, a searing pain tore through Dylan's shoulder.
A spike the size of a large kitchen knife had flown from the thing's tail and buried itself in him.
Another spike had struck the Auto Plasma Gun mounted on his shoulder, knocking it dead.
"Ugh!"
"Kgh!"
Dylan wasn't the only one hit — the pirates around him let out short screams as well, then crumpled backward, boneless.
Poison!
「Oh·my·」
That much, apparently, the thing hadn't expected — it tilted its head quizzically.
Thanks to his Unyielding Mask, Dylan hadn't been poisoned, and he bolted in the opposite direction as fast as his legs would carry him. The instant he fled, more spikes whistled past his back and punched into the earth.
Dylan pumped the Combat Enhancer built into his powered suit and ran with every ounce of strength he had left from birth.
The side effects were the reason he'd never once used the drug — but now was no time to be weighing permanent muscle damage.
Never in his life had he witnessed fear made this real.
Even the first time he'd met his boss — even watching him butcher countless people with a smile on his face — hadn't frightened him this badly.
"Monster" wasn't a big enough word for the thing.
The thing was the primal fear that lived in the depths of every sentient mind, given form.
"Hah, hah, hah, hah..."
Running flat-out, Dylan realized the footstep sounds had vanished behind him, and stole a glance back.
He couldn't see the thing, but he didn't stop.
As he ran like a madman, a sound reached his ears — wind rushing through air. The sound it made as it beat the atmosphere was far too small for an aircraft, yet there was no rhythmic flapping of wings to suggest a pterosaur either.
Dylan turned his head sideways to identify the source, and at last laid eyes on its shape.
Four arms, thick legs, and a tail far longer than its body — the thing was gliding through the trees.
Using the membranes of skin stretching between its arms and down to the midpoint of its tail.
"Mother of god, it can fly too."
Dylan gave up on running.
He stood there dazed, spitting out a curse — and the thing dive-bombed him.
So this was what it was for.
I examined the mask in my hand — equipment taken from the pirate leader who had died with his spine folded backward.
A silver mask shaped like a human death mask. I knew exactly what this thing was.
A Cult quest reward — how did he get his hands on this?
The Unyielding Mask. It granted its wearer immunity to poison and psychic mental attacks, and let them see cloaked targets.
Not unique-grade, but as a reward the Cult gave out for quest completion, it was by no means common gear.
The Unyielding Mask could only be obtained by clearing a fairly complex dungeon.
Is there another player besides me?
A player would naturally accept quests and the systems behind them — but this place was reality.
It was hard to imagine the pirate before me fully understanding this so-called "quest" system and acquiring the equipment through it.
If other players really do exist, how long have they been here?
Until now, I'd assumed I was the only one who had come into the world of Space Survival. It had never occurred to me that other users might have come too.
And if that were true, it would raise a very serious problem.
How should I treat them?
I'm hardly the one to talk, having devoured countless people — but if the targets were players, that was an entirely different matter.
They were people who had grown up and lived in the same world I had.
Frankly speaking, closer to me than anyone else in this Space Survival universe.
So if, hypothetically, they turned hostile toward me — could I willingly fight them?
The reason I was even agonizing over this was because I was Amorph.
If they were players who had enjoyed the game for a long time, there was a good chance they'd try to kill me — and I, too, in order to reach Ascension, would inevitably find myself at odds with other players.
Because that's the condition for Ascension.
Just as with Amorph's Ascension, every other race's ultimate goal included the toppling of every species but their own.
If other players were aiming for Ascension too, the odds of a friendly, warm-hearted encounter were vanishingly small.
...No. I don't have nearly enough information yet.
Deciding what to do about other players this early was premature.
Gathering sufficient information first and then making up my mind was far more productive.
I should ask the pirates I'd paralyzed a little while ago, I supposed. Where and how they got the Unyielding Mask. If they'd looted it, from whom. Things like that.
I tucked the mask away and devoured the Cult leader's corpse without leaving a scrap behind.
Other people, huh.
If players existed somewhere in this world, I needed to meet them only after I had grown as strong as I possibly could. Even if I decided not to be hostile toward them, they might well be hostile toward me.
Meet them while weak, and I'd simply end up another player's slave — or their prey.
I had no intention whatsoever of becoming anyone's slave. Or anyone's meal.
So right now, I would do what only I — only Amorph — could do.
Hunting, predation, and evolution.
Only by becoming stronger than anyone else can I decide freely when the moment of choice arrives.
And so I turned back the way I had come.
The paralyzed pirates would still be waiting for me with bated breath.
But what was waiting for me was not the pirates.
"Krrrrrrh."
The moment I spotted them, I crouched low. My Camouflage kicked in, and the color of my body shifted to match the red dead tree beside me.
"Kreng?"
A large theropid with horns jutting from its skull had been tearing into the pirates when it paused mid-bite and turned toward me, head cocked.
Twenty meters long, nine meters tall at the hip — a Dangerous Organism. A Horned Gigant.
Two of them, sitting near the top of this forest's food chain, were busily chewing through the paralyzed pirates.
"Krrrrh?"
It couldn't see me, but it had noticed something — a strange scent coming from my direction.
Still, the smell of Cult blood clinging to my body seemed mingled with the pirates' blood here, too muddled to pick apart clearly.
While one of them focused hard on trying to find where I was hiding, the other tried to sneak an extra pirate for itself.
"Krrrrrh."
"KRAAAAARGH!"
"Kreng..."
The one that had been staring my way finally gave up on me and roared at the other — a warning, plain as day, not to overstep.
Once the pair had devoured all five pirates around the boulders, they sauntered off without a backward glance.
Oh, come on.
Watching them leave, I rose from my spot.
I didn't expect the Horned Gigants to come all the way out here.
I did briefly consider taking a run at them, but at my current level they were a difficult opponent.
I could probably manage to kill one of them, but...
Horned Gigants were formidable predators in their own right — and they carried a truly sinister unique ability.
Berserk Mode is a no-go.
Horned Gigants always roamed in mated pairs, and if one of the pair died, the survivor's stats skyrocketed to monstrous heights.
Its already-tough hide hardened even further — tough enough that even my Psychic Breath could no longer wound it — and its jaw grew powerful enough to snap my head carapace clean in two.
Even if I somehow fought my way to victory, wounds that severe would ultimately be a net loss. Because I still had enemies left to deal with.
I'll move again once those things head back.
The Horned Gigants' natural habitat lay far from here in the first place. They'd probably come sniffing around because of the bombs I'd set off while catching the pirates.
Once they'd eaten their fill, they'd return to their own territory.
Though seriously — they didn't leave me a single one to question, did they?
With the Horned Gigants having swallowed every last pirate, my leads on where the mask came from had just evaporated.
Well, there are dozens of camps scattered around here anyway.
If I went around snatching pirates and squeezing them for answers, the information would come out one way or another. And if that proved insufficient — I'd just have to go after the cruiser itself.
I might as well rest until the Gigants clear out.
I had no idea how large a share the pirates I'd destroyed had held in the Humanity Cartel, but right now they were annihilated to a man.
It would take the enemy some time to come looking for me again.
I climbed up into a tree and curled my body tight.
Confirming that my Camouflage had activated, I quietly closed my eyes.
Since arriving on this continent, I had parted ways with the kids, hunted pirates with a strange name, and picked up unexpected information about a player. My thoughts swirled together in a jumbled mess inside my skull, slowly going fuzzy as drowsiness washed over me.
Come to think of it, it's been a while since I fell asleep alone.
All this time, No. 26 had always been there beside me. Now, alone once more, I closed my eyes.
For some reason, I felt a twinge of loneliness as I slowly drifted off to sleep.