Port District (2)
'A stubbornly persistent grudge, this.'
On the research ship, Arnold Russell had tried to kill Kisaragi Yujin too — but I had devoured her first. And here as well, a man named Jade Russell had brought a Galagon in to commit terror, yet that very Galagon now traveled at my side.
'He must have targeted me the moment he saw I was keeping a Galagon with me.'
Adhai rode on my head at all times, so it was hardly surprising that the enemy would draw that conclusion. In any case, the attack had already begun. It was time for me to prepare my response.
Four enemies were currently closing in, but the sniper would not be among them.
'The sniper coilgun has an effective range of 1.5km. They most likely fired from atop a building outside the district's perimeter.'
Compared to an ordinary sniper rifle, that range was nothing special — but the weapon's true strengths lay in its devastating firepower and penetration. It could punch clean through the hardest part of my body: my skull. That was precisely why, unlike conventional sniping, a coilgun was used at relatively close range to exploit that power. The enemy had probably taken his shot from high ground somewhere around the one-kilometer mark.
'The problem is that I can't pinpoint the sniper's exact location.'
Aside from the sniper, four presences were registering in my senses. Three were comparatively close; one hung back farther away. From the approaching figures, I detected no scent of artificial skin and none of the faint electrical currents that thread through an android's body — so no androids among them.
One of the enemies did move with an oddly mechanical quality, but the rich smell of blood wafting off his skin — rubber absent — confirmed him as a cyborg.
'And there's a Cultist, too.'
A faint current of psychic power emanated from the one positioned at the rear. The raw quantity was only slightly greater than Adhai's, but that told me nothing about how dangerous it actually was.
What made the Cult's psychic abilities so terrifying was their sheer variety and specialization. The Cult was one of the few races with latent potential in every category of psychic technique. Charge at one blindly, and you'd find yourself toyed with and battered by attacks of impossible, outlandish kinds.
'To identify his ability, I'll have to see him first.'
My auxiliary organ synthesized smell, sound, vibration, and a dozen other factors into a read on an opponent's condition — but it couldn't parse the fine details of appearance. If I wanted to know what he looked like, I would have to lay eyes on him directly. Normally I'd trust the auxiliary organ and move on, but with a Cultist, things were different.
'Because the shape of the horns determines each Cultist's specialization.'
Unlike humans, appearance was critically important to the Cult. From a Cultist's horns alone, one could tell whether he was an aggressive fighter or a support specialist.
In other words, the horns were one of the very few weaknesses of an otherwise gifted race.
Cultist players knew the flaw well, of course — most of them filed or shaved their horns down to deceive their enemies. But I was certain this one hadn't.
'In the lore, the Cult reveres their horns.'
Cult society assigned professions according to a horn's shape, and damaging them was a grave crime. Unless this enemy was a player, he would never lay a hand on his own horns. Even if he wanted to alter their appearance, he'd stop at adorning them with ornaments.
I was still hidden, still analyzing the enemy, when something small came arcing toward me from the distance.
'A grenade!'
I threw myself clear just in time. A ferocious explosion tore through the spot where I'd been standing, the blast so violent that a container weighing dozens of tons went sailing into the sky.
The enemy clearly had no intention of concealing the havoc he was wreaking in this city. Why else would he hurl grenades whose detonations could be seen from beyond the planet's atmosphere?
'Tch. This is going to be a headache.'
I was already a fugitive being hunted by the armed police. William was running interference on my orders, muddying the trail — but a spectacle this loud and this destructive was bound to draw them straight to me.
'I need to wrap this up fast, one way or another.'
Not that I had any intention of leaving any of them alive. These were the bastards who had put me in danger in the first place.
'Enemies detected so far: a Cultist, a cyborg, a heavy weapons user, and a sniper... where's the fifth?'
There had definitely been one more, but I couldn't see where he'd gone. He didn't register on my auxiliary organ either — he must have pulled far back, lying in wait for his chance to strike.
'Count out the one who's absent, and it's four. Who do I kill first?'
'Killing the sniper first would be ideal — but under current conditions, that's not feasible.'
I had exactly two ranged attack methods: the Barbed Bone Launching Organ and the Monster's Tentacles. The tentacles consumed staggering amounts of energy — unusable right now. In practice, the bone-launching organ was my only long-range weapon.
'Barbed bone darts could go toe-to-toe with a sniper, but...'
The problem was simple geometry: he was positioned high, and I was pinned low. And the darts' effective range was only 500 meters — less than half of what his weapon could reach. Somehow, I would have to close the distance.
And unless the enemy were idiots, they wouldn't let me approach unmolested. That heavy-weapons man facing me down would be the one to block my path.
'I have to get closer somehow— wait.'
My auxiliary organ reported it instantly: a reinforced alloy round was tearing through the containers, surging straight for me.
I leaped short and forward. The round meant for my skull failed its purpose yet again, slamming harmlessly into the bare ground.
'From his position, he shouldn't be able to see me at all.'
This was an attack that flagrantly defied common sense. Seconds ago, I had been pressed flat against the ground behind those very containers.
To see me, he would have to close right up on my position — or climb high enough to take in the entire Port District at a glance.
'Don't tell me...'
The instant I understood how they were reading my movements, I bolted forward. Not three seconds later, two grenades came down on the container where I'd been hiding. If I had lingered there even a little longer, the blast would have swallowed me whole.
Just as I'd suspected — the enemies were reading my unseen movements and coordinating around them. And I knew exactly where that ability came from.
'The Cult's Soul Link technique.'
Among the psychic powers the Cult employed was one called Soul Link — a support technique that chained one ally's senses to another's. If players A, B, and C were in a squad, A could link his vision to B and C, and all three would share the same field of view.
In the game it was implemented as a minimap-style vision-sharing display at the top or bottom of the screen, and the players who enjoyed support roles used it constantly.
'If it's Soul Link, he's a supporter type.'
Which meant the enemy Cultist's horns would resemble a goat's. If they turned out to be branch-shaped like a stag's, my odds would be grim — but I doubted it.
'I should assume all of them are sharing vision.'
Conveniently, Soul Link's effective radius was 700 meters centered on the caster; beyond that, it disconnected automatically. Which meant the sniper shooting at me had to be positioned within that radius of the Cultist — close, not far.
'Being able to guess the sniper's location is a win, but...'
As I sprinted between the containers, the enemy assault never let up. Their indiscriminate fire was rapidly thinning out the very containers holding the smuggled animals I'd come here to eat.
'First, I have to do something about that heavy weapons man. At this rate, there won't be a single Genetic Essence left for me to harvest.'
Mid-sprint, I swiveled my barbed bone launcher rearward and fired. A biological round, honed sharp as an ice pick, streaked toward the enemy's head. He wore no protective gear on his body. There was no way he could dodge it.
That was what I thought — and I was wrong.
"Heh heh. Can't let you do that."
The cyborg, sheathed in thick armor plating, swatted the barbed bone aside with his hammer. It wasn't the hardness of the weapon that stunned me — it was the staggering reflexes behind it.
'He deflected that?'
For a cyborg to exert that kind of force, the majority of his body would have to be machine. That was a level of conversion you rarely saw outside the Star Union — and I hadn't expected to find it here, of all places.
'This enemy is no pushover.'
Of all the possible scenarios, I hadn't imagined running into a foe this dangerous under conditions I never planned for.
'I need time to regroup.'
Keep going like this and I'd be beaten down without landing a single counter. The thought had barely formed when the man sheltering behind the cyborg sent another grenade my way.
'...Ugh.'
I dodged a half-second too slow, and the blast caught me. My outer hide was fire-resistant, but resistance only dulled the pain — it couldn't erase it. Gritting through the agony of my own hide burning, I kept moving.
"Fucking bug won't goddamn die!"
Leaving his cursing behind me, I dove behind another container. While he reloaded his grenade launcher, I rapidly inventoried the traits I had on hand.
'With that cyborg and the Cultist watching, barbed bone attacks won't cut it. Sawtooth tentacles? The moment I commit to a fight, the sniper will disable me instantly. And closing to melee isn't a great idea either.'
With both ranged fire and melee off the table, my usually dependable neurotoxin trait was sealed away too — and with a sniper out there, deploying my wings was out of the question.
'There has to be a way... ah.'
An idea surfaced all at once. And right nearby sat a container loaded with exactly that.
I moved toward the enormous container box a short distance away. There was no leisure to open a terminal, so I tore the door off with my teeth and combat arms.
Just as expected: behind the iron bars installed inside the container, a massive beast lay sleeping.
Nearly six meters long including the tail, its hide looked as though it had been stitched together from metal longswords. Its six legs were each as huge and thick as an elephant's foot.
It was a Mountaincrawler — the very creature listed in the ledger kept by Lars, the second cyborg I had devoured after arriving in this city. A juvenile, sleeping behind bars.
Bending the iron cage open with my combat arms, I slipped inside and activated the Parasitic Colony. Parasites came wriggling from my fingertips and burrowed into the Mountaincrawler's ear canal.
｢Krrk?｣
Perhaps the sensation of intrusion felt strange, because the Mountaincrawler opened its eyes. Four enormous pupils rolled this way and that before locking onto me.
｢Krrrrr｣
Whether it was animal instinct or the parasites at work, the beast offered no resistance.
Its carapace was far harder than my own hide. Being a juvenile, its underside — the belly and lower portions — was unarmored and vulnerable, but it could still rightly be called a living tank.
Through the parasites, I gave it my command.
Go out there. Rage as much as you like.
｢Grrrrrung｣
It let loose a roar that genuinely sounded like a tank engine turning over, then burst out through the bent cage and into the open.
The moment it emerged, reinforced alloy rounds came flying — but punching through the terrifyingly hard dorsal armor of a Mountaincrawler was beyond them.
"What the—! What the hell is that thing?!"
"It's a Mountaincrawler!"
The enemies were thrown into confusion by the beast that had exploded out of nowhere. Having bought time with the Mountaincrawler, I sprinted in the opposite direction.
｢Are you okay?｣
[Zzzzz(About you all?)]
｢Me and Little Baby are fine. The food is fine too.｣
[Zzzzzzz(What a relief)]
Number 26's thought-wave reached me mid-run. From what she said, none of the three had taken any real hits. Since the enemies had come all this way hunting a Galagon, it seemed they were holding off on attacking Adhai for the moment.
'The problem is Number 26 and William.'
The enemy wasn't likely to extend that same courtesy to anyone who wasn't a Galagon. Once they finished with me, they'd move to kill them without hesitation.
William I couldn't vouch for, but Number 26 was useful to me.
Protecting her from my current position would be difficult. She would have to step out and fight alongside me.
'She's grown, so she must be stronger than before.'
I couldn't gauge exactly what level Number 26 had reached, but she was certainly improved from before. Ideally I'd have tested her strength somewhere safe first — but that luxury was gone. I'd simply have to sound her out through actual combat.
'And alongside that, I need to deal with their shared vision.'
Even focusing hard on my auxiliary organ, only three enemies registered among them. Even granting that the sniper was simply too far away to detect, one was still missing.
'Whoever handles their vision — there's more than one of them. It has to be.'
The Cultist handling the link. And the one providing wide-angle sight to everyone else.
Of the enemies hunting me, there were two handling vision.
'Right now, the sniper and three others are focused on the Mountaincrawler.'
Which meant the last remaining one's defenses were left wide open. There was every chance he held some trump card up his sleeve, but in this situation, this was the only play I had.
Decision made, I sent a thought-wave to Number 26.
[Zz zzzzzzz zzzzzzz zz (Forget me. Go help that one.)]
｢The hard, sturdy one?｣
[Zz (Yes)]
｢And Big Baby?｣
[Zzzz zzzzzzz zz (I have things to do)]
Having ordered Number 26 to aid the Mountaincrawler, I broke into a run toward where the hiding enemy had to be.
Guessing his hiding spot wasn't hard. My own position among the giant containers was easy to track — but inside a container, nothing I did could be observed. The enemy had to be watching us from somewhere very high up.
And in the entire Port District, there was exactly one place like that.
The container crane.
Someone was perched there, sharing vision with the others and surveying the whole battlefield from above.
'I could send Adhai and Number 26 up there to deal with him...'
But I had reasons for not doing so. Part of it was not knowing what kind of trump card the enemy might hold. But more than that — the one experienced in this kind of fight wasn't them. It was me.
Even in the game, I'd been cornered more than once by enemies running vision-sharing plays exactly like this.
Fighting my share of them had taught me one lesson above all.
How to properly educate bastards who lean on each other's eyes.
'They came here to turn this city into a graveyard using a Galagon, did they?'
Terrorists, the lot of them — sent to sow fear and chaos through a space city.
Then it was only fair I show them what real terror looks like.