Escape (1)
I grabbed Denver with my combat arm as he collapsed.
'So his family name is Edgerton, is it?'
Between the distinctive armor and the Edgerton surname, this man's status didn't look low at all.
'Shall we experiment?'
I had bitten into his neck just now to paralyze him, and in the process, the genetic information in his blood had been absorbed into my body — which meant I could imitate his voice.
'My mimic organ is sealed, but I can still replicate a voice on a limited basis.'
I cut all power to Denver's powered armor, then pulled the communicator from his waist.
"D-don't... kill..."
「My lord!」
Holding the communicator with the small arm on my chest and mimicking Denver's voice, I made the knights freeze in their tracks all at once.
「My lord has been captured!」
「Damn monster!」
Through the communicator, I could hear the knights venting their fury.
They spoke as if they would tear me apart and devour me on the spot, yet not a single one of them dared rush at me.
'Oh?'
Still holding Denver, I called my children over. As No. 26 and Adhai approached, the knights flinched.
Watching their reaction, one thing became certain.
This man — Denver Edgerton — was someone of considerable standing.
'Come to think of it, he tried to negotiate with me, didn't he?'
He might even hold a major post within his family.
No — maybe...
'Could he be the family head?'
I'd been skeptical, thinking no family head would get captured this easily, but judging by their hypersensitive reaction, he really did seem to be the head of House Edgerton.
If Denver really was the family head, my options just widened considerably.
'Should I push my luck a little further here?'
Even if we won our fight against the knights, the moment we'd been discovered, slipping out of the city in secret was all but impossible.
'Even if I win the battle, I'm still losing the war.'
If they gave up on my corpse and opened fire with their naval cannons, my children and I would die right there.
And even if we somehow escaped this place and hid aboard a ship, it would all be over the moment a warship came hunting us.
'But that was before I grabbed Denver.'
Now that he'd been confirmed as a hostage worth a great deal, a little more risk seemed worth taking.
「...That monster — is it holding our lord hostage right now?」
「They said it was intelligent. I never imagined it was capable of this.」
「Our lord is being held hostage. No one is to act recklessly.」
The knights' conversation crackled through the communicator.
Needless to say, they had no idea I could understand human speech.
'Now that I think of it, Denver did say something about that.'
The moment he laid eyes on me, he had judged me to be a Hulk Mutant.
If they didn't know what an Amorph was, it wasn't exactly a wrong call.
My body carried the genes of countless different creatures — something they would have realized fighting me. Under those circumstances, assuming I was a similar being like a Hulk Mutant was the natural conclusion.
Granted, there were also Outspacers, which evolved through gene absorption, but they communicated through a distinctive wavelength shared only among their own kind, much like No. 26 did.
'Not that Hulk Mutants can usually talk this well either — in the game, anyway.'
And that was something that only held true in the game.
Hadn't I already encountered Hulk Mutants who could do far more than talk — who committed outright piracy without breaking a sweat?
'So if they think I'm a Hulk Mutant... how should I play the part?'
'Lore-wise, creating a Hulk Mutant requires gene-modification technology capable of fusing genes without side effects.'
Naturally, that demanded vast capital and a laboratory outfitted with advanced equipment for gene fusion.
In other words, not something just anyone could produce.
'Let's exploit that.'
Having finished my deliberation in a matter of moments, I manipulated the communicator's channel with my small arm.
'It could reach the warships too... ah, there it is.'
After switching to the public channel, I snapped Denver's right arm with my combat arm. His entire body was paralyzed, so he'd feel no pain — but there was no way those knights knew that.
「My lord!」
「You bastard!」
"Grr... to... eve... ry... one... grrk... I... de... clare..."
「My lord? Why are you on this channel...?」
「Our lord has been taken hostage!」
Between the knights on the scene and the subordinates standing by aboard the warships, the communicator erupted with the voices of the flustered and the panicked.
Paying their reactions no mind, I kept speaking.
"This... creature... grrk... is... not... an... ordinary... Hulk... Mutant... grrr."
「My lord! Your injuries are severe! You don't need to say any more—!」
"This... thing... was... made... by... T-and-C... Attack... T-and-C."
「Surely not!」
「Th-that's impossible!」
My words set off fierce reactions from both the knights and the warships.
Some clamored to attack T&C at once; others insisted Denver was merely delirious from his wounds.
But not one of them doubted me.
'Of course they wouldn't doubt it.'
Denver's powered armor brought him to nearly two and a half meters tall.
My own bipedal stance stood just over three meters — so unless they came in close to check, there was no way for them to tell whether I was secretly broadcasting on his communicator.
Besides, who would dare imagine that some nameless monster could perfectly mimic the living family head's voice?
'My voice isn't quite right, but I planned for that too.'
Thanks to the Transcendence System's constraints, I couldn't fully replicate his voice — it came out crackling like a broken radio.
So I had deliberately injured Denver right in front of them. A performance, to portray a man unable to speak clearly through his agony.
'And T&C is the perfect target to divert their attention onto.'
Hulk Mutants demanded technology so advanced that even Prime Capital struggled with their development.
Which meant, from their perspective, there was exactly one party capable of producing a Hulk Mutant like me.
T&C — the very corporation that had announced a breakthrough in gene-modification technology just days ago.
'Now I need to drive the nail in.'
"Earth... border... grrr... they... have... a... device... that... con... trols... this... creature... grrk."
「What do you mean?」
"Bom... bard... the... border... checkpoint."
「W-wait! If we do that, war with T&C will break out!」
The warship's side had a point.
With armed clashes already breaking out in the sewers, shelling the checkpoint on top of it would leave nothing but war.
But with their family head in my grip, they had no choice but to obey.
'Still not persuasive enough, hmm?'
Using my lower arms, I seized Denver's leg and crushed it. Even with the sensation throughout his body paralyzed, the shock must have been considerable — a moan escaped from inside his helm.
If he himself was this shaken, imagine how the others felt.
Shouts exploded from the communicator in a wave.
Unbothered, I opened my jaws and bit down on Denver's shoulder. The thick pauldron gave way, and my fangs sank into the swarthy flesh beneath.
The enraged knights screamed themselves hoarse, but I could hardly spare them a thought.
The surge of blood welling up from Denver's shoulder was warming my throat.
'Delicious.'
I'd gotten a brief taste when I bit his neck, but drinking this much at once, the flavor truly came through.
Was this what a fine, long-aged wine tasted like? Sweetly mellow with a clean finish.
'He doesn't seem to have had any special gene-mods done, though.'
Perhaps he'd simply lived well and eaten well. A different bouquet entirely from Sihyeon Yujin — the tastiest prey I'd had yet.
'Not now, though.'
This was done to shake them up, not to enjoy a feast.
With lingering regret, I pulled my fangs free of his shoulder.
'That much should have gotten the message across.'
That unless they abandoned their family head, they had exactly one move available to them.
Just as I'd predicted, one of the massive warships moored at the distant docks slowly began to rise.
'Whew.'
Only then could I finally let my tension ease.
'Honestly, I thought the odds were against me.'
Taking a family head hostage had been a heavily gambling choice.
What if the man I'd grabbed hadn't been the head of the family at all?
What if those aboard the warships had judged the situation rationally and opened fire on me anyway?
That would have been the end of me and my children.
'Thank goodness they behaved with proper Megacorp-style thinking.'
Megacorp was a rigid society riddled with brutal disparities between Capitals — and yet, at the same time, a strange structure that tolerated unlimited competition.
Because of that, losing a contest of power could sometimes see a Capital plummeting several ranks at a stroke.
Nor was this phenomenon confined to the lower Capitals; it applied equally to the seven great families at the very top.
'If Denver dies, his subordinates will all be purged by whoever becomes the new family head.'
Not just the knights, but everyone aboard those warships, would need Denver kept alive to save their own necks.
That was precisely why they obeyed even the most absurd orders their master handed down.
While the warship flew toward its target, I used my auxiliary organs to scout out the ship we'd be escaping on.
The docks were too far away to inspect in detail, but I managed to spot a few vessels that felt promising.
'When the warship shells the checkpoint — that's our cue to move.'
Once the defense fleet scrambled to counter House Edgerton's warship, this place would descend into chaos in an instant. Then we'd sprint for the docks and stow away aboard a ship.
[Zzzt zzzt zzzt — When I give the signal, run.]
「Signal?」
The one who answered No. 26's echoing question wasn't me.
A massive explosion bloomed up from the Earth border, and a thunderous roar rolled across the entire Port District.
[Zzt — Now.]
I ran, Denver still clutched in my grip, with No. 26 and Adhai at my heels.
'No. 26 is faster than I expected, too.'
She propelled herself by whipping her leg-fins rapidly while pushing off the ground with her tentacles.
I'd worried, since she was a deep-sea creature, but being on land didn't seem to slow her down much.
As we sped away, the knights scrambled after us in a panic.
「Bad people are chasing us.」
[Zzzt zzzt zzzt zzzt — You don't need to catch them. Someone else will handle it.]
「?」
The moment my words ended, the sky warped — and black seams split open everywhere.
The sky that had been sustained by holograms and an artificial sun vanished, revealing the metal dome that encased the city.
Then the blast shutters set into the dome's inner wall opened, and from within, ships of steel poured out as if tumbling free.
[Zzzt zzzt zzzt — They'll take care of them.]
「Wow!」
The warships emerging from the shutters near the Port District opened fire on House Edgerton's warship with plasma heat-lances.
Dozens of steel ships unleashing a volley of green beams in unison inside that colossal artificial structure — the sight was nothing short of spectacular.
Edgerton's warship answered, a blue radiance blooming from its bow. A plasma shield — the kind installed only on vessels of battleship class or higher — had activated.
The green heat-lances burned out against the shield without ever piercing it.
'That's not standard equipment. I suppose they spared no expense on the ship their family head rides.'
The countless gun batteries mounted on the Edgerton warship opened fire in concert. And the shield wasn't its only premium fit — the beams it launched were more than twice the thickness of anything the T&C side could field.
The opposing warships raised their shields as well, but they could not stop Edgerton's plasma lance. Struck through their barriers, they fell burning toward the city like moths.
With war erupting at the heart of the city, the docks' atmosphere transformed in an instant. Ships that had been preparing to depart scrambled to get under way, and screams drifted all the way to where we stood.
「G-great heavens!」
「How could this...」
The knights who had been chasing us looked hollowed out at the sight of Edgerton's warship locked in battle with the defense fleet.
They'd forgotten us entirely, rooted to the spot, staring up at the carnage overhead.
Only now did it seem to dawn on them what they had done.
Listening to the stunned exchanges crackling through the communicator, something surfaced in my memory.
Not long after I'd arrived in this city, I'd suspected that Sihyeon Yujin's subordinates were plotting to ignite a civil war on their own authority.
But when I spared Adhai — the Gallagon at the heart of that conspiracy — the Yujin plot had been thwarted.
'That was how it went.'
「Wow! Boom boom! So cool!」
No. 26 beamed with innocent delight at the pageant of green and blue flashes unfolding overhead.
And now, before my very eyes, Megacorp's grandest event had begun — civil war.
Started by my own hand.