Fire in the Hall!
Hamilton Plaza—the place where the finest works submitted to this art exhibition had been gathered.
For that very reason, on the exhibition’s opening day the building swarmed with heavyweight dignitaries, their secretaries, and the bodyguards who shadowed them.
Of the skyscraper’s one hundred twenty stories—so many that counting them by hand was a chore—the floors serving as exhibition halls ran from the twentieth to the fortieth. The throng packed into those levels was immense, and the watchful eyes guarding them were every bit as unrelenting.
From the entrance onward the checks were thorough: bag inspections, identity verification, and random stop-and-searches along the way. Security personnel examined and confirmed every distinguished guest who entered, bracing for any contingency.
Then—
“Beep-beep-beep-beep!”
“Hm?”
The metal detector shrieked the instant it touched one woman’s body. Such alarms often came from a forgotten watch or phone left in a pocket, so the guards addressed her with careful politeness.
“Excuse me, ma’am. May we check you for a moment?”
“…Do as you like.”
She gave a slight shrug. Latin features, black hair, lightly tanned skin, and golden eyes. The guards began carefully examining the long coat that seemed out of place for the weather.
And then—
“Huh?”
“…Damn it…!”
A forest of weapons filled their vision. Shocked, the guards moved to react at once.
But—
—Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire cracked. The security officers at the entrance dropped dead where they stood.
“Kyaaaaaaah!!!”
“Wh-what are those people?”
“T-terrorists?”
“Run! We have to get out of here!”
The roar of gunfire and the blood spraying from the guards right in front of them turned the crowd’s earlier excitement for the exhibition into pure terror. People fled in every direction; those already inside bolted for the emergency exits, desperate to escape.
In moments the exhibition entrance stood empty. Watching the scene, the only two who remained—an East Asian woman of slight build with silver-white hair and black eyes, and the Western woman who had just finished the slaughter—smiled with eager anticipation.
“Well then… shall we start the show, Leader?”
“Do as you please, Hoof. No need to pick and choose. Kill everyone you see. Keep the aggro high at least until North finishes her part.”
With those words the woman called Leader drew the sword at her hip. At the same time Hoof flipped open the lid of the guitar-case-like object she carried and pulled out what lay inside.
A machine gun. Not an ordinary model—one specially designed to fire shotgun shells, each round packing the penetration and destructive power of a sniper rifle. A weapon built purely for mass slaughter.
Fully armed with their preferred tools, the two began strolling forward as if out for a leisurely walk. Armed security troops who had rushed over at the noise now stood arrayed before them, yet neither woman so much as blinked as they advanced.
“You two! Drop your weapons and surrender! Come any closer and we open fire!”
The warning rang out before the shots. The pair walked on without a moment’s hesitation. The guards prepared to fire.
Then—
“Fire!”
—Tadadadang!
A storm of bullets poured forward the instant the order fell. Any ordinary human would have been turned into a sieve.
Yet—
“! Wh-what the hell are those two…?”
“H-how are the bullets…?”
Even under the hail of gunfire the two women kept walking toward them as if nothing were wrong. The impossible sight forced a single word into every guard’s mind.
“C-could they be…?”
“H-hunters?”
Beings whose physical durability far surpassed ordinary humans—reapers of the battlefield that normal strength could scarcely touch. Realizing such creatures were approaching with weapons drawn, the guards felt a deeper terror and poured fire with everything they had.
But—
“Trying to stop us with toy guns like these? How pathetic.”
“Still, we can’t just stand here taking hits forever.”
The Western woman leveled her machine gun at the security detail.
And—
“Gyaaaaah!!”
“Keuugh!”
Screams erupted. Within seconds the armed guards were wiped out. The two women maintained their unhurried pace and moved deeper into the exhibition halls.
People soon came into view. Hoof spoke with genuine disappointment.
“Leader, there’s surprisingly few left.”
“Anyone with half a brain already ran. High-and-mighty types always have razor-sharp survival instincts.”
As she spoke, Leader swung her blade and cut down the man in front of her. There was not a flicker of hesitation, as if she were merely scything weeds. Beside her, Hoof fired the machine gun at every person who appeared.
Spraying blood as they went, they climbed floor by floor, and the slaughter continued without pause.
A man dying under a hail of bullets. A woman thrashing to escape only to have her head severed by the sword. An old man trembling in terror until a knife found his heart. Children still begging for their lives when bullets punched through their skulls.
Killing countless people with their own hands, the two remained terrifyingly composed. They felt less guilt than someone who had accidentally stepped on an ant, treating the entire massacre like a game.
Then figures of a distinctly different caliber appeared before them.
“Hunters, is it? Finally some people who might actually be fun.”
“Don’t get careless, Hoof. Those three are at least B-class.”
Three hunters stood ahead, each armed with specially enhanced guns and a spear. The women’s demeanor shifted at once. The casual stroll and one-sided slaughter gave way to focused attention. Without hesitation they launched their attacks.
—Tadadadada!!!
Hoof sprayed the machine gun toward the hunters. They slipped aside with movements too fast for ordinary eyes to follow, easily dodging the wide-area fire.
Yet—
“!”
—Thwack!
In the next instant the neck of the spear-wielding hunter vanished. Leader had already predicted the evasion path, closed the distance, and taken the head clean off. The remaining two hunters reeled at their comrade’s abrupt death, but the assault never slowed.
Hoof kept laying down a continuous curtain of fire. A single shot or two might not prove fatal to hunters, yet the overwhelming firepower—far beyond any ordinary pistol—made successive hits genuinely dangerous. The shotgun-style spread and rate of fire forced the hunters to keep dodging at all costs.
They did not simply endure, however.
—Bang! Bang! Bang!
Even while evading they returned fire at Hoof. The weapons they carried were anti-Abyss armaments; a clean hit could blow a hunter’s head clean off. Against an opponent burdened by a heavy machine gun and limited mobility, the hunters judged the rounds would be lethal.
But—
—Ting!
Leader appeared in a flash and deflected the bullets streaking toward Hoof.
And—
“Keugh!!!”
One of the two hunters took the ricocheted round full-on and died instantly. Shock flooded the last hunter’s face. The instant his movements faltered, Hoof did not miss it.
“Gyaaaaah!”