Enter the Void 2

Akina was unlike any girl Ash had ever known.

She possessed not a trace of the shyness or timidity one would expect from a girl her age.

"So this is a Grotesque. Ugh. Nasty."

Look at her — poking at the bisected Grotesque with the toe of her boot, wrinkling her nose in distaste. A scene that could make a grown adult gag, and she dismissed it with nothing more than a word: nasty.

It made her remarkably well-suited to the brutal environment of Outer exploration, and yet that convenience tugged at something bittersweet in Ash's chest.

She must have lived a hard, grinding life. One hardened enough to handle corpses like they were nothing.

Ash watched her in silence for a while before speaking.

"I hear Grotesques have a habit of moving in packs, my lady. We must proceed with all the more vigilance from here."

"Right. Oh—"

Akina pinched ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her nose shut against the foul stench, her voice coming out nasal.

"This is where the unexplored zone starts, isn't it?"

"It is."

Akina unzipped her pack and pulled out a portable data pad.

"Let's see... so our current position should be around here. Okay. Starting the mapping now."

"You will do it yourself? I could handle the recording, if you prefer."

She shook her head firmly.

"Sure, you'd do it more precisely, but that would eat up too much of your resources. You just said Grotesques travel in packs, right? With a fight liable to break out at any moment, I can't be bothering you with busywork like this. It should be me."

What a sharp, level-headed girl she was.

Ash nodded.

"If that is your wish, then so be it. I shall devote myself fully to keeping watch."

"Perfect. Well then — shall we go make some money?"

The two exchanged a brief glance and set off toward the unexplored zone, muffling their footsteps as best they could.

The unexplored zone was a different beast entirely from what came before.

In Akina's words, there was actually stuff worth eating here.

Perhaps because no human foot had touched it in ages, the deep ruins yielded rare metals, ultra-precision components, and occasionally even data shards that still functioned.

"Whoa!"

Akina let out cry after cry of delight as she examined her finds, her hands moving with astonishing speed and, at the same time, remarkable care.

To Ash they all looked identical, but apparently not to the girl. Her blue eyes slapped price tags onto the debris around her in an instant, and she stuffed the priciest items straight into her pack.

Then, mid-sweep, Akina suddenly furrowed her brow.

"This one's too bulky. That one's too heavy... argh, seriously!"

Value versus weight.

It was a critically important calculation.

The limousine service allocated each Pathfinder a fixed personal cargo capacity.

That meant every Pathfinder had to pack their limited space with only the most valuable haul — a trade-off Akina called "cost-per-cubic."

"The cost-per-cubic doesn't work out. Oh well. This one stays behind."

Akina set down the alloy plate in her hands with a look of genuine regret.

"This is exactly why we need our own vehicle! If we had one, I wouldn't even think twice — I'd sweep all of this up, no problem... Such a waste. Such a waste!"

Ash, who had been keeping watch around them, asked:

"How much does a personal vehicle run, may I ask?"

"Cheapest Skeleton buggy? Like four million, give or take?"

"...Pardon?"

Four million credits.

Ash lifted his blade and regarded it.

"You are telling me a carriage costs nearly two hundred times the price of this sword? And that is the cheapest one?"

"Of course. Add maintenance costs and it's way more."

Ash spoke carefully.

"...Then how much income have we earned thus far?"

"Hmm. At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this point..."

Akina rummaged through her pack for a moment before answering.

"A hundred and fifty thousand? There's still weight to spare, so if we play it right we could top out at two hundred thousand."

"I see..."

"Mister, we made a lot. A rookie Pathfinder hitting two hundred thousand credits at level one? People are going to lose their minds. And once the mapping contract fee comes in, it'll climb even higher."

Ash nodded silently.

Two hundred thousand credits.

Enough to cover Akina's "breathing money" for the month and pay off what she owed Santa. By no means a trifling sum.

"You are quite right, my lady. Hearing the price of my carriage seems to have given me a moment's shock."

Ash felt, anew, the weight of money in this world.

Air to breathe.

Equipment.

Limousine rental fees.

Even his own repair costs and charging fees.

Everything came down to credits.

This was a world where a man without money could not even sustain his own single life.

"Alright, let's head out again!"

Akina called out brightly and heaved her heavy pack onto her back.

Three battles broke out.

Or to be precise, three one-sided ambushes.

With his senses honed to their sharpest edge, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Ash always spotted the enemy first — and always took their lives before they knew he was there.

Each time his blade flashed, a Grotesque died.

"My lady. You may come out now."

Ash returned, having just finished the fourth ambush. As if to prove his words, black blood dripped steadily from the tip of the steel blade in his hand.

Akina emerged from her hiding place in the corner, looking a touch sheepish as she jammed the pistol she'd been clutching back into her waistband.

"Did you get them all?"

"Every one."

Ash swung the sword once to fling off the black blood, then sheathed it.

He walked over to Akina, who was fumbling her pack back onto her shoulders, and lifted it from her.

"Huh? Wha—"

Caught off guard by the gesture, Akina stared up at him with a dazed expression. Ash answered briefly.

"Shall we call it a day and rest?"

Only then did Akina realize how exhausted she was. The tension and adrenaline of the alien environment had kept her from noticing.

Ash bent down to meet her eyes, then continued.

"A little further this way there is a place suited for a hideout. Let us finish the day there."

At his careless-yet-gentle words, Akina slowly nodded.

"...Yeah. Let's do that."

"Good. Follow me."

The spot Ash led her to was not far.

And it was perfectly suited for a hideout.

Behind the remains of a half-collapsed ancient structure lay a snug space, reasonably shielded from outside eyes.

There the two of them made camp.

Akina dropped to the ground and gulped down ragged breaths. Now that she'd acknowledged her own exhaustion, her body felt twice as heavy.

"Good grief, I'm dead."

She muttered a line straight out of Santa's mouth, then caught her breath and rummaged through the pouch strapped near her thigh.

Out came a stubby energy stick. Akina gnawed on it and swept her half-lidded eyes around in search of a canteen.

"Here you are."

Ash fished the canteen out of the pack and handed it over. Akina took it, still gnawing at the energy stick like a squirrel.

"Thanks."

After a meal too modest to deserve the name,

Akina, curled up on the bare floor, spoke up.

"Mister."

"I am listening."

"Thank you."

"I said as much before."

"Not about the canteen. Thank you for today."

Akina knew.

She knew that the reason they'd reaped such a harvest in this suicidal unexplored zone — and the reason they'd pressed forward without a single brush with danger — was Ash's overwhelming combat power.

Even noticing her condition before she did and urging rest on her, even finding a usable space like this — all of it was part of what he was capable of.

It was a strange thing.

Ash was nothing more than a humanoid, and yet he showed seasoned experience in so many ways. It made her feel incredibly safe.

"It's all thanks to you, Mister."

"..."

Ash gave no particular reply. He simply gazed at the darkness ahead — the only passage into this space.

Akina watched his back for a while, cross-legged as he was, then closed her eyes under the oncoming wave of fatigue.

Before long, the sound of steady, even breathing filled the air.

Only then did Ash steal a glance behind him. There lay Akina, curled uncomfortably on the cold floor in her sleep.

Ash rose quietly, removed the GORE-TEX robe that was his sole garment, and draped it over her.

He settled back into his cross-legged position and switched his body into power save mode.

With every function of his body reduced to a bare minimum,

Ash sank into a brief meditation.

Nothing grand.

Merely an inventory of the journey ahead.

The first thing that came to mind was the mapping data.

He judged they had achieved roughly seventy percent of their target.

Next, battery power.

As the system message made clear, his remaining charge stood at seventy-eight percent. That would be more than enough to keep him operational until pickup.

Come to think of it — how long until pickup, exactly?

For a Pathfinder — and especially one without a personal vehicle — the most critical resource of all was time.

The limousines provided by the Sanctum Registry were not private vehicles parked in one place.

They arrived at a designated point at a fixed hour, waited for exactly ten minutes, and returned to the city.

Which meant every Pathfinder had to reach the rendezvous point precisely on schedule.

Ash called up his internal chronometer. Strings of text scrolled across his optical sensors.

Ash and Akina had been allotted forty-eight hours — two days. Having used seventeen of them, a little over thirty hours remained.

Even accounting for my lady's rest, that should be plenty.

Not bad.

They had come deep indeed, but with time to spare, the return trip would pose no problem.

The pack is nearly full as well. Once the mapping contract is complete, we simply head out.

By any measure, a successful first expedition.

Ash truly believed that, and cast aside every lingering thought. His body knew no fatigue, but his mind, it seemed, could still tire.

To the steady rhythm of Akina's breathing, Ash took his own form of rest.

How many hours passed like that?

He was still savoring the brief respite when—

—TANG...... tatatatang...

Sharp gunshots tore through the eerie silence of the ruins, echoing and reverberating like ghosts wailing through the dead halls.

Every system came online in an instant.

Ash, who had been rooted in place like an old, deep-planted tree, converted to combat mode in the space of a heartbeat.

"Ah, sh—!"

He moved to wake Akina at once, but she was already on her feet, startled awake by the gunfire herself — pistol clutched in her hand before he'd even noticed.

"Mister!"

The gunshots kept coming.

Not one or two rounds. A furious, thunderous roar of multiple weapons firing, wave after endless wave.

"What in the world—?"

There was none of the distinctive shrieking of Grotesques. And there was far, far too much gunfire.

Through the barrage, crashing down like a thunderstorm,

Ash — reading the situation in an instant — spoke.

"Pathfinders are engaged in a firefight!"

Even now the gunfire was drawing closer. Whoever was fleeing was headed straight for them — that much was certain.

"Damn it all...!"

The resting place they'd chosen had exactly one passage in and out. At the time it had seemed like a reasonably safe spot; in a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠situation like this, they were rats in a poison jar.

There was nowhere to flee — no way to slip away from the sounds bearing down on them.

"Mister, what do we do...?"

Akina's voice trembled with urgency.

"We hide first. This way — quickly!"

Blade drawn, Ash hurriedly searched for cover. Call it fortune — having made their camp behind the ruined structure, they had no shortage of hiding spots.

At his words, Akina grabbed her pack and scrambled after him.

—Fuck, you bitch!

—Shoot! Shoot, damn it!

—AAAAGH!

On top of the gunfire, human screams now reached their ears.

And then, at last—

A Pathfinder came sprinting into the passage, gasping for breath, fleeing desperately from something.

"Oh, fuck! No! No, no, NO!"

The moment he stumbled in and realized it was a dead end, he spat a double stream of curses — and simultaneously opened fire on the direction he'd come from.

Tatatatatang!

"Stay back! I said stay back, you crazy bitch!"

Tik. Tik.

The loaded rounds ran dry.

He kept pulling the trigger, but only hollow clicks rang out.

"No...!"

He scrambled to reload —

—KWAANG!

A round detonated from the darkness and came screaming in with a muzzle report like a cannon.

It obliterated the unnamed Pathfinder's leg at the knee.

"Aagh— AAAGH! AAAAGH!!"

The man screamed.

And between his screams—

the sharp click of high heels echoed through the passage.

Click.

Click.

Soon, a woman emerged from the darkness.

She made the LED heart in her mechanical eye glow, and drew a V with her fingers.

"Ta-daaah! It's the girl you hate the most!"