Into the Magnetic Forest
Holy shit. Now THIS is what sci-fi is supposed to smell like.
Everything he'd felt so far had been nothing more than a free demo. That was Jincheon's verdict on the spectacle unfolding before his eyes.
Even the rank-and-file infantry were kitted out like the Marines from that folk classic he remembered from his days in Korea — Starcrxft. Full heavy armor. And it wasn't just powered suits. Options and attachments were plastered all over every frame, and each soldier carried a heavy weapon mounted on their back. Yet their movements were snappy and agile, which meant the suits clearly had strength-augmentation systems built in.
And then there was the giant mecha kneeling on one knee — so tall he had to crane his neck just to take it in.
Hell yeah…! To get this close to one…!
Since becoming a mecha pilot was his immediate goal, Jincheon's attention locked onto the machine without hesitation. An angular frame where crimson and chrome metal blended in perfect harmony.
A modified version of the Zabalcan Empire's standard balanced mecha — the Bodenkender.
Mecha, if you wanted to get granular about it, came in quite a few varieties: close-combat, support, artillery, strongpoint-suppression, strongpoint-defense, assault, charge, and so on. Broadly speaking, though, they sorted into three types — Balance, Speed, and Power.
Balance frames were versatile workhorses, deployed in virtually any situation. Speed frames ran light armor and high mobility, often appearing on specialized missions. Power frames packed heavy armor and high firepower, typically showing up for strongpoint defense or strongpoint assault.
The Bodenkender mounted multi-launch missile pods in both shoulders and boasted performance superior to other nations' balance-type mecha — but for a member of the imperial bloodline, it was still a shabby mass-production unit.
Royalty, and she's stuck with a modified mass-production frame.
Every member of the Zabalcan imperial family piloted a relic-class mecha. Relic-class meant Calsorn Empire machines that could not be reverse-engineered. Crack that technology and you could flip the balance of the entire cosmos overnight — but no one understood the systems well enough to reverse-engineer them. Over-technology. Even by galactic standards, relic-class mecha sat at the absolute peak of performance.
There was no chance they would hand a precious relic-class unit to Calsira, who had been packed off to the battlefield specifically so she would die. Officially — for the sake of deceiving the enemy — the story was that only the exterior was a Bodenkender, and the internals were something else entirely. Even the current modifications had only been authorized because the Emperor judged her performance more useful than expected.
The other distinctive feature was the horn-shaped ornament rising from the center of the forehead. Belatedly, they had grown alarmed at how well she was doing and decided to dispose of her.
Either way, the scale and the gear match exactly what Calsira told me.
Swallowing the urge to tear the Bodenkender apart right then and inspect its inner structure, Jincheon turned his gaze toward the soldiers running final equipment checks.
When do I hit them? Mid-rest? Or go full White Howl and mutual annihilation?
These people were assassins and a disposal team, sent to kill Calsira and erase even the corpse.
Even for elites, the numbers are way too thin.
Twenty-four soldiers in battle suits. One mecha. He understood that, bastard child or not, eliminating royalty made a large-scale force impractical. Even so, this was absurdly few.
From what he'd heard, the original plan had been to hire other hunters. Hunters who could push into the heart of the forest all shared the same sharp instincts. In a place where precision electronics like radar were useless, their senses had developed accordingly. If those instinctive hunters caught wind of the real mission and, fearing they would be disposed of alongside the target, turned on their employers? Even top-tier gear wouldn't prevent a serious mess — and that mess would hand Calsira an opening to fight back.
There's something else.
They had insurance. A contingency. What it was, he still didn't have enough information to know.
"Prepare to move out!"
Kahim, leader of the expedition, gave the order, and everyone finished up in a hurry.
Calsira, ready to board the mecha, steeled herself.
There's no backing out now.
She had entrusted her life to Jincheon. Strangely, the trembling that had come from resignation — from walking toward her own death — was gone.
I don't understand it… but his promise to keep me alive actually makes me feel safe.
A mystery her reason could spend a lifetime probing and never solve. Unable to grasp why that sense of relief had settled over her, she turned her eyes toward Jincheon. Their gazes met just as he looked her way — and he offered her an easy, unhurried smile.
A throb.
"Nngh…"
A light jolt deep in her womb, and the pleasure of the night before came flooding back.
Calm down. Calm down.
She snapped her head away, dodging his eyes, and worked to cool the flush that the lingering pulse in her womb had painted across her face.
"Ready, ma'am."
A soldier's voice, activating the portable magnetic lift, swept the distraction from her mind.
"Mm."
She answered lightly and stepped onto the blue oval of light. Her body rose at a steady rate. She cleared the oval of light a little above the cockpit set in the lower abdomen and landed lightly, then settled into the pilot's seat as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She slotted the USB-like device hanging from her neck into a port on one side of the cockpit, and the systems began to power up.
The heavy-toned interior bloomed into a full three-hundred-sixty-degree screen, painting a clean view of the surroundings. The magnetic field made the image crackle faintly, but with the main camera's shielding level raised, securing her field of vision was no problem.
"Commence movement!"
Kahim's order came through the main speakers. Calsira gripped the stick-type control yokes, brought her machine to its feet, and strode forward.
For the record, Jincheon, watching all of this, was having a moment of pure internal rapture.
CRACK!
A colossal iron hand shoved aside the trees in its path as the machine advanced deeper in.
THOOM!
A heavy vibration under gravity rolled through her at the same moment the radar began to glitch and go dead. Confirming the forest's magnetic field, she felt it — she had stepped into the realm of death.
It went without saying that a giant over fifteen meters tall and humans standing around two meters could not march together. What made it possible was the battle suit.
Artificial muscle that amplified the wearer's strength and agility meant a battle suit could keep moving without rest so long as its power source held. Proof of that was already on display: the soldiers in powered suits were pushing through the dense trees at the forest's edge at speeds that utterly outclassed the mecha, which had to shove or tear its way through.
Which was exactly why the soldiers in power suits could not make sense of the situation.
What the hell? How is he keeping up this far?
We've been running nonstop for over thirty kilometers!
The information that Jincheon had undergone bio-enhancement procedures — after subduing the soldiers he'd been sent as a skill test and a show of force — had already been shared. Enhancement procedures had the advantage of working in any situation, but they came with two kinds of drawbacks.
First, because the muscle was artificially reinforced, maintaining it required a mandatory high-calorie diet. Second, the more procedures you stacked, the more the cost ballooned into the astronomical. A second procedure cost twice as much; a third, six times; a fourth, twenty times — and so on. Prices also varied by the body part being enhanced. For that reason, enhancement procedures were generally reserved for the very wealthy, or for spies the state needed for critical missions. For an ordinary person, spending that money on cybernetic implants was several times more cost-effective.
To run full tilt for over thirty kilometers without stopping, like a short-distance sprinter, required a considerable level of enhancement — and to do it without shedding a single drop of sweat while casually talking to yourself?
"Hmm~ Air tastes good. People really ought to breathe forest air once in a while."
That put him at the level of a megacorp chairman, or someone a nation was actively backing.
Just what kind of work has this bastard been doing? An enemy-state spy?
Kahim, wearing a commander's battle suit, had deliberately stuck Jincheon on the advance scout detail to make him suffer. He hadn't liked the man from the start. A guy heading into the forest with nothing but a canteen, some dried rations, and a single handmade-looking sword — of course Kahim's blood pressure had spiked.
"All units, hold!"
With communications dead, Kahim's order went out by voice. The soldiers who had been sprinting at full speed waited for the mecha and its escort detail to catch up.
"Hey, slave-folk."
"You sure don't waste time calling."
Jincheon answered Kahim's summons with a tone that mocked the fact that he had just run over eighty kilometers at full speed the moment they entered the forest.
"You little shit! A slave-folk talking back like that!"
Unlike Kahim, who as the operation's commander at least had some patience, one short-tempered soldier snapped and threw a punch.
WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH!
A flurry of blows, fast enough to leave afterimages under the battle suit's power — and Jincheon simply swayed his upper body and slipped them all.
"Refreshing. I'd heard Zabalcan soldiers were all terrifying, but that was just a rumor. Even giving me a free fan service like this."
He even offered an easy smile, and the other Zabalcan soldiers' faces twisted with rage.
What the hell is this guy? Does he not even imagine he might die?
Kahim could not understand where Jincheon found the gall to provoke them.
He's definitely had high-level bio-enhancement. If this weren't a mission, I'd have him bagged and dragged to an interrogation room right now.
Either way, he had to break it up before the atmosphere got any uglier. Jincheon was essential if they wanted to prevent combat losses inside the forest. The deeper they went, the more animals appeared that even battle-suited soldiers struggled to handle. If the personnel needed for the "operation" started dying to those animals, they would have a problem.
"I have questions. Enough."
Fortunately, at Kahim's order the soldiers swallowed their anger and returned to a ready stance.
"Anything around here we need to watch for?"
He had memorized the data on the forest's animals, but reading intelligence and experiencing it with your own body were entirely different things.
"One o'clock — a Blade Song pack. Four o'clock — another Blade Song pack. Nine o'clock — a Dire Mantis pack."
"What?"
The answer that came out of Jincheon's mouth overshot Kahim's expectations completely.
"The animals in this forest are crafty as hell. The humans they usually see are looking different today, so they're hanging back and watching."
Hearing Jincheon's muttered observation, Kahim put the perimeter on alert and ordered the nearby soldiers to confirm.
"Check it."
"Yes, sir."
The soldiers briefly unsealed their rounded reinforced-glass covers and began scanning the positions Jincheon had named through their rifle scopes.
"One o'clock. Fifteen kilometers. Can't get a count through the leaves, but we've confirmed Blade Song."
"Four o'clock…"
The endless leaves and undergrowth made precise confirmation difficult, but the soldiers could at least verify the creatures Jincheon had named.
For reference, a Dire Mantis was an insectile predator with a hard exoskeleton and four scythe-bearing forelimbs. Once mature, its bulk exceeded a hundred twenty centimeters at minimum — which was why, unlike ordinary insects, it hunted animals.
"Your orders, sir?"
One of the soldiers who looked like a squad leader waited for Kahim's instruction. Blade Songs and Dire Mantises were well within the capability of battle-suited soldiers to handle. Even so, no one wanted to drag a tail of pursuers along, no matter how weak.
"Just ignore them."
While Kahim was still weighing it, Jincheon answered in his place.
"I wasn't asking you!"
The squad leader scowled and snapped back at the order.
"The animals in this forest are sensitive to gunfire. You start shooting to drive them off, and stronger ones will come running. If you want to throw down a proper brawl starting right here, be my guest."
On Earth, gunfire would make everything go wary or run. Here, there were aggressive animals that charged toward a strong opponent instead.
"And once they see that, most of them will clear out on their own. No need to pick a fight for nothing."
THUD— THOOM— CRACK!
From far off, the vibration of a fifteen-meter mecha advancing toward them rolled through the ground, and the Blade Songs scattered in a flurry of wings, fleeing elsewhere. At the very least, moving with the mecha meant they would not be attacked in the outer reaches.
Jincheon had discharged his duty as guide with perfect diligence. Kahim's and the other soldiers' expressions, however, had gone subtly complicated.
How the hell did he know?
Famous hunters all carried high-level shielding devices tuned to the forest's magnetic field. Jincheon, bare-bodied and carrying nothing of the kind, had pinpointed the animals' positions with perfect accuracy.
Cybernetic implants? No. Even if you hid them under artificial skin, something mechanical would show at this level of performance.
Then Kahim looked at Jincheon, still wearing that easy smile, and felt a flicker of recognition in the man's eyes — as if he had seen that gaze somewhere before.
Where have I… wait…!
By virtue of his post, Kahim had at least seen members of the imperial bloodline from a distance. He understood why Jincheon's eyes felt familiar.
Why does that bastard have the same eyes as His Majesty the Emperor?
An arrogant gaze that held everything other than himself in contempt. And yet no vulgarity in it — only bearing. A lofty attitude that invited anyone, anywhere, to take a swing. No matter how Kahim looked at it, the man's bearing and his eyes were identical to the Emperor's.
No. Impossible. Anyone of that caliber would already be famous — and more than that, there'd be no reason for him to end up as slave-folk out here.
He told himself his eye for people was simply lacking, that he was confusing arrogant posturing with the Emperor's own presence, and the thought settled his nerves. That was it. He just didn't have the eye for it. A Terran — slave-folk — sharing the Emperor's gaze was something that could not exist.
From the start, the greatest variable in this plan had been the hunter guiding them. But in Kahim's mind, the existence called Jincheon was already taking root as a far larger source of unease than he had anticipated.