PMC Acquisition Shootout!
The snipers opened fire from the second and third floors. Luckily the flames ruined their aim, so the bullets smacked into the ground barely a step ahead of where we stood.
“Snipers! Get behind the cars!”
We scattered and dove behind the vehicles, then returned fire at the second and third floors. Only Sawayanagi Shinya and I used real firearms; Kiyona Mari sprayed gasoline from a modified water-gun device toward the upper levels. Some of it must have flown through an open third-floor window, because when she snapped her fingers, flames erupted inside the third floor while the second floor’s windows simply caught fire. The agonized screams suggested at least one unlucky bastard had been set alight too.
“There! Not many of them—kill them all!”
While we kept the upper floors suppressed, guards who had changed from ordinary uniforms into techwear combat suits came charging through the flames and poured out the main gate. Nearly fifty of them. That was definitely threatening. If I were alone I figured I could still survive, but…
“Mr. Hata, would you take Mari that way for me?”
“Understood.”
The spot Sawayanagi Shinya pointed to was a container warehouse roughly fifty meters away. I scooped up Kiyona Mari—who was still hosing the guards’ approach path with gasoline—and sprinted toward it. Sawayanagi Shinya grabbed his gear and ran beside me.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bullets whipped past us. The moment we rounded the corner of the warehouse, Sawayanagi Shinya smiled, pulled out what looked like a remote detonator, and pressed the button. A deafening roar shook the earth as the explosion went off.
“When the hell did you plant those bombs?”
“Three years ago…!”
Kiyona Mari, startled by the blast’s roar and shockwave, asked the question; Sawayanagi Shinya answered. Damn impressive. Had he really been worried three years ago that the people here might kidnap him and pre-planted explosives just in case?
But the bombs didn’t end the fight. Only about thirty of the fifty had been caught in the blast, leaving around twenty still on their feet, plus a sizable number of guards still inside trying to extinguish the fires.
The surviving guards shook off their daze and started to charge again when Sawayanagi Shinya triggered his next surprise. He had planted something on both sides of the L-shaped path. The way he and Kiyona Mari glanced at each other and nodded told me they both knew exactly what those devices were.
“Found you!”
The instant the guards spotted us, Sawayanagi Shinya detonated the trap. This one didn’t explode—it erupted into a flamethrower-like inferno that sprayed fire in every direction. Flames danced wildly, but we had Kiyona Mari. As a pyrokinesis user, she could seize control of the scattered blaze and focus every tongue of fire onto the enemy.
Was this what they called a combo attack? After years of working together, their coordination was flawless even in an improvised plan like this.
“Graaaagh!”
The remaining twenty were rolling on the ground, bodies wreathed in flame, desperately trying to put themselves out. That made it easy to put rounds into the unprotected gaps in their tech armor and neutralize them.
“Let’s fall back to the entrance. If we stay there, the fifty or so still inside the building can’t slip down to the basement to reinforce anyone.”
“Yeah, let’s move!”
“I’ll check on the other situation while we go.”
After the two of them finished off all twenty, they talked briefly and headed back toward the secret laboratory building. I followed, pulling out my phone to send a Line message to Mimata Chieri.
I wondered when I had changed her contact name to CherryChan★. Maybe I should change my phone’s security pattern…
“She says infiltration is proceeding smoothly. She’s on the fourth floor now, and it looks like Ms. Azuma is being held on the sixth.”
“That’s a relief. I hope she gets out soon.”
“Guess we’ll have to keep drawing their attention from here.”
Kiyona Mari’s face brightened at my report, but Sawayanagi Shinya’s complexion was noticeably pale when he spoke about holding the line. Something felt off. When I looked closer I saw blood leaking from his side. He must have been hit by a stray bullet while running to trigger the first bomb. Seryu Military Company was a tiny PMC, so they only had cheap bulletproof vests that covered vital areas. The round had caught him in the unprotected flank.
Still, the guy had kept completely silent about it until now. Tough bastard.
“You were shot?”
“What? Shinya! You got hit?!”
“I-I’m fine.”
He didn’t look fine at all. Kiyona Mari sterilized her hands with a small flame, then carefully pressed around his wound. She finally let out a relieved sigh.
“Looks like the vital organs are untouched. But the bleeding is heavy—continuing combat is out of the question.”
“If it’s just drawing their attention, I can handle it alone. Mari, take Shinya to the hospital.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
We had no idea how long it would take for the infiltration team to finish and extract. There was a real risk Sawayanagi Shinya could die from blood loss.
“I’ll just shoot and run. Get him to a hospital fast. If he stays here bleeding all over the place I won’t be able to focus anyway.”
“Understood. Please be extremely careful. And… thank you. We only met today, yet…”
“We became family the moment we signed the contract, didn’t we?”
Honestly, the fewer people watching me the better. I was also pretty pissed off. The first day of the acquisition and this kind of mess had already happened. Once I completely crushed them they’d learn not to mess with us again.
“Thank you. I’ll get Shinya to the hospital as fast as possible and come right back.”
Kiyona Mari made an apologetic face and started to drag a protesting Sawayanagi Shinya away. Before leaving, he shouted for me to wait and handed over five throwable bombs. Judging by the quantity, it looked like he could have held their attention by himself if he hadn’t been wounded.
I picked up a rock from the ground and hurled it, shattering the windows on the second and third floors. Then I immediately began tossing the bombs Sawayanagi Shinya had left me through the broken glass.
BOOM—! CRASH!
Two explosions rocked the building. While the shockwaves still echoed, I pulled on a pair of black gloves over both hands.
Gloves knitted from the Daughter of the Abyss’s own hair.
When using Abyss-type techniques, grants 150% amplification and greatly increases the chance of special effects triggering.
I had received them previously as an offering from the Daughter of the Abyss. Come to think of it, I hadn’t given her any tributes in a while. She wasn’t sulking, was she?
I looked around. This area was right where the earlier bomb had gone off, so corpses were scattered everywhere. I dragged several bodies together and began the incantation—an offering ritual dedicated to the Daughter of the Abyss.
After gathering about ten relatively intact corpses and completing the chant, a black maw rose from the ground and began devouring the bodies. The sickening sounds of crunching and tearing filled the air as the corpses vanished. This time the offering must not have been to her taste; she left only a small black orb and a note.
Two stars.
Next time, something better would be nice.
Jeez, did she think this was a food-delivery app review? Of course, I was already planning to offer sweet Japanese convenience-store desserts next time. I was scared, okay?
I had assumed the black orb was nothing special, but when I checked its information it turned out to be a short-duration combat potion.
For 30 minutes, Abyss stats increase by 5 and Shadow Dominion level increases by 5.
After consuming the Orb of Condensed Shadows, my Abyss and Will stats both reached exactly 16. Good thing too—if my Abyss stat had been even slightly higher I would have suffered side effects for the full thirty minutes.
The moment I swallowed the orb, I heard something whispering in my ear. It felt like someone calling me from far away. A wave of dizziness hit me, but I adapted almost instantly.
“Y-you monster!!”
Bang!
A guard whose arm had been blown off by the earlier explosion came running out the main gate and fired. The bullet flew straight at my forehead. Yet despite the perfect aim, the shadow at my feet surged upward and blocked the round mid-air. The guard’s face went deathly pale, but I was too fascinated by the new applications of Shadow Dominion to care.
I wasn’t sure whether I could maintain this sensation after the thirty minutes were up, but knowledge of how to use Shadow Dominion kept bubbling up in my mind on its own. I spread my hand in the shape of a tiger’s claw and swung. My shadow rose, forming four massive talons that raked across the one-armed guard who had shot at me. Each claw mark carried catastrophic power that split bone and shredded organs; the guard collapsed on the spot, bleeding out.
I walked slowly into the building. There was no need to stall for time anymore. The whole point of buying time had been to prevent the remaining guards from joining the researchers and interfering with the infiltration team. It would be faster if I simply killed them all.
When I opened the main door, seven guards stood there awkwardly. I lifted my chin. As I did, spikes erupted from their own shadows and impaled all seven at once, skewering them like kebabs.
“How many are left inside the building?”
I asked the guard at the front. Even while impaled, he bravely shouted at me.
“I-I’ll never tell you!”
Impressive mental fortitude. Since he seemed ready to die, I granted him death. The shadow spike thickened and sliced him in half. The two halves of his body hit the floor with a wet smack.
“If even one of you talks, I’ll spare the rest of you here.”
When I smiled and made the offer, they all started shouting at once. Putting their answers together, it seemed the bombs that had flown in through the windows had killed most of them. Aside from the ones here, only five more remained.
“Good. I’ll spare you.”
“W-what?! You said you’d spare us! I’ll curse you! I’ll curse you!”
“Aaaaaagh! I don’t want to die!”
“Please! Let us live!”
I recited the incantation once more—an offering to the Daughter of the Abyss. Offering living people should please her more, right?
Black holes opened beneath the impaled men and they slowly sank into the darkness. They screamed and cursed me the entire time, but their malice could not overcome my Abyss power and simply scattered. The first-floor lobby, which had been filled with shrieks and curses, now held nothing but a single bisected corpse.
“Five left, right?”
I muttered to myself and began searching the building.