Chapter 59 - An Expensive Deathmatch (1/2)

Chapter 59, An Expensive Deathmatch

Alpha had changed her clothes before Akira realized it.

“Alpha, why are you wearing this now?”

Alpha was wearing an augmented suit that looked much like Akira’s. Although its shape was different due to the difference in their build and gender, it more or less looked like another series from the same type of augmented suit.

Alpha smiled.

“I just thought that it might be fun to use the same suit as you from time to time, what do you think?”

“Even if you ask me so… It looks… normal?”

When she was training Akira for CQC, Alpha was usually in an augmented suit. But it was not a common augmented suit, it had the old-world feeling with a daring design that showed the difference in their culture.

Compared to that augmented suit, the one that Alpha was wearing now looked very normal. Although it had a striking curve to house her voluptuous body, it was way better compared to her usual augmented suit that had a mysterious useless opening in the front.

Alpha looked exasperated.

“That was a straight and boring reply. As I thought, it might be a good idea to train you in that department.”

Akira looked slightly annoyed.

“Even if that’s true, this is not the time for it.”

“Well, you’re right. Let’s talk about something else then, Akira, one of the enemies has entered the building. It’s the one with the smaller powered suit, while the other one is watching from the outside right now.”

Akira tensed up. He completely forgot about Alpha’s appearance in an instant.

“As I thought, they won’t leave, huh? Even if you say that it’s a smaller powered suit, it’s still a pretty big one. So how did that girl get in this building with that powered suit?”

The hallway where Akira was in, was rather narrow and short. It would be pretty hard to move around in that s.p.a.ce with all of Nelia’s equipment.

Akira was worried if Nelia was moving inside the building by demolis.h.i.+ng the walls, but Alpha confirmed that it was not the case.

“She left her powered suit behind. It seems that my plan to bait them into the hallway without their powered suit is going well. But even so, we still don’t know how strong she’s without her powered suit. She might be confident that she would be able to kill you even without the powered suit, that’s why she entered the building without it.”

“It’s a good thing that she left her tank-like powered suit behind. Without her powered suit, the CWH special ammo should be enough to kill her, right?”

He thought that it was at least better than repeatedly shooting at an enemy despite dealing almost no damage at all. Since continuing so would only shave his optimism bit by bit, Akira looked hopeful thinking that he had a better chance to win now.

But before his optimistic guess turned into a real hope, Alpha warned him.

“It might give you a better chance, but it doesn’t mean that you’re in a better position now. So don’t let your guard down.”

“I know. They’re stronger than me, so it’s not like I can afford to lower my guard.”

Akira focused his mind and answered back firmly.

Alpha smiled, satisfied with his answer.

“If it’s possible, it would be great if we can lure her into a long hallway where you can take aim at her from the other end of the hallway. We’ll keep on moving until we find a good position.”

“Where is she right now?”

“She’s over there.”

Alpha pointed her finger towards nothing but the wall. But thanks to her support, Akira was easily able to see Nelia’s image past the layers of walls.

Although he was keeping his guard up since he knew he was fighting against someone better than him, with the layers of walls and the distance between them, Akira thought that there was no way Nelia would be able to see him as he instinctively lowered his guard.

While Akira was observing Nelia, she too was looking straight at his face. Although there were layers of walls separating them, he could feel Nelia’s gaze looking straight at him.

Akira’s and Nelia’s eyes suddenly met each other. Akira who had lowered his guard immediately tensed up.

“Get down!!”

The moment Alpha said that to Akira, he quickly lied down on the ground, his move was almost perfectly in sync with his augmented suit. Thanks to that, he was able to quickly lie down.

Right before Akira lied down, he was observing Nelia. That was when Nelia made a gesture as if she was cutting him down.

Not only was there quite a distance between them, but there were also layers of walls separating them. Akira could see Nelia holding a blade that was not long enough to reach him. And even if it could extend to reach him, he thought that the walls between them should be strong enough to greatly reduce its cutting power. Thus, it was highly unlikely that Nelia could wound him from behind those walls.

Normally, Akira would not even have to take any evasive action. But when he saw that, he instinctively forced himself to lie down onto the ground. If someone asked him why he did that, he could not answer back with anything else but intuition. After all, he really did that purely out of instinct.

There were so many reasons why his instinct told him to take evasive action. There was no hesitation in Nelia’s movement, it was as if she could completely see him. It looked like she did that knowing exactly what she was doing, it was not merely a random action. But more than everything, Akira remembered that he too had done something similar in the past.

Nelia swung the blade in her hand as if she was cutting the air. The blade itself did not even reach the wall in front of her. But with that motion, the wall in front of her, and all the walls between her and Akira, were all split into two. The blade that she was using was an old-world relic. The blue light that shot out from it cleanly cut everything in front of her.

Akira was barely able to avoid that slash. But his rucksack was not so lucky, it was cut open, spilling out everything that was inside. The magazines and medicines boxes inside his rucksack were cut clean into two. The bullets melted where it was cut and its cross-section looked like a mirror.

Since the light that just pa.s.sed above Akira’s back did not transfer heat, the gunpowder inside the bullets did not explode. The blade simply erased everything that was on its path.

After Nelia cut everything within a few dozen metres radius around her, the old-world blade that she was holding silently crumbled into dust and was blown away by the wind before the dust could even reach the ground.

Nelia looked at the image of Akira, who was lying on the ground, and smiled. She immediately noticed that he was still alive.

“Nice!!… No, wait, that only cut open his rucksack…? Well, I guess that’s fine. But it at least cut his friend down. To think that he would evade that attack, as I thought, he could clearly see my movements.”

She looked at Akira’s movements and from it, she could easily guess that he could also clearly see her. After all, it would be impossible for him to evade that attack otherwise.

Nelia threw away the blade in her hand that had nothing left other than its handle.

“Good grief, I even wasted an old-world relic just to kill you, you know. You’re really an expensive boy. Well, it doesn’t matter. I still have a lot of other old-world relics. Just wait there, I’ll chop you to pieces.”

Nelia pulled two blades from her belt. Those were nothing but handles without a blade. But when she firmly gripped those handles, liquid metal came out from those handles, ignoring the gravity it formed the blades’ cutting edge. The blades kept on extending out until it reached 2 metres in length.

She swung her blade at the wall in front of her, the blade cut through the strong wall as if it was made of jelly.

She utilised the power of her cyborg body to kick the part of the wall that she just cut and sent it flying. She then used that hole to enter the room. She kept on cutting the walls in front of her as she walked to Akira in a straight line. She was smiling happily as she was enjoying the satisfaction of cutting down old-world buildings.

Akira who was lying on the ground tried to confirm the situation that he was in. Although he had no idea what exactly Nelia did, he understood that he just barely escaped death from that blade slash which somehow even reached him.

Because his rucksack was cut open, the things that were inside it were now scattered on the ground around him. Unfortunately, among those, Akira found his information terminal which was already sliced into two. Since there was no need for him to operate his information terminal as long as Alpha was around, he normally kept it inside his rucksack.

Akira clicked his tongue when he saw his sliced information terminal. He knew that Alpha was doing so many things in the background, which he did not even understand, to control his augmented suit. But one thing he knew for sure, Alpha controlled his augmented suit through the information terminal the first time she did. If the destroyed information terminal prevented her from controlling his augmented suit, it would significantly lower his fighting ability.

Akira pushed his body up and turned towards Alpha’s direction as he said.

“Alpha, the terminal is destroyed, am I going to be okay?”

Akira was completely shocked the moment he saw Alpha. She was lying on the ground, sliced into two, and covered in blood.

He could not believe what he was seeing, this scene should have been impossible to happen. Because of his shock, he forgot about Nelia and shouted.

“Alpha!?”

He ran towards Alpha’s dead body in a panic. He extended his hand to grab Alpha’s upper half that was already separated from its lower half. But his hand pa.s.sed through her body and hit the floor.

“Calm down. Did you forget that I’m only an image?”

Akira, who was utterly confused, snapped back to his senses the moment he heard Alpha’s voice which sounded as if nothing worthwhile had happened. She was still lying on the ground with her sliced body as she turned towards him and smiled.

“I’m just showing an image of what would have happened if it was a corporeal body that was cut into two by that attack.”

Although it looked as if Alpha was cleanly cut into two, for her, it was as simple as changing her clothes. Akira felt relieved as he understood that she was completely fine, but he then asked her while looking totally surprised.

“W-why would you even do this…?”

Akira thought that it was not like Alpha did it just to surprise him. When he asked her that question, he started to think for any valid reason. But she quickly stopped him.

“Save your questions for later, I’m completely fine. Keep one thing in mind, in this battle, you’ll fight the enemy in close quarters. Get yourself ready. Aah, I’ll stay like this for a while, but you can still talk to me normally and it won’t affect my support for you too, so don’t worry about that part.”

The moment he heard the word ‘enemy’, Akira tensed up. He put all of his questions for later and focused on Nelia who was coming at him.

Akira quickly got on his feet and aimed his CWH anti-material rifle at Nelia. He hesitated for a moment since he could only see a wall where he was aiming. But he kept the muzzle aimed at the image of Nelia behind the wall and pulled the trigger.

The bullet that he shot at point-blank range made a crater on the wall, but it did not create a hole that Akira could pa.s.s through. The CWH special ammo could not penetrate the wall although it was shot at a point-blank range.

Akira was surprised at how durable the wall was.

“Whoah, this wall is crazy hard! How the h.e.l.l did she slice through it?!”

“She used an old-world relic after all. You too did the same thing before, remember?”

Akira remembered that he once used an old-world blade to cut through the building wall together with the thug who attacked him. But at that time, there was only a single layer of wall separating them. So, Nelia was clearly using something more powerful.

“That thing, huh!! What a huge pain in the a.s.s, what should I do now?”

“You have no other choice but to somehow lure her to a place where you can get a clear shot at her. I don’t know how far you can fight with your augmented suit, but one thing for sure, you’ll have to do crazy manoeuvres. So just grit your teeth and get yourself ready.”

“Alright, I get it!! Please somehow end the fight before my limbs fall off my body, okay!!”

Akira yelled back as if he had already given up. He had already used all of his medicines. And on top of that, the medicines that he had taken would eventually run out of their effects soon. The next crazy manoeuvres that he would do would put his body under immense stress which might rip his limbs off for real this time.

Alpha’s image was still lying on the ground, sliced into two.

“I’ll put in extra effort to comply with your request.”

If Akira judged from only her voice, it sounded as if Alpha was standing beside him just like usual. Although it calmed him a little, he still sounded panicked when he said.

“You should answer back with full confidence like always!!”

“Don’t worry… Even if you get some muscles torn, you can still walk back home as long as you have your augmented suit.”

Akira could not see Alpha’s expression since he was watching Nelia, but he somehow thought that Alpha must be smiling teasingly at him right now. In response, he just smiled bitterly.

Nelia kept on slas.h.i.+ng through the walls as she was walking towards Akira, eventually, she reached the last wall that separated her and the room where Akira was. She could see Akira holding his CWH anti-material rifle aiming it at her, waiting for the moment she would step into the room.

She stopped in front of the last wall and smiled.

“Standing there means that you’ve done the same thing in the past too. You know that I can’t use the old-world relic that I just used to cut down your friend. That’s correct, I can’t use that old-world relic twice. Although, to be honest, it would have been really great if you had dropped dead with that attack. Good grief, you’re really a troublesome boy.”

Nelia readied her blades.

“You can’t shoot me with that gun through this wall, right? Although my blade can cut through the walls, I can’t cut you from far away. So we’re basically at an impa.s.se here. If we just stand here waiting, the colourless mist will go away and you’ll be able to call for reinforcement. You might be hoping that would happen, but I’m sorry, we’re in a hurry here, you see.”

She spun the blades in her hands in a full circle on the ground.

“That’s why I’ll go there right away.”

She then raised her leg above her head and swung it down at the floor, the part of the floor that had been cut in a circle cracked and collapsed. Nelia smiled and fell to the floor below together with the crumbled pieces of the floor on which she was standing.

Thanks to Alpha’s support, Akira could clearly see Nelia’s actions behind the wall. He was surprised when he saw her fall. The moment he noticed that she did that deliberately, his face turned grim.

Akira quickly jumped out from where he was hiding. A few split-seconds later, two silver blades protruded from the floor below him, everything that those two blades touched were cut clean. Fortunately, the blades only cut through the air and a few strands of his hair. Nelia, who was in the room below, also noticed that she failed to cut Akira.

Nelia aimed her blades at Akira from the floor below, with her cyborg body she jumped close enough to the ceiling and slashed towards her target who was above that ceiling. The silver blades in her hand could easily cut through the wall that CWH special ammo could not even penetrate. So of course, Akira’s augmented suit would not stand a chance against them.

Akira was desperately evading the blades that were coming at him from below. He could not afford to get cut by those blades and it was not like he could use his rifle to block them either. In the worst-case scenario, the blades might cut through his CWH rifle as easily as they cut through the walls which would render his rifle useless.

If he lost his only means to fight back, he would lose any chance to win this fight. He understood this fact from his fight against Yajima. He could not render Yajima unable to fight even though he used all his strength to punch at Yajima. So, that might also be the case for Nelia too. She was not someone that he could defeat without a weapon.

Nelia’s blades vigorously cut through the floors while chasing Akira as he kept avoiding those blades from touching his body.