Chapter 95 - Tank Tarantula (2/2)

Togami faced a lot of trouble in just turning his head toward Akira from the a.s.sistant driver seat. While Akira only looked a bit challenged as he kept on sniping at the Tank Tarantula.

[…Wh-what the heck is with this boy!? Is this really the power of a Rank 21 Hunter?! You gotta be kidding me!! Like h.e.l.l I would accept someone like him as only a Rank 21 Hunter!! What the heck is going on here!? How the h.e.l.l did I get roped in this situation?!]

He was utterly confused and kept on cursing his situation, that was all that he could do there.

The Tank Tarantula did not stop spewing warheads toward the Hunters who interrupted its meal. After all, there was nothing more obnoxious than those people who kept attacking you although it was barely effective at all.

Its first priority was Akira, then s.h.i.+karabe. s.h.i.+karabe was also shooting at the Tank Tarantula using rifles fixed into his APC. Although each shot was enough to blow a monster into minced meat, for Tank Tarantula, it did not have any effect at all. But at least, it was able to prevent the Tank Tarantula to stay where it was. With those continuous shots, the Tank Tarantula could not get a good aim.

Among the Hunters, the number 4, Nergo, was a Hunter with a battle cyborg body. It was obvious from his appearance that he was a cyborg as he raised up all his 4 arms equipped with powerful weapons and released a volley of warheads at the Tank Tarantula.

Nergo joined the hunt not for the prize, but he was aiming to make a connection with the Hunters from Drankam. The only thing that he asked in exchange for his partic.i.p.ation in that hunt was to credit his name in that bounty hunt. As such, unlike the other Hunters who joined the hunt for money to pay for their debt, Nergo had to properly contribute to the hunt.

Just like Akira, Nergo exchanged shots with the Tank Tarantula in a rather close range as he kept on shooting at it with his huge guns. With his advanced driving skill, he evaded the warheads from the Tank Tarantula’s big cannons, readied his own big guns, and released huge warheads back at the Tank Tarantula.

The other Hunters started shooting at that Tank Tarantula too. They were contributing to the fight just like s.h.i.+karabe expected them to, i.e. they were not helping at all.

As warheads from the Tank Tarantula landed around those Hunters, they repositioned themselves in panic and started shooting at the monster again, but their attacks did nothing other than revealing their position to the Tank Tarantula. Since the Tank Tarantula was shooting at them, it at least recognized those Hunters as enemies. Or it might be just trying to immobilize them and eat them later.

Yaman.o.be and Varga kept on heading toward the Tank Tarantula without even shooting at it. Although they had prepared themselves to face some bombardments, it seemed that the diversions were working better than they expected so that they did not have to worry about the warheads.

After Yaman.o.be got close to the Tank Tarantula, he stopped his bike and looked at Nergo.

“There are other Hunters who are working as hard as Akira, huh. If he’s that powerful, he should’ve been able to strike a deal with the Drankam management instead. From what I heard yesterday, he doesn’t seem to be in so much trouble anyway… And with that power, there’s not even any need to hunt for a bounty monster, right? He can still acquire some money on his own like that, right? Or is it that he doesn’t have the money to do that?”

Although it bothered Yaman.o.be a bit, he decided to forget about that for now.

“Hey hey, remember that we’re in the middle of a job. It’s all thanks to the diversions that we’re not having a hard time, so let’s quickly finish our job here.”

Yaman.o.be was still on his bike as he raised up his rifle, aimed it at the Tank Tarantula, and pulled the trigger. The bullet-like projectile spewed out from the rifle’s muzzle, hit the Tank Tarantula, and stuck on its body. It was a small device wrapped in strong sticky glue.

He did not stop there as he kept on shooting at the Tank Tarantula. Since the sticky projectiles were completely harmless, the Tank Tarantula was ignoring him while more and more of those sticky small devices got stuck on its huge body.

“This is number 2, marking done.”

Varga’s voice could be heard from Yaman.o.be’s communication device.

“This is number 3, roger that. You can go back first.”

“It would be bad if you miss your shot, so I’ll stay.”

“Yeah yeah.”

Varga laughed and said that in response to Yaman.o.be’s joke.

Varga was approaching the Tank Tarantula from another direction. Thanks to the diversions, he was able to get pretty close to the Tank Tarantula and the Tank Tarantula would not attack him as long as he did not attack it, but the Tank Tarantula might aim at him if he got any closer. After that short exchange with Yaman.o.be, he then decided to get closer.

While still on the top of his bike, he quickly closed the distance to the Tank Tarantula, he then aimed his kickback-less cannon at the Tank Tarantula and pulled the trigger before the Tank Tarantula could aim its huge cannons back at him. The projectile from the cannon exploded before it hit the Tank Tarantula’s body and covered the area in thick smoke.

With the help from the automatic reloading device in the back of his bike, Varga kept on shooting that smoke warhead while still moving around. He shot some of the bullets to thicken the smoke around him while the rest went straight to the Tank Tarantula.

After that, Varga sped his bike out from within that thick smoke. The Tank Tarantula tried to shoot at him, but it could not get a good aim due to thick smoke. As such, the warheads just landed randomly around the area away from Varga.

If it was only normal smoke, the Tank Tarantula would not have any trouble aiming at Varga. The smoke not only blocked the visible light but also dulled all light spectrum as well as sound. Thus preventing any information to be perceived correctly and completely throwing the monster’s aim off.

The smoke that Varga used was an advanced jamming smoke.

Varga then contacted s.h.i.+karabe.

“This is number 3, I’m done here too.”

Now that their victory was almost guaranteed, s.h.i.+karabe smiled and said.

“Roger that, get away from that place. You’ll also get blown off if you guys stay too close.”

Varga and Yaman.o.be swiftly replied back.

“Understood.”

“Just start the barrage.”

s.h.i.+karabe then changed the broadcast to all the Hunters there.

“This is number 1! You guys can use the rocket launcher now! Make sure to get close enough to get a lock on the Tank Tarantula! Pull the trigger together on my mark!! And don’t be late!”

Akira looked at the Tank Tarantula that was covered in smoke.

“Smokescreen, huh? I can’t spot the monster at all now.”

“That’s jamming smoke, you know. Since they gave us the information about the smoke beforehand, you can still check the insides of the smoke.”

Alpha then enhanced Akira’s vision, thanks to that, he was able to see clearly the Tank Tarantula inside that thick smoke. Akira was a bit surprised by that.

“Whoah, I can see it very clearly though. And it’s not like it can look at us too, right? Jamming smoke is really nice.”

“It seems that they’re using a pretty high-quality jamming smoke. It blocks as much information as possible for the Tank Tarantula while suppressing its effect on the information-gathering device at the same time. There are many cheap jamming smokes out there that are nothing more than just normal smokescreen. It seems that they spent quite a lot of money on this hunt… I just hope there will still be enough money to share after subtracting the equipment expense.”

“…I-it would be okay, right?”

Akira sounded worried.

s.h.i.+karabe then contacted everyone again to get the rocket launcher ready. Akira quickly put down his CWH anti-material rifle and started preparing his rocket launcher.

Due to the jamming smoke, the Tank Tarantula shot its cannons to a direction where there was no one present. It did stop shooting and tried to escape the smokescreen, but since some of the smoke canisters were stuck on its body, it did not take long before it got wrapped in a thick smoke again.

Since it was unlikely to get shot in that situation, Alpha stopped the vehicle. Togami was finally able to stand up.

“…H-hey!”

Togami actually wanted to complain to Akira, but Akira misunderstood him and threw a rocket launcher and its ammo to him. Togami was somehow able to receive it, but it did throw him off-balance again.

Akira quickly finished preparing his rocket launcher, the aiming device on the rocket launcher already indicated that it had locked on its target and that the homing feature was already on.

s.h.i.+karabe voice then could be heard from the communication device.

“We’ll start the barrage in 15 seconds!! This is the reason why we brought you guys here!! So if you don’t join the barrage, we’ll reduce your share of reward!!”

Togami started preparing his rocket launcher in panic.

“5! 4! 3! 2! 1!”

Akira was ready to launch his rocker launcher, Togami was barely able to catch up with him.

“Zero!!”

Together with that count, Akira and the other Hunters pulled the trigger.

Countless missiles soared and flew towards the Tank Tarantula. When they got close enough to the Tank Tarantula, they flew up to the sky, gathered up, recalculated their trajectories, and then hit the Tank Tarantula almost simultaneously.

They exploded with an amazing bang and blew everything around the area away. A blinding light flashed through the wasteland followed by a huge raising smoke, the shockwave finally reached Akira and the other Hunters.

Akira stood against the already weakened shockwave as he looked at the explosion with a dumbfounded face.

“…That was amazing. So you need to go this far to defeat a bounty monster, huh?”

Alpha then warned Akira who thought that he had already won.

“Akira, we don’t know if we defeated it or not.”

Akira inadvertently turned to Alpha, from the outside, he looked like a suspicious person who suddenly looked in a direction where no one was present. That was just how surprised he was.

“Eh!? No no no, there’s no way it survived that explosion!? And even if it did, there’s no way it’s fine after taking that explosion head-on. So we can just take it easy later while showering it with more missiles to deliver the finis.h.i.+ng blow…”

Alpha then pointed her finger toward the Tank Tarantula.

“Look.”

Akira turned his gaze to the Tank Tarantula. Since the smoke was blown away by the explosion earlier, he was able to clearly see Tank Tarantula even without Alpha’s help.

Although it took the explosion head-on, it still survived.

Some of its legs were already blown away. The cannon-like object perching on its back was also missing. A chunk of its huge torso was completely destroyed as well as its caterpillar tracks and wheels on its lower body. But even so, the Tank Tarantula tried to force its legs to move just to get them broken and crumbled down with a loud bang.

Akira dropped his jaw and said to Alpha.

“I-it can still move even after taking that attack?! No, wait, it seems that it can no longer move. It should be okay, right?”

s.h.i.+karabe suddenly gave his next order through the communication device.

“One more time! We’ll execute another barrage once we get the guidance device attached on its body!! Make sure that your rocket launcher is ready!!”

Yaman.o.be voice was heard next.

“Number 2 here. Roger that, I’m on it.”

Then followed by Varga.

“This is number 3. What about me? Should I put the jamming smoke again?”

s.h.i.+karabe quickly answered Varga’s questions.

“Wait for a sec, let me check for a bit… It seems that it no longer has any long-range weaponries, it should be fine without the smoke. So save the smoke for the next bounty monster. Or you can use it later if things get dicey.”

“Roger that. It seems it did lose its huge cannon after all, so I guess there’s no need to put up the smoke, huh… What the heck is that?!”

Varga’s sudden surprise was conveyed to everyone through the communication device.

Everyone in that place had a different reaction after watching that explosion, some of them thought that they already won and relaxed their guard, while some of them did not lower their guard thinking that it was still alive. Although there were differences, all of them thought that they already had the upper hand and they could just take it easy from there.

But a sudden turn of events that was out of their imagination suddenly happened in front of them. The Tank Tarantula’s abdomen that was already crushed, suddenly cracked open and vomited hundreds of small Tank Tarantulas.

The tiny spiders quickly crawled out and flooded the area. Although they were tiny, it was only in comparison with the big Tank Tarantula. In reality, some of those so-called tiny spiders were even 2 meters long. Those tiny Tank Tarantula used the caterpillar track and wheels equipped under them to run toward Akira and the other Hunters.

The small cannon fixed on their backs moved and aimed at Akira before firing a warhead at him. It landed somewhere near Akira’s vehicle and exploded. Although they were way weaker than the big Tank Tarantula, even a durable vehicle for exploring the wasteland would not be able to take that many shots from those tiny Tank Tarantulas.

Alpha quickly mustered the vehicle back on. The countless tiny Tank Tarantulas released another barrage that landed behind Akira’s vehicle. When that happened, Togami started screaming.

While standing on top of the rocking vehicle, Akira aimed his CWH anti-material rifle and pulled the trigger. The released CWH special bullet hit one of the tiny Tank Tarantula and blew it to small pieces.

Akira’s face turned grim.

“It seems that CWH special ammo works on these monsters! So is it like their body is weaker than the big one?! But there is just too many of them!”

Their number was just too large, destroying a few dozens of them would not change the situation much.

Alpha’s face also looked grim as she said.

“But even so, you’ll at least need to shave its number. Aim for the next target, quickly!”

“I know!”

Akira quickly took an aim at another Tank Tarantula and pulled the trigger, the CWH special ammo pierced through that Tank Tarantula and blew it to small pieces.

The other Tank Tarantulas just trampled over its dead brethren’s pieces as they pushed forward while shooting at Akira, but Alpha was able to evade those barrages easily thanks to her advanced driving skill.

The explosions from the warhead propagated through the air and reached Akira’s skin. He just gritted his teeth and said to Alpha.

“You won’t let them hit us, right?”

“Of course, don’t worry.”

“I see.”

“If it’s only that much, we can at least take some shots and still be safe, you know.”

“You’re talking about the vehicle, right? Then how about me?!!”

“If you don’t want to get hit, then do your best in reducing their number. The chance of you getting hit falls by a lot even if you are only able to take out a few dozen of them.”

“Okay okay!! I just need to keep shooting at them, right?!!”

Akira got a bit irritated there, but he tried to keep himself calm as he took his aim. He focused his concentration, compressed his time perception, and aimed as best as he could before pulling the trigger. With Alpha’s support added to his aiming, he was able to hit his shot without wasting even a single bullet.

But even so, his situation was still dire. While he was taking out the tiny Tank Tarantulas, some of them were able to get closer to him and their shots were getting more and more accurate. As a matter of fact, his situation was getting worse with time.

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