Chapter 61 (1/2)

Index

Editor: Silavin

Proofreader: p4553r

Akira took another aim at Nelia’s head and pulled the trigger. The bullet flew and landed right beside Nelia’s head, sending her head flying again.

“…I still can’t hit her, huh!!”

Alpha smiled trying to calm him down.

“Calm down, if you lose your cool you won’t be able to hit the target that you normally could.”

“Can you do something with your support?”

“Your augmented suit is damaged to the point that it’s not working normally. If I try to control it now, it might cause a malfunction, in the worst-case scenario, it might even tear your limbs. So, are you sure you want me to control it?”

“Nah, please don’t.”

Alpha had already turned back to her usual self. She was floating beside Akira, just like always.

But at this point, Nelia could no longer see Alpha. It was because the relic that she used to connect to the Kuzusuhara map was destroyed by Akira’s attack and Alpha knew about it.

Akira pointed his rifle at Nelia once more, she just smiled and said.

“If you kill me, you’ll die too.”

Akira ignored her and pulled the trigger. The bullet landed near Nelia and threw her head up in the air again. Even so, she continued.

“My friend has betrayed me and he’s planning to kill both you and me now. He has sent his powered suit here, setting it in autopilot. His powered suit is equipped with a self-destruct sequence to take anyone around it down together with it. You can’t run away from it. It’s set to chase you no matter where you go and it’ll explode the moment you get in its explosion radius. I bet it’s loaded with enough explosive to take down this whole building.”

Akira ignored Nelia’s warning as he kept walking towards her. He then took another shot which destroyed her upper half, leaving her only with her neck and head.

“Your only chance to turn off the self-destruct sequence is by either destroying or deactivating its control device. I bet it would be very difficult to destroy its control device since it’s hidden behind its thick armour. But if you leave it to me, I can hack into its control device and deactivate it. As a matter of fact, I’m actually doing that right now and preventing it from exploding. But if you kill me now, it’ll immediately explode.”

Akira ignored her yet again and took another shot. The bullet grazed Nelia’s ear and hit the floor. Her head got thrown once more by the bullet’s shockwave.

“I see, well, it’s up to you. You’re in the position to decide here. I guess it’s not a bad thing to die together with someone who I tried to hit-on.”

Nelia smiled. It was the same smile she had when she flirted with Akira.

Akira stood beside Nelia and picked her head up by pulling her hair. He locked gaze with her.

“Any proof?”

“Nope.”

Akira asked her if it was only a lie to save herself or she had some kind of proof that she was saying the truth.

But Nelia said that she did not have any proof. She even told Akira that he could go ahead and do anything he wanted if he did not believe her words.

Akira could not tell if she was lying or not. Alpha looked grim as she suddenly told him, who was still confused, to quickly get away from that place.

“Akira, you need to get away from this place first, quickly.”

Akira immediately followed Alpha’s instruction. He ran away from that place, bringing Nelia’s head with him.

The whole building was rumbling. It was because Kain’s powered suit was forcing its way into that building.

That powered suit, which was set to auto-pilot, ignored any damage on itself as it forced its way in from the side of the building that was weakened by the missile barrage earlier.

It broke through the wall, floor and ceiling of the building with its huge body. It used its powerful firepower to drill its way through that building. It did not care about its energy expense or its output safety limit as it headed straight to where Akira was.

Although it could not accurately detect Akira’s location, with the absence of colourless mist it could at least guess where he was.

It kept shooting with its huge guns towards Akira, but the warheads released by those guns could only hit the walls in front of it and turn them into dust. The inner walls of that building were not as strong as its outer walls, so they were no match for the warheads. The walls and ceilings inside that building crumbled down into a big pile of rubbles. The autopilot did not give any regards to its remaining ammo. It would keep shooting until it ran out of ammo.

Akira quickly ran away from that place, away from Kain’s powered suit. He asked Nelia while still running.

“Why do you guys want to kill me that much? Or is that thing only to cover your friend while he’s running away?”

“That’s not it. We can’t take the relics that we gathered if we don’t kill you.”

“How is that even connected to killing me?”

“The guy that you killed, Yajima, he had his post-mortem revenge program set you as its target. Because of that, the truck that we’re using to transport the relics won’t move unless we kill you.”

Akira remembered the words that Yajima left before he was killed. He did say that his friends would take revenge if Akira killed him, but at that time, Akira thought that it was only an empty bluff.

Akira’s face twitched, he was obviously annoyed.

“…What a huge pain in the bum. So you can even get that kind of program, huh?”

“Yeah, you can. If it’s not for that, we won’t even spend our energy trying to kill you. If you can believe me now, how about we make a deal? I’ll stop Kain’s powered suit, and as an exchange, you’ll help me.”

“I’ll just keep on running like this. It’ll take a lot of time for that powered suit to push through the building, so I’m sure I can outrun it by then.”

“Didn’t you run to this building since you knew you can’t outrun it?”

“…There’s no guarantee that you won’t use it to attack me after you take control of that powered suit. After all, you can get all of your relics if you kill me, right?”

“Well, you have no other choice but to trust me on that one. You beat me real good, you know? I have no wish to fight you again. Not to mention that my friend even chose to run away from here in order to avoid having to fight you, even if it meant leaving behind the expensive relics that we gathered. I don’t think it’s a bad offer since it’ll save your life too. Well, I won’t go as far as to demand you to be my boyfriend though. After all, I don’t want to get a boyfriend by threatening him.”

Nelia was still smiling even though she was only left with nothing but her head. Akira frowned seeing her expression.

“Alpha, is she telling the truth? You can detect it if she’s actually lying, right?”

Alpha shook her head.

“Unfortunately, as I said before, I can’t read whether she’s lying or not because of her cyborg body. So I can’t say anything else other than ‘I can’t say for sure’ now”.

Akira looked obviously troubled. If he took Nelia’s offer, not only would he let go of the enemy who he had pushed to a corner, there was also a possibility that she would use the powered suit to attack him. While on the other hand, there was no guarantee that he would be able to outrun that powered suit outside that building. If he went outside that building, Kain might also use his cyborg body to quickly catch up with him and kill him.

“…So either I risk it by running away from that powered suit or by placing my trust in her offer, huh…

As Akira was still thinking about what to do, Alpha came up with a third choice.

“You do have another choice. You can try to fight that powered suit.”

“But like, that thing will explode if I get too close, right?”

“First of all, we don’t know for sure if it really has a self-destruct sequence. And even if it has one, there’s no real proof that she’s trying to prevent it from setting off the explosion. Since it hasn’t exploded yet, it might mean that the explosion radius is actually pretty small, so you can just keep your distance from it to make sure that it won’t explode. As for the self-destruct sequence, it might have explosives installed inside it or it’s set to make an explosion by rerouting the energy inside it. If it’s the latter, it should also be using a portion of its energy for its force field. So if you keep shooting at it and shaving its energy, you might exhaust its energy and prevent it from creating an explosion. And if it goes well, you might even be able to destroy its control device.”

It was not like Alpha had any proof when she made those guesses. She was only speaking of possibilities. But it did not change the fact that it presented Akira with a third option.

“So either I take her offer or run away or fight it, huh?”

“I can only give you suggestions. All of them depend on your luck, so I have no recommendation on which one to pick. You should decide, Akira. I’ll give you my full support no matter which one you pick.”

“I understand.”

Akira threw Nelia’s head to the ground.

Nelia stared at Akira while he made his decision.

“I’ll try fighting back first before asking you for help, so you just wait here.”

After saying that, Akira started running back to fight Kain’s powered suit.

Nelia was smiling as she watched Akira run.

Although Kain’s powered suit was following an autopilot program, it was not a smart autopilot program. It was not clear whether it was targeting someone inside that building or just randomly rampaging. It was not like it was aiming its guns accurately at Akira. It was only attacking any signal picked by its information-gathering device. That powered suit was set to attack any human-like signal that it could find.

Even if there were some obstacles between it and its target, it would not take alternative route but use its guns or its body to push them aside. 2 of the 4 big guns on its arms had already run out of ammo and turned into mere decorations.

With the help of his enhanced vision, Akira could see the big powered suit that was on a rampage not too far from where he was. He could notice that some of its guns had already run out of ammo.

“Wait, if I just hide, won’t it use all of its ammo at this rate?”

“Well, yes it would. But I hope it won’t explode the moment it runs out of ammo. It would be really bad if the whole building crumbles down, you know.”

“That sounds really likely to happen. So it can’t be helped, let’s go.”

The rampaging powered suit created new holes on the building’s walls. Akira used those holes to snipe that powered suit and thanks to its huge size, the shot landed.

The CWH special ammo hit that powered suit’s torso. The impact threw its huge body into the narrow halls. It was moving very slow, although Akira’s body was in a bad shape, he was still able to move faster than that huge powered suit.

The force field absorbed the impact of the CWH special ammo. A huge bang and a flash of blinding light enveloped the area. The powered suit reacted by turning its guns at Akira, but its arms and guns got caught in the rubbles, thus slowing it down and giving Akira a chance to move somewhere safe.

Akira kept doing that hit-and-run sniping and hammered that powered suit with CWH special ammo. While at the same time, that powered suit kept on shooting randomly inside the building, destroying the walls, floors and ceilings as warheads flew around the area.

Although it seemed like Akira was one-sidedly shooting at that powered suit, one hit from it was enough to kill him. While on the other hand, although each impact threw its body off balance, Kain’s powered suit did not stop spewing out warheads from its huge guns. Those warheads turned wreckages and rubbles in the area into dust, thus Akira had fewer and fewer places to hide. Akira did not think even for the slightest that he had the upper hand there.

Then suddenly, the sound of the bullet impact changed. The force field had run out of energy, so the CWH special bullet was able to directly hit the powered suit’s body. It started getting obvious as its movement got worse.

Akira did not let that slide as he kept on shooting at its torso. It was not for naught, Akira eventually dealt some damages to its control device. When that happened, the control device sent an emergency signal and caused the powered suit to violently flung its limbs around as if it was in pain.

But it did not stop Akira. As he kept on shooting at it, the powered suit eventually stopped moving.

Akira carefully checked the stopped powered suit while exchanging the magazine on his rifle. It seemed that the powered suit had stopped for good.

“Did we… Win?”

“That seems to be the case. At least, it doesn’t seem like it poses any danger anymore.”

“Yeaahhh!!”

Akira shouted in delight. It was a shout of victory since he was finally able to escape from his deadly situation and defeat the big enemy who he originally did not expect to defeat.

“Akira, this is not the end yet. Don’t drop your guard until we finish everything.”

“I know, let’s go.”

Akira firmly replied before running to finish the rest of his business there.

Nelia was waiting for Akira, it was not like she could do anything other than waiting for the result of her gamble.

And finally, she could see the result coming back.

Akira returned to where Nelia was, she smiled and welcomed him.

“Welcome back. It seems that you somehow destroyed Kain’s powered suit, huh. It’s amazing for you to be able to do that in this situation.”

It was as Nelia said, Akira’s body was in such bad shape. Both his body and his augmented suit were near their limit. But even so, he somehow survived and stood there in front of her.

Looking at how Nelia was still smiling even in that situation, Akira obviously looked puzzled and asked.

“You look so relaxed, are you not afraid of dying?”

“Nope, not at all. But it would be great if you can let me live.”

“I see, well, I don’t want to die either.”

“We really think alike. As I thought, won’t you be my boyfriend?”

“No thanks. I don’t want to date someone who tried to kill me and I don’t want to date a dead girl either.”

Akira answered back swiftly. He then readied his CWH anti-material rifle and pointed it at Nelia. There was no way he would miss his shot at this range. He just needed to pull the trigger to assure his victory and he still had enough power to at least do that much.

But then Nelia smiled and said.

“Well, it’s going to be fine.”

Akira looked puzzled.

“…What do you mean by that?”

Before Nelia could answer that question, Alpha suddenly interjected.

“Akira!! Don’t move!!”

Akira followed Alpha’s order, he stopped moving. His finger was still resting on the trigger. Then the next moment, the CWH anti-material rifle in his hand was suddenly sent flying.