Chapter 95 (1/2)
Index
Editor: Silavin
Proofreader: p4553r
Akira was able to locate the Tank Tarantula sooner than Shikarabe and his friends. It was all thanks to Alpha’s detection ability.
Alpha pointed her finger toward the vast wasteland.
“Akira, the bounty monster is over there.”
Akira grabbed his binoculars and looked at the direction where Alpha was pointing at. He quickly spotted a huge monster in that direction.
“That’s the 800,000,000 Aurum worth bounty monster, huh… It’s huge!”
The Tank Tarantula was a spider-like monster as big as a 3-storey house. 16 legs extended out from its abdomen and its whole body was covered in reinforced plating. The upper portion of its abdomen was equipped with 2 big cannons that you would usually only find on tanks. There were wheels and caterpillar tracks outfitted on the bottom part of its body.
It used one of his legs to push a scorched half-destroyed vehicle into its mouth and munched on it. The hard vehicle frame was easily crushed under its gigantic teeth before getting swallowed into its huge body.
“It’s eating a vehicle… Is it in the middle of a meal?”
“It might be one of the vehicles of the Hunters who tried to hunt it. If you approach it carelessly, your vehicle will meet the same fate. So let’s be extra careful.”
“If it only eats metal, did the Hunters escape? Or did they get eaten first?”
“Monsters like that are usually omnivores. Moreover, Hunters’ weapons and equipment are usually made of metal, and I’m sure it won’t even bother to separate them.”
“Well, that’s true. Even if it’s not an omnivore, I have no plans to feed it my vehicle.”
Akira spent a lot of money on his vehicle. Thus he had no plans to let the Tank Tarantula eat it.
“The amount of food that monsters eat is usually proportional to its size. If you leave it alone, it’ll only grow bigger and bigger with time, and with that, the amount of food it eats will also grow. Usually, monsters will get eaten by the other monsters before they can grow that big. But this one came from Yonozuka station ruin where it had an abundant amount of food.”
Akira remembered when he went to Yonozuka station ruin, he found a hallway filled with the leftover of battles but no corpses. When it was still small, the Tank Tarantula must have eaten the corpses and grown to a size where it could still fit the hallway. It then must have escaped the hallway to the surface and eaten all the wreckage around the area as it grew even bigger.
They approached the Tank Tarantula carefully while closely observing it. Its metallic exoskeleton body looked extremely tough and its huge powerful legs looked strong enough to crush a vehicle. Not to mention that the twin cannons on its back looked extremely powerful. Akira looked completely amazed by the appearance of that powerful-looking monster.
“But then again, if I can defeat that monster, it would earn me 800,000,000 Aurum, huh. I wonder how strong of a monster it is to be worth that much.”
“The amount of the bounty prize is not decided based on how strong a monster is. But at least, there’s someone who wants that monster dead as soon as possible to the point that they would even pay you 800,000,000 Aurum. It might be because it’s sitting on an important trading route, or it might be because it attracts strong monsters to gather in that place and worsen the monster distribution. There are basically a lot of factors that decide how much a monster is worth. And when you add the fact that it’s a strong monster that Hunters’ can’t easily kill, then it would be identified as a bounty monster. Think of it as a monster that’s way stronger than any of monster that you’ve fought until now.”
“You don’t have to tell me that, it’s rather obvious from what I can see. Like hell I would stand having monsters like that roaming the wasteland.”
“If you go further to the east, you can find a lot of monsters like that, you know?”
“I-I see.”
“And there are a whole lot of Hunters who can defeat that level of monsters without having much trouble. That’s why, even if there are monsters like this in that area, those monsters would not be identified as bounty monsters.”
“I guess there are still a lot of things out there that I don’t know, huh…”
Akira sounded contemplative as he mumbled those words.
Shikarabe’s voice came out from the communication device, he told everyone to start the battle. Akira quickly pulled himself together, Alpha smiled at him invincibly.
“We’ll start the fight against the bounty monster soon, are you ready?”
“Of course!”
“Alright then, let’s start!”
“Ah, wait for a sec.”
“What’s wrong?”
Alpha seemed a bit curious.
“There’s one thing that I want to make sure first.”
Akira turned to Togami and said.
“I won’t follow orders, I fight the way I want. Shikarabe had agreed with that too. I won’t try to work together with you, if you want to board off, then this is your chance.”
Togami who was already in a bad mood quickly exploded when he heard Akira’s words.
“Hah!? Are you kidding me?!”
“So you’re staying, huh? Got it then.”
Akira then turned to Alpha.
“Let’s start!”
“Roger that. If he gets thrown off the vehicle, it would all be his fault. So there’s no need to help him and just leave him alone.”
Alpha smiled when she said that as she took over the control of Akira’s vehicle and immediately turned up its speed.
Togami could not help but shriek as the vehicle suddenly accelerated and pushed his body deeper into his seat.
Since they were going to fight a bounty monster, Alpha’s driving was rather rough. Akira, who was wearing an augmented suit with Alpha’s support, could move around with no problem. But that was not the case for Togami.
Akira moved to the back seat, took his CWH anti-material rifle, and aimed at the Tarantula Tank that was still quite far away from them.
Although with its big size, the Tank Tarantula looked just like a blip with n.a.k.e.d eyes from that distance. Not to mention there was the shaking and swaying from the vehicle too. Akira aimed at the Tank Tarantula through the aiming device on his rifle, Alpha added a lot of extra information in his vision.
Akira fixed the TP line created through Alpha’s support such that it accurately targeted the Tank Tarantula. He focused his concentration and compressed the time as much as possible, the moment he felt the shaking from the vehicle slow down, he fixed his aim and pulled the trigger.
The bullet pierced through the air and flew straight to its target. It pushed against the air barrier formed on its tip due to its velocity which reduced its power on its travel before hitting its target.
But when it did, it just ricocheted after hitting the hard metallic exoskeleton of the Tank Tarantula.
The Tank Tarantula had already noticed Akira and the other Hunters. But since it was in the middle of its meal, it chose to focus on its meal rather than the Hunters that were still rather far away from it. Now that it received an attack, albeit a harmless attack, it quickly shifted its attention to Akira.
The huge cannon on the Tank Tarantula’s back started to move. It was as if the Tank Tarantula was trying to aim its huge cannon.
Akira noticed its movements through his aiming device.
“Did that one hit?”
“It did, but it didn’t inflict any damage. It won’t do any damage no matter how much you shoot at it unless you go closer.”
“I see, then I need to get closer first. My job is to keep it occupied as a diversion, so let’s do my job properly.”
“Well, you’re doing fine, it’s already focused its attention on you. My driving will be a bit rougher to evade its cannon, so be careful.”
“Roger that!”
Akira shifted his left hand from the rifle to grab his vehicle.
The Tank Tarantula already fixed its aim at Akira, its big cannons spewed out huge warheads with a loud bang. The kickback shifted its huge body, but not enough to throw it off-balance. It was able to hold off the powerful kickback using its multiple legs. But it did not stop there as it shot multiple warheads in succession, the huge warheads drew multiple parabolic lines on the sky as they flew toward Akira.
They rained down and created craters around Akira. Alpha quickly finished her calculation and predicted where those warheads would hit the ground, she then ignored the people on Akira’s vehicle as she controlled it to move away from the fallout area.
The sudden acceleration threw Akira and Togami off-balance. Akira used the power of his augmented suit to get a secure grip on his vehicle and avoid getting himself thrown off the vehicle while still standing. As for Togami who was sitting on the driver assistance seat, he got himself pushed between his seat and the door, thus he was also able to avoid getting thrown off.
The explosions from the warheads that rained down from the sky threw dust, smokes, and rubbles to the air. The shockwave and the pounding from the explosions shook Akira’s vehicle. It even threw the vehicle off the ground, but thanks to Alpha’s driving capability, it was able to land safely and all its luggage was also undamaged.
Alpha smiled casually.
“It seems that it has a bad aim. In this case, we can safely approach it.”
“That’s good to hear!! By the way, can you keep us further away from the warheads?!!”
Akira could feel the shaking transmitted through his legs. If he was not grabbing on his vehicle with his left hand, he might have been thrown off the vehicle by now.
“Don’t worry, with that level of firepower, we can at least take one direct hit.”
“You’re talking about the vehicle, right?!”
“Well, even if you’re using an augmented suit, there’s no way you can handle that warhead, you know. That’s unless you buy a better one.”
“Don’t be crazy, just how much do you think it would cost?”
“If you can defeat that Tank Tarantula alone, you should get enough money to buy one.”
“I don’t have that kind of money!!!”
“In that case, you should gather more money. Let’s work hard to earn that much.”
“Yeah, I can’t agree more!!”
Looking at Alpha who was smiling like usual, Akira got a bit worked up.
Shikarabe looked at that exchange between Akira and the Tank Tarantula through an on-board camera. The scene of Akira fighting against the Tank Tarantula that was border-line reckless was shown in a big monitor inside Shikarabe’s vehicle. Shikarabe, Yamanobe and Varga who were looking at that monitor seemed to be enjoying the show.
Yamanobe smiled and said.
“Not bad at all! As expected of a Hunter worth more than 100,000,000 Aurum. He’s doing pretty good there.”
Varga smiled casually.
“He’s doing a good job as a diversion. It might be sooner than we planned, but we should head out too. Shikarabe, open the door.”
Shikarabe pushed the button on the terminal and opened the rear door of the APC. He then left some words for Varga and Yamanobe.
“No need to be reckless, return back as soon as you finish your job.”
Yamanobe smiled and answered back.
“I know. Even for me, I can’t help but get a little excited after seeing that. But I have no plans to put myself in danger just to show off my skill.”
Varga laughed mockingly.
“I have no plans to crash and burn in glory, that’s the job for another person.”
Looking at how both of them reacted, Shikarabe looked relieved.
“Number 2, operation start!”
“Number 3, operation start!”
Yamanobe and Varga jumped out from the vehicle on their bikes. They accelerated their bikes while still on the air, the wheels were spinning furiously as they landed on the ground. Both of them left Shikarabe’s APC behind and separated into two teams as they headed to the Tank Tarantula.
Akira kept heading toward the Tank Tarantula while avoiding the warheads. In the middle of that, he also kept on sniping the monster using his CWH anti-material rifle loaded with CWH special ammo. Thanks to Alpha’s driving skill and her ability to predict the warheads’ trajectories, Akira’s vehicle was still doing fine.
When the CWH special ammo hit the Tank Tarantula’s armour, it bent and eventually stripped off that armour plating of the Tank Tarantula. As that armour part fell down to the ground, another undamaged armour plating was exposed under it, it was then pushed out and replaced the stripped off armour plating. At the moment, Akira realised he could not inflict any meaningful damage to the Tank Tarantula.
Akira tilted his head while still looking at the Tank Tarantula.
“My shots did hit, right?”
“They did. It at least inflicted some damages, enough to strip off the armour plating from that monster.”
Akira made a long hum. Until now, he was able to defeat anything that he met with one shot using CWH special ammo. The only exception to that was the powered armour that he fought in Kuzusuhara ruin the other day. But even when he was fighting against that powered armour, the CWH special ammo obviously affected the powered armour when they hit. Unlike that powered armour, the CWH special did not seem to have any effect on the Tank Tarantula. It reminded Akira that it was indeed an 800,000,000 Aurum bounty monster.
“I really have no other choice but to get closer, huh?”
“It’s dangerous to get any closer than this. You’ve done your job well as a diversion. I’m sure Shikarabe has some kind of plan, so let’s keep our distance while keeping it occupied.”
“That’s true. Alright then, I’ll leave the driving to you, please drive safely.”
“Roger that.”
“It’s kind of weird to say this myself, but you do get the ‘drive safely’ part, right?”
Alpha smiled mischievously.
“Oh my, I always drive safely, you know. Or like, did you get hurt somewhere?”
“Well, no.”
Alpha was not lying, Akira himself knew at least that much. It was just a matter of standard between her and the people on the vehicle that she was controlling. Moreover, Akira himself was rather preoccupied with the monster, so he had no leeway to worry about other things.
Togami was desperately grabbing on to the blazing vehicle. Both of his arms and legs were used to keep himself inside the vehicle so that he would not get thrown off-board. He kept his mouth shut since he felt like he would bite his own tongue if he tried to say something.
As for Akira, he was able to adjust his posture before the vehicle swayed thanks to the support from Alpha, thus he was able to stand without much trouble in the intensely rocking vehicle.
But that was not the case for Togami. Alpha’s rough driving and the shockwave from the warheads threw his body around, he desperately grabbed onto the vehicle as he felt like he would be thrown off-board the moment he loosened his grip. He did not even have the leeway to aim at the Tank Tarantula.
Togami finally understood why Akira asked him if he wanted to stay. Just like he said, Akira did not care about Togami. Even if Togami got thrown off-board, it did not seem like Akira would stop to pick him up. Togami understood that fact very well.