Chapter 161: A Foolish Small Fry (1/2)

Rogelt used the chainsaw equipped on his black powered suit to sever Katsuya’s vehicle and raised it up. The spinning blade of the chainsaw spat fire sparks through Katsuya’s vehicle.

After Katsuya chased Akira with his vehicle, it had sustained a considerable amount of damage from all the shootings. So he decided to retreat. He ran away from the war zone, then moved his badly damaged and slow-moving vehicle to the yard and went to look for Alna. But unfortunately, Rogelt found him first after he defeated the enemy’s powered suits.

Rogelt’s powered suit was able to make short work of Katsuya’s vehicle. He went straight for Katsuya’s vehicle and cleaved it open through its ceiling.

Katsuya was barely able to get out of his vehicle in time. Although he lost his vehicle, he still had all of his equipment while he was lying on the ground, glaring at the black powered suit.

The black powered suit waved its arm with Katsuya’s vehicle still stuck on its chainsaw blade. It then ripped the vehicle into two and threw them away as a display of power. The split parts landed with a loud bang and rolled over the ground.

Rogelt used the external speaker to let Katsuya hear him.

“You damn brat!! Did you really think that you can do something by working together with Haurias? Or did you think that by coming in a Drankam vehicle we would be scared of you?! Hah, that’s so unfortunate for you.”

Although Katsuya was absolutely at disadvantage, he still managed to speak back.

“Where’s Alna?!!”

Rogelt mockingly replied.

“What’s the point even if I tell you? You’ll die here. It’s too much trouble capturing you alive. I’ll crush you with this powered suit.”

Rogelt showed off his melee weapons. It had enough power to easily rip Katsuya’s vehicle into two. If Katsuya got hit by it, there was no questioning that he would be squashed.

Katsuya imagined that scene and twitched, then yelled back.

“I’m asking where’s Alna?!!”

“Goddammit, just shut up! I won’t spare you even if you beg, or do you think that it’s cool to die while thinking about the girl you love? In the first place, that girl is just an excuse for you to attack us, isn’t it? I don’t know what kind of deal you made with Haurias, but it’s stupid for you to come and join this battle too. You can go ahead and regret your foolishness when I squash you into minced meat.”

The black powered suit swung its melee weapons. The spinning chainsaw let out a deafening ring. If Rogelt swung it down, Katsuya would be minced to smithereens.

Rather than fearing for his own death, Katsuya was more reeled up for being mocked. He let his emotion take over as he loudly yelled.

“Like hell if I know about Haurias!! And this has nothing to do with Drankam!! I want to save Alna and that’s why I’m here!!”

Rogelt stopped the chainsaw that he was swinging downward. He sounded rather surprised as he asked.

“…You’re saying that you don’t know them? You didn’t come here with Akira after Viola introduced you to Haurias?”

“I don’t even know who is this Viola you’re talking about?! You’re trying to kill Alna and that’s enough of a reason for me to come here!!”

Rogelt reeled back. As the boss of the gang, he was used to reading between the lines. He was confident that he could see through lies. Of course, there were exceptions like Viola, but the little boy in front of him was not a part of that exception.

[…This boy really doesn’t know about them, huh? He doesn’t know Viola nor Haurias, does that mean that he’s not working together with Akira either? And it doesn’t seem he’s lying…]

Rogelt then continued, he obviously sounded slightly confused and troubled.

“Let me get this straight. So basically you have nothing to do with those Haurias, you have nothing to do with that Akira, and you came here all on your own decision, correct? Although you came here in order to save Alna, you did not even try to sneak in. Did you really think that you can save her by doing something like this? Are you sane?”

“T-that is…”

Katsuya wavered. Rogelt was clearly able to see that through the camera on his powered suit and confirmed that it was not a fake reaction and that he was not trying to hide something.

Rogelt’s laugh could be heard through the speakers of his powered suit.

“You’re really stupid. So you came here without even giving it a proper thought first, huh! Stupid people like you are usually just small fries who die after doing something equally stupid. So basically you’re just lucky to stay alive until now, huh!”

Rogelt’s anger mostly died down after he laughed hard. He regained some of his calm and cleared up his mind. He had no plans to fight Katsuya if it could be helped. If he had another choice for the benefit of his gang, he would definitely pick that choice. He then changed his communication line to call his men.

“It’s me. How’s that Alna? Is she alive?”

The men that he told to keep Alna hostage replied.

“She’s with me right now and she’s still alive. At first, we were planning to take her near Katsuya and use her to threaten him, but since we can’t contact him, we don’t know where he is right now. At the moment, we’re in the middle of fighting Haurias while looking for that Katsuya.”

“If it’s about Katsuya, he’s right here with me. Tell her that this call is connected to Katsuya and make her scream for help and make sure it could be heard from this call.”

Alna’s voice could be heard coming out from the powered suit’s speakers.

“K-Katsuya? Are you there?”

Katsuya immediately reacted to Alna’s voice.

“Alna! Are you alright?!”

“You… Really came to save me… Thank you… I… I…”

Alna’s voice was cut short by Rogelt.

“Just like you heard, that girl is alive. You came here to save that girl, right? Aren’t you glad? So, here’s a deal. You follow my orders from here and on, and I’ll guarantee the safety of this girl. I also won’t kill you here. This way, you and that girl will survive, isn’t that great?”

“…What do you want me to do?”

“First of all, I’ll have you kill those Haurias guys.”

“…Like hell I can tell which one of them is which!”

“Set your information terminal to catch the signal from our broadcast frequency. We’ll tell you where to go and what’s your target from there.”

Katsuya frowned and had a pained look.

“…If I kill them, you’ll return Alna back to me, right?”

“No, that’s not everything yet. I’ll have you do other things too. From what I heard about you, you’re earning a lot of money, right? So I’ll have you pay me a lot of money too.”

“What!?”

Rogelt added more intimidation in his voice when he saw Katsuya reel back.

“How many of my men do you think you have killed? I won’t let that slide unless you kill 100 people for every one of our men that you’ve killed! And money too!! How much money do you think I spent on this battle?! So don’t think that I’ll accept just a small amount of money!! And if you refuse, we’ll kill that girl!! That girl is only worthy for making you obey us! If you won’t obey us, then she’s good as dead to us!! That’s for you too! We can kill you anytime, you know!! And don’t ever think that you’re safe just by running back to Drankam, okay? Leaving those Hunters from the frontline aside, common Hunters around this parts are no threat against this kind of powered suit.”

Most of what he said were bluff, but threatening was important for successful intimidation. Putting the result aside, presenting a realistic possibility of causing damage was more than enough as a threat. In order to not give Katsuya any time to think, Rogelt thrust the chainsaw on his powered suit at Katsuya. The big spinning blade went past right in front of Katsuya.

“Either you obey me, or die here! You have 5 seconds! If you don’t give me any answer, I’ll kill you here! 5… 4… 3… 2…”

“…Alright!”

Katsuya had an extremely pained look, Rogelt pulled his chainsaw away from Katsuya.

“You’ve made the right choice. Go back to the mansion and kill those Haurias. Don’t forget to open your channel for our signals too. Now go, make sure to work hard out there. Otherwise, consider that girl dead.”

Katsuya still had a pained face as he went back to the mansion. He was also thinking of saving Alna if she could spot her somewhere, or more like, he used that as an excuse to tell himself to return back to the death zone.

Rogelt then said to his men.

“It’s me, as you just heard, don’t kill that girl. Or at least, make sure that she’s alive as long as Katsuya is still alive. Don’t try anything funny, it would be bad if you kill her by mistake. Treat her like a guest. And send some people to accompany Katsuya to make sure that he fights Haurias.”

“Roger that!”

When Rogelt was about to disconnect, he remembered something and asked.

“…By the way, I wonder how about that Sheryl?”

“My call was cut off midway. Should we try to look for her?”

“Only if you have the leeway to do so. Taking out the Haurias comes first. There’s no need to go out of your way to look for her. I’ll continue killing the Haurias outside. If you can’t handle any of them, just bait them to the courtyard or any other places where my powered suit can reach you like outside the mansion or just outside the hangar. Pass this on to the other men outside the base too.”

Rogelt cut the call and returned back to the courtyard to continue killing Haurias. It might be because Haurias was prioritizing the battle outside the base that it seemed they were pulling their men back from the mansion. Of course, Rogelt’s men did not let that chance slip away and targeted those retreating soldiers.

The black powered suit once again prowled the dark night as it returned back to the courtyard. Not too long after that, a scream could be heard from one of the enemy’s soldiers.

“N-No one told me that we’re going to be facing something like this!?”

That man was shooting at the black powered suit, but all of his bullets just bounced off from its armour.

The black powered suit swung its chainsaw and turned that man into a blob of meat in one go.

“Idiots. I don’t know if they’re here because Haurias paid them or something, but do they really think that they can fight quality with quantity alone? Or these people are basically like that stupid boy, coming here without giving it any thoughts first?”

Rogelt continued killing his enemies there while thinking if Akira was also one of those stupid people.

—*—*—*—

Akira was running through the mansion when Alpha suddenly said to him.

“Akira, you sometimes act like a foolish small fry, don’t you?”

He twitched and looked a little surprised since he did not see that coming at all.

“That was out of the blue.”

“The thought just suddenly crossed my mind, you didn’t realize it yourself?”

“Small fry usually refers to those weak people who love to pick a fight, right? To be honest, I’m more on the side who usually gets picked to a fight though. It’s not like I proactively pick fights against other people after all. That’s why I don’t think that’s the right description for me.”

“Then how about the foolish part?”

Akira looked away. He knew that Alpha was correct. He himself understood that it was not an exaggeration to call him a fool for raiding Ezont Family’s base by himself like this.

But another side of him was urging him not to accept it. If he retreated now, he felt like he would be pushed back to the state when he was still living in the slum alley. That fear and feeling of insecurity pushed him to come to this place.

Alpha silently stared at Akira before saying.

“Well, I guess it’s way too late for me to say it, huh? That aside, I found Alna. Let’s go and finish this fast.”

“Oh, you found her? Alright then, let’s go.”

“This way.”

Akira thought something was a bit strange as he followed Alpha’s guide.

“Alpha, for some reason, I feel like you’re suddenly rather supportive, or is it only my imagination?”

“You won’t return back home unless you kill Alna, right? So I guess I have no other choice but to get you to finish her and get away from this place as soon as possible… Of course, if you decide to retreat here, that would be for the best though.”

Alpha was smiling at Akira as if she was pressuring him. Akira’s frowned a bit.

“I-I see, I’ll hurry up too.”

Just like Alpha, Akira also wanted to finish his business there as fast as possible. Since he felt like it would only get him in more trouble if he said something there, Akira just shut up and started running.

—*—*—*—