Chapter 214: Requirements for Negotiation (2/2)

“Well, what can I say? It’s just a rumour, so I don’t see why it’s that dangerous, or is it that simply because I can’t see where the danger is?”

“Milady, the main problem is that there are signs the city had deliberately changed the story. It means that someone in the upper echelon doesn’t want the real story to leak out. If someone somehow gets to know about the real story, they might have their eyes on that person. Although there’s no telling how much they don’t want others to know, there’s a good chance that they have enough influence to cause misfortune to anyone who gets to know about the truth. In the worst-case scenario, that person might even get killed. Shutting up someone would serve a warning to the others.”

Reina frowned. It was obvious that Shiori was not joking. The way she said it fully demonstrated that she was being serious.

“So they really don’t want anyone to know, huh? I wonder why that is the case?”

“Let’s see, among the stories in the beguiling ghost series, there’s a story about a treacherous beguiling ghost. That ghost would offer something to a party of Hunters, which caused them to fight against each other. As a matter of fact, there were Hunters who claimed to be victims of that ghost.”

“I see, so those who accepted that ghost’s offer would end up dead. With a few who survived claiming themselves as victims of a ghost. Overtime, it would slowly turn into that beguiling ghost urban legend, right? Hmmm, to be honest, I don’t see the correlation. I don’t think that is enough of a reason…”

“So, what if the Sakashita heavy Industry had made a secret agreement with the area manager to stop their expedition and used that rumour to make Hunters fight each other on purpose?”

“I-Is that really possible?”

“They needed a good reason to stop such a costly expedition. Well, in the end, this is nothing more than just my own speculation, so please don’t take it too seriously. I don’t know the real reason and I don’t think there’s any need to pursue the truth. The most important thing is knowing enough to make a guess that something malicious was behind it. Now that Milday knows this much, keep in mind that it will cause those who don’t want to know the truth to come out, to mistake Milady as someone who actually knows about the truth. So in order to avoid such a misunderstanding, it is important to handle such information with care. Since Milday already knows now, please be careful.”

Reina frowned and nodded repeatedly.

Togami hesitated, but his curiosity won as he asked Shiori a question.

“Shiori-san, is it bad if I ask you how you got this information?”

“We have an independent information network among us. And ever since Milady decided to go to Kuzusuhara ruin, we made sure to investigate that ruin as much as we could. Please accept this answer and refrain from asking any further questions.”

Togami understood what Shiori was trying to tell him as he gave a firm nod with a solemn expression.

“Understood, I won’t ask any further.”

“Thank you very much.”

Togami sighed in relief, he understood that although he made a mistake in asking, he was at least able to stop himself.

That was when a call reached them from HQ. Togami found that bit weird as he picked up that call.

“This is number 65. Nothing out of the ordinary over here. By the way, isn’t it a bit too early for the regular check up call?”

After listening to the explanation from HQ, Togami frowned and replied.

“Roger that. I’ll call again if we notice anything.”

“Togami, did something happen?”

“It’s just a warning call as well as a check-up to see if they can still contact us. It seems that HQ has lost contact with the Hunters in the expedition… Is this because of that ghost?”

Togami only added the last part as a joke, but Reina did not laugh at all.

***

Yanagisawa’s squad was watching the surroundings from a tall ruined building.

“What a mess, I wonder if it’s okay to just ignore them.”

Hunters, monsters, powered suits, drones, all of them were mixed in a massive battle royal. Both drones and flying powered suits filled the sky with countless bullets and missiles and warheads. Because of that, there were stray bullets falling haphazardly all over the places, causing more chaos in this already chaotic battlefield.

“Boss said not to do anything until further command either from him or from HQ, so it’s our job to just watch over them for now.”

There was no clear line of command, the IFF was also in a mess. Both the Hunters, the powered suits, and even the monsters, were killing each other regardless of friend or foe. It was pure chaos and their powerful weaponries did not help the situation at all.

“So then, any news from the boss?”

Yanagisawa’s men aimed their rifles upward and released a barrage. The bullets made a ricocheting sound in the air as if they pierced through something. Not too long after that, mechanical monsters with non-functioning optical camouflage started to rain down.

“Still nothing. Ever since that last order, to treat him as dead if we can not contact him for 12 hours, and that we can do anything we want afterwards, no one have heard anything from him or seen him. I bet he’s somewhere nearby doing something in secret though”

Stray bullets suddenly rained down on the building, destroying a portion of its roof.

“There is no doubt, he’s definitely scheming something. By the way, do you think this jamming is his doing too?”

The squad aimed their rifles and lightly wiped out the source of those stray bullets.

“Probably. Can’t say for sure though. Though, if it’s really his doing, it would be great if he could warn us beforehand. That jamming got our communication devices as well. Moreover, this is not the same effect from the colourless mist. Either way, it doesn’t really matter whether it is his doing or someone else’s doing, one thing for sure, something is going on right now”

There was an obvious difference in strength between the Hunters on the ground and Yanagisawa’s squad. But both of them were equally clueless as to what was going on.

The battle between Tsubaki and the powered suit squad continued. The fight was entirely one-sided. Although it was multiple black powered suits against a single automaton, the ground that was riddled with destroyed powered suits and the undamaged automaton body spoke for itself.

Tsubaki just stood there in serenity as if to guard the only destroyed part of the wall protecting her territory while mocking at the utter difference in strength.

The black powered suits raised their huge rifles and shot at Tsubaki. The released bullets were even bigger than a human’s arm. However, that countless hailstorm of bullets stopped in front of Tsubaki as if there was a transparent thick shielding in front of her. The bullets that came later struck those bullets that were stopped and bent them. But even so, they were not able to move the frozen bullets. All of them formed a wall of metal, and even if the following bullets were able to pierce through that wall, none of them could reach Tsubaki.

Once the shooting stopped, the bullets started falling to the ground. The same happened to the bullets that came from the top as well. Showing that the invisible wall was not from the transparent drones protecting Tsubaki.

The squad could not help but frown after seeing what just happened. A desperate voice soared through the speaker.

“Again! Dammit! What the heck is that defense!? It didn’t even produce any flashes of light! All force field armours generate light from energy conversion, you know?!”

“Like hell if I know!! If it’s some kind of barrier, that should at least shave away some of her energy! Just keep shooting and hope that it’s not useless!! Where are the reinforcements!?”

“Long-range communication is dead!! We have no other choice but to get closer back to base to call for reinforcements! And that’s what’s taking them so long!!”

“Try to call the unit that we sent back to HQ and get it to call the city defence squad!! They should send in some reinforcement!! We need to hold out until then!!”

The powered suit switched to its rifle and shot a bullet that was bigger than Tsubaki’s body right at her.

Tsubaki’s expression did not change at all as she kicked the bullet. The shock wave from the kick made the bullet bent and exploded. But due to the way Tsubaki bent the round, the force of the explosion was directed upward, away from her. It was only enough to cause a blast of wind to blow, strong enough to sway her dress.

Right at the next moment, a gigantic chain-saw came crashing down from another direction. The glowing high-speed rotating fang bore down on Tsubaki. The powered suit abandoned the long-range advantage of its rifle and used its full strength to swing its chainsaw.

Tsubaki calmly stopped that chainsaw with one hand. Although the force was enough to bend her leg and create a crack on the ground, it did not throw off her posture. She stopped the rotating fang by force, which caused a loud cracking sound from the arm of the powered suit.

Tsubaki then swung her arm and threw the powered suit as if it was a lifeless doll, ripping off the powered suit’s arm in the process. That powered suit then took the chainsaw to the face. Its pilot was split in two and the severed body vanished into the distance.

The scene showed just how powerless the powered suits were in front of Tsubaki, which caused great shock to those in the squad.

“What the heck was that?! I know that it is an old-world automaton, but there’s a limit on just how powerful It can be, right?! Or is that the normal power of an old-world automata?!”

“…I bet it’s a military automaton or something like that. Although it looks like that, it has different specs compared to the other common drones and service automata… Spread out! Keep your distance from it!!”

Judging that they had no chance of winning, the squad leader ordered the squad to withdraw. They started moving away from Tsubaki while shooting the buildings around her to create obstacles between them.

Tsubaki looked at the falling rubble, she then cleared them with a clean single round kick. She actually just swung her leg around in the air, but the shock wave from that kick was transmitted through the colourless mist and blew away the falling rubble towards her retreating foes.

Tsubaki then mumbled.

“That should at least be enough to shoo off the incoming squad for now, then I just need to clean up the trash inside the area, where I can move freely”

She wanted to go to Kugamayama city herself if she could, but Tsubaki could not go out that far. Even being able to stand here required her to request permission first since it was outside her original allowed space. She was only able to gain permission since it was an emergency.

As Tsubaki was about to take a step, she suddenly stopped. She then looked at the pile of rubble. Right past that pile and countless ruined buildings, there was a man with a huge rifle aiming at her.

The man pulled the trigger, the bullet drilled a hole through the buildings and the rubble, absorbing their masses into the head of the round as it went right at Tsubaki. It reached Tsubaki in a blink of an eye, leaving a long clean hole that was obviously larger than the size of the bullet itself.

Right at the next moment, the bullet turned all the mass that it had absorbed in its path into pure energy,  releasing a huge explosion.

The shock wave from the explosion was so large that it could blast the whole area to smithereens. Thankfully, the explosion compressed the air around the area to its utmost limit, temporarily creating a layer of dense colourless mist. This layer served as a strong dampener, restricting the shockwave from spreading out too far and destroying the whole place.

Thanks to that, it created a strange phenomenon, the contained explosion and shock wave created a spherical cage, which seemed as if it devoured space. The area around that cage had only sustained relatively light damage compared to the scale of the explosion. But past the boundary of the cage, traces of immense destruction was apparent.

Even after being enveloped in that explosion, Tsubaki still stood there with the remaining 30% of her body. But it did not take long before her body started to crumble as well.

The one who sniped Tsubaki was Yanagisawa. He had been using a special old-world augmented suit, special annihilator bullet, and special camouflaging suit to hide while looking for a chance to strike. Then, using an annihilator bullet that he was barely able to obtain using his connections, sniped at Tsubaki.

Yanagisawa then came to ground zero and looked at the wreckage of the old-world automaton.

“Yikes, did I overdo it? I guess it’s better to be safe than sorry, but still…”

Yanagisawa squatted as a flying kick cut the air above his head, blowing away the rubble behind him. Tsubaki turned to her camouflaged backup unit after the automaton was rendered unusable and launched an ambush attack.

Tsubaki then stabbed her hand toward Yanagisawa, but Yanagisawa evaded that as well. He grabbed her wrist and stopped her hand. The shock wave from that thrust created a hole in the rubble behind Yanagisawa.

Still, with his hand holding Tsubaki’s wrist, Yanagisawa then said.

“Nice to meet you, I am Yanagisawa. You’re the manager of this area, right? If possible, I want to negotiate with you”

Tsubaki sent a cold gaze toward Yanagisawa.

“Is this the culture of yours? To attack the people you want to negotiate with? I don’t see any possibility of us forming a deal.”

“It’s just an introduction to let you know of our might. That’s all there is to it. After all, I’m sure you have no wish to negotiate with a bunch of ants that you can just squash, right? I at least want to let you know that while you might be able to kill us, it won’t be easy. Otherwise, you won’t even listen to what I have to say. That’s the most basic requirement for stepping into the negotiation phase, no?”

Yanagisawa lightly jumped back to open up some distance. Cold sweat ran down his back as he pulled out a black card from his pocket.

“Moreover, I have this. So, can we start?”

Tsubaki frowned with displeasure.

“If you think that I would listen to anything you say just because you have that card, then you’re sadly mistaken.”

Yanagisawa’s smile was mixed with false bravado, but even so, he still somehow managed to stay calm.

“Of course, but, it at least means that you would have to take our negotiation seriously, right?”

Tsubaki’s expression immediately returned back to normal, but of course, it still had a tint of coldness.

“In that case, throw your weapons down. That is, if you’re really wishing to negotiate with us.”

Yanagisawa managed to keep his smile. After a short hesitation, he made his resolve and let go of his weapons. He then smiled confidently at Tsubaki.

There was a few seconds of silence between Tsubaki and Yanagisawa. But those few seconds felt different for both of them. Right about when Yanagisawa started sweating, Tsubaki smiled amicably and guided.

“Very well, follow me then, I’ll guide you to a better place for negotiation.”

“Is this place not good enough?”

“I don’t think this place is suitable for a negotiation.”

“You have a point.”

Tsubaki smiled at Yanagisawa, who replied with a wry smile.

After that, two similar automata suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Now that there were 3 Tsubaki there, one stayed behind to guard the place, one guided Yanagisawa to the meeting place, while the last one started walking in front of them.

As Yanagisawa followed behind Tsubaki, he then thought.

[That would make it 4 automata in total, huh. I wonder just how many more she has, 10? 100? 1000? No wonder Sakashita Heavy Industry decided that exploring the Kuzusuhara ruin wasn’t worth the risk]

His expression then changed into a smile.

[But that’s because they don’t know about that thing, if they do, they would have forced their way into the ruin. But I know, and I will be the one to get that thing. If negotiations go well, we should have almost no obstruction in expanding the supply route. Though that was dangerous, I won the bet. In the first place, it’s not something that I can get unless I’m willing to risk my life for]

Yanagisawa’s smile vanished.

[Just a bit more!]

His face was now filled with resolve and determination.