86 Eighty-Six
CHAPTER 7
GOOD-BYE
“…Shin.”
Countless silver hands, the color of liquid micromachines, sprouted out from under the Dinosauria’s armor. The hands were the size of an adult’s and had jointed fingers. The most striking difference was, however, that they were several times the length of a human arm and extended at a startling speed. Both the left and right hands sprang forth in search of something. As each and every one extended toward Undertaker, the Dinosauria howled madly.
“SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!”
That bellow rattled even those Resonated at the lowest synchronization rate down to their cores. Even Raiden, the most experienced in fighting at Undertaker’s side, broke into a cold sweat at the sound of this bloodcurdling roar. Anju shrieked and covered her ears. Only Shin turned to face the Dinosauria, as if it had simply called his name.
“…Shin?!”
“You guys go on ahead. I’m leaving you in command, Raiden.”
His cold gaze was fixed on the Dinosauria; he refused to look at anything else.
“If you go into the forest, they shouldn’t find you so long as you’re cautious of the Ameise. Just get past here and keep going.”
“What about you?!”
“I’ll come once I defeat it. We can’t move forward until we take it down, and I won’t move on until I do… Plus, I doubt it’d let me go.”
A chill ran through Raiden when he heard how Shin finished that sentence.
This idiot.
He just…
He just
smiled.
Oh, dammit, this is bad. There’s no getting him to turn back now. His heart was never here to begin with. He was always haunted by that lost head. Always searching for his dead brother’s stolen head. All the way until now… Probably since the day his brother strangled him.
Raiden knew this, but he still growled a defiant response.
“Fuck you. Who the hell would just go along with that?”
As if he would ever accept an order to leave Shin to die.
“…”
“If you’re saying it has to be you against him, there’s nothing I can do… I’ll handle the rest of ’em, so clean up your mess as soon as you can.”
As he said this, Raiden suppressed the anger that welled inside him.
So he’s intent on doing this alone.
If he’d asked for help or requested support, Raiden would’ve gone along with anything.
Why is this idiot so…so stupid, now of all times?
After a brief moment of silence, Shin sighed.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?”
“Like you’re one to talk… Don’t die, you hear me?”
This time, Shin gave no reply. The shrill sound of a long-distance artillery cannon firing somewhere served as the signal opening this battle. Four armored units hopped into action, evading a barrage of bullets. Riding the quadruped spider, the skeletal knight leaped onward, like a beast lunging at its prey.
The Dinosauria rose to Shin’s challenge, the Ameise serving as its escort deploying around it. Every model of Legion except the Scout types had low sensory capabilities and received information via a data link with
the Ameise, who sacrificed firepower for superior sensors. The units scattered around the Dinosauria served as its eyes.
A pair of Ameise standing at the front perceived the charging Juggernaut, transferring all manner of data and the footage from their optical sensors to the Dinosauria, which proceeded to swivel its main battery in Undertaker’s direction. The cannon roared. The Dinosauria’s turret—its 155 mm caliber cannon equal to an artillery gun—fired savagely, unleashing armor-piercing shells at a velocity that left even sound in its wake, impacting just ahead of Undertaker.
But Undertaker’s sights were set not on the Dinosauria—but on the Ameise serving it. Gunning down one and using the body of the next as cover while crushing it with a kick, he then finally fired upon the Heavy Tank type. The smoke grenade he launched burst in midair, momentarily blinding the Dinosauria’s meager optical sensors. Taking advantage of this chance, Undertaker crushed the second Ameise and leaped at the blind spot created by the two destroyed Scout types.
The Juggernauts’ primary weapon—a feeble 57 mm cannon that paled in comparison to the Legion’s firepower—couldn’t hope to penetrate any point of the Dinosauria’s thick armor, even at close range. There was only one vulnerable spot, and Undertaker had to destroy the Dinosauria’s eyes to even have a chance at it.
As the Dinosauria used pressurized air to blow away the smoke, its massive frame clambered about. Rotating its machine guns in the direction Undertaker was more likely to be found, it attempted to mow him down with superior firepower. Undertaker, who’d leaped back to evade the machine-gun fire, appeared on the other side of the smoke. A heat haze rising from the temperature of its cannons distorting its position, the Heavy Tank type swiveled its battery again, its headless shadow shifting and distorting. Undertaker scuttled about in what appeared to be an erratic dance, anticipating where his foe’s sights would be fixed in what bordered on precognition.
The Legion were clearly moving to separate Undertaker from his comrades and, likewise, isolate each of the four to annihilate them. The
Löwe and Grauwolf types attacked each Juggernaut in waves, and even if the Processors attempted to take cover, the Ameise scattered throughout the battlefield would track them down in a matter of seconds. Stier fired on their path of retreat relentlessly, and Skorpion types bombarded them from afar, pinning them down and limiting their freedom of movement. The Processors had gunned down the Legion near them in quick succession, but for every unit they took down, two rolled out to replace it.
The Legion would usually never engage in such a packed battlefield. There was no doubt that a Shepherd was commanding them—in all likelihood, the Dinosauria. In a pause between yet another flurry of slashes and gunfire, Raiden looked in the Heavy Tank type’s direction. Beyond the surging wave of Legion swarming toward them like ants was the lone empty stretch of battlefield where Undertaker and the Dinosauria faced off one-on-one.
It was an unbelievable sight, more of a joke than anything else. Squaring off against a Dinosauria was an insane prospect to begin with, and the fact that it even looked like they were exchanging blows bordered on miraculous. A Juggernaut was far inferior in terms of firepower, armor, and mobility. Normally, this wouldn’t even be considered a fight, but since it was Shin at the helm, Undertaker was just barely able to put up a resistance… No, even Shin shouldn’t have been able to pull off this much.
The Dinosauria defied all logic applicable to armored weapons and simply stood still confidently while Undertaker skittered around it as if dancing on a razor’s edge. The Juggernaut performed precise and reckless maneuvers and avoided attacks so narrowly that Raiden could feel his stomach turning from the terror and suspense. It was by no means an equal fight. Could he balance on this tightrope of a situation for long? Or would they all be killed by the Legion first?
A small fissure in his resolve began forming. He’d lost count of how many Legion he’d gunned down by now, but shot after shot, they still kept coming. His accumulated exhaustion and the dread of fruitless effort weighed down on him. Even battle-hardened veterans like them were being gradually worn down.
“Reloading! Cover me!”
Theo shouted in between erratic breaths, his voice chipped by fatigue. Fido purged one of its six containers as it zipped bravely between lines of fire. That container’s stocks of ammunition had been depleted, meaning they’d consumed almost 20 percent of the month’s worth of ammunition they’d been given in just this short period of time. The moment they completely ran out would be their last. That fleeting thought passed through Raiden’s mind, and he forced a smile.
Bring it on.
Living and dying like this was all they wanted.
Suddenly, one more person, another Resonance target, connected to their conversation.
“First Lieutenant Shuga! I’m borrowing your left eye!”
A moment later, the vision in his left eye went dark, and then the light returned to it immediately. The same voice spoke again:
“Shell fired! It’s going to touch down—brace yourselves!”
The next moment, the sky flashed white.
A soundless burst of light filled the battlefield, and a second later, a thundering blast deafened them briefly. The Eintagsfliege dispersed, opening a hole in the veil they’d formed over the sky, falling like stardust from the heavens as the blast’s shock waves blew them away and its flames consumed them. It was a powerful bombardment by a fuel-air explosive. A gap parted in the argent cloud, revealing a pale-blue sky—which then turned black as a swarm of guided explosives descended upon the battlefield.
Accurately chasing down and impacting their predetermined targets, the fuses on the projectiles activated, hatching the metallic shells. Every single one of the hundreds of small pallets was set to track its target via radar, and they burst out from above, propelled with an initial velocity of 2,500 to 3,000 meters per second, pelting the enemy mercilessly with shrapnel. The steel rain ate into the Legion, whose armor was brittle, from above, downing half the second wave of Legion within half a minute. Then came a second bombardment. Yet another shower of steel decimated what remained of the second wave.