86—EIGHTY-SIX, Vol. 4
The silver-bell-like voice gave its order at the same moment the two units kicked off their mortal combat.
Even as he promised to return at all costs, Shin realized just how dire his situation truly was. The automatic sights of his arm control system couldn’t keep up with it. His Juggernaut’s propulsion system was screeching, struggling to bear the absurd maneuvers the Legion was forcing it to commit. Most of all, exposing himself to the constant sudden accelerations and braking and forcing his own nervous system into a constant state of heightened concentration was bearing down on Shin’s body.
The High-Mobility type zipped from one side of the shaft to the other freely. Overwhelmed by its agility, the reticle danced drunkenly across his main screen, and he evaded the Legion’s blades and executed attacks not with conscious thought, but with something closer to reflex. These were automatic movements, predictions born of his tempered warrior instincts, like programs carved into his body.
And even still, the High-Mobility type was quicker. The long metal line at its back was raised. It extended upon being swung horizontally, and the countless gears lining it screeched in high-pitched noise as they began rotating rapidly.
The high-frequency chain blade skimmed against him, sending his front left leg’s pile driver flying into the air, cut in half. Shin purged the pile driver without pause, taking the chance to fire a kinetic-energy penetrator at the enemy. The High-Mobility type effortlessly jumped away. Hopping up into the air, onto the rubble of the walkway, and stepping on a tightened wire, it ascended with a grace inimitable by a Juggernaut. Its agility and lightness were truly unparalleled.
A movement speed that bested a Juggernaut, which was built for high-mobility combat, not to mention Shin, who specialized in a form of melee combat that mixed offense and defense…
This Legion unit was the first and only killing machine that completely lacked human influence.
Humans were weak when it came to impacts and sudden accelerations, and their reaction speeds had limits. Having to house a fragile human body in order to move forced absolute limitations on a mobile weapon’s maneuverability. Limitations an unmanned weapon lacked. For as long as its technology allowed, its speed and mobility could skyrocket.
It seemed that so far, the Legion’s central processors could handle fighting only up to a certain speed, but it appeared those shackles had been broken. By researching the human brain, they had seemingly achieved an advanced artificial intelligence that likely dwarfed that of humankind.
As Shin faced it, all things that weren’t necessary for fighting gradually faded from his mind. His red eyes saw nothing but his enemy. He couldn’t hear anything but the sound of the High-Mobility type’s wailing anymore. Even the screams of his own strained body were pushed to the back of his mind. As was the duty cast upon him, to bring back the information, to survive and live on.
They were disappearing one after another. The needless sense of duty; his wishes, desires, and thoughts; and all that contributed nothing to his battle were being cut off. And the thought that this encounter might be terrifying was the first to go.
He switched his sights to manual, and percussion followed a moment later. The high-explosive anti-tank warhead he fired exploded. The High-Mobility type hopped horizontally, evading the fragments scattered into the air. It bent its body as it landed forward before jumping at Undertaker.
Watching it as it did, Shin pulled the trigger a second time.
A high-explosive anti-tank warhead that had its minimal triggering distance eliminated burst in the air between both units. It was a dangerous distance that put Undertaker at risk of being hit by the shock waves and debris, but it was for this reason the High-Mobility type would fail to predict that Shin would do this. Bursting at closer range than ever before, the fragments rushed at the High-Mobility type. But it simply responded by twisting its body, thus reducing the surface exposed to the shards and having them stab only into its front armor.
…It can even dodge that?
Shin whispered to himself.
His crimson eyes, reflecting the main screen, gradually glazed over with the same artifice as the optical sensor they were looking into.
Lena was connected to the duel by audio only, so she could only partially pick up on what was happening. Shin was likely fully concentrated on the enemy before him, because he wasn’t acknowledging her presence anymore.
It was just like the time with Rei, when he fought his deceased brother, who had been assimilated by the Legion. Lena’s voice hadn’t reached him at the time… No one’s voice had. And a part of her thought that was to be expected. The Legion were stronger than humans, and to fight them, one would need to loosen their grip on their humanity.
But was that truly permissible? Unlike the Legion, which were tireless murderers, people were exhausted by war. It hurt them, exhausted them, scarred them. Their minds and bodies would scream in protest, rejecting combat. Humans weren’t made for war. Humankind was fundamentally unsuited for battle.
And despite this, Shin—and the Eighty-Six as a whole—sometimes forgot that pain and fear should rightfully be present, rendering them beings who knew only war.
And that left Lena feeling terribly lonely and afraid. It made her fear that they were becoming the same as the mechanical ghosts they fought. As if they were losing their humanity and would one day be unable to return to the way they’d been before.
It…frightened her.
“…I’m begging you, please come back.”
That prayer escaped her lips before she even knew it. But it didn’t reach him. The way he was now, Shin couldn’t perceive that the girl was even there. Yet still.
“Please…come back to me. Whatever it takes.”
An unavoidable blow swung down on him, and his right high-frequency blade snapped at the base, unable to withstand the burden.
“Tch…!”
Now both of his blades were lost, as well as the armor of his front legs, with their wire anchors rendered unresponsive. With the other blade bearing down on him, Shin had no means of blocking it. Even so, he ignored the countless warnings blaring up from his propulsion system and forced Undertaker to jump. Undertaker’s right front leg was exposed to the slash, and Shin’s efforts to evade ended in vain as the leg was cut away, a shower of sparks emanating from it like a splash of blood.
Half of his segmented leg took to the air, and Undertaker lost balance, falling to the ground pathetically. With his field of vision turning red and slanted from the blood, Shin watched as the High-Mobility type’s metallic shadow advanced to pursue him.
It was then that he heard someone’s voice, like the chiming of a silver bell in his ears.
“I’m begging you, please come back.
“Please…come back to me.”
Lena.
“…?!”
It took him a moment to realize it, but when he did, his breath caught in his throat.
Had he just…? Lena… And the order she’d entrusted him with…
Had he just completely forgotten about her…?
Despite the shock he had just experienced, his body nearly automatically moved his 88 mm turret in the direction of the approaching High-Mobility type. At the exact moment Shin squeezed the trigger, the High-Mobility type canceled its pursuit and leaped out of the line of fire, taking to the air to avoid the blast.
As it did, Shin dragged Undertaker’s mutilated leg, retreating. As the opponent couldn’t attack him from midair, Shin took cover in the rubble beneath the mezzanine floor. Like a powerless insect, he hid in the space between the mezzanine floor and the spiral staircase that intersected with it. And while pushing aside his doubts and apprehensions, he directed his attention once again to the enemy. Now wasn’t the time for him to fall into old habits.
He’d been told to return at all costs, after all.
But the situation was far too unfavorable right now. He’d lost all his armaments aside from his main one. His mobility was shot. Undertaker was damaged all over, and his turret had only three rounds of ammunition left.
…If I’m gonna have any shot of making it out of this, I’ll have to roll the dice.
Lena’s battle was ongoing.
“Colonel! The results of the map inspection are in! Confirming them right now!”
She almost told him to leave it for later, but she stopped herself. The Phalanx squadron had likely been ambushed and lost because of a discrepancy in the map. They couldn’t afford to get caught in the same pitfall again.
“Send it over to my third sub-window— What?!”
A large discrepancy that one could immediately detect was highlighted on the map in red. Of all places, the area directly beneath the main shaft connecting the third and fourth levels—the very place where Shin was engaging the High-Mobility type—had an open space that wasn’t reflected on the map.
The seven shafts going through Charité’s central station’s underground space were built to funnel sunlight to the bottom level. With the shafts intersecting to form a gentle spiral, the tops, bottoms, and slanted sections of their interiors were set with mirror panels. The sunlight would refract between the mirrors, set opposite to the ones in adjacent shafts, and by repeating that, the light would be funneled downward through each shaft.
This was the space meant for installing the mirror panels. It naturally wasn’t one large panel, but multiple ones, enough to fill the main shaft and its diameter of twenty meters, as well as its floor space. This space was meant to install all of those—and diagonally at that. It was likely very large in both diameter and of course height. Even a Dinosauria could pass through it, albeit with some difficulties. And of course, since it was built to allow maintenance staff to pass through, so could the self-propelled mines.
“…!”
Should she send forces there? No. It was as she’d told Raiden already. None of the units could afford to split their forces any further. And the area leading into the panel space was still within the Legion’s grasp. Even if they were to rush them, it would take time to gain control over it…
Only then did her erratic thinking suddenly calm down.
But if that was the case, why were the Legion keeping the shaft intact? All her forces were currently deployed around the shaft, and if the Legion were to topple it now, they wouldn’t just get Shin, who was still fighting inside, caught up in the collapse; all forces stationed around it might end up getting buried beneath the sediment.
So why weren’t they doing it? Why was the fighting even going on this long? The Admiral and the Weisel on the fourth and fifth levels were already buried beneath earth and sand, and the only Legion still charging Lena’s forces were the expandable self-propelled mines and the old lightweight classes, with the heavies that had completed their repairs and the mass-produced Shepherds having mostly fled the facility.
The Legion were never compelled to take revenge, no matter how many of their consorts were destroyed. Once their losses passed a certain threshold, they ceased combat and retreated. The rear guard had completed its task of keeping confidential information hidden, and their rate of casualties was only escalating, and yet more and more Legion kept charging the shaft.
Why…?!
And soon enough, Lena arrived at an answer.
It’s Shin.
The Legion went on Headhunts in order to keep operating past their central processors’ designated expiration dates and to enhance their capabilities as weapons. They assertively sought the heads of the recently dead and the still living. And now that they had stocked up on more than enough brains to reinforce their rank-and-file troops, if they were to seek anything further, it would be the head of an elite capable of single-handedly changing the tide of battle.
She didn’t know whether the Legion were aware of his ability to hear their voices, but his phenomenal combat skills would have been enough to make them seek him out. And while this may have been coincidence, the new type of Legion they’d produced was a High-Mobility type. Shin, who specialized in melee combat just as it did, would be the perfect component to complete it.
If her conjecture was correct…
“Second Lieutenant Oriya, Second Lieutenant Iida. Temporarily abandon point 47 in the seventh route and point 23 on the fourth level.”
“Huh?!”
“Abandon— But weren’t we defending this place so they wouldn’t self-destruct and bring the whole place down on us, Your Majesty?!”
“No. The self-propelled mines are unlikely to self-destruct in those positions, so hurry.”
If her speculation was wrong, those spots alone wouldn’t cause a cave-in. A few seconds passed after their reluctant responses, and then new, more surprised reports came in. The self-propelled mines in those positions did not self-destruct as a group. They weren’t even prioritizing those positions, instead going after the Juggernauts.
“The objective of the remaining Legion forces isn’t to blow up the main shaft but to get inside and destroy all enemy forces. In that case, we should use this against them. Tighten your defenses around the entrances to the main shaft, and all remaining forces are to mount a counteroffensive.”
Sneaking a look to the side, she caught sight of Frederica nodding lightly at her. Now that Shin was focused on fighting the High-Mobility type, they had to depend on her ability to trace the enemy, as limited as it may be.
The Legion hunted heads, but only when the situation permitted it. The moment the situation became unfavorable for them, they abided by the unflinching instincts hardwired into them—and shifted to the offensive to destroy the enemy at all costs. So before that happened…
“We have to change our approach before they can react—wipe out all remaining Legion forces!”
The moment it descended to the main shaft’s floor in pursuit of the enemy hiding in the shadow of the staircase, a flash of gunfire was picked up by the High-Mobility type’s optical sensor. The enemy waited for the moment it would land and fired a truly perfect shot. Three shots of high-explosive anti-tank warheads aimed at three different points, each fired to decisively destroy their target, and blew up consecutively with a gap of split seconds. They became three lines of fire and metal jet coursing through the darkness, moving at an ultra-high speed even the High-Mobility type couldn’t keep up with.
However…
This was a pattern that had been repeated several times already in this battle. Enough times for the High-Mobility type—a new type of Legion with advanced learning capabilities—to predict it. The High-Mobility type quickly stepped to one side as it landed, evading the enemy’s fire that followed a moment later with just that small movement. The rapid trail of metal jet pathetically shot right past the High-Mobility type, with the warheads’ fragments only faintly tearing through the High-Mobility type’s armor.
The resulting fire and black smoke ironically served only to obfuscate its form from the enemy. That was why it had dodged with such minimal movement. Had it jumped too far away, the enemy would have immediately seen that it was unharmed, but because it had evaded so the flames would hide it, the enemy would have no means of knowing it wasn’t damaged.
The smoke expanded rapidly to fill the underground battlefield. Caught in the wind generated by what air-conditioning facilities still remained active in the structure, it scattered in small swirls. Before it could clear, the High-Mobility type charged through the gentle curtain of black smoke, jumping forward.
It wasn’t a speed human reaction time could hope to match.
The target’s red optical sensor turned toward the High-Mobility type. But that was all it could do. A sharp black blade was driven into pearlescent, bone-like armor.
Having been ordered to counterattack, the Juggernauts were like hunting dogs freed from their chains, accurately and ruthlessly tearing into the swarming Legion.
“—Second Lieutenant Crow, have the Thunderbolt squadron’s second and third platoons move forward and eliminate all enemies in the position.”
“Roger that, Colonel Milizé.”
“This is Raiden. The position’s ours! Where to next, Lena?”
“We’ve got ten more seconds or so. We can see the next enemy unit, so we don’t need directions.”
“Roger. First Lieutenant Shuga, detour to point 12 and strike the next enemy unit from behind.”
At that moment, a Sensory Resonance target was cut off. It wasn’t from any of the squadrons under her command. There was only one person missing.
“Shin…?”
The High-Mobility type destroyed the bottom of the unit’s fuselage. Judging by its sensors, it was the source of the machine’s heat—its power pack. Stopping the vibration of the chain blade, it pulled it out as the machine crumpled heavily to the ground.
The High-Mobility type approached the Reginleif, which lay still, its sensor’s focus unmoving, with cautious steps. No moving bodies. No electric reactions. The temperature of its power source was dropping. A temperature that ensured it wouldn’t be able to start up immediately had been achieved, but it continued to plummet.
The High-Mobility type had no sense of personality, so it expressed no elation at having defeated its opponent. All it did was plainly report its success at downing a high-value hostile enemy to the wide area network.
It had avoided the enemy’s cockpit block and instead damaged its propulsion system. The human body inside may have been brittle, but its vitals should still be functioning. The High-Mobility type was capable of taking such peculiarities into consideration.
It turned its optical sensor to a protuberance that was likely the opening lever for the cockpit and lowered the tip of its chain blade to pull it… But it wouldn’t open. The lock mechanism was functioning. Activating the chain blade’s vibrations, it cut through the lock, forcing the canopy to swing open.
Looking down, he saw Undertaker’s canopy swing open after it was cut through.
Gotcha.
Lying hidden beneath the rubble, Shin aligned the sights of his assault rifle with the rear armor of the High-Mobility type as it peered into the cockpit. With the exception of the Ameise, with their specialized sensory capabilities, the Legion’s sensors were weak. Gambling on that fact, Shin had escaped the cockpit under the cover of the high-explosive projectile’s blast and smoke, taking cover inside the mezzanine floor’s rubble. The High-Mobility type didn’t have any part that looked like a composite sensor unit. It was a gamble in Shin’s favor.
Feldreß pilots were provided with a 7.62 mm rifle for self-defense in case their units were lost. It didn’t have a laser sight, only two primitive sights: one over the muzzle and another over the body of the weapon. And it was precisely for this reason that the Legion’s fire-control system, which would usually detect and alert in the presence of a laser sight, couldn’t detect this assault rifle. The selector was set to full-auto, and the first round was already in its chamber.
Shin pulled the trigger.
The assault rifle unleashed a barrage of 7.62 mm armor-piercing rounds at a speed of seven hundred shots per minute at the High-Mobility type. Rifle rounds of this caliber had enough firepower to blow off a person’s limbs but weren’t as effective against an armored unit. Even the relatively lightly armored Ameise would deflect the rounds if their front armor was hit.
However, armor wasn’t equally thick across all sides. An armored weapon made on the assumption it would face the enemy head-on was armored relatively lightly except for the front. Like, for example, on its underside. Or…the top section of its rear.
Especially when it was a weapon specialized for high-mobility combat, light enough to support its weight on a single wire and seeming to excessively avoid the self-forging fragments, it likely wasn’t heavily armored. And most of all, the self-forging fragments had cut into its rear earlier, creating a nick in its armor.
Rifle rounds, which traveled at twice the speed of sound, rained down on the High-Mobility type’s back, stabbing into the crack in its armor as planned. The broken armor flicked off like the scales of some lizard’s hide, and further tungsten-alloy rounds dug into the now-larger hole in its armor, penetrating its frame and rebounding into its propulsion and control systems.
Shin thought he could hear a voiceless scream rattle the air.
His magazine of thirty rounds was emptied within three seconds. Just as the final bullet entered the chamber, he ejected the magazine and loaded a fresh one, continuing his barrage. Tactical reloading. A technique for consecutive shooting that didn’t afford the enemy the time it would take you to load the next bullet.
The severe recoil of a full-size rifle firing at full-auto dug into his shoulder. He suppressed the jerking barrel with all his might as he continued shooting. And after six seconds that seemed to go on forever…
The High-Mobility type staggered to face him, its ruined armor and limbs rattling.
Wehrwolf stomped out the final Ameise with his pile driver, and Cyclops’s buckshot cannon blew away a flock of self-propelled mines.
“Clear!”
All enemies in the vicinity of the shaft had been eliminated. All that was left was to head into the main shaft—and help with the final battle taking place.
But a faint sound had echoed—between the shock waves of that stomping and the blasts of the buckshot cannon—without anyone to notice it.
The High-Mobility type turned to face him, bending its body like a panther preparing to pounce on its prey. Ejecting his depleted magazine, Shin inserted his second spare magazine into the magazine inlet. It was an extra maneuver that took less than a second to perform, but within that long moment, Shin realized something.
The enemy was faster. The best he could hope for was to shoot it down as it killed him. And even as he knew this, his finger still moved to squeeze the trigger, when…
…a single metallic sound, so quiet it would normally be inaudible, reached his ears. The multi-rocket launcher hidden within “Kaie’s” remains, which lay scattered at the corner of the hall, suddenly flashed and burst. The repeated rumblings of the battle taking place in the shaft had likely made its firing pin fall off, and the continued fighting had set off and activated its fuse, with the man and the machine doing battle being none the wiser.
The rocket shells burst and exploded within the ruined remains of the barrel. Sizzling fragments prompted the surrounding shells and the ruined fuselage itself to explode in response. A flash of light filled the depths of the shaft, preluding the severe shock waves that would follow. The intense light, which even outmatched that of a HEAT missile, was reflected and dispersed off the mirror surfaces set up across the shaft.
A flash of pale blinding light filled the dark bottom of the shaft. For those who used optical information as their basis for perceiving the outside world, overwhelming light was no different from total darkness. The volume of light painting over its optical sensor made the High-Mobility type lose sight of Shin.
Shin, on the other hand, abided by his animal instincts and reflexively closed his eyes. He couldn’t see the High-Mobility type, either, but there was a major difference between the two of them. The High-Mobility type had fought through only this one day. Shin, however, had fought for seven years.
Yes.
A crucial difference in the time they’d spent on the battlefield, in the combat experience they’d accumulated.
The High-Mobility type froze, unable to properly judge what it should do in this unpredictable situation. But Shin pulled the trigger. With his eyes closed. Even with no vision, his ability to hear the ghosts’ voices accurately conveyed the enemy’s position. And through seven years of experience with handling an assault rifle, his sights didn’t waver at this distance, even though he couldn’t see.
For a moment, he thought he could see a black-haired Orienta girl with a ponytail smile at him.
The assault rifle fired at full-auto, its recoil and roar reverberating through the shaft’s walls. From the darkness behind his eyelids, Shin heard the sound of something crouching down—too light for the Legion yet too heavy for any living thing.
He’d closed his eyes reflexively, but his retinas still hadn’t recovered from the flash. His field of vision was still somewhat dazzled. Squinting his eyes, which still ached from the sharp pain, Shin pulled his pistol from its holster. The High-Mobility type lay crumpled, its interior smoldering with the color of flames. But the indecipherable sound of its mechanical wailing hadn’t died out. It couldn’t move, but it wasn’t completely broken yet.
The Legion were too menacing to look down upon, even when they were wounded. With his rifle, which was overheated from the rapid fire—and also out of ammo—in one hand, Shin stopped when he was only a few steps away, just out of range of its blades. The accurate sights of his pistol were aimed squarely at the High-Mobility type.
It was then that rays of silver light began welling up from the bullet holes in its back. That light was Liquid Micromachines. The very life and nervous system of the Legion bubbled forth in liquid form, bursting out of its wound like blood. They then spouted out of the machine violently, like a geyser.
As Shin stepped away cautiously, a figure floated out of the wreckage and stretched out into the air, seeming to defy the laws of gravity. Like a bud maturing in the blink of an eye or a butterfly hatching from a cocoon, the figure raised its head, bending it backward as if facing the heavens.
Yes, its
head
.
Its long hair trailed over the darkness like a clear stream. A prominent forehead, gentle eyes, a slender nose, thin lips, and a pointed jaw. The contour of its exposed throat down to its chest made the figure appear distinctly feminine. And yet every part of its body had a metallic sheen to it as it suddenly sprouted from the surge of Liquid Micromachines.
Its eyelids fluttered open. With its silver eyes staring into space, it swerved its slender form. The way its strange gaze didn’t seem to focus on anything made Shin shudder in incomprehensible fright. The Legion had no eyeballs, so they likely had no perception of focusing their gaze.
It looked human, but it wasn’t.
And as if to drive home the message that this being wasn’t some clumsy mechanical monster, but something far more ominous and incomprehensible, its lips moved.
C O M E F I N D M E