Stopping the bike had been simple. All she had to do was drive a large semitrailer halfway up a hill and leave the hand brake off so it rolled back and blocked the road. Then she’d cruised down the slope on a light off-road motorcycle. Big motorcyles were hard to back up, so when the girl with the twin tails appeared and found her path blocked, she had to stop and walk hers back over the muddy ground. That provided the perfect opportunity to crash straight into her from behind.
First, the high-capacity B.A.S.T.E.T. Couriers semitrailer, then to finish her off, the food delivery service M.E.R.M.A.I.D. Super Express.
The woman was usually the type to lie in wait and take out her target in one shot, but the Legacy had opened up a new path for her. Now she was a rampaging queen of slaughter who hijacked whatever cars she could lay her hands on, repainted them according to her fancy, and drove them into her foes.
Poltergeist dismounted her bike, the front wheel now bent completely out of shape, and left it behind, walking over to the two girls lying facedown in the mulch. What she pulled out was not her borrowed shotgun but an automatic magnum pistol. She pointed it at the girls.
A single loud gunshot rang out.
“Meiki!!”
The platinum-blond beauty paid no heed to the girl’s tragic wail. A racing swimsuit creating the silhouette of a trucker. A T-shirt rolled up above her breasts and a pair of thigh highs thicker than coveralls. Her entire outfit was designed to fool enemy sights by increasing the visual area of her silhouette, kind of like how in a bullet-hell shooter, the player character’s hitbox was far smaller than appearances would suggest. However, at the moment, that hardly seemed necessary.
“I think I’ll use a really explosive vehicle, like a food truck or an oil tanker,” she said.
“…”
“I’ll tie you up and stick you in the driver’s seat, then unlock the brakes and send you rolling toward a cliff. That’ll bring all your friends out of the woodwork—assuming they are your friends, that is. Once they reach the door trying to rescue you, I’ll blow you all up with one shot.”
The girl in twin tails lifted her partner’s unmoving body in her arms and scowled at Poltergeist, but the Dealer didn’t so much as bat an eye. This was the kind of person she had become. A little too well-adjusted to AI society, one might say.
She had always been bad at high-risk trading. That was why she sought to learn her limits in a game where nothing was permanent. How much did inexplicable things like flow and luck affect the outcome? If you didn’t understand the extreme case, you could never reach a realistic compromise. Big data was flexible precisely because it collected all sorts of outlier data without bias, rather than just going along with the trends. If you were shy about where you got your data, you could never home in on a guiding principle.
Poltergeist.
A disruptive spirit, or a young esper unable to control their psychokinetic powers. A fitting title for a childish woman who held nothing back when it came to the game.
She reached into a pocket on the side of her bulky socks and took out a thick zip tie, tossing it on the ground in front of the girl with the twin tails.
“Tie your hands behind your back.”
“Why should I—?”
Boom! Boom!! Two heavy gunshots blew into the skull of the already- Downed Magistellus. The borrowed Legacy was too valuable to waste here. At this distance, her own magnum pistol would do just fine.
“Now.”
“O-okay, okay!!”
Shaking badly, the girl did as she was told. Whether her shaking was due to the cold rain, the fear of being shot, or the sight of her partner’s body being defiled was hard to say. The beauty in the racing swimsuit considered the possibilities but was unable to derive the correct answer. Her only thought was, Ah, it seems the flow has turned against this girl. I’ve gotten some good data this time.
“Is this okay? …Grh?!”
Poltergeist went around behind the girl and, despite her victim’s obvious lack of resistance, wrapped her left arm around her neck. With her right, she held her magnum pistol to the girl’s head.
They’re here already.
Poltergeist spun around, her back to the semitrailer, hostage in hand. Just then, there was a disturbance in the rain. A spray of droplets scattered, displaced in a straight line about one head to the side. From what little she’d seen of her opponent’s skill, Poltergeist surmised that if she hadn’t taken the hostage, that one shot would have killed her.
Though the park’s facilities were man-made, there was still natural rain forest all around. It was difficult to pick out where enemies were hiding amid the constant rain.
For now, however, Poltergeist intended to take full advantage of her human shield.
“I’m not used to guns, you know! One little fright and I might blow this girl’s head off!”
Leaning against the side of the trailer, Poltergeist made her way around to the back. Her goal was the compact car she had hidden inside the trailer, but she wanted to keep her opponent from figuring that out if at all possible.
In truth, she wasn’t nervous at all, but she had learned that saying she was made it statistically more likely her opponents would hesitate. She had done it many times before.
…I just need to get to the car.
“Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up,” she said. “Then we can have a nice, constructive discussion.”
“Fo—”
A strangled voice could be heard, the sound of Midori trying to say something.
“Forget about me! This is your chance! Don’t let her get away!!”
It was Poltergeist who answered.
“Oh? You think a magnum pistol is too powerful to be used as a threat?” She was well aware that what people feared most was a lack of emotion. And she hadn’t learned that through empathy but through her endless experiments. “All I have to do is make sure you don’t Fall. First, I’ll blow off your ears, then maybe your nose. Then maybe I’ll press the searing gun barrel against your pretty little skin.”
“Ugh!”
There was a squelch—the sound of a footstep in the mulch. A sniper’s fatal error.
How disappointing.
That was Poltergeist’s cold conclusion. In the end, he was no better than the Dealers she had faced in the past. Just like a quiz program on the living room TV revealing the answer while you were still in the kitchen cooking, the ending had come too soon.
And then, without warning…
From behind a thick tree, a figure appeared—both hands raised, holding a .45-caliber short-range sniper rifle. It was the demon pit babe, borrowing Short Spear.
“What…?”
“What’s the matter, witch? I did just as you asked, did I not?”
They had only been fighting in the park for a short time, but Poltergeist had already worked out that the sniper on the opposing team was the human Dealer, not his Magistellus. Clearly, the succubus holding the gun was a diversion. But a diversion from what?!
She pulled her hostage even closer and pressed the muzzle of her gun hard into the girl’s temple.
Then she heard a voice from above.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Look up.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Urk!!
Suddenly, she felt something tighten around her throat, hard enough to crush the bones in her neck. Both of her legs lifted off the ground.
“Ughup???!!!”
Even her voice wouldn’t come out right. Poltergeist had her back to the side of the semitrailer. Someone had snuck on top of it and, using a U-shaped loop of yellow and black construction rope, lifted her by the neck—straight up, as though hooking her in a crane game.
Incidentally, there’s a particular action all people take when they’re being strangled, regardless of culture. This was, of course, the act of putting both hands around your neck in an attempt to relieve the pain. This behavior is practically a reflex and impossible to resist, even with special training.
It doesn’t matter if one of those hands is holding a magnum pistol, or if the person’s finger is currently on the trigger.
Poltergeist’s arms moved as if possessed.
Ah.
There wasn’t even enough time to speak.
Test it out for yourself. Imagine trying to untie a rope around your neck. Make a gun with your thumb and forefinger and put your hands to your throat. Where does the barrel end up? Certainly not at the head of your hostage.
Kaname showed no mercy.
The intense pain and restricted blood flow caused Poltergeist’s fingers to spasm. And…
✦ ✦ ✦
Kaboom!!
The woman blew her own head off.