Kaname left the echoing gunshots behind and descended deeper into the tunnel. He had to be careful in the darkness. This wasn’t some well-maintained highway tunnel, and there were no orange lights on the walls to guide his way.
Unlike the part of the railroad running overground, the subway tunnel was not coated with gravel. It was mostly concrete, save for the steel rails, but for a car as low as the coupe, that tiny difference in height could be fatal.
Following a flurry of expletives, the demon pit babe delivered her final ultimatum to the panting dark elf girl.
Tselika: Listen, if you don’t stop giving unsolicited advice, you’ll end up like Clippy and his friends!
Cindy: Nooo! Please don’t remove me based on user feedback! Anything but that!
A single subway tunnel contained tracks going both forward and backward, but the complex layout of the rail network resulted in many forks and intersections. This meant that while there was no traffic to speak of, it was very possible that if you hesitated too long over which way to go, you would end up bifurcating yourself on the sharp partitioning wall between the two routes.
Lily-Kiska: I sure hope no trains come down here…
Celsa: We cannot predict when a freight car or inspection vehicle might pass through.
Lily-Kiska: Hey! Who taught this girl to attach inappropriate selfies to each message?!
Celsa: There are various theories.
Suddenly, the airflow markedly changed, and the speedometer dropped like they had just run straight into a thick invisible wall. As for the cause of this strong headwind…
“Grh!!”
Kaname immediately leaned out the window and fired a silent .45-caliber bullet into the darkness ahead. A second later, a huge shadow emerged and passed over them, scraping against the ceiling and leaving behind a path of flame like a comet’s tail. It came and went with such incredible speed, Kaname’s little sister’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
Ayame: What was that?! It didn’t even look like a train!!
Kaname: It was a stealth fighter. Who knows if it was going to fire missiles or just crash into us.
“…I’m amazed you managed to take it down in one shot,” said Tselika. “How did you do it?”
“A little gap in the front flap of the left wing. At nearly the speed of sound, any slight imperfection can cause the whole thing to tip.”
However, Kaname’s goal wasn’t just to pull some fancy car stunts in a subway tunnel.
Celsa: We are nearing the destination.
“There’s no need to send such a brazen shot of your cleavage with a little message like that…”
Even Tselika was getting fed up with Celsa’s behavior, and she was the one who went on and on about Prostitute Island all the time.
They stopped their cars near the blank spot on the map and got out. It was a wide junction of several tracks with more than enough space to park their vehicles off to the side. They should be fine even if a train came. The only one with a mind to complain was Tselika.
“Th-this isn’t a parking spot! You’re just going to leave my temple out where anyone can trash it or drive off in it as they please? You might as well hold a girls’ night with the front door wide open! Mother does not approve!!”
“Please give her a hug, Kaname.”
Kaname did as Cindy suggested, and Tselika suddenly became meek and docile. When Ayame and Lily-Kiska saw this, they, too, fell silent, but they were a little less calm.
Next, Kaname went around to the trunk and pulled out several of the Legacies.
“From here on out, it’s going to be total war. The AI have numbers on their side, so we’re going to need to pull out all the stops. Ayame, take the shotgun, #tempest.err. Lily-Kiska, you’re on the anti-materiel rifle, #fireline.err. Cindy, get the minigun, #dracolord.err, and Celsa…”
“With Criminal AO Fallen, I cannot take part in economic activities such as trading and shooting. That means I cannot use the Legacies.”
“Then what did you even come along for…?” asked Tselika, exasperated.
“Scouting and reconnaissance. Alternatively, you could use me as a decoy or a meat shield. If that fails, I could be placed on boob duty or pantyshot patrol.”
“I think we have that covered,” growled Tselika, edging between her and Kaname. The boy failed to notice her protective aura and said, “In that case, Sofia.”
“Sorry, but she’s my spotter,” Lily-Kiska interjected, despite the elf Magistellus’s eager gimme, gimme motions. “She doesn’t need a Legacy.”
Respecting this apparent rule of Lily-Kiska’s, Kaname opted not to give Sofia a weapon. Instead, he turned to Tselika.
“I guess that means you’re on #thunderbolt.err, the mortar.”
“Assuming we get a chance to use it…”
“I’ll mostly have you supporting my sniping, but remember that #thunderbolt.err ignores terrain. That means we can fire it without regard for the tunnel roof overhead. It doesn’t really matter whether we use it or not; we just need to show our enemies we have the option.”
Kaname, of course, went with the short-range sniper rifle Short Spear. He had plenty of Legacies at his disposal, but none of them had been at his side through thick and thin like his old trusty firearm had.
Their destination was the train companies’ blind spot: a part of the subway network so wrapped up in overlapping spheres of jurisdiction that nobody knew who owned it anymore. That was where the Mind of the Magistelli was keeping the last of the Legacies.
However.
“…?”
Scouting ahead with the king-size shotgun at her hip, the girl in the ten-gallon hat suddenly stopped, a puzzled expression on her face. Lily-Kiska, watching from behind through her magnified scope, voiced her suspicions.
“Something’s strange. I don’t sense anyone up ahead.”
The location was a rather spacious area with several parallel tracks. It was not a proper switchyard but instead a place to remove trains that required attention and maintenance from the main line. The unmapped area also contained several facilities such as a reserve power room and a space for emergency-use water pumps, which, while necessary, would see little day-to-day use. The result looked like a hastily expanded dungeon in a video game. If the AI was going to stage an ambush, this would be the perfect place to do it.
And yet…
“I don’t see any trip wires or directional landmines,” said Cindy.
“Perhaps they’ve already taken the Legacy and fled the coop, My Lord…?”
Kaname considered this information, making sure to keep his guard up and his gun at the ready, just in case.
For the AI, this was a critical moment that would decide the fate of their program code. It was not impossible for them to have taken the Legacies elsewhere, but Kaname struggled to rationalize such an action. The convoy would be all but defenseless as they transported it, and anyway, why send all those vehicles after him if the treasure wasn’t here in the first place? If their aim was simply to kill him, then it would have been far easier to let him arrive at the vault and find it empty, and then trap everyone inside with no way out and blast the whole place sky-high.
The Mind definitely wanted to keep this place secure. But then, where were all the soldiers?
Something was wrong. It didn’t make sense.
Kaname had said it before. Everything with Takamasa had gone too smoothly—there was bound to be an upset in the works.
“Be on your guard…”
There was a shift in the air. Something was out there, coming this way. Kaname felt it in his nose.
“Everyone, watch out!! There’s something there! Whatever took out all the guards, it’s coming!!”