Chapter 59

SUB.08 “What is this? What the actual living hell is this?!” Security guard Schall Berylan shouted face-first into the white snow. Though this might have seemed like suicide in the negative-twenty-degree weather, he could easily imagine himself dying much quicker than to the cold if he picked up his head right now. To keep himself hidden, he couldn’t go out onto the main road, snow-free and heated though it was. “Didn’t they say we could use those unmanned Academy City weapons to push back against their hegemony?!” he cried out into his radio but got no response. He couldn’t reach anyone on cell, either. Right in front of him, a huge clump of metal fell to the ground. The wreckage of a powered suit with autopilot capabilities, the kind that had destroyed Russian tanks and armored cars like they were paper during World War III. Yes—the wreckage. Its thick composite armor looked like a piece of cheese partly eaten by a mouse—full of holes. This was armor that would probably withstand an antitank land mine being strapped to it and detonated. And it wasn’t just this one pile of wreckage, either. If Schall had had the leeway to get up and look around, he would have seen the ground covered in so many of them that even the blizzards couldn’t bury them completely. “…This is insane,” he murmured, stupefied. Meanwhile, giant weapons with praying mantis–like silhouettes were still swaggering about. Their two front legs appeared to have been made into Gatling guns, but they were clearly far more destructive than that. Could firing a tank’s smoothbore cannon thousands of times per minute have even caused this level of catastrophe? Frankly, he didn’t understand why they’d bother linking so many gun barrels together to improve their shot grouping—aside from, perhaps, the designer having very unpleasant tastes. Five_Over. Model case_“RAILGUN.” Schall didn’t know what the two rows of letters on the mechs meant, but he knew these things were a real freak show. And that freak show was currently spraying bullets all over the place, walking along the snow and flying through the air. There were easily twenty of them around, and that was just what he could make out. They were clearly from a different generation. It was like sending stealth bombers to fight a military general marching into a skirmish with horses and katanas. Supernatural abilities weren’t even part of the picture. Academy City’s weaponry went beyond them. A lot of freaks seemed to have assembled for Natural Selector, but none of them would hold even the tiniest candle to these giant mantises unarmed. Schall’s honest opinion was that this was unwinnable. Totally unwinnable. Even thinking about outwitting them didn’t make sense. He couldn’t imagine a single world in which they got away with their lives, much less defeated the things. He was keenly aware that his only two choices were to die fighting against them or die not fighting against them. Which would hurt more? Which would be more honorable? Which would make him feel better? He thought about it in terms of security software. One click of a button in some far-off country and—without needing any further instruction—dozens of unmanned weapons would discover everything hostile. And delete them, too. It didn’t matter what was moving inside. They wouldn’t be satisfied until they learned there were no enemies remaining. That was what this battle was like. They’d picked the wrong opponents to fight. They’d picked the wrong methods to fight them with. They were enemies, so they would die. That was the extent of this fight. They should never have drawn the line between Academy City and anti–Academy City. Once the security software’s virus list got updated, there would be no more saving them. Schall and the others had just updated themselves into the enemies’ latest version. That’s why they’d been found. That’s why they’d been attacked. And that’s why they’d be killed. “……” That very moment, Schall Berylan stopped breathing. All the sounds around him had stopped. Realizing what the unnatural silence meant, he clenched his teeth. Keeping himself face down on the cold snow, he slowly lifted his head. The strain on his neck caused it to sting with pain, but he couldn’t afford to think about it. They’d jumped into the air. And stopped. The giant mantis mechs were right above Schall—stopped dead in midair, like a wasp or a dragonfly. The barrels of the scythe-like Gatling gun arms were now pointed at him. As he watched the linked barrels spin around, things finally clicked. Ah. It wasn’t that things went quiet—it’s just my mind playing tricks on me. But he couldn’t do any more than that. Those monsters could even shoot down fighter jets and air-to-ground missiles, as though they were linked up with some sort of movable radar setup. Lying here on the ground like in some action movie wasn’t going to change how this turned out. It was over. He’d be removed. Chalked up to a statistic. But right as that thought crossed Schall Berylan’s mind, something happened. Something strange. The mantises made a different move. It wasn’t just one of them aiming at him; as far as he could tell, over twenty had taken aim at him. Clearly, they were on alert. Before they’d been searching one by one, destroying one by one—all very systematic. But now they were being wary of how their enemy was acting. What…? As even his sweat continued to freeze, Schall’s eyes darted up. He could see someone in the corner of his vision. The silhouette towered over the white hellscape. A long coat. A helmet covering their face. He couldn’t tell if they were male or female or if they’d be able to turn this situation in his favor. It was very strange, in fact, that the mantises around them had all focused on that one person. “……” The stranger said nothing. They simply clenched their right hand into a fist again.