Estimated reading time: 8–10 minutes
Chapter 25
「So you see, this is how you take it down.」
「Huh? I don’t really get it. Why did that big machine beast get turned into a curly spiral fry in an instant!?」
「Well, I thought it looked cool!」
「As if that’s a good reason.」
In less than a second, Canabun the Machine Beast is dismantled. The thick armor is sliced off as if it were nothing, exposing the cross section beneath. It is still moving, but Reina has already left the area, so there is no chance for retaliation. Wait, aren’t machine beasts supposed to be tough enough that a group of 10 players would struggle to defeat one?
「Don’t look at me like that. It’s thanks to you!」
「Me?」
「Yup, you you. Because you brought in that negative mass data, the quality of my equipment has increased dramatically. Just having blades processed with mithril makes a huge difference.」
「Sounds pretty fantasy-esque when you say it like that.」
「Mithril has imaginary electric charge of 2i, and its planar structure makes it easy to work into thin sheets. That’s why it can reinforce blades and also provide pinpoint reinforcement.」
「Whoa, what a convoluted setting. Can’t you just say it’s some kind of monomolecular blade or something?」
「That wouldn’t have worked. Even if it were possible to produce them, mass production would be unrealistic.」
As she says that, Reina returns the blade – a 5 meter long blade for Apollyons. It’s ridiculous that she can wield such a heavy blade in one hand and turn Canabun into a spiral. She clearly has better specs than player Reina. The talk about second generation is no lie, it seems.
By the way, I thought beastkin were overly strong for gene modded beings, but apparently they can induce conversion reactions with imaginary atoms inside their bodies, similar to how humans take in oxygen for energy and expel carbon dioxide and water. According to Reina, beastkin take in imaginary atoms and derive energy and different imaginary mass atoms from the reaction. She says the mechanism makes them closer to machine beasts than humans.
When I ask if that process could be given to others as an upgrade, she says unfortunately their bodies are uniquely structured to handle those energy pathways, so new ones can’t be added. Drat, there goes my plan to become a powered armor human with beastkin powers!
Seeing Reina wave me over, I approach spiral Canabun with camera still rolling. It seems she doesn’t do this just for fun – she proceeds to explain the structure while pointing out parts in the cross section.
「First off, the brain is like a normal living being…actually, it’s best to assume almost everything is like a normal creature. For Canabun here, it would be…」
「Grisly…」
「See here? You can get a straight shot to the brain by shooting through the lower right frontal area into the right eye. Early on, humans would blanket fire this area.」
「Despite how it looks now…」
「Especially since the tentacles have pretty thick armor. If you face it head on, you’re helpless. That’s why flanking maneuvers work well for melee too.」
「Doesn’t that dull the blades over time?」
「It does. So you mash the blades early on and use it more like a bludgeon. But with artificial metal, you don’t need to worry about that anyway. Just like this blade, you see?」
Reina continues her lecture on hunting machine beasts. Though it’s going off track – maybe I should summarize it in a separate video. As I think that, I point the camera to get a shot of the cross section. Just as she said, it really is just a living creature with machinery substituted in. Come to think of it, how do machine beasts reproduce? Do storks deliver them or something?
Anyway, I try to get into an Apollyon to give this a shot myself, but Reina grabs my hand. Her gentle grip doesn’t budge an inch despite my silent pleas.
Smiling, she says to me,
「Why not try taking it down without any powered armor?」
Why?!
I only have two weapons on me. One is the weak starter pistol “BeansGun” – pretty useless against machine beasts, but not bad for harassment or finishing blows. The other is the single shot large caliber revolver Momiji gave me, “Beast Slayer”. It’s a romantic gun Kōmitsu Solutions made with the concept of taking down machine beasts with a handgun.
To be honest, I didn’t think I stood a chance unarmored and unequipped.
The same Canabun from before approaches. This is their habitat, so Reina has no trouble attracting some with bait.
What’s more, there’s two of them. Realistically, I have no chance of winning. But from the 12 previous attempts, I learned something. The reason players and this world are in dire straits isn’t because the enemies are too strong. It’s because information isn’t shared and we turn a blind eye.
I make sure not to look back. There lies the corpses of the Canabuns sacrificed for filming. I’ve already failed 11 times and am low on ammo, but Reina’s backup let me keep filming.
「I’m sure you got good Apollyon footage, but don’t you need shots of yourself too?」
As I recall her perceptive words, the 12th attempt begins. I steady my breathing and brace the “Beast Slayer” with both hands – the recoil is too fierce to control one-handed. But if a bullet with that much force flies straight from the eyes to the brain…
「The scaled Earth’s terrain can work to your advantage in good ways too. The abundance of elevation changes means if you understand them, you can picture yourself facing up when climbing, and down when descending for easy traversal. Larger drops can even serve as cover.」
The machine beast lets out an eerie cry as it approaches me, but I stand firm, Beast Slayer at the ready, waiting. The instant Canabun’s posture tilts slightly from the uneven terrain, I pull the trigger. The deafening gunshot echoes as the bullet pierces Canabun’s eye and reaches the brain, making violet fluid spray from the joints.
As if angered by its partner’s defeat, the other beast begins sprinting at me with unnatural cockroach-like speed despite its lumbering gait. I single-handedly reload the single-shot Beast Slayer as I did in VR Westerns, and in that opening, ready my BeansGun left-handed to fire at Canabun’s belly as it tries to climb over a ledge – no damage, but the pain makes it briefly lower its stance.
Perfect – its eyes and brain are aligned with me again. Feeling the searing residual heat on my reloaded Beast Slayer, I brace it with both hands and fire at its eyes once more. Never thought my quick draw skills would be useful in this game!
Having reached 10 meters away, Canabun lets out an agonized wail. Impossible under normal circumstances – but these machine beasts are far larger than humans, terrain limits their speed, and they move only in straight lines. With all those conditions met, stay calm, and maybe you’ll succeed once in 12 tries.
「Cut!」
「Wow, you really can take them down if you know the tricks.」
「We’ve got the weapons, skills, manpower, even nukes if we want them, and more data coming in on what to expect. Yet the world’s destruction remains unprevented because we don’t share information, which breeds excessive fear. People are strong when they band together, but that fear and self-interest tears them apart. The Apollyon Fusion is the perfect symbol of that.」
“There we go,” Reina says, patting my head. Huh… I wonder what they were talking about on that thread. Bringing these things down is so easy. Their massive size does mean you can’t reach their brains if they face upwards, I guess that’s the fatal flaw.
「Can’t you learn stuff like this at the Adventurer’s Guild?」
「There’s a chance they could teach it. But tactics targeting weaknesses like this didn’t emerge until the beasts had time to develop more complex thoughts. In the past, players only considered brute force, like players today. So I doubt many people actually know about this.」
「Oh, so this info could be the first of its kind globally? Lemme quickly cut the footage and post it.」
「OK, see you later then.」
At that, I log out and immediately upload the video. With her temperament, she might lock me out again if I take too long.
And the very next day, I’m being called the world’s strongest player on forums. Huh…why?
『Spiral Canabun』
A machine beast with the appearance of Canabun + tentacles + reptile. The main part is Canabun, and Reina “spiraled” it, so Kanji calls it Spiral Canabun. Blame Spiral Fries. It lives off metallic solutions flowing within the Crystal Trees. It is also drawn to light, occasionally harmlessly charging at traveling merchants’ Apollyons. Annoying but weak.
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