Estimated reading time: 15–19 minutes
Chapter 33
The oxygen refill is complete and I fire the second shot towards the Strain. I’m avoiding the rain of tentacles, so my aim isn’t steady, but the bullet lands below expectations, blowing off three tentacles. The effective range of 100 meters was true – it reaches that far, but the chance of a miss is high. Even with the Skill “Marksmanship: Apollyon Armaments,” this is pathetic.
Blending with that sound yet unable to fully mask the explosive noise, Reina disappears. Tens of meters of tentacles are blown away by the UK-08, and amidst the gathered gazes she breezes through that opening in an instant, breaking through the rain of tentacles and reaching the reptilian-scaled rear leg of the Strain covered in them. Then she slams the blade on her back against the scales. A 5 meter long blade – nearly identical to the one on my back – is attached to the end of the tentacle.
This must be the Strain’s ability to assimilate things around it. However, the fact that the blade is thinner than I expected means it likely can only transform things proportional to the amount of liquid it had absorbed.
And Reina plunges the grown blade into the Strain’s scales, bracing it with her right, non-prosthetic hand, and rips it open.
The armor that took the UK-08 just to penetrate is casually flung into the air, spanning several meters on each side. Without even watching that, Reina continues to plunge onwards, peeling and shredding the silver fibers visible inside.
The Strain, seemingly also sensing the danger, anchors half of its tentacles into the ground and lifts up its rear leg. At the very least it’s trying to shake her off; at most, crush her outright.
「Barrel cooled, oxygen refilled! Third shot!」
「The tentacles have stopped! Attack the joints!」
「Fire team, focus attacks on exposed sections of armor!」
「Waiting on your lead!」
「Going for a knockdown blow – that’s Beatdown 101!」
The players don’t miss that opening. With its head lowered to lift its rear leg, the Strain perfectly exposes itself to us.
My third shot grazes the top of the Strain’s head, making its body recoil back violently. The close-range players target the motionless tentacles while the long-range players open fire in unison on the hole in the armor. What looks like a metallic skull plate gets more and more exposed as it’s battered by torrents of psychic blasts and gunfire.
Unable to withstand the pain, the Strain thrashes its entire body around, scattering debris and roars. Its weight – which I can’t even begin to estimate in tons – sends shockwaves through the earth as it stomps around, but the players evading it continue their relentless attacks.
While less than half of the initial players remain, two-thirds of the tentacles have been rendered dysfunctional, and we’ve inflicted major damage to its left brain.
Just as I was thinking we might be able to win like this…the Strain starts violently convulsing, foam bursting out across its body. The bubbles quickly pop, viscous fluid pouring out, but there’s something familiar about the hard needles peeking out from within. The difference in size makes it look like that, but there’s no doubt – that’s the…
「UK-08…?!」
The Strain replicates tools.
As I dive into the shadow of the Strain’s fallen tentacles on the ground, deafening blasts ring out. That sound I’ve heard up close so many times now goes off all at once. It feels like the world explodes as I see players’ bodies blown away. Fragments pierce into my Apollyon’s armor as well, error warnings blaring loudly around me.
I nervously look up and see 80% of the players have turned into flesh fragments, lying still and silent. The smell of burnt meat and gruesome sight, so real, make screams ring out from all around. The heated passion swept away in the frenzy of battle was forcefully jerked back to reality by tremendous violence. No matter how far they’ve come, the gathered players are still ordinary people. Fear is infectious, even the ones grinning wildly moments ago like death troopers now wear pale, frightened faces. Meanwhile, the crucial Strain is sprouting countless cannon barrels from its body, likely gathering oxygen – meaning the second barrage is imminent.
We can’t win.
My mind screams that. On top of everything, the Strain hasn’t even touched the UK-08, only taken cannon fire. Yet it’s still able to grow these weapons from its own body – meaning it can likely take in new things the same way.
This powerful even halfway through evolving. And then, just as I was about to give up, words flash through my mind.
「The world’s destruction cannot be averted due to lacking information sharing – which leads to excessive fear.」
Ah, that’s right. You’re absolutely correct. I steel my resolve and observe its turrets – what do you know, an almost comical weakness presents itself.
Should I really stop here then? I have to share and challenge.
「It has no maneuverability with that cannon barrage! It can’t aim, that’s nothing but bluster!」
I scream through the speaker amidst the whirling crystallized space: That’s right, it’s done nothing more than mimic the UK-08.
Of course its body has countless things akin to “Kōmitsu Solutions Manufactured Apollyon Fusion Incendiary Weapon Model UK-08” embedded within. But they seem to simply be implanted rather than aimed at us. In other words it’s firing blindly, basically a Telephone Punch announcing beforehand where it plans to shoot.
What’s more laughable is it blew away so many of its own tentacles through misfires. Only three are left now. It should’ve had so many more than that. They are, after all, this Strain’s greatest weapon – the ultimate armament combining maneuverability, defense, and firepower.
Ahh, that’s what you get when a baby mimics human technology, I mutter, moving my Apollyon forward.
『Leg Armor Breached』
『Arm Recoil Control System Damaged』
『Balancer Malfunctioning, Reconstructing』
『Right Chest Penetrated by Shrapnel, Fuel Efficiency Greatly Reduced』
The once agile controls now feel heavy. But more than that, my heart is filled with exhilaration and laughter. Countless cannon emplacements lie before me – yet among them, only a few face my direction, and even those can’t aim at me.
「It’s time for a Luck-Based Game! Shitty game, shitty game!」
The other players remain still. Are they frozen in fear? Given up? Dumbfounded at the shitty game design? Well, whatever – as long as Reina and I are here, trash mobs at this level are no match for us. Probably.
The Strain unleashes its second barrage, licking at the sky and grinding the earth. Amidst the fading cries of players I press forward. With my recoil control destroyed now, I have to get closer or I’ll just end up mincing more flesh. And since the shattered skull from earlier is steadily regenerating too, we need to finish this quickly.
So first, I target the tentacles to properly incapacitate its cannon grid.
「Fourth shot…!」
My shell pierces the last remaining tentacle at 60 meters out – the only thing still supporting its upper body. Hilariously, it crumples, slamming headfirst into the ground. The impact literally obliterates half the cannons, damaging half of them.
30 meters remain. The Strain stretches out its final tentacle, crawling on the ground, but Reina appears behind it, severing them from the base. I forward roll to evade its last barrage as the now completely toppled Strain fires wildly. Finally, I’ve arrived right before it.
0 meters left. I pull the UK-08’s trigger, piercing straight through from the Strain’s eyeball to its heart. Not just one shot, but pounding it relentlessly, over and over. Once I’ve exhausted all ammunition, over half of its head is gone along with its shredded heart scattered about, silver bodily fluids pooling on the ground.
『Congratulations!!! EMERGENCY QUEST – ‘Defeat Primordial Strain Type-UYK46’ Complete!!!』
Watching the pulsations fading and light vanishing from the flesh that had begun regenerating, I feel the end settling in. I see – somehow we managed victory.
Scanning my surroundings, detached armor plates and flesh from the Strain intermingle alongside player corpses – all scattered amongst its splattered bodily fluids and torn tentacles. My communications yield no response from Momiji; instead, there’s a reply from Reina.
「Over here. …Can’t be helped I guess.」
「That body of yours…」
「Took a cannon shell point blank there towards the end. But I’m glad we got to meet in the end, Kanji.」
I follow the signal to its origin. Reina’s entire left abdomen is gone. Blood pouring out seems to futilely try filling the cavity – where numerous vital organs should be – showing no signs of regeneration. That should be possible if she were a Strain though. Yet without any pained expression, she mutters while gazing into the distance:
「After 2055 ended, I couldn’t drink water. The rain wouldn’t fall. So I had no choice but to drink the water contaminated by artificial metals – from a lake up north, I think. Because of that, parts of my body broke down, and my regeneration stopped working. Just like with this left hand.」
As Reina cranks her prosthetic hand open and shut, I see no trace left of the metal scales from combat – she looks completely normal. I get out of the Apollyon, removing my mask and sitting beside her. She likely only has moments left. Just like back then, our final time alone together ticks away.
「You see… I had lost hope for the future.」
「What’s that about?」
「Before I met you. Just living cooped up in that research lab. At first it was fine – superior abilities and intellect compared to humans. The power to escape and live freely anytime. But then one day, I overheard the researchers talking. Even with us, humanity was still doomed.」
「It was awful. Myself, who I thought was almighty, yet humanity would still meet its demise even with Units 1 and 2 – that was the conclusion. Our futures were probably deemed useful solely for the powers of Strains – thrown onto some battlefield to fight, only to die wretched deaths without a doubt. After that, there was just nothingness.」
「Nothingness, huh. I think the second generation beastkins escaped from somewhere, right?」
「Yeah, we actually escaped in reality too. Thanks to Russia covering it up and claiming to other world governments that our generation simply had machine beast-like powers too, we were placed under multiple surveillance streams but could still live normal human lives. Even so, everything was still set to end in 2050.」
「On top of that, there wasn’t much joy either. Manga was my sole salvation, but most entertainment got boring quick, and multiplayer games – I’d win 100 out of 100 times after playing them a hundred times. For years I’d just been killing time until the apocalypse. Then you came along.」
「Well can’t let some joker with that inflated a win rate get away scot-free.」
「And yet you actually beat me, that’s what makes it so impressive. Yes – for the first time in a while then, I forgot about the doom and just played for fun. It really had been far too long.
So when you moved on to other games, I tapped my information network and tried contacting you IRL, determined to find out more.」
「No way, you’re lying – don’t tell me you were actually stalking me?」
「I even know where you live. Well, that part was thanks to my mom’s recommendation. She said, ‘A cute girl like that coming after you, no guy would dislike that – go for it and make a move!’」
「She’s definitely gotten the wrong idea there. And wait, your mom set that up? Well, at least it makes borrowing manga easier, so thanks for that I guess.」
「The meal matters more than the company, truly.」
「So you’re calling yourself the company in that analogy?」
「Wouldn’t that be accurate? I’m cute, aren’t I?」
「Do… do you even know how old I am?」
「…Age is irrelevant.」
「Alright alright. So anyway, what was your point here? Not much time left.」
「Ah right. What I want to say – it’s about endings. For instance, my ending here – dying in the arms of the man I love.」
「That’s way too manga-brained. No other way you could phrase your death?」
「No no, hear me out. I really can’t stand bad endings or ‘true endings’ or anything like that, you see. Because that’s just how things are – people drinking down their misfortune, accepting it because ‘it can’t be helped,’ and moving on.」
「…So then what kind of ending do you want?」
「An ending so happily-ever-after it makes you nauseous. Have a class reunion in 10 years or something – everyone’s there living respectable lives, having grown properly. All the problems covered in the story so far are resolved, now just tales of the past. And to neatly tie things up commercially, they hastily resolve any remaining contrived issues in a few panels, and the protagonist has kids, but to avoid backlash over picking among the various female characters, it’s left ambiguously vague. Then it ends with everyone smiling brightly, seeming to enjoy themselves.」
「Not sure if you actually like or hate that kind of portrayal.」
「But if it could actually happen in reality, that’s how I’d want things to end.」
「An ending so stupidly mindless your eyes rot out – that’s what I’ve been seeking all my life. A world where that lid of despair marked 2050 gets lifted, allowing so many things to finally be enjoyed for the first time. …I guess because we overlap here and there, I have this subtle love-hate thing going on with Momiji, but still feel kinda close too.」
「You really have just been searching for joy, huh.」
「And that’s where I differ from Momiji. Cough… Otherwise I wouldn’t be me.」
「…Are you okay?」
「….It’s about time. Please say hi to my other selves and Momiji. Oh, and consider this payback – if you ever take Momiji to an amusement park, you have to take me too. She’d definitely hate it.」
「Seriously using your last moments for that request?」
「And also…cough」
「!?」
「See you then. I’ll look forward to that stupid happy ending.」
Reina draws close, lifting off her oxygen mask and stealing my lips. After intertwining tongues deep and thoroughly toying with me, she pulls away, closing her eyes. A bridge of saliva awkwardly remains as I notice her breathing has already ceased.
My eyes grow hot. I lift her body, intent on at least giving her proper burial…. but a question arises. Didn’t I just feel a pulse? Oh, it stopped. But doesn’t this seem more like she forcibly halted it herself?
I glare at the corpse. Her expression hasn’t changed. The hole in her stomach remains agape with no signs of regeneration. No way to confirm either way…and then an idea for a killing blow comes to mind. I place the corpse on the floor, gleefully wiggling my hands as I bring them close to Reina’s chest from 20 cm, to 10 cm. I don’t miss her face flushing red the moment I do so.
「…」
「…」
An awkward silence hangs in the air. Without hesitation, I draw my Beast Slayer and slam it down straight at her forehead. In an instant, the figure I thought was a corpse vanishes, leaving behind an afterimage. There she stands right next to it – alive and well after all.
「How are you alive with wounds like that!?」
「It’s true my wounds can’t heal! So I faked it as close to reality as I could for impact!」
「You said you only had 3 months left to live!」
「My bad, I meant 1 year.」
「That’s even longer though!」
Show some emotion! In reality, Reina is walking around normally with a gaping hole in her stomach. No, with reflexes like hers, she should’ve easily dodged that point blank UK-08 shot. Nothing can hit you if you’re inside the barrel. In other words, she likely took that damage intentionally.
With an unamused look, Reina says “Dang, prank failed huh.” To think she’d use even her own death for jokes.
「Hmm, since it didn’t seem impactful enough to become cited information that really tugs at the heartstrings, I figured I should go all out on some one-off gag…」
「That’s pretty malicious for a one-off gag.」
「Alright, change of plans then! We’ll go surprise the others with round two instead!」
As she says that, Reina’s body flips around. It’s a smile so very like her – filled with joy.
「Let’s go rob Horizon Ventures and GullyZone Industries!」
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