The massive plume of smoke rising in the distance, followed by the delayed roar of a spectacular explosion — Otsuka hurriedly parks the armored vehicle inside the Takakura Temporary Garage and disembarks his Actanoid from the driver’s seat.
The main camera of Otsuka’s Actanoid picks up the smoke climbing into the sky. He zooms in, but can’t make out what happened.
“What’s the situation?”
He contacts his team via voice chat.
“Damaged Actanoids have been recovered. The prefab building interior is mostly intact.”
“The north fence is holding. There’s a decent-sized open area, so if we use the armored vehicles as cover we can intercept the Yenbar.”
Defensive capability is low, but it seems manageable as a temporary position against wildlife.
With a machine gun they wouldn’t even have to worry about Yenbar, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“We’ll intercept the Yenbar. There should be a large-caliber handgun in the prefab building, so——hm?”
Otsuka notices a message notification in the corner of his screen and falls silent. Unless he’s reading it wrong, the title appears to say Extermination Report.
No way, he thinks, and opens the message.
It’s from the new Actor he’d just sent off as a decoy. It includes an interception report for two Yenbar, an explanation of how it happened, and footage from the Allrounder’s main camera attached.
Otsuka reads it, then looks up through his Actanoid at the smoke fading into the sky.
“Even if there was no escaping, who in their right mind kills them by blowing everything up like that?”
Rational? Sure. But shooting through your own chest to blow the battery, which then ignites the surrounding explosives to kill them in the blast — that’s not the thinking of a sane person.
The Allrounder is cheap as far as Actanoids go, being one of the earliest models, but it still runs about three million yen. Completely destroying something that valuable should give anyone pause. Especially when it’s a loaner unit.
And then there’s the explosives. Sure, they were just lying at the bottom of a ravine, but explosives themselves are expensive and the owner is unknown. Put plainly, it’s misappropriation of found property.
Ownership in the New Frontier is fairly murky. Outside of a registered garage or similar, claiming ownership of something is genuinely difficult — there are even scavengers out there making a living by recovering and selling wrecked Actanoids.
The misappropriation of those explosives probably won’t become an issue either, but there’s no way a new Actor would know that. More to the point, he doesn’t understand the mentality of someone who sends a government employee of the New Frontier Resource Agency a self-incriminating confession with video evidence attached.
Otsuka thinks.
“——is this person sane?”
“Ah, got a moment?”
The leader of the four-person civilian Actor team on escort duty calls in via voice chat.
Otsuka, remembering the situation, apologizes.
“Sorry. It appears the Yenbar have been exterminated.”
“Ah, figured. Could kind of piece that together from what I was overhearing.”
“For now, let’s start with getting the fence back up. There may be more Yenbar in the area.”
“Roger that. And — I don’t think they are sane, for what it’s worth?”
They heard that, Otsuka winces. A slip unworthy of a civil servant.
But he was curious.
“You think so too?”
“I mean, they blew them up, right? That type is what you’d call a combat operator — a mercenary. Pulling that off as a new Actor is a pretty serious case of loose screws.”
Combat operator. A slang term for Actors who don’t mind getting their own unit wrecked, taking on mercenary work in territorial disputes and racking up results. On the tamer end they hunt or cull dangerous New Frontier creatures, but they have a tendency to become a nuisance.
“They’re basically like player-killers or griefers in an online game — best not to get involved. We’d rather not take on jobs with that type ourselves, so if you’re calling in reinforcements to defend this place, we’d appreciate it if that new Actor isn’t on the list.”
“Understood.”
※
“——unconfirmed, but I think I got them”
Having sent a message explaining the situation and attaching the Allrounder’s camera footage, Chihaya lets out a long breath and sips some hot water.
Her throat was bone dry from the nerves.
But there’s no way anything could have survived an explosion that size. No matter how tough they are, they’d have been blown to pieces.
Rather not think about that too hard, Chihaya thinks, letting her eyes drift. Probably someone from that four-person team will go check.
“s-sorry about that, heh”
You used the new girl as a decoy, the least you can do is deal with the dirty work — she keeps that thought to herself, and waits for a reply.
After a while, a message comes back from the New Frontier Resource Agency employee running the job.
“let’s see, a bonus for exterminating the Yenbar? oh. oh wow. Two hundred thousand yen.”
Apparently because even though the garage had been in bad shape, eliminating the threat that was attacking it was worth something — so they’re adding a bonus.
The transport job itself is also being counted as a success, and the completion fee will apparently be transferred separately.
“Compensation for the Allrounder is waived too? wait……d-didn’t they say there’d be a subsidy?”
It seems the subsidy only covers repair costs — total destruction is a different matter entirely.
Chihaya felt cold sweat running down her back.
That said, being the decoy with two Yenbar in pursuit meant total destruction was already considered a given, and since a New Frontier Resource Agency employee had ordered it, waiving the cost was already the expected outcome.
“I-I’ll have to be more careful next time……”
The nerves had her tongue tripping over itself, but it’s not like anyone could hear her.
Chihaya decides to take it positively — first job done — and sinks into the sofa bed.
“heheh, about five hundred thousand yen for half a day? Ammo costs are no joke, but it’s well in the black, so good……”
Completely unaware she’d earned herself a reputation as a combat operator, Chihaya grins vaguely.
While she’s feeling upbeat, she’d better accept another job, she thinks, and opens the app. It’s the nature of the shut-in — she can only be proactive while riding the high of a success.
“oh, th-this one looks good……. Solo jobs are the best”
A request posted by a private company, New Frontier Chemical Industries. The job: harvesting a plant called the Secondi Apple, a New Frontier species drawing attention as a potential genetic resource.
Apparently this Secondi Apple contains a high amount of sugars that are difficult to convert to body fat, and is expected to have applications as a confectionery ingredient.
Chihaya pokes her own side with a fingertip.
“……wonder if I could get free samples”