A security guard opened up the defensive wall, and Akira and the rest drove through. The moment they were on the other side, the wall shut behind them.

  Akira had a sudden thought, which he relayed to Elena over the wireless. “Elena, that guard mentioned a safe zone. What was he talking about?”

  “Huh? Where we were just a bit ago, of course. Inside the circle.”

  “I wouldn’t consider that ‘safe,’ though...”

  Thinking to herself that he wasn’t wrong, Elena smiled dryly, though he couldn’t see her over the wireless. “True, but if the average hunter can handle the dangers of a given place, it’s still classified as a safe zone. And compared to out here, it probably is safe—look.” Elena pointed ahead. Everyone’s scanners were already synced, so she sent Akira her visual data.

  “No way!” He couldn’t hide his surprise—a gigantic, powerful-looking multilegged tank was lying on the ground in pieces. The scene looked all too familiar to Akira.

  “The defensive wall is there to keep formidable monsters like that one out,” Elena explained. “Just sealing off the road is enough to keep the bigger ones from coming in.”

  Of course, she added, it wouldn’t keep the smaller sentries from entering through the buildings along the border and slipping through the city’s defenses—in fact, that had been precisely how the robots they’d fought during the last rescue operation had gotten through. But according to the city forces, such a barrier was still preferable to getting invaded by deadly mechanical behemoths. The average hunter would at least be able to handle a few grunt sentries—and more importantly, there was a limit to how many guards the city could deploy.

  As he listened to Elena’s explanation through the wireless, Akira whispered to Carol. “Hey—that’s the same kind of tank we fought yesterday, isn’t it?”

  “Sure looks like it. You know, things in the ruin had already started to go haywire even back then. Maybe that’s why it tried to attack us even after we escaped from the factory district? Hmm... No, that doesn’t make sense...” Carol groaned as if something wasn’t adding up.

  “Come to think of it, where do you suppose it was being carried to in that bin?” Akira wondered.

  “Good question. Probably the Serantal Building, if I had to guess. You know how I told you before that some idiot took out the guards at the entrance and left the building wide open? I suspect it was supposed to replace those...” A new realization crossed her mind, and her expression turned grim. “And we ended up destroying the replacement, which means the building never got sealed...and that would certainly explain why the situation got so much worse...” She turned to him. “A-Akira, let’s keep this between you and me, okay?” she said, with a smile that seemed to suggest they were now partners in crime.

  “G-Good idea!” Akira responded, his smile stiff for a different reason. Perhaps, he wondered, the tank’s real target all along had been the one who’d defeated the Serantal guards in the first place.

  But for obvious reasons, he didn’t voice that suspicion.

  ◆

  As commander of the operation, Elena took point in her truck, scouting out the surrounding area. For the moment, there were no threats. That didn’t mean there weren’t monsters—there were always monsters—but they were few and far between, and they (mostly) didn’t try to approach. The ones that did were small and easily reduced to scrap.

  Still, as their destination drew near, she became more cautious. Several teams had already attempted this particular rescue—and failed. She knew one of them had turned tail right around this area, so she let everyone know through the comms to be on guard.

  “From this point forward, expect a significantly higher number of enemies,” she warned. “We’re going to charge right through until we reach the rescue point, so take care not to fall behind. Akira—fall back to the rear. If it gets too dicey back there, don’t try to take them all out on your own—let us know immediately and then we’ll retreat.”

  “Understood,” Akira responded. “Don’t take on more than you can handle either, you two. Get out of there immediately and end the operation if it gets dangerous.”

  “Oh? That’s unusual to hear from you. If I did that, we’d lose out on some seriously good pay. Are you really okay with that?”

  Being too reckless only led to death. But excessive cowardice would also lead to death—from starvation. To stay alive and put food on the table, relic hunters had to find the perfect balance between the two. After all, there’d be no point in venturing into the dangerous territory of the wasteland in the first place if they came out empty-handed.

  Of course, Elena wasn’t about to encourage reckless behavior. If she felt they were in over their heads, they would retreat. Even so, she couldn’t help but feel like such a comment, when coming from Akira, sounded awfully spineless. So she wanted to prod him a little.

  But Akira responded seriously, “That’s fine—I don’t care. As long as you and Sara stay safe, that’s more important than money.”

  “O-Oh? W-Well, don’t worry about us—we don’t plan to die here, and if I do decide to give the order to retreat, I plan to do it while we still have time to escape. So just focus on keeping the rear secure, okay?”

  “Understood.”

  Elena hung up and breathed a sigh. In the passenger’s seat, Sara looked amused.

  “What?” Elena said irritably.

  “Oh, nothing. Just thinking he’s worrying about us now, rather than the other way around, huh?”

  “Then we ought to do our best so that he doesn’t need to. They’re coming toward us as we speak. Get ready.” Their vehicle’s scanner was picking up numerous signals ahead. Judging from the size of the dots on the screen, the enemies were smaller, but the swarm itself was over ten times larger than any they’d encountered on their way here thus far—and this was only what the scanner could pick up from their current location. The opposing forces likely consisted of many more beyond that.

  But Sara grinned fearlessly. “Leave it to me! We’ve got to show Akira that we can take care of ourselves.”

  By now Elena and Sara understood that Akira had come to Mihazono this time purely to save them from potential danger. Perhaps at first he’d accepted the job to obtain some easy money, but once he’d failed to reach them by terminal, his objective had changed completely. They’d already suspected this from how he’d hired Carol despite hardly knowing her and then headed out to the ruin without even waiting for sunrise. But after the discussion at the restaurant and hearing him just now, they were convinced: all because of a minor communication failure, Akira had automatically jumped to the conclusion that they’d run into trouble beyond what they could handle. Of course, the women could’ve taken that as an insult (and indeed, they did feel a bit like he was underestimating their skill). But they were mostly glad he cared enough about them enough to immediately go to their aid.

  Becoming a relic hunter meant constantly putting your life at risk. Since hunters were always using their own lives as a gambling chip, they often came to view human life in general from a calculated, rather than emotional, perspective. Elena, Sara, and Akira hadn’t gone to rescue others out of the goodness of their hearts—they expected a payout comparable to the risk. Yet Akira had come to their aid—fully prepared to brave the dangerous ruin for their sake—even though it wasn’t part of the job and wouldn’t net him any extra pay. He’d even hired Carol as a guide out of his own pocket. Elena and Sara were incredibly grateful and delighted to have a companion who felt so concerned for them.

  “Look at how many there are! It would be a waste of time and energy to kill them all,” Elena observed. “Only take care of the ones in our way as we barrel through them. Ready?”

  “Anytime!”

  “Good. Here we go!” Elena and Sara’s car shot forward, breaking away from the rest of the convoy. As the vehicle continued to accelerate, Elena leveled the mounted machine gun at their foes and began mowing them down, while Sara joined the onslaught with heavy weaponry. Their overwhelming combined firepower devastated the armored A24s in their path, clearing the way for Akira and the rest.

  ◆

  Meanwhile, Akira fired round after round from his A4WM grenade launcher at a horde of machines pursuing them. Explosions scattered throughout the ruin, taking out large groups of A24s.

  The convoy consisted of Elena and Sara at the front, Shikarabe’s transport in the middle, and Akira bringing up the rear. Just as Elena had commanded, the hunters were proceeding right through the enemy swarm. Some enemies had gotten past the vehicles at the front, circled around, and were now chasing them from behind. Akira’s job was to deal with these—and he couldn’t use more than half of his grenades, since he’d have to do the same thing on the trip back but with distressed victims in tow. In other words, if he couldn’t handle this much, he might as well just give up and go home now.

  Fortunately, his objective was only to keep the enemies from reaching the convoy, not necessarily to eliminate them. Even if his shells didn’t destroy the machines, it was sufficient to just blast them away—a simple enough job considering the sheer firepower of his automatic grenade launcher.

  But by now he was burning through ammo faster than he’d planned. Out again?! Damn, that was fast! He tossed another empty magazine from the vehicle and loaded a fresh one.

  No helping that, since you didn’t buy the extended variety, Alpha pointed out. While the standard magazines Akira was using were larger than assault rifle magazines, this was only because the grenades themselves were large—the launcher chewed through each magazine in no time. Extended magazines for grenades fetched a much higher price than those for bullets. Even Akira, to his disappointment, couldn’t afford an entire stock for his grenade launcher—he’d only bought a few for emergencies when exploring buildings in the ruins and the like, and otherwise settled for the standard variety.

  But now he had to reload his weapon constantly, allowing the monsters to get closer.

  Alone, he would’ve had to keep firing his DVTS with one hand while reloading the launcher with the other. But now Carol was at his side, and he didn’t need to—her oversized handgun annihilated targets in one hit, buying him time.

  She was an extraordinary marksman. When the imprecise explosions from the grenades left individual machines standing, she expertly picked them off. She smugly turned to Akira.

  “I know you’re a bit preoccupied, but can’t you spare a word of praise or two for how I’m supporting you so effortlessly?”

  “Sure, but don’t forget I’m doing the lion’s share of driving them back.”

  “Oh? If you’re getting tired, I don’t mind switching.”

  “Yeah, right!”

  They grinned at each other. Neither would give in when they’d agreed to split their pay based on how well each performed, after all.

  Thus they kept slaughtering the swarm of A24s.

  The enormous piles of pulverized scraps littering the road testified that Akira and Carol had far surpassed their original goal of merely keeping the enemy at bay. And together the two of them blew all of Elena’s, Sara’s, and Shikarabe’s expectations out of the water.

  ◆

  In the lobby of one of the numerous buildings of the business district, a group of hunters was holed up. Their heads were drooping down, and their eyes looked dead.

  The hunters had barricaded all the hallways and stairs leading to the lobby with the nearby remains of mechanical monsters, as well as their own equipment, and blocked off the entrance with a totaled desert utility vehicle. The building itself was sufficiently solid to keep them safe for now. If rescue came, they’d have to remove the barricade, which would delay their escape—but they preferred that to being slaughtered now by hostile machines.

  Forty hours had already passed since they’d taken refuge here. They took turns keeping watch and sleeping, but all were nearing their limit. Their faces looked haggard and disheveled.

  A vast swarm of A24s roamed the inside of the building and the perimeter outside. Given the slightest opportunity, the machines would break through the barricades and resume their onslaught. The hunters couldn’t afford to let their guard down for even a second. They were also nearly out of ammunition, and their enemies couldn’t be taken down with close-quarters combat—so without ammo, the hunters would be powerless to fight back any incursion.

  No one left was optimistic enough to try and escape—all who had attempted it were dead. Their only option now was to hope for rescue, but they’d just about given up on that as well—while several rescue teams had already shown up, they’d all turned around and retreated once they saw the sheer number of enemies in the area. “Sorry, you’re on your own for this one,” they’d said.

  Over and over again, the surviving hunters had been overjoyed that help had finally arrived, only for their hopes to be dashed. By now, they were nearly out of the energy and will to push on.

  One of the men on guard duty mumbled to another man, who was staring at his data terminal with bleary, unfocused eyes. “Any developments?”

  There was no reply, but his companion’s head creaked from side to side ever so slightly.

  “I see.” He’d already known the answer—had it been different, the other man would have been jumping for joy. Still, he’d asked anyway, because a part of him stubbornly refused to let go of that last thread of hope.

  As time had passed, the hunters trapped in the lobby had slowly but surely been worn down to the point of exhaustion—both physically and mentally. They consisted of not just one team but several that had met up while trying to escape the ruins. And the man staring at his terminal with dead eyes was the only remaining member of his group. The rest had all been wiped out as they were setting up the barricades—one teammate, half crazed, had tried to make a break for the exit and was gunned down immediately, another had died from the severity of their wounds, and the rest had been surrounded by the enemy and massacred. He could hear their dying screams even now.

  As the last one left, he had nearly exhausted his will to live. But he wasn’t quite ready yet to resign himself to death. Still clinging to a final strand of hope, he continued to gaze unblinkingly at his terminal.

  Time wore on, with no end in sight and nothing to do. It threatened to drive him mad. In his hazy consciousness he was starting to wonder whether the world around him was actually real, a dream, or a hallucination, when his terminal suddenly came to life.

  A crooked smile came to the man’s lips. Whether this was reality or a dream, he might as well answer. Tapping with his finger, he accepted the call.

  A woman’s voice came through. “I’m the commander of a rescue team deployed on behalf of Allfine Insurance. Am I speaking to Mr. Cochranes?”

  The man was still in a daze—while the voice reached his ears, it failed to register.

  “Can you hear me? This terminal belongs to Mr. Cochranes, correct? Are you injured? Can you respond? If not, is there anyone else around you who can? We’d like an update on your situation.”

  The nearby hunter on guard duty had also heard the woman’s voice, but since the man with the terminal hadn’t responded, the guard assumed it was some sort of system notification and ignored it.

  “Hello? Can you give us some sort of response, please? Anything’s fine—we’re approaching your location, and we just need to know someone’s on the other end.” When there was nothing but silence, the voice sounded puzzled. “Could the terminal have been set to answer calls automatically?”

  Realizing now that the voice sounded too human to be coming from the terminal’s OS, the hunter on watch looked nonplussed.

  “I’m sorry, but my team and I are not going to break through a horde of monsters just to retrieve a bunch of corpses,” the voice continued. “If I don’t receive a reply, I’m going to assume everyone on the other end is already dead and head back. If your mic is broken, a text message or even gunfire will suffice—we just need a response.”

  The man holding the terminal was also finally beginning to come to his senses. But he was still quite confused and couldn’t tell whether he was merely hearing things. So he still didn’t reply.

  “No answer?” she said. “Guess that means there are no survivors, then. Seems we were too late. It’s a shame, but there’s no helping it, I suppose.”

  “Help us!” the two men cried out at last at the top of their lungs.

  Their shouts resounded throughout the lobby, rousing the spirits of the other vacant-eyed hunters. The place immediately erupted with activity.

  After all, they knew this would be their last chance.

  ◆

  Akira and the others had parked near the building where the evacuees were taking refuge. As they prepared to rush in, they received a transmission from Elena.

  “Before we begin, let’s go over the plan! We head in and get out within ten minutes! If at any point I decide the situation requires us to retreat, stop whatever you’re doing and head back to your vehicle! Is that clear?”

  Akira and everyone else answered in the affirmative.

  “Team Shikarabe, secure the evacuees as quickly as you can! Do not waste time searching for survivors! Dead or alive, load up all the ones already in the lobby!”

  “Understood,” Shikarabe replied.

  “Team Akira, back Team Shikarabe up! Keep the surrounding area clear of enemies so we can escape once everyone’s on board!”

  “Roger!” Akira said.

  “Everyone understand their role? Good! Begin—now!”

  Elena’s order resounded with authority, and every vehicle immediately charged onto the building’s grounds—even as the armored A24s switched targets from the hunters in the building to Akira and the others. The spherical tires on their legs screeched against the ground, kicking up dust as they turned toward the rescue team. When their cannons and machine guns were all trained on the armored transport in the lead, the A24s opened fire simultaneously.

  The sheer intensity of the combined gun and cannon fire tore several armored tiles off of Shikarabe’s transport. But this vehicle had survived the bounty hunts—the A24s’ assault fell far short of those and was hardly grounds for retreat. The armored transport’s mounted machine guns responded immediately. The built-in weapons all met desert utility standards and were capable of continuous rapid fire. And since the A24s were nowhere near as resilient as the bounty monsters had been, the dense hail of bullets didn’t just pierce through their armor—it crushed them beyond recognition, laying waste to their front lines.

 

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