ザルモはアキラとの戦いでビルの側面から吹き飛ばされた後、何とか着地して油断なく周囲を警戒していた。そして気絶していたアキラを索敵中に発見していた。
その場でアキラを殺そうとしなかったのは、体の損傷と過度な警戒の
ザルモはアキラの刀もその類いの装備だと判断していた。互いに撃ち合える状況でアキラが接近戦を仕掛けてきたからだ。その読みは正しく、義体の出力を限界まで盾に割り振っていなければ両断されていた。
結果的にアキラは、自分だけ壁を貫通できる銃を持ったザルモを壁のない場所に誘い込んだ上で、急に動きを別人のように変えて一撃で勝負を決めようとしたことになった。その経験がザルモを過剰に疑わせた。気絶して地面に倒れているアキラに疑念を持ってしまった。
気絶した振りをして油断を誘っているのではないか。情報収集機器で周囲を警戒し、相手の位置を
の出力を全開にして、辛うじて1発耐えられる。それが限界だ。2発食らえば死ぬ。エネルギーパックの残量次第では即死は免れる可能性はあるが、確実に戦闘不能になる。場合によっては1発で死ぬ。アキラはその状況で辛うじて生き延びていた。
全力を尽くしても勝機はなく、敗北までの時間を限りなく延ばすのが限界。敵が敵の事情で戦闘を止めるまで生き続けられるかどうかの戦い。その規模に差はあっても、アルファと出会う前に何度もあった戦いのように、アキラは死力を振り絞って生き延びていた。
ザルモが機体の中で顔を
この状態でも戦闘は続行できる。だがザルモは表情を一段と険しくした後に離脱を選択した。
アキラを殺しきれない状況がずるずると続いている中で、機体の状態をこれ以上悪化させたくない。再びアキラが何かを仕掛けてきた時に、機体の出力低下の
き、それで更なる疑問を覚えながら、一帯から急速に離脱した。
アキラが去っていくザルモの機体を見ながら、少し信じられないというような表情を浮かべている。
「アキラ。生きてる?」
しそうな声でそう続けた。アキラが苦笑して少しよろよろと車内に戻りながら答える。
「勝手に殺すな。それで、今はどの辺だ? もう大分戻ったか?」
「残念だけど、
アキラが素直に礼を言うと、ネリアも機嫌の良い声を返した。
「悪いがそのまま運転を頼む。俺は少し休む」
「分かったわ。ところで、大丈夫なの?」
「さあな。駄目だと言ったら何とかしてくれるのか?」
「ん? 私の行動方針を切り替えるだけよ。アキラは死んだってことにして、いろいろとね」
アキラは少し楽しげな苦笑を浮かべて休憩に入った。
弾倉とエネルギーパックを交換し、回復薬を山ほど飲み、備え付けの簡易ベッドに座る。そこでぼんやりと何となく車内を見渡し、消耗品をたっぷり詰め込んでいたはずの車内が少し広々としていることに今更気付き、その消耗度合いに顔を
車は激しく揺れている。機銃の掃射音も断続的に響いている。落ち着いた状況ではないが、それでもアキラにとっては貴重な休憩時間だ。ベッドから転げ落ちないように注意しながら、深呼吸を繰り返して心身の疲労を癒やしていく。
「アキラ。何か近付いてくるわ。やや後方。機銃の範囲外からよ。かなり速いわ」
アキラも車載の索敵機器と連動している情報収集機器からの情報でその反応に気付いていた。後部の扉を開けて慎重に様子を
き飛ばす。受け止める。敵かどうかも分からない相手に浮かんだ選択肢に対して、反射的に動けなかった時点で手遅れだった。少女達はそのまま車内に到達し、固定の緩い弾薬等を派手に飛び散らせて転がった。
アキラが反射的に少女達に銃を向ける。だがすぐに少女達の状態に気付いてその無意味さを理解する。片方は首が折れており、もう片方は胸に大穴が開いていた。
「死体!? どうなってるんだ!?」
だが一瞬遅かった。アキラは濃密な体感時間の中で強引に回避行動を取る。それで辛うじて屋根にいた男の跳び蹴りを回避した。その蹴りは地面に大穴を
「待たせたな! 殺しに来たぞ! お前も、あいつもだ!」
そこでアキラはティオルの格好が今の自分と非常に似通っていることに
「あいつって誰だ!」
アキラのその問いに答えるように更なる反応が現れる。新たな車両が後方から急接近していた。乗車しながら攻撃しやすいように屋根の一部が開閉可能な車種で、大きく開けられた部分からカツヤが身を乗り出していた。
ティオルがアキラに投げ付けたのはカツヤの仲間達だった。カツヤの部隊を襲い、殺し、致命傷を負った者を
爆炎の中からアキラとティオルが飛び出してくる。アキラは爆発の衝撃を防御コートで防いだおかげで体に支障はない。そしてティオルはモンスター並みに頑丈な肉体の生命力で問題なく生き延びた。
アキラ達はそのまま前方に走り続けながら互いに相手に銃を向けた。申し合わせたように同時に乱射し、同じく回避行動を取る。人間離れした身体能力で左右に飛びながら、襲い来る弾丸から逃れようと素早く駆けながら、相手へ足止めを狙って乱射を続ける。先に足を止めた者が、相手とカツヤに挟まれて大幅に不利になるのは分かりきっている。どちらも多少の被弾を覚悟して、弾丸の回避よりも移動速度を優先させていた。
(緑色の血......、まさか......!?)
アキラの脳裏には巨人との戦闘が浮かんでいた。ティオルはアキラの視線の先で、そうだと言わんばかりに
(あの巨人はお前だったってのか!? 殺せていなかったのか? 生き返ったのか? そうかよ! なら、何度でも殺してやる!)
(そうだよ! 俺だよ! 今度は俺が勝つ! 殺してやる!)
い勢いで走ってくる。ネリアが戻ってきたのだ。通信機越しに声が響く。
ネリアも状況の把握など出来ていない。だが悠長に速度を落としたり
「ありがとう御座います」
「どう致しまして。今のところは味方だからね。まあ、これぐらいはね」
こうとする。そこにネリアの警告が飛ぶ。
アキラは即座に迎撃行動を取ろうとしたが間に合わず、屋根の上でその場から飛び
「誤解されているのは分かってるけど、一応言っておくと、俺はそいつの仲間じゃない」
「信じられるか!」
「じゃあ、こうしよう。そいつを殺すまで一時的に手を組まないか? 俺と殺し合うのはその後にしよう」
「ふざけるな! お前と手なんか組むか!」
駄目で元々、多分無理、そう分かっていたが、やはり断られたことにアキラの嫌気が増した。すると今度はティオルが口を出す。
「じゃあアキラ。俺と組まないか?」
After Zalmo was blown away in his last exchange with Akira, he somehow landed safely and immediately scanned his surroundings. He was able to find the unconscious Akira from just a quick search.
The reason why he did not finish Akira off there and then, was simply because he was being extremely careful of the damage done to his body. Zalmo basically had lost one of his arms. The other parts of his body were also heavily damaged. Although he still could fight in that state, he could no longer fight the way he did before.
Zalmo thought that Akira's blade was also like that, after all, he decided to challenge Zalmo in melee range combat when they were stuck in an evenly matched battle. And Zalmo was right. If he had not used all of the energy within him, he would not have been able to defend himself against that attack.
In the end, Zalmo saw that against him, who had a rifle that could pierce through walls, Akira made a simple decision. To lure him to an open space without any walls. Akira's sudden change in movement made him seem like a completely different person. That experience caused Zalmo to become overly cautious, he was suspicious of whether Akira was actually conscious or not.
It could be a scheme to lure him closer. Zalmo, who would be checking his surroundings with his information terminal before carefully approaching Akira, might get jumped on. Zalmo could easily foresee Akira suddenly springing up, taking out a concealed melee weapon to finish him after he got close enough. Otherwise, it was to lure Zalmo close enough, to ascertain Zalmo's position and rifle's condition before shooting.
While the APC was able to survive thanks to its resilient armour plating, that was not the case for Akira. Even if he increased the forcefield armour output of his coat to its maximum, he could only take 1 shot at most, the second shot would definitely kill him. Although depending on how much energy he had left, he might still be able to avoid instant death. Nonetheless, there was no question that it would render him unfit to continue the fight. There was also a chance the first shot might even kill him outright. Akira was desperately trying to survive this battlefield under such harsh conditions.
He understood that he had no chance of winning, the most he could do there was to delay his imminent defeat. His only chance of survival was to keep delaying until his opponent faced the same issue. Forcing Zalmo to stop. Although the scale was completely different, Akira was no stranger to such fights, he had done it numerous times before he had met Alpha. Thus, Akira just kept on squeezing every last drop of strength he had to stay alive.
In the middle of that exchange, Zalmo had a grim expression on his face, hidden inside the augmented suit.
Zalmo could still continue fighting in this state, but for some reason, Zalmo's expression turned grimmer as he decided to bail out from the battle.
Zalmo thought that it was a bad idea to maintain this stalemate with little hope of immediately killing Akira. It would be horrendous if the powered suit no longer had enough remaining energy to expand its forcefield armour to the max the moment Akira launched a counter-attack. Furthermore, if he withdrew now, he could refill his energy packs as well as get anti-personnel weapons, which would give him a better chance of killing Akira. Once came to that conclusion, he decided to retreat.
Zalmo voiced out his thoughts as he left the battlefield, but that only led him to more questions.
Akira's gaze followed the retreating Zalmo as he had a rather surprised look on his face.
"Akira, are you still alive?"
The first half of Nelia's reply contained a surprise in its tone, while the latter half was more of amusement. Akira smiled wryly and dragged himself back inside the APC.
"Don't just assume I'm dead like that. So then, where are we right now? Are we already close to the forward base?"
"Unfortunately, we're even further than before."
As Akira just honestly thanked her, Nelia replied with a jovial voice.
"Sorry, but can you keep driving for the time being? I need to take a rest."
"Sure, by the way, are you alright?"
"No idea. If I say no, are you going to help me?"
"Hm? I just need to adjust my plan like including the case if you get killed."
Akira smiled wryly as he relaxed.
Akira started by reloading and replacing his energy packs. He then took a good amount of medicine before sitting on the collapsible bed. His mind has been dulled since he had relaxed after such an intense fight. He looked around the inside of the APC, all the supplies that were once there had significantly reduced and it was easy to see just how discouraged Akira was from his expression.
The vehicle was shaking violently. Sounds of explosions could be heard outside. It was far from peaceful, but even so, it was precious resting time for Akira. He controlled his breathing to help him recover while making sure that he would not get thrown off from the bed.
"Akira, something is approaching us from behind. It is outside the shooting range of the machine gun and it's pretty fast."
Akira already noticed that signal from the APC's sensor that was connected to his information terminal. He opened the back door and carefully checked the direction of the signal. The moment he did that, he could not hide his surprise. The signal came from 2 young female Hunters who were being thrown right into Akira's APC.
Akira was judging what to do there, whether to shoot them down, deflect them away, or receive them. In the first place, he had no idea if they were friends or foes. While he was at loss on what to do, he was already too late. The two girls went past him right into the APC and crashed into the supply boxes.
Akira pulled out his rifles and aimed at them by pure reflex. But at the next moment, he realized the state of those two girls. He understood that it was useless to shoot them. One of the girls had her neck torn off while the other one had a large hole in her torso.
"Corpses?! What the hell is going on here?!"
But the next second, Akira compressed his time perception and jumped out of the way since the guy had jumped off the APC and swung down a powerful kick aimed at him. The kick landed on the ground. But, Akira avoided it. The huge force from the kick was taken in by the ground, creating a huge crack.
"Sorry for the wait! I'm here to kill you now!! Both you and that guy!!"
Akira then noticed that Tiol's equipments were eerily similar to his. They were so similar that it was impossible to differentiate between them from afar.
"That guy? Who?"
The answer to that question quickly presented itself after that. Another vehicle appeared from behind. The upper part of the vehicle could be opened to make it easier for its passengers to fight, and the person peeking out from that vehicle was Katsuya.
The dead girls that Tiol threw into Akira's APC were from Katsuya's team. He went to attack Katsuya's team, killed some of them, grabbed the badly wounded, and then went to look for Akira while maintaining his distance from Katsuya. He made sure that Katsuya would not lose sight of him. After finding Akira, Tiol then threw the badly wounded Hunters to Akira.
Akira and Tiol jumped out of the explosions, Akira was unharmed thanks to his coat while Tiol was able to quickly regenerate thanks to his abnormal vitality as a monster.
Akira and Tiol also exchanged shots while running side by side. They released their rounds at the same time and then jumped out of its way at the same time. It was as if they had prearranged their engagement beforehand. They blazed left and right through the ruin using their enhanced physical strength to evade their opponent's bullets as well as the raining grenades. All of this was done as they kept releasing shots at each other, aiming to stop the other in their tracks. Both sides knew that the first person who stopped would be hit by the grenades and would be rendered unable to fight. So they were willing to take some hits and focused more on speed instead of evading the bullets.
[Green blood... No way, can it be that...?]
Akira remembered the massive humanoid monsters that he had fought in the past. As if he knew what Akira was thinking, Tiol laughed at him.
"So that monster was you, huh!? Didn't I kill you back then? How the heck did you return back from death? I see now! In that case, I can just kill you again and again until you're dead!"
"That's right!! That was me!! But this time, I will be the one who wins!! You'll be the one dead!!"
That was when a vehicle suddenly went in and charged at them. Nelia's voice could be heard from the communication device.
Nelia did not understand what was going on. But she understood that she could not afford to slow down nor to stop. She accelerated the APC forward as if to run over anything and anyone that got in its way.
"Thank you very much!"
"You're welcome. We're allies for now after all. So I would at least do that much for you"
Akira smiled wryly and just spat out that reply. That was when Nelia warned him.
Akira quickly aimed his rifles up but he did not make it in time, so he instead jumped out of the way. Right at the next moment. Those two signals landed simultaneously above the APC. The shock from Katsuya and Tiol landing on top of the APC shook it and caused the armour tiles where they landed to bend.
"I know that you're misunderstanding this, but I'll at least try to let you know that I'm not that guy's friend!!"
"Like hell I would believe that!!"
"Then let's do this instead, how about we work together until we get to kill that guy? We can try to kill each other after that."
"You gotta be crazy to think that I would work with you!"
Akira did that knowing that it was highly unlikely for Katsuya to accept his offer, but even so, getting rejected still made him knit his eyebrows. That was when Tiol then mocked.
"In that case, Akira, how about you work with me instead?"
Rebuild World (WN)
リビルドワールド
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/rebuild-world/
Action Adventure Drama Harem Mecha Mystery Sci-fi Seinen
Abandoned Children Adapted to Manga Adventurers Alternate World Anti-social Protagonist Apocalypse Artificial Intelligence Beautiful Female Lead Cautious Protagonist Child Protagonist Dense Protagonist Determined Protagonist Distrustful Protagonist Futuristic Setting Gangs Gunfighters Harsh Training Lack of Common Sense Male Protagonist Manipulative Characters Monsters Near-Death Experience Older Love Interests Poor Protagonist Poor to Rich Ruthless Protagonist Shota Sudden Strength Gain Survival Twisted Personality Unlucky Protagonist Weak to Strong
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n9736dt/
非公開