アキラが次の攻撃目標を目指して輸送車両の側面をバイクで駆けている。砲台などが設置されている屋根より側面の方が進行を妨げるものが少なく、邪魔が入らなければ屋根より加速できる。
だがそこに邪魔が入る。荒野のモンスターからの砲撃だ。巧みな運転で砲撃を回避しながら、砲撃元にLEO複合銃による弾幕を浴びせて撃破する。
重力の方向を90度ほど勘違いしているような側面走行での銃撃も、バイクを含めた装備の性能とアルファのサポート、そしてアキラ自身の慣れと成長のおかげで苦も無く行えている。昆虫型の大型自律多脚移動砲台と、自律多脚移動砲台を模した大型昆虫が、金属装甲と生体装甲を無数の銃弾に貫かれ、内臓と基幹部品を破壊されて荒野に横たわる。
近くのモンスターを倒しても、進んだ先には別の群れがいて切りが無い。アキラが険しい表情をげんなりさせる。
『多いぞ! 先頭車両に配置されていた部隊も応戦してるのに、何でこんなに大変なんだ!? あの虫の群れをあっさり倒したやつらなら楽勝だろう!?』
『その部隊は白い大型機の撃破に手一杯で、そこらのモンスターまで相手に出来る状態ではないのよ』
『あの白い機体なら、俺でも何機か倒せた程度の強さだろう? あの島が飛んでるみたいなデカい虫を倒せる連中が、そこまで苦戦する相手か?』
『全ての機体が同一の性能でも、同一の損傷状態でもないのよ。アキラが倒した相手は屋根に貼り付いていた機体でしょう? あれは恐らく破損かエネルギー残量の
に、極限の集中で世界を体感的に静止させる。AF対物砲と連動する情報収集機器による照準計算が終わる前に、アルファが更に精密な演算を済ませて、アキラの照準を補正する。その正確無比の照準で効果範囲を点に絞り、追加エネルギーで更に高密度になった光線が、引き金を引くアキラの指を契機にして荒野を貫いた。
射線にいたモンスター。白い機体を包む展開式
『アルファ。あと何機だ?』
『22機よ』
『だから多いって! まだそんなにいるのか!?』
『付け加えると、低性能でダメージの
更に嘆くアキラに向けて、アルファは余裕のある楽しげな笑顔を向けていた。
実際に、状況は輸送車両側の有利に傾いていた。車体の出力を
白い機体達の全滅は時間の問題だ。大型機達の目的が輸送車両の襲撃であるならば、既に失敗している。だが白い機体は撤退の気配など全く見せずに、愚直に戦い続けていた。
続く乱戦の中、アキラが再び別の白い大型機と交戦している。車両の屋根に貼り付くように立っている機体の周囲を、大きく弧を描くように周りながら銃撃し続けている。
両手とバイクの汎用アームで4
その強固な接地面を活用し、敵の銃撃を鋭角の切り返しで回避し続ける。実在しない面にブレーキ痕を残すたびに、強烈な慣性がアキラの身体に襲いかかる。その負荷をバイクの乗員保護機能、強化服、事前に服用した回復薬で乗り越えながら、敵の死角に回り続ける。
人型兵器用の巨大な銃から発射された銃弾を避け、別の銃から撃ち出された金属を融解させる光線を避け、それらとは威力に差がありすぎる個人兵装の銃弾を撃ち続けていく。そして4
『硬すぎるだろう......。俺の銃撃だけじゃなくて、黒い円盤の直撃も途中で何度か受けてるんだぞ? アルファ。もうあれは先頭車両の部隊に任せないか? ちょっと手に負えないって』
『敵の攻撃自体は大したことないから、多少硬くともじっくり戦えば、アキラも無理をしないで済むと思ったのだけれど』
『いやいやいや、回復薬常用での戦闘は十分無理をやってる
『そう? まあ、アキラがそう言うのなら、別の目標に変えましょうか』
アルファが笑ってそう撤退を告げると、アキラも嫌そうに
その時、天井からの光線が大型機に直撃した。強烈な衝撃変換光が辺りを照らす。輸送車両と大気の揺れを感じながら、アキラが思わずバイクを止めて振り返る。
予想外の光景に、アキラの表情に
アキラが強烈な慣性とアルファの突然の行動に驚きながらも、反射的に体感時間の操作を実行する。
『アルファ!? 何の
だ!?』
『アキラ! 予定変更! すぐにあれを破壊するわ!』
そう聞き返しながらも、アキラは既に意識と体勢を交戦再開に切り替え終えている。理由を聞き、その内容に納得してからでは遅いと身に染みている。既に両手のLEO複合銃の照準を、拡張視界で指示された左右別々の目標に合わせていた。
『あの機体が、あの光線に耐えたからよ』
『上のモンスターは、光線の威力を目標の撃破に合わせて調整しているはずよ。倒せなければ、次は威力を上げるわ。モンスターの規模から判断して、かなり上空から降りてきた個体のはず。その上空領域の基準で光線の威力を細かく引き上げたとしても、その調整幅は地上付近の感覚ではかなりのものになるわ。加えて撃破目標が一見無傷なら、それを基準にして次の威力を大幅に引き上げる危険性が高いわ』
『次は桁違いの威力になるってことか? それなら
『アキラ。その桁違いの威力が、輸送車両の車列を一撃で丸ごと吹き飛ばすものだったとしたら? 次の光線発射が10秒後だったとしたら? 逃げて間に合うと思う?』
予想外の返事に驚くアキラに、アルファがその根拠等を説明する。
だからこそ、自分達でその目標を速やかに撃破することで、そこまでする必要はないと教えなければならない。既に次の発射準備を始めているであろう上空領域のモンスターが、その一撃を放つ前に。
その説明を聞いたアキラが焦りを覚える。
『......アルファ。それ、考えすぎってことは、ないのか?』
『状況に対して悲観的な判断をしているのは確かよ。
のLEO複合銃から威力を調整した弾丸が周囲に撃ち出される。狙っているのは大型機ではない。輸送車両周辺を飛んでいる黒い円盤機達だ。その威力と射線はアルファの厳密な演算により、着弾しても相手を破壊せず、しかし微妙な損傷や移動の妨害などから、相手の攻撃優先順位を著しく引き上げるように調整されていた。
被弾した無数の円盤機が攻撃対象をアキラに切り替えて殺到する。十数機の円盤が外周部の刃で大気を切り裂きながら、直線上にいるモンスターの群れや無人機をついでに両断しながら、アキラ達のいる輸送車両の屋根を目指す。その内の数機は自身により近い位置にいて本来の攻撃目標である白い大型機に優先順位を再度切り替えた。だが残りはそのままアキラに殺到した。
体感時間を圧縮して意識上の現実の時の流れを緩やかなものに変えながら、アキラは情報収集機器を介して周辺の状況を知覚していた。円盤機の数、位置、速度、角度を知り、既に逃げ場も無く囲まれており、このままだと刻まれて死ぬと理解する。だがその程度で
それでもアキラはそのまま大型機に直進した。そして限界まで近付くと、反転するように大きく回転したバイクの動きに合わせて強化服の出力を限界まで上げ、巨大な刃を勢い良く横に振るった。
アルファのサポートにより、巨大な刃は神懸かり的な精度の斬撃を実現していた。転倒直前の車体から、屋上の床とほぼ平行に、目標を一瞬で両断した。正確には、切り離した。
アキラが狙ったのは大型機そのものではなく、大型機と輸送車両の接地面だ。そこを刃が通過することで、輸送車両と一体化していた大型機の
アキラは反転と同時にその場から全力で離脱しようとする。それを大型機を刻み終えた円盤機達が追いかけようとする。だが次の瞬間、アキラも円盤機達も突如発生した爆風に吹き飛ばされた。
アキラはアルファのおかげで無事だった。バイクごと吹き飛ばされはしたが、本来は風よけ程度の意味しかない展開式の
アルファも少し苦笑いを浮かべている。
『そうよ。やっぱりアキラは運が悪いみたいね。私のサポートで補える
『一段落したわね。アキラ。上を見て』
アキラが見ると、頭上を覆っていた天井が再び雲の中にゆっくりと消えていく途中だった。更に車列の周辺を飛んでいた黒い円盤機が機能を停止して落下していく。
『戻っていく......。白い大型機を全部倒し終えたから、なのか? それに何で黒い円盤が落下してるんだ?』
『使い捨て、なのか? あれが、全部? あんなに強いのに?』
アキラが大きく息を吐く。
『東部の空の全域にあんなのが浮かんでいる訳でもないわ。あの白い機体達が、相当な高度か、かなり東側の空から釣ってきたモンスターのはずよ』
みを見て、アキラも気を抜いて息を吐く。
「......疲れた。ヒカル。外の騒ぎは終わったぞ。車内に戻って良いか警備側に確認を取ってくれ。......ヒカル?」
ヒカルからの返答は無い。アキラが
が通常の出力に戻ったけれど、ヒカルとの通信が回復しないわ』
アキラが疲れから嫌そうな顔で対処を催促すると、アルファが
Akira rode his bike on the wall of the transport vehicle while approaching his next target. He chose to do so since unlike on the rooftop, the walls of the vehicle had no large cannons. With nothing in the way, he could pace his bike even faster.
But there was something that blocked his way. It was a cannon warhead from one of the monsters. He nimbly evaded it and shot back toward the monster with his dual LEO multi-rifle.
He was shooting horizontally as if the gravity was working at a 90-degree angle just for him. He was able to accomplish it skilfully thanks to the quality of the bike, Alpha's support, and his own skill. It also helped that he became very familiar with that technique. The barrage flew toward the large multi-legged insects and the walking cannons with multiple legs. They pierced through both the metallic armour and biological carapace to destroy the internal organs of those monsters.
Even after killing those monsters, the swarm behind them would just take their place right away. Akira frowned after noticing what was going on.
"There's just no end to them!! Why are there so many of them when the others are also in the front line, fighting them!? I bet those guys that easily fought off that huge bug swarm are taking it easy right now!!"
"Well, those guys are focused on fighting off those white powered suits. So, they don't have the leeway to fend off the monsters."
"But those white powered suits are not that strong, even I was able to shoot a couple of them down, no? Those guys had no problem against that huge horde of gigantic flying bugs, you know? Are they really having that much trouble?"
"Not all of them are the same. It's not like they are equally damaged. The ones that you destroyed are those that were sticking on the transport vehicles, right? They probably did that because they couldn't fly on their own to catch up with the convoy with the energy reserve that they had left."
Akira was aiming at the irregularly moving target from a fast-moving bike. In order to accomplish such a feat, he increased his focus to its utmost limit to the point that the world seemed to be close to a standstill from his point of view. To top it off, Alpha helped the aiming algorithm of the cannon even before it could finish its calculation and added that information in Akira's vision. As Akira pulled the trigger, the cannon shot out a highly focused ray of light with staggering accuracy. This shot was focused more on a high intensity instead of spread.
The cannon drew a strand of intense light through multiple things. Monsters, the force field armour of the white powered suit and its control device. None of them stopped it as it flew straight into the wasteland.
"Alpha, how many more?"
"Twenty-two."
"Good grief, there are still that many of them?!"
"If I may add something, those that were badly damaged have already been destroyed, so only those that were relatively intact are still up."
Alpha was smiling mischievously toward Akira, who was even more worried than before.
In reality, the situation was favourable to the convoy's side. Thanks to the energy allocation, which was mostly focused on their force field armour. The transport vehicles were well defended. Meanwhile, the escort team was working hard. Likewise, the pillars of light from the sky were actively hunting down white powered suits, whittling down their number.
It was only a matter of time before the rest of the white powered suits got shot down. If their original aim was to attack the transport convoy, they have already failed. Nonetheless, there was no sign of them retreating.
In the middle of the chaos, Akira was fighting another white powered suit. It was standing on top of one of the transport vehicles as it swung around its claw.
Akira charged the C bullets in all of his 4 LEO multi-rifles, two on his hands while the other two were on the extended arms of the bike. He pumped the bullets full of energy to raise their firepower to their limit before releasing them toward the white powered suit. Flashes of blinding light shot out as if it was a firework.
Akira kept evading the incoming attacks using those invisible platforms. Every time he made a quick turn, inertia assaulted his body. He was fighting that back with the bike's safety feature, his augmented suit, and the medicine that he took beforehand. He kept making sharp turns to stay on white powered suit's blind spot.
Akira evaded the huge bullets coming from the white powered suit's rifle as well as the hot rays shot out from other places. He evaded while shooting back at it with relatively small bullets compared to what was speeding towards him. Eventually, he emptied the magazine of his 4 LEO rifles, and even after that, it was not enough to destroy the opponent.
"That thing is just too tough... It's not only taking bullets from me but also taking damage from the black discs, right? Alpha, can't we just leave them to the vanguards? They're too much for me to handle, you know?"
"They're not that dangerous, so to be honest, even if they can take on that much damage, we can just take our time shooting them down one by one."
"No no no. The fact that I'm only maintaining this with medicine already says that this isn't good."
"Is that so? Well, if you say so, let's change our target then."
Alpha smiled and yielded to Akira's wish. His stern face relaxed for a bit. They then drove away from that battle just like that.
At that time, a huge pillar of light engulfed the battlefield. The light blinded everything in the area. The convoy could feel the heatwave coming from that beam. Akira, who also noticed that, stopped the bike and looked behind.
The unexpected turn of events shocked Akira. Although the white pillar of light was able to evaporate all the white powered suits that it devoured, that was not the case this time. The white powered suits looked completely unharmed.
Akira was so surprised by what Alpha did there and activated his time perception compression by pure reflex.
"Alpha!? What are you doing!?"
"What? Why!?"
"Akira, we have a change of plans! We need to destroy that as soon as possible!!"
Although he said that, Akira's mind and body were already in full battle-mode. He already knew that it would be too late to do that if he waited for Alpha to tell him the reason before acting. The dual LEO multi-rifles on his hands were aimed toward the different target indicators in his augmented visual.
"To simply put it, it's because that thing survived that beam of light."
"The objective of the monster up there is to destroy that powered suit. So, if it knows that its earlier attack was not enough, I'm sure it will increase its firepower the next time. Judging from its size, that monster must have originated from somewhere up really high. Even a small increase in firepower by the standard of the monsters living high up there means a huge increase by our standard here, you see. Furthermore, its target doesn't seem damaged at all, so I'm sure that it won't just attack with a small increase."
"So, basically, the next shot will be way more powerful, huh? In that case, wouldn't it be better if we get away so that we won't get hit as well?"
"Akira, what if the next shot is big enough to take out the whole convoy? And what if it only takes 10 seconds to recharge its next shot? Do you think you'll be able to get away from that?"
Akira seemed to be doubtful of that, so Alpha explained to him the reason for her guess.
"That is why it is better to destroy its target first to let it know that there is no need to go that far before it can release its next attack. It might very well be already charging at this very moment."
After hearing that explanation, Akira tensed up.
"...Alpha, what's the chance that it's just you overthinking this?"
"It's true that it might be a rather pessimistic guess in this situation, and you might not even need to do that at all. But do you think that you're that lucky to not need to do anything and leave it up to fate?"
Ever since he heard the reason why he was going to fight instead of run, he already had his mind working on what would be his next move. He used all the charged bullets of his 4 LEO multi-rifles to release a barrage of bullets. However, he was not aiming at the powered suit. It was the black discs flying around the powered suit. Due to the fine adjustment from Alpha, they were not enough to destroy their targets, but at least they were enough to disrupt their mobility. It was an attack just to bait the discs' attention.
The discs reacted accordingly and immediately went for Akira. A couple of dozens of flying discs with sharp blades poking out from their chassis ripped through everything in their way, including the monsters as well as the unmanned powered suits. Although some of them changed targets to the other white powered suits closer to them, the rest were still going for Akira.
Akira increases the intensity of his time perception compression. Everything around him immediately slowed down and proceeded in slow motion. In the middle of that, Akira looked at his radar, confirmed the direction, position, and movement of all the black discs. Although he knew he had nowhere to run and only death was awaiting him, he did not show a single ounce of fear.
But even so, Akira still went and charged at it. After he got as close as possible, he made a sharp U-turn with his bike, and at the same time, he increased his augmented suit output to the max and swung his blade.
With the help of Alpha's support, the blade was swung with utmost precision. It went almost perfectly parallel with the transport vehicle's rooftop and cleanly sliced its target, or more like, released its contact point.
Akira's main aim was not the powered suit, but the contact point between it and the transport vehicle. By passing his blade in between them, Akira got the powered suit off the transport vehicle and prevented it from leeching the forcefield armour of the transport vehicle, thus weakening the powered suit's forcefield armour. The moment the powered suit was off the transport vehicle, it was immediately ripped to pieces by the black discs.
After making that U-turn, Akira quickly accelerated away from that place. The black discs that just destroyed the white powered suits tried to chase for him as well. But in the next moment, both the black discs and Akira were blown away by an explosion.
Thanks to Alpha's help, Akira was fine. Although the explosion did throw his bike into the sky, Alpha increased the projected force field armour that was originally only for protecting Akira from wind past its limit to protect Akira from the explosion. Akira then landed safely on top of the transport vehicle.
Alpha smiled bitterly.
"Yep, as I thought, your luck is as bad as ever. I'm glad that my support is still enough to handle it."
"It seems that it's finally over. Akira, look up."
Akira looked up and saw the flying monster return back to above the cloud and slowly vanish from his views. While the black discs that were surrounding the convoy suddenly stopped and just fell to the ground.
"It's retreating... Is it because we destroyed all the white powered suits? And, why did all the black discs suddenly just stop moving ?"
"They're expendable? All of them? Though they are that strong?"
Akira heaved a huge sigh.
"But it's not like they roam over every inch of the sky above the eastern district, you know? Those white powered suits might be just that strong or they brought that monster here from further to the east."
Seeing Alpha smile at him to appreciate his hard work, Akira finally lowered his shoulder and sighed in relief.
"...Man, I'm beat. Hikaru. The battle is over now. Can I return back to the transport vehicle and check on my equipment?... Hikaru?"
There was no answer from Hikaru. Akira found that weird. But Alpha then told him that the strengthened forcefield armour of the transport vehicle also jammed his communication. Since he needed Hikaru to open the gate so that he could return back inside the transport vehicle, he had no other choice but to take a break there.
"This is strange, the forcefield armour already returned back to normal, but I can't still reach Hikaru."
Akira asked so with a tired look, Alpha smiled teasingly and replied.
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