Chapter 276: The Hunters’ Motive
Chapter 276: The Hunters’ Motive
The Hunters that gathered to hunt the 50 billion Aurum bounty target were centered around the team led by a Hunter by the name of Gelgus. They brought their own vehicles, tanks, and powered suits to form a powerful hunting party.
Among the vehicles, there was a single gigantic vehicle. It was as tall as a 2-storey building. It was large enough to house powered suit weaponry, serve as lodging and could easily be used as a mobile HQ. This vehicle had the Lion Steel’s logo adorned on it.
A large meeting room inside it was used as a command centre. A table-type display was placed in the middle of that room. At the moment, it was mostly used to oversee the situation of the ongoing battle. All information sent by the information-gathering devices of the powered suits and vehicles on the battlefield were collated and displayed here.
Gelgus looked anxiously at the display as he saw friendly signals vanishing from the map one by one.
“Dammit! One more gone!”
Their original plan was to keep their distance from Akira. They were one-sidedly bombarding from a distance. However, Akira slipped through in-between the explosions and closed the distance. He even managed to break through the encirclement. At this point, the hunting team had already lost half of its firepower.
“Tell those on the opposite side to hurry up! Order them to open fire right away! He’s a bounty target. So why are they hesitating?”
As Gelgus was filled with frustration, Takt, who was a Hunter from the same team, frowned and explained.
“They said that they can’t allow any more friendly fire.”
“When that guy got close, the information accuracy for his position should have got better too; to think they would miss even with such accurate data. Are they stupid or something?”
“I bet the target is also moving to increase the chance of friendly fire. To top it off, the ones suffering friendly fire are not from the same team. If it only ends with broken equipment, they can solve it with money. But, that’s not the case if someone gets killed.”
Gelgus knitted his eyebrows and clicked his tongue. That argument was proof of his lack of skill.
The Hunters hunting for a 50 billion Aurum bounty target were all veterans. Their resolve when they decided to join the hunting party was not the same as those of common Hunters. To some extent, they were ready to lose lives during the operation. However, Gelgus’ team prowess was way above those Hunters. This allowed his team to completely suppress the infighting between the Hunters. Even when they formed the encirclement, they could release the bombardment without the worry of friendly fire. After all, they believe Gelgus’ team could remedy any infighting if they struck their ally.
The fact that one team refused to shoot because of the worry of friendly fire showed how uneasy they were. They now believed Gelgus’ team no longer had the capability to suppress infighting. On top of that, stating it was a clear indication of their thoughts.
“Gelgus-san, what next? Should I take some of our men and surround the target?”
If Gelgus’ men went out to restrain Akira’s movement instead of shooting him down. They could then leave the bombardment to the other team. That should resolve the friendly fire problem. Even if there were sacrifices, the ones they would lose would be from their own team. Therefore, the responsibility could be directly handled by him, and there should no longer be any worry of friendly fire for the other teams.
Naturally, that in turn would increase the possibility of friendly fire for their own team. Takt already knew of the outcome when he offered to take the lead.
However, Gelgus could not send his team out for such a thing. He had a grim expression on his face as he shook his head and ordered.
“No. Order them to restart the bombardment.”
“…Alright, if you change your mind, tell me.”
“Yeah.”
Gelgus shifted his gaze once again to the display, and another blimp signal vanished. Another friendly unit was annihilated.
—*—*—*—
Akira raced his bike through the wasteland with Carol in the back. He was moving at a disorientingly high speed, where up and down no longer had any meaning.
Under the wheels was a projected forcefield armour, which formed its platform. When accelerating, making sharp turns or braking, the translucent platform would create minute glows of light. It was energy conversion from the impact. Akira turned the bike following Alpha’s instruction, blocking the enemy’s line of fire using another enemy, causing stray bullets to be more likely to hit their own team. He actively evaded and slipped in between the storm of bullets as if playing with his enemies.
The enemy tanks were proactively aiming at him. Given that they were tanks used to hunt a 50 billion Hunter, they were powerful.
Their caterpillar tracks made easy work of the uneven terrain. They even had enough horsepower to overcome obstacles like rubble and wreckage in their way. Moreover, they had a similar function to Akira’s bike. They could create a platform under their caterpillar tracks and elevate the whole tank. It could be used to angle the tanks up, to aim at the sky.
They had thick forcefield armour powered by a powerful generator installed inside their chassis, protected by armour tiles. Furthermore, they could use forcefield shields as well. Thus, protecting their weapons and ammunition like missile pods, which were prone to exploding.
The main cannon was supported by a powerful scanner, which was extremely accurate. They shared information among themselves to further increase their accuracy. The cannon itself had enough firepower to easily blow apart monsters found around Zegelt city.
Those tanks were working together to shoot Akira down. If Akira got too far, they would use their main cannons. However, if Akira got too close, he would have to face the countless mini-missiles.
Akira was fending off their assault, evading some that he could while shooting or cutting down those that he could not.
The warhead flew straight and went for his bike. It caused powerful turbulence in the air. The laser cannon released pillars of light that heated the sky. In the face of such an intense assault, Akira moved with precision, as if he could predict their trajectories while slowly closing in.
The bullets released from their machine guns spread out to create a wall of bullets instead of focusing on one point. Meanwhile, each mini-missiles launched from their missile pods drew a long parabolic arc. Each angle was unique to each missile, as they went after Akira.
Akira shot some of them down to drill a way out from that assault. As bullets clashed with another from their barrage, due to how dense the bullet wall was, they ricocheted and triggered chain reactions. It threw them off-target. Missiles were shot and detonated before they made contact, creating clouds of dust and smoke. This reduced the accuracy of the information-gathering devices, which in turn caused the other missiles to veer off their original trajectories. Akira used these clouds to hide his presence as he further closed the distance.
That was when the main cannons once again shot at him. Warheads, shells, and lasers were released at a distance, making it impossible to evade.
Akira then used his silvery blade to cut open a way forward. Using the high-capacity energy tank of the bike, the liquid metal that formed the blade part was hardened and sharpened using forcefield armour, increasing its range, and cutting power temporarily as he swung it with all his might.
As the warhead hit the silvery blade, it was cut into two and veered off its original trajectory. At the same time, laser beams also got deflected, causing all of them to miss their target. Using that opening made from that slash, Akira charged forward, toward the enemy tanks.
He kept shooting at the enemy tanks while closing in. As he passed beside one tank, he swung his blade again. The blade, made of an extreme concentration of energy, slowly disintegrated as it glowed with anti-forcefield effect applied to it. The blade pierced into the tank’s forcefield armour and sliced its body cleanly into two. It was a powerful attack designed to be only used once.
Even so, normally, it did not have enough power to cleanly slice through the tank Akira was facing. After all, it was a tank that was normally used to hunt monsters further to the east. It was a given that it was abnormally robust. Its control device even automatically adjusted the energy distribution of its forcefield armour. It was able to reactively focus its defensive forcefield to certain locations depending on the incoming attacks. This ability boosted the tank’s overall defence even further.
However, Alpha utilized that function to execute that attack. Right before Akira swung his blade, he released a barrage of bullets to different locations. This caused the forcefield armour to focus on those locations. Akira then aimed his swing precisely at the locations where its forcefield armour was weakened.
The area of weakened forcefield armour was invisible to the naked eyes. Additionally, it was only there for a split second. Furthermore, there were armoured tiles underneath which also had their own layer of forcefield armour. Even so, with an opening as small as a bullet, Akira managed to jam in his blade and swing.
With that masterful slash, the tank was sliced cleanly into two. The energy conversion of the forcefield armour released a flash of light. Even the armour tiles were not spared. A moment later, the upper portion of the tank slid off and fell over. What was left from the lower half of the tank was the remains of its passengers, with their upper half missing.
Akira did not stop there. He quickly aimed his rifle at another tank together with Carol. Akira with his LEO multi-rifles while Carol, with her mobile laser cannon. Meanwhile, the bike’s AF anti-material cannon released its shots at the same time as the other two.
To be more precise, Akira pulled the trigger a split second faster than the rest of the group. Akira’s bullets reached its target first, causing the forcefield armour of the tank to once again focus on those impact locations. This caused another part of the tank to get weakened. With Alpha’s help, the barrage was adjusted so that the weakened part was right where Carol was aiming at.
A moment later, Carol’s laser and AF anti-material cannon’s laser hit the tank. They pierced through the armour tile and forcefield armour, sending in a huge amount of raw energy into the tank, causing it to blow up.
Although they just shot down 2 tanks, they did not have the leeway to take a break. Akira immediately accelerated the bike toward their next target.
That was when Carol pushed her chest to Akira’s back and placed her face close to his face.
“Akira, if it’s only to escape the encirclement, shouldn’t this be enough? Or are we going to continue?”
In the middle of battle, Akira did not have the leeway to be bothered either by the sensation on his back or by Carol’s face. The only thing that was registered in his mind was that question.
Although they had already broken through one side of the encirclement, it still did not change the fact that they were highly outnumbered. It was not a bad decision to use this chance to escape while they still could. However, they were fighting pretty well. It could be said that they were on a roll. Thus, there was an option for them to continue this momentum and push to gain the upper hand.
As Akira was uncertain of which to choose, he then thought of something and asked Carol a question.
“Carol, do you want me to get away now while we still have the chance?”
Akira was the reason why Carol got involved in this battle. Therefore, if she wanted to escape, he was fine with it.
However, she replied with a bright smile and jovial tone.
“Hm? Nope. I was just suggesting. If you’re forcing yourself to fight because you got a bit too emotional, it might be a good idea to withdraw. But if that is not the case and you decide to fight with a calm mind, then I don’t mind continuing. I will help you go all the way until the end.”
Akira’s lips curved. He seemed happy at how Carol answered easily. Her answer implied that she did not mind staying on this deadly battlefield, where she could be killed anytime, for him. Therefore, he cheerfully replied.
“I see. In that case, help me out a bit more. I have no plans to go as far as to kill everyone here. But at the very least, I want to force them to withdraw. I’m sure some of them would conclude that this isn’t worth the danger. If we run away now, they might get motivated instead.”
“Roger that. Let’s get them to regret ever choosing to go after you.”
As they were smiling confidently at each other, Alpha suddenly interjected.
“Akira, before we do that, let’s resupply first. Your ammo and energy reserve are running low.”
“Already? Ah, but I did use them quite aggressively back there. Alright then.”
Before they approached any tanks, they always released a barrage to weaken its forcefield armour as much as possible. At the same time, the bike was continuously consuming its energy to maintain its balance while it was racing at such a high speed. It was also constantly expanding its forcefield armour with maximum hardness. Furthermore, the energy that was used to sharpen the blade as well.
It was no surprise that he was quickly going through his extended magazines and energy reserve. However, that was also only because he could not afford to be frugal in front of the opponents he was facing. If he could not get a chance to resupply, it was only a matter of time before he lost the fight.
“Carol, we’ll head back to the camping vehicle to resupply. Hold on.”
“It’s not like you’re planning to leave me behind there, right?”
Carol pouted as she said so. In reaction to that, Akira lightly smiled and joked.
“Well, if you are scared, I’m okay if you want to stay behind, though.”
“That’s not even funny.”
Once he heard her reply, Akira smiled bitterly as he exasperatedly said.
“It might be weird to hear this from me, but you’re having it rough too, huh?”
“Well, it’s not easy on me too, you know?”
While in the middle of that deadly battlefield, Akira and Carol raced through the wasteland on his bike in a good mood.
Shirou, who was driving the camping vehicle, was already outside the encirclement. He managed to do so not only because Akira attracted all their attention. It was also due to his own skills.
Although he was already outside the encirclement, it was not like he could simply run away from the premise. However, if he got too close, he would only get involved in that battle. Therefore, he was only driving around while keeping his distance from the encirclement. That was when Akira suddenly contacted him through telepathy.
“Shirou, we’re heading there to resupply, can you meet up with us?”
“Sure, but make sure to be careful. I’m not good at fighting. Incapable even. Although this camping vehicle is designed to be used out in the wasteland, it’s not well equipped enough to fight those guys. I will send the route to get here. Make sure to follow it. Also, you’re only coming here to resupply right? We are not running away? Are you sure about that?”
Personally speaking, Shirou did not want Akira to get killed. However, if he was allowed to be greedy, he hoped Akira would repel the Hunters that came after him, a 50 billion bounty target. It would show Akira’s fighting capability, which would help to accomplish his goal. Though, as someone who wants to employ Akira, if he decides to withdraw, Shirou was completely fine with that decision.
Akira replied with a rather jovial tone.
“If we run away now, they will get too confident, which will only turn into more trouble later, you know?”
“I see. Well, good luck.”
Shirou then sent Akira the route through telepathy and lightly smiled.
“So, although he’s not that good of an agent from Tsukisada Construction, he’s exceptional at fighting, huh? I guess this means I can place my hopes on him later.”
Even in this situation, judging from Akira’s reaction, it sounded like he was still not that hard-pressed. As Shirou thought as much, it seems like he still had a bit of good luck left. He cracked up a soft smile from his expectation of Akira.
While Akira was heading to meet up with the camping vehicle, the bombardment intensified. Since he was now moving away from the group, there was no fear of friendly fire anymore. Therefore, they stopped holding back and the bombardment grew even more intense.
However, Akira found something weird.
The explosive warheads from the bombardment threw dust and rubbles up into the air. The lasers coming from behind him blew wreckage and rubble that were in their way high up into the sky. As they were thrown above Akira and Carol, they started to obey gravity and fell back down. It was intense. To the point that it would be impossible for him to force his way through if it was not for the bike’s forcefield armour, that could be projected outside. That was just how intense the bombardment had become.
But unlike before, Akira did not make zig-zag movements or bother to shoot or slash the warheads. He found this rather worrying.
“Alpha. We’re not even trying to evade now, right? Did you do something?”
“I’m not doing anything, it was Shirou who picked this route, so he might be doing something.”
Akira turned his telepathy back to Shirou.
“Shirou. Is there any reason why you picked this route?”
“Yep. It’s dangerous, so make sure to keep strictly on the route I specified. I’m doing my best adjusting it.”
Gelgus’ team was using information from the whole squad to adjust the aiming of their tanks and powered suits. However, Shirou managed to hack into their information stream to send in fake information. This caused the aiming devices to register Akira’s position a bit away from his real position. Thanks to that, even in the middle of that intense bombardment, Akira did not get hit. This allowed him to just keep driving forward without any issues.
Naturally, if Shirou shifted the location data a bit more, there was no need for Akira to slip in between the explosions. However, Gelgus’ team would definitely notice that they were being hacked. By keeping the fake information feed to a bare minimum, they would simply believe that Akira was exceptional at evading their shots.
“Other than that, I’m also sending data that might cause friendly fire as well. I’m working quite hard to support you from here, you know? You better be thankful for it, yeah?”
“Sure, I owe you one.”
Akira only said so and approached the camping vehicle before jumping into it from the back door. At the same time, he pushed his time perception compression to its maximum as he finished resupplying as fast as he could.
Akira stopped his bike and reloaded new magazines and energy packs into his LEO multi-rifles. He ejected the bike’s energy tank and loaded a new one. After that, he quickly reloaded a new magazine and energy pack for his AF anti-material cannon. He did all of this at high speed. It was to the point where Carol, who was also doing the same, felt slow.
Shirou, who came to check up on them, did say something. However, due to the huge difference in their time perception, even telepathy did not work. Akira only asked Shirou to save it for later as he exchanged the liquid metal tank for his blade.
Although they were only resupplying, they were moving so fast inside the camping vehicle that it caused gusts of wind. Once they were done, they quickly jumped back on the bike and went out to continue the fight. The bike’s wheel moved in reverse as it jumped out of the back door. It made a 180-degree turn and shot into the sky. Akira then reached for his rifle and immediately started shooting at the closest enemy.
With the invigorated firepower fresh from their resupply, it was enough to blow another tank, which had been prepared to hunt a 50 billion Aurum bounty target.
That was when Shirou’s telepathy message finally reached Akira.
“Is it okay now? I found something when I was hacking through their information network. It seems like amongst them, there’s one vehicle owned by the Lion Steel company. If this hunting party is led by someone from Lion Steel, then the rest might just disband and run away if you destroy that one vehicle. I’ll leave it to you on how you want to do that. Just in case you’re interested, I’ll send you the data.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“And also, just one more thing. Did you do something to annoy those Hunters?”
“Well, I’ve been killing their friends during battle. So, it’s only to be expected that they hold a grudge against me, no?”
“So basically, you have no particular guess, huh?”
“Yes, but why are you asking me that?”
“If it’s really just to hunt a 50 billion bounty target, they should have already retreated after suffering this many losses. But since they haven’t, I simply thought that they must have some other reason other than money. If I were to guess, it should be some kind of personal grudge.”
Akira frowned after hearing that. It seems like they had another reason for gathering this many people to attack him. Although it was nothing but Shirou’s guess, Akira still could not help but find it pretty annoying.
—*—*—*—
Gelgus was extremely frustrated by the situation, which was only getting worse with time.
If they were talking about the success or failure of the hunting party, even if they managed to take Akira down later, from their current losses, they had no choice but to recognize this hunting expedition as a failure. It was even doubtful whether the bounty prize was enough to recoup the loss of the destroyed tanks and power suits. The loss of men was already irreparable.
Normally, Gelgus had the choice of retreating before the situation got this bad. If his goal was purely the bounty, he would have ordered a retreat by now. After all, the ability to decide when to retreat in order to cut off losses was an important skill for Hunters, and Gelgus did not lack such a skill.
Even so, while he understood that he had gotten too obsessed with this operation. He turned to one of the reasons why he did not call for a retreat yet.
“Hey! Didn’t you say that his 50 billion Aurum bounty was only to make an example out of him!? Just what is this!?”
Those words were directed at Pamela and Latis, who were standing not too far from Gelgus. Even in the face of the pressure from an enraged high-ranking Hunter, they were still unfazed. Pamela calmly answered his question.
“It’s not only the 50 billion Aurum bounty. We also had him recognized as a monster. As we said before, it is enough to make a lesson out of him. Or am I mistaken?”
Gelgus annoyedly grunted and asked.
“Is Lion Steel in trouble with money? Or is it that your master only has that much for her allowance?”
This time, it was Latis who answered with the same calm demeanor as Pamela.
“If there’s anything else to add, it would be because Milady is rather obsessed in this conflict with that Hunter.”
“…Yeah yeah.”
Gelgus looked obviously irritated as he clicked his tongue.
The price and the strength of a bounty target did not always match up. If it was a bounty monster, there was still a level of correlation between the bounty reward and the strength of the bounty monster. After all, the size of the reward was proportional to how fast they wanted that monster to be taken down. It became a bounty monster since it was too powerful to be defeated through normal means.
However, that was not the same when the bounty target was a human. Things like grudge and intention caused the bounty prize to vary.
Because of that, Gelgus thought that Akira’s original bounty was about 30 billion Aurum. Or at most, 35 billion Aurum. He has estimated this difference because of those human factors. After all, Akira did try to kill someone from the founder family of the Lion Steel company. Therefore, it was to be given that a huge bounty was to be placed on his head.
However, Akira’s true strength was way above what Gelgus had expected. Though, that disparity was not bad enough to drive Gelgus into a corner. Thus, he still believed that Akira was fairly stronger than a simple 30 billion Aurum human bounty target. It was not impossible to kill him if Gelgus put in some more effort. That was the reason why he did not call for a retreat.
Thus, Gelgus decided to ask that question. To confirm if Akira actually had that much bounty on him because of his true strength. It was also his way of sarcastically asking if their master was not that important to the Lion Steel company. How come she did not increase the bounty prize for that Hunter. As a result, they did not fully deny that Akira had that price tag because of his skill.
Even so, Gelgus still decided not to withdraw. He estimated that even after all the losses. Even if he was risking more to lose by continuing, there was a good chance it would be worth the trouble.
Gelgus was not only offered the bounty prize. He was also offered a connection to the Lion Steel company. It was not a simple connection to a branch office. It was a connection to the main HQ. With Lion Steel representative, Alice, scheduled to come there soon, Gelgus hypothesized that this bounty hunt had something to do with it.
As a veteran Hunter, Gelgus had at least checked what was going on behind the scenes. Since information about Alice coming to Kugamayama city was kept a secret, only known to the inner circle of Lion Steel. Gelgus managed to at least find out that someone important from Lion Steel was scheduled to visit the area. Though, he did not know who it was.
A connection to someone important to a company slightly beneath the 5 biggest companies. There was no question that it was a priceless opportunity. Therefore, Gelgus could not afford to let this opportunity slip past him.
“…Hey. Let me ask you again. Your master, Chloe, was it again? She’ll really provide me with a connection to Lion Steel HQ if this operation goes well, right?”
Pamela smiled confidently and replied.
“There’s a good chance that is indeed the case. Or at least, that’s all I can tell you. Milady has the third ward branch under her. Even this vehicle is originally from the Lion Steel Third Ward Branch. So, you at least know how much we’re invested in this.”
“…I see, alright then.”
For Gelgus’ party, it was essential to form a connection with Alice even if they had to sacrifice something. It would definitely profit the team as a whole. However, only Gelgus’ team knew about it. Which meant, that the other teams might decide to retreat from battle if the situation got worse.
With that in mind, Gelgus made his decision.
“Takt, let’s change our approach. We’ll try to stop him even if we get some of our men under friendly fire. And then, we’ll kill him with long-range bombardment. Tell the other teams to keep firing and don’t worry about hitting allies.”
“Of course. Right away.”
“No, you take your men with the bombardment team.”
Takt frowned. He thought that his team would be responsible for stopping Akira’s movement.
“Gelgus-san, then who will try to stop him? The other team would not do that fearing they’d get shot by their own allies, you know?”
“I’ll do that alone.”
Takt could not hide his surprise. After all, Gelgus was saying that he would stop them alone. The two have been doing exceptionally well fighting against their whole team.
Near the large-sized wasteland vehicle, a large red powered suit with its equally large cannon was running on autopilot. It was continuously shooting at Akira.
That powered suit then stopped shooting and approached the vehicle. It was sprinting towards the back door. Just as it was running, Gelgus exited from the top of the vehicle and jumped down without any hesitation. Without any devices to aid him, Gelgus managed to land on the powered suit and got inside. This showed just how skilled he was as a veteran Hunter.
The power suit entered the vehicle. There, Gelgus placed its large cannon back inside the vehicle and picked up a blade as its replacement. He then finished charging its energy before jumping out of the vehicle.
Inside that powered suit, Gelgus had a rather solemn expression as he spoke to himself.
“I made the decision. If we can win this, then the decision is a correct one. Zelos, just you watch.”
Zelos was the captain of Gelgus’ team. Meanwhile, Gelgus was actually the vice-captain. The current leader was still Zelos, but due to the information leak by Babalod, he had temporarily lost his influence inside the team. Therefore, if Gelgus could show worthwhile achievement, he might be able to take over Zelos’ leadership position.
Of course, at first, Gelgus had no plan to take over the leader position. However, for some reason, they ended up having opposite opinions regarding the operation to hunt Akira. It was so serious that the team was split into two – the Gelgus faction and the Zelos faction.
The 50 billion Aurum bounty prize and a connection to Lion Steel HQ were definitely extremely beneficial for the team. It was the perfect opportunity to get both money and connection. Although they both agreed on the benefits, their conversation always broke down to the risks. No matter how hard Gelgus tried to convince Zelos, the latter always shook his head. Zelos gave his evaluation of Akira when he met him as his counterargument. This caused the team to completely break into two factions.
“Zelos, we are Hunters, you know? If we don’t have the guts to bet on this, then what’s left for us is to just rot and die. It’s stupid to get scared at this point.”
He locked on Akira’s position from his radar.
“I’ll kill you and prove to Zelos that I’m right!!”
The red powered suit flew. It had a gun that could decimate monsters near Kugamayama city in just one shot. Its muzzle spewed out a huge shell that tore through the air and straight toward its target.
“Die!”
In order not to let him or his friends fall out of grace as Hunters, Gelgus decided to take a step forward. A step toward death.