Chapter 107 – Masquerade Party (21)

Pa-p-p-p-p-t!

“Hah, hagh! Damn, my stomach’s… killing me!”

No matter how he thought about it, GG was an educational game that helped with the Wasteland life.

‘I started to be able to separate pain and the ability to move at some point!’

Going through a gameplay of content that could basically be called torture, Gyosu reached the point where he was somewhat immune to pain in reality as well.

“Damn it! I got used to the pain! That’s weird! And our caravan’s name is BDSM too! It feels like it oddly fits…!”

The place where Gyosu arrived after all that running was the Investigation Bureau’s garage, which he came out of not long ago.

The inside of the garage was completely different from when they left it, with only the red emergency lights blinking to illuminate a small outline of the dark space.

‘I don’t have time. Exosuits that don’t have support from the city die on their own with just a bit of pressure.’

A normal Exosuit’s activation limit was around 35 to 40 minutes. 15 if they were in combat mode with shields on at max output. And it would be about right to say that each shot from the tanks would cut down on 40 seconds of that time.

‘The Raptors are the ones that planned this, so they probably have the next step planned out. It won’t be easy to use the Exosuits.’

Ian. And Vex.

He can’t count how many times he sighed while he traced his way through the building based on the short scan of the place he did on their way to the Investigation Bureau’s armory.

‘If he was lucky, he would have been able to sneak into enemy formation while they were busy with the Exosuits. He should have had enough firepower to get through the thinner side of the defense. But what next? What was he thinking of doing all alone inside there?’

He did momentarily think of stopping Ian when he started running out. But just before the words stopped coming out of his mouth, the image of Vex alone and isolated inside made his throat block up.

’…Let’s trust them. They’re not normal enough to die anyway. Let’s assume that they survive and do my job.’

He left the IB’s building, then ran through the dead, silent streets of the Dome. The people living in the Dome didn’t run around in panic or try to run away when a commotion happened outside. They merely shut themselves inside their houses and prayed the moment would pass. Like good livestock, tamed and grown through peace.

As his eyes started to get used to the darkness, Gyosu analyzed and organized his surrounding situation.

‘Cracked flagstones, broken streetlights. That should be normal if an Exosuit squad ran past here. That direction… is the Underdome. Mister Ralph told them to protect the generator, so they probably headed straight to the Underdome. The only building with the lights on over there must be the Administrative Branch building.’

The Administrative Branch was in charge of various things, such as the Dome’s budget, residential matters, and the law, but the most important field they were in charge of was ‘research’. So the Administrative Branch building was made to be completely isolated from the outside situation with its own defense system in case of an emergency in order to protect the research materials inside. If necessary, that would at least buy time to destroy everything inside.

‘Of course, they could always turn it off themselves and come out, but seeing that it’s on, they probably got scared and decided to stay inside.’

Or, they had something in there that they couldn’t hand over to the Raptors even after the Dome was gone. Since there were two other Dome cities other than here.

As he followed the trail, the level of destruction on the streets steadily increased. The buildings had holes drilled through them like Swiss cheese. Those were from the pulse rifles. Buildings also had traces of severe damage from what looked like wrecking balls. Those were also probably because of the Exosuits.

Of course, there were also several bodies strewn between the debris and buildings. The corpses that were not wearing military uniforms but casual clothing like normal citizens had wounds that even Gyosu, who was used to seeing corpses, had a hard time looking at.

And, beyond the iron gate that seemed to have been melted down by a large welder, was the path down to the Underdome.

With three Exosuit units collapsed in front of it.

‘Any survivors…guess not…’

Gyosu approached a corpse inside the suit and placed a finger against their neck. It was still warm. That meant it hadn’t been long since they died. Wait, but more importantly…

‘The body’s too clean.’

Back when he worked at the Dome, he once heard that you didn’t need a coffin for someone who died in an Exosuit. That’s because the only thing that could break through that stupidly strong shield were anti-tank class large caliber bullets, but there wouldn’t be a corpse left to put in the coffin if they were hit with something like that.

But the corpses of the three Investigation Bureau members in front of him were relatively clean.

‘It means they didn’t use large caliber bullets…’

Something felt off. The entire street displayed the battle of the Investigation Bureau. Corpses burned to char, piles of trash, broken glass…!

Click!

In that moment, at the same time Gyosu pulled out his gun, the trash pile right behind him shot up and started to swing something at his body.

Bang!

“Eurghh—”

“You scared me! Wait, why does he have a knife when he’s dealing with Exosuit…?”

Shplt!

The corpse’s head exploded. To be exact, the head was at the exact same height as his heart. If he hadn’t raised up the body to check its possessions, then the bullet would have hit its original target.

“Are these guys crazy? A knife, and now a sniper?”

Blocking the next wave of bullets with the man’s body, he threw himself through a hole in one of the collapsed building’s walls. First, he’ll hide, then check the enemy’s location—

Rustle!

‘Again?!’

This time, a hand popped out of a mound of rocks. As a smile spread across the face covered in gray dust, he could see the enemy’s white teeth.

‘I’m too late. He was faster than me!’

The movement of the man pulling the trigger played in slow motion. Is this that thing in the movies where their life flashes before their eyes? Ah, I’m not even going to go close to a rock mound in my next—

Poww!

Just then. Faster than both Gyosu and the killer, Gyosu’s left arm landed a punch square in the hidden man’s chin.

[Mmph… what’s all this ruckus? I just woke up…Is it not over ye—]

‘Good job. Don’t talk to me; it’s distracting!’

He almost died. If Hyde hadn’t reacted faster than he did, then the lead bullet from that gun would have turned his brain into wet mush!

Gyosu’s eyes darted nervously around his surroundings. Pile of debris. Broken signs, beheaded streetlights—everything that came into his sight was now suspicious to the point he couldn’t breathe right anymore.

‘A trash bag ghillie suit, a sniper aiming in that direction, and a guy that was waiting at the closest hiding spot! They hid this many troops as a spare in a place the enemy had already passed through?!’

It was a meticulously planned ambush using the blind spots of a human’s psychology.

Large caliber bullets? Large caliber bullets, his ass, the weapons hidden in the street were easy to hide, such as knives and pistols. And a sniper who’s using a silencer as well.

The composition was focused purely on ambush. A combination that would have been ideally optimal had it not been for the Exosuit’s ridiculous shield.

And, the three Investigation Bureau corpses with only small wounds on the throat and chest region.

“They forced the shields off?”

He did hear rumors about it being possible. It was impossible to make it small enough to be portable, but the device was able to shut down all shields in a small area if planned beforehand. But because the device had to be basically constructed into the area at several different angles to barely make an area as big as a single car, it wasn’t used during the war…

“…So this is their territory after all.”

Gyosu rummaged through the Executive Department agent’s body next to him, covered in gray dust and debris. One laser knife. One pistol with a silencer. One gas mask and an unidentifiable grenade.

‘All 100% person-to-person equipment. I feel sorry for Vex. It would have been a lot easier if he was the one here.’

Although not as confident as Vex, Gyosu was fairly confident in his searching abilities, but the Executive Department was on a different level. Just with that ghillie suit, it wasn’t just a trash bag covered with other trash bags, but an actual, smelly, slimy, sticky pile of trash bags you would actually expect to see in a back alley. And they made that into clothes and intended to lie down in it and wait for hours for an enemy they were not even sure would come.

Assassins and snipers—he didn’t know where they would pop out from. Not to mention, this was an area familiar to the enemy. But he couldn’t slow down here. If he carefully crawled his way through the area, checking every suspicious spot he saw, then the war outside was going to finish faster than him.

Thankfully, Gyosu had quite a useful sidekick on hand.

‘Hyde.’

[Need help?]

‘Tell me if you see anything suspicious. I can’t slow down right now.’

[Hm… why don’t you just give me a gun instead?]

And before Gyosu responded, Hyde picked up the Executive Department agent’s gun that was on the ground.

[Hm. It definitely feels a lot duller compared to when I’m outside, but I won’t have a problem using it. I’ve used it a couple of times now, so I’ve gotten the hang of what you do.]

Only then did Gyosu realize that something was incredibly different from normal.

‘You…!’

[I didn’t mean to! Really! It was like this when I woke up!]

His left arm.

Beyond just his finger, hand, and elbow, his entire left arm up to his shoulder had that distinctive foreign feeling.

It was the cost of using Hyde in reality, and he fell asleep at that point.

Pa-p-p-p-p-t!

[Upper right! Building window!]

Bang!

‘Slightly open manhole. Reflection!’

Crunch!

“Gaghhhhh!”

‘Left alley! One with the beanie!’

[That’s a civili—]

‘Why would a guy trembling in fear reach for the inside of his jacket? Just shoot!’

Ba— Bang!

Ever since Hyde woke up, Gyosu has been caught up in a weird feeling. In the past, it just felt like Hyde was watching everything that Gyosu saw, but after Hyde took over an entire arm and woke up.

[Ceiling! Red line!]

Shlk!

Even before Hyde said it, the laser-sensing device that he perceived was also part of his perception.

Like how Gyosu was sharing his senses with Hyde, Hyde was now sharing his senses with Gyosu as well.

[I’ve seen something similar to this in your memories before.]

‘What? You know what our current condition is?’

[Ye. Multitasking.]

‘Can you save the nonsense for when we’re a little safer?!’

Bang!

He did say it was ridiculous, but Gyosu agreed that it conveyed the meaning. As a soldier and a survivor, he had a history with firearms, so Gyosu always considered the guys who shot two pistols or machine guns at once idiots. It wasn’t target practice, but real life where the enemy moved and even shot back, and to aim for two targets at the same time. If they weren’t shooting enough to the point where aim didn’t matter, holding two guns in battle was not only useless but a detrimental, stupid action.

But right now, Gyosu had become that idiot and was running through the Underdome’s streets. Without any difficulty, they just needed to hold a gun in each of their own hands and shoot the enemy they sensed.

‘No, no. Not each of our own hands. What am I talking about? They’re both my hands!’

[Hey, what’s the leader of a caravan doing making an unfair trade? You would have been dead if it weren’t for me, and you think an arm’s too much? This isn’t ‘inside’! You would have been dead! Over!]

‘If you put it that way, I can’t—“

[Car!]

Ba-bang!

Both of the guns in each of Gyosu’s hands shot simultaneously towards the assassin hidden inside a scrapped car and pierced their forehead.

There were a lot fewer enemies than he expected.

‘So those guys from IB Squad 3 weren’t idiots.’

Three of their members died at the entrance. So they prepared countermeasures.

It looked like the Exosuits completely decimated this alleyway as they went past it. Shield Absorbers needed to be placed beforehand. So if they destroyed the entire alley as they went past it, they would have been able to destroy the devices before they activated.

‘Thanks to them flattening all of the buildings and setting everything on fire, the Executive Department has a lot fewer places to hide in. It’s easier to find them compared to the entrance. Hyde, how many shots are left on the left?’

[Uh… wait! Lemme check your memories!]

‘I didn’t count!’

[Then why don’t you use your smart brain to count?]

‘My brain’s already running too much trying to operate two screens, and you want me to count your bullets?! I didn’t even shoot them with my hand! And you can use my brain too!’

“There he is! It’s the guy Boss talked about!”

“S—! He was in front of the water store when the toe guys died! Why’s he so fast?”

[That’s…]

‘Kill them! It’s the Underdome’s gang!’

Shhhshk!

Gyosu used his running speed to slide straight into an alleyway, then stored the pistol inside its harness and put on the gas mask he picked up earlier before throwing the weird-looking grenade that came with it.

[You need to lean out for me to shoot!]

‘We don’t have time to shoot all of them. They’re connected to the Executive Department and probably got separate orders. The reason I ran all the way here was to avoid getting caught by them too…’

“Cough, cough!”

“Sir! The guy, cough! Smoked us!”

“Geurghh!!!”

“It’s not just gas, it’s a toxic gas!”

An orange smoke spewed out of the grenade Gyosu threw. The gang members that had been coming his way with a barricade made of all sorts of junk started to cough, then collapsed as they threw up blood.

[Gas… grenade?]

‘The heart of ambushes…not really, looking at how deadly it is. What else would the grenade be if all the assassin had on him was a bunch of stealth weapons and a gas mask?’

It honestly didn’t look like a weapon that just a gas mask could block, but Gyosu used the chaos to slip past the gang members in the yellow smoke. His skin stung to the point where it made him uneasy, but it was far better than dealing with endless waves of druggies.

“Hah, hah!”

[What are you doing? I thought you were busy! Your friends are dying!]

‘Let me take a breather too, you bastard! Do you know how hard it is to run and fight at the same time? I ran all the way here like it was some horror game speedrun!’

[Tch. You’re the one that’s in a bigger rush inside.]

‘There won’t be many places to rest from here on, so we’ve got to use this chance to recharge some stamina.’

How long did it take to pass through the Underdome’s residential area? 15 minutes? It was an impossibly fast speed, even taking into consideration that an Exosuit squad passed through beforehand. Aside from being a little out of breath, it didn’t look like he used up that much stamina either.

[Don’t you actually think the other life is healthy for you at this point? Why, you know. Like for the placebo effect, or mind control.]

‘It’s probably more like I got used to the danger. I’ve experienced this level of danger to my life almost every single day in there. Anxiety actually uses up a surprising amount of stamina in these situations.’

Dammit, this is depressing. I’ve gotten so used to these kinds of situations that I don’t even get nervous anymore. How did my life turn out like this?

Gyosu shook off the thoughts that started to creep into his mind the moment they saw a chance. It’s a good thing he has leftover stamina. He still had a long way to go.

That gas bomb was effective, but it sank quickly because it was heavier than air. If the air sinks, then the gangs that the Executive Department hired are going to start pushing in from behind, so if he doesn’t start moving forward like he already is, he’ll have to deal with the Executive Department and gangs at the same time, back-to-back.

When he left the alley and traveled a bit forward, a facility different from the run-down buildings he had seen until now came into sight. A building with windows made of glass, full of bicycles with small screens on them.

‘It’s the power plant.’

[Power plant?]

‘Yeah. Anyone living in the Dome has a certain amount of power they need to generate every day. There’s one in the Upper Dome too, but most come here to the Underdome.’

[Don’t they only have nice facilities like these up there?]

‘The Dome’s actual high-class don’t have a power quota in the first place, and this is more of an eyesore than a nice facility.’

[Why?]

‘When you cause a crime in the Dome, they weld you to that bicycle instead of sending you to prison. You need to continue pedaling until you complete your sentence, but it’s a bit gruesome to watch. Some people die too.’

There was blood seeping out of the remaining debris where the Exosuits passed through. All of the other people would have escaped, but the prisoners had a chain welded to the bike, so they couldn’t avoid it.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

There was shattered glass all over the ground. Some corpses had prison uniforms, some from the ED, probably because they didn’t need to hide anymore, and about four Exosuits that were completely tattered to a scrap. Assuming from the crackling wires and crushed piles of scrap metal, it must have happened while passing through the turrets that defended the central power plant.

When he continued to follow the traces of the Exosuits deep inside, he arrived at a place where his field of vision suddenly opened up and all the other miscellaneous buildings nearby disappeared. It looked like they dug a deep hole and buried massive water tanks in it, then built a tower of cables on top of it.

“We’re here.”

[This is the place?]

‘Probably.’

To Hyde’s question, Gyosu nodded.

He hadn’t seen the central generator, the Dome’s most important facility, before, but the debris of several Exosuits scattered in the distance and, amongst them, the last two Exosuit units still fighting proved that this was indeed where the enemy was located.