Chapter 109 – Masquerade Party (23)

Clang, cla-clang…

Gyosu was left speechless as he heard the laser blade’s shell fall to the ground.

Not only did it block the laser blade, which was even able to slice through a bolt rifle made of a modern alloy without getting a scratch, but it also crushed the weapon with pure grip strength.

“You… monster!”

The first one to break out of shock from the unexpected outcome was the cyborg. Letting go of the completely broken sword, he immediately reached into his vest. A familiar pose.

‘A gun! Damn it! Right, it isn’t over yet!’

As he listened to Hyde sing some sort of weird happy song inside his head, Gyosu swung the rest of the sword that he was holding in his left hand. He could see the cyborg’s swift hands pulling out a white gun barrel.

‘Damn it! I should have snapped out of it faster! I don’t have strength in my back because of the unstable posi—’

Clangg!

“…Huh?”

[Woah!]

He threw the crumpled broadsword, using the crumpled blade as a handle. Because of the current position he was in, the most he thought the sword would do was disarm the gun from him.

Pzt, pzzt—

But the handle of the sword that he swung at the man collided with his mechanical arm and disappeared somewhere. Along with the half-collapsed head of the guy with it.

He couldn’t see too well because it was dark, but he saw the outline of something hit the corner of the cubic ceiling with a clang! And bounce off.

It was a power so strong that he couldn’t even believe it was true.

‘You… what exactly did you make my arm into?’

[Don’t think too hard about it. Relax. Just think of it as an epic extension.]

‘All of this is a problem because that extension is where my arm is supposed to be! This is just a complete mutation!’

A black skin similar to that of a dinosaur or shelled creature covered his arm. The tips of his thickened fingers, which were now difficult to consider as a human hand, curled up like hooks, and his arm itself must have grown about 10–15 centimeters, as he couldn’t estimate exactly how far his hand could reach now.

No matter who looked at it, he looked most definitely like a Type 3 mutant.

Clack, clack, crunch!

“F—! Couldn’t you make it a little easier to use while you were at it?!”

[Hehe, sorry. There wasn’t time to think of something that detailed. Your life compensates for the lack of balance, though.]

Gyosu already broke his third magazine trying to reload the pistol with his new awkward hand.

Switching his gaze between his ridiculously sturdy new arm and the pistol, he decided to ditch the latter. So this is Hyde’s ideal body. He must have really hated that mushy body in GG.

“Let’s… talk later for now.”

[Yeah, yeah. You have to solve the problem in front of you first.]

Kkkkkrgggh!

Dwoom!

It seemed like the battle was still fierce up above the staircase, as he heard the sounds of exchanges ring out.

Bang!

‘I can’t hear the repulsion of the shields. They’re fighting with the shields off because they’re almost out of battery!’

The problem was that it looked like the Exosuit’s side was about to die. He had a lot to talk about with Hyde, but now was not the time. Gyosu sprinted out toward—

Waver!

‘Argh! Hey! Make this smaller or something! It’s breaking my balance! And the finger doesn’t even fit in the trigger hole!’

[Ha-hahahah… L-later! I’ll do it later!]

He rested the large arm on his shoulder, then awkwardly ran his way up the stairs.

Bang!

“Grrghh!”

Simon, IB Squad 3’s vice captain, turned off the vision aid, now completely red, and swung his hammer at the one who hit his Exosuit.

Vwooom!

The hammer struck only air. The opponent easily dodged an attack that had the combined power and speed of the Exosuit and the hammer’s own rocket booster. Their level of reaction speed and agility made it hard to believe they were human.

‘Cyborgs… I thought that experiment was abandoned! How did the Executive Department?’

They sounded foreign when called cyborgs, but those were ultimately the result of an alternative prosthetic experiment. A being birthed from the wishes of those who lost their limbs in an accident and the greed of the rich that wanted to abandon their old frail bodies. It was perfect technology-wise, but because the patient’s body rejected the prosthetic when they connected the nerves to the device, it was in the end left in history. The cyborg technology was eventually abandoned because they couldn’t figure out the reason for the side effects, but because the experiment results from the research were used to create the base of the Exosuits, the device was in a way the prototype of the Exosuits.

Tfwooooom!

“Bloody hell!”

Simon turned back on the shield he switched to manual long ago as he cursed out loud. They attacked with weapons such as flamethrowers or acid sprays, which couldn’t be blocked without the shield. Then, when they begrudgingly turned the shields back on—

Krggkgkgk!

“Gahahah! You won’t be able to kill an ant with sluggish moves like those, Investigation Bureau!”

“You measly gnats!!”

They attacked with a heavy weapon, which shaved off the most energy from the shields. Especially when they came in contact with those chainsaws with odd shaped teeth, massive chunks of the shield were bitten off, leaving them with a sliver of power.

A combination created purely in order to target the Exosuit’s weakness, its battery.

‘They didn’t dig through some abandoned lab to get this cyborg equipment. They were cyborgs tailored specifically to deal with Exosuits. The Executive Department got… No, according to what the BDSM’s leader said through Ezel’s comms, the Raptor Society is cooperating with the Executive Department, so it must be the Raptors that obtained this cyborg technology!’

Pszzzt!

Dwooom!

[Gaghhh!]

“Ah, now that’s what I like to see!”

“Damn it, Jonathan!”

Even Jonathan, who was holding on next to him, fell to their hands.

‘We lost. It’s impossible to approach the central generator now. The Raptors are going to trample the entire city.’

Booom!

Simon swung his hammer down to the ground, and while they dodged the sharp fragments of the flagstones, he flung himself towards Jonathan’s collapsed Exosuit.

’…He’s dead.’

The frame near Jonathan’s heart was crushed all the way into the deep part of his ribcage. It must have been from the bastard with the piston hand.

He didn’t have time to sit here and be emotional. Simon quickly pulled out the battery from Jonathan’s Exosuit and replaced his own. It must have been because Jonathan was armed with an energy shield, because he still had much more battery left than he did.

‘Our defeat is already certain. I need to at least make it far enough for the comms to reach them and tell them about the Raptor’s new cyborg technology!’

He heard gunshots near the bottom of the stairs not long ago. Looking at how the most dangerous sword cyborg disappeared, he probably went down to finish off a member that was fighting even after they lost their Exosuit. The members who could have spared their lives had they quietly escaped instead risked their lives to turn the attention of the enemy.

“I need to repay even a fraction of those expectations… even if it costs my life…!”

Vwooom!

Simon turned on all of the support systems that he had turned off to save battery life. His vision aid was still bright red. There was a countdown indicating the remaining operating time, which was no different from the countdown of his lifespan. The four cyborgs slowly closed in on him.

And…

‘There’s… another life signal?’

From behind the cyborgs. A black monster’s claw burst out of the dark shadows.

“Wha, AGHHHH!”

Responding at almost the same speed as the Exosuit’s sensor, the cyborg swung his chainsaw towards the figure behind his back, but the horrifying black claw just grabbed the spinning chainsaw’s blade, crushed it, and then threw it.

“EEAHHHHHH—”

Boom!

Thud.

The cyborg’s screams were cut off the moment its body hit the wall.

Splish, splish.

And from the darkness where the cyborg disappeared, came the sound of footsteps.

“Ah, right. Those guys don’t die that easily. Uh, but it’s a little… inhumane to crush their entire body, don’t you think so, Hyde?”

The man covered in blood spoke to himself, as if he were talking with the grotesque arm attached to his body.

“It’s… It’s a mutant!”

“No, it isn’t, you bastard!”

Crack!

The man picked up a handful of broken flagstone fragments nearby and threw them towards the cyborgs like cannonballs, then looked at Simon, who was just dumbfoundedly staring at him now, his draining battery forgotten.

“I’m the BDSM’s reinforcements, Gyosu Park!”

The situation took a drastic turn at the central generator after the sudden reinforcements appeared.

And at the center of it all, Gyosu, who emerged confidently from the dark after successfully ambushing an enemy, was—

‘Huuup! Mmmph!’

[Hold your breath! There! You’ll die if you breathe in before you get to that yellow can!]

Close to pissing his pants.

‘I would understand the flamethrower, but a chemical spray?! I’m dead if I breathe in even a droplet of that!’

[You should have just shut that loud mouth of yours and ran inside the shield! You let out all of your breath!]

‘He needed to identify me if I wanted even a chance of getting in! And if I hadn’t bluffed and stopped those bastards, either the acid or the flamethrower would have made me into a pile of mush by now!’

When he ambushed the one with the chainsaw arm, his heart almost jumped out of his mouth after finding another guy holding a can full of an opaque yellow liquid.

It wasn’t hard to imagine what that yellow liquid was after all. The chemical gas from the gas grenade he used on his way here was the exact same color as that.

Gyosu’s plan to use his left arm to grab one of the cyborgs at a time and fight it out slowly did not include anything about gas or flamethrowers.

Cra-a-ck!

He threw another handful of flagstone fragments, then dashed forward while the cyborgs moved to dodge.

The cyborg immediately recovered and turned his weapon in Gyosu’s direction.

‘The type we passed through back there was fine as long as you didn’t breathe it in! It should work out somehow as long as I block the direct blow!’

[Wait… Wait! Stop! It isn’t that! That’s not the same one!]

Just before the contents of the container on the man’s back sprayed out, an image was shared with him through Hyde’s consciousness. In the corner of the combat area was a horrifying image of an Exosuit that seemed to be corroded.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Skreeeet!

‘C-corrosion? Melt down?!’

[Aaaaahhhh! You idiot!]

He tried to stop as fast as he could, but Gyosu was already right in front of him.

Watching Gyosu charge in at him with a flagstone, the cyborg’s lips curled up, as if that wasn’t even close to enough to stop him.

‘Damn it! Why didn’t you make the arm a little bigger? Big enough to cover my body!’

[You said to make it smaller beforeeeeee!!!]

Pshhhhk!

The acid solution fired out without a chance for him to escape.

Just then…

Pzzzzzz-t!

An Exosuit with its shield output raised to the maximum budged in and blocked the acidic solution with its shield.

Simon was also a seasoned veteran. Although he was unsure of his identity, he decided to cooperate with Gyosu after watching him attack the enemy.

“Now!”

“Mmmphmp!!!”

After expressing his gratitude with a closed mouth because of the vaporized solution, Gyosu swung the large flagstone he was holding with his left hand.

S-powww!

The cyborg soared through the air like he was hit by a truck and landed in a corner.

“Gahhhhghhh! Aaaaaaghhh!”

The container holding the liquid must have broken, as a blood-curdling cry came from the location where the cyborg fell. The liquid could even melt an Exosuit. There was no chance he would survive.

“Is this… all a dream?”

Watching all of this unfold, Simon started to question whether this was just an illusion he was seeing before he died. In the final moments before death, a man suddenly appeared and dealt with the enemy. He had heard a lot about mutants before, but none about a person who only partially mutated.

Bizarre behavior.

An even more bizarre appearance.

The odd reinforcement that swiftly approached him after sending the cyborg flying…

Thunkthunkthunkthunkthunkthunk!

“MMmmph! MM! PhmmPPMMhH!”

…was desperately knocking at his shield as he pointed at his mouth and tried to express something opening up.

“Uh, um…”

One thing was for sure. They weren’t normal people.

Crunch!

“Gaghhhh!”

The four cyborgs had fought on par with Simon’s one Exosuit. Now that only two were left, Simon and the man who aggressively collected his breath inside the shield easily dealt with the other two not long after.

“Investigation Bureau! The power!”

“R-roger that!”

After breaking off the arm of the last cyborg, Gyosu yelled at the IB member next to him. Just in time as well, as he saw the Exosuit’s dim light flicker off.

“Cough! Cough!”

The cyborg grasped Gyosu’s hand and coughed out blood.

But as he watched Simon run towards the central generator, he drew a faint smile.

“It’s no… use…”

Squeeze!

“Aghhhhh!”

“As if. All we need to do is turn on the power. I didn’t spare you out of pity. I just needed a live witness so we can properly deal with the ones who cooperated with the Executive Department.”

“Keh, keheheh…eurgh!”

Gyosu could sense confidence in the cyborg’s laughter. A sort of empty but satisfied one.

’…There’s something going on here.’

Just then, Simon shouted from the entrance of the tower.

“The door! The door isn’t opening! They melted the security door shut!”

“What?!”

“Keheheheh! You all have lost. You’ve been defeated!”

’…That acid solution! This was the real reason why they brought it!’

And just when he thought it was all over too. Even if they defeated the enemy, it was all useless if they couldn’t turn on the power.

Gyosu tossed the cyborg aside and called to Simon, who was struggling by himself in front of the security panel at the bottom of the tower.

“Get out of the way! I’ll break it down!”

“N-no, you can’t do that! The door is made so that the control panel is isolated from the system if it receives a strong impact! The only way in is through the official procedure!”

“But they went in and turned off the power!”

“They are the enemy right now, but the Executive Department is still a part of the Dome! Of course they know the code!”

Bang!

“So that’s why… they went through the trouble of melting it down with acid…”

It was an unexpected factor. They were just one step and one last door away from turning on the power!

He continued to think, but nothing popped into his mind about how they could turn on the power. No matter what he thought of, it wasn’t possible to try it because he didn’t know the layout of the central generator.

“Damn it… if only—if only the elevator could move…”

But then the man from the Investigation Bureau spoke as if there was some sort of hope.

“Elevator? Is there another place where you could turn the power on?”

“Yes… there is one more place…”

“You could have said that earlier!”

“So… this tower is connected to the Dome’s surface. If you go a little under the ceiling of this space, the part where it touches the ground, then there’s one more power breaker for management…”

“Where…? That over there?”

When he squinted his eyes and looked up, he indeed saw some sort of iron railing far above the tower.

“The problem is, that facility wasn’t created considering emergencies like this, so you can’t get to it without an elevator. Because the power to use the elevator is currently off…”

“Okay! Be right back!”

“…Pardon?”

Simon, who had been depressed at the thought of failing the operation that their entire squad risked their lives for, raised his head when he heard Gyosu’s voice suddenly brighten.

Crack!

Cr—gack!

“Wait…”

The man that was just standing next to him started to run towards the walls of the cavity after hearing what he said.

Crunch!

Then he started to climb the wall by stabbing the bedrock with his left arm.