by Kamiya Yuu
(If we’re going to use Sambuca to fight the enemy and gain us some time, there’s a chance we can escape, even if it’s the worst case scenario of having to break through.)
Sambuca, the support-type automata that was supporting Vermouth’s group.
It was a lightweight automata with the appearance of a human male. Its parts comprise on local civilian products that could disguise their affiliation once it is abandoned. After some modifications from the Gazell Vermouth and his group, its functions were competent against a military automata.
…He had already thought of an escape plan from the moment he stepped into the room.
There was no need for word nor communication. The trio exchanged glances, and nodded.
Creak—
The door opened softly.
Vermouth, having deemed his planed course of action upon seeing the enemy’s silhouette, appeared from his hiding spot.
But his thoughts ceased once he spotted the ‘enemy’.
Standing in front of the ajar door was the thing they were concerned by.
The one that brought about undoubted fear upon them was a little—
(…Kid—?)
It was an automata.
A little girl model with an alluring body one would like to pet as a doll.
She had neither armor nor restraining tools on her slender limbs; she was in a massive, devastating armor.
Her long hair extended to her feet, the color bloody. Her cute, adolescent face had a savage mask over it.
Through that mask, their stares met.
That was what he felt.
“—Sanbuca!”
Vermouth shouted.
His instincts were screaming at him to scrap the plan and eliminate it immediately.
“Plan D3. Stop that thing!!”
Plan D3—a command to restrain the target with the primary goal of self-destruction.
Sambuca got to action quickly and quietly.
This support-type automata was equipped with a silencer function, and was not used for direct combat in the first place.
But it could still embrace the enemy and stop it temporarily in the first place.
If there was a way to stop the enemy’s movements for just an instance, Vermouth’s group would focu s their Coil Spears fire on Sambuca, perforating it—
—However.
The girl automata raised her right arm.
Appearing above it was a black solid gear cube floating in the air.
It was spinning.
It continued to twist and spin, becoming two cylindrical items, a heavy reloading sound echoing.
At that moment, before their senses could detect this brief sound.
Sambuca’s mechanical frame that was grabbing the masked girl—vanished along with the floor.
“—Huh?”
It was unknown who let out such a sound.
But the masked girl wordlessly glanced at the trio.
No matter whether Vermouth was willing to accept it, he understood as he was exposed to such a nonchalant, icy stare.
—They had no chances of winning.
He accepted this fact with apprehension.
“Tch, destroy the wall!”
He growled without looking back.
With such a powerful enemy present, and if they cannot escape from the only escape possible, they could only increase the number of exits.
“I’ll hold her off! Cover me!”
Strega activated her double gear.
She immediately leapt out from her hiding spot, kicked the walls and ceiling, and swung blade-form Coil Spear.
This hi-vibration blade could easily slice any ordinary material apart. If she was to use it on the falling falling objects above the girl’s head, she would be able to form some cover, and there would be a chance for them to escape.
—No matter what the mean was, they could buy some time.
Having understood her intent, Vermouth aimed his Coil Spear at the girl.
The chosen bullet type was one that could even pierce through sturdy steel.
While he launched a screen of fire, Amaretto would fire the most potent grenade at the wall to the side as according to the plan.
—If they could create a hole, they probably would be able to escape from this place.
This was supposed to happen.
After loading the grenade, Amaretto’s upper body vanished without a trace, not even leaving any dust behind.
“…!?”
“What the—”
The black solid gear cube was floating in the air, right beside the girl.
It again spun, letting out a loading sound.
This time, Strega was crushed to scraps along with the noise in the air.
(—Wh-what’s going on here—!?)
His sanity was screaming.
Both Amaretto and Strega had the latest technology of combat prosthetic embedded.
Like the use of the Coil Spear, leaving dead bodies behind—was supposedly a forbidden act itself.
But before such worries became necessary, they vanished without leaving any traces behind.
Even if the opponent was a heavily-armed automata, there was no way they should be so overwhelmed to the point of being unable to fight back.
The fact laid in front of them—unable to be changed.
And the ironic thing was that everything was explained here.
The secrecy of this facility, and the importance of the information here.
Compared to these, the PMC-like defenses seemed overly weak.
And with this monster here—there was no reason to doubt.
What is this place? The answer was simple.
—The ‘Hell Cauldron’.
(There’s no doubt about it.)
It had stealth functions that negated his senses.
It had overwhelming firepower that suppressed them stupidly.
It was a girl model automata that should not exist.
That enemy, the god of death, standing in front of them—
“The Initial-Y series…!!?”
The enemy did not respond.
The girl stared at Vermouth with a stoic, impassive stare, not getting into any position.
—I’ll get killed.
“—Ugh!”
Vermouth believed in the instinctive reaction within his head, and got down.
An unknown impact flew by from above, erasing everything.
Due to the invisible attack, his left arm, unable to dodge in the nick of time, was taken away.
Vermouth ignored the damage report ringing in him like a siren, recalibrate the balance caused by the loss of mass on both sides, and leapt from the ground.
He then swung the Coil Spear, changing its shot type from a grenade launcher.
And then, he fired,
An anchor suddenly went flying; at that instance, the crisp sounds of the spinning, high velocity gears rang.
Due to the massive shockwave, the wall broke apart in the form of dust.
Vermouth leapt through the hole, right around the same time the girl’s second impact erased the space he occupied.
● ● ●
—Think.
Vermouth continued to run for his life, barely managing to dodge the attacks from the approaching death god.
He thought he was going to continuing losing parts of his body.
Up till this point, Vermouth was only able to live thanks to his instincts.
He abandoned the information his sensors had told him, and completely ignored any strategic theory.
He instinctively felt the moments he should dodge, and the moments he should run away.
No matter how he did so, he managed to keep his own life during these 5 brief minutes.
This could be considered a miracle.
But…it was the end of the line
In the end, Vermouth flew into an alley with no way to escape. On top of that, he lost the area below his right knee the moment he leapt away to escape from the attacks
.
He could no longer rely on his instincts to escape.
He also dropped his Coil Spear, and the only armament left was a grenade that would not cause any damage to the enemy even if it was a direct hit.
He was extremely calm, unlike the machinery in him that was practically aflame.
He calmly deduced this.
That till this point—his death was unavoidable.
For that, it did not matter to him.
He should have lost his life and human heart 20 years ago.
That he merely lost it on this day again.
What was supposed to be an instantaneous death ended up with him being all weary.
—The problem however was,
“It’s frustrating that I have to die…just like this no matter I think about it—shit!”
Footsteps could be heard .
Amidst the damage reports echoing in his mind, he could hear the sound of death slowly approaching.
It was the breath of the death god who wrecked his two comrades like a joke.
“—Haa.”
Using his hand that was lacking a finger, Vermouth took out a cigarette and lit it.
—This is the kind of job they do.
Neither Amaretto nor Strega were considered friends to him.
If he had to be honest, he did not know their real names, their favorite colors, their favorite choice of music, their families, friends, whether they were attached, or anything else. He never head of their pasts, and he really did not have any interest in that either.
For they were simply no different from him, trash-like people.
Vermouth had neither reason nor friendship to mourn over their deaths,
—However,
They all wanted to do something.
Having known this now, Vermouth realized the ‘passion’ he had forgotten for a long time.
It was not a sense of justice.
It was not a cheap bond of humanism, nor was it a professional conscience of a professional agent.
“…If I can’t even fight back once against that monster.”
It was merely a matter of ‘feelings’ that was part of his nature—
“—That’s disgusting! Damn it!”
It was the little pride the man called Vermouth had.
“Think…!”
He muttered as he exhaled some smoke.
There was no point in fighting against that thing at all; he had neither the technology nor combat abiity.
To him, all he could do was to inflict pain through any method possible. For that, that would mean—using any possible mean to transfer this information he had outside.
The problem was the method.
He had no hopes of surviving. He did not care about revealing his identity.
No matter what he had to let go of.
No matter what he had to eliminate.
As long as he transferred what happened in this place out, it was enough for him.
“I don’t care about anything else now! That’s why!”
Think.
How do I make contact from here to the outside?
This industrial zone was completely isolated from the outside. He had been circling around, but found nary a comms room. He could not contact the outside.
What he could do…was to use the original electronic installation imbued in this body and send a mail to a certain place.
“—”
But what…would be the significance of that?
Which ridiculous psycho would realize the meaning behind an anonymous mail.
Even Vermouth’s own boss would…no, wait.
“……Ku, kuhahaha!”
Vermouth laughed at the thing he thought of.
…There certainly was such an existence.
Someone who would show interest in such an meaningless mail, someone whose actions were unpredictable, the one person he knew of with the most foolish mind in the world.
He endured his laugh as much as possible, adjusting his telecommunication frequency
The address was—
“Only the weirdos can deal with the weirdos.”
—If it was her.
That Princess who was willing to fight the evils of the world…!
The footsteps stopped.
The unavoidable death was standing right in front of his eyes.
However, Vermouth had an inexplicable sense of solace in his heart.
No problems here. I already did what I can do. I’ll just leave the rest.
Because our deaths are—
“—Humph.”
He suddenly noticed the thoughts that surfaced within him.
It was not the thing Vermouth had been seeking for a long time, and neither was it some sort of thought.
It was an immature wish that he set aside unknowingly.
“This isn’t logical, right…”
He sneered at himself for noticing how childish he was at this point.
With a wry smile, he took a deep breath of smoke.
Having made contact with the malice of many, he had no thoughts about it.
He always thought the world and everything belonging to it were shitty.
However—of course, he could understand at this point.
In this world—there was really some damning things that could not be forgiven even after dying.
It was not because of some troublesome philosophy, and neither was it some youthful ideals or sense of justice.
It was simply the burning passion surging deep within his heart.
Just an invisible thing.
A raging spirit.
And so, if there was a way to deal with that thing.
…Where are the idiots who would do something about this?
We revealed this disgusting conspiracy with our lives as exchange.
If anything and everything can be destroyed here—!
He inhaled a large amount of smoke, and scented upon a smell he should not be sensing.
…Ah, Vermouth smirked.
“It’s good now—haha…serves you right, you bastards!”
Before he exhaled the smoke he took in, Vermouth’s body vanished along with the space.
● ● ●
…I feel so sleepy.
The girl thought while he mind was still hazy.
At this point, she vaguely understood that she was in a dreamy state. It seemed she had forgotten about something important, but she could not think about it clearly. It seemed the floor below her feet could was wobbly, and she was lazy to open her eyes.
“Hm…he sent a mail through the telecommunication installation, huh?”
An unknown human male voice could be heard.
That voice came from beyond the mist, but it was vague as to whether it came from there in the first place.
“I don’t think they’ll send some really important stuff there…but whose rats are those?”
“She erased them complete, so I don’t think we can pint their identities down.”
“Guess this is the disadvantage of dealing with things too well…looking at the infiltration methods and level of professionalism in wanting to send the information just as he died, I guess we can guess the identity.”
“The Odemas? The Breguets? Who do they belong to…?”
“Can you track down that mail just now?”
“We’re doing so, but I don’t think he’s sending it to his master—”
…Boring.
The girl felt despondent after hearing the uninteresting talk the men had.
She hated things she could not understand. She did not like cold, terrifying things either.
—Destroy, devastate, crush, blend, finish?
What kind of enjoyment is there to be had doing such things? The girl could not understand at all.
Perhaps, the girl thought.
These humans are just idiots who have no common sense. There’s so many interesting things to do out there, but their conversations are really boring, hard to underst
and, and they’re doing the same thing over and over again.
—Singing, dancing, playing, laughing, tidying.
There’re so many more interesting things to do than that, why aren’t they doing so? The girl could not understand. It seemed to be a failed riddle, for there was no answer to be seen.
No matter when, no matter who it was—she would be allowed to do anything she wanted.
“—AnchoR.”
The man called her name.
He lifted the face of the girl, AnchoR, and said with a beam.
“Good work. That was some amazing battle result.”
…Battle result?
AnchoR tilted her head. In fact, she did not bat an eyelid as she merely looked up at the man’s face.
Is this person just a stupid man after all?
He only thinks of cleaning up as some sort of battle result; there is no rhythm, nothing to latch onto. It doesn’t look like he has any talent for writing songs.
—Is it because of this that it’s so boring?
—Or is it that it’s so boring because of this?
“I’ll handle the rest here; head for for maintenance first.”
AnchoR could not answer the vortex of questions that surfaced, and nodded wordlessly.
—It’s fine either way.
This is the ‘eternal’, ‘indestructible’, ‘strongest’ automata.
The 4th unit of the Initial Y-series—the ‘Trishula’ AnchoR.
The girl turned and walked away, her consciousness again falling into a light sleep.
Chapter 1: 14:30 – Goober
—Human life has no value.
But it is not meaningless.
There are those who had differing opinions, those with refuting opinions—however, nobody, even God, could deny the above fact.
For though others was to gauge the value, the recognition of the meaning in that belongs to the individual.
Thus, humans continued to live on, seeking the reason as to why they live
No matter how much or how little, it is all within life.
