Vol. 1 Chapter 1 – The Steel Throne

As if refusing to allow the existence of life itself, the sun blazed down fiercely.

A single tank raced through the gaps between sheer rock walls, kicking up pebbles and sending clouds of sand and dust billowing into the air. It moved with a light, nimble speed, barely slowing at all, as though the narrowness of the path meant nothing to it.

There was no doubt that the antennae protruding around the tank were highly advanced. Even so, the driver’s skill behind the controls was anything but ordinary.

The crew consisted of one man and one woman. The man seated in front was the gunner. With narrow eyes that looked somewhat sleepy, he seemed to sense that the target was close and stared intently through the scope.

The presence of the woman enthroned in the rear gave the tank its strange, abnormal air.

First of all, she had no hands. Her arms were gone from the shoulders down and in their place, she was connected to the tank by tubes about as thick as arms. She had no legs either. Her shins were gone from the knees down and tubes were connected there as well. She wore enormous goggles that covered the upper half of her face, securing her vision by linking with the cameras. Every movement of the tank was under her control. She had become one with it.

“Dias, it’s coming from above!”

Suddenly, the woman’s body trembled as if an electric current had run through her, and she shouted. The man called Dias pressed his forehead hard against the scope and looked around.

He found it. Standing on top of the rocky mountain, slightly hunched over, was an enormous ape that looked to be three meters tall. They had already landed several effective hits on it. Its whole body was stained with blood, and its left arm had been torn away. From its mouth, it frothed something that was neither quite white nor quite red.

And yet, far from losing its will to fight, its eyes shone brilliantly with hatred as it glared at the tank. It had no intention of running away. Its vermilion eyes, darker and thicker than blood, said as much.

“Fine by me. Let’s take this all the way…”

As if responding to Dias’s mutter, the giant ape let out a bizarre cry from above and leapt at them.

“Cardiel!”

“Got it!”

Countless tiny orbs of light appeared in the tubes connected to Cardiel, the woman who had fused with the tank and flowed through them with force. The tank’s belt-like feet, known as tracks, began spinning at high speed. Kicking away stones, the tank suddenly shot forward and dodged the monster’s assault.

A split second later, the ape’s massive body slammed into the place where the tank had been moments before. With a thunderous roar, sand and dust billowed into the air. At its feet, cracks and footprints were clearly carved into the ground.

What would have happened if that had hit them directly? Cold sweat ran from Cardiel’s forehead down her cheek. Her body, unable to move, unable even to wipe away the sweat, filled her with frustration.

With slow movements, yet movements filled with an intense murderous aura, the giant ape turned back toward the tank.

Dias and the others had not simply watched in silence either. They had rotated the turret one hundred and eighty degrees and fixed the aim perfectly on the giant ape’s heart.

He exhaled deeply, then held his breath. Sweat slowly seeped out on the hand gripping the trigger.

The giant ape leapt again, scattering foam and drool. At the same time, an armor-piercing round was fired from the cannon barrel with a howl.

The shell sank into the giant ape’s chest as if being sucked in, and its tip burst out from its back. Letting out a voiceless cry, the giant ape fell onto its back with a ground-shaking impact, its eyes still wide open. It no longer moved a single twitch.

“If a living creature takes an armor-piercing shell, shouldn’t it be more like blood and flesh go splatter everywhere and the bullet should punch straight through? I mean, sure, we killed it but why is it just stuck there like normal?”

Cardiel said this in an exasperated tone. Rather than a real comment, it seemed more like a joke meant to release the tension.

“That’s what densely packed muscle does.”

Giving an answer that was not really an answer, Dias pulled various things from the storage compartment inside the tank. A rifle, a cooler box, and a chainsaw. He opened the hatch and put them outside, and just as he was about to climb the ladder himself, he seemed to think of something and walked over to Cardiel.

The eyeshield on the large goggles Cardiel was wearing automatically flipped up. A beautiful woman with a dignified expression emerged from beneath them.

Dias wrapped Cardiel’s cheeks in his large hands and pressed his lips to hers. One second, two seconds, three seconds passed, and then he slowly pulled away, as if reluctant to part.

“Well then, I’m heading out.”

With a slightly embarrassed smile on his rugged face, Dias said this.

“I’m not sure what I think about you doing that to a woman who can’t move.”

Kardil, looking just as slightly embarrassed, pouted her lips.

“If you had arms, would you have shoved me away?”

“I would have pulled you close.”

Their gazes intertwined, and the two of them laughed together. For a brief moment, a gentle atmosphere flowed through the cramped, dim interior of the vehicle.

Once again, Dias shouldered the rifle and went outside. The fierce sunlight poured down on him, making him grimace. Even the tank’s outer armor had heated up enough to sear flesh, and the heat reached him even through his thick gloves. As if thinking this was unbearable, he hurriedly climbed down from the tank.

He stopped about three meters away from the giant ape’s corpse and casually aimed the rifle’s muzzle at it. Its breathing had stopped and its blood had begun to dry, turning sticky. To begin with, an armor-piercing shell was occupying the center of its chest. There was no way it could still be alive.

However, the very reason one could not let their guard down from here was that it was a mutant. There were creatures that would continue moving for a while even after their heads were torn off or their hearts stopped. Dias had seen many people lose their lives after becoming careless in situations like this and he himself had been put in danger before.

It was not his intention to dishonor the dead but that was the nature of battle between hunters and mutants. Telling himself this, Dias fired several bullets into the giant ape’s corpse. Each time a bullet sank in, the body jolted, but there was no other reaction.

He watched for several dozen more seconds. A few carnivorous flies peculiar to this region began gathering. Only once the judges of death had arrived did he finally decide it was safe. He lowered the rifle from his shoulder, shouldered the chainsaw, and approached the giant ape’s corpse. He tried waving his hand to drive away the carnivorous flies but it was completely meaningless, so he had no choice but to endure it.

He gently ran his fingertips over its wide-open eyes and closed its eyelids. After giving a bow, he placed the chainsaw against the side of its neck and started it.

Blood and flesh sprayed in a straight line. Bit by bit, the muscle fibers were severed,and the head and neck were cut apart. Perhaps because he was used to this kind of work, his movements were efficient and Dias was not showered in blood.

***

Cardiel once again watched the entire sequence by linking her sight with the external cameras. A slight look of discomfort appeared on her face. She felt an instinctive revulsion toward the carnivorous flies flying around. But more than that, she hated all mutants.

Showing respect even to an enemy one had fought with all one’s strength was surely one of Dias’s virtues. Even so, if possible, she wanted her partner to face the same direction as her. In the future, in love and even in malice. Realizing that such dark noise was mixed into her feelings for the man she loved, she was struck by self-loathing.

Memories returned of having her arms and legs eaten while she was still alive and maggots planted into her wounds. The limbs she should have lost awakened with pain and itching. She was seized by the urge to tear off the four tubes right then and there, roll about, scream and cry.

Biting her lip, she closed her eyes and endured it in silence. Then, suddenly, a heavy metallic sound came from above her. Her body jolted as if struck and she looked up.

It was Dias. Not a mutant.

“Dias… welcome back.”

“Yeah, I’m back. …Though I was only outside for a little while.”

Dias spoke in a voice so gentle it was hard to believe he had been cutting off a mutant’s head just moments earlier, then slipped into the vehicle as if fleeing from the aggressive sunlight. He tossed the now-heavy cooler box into the tank.

He had only been outside for a little over ten minutes, yet his entire body was drenched in sweat. When Cardiel turned up the air conditioning inside the vehicle, Dias turned back with a smile and said,『Thanks』.

Just that alone made her feel, if only slightly, rewarded.

***

The city of sun and sand, 『Praed』. It was a city of hunters, where the smell of machine oil followed one no matter where they went.

Around the outer edge of the city was a poor district lined with filthy tents. Eyes devoid of life or even reason itself, all turned at once toward the jet-black tank.

What were they thinking? Did they see it as a reliable presence that would defeat mutants for them? Were they afraid that its power might be turned against them? Or did they envy and hate those who possessed strength? She did not know. Perhaps all of those were wrong, and all of them were correct.

The children did not come near the slowly advancing tank either. That was because they knew that most hunters, when a child appeared in their path, would simply crush them underfoot without caring. Cardiel had no intention of going that far but if she had not entrusted the fire-control system to Dias, she might at least have fired a warning burst into the sky with the machine gun.

Through the camera-linked field of vision, she saw a girl who had lost a leg and was walking with crutches. Beneath her goggles, Cardiel’s expression darkened. Had a mutant eaten it? Had she stepped on a land mine? Or had her parents cut it off so she could beg? None of those were rare stories.

This world was wrong. She hated this society. And yet, knowing there was nothing she could do, Cardiel let out a heavy sigh. She could not lend a hand. What a cruel joke.

“Let’s reduce them little by little.”

Dias, seated at the front of the tank, suddenly said that, even though he should not have been able to see Cardiel’s face. He must have sensed, from the atmosphere somehow, what Cardiel was feeling.

If they reduced the number of mutants little by little, then surely the world would become at least somewhat better. Dias’s words were always short and kind.

“Yeah… you’re right…”

Cardiel gave a small nod.

Beyond the poor district lay the middle-class citizens’ district. This was the basic base of operations for hunters. A market built on cracked earth, a hospital, various factories, and a hunter office that also served as a tavern. It was a graveyard for those who could not quite give up on living.

Driving a tank through the city streets was forbidden. Dias stopped the tank at his regular repair factory, and first began removing the tubes connecting Cardiel to the tank.

While looking at an old-fashioned display blinking in pale blue light, he operated the keyboard. The fasteners connecting Cardiel and the tubes released with a pushuu hiss of air.

When he firmly grasped the goggles with both hands and lifted them away, her glossy black hair, long enough to reach her waist, fell softly as if brushing against the wind. Facing each other bare-faced for the first time in a while, the two of them smiled through their tired expressions, exchanging gentle smiles.

Next, he took legs out from the built-in storage compartment. They were prosthetic legs made of plain iron parts, intended only for walking and nothing else. There were prosthetic arms inside the storage compartment as well, but if he attached the arms first, she might lose her balance and tumble off the platform, so the legs came first.

Cardiel lifted her thighs, which ended before the knee, so that the prosthetic legs would be easier to attach. Like a priest conducting a solemn ritual, Dias reverently raised the right prosthetic leg and connected it.

“Nn…”

At the moment of neural connection, a shock like an electric current ran through her and a pained yet strangely sensual groan slipped from Cardiel’s lips.

“Sorry. Did it hurt?”

“I’m fine. It happens every time. It happens every time, but this is the one thing I never get used to…”

“I don’t think there are many people who are used to the neural connection of prosthetic legs.”

“Fair point.”

With oily sweat beading on her forehead, she answered with a joke. She nodded, signaling that she was ready. Then came the left leg, the right arm, and the left arm. By the time it was over, her entire body was covered in sweat, despite the air conditioning being on full blast.

She lowered her long eyelashes and breathed out deeply. Her eyes flicked left and right, checking the iron arms. Her gaze was by no means friendly. There was hatred toward her own fate and resignation.

Until three years ago, she had possessed beautiful, slender arms and legs that matched her face and hair. What about herself now? If she had to compare it to something, she was like the thing left behind after a child had taken apart a doll and a plastic model, connected the pieces together however they liked, played with it, grown bored and thrown it away.

“Is it painful?”

Dias spoke to Cardiel, who had remained still for so long. When she looked up, Dias was there, gazing at her with gentle eyes.

The prosthetic legs, connected to her nerves, moved exactly as she wished. Cardiel stood up on the creaking prosthetic legs and leaned herself against Dias’s chest.

“It is painful…”

She murmured in a faintly trembling voice. Dias’s large hands and Cardiel’s prosthetic arms soaked with the scent of machine oil, wrapped around each other’s backs.

What extended from the ends of her prosthetic hands were not five fingers but three claws. In the silence that belonged only to the two of them, those three claws went kachi-kachi, making a sorrowful sound.

***

Tobacco, alcohol and the sweat and grime of men.

Dias advanced straight through the stagnant air. He had a rifle and a cooler box hanging from each shoulder but his steps were dignified, showing no sign of the weight.

It was a hunter office equipped with a tavern. Inside the dim building, no one paid any attention to Dias as he strode across the creaking floor. Dias, too, showed no interest in the others.

The man behind the counter, polishing a glass that was not even dirty with a bored look on his face, was the master of this place. Dias casually placed the cooler box he had been carrying onto the counter.

“It’s the giant ape’s head. Give me the bounty.”

The master merely glanced at Dias, then lowered his face again and began polishing the glass as if he had heard nothing.

“Hand over the bounty.”

Dias opened the cooler box toward him. The giant ape’s head appeared and the smell of rotten blood spread through the area.

Though it was called a cooler box, there was no ice inside. He was only using it to keep the contents sealed, so in this scorching world, decay progressed quickly. Combined with the giant ape’s wild, beastly odor, the stench was so powerful that even Dias, who had opened it himself, furrowed his brow.

The bounty hunters, who should have been completely used to foul smells, all turned around at once and several tongue clicks could be heard.

“I heard you. Don’t do things like that.”

“If you heard me, then react. Fulfill your duty.”

The master did not answer. He simply wrinkled his already displeased face even further. From the safe at the back, he took out credit chips and slammed them onto the counter.

There were several credits placed on the counter, but Dias only stared at them without trying to touch them.

“Hey. This isn’t enough.”

Once again, the master blatantly ignored him. As if telling him to hurry up and leave, he turned his back and resumed polishing the glass.

Was he the type of person who convinced himself he had the upper hand mentally as long as he ignored the other party? Dias went past irritation and arrived at a thought close to defiant acceptance: if he was going to be treated this way, then surely he had the right to strike back as well.

He lowered the rifle from his shoulder, held it in one hand, and thrust it at the master’s back.

“Give me the money.”

The master hurriedly turned around and tried to knock the muzzle aside with his hand, but Dias seemed to have predicted it. With a malicious smile, he lifted the rifle lightly and evaded him.

The master glared at him with open anger but since his hips had pulled back slightly, he lacked force.

“You bastard, are you sane?”

“Do you really think there’s anyone sane in this city?”

Hunters protected the city from mutants and in this world of sand and rock, they were the cornerstone of defense that secured a place for humanity to live. If someone committed robbery at the hunter office that managed and operated them, the city’s powerful figures would immediately put a bounty on that person and they would be hunted down.

But Dias stood there confidently, as if to say there was no reason for him to be criticized.

“I’m only telling you to pay the bounty properly. Am I wrong about anything?”

The master did not answer. As if making the only protest he could, he filled his entire face with displeasure. But from Dias’s perspective, he had no obligation to care about the mood of someone who had tried to pocket part of his bounty. Though he lowered the muzzle, his piercing gaze continued to follow the master’s hands.

Before long, more credits were placed on the counter. Dias counted them with his eyes, confirmed that there was no mistake, then took a leather pouch from his coat and tossed the credits inside.

“I’d rather you not bother with such petty harassment. It lowers the dignity of the hunter office.”

After leaving that warning, Dias turned on his heel and left the tavern.

Glaring at his back, the master muttered hatefully.

“Tch, acting all high and mighty for a kept man of that snake woman…”

The instant those words had barely ended, something cut through the air, tore across his cheek, and shattered one of the liquor bottles lined up on the shelf behind him. Cheap, watery alcohol and shards of glass struck the wooden floor.

He could not understand what had happened. Forcing his fear-frozen face upward, he saw Dias, who should have already left, standing in the direction of his gaze.

This was no longer like the earlier exchange of sarcasm. Dias was holding his rifle with clear murderous intent dwelling in his eyes.

The master’s legs gave out and he collapsed where he stood. Dias looked at him for a while with a bored expression, then eventually snorted with a『hmph』and left, this time without looking back.

The inside of the counter was now covered in cheap liquor and urine, and cleaning it up would surely be a pain. But that was none of Dias’s concern.

After receiving the bounty at the hunter office, Dias returned to the repair factory.

He visited the factory chief’s office and sat facing him across the desk. Piled on that desk were credits amounting to ninety percent of the bounty.

“Please take this for the current payment, maintenance, and resupply of fuel and ammunition.”

There was a slight stiffness in Dias’s voice. It was not that there was anything wrong with the man in front of him. It was the result of forcing down his emotions so that the unpleasantness left over from the hunter office earlier would not show on his face.

The man was dressed in a white coat, with a constant faint smile floating behind thick glasses. His name was Marco. Rather than someone who simply managed a factory, he had the stronger air of a researcher and developer and he made the people around him call him Doctor.

There was no academic society in this city or its surroundings. He had never submitted a paper either. Even so, looking at the expression on his face, tinged with the shadow of a kind of artist absorbed in research, and at the various weapons that were the fruits of that research, no one objected to calling him Doctor.

It was a rather childish matter, but when he was called 『factory chief』he would not answer, even if he understood that the words were being directed at him.

Marco picked up the credit chips and dropped them one after another into a square machine placed on the desk. It was a device that counted the chips while also checking whether they were genuine or fake.

The counting finished, and the amount was displayed. The faint smile vanished from Marco’s face and he looked back and forth between the pile of credits and Dias’s face. Then he selected several credits and pushed them back in front of Dias.

Dias braced himself, wondering if some counterfeit money had somehow been mixed in but Marco smiled broadly and said,

“This is your change.”

“…Excuse me?”

“What do you mean,『excuse me』? Weren’t you paying credits like this every time you hunted a bounty head in order to pay off your loan?”

“That’s true, but… it ended surprisingly fast.”

“It wasn’t fast. Three years have already passed since then.”

Marco looked up at the ceiling and thought back to the past. Even now, he could clearly remember the sight of a filthy boy who looked like he had nothing to do with money, and a girl who had lost her arms and legs, her eyes hollow.

“I was surprised back then. You suddenly showed up and asked me to give her prosthetic limbs, saying you’d do anything.”

Marco laughed at the memory. Dias lowered his face, looking a little uncomfortable.

“I heard you were looking for materials for human experiments, Doctor. So I thought, even if I had to offer myself in exchange…”

“That’s cruel. You actually believed a rumor like that?”

“Even if it was a suspicious rumor, I had no other path but to cling to it.”

Each time he spoke, he felt as though something bitter was seeping up from the back of his tongue.

【I’m a man with no special talents. The only thing I have to offer is my life…】

Were those words directed at the past, or at the present? Who could say?