Vol. 1 Chapter 6 – The Bullet That Tears Through the Darkness

Marko Manufacturing Works was a collection of various facilities, and in a certain sense, it was a town unto itself. Centered around the weapons factory, it also had a research building, a medical building, and, though small, a training ground and shooting range.

At that shooting range, the female security guard Clarissa was scattering handgun bullets everywhere. The circular target ten meters ahead, at best, had its outer edge scraped only occasionally, while most of the shots were swallowed vainly into the earthen wall.

“Goddamn…… is what it feels like.”

Thanks to the goggles occupying the center of her face, her expression was difficult to read but irritation showed around her mouth. She had used up all the bullets she had been issued. Even the extra rounds she had bought out of her own salary did not seem to have helped improve her skill.

A mechanical Magic Eye capable of sensing the temperature around her. With this, there was no doubt it would be useful for guarding on dark nights. By extension, she would probably become able to fight even in the nighttime wasteland, which had become the mutants’ exclusive domain. I, who was born into the darkness, will one day reclaim the night for humanity. She had once boasted as much before her dear Mephistopheles, Marco, but the present reality was that far from subjugating mutants, she could not even fire a gun properly.

Putting aside the portion she had paid for herself, she would likely have to report what had happened to the issued bullets. Just imagining that she might have to submit a target without a single hole in it made her heart feel heavy already.

Clarissa’s job consisted only of undergoing regular checkups and thinking of ways to utilize her artificial eye, then reporting on them. From her own perspective, she could not shake the feeling that they were keeping her around out of pity. Her salary was low, too. That was precisely why she had to be useful. She had to appeal to them as a person who could be useful. As Clarissa showed no sign of improving, perhaps one day Marco would grow tired of her, become completely exasperated, and say,

“Haa…… That’s enough already.”

『Would such a day come?』The thought only made her anxiety pile up higher.

At any rate, she would try one more time. She took a magazine from her pocket and tried to swap it in, but because she was only growing more flustered, she dropped it. As she watched the magazine go karakara, clattering along with a dry sound, she felt terribly miserable and wondered what on earth she was even doing.

“Sorry, may I have a moment?”

A voice called out from above Clarissa’s head as she crouched down and picked up the magazine.『Now then, where had she heard that voice before?』She compared it against her memories and immediately recalled it.

“Gori…… No, Dias-san, was it?”

She was good at remembering people’s voices. After all, she could not afford to make the people around her uncomfortable by getting them wrong or failing to remember them. It was a sad skill born from having had to live while paying attention not to people’s facial expressions, but to the tones of their voices.

Together with that mysterious word,『Gori』Dias wore a puzzled expression.

“Have we met somewhere before?”

“No, I have often heard about you from Dr. Marco……”

She could hardly say that she had been eavesdropping from the next room.

“Would it be all right if I changed the target?”

There was someone shooting beside her. She had not even noticed that. Realizing that she had been so unable to see what was around her made Clarissa sink into terrible depression.

Clarissa’s eyes were corrected so that even objects that did not emit heat could be read from things such as the flow of the surrounding air. A box was merely a square, and she could not see the letters on it. A ball was merely a circle, so she could not distinguish between a soccer ball and a basketball, but at any rate, she could recognize their outlines. Therefore, she could also see the target as a round object in front of her.

She turned her gaze to the neighboring target and used the zoom function. Unlike Clarissa’s, its center was riddled with holes.

Dias entered the small room beside the earthen wall where the targets were lined up, then pulled the installed chain and turned it. Then the target was drawn in, so he replaced it with a new one, turned it again, and set it in place.

Since this was not a specialized training range, not much money had been spent on it, so it was manual. To begin with, there were not many people who used this facility.

Dias took his position at the firing spot, grasped the gun with one hand, and aimed straight ahead. Clarissa stared fixedly at him. Red indicated high temperature. The scorching bullet sliced through the air and punched through the center of the target as though being sucked into it.

Even to an amateur’s eye, it was clear that he was completely different from her. At the moment he fired, his body did not waver at all. Whether he was suppressing the recoil or not, his hand did not even twitch.

Clarissa watched intently as he fired until the magazine was empty. Her neck did not move, but the camera in her goggles moved busily left and right.

“It’s a little hard to do this when you stare at me that intently……”

“Please make me your disciple!”

Their conversation did not connect at all. Clarissa was simply desperate.

From Dias’s perspective, his honest impression was, 『What the hell is this girl talking about?』For a hunter, shooting technique was a tool of the trade, and it was not the kind of thing where, just because someone asked him to teach them, he would simply say,『Sure, go ahead.』

Furthermore, Dias had no experience teaching techniques to others and because of his low self-esteem, he did not think he had the qualifications to teach anyone anything.

“Even if you tell me to teach you, I’m not doing anything special. It’s all the kind of thing you’d find written in a textbook.”

“That textbook or whatever, I cannot read it!”

After that, Clarissa spoke rapidly. Her upbringing. The performance of her artificial eye. The fact that, because of her position, she somehow wanted to produce results.

“This artificial eye was created through the application of the data that you, Dias-san and Cardiel-san gathered.”

“Yeah.”

“Therefore, in a broad sense, would that not make me the child of you two!?”

“Yeah?”

“What hesitation does a papa need when passing his techniques down to his daughter!”

“I do not recall having a daughter as big and shameless as you. Also, please do not call me Papa. If people misunderstand, it will become troublesome.”

Dias turned his back on her as if to say he could not keep dealing with this any longer but Clarissa called out to him in a sunken voice.

“I suppose so……In the end, people who lack bodily functions have no choice but to live as outcasts in the shadows, do they?”

『What an unpleasant way to say it』. Dias’s feet, which had been heading for the exit, stopped. It felt as if a hand crawling out of a swamp had grabbed him by the ankle.

Clarissa knew. She knew who Dias would picture if she said that.

Dias understood. He understood that the name of the one he loved was being used against him.

He remained with his back turned for a while, but eventually Dias let out a large breath, as though he had given in, and turned around.

“For now, shall I teach you the stance for shooting……?”

From Clarissa’s perspective, it was somewhat anticlimactic. Even though she had guided the conversation so that it would turn out this way, was he not giving in far too easily?

『……Could it be that this person is not cold or indifferent toward others, but simply a good person who is bad at dealing with people?』

For the next thirty minutes or so, not a single bullet was fired, and the time was spent correcting her posture. It was kind, careful, and patient instruction. The other party was a rough hunter. She had worried that a dozen slaps might come flying during the lesson but that fear proved groundless as well.

When she said that he was teaching her kindly, Dias answered with a slightly embarrassed look.

“I was completely hopeless long ago, too. I couldn’t even make a shot fly straight.”

So he probably meant that he did not intend to act too high and mighty.

She gripped the gun firmly and lowered her hips. She did wonder whether it was proper for a woman of her age to spread her legs so widely, but because she could truly feel that her stance was stable, she could not say anything.

“All right, then try shooting.”

She stared straight at the target and fired. It did not hit dead center, but with a definite sense of impact, the bullet pierced through it.

“Ooh……”

A voice of admiration for herself slipped out without thinking.

Dias pon lightly tapped Clarissa on the shoulder, then left the shooting range as he was.

“U-um, thank you very much!”

Her thanks came with slightly off timing, but her voice was loud, so he had probably heard it.

After that, Clarissa bought additional bullets and devoted herself to practice. Her accuracy rose to a reasonable level and she proudly went to show Marco the target with holes in it.

A few days later, in order to train her own special trait of being able to see things even in darkness, she fired a gun in the training ground late at night without turning on any lights. This caused an uproar where a large number of security guards came rushing over and restrained her.

Partly because of that incident, it seemed Clarissa’s evaluation had not risen all that much.

***

Praed, a city in the wasteland where humans lived huddled together shoulder to shoulder.

In the center of the city, the district where the wealthy lived was surrounded by thick walls, and the district where the middle class lived also had a reasonably solid defensive wall. Beyond that, around the outer perimeter, there were only simple barricades made from assembled logs wrapped in barbed wire. The wealthy went to safe places and the poor went to dangerous places. Such blatant color-coding had been carried out.

The lowest-class poor who lived at the very edge of the city built tents out of scrap materials, sowed seeds in the ruined soil, and lived by scavenging through the mountains of garbage that came from the center. If mutants attacked, naturally, they would be the first to be sacrificed. The council members only had to leisurely come up with countermeasures while those people were being eaten.

The mutants of the wasteland did not attack that frequently either. Even though there were no defensive facilities, this place was still inside a human nest.

Even poor homes had guns, at least. Humans suffered great casualties as well but there were plenty of cases where mutants had been surrounded, subjected to concentrated fire and subjugated. And if they subjugated a mutant, the Hunter Office would pay out a bounty, so while they feared the monsters’ attacks, there was certainly also a side of them that looked forward to them.

However, on this night alone, they could not speak so lightly.

On this day, a boy from the slums was standing night watch. It was volunteer work forced onto him in the name of mutual aid, beautiful unpaid labor full of meaning.

It was wrapped in silence. Only the crackling sound of the torch held up in his left hand and the buzzing of insect wings could be heard strangely clearly. Occasionally, a drunkard inside one of the tents would let out a bizarre shout.

『What a worthless life』. The boy turned his eyes toward the center of the city.

It was not as though he could see the lights from here, but the people in the center were surely still awake. Just like him, they would be up all night. Unlike him, it would be for the sake of amusement.

The boy slipped his hand into his breast pocket and confirmed the cold feel of the handgun.

The quickest way to escape the slums was to become a hunter. He, too, held such an ambition. However, having only a single handgun as his weapon was far too unreliable.

『……Like hell I can keep doing things like scavenging through mountains of garbage for pocket change forever. Tomorrow. Tomorrow for sure, I’ll go out into the wasteland. If I find a hunter’s corpse, there’ll probably be a weapon lying nearby and if I take the identification tag to the Hunter Office, I can get a reward.』

He stopped where he stood, took out the handgun, and stared at it.

『……If I can’t find a corpse, then I might as well make one myself.』

His partner for carving open the future, his beloved accomplice. Illuminated by the flames, the handgun looked almost mystical.

As the boy twisted his mouth and laughed alone, a shadow covered him from above. There was an intense beastly stench, strong enough to make even a nose that should have been used to foul smells curl in disgust. Its breath was not merely lukewarm. It carried a clear, unmistakable heat.

When he timidly turned around, a gigantic horse with red eyes was looking down at him, though he had no idea when it had appeared.

Its front legs were shaped like human arms. Its hind legs were human legs. Since they supported the massive body of the mutant horse, they were incomparably thicker and larger than those of a human.

The scream never became a voice. Before he could even ready his gun, a gigantic hand seized the boy’s head in an eagle-like grip and crushed it. What had once been human collapsed, scattering blood.

The horse stepped on the fallen torch and snuffed it out, then sank its teeth into the boy’s intestines and began to eat.

Seen from a distance, it might have seemed like a pastoral scene of a horse grazing on grass, but what was actually taking place in the darkness was something that should be called a demon’s dinner, a horrifying sight.

Once it had finished eating most of him, the horse walked away leisurely, just as it had come.

The manner of the boy’s death was tragic but it was not unusual. It was the end eventually reached by those who lived as hunters, just as he had wished to do.

***

In the director’s office of Marko Manufacturing Works, Cardiel and Clarissa were enjoying a game of chess while chatting pleasantly. As though showing off her elegant artificial arm, Cardiel moved a piece with somewhat theatrical gestures. Though, to Clarissa’s eyes, the quality of an artificial arm did not register at all. All she could see was an arm possessing heat different from body temperature making needlessly exaggerated movements.

A short distance away, Dias and Marco watched over them gently.

“What a beautiful sight……”

At Marco’s murmur, Dias doubted his ears for an instant. It was certainly pleasant to watch two young, beautiful women chatting happily. The unnatural point was that such a line had come from Marco’s mouth. He probably had not been praising their appearance.

Dias silently nodded, urging him to continue.

“By rights, those girls should have no limbs, and should be unable to see. Yet through the development of neural connection technology, they can laugh and play like this. Isn’t that truly wonderful?”

It was an unusual way to praise something, but he was absolutely right. As far as Dias was concerned, he owed Marco an immense debt of gratitude just for giving her back her smile.

“The progress of science and technology has not always brought blessings to humanity. But I want to say with confidence that medicine alone has made people happy.”

“I believe that is exactly as you say.”

Three years ago, Dias and the others had been unable to move, both physically and financially, and had lived with the two characters for『suicide』always sitting somewhere in the corner of their minds. He understood painfully well how noble it was to remove the inconveniences caused by missing body parts and restore a person’s pride.

“So then, who exactly are you asking me to kill this time?”

“Hmm?”

“I thought you were creating an atmosphere where it would be difficult for me to refuse, then planning to ask me for something……”

“What an unlovable fellow. You weren’t like that in the old days, were you?”

“I will say that it is thanks to you.”

“Mm, well, you’re right. This makes things quick, and that is good.”

As he said that, Marco took a bundle of photographs from a drawer and tossed them onto the black-lacquered desk.

When Dias picked one up, it showed the miserable corpse of a man with no head, his intestines devoured and scattered. Judging from his build, perhaps he was at an age where he should still be called a boy.

“It’s a little grotesque, so be careful.”

“I would prefer you say that before taking them out.”

Marco was both a doctor and a scientist, while Dias was a veteran hunter. They were used to seeing miserable corpses. That did not mean, however, that they actively wanted to look at them.

The second photo showed an old man’s corpse. The third, a young woman’s corpse. The fourth, and then more photos of corpses without intestines, continued on.

“It seems to be quite the gourmet. It eats only the intestines and pays no attention to the other parts.”

Dias glanced sideways to check on Cardiel. If possible, he did not want her to hear talk about being eaten by mutants and such.

She seemed absorbed in her cheerful conversation with Clarissa and was not paying attention to them.

“And so, while I was doing it while still connected to the tank, it suddenly started moving and crashed into a rock wall……”

“So you came, then!?”

The two women looked at each other, raised their voices, slapped their knees, and laughed. It seemed the conversation between women had overheated and entered dangerous territory. In the momentum of her laughter, one of them bumped her knee against the table, and they hurriedly fixed the chess pieces that had fallen over.

『……Please stop.』

An unpleasant sweat seeped from Dias’s back and ran down in a single tsu line. Marco’s cold stare pierced into his chest and it hurt terribly.

However, if he made them stop talking, the natural flow would likely lead them to join this conversation instead. Dias cleared his throat in an obviously deliberate way and picked up the bundle of photographs.

『Corpses, corpses, corpses.』

Hunters fought mutants and whether they killed or were killed, it could not be helped. That was Dias’s philosophy, his way of thinking. On the other hand, looking at the miserable forms of noncombatants made his heart heavy. Children’s corpses, in particular, were no good.

It was a photo collection in extremely poor taste, but he could not avoid looking at it. Since he would soon be fighting while carrying their regrets on his back, he must not avert his eyes. Dias was burning with a strange sense of mission.

Eventually, his hand stopped turning the photos. It was not a corpse. The image was blurry and unclear, but it looked like a horse. And since it was mixed in among photos like these, it was surely no ordinary horse. As for the color of its body, whether it was black or chestnut, it was too dark to tell accurately. Strangely, its legs appeared whitish.

“Is there something that bothers you?”

“First, the number of victims is far too high. This means it has attacked repeatedly inside the city, not in the wasteland, correct? And within a short period of time, at that.”

“These are all photos from within the last month. What’s more, the intervals between its attacks are getting shorter and shorter.”

“What is the Central Council’s policy?”

“To wait and see. Nothing has happened in the center yet, after all. They say it might be temporary or it might disappear eventually.”

『What nonsense』Dias thought, his face twisting with irritation. Seeing that, Marco instead nodded as though relieved. He recognized that Dias understood the situation correctly.

“Yes, it’s a major problem. This horse-like mutant has probably come to recognize a human city as a feeding ground that poses no great danger. I do not know how communication between mutants works but if this is left alone, there is also the possibility that it may call its companions and attack as a group.”

“I believe the possibility is high that more of the same species as this horse will come……”

When Dias straightened the photos and placed them on the desk, Marco put them away in the drawer with a sigh.

At whom was that terribly exhausted expression directed? Was it worry over the city’s safety, or irritation at the council’s carefree attitude? Dias renewed his resolve regarding this matter, thinking that he would like to ease even a little of that distress if he could.

“I assume you understand my request to you. Make those beasts understand the terror of humanity.”

“Leave it to me. I will certainly bring it down.”

At that powerful reply, Marco nodded in satisfaction.

“Ah, and I should mention this, just in case. It’s not as though every member of the council is a blockhead. After that worthless regular meeting ended, several of them came to me and said,『Marco-san, isn’t this bad?’ That was the kind of discussion we had. And if I could get this mutant defeated, they also offered financial support.』

Even as he spoke of hope, Marco’s expression did not clear.

By rights, this was a matter that the council, where the city’s influential figures gathered, should face as one united body. Was it truly right for it to be resolved by sensible individuals acting separately? Was it not only a temporary stopgap?

The council members would be better off suffering for their carelessness at least once, but if that became a fatal wound for the city itself, it would be unbearable. As its name implied, the Central Council was located in the center of the city, the safest position. By the time they suffered harm, the city would probably already be almost destroyed.

“In the end, that means we have no choice but to do it……”

Dias murmured lonely.

“Well, that’s how it is, so we have money. If there’s anything you need, tell me. I’ll provide it as part of the service. If you succeed in the subjugation, I’ll even give you a bonus.”

“Then please prepare illumination rounds and a secondary cannon to fire them.”

“Of course. We’ll hurry with the installation and maintenance of the cannon, predict the mutant’s next appearance point and handle various other matters. Realistically, you’ll be able to move from the day after tomorrow onward, I suppose. Until then, take it easy and build up your energy.”

“Yes.”

“Preferably……”

There, Marco turned toward Dias and gave him a broad, mischievous grin.

“Outside the tank.”

If Dias did not succeed no matter what, he might never hear the end of this. With a wry smile, Dias nodded.

***

A pitch-black night, as though ink had been poured over everything. A nightmare realm without the protection of the sun.

People entrusted their faint prayers to barricades made of assembled scrap materials and to watchfires, then went to sleep. If someone had to be eaten anyway, let it be the guy next door.

A little distance away from the slums where people slept in fear, a single tank, darker than the darkness itself, stood still with its engine running.

“I’m bored……”

“Yeah, I know.”

It was an exchange they had repeated so many times they no longer knew the count. Tonight marked one week since Dias and Cardiel had begun their late-night stakeout. Nights that could only be described as 『nothing abnormal』had continued.

Once, a mutant had appeared in a completely different place.

“Is the doctor’s prediction really accurate?”

“A prediction is still only a prediction. Don’t be so impatient. Waiting is also part of a hunter’s job.”

Waiting motionlessly for prey to come. Or enduring and waiting for a threat to pass. Those were common things for hunters, and the patience required for waiting was an essential skill. However, if they kept striking out forever, it was only natural that they would grow irritated.

Even if no combat occurred, Marco paid them a daily allowance for standing guard, but it was incomparable to the amount they would receive for subjugating the mutant.

“Waiting is『also』part of a hunter’s job. That is correct. But waiting is not『the』job of a hunter!”

Cardiel was blunt. Dias did not voice complaints or dissatisfaction, but he too was equally tired of the situation.

They spent the entire night on guard with tension in the air, only for it to end in wasted effort, after which they went home and slept. If such things continued, anyone would eventually grow sick of it. The stress caused by futility and wasted effort was great.

“Shall we visit the doctor tomorrow? Tell him that we’re getting nowhere like this.”

“Yes. We need him to rethink the countermeasures or improve the accuracy of his prediction……”

Perhaps because the next thing they should do had been decided, Cardiel did not complain any further.

“If we don’t defeat that thing, the number of victims will increase again……”

Cardiel murmured with a somewhat complicated expression.

“……You knew?”

“I’m a coward, after all. Sounds around me, people’s voices, all of it bothers me. I can hear them even while we’re joking around.”

Although she had become much brighter now, the fear from the incident three years ago had not been completely wiped away and her essence remained that of a coward. She could not sleep unless the lights were left on and she also could not sleep unless Dias was with her.

However, there were certainly parts of her that had grown, unlike back then.

Until a short while ago, Cardiel had shown no interest in anyone besides Dias. Now that she had obtained beautiful artificial limbs and regained her confidence, perhaps she had gained the emotional room to worry about others as well. If someone was going to be eaten by a mutant, she wanted to save them if she could.

The fact that Cardiel had grown stronger mentally as well gave Dias a complicated feeling, both reassuring and lonely.

『……Maybe trying to keep her away from gruesome sights was unnecessary meddling.』

He felt ashamed of himself. They had known each other for a long time, and he wished to be the person who understood her best, but even so, there were still times when he did not know what the best action was. Every day was study and reflection.

『Would tonight end in another miss as well?』Just as he reached for the thermos filled with coffee like mud, meant only to keep him awake, Cardiel suddenly shouted.

“Gunfire, three o’clock direction, five kilometers!”

Before she had even finished speaking, the tank suddenly shot forward.

After knocking his body here and there, then putting his hand against the wall and somehow regaining his balance, Dias operated the terminal and began preparing to fire the illumination rounds.

With a dull uiiiiin groan, part of the upper armor opened, and three mortars on each side rose up. They tilted from vertical to diagonally forward and high-speed shooting stars that seemed to leave even the explosive sound behind tore through the dark night.

The abnormal monster was illuminated by the shining parachutes. A mixture of magnesium and sodium nitrate. What science exposed was a fantastical monster.

It was a gigantic horse with red eyes. Extending from the base of its legs were human arms and legs.

At the horse’s feet, no, at its hands, a man lay collapsed. Bulging muscles. A firearm lying nearby that could almost be mistaken for a cannon. He too had probably been a hunter who had come to subjugate the mutant. Perhaps he had been trampled, as his right arm was twisted in a strange direction and he was sinking in a pool of his own blood.

A tank woman without limbs and a horse monster with human limbs. As a picture of confrontation, it was far too tasteless, and Cardiel frowned behind her goggles.

The tank accelerated further and closed in on the mutant. At this distance, even while moving, with what was called firing on the move, Dias’s skill should have been enough to hit it. However, he did not move.

“Dias, what’s wrong!?”

“No good. There are houses behind it!”

If he missed, naturally, the shabby tents and the residents inside would be smashed to pieces. Even if he hit the mutant, it would be the same if the shot pierced through it. And there was no telling what effect it might have on the man lying nearby.

If it was to defeat a medium-sized mutant threatening the city, then legally speaking, he probably would not be blamed no matter how many hunters or poor residents got caught up in it. But to Dias, it was clearly an evil deed. He could not kill people he bore no grudge against.

“Eh, wait, what do we do?”

“Ngh……”

Neither of them had any experience in urban warfare. Faced with this unexpected development, they froze for a while. The fallen man might still be breathing. The illumination rounds would eventually fall to the ground. Bound tightly by the chain of thought called a time limit, they could not move in a situation where they needed to hurry.

Dias felt a gaze piercing into the back of his head. Cardiel was probably looking at him with anxious eyes.

『……At times like this, I’m the one who has to do something.』

Suddenly, the beloved rifle hanging on the wall entered his field of vision. Ever since he had started hunting with the tank, his opportunities to use it had decreased considerably, but he had not neglected his training, so his skills should not have rusted.

『……What, haven’t I experienced a situation like this once before?』

He gripped the rifle firmly. There was no longer any hesitation in his eyes.

“Stop one hundred meters before that thing! And be ready to run at any time!”

“Eh? Are we running, or are we fighting?”

“Both!”

He opened the hatch, leaned his upper body out, and readied the rifle. Through the scope, he caught sight of the mutant, which looked as though it was about to begin its meal at any moment.

“I don’t know any smart way to make the one you’re interested in turn around, but if I hit it for now, it won’t be able to ignore us.”

The instant he raised the rifle, every emotion fell away from Dias’s expression. His cold gaze pierced through his prey.

He squeezed the trigger, aiming at the eyes that shone the color of blood, unique to mutants. A mere one hundred meters. To Dias, it was a distance no different from reaching out and grabbing something with his hand. If he could crush its eye, good. Even if he could not, the shot would hit its head.

The fatal bullet should have buried itself into the mutant horse’s head. But suddenly, the horse’s figure vanished, and the bullet was swallowed vainly into the dark night.

“Impossible, it dodged!?”

Shocked, Dias instinctively pulled his eye away from the scope. He had not thought that this would be enough to bring it down but it should have dealt a certain amount of damage. The horse had not disappeared. It had bent its arms and legs, lowered itself on the spot, and gone down on all fours.

The man-horse glared at their tank with eyes burning with murderous intent, then crawled forward while swinging a long tongue, perhaps a meter in length, from side to side. No matter how one looked at it, that was not the way a horse walked. It was a movement that called a spider to mind. Its form was so hideous that they were seized by the illusion that its foul breath was reaching them.

Dias took aim and fired another shot. This one was avoided with a sideways leap. As if that shot had been the signal, the man-horse charged at them on all fours with tremendous speed.

This was fine. It would have been possible to snipe it from farther away but the distance of one hundred meters had been chosen to let it see them and make it chase them.

Dias quickly slipped back inside the vehicle.

“Go! We’ll draw it away to a wide-open area!”

“At least act like a horse, seriously!”

Cardiel, who hated spiders, endured the chill crawling over her back, turned the tank while determined not to be caught no matter what, and fled like a startled rabbit.

The dark wasteland had no trace of life, yet the smell of blood certainly drifted through it. Two abnormal forms raced through the darkness. A tank made one with human and machine, and a mutant made from human and horse.

Running at high speed while grasping the surrounding terrain through radar was a feat only Cardiel could perform, because she controlled the tank like her own arms and legs through neural connection.

However, the pressure was anything but ordinary. Climbing onto a rock, crashing into a rock wall, being caught by the mutant. Each was a tightrope walk directly connected to death. A vast amount of information flowed directly into her brain. She organized it, reflected it, and simply fled with all her might. A burden on the brain impossible for a flesh-and-blood body. Greasy sweat slowly seeped across Cardiel’s forehead. If she relaxed even slightly, it felt as though her consciousness might shut down.

“Cardiel, we’ll finish it here!”

“I’ve been waiting for that!”

At Dias’s declaration, Cardiel let out a relieved breath. They had not defeated the mutant yet, but it was certain that they had taken one step forward. Thinking that Dias had chosen this place while considering the burden on her made her feel a little happy, even at a time like this.

Once again, the six illumination rounds were fired into the lightless sky. The battlefield, with rocks jutting out here and there, was illuminated in white. Realizing only now that they had been driving through a place like this sent a chill through her.

Sliding its tracks and scattering pebbles, the tank spun one hundred eighty degrees and stopped on the spot.

Perhaps sensing the atmosphere of a decisive battle, the man-horse also stopped about ten meters away. It lowered itself even further, taking a posture from which it could pounce at any moment.

The man-horse slowly crept sideways. The turret followed its figure and rotated. They could not fire carelessly. This thing had dodged Dias’s sniping earlier. It had clearly seen the bullet and avoided it. If they fired first, they would lose. A suffocating, tense stretch of time passed by.

Without warning, and without a sound, the man-horse leapt.

Ten meters was a distance that a ferocious beast could close in an instant. It probably intended to leap onto the tank and crush it as it was. But its opponent was a veteran who had continued fighting mutants for several years and survived. Everything had been read. The hunter had been waiting for this very moment.

At the same time the man-horse moved, the tank rapidly reversed. Naturally, while it was in midair, it could not change direction. And Dias had already aligned his aim with the place where they had been only moments before.

The leap had clearly been careless. To Dias, this was within expectations. This mutant had recognized the city as a mere feeding ground with no significant danger. In other words, it had looked down on humans. Although it had faced them in a standoff, it had quickly grown impatient, thinking that if it simply pinned down these fragile humans, it could do as it pleased.

『……As expected, patience really is an essential skill for hunters.』

Just as the man-horse was about to land, an armor-piercing shell was fired.

Illuminated by the swaying illumination rounds descending from above, the man-horse’s expression seemed to twist in fear. It instantly tried to shield its body with its arms but such things could not stop an armor-piercing shell.

The unconscious thirst for life, that prayer. Its arms were torn away into nothingness, and meaninglessly, as the shell destroyed its torso and pierced through. The armor-piercing shell scattered a bloody wind and vanished into the dark night. Blood flowed as though a bucket had been overturned, and its mangled, collapsing organs spilled out with a beshari splat.

Toward the moonless night sky, where artificial lights flickered, the man-horse neighed sorrowfully, then offered its body to the dry earth.

“Yes!”

Cardiel raised a cry of triumph but to Dias’s ears, it felt as though her voice had come from far away. Right now, he was looking through the scope, staring fixedly at the man-horse’s final moments.

『Did that mutant have emotions? Had it felt fear? Trying to block a shell with its hands on reflex was far too human-like a gesture. Did it have something to do with the fact that it possessed human arms and legs?』

“Now the people eaten by that thing can finally rest in peace!”

She was honestly happy. Certainly, from the standpoint of humans, this was revenge, and it was justice. They had subjugated a monster that threatened the city’s peace and devoured people. But from that mutant’s perspective, had it not merely been having a meal?

It had devoured human intestines. It had died scattering its own intestines. Now that everything was over, would mourning the death of a monster that had met such a miserable end be an insult to the victims?

He did not know. He understood nothing.

“Diaaas, what’s wrong?”

Perhaps finding it suspicious that he kept looking down without moving, Cardiel called out to him. As though released from a swamp of thought, Dias lifted his face. So that she would not sense what he had been thinking, he forced himself to smile.

“No, it’s nothing. I’m just a little tired.”

“True. I want to hurry back, sleep properly, and then spend about three days without going outside, just lazing around in bed.”

“Sounds good. A truly grand ambition.”

Pulling himself together, he prepared the mutant decapitation set: a cooler box, a chainsaw, and a rifle for keeping watch, then opened the hatch. Once they cut off its head and returned to the factory, it would finally be settled.

Thinking how different the wasteland’s temperature was between day and night, he shivered as he approached what remained of the man-horse.

To confirm whether it was alive or dead, he stared fixedly at its face. With its teeth bared and tears of blood streaming from its eyes, its expression seemed to direct an intense hatred at him even in death.

“How were you creatures born, and what do you live for, I wonder……”

No one answered Dias’s murmur.

He started to reach out to close its eyelids, then stopped. Perhaps this face of regret was the final thing the man-horse had left behind. Perhaps the dead creature’s purpose would be fulfilled precisely by chilling the hearts of the people from the Hunter Office who saw this face. If so, he would respect it. It was his own arbitrary imagination and perhaps unnecessary meddling. But there was nothing else he could do for it.

He lowered the rifle he had been holding and instead grabbed the chainsaw, starting it up. Into the dark night was swallowed the reaper’s roar, the howl of countless blades.

The very instant he swung the chainsaw up, a shadow suddenly leapt out.

By a hair’s breadth, Dias twisted his body and dodged the shadow’s charge but the chainsaw was knocked flying. There was no time to pick up the rifle.

He wanted to curse his own carelessness. Though he had gained victory by taking advantage of the enemy’s negligence, how disgraceful was it for him to fall into danger because of his own negligence?

There had been a hint of this as well in his conversation with Marco. Prediction. It was something he should naturally have been wary of.

Dias was unarmed. Standing in front of him was the shadow. A second man-horse.

Pinned in place by its two eyes, which held the color of purgatorial flames, Dias’s movement was sealed.

A second man-horse had appeared, as though it could not even spare the time to return from hell. It was the worst possible situation, having to face a medium-sized mutant while unarmed but the attachment to life, that light, had not vanished from Dias’s eyes.

『……There’s no way Cardiel will do nothing in this situation. As long as I can block the enemy’s first strike, the rest will somehow work out!』

He lowered his hips and took a stance that would let him run immediately in any direction. By some strange coincidence, he had ended up in the same position as the man-horse from moments earlier.

Violently shaking its head and scattering drool, the man-horse kicked up dust and launched a ferocious charge.

Dias drew it in until the very last moment, then dodged with a sideways leap. Success. The instant he thought that, a sharp pain ran through his ankle, and his body was wrapped in a floating sensation. The enemy was not a mere beast. Its human arms were not decorations either. It had stretched out an arm, grabbed Dias’s ankle, and swung him upward as though handling a stick.

『……Does it mean to slam me down like this!?』

His field of vision shook violently. Preparing for the impact, he instantly protected his head. But the impact came from a completely different place.

A black lump of iron smashed into the man-horse’s side. It was a charge from the tank, whose turret had been rotated slightly so the barrel would not get in the way. Bekibeki, came the sound of bones being crushed. The man-horse let out a groan of agony, but it did not fall. The enemy held its ground on the spot.

Dias was thrown through the air and broke his fall against the earth. He had no room to worry about the pain in his ankle. What should he do now? He ran his gaze left and right, searching for the rifle.

“Just die like this, damn you!”

Cardiel launched another charge at the staggering man-horse.

The man-horse did not even try to dodge. On the contrary, it faced the charge head-on, grabbed the front armor with both hands, and stopped the tank’s charge.

“No way!?”

Cardiel cried out in shock. Was it a nightmare, or reality? Either way, she did not want to believe it.

The man-horse bared its huge teeth and clenched them, veins bulging across its arms and legs as it used all its strength to restrain Cardiel’s movement. No, more than that, the tank was gradually being lifted. Thirty degrees, then forty degrees, as its slope increased.

Is it seriously planning to flip me over like this? In Cardiel’s mind appeared the image of a turtle struggling with its shell down.

An incomprehensible movement, a reckless action. When Cardiel realized its true intention, she felt a suffocating impatience. Sweat seeped out, and her throat dried painfully.

“Like hell I’ll let you, you……!”

In order to escape its restraint, she spun the tracks at high speed, but because less of them were touching the ground, the resistance acting on the man-horse was reduced as well. She hurriedly tried rotating the turret too, but naturally, that had no meaning.

The man-horse stood on two legs, about to flip the tank over and render it powerless. Dias picked up the rifle, dropped to one knee, and took aim.

Sniping must have a clear objective. Then what point should he prioritize now? He had to prevent the tank from being crushed, no matter what. If he could turn its attention toward himself, even better.

From Dias’s position, the man-horse’s head was blocked by the arms lifting the tank, so he could not aim at it. Also, as a rule, a mutant’s head was both its weak point and its hardest part. He could not make an all-or-nothing gamble.

In that case, Dias fired shot after shot at the man-horse’s right arm. Flesh was gouged away, the little finger and ring finger burst off, bone was exposed, and still the man-horse did not stop. It only glanced at Dias and did not change its target.

『……So this thing understands priorities too. The mutants I’ve defeated until now usually took the bait fairly quickly when provoked.』

『Would the tank be toppled first, or would the man-horse’s right arm be torn off first?』Dias continued firing with single-minded focus.

The man-horse was likely suffering considerably as well, supporting the tank while foaming at the mouth. But it did not fall. The exposed bone was unexpectedly hard and he could not completely destroy the arm.

Suddenly, the flesh of the man-horse’s left leg burst apart. Before he could resolve his question of what had happened, another shot came, with a low, groaning sound as it cut through the wind. It struck the left ankle and gouged out a large chunk. Judging from its power, it seemed to be a much larger caliber than Dias’s rifle.

The man-horse’s huge body swayed. He did not fully understand the situation, but this was a chance.

Into its arm, its leg, and then its head, now that the line of fire had opened, he fired bullets one after another. From the opposite side with the man-horse between them, large-caliber bullets were also fired, destroying its body.

Not only its arms and legs but even parts of its chest and belly had bone exposed, and the man-horse, while still alive, took on a zombie-like form before collapsing on the spot. With a heavy tremor through the earth, it was crushed beneath the tank.

Silence returned to the dark night, and the gunshots left in the depths of Dias’s ears began to ache with a kiiiin ringing.

“Is it…… over?”

Even Dias, who had fought countless mutants, could only think that this thing’s inexhaustible vitality was absurd.

It should no longer have any power left to fight. Even so, seized by the fear that it might stand up again, he remained unable to move from where he stood, rifle still at the ready.

The tank’s tracks reversed, scraping away the man-horse’s hide as it descended from atop its body.

And then, it advanced again.

Before Dias could stop her and ask what she intended to do, the tank climbed onto the man-horse’s head.

“This thing tried to kill Dias! I’ll slaughter it! Get minced and die, you bastard!”

Was that figure a yaksha, or a demon? With a fierce expression, Cardiel advanced. The tracks chewed through the man-horse’s head, and even its death cry, like the croak of a bullfrog, was drowned out by the driving noise.

The tank suddenly dropped down with a thud. It seemed the man-horse’s head had been completely destroyed, and the tracks had touched the earth.

A relieved breath escaped Cardiel and a twisted delight appeared around her mouth. Scattering the smell of blood and brain matter, the battle was now settled here.

There were many kinds of cleanup they had to do, but first, there was something they had to confirm. The existence of the mysterious collaborator. Dias removed the scope from the rifle, aimed it straight ahead, and peered through it.

Inside the cut-out circle, he saw the figure of a man straddling a bike. The enormous gun propped up beside him was likely the true identity of the weapon that had destroyed the man-horse’s leg.

His right arm was gone from the elbow down, and white bone was exposed. Judging from the state of the wound, it probably had not been long since he lost it. The tourniquet wrapped around his upper arm bit in so deeply that it was obvious at a glance.

That man also seemed to be watching them, peering through binoculars gripped in his left hand. When he noticed Dias, he waved while still holding the binoculars.

Dias felt as though he had seen him somewhere before, but he could not remember. To begin with, aside from the people connected to Marko Manufacturing Works, he had no acquaintances who could really be called acquaintances, so tracing through his memories did not take long.

As a result, no one matched.

The man slung the large rifle behind his back and skillfully handled the bike with just his left arm as he came toward them.

If possible, Dias wanted to remember before he arrived. In the sense that he still could not clearly tell whether the man was friend or foe, it was even a matter of life and death.

He could not remember the man’s face, but what about that distinctive gun? At last, it came to him. He was the man who had been lying at the feet of the man-horse in the slums.

Leaving his bike a short distance away, the man approached with the best smile he could manage on his rugged face. He was at least a head taller than Dias. Dias seriously found himself wondering whether the man might be a mutant created from a gorilla and a human. Since this was after fighting the man-horse, it was not exactly something he could laugh off.

“Yo, you’re the owner of that tank, yeah? You saved me back there. If it weren’t for you, I’d be horse dung by now.”

As he spoke, the man held out his left hand. For an instant, Dias could not understand what he intended. For a hunter, entrusting one’s arm to another was suicidal, and also taboo.

Even so, someone who asked for a handshake was either simply a fool, someone setting a trap, or someone who understood all of that and was still resolved to show affection toward the other person. What was more, this man had no right hand. Trying to entrust his arm to a man he was meeting for the first time could only be called far too lacking in caution. Dias was exasperated, but at the same time, he held no bad feelings toward this man.

……Yeah, all right. It’s the third one.

He started to offer his right hand, hurriedly pulled it back, and held out his left hand instead.

“If you hadn’t been there, the tank might have been destroyed by now, and I might have been tortured to death. You saved me.”

The two men wore awkward smiles and exchanged a firm handshake beneath the night sky illuminated by the flares. Dias decided to keep quiet about the fact that he had not remembered him until just a moment ago.

『Call me Isaac』. That was what the man said.

When Dias asked what had happened to his arm, Isaac said that the joint had been crushed to a pulp, and since it was only connected by a single strip of skin and getting in the way, he tore it off and threw it away.

Dias was about to ask how Isaac had known they were fighting here but he immediately realized it was a foolish question and stopped himself. After all, Dias himself had launched the most obvious marker imaginable into the sky.

“I didn’t like just getting beaten and leaving it at that, so I ended up chasing after it. And for some reason, I get the feeling there are two horse bastard corpses here. Is that just my imagination?”

“Unfortunately, both you and I are sane. Right after we defeated the first one, the second one barged in.”

“Ahh, so does that mean what I’m thinking it means? The one that crushed my arm and the one I gave a bullet to were completely different people, or rather, different horses……?”

“That’s what it means.”

“Well, damn……”

Dias could not find any words to say to Isaac as he slumped in disappointment. He had thought he had gotten revenge on the one who crushed his arm, only to find out it had been someone else entirely. It was only natural for him to feel depressed.

Dias understood that feeling well too. In the end, the mutant that had devoured Cardiel’s arms and legs had not been defeated by his own hands, but had turned into someone else’s drinking money. After that, he had slaughtered many of the same species, but this and that were still separate matters, and there was a part of him that could not feel satisfied.

“I understand……”

“Yeah? So you get it, huh.”

To ask would be rude. To explain would be unnecessary. Nothing decent would come out of digging up a hunter’s past. Therefore, this brief exchange was enough, and it was proper etiquette.

“By the way, I’ve got one favor to ask……”

As though he had been measuring the timing to bring it up, Isaac opened his mouth apologetically.

“What is it?”

“If you’ve got painkillers, could you share some?”

Isaac’s face was pale, and not only because he was illuminated by the flare. His arm was gone, and the bone was exposed. This was not the kind of injury that could be handled just by tightly wrapping a tourniquet around it. From the wound, blood dripped traveling down the bone.

Dias lightly lowered his head as though apologizing for not having noticed it until now, then pulled out the first-aid kit attached to his waist.

“Does it hurt?”

As he said that, he took out a syringe and medical morphine with practiced hands.

“To be precise, it feels like it’s about to start hurting. Something is slowly rising up, and I can tell the painkiller’s about to wear off soon, or something like that……”

“I see. That’s scary.”

Isaac looked puzzled as Dias started putting the syringe away.

“It’s already done.”

“Eh?”

When Isaac looked at his arm, there was indeed a needle mark. While his attention had been focused on the conversation, Dias had quickly given him the injection, getting it over with without pain or anxiety. It was a technique.

“Ohh, hohoh…… You’re strangely used to this.”

Isaac said it as though he was genuinely impressed.

“Well, a lot happened……”

『A lot happened』was, in hunter terminology, the same as saying,『Don’t ask any further.』

Back when Cardiel’s mind had not yet stabilized, there had been a need to skillfully administer sedatives to her when she suffered nightmares in the middle of the night. That was how he had acquired the skill. It was difficult to explain to someone he had just met.

“Do you want me to freeze-treat the wound too? There should be freezing spray inside the vehicle.”

“You really are taking care of everything. I’ll gladly take you up on that.”

Isaac glanced at his missing arm. He had come here half-intending to die. If he could land one blow on the man-horse and show his spirit, that would be enough.

『I see. My arm really is gone.』Once he understood that his life had been saved, a feeling of loss suddenly welled up inside him. He was growing weak-hearted. He was aware of that.

That was precisely why he was grateful for someone who sincerely helped him and listened to him. Toward Dias’s back as he quickly climbed onto the tank, Isaac imitated his gesture and gave a small bow.

When Dias opened the hatch and slipped inside the vehicle,

“Ahh, thank goodness, Dias. You’re safe.”

Cardiel’s bright voice greeted him.

There was no trace of the yaksha who had crushed the man-horse’s head underfoot and let out a smile of delight. There was only a woman worried for the safety of her lover.

“Safe? You could see what was happening outside through the camera, couldn’t you?”

“I could. But seeing you through the camera and actually meeting you are different.”

“Is that how it works?”

“That is how it works. I wanted you to come back right away once the mutant disposal was finished, but there you were, flirting with some strange man……”

“Not being interested in other people is a personal matter, but ignoring someone who helped us is a matter of courtesy. I think this is a situation where we should do as much as we can.”

It was not that she had any real complaint. She had only tried sulking a little. Seeing Dias respond to that seriously was so very like him that Cardiel was half exasperated, yet she enjoyed the conversation itself.

“Even so, couldn’t you pay a little more attention to me? Preferably for about thirty minutes…… okay?”

“That is an attractive proposal, but if he collapses from blood loss during that time, it would be far worse than simply leaving a bad aftertaste.”

“Mm, fair point.”

The two of them laughed together as they said that. A gentle atmosphere drifted through the vehicle, and at last, the realization that the battle had ended began to well up.

Dias took the freezing spray from the built-in storage compartment, lightly stroked Cardiel’s cheek, then used the compartment as a foothold and opened the hatch.

A sharp pain ran through his right ankle. It was probably from when the man-horse had grabbed him and swung him up.

It was only because his boots had been firmly reinforced with iron plates that he had gotten away with this much. Otherwise, by now Dias might have ended up having to tear off his own foot and throw it away.

“Dias, what’s wrong?”

Worried about Dias, who remained unmoving with one foot on the storage compartment, Cardiel called out to him.

With the pain in his foot still not subsiding, Dias turned around and gave her an awkward smile.

“No, it’s nothing. I’ll go and come right back.”

Leaving those words behind, he went out as though fleeing.

Left alone inside the tank once again, Cardiel murmured with a sigh.

“As if I wouldn’t notice……”

He was not a man who would stop just because someone told him to. Cardiel herself had been saved by Dias’s reckless, unreasonable and absurd actions. She could not criticize him for that.

Being able to act with all his strength for someone important to him, or someone who had helped him, was one of his charms. At the same time, might that one day become the trigger that brought about his ruin? Such unease constantly clung to her.

『……That is where I have to be firm. All right, until his injury heals, I will not let him take any jobs. I will tell Dr. Marco firmly too.』

As she hardened her resolve, she turned the external camera. It could not pick up their voices, but Dias and Isaac, after finishing the first aid treatment, were still in the middle of happily talking about something.

『……That is! My man! Don’t keep occupying him forever, you muscle daruma!!』

Perhaps Cardiel’s curse got through, because before long Isaac skillfully climbed onto his bike with one hand and rode away. His movements were somewhat precarious, but there was nothing more they could do for him. Being overprotective or overly meddlesome might wound his pride as a hunter.

For relationships between hunters, lending a little hand when someone was in trouble was just about right.

Now they could finally go home. Relieved, she waited for Dias to return, but he did not come back for quite some time. When she looked, he had begun the work of cutting off the man-horse’s head.

『……I forgot. Come to think of it, there was that too.』

In the end, it was thirty minutes later that they finally started on the road home.