“Kaiser PMC opens this easily?”
Half in doubt, half in disbelief, Haruta felt something strange about the lack of guards on the surface and stepped into the document management room on the fifth basement floor of Abydos’s Kaiser PMC building.
“Haa... so this is where it really starts?”
On the fifth floor, there were twelve Kaiser PMC mercenaries. Eight were stationed in front of the T-shaped corridor, and four were split to the left and right.
Seeing that, he gripped the gun in his hand, loaded the rounds, and took a breath as he chambered forty-four rounds.
“Ha... let’s go.”
He could see eight enemies in the corridor, but the intel said there were twelve.
“I’ll finish this with exactly twelve shots.”
He stepped out of the corridor and immediately faced the Kaiser PMC mercenaries.
“Stop. Stop right there.”
“C Team, suspicious individual spotted. We’ll respond immediately.”
As soon as those words ended, gunfire flew in.
Bang
A bullet flew in and buried itself in his body.
“You were the ones who shot first?”
He immediately drew his gold Desert Eagles, aimed for their heads, and filled his halo with mystery.
Bang!
A crisp, violent sound that seemed to tear through the wind rang out from the pistol.
Bang!
Exactly two shots. With those two shots, the haloed student collapsed.
“What was that sound?”
Bang!
Bang!
He met two more reinforcements at the end of the corridor, but that wasn’t enough to stop Haruta.
Without a word, he dealt with the two of them, then noticed the remaining eight had gotten behind him.
“Huh... eight? So there really are twelve on this floor, just like the intel said?”
With that, he put the gun away.
“Stop. If you leave now, I’ll let this go.”
“Ah, yes. I’ll be leaving now.”
“Good. Then hurry and lea—”
Before the sentence could finish, he pulled a sword from thin air and unleashed a slash.
Fwoosh!
A crisp, refreshing sound swept across the floor.
“Tch. If they’re this easy to catch, I might as well just use the gun.”
Complaining under his breath, he entered the information room.
“Huh? Is this locked?”
Haruta thought for a moment, then his eyes fell on the sword in his hand.
“Right. I should check how strong this thing is.”
Just in case, he decided to test the blade by pressing it against the door and putting some force into it.
Clang!
The screech of metal grinding against metal made Haruta frown, but when he saw the door had definitely been cut through, he felt satisfied and stepped inside the information room.
“Hmm. Was I supposed to stick this USB in here?”
He muttered to himself and took one of the two USB drives in his hand.
“So this one’s the kill code, and this one’s the download?”
He inserted one of the USBs he’d gotten from the informant and pulled the data.
“Hm...? What is this? Isn’t it supposed to just download normally?”
Suspicious, he put the downloaded USB in his pocket and spun the sword in the air. The moment he let go, the blade turned to ash and vanished.
“That really is convenient.”
Thinking that, he inserted the remaining kill-code USB.
And five minutes later.
“Still, the Student Council is going to come after this, right?”
Haruta thought that as he gripped the five C4 charges in his hand.
“Heh heh heh. You think I’d leave evidence behind?”
As if someone had said, “Explosion is art!” the C4 in his hand warped like clay.
“Huh? No, why is this bomb crushing so easily?”
Still, he figured it would explode if he just set it off, so he laid out the remaining five C4 charges and got into the elevator.
“One, two, three!”
KWA-KWA-KBOOM!
In an instant, there was a flash, a strong smell of gunpowder, and even the scent of something burning.
“That feels amazing.”
And when he went back up, he realized it.
“Hah... heh.”
It was a laugh born of sheer disbelief.
“Was I really this famous?”
In front of him were three fox-eared girls who seemed to be from SRT Special Academy, along with more than 150 Kaiser PMC troops, all mobilized to capture one person.
He was confident he could win a fight. But if he fought here, there was no way he’d walk out in one piece.
“No matter how strong I am, this seems a little much.”
“Shut up, criminal.”
The girl in front, the one with fox ears, shouted at him.
“Your mouth is nasty.”
He answered with a lazy grin, fiddling with the gun in his hand.
“Surrender now, and I’ll let you off with only the current charges.”
“You think I came here without a plan?”
In his hand, a sword appeared again, and this time an axe as well.
Both the axe and the sword were marked with pentagrams, radiating a sinister aura.
“And you really shouldn’t be worrying about me right now. There were a few others attacking Kaiser’s headquarters too.”
It was a bluff. But for the moment, it was a lie meant to buy him a chance to escape.
The moment he turned his head, a large-caliber round slammed into his skull.
His vision instantly turned red, and rage began to boil up.
“You motherfuckers... I let you off once and now you’re coming at me without a shred of restraint?”
He hadn’t fought. He had only spoken. But those words carried weight. A crushing pressure pressed down on them, and the impact left his head ringing.
“FOX1, engage!”
“FOX2, command confirmed!”
“FOX3, charge!”
The three split up and opened fire while the Kaiser mercenaries all fired at once.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets slammed into his body. It felt like he wouldn’t be able to stop them.
“Haa... don’t any of you think about walking out of here alive.”
With those words, a blackish-red aura wrapped around Haruta.
That red, ominous energy coiled around the enemies’ bodies, crushing them under its pressure.
“Do you know what one of my strongest abilities is?”
As he muttered that to himself, the troops began collapsing one by one.
“FOX1 down!”
“FOX2 confirmed. Fall back for now!”
“Where do you think you’re running?”
With that, he hurled the axe.
Another large-caliber round slammed into his head.
“Ghk!”
Blood ran down from his head.
Seeing that, the remaining PMC troops and the FOX squad all opened fire at once.
Bang!
Tat-tat-tat!
Haruta took nearly an entire magazine’s worth of bullets in an instant and instinctively realized his body couldn’t take much more.
“Damn it!”
The moment he shouted, he was hit in the head by a sniper round again.
“FOX 4, hit!”
It had definitely struck his temple.
His reason snapped again.
“Now I’ll really play with you.”
As he said that, Haruta felt the blood in his entire body begin to harden.
Once again, that black-red aura surged around him, and a chilling fear spread through the air.
“F... FOX2, r... regroup! Requesting tactical withdrawal!”
“Confirmed. All units, withdraw!”
Before the words were even finished, Haruta moved first.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
It was short, but the words struck like a dagger.
The FOX squad knew they should move, but fear had frozen their bodies.
Thud-crack!
Haruta grabbed Niko by the head and threw her toward Kurumi and Yukino.
KWA-ANG!
Niko flew at terrifying speed and slammed into the wall with Kurumi and Yukino.
“K... ghk...”
Haruta walked toward them without a word.
“I’ll make you pay back every bit of pain I suffered.”
With those words, he moved forward slowly, but with enough force to split the ground beneath him.
Then another large-caliber round flew toward his head.
For an instant, Haruta’s figure vanished.
“W-what...? Where did he go?”
Otogi panicked for a moment, but still gripped her gun tightly and waited for the moment he would appear again.
That hope was futile.
“What are you doing here?”
The voice came from behind her. It was definitely Haruta’s voice, but there was another voice layered over it.
At the sound of two voices ringing out together, Otogi froze. Still, she forced herself to grip the gun again, steady her trembling hands, and pull the trigger.
Bang!
The gun definitely fired.
But in Haruta’s hand, there was a tiny object.
“M-monster...”
He had caught a large-caliber bullet with one hand at point-blank range. Otogi trembled as she clasped her hands together.
Haruta grabbed Otogi by the head and moved toward the remaining FOX squad members.
“Which o~ne shou~ld I choo~se? Gu~ess~”
He sang softly, but with a chilling edge, and the unlucky one was Kurumi.
“Bad luck.”
He walked up slowly and took her finger. The finger he held was bent back little by little.
“Aaaaagh!!”
Looking at the grotesquely bent finger, Haruta twisted it back to its original position once more.
“Grrrrrgh!!!”
Leaving Kurumi writhing in indescribable pain behind him, he now took Yukino Niko’s hand.
“P-please...”
Niko pleaded desperately.
Then he felt something slowly unravel in his head, and Haruta collapsed.
His body could no longer endure the massive blood loss.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“......Haruta’s late today..........”
Someone was waiting for him.
-----------------------------------------------
“Heh heh heh. So the power of the false god has been confirmed.”
“Is that true, Black Suit?”
“Yes. The extent of his power isn’t certain, but it seems likely that he grows stronger when he’s enraged or when he bleeds.”
“I see... then it would be more accurate to call it strength beyond human comprehension.”
“Yes... now that we’ve confirmed one thing for certain, I hope we can see something new next time. This power really does seem to be what you’d call the ‘Sin of Wrath.’”
Someone looked at him and felt both exhilaration and a hunger for research.
----------------------------------------------------------
“Student Council President, look at this.”
“Huh? This is... the chaos you mentioned before?”
“Yes. One of the seven beasts, Chaos.”
“For now, imprison it in the Correction Bureau. I’ll speak with it personally.”
Someone looked at him and felt curiosity.
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