SWNOVELXO Chapter 15
The blood flow in my head was boiling.
Though I had never undergone a brain implant procedure, in the accelerated thought process, grenades flying through the air appeared to be moving very slowly. My body, the essence of human design and genetic engineering, screamed out in agony.
If I have time for this, I should just move, damn it…!!
Creeeek…!
I twisted my ankle and threw myself toward the driver’s seat with all my strength. There was no time to admire the power of the grenade’s explosion. I was about to experience it with my own body!
The eyes of the mother-daughter duo watching me dive through the air widened in shock.
Dear guests, we apologize…! There will be a strong tremor in the airship for a moment….
BOOM—!!
“Cough…?!”
“Sis……!!”
The impact blasted my body away. A storm of shrapnel, capable of tearing apart everything within the blast radius, pierced through the hovercraft’s interior.
The hovercraft’s body shook as if it had been caught in an explosion… No, it really was caught up in one, shaking violently. I couldn’t regain my senses at all.
Rolling and colliding everywhere… I couldn’t even tell if I was in pain. The ringing in my ears sounded like the effects of a war movie, buzzing incessantly.
My vision was blurry, and the panicked mother and daughter ran over, their murmurs appearing as indistinct afterimages. I wanted to tell them I was fine, but my chest felt tight, like I was choking, and all I could manage to choke out were gasps of breath escaping my lips.
‘Crazy grenade! It’s incredibly powerful…!!’
“Cough… cough! Huh… cough….”
The power of the disposable items that couldn’t even take out a single combat police droid in the game was truly beyond imagination. Even after witnessing a modified stalker crush a large-caliber turret with one hand like it was clay, I had recklessly done something insane… so it was no surprise I got hurt. Honestly, it was a miracle that I was still alive.
“Anastasia! Breathe slowly…!!”
“……Huh! Haah… haah…!!”
No matter how hard I tried to breathe, why was there so little oxygen…? It felt as though the explosion had sucked all the air around me. I tried to signal that it wasn’t necessary to flap around in panic…
Clunk…! Rumble…!!
“Ugh…?!”
My fingertips were severed, and not only was my clothing in tatters, but my flesh was gouged out like I had been bitten by a tiger. The black arm of the lawless, exposed down to the bone and the mechanical parts implanted in my body, scraped against the floor of the vehicle.
Crazy…. There was no denying I was caught in this chaos, but how could they still move after taking that hit?
“Ugh…!!”
“Sis! Don’t move! You’re bleeding…!!”
Desperately, I reached for the door open button in front of the driver’s seat, but Mary and her mother stopped me. …Bleeding? I felt something warm near my forehead, but that wasn’t the issue; there was something that resembled a Terminator just escaping from a forge behind the two of them?!
“That bastard… I’ll kill you… AAAHHH—!!”
“!!”
With their cheeks and tongue gone, words slipped out in a garbled mess. Yet, a thick desire and hatred within me made my body tremble. The face of the enemy pressed inside was mostly replaced by metal. Even with grenade shrapnel still embedded deeply, it was astonishing that it could still move.
…Damn it, why can’t you just die already?
Beep! Rumble……!!
My outstretched hand finally closed the door.
The waist of the creature that half-crawled through was caught perfectly in the seam, instantly severed by the pressure.
Thud… and then clank.
Separated from the lower half I was attached to, the upper body of a cyborg-like modified human rolling on the floor produced a noise. The two women gasped and instinctively leaned towards me.
“…Hah.”
For now… I was alive. As long as I didn’t have any firepower capable of penetrating the hovercraft’s heavy armor or reinforced glass, the only thing left was to calmly maneuver this mass weapon and drive out the remnants. …That had to be the case.
…Clatter.
The head of the one who had collapsed as if dead scraped against the floor, its eyes hollowed out, red and black voids staring straight at me.
“This… is how you die…!!”
The few remaining fingertips opened with a snap. Hidden beneath them was… a kind of gun barrel.
Seriously… Did it undergo such a stupid modification that it couldn’t even enter the demilitarized zone? What a vile little…
I forced my staggering body to stand between the two ladies. …It’s fine. There’s no way that a powerful bullet would fire from such a terrible modified body. As long as I could cover the vitals with my arm…
…But. There was someone braver than me hiding here.
“Leave my mom and sis alone!”
“!! No…!”
A clumsy gunshot rang out.
The little knight, bursting forth from the coziness of a parent’s arms, took the devil’s lightning bolt head-on. The powerless body flew backward, landing into my outstretched arms.
“Ah…?”
The twinkling eyes were tightly closed. The small mouth that had been chattering was now still. A real human collapses and breathes their last far too easily and hopelessly once a vital point is pierced. I had seen such scenes countless times on the way here, but… this time, it didn’t feel real.
A sticky, cloying despair began to crawl up my legs. A question without an answer swirled in my mind.
Why…? Why…? Wasn’t I the one who was supposed to change this pathetic future? Does fate force its way back no matter what? Or maybe…… was it because I foolishly took off my jacket for her…? Did I say something unnecessary?
I was terrified to turn my head. It would be better if I was blamed. If hit, I would quietly take it.
I’m sorry…. Forgive me…. If a real, thorough hero-protagonist had come to save them instead of a fake like me, this outcome wouldn’t have happened…!!
Clink….
The bullet that had extinguished the small life fell to the floor. It had pierced so cleanly that there was not a drop of blood on its noble form, causing my dizzy heart to sink deeper into darkness….
“…Eh? Why doesn’t it hurt…?”
“?!”
“Mary…!!”
She barely opened her tightly shut eyes and muttered something utterly ridiculous that would drive anyone mad. Her mother immediately detained the rambling girl. In a hurry, they stripped off my jacket to check every inch, and the cyberware confirmed that other than a bruise on her face, she was completely fine.
The bullet that hit due to the oversized bulletproof vest and Mary’s light body…? I wish she would just refrain from such ridiculous, tone-deaf jokes.
When was that doctor-detecting cyberware even developed…?
Smack!! Smack…!
“AHHHH!! I’m sorry, Mom!!”
“Apologize to Anastasia right now…! Can you see how scared she was? She can’t even stand up…!!”
“I’m… I’m okay…. Yes….”
It was true that my legs felt weak…. But watching Mary receive punishment for her reckless actions made me feel too exhausted to be angry. It could be that the blood pooling in my head had just made me dizzy.
Knock knock knock…!
“Oh. Grandpa… you’re safe.”
While chaos erupted inside, the local residents who had managed to clean up the outlaws knocked on the door of the hovering vehicle.
Mr. Schneider, looking a hundred times younger than during the game, exuded warmth.
Even amidst this chaos, the mechanic grandfather was holding his wrapped dinner.
Despite their various looks and armaments, the expressions of the neighborhood watch members captured on the side camera were filled with the joy of victory.
Beep….
I was thinking of opening the door and getting a moment of rest. However, a soft woman’s arm reached under my shoulder to support me.
Ah…. It seems I’m not destined to look cool anywhere.
After turning off the engine and stepping down with support.
I gently nudged the hesitating mother and daughter toward Mr. Schneider. All that remained was… the quiet grandfather and me.
His concerned gaze kept scanning my body. A hand reached out cautiously, brushing my hair aside to inspect the wound on my forehead.
“…I rushed over and… you really are fine.”
“…And you must be the one who fell too hard on the way here.”
It was a conversation that suited our relationship where we didn’t even know each other’s names.
We were too far apart to speak worries and concerns. Yet we had spent enough time together that ignoring it felt unjust. Seeing the bitter expression on the grandfather’s face, I figured that if I refused to pay for the treatment, I would become a casualty myself.
…I should let this be the last time I owe someone.
Just as I was about to shake off the dust and get back up, an angry uninvited guest approached.
“Hey!! Hacker girl! Where in the world do you find a situation like this?! How can you treat someone else’s goods this way? Crushed gloves… and… ugh! You’ve made an absolute mess inside! Do you have connections or credits to fix this? Huh??”
“…”
The junk shop owner, who could only be described as looking like a rat, was furiously attacking me.
I hadn’t expected any gratitude for coming to help the mechanic grandfather. I had planned to quietly steal… borrow the item I sold back. But I expected at least one complaint for doing that. However, starting with a demand for compensation…? What an unbelievable scumbag.
“Shit… fine. All~~ good. But then can you at least explain why the hovercraft you agreed to scrap for a mere 20,000 credits is perfectly fine in storage, huh, Mr. Boss?”
“Uh… regardless! Didn’t you want that thing dealt with neatly?! I was just looking for a way that was as secure as scrapping it! Don’t push me!!”
“…Push you? Push you?! Your way of twisting the truth is quite something, isn’t it?”
“You’re the one who’s more twisted than someone trying to sweep your theft under the rug! Now, credits! Are you going to pay? Or can you even afford it??”
Wow… This rat. I should really avoid him. I would rather roll around here for a few more weeks; the more I talked to him, the more I felt like I was being infected by his vile desires.
I was getting ready to pay off some ridiculous fee and was about to settle the payment when… the expressions of the nearby residents and the grandfather changed suspiciously.
They were looking furious… with faces like a volcano about to erupt.
…They said rural areas have strict territoriality; was it possible I had started an argument out of nowhere and garnered their resentment…?
Clank!!
The sniper rifle, still steaming, was placed against the back of the rat-headed junk shop owner.
The culprit… was Mr. Schneider, looking angrier than the one who had just yelled earlier.
“Sch… Schneider, have you lost your mind?! What is the meaning of this?!”
“……I seem to owe that lady a very large debt. And… it’s fraud if you are taking a thousand times profit, don’t you think…? Mr. Way Long…? You should pay the proper price. This seems to be something everyone agrees on, regardless of village rules.”
“……A thousand times?”
Feeling the pressure of the metal weight and the murderous glares from the residents, the rat felt the sincerity of the situation, quickly adapting.
They proposed full support for damage recovery… and a reasonable purchasing price for the hovercraft.
…Suddenly, I had obtained enough money to buy citizenship.