Volume 31 - CH 8(2/4)
No one was fatally wounded, but more than 10% of the platoon were incapacitated ? those six people were either pierced in their legs or abdomen.
“Fire at that corner with grenades! Those of you who can use healing magic ? take care of the injured. Bring the severely injured, who are unable to continue fighting, back to the assault boat!”
Following Mimas’ command, the landing members started to move at once. Eighteen non-magicians loaded their assault rifles with grenades, stepped forward, and took a firing position on one knee. Behind them, two magicians rushed to give healing treatment to the ten people who were slightly injured, while three other magicians started transporting the six seriously injured people to the boat using magic. Incidentally, these five magicians [who were helping the injured] ?weren’t Parasites.
Two non-commissioned officers stood beside the shooters who had taken a firing position on one knee. One of them swung down their hand with the command: “Shoot!” The next moment, nine simultaneous grenades were fired.
The nine soldiers after shooting stepped back with the signaling officer , after that another non-commissioned officer raised one hand. Peering into the dust raised in the impact area, the officer suddenly shouted: “Sergeant!”
“No sign of the enemy shooters.”
Mimas put binoculars to his eyes. There were no signs of humans on the other side of the wall destroyed by grenades. There were also no corpses on the ground.
“Stop firing.”
As soon as Mimas gave the order, another swarm of arrows came at them, flying in an arc around the place where the wall used to be.
Mimas understood the trick that prevented them from finding the enemy shooters ? bending trajectories using magic. They changed the trajectory of the arrows with magic, manipulating them to fly around the warehouse in an arc.
“Shields!”
Mimas’ reaction was immediate, but it couldn’t be said that he made it on time. In this volley, more than twenty people were injured, including the soldiers who adopted a posture for grenade attacks along with their Squad Leader. Eleven out of the twenty injured were forced to withdraw from the battlefield .
Including the first seriously injured, there were 17 ?withdrawals, which already exceeded 1/3 of this landing party. With these casualty rates, it would be normal to consider a full-retreat.
Perhaps even the ‘Guam’ couldn’t overlook their catastrophic situation. The drones, escorting the assault boat before landing, flew above Mimas ?— presumably in order to eliminate an ambush ?from the sky.
However, of the six drones that invaded the airspace above the ground, three were already shot down one by one.
There were no missiles to intercept the drones in sight.
There were no gunfire sounds either.
“Phonon Maser..?” ? Muttered Mimas with suspicion in his voice. Phonon Maser itself isn’t such a rare magic. A high Interference Strength is required for its activation. However, the Phenomenon Rewriting during the process wa s relatively simple. We could say that in this case, only the frequency of sound waves was pushed to the limit.
However, when it comes to a real battle, it is this ?pushed to the limit? part that becomes a bottleneck.
In order to shoot down a highly maneuverable drone, it’s necessary to generate a sufficient amount of heat during a moment of irradiation. It’s completely different from an attack on a stationary target. In order to obtain that much power requires a [waves’] frequency that, without exaggeration, can be called ‘hyper-oscillation’. The required Interference Strength is proportionate to that [frequency].
(There was no information that Shiba Tatsuya could use Phonon Maser.)
(Shiba Miyuki should specialize in wide-area cooling magic.)
(In addition to those two, here is a combat magician capable of using such high-powered magic..)
(After all, the Yotsuba are.. way too dangerous!)
Apart from the desire for revenge against Tatsuya, a sense of worry arose in Mimas’ mind.
The three remaining drones gained altitude. Possibly the operator controlling the drones decided that if they continued to try to eliminate the ambush (which they still couldn’t find), all the drones would simply be shot down.
In the meantime, volleys of arrows continued.
(Only I / we will go further.)
Alejandro Mimas called to the Parasite of the same platoon via the Mind Link.
(I agree with Alejandro’s / our decision.)
(I agree.)
(I agree.)
(I agree.)
(I / we are moving further.)
(Let’s go.)
(Let’s go.)
(Let’s go.)
Eight Parasites telepathically responded to Mimas’ suggestion.
“Sergeant!?” ? H is assistant, a Staff Sergeant who wasn’t infected with a Parasite, called out to Mimas, who suddenly began to move forward .
“Sergeant Colombo, I’m transferring command to you. Return with the remaining soldiers.”
Mimas replied to the Staff-Sergeant without stopping and plunged into a storm of arrows with eight Parasites from Stardust.
A food warehouse located about 50 meters away from the coastline. ?Having knocked down three drones from its roof, Tsutsumi Kanata felt signs of different magic approaching from the side of the embankment.
“This is.. Are these signs of Parasites?”
Kanata had a habit of thinking aloud in order to digest information obtained during combat faster. Even now he involuntarily spoke to himself.
“If they’re able to block those arrows, whose penetrating ability has been increased with inertia control magic, ?with anti-object shields .. They are on the same level with the fighters of the Shibata family in terms of raw magic power.”
Among the entire Yotsuba clan, the Shibata family was a side branch with the strongest disposition for maintaining their private army. They specialized not in assassinations and sabotage, but in frontal assaults and base defense.
When compared only by physical combat power (in the sense of not using Mental Interference Magic), the combat magicians of the Shibata family were considered the strongest among all of the branch families. Perhaps they even surpassed the Main family’s mercenary forces.
And those Parasites have power comparable to the magicians composing the core of the fighting forces of the Shibata family At least, that was Kanata’s assessment after clashing with their magic.
“Perhaps it would be better to lend them a hand.”
The defense squad and Parasites haven’t faced each other yet, however, if the enemy decides on a close range attack, then the defenders wouldn’t be able to avoid a hard fight.
Kanata and the Parasites couldn’t see each other directly, being in the blind spots of each other. However, Kanata was the second generation of the ‘Bard series’ ? enhanced magicians with a high aptitude for Oscillation-Type Magic interfering with sound. Emitting inaudible ultrasound, he could easily calculate the position, shape, and movement of a distant object from its reflection.
He was also capable ?of precision firing with magic ?based on that information.
Kanata shot the non-lethal magic ‘Echo Cannon’, aiming at the Parasites in the rear instead of the front.
There were three reasons for choosing non-lethal magic instead of the highly lethal Phonon Maser:
First, he couldn’t ignore the possibility that Phonon Maser (as Pinpoint Sniping) would be detected during the magic activation and the enemy would evade it. ‘Echo Cannon’ was also a targeted attack, but still had some Area of Effect.
The second was to measure the Parasites’ physical stamina. ‘Echo Cannon’ was magic that temporarily disrupts the functions of a human body. If the Parasites’ bodies aren’t different from humans’ by their structure and physical strength, then the ‘Echo Cannon’ would demonstrate all its usual effects. The answer to the question ?will the usual anti-personnel attack on the Parasite work, or not?? would be useful information for subsequent battles with the Parasites.
And thirdly, it would slow the progress of the Parasites. If they are killed, they will simply abandon the corpses of their comrades and move on. With a decrease in their number, their speed of advancement may, on the contrary, increase. At the same time, when using a paralyzing attack, there was a chance that they would all stop in order to protect their wounded ally.
In order to confirm the effects of ‘Echo Cannon’, Kanata activated the next magic ? ‘Active Sonar’.
Suddenly, Mimas sensed signs of magic somewhere above, though not right overhead, but somewhere closer toward the end of their double column formation.
Although they were all Parasites, the individual characteristics of each of them depended on the level of the person with whom assimilation occurred. The Stars members even of Satellite-class clearly had higher levels of innate abilities than those of the Stardust.
Stardust’s fighting power had been forcibly increased by biochemical enhancement, and such ‘boosts’ weren’t reflected in the Parasites’ abilities. For this reason, only Alejandro Mimas caught the signs of magic activation.
Since the Parasites share consciousness, that information was instantly transmitted to the other eight members. However, the information about the activation point was shown relative to Mimas’ body.
They shared one consciousness, but had individual bodies.
If they try to avoid that magic from the initial information about its detected activation signs, the result would be confusion and disorder.
A roaring explosive sound hit two rear soldiers from above.
One of them was brushed by a small cluster of sound waves, while the other was hit directly with ‘Echo Cannon’.
That sound not only caused hearing impairment, but also partially blocked the connection between the mind and the physical body.
This affected all the Parasites with shared consciousness.
In particular, the largest impact was exerted on the eight Parasites walking nearby, including Mimas.
The Parasite who had been hit directly had only a part of their body temporarily immobilized.
However, the other seven experienced the unpleasant illusion of a ‘lack’ of a physical body.
After acquiring a physical body by assimilation with a human, the spiritual life form ‘Parasite’ stabilizes its existence in this world. And while drifting in this world in ‘spiritual form’, its state is unstable.
The cases when the Parasites become trapped or locked into a mechanical body, like Pixie or the Parasite Dolls, indicates that even such a state is more stable than the stand-alone spiritual body.
For spiritual bodies, ‘instability’ means ‘insecurity’. The physical body brings stability to the Parasites, while partial body loss brings about some sort of ‘anxiety’ associated with ‘instability’ ? the loss of a vessel.
For Kanata, the results exceeded all expectations: ‘Echo Cannon’ caused a surge of anger and hatred inside the Parasites.
(I / individual named Alejandro Mimas will eliminate this enemy.)
Mimas, who detected the source of magic, announced to the others his decision to reach and kill Kanata.
(I / we will help with the movement.)
Other Parasites offered Mimas the help with movement, as his ability to move with the help of magic greatly deteriorated when specializing in ‘Bio Ignition’.
(Then start the transfer.)
(Transferring.)
After the exchange of thoughts was finished, Mimas’ body disappeared from the road.
“What!?”
(They’ve noticed me!?)
Kanata shouted aloud and in his thoughts when he sensed that those strong signs of a presence started approaching in a straight line toward where he was, the food warehouse.
The distance between them was about 250 meters. It would be an exaggeration to say that for magicians, such a distance was like nothing, but it still wasn’t such a great distance to make it difficult to perceive each other. But for Kanata, it was in the nature of things during a sudden attack to carefully suppress the signs of magic, leaking of psychic energy in the form of surplus psions, allowing someone to detect the place of magic activation ? that is, the place where he himself was.
Nevertheless, that Parasite was definitely heading for Kanata. Which meant that the magic perception ability of that Parasite exceeded Kanata’s concealment technique.
Although Kanata had no intention of underestimating his opponent, he was forced to admit that he was naive.
At the same time, he firmly resolved to fight back instead of running away. Who knows what damage to allies this enemy will bring if left alone. Of all the magicians in charge of this sector, Kanata had the highest fighting strength. ?If not me, then who?? ? such a sense of duty made him stay here.
It took less than five seconds for Kanata to choose his counter-attack. At that moment when he decided, there were signs that the enemy was already in close proximity .
(?Now!)
The Parasite showed up on the roof where Kanata was located.
At the same moment, Kanata released Phonon Maser.
Mimas reached the enemy who made the surprise attack in two jumps.
The next moment, he felt the activation of attack magic and raised his arms in front of his vital points.
Intense heat occurred on his left arm that covered his heart.
Mimas isolated the sensation of his left arm.
By the time he realized that it was a Phonon Maser attack aimed at the heart, his left arm was already burned to the elbow.
His arm wasn’t pierced thanks to the effect of ‘Vacuum shield’ (the most popular defensive magic that protects against air attacks, such as magic bullets from compressed air), which was deployed with his magic power as a regular member of the Stars ?(although his other skills had been reduced due to his specialization in other abilities). It was also thanks to the heat resistance of a forearm protector developed specifically for the USNA Special Operations Forces .
Still, it was a serious injury that caused third-degree burns to the elbow. Normally, it would be so painful that no one could move.
However, the Parasites have an ability to block physical senses for preventing any extra damage to their True Body ? the ?spiritual one. Though one could become incapacitated if they blocked their physical senses at the wrong time, ?this allows one to keep fighting with continuous pain.
To prevent the enemy’s second shot, Mimas first activated ‘Bio Ignition’ aimed at Kanata’s right arm, which was aiming back at him with a gun-shaped CAD.
“Guaaaaa!”
Kanata screamed in pain . Sticking his right arm out in front of him, he fell to his knees.
Kanata had not lost his vigilance. He perceived that the Parasite, who used their own left arm to shield against Phonon Maser, was also trying to counterattack with magic.
The Parasite was simply faster. Kanata was already at the stage of reading the Activation Sequence to shoot a second Phonon Maser. Regardless of that, the Parasite was the first one to finish his magic.
The heat wasn’t even felt by Kanata. The pain was so strong that all the senses except ‘pain’ ?was squeezed out of his mind.
His arm was engulfed in fire for just one moment.
In that short period of time, his arm was charred to the middle of his shoulder.
He no longer felt anything in his right arm. At the moment, severe pain was transmitting from the base of his shoulder.
The CAD gripped in his right hand fell onto the warehouse’s flat roof with a noise, along with the carbonized fingers from his right hand.
After a moment, the lower part from the elbow fell off . With the fall of his arm, charred remnants of skin and muscular tissues scattered revealing white bones.
“?Shit!”
Perhaps witnessing the loss of his right arm raised his fighting spirit, which surpassed the pain.
With ?a meaningless scream that served both as ?self-inspiration and a curse on the enemy, Kanata rose to his feet, despite the fact that his knees were trembling.
His eyes were filled with fighting spirit and murderous intent ? and with a clear intention to use magic.
However, in his current condition when even using a CAD was hampered by pain, he couldn’t take the initiative ?against the enemy — Parasite.
The Parasite, Mimas, activated his magic faster than Kanata could complete his Magic Sequence.
Even with the burned right arm, the Yotsuba’s combat magician didn’t lose his fighting spirit.
On the contrary, even without one arm, he was about to release magic to counter-attack.
Upon s eeing such a figure, even Mimas, who had become a Parasite, couldn’t help but admire him.
That’s precisely why he couldn’t turn a blind eye here. Leaving this tough enemy will only bring damage to his allies.
Mimas constructed the Magic Sequence of ‘Bio Ignition’ with the maximum amount of power that he was currently able to use.
Such power wasn’t required at all to kill his seriously-injured enemy ? Kanata. To grant an instant death without suffering ? this was a peculiar show of respect paid by Mimas toward the enemy.
Magicians who are turned into Parasites don’t need a CAD, while their magic activation speed also improves.
Although Mimas’ current ‘Bio Ignition’ was excessively powerful, it was completed prior to the magic Kanata had tried to construct.
Mimas activated ‘Bio Ignition’.
Kanata’s whole body burned in an instant.. more precisely, it was supposed to burn.
“What?”
But nothing happened. There was certainly a n indication that the magic had activated, but it was canceled just before the phenomenon of the human body’s ignition became a reality.
The magic was erased.
By someone.
Mimas hurriedly turned around.
Not because he felt someone’s presence. It was completely an intuitive move.
Behind him was a figure in a combat suit that was protecting vital points with armor.
The face was hidden under the helmet. From the silhouette, it was obviously a man.
His empty right hand was stretched out toward Mimas.
(This guy..!)
Mimas didn’t know who it was, but intuitively understood that it was ? this guy ? who had erased his magic.
Mimas aimed ‘Bio Ignition’ at the man in the helmet.
During that moment, he completely forgot about Kanata.
Blood suddenly sprouted out from the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth of Mimas, who showed his back to Kanata .
After which his body collapsed forward.
There was a hole burned in the back of his head.
As if relieved with the enemy’s death, Kanata also fell down unconscious.
Mimas was defeated by Phonon Maser from Kanata, who had gathered the last bit of his strength to release it.
Kanata ?didn’t stop constructing the Magic Sequence for Phonon Maser even when Mimas’ ‘Bio Ignition’ had been finished (but the phenomenon of ignition ?had not yet manifested).
Phonon Maser, fired along Kanata’s line of sight, successfully pierced the back of Mimas’ head and burned his brain. While the blood sprouting from the Parasite’s facial openings was pushed out of the skull as a result of the boiling cerebrospinal fluid.
Destroying the brain means the death of the Parasite’s physical body.
However, that alone won’t destroy the Parasite’s True Body. It will just escape from the corpse.
Returning to the state of a spiritual body, the Parasite will try to possess a living human host to replace the dead physical body. And right below the Parasite, which was ‘Mimas’ a few seconds ago, was a human body lying unconscious.
Following the instinct of stabilizing its existence, the Parasite tried to take refuge in Kanata’s body. However, when the Parasite tried to move in, it suddenly lost its ‘foundation’ in the form of a Psion Information Body, which in this world, was supporting the Pushion Information Body, which was the core of its True Body.
The ‘foundation’ of its existence ? the Psion Information Body ? was decomposed into small pieces.
The support which allows the spiritual life-form to be in this world had ?been destroyed. As a result, the spiritual life-form disappeared from this world, as if being drawn into an invisible vortex.
The Parasite, which had been dwelling in the Stars’ Satellite-class magician Sergeant Alejandro Mimas, vanished from our universe.
(Elimination of the Parasite is confirmed.)
After killing the Parasite with ‘Astral Dispersion’, Tatsuya pulled out his gun-shaped CAD from his waist with his left hand ? his favorite Silver Horn Custom ‘Trident’, and pointed it toward Kanata, who was still lying unconscious.
‘Regrowth’ activated.
Hidden beneath the helmet, Tatsuya frowned slightly . It wasn’t possible to ignore the hundredfold concentrated pain that he experienced from using ‘Regrowth’ on ?Kanata’s burned right arm.
However, Tatsuya showed only that reaction to such pain.
After restoring Kanata’s burned arm, Tatsuya operated the panel on the side of the helmet to establish a connection with the Mobile Base.
“Katsushige-san.”
“Tatsuya-kun, what is it?”
“Tsutsumi Kanata is lying on the roof of the food warehouse. Arrange a rescue team for him.”
The communicator clearly conveyed that Katsushige, on the other end of the communication line, was catching his breath .
“..What’s the state of his injury?”
“He’s not injured, just unconscious.”
“I see. I’m really grateful.”
Even without further explanation, Katsushige understood that Tatsuya had healed Kanata, who was so badly wounded that he had even lost consciousness, ?with magic.
“I will continue to wipe out Parasites.”
“Copy that.”
Tatsuya’s role at this point was to prevent the Parasites’ True Bodies from escaping. As could be seen in Mimas’ example, simply killing the human host doesn’t actually mean that the Parasite will be defeated. It will simply leave the corpse and move on to the next host.
However, the assimilation requires ?a person with a strong and pure desire?, so not every person who becomes a host turns into a Parasite. That is, even if the assimilation fails, the Parasite’s True Body will simply change the host and thereby will not disappear from this world.
In that respect, Tatsuya with ‘Mist Dispersion’ and ‘Astral Dispersion’ was capable of destroying both the Physical & True Bodies of the Parasites.
Tatsuya took off from the food warehouse roof in search of his next prey.
Seven Parasites attacked a defense squad who were armed with crossbows.
The defense squad combatants threw away their crossbows and started counterattacking by directly firing arrows using magic, but they were at a disadvantage. One by one, they were falling under the onslaught of the Parasites.
“Oh, not again!” ? Shouted Erika, who was watching the scene on the shelter’s large display.
“Ngh.. There’s still no reinforcements!?” ? Leo, who was next to her, leaked this with a reluctant voice while grinding his teeth.
“Their level is entirely different from the Parasites that we fought before..”
In contrast with these two, Mikihiko still kept calm, nevertheless he couldn’t conceal his surprise.
“I can’t stand it anymore! Minami, open the door!”
Erika stood up and shouted toward Minami.
Minami showed no agitation at her loud voice.
“Where are you going?”
“Helping out of course!” ? Answered Erika.
“Where are you going?”
But Minami once again asked the exact same question.
“Wha..”
“At the moment, there are ongoing battles in nine different places on the island. Of these, in three spots our people are at a disadvantage. However, reinforcements have already been sent to each of these places. The combat situation should turn around soon.”
While Erika was at a loss for words, Minami readily explained the current situation.
“Then what’s with the battle we’re seeing? Will you just abandon them?”
Erika, whose eagerness dampened, retorted with a displeased tone.
“No, almost there.”
As expected, Minami’s stance was unwavering.
Her eyes weren’t directed at Erika but toward a side console. The data displayed there was what gave Minami such confidence.
“What’s almost there!?”
“He has arrived.”
Minami shifted her gaze from the small console monitor to the large wall-mounted display.
Erika’s stare followed in the same direction.
And at that moment.
A human figure in a dark-colored combat suit descended into the frame.
“Tatsuya-kun!?”
It was the combat suit worn by Tatsuya earlier. Even though his face was now hidden under a helmet, Erika and the rest recognized him right away.
Tatsuya waved his empty right hand toward the Parasites.
With that alone, more than half of the Parasites (4 out of the 7) disappeared.
The three friends looking at the display widened their eyes.
“What the hell was that..”
Stunned, Leo murmured.
“There’s a fully thought-operated CAD built-in the combat suit of Tatsuya-sama.”
Minami immediately added an explanation.
But that didn’t answer his question.
No, Leo’s words weren’t even a question in the first place.
“Is that magic? Was that Tatsuya’s magic..?”
Mikihiko’s murmur wasn’t a question either, but Minami dutifully answered:
“I’m sorry. I’m not authorized to answer that.”
Neither Mikihiko nor Erika complained about Minami’s reply.
All three of them have been on the battlefield with Tatsuya several times. However, this is the first time they’ve seen the details of Tatsuya fighting ? of him erasing people with ‘Mist Dispersion’ .
Tatsuya waved his hand again on the screen.
With that alone, all the Parasites that were overwhelming the defense squad of more than thirty combatants disappeared.
Immediately after that, the footage switched to another place.
No one complained about it.
“That was.. that kind of thing was magic, right..?”
Only Erika’s terrified murmur had silently passed by everyone’s ears, and then disappeared.
Tatsuya looked at the True Bodies of the seven Parasites.
As expected, he failed to ‘see’ the structure of the Pushion Information Bodies.
However, Tatsuya was already used to recognizing (‘seeing’ + analyzing) the Psion Information Bodies holding Parasites in this world, so he could feel their existence at the level of ?there is something there?.
He loaded and launched the Activation Sequence for ‘Astral Dispersion’ from the CAD integrated into his suit.
Now he was able to construct this magic as easily and naturally as ‘Mist Dispersion’.
Tatsuya raised his right hand above his head. He didn’t use the gun-shaped CAD because the Parasites don’t exist in the material dimension and aren’t directly related to physical existence. Tatsuya knew from personal experience that in such cases, the aiming assistance function in specialized CAD’s is instead a hindrance.
( The magic for decomposing the structure, supporting Psion Information Bodies, ‘Astral Dispersion’.. activate . )
Aiming his mental sight towards all seven spiritual life forms, he waved his hand down in a horizontal position.
‘Astral Dispersion’ activated.
The True Bodies of the Parasites were drawn into an invisible vortex. Apparently, this vortex was a kind of dimensional passage leading to the world in which the Parasites originally existed. After the destruction of the Psion Information Bodies, serving as the anchor that holds the Parasites in our world, the True Bodies of the Parasites were literally ‘dragged’ into the world they should be in.
Seven Parasites disappeared.
They ceased to exist in both the Material and Information Dimensions that make up our universe.
The Parasites were destroyed by Tatsuya’s magic.
The video footage that was shown in the shelter switched to another place to prevent Erika and the others from seeing ‘Astral Dispersion’.
In particular, this magic shouldn’t be shown to Mikihiko. This was the general opinion of both Maya and the technical experts of the Yotsuba Main House.
‘Astral Dispersion’ is a magic that interferes with the mind, albeit indirectly. The Yotsuba Main House still hadn’t finished its analysis on it. They thought that if magicians of ancient magic came to know about that spell , they could develop variations of it that could pose a threat to the Yotsuba family.
To preserve this secret, not only was Minami given the corresponding order, but the Video-Streami-->>