Chapter 142: A Goodbye for You

Maybe taking distance had been the mistake.

Maybe killing off the Wasps first, the ones capable of long-range attacks, had been the mistake.

The distance between us was roughly five hundred meters.

Once the Wasp snipers were gone, I assumed all they could do was fire at us with guns stolen from humans.

Apparently, I had been bought at a fairly generous valuation.

The giant bees opened fire on us.

Gravel and sand burst up.

A mass round slammed down, tore through the red earth, and blasted up the wet black soil beneath it.

Shit.

The curse came out by itself.

The Hound Model was swallowed by dirt. The soil thrown into the air told me the power. The power told me fear.

Their accuracy was still crude.

But we were in visible range of the artillery point. I was not bold enough to think I could simply crouch behind a sandbag and wait it out.

Move.

But do not run.

“—”

What? The attack might be close, but the enemy was far.

Then it was not that scary.

“Rat Unit.”

I tapped the companion hiding with me behind the sandbag and broke into a run.

Change position.

Change angle.

In the altered scenery, I saw an Armor Ant leveling an AR at me.

The insect’s compound eyes and the Hound Model’s single eye crossed.

Its eyes held killing intent that simply existed.

The eye of the Hound Model, this Centipede, probably carried the same inorganic killing intent.

I pulled the trigger.

So did it.

The bullets it sprayed wildly did not even hit the Centipede. Suppressive fire. If the point was to keep me from closing in, that was fine, but I had no intention of closing in to begin with.

A waste of ammo.

I aimed for the eye.

The thickened shell of an Armor Ant would not pierce unless I chose the spot. Since it was leaning out over an obstacle from the high ground to aim at me, the largest visible part I could pierce was the eye.

Why was that?

I could see it clearly.

The compound eye cracking.

The fluid inside spraying out.

“—Hah.”

I exhaled.

Started running.

A shell landed where we had been a moment earlier.

Impact.

Gravel.

Keeping my balance was hard.

Sliding.

I threw my body down as if shaving the ground away. This kept my body from bouncing up and down more than running did, which made it easier to aim.

Even as I slid, I turned the muzzle toward the enemy, caught him through the scope, and pulled the trigger.

Two.

Flat as labor.

Routine as work.

Against one lone me, the Insectum had lost two.

At long range, I had the advantage.

The enemy seemed to understand that.

Then what came next?

A squad charge backed by numbers.

The Ants made no voices, but even so, as if to rouse themselves, they roared toward the sky.

Gichi, gichi.

The sound of teeth rang out.

Gichi, gichi.

Horribly uncanny.

Violent.

And really, rather wonderful.

The Ants spilled down from the high ground like something boiling over.

Their number was—

Ah, fine.

Let’s not count.

I was a sniper.

No matter how you looked at it, I was not suited to racking up a kill score.

I raised myself, wrapped my left hand around my right shoulder, and used that left arm as a rest.

Aim.

Fire.

Target: the very back.

I blew off the head of one just as it was climbing over the barricade. It tumbled down the slope, dragging the comrades ahead of it into the fall, and stopped several of them with it.

The Insectum were not Bubbles.

They had tactics.

For one instant, they hesitated in their charge toward me.

An opening.

If I saw it as one, there was no way she would miss it.

The low growl probably came from Horse Unit spinning at high speed.

Pulsing arteries and veins.

Red blood and dark red blood flowing.

The Tooth parasite had kicked Horse Unit’s performance up hard.

With Monkey Unit in tow, E.B. tore through the camouflage and leapt into the air.

I wish she would stop handling Horse Unit better than I did.

Half of me felt that.

The other half found the practiced way she processed them very reassuring.

Bullets spat from the biological gun in her right arm, trampling through the swarm of Ants as she passed.

From her back.

From her shoulder.

Grenades thrown almost by hand vanished over the far side of the high ground.

Explosion.

It was the sound of the grenades detonating.

At the same time, it was the sound of E.B. blowing the barricade apart.

She disappeared from sight.

From within the enemy position came uninterrupted gunfire.

Trampling.

That was the kind of action it had become.

The Insectum, who had sent their main force after me, were now hesitating over how to deal with an ambusher far stronger and far crueler than I was.

Still too soft.

Their tactical softness was their cause of defeat.

At the very least, they should not have stopped. They should have chosen either me or E.B., at least one of us, and crushed us.

If they crushed me, E.B. would eventually die without support.

If they crushed E.B., they could tear into me from behind once I ran.

The result of chasing two hares had been famous for a very long time.

Rapid Snipe.

My right hand worked the lever.

The five rounds I drove in sent five of them neatly into the next world.

Sorry.

I have no intention of letting you calm down.

***

Monkey Unit came to call me, so I climbed the high ground too.

Apparently, the plain old Ant Workers and Soldiers we had not been seeing lately had moved to the back line. They seemed to have made up the support unit.

Which meant they had become E.B.’s prey.

Among the corpses of Baby Rolls, one Soldier went gii and looked up at me.

Rat Unit handled it.

“Touji!”

She called, so I went over.

A giant bee lay there, its legs broken, unable to stand.

As a living creature, it was completely finished. Apparently, break even one leg, and it could no longer support itself. Could not crawl, either.

None of the stubborn vitality I usually saw in Insectum.

The downside of being specialized by shaving everything else away, I suppose.

“What do we do?”

“We weren’t ordered to recover specimens.”

I fired the Type Five.

At close range, a sniper rifle is vulgar.

The head, large enough to wrap both arms around, blew apart. Only the legs began moving, twitching uselessly.

“Did you see any new species while you were fighting?”

“No. I didn’t notice any, but…”

What about you?

Her pteranodon-like head armor tilted.

Unfortunately.

I answered by giving a troubled little shrug.

“So what now? Stay here?”

“…Occupying a position on the assumption that no follow-up force will come is something idiots do.”

“But if we leave this place alone, they’ll use it again.”

They’ll shell the fort again, E.B. said.

I knew that.

But—

“It’s fine. Most likely—”

The fortress would be abandoned.

***

When we returned to base, the place was in a fairly miserable state. Even on our side, leaving the technical team aside, three of the combat children were dead.

Apparently, while they had been dealing with Ants, a shell landed directly on them.

You could call it bad luck, and that would be the end of it.

So let it end there.

“…”

I confirmed the bodies and collected their belongings.

What they had in common were the spine used in place of dog tags and their guns.

A considerate design, really. Convenient even if someone back home wanted a piece of the body.

A lot of the camp children had copied Shinzo and me, turning theirs into necklaces. I gathered them up roughly and sent them to Mr. Howard, also roughly.

If you live, your mortality rate is one hundred percent.

They chose this work themselves.

And in the first place, what we were doing was a survival competition between species.

There are no human rights there.

No justice.

Even children get killed.

If you are a soldier, dying is natural.

So, for the moment, I drained three glasses.

Not in mourning.

In toast.

If you are sending off heroes, that is good enough.

The alcohol spread through me.

An empty stomach was probably the mistake. I melted bonelessly into the chair, and Ox Unit offered me some preserved jerky.

The fact that it was shared with Rudo was, well, something.

Still, I accepted gratefully and bit into it.

How much time passed?

Inside the tent, under the gas lamp, two more shadows had appeared.

“Hm? Are we intruding, Tou-nyan?”

“…No, more importantly, if you know guests are coming, don’t drink, dumb dog.”

Mr. Edruam and Mr. A.B.

Ah. Right.

They had said they had business tonight.

Was it already night?

“How many did you drink?”

At Mr. A.B.’s question, I raised three fingers.

“Only three, and you’re like this… I doubt I’ll enjoy drinking with you.”

“Please enjoy drinking with one of your other sons-in-law.”

I said that and gave a huge yawn.

Come to think of it, where did E.B. fall among her siblings?

Three siblings?

No, three sisters?

Ah. So I did not even know that.

Well, fine.

I was not especially interested.

“Now then. We do not have that much time, so I will be brief. Tou-nyan… no, Hound. We are abandoning this fortress.”

“I figured.”

Not because of the artillery species—or rather, the fatal part was that they had been allowed to dig tunnels as they pleased.

We could not crush all of them, and given their size, there was still the possibility of collapse. This place could no longer function as a defensive base.

Reset once.

Strengthen surveillance.

Make sure they cannot dig tunnels again.

Then try again with the carelessness removed.

That would be safest.

“Highball… ah, my colleague, seems to have attacked with fire?”

“That bought us time, at least.”

Mr. A.B.’s voice was heavy.

“How much?”

“I would like to say two days, but—”

“Well, making poor predictions about the current Insectum is pointless.”

The giant ants: Tank Ants.

The giant bees: Cannon Wasps.

And the new species for long-range communication to operate them efficiently: Cocoon.

The new species Dog Unit and the others recovered from the back of that Ant was probably the most troublesome one.

And with new species being born at that pace, there was no predicting what would come next.

“Now then, Hound. This time, I have come to ask you on behalf of humanity.”

“Sure.”

I answered before he could say it.

I set my elbow on the armrest and rested my cheek on my hand.

Alcohol had me floating. Even so, those words came smoothly.

“That’s fine. For the delaying action, I’ll die. In exchange, or perhaps not quite in exchange, the children—”

“Shinzo-kun says he will continue taking care of that side. Of course, I will also provide support.”

“Then no problem.”

A yawn slipped out.

Bad.

Do not lose to alcohol, my eyelids.

“…You decided that awfully easily. Are you sure?”

This time, it was Mr. A.B.

If Mr. Edrum was here as humanity’s representative, then Mr. A.B. had probably come as, well, my father-in-law.

“Well, it can’t be helped. A plain suicide squad won’t be enough to hold them back, and unless you prepare at least a one-in-a-million chance of winning, people won’t gather either.”

Sniping: 5.

The proof of a hero.

As places to spend it went, this was probably reasonable.

From the sound of things, Shinzo was not that, but…

“Who else?”

“Your entire company. Also, did you know D.D?”

D.D.?

I thought back, and the face of a Doberman-like dog came to mind.

Ah. That person.

“He’s going too.”

“I see. That’s reassuring.”

I did not even know his branch of service, but with that way of speaking, there was no chance he was small fry.

“I’m sorry, Hound. Asking you, my friend—no. Saying it that way would be cowardly, so I’ll stop.”

“That’s a shame. I don’t have many friends.”

“—”

Mr. Edrum trembled slightly.

Then he hugged me, still seated in the chair.

“Thank you. And truly—I’m sorry, Tou-nyan.”

“…”

When someone older cries, it is a little hard to know what to do. For lack of anything better, I patted his shoulder.

And that was that.

He would probably go on to ask the other usable people to go die as well.

Mr. Edrum—

Ed-yan—

gave a small bow, pulled his hat low, and left.

“…”

“…”

Only Mr. A.B. and I remained in the room.

Apparently, he intended to talk. He dragged over a chair and sat.

“Is this really fine?”

“If you live, you die. If I die and get treated like a heroic spirit, then, well… it’s a decent place for it.”

Maybe they would carve my name into a stone monument or something.

“You are not a person of this era, are you?”

“That’s exactly why. Do you know how old I am? Over five hundred. I’m a man from an age where even my bones should have weathered away long ago.”

Talking to him, I understood.

Surprisingly, Mr. A.B. apparently did not want me to die.

“…I thought you only saw me as a bad insect crawling around your daughter.”

“You were an insect I had come to like well enough. No, a dog, was it?”

“Gau, gau.”

I tried barking.

The two of us laughed quietly.

“I had her checked to see if she was pregnant. She wasn’t.”

“I see.”

He did not say who.

“Then that’s good. She won’t be a widow.”

“Are you fine with that?”

“…No comment.”

I said it with a smile.

Mr. A.B. let out a huge sigh.

With his inhuman left arm, he scratched roughly at his head.

“As the head of the pack, that helps. Now she can be used to bind blood.”

“I see.”

“But as a warrior—or rather, as one parent—I am troubled. That girl is truly in love with you.”

“I’m honored.”

“And. She is my daughter. Her thinking is close to mine, and unlike me, she does not have to think about the pack.”

“…”

The flow of the conversation changed.

The smile I had pasted on my face twitched.

Wait.

That was what I wanted to say.

Please wait.

I was going to say it.

But—

“Let her die with you on the battlefield.”

He bowed his head faster than I could.

***

Tooths are a warrior race.

Which means they are hard-headed, both physically and mentally.

Once a Tooth has decided something, overturning that decision is not something I can do. Especially not with so little time.

So I attached a few suitable conditions and accepted.

Perhaps that was why.

“Touji!”

“…What is it?”

“I just wanted to say it!”

The young lady was in excellent spirits. She turned an unadorned field uniform into a dress.

In a broken position.

Under the moonlight.

Spinning round and round.

The outer tent village had been abandoned completely, so there was no sign of people.

For a moonlit date, the eyes of the patrolling Monoz bothered me a little. And there was no telling when this place might be swallowed by war again.

Still, I had brought E.B. out here.

“We are going to die. Are you sure?”

“I like stories humans make. I read them sometimes,” E.B. said.

An answer that was not an answer.

“So, Touji? There’s no meaning in a world without you.”

A full smile.

And eyes that were still completely serious.

They turned on me.

I could not look straight at them, so I turned my face away.

“…I feel like that is supposed to be the man’s line.”

“Then go ahead.”

“There’s no meaning in a world without you.”

“Is it because I said it first? That wasn’t very good. All right, Touji! Hold me while you say it again!”

She spread both arms wide, cheerful as could be.

“…”

Nothing for it.

I spread my arms to match.

E.B. threw herself into my chest with enough force that it felt like she was trying to tackle me down.

I held her.

Thin shoulders.

Then, just as requested, I brought my mouth close to her ear—

“Even if that’s true, please live.”

—and tapped the drug into the back of her neck.

E.B. collapsed like a cut string.

I caught her on instinct.

This works too well, C.J.

“It’s all right. I already made A.B. accept the conditions for when you come back safely.”

You would just be coming back safely a little early.

“…Take… me… with…”

She shook her head like a child refusing bedtime.

Crying.

E.B.

I gently wiped away those tears.

“Goodbye, E.B. I love you. A little more than you think. So—”

Live.