Chapter 9: Rapid

Among us, the ones equipped with stealth skills are me, Rat Unit, Snake Unit, and Dog Unit—one human and three machines. And the one with the widest detection range is Rooster Unit. Since this mission hinges on reconnaissance and stealth, that one human and four machines are the key players.

Bubbles are strong, but they have their weaknesses.

First, as I confirmed with my own eyes, they’re slow. Slower than an injured ant.

Second, they’re dull. They detect their targets through vibrations, so if their prey doesn’t move, they can’t find it.

That’s what we’ll exploit to snatch the rare item.

That’s the plan I decided on.

The operation: an ambush. It’ll be toughest on Snake and Dog Unit, and Rooster Unit bears the heaviest responsibility. It’s a plan that basically leaves it to my subordinates, but trusting my team is what makes me… well, me. It’s not just passing the buck.

“It’s not just passing the buck, right?”

“Beep!”

Rat Unit, connected via tube as a power source for the new weapon, nodded at me. Good.

Relieved, I peered into the scope. This time, I couldn’t exactly detach it from the Model 5 Rifle, so I left it mounted. Awkward as hell to handle. Maybe I should’ve brought separate binoculars. Not being able to use the zoom function in my helmet’s headgear is low-key painful. I get that, being an electronic device, it’s inevitably affected by the Tree Crystals, but… couldn’t they have tried a bit harder? Guess not. Yeah, no—thousands of Tree Crystals’ interference is no joke.

“…”

A thought struck me. I lowered my gaze to Rat Unit. Now that I think about it—

“Why… are you guys okay?”

Even though there’s a Tree Crystal embedded right in the middle of your mechanical bodies.

“Beep!”

Answer: Grit!

“…I see.”

I tossed a simple question at them and got a fantastic answer back. I see.

“Then I’ll tough it out too.”

Mumbling that to myself, I nibbled on a ration pack in the trench.

The sun set, rose, set, rose again.

And so, it’s the morning of the third day—the final morning of the mission.

The preparations we’d been making since the night before last were more or less complete. I’d gotten used to the new weapon’s trajectory. Checked our escape routes. Dug a few trenches in convenient spots. Rooster Unit, who’d been stationed observing the “river” flow, had finally come back into communication range with Rat Unit.

The river’s flow was moving in the predicted direction, at the predicted speed. At this rate, the operation could begin in about three hours. Can we do this? We can. We will.

Three hours passed.

“…”

I spotted the front of the river in my sightline. Good. At this rate, they’ll pass right over Snake and Dog Unit. I relayed instructions to Rooster Unit, now finally able to communicate with me, to regroup with Ox Unit and the others, then pulled my hat down tighter.

I adapted a blueprint and draped a stretched-thin sandbag over myself like a ghillie suit, blending into the ground as I lay prone, embedding myself inside the scope’s view.

The world stopped.

Sound vanished.

My focus narrowed until the only thing I could hear was the thudding of my heartbeat.

Thump. Thump. Thump. The world swayed in rhythm with my steady pulse. I held my breath. The swaying stopped. A pink sphere entered my line of fire. My pupils strained with a quiet creak. The world seemed to shrink. The bubble’s core grew larger in my vision.

—Click.

Somewhere inside my head, I heard the tick of a clock’s second hand.

My finger moved gently on the trigger. Squeezed. Fired. Hit.

“Rat Unit!”

I confirmed the hit, shouting as I dove back into the trench and grabbed the unwieldy Type-7 Light Machine Gun. I switched it to full-auto burst mode. A few seconds behind Rat Unit, who had already begun firing, I too opened fire.

Rat Unit and I made sure to draw attention. Why? For Snake and Dog Unit’s sake.

As the pink bubble burst, the ground beneath it exploded. Good position. Good timing. Two Monoz burst out.

Dog Unit, wielding a cutlass, swept aside the surrounding bubbles. Snake Unit lunged forward, jaws open wide, swallowing the fallen rare item. Recognizing that, the surrounding bubbles swarmed Dog and Snake Units. Our job—Rat Unit’s and mine—was to make sure that didn’t happen.

I fired. Fired again. Reloaded when the mag ran dry, then fired more. Still fired. Dog and Snake Units broke free. Good. Great. A grin crept onto my lips. Dog Unit scattered the enemy well—no injuries on their end. Which meant they were bolting back towards us at a speed leagues beyond the injured ant from the other day. This would work—

“…Huh?”

A dumb sound escaped me. Instinctively, I grabbed trusty Model 5, dropped prone, and peered through the scope. The bubbles were as slow as ever. But the arms reaching out? Fast.

Arms. Yes—arms. Blue bubbles were sprouting arms. Arms made of countless tiny bubbles. Humanoid shapes.

“Bubble Man.”

The name popped into my head. No, doesn’t matter. The Bubble Man extending its arms—that’s the issue. They’re faster than Dog Unit and the others. At this rate, they’ll catch up. Rat Unit kept up suppressive fire, blasting the arms and aiming at the Bubble Men themselves, but the blown-off arms regenerated instantly, and the cores were too far to hit.

“—”

Think. No point grabbing Type-7 again; it’d just be a repeat of Rat Unit’s results. Think. The new weapon? …No, not yet. Can’t use it like originally planned. Not useless, but not now—it’d catch Dog Unit in the blast. What now? Think. If you don’t, Dog Unit dies. Your subordinates, forced to join your reckless plan, die. Can’t let that happen. No way. Then stop it. How? Think. Think. Think. Got it.

“Guess I’ll do it.”

Do it. Pull it off.

I pulled back from the scope. Rat Unit looked at me as if protesting. Ignored. Breathed in. Out. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Clenched and unclenched my hands. Checked Model 5’s remaining rounds. Five shots. Let’s go—Rapid Sniping. Time to dance.

I poured everything into the world inside the scope. Saw the cores. The Bubble Men’s cores. Hundreds of them reaching toward Dog Unit. Mapped the trajectories. Visualized the paths. Hit. Prayed. Promised.

Fire / blew away the lead Bubble Man’s core.

Fire / blew away the second Bubble Man’s core.

Fire / confirmed kills on three and four—blew away the fifth’s core.

Fire / confirmed kills six through nine—blew away the tenth’s core.

Fire / saw eleven through sixteen already collapsing—blew away the seventeenth.

I confirmed over thirty-four bubbles closest to Dog Unit were obliterated, then slowly stood.

“…Phewwww…”

A long breath escaped me. I let my shoulders relax as I popped out the last spent casing.

Not one shot, one kill, but—

“Five shots… hundred kills.”

Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But still—someday, I’d love to pull off a real signature move like that.

“Still…”

Glad it worked. My hit rate for Rapid Sniping drills? Thirty percent. Being bolt-action, every reload threw off my aim a little; I couldn’t maintain both speed and accuracy at once. But this time? Perfect. Fast, all hits. Guess I’m clutch under pressure.

Feeling a little better, I hummed as I approached Rat Unit.

“What?”

Our eyes met as Rat Unit silently stared up at me.

They didn’t say a word, but somehow it felt like they were thinking, “What the heck was that…?”

“I shot through multiple cores with a single bullet. You know, by adjusting the angles a little.”

The Bubble Men were translucent, cores visible, and to chase Dog Unit they’d pushed forward, clustered tightly. So I angled the shots to pull off that trick shot—two, three cores with one round. Their cores being at similar heights helped a lot.

When I first shot the pink one, the bullet had pierced the core without losing power or momentum, so I figured I’d give it a shot. And it worked. Total fluke. Won’t happen again.

“Well then, let’s finish up, Rat Unit.”

“Beep.”

For some reason, Rat Unit seemed a little put off as they handed me the new weapon—a crossbow. The bolt had a grenade strapped to it. …This was supposed to be the trump card. Supposed to be.

Life never goes the way you plan.

With a sense of impermanence in my heart, I pulled the trigger, sending the bolt between Dog Unit and the Bubble Men. A few seconds later, a boom. I watched the bubbles scatter from the blast wave, and with that, we began our retreat.

***

“Indeed, you are strong. But there are still those above you. Therefore, gain more experience.”

The big, bald-headed man said that to me after I reported on the three-day mission.

“…Haa.”

What an obvious thing to say.

I sipped the coffee that had been served to me—zzzz—a long slurp. If I’d left it to Alex, it would’ve been turned into some strange Chiba-style flavor. Even a man who can’t tell the difference would notice this difference. That’s the power of M〇X Coffee.

“Rookie. I had planned to greet you with those words.”

“You just said them now, though?”

Alex took off his sunglasses. Revealing blue eyes. As his name suggested—or maybe I shouldn’t say it that way, I wasn’t sure—but he didn’t have Asian features. And yet, he spoke fluent Japanese. Strange.

Those blue eyes of Alex’s glanced at me and, as if saying this guy’s hopeless, he gave a slight shrug.

“Let me get the lecture out of the way first. Rookie, you were simply lucky. Normally, the two Monoz units who went to snatch the target, and the one unit that stayed by your side, would’ve been killed by the bubbles. Rookie, never underestimate the bubbles.”

“…? I… am unharmed?”

With that analogy, shouldn’t Rat Unit be dead?

“The Monoz love humans more than you think. They’d protect you, even if it meant sacrificing themselves. Even at the cost of their own lives,” Alex added.

“…”

Hearing that, I reflected. If I pull reckless stunts, it’s not just me who dies. My subordinates will die first. That’s no good.

“I’ll take it to heart.”

“That’s good. From now on, no reckless actions when there’s no need to be reckless, refrain from them.”

“And if reckless action is necessary?”

“Then be reckless.”

Alex said it like it was nothing. This company might be black.

I gave Alex a half-lidded glare.

“Well then, let’s leave the scolding at that. As always, it’s good business, Rookie.”

Alex gave his usual big grin.

“Truth be told, for this mission, all you had to do was run back here. Just shout, ‘He’s too strong, boss!’ you know?”

Alex winked as he said it.

“…”

Boss? Shout?

“Japanese joke.”

“Don’t make fun of us Japanese!”

As a Japanese myself, I was actually kind of genuinely mad. Maybe because of that, I ended up getting a 5000-point bonus from Alex’s personal pocket money again this time.