Chapter 6: Encounter
1
In a foreign land, wearing a new type of enhanced exoskeleton, engaging in combat against small magical beasts and monsters, identifying various problems large and small found each time, and continuing to make corrections—this had been repeated more than ten times.
Thanks to persistently continuing this troublesome work to the point where counting had become bothersome, by the time about three days had passed since crossing Khabarovsk, the capital of Far Eastern Russia, the defect-ridden enhanced exoskeleton had become reasonably usable.
With this, I thought, “The minimum work is finished. All right, let’s go home, take a bath, and sleep,” but things wouldn’t go that smoothly.
“A subjugation request?”
“Yeah. Apparently there’s a man-eating bear appearing in a nearby forest. And it’s over three meters in size.”
“Huh. Isn’t that the kind of thing you’d find anywhere?”
Even in a world where magical beasts and monsters didn’t exist, wild animals like Asiatic black bears and brown bears were beings that could easily kill humans.
In this world where magical beasts and monsters run rampant, it would be natural for there to be bears that had become magical beasts and monsters, and it would also be natural for them to exceed three meters and become man-eating creatures, wouldn’t it?
And in this country, dealing with such things should be the duty of the nobles who govern the local areas.
Moreover, having the military strength to deal with magical beasts and monsters on their own should be the minimum requirement for being a noble, so those with pride as nobles should absolutely never say something like “I can’t deal with the magical beasts and monsters that appeared in my own territory,” right?
“That’s true for small ones. Nobles who can’t deal with them themselves aren’t recognized as nobles. They’d have their status stripped without question. But when dealing with medium-sized or larger magical beasts and monsters, the story changes.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.”
According to Mogami-san, all weapons equipped with armaments capable of penetrating the magical barriers possessed by medium-sized and larger magical beasts and monsters, including mechs, are under national jurisdiction. Therefore, when medium-sized or larger magical beasts and monsters are confirmed, lords are recommended to request reinforcements from the national army.
“Then wouldn’t it be fine to make a request to the military?”
“That would be right. But you see…”
“Is there some problem?”
“There are cases of mistaken identification or misunderstanding by information providers, right?”
“Ah, I see.”
Humans originally have a tendency to perceive things in an exaggerated manner.
There’s a strong possibility that humans who saw the bear overestimated the size of the target.
“Believing eyewitness reports and requesting reinforcements from the country, only for it to be a misunderstanding”—
that would be the worst outcome.
In that case, they could dispatch their own personnel for investigation, but if there really was a medium-sized monster, the personnel sent for investigation would suffer casualties.
At this stage, they could be certain of the medium-sized monster’s existence, but it would be better if there were no sacrifices.
That’s where we appeared—armed merchants who came to do business with our own military strength.
From their perspective, Mogami-san is a foreigner, so they can’t give him orders.
But they can make requests.
If he accepts, they’ll provide convenience in future business, and if he doesn’t accept, that’s fine too.
That’s probably how they brought up the topic.
From Mogami-san’s perspective, it’s a delicious request where he can collect combat data while putting the other party in his debt.
There’s no reason to refuse.
“I understand the situation.”
“I see. So, what will you do? Since we can handle just the investigation ourselves, do you want to rest this time?”
“Well…”
I could refuse by saying, “This is ultimately a request that Mogami-san accepted, right? It has nothing to do with me.” I could, but I want combat experience against medium-sized beasts, and more than anything, there’s no point in being stubborn about this here.
“Let’s go.”
Mission accepted.
When we searched the forest in question, the target was found immediately.
“Target: three monsters. All bear-type. Size: the one running in front is five-meter class. The two following behind are two-meter class. No other hidden magical beasts and monsters detected.”
There might be some margin of error in size, but there’s no mistake.
At least one is definitely medium-sized.
GROOOOOOOO!!
The distance between us is about twenty meters or so.
What appears before my eyes are monsters closing the distance in a straight line to devour the foolish prey that neither flees nor hides before beings standing at the top of the ecosystem.
The monster running in front seems to understand from past experience that conventional weapons don’t work on it, showing no signs of caution toward us whatsoever.
Yeah. Honestly, this is scary to a degree that can’t be compared to cheap horror movies.
If I had suddenly encountered these guys while taking a walk in the forest, I would have either become unable to move while preparing for death, or fled without thinking.
In the former case, I would have been attacked while defenseless; in the latter, I would have been attacked while exposing my back, and would have lost my life.
However. Fortunately—unfortunately for them—this is a battlefield, and I came here from the beginning to hunt them.
So the action I take is neither to stand dazed before the approaching magical beasts and monsters nor to flee.
I aim and pull the trigger—that’s all.
“There.”
Gya!?
The bullet fired simultaneously with my voice hit its mark without fail.
It struck the head of the monster that had been running in front and sent it flying.
No matter how much it had become a monster, it was still just a bear in the end.
Unlike hunting rifles developed for use against wild animals, it didn’t have the physical durability to withstand the impact produced by 12.7mm bullets fired from heavy machine guns developed for military use—especially those imbued with my magical power.
Therefore, this result could be said to be inevitable.
However, it seems that wasn’t the case for the magical beasts and monsters that had thought of me as prey.
………..?
The two bears staring blankly at the monster that had fallen after losing its head.
Perhaps they were family, and were overcome by the sense of loss from losing their parent.
Or maybe they couldn’t believe that they had lost the leader who had deflected all attacks until now.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Whatever feelings they might be harboring, what I have to do doesn’t change.
“You’re full of openings.”
Gyuoh!?
I blew away the heads of the magical beasts and monsters that still weren’t moving and finished them off—mission complete.
“Confirmed subjugation of one medium-sized monster and two small-sized magical beasts and monsters. This concludes the situation. Returning to base.”
Yeah. I can win against medium-sized ones too. All that’s left is to adjust the details.
This should be sufficient as experimental results. After doing this much, I wouldn’t be punished for resting leisurely afterward.
…Or so I thought.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT gadgetizedpanda.net
2
No matter how enhanced the exoskeleton was, the storage mechanism—a new mechanism that wasn’t in the original concept—couldn’t be created immediately, so we decided to first try removing the arms extending from the shoulders once and fixing them to the upper arms during normal times.
I thought they might as well remove them completely at that point, but according to Mogami-san, being able to have four arms when necessary was an absolute requirement.
Not in terms of firepower, but in terms of corporate identity.
Yeah. That’s right. We have to prevent zaibatsu companies from copying us, or they’ll steal our ideas.
We have to make it so that even if it gets copied like a mass-production model, it’ll be fine, or we can’t feel secure.
I’d like to tell them once to “put yourself in the shoes of the person who has to use it,” but since it does increase firepower even momentarily, I can’t argue too strongly about it—such a dilemma.
While carrying such frustrating feelings, I spent my days traveling around Far Eastern Russia with Mogami-san.
This country—no, most of the nations on the continent—unlike Japan, which doesn’t allow monster intrusion, has magical beasts and monsters here and there. Since main roads and railway networks are destroyed by these wild magical beasts and monsters, large-scale transportation of goods would be quite difficult without the special trailers manufactured by Japan.
It’s like… well, it might be easier to understand if you imagine medieval traveling merchants or the vultures from that famous anime with “Is the moon out?”
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