abcnovels
Chapter 106
Chapter 106
Chapter 106
[Translator – Kie]
[Proofreader – Kawaii]
Chapter 106
‘It’s a small campsite.’
As the deceased pilot described, the scale of the campsite wasn’t that large. When combining the roaming personnel and those detected by the auxiliary organ, there were only around 10 people. However, the issue wasn’t the number of individuals.
‘There’s a walker.’
A bipedal, open-type weapon system, standing 6 meters tall, lay beside the tent at the campsite. The walker was a robot weapon used by the StarUnion. The model present at the campsite was a light walker, mainly used for reconnaissance and as infantry support. Despite its open design providing limited defense, it compensated with storm guns in both hands, making its firepower formidable.
‘There are no cyborgs at the campsite.’
Walkers require a cyborg to operate, connecting with a special device called a brain connector to control the machine with their mind. Judging by the absence of the faint electronic waves typical of cyborgs in the vicinity, it seemed like someone had modified the walker for human use.
Moreover, the campsite’s walker had a storm gun only in the left hand, with the right arm replaced by a crane-like mechanical device, likely modified for resource collection and item transport.
‘After attacking so recklessly, they seem confident.’
Pirates operating even modified walkers on a cult cruiser – that was unexpected. If they had walkers at a small campsite, there likely were many more near the headquarters or leader’s dock. Besides, the extent of their arsenal was still unknown.
‘They’re certainly overflowing with confidence.’
With this level of firepower, they would be classified as a top cartel even in the game. Although they are enemies, I acknowledged their strength.
‘But that doesn’t mean I can’t defeat them.’
Summoning the tooth fairy swarm, I quietly descended from the tree. As I approached the campsite, pirates with lit torches stood guard, vigilant.
After sending the tooth fairy swarm to the opposite side of the pirates, I prompted them to make noise.
“Huh?”
The moment he turned his head upon hearing rustling sounds.
“Wha…?!”
I grabbed his head with corrosive tentacles and pulled him sharply, leaving only the gun he was holding in that spot.
“Where did this guy go?”
“Hey! Did he go to pee?”
A moment later, two other pirates approached. I aimed Spine Projectile Organ at the one behind them.
“Huh?”
I grabbed the collapsed pirate by his throat and approached the other one.
“Huh? What?”
When he turned at the sound of footsteps, a bone axe swung down on his shoulder. Struck by the bone axe, he collapsed on the ground.
Stepping inside from the warmth radiating from the spilled entrails on the ground, I entered the campsite. In the center of the camp, a pirate sat by the bonfire, grilling meat. He had plugs in his ears so he remained oblivious to what was happening behind him.
Approaching him quietly until I reached right behind him, I opened my mouth wide and engulfed his head entirely. The startled pirate struggled, but his resistance was short-lived. When I forcefully lifted his head with tension in his jaw, a cultist pirate walked out of another tent.
“Huh?”
Gurgle!
The cultist, adorned with goat horns, stood still as if unable to comprehend the situation. I swallowed the upper half of the pirate while swaying my tail.
“Grrrrr….”
With thorn spikes embedded in his neck, he collapsed, making a deflating sound.
“Uh…ah…ahhh!”
Then, with screams, another pirate emerged from a different tent, covered in blood.
While I was dealing with the pirates, the tooth fairy swarm had sneaked into another tent and attacked the pirates inside. The pirate, bleeding, tried to escape upon seeing me, but the tooth fairies didn’t let him go. With carnivorous fleas leaping onto him, he couldn’t bear the assault and collapsed on the ground.
“Ahhhh!”
“What the hell is that noise… Ugh?!”
Hearing the screams of their comrade, the other pirates peeked out from their tents and were astonished by the slaughterhouse I had created.
Swallowing the chef pirate and charging towards the pirate inside the tent, the force packed in the 5-meter structure was truly frightening. The tent shattered like bowling pins hit by a bowling ball, and the pirates inside crumpled instantly.
While their comrades were torn apart, a pirate who had been moving stealthily successfully boarded a walker.
“You bastard! You’re gone now!”
The pirate on the walker wore a peculiar equipment. It resembled reinforced armor but covered only the head and chest, with multiple devices resembling plugs attached to the back of the neck.
‘He’s connecting with a brain connector using that.’
Such equipment didn’t exist in the game. It was quite interesting, but that was something to check later.
As the 6-meter walker rose from the ground, aiming its storm gun at me, the pirate controlling it had a triumphant expression. He probably believed that the depleted uranium rounds loaded in that storm gun would tear me apart. However, his hopes would never come true.
The radio waves emanating from the panel on my back disrupted the walker’s electrical signals, causing it to stop functioning.
“Huh? Wha…what’s happening?”
As the once agile walker stopped working, the pirate shouted in a bewildered voice. The effects of the electromagnetic interference weren’t long-lasting, so I extended my combat arm and pulled him out of the cockpit.
Thud!
Lifelessly sprawled on the ground by my hand, the pirate was bleeding profusely.
I paralyzed him with thorns because I wanted to leisurely examine the clothes he was wearing.
“….”
The remaining pirate, aiming at me, was shivering out of fear. The weapon he held, perhaps to impress as a wealthy pirate, was a Gauss rifle.
As I turned my head, he pulled the trigger. A tungsten bullet struck my exoskeleton fiercely, colliding with it. It was unfortunate for the pirate, but the bullet couldn’t even leave a scratch on my exterior. As the deformed tungsten fell to the ground, the pirate’s mouth gaped in shock.
As I approached him, he staggered backward, eventually sitting down with a thud. I raised the bone axe high.
“Wai…!”
It was rare for someone to be alive after their head was split. After dealing with the last pirate, I summoned the tooth fairy swarm.
‘Three captured alive.’
The rest were all killed.
I gathered the captured and deceased pirates in the center of the camp.
Without anyone to contact at the base, they’ll soon realize that their comrades over there have also met their fate. Before this night is over, they’ll come looking.
‘After making it this far through all the hardships, I guess I should give them a gift.’
A gift with the name of terror.
Originally, among the space cartels, there was no concept of ranks or a hierarchy. With various races gathered together, and most cartel leaders prioritizing their pride even if they die, the concept of serving one another didn’t exist. However, there are undeniably powerful cartels that can be considered close to kings or nobility due to the strength among the space cartels.
On the Utopia-02 continent of the P-101 planet, ‘Humanity’ cartel was one of such powerful cartels. The Humanity Cartel, considered one of the five fingers among the space cartels, was unique not only in name.
“Boss.”
“What is it?”
“We’re unable to contact Camp 21 and Camp 17.”
Dylan, the charismatic leader, lying halfway on a bed and eating skewered meat, furrowed his handsome brows at the words of his assistant.
“21 and 17?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that…that Electronic Ping Pong? Something like that. Is it because of that?”
“If you mean electromagnetic storms, then no, I don’t think it is because of that…”
“You son of a b****, are you boasting about being smart in front of me?”
“Oh, no.”
As a curse erupted from the mouth of Dylan, the slender and handsome cult leader, the assistant immediately bowed his head. Dylan, holding the skewer, contemplated whether to stab his subordinate with it and then spoke.
“21 and 17. Those are outlying camps, right?”
“Yes.”
“There are no dangerous animals there. Could it be the remnants of the ones we downed earlier today?”
“I’m not sure about that….”
Dylan finished swallowing the skewered meat and then flicked his hand.
“Send some suitable guys to check it out.”
“Yes, your wise judgment!”
“I know, buddy.”
The assistant bowed his head and exited the tent.
The fiery glow from the massive blaze illuminated the surroundings of the tent where the cult leader resided.
The source of the fire was not a simple bonfire. One of the villages of the Wolves, which had existed for centuries on the Utopia-02 continent, was burning due to the pirates.
“Scream!”
“Ahhhh!”
Pirates, composed of cult members and humans, roamed around, setting fire to traditional houses or dragging out the Wolves inside. One peculiar point was that all the looting pirates were handsome men who did not fit the image of evildoers.
“Let the good-looking ones go to the leader alive!”
“Yes!”
“As for the women, do as you please!”
As someone shouted, the pirates, capturing handsome male Wolves and young children, filled their necks with electric necklaces and took them captive.
“Hehe, O guardian deity!”
“Ugh! Please listen to our prayers!”
The Wolves cried out desperately while enduring the pain from the electric necklaces. Originally, this village was not weak enough to suffer such a disaster. It was one of the villages blessed by two guardian deities known as the “Parents of All Things.”
However, the “Parents of All Things” had not responded to their prayers for several days.
“Here they go again.”
“Haha, idiots. Those b****es who claim to be gods already lost to the leader.”
The pirates guarding the captives laughed at the Wolves. As they claimed, the guardian deities who protected the village had been defeated by the Humanity Cartel.
The male deity, known as the Father of the Earth, was beheaded by the pirate leader, while the female deity, known as the Mother of the Sky, was currently captured as a prisoner.
But the pirates didn’t disclose these facts. It was more enjoyable for them to see the Wolves despairing in vain.
Leaving the camp and surveying the scene of looting, the assistant was approached by one pirate. The pirate was holding a female Wolf and a young Wolf.
“What should we do with this Wolf kid?”
“Please, spare this child!”
“Not the leader’s taste. Deal with it.”
“Wa…wait… Nooo!”
The pirate killed the young Wolf and dragged away its mother. Despite being the leader of the ‘Humanity’ Cartel, who is a woman herself, she has a strong aversion to other women and ugly men, so they are killed very cruelly.
Being humiliated by subordinate pirates here and burning to death seemed more merciful than what they were experiencing. In fact, the Mother of the Sky, captured as a prisoner, was undergoing such terrifying torture from the pirates.
Of course, trying to explain that fact to a Wolf who lost a child would lack credibility. Nevertheless, beside the assistant who considered it an act of mercy, another subordinate approached.
“What did the boss say?”
“He said to send some kids. Send the ones with nothing much to do.”
“Got it.”
After the subordinate left, the assistant returned to work. To find captives to be presented to the leader, they needed to diligently search around until the night ended.
An hour after the assistant met Dylan, ten heavily armed pirates boarded a transport ship heading towards Camp 17. Eight of them wore intermediate reinforced suits, while two were on walkers. The walkers were equipped with plasma launchers, and all eight pirates were armed with gauss rifles.
The level of armament was sufficient to handle a more formidable opponent than the pirates had anticipated around the camp.
“When they return, there won’t be any decent ones left for us to eat, right?”
“That’s right. Or we could share it with the others.”
“Well, eating them afterward feels like eating corpses.”
All ten of them were forcibly conscripted, so there was a lot of discontent, but there was nothing they could do. Their boss, the cult leader, had a very cruel disposition.
As the transport ship arrived in the airspace near Camp 17, which was prepared by the pirates in advance, the assistant spoke to Dylan an hour later.
“Check for life reactions in the vicinity.”
“Nothing particularly unusual.”
Their transport ship was equipped with a bioscanner suitable for use on warships. The Humanity Cartel possessed genetic information for almost all dangerous organisms on this planet. Therefore, the pirates could easily check whether there were dangerous animals in the vicinity.
After running the bioscanner once and determining that it was safe, they disembarked and headed for Camp 17.
Until that moment, they had no idea what had happened at the camp. At most, they thought it might be a communication failure due to a malfunction.
However, what awaited them was not something as simple as a communication failure.
Instead of the warm glow of a campfire and the noisy singing of pirates, cold darkness and silence filled Camp 17.
“Something’s strange, isn’t it?”
“Where did everyone go?”
Only then did the pirates realize that something was seriously wrong, and they began to be on guard around them.
One of the pirates, using the light on his helmet, discovered ominous traces.
“Look at this!”
“What…gasp?!”
It was a massive amount of bloodstains. The blood that had been scattered in the middle of the camp continued into the forest.
“Everyone, prepare for combat!”
The extremely tense pirates raised their weapons. They advanced into the forest with a walker at the forefront.
The seemingly endless bloodstains gradually diminished until they were cut off in front of a certain tree.
“Did they fly up into the sky?”
“Utterly nonsensical. No carnivorous animal comes down near this area.”
“Well, that’s true… huh?”
A drop of water fell onto the shoulder of one of the pirates. Thinking it was rain, he wiped it off, only to realize it wasn’t water.
In the light of the helmet, his palm was covered in blood.
“…”
Everyone’s gaze fixed on his bloody hand. Swallowing hard, he slowly raised his head.
And there, above him.
The ‘companions’ they were looking for were there.
“Get in touch with the boss immediately!”
“Rather than that, prepare the transport ship!”
“Transport ship! Respond! It’s an emergency! Fly here right away!”
Even the ruthless pirates were horrified by the scene in front of them.
Skinless pirates were hanging from the trees.