Chapter 856: December 19th: Truly Smiling Amidst Hardships and Crimson
Author's Preface
The deadline is here
Ah, the deadline is right here
The deadline is here.
Katarina
◇
If the right runs out, use the left. If the left runs out, use the right. If an opening is exposed, use both.
Firepower more than enough to smash a Tactical Mech continues to be fired with terrifying accuracy. It didn't take long for Rust to be forced onto the defensive.
(It's frustrating, but with Sengaku Hisai, there's no chance of winning......)
No matter how you look at it, the matchup is just too awful. Even for Rust, there is simply nothing that can be done about this.
『Now then, what're you gonna do~? Sorry, but I ain't letting you change your clothes, you know~?』
It is already known that Rust fights by swapping between multiple Tactical Mechs. Therefore, to maintain his current advantage, Eclair creates no openings. Rather, by intentionally placing himself in an exquisitely "punchable" position, he is even inviting Rust's psychological carelessness.
『......I'm not falling for that.』
『Oh?』
While protecting herself from the fierce onslaught of bullets in a guard stance, Rust races her thoughts to somehow find a way out.
(Ten seconds. I need to create an opening of at least ten seconds. If I take those bullets with my Tactical Mech unequipped, I'll probably die in one hit.)
If she had stats that excelled in defense, she might be able to withstand it, but because Rust's main armaments are her Tactical Mechs, if she strips them off, all that is left is her bare flesh. A player's equipped enhanced armor alone cannot block the bullets.
(Pathetic.)
Being driven into such a disadvantage is entirely due to Rust's own conceit. Since the enemy mech was based on the same concept as Sengaku Hisai, she should have known beforehand that the matchup would be bad.
Rust casts her gaze around her while enduring Eclair's fierce assault with a defensive stance. Generating a ten-second opening would be difficult without utilizing the surrounding objects.
(Pathetic......)
There is no such thing as a completely clean battle where not a single speck of dust is raised. At the point where there are countless houses with Eclair's bullets embedded in them, the idea of a battle that leaves the city unscathed is already ruined. Thus, it was natural for Rust to come up with the idea of using the houses as a shield to swap her Tactical Mech.
(A revolver type, with enough firepower to deal somewhat effective damage to the heavy armor of the Type-Men. If I half-assedly duck into a house, he'll just shoot through the walls.)
Originally, Sengaku Hisai is a forward-leaning, offensive mech. It is not a custom suited for prolonged defense. Because she was protecting her vitals, her defense grew negligent, and a shoulder part is blasted away by a bullet.
Because the Type-Men transform by draping themselves over the player, damage to the exterior sometimes hinders the continuation of combat even more than damage piercing through to the player.
Realizing that Sengaku Hisai has already been pushed from the realm of "cannot win" to "cannot hold out," Rust spins her brain at full capacity looking for a way out.
(The opponent also understands that I want to switch to fleeing. Do I launch a feint? No, if even a fist's worth of distance is opened up, a feint becomes meaningless. Do I blast through a wall and escape into a house, fully prepared to take damage?)
Rust actually knows the method to escape from this situation with the minimum amount of risk.
——— Emergency Equipment Purge.
Because they are manned without exception, it is the ultimate trump card of a Tactical Mech pilot: escaping a crisis by discarding the Tactical Mech in an emergency.
Rust acknowledges that she possesses a passion for the romance of robots greater than the average person. Thus, she understands that there is "flare" in "destructive actions that are the exact opposite of preservation," such as self-destruction or going 120% output.
The simplest method to escape this situation. That is to discard Sengaku Hisai, gain distance, and choose a different Tactical Mech... one that has the advantage against Eclair.
(Pathetic......!)
The victory or defeat in this battle doesn't stop at Rust's "results" alone. Because of that, Rust must act prioritizing victory above all else.
Frustration, and a sense of patheticness, but still retaining the calmness to continue thinking about victory. The moment she was about to activate the Emergency Purge.........
『———......』
Suddenly, she saw a crimson gleam in the corner of her vision.
The impact from a moment ago conveys its true identity; it is an armor fragment of Sengaku Hisai shattered and scattered by Eclair's shooting.
It is nothing special. The striking fist of Sengaku Hisai, which is already approaching its limit, cracks, with a portion of it simply blown off. It is a depiction of damage drawn by the terrifying reality of Shangri-La Frontier.
However, to Rust's eyes, which had been rapidly continuing their train of thought amidst this desperate defense, it appeared strangely in slow motion. It was nothing special, just a piece of metal. That......... it looked like a crimson feather.
『———!!』
Just that mere optical illusion ignited Rust's pride into a scorching blaze.
In an instant, hesitation vanished from Rust's movements. Relying only on visual estimation, Rust's fist is thrust toward Electric Shock Confectionery No. 3 @ GGMC.
The thing she hadn't used until now because she couldn't win due to the bad matchup against Electric Shock Confectionery No. 3 @ GGMC... the Propulsion Mechanism-Equipped Ejected Iron Fist, she now uses it in order to win.
『It came flying at me~!?』
Although it could hardly be called as fast as a bullet, the iron fist launched at high speed flies, aiming at Eclair. But if the battle situation could be overturned with an attack of this level, Rust would have used it at a much earlier stage.
『But it ain't gonna hit~.』
Gagin! The trajectory of the flying fist warped unnaturally. It was the sound of a bullet fired as an interception piercing the fist, and having endured defense against repeated bullets, it finally shattered into pieces.
However,
『......Because I was able to make so many different things, I had forgotten my original intention.』
Gyaririri! A metallic, crawling sound scraping across the ground strikes Eclair's eardrums right after he fired. Faster than he could think, What the—?, and faster than he could direct his gaze... it coils around the leg of Electric Shock Confectionery No. 3 @ GGMC. Then, as if declaring it will never come off until this battle ends... or until one of them left this place through death, it locks into place with a clank.
『......If I lose as a result, then so be it. If I win as a result, that's even better.』
『Hey, hey......... A Chain Deathmatch~!』
The chain that bit into Electric Shock Confectionery No. 3 @ GGMC extends in a straight line, with its other end coiled around the left arm of Sengaku Hisai, which had lost its fist.
A tactical mech armament designed for capture, anticipating anti-large monster combat, or for action-impediment through a pure contest of physical strength against a target bound by chains: 【Locking Binding Chain】. Tracing its origins back to a certain Non-Standard Armament, it was now, however, being used for an extremely simple purpose.
『......But. To lose during the process is something I cannot forgive, upon this scarlet... upon this crimson.』
If you've used it, if you've entrusted your body to it. No matter how battered you get, win before you die. Let alone abandoning it mid-battle for the sake of victory......... If it were an event scene, maybe, but choosing to do so of your own free will is beyond words. To begin with, there's no way a fully custom-made masterpiece she was proud of was going to lose to a slightly customized mass-produced model just because of a bad matchup. Simply put, Rust snapped.
The corners of Rust's mouth, which had been drawn tight this entire time, curl upwards.
Discarding a clever victory to aim for a foolish one, having shaken off her hesitation, all that is left is to run until she burned out.
『I wonder what kinda reverse scale I just stepped on here~.........』
She will not run. But, she will not let him escape.
Having lost its left fist and with cracks running across its entire body, Sengaku Hisai faces off against Electric Shock Confectionery No. 3 @ GGMC, connected by a chain.
『......I'll smash you to smithereens.』
Truly smiling amidst a predicament. That is exactly why the strongest crimson of NephHolo continued to be a victor.
Author's Afterword
・【Locking Binding Chain】
Non-Standard Armament: Steel Wire Type 【Keep Out】 was a masterpiece that increased portability and sustainability in prolonged combat by appropriately generating band-shaped semi-physical magical constructs, but due to its high performance, it required a Non-Standard Ether Reactor.
Thus, the 【Lock Chain】, which could be called a mass-produced model inheriting the design philosophy of 【Keep Out】, omitted the property of 'generating a new band with every activation' (the factor that made Keep Out so high-cost) and became an armament of purely physical chains.
Naturally, its durability is inferior compared to 【Keep Out】, but because it became possible to be operated by mass-produced Tactical Mechs, capturing large hostile targets through multiple deployments became feasible.
That said, as a direct descendant of 【Keep Out】, the durability of this 【Lock Chain】 is nothing ordinary, making it difficult to destroy with the standard firepower that a Tactical Mech can carry.
It's an incredibly fucking annoying capture armament that flies at the target with slight homing at a decent speed, wraps around them, and then locks itself in place. Since it's an external armament, Rust equipped it and launched it the moment she fired off her fist.
A do-or-die move betting on the analysis that "if it's Eclair, he won't just evade a Rocket Punch flying straight at him, he'll shoot it down."
By the way, Volume 9 of the Shangri-La Frontier manga adaptation has been released.
The cover features Animalia, the "Oh, so that's the kind of color you actually were" character. Oh, so that's the kind of color you actually were......... This is her appearance before finding mutual understanding in fists. I was thinking of making the Grasping Arm of the Netherworld into a clenched fist too, but since she's trying to invite a living being (one whose existence is confirmed and recognized) toward the side of "death", a concept whose non-existence has never been proven, but is being resisted due to a lack of output and is only managing to pin them down, making it a clenched fist wouldn't make sense. So, yeah, this is completely unrelated. I'll omit it.
On another note, there were huge announcements for an anime adaptation and a game adaptation, but all of that is thanks to the manga adaptation powered by Great Mage Fuji-sensei's supreme magic-level drawing ability. By all means, please pick it up and take a look.
Translator's Notes
- [1] Title: The idiom this time is 艱難辛苦 (kannan shinku) meaning hardships and suffering, replacing 辛苦(shinku) with 真紅 (crimson).
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