204: Imperial Army vs. Magatsuki ※
This story is told from a third-person perspective.
Discovered a goal! Urgently requesting support!!
Sibra Smith System, Sixth Prime Colony, Port Dedicated to Off-World Construction of Massive Structures.
In the port dedicated to exchanging the materials and personnel needed to construct what was intended to be the empire's most advanced battleship, the 'Jichikane-to,' a battle was taking place.
How many were killed!?
"Two at first, then five who couldn't dodge in time... that makes seven in total."
"Damn it. Slicing down seven soldiers with just one blade? Where the hell did this come from, some movie or anime?"
"Not entirely off the mark. After all, the opponent's a space monster. To us regular soldiers, they're supposed to be something from beyond the screen."
One side of the battlefield consisted of a group of Imperial soldiers assigned to guard the harbor.
They wielded state-of-the-art blasters, wore military uniforms, deployed various mods, and moved in perfect coordination like a single living organism, firing their weapons continuously while exchanging light-hearted banter to boost their own morale.
"……"
Opposing them was a single elven girl.
Her face was distorted as if crushed and burned beyond recognition, her green eyes devoid of any trace of willpower.
In her right hand she held a single blade, and in her left, a blaster bearing clear signs of illegal modification. Everything she wore—from her clothing to her gear—was soaked in blood, radiating a distinct, foul odor.
Her appearance was more than enough to hint at how the girl had survived the past three days.
The elven girl's name is Suumeree Common Cranless.
She is a girl controlled by an alien monster shaped like a sword in her hand.
"Prepare for volleys! Fire!"
"!?"
Though Suumeree is essentially a victim, the fact that she is being controlled by an alien monster—and that the monster is hostile—means there can be no mercy.
Thus, the imperial forces unrelentingly fired military-grade, high-tier blasters directly at Sumeleé.
That firepower was enough to easily shatter a shield and kill a single human target outright.
"……"
"Damn it. Does that woman have a battleship-grade shield or something?!"
Yet not a single wound marked Sumeleé's body.
It was because she forcibly operated an illegal shield mod—seized from an underground organization during her three-day concealment—that had originally been designed for battleships, allowing her to neutralize most of the blasters.
And toward directions where the barrage was especially dense, she slashed through the incoming blaster beams with Magatsuki, severing and destroying them to fend them off.
"Seriously, I actually cut through some of those blaster beams. What kind of fiction is this?"
"Never lose to fiction! We who live in reality must not be weakened!!"
"Stop whining and fire! Fire!!"
"Since you managed to block it, that means not blocking would've been a mistake! Keep charging forward without hesitation!!"
"……"
Yet undeterred by that truth, the Imperial Army continues launching their next assault toward the Sumelee.
Magatsuki,操控着苏梅里身体，也 realized that enduring any more attacks would not end in just a scratch, so she chose to evade, using containers within the harbor as cover, fleeing while buying time for her shield to recharge and closing the distance at the same time.
"!?!"
"……"
She managed to reach the Imperial soldier who was closest to her...
"Attention all personnel. Authorization granted! No need to worry about facility damage!"
"Damn, I'm grateful for that!"
"Wha—?!"
The soldier leapt backward with such force that the floor cracked beneath him, narrowly avoiding the descending blade of Magatsuki.
At the same instant, the spot where the soldier had stood exploded, hurling Suumeree's body through the air.
"……"
"Fine, let's take down the entire harbor if we have to! Eliminate them for sure!!"
"Understood!!" "Got it!!" "Confirmed!!"
Suumeree, slammed onto the ground, immediately rose to his feet and lunged toward his next target.
But the situation changed far faster than that.
"!?"
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of metal plates were launched into the harbor, raining down from above.
Each plate was roughly two meters square, and anyone hit directly would surely not survive unscathed.
Magatsuki slices through the plates attacking him one after another, but the iron plates that miss his blade plunge into the floor, deploying their embedded mods.
By this time, the Imperial soldiers have already fled outside the harbor, forcing Magatsuki to cut through the downpour of iron plates before he can strike the next soldier.
So Magatsuki slashed through the iron plates in one stroke, trying to move forward... and collided.
The iron plate, which he had just cut, wouldn't budge from its place.
『Hehe, even a blade with too keen an edge can be troublesome sometimes.』
『……!?』
The true nature of the mod embedded in the iron plate was spatial immobilization on all four sides.
In other words, even after being cut once, it still continues to function as a wall—this is the measure we prepared in the Sixth Prime Colony specifically for dealing with Magatsuki.
『We have no mercy to spare, even if you're attacked. Perish.』
A relentless barrage of attacks, aimed unflinchingly at Magatsuki and Sumelee, poured down—further iron plates, heat manipulation modules raising temperatures within specific areas, air conditioning modules altering the air composition into lethal substances, gravity modules intensified to crush them—attacks from the imperial forces, now unconcerned with damaging the port, leaving no way to evade.
It was no exaggeration to call it violence born of diverse powers—something only a collective like the imperial forces could possess.
"——!"
In such a situation, Magatsuki had only one option.
A withdrawal from the scene through teleportation.
The technology for long-distance travel through anomalous space was limited to the use of hyperspace within the empire, meaning the imperial forces had no means of stopping Magatsuki's transfer through an alternate anomalous space distinct from hyperspace.
In truth, it was impractical to prevent movement into the countless anomalous spaces—there were, in effect, infinite such spaces—so if interference was to be attempted, one would first need to know the coordinates of the target anomalous space.
It wasn't something that could be done.
Knowing it instinctively, Magatsuki plunged into his own anomalous space...
"Got you."
The net set by Sata struck, and unbearable, searing pain shot through Magatsuki and Suumele's bodies.