The order given to the ‘spear’ was to clean up a associate’s careless mistake.
The ‘spear’ did have his misgivings about this order, but it was his direct superior who gave the order.
Not to mention that this superior was his benefactor. He intended to carry through with whatever request this superior might have of him regardless how reckless it was.
He was was also to gather data on the performance of the newly developed exoskeleton, so he couldn’t turn down the mission just because he didn’t like it or thought it was pointless.
He activated his optical camouflage and waited in the skies of the building where the diversion incident was taking place.
This optical camouflage couldn’t be detected by the sensors used by the countermeasure department and of course also couldn’t be seen through by the naked eye.
The spear’s job was simple. If everything were to go according to plan, he was to erase the convenient people they hired.
They’ll be exposed eventually, but it’s necessary to get rid of these hired thugs in order to keep things under wraps for the time being.
On the other hand, if something unexpected were to occur, he was to deal with it.
Either way the thugs they hired had to die.
When the spear went to take a look, he found out that something unexpected had already happened.
The countermeasure department’s initial response was much quicker than expected, and they’ve already managed to secure half of the people they prepared.
Most of the hostages have also managed to run away.
The hired thugs were able to lock themselves in the building with the few remaining hostages, but even that didn’t seem likely to last.
Although a diversion was successfully created, the spear couldn’t help but have an even worse impression of their associate who messed up.
How could they hire such incompetent people?
But the spear couldn’t carelessly interfere until they succeeded.
If the authorities were to get wind of his presence, then the fact that ‘Mumei’ was involved would come to light.
If that were to happen, then the diversion will be the least of their worries.
The other team reported that things were going well for them, but unfortunately, their side wasn’t going as smooth. The spear sensed that a lot of people inside the building were on the move and that the hired thugs have been isolated.
The drones that have been left in standby just in case seemed to have been mobilized but they were quickly dealt with.
The spear didn’t know what was going on, but it was evident that there was an ‘enemy’ inside the department store.
Based on the auras inside the building, it was just one person. The spear couldn’t believe how useless the hired thugs were.
He blew up the bombs outside the walls, and then canceled his optical camouflage and charged in while everyone inside was still confused from the explosion and the dust.
But what the spear saw from the visual sensor of his armor shocked him.
The armor the spear wore used a round head part that didn’t move to prevent enemies from seeing the wielder’s neck movement, eye movement, and expression. It looked clunky but it was effective at interpersonal combat.
Since it wasn’t possible to stick out one’s head due to the development of the parts, all external information had to be gathered through the sensors of the armor. This reliance on the sensors was the one thing that the spear was uncertain about.
That’s why at first he thought that ‘black thing’ standing beside the hired thugs was a system error.
After all, to him that human-shaped black mist appeared as nothing more than a lump of noise.
The white mask seemed like it fit the role of the head, but it appeared unusually clear, so the spear threw that thought to the back of his head.
“Who are you?”
“…I’d throw that question back at you…”
They were in Japan, so the spear had asked that question with the translator device set to Japanese, but he wasn’t really expecting a response.
But then that black mist suddenly changed and even replied in a voice that reeked of human kindness.
It was curious how the voice spoke with no identifying features.
It was unlike the spear’s artificial voice alteration, as the voice processing used by the black mist came with a strong sense of malaise.
The spear quickly brought up an image processing and voice processing software, but the most they could accomplish was to reduce the black mist, while the voice was left completely unchanged.
This black mist was probably also using bleeding-edge technology. Moreover, it was something with exceptional stealth capabilities.
Since that’s the case, this black mist must’ve also been in the middle of an experiment and had only been caught in this mess by accident.
‘What a pain. We both have no luck,’ the spear thought.
“…Doesn’t seem like you’re friends with these guys. Did you come here to silence them? Unfortunately, you’re too late. Most of the circumstances have already leaked outside. Even that incident you wanted to hide will soon be discovered by the Countermeasure Department.”
The ‘black mist’ seemed to look behind him for a moment, then said that.
He was acting like he knew everything, but he was probably bluffing.
They were in the same line of work and this black mist just happened to get caught up in this mess, so they should both want to avoid interacting or fighting with each other.
To the spear that’s the only reason why this black mist was telling him his conjectures.
Basically, the black mist was telling the spear that there was no point in killing him or the hired thugs anymore so the spear should just retreat and let them be.
Unfortunately, while it was true that the hostages have already escaped and were probably in the Countermeasure Department’s hands, they didn’t know anything about the information the spear was concerned about.
One thing the black mist was correct about, though, was that it was indeed only a question of time before the Countermeasure Department would break in.
Because of that the spear decided to settle everything here quickly and then retreat.
He decided to get rid of the hired thugs and this black mist that made contact with him.
“!?”
The black mist’s equipment and abilities were a mystery, so the spear decided to cut him and the thugs altogether in one blow so as to not give the black mist the opportunity to fight back.
This newly developed equipment had a weapon that could do just that.
This was a good opportunity too, so the spear took out the trial product lance.
According to the user manual, this lance’s spearhead looked no different from a common spearhead, but if you cut down with it, it could summon an invisible blade as far as 20 meters away.
‘As usual, the Japanese sure come up with some interesting equipments,’ the spear smiled to himself.
And then he did just that and tried to cut down the black mist and the hired thugs altogether.
“What!?”
That shocked voice belonged to the black mist, but immediately after, the one who wanted to cry out was the crimson spear.
The invisible blade had indeed hit the black mist, but it failed to cut it down and was blocked instead.
The crimson spear didn’t know how the black mist accomplished this, but that sensation of cutting something was missing, so he knew his attack had failed.
“GU!”
The crimson spear fixed his grip on his lance and put more strength into it to try and crush the black mist, but the most he could do was cause the black mist to sink deeper into the ground.
That alone would have been enough to surprise him, but then the black mist even broke the invisible blade.
Again, the spear had no idea how the black mist was able to do that.
“What!?”
But regardless, the shock in his voice was enough to prove that the black mist had indeed broken his invisible blade.
And then that happened. Just as he was thinking to himself that the black mist was moving, something suddenly attacked him.
“GAH!?”
He was being pushed.
It was as if some heavy machinery was pushing him toward the wall behind.
The most he could do was to bury his feet into the ground to prevent himself from being pushed.
Two marks from his feet being dragged were carved onto the floor as he managed to stop himself just short of the wall.
There were traces of damage to the crimson armor.
Did the black mist have an invisible weapon too?
As the spear thought that to himself, he noticed that fragments of some sort were falling, urging him to turn around.
“Just now… W-What is this!?”
When he turned around, he noticed that five cylindrical marks had been carved into the wall behind him.
It was as if a giant raybeast was the one who left behind those marks. At that, he couldn’t help but shiver.
Fortunately, it was an energy-based attack. The exoskeleton’s barrier was able to mitigate most of the damage, so the damage the armor incurred was minimal, but it was still terrifying that there was a weapon that could cause so much destruction from that distance and also be invisible.