Léon: The Cat Killer

Those watching from a distance might have only seen the deafening explosion, but the girls in the helicopter witnessed it all. While Takina's attention was entirely focused on the reconnaissance data shared by Nana, and she continued to strafe the houses under the pilot's guidance, a gigantic flower, two meters tall, silently sprouted from the water tower. Its white petals sliced ​​through the metal like blades… and something resembling a long-range projectile from the flower's stamen aimed at the helicopter.

"...Adaptation, is that what you mean? It's not just a biological concept, but even tactical actions are being taken in a targeted manner... This feels like it's not just about monsters harming beasts, it's more like..."

It's similar to the feeling of facing a human being... or an intellectual being?

Seeing that Typhon didn't elaborate on his guess, Takina tapped her earpiece to get the pilot's attention as well:

"Whether it is or not, it's confirmed that Hai Si possesses active mobility... There were no biological reactions in the water tower before. They probably crawled in through some water pipes and then temporarily mutated inside the water tower to launch an attack on us..."

While talking, she finished firing an entire ammunition belt, changed a barrel, and switched the belt to the 1,000-round ammunition backpack on her back. Takina then removed the huge vehicle sights and replaced them with a taller holographic sight. She then activated the laser designator and gun light integrated into the scope.

"It is now confirmed that all large enemies that can be destroyed through the main windows have been eliminated, but the detection signals indicate that there are still many small and medium-sized monsters in various houses. Typhon, you stay on the plane and continue to provide fire support from the outside. Pilot, please prepare to drop Mika and me into the battlefield from above."

Because Takina used the word 'deployment' instead of the conventional 'airborne' deployment used in leapfrog operations, the pilot paused for a moment and double-checked Takina's statement before receiving an affirmative reply:

"Yes, drop... not air drop, but landing... you fly over there, we'll get off the plane ourselves, and then you can continue to follow Typhon's instructions."

Mika made eye contact with the pilot upon hearing Takina's statement, but the pink-haired idiot didn't react much... After all, Hai Si had just shown something like a long-range ballista, and if the other side had constructed a more covert launcher, even Mika couldn't be sure about the safety of the plane's landing... This specifically refers to the safety of the plane itself and the precious pilot.

Seeing that the two persisted, the pilot began to turn around and prepare to fly over the battlefield. With the flight announcement of '30 seconds left!', Mika, who was also standing at the door of the plane and holding onto the handrail, looked at Takina's equipment with slight concern.

The general-purpose machine gun, which is not light for the Agers, the 1,000-round ammunition backpack, which is not much of a hindrance to their movements, the body armor and body armor suspenders, which are only good enough to keep them moving, and the ceramic helmet with extra armor plates, which is hardly lightweight.

Although Mika's own outfit wasn't exactly light either, Mika was quite confident in her physical strength... but could this black-haired junior handle it?

While worried, Mika recalled her junior's less-than-smooth experiences with tasks since graduation and felt that as a senior, she should encourage her... So the pink-haired angel patted Takina and said the words her manager often said to Nana:

"It's alright, as long as you're prepared, death won't come for you!"

"That's exactly what that person said?"

"Nana said this..."

Mika cleared her throat with two coughs and tried her best to imitate Nana's voice when she was still in her emotionless phase:

"I am their Grim Reaper."

As the pilot counted down to ten and the warning lights in the cockpit turned red, Mika took another look at her junior. Seeing that the other person's expression had clearly softened, Mika smiled with satisfaction... She could encourage her junior like Nagisa did.

"Then I'll leave the rest to you, Typhon."

Mika and Takina waved to Typhon, who looked completely bewildered, and as the cabin lights and the pilot countdown reached zero, they jumped out together.

Unlike Mika, who crashed onto the roof like a weight falling into water, Takina was overloaded with magic units after jumping out, and her entire body began to fall slowly in a visible manner.

Just as Mika said, Takina was indeed well prepared.

The overloaded spellcasting unit on the shoulder emitted an orange-yellow halo. The blue spell, which was originally meant to withstand strong attacks, began to isolate the air and create turbulence as if it were a physical entity under the overload state... It was as if four one-meter-long blue spell light wings had appeared out of thin air above the head, extending beyond the shoulder. The mechanically square grille and the gaps within it that constantly adjusted with speed were all trying to create a deceleration structure for Takina.

But... it was too fast. For Takina, the descent speed was still too fast.

Although even a Durinian could freefall from a height of up to ten meters without carrying any extra weight... Takina is currently fully armed, and her medical examination results do not indicate that she has an outstanding physique.

If we had to compare, her performance was probably similar to that of Wendy, the 'delicate woman' of Rhodes Island. But it was Takina, an operator who was not considered strong by many, who accomplished a high-altitude drop without equipment that no one with a stronger physique could have imagined.

First, the fuel canisters secured to her chest and lower back were pulled by the magic. Then, as the girl was about to land, four pillars of fire suddenly shot out in the opposite direction. Finally, as Takina landed, the four fuel canisters, which had burned out instantly, clattered to the ground.

Seeing that Takina had completed a high-altitude landing without injury, Mika happily gave her a thumbs up, and Takina responded to her senior with a thumbs-up gesture after catching her breath.

Clearly, even congenital physical defects are not without the possibility of catching up.

If Takina witnessed the vast difference in physical constitution between herself and Nana in Columbia, then... now Takina can say that she is reaching out with all her might, trying to touch that light that belongs only to angels.

Meanwhile, a very hot cat in the command post, more than ten kilometers away, saw this scene through starlight and the Penguin Team's combat recorder. She is now shaking her head frantically at the Doctor and the Emerald Film connected online... She firmly denies that she has corrupted Nana's junior.

In the short time it took to exchange a few words at the command post, Takina picked up her gun again. Mika and her companion nodded, then kicked open the rooftop door with a shotgun and fired to blast away the passage that had been sealed off by biomass.

As if entering the body of a creature from another world, the two members of the Starlight Group entered the building, while Typhon, who was a kilometer away on a helicopter, pulled her giant bow at an angle. In her vision, the points of light representing the enemy inside the building surged into the upper floors like a torrent.

"Those monsters seem to have been stimulated... A large number of biological reactions are gathering at the higher levels."

【We see it, Typhon, help create a terrain where we only need to defend one road!】

Looking at the marked staircase in his line of sight, Typhon nodded, and then—a thunderclap in the clear sky! Black lightning tore through the sky, and one of the staircases leading to the top floor immediately disappeared.

The ultimate reason for the monster rampage in the entire building is that Medic, who is dragging a giant sword and leaving a trail of fire behind him, has already arrived on the third floor.

After glancing at the Starlight Team's report that they had begun engaging in combat, Nana heard the sound of machine guns firing again from above and nodded to the Thunder Team members behind her.

"Keep moving forward and wipe out all the monsters here."

PS: Waaaaaah, kitty

P(Six) Ling Er San Si Ba Bao SS: A person who has appeared but hasn't written any serious plot yet ↑

PSS2: I got distracted while writing, and ended up revising it over and over again... I shouldn't do this at the beginning of the month...

9th Dragon Gate Seafood: 336 Sea Cucumber = Evil

Wearing isolation boots, Nana and the members of the Thunder Team continued forward, stepping on the sticky 'fungal carpet', with deafening gunfire echoing from both upstairs and downstairs.

This thing that transforms the building into a nest resembling an alternate dimension, but is actually just the metabolic waste of the Sea Si, looks as bizarre as the Sea Si itself. Although it is a secretion, it seems to possess life, and when it clumps together, its properties change from the original 'membrane' to a more complex life form.

Some adhered to the floor and walls, forming a base, while others curled and wriggled, becoming conduits for transporting nutrients. The enlarged biomass looked disgusting, but it was undoubtedly a nutrient similar to 'fat'. In Nana's view, they were like residue shed from the host, not even worthy of being called parasites. But these things, which carried out life activities as biological individuals and resembled 'dander', actually stored nutrients for their original hosts and output energy in reverse after leaving the host.

Even Nana, who thought she had seen most of the conditions on this land, would instinctively reject this result, which was originally beyond question, after making some guesses about the substance tentatively named 'Nether Mark' based on the halo.

Who understands? The skin cells that should have died started to grab nutrients and then reconnected to the scalp and skin on their own, trying to photosynthesize and make the body plump and healthy?

This is like saying that cancer cells throughout the body suddenly develop self-awareness, realize that the patient cannot die, and suddenly start feeding the host like crazy.

The so-called "Nether Marks" are things that do things that seem very strange no matter how you look at them. They don't conform to normal life evolution, nor can they be explained by conventional biological relationships... making it clear to anyone who looks at them that they are abnormal.

The good news is that Nana didn't find anything particularly difficult to deal with when fighting these guardians of 'nutrients'.

So far, aside from the Starlight Squad's report of a case where the Sea Siren attempted to 'adapt' to their tactics and methods, resulting in the Nutritional Mutation Node being blown into the sky by a single-use Originium Cannon, all the Sea Siren Nana has seen are mimics of animals that can be found anywhere in the city.

For example, there are rats with exoskeletons but so fragile that they crunch easily when stepped on; there are dogs with exoskeletons whose mouths change like bird beaks; and then there are... human remains used to try to communicate with their own side through dark blue blood vessel links, but just looking at them is enough to send chills down your spine.

Is that 'adaptation'? Or 'imitation' of humans? Or simply provocation? It doesn't really matter now... For this kind of building that stores a lot of biomass nutrients, Nana already knows what to do: burn it all down without leaving a single cell.

It's a pity that Lungmen is still very restrained in its use of heavy firepower, otherwise the one in charge of the annihilation battle shouldn't be the Starlight Team... but some little white film that looks like a cloud.

Compared to the current inefficient method of attacking each floor one by one, having Nana or Rosemary use tactical units to completely destroy the entire support layer and gaps below is the tactical move that best fits the concept of 'disinfection'.

Unfortunately, the deployment in Lungmen was already a major issue that caused "residents' surprise" and generated a large number of inquiries for the Guard Bureau, to the point that the relevant officials had to hold a press conference for the entire Great Yan territory... As for directly deploying tactical units to carry out "disinfection" on a block-by-block basis, that would probably not only be a major issue for Lungmen, but for the entire Ministry of Revenue and even the Ministry of War, which would lead to impeachment.

To be fair, Da Yan isn't Victoria, and Nana thinks they probably don't have the tradition of 'making residents feel protected', but their current practice of limiting Rhodes Island's firepower intensity is somewhat reminiscent of 'standard crisis response four-stage tactics'.

With various ridiculous jokes swirling in her head, Nana irritably evaporated part of the Nether Mark in front of her with her Lava Greatsword, and then forcibly tore off the Nether Mark that was trying to 'stick'... or rather, to fill the gaps in the soles of her shoes with tiny tentacles, trying to restrict everyone's movement. The movement was as if she were walking in a mud pit.

Although Miss Assassin was not quite sure about the situation of Mika and the others on the top floor, Nana now understood that Hai Si's strongest means of stopping her here did not seem to be those strange crustaceans, but rather the thick fungal carpet under her feet.

"Seriously, don't we have any better way to get rid of these marine metabolites?"

"...I think those 'Sea Spawns' all crawled out of this carpet of flesh and blood. If we can remove these things, it seems like we can decide the outcome?"

Nana glanced at Hai Si, who had stopped attacking their side, and made no comment on Franka and Razer's conversation, but the gunfire upstairs did seem to be getting more intense:

“If it were just a monster, at least you could see its weaknesses from its structure, like its head, chest, and abdomen… But these… Nether Marks, even if you cut them into pieces, you can’t sever their life force…”

As Jessica spoke, she anxiously touched the extra magazine pouch at her waist again, because her ammunition was already more than half depleted, and her firing rate was no longer as intense as it had been at the beginning.

"...It's like an endless weed..."

"In Agor's records, those monsters called Terrorfish, each with its own unique appearance, were natural disasters that could change the color of the sea... White bony plates replaced the waves, and the endless sea monsters even stopped the sea from churning, and even the sea breeze stopped blowing... They could change the environment to the point that they could make 'sea monsters' replace 'nature'... What we are facing now is not even a fraction of the most difficult thing in the records."

Watching Nana explain while scorching the ground with her new weapon, emitting the aroma of roasted meat, Franka, who was also wielding her thermite sword to try and clear a path but with little success, said speechlessly:

"So, do we have any highly effective herbicides or anything like that we can use here?"

"Leaving aside intelligence, the reconnaissance team has only just finished collecting samples and such... No matter how brilliant the Doctor is, it's impossible for him to pull out preparations that didn't exist before... Let's just be patient for now."

As she spoke, Nana raised the greatsword in her right hand, as if to drive its contents to spew out... The heat catalyzed by the magic unit was indeed shooting out in all directions like mica-colored flames, but perhaps because Hai Si's fat was particularly difficult to ignite, the brilliant flames only burned for about ten seconds before disappearing as if they had encountered an automatic fire extinguisher.

As for Franka's imitative attempt to set fire to the thermite sword system, it failed to ignite the Nethermark at all... At some point, Hai Si's death was also due to pure physical damage... Even when Nana dragged the giant sword on the ground, it only applied a layer of charred carbon shell to the surface of the Nethermark, instead of extinguishing it as easily as flames devouring white paper at the beginning.

"So, how do we kill these tightly connected chunks of flesh?!"

"...a...mixer?"

Hearing Jessica's sudden idea, Franka turned around with amusement:

"Maybe flattening it with a road roller would be a solution?"

"No, there must be biological contamination..."

As the three members of the Blacksteel Group continued their rambling discussion, Nana, looking at the increasingly dark and secluded passage before her, raised her greatsword and reminded Razer:

"Watch out! Defensive stance!"

As a professional mercenary, Razer was actually quite fast. Almost the instant Nana reminded him, the small shield guard raised his shield in the direction Nana was guarding... But because Jessica's formation change seemed impossible to keep up with, Nana moved her body to the left to block the exposed half of her body behind her, while drawing her pistol and firing a burst of shots at the end of the corridor.

Nana's shooting skills are undoubtedly excellent, but seeing the bullets either ricocheting off the rounded shells or hitting the opponent's body without any reaction... it's clear that against that huge figure who was crouching low but almost filled the entire corridor, .45 caliber ammunition no longer had any lethal attributes.

Actually... compared to the seemingly sturdy red and black thorn armor, the unsettling scythes swinging from the auxiliary 'arms' were one thing, but the most unsettling thing was the device on the head that unfolded like a flower, with the central eye resembling a javelin.

Is that a beak for pecking? Or is it just an alien form, simply an organ that looks like a spear?

The moment they saw it clearly, everyone connected it with the 'flower-shaped anti-aircraft gun' reported by the Starlight Team. But seeing that the other party only screamed and rushed over after being hit by a burst of pistol bullets instead of using the javelin to skewer herself and Jessica behind her into meat skewers, the assassin finally breathed a sigh of relief... But just as everyone's attention was drawn to the monster in front of them, chitinous spikes the size of crossbow bolts suddenly shot out from the dark shadows on both sides of the corridor.

Are these Hai Si's crossbowmen?

Perhaps. Nana didn't know if crossbowmen in the sea needed dynamic vision like those on land. Anyway, while the assassin was leaping and slashing at the giant monster, Jessica was also firing grenades at the shadows.

Just as Nana turned around to check the situation while brandishing her flaming greatsword, Jessica also twirled her incandescent thermite sword.

"Hai Si has started using ranged attacks to fight us... Do you think that monster is a cat or a dog?"

"Captain Medic, aren't you missing the point?"

Franka paid little attention to Nana's helpless attitude, after all, this fat fox always seemed to be asking for a beating... And compared to Razer, who was still somewhat shaken from the sneak attack, only Jessica understood Nana's unspoken meaning:

"...They look a lot like people..."

Nodding, Nana glanced at the pantyhose that were slightly stained with Minghen's marks, took out a small medical staff, carefully dried them, and then removed them. Afterward, she checked on everyone's condition.

Apart from the fact that Razer, who was in the tanking position, had several swollen scars on his body, which were unclear whether it was due to an allergic reaction or simply from being contaminated with too much of Hai Si's bodily fluids and fragments, Nana gave them emergency treatment.

"A height of about 1.5 meters, a head that has turned into a launcher... Although it is distorted, you can still make out the 'hands and feet' of the body... Coupled with the change in tactics to 'ambush', Nana is probably thinking that they have started to use tactics... Is this what Haisi calls 'adaptation'? Battlefield adaptability?"

"...This is more like a change in tactics...Starlight Team, Penguin Team, please be aware of any unusual activity around you?"

[The Starlight Team is operating normally, but the enemy is still launching a fierce attack, and their machine gun ammunition could run out at any moment!]

Ah... Sora and I are with everyone else. Inspector Chen and the others went to seal off the building with the police cars from the National Guard Bureau... Nothing seems amiss.

"...Then, please look for any units similar to 'Commander'...The monsters have suddenly changed from being impatient and attacking people on sight to being humanoid monsters that ambush from the shadows...Is this due to different 'materials' or a difference in tactics? Our understanding of Hai Si is still very superficial..."

Watching Nana reload her pistol, Jessica pressed the slide stop button, making a crisp click as the smoking weapon clicked, then tilted her head in confusion.

"material?"

"...Didn't Jessica notice?"

"what?"

"Whether it's the rats and dogs that attacked us before... or the humanoid creatures that have been modified by humans now... they are all things that are derived from existing organisms... I'm wondering how much material they still have."

As Nana spoke, she used her greatsword to roast the remains. As the charred bones were gradually peeled from the muddy flesh by the high temperature, Jessica gasped, covering her mouth as she looked at the 'crossbow launcher,' which, though deformed by external force, was originally a modified human skull.

"...That's so unfair."

Silently watching as the remains were stripped of what were originally human parts, Nana didn't accept that they were indeed human, unlike Jessica... After all, just as Razer had said before, these monsters all emerged from the vesicles of the Nether Mark, and were clearly different from the human remains that had been obviously eaten.

The lead hunting dogs from Hai Si also emerged from the vesicles and seemed to have no connection to dogs anymore... Nana felt that these things were probably not 'humans' from the beginning, but rather some kind of template designed by Hai Si to fight against humans... rather than some leftover scraps that were tinkered together and used in the war.

After all, sea creatures are living organisms. Are those vesicles some kind of nest? Or are they just organs similar to the uterus?

Would destroying these things stop Haisi from continuing production?

Just to be on the safe side, regardless of whether Hai Si is the kind of species that Nana thinks can be 'produced' at will through the Nether Mark... given that I don't know much about it yet, it's best to destroy everything related to Hai Si.

But as Nana slowly carbonized the Nether Mark with the mica-colored greatsword, the Starlight Squad at the top sent a report of ammunition depletion and the need to enter the alert zone, and the outer reconnaissance team sent a report that they had intercepted the monsters that had acted like dogs during the previous battle.

"...It's too inefficient."

Reflecting on herself in this way, Nana frowned slightly as she looked at the dark marks that still covered at least half of the walls and ceiling of this floor:

"This won't completely eliminate them... Medic is calling Chen Sir. You're aware of the battle situation. Can Rhodes Island employ more effective tactics?"

【for example? 】

"...Tactical equipment..."

【...Rejected. Although I know you all worked very hard, if it's an enemy of this caliber, it should only take a short time to deal with, right?】