Chapter 5: He Just Charged Straight Up Like That
Immediately after observing this sight, Shirou made a new move. He leaped straight down.
The distance to the ground shortened in an instant; he grabbed a balcony on the last floor to act as a buffer and landed on the ground unscathed.
"Evacuate, right now."
Turning his head, Shirou shouted to Clan Calatin without a moment's hesitation.
"Is that a skeleton?"
"That's a monster more exaggerated than a Phantasmal Beast."
"What is going on with this city!?"
The voices merged into a cacophony of noise.
"There's no way I could know. But it hasn't noticed us yet; it's estimated to reach the street we're on in two minutes, so leave quickly while we can."
Prioritizing the warning, Shirou took a single breath after speaking. Positioned at the front of the group, he began to lead the way based on the road structures he had just seen, avoiding the streets where packs of magical beasts were gathered.
Their direction remained set toward the northwest. The police members moved as one, swiftly exiting the street as the tight, rhythmic sound of running echoed through the complex interior of the city.
The nearby skeleton was left behind, once again obscured by layers of buildings. But everyone knew it still existed within the city. Such a scenario was exactly like the elephant in the room.
A sense of anxiety pressed silently upon their hearts.
"Are you saying these monsters are scattered all around us?"
Listening to his own erratic heartbeat, John couldn't help but reveal a look of profound confusion.
'Was the counterfeit Snowfield City always this filled with anomalies?'
His voice passed directly through his mind, and Shirou frowned slightly.
He felt something was wrong, yet he couldn't put his finger on it. Everything seemed like it shouldn't be this way, but he could find no logical grounds to refute it. The only certainty was... "Snowfield City" was now fraught with peril.
—It was as if the "City" itself had developed hostility toward something. Shirou and the others, located inside the "City," were also within range of its fangs.
At the far end of the long main thoroughfare, away from the city center, skyscrapers pointed straight toward the clear sky. The clear sky gave no indication regarding the rampage of the aberrations. It merely continued to exist like a roof curtain consisting of only a thin membrane.
Shirou and the others ran as hard as they could on the ground, occasionally dodging obvious concentrations of prana and staying away from the alien skeletons that stood as tall as the buildings.
Alerted by the others, Shirou confirmed that another giant skeleton had entered his field of vision. Viewed from afar, it looked like a human skeleton magnified and endowed with a semblance of life; the hollow eye sockets lacked the color of consciousness, and the off-white boney ridges were held together by an unknown force—it evoked the concept of "Death."
"In any case, let's avoid it," John began to summarize habitually.
Regardless of whether they could win, there was no benefit to fighting these things. Even if only for the sake of conserving strength, avoidance was the best option.
Clan Calatin consciously turned their backs on the behemoth and veered off to the side. Shirou originally intended to follow the same path, until he heard a sound that clearly should not be heard in the counterfeit Snowfield City.
Gunfire.
Specifically, the continuous firing sound of a small submachine gun.
Reacting instantly, Shirou's eyes widened: "No way..."
Changing direction, Shirou threw back a single sentence: "Someone is being attacked by that skeleton. I'm going to help them. I think if there's only one of those things, I can handle it."
'You say you can handle that thing? You can handle a skeleton nearly as tall as a skyscraper? If you're going to cut it with a blade, where do you even start cutting?'
Clan Calatin broke into a sweat, their eyes darting back and forth between Shirou and the giant skeleton. They hesitated for a moment, but in the end, they followed his lead even though Shirou hadn't asked for their help.
Though often forgotten, Clan Calatin also represented "Justice." To abandon someone in need of help and tarnish the name of "Justice"... they were absolutely incapable of such a thing. Even if their strength didn't appear prominent, they were all good people of a kind rarely found in Snowfield's society.
As they followed Shirou through various buildings and arrived at an open plaza, John finally saw the specific scene directly beneath the skeleton.
A person who appeared to be a youth was standing there. To be precise, he wasn't just standing; he was doing his best to scramble into the blind spots beneath the skeleton's feet, constantly shifting his position.
In the process, the submachine gun in his hand continued to vent its firepower until the bullets were exhausted, at which point the youth discarded the weapon without hesitation. His trench coat rustled; the expression on the youth's face indicated he had absolutely no desire to tangle with the skeletal giant, yet his actions were the complete opposite of his mental state. Regardless of his feelings, his actions carried not a shred of hesitation—that was likely because the youth had deduced immediately that if he tried to run outward, he would die instantly.
The youth who called himself "Sigma," whom John had met once and spent less than a few minutes with, was now displaying his combat style before everyone's eyes.
He utilized the giant's lack of intelligence and its automatic attack patterns to maneuver beneath its feet, exploiting the fact that the enemy's observation points were still on its face and obstructed by its own body, preventing its feet from accurately locking onto him. When the carpals smashed down, he clung to the leg bones to evade; when the leg bones stomped, he quickly ran to the other foot, anticipating and avoiding the backward sway of its movements.
Even John and the others couldn't help but suspect that this weak-looking black-haired youth, through exhaustive calculation, might have survived for nearly ten minutes before they arrived.
But this struggle was nearing its end.
The giant's leg bone trampled the earth once more. Sigma ran toward the giant's other leg during the tremor, only to see that leg also lift into the air. From the outside, it was a bizarre sight, like a giant performing a tap dance.
"No intelligence, yet it can learn on its own?"
The youth complained helplessly, then prepared to face an attack he could no longer dodge. Knowing he couldn't escape, his expression remained indifferent, though a faint layer of regret—which even he didn't notice—had crept in.
At the same moment, a blue explosion bloomed on the giant's leg bone, and the skeletal skyscraper immediately tilted to the side.
The moment the excellent support took effect, John and the others immediately blocked the path in front of Sigma, shielding him. Sigma froze for a moment, his gaze first lingering on Clan Calatin, then glancing toward the source of the explosion, confirming a familiar figure.
"...I see."
He understood the situation and, looking somewhat complicated in his emotions, consciously complied with their movements and stayed in the rear.
John, however, had no time to notice the change in his expression, as the giant skeleton was about to right itself. John's hand rested on the hilt of the dagger coated in poison. But then, considering the opponent was a pile of bones, he wondered if poison would even take effect. If he staked everything on poison and it failed, it would be disastrous; he moved his hand away from the scabbard and instead drew the longsword said to automatically restore itself.
John intended to use the poisoned dagger as a follow-up combo. But before that, they first had to reach an enemy whose height was over ten times their own...
John swallowed hard and, along with the others, raised his weapon toward the sky. His heart held no regret, only the resolve to resolve the opponent regardless of the injuries sustained. The opponent's fist grew closer, and John and the other officers braced themselves in positions to dodge and counter. At the critical moment when both sides could only focus on the other's movements, unable to look away...
Someone flew past with a whoosh, leaving them behind in an instant.
John and the others could only blankly observe the figure racing past like a bullet.
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