Rentaro watched them jump and then went to the bottom of the waterfall. There, he found a thin path at the back of the basin and walked across. He didn’t feel like being at the mercy of Kohina.
The waterfall roared as it splashed down with impressive force, and there were no sure places to put his feet. In addition, there was slippery moss covering the path, so he had to be extremely cautious as he crossed.
Just then, he noticed a small hollow in the back of the basin. He tried sticking his hand in but felt the cool, slimy rock face and pulled his hand back quickly. It wasn’t like in a movie, where the back of the hollow continued on; it simply ended presently. It wasn’t that interesting, so he hurried forward, but then there was a slick sound as his feet slipped on the rock and kicked forward.
Wagh—
His whole body pitched forward. He was only able to stop himself and stand up again by sticking his hand on a sudden protrusion on the wall.
He caught his breath after the shock. This time, Rentaro walked deliberately and carefully across to the other side. The moment he took his last step, he heaved an involuntary sigh of relief.
Seeing that Rentaro had safely crossed, Kohina clicked her tongue.
They continued north, checking the compass to confirm. On the way, they finally stopped following the river and entered the thick, luxuriant forest. Compared to the forest with the giant trees where Rentaro and the others had spent a night, the tops of these trees weren’t that impressive, but there was no comparing how much denser the plants grew here.
Rentaro took the lead, followed by Kagetane and then Kohina. Rentaro crouched as he marched, quietly taking out the Varanium survival knife from his hip. In a close-combat fight, it would be faster than sighting his gun and pulling the trigger.
In the Unexplored Territory, it was a hard-and-fast rule to move without making any noise. Rentaro’s XD gun had lost its silencer when he had been washed away in the river, so since they were nearing the crowd of enemy Gastrea, he definitely couldn’t make use of it.
There were many ferns at their feet; Rentaro spotted gingko and Adiantum. Bearing with the black rain in his eyes, Rentaro used his survival knife to move the intricate tripe-shaped leaves, and his field of view widened unexpectedly. There, he saw a strange scene and signaled behind him to stop.
What is this?
“Everything’s been bitten off, huh? What
is
this?”
Surprised, he looked next to him and saw Kohina slip past Rentaro like she was not the least bit nervous. Rentaro checked around him to make sure there were no Gastrea around before he followed behind her.
There were many trees almost two meters high growing wild, but strangely, the leaf blades of this tree had almost all been bitten off by some kind of living being. Finding a whole leaf, Rentaro saw that it was flat, like broadleaf trees. Since the leaves looked like they had been
bitten off by some sort of herbivore, it was strange that all the other trees around it were unharmed.
Where have I seen this leaf before…?
The second understanding shot through his brain, Rentaro let out an “Ah!”
“Do you know what this is, Satomi?”
Rentaro nodded silently. Even someone with such extensive survival knowledge like Kagetane couldn’t be expected to distinguish between South American plants.
“This is a coca leaf…”
“Coca? As in…”
“The plant that the raw material for the alkaloid from which cocaine can be extracted.”
Kagetane put a hand to his chin. “I don’t understand. Why have these been bitten off? Of course, it was a Gastrea that bit the leaves off, right? What in the world was it after?”
“The Gastrea must also be using it as a stimulant.” Alkaloid plants and their derivatives could stimulate the central nervous system and temporarily block fears. Rentaro thought back to his first fight against the Gastrea the day before yesterday. Even when they fired on them with guns, the Gastrea in the front row yelled but did not fall or stop advancing. They had probably chewed these leaves beforehand for their stimulant and painkilling properties.
Rentaro had conjectured all this on his own, but he still found it hard to believe. Even if they developed intellect, chewing coca leaves before going into battle was too far beyond what ordinary insects and animals could do. Before long, it was possible that Gastrea that could speak human languages and/or something similar could appear. Of course, human and animal vocal cords were very different, so it was uncertain whether they would be able to converse like humans, but still…
When Rentaro looked carefully, he saw that all the plants had been beaten down in a uniform direction, and there were a number of footprints. There was no doubt that Gastrea often came through this area.
Just then, they heard a groan that was obviously inhuman, and each looked in that direction. Suddenly, they saw two vertical shadows in the curtain of rain.
Rentaro gulped. They were snakes with four legs, standing upright.
They did not have the long, narrow faces of lizards, but rather had flat, apelike ones. The legend of the Chinese gods with human faces and snake bodies, Nüwa and Fuxi, passed through his head.
The moment seemed to last forever as both sides acknowledged their sudden encounter with the enemy, and the Gastrea took a deep breath to call others of their kind.
This is bad.
Before Rentaro could rush out, Kohina had thrown two of her short swords at high speed. Her aim was true, and one sword skewered the brain of the Gastrea on the right, killing it before it got a chance to call out.
The Gastrea on the left twisted its body quickly to avoid the other sword, but it couldn’t get out of the way completely, and the short sword pierced its chest. Ignoring the Gastrea’s cry of anguish, Kohina pulled out another two short swords from their sheaths and ran in faster than the eye could follow. With a light sound, Kohina jumped up and landed on the short sword before jumping again. Leaping up to where their noses almost touched, she inserted her blades to destroy the brain, quickly killing the Gastrea.
The two monsters fell to the ground at almost the same time, shaking the world as they did so.
Rentaro looked at the scene, dumbfounded.
“You’re weak. That’s why you will die.” With a cold glance, Kohina poked the corpses with her foot, looking bored.
As Rentaro watched, chills shot down his spine. He bit his lip—he definitely did not want to reunite Enju with Kohina. Kohina and Enju were completely evenly matched. But added to that was Kohina’s cruelty. Seeing that this girl was not shy about it at all, it was possible that she was not even aware that killing was wrong.
Rentaro suddenly remembered how Kagetane had called her an evil angel. Rentaro had definitely been saved by some crazy people—devils he met in a hell called the Unexplored Territory. So that made this…the second level of hell.
“Now, Satomi. We are nearing the enemy’s inner circle.”
Rentaro nodded without saying anything. They had been hearing a growl that sounded nothing like the rain from beyond the forest for a while now.
And then that omen became reality.
Rentaro and the others, who were going through the forest halfway up the mountain, had prepared themselves already, so no one screamed in an unsightly way even after seeing it.
“So this…is the enemy’s base…,” whispered Rentaro.
Beyond their vision was an open area with various types of Gastrea, big and small, as far as the eye could see. There was a large organism that looked like a platypus, complete with a wide bill and a shell on its back. There was also a mouse with the faces of two different organisms stuck together in a strange place and covered with a chitinous exoskeleton. Could the roadrunner that had gotten so big it looked like a dinosaur fly with those wings it had? It was like a parade of demons in front of his eyes, but in modern-day Japan.
A putrid breath blew over to where they were and made Rentaro’s lungs feel like they were going to rot.
Because Stage One Gastrea were just a larger version of animals that already existed on earth, they were able to make formations with others of the same type, but the Stage Twos and above did not fit in; they were around the edges and were all different shapes and sizes. They just ended up resting all over the place, it seemed. The camp was made up of all different sizes, from small Gastrea to some so large they could be mistaken for small mountains, and they continued as far as the eye could see.
Rentaro could see a giant fly Gastrea staggering around with one wing ripped off, probably injured from fighting the civil officers and self-defense force. When he looked more carefully, he saw that some Gastrea had lost legs or had eyes that had carbonized white. Based purely on numbers, the Gastrea had an overwhelming advantage, but the Gastrea were in no condition to fight.
Aldebaran should have also been there somewhere, but there were so many Gastrea that Rentaro could not find it.
“Isn’t that the Gastrea you all call Pleiades?” said Kagetane.
Following Kagetane’s gaze, Rentaro saw it: sixty, seventy meters distant.
“That’s…” Of course, it was Rentaro’s first time seeing Pleiades, but he instinctively felt that that must be it. He roughly estimated it to be about ten meters tall and wide. It matched the report from Tina’s Shenfield.
It stood out a head and shoulders above the Gastrea around it, and its mouth stuck out like a funnel just as he had imagined it would. It still kept some fish characteristics, but its eyes were set apart like those of a herbivore’s, and its mouth was more like that of a stork or pteranodon than an archerfish.
The first thing to draw the eye was its swollen belly. It was inflated like a balloon, and it was so blown up that even now it seemed like it would float up into the sky. The pectoral and dorsal fins seemed to have atrophied and could not be seen, but in their place were things that looked very much like human hands and feet with five fingers and toes.
Rentaro didn’t understand what was going on. Compared to its swollen belly, its arms and legs were much too short. With those, not only would it not be able to bring the prey it shot down with the compressed mercury to its mouth, but it also couldn’t even move the way it wanted to. That beast was a failure even by the warped standards of evolution of the Gastrea virus. If left alone, it would be eliminated through natural selection in no time. How in the world did it survive to see this day?
His doubts were cleared up unexpectedly quickly. A Gastrea that looked like a demon monkey climbed adeptly up Pleiades’ balloon stomach. As Rentaro watched rapt with interest, the monkey Gastrea shrugged its shoulders and made its whole body tremble as it regurgitated fish from its throat to give to Pleiades.
Gastrea helping each other. Rentaro felt like he was witnessing an important part of Gastrea ecology.
An unhappy-looking Kohina poked him with her elbow. She seemed to be saying, “If you’re going to go, hurry up.”
Rentaro looked at Kohina and then Kagetane and gave a big nod, then detoured around the forest to get closer to Pleiades. It went without saying that this was Aldebaran’s base. If they were discovered by the enemy and surrounded…
Rentaro calmed his shaking breaths. This was a critical moment. He needed to calm down and do his job. He felt like he was about to slip in the muddy path, and the rain that started just then chilled the extremities of his arms and legs, so he was already numb. He hadn’t had enough sleep, either, and most of all, being in constant fear for his life was wearing on Rentaro’s nerves.
He had also become part of the food chain. He had never been as aware of that fact as he was today.
Just then, Rentaro took a wrong step—his boot stepped on and broke a twig that had fallen to the ground. Even in the midst of the sounds of the rainfall, the dry snap reverberated.
One of the reptilian types sleeping nearby lifted its head slowly with a growl and shook its head left and right.
Holding his breath, Rentaro stopped moving and closed his eyes. All he could do was pray.
Finally, the Gastrea’s neck seemed to wind back into place. Rentaro heaved a massive sigh.
Detouring around the forest, Rentaro cautiously drew near to Pleiades, and his neck slowly tilted more and more. The creature’s enormous body practically filled his vision, and a low, heavy growl came from what could have been its chest or its stomach, which was expanding as it breathed, blowing away rain with its breath. In the rain, white steam was coming off its hot body.
This really is a huge Gastrea
, he thought again.
“What were you originally planning to do once you got to this point?” Kagetane asked in a low voice, frowning.
“I was planning to set a plastic explosive and blow it up from a safe distance. But I lost the explosive along with the backpack when I was washed away by the river.”
“Then there’s only one way to kill it.”
Rentaro looked at his exposed, black-chrome right arm with mixed feelings. The original purpose of the New Humanity Creation Project was to create human weapons that could destroy the Gastrea.
The tactical ideology of Section 16 that Kagetane had been affiliated with was to create the ultimate defense that could stop the attack of a Stage Four Gastrea, and Section 22, where Rentaro had undergone unexpected medical treatment, had the ideology of creating an ultimate attack that could rip through the shells of Stage Four Gastrea.
In other words, both of them were designed to deal with all Gastrea besides the nonstandard Stage Fives.
According to Kisara, the former Seitenshi had called Rentaro and Kagetane the ultimate spear and shield, which was a fitting name for
them. If that was the case, then it was possible for him to eliminate Pleiades by using his arm the way it was meant to be used.
Suddenly, a snicker came from next to him and he turned to it. Kagetane was holding his mask and giving off an air of brutality. “That’s great. I’ve always wanted to go up against something like that. I’ll kill it.”
Rentaro was shocked. “Hey, wait. I’ll go.”