Chapter 49
……The Empire’s technology was the best. It was a moment when I felt proud to be an Imperial soldier. Even amid the crash and explosion of the aerial vehicle, I was still alive. My only injuries were bruises on my organic parts and abrasions on my synthetic skin.
‘An unforgettable experience, truly.’
Thanks to the shock-absorbing gel, we emerged without a single broken bone. The gel had absorbed the full impact of both the crash and the explosion.
Once its job was done, the gel separated into three distinct layers. The outermost part, which had directly absorbed the shock and blast, had hardened. The middle layer remained soft and pliable. The inner layer, which had been in contact with our skin, had solidified to a rubber-like consistency.
I raised my creaking body. Drawing my blade, I sliced away the gel that had wedged itself into the doorframe.
Kwa-jik!
Then, as if pushing forward with my foreleg, I kicked at the door, which had been crushed and refused to open. The door flew off, revealing the outside. Acrid smoke seeped into my nose.
I stepped out first to secure the area. There were no enemies nearby—yet.
“They will come, drawn by the sight of our crash.”
Hemillas spoke calmly as he stepped out of the aerial vehicle. Watching the flames growing along its hull, I felt an unease creeping in.
‘It’s going to explode soon.’
If it were me, I would have sprinted far from the wreckage already. In fact, I had already put a considerable distance between us.
Kwa-ang!
The downed aerial vehicle succumbed to the raging fire and exploded. The shockwave swept over Hemillas’ back as it passed.
Hemillas, as if merely catching a sea breeze, tugged at his collar to keep his clothes from billowing. Embers clung to the hem of his coat, smoldering briefly before dying out.
Kiiiing!
Hemillas reached inside his coat and pulled out a rod the length of his forearm. With a forceful swing of his arm, the rod extended at both ends, and from the top, a spearhead emerged.
The spear was as tall as Hemillas himself—so long that it would be cumbersome for anyone but a skilled user.
Whirick!
Hemillas spun the spear in his grip, limbering up his hands. In his left hand, seemingly retrieved at some unknown moment, was a handgun. Judging by its electronic dual-barrel structure, it appeared to be a compact railgun.
A compact railgun boasted high power but suffered from a firing delay. Since it wasn’t an instant-fire weapon, one had to account for predictive shooting, making it impractical as a personal firearm. For these reasons, it was never mass-produced and only existed as a custom-made weapon.
A fitting combination of melee and ranged weaponry for the leader of the Imperial Guard.
‘The battle of the Commander of the Imperial Guard.’
It was a rare sight. Someone of his rank hardly ever fought on the front lines. He only stepped in for truly critical battles.
Kiiiing.
Hemillas turned his head to the west. The edges of his pupils glowed red.
Tuu-ung!
Hemillas fired. A beat after he pulled the trigger, the projectile left a faint trajectory as it flew westward.
I didn’t even know what Hemillas was shooting at. But he wouldn’t fire without reason. He was engaging enemies I couldn’t see.
“Luka, you’ll be able to identify the enemy in twelve seconds as well.”
Hemillas said that as he fired again. It wasn’t a matter of my cybernetic eyes’ performance—he was shooting at enemies beyond my field of vision.
‘How?’
I instinctively looked up. The sky, darkening with twilight, stretched overhead. It was clear, without a single cloud.
“Good thing the weather is nice today. Visibility is excellent.”
Hemillas remarked as he swapped out the railgun’s magazine.
“You’re firing using satellite coordinates?”
“Well, I am the Commander of the Imperial Guard. It’s only natural I’d be allocated at least one military satellite for personal use.”
He spoke nonchalantly as he fired again. Now, I could faintly hear explosions and distant screams.
This was sniping at a level beyond what even the most skilled individual could imitate. It wasn’t just about having access to a military satellite—it required immense computational assistance as well. It might have looked simple, but it was essentially tactical-grade fire support.
Beyond the horizon of the wasteland, the attackers began to emerge. I spotted three enemies clad in outdated full-body prosthetics, accompanied by thirty-two armed rebels. There had likely been more of them initially, but Hemillas’ sniping had already taken out a significant number.
Bang!
I tilted my head to the side. A bullet grazed the spot where my forehead had been just moments ago. If I had been distracted, I would’ve died. It was a precise shot, despite the considerable distance.
These people had come to kill the Commander of the Imperial Guard. They wouldn’t have come unprepared.
Kaang! Kiing!
Hemillas deflected incoming projectiles with his spear, wielding it in one hand as he spun it effortlessly. The attackers’ firepower was concentrated entirely on him.
“I’ll take care of the full-body prosthetics. As for you… well, just try to stay alive.”
“Vague orders and instructions are a failing of a superior officer, are they not?”
I replied with irritation.
Hemillas shrugged, dragging his spear downward in a long arc. The heavy tip scraped along the ground as it moved.
“Luka! If you want to climb the ranks, you need to interpret shitty orders as if they were clear as day. The world is full of incompetent superiors, after all.”
I couldn’t argue with that. He was absolutely right.
The attackers advanced quickly, unleashing a storm of gunfire. Before long, the battle had shifted to close combat. Both friend and foe weaved through the hail of bullets, swinging spears and blades.
‘They’re skilled. And bold.’
They fired without concern for their own allies getting hit. They didn’t hesitate to throw their lives away like a suicide squad. For terrorists, they were rather formidable warriors.
“Kracia’s hounds!”
They were referring to us. Not an inaccurate label. But the Imperial Guard took pride in being the Emperor’s hounds. They were twisting a title of honor into an insult.
Four attackers had closed in on me. They must have judged that this was enough. Not something to take as an offense.
Commander Hemillas was one of the strongest soldiers in the Empire. Even without a Legion-class full-body prosthetic, he was a monster. The majority of the attackers had charged at him.
And as for the four assigned to me—once again, they were good. They weren’t just some disposable grunts who could be taken down in a single strike.
‘Akies Combat Techniques?’
I widened my eyes slightly as I observed one of their movements. There was a distinct sense of discord in the way an Akies practitioner moved.
A user of Akies Combat Techniques extended their senses to pre-map their surroundings in a three-dimensional model, optimizing their movements. They executed maneuvers in live combat that usually required repeated drills and rehearsals.
Our eyes met. He was looking at me. He had realized that I, too, was an Akies Combat Techniques practitioner—just as I had recognized him.
‘Akies Victima really does have deep ties with terrorists.’
Someone with the talent and skill to master Akies Combat Techniques could have risen through the ranks of the Imperial military. A shame. He would die by my hands.
Bang!
I fired my handgun while swinging it sharply, sending the bullet on an erratic trajectory.
A shot like this wasn’t meant for precision. But if I fired cleanly, he wouldn’t have been hit at all. I had to rely on luck.
“Kahak!”
The Akies practitioner coughed up blood. By sheer fortune, my bullet had pierced his chest. I hadn’t expected it to work. It was just pure luck.
If he had been even slightly more skilled in Akies Combat Techniques, he wouldn’t have been hit. Someone like Kinuan wouldn’t have fallen for such a crude improvisation.
The most capable among my attackers was down. Their formation crumbled, and the remaining three scattered like a broken mob. It seemed they always operated as a four-man team.
“You bastard!”
As soon as their comrade fell, one of them, overcome with emotion, attacked me. A shotgun, capable of blowing my head off in a single shot, was aimed directly at me.
Kang!
I swung my blade, striking the barrel of the shotgun aside.
Thung!
A gunshot rang out, and instead of hitting me, the shotgun blast pierced through the chest of his own ally.
Even when consumed by emotion, one must never let their combat instincts falter. I was an elite soldier trained to ensure that never happened. They were not.
As a result, they failed to land even a scratch on me. The only injury I had sustained was from the impact of the aerial vehicle crash.
I turned to the side. Bodies were strewn around Hemillas. While I had been handling four opponents, he had taken care of nearly all the remaining attackers.
Kwajik!
The last full-body prosthetic enemy convulsed with electricity, its body impaled from chin to crown by Hemillas' spear.
‘A shame.’
I had been too focused on keeping myself alive to properly observe Hemillas’ combat. This wasn’t a situation where I had the luxury to spectate.
Thud!
As Hemillas withdrew his spear, the full-body prosthetic warrior collapsed to its knees before toppling forward.
“For an operation targeting the Commander of the Imperial Guard, this was rather sloppy.”
“Rick Kaiser was waiting in the distance. If I had been injured during the crash or the battle, he would’ve rushed in to finish me off. But if they failed to kill me in time, he would’ve been at risk of getting captured instead, so he chose to wait and watch.”
Rick Kaiser of the terrorist group Nemesis.
I followed Hemillas’ gaze. Unlike him, I didn’t have satellite vision, so naturally, I couldn’t see Rick.
This had been an important opportunity for Nemesis—but the same was true for us. Eliminating or capturing a high-value target like Rick Kaiser would have been an enormous victory.
“Then wouldn’t it have been better for us to set a trap instead, so we could take down Rick?”
Hemillas shook his head.
“To the higher-ups, both Rick and I are nothing more than replaceable parts. Capturing Rick would have dealt a blow to Nemesis, but it wouldn’t have destroyed them. What truly mattered in this operation was solidifying Barbara’s position. If we had set a trap for Rick, it would have cost us Barbara, who we had infiltrated among them. That would have rendered years of the higher-ups’ efforts meaningless.”
From the direction of the capital, Akbaran, an aerial vehicle was approaching—too late.
‘Even the Commander of the Imperial Guard is just a replaceable part.’
A sudden curiosity struck me.
“The kind of person who is truly irreplaceable in the Empire…”
I trailed off before finishing the sentence. It felt blasphemous. But Hemillas had already understood my question. He raised his index finger and pointed upward.
“There is only one.”
People like Hemillas and me—dozens of us could die or disappear, and it wouldn’t matter. At most, it would be like a few bricks falling from the Empire’s massive fortress. But if the Emperor were to die, the Empire itself would collapse.
Then, for terrorists dreaming of toppling the Empire, their objective would converge onto a single point.
‘The Emperor’s life.’
A chill ran down my spine. It was obvious when I thought about it, yet I had never felt it so viscerally before.
In the end, they had to target the head. If they could sever the head, it wouldn’t matter how many limbs they lost in the process.
Wiiiiiing!
The support unit’s aerial vehicle hovered over us. Soldiers quickly disembarked, forming a perimeter around me and Hemillas, standing guard. They were preparing for the possibility of a second wave of attackers. It was a little amusing to see them moving so diligently after everything had already ended—but they were simply doing their duty.
Under their escort, Hemillas and I safely returned to the Imperial Guard.
I needed to focus on personal maintenance for a while. My cybernetic implants required upgrades and recalibrations, and I had to retrieve the custom weapon I had ordered.
I thought I might have a quiet period for a while. But even if I stayed still, the world continued to change rapidly. So did people.
…Ilay Carthica, who had taken an extended leave to visit the Carthica family’s main estate, returned to the Imperial Guard.