How to Live as an Immortal Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Nice Assist

***

“You are……”

Ron recognized Ga-on as well. He had been the third victim to fall at his hands. The other passengers must have been too panic-stricken to properly see his face, but Ron was different.

The question was how he had survived—

“Yeah, Slot. If it was that, I can understand.”

What Matt and Sheet had implanted was that kind of thing as well, so it was nothing strange. Knowing he was at a disadvantage and imdiately playing dead—wasn’t that rather sly?

Ron chuckled and added,

“This is exciting. It’s my first ti killing the sa guy twice, you know.”

“This ti, it’s your turn to die.”

“If you can do it!”

Ron bent his fingers into the shape of a gun.

Staring at the index finger precisely aid at his glabella, Ga-on lowered his stance.

It was coming.

From Ron, who had resolved to kill, countless bits of information spilled out. He didn’t know what thod he was using, but the tense movents of his body were genuine.

Moreover, he had already experienced it once before.

Twisting his waist as instinct guided him and his side hair whipping violently happened almost simultaneously. It was the result of an eerily refined gust of wind sweeping past.

Yes, that aftermath itself was the true nature of the Slot Ron used.

Its origin was a slaughterhouse air gun, a cattle gun.

It was a weapon that fired extrely compressed air through a microscopic nozzle. It made perfect sense that it couldn’t be perceived with the naked eye. All that escaped was gas leaking through a hair-thin gap.

So if asked whether it was unavoidable, that wasn’t quite true either. Assuming the index finger was the muzzle, predicting where it was aid wasn’t that difficult.

Thus, Ga-on pulled the trigger after moving out of the attack range, but—

“You won’t die from a toy like that.”

Ron didn’t budge an inch from where he stood. His clothing had been pierced, but his skin itself remained intact. Durability that couldn’t possibly be called human.

There was only one conclusion.

‘Ublec elastic skin.’

It was a unit with the property of hardening the more impact it received.

It could be said to be a more advanced form of a combat coat—if you ignored the drawback of having to strip away all of one’s natural flesh.

“No wonder I felt sothing oddly seasoned for a kid. You completely overhauled yourself, huh. You’re not older than Vintel, are you?”

“Now that you know, what does it change? It doesn’t change the fact that you’re all dying here.”

Certainly, an ordinary handgun might lack sufficient firepower. The rifles discarded by the guys dealt with earlier were far away.

However, while facing him, a certain rule could be discovered. When firing, he never bent his outstretched arm.

As if—

‘Like a barrel.’

The index finger and the arm, the muzzle and the barrel.

It was starting to take shape.

But the sa was true for Ron. After driving Ga-on into a corner, he spread all five fingers wide.

The single barrel turned into a penta barrel in an instant.

Since they were fired in a line, it was only natural that the area he had to evade increased as well.

Relying on instinct alone to shake off the approaching death, Ga-on shouted.

“Miss Phytoncide!”

“You don’t have to rush , I know!”

The girl thrust both hands forward and let out a low murmur. Ron was a seasoned opponent. As soone who favored Slot, he had prepared counterasures against Tuners as well.

So parts had even been replaced entirely with chanical devices that operated purely on hydraulic pressure.

But she was the girl who had breached even the security of a space passenger ship. For anyone else it might have been different, but there was no way she would ever kneel in electronic warfare.

Click.

At the sa ti as the dry sound rang out, Ron froze. An unexpected anomaly. He manipulated it again and again, but the locked device did not move.

He tried to stop the related program and restart it, but—

“Nice assist.”

Ga-on was not the type to just watch quietly until then.

Bang, bang, bang!

He fired consecutively toward Ron’s eyelids.

Continuously, as if gouging them out.

It was the thinnest area of the Ublec elastic skin, but hoping for penetration would have been absurd.

He hadn’t expected it from the start. Everything was rely a ans to close the distance.

In a split second, Ga-on dove into Ron’s bosom and struck the inside of his elbow.

He had figured out that the cattle gun only functioned when the hand and arm ford a straight line. In other words, if he just bent the arm—

“Then even this precious Slot won’t be usable.”

“Simple to the point of stupidity. You jump right in without even realizing it’s a trap.”

Ron sneered and thrust forward the arm that hadn’t been restrained. The cattle gun wasn’t mounted only on his right hand. The reason he hadn’t used it was precisely for a mont like this.

Quickly grasping the situation, Ga-on chose not to oppose him head-on and instead clamped his palm over Ron’s nose and mouth.

“Ghk?”

“Magic tricks lose their charm once they’re exposed.”

Compared to other firearms, its firepower wasn’t particularly outstanding, yet the cattle gun was useful because it could generate ammunition semi-permanently.

All it took was inhaling and compressing air inside the body.

However, since it had to go through that sequence of steps, if the respiratory tract was blocked, the next stage couldn’t be carried out.

Ron struggled wildly like a live fish in his grip, but Ga-on had no intention of letting go.

Maintaining his position behind him, he compressed the entire front of his neck.

It was a clean neck crank, leaving no room for doubt.

Crunch.

The Ublec elastic skin was, after all, a unit that showed strength only against impact. On the other hand, it tended to be vulnerable to attacks unrelated to that.

In other words, it ant there was no way to be free from the sub-mission.

As his vision turned red, Ron couldn’t regain his senses. He was nothing but bewildered. This wasn’t how he had imagined things unfolding.

“Why……?”

“Just like you said, I don’t know anything about you. But you don’t know anything about either, do you?”

If he had known, he would never have let him get close.

Ga-on let out a low sneer and added,

“You, at least, I was going to kill. From the mont we first t, that was the only thing on my mind.”

Crunch.

In that instant, Ron’s neck twisted in a direction it was never ant to bend.

***

Neria, standing in front of the engine room, ca to a halt. She had thought Ron might contact her, but instead the line had been cut off entirely. No matter how she manipulated the device, there was no response.

Had so kind of incident occurred in the cabin Ron was in charge of?

Just in case, she tried to check on the status of the other colleagues, but all she got was silence.

With an inexplicable premonition, Neria opened her mouth.

“It seems soone has intervened.”

“It’s a space with hundreds of people. Wanting no intervention at all would be arrogance, wouldn’t it?”

Faced with Giness’s consistently relaxed attitude, Neria regained her composure. Right. What mattered was achieving their objective, not sparring with variables.

“Then I’ll pick up the pace so we don’t get caught.”

“An extrely sound judgnt.”

When she entered the access code into the control pad, the engine room opened as the triple-interlocked security systems disengaged.

What filled their view was a Tokamak wrapped in neatly arranged pipes and cables.

The donut-shaped facility that generated nuclear fusion was quietly resonating.

“What’s the estimated ti required?”

“I believe it will be about 56 minutes.”

Even that was the result of gathering only the absolutely indispensable elents.

A fusion reactor was the pinnacle of nuclear engineering. To dismantle it completely required going through an intricate and multifaceted procedure.

“And if we assu we take everything, including the parts connected to the ion propulsion system?”

A massive construction job that cut across the space passenger ship.

That was essentially the sa as proposing to sever the rear section. Given how bold a choice it was—

“I think we could shorten it to 31 minutes.”

Neria wasn’t soone who failed to grasp what Giness was aiming for with those words.

Outside, the personal spacecraft they had prepared was already waiting in a docking standby state. As long as they separated it, transporting it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Then let’s begin the work imdiately.”

The mont Giness raised his arm, the plasma cutter spewed blue light.

***

“This is…….”

The girl’s eyes took in the half-destroyed bridge. Walls covered in claw marks as if torn apart by a ferocious beast. Sparks leapt from the exposed bundles of wires.

What rose behind it was the thick stench of blood.

As the girl staggered backward at the sight of the thoroughly violated corpse, Ga-on quietly covered her eyes.

“Miss Phytoncide, you don’t have to push yourself.”

“I wasn’t doing anything like that.”

“Alright, then let’s just say it’s the heart of an adult who wants to show only good things to a child who hasn’t fully grown yet.”

After lightly patting the girl’s head, it didn’t take long for Ga-on to discover a collapsed figure. A middle-aged man wearing a different outfit from the crew.

The insignia hanging on his chest made his position easy to guess.

“The captain?”

Ion Lowell.

His device clearly bore traces of being charred black. It seed an overload had occurred, perhaps because soone had forcibly attempted to access it.

“Was this the work of a Tuner, tsk.”

It was safe to assu they had already taken all the information they needed. Most likely, they had entered the engine room.

That was when a presence was felt from the direction of the entrance.

Just as Ga-on was about to draw his handgun from the holster, a voice ca from the other side.

“Please calm down. I’m not an enemy.”

Sowhat slack facial features. Pale skin, clean hands—he looked almost like a scholar.

The man who approached smiled awkwardly and held out a badge (Badge). At the sa ti, one piece of information was updated through the device.

Na, Raymond Horner.

Position—

“A space security officer?”

“That’s right.”

Raymond answered briefly, then looked around and spoke.

“There were terrorists collapsed in every corridor. Did you deal with them?”

“Yes.”

“On behalf of the passengers, allow to express my gratitude. If it weren’t for you, the situation would have beco far more serious.”

“It’s still too early to take credit. It seems what they’re after is the ion drive.”

At Ga-on’s words, Raymond let out a low hum and scratched his chin.

“I see. If that’s the case, I can understand why they caused such a disturbance. But this puts us in a bind.”

“What’s the problem?”

When the girl suddenly asked, Raymond pulled out an explosive from inside his coat. Ga-on had seen it before. It was the sa device Bintello had been installing in the cargo hold.

“That’s an IED.”

A so-called improvised explosive device. And not one made from everyday materials, but a special model with enhanced firepower based on military-grade equipnt.

“They’re installed all over the ship.”

“So the reason you were dragging your feet until now was?”

“Because I was dismantling the bombs that triggered the detection sensors on my way here.”

“This is bad.”

Unfortunately, neither Ga-on nor the girl had a Slot capable of detecting hidden IEDs like Raymond did.

That ant they had to rely entirely on Raymond’s abilities—

“We’ll have to split up.”

Bomb disposal and terrorist suppression.

It wasn’t sothing one person could handle simultaneously.

“Then naturally, I’ll have to take care of the bombs. Is that acceptable to you?”

“We don’t have much choice. It’s the most efficient option.”

Even if they succeeded in subduing the terrorists, it would an nothing if the space passenger ship exploded.

After exchanging glances with Ga-on, Raymond nodded.

“Understood. It’s unreasonable to place such a burden on passengers, but there’s no other way. I’ll rejoin you imdiately after dismantling all the bombs.”

“Make sure you’re not late.”