How to Live as an Immortal Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Five steps, huh

***

***

Leaving Raymond behind, Baek Ga-on ran through the interior of the ship with the girl. It was a situation where every second mattered. The mont the ion drive was stolen, hundreds of people would evaporate on the spot.

“Uncle.”

The girl pointed outside with her index finger.

Beyond the panoramic glass, countless stars were visible, and among them an uninvited guest revealed its massive fra.

“……A spaceship?”

It was unlikely that the Mars Defense Force had arrived. If they had, the series of disturbances would have been suppressed at once.

That left only one possibility.

“It looks like the ship they called in.”

Well, considering the size of the ion drive, it was a natural arrangent. There was no way they could carry it on their backs and escape.

That was when the spaceship, which had not moved an inch until just monts ago, began to move.

A sign that the work was nearing its final stage.

If docking happened, there would be no turning it back.

“This isn’t the ti to be standing around.”

***

Just as expected, the engine room had already been thrown wide open. As a bonus, all the links connecting it to the space passenger ship had been released. It was no exaggeration to say it was already a separate space. It was closer to cargo than a facility.

While keeping an eye on the surroundings, the sound of footsteps echoed from beyond the shadows.

“Are you a guest?”

The woman who had been a pregnant woman—Neria.

“…….”

Their objectives were directly opposed.

Conversation was pointless.

The mont Baek Ga-on recognized her, he thrust his gun forward, but the trigger would not pull. The auto-lock function had been activated.

He imdiately switched to the rifle slung over his shoulder, but the result was the sa. The locking chanism the girl had released reverted to its original state in an instant.

“At the very least, do you really think sothing we used would work on us?”

“I’ll解除 it. Huh?”

The girl intervened belatedly, but the initiative that had slipped away did not return. There was no doubt that additional modifications had been applied.

This was a problem that went beyond skill as a Tuner.

Since there was no ti to look for another firearm now, Baek Ga-on pulled out his combat knife and kicked off the ground.

An extre sprint that shifted his center of gravity forward, as if he might topple over at any mont.

In the blink of an eye, Baek Ga-on reached right in front of Neria and swung the combat knife.

It was a speed that could not be achieved without enhancent through cybernetics surgery, so Neria tried to dig into its foundation. However, all that ca through the device was a history as clean as blank drawing paper.

“What…….”

Neria realized a beat too late that Baek Ga-on was a Natural, but by then it was already too late. The thrust blade was just about to graze past the back of her neck.

A hair-trigger situation.

At the branching point where life and death were decided, the one who won was—

Ting.

Surprisingly, it was Neria. A third party intervened at the perfect timing and knocked the blade away.

Baek Ga-on retreated as a massive figure suddenly lood over him, letting out a hollow laugh. They had clashed only once, yet a crack had ford in the combat knife.

Only one person could leave such a powerful impression.

The last passenger born in the cargo hold—

“Giness.”

“So you were the one who’d been following behind us all this ti.”

“So what if I was?”

“That’s unfortunate. If you had stayed put, you might’ve lived a little longer.”

“, dying? That’s what’s nonsense.”

Baek Ga-on sneered.

It was a reaction born of despair at his own situation, but to Giness it only ca across as reckless bravado.

“If you don’t believe , then see for yourself. What kind of ending awaits those who don’t know their place and run wild.”

The mont the forearm of his full-body prosthetic opened, blue light burst forth and brightly illuminated the pitch-dark engine room.

The beam of light that began at his arm advanced rcilessly, slicing through the ceiling, the walls, and the floor.

Baek Ga-on flipped through the air to escape the attack range and wiped the cold sweat from his cheek.

A severing phenonon caused by high-temperature, high-pressure electrical discharge.

The weapon Giness used was simple and straightforward.

‘A plasma cutter?’

It was an item that didn’t even receive a military utility rating. To begin with, it was a tool used for welding and processing. Even if it were weaponized, it should have been inferior to firearms in practical terms.

But its abnormal output covered all of those shortcomings.

A feat only a cyborg who had replaced his entire body with machinery could display. It seed he had even implanted a small generator inside his body.

“How fitting for a fanatic. You’re not even human anymore. What exactly are you burning your own body away for?”

“Even if I told you, humans like you wouldn’t understand it in a lifeti.”

It was a way of speaking as if he himself were not human.

There seed to be sothing behind it, but there was no need to ask.

“Looks like you want to play at being a martyr, but you picked the wrong place.”

No matter how deep his circumstances were, they couldn’t be justified on top of soone else’s sacrifice.

The mont Baek Ga-on gripped his combat knife in reverse and prepared to leap, a girl’s scream burst out behind him.

“N-now, now. Let’s stop right there.”

“You are?”

The one who subdued the girl and pressed a gun to her temple was Raymond Horner, a space security officer. Faced with his unexpected betrayal, Baek Ga-on couldn’t help but hesitate.

But this made one thing clear.

“So you’d been turned.”

“At the very least, I’m not on your side.”

There must have been prior coordination. It made no sense for a group this large to get in without a single hitch.

Co to think of it, the fact that Ron had mistaken Baek Ga-on for a space security officer from the start had been contradictory. Considering the level of equipnt he carried, it was a mistake that shouldn’t have been possible.

But what if that had been decided from the beginning?

If it had been a re formality carried out to break the passengers’ morale, then it all made sense.

On top of that, I had already fought a round with Ron, who had been guarding the passenger cabins. How could soone who was supposed to be monitoring the passengers wander around the ship with ?

‘That ans he had other comrades besides that guy.’

The circumstantial evidence was more than sufficient.

It was almost strange that the puzzle pieces were only fitting together now.

Moreover, Raymond, whom I t on the bridge, had declared that he would go to dismantle the bombs himself.

Even though a space security officer should have prioritized passenger safety.

Which ant—

“So saying you were going to remove the bombs planted inside the ship was a lie too.”

“Thanks to that, we were able to finish what our other comrades couldn’t. Much appreciated.”

As expected.

It was no different from handing a fish straight to a cat.

“You’re a smart one, so you must know you have no chance. It’s ti to surrender. At least I’ll send you off without pain.”

The girl looked as if she had accepted everything, a resigned expression on her face. It was understandable. No matter how capable a Tuner she was, she wouldn’t be able to block a bullet fired at point-blank range.

It was a complete deadlock.

And then, just in ti—

“Five steps.”

At the low murmur, the girl’s eyes shone brightly for a split second. She dropped to her knees reflexively. A decision she could make only because she trusted her partner’s skill completely.

Naturally, I did not betray that expectation. At the sa mont the girl moved, I threw my combat knife.

Thud.

Raymond, who failed to react in ti, scread as the blade pierced straight through his wrist, yet he did not withdraw his killing intent toward the girl.

But that, too, was only for a mont.

I leaped like an arrow and drove my fist into his abdon, and he spewed bloody foam and died on the spot.

His limbs going limp was only natural.

I kicked up the pistol Raymond had dropped with the tip of my foot, retrieved it, and imdiately turned the muzzle toward Neria.

The auto-lock was engaged, but I pulled the trigger without hesitation. Just as I had lived up to expectations, I had no doubt the girl would do the sa.

Bang!

The result was exactly as it sounded.

However, the bullet fired at Neria’s forehead was deflected away. Perhaps sensing sothing ominous, Giness had stepped in to act as a shield himself.

That was when a blade ford of plasma lood overhead.

After kicking the girl away and sending her flying far off, I rolled in the opposite direction and returned fire.

Giness lashed the plasma like a whip to knock the bullets aside and urged her on.

“Neria.”

“It seems it will take so ti.”

The firearm issued to space security officers was a different type from what they had brought. With nothing prepared in advance, it wasn’t easy to gain the upper hand.

At Neria’s hesitant attitude, I nodded.

“Looks like controlling even this was too much after all.”

With my range of options widened, I pressed the attack with gunfire.

True to his position as a space security officer, the pistol Raymond had carried was a new model. In addition to gunpowder propulsion, it used the power of an internal battery pack to provide electromagnetic acceleration.

However, to Giness, it felt like nothing more than aningless flailing. In the end, it made no difference that it failed to inflict any effective damage.

When he finally lost patience and raised his arm, the incident occurred. Sothing flashed, and just like that, Neria collapsed.

“Ah, so this works.”

What I had aid for was a ricochet.

I calculated the angle on the premise that Giness would be hit. Even though it emptied the magazine, it was still a profitable trade.

“Ha.”

For a mont, Giness stood speechless, staring blankly down at Neria, then he increased the output.

In response, the plasma grew ever clearer and rcilessly bisected the cover.

The wall separating the two of us disappeared in an instant.

“Don’t think you’ll be allowed to die normally. No matter what you imagine, you’ll et a far uglier end than that.”

“You must’ve cherished her a lot. What, were you two sothing special?”

It wasn’t a difficult deduction. She had boarded the space passenger ship cradled in his arms.

“Don’t worry, though. You’ll be following right after her.”

Bending my knees and lowering my posture as far as possible, I didn’t hide. I charged straight ahead.

Every ti a blue beam grazed past , my whole body tingled, but it was within expectations.

“I’ll help you!”

The girl appeared from behind and thrust both hands forward. With a cyborg as the opponent, she judged that a Tuner’s support was necessary.

But to her surprise, Giness was more adept at electronic warfare than she had imagined. Perhaps because he used a full-body prosthetic, he cut off all possible access routes, leaving no opening at all.

‘No.’

This differed from the pattern the girl knew. The human mind was instinctively comprehending the essence of the machine.

As if it were his original body.

It seed to be a peculiar constitution unique to Giness.

It couldn’t have been worse news.

The girl stamped her feet in frustration, having lost any ans to intervene, but I paid it no mind. I had already decided to bring this to an end with my own hands.

Thud.

After smashing Giness’s forearm housing the plasma cutter aside with my elbow, I pressed in, rotating both fists like wheels.

But it was impossible to shatter thick tal armor with bare hands made of flesh and blood.

Only a hollow, dull sound rang out.

“Struggling won’t change anything.”

“After seeing your comrade die like that, you still didn’t learn a thing.”

Of course, what I had aid for wasn’t so coincidence that might happen soday. I hadn’t attacked in the first place. I had only pushed back his massive fra, which weighed close to five hundred kilograms.

Only then did Giness retrace my footsteps, and he shuddered at the presence he sensed behind him.

It was the Tokamak.

The device that lay at the root of everything that had happened.

Yes, regardless of who won or lost, if the Tokamak were destroyed, all their efforts so far would co to nothing.

“On a human level, let’s have at least one of us break.”