Chapter 22: Chapter 21 - Escort Mission(Part 2)
I quietly opened the carriage door and snuck out, shutting the door behind me as I exited the vehicle-...wait, are carriages vehicles? Never mind, it doesn't matter...-and quietly got down to the ground, slipping under the carriage and crawling along the dirt after putting on a camo cap to hide my hair and match my trousers and jacket.
Getting these clothes covered in dust should help with camouflaging me better.
The Monsters are blocking the path ahead of, behind, and to the right of us, to prevent anyone from escaping, but there aren't any Monsters on the left side, where the cliff is located.
That's probably because it's a dead end on that side, so there's no need to keep a tight wall of Monsters over there.
I need to go a bit around before I scale up the cliff, to avoid being spotted by the Monsters while I'm climbing, as well to avoid reaching the top of the cliff at a spot where I'll be visible to my target, or targets.
Can't rule out the possibility that whoever's controlling the Monsters isn't alone up there, they could have an ally beside them who's acting as a bodyguard or something.
As I crawled past the carriage to the left of the carriage I'd been in, I quickly got onto my feet and swiftly and quietly rushed across the area, getting behind a large rock before anyone could spot me...there's plenty of cover to hide behind as I sneak my way towards the cliff, and with no Monsters in this direction, plus their attention being focused on the Knights, this should be fairly easy.
I took out a handgun with a silencer attached to it as I surveyed my surroundings. Most of the Knights are clashing with the Monsters that were surrounding us in front of, behind and to the right of the carriages, with a few of the Knights standing guard closer to the carriages, but none in front of the left side of the carriages since there aren't any Monsters in this direction, so none of the Knights have noticed me either.
My camo outfit is a pretty similar shade to the earth around this area, so I should be quite difficult to spot. Not to mention that the battle raging on has kicked up a lot of dust across the the area and decreased overall visibility, which further helps me blend into my surroundings without being spotted.
I then continued making my way around the face of the cliff, steadily getting closer and closer to the side of it as I stealthily progressed, keeping a close eye out to make sure no Monsters could spot me and ensuring that I didn't rush.
As I reached the side of the cliff, I gave it a quick glance over...it's at a slight inclining angle instead of being a steep ninety degrees, and it's very uneven.
Now, I've never actually tried rock climbing, but I scaled a lot of trees when I was training while living in that orphanage, so I know that have the upper body strength to pull this off. Still though, it's a little nerve-wracking to do this for the first time, and in a high pressure situation, no less.
"Hey, bitch. If I fall off while climbing up, materialize your body and make yourself human-sized, catch me, and then fly me up there," I remarked, taking out a couple of daggers and leaping up, jamming the daggers into the side of the cliff.
"I'd rather not, but if you fall from a fatal height, I suppose I won't have much of a choice," She responded with a sigh, as I made my way up the cliff, using my daggers to scale up along it bit by bit.
Bitch.
Anyway, back to the task at hand...gotta say, this feels easier than I thought it'd be. I thought I'd be straining to pull this off, but I'm expending minimal effort here. Guess I've gotten more physically stronger than I realized.
I'm already about halfway up the cliff, though it's not particularly tall, only about twenty meters to the top from the ground. So I've got just about ten meters or so left to climb.
And the sounds ringing out from the battle below is muffling the sound of my daggers stabbing into the face of the cliff, this is working great. Here's hoping I didn't just jinx it...
As I reached the top of the cliff, I slowly poked the top of my head over the edge and peered across the area, raising my head just enough so that my eyes were above the edge...there's a lot of large boulders up here, I don't see anyone else-...my ears then perked up as I heard voices coming from further up ahead, though I couldn't quite make out what was being said.
I then quietly climbed up to the top of the cliff, sticking to the ground as I then crept forward, bit by bit, in the direction I'd heard the voices coming from.
Hm?
There's a slight drop up ahead, looks the part of the cliff I'm on is a ledge above where my target is.
Perfect.
I continued crawling forward, getting closer to the edge of the ledge, the voices more audible now.
Okay, there's definitely more than one person up ahead...tch, I should've asked Arkiela to use her sensory ability to tell me many of them there are, it's to risky to ask her now, don't want them hearing me.
As I reached the edge and peered down, I finally got a look at my targets...there were three people, about two meters below and ten meters ahead, more or less. Two of them were standing on either side of the third, I'm guessing the one in the middle is who's controlling the Monsters.
It was a Kaninoid woman who looked like she was in her mid to late twenties, with white hair that had patchy black spots across it, like a dalmatian's fur pattern, floppy dog ears and a tail, dark brown eyes, and was about medium height and had a nice rack...what a waste for a woman who's about to die.
She was watching the battle with an amused, sadistic smirk, clearly enjoying the carnage.
Hm, at this distance, I can easily manage with my handgun, but...
I put away the handgun after removing the silencer, taking out my sniper rifle with a smirk.
Mm, hello, beautiful...it sure has been a while, hasn't it?
I screwed the silencer onto the tip of the barrel and took aim, not bothering to use the scope since I really didn't need it at such a close range.
Hm, I can't get a clear shot at the dog girl in the middle, the guy standing to her right is on the tall side and is in the way of my aim. Fine, then, I'll just kill him first and then shoot the woman as soon as he falls out of the way.
I took aim at the man's head as I set the gun on the ground in front of me, moving my right index finger over the trigger...and then swiftly pulling on it, the sound of the gunshot muffled by the silencer as the bullet spun through the air rapidly and hit the right side of his head, killing him instantly and causing him to fall over to his left.
"What the-...!?" The Kaninoid woman exclaimed with a startled look on her face as he collapsed onto her, knocking her down and falling on top of her...tch, I still don't have a clear shot at her.
In fact, that just made it worse, thanks to the meatshield that's laying sprawled on top of her...
"Wh-what's going on!? H-he's...he's dead-...!" Began the other guard in alarm, before abruptly cutting off as I fired a bullet at him, shooting him through the left side of the chest and piercing his heart.
He sharply coughed out blood and stumbled back with a wheezing gasp of pain before his body went limp and he collapsed in a heap as his eyes rolled back in his head, falling backwards and hitting the ground with a loud thud.
"[M-Multi-Summon]!" Cried the woman from under the body of the first guy I killed, before five Monsters suddenly appeared ahead of her as she pushed the corpse off her and crouched behind the Monsters and yelling, "Who's there!? Show yourself! Huh? There's a hole in the side of his head..."
Her Monsters aren't attacking, guess she's more concerned with using them as a shield instead of attacking me. Smart move, but ultimately futile. I'll just gun down the Monsters and then take her out.
"Two Orcs, those are Lower Mid Level Monsters, and Two Ogres and a Minotaur, which are Upper Mid Level Monsters," Observed Arkiela, as she flew up a bit to get a look at them, right as I hit one of the Orcs, a large humanoid pig creature, through the middle of the head with a bullet.
Pigs are gross, so unlike most animals, I have no problem killing them.
Ogres look more human than animal too, they're large, beefy creatures with thick, muscular arms and dark green skin...hm, I might've been more hesitant if they looked more like Shrek. Shrek is love, Shrek is life, after all.
The Minotaur, I'm a little hesitant, since I like cows...but whatever, it's in my way, so I'll kill it...
"[Summon]!" Exclaimed the woman, a new Monster appearing and taking the place of the Orc I'd just killed.
Tch, just how many of these things does she have at her command? I could probably take her down if this becomes a battle of attrition, but who knows how many bullets I'd waste if I did?
"Annoying-ass bitch," I muttered irritably, as the Monsters bunched up together more tightly, leaving no gaps through which I could hit the woman.
"Rapid, piercing projectiles...hey, whoever's attacking me, are you the one who fought Icaro recently!?" She called out from behind the Monsters.
Huh? Who the fuck is Icaro-...ohh, right, that buff Elf guy. Hm, interesting, the fact that she mentioned him likely means...
"Thanks for telling me that you're affiliated with that guy, that's some potentially useful intel. Are you in some kind of group or organization together? What's your goal? What are you after?" I called out, firing a couple more bullets to take down two of her Monsters, but once again, she quickly and immediately summoned more to take their place.
"Tch, I see no reason to answer you...especially since you're about to die. Now, [Double Summon]!" She exclaimed, two more Monsters appearing, but beside her instead of in front of her.
"A Thunderbird and a Scythe Mantis, both High Levels," Arkiela informed me, before flying back several meters.
Her body isn't even materialized, she basically doesn't exist outside of my perception in her current state, so what's she so afraid of?
The Monster to her left was a humanoid bird creature with yellow and blue feathers that had a kind of electric glow to them, it had large, slender wings where arms would be, instead of on its back, with long, limber legs that had razor sharp talons on its feet.
The other one was a large humanoid praying mantis-looking creature, standing on two legs, its entire body covered in a green exoskeleton, and both its forearms were long, curved blades that were gleaming under the sunlight...those look dangerously sharp, definitely don't want to get hit by one of those arms.
"I won't let you get away," I remarked as I swiftly sniped the remaining Monsters that had formed a wall around her, before glancing up with a grimace as she climbed atop the back of the Thunderbird, which flew up into the air as the wall of Monsters collapsed in a pile.
"So that's where you were hiding. It's over for you, maybe someday I'll see you in hell-...f-fuck!" She called out before yelping in pain as I fired a bullet up at her, the Thunderbird swerving across as I pulled the trigger, my bullet hitting her left shoulder instead of the middle of her chest like I'd been aiming for, as she then exclaimed urgently, "Fly me out of here, NOW!"
Before I could fire another bullet at her as she began to fly off on her Thunderbird, I quickly scrambled onto my feet and sprang back as the Scythe Mantis leapt towards me with immense force and speed, slashing one of its arms down at me as it sprang up onto the ledge I'd been using as a vantage point.
I narrowly evaded its slash and quickly put away my rifle, swiftly drawing out a katana and swinging it across as the Monster leapt towards me again and swung its left arm at my throat.
A sharp clang echoed out as my blade collided against its arm, before I pulled out a handgun and fired a bullet at the middle of its torso.
The creature quickly leapt back as my bullet hit it, a grimace forming on my face as my bullet failed to break through, getting stuck it the shell of its exoskeleton as a few cracks spread out from the point of impact.
The Monster chittered threateningly before kicking a rock at me, which I deflected off to the side with the flat of my blade before firing another bullet aimed at the same spot, but it was ready for it this time, sharply turning its body across to evade the bullet before leaping straight at me again.
I jumped away to dodge it, having gotten used to the timing of its attacks...it's incredibly fast, but its movements are telegraphed and therefore easy to predict.
Still though, it's got an annoyingly durable body, I need to use something with more firepower.
As it leapt at me once again, I deflected the slash of its right arm before swinging my blade at its neck, but it let me hit it, my blade striking the side of its neck but failing to cut through, barely leaving a nick.
I quickly sprang back as it drove its left arm towards my solar plexus, the tip of its scythe-like arm cutting through my jacket though it failed to pierce through my body armor, as I opened my Item Box and dropped a smoke bomb onto the ground, a cloud of smoke bursting out as the bomb hit the rocky ground.
I bought that smoke bomb in this world, I suppose it isn't terrible, but the smoke is already starting to fade. In comparison, the smoke grenades I have that carried over from my previous world are a lot more effective, the smoke sticks around for much longer.
Oh, well, this is good enough in this situation.
I then opened another Slot and took out a special weapon that I'd had custom-made for me, but it turned out to be so powerful that it was way too impractical to use on covert stealth missions.
"Hey, I remember that! Hahaha, I forgot all about it! Yeah, didn't you spend, like $200,000 to get that made for you?" Called down Arkiela.
No, not quite...I got two of these, so it was actually closer to $400,000, with a small discount.
It's technically a gun, though with a hell of a lot more firepower.
It looks like a normal umbrella but most definitely isn't one...I still remember the day I decided to get one, I'd watched the movie Kingsman and thought, 'hey, that's pretty cool', but it turned out that guns disguised as umbrellas aren't exactly common in the real world.
So, I had it custom made.
Then I got the idea that, instead of bullets, what if it fired laser beams? That raised the cost of the custom job even more, but I could afford it, so I just went 'fuck it' and decided to get it done.
The umbrella part was woven with highly durable and reinforced carbon fibre threads, making it a super strong, bulletproof shield, and it has an absurdly powerful battery installed in the length above the handle...when fully charged, it can fire off a maximum of ten shots.
And I haven't used it even once since I came to this world, so this baby is fully charged...
As the dust cloud began to clear and the Monster's silhouette coming into sight, I took aim with the weapon, which I'd dubbed the Umbrellaser, and pulled the trigger right as the Monster caught sight of me again.
A bright, dark red beam of light burst out of the tip of the weapon, shooting forward with blinding speed towards the Scythe Mantis, which began to leap off to its right, but it was too slow to react.
My beam struck the left side of its chest and burst through with hardly any resistance, blasting a hole through its left side, its arm falling off and hitting the ground as it stumbled back, the laser beam continuing to shoot up until it reached the clouds, clearing a large hole through a big clougfd before the beam began slowly petering out.
The Monster then collapsed onto the ground as I fired a couple of bullets at the middle of its head, the first one cracking the exoskeleton and the second one deepening the cracks, before I fired a third one before it could get back up on its feet, finally breaking through the exoskeleton and killing it.
As it laid lifelessly on the ground, a light green, gelatinous liquid oozed out of the large hole on the left side of its body as it went limp, a trickle of the sludgy liquid running down from the middle of its head.
Yeah...this is exactly why I could never use one of my Umbrellasers on any mission in my previous life.
The beam is powerful enough to almost instantly drill holes through concrete walls, it can even pierce through a few inches of steel, it's just way too conspicuous.
Also, it can only fire a beam once every thirty minutes or so, the battery would literally explode if I tried to fire it again before it was done cooling down.
There's also the fact that, once the battery is empty, it takes a full five days to charge. I literally caused blackouts in the neighborhood I was living in when I charged my pair of Umbrellasers, and my electricity bill that month was higher than a stoner on the 20th of April.
It's definitely the most powerful weapon in my arsenal though, so in this world, it's my trump card.
I can use this one nine more times, and then I've got the other one, so nineteen shots in total. That Monster was fast, it probably could've dodged a bazooka rocket, so it earned its status as the first victim of my trump card.
"Human wars would've been a lot more entertaining if that weapon was mass produced," Remarked Arkiela, as she flew down towards me.
There'd be a hell of a lot more casualties, that's for sure. But no, these wouldn't be mass produced...the cost and lack of energy efficiency aside, the guy who custom made it for me was a well known arms dealer in the underworld, I bought pretty much all my weapons from him.
He's also the one who made the large shield I used during the entrance exam tournament.
"I was pretty lucky to get associated with that guy, considering that most of his clients were some of the most renowned and infamous denizens of the underworld. Not least of which was that legendary assassin, Kuro. I remember hearing that he disappeared or died or something though," I recalled, as I put away my Umbrellaser.
"Hm? If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure he's the one who killed a G-...eh, never mind. You know, in hindsight, it's kind of a good thing that you died when you did. Your old world will fall into worldwide nuclear warfare about five years after you died," She informed me.
"That reminds me, I've been wondering about something...can you see the future? You've referred to future events in my previous world a few times before too, I remember you said that most people will develop superpowers or something a few decades after the era I lived in," I said with a frown.
"Well, yeah, time isn't linear in the Divine Realm, there's no such thing as past, present or future, it's just...time. But now that most of my Divinity has been sealed, I'm experiencing the concepts of past, present and future, like a common fucking mortal, I feel so dirty," She spat in disgust.
"Heh, well, you are a rotten, dirty bitch, so that tracks. Well, anyway...it looks like the Knights are starting to tire out. Doesn't seem like any of them have died or been severely injured yet though, they're definitely a lot more competent that the Knights who showed up to take down that Elf guy, Icaro or iCarly or whatever his name was.
Still, at this rate, it'll be a while before we get moving again. Fine, guess I'll help even the odds a bit," I sighed reluctantly as I took out my sniper rifle again and added, "On the bright side, this'll be an easy way to farm a nice chunk of EXP, so there is a benefit to me doing this."
"Still seems like a waste of bullets, but okay, shithead."
I'll shoot down some of the stronger Monsters down there and then head back to the carriage. I failed to kill the Summoner woman, but I think I did a decent enough job up here.
Plus, helping the Knights out like this should earn me some brownie points too. Now, then, while I'm doing that...
"Hey, go extract the Cores of all the Monsters I killed. Several Mid Levels and a High Level should earn me some good money from the Guild, plus I doubt most people would believe that I killed another High Level if I don't have the Core to prove it," I pointed out, as I began sniping the Monsters down below.
"Grr, you asshole..."
"What was that?"
"Nothing. I'll do the stupid thing, okay, so get off my back!"
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
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Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone