Chapter 60

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In the speeding vehicle that was automatically directing itself, Sayuri felt an exhaustive pressure pound down on her like twice the weight of gravity.

If she had to say something, it would be a regretful "I still did it..."

After reaching the managerial level, she thought that she had already become accustomed to wheeling and dealing. However, she still heaved a depressed sigh at her headstrong and impulsive behavior.

In principle, the young man was by all rights her son, but every time she was before him she found it hard to maintain her composure.

She was perfectly well aware of the reason behind this. Because he was the son of her rival.

Paired with an engineer's ability and achievements. Complete with unreadable eyes and unfathomable emotions.

Under his eyes, she wasn't seen as a human being, but simply a specimen under a microscope and relegated to the status of an item.

Just the way he viewed his own role as a tool, but Sayuri was unaware of that.

What she did know was that this contract demanded his cooperation, but her own impatience had made this significantly more difficult. Silently, she redirected her gaze out the window and heaved a heavy sigh.

As she raised her eyes, she noticed that traffic had strangely decreased.

She hadn't seen any cars coming from the opposite direction since a while back,

And even though this was a residential sector, the hour wasn't too late yet.

Her inner frustration was submerged by a trace of unease.

She called up the screen for traffic information. The display informed her that other cars had been rerouted along a different path to avoid a stalled vehicle on the road.

Which was a legitimate reason in its own right, letting Sayuri let out a breath of relief.

Chasing Sayuri's vehicle through traffic on a large electric motorcycle, Tatsuya also noticed the drop in traffic.

The message he received through the headset in his helmet was the same information Sayuri saw on her display.

Nevertheless, Tatsuya did not find any benign news within.

The information that cars were rerouted due to a stalled vehicle wasn't suspicious in its own right.

Tatsuya had seen first hand exactly how difficult it was to infiltrate the traffic control system when he saw Sanada and Fujibayashi hacking into the system on the scene.

Still, Tatsuya wasn't optimistic enough to believe every single car was diverted from the road that led from Tatsuya's house to the station. That sort of thing only happened when multiple cars were stalled on the road.

It wasn't particularly difficult to identify vehicle locations within the control system.

Especially since commuter vehicles available for public transportation continuously broadcast signals to prevent thieves from using them as escape tools.

Likewise, identifying the signal wasn't any sort of classified secret.

Since he left the house, Tatsuya was already homing in on Sayuri's vehicle.

Finally catching sight of his stepmother's car, he also discovered another manually operated vehicle independent of traffic control that was tailing her.

A shrill alarm sounded from the vehicle's display.

The display informed her that a manually operated vehicle was closing in.

Yet, Sayuri wasn't overly concerned.

Even in this age, there still existed people who took pleasure in driving themselves.

As an engineer, she was aware that drivers could modify their cars to be independent of the traffic control system's influence.

Thus, she paid little heed to the car closing in from behind.

As such, Sayuri leaned back into her seat and switched off the piercing alarm.

Seeing the black manually operated car pick up speed, Tatsuya stepped on the gas as well. In terms of acceleration, Tatsuya's motorcycle had the edge.

Still, based on proximity and respective speed, the black manually operated car would reach Sayuri's vehicle first.

In reaction to the manually operated car that suddenly closed in instead of passing by, Sayuri's car activated its collision avoidance system.

Near her car that came to an emergency stop, two men descended from the manually operated car.

This was an overly brazen action along the streets with wireless surveillance systems. However, given the situation, the suspects were probably illegal aliens, since normal citizens and immigrants would immediately be identified from their images.

Tatsuya raised the lights to the max and pointed them at the two men trying to break open the car door.

Descending from the motorcycle with the lights still on, Tatsuya rushed towards the men.

Tatsuya pulled out the CAD in his chest pocket with his right hand while the men covered their faces to avert the light. A second later, one man used a pistol while the other sent his fists flying towards Tatsuya.

Under the light from the motorcycle, the man's fist wore a bronze ring that glimmered lightly on one finger.

From the ring, a shrill psionic noise could be heard.

This was magic interference waves known as "Cast Jamming" coming from the "Antinite".

One of them focused on nullifying enemy magic while the other used the gun to finish off the enemy.

Of course, if their opponent was any run of the mill Magician.

The muzzle was aimed at Tatsuya. The target was the heart, at a range where evasion was altogether impossible, and a clear killing intent could be felt.

Yet the man failed to squeeze the trigger.

Before he could do so, Tatsuya already hit the trigger on his CAD. The pistol collapsed into pieces in the man's hands.

One of the men, or maybe even both of them, started yelling in excitement, but given the distance, he wasn't sure what they were saying. He could only hear the term "Cast Jamming", which likely signified their surprise that "Cast Jamming" had no effect, or maybe they were expressing their astonishment that the pistol was shattered despite the presence of magic interference waves.

Still, regardless of how it was, that was no longer Tatsuya's concern. Even if he was hindered in an unexpected way, his actions would not change. Tatsuya once more pulled the trigger.

The man who once held the gun let out a cry of pain and fell to the ground. He pressed his thigh and began rolling on the ground.

Next, the man with the ring pressed his shoulder. He couldn't contain his moans of pain and doubled over as he broke out into a cold sweat before losing consciousness. Since he was pierced by a force resembling tiny needles that annihilated skin, flesh, blood vessels, nerves, and bones, the sudden pain must have overcome his ability to stay conscious.

Decomposition Magic — Mist Dispersion could decompose any human body part.

So where on the human body would a piercing attack generate enough shock to surpass a man's consciousness?

Where must the attack land to cut off feeling from the four limbs?

Indifferent to whether it was his own flesh or that of others, Tatsuya was extremely knowledgeable on the matter.

He slipped around the two men on the ground and approached the black, manually operated vehicle.

Tatsuya kept his CAD aimed at the car, but didn't pull the trigger.

Hydrogen fueled cars contained the fuel in compressed states, so carelessly attacking would trigger a gigantic explosion. Of course, normally there are protocols to avoid ignition, but it was a fact that some chose to remove the safety features to create suicide attacks.

If Miyuki was present then there was no need to worry about an explosion, but unfortunately she was minding the house. The right side of the road was covered by a wide expanse of the river, but the left side was filled with residential buildings. Taking the nearby households into account, Tatsuya judged that he couldn't force the issue.

Strictly speaking, this decision was overly negligent.

Suddenly, killing intent mushroomed forth above him from the right. Tatsuya took evasive action on reflex.

There wasn't even a hint of hesitation in his motion.

Even so, he could not avoid the bullet that flew at supersonic speed. He felt a burning pain in his breast,

Where the bullet had pierced through his left breast.

The impact from the bullet caused his body to fly through the air. The enemy's sniping attack was incredibly accurate.

Even if he avoided a fatal attack, the blow still pierced his lung.

Given how late he heard the gunshot, the attack must have been made from an extreme distance. If Tatsuya hadn't taken evasive action, the bullet would have pierced his heart.

Conservatively speaking, this was an incredibly skilled sniper.

Tatsuya used the inertia from the falling motion to roll and take cover behind Sayuri's car.

The wound from the attack had already healed itself. Normally, even fatal injuries would disappear in a flash so long as his magic was active.

Still, that did not mean he could not feel pain.

The extreme pain from the impact of the bullet as well as the bullet leaving his body still threw Tatsuya into a cold sweat.

However, this was not the time to focus on something like that. Tatsuya needed to pinpoint his attacker's position.

Given the direction and angle of the attack as well as the placement of the surrounding buildings that could serve as obstacles, the sniper's location was probably one of the industrial buildings from across the river.

Roughly 1000 meters from his current position.

Taking into consideration that the bullet could easily penetrate the human body and open such a tiny hole, the weapon was probably using sabot rounds.

The car's exterior was made of synthetic wood, so this wasn't going to last very long as a cover.

The trickier part came from the fact that the sniper wasn't using magic.

No matter what sort of magic was used, there would be a trace of magic left behind that Tatsuya could use to swiftly ascertain his opponent's location.

However, if his opponent was strictly sticking to shooting, this distance made it much harder for him to rely on Elemental Sight.

The two men who had collapsed on the ground lightly floated in the air.

The car door on the black vehicle opened and rudely sucked their bodies inside.

It was a simple act to nullify the Move-Type Magic that was recovering the two men, but right now removing the sniper's threat was higher priority.

He re-examined the data from the bullet that went through his body. Tatsuya ran data analysis again and went over the bullet data again. Bodily fluids.

Physical resistance. Effects from the wind. Gravity.

Air compression at the time of the shot.

The variables from the bullet were compressed into a single message and returned to Tatsuya.

He identified the target's information at the time of attack.

Tatsuya turned back the clock and read the bullet's trajectory, the sniper's information and the very memory of the "world".

From present into the past. Then,

From past into present.

Using the sniper's firing point as the origin, he searched the myriad, transient data within the "world" of the information dimension for the desired target.

Within his mind, Tatsuya locked in on the sniper's Eidos — separating that particular one from the masses the same way he always did.

He also knew that his opponent was aiming here and preparing to fire again.

The second shot hadn't arrived because the sniper was reloading and changing the armor penetration rounds used earlier to rounds that could penetrate objects that the enemy was taking cover behind, hence the huge delay.

Tatsuya saw through this because he held every scrap of data about this sniper in the palm of his hand.

He had to say he was quite fortunate.

As he thought this, Tatsuya activated the magic to completely decompose the human body.