Chapter 29 - Huntly Mine (part 18)
Truly, there are things that I have yet to learn from this even more mysterious humanoid robot right beside me.
Right in front of my eyes now, there stands a six-metre mechanical and manually controlled robot, rivalling the absurd size of the boss's robot. Before I even realise it, Mirai has one-handedly picked me up from the ground and jump into the interior of the mech, via an opening in the chest area.
- Why are you so hurried? I am still marvelling at the beauty of this year 2100's creation.
- We are not in a power ranger series. That boss will not spare some time watching us looking at the mech. Now, get yourself familiarised with the controls. It is just like a video game. - Mirai knocks on my head.
The boss initiates the first attack. Metallic cannons mount on its right shoulder, and loads of energy spheres are hurled at us in a blink.
While I am focusing on the array of buttons, levers, controls and the real-time screen in front of me, Mirai has summoned a Force Field that slows down the target by draining their energy.
- Have you done yet? - Mirai looks a bit impatient.
- Sorry, but the video game you say is asking me to fight a boss level with basic knowledge and equipment!
- Here, just spam pressing this button.
Mirai leaps at my seat and slams a red and unique-looking button. The left hand of the mech raises, and rocket launchers emerge from its arm. She slams the button next to it, and two rockets are fired. They fly in the air, dodge the energy spheres and hit the boss's armour. Of course, it does not even scratch the armour by any tiny bit.
- That is the basic offensive function. You just spam the buttons near this corner to launch rockets, and these others to shoot other stuff, and these to switch to close-combat. Understand?
- Yes...
- Now that you understand, my job is to manoeuvre this gigantic mechanical corpse and perform defensive skills, while your job will be to attack. Get it?
- Yes...
I am just speechless.
- OK, enough chatting. I would just interrupt you two with some fresh from the oven energy spheres, can you? - The boss starts to fling more spheres at us.
I press a random button on the rocket region. The mech's left arm is reloaded with another round of rockets, and they are automatically locked towards the energy spheres. Right after my next press, they charge towards the energy spheres and blow them up.
- See? It is as easy as it is.
- OK, I get it. Now, what is our strategy?
- I suspect that this transformation would enhance the capacity of the core chip to any significantly higher limits. In fact, doing so would take up more space in the core chip.
- So, do we just continue to push his core chip to maximum capacity and cause overload?
- Most likely.
I press a button on the top left corner side. The rocket launchers retract and are replaced with photon projectile modules. Then, I press a yellow button on my right side. Two levers protrude from the floor next to my seat, and at the same time, the mech raises its right arm upwards, opening its hand. Right when I am still trying to figure out what is happening...
- Nice, Yuusha! Summon Prototype II - Electric Doppelganger Sword! - That is a sudden shout from Mirai, which catches me off guard.
From thin air, where the mech is raising its right arm and opening its hand, a portal opens, and a pair of gigantic, futuristic-looking swords appear. They look at least two and a half metres long and are attached with a long, durable chain.
Speaking of which, when I was scrolling the archive out of boredom a few months ago, I found several huge weapons, but it looks like they are designed to be handheld. I laugh as I scroll away from it, thinking that they are just the results of a budget surplus.
But nope, now I withdraw my laugh. Only such huge weapons can hopefully and merely injure one or two high rating Intruders, not even finish them off.
- Haha, what a pathetic stick that you poor souls have there? What are you planning to do?
- Just see. - I smirk.
I basically have a grab on the basic controls. It is time to shine.
Mirai seems to understand it through my confident tone. She pushes her levers to the maximum nodes, which propels the mech forward.
The boss is also on par with our mech (obviously). From the ground, four rocky arms spawn like fungus, trying to grab the limbs of the mech. I pull my levers in opposite direction, making the mech perform a midair spinning, and cut the arms down like a lawn mower grass blade trimming grass. The slashes make electric sparks that cause further mini-explosions in the air.
Projectiles charge toward us at a significantly more intense frequency, but we miraculously manage to destroy them. I continuously control the arms to swing the dual swords, as well as fire the photon projectile modules to provide additional aid to my close combat. Mirai is also working her processing unit out to control lower body movement to evade the remaining attacks and occasionally casting shields.
- Can you two, like, just give up? It is futile.
- Nope, the moment you change to this final form, it is a sure victory for us. - Mirai provokes the boss.
Or maybe she has another plan, and another plan, and another, and another, listless plan in her mind. At times, Mirai would just say some random things like that, and it is just impossible for me to interpret her hidden meanings all the time.
Mirai starts ordering heavier aerial units. Flocks of big and small drones, as well as autonomous planes, appear on top of the boss. The infuriating rain of explosives, bullets, fire streams and thunder attacks starts pouring on the boss again.
- Not again?
- Why not?
The boss summons rock arms and all kinds of projectiles again, trying to fend off the dense assault of the aerial units. However, unlucky for him, these drones are enabled with machine learning, and until now, our units are far too familiar with these repetitive attacks. We gain a provisional upper hand.
The food fight of flying drones and rocks seems to push the core chip to limits that far breaches the previous boss forms, but we just need a little further push. Amid the chaotic scene, we grab the opportunity and jump at the boss.
As expected, there is capacity left to react to our sudden attack. The colossal figure no longer tries to evade our sword swings but instead blocks them with its arms. The metallic clash ignites electric sparks that seem to "scratch" its arms a bit.
It swings its arm to deliver a punch at us, but Mirai drives our mech to get away from that potentially lethal bunch. Right after the missed punch, multiple drones of ours attack the boss in the few hundred milliseconds it regains its position. The boss is forgetting the existence of something again if not someone.
Mirai seems like she is deciding to take a long shot. After her calibration, the damage output of all of our drones doubles. The boss cannot ignore the doubled damage on his armour anymore, even though it is very resistant. That is the power of numbers.
- Let me just finish this in one shot! Haizz!
The boss stomps on the ground. A strong electromagnetic pulse is sent from its stomp, immediately shutting down all of our drones. The rain of damage now becomes a dead drone banquet. Not only that, our mech is temporarily disabled.
- This is what I expect! Yuusha, our time comes.
- Just how many times have our time come already?
- This time, trust me. That electromagnetic pulse is the trigger that breaches the limit of this boss.
The boss looks like its core chip's processing capabilities have been affected by the pulse, plus the fact that carrying that attack out is literally sucking its battery dry. Yet, it manages to act as if nothing happened, to cover up the fact.
- Haha, why do you think that you would be easily a step ahead? Not even close...
- You can stop bluffing already.
Of course, there is always a humanoid robot that can see through him like a window, with her supercomputer level of "brainpower".
Mirai presses a seemingly blue and innocent button. And the button ejects us from the mech, back into the room.