WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
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◈ Cyberpunk Chivalry ◈
Chapter 6: The Cloud Dragon Sets Forth 3
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There was a wide open space behind Santa's Rest Stop.
It served many purposes.
Sometimes it was a shooting range for testing newly purchased guns, sometimes a place to repair large trucks, and sometimes a junkyard for useless parts.
Today, it would serve as a sparring ground.
Cool night air drifted through the clearing.
"Mister."
Ash turned from swinging an old steel blade, apparently preparing for the match. Akina was looking at him, her face full of worry.
"Are you really going to be okay? Should we call it off while we still can?"
Ash lowered his sword and answered her.
"There is no need."
"You only say that because you don't know him. Grandpa Santa's really strong! He's famous in this business, you know? I'll just find another way. I'll get someone else to write my recommendation. Screw this, honestly..."
The girl's voice gradually faded.
Even as she spoke, her disappointment was clear.
Ash watched Akina for a moment, then spoke calmly.
"Miss Akina."
"Yes?"
"There is something I wish to ask."
"What is it?"
"I have been wondering for a while now. Is becoming a Pathfinder not open to anyone? I believe the data card clearly said so. Why, then, do you need a recommendation?"
He had asked Akina, but someone else answered.
"Pathfinders fall into two broad categories."
An old man had emerged carrying weapons.
It was Santa.
"Assaults, who handle combat. And Technomancers, who extract data from the ancient civilization."
He continued as he slipped his weapons, a pair of custom revolvers, into their holsters.
"Anyone who can shoot a gun or swing a blade can work as an Assault. Any idiot will do. All they have to do is fuck up the enemy. But Technomancers are different. They're a precious lot."
Having finished his preparations, Santa took out a cigarette and lit it. With the cowboy hat he had put on, his holsters, and now the cigarette, he looked every inch a cowboy.
"These Technomancers are human computers who've beaten incredible odds to undergo successful cyberbrain conversion (電腦化). They use those electronic brains to access the ancient civilization's cyberspace. They extract carefully hidden data to restore forgotten technologies."
Hoo.
Thick cigarette smoke drifted through the night air.
"The problem is, the cyberbrain conversion module eats up all their resources, so they can't install any other cyberware. They're so fragile that just staying alive is hard, never mind fighting."
Ash nodded.
"I, too, understand how Pathfinders operate. Is that not why prominent Technomancers hire Assaults? To protect them. But what does that have to do with..."
As he spoke, Ash realized something.
"Do you mean to say that Miss Akina is a Technomancer?"
Ash's optical sensors turned toward Akina.
Perhaps his gaze was too intense. Looking a little embarrassed, Akina silently turned around. Then she swept her thick hair to one side, exposing the back of her neck.
At the center of her pale nape, a mechanical connection port and strands of thin cable were faintly visible, quite unlike the smooth skin around them.
Presumably, they connected to her brain.
"Now do you understand why she needs a recommendation?"
Santa spoke.
"We can't let a precious Technomancer like this kid die for nothing. She has to work in a team with a capable Assault, and an old bastard like me has to vouch for them. Say, 'Well, this should be enough to keep her alive.' Only then do they get approval."
Santa flicked away his cigarette butt and looked at Ash, his eyes gleaming.
"Does that answer your question, Ash?"
"...It does."
"Then you understand what this match means?"
"Completely."
"Good. Shall we begin?"
A strange tension passed between the two men.
Standing between them, Akina glanced from one to the other. Sensing the change in the air, she moved well away.
"..."
"..."
Ash held the steel blade upright.
He gave it a turn, then settled into an opening stance (起手式).
"I am called Ash. I belong to no school or faction, and am a wandering swordsman. I shall face you with this sword you have kindly provided, Elder Santa."
Santa grinned at Ash, whose courteous manner did nothing to soften his powerful presence.
"Santa Claude. Bartender."
He raised both hands. Before anyone knew it, he was holding a pair of heavy custom revolvers. One glance was enough to tell they were no ordinary weapons.
"I'll face you with these Peacekeepers."
The uneasy atmosphere grew more intense. Before long, taut tension filled the clearing.
A brief silence.
Ash spoke.
"Here I come."
The moment he finished speaking, Ash moved, his form seeming to stretch into a long blur. His movements were unbelievably light and fast.
'He's fast!'
Santa was startled by how quickly Ash closed the distance, but his battle-seasoned hands were already aiming at his opponent.
Bang! Ba-bang!
Both pistols spat fire at the charging Ash.
This was nothing like the wild shooting the REST-MANs had displayed before.
These were the shots of a veteran, predicting Ash's path and firing into it to cut off his next move.
Instead of closing the distance in an instant as he had intended, Ash had no choice but to take a step back.
That brief retreat decided who would attack and who would defend.
Ash used Dragon-Form Steps (龍形步), waiting for a chance to turn the tide.
For the moment Santa had to reload.
At last, both of Santa's guns went Click.
Their cylinders seemed to be empty.
'Now!'
Ash, who had been circling with strange movements, rushed forward. He intended to end the match with this attack.
But then.
Ba-bang!
Santa's revolvers spat fire again.
'...!'
Ash's optical sensors reacted sharply.
Surely Santa should have been reloading? Ash hastily drew back his sword and twisted his body on instinct.
A brief exchange passed in an instant.
With some distance between them, the two stared at each other.
"...Ha! Your movements are terrifying, nothing like that refined way you talk. Are you a humanoid built during the Corporate Wars? No, that can't be. They hadn't developed autonomous processes back then."
Santa tapped his neck with a gun barrel as he spoke.
"What are you?"
"As I told you when I introduced myself."
"What kind of answer is that?"
"More importantly, did you not need to reload just now?"
"That's right. And I did."
"In that brief moment?"
It had truly been no more than an instant.
Less than a second.
He had reloaded in that time?
Apparently amused by Ash's reaction, Santa raised his hands and demonstrated.
"...Oh...?"
His wrist snapped open with a Crack!, producing a cylinder with every chamber loaded. Then he swapped it for the cylinder in his revolver, the Peacekeeper.
The entire swap happened in an instant.
"...An intriguing technology."
Santa grinned.
Unlike before, however, his smile was distinctly eager for a fight.
"We're continuing, right?"
"If necessary."
His grin widened.
"Then shall we pick up the pace a little?"
As soon as he finished speaking, several thin cables shot from the bodies of the custom Peacekeeper revolvers in his hands.
The cables moved as though alive, piercing his shirt and plunging straight into the connector slots on both his forearms.
Bzzzt!
He twitched amid a brief burst of sparks.
A vivid, intense blue light flashed in Santa's mechanical eyes.
That was not poetic language.
His mechanical eyes were actually emitting light.
His blue gaze settled on Ash.
"I've got a rough idea of what you can do. Let's have a proper fight, Mr. Techno Swordsman."
His voice had become subtly flatter. His constant sly humor vanished, replaced by the cold ruthlessness of a Pathfinder.
Ash knew by instinct.
The real fight began now.
Santa aimed the revolvers that had become part of his body.
Baaang! Ba-ba-bang!
Gunfire rang out again.
And Ash was stunned.
Bullets that seemed to be flying straight toward him suddenly changed direction in midair, aiming for his flanks as though they were living creatures.
That was not all.
Among the shots that followed, one struck the ground and bounced up at a strange angle. Others left the barrels in unpredictable arcs from the very start.
The attacks covered every direction, striking all at once.
It was an all-around assault he would never have dreamed possible with direct-fire weapons.
Ash hurled himself aside faster than his sensors could issue warnings. Like a reed bending in the wind, his body narrowly slipped through the hail of bullets.
Even so, several shots came from angles he could not possibly evade.
Without internal energy, his Dragon-Form Steps could reproduce only the technique's outward form. This was a natural result.
With a deeper understanding of the Neuro Mind Art, he might have been able to evade them. But he had yet to reach that point, leaving him no way to dodge.
'Then I shall knock them aside!'
Ignoring the screams of his artificial neural network, Ash raised his sword.
Clang-clang-clang!
Sparks flew as bullets struck the old blade. Under their immense kinetic force, the joints of his mechanical arm let out rusty screams.
But rather than concern himself with such minor matters, Ash ran his main core at full power to analyze the situation.
'Bullets that curve! Do they not rival the Tang clan's flying-blade art?'
Even as he dodged and deflected the bullets rushing at him from every direction, Ash could not contain his astonishment.
Santa felt much the same.
'What the fuck? He's knocking bullets aside with a blade? Is that even possible?'
A line of cold sweat ran down his forehead.
Despite the countless battles he had fought over his long life, he had never seen anything like this.
As each marveled at the other's skill, Ash was the first to try something different.
He had a vague fear that, at this rate, he would lose without ever managing to get close.
And so Ash activated his new, still-incomplete power, the Neuro Mind Art.
Lightning energy began to circulate fiercely through his artificial neural network. The remaining power in his battery pack drained rapidly, while blue sparks began to rise from various points across his body.
Amid the surging lightning energy, Ash found a fleeting opening in the ever-changing barrage.
Krrrooom!
With a sound like thunder, he shot forward like lightning, putting the principles of Flying Dragon Shrinks the Earth (飛龍縮地) to work.
"What!"
His speed far exceeded Santa's predictions. As though space itself had contracted around Ash, the tip of his sword reached Santa's face in an instant.
Startled, Santa tried to lean back, but he was already too late. Ash's sword had stopped just beneath his neck, at the boundary between his cybernetic body and organic flesh.
Without the slightest error.
Had Ash applied even a little more force, Santa's head would have flown into the air.
A suffocating silence.
There was no heavy breathing.
Naturally enough, given that this had been a match between a cyborg and a humanoid.
"Heh, hehehe!"
Santa let out a low laugh.
"What the hell are you, really?"
Ash withdrew his sword and answered.
"As I told you when I introduced myself."
"Damn it. I hate that answer."
Santa's face twisted as though he truly meant it.
"See? I told you! Mister here's super strong! Booo! Grandpa Santa's washed up! Booo!"
Akina came running from where she had stood far away, shouting things guaranteed to get under his skin.
"Elder Santa."
"What?"
"Have I proven my worth?"
Santa holstered his guns and sighed.
"Yeah. You're not just useful. You're really fucking useful. So much that I can hardly believe it, even after seeing it with my own eyes."
"Then will you write the recommendation?"
"That's right! Hurry up and give me my recommendation!"
Akina, who had already reached them, spread both arms and urged him on.
Santa looked between the immature Technomancer and the one-armed humanoid for a moment, then shouted with a grumble.
"Oh, damn it all! I'll write it! I'll write it!"
Despite his complaints, his expression somehow looked relieved.
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