24 Chapter 24

"Great, now what?"

About 2 or 3 more floors before reaching the place where the terrorists were holding the emperor hostage, Hiro stopped running and pulled out the pistol which was holstered in his belt.

It was because he could see a shadow from behind the corner of the corridor in front of him. The shadow slowly approached, a moment later, the silhouette revealed itself.

"Krrrr..."

The figure in the shadow was a Rakhtor, the monster slowly revealed itself from behind the corner of the corridor while showing its mouth and teeth full of blood.

*Snort*

Hiro snorted as he saw that what was behind the shadow turned out to be just a Rakhtor.

He put his gun back into its holster.

" I thought what, turns out to be you again. You damn lizard."

Then, Hiro took out his expendable blade before slowly walking towards the Rakhtor.

However, only after taking a few steps, Hiro stopped walking forward.

He could see that slowly, another shadow was emerging from behind the corner of the corridor.

One by one, another Rakhtor began to appear from behind the corner of the corridor.

"Dang it, I knew this was gonna happen."

Hiro cursed silently after seeing the number of Rakhtor in front of him.

There were 6 Rakhtor staring at him, and they were not looking at him in a friendly way. Their gaze was the gaze that predators use when looking at their prey.

Hiro didn't shoot at them with his pistol, because shooting at them with his Glock wouldn't do anything.

Besides, there were only 17 bullets in his gun.

He also had 2 grenades, 2 sticky grenades, and 1 smoke bomb. But those were all things he planned to use in the battle that would probably take place after he arrived at the bunker where the terrorists were holding the emperor hostage.

So, he decided not to use them.

Hiro could actually defeat the Rakhtor in close combat, but the most he could handle in that situation was probably only 2 or 3 Rakhtor.

And right now, there were 6 Rakhtor in front of him. So that was definitely not an option.

Therefore, having no other choice left, Hiro decided to....

"Well, time to run."

Run.

"Khayck! Khayck! Khayck!"

Just as soon as Hiro started running, the pack of Rakhtor started chasing him.

This time, since Hiro didn't need to match his speed with anyone, he decided to run at his best speed.

Hiro turned around briefly to see the distance between him and the Rakhtor chasing him.

The running speed of the rakthors was not very fast, perhaps it was because the corridor was quite narrow for the six of them. Luckily they weren't that smart.

He could see the Rakhtor running quite far behind him, feeling that their distance was quite safe, he decided to maintain his running speed at the moment so that he could save his stamina.

Hiro also did not forget to use the thrusters on his waist with enough power to make him run easily while maintaining the power consumption of his pilot suit.

After confirming his distance from the Rakhtor chasing him, Hiro then thought of a way to get rid of them.

However, before he could start thinking of something, someone suddenly came running from the other direction of the corridor at the T-junction he was about to go through, the two of them almost collided.

"Holy shit."

"What the hell."

Hiro and the person stared at each other.

The person in front of Hiro was a middle-aged man wearing jeans and a leather jacket.

Although his appearance was different from what he remembered, Hiro recognized the person in front of him.

"Wait....is that you, old man?"

He was Drake, a mercenary that Hiro had worked with.

"That voice, is that you kid?"

Drake also recognized Hiro immediately after hearing his voice.

"Khayck!"

Their conversation was interrupted by Rakhtor's roar, realizing that now was not a good time to stare at each other, they both nodded and started running together.

While running, Hiro asked.

"Good to see you here, old man."

"I'm surprised you can say that in our current situation."

"Oh, come on. It's just some lizards."

Hearing Hiro's answer, Drake asked in a tone that sounded annoyed

"What part of that creature looks like a lizard to you, kid?"

Hiro shrugged his shoulders.

"Everything?"

"Really? Full of teeth, as big as a cow, and running like a f*cking wolf!? That's a lizard?!"

"Don't make a big deal out of such trivial things, old man."

Hiro said that casually.

"It's not a trivial matter!"

Drake shouted back.

Hiro ignored Drake's shouting, he instead pointed his index finger at the T-junction in front of them while saying.

"Turn right ahead."

"Huh?"

Although Drake didn't understand why they had to take a right, he still followed Hiro's direction.

After they turned the corner, Drake immediately asked.

"Where are we going, kid?"

"I was planning to go to the safety bunker on the bottom floor of this building."

"Why?"

"Saving the emperor."

"What? Why don't we just find a way out and go home? Why do you need to go there anyway!?"

"I simply want to, old man."

Hiro replied in a casual tone.

Although Drake wanted to ask for a further explanation why Hiro wanted to go there, but since he realized it was a personal matter, he didn't ask about it.

"How about the Rakhtor? Are you planning to take them to that bunker?"

"No, I plan to get rid of them on the way."

"How?"

"Still thinking about it."

"For f*ck sake."

Drake could only shake his head at Hiro's answer.

Seeing that Drake didn't ask anything else, Hiro decided to ask the thing he was curious about.

" So, what are you doing here, old man?"

Drake sighed, he then answered with a straight expression.

"Because of the money I made from our job last time, I've been staying at home for a while and my wife is sick of seeing me looking like an unemployed person. So, today she told me to go accompany my daughter to play in the park."

"And you didn't listen to her?"

"Yeah, and I regret it just a little while later. I should have gone with my daughter to the park instead."

Drake sighed once more and shook his head.

Seeing Drake's miserable expression, Hiro laughed.

"Haha.... You should listen to your wife."

Hiro stopped laughing when he saw the fork in front of him.

"Turn right again."

"Hey, I didn't say I was coming with you, you know?"

Even though Drake said so, he still followed Hiro.

However, just as they turned the corner, Hiro suddenly held Drake back.

"Wait, turn around, we're going left."

"What, why?"

Hiro didn't respond, he just turned around and started running in the opposite direction. Not wanting to be left alone, Drake also turned around and followed him.

Drake asked with a confused face.

"Why are we suddenly turning around, kid?"

"I saw a civilian hiding in the room beside the corridor we were about to pass through earlier."

"So?"

"So what? You want to bring a pack of angry lizards to a goddamn civilian? Have a heart, old man!"

Hearing Hiro's words, Drake quickly responded with an angry tone.

"Don't get me wrong, okay? I just don't understand how the Rakhtors who are focused on chasing us can get distracted with people they can't see!"

"Who knows?! They might be hungry and they could smell them, track them or whatever it is!!!"

"That's impossible! They already ate a lot of people earlier!!!"

"That's so f*cking dark, you goddamn heartless old man!!!"

"Why are we yelling at each other! We're so close!"

"I don't know! It was you who started it!!!"

"No, it was you!"

They continued to argue that stupid thing until a few seconds later, they both finally shut up.

Hiro turned around, he could see that the Rakhtor chasing him was still keeping the same speed as when they started chasing him.

It would be bad if this continued.

"So, kid. You got a plan?"

Drake's words cut through Hiro's thoughts.

"Nah, not yet."

"Well, I have one actually."

"Really?"

Hiro looked at Drake with a surprised face.

"Yeah, but you need to give me your grenade."

"What? Why do you think I'm not using this? It's because I might need it later."

"Do you want to get away from those Rakhtors or not?"

"Well, I want to but..."

Even so, Hiro still hesitated. After all, he didn't know the situation he would face later, so if possible, he didn't want to use his grenade unless he really needed to use it.

But it seemed like this time i really needed to use it, huh.

In any case, Hiro decided to give the grenade to Drake.

"Fine, here."

"Who said I only need one?"

"Fuuuuuck."

Grumbling, Hiro gave another one of his grenades to Drake.

"So, what's your-"

Before Hiro could finish his words, Drake instantly activated one of the grenades he was holding.

"Hey, what are you gonna-"

Again, before Hiro could ask, Drake stopped running and turned around before throwing the grenade at Rakhtor who was chasing them.

"Really, old man? That's your plan? It's not gonna kill them!"

Throwing grenades might stop the Rakhtor temporarily, but the explosive power of an ordinary grenade would not be enough to kill them.

"I know! Get inside that room."

Drake pointed at one of the doors to the room beside the corridor.

"Just do it, before those animals can see you."

Hearing Drake's words, Hiro had a vague thought of what he was trying to do.

Hiro immediately ran to the room Drake was pointing to, he went in there and held the door from the inside so it couldn't open.

After Hiro entered, Drake waited for the Rakhtor to recover, before he started running again.

And since the Rakhtor didn't see Hiro enter the room, plus their attention was distracted by Drake, all the Rakhtor started chasing after him.

Just before Drake turned the corner and disappeared down the corridor, he shouted "Make sure you pay me for this, kid!"

After feeling that the situation outside was safe, Hiro slowly made his way out of the room.

He then looked in the direction Drake disappeared.

Hiro couldn't believe that Drake would do something like that, the old man was much kinder and understanding than he thought.

I guess I owe him this time.

Hiro smiled a little while thinking about Drake who was now still running chased by Rakhtor.

He was not at all worried that Drake would be killed by the Rakhtor, after all, based on the memories from his past life, Drake had been through worse than this.

So he should be able to survive.

Hiro then continued his journey to the Safety Bunker carefully, this time, he hoped not to meet any Rakhtor or anything else.

********

"Alright, I guess these are the stairs to the bunker, right?"

After arriving at the bottom floor, Hiro followed the instructions Eagle had given him to find the secret door to the safety bunker.

Hiro was able to find the door easily, because it seemed that when the terrorists brought the emperor and other hostages here, they didn't close the door after passing through it.

The door was behind the cabinet where the cleaning supplies were stored, so it seemed to require a special method to open.

Seeing that the door was open, Hiro took out his gun, and slowly entered there.

All Hiro could see after he entered was a 20 meter high staircase, it led downwards, and at the end, he could see another fairly large door.

Maybe it was the entrance to the bunker.

Hiro carefully descended the stairs.

After he arrived in front of the door, Hiro saw that the surveillance camera in the corner of the door had been damaged, looks like the terrorists shot it when they came here.

Hiro then turned on his thermal vision to see what was behind the door.

Dammit, the door and walls are too thick. My thermal vision can't see through it.

Unfortunately, the door and walls were either too thick or made of a special material so he couldn't see anything behind it.

Hiro then checked whether the door was locked or not.

As he expected, it was locked. Eagle did say that this place might not be affected by the EMP blast, so the lock on the bunker entrance might still work.

Therefore, Eagle had given Hiro the security code for the bunker entrance.

He also said that the code was changed every day, and it was possible that the terrorists inside had also changed the code.

Hiro thought for a moment to decide what he should do.

Should he just go in? But that might be a bad idea, after all, he couldn't see what was behind this door.

Who knew what would be waiting for him behind this door, it could be that, right when he entered, he might be shot at immediately.

Should he wait for the terrorists to come out and ambush them?

That was also a bad idea, as he lost the element of surprise if he did that.

The terrorists must have been expecting a counterattack when they came out of the security bunker, or worst of all, there was a chance that they were waiting for their reinforcements to arrive before they came out of the bunker.

And they must have taken hostages as well.

After thinking about the solutions that Hiro could use, he decided to enter the bunker and confront the terrorists inside directly.

It was the best solution Hiro could think of, if he went in now, he would only face 5 terrorists and something called Jugernaut.

Hiro didn't know what the Jugernaut was, he would just consider it an additional problem.

Now is a good time to attack, I can't wait any longer, there is a possibility that they have reinforcements coming here.

Hiro had made up his mind, he entered the security code into the console beside the door.

After making sure the code was still working, Hiro took a deep breath and pressed the button to open the door.

Right after the door opened, Hiro immediately stepped inside while pointing his gun.

Hiro stopped immediately.

That's because what he saw when he entered was not the inside of a bunker, but what he saw was another corridor, and at the end of that corridor was a very large and solid door.

It was the actual entrance to the safety bunker.

However, what made Hiro stop was not seeing that door.

But because he saw something else right in front of that door.

"Oh, what the hell?"

It was a two and a half meter tall humanoid robot. Its head, body, arms, and legs were covered in thick red armor. The robot was also holding a minigun.

It was a Jugernaut.

The Jugernaut is a combat-class android that has very thick armor almost all over its body and uses heavy weapons such as machine guns.

In other words, they are like a tank walking on two legs.

"Enemy presence detected. Launching protocol 1. Kill. Immediately."

The jugernaut fixed its red eyes on Hiro and raised its minigun.

Seeing that, Hiro immediately ran to take cover in a small notch in the corridor.

A moment after that.

*Brrrttttttt...*

A hail of bullets instantly whizzed beside him.

"F*ck!"

So that was the Jugernaut, this thing was never mentioned in the novel!!!

The shots from the Jugernaut came closer and closer, causing Hiro to duck behind his cover.

"Hey! No full auto in a building!!! You f*cking android!!!"

The Jugernaut did not respond to Hiro's shout, it continued to move closer and closer slowly towards Hiro's cover.

Hiro uses his thermal vision to watch the Jugernaut's movements.

When he saw the Jugernaut slowly approaching him, Hiro activated his sticky grenade, he then peered quickly before throwing the grenade towards the Jugernaut's head.

"Aw..."

However, his throw missed, as one of the bullets from the Jugernaut's minigun managed to hit Hiro, making his grenade throw that he had intended to throw at the Jugernaut's head hit his minigun instead.

Hiro immediately returned to cover and checked his wound.

Fortunately, he was lucky because the minigun used by the Jugernaut was using laser bullets, Hiro's electromagnetic shield managed to block it, so the wound left by the shot was only a less fatal burn.

Damn, this is what it feels like to be hit by laser fire, it hurts quite a lot. Thankfully the shot doesn't cause my electromagnetic shield to break.

Although the shot made Hiro's electromagnetic shield touch 0% for the first time, but his electromagnetic shield was not broken and slowly recovered

*Boom*

Hearing the explosion, Hiro turned around and looked at the Jugernaut.

That's not my plan but..... i guess that will do.

While the explosion from Hiro's sticky grenade didn't do anything to the Jugernaut, it at least managed to blow up half of its minigun making it unusable.

Realizing that his weapon was no longer usable, the Jugernaut threw it away.

"Weapons appearantly broken, switching to melee mode."

Hiro came out of hiding.

"Well, looks like we need to do it in an old way, mate. Let's settle this fight with a fist."

Whether he heard Hiro's words or not, the Jugernaut pulls out a blade from his right arm, just like Hiro's expendable blade.

"Or a sword, whatever."

Hiro shakes his head before taking out his expendable blade.

The Jugernaut starts running towards Hiro slowly, and Hiro also runs towards the Jugernaut, at high speed thanks to the help of his thrusters.

When they were close enough to each other, Hiro slid himself to the ground.

The Jugernaut's slow movement allowed Hiro to slice through the Jugernaut's ankle as he slid underneath it, he was aiming for that part because the joints of the Jugernaut looked weaker than the rest of its body.

However, the slice did absolutely nothing.

Damn, I thought I could slice his ankle since it looks vulnerable.

Realizing Hiro had passed him, the Jugernaut turned around and swung his blade at Hiro who had just stood up.

Hiro ducked his head while spinning to avoid the slash and delivered a counter slash towards the Jugernaut's waist.

"Tsk."

Just like earlier, Hiro's slash also did no damage at all.

Looks like I really need to buy a phantom blade.

Seeing that the Jugernaut wanted to slash at him again, Hiro rolled to the left to avoid its slash.

At this moment, Hiro thought about using his one remaining sticky grenade. However, he was still a bit hesitant to use it.

While Hiro pauses to think, Jugernaut corrects his posture and lunges towards Hiro.

When they are close enough, Jugernaut jumps at Hiro while swinging his blade vertically at Hiro's head.

Hiro does not stay still, he rolls to the right to avoid the attack, then immediately counterattacks by swinging his blade at the Jugernaut's shoulder.

*Slash*

However, his slash didn't even scratch the Jugernaut's armor.

The Jugernaut also attacks Hiro, he tries to slash Hiro's left shoulder with his blade, but Hiro pulls out a hidden knife from his left calf and manages to block the attack in time.

Hiro changes his target.

He parries the Jugernaut's blade with his knife to the right, before firing his grappling hook at the Jugenaut's neck.

Because of their close proximity, the Jugernaut can neither withstand nor avoid Hiro's grappling hook shot.

And Hiro can't avoid the Jugernaut's kick either, right after Hiro fires his grapling hook, the Jugernaut also kicks at Hiro after Hiro parries his blade.

They attack simultaneously, Hiro's grappling hook shot hits the Jugernaut and the Jugernaut's kick hits Hiro's chest.

The kick from the Jugernaut throws Hiro off, but since Hiro's grapling hook is already hooked on the Jugernaut's neck, Hiro is not thrown far, he is only thrown 4 meters before bouncing back towards the Jugernaut with the help of the pull of his grapling hook and the thrust of his thrusters which are set to max output.

"Eat this, tin can!"

Jugernaut couldn't respond fast enough, when he was just about to attempt to cut Hiro's grapling hook, Hiro was already back at him while aiming his expendable blade towards his neck.

Jugernaut's blade shatters as his blade is in Hiro's attack lane, Hiro destroys it with a stab from his blade.

*Crash*

Hiro's stab doesn't stop there, his stab also pierces the Jugernaut's neck.

The armor on the Jugernaut's neck is not strong enough to withstand Hiro's momentum, Hiro's momentum allows his expendable blade to pierce the jugernaut's neck.

However, it is not enough to kill the Jugernaut, as they are very, very close. The Jugernaut grabs Hiro's neck and Hiro can't do anything to avoid it.

Hiro's right hand thrusts his expendable blade into the Jugernaut's neck, and the Jugernaut's left hand grabs Hiro's right hand, trying to pull it out.

Meanwhile, Jugernaut's right hand chokes Hiro while lifting him from the floor, and Hiro's left hand holds Jugernaut's right hand, while trying to remove Jugernaut's hand from his neck.

Their positions are locked.

However, Hiro is at a disadvantage.

Hiro did manage to pierce Jugernaut's neck, it did fatal damage, but it wasn't enough to kill him. Hiro tried to move his sword to cut the Jugernaut's neck, but the neck was too hard. Plus, the Jugernaut's hand also holding his hand.

If things continue like this, Hiro will be the one to lose. After all, the Jugernaut managed to strangle him, and Hiro would be out of breath if it continued like this.

If it wasn't for Hiro's pilot suit, the Jugernaut might have broken his neck.

Having no other choice, Hiro uses his last trick.

He removed his left hand and pointed it at the Jugernaut's neck.

Then, a small tube came out from beside his grappling hook and shot flames towards the Jugernaut's neck.

Unable to dodge, the Jugernaut received the flames directly.

The flames slowly spread throughout his iron body.

Why do I make it look even more terrifying?

The Jugernaut really looked even more terrifying now, its entire body suddenly seemingly made of fire.

Even so, Hiro did not stop shooting his flames. He continued to fire until his ammunition ran out.

Soon, the Jugernaut's grip on Hiro's neck weakens and slowly lowers Hiro to the floor.

Realizing that his flame thrower was working, Hiro threw the flames from his flame thrower even harder.

About 10 seconds later, Jugernaut's hands finally release Hiro's neck.

Hiro pulls out his expendable blade from the Jugernaut's neck before slowly backing away to get some distance from it.

Even though the Jugernaut looked dead, Hiro still fired his grappling hook at the Jugernaut's neck.

Because the flames had also burned Hiro's rope, Hiro had to fire his grappling hook again.

Once the grappling hook is hooked into the Jugernaut's neck, Hiro backs away far enough before pulling with all his might until finally, the Jugernaut's head comes off its body.

The Jugernaut's head rolls towards Hiro before stopping right under his feet.

Hiro stared at the Jugernaut's head that was right under his feet.

"I.... Can't be captured.... by the enemy...."

Hearing the Jugernaut's words, Hiro tilted his head in astonishment.

"Starting.... Self-destructing sequence."

"Oh, what the hell?"

Hiro turned his gaze towards the Jugernaut's body that was still standing without a head.

The Jugernaut's chest opened up and revealed a ball with a number in the center.

And that number showed that it had shown the number 1

.....0.... Adios...>_<

"Dank Ferr-"

*Boom*