The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 332 Boss Quan (13) - Escape Act Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-! The night sky where the evil spirit's dark resentment had not yet fully dissipated. A tremendous roar tore through that night sky. The rotor sounds of massive military helicopters reverberated, and simultaneously dozens of matte-finished armored vehicles slid into position as if surrounding the entire area. Flaaaash-! From the helicopters and armored vehicles, blinding searchlights dazzling enough to completely block all vision poured out in every direction at once. The people and anomalies who had been continuing their slaughter under the dark moonlight each squinted or hastily hid themselves in the shadows before that overwhelming blaze of light. The armored vehicle hatches opened, and rappelling ropes were lowered from the helicopters. And from there, a line of men revealed themselves. Jet-black state-of-the-art tactical suits. Every one of them had a massive physique, and their muscles were so thick they were visible even through the heavy suits. The sight of them spreading into formation and encircling the area without a single bit of small talk plainly revealed how thoroughly they had been trained and tempered by real combat experience. But for some reason, only their heads were left completely exposed without any covering, and their gleaming, smooth skulls reflected the searchlight beams while exuding a terrifying presence. The one who appeared to be the commanding officer among the management bureau agents stepped forward and shouted through a megaphone. 《Ah, ah. Microphone test. Microphone test. This is the management bureau Security Division. You are hereby placed under arrest on charges of unauthorized abuse of supernatural abilities and sorcery, illegal kidnapping and confinement of civilians, and nationwide disturbance. All personnel inside and outside the building are to immediately disarm from this moment forward, raise both hands above your heads, and prostrate yourselves where you stand. Repeat. All personnel disarm and surrender.》 The mechanical announcement paused once, and after a short crackling sound, the added words became a little more businesslike and firm. 《If you fail to comply with this advisory, attempt to flee, or resist, immediate forcible suppression will commence. This is the first and last time a surrender advisory will be issued. Over.》 A chilling silence enveloped the scene. Those who had been in the midst of battle glanced at each other for a moment, but those who had already tasted blood and were excited were not inclined to submit easily. "What is it, it's the management bureau bastards? Usually you just do paperwork no matter what we do amongst ourselves, and now you've come chasing after the scent of fragments to rack up achievements?" "You crazy bastards, you know who we are and you're playing cop! If the elders of our family find out, know that your heads will be the first to fly!" They were not simply putting on reckless bravado. 'The management bureau is basically half civil servants anyway. Those guys have enough to do — they won't want to blow this incident up unnecessarily.' 'If it were just our organization alone, maybe, but there are plenty of other factions here. If it comes to it, we can use them as shields and escape.' 'The fragment retrieval work inside is in full swing, so all we need to do is buy time!!' Their calculations varied, but the underlying mindset was one and the same. Contempt toward the management bureau. After all, they were an organization that normally expended its energy on irrelevant things like civilian protection and public safety and rarely showed up at actual scenes, so everyone had only heard they were fearsome, and almost no one had actually witnessed their capabilities firsthand. And the management bureau did not warn them twice, just as they had said. Click-! Dozens of gun muzzles simultaneously aimed forward. And without a moment's hesitation, they opened fire. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!! The first to fall, spraying blood, were the Werewolves who had been enjoying the slaughter on the frontlines. Silver coating, holy water baptism, sorcery engraving. The specialized bullets incorporating all of the management bureau's accumulated know-how poured out firepower at hundreds of rounds per minute, grinding their fur and muscles apart, and whenever signs of regeneration appeared, even those signs were dissolved into a fistful of blood. Warriors deflecting bullets with some kind of 'sword aura'? Then even more bullets and grenades crushed them. Exorcists erecting earth walls? Then bazookas shattered the walls themselves. Firepower. Only firepower. Overwhelming and intense firepower! "Th-they actually shot!! Are you even human after doing that!!" "Hey, you bastards!! How can you do something so atrocious and lawless!!" Those who had secretly looked down on the management bureau, and those who survived the first attack without dying, were horrified. Isn't the management bureau essentially civil servants and righteous heroes? Then shouldn't they respect even criminals' human rights and subdue them with rubber bullets, give them some spiel about appointing a lawyer and whatnot, and carefully try to resolve things through words out of consideration for any potential hostages? How can they just open fire with a summary execution the moment someone pushes back in the negotiation? As if answering their protests, the grand supreme bald one with an especially gleaming scalp — no, rather the commanding officer of the management bureau unit — stepped forward and spoke. 《As the Anomaly Slayer once said.》 《"If a person does not act like a person, they are not a person. Therefore, there is no need to treat them as one."》 《Where do those who have gone so far as to kidnap, confine, and perform human experiments on civilians just to get their hands on some fragment scraps get off crying about human rights. What a load of nonsense.》 At that merciless pronouncement, those who had managed to hide in the building's blind spots to avoid the gunfire swallowed their groans. As long as the invincible shield of 'human rights' that criminals could wield against public institutions wasn't working, they too had to find another way. "The management bureau's primary means are firearms!! Respond with spiritual attacks, not physical attacks!!" No matter how much this particular industry had converged and evolved toward firepower supremacy instead of complex, conceptual abilities, that didn't mean spiritual sorcery and attack methods had completely dried up. No, in fact, compared to anomalies whose upper limits were clearly defined due to the laws the Anomaly Slayer had carved into the world, human sorcery had a higher ceiling in this regard. Realizing there was absolutely no answer to a direct confrontation, the criminals pulled out their trump cards hidden on their persons and attacked the management bureau agents with spiritual assaults. A barrage of curses inducing chills, hemorrhaging, dizziness, vomiting, and all manner of other negative phenomena pierced through the heavy defensive suits and struck the unit members. And the management bureau agents continued shooting criminals dead as if nothing had happened. "Gaaaargh!!" "Wh-what? Why isn't it working? Did the curse fail?" "No!! Th-those guys! They just tanked it with their bodies!!" "It was real!! The rumor that spiritual attacks don't work at all on the management bureau's bald guys wasn't nonsense or a joke — it was real!!" (E/N: WAIT! I just realized...Oh damn, the reference! BALD POWER!) Statistically, people with weak spiritual energy are more susceptible to anomalies than those with strong spiritual energy. Statistically, sickly people are more susceptible to anomalies than healthy people. And so the founding leadership of the management bureau thought. Then if we feed guys with insanely strong yang energy lots of good food and have them exercise, wouldn't even anomalies be unable to touch them? And if we put powerful firearms in their hands on top of that, wouldn't we have a special forces unit that can handle both physical and special attacks? Of course, in reality that alone was not enough. Because even a person with strong yang energy couldn't completely block anomaly curses just by exercising. But it was true that their resistance was far stronger than others. The shortfall could sufficiently be covered with protective gear including talismans. The clash between the research department's two major factions — one arguing they should wear bulletproof helmets for physical protection and the other arguing they should expose their bald heads to strengthen spiritual symbolism — reached harmony through the development of a special technique that secured bulletproof-level protection even with heads exposed, and the fruits of that effort were being demonstrated without reservation on the current battlefield. While the criminals were being swept away like autumn leaves before the onslaught of the technical baldies who reflected headlight beams off their skulls and dominated the battlefield with overwhelming firepower. In an alleyway quite far from there, Quan and Qiana were staging their own desperate escape act. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat! "Ow! Ow! I got hit in the bone!!" "The fact that you can react like that after being shot by a bullet shows you have the makings of an excellent comedic character. Be thankful to your parents for giving you such a sturdy body." "I don't owe my parents even a speck of thanks!! You didn't tell me to sit in the back knowing this would happen, did you!?" "Even if you take a few bullets to the body, all you have to do is pull them out later and that's the end of it. I'm frail, so I can't do that." "Want me to kill you right here and now!?" Quan sped up the bike instead of answering, and Qiana had no choice but to grip Quan's waist tightly while grinding her teeth. Unlike the other factions that were dawdling against the management bureau and getting encircled and annihilated, the two who had started fleeing early were able to escape the encirclement. The problem was that even so, they hadn't fully shaken off the management bureau agents. At the line of baldies who refused to stop chasing and kept firing even as they raced along on the bike Quan had procured from somewhere, Qiana ground her teeth. "Are we just going to keep running like this!? Can't we just kill them!?" "Don't. Right now it's only some of their personnel casually giving chase, but if we take down even one of them, we'll become the top priority target. More than that, if we stop the bike we'll get caught right then. They've got helicopters. Whoops." Quan let out a light exclamation and took an almost 90-degree sharp turn. For a moment it was such a strained maneuver that the wheels touched the wall rather than the ground, but thanks to that, the machine gun's burst fire that had swept downward pierced the ground rather than the two of them. Quan spoke to Qiana. "You can manage with one arm, right? Search for navigation on your phone." "Why. Don't tell me in this situation you want directions to the office or something?" "Does what's on my shoulders look like decoration to you? If we'd shaken them off at the very start, that'd be one thing, but once we're tagged, we can't escape like this. Even if we bolt somewhere a helicopter can't follow, like an alley or an underpass, they'll absolutely come after us. In their minds, we're the most likely candidates as fragment holders." So, in a situation like this, they needed to borrow the power of an anomaly. "Search for Phantom Lake." Qiana frowned but did as she was told, and a moment later the navigation began its guidance. [─Ro-route gu-gu-guidance wi-will be-be-gin. Pro-pro-proceed 44, 44 meters str-straight a-ahead-ahead.] "What's this. It doesn't seem to be in good shape?" "All anomalies of the spatial or law-type are in a weakened state. Still, this one has quite a long history, so it should be usable at least once." As if to prove his own words, Quan charged forward on the bike without hesitation despite the dead end ahead. The moment the bike collided with the wall made of red bricks. Instead of the impact that should have been felt, the sensation of forcibly pushing through damp undergrowth washed over Quan and Qiana. What newly appeared before them was still an alleyway. But Qiana, who turned to look behind them, could tell. The helicopter that had been tracking the two of them from right nearby just moments ago had, without her noticing, fallen so far back it appeared tiny in the distance. The management bureau seemed to sense something suspicious as well and tried to resume pursuit, but the navigation was faster. [─At the ne-ne-next alley, tu-tu-tu-turn le-le-left-left-left.] Squelch. The sensation of pushing through mud. [─At the ne-ne-next alley, tu-tu-tu-turn ri-ri-ri-right-right-right.] Whoooosh. The sensation of pushing through a spray of water. Every time they moved following the instructions, the surrounding scenery changed in rapid succession and the humid, damp atmosphere grew increasingly stronger. Qiana felt irritated by the strange sensation of her body feeling wet, but let out a relieved sigh at the fact that she could no longer sense the management bureau's presence. "Anyway, it seems resolved. I think this anomaly would be useful to use for escapes in the future?" "Oh dear, you shouldn't have said that." "What?" There was no need for further explanation to understand what Quan's words had meant. [The ne-e-e-e-ext is ─Go die-ie-ie-ie-ie!!!] Right after a scream like a GM trying to deliver iron-fisted judgment upon a player who exploits bugs as casually as eating a meal, a sudden sensation of weightlessness washed over Qiana. Below, a massive lake. ...And something like a massive power line connected to that lake. Surely not, Qiana thought. This doesn't make sense by any reasonable standard. Sure, having something like a thick power line submerged in water would be dangerous in various ways, but turning everyone who falls in into electrocuted char with electricity flowing 24 hours a day was scientifically a stretch. The power plant's shutdown system would have activated long ago, or the relevant parties would have stepped in and done something. In other words, that power line merely looked plausible, but the actual likelihood of it being dangerous was extremely low. The problem was that the world of anomalies was not a place that operated purely by scientific principles. Violating the laws of physics — like a phone with a dead battery turning on by itself and ringing an ominous ringtone — is just basic competency for an anomaly, isn't it? 'If I fall in, I die...!!' Even though Qiana had now absorbed quite a few fragments and could brush off ordinary bullets with little more than an 'ow,' an attack via electrocution was a different matter entirely. Above all, that would deal damage to her entire body while also inflicting paralysis, so once she fell in, she wouldn't be able to transform properly. The moment Qiana froze in fear, a sturdy arm wrapped around her body. Quan, who was incapable of walking on air, used the motorcycle as a foothold and leaped with all his strength, displaying a jumping distance that far surpassed ordinary humans, and just barely set foot on the edge of the lake. Qiana, who was being held by Quan in a Princess carry, momentarily froze in a daze, blinking her eyes. Whether it had come off due to the rough movement, his bare face — exposed without either a mask or sunglasses — came into Qiana's field of vision. "Ha, those anomaly bastards. They really do evolve well in the direction of making people's lives difficult. Anyway, good work." "……." "Aren't you getting down?" "Yeah, uh, right." Qiana, feeling embarrassed for no reason, hurriedly set her feet on the ground. And quickly swapped her face first. It seemed her bare face was absolutely not something she could show right now.