20 Goblins Appear

Author: Bishamon Mine
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n0664js/23/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

I thank the worried comments and look beside me, and Alice has her robot kneel and is coming down on something like a rope.
Apparently the rope is a grappling wire. An item you can stick all over and fly like 3D○vement.
Alice doing light action in a tight red pilot suit is really cool——but Alice’s color is a little bad. Because of her fear of heights maybe……

FateLege robots, since they also transform from fighters, are pretty tall.
Even Swallow-san, said to be the smallest, is 13 meters as a robot.
Alice’s frame is on the small side too, but it’s 16 meters.

Well Shogun is crouching and she’s coming down from around the navel, so from cockpit to ground is about 6 meters high.

“Alice, your color’s bad; were you scared of the height?”
“That’s part of it…… that frame has the cockpit at the waist, near the legs, so the vibration when walking is intense. Well if the cockpit is high I get scared and can’t ride.”
“I-I see……”

Incidentally Swallow-san’s cockpit in plane form is in about the same position as an Earth fighter.
In humanoid form it comes to the back.
Why is, in plane form dogfights mean you get attacked from behind a lot so the cockpit is placed forward.
In humanoid form you fight face-to-face so you get attacked from the front a lot, so behind.
——In other words a kind design that always protects the pilot.
So Swallow-san’s humanoid-form cockpit is in a pretty high position.
And the one-room, in plane form is around the fighter center, in humanoid form around the torso.
I walk beside her a while, worried about pale Alice.
Then Alice suddenly takes out her phone and operates something.

“Alice, you mess with your phone a lot during streams; what are you doing?”
“Something Suu-san doesn’t need to worry about.”
“Un———?”

When I turn my gaze back to the hotel and walk leaving footprints on the sand, a ridiculously colorful crab put its face out of the beach.

The nape of my neck went cold. A feeling like looking down from a high cliff.
I pull Alice in at once and drop us onto the sand.

Something like a bullet punches over Alice, whose eyes are round and cheeks bright red.
I hold Alice and roll across the beach.

Pis, pis, pis, sand kicks up.
Gunfire!
The direction they’re shooting from, from atop the big western cliff?

“Run, Alice!”
“What is this, this isn’t that kind of quest!!”

We hide in the shadow of flight-form Swallow-san’s tires.
Glad I bought the pistol. I take out New Game and hold it up in front of my right shoulder.

“Ill-san, put enemy info in my vision.”

Ill-san’s voice comes from a spherical drone with butterfly wings.

“Understood, My Master.”
“Me too, please, Shogun.”
“Aye, understood, Hime.”

A deep voice from Alice’s chonmage spherical drone.
The enemy name displayed on my retina,

“Goblin Sniper? What’s that.”
“Goblins are monsters MoB made. That would be their sniper. Goblins themselves are a race that pirates against Galactic Union humans. Tremendous fertility; they’ve spread to various planets. They often come out even outside MoB territory, and the Union frequently issues suppression quests.”
“Ehh creepy.”

Bug-like. I imagine something unpleasant.

I rapid-fire New Game at the Goblin Sniper like spraying insecticide.

“This gun is amazing. Even though it’s a powder gun there’s barely any recoil.”

Apparently it has a thing called a recoil damper.
Just, low recoil is good, but sniper rifle versus pistol the range difference is too big and it doesn’t reach at all.

Our weapons apparently have more power than Earth powder too and are flying past 250 meters.——But they don’t reach over there.
The distance to the enemy is over 500 meters.

Incidentally as a pistol Earth’s strongest Desert Eagle has a range of 100 meters and can dislocate your shoulder, they say——well I don’t know if that’s true. But if this gun didn’t have a damper, I think my shoulder would have come off as easily as ice cream from a cone. That much power.
Alice next to me asks. Her face is covered in sand——mine too probably.

“Suu-san, what do we do…… incidentally I’m bad at guns.”

What do I do, ride Swallow-san and fight?

But I’ll probably get shot while climbing the gangway.

All right.
I shoot the gun at the sky.
Because I played both 3D and 2D shooters, I’m good at imaging 3D as 2D and 2D as 3D. So I’m good at grasping distance. I raised spatial-awareness stats too.

“This, like this——”

While recognizing with spatial awareness, one more shot.

“——Like this.”

In the distance, a green goblin went down.

“———Fua!?”

Alice’s mouth hung open.

“Obtained 100 Galactic credits and 50 merit points.”

I got a reward somehow. Because I defeated a MoB?
Comments roar with laughter.

❝Wait lmaoooo❞
❝That distance, curved-shot direct hit in only two rounds lmao❞
❝This person is no good, too broken-cheat lmao❞
❝Suu-tan’s shade-type got chronic and it’s too late lmao who left her until she got like this lmao❞

Alice, eyes hanging open instead of her mouth, mutters “the fact this person was holed up in the training simulator is scary.”

For now I look around.

“Are there no more enemies?”
“Goblins act in groups so I can’t think it’s only one.”
“For now let’s ride Versus Frames to the hotel. First I’ll ride Swallow-san that’s nearby and take Alice to Shogun.”
“Please.”

Ah, right——I forgot to turn on the Voltage Transer armor switch.
I press the choker-type switch.
Then the pilot suit bursts off (eh, the clothes-tear-during-henshin type!?)
and I’d become a spiked black outfit like an evil woman executive.

“———Hah? ……What’s with this design.”

I spread both arms and check my outfit.
Spikes that would make the end of the century pale are equipped on various joints.

“———Are you insane!!”

❝Bwahahahaha!❞
❝Lmao lmao lmao lmao lmao lmao❞
❝I’ve been waiting for this lmao❞

Alice holds her stomach and laughs hard too.

“Ahhaha! Voltage Transer is a henshin type too, kubho——!”
“That’s fine but the henshin is the evil side!? Did everyone know!?”

“Because it’s Black, ahahahahaha.”
❝Black, sushi for you❞
❝It’s Black after all lmao❞

“All of you, apologize to Lord Black Condor!!”

I clinch Alice and poke her stomach with the knee spikes.

“Suu-san, ouch ouch———ahhaha.”

I leave Alice, who apparently can’t stop laughing, and “pun-suko” while leaving the stream camera behind her, and climb the gangway.
Climbing, I see a green creature kicking and rolling a Goblin Sniper.
See, it isn’t only one.
While thinking that, the beach is swept with fire and bullets come toward me.
Whoa, there are even assault-rifle guys.

I hurry inside. I sit in the cockpit seat at once and move the plane while checking Alice on the stream.
When I get near Shogun, Alice heads for the cockpit on grappling wire.
While confirming Alice’s safety, a comm comes.

“Ah, the pilot suit looking like it blew off is presentation; you’re actually still wearing it. If you long-press the switch on the side of the neck the look goes back. The spikes and such are just an energy field, so the color goes transparent. Whichever you like.”
“As a girl I hate an outfit with spikes this huge so I’m putting it back……”

It makes me want to go “hya-haa.”
I long-press the switch.
Back to the original pilot-suit look——this one’s pretty bad too though.

Anyway in a somewhat better outfit I stand up flight-form Swallow-san’s rear rockets as legs.
Then I sit the plane up and transform to robot form.
Start VR control.
Goblins, if only you hadn’t come out——.

“Yoooouuu did it nowww!”

I say it on Swallow-san’s loudspeaker and run toward the goblins.
Then about ten goblins scatter like baby spiders.
They look like bipedal ants. So the look is bug-ish too.——Ah, but they also have big pointed ears.
Like big triangle ears stuck on the sides of an ant face. They do look like goblins.
Pretty alien, a petit-horror look——rather good; if they’d been human-identical it would have been pretty hard to fight.
How much intelligence do they have.
On the VR info it displays 〈Goblin Rifleman〉, 〈Goblin Medic〉, 〈Goblin Engineer〉 and such.
Even so running in Swallow-san it’ll take about 20 seconds to reach them.
——Maybe I’ll fly a bit. I blast the foot and wing (back) rockets and float a little and fly.

From a raised viewpoint kicking up sand I look at the goblins, and behind them a spaceship shaped like a crushed caterpillar.

I take one of the 〈Multipurpose Vulcans〉 embedded in Swallow-san’s wings and spray the beach.
Then the goblins flee into the spaceship.

When I aim the gun at the spaceship, the goblin spaceship becomes like a four-legged animal.
A dog? ——No, a hyena maybe?

The hyena-ship starts running, deploys a shield. Then it jumps up and comes this way.
Swallow-san’s AP rounds won’t make it in time to break the shield.

“It’ll be close combat!?”

I’m not that good at close combat.

I throw away the 〈Multipurpose Vulcan〉, take the wings now equipped on Swallow-san’s back, and make them a sword. Not 〈Excitation Wings〉 but 〈Excitation Sword〉.
When Swallow-san grips the wings turned into a 6-meter giant sword, the blade goes blue in a blink.

I catch the fangs of the hyena-ship’s mouth.
Ah, no good, Swallow-san loses on power.

“What do I do, special-ize with 〖Legend〗? Then I can’t use it for a whole day……”
“That one seems to be my opponent. Leave it to me!”

Alice rockets in from behind.
For sure, close combat Alice who does kendo seems better at.

“Alice! Thank you.”

I kick the hyena-ship away.
I hear Alice commanding Shogun.

“Shogun, 〈Excitation Katana〉!”
“Understood in full, 〈Excitation Katana〉 deploy!”

Shogun draws a jet-black katana from its back and takes stance, and the blade begins to shine blue.
Blade held above the forehead, from a splendid jodan,

“Meeeeeeeeen!!”

While evading the approaching hyena fangs downward, she splits the enemy that came directly above in two.
Behind Shogun the hyena-ship explodes.

❝Ohh…… splendid❞
❝Alice-tan looks like she does kendo❞

At Alice’s “men,” some comments noticed kendo.

“Obtained 10,000 Galactic credits and 5,000 merit points.”

I got a reward again.
I comm Alice.

“Alice, as expected, that was splendid. Thank you! And after this I think it’ll probably be indoor combat, so buy a gun called Housekeeper.”
“Yes!”

When we order products the packages arrive at once.
Just, I also bought a grappling wire with it. Watching Alice use it I thought it was really convenient.
I’m a little worried my merit points went down to a bit over 450,000 though.

Even so this only delivers inside a Versus Frame, but even so if you have credits and merit points and Swallow-san is nearby, you never run out of supplies wherever you are……?
When I open the box a viewer notices at once.

❝I see, a P90❞

“Yes this gun called Housekeeper looks just like a short full-auto gun called a P90. Short guns show their strength in indoor combat. This gun has the magazine and mechanism in the rear, so compared to guns with magazine and mechanism in front you can make the barrel longer. A long barrel makes rounds fly straighter and the bullets get acceleration. And FateLege’s Housekeeper can extend the barrel with just an attach, and if you put that on you can do long range too. Just, these guns pack the mechanism into the stock so it’s hard to adjust stock length to the user’s body——that’s roughly why bullpups don’t catch on on Earth. But this Housekeeper miniaturizes the mechanism so you can extend the stock from a short barrel. Attentive to every——”

While I’m chattering pleasantly I notice the comments’ tsukkomi.

❝As expected of a gun maniac, fast judgment❞
❝And talking is fast too❞

I go “crap!” and put the brakes on my mouth.

Right, this isn’t the time to chatter.

Alice and I walk the frames up to the hotel front entrance.

I get down from humanoid Swallow-san on the grappling wire I just bought.
Then holding the Housekeeper like I’m hugging it, Alice and I stand on both sides of the automatic door that’s the hotel entrance.
The automatic door glass is smashed to powder. There was definitely combat.

Then a window displays in front of my eyes.

“Happening Event. Start Reclaim “Tomorrow’s Peace!”?
⇨Yes
No”

⇨Yes.

I crouch at the entrance corner, put my face out a little, and check inside.

“As I thought, there seem to be some inside too.”
“Yes——let’s go carefully.”

❝It’s getting like SF dungeon crawling❞
❝For real be careful you two…… it’s bare flesh without robots, so transfer would definitely be after you die. I don’t want to see a scene of you two spraying blood❞
❝Or rather with goblins ‘that’ is bad, right❞
❝Ah ‘that’…… yeah. Especially you two women, be careful?❞

What’s “that”?
Even so I see, the risk of fighting bare is incomparable to the danger of fighting in a Versus Frame……
Dying is scary but I’ve never even taken an attack.——How much does it hurt.
Suddenly I understood the feeling of a girl who extreme-spec’d defense.
Ahh, I want to hole up in the training simulator.
But having seen this hotel’s pinch, I can’t go back anymore.