“Whoopsie-daisy.”
Shinichi jumped once and safely landed without getting caught up in the web of purple electricity.
Meanwhile, everyone else other than the caster herself were on the ground foaming in their mouth, unconscious.
Stun Burst was one of the many skills in Garesto that could neutralize the target without killing.
It was a skill in which electricity ran on the ground to attack the nerves of a person and knock them unconscious
Normally, a light jump would not be enough to escape its effective range, but as one would expect, a jump to the ceiling that is more than 5 meters high would indeed be out of range.
However, that’s still not considered a weakness of the skill since it’s usually too late to jump after noticing the electricity.
“Wow, what skill was that just now!?” Kouta said.
But of course, to Kouta, the brilliance of the purple electricity that covered the whole area for an instant was much more interesting than the jump.
Kouta looked at Tomoe with admiration and excitement. As it turns out, normal children saw skills as no different from magic.
“Y-Yeah, that’s right,” Tomoe said.
Kouta’s dazzling eyes made her blush, but she nodded nonetheless.
“Amazing, amazing,” he praised, and Tomoe could only wryly smile.
Most skills could be used with some practice as long as one had enough rank in the Mind stat.
Of course, the application and the delay until invocation depended on the skills of the caster, but Kouta was praising the phenomenon itself, so Tomoe found it hard to accept.
Tomoe wasn’t sure whether to tell him that or just leave him be to get excited on his own, but she didn’t have much time to spend on that either.
“Hmm?”
“Huh? What───You’re kidding, right！？」
Shinichi was the first to notice, then Tomoe a little later.
They were almost right at the center of the warehouse, but they picked up on a sound and noticed that something was moving.
It was the sort of low frequency sound that one could find from a machine.
Tomoe knew full well what it was.
“Hey! Now what!?”
After all, they had concealed themselves when they broke into the warehouse, so she was able to get a good look at the things this place contained.
As a result she screamed, and Shinichi sighed.
“Looks like we held back too much. The normal people here are so fragile, it’s hard to hold back.”
“Is this really the time to be analyzing things calmly!?”
He was right, but he was speaking so calmly, it sounded as though he were unrelated.
Tomoe yelled at him, not just because of their new enemies, but also because of the people around them still unconscious. In response, Shinichi apologized and snapped his fingers.
In the next moment.
“You’ve done it now, you brats!!”
“H-How dare you do this to my little Jimmy!!”
“Eek, uwaah!?”
Those emerged from the back, blowing away the boxes of merchandise and shelves of equipment.
Shinichi looked up at them while calming Kouta, who cowered because of the enemy’s vindictive rage.
The silhouettes under the electric light were huge. They were human-shaped and were about two times as tall as an adult man and about three times as wide as an adult man’s shoulder width.
Those hulking humanoid steel stood right in front of them.
In the almost uncovered cockpit by the torso of the two machines were two men furiously glaring at them.
They were none other than the one Shinichi had sent flying and the one Tomoe had kicked in the groin.
“How dare you look down on us! I’ll kill you!”
“Girl, you better not think you’re getting away from this easily!!”
“…I’d appreciate it if you could tell me the logic behind that finger snapping of yours,” Tomoe said.
“When this is over, sure… There’s not much meaning to it, though,” Shinichi said.
Tomoe sighed as she sensed the presence around them disappearing, while Shinichi spoke with conviction, but regardless, they were the same.
Neither was willing to lend an ear to the angry mutterings of these two men.
“O-Onii-chan? Onee-chan?”
The men’s bloodshot eyes and threatening voice scared Kouta, but Shinichi and Tomoe remained calm, which puzzled him.
They smiled at him to reassure him, then they jumped out of the way with him.
In the next moment, a steel arm as big as a human’s torso smashed into the floor they were standing at just awhile ago, causing the whole room to shake.
“I thought it was an imitation of a guard robot, but it looks like it’s closer to an exoskeleton.”
Shinichi said, unsurprised, as he landed softly.
After all, they seemed less like they were riding that thing and more like they were wearing it, what with their limbs inserted into the limbs of the machine.
“Die!!”
The enemy recklessly swung their arms in an attempt to catch Tomoe and Shinichi.
They sent everything in their path flying as they approached, b ut…
“Wa, wa wa!!” Kouta said.
“So what exactly is that thing?” Shinichi asked.
“…O-Onii-chan, you’re amazing!” Kouta said.
As they easily dodged its attacks without panic, Shinichi asked Tomoe that question.
Kouta was scared at first, but when he realized that they weren’t even getting scratched, he started looking at Shinichi with admiration. Before long, he start yelling as though he were riding a machine.
She wryly smiled at that, then glanced at Shinichi in dismay because of how ignorant he was in the strangest places. Regardless, she was quick to answer.
“It’s the new heavy equipment that went on market last year! It’s a unit that designed as much as possible with the design principles behind exoskeletons, tuned for civil engineering! It loses out to actual exoskeletons, but it’s a powerful weapon against any unarmored human!”
“Oh, I see. They made use of its size. It’s big, but it still takes up less space than conventional ones while being easier to move.”
Exoskeletons were often described to Earthlings as humanoid flying tanks, of course, with the presumption that they would be human-sized.
Even if that were to be downgraded to a humanoid heavy machinery, it’s still threat enough to unarmored humans.
That’s why Tomoe was nervous about the oppressive aura of the humanoid heavy machineries giant body even as she dodged all the flying objects.
Shinichi, however, just calmly observed them.
It was smaller compared to your typical excavator or bulldozer, and because it was human-shaped, it was also narrower when standing upright.
When lined up in a row, it was possible to have 2 to 3 of them in a single parking space.
It was also a lot easier to use since people could just wear it and use it like an extension of their limbs.
The limbs also had joint-like parts that could be replaced with different attachments depending on the work and location, making them more versatile and economical.
From the size and depth of the depressions they left on the floor, and the way they crushed objects or sent them flying, these Humanoid Heavy Machineries indeed possessed power befitting a heavy machinery.
Any unarmored human that took on a direct hit from it would surely turn into pieces of meat.
But of course…
“Its weak point is so obvious.”
Against the students of the academy, such equipment were simply too shabby.
For these students who regularly fought against Guard Robots and Exoskeletons in their classes, unless they let their guard down, these Humanoid Heavy Machinery were simply too weak.
But that was a given considering their intended use.
“Don’t rate a heavy machinery according to the standards of a weapon! These weren’t even supposed to be able to attack people in the first place! These guys clearly messed with the software!”
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