"Finally! Finally, it's time to let loose! Hahaha!!"
A bunch of dangerous-looking men came into view. They walked through the chaotic street while trotting around big firearms. Their appearance was so alarming that the panicked people instantly tried to run away once they sighted them.
"Can't have you all taking off from us just like that, Ja? C'mon, c'mon. We've been waiting a long time for this."
"Hey, you. You got quite a nice girlfriend there. I'm taking you both with me. Hehehe, of course, I also wanna borrow her sometimes later too. Alone, that is. Gehehe!!"
One of them caught a fleeing man and woman who were presumably a couple. He threatened the despairing man with his shotgun.
"N-N-No… Don't touch her!! Leave her alone!" he tried his best to resist.
"Hah…? Shouldn't you know the procedure by now? Be a good boy and you'll get through this nice and easy. It's a pretty chill job, you know? You'll gonna be enjoying it soon enough, maybe. Here, an example!!"
"Guuh!! ...I won't… let you… E-Eri… ka…" he wailed in pain after his captor used the butt of his shotgun to strike his stomach.
"No!! Stop! Don't hurt him!" the woman pleaded.
'…Advance party? Have they already infiltrated the city before the raid?'
Maybe calling it 'infiltration' was giving them too much credit. Milanor had a nagging suspicion that these pirates just casually dropped off into the city looking like that and no one had bothered to investigate them.
They didn't wear uniforms or any sort of matching getup signifying affiliation, but the rough patch-strewn armor they all had gave them this recognizable sinister aura.
Furthermore, each one of their alarming faces would look right at home in wanted photographs that interstellar police liked to share with freelancers from time to time.
"What do we do?" Naya whispered, her hand tightly gripping the hem of Milanor's coat. She might try to act calm but he could see the unease in her expression.
"Can't do anything much… we should slowly back away and avoid detection…"
Those pirates were doing their thing in the middle of an intersection not far away from them. Fortunately, the fallen sign provided more than enough cover. Milanor was glad his quick-thinking ability hadn't rusted.
He could guess what their objectives were, this advance party. They were to kidnap people to be added to their manpower.
This pirate band was based on the edge of human civilization, hiding in the unknown of the Outer Wilderness. They probably couldn't manage a self-sustaining workforce with their violent lifestyle, so doing this every few years was a great way of solving that problem.
It was similar to how slavers operate. The difference was they wouldn't sell the victims for profit, but to keep them for their own benefit.
They couldn't leave this job to the raiders in the ships because the possibility of evacuation would make it harder to nab people.
That was why they had to bother with an advance party, so they could do it right after the attack—that is, the moment the victims were the most vulnerable because of the confusion.
"Tch…" Milanor clicked my tongue. If only this city had a proper police force, a tactic like this wouldn't even be considered.
"Mmmhh! Mmmhh!!" Wilfred kept struggling to say something with his covered mouth.
"Seriously, calm down for a moment. You need to promise me you'll be quiet or I won't let go of my hand, you got me?" he pressured him.
After a brief pause, the mechanic shook his head up and down. It seemed that he at least understood the situation.
"Gah…!" he gasped once Milanor let go. "M-Milestone… listen to me. I need to go back to my home right now…!" Even though he kept his voice low, the sense of urgency in his tone was still clear for all to hear.
"Can't you see how dangerous moving around in the open is right now? They must not be the only kidnappers roaming the city." The captain indicated to the pirates with a light jerk of his head.
"That's why…! That's the reason I need to move now! I have to make sure my wife is safe! I need to protect her!"
'Eh…? Wife?'
"D-Dude…" Milanor grasped his shoulders. "You're married!?" He couldn't hide the shock from his face.
He didn't expect this development at all! 'I thought you were a cool, young bachelor like me!'
"S-She and I live in the western district… That's the area most of them are heading to, right? You understand how much I need to go now, right!?"
"Y-Yeah… I get your feeling, buddy, but still—" A pained yell interrupted their whispered conversation.
"Gbhuuh! D-Damn you! Bastard! Hey, hold him down!"
"Erika, run away! Don't mind me, just run!"
As Milanor peeked at them again, he saw that the boyfriend had headbutted the pirate that was about to put a magnetic handcuff on the girlfriend.
Perhaps he was desperate because he felt that her fate would be sealed the moment her hands were cuffed.
"No, Brother! I can't just—kyaaa!!?" she tried to stand up but was restrained again by another pirate.
'Huh? They're siblings, not a couple…?'
'…Hmm, doesn't matter either way.'
"You've done it now, you bastard. I was about to throw up my lunch there." The pirate that got headbutted was rubbing his stomach with a furious expression on his face.
"Haahh…!!" the brother yelled and broke free from the grip of the other pirates.
He shoved aside the headbutted guy and tackled the one who held his sister and pushed him to the ground. "I told you, just leave me! This is your only chance!" he shouted.
"Y-You… I had enough of you!" The headbutted guy seemed to snap. He pulled the shotgun strapped to his back and pointed it at him.
"H-Hey, idiot! I'm in your range too!" the tackled guy protested.
It didn't seem to reach the furious one, though. Maybe the anger had clouded his reasoning.
"Brother, no!!"
"You'll pay for this!"
"Oh no you don't!"
That last shout was from Milanor, jumping from behind the sign and pulling out his Noctilucent.
"Milanor!?" He could hear Naya's bewildered voice as he forcefully released her grip on his coat.
With experienced movement, it only took him a few milliseconds to line up the pistol and fire.
'Medium setting. Lethality… maybe 70 percent.'
The captain didn't need to show any mercy to a trash of the galaxy like them. 'Screw stun mode.'
The Noctilucent, like many other of his gears, was custom-made. However, as if to break some sort of tradition, it wasn't Milanor's parents who made it.
It was a gift from when he first joined Monoceros.
It used high-energy ionized molecules as its energy source. The technology was considered impractical because of the difficulty of making a compact enough energy source yet powerful enough to be a viable weapon. The result of R&D in this careful balancing was Noctilucent.
Yes, the pistol was a prototype.
Maybe it would make more sense if you consider that the most common name for this type of weapon was ionic cannon.
It was also widely used for a long time as a spacecraft propulsion system. Making it the energy source for a compact sidearm was a novel idea.
Still, the inventors were considerate enough to install a configuration system. As the ammunition power was technically controllable, it was possible to use something like stun mode.
'None of that matters now… These pirates don't deserve half-assed measures.'
The beam of charged particles shot from Noctilucent struck the shotgun guy in the arm. Milanor would rather prioritize his chest or head if this were any other situation, but he couldn't let him pull that trigger no matter what.
'No shielding… Figures. Guess I don't need to rely on my blade.'
He ran into the corner of a building to take cover again.
Milanor hadn't planned to engage them if at all possible, but he couldn't let any innocent people die if he could help it.
Because they intended to kidnap them as workforce, he had assumed none of these victims were in any mortal danger. All of that had to be thrown out of the airlock though.
There was no going back now.
'Shotgun is down… Four left. Three small arms, one… looks like SMG.'
The guy he shot had lost his right arm, fried to a crisp. The ionizing radiation would cause him to suffer for a bit longer, however. If he had the will to join the soon-to-be firefight, he wouldn't hesitate to put him out of his misery.
This all happened in the span of a few seconds.
"Gaargh!! It hurts…! It burns…!!" wailed the shotgun guy.
"What!? Who did this!?"
"The defense force!?"
"To your right, fools! I saw someone over in that building!"
With a deep breath, Milanor yelled with all his might. "Run!! Take cover, get away from them!"
The people had kneeled down with their hands raised ever since the pirates captured them. Hearing his shout, they all looked around in bewilderment.
They were not sure whether to follow the instruction of this mysterious voice or stay still and avoid agitating their captors.
'Whatever happens, I'm ready for it…'
He shouted that order because it would put him in an advantageous position no matter what.
If these people took heed and ran, good. If they run away but get held back by the pirates, Milanor could use the distraction to shoot them down. If they stood still, some or maybe all four of those pirates would need to move to get a better position to shoot him from, reducing the risk of collateral damage.
It was not a plan without risk, but the reward was truly worth it.
"Ah… Ahh… Run, everyone!" One brave guy stood up and make a break for it. Maybe they were swept up by the mood of the situation, but most of the captured people followed his example and run away.
"H-Hey! Get back here, all of you!"
"Idiot, forget about them for now! This guy got firepower!"
"I can't see him from here, dammit!"
'Nice, they got confused by the chaos too. They're undisciplined, unlike the military or trained mercs. Dealing with them is a cinch.'
Milanor put his hand over the buckle of his belt and pushed a button. He didn't change his attire that often not just because he liked this look. This was also his battle gear.
The belt was actually a miniature shield module and not just a piece of fashionable strap. It produced a molecular barrier that protected him from energy-based attacks.
Due to its small size, however, it couldn't maintain the barrier for too long. He had to manually activate it as the situation needed.
Picking up a small piece of debris, he tossed it toward the pirates.
"What!? A grenade!?"
"Fall back!"
"No! That's only a rock!"
A simple decoy like that worked wonders against amateur grunts.
As soon as Milanor confirmed they were fooled by that fake grenade, he leaned out of his hiding and take a sure shot against the SMG guy. Then he took off running without even confirming whether it hit.
No, he didn't need to.
"Kahh!!" A bullseye to the chest. Likely lethal. He wouldn't be getting up.
"Why you!?" The three pistol-wielding mooks showered the place he just left with laser beams.
If Milanor stayed there, he would never be able to take another shot again since it was three against one.
One would need to predict the next best step before even committing to the current action in a firefight.
The freelancer took another shot before their surprise at how easily he gave up his cover faded. The ion particle fried another man body, this time his abdomen.
Even with his experience, Milanor couldn't give 100% accuracy due to his running. He was actually aiming for his chest.
Diving into the back of an overturned aircar, now he hid behind it, the blasts of energy from the other two trailing shortly after.
They stopped firing once they realize Milanor got another solid cover. They made a big mistake, however. A mistake they kept repeating since the start of all this.
Milanor found a small opening underneath the wreckage. Crouching down, he could see a clear view of their legs. And so bzzzt, another shot fired.
Though it was only their legs, no normal humans could withstand that kind of pain without flinching. They both fell to the ground and groaned, clutching their burned lower limbs.
Casually, Milanor walked out from behind his cover and approached them. They couldn't even register him in their misery. He finished both of them as well as the shotgun guy from earlier, putting a definite end to this fight.