Fantasy Galaxy: Why Are There Goblins and Orcs in Space?

Chapter 20 : The Claw-Strike Raptor

I pushed the Particle Circular Soaring Blade's flight speed up to five times the speed of sound. At Mach 5, the blade sliced clean through a boulder roughly two meters across and embedded itself in the rock behind it.

「Oh, nice. What happens if I crank it up to ten times the speed of sound?」

Mach 5 was more than enough in terms of power, but I bumped it to ten times the speed of sound just to see. The Particle Circular Soaring Blade - now flying at double the previous velocity - detonated the instant it bit into the rock.

Oh Crap. I threw myself flat and shielded my head with both arms. After the blast wave passed, I lifted my head to find devastation all around me. Trees near the boulder had snapped like twigs.

I let out a sigh and climbed to my feet.

「That was rough. Maybe I should just stick with Mach 5.」

I nearly settled for the compromise, but reconsidered and kept experimenting. In the end, I confirmed that Mach 7 wouldn't cause an explosion.

「I've got my offensive option, but my opponent's going to land hits too, so I need defense.」

The fact that I'd never even considered defense until now scared me a little. The Planetary Information Net probably had information on defensive methods, but the sheer volume of content made searching a monumental time sink.

And it wasn't just the Planetary Information Net. The 『General Common Sense of Civilization Level C』 and 『Tenshiryoku Drive Engineering』 that Zorofiēnu of the Rikageru Tenjin Race had given me each contained staggering amounts of information too, and fully comprehending them would take years - decades, even.

I couldn't afford to spend that kind of time, so I had consulted Sario about it once. According to him, the solution was to buy and use something called an 『Information Support Butler.』

The Information Support Butler was apparently a product capable of organizing the vast knowledge stored in one's brain along with data from the Planetary Information Net, enabling efficient research. The catch was that Information Support Butlers only existed on planets with advanced medicine, so I couldn't buy one on Planet Boran.

I checked the Basic Mage Course for anything useful. Sure enough, I found a defensive method called 『Particle Armor』 listed under mage defenses. The concept was straightforward: envelop your body in Bosoru particles, then reinforce them with Tenshiryoku to create a robust defensive barrier.

Tenshiryoku could make a mass of Bosoru particles rigid as steel or elastic as rubber. That flexibility meant 『Particle Armor』 designs and structures varied from race to race.

Some mages even devised their own original Particle Armor, it seemed. The Basic Mage Course didn't go into much detail, so I searched the net, found something called 『Standard Particle Armor for Humans,』 and decided to use it as a reference to build my own.

This standard Particle Armor was different from a powered suit. It had no strength-assist function - just high-performance armor, nothing more.

In my Guest Tower room, I set about constructing the Particle Armor based on what I'd gathered from the net. First I wrapped my entire body in Bosoru particles, then used Tenshiryoku to harden the sections that needed to be rigid.

Bosoru particles could bond together using Tenshiryoku as a coupling agent. Depending on how you assembled them, the result could be hard or flexible. This time, I built for hardness and durability.

Next I worked the joints - sturdy, but with enough elasticity to move. The weight was barely noticeable, but mobility was a problem. So I spent time fine-tuning. Three days passed before I had Particle Armor I was satisfied with.

After that, I trained to maintain the Particle Armor without conscious effort and got to where I could hold it for roughly three hours.

That day, I decided to go on a hunt to field-test whether the Particle Armor actually worked. I stopped by the Toryū Ryōhei Guild first to borrow a communication terminal for calling the guild's affiliated transport team, then headed for the Black Forest Belva.

Belva was a forest of colossal trees. Massive specimens resembling oaks grew in dense clusters, casting deep shadows beneath their canopies. Toryū Ryōheis used Hover Bikes to fly above the treetops, heading straight for their hunting grounds to take down their chosen prey.

Beneath those enormous trees, giant mushrooms standing three meters tall and sprawling ferns grew in thick tangles, serving as food for the monsters.

Prey was plentiful in this forest, and apart from Belgona the Tyrant Dragon, other dinosaur-type monsters roamed here too. This time, I planned to hunt the Monoceros Saurus that dwelled along the forest's outer edge.

The Monoceros Saurus reportedly charged horn-first, slamming into its target head-on. And the part Toryū Ryōheis were after was precisely that horn. The horn was a rare medicinal ingredient - even converted to cash at the Toryū Ryōhei Guild, it fetched 1.2 million Credits.

I donned my Particle Armor at the forest entrance. It still felt slightly off, but with gradual adjustments, it should mold perfectly to my body.

The Particle Armor was transparent, essentially invisible. However, anyone with Bosoru Sensitivity who looked at me would see me cloaked in a yellow glow.

My target had been the Monoceros Saurus, but what I ran into instead was a dinosaur-type monster called a Claw-Strike Raptor - a swift creature roughly a hundred and fifty centimeters long.

The Claw-Strike Raptors moved on two legs like chickens, armed with vicious claws. Those razor-sharp talons were a genuine threat to Toryū Ryōheis, from what I'd read.

That said, with Particle Armor covering my entire body, I didn't consider them much of a danger. Large numbers, though, were a different story. And right then, five Claw-Strike Raptors had me surrounded.

The raptors held their sharp claws poised before their chests, circling me with startling speed. Pack hunting was their specialty, it seemed.

One lunged, driving its claws at my chest. The talons struck my Particle Armor and bounced off. How much punishment the armor could actually take, I didn't know for certain.

According to what I'd found on the Planetary Information Net, the standard Particle Armor could withstand normal attacks from threat level 3 planetary monsters. Space monsters at the same threat level were another matter entirely, though. Monsters that lived in space simply hit harder than their planetbound counterparts.

Claw-Strike Raptors and Monoceros Saurus were threat level 1 planetary monsters, so my Particle Armor could handle their attacks without issue.

Boxed in on all sides, I fired a Piercing Particle Bullet at the nearest Claw-Strike Raptor. The shot punched clean through its chest in a single blow, then slammed into the trunk of the tree behind it and bored a hole through.

I bolted through the gap left by the fallen raptor, and the remaining four gave chase.

「Persistent little bastards.」

With the Particle Armor proving effective, I could fight with a fair amount of composure. I ran, wheeled around to fire Piercing Particle Bullets at my pursuers, and picked them off one by one.

By the time I dropped the last one, I was utterly spent. I'd trained against Orc-type Robots on the Goblin race's spaceship, sure, but that kind of conditioning couldn't mask the toll aging had taken. Maybe I needed to start working on my fitness.

I stripped the claws from the Claw-Strike Raptors. The claws were used as catalysts in special batteries, it seemed. Converting them to cash would net roughly 20,000 Credits. For the record, Claw-Strike Raptor meat and hide held little value. The meat in particular was supposed to taste awful.

Harvesting the claws took a bit of time. Once I finished, I resumed walking along the outer edge of the Black Forest Belva. And then, I encountered my actual target - a Monoceros Saurus.