Approach.
I grabbed the Titan in my field of vision.
I drew the heat blade on my left arm.
I drove it upward from the flank. The stab was faster than the melting, so there was resistance.
The blade missed the core and pierced the generator and fuel tank at the same time.
The oil spilling out caught fire, but it didn’t explode.
The mass-produced Titan’s output stopped, and the light of its sensors went out.
At the same time, the mass-produced Titans behind it raised their rifles.
“Forward!”
There was no change in thruster output.
Ailey still couldn’t move.
I moved my left hand, increased the thruster output, and pushed the stick forward.
Using the powerless Titan as a shield, I charged ahead.
Bullets poured over the mass-produced Titan, and red liquid gushed down in an instant.
Time to throw it away.
“Sniper rifle!”
Still no response.
I controlled the sub-arm directly and fired the sniper rifle without even holding it in my hand.
The sub-arm, unable to withstand the recoil, snapped.
Two Titans in the line of fire were smashed apart and collapsed at the same time.
I didn’t shoot the cores.
I couldn’t.
There were people inside.
Their thigh joints were simply shattered, and they crumpled.
“TB12, proposing to TB13.”
Is there no way to turn off that fucking alert?
I grabbed the barrel of the sniper rifle that had bounced back.
Shoving the dead Titan forward, I used the stock as a club and swung it.
In the brief instant my armor was exposed, dozens of rounds ricocheted off it.
Not armor-piercing rounds. Not high-explosive rounds. Small-caliber standard rifle bullets.
Thanks to the Luna family’s choice to prevent further damage to the laboratory, the armor held.
If I’d had a railgun, I could have fired about three shots and wiped them all out.
If I’d had a pile bunker.
There was no time to regret what I didn’t have.
I advanced, taking off heads one by one, when my foot suddenly stopped.
“What the hell?!”
The Titan whose thigh had been smashed earlier had crawled over and grabbed my ankle.
At the same time, another Titan grabbed the sniper rifle.
In actual combat, there was no ruling for victory by severe damage or stopping a match.
Even broken, if it could move, it could fight.
The moment my foot stopped, one mass-produced Titan took out a dagger and leaped with its thrusters blazing.
I let go of the sniper rifle first.
Using firing assistance, I moved the two muzzles on the side skirt at the same time.
Tatatatatang!
Three rounds shattered the hand gripping my ankle, and three rounds pierced the main sensor of the Titan that had leaped.
As the Titan lost its balance, I drove the heat blade between its armor and frame and pulled.
The armor of my second shield began to be stripped away rapidly again.
Ailey’s armor was at its limit too.
“How can they shoot their own side like that?”
Could a person really fire without that much hesitation?
“That’s what it is.”
Ailey opened her mouth.
Not through the speaker.
It was the body seated in the auxiliary seat.
“It’s what Karina talked about. An artificial intelligence with the personality completely excluded. They put two of those in and run it. To the Luna Count family, they’re not much different from drones.”
She spoke as if she already knew.
“Deep, you don’t remember anything? Right now, my head hurts like crazy.”
“Rest!”
Ailey had no memories from before coming to the Academy.
Karina had said Ailey was one of the results of an experiment on the personality level of artificial intelligence.
Charlotte Keria had said she’d seen Ailey on the northern front.
Kakakakak!
“Ugh.”
An armor damage message blocked the screen.
The moment I tried to swipe the message away, it disappeared before my hand even touched it.
“There’s one thing I know for sure.”
The sound wasn’t coming from the body behind me.
Kiiiiiiing!
“I can leave the core and eat something delicious, right?”
Wow.
So she could think of it that way too.
“I’ll buy you some!”
“Yeah!”
Acceleration.
Forward, and forward again.
Using the Titan I held as a shield as the bow, I rammed ahead.
One, two, three.
As I pushed into the third Titan, the output fell short and I stopped.
“Iron Tail!”
“Huh? Ah, you mean that!”
Deploying the sub-legs, I hovered and fired the side thrusters at the same time.
Like striking with a tail, I swept the Titans away all at once and slammed them into the wall.
I needed another weapon.
Without giving up thruster output or hover output, I had to pick up the rifle lying on the floor.
“I can do it!”
Ailey shouted.
We were thinking the same thing.
“You like overdoing it, don’t you!”
“I do.”
I liked it.
Overdoing things.
Breaking the balance of the hover device, I blasted the thrusters.
Both feet ran along the wall toward the ceiling.
As I picked up the rifle, both feet returned straight to the ground.
“Got it!”
If I’d fallen, I would’ve just died like that.
In a space where I couldn’t gain acceleration, I forced acceleration into being.
“A little faster!”
Thruster output rose.
I fired the rifle and swung the heat blade.
When I sensed the trajectory of bullets, I used a Titan as a shield, and before it was destroyed all the way to the core, I used the next Titan as a shield.
“The generator cooling system is damaged!”
I could still move.
“The core armor durability is way too—Deep! You have to be careful with the core!”
I just had to ricochet them off the shoulder armor.
Just a little more.
If only someone would help.
“Left generator down!”
The hover device’s output dropped.
As if something had grabbed it, my left foot fell to the floor.
Unable to support the weight, I dropped to one knee.
At the same time, a mass-produced Titan raised its muzzle toward the generator on the other side.
Tang!
It was pierced.
The mass-produced Titan’s core was pierced.
Tang!
Tang!
Tang!
Amid the gunshots, a communication signal flickered.
I couldn’t hear any communication audio, but someone was sending a signal.
The cores of the mass-produced Titans were pierced one by one.
Red liquid burst out with thick, wet pops.
Beep.
This signal felt different.
The moment I tilted the stick and fired the side thrusters, a rocket passed through the corridor.
Kaboom!
The explosion brightened my field of vision.
Tricolor.
It was Alex.
“What, it was you, Deep? Since you were inside the lab, I naturally thought it was someone else.”
Alex stretched both forearms forward.
The hidden Gatling guns spat bullets, grinding down the armor of the mass-produced Titans.
Behind Alex, I could see the wreckage of mass-produced Titans.
Red core fluid was pooled thick over the pure white bodies.
“Wow, this is a total mess. Did you accidentally trigger some security device? You should’ve asked me before moving around. Or waited until someone else got here.”
The sound coming from Alex’s speaker echoed through the corridor.
Short-range communication wasn’t working.
The only possible means of communication were speakers and microphones.
“Y-yeah.”
I took Alex’s hand and slowly stood.
One leg still wouldn’t listen.
It wasn’t all that different from my own leg.
I could force myself to stand.
“But did you happen to see what’s inside?”
Wooong.
The sound echoed down the corridor again.
“What?”
“I asked if you saw what’s inside. It’s important to me. I need to know.”
Was he asking if I knew what was in here?
Or was he asking whether I’d seen it?
And if he was asking, why?
“No, I didn’t see it.”
Alex’s hand didn’t let go.
The Gatling guns on his forearms were still open, not stowed away.
“Right, you didn’t see it?”
“No.”
“Good. Even if you did see it, as long as the Luna Count family didn’t recognize you, it’s fine. If you slap a bunch of penalties onto a lowborn origin, there’s a separate trigger point here.”
“TB12, proposing to TB13.”
Wooong.
The moment the speaker activated, Alex fired the Gatling gun.
Not one or two rounds—he sprayed dozens of rounds before he stopped.
The speaker went silent.
His gaze, fixed on the speaker, slowly turned and met mine.
“You saw it, didn’t you?”
Reverse thrust.
Alex’s Gatling gun tore through empty space, then immediately followed after me.
The moment I tried to balance on both feet, my left foot slid out.
Belatedly, I grabbed one of the Titans collapsed on the floor and used it as a shield.
“This is the section that goes straight to the bad ending. It’s also the section that leads to the true ending, but the difficulty on that is so damn high that, for most people, it’s the bad ending. And I don’t think you’re capable of reaching the true ending, you know?”
The firing stopped.
I heard the sound of reloading.
I couldn’t move.
He still had the Gatling gun on the other side. It was a feint.
“It’s ridiculous. I came to this world first. I chose the battlefield orphan penalty, survived, and then stabbed the mercenary corps that took me in in the back and stole my status too. I did everything I could.”
Clank!
“But then Ran and Ian attached themselves to you. They’re the protagonist team.”
“This is reality, so that stuff doesn’t matter!”
“It does matter! If I were the protagonist, I could’ve seen the ending however I wanted!”
Beep.
Ailey displayed a message without making a sound.
[ Mode Switch. ]
“I’ve already come this far by backstabbing far too many people. There’s nowhere left for me to go back to. No need to, either. With the Luna Count family’s cooperation, even if the true ending is impossible, the normal ending is plenty possible.”
“What’s in the normal ending?”
“The Empire, the Empire’s darkness, and Titans continue to exist forever. And war too. Nothing changes. Nothing improves.”
“Then what about the people who became artificial intelligences?”
“It’s unfortunate and sad. But they’re people I don’t know. Right? If things go well, I’ll take care of you and even Ailey in your core. How about it?”
[ Hidden Code. ]
“You’re a psychopath!”
“Technically, I’m a sociopath. You’re lowborn, an otaku, and probably have low self-esteem, right? I was a war orphan, minimum sync, and a sociopath. Both of us chose constraints that were already too screwed to make it to the true ending anyway.”
“It’s not a game, it’s reality, so constraints can be fixed!”
“Sociopathy can never be fixed! You think I chose it knowing it would be like this?!”
[ The Ghost. ]
Craaaack!
The armor began to purge piece by piece.
The generator’s cooling rods were exposed to the outside and spewed steam.
The standard dagger lodged in the armor that had fallen away was ejected.
I caught it in my right hand at once.
Temporary limiter release for the overloaded generator.
A postscript was attached beneath the message.
[ Added it because you bitched and moaned for it so much – Ian ]
Armor purge.
He bitched and moaned even though he was going to add it.
Full throttle.
I drove the standard dagger into Alex’s Gatling gun.