Two weeks before the assault.
Most of the cadets had returned to the Academy, but a few had not.
That was because, starting from the second year, there were benefits reserved for those with excellent grades.
Frontline deployment counted as attendance.
If the front line officially requested a specific cadet from the Academy, the period of deployment would be recognized as attendance.
Most cadets were nobles, or commoners backed by nobles.
When the front grew desperate, or when a large-scale operation was underway, it was only natural to call in an excellent pilot if one was available.
One of the cadets who had not returned was Karina.
Karina clenched and unclenched her fists several times.
“Ha, haha, hahaha, ha, haah.”
She wasn’t laughing because it was funny.
It was simply a hollow laugh.
The sync-rate tests conducted on Ailee.
All of them had fallen below expectations.
Every sync-rate match tested with artificial intelligences was close to the lowest value.
Artificial intelligences with extroverted personalities usually had high sync rates.
Just as extroverted people got along well with all sorts of people.
“Not just ‘as if.’ That’s what it really is.”
Red liquid.
Core fluid.
The liquid inside the core was nourishment to sustain the artificial intelligence’s life, a shock absorber, and a stimulant.
It contained enough stimulant to dull the personality of the artificial intelligence inside and make it forget its own identity.
The liquid inside Ailee’s core had all leaked out during the last damage.
Karina had personally injected core fluid with an increased stimulant concentration.
“Phew.”
She thought it was better for her to do it than someone else.
Someone with a sense of guilt was better than someone without one.
“This is driving me insane.”
The problem was the sync rate.
The current dosage was at the TB14 level.
In truth, even this much would damage the brain.
If the sync rate remained so low that she could not be used like this, the stimulant concentration in the core fluid would have to be raised even further.
“Ha, I can’t do that.”
That was a point of no return.
Through personality experiments, they had found that administering TB16 or higher caused death, and administering TB15 did not kill, but effectively destroyed the personality.
The effect was certain, but at that level, even if stimulant administration stopped, the personality would not recover.
Preferences disappeared, and so did personal standards of judgment.
It was a dosage that made a person no longer a person.
“What’s the problem? White, Bunny, that…”
She stopped short.
Those two, whom she had thought of as artificial intelligences, were people too.
Was it all right to do this to people?
Contrary to her thoughts, her lips and tongue moved.
Habits were terrifying things.
“Start the calculations again. Let’s reset the pilot range too.”
She was sorry to the two of them, truly sorry.
But Ailee, who still had a chance of recovery, was more important than the two who had already lost their personalities.
If the results of the calculations came up unsuitable every time, that meant the premise had been wrong from the start.
“Try it with pilots who aren’t artificial intelligences.”
“Commencing simultaneous calculation.”
The stimulant already injected into Ailee was at the 14 TB level.
If she added even a little more here, there would be no going back.
The last remaining shred of personality instinctively filtered out its targets.
“Of course.”
Everyone who carried the blood of the House of Count Luna was being filtered out.
The previous dosage had been at the TB12 level.
It was enough for memories to return when stress was applied.
There was a limit to suppressing a person’s memories.
No matter what trauma or shock was inflicted, the past could not be erased.
Since memories of the artificial intelligence experiments had resurfaced, it was only natural that her sync rate with other artificial intelligences would fall.
The list was whittled down and down, until in the end only two people remained.
Two people who were not from the House of Count Luna, and had never been involved in the artificial intelligence experiments.
Deep, who was on the missing persons list.
And the cadet who had stayed on this front line with Karina.
“…Levan.”
***
“It’s different from Alex, different from Alex!”
It was different.
Its response speed was different from Alex’s.
How much despair had he felt when he chose the lowest sync penalty during character creation?
After that, he had suffered from the worst sync rate in every Titan he had boarded.
The Titan he had first stolen and piloted from a mercenary corps as a war orphan.
The Titan he had received officially after that mercenary corps took him in.
The Titan he had customized before stabbing every last member of that mercenary corps in the back and killing them.
And even Alex, which he had received after coming to the Academy.
Not once had he ever piloted with a normal sync rate.
Not once, up until now, and he had thought it would never happen in the future either.
Bang!
The instant he heard the sniper shot from afar, he pulled the side thruster.
The round passed by his side and smashed the mass-produced Titan behind him.
“I said it’s different!”
The thruster performance was different.
The number of generators was different.
It was merely a modified unit whose damaged and shattered limbs had been replaced with Alex’s, but above all, the sync rate was different.
Ian’s custom equipment, which he, the one who should have been the original protagonist, naturally deserved to enjoy.
Of course it was far superior to Alex.
If anything, its movements had become so fast that it was more comfortable to move the sticks a little slowly.
If there was one problem, it was that the thruster sensitivity on the sticks was far too high.
It was a problem caused by the thrusters’ maximum output being too high.
Had he really used the thruster output in such minute increments?
It felt like bluffing.
“One.”
Bang!
He shot the mounted gun atop the defensive wall.
The round slipped through a gap and struck a Titan, knocking it down.
Originally, he could snipe all he wanted even while running.
If he was hovering, it was even easier.
He accelerated forward together with the high-mobility unmanned units.
Ahead, the white Titans of the Allied Forces approached.
In the brief clash, Levan reduced his acceleration and slipped behind the unmanned units.
As the two groups of Titans mixed together, the front line collapsed into chaos.
The communications network beeped without pause.
The Sky-Piercer’s communication interference reached this far.
The Titans on both sides had all painted their armor white.
And communications were down as well.
“As expected, IFF doesn’t work.”
Identification of friend or foe was impossible, and the hover devices and collisions blocked visual sightlines as well.
At times like this, the most frightening thing was a sniper shot from outside one’s field of vision.
And it was even more frightening if that was no ordinary sniper shot.
The first thing he saw was a flash.
The next thing he heard was a roar.
Feeling hostility even faster than either of those, Levan moved the stick.
Side thruster.
KABOOOOM!
At the same time, mass became a flash and pierced through the battlefield.
A sniper shot that perfectly distinguished friend from foe smashed five unmanned units at once.
That precise shot.
And that weapon, impossible to mistake for anything else.
“If that’s a railgun, is that you there, Deep?!”
Be-be-be-be-beep.
He pulled the optical zoom to over twenty times with a button on the stick, then released it.
He had seen it from very far away, but there was no mistaking it.
It was definitely Deep.
The generators positioned in the thighs of both legs, and the railgun connected to the sub-arm.
And the way it spewed thruster flames and accelerated the instant its sniper shot failed.
He could tell just by the Titan’s appearance.
There was no attempt to hide.
It was saying that if he had come to kill it, he should come this way.
Clack.
He raised his left hand, lowered it, and accelerated.
Immediately, four unmanned units attached themselves behind Levan, then overtook him and blocked the front.
They were shields.
Levan surveyed the battlefield once more.
In the direction opposite where Deep was, there was a Titan presumed to be the White Reaper.
Titans that used a high-caliber armor-piercing sniper rifle to that degree were rare.
He was certain.
He just had to avoid that side and move in the opposite direction.
Having decided on his direction, Levan stepped on the pedal.
The objective of this assault was twofold.
One was to eliminate the Allied Forces.
That was the public objective, and the objective the Academy believed to be the reason for Levan’s deployment.
The other was to find Deep.
The House of Count Luna’s goal was to capture him alive.
They needed sync-rate data to improve the performance of their unmanned units.
Now that they had already secured Ailee, as long as they had Deep, they could extract as much sync-rate data as they wanted.
But that was only the goal of the House of Count Luna.
“This time, I’ll kill him for sure.”
Levan’s goal was different.
Deep must not be allowed to live.
If Deep dies, I can ride Ailee.
Then I’ll return to the Academy and deal with my current engineer and operator.
Then I’ll become a pilot without a team, the kind Ian and Ran need.
Naturally, I’ll be incorporated into Ian and Ran’s team, and then I can become the protagonist I’ve wanted so badly to be.
KABOOOOM!
With every bombardment from the railgun, one shield was smashed apart.
As he accelerated past the wreckage of Titans, his heart pounded.
Finally.
Finally.
“Finally!”
KABOOOOM!
The last shield was smashed apart.
At the same time, Levan pulled the stick back.
With reverse thrust, the bazooka mounted on his back detached, and its muzzle turned forward.
Deep’s reaction was fast.
He purged the railgun to block the front of the bazooka, and at the same time drew a dagger and accelerated.
CRAAACK!
The bazooka fired, and the railgun’s explosion detonated it as well.
It didn’t matter if it missed.
He had removed the opponent’s strongest high-firepower weapon.
All that remained was a rifle that could not pierce Alex’s limbs, and a dagger.
Clang!
Levan, who had been watching the explosion, moved his arm first.
The instant he blocked the front of the sensor, the tip of the dagger struck his forearm.
He knew this would happen.
Deep would never aim for the core.
He did not kill his opponents.
And now that he knew the artificial intelligence inside the core was a real person, he would be even less capable of aiming for the core.
Because Ailee was inside this core.
He grabbed the wrist, twisted it, and accelerated.
Deep’s Titan was small, and its output was weak.
It could not compare to Ailee’s body.
The Titan scraped across the ground, sliding in a long trail, before crashing into the defensive wall.
“Even that brilliant skill of yours was just thanks to your engineer in the end! What was that about winning in an unfavorable environment after exhausting your weapons? Even in perfect condition, I still beat you!”
Crunch!
He twisted the wrist itself and tore out the dagger.
Then he flung the hand away, grabbed the core armor, and slowly ripped it off.
Crrr, rr, rr, rrrrip!
The moment he tore off the hatch and tried to meet Deep’s eyes, he saw nothing.
It was smoke.
Smoke rose up.
Beep.
Communications worked here.
“That operator, you know. She said if we did this, you’d definitely avoid my Titan and come this way. Turns out she was right.”
“You.”
The White Reaper.
Levan belatedly raised his head.
The White Reaper’s Titan was nowhere to be seen.
Levan lifted his head upward.
Beep.
“Swapping Titans? Do you have no pride?”
“None.”
Because Levan had taken his only pride.
“Give Ailee back, you fucking bastard!”
Bang!
An armor-piercing round pierced through his left shoulder.