One week before the attack.
The appearance of the customized mass-produced Titan was gradually becoming familiar to me.
The more I looked at it, the more it resembled Eilidh.
Anyone even slightly quick on the uptake would have no choice but to think I was the one piloting it.
Ran stared for a long while at the mass-produced unit Ian had customized.
It would be nice if, thanks to my sharp criticism, she was reconsidering how cool the mass-produced unit was.
“Honestly, anyone who sees this is going to think Deep is the one riding it.”
Of course not.
“It’s that bad?”
“It’s that bad.”
Was it a bit too much?
To be honest, if I’d had enough time, a decent environment, and paint, I would have painted it black too.
But among the Titan paints the Allied Forces had, there was no black.
The reason was that there was no reason to paint a Titan black in the North.
And apparently, there had never actually been a problem so far due to the lack of black paint.
Since it wasn’t wrong, I couldn’t refute it.
“At this point, you could call it Half-Eilidh.”
“What’s Half-Eilidh supposed to mean?”
“Honestly, to me it’s just Eilidh with a white paint job. So it’s fifty percent Eilidh.”
That kind of got under my skin.
Usually, when something got under my skin, it was because even I thought it was a little true.
I couldn’t really think of anything to say in rebuttal.
More than anything, it didn’t seem like a good time to argue.
Ran wore a deeply thoughtful expression for a while, then turned her head back.
“Does Deep absolutely have to pilot this?”
“Hm?”
She wasn’t looking at Ian, or even Locke, who had been helping Ian.
She was looking at Simon, who had been doing something else in the back.
“The core contents are the same, aren’t they? So if the internal structure is the same, couldn’t someone pilot it by just changing the detailed adjustments?”
That was possible because it was a mass-produced model.
No matter how much you customized it, the overall framework didn’t change.
On top of that, in my estimation, Simon was a pilot on Professor Sieg’s level.
He could probably pilot any mass-produced Titan.
Simon came over and stood in front of Ran.
“Keep talking.”
“Either way, the two Titans are operated the same way. You whittle down the enemy’s forces with long-range sniping, then draw the weakened enemy into close combat.”
You could tell a lot just by looking at the armaments.
A sniper rifle and a railgun.
Various types of close-range weapons, along with built-in close-range weapons.
“It’s the same now. The only differences are the weapons and the number of generators. And Deep knows how to use a sniper rifle too. Mr. Simon, do you know how to use a railgun?”
“It’s the same as any weapon. You pull the trigger, it fires. It has a charging time and insane penetration, so I just have to shoot carefully. And?”
Ran projected images of the two Titans on her smartwatch.
With a gesture, the positions of the two Titans swapped.
“If they switch Titans, couldn’t we deceive the enemy?”
“So, who exactly are we deceiving?”
Ran turned her head toward me.
“Who do you think will be the pilot boarding the modified Eilidh?”
Ian and I answered at the same time.
“Reuban.”
“Reuban.”
No objections.
There was no room for debate. It was Reuban, no matter what.
At the Academy, where all kinds of genius pilots gathered, he had crushed the talents of the imperial family and the nobles alike and claimed the top seat.
There were probably plenty of older, more seasoned pilots on the Northern Front.
But if you were only considering reaction speed and skill, you had to assume there was no one better than Reuban.
The lifespan of a pro gamer, where reaction speed was crucial, was around thirty unless you were Daesanghyeok.
On a battlefield where lives were on the line, that lifespan was even shorter, so young, fast reflexes mattered more than experience.
“And Reuban didn’t go back to the Academy either. I saw it myself.”
“You mentioned that last time.”
“Right.”
The time when Ran had been waiting for Ian to board the train.
Among the cadets waiting for the train then, Reuban had not been there.
He might have taken another train, but she said most of the cadets took the train at that time.
That meant he almost certainly hadn’t returned to the Academy.
There was no way he would have stayed in the North for sightseeing when anyone could tell something big was about to happen.
It was far more likely that the Northern Front had requested Reuban from the Academy.
“And Reuban will avoid Mr. Simon.”
“What?”
“Instead, he’ll come charging at Deep. His weapons had all been dropped, his generator was overloaded, and his armor had been stripped off, but in any case, Reuban beat Deep.”
Simon looked dumbfounded.
“You can’t be that certain.”
He only said that because he hadn’t experienced Reuban.
“He absolutely will.”
“You’re saying he absolutely will?”
Simon narrowed his eyes.
“You’re saying the tip-of-the-spear pilot selected and handpicked by the Luna family is a cowardly bastard who chooses his opponents?”
“Yes.”
“So this is the reality we live in?”
He didn’t seem moved.
He seemed despairing.
Of course, that was none of my business.
And it was even less of Ian’s business.
“What does that have to do with protecting the Northern Allied Forces?”
“We can’t protect the Northern Allied Forces anyway. How are we supposed to beat a ducal house and the Luna Count family when they’re attacking seriously?”
I’d forgotten for a moment, but our opponent wasn’t just the Luna Count family.
It was the Luna Count family using the forces of a ducal house.
The Allied Forces weren’t fools either.
They were waging guerrilla warfare, setting up defensive walls, and using explosions and avalanches because they couldn’t win an all-out battle.
Even if they made the exchange ratio three-to-one or five-to-one, if you only looked at the ratio rather than the number of troops lost, the Allied Forces could still be taking a loss.
That was how big the gap was.
“Then we have to change the method.”
Instead of hopeful assumptions, we thought only about the gains we could actually obtain.
Simon stared fixedly at Ran.
There was something I’d learned from watching Simon for about a week.
When he stared fixedly like that, it meant he liked something.
It meant that plan had caught his interest.
“How?”
“We lure away the enemy force that’s concerning, leave the forces we can handle to other troops, and have everyone who can run away run away.”
“Good.”
It was decided.
***
The situation was unfolding far better than expected.
Most of the enemies were the mass-produced white Titans I had seen at the laboratory.
They were the dual-artificial-intelligence Titans the Luna Count family insisted were unmanned.
The term artificial intelligence grated on me, but I couldn’t think of a substitute.
Beep.
The moment the communication connected, I saw a muzzle in front of the main camera.
“Why the fuck is this your Eilidh, you son of a bitch!”
He hadn’t just raised the rifle.
In that brief instant, as if sensing killing intent, Reuban had drawn his rifle.
So I aimed for that arm and fired.
But as though he had predicted it, he transferred the gun to his other hand and raised it upward.
His reaction speed alone was on another level.
“There’s never an easy way.”
Side thrusters.
I accelerated sideways, avoiding the rifle’s muzzle.
At the same time, Eilidh’s side skirt bent toward me.
“Ah.”
That was there too.
Tatata!
I blocked three shots precisely with the sniper rifle.
I discarded the damaged weapon and drew a submachine gun, and Eilidh accelerated after me.
“Guess.”
Boom!
Weapons popped out to both sides from behind Eilidh’s back.
On one side was a bazooka.
On the other was a mace.
“Left, right.”
It was a pattern I had already seen before.
Back then, the answer had been the middle.
“A bazooka pretending to be the middle.”
This time was different.
The bazooka Alex had used while fighting Kaiser was a muzzle-loaded bazooka that only held one shot.
The bazooka I was looking at now had a magazine attached to the back.
The moment I reverse-thrusted, a rocket passed through the spot where I had just been.
“Did he dodge?!”
I immediately reached toward the other side.
The mace belatedly tried to spew out thrust, but I grabbed it before it could and hurled it down into the ground.
I’d thought this since last time.
It was truly slight, a very subtle difference, but still.
When Reuban’s plan didn’t work exactly as intended, his decision-making speed slowed down.
“Reuban.”
“Are you going to beg me to spare you?”
“Looks like all you’ve done all day is play against the computer.”
That was the reaction speed of someone who hadn’t played PVP.
With reaction speed like that, rather than constantly engaging in mind games, he should have been applying relentless pressure.
I could guess why.
Bots, NPCs, were easily baited and beaten by mind games.
The gatling gun from the forearm.
I could see it.
I drove a dagger into it and stopped it from functioning at once.
The instant I extended the submachine gun, Reuban shut off his hover unit and landed on the ground.
Then he immediately turned the hover unit back on.
“Kgh!”
Snow burst up like an explosion and obscured my vision.
The moment I pulled the trigger regardless, the black silhouette moved first.
I could see it, but I couldn’t react.
Now that I didn’t have an artificial intelligence, my reaction speed wasn’t enough.
Then I wouldn’t respond properly.
I accelerated and slammed my body into him with all my strength.
Claaang!
Amid the vibration that rang through my entire frame, I grabbed the core armor.
“Eilidh!”
Kaaang!
The mace surged up from the ground and knocked my arm away.
I stomped on the mace after it fell back to the ground and smashed its thruster.
Reuban put distance between us, then looked around.
“Where did he go?”
“He’s gone. The White Grim Reaper.”
There was no Simon to help me.
That last strike just now was the final aid Simon had promised.
Simon had gone to rally the Allied Forces.
Distance opened between us.
The two Titans drew their daggers at the same time.
“Eilidh!”
The reason people long for light is because the sun does not hoard its radiance.
Eilidh.
The name I had given half-heartedly after hearing the term A12 carried the meaning of a shining person.
It had given far too much light to me, who had been in the depths.
And so I had no choice but to long for the light that had vanished.
“She’s not going to answer you anyway, so stop calling her, you’re noisy!”
The moment we accelerated at the same time, Reuban reverse-thrusted backward.
Something fell to the ground, then suddenly expanded and sprang upward.
A shield.
The moment I struck away the shield blocking my vision, Reuban accelerated with hovering.
Claaang!
The dagger pierced the main camera, and my vision went dark.
“I don’t think I ever said I only had two bazooka rounds.”
Claaang!
The explosion rang through my entire frame.
The machine rolled across the ground, trembling from the impact.
The moment I barely regained my balance, the hatch fell away with a creak.
He had aimed precisely for the core.
“Wow, only the core armor is tough. Guess the Allied Forces really care about their pilots’ lives?”
If anything, that was fortunate.
I could see.
I drew a dagger once again.
Thud!
Reuban purged the gatling from his forearm and drew a hidden blade.
He had the advantage in reach.
He was faster too.
His defensive power was higher as well.
There was only one thing I could aim for.
The circuit connecting the pilot control system to the Titan.
Its location was the gap between the core armor plates, slightly below the center of the core.
Even if I accidentally stabbed too deep, Reuban would merely die.
That didn’t matter.
I moved my hands, bringing the machine’s load state to its maximum.
The two Titans accelerated at the same time.
In that brief instant, Eilidh’s elbow opened.
An elbow rocket.
It was a customization that Alex’s arm had never originally had.
There was no way I could have anticipated it.
The tip of the blade was pointed precisely at my core.
The elbow rocket ignited.
No.
“What the…”
Reuban muttered.
The thruster had never been damaged.
“Eilidh! Why are you suddenly getting in my way!!! The sync rate was definitely high!”
Beep.
“Denied.”
The angle of Reuban’s blade tip shifted.
The hovering I had saved until the very last moment amid insufficient power.
“Reason for denial.”
I accelerated at the same time.
“Gyaru are good liars.”
“Fuuuck…!”
The dagger pierced the core.