The next day came.
As soon as dawn broke, we broke away from the western front.
We followed Professor Zeke’s advice.
Once we left the frontline base, several drones followed behind us.
Whether they were seeing us off or pursuing us, I couldn’t tell.
I just hoped it was the former.
After the drones withdrew, we turned south.
Ailee’s condition hadn’t changed much.
Her eyes were still open, but she still had trouble speaking.
From what I’d heard, it was because the frontal lobe was related to language.
If we administered inhibitors and let her rest, she would probably be able to speak someday.
Her condition hadn’t improved.
But it hadn’t worsened either.
One day, two days, three days.
Because we’d wasted time on our route early on, we crossed the southern boundary on the third day instead of the two it should have taken.
And I learned the answer to one question.
Question.
How many Titans chasing you from behind does it take to be scary?
Answer.
It doesn’t matter.
No matter how many are chasing you, if you’re the one being chased, it’s scary.
One, well, even if it sticks to your back, you can cover it with the difference in skill.
Two can also be handled with the difference in skill.
From three onward, you need not only skill, but luck too.
Then what about fourteen?
Fuck.
Fourteen?
“Fuuuck, fuck! Fuck!”
“Noisy.”
“You’re not the one covering us!”
It’s fucking terrifying.
Being chased by fourteen of them is seriously fucking terrifying.
The sound of gunfire behind me doesn’t stop.
“Fuck!”
I discovered the railgun’s biggest problem.
You can’t attach a suppressor to it.
So it draws aggro like crazy.
No, honestly, even if I had attached a suppressor, I don’t think we could’ve avoided this situation.
Hover, adjust balance, rotate backward and aim. Fire.
Tukwaaaaang!
A Titan was knocked back by the recoil, widening the distance.
Now there were thirteen.
But I couldn’t be happy that the number had gone down.
They kept adding one at a time.
Worse, the colors were different now too.
The first Titan that chased us had been red.
But then blue and yellow ones joined in, and they started fighting among themselves.
Every time I fired the railgun, another Titan from a nearby clan appeared.
As expected, the problem had been our initial response.
“I shouldn’t have fired back then!”
“Agreed. Your fault.”
The ones waiting for us at the southern boundary hadn’t been border guards.
They were a clan.
A clan armed with Titans, at that.
They said this area was under their protection, and that if we wanted to pass through with a Titan and a vehicle, we had to pay a hefty toll.
When I asked if they accepted credit transfers, they said they didn’t have a bank, so no.
We don’t have any physical credits on us right now.
They told us that if we didn’t have physical credits to pay, we should leave the Titan behind.
So I shot them.
“I said I’d talk it out, but Ian told me to shoot!”
Ian told me to shoot.
No, of course, I was planning to shoot anyway.
This Titan has Ailee’s core installed in it.
The thought of those bastards daring to take Ailee’s core pissed me off.
Still, Ian was the one who told me to shoot.
Ian had no right to say something like that.
“Bastards like that wouldn’t listen anyway.”
See that?
“Then why are you blaming me! It’s your fault too, Ian!”
“How is this my fault?”
Reverse thrust.
While hovering, I turned in the opposite direction and drew a dagger.
The Titan that came face-to-face with me panicked and fired its reverse thrusters.
As its movements dulled, I stomped on the machine’s knee and tore apart the hover unit on the other side with my dagger.
There it was, a grenade.
I ripped off the one attached to its waist and accelerated back in my original direction.
“Then whose fault is it!”
“Isn’t it those clans’ fault?”
I threw the grenade backward and shot it with my rifle.
The Titan caught in the explosion rolled across the ground and slammed into a rock.
Ian was right.
We hadn’t done anything wrong.
It was all those clan bastards’ fault.
He was right, but the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got for some reason.
Fuck.
So that was why I felt so anxious and angry.
“We’ve been herded!”
There was an obvious canyon up ahead.
I was far superior in skill, but I had no information about the terrain at all.
“Go around from the side.”
“Then I’d have to ram my head into a wall made of Titans!”
“Then ram it.”
“This isn’t a Titan you made, Ian, so I can’t ram it!”
“Okay. Fair.”
The way he immediately acknowledges it when I say that really pisses me off.
Separate from my anger, it was true.
If this had been a Titan made by Ian, I would’ve just gotten into a brawl.
I would’ve used the pile bunker, used the hidden blade, trusted the armor to deflect shots, and rammed with my head too.
But this was a mass-produced Titan.
The armor and armaments had barely been touched by Ian, so I couldn’t trust them.
Ian has exactly two flaws.
That he’s only one person.
And that the whiplash when you go back to anything else is insane.
The thrusters are different, so it’s slower than usual, the frame is smaller, the weapons are awkward, and I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Ah, the bittersweet memories of that Titan.
“I’m entering the canyon!”
From here on, it was a battle of speed.
All we needed was to get through the canyon and out faster than they could chase us from behind.
“As long as there aren’t any traps!”
Kugung.
Kugugung.
The cliff above the canyon exploded.
“Fuck.”
I shouldn’t have said that.
After talking didn’t work and blew up in my face, here I was talking again.
The cliff debris came crashing down.
The only passage was being blocked.
It was far.
If I were riding Ailee, maybe, but with this Titan, there was no way I could make it through.
Even if I could somehow get through, the car Ailee was in couldn’t.
“Ian!”
“What.”
If it had been Ailee, she would’ve figured it out and moved with just me calling her name.
“Accelerate straight ahead and hide as close to the rock debris as you can!”
“Confirmed.”
I didn’t even know how many were behind me anymore.
Could I do it?
No, I could.
Totally possible.
I could do it.
As I turned backward, I aligned the railgun’s barrel.
The targets overlapped.
Tukwaaaaang!
The railgun round pierced through three Titans at once.
The Titans that lost their legs toppled over in a heap.
Entering the canyon put me at a disadvantage, but there was an advantage too.
The passage was narrow.
With my railgun, I could aim for penetration all I wanted.
Tukwaaaaang!
Dust rose thickly inside the canyon.
Each time I fired, two or three Titans collapsed at once.
Tukwaaaaang!
Between the third shot, I heard a sound.
The sound of thrusters.
The enemies were clans.
They were former mercenaries.
Reading the bullet trajectory and deciding to hide in the dust was something they could easily do.
That was the end of the easy pickings.
The moment a shadow in the dust drew close, I ignited the reverse thruster.
Kiiiiiiing!
Right before a dagger could pierce the core, the thruster pushed the dagger away.
It hadn’t completely neutralized it.
But the dagger, robbed of force, slid along the core armor.
“Hup.”
I moved the stick.
I slammed my fist into its head.
With a crackle, the sensor lens flickered a few times and went dark.
I grabbed the core armor with one hand and twisted the hand holding the dagger with the other.
At the same time, the reverse thruster of the Titan I was holding ignited.
This was different from the Academy.
Even though it wasn’t an omnidirectional monitor, and even though its sensors had gone out, it didn’t give up the fight.
If it was trying to shake me off, it was a good call.
If only I hadn’t let go of the Titan right away.
The Titan that flew backward as it was collided with another clan Titan.
The sound wasn’t very good.
One probably hit the core, and the other probably hit the generator on its back.
Good for me.
I didn’t think that would kill them, and if two went out at once, it was killing two birds with one stone.
Weeeeeeng!
That wasn’t the sound of a thruster.
I blasted my side thrusters and dodged sideways.
A melee weapon immediately cut through empty air.
“A chainsword?”
They’re using a crazy weapon that’s just chain teeth attached to a blade frame?
If it gets caught wrong between armor plates, the kickback could kill the user.
Anyone using a weapon like that definitely isn’t sane.
Weeeeeeeeeeng!
The problem was that I could hear the sound of chainsaws from every direction.
After the dust cleared, I looked around.
I was already surrounded.
They were trying to charge at me from all sides, chainswords in hand.
How many chainswords would kick back?
I couldn’t calculate it.
I understood why they used chainswords.
With bladed melee equipment, you can predict the reaction when it collides, but with a chainsword, you can’t.
Even if you get the angle right, the armor might get ground down or even pierced through completely.
The clan Titans stopped, facing me.
Instead of a transmission, their speakers boomed against the canyon walls.
“You cannot escape the pursuit of our Space Marine Corps!”
Now that’s a gung-ho name.
The first Titan that chased us had been red, but the Titans surrounding us now were blue.
The different clans had kept fighting each other to claim the spoils.
Crazy bastards.
“Climb out of the Titan quietly! Then we’ll at least spare your life!”
Should I get out?
I wasn’t confident I could beat this many.
Was I really not confident?
I felt like I could win, maybe.
What after I got out?
Would they drag us away? Or let us go? I didn’t know how vicious this clan was.
Maybe they were kinder than expected, and if we explained our situation, they’d tearfully let us go.
I pressed the communication button.
“Go fuck yourself.”
As if.
There are assumptions worth making, and hopes you can entertain for a moment.
I didn’t need absurd assumptions.
Weeeeeeeeeeng!
No sooner had I finished speaking than the sound of chainsaws grew louder again.
“Ha! You dare ignore the goodwill of our Space Marine Corps! We’ll make you regret it until you pound the ground in despair!”
That line, fuck.
Unbelievable.
The Titan standing at the very front raised its chainsword high.
“I am the second squad leader of the Space Marine Corps!”
Jjeoeong!
And then its head was pierced through.
“Huh?”
I wasn’t the one who fired.
The Titan whose head had vanished tilted backward and fell.
Jjeoeong!
Another head went flying.
“Where is it!”
“Where the hell are they shooting from!”
Wasn’t it obvious?
We were being sniped from down in the canyon, so of course there was only one place.
Above.
“They’re above!”
“Shoot! Shoot them down!”
“Fire grenades!”
Kiiiiiiiiii….
Something like a woman’s scream echoed through the canyon.
I could faintly see a Titan moving up above.
“It’s the Banshee!”
“Why is the Banshee here?!”
Banshee?
Jjeoeong! Jjeoeong! Jjeoeong!
While I stood still, the clan Titans’ heads flew off one by one.
There was no way to dodge here anyway.
I stared upward for a while, then looked around again.
All the heads of the Titans that had been surrounding me were gone.
“Did they help me?”
I looked up again.
The Banshee was gone.
With a crackle, a speaker rang through the canyon.
“T-this time, the Space Marine Corps will let you go! So just leave!”
I raised my rifle and aimed at the core.
“J-just leave! We said we’re letting you go!”
I lowered it again.
I didn’t feel like killing people like this.
There was no need to kill them anymore either.
Once we passed through the canyon and traveled just one more day outside it, we would be in the south.
“Let’s go.”
“Clear the debris for me. There’s no path.”
“I will.”
Soon, we can treat Ailee.