“Sir Daniel, we have arrived at the target coordinates.”
Three days had passed since the report.
“Move out.”
*Thud. Thud. Thud.*
Armed personnel filed out of the armored vehicle one after another.
Elite soldiers bearing firearms surrounded the orphanage and raised their muzzles.
The path they had traveled was swept by flames and explosions.
They were merely clans that would have to be cleared away and eliminated in the end, anyway.
They had no ace pilots, but it was enough to bring elite troops and sweep them all away.
“All personnel disembarked!”
*Bang! Bang!*
The last elite soldier rapped his knuckles on the armored vehicle as he disembarked.
“Commencing transformation.”
*Clang!*
The Titan that had been in armored vehicle form raised itself up.
Its limbs, fitted with caterpillar tracks, planted onto the ground.
A total of three transformable Titans.
A total of twenty-four elite soldiers.
And sixteen elite-grade combat Titans.
In the previous battle, they had lost three Titans and two pilots.
Losses within expected parameters.
Mere losses that could be replenished endlessly, so long as they recovered the Banshee.
“Shall we enter?”
It was a wooden building.
There was no need to enter.
“No. Clear it away.”
The elite Titans surrounded the area and stood ready.
One APC-form Titan approached.
*SMASH!*
The moment its fist swung, the orphanage was smashed to pieces.
Another Titan brought its fist down, crushing the ground.
Amidst the sound of collapse, a secret passage was revealed.
“Enter.”
“Enter! Move!”
“Detecting electronics. Entering. No traps.”
“If you encounter anyone, judge them hostile and eliminate immediately.”
Daniel walked through the underground cave, following the elite soldiers.
“Electronics detected. Beginning circuit trace.”
“Trace complete. Opening the door.”
“Enter! Enter! Enter!”
Through the gap, one elite soldier threw a flashbang.
With a sharp *crack*, light erupted, and the next elite soldier fired a flare as he pushed inside.
The standard for a hangar that a Titan could enter was an interior height of thirty meters.
That an individual had built a thirty-meter-high hangar underground was impressive, but at any rate, it was a height more than sufficient to send flares floating up into the air.
*Clack! Clack! Clack!*
Daniel walked out under the cover of the elite soldiers.
“So it was a hangar.”
There was a long, venerable history that the young generation of today would never know.
This hangar was strikingly similar to those the Empire had used forty years ago.
It stimulated both Daniel’s memories and his past simultaneously.
The only difference was that it was far older and dirtier than what he remembered.
“So it is a hangar. Find the terminal and check for traces of the Banshee.”
“Where is the terminal located?”
“Found it! Checking now! Ah, the last connection record is from three days ago!”
Three days ago.
So it was three days ago.
“Those mongrels, neither commoners nor subjects of the Empire, dare obstruct me….”
Had they sensed something was amiss from the very moment the report was made?
And they dared act this way while forcibly clinging to the dying lineage of an old nation already ruined by the Empire.
His eyes, which had blinked several times, suddenly blurred.
*Step.*
The sound of military boots echoed through the cave.
Daniel turned back and gestured.
“Bring out the syringe. The drug’s efficacy is wearing off.”
“Are you alright, sir?”
“I am fine. So long as I receive the injection quickly.”
A medic among the elite soldiers approached and stuck a syringe into Daniel’s neck.
His blurred vision returned to its original clarity.
He felt a sense of elation.
It bordered on omnipotence.
They said it was a side effect of the drug, but Daniel would never make a mistake by succumbing to such omnipotence.
“We are withdrawing.”
“Will you not search further?”
“It will not be here. Consider the possibility that the Liberation Army recovered it. Come to think of it, I hear the Southern Liberation Army sends supplies to the Northern Coalition.”
*Clack. Clack. Clack.*
The elite soldiers formed a protective escort formation and began to move.
“For our side, the opposite is true. In two weeks, we shall be able to test just how outstanding the Titans newly received from the Northern Front are.”
“Do you mean to strike the Liberation Army? In that case, what about the ace pilot training program, or the plan to recruit that person called Deep…?”
“Ace pilots are unnecessary.”
*Step. Step. Step.*
“So long as there are Titans possessing outstandingly high-performance artificial intelligence, capable of making anyone an ace pilot, that is all that matters.”
The old monster stirred.
“Prepare for war, and scatter money among the clans.”
The sole hero of the old war among the current generation.
***
“The war’s over, ya say?”
“Yes, Dolores. The war is over. You don’t have to ride the Banshee anymore.”
“But that there Banshee’s perfectly fine, ain’t she?”
“You can’t start a war just ’cause a Titan’s in good condition, can ya?”
“Well, yer right about that, but still. Ain’t it a shame?”
Had this conversation happened about thirty times now?
Honestly, I didn’t know, since I’d never counted.
It was difficult.
I had never dealt with a senile old person before, so it was even harder.
“It’s not a shame.”
“And is the war really over? The way ya lured me here don’t sit right.”
This was exactly why.
To lure Dolores and her Banshee, I had borrowed some strength from Robert’s Space Marine Corps and the Pikkamagwi.
The Space Marine Corps side had asked the Pikkamagwi to pretend to engage them in combat.
In exchange, the Liberation Army side had agreed to provide the reward.
At first, the Pikkamagwi side had been hesitant, but when Dolores’s story came up, they said they had no choice but to cooperate, if only to confirm the truth.
And after truly confirming Dolores, they left without even receiving the promised reward.
Saying it was enough to see their grandmother after so long.
They might be far more filial than I’d thought.
Setting aside the fact that they had been fighting to kill each other, and that they were people who murdered and plundered.
Robert, too, had left, saying he couldn’t face Dolores because of all his misdeeds until now.
Through all this and that, Dolores and Banshee had ended up in the hands of the Southern Liberation Army.
No.
The expression “got their hands on” didn’t fit.
Dolores was being protected, and Banshee was merely being kept in storage.
Because there was no intention of using Dolores to threaten the clans, nor using Banshee to pressure the Empire.
“Hey? You, say somethin’.”
“Doloreees!”
Ailee ran in from the side and hugged Dolores tightly.
“Uh, huh?”
“I’m like, totally in the mood to go outside right now. Wanna go for a walk? You’re coming with, right? Huh? Huh? You’re coming, right?”
“Well, I gotcha. Can we even go like this?”
“Ow ow, my leg might hurt again….”
“Ah, got it. Got it. You can hold onto me.”
Just like that, Dolores dragged Ailee outside.
On the way out, Ailee winked at me.
Honestly, it wasn’t much different from Ailee dragging Dolores outside, but.
“Whew.”
Ailee had quit enhancers for three days.
And in just three days, her language ability had almost returned to normal.
In exchange, her physical condition hadn’t improved during that time.
Immediately after her language ability returned, Ailee had said she would take charge of Dolores herself.
I was glad she was at least going for walks with her.
At the same time, I felt a bit wistful about it.
Her way of speaking had been a little alien, but it definitely had its cute side.
Now she had truly gone back to gyaru speech, hadn’t she?
Was it too greedy to hope that a gyaru might have a speech pattern other than gyaru speech?
It had definitely been cute.
“What are you brooding over so seriously?”
Footsteps could be heard.
When I raised my head, I saw Perez.
“Is it about Dolores after all? Or the Southern Front?”
It was neither, actually.
“It’s the Southern Front.”
But saying what I had actually been thinking about was too embarrassing.
How was this any different from saying I was sad Ailee had gotten better?
“I knew it was the Southern Front. The moment the report on Banshee went up, everything went eerily quiet. As if they had gathered every elite soldier from the Southern Front across all lines.”
“Robert contacted us too.”
The orphanage, Robert’s former home, had been destroyed.
The fact that every clan along the way had been thoroughly annihilated—it was absolutely not the work of another clan.
This was something only a force on the level of the Southern Front military could do.
“Tsk. I had done it to keep people from dying, but I never thought the process would kill so many clans.”
“Last time, you shot at the clans like crazy with turrets.”
I couldn’t resist a retort.
Especially since I was the one who had nearly died from that.
“Saving people’s lives was the main goal, but we had to survive first. We couldn’t allow the clans to invade. Haven’t I already made up for that incident?”
“You have a point.”
Perez held out a drink.
It was a beverage made by mixing sour berries from the south with soda.
It was proof that, at the very least, Southerners had far more refined palates than Imperials.
How had they ever eaten things like mint chocolate or cucumber soda?
“Let me say this first: war cannot be avoided.”
Perez stated flatly.
“You’re right.”
It was the truth.
Their movements made it all too obvious.
The Southern Front would definitely invade the Southern Liberation Army to find the Banshee.
They had ace pilots, and their forces were quite strong, but could they stop an Imperial army that was determined to attack?
They had already seen that outcome in the North.
They couldn’t win.
“Will you retreat?”
In the North, Simon had chosen retreat.
Because if they survived by fleeing now, there would be a next time.
“We cannot do that.”
“Why?”
“This settlement is home not only to Liberation Army soldiers. Deserters who could not endure the depravities of the Southern Imperial Front, commoners, and wanderers who received no protection from the Empire are all here together.”
A retreat for military reasons might be possible.
But they could not move the home of those living here.
“Then will you surrender?”
“Absolutely not.”
Neither did they intend to kneel.
Even if they surrendered without fighting now, war would break out anyway.
Once war began between the Empire and the Southern Front, which was trying to secede, it was a certainty that the surrendered Southern Liberation Army would be conscripted into the Southern Front’s forces and expended.
“So you’re going to lose?”
“We will win.”
He meant they would lose no matter what.
Even Perez, who was saying this, wore a doubtful expression.
“Even if we lose, we can inflict catastrophic damage as we lose. We can leave a permanent scar, rendering them unable to utilize the nuclear deterrent they possess.”
“Even so…”
“Who would help us in the first place?”
Perez turned his head.
It wasn’t a resolute expression.
Rather, it was an expression of slight fear.
“The fragmented clans? Other Imperials too busy guarding their own fronts? The Northern Coalition that lost its base? There is no one who can help us. We have no choice but to resolve this ourselves.”
“Yeah.”
“Huh?”
“…Yeah.”
Other Imperials too busy guarding their own fronts.
But among them, there was one person whose reach was strangely wide, who incessantly meddled in others’ affairs.
“Just a moment.”
*Beep.*
I turned on my smartwatch and immediately pressed a contact.
I checked the name and pressed the call button.
It connected in exactly three seconds.
“What guts do you have to call me, commoner? Did you start thinking of crawling back to the Empire or something?”
“Aaron. What would you do if there were a noble trying to start a war of independence from the Empire?”
“Are you insane? I’d kill them, of course.”
That did it.
He took the bait.