White, tricolor, unremarkable armaments.
The three distinguishing traits of the Empire’s new model all pointed to a single Titan.
“These new models are similar to Revan’s Alex.”
Just as Ran said.
“They really are.”
Even their reaction speed brought Revan to mind.
The instant I fired the sniper rifle, the white Titan had flinched and activated its thrusters at the same time as the gunshot.
It had tried to dodge.
“Deep, I’m sure you already know this, but our goal isn’t to win.”
“I know.”
To struggle as much as possible, with everything we had.
To do that, we had to divide our roles.
Beep.
The comm channel connected.
“What the hell, Deep? Where’ve ya been?”
“That Titan from before.”
One was Robert, and the other was Angelos, the leader of the Blood Crow Clan.
“One of our dumbass fools got taken out! I was wonderin’ when that bastard would finally croak!”
“This is no time to be saying that!”
There were leaders from other clans as well, but these two were the most skilled.
“We took out one new model earlier, so now we just need to take five each.”
“You make that sound damn easy, don’t ya?”
“The difference in output is severe. We’re already in close combat, but the Blood Crow Clan members can’t even hold out for a moment!”
“Scared?”
The comm channel fell silent for a moment.
“You know how to get under a man’s skin, huh?”
“I’ll do it.”
The spell for victory was certainly effective.
“But don’t fight like you’re trying to die. When it’s time to retreat, you retreat.”
“I’ll handle it!”
“There is no battlefield one goes to for the sake of dying.”
Five white Titans moved toward Robert, and five toward Angelos.
The remaining five approached me.
We hadn’t even moved properly or lured them yet.
The enemy moved first.
Just as much as we were wary of the new models, the enemy was wary of the ace pilots.
“We had to engage them anyway, so this works—”
Side thrusters.
Boom!
At the same time I evaded, the tree behind me was blown apart.
Now I understood why Manus’s Titan had been destroyed earlier.
That thing had to be considered a rapid-fire high-explosive grenade launcher.
“We cannot get hit by their firearms. We’ll proceed with a hit-and-run strategy based on cover and concealment.”
“Understood.”
The moment I hid behind a tree, it toppled again with an explosion.
“Fuck.”
How is that a small arm?
As the tree collapsed, a swarm of Titans beneath it were buried.
To reduce allied casualties, the best option was to fight inside the enemy’s formation and force a melee.
Do I have to break through that shield?
“No, I don’t need to break through it.”
“Deep, I think I know what you’re thinking, but you shouldn’t—”
Forward.
Forward again.
When I suddenly accelerated, the heavy-armored Titan holding the line raised its shield.
There was no way to break through it without a pile bunker, and no need to break through it either.
I shot the upper part of the shield with the sniper rifle.
The instant the shield staggered, I stomped down on its lower edge and drove it into the ground.
It tilted.
Perfect for running up.
“Full throttle.”
Thrusters and hover units activated simultaneously.
Riding up the surface of the shield, my Titan launched into the air.
Clang!
The moment I landed, I crushed one of the new-model Titans beneath my feet.
Boom!!!
I drove the pile bunker into the generator on its back and evaded.
Even with only that brief stop, a shot grazed past me.
Then the gunfire ceased.
As expected, Daniel was not a commander who would fight while sacrificing his allies.
All four remaining new-model Titans drew close-combat equipment.
Two daggers, one pile bunker, and one javelin.
“Phew.”
I reloaded the pile bunker and drew the submachine gun from my side.
Dive.
I scattered a curtain of bullets with the submachine gun and accelerated sharply.
Then, with reverse thrust, I came to an abrupt stop.
As expected, the dagger stopped just short of the core, unable to reach.
Excessive output burst from the hover unit in my foot.
I smashed its elbow with my knee and fired the side thrusters again.
A javelin passed through where my head had been.
I had to predict and move faster than the enemy’s coordinated attacks.
Calculate.
Move.
As Professor Sieg had said, all the movements were already inside my head.
I only had to drag what was contained in instinct into the realm of calculation and reason.
The front line was being pushed farther and farther back.
The ace pilots who could overturn the tide of battle were tied down by the new-model Titans.
Some Titans were already entering through the open gates of the fortress.
More than eighty percent of the turrets atop the fortress had been destroyed as well.
“Deep! I’m at my limit now! I scrapped two, but I’m pullin’ back!”
Robert retreated.
There was no communication at all from Angelos’s side.
If I thought positively, he was in such fierce combat that his comm device had been damaged.
If I ignored the fact that the comm device was attached to the core.
“Angelos, Angelos?”
No response.
Even though I had told him not to fight with his life on the line.
I retreated while spraying bullets from the submachine gun.
The small-caliber armor-piercing rounds couldn’t even pierce the armor of the new-model Titans.
“This is bullshit, seriously!”
The only way to land an effective hit was close combat.
I accelerated while throwing the submachine gun beneath the feet of the approaching enemy.
Crunch!
The Titan stepped on the submachine gun and slipped, and I smashed the butt of the sniper rifle down onto its head.
I sacrificed the barrel of the sniper rifle to block the javelin, grabbed its wrist, and pierced its elbow with my dagger.
I pulled the dagger free and stabbed upward from below.
The generator was pierced, and it stopped.
“Deep, behind you!”
Clang!
A shield struck me from behind.
I rolled across the ground, then dug in my toes and stopped by blasting my thrusters.
Scrape, scrape, scrape!
What I felt was not the damp soil of the southern jungle, but a paved road.
Before I knew it, the front had been pushed far back, forcing us inside the fortress.
I reversed thrust once more.
Boom!!!
The pile bunker aimed at my core slammed into the ground.
With a brief lull, the Liberation Army and the Imperial Army faced off.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
An especially massive white Titan walked out from among the Imperial Army.
It, too, was a new model of the Empire, but its armor was much thicker and its armaments far heavier.
Beep.
The moment the communication came in, I knew whose Titan it was.
“Daniel.”
“Young man. Though we stand on the same battlefield as enemies, it saddens me that you would address me by name without any respect, unlike before.”
A heavy-armored type?
No, judging by the Gatlings mounted on both arms, it was also a bombardment type.
Rather than replacing both arms with firearms like the Heavy Machine, it had additional Gatlings mounted beneath its forearms.
Every single round fired from those might have the same power as the new models’ rifles—high-explosive shells.
“So I ask you. Step aside now. I cannot allow an unparalleled genius like you to fall here. And what would you say to fighting alongside me for the future of the South?”
Gentle?
No, it was not. That was closer to demanding surrender.
More than that, it was closer to telling me to bow before him.
He wasn’t gentle. He was arrogant.
An old monster riding a Titan.
“Is it the enhancer?”
The enhancer, and the white new-model Titans.
“You received support from the Luna County, didn’t you?”
If Daniel had been someone who dreamed of southern independence from the very beginning, there was no way the South would have been more peaceful than other places.
“Young man, you know about the enhancer as well? It is truly an astonishing drug. Why, it feels as though I have returned to my thirties.”
It made the wounds of a man whose legs had been cut off heal.
It allowed a man who had not walked for a year to run.
To an old monster of sixty, there could be nothing more appealing.
Because the side effect of omnipotence would not be felt at all by the person taking it.
“So step aside. Your actions are reckless bravado.”
Click.
Daniel’s Titan raised its hand.
The white new models gathered in one place and lined up on either side.
The Imperial Army’s Titans advanced.
The Liberation Army’s Titans advanced.
Acceleration.
At the same time as my surprise attack, I pierced the generator of one new model with the pile bunker.
Daniel fired his Gatling guns at the hangar door, shattering it, and stepped inside.
I purged the pile bunker and discarded the remaining stake as well.
The moment I tried to accelerate, another new-model Titan approached and blocked my path.
At the same time, a blue Titan shoved the new-model Titan aside and opened a path.
“Go!”
Robert.
Even though he was practically half-destroyed, he had not left the battlefield.
“Thank you!”
Not yet.
I had to fight a little longer.
Daniel stopped in front of the purple, rusted Titan in the hangar.
“The nuclear generator.”
Fervor.
And a touch of madness.
“Listen!”
Daniel’s communication blasted out over a wide range.
His voice was loud enough to make my ears ring.
“The southern front no longer exists! I am Daniel Sinis of the Empire’s South! This land has a history belonging to a nation separate from the Empire!”
I broke through countless Titans and entered the hangar.
“I will revive that history! Using the power of this nucleus, which the Empire feared, banned, and erased, I will drive out the great dictator known as the Empire!”
And yet he claimed as his own a history he had never even tried to uphold.
Clank!
A massive hand seized the Banshee’s chest armor.
“So clans, Liberation Army, cease your fighting! Join me on my path! And young man! You, too, must not stand alone against my great cause! This war is already over!”
Craaaaack!
And just like that, he ripped out the generator.
The Titan, which had been staring at the generator as if in rapture, stopped.
“…The nuclear power?”
“Of course not. I switched it out.”
Beep.
At the same time as the communication tone, a noise pierced through the sky.
Beyond the fortress’s outer wall, the sound of countless Titans moving could be heard.
Those painted in desert colors, out of place with the colors of the jungle, came pouring in.
Titans.
And more Titans.
Clang!
Even a desert-colored Titan that smashed through the ceiling and plunged down as if falling.
“Alone?”
“What is this…”
“You said a cause?”
Aaron’s Icarus slowly raised itself.
“This side is the Empire.”
And this place was the hangar.
“Ailee!”
Emergency ejection.
The core hatch opened, and the seat immediately launched me out.
A black hand hidden in the darkness caught me and pushed me straight into the core.
“Nice catch, right?”
“Yes! Good job!”
My goal had never been to win in the first place.
It was to find proof that the Imperial Army on the eastern front had to intervene.
“Deep, don’t worry! I’ll keep making the fine adjustments while we’re moving, so you just focus on piloting!”
“Yes!”
The Empire’s new model, huh.
If it’s new models, we have them too.
“Deep, Hati.”
“Ailee, Hati!”
“Aaron, Icarus.”
“…So you intend to try me, young man.”
Try you?
You’re the one who started this, you fucking insane old bastard.
“Shut up! You reactionary son of a bitch! Stay right where you are! I’m going to blow your head clean off!”
Aaron shouted.
“Dive.”
“Dive!”
“Taking off!”
Acceleration.
No, rather than acceleration, it was takeoff.
Hati bared its claws.