Two Titans sortie at the same time.
There was certainly a communications link to confirm the sortie. It was just that no conversation passed through it.
“Impudent.”
Karina muttered.
The battlefield was the same place where Deep and the princess had fought during the entrance exam: the outdoor sparring ground inside the academy. An environment closer to a wasteland.
Unlike the simulation with Aaron, the sand was not enough to interfere with the sensors. Still, when the wind blew, it obstructed visibility slightly.
The two began running toward each other.
Deep’s Titan ran on its two feet alone, without using any thrusters or hovering devices. Because the core had been moved in a hurry, the inertia control system and shock-absorption system were incomplete.
Karina Luna, on the other hand, advanced by firing wires at the rocks standing here and there across the wasteland.
The Luna Count family’s personal machine was a high-mobility type. Among them, it used a unique frame.
Reverse-jointed legs, two large sensors standing on the head to detect enemies even in desert and wasteland environments, and a method of hopping around using wires.
Even its size was smaller than an ordinary high-mobility type. To put it simply, it looked like a rabbit.
Karina’s White Bunny was a Titan that had raised mobility even further from the existing Luna Count family’s personal machine.
Its fuel capacity, generator efficiency, and center of gravity had been dramatically improved. Its weight had increased, but in return, it could maneuver faster for a longer period of time.
It contained a level of technology and calculation completely different from Deep’s crude Titan customization.
Karina’s operator informed Karina of enemy contact. Karina’s White Bunny used its wires to seize a high altitude.
Deep’s Titan was still on the ground.
Deep’s Titan turned its head in the opposite direction from the White Bunny. That meant it had not yet detected her. At the same time, the Bunny leaped toward the Titan.
A surprise attack from high altitude, slamming down from above—something its meager combat experience could not even imagine. There was no way that commoner could respond.
“What?”
And yet, though it should not have happened.
Deep’s Titan instantly leaped backward. Its head was still turned away from the White Bunny. It had detected her and deliberately pretended not to know.
“How dare you?”
She could not allow it. Even if he wanted to dodge, she had to engrave into him the fact that he absolutely could not.
The wire fired from her left hand embedded itself beneath Deep’s Titan. In an instant, the White Bunny’s body accelerated, orbiting around the Titan as its center.
If one could not overcome the inertial load transmitted directly to the body, one had no right to pilot a high-mobility Titan in the first place.
“With reflexes that sluggish, it’ll be over the moment I get behind you.”
Belatedly, the Titan floated upward. It was probably a scheme to widen the distance using hovering, but it was already too late. Escape was impossible.
“Just get crushed.”
The White Bunny’s right elbow ignited. The machine accelerated even further and charged toward the enemy. The pile bunker fastened to the back of its arm loaded with a clack.
As they gradually closed in, Karina’s eyes widened.
“It’s not a high-mobility Titan?”
If the White Bunny had one flaw, it was that its height was smaller than other Titans, making it difficult to visually identify an enemy. That was even more true in an environment like a wasteland, where sand blew through the air.
A similar streamlined body. A similar black color. A similar appearance, but that Titan was not a high-mobility type—it was a heavy-armor type. To begin with, it looked different.
No.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Even if it was a heavy-armor Titan, its rear armor was weaker than its front armor. She just had to pierce through it in one go with the pile bunker and end it in a single blow.
Hovering was instead a bad move. It might be able to move in that state, but turning around was impossible.
Impossible.
It should have been.
“What the—”
At the same time as it hovered, Deep’s Titan turned around.
***
Titans that were not high-mobility types could not turn quickly to the front and rear. Heavy-armor and artillery-type Titans were even worse.
That was why a certain technique was needed.
At the same time as hovering, extend both legs in opposite directions and fire the side thrusters. Then, if you cut the hovering and land at the same time, you can rotate exactly half a turn.
It is dozens of times faster than turning around using only the legs or waist. If you want to use a sluggish Titan, it is a technique you absolutely have to know.
At least, in the game.
Move both feet in different directions while hovering is active? The output sync of the two hovering thrusters could break, and instead of front and back, up and down could end up inverted.
“Ahaha! Otakus really love this kind of reckless thing!”
There was only one reason I could execute it.
“Thank you, Aili!”
“No, Deep, you’re the amazing one!”
I trusted Aili’s control. And I thought that, by some stroke of luck, I could somehow manage it.
I absolutely did not think logically. Every piece of logic would only conclude that I couldn’t do it, so I acted without thinking.
Beast behavior. Let’s do beast behavior. I have the heart of a beast.
As I turned around, I stretched my right arm forward. Because the shield was attached to my right arm.
“A pile bunker.”
The weapon Karina’s Titan was extending was a pile bunker. It was a weapon that fired a huge iron stake and pierced the opponent in one blow. Similar to a jackhammer.
I had used it a lot on high-mobility Titans too. If you approached in an instant with a high-mobility type, got behind them, and stabbed, in the end, even a Titan went down to one spear thrust.
Aili shouted with a laugh.
“How did you know? It really is a pile bunker!”
“Levan told me.”
The shield attached to my right arm belonged to Levan. It was small. To begin with, it was a folding shield. The moment the shield unfolded, it expanded up and down and grew larger.
Normally, I should have unfolded the shield the moment I faced the enemy. I had only saved it because I was certain the opponent would use a pile bunker.
The equipment attached to the forearms of both Titans flew toward each other.
Claaaang!
The shield slammed into the White Bunny’s wrist, and the pile bunker struck the shield.
“Hit.”
“Hit!”
Clank!
The shield expanded. The fired shield parts scraped between the Bunny’s forearm and the pile bunker, separating them in one stroke.
Claaaang!
The pile bunker that had risen into the air fired its stake and flew backward. The White Bunny’s head moved, following the pile bunker.
Well, what are you going to do staring like that? What can you even do?
With a clattering sound, the White Bunny retreated. Its hopping movements were absurdly fast. It was clearly using wires for its movement.
At this reaction speed, I couldn’t properly respond.
If I were caught unaware.
“Just like Levan said, it really does use wires?”
“I have no idea how he knew that.”
The source of the information was not important. Only the fact that it was true mattered.
If I knew what kind of device it used to move, all that remained was prediction.
Predicting movement was in the realm of spatial perception.
“She’s circling!”
Dudududududu!
The White Bunny sprayed bullets wildly as it orbited around me. Most of the bullets struck the shield. Even for the bullets that did not, the front armor was enough to withstand them.
Clang! A magazine flew toward me. I immediately knocked it away with my arm.
More important than the suppressive fire was the fact that the White Bunny, instead of reloading its firearm, kicked off the ground once.
“She’s coming again.”
“Wh-when will she come?”
“Now!”
The basic outline for victory in this engagement was to move first, faster than the opponent.
The opponent still saw me as a pilot who did not even know how to operate the machine properly. She did not know that, thanks to my speed-reading skill, I had read the controls more than ten times.
The opponent thought I moved while looking through the main camera. She did not know that I would notice even movement outside my field of view by using spatial perception.
She thought I would not know that the pile bunker that had fallen to the ground had disappeared.
She did not know that, because I already knew, I could deal with it.
“Levan, I’m sorry. I’m going to use up the shield a bit.”
This was ten minutes after the start of the battle.
Deep’s Titan stretched its right arm forward. The folding shield deployed once more, growing large enough to cover the Titan’s entire body.
At the same time, dull gunshots rang out. Beneath Deep’s Titan, the sand burst up as if exploding, obscuring visibility.
Not a single bullet directly hit the White Bunny. No, to begin with, the muzzle itself could not be seen. It had fired not at the White Bunny, but at the ground.
He must be thinking of hiding his body with the shield, blocking her sight with sand, and then attacking.
Karina’s assessment was simple.
“An old-fashioned method.”
She would use that method against him.
Until now, there had been no counterattack except for the lucky strike that hit the White Bunny’s forearm and knocked off the pile bunker. Even the gun in his hand had only been fired at the ground, not the White Bunny.
Just as she had originally thought, it was proof that he was nothing more than a pilot who did not know how to fight properly.
She fired a wire from her left arm and struck the shield. Using instantaneous acceleration, she would circle around that Titan as its center and break its balance. She would pull the wire, accelerate, and pierce it with the pile bunker.
And the moment she began accelerating, the shield was pulled by the wire and came flying straight at her.
“Huh?”
He let go of the shield?
Claaaang!
The flying shield struck the White Bunny directly. The Bunny lost its balance and rolled across the ground before bracing against the floor and coming to a stop.
She had been wondering since earlier.
“Why, just why, how?”
Why was he so experienced?
No. She had to consider the possibility that letting go of the shield had been a mistake. Karina moved the Titan and raised its head.
The Titan was approaching with hover acceleration.
That would be impossible unless he had been planning to accelerate from the very beginning. No, but she should have known from the sandstorm caused by the aftereffects of hovering.
Gunfire.
He had deceived her by shooting. As if he had scattered sand and blinded her with gunfire, not hovering.
Boom!
The Titan’s hand seized the White Bunny’s core section. Pushed by inertia, the White Bunny’s body toppled backward as it was and rolled across the ground.
“Not yet!”
If it was not operated properly, Deep’s heavy Titan could end up pinned beneath the White Bunny. If she aimed for that opening and drove in the pile bunker—
The moment she thought that, that Titan’s thrusters spat flames.
It was not something crude like automatic control by artificial intelligence. The pilot was directly adjusting them in response to inertia.
Just as the princess had done.
The White Bunny slammed into the sandy ground and was pinned down. Its left arm was crushed beneath a heavy foot. The pile bunker reattached to its right arm was pierced through by a standard greatsword. Its core was seized.
Amid the swirling sand, only the crackling close-range communication rang in her ears.
“If we do any more than this, it’ll interfere with the joint training.”
As though the reason he had not fired a single shot was to avoid damaging Karina’s Titan.
It was a tone that sounded as if he had gone easy on her.