Full-Burst. All-out salvo (全彈發射).
The act of opening every gunport at once, mobilizing every cannon and firing system that can be fired in a single instant.
The Dual Eye sensors and the auxiliary sensor above the head. A total of three sensors aligned the targeting of the incoming micro-missiles.
Zeus was from a baronial house, just like Rod. At the same time, it was a super-high-firepower bombardment-type Titan, just like Rod’s Heavy Machine.
If he lost in an exchange where both sides opened every gunport, it would inevitably affect not only his personal honor, but the honor of his house as well.
“Inspiring!”
The seventy-six missile launchers and the two main machine guns that had replaced its arms began to spit fire.
***
“Whoa.”
An all-out salvo. Watching the explosions created as missiles and bullets collided, I couldn’t help but marvel.
It wasn’t because I was an otaku. Even looking at it objectively, it was simply a spectacle.
“Deep, do you like stuff like that?”
Ailey spoke, sounding somehow hesitant. The Titans Ailey had gone through until now were high-mobility types and heavy-armor types. Was she worried I might prefer bombardment-type Titans?
“I do.”
“That.”
“I hope someday I can shoot like that together with you, Ailey.”
After a long silence, Ailey muttered as if sulking.
“Watch the front, you otaku.”
The explosions weren’t only happening overhead. They were bursting in front of us as well.
The stake-type bombs French had installed were detonating in real time. Not for even a single moment did the explosions stop.
At the front of those explosions was Princess Saya’s Kaiser.
No, calling it the front was a little wrong. To be precise, it was second from the front.
“That really is foul play.”
“I think so too.”
She was running while using the Titan she had defeated in the previous battle as a shield.
The Titan’s body was reduced to tatters in an instant. Through the communication channel connected to Lan, I heard Ian wailing. He was probably praying for the engineer’s soul.
But isn’t that the engineer’s job?
I genuinely don’t know.
“A-Aaron. Shouldn’t we, um, shoot?”
“If we shoot now, it’ll only hit the shield. We have no choice but to wait until it’s used up.”
So now it wasn’t even a Titan, it was a shield.
No sooner had Aaron finished speaking than I heard a metallic clack. When I turned my head to the side, Revan was planting a folding shield into the ground and mounting a designated marksman rifle on it.
Alex, down on one knee, aligned the Dual Eye sensors with the scope.
“Hey, top student. Did you not hear what I said? From the front, there’s absolutely no angle—”
“Shot.”
“What?”
Tukang!
At the same time as the gunshot, the Titan was blown away from the Kaiser. Sparks clearly flew from its wrist.
“H-how?”
“Heh, so the top student really is different? Firing!”
Before I could even be impressed, Icarus’s gun barrel fired a shell. At the same time, the Kaiser drew the greatsword mounted on its shoulder.
No way.
With a splitting crack, the shell was cleaved in two.
“Insane.”
This was Princess Saya’s Kaiser, which didn’t even use artificial intelligence. That meant she had seen the shell and cut it down purely with her own skill.
“We don’t even have time to be surprised. They’re coming!”
The three Titans that had been following the Kaiser revealed themselves. One of them was caught in the explosion of a stake-type bomb.
At the same time, White Bunny leaped forward.
“The plan is to deal with each enemy Titan in pairs! You all remember that, of course!”
Of course I remembered. It was an operation so hard to understand that I couldn’t forget it.
“And that includes Deep and Aaron taking on the princess’s Kaiser!”
Even if Aaron and I were put together, there was no way we could match the princess’s skill. Revan, the top student who had a chance of winning, was assigned not to the princess, but to break through the surrounding enemies and suppress Zeus.
Could we hold out until Revan suppressed Zeus and joined us?
“There’s no way we can—”
Kakak.
Icarus’s hand gripped Ailey’s shoulder, then let go. Without saying a word, Icarus began accelerating forward.
“Deep.”
Ailey brought up a small screen. Eyes at the level of an emoticon stared fixedly at me.
“You’re an otaku who knows how to do it when it counts. Right?”
Strength entered the hand gripping the stick.
I slowly pressed down on the pedal with force. Before I knew it, I had raised the acceleration to maximum. The thruster output made the inside of the core grow slightly hot. In both hands, I held a general-purpose pistol and a knife.
In front of someone who was cheering me on, I couldn’t possibly deny myself.
Even if that someone was nothing more than artificial intelligence.
“Yes!”
I still hadn’t become a person cowardly enough for that.
Ailey was lighter and faster than Icarus. Her speed felt frustrating compared to when she had been a high-mobility type, but it was enough to overtake Icarus.
“Got your head on straight?”
“M-more or less?”
“Then I’m firing!”
The second bombardment.
The shell was fired, and the Kaiser once again split it apart as if it were only natural. A stake-type bomb exploded like a landmine, but through the dust, the crimson Kaiser emerged.
“Bombardment, is it. If it doesn’t hit, it amounts to nothing. I came to see how much you’ve grown since then.”
“I-I don’t want to check that, though?”
Adjust thruster output at the same time as reverse thrust. Reverse thrust, double. Main thrusters, half.
As Ailey bent backward like she was passing under a limbo hurdle, the massive greatsword skimmed past over the core. I fired the pistol at the same time, but couldn’t even scratch it.
“That movement that defies common sense. I wanted to see it with my own eyes again!”
“I-I told you, that’s not me!”
The one defying common sense was the Kaiser.
The greatsword it wielded was about the same size as White Bunny’s height. Using the thrusters attached to the greatsword and the Titan’s own overwhelming output, it simply moved against gravity.
And the greatsword wasn’t even its only weapon.
“Deep!”
Ailey moved her arm faster than my reaction or control. With a clang-clang sound, clear bullet marks were left on Ailey’s left forearm.
“It’s a hidden rifle!”
A ranged weapon hidden beneath the forearm, with an absurdly short barrel. Considering the severity of the bullet marks on the added armor, if it hit the main sensor, the head would be blown off.
“You blocked it.”
“Coward!”
“Victory comes before honor!”
The moment the Kaiser gripped the greatsword with both hands, Icarus cut in between the Kaiser and Ailey.
“That is incorrect, Princess.”
With a resounding clang, the greatsword stopped. Icarus had neither a weapon with enough mass to stop a greatsword nor a shield.
“The barrel?”
It had simply purged the barrel, which became useless at close range, and used it in place of a shield.
“Sub-arms!”
Four sub-arms shot out from Icarus’s body and seized the Kaiser. At the same time, a battle axe drove into the Kaiser’s shoulder.
“It won’t cut?”
Then.
I accelerated while hovering and drove the dagger down onto the battle axe. At the same time, the Kaiser fired its thrusters in reverse. With a crunch, the sub-arms were torn away.
Having shaken off the sub-arms in one motion, the Kaiser sprayed fire with its hidden rifle. Even though the shots weren’t properly aimed, I could feel my frame ringing.
“With only that much, the Kaiser’s armor—”
Tukwang!
The moment the dagger exploded, the battle axe drove into the Kaiser’s shoulder. A crunching sound rang out, and the Kaiser’s left arm slowly tilted and fell away.
After a brief silence, I heard Princess Saya grinding her teeth.
“How dare you.”
Uh, was that not it?
The Kaiser immediately began charging straight at me. The greatsword swung directly toward me.
“Deep!”
“I know!”
If I took the greatsword at the point of maximum impact, even a heavy-armor type would be split in half. There was only one way to receive that attack.
Take it at the closest possible range, so enough force couldn’t be applied.
Claaang!
“Ghk!”
I felt like I was going to throw up.
I took the greatsword with Ailey’s body. Beyond the sound of the outer armor being crushed, it seemed to have reached the joints. But we weren’t split in two.
The Kaiser tried to fire its hidden rifle, then covered its face instead. The pistol round fired by Icarus struck its forearm and shattered.
Its armor couldn’t be scratched at all, but that meant only the main sensor was fragile.
“Get off!”
The Kaiser’s thrusters spewed flames violently. A contest of strength. In terms of output, Ailey could never beat the Kaiser.
Then we just had to lose.
“Ailey!”
“Reverse thrust?”
“Yes!”
At the same time as the reverse thrust, Ailey’s body pitched sharply backward. My body and the Kaiser’s both flipped over in midair. The Kaiser, having lost one arm, had its center of gravity thrown off. Its recovery of balance could only be slow.
I had fallen with it, but—
“Good job!”
There were two of us.
When Icarus pulled the trigger, the Kaiser twisted its body while blasting every thruster on it. The rifle shots struck all over its body and left bullet marks, but its head alone was safe.
Kooong! The huge body crashed to the ground and rolled across the floor.
“Stubborn bastard!”
“You usually wouldn’t speak that way to your fiancé.”
“What?”
The moment Icarus’s shooting stopped, the Kaiser swung its greatsword and struck Icarus’s ankle.
“You always lost your composure easily at words like that.”
“My magazine was empty, Princess!”
“And you were always terrible at lying.”
The Kaiser accelerated with a burst of propulsion. Its hovering body extended one leg forward. Both Aaron and I had done the same thing, but its posture was far cleaner than ours.
“Was it like this?”
If I had to name it, it would be the Saya Kick.
With a resounding clang, Icarus, struck directly by the kick, rolled across the ground. The massive frame tried to push itself up from the floor, only to stagger.
“Right ankle damaged. Is that really how something with one arm missing is supposed to move?”
“I-I’m not sure?”
“Of course it is! Do you not have eyes?!”
Why was he throwing a fit?
Ailey knelt on one knee and slowly raised herself. Having rolled across the ground just now, my head was spinning. This level of impact was difficult to handle even with the dampening system.
But I could clearly see the Kaiser’s crimson mono-eye turning toward us.
“Is this all you can do, even with two of you? You can’t even surprise me, let alone defeat me?”
“Weren’t you surprised earlier when she dodged your greatsword?”
“I-I think she was.”
“…Agh, focus on this fight! And don’t nitpick my words!”
The moment the Kaiser was about to charge, the movements of the Titans stopped all at once.
Ttororong.
Along with a cheerful notification sound I had never once set, the hologram before my eyes filled up densely. It was crimson.
“Exam, emergency terminated?”
“An intruder?”
What is this supposed to mean?