Morning 3km run.
22 minutes 16 seconds.
My gaunt frame fills out with flesh and muscle.
Thankfully, I started from a skinny body rather than a sluggish, fat one. Once I start eating in earnest, weight and muscle pack on quickly. Bulking up is easier than cutting down.
It’s still nothing more than a patient-level pace, but given more time, I should reach near-average numbers. I’m starting to see that future.
I can’t see it, but I’m trying to.
“Stop staring like that, you perv.”
I didn’t bother answering Eily’s unnecessary remark. It was a joke that didn’t need a response.
A few days had passed since the joint training. It was the weekend, and with nothing particular to do, I came to the hangar. Since I was here anyway, I stared intently at Eily.
Should I have just become an engineer instead?
It had been the same right after enrollment. I’d walked briskly to avoid other people’s gazes, yet the moment I entered the hangar following Professor Zeek’s guidance, my heart had settled.
The sound of iron clashing, machinery moving. The smell of oil and sharp metallic scent.
A world where everything I had ever imagined exists. Even inside that world, it felt as though I had stepped into yet another.
No, thinking again, I probably wouldn’t have been satisfied as an engineer. No sensation compares to boarding and piloting a Titan.
A feeling that I was meant to be in that seat from the very beginning, as if I had met my destiny.
No matter how many times I think about it, I can’t help but feel that meeting Eily was destiny. Its form has changed quite a lot from the beginning, but the emotion I feel every time I see it remains the same.
“Or not.”
Not a little—has it changed a lot?
Equipment that wasn’t there before has suddenly appeared in abundance.
The left arm had been taken from a decommissioned heavy-armor type that had broken down in places. Thanks to that, it’s become asymmetrical. The thruster still has pipes protruding outward. I need to tuck them inside quickly.
There was nowhere to store spare stakes for the pile bunker, so I had hastily crafted a holster on the thigh. It looks dangerous at a glance.
The thigh is where Eily’s generator is—its heaviest part. If a stake gets hit by a stray round and explodes, I’ll lose the generator immediately. For a high-mobility type, it’s the worst-case scenario.
The smartwatch speaker chimed softly.
“Deep, staring at my thigh like that—you should never do that unless it’s me, okay?”
“I think it needs to be customized.”
The speaker’s vibration suddenly stopped. No matter how long I waited, no answer came back.
“Eily?”
The speaker crackled to life again.
“I-I’ve been running the generator really hard lately too, you know? Of course, I did consume a lot of thruster fuel! B-but does it look that bulky?”
Does it look bulky? What was it so worried about?
“Well, one arm was swapped out for a heavy-armor type, so it is a bit, isn’t it?”
The smartwatch began to hum and vibrate. No, it wasn’t vibrating. It was the sound of Eily panting, as if excited.
“I-I do think I need maintenance too, you know? But still, to say that to my face? Do I look that heavy?”
“You were a bit heavy for a high-mobility type from the start, weren’t you? You have two generators equipped, after all.”
High-mobility types usually use only one generator to reduce weight. Using two or more is a method chosen for heavy-armor types to support the output needed for heavy armor.
The reason I had chosen a lightweight frame was ultimately because Eily itself was on the heavier side compared to other high-mobility Titans—
“I’ll use only one generator.”
“Huh?”
Now what was this?
“Y-you hate me because I’m a heavy high-mobility type now, right? I’ll strip off all my armor and use only one generator too.”
“No, wait? I’ve never said that.”
Hate it because it’s heavy? It’s the opposite.
“I chose Eily because it’s heavy and has powerful output for a high-mobility type.”
A heavy Titan is helpful in many ways.
Unless you adopt dramatic maneuvering like White Bunny, contrary to common belief, a high-mobility type being somewhat heavy isn’t a problem.
Additional armor and generators also help absorb road impact from movement.
Eily had possessed a weight class of its own for a high-mobility type from the very beginning. It had simply been converted into a high-mobility type with a lightweighted frame. I knew from the start that its weight wasn’t light.
“I like Eily because it’s a heavy Titan.”
Eily’s words cut off sharply.
The buzzing from the speaker had been tickling my ear since earlier. I couldn’t understand why it insisted on humming through the speaker when it had a perfectly functional vibration feature.
Around the time I was thinking of telling it to stop, Eily spoke again.
“Pervert.”
“I told you I’m not.”
“I want to get customized already! Should I add more armor? Should I add another generator?”
“Then you’ll get too heavy.”
“What?! Which one is it! Be clear!”
N-not easy.
I have no idea what it wants.
“For now, can you pull up Ran’s contact?”
“Ah, yeah!”
Thank goodness. We can still communicate.
The hologram scrolled quickly, and Ran’s number appeared before my eyes. As I was about to press the call button, my hand suddenly stopped.
I think this is the first time I’ve ever initiated a call.
I don’t mean the first time calling Ran. Making the first move to call someone itself was an absolute first in this world. There had simply never been a reason to call anyone.
My hand started trembling. My heart pounded, and my head began going blank.
Ah, I see. This damned body has a phone phobia too.
I grabbed my trembling hand and took a deep breath. Slowly, I pressed the call button firmly. Just as it had always been, once I actually started, I would find a way to get through it somehow.
As long as I was mentally prepared—
“Hello?”
“H-h-h-honey.”
“Excuse me?”
Ah.
I want to die.
***
“You suddenly called me and said ‘honey,’ so I thought my head was going to split.”
“T-that’s not, that’s not what I was trying to do.”
“I know. I’m just saying.”
Seeing as she didn’t call it a joke, she must have seriously thought her head would burst.
Along with Ran, who had finished speaking, I looked at Ian simultaneously. In the end, Ian was the most essential person for Titan customization.
Ian, sitting at the table, looked at Eily with a sullen expression. He clearly didn’t appreciate being called out on the weekend.
“If you’re gonna customize, couldn’t you tell me beforehand?”
“S-sorry.”
“If you were gonna customize, I could’ve left it unfixed. Didn’t you know I stayed up all night fixing it?”
Ah, so that’s what this was about.
If I’d rendered someone’s all-night overtime useless, then it was my fault. I had nothing to say here.
No, but isn’t that what engineers normally do?
I shouldn’t think like that. I had almost unconsciously started to look down on engineers without realizing it. That’s dangerous. Knowing Ian’s personality, he might plant a real bomb inside the core.
“I’m sorry for that too.”
As I kept repeating apologies, Ian yawned wide and spread a hologram across the table. Several designs appeared.
“The six builds you made last time—I already drafted the ones Eily could actually use. This is about as much room for customization as you’ve got?”
As expected.
Strange speech, bad personality, violent and stubborn, but—
“Isn’t that the face of someone thinking something rude?”
“Ah, no.”
Ian is competent. To be exact, he’s close to a genius. Not just his work speed, which would be embarrassing to compare with other engineers, but even more so in his thorough preparedness.
There wasn’t much for me to say first. If I mixed a few things from these designs together, I felt the Eily I wanted would naturally emerge.
“I-I’d like to add one function.”
“What.”
“A purge function.”
Purge.
At that word, Ian’s expression scrunched up completely.
“Purge is the worst function. Transformation is the worst function. You bastard.”
“W-why are you cursing at me?”
“If there are parts that can purge and parts that can transform, a Titan’s durability and mobility naturally drop. Joints can loosen from frequent purging or transforming too.”
But it’s cool.
Ian slammed his fist down on the table.
“And the one who has to keep repairing and maintaining all that is the engineer. You bastard.”
Isn’t that what engineers are supposed to do?
“That’s what engineers are supposed to d—”
I started and covered the smartwatch with my hand. Ian swiftly raised his lowered hand, then set it back down.
A metallic clunk rang out. It seemed he had picked up and put back down a hammer that had been lying on the floor.
“Eily, if the smartwatch gets smashed, my wrist breaks too, got it?”
“S-sorry. I’ll be careful.”
Whew.
Ian held a sullen expression for a while, then let out a deep sigh and looked at me.
“This is basic stuff, but of course purge is useful in many cases too. Same principle as Icarus purging its gun barrel to engage in close combat. I figured you’d understand from seeing it.”
To be more precise, it was correct that I had decided I needed a purge function too after seeing Icarus purge its gun barrel.
If I could purge unnecessary parts to secure sufficient mobility, then conversely, I could additionally carry a certain amount of firepower or armor normally.
It might be a bit cumbersome for a high-mobility type, but Eily has two generators attached. It might slow down a bit, but it can still move plenty well.
“So, what kind of purge?”
“I’d like to have armor purge.”
“Armor?”
Ian looked at Eily.
“Don’t you not really have armor to purge? You’re at a bare minimum even now.”
“That’s right. So I want to install additional armor and then be able to purge it.”
The firepower that had been lacking until now had been somewhat complemented. I already possessed mobility. What I needed last was a bare minimum of defense.
If I could just somehow reinforce the armor that was so thin the frame was exposed on the outside, nothing could be better.
“Do you remember what I said earlier?”
Just as I thought that, Ian stared at me intently.
“Huh?”
“If you add armor and then purge it, how many parts there are to purge, didn’t I say?”
Uh.
His expression looks a bit off, doesn’t it?
“I-Ian. D-don’t get angry.”
“Damn it, I said I’m the one who repairs and maintains it, you—”
“R-Ran! S-stop him!”
“Ian! Put down the hammer!”
U-uh.
“You bastard!!!”
This isn’t what I wanted.