Joshua Otto was not recorded as an ordinary man.
For the Viscount Otto family, which possessed little talent for piloting, entering Bethesda Academy was a great achievement. That was why he had a personal machine, something commoners and lowborn could not possess.
Joshua Otto despised the commoners and lowborn at the Academy. Those things that, through the cowardly name and method of special admissions, leeched off the Academy despite their miserable skills.
Joshua Otto was no worthless mediocrity, no one so low as to be humiliated by those born with base blood.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!!!”
But that lowborn with blue eyes was different. If he carelessly laid a hand on him, he might be trampled by the imperial family, who treasured their own bloodline with terrifying devotion.
So the one he should aim for was the guy beside him, the one who looked easy.
“I’ll smash you to pieces, Deep!!!”
Joshua Otto pushed the stick. He stepped on the pedal. The thrusters began to accelerate, spewing fierce flame. At the same time, the Titan’s artificial intelligence spoke.
“Lord Joshua. The enemy machine is a high-mobility type. Rather than accelerating to close the distance, it would be better to keep your distance and accumulate sufficient damage….”
“Shut up! If you’re artificial intelligence, then obediently follow my orders!”
“Understood.”
There was a reason Joshua was confident.
The battlefield was a jungle.
The Academy’s vast sparring grounds had various environments implemented within them. Most were plains, but some areas contained special environments such as jungle.
The jungle was Joshua’s main stage.
It was also a place that lowborn had never experienced even once.
After several nuclear wars, jungles had become bloated. Trees had grown larger than Titans. They would be smashed apart by a Titan charging at high speed, but to begin with, it was an environment where one could not reach such speeds.
A lowborn who had never experienced an environment like this would only end up ramming into a tree and stopping while trying to move in a high-mobility type.
“Ha, it’s nothing more than a high-mobility type anyway!”
Joshua had seen Deep’s footage too. It had been unpleasant.
His strategy was simple. Accelerate at tremendous speed, approach, accumulate damage, and then lose like an idiot.
Joshua’s Titan was also a heavy-armored type. Its mobility was excellent as well. Its long-range firepower could not even be compared to that black Titan’s.
Considering that the rifle used to keep Fafnir in check had belonged to Icarus, its actual armament was no more than the pile bunker mounted afterward.
All he had to do was not get hit.
In the end, a high-mobility type with weak armor could never defeat a heavy-armored type. That was what Joshua thought, and what he was certain of.
Had Deep known that was what he was thinking,
he would have felt rewarded for having thoroughly hidden the fact that he was sponsored by the Luna family.
Tatatatatatatatatatang!
At the sudden sound of gunfire, Joshua manipulated the stick. Bullets embedded themselves into the forearm covering the head with a rattling series of impacts.
“What the—”
“Enemy attack detected. Estimated to be a standard rifle.”
“I know that much!”
Clank!
The machine gun on his shoulder turned and spat fire. Shell casings poured down in an instant and scattered across the ground.
As soon as the empty magazine fell to the ground, Joshua pulled a new magazine from his waist and inserted it into the machine gun.
“Report the damage!”
“Only scratches remain on the armor. There is no significant damage.”
“You fool! I told you to report the enemy’s damage!”
“That is the enemy’s damage.”
Joshua opened his mouth, which he had been grinding shut.
“What?”
The dust slowly cleared.
What appeared first was a bright yellow gleam in the eyes, and what appeared belatedly was a shield. It was not large. It was attached to a sub-arm added to the left shoulder.
“A shield?”
On a high-mobility type?
The black Titan began approaching while firing its rifle. Joshua raised the left stick, but the arm was slow to lift and block the bullets.
The sync was different. He was not in sync with the Titan’s artificial intelligence. No, but even so, it was still within the bounds of common sense. This much lag was only natural.
And yet, why was it that when he looked at the black Titan before him, his own sync felt uselessly low?
“If you’re a high-mobility type, then act like one and explode when bullets hit you!”
Clack.
The side skirt opened. A hidden small missile launcher revealed itself.
The missiles shot out from the launcher. Three in total. They had no homing function, but at this distance, they could only hit. It was impossible to dodge them.
No matter how fast one’s reaction speed was, dodging them should have been absolutely impossible due to the difference in sync.
It should have been.
The three missiles grazed past the black Titan and struck a tree. At the same time, Joshua pulled the stick back.
He had to get away. He had to widen the distance.
Something was wrong.
The moment the reverse thrust fired, Joshua’s body pitched forward.
***
“Deep! He’s running away, isn’t he?”
“Good judgment.”
The effect of the additional armor was good. To be exact, the additional shield was good.
It had not increased the weight much, but it was effective at blocking bullets from the front. It had been inspired by Fafnir’s wings.
To think that simply adding a shield to a sub-arm allowed us to engage in a firefight with a heavy-armored type. Customization was the best.
The feel of the rifle I had finally purchased was good too.
“D-Deep! Do we have to conserve ammo? It’s seriously kind of expensive, you know?”
“I know.”
Unfortunately, weapons that could pour out ammunition infinitely did not exist in this world. With a rifle, the ammunition consumption was fast, so the feeling was even stronger.
It was a shame that this world setting had no beam weapons. Batteries could at least be recharged, but bullets could not be reused.
As soon as the magazine emptied, I stowed the rifle on the back. At the same time, Joshua’s Levant blasted its thrusters. The reverse thrust stopped, and it charged straight toward me.
“Quick judgment.”
The other side had a full magazine, and I had put my gun away. If he was even slightly disadvantaged, he ran away; if he was even slightly advantaged, he immediately lunged in.
“He’s like a bat.”
“A bat?”
Ah, I guess Aesop’s Fables weren’t passed down in this world.
“Shall we try using that first?”
“Ah, right! I wanted to try it too! I was curious!”
Clank!
I turned the shield forward and blocked the machine gun. I could hear the bullets ricocheting off the shield and burying themselves in the trees.
I had already seen a charged-particle cannon right before my eyes, so this was not enough to frighten me and cloud my judgment. Bullets I could block were not particularly scary.
“Smoke screen activated.”
“Okay, activating!”
Pitch-black smoke began spewing from the gaps in the armor.
Within the blurred vision, Ailey’s sensors blinked and the screen changed. Once it switched to thermal imaging, Joshua’s Levant became clearly visible again.
“Let’s go.”
“Yeah, let’s do it!”
The thrusters ignited. Riding the heat and wind, the smoke screen spread far and wide. At the same time, the machine-gun bullets striking the shield head-on decreased. He had lost direction.
Ailey, whose entire body was pitch-black, and the pitch-black smoke screen had good compatibility. Just as Ian had said, it was painted so black that it was almost like blackout.
The sensors used by the Academy’s Titans were all image sensors. Every pilot relied purely on sight. Creating smoke thick enough to completely conceal a Titan’s body was difficult.
Then, all one had to do was the opposite.
Rather than using smoke grenades to block the opponent’s vision, the Titan itself could spew smoke and hide its body.
It was not even something particularly ingenious. It was a strategy I had used even before. It simply had not been applicable in this world, so it was an unfamiliar method to others.
There had been no way to make the Titan itself spew smoke, so I had customized it so smoke grenades would go off inside the Titan. I was glad there was no need for that this time.
“Side thrusters, hover.”
Ailey’s frame floated slightly upward and accelerated as it was. Since the body was hidden by smoke, the speed was slow. Since this was a jungle, the speed became even slower.
I left the shield held forward to Ailey. I was too busy constantly moving the pedals and sticks to avoid the trees.
The bullets hitting the shield had decreased far more than before. The smoke had clearly spread wider and made him lose track of me.
The speaker crackled. Ran’s voice rang out.
“Deep! While the opponent can’t lock onto you, load the rifle and….”
“No!”
“Mm-mm, no!”
What we should aim for was not something like long-range shooting. That was too safe a method. To put it bluntly, it was almost useless.
“Right now…”
“It’s time to charge!”
Deep manipulated the stick.
The shape of smoke charged toward the Levant. Joshua hurriedly moved the stick.
Joshua was indeed no ordinary man.
The machine gun was merely a firearm attached to a sub-arm. A heavy-armored Titan was a weapon designed with close combat in mind.
What he drew was a machete heated bright red. It was a close-combat weapon capable of cutting through things like trees in a single stroke. If he swung the blade at the smoke, he might cut through the core, but—
“Die!!!”
To Joshua, who had lost his vision, something as insignificant as a lowborn’s life was not even worth considering.
“I thought you’d do that.”
Boom!
What he cut was a smoke grenade. The smoke that burst out at once completely blocked Joshua’s vision.
I had known. I had believed. I had trusted.
I had believed that the opponent would never hesitate to swing his weapon. I had trusted that he would think it was fine to kill a lowborn or two during a sparring match.
“How dare you, you coward!”
“You’d think it was cowardly.”
Their communications were not connected. Joshua Otto, filled with humiliation, pounded the short-range communication button with his fist, but Deep had blocked short-range communications.
Suddenly, the words the princess had spoken came to mind. His obsession with the match resembled Deep when he had played Titan Core before coming to this world.
Perhaps that was why one thing the princess had said remained in Deep’s heart.
“But the match comes before honor.”
Victory and defeat came before honor.
Even the honor of nobles was bound to be overshadowed by defeat.
He extended the left arm. The pile bunker’s stake aligned itself while pulled back. A clacking sound came from the cylinder.
“Fire.”
THOOM!!!
The stake pierced through the Levant’s shoulder and reached its head. One of the main sensors shattered.
Ailey passed straight by the Levant. Slowly reducing speed, she turned off the smoke screen.
The machete fell from the Levant’s hand. With the actuator in its hand severed, it could not hold a weapon. Likewise, the machine gun connected to the shoulder also stopped functioning.
The smoke slowly, but completely, settled. Now they could see each other.
Ailey approached.
Deep approached.
The Levant retreated.
Joshua retreated.
“Why, why are you coming closer! Why are you coming so slowly! You’re, you’re a high-mobility type! A lowborn! Even though your talent is miserable!”
He did not make use of speed, the strong point of a high-mobility type.
Nor did he particularly hide and launch a surprise attack.
As if he had made some promise with high-mobility types, he did not take any of the actions everyone expected from one. That made Joshua’s skin crawl.
The shield on the sub-arm coupled over the pile bunker and then detached. With a clack, a second stake was loaded into the pile bunker.
“Ah, teabagging is fun.”
It was an action without much thought behind it.
At that action, Joshua seized the stick as if having a fit.
The Levant’s second side skirt opened. At the same time, Deep manipulated the stick. Ailey drew the standard pistol in an instant and fired.
CLAAANG!!!
The Levant’s missiles detonated. With one hip joint collapsing, the Levant crumpled to the ground and knelt.
Ailey stood before the Levant. Then she grabbed the stake as it was. Since the cost was a waste, it was better to recover it.
Screeeech. Kraaaak. Crunch.
The moment the extracted stake was stored in the shield, the light in the Levant’s main sensor went out. At the same time, text scrolled across Deep’s screen.
“Difficulty adjudicating. Stand by in the hangar?”
The speaker crackled, and Ran’s voice belatedly came through.
“Um, Deep?”
“Wh-what does this mean?”
“They say that because you used smoke, the sparring situation wasn’t properly recorded, so it’s difficult to judge. They’ll acknowledge the victory, but they have no choice except to deduct points in the detailed scoring.”
Ah.
Ah, I see.
So that was why the Academy cadets did not use smoke. No wonder no one used smoke.
“D-do you want me to pat, pat-pat you?”
Hearing Ailey’s voice, I leaned back against the seat.
“Just the offer is enough. Thank you.”
I didn’t know anymore.
Anyway, I won, so that was enough.