I secured Ailee to the hangar anchor and opened the core hatch. After stepping outside, I took a brief look around. Joshua’s Levant was still nowhere to be seen.
One shoulder had been pierced through, and the side skirt’s sympathetic detonation had shattered the hip joint. It would probably take quite some time just to collect the damaged parts and return.
The moment I came out of the hatch, my hand moved faster than my conscious thought. Something plopped into my outstretched hand—a handkerchief.
“Huh?”
“What kind of reaction speed is that? Are you a beast?”
Karina Luna.
Karina, whose injuries had been light compared to Zeus’s, had been discharged after a week, just as the medical team had predicted. I hadn’t gone out of my way to visit her after that. I thought of our relationship as a little uncomfortable.
So I figured I could just forget about it, but I hadn’t expected her to suddenly come looking for me first.
Karina narrowed her eyes and stared at me.
“You’d better avoid using smoke screens if possible. The Academy tends to deduct points in most cases where smoke screens and the like make evaluation difficult.”
So that was how it was.
Then it would’ve been nice if she’d told me earlier, but in the end, the only ones who knew about this strategy were me, Ran, and Ian. Even counting artificial intelligences, there was only Ailee.
Karina had had neither the time nor the means to know in advance and advise me.
No, more importantly.
“Your… your speech.”
It wasn’t the way a young lady spoke.
Even before, she had spoken casually to people she’d met, like Rod or Allang, but that had always been limited to nobles she had some friendly relationship with.
Even when she used casual speech, I’d never seen her talk in this kind of tone.
“Well, after thinking it over, you’re a commoner, so even if you tell anyone, it won’t matter anyway. This side should be more comfortable for you too, so it’s fine, right?”
No. It’s fucking uncomfortable.
She didn’t seem to have any intention of hearing my answer. I didn’t particularly feel like answering either, so instead, I just roughly wiped off my sweat with the handkerchief I’d received.
“I couldn’t watch your duel.”
Don’t people usually say they watched it well?
“Thanks to the smoke screen, I couldn’t see a thing. Your opponent must have been the same. How did you see your opponent and fight inside that?”
“With th-thermal imaging sensors.”
After saying it, I felt a little like I’d messed up. Was it all right to tell her that so readily?
Karina made a face as if she’d heard something good, then nodded.
“I can use that as reference, right?”
“Huh?”
Reference?
It wasn’t impossible. White Bunny was a high-mobility, single-color Titan similar to Ailee. Only the color of the smoke it used was different; it was suited to using this strategy.
“I-I’m a first-year, though?”
“So?”
“A-and Senior Karina, you’re a second-year.”
“And?”
But, though it was ridiculous for me to point this out.
Was it morally right for a senior to proudly say she was going to copy a junior’s tactic?
When I looked at her with suspicion, Karina instead shrugged.
“You beat me, so of course it’s only right for me to watch you and learn. You’re better in skill too.”
It had only been simple pressure using a matchup advantage.
Just as I was about to say something, Karina waved a hand in the air and turned her back. It seemed she really had only come to look at my strategy before leaving.
“The, the handkerchief?”
“Give it back later.”
“Y-yes.”
What was that, seriously?
As Karina went down the hangar stairs, her eyes widened, and she stepped slightly to the side. Soon, Karina’s figure disappeared, and red hair came into view.
For some reason, it felt like a lot of people were coming to see me today.
And all of them were people whose faces I wasn’t exactly delighted to see.
“Levan?”
“Yeah, yeah, congrats on winning! Did Senior Karina come to congratulate you too?”
Why was he here now?
When I just stared without answering, Levan let out a small, dry laugh.
“I couldn’t see a thing. How did you detonate the missiles with your pistol at the end? Are your reaction speed and the Titan’s movements identical? Just how incredible is your sync?”
I don’t know either.
If that could be measured numerically, I’d like to measure it, but it’s impossible. If this were a game and not reality, maybe I’d be able to see a sync stat with my own eyes.
Now I think I roughly understand what sync is. If I had to define it, it’s trust, empathy toward each other, or that kind of overlap in thought.
It’s impossible to measure moments like that between a person and an artificial intelligence—no, between a person and another person—with numbers. At best, you could compare my reaction speed with the Titan’s movements.
I don’t want to call something like that sync.
Levan, who was watching my expression, slowly approached.
“If you have time, come watch my duel too. To resolve the sync issue, I forcibly raised the Titan’s own reaction speed. Now a good match should be possible.”
That was possible?
“H-how?”
“I used a stimulant to increase the artificial intelligence’s calculation speed. There are side effects. Well, artificial intelligences are consumables too, so it can’t be helped.”
So there were things like stimulants.
I’d learned some good information, but even if something like that existed, I couldn’t use it. Starting with gathering information, Ailee was taking care of most things in my place.
It was a way to bypass the otaku restriction. If I became inept at everything outside my field of expertise, then Ailee could do it instead of me.
“Why, do you need some?”
“Ah, no.”
“Really? If you ever need it, tell me. I happen to have exactly one extra. I can’t give it to just anyone, but you’re from the same place as me, so I can be generous.”
Was he expecting gratitude for that?
In truth, it really was something worth expecting gratitude for. If you considered artificial intelligences consumables, it was something you’d use any number of times despite the side effects.
“I’m fine.”
But I don’t consider Ailee a consumable.
If anything, it’s the opposite. I want Ailee to be with me in my life for as long as possible, semi-permanently if she can. If there’s even the slightest side effect, I have no intention of using it on Ailee.
“Really? Still, if you seriously think you need it, tell me. I’ll give you one.”
“Yes, th-thank you.”
In any case, Levan was probably showing his own kind of kindness to someone from the same place.
Separate from whether I liked Levan or not, in the end, Levan was only trying to protect the ordinary life he believed in. His method just happened to be heading toward the normal ending.
If he was still paying attention to me in the middle of that, there was no reason not to be grateful. He also wasn’t someone I wanted to go out of my way to antagonize or make into an enemy.
“Stubborn, aren’t you. Anyway, my duel starts in the simulation arena in thirty minutes. Come by and watch. I’ll show you something good.”
“Something g-good?”
“If it’s the princess’s defeat, I’d say that counts as quite the spectacle, doesn’t it?”
Levan grabbed my shoulder and pulled me in, then raised his thumb. I had only just finished my duel, so my body was still soaked in sweat, but he didn’t seem to care at all.
“I’ll think of it as your revenge and fight hard!”
I, uh, don’t really need that.
After patting my shoulder, Levan glanced at the hangar stairs, then lowered his head and whispered.
“Ah, and don’t get too close to Karina Luna.”
“Huh?”
“Karina Luna is one of the triggers for the bad ending.”
With that, Levan let go of me and slowly walked toward the stairs.
“You’re coming, right?”
“Y-yes.”
I’d wanted to see it once anyway. I had never properly watched Levan fight before.
Levan nodded and went down the stairs. I watched his back as he descended quietly, and only after he disappeared did I sit down on a part lying nearby.
“Karina Luna is a trigger for the bad ending?”
Was it for a personal reason?
Or because of her family?
***
“Oh, what’s this? Commoner, are you going to watch too?”
“Ah, hello.”
I ran into Aaron midway there.
The funny thing was, Aaron’s condescending tone somehow didn’t feel like he was looking down on me at all. It just felt like he’d had a bad upbringing.
That seemed like a pretty rude thought to have.
“What’s with that expression?”
“Wh-what expression?”
“It’s already extremely irritating to see you looking down at the floor all the time, but right now, you have the face of someone thinking something rude about me. Fix your eyes.”
Guess it shows.
When I rubbed my eyes, Aaron began walking again after having stopped. As I naturally followed behind him, the gazes fixed on me quickly lessened.
Standing beside someone from a ducal house made everyone manage their eyes quickly. I wished it were like this normally too.
“A-Aaron, what are you going to watch?”
“The same thing, obviously. I’m going to observe Her Highness the Princess’s duel.”
“I-I’m going to watch Levan’s duel.”
“We’re going in the same direction, so obviously.”
I really had nothing to say.
Ah.
“A-Aaron, you’re going to cheer for Her Highness, right?”
“No.”
No?
When I looked at him with a strange expression, Aaron stopped for a moment and scowled sharply.
“Her Highness is second seat, and I’m third seat. If there’s data I can see with my own eyes, isn’t it only natural to watch as much of it as possible? I have to win next time.”
“Th-that’s…”
“You too. What do you mean, you’re going to watch Levan? Don’t you remember how you and I almost got sliced apart by Her Highness last time? It was only because it was a duel. If it had been real combat, our cores would have been cut through long ago.”
Wow, shit. I said one thing, and how many things was I getting in return?
Aaron began walking again. When we reached the observation room and he opened the door, Aaron muttered.
“I need to see more data, so it would be a little better if Her Highness wins.”
Oh.
Was he seriously insane? How could a person talk like that?
Beep beep beep.
“Saya, Kaiser. Deploying.”
“Alex. Levan, heading out!”
Before I could even recover from my astonishment, the duel began.