Saya Aslan had no intention of looking down on a cadet named Levan.
When she fought the commoner called Deep, Saya Aslan had underestimated her opponent. That had been the problem. In an engagement where she should never have faced even the slightest crisis, Saya Aslan had ended up giving her opponent an opening.
Thanks to that, she had been able to have a tense battle, but it was not a good thing. It had been unnecessary tension.
There would not be a second time. No matter who her opponent was, she would never let her guard down. All the more so if that opponent was a top cadet ranked above her.
“Lady Aslan. How does the Titan feel?”
“Good.”
The Titan Saya Aslan had called up in the simulation and was currently using was the final-form version of Kaiser, which was still undergoing repairs and customization.
Its entire body had been painted red. The material of the greatsword had been changed, making it both sturdier and lighter. The generator output had been improved, and the thrusters had been replaced with higher-output models.
The most dramatic change was the non-contact magnetic gear technology. By using magnetic force to prevent the joints from making contact and causing friction, the delay in movement caused by the absence of artificial intelligence had been minimized even further.
The most obvious external change was the shield.
“It’s surprisingly not that bothersome.”
“We calculated the optimal angle.”
The small buckler mounted over the left forearm served as armor, and by incorporating the hidden rifle that had originally been built into the forearm, it also doubled as a ranged weapon.
Since there was no reason to engage in ranged combat in the first place, this much was more than enough.
“Lady Aslan, I will relay information on your opponent while you are moving.”
“Permission granted.”
“Alex, Levan. His Titan does not appear to be an artillery-type, but he seems to favor ranged combat. His shooting accuracy is extremely high, and—”
Saya Aslan moved the stick.
Klang!
A bullet ricocheted away.
Saya Aslan turned her head and looked around. She saw nothing. Blocking it had been nothing more than a purely instinctive reaction.
If he had fired from somewhere beyond visual observation, was it long-range fire using a scope?
“His main strategy is harassment with a designated marksman rifle, followed by close combat after disabling the target. It is judged that he is already executing that strategy.”
“So it seems.”
Klang!
The instant she raised the shield again, the bullet struck not the shield, but the shoulder armor, throwing off sparks. Had her reaction been late?
No. That could not be. She already knew the bullet’s trajectory and direction. Saya Aslan had an innate talent for identifying and countering an enemy’s ranged attacks.
In that case.
“The firing angle changed.”
“I apologize, but may I ask what you mean?”
“It means the opponent is firing while moving.”
It meant that her opponent was moving his body and creating firing angles that had not existed before.
Was it talent?
Saya Aslan believed in the word talent. That was where she and Aaron Dyke could never see eye to eye. Aaron Dyke, of all people, had been born with the talent called effort, and because of that, he distrusted the word talent instead.
That, however, was what made Aaron Dyke unfair. A ridiculous man.
“Judging by the speed, he must be firing while accelerating with his thrusters in a hover state.”
The rate at which the firing angle changed was considerable. At that speed, he was accurately aiming at Saya Aslan and trying to predict the movement of her shield to land effective hits.
It was not arrogance. He had indeed struck while avoiding the shield. He possessed the talent to do it, the belief that he could do it, and the ability to pull it off.
“But I see you now.”
Kaiser began to accelerate.
With her shield, she blocked only the bullets aimed at the sensors. At some point, the bullets had begun to aim precisely for the sensors. That made them easier to block.
Reading the trajectory, she charged toward her opponent.
“It is behavior within the bounds of common sense.”
Firing while hovering was effective to begin with. Since the impact caused by moving across the ground disappeared, firing while hovering was actually preferred when the ground conditions were poor, as accuracy increased.
She had not known he could fire while moving at that kind of speed, but it was still within her expectations.
“Rather, that strategy will drive him into a pit of his own making.”
Hovering rapidly consumed the power stored in the generator battery. A high-mobility Titan might be able to endure it, but for a heavy armored type, it was a burden.
By the time Kaiser faced Alex, Alex’s battery would no longer be able to maintain hovering, and without hovering, it would be impossible to avoid close combat.
Saya Aslan lacked confidence in close combat.
Confidence that she would lose.
“You’ve shown yourself!”
With the naked eye, with the image sensor, she confirmed Alex.
Alex was not hovering. As expected, it was clear that he could no longer maintain hovering due to battery consumption.
By contrast, Kaiser was only now beginning to hover. The thrusters ignited, and it gained speed in an instant.
When she raised the shield and fired, Alex unfolded a collapsible shield and covered his entire body. At the same time, Kaiser lowered its posture and leaned forward.
It was a technique artificial intelligence would not attempt: leaning the body to the verge of falling in order to maximize acceleration. It was something made possible by the customization tailored to Saya, who did not use artificial intelligence.
If limited to straight-line acceleration, that speed rivaled a high-mobility type.
When Kaiser reached its hand into the air, a sub-arm handed the greatsword to the position of its hand. Kaiser drew the sword from midair and swung the greatsword with both hands.
Craang!
The greatsword spewed thrust and cleaved the shield in two with a single blow. At the same time, Alex revealed himself again.
Hovering, blasting its thrusters, with its back turned completely.
How?
There was no way its generator performance was far beyond Saya’s expectations. At best, it was a dedicated unit supplied by the academy, and Levan, who came from a commoner background, would have limits to his customization.
In fact, even the weapons visible to the eye were nothing but cheap, outdated weapons. The bazooka fixed beside the thruster and the standard rifle proved that.
Saya Aslan’s instincts screamed.
“You never hovered in the first place!”
That precise shooting had been possible while running on two legs, without hovering?
But.
“Even if you turn your back and run…”
The bazooka attached beside the thruster moved on its own, without even a sub-arm, and pointed at Kaiser.
“Remote control?”
Boom!
The rocket struck the shield directly and exploded. Kaiser swung its arm and dropped the shield. Even if it was a rocket meant to pierce armor, all it had done was destroy Kaiser’s shield.
The instant she broke through the explosion, she saw the muzzle Alex was holding.
“He’s aiming for the sensors!”
Piercing the imperial family’s sturdy armor was impossible. In that case, he was aiming for the sensors. It was a pattern familiar to Saya.
She covered the sensors with her hand. There was no sound of gunfire, nor the sound of ricochet.
A feint.
Saya Aslan immediately gripped the stick and tilted it to the side.
The moment the side thrusters ignited and accelerated her sideways, a flail swept through the space where Kaiser’s head had been.
“A chain mace?”
And it was an extremely minor type of obsolete weapon, with a small thruster attached to the flail head.
He was using nothing but weapons so anachronistic they were absurd, and yet she could not reach him. Again and again, her approach was blocked.
The more she dodged and blocked his attacks, the farther the distance became.
“Giving up some armor and closing in is the best method.”
“I know!”
She cut the side thrusters and focused the firepower into the main thrusters. The moment the thrusters ignited, Kaiser shot forward.
With a grinding clatter, rifle rounds struck Kaiser’s arm directly. It could withstand a few hits, but not a single round missed.
“Left arm joint damaged.”
“Is it because durability dropped due to the magnetic processing?”
It did not matter. Her right hand was enough to hold the greatsword.
The instant she raised the greatsword, Alex placed his shoulder armor in the greatsword’s path. Did he think he could stop it with his shoulder?
After having kept everything under control until now, there was no way he would suddenly make such a judgment.
The greatsword tried to stop while spewing thrust. A creaking sound rang out from the right arm. It could not stop. It was because the left arm was not producing enough output.
“Just how far did you…”
Predict and calculate this?
Alex’s shoulder armor exploded.
“Reactive armor?!”
It was a technology used so rarely it was practically lost, something one would only see in the Union forces because Imperial Titans had more than enough armor already.
The greatsword was knocked away.
“I’ll give you a question, Your Highness.”
Beep.
Through the suddenly connected short-range communication, Levan’s quiet voice could be heard.
“Left, or right.”
Thunk.
The bazooka that had separated from Alex’s thruster parts spewed thrust and positioned itself on the left.
The mace Alex had discarded spewed thrust and positioned itself on the right.
Alex held no weapon. No close-range weapon was visible either. It meant he intended to stake the match purely on this fifty-fifty choice.
The answer was easy.
“You haven’t loaded the bazooka!”
There had been no time to reload, nor any moment when he had reloaded. What she had to block was the mace.
She struck down the mace flying in with its thruster blasting by using the greatsword. The bazooka flying the other way slammed straight into the ground.
“Haha. They say red can’t beat the tricolor.”
Levan burst into laughter.
What was he talking about?
A giant hand suddenly covered her field of vision. With a grinding sound, the other hand seized Kaiser’s right arm.
“It was the center.”
He had made her swing the greatsword, then taken advantage of the opening to charge in barehanded, without any weapon?
“You have no common sense…!”
“If I fight without it, don’t I win?”
Alex’s foot hooked Kaiser’s foot. The balance of the hover collapsed in an instant. She could not see, so she could not operate it. There was no artificial intelligence to help with the controls either.
Craang! The instant Kaiser was pinned beneath Alex’s body and slammed into the floor, her vision opened again.
“I’m sorry for fighting dirty.”
His voice was laughing.
Alex’s right forearm opened, and a gatling gun revealed itself. At the fact that even his hidden equipment was outdated, Saya Aslan bit her lower lip.
“But Your Highness, you fight with output and equipment doing all the work for you, so you’re plenty dirty too, aren’t you?”
Drrrrrrrrrrrrk!
Along with the sound of Kaiser’s head being shredded, her vision turned black.
Saya Aslan let go of the control stick. The hatch slowly opened. The moment she raised her head, her eyes met Aaron’s in the observation room.
When she tasted blood on her lower lip, a belated voice rang out.
“Winner, Levan.”
Professor Sieg approached and handed her a handkerchief. Princess Saya accepted the handkerchief and pressed it firmly to her lower lip. The handkerchief slowly began to stain red.
“Each cadet will return to the waiting room.”
It was a defeat in which she had not landed a single effective hit.