I gripped the stick. I crushed the button down. At the same time Ailee spewed smoke, I deployed the shield.
Dadadadadang!
Bullets hammered against the shield. Benjamin wasn’t the one firing. The two Titans standing up ahead were shooting at the same time.
“I guess they sell Titans packed full with ammo and armaments too!”
“Right? It’s even better armed than when Deep and I first met.”
As long as you had a rifle and rounds, you could hold off a heavy-armored Titan well enough. There weren’t many people who could dodge and block shots aimed at their sensors while forcing close combat. The Academy average was just strange.
To put it another way, the enemy was skilled enough to aim for the location of my sensors when they fired.
“I still have no idea what kind of trading partner we’re dealing with.”
I cut ignition to the main thruster. I reversed the thruster. At the same time I adjusted the output, I planted my feet into the ground and brought the machine to a stop.
“It probably doesn’t matter much anyway!”
At the same time as the reverse thrust, the smoke rode the thruster heat and surged forward. Along with it, the enemy fire stopped.
While hovering, I pulled my feet free of the ground. The moment I reignited the main thruster and tried to accelerate forward, I saw something moving at high speed on the thermal camera.
Shrrk!
A standard dagger sliced past in front of the core.
Tang!
At the same time, a bullet struck the core armor. Ailee hurriedly adjusted the shield angle and blocked the round. I worked the stick and pedals, reversed the thruster, and hid back inside the smoke.
They had clearly aimed for the core. It meant they didn’t care if I died.
My teeth suddenly began to chatter. I clenched my molars hard. The leg fitted with the brace twitched.
I don’t want to die.
“D-Deep! Are you okay? Your body’s shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
The problem was the enemy’s balance. There were only three Titans, but all three were different types.
The Titan that had swung the dagger from the front was a heavy-armored type. The one that shot at my core from afar was a high-mobility type. Benjamin, who could fire EMPs, was a support type, despite his extremely violent appearance.
He was a support type. If you disabled the enemy before your allies took damage, that counted as support.
One could hold the front, one could stack damage from long range, and one could interfere with me or deliver a powerful blow with an EMP. All three were in one place.
There was no way I could fight them alone, without a plan or an operator.
Bzzzt.
“Deep, you’re holding up all right, aren’t you?”
You little—
“You fucking bastard!”
Revan fell silent for a moment over the comm.
“No, I told you I was counting on you to take the front, didn’t I? Obviously, I meant the vanguard. I’m setting up my gun at a distance right now, preparing to snipe.”
Is he kidding me?
“How am I supposed to trust that?”
Whoong.
A single bullet pierced through the smoke and passed beside me. I didn’t hear it hit anything, but what it meant was clear.
Revan really was hiding somewhere, his gun set up, preparing to snipe.
“See?”
“You could’ve at least given me a heads-up that there was going to be a fight!”
“Did you forget what I told you last time? Just like how Fafnir showed up in the scenario even though there was no way it should have, things I can’t predict keep happening too.”
Then don’t talk like you’re so sure, or tell me the moment something happens.
Calm down.
I was furious enough to genuinely want to kill him, but this wasn’t the time to fight Revan, and I didn’t have time to fight him either.
“Still, I came back when I was about to leave, didn’t I?”
So he really was trying to run away. I seriously want to kill him.
Calm down. Analyze. Think.
Professor Zeke said it. The answer was inside me. He told me to take the actions dictated by survival instinct before my survival instinct reacted.
The reason my survival instinct made me act that way.
Because no matter what situation approached, I already knew exactly how I should move.
The knowledge was there. I had only recalled that knowledge when the time actually came. All I needed was to pull the moment of recalling it further forward.
Plan first, before my survival instinct starts screaming.
There are three enemies.
The heavy-armored enemy is armed with a standard rifle and a greatsword. Its armor is thick. I can hold it off with my rifle, but disabling it will be a little difficult.
The high-mobility enemy is at a fair distance. If I land a rifle shot, I can disable it, but its firepower isn’t threatening enough that I need to go out of my way to try.
“Revan, what’s Benjamin’s weakness?”
“Mobility.”
He was right. The machine’s left-right balance was extremely unstable. No matter how outstanding its support abilities were, it didn’t look like something with high mobility.
“Deep, the smoke’s almost gone! They’ll be able to see us within ten seconds!”
Think.
“Deep, are you still listening to me? I can see light from their side charging an EMP.”
Thud!
I slammed my fist down on the voice comm button. Only after Revan’s voice vanished did my head start working.
“Ailee.”
“Y-yeah? Are you mad?”
“Please match my movements properly.”
The speaker vibrated with a wooong. Was that laughter?
“I wondered what you were going to say. You’re being way too serious about something so obvious!”
“I guess so.”
I pressed the pedal and pushed the stick forward. The main thruster ignited at once and began to accelerate.
“Speed?”
“Full power.”
Until now, it had been an output I couldn’t endure, but my body had recovered to some extent. There was an inertia control device too. There was no way it was impossible.
“Full power, huh. Mr. Otaku likes this kind of thing, right?”
Likes?
“Of course.”
Was there anyone who disliked the phrase full power?
The thruster output pushed the smoke away, dispersing it rapidly. At the same time, my eyes met the Titan that had been waiting right in front of the smoke.
As if she had been waiting for it, Ailee’s body tilted forward.
At the same time as we accelerated, I lowered the body. The dagger passed over Ailee’s head. I ignored the heavy-armored Titan and charged straight ahead.
Benjamin’s EMP barrel turned toward me. When I ignited the side thruster, the barrel also blasted its own thruster and locked its direction onto me.
Using thrusters to make sudden directional adjustments to the barrel—astounding. I should try that next time too. Without an external factor, it would be impossible to dodge.
But on this side, there was a sniper who could create firing angles and snipe.
Tang! A bullet struck Benjamin’s barrel directly. The direction of the EMP barrel bent, and with a thunderous boom, the shockwave swept over the lower body of the heavy-armored Titan.
The heavy-armored Titan dropped to its knees, slowly tilted, and collapsed. Even without seeing it, I could tell from my spatial perception and the sound.
I could also clearly feel, without seeing it, that the high-mobility Titan was approaching me.
“Shield!”
“Say it a little more gently!”
“Please!”
“Okay!”
Ailee moved the sub-arm. The moment the shield went up on our flank, bullets struck it with a dadadang. The high-mobility Titan immediately drew a dagger with its left hand.
Pressure me with long-range attacks when I had no ranged attack option, then seize the moment my vision was blocked by the shield to engage in close combat.
Good judgment.
“Bad judgment.”
Because Ailee’s right arm had been restored.
The moment the muzzle appeared beneath the shield, the high-mobility Titan ignited its side thruster and veered off. It was trying to make the bullet hit its shoulder armor instead of the core.
I never intended to shoot the core in the first place. If it turned aside, that was actually something to be grateful for.
The bullet I fired at its crotch struck straight into the gap at the hip joint. The moment I thought it had lost its balance with a sharp snap, the high-mobility Titan regained its balance with reverse thrust.
At that level, its response ability seemed better than the Academy average.
I turned the muzzle toward Benjamin. Benjamin immediately raised his right arm and covered his body. Even at a glance, the armor was thick. There was no reason to waste bullets. That wasn’t what mattered.
By my calculation of the timing.
It was about time for the heavy-armored Titan to recover from the EMP.
At the same time as Ailee reversed thrust, she stopped over the heavy-armored Titan. With a crack, she stomped down on the Titan and knelt on top of it.
The moment the high-mobility Titan, having recovered its balance, was about to charge in, I reached my hand downward.
Clank!
The stake in the pile bunker loaded backward. At the same time, the high-mobility Titan stopped moving. When I turned my head, Benjamin too was slowly lowering his right arm.
They were reluctant to let their comrade die.
The short-range comm flickered. Judging by the double flicker, both Revan and Darka had clearly opened a channel.
I pressed the button.
“You’re not really going to kill him, are you?”
It was Darka.
I could feel the urgency. Was he not simply an object of smuggling? I couldn’t know what sort of relationship they had. Nor did I want to. It felt like the problem would get complicated.
Benjamin slowly backed away, his right arm held behind him.
“Fine, I understand. Release him. And if you hand over the smartwatch as well, I’ll give you all the money from today’s deal.”
Not bad.
If the fight ended here, that worked for me too. I hadn’t wanted to kill anyone in the first place.
When I slowly raised my hand upward, Benjamin, who had been on edge, slowly relaxed his posture.
“Good. Wise choi—”
Rumble rumble rumble!
The high-mobility Titan ignited its thrusters while hovering. As if Darka hadn’t expected it either, Benjamin reached out and tried to stop the Titan.
“You’re so naive, it must be easy to scam you. Isn’t it?”
Thung!
A single bullet pierced the high-mobility Titan’s core.
Its hovering cut out, and the Titan’s body rolled across the ground. Its body, having lost control, crashed into the wasteland sand and crumpled. Its head sensor smashed into a rock and was crushed.
“As someone from the same homeland, I’ll give you one piece of advice, Deep.”
A red liquid slowly flowed from the small hole left by the gunshot. It couldn’t be blood. It might have been coolant, or fuel leaking from where the backpack had been pierced.
“Most of the guys who need smuggling like this are Alliance soldiers.”
It wasn’t blood.
But a person had probably died.
“The Empire aren’t exactly good guys either, but don’t trust the Alliance.”
“Damn it.”
Darka spat the word through clenched teeth.
“I’ll surrender, so let’s talk.”