“I-I’d like to start the customization right away.”
Clang!
Right beside us, one of the Titan’s arms fell straight to the floor.
Someone started screaming like mad.
Had they made a mistake during customization, or had they caused an accident?
I’d never seen Ian act like that before.
“When you suddenly called me to the hangar again, I wondered what you were going to say.”
Ian looked a little displeased.
“What, are you gonna customize it for every exam? There’s no pilot who doesn’t just adjust things, but adds a new function or changes the entire concept every single time.”
Of course there wouldn’t be. That was only natural.
Everyone had tendencies.
Anyone had customizations they preferred more, and customizations they preferred less—or avoided entirely.
People who used high-mobility types were especially like that.
For someone used to the unique sense of speed of a high-mobility type, the movement speed of other Titans would only feel like the worst kind of downgrade.
“Yes, I am.”
But I was going to do it.
Customizations I preferred, customizations I preferred less or avoided?
Don’t say such spoiled things.
I’d poured more than ten thousand hours into Titan Core alone while waiting for the sequel.
The time I’d spent using high-mobility types was more than twice that of the other types, but if I’d used the other types for over a thousand hours each, it didn’t really matter.
Until I could use every type of Titan.
Until I could reach the rankings no matter what type of Titan I used.
I’d sucked Titan Core dry until it came down with tsutsugamushi disease; there was no way there’d be a type I couldn’t use.
“And I h-have to.”
Last time, I was in the late 100s, and this time, it was the top 50.
I worked up the courage to ask Professor Zeke about my next opponent.
Unexpectedly, he answered readily. Considering how much my rank had risen, a pilot ranked higher than me would be my opponent in the next exam.
Then naturally, I had to change my strategy.
“The h-higher you climb in rank, the less m-meta counters mean.”
Strictly speaking, they didn’t become meaningless. They just became fainter than before. But it was certain that their effectiveness decreased.
The reason was simple.
The higher up they were, the more stagnant and seasoned they became, to the point that they found ways to counter meta counters.
Or they stepped outside the meta entirely.
In fact, within the top 50, the number of simple heavy-armor Titans—especially artillery-heavy-armor Titans, which could be called the most meta—dropped sharply.
There were many cases where they had acceleration on par with high-mobility types, and many cases where they could vastly increase thruster output to blow away smoke screens in an instant.
“Once someone’s skill gets even a little b-better, a lot of them end up preparing for smoke grenades.”
I felt that most keenly while stealing smartwatches.
For example, the Allied Forces pilot who had been aboard a heavy-armor Titan.
From the very start, he had calculated my expected direction of movement from outside the smoke and was waiting for me.
If I had stupidly let the heavy-armor Titan draw my aggro, I would have been hit by the EMP or rifle waiting behind it and rendered combat incapable.
Even an Allied Forces pilot could respond to smoke grenades well enough.
I couldn’t assume that the academy cadets couldn’t.
Even if they were first-years, depending on the opponent, they might be veterans who had spent several years or more on the front lines.
“I get that you want to win, but just how much do you think I can—”
“I-Ian said it before.”
“What.”
“That if you had to be on a team that was trying to lose, you’d r-rather not take the exam at all.”
Ian’s expression eased for a moment, then he looked down at me.
“I’m still not adding armor purging.”
So that really won’t work.
Clang!
The sound rang out once again.
When I turned my head, I saw another arm being attached to the Titan from earlier.
Wow, they were attaching a weapon that should only be mounted on a sub-arm to the main arm instead.
If it was a weapon whose recoil could be controlled well enough even on a sub-arm, then going out of their way to attach it to the main arm would just be a waste in terms of unit control—
Tap.
“Excuse me.”
“Y-you startled me…”
“There’s no need to be that surprised, is there?”
It was Ran.
Ran let go of my shoulder, then plopped down on the chair beside Ian.
“I didn’t know you’d ask me to investigate the data in this much detail.”
“S-sorry.”
As soon as my conversation with Aaron ended, I immediately contacted Ran and Ian.
The reason was that, although there were still more than three weeks left until the final exam, I wanted to prepare for it as quickly as possible.
And I had asked Ran for the most important favor in particular.
“You asked me to find every combat video of every first-year pilot cadet from rank 58 to rank 1.”
Ran held out her smartwatch with a puzzled expression.
When I held out my smartwatch and connected the port, a hologram appeared and all the files were transferred at once.
“Do you even have time to watch all of them? You’re not planning to stop sleeping, are you?”
“I’ll watch them at i-increased speed.”
“You’re going to watch combat videos sped up?”
That was fine.
With my talent, where spatial awareness, speed-reading, and being a natural pilot overlapped, I could understand the battles even at three times speed.
Though I’d still have to cut down on sleep.
Even when I challenged the rankings with every type, I did this kind of thing, digging up videos of every famous ranker above me.
When I disconnected the smartwatch port, Ian belatedly narrowed one eye sharply.
“So, what customization are you saying we should do?”
“I-it’s actually nothing much. Ailee.”
“Yeah! Want me to put it up?”
A hologram rose above the smartwatch.
After looking over the hologram for a moment, Ian frowned slightly.
“Seriously?”
“I-I got a lot of money this time.”
“Money?”
Ran looked back and forth between me and Ian with a questioning expression.
Ian, for his part, ignored Ran’s gaze and nodded.
Of course, I did the same. It was a bit difficult to readily explain that I’d secured funds by robbing the bank run by a senior.
At least it was a relief that Ian already knew.
It was hard for one person to keep their mouth shut, but when two people kept their mouths shut together, other people tended not to pry.
As expected, Ran kept looking back and forth between us as if she was dying to ask, but in the end, she let out a deep sigh.
“Well, fine. If Deep really can handle a Titan that looks like this, then as the operator, I’ll do my best to come up with a strategy.”
Ian shifted his gaze from Ran to me.
“Is this why you’re increasing the generator too?”
He didn’t look it, but Ian was sharp.
To be more precise, when it came to Titan customization, he was extremely sharp.
With only the slightest idea I presented, he knew what I wanted.
From the very beginning, when I asked Ian for thrusters, he had even taken care of the side thrusters I hadn’t expected but needed most.
“Th-that’s right.”
“As expected, the pilot isn’t sane. At least the engineer has to be.”
Isn’t that the opposite?
Anyone could see Ian was the abnormal one and I was the normal one.
“If this is why you called me in advance, I’ll admit it. Exactly three weeks is enough to customize it to order specifications.”
“What about the r-railgun?”
Railgun.
The most important long-range equipment in this customization.
Its range was extremely long and its destructive power was considerable, but the problem was the price.
And the supply route.
A railgun was not standard equipment.
It couldn’t be purchased easily inside the academy, and there were very few users.
Since it consumed a considerable amount of power to fire, no one used it unless they had generator power to spare.
The reason Ian immediately mentioned my generator was probably because of the railgun.
Even when playing Titan Core, there were lunatics who installed additional generators because they wanted to fire railguns.
Of course, I was one of them.
In any case, the places to search in order to obtain a railgun weren’t the academy’s internal sellers or secondhand goods.
“We know one badass smuggler.”
The black market, or a seller who could go through that black market. Or a buyer.
And someone who seemed to have a history of dabbling in various weapons, to the point of using an EMP cannon that almost no one else even used.
“Darka Sinis.”
“D-Darka Sinis? That Darka Sinis from third year? What kind of connection did you use to get to know her? She’s a bank president! You’re close enough to ask a bank president for a deal?!”
“Correct. Deep, from what I heard, didn’t you say Darka Sinis didn’t view you badly?”
“Excuse me?”
“Th-that’s true. But, a-actually, I’m not exactly sure how she sees me.”
“Um, why do you two keep talking only to each other?”
“It’s not even time for lectures, so we can just go straight to her.”
“Excuse me.”
“W-would that really be okay? Even so.”
“Check the bus time.”
“Ah, it says three minutes left.”
“Go right now.”
“Why, why won’t anyone answer me?!”
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t figure out how to explain it.
“I’ll explain later.”
“When is later!”
“Later.”
Ignoring Ran like that, I quickly went outside with Ian.
At the same time, I turned on the hologram.
Seeing Ailee appear, I kept letting out laughter.
“Heh.”
“Deep, you seriously sounded like a perverted otaku just now.”
Even at Ailee’s words, I couldn’t help it.
“I told you last time.”
You just can’t resist a full-burst.
I wonder who my next opponent will be.
***
“Your next opponent is Rod Rose of the Rose family. His current rank is 22nd.”
I didn’t expect someone I knew to come up.