“Thirty-two units?”
Charlotte Keria narrowed her eyes slightly.
“Are you sure you counted correctly? The device isn’t malfunctioning?”
The noncommissioned officer looked puzzled, but still nodded to Charlotte.
“I thought it was strange as well, but there’s nothing wrong with the device. It’s recorded that Cadet Deep dealt with thirty-two drones on his own.”
Not a bombardment type, not a support type that handled dozens of drones, but a high-mobility type?
“That’s impossible.”
“Did you watch the footage?”
“The footage?”
The moment Charlotte Keria turned around, a pair of goggles was placed over her eyes.
“Did you lie about there being a problem with the Titan just to do this?”
“Just shut up and watch.”
When Allang pressed a button, holographic footage immediately began playing above his smartwatch.
Charlotte, who had frozen for a moment, slowly opened her mouth.
“This is how the allied forces on the southern front fight. Boarding a two-person Titan and performing two actions at the same time.”
“That’s not all. When he engages in maneuver warfare, he looks like the eastern allied forces, and when he handles a bombardment type, he reminds me of the northern allied forces. To see this many tactics from one person means…”
“He’s just a genius.”
Charlotte wore an incredulous expression.
“Isn’t he some mercenary or soldier who came rolling in from somewhere? Just what is his identity?”
“I don’t know what his identity is, but one thing’s certain.”
Allang turned off the footage on his smartwatch.
“If you want to make this front even a little more favorable, Sis, you need to give him operational authority.”
Charlotte Keria turned her head toward the glass window.
She could see a streamlined, pitch-black Titan equipped with a flight unit.
“To begin with, he has the will for it himself.”
Faster than anyone else, it arrived in front of the hangar in an instant, then spread its flaps and came to a stop.
Charlotte draped her uniform jacket over her shoulders.
“Then I’ll have to give it to him. Operational authority.”
***
There was one thing I learned after coming to the western front.
The Keria family didn’t know how to sit still.
No wonder that, during the joint training, even after the exercise had ended, Allang alone hadn’t stopped and kept moving drones around to scout the area.
It was the same this time.
“Um, well. I thought we would at least t-talk in the hangar.”
The moment I came out of the hangar, I was dragged straight to the command control room.
Around us, the other cadets were murmuring in low voices.
It wasn’t just the pilots gathered there; even the engineers and operators had all swarmed in.
I’d gotten pretty used to being stared at lately, but if I was surrounded to this degree, I couldn’t help shrinking back.
It wasn’t just me. Any other cadet would definitely shrink back too.
“We’ve decided to grant you operational authority, so there’s no need to waste time on various tedious explanations.”
How efficient, just like an imperial citizen.
Normally, they’d praise you a little, hand you a certificate, and then belatedly bring up the matter they had verbally promised.
But Charlotte Keria didn’t seem to have even a moment to hesitate.
No, she didn’t seem to have the leisure to hesitate.
Leaning back against the chair, arms crossed, legs crossed, she lifted her head to look down at me.
It was the gesture of someone without any composure putting on a bluff.
I knew because I’d done it a lot.
Mostly after losing a rank promotion match, when I’d strike that pose while consoling myself that I’d let them win.
“I heard from Allang, actually. You said you would overturn the situation on this front within the remaining two weeks. Just how many operations do you think you can carry out in two weeks?”
“N-not many operations.”
I didn’t need many operations.
“We’ll only need to go once.”
The cadets’ murmuring grew louder.
Charlotte raised a hand to silence them.
“Explain in detail.”
“I thought about why the w-western front is at a disadvantage.”
I pointed at the hologram device in front of us and looked at the noncommissioned officer beside me.
The moment the noncommissioned officer nodded, he gestured and brought up a map of the western front.
“Basically, on the western f-front, the allied forces are gathered on the islands.”
When he enlarged the map with a gesture, islands far out on the western front came into view.
Charlotte nodded.
“That’s right. We have the firepower to bombard them, but it only means something if we can concentrate that firepower on the enemy. The allied forces keep moving from island to island, so they’re difficult to find as well.”
“What if we find the d-drone production factory, rather than the allied forces’ base?”
“That’s difficult too.”
Allang, standing beside her, slipped into the conversation.
Charlotte shot Allang a sidelong glare, but he didn’t seem to care much.
“The drone production factory is presumed to be at a distance where our base can’t shell it at all. To bombard it, our bombardment-type Titans would have to go to an area our anti-aircraft guns can’t cover.”
“So even if we find its location, our allied Titans would be e-exposed to enemy drones.”
“Right.”
Titans could fight even on the sea.
Hovering itself was perfectly possible over water, and if the water wasn’t deep, it didn’t matter much if the Titan’s lower body was submerged.
There likely wouldn’t be much of a problem up to a depth of ten meters, and the Titans on the western front would probably have waterproofing applied to their entire bodies.
However, on the sea, artillery-type Titans couldn’t easily avoid enemy attacks.
No, it was the same even if they weren’t on the sea.
Road’s Heavy Machine, which was among the better fighters, had insisted on stationary fire and ultimately allowed me to close the distance.
It was correct to see it as a chronic problem of pure bombardment types from the start.
On the sea, they couldn’t expect cover from heavy-armor types either, so in the end, there was only one method.
“We have to make it so the drones can’t help but focus elsewhere, while at the same time accurately identifying the enemy factory’s location. But there’s no one capable of doing something like that.”
Irregular warfare—in other words, guerrilla warfare.
Striking the enemy by surprise and withdrawing, disrupting their attention while finding the bombardment point, then finishing it with the main force, the bombardment types.
It was thoroughly the way of the weak.
No Titan was specialized for guerrilla warfare.
Especially in the environment of the western front, where mobility had to depend solely on hovering, guerrilla warfare was practically impossible.
“I can do it.”
Except for one thing.
A high-mobility Titan capable of maintaining hovering almost indefinitely.
“Ailey can do it.”
My smartwatch vibrated.
“Deep can do it!”
No, don’t pop out here.
“Did that artificial intelligence just…”
“There is a reason it’s actually possible.”
The moment Charlotte Keria opened her mouth, Ian cut her off.
“Ailey’s flight unit was made by analyzing Fafnir’s wings.”
“Fafnir?”
The name Fafnir carried weight.
The east was the front where the fiercest battles took place.
What created that intensity against the Empire, which had concentrated countless troops there, was a single enemy called Fafnir.
Information was blocked from ordinary imperial citizens, but among imperial soldiers who faced the allied forces right at the front, there was no one who didn’t know that name.
And the technology that made it possible—
“You stole the western allied forces’ technology.”
“Correct.”
—originated from the western allied forces.
“The shape was not copied, but the principles, the technology used, the adjusted values, and everything else were taken. Currently, Ailey is the Titan closest to flight after Fafnir.”
If it could carry far more fuel and thrusters, it wouldn’t be impossible for it to fly.
That was what Allang had said to me.
“Fine, let’s say it’s possible. Let’s say it’s something that Titan called Ailey and Cadet Deep can do.”
Charlotte Keria shook her head from side to side.
“Even so, I cannot approve Cadet Deep’s operation.”
Ran raised his hand.
“I would like to hear why.”
“Because the field commander has a duty to ensure the survival of the cadets dispatched from the Academy.”
“With all due respect, I will correct you. The field commander bears a certain degree of responsibility for the survival of cadets dispatched from the Academy, but if the commander’s orders are not involved in a cadet’s independent actions, the commander is exempt from that responsibility.”
Aron and Princess Saya flinched in surprise and looked at Ran.
“What do you mean?”
“It may simply be that the commander of the western front intended to carry out a standard bombardment operation, but Deep went out on his own and conducted guerrilla warfare.”
Charlotte Keria’s eyes widened, and she uncrossed her arms, leaning her face far forward.
“Let me ask you one thing.”
I nodded.
“Why are you trying to go out of your way to do something you don’t have to do?”
Why was I?
“If.”
If.
“If this o-operation succeeds, how much would the casualties on the western front decrease?”
If I hadn’t said I would sortie against Fafnir.
How many people would have died?
“Several hundred, surely. More than that, the resources needed for anti-aircraft fire would be greatly reduced.”
Charlotte Keria rested her arm on the table and propped up her chin.
“What, are you going to say soldiers have a duty to save imperial citizens?”
“No.”
I couldn’t think about something as difficult as duty.
“I just want to.”
And what I wanted to do, I had to do.
“Aha.”
Charlotte Keria laughed.
She quietly lowered her head, then covered her mouth and laughed, her shoulders shaking.
When she kept snickering for a long while, the noncommissioned officer began to look uneasy.
Just as the atmosphere was starting to grow awkward, Charlotte finally wiped the tears from her eyes with her hand.
“Ah, whew. How amusing.”
I had been sincere, though.
Bang!
Charlotte brought her fist down and turned off the hologram.
“So, is there anything you need?”
“There is.”
Ian answered in my place.
“All of Ailey’s parts at the Academy.”
“All of them?”
“And time to customize.”
“Customize?”
Ian pressed hard against his temples, then nodded.
“I’ve done it before, so it can be done.”
It wasn’t exactly a pleasant expression to look at.
But he was an engineer, after all.