The deployment period slipped away helplessly.
The remaining parts of Ailee that had been left at the Academy arrived at the Western Front.
Using only holograms, without even a simulation device, I forced the operation simulation to run.
I couldn’t even board Ailee while she was being customized.
All I could do was force the simulation to run.
So they were controlling information about an unfavorable front and not providing support either.
Ah, fuck. What a nice Empire to live in.
I watched through the window as everyone else did training I couldn’t join.
Every now and then, I checked with Ian on the current state of Ailee’s customization.
After ten days passed at an agonizing crawl, a message came from Ian.
Customization done (1:42 AM)
I clenched my fist and rose from my seat.
The moment I ran to the hangar, what I saw was Ailee, completely different from before.
Her armor had been reinforced using the remaining parts from the heavy-armored type.
On top of that armor, the bombardment-type parts had been attached wholesale.
A flight unit was mounted on her back, and the spear drones were still attached to her forearms.
Every change and customization we had made until now had been crammed into this one form.
She looked as if she were wearing three augmentation packs at once, so if I had to give it a name—
“Perfect Ailee.”
There was nothing else.
“Ugh, Deep, you’d better avoid naming things if you can.”
But this name was pure fundamentals.
Since I had no way to explain it, I looked at Ian, and he narrowed his eyes in exhaustion.
“Temporary Armed Type.”
“No, Perfect is…”
“Temporary Armed Type.”
“But still…”
“Temporary Armed Type.”
“I’ll just c-call her Ailee.”
I knew why Ian was saying that.
If this form was Ailee’s “perfect,” then Ian would have to keep customizing Ailee into this form in the future.
It would be better for Ian to name it the Temporary Armed Type and make it clear this was just for this one time.
What a shame.
But my anticipation was far greater than my disappointment.
It wasn’t that only ten days had passed.
It was that ten whole days had already passed.
It had been ten days since I last rode Ailee.
“Hoo, hoo, hoo.”
Deep breaths.
The scheduled operation time was 2 AM.
The moment Ailee’s core hatch opened, I climbed inside.
The holographic Ailee smiled brightly.
“You missed me, didn’t you!”
“Yes!”
“Y-you startled me. Did you miss me that much?”
I fastened the belt and connected my smartwatch.
I gripped the sticks with both hands and set my feet on the pedals.
A cool, heavy sensation settled in.
The hangar was already open.
Many of the surrounding anchors were empty. The bombardment-type Titans with high firepower and the support-type Titans that used drones were already waiting on the catapults.
After moving Ailee onto the catapult, I looked at the clock.
1:57.
Beep.
“Ailee’s external power…”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Ah, uh, yes.”
Ran, who had been speaking, paused.
Ailee was using three generators anyway. There was no need to worry about external power.
As if Ran agreed, she quickly continued.
“To be honest, considering the skill Deep has shown recently, I don’t think it’s impossible.”
“I’m a m-man who makes the impossible possible.”
“I do want to hit you once because you’ve been acting a bit too full of yourself lately.”
It was the perfect line for someone riding something perfect.
“But if Deep says he wants to do it, there’s nothing I can do. It’s an operator’s role to let the pilot do what he wants.”
Wasn’t that a little different from common sense?
“I-isn’t the pilot usually the one who realizes the operator’s strategy?”
“It can’t be helped. I’m ordinary, and Deep is a genius.”
It had been fine when I called myself a genius.
But hearing it from someone else, and someone who knew me well at that, felt strange.
When I didn’t answer, Ran hurriedly continued.
“Current time report. 1:59 and 52 seconds.”
It was time to sortie.
A clanking sound rang out from the entire catapult.
Ailee looked straight into my eyes.
“Isn’t your heart beating too fast?”
5.
“I’m fine.”
4.
“Aren’t you nervous?”
3.
Nervous? Honestly, I wasn’t sure.
2.
Ever since I came to this world, some things felt far too simple.
Customize, then just go and win. I kept thinking like that.
Had I become addicted to dopamine?
Or had I come to this world already addicted to dopamine?
1.
“I’m going to think of it as a date.”
“The things you…”
Clank!
“Hangar One catapult launching Titan.”
“Deep, Ailee.”
I pushed the sticks forward.
Ailee and I spoke at the same time.
“Dive.”
“Dive!”
The flight unit spewed out a vivid blue light.
Gravitational acceleration crushed down on my body. I tensed myself and endured it.
“Catapult acceleration at maximum!”
“Hovering, begin.”
We pierced through the wide-open Western Front base and reached the sea in an instant.
Spray rose from the downdraft of the hovering system.
The sea split to the left and right in Ailee’s wake.
Water exploded upward.
The sea was torn apart.
Even while hovering, the machine shook. Of course it did. We were hovering over water.
Beep.
“Deep, the distance is increasing. From now on, communication will be through relays. Audio quality may deteriorate.”
“G-got it!”
Just trying to speak made oxygen burst out of my lungs on its own. The shaking was that severe.
“Following Ailee, allied … sortieing.”
The allied Titans were sortieing.
Only to follow behind me, nothing more.
I couldn’t expect help from them.
“And through radar … detected.”
“I can’t hear you w-well, but I understand!”
There was no need to hear what had been detected in the first place.
Because I could see it ahead.
“Deep! I think you already know even if I don’t say it, but enemy drones spotted!”
“Yes!”
“And, um, a lot of them!”
At least dozens, just from what I could see.
And yet the Titans still weren’t visible.
“We have to get c-closer.”
Which meant that, for the enemy, this position was still within their safe zone.
“Ailee!”
“Yeah!”
“Don’t bother with precise targeting! If we shoot, we’ll hit something no matter what!”
“Got it!”
Clack.
I placed my fingers over all four buttons on the stick at once.
“Full burst.”
“Shot!”
The multiple rocket launchers mounted over the shoulders poured out homing missiles.
Honestly, the power of each individual missile wasn’t impressive, but it didn’t matter.
From the start, this equipment had been designed to counter the Lord’s firepower through quantity over quality.
It was the same this time.
Even one direct hit was enough to bring down a drone.
With a rumbling roar, the drones set off chain explosions.
The moment several drones broke formation and escaped the blasts, I shot them down with the rifle.
Up to about ten of them.
“Deep!”
“I know!”
Destroying drones that escaped formation was only possible while the formation itself was still maintained.
Once every drone began breaking away from formation, it could no longer be called an effective tactic.
I heard bullets ricocheting off the reinforced armor.
The many suicide drones I had seen ahead disappeared, and long-range drones were reforming their formation.
“Ailee!”
“I know!”
The long-range drones would draw attention from the front while suicide drones circled around from behind.
I purged the now-empty multiple launchers.
Kraaaang!!!
The launchers exploded while flying backward. The suicide drones caught in the blast went off in a chain reaction.
It was a function I hadn’t bothered using in the battle with the Lord because there had been no need for it, but it was different here.
As long as I could make something explode, it was guaranteed to be an effective hit.
Even if a missile I fired didn’t land, as long as I shot it with the rifle and made it explode, it still counted.
“This is strange.”
It shouldn’t be like this.
No, speaking in terms of common sense, it made no sense.
“Why in the world do the Allied Forces have this many drones?”
There was no way the Allied Forces were more well-supplied than the Empire.
Something was wrong.
One suicide drone flew straight in, slipping past bullets and missiles.
The moment I dodged by igniting the side thrusters, I felt a sense of incongruity.
The paint was different.
If this was the Western Front, where the sea was the main battlefield, then the drones should naturally be painted dark blue.
This was the front line, not the Academy. Colors weren’t for showing individuality here; they were for concealment.
But that drone just now had been—
“Sand-colored.”
The desert camouflage sand color I had only ever seen on Aaron’s Icarus.
In other words—
“That’s camouflage you’d only see on the Eastern Front.”
“Hm?”
“Those drones are using camouflage from the Eastern Front!”
I slammed my fist onto the communication button.
Please let my intuition be wrong.
“Ran! Ran! Answer me!”
“Receiving … please respond!”
“Adjust the front-line radar direction upward, not toward the island!”
With a snap, her voice cut out.
Was it a communication network problem, or a jammer?
I couldn’t even understand Ran properly in the first place. Had Ran been able to hear and understand what I said?
“Damn it!”
I disrupted the balance of both hovering units and spun around in an instant.
I tucked the railgun mounted on the sub-arm against my side and fired immediately.
Kaboom!!!
The earth—no, the sea surface—shuddered with a thunderous roar.
With the recoil, Ailee’s body was flung backward in an instant. The drones in the railgun’s path burst apart all at once.
Adjusting our balance with the side thrusters, I turned back toward the island. At the same time, the sound I had been waiting for came through.
Beep.
“Radar … enemy … descending!”
There was no time to catch my breath.
But I could clearly hear the sound that brushed past my ear.
It was a sound I couldn’t miss even through the static. My brain automatically filled in the words I hadn’t heard and made me understand the sentence.
However, it was the one thing I absolutely had not wanted to hear.
“Enemy descending!”
I looked up at the dawn sky.
Amid the explosions and the lights of the drones, not a single star was visible in the sky.
Only a red-glowing comet was flying through it.
No, it wasn’t a comet.
That was not a Heavenly Comet Dragon streaking across the sky, but an evil dragon staring down at me.
After the evil dragon flying in the sky spewed out light, it changed direction.
“Why the hell…”
The evil dragon that had supposedly been acting so violently that the Eastern Front deployment had been canceled.
That bastard who was said to be plundering supplies without rest.
“Why is it here?”
I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them.
The moment the indistinct figure of Fafnir came into view, I shut off the hovering system.