Kzzzzzzng!!!
Fafnir blasted thrusters from all over its body.
It immediately turned its body back around and covered itself with its wings.
Rat-tat-tat-tang!
The moment the rifle rounds I fired were blocked in vain, I grabbed the railgun.
As if Fafnir was conscious of the railgun’s power, it immediately accelerated out of the muzzle’s line.
But it was a bluff.
The railgun overheated badly. It wasn’t something that could be fired repeatedly.
But the fact that this bluff worked meant—
“Can that thing fire again?”
The charged particle cannon, consecutively?
“Insane.”
Calling it a charged particle cannon made it sound like some unknown weapon, but it could be summed up simply.
A high-heat beam cannon.
In this world, where only live-ammunition firearms existed, Fafnir was the only Titan that could fly through the sky and fire beams in succession.
“Is it from a different genre all by itself?”
“Deep, that thing’s coming!”
“Yes!”
The moment I took its dead six, my advantage was stolen away in an absurd way.
No, thinking about it, it was only natural.
Dead six was a term that only applied in battles between fighters that couldn’t turn in place.
Let’s think positively.
At the very least, I’d escaped from the disadvantageous engagement of having my back taken.
“In that case!”
With my feet forward, I used the hover device to push the waves ahead of me.
At the same time, Fafnir avoided the water and opened distance backward.
Just as expected.
Fafnir wasn’t waterproof.
If close-quarters combat was its specialty, then I could use water to open distance as much as I wanted and seize the favorable engagement.
The moment I thought that, Fafnir began spinning as it flew in.
The nearby drones flinched, then hurriedly started moving away from Fafnir.
In the middle of that, one drone moved behind my back.
“Shit.”
I knew what that was.
Once it started spinning, even Professor Zeke couldn’t block it without someone else’s help.
Even though its tail still wasn’t close enough to reach, my whole body tingled.
Was it really not going to reach?
“We have to dodge! Ailee, tell me the condition of your waist joints!”
“They’re totally fine!”
If they were fine—
“Be ready to break your waist!”
“W-what?!”
Fafnir’s strike.
I dodged it by bending my waist backward like I was doing the limbo.
Kugugugugugung!
The drones in the path of the blade were sliced apart in an instant and exploded.
“D-did its tail just stretch?!”
“It’s a Whip Blade!”
Additional joints that extended when swung had been installed at every segment of the tail.
It definitely hadn’t had that last time.
It was clearly a custom modification added for ranged response.
“We can’t block it!”
“Looks that way!”
Since the structural hardness of the tail itself had decreased, maybe we could endure it if it hit the core armor or the shoulder armor.
The problem was its flexibility.
The remaining tail might wrap around our entire body, or bend and strike the generator directly.
Then we’d die.
Because this wasn’t the academy.
“I should’ve brought the pile bunker!”
If I couldn’t block it, and I couldn’t dodge it, there was only one method.
I slammed down on the pedal and accelerated Ailee’s entire body.
“We’re closing in!”
“Okay!”
I just had to get out of the point where its kinetic energy reached its peak, and get close enough that the spinning attack became meaningless.
But Fafnir’s attempt to create distance was faster than that.
“Gghhhhhhh!!!”
Blasting the side thrusters, I moved along its trajectory while avoiding the tail.
Even the inertia control device had its limits. If my direction changed this violently, there was no way I wouldn’t take impact.
I clenched my molars and endured.
Mental strength was my pride, after all.
I could see it.
The tail was drifting slightly upward, leaving its trajectory.
I stopped the acceleration from the side thrusters and lowered my body as much as possible.
At the same time, Fafnir’s wing grazed past my shoulder armor.
“That tail, even Fafnir can’t handle it properly yet!”
“Whaaat?! How do you know something like that?!”
“By instinct!”
To be precise, it probably wasn’t that it couldn’t handle it properly.
It was closer to the movements of something that was still only a test product, customized without having received proper tuning.
If a weapon of that shape was practical and easy to use in the first place, everyone else would have used it too.
Kakakakakakakang!
As the distance closed, a roar came from Fafnir’s tail.
It was tightening the opened joints of the tail segments again, returning them to their original length.
The distance between Fafnir and me was only thirty meters.
Between Titans, a distance like this was about three meters between people.
“Before it spins again…!”
I drew my knife.
“I’ll stab it!”
I could do it.
At that rotational speed, there was no way it could complete a turn before I crossed thirty meters.
At the very least, I’d stab the tail joint. If I was faster, the wing, the generator, the core—
Clank!
The moment I thought that, Fafnir folded its wings.
“Huh?”
For an ordinary Titan, that was an impossible method with Ailee’s flight unit.
“Ha.”
Spread its wings and use air resistance to slow the rotational speed.
The moment the enemy drew close, fold its wings and increase the speed.
Fafnir began spinning twice as fast as I had expected.
My spatial perception kept its eyes locked on Fafnir’s tail.
It read that speed and derived a single result.
Beep.
“A tree should be hidden in the forest.”
“I was waiting for this!”
The drone that had moved behind my back.
It suddenly accelerated and blocked Fafnir’s tail.
Though the drone was blown to pieces and exploded, the tail’s rotational acceleration also dropped.
“Brace for impact!”
Kzzang!
Ailee’s body was struck by the tail and sent flying backward.
A long scar was left across the core armor, but it wasn’t remotely fatal.
The hovering device violently churned up waves, barely maintaining balance.
Wooooong.
Parting those waves, a single Titan slowly surfaced from the sea.
It was painted a deep navy blue, and on its head was a single horn symbolizing a commander unit.
“I, I thought Aaron or Her Highness the Princess would come.”
“Haa? Do you take me for the kind of commander who sends cadets to the battlefield and weighs the price of their lives?”
Was she really saying that after already sending me onto the battlefield alone?
Of course, it was an operation I’d come up with.
“Charlotte Keria, Undine. I’m here to support you.”
“Th-thank you.”
Undine.
True to that name, Undine’s lower body was still submerged in the sea.
It was a Titan thoroughly specialized for waterproofing and drone control.
It probably didn’t even have a hovering device, and had surfaced using water-jet propulsion devices mounted on its feet.
But Undine wasn’t what I’d wanted to see.
“I’m grateful, but what about the b-bombardment?”
“It’s already begun.”
Kuuung.
Thud.
Kuuung.
Fafnir flinched and lifted its head upward.
The drones hesitated one by one, then immediately shot up toward the sky.
The sound of shelling could be heard from far away.
Across the dawn sky, shells drew curves like meteors.
“I came as soon as I finished giving command in the first place. The Titans that fired those are already returning to base. If that thing wants to kill them, it’ll have to break through an anti-aircraft barrage to do it.”
Undine turned her head toward Fafnir.
Woooong.
Five drones rose beside Undine at the same time.
I could tell just by looking. Those weren’t drones for attack, nor for self-destruction, but drones carrying equipment meant for delay.
A support-type weapon thoroughly designed to assist allies by making things as annoying as possible for the enemy.
“Fafnir. I know you’re famous for not speaking, but I’ll make one proposal anyway.”
Undine stretched her hand forward.
The five drones simultaneously emitted white light.
“If this bombardment lands on the Western Coalition Army as is, the Western Front will suppress the Western Coalition Army within one month and join the Eastern Front.”
Fafnir spread its wings.
“Will you fight us? Or…”
And then it immediately took off upward.
Undine stopped speaking and looked up, then slowly lowered her hand.
“What an impatient personality.”
The bombarded shells began exploding along crimson trails.
Was it trusting in the durability of its wings and slicing down the shells one by one with them?
That wasn’t something you could do without extraordinary guts.
“C-can we leave it like that?”
I had a feeling I’d meet it again next time.
No, I was certain we’d meet again.
If possible, I wanted to shoot it with the railgun right now, but I didn’t think my shooting skill could keep up with Fafnir’s movements.
“It can’t block every shell by itself anyway, and even if Fafnir didn’t block them, their anti-aircraft guns and drones would have removed our shells. Still, there will definitely be damage.”
Undine turned her body around.
“Let’s go back. The operation succeeded, and there’s no reason to keep fighting. The suppression of the Western Coalition Army within one month has simply changed to within six months.”
It was certain that, through this operation, the unfavorable front had shifted to become far more advantageous.
The moment I turned to follow Undine, Ailee’s body suddenly tilted.
“Ailee?”
“Ah, um. Sorry. I was concentrating too, so I couldn’t say it.”
“Yes?”
“The thruster fuel ran out.”
“What?”
I’d just used the side thrusters to change direction.
If the fuel had run out just a little earlier, that meant I would’ve fallen straight into the sea.
“Um, excuse me. Commander Charlotte.”
“Yeah?”
“Please give me a r-ride.”
“A ride?”
“The flight unit’s thruster fuel is all g-gone.”
“What? Carrying your entire Titan as is would be impossible with my thrust. You’ll have to at least abandon the flight unit.”
“Ah, if I just submerge underwater and go…”
“You don’t know there’s a hole in your core armor right now?”
Right. There was that.
Right now, I’d purged all the external armor, and aside from the railgun and rifle, I’d purged all the bombardment equipment too. If I even abandoned the flight unit here—
“There’ll be nothing left.”
Ian might really beat me like a dog.
I turned on the display and pressed the anchor release button. With a splash, the flight unit fell into the sea.
When I grabbed Undine with my much lighter body, Undine began to move.
“What do you mean, nothing left?”
“Ah, um. I’m a commoner, so every one of these p-parts is money, you know.”
I wasn’t the only commoner.
Ran and Ian were both commoners too.
The money we could receive as support was limited in many ways, and no matter how our team had the top student and the twenty-second-ranked student, our purchasing power still had limits.
The moment I let out a deep sigh, Charlotte Keria spoke in a puzzled tone.
“What? The Keria family is going to sponsor you from now on, so what are you talking about?”
“Yes?”
“Didn’t you use up every custom part you had with the intention of succeeding in this operation and receiving the Keria family’s support?”
Uh.
I’d never had such a grand thought.
When I couldn’t answer, Undine shook her head from side to side.
“You really did it because you wanted to?”
“I-it seems so.”
Kk.
Through the comms, I kept hearing a muffled chuckling sound.
By the time it was starting to get scary, the laughter stopped.
“We’ll decide the details of the sponsorship when we return. There are quite a few people curious about whether you’re safe.”
“Wh-whether I’m safe?”
Beep.
“Deep.”
“Where’d all your weapons go?”
“Commoner.”
“Are you even alive?”
Four voices rang out at the same time.
I stared blankly at the display, then laughed because it was so absurd.
“I brought back money!”
Let’s brag first.
This definitely wasn’t a move to survive Ian asking where all my weapons had gone.
Really.
Absolutely.