“M-Move, p-please!”
Joshua Otto remained still, gripping his knees.
“Why, why a-aren’t you m-moving!”
With Levant’s feet planted on the catapult, it had not moved a single step.
All he had to do was push the stick forward, and the catapult would launch Levant and send it accelerating.
But he knew.
“What can I do if I go out there?”
Joshua Otto was an ordinary man.
Joshua Otto might be ordinary, and he might be an arrogant noble, but he was not a fool.
He had no talent whatsoever.
Since childhood, he had climbed into Titans, grown up in a family that did not even know all that much about piloting Titans, and had spent his life trying to preserve his arrogance while basking in their favor.
The efforts he had made to become the pride of a family.
No, the deception of pretending to make an effort.
Even if it had been nothing more than deception, had that time not been enough for him to bring forth more talent than a commoner who had ridden a Titan for the first time at the Academy?
“What the hell can I do, wedged in between them?”
What he could do between a genius named Aaron and a genius named Deep.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Joshua Otto already knew what people expected from this exam.
They believed the team battle in this exam was nothing more than a sideshow.
What they were most curious about was the one-on-one clash between Aaron and Deep.
The favor he had received from his family, and the pride he had carried in his own ability until now.
In an Academy overflowing with true geniuses, he was a being inferior even to a commoner who had appeared out of nowhere.
“Don’t order me around.”
No one knew the dissonance in his own actions better than he did.
Did he pity himself?
Did he sympathize with himself?
No. He was ashamed of himself.
He knew, but he could not change.
But he could simply run away.
He could ruin this exam, stop caring about everyone else, and return to his family.
“You’re only from a baron’s house.”
A life spent pretending to be noble.
A life spent pricking at the timid, fragile insides of others and making them shut their mouths.
But since that was the one thing he was good at, even his operator would now fall silent.
“Sh…”
That was what he thought.
“Shut, up, no.”
Joshua’s eyes widened.
“You fucking bastard!”
With a beep, Soraya’s figure appeared before his eyes.
She was shedding tears with her teeth clenched.
She was wringing the words out.
“You ch-cheap, cheap person!”
“Who do you think you’re raising your voice at right now?”
“You, you too! Me, me too!”
Soraya scrubbed at her face with her hands.
No matter how one looked at it, it was not the behavior of a young lady.
There was not a trace of noble dignity in it.
“Both of us are c-cowardly! Ch-cheap! People!”
“Shut up.”
“B-because we have somewhere to run away to!”
Then.
Was Joshua Otto living a life in which he could claim noble dignity?
“B-because we have somewhere to run away to! Because even if we don’t succeed h-here! It’s fine! Because we can s-survive!”
Was Joshua Otto living a proud life?
“Because there was no n-need to risk our lives! Because there was no n-need to do our b-best!”
“That is conduct unbecoming of a noble!”
“What is a n-noble!”
Joshua Otto,
“You live worse than the c-commoners you hate! Worse than Deep, so h-how are you a noble!”
Could he truly say that he was living a life more admirable than the commoners he despised?
Joshua raised a trembling hand.
What was clenched in it was not the stick, but an injectable drug whose origins he did not properly know.
A secret thing said to dramatically improve an artificial intelligence’s performance, if only for a moment, and allow the pilot to control a Titan beyond his own abilities.
In exchange, it would ruin the artificial intelligence.
“If you don’t d-do your best, if you r-run away, and have no h-honor at all, is that being a noble?”
Who had given it to him?
Ah, the top student.
He had said it was a gift from House Luna, that even someone without ability like him would surely be able to show something.
Was this his best?
Relying on something like this.
“I! Not long ago! After I worked hard, I s-slept soundly for the first time in a long while!”
After his defeat, he did not know when he had last slept in peace.
As expected, clinging to something like this was his limit.
Because this was the only thing someone without talent like him could do.
The moment he lifted the drug and tried to insert it into the port, a sparkle caught his eye.
It was not the light of a transmission.
“Master Joshua.”
It was an alert from Levant.
“I hope you become a source of pride.”
Pride.
The reason his father had gone so far, even straining himself a little, to give him Levant, his personal machine.
The fact that he had entered Bedesta Academy from the Otto viscount family, where talent for piloting was not great.
Because he had been a source of pride as a noble.
“S-so, so, that’s why!”
“Soraya.”
It was an arrogant and courteous voice.
The moment Soraya flinched at that voice, which had changed entirely, Joshua’s hand was gripping not the drug, but the stick.
“Explain that commoner named Rob properly.”
He would not live in shame.
***
Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank.
Hovering was usually accompanied by a great deal of noise.
For one thing, the hovering device itself used air jets, so it was incredibly loud.
Roughly speaking, it seemed several hundred times louder than the sound a modern drone made.
If the thrusters were activated on top of that, it was no different from announcing with sound: I am right here.
In the end, there was only one method of movement that could be chosen for stealthy maneuvers.
Quietly running on two feet.
Fortunately, after the nuclear war of the past, the trees making up the jungle had grown several times larger, and the inside of the jungle was quite dark despite it being broad daylight.
Ailey was black, so it did not blend completely into the jungle, but it was much better suited for concealment than the desert-colored Icarus.
“A-Alang.”
“Searching terrain. Search complete. Nine hundred meters ahead relative to Arbiter, six hundred meters to the left relative to Ailey.”
There was no helping the regret.
Since this was a jungle environment, Levant would surely have been helpful if it had been with us.
“Wait.”
Alang spoke urgently.
“The enemy is approaching this way.”
“Wh-what?”
That could not be.
Had they realized it from the direction Arbiter’s drones were moving?
No, Alang was not stupid.
He would have moved the drones in a direction the enemy could not detect, and the drones surely had not been discovered at all.
“Then it’s my turn to step in!”
Rob’s voice came through after a long silence.
The enemy consisted of three top-ranked pilots including Icarus. Could he really hold out with Alang, who was not specialized in combat?
I did not know.
But the only one we could rely on was Rob anyway.
“Enemy approaching! They’re coming straight toward us!”
“Rob, please prepare for engagement.”
At those words, Lan quickly organized the situation.
It was clear we had been discovered.
“I’ll a-approach.”
I took out the pile bunker from the left forearm and fired it toward the ground.
Detonation time: thirty seconds later.
At the edge of my vision, a hologram immediately displayed a thirty-second timer.
It was thanks to Ailey bringing up the timer on its own.
“Thirty seconds later, I’ll launch a surprise attack from the enemy’s right, the left relative to Arbiter and Honor.”
With this much preparation, there would be no problem.
“Begin engagement!”
At the same time as Lan’s voice, the sounds of concentrated fire and thrusters rang out.
In that case.
“Hover and thrusters.”
“Mm-hmm, maneuvering!”
Buried beneath the noise, we accelerated.
Since I knew the enemy’s position, I circled around from behind so as not to enter their field of vision.
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine.
“Thirty. Entering!”
Boom!
Along with the sound of the pile bunker’s stake exploding from afar, Ailey accelerated at full speed.
It was as expected.
Amid the sudden appearance, Icarus was looking toward the direction where the stake had exploded.
The Titan on the other side was circling around Rob and advancing toward Alang.
And the person who needed to be kept in check next after Icarus.
“No, how—”
Jude’s Iscariot was looking directly this way.
No, only the gun barrels mounted on Iscariot’s shoulder were looking this way.
As if it had already known about my approach, and there had been no need to even turn its body.
“You have to dodge!”
“Ugh.”
Drrrrrrrrrrr!
The moment I lowered my head, Iscariot’s multi-barreled machine gun began to rotate and pour out bullets.
After ducking and slipping out of the bullet trajectory for a moment, I quickly hid behind a tree.
Belatedly, Icarus turned back as if startled, then faced Rob again.
Did that mean he intended to deal with Rob in front of him first, then join in taking care of me?
I did not know why we had been discovered, but there was no helping it.
Even if we had lost the advantage of a surprise attack, it was now an honest three-on-three match.
“Ailey!”
The moment I stepped on the pedal, the thrusters began to spew flames at full power.
With my back to the tree, I rapidly retreated backward, widening the distance from Iscariot.
Then I began to circle around once more through the trees.
Once targeting began, it did not end.
Iscariot’s multi-barreled machine gun kept spraying bullets at me without pause.
Rob was slowly being pushed back as he faced two opponents at the same time.
Aaron and Jude were both pressuring Rob slowly without taking any risks, not bothering to rush.
“To break the flow.”
“We’ll have to force it a liiittle, right?”
“Yes!”
What Iscariot’s machine gun was firing was not high-explosive rounds, but armor-piercing rounds.
“Trusting in Ian’s custom work!”
Before the machine gun’s sustained fire stopped, I accelerated toward Iscariot first.
Kakakakakakakang!
“As expected of Ian!”
“I know, right!”
If what it had been firing were high-explosive rounds, I would not have even considered this.
The current frontal armor was shaped to ricochet enemy bullets.
If they were armor-piercing rounds, there was a high chance I could deflect them as long as I angled myself properly.
“I’ll approach like this!”
I thought I could do it.
Iscariot stopped firing as if it had run out of ammunition entirely.
After confirming a large magazine popping up from its shoulder, I pushed the stick even harder.
Until Iscariot twisted the trajectory of its body, and Rob’s gun barrel turned toward me.
“Huh?”
There was no way he would fire.
We were allies, and the enemy had moved out of the gun barrel’s line, so it was only natural.
There was no pilot who would make a mistake of this level.
And yet, in that brief instant, I felt it.
I knew it instinctively.
“Why?”
Rob was definitely pulling the trigger.
If he was not pulling it, if he was not aiming at me, the gun barrel should already have started turning away.
There was no way it would ricochet.
Because Rob fired high-explosive rounds.
What he was aiming for was the core.
Clank.
Kraaaaang!!!
The shell that grazed past my side blew apart the tree directly behind Ailey.
For a brief moment, Deep exhaled and gasped.
Rob, who had been right in front of me, and Honor, the Titan he was riding, disappeared.
What had swept past was a Titan I had already fought once before.
“Levant?”
It had crossed the battlefield, shoving aside Rob, who had clearly been about to shoot Ailey.
Beep.
The sound of close-range communication rang out.
“Joshua Otto.”
Joshua.
A name that was shameful to him.
And for that reason, a name that sought to become proud.
As the origin of that name dictated,
“I deliver salvation.”
I was saved.