I opened my eyes.
My nose stung. It smelled of cigarette smoke. The screen of a familiar game was on in front of me, and there was a controller clutched in my hand. Had I fallen asleep while playing?
Setting aside that absurd feeling, I turned my head again and checked my surroundings. Even with my senses dulled, I could tell for certain that the walls were stained with cigarette smoke and mold.
Ah, right. This is my room.
As I stared blankly at the monitor, my phone began to buzz before long. I set the controller down and picked it up. There were exactly two messages.
Why didn’t you go to the interview today? (11:24 PM)
You clearly promised me. (11:24 PM)
Interview?
Was there something like that? Maybe there was. It might have been an interview for a part-time job. I stared blankly at my phone for a moment, then slowly typed.
What am I (11:27 PM)
supposed to do with these legs? (11:27 PM)
Unlike the reply I sent, the other person’s response came much faster.
That’s true. (11:27 PM)
You can’t do anything. (11:27 PM)
Just die like that, please. (11:27 PM)
They didn’t have to go out of their way to worry about that.
Even now, I was only alive because I couldn’t die.
***
“Waaaaaake uuuuuup!”
My eyes opened.
The moment I lifted my head, the first thing I saw was a pure white, spotless wall. I immediately braced my hand against it and swallowed hard.
“Huh.”
I didn’t feel the urge to kill myself. As I sat there staring at the wall for a long while, Ailee asked in confusion.
“You’re not going to smash your head today?”
“I guess not. I don’t think I need to today.”
“Really? That’s great! You know, I was actually really worried about that?”
“I know.”
Of course I knew.
Yesterday morning too, as soon as I woke up, I had slammed my head into the wall. Ailee had started screaming like crazy from the suddenly activated smart watch, and only then had I barely managed to stop.
Only after I had calmed down somewhat and the bleeding had stopped was I able to explain why I’d done it. Ailee had then said she would do whatever she could and look up a psychological counseling curriculum.
“Actually, I forgot.”
Didn’t you just say you were worried?
I made an expression of disbelief without meaning to, then lifted the smart watch. Seven in the morning. Considering class started at nine, it was rather early.
Perfect.
Professor Zeke and Princess Saya had both said it. The most important thing for a pilot was stamina. To be more precise, a body capable of withstanding gravitational acceleration.
As Professor Zeke had said, what I needed was a robust body. Since my main focus was maneuver warfare, my body mattered more than my piloting skill.
That was probably the same reason F1 drivers and fighter pilots exercised consistently.
“At 177 centimeters and 52 kilograms, you’re basically just bones. Yep!”
Thank you so much for pointing that out.
The first thing I had to do was eat far more than I imagined and move far more than I imagined.
I changed into something suitable, stuffed my pockets full of protein bars, and went outside. Was it okay to eat while running? Maybe I should alternate between running, resting, and eating.
“How long are you going to run?”
“About thirty minutes.”
“Aren’t you pushing yourself too hard? Seriously? Are you okay after running yesterday?”
“I can just take it slow.”
In truth, the leg I’d run on yesterday still hurt. But that didn’t mean I could avoid walking. When your legs hurt, walking slowly actually helps them heal faster.
I knew that well. I’d done it many times.
After briefly checking the road, I put on the exoskeleton walker and started running. To me, it was a great leap forward; to others, it was a lowborn’s jog.
***
On Mondays, there were no morning classes, only a basic piloting lecture in the afternoon. On Tuesdays, classes began in the morning.
Not long after I sat down in the lecture hall, the princess came looking for me again and sat beside me. I couldn’t understand it at all, but I decided to simply ignore it. For this class, at least, that was possible.
Because the lecture content was something I couldn’t help but like.
“Good to meet you. I am Sumeragi, in charge of Tuesday morning’s Titan Modification Theory.”
It was time to make Titan builds.
With a name like Sumeragi, they were probably Japanese. More than that, the NPC in charge of Titan customization in the previous game had also been named Sumeragi.
Judging from what I could hear around me, this person named Sumeragi was clearly someone far beyond ordinary as well.
Since it seemed rarer to find a professor at Bethesda Academy who wasn’t remarkable, I figured it was about time I started taking such comments with a grain of salt.
Amid the countless murmurs, one cadet shot up their hand.
“I have a question!”
“Ask away.”
“Why should we, as pilots, take a lecture related to engineering?”
Professor Sumeragi, whose eyes had widened for a moment, smiled.
“That’s a good question. First, those of you who had your own dedicated machine before entering the academy, please raise your hands.”
No sooner had she finished speaking than more than half of the pilot cadets in the lecture hall raised their hands. Professor Sumeragi roughly counted the students with her fingertips.
“This time, only those of you who have customized your dedicated machine using your own ideas, please keep your hands raised.”
Hands dropped en masse in an instant. The princess lowered her hand as well, then stared fixedly at me.
“You did.”
“Um.”
“Then why aren’t you raising your hand?”
Because I don’t want to stand out.
But the princess’s gaze felt far too hostile for me to answer that way. Left with no choice, I slowly raised my hand, and the princess seemed satisfied as she withdrew her gaze.
In an instant, several gazes turned openly toward me. A few whispers struck my ears clearly.
“I see. Was it the customization that made the difference?”
“If he added more thrusters and installed a core to mitigate gravitational acceleration, then that movement would be possible. Now it makes sense.”
No, the former is right, but not the latter.
Professor Sumeragi stared at me, then nodded in satisfaction.
“Cadet Deep’s A12 was originally a high-mobility Titan, but the day before the exam, he added extra thrusters and gained additional maneuverability. It wasn’t a top-ranking result, but compared to expectations, it was quite encouraging.”
The princess looked at me with a slightly surprised expression.
“The one who knows what a Titan needs is the pilot who controls it. After all, they can convey feedback to the engineer faster and more accurately than anyone else.”
Woom. At Professor Sumeragi’s gesture, a human-sized Titan hologram appeared on the platform.
With a few more gestures, the Titan’s arm and leg parts were swapped out in the hologram.
“What we’ll be doing today is simple. Normally, you have all adjusted yourselves to your Titans, but today, you’ll do the opposite. Adjust the Titan to yourselves and fit the parts however you like.”
One cadet raised a hand. Professor Sumeragi nodded lightly.
“Will this be graded?”
“Since today is the first day, I won’t make it an assignment. However, I hear that giving extra points to diligent cadets is at the professor’s discretion.”
Extra points.
There was no cadet at Bethesda Academy lacking academic drive. The moment Professor Sumeragi finished speaking, the students activated their holograms and began swapping parts.
Professor Sumeragi briefly looked around, then covered her mouth and laughed.
‘Mediocre.’
Exactly the level she had imagined. Or perhaps even below that.
Those swapping parts on their own were below standard. Those who quickly called up their AIs and communicated with them as they swapped were at least above average. Most of them had frozen, not knowing what to do.
The dedicated machines of noble and merchant families were certainly excellent. They were more versatile and superior than ordinary Titans, so there was no need to go out of one’s way to customize them.
Or so they thought. That was their problem.
War was not fought alone.
An all-purpose machine with good versatility was, in the end, a machine too cluttered to do anything by itself. Almost no cadets recognized that from the start and actively made use of it.
If there was one, they were a genius.
‘Most of them are only focused on compensating for weaknesses.’
Even with the assistance of a Titan AI, AIs were not as smart as people thought. In the end, they could only do what humans asked of them.
If one supplemented the armor of a high-mobility Titan and added a generator to raise its output, then in the end, it would no longer be a high-mobility Titan.
Conversely, if one stripped armor from a heavy-armor Titan, added thrusters, and lowered its weight, then it would no longer be a heavy-armor Titan either.
What mattered was not compensating for weaknesses, but enhancing strengths.
“Is everyone doing well? I’m expecting a lot from you.”
In that sense, Sumeragi deliberately did not approach Deep’s area.
Before even trying to move the Titan he had first received, he had added thrusters and bet everything on early maneuverability. Though he had lost and remained in the middle ranks during the exam, it aligned perfectly with her philosophy.
She liked it.
If there was a dish that was obviously going to be the most delicious, it was best eaten last.
What she was more curious about was the princess.
Perhaps deeply impressed after taking the entrance exam, the princess had insisted on sitting beside Deep, a mere commoner.
Anyone could see that Deep was uncomfortable with her being beside him, but if the princess received a good influence from Deep and achieved greatness, that too would be a good thing.
Only after slowly making her way around every cadet did Sumeragi approach the princess.
And then she stopped where she was.
The princess had not manipulated the hologram at all. Not even a little.
“Your Highness?”
There was no answer. Sumeragi lifted her head, but as if she had not heard, the princess was not looking her way.
Her gaze was fixed solely on the seat beside her.
It was difficult to understand. No matter how excellent Deep’s customization was, it could not possibly have shocked the princess so greatly. The princess had already defeated Deep’s customized Titan.
In the end, it would only amount to applying additional customizations to an originally high-mobility Titan.
“Then, Cadet Deep is—”
That brief assumption was completely overturned.
Six machines.
“Huh?”
Six machine holograms were floating there.