“Ghk!”
Jude’s Iscariot began accelerating after the Levant.
It was, to some extent, a reasonable choice.
After all, two of our allies had left the battlefield and vanished from sight.
If he had the skill to face two opponents at once, then following those two would be the safer option.
“Jo, Joshua!”
But why was it?
I could clearly picture Joshua in the Levant facing Rob and Jude alone.
“Just.”
The short-range comms slowly began to crackle.
Because of the jungle environment, the connection was cutting out even faster.
“Ignore him, and a gen— like you.”
The sound cut off.
Had he been about to say commoner?
No.
“Got, it!”
A genius like you should fight a genius.
Reading the word that completed itself in my head, I pressed the pedal and stick at the same time.
Keeeeeeeng!
The hover system and thrusters roared without hesitation.
Before even Icarus’s bright red sensor, its cannon barrel moved toward me first.
“Been a while, hasn’t it?!”
Boom!
The instant Ailee spread her legs, her body dropped sharply downward.
The shell that skimmed past my head felled a tree.
After spinning once and regaining balance, I met Icarus’s gaze again.
“It, has!”
“Deep, we’re winning today!”
In my sparring matches against Icarus, against Aaron, I had never once properly won.
The sparring we held every Friday always ended in my defeat, or a draw.
But now,
now I do not consider defeat.
Recently, I became certain.
“Because I can, win!”
“How insolent, commoner!”
My growth speed is abnormally fast.
I thought the speed-reading trait that affected skill level-ups had simply changed into reading books quickly.
It hadn’t.
It had transformed into the ability to understand whatever I saw, use it, apply it, and grow stronger.
Clank!
Icarus and Ailee’s eyes stared at each other, and they moved at the same time.
Tat-at-at-at!
Icarus’s muzzle and Ailee’s side skirt fired at the same time.
Twisting my body to avoid the bullets, I watched as Icarus silently endured my shots.
“As expected.”
Aaron was different.
He wasn’t simply relying on the slab armor of a heavy-armored type.
He read the trajectories of my bullets and, through extremely fine control, deflected as much of the impact as possible.
If I fired the railgun, I could pierce him, but using a railgun that required charging at this distance was suicide.
“So this much isn’t enough to even chip away at you, is it!”
“That’s right!”
Kakakakakang!
Ailee’s right forearm opened, and the whip blade aligned into a straight line.
Icarus drew the battle axe stored on its back and charged forward.
They collide.
***
On another battlefield not far away, Joshua and Rob collide.
“W-we’re on the same side.”
“Shut up!”
Joshua shouted through gritted teeth.
“I saw it!”
Joshua had seen it.
He had seen Rob meet with Jude in a hidden place and do something.
The sight of them quietly talking while crossing their smartwatches—
“You received money from Jude, didn’t you!”
—was clearly a backroom deal no matter how anyone looked at it.
“Ghk!”
Rob’s Honor belatedly ignited its thrusters.
The moment its acceleration slowed, Honor slammed both feet into the ground and firmly fixed its entire body in place.
Having become an obstacle in an instant, Honor lowered its body as much as it could.
As if it were true that he had watched all of Deep’s footage, the movement imitated Deep’s.
At the same time, a voice came through.
“He, he copied Deep! Set your thruster output to ma, maximum, go over his back, and counterattack!”
Soraya’s voice left precise instructions.
He ignored the trembling and the stuttering.
“I’m sick, of hearing it!”
That bastard named Deep, his actions, his movements, remained far too vivid in his memory.
Because they remained in his memory, there was no way he could lose to someone who was merely imitating them.
Levant raised its output to the limit without concern for thruster fuel.
Grabbing Honor’s cannon barrel, it flipped over its back and snapped it.
“Please be mindful of the impact.”
“I know, that!”
Kugugugugung!
Twisting the thrusters and hover devices to control them, he barely managed to catch the rolling frame.
“Levant!”
“Barrel locked. Commencing fire.”
Keeeeeeeng!
The machine gun on its shoulder turned toward Honor and spewed flame.
With a drrrrrk, Honor raised both arms and blocked the bullets.
Even if it had the armor of a heavy-armored type, if it consumed its armor that thoughtlessly, it would be destroyed in an instant.
And cracked, damaged armor was vulnerable to explosions.
“Firing!”
Levant’s shoulder armor opened and launched its trump card.
It was an enhanced high-explosive shell, one he had not even been able to fire against Ailee.
It collided with the armor.
***
They collide.
The hidden blade and battle axe clash and stop each other.
“You want to fight me in output?!”
Icarus immediately spewed fire from its thrusters.
No matter how fast Ailee was, she could not beat a heavy-armored type in raw weight class.
“You think our Deep is an idiot?”
“There’s no way, I do!”
The instant I ignited the side thrusters, Ailee slipped out of Icarus’s charge trajectory.
The moment the two Titans’ fields of vision crossed, Icarus’s other arm moved.
“Kh?!”
The second battle axe grazed Ailee’s main sensor.
From the moment I failed to evade by a fraction of reaction speed, the front of the panoramic monitor began to crackle.
“Deep! Are you okay?!”
“It’s only the main camera that got hit!”
I trust the sub-sensors of the panoramic monitor and my own spatial perception.
The pile bunker stored in the left forearm revealed itself.
Accelerate like this.
Before Icarus can turn around, I’ll drive the stake into those thrusters far faster than Icarus.
I can do it.
The moment I fired the pile bunker, the screen flickered briefly, and what filled my vision was a cannon barrel.
Clank!
The purged cannon barrel of Icarus flew backward, collided with the pile bunker, and exploded.
Using that time to turn around, Icarus raised a rifle instead of the battle axe.
It was an attack I had no choice but to take.
***
He takes it.
Rob’s two arms spread left and right along with the explosion.
Kakak!
Levant’s outstretched hand grabbed Honor’s core armor.
The moment its other hand struck Honor’s head, the main camera went dark.
“I, I told you to stop!”
“You coward.”
Joshua barked.
“You betrayed.”
Betraying the expectations of your family,
“You fell.”
Thinking of yourself as the bottom over a single defeat,
“Thinking it’s fine for others to suffer because of you!”
The worst kind of human.
“You coward!”
Jjeong!
With the second blow, Honor’s head rolled to the ground.
The moment Levant let go of the core heavy armor, another Titan entered his vision.
Iscariot.
That Titan was different.
Rob was a pilot whose skill had been inferior to Joshua’s from the start.
But Jude, riding in Iscariot, was a pilot above Joshua.
And he was even riding the same type of Titan.
“You’re the same.”
But he did not retreat.
He drew the kukri stored near the thigh.
The two Titans aimed their muzzles at each other and fired.
Drrrrrrrrrk!
Simultaneous fire.
And simultaneous explosions.
They dodged the shots aimed at each other’s heads at the same time, and the trajectories of their barrels shifted.
Then each of their struck barrels were crushed and shattered.
“I analyzed Pilot Jude’s data!”
Hoo.
“Do as I tell you!”
Soraya said tensely.
Normally, this pilot would never have agreed to such words.
“Understood.”
Today was different.
“Speak!”
At that response, Soraya responded in turn.
***
Responds.
What the rifle’s muzzle met was the muzzle of a grenade launcher.
“When the hell did you—?”
From the moment she had briefly disappeared from view by firing her side thrusters, she had stored the hidden blade and taken out the grenade launcher.
“Ha!”
The two muzzles fired at the same time.
The arm holding the rifle was struck by a grenade and exploded.
The stake inside Ailee’s left arm, which had blocked the bullet, exploded.
Neither Titan regretted the arm they had lost at the same time.
Ailee drew the hidden blade again and raised it forward.
Icarus held the battle axe and ignited its thrusters.
The two Titans launched their final strike at each other.
***
Launch.
“Charge forward while protecting the main camera!”
It was an unreasonable operation.
But he trusted her.
Levant charged forward while covering the main camera with its left arm.
At the same time, Iscariot held two rifles, one in each hand, and sprayed fire.
The sharp sound of armor being shaved away rang out.
Joshua did not have the ability to judge the extent of the armor damage.
Unable to know when a bullet might pierce through, his hands trembled, but he never let go of the stick.
“What the—”
Jude flinched in surprise and reverse-thrusted backward.
For a very brief moment, the two muzzles lost their balance.
“N-now!”
The standard pistol hidden in the left forearm came into its hand and aimed forward.
Bang! Bang!
Two shots.
One missed, and only the second hit the enemy’s hand.
Iscariot dropped one of its rifles.
“Now charge, charge again!”
“No.”
In that instant, the two of them made different judgments.
Joshua trusted his own judgment.
He would rely on a genius.
But he would not depend on one.
That was something shameful.
“This is right.”
Levant’s side skirt opened.
Iscariot aimed its muzzle at the side skirt.
“Try being beaten the exact same way you were by a commoner!”
The bullet pierced the side skirt.
Jude stopped reverse-thrusting and smiled.
But no sympathetic detonation occurred.
“What?”
“I had given up.”
Joshua said quietly.
“So even after I repaired Levant, I didn’t refill the missiles.”
From the final exam after the first semester midterms, and even through the dispatch over vacation, he had not replenished the ammunition.
He did not reject the methods of the weak that he himself had once denied.
He admitted that he was weak, and that he could not win unless he used tricks to deceive his opponent.
Only belatedly did he realize that this too was a method for becoming strong.
The version of himself that had cursed smoke grenades as cowardly now seemed laughable.
“G-go! Stab, stab him!”
He pushed the stick and stepped on the pedal.
Jjeong!
A sound came from far away.
The two sounds that rang out at the same time meant that two Titans had destroyed each other simultaneously.
The only way to win this battle now was for Joshua to defeat Jude.
The thrusters ignited, and the hover device lifted the frame upward.
With all his strength, he stabbed Iscariot with the kukri.
Kang!
It wasn’t enough.
There wasn’t enough distance needed for acceleration.
Choosing to stab with a kukri, a weapon originally meant for slashing, was also a mistake.
“Soraya!”
“A-and, now!”
It was the moment he was about to instinctively blame that operator.
“Trust, your team!”
Clank.
Something pressed firmly against his elbow.
A drone.
The drone spewed its thrusters, and the kukri drove in like a stake.
Avoiding the core, it pierced through and stabbed straight into the thruster’s fuel tank.
Beep.
Seeing the letters appear clearly in front of him, Joshua let go of the stick.
“Ha.”
Victory.
Deep Squad.