“…The squad members are way too familiar.”
It was Karina.
“You’re right. Is this what they call déjà vu?”
Levan was beside her, too.
And me as well.
Allang and Rod weren’t here, but already more than half the squad was made up of familiar faces.
I couldn’t help but think back to the joint training.
“I’m glad we get to work together like we did then.”
On top of that, Senior Aila was here too. She hadn’t been in our squad back then, but she had teamed up with us.
“I wasn’t planning on joining a cadet squad operation.”
“Then?”
“I was just going to participate in a regular operation.”
The least familiar face here was Lucia.
Apparently, Senior Aila had arrived in the North before us.
No wonder I hadn’t seen her on the train, yet somehow she had naturally ended up beside us.
For a moment, I wondered if she had come to the North alone and left Lucia behind, but then again, as the legitimate heir of her house, maybe that made sense.
“It’s a squad.”
“It is a squad.”
When five Titans gather, they’re called a squad.
That’s because from that number on, they’re considered capable of carrying out specialized military operations.
Normally, you’d want one of each type, and our squad lacked a bombardment type and a pure heavy-armor type, but that wasn’t a major problem.
No, actually, it was better that we didn’t have them.
The explosions caused by bombardment types could trigger avalanches in the snowy mountains, making them dangerous.
Conversely, pure heavy-armor types were almost incapable of maneuvering in snowy terrain without hovering.
And since there was no heavy-armor type capable of infinite hovering, they were excluded from operations as well.
The ones that could properly operate in this natural environment were high-mobility types, heavy-armor–high-mobility types, and if you stretched it a bit further, support types using lightweight frames.
The current members were perfect.
“Good. Since we only just arrived today, let’s keep it light and talk things over.”
After my one-on-one meeting with Count Luna ended, I had dinner.
Then Karina summoned us.
It was funny, but this time it was Karina’s squad again.
I didn’t really know why Senior Aila of House Dis Pater wasn’t the squad leader.
One was from a ducal house and the other from a county, so why was the one from the count’s family the squad leader?
Was there some reason I didn’t know?
In any case, I’d heard that temporary squads formed according to operational needs were traditionally named after the squad leader.
No wonder, since last time, the squad or team names had always been made from the leader’s name.
Even in Titan Core, when you invited someone to a team, the generated squad name was the inviter’s name.
So that was historically accurate.
Wait, historically accurate? Or is this world following that setting?
I couldn’t tell whether the chicken came first or the egg did.
“Fundamentally, our operation is defensive.”
Levan nudged me from the side.
When I turned my gaze forward, Karina gestured over the table.
With a low humming sound, a hologram spread out above the table.
At a glance, it was just an ordinary mountain range.
“Beneath this place is House Luna’s laboratory.”
If it was House Luna’s laboratory, wasn’t that an incredibly important facility even for the Empire?
“The enemy will attempt to infiltrate this location, and all we have to do is stop that infiltration attempt.”
“Um.”
“What is it, Deep?”
“Isn’t this the kind of matter where the Empire should send separate reinforcements?”
Karina paused, exchanged a glance with Senior Aila, and smiled.
“This isn’t the first time the Allied Forces have attacked. It’s not something to make such a fuss about, and we’ve handled it just fine ourselves until now.”
So it wasn’t the first time.
By common sense, an important facility like a laboratory must have been attacked again and again.
And that meant they must have already established multiple layers of defensive measures.
“Second, we are the reinforcements sent by the Empire.”
“Pardon?”
“What support could be more reliable than top-ranking cadets from Bethesda Academy?”
Was that so?
She wasn’t wrong.
The minimum requirements to enter Bethesda Academy were low, but rising into the rankings among those students was absurdly difficult.
Aside from Senior Aila, everyone here was a top-ranking cadet within the top thirty.
And even with Senior Aila, one had to take into account that she was a support type.
Levan and I were even the runner-up and top-ranked cadets, respectively.
“You’ve only been at the Academy, so I guess you don’t have a feel for it, but with your skills, you could take care of an ordinary soldier squad on your own.”
I’d managed two against three before, but she was saying I could handle one against five alone?
Then again, I’d done that while in poor physical condition, so maybe it wasn’t impossible.
It felt a little strange, but I nodded for now.
At the same time, Levan raised his hand.
“Will House Dis Pater be providing additional troops?”
“Good question. I was just about to explain exactly that.”
I’d thought this before, but Levan’s questions were always quite sharp.
It felt like he had memorized every dialogue option and only chose the ones closest to the correct answer.
Maybe that was why he only spoke in such a frustrating and annoying way when talking to me.
There probably hadn’t been any dialogue options for conversations with me.
This time, Senior Aila touched the hologram’s interface, then placed Titan models one by one with her fingertip.
“Basically, two soldier squads will be stationed at the laboratory entrance.”
Since the goal was to prevent infiltration into the laboratory, that was obvious.
They were probably troops that were normally stationed there anyway.
Calling them two squads made it sound small, but that was ten Titans.
And ten Titans armed with the technology of House Dis Pater and House Luna at that.
Even pilots without enough talent to become Academy students would have more than enough environment to become weapons.
“Additionally, for this operation, we’re assuming Karina’s squad will be divided into two teams.”
This part was probably the same as what Count Luna had mentioned.
“One team will be me, Lucia, and Karina. The buddy on the other side will be Cadet Deep and Cadet Levan.”
Two people were a buddy, three or four were a team, and five were a squad.
I didn’t know why they bothered to divide the terms like that, but apparently that was how it worked.
“Each side will receive one soldier squad to command, so in total, we’ll receive two squads as support. That means five squads will be deployed in practice.”
“That’s basically already platoon scale.”
“We’re protecting a laboratory. Of course it would be platoon scale, wouldn’t it?”
Ah, right.
That was normal, actually.
“Then it’s Karina Platoon.”
“Don’t. Don’t give it a name like that. It’s too much pressure.”
Ah.
It seemed that even for someone from House Luna, having a platoon named after you was a bit burdensome.
Making cadets command platoon-level soldiers was incredibly unconventional, but I understood why.
Though it was called a dispatch, everyone here except me was familiar with the North.
Levan had gone to the North on his previous dispatch, and Karina, Lucia, and Senior Aila were all born in the North to begin with.
In fact, I had fought on snowy fields countless times in Titan Core too, so one could say I was familiar with it.
Even if that weren’t the case, I was the runner-up, so my skill had already been proven.
From the Northern Front’s perspective, elites who already performed well had returned after long-term training, so of course they’d want to work us as hard as possible during this dispatch period.
“So we’re buddies. I’ll be counting on you, Deep.”
“Yes, yes.”
I took the hand Levan held out, then let go.
A small syringe was in my hand.
A stimulant.
Was this bastard insane?
It felt like a drug addict doing his best to turn someone else into a drug addict too.
I could throw it away or deal with it later, so I put it in my pocket for now.
Karina spoke again.
“The enemy attack itself is scheduled for one week from now. Since we have a week before this defensive operation, each team and buddy pair can first coordinate with one another and establish their plans.”
So the pilots would coordinate as pilots, the operators would draw up plans among operators, and the engineers would handle customization among engineers.
Reasonable.
But.
“I have a question.”
“What is it?”
“How did you find out about the Allied Forces’ attack plan?”
Karina’s expression stiffened slightly.
“Are you curious?”
“No. I’ve stopped being curious.”
I felt like it would be dangerous to know.
Let’s just ignore it.
***
We began coordinating the next day.
Maybe because this was the North, where House Luna was located, the simulator equipment was more cutting-edge than the Academy’s.
Thanks to that, I could coordinate with Levan again and again without actually boarding Ailee.
After facing the enemy several times, I got a clear estimate.
This operation was really like a sub-mission in the campaign mode of a game.
Not something insanely important, but the kind of mission where depending on which choice you made here, the route might suddenly branch off.
“Now that I think about it.”
Kwaaaaaang!
The railgun pierced an enemy Titan.
As the state of battle loosened, Levan brought Alex closer to me.
“Did you know there’s a bad rumor about the North?”
“A rumor?”
From behind Alex’s back, a bazooka rose while spewing its thruster, then fired a shell just like that.
Alex immediately caught the bazooka as it swayed from the recoil and slotted it back onto his back.
It was a hit.
How bizarre.
Did that even make sense?
“They say commoners often disappear in the North.”
“Is that a ghost story?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know. I’m not a commoner, so it’s not a story that concerns me.”
“Are you telling me to be careful?”
“Closer to that.”
“Understood.”
Talking to Levan was still difficult.
It felt like he was taking an enormous amount of care in some way, while also making me feel like I was being intensely kept in check.
Still, at the very least, there was no doubt that his skill in handling a Titan was outstanding.
When I first saw Levan, I wondered if he might be the protagonist.
Now, I wasn’t sure.
Maybe I was the protagonist.
I thought about it for a moment, then stopped.
This was reality.
There was no such thing as a protagonist in reality.
If there was, then for every person living their life, they themselves were the protagonist.
If you tried to determine who the protagonist was in the story called the world, you’d surely go mad.
“I see. So you’ve never heard of it.”
Levan muttered as if satisfied.
Thud!
“Shall we proceed to the next simulation?”
“Let’s.”
As I dropped the magazine, the screen changed.
At the same time, I pushed the stick and pedals forward.
For minutes, for tens of minutes, for hours.
Two veteran players kept matching without rest.