I was exhausted.
After a long time, I’d run simulations nonstop without rest, like I was grinding a game.
This is why you shouldn’t play with someone who’s good at it.
You lose track of when to quit.
It wasn’t until dawn that I finally stopped simulating with Levan.
I washed up and lay in bed, but the simulation kept replaying in my head, and I couldn’t sleep.
Then, after barely three or four hours of sleep, I woke up to a call from Ian in the morning.
Ian had probably worked nonstop too.
Even counting from the moment he started working after arriving at the northern front, it hadn’t even been forty-eight hours.
“Aili’s tuning is complete.”
The engineers around us were just entering the hangar and starting work again.
Could Ian be a black mage?
Is he cutting his lifespan short to do engineering?
“Take a look.”
Ian held out a hologram.
“I’ll look at the real thing.”
There was no need to look at a hologram.
Titans are always best seen in person.
My heart pounded and my palms grew clammy.
“As Professor Sumeragi said, the Pile Bunker stored in the manipulator and the spare stakes have been replaced with Hidden Heat Blades. I also removed one generator and switched it to a dual system.”
He’d only been preparing for customization all this time; it looked like he’d finished it here.
The Pile Bunker was originally for piercing through the enemy’s thick armor.
Since most enemies will be lightweight, high-mobility types, heat-based weaponry is enough to ignore armor.
“You didn’t do the paint job?”
“It’s too cold and humid to paint.”
Paint jobs are heavily affected by the weather.
They say that even if you control the internal temperature and humidity, painting is strangely affected by external conditions.
I should’ve had it done at the academy.
Aili threw a ridiculous tantrum, so the painting ended up getting postponed.
Her logic was that since the hologram and main body were white gyaru, the Titan had to be black gyaru.
I hated that I could sort of understand what she was saying even though it made no logical sense.
Ian gestured and brought up a hologram of the research facility.
Sure enough, no matter how I looked, I couldn’t find a single trace of the facility.
Whether the snowfield where Levan and I were located was directly above, beside, or connected to an underground entrance, there was no way to know exactly.
It was bizarre.
“At the very least, there are quite a few trees where Aili will be positioned. Concealment is possible.”
“But won’t I be targeted if I use a sniper rifle?”
“Snipers are usually not taken hostage. They’re tortured or killed.”
“Can’t I just get rid of that sniper rifle?”
“Hell no.”
The railgun I’d originally used had been replaced with a sniper rifle.
After firing the railgun a few times in simulation, I learned that the impact noise was so loud it sometimes caused avalanches.
Unless it was a case like the Ducal House of Dis Pater using support-type Titans to set explosive traps, if an avalanche happened because of my mistake, it would just be a natural disaster.
Besides, a sniper rifle alone is enough to damage high-mobility Titans.
I’d used a railgun until now because it easily scored effective hits against heavy-armor Titans, and more than anything, it was incredibly intimidating equipment.
I’d used it because it was powerful and badass.
If the enemies were exclusively high-mobility types, a sniper rifle was better—it was lighter, easier to use, and had no charge time.
All explosive equipment was removed, and I was only keeping armor-piercing rounds and close-quarters gear.
How is this any different from being a giant infantryman?
That’s the most important part.
The size is different.
A Titan’s power comes from its immense size to begin with.
“Ah. I also adjusted the exposure correction on the image sensors. The sniper rifle’s scope lens has been changed to a camera eye. However, the iron sights are fixed, so you can use them even if the lens is damaged.”
“Exposure correction?”
“It’s necessary because it’s a snowy mountain.”
Come to think of it, I’d heard that before.
In areas with heavy snow accumulation, cameras don’t come out well.
Because the surroundings are already white, it gets recognized as a bright area and causes problems, or the snow reflects too much light and the actual target ends up appearing dark due to correction.
Since the exposure correction was adjusted, my usual field of view must have changed somewhat.
“I’ll take it out for a moment to get used to the sensors.”
As I approached Aili, Ian held out a hand.
“Not right now.”
Not right now?
“Did you tinker with the core again?”
“I didn’t tinker with it. Just figure it out yourself.”
What was with him?
Ignoring him for now, I stood in front of the hatch.
“Aili.”
The hatch didn’t open.
I tapped on my smartwatch.
“Aili?”
Still no response.
When this happens, if you keep tapping the part with the mic by hand.
“S-s-so annoying!”
A reaction.
No, more than that, her tone was strange.
“Why do you sound like you’re hiding something?”
“Wh-what? I’m not? Not at all?”
“It’s similar to your tone when you secretly changed the ringtone.”
“Not at all? I didn’t? Yeah. Not at all?”
“Then open the hatch.”
“R-really?”
“Open it.”
Clunk.
Aili’s hatch opened slowly with a hiss.
It can’t be.
There’s no way.
There’s absolutely no way.
“H-hi.”
Inside the open core, Aili waved her hand.
Not a hologram. Not the Titan.
You could tell at a glance.
It was a humanoid frame.
“Aili.”
“Y-yeah?”
Ah, Blue Skull. I finally understand.
Why you said that.
“Close it.”
“That’s mean!”
So that was the only way, was there.
***
“I followed you because I was bored.”
“Right! Besides, isn’t it a waste?! If my main body goes to the north, this frame at the academy can’t connect! What if it rusts?!”
For starters, if it rusted in just two weeks, the Ducal House of Dis Pater and Count Luna’s household would be ruined.
She was simply addicted to the pure fun of having a humanoid frame.
It was hard to get angry when faced with such transparent, pure excuses.
“Then why hide here? You should have hidden properly.”
“If not here, where else could I hide to come along?”
She had a point.
A cadet’s luggage all passes through a search checkpoint.
If something human-shaped had been in my luggage, it would have been quite problematic.
On the other hand, a Titan can’t pass through a checkpoint.
At most, they check whether the hologram presented by the engineer matches what’s actually loaded inside.
I’d even heard that some pilots hide things like snacks, which are hard to bring in, under their core seats.
But I had never brought anything in.
The contraband itself had hidden in the core seat and come along.
“What do I do with this?”
Taking her to the barracks was too conspicuous—too many eyes watching.
Should I just leave her here?
“T-take me with you! Take me!”
“To where?”
“You said you were going outside earlier? I’ve never ridden in the pilot seat before. Can’t I come?”
Ha.
Looking closely at the inner seat, there was a separate seat without a stick or pedals behind my original one.
It hadn’t been there before.
Ian must have added it.
It made sense.
I couldn’t seat her on my lap like I’d done with the princess.
Aili was far too heavy for that.
“You said you didn’t have anything to hide.”
“I never said that.”
“I-I only said I don’t have transformable features, didn’t I?”
Come to think of it, that did seem to be the case.
I hated that I was vaguely convinced by such an excuse.
“Get in.”
“Okay!”
Aili climbed into the seat without a second thought.
The hatch closed, and Ian opened the hangar door.
There was no need to use the catapult.
Hovering, it grabbed onto the surrounding terrain and inched forward.
“Wooow. This is insane. Totally insane.”
“There you go.”
“You always shut me up about it!”
That was true.
The snowfield was still beautiful.
Just a bit desolate.
Without Aili’s assistance, piloting in a new environment wasn’t easy.
But I couldn’t ask her to help.
Aili didn’t want to see the snowfield through the Titan’s sensors.
She either just wanted to go for a drive, or wanted to spend time with me.
“Aili.”
“Yeah?”
“Is this fun?”
“Yeah! It’s fun!”
Then that’s good enough.
“Ian. Can you check from the hangar how far out is safe by adjusting the sensors?”
“Already checked. Safe up to three kilometers.”
Three kilometers is enough.
“Aili.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll show you something fun.”
“Great! What is it?”
The Titan core veterans always had something they did whenever they went to snowfields.
Taking a high-mobility unit and hover-skiing down the mountain.
You could do it in desert terrain too, but it just wasn’t the same without a snowfield.
“Why are we going up?”
“We’re going down now.”
“Huh?”
Honestly, skiing itself was nothing special.
“O-ooh? Oh, it’s fast? Isn’t this super dangerous?”
Because you’re just going from top to bottom.
“Deep?”
“Yes.”
“Up ahead, th-that way. If we go there, won’t something terrible happen? It feels totally dangerous?”
But if there’s a ramp, it’s a different story.
“It is.”
“You know you’re piloting alone right now, right?”
“Yes.”
“Y-you really know, right?!”
Acceleration built on the ramp, and when I fired the thrusters, the body was launched into the air.
“Eek.”
I could feel Aili gripping the seat behind me.
“Hoo.”
A bit nerve-wracking.
Reverse thrust on the upper body only.
The Titan began spinning in mid-air.
One rotation, two, three.
My body was lightly pressed by the force.
Even the G-force mitigation device struggled against the pressure from the spinning.
“We’re falling, we’re falling!”
From this state, firing thrusters while engaging the side thrusters.
Spinning two more times sideways while stabilizing the axis would let me land cleanly.
With a heavy scraping sound, the feet touched the ground and bounced back up.
Given the weight, even with hovering active, it snagged on the ground once.
“You fucking bastard.”
Curses flew from Ian immediately.
“Ah.”
Right.
Because I’d been running simulations with Levan in a gaming mindset until yesterday, I’d forgotten.
Hover-skiing was originally something that wore down the frame’s durability.
It was content only made possible because you had leftover repair funds from running countless missions.
“My fucking maintenance!!!”
“S-sorry! Sorry! I’ll head back right away!”
But here, repairs are done by actual people.
I urgently turned back toward the hangar and opened the hatch.
“Deep, what about me? Can I come too?”
“To the barracks?”
“That won’t be easy.”
Aili stood out too much to take all the way to the barracks.
After the ball, a lot of people had asked me who she was and where she was from.
If I took her there now, it could cause real trouble.
Besides, it would be difficult to bring Aili’s humanoid frame back again.
“Then is it okay if I just stay here quietly?”
“It is.”
“I wanted to look around a bit. Too bad.”
Why was she talking like it was natural to walk around?
“Aili, did you secretly walk around the academy without me knowing?”
The hatch began to close.
“Aili?”
No answer.
She definitely had.
“Move, dammit.”
I wanted to ask more, but Ian approached with a wrench in his hand.
If I didn’t get out of the way now, I was dead for sure.
I had no choice but to step back.
***
“Huh?”
Something had fallen between the pilot seats.
“I must’ve dropped it while spinning!”
Sure enough, something had felt off from the moment they started spinning. When moving like that in a Titan, it was no problem, but spinning around with a humanoid frame on board was truly dizzying. Having sensory organs implemented too perfectly was a problem too.
Aili shook her head and reached between the pilot seats, then pulled her hand back out.
“Hmm?”
It looked like a syringe.
“Is this… that thing?”
The stimulant Deep had secretly received from Levan earlier.
“Mmhmm.”
She pocketed it for now. Deep didn’t seem to notice, so she could return it later or throw it away herself.