After spending my first night with Levan.
That sounded kind of dirty.
After staying up all night running simulations with Levan from the very first day, I started setting alarms before simulations.
I had to eat, exercise, and sleep, after all.
Aside from those times, I kept running simulations.
Sometimes I ran them alone with Levan, and sometimes the entire Karina squad gathered to run simulations together.
From the middle onward, it became less simulation and more live-combat-style training.
We needed to coordinate with the local soldiers.
It goes without saying, but if your teamwork is off in the field, you usually die.
“Isn’t it kind of creepy?”
“It is.”
In that sense, I wasn’t worried about the local soldiers at all.
If anything, it was the opposite.
They were frighteningly silent, their reaction speed was as fast as machines, and yet their coordination was absurdly perfect.
Their lack of response went beyond all reason; apart from the bare minimum, they didn’t even converse.
“Are soldiers normally like this?”
“Just as maids maintain a minimum amount of speech, soldiers also generally refrain from speaking.”
Karina and Senior Ayla, for their part, reacted as if this were only natural.
But the soldiers on the western front hadn’t been like this.
Each Titan had a little bit of personalized customization for practicality, there were times when I wondered why they were moving so slowly, and I saw them often in the hangars and lodgings.
By contrast, I had never seen these soldiers outside their Titans.
There was no personal customization whatsoever.
If anything, I saw the engineers maintaining the Titans more often.
Even if I wanted to ask the other cadets, it was awkward to talk to anyone I wasn’t close with.
And the few I was close with were all from the north, so they didn’t feel anything strange about it at all, which made it pointless.
And Levan wouldn’t answer me.
Fuck.
In any case, they were skilled, so there was no reason to press the issue further.
Every day was a repetition of coordinating, revising strategy, and adjusting Ailey’s output.
One week was far too short a time to coordinate properly.
Since the training schedule was so tight, I was actually grateful Ailey was inside the core.
After seeing that face, my head went blank, making me less sensitive to stress.
It hit my brain in a different way from a hologram, and the feeling was just right.
Maybe it was because she was the real thing.
When Ailey asked if I liked her that much, I said I did, and after that, Ailey didn’t say much either.
“Haa.”
Time passed in the blink of an eye.
However, time always flows relatively.
“Ah, I thought I was going to die of boredom.”
Levan muttered.
The week that had been more breathless than ever for me had been a boring week for Levan.
“Levan, Alex. Operation preparations complete.”
Only belatedly did my hands tremble a little.
I don’t want to kill people.
But I might have to.
No.
I have to.
“Karina Luna, White Bunny. Operation preparations complete.”
“Lucia von Dis Pater, Huntress. Standing by for operation.”
I am a cadet, and at the same time, a soldier of the Empire.
I was slowly steadying my breath when it happened.
A white hand reached over from behind.
Ailey’s hand overlapped mine.
“Have you calmed down?”
“No.”
“Look at you, an otaku with no tact.”
I laughed a little.
It would be a problem if I relaxed too much, too.
Ailey nodded, then drew her hand away.
Beep.
I opened the communication channel.
“Deep, Ailey. Operation preparations complete.”
There was no sortie.
No catapult.
We were starting out already hidden behind our respective cover.
“Ayla von Dis Pater. Installation of all traps has been completed. I will move to my position for the operation, so I ask for cover.”
In a defensive battle, the initiative lies entirely with the enemy.
Instead, we have the advantage of the battlefield.
It’s possible to stir up the opponent and change the timing of their attack, but even then, it’s difficult to know the details.
In the first place, this raid was most likely the Coalition’s convulsion after being poked once already.
“Ayla von Dis Pater, French. I am in position for the operation.”
“Ayla. Keep it brief.”
“Oh my. All maids must observe the minimum etiquette, you know.”
“No, I mean—never mind. Do what you want.”
1 a.m.
If we didn’t want to miss even the smallest sound, we had to stay quiet.
The problem was that outside, everything was simply white and there was nothing to look at, and since it was late, getting sleepy was inevitable.
On top of that, a constant slurping sound kept coming through the communication channel.
Karina must not have been able to endure it anymore, because she turned on her mic.
“Is someone drinking tea, by any chance?”
“I will turn off communications for a moment.”
It was Levan.
“Don’t turn it off. We need to shorten the delay in your response when the raid starts.”
“Then I won’t turn it off.”
Slurp.
Sluuurp.
The sound was a bit too frequent.
That was not the sound of drinking tea.
“Levan.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s cup ramen, isn’t it?”
No answer.
I knew it.
There was no cup ramen in the lodgings.
And it was an item that wasn’t allowed to be brought in.
So Levan was the one who smuggled prohibited items in under the core seat.
When did he even bring hot water?
“Aw, come on.”
“Seriously.”
Karina and Lucia groaned at the same time.
“I can understand drinking tea during an operation. It’s late. But how can you eat ramen?”
“How can you eat anything? And cup ramen is stimulating food. Are you going to go to the bathroom while on standby? When we don’t know when the enemy will attack?”
“It’s a little difficult to say how I’ll handle the bathroom.”
“Don’t say it.”
“If you were next to me right now, I would have shot you with a shotgun.”
Lucia was one thing.
She had never had the sort of attitude ordinary noble young ladies showed from the beginning.
But what happened to Karina?
I thought she had at least been doing a good job keeping up the noble-lady concept.
I kept my mouth shut for a moment and stretched.
A little while ago, I’d thought it would be bad to get too relaxed, but was this level of relaxation the average?
“Movement observed at four o’clock from the base entrance.”
No.
They weren’t relaxing.
They were so tense that they were trying their hardest to loosen up.
“Confirming visually.”
I immediately raised the sniper rifle and looked through the scope.
“Current wind speed twelve meters per second. It could be movement caused by the wind.”
I didn’t see anything at four o’clock.
It was an area with trees, though.
“I think it’s a tree.”
“It is a tree.”
When Levan answered at the same time, the atmosphere returned to normal.
“Seriously, be grateful the enemy didn’t come while you were eating cup ramen.”
“Should I?”
“No, I’m telling you to think that way.”
“Ah, yes. I’ll think that.”
Alex’s hatch opened, and a cup ramen container immediately dropped outside.
For a moment, I was startled, thinking he was going to take care of the bathroom problem.
After that, it was all waiting.
“Are they not coming?”
2 a.m.
“Senior Karina. Are you asleep?”
“No? Lucia?”
“Lucia?”
“Lucia.”
“Lucia?”
“I’m not asleep.”
“Clear your throat before you speak.”
3 a.m.
“Could the information have been wrong?”
“Do you know how good the Luna family is at obtaining information?”
“What if they tried to get through the situation with false information?”
“I’m telling you, that can’t be.”
“Who did you get the information from, and how?”
“…I’ll consider that possibility a little.”
4 a.m.
No matter how well the interior was insulated, looking at a snowy mountain made me feel cold.
The mysteries of the human body.
My hands were starting to feel like they would freeze, so I kept them tucked under my armpits.
The communication channel was quiet.
Instead, only intermittent beeping sounds rang out at regular intervals.
Speaking used up stamina, so we were only letting each other know we were awake with the communication channel’s connection sound.
If one of the five sounds disappeared, only then would we speak up and wake them.
Waiting still, without drinking water or eating food, was the worst.
Waiting for an enemy who might or might not come, then waiting again, and continuing to wait.
It was like torture.
At least the waiting we’d done during training had only been boring, but this was a battlefield.
Waiting on the battlefield was dreadful.
It kept gnawing away at your mental strength, and even though you were just sitting still, your stamina drained away.
“At five, I’ll contact another cadet squad.”
It was Karina.
“Understood.”
“Yes.”
“Confirmed.”
“That would be far more efficient.”
Having one squad remain on standby for this long wasn’t efficient.
If anything, there was also the possibility that we would grow exhausted from waiting and respond late when combat actually broke out.
I’d rather the Coalition’s raid be canceled altogether.
In my current physical state, I felt like it would be hard to react if they attacked now.
But if they ambushed us when the next squad arrived, it would feel like everything we did had been for nothing.
5 a.m.
At the Academy, it would be starting to get a little brighter around now, but the north was still dark.
“Even if I contact them now, they’ll arrive at least an hour later.”
Beep, and Karina began contacting them.
The distance between the lodgings, the research lab, and the hangar was fairly far.
Especially from the research lab to the hangar; even riding a Titan, it took nearly forty minutes.
If we calculated the time it would take for the next pilots to receive the call, wake up and get ready, move from the lodgings to the hangar, and come all the way here, it would take more than an hour.
“Looks like there won’t be a raid today.”
“Yeah.”
“Umm.”
“Ah.”
At Lucia’s words, Levan, Senior Ayla, and I reacted at the same time.
All three of us were people who worked at the Servant Club cafe.
My mind, which had been slightly hazy, suddenly snapped awake.
“What’s with all of you?”
“Usually, when someone says something like that, customers who weren’t there suddenly show up.”
“It’s practically a science.”
“That’s superstition.”
“It’s experience.”
Of course, this place wasn’t a cafe or anything like it, but a battlefield.
There was no way words like that would really become some kind of omen.
KABOOM!
“Explosion confirmed.”
Fuck.
“It seems one of the traps I set has activated. I’ll check.”
“I just came back to the communication channel! What happened? Are we under attack?”
“It’s not us. They say a trap went off.”
“Confirmation?”
“She’s checking, so please wait a moment.”
Beep.
A holographic map of the research lab appeared in the corner of my vision.
“The explosion site is close to where Cadet Deep and Cadet Levan are. Be careful of an attack from that direction.”
Our direction?
But I don’t see anything.
KRAAANG!
The waist of the mass-produced Titan standing behind us was smashed apart.
A large-caliber armor-piercing round.
The upper body, sent flying, rolled across the ground before the light in its sensors went out.
“One soldier’s Titan severely damaged.”
I could tell from experience.
The pilot inside was probably in a lot of pain, injured, or unconscious, but they weren’t dead.
“Seven o’clock.”
If I wanted to live, I had to determine the direction of the round first.
“Seven o’clock confirmed. Beginning return fire.”
At Levan’s words, the mass-produced Titans scattered and spread out wide.
“Whew.”
A deep breath.
“Ailey.”
“Yeah! I’ll handle defense and evasion, so don’t worry!”
Kneeling position.
Shoulder the rifle.
I fired toward the movement.