by Takehaya
Elexis was sitting in the cockpit in the upper part of the mobile weapon. His face could be seen through the transparent windshield.
“Hey now, Dextro... You really love that thing, don’t you?”
Despite being face to face with a mobile weapon, Koutarou didn’t appear surprised. Instead, he smiled as he looked up at Elexis.
“It looks like your personality has improved a little, but you’re still the same...”
“What are you smiling for?”
“Oh, no reason. I was just thinking that your toy looks strong.”
This mobile weapon had the usual appearance: a stocky humanoid figure. The most accurate description of it would be to say it looked like a massive, muscular knight wearing heavy armor.
To think I’d face something like this again...
Koutarou had experience fighting against magical steel giants, and Elexis’s mobile weapon didn’t seem much different. In a way, he felt nostalgic seeing it.
“It is strong. In the future, this will be a DKI bestseller. Once they’re released, please do buy one.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll do just that.”
Koutarou pointed the tip of his sword at the giant. Koutarou stood less than two meters tall while the giant was easily five. It was almost three times his height. It appeared Koutarou didn’t stand a chance, but this time Elexis wasn’t going to let his guard down because of that. Sitting in the cockpit, he cast a sharp glance at Koutarou.
“I never would have imagined using this against a flesh and blood human, but since you seem to be bending all the rules, I’m going all out. Behold the pride and joy of my corporation.”
“You’re the CEO?”
“Yes. But rest easy, Neanderthal-kun. If it looks like you can win against this, I won’t be laying a hand on you for a while.”
“You don’t go in on deals that would cost you... Is that it?”
“Precisely!”
Koutarou and Elexis grinned at each other. That was when the boosters on the giant’s body suddenly activated, and it came flying towards Koutarou. With its size and weight, the giant clearly wasn’t suited for walking. Instead it flew by manipulating gravity. When rapid acceleration was necessary, it would also use boosters. It was much the same as Koutarou’s armor in that regard.
“I’m happy to hear it! You really haven’t changed at all!”
Koutarou rushed forward with his sword in hand. His speed was nothing compared to the giant, but it was still exceptionally fast for a human. That was all thanks to his spiritual energy and the sword’s mana.
“How about this?!”
While approaching rapidly, the giant fired the large gun on its left arm. It was a canister shot that spread into small bullets covering an area of about a meter, and they were all coming right for Koutarou.
“Whoa!”
Koutarou rolled forward under the bullets. A few of them grazed him, but the sword’s magic protected him by deflecting them.
It looks like he can even dodge canister shots. Let’s see if it was a fluke!
Koutarou swiftly got up and started rushing towards the giant again. He wasn’t as good at controlling the sword’s mana as Alaia was, so relying on the sword to protect him was dangerous. In order to keep from being shot, he’d have to get in closer.
“Expertly dodged! Very impressive!”
After firing a couple more canister shots at Koutarou, Elexis determined that he wouldn’t be able to hit him that way and swiftly changed his method of attack. His next weapon was an axe meant for melee combat. It was huge from Koutarou’s perspective, but it was merely a handheld weapon to the metal giant. As such, the giant could swing it around swiftly. And with its long reach, each swing of the axe covered a wide area. Between the length of its arms and the axe, anything within three meters of the mobile weapon was in danger. Elexis was sure he’d be able to hit Koutarou this way.
“It is an honor to be praised!”
Koutarou accepted the challenge. Since he wanted to get in and attack with his sword anyway, this was his chance.
The giant charged with its boosters’ thrust set to max while Koutarou braced himself to take it on. The distance between them disappeared in the blink of an eye. The giant’s attack reached Koutarou first.
“Take thiiis!”
The giant swung its long right arm horizontally, and the axe quickly came at Koutarou. Between its weight and speed, Koutarou would be dead even if only the arm of the mobile weapon hit him. It was an incredibly dangerous position to be in for Koutarou who wasn’t wearing any protection.
“You’ll never hit me with something like that!”
Koutarou quickly jumped to evade the axe that swept under his feet. Then using his momentum from jumping, Koutarou moved to attack the giant.
“I thought you’d do that, Neanderthal-kun!”
However, that was exactly what Elexis had wanted. The giant pointed the gun on its left arm at Koutarou mid-jump. In the air, there was no way he could dodge a canister shot. That’s why Elexis had swung the axe horizontally in the first place. It was all to get Koutarou to jump so he could essentially corner him mid-air.
“Oh crap! Signaltin, I’m counting on you!”
The giant fired. As it did, Signaltin began glowing. Koutarou unleashed Signaltin’s mana to create a barrier before kicking off of it. Through that, Koutarou was able to change the direction he was moving in and just barely managed to dodge the canister shot. The next moment, the canister shot crushed the barrier that Signaltin had created.
“Really, wonders never cease with you. You just jumped again mid-air, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Despite how I look, I’m pretty flexible.”
But the giant was surprisingly swift too. By the time Koutarou landed and readied his sword, it already had its weapon pointed at him.
“However, it’s about time I end this little game of ours. I’ve already completed my goal.”
“Your goal?”
“Satomi-sama! The soldiers!”
It wasn’t until Koutarou heard Ruth’s voice that he finally caught on to Elexis’s real goal.
I see! He did this to let his subordinates escape! Dextro pulled a fast one on me!
Two additional soldiers that had been hiding somewhere nearby had carried the other five into the spaceship. Elexis had attacked to buy time for them.
“So you’re just buying time again... You’re surprisingly caring when it comes to your subordinates.”
“I don’t know about that. Really, the most important thing for us is not to leave behind any evidence that we were involved. It’s not to kill you or capture the ladies.”
Elexis had distracted Koutarou so his subordinates could make preparations to retreat, but that retreat would be meaningless if they left any evidence behind.
Well played... With this, even if I defeat him, we’ll only be escaping danger for the moment...
Blue Knight’s systems, including Ruth and Theia’s bracelets, were being scrambled, ensuring there would be no recordings of anything that happened. The devices Elexis had planted aboard Blue Knight were set to self-destruct. And the only soldiers who’d witnessed what had happened were on Elexis’s side. He’d thought of everything.
The only proof that would remain would be in the logs of Koutarou’s bracelet, but using that would only put Clan in a difficult position. Clan was personally cooperating with Koutarou, but her family was on bad terms with Theia’s family. Clan had to stay in the background of all this in order not to get them involved, and Koutarou didn’t want to force her hand in the matter.
“My only miscalculation was not taking into account the existence of an anomaly like you.”
The weapons equipped on the giant’s shoulders took aim at Koutarou. On the right shoulder was a large beam cannon, and on the left shoulder was a multipurpose missile launcher that could fire up to eight shots at once. They were the most destructive weapons in the giant’s arsenal.
“If possible, I�
��d like to get rid of that anomaly right here and now.”
“Aren’t I an anomaly because you can’t get rid of me?”
“Well, when you put it that way...”
Elexis fired the missiles as he spoke. These missiles were trained on their target’s heat signature, but were also guided by camera. Once they locked on to their target, they would chase after it as long as it was still alive.
“Damn it!”
Koutarou was planning on getting as close to the missiles as possible before dodging, but they exploded with a loud boom a few meters before they reached him. Elexis had used something known as a proximity fuze, which detonated as it closed in on its target rather than on contact. The intent was to deal damage over a wider area. Not even Koutarou could dodge an attack like that.
“Satomi-sama!”
Ruth screamed when she saw Koutarou caught in the explosions of the missiles. It was the kind of wide area attack that she had feared all along. She had no way of knowing what had happened to him, but it couldn’t be good. Ruth’s heart sunk as she shielded Theia from the blast wave.
“Satomi-sama! Satomi-sama!”
A cloud of dust shrouded the area where Koutarou had been. Since the explosions had been so close to the ground, dirt and debris had been kicked up everywhere. It made it impossible to see anything, but the winter wind quickly cleared the area.
Once the dust lifted, Ruth could see Koutarou lying wounded at the bottom of the blasted crater in the ground.
“Nooooooooooo! Satomi-sama!”
Seeing Koutarou collapsed like that, Ruth couldn’t help screaming. This was like watching a nightmare.
“I guess not even you could do anything about that...”
Next the beam cannon on the mobile weapon started moving. The turret’s motor growled as it turned towards Koutarou. Elexis was planning on finishing him off with it.
“Farewell, Neanderthal-kun. You put up a good fight.”
“Stop it! Please don’t kill Satomi-samaaaa!”
Koutarou was going to die. The same Koutarou who was supporting Theia and Ruth’s dream. His death might as well be the end of the world to Ruth. She screamed again and again, feeling like her soul was being torn apart.
But her screams didn’t reach Elexis, and he calmly pulled the trigger. The enormous amount of electricity generated by the giant was concentrated into a powerful beam which shot forth like a giant spear of light.
The crater in the ground from the missiles was widened even more by the beam. It kicked up more dust, shrouding the area again.
“Satomi-sama! Please answer me, Satomi-samaaa!”
Ruth was screaming and crying like a child. She was frustrated that she couldn’t leave Theia’s side. She wanted to run to Koutarou and save him even now, but she had to stay with Theia. All she could do instead was scream and cry.
“Well, that takes care of the anomaly. All that’s left is—”
“Like I said... I’m an anomaly because you can’t get rid of me.”
At that moment, the giant’s right arm and leg were cut off.
“Wh-What?!”
Having lost its support, the giant—and confused Elexis inside of it—toppled over to the right. And as it was falling, its left arm and leg were severed as well. By the time it hit the ground, the giant was limbless and defenseless.
“Hahh... it’s finally over.”
The one who had cut off the giant’s limbs was Koutarou, who had managed to sneak up on it. He flicked his sword, sending the oil on it flying, and then pointed it at the cockpit of the fallen giant.
“Surrender. You’ve lost.”
“Satomi-sama! Y-You’re all right!”
Ruth screamed out one more time, but unlike before, this one was a scream of joy.
“How?! How are you standing there?! I just killed you!”
Elexis’s face was riddled with confusion. Koutarou, the boy he was sure he’d just killed, was now standing in front of him. It was like he was having a bad dream.
“The me you shot just now was what you would call a hologram.”
“I see! You hid when the missiles exploded and left a substitute behind!”
“Yeah. As a result, my clothes are a wreck. How are you going to make up for this?”
Koutarou had been caught in the missile blast, but he hadn’t taken enough damage to be incapacitated. Really, all he had to show for it were a few bruises and his burnt clothes. Signaltin and the defensive spell Yurika had cast on him earlier had managed to save him, albeit just barely. In the end, the proximity fuze had helped. If the missiles had exploded on contact, Koutarou would have been much worse off.
But after the explosion, Koutarou used the dirt it kicked up to hide while creating an illusion of himself with Signaltin. Since he wasn’t as good as Alaia at controlling Signaltin, the illusion he made was only a simple one that couldn’t move. Luckily, that was more than enough to emulate a collapsed and injured Koutarou.
Then, while Elexis was distracted by the illusion, Koutarou snuck up on the giant and cut off its limbs. In the end, the wide area attack that Elexis was sure would bring him victory had instead been the reason for his defeat.
Thanks, Magical Girl Yurika. To think having a real magical girl would be this useful...
Yurika had become a real magical girl just the other day. To Koutarou, she was now more helpful than ever. She’d been so useful now—today in particular—that Koutarou was planning on offering her dinner for the next couple of days.
“...So losing sight of you was the end of the line for me, huh? I suppose now I’ll have to offer you one of my suits at a later date.”
“Thanks.”
“And would you do me the pleasure of giving me your name? I want to know the name of the man who bested me.”
Elexis graciously accepted his defeat and smiled wryly as he spoke to Koutarou.
“It’s Koutarou.”
“Koutarou, huh? It’s an odd name, but I’ll remember it.”
“Now surrender already. You’ve lost.”
The tip of Koutarou’s sword touched the cockpit’s windshield. However, Elexis simply shook his head and smiled.
“It’s true that I’ve lost, but I can’t surrender. I’m a CEO with a lot of employees to think of.”
Suddenly the giant began spewing out a large amount of smoke. The white smoke quickly filled the area and obscured Koutarou’s vision.
“What?! A smokescreen?!”
Over the chaos of the moment and through the thick smoke, Koutarou could hear something like an explosion.
“Let’s meet again, Koutarou-kun!”
The explosion was the sound of the giant’s ejection seat activating. The seat and Elexis were both launched high up into the sky, and he was picked up by his subordinates in the spaceship before anyone knew it. Without his armor, Koutarou couldn’t chase after them, so by the time the smokescreen cleared, Elexis and his men were far out of his reach.
“...Well, I guess you’re still as shrewd as you were two thousand years ago, Dextro.”
Koutarou sighed as he followed the spaceship with his eyes.
After activating the ejection seat, Elexis’s giant caught fire and was enveloped in an intensely burning flame. It was a self-destruct feature that had been prepared beforehand, and it would leave nothing behind of the metal giant.
And once it was gone, there really would be no evidence left. The fact that Theia and Ruth were attacked by the military and DKI had been completely covered up. They had appeared without warning and left without a trace. They weren’t necessarily strong opponents just yet, but they were clever.
“What a troublesome enemy...”
The fires from the burning giant lit up the area. Even though Koutarou had won the fight, Elexis’s retreat was so well orchestrated that Koutarou couldn’t help gritting his teeth in frustration.
Ruth, Theia, and Master
Thursday, February 11th
After the fight, Koutarou picked up
Theia. He wanted to clear the area before anyone who’d heard the explosion started showing up.
“All right. Let’s go, Ruth-san.”
Carrying Theia, Koutarou turned towards Ruth.
“Hmm? What’s wrong?”
When he did, he saw Ruth kneeling.
“Although I may have been unaware, please forgive me for all my rudeness.”
Ruth bowed deeply to Koutarou like she would to someone of a much higher social station.
“What are you doing?”
Koutarou was puzzled by Ruth’s sudden actions. She slowly raised her head and looked up at him.
Ruth-san?
Koutarou wasn’t sure how to describe the expression on Ruth’s face. It looked like she was crying, but it also looked like she was smiling. Her eyes were wet with tears and her cheeks were red. But her calm eyes looked right at Koutarou like they were trying to tell him something. All that Koutarou could tell was that even though Ruth was crying, she wasn’t sad.
“That sword... It’s the real Signaltin, isn’t it?”
Ruth didn’t directly answer Koutarou’s question. She narrowed her eyes and lowered her gaze. Hanging from Koutarou’s waist was a beautiful sword of silvery white. Ruth had seen the power of that sword firsthand, and she had concluded that it was the real Signaltin.
“Ruth-san...”
Koutarou let out a small sigh and looked down at the sword on his waist.
So it really did come to this...
Koutarou felt that it was a shame that he couldn’t protect his secret, but he had been prepared for Ruth to reach that answer on her own, so he didn’t panic when the moment came.
“I am from a family that has served Forthorthe for ages. I can see that this is no replica.”
As Ruth said that, she reached out with her hand and touched Koutarou’s sword. She gently stroked it as if it was her own child.
“I thought something was strange. Why had all the armor’s data been erased...? If you had just been thrown out of the universe, there would have been no need to do that.”
Tears fell from Ruth’s eyes as she continued speaking. One after another, they streaked down her red cheeks.
