# 026. Dawnbringer: The Story of the Machine God

## 01. Volume 1

### 001. Chapter 1. Vice Admiral, Re-enlisted as a Recruit!

You're in a galaxy, drifting along in the stardust, when all of a sudden you look down... and find the first release of Dawnbringer! Mad thanks to Junnynam and MadTix who are parenting this project!

Check out the

main project page

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Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix

Please enjoy~

____________________

In the year 2120 A.D., human explorers on Mars

discovered a specimen of a silicon-based alien species, called the Letix.

The complete alien life form Letix navigated

itself around the outer space; growing by absorbing energy from stars. And

surprisingly, that existence didn’t only exist in the 3

rd

dimension.

For the first time in the history of mankind, humans were able to make contact

with an organism that existed outside the third dimension.

By analysing this Letix, the humans were able to

master the art of hyperspace travelling. As a result, humans were able to

escape Earth and expand not only within their own solar system, but to the far

reaches of the entire universe.

Even with the information gathered from the

Letix, it still took humans 80 years to develop the technology and capacity

necessary for hyperspace travel.

With the Earth year 2200 A.D. as its start, a new

intergalactic power was born, as the human race set out to explore the every

corner of the known universe.

However, human contact with the Letix did not

only bring technological advances and good fortunes: a hostile assembly of

Letix started to censor the human race and its advancements. Threatened with

complete annihilation, humans waged a war against these Letix...

This information, being broadcasted on the

public network, was projected onto my hologram projector while it was in

hibernation.

I wonder if kids these days sleep in class. Why

did they broadcast such basic and trivial information? Thinking along those

lines, I stretched out my arms.

“My body feels so stiff after the cold-sleep

since I haven’t had one in a while.”

I pulled myself up from the cold-sleep purposed

bed. Normal people would suffer instant death as soon as they are put to a cold-sleep,

but since I had space marine type nano-machines installed in me, I stood up

feeling only slightly drowsy.

“Haa, why do I still feel sleepy after a cold-sleep?”

I looked at the mirror as I yawned. There stood

a half Mongolian and half Caucasian youth who appeared to be 17 years old with

light brown hair and black eyes.

I feel like I’ve lost quite a bit of muscle

since I’ve been sustained on fluids while I was asleep, but I guess I’m

mistaken.

I tensed up my muscles, like how the male

ancestors would’ve done in the past, to check my body.

“Hmm, it’s a bit cold.”

Just why did they use a rash guard as the

standard attire for cold sleep? It’s cold.

Complaining, I headed towards my cabinet. However,

I noticed some concerning figures on the display next to the cold-sleep bed as I

walked by.

Seventh of April, Space Year 189. 9:30 AM

Federation Standard.

“What? Space Year 189?”

The year I fell asleep was… hmm, I can’t remember

clearly because I’ve been frozen too much, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a three

digit number.

That’s right, it was the year 69. The year 69

which was still crystal clear in my head because various reasons (a number is

just a number, right?). Then that means that I’ve been in cold-sleep for 120

years.

“Ha… these guys. It’s not funny. Not funny at

all.”

I ignored the hologram display next to the cold

sleep bed and approached the cabinet.

“Vice Admiral Lezirth Dawnbringer—1st Space

Marines and Commander of Dawn Corps. Deactivate hibernation!”

The cabinet that was programmed to react to my

voice played an electronic beep but then displayed a red error screen shortly

after.

Huh? Was it broken?

Now that I looked around the place, it really

did look like 120 years had passed with all the collected dust on the interior.

They sure worked hard for this prank.

“So, these guys think that they can play a prank

on me since I’ve been nice to them as a Vice Admiral, huh? Should I grab my

arms again? Hey! Hurry up and come out here. If you don’t, I’m going to smash

this cabinet open, you know? I can’t go around naked now, can I?”

Even when I kept sending signals via the private

channel of Dawn Corps, no-one appeared.

Huh? Don’t tell me we’re under attack or

something.

But there’s no way the First Space Marines can

be wiped out so quickly. Something must’ve happened while I was hibernating.

Suspecting something was wrong, I grabbed the

cabinet and pulled it open by force.

“Huh?”

The cabinet door opened without much resistance.

Then surprisingly, there was a plank of plywood behind it.

Feeling rushed, I put on something over my cold-sleep

attire and opened the plywood up. When I did, a dark, storage like place with

heaps of random stuff piled up towards the back came into sight.

“What? What’s going on?”

I didn’t know what was going on. I tried to open

the actual door of the hibernation chamber, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Damn it. It… doesn’t seem to be a joke. Don’t

tell me I’ve been hibernating for the last 120 years?”

I was starting to feel nervous, but I couldn’t

start panicking now. Surprising people who just awoke from a cold-sleep with ‘You’ve

been asleep for the last millennia~’ was a common prank to play.

It would be a pain if someone saw my panicking

appearance and recorded it. The navy recruits these days must’ve been cursed by

a laughing ghost or something, because they loved pranks more than anything

else even after being held in detention.

I can’t be fooled by these things.

I decided to escape through the storage space

for now.

◊ ◊ ◊

[Congratulations on being admitted into the

Space Federal Military Forces. This planet Epiece—2 is under the direct control

of the Space Federation. For those who are interested in joining the Federal

Military Forces, please visit the Recruits Office.]

[In space, there are numerous illnesses that all

of you never would’ve faced before. If anyone feels ill, please report to the Infirmary.]

[The planet Epiece—2 has a gravity of 103.45%

compared to the standard level. It might be hard to get accustomed to, so

please use an assistant robot for help if you are coming from a plane with a

lower gravity level.]

The female voice being played over the speakers

sounded a lot like instructions being given out at a station for the

travellers. No, the place that I actually exited after smashing through the

cabinet looked a lot like a storage area in a station.

What’s going on? It doesn’t seem to be a joke at

all.

I was wearing the rash guard, which was nothing

more than just a swim suit and supposedly the cold-sleep attire.

If they did this as a joke, even a good natured

person like myself wouldn’t be able to overlook this. How dare they let the commander

of Dawn Corps walk around the Space Station wearing nothing but a swim suit?

This was going to be a hot topic to discuss

throughout the whole Federation. Doing something like this was a big enough

crime to be executed for insulting a senior officer. Hence, this was not my

subordinates’ doing.

“H-Hey, you. What did you do with your shoes?”

“Were you robbed?”

Men wearing yellow uniforms, presumably station

workers, approached and inspected me.

I ignored them and searched for my belongings. But

I obviously didn’t have any pockets while being nearly naked, so the only thing

that I could grab onto was the dog tag hanging around my neck.

“Dog tag… that’s it, I have my dog tag!”

Although most identification methods had been made

digital and we didn’t require any physical ID, the dog tags were kept in order

to retain the customs back on Earth.

I held onto my dog tag and headed towards the

Recruits Office. Peoples’ gazes were directed at me. Well, that was to be expected

as I was striding through the station barefoot and in nothing but rash guard.

I could see the sun of the Epiece system,

Epiece, rising.

The crimson sun that shone between the gaps of

solar panels was the proof that this solar system was going to be sustained for

another 200,000,000 years. So that was why the Space Federation chose to settle

on the Epiece solar system and use Epiece—2 as its military planet.

Everyone from the Space Federation and recruits

from other

planets

rushed in to the Epeice—2 station. And all of them stared at me.

To think that I, the hero of the Space Federation

Wars and the Commander of Dawn Corps, was being watched as I walked in

near-naked attire, was embarrassing. It was so damn embarrassing.

Then suddenly security guards who were holding

rifles stopped me in my tracks.

“You! Stop there! Identify yourself!”

“Ehh?”

“Don’t’ move!”

Saying that, they sent a small exploration robot

towards me.

The exploration bot was shaped like a trilobite

that went extinct on Earth a long, long time ago and it floated towards me.

There was a playful drawing of a black eye on its

back in a manga-like fashion, but it wasn’t cute at all! I didn’t like the fact

that it was approaching me to inspect my body. However, the guards were operating

by the set manual, so I couldn’t really blame them.

The robot inspected various parts of my body for

any space virus or contamination as I held my hands up in the air as

instructed.

[Status: Normal.]

“Why are you walking around in that attire?”

When the results turned out to be normal, the

security guards loosened their guard. Did they think that I was robbed because I

was injured?

“Ah, by the way…”

“You must be from a foreign

planet if your ID isn’t

on the scan list, so I’ll lead you to the Recruits Office.”

The security guards brought around a small

electricity-driven patrol car before I was able to say anything.

I tried to explain my situation to them… but I wasn’t

even sure how I could explain in the first place. I couldn’t walk around like

this, so I decided to board the patrol car for now.

◊ ◊ ◊

There were a lot of people lined up at the

Recruits Office. The line showed no sign of decreasing even when there were 20

workers processing 20 different people at once.

The guards cut through the line and led me to a

Recruits Office worker.

The worker appeared to be around 40 years old by

Earth’s standard with a not-so-subtle potbelly. He was wearing a uniform that

seemed like it was about to burst open. He squinted his eyes as he looked at

me.

“What’s this meant to be?”

“I thought he was a volunteer recruit from a foreign

planet since he didn’t show up on our data base when I performed an ID scan on

him. It’s better than leaving him naked and wandering around the station.

Please take care of him quickly.”

“Listen here, guards. Can’t you see all those

people in the line? I can’t take care of this guy first.”

“But we can’t let him walk around the station

naked. And our chief is gay. We can’t bring a cute naked guy like him to our

office.”

“He’ll eat him up thinking that he’s a holiday

present.”

The guards giggled as they said that.

My, my. Look at these fools. How dare they

sexually harass a three-star officer.

But I couldn’t get angry, as it was true that I

was prancing around nearly-naked. Ughh, how embarassing. I, Lezirth, lived my

life without a single embarrassing episode, but why was this happening to me

now?

“Tsk, can’t be helped then. I’m not going to do

anything when I see more recruits walking around naked.”

Saying that, the officer shooed the guards away.

“Ah, so… um, how should I say this…. I don’t

know what happened, but it seems like I’ve been unenlisted from the military?”

When the security guards left, I pulled out my

dog tag. I didn’t reveal it to the guards as I did not want to be embarrassed

in front of them.

“My name is Lezirth Dawnbringer. 1st Space

Marines, Commander of Dawn Corps— Vice Admiral Dawnbringer.”

I was the one who was saying it, but I sounded coarse.

However, it can’t be helped. I liked to talk informally in casual places, but

as a Vice Admiral, I had to talk like this when I was giving out orders.

“Huh… dog tag? Hold on a moment…”

The officer took the dog tag from me and scanned

it, only to be surprised at the result.

“Lezirth Dawnbringer, Commander of Dawn Corps?

Is this for real? Really? No way, right?”

“Ah, so anyways...”

“Well if it’s really genuine, then it’s quite a

treasure. So go sell to a souvenir shop or to a crazy collector. So, you’re a

new recruit?”

“What?”

I was taken aback at the officer’s attitude.

This guy didn’t believe that I was Lezirth Dawnbringer at all. Was it because I

looked young?

But as a humanoid-type Replicant, I was trained

for 10 years before being enlisted into the military at the age of 10. I appeared

to be 17 years old, but I was actually over 100 years old.

“Now listen here, officer, I’m telling you that I’m

Lezirth Dawnbringer….”

“I’m just going to check your genes.”

Without asking for my permission, he activated

the genetic scanner.

As the bluish laser scanned me from the top of

my head, I closed my eyes instantly.

There was a risk of going blind if the laser shone directly into one’s eyes

while scanning.

My genetics must’ve been analysed instantly,

because I could hear the officer complaining.

“Tsk, it’s a Replicant? Why didn’t the makers

put a marking on his right eye? I knew something was suspicious. I can’t

understand why the Space Federation allows your kind to hold a gun.”

The officer complained as he handed a file to

me.

“But here, I do have a duty to fulfil, so I can’t

really reject a fake humanoid like you.”

“Eh? What? Officer, what did you just say to me?”

Not caring how surprised I was, the officer

filled out my recruitment form without my permission.

“Now then, go wait over at the back. Hurry up!”

“No, listen to me, officer!”

Did this bastard make fun of me; the one who led

an army of 100,000 to battle over 10 billion Letix forces? Didn’t he know that I

gathered enough medals to do weight training with over the many battles that I

fought as a war hero?

This officer must have a death wish to be

treating me as a recruit, when I am

the

Lezirth Dawnbringer—the Commander of Dawn Corps of the 1st Space Marines!

It happened as I opened my mouth to train some

sense into this person.

“Kuuk.”

My stomach started to squirm and churn with

grumbling sounds. I suddenly got hungry.

A black haired female officer who appeared to be

in her 20s held back her laughter as she operated a terminal.

“Hehe, I packed too many muffins this morning.

Would you like some?”

The junior officer smiled and handed me a bread

bag. Who… did they think I am?

But the smell piercing my nostrils was so good. Ah,

this somewhat cheap smelling spices… was it synthetic cinnamon? I like

cinnamon. And is that peanut butter that I smell? I really like peanut butter. Choco-chips?

I really, really like choco-chips.

By the time I realised what I was doing, I was

holding the muffins.

“Why did you give him food? He would have lunch anyway

when he gets assigned to a barrack.”

“But there’s another two and a half hours until

lunch time. I think he would be hungry. Well, it’s better that throwing them away,

isn’t it?”

The junior officer said that and winked at me. On

the white part of her right eye, there was a hologram mark that appeared to be

intentional. It was most likely a proton hologram.

“Replicants sure get along, huh. Hmph.”

The officer grumbled like that and opened the

office door.

“Next!”

◊ ◊ ◊

As I was led by some soldiers to the barracks, I

noticed people distributing army uniforms and boots, as well as some various necessities

inside a gymnasium equipped with a huge basketball court.

Seeing that the females and males were heading

to the swimming pool and the basketball court respectively, physical testings

were probably being carried out as well.

The Space Army uniform provided the basics—

protection from heat, cold and pressure as well as some life sustainability,

but I was surprised to find an optical camouflage cape that reacts to psychic

powers was included.

"This was only supposed to be distributed

to the espers, but which bastard added it to the standard set? Well, I’m not complaining

though. But they do seem to waste the military budget like there’s no tomorrow."

I was worried about this future as I looked at

the distributed uniform.

But since I needed a uniform set right now, I

lined up like the rest of the recruits. I could discuss the wasted budget after

I return to the Commands so I should hurry and change into the uniform.

As I did, I heard someone’s cocky tone.

“Oh man, if it isn’t the naked recruit? Oh geez.

We were the idiots lining up in the line. I never knew there was an easier way

out.”

“Hey, cut it out man. It’s too embarrassing to

try.”

Two men were purposely snickering to themselves,

but loud enough for me to hear.

I glared at them, but they continued to laugh

between themselves instead of making a frightened expression.

When I told new recruits to stitch in smiley

faces on their military uniform as a joke, over 100 thousand navy men would not

only stitch it on their uniforms but their casual clothes as well. That didn’t

stop there; they even painted smiley faces on Ambush Amphibious Warfare Ships.

To think that I would be made fun of like this

when people used to even take my jokes seriously. Grr…. It’s not like I can

punch them up when I have to keep face as a Vice Admiral.

But it felt like most of the other new recruits

aside from those guys hated me. Did they really think that I stripped to cut

into the line? Things would only get worse if I got angry at them.

I kept my mouth shut and entered a makeshift

screening room made out of panels inside the gym. Inside, they were playing a

promotional video clip for new recruits.

[The Letix dominate the planetary system by

absorbing minerals from planets and energy from the stars and can grow

infinitely. While the Human Race can only utilise Earth and other similar

planets, these creatures are able to utilise almost any planet they come across.

When the Letix strengthen their forces with their infinite multiplication

characteristics, they form an army in order to expand their habitat towards

outer space; the purpose of that army being to destroy all life forms excluding

the Letix themselves. Hence, it is impossible for the Human Race to co-exist

with Letix.]

A lady in a sexy swimsuit outfit and a pair of

red rimmed glasses was licking her lips in a suggestive manner as she explained

on the video.

The video could easily be mistaken for an adults

video if watched without the audio, and behind the girl were various photos of Letixes.

What was this unbalanced promotion video? Who

made this thing? I really have to hold a troop orientation and training

session. The military has become slack while I was gone.

While I was caught up in my thoughts, the

promotional video changed to the next scene.

This time, a winged blond beauty was winking at

the screen with a toga wrapped around her, which could only be seen out of

Ancient Greek and Roman mythology.

[Elcros are a winged and undeveloped species. They

share some similar genetic makeup to a human, and due to the similar physical

appearance, they are suspected to be related to the ancestral humans…. But

currently, they are the Human Race’s enemy.]

“What?! We’re at war with Elcros?!”

I yelled out of surprise at the screen which

obviously wasn’t going to reply to me. All of the new recruits’ gazes were

pointed at me.

“What’s with that guy?”

“Wasn’t he the guy who came in all naked?”

“Yep, he sure is a 'greenie' alright.”

All of them looked at me like I was a hopeless

fellow. But I was more concerned about what was said on the promotional video

rather than what those recruits thought.

The Elcros were a species that my Dawn Corps encountered

during the war with the Letixes.

The standard of their civilisation was low, but

the Elcros served a god named ‘The Great Artus’ and their faith gave birth to a

special power named White Magic.

The Artus, which seemed to be an organism from hyperspace,

granted them the ability to jump between dimensions with no scientific methods

involved; leading to their presence in 6 different stellar systems already.

I took on the facts that Elcros possessed a mild

nature and that they are able to produce fertile offspring with humans, and

reported to the Federation that they should be accepted as allies to the Human

Race.

“So why the hell are we fighting with the Elcros?

Who dared to ignore my report!”

“Hey! Sit down!”

“Isn’t he screwed up in the head?”

Hearing the muttering sounds of people behind

me, I sat back down for now.

On the video they were arguing that Elcros were

an enemy to the Human Race and that humans must abolish their theocratic

dictatorship and free them from their governance.

[The Asa are an Amazoness-type species with

pointed ears. They maintain a strong maternal line and they consider the Human

Race as a tool to maintain their genes.]

By looking at the promotional video, I could

tell what the Human Race has done over the past 120 years.

The war with the Letixes was inevitable. Letixes

were like fungi and viruses who only seek to fill the entire universe with

themselves.

But Elcros on the other hand, were a peaceful

species. With certain diplomatic conditions in place, there wasn’t a need to

fight with them; if ignored, they wouldn’t even be aware of the Human Race’s existence.

However, humans could not accept the Elcro's government

and started to persecute them.

And now, the relationship between Elcros and

humans has worsened uncontrollably. While Elcros themselves were offensively

weak, Half-Elcros who were born out of the persecution and pro-Elcros military

rebels, made up for the weak strength.

The Asa were never a peaceful species, but there

was a good chance that they could coexist with the Human Race. However, the Human

Race attacked them as humans had a higher scientific civilisation and did not

view Asas as equals.

As a result, Asas became an enemy to the Human

Race and they were putting up a good fight as they were much more aggressive

than Elcros.

By capturing human technicians, Asas were

progressing rapidly by stealing knowledge from them. Furthermore, they possessed

Black Magic that was much more effective at combating the Human Race than the

White Magic possessed by the Elcros.

And Replicants revolted against the Federation.

The artificial humans—Replicants, which the

Federation has produced in order to strengthen itself while even going against

the ‘Veracruz Treaty’ that it signed, revolted and formed an independent force.

Strictly speaking, I was a Replicant myself, so

that must be why the officer at the Recruits Office insulted me.

The contempt and discrimination to the

Replicants ran deep into these people. That was why all Replicants had a

hologram sticker installed on their right eye—to tell the Replicants and humans

apart.

The only reason why the junior officer gave me

food to eat and winked at me wasn’t because she was interested in me, but she

was cheering me on as a fellow Replicant. As a discriminated lower class in the

Federation, Replicants developed a sense of being part of the same race.

To sum it up, Human Race was now at war with Letix,

Elcro, Asa and Rebel Replicant Forces; all at the same time.

◊ ◊ ◊

[Now then, we will be having a test to gauge

your academics. This test is to assign the recruits here to a suitable field,

so please answer the questions diligently.]

As the lady on the promotional video talked, a

hologram test paper appeared on the tables.

The questions were easy. Hmm, I’ll show them

that I wasn’t made the commander by pulling strings. I concentrated on the test

and filled it out one by one.

I must’ve stood out as I breezed through the questions,

because someone poked me from behind.

“Hey… greenie, show me your answers.”

“What?”

Did this runt just call me a greenie? I, the

commander of Dawn Corps? This runt really has a death wish doesn’t he!!

I glared at him, but instead he tried to

threaten me.

“Who do you think you’re glaring at, you dink.”

Was that supposed to be a threat? I could only

make a bitter smile. I felt like a fool taking this guy seriously if he was

going to act this childish. I have to show him my authority.

“This test is to measure the individuality of

the soldiers such as yourself, so there is no point in cheating; you would only

be fooling yourself and suffer by biting off more than you can chew. It would

be your own bad luck if you suffer alone, but other soldiers would also be

troubled by you and we cannot let that happen.”

“What are you spouting off? Instructor! The greenie

here is asking for my answers!”

The runt raised his hand and called an

instructor over. What? Did this guy just try to point the blame on me?

“No! You’re wrong! You got it wrong! On the

contrary, this one was the one who was asking me for the...”

While I was trying to explain myself, the runt

stared to copy down my answers. Then a sergeant who was yawning near the back

slowly stood up.

“Geez, we always get fools like these. Both of

you cut it out. Both of you are idiots anyway, so there’s no problem copying

each other.”

“W-What did you say?”

I have never been so insulted in my decades of

service in the military than I have been today. Losing the will to protest

further, I quickly filled out the answer sheet and try to guard his answers half-heartedly.

◊ ◊ ◊

The results for the test came out as soon as it

finished. Only the top 20 students were accepted into the military academy and

needless to say, I was placed first on the test.

The runt who copied my answers was ranked 21

st

,

so he just missed out on being accepted into the military school but was

accepted into the non-commissioned officer academy. I was unhappy that a bad

guy like him was accepted into the non-commissioned officer academy after

copying my answers, but he shouldn’t be able to fit in anyway. I should ignore

it.

Wearing the military uniform and the military

boots, I prepared myself for the next test. There was a physical test waiting

for the recruits after the academics. Grip power, sergeant jumps and abdominal strength

tests were carried out in the indoor gym, but the stamina tests were being carried

out on the tracks outside.

When I stepped onto the tracks after quickly

finishing off the grip power, sergeant jumps and abdominal strength tests, I

could hear a lot of people cheering. The atmosphere felt like a Space Fighters

Competition match on a Saturday night. Why were they so excited over a physical

test like this?

“Hey! Try harder, greenie!”

“Is that how a future cadet should be?!”

“Ha ha ha ha! If you’re feeling hot, then strip!”

A girl with short-cut, dark brown hair was

panting as she walked on the long distance running tracks. Other female

recruits had already finished running, and she was the only remaining person on

the tracks.

She was a cute girl with a slender figure, a

word that would spring to mind when looking at that girl would be ‘soft’;

giving off the feeling of a young girl which could certainly be over looked by

her cute charms.

Walking itself must be hard for her, because she

was drenched in sweat. Maybe she came from a low gravity

planet

?

But I recognised her somehow.

“M-Ms. Maynard, the Chief of Staff?”

I recognised her and jumped onto the tracks.

“W-What the!”

“Hey you! Are you mad?!”

Instructors from all around rushed to stop me. But

I spun to lightly avoid the instructor in front of me and jumped over another

instructor who appeared afterwards. And I landed coolly!

After avoiding the instructors with sleek and

agile movements, I gave a salute worthy of a navy soldier to Maynard.

“Salute! Are you OK? Ms Maynard!”

“Ha… ha… ha. Ah, Vice Admiral Lezirth!”

Chief of Staff Maynard was gasping for breath as

she hugged my neck and collapsed.

I helped her up and looked around. The recruits

must’ve been looking forward to seeing what was going to happen next, because

they were gathered around the tracks with an expecting gleam in their eyes.

On the other hand, the instructors looked at us

with a tired expression. It was understandable, because to them, I was just a

recruit who interrupted the previous group while they were carrying out their

physical tests. But I didn’t have time to think about that.

“Woah, is today a special day or something?”

“The greenie’s stupidity is beyond me.”

“I’ve never seen greenies like these in my whole

entire life. Why are recruits saluting each other? Are they mad?”

Instructors grumbled as they came up to me. Protecting

Chief Maynard, I laid her gently near the tracks and glared at them.

“Watch your mouth, Ensign! Who do you think this

person is!”

“Haaa? Really now, Mr Recruit? We can’t be instructors

if we’re scared of a recruit now, can we?”

“Did you hear this guy? Aren’t you getting ahead

of yourself? Ensign? Who do you think you are?”

The instructors took turns sneering at Chief

Maynard and I. Were they looking down on us?

“I can put up with your rudeness towards me, but

how dare you make fun of the Chief of Staff as well!”

Not being able to keep my anger in check, I

carelessly applied strength to my yell. Bluish white Cherenkov radiation

rippled from my body and the instructors around me were bounced off.

The windows which were able to withstand some

degree of draft and gravitational waves, shattered and caused chaos inside the

gym.

“Whoa!”

“I-It’s Psyonic powers!”

“W-Was he a Combat Replicant?”

The instructors who were flung off by my yell

activated their Psyonic Disturbers instantly.

Psyonic power was a very unique talent and was

classified as a dangerous power, but it was easy to disturb and stop it. There

were Psyonic Disturbers installed around the parameters of Epiece to prevent

crimes by the espers.

The Disturbers installed around the physical

testing area let out low sounds like a woofer system. Armed soldiers came

rushing in.

“Tsk, I screwed up.”

They weren’t able to stop me with Disturbers of

that calibre. However, I was entirely at fault for this incident. Even if I was

a Vice Admiral, I was just a fresh recruit in their eyes.

Hence, this situation would be seen as a strange

recruit using Psyonic powers all of a sudden and causing a rampage.

I suppose I should surrender for now. There’s no

doubt that I was Vice Admiral Lezirth, so things should work out when I can

prove my identity.

I raised both of my arms up in the air and

kneeled on the floor.

“Are you guys from the same hometown or

something? You sure get along as greenies. I guess there’s no other way. You

two cool your heads at the guardhouse for now.”

The confused instructors quickly became hostile

and rushed at Chief Maynard and I. I could understand that they would want to

lock me up at the guardhouse as I have used Psyonic powers, but to think that

the Chief of Staff would also be detained!

And so, I, Vice Admiral Lezirth of the 1st Space

Marines and Commander of Dawn Corps, and Luise Maynard, the Admiral of the

Space Federation, Chief of Staff, were labelled as greenies and were led straight

to the guardhouse as recruits.

If that wasn’t enough humiliation for the Chief

of Staff and me, our troubles had just begun.

### 002. Chapter 2. Bomb Cadet Squad

Sorry for the wait everyone, here's chapter 2 of Dawnbringer. Also, please welcome Masadeer, a new editor for this project!

Check out the main

project page

.

Translator: Junnynam

Editors: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

The Epiece system possessed

a red dwarf, which had very efficient hydrogen nuclear fusion reactions.

Compared to a normal star, which rapidly consumes hydrogen and carbon and

becomes a supernova or a black hole, a red dwarf star was prized for its

property of being able to produce stable energy for over 20 billion years.

And this was the second

p

lanet

in that Epiece

system, that used energy from the red dwarf. Epiece—2’s energy income was quite

stable. However, the military guardhouse was kept chilly no matter how much

energy they gathered.

“To think that I’m… inside a guardhouse.

H-How embarrassing!”

To think that I, Vice Admiral Lezirth of the

1st Space Marines and Commander of Dawn Corps, would be treated as a mere

greenie and be stuck inside a guard house. I couldn’t accept my own

worthlessness.

“I’m sorry, Vice Admiral Lezirth. You were

caught up in this mess because of me…”

In the cell across to me,

the short-cut, dark brown haired girl apologised to me while leaning on the

wall and still gasping for breath. The two things on my mind while looking at

that blushing girl with red lips, short on breath, were that she was really

cute and that I pitied her.

Luise Maynard, the General Office Chief of

Staff of the Federation 120 years ago, appeared to be nothing more than a

beautiful girl.

“Not at all, Chief of Staff. I’ve troubled

you for not being able to keep my anger in check.”

“No. Thank you for getting angry for me. I…

really didn’t know what was going on until you arrived. Sniff.”

She must’ve been feeling emotional, because

she wasn’t able to continue talking right away.

To be fair, this was an unimaginable

situation for her, since right now we’re 120 years in the future, and the Chief

of Staff was being treated like that by trainees and instructors.

“It will be OK, I’m here. At your word, I can

break out of a guardhouse like this.”

“N-No, doing that would…. They just don’t

know what is going on. Also, please talk informally with me, we’re of the same

family after all.”

And she smiled after saying that.

The Children of Letix.

Hyperspace travelling wasn’t the only thing

that humans received from the first Letix on Mars, dubbed ‘The Old One’.

From the Letix, the human race received space

battle tactics— and the manufacturing techniques for ‘Alter Armour’ and

‘Replicants’. Cloning techniques already

existed prior to that time, but cloned humans had short life spans and had weak

immune systems.

However, Replicants created with the special

property of the Letix possessed the ability to store genetic material outside

the third dimension, and that gave them strong resistance to radiation.

Even if their DNA gets destroyed by

radiation, a back-up would be created in a higher dimension. That genetic

information is protected and it adapts to the radiation that destroyed it,

resulting in an even stronger immunity.

Among Replicants, the first generation, born

directly under The Old One, were called ‘The Children of Letix’.

Admiral Maynard and I were

both born of The Old One, hence called ‘The Children of Letix.’ So we could be

considered to be siblings.

Even so, I couldn’t treat

the Chief of Staff lightly.

“Chief of Staff, just what

is going on here?”

I held nothing back, I told

her everything, starting from the time I woke up and wandered around the

station in a rash guard. Admiral Maynard blushed.

“I also woke up near the station.”

“Eh? That means….”

I quickly imagined Admiral Luise Maynard

wandering around in a female rash guard.

A cute brown haired and golden eyed girl,

wandering around shyly in the station, barefoot?

Her clothes clung tightly to her body!

Clothes that accentuated her hip lines and slender waist, revealing the

bridging line of her thighs and her hip. Her bust lines that appeared to be

immature but were good enough, should’ve been shown, right?!

She must’ve caused a commotion. To think that

the Chief of Staff had to go through such embarrassment!!

“Ah, um, I was fine. Telepathy is my

specialty after all.”

Admiral Maynard must’ve read my thoughts,

because she answered me. True, she could’ve forced people to not look at her

with her telepathic powers.

“T-That’s a relief. Ha ha ha.”

I turned my head away out of embarrassment at

having my thoughts read. Admiral Maynard also blushed and bowed her head.

“I think… the hardliners in the army must’ve

purged everything about us. It must’ve been Admiral Perth and his men.”

“What? But why? Admiral Perth did?”

Admiral Perth was the Vice President of the

Joint General Staff 120 years ago and was the second in command of the

military. He feared the aliens more than what was necessary, but he shared the

same view as me about Elcros not being a threat to the human race.

But for what reason did he go so far as to

purge me?

“Don’t you remember? Admiral Perth called us

Letix in human form, and feared us.”

Among Letix, the foreign space organism,

there were superior beings, such as the Old One on Mars—that class which was

named Uberlord.

Obviously, there were people who hated us

beings, born from technology learnt from the Old One, amongst the earthlings.

“Currently the Space Federation is under a

lot of pressure because of the war between the four major forces. While the

military is getting stronger, and the war continues, there is great financial

loss, and the country is growing weaker and weaker—being dragged around by the

military equipment suppliers.”

Ah, I didn’t know that much since I just woke

up, but that’s how much things have changed?

“I was able to find this out after watching

the promotional video.”

She was able to get this much information out

of that near-pornographic promotional video?

I couldn’t help but to be surprised. As

expected from the greatest brains of the Federation, Chief of Staff Luise

Maynard. To be able to extract high quality information from that rubbish

looking video!

“So I accessed the files quickly with a

terminal. The key people broadened the scale of the war, and the military took

control of the country, making it a militaristic one while we were asleep. It

seems like Admiral Perth took on the presidency role twice.”

“That guy became the president?”

And twice at that? It’s a surprise the

Federation is still standing.

“Are you saying that they escalated the war

just to increase the influence of the army?”

“Yes. And to do so, they must’ve felt the

need to purge us.”

“For something like that…”

I was horrified at the thought. At that

moment, I heard someone coming towards the guardhouse.

“Who permitted you to talk freely in the

guardhouse?”

“Hmm?”

I was dumbfounded at the person who came

through the guardhouse doors.

A military uniform-clad, green eyed girl, who

had her silver hair neatly organised in a beret, was walking towards them.

Every time she walked the baton that hung around

her waist, and her dynamic breasts wobbled. She was a beautiful girl whose

feminine lines couldn’t be obscured by the military uniform made for practical

use.

There wasn’t a single mark on her face, so

she looked like a sculptured doll. However, that wasn’t why I was surprised. I

was surprised by the small pair of white wings behind her shoulders.

“Are you the ones who caused a ruckus in the

recruit training area, within the first 2 hours of being admitted? To think

that they would accept people who’re crazy enough to be jailed, the military

must really be short on soldiers.”

She appeared to be nearly seventeen. But the

tone in her voice sounded arrogant for some

one

of her age.

That way of talking that reflect

s

her appearance… not that I should be

talking.

“Ah… t-then you’re an Ensign?”

I assumed that she was an

Ensign by looking at the mark on her shoulders. However, Admiral Maynard

corrected me.

“The colours for ranks are

different these days. Black doesn’t represent a commissioned Ensign but an

Ensign in the Naval Cadets.”

“Ah, I see. So a Naval Cadet? The Federation really must

be short on soldiers if they're sending newly graduated Naval Cadets to war.”

As I spoke, I realised what I was doing. I

didn’t mean to insult that Naval Cadet Ensign, but I ended up speaking too

much. The playful side of me went too far.

The Cadet Ensign clenched her fist.

“Are you out of your minds? Who allowed you

to speak ill in the guardhouse? You are not even showing any signs of

repentance! Are you looking down on me just because I’m half Elcro?”

“Ah, I didn’t mean to hurt

your feelings, Cadet. I don’t plan to look down on your lineage either, so

don’t be offended.”

“Ah ha, you didn’t mean to

hurt my feelings?”

The Cadet smiled brightly. Oh

,

what an attractive smile.

“I didn’t know what a

greenie was… until I met you. But now, I finally understand what they are. You

are testing my patience.”

She heard my sincere apology

and opened the guardhouse

door while

sighing.

“You will now be under my command. If you

refuse, the jail cells will be waiting for you. Now, which will it be? Will you

go to jail or will you follow my orders?”

Hmm, how extraordinary.

They examined us, the

trouble makers, in the recruiting office for a day and then threw us to the

guard house—only to be picked up by the Naval Cadet Ensign on the same day.

This would’ve been

unthinkable 120 years ago. This is how desperate the Federation is for

soldiers? 120 years ago, soldiers were selected competitively, so troublesome

people were turned away.

But what should I do? I had

my face to keep as a Vice Admiral, but I have to follow the instructions of a

Naval Cadet who’s yet to earn a rank?

“Hmm, what should we do, Admiral

Maynard?”

“We should follow her, Vice Admiral Lezirth.

After all, we are just fresh recruits right now.”

“I suppose we should.”

I allowed the Chief of Staff to exit first,

and followed after her.

The Elcro Naval Cadet who

was silently watching us covered her face with her hands.

“Oh great Artus, lead me not

into temptation… and deliver me from the greenies…”

She seemed to rearrange a

certain prayer in a strange way.

Sighing, she extended her

hand to Admiral Maynard and I. There were two multi-purpose computers in her

hand.

“Here, I heard you haven’t

received these yet.”

I took the multi-purpose

computer and pinned it to my chest, on top of my military uniform, like a

broche. With a whirring mechanical sound, the uniform revitalised and a

notification from the Federation appeared and disappeared.

“Now, follow me.”

◊ ◊

◊

A large school at the foot of a mountain came

into view, after catching a tram from the recruit squadron.

That was the Second Military

and Non-Commissioned Officer Academy of Epiece—2; a collected place for

soldiers to train in.

This was a place for Petty Officers

who graduated after 4 years of the Military Academy, and ordinary soldiers to

train in their respective fields.

“Nothing has changed with the Second Military

Academy…”

Admiral Maynard started to

think back about the place while looking out the tram window.

“I agree. The last time I

visited there was for a graduation speech that I was invited to. Hm… I suppose

it was three years prior to the cold sleep. The only thing that’s different

seems to be the overgrown ivy.”

The Second Military Academy

hasn’t changed at all over the last 120 years.

“Let me ask a serious

question, but are you two drug addicts?”

The Elcro Naval Cadet girl didn’t seem to

like the conversation between the Chief of Staff and I.

“Keep your composure as a Naval Cadet. Is

that how you should be speaking?”

I carefully disciplined her.

When I did, she opened her

eyes wide (she was quite cute) and looked at me.

“My composure as a Naval

Cadet? You are the one who is trampling on it and burning it away! Do you plan

to disobey me from day 1?”

“N-No… we’re…”

Admiral Maynard stopped me

as I was about to retort.

The cadet sighed and looked

sideways to glare at us.

“Do you know each other?

Enlisting on the same day? And Lezirth Dawnbringer and Luise Maynard at that.

So you’re using the old war heroes’ names? Then again, there are at least six

people who are named Lezirth in the entire squadron.”

She still wasn’t taking us

seriously even after knowing our names.

“I am that very Vice Admiral Lezirth

Dawnbringer and this person here is the very Admiral Luise Maynard.”

When I told her so, the cadet broke into

laughter.

“Ku… ku ku ku! Ah ha ha ha ha ha! A-Are you

trying to make me laugh to death!? Ah! I really should’ve recorded that! Ha ha

ha ha!”

The girl was hitting the tram’s seats and was

holding her stomach in laughter. Hmm, this doesn’t please me. She’s clearly

laughing at me, isn’t she?

“I should be known for my fairness and

sensibleness, but I will not allow someone to look down on someone else’s rank,

cadet. If you continue to be rude like this….”

“Yes, is that so? Self-proclaimed Vice

Admiral Lezirth Dawnbringer. This really is brilliant. Ha ha ha.”

Kuk! Was she laughing at me?! How I pity her.

This cadet is such a beauty, but there seems to be crap software installed on

her compared to her great hardware. Can’t she try to talk nicely when she was

born as a beauty?

I took the chance to look at the name tag on

her chest.

I was not looking at her chest for any other

reasons! But of course, her pair was big and had a nice shape to it—I could

imagine them being firm by the way they shook while in motion. I preferred firm

breasts compared to softer ones, so I could say that hers were exactly my type!

However, I was solemnly reading her name tag!

Got it?! I wasn’t looking at her breasts!

Who the hell designed the Federation Military

uniforms and why did he put the name tag on the chest? Even if that was the

custom….

All hail to the great ancient wisdom!

“Uuu! W-What are you looking at!?”

“Ehh…. Cadet Yu Myung Hoa?”

“It’s Meihowa. Liu Meihowa.”

“Liu Meihowa? So you have an earthly name

even though you’re an Elcro?”

“Add the title of Platoon Leader before my

name! I won’t do anything because there isn’t anyone watching, but if you dare

to look down on my authority, then I will make sure you pay for your mistakes.”

“That aside, why are you part of the

Federation Forces when

you’re an Elcro?”

“That’s because my father is

a Federation… isn’t what I should be saying! That was a personal question that

I have no obligation to answer! If you ask about this one more time I will

consider you a rebel and, you will have to have your meals through a straw for

a while.”

Pulling a serious expression, she shook her

fist before my eyes. As she did, the tram stopped and we arrived at the

station.

A fit looking, brown skinned and red haired

girl was waiting at the station with a military vehicle. She spotted Ensign

Meihowa and saluted.

“Salute! Are these the new troubled recruits,

Ensign?”

The girl who was in a Petty Officer uniform

had a healthy skin that appeared to be lightly tanned by the sun, and a playful

face. Her fit, sexy, legs extended down from the formal miniskirt, and her

breasts were, hmm, they were bigger than Cadet Meihowa’s! Her breasts were

certainly overflowing with the feminine charms and her body to fat ratio

appeared to be low.

Under both of her eyes, there was white war

paint smeared; most likely to protect her eyes from the light.

But what was even more surprising was that

her ears were pointed. That aspect of her was quite similar to the Asa aliens.

Was this a platoon where the Elcro was the Platoon Leader and the Asa was the

Platoon Sergeant?

“Relax. As you can see, I do have Asa lineage

in my blood, but I don’t have a bad habit of eating men. My name is Aroha

Pereira, the Platoon Sergeant. Just call me Sergeant Aroha.”

She offered her hand to me. When I responded

to that hand, her smile disappeared from her face.

“You really are stupid, aren’t you? You’re

going to shake hands with a Sergeant just because she extended her hand to you,

when you’re just a recruit? Don’t you think you should salute first?”

She didn’t have a smile on her face, but her

eyes still had one. Was this a prank of some sort?

I noticed the flow straight away, but Admiral

Maynard was surprised and grabbed my sleeves.

It can’t be helped. Protecting Admiral

Maynard with my body, I stood between the Sergeant and the Admiral.

“We are no ordinary soldiers. We’re

Admirals.”

“… What?”

“I am Vice Admiral Lezirth Dawnbringer. And

this person here is Admiral Luise Maynard! We cannot prove our identities

because there has been a mistake, but it should be revealed soon. Contact the

military headquarters at once.”

“Ah? Platoon Leader, are they high?”

“Who knows? I

have no interest in drugs, so I’m not quite

sure…. But there is no doubt that these people are beyond help. I am

considering returning them back to the recruits office. What do you think, Sergeant?”

Ensign Meihowa spun her

finger next to her head. It was the universal sign of saying someone was crazy.

“There’s no point in

returning them. They’ll come back after going through some lessons or

something. We can only put up with them here.”

“At this point, I am unsure whether I am a

Platoon Leader or a nurse in a psychiatric ward. I shall consider wearing a

maid uniform while I am at it.”

“Wow~ that’s wonderful. Everyone would behave

so well.”

The Naval Cadet and the Sergeant seemed to be

on friendly terms with each other. They were talking like old friends.

“Self-proclaimed Vice Admiral Lezirth

Dawnbringer, why don’t you exchange greetings with your statue over there?”

When my eyes met Cadet Meihowa’s, she pointed

to a side path.

Erected there was a statue of an old soldier

who stood there looking up at the sky. The words ‘Fleet Admiral Lezirth

Dawnbringer, 1~ 69 Space Years. KIA’ were engraved on the pedestal.

“How embarrassing. I’m not a Fleet Admiral,

but a Vice Admiral…. So I died in battle and got promoted two ranks?”

That was the conclusion I could arrive to

after thinking about it for a while. Admiral Maynard sighed next to me.

“Look, Lezirth. The important point is that

the statues are of completely different people and they were all killed in

battle. Killed.”

“Eh? I died in battle? Why was I killed?”

“Well now that you’re enlisted, your own KIA

will be waiting for you.”

Joking around in a way that only a few would

dare to, Sergeant Aroha tapped my back.

And now that I look at it closer, the date of

birth is messed up as well. I wasn’t born in the first year of Space Year, but

the period of AD before that.

“You said that your name was Luise Maynard,

didn’t you? Luise Maynard is over there so go over there and take a good look

at yourself. Haaa, they’re everywhere.”

Just like she said, there was a statue of

Admiral Luise Maynard in a park on the path leading to the Military Academy. As

expected, there was a statue of an old soldier sitting on a chair while holding

a pipe on its lip. On the pedestal, the words ‘Fleet Admiral Luise Maynard 1~72

Space Years. KIA’ was engraved.

“Did they smear honey at the guardhouse or

something…? You seem to be desperate to go back there, but I hope you have not

forgotten that you have missed out on a full day of training. Your ability to

survive in a war is decreased if you miss out on training. Cut back on the

drugs and immerse yourselves in training from today.”

The silver haired Elcro, Naval Cadet Meihowa

was fixing her hair while seated in the military vehicle. She appeared to have

silky silver hair, but her hair would spring out like a rocker if she didn’t

tie it back with a hair band or put on a hat. That style had its own charms,

but it was the style of a rocker, not a soldier.

When she organised her hair and put on her

military beret, her hair settled nicely. Hmm, if her hair can have that much

volume when not setting it with wax or hair spray, is it an Elcro trait?

As Admiral Maynard stepped onto the vehicle

first, she spoke to me.

“This is an order, Lezirth. Call me Luise

from now on. Understood?”

“What? B-But….”

I wasn’t able to hide my surprise. She was my

senior and I couldn’t address her like that.

“I don’t think we should address each other

with our titles, Lezirth. According to the history, we’re dead. And I also

think they removed the information of us being Replicants.”

Seeing her stern expression, I realised she

was being serious.

Sergeant Aroha laughed as she hopped onto the

driver’s seat.

“You’re really hitting it off. Hey, you’d be

in for disciplinary actions for talking privately between recruits, if we

weren’t kind and were like every other platoon, got it? You’re even worse than

the other greenies we have in our platoon.”

Ensign Meihowa held back the

raging Sergeant Aroha.

“That’s enough, Sergeant.

Let us hurry to the barracks. There is no use talking to the greenies, when

they’ll only torture themselves

….”

For some reason, I was labelled as a greenie

by this Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant. To think I, who was born to be a

soldier, would be called a greenie! What nonsense is this!

◊ ◊ ◊

The barracks for recruits

were set up in a way where they had to share a room with a bunk bed. The rooms

were humble, all there was inside were 2 desks for personal use. The rooms were

built on the left and right sides of the hallway. It was set up this way so

that a superior can walk along the hallway and take the roll call, with the

soldiers standing outside their room.

When Ensign Meihowa started

to take the roll call, I realised why this platoon was considered as the

greenies’ den.

Platoon Leader, Naval Cadet

Liu Meihowa was half Elcro, half Earthling.

Platoon Sergeant, Petty

Officer First Class Aroha Pereira was half Asa, half Earthling.

Most of the other platoon

members were Replicants, as well. There was not a single pure Earthling in that

group.

The soldiers were looking at Chief Maynard

and I with great interest. Without being able to keep his curiosity in check

for any longer, a soldier raised his hand.

“Platoon Leader, are those two… pure

Earthlings? They don’t seem to have the marking on their right eye.”

“They do not have the marking, but they are

Replicants. They appear to be Replicants from illegal production lines.”

The mood quickly turned sour.

“Eh? I-Illegal Replicants are those, right?

Those suicide bombers that criminals make.”

“Or maybe they’re, you know… escorts.”

“Damn it! Isn’t this platoon made up of

Replicants or Halves then?”

“Did you hear? The higher ups apparently call

us the bombing platoons. We’re just human shields to them. They’re saying that

losing Replicants and Halves won’t affect them at all.”

Complaints escaped amongst the soldiers.

Ensign Meihowa shouted at them.

“Everyone stop! Who permitted you to gossip

during a roll call? Everyone gather around at the training ground right now!

All of you!”

The Replicant soldiers had a look of

resignation in their eyes. Everyone gathered their equipment and started to

leave for the training ground.

“D-Do we have to go as well?”

That’s what Chief Maynard asked to the Naval

Cadet who has yet become a commissioned Ensign. Goodness me! How can this be

happening?

Ensign Meihowa shook her head.

“You will be directed to

your room first. But there’s only a single free room. How troublesome. We

cannot leave a male and a female in the same room.”

After making every other

soldier leave, she held a look of concern. There was only a single room free in

that barracks and she must’ve thought that she couldn’t leave Chief Maynard and

I in the same room.

“I’ll be OK.”

When Chief Maynard answered that she didn’t

really mind it, Ensign Meihowa quickly blushed for some reason.

“B-But! Even if your relationship is good

between you two….”

“No, w-we don’t have that sort of

relationship, Ensign! How could you say such things before the Chief of Staff!”

I shook my head in panic.

Sergeant Aroha smiled and put her arm around

Chief Maynard’s shoulder from behind.

“There’s a free bed in my room, so why don’t

we let her sleep there?”

“Great. Then Recruit Lezirth, unpack your

belongings and come to the training grounds. I can’t stand it anymore. Why do

you always rebel against your commanding officers?”

Because you’re not my commanding officer! But

she would really blow her fuse if I say that, wouldn’t she?

“When you call me, you shall call me an

Ensign! Or you may also call me Platoon Leader!”

The Naval Cadet Meihowa scanned over me.

Now I could understand the gist of things.

Lezirth Dawnbringer and Luise Maynard were both purged from the government

records. That truth was being heavily guarded, so now, there shouldn’t be any

records of me being the Vice Admiral Lezirth Dawnbringer even if I were to

contact the military headquarters.

However, wasn’t it way too much to ask of the

General of the Dawn Corps, who lead 100,000 seamen and 50,000 support troops

prior to the cold sleep, to recognise a non-commissioned Naval Cadet as his

superior? Because to me, it’s only been a day and 8 hours since I held such

power!

◊ ◊

◊

Earthling Pureblood Principle.

Stated in that principle was the belief that

only pureblood earthlings were worthy, and that Replicants

or any other alien life

forms must be destroyed by the Federation’s Military. This was the basis of

that discrimination. The discrimination began almost as soon as Replicants were

first created, and this notion was strongly supported by the humans.

Replicants or Clones were created by humans,

hence must be used as tools by humans.

Robots were also created by humans, but we

must not give them the right to vote.

Those were the arguments put forth by the

Pureblood Principle supporters.

In the old Earth government, there was the

‘Veracruz Treaty’, which stopped any unfair usage of clones. This Veracruz

Treaty was a treaty formed in order to stop people from creating clones for

physical labour, and for clones not to put humans out of work.

Clones must be allowed the same rights as a

human. That way, even if clones are created, they are simply birthing humans,

not slaves.

As a result, thoughtless creation of clones

was banned.

When this Veracruz Treaty was put into effect,

it was one of the few international laws that actually performed as it should

and was highly praised.

Afterwards, when the humans

were under attack from the alien species known as Letix, the Pureblood

Principle supporters’ lost their power. This was due to the fact that they were

unable to suppress the uprising Replicants, especially when there were not

enough strong soldiers to fight off the Letixes, who were coming to destroy

them.

That was similar to the way women’s rights

were developed during World War II. The supporters had no choice but to accept

help from everyone; including the humans, Clones and the Replicants.

However, the world right now seems to be

skewed towards the Earthling Pureblood Principle. What happened during the last

120 years?

◊ ◊

◊

Anyone could see the fear and the

restlessness spreading through the Replicant soldiers gathered at the training

ground. If the platoon was made up of Elcro, Asa and Replicants, it was obvious

that recruits would be scared shitless.

It was easy for the platoon members to

consider themselves as sacrificial lambs of the Federation. This was why the

Federation of the past distributed races evenly among the forces.

‘There’s obviously some distrust of the

Federation Government in the army.’

I was waiting in line at the training ground.

A Replicant soldier standing next to me, poked my side.

“Hey, where are you from? Why don’t you have

a marking? Are you from Cartel or something?”

Cartel was a criminal organisation that sold

illegal drugs. The Replicant producing techniques must’ve fallen into the hands

of criminal organisations by the looks of things.

“No, I’m the first generation.”

“Pfta ha ha ha! You must be mad. When you say

first generation, you mean the Children of Letix, right? The pilots of the 12

Kishins. Are you one of them? Huh?”

He brought his finger towards his head and

spun it in circles.

“12 Kishins? There are 12 Kishin-class Alter

Armours? They must’ve created some more since the year 69.”

Alter Armour was the other technology gained

from the contact with Letix, apart from Replicant techniques and hyperspace

travel.

Harvested cultured cells, based off the

Letix; Old One, would be inserted to the reinforced framework and seating. When

done correctly, the Alter Armour becomes a humanoid-type manoeuvring weapon

that is capable of displaying immense strength at the pilot’s command.

And among the strongest of those Alter

Armours were the Kishins.

During the 69 space years, there were only 8

Kishin-class Alter Armours in existence.

Since the fundamental basis of Alter Armours

was life itself, the production of these was closer to breeding than

manufacturing. There were numerous attempts to create the Kishins, but humanity

wasn’t able to gain any more Kishin-class Alter Armours.

Hence, the Federation placed the 8 Kishins as

the highest class and organised the other Alter Armours as

Dominion>Master>Senior>Major>Juvenile>Minor>Minion as a 8

levelled scale.

But if there were 12 Kishins, than that meant

that there 4 more Kishins were birthed since then….

“Ohh, I am quite knowledgeable with those

things, man”

A somewhat chubby recruit interrupted the

conversation. What was with this off-putting way of talking?

“There are 8 in possession of the Space

Federation, 2 by the Asa and 2 by the Elcro, making it a total of 12, man.”

“Eh? Asa and Elcro have Kishins?”

I didn’t know too much about Asas, because

that race was encountered after I fell asleep, but on the other hand, the Elcro

possessed Kishins? That’s quite a surprise.

“Currently, the Federation lost both

‘Dawnbringer’ and ‘Tetragrammaton’, ‘Omertà’ was stolen by the Replicant Rebels

and ‘Diablo’ to the Elcros. Have you been living under a rock to not know all

this, dude?”

The recruit looked at me with a look of

disbelief.

“What? Dawnbringer and Tetragrammaton are

lost?!”

I was unable to hold back my yell. Recruits

around me looked at me.

“W-What’s with that guy?”

“Is he a psychopath?”

Kehh! What did they say? Me, a psychopath? I

was extremely angry, but I had a more important matter at hand.

To think that the Dawnbringer was lost….

Dawnbringer was the machine

that I piloted. And the lost Tetragrammaton happened to be Chief Maynard’s.

Chief Maynard’s and my

Kishins were lost by the Pureblood Principle followers of the Federation? Then

that must mean that this was planned by the ones who purged us.

‘Wait, would they just

destroy a Kishin for that reason?’

That was impossible.

Kishins were very valuable

resources that couldn’t even be produced by money and effort alone. It was also

impossible to activate the Kishin-class machines if the pilot didn’t meet the

standards either.

However, there were nearly 30 billion people

120 years ago. Since that figure was increasing rapidly even under Letix

attack, that should mean the population must be a lot higher.

With a population pool as large as that, a

pilot capable of being able to pilot a Kishin-class machine should’ve been

born.

Then did that mean that Dawnbringer and Tetragrammaton

were lost because of the Federation’s mistakes? Well, that’s stupid.

And if Omertà and Diablo were stolen by the

rebels, then the current state of the Federation was unspeakably bad.

That was the only conclusion I could arrive

at.

“Is that really true? Then aren’t we in great

danger? And what the hell are the Pureblood Principlists thinking?”

“We’re not really in danger, man. Dawnbringer

and the Dawn Corps suicided with over 10 billion Letix forces, so we’re safe

for a while. Also, even if the Elcros have a Kishin in possession, they don’t

pose much of a threat to us Federation Military, man.”

My goodness. While it was true that my Dawn

Corps fended off over 10 billion Letix forces, we did not die. But to think

that they would record it otherwise in history.

If that’s the case, did they purge all of my

subordinates like myself? They couldn’t have put all those people to cold

sleep, so did they kill them all?

I thought of my playful subordinates, who

pulled pranks on me all the time. They certainly were stressful at times and

too playful, but they were good people. There were Replicants, pure blooded

earthlings, Cyborgs and Androids, but they were all precious comrades of mine.

“Kuk.”

Who was it! Who purged Admiral Luise and I

and killed off all of my subordinates?!

I tried desperately to calm my anger down. At

that moment, someone came behind my back and called out the recruits and I.

“Stop talking amongst yourself! Recruit

Pencolt! Are you two discussing who the greatest greenie under the heavens is

amongst yourselves?!”

It was the Platoon Leader, Meihowa.

Other recruits cracked up laughing. Recruit

Pencolt pointed his finger at me and spoke.

“I can stand you making fun of this guy!

Because he’s a greenie! But I can’t stand you making fun of me, man!”

Ehh? What was that? That ‘I know I’m bad, but

not as bad as this guy’ sort of confident look. Not only was his way of talking

weird, his mentality was out of whack as well.

“What will you do if you cannot stand it?”

Platoon Leader Meihowa asked with

exasperation. When she did, Pencolt smirked.

“Nah, I’m just sayin’. I always wanted to say

that, man.”

“Recruit

Pencolt! Position yourself at the gauntlets

first. While Recruit Pencolt is doing the gauntlets, Recruit Lezirth, you give

me plyometric jumps. Get to it!”

The Ensign had a sense of

dissatisfaction in her eyes as she looked at me. Hmm, that’s not what I was

doing though.

I positioned myself at the

plyometric jump station after sighing. It was a variation of hurdles where you

had to jump up and down repeatedly. It was great exercise for improving one’s

stamina and reaction.

“How many do you want?”

“As many as you can do of course! Do at least

60 while Recruit Pencolt goes through the gauntlets!”

Following her orders, I started to perform

plyometric jumps. At the same time, Recruit Pencolt grabbed a rifle and jumped

onto the gauntlet field.

The gauntlet was a course where a recruit

would avoid paintballs and obstacles, shoot at a moving target, and escape by

passing by a hand-to-hand combat dummy.

As an effective course that improves

cardiopulmonary capacity, running and movement capability, accuracy and close

combat, one must be able to clear the course within 90 seconds in order to

graduate from the Military Academy. Seamen in particular had to be able to

clear the course in under a minute. When I did it, my record was 22 seconds.

However, as soon as Recruit Pencolt stepped

into the course, he started to scream. He was covered from head to toe in

paint, and he was rolling about after tripping over obstacles. Crawling under

the wire nets on his stomach left him short on breath and when he finally

escaped the wire nets and started to shoot, he didn’t hit any of the targets.

The moving target was an image of a criminal

who held a hostage and the recruit shot at the hostage.

Seeing the head, heart, abdomen, and various

lethal places shot, the hostage would’ve died instantly, had this been a real-life

situation. No, since Recruit Pencolt was already hit by the paint balls, he

would’ve been killed in action and promoted 2 ranks.

When Recruit Pencolt wasn’t able to escape

from the gauntlet, even after four minutes, Sergeant Aroha turned cut the power

and dragged him out personally. During that time, I managed to do over 200

plyometric jumps.

“Ha… haven’t you ever played any games? You

know how it works right?”

“Cough… ku… g-games aren’t tiring so I’m fine

with them, man. Haa haa.”

Recruit Pencolt was gasping for breath as he

replied. Sergeant Aroha dropped him in surprise.

“Don’t open your mouth! You’re foaming!”

“Now now,

next recruit, get in there. And Recruit Lezirth,

that’s enough.”

“What, this is enough?”

“Are you a fortified Cyborg

or something? Your physical strength is good. If only your head was as good as

your physique.”

Ensign Meihowa wrinkled her

face. Wait, was this girl treating me as an idiot? I can even do 128bit four

fundamental arithmetic operations and partial differentiations in my head!

If the rumours about bomb

cadet squads could be trusted, this platoon will be stationed on the

battlefront after six weeks of basic training. To the front lines, no

less—where it was the most dangerous.

Judging by Recruit Pencolt’s

performance…. How long could this platoon survive? I could understand why Ensign

Meihowa was so worried.

Then Recruit Pencolt

collapsed on the floor, as if taking his last breaths, with an oxygen mask in

his mouth. As he lay there, he formed a V sign with his finger and said to me.

“I touched Sergeant Aroha’s

ass, I can die a happy man, eh he he heh…”

…. W-What? Why was he

looking at me like that? I’m not the same as you! Don’t you try to get any

sympathy from me!

◊ ◊ ◊

“Haa, this is worrisome. The

average time is 4 minutes even when excluding the failed soldiers.”

Ensign Meihowa muttered

nervously when most of the recruits passed through the gauntlets.

Even I could feel the pain

of having to lead a platoon of failures.

I could tell that all of these recruits were

quite underachieving. All of them should be Replicant soldiers, yet they were

even worse than Earthling soldiers.

“This is hopeless if we include the failed

soldiers. I suppose our King of Greenies is up last.”

Sergeant Aroha winked at me. Her bluish eyes

and slightly plump lips were quite attractive.

But she wasn’t referring to me when she said

King of Greenies, right?

“Shouldn’t his strength be quite good? He’s

not even sweating after doing 225 plyometric jumps. Hey

greenie! You’re up.”

Ensign Meihowa handed me a

training rifle. Sergeant Aroha snickered and handed me a sports drink.

“You’re worn out from those

plyometric jumps, aren’t you? Take a gulp and catch your breath.”

“No, I will finish it before

the sports drink goes lukewarm. I shall raise the average of the platoon

myself.”

I spoke in a solemn voice

since I was slightly offended. When I did, Sergeant Aroha smiled brightly.

“Hmm? Are you the General

Guan Yu or something?”

“I, the shortest record

holder of this gauntlet course in the Second Military Academy, will show you

how it’s really done. Hmph! How dare you call me a greenie! You’ll all be

eating your words!”

Although my identity has

been purged by corruption, I was still the Commander of Dawn Corps; Lezirth

Dawnbringer. I wasn’t someone who

should be

looked down upon as a greenie! I will show them my skills right here!

I started to get hyped up

with enthusiasm and I warmed up.

“Well, do whatever you want.

I am looking forward to your performance.”

Ensign Meihowa sighed while

covering her face with her hand.

Hmm, she doesn’t seem to

trust me. But I won’t ask her to believe me. I’ll prove it with my score time.

“Let’s do this!”

I jumped at the gauntlets. Paint balls were

flying towards me, but instead of hiding behind barriers, I zigzagged forwards,

minimising the time, and slid under the wire nets! Pulling my torso up after

that slide, I shot at the targets with my training rifle and jump up the stairs

onto the second floor! I shot down the moving target on the second floor and

jumped down using a plank! I shot at even more targets while in mid-air, and

slammed right into the hand-to-hand combat dummy, escaping the gauntlet with a

mid-air turn.

“21 seconds 40! Wha ha ha ha! I broke my own

record!”

I yelled out in joy after seeing the clock

set up at the exit of the gauntlet course. But huh? The time wasn’t stopping?

“Huh? What? What’s going on? Was that too

fast for the machine to calculate?”

I looked at the clock in surprise. Sergeant

Aroha used her finger to point at my training rifle.

“Identify yourself! You have to identify

yourself on the rifle to set your record!”

“What? Identifying myself? Did something like

that get implemented?”

Such a thing did not exist 120 years ago! Why

do they have to digitalise everything when the instructor can just record the

time?

Dumbfounded, I looked at the training rifle

to find out how to identify myself.

But then it happened.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

The training rifle started to fire paint

balls at the recruits and the instructors. The paint balls flew at a

frightening speed and covered the recruits and the instructors in pain.

“Kyaaah!”

“Woahh!”

“I-It hit me there! Before I

could even use it!”

Ugh, I had caused friendly

fire without meaning to. Although, this training rifle was quite rhythmic and

fun to use.

No, that’s not what I should

be thinking! Look at me! I quickly aimed the rifle towards the sky.

Then Aroha, Meihowa and the

numerous recruits glared

at me like

ghosts covered in bright red paint.

Drip, drip….

My word! Red paint dripped

from Meihowa and Aroha’s breasts onto the floor. Had they been flat chested,

the paint would’ve dropped flat onto their stomachs. In any case, both options

are excellent! It was impossible not to be amazed at them.

To drench girls’ body, it was a mistake but

that’s not bad….

I have never regretted a

single thing in my life!

“Oh… oh now. This gun, it’s weird…”

“You failed! You greenie! Do

you want me to lecture you hard? Hmmm?”

Ensign Meihowa glared at me

while resetting the gauntlet with the control panel.

“T-That was close. I got my

best record.”

I could only lick my lips

while looking at the gauntlet timer in that cold, chilly mood.

◊ ◊ ◊

Ensign Meihowa must’ve just

finished having a shower, because she walked out while drying her wet, steamy

hair with a towel. I was meditating while sitting on the sofa in her office and

I sat up straight when I saw her walk out.

“Recruit Lezirth, do you

pity me?”

Daggers flew at me from her emerald eyes.

“Hmm? No. You, Platoon Leader Liu Meihowa,

will become a splendid soldier. I guarantee it.”

“…”

“Why do you make that expression?”

When I asked, she made a complicated

expression and sighed.

“While I am surprised at how a greenie like

yourself looks up to me as so, I would definitely have been happy if someone

else told me that.”

She spoke while becoming teary.

Hmm, why was that? Was she

like that because she was so happy? She did seem to say ‘when you’re just a

greenie…’ type of thing.

“That aside, where’s Chief

of… Admi… no, hmm, where’s Ms. Luise Maynard?”

Since she ordered me not to

call her the Chief of Staff or an Admiral, then hmm… what should I call her?

While I was wondering on how

I should refer to Chief Maynard from here on out, Ensign Meihowa threw herself

down on the sofa in front of me.

“She appears to have come

from a low gravity

p

lanet,

so she will go through some gravity adaptation

training. Apart from that, she can be a great supporter. Her academic skills

are excellent and while she may be physically weak, she doesn’t have to be a

soldier. Someone of her calibre is no problem.”

“Really? That’s a relief.”

That was great news for me,

as I have been quite worried about Chief Maynard. I smiled naturally.

As I smiled widely, Ensign

Meihowa’s expression sharpened. Hmm, this lady was really good with her facial

expressions.

“The problem is you.”

“Huh?”

“Both you and Luise scored high on the

academics test…. So if you were normal, they tell me you could’ve been a Naval

Cadet. And that girl’s scores were almost unprecedented. In other words, she is

here now as a lowly recruit because of your hiccups. Do you understand how

heavy that responsibility is?”

“What? Is that so? I caused

trouble for her?”

“You didn’t know?”

Ensign Meihowa crossed her

arms and sighed.

“Really, there isn’t much

time left until the end of training, and don’t you know that our platoon will

be sent straight to the battlefields once the training is finished? How can you

live without any nervousness? Stay tense. I do not want any men in my platoon

to be killed even if it’s a

greenie like

you.”

“You truly are a great leader.”

When I praised her honestly, she was

surprised. She probably didn’t expect me to say something like that.

Blushing either because of the bath or

because of what I said, she swept her silver hair over her shoulders with her

fingers. The moist silver hair shined and light reflected off of it.

“Even if I am telling you this out of my

kindness, I am a Platoon Leader while you are a Recruit! Recruit

Lezirth! That attitude of

yours is going against my authority as a Platoon Leader! I beg of you to start

understanding that you are now a Recruit.”

“Of course, Naval Cadet. I

am not a person who is that senseless.”

After hesitating for a

moment, I saluted Ensign Meihowa. It was unheard of that a Vice Admiral would

salute a low Naval Cadet…. But I was now a Recruit, so I suppose it is normal

for me to salute her.

She responded to my salute

and smiled bitterly.

“Make sure something like

this does not happen again.”

◊ ◊ ◊

When I returned back to my

room, Recruit Pencolt was unpacking his bag. As he decorated his desk with

various toys and playthings, he looked up at me and snickered.

“Did you stamp yourself onto

the beautiful Platoon Leader? To make her notice you by doing stupid things, I

guess that’s a new way of raising a flag lol.”

“What are you saying? Why are you here?”

“They pulled me away from my roommate, saying

that someone like you can’t be left alone, man. It just means that I’m your

roommate from now on.”

What? Suddenly being reminded at what he

said, I walked out and looked at the nametag on the door.

Stuck on the door was a plate that read

‘Concerned Soldiers’ Room’.

What was this supposed to be? M-Me, a

concerned soldier?! This cannot be! This is ridiculous!

Damn it, I feel so sorry for myself. There

was something wrong with the training rifle when I used it! If it was working

fine, then I could’ve set the world record and make everyone fall back in

shock!

Recruit Pencolt looked at the bed and he

seemed to pretend that he wasn’t also a concerned soldier but he only became my

roommate because he had no other choice.

“Shotgun on the lower bunk! It’s a bother to

climb to the upper one! Btw, do you snore?”

“I don’t.”

“Then I’m taking the lower one. Complaints?”

“No. Ah, Pencolt, why did you enlist in the

military? And why did the Replicants in our platoon enlist?”

If the Federation looked down on the

Replicants, then they shouldn’t have enlisted. I couldn’t understand why they

would go out of their way to enlist when there wasn’t a conscription system.

“Have you really been living under a rock?

Don’t you even know what the current Fed’s like?”

Pencolt asked in surprise.

“No, I don’t know. So tell me.”

“You do know that the Fed separates the

planets by Supervisional, Autonomical and Pioneered, yeah?”

“Well, I know that much.”

Supervisional planets were under direct

control of the Federation Government, Autonomical planets by their own

government, and Pioneered planets were planets that were without a government

after a process of terraforming.

“Pioneered planets and Autonomical planets

are like country towns that are conservative of their old customs. You know how

all youngsters want to live in the busy city rather than a country town?”

“Well, yeah. That trend can be found in the history

of the human race.”

“So a lot of youngsters want to come to the

city, but the Supervisional planets are suffering from high unemployment rates

because of that, man. So the only way for youngsters to land a job while still

being in the cities is to enlist in the armed forces.”

Hmm, hearing Pencolt saying things like that,

this guy seemed to be a lot more knowledgeable unlike his looks.

“Did you also enlist for the job?”

“No, I already had a job, man. I was a hard

working part of the economy unlike many others here.”

“So why did you come?”

“Uu hu hu. Don’t you know that the

Supervisional planets under the Fed’s control has a gender ratio of 10 females

to 6 males~? I thought I would be able to experience a rosy youth by coming

here.”

“……….”

I don’t usually sweat, but I could feel sweat

running down my back. Why did I have to end up with someone like him as a

roommate?

“Lights out! Everyone turn off your lights!”

Since the lights went off in the barracks, I

climbed up onto the upper bunk and lay there. Pencolt also climbed onto his

bed, but his great weight made the bed creak. This should’ve been a bunk bed

made out of 45T reinforced metal pipes welded together, but I was worried that

this might snap.

“They say that this platoon will be deployed

as human shields onto the battlefield, but are you not afraid?”

“Hu hu. That’s what I’m actually aiming for,

man.”

“Huh?”

“Asa and Elcro girls are all hot. I want to

go out onto the battlefields and meet them soon. Both of their race have higher

women to men ratios, and with the war going on, won’t there even be less males?

Don’t you reckon?”

“…”

I could feel cold sweat running down my back

again…. No, I can’t. The bed will get wet.

I had to stay up all night that day,

wondering whether or not I should strangle that snoring Pencolt’s neck.

### 003. Chapter 3. Legend of the Greenie

Luise is the most adorable Admiral I have ever seen in the navy.

Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

Six weeks of basic training

was just enough training to give the soldiers enough skills to adapt to any

type of situation. Those who excelled and displayed extraordinary talent during

this training were transferred to specialized training facilities, promoted to

Petty Officers or Cadets, and received further training.

Although I was a Vice

Admiral, I was extremely well versed in an ordinary soldier’s training and

other requirements, since I was a former instructor. From security, to support,

to administration: I wasn’t lacking in any of them!

And soon, they will realise

my true value, even if I’m being treated like a greenie right now!

…Is what I thought.

◊

There was emergency

maintenance training on the armoured cars, called Spiders, in the morning.

The multi-purpose Spider was

a four legged armoured car with wheels attached to each of its legs, thus it

was able to travel along normal roads, and could scale haphazard terrain with

its legs. On top of all that, it was able to carry a sizeable load.

The Spider given to us for

training was just about ready to be scrapped, but nevertheless, we had to train

about how to deal with different types of unwieldy movement and breakdowns.

The other recruits tried

first and….

I was the last one to lay my

hands on the armoured car, right after Pencolt.

What did that mean?

“Ku ku ku…. You poor

greenie. They’ve put you last thinking that you might break it, man!”

Recruit Pencolt held the

trainers’ PCB (printed circuit board) and turned around to look at me

pitifully.

Hey, if I’m a greenie, then

you’re also a greenie, you know? Don’t look down on me like that, when you’re

one too! But why am I going after this guy?! Does that mean I’m more of a

greenie than him?

“Take a good look, and be

amazed at my skill that is greater than yours! Hah?”

…Was what Recruit Pencolt

said, but after 10 minutes of working on the armoured car; Spider, and

replacing its PCB, he electrocuted himself by touching a capacitor.

As the other Recruits

carried Recruit Pencolt away, Sergeant Aroha signalled to me with her hand

while holding the PCB. She signalled to me like one would a pet.

‘Geez, to think that a Petty

Officer would treat me like this, while I am still alive!’

To think that she would

treat me like a pet, when I should be honoured as the heavenly Vice Admiral, that

I am. It was certain that she was looking down on me, but that playful smile of

hers was strangely enchanting. Should I describe that as cute or overflowing

with sexiness?

“Cough, cough…. What’s the

matter, Sergeant?”

“Hey Lezirth? If you don’t

go wrong this time, I’ll show you my breasts.”

“What? Who do you think

you’re talking to!”

Wow, I really got angry just

now! People thought of me as a troublemaker and a greenie, so doing that was no

different as someone saying ‘I’ll give you a candy, so behave’!

“Ah, so that won’t work. I

see you’ve got some determination in you.”

Sergeant Aroha smiled

brightly and slapped my back loudly with her hand.

“Great! That’s a good

attitude! Do your best, Lezirth!”

She slightly winked and

pushed me at the armoured car.

“W-Well, I’m not saying that

I wouldn’t look if you were to show me them…. Tsk.”

Listen to me until I finish

talking! But since there was no point in talking about it any further, I

grumbled and walked towards the SAV (Spider Armored Vehicle).

After inspecting the PCB

first, I stuck my hand inside the armoured car.

“Why would you replace the

PCB? You can just bypass it. You can’t wait for a new PCB to be replaced while

a battle is raging on. Witness my skills, honed through countless battles,

rather than military school!”

“Huh?”

All of the recruits looked

at me dumbfounded as they saw what I was doing.

I loosened a few wires and

connected them over the broken area, bypassing them in the process.

Then, Spider suddenly sprang

to life! The generator worked up momentum, and with a whirring noise, it

started to stand up like a dead organism coming back to life.

Hm. Take a gander at that,

you fools! This is what I, a Vice Admiral, can do! I didn’t earn three stars

just by playing around!

“Wow… he’s really fast.”

“Everyone took around 10

minutes, but he did it in 7 seconds…”

“Is he a genius?”

Everyone finally recognised

my skills and started to admire me.

But then.

—Woooon

The Spider-mounted, crowd

control rockets came to life.

Huh? What? Isn’t the Spider

looking at the Recruits right now?

—Recognizing target. Foe:

Replicant Rebels! Commencing attack!

“… Huh?”

“What’s going on?”

The recruits looked at the

Spider with dumbfounded expressions.

I tried to switch off the

Spider at once, but the armoured car launched its attack first. Numerous

plastic lids from the rocket pods flew out and covered the Recruits.

Luckily, the rockets were

not loaded, but nevertheless, the lids hit the Recruits and things became

chaotic. Furthermore, the Spider recognised it didn’t have any rockets loaded,

so it raised its front leg and tried to commence physical attacks.

“Tsk!”

I clung onto the runaway

armoured car and stopped its movements by pulling out the PCB. As it was about

to stomp on the Recruits, the Spider became still.

“Phew, that was too close

for comfort. I think I overlooked the training routine by bypassing. But this

machine… something doesn’t seem right with it. Is anyone hurt?”

I jumped off the Spider,

landed gracefully and explained myself to the Recruits about what just

happened.

However, those Recruits eyed

me with a suspicious look.

“Huh? What’s wrong everyone?

Huh? Haah?”

Shortly after, I had to

decide whether I wanted to be jailed or give up free periods for a week and

clean out the training shed.

◊

When I walked into the

kitchen and took a tray, everyone’s attention was fixed solely on me. And when

I sat down at the table after getting my food, the Recruits around me glanced

at me and moved somewhere else.

“Hmm, if they’re moving

their seats while eating, this must be some kind of a new game. A flash mob,

was it? Yes, it must be that flash mob play.”

I looked around at them in

puzzlement.

At that moment, Recruit

Pencolt came and sat across me with piles of fried food on his plate.

“Tsk, tsk, I feel sorry for

you, man. Aren’t you being bullied by everyone cuz of your mess?”

“Huh? What are you saying?

There’s no way I could ever get bullied!”

I was the one who lead the

Dawn Corps and had companies asking me to be featured in commercials. I

obviously refused as I was a militant, but I was often featured on

military-related advertisements.

There’s no way that I, who

was loved by soldiers, cadets and officers alike could ever be bullied!

“Hu hu hu. People can’t

accept the reality at the start, man. I know, because I’ve experienced it. But

the time will come when you realise everyone’s hateful gaze.”

“…”

“And to prepare yourself for

that time, I’ll give you this. It’s something precious, so be grateful,

alright? It’s something that you can’t buy with money these days.”

Pencolt rummaged through his

pocket and handed me something like a key-ring. Inspecting what was handed to

me, it turned out to be a key-ring of an anime-like chibi character who had her

pink hair in a twin-tail, winking.

“What’s this?”

“It’s Misha from Love Love

Angels. Misha is nice enough to be called an angel, so she won’t forsake you

even if the world does.”

While I didn’t like the fact

that he thought the entire world was going to be against me, I assumed that he

had good intentions behind his words. But geez, this guy really gets on my

nerves. Why does he tick me off this much?

“Hah…. Um, I guess t-thanks.

But why are you giving something like this to me?”

He did have strange tastes,

but I could tell that he was worried about me. I’m not interested in something

like this, but I suppose I should accept it gratefully.

But shouldn’t something like

this be valuable among collectors? Why is he giving this to me for free?

“Ah, because Misha-chan

kissed someone else in a recent TV anime adaption. I don’t need a woman who

plays around with other men apart from me, man. It doesn’t matter how nice a

girl is if she doesn’t have a set mindset. Isn’t it the best when I get to

cheat but the woman doesn’t?”

“….”

I-I want to move seats as

well.

But looking around the

place, all of the Recruits were glaring at Pencolt and I. If I take my plate

and move somewhere else, the others will move as well, right? What should I do?

Then, someone else sat next

to me.

“H-Hello, Lezirth. Do you

mind me sitting next to you?”

“Ah~?”

I stopped myself as I tried

to salute her out of reflex. The shortly-cut brown haired girl with golden eyes

was blushing furiously with her head bowed down as she sat next to me, holding

onto the seat cover.

That girl was the Chief of

Staff and Admiral Luise Maynard, who also woke up into this time period after

being induced in 120 years of cold sleep like me.

“Something that you liked

must’ve been on the menu if you’re staring at the plate so intensely. Do you

like apple jellies?”

“N-No… um, I don’t dislike

them.”

She smiled brightly. Her

brown hair shined like gold when the Epiece light shone through the windows and

warmly embraced her back.

Without realising it, I

forgot all about my manners and started to look at her in wonder.

Suddenly, Pencolt got overly

excited and started to snort like an animal.

“Wow! A beauty!”

Seeing him snort, huff and

puffing like that reminded me of a bull just about ready to charge at a

bullfighter. He really seemed to be reaching out for her, so I blocked Pencolt

and Chief Luise by extending my arm between them.

“Ah, don’t worry. This

person is my roommate.”

“I-I see. Hello, my name is

Luise Maynard.”

“Wow! Ain’t she quite a

beauty? Lezirth, who? Someone you know? Older sister? Younger sister? Cousin?”

“Ehh, so….”

How should I explain this to

him?

Then, Chief Luise answered

him with an uncertain voice.

“W-We’re friends. Friends.”

“Don’t tell me childhood

friends? Like ever since you were young? Can I call you Luise?”

“No!”

I refuse! I blocked Pencolt.

And Pencolt glared at me.

“Hmph! I bid you farewell.”

“…”

“Heh heh, don’t wet your

pants now, I’m only kidding. Haven’t I already given you my old woman, my

friend? This is how generous I am, and our friendship will never change, man.

Our friendship lasts forever~ my brother.”

For that moment, I was

really ashamed of myself.

When he said ‘Hmph! I bid

you farewell,’ I was actually worried for a moment. The thought of being all by

myself in this world filled my head.

It was only for a moment

though.

But now that he’s said that

our friendship lasts forever~, I didn’t like that either. Ah, these

complexities of a human’s mind.

“That aside, how is the

gravity adaptation training?”

“Mhmm, calcium isn’t leaking

out because I have medical nano-machines in my bones, but I am lacking in

muscle…. So I have been doing rehabilitation activities such as swimming.”

Chief Luise smiled at me

after she said that.

“How about yourself,

Lezirth? I trust you are coping well?”

“No…. well, you see...”

The current King of Greenies

in our platoon is me.

Is what I should say, but I

couldn’t bring myself to say that.

The others didn’t know about

my three-star days. So making a mistake in front of them was just an ordinary

occurrence, but Chief Luise knew about my previous life.

“How I envy you. I wish I

could be more like a soldier like you, Lezirth.”

I let out a long sigh,

trying not to be caught in the process of doing so while Chief Luise admired

me.

This is no good. I wasn’t

lying on purpose, but it would be cruel to let her think otherwise. I believed

it was worse to hide any shame or any mistakes rather than committing them.

“To tell the truth, I have

not been acting like a true soldier as of late.”

“Huh?”

“I am ashamed to inform you

that I have been referred to as a greenie in this platoon.”

“A greenie?”

“It is a nickname that the

other Recruits have given me due to me being still green behind the ears. I

have been troubling my peers.”

Now that I’ve said that, I

was too ashamed to raise my head. Wordlessly, I forked away at my food and hung

my head low.

“Be at ease, Ms. Luise. I’m

taking care of Lezirth, so you may address me, Pencolt, as oppa

[1]

. If you don’t

flow with oppa, you can use oppan, op̂pa, great brother, exalted brother,

brother, bro or whatever floats your boat.”

“Ah! T-Thank you.”

Admiral Luise Maynard

politely bowed her head to the unpleasant Pencolt, who was only a mere Recruit.

Hey Pencolt, I see that you’re accepting her thanks like a big shot, but when

was I ever in your care?

“Lezirth.”

“…”

Chief Luise grabbed my arm

and inspected my expression. I raised up my head and looked at her.

“If something like this

happens again, please consult it with me. We now only have each other in this world…”

“Yes, understood. I will

abide by your orders.”

When I nodded my head, she

extended her finger towards me.

“It is not an order, but a

promise.”

“A promise?”

“Yes, now link your finger

to mine.”

Admiral Luise Maynard was

smiling brightly. The sight of her with the bright light shining on her back

would’ve been blinding even without the light source.

I wrapped my pinky finger

around her soft finger.

“Good. I won’t forgive you

if you go against your promise, so prepare yourself. Hee hee.”

Why does she appear to be

happy? Don’t tell me Chief Luise actually planned ahead and wants to punish me

with this promise? What did I do to her to deserve this punishment?

“Yes, of course! I wouldn’t

dare to go against your orders!”

“Geez, I’m telling you it’s

a promise.”

She pouted out her lips and

started her meal after setting her eyes back on the plate.

Nothing changed from the

conversation I just had with her. However, I felt better for some reason. It

was truly amazing. I could feel warmth spreading from inside my chest to my

hands and face.

◊

After making that promise

with Admiral Luise, I stopped trying to prove myself in training. That was

because I thought I was messing up because I was trying to prove myself and

rushed things.

It’s no secret that I’ve

been holding onto my past as a war hero and tried to prove that fact. But now

that I’ve reflected on it, wasn’t that something pathetic?

So I quietly completed a

week of training.

And my punishment from that

armoured car Spider incident ended some time then as well.

The training shed was not a

robot maintained one, but of pure manpower, so cleaning it out was quite a

chore.

I finally was able to finish

the week of punishment after being charged with the duty because of my modified

Spider attacking other Recruits.

“I guess my punishment ends

with this. Whew, I still can’t accept that I’m a greenie… but I somehow I

finished without a hitch.”

I sighed and looked around

the shed. Lit up with some LED lighting, the shed measured 20m by 10m in shape

and consisted of numerous cabinets.

After inspecting the shed, I

turned off the light. And as I was about to leave, I heard someone’s voice.

“Wait Meihowa! Wait up!”

“If that was all that you

had to say, then I will take my leave.”

Hmm? Was it Ensign Meihowa?

Then who was the other person?

It was awkward to step

outside, so I waited without opening the shed door. I only did so because I

thought they might leave for somewhere else. So it was strictly not because I

wanted to eavesdrop on their private matters out of interest.

However, they started to

talk behind this shed’s wall unlike my expectations.

“Meihowa, you will no longer

be in the world of the living after 6 weeks if things continue this way. Listen

to me. The platoon you lead is full of failures.”

“And it is my duty as a

leader to train them to a level where they will be able to survive somehow. It

is also your duty as well, sir.”

Ensign Meihowa’s voice was

stern. She seemed to hate the other male with a passion. She was talking to him

like he was a mouse, cockroach or some other pest.

“But am I not a male and you

a female? There is something called relationship between both se…”

The male’s voice was

obsequious and sticky. What was with this guy?

“I do not think of you as

someone of the opposite gender, Lieutenant, sir.”

I see. The other person was

Lieutenant Imamura; one of the instructors in the Cadet Academy. I do remember

seeing him every now and then while walking along…. Hmm. I do remember him

being a married man, but is he flirting with Meihowa? Don’t tell me they share

an affair… there’s no way, right? I mean, if Meihowa dislikes it that much?

“Don’t be like that…. If I

use my powers a bit, you can get away from that group of failures, Ensign

Meihowa. Is it not better than wasting your life on the battlefield? Did you

not seduce me because you knew of it?”

“I never seduced you,

Lieutenant, sir. On the contrary, were you not the one who has been sexually harassing

me all this time?”

Meihowa’s stern voice.

Lieutenant Imamura’s voice started to quaver.

“Then what about those

presents I left on your door? Huh? Were you not the one who seduced me first?

Are you not tempting me right now with that gaze, that attitude and those

fingers?”

“What? But my hand is

staying still. And about those presents you mentioned, I handed in all of them

at the office. I informed them to return the presents to the owners. Please do

not leave any presents in front of my door. If you continue to, I will report

you for stalking.”

“Haahh! Don’t lie to

yourself. You like me! Even though I am married, that is. Have you grown cold

about me after seducing me like that?”

“Please let go of me. I’ll

call someone.”

Ensign Meihowa’s voice grew

urgent. Now wasn’t the time to continue listening to them. I tried not to leave

because I would become an eavesdropper, but the Platoon Leader was in danger!

Wasn’t this a typical stalking situation!

Judging the situation, I

slammed the shed door open.

When I went outside, the

sight was quite something to see. Lieutenant Imamura was wearing an expression

fit for a psychopath and was pinning Meihowa to the wall by force, while

clutching her wrist.

Both of them had an

expression that said they were taken aback by my sudden appearance.

“W-What? Just a Recruit?

Hurry back to your barracks, Recruit. Don’t butt into the situ…”

“Don’t make me laugh. And

you’re supposed to be a Lieutenant!”

Grabbing onto Lieutenant

Imamura’s collar, I lifted him up. He writhed in surprise, but I planted a

punch into his abdomen and silenced him.

“Lezirth!”

I placed Lieutenant Imamura

onto the floor. There was a chance of him snapping his neck and dying if I

dropped him while he was unconscious. I had to follow the correct procedures as

this wasn’t the battle field—even if it meant I was dealing with a joke of a

Lieutenant.

“Ensign Meihowa, are you

alright?”

“No… what…

sigh

.”

Meihowa must’ve been

confused as to what just unfolded before her eyes, because she sighed and

covered her face with her hands.

“Why did you do that!

Recruit Lezirth! You’re just a Replicant! Are you even aware of the

consequences if you lay even a finger on pure blooded Earthlings? And how could

you hurt a Lieutenant when you are but a Recruit!?”

I tilted my head in wonder

as I couldn’t understand her concern.

“Then Ensign Meihowa, did

you actually like this Lieutenant?”

“W-What kind of a joke is

that! Not at all!”

“So, I’m not mistaken in

thinking that he was bothering you when you didn’t like him?”

“T-That’s obvious!”

Meihowa nodded her head.

“Then what I did was

correct! Well, while I do agree that my way of dealing with him was slightly

overkill, it feels great to do something right!”

“

Sigh

, you really are… thoughtless.”

She sighed, walked into the

shed I walked out of and sat on top of a canned food box. And she signalled me

to sit by hitting on the space next to her.

“Come sit over here,

Lezirth.”

“OK. Sure.”

While looking at Lieutenant

Imamura sprawled out on the floor, she asked.

“He shouldn’t wake up for a

while, right? How could you lift up a fully grown man like that with a single

arm and punch him in the abdomen with the other? On a 103% gravity level planet

at that? Are you really not a Fortified Cyborg?”

“Well, while not dead, he

shouldn’t be able to wake up so quickly. I didn’t feel anything bursting when I

punched him, but who knows. His appendix might have burst.”

“What?”

“Ah, don’t worry. Seeing as

he isn’t giving off cold sweat and is fast asleep, it didn’t burst.”

Ensign Meihowa finally

sighed in relief. As she did, the black wings on her back fluttered slightly

and gave off particles of light. The sight was reminiscent of silver powder

sparkling in the wind.

“Well… I suppose I should

thank you. Thank you.”

“Not at all. It’s only my

duty as your subordinate to rescue my Platoon Leader. But why didn’t you report

someone like him to the Superior Office if he continued to bother you? Don’t

tell me you actually dated him before or something like that?”

At my question, Meihowa

appeared to be quite shocked.

“I was placed in this

academy only two weeks ago after completing my Naval Cadet training. Do you

really think I would have the time to have an affair when I’m still fresh to

this academy like Recruits like yourself? It’s just some common treatment I

receive as a half Elcro.”

“Half Elcro…”

“That’s right.”

She buried her head between

her knees and let out a sigh.

Seeing her like that piqued

my interest. Why would a half Elcro want to become a Commissioned Officer?

“Hey, you mentioned that

I’ll be having my meals through a straw if I ask anything more about your

private matters before, right? Is that still valid?”

“Huh?”

Meihowa quickly raised her

head from between her knees. There were slight traces of teardrops smudged

under her green eyes.

However, there weren’t

enough traces on her white make-up free skin to assume that she actually cried.

So did she yawn or something? She can’t be actually sad and crying from that,

right?

“Y-You know. While it’s true

that I’m just asking because of my curiosity… but I think it would be nice if

you can share it with someone. If you start talking, then maybe you’ll have

some stress relief.”

“

Sigh

…. To hear that from a greenie like you. Well, OK. I’ll tell

you.”

Shaking her foot while

seated on the canned food box, she looked at me.

“If you really are the late

Lezirth Dawnbringer who was killed in action 120 years ago, then you might not

know about the war between the Elcros. I’ll assume that for now and tell you,

so you better listen carefully.”

“I’m telling you I’m not

dead.”

“My biological and legal

father participated in the Elcro War and captured a female Elcro as a slave.

And he… Commander Riwoo Kwanshin was already married. But bearing a love child with

a female Elcro slave is a right given to a militant.”

“What?”

I was revolted. Even when I

was active, many male militants died during the war with Letix, so the gender

ratio was out of proportion. As a result, many people did commit adultery while

still being married.

But even then, they still

could separate right from wrong. And now people were enslaving creatures from

completely different species and committing adultery?

“A female Elcro is nothing

but a slave to them. Even now, female Elcro captives are highly sought after by

the top officials. So the Lieutenant must’ve thought of me as an easy target.”

“Holy hell. Things are

really rotten to the core. Just what did the government do while the Federation

rotted away like that?”

“Don’t you already know the

Federation and the government go hand in hand? They were crazy about capturing

Elcro slaves. Unlike the war with Letix, where there was no money to be made,

Elcros were a perfect target as they had a civilisation similar to humans and

they could even vent out their sexual urges. There were so many things to be

gained from the Elcros. Military supply chains profited from the war, while the

government used the war as an excuse to strengthen their hold on the citizens

while the Federation expanded their influence. They are all in it together.”

After speaking, she smirked.

“I really do feel better

after talking it out. But geez… what should we do with that?”

She rested her eyes on the

knocked out Lieutenant Imamura.

“I suppose it would be a

stretch to report it to the higher ups to have it taken care of?”

“That would be difficult. I

am only an Elcro while you’re a Replicant Recruit. Furthermore, this may sound

silly for me to say this as a hopeful Commissioned Officer. But the military’s

ranking system is a mess. However, as this incident was caused because of me, I

will sort it out myself.”

“Huh? Do you have any

plans?”

“If I take this upon myself,

no harm should come to you. I can’t let a greenie like you also take the

blame.”

Meihowa jumped off the

canned food box and landed on the ground. Surprised, I also jumped off the box.

“No, that’s not right. And

why was this incident your fault, Ensign Meihowa? You didn’t do anything wrong!

It is this guy’s fault for abusing his powers to his subordinates!”

“When you’re just a

greenie…”

“Huh?”

What was she trying to say?

While in my slight moment of

hesitation, Ensign Meihowa looked at me over her shoulders and smiled

cheerfully.

“I feel great, having you

cheer for me… when you’re just a greenie. Thanks.”

“…”

I felt like something just

dropped inside my heart with a clang. Something like a pot falling and

shattering type of feel, maybe?

‘I’ll be back, Vice Admiral.

I was glad to be part of the Dawn Corps. If I come back alive, please take me

out for some drinks.’

I was reminded of my

soldiers who were deployed while embracing death itself.

Those soldiers who were so

playful but left serious wills behind. Their blinding smiles that were bright

as the stars despite their unkempt clothes. I was reminded of them for some

reason.

Why did I think of their

death embraced smiles when I saw her smile?

“But don’t worry. I may not

look it, but I’m still the daughter of a Commander. I won’t even stay for a

long time if I do end up being sent to jail. You don’t need to worry about me.”

She was prepared to

sacrifice herself. Just like my soldiers long ago.

“No.”

I clenched tightly onto her

sleeve. And from her sleeve, I moved up to her elbow then her collar as she

stood in surprise. I held her collar tightly and locked her movements.

“W-What is it? Recruit

Lezirth?”

Ensign Meihowa seemed to be

slightly fearful.

“Ensign Meihowa, there is no

need for you to sacrifice yourself. If you do as I say, it should work out.”

“Huh?”

I explained my plan to her

as she was still shocked. She seemed to be half agreeing and half disagreeing

to my plan, but when I urged her firmly, she agreed to it.

“S-Should it work out if we

do that?”

Still hesitant, she tilted

her head left and right.

◊

Breathing coarsely,

Lieutenant Imamura searched every nook and cranny of the barracks. I hung

upside down under the bunk bed and waited for him to move away without finding

me.

Shortly after, Lieutenant

Imamura gasped for breath like a wounded boar and walked outside. Only then

could I crawl out from under the bed.

“Whew, he’s gone. Just

what’s going on, man?”

My roommate Pencolt asked while

munching on a large slab of chocolate.

“You don’t need to know.”

“Really? He asked me where

this guy by the name of Lezirth Dawnbringer was… so I told him he’s near the

entrance of the academy, man.”

“The entrance of the

academy?”

“Isn’t there the statue?”

“…”

So, this guy told him where

the statue of Lezirth Dawnbringer, the General of the Dawn Corps? Sure, I was

that very Lezirth Dawnbringer, General of the Dawn Corps, but I’m pretty sure

Lieutenant Imamura was looking for Lezirth Dawnbringer the Recruit.

This Pencolt fellow was

really something else.

“He wouldn’t really go to

the entrance even if he’s stupid, right?”

“Who knows, man. If he’s a

Lieutenant playing around in a base, then don’t you reckon he’ll be beyond

stupid? Do not limit your imagination, young one.”

After saying that, Pencolt

gobbled up the slab of chocolate by himself.

Someone with some common

sense would offer some chocolate even out of an insincere heart, so how dare

you eat all of that!

But without a doubt, Pencolt

was losing weight rapidly even though he ate like this. I suppose it’s because

the training is too difficult and straining on him.

Well~ I was more concerned

about Ensign Meihowa rather than eating.

Ensign Meihowa told

Lieutenant Imamura that she will give some recordings of their conversation

when he tried to hit on her, to his wife, if he continues to bother her in the

future (I made her do it).

Of course, Meihowa had no

such audio or video recording, but a stingy person like the Lieutenant would be

easily tricked by such trick.

As a result, Lieutenant

Imamura was hot on my trails to take out his anger on me since he couldn’t

bother Meihowa. So I’ve been hiding in places where it would be difficult to

find me.

“You’ve got some mad skills,

man. How can ya hide like that? Like hanging off the ceiling and that?”

“Well, I’m quite fit and

agile.”

At that moment, I could hear

a wolf-like howl resounding from the outside. Epiece-2, where this academy was

located, was not a naturally habitable planet, so there was no way a wolf could

exist here.

It seemed like that stupid

Lieutenant actually went to the entrance and realised his stupidity after

seeing the statue.

“He’s really beyond all

imagination.”

Lieutenant Imamura’s

stupidity was beyond me.

People really shouldn’t

limit their imagination. Because imagination is limitless.

______________________________________________________________________

Reference

1.

Oppa: Brother. Oppan Gangnam Style babe.

↩

### 004. Chapter 4. Special Care Soldier of the Azoran System

For reference, Kishin literally means Machine God. Anyhow, more military tech stuff! Yay!

Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

A single rotation of the Epiece-2 Planet took

34 hours. Hence, we had to wake up in the middle of the night or the middle of

the day, if we were to abide by the Federation’s 24 hours system.

Although, this p

lanet's

34 hour days were far

too long.

“It doesn’t matter, doesn’t it? After all, we

can do some night-time exercises during our training period.”

Wearing a pair of night-vision goggles, fibre

helmet and a bullet-proof vest, I left the barracks first. Sergeant Aroha, who

was doing squats and running beforehand, greeted me with a smile when she saw

me.

“My~ who would’ve thought the King of

Greenies would come out first?”

“I’m not a King of Greenies, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Aroha looked around then suddenly

approached and grabbed both of my hands.

“I… heard that you saved our Platoon Leader.

Thank you, greenie.”

“Ah, well… I-I only did what anyone should’ve

done.”

It seemed like Sergeant Aroha was quite close

to Ensign Meihowa. Did Meihowa speak about what happened that time?

I suppose their positions would be similar as

Ensign Meihowa was a Half-Elcro, while Sergeant Aroha was a Half-Asa. Although,

there was that difference of Elcros being enslaved by the higher ups of the

office as a concubines, while the Asas took male hostages and enslaved

them—just like the Amazons.

Hence, if Elcros were the weak race that

anyone could have their way with, Asas were the lustful and wild race that

chased after men.

Sergeant Aroha must have her own fair share

of troubles.

“I’m so grateful, I’ll specially drop the

‘King’ from the King of Greenies. I’ll let you off the hook with just

‘Greenie’”

“I suppose things would’ve been worse if you

weren’t grateful.”

I smiled bitterly at the cheerful Sergeant Aroha.

She suddenly licked her lips and brought her face closer to mine.

“By the way, what’s the deal between you and

Luise?”

“Ehh!”

Something came in contact with my ears and

tickled me while her breath stimulated my cheeks.

But those physical touches aside, her voice

was so enchanting. That sweet voice compelled me to imagine drops of honey

sliding down a smooth, golden glass jug.

“Ah you mean my relationship with M-Miss

Luise?”

“That’s right. You treat your Platoon Leader,

Sergeant and other officers like dirt, yet you are so respectful to her alone.

So what is it? Is Luise some daughter of a billionaire, while you’re her

butler? A forbidden relationship between a servant and his mistress? Sort of

like a story straight out of a romantic novel?”

“Hmm, you could say that. I cannot go into

details.”

“Hmm, is that so? You’re quite a strange one.

You don’t show any respect to your seniors, yet you’re respectful to your

fellow recruit.”

Sergeant Aroha smirked. It was somewhat

mischievous. Was she planning something?

“So he says.”

“Huh?”

When I turned around, I saw a girl who was

dressed in the same way as me—wearing the helmet, bullet-proof vest and

night-vision goggles. She held up herself tiredly, with her shoulders slumping.

“Ehh?! M-Miss…. Luise?!”

“Umm. H-Hi, Lezirth. I-I finished my gravity

adaptation course, so I will be participating in the training. Since w-we’re

part of the same platoon.”

“Ah, really? That’s great. You got used to it

fast, didn’t you?”

“Well…. I am a ‘Replicant’ just like you,

Lezirth.”

To be precise, she means the ‘Children of

Letix’ that possess the medical nano-machines, self-recovery, telekinesis and

telepathy.

If an ordinary human or an ordinary Replicant

approached me from behind, I would’ve noticed for sure. However, Chief Luise

had far superior telepathy and psychological strength to make up for her lack

of physical strength. She even had powers that I didn’t, such as clairvoyance.

So that means she approached me unnoticed on

purpose, but why? Did she want to hear what I was talking about with Sergeant

Aroha?

I would’ve told Chief Luise anything, if she

asked me though. She sure is a playful person.

Thinking that, I stood by her side.

“Why don’t you pair up with me? I will pour

out my body and soul to help you.”

“Yes, please work with me. I’m so happy. I

can finally work with you, after doing all that gravity adaptation therapy by

myself.”

The bitter expression that Chief Luise had

until now disappeared without a trace and she smiled.

“Oh hoo, Luise-cha~n, I’ll follow you to the

ends of the universe~”

I didn’t know he was already out, but Pencolt

was huffing and puffing next to us. I let out a sigh.

“Yeah, thinking about it, you’re the only

other person I can rely on, now that I’ve been branded as a greenie.”

“Hmm? Have you already given up? A man must

not give up so easily, man! I kept on approaching the soldier chicks without

givin’ up!”

“Oh really, now.”

Now that he mentioned it, the female recruits

were eyeing us coldly. Just what did this guy do?

While wondering that, the Platoon Leader

Ensign Meihowa appeared. She wore an Alter-Armour pilot suit with a

bullet-proof vest and a groin guard over it.

I suppose it was obvious to wear the

bullet-proof vest and the groin guard, because without them the suit was far

too revealing—especially in the chest and lower area.

“Are we going to be using Alter-Armours?”

“What? Didn’t the training just kick it up a

notch?”

Murmurs resounded throughout the recruits.

Everyone was nervous. Even I thought the

training was out of whack. This felt like a mixed martial arts training.

This was training that was far too dangerous

for new recruits, and should’ve been practiced only by the trainers near the

end of their training period. It was usually only the qualified soldiers who

carried out such training.

However, Ensign Meihowa’s expression told us

that she was not joking.

“Hmm… I first have to apologize to the entire

platoon.”

“What?”

“What is the matter?”

The recruits became curious.

“Our platoon’s… training schedule has been

modified. We will be boarding the Assault Cruiser at 0900 Federation standard,

receive real military equipment, and then head to the Azoran System. After

completing 4 weeks of mixed martial arts training on Azoran-3, we will then be

transferred to Azoran-4.”

“N-No way!!!”

Everyone screamed out in despair.

Azoran-3 of the Azoran System originally

belonged to the Elcros, but the Federation drove them out and conquered the p

lanet

.

While Azoran-3 was under the Federation’s

full control, Azoran-4 still belonged to the Elcros. Not only that, the rebel

forces of the Federation were cooperating with the Elcros, and they were

putting up quite a fight.

In other words, it was not surprising to see

the other recruits go pale, when they heard that they were going to be fighting

on the front lines after such little training.

Pencolt raised up his hand in surprise.

“Platoon Leader! What about our personal

belongings? Doesn’t this mean that we’re being evicted from this training

centre?”

“I hear that your personal belongings will be

shipped by the officers here.”

“Ugh! That’s no good! All my figures are

gonna get smashed! What would they know ‘bout my figures and plastic models!

They gotta be carefully packed in cases…”

“I do not know. I do not want to, either.”

Meihowa sighed. Even she must’ve thought that

this order came from Lieutenant Imamura out of spite.

Hmm, but a Lieutenant usually doesn’t have

the authority to order such a thing.

But for this to happen, it must mean that the

discrimination against the Replicants, Asas and Elcros was accepted by the top

brass.

“So now, I am officially Ensign Liu Meihowa.

It is a bit embarrassing, but let’s do our best.”

“YES, MA’AM!”

Everyone saluted her.

Although I couldn’t say that this was a

proper platoon, I could say that this suicidal platoon accepted Ensign Meihowa

as an excellent leader. After all, even I saluted her.

◊

In a real battle situation, Platoon Leader

Ensign Meihowa would be permitted to use the lowest grade Alter-Armour. The

Spider would be provided to the Sub-Platoon Leader; Sergeant Aroha, while the

recruits would be equipped with Colion Coil Rifles and M-10 Bayonets.

The Alter-Armour, Spider, and rifles used in

the training facility were outdated, but all the equipment handed out at the

military airport were brand new.

We are now headed to a battlefield with our

lives on the line.

“Whoaa! Colion Coil Rifles, 180 version!

Awesome! I always wanted one of these.”

“So it’s not that new then. It’s 189 right

now, isn’t it?”

9 years had passed, but guns could be used

for 100 years without much issue. If these were stored in the storehouse for 9

years after being manufactured, then they certainly were new.

Didn’t these recruits understand what this

meant? Some recruits were really out of their minds.

Watching the Assault Cruiser outside of the

window, I let out a sigh. [I was not familiar with the ship, and compared to a

150m long Spaceship, the Assault cruiser was far smaller].

Could it be a new model?

“I don’t think I’ve seen that type of a ship

before. Is it a new model?”

“As if they would be new; they’ve been around

for at least 60 years. It’s a Scorpion-E mid-sized Assault Cruiser.”

Sergeant Aroha laughed as she fiddled around

with the Spider she received.

“Even this Spider is a bit more advanced than

the version created 130 years ago. And while I can understand you being cool as

a cucumber, Luise is unnervingly calm. She didn’t look the type to be so

tough.”

Sergeant Aroha asked me after seeing Chief

Luise next to me.

Isn’t that obvious? Although she did appear

to be a weak, beautiful girl, she was the Chief of Staff! The Space

Federation’s greatest mind who led and oversaw its every mission!

“Because Lezirth is by my side.”

Chief Luise smiled brightly.

Sergeant Aroha squealed and covered her face

with both of her hands. She was really into it.

“Ohhh, look at her…. She’s so cute. B-But

this isn’t good. Ensign Meihowa is my best friend, but Luise is my roommate.

Hmm… whose side should I stick to?”

What was this girl saying? Don’t tell me even

Sergeant Aroha went mad from the pressure of stepping onto the battlefield?

“Cut it out, Aroha. Just what are you

saying?”

Wearing the Alter-Armour piloting suit and

chewing the energy gel between her lips, the silver haired girl was approaching

us.

Energy gel had a lot of benefits, such as

fast absorption rate, rehydration and electrolyte supplements, so it was

supplied as snacks in the military. The one Meihowa was eating was… the crab

flavoured energy gel—as written on the package.

Hmm, her taste buds must be quite amazing.

No, do those flavours even sell? Aren’t they more of a novelty?

“Ah, Platoon Leader Meihowa!”

Aroha smiled and looked at Meihowa, only to

notice that the girl wasn’t wearing the bullet-proof vest or a groin guard. So

Aroha shooed me away.

“Could you look the other way?”

“Ah… O-Of course.”

I could see Meihowa’s figure clearly, thanks

to the tight suit that accentuated her curves. Usually it was hard to take

notice because of her rough personality, but she was quite feminine.

Thinking that my gaze might trouble her, I

looked away. However, Meihowa approached us because she had something to say to

Chief Luise and I.

“You two… you both achieved cadet level

results in the academic placement test, right? Why don’t we measure your

Alter-Armour aptitude?”

“Alter-Armour aptitude?”

I ended up smirking. Chief Luise and I were

both pilots of Kishin-Class Alter-Armours. The ‘Dawnbringer’ of Lezirth

Dawnbringer and ‘Tetragrammaton’ of Luise Maynard were the most famous Kishins

of the Space Federation.

And

yet she’s telling us that she wants to test our aptitude…. I couldn’t help but

laugh.

“If I am killed in action, which frees up my

Alter-Armour, then someone else has to use it in my place. I am considering you

two for that job.”

My smile wiped clean off my face. Why was

this lady so determined?

But it was certainly something that should be

considered as a leader. Sergeant Aroha interrupted us then.

“Usually, you’d have to be at least a

Sergeant or Ensign to pilot an Alter-Armour. But if we register you to control

the Alter-Armour after her death, you will be able to temporarily operate it.

If you can’t, I can do it, and I will if your aptitudes are lower than mine.”

I glanced at Chief Luise just in case.

“Should we agree to the aptitude test?”

“Of course. We should abide by Platoon Leader

Liu’s will.”

“Call me Meihowa. I don’t prefer… being

called Liu.”

Saying that, Ensign Meihowa made a bitter

expression. It should’ve been obvious to us that she wouldn’t like her father’s

surname.

“Ah, yes, Platoon Leader Meihowa.”

We followed after Meihowa and headed to the

Alter-Armour warehouse.

The Alter-Armour provided to Meihowa was a

small ground-combat type, measuring 10 meters in height with a humanoid

shape—fitted with two arms, two legs and a head.

However, this Alter-Armour’s essence was

similar to a Letix. It’s inside was muscular, while a special protective layer

covered its surface; somewhat like a crustacean.

The Federation equipped Alter-Armours of this

type with weapons and armour, using them as standard weapons. Ensign Meihowa’s

Alter-Armour was equipped with a giant coil rifle, Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas (EMP)

pathway generator, Power Fist and a giant sword.

I could tell by its undecorated and plain

black paintjob, that this was a young Alter-Armour. Since it belonged to an Ensign,

it was obviously a Minion-class; the lowest level machine.

Just for reference, Alter-Armours

are ranked as such: Kishin > Dominion > Master > Senior > Major >

Juvenile > Minor > Minion.

“It’s a Minion type, but it’s equipped

similarly to Dawnbringer.”

Chief Luise commented on Meihowa’s

Alter-Armour.

“This Alter-Armour… is spawned off from

Dawnbringer, isn’t it?”

In other words, this Alter-Armour was like a

child of Dawnbringer, since it was created by using Dawnbringer’s cells.

Although it was incomparable to the real Dawnbringer, I felt pleased seeing a

spawnling of Dawnbringer.

“Then do you want to try the suit on?”

Sergeant Aroha brought the suits while

smirking. However, I shook my head.

“Miss… Luise and I cannot ride the

Alter-Armour while wearing the suits.”

“What are you saying?”

Kishin-Class pilots possessed strength on a

completely different level from other pilots. So, if we were to pilot a

non-Kishin Class Alter-Armour, we might overclock the machine and break it.

Especially for a Minion; the lowest

class.

It wouldn’t be able to handle our

power levels.

The aptitude test machine shouldn’t go

haywire, but we still had to be careful.

“We’ll just try the test. We just need to hold

on to this, right?”

I placed my hand on the tester in front of

the Alter-Armour. Then the graph displayed on the maintenance machine rose at

an incredible speed and the machine restarted.

“Huh? That’s strange. Why did the machine

restart?”

Meihowa wondered out loud at the unusual

occurrence.

When the machine rebooted, Chief Luise

grabbed it—only for the graph to shoot up and crash.

“So it’s an error. That’s strange, I’ve never

seen something like this before.”

“Is it saying that their Greenie Level (is

there such thing?!) is too high for them to pilot an Alter-Armour? Try it again

after wearing the suit.”

Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha thought the

maintenance machine was broken and demanded us to wear the suit and try it out

for real.

However, Chief Luise and I refused. The

moment we step into the newly created Alter-Armour with the suit, it would

either die or go haywire.

The actual reason as to why the maintenance restarted

was because the safety device sensed our power and restarted to stop something

like that happening.

One could consider the Alter-Armour as the

body, and its pilot as the brain. If the pilot was exerting too much energy

into the body, then the body would naturally shut down.

This was why the maintenance equipment automatically

shut itself down when it sensed levels it wouldn’t be able to handle.

However, if we were to reveal that fact, then

that would be the same as revealing our identities to the Federation as the

real Lezirth Dawnbringer and Luise Maynard.

That would be problematic.

With us declared deceased by the Government,

there is the possibility of us being purged yet again if we were to reveal our

identities. We had to somehow let this pass without causing a scene.

“There’s no need to go that far. And don’t

worry about the back-up pilot, Ensign Meihowa. There wouldn’t be a need to

choose a pilot as long as you don’t die, right?”

“Are you going against your leader’s orders?

Well, I wonder what the problem was. People with high intellect or academics tend

to score high results.”

Platoon Leader Meihowa played with her hair

with her finger as she looked at the machine in wonder.

Geez, can’t you tell that we scored high? We

scored so high, and that’s why the machine rebooted itself.

◊

The medium-sized Assault Cruiser was not

equipped with a hyperspace travel engine. That was the case 120 years ago, and

that didn’t seem to have changed. However, giga-sized destroyers seemed to have

been equipped with hyperspace travel engines starting from the year 184.

The world really has become a better place.

Anyhow, getting to the Azoran star system via

medium sized Assault Cruiser was impossible, so we were hitching a ride on the

titanic Archimedes, which was headed to that system, and travel to Azoran-4,

then to Azoran-3.

To sum it up, we were getting a lift to the

battlefield by a carrier.

While we were on the titanic-sized,

carrier-type space ship, we weren’t allowed to leave our Assault Cruiser while

docked onto the Archimedes. Despite being a part of the Federation forces, we

were not permitted to set foot inside the Archimedes ship.

So we were wasting our time in the tight

Assault Cruiser.

I was obviously bored. We had to stick with

our roommates in the Assault Cruiser, but Pencolt abandoned me, giggling, to

play around with his other friends.

“Uh fu fu fu. I shall now go watch a war film

with my friends.”

With those words, Pencolt left me and waited

for his other friends on the docking deck, as if he wanted me to see.

Strangely enough, I envied him.

Even someone like Pencolt actually had

Replicant friends who shared the same hobbies he did.

Damn it, does that mean I’m less popular and

have less of a future than him? No way! How could this happen?

After a while, a few Replicant soldiers came.

Since they were all dressed in military uniform, they all looked the same and

didn’t seem to be any different. However, they all let off an atmosphere

similar to Pencolt’s, which couldn’t be masked by their uniforms.

“Yoo!”

Pencolt raised his hand and greeted them.

However, they didn’t recognise who Pencolt was and walked past him.

For a moment, I shouted ‘I knew it!’

gleefully in my heart, but that made me feel even more sad about myself.

“Hey, it’s me! Pencolt Lim!” (Lim seems to be

his family name)

Pencolt quickly extended his arm out to the

group who just passed him and grabbed their shoulders. The soldiers turned

around in surprise.

“Huh? T-That voice.”

“Could it be Pencolt?”

They recognised Pencolt and had their socks

blown off.

“N-No way!”

“We also went through the same training, you

know? What happened to you?! Did you catch a fat burning illness or something?”

“Y-You lost so much weight!”

“Y-Y-You look completely different!”

The soldiers overreacted at the sight of

Pencolt. Considering that Pencolt lost so much weight and looked a lot sharper

than before, that reaction wasn’t very surprising. They must’ve thought that

the instructors starved Pencolt, if he was that thin.

Just now, they didn’t recognise Pencolt

because of his appearance, but they’re still his friends?

Argghh! To think that I don’t have as many

friends as him!

“Then please do excuse me, my dear roommate,

as I have a special viewing to attend! Protect the base, man! Ha ha ha!”

Pencolt waved his hand at me.

Hmm, I feel irked for some reason. Am I a

stingy person if I feel the irresistible urge to punch him? Is that how it is?

Is it?

I returned to my quarters and looked at the

wall in a daze.

I get treated like a greenie by everyone, I

don’t know anyone here, and I’m feeling ‘resentment’ at Pencolt’s

‘connections’.

Sigh

… this is the end

for me.

Then, the door opened.

“M-May I come in, Lezirth?”

The brown haired girl, dressed in the

bullet-proof vest and a helmet, stood before my door while twiddling her

fingers. In this windowless interior, where all sides were simply welded

together, her presence lit up the room.

“Ah, M-Miss… Luise.

“Please don’t use the Miss! I’ve asked you

call me by my name.”

Chief Luise Maynard. The President of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Excluding the Minister of the Federation, she held the

top position, with everyone under her lead 120 years ago! Not only that, she

was the pilot of Tetragrammaton, as well as an Admiral, and she was giving me

an order. I was obviously going to obey.

“Ah… yes. T-Then, Luise?”

“That’s right. You should have done so

earlier.”

“It is not easy to change the way I have

addressed you, for such a long time.”

“Then you need some practice. Keep calling me

Luise.”

Chief Luise sat next to me as she said that.

Since she walked in, the automatic door closed itself.

She and I sat facing each other in that tight

place. I was supposed to say her name in a place like this?

“Pardon?”

I gulped. I became thirsty. I wonder why, I

drank enough water already.

“Hurry.”

“Ah… yes…. Luise.”

“Yes. A bit more.”

“Luise?”

“Yes, one more time.”

“Luise…”

Every time I repeated her name, she enjoyed

it. The way that she giggled was like a cat having its sides tickled.

After enjoying it like that, she stood up

with a stony expression.

“Ah, this wasn’t what I came here to do….

There is something that concerns me.”

“Something that concerns you?”

“I find it strange that Archimedes is

traveling to Azoran-4.”

I wasn’t sure where she was going with this,

so I goggled my eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“Archimedes… is an anti-Letix spaceship in

this era. The Federation currently holds the Letix as the greatest threat, then

the Asa, and finally, the Elcros. But it doesn’t make sense to send the weapon

used to fight the greatest foes, to attack weak Elcros.”

“Maybe they are aiming for an intensive

surprise attack?”

“But according to the information that I

gathered, it would be more profitable for the Federation to stretch out the war

against the Elcros. Rather than driving the Elcros to extinction or conquest,

the Federation would make more money by leaving them just barely standing.”

“Then maybe it’s a routine rotation of

battleships?”

“I suppose there is that possibility. Maybe

it was unwise of me… to question every action they take.”

She clicked her tongue as she said that.

But she really was amazing. Despite being a

recruit, she was able to come to those possible conclusions, with that limited

amount of information. Even when our knowledge was almost useless in this world

120 years into the future.

“Ah, and I… started to hack into the

Federation’s military computer.”

“What?”

The Federation’s military computer was a

giant Quantum computer, that our terminal was able to access by hyperspace

communication.

The CPU was a huge Mother-Frame on the Epiece

System.

And the terminals, owned by every soldier of

the Federation military, accessed the Mother-Frame levels according to their

rank and authority, to share information.

The computers of the olden civilization were

built using its own CPU, but Quantum computers increase in functionality

proportional to their size, so this method of relaying back to the Mother-Frame

was much more effective with the correct communication method.

However, that meant that hacking into that

military computer could cause horrendous implications. What she just declared

was no different than saying, she will take all authority of the Federation

with her own hands.

The issue is, for her, such a thing would

actually be possible.

This was because she was the one who built

the Federation’s military computer, Chief Luise Maynard. The system went

through updates and firewall improvements over the past 120 years, of course.

So that was why she declared ‘I’m hacking

into the computer’. 120 years ago,she would’ve said, ‘I’ve hacked into the

computer’.

“So Lezirth, please don’t hold back and ask

me any questions that may trouble you. And we must be careful. We don’t know

what might happen in the Azoran system.”

“I see. And I will be fine. I will protect

you, Admiral Luise.”

“You called me Admiral again, didn’t you.”

“Ah… L-Luise? Then please be informal with me

as well, Luise. If you… Luise is formal with me, then it would be harder for me

to….”

When I addressed her without any formalities,

she smiled brightly.

“Yes, Lezirth. I’ll also protect you. With

all of my strength.”

She took off her helmet and placed her

forehead on top of mine. I was taken back and froze in surprise. I could feel

her warmth through my forehead.

“Then please do your best, Lezirth.”

“Yes, Luise.”

Luise smiled gently, put on her helmet again,

and left the shell.

When she left, I could finally calm down. The

‘resentment’ that has been boiling away inside me disappeared, and I felt like

talking with her healed my heart.

When I should’ve been the one who heals her

instead!

“Arghh!”

I suddenly felt a head splitting pain. It was

an excruciating pain. It felt like my eyes were being gouged out from the

inside of my skull. I could only close my eyes firmly, endure the eye-popping

pressure, and wait for it to pass.

◊

It is an old memory of my childhood days.

Despite being born from the Letix Uberlord, I

still had a childhood. Born in a laboratory and raised by the researchers

there, I was simply named ‘Replicant Sample B’.

They were striving for and researching the

completeness not found in the other weak clones, yet they told me that I wasn’t

born by the wills of the researchers, but by the Letix Uberlord. They were not

as cruel to me, compared to the others.

That was because there was a ‘Replicant

Sample C’.

She was chosen as a control sample, like me.

C was far more obedient than I ever was,

making it easier for them to gather data. But her powers were growing to

dangerous levels. With a glass wall between us, I used to look at her all the

time.

“I will save you.”

I promised so, in my boyish days. The girl

only nodded her head. Her long hair swayed in the glass cylinder, filled to the

brim with water, which resembled a lake.

I was only lying to the girl.

Because she freed herself from that place,

while I was just barely developing my strength.

I… dreamt of the past of my childhood.

◊

It was a little over 7 hours since our

departure from the Epiece system, when the Archimedes arrived in the Azoran

system.

Azoran-4 often displayed sparks of light,

which could be seen from distant space. So it was quite clear that the

Federation hasn’t quite taken the

p

lanet

under its rule. However, with the

arrival of Archimedes, and the overwhelming tide of the war, this

p

lanet

would

soon be under the Federation’s control.

Although I knew little about the Elcro race,

thinking about Ensign Meihowa (she is now officially a commissioned officer,

after being put on the front lines) pained my heart. If only I wasn’t purged, I

could’ve prevented the war with the Elcros.

As I was deep in my thoughts, a siren started

to wail inside the ship. Our medium-sized Assault Cruiser was released from

Archimedes, and started to set course for Azoran-3.

◊

“As you all know, our training will be held

in a similar manner to the real battles. After landing on Azoran-3, Southern

Sphere 35-120, we will install a beacon at a designated location after a

tactical aim is set. Azoran-3 is habitable for humans, but our landing area is

volcanic, so there is a possibility of toxic gas being present. Link up the

oxygen tank to your helmets, and squad leaders, put on your Power-Armour

according to your squad number. The details of the training are available on

your terminals, so refer to that. We will now be organising the squads.”

They were inside the storage area where the

Spider and Alter-Armour were kept—which happened to be the largest area

available on the Assault Cruiser. The Suicidal Platoon was listening to Ensign

Meihowa’s mission briefing there.

As directed by Ensign Meihowa, the recruit

squad leaders stepped out, and started to equip themselves with the

Power-Armour. These Power-Armours were mechanical armour that measured 250cm in

height when equipped. When a nuclear battery is attached, it fuels the motor

within—bringing out tremendous strength, and it is pre-equipped with Movement

Sensitive Body Bunker ,as well as Power Fist.

They acted as the crowd-control to protect

their squad.

But before that, there were squad leaders

amongst the recruits? How come I didn’t know?

“Ehmm… Lezirth. Sorry, but we’d like you to

leave our squad.”

“We don’t want you in our squad either.”

“It would be really problematic if you join

us.”

The three squad leaders who stepped out in

front of us, refused to take me into their squads. I wasn’t the only one who

was rejected, because Chief Luise, who joined later because of gravity

adaptation therapy, and Pencolt were both rejected.

“H-Hold on a minute! Now this isn’t fair,

isn’t it? We are all comrades in this platoon! Does it even make sense to split

up the squads depending on personal preference? We’re not trying to split

ourselves up into the red and blue teams, right!”

I voiced my arguments out loud, but I only

realised how sad that was as I listened to myself.

To think that I would be treated as an

unstable bomb, that could go off at any time, when I used to be hailed as the

Hero of the Federation, the saviour of thousands of people, just weeks ago! I

became sorrowful about myself for even complaining like this.

It was then when Sergeant Aroha patted my

back.

“There, there, did our little Lezirth get

bullied?”

“…….”

“You, Luise and Pencolt will be acting as the

guards for the Spider. So you’ll be working with me. Got it?”

“*Cough* O-OK.”

I could feel the warm generosity of the

Platoon Leader and the Platoon Sergeant. And because of that, I couldn’t help

but feel even more sorry about myself.

To think… that I would be a soldier that

needs special attention!

I’m doomed. I’m so ashamed. This pitch black

stain on the legend of Vice Admiral Lezirth Dawnbringer’s life! I was lost for

words because of the shame.

### 005. Chapter 5. Omen

Out in space the rate at which shit hits the fan is relative.

Anyhow, check out the main page for the second volume below this post.

Translator: Junnynam

Editors: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

Azoran-3 was a planet that possessed a

continent near its equator.

A popular opinion among people is that planets

with a continent on the equator disrupt the sea and air flow of the planet—limiting its ability to produce plentiful agriculture, when compared to

Earth.

Contrary to this belief, however, the plants

on Azoran-3 had the property of being able to absorb the sea water with high

mineral levels and filter it into fresh water, while utilising the minerals and

the water for its growth.

As a result, there were so many flora growing

near the equator that one could express it as a giant green solar panel.

One could say that the energy efficiency was

quite high. But on the other hand, this planet was similar to Earth during its

carboniferous period, so there was a high risk of fire.

“There is a high risk of a wildfire due to

the high oxygen levels, and there are giant-sized insects, so always be on your

guard. This place is infested with dinosaur-sized monsters. Azoran-3 is a planet

in its natural state, so keep that in mind!”

During the training, Ensign Meihowa’s voice

could be heard over the terminals. Admiral Luise and I boarded the training

capsule.

“Go!”

The training capsule flew towards Azoran-3.

After a sudden gravitational acceleration,

zero-gravity could be experienced inside the capsule. I looked around to

Admiral Luise in concern, but she was indifferent to the gravitational

change—most likely a result of her gravity adaption course she completed.

“W-We ended up travelling together, didn’t we

Lezirth.”

Admiral Luise’s face was hidden behind the

‘Full Face’ feature on the helmet. However, it was easy to recognise it was her

under the military uniform because of her small, cute and petite figure as well

as her feminine and scared, pitiful features.

“Yes, of course. But I apologise for showing

you my shortcomings back there. I never expected that I would be ostracised by

everyone in the platoon….”

“There you go again. But I’m glad that

happened. B-Because we can stick together now….”

Hmm? She’s happy? Because she can stick with

me? I-I see.

“Ah! I-It would be a problem if you say it

like that. Please don’t say that to anyone besides me. The other hotheaded

males would misunderstand you. Ha ha ha.”

Admiral Luise still trusted me

wholeheartedly. That’s right, even if I’m ostracised by the platoon, the fact

that I am the war hero Lezirth Dawnbringer does not change.

I was fit enough to work alongside Admiral

Luise, who knew of that better than anyone else! Hmm, to think she trusted me

this much….

I have to repay that debt. I feel like my

debt has doubled.

“…”

Although I couldn’t see Admiral Luise’s

expression behind the helmet, she appeared to be in a bad mood all of a sudden.

At that moment, the capsule started to

decelerate. The parachute on the training capsule must’ve activated itself as

we approached the surface.

After a short while, the training capsule

landed with a thunderous noise.

I studied the surroundings of the training

capsule, after turning on the terminal. I could see some human-sized bugs that

resembled a wrasse in the thick swamp forest.

Hmm, there’s quite a few of them. I wonder if

they’re dangerous.

“Then I will go out first.”

I jumped out of the training capsule and

grabbed my M-10 Bayonet. It was a multi-purpose military weapon that could

double as a gun or a short sword because of the attached blade on top of the

gun.

One could attach a Thorium nuclear battery

and shoot holes in armoured vehicles with High Frequency Vibrations, but people

rarely do so due to the high risk of failure. The Bayonet aside, I also had

Colion Coil Rifles with me but there was no need to waste any ammunition on

these bugs.

The wrasse-like bugs must’ve been dangerous,

because they all turned around and leapt at me like I was their prey.

I quickly dished out double roundhouse kicks

and warded them off. It would be impossible to keep fighting off these bugs

using such a method, but that only applied to normal people! I’ll let them

taste the Psyonic powers of the Dawnbringer!

—Bzzzzz!

Cherenkov radiation flew out twice with each

kick. When the leaping bugs were hit with the radiation, they flew backwards

and splattered against the trees or simply fell onto the floor and split in

half.

I spun in circles as I continued to kick and

used the momentum to switch to using my fists.

“Lightning Fire Piercing Fist!”

A beam of radiation shot out from my fist and

pierced through the swarm of bugs in a line. A strong gale followed its path

and emitted shockwaves.

While the bugs were recovering from the

shock, I swung the Bayonet around. The bugs dropped dead as they were cut into

pieces.

When I deemed the surroundings as safe, I

used the terminal to contact Admiral Luise who was still inside the capsule.

[Landing zone is clear. All threats have been

eliminated. You can come out now, Luise.]

“Yes, I understand.”

Admiral Luise walked out from the capsule.

She was very taken aback at the numerous bug corpses that littered the ground.

“Isn’t this area very dangerous for training

if there are wild organisms such as these inhabiting the lands?”

“These are nothing…. There are the Colion

Coil Rifles as well.”

Colion Coil Rifles was so useful as a weapon,

that the same type of weapon was used for armoured vehicles and Alter-Armours.

A primitive life form wouldn’t stand a chance

against the soldiers armed with these rifles.

“Now then, let us join the Platoon Leader and

the Vice Platoon Leader where the Spider landed. We should move while

protecting each other as a pair.”

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, a scream sounded over the terminal

and sounds of gunfire could be heard.

[Whoaa! What kind of a monster is that!?]

[Kyaaa!!]

[No!]

Hearing the scream from the Alpha squad, I

quickly used the computer to get a visual on Alpha. The visual being streamed

from the camera on the helmets of the Alpha squad was luckily not an attack

from a dangerous monster or an enemy.

They were shooting off their Coil Rifles

wildly at centipedes that appeared to be over 10 meters in length. The native

insects of Azoran-3 were being decimated before the force of the rifles. The

centipedes caught fire naturally because of the high oxygen levels and burned

away at a frightening rate.

“I thought they bumped into a Letix Predator

or something since they were yelling so loudly.”

I lost interest and turned off the visual.

However, I couldn’t deny that these insects were threatening. A small mistake

could cost us our lives, so I had to move carefully.

“Please follow me carefully, since we’re in

the jungle.”

I hacked away at any obstacles or thorny

plants and created a path through the trees. After a while, we arrived at the

site where the Alter-Armour and Spider had landed.

“Lezirth! Luise! Do something about this

guy.”

Pencolt was tightly clinging onto

Power-Armour-clad Sergeant Aroha’s ankles. If she wasn’t wearing the

Power-Armour, it would’ve been considered as sexual harassment but at the

moment, the Power-Armour leg was no different to a metal pole.

“Whoaa… I’m so scared. The big monsters

were….”

“What’s so scary about them? Damn it you!

Aren’t you supposed to be a man?!”

“Ah, that just now was sexual discrimination.

How can you discriminate between men and women in this day and age, man?

Sergeant, I’m gonna sue you for sexual discrimination. Look forward to it!”

“…”

As Sergeant Aroha pulled a speechless

expression in exasperation, Ensign Meihowa jumped down from the Alter-Armour’s

cockpit.

“Hmm, it seems like Alpha Squad is battling

with a swarm of insects at the moment. There seems to be some injured, but no

deaths. What about you two, Greenie and Luise? You were way off course with

your landing.”

“We’re fine, Ensign. But they suffered

injuries just because of some insects? Geez.”

I wasn’t angry at the fact that Alpha Squad

excluded me from their squad. I was just angry that they were lacking as

soldiers of the Federation.

I wasn’t secretly laughing inside my heart at

what Alpha Squad was going through.

‘Ha ha, those fools. This is great.’

Ah, I’ve done it now. OK, I didn’t think

those thoughts till just now.

“Now then, everyone on the Spider, please.

We’ll assault the striking point and go set up the beacon.”

After saying that, Ensign Meihowa listened

carefully to the communication channel on the computer. Then suddenly, a bzzt

sounded through the entire channel.

“… Eh?”

“What was that?”

The communication channel used by the Space

Federation had hyperspace technology integrated into the system. Although it

was difficult to jump military equipment and personnel through hyperspace,

jumping data was fairly easy, so EMP or solar waves had no effect on the

communications.

I only knew of one that was able to disrupt

the channel and cause a noise like this.

“Tetragrammaton’s Ultimate Kishin Technique:

‘Punishing Wail’!”

It is a powerful attack that is able to

decimate enemies over tens of light years with an explosion. It was even able

to interfere with hyperspace travel for a few hours as a side effect.

But if that activated just now…

At that moment, something sounded over the

white noise. It sounded like cries from the prisoners of hell itself.

[Archimedes is damaged! Ship damage is

calculated to be at 37.52%!]

[H-How can this be?! According to the

military computer analysis, that was an attack from the Tetragrammaton, sir!]

[Enemy ship emerging, sighted on Azoran-4!]

[Enemy sighted! It’s… a Diablo! Kishin Diablo

and numerous Alter-Armours!]

[Arghhh!]

With a yell… an aurora suddenly appeared on

Azoran-3’s atmospheric layer.

◊

Meteor showers began to fall onto Azoran-3.

The Federation’s warship that brought them to the Azoran system was broken, and

the debris burst into flames as they fell through the atmosphere like a meteor

shower.

The aurora that occurred a while ago

continued to shine bluish light as energy collided onto the ionosphere.

Although it was a beautiful sight, that was the sight of the meaningless deaths

of over 50,000 Federation soldiers.

“Archimedes has been destroyed. Every ship

near Azoran-4 has been destroyed.”

After dealing damage to the Archimedes, which

was leading the Azoran-4 attack forces, with Tetragrammaton’s long distance

attack ‘Punishing Wail’, a force of Alter-Armours led by the Diablo finished

the job.

Although the war records displayed the Elcros

or Asas’ military strength as below humans’, they started a strong comeback

with that powerful attack.

Admiral Luise analysed the situation even

with the lack of information.

“Asas and Elcros formed an alliance. The

Rebel Replicant Force might be part of it as well. No, they must be in an

alliance.”

And an Asa, Elcro or Rebel Replicant

possessed the Tetragrammaton—with a Kishin-class pilot at that.

One couldn’t use the Kishin to its full

ability just by possessing it. Alter-Armour was the physical body while the

pilot was the brain. A brainless warrior is useless even with a strong body,

and Alter-Armour worked in the same way—a fitting pilot must operate the

Alter-Armour in order to bring out its full potential.

And not every Kishin-class pilot could pilot

something like Tetragrammaton fully. Only someone who possessed a clairvoyance

ability, like Admiral Luise Maynard, was able to accurately hit an enemy 50

light years away.

A saviour to comrades and the grim reaper to

the enemy.

Tetragrammaton was now in the enemy’s

possession!

However, the others have not yet noticed that

the Tetragrammaton was now in the enemy’s possession.

That was to be expected, because they heard

about Tetragrammaton being lost 120 years ago; they never would’ve been able to

witness its power in their life.

Even so, it was enough to ring some alarms,

seeing the spaceships wiped out.

[W-What will happen to us?]

[W-We can survive, right? We’re only

recruits! W-We’re no different to civilians!]

[Damn it, you’re shitting me. This is a joke,

isn’t it? Someone tell me this is just a candid camera! Why is this happening

as soon as we landed on Azoran?!]

[I’m not even supposed to be in the Navy! Why

did they forcefully conscript me into this!]

Complaints came through from Alpha, Bravo and

Charlie squads. Ensign Meihowa shouted her orders to them in response.

[Stop your whining! The training is

cancelled! Everyone gather at the beacon point! Gather your equipment and the

injured and move to the beacon point! Arrive there in 2 hours, Federation

Standard Time!]

“No, Ensign Meihowa. We can’t do that!”

I stopped Meihowa by going up to her.

The medium-sized Assault Cruiser was

circulating around Azoran-3 at the moment. However, if we were to go to the

beacon point, in other words, if we send a contact signal to the Assault

Cruiser, the enemies would be aware of our existence on Azoran-3. If the enemy

force is indeed an Elcro-Asa alliance, then they will not only attempt to chase

any intruders away from Azoran-4, but also reclaim Azoran-3.

“What are you doing, Greenie! Are you going

against my orders? We are in a battle! You might think we were playing around

till now, but serious consequences will fall upon you if you rebel!”

Ensign Meihowa looked at me with an

intimidating glare. I suppose she really will consider me as a rebel if I go

against her orders.

“Ensign Meihowa, with all due respect, I have

a strategy suggestion.”

“A suggestion? Say it.”

“It is suicidal to return to the Assault

Cruiser at a time like this.”

“Hmm, you’re not showing any respect. Well,

whatever. Your point?”

“We have to survive on the ground while

waiting for the main forces. The enemy has the Diablo and Tetragrammaton; a

force with at least two Kishins. They will try to reclaim Azoran-3.”

“I agree with him, Ensign. I believe we

mustn’t return to the Assault Cruiser, but to drop it onto Azoran-3 and try to

hold our place by recovering the crew members and goods from it. With the

Azoran system under the enemy’s control at the moment, we will be reduced to

space dust if we attempt to escape by a single Assault Cruiser.”

Admiral Luise also voiced her support.

Ensign Meihowa sighed. She must be very

confused at the situation, since she was promoted to an official Ensign only

recently.

However, instead of forcefully arguing for

her views, she accepted Luise’s and my opinions.

“Even if that is true, we don’t know when

support will arrive.”

“That may be so, but doing this is for the

better. If we try to escape on the Assault Cruiser, we’ll be reduced to dust.”

“I suppose… it would be for the better if we

hold our places and surrender later on. Since the Sergeant and I are half-Asa

and half-Elcro.”

“Now then Recruit Pencolt. No, I suppose it

would be Apprentice Pencolt now that we are in a real war situation.”

“I-I want to be a civilian, man. I don’t

wanna be captured by the enemy for being a soldier, so I’ll just become a miner

on Azoran-3.”

Pencolt was trembling greatly. It wasn’t

fitting for a soldier, but I could understand.

“Ah, now that I think about it, there’re only

civilians on Azoran-3, aren’t there.”

Ensign Meihowa wore a bitter smile. When the

Federation captured Azoran-3, they sent miners immediately and have been mining

minerals.

“Don’t you think we should warn the miners at

the mines about the situation? There should be security guards there to protect

the miners.”

Sergeant Aroha asked, but Admiral Luise

refused immediately.

“They will have a higher level of command

than us… if we contact them recklessly, we might have to obey their orders. Our

platoon is nothing but a suicidal squad, is it not? They will use that fact to

their advantage and if we refuse, we will be held responsible at the

international courts.”

“But if we go too out of hand, we will still

be held responsible at the international courts. We’ll follow your decision,

Ensign.”

I looked at Ensign Meihowa.

She inspected the hologram visual on the

computer with a complicated expression. She appeared to be accepting the fact

that I didn’t suggest my opinions to save my life, but to act with consequence.

“No change of plan for now! We will move to

the beacon point as planned!”

“Ensign Meihowa!”

And I just explained to her how suicidal that

would be! Can’t she trust me at least that much!? I tried to continue talking.

“However, we won’t board the Assault Cruiser

there, but we’ll retrieve the goods and move on. We won’t turn into space dust

like that, right?”

That certainly was easier than finding

somewhere to gather around with the other squads. The risk of being discovered

by the enemy forces was greater, but… they shouldn’t pay a great deal of

attention to a medium-sized Assault Cruiser. They can catch up to us in no time

anyway.

“Ah! O-OK. That’s not bad.”

… Is what I thought.

◊

Well, nothing terrible happened.

The suicidal platoon gathered at the meeting

point and gathered food, ammunition, vehicles and Power-Armours from the

Assault Cruiser.

There was enough food, ammunition and

equipment to last us for at least two months and our numbers grew when the crew

members joined us. That was good.

And afterwards, the Assault Cruiser was blown

to smithereens as I had predicted. That was also good. Having the Assault

Cruiser destroyed might help us to hide our movements from now on.

However, the only issue was that Lieutenant

Imamura was on board the Assault Cruiser.

Assault Cruisers could be operated unmanned,

with the exception of occasional mechanics checking up on the system, and they

were able to set courses by themselves. Hence, they were designed to be used

similarly to a private plane.

But when and why did this lieutenant sneak on

board without us noticing?

“Eh, I was on board in case of an emergency

as your instructor. There is no way I would send recruits and an

Ensign-in-training to a dangerous place like this, right? So all of you are now

under my command.”

Lieutenant Imamura scanned across everyone

gathered at the beacon point but he stopped when he looked at me.

“…”

What did he want? I have a gun in my hands,

so you wanna have a go? You might want to think twice before acting out just

because I’m your ‘subordinate’ for the moment.

And I was originally a Vice Admiral. A

Lieutenant like him should be falling to his knees and bowing down to me, if he

even dared to look me in the eyes. Or maybe I should state my officer school

graduation year? I was in the military during the AD period!

As I glared back at him with those thoughts

on my mind, the Lieutenant quickly looked away. Tsk. I expected a similar

reaction, but to see him really avoiding my gaze, the Federation Force is

really lacking in the quality department.

“Eh-hem. I am now your platoon leader. Ensign

Meihowa! Give your Alter-Armour to me and you use the Power-Armour. And I will

leave you to monitor for any enemies.”

In a space war, Alter-Armour acted almost as

a foot soldier, so it was one of the positions with the highest casualty rates.

However, Alter-Armour was one of the jobs that had the lowest casualty

occurrences on land.

Hence, Lieutenant Imamura decided to use the

safest equipment for himself and demoted Ensign Meihowa to the Power-Armour.

This bastard, how dare he take the safety for

himself, and leave Ensign Meihowa vulnerable? What a cheap person. Why couldn’t

he be blasted into space dust, along with the Assault Cruiser just before!

However, Ensign Meihowa handed over her

Alter-Armour to him without a complaint.

“Well, now then!”

Imamura took off his bullet-proof vest and

climbed into the cockpit in the Alter-Armour suit attire.

In Ensign Meihowa’s case, her tight

Alter-Armour pilot suit was a joy to look at, but the sight of Imamura in the

Alter-Armour suit was revolting. His backside was swaying side to side as he

climbed up; why can’t he fall off and just die? My cursing had no effect

because he managed to climb into the cockpit safely.

—Whirl!

The Alter-Armour did boot up, but the

compatibility was so low that the minion class Alter-Armour was in a ‘drowsy’

state. The wavelengths simply did not match up and it was almost as if it was

sleepy.

Seeing the Alter-Armour struggling to walk

and stumbling like a drunkard made me mad.

[Now then, everyone move toward the 1

st

Mine. We will join the higher ranks there and follow their command! Ensign

Meihowa, study our path for any enemies by launching the unmanned surveillance

vehicle.]

When the Lieutenant gave out his orders

through the terminals, Admiral Luise argued.

[Please hold on a moment. There might be

enemies still in the atmosphere after the attack on the Assault Cruiser.

Launching the unmanned surveillance vehicle now might reveal our existence to

the enemy. Wouldn’t it be safer to navigate through the jungle since we have

the maps installed on the computer?]

It was certainly true. Launching the USV over

the jungles when the Assault Cruiser was destroyed not too long ago, was almost

the equivalent to advertising ‘we are here’ to the enemy forces.

Furthermore, how much could you figure out

from an unmanned surveillance vehicle in a jungle like this anyway? The odds of

being discovered by the enemy outweighed the benefits.

The Lieutenant scoffed at the reasonable

suggestion.

[Who are you to tell me what to do?! We are

the ones who first started to use surveillance vehicles in the first place; I

know what I’m doing! Hurry up and deploy it!]

[I refuse. It is far too dangerous to deploy

the surveillance vehicle for at least another 2 hours.]

Ensign Meihowa shook her head and Lieutenant

Imamura grinded his teeth.

[This bitch… where did your coxing attitude

go to!? Why are you acting like this now!?]

Whoa, he’s got in way over his head. And to

think he would actually say it on a monitored and recorded channel!

[I have never done that.]

[Well, whatever. I will be seeing you in

court for disobeying my orders. Just follow me for now. Chief Technician

Yeon-Sik Oh, you deal with the surveillance vehicle!]

Chief Technician Yeon-Sik Oh was the Chief

Technician of the Assault Cruiser mechanics.

[But Lieutenant, what the Ensign and Recruit

said is true. It is far too dangerous to deploy it right now. Please make a

reasonable decision.]

[Are you ignoring my authority as well? I’m a

Lieutenant!]

“And I’m a Vice Admiral.”

[What? Who said that?]

“…”

When I stayed silent, Chief Technician

Yeon-Sik Oh sighed and started to manipulate the unmanned surveillance vehicle.

The surveillance vehicle flew up through the

jungle layers and started to feed the visuals to the computer. All we could see

were trees, obviously, but there were the occasional birds and insects moving

in the layers. It was like watching a peaceful nature documentary.

Sure, the sight might give some sense of

relief to us, but we were risking everyone’s lives just to see these visuals.

It really was tough to be under an

incompetent officer.

◊

Admiral Luise, Pencolt and I clung onto the

Spider and raced through the jungle. The other soldiers boarded onto military

vehicles and shouldn’t have any problems following us.

Sergeant Aroha had the terminals turned off

and was swearing her head off as she drove the Spider. Giga-sized reptiles and

insects that inhabited this jungle occasionally attacked us, but Pencolt and

Admiral Luise drove them away with their rifles.

We should be able to reach the 1

st

Mine in approximately 20 minutes.

[Hmph! And to think all of you complained to

me. See, nothing’s gone wrong.]

Why is that fool planting his own death flag

again? I clicked my tongue in annoyance at Lieutenant Imamura’s chatters.

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, something flashed up in the sky and

our surveillance vehicle caught on fire. With that, 2 unmanned surveillance

vehicles similar to ours revealed themselves in the air.

“What?”

“Damn! They’re Rebel Replicant Force

equipment!”

“What are you all doing! Shoot! Shoot it down!”

But before that, the enemy’s surveillance

vehicles started to move.

There were two Colion Coil Rifles on each of

the vehicles, similar to the infantry’s. Though they were different from the

usual Coil Rifles, because they shot high-mass plasma jets and smart bombs

instead of firing 0.1g of plasma at Mach 10 speeds.

The USVs flew over the jungle, scanning over

us; sensing with ultrasonic waves, heat and metal detection.

In a matter of seconds, all of our equipment

and forces were revealed to the enemy. High-mass plasma jets flew towards us in

a ray from the surveillance vehicles.

Everything in its path caught on fire as it

rushed through the jungle and the ray shone over the Alter-Armour that

Lieutenant Imamura was piloting, the allied vehicles and the Spider.

“Tsk!”

I switched my hands and formed a space-wrap

around me to redirect the falling plasma back at the enemies. However, it was

impossible to redirect all of the plasma jets that were firing down like a

flamethrower.

Every plasma particle in my reach was

redirected back at the enemy, but the rest of the plasma jets hit their target

and displayed showy explosions and immense heat.

The shocked soldiers started to shoot up at

the air. However, it was quite difficult to shoot down USVs when they’re moving

so rapidly.

[Arghh!]

[No!]

[Urghh!]

One of the vehicles was shot by a plasma jet

and smart bomb at the same time. The vehicle belonged to the Alpha squad, and

they were blown away in an instant.

Smart bombs were small, but their firepower

was nothing to scoff at, and there was no need to mention the power of plasma

jets.

The sight of the inside of the vehicle was

shocking. The Power-Armour clad squad leader’s arms and legs were lopped off

because of the plasma jet, and his body had been blown away in all directions

because of the smart bomb that fell afterwards.

Other squad members didn’t suffer from the

shrapnel because they were wearing bullet-proof vest, but the issue was the

combustion that occurred from the plasma jet impact. Metal pieces that were hit

by the plasma started to burst into flames because of the high density of

oxygen on Azoran-3.

Light and heat that was almost on par with

burning magnesium started to occur, and the whole car started to burn.

“Everyone jump out of the car! It’s

dangerous!”

After dealing a significant amount of damage

to the suicidal bomb squad, the enemy surveillance vehicles turned around in

mid-air and started to fly towards us again.

Are they going to shoot out plasma jets and

smart bombs again?

However, two rays of light pierced through

the surveillance vehicle with great accuracy. It was Admiral Luise who shot

down those two vehicles with her rifle while seated on top of the rocky Spider.

She’s the one who’s able to shoot down enemy

fleets from 50 light years away. Although her physical strength was far too

lacking to be a sniper, she was more than capable of being an accurate shooter.

The two vehicles that tasted her accurate

shots caught on fire and fell to the jungle floor; exploding on impact.

[Everyone, report your casualties!]

Ensign Meihowa quickly ordered her orders via

the terminals. When she did,

the weak

voice of someone from the Alpha squad gave their report.

[A-Alpha squad. 3 dead, 1 vehicle lost,

ma’am!]

The halved vehicle was still burning and

members pulled out from the vehicle were all in a state of panic.

They just suffered a great deal of damage

from a surprise attack after all.

[Spider here. The frontal armour is lost, but

it’s still functional.]

That was Sergeant Aroha’s report.

The Spider was also hit by the plasma jets on

its armoured parts, just on top of its frontal lets, but Pencolt switched his Coil

Rifle’s function to a fire extinguisher and quickly extinguished the flames in

time to lessen the damage.

“Fu fu fu. I’ve memorized the differences in

each model of Colion Coil Rifles, man. I knew this had a fire extinguisher

function already.”

“Yeah, good for you.”

If it wasn’t for Pencolt’s quick actions, the

Spider would’ve gone up in flames as well.

[Ah… Young Min Kim! No!]

[Correction, death toll is now 5. There are 4

wounded.]

The death toll rose with the deaths of some

wounded.

Ensign Meihowa gritted her teeth loud enough

for the terminal to hear.

[Alpha Squad, join forces with Charlie Squad.

And Lieutenant!]

Ensign Meihowa called out to Lieutenant

Imamura. However, Lieutenant Imamura was too busy swearing his head off to Chief

Technician Oh.

[You fool! What the hell did you learn in the

military!? How can you lose our surveillance vehicles to the enemy’s when

you’re controlling it?!

Don’t they share

the same function and technology?]

[Ah… you see, it was a sudden attack, as they

came down from the atmosphere, so I was unable to do anything. And there were

two of them at that.]

It was obvious that the surveillance vehicle

was going to stand out; flying over the green jungle carpet.

The only purpose that our surveillance

vehicle had was to publicly announce that it was ready to be shot down, or to

signal our position to an ally.

Hence, the one at fault was not Chief

Technician Yeon-Sik Oh, but Lieutenant Imamura.

However, the Lieutenant refused to take the

blame for his actions.

[What do you mean, you weren’t able to do

anything! Do you really think that’s going to cut it?! Ah, fine! I hold the

power since I’m the one in charge right now, right? I sentence you to death!]

[Lieutenant!]

When Ensign Meihowa called him, Lieutenant

Imamura turned around the Alter-Armour and aimed the large Coil Rifle at Ensign

Meihowa and the Spider.

[What now, Ensign! Are you trying to show off

to me? That my orders were wrong?]

[Calm down, Lieutenant. Our position has been

revealed to the enemy.]

Ensign Meihowa remained calm even in a

situation like this.

I slowly gathered my strength, just in case

this would turn out to be a worst case scenario. If the Lieutenant pulls the

trigger, I would have to protect her.

I must’ve not been the only one who thought

so, because I could hear Sergeant Aroha aiming the Spider’s cannon at the

Alter-Armour.

A standoff!

Everyone froze still at the sight.

….

I wonder how long we stayed like that for.

It was hot.

The military uniform was equipped with heat

dispersion technology, but the Azoran-3 jungle was hot and humid. The

temperature soared while being stuck in the standoff.

“Hmp!”

Lieutenant scoffed and eased the large Coil

Rifle.

[So what if we’re discovered? We will head to

the mining camps and join forces with them. Commander Donna of the 1

st

Mine is an officer I’ve served before. The mining camp has strong defences and

they will think twice before using nuclear or strong firepower if they plan on

reclaiming this planet in good shape. There are Elcro slaves there as well!]

At that moment, an order came from said

Commander Donna. The order came through the military channel and a

dual-transmission one, so it was an ordinary order.

[The approaching platoon, your mission is to

move to the Ateu Plains, located towards the north of the 1

st

Mine,

to stop the enemy’s landings.]

A middle-aged military woman with a mole on

the tip of her nose gave out her orders in a dull voice.

A visual of the Ateu Plains loaded up on the

computer. It was a flat land that was placed between the jungle, and was being

used as a temporary landing pad. Hence, it was an area highly sought after by

the enemy.

She wanted us to stop the enemy from taking

control of that place, with a single platoon? Saying that it was a mission was

no different from euphemising a death sentence.

Even Lieutenant Imamura, with his lacking

imagination reeled back in shock at the order.

[P-Please hold on a moment! Commander Donna!

It’s me, Lieutenant Imamura! I believe there has been a mistake with the order!

I’m also in this platoon, ma’am! It’s supposed to be led by an Elcro

half-breed, but I’m also part of this platoon! Commander Donna! Commander! Hey!

You pig bitch!]

No matter how much Lieutenant Imamura

desperately cried out, Commander Donna cut off the communication and stayed

silent after leaving behind her order.

If we refuse, we will be sentenced to death.

It was a dilemma where we could neither obey nor disobey the order.

That was the unavoidable mission given to the

suicidal bomb platoon by the higher-ups of the 1

st

Mine base.

### 006. Chapter 6. Descent of Kishins!

Another ration of sci-fi military action with battlefield romance!

Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

The sun was setting on Azoran-3.

Lieutenant Imamura was completely dejected

after being abandoned by Commander Donna. He was so dejected that he wasn’t

even able to pilot the Alter-Armour.

So he was demoted to using a Power-Armour,

and Ensign Meihowa reclaimed her right as the Alter-Armour pilot.

And so we started to make camp in the jungle,

while dragging the dejected Lieutenant around like baggage.

“Camping preparations are complete.”

Sergeant Aroha was somewhat more cheerful

than the rest, and saluted Ensign Meihowa. Meihowa was setting up a bug net to

ward off the bugs and responded to the salute.

“It was Luise, wasn’t it? Things really

turned out the way you said it would.”

She must’ve remembered what Admiral Luise

said about ‘we will become the shields for the higher-ups, if we contact them

recklessly’. Admiral Luise wore a bitter smile.

“There must be a lot of soldiers who want to desert right now. Isn’t that right?”

When Admiral Luise asked, Sergeant Aroha

nodded.

“That’s right. Chief Technician Yeon-Sik Oh

wants to pull out, along with his men…. He says that it’s impossible to protect

the Ateu Plains.”

We had to be thankful that the troops were

not rebelling against the officers, since Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha

were popular.

However, no one would be able to predict what

will happen in the future.

I looked up at the sky while drinking some

energy gel. There were no Federation or enemy fleets in sight.

“The Federation must now be careful about

sending fleets here, especially after Tetragrammaton’s attack. It would be

dangerous to send a war fleet only for it to be destroyed by the enemy’s

attack. Diablo is also here, so sending reinforcements will be very, very

risky, and they will be annihilated.”

“So, you mean we won’t be seeing any

reinforcements until either Tetragrammaton or Diablo steps back? But doesn’t

the Punishing Wail have a cooldown period between attacks?”

Admiral Luise nodded her head.

“It needs a minimum of 36 hours of

recharging.”

“Wow… you sure know your stuff. You must be

an Alter-Armour maniac or something?”

When Sergeant Aroha asked suddenly, Pencolt

turned around.

“Did you call me?”

“No, not at all.”

“I thought you meant me by maniac, man.”

“And if we have to make the Tetragrammaton or

Diablo retreat, we have to wait for Kishins to come. The only remaining Kishins

on the Federation’s side are Ursa Major, Wolfschewein, Ladyhawk, and Swangrace.”

Although the Federation only had 4 Kishins in

its possession, we had an upper hand over the enemies. Asas and Elcros had 2

Kishins each and counting Diablo, Elcro would have 3 and the Rebels had Omertà,

so that’s one. So, none of the enemies stood a chance against the Federation.

However, it is a whole new story if the Asas,

Elcros and Rebel Replicant Force formed an alliance. The Federation would fall

behind on the Kishin head count.

Although the Federation had a great deal of

military force, things would change if the enemy uses the Tetragrammaton. If

they recklessly attack with numbers alone, they would be wiped out by

Tetragrammaton with ease.

Therefore, with Tetragrammaton in the enemy’s

possession, the Federation couldn’t rely on numbers alone, but quality.

“Then what can we do to survive?”

Sergeant Aroha asked the key question.

“It would be suicidal to go to the Ateu

Plains for now.”

“But if we don’t go, we cannot escape from

the punishment from the higher-ups; we would be going against their orders.”

“Can’t we go there slowly?”

When I voiced my opinion, everyone shook

their heads.

“No, if we go there slowly and the enemy

takes control of the Ateu Plains, we will still be punished. The granny wanted

us to protect the plains, and we would either be charged for disobedience or

fleeing from battle. In the worst case scenario, we might be executed.”

It was as Sergeant Aroha said. Ensign

Meihowa’s face turned grim.

This truly was a do-or-die, checkmate type

situation. However, Admiral Luise had a different idea.

“Let us wait for a little bit longer.”

“Huh?”

“The enemy will attack the mining base first,

so we will pretend to go to the mining base instead; saying ‘the priority of

protecting the higher-ups is far greater than the Ateu Plains’. That way, we

will escape from the situation unscathed.”

“But the enemy must attack the mining base

first instead of the Ateu Plains for your plan to work.”

“That is not too difficult.”

Admiral Luise winked as she said that. Aroha

and Meihowa didn’t appear to be convinced, but I wholly trusted Admiral Luise’s

words.

“Then the problem is our complaining

soldiers; what should we do with them?”

Ensign Meihowa asked seriously to Admiral

Luise. Although Admiral Luise was currently

a lower rank than Ensign Meihowa, Meihowa was being highly respectful.

I was happy that Admiral Luise was being

respected the way she should be, but why wasn’t the Ensign treating me the same

way?

“We cannot do anything about the complaining

soldiers. We will try to persuade them, but if that fails, we will have to let

them go.”

◊

After having a simple meal consisting of

rations, I sat on top of the Spider. The material used for the Spider’s

exterior was cool to the touch. I should sleep here during the night to avoid

the humidity and sticky air.

I must’ve not been the only one who had the

idea, because someone else was approaching the Spider.

At a closer look, it turned out to be Ensign

Meihowa. She leaned against the Spider and lowered herself slowly, sighing in

the process.

After pondering whether or not I should

strike up a conversation with her, I jumped down from the Spider and landed in

front of her.

“Whoa! Ah… it’s just you, Greenie.”

“Hmm, Ensign. Why are you here by yourself?

Were you able to convince the complaining soldiers?”

“It was way too much for me. Bravo Squad

plans to follow Chief Technician Oh and desert. Charlie Squad will remain and

look after the injured Alpha Squad…”

“And what about Lieutenant Imamura?”

“He plans to leave with Chief Technician Oh.”

“That’s for the better. But I’m not sure if

Chief Technician Oh will let him survive in that group.”

This situation was largely Lieutenant

Imamura’s fault. However, he chose to stay away from the injured Alpha Squad

(who were injured because of him) and leave with the others.

However, the issue was that the ones who were

staying behind were much nicer than the ones who deserted. So although

Lieutenant Imamura was the one who caused this situation, his life would be

spared here at least.

But seeing as he left with the Bravo squad…

he would be killed in a blink of an eye.

“Well aren’t you talking big, Lezirth. Know

your place as a Greenie.”

“Hmm, no. The true Greenie this time around

was Lieutenant Imamura, not me. Don’t you agree?”

I did decide to accept being called a Greenie

before… but I still didn’t like it. I’m Lezirth Dawnbringer— the Commander of

the Dawn Corps! I couldn’t quite tell them to admire me, but the least they

could do is to show some respect.

“But will that be okay, Ensign Meihowa? You

and Sergeant Aroha aren’t pure Earthlings, are you? Admiral Luise didn’t

mention it out loud, but you could always surrender to the enemy.”

It was silly of me, as an officer of the

Federation, to say this, but there was no need for her or Sergeant Aroha to risk

their lives for the Federation. Ensign Meihowa showed a sad smile.

“What’s gotten into you, Greenie? Saying

something great like that.”

Her calm and collected act was over. The girl

before my eyes was now an emotional and tender girl. This must be what she’s

usually like.

“You do realize saying that will get you

straight to the courts, don’t you? You are suggesting me to submit to the

enemy. Do you even realize how much of a grave crime that is…”

“The Meihowa I know won’t bring me to the

courts for something like that.”

“What do you even know about me?!”

She was someone who never became angry no

matter how much her authority as a platoon leader was challenged. However, she

was angry now.

Even so, I kept a serious expression and

spoke.

“When people are driven to the brink of their

patience and life itself, they reveal their true selves. Most of the time, the

ugly or the unsightly, to say the least, surfaces. But Ensign Meihowa, you have

kept your calm up until now, even when you are inexperienced. That is very

commendable and beautiful. You can take pride in that.”

“….”

Ensign Meihowa appeared to be shocked at my

words. Some colour returned to her face.

“Y-You don’t have to say that. You are a

very, very strange person, Lezirth. When I look at you… you really sound old.”

Well, it’s true that I’m very old. Anyhow,

Ensign Meihowa coughed after hearing what I said. She appeared to be less

agitated than before, and calmed down.

“B-But doesn’t that mean you and Luise, who

continued to stay calm, are… um… beautiful as well? Aren’t you just praising

yourself?”

Her wings fluttered and sprinkled some specks

of light. Her tone was sharp and somewhat stressed, but she definitely appeared

to be feeling better than before, so that put my heart at ease.

“In that case, it is ‘cool’ of me to exclude

myself from the description.”

“Cool, you say? Ha, ha ha ha. Really now… you

really are an interesting person. You’re so relaxed even in a situation like

this. I feel like I can forget about the situation, even for a moment, when I’m

talking with you.”

Ensign Meihowa smiled for a brief moment, but

quickly turned grim as if being reminded of the unfortunate reality.

“I would be seen as a more hateful enemy

compared to a human in their eyes… because I am an officer of the Federation.

Think about it. Me, this winged girl who is willing to kill her fellow Elcros

for her own selfish reasons. Do you think they can forgive someone like that?”

Saying that, she buried her face in her

knees. She was hurt by her own words.

“Then why did you join the Armed Forces?”

“Well… because the general idea of an Elcro

woman is to be obedient and be treated like dirt. It was suffocating to live

among people who had that sort of mentality. My biological father wanted to

write me off to some big shot in the Federation as a wife. But I wanted to

escape from my father’s control and the only way to do so was to join the Armed

Forces.”

“…”

I heard a lot about officers who offered

bribes for their promotion, and I’ve personally had bribes come in and had been

quite taken aback by them before.

But to think there are people who would offer

their own daughter as a bribe…. How can a bastard like that be allowed to

exist?

“Well, he argued for his actions saying that it

was to secure the future in the Federation or some rubbish. So I wanted escape

from him, and the fastest way to do so was to join the Armed Forces. I didn’t

think too deeply about it, to be honest. Then I finally realized something

while training in the academy. That I would have to aim my gun at Elcros in the

future…”

After saying so, Meihowa became quiet as a

mouse.

I could feel something rising up inside me as

I looked at her. It was impossible for me to understand the pain this girl went

through in her life.

However, my heart was aching with her as I

saw her in pain.

She was a victim of the Federation. Because

of the war with the Elcro race, slaves were taken and from the slavery and

discrimination in the Federation, she found the only way to protect herself—to

join the Armed Forces.

I raised my voice just for the change of

mood. I was slightly worried that she might think of me weirdly, because of

what I’m about to say next.

“During the AD period, humans formed

militaries to fight against other humans. So the right-wing conservatives

argued that the military was no different than an organized massacre.”

“Huh?”

“However, most of the militants did not

conscript themselves to kill. They simply wanted a stable income and life, and

for self-realization—they didn’t join the military to kill.”

“…”

“I understand why you had to conscript

yourself to the Armed Forces, Ensign. And you mustn't blame yourself for that.

Didn’t you conscript yourself to run away from your demanding father because there

was no other way to protect yourself?”

When I said that, Ensign Meihowa’s eyes

became watery. She looked up at me with rabbit-like eyes.

“N-No one has ever told me those kinds of

things before. Thank you for your words, Lezirth…”

“Don’t sweat it. I mean it from the bottom of

my heart, Ensign.”

“…”

Ensign Meihowa blushed and averted her gaze

away from me.

“B-But I will die here, without changing

anything. To think that I would die by the hands of Elcros, after fleeing the

arranged marriage that my father decided on, and the discrimination against

Elcros. I’m doing this out of my own self-satisfaction, but what about you,

Recruit Lezirth? No, Apprentice Lezirth, what about…”

“No.”

I shook my head.

“Huh?”

Meihowa’s emerald eyes looked back at me. I

cleared my throat and extended my hand to her.

“Your finger, if you will, Ensign Meihowa.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

I was going to make her make a pinky promise

with me; just as I had done with Admiral Luise. Still hesitant, she extended

her hand and I forced her fingers around my own.

“Ensign Meihowa, you are a splendid officer,

but also a splendid human before that. There is no need for you to degrade

yourself. You mustn’t degrade yourself.”

“But…”

“Have some self-respect. And I will protect

you. This is not the place you’re supposed to die. Understood? Promise me.”

“…”

Meihowa studied my face to see if I was being

serious. But she quickly smiled brightly.

“Y-You Greenie… what’s making you so

confident?”

“I’m no Greenie.”

I shook my head.

“I am the Vice Admiral, Lezirth

Dawnbringer—the Commander of the Dawn Corps!”

◊

Elcros were held as slaves in the mines. So

even if the Elcro launch an attack on the mines, they would have to hold their

firepower in check.

Weapons mounted on spacecraft did not have

the ability to differentiate between friends or foes, so there was no reason

for the Elcros to launch a full power offensive on the mines.

Hence, one could say that the mines were

holding hostages. And we were the ones who came to those who held the hostages,

and tried to ask them to share some of their space with us.

So Commander Donna was being fair in some

sense when she ordered our platoon to go on a suicide mission. Although this

platoon consisted of mainly Replicants and half-breeds, she still would’ve

ordered the same mission to any other platoon.

I chose to understand Commander Donna for

now.

And she better understand what we were about

to do now.

Admiral Luise stretched her fingers and took

out the keyboard for the military computer. By using the computer, she hacked

into the temporary security camera circuit and loaded up some visuals.

The circuit was cut off to all connections

apart from the military one, and we were able to see everything in the mines by

hacking into it. But of course, hacking into the circuit was like stealing

candy from a baby for Admiral Luise. She was the one who created the

Federation computer system in the first place.

If she was able to get visuals from the

military connection, then that must mean she already finished hacking into the

entire military computer system with ease. An ordinary hacker would boast about

hacking into the system, but she must’ve kept quiet about it because it was

elementary for her.

“Now, I will hack into the system to

camouflage ourselves onto the Ateu Plains, so we’ll trick them into thinking we

were there. Also, please keep it a secret that I’m capable of something like

this.”

Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha were

flabbergasted, after seeing what Admiral Luise just did. Someone who was able

to hack into the military computer posed a threat to the entire Federation.

Asa and Elcro civilizations had no

connections to the Human-Race. However, Replicants shared the same fundamental

basis as human beings, and a Replicant being able to hack into the system was a

game changing piece.

Hence, Replicant Rebels must be attempting to

hack into the Federation system on a daily basis, but they wouldn’t have

succeeded just yet.

But Admiral Luise was hacking into the

Federation system right before their eyes. Thanks to her, we were able to stay

safe and ‘carry out’ Commander Donna’s orders.

However, we realized there might not have

been the need to go to all that trouble. Elcro miners were currently tied up

and sprawled on the ground.

Damn it… Are they using them as human

shields? If they plan to leave the Elcros like that for extended periods of

time, they will all die from dehydration. This planet’s heat was nothing to

scoff at, after all.

“Damn it…”

“Hmm. The enemy won’t lightly overlook the

situation if there’s something like that.”

Admiral Luise started to concentrate. She

must’ve used clairvoyance to sense any enemy’s space fleets.

“The enemy is fast approaching. They are

headed to the mines.”

As expected. Having the Elcros act as human

shields aggravated the enemy to launch an attack.

On this planet where the temperature would

stay approximately 50 degrees Celsius during the day, the Elcro captives will

die in one or two hours from dehydration.

The mining base must’ve used the Elcro

captives as a warning and a hostage to the enemy, using a cruel method at that.

But the enemy saw that action as an obligation to launch an attack.

Unmanned drones started to pour down from the

sky like rain. The enemy must’ve deployed drones instead of the warships to

intimidate the mining base first.

Surface-to-air missiles and rockets started

to fire from the base in response. However, the unmanned drones outnumbered the

missiles.

If that wasn’t despairing enough, the sky

split in half and a black object fell straight down like lightning from the

sky, and stopped to hover slightly above the ground.

—Shoowooooo

The air burst into flames all of a sudden,

and from the fire emerged a giant, black, beetle-shaped Alter-Armour.

Two gigantic horns, long limbs, a slim body

but a frightening face, the gigantic Alter-Armour measuring over 40m.

It was the Kishin Diablo, nicknamed Black Tyrant!

The Diablo, one of the 12 Kishin-class

Alter-Armours, originally in the Federation’s possession, but was now in the

hands of the Elcro. It descended from the atmosphere and landed near the mines.

The Kishin, while still hovering, rolled its

neck and flexed its arms like a human fighter would before stepping into the

ring. Two spots of light that shone from its black, shiny, armour on his head

resembled human eyes.

Every single movement that it made was

arrogant and prideful. Everyone could agree that it was overly arrogant, even

though it didn’t have any facial expressions. Also, Diablo didn’t have any

special equipment apart from the cape on its back.

[S-Shoot down the Diablo! We can break down

the enemy’s will if we destroy that!]

Commander Donna’s voice echoed out from the

military terminals.

Is this lady out of her mind? A Kishin

wouldn’t be called a Kishin if it could be defeated by something like

surface-to-air missiles.

However, soldiers lived and died by the

orders given. When the Commander’s order was issued, every soldier stationed at

the mines started to focus their attacks on Diablo.

A tremendous amount of missiles, plasma

cannons and high-mass beams bombarded Diablo. However, when Diablo flapped its

cape, its entire body turned half-transparent and all attacks passed through

it.

It escaped the attack by using Phase Shift to

remove itself from reality for a few moments.

Diablo escaped the attacks unscathed with

ease. The soldiers’ despair-ridden voices resounded over the terminals.

[Damn it!]

[Is that what Kishins are like?!]

[We’re all gonna die!]

Complaints arose from the soldiers in the

mines.

That was understandable of course, because

all of their attacks were ignored by the Diablo in vain. Well, Phase Shift was

not that much of a big deal, and seeing how the Federation soldiers were in

despair, it seemed like they had never seen an Alter-Armour equipped with the

ability before.

Ensign Meihowa clenched her lips.

“They’ll be annihilated like this. What

should we do? Should we go and aid them?”

“No.”

I stopped her. The enemy had a Kishin-class

Alter-Armour on the field and it would be suicidal to go aid them with a

half-filled platoon. I could survive and hold up against it on my own, but I couldn’t

guarantee the safety of the other soldiers.

And furthermore, the Elcro miners were being

held hostage, so the odds of great attacks from the enemy was low.

However, something surprising happened.

[Surrender.]

After avoiding the barrage of attacks, Diablo

crossed its arms and spoke arrogantly while looking down at the mines. No, it

was the pilot who spoke from the speakers on the Diablo, to be specific.

[I cannot sacrifice my innocent kin just to

chase off you vile people, albeit the terrible crimes you’ve committed.

Surrender. If you surrender now, I will spare your lives and spare you any

torture. It is a waste to hold any emotions for ants like you.]

The pilot sure doesn’t sound like someone who

is recommending people to surrender.

Diablo bent down and stared at the mining

base and shells began to pour down from the sky. Elcro-Asa-Replicant soldiers

jumped out from the shells and surrounded the base.

The Federation soldiers abandoned their arms

at the sight.

Ensign Meihowa turned off the visuals of the

mining base.

“At least they won’t die.”

“That’s a relief. We should stay low for now.

Although the mining base soldiers won’t die, there is no need for us to also be

captured, is there?”

Ensign Meihowa sighed at what Admiral Luise

said. She must’ve been really worried about the safety of the soldiers at the

mining base. She was unusually sensitive for a soldier.

I also sighed in relief. Although I did not

know who the pilot of Diablo was, I was glad that the pilot spared the lives of

the Federation soldiers and wrapped up the situation nicely.

That was very commendable even though the

pilot was an enemy.

However, something happened then.

[Arghhh!]

A yell sounded over the terminals. I jumped

up in surprise and checked the computer visuals only to see the deserted

platoon members, Chief Technician Oh and Lieutenant Imamura shooting at the

unmanned drones.

Those fools! Why aren’t they hiding when the

enemy has a Kishin and other soldiers!

Just for the reference, we were currently

hiding near the sea where mangrove-like plants were growing. This was a point

that we chose after much consideration to hide the Spider and the Minion-class

Alter-Armour. We were safe from the unmanned drones and surveillance vehicles.

“Oh no, Bravo Squad and the rest were just

moving through the jungle when they were spotted by the unmanned surveillance

vehicles.”

Admiral Luise quickly explained the

situation to us.

Damn it, why didn’t they just surrender….

The pilot of Diablo appeared to be someone

who disliked bloodshed, but there was a slim chance of the Kishin not attacking

the squad that was acting independently, and without a hostage at that. Also,

that chance was further reduced as Bravo Squad opened fire first.

[Arrgg! Die you alien fuckers!]

[Hiyaaa!]

Shouting lines that might be heard in an SF

film from the AD, they fired their Coil Rifles. The rifles spat fire and hit

the drones.

What was displayed on the computer was like a

scene out of a war film.

“W-What should we do?”

Charlie Squad muttered to themselves while

hiding in the water.

“What can we do—we’ll die if we come out of

here!”

“But are you saying that we should just watch

Bravo Squad being killed?!”

“Damn it! Lieutenant Imamura can die for all

I care! But Bravo Squad is…”

Conflict started to take place among the

soldiers. Even Ensign Meihowa was trembling.

As their officer, she must not disregard the

lives of her soldiers so easily. However, going to rescue them was suicidal and

she knew that she would be sentencing everyone here to death if she ordered

them to go and aid the Bravo squad.

Seeing her being torn between the choices

that she had before her, I made my decision.

“I’ll go. Ensign Meihowa, you stay here and

calm down Charlie Squad.”

“Are you out of your mind?! Bravo Squad is

130 kilometers away from us! By the time you arrive, they’ll…”

Ensign Meihowa’s words trailed off. Then, the

other soldiers all complained.

“You’ll have to be a SSS-class Teleporter to

travel 130km in an instant.”

“He must really think that he’s the Dawn

Corps Commander.”

“T-Then isn’t he just a lunatic? Is it really

OK to arm a lunatic?”

“OK, Lezirth. I’ll give you full support!”

Admiral Luise looked at me and hacked into

the computer system again. She disconnected the communication between me and

the other soldiers and ordered the others to take cover.

Other soldiers took cover, disappearing from

my sight in the process and only Ensign Meihowa, Sergeant Aroha and Admiral

Luise remained by my side.

“Please keep what you’re about to see a

secret, Meihowa, Aroha.”

I winked at both of them, and attempted to

teleport.

### 007. Chapter 7. Isolation

Well, it's Sunday where I live, so here it is!

Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

There was a research centre that studied

teleportation abilities on Epiece-2’s moon, Epiece-2α, and in that research

centre was a teenage boy simply labelled ‘A’.

The boy was an orphan, and he teleported over

100 times a day for the researchers, in order to earn money. And when A

teleported and returned to the centre, he was no longer the same boy.

Boy A destroyed Epiece-2α with frightening

force, and by the time the navy arrived to take control of the situation, they

found Epiece-2α infested with space fungi. Every kind of life form on that moon

had become nutrients for the fungi colony. Only boy A remained, walking around

the fungi field without batting an eye.

When the gunmen arrived and blew off A’s

head, thousands of tentacles escaped from the boy’s body. The tentacles greatly

exceeded the boy’s body mass, and covered the moon in moments.

As a result, the naval officers concluded

that Epiece-2α must be completely destroyed.

And henceforth, the moons of Epiece-2 have

been named from Epiece-2β.

◊

Creatures unknown to men existed in

hyperspace.

And the Teleportation ability, which was

performed by jumping into that hyperspace, may spell the end of humanity.

Lezirth Dawnbringer, the Commander of Dawn

Corps— a warrior who knows no fear.

That was what I was called, but there were

two things that I was afraid of: dentists, and teleporting.

However, I had to resort to the latter when

there was a need to.

“Urpp…”

I felt sick as soon as I returned back to the

usual dimension. After reassuring myself that I was back in reality, I quickly

checked the time on the computer.

A difference of 0.1 seconds, what a relief.

If the difference were any greater, then it would have meant that I stayed in

hyperspace for a longer period of time.

And the longer I stay in hyperspace, the

greater the probability of the hyperspace polluting me. I might end up becoming

something completely different. Even thinking about it gave me the creeps.

Luckily, 0.1 seconds was not a bad time.

I didn’t die or turn into something

completely different during teleportation.

I want to find my Dawnbringer soon. No,

desiring my Dawnbringer is too greedy of me, even any Alter-Armour would do.

The possibility of me being polluted by

hyperspace was greatly reduced if I travel in an Alter-Armour. That was because

Alter-Armour and teleportation both originated from Letix. Since Letix are

inhabitants of hyperspace, they possessed strong resistance against the

pollution.

Ah, now that I think about it, maybe I

should’ve borrowed Ensign Meihowa’s Alter-Armour just for the teleport. Wait

no, she would have to die for me to pilot it, since I am registered as the

backup pilot.

No, I shouldn’t have to worry about the

register system since Admiral Luise already hacked into the Federation system.

But wait, that would be like announcing to the entire world that she just

hacked the Federation computer system.

My hatred for teleporting grew even stronger

as those thoughts raged inside my head. Damn it.

Suddenly, I spotted a hoard of unmanned

surveillance vehicles flying approximately 1 km ahead of me.

◊

Although Chief Technician Yeon-Sik Oh was

part of the Technician staff, he had some experience with warfare.

They mounted the Colion Rifles on tripods,

forming a makeshift mortar, and shot smart bombs up into the sky.

As the smart bombs detonated in mid-air, its

shrapnel took down unmanned drones with ease. And thanks to the high oxygen

density property of this planet, the shrapnel burst into flames and doubled the

attack power.

Compared to the time when the platoon was

nearly annihilated by two USVs while being led by Lieutenant Imamura, Chief

Technician Oh was certainly doing significantly better, and against greater

numbers at that.

However, he would get himself killed at this

rate.

“Hey you! Stop fighting and take cover

underwater, or just surrender!”

I suggested them to surrender as I approached

them from behind. They didn’t bother turning around because they were too busy

firing their Colion Rifles desperately.

“What! Who are you?! Do you want to get your

ass taken to the courts?!”

“Greenie?! What’s going on? Weren’t you with

the Charlie squad?!”

Some of the soldiers recognized me and

started to freak out.

At that moment, Alter-Armours started to fly

towards us, passing the unmanned drones. Alter-Armours were equipped with much

larger equipments than a soldier, and the Alter-Armour leading them held a

giant Colion Rifle aimed at the Bravo squad.

—Boom!

A giant explosion occurred from a single

shot.

The plasma that flew at nearly Mach 40

disintegrated everything in its path. A great shockwave rushed towards the

Bravo squad and it was strong enough to flip a military vehicle over.

However, I met the shockwave head on and

redirected it with my hands.

—Kwaaaaa

The shockwave split in half and rushed to

either side of me, shaking up the entire Azoran jungle. The Bravo squad members

were protected from the shockwave thanks to me.

“Shit…. W-What just happened?”

“God damn! Was that just you, Lezirth?”

Bravo Squad members all asked me in surprise.

I turned around and yelled at them.

“Everyone hide!”

The attack from the Alter-Armour just now

meant that the enemy recognised us as a threat that should be taken out. They

didn’t shoot the Colion Rifle just as a warning shot, or randomly into this

vast jungle.

If we showed no response, they will think that

we died from the attack just now, for sure. The only way for the Bravo squad to

survive is to fool the Alter-Armour group and to let them pass over us.

Most of the Bravo squad understood my

intentions and hid underwater, in the swamp and under the tree roots. Chief

Technician Oh also obeyed me and jumped into the water. At that instant...

—Boom!

The head of the Alter-Armour that attacked us

just now exploded. The armour around its head was destroyed but the damage

wasn’t sufficient enough to stop it from functioning.

I turned around in surprise and saw

Lieutenant Imamura holding the Colion Rifle and snickering.

“Take that, you fools. This is…”

“You dumbass!”

I yelled at him in shock.

Things started to unfold as I expected! The Alter-Armours

saw the direction of the attack and aimed their guns this way. It wasn’t the

lead Alter-Armour who was aiming at us, but all of them.

With firepower much greater than our normal

Colion Rifles, I could just imagine the Bravo squad being wiped out instantly.

“We can’t have that!”

The enemies’ guns fired away at the same

time, and I used my telekinesis to project a barrier.

I have to resist the attacks from the enemy

Alter-Armours and protect the Bravo squad! But at the same time… I have to

trick the enemies into believing that their attacks were effective. Otherwise,

I would have to fight the Kishin Diablo myself, but that was a stretch, even

for me.

—Bzzz!

Plasma shots were deflected by the barrier.

As the gray barrier blocked all heat and light from hitting us, I turned

around.

All of the Bravo squad members were in hiding

and screaming at the top of their lungs. However, they were safe thanks to my

barrier.

However...

—Crackle!

Some of the plasma storm touched the water.

With that, water quickly boiled and electrocuted every soldier in the water.

Damn

it!

“

Gasp…

gasp

… you… you blocked the Alter-Armours’ attacks? You must be a SSS-class

psychic!”

Without even bothering to catch his breath,

Lieutenant Imamura talked to me while clenching his Colion Rifle in his chest.

“This is an order, soldier. Fight! Destroy

those Alter-Armour and retreat! This is an order! You’ll end up in the courts

if you dare to refuse!”

Lieutenant Imamura must be at his wits end,

because he was already foaming at the mouth. Only a few hours had passed since

the last time I saw this man, but he was shrivelled up beyond recognition.

The jungle on Azoran-3 was quite humid and

one needed to hydrate himself frequently; but it seemed like Bravo Squad

refused to give any water to Lieutenant Imamura. And as a consequence, he was

having a mental breakdown.

“Heh heh heh! Die, all of you!”

Although I still had my barrier up, Lieutenant

Imamura tried to shoot up at the Alter-Armours.

Damn it, does he plan on getting killed?

I quickly spun the Bayonet and slashed

through the Colion Rifle in his hand to prevent him from shooting.

“Kuu! How dare you! What do you think you’re

doing to your superior! Ah, I see! Why you! You must be on the Elcros’ side! I

knew something was wrong when you helped that Elcro woman!”

Lieutenant Imamura started to charge at me

for no reason. When I avoided his charge, he ended up going through the grey

barrier.

And… he disintegrated in a blink of an eye.

That was to be expected because he received

all of the Alter-Armours’ attacks head-on; it would be impossible to even

recover his corpse.

“Lieutenant! Damn it!”

Although he wasn’t a great person, losing

someone before your eyes was still painful. And he was in this state because he

suffered torture from the Bravo squad.

Should I even let these guys live? I looked

at the Bravo squad for a moment, but decided to put that thought on hold. I’ll

save them for now.

Soon, the Alter-Armours’ attacks ceased.

“Hmm… you reckon they’ll be alive after all

that?”

“Let’s deploy the surveillance vehicles.”

Those Alter-Armour pilots weren’t

communicating via the terminal but via normal methods.

I quickly spread the cape on my left

shoulder.

This Psychic Reacting Optical Camouflage cape

was able to hide the user from light, heat or sonar sensors, by supplying a

slight amount of psychic power.

A powerful psychic user like myself would be

able to hide himself without using a cape like this, but using one can increase

the area being obscured from the sensors.

The USVs activated their heat and sonar

sensors while flying through the jungle. However, there was a plasma storm that

still remained after the attack, so heat and sonar sensors were of no use; we

just had to avoid being caught visually.

Thankfully, the surveillance vehicles scanned

the jungle floor and recorded the broken vehicles, equipment and a few corpses

that were caught up by the storm.

“They’re all dead.”

“Don’t you think we have to look into it in

more detail?”

“Nah, it’s fine. Judging from the attack from

before, the group wasn’t that big anyway. There’s no way they could possibly

resist bombardment from Alter-Armours. Our attacks are powerful enough to melt

down fortresses, you know?”

“Then let’s go back and report.”

The Alter-Armours lost interest and returned.

◊

Despite my attempts, only five people

survived from the Bravo squad and the rest died. The ones who hid underwater

were electrocuted by the plasma attacks, and those who weren’t wearing their

helmets throughout the plasma storm also died.

The helmets supplied by the Federation were

an open-space type, so it was easy to disregard it as useless, but it was

equipped with an air filtration system. It would be foolish of people to take

it off just because it’s uncomfortable.

The five survivors were too injured to stay

conscious and passed out.

I forced them into combat suits and switched

on the Life Support System (LSS), since they were too injured to be stable with

the normal LSS in the military uniform.

Luckily, the figures on the combat suit LSS

told me they were going to be okay and will recover.

However, that was assuming that these

soldiers receive some medical attention, nutrients and water. They will

certainly die if I just leave them here.

“Accompanied Teleportation is really

dangerous… and there are five of them at that. What should I do?”

AT was much more dangerous compared to Single

Teleportation. Teleporting with objects was slightly better, but there was the

possibility of luring out hyperspace monsters when teleporting with another

human.

But I can’t leave them here and I don’t have

the right equipment to take them by normal methods… Must I teleport?

Luckily for me, these soldiers were

unconscious. They were more stable than a cognitive human who would be flailing

around.

I took them and teleported close to where

Charlie Squad was in hiding.

“Ugh… damn it, I’m gonna die like this.”

Even I found AT to be extremely difficult.

Theoretically, I could teleport solo over 10,000 km if I’m not attacked by any

hyperspace monsters on the jump.

However, with solar flare, electronic waves,

human life force, other factors, and interference, that figure was brought down

to 4000 km.

But from that, taking others along further

lowered that distance to about 500 km. Human life force itself was interference

in teleportation, yet I still managed to pull that off…

Luckily, we all arrived safe and sound. I

checked for the time difference and there was 0.4 seconds difference—a good

figure considering I just jumped with 5 people.

‘I could’ve ended up being lost in

hyperspace. I hope no pollution took place.’

I gathered my breath and waited for the

light-headedness to pass. At that moment, something rustled from the jungle.

Huh? Is it a monster?

I clenched the Bayonet and the Rifle for the

worst case scenario. However, the faces that emerged from the jungle were very

familiar to me.

“Lezirth!”

“Ah, Luise… and Ensign Meihowa?”

Admiral Luise was shocked when she saw the

injured Bravo Squad.

“Did you teleport with five people

accompanying you? How could you do something so dangerous!”

“Ah, they appear to be unconscious, so it was

okay.”

Admiral Luise looked at me unhappily. She

seemed to be upset at the fact that I recklessly risked my life to save others.

One might say that she was overreacting when

I actually had done a good deed, but I understood her perfectly, because as a

psychic user herself, she knew better than anyone else how dangerous

Accompanied Teleportation was.

She was genuinely concerned about me, more

than anyone else.

“Oh my word… what happened?”

Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha were

shocked at the state of Bravo Squad. They were in a terrible shape and

unconscious, but alive.

“To think… you would actually rescue the

Bravo squad!”

Ensign Meihowa looked at me in disbelief.

Sergeant Aroha raised her thumb and winked.

“We should be calling you a war hero rather

than a Greenie now. You might actually receive a medal. I would believe you if

you say you are the Vice Admiral Lezirth.”

“Please keep our powers a secret from the

higher-ups.”

Admiral Luise’s expression became stern as

she warned them.

I agreed with her about hiding our identity.

The current Federation was not the same Federation that she and I once joined.

Revealing our identities might end with us being purged again.

“Why? But your powers are…”

“Because we are not registered psychic users.

We would like to remain that way. Lezirth, did they witness your powers?”

“I believe they did. Although it was only for

a moment before they passed out.”

“Hmm, then I will modify their memories of

the event.”

After saying that, Admiral Luise looked at

Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha. Sergeant Aroha flexed and hunched her

shoulders in surprise.

“Woah, so scary. Okay, I won’t say a thing.

You don’t plan on modifying my memories as well, do you?”

“I won’t say a thing.”

Ensign Meihowa also read the mood and agreed

to it.

Admiral Luise smiled shyly. However, those

golden eyes of hers weren’t smiling at all.

“Fu fu, yes, I understand. I knew I could

trust you, Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha. You know how to respect people.”

Wow, she even scared me. Isn’t she indirectly

blackmailing Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha right now? Yet she wasn’t

challenging their dignity. Someone like her is extremely terrifying when

angered.

“Gre… no, Lezirth, are you okay? Are you

injured?”

Ensign Meihowa looked at me. Well, there

wasn’t a single scratch on me, I just felt light-headed. But the Ensign sounded

gentler than before. Was that just in my head though?

“I’m fine. I’m just a bit worn out.”

“Hmm, but… ah, that’s right. I have to thank

you first. Thank you, Apprentice Lezirth. We would all be dead right now if it

wasn’t for you.”

Ensign Meihowa thanked me.

“Ah, no problem. I only did what was

necessary and I wasn’t the only one who suffered. That aside, we have to move

these guys quickly. Otherwise, they’ll die. Huh?”

As I talked, Ensign Meihowa held my sleeve.

“… Ah, u-um, and I have another thing to say,

Apprentice Lezirth.”

Hmm, what could it be? I wondered what this

half-Elcro girl wanted, as she held onto my sleeve with slight hesitation. But

for some reason I could feel daggers flying at me from a pair of golden eyes

beside me.

I wonder why? I turned around in confusion

and saw Admiral Luise smiling.

“You should rest if you’re tired, Lezirth.

This way, please.”

She cut in between Ensign Meihowa and I and

held my arm. But there’s no need to go that far…

“Hmm.”

“Whew…”

Ensign Meihowa and Admiral Luise’s gaze met

in mid-air and produced sparks.

Hmm, what was that? I feel like I just saw

some ‘bzzt’ spark effects just now.

“N-Now then.”

I quickly busied myself moving the survivors

with the help of the Charlie squad.

◊

In case of an emergency, the Federation

standard kit included a range of necessary equipment for survival. With that

equipment, it was even possible to survive in a planet without an atmospheric

layer, but they performed best where oxygen was abundant.

In that respect, Azoran-3 was perfect for

survival due to its high oxygen density.

I installed the electronic, UV-ray and sonar

deflecting camouflage net over the mangrove jungle and jumped down from the

tree.

“Hiiick!”

The soldiers who were watching me from

underneath yelped in surprise. It wasn’t surprising to hear them yelp because

mangrove trees measured approximately 7~8m tall, and jumping down with the

Azoran-3 gravity in effect was no easy feat.

However, I grabbed a vine on my way down,

slowing my fall, and landed lightly on the ground.

“What are you all surprised about? Hurry up

and set up the water filter.”

However, the soldiers were slow to move. Ah,

of course. They aren’t even properly trained Space Marines, they were just

improperly trained Recruits up until now.

I personally took the water filter and

installed it in the mineral-rich sea. It filtered out minerals from the water,

as well as microbes, and was able to purify approximately 50 litres per hour.

On a planet like Azoran-3, where the water was quite clear, we might be able to

receive purified water at a faster rate. Only one was supplied to each squad,

but luckily there was a spare, and I was able to install two.

“Hmm, I should lay the pipes along the

mangrove roots so that it doesn’t get caught by a surveillance vehicle… I

suppose the shell will do as the water tank.”

The training shell interior was completely

welded together, so it was both airtight and waterproof. If I hook the water

pipe into the shell, nearly 5 tonnes of water could be stored. Since we don’t

know how long we’ll stay on this planet… we must be prepared for the worst.

“Squad Leader, use the Power-Armour and move

the training shell under the mangrove roots.”

The Squad Leader used the Power-Armour and

lifted the training shell. However, he was not familiar with using the

Power-Armour just yet, so his movements were very unstable.

I secretly used my psychic powers to aid its

steps and directed him to set the shell down where I told him to.

“Now then, let’s connect the pipes, shall

we?”

After switching the Colion Rifle to welding

mode, I turned it on. Thankfully, it was working perfectly.

I used it to weld the water pipe onto the

training shell and formed a giant water tank from it. In order to ensure stable

water pressure, I attached a medical cylinder pressurized pump into the mouth

of the pipe.

Although I was recognized as a Greenie among

the soldiers, my skills shone with my war experiences. I may not have been able

to perform at the best of my abilities because of the sudden 120 years’ worth

of change, but those mistakes will never happen again.

“Good, that’s done. We should even be able to

take showers when we collect enough water in the tank. The only problem is the

temperature…”

Azoran-3’s temperature climbed to a

staggering figure of 50 degrees Celsius during the day. The issue was not the

heat, however, but the fact that it was very humid and felt like a sauna.

The planet was very windy and humid. Although

these mangroves provided some cooling effect by absorbing the sea water and

decreasing the temperature by 20 degrees, it still was 30 degrees with 80%

humidity levels.

I continued to check the temperature and the

humidity levels, and searched for an ideal place for us to rest. I ripped out

the cooler from a broken vehicle and let the temperatures stabilize by

disconnecting the radiator under the water.

Letting the heat escape in the air would set

off detection by surveillance vehicles, but they would not be able to detect

the change of heat in the water, and the radiator’s efficiency would also

rise—it was like killing two birds with one stone.

And so, when I set up a tent near the

mangrove tree roots, and turned on the Thorium nuclear-powered cooler, the

temperature dropped to approximately 20 degrees. That alone made water droplets

form on the tent-top.

“People might even catch a cold when sleeping

like this. Maybe I should split the tent into male, female and officers’

quarters.”

As I constructed makeshift quarters, recruits

gathered around me. I wondered what they were about to do when Charlie Squad’s

leader extended his hand to me.

“Erm, hey, Lezirth? Sorry for bullying you

before.”

“Huh?”

“Um… I’m really sorry about before. I excluded

you from the squad, so can you forgive us?”

Ah, that’s right… all of the squad leaders

did exclude me before. They must still be caught up about that fact. I smirked

at them.

It was true that I was excluded, and felt

despair at the treatment of greenies’. However, I was disappointed at myself,

not anyone else.

No, I didn’t even consider them my equal to

be upset or angry about. Isn’t it ridiculous to picture a Vice Admiral to be

bickering with fresh Recruits?

I was looking down on them, of course, I was

being extremely arrogant. The fact of the matter is, I was a Vice Admiral, but

that was in the past. I had to fight with these guys for our survival.

“It’s fine, I’m not that concerned with it.

Don’t we have to combine our strengths for our survival and for the future?

That aside, hurry up and carry the goods into the quarters. The camouflage net

is only useful for protection from electronic or sonar detection, but it is

useless against optic sensors.”

I left them after giving them my orders.

Sergeant Aroha and Ensign Meihowa were coming

back after hiding the Spider and the Alter-Armour under the sea. They appeared

to have searched long and hard for an ideal place that was undetected by radar

or by sight.

“Oh my, you already finished setting up the

quarters?”

“Not bad!”

They shouted their praise while looking at

the water filter system and the sleeping quarters.

“Did you do as I instructed you to, Ensign?”

The Ensign and the acting Platoon Leader had

the authority to restrict hyperspace communication amongst the soldiers.

I instructed her to restrict all usage of

hyperspace communication by the soldiers as well as the restriction of

terminals. That was because the Federation might give up on our rescue

completely.

This platoon was named the ‘Bomb Platoon’.

Hence, that meant that there was a high chance of the Federation abandoning us,

let alone rescuing us. And if the soldiers become aware of this fact, they

might become suicidal, or even rebel.

“I did, but… is that really okay? This is

restricting the soldiers’ rights, and aren’t you also a soldier yourself,

Lezirth?”

I’m an officer, damn it!

But there’s no way she would believe me. I

nodded my head.

“That is the best option for our survival.”

I handed a bottle of purified water to her.

Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha were sweating furiously after wandering

around the jungle in 40~50 degree heat.

“Ah, t-thanks. H-How kind of you, Apprentice

Lezirth.”

Ensign Meihowa took the water bottle and

handed it to Sergeant Aroha.

“The current situation on the hyperspace comm

channel is chaotic.”

Ensign Meihowa explained while she wiped away

her sweat.

Archimedes was destroyed and the news of

Rebel Replicants forming an alliance with other alien races to combat the Federation

has caused a state of panic in the Federation.

Elcro, Asa and Rebel Replicants claimed that

their alliance was formed to combat their common enemy: the Federation. Their

official name was the ‘Criminal Freedom Alliance’. Their current goal was to

abolish the totalitarian rule that the Federation held.

This alliance was surprisingly formed by the

Human-Race, Elcro, Asa, and Replicants. The spokesman for this Alliance was a

human, although that may have been the case only for a symbolic meaning.

A handsome man in the prime of his life began

to speak with confidence, and information about this man was displayed beneath

him.

Richard Kwak. He was a former politician of

the Federation, but surprisingly he joined the Alliance and became their spokesman.

By doing so, this gave the impression to humans, that the Alliance was not

against humanity as a whole, but rather it was a peaceful alien alliance that

included the Human-Race as well.

This was a very wise political move. In fact,

it was too good to believe.

The appearance of the Alliance, and the loss

of Archimedes caused every company’s shares to plummet, and some planets

apparently started to stock up on food. Banks ran out of money for the

customers to withdraw and the Financial Supervision Committee forbade all banks

to allow withdrawals.

“Who knows when we’ll be rescued at this

rate. I think… Lezirth was right in restricting all communication by the

soldiers.”

She stole a quick peek at me after saying

that. She had that look of ‘just who is this guy’ in her eyes.

“I criticized you without knowing your true

value. I apologize, Apprentice Lezirth.”

Ensign Meihowa unhappily opened a pack of

energy-gel. Energy-gel was a real jack-of-all-trades when it came down to

nutrients supplement, ease of consumption and taste.

When we run out of these energy-gels, we

would have to switch to dry rations, then to hunting wild animals on Azoran-3

for consumption.

Although we had 2 months’ worth of rations

remaining, no, a lot longer because of those deaths, I was worried that the

Federation wouldn’t rescue us.

“Isn’t the Alliance… quite attractive for

you, because you carry Elcro blood, Ensign?”

Even I was almost convinced on joining the

Alliance. However, the whole thing seemed to be fishy. It was far too political

and veteran-like for a newly formed group. The timing of their surprise attack

on Archimedes and the announcement of their alliance was too accurate.

Ensign Meihowa

must’ve had the same feelings

as me, because she looked at me with indifferent eyes.

“If there were no politics involved, I would

say that it’s quite attractive.”

Ensign Meihowa loaded up the visuals of

Richard Kwak and glared at him.

“Why’s that?”

“Because this is the man who my father,

Commander Liu, attempted to marry me off to.”

“…”

Damn, then the Alliance wasn’t completely

clean either. Then again, I suppose the possibility of the Alliance forming

without any shady deals would be impossible, because of the racial differences.

“And where is Luise by the way?”

Sergeant Aroha asked after looking around.

“She should be meditating at the most shaded

place in the mangroves.”

Admiral Luise Maynard was one of the very

few Clairvoyance users among the psychics. The Clairvoyance ability allowed her

to collect information without launching an unmanned surveillance vehicle, so

she was able to study the enemy’s movements without being caught. She was a

crucial piece for our survival here.

“I need to bring her back here, now that I’ve

installed a cooler in the quarters, and also, I want you two to keep her powers

a secret. So why don’t you let her stay with you in the officers’ quarters?”

If she shows her skills while being with the

other soldiers, the information could leak out. Anyone with Clairvoyance was

immediately summoned to the Military Headquarters and she would be…

“Okay. I was her roommate before, after all.

What about you, Platoon Leader?”

“I also agree to it. No, that’s what I want.”

Ensign Meihowa didn’t seem to mind it at all.

But it’s what she wanted? What does she mean?

◊

After asking that favour to Meihowa and

Aroha, I went out to find Admiral Luise.

She was meditating under a mangrove tree but

opened her eyes when I approached her. Her golden eyes sparkled under the

mangrove tree’s shadow. Was that an after effect of using her powers?

“Are you okay?”

I passed a bottle of water to her when I saw

her sweating buckets. She accepted the bottle from me and nodded her head.

“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you, Lezirth.”

“I installed a cooler, so please take a break

in the quarters. I asked Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha to allow you to

sleep with them in their quarters.”

“But it’s not time to sleep just yet. And I

wish to wash myself. I sweated too much…”

“There should be enough water in the tank, so

you can use that.”

Although I told her that, she jumped into the

sea that the mangrove roots were dipping in. With a splash sound, water flew in

all directions.

“Ah, that’s better. Come on in, Lezirth.”

“No, but I…”

After hesitating for a moment, I also jumped

in. The sea, surprisingly, was cooler than I thought, compared to this 50

degree weather.

“Lezirth, what do you think about the current

Federation?”

Admiral Luise approached and asked me. I

looked straight at her golden eyes.

In what way did she mean? Did she also watch

the Federation clip?

“To be honest, I believe the Federation is at

fault. The war against the Letix was for survival, but this time, I believe it

is an unnecessary war that is fought for profit. There was no need to wage war

against the Asa or Elcro races…”

“Yes, I also think the same. However, I ended

up being re-enlisted into the army after waking up from the cold sleep, without

having the chance to think about the situation. No, I was forcefully

re-enlisted when I tried to consult the Armed Forces on the situation.”

“…”

She was also forcefully re-enlisted into the

Armed Forces without a choice or a second thought, because we were already part

of the Armed Forces. However, the Federation has changed over the last 120

years.

The only ones that haven’t changed were me

and her. We were prisoners of time in this world set 120 years in the future.

The only one who could understand me was her,

and the only one who could understand her was me.

“What must we do now? Must we remain in the

Federation like this, and become thieves and invaders? Or must we betray the

Federation that we fought to protect, and attack it?”

What Admiral Luise asked me has been on my

mind for a while but I wasn’t able to say it out loud.

If she, the one who hacked into the

Federation’s computer system, chose to betray the Federation, she would be able

to end it without even using the Tetragrammaton.

Destroying the Federation, that certainly was

an option, but it wasn’t one that I was willing to take. Furthermore, I did not

trust the Alliance.

“Why don’t we keep an eye on the situation

for just a bit longer. I don’t think this is a choice that we must make on the

spot. We should keep our eyes on the situation, and then come to a decision. As

for the Alliance… I cannot trust it.”

“I also think so, Lezirth. Then I will follow

you until that time comes.”

Admiral Luise held out her hand to me after

she spoke.

“Please guide me.”

“There is no way I would refuse.”

I held her hand.

### 008. Chapter 8. Dead Sign

Dated release will be based on the time on Baka-Updates.

Anyhow, time for some R&R for our warworn characters!

Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

My mind was disturbed.

Vice Admiral Lezirth Dawnbringer of the 1st

Space Marines, Commander of Dawn Corps; the pillar that will uphold the future

of the Federation.

There was a time when I was called that, but

it wasn’t now.

…

No, no, what am I thinking!

I should still be called that!

I am the one who shoulders the futures of the

government and humanity, and the future of the galaxy to some extent!

However, I am currently an ordinary soldier

and my life was on the line because of the Federation’s cruelty.

But what am I doing?

Where am I? Who am I?

“Here comes the ball!”

Suddenly, a multi-colored beach ball flew

towards me. I hit the ball away with my hand. Waves splashed against my chest.

“Good job, Lezirth!”

Sergeant Aroha laughed and received the beach

ball. Wearing a high-leg, reddish-brown bikini that matched her ardent red

hair, her voluptuous breasts wobbled every time she moved.

They were a threatening pair. And the bikini

that was supporting those breasts was a testimony to the finest synthetic fibre

that the Federation had to offer.

But of course, it would be nice if those

strings just snapped.

No, that was a mistake. I did not mean that

at all. Everyone just skip a line!

When the beach ball fell onto the water,

Admiral Luise swam after it and picked it up. In Admiral Luise’s case, she

wore a 3-piece swimsuit as well as a T-shirt because she felt embarrassed. As

she swam towards the ball, the sight of her white legs, her hips and the pink

swimsuit bottoms entered my sight.

I wonder why women felt less embarrassed

about wearing swimsuit bottoms rather than underwear, when there wasn’t much of

a difference in the area covered by the two.

Maybe they don’t feel as embarrassed because

they don’t consider swimsuits as underwear!?

Those meaningless thoughts ran through my

head. Durr… what am I even doing?

“Hyah!”

When Admiral Luise threw the ball, Ensign

Meihowa caught it this time. She leaped out from the water like a ballerina or

an acrobat, and caught the ball.

Although she was slightly smaller than Aroha,

her firm breasts and healthy glow were eye-catching. The tri-coloured racing

swimsuit, coloured black, navy and white, matched her wings nicely.

But what am I doing right now?

◊

So, Azoran-3 was hot.

And the place where we were located happened

to be the area with the most abundant sunlight.

Why did we land in this area, you ask?

That was because we had to land and train in the

area near the equator in order to use the planet’s rotation to get the extra

boost when leaving this planet.

However, the hot mangrove jungle of Azoran-3

caused us to sweat 2 litres every hour, despite the occasional downpour.

And as we drank more and more water to

rehydrate ourselves, we were suffering from the lack of appetite and

indigestion.

We originally spent our time shivering in

fear inside the quarters. The USVs flew over our heads and many warp gates

started to appear, adding to our fear.

The Elcro-Asa-Replicant Alliance returned

Azoran-3 to the Elcros and began to reclaim the Azoran system as their own

again. Elcros returned to Azoran-3 and began to rework their toils and

reconstruct their destroyed cities.

Warp gates were an intergalactic transportation

technique used by the Elcro. Hence, the appearance of warp gates signalled the

arrival of Elcros on this planet.

And so, we were even more driven by the fear.

◊

A day passed like that.

Admiral Luise instantly understood the

movement patterns of those surveillance vehicles. She analysed the movement

patterns of the surveillance vehicles as well as the time frame for a rotation,

so we only had to be on our guards during some periods of time.

But even then we all stayed in our quarters

and did not bother going outside.

◊

And another day passed.

We expanded our safety net, securing a larger

safe area, and we also returned to the site where the Bravo squad was attacked

and recovered some extra goods and equipment. One of the goods recovered was a

box that contained some necessities for survival, but not for military use.

We do not know how long this situation will

continue for. So we carefully recovered a large amount of goods without being

caught by the surveillance vehicles.

The box was taken to the officers’ quarters

and opened there so that the other soldiers wouldn’t see the contents. If there

were food supplies or important goods inside, a fight might break out amongst

the men.

Soldiers fought over anything and everything

when they were driven to their limits. The last thing we wanted was exactly

that, so it was safer to leave the box in the hands of the officers.

“The box has been damaged from the impact

during the landing, Lezirth. Open it for me.”

I left the box in the officers’ quarters for

the reason I just explained above, yet Sergeant Aroha still called me into the

officers’ quarters. Well, I suppose that just shows how much she trusts me.

Although I was labelled a greenie during the

training, I was the one who led the soldiers and set up the quarters when

things quickly turned serious. Thanks to that, the way the soldiers treated me

was completely different now.

“Well, she could always melt it open with the

welding function on the Colion Rifles…”

I walked into the officers’ quarters while

muttering, but feeling somewhat happy at the same time. And I picked up the

damaged box with my hands.

—Crack.

The metal box broke and cracked open.

Toothpaste, sunscreen, towels, underwear and

various other necessities spilled out from the box. Swimsuits and beach balls

also came out.

Why are those there when this is a military

necessities box?

“Ah! No way! No, no. Could this be…?”

I showed the swimsuits to Sergeant Aroha with

a look of disbelief. She looked at the swimsuits with great interest.

“Hmm? They seem to be brand new. Look, they

still have the tags attached to them.”

“Ah, this must be a personal box. I thought

something was strange. I thought the military started to put swimsuits in the

necessities boxes now. There’s no way these can be for military use.”

“But this is great. Why don’t we try these on

since it’s hot outside?”

“Ehhh? Wait, what?”

I couldn’t believe my ears and I looked at

her.

Sergeant Aroha started to strip down her

uniform slowly before my eyes….

“Whoa! W-What are you doing? Are you out of

your mind, Sergeant! We’re stuck in the middle of a war situation here, you

know! We have to be prepared for a fight at all times!”

“But we’ll be weakened mentally if we

continue to be on the edge. And it’s so hot and stressful.”

“That’s why I set up the cooler.”

“But it’s too boring to stay inside the tents

all the time.”

Get over it!

At that moment, Ensign Meihowa and Admiral

Luise walked in.

“What’s with the box?”

“Ah, this is…”

When I explained about the box, Admiral

Luise peeked at the box and the contents.

“Good.”

Even Ensign Meihowa agreed with Sergeant

Aroha. Huh? What did I just hear? I seriously suspected my ears for a moment.

What’s so good about it?

◊

All of the soldiers cheered.

They were already bored to tears with card

games, gambling and simple computer games and they all cheered at the sudden

discovery of water-play goods. Not only that, the current situation with the

quarters has been continuously improving.

We knew about the enemy’s surveillance

vehicle movement patterns. And after making an automatic motion sensor out of

mechanical parts scavenged from some vehicles, we could afford to have less

people rostered as guards. The purified water tank was at a satisfactory volume

and the quarters were air-conditioned well. The only thing missing was suitable

recreation to pass the time.

“Even if we’re in a stalemate, we should

maintain our physical and mental health in a good state. We will be playing in

the water while standing on guard by a roster.”

Ensign Meihowa gave out her orders while

wearing the one-piece racing swimsuit and a pair of sunglasses.

The male soldiers cheered, seeing the long

legs, the slim waist line and the curves of her chest.

And the female soldiers glared at them.

“Whew~ it’s so hot. I’m going to get burned

even if I stay under the shadow at this rate.”

Sergeant Aroha, dressed in a bikini, walked

out behind the Ensign. She was… well, even I couldn’t stop myself looking at

her. Hmm, how should I say this?

The bikini was reddish--brown in colour, with

an almost leather-like feel. The lower part of the bikini set was a high-leg

type that made a sharp V shape on her hips, and the bra part was… a wire-free

type.

Will that be okay? What if it just falls

apart while she’s moving?

“Now then, everyone into the water!”

When Ensign Meihowa gave her order, soldiers

jumped into the water at the same time.

“Uuu.”

A while after the soldiers jumped into the

water, Admiral Luise poked her head out from the officers’ quarters. The way

she held her head out from the entrance, while hiding the rest of her body was…

insanely cute.

“L-Lezirth?”

“Yes?”

“Ah! Umm, well… what should I say. I-I’m just

a bit embarrassed.”

“R-Really? I-I think you look fine.”

I scratched my cheek while looking in a

different direction.

Admiral Luise slowly waddled out… like a child

slowly approaching a hot bath, and she slowly extended her foot outside. I

nearly stopped breathing the instant I saw her white legs reveal themselves

from the quarters.

Admiral Luise turned her head shyly after

stepping out. She wore a 3-piece swimsuit: a pink bikini set underneath a

sky-blue skirt.

Her chest size was indeed humble compared to

Ensign Meihowa or Sergeant Aroha, but she was also definitely cute. And the way

she had her face shyly facing a different direction… also made me blush.

“I-It doesn’t look strange?”

“N-No, you look pretty.”

“R-Really? You’re not lying? But I’m, well… a

bit lacking in my chest… hmm.”

Admiral Luise muttered under her breath and

began to wear a white t-shirt over the top. I tried to stop her in surprise.

“Eh, why are you doing that? You look nice.”

“I-It’s fine if only Lezirth sees me! It’s

too embarrassing to let the others see.”

“I-Is that so?”

Although I did not know what she meant… it

didn’t feel that bad. Yes, I saw her and that’s good enough for me.

We awkwardly stood in silence and looked

elsewhere. Although we weren’t looking at each other… I could hear her

breathing.

I could hear some insects and other animals

from a distance in the jungle. I felt like we would continue to stand like this

while listening to those cries.

“Um… Lezirth?”

Something touched my arm. Startled, I looked

to see Admiral Luise carefully grabbing my arm with her hand.

But then, something happened. Sergeant Aroha

wolf-whistled and began to approach us.

“Our cute Greenie! Won’t you rub some

sunscreen on me?”

“Huh? No, w-why ask me to do that?”

“I’ve always wanted to sexually harass a

co-worker! Come on, hurry up!”

“Eh?”

I was unwillingly dragged away by Sergeant

Aroha. Suddenly, I heard someone kicking something behind me. I turned around

and saw Admiral Luise with a grumpy expression.

“I see, I have to take care of those thieving

cats… Fufufu.”

Admiral Luise started laughing by herself.

Will this be okay?

◊

“Now then, our Greenie! This way!”

Sergeant Aroha unhooked the bra part of her

bikini (it was a front-hook type), laid down on top of a sheet and revealed her

back to me. I could only let out a sigh.

“Couldn’t you do this with some other girls?”

“Ensign Meihowa is half-Elcro, so she doesn’t

need sunscreen on her back.”

“Ah, because of those wings?”

An Elcro’s wings produced some photons and

electromagnetic pulses. Highly trained Elcros could use them as Solar Sails and

fly by redirecting solar flares.

But of course, that was only possible because

Elcros were able to control the photons and EMP beyond the surface of their

wings. They could use the same technique to block off all radiation from

reaching their body.

“But wait, I nearly got tricked. You can

still ask her to rub the sunscreen on you, can’t you? That’s got nothing to do

with it.”

Surely the Ensign would still rub it on her

even if she doesn’t need it for herself. They did seem to be close anyway.

As I logically thought about the issue at

hand, Sergeant Aroha formed a circle shape with her lips playfully.

“Come on, I’ll also rub it on you when you’re

done, Lezirth.”

“……”

That offer just now was… very attractive. It

was indeed, but my skin felt extremely prickly. It wasn’t because of the sun,

but because of the other males’ sharp glares.

“Damn it! Why is it always that Greenie!”

“No, we can’t call him Greenie now!”

“I can’t accept this!”

All those males were glaring at me from the

water. They reminded me of those water ghouls who hated the people on land.

Sigh

.

I sighed and squeezed out some sunscreen onto

my hands.

“I’ll do it as fast as I can.”

I slowly brought my hands onto her back.

Hmm, this feeling is...

Whoa! What is this!

Sergeant Aroha appeared to be quite muscular,

but on the contrary, she was quite soft. It was like I was touching a bouncy,

but firm, rubber ball. My hand sank slightly into her back, but it was firm and

felt pleasant to touch.

And her skin was so soft! The way my hand

spread the sunscreen on her back felt unbelievably good.

Can a human hand feel this much pleasure?!

Why was my breath becoming coarse?

I couldn’t handle it and took my hands off.

The soldiers were glaring daggers at me, but this should be fine, right?

I used my psychokinesis to thinly apply the

rest of the sunscreen and literally layered a coat of sunscreen on her in one

go. My hand felt so good… but I feel like I would die at this rate, so I should

end it here.

“Whoa, what was that?”

“What do you mean, what? It’s just sunscreen.

There, I’m done.”

“Tsk. What a bore. And I was just about to

feel good.”

Sergeant Aroha grumbled and hooked her

bra back on while still lying down.

I tried my hardest not to look… but my eyes

couldn’t help but to drift towards her. However, she skillfully fixed herself

up and stood up.

“Now, you lay down here, dear customer. Now

it’s my turn, isn’t it?”

“What? What did you say?”

Holding the sunscreen tube between her

breasts, the Sergeant looked down at me and smiled.

Whoa! W-What? What’s going to happen!?

“Now, now! Don’t chicken out.”

Sergeant Aroha smiled widely and dumped me on

the sheet she was just lying on.

“Kugh!”

“Dayum!”

“What’s with this discrimination?!”

I could hear the male soldiers growling from

everywhere.

“Sergeant Aroha! My back is itchy!”

“Please rub sunscreen on me as well!”

Sergeant Aroha turned around and looked at

them with an indifferent expression and pointed at the sunscreen box next to

her.

“Just rub it on with each other.”

“No! T-That’s!”

Hmm, she wasn’t wrong on a logical level.

Everyone clicked their tongues and retreated while sighing.

Hey guys? Didn’t you say that your back was

itchy?

“Now then Lezirth, are you prepared?”

Sergeant Aroha was coming closer to me, bit

by bit. Ah… so scary! I was scared, but at the same time, I was unable to get

up.

Is this what a frog feels like when petrified

by a snake? I see! This must be what they call a fear of predators!

As I thought about those things,

—Splat!

Sunscreen was applied on my back instantly.

It was applied by psychokinesis though. Who could it be?

“Ah, you’re here, Luise.”

“Hmph! Why don’t you let Lezirth go? Can’t

you see he dislikes it?”

“Ah, L-Lezirth, did you dislike it?”

Sergeant Aroha asked with a sorrowful

expression. I knew she was just kidding, but… I can’t say I disliked it,

because that would be lying. Yes, I was actually looking forward to it, I

apologize.

But Admiral Luise’s glare was too painful

for me to confess that! What a dilemma! What should I do?

“Um, no, you see… I-I would like to call a

friend!”

This question was too difficult for me to

answer by myself!

However, Admiral Luise shook her head.

“Fufufu, call a friend you say? Do you really

think you will be given that chance for every situation in life?”

T-Terrifying!

Have I ever seen Admiral Luise this angry

before?

However, Sergeant Aroha didn’t appear to be

affected at all, because she started to rub her cheeks against the angry

Admiral Luise.

“Awww! Our cute Luise! You’re so adorable!”

“Let go of me.”

“Come on, don’t be like that…”

There was an uneasy mental war going on

between Sergeant Aroha and Admiral Luise. Hmm, nothing happened physically,

but I feel like I can make out a plasma storm between the two. It’s tactical

retreat time for me.

I tip-toed away from the two and quietly dove

into the water near a mangrove tree’s roots, without being noticed.

◊

“Whew!”

Wearing a snorkel on her head, Ensign Meihowa

resurfaced from the water. She turned to look at me while smiling.

“It is so much fun under the water. There are

so many species of aquatic life, I wonder if it’s because this is a planet

abundant in nature.”

“Hmm, really?”

I cheered up seeing her smile. Actually, now

was not the time to be smiling giddily like this, since we were stuck in the

middle of a battlefield.

However, people were not accustomed to being

on the edge for extended periods of time. So it was refreshing to take a break

like this rather than go mad from being on the edge. Even I felt happy for no

reason.

“But to think you could set up the quarters

that quickly. I’m impressed, Greenie. You have earned my respect.”

“Then I wonder when that ‘Greenie’ nickname

will wear off.”

“Fufufu, so you were concerned about it after

all?”

“How could I not, Ensign?”

I sighed and turned around. Then Ensign

Meihowa started to panic.

“Are you angry? S-Sorry, I didn’t mean to get

you angry.”

“No, I’m not angry, but…”

“Hmm, calling you a Greenie has become a bit

of a habit for me. Sorry. But I’m… actually very grateful towards you.”

“No, like I said, I’m not angry, but rather…”

I wasn’t angry, I was actually checking her

out sneakily by looking at her reflection on the water. I could see her

approaching me, blushing slightly and looking slightly concerned. Heh heh, maybe

I should surprise her when she gets a little bit closer.

As I harboured those thoughts, she pushed my

back out of the blue.

Whoa! The hell?

I jumped around in surprise and saw her a

fair distance away from me, because of the rebound. She had her back turned to

me, pretending not to notice and she was bright red around her ears.

And why was there a beach

ball causing ripples between us? You’re telling me she was that far away after

pushing me away from that? It’s not like it’s a grenade, right?

“Hi~! Could you guys pass the ball to us?”

Sergeant Aroha smiled brightly and waved to

us as she walked across a bridge that was made from entangled mangrove-roots.

Admiral Luise was following closely after her but... huh? She appeared to be

in a better mood now.

I wonder what kind of magic Sergeant Aroha

performed.

“I-It’s not like I was playing around with

Lezirth!”

“Yes, yes, we understand. So let’s play

together now.”

Sergeant Aroha smiled from ear to ear as she

walked into the water. I could hear some male soldiers complaining somewhere.

Those

soldiers

also suggested to Ensign Meihowa to play with them, but she shot them down,

saying she wanted to study the ecology, and kept on diving. They were all worn

out from all that diving, since it was difficult for humans to dive for

extended periods of time, without proper diving equipment.

“It seems like the soldiers are all worn out

from trying to keep up with you, Ensign.”

“Really? I didn’t notice.”

“You really have the stamina, don’t you. How

many men did you leave gasping for breath, Ensign?”

“... Why you!”

Ensign Meihowa blushed after hearing Sergeant

Aroha. She raised her voice and threw the beach ball, but instead of hitting

Sergeant Aroha it hit me on the head, and then rebounded towards Admiral

Luise.

“What are you doing, Ensign!”

“I-I just…”

“Why did you hit Lezirth!?”

Admiral Luise became angry in my place and

jumped into the water with the beach ball in her hand.

And we began to throw the ball at each other…

Oh yes, so that’s how we’re in this

situation.

Hmm.

It was enjoyable.

◊

I headed towards the water tank after leaving

the water. The water tank, or the practice shell to be exact, was also being

used for the showers by attaching a pump and a water pipe to it. We had to

shower frequently because of the mineral-rich water and the heat that made us

sweat 2 litres an hour.

Pencolt and Charlie Squad male members shot

daggers at me as they came out of the showers. They could really kill with

their glares alone.

I thought we reconciled? Why were they like

that?

“You traitor!”

Pencolt yelled at me as soon as he saw me.

Huh? What did I do?

The Charlie squad leader wordlessly grabbed a

deck of cards and began to play with his mates. They did not go diving with

Ensign Meihowa and retired to their quarters early on and were busying

themselves with gambling.

Someone of them were watching TV via the

military computer. Although the Ensign was able to block off the military

hyperspace channels, she was not able to restrict them on viewing commercial

hyperspace TV channels.

The news channel was heavily focusing on the

events of the Azoran system. And to my surprise, they were broadcasting about

the fact that there were survivors in the Azoran system.

The thought of the enemy using the

information to track us down crossed my mind, but that was quickly proved to be

wrong.

“The Elcro-Asa-Replicant Alliance is

currently holding the soldiers and the miners stationed on Azoran-3 hostage.”

Visuals switched to the Federation soldiers

and miners from the 1st and 2nd Mine bases being locked up inside cells.

Surprisingly, I caught a glimpse of Commander Donna’s face. The one who

recorded the video seemed to be a soldier from the Alliance.

[These Federation hostages will only be set

free when the Azoran Solar System is liberated and the entire Federation force

withdraws from the system, as well as the freedom of 2000 political prisoners.]

The Federation never agreed to hostage

exchanges. This was a tradition that traced back to the days of the old Earth

governments. The only solution to hostages was to rescue them.

“There’s no mention of us.”

“Well isn’t that because the enemy will try

to look for us if they become aware of our existence?”

Some soldiers muttered that among themselves

while watching the broadcast.

Yes, that was obvious. However, I felt a

sense of unease building inside me while watching the news.

◊

“Lezirth.”

I heard Sergeant Aroha calling me. When I

exited the cool, air-conditioned quarters, a blast of hot air

embraced me.

However, I couldn’t feel the

heat’s intensity all that much. That was because Sergeant Aroha was beckoning

me with only a single towel covering her body.

“Come this way.”

“No, but I…”

“Quick! I’m embarrassed as well.”

She lowered her head. Although I couldn’t see

her expression very well, I could tell her pointy ears were blushing. Eh… what

could she want?

“Ah, OK. I don’t know what you want though.”

I, Lezirth Dawnbringer, the Commander of Dawn

Corps, cannot allow a lady to be embarrassed.

I followed Sergeant Aroha as she led me to

the officers’ quarters.

I walked into the makeshift quarters tent

first, but there wasn’t anyone inside. There were just 3 camping beds set up.

The tent itself was the same size as the soldiers’ tents, so it felt spacious

compared to ours, due of the lack of beds.

“Hmm, no-one’s inside?”

“Lezirth, could you sit down on the bed

first?”

“Eh?”

I turned around in surprise. Sergeant Aroha

came closer to me while blushing. She was so close that her chest was touching

mine. I could feel her tender breasts behind that single towel layer.

“N-No… that’s!”

I backed away from her in panic and tumbled

onto the bed, after tripping over the bed legs. Then she slowly approached me

and lifted away the hand that was holding the towel in place.

“I don’t do this to anyone, even if I have

Asa blood running through me. Trust me on that at least.”

“No wait! Sergeant! S-Stop it! If you do

something that cannot be undone…”

But it was too late. As soon as her hand let

go of the towel, it slid off her slender body and dropped onto the floor.

And underneath was the reddish-brown bikini

swimsuit that she was wearing before.

‘Damn it!’

Huh? N-No, that was just out of reflex. I

wasn’t disappointed or anything.

Sergeant Aroha sneakily smiled and came

closer.

“Pfft. Hahaha, sorry. Were you expecting

something?”

“…”

I wore an exasperated expression. This woman,

damn it. Shouldn’t I sue her for sexual harassment or something?

As I thought about those possibilities, the

tent door opened and Admiral Luise and Ensign Meihowa walked in, flushed

bright red. They cleared their throats and pretended to look elsewhere.

The two girls took out a note each and handed

it to Sergeant Aroha.

“What! Luise! I believed in you! Were you

betting on me?!”

“Ah, s-sorry Lezirth. I was caught up in the

moment. I’m sorry.”

Admiral Luise’s face was as red as a well

ripened tomato. The sight of the brown-haired girl being embarrassed and

apologizing sincerely was so cute.

And she was still dressed in the same 3-piece

swimsuit that she wore before. Every time she moved, water droplets ran down

her thighs and dropped onto the floor.

However, that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t get

angry just because she was cute. Damn it… you let me down, Admiral Luise. I

trusted you!

Sergeant Aroha laughed and sneakily brought

her face closer to mine and whispered into my ear.

“Sorry Lezirth, but we weren’t doing it out

of fun. We just did this so that we could fix a little argument they had

before.”

“Eh?”

“And since there are people watching us…

we’ll do it next time when we’re by ourselves… okay?”

Saying that, she snickered and distanced

herself.

Damn it! They’re making a fool out of me!

T-That was how I should be reacting, but I was grinning from ear to ear.

Curses! This woman was too skilled at playing with other people!

“Gee, you’re so cute, Lezirth. Heh heh.”

And she winked at me.

Although I did not understand the whole

situation, it sounded like I was teased to resolve a little argument that

Ensign Meihowa and Admiral Luise had.

‘As if something like that is okay!’

I was angry that they had an argument! No, I

should be angry, but….

Ha… haa

. My

heart was beating furiously. What did this woman just do to me?

“Hmm. S-Sorry about that, Lezirth. It was our

fault.”

Ensign Meihowa spoke with her arms crossed

and without even facing me. Pulling off the tri-coloured racing swimsuit well

with her model-like proportions… her chest looked a lot larger when she had her

arms crossed like that.

Although she wasn’t usually as large as

Aroha, when she had her arms crossed like that… hmm, I’m worried the swimsuit

might burst.

Ah… I should be telling them off, but I

couldn’t help but to notice them. Ensign Meihowa’s breasts and her smooth legs…

and that zone where her two legs met, slightly covered by the swimsuit….

It’s somewhere that would be impossible to

see in a normal situation, but I could look as much as I wanted because she was

averting my gaze.

No, what do I mean, ‘look as much as I want’?

Come on! You mustn’t fall to the dark side, Lezirth Dawnbringer! I straightened

up myself.

After continuously averting my gaze, Ensign

Meihowa bowed her head in surrender. With a teary-eyed expression, she held my

hand with both of her hands.

“Sorry… I’m really sorry. Apprentice Lezirth,

can you accept my apology?”

“Are you sincerely sorry?”

I glanced at Ensign Meihowa and she nodded

her head.

“Of course!”

“Then I will forgive you, on a condition!”

“Huh? W-What is it?”

“Can I touch your wings for a bit?”

“Eh?”

Those wings have been bothering me for a

while—what do they do when she sleeps? If they were anything like bird wings,

then they might fracture easily, but that doesn’t seem to happen. And she sat

down fine on chairs and rested on her back seemingly without any discomfort. I

wanted to know how they functioned.

So that was why I asked, but Ensign Meihowa

was being so embarrassed.

“Ah… t-that’s a bit…”

“Eh? Is that how it is? I see. So you’re

sorry, but not sorry enough to let me do that? Then again, I suppose it would

be rude for an Apprentice to talk like this to the almighty Ensign, right?”

She looked like she was about to burst into

tears, but she must’ve worked up her resolve, because she bit down on her lower

lip.

“Whew! It can’t be helped. Fine, you may

touch them. But! Not just now.”

Did she hate it that much? Or maybe she

didn’t like people seeing them? But that won’t stop me from still touching them

because I was angry. I will touch them even if she begs me not to! I’m going to

fully study every nook and corners of your Elcro wings! Keh heh heh,

uhahahahahahaha!

I laughed like an evil villain inside my

heart.

“Hmm, anyhow, the reason why I called you

here is not to tease you.”

Admiral Luise turned on the terminal on the

computer. A hologram visual popped up.

“We have not relayed this order to the

soldiers just yet thanks to Ensign Meihowa’s assistance.”

“Oh, finally.”

“But the order is a bit…”

Smartly dressed in a green suit, a

middle-aged Mongolian Earthling, whose hair was greying here and there, was sitting

down at a table. A star on both sides of his shoulder indicated his rank as a

Commodore.

He was a low-ranking junior compared to a

three-stared Vice-Admiral like myself, but the one giving the order was

surprisingly high considering that we were only an incomplete platoon at the

moment. What was going on?

[My name is Commodore Dae-Sik Park of the 2nd

Space Marines, Commander of the Ursa Major Brigade.]

Although the Ursa Major Brigade did not exist

while I was an officer, I could guess what kind of brigade it was.

One of the 8 Kishins of the Federation: Ursa

Major.

This man must be the pilot of the Ursa Major,

also nicknamed the Emperor.

Hmm, Ursa Major the Violet Emperor, huh. The

Ursa Major certainly could put up a good fight against Diablo the Black Tyrant,

or even beat him.

Even if the Alliance had the Kishin Diablo,

the Federation also had Kishin-class Alter-Armours as well as experienced

pilots. Hence, that gave the Federation the upper hand when a fight between two

Kishin-class Alter-Armours broke out.

Also, the Ursa Major was a mid-ranged

Alter-Armour, so it held the advantage over the close-ranged Diablo. The

Federation had the upper hand in all aspects.

‘But that’s assuming the Tetragrammaton does

not interfere. But victory should be certain if a Kishin-based brigade enters

the fight.’

Although I did not know how capable the

pilots for Diablo and Ursa Major are, this assumption is still correct even if

the Diablo pilot was slightly stronger. As long as the Tetragrammaton does not

launch an attack as soon as the Ursa Major Brigade enters the Azoran system,

the victory was certain.

Then suddenly, Commodore Dae-Sik Park

smiled—a sinister one at that. Although I didn’t notice because he was wearing

a poker face till now, his smile instantly made him look like a villain from

some action movie.

He spoke while stroking his beard.

[I understand that the Kishin Diablo is

currently on Azoran-3. But you see, my daughter became a heroine in her school

play. So I cannot possibly take the Ursa Major there, so I will be sending 4

Master-Class Alter-Armours accompanied by the Air Force and the Navy.]

Eh? What did he just say?

I thought I was watching some comedy movie

for a moment. He just gave out his orders based around his personal life, and

he calls himself a Commodore? Are you kidding me?

[And the ones we must rescue are the

Federation soldiers and the miners being held hostage at the mining base. You

will stay hidden on Azoran-3 and distract the enemy on foot, nine hours from

now: at 1200 Standard Federation Time. The meeting point and the mission

details will be available on your military computer terminals.]

“…”

I could feel my anger raging inside me. This

was another suicidal mission! The same thing happened with Commander Donna

before, but how can a Commodore give a mission like this. Ordering an injured

platoon to suicidally distract the enemy in an Alter-Armour infested area.

But wait, we’re not even the ones being

rescued? He’s ordering us to distract the enemy for the others to escape?

“Damn it! How is someone like him a

Commodore! People are risking their lives here, and what did he say? His

daughter’s school play is more important? How rotten is the Federation if

someone as brainless as him is a Commodore? And he’s not even going to bring

the Kishin here when he knows the enemy has one!”

Sure, Master-class Alter-Armours were

powerful, but they were two ranks below a Kishin-class. Victory against the

Diablo even with four of them was uncertain.

“The problem is, this is a formal order.”

Ensign Meihowa spoke with a depressed

expression.

Wait, so this bastard just gave the orders

while talking about his daughter’s play as a formal order?

“The Federation has really lowered their

standards.”

“Yes, I agree.”

Admiral Luise agreed to my remark.

“And I found this out by hacking, but… the

Tetragrammaton started moving again about an hour ago. It seems like it

attacked the Oden Solar System with the Punishing Wail, but the damage was not

as severe as the last time.”

50 hours had passed since the last attack by

the Tetragrammaton.

Tetragrammaton’s Punishing Wail attack was a

powerful one, but that power itself came at a great cost of cooldown time.

Admiral Luise needed 36 hours between each

Punishing Wail.

Then we can assume that the enemy pilot

required 50 hours of recharging to use the attack again, because they could not

possibly have a pilot as great as Admiral Luise.

“But I did not realize how severe the issue

was. The Federation has really decided to kill us. Do they hate us Replicants

this much?”

Admiral Luise wore a worried expression.

However, Sergeant Aroha shook her head.

“No, it’s not just Replicants. They hate

anyone with even a drop of Asa or Elcro blood. Oh, what a tragedy~ our platoon

has only those types of people?! Ah, what a coincidence! Damn it!”

And Sergeant Aroha tried in vain to lift up

our moods with those sarcastic remarks.

### 009. Chapter 9. Operation Exorcism

Time for a second date with death in the mighty Azoran jungle.

Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

The Space

Federation was a city state. As a state created by the union of citizens, the

deaths of citizens were taken very seriously.

So even during a

war, the Space Federation was very cautious about killing people needlessly. If

a soldier was being held hostage in the middle of a battlefield, that soldier

must be rescued, even if that meant sending hundreds of thousands of men to do

the job. Although the efficiency of such methods was terrible on paper, that

was one of the fundamental beliefs of the Federation, as well as its strength.

People would

entrust their lives to the Federation only if the Federation valued every

individual highly. However, Replicants and mixed-blood people were excluded

from such beliefs.

They weren’t

formally excluded on paper, of course. However, the pure-blood ideology was

prominent in the majority of society, and thus they were disregarded from the

Federation’s beliefs.

We decided to

lodge a serious complaint about the mission for now.

If an Ensign

lodged a complaint about a mission given by a Commodore, the Ensign would never

be promoted. Ensigns could always take the issue to court, but human society

was not so kind.

Making a

complaint to Commodore Dae-Sik Park was meaningless for Ensign Meihowa. The

mission will not change, and Ensign Meihowa will get on Commodore Park’s bad side

and he will surely make her military life harder for her.

Although that

was assuming that we come out of the mission alive, the fact of the matter was

that a complaint was useless.

“But we must

lodge one.”

Ensign Meihowa

made up her mind and requested a change in the mission. Her requested change

was for the main force to launch an attack as soon as they arrive to the Azoran

system, hitting the Elcro Alter-Armors while our platoon launches an attack on

the mining base.

The alteration

was only a slight one, so it shouldn’t cause big divergence from the original

plan. However, this slight change could increase the ‘bomb’ platoon’s chances

of survival from slim to tremendous.

Us attacking

first will aggravate the enemy to launch a full attack on us, and we will lose

our lives. That was why we asked them to reconsider the mission plan.

If the

Federation was indeed a city-state that valued the lives of us bomb platoons,

Ensign Meihowa’s appeal for a change in the mission parameters would be

accepted.

However, the

Federation wasn’t like that, as expected.

Ensign Meihowa’s

appeal was shot down and they only replied, saying ‘focus on your given

mission’.

And so, Ensign

Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha unwillingly gave a short mission briefing to the

soldiers. And they showed their outraged responses.

“A-Are they

crazy!”

“They’re telling

us all to die?!”

“Damn it! I’m

still injured!”

The soldiers

broke out into fits and cursing. The leader of the Charlie squad represented

his squad and voiced their suggestion.

“Why don’t we

just hide out on Azora

n

-3 and surrender to the Elcros when they win? They are an

Elcro-Asa-Replicant Alliance and our platoon also consists of Replicants, Asa

and Elcro. Shouldn’t the Alliance receive us?”

“And if the

Elcro lose?”

“Then we

surrender to the Federation and serve our sentences from the military courts.

All they’ll sentence us with is a few months of community service and jail time

at the detention centre!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

All of the

soldiers nodded their heads.

Their suggestion

was a logical one, given their condition. Even I had nothing to say to persuade

them otherwise. This Federation was not one worth risking their lives for.

However, my only

issue was the concern at what the Alliance might do if we surrender to them.

What will they do with me? Will they lock me up in jail? If I stay in jail, I

won’t be able to know what happened over the last 120 years, and won’t I rot

and die in jail?

And the Alliance

was suspicious.

The only source

of my suspicion was what Admiral Luise had said, but there was a dark secret

that the Alliance was also hiding.

“Now then, listen

to what I am about to say. If you decide to pull out from the mission after you

hear what I say, I will not stop you.”

Ensign Meihowa

began to talk and she looked at me.

This was a plan

that Admiral Luise, Ensign Meihowa, Sergeant Aroha and I racked our brains to

come up with. How could we avoid being court martialed and still be rescued?

That was the goal of this plan.

Every mission

plan that came out from this platoon was a life threatening and survival-based

one. I used to come up with plans for victory when I was a Vice Admiral, not

some small, petty plans like for these low rank operations.

◊

It was now two

hours before the start of the mission given from the Ursa Major Brigade,

Operation Exorcism.

They must’ve

named the mission as Exorcism because they mean to ‘exorcise’ the devil

(Diablo). Why were they so certain that they’ll be able to take down Diablo the

Black Tyrant without even sending a Kishin?

When I asked

Pencolt about this, he told me that the Federation had the tendency of looking

down on Asa and Elcro Kishin Pilots, because they defeated the Asa Kishins

Psychoa and Minerva 8 times, and Elcro Kishins Arc-razor and Ginnungagap 16

times.

The only reason

why the Elcro and Asa Kishins were still functioning after being defeated so

many times was because Kishins could travel through hyperspace on their own.

Since Kishins

could traverse hyperspace independently, Kishins were able to retreat from

attacks and recover from its damages before going onto the battlefields again.

And even now, in the year 189 SY (Space Years), there was no way of instantly

defeating a Kishin.

Kishin survival

skills aside, they lost that many times by ordinary methods? Then they can

certainly be looked down upon.

“By the way, why

did they name the Kishins after human names like Minerva or Ginnungagap?”

I studied the

area while seated on the Spider and asked Pencolt who was sitting next to me.

“Ah, they say

they named them because that was what the humans codenamed them as, man. You

know how the Fed had 8 Kishins… and the Kishin count jumped to 12 after the Asa

and Elcro discovered 2 each? Asas and Elcros thought humans were more

knowledgeable about Kishins and took on those codenames as the Kishins’ true

names, man.”

“What, you mean

they only got the Kishins after the humans came in contact with them? They

didn’t have them before the contact?”

The Human-Race

only got ahold of the Kishins after they discovered the ‘Old One’ on Mars.

And from the Old

One, humans took its cells and mastered hyperspace travel from that, and also

created the Alter-Armours.

The 8

Alter-Armours in strong communion with the Old One were labelled as Kishins.

When the 8 Kishins were created, the Old One shrivelled up and ceased to exist.

Humans continued

their efforts to create more Kishins by using the cells from the 8 Great

Kishins, but only normal Alter-Armours could be produced through their

efforts—Kishin creation was impossible without the Old One.

Then suddenly,

four Kishins appeared. And the two races that were at war with the Human-Race

discovered two each?

I thought that

the two races harvested their Kishins from a different Letix Überlord when I

heard about this before.

If they did

indeed harvest Kishins through their own efforts, they would’ve named the

Kishins after their own background. If they thought that the human names were

the true names…

“If Asas and

Elcros possessed Kishins beforehand, they would’ve named the Kishins after

their own mythology and would not have assumed that the human codenames were

their true names. They really must’ve obtained the Kishins after the contact

with humans.”

Admiral Luise

spoke after listening to our conversation.

“Then… someone

gave them the Kishins to prolong this war?”

A cold chill ran

down my back.

The Human-Race

has been attempting Kishin production for the last 189 years in vain. And that

was what led people to believe that Kishins were a coincidental product from

Letixes.

But someone

actually created Kishins artificially? And an existence like that was

overseeing this war? Although this was only an assumption based on no solid

evidence, the very thought of it was terrifying.

“Someone who

could grant Kishins?”

“Hmm, there’s no

way someone like that could exist, right?”

Admiral Luise

laughed weakly at what she said. I also followed suit and laughed along with

her, but I felt like a hole was blown through my chest.

Putting the

question of possibility aside, let’s assume that someone wants to prolong this

war. If that was the case, then maybe that person is the mastermind behind the

recent Elcro, Asa and Replicant Alliance. At this rate, the Elcros and Asas

were going to be conquered by the Human Race.

‘N-No way. I

can’t let my imagination run wild now, can I?’

I shook my head.

“We have reached

Point Bravo! We should set up the turrets!”

We jumped out of

the Spider and set up the turrets at the planned point.

The ones that we

were setting up were called Centri-guns, which were made up of four connected

Colion Rifles, and could be used as both anti-aircraft and machine guns. They

could be operated wirelessly but also could be operated on automatic, because

they were equipped with AI CPU units.

I connected the

wires and installed more than 8 Colion Rifles in the formation. They were all

aimed at the mining base. I had them targeting predicted points that the enemy

might move towards, when they start looking for the Centri-guns.

The plan was

like this.

We set up the

Centri-guns in various places where they would go undetected by the enemy. And

when it was time for the operation to commence, the Centri-guns will spring to

life wirelessly and confuse the enemy.

Although we did

not expect the set-up to cause any serious damage to the enemy Alter-Armours,

we would still be accomplishing the mission given to us.

The only problem

was that if our platoon stays too far from the mining base… there is the

possibility of the main force abandoning us and leaving ahead.

The mission

directive mentioned that our platoon will be rescued only if we are in the

proximity, and we might be abandoned if we are far away.

Hence, we had to

approach the mining base with a do-or-die attitude.

There was a high

risk of us being attacked even while the enemy is distracted by the Centri-gun

attacks. Just like that incident that Bravo Squad experienced, a single squad

can be wiped out in seconds if discovered.

The only

difference between that time and now was that we had Ensign Meihowa’s

Alter-Armour with us. Even so, her Alter-Armour was a Minion-class, the lowest

rank.

Taking it into

the battlefield might attract unwanted attention from the enemy, but Ensign

Meihowa could be rebuked for abandoning an important piece of military

equipment to save her life. So we also had to find a way for Ensign Meihowa to

save face.

Although

dangerous, we arranged to have her Alter-Armour secretly transported near the

mining base, by taking advantage of the sea and jungle terrain. Afterwards,

Meihowa must ride on the quad bike and regroup with us by taking the jungle

trails.

We planned to

have the Alter-Armour close to the pick-up point, just in case it had to be

recovered. In which case I would have to collect it by teleporting.

“Great! Point

Bravo setup complete!”

“Point Charlie

also complete!”

“Point Delta as

well!”

Centri-gun setup

was complete in minutes. I was worried because we were so close to the mining

base, but the enemy soldiers patrolling the area appeared to be quite lax about

their job.

Azoran-3 was

really hot. It was so hot that all soldiers were moving sluggishly.

“Whew, it’s like

I’m taking a shower with my own sweat.”

I brought a

water bottle closer to my lips, drank down the contents, and hopped back onto

the Spider. Sergeant Aroha, who was operating the armoured vehicle,

mischievously smiled.

“It’s cool in

here thanks to the air-conditioning. Wanna come in?”

“…”

The two of us in

that one-seater? I could feel myself blushing. Geez, this lady is really

unrestrained.

Then Pencolt

suddenly put his hand up.

“I, Apprentice

Pencolt, would gladly come in!”

“Ah, really?”

Sergeant Aroha

opened the Spider’s door and walked out. And she willingly allowed Pencolt to

take the air-conditioned operator’s seat of the armoured vehicle.

“Just don’t

touch anything. I’ve locked down all controls, so nothing will happen even if

you bump into something, though.”

And she sat next

to me. I looked at her in surprise.

“Eh?”

“And why don’t

we work up a sweat together, just the two of us. Pass me the water.”

“Geez… Sergeant.

Why would you leave the cool place and come out?”

I passed the

water bottle to her. Admiral Luise also climbed up to us. Although it was a

two-seater, it did not feel cramped because of her slim figure.

“Me too!”

“Wait, it’s hot

Luise!”

“I’m also going

to be here.”

Sergeant Aroha

pushed her away, saying that it was hot, but Admiral Luise demanded to have

her way and sat right next to me.

Hmm, why are

they like this? We were all uncontrollably drenched in sweat, even though the

combat uniforms had some cooling functionality. The situation was worsened

because we were sticking far too closely to each other.

Even so, neither

Admiral Luise nor Sergeant Aroha chose to put some distance between us. I was

caught up in a test of endurance myself, being sandwiched on either side of me

by the girls.

—Whirrr.

The Spider’s

electronic motors sprang to life and wobbled as it made its way through the

jungle. The movements caused Admiral Luise to lean towards me and she

eventually fell onto my chest.

I hugged the

sweat drenched girl’s body gently. It felt like we were hugging each other

while naked because of the damp clothes.

‘Ugh.’

T-This isn’t

good. This feeling is…

“Hey, what are

you doing, Lezirth!”

And when Aroha

pushed me, I could feel two fleshy mounds on my back.

—Whirrr!

Every time the

Spider wobbled, that type of contact continued to occur.

“

Sniff

…It’s cold here. But it’s so sad,

man.”

I could hear

Apprentice Pencolt’s grumbles behind my back.

◊

Ensign Meihowa,

gasping for breath, finally regrouped with us in the jungle after arriving here

by quad bike half an hour before the mission.

She pulled out

the Thorium battery from the bike, folded it up, and returned it to the storage

area on a leg of the Spider.

“Ah, I should’ve

helped you.”

I tried to stand

as I said that. However, it was easier said than done because Sergeant Aroha

and Admiral Luise were clinging onto me.

“What are you

doing?”

Ensign Meihowa

climbed onto the Spider via the ladder by its side while drinking some water.

“Um, you see…”

So how should I

explain this situation?

Well suddenly,

Sergeant Aroha looked at all the sweat she was sweating and licked herself,

only to complain that it wasn’t salty at all and she licked some salt from a

packet.

I also tasted a

bit of my sweat, but it was close to plain more than anything. And suddenly

Admiral Luise placed her hand on my cheek and licked it!

“It’s really not

salty.”

Then Sergeant

Aroha said she didn’t know if her sweat got any saltier and asked me to lick

her sweat between her breasts. Sure, there were sweat drops there… b-but how?!

How am I

supposed to lick there?

“Come now, stick

your tongue out. OK? Now, come here! Don’t run away from me, Lezirth!”

Sergeant Aroha’s

glare became terrifying!

When I began to

panic, Admiral Luise looked at her own chest. However, she was nothing but a

young girl in that regard compared to the impressive, dynamic Sergeant Aroha.

Although she was already feminine enough, Admiral Luise appeared to be

somewhat unhappy.

Sergeant Aroha

looked at her, smiled and delivered the final blow.

“That area stays

dry and not very sweaty for you, right Luise? How lucky for you, it’s nice and

ventilated.”

And after that

blow, things became chaotic.

Weren’t they

roommates? Weren’t they on friendly terms with each other? And Admiral Luise has

always been the quiet and graceful type. Who is this Admiral Luise that is

before my eyes right now?

Oh my god. Women

are so scary!

They’re a

thousand times scarier than Letix Predators, Brain Suckers and Demolishers!

….

And something

like that happened.

But how should I

explain this?

I quickly

glanced at Ensign Meihowa who was looking at me with an innocent expression.

She was waiting for my response.

Her slightly

sweaty, transparent-like silver hair, her emerald eyes that were as clear as

the Caribbean Sea were staring right at me, with her hands resting on her

waist.

Although she was

wearing a military uniform, she was like a model straight from a fashion

magazine. And her eyes… ah, I couldn’t lie to those pure eyes—I would be human

trash if I told a lie to her.

“Nothing

happened.”

…

That’s the only

explanation I could give right now.

I did not lie.

In a way.

Ensign Meihowa

looked at me, Luise and Aroha in that order. And at that moment, we could all

hear Pencolt muttering from inside the Spider.

“Even I could’ve

tasted it to see if it was salty or not, man.”

“Huh?”

“I could’ve

licked her as well.”

“Lick who?”

Ensign Meihowa

looked at him in curiosity.

◊

Five minutes

before the mission, a message came from the higher-ups.

[This is the

First Battalion of the Ursa Major Brigade: we have arrived on the fifth orbit

of Azoran-3. Fourth Platoon of the Second Military School, please respond!]

Ah, so our

official name was the Fourth Platoon. I didn’t even know, because everyone

referred to our platoon as the bomb platoon or the suicide platoon.

[Fourth Platoon

is on standby, sir. Over.]

Ensign Meihowa

calmly replied to the message.

[The First

Battalion will commence the operation at the set time, as planned. We expect

you to fulfill your part. Over.]

[Copy that.]

After ending the

communication, Ensign Meihowa began to do some breathing exercises. Sergeant

Aroha returned back into the Spider; Pencolt, Luise and I were seated on top

of the Spider, as assigned. The other soldiers were awaiting orders while

riding on quad bikes and military vehicles below us.

The atmosphere

was tense, because whether it was a small or a big mission, a mission was still

a mission, nonetheless.

“Will we be able

to return back safe and sound?”

“Shouldn’t we

receive a medal if we return back alive? Don’t you receive a medal if you save

your hostage comrades?”

Charlie Squad

and the Alpha squad (the injured Alpha and Bravo Squad members recovered and

reformed the Alpha squad) were already excited about returning back alive and

receiving a medal. Then again, I suppose this was much better than trembling in

fear.

“But that’s all

assuming we make it out of this alive.”

When I muttered

that under my breath, Ensign Meihowa turned to look at me. Huh? What did she

want?

“Ah, Lezirth?”

“Yes?”

“If we return

back alive…”

She trailed off

without looking at me and began to talk again.

“We might be

split up when we are reassigned to different platoons, but I hope we could stay

together in the same platoon. B-Because having an experienced soldier like you

increases our chances of survival! That’s all!”

At a loss as to

what I should say, I could only scratch my cheeks absentmindedly and then I

smiled and nodded my head.

“Sure, Platoon

Leader. As long as you stop calling me a Greenie, that is.”

Admiral Luise

looked at me with soft eyes this time.

“You have to

stay with me, Lezirth. You know what I mean, right?”

O-Of course, we

are alone in this space 120 years in the future. We must trust in each other

and be together.

When I nodded my

head, Ensign Meihowa asked.

“Hold on, what

does she mean?”

Suddenly,

Pencolt yelled after staying quiet for all that time.

“Ah, geez, cut

it out guys. Why do you keep talking about ‘if we come out alive’? Don’t you

know the ones who die first are people who say that stuff?”

“Then I suppose

you’ll live forever.”

I spoke without

putting too much thought into it. Ensign Meihowa added to what I said from next

to me.

“You’ll have

eternal youth.”

“You might

continue to live even when the universe disappears.”

This time

Sergeant Aroha added to the attack.

Admiral Luise

gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

Wow, how cute.

It would look like its being faked if a celebrity did that action, but Admiral

Luise actually seemed serious and natural.

However, what

she said was not so nice.

“Then Apprentice

Pencolt is actually the God of the Universe?”

At the quadruple

hit, Pencolt shut his mouth.

“

Sniff, sniff!

Are these tears? No! I’m

just sweating from my eyes, man.”

The God of the

Universe was crying. No, he was sweating from his eyes, like he said. And the

operation time drew closer!

◊

Centri-guns

fired smart bombs at its maximum capacity. It fired smart bombs weighing 30kgs

each, nearly 40km away.

The smart bombs

flew in an arc towards the rows of Alter-Armours near the mining base.

The smart bombs exploded

in mid-air and split into hundreds of miniature smart bombs, half of them

releasing shrapnel, and the other half releasing plasma waves.

And because of

the high oxygen density of Azoran-3, the shrapnel shards combusted, mid-air!

The explosion and the smoke covered the Alter-Armours.

“What’s the

situation like with the Centri-guns?”

“They’re all

stuck in the ground from the rebound! Readjusting the angles now!”

The soldiers

used the computer calculation system and readjusted the Centri-guns for the

second round. Firing 30kg bombs 40km away was tremendous and the Centri-guns’

aim was messed up due to recoil.

“We will run out

of bombs at this rate.”

A single soldier

received 5kg of Colion ammo, and 300kg of the ammo were used on a Centri-gun.

Four individual

Colion guns made up a single Centri-gun, and each Colion gun was shooting 30kgs

worth with each shot. There wasn’t enough ammo to use after two shots.

We attacked with

all our might, but the Alter-Armours were not greatly damaged. The unmanned

drones were all unusable, but only three Alter-Armours were broken while the

others were slightly damaged. Even the three broken machines were not

completely broken, and could be easily repaired.

And the

Alter-Armours began to attack.

That’s right.

Get angry. Get angry and fly towards the Centri-guns! And the Federation forces

will…

Speak of the

devil, the Federation forces appeared. There were 4 Master-class, 8

Senior-class, 16 Major-class and countless other Alter-Armours. Although the

Ursa Major was not present, this amount of force was not bad at all.

[Destroy

everything!]

The Federation

Alter-Armours flew straight down and opened fire with their Colion Rifles and

missiles. Superfast plasma cannons hit the Alter-Armours and blew them to bits

in an instant.

The other

Alliance Alter-Armours quickly tried to respond to the attack, but the

Federation had the upper hand and poured out their attacks without holding

anything back.

Explosion after

explosion! The sounds of Alter-Armours being torn to pieces resounded over the

terminals.

Although I could

not forgive the Commodore of the Ursa Major Brigade for the orders he’d given

us, I had to admit that his brigade was nothing to scoff at. The brigade was

almost comparable to my own Dawn Corps! If the Asa and Elcro pilots were this

weak, then 4 Master-class Alter-Armours would’ve been sufficient.

The Federation’s

Alter-Armours were dominating! Making use of the distraction and the attack,

the Federation forces also rained down shells and sent swarms of soldiers.

“Operation Phase

2! We’re also charging in!”

Ensign Meihowa

clenched her lips and gave out her orders. Soldiers from the Fourth Platoon of

the Second Military School all jumped out from the jungle and charged towards

the mining base.

We could only be

saved if we moved with the Federation. We all knew that, and that was why we

charged dutifully.

“Something is

not right! Everyone stop!”

Admiral Luise

noticed the unusual situation first and I understood her instantly. However,

the other soldiers, as well as the soldiers of the Ursa Major Brigade didn’t

seem to notice.

There was no

resistance from the mining base!

There was not a

single Alliance soldier in sight at the mining base. The only ones present were

the Federation hostages! Did the Alliance plant explosives to wipe us all out?

“… Doesn’t look

like it.”

The marines of

the Ursa Major Brigade stormed into the mining base and rescued the hostages.

There didn’t seem to be any traps or any surprise attacks.

The Alliance

forces were quickly wiped out in the surrounding areas. They were no match to

the Alter-Armours and the jet fighters.

The situation

would’ve become unfavourable for us if the Alliance planted a few infantrymen

in the base. The Elcros would’ve known about that, but why did they choose to

leave the mining base empty?

Suddenly, a buzz

sound could be heard from the sky

And black

lightning fell from out of nowhere!

That was the

only way to describe the object that flew down with frightening speed before

the Ursa Major Brigade Alter-Armours!

The black

Alter-Armour, Kishin Diablo, had revealed itself with its cape fluttering

behind his back.

[Haha! So you

finally appeared, you foolish people!]

[Destroy the

cockpit and secure the Diablo! You’ll get a promotion if you do!]

The Ursa Major

Brigade members were actually overjoyed at the sight of the Kishin. They were

certain of their victory, even against a Kishin, and they had the leisure to

even think about only damaging the cockpit. The Elcro pilot must be that bad.

‘Then what about

the Replicants? Replicants should be at a decent level since they were part of

the Federation force before. Oh, that’s right, the Replicants had the Omertà as

their Kishin.’

Omertà the

Shadow King.

It was a Kishin

that excelled in assassinations, so it was very useful when used as a support

or in a one-on-one situation, but it found it difficult to fight at its full

power without any support.

Hence, while it

was a powerful Kishin when used by the Federation, it was not very threatening

when used by the Rebels.

But even so, the

Federation soldiers were looking down on the pilot way too much. They’ll taste

defeat like that.

[But hold on,

aren’t our lives at stake here?!]

[A single blow

from the Diablo can kill us all!]

The infantrymen

around the base all looked in fear. However, the Diablo paid no attention to

the hostages running away as it hovered in mid-air. How strange.

“Is he saying

that he won’t kill anyone even in a situation like this?”

There were

civilian miners mixed in with the hostages at the mines.

If the Alliance

really wanted to anger the Federation, they would have tortured or injured

these civilians a long time ago. But seeing as they did not do so, it seemed

like the Alliance leaders disliked civilian deaths.

Or maybe it

meant their lives were of no use to the Kishin Diablo—whether they’re alive or

not.

The pilot was

being arrogant in a way, but at the same time he was not. It was too early for

me to tell.

Well, I should

be glad about it either way though.

Now, I wonder

what he’s like as a pilot.

◊

The Diablo and

the four Master-class Alter-Armours of the Ursa Major Brigade were staring at

each other.

We will take

down the Kishin with four Master-class Alter-Armours.

That was what

the Commodore claimed.

Did those four

pilots have what it takes to take down a Kishin?

And how much of

the Diablo’s strength could the pilot use?

The answer to

those questions would be answered shortly.

The ones who

made the first move were the Master quartet. They put some distance between

them and the Diablo. Diablo was a close-range type, and while the Brigade’s

Alter-Armours were all-purpose, they chose to rely on their mid-ranged attacks.

As the

Alter-Armours tried to distance themselves, the Diablo shot lasers from its

horn. The laser, consisting of pure plasma, was aimed straight at the

Master-class Alter-Armours.

However, all

four of the Alter-Armours turned translucent with a rainbow-tint. The laser

passed right through them and disappeared into thin air.

—Phase Shift!

It was the skill

that made the user sit half in hyperspace and made them immune to all physical

damage for a short moment. I could tell that the Federation pilots were at a

proficient level, with their ability to Phase Shift while flying at high

speeds.

[Fire!]

This time, the

four Federation Armours fired their Colion Rifles. The rifles were attached to

their outer gauntlets so that their hands were free even while shooting.

Living up to his

title of a tyrant, Kishin Diablo arrogantly stood in the way of those attacks

with its arms crossed. A black curtain appeared out of nowhere and shielded the

Kishin from the Colion Rifle attacks.

The difference

between the Alter-Armour specs was huge; blocking the Alter-Armour class

Colion-Rifle attacks with such ease.

However, the

Master-class pilots did not fret and commenced their next attack.

While continuing

to fire the rifles, something started to leak out from their outer armour:

green light. Those green lights gathered at the Alter-Armours’ hands and shot

beams at the Diablo.

Diablo fluttered

its cape half-heartedly and made itself translucent. It was trying to avoid the

attacks by Phase Shifting like before. However, Diablo’s body shook with sounds

of explosion.

“That idiot!”

I clicked my

tongue while looking at the fight. The attack that the Master quartet did was

called a Phase Shift Attack and the attack itself was Phase Shifted. The attack

would miss the target if it did not attempt a Phase Shift and it would hit the

target if it did attempt a Phase Shift.

The attack was

modified from an attack that was originally invented to attack thick armoured

vehicles. The quartet used the attack to hit the Kishin because the Kishin’s

defence was comparable to thick armour and the Diablo was obviously hit because

its pilot attempted a Phase Shift.

“Huh?”

But its reaction

was sluggish.

The Diablo’s

pilot did not plan on being hit by that Phase Shift Attack; he was just

surprised at the unexpected hits.

“What?”

And furthermore,

there were fluorescent plasma specks on Diablo’s body. The Diablo tried to take

them off, but they wouldn’t budge.

“What a fool.”

I couldn’t help

but to click my tongue.

[Connecting

Pegasus Shot on stand-by!]

All four

Master-classes displayed the same movements. They held up their right hand

above their heads, as if they were about to deliver a finishing blow. And light

started to gather at their hands.

[Connecting

Pegasus Shot! Commence!]

All four

machines executed the same move at the same time with a shout in unison.

Connecting

Pegasus Shot was one of Ursa Major’s attacks, and it was a homing-type that

shot towards those green plasma specks that were plastered over the Diablo.

I’ve seen the Ursa Major use it before in the past, but to think that those

Master-class Alter-Armours could use it. I’m impressed.

[Hiyaaaaa!]

The Master

quartet activated the Connecting Pegasus Shot with a battle cry. The ball of

light in their hands split into tens of rays that sprayed out.

The shots were

neither fast nor slow, but they all flew towards Diablo. All four Alter-Armours

bombarding the Kishin with Connecting Pegasus Shot dyed the sky with blinding

light.

The Diablo began

to panic, seeing all those rays of light shooting towards the green plasma on

its body.

But suddenly, a

red flash shone from Diablo’s eyes.

[Everyone prepare

for a shockwave!]

I panicked at

the flash and warned everyone via the terminal.

Diablo the Black

Tyrant was about to use its Kishin Arts! Diablo’s apprehensions rang loud and

clear via strong telepathy.

—Kishin Arts:

Infernal Stinger!

I wrapped Admiral

Luise with my arms and warned everyone to brace themselves for the attack.

At that moment,

Diablo began to spin in mid-air and prepared to kick in a whip-like motion.

Although the

Kishin appeared to have machine-like movements, it was very agile and its upper

body and its cape started to twist before delivering the kick.

Suddenly, it

kicked and the kick ripped through air, space and everything in its way.

Shuuuuuuu!

A red-black

hyperspace began to form around the centre of that spinning kick and started to

suck in everything in its path. And shockwave after shockwave swept the land.

Azoran-3’s

atmosphere became compressed by the shockwaves and air started to become

ionized. Fireballs fell from the sky and burned as the planet turned hellish.

The shockwave

shot right through the atmosphere and into outer space. A mushroom cloud,

similar to an atomic bomb, began to rise.

Small bikes were

blown away while the vehicles were flipped over. However, everyone was prepared

for the shockwaves because of my warning and the jungle acted as a barrier for

us.

Alter-Armours

that were still flying in the air were swept away and were damaged as they

clashed into each other. All this damage came from a single kick, but it was

enough to destroy weak Alter-Armours. That kick was strong enough to split a

Space Carrier in half.

However, the

quartet avoided the attack by flying in circular motions. Avoiding the direct

attack of the Infernal Stinger was manageable, but it was the shockwaves that

dealt the most damage. Even so, the four Master-class Alter-Armours resisted

the shockwaves.

The four

Master-class machines began flying with great maneuvering skills and speed

while shooting the Connecting Pegasus Shots. Diablo also flew at great speeds

to avoid the attacks, but the Connecting Pegasus Shots chased it down and hit

it square on the green plasma specks.

The green plasma

responded with the Connecting Pegasus Shots and exploded while releasing plasma

storms.

Those explosions

occurred one after another and Diablo the Black Tyrant started to become

sluggish.

“Wow, I’ve heard

about it, but I didn’t expect the pilot to be this inexperienced.”

His capacity

should be excellent, seeing that he could actually get the Kishin Diablo to

move. The power behind that Infernal Stinger was passable as well. However, he

lacked experience.

On the other

hand, the four Federation Master-class Armours were avoiding Diablo’s attacks

and continued to deal damage to the Kishin. They might actually be able to take

down Diablo the Black Tyrant by themselves.

[But this is

good. Mining base is secured. We request evac! Over!]

Ensign Meihowa

requested to the commanding office after seeing the Ursa Major Brigade members

rescuing the hostages. However, the commanding office operator snickered and

said this.

[Wait for the

Kishin Diablo to be taken care of. Over.]

Hmm… it was true

that it would be unsafe to be rescued while the Kishin Diablo was still moving.

We could be swept up in one of its attacks and die. However, the commanding

team was more concerned about securing the Diablo than rescuing the hostages.

“Tch, I can’t

believe that’s all he can do with a good Kishin like that.”

Of course, my

Dawnbringer was a far better Kishin (speaking subjectively) but I suppose I

would be happy with any Alter-Armour at a time like this.

—Kishin Arts:

Storm Lash!

Black light came

out from Diablo’s horn and it gathered in both of its hands. Diablo swung its

hands and crossed them in front of his eyes.

Electric volts

and shockwaves tore the sky open and overwhelmed the smaller Alter-Armours. It

possessed immense strength. It was enough to destroy a Space Carrier like the

Archimedes with ease!

However, the

Master-class machines were far better. They flew up to avoid the Storm Lash and

also Phase Shifted to avoid the rest.

Once again, they

started shooting at the Diablo.

Chains of

explosions took place. Anyone could see that the Diablo’s pilot was confused.

Seeing the enemy

Kishin in that state, the remaining Federation Alter-Armours landed on the

ground and bombarded it with their attacks.

Now Diablo was

no different from a sandbag. Diablo’s pilot was still unable to maintain

balance and was swaying from side to side, and the continuous attacks from the

Federation did not help.

[Wow, as

expected of a Kishin. It’s bloody strong.]

[I’ll say. It’s

still hanging in there no matter how much we attack.]

Now, the quartet

was even joking around.

[Now, now! We

can’t let it escape now. We’ll pierce right through its cockpit!]

The de-facto

leader of the four prepared itself.

Wow, the difference

between their experiences was huge. I suppose this couldn’t be helped because

Elcros, Asas and Rebel Replicants do not have a specific training facility to

train Alter-Armour pilots.

I sighed in

relief. I remembered how I was worried that a powerful force might enter the

battlefield.

But seeing this

situation, that was very unlikely. That Kishin Diablo will now fall because of

its weak pilot and the pilot will be put to shame by the four Master-class

pilots.

However, things

started to change.

Wriiiiiing!

Blue light

started emitting from the Diablo. The light rapidly shone out and exploded to

all directions.

I quickly put up

my grey barrier, without caring if someone saw me or not, and protected the

Spider.

Bzzz!

The blue

electrical volts sent ripples to the heavens. Fire broke out in some parts of

the jungle and all Alter-Armours, including the four Master-classes, were

knocked back by the shock.

—Kishin Arts:

Lion’s Roar!

Huh? What did it

just say?

Admiral Luise

also appeared to be as shocked as I was.

“Dawnbringer!?”

That’s right…

that Lion’s Roar was my baby’s; my Dawnbringer’s technique! But how did the

Diablo, a Kishin that was of a different system than mine, use the Lion’s Roar?

[Unbelievable!]

[Lion’s Roar?]

The voices of

the surprised pilots came over the terminals. They were not seriously shocked

of course, but rather, they were amused at the unexpected attack.

Kishins could

imitate simple techniques from different systems. If the pilot’s ability was

superb, then the technique could be performed convincingly. Also, Diablo and

Dawnbringer were from similar systems.

Hence, among the

8 Kishins, no, 12 Kishins these days I suppose. One could say that Diablo and

Dawnbringer were brother-like in regards to their systems.

However, that

Lion’s Roar just now almost seemed like the real Dawnbringer’s Lion’s Roar.

Ah, it was

nothing compared to the Lion’s Roar that I used to do, but seeing that Lion’s

Roar from an inexperienced pilot like him was an insult to my Dawnbringer.

Diablo

straightened itself up while still afloat. The fluorescent plasma specks were

all gone after that Lion’s Roar. The damage it had taken before started to

recover rapidly.

Seeing that, the

Master-class pilots began to panic. They were beating the Diablo with all they

had. However, all that damage began to recover in seconds.

[You puny pests,

I was only going let the miners leave alive after I play around with the

soldiers for a while!]

We could hear

the roaring voice of the Diablo’s pilot. The voice did not come from the

terminals or by the Alter-Armour. He shouted with his strength alone, amplified

by the Diablo, and echoing across Azoran-3’s atmosphere.

The battlefield

quickly began to change.

### 010. Chapter 10. Madness

Don't get your feathers in a ruffle. Also, Luise is actually Lezirth's secret wife. /jk

Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

Everything happened in an

instant.

Diablo threw a kick at the four

Master-classes, and the four Alter-Armours dispersed to avoid the attack.

Of course, Diablo’s kick was

powerful enough to destroy Alter-Armours without actually landing a physical

hit. However, the Master quartet produced a barrier to lessen the shockwaves

and avoided any serious damage from Diablo’s kick.

However...

—Kishin Arts! Lightning Fire

Piercing Fist!

Diablo’s fist extended at the

quartet with unbelievable speed and angle and hit one of the Master-class

Armours. A barrier was not enough to protect from this attack.

The Master-class machine

shattered with that single attack as a beam of light tore through its body, and

into outer space.

That attack just now, Lightning

Fire Piercing Fist, was also one of Dawnbringer’s attacks! But, that was not at

a level of mere imitation. Diablo shouldn’t be able to pull of that kind of a

Lightning Fire Piercing Fist, even if Diablo and Dawnbringer were similar.

The Diablo pilot was still

relatively new to Alter-Armour piloting. But he could mimic Dawnbringer’s

attacks to that level!

Damn it! That bastard! Are you

looking down on the Dawnbringer? Give me my Dawnbringer! I’ll make his Kishin

Arts look amateurish!

Ah, I’m so mad. But it’s not like

Dawnbringer would just drop out of the sky simply because I was losing my cool.

Let us analyze this situation

critically. The Master quartet was literally playing around with the Black

Tyrant, with ease up until just now. That was because the great difference

between piloting skills outweighed the Alter-Armours’ abilities.

Then why was the quartet being

driven into a corner right now?

That was because the Kishin’s

ability increased unbelievably.

[N-No way! How can this be?!]

[Has he been hiding his true

strength?]

The pilots’ voices of despair

leaked over the terminals. If the quartet loses, then there won’t be any others

who would be able to fight against the Kishin Diablo. Everyone on this

battlefield will lose hope and die!

[We should’ve retreated while we

still had the chance! We’re all gonna die at this rate!]

[No, we still would’ve died if

one of those attacks hit the rescue ship.]

[At least we could’ve had some

chance of escaping! Now we’re all done for!]

Everyone began to panic, seeing

Diablo’s overpowered form.

The quartet, with a machine down,

continued to weave in and out of Diablo’s attacks and fight back. However,

avoiding the attacks proved to be difficult due to Diablo’s increased speed.

One of the attacking

Master-classes turned towards Diablo’s armpit area hidden behind its cape.

“No!”

But it was too late. A

translucent, rainbow-coloured arm suddenly emerged from Diablo’s armpit. The

arm, resembling the scythe of a praying mantis, extended and cut the Alter-Armour

down in a blink of an eye.

A Master-class Alter-Armour had

terrific defence, but the attack was unstoppable! The Alter-Armour was cut in

half and fell towards the ground instantly. The remaining two Armours, as well

as many other soldiers attacking from the ground, lost all hope.

[This is the end!]

The scythe-like arm from Diablo’s

armpit rose and tried to swing down in an arc. If that attack hits, then

everyone on the ground will die!

[Argh!]

But suddenly, Diablo stopped, and

the pilot’s screams echoed out.

[Uuuuu… no!]

The Diablo’s pilot screamed, and

the Federation Alter-Armours seized the opportunity and commenced their attacks

again.

But Diablo swung its arm out of

reflex and scratched the Alter-Armours. Its claws instantly ripped off a

Master-class’ head.

Crreak!

And a kick followed, ripping

right into its neck. The Master-class Alter-Armour was destroyed in an instant.

The remaining Alter-Armour tried

to draw closer, but Diablo swung a kick at it without even looking. A powerful

energy explosion followed the kick and blew the clouds away. The heavens shook

and the Alter-Armour disintegrated in an instant.

The pilot’s action was nothing

like before and almost beast-like.

[It hurts!]

—It hurts!

The pilot’s screams and Diablo’s

thoughts rang out at the same time.

Wait, what? What’s going on? I’ve

lived my life with Kishin Dawnbringer as its pilot for a long time, but I have

never witnessed a situation like this before.

There was research conducted a

long time ago that stated that Alter-Armours do not feel pain when damaged,

because there are no nerves in its structure. But the Alter-Armour was thinking

that it hurts?

Or did the pilot’s thoughts echo

out via Diablo’s?

[H-Humans! Run away! I cannot

control it!]

The pilot inside the Diablo

screamed. He really didn’t want to kill the miners, did he?

Diablo, on the other hand, didn’t

seem to share the same agenda as its pilot, because it was dishing out its

attacks in all directions. The Alter-Armour swung its scythe at everything that

dared to approach it.

Space itself began to rip and the

shockwaves from the Diablo caused plasma storms in the sky, fiery storms on the

ground, and tsunamis at sea.

It was out of control like it

wanted to destroy the planet itself.

It was squeezing out every drop

of his strength like an ill patient struggling.

The Alter-Armours of the Ursa

Major Brigade were blown off their feet like loose leaves and crumbled.

The Diablo wasn’t destroying the

Alter-Armours on purpose. It was simply trying to release its pent-up energy,

and the Alter-Armours just happened to be in its way.

[Everyone! Get away as far as you

can from the Diablo! We must survive!]

Ensign Meihowa gave the order and

began to protect the soldiers by using the Spider as a barrier.

The navy men of the Ursa Major

Brigade also followed what she was doing, and began to transport the miners and

the soldiers by using the remaining Alter-Armours as a barrier.

We all took refuge in the jungle,

away from the rampaging Diablo.

◊

The sun set on Azoran-3. Even so,

the sky was still well lit-up by the fierce fires.

Diablo was still rampaging.

When the Diablo spread out its

arms and released its energy, incredible amounts of energy spat out towards the

poles of this planet. Air ionized and hyperspace began to form. The sight of

the red line spreading across the sky resembled the sky splitting in half.

Diablo’s horn began to release

black electric volts and the volts ran along the line of hyperspace created by

its outstretched arms. The volts fell towards the ground as it travelled.

All lands under the line running

from the South Pole to the North Pole… were struck by the lightning. Flora

burned up and the land shook. Pillars of fire protruded towards the sky and

smoke continued to puff out endlessly.

Was the Black Tyrant really going

to destroy everything on Azoran-3?! Everything on Azoran-3 will be destroyed in

12 hours at the earliest, and 24 hours at the latest.

The apocalyptic scene scared the

living daylights out of the surviving soldiers.

“We’re not the only ones

surprised. Even the Elcros are retreating.”

Admiral Luise spoke as she

inspected the situation with her Clairvoyance. Diablo the Black Tyrant’s

rampage was something also unexpected to the Alliance.

The rescue team of the Ursa Major

Brigade that was in outer space had retreated because of the Diablo.

The rescue mission had failed.

And to make things worse, we couldn’t even surrender to the Alliance now.

No-one would be able to approach Azoran-3 as long as the Kishin Diablo was

rampaging.

“B-But we have the Federation

Kishins!”

“We can be rescued for sure if

the Ursa Major steps in!”

There were a few soldiers who

tried to stay positive, but they didn’t seem to be very convinced by their own

words, because they were trembling in fear.

The Fourth Platoon was receiving

the messages via Ensign Meihowa, but the mining base and Ursa Major survivors

had no way of receiving any messages. They were trying to understand the

situation by listening to public broadcasts, but only news that would make them

despair even more was being broadcasted at the moment.

The TV broadcast was reporting

the news of the Federation and the Alliance fighting in the Oden system and

that the rescue operation in the Azoran system had failed, and that rescue

operation forces were retreating.

“Oh my god!”

“Are they abandoning us?!”

“No way!”

Complaints broke out from the

soldiers. The Oden system was owned by the Elcro, but it was also a solar

system that the Federation highly valued.

The news had reported that the

Federation and the Alliance were fighting in that solar system.

Omertà the Shadowlord.

Arc-razor the Space Cutter.

Minerva the Erudite.

Saika the Brilliant God of Thunder.

Ginnungagap the Satan of the

Abyss.

All five of the mentioned Kishins

of the Alliance appeared in the Oden system and warred with the Federation,

while the Federation sent their own Kishins.

Wolfschewein the Grey Tempest

Ladyhawk the Unparalleled

Celerity.

Swangrace the Guardian Angel.

As well as Ursa Major the Violet

Emperor, who should’ve been in the Azoran system!

All four of the Federation

Kishins, that had a chance of stopping the rampaging Diablo, were in a

different solar system.

Hence, we cannot escape the

Azoran system— even when the rampaging Diablo was going to destroy Azoran-3 in

less than 24 hours.

◊

After having dinner with some

simple rations, I began to warm up.

The Federation and the Alliance.

Which side should I pick?

That question continued to

confuse me. However, there was only one thing that I had to do for now.

—I have to stop Diablo’s rampage.

Although I did not possess great

strength, I was the only one who could stop Diablo’s rampage.

But suddenly, I heard something.

[Lezirth, could you come to me?]

Admiral Luise called me first.

What did she want, I wonder?

I went to where she had called me

to. Sergeant Aroha and Admiral Luise were waiting for me, slightly away from

the downcast soldiers and on top of a small boulder in the mangrove jungle.

Admiral Luise chose not to face

me, but still addressed me with her back turned.

“Lezirth, you plan to fight

Diablo, don’t you?”

She’d already predicted what I

was going to do. I nodded my head.

“Yes.”

“I would like to ask of you not

to do anything stupid, but you won’t listen, would you?”

Her voice was quivering. Her

shoulders also shivered like her voice.

I instantly thought of hugging

her and supporting her, but I decided against it. The only way of supporting

her was not to show kind gestures, but rather give up on defeating the Diablo.

I smiled bitterly instead of

answering.

“The enemy’s strength is

unprecedented. I cannot allow you to step into action without understanding its

powers.”

“……”

“But you would still go, wouldn’t

you, Lezirth? Because… that’s exactly what you did 120 years ago as well.”

120 years ago. She was talking

about none other than the final battle of the Letix War, the battle in the

Atlantic Solar System.

I also ignored her warnings and

stepped into the final battle.

It was the war where the Children

of Letix died one by one. And only two Kishin-class pilots remained in the end.

There were 8 Kishins left, but

only two of them could be manoeuvred—the Dawnbringer that led the attack at the

front, and the Tetragrammaton that supported the war with long distance attacks

at the back.

She insisted against me going

after seeing our siblings die out, telling me to wait until new Kishin-class

pilots could be found. That the war will end on a safer note when the other six

Kishin pilots could be found…

However, the Letix were already

growing by absorbing energy and minerals from other stars, while the

Kishin-class pilots were being nurtured. And hundreds of thousands of soldiers

had to die to buy time for the pilots.

I liked my subordinates, and the

people whom I worked with.

They loved to play cards and used

up their money until their credit card balance hit rock bottom before their pay

day. Some of them loved to get into fights on the internet forums and such.

However, they were the true

heroes. People hailed me as a war hero, but I was nothing but a fake. I was

born in a lab and I was genetically closer to a Letix, not a human.

I had to be on the battlefield

because there was nowhere else I would be recognised for who I am. But they

were different.

They had loved ones to return to,

and to protect. They were people who could always run away, but they sacrificed

themselves by my side during that battle.

I didn’t want their deaths to be

in vain.

I wanted to continue to protect

the world that they loved.

I couldn’t let the hundreds of

thousands of deaths be in vain just for my safety.

So I made her cry. I went against

Admiral Luise’s orders and challenged the Letix Uberlord.

“You betrayed me once. No, you

betrayed me many times.”

Admiral Luise’s body was

shaking. She was crying.

“I’m sorry.”

I extended my hand and wiped away

her tears. But once again, I had to betray her. She must’ve known that I would,

because she clung onto my chest even tighter.

I hugged her back.

“If something happens to you now,

120 years in the future… I will be the only remaining person of our time,

Lezirth. Why can’t you understand me?”

“I… just have to not die. Do you

really think I will be killed by a child like him? I am Lezirth Dawnbringer,

the Commander of Dawn Corps.”

I laughed. That’s right. The

enemy was weak. The way it rampaged was nothing compared to the enemies I once

faced off against.

But I didn’t have my Dawnbringer

with me right now!

But I have to laugh. The least I

could do right now, was to put on a tough act before the girl who was afraid of

losing me.

Because I’ve already done this

many, many times before!

—Zznnnig!

I felt a slight headache and

could suddenly hear someone whispering in my ear.

‘Lezirth… don’t abandon me. I’ve

waited for you. A lot longer than you think.’

I felt dizzy all of a sudden.

What’s going on? I looked up in surprise. Admiral Luise was looking at me with

moist eyes.

“I don’t want to be betrayed by

you any longer. So Lezirth, I will let you go willingly.”

“……”

“There is Dawnbringer inside that

Diablo.”

She said that with a

matter-of-fact tone. I couldn’t help but to be surprised.

Admiral Luise’s specialities

were Telepathy and Clairvoyance.

And these skills were as

dangerous as teleporting.

Since the hyperspace creatures

were so large and big, people thought of them as some sort of demonic fiends,

but some hyperspace creatures could be seen in the third dimension, like one

would be able to see a dot or a line.

And some creatures shone in the

third dimension, so they could only be detected by electronic waves.

The giant hyperspace creatures

that could be physically seen were called Demons and the miniscule virus-type,

or DNA-stranded forms of hyperspace creatures were called Devils.

Teleport users could easily be

detected by the Demons, while the Telepathy users could easily be detected by

the Devils. And being detected usually resulted in the user’s death.

Hence, there were two general

rules for a powerful Telepathy user.

The first was to never use their

telepathic abilities on strong Alter-Armours, such as the Kishins or any other

Demons.

The second was to never use their

telepathic abilities on rampaging people.

Those two were the ground rules.

Rampaging people attracted

Devil-type hyperspace creatures, and could infect the telepathy user with its

powers when a connection is made.

But in this case, it was a Kishin

on a rampage! Studying it with telepathy or clairvoyance was far too dangerous.

It was suicidal!

However, Admiral Luise’s eyes

were shining. She had forcefully connected herself to the Diablo with her

powers and was analyzing the situation!

“Stop! What are you doing! Don’t

do that! You’ll die like this!”

I tried to stop Admiral Luise,

but she shook her head in refusal.

“You didn’t listen to me either!

So Lezirth!”

At that moment, a drop of blood

fell from her nose. But she continued to look at me with a stern expression.

“Currently, the Dawnbringer has

been split up into pieces and some of it is in Diablo, as some sort of a

strengthening part. The pilot joined the Dawnbringer’s part with Diablo when he

was driven into a corner, and that was why the Diablo felt pain. Diablo began

to rampage like an ill patient because of the Dawnbringer’s piece.”

“Luise!”

“Don’t worry. I… have a device

that will naturally cut off my brain if I become possessed by the Devil… so I

won’t be leaving an effect on this dimension.”

“That’s not what I mean! Luise!”

“Unfortunately… I cannot actually

fight without the Tetragrammaton. All I can do is collect the information and

assist Lezirth with it.”

Admiral Luise smiled.

“So I will let you go, Lezirth.

Please, save Diablo and Dawnbringer, as well as our friends stuck on this

planet. That way, I won’t be betrayed by you.”

She weakly smiled and stroked my

face with her hand.

I felt her hand and hugged her

tight. Her body felt cool compared to the hot weather, but I could feel her

temperature rising.

The life support system built in

to the uniform activated because of the sudden rise in temperature.

“B-But…”

“The Lezirth I see before me… is

the Commander of Dawn Corps, and the bravest and the strongest of all men. The

world may not know it, but I...”

She closed her eyes before

finishing her sentence.

N-No… no way.

—Emergency life support system

mode. Activated.

That message was displayed on her

uniform.

I suddenly teared up.

Am I going to be only one left in

this future?! I wouldn’t be able to bear it if Admiral Luise disappears. This

universe felt so empty and lonely all of a sudden.

“Ah… no. This is….”

I blankly looked at Admiral

Luise.

Sergeant Aroha slowly approached

Admiral Luise and checked her pulse.

“Hmm… Lezirth.”

“What?”

I hid my face with my hand from

her. I was ashamed to show her that I was crying. No, it would definitely be

shameful for a sergeant to see me, the Commander of Dawn Corps, crying.

But right now, I was… I couldn’t…

keep my composure…

Why did she risk her life? Did

she risk her life because I was about to fight the enemy without any

information?

Just to increase my chances of

winning ever so slightly? She risked dying for me just to raise my chances of

winning?!

I’m not worth it!

Like she said, I betrayed her.

I failed to save her from that

research centre! I abandoned her and stepped onto the battlefield!

But now I finally realized

something with her death. She was my sibling, and my partner! She was born only

days apart from me and lived for the same period of time, and even now, 120

years in the future!

She was so precious to me… I

can’t lose her like this.

Suddenly, Sergeant Aroha raised

her hand and slapped my cheek.

“Hey, listen carefully to what

I’m about to say. It’s very important, so listen carefully!”

“Huh?”

“Luise Maynard is….”

“Huh?”

“Just sleeping.”

“Eh?”

“Look.”

When I looked, Admiral Luise was

indeed asleep. But what about the life support system?

“The life support system probably

accidently switched itself on after her biorhythm fell so low, and also because

of the sudden rise in temperature. Aside from that, she’s fine.”

Sergeant Aroha said that and

flashed a smile at me.

“Sorry for hitting you. Oh, look,

she’s just entered into REM sleep. Isn’t she sleeping well?”

“……”

“Look, she’s breathing and

everything.”

Indeed, Admiral Luise was

sleeping while breathing softly.

“Mm, Lezirth. Heh heh, you’re

mine.”

I didn’t know what she was

dreaming about, but she said my name while moving around.

The way she rolled around was so

lovely; I couldn’t help but to laugh. Sergeant Aroha snickered.

“You two are so weird. What did

you get all emotional about anyway?”

“N-No… that’s… hmm. I, geez, heh

heh.”

Tsk. H-How embarrassing. But it

was Sergeant Aroha who couldn’t understand, because she wasn’t a psychic user.

She doesn’t know the great risks involved in the use of psychic abilities.

Hmph!

“Fufu.”

Sergeant Aroha kneeled on the

floor and rested Admiral Luise’s head on her lap.

“Then I’ll be looking after her.”

“Huh?”

“You have something to do, don’t

you? Get going.”

“Ah, that’s right. I should go.”

“But don’t teleport. The Ursa

Major Brigade is with us after all. Didn’t you say you had to hide your

identity?”

“… That’s right.”

“And come here.”

She motioned me to come with her

finger. When I approached her without thinking too deeply into it, she told me

to come a bit closer.

She pointed at Admiral Luise’s ear.

I wonder if something went in there.

As soon as I bowed my head to see

what was going on, Sergeant Aroha hugged my neck.

“Urpp. What do you want? Sergeant

Aroha?”

“Well, you know. I just wanted to

hug the legendary war hero. Maybe I have what it takes to be a groupie.”

Wasn’t a groupie one of those

people who chased after rock bands or famous celebrities? What’s gotten into

her to say that?

“I’m starting to think you are

actually the real Lezirth Dawnbringer.”

“Ha, and who’s the one who wouldn’t

believe me, no matter how much I told you guys.”

I smiled and waved my hand at

Sergeant Aroha.

“Then Sergeant, just be waiting

for me with a joyful heart. I will show you exactly why Lezirth Dawnbringer is

a legendary war hero.”

◊

I inspected the situation via the

military computer. Some drones deployed by the Ursa Major Brigade were still

active, so I was able to see the Diablo rampaging.

But there certainly was something

wrong with the Diablo at the moment. It’s strong, energetic attacks were no

more, and Diablo was walking around like a drunkard.

It seemed like Admiral Luise had

done something with the Dawnbringer piece sleeping inside the Diablo to aid me.

However, the Ursa Major Brigade

was the problem. My Teleportation ability alone was ranked SSS. If they happen

to witness me, the Federation might begin their crackdown and I might be

revealed to the ones who put me in cold sleep.

Well, even if the ones who put me

in cold sleep were gone, and only the empty Federation remained, I didn’t want

to show off my abilities.

‘But I hope we could stay

together in the same platoon.’

That was what Ensign Meihowa

said. With Admiral Luise, Sergeant Aroha… and Pencolt too, I suppose? Anyhow,

I really liked this platoon.

If my abilities are revealed,

then Admiral Luise and the platoon and I would be torn apart. I had to hide my

abilities to prevent that.

Then that means I either have to

walk, or use a vehicle like a car or a bike…

While I was having those

thoughts, someone riding a bike stopped in front of me. The bike was a

two-wheeled bike, with carbon nanotube frames and a battery holder for the

power.

The Thorium battery in the

battery holder was sufficient enough to drive this bike for 120 years without

stopping. The light and trustworthy Thorium batteries were compatible with all

Federation equipment.

It was fairly clear that these

were long lasting, because only the appearance has changed since 120 years ago.

“Where are you going, Lezirth?”

Riding the bike was a

silver-haired half-Elcro girl. Ensign Meihowa looked at me from the bike.

“I’m just going to borrow your

Alter-Armour.”

“Then I will go with you as well.

I locked it with my authority when I hid it in the sea, so you wouldn’t be able

to unlock it without me. You won’t be able to turn it on either. Unless you can

hack into the military computers like Luise.”

“It’ll be dangerous.”

“It won’t be the first time being

in danger.”

Ensign Meihowa took out an

instructor’s baton and tapped the seat behind her.

Hmm… wouldn’t it be better for a

man, such as me, to drive?

The thought crossed my mind, but

it wasn’t something that I could easily say.

I sat behind her without a

complaint and grabbed the rear seat’s frame with my hands.

“You can put your hands around my

waist. We can go faster like that.”

W-Will that be okay?

I shyly scratched the tip of my

nose.

“I’ll be hugging you from the

back, you know?”

“Ah! I-It’s not like I like it.

But it’s an urgent situation right now, isn’t it?”

“It… is an urgent situation.”

“Then why don’t you ride without

holding onto anything and fly off and bump into a tree? It can be your new

training. If you don’t like that, then you must put your hands around me. It’s

okay! I am your senior and Lezirth, you’re just my subordinate!”

“I suppose. Now isn’t the time to

waste time by being embarrassed.”

I breathed in deeply and slowly

put my hands around her waist. She felt soft and tender. I would be touching

her breasts if I move my hands up a bit further, wouldn’t I? I need to be

careful so I don’t do that.

But it really is embarrassing to

be riding like this. I was hugging her so tight that my chest, stomach and my

private parts were stuck closely to her back and butt.

My heart was beating unbelievably

fast even though I was only hugging her without saying a thing. The fast

heartbeat made my neck and ears itch.

The sound of my heartbeat echoed

against my eardrums like roaring thunder. I could hear my heartbeat ever so

loudly even though Meihowa was driving the bike at full speed.

The electric bike was far too

quiet. I should strike up a conversation to get my mind off things.

And the first thing I thought of

to break that ice was… something rather ridiculous.

“Um… Meihowa, your abs must be

clearly visible. I can tell by the feel of them.”

Damn! What am I saying? Why was

that the first thing I said...

“Th-That’s because I am a

soldier. I-It’s only obvious. B-But it doesn’t have the distinct lines like

males’ six-packs…. Hnyaa.”

My face instantly turned red. I

could feel Meihowa being slightly surprised.

When I faced straight ahead

without turning my head… I could see Meihowa wings. Her wings fluttered in the

wind and they felt slightly weird when they touched my face.

Hmm… how should I say this? They

felt boneless and muscular? Or something quite tense and stringy seemed to

comprise her wings.

Without thinking too deeply into

it, I rested my face on her wings just out of curiosity.

Hmm, there were no bones, but

they felt soft and tender when I pressed against them. So this was why she was

fine with resting her back against the chairs or laying on beds.

The mystery has been solved!

But while I was happy about my

find, something happened.

“Hnyaaa…”

Hmm? Didn’t I just hear a weird

sound? I swear I heard that strange noise even against the rushing winds.

“D-Don’t do that! At least not

while I’m driving! I know I said I would allow you to touch them, but now is

not the time!”

“Hmm? Are you ticklish?”

I loosened my hand and touched

one of her wings slightly. When I did, she yelled again.

“Stop it! I’m not ticklish!”

“Then what?”

“No, the thing is… it’s not

ticklish. It doesn’t hurt and it’s not supposed to feel anything, but…”

She was going nowhere with her

explanations. Seeing her like that was so interesting that I had to touch her

wings again.

She certainly didn’t appear to be

ticklish or in pain. Then what about if I lightly brush her wing with my

fingers?

“Hiing…. Sniff. G-Geez, I’m

telling you that’s dangerous!”

“Ah… S-Sorry.”

I suppose my teasing went over

the line. I hugged her waist again. Maybe it was just my imagination, but she

felt hotter than before.

“

Haa

…”

My breathing also became coarse.

I wanted to hug her tighter. No. I actually wanted to...

Wait, no, I can’t do that!

I desperately dispelled my

animal-like instinct. The fact of the matter is, Ensign Meihowa was giving me a

ride, and I cannot show those physical reactions in return. I’d rather force

myself to teleport instead.

“Ensign Meihowa! I’d rather…”

But since I was tightly hugging

her back, her wing came into my mouth without me meaning to as I opened it to

talk.

Then she screamed. She lost

control and the bike flew after hitting some obstacle on the ground.

“Damn! This wasn’t what I

planned!”

I used my psychic powers to catch

her and the bike from the fall. The bike was approximately 70kgs while Ensign

Meihowa was….

I’ll be skipping the details to

protect her privacy.

I jogged to a slow stop while

keeping up that weight with my powers. Ensign Meihowa started to kick and

struggle and hit me.

“I told you not to do that!

Lezirth! You idiot! You Greenie!”

“No, that was a mistake… I’m

sorry.”

Her punches were powerful

considering she was a female, but that was to be expected because she was a

soldier. I put up a barrier with my powers to defend myself and I put her down.

“Well, at least we’re nearly

there.”

“Geez!”

She straightened up her helmet

and started to operate the military computer.

The Alter-Armour hiding under the

sea reacted to her actions and rose up. It must’ve had a tough time under the

sea because of Diablo’s rampages before, because it was plastered with seaweed

all over its body.

Despite the ordinary armour

coating and the metal outer gauntlets, it resembled an insect or a crustacean.

But it also resembled a medieval

knight with a set of armour; as expected of an Alter-Armour from the

Dawnbringer line. I suppose one could say that it shared some features that

were unique to hand-to-hand combat types.

However, the problem was that

this Alter-Armour was far too small compared to the Kishin Dawnbringer, or the

Kishin Diablo—the enemy it must face.

“It’s really small now that I see

it.”

The Minion-class Alter-Armour was

really small compared to the Kishin-class Diablo. This Alter-Armour didn’t even

measure up to a single Diablo’s limb, and their weapons were beyond comparison.

“Are you really going to try…

with this?”

“Admiral Luise woke up the

Dawnbringer inside Diablo. If I can crack Diablo’s outer armour even slightly,

I can get Dawnbringer out from that gap. This is an opportunity that Admiral

Luise created while even risking her own life. I cannot let that go to waste.”

“Dawnbringer? Are you saying that

the Dawnbringer is inside Diablo right now?”

“Yes. That’s why the Diablo

rampaged like that.”

“How do you know that? That’s…”

“I’ve told you before, right? I’m

Lezirth Dawnbringer.”

After replying, I jumped up to

the Alter-Armour’s cockpit in a single leap. Ensign Meihowa climbed up using

the rope hanging down from the cockpit.

“It’s amazing you could cover

this distance with a jump.”

She opened the cockpit door. The

door was placed on the machine’s lower abdomen and into the chest of the

machine. However, it was quite a squeeze for Ensign Meihowa and I.

“I can’t pass on the register key

to you. Because you have to be at least a Sergeant to be an Alter-Armour

pilot.”

“Then we’ll go tandem mode.”

Ensign Meihowa fiddled with the

military computer and set the machine on tandem mode at my request.

I sat on the pilot’s seat first

and looked at her. Ensign Meihowa’s face quickly became red.

“D-Do I… have to sit on you?”

“This is the only way to go

tandem in a Minion-class… it can’t be helped, can it?”

And it was even worse in a small

cockpit like this.

“M-My wings.”

“Huh?”

“Promise me you won’t touch my

wings! Lezirth!”

She glared at me suspiciously.

“O-Of course. That just now was

an accident. I did it out of my will at first, but the last one was an

accident!”

“I-If you say so! Fine. I’ll

believe you! Aroha said that I should never trust a man who says ‘you trust me,

right babe’ but Lezirth! I can trust you because you didn’t say ‘you trust me,

right babe’, right?!”

She grudgingly sat on my lap. I

could see her white neck through her hair. I was mesmerized by the beauty of

the sight that I subconsciously muttered out.

“How pretty.”

“Huh?”

Ensign Meihowa suddenly lowered

her head. Her neck and her ears began to g

et

rosy.

“What d-did you say?”

“I-I just said it’s pretty nice

to be riding in an Alter-Armour after such a long time.”

I feigned innocence and she

sighed in relief.

“A-Anyhow, just don’t touch my

wings. Got it?”

“Yes, I got it.”

I nodded my head. Ensign Meihowa’s

body felt so good against my own, but I had other things to concentrate on for

now.

“It’s been so long since I rode

an Alter-Armour.”

“But I wonder if the Alter-Armour

would operate on tandem when the gauging machine reset itself continuously the

other day.”

Ensign Meihowa seemed to be

worried, but when I concentrated, the Minion-class Alter-Armour awoke.

—W

hi

rrrl!

The Alter-Armour began to move

with a powerful mechanical whirl. Ensign Meihowa was amazed at what was

happening.

“Oh my goodness! What is with the

figure? I can’t believe it!”

“Now then, shall we fetch what we

need?”

“You have something that you

need? Ah, equipment? Ammunition?”

“That too… but I need some

energy-gel, atropine and adrenaline.”

“Huh? Is it because you’re

hungry? I’ve got some energy-gel… but atropine and adrenaline?”

Ensign Meihowa tilted her head,

puzzled. She was so lovely, turning around to look at me while seated on my

lap. Damn it, I can’t lose myself here.

“Hmm, well you’ll see why.”

I manoeuvred the Alter-Armour and

headed to the jungle near the mining base, because there were some energy-gel,

atropine and adrenaline that we left there when we fled in a hurry. I can

supply myself there.

And that was where Diablo would

be waiting for us.

### 011. Chapter 11. Holy Sword of Dawn

It's the Battle of David and Goliath! Also, drugs are bad, mmkay?

Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

In order to retrieve some

energy-gels and other medical supplies, we had to hide ourselves. We were

stepping onto Diablo’s territory and we could be killed in an instant if we

were noticed.

I could feel Ensign Meihowa

becoming more and more nervous as we approached the Diablo.

“Are you okay, Ensign? You can

always get off if you’re scared.”

The Alter-Armour was switched on,

so things should be fine somehow. There was no need to take her with me to the

lion’s den.

However, Ensign Meihowa shook her

head.

“I’m not scared.”

“Really? A Minion-class like this

will disintegrate in an instant from a blow from Diablo. You would be gone

before you even feel any pain.”

“I-I am scared, but I’m not

scared!”

She spat out words that made no

sense. I smirked, seeing her slightly turning her head to look back at me.

“You’re not lying, are you? Fine,

let’s get going then! You can’t get off now, Meihowa! My fighting style can

work with tandem piloting! No! We would die if we don’t pilot a Minion-class in

tandem! We must tandem it! Help me!”

“Fine!”

Meihowa’s voice was energetic!

Great, let’s go!

—Imitation Change: Camouflage!

The Alter-Armour instantly made

itself transparent. Although it was not shifting into a different dimension to

allow physical objects to pass through it like Phase Shifting, it just blended

into its surroundings.

Alter-Armours that had been based

off the Letix; hyperspace creatures, had the ability to change the laws of

physics while obeying them at the same time.

But of course, those built-in

skills of the Alter-Armours were useless unless the pilot knew about the skills

and knew how to bring those skills out. However, the pilot who was operating

this machine was I, the greatest pilot in the history of the Federation, Vice

Admiral Lezirth Dawnbringer!

I operated the machine to go

straight into the destroyed jungle ahead of us, while staying in this state.

The jungle had already been reduced to ash because of the fire and I saw a

glimpse of some military supply boxes in the ashes.

I snuck some of the boxes into

the cockpit while Diablo wasn’t paying attention. I opened the boxes with

psychic powers to check the contents, and threw out everything apart from

energy-gels, adrenaline and atropine.

I stocked up greatly on the energy-gels

in particular, because this was the key element to my plan.

“Good. I suppose we’re all

ready.”

I finally finished preparing for

the fight after stuffing the cockpit full of medical supplies.

Then suddenly, the communication

channel opened.

[Umm, Lezirth?]

Admiral Luise was on the screen,

rubbing her eyes. I was surprised and stared at her, frozen.

[Why… why are you with the

Ensign? Are you going tandem? Are you in tandem right now?]

“Ah, you see… because I didn’t

have the operational right.”

[Wait a minute! If you fight the

Diablo with Federation equipment, then the battle records will remain anyway.

And if you fight like that, your combat prowess will be revealed instantly!

I’ll delete the record, so there’s no need to operate it in tandem!]

Admiral Luise really instantly

deleted this Alter-Armour from the Federation database and turned this into an

unregistered Alter-Armour. I could indeed operate this without tandem mode now.

However, I shook my head.

“I need an assistant to fight

with a Minion-class. It would take time to bring Ensign Meihowa to a safer

place, and I need an assistant… so I will fight like this.”

[Hmm… that may be true, but for a

male and a female to be in a small place like that is…!]

“The Tetragrammaton could attack

the rescue force, so I think it would be wise to hurry.”

I quickly grabbed the cockpit

handle. I used the nerves in my hand to contact the Alter-Armour.

Although the Alter-Armour was

operating without any problems, it was still a Minion-class, it would be

defeated by the Diablo in an instant.

I had to bring out the full

potential of this Alter-Armour.

I concentrated my mind.

—I have to send my heart to this

Alter-Armour and become its strength. Hence, I had to become the heart of this Alter-Armour.

“I am Lezirth Dawnbringer, and a

partner to the Kishin Dawnbringer. Will you also lend me your strength?”

The Alter-Armour replied with a

positive ring to my question. I quickly became sorry for this machine.

“My methods can be quite extreme.

Can you forgive me?”

The Alter-Armour again replied

with a positive ring. It did not know what suffering really was because it was

more or less a newborn.

Alter-Armours couldn’t feel pain

of course, but they could feel suffering. And this little one will soon taste

it.

“Amazing. The Alter-Armour… is

responding like a real organism!”

Ensign Meihowa exclaimed. Hmm, I

felt this all the time, but this must’ve been the first time for her.

“I really do feel bad about

making a newborn go through a lot of suffering!”

Even as I said that, I raised my

body. Now was the time to challenge the Diablo!

“Then I shall name this

Alter-Armour, Dawnbringer Minion. Dawnbringer Minion! Activate battle mode!”

At that instant, golden light

started to radiate from Dawnbringer Minion’s body, below its dull armour.

◊

The unregistered machine, this

small Minion-class machine walked up to the Diablo and boldly stood before it.

The mad black beast, measuring 40

meters tall, was emitting lightning from its horn and was burning down the sky,

the ground and the seas. The Minion-class machine was no different from a boy

confronting a giant.

However, the Minion-class was

glowing with a golden aura and pointed its finger at the black beast, Kishin

Diablo.

“You, pilot!”

My amplified voice came out not

from the communication channel, but from the Alter-Armour’s external speakers.

“I will save you, so you just

wait there!”

The Minion-class measured 10

meters in height, a quarter of Kishin Diablo’s height, and its strength was

miniscule in comparison. If anyone was watching this scene, they would think

that the Minion-class pilot was out of his mind.

But luckily, there were only five

people who were watching this scene.

First was the pilot stuck in the

Kishin Diablo. There were two pilots on board the Minion-class; Meihowa and I.

And finally there were our two supporters, Luise and Aroha.

The fate of Azora-3 rested in the

hands of these five people.

—Kishin Arts: Lightning Fire Piercing

Fist!

Diablo extended its fist at the

sudden challenger. No, it wasn’t quite ‘extended’. It was closer to ‘fired’.

It measured a staggering height

of 40 meters, and its limbs were disproportionately long. Its long arm flew

towards us in a blink of an eye. Its speed was faster than the second cosmic

velocity!

Air around the path of the fist

was instantly ionized and turned to plasma, and the lightning flew at

everything within a 300-meter radius. The punch performed exactly as it was

named, Lightning Fire Piercing Fist!

If the punch makes contact with

this Minion-class Alter-Armour, it would disappear without a trace.

However, something amazing

happened. The gigantic, 40-meter tall black Kishin, Diablo, fell into the sea.

A gigantic pillar of water rose

from the sea and caused a small tsunami on the shores.

“Wh-What?! Can you really save

me?”

The pilot stuck inside the out of

control Diablo realized something at that moment.

That the Minion-class

Alter-Armour before its eyes was the one who was going to save him; not some

Kishin from the Federation!

◊

…

“Wouldn’t this do?”

I opened a pack of energy-gel as

I said that. Ensign Meihowa was in the process of pouring the energy-gel into

the emergency energy slot under the cockpit.

“H-How did you throw the Kishin

away with a Minion-class? Was it Kishin Arts?”

“Dawnbringer-class telekinesis.”

I answered Ensign Meihowa as she

looked back at me in shock.

“What is this warning noise from

the cockpit? I’ve never seen this before.”

Red light was flashing inside the

cockpit like lights in a nightclub.

“Ah! That’s just a sign to say

that the Minion-class was stepping out of its limits. It’s something like

humans getting dizzy from excessive or sudden exercise. It's comparable to

taking excessive insulin.”

That was why we were squeezing

energy-gel into the machine.

My plan worked, for now.

I used my telekinesis to direct

Diablo’s fist towards the ground.

After making the Lighting Fire

Piercing Punch hit the ground, I used the opening to land a kick on its leg.

Would the Kishin-class machine

even be affected by a kick from a Minion-class?

But thanks to the Kishin losing

its balance after the misdirected punch, Diablo the Black Tyrant was already

falling forwards.

“I’ll show you how to really use

a Kishin!”

“This isn’t a Kishin-class, but a

Minion-class!”

Ensign Meihowa retorted, but I

silenced her retort.

“I am the Dawnbringer!”

—Martial Arts! Yama Arashi

[1]

!

I had kicked Diablo’s foot and

planted Diablo straight into the sea.

However, the Minion-class

Alter-Armour fell into a state of confusion because of the explosive amount of

energy I forced it to attack the Black Tyrant with.

The warning light in the cockpit

flashed like the lights at a nightclub on a Saturday night! What a great beat!

“Argh!”

The screaming belonging to either

Diablo’s pilot or the Kishin itself exploded out. Diablo swung its fist into

the sea and raised itself up.

Its neck and limbs had broken

from the fall, but it was recovering rather quickly.

I would’ve secured the victory at

an opportunity like this, but our Alter-Armour was half dead from using the

technique.

Diablo charged at us again. It

spread out its arms and charged like a wild animal. Hyperspace was formed

between its claws and became a giant net.

A normal pilot would be scared

shitless at the sight, but Diablo had to do a lot more to scare me.

I performed a sidestep feint. I

jumped to its side and dug deep without giving it a chance to respond.

As expected from an inexperienced

pilot, it left its side wide open.

“Here I go!”

I threw a power fist onto

Diablo’s body. With the clear hit, I let out an explosion! Activating the Coil

Rifle, the punch accelerated and pierced through Diablo’s armour!

Unlike the Kishin Diablo that was

already blessed with strong abilities, lower-ranked Alter-Armours were equipped

with Colion Rifles and electrically-powered power fists.

Although I wasn’t sure how much

damage I could deal… it was better than nothing when supplemented by my psychic

powers.

—Kishin Arts! ...Is what I’d like

to call it, but just Martial Arts! Lightning Fire Piercing Fist!

The Cherenkov radiation seeped

through the Diablo’s body with the attack.

Although this Lightning Fire

Piercing Fist was just a psychic-powered one, its strength still couldn’t be

ignored. I could probably take down a Minion-class Alter-Armour when I perform

it barehanded. But performing it with an Alter-Armour should’ve strengthened

the attack by a fair amount.

If the Diablo was just an

ordinary 40-meter tall robot, it would’ve been reduced to dust by the punch.

However, Kishins possessed

defensive ability that could disperse some of the received damage into

hyperspace. The punch wouldn’t have been enough to deal a great amount of

damage to a Kishin.

But what if I attack in a chain

combo?

I continued to attack Diablo’s

body. The pilot inside still didn’t know what to do and was taking the beating.

But it was as tough as I

expected! Diablo’s armour certainly was cracking from the continuous hits, but

it was recovering itself at the same time. What was even worse, Diablo began to

get its head straight and tried to counter attack.

“Look out!”

I could hear Ensign Meihowa

screaming loudly. And at the same time, Diablo raised its claws and swung them

at Dawnbringer Minion!

“I’ve been waiting for that!”

As soon as the Diablo attacked, I

escaped to the area under its armpit.

I knew of course that the Diablo

possessed a hidden arm under its armpit and that it could slice apart a

Minion-class Alter-Armour instantly.

But I dealt a strong blow to its

hidden arm as I avoided it and swung around to Diablo’s back and stood on the

back of its neck. And a kick!

—Kishin Arts! ...Is what I’d like

to call it, but just a normal kick!

The kick was measly compared to

the Infernal Stinger from the Diablo, but a great amount of energy was behind

the kick. Air ionized and plasma bounced off Diablo’s head with the kick.

The 40-meter tall giant was

kicked on the back of its head, fell and rolled across the sea. Pillars of

water shot up and tsunamis slammed against the nearby islands.

“The difference between our

skills is like heaven and earth! Now, I’ll end it here!”

I supplied more energy to the

Alter-Armour to finish off the Diablo.

But suddenly, the cockpit became

dark. The Dawnbringer Minion that was hovering in mid-air suddenly stopped

moving and began to fall.

“Kyaa!? What’s going on?!”

Ensign Meihowa yelled. I

protected her from the shock with my psychic abilities as I shouted.

“Damn, it turned off. Meihowa,

pass me the atropine shot!”

“Oh my word! I don’t know if

we’re dealing with an Alter-Armour, or a patient in an emergency ward here!”

Ensign Meihowa poked the atropine

needle into the inner wall of the cockpit and the Dawnbringer Minion sprang

back to life.

I quickly spurred Dawnbringer

Minion from crashing into the sea and slowed down in mid-air.

“Whew, this guy can’t handle it

when I use too much strength. I guess it’s too much for a Minion-class.”

“Will it be OK? The Alter-Armour will

become a drug addict at this rate!”

“It should be fine, I suppose.

There is no scientific report that shows that Alter-Armours can become drug

addicts.

Probably

. Now, we’re not

that far away! We have to set Diablo free!”

When I grabbed the handle inside

the cockpit, I could hear the machine groaning in complaint. Although it

couldn’t feel pain, it was feeling disheartened. Its confidence was now nowhere

to be found.

As expected! This Alter-Armour

probably didn’t think that a pilot as harsh as me existed.

But it can’t be helped, can it?

This was the only way to fight a Kishin-class without dying while using a

Minion-class. I was pushing this Alter-Armour to its absolute limits to fight

the Kishin, but even a scratch from the Diablo could turn all of us into space

dust.

—Grrrr!

Diablo the Black Tyrant slowly

turned its head. It appeared to be extremely angry.

“We’re going straight away! Give

it a lot of energy-gel!”

“Ah… I should’ve brought a trench

shovel.”

Would you have shovelled the

energy-gel if you’d brought one? Ensign Meihowa regretted her lack of

preparation and threw in the energy-gels while opening the energy-packs

half-heartedly.

—Roar!!

Diablo let out a war cry and

swung its arms widely to attack. Its attacks created lightning that was far too

powerful to be avoided, even with Phase Shifts.

A single hit can kill us! So I

had to avoid all of its attacks.

“You’re slow! Weak! How pitiful!

Florid Dance!”

Dawnbringer Minion radiated

golden light and jumped, weaving in and out of spaces, to avoid Diablo’s

attacks. I was in an Alter-Armour, so teleporting didn’t scare me now!

Diablo turned around to chase my

movements but I jumped to the back of its head to attack.

[You little pest!]

Suddenly, Diablo crossed its

arms. Pale blue light began to radiate from its body.

This is dangerous!

—Kishin Arts! Lion’s Roar!

As predicted! An EMP shockwave

radiated from its body in all directions. I couldn’t avoid this attack!

Lion’s Roar was a relatively weak

attack, but that was only in the cases when battling against another Kishin. A

Minion-class can easily be shattered by the shockwave alone.

I have to face this one!

—Kishin Arts! Lion’s Roar! …Is

what I’d like to call it, but just EMP!

I activated the EMP generator on

Dawnbringer Minion’s shoulders. It was pitifully weak because it was being

performed mechanically, not via a Kishin Art like the real Diablo.

However, this weakened the

Diablo’s attack. I seized the opportunity to use telekinesis to kick Diablo’s

head again.

[Argh!]

Diablo’s pilot screamed in pain

and was knocked backwards. Thanks to that, the Lion’s Roar from Diablo stopped.

However, Dawnbringer Minion was

briefly nuked by the attack.

It was in this state even when I

protected it with a psychic barrier and an EMP generator.

“This is not good! We’re nearly

out of energy-gel!”

I heard Ensign Meihowa screaming.

Damn it! I was holding my ground relatively well, but Diablo’s regeneration

power was far too powerful. Won’t I end up in the same state as the

Master-class quartet from the Ursa Major Brigade?

“Meihowa! Give it some

adrenaline!”

I drove the Alter-Armour to Diablo’s

chest firing off the Coil Rifle as it was unsteady from the impact to its head.

Diablo must be laughing at my attacks, because it didn’t even bother to avoid

them.

A series of explosions sounded. I

quickly ran out of Coil Rifle ammunition because I was shooting at maximum

output.

This time, I abandoned the Coil

Rifle and slashed away at Diablo with the giant sword. Trying to avoid the

attack, Diablo stepped back, but tripped and landed on a rocky mountain.

The mountain was scraped away as

Diablo slid off it. However, Diablo’s finger moved as it slid.

Diablo had flung a boulder with

its finger—at the speed of sound, at that. It broke as it flew and sprayed

plasma trails as it flew.

“Damn!”

I put up a psychic barrier and

took on a defensive pose. Even I could defend myself, unarmed, if it was an

attack of that level.

However, the problem was that

Dawnbringer Minion was unable to fight at its full potential because of

fatigue. The psychic barrier broke and the plasma jets struck Dawnbringer

Minion.

“Kugh!”

—Danger! Inertia control has

reached the limit!

The built-in computer inside the

cockpit screamed at me. I protected Ensign Meihowa with telekinesis and backed

off to land on the sea.

“Ughh…”

I was left defenceless because I

was protecting Meihowa, and I felt the full impact of the attack. Everything

before me turned red. I was bleeding internally in my eyes and my stomach was

churning. I threw up blood from my mouth. I felt hot with dizziness and

something slimy fell from my eyes.

“Lezirth!”

Meihowa screamed. But I shook my

head.

“I’m fine! This was something

quite common back in the days. The new cockpits have really improved.”

But the differences between the

machines’ abilities were too great. The Kishin was perfectly fine even after

all that beating I inflicted on it. My Alter-Armour on the other hand, couldn’t

even use Kishin Arts and could be instantly reduced to rubble by a half-hearted

attack from it.

“Hmm?”

My vision started to become hazy.

Was I bleeding too much?

Brrrrrrrr!

Suddenly, Diablo’s body began to

vibrate. A tree-like object began to grow from Diablo’s neck as it lay

collapsed on the mountain.

It was a flora-type form that the

Letix took on when they absorb energy and nutrients to recover themselves. Did

Diablo form that to recover itself?

[Now is the time, Lezirth! That’s

Dawnbringer!]

Admiral Luise suddenly called me

via the communication channel.

“That’s Dawnbringer!?”

Now that she mentioned it, it did

feel familiar. However, Dawnbringer Minion, the Alter-Armour that I was riding,

couldn’t move properly because of the Kishin Arts attack.

“We’re out of energy-gel! There’s

some canned coffee, but can we use it?”

“Caffeine? Great!”

“Geez, I feel like a coal feeder

back in the steam-engine era!”

Meihowa began to move while

seated on my lap. However, I couldn’t see inside the cockpit now, because I was

blinded. However, I could feel her feeding the Alter-Armour canned coffees and

adrenaline shots.

“Dawnbringer! It’s me, Lezirth!”

I didn’t know if it could hear

me, but I called out to Dawnbringer and climbed up the mountain. The

Alter-Armour, unable to fly, crawled up the mountain weakly. Rocks before the

machine’s feet broke and rolled away, and Dawnbringer Minion fell forwards. But

I still pushed it to crawl forward.

—Creaaak!

Diablo, the Black Tyrant, slowly

moved. The damage I dealt was miniscule to it. If it wakes up, we will die.

Maybe it would be wiser of me to flee?

The thought crossed my mind, but…

no, I can’t. I can’t leave now, when Dawnbringer is right before my eyes.

“Dawnbringer! Answer me!”

Lezirth Dawnbringer, the war hero

who protected the Human-Race from the Letix invasion with one hundred thousand marines

and the Kishin Dawnbringer.

People thought that the Kishin

was named after me.

However, that was wrong.

I was one of the Children of

Letix, and Dawnbringer was also born from a Letix Uberlord, the Old One.

Dawnbringer and I did not only share a simple pilot and machine relationship.

◊

“Lezirth! Where did he go?”

I could hear people looking for

me outside. However, I curled up into a ball like a fetus and enjoyed the

coziness.

Thump…. Thump….

The pleasant sound of the beating

heart. I quietly closed my eyes and nodded my head while enjoying the beat.

When I nodded my head, its heart sang back to me with an enjoyable rhythm.

“You. I knew you would be here

again.”

[Replicant Sample Boy B,

secured!]

Researchers dressed in white

coats often found me curled up and sleeping inside Dawnbringer’s embrace. No,

words such as Dawnbringer, Kishin or Alter-Armour did not exist back then.

There were only the words ‘Letix Uber Replica’ that existed to label us.

“Why does he sleep here instead

of the bed?”

“Well, that’s because the boy was

found in the research centre, not born here.”

“What?”

“We found this boy here.”

They pointed inside Dawnbringer’s

body.

◊

Dawnbringer was no simple

machine. It was my brother, my flesh and my soul.

I was a first generation

Replicant. I was born as a Replicant even before such a term existed.

Don’t you think I was

conflicted!?

Don’t you think I was conflicted

about my genetic makeup, being different from other humans, because I was

created by humans as something different?

However, even Dawnbringer had a

will of its own, no matter how much it appeared to be a machine. I could feel

Dawnbringer’s support for me as it soothed me, protected me and became my

strength.

That was why I could have a will

of my own as well as a personality of my own.

“Dawnbringer! Come to me!”

When I called out to Dawnbringer,

something unexpected took place.

A golden light fell from the

heavens and onto Diablo. Dawnbringer was finally freed from Diablo.

“No way! This is unbelievable!”

Diablo’s pilot screamed in

surprise. Diablo lay sprawled out on the floor after all that struggling.

Meanwhile, Dawnbringer, or

Dawnbringer’s core—the Alter-Core rather, slammed itself onto Dawnbringer

Minion’s body, where I was riding.

Dawnbringer answered my call!

I described this as unexpected,

but I must correct myself. This was not expected. It was only obvious for

Dawnbringer to respond to my call! Because I would've done the same had it been

the other way around!

—Whirrrl!

Suddenly, Dawnbringer Minion’s

strength began to recover. The lighting inside the cockpit became stronger and

the Alter-Armour’s condition stabilized quickly.

—Thump… thump… thump….

The heartbeats that watched over

me in my younger days came back.

“Oh my….”

Ensign Meihowa was lost for

words.

“Today is really full of

surprises. To think… that Alter-Armours were like this! They have a will of

their own?”

I felt proud as I listened to her

exclamations, and nodded my head. I could hear Dawnbringer’s heartbeat and feel

its presence. Yes, this was my Dawnbringer!

I was happy.

My dear friend that I’m finally

reunited with.

We were separated for 120 years

without even knowing each other’s whereabouts, but I suppose it was fate that

brought us together.

We were finally united in this

vast universe.

“This must be fate, partner!”

—Wrrrll!

Dawnbringer let out a cry in

reply.

“That’s right. Alter-Armours are

no simple machines. Now then! Let’s get this party started!”

Then, Dawnbringer Minion’s body

glowed in brilliant gold.

—Crack!

Dawnbringer Minion’s body began

to grow! It ate away its old external armour and digested it to create a new

layer of armour. The EMP generator on its back was also sucked into Dawnbringer’s

body, but Dawnbringer’s biotic EMP generator—electron eye was formed.

[Roar!]

But at the same time, Diablo

raised itself up. It must’ve come to its senses after being freed of

Dawnbringer. It now had a different aura than before.

[I… must thank you for now, pilot

of the Federation!]

[I should be thanking you! For

delivering Dawnbringer to me like this!]

I smiled. I couldn’t help but to

smile. This Alter-Armour was no longer the weak Minion-class machine like

before! The real Dawnbringer came back to me!

[This is a showdown! I can’t back

down like this!]

[You took the words straight out

of my mouth! I will show you how to really use a Kishin, after seeing you get

beaten to a pulp by the Master-class quartet, when you’re piloting the Black

Tyrant!]

I answered like that and lifted

up the giant sword. I’ve been fighting mostly unarmed before, but Dawnbringer’s

title was Sacred Sword of Justice!

—Dawnbringer the S

a

cred Sword of

Justice, go forth!

The giant sword began to

disintegrate and re-form. The sword measuring 6 meters long quickly turned into

a 100 meter long sword of light.

—Kishin Arts! Stormlash!

Diablo the Black Tyrant spread

out its claws and attacked with a storm of black lightning and hyperspace. It

was an immensely powerful attack!

It was powerful enough to create

a moon when executed properly, but the Black Tyrant was not at its full

strength. The pilot was far too immature to bring out Diablo’s full potential.

“Too weak!”

I swung the sword of light and

met the black storm from Diablo head on. The radiating sword of light slashed

through the darkness and sliced through both of Black Tyrant’s arms.

[Kugh!]

Both of Diablo’s arms were lopped

off. I saw the inflicted damage and manoeuvred Dawnbringer into the sky.

“This will hurt, so brace

yourself!”

Dawnbringer spun in mid-air at

high speed. As it did, the sword of light that it was holding, the Sacred Sword

of Justice spun with frightening speed and began to slice Diablo recklessly.

—Kishin Arts! Sacred Sword of

Justice! Schrödinger’s Cat Slash!

Dawnbringer jumped over Diablo

and skidded over the water as it leapt off Diablo’s back. It skidded like a

water ski and Dawnbringer spun to a stop, brandishing the sword.

“Hmph, don’t worry. I only struck

you with the back of the sword.”

Dawnbringer’s Sacred Sword of

Justice had no back. The sword was an invincible sword that was able to cut

down gods, fiends, and even the Schrödinger’s Cat.

I just felt like saying it.

As I put the sword away, Diablo

the Black Tyrant was completely down.

◊

“Lezirth… your eyes… your body!”

I could hear Ensign Meihowa

making a fuss next to me. However, I closed my eyes while seated in the

cockpit.

“It’s OK. The medical

nanomachines are already healing me. Let me just rest here like this for a

bit.”

I could feel Meihowa’s hand

stroking my face.

Was she wiping my blood? I slowly

opened my eyes and saw Meihowa’s crying face before me. My eyes must’ve

recovered.

“Meihowa, why are you crying?”

“I-I’m not. I do not cry. You are

mistaken!”

She cried and laughed at the same

time as she hugged my neck. I licked my lips and extended my hand to her back

and touched her wings.

“Kya!”

Ensign Meihowa quickly stood up

and glared at me.

“I-I told you not to do that!

Didn’t you promise me! Why are you so disloyal?”

“Heh heh.”

I laughed and tried to move

Dawnbringer. However, the Alter-Armour suddenly shut down.

—Entering human mode.

Huh? What’s it saying?

Sacred Sword of Justice was

indeed one of the more powerful techniques that cost a lot of energy, but it

was not the Ultimate Kishin Technique. I did consider using the Ultimate Kishin

Technique since it’s been such a long time, but I held back knowing that I

would kill both Diablo and its pilot if I did use it.

But why did the Dawnbringer go to

sleep?

[Lezirth! The Alter-Core that you

just recovered was only 5% of the entire Dawnbringer.]

Admiral Luise informed me over

the communication channel.

“Eh? So that means?!”

[The Federation holds the

remaining 95%.]

Damn! I knew something was wrong

when Dawnbringer’s attack was weaker than usual. I just suspected that it was

because it was trapped inside a 10-meter tall Alter-Armour, compared to its glorious

former height of 40 meters. So this was not the whole Dawnbringer?

[Wow, so you defeated the Black

Tyrant with only 5% of the Kishin’s strength?!]

I heard Sergeant Aroha’s

surprised voice.

Hey, I just faced off against the

Black Tyrant with a Minion-class machine, you know! That’s what you should be

surprised about! And the current Black Tyrant cannot even be considered as a

complete Kishin.

The pilot is still wet behind the

ears.

A Kishin can only be called true

and complete if the Kishin-class pilot and Kishin are in unison.

[Is the Diablo dead?]

[No!]

Diablo won’t die. It was simply

knocked out and Diablo was quickly recovering itself from its severe damage.

It wouldn’t be able to wake up

for a few weeks, but Diablo’s state has stabilized. It was because the

Dawnbringer’s core that was forcefully planted inside is gone.

Diablo was also Dawnbringer’s

brother in a sense. The circumstances brought the two brothers to fight, but… I

suppose letting the brothers kill each other was far too much.

But will this Alter-Armour be

okay? Even if it was of the same system as Dawnbringer, it might be dangerous

to keep it fused with foreign cells.

[Federation pilot.]

Suddenly, someone called be via

short distance wireless communication. I opened the connection and saw a

silver-haired Elcro boy looking at me from what looked to be inside the Diablo.

His dark green eyes were sharp

and he was a handsome man with sharp features. He looked like a prince out of

some old shoujo manga.

Could he be an Elcro prince?

Seeing that he was an unskilled pilot, that certainly was a possibility.

[I am the fifth prince of the

Elcro Oden Kingdom and a captain of the Alliance, Captain Tenseron. I thank you

for the mercy you have bestowed upon me. May I hear your name?]

[My name is quite well known, so

it would be troublesome for me to say it recklessly. But I will allow you to

hear it if you swear to keep it off the records.]

[……]

Tenseron’s expression quickly

turned sour. It must’ve been because of my egotism and the fact that there was

an Elcro in the cockpit.

[M-Mother?]

Tenseron whispered

absentmindedly.

“… Eh?”

Meihowa hugged my neck in

surprise. What was he saying?

[No, th-there is no way. Fine. I

will promise to keep it off the records. I swear on my pride.]

“My name is Lezirth Dawnbringer.

I am the Commander of Dawn Corps.”

[Wow. So you are the legendary

hero that all Replicants worship.]

“Eh? Really? Geez, how

embarrassing, there’s no need to worship me. Wait, why do you believe me

without doubting?”

No one believed me before and

often treated me like a greenie, but I was taken aback, having an enemy I’ve

never met before accepting what I just said. I wanted him to doubt me, but how

dare he believe me?

[Well, who else could stand up to

the Kishin Diablo with a Minion-class machine? Do not worry. I will keep my

promise. However, I will challenge you again in the future when I grow

stronger. Then oh Great Artus! Please collect your servant!]

When Tenseron prayed, white light

began to glow beneath Diablo’s feet. Surprisingly, Diablo appeared to melt and

slowly faded into the light.

A warp gate.

It was Elcro white magic that

allowed them to travel between space, but carried no consequences to either the

user or companion, unlike Teleport. Although it was not as efficient as a

hyperspace leap, it allowed the user to travel greater distances than Teleport.

Rumour has it that warp gates

were much safer than teleporting because they are blessed by their god Artus.

Although that prince Tenseron was

inexperienced as a pilot, his must be one of the best white magic users, even

among Elcros. He did move Diablo by himself after all.

‘Then I suppose that means he has

great potential.’

If he achieved perfection in one

field, then his potential as a pilot would be high. The Elcros must have

expected the boy to be able to pilot the Kishin when his potential was measured

to be high during the testings.

Maybe I’m letting a formidable

foe walk away alive here?

‘Well, he can’t do much to me

even if he improves.’

Those skills… well, he wouldn’t

have a chance against me even if he came back 200 times stronger. He thinks he

can defeat me when he lost to me, piloting a Minion-class, and he had a

Kishin-class? Hahaha!

[You should’ve defeated him. Then

we could’ve recovered Diablo as a bonus. Isn’t it better to have more Kishins?]

Sergeant Aroha grumbled over the

comm channel. She sounded bothered by the fact that I allowed Diablo’s pilot to

leave. However, I bitterly smiled.

[I, as a Replicant, don’t want to

do that much for the current Federation. My identity will also be revealed if I

do reclaim the Kishin.]

“S-So, you really are… um…”

Ensign Meihowa cleared her throat

and looked at me.

“You really are the Vice Admiral…

Lezirth Dawnbringer?”

Ensign Meihowa worded her

question while looking at my face. I’ve drilled that fact to her hundreds of

times, but it looks like she finally believes me.

I smiled broadly and pulled down

her cap over her face.

“Kyaa.”

“And you thought I was a maniac

when I told you before.”

“A-Ah… um…”

She was fidgeting nervously,

unaware of how to address me. Seeing her like that, I saluted her.

“Ensign Liu Meihowa. My name is

Lezirth Dawnbringer, an Apprentice. I may be new, but please look after me!”

Both the Federation and the

Alliance hid secrets yet unknown to us. I must not let others know that I am

Lezirth Dawnbringer so easily until I figure out what is going on.

This was the future that the ones

who purged Admiral Luise and I 120 years ago made. Assuming that they were

still in power, revealing our identities will just get us purged again.

I did just tell the Diablo’s

pilot my name, but now that I think about it…

It was crazy of me to tell him my

name and expect him to believe it. I said it out of the mood, so it can’t be

helped.

“Well, the detailed story is

quite long, so I’ll tell it to you some other time.”

[To think that I can treat the

Vice Admiral any way that I want. I’m glad I joined the Armed Forces.]

Sergeant Aroha smiled brightly as

she said that.

“Hey, don’t you think you should

change your attitude towards me now that you found out that I am the Vice

Admiral, Sergeant?”

[Lezirth, Ensign Meihowa! I will

re-register that Alter-Armour onto the Federation records, so you can exit the

tandem mode. Please hurry up and get out!]

Admiral Luise spoke with a

higher tone. Hmm, she can see us right now because the visual channel is also

open, isn’t it?

Ensign Meihowa also realised that

point and quickly stood up.

“Huh? Ah! W-We should. Then let

us return, Lezirth.”

“But hasn’t this machine become

the new Kishin Dawnbringer because it absorbed some of the Dawnbringer’s core?

What if this gets taken away by the Federation when it is re-registered? And

its height must be at least a Minor-class, not a Minion-class.”

[Don’t worry. I can adjust the

regular maintenance records. That’s nothing too difficult for me. Hmph.]

Admiral Luise appeared to be

upset for some reason. Sergeant Aroha hugged her and giggled.

[Gee, Luise, you’re so adorable!

Here, give your big sis a kiss!]

Like I said, Sergeant Aroha, that

person is the former Chief of Staff. I doubt her attitude would change even if

I tell her again though.

Ensign Meihowa and I stepped out

of the Alter-Armour and jumped back onto the Thorium electric bike. I was on

the wheels this time, with Meihowa seated behind me.

“It’s because you keep touching

my wings…”

“No, it’s because they have this

attractive charm.”

She pouted and hugged my waist

after sitting down behind me.

I didn’t realize this because I

was always seated behind her on the bike and during the tandem, but something

touched me when she hugged my back.

Her. Breasts!

Gulp.

“Why aren’t you moving?”

“Ah, I-I should.”

If Meihowa had this type of

impact, then how much impact would Aroha, who is visually bigger than her,

have? W-Wait, what am I thinking? No. I have to concentrate on driving!

Concentrate!

______________________________________________________________________

Reference

1.

T/N: The technique was already written in Japanese. Literally means Mountain Storm.

←

### 012. Chapter 12. Unidentified

That is one delicious sounding system. Makes me want to have some...

Also, this is the end of the first volume! Kudos to Junnynam, MadTix and Masadeer!

Translator: Junnynam

Editor: MadTix & Masadeer

Please enjoy~

____________________

The miners

and soldiers who were held hostage in the Azoran Solar System, and the

unrelated Replicant recruit platoon now saved!

“These journalists really do write their articles

with their feet. I can’t believe they wrote ‘unrelated Replicant recruit

platoon’.”

I shook my head while reading the news off

the portable terminal strapped to my wrist.

If the headline wasn’t weird enough, its

content was even weirder. There were lines such as ‘the Fourth Platoon of the

Military Academy was no different to discount coupons to a bankrupt pizza shop’

or ‘the Replicants made no difference to the battle’ brazenly obvious on the

official military report news.

I turned off the terminal and looked in the

mirror. There stood a slim apprentice, dressed in a full dress uniform. Mm,

this is me. I really do look good in a full dress uniform if I say so myself.

My feats in the battle had to remain a secret

to hide our identities. My acts of defeating the Diablo and rescuing the Bravo

squad were both medal-worthy achievements, but they will not remain on the

official records.

However, surviving during the battle was

enough to warrant all of us a badge. The Department of Defence came to that

decision and presented the most worthless badge of the Federation, the Badge of

Meritorious Service Third-Class.

So now, I had to change into a full dress

uniform for the ceremony but I was getting changed in the Platoon Leader’s

office in the academy because there were no mirrors in recruits’ rooms.

Tch. To think I would have to experience the

shame of getting changed into my full dress uniform just to receive a

third-rate badge.

Back in the days when I was still a Vice

Admiral, managers of the Department of Human Resources or Department of Troop

Information and Education used to tremble in fear when they awarded me with

something like a third-rate badge.

The adviser for the Department of Troop

Information and Education in the General Staff, who happened to be my senior

during our military academy days, even apologized to me once with some luxury

hotel vouchers and expensive wine sets, for awarding me with such a measly

badge.

I also did not attend the ceremony to receive

the badge or even the pre-ceremony. When the badge arrived at a later date by

mail, I pinned it on my French bulldog’s clothes.

Some advisers for the Department of Defence

often visited my house with some beer and chicken whenever there was a soccer

game or a fighting match, and they were shocked to see the badge on my dog’s

clothes.

‘Why did you do that? Why! You should’ve

given it to me!’

Is what they would say in their drunk minds,

and this was what I would always reply to them.

‘My dog has been getting obese as of late. So

I put it on him so he could exercise.’

… I used to be like that, didn’t I.

But now I am just an Apprentice no matter how

one looks at me. I should be overjoyed to be receiving something like a

third-rate Badge of Meritorious Service.

Actually, I was quite happy.

I wasn’t very happy about the badge, but I

loved the commission and the month long holiday that came with the badge.

I had no holidays during my days as the

Commander of Dawn Corps. I did rest when I had the leisure to, but I had to

rush straight out onto the battle during an emergency—even if I was being

treated for having my guts destroyed, limbs cut off, and skull crushed or my

eyes popped out, and board the Dawnbringer to fight. Because I was in a

position of great responsibility!

But being a foot soldier is great! No

responsibilities! Wow, how exciting!

“Lezirth. Could you… do my tie please? I

don’t know how to tie one.”

Admiral Luise knocked on the door and spoke

embarrassedly. I stepped outside and saw her blushing while waiting outside.

“I have never tied one before.”

The female soldiers’ full dress uniform

included a string tie, but she didn’t seem to know how to tie one.

Then again, she did skip all soldier training

and became an officer and continued to rise without stopping. Officer full dress

uniforms were mandarin collar button types, so why did the soldiers have to

wear ties?

“Umm, please hold on for a bit. I’ve always

tied them for myself, but never for others, so…”

I went behind her back and tied the tie that

way. Admiral Luise leaned on my arm for a moment. Her soft brown hair touched

me.

“Lezirth, you know how we have a month long

holiday when we receive the badge? But we have no home to go to…”

“Ah.”

That’s right. If we leave the military

barracks for the holidays, we would be homeless. We could always stay at the

barracks, but that was too pitiful. Spending the holidays eating and sleeping

at the barracks. Shouldn’t we be able to enjoy the holidays at a hotel at some

holiday resorts?

“Why don’t we use some of the commission or

the reward for services? Since this is a paid holiday, we shouldn’t have to

stay homeless, even though it won’t be a luxurious one.”

“Hmm, but umm… I want you to listen to this

without misunderstanding. Don’t you think we can save some accommodation fees…

if we share the same accommodation? Going on trips as a packaged deal… would be

cheaper as well.”

Admiral Luise’s face turned bright red after

she said that.

“Is there something that you would like to

buy after saving the accommodation fees? But, d-don’t you think it would be

dangerous for a male and a female to share the same accommodation?”

“I-It will be OK. I trust you, Lezirth. You

wouldn’t do something that would upset me, would you Lezirth? Right?”

She clenched her hands into a fist and looked

up at me.

Hmm, I would like to readjust her tie to make

both sides even now that I tied it, but… Admiral Luise was looking at me with

such a desperate look. Her brown hair and golden eyes were reminiscent of a

cat. I felt like I was being sucked into her clear and beautiful eyes, that

would be a rare colour for a human.

Ehh… so I will be spending a month with this

girl under the same roof? I-I had no intentions of doing anything rude to

Admiral Luise, but it really disheartened me if she trusted me to this extent

when I was a man.

“I-I would never do something that the

Admiral would disapprove of!”

I smiled and saluted her, and Admiral Luise

laughed.

“But you disobeyed my plea and charged into

the dangerous battle! And you still continue to call me an Admiral… you really

have a bad personality, Lezirth. But I’ll trust you again.”

“B-But you shouldn’t trust a man so easily.

It would leave a bad mark on your fame if others see you like this.”

“But our budget for the trip will be so

tight. Ah, a double bed is cheaper than the twin option. Should I book the

double size?”

Huh? What did she just say?

Hold on. Twin beds are when two beds are set

separately, and the double size was just a single large bed, isn’t it? Or was

it the other way around? I was suddenly overwhelmed with the confusion between

the two simple terminologies.

How many beds are there in a double bed? And

how many beds are there in a twin bed? If there’s a single bed, then should I

sleep on the floor or the sofa? Or maybe…?

Gestalt!

Gestalt overload!

“Ehh? You already chose a destination without

even consulting me? And wait, a double bed?!”

“Hii? W-Will you do something to me when we

g-go on the trip together?”

Tears gathered in her eyes and Admiral Luise

looked up me, about to burst into tears. She looked betrayed, or just

disappointed in me.

“No way! I wouldn’t!”

“Then I can book the double bed. Great.

Fufu.”

She quickly spun around like she expected it.

Eh?

What kind of logic is this?! Wait, it does

seem to be right in a logical sense, but something’s not right!

Gestalt overload again!

I was greatly confused. I think I just heard

a ‘fufufu, I am the final victor, you thieving cats!’ just now, but it must’ve

been my imagination, right?

Then suddenly, the office door opened.

“Are you ready yet?”

Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha walked in.

Both of them were dressed in the full dress uniforms. Officer’s and petty

officer’s uniforms respectively, but they also wore a long sword by their side.

Both of them wore mandarin collar uniforms: the officer’s uniform was navy

blue, and the petty officer’s was aquamarine in colour.

Hoo? The girls appeared to be quite bold and

dashing in those military uniforms.

“By the way, Lezirth and Luise, both of you

don’t have a house to go back to, do you?”

“That’s why this big sis here prepared something

great for us.”

Sergeant Aroha took out paper envelopes from

her uniform. Seeing that there’s a travel agent’s logo on the envelope, maybe

it’s some flight tickets or accommodation or even travel prize set?

“Ta-da~ it’s tickets for Airtel. Travel tickets

and hotel tickets in one! My sister works at the general affairs department of

a general trading company, so she gets a lot of mileage points. And I secured

four tickets for us all! What do you think? Aren’t you grateful? You may praise

me, Pereira Aroha! Ohohohoho!”

Sergeant Aroha formed a fan from the

envelopes and fanned herself.

“Ohh, I praise you and worship you.”

Ensign Meihowa mimicked some bowing actions.

Seeing the usually serious soldier like her acting like that made me

unconsciously smile. However, Admiral Luise’s expression stiffened when she

saw that.

“Ah… hahahaha. I just finished booking our

trip, so what can we do? What a pity.”

However, the hologram terminal had not yet

finalized the payment. Sergeant Aroha caught a sight of that and quickly

exchanged glances with Ensign Meihowa.

“Let’s stop her.”

“Yeah!”

“N-No! Don’t come near me! Stop it! Kyaa!

Help me! Lezirth!”

Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha leapt at

Admiral Luise and stopped her from registering the trip.

I saw the girls acting like that and drew a

sign of the cross before me.

“I’m sorry. I would rather fight a corps of

Letix Predators than try to stop them.”

◊

We were transported to the Epiece-2 Retired

Servicemen Hall, where the ceremony was being held, on a shuttle bus. Everyone

who survived the recent event were all smartly dressed in full dress uniform

and they recognised and greeted us when we stepped onto the bus. Ensign Meihowa

and Sergeant Aroha were busy responding back to all those salutes.

The badge awarding ceremony was conducted in

a very rapid fashion.

These ceremonies were usually carried out

very solemnly. Also, many of the Ursa Major Brigade members died in battle and

many of the soldiers from the mining base did not survive. It was only obvious

for a city-state to honour the survivors with utmost respect.

However, the members of our platoon were not

considered to be citizens of the city-state.

As a result, we received the badges from some

bald, yawning, Lieutenant Commander who claimed to be the secretary of the

advisor at the Department of Troop Information and Education, First

Headquarters.

While we were receiving those medals,

surviving Ursa Major Brigade members were participating in the funeral and the

badge awarding ceremony at the Epiece President Convention Centre with the

‘human citizens’.

Well, who cares about a cheap badge like

this? The holiday and the commission was my true goal, anyway. Now then, is it

time to kick back and enjoy the holidays?

“How are ya gonna spend the holidays, man?

I’m gonna play all the online games that I had to give up on, ya know? Wanna

join me? I can level up your characters crazy fast for ya?”

Pencolt asked me as he sat next to me on the

bus. This guy had turned into quite a handsome fellow after losing so much

weight from the training and the operation. A normal human’s skin would’ve

become saggy after a sudden loss of weight, but he was perfectly fine—most

likely because of Replicant properties.

“No, I will probably go to the Critic system

where they have hot springs, ski resorts and tropical beaches.”

“Ohh! It’s quite expensive over there. Ya

rich boy! Well I guess it can’t be helped. Tch, who are ya goin’ with?”

“Probably with the Ensign, Sergeant and

Luise…”

Before I could even finish my sentence,

someone kicked the back of my seat.

“Damn it! This guy’s sweeping away all of the

beauties in our platoon.”

“The battle in the Oden system should worsen

so that the holiday gets cut short!”

Some soldiers seated in front of me cursed.

Why did these guys hate me so much? It won’t only be my holiday that gets cut

short, you know? All of yours will get cut short as well.

Meanwhile, Admiral Luise, who was crushed by

Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha, was sitting at the back of the bus, by the

window seat, with her arms crossed and was pouting while going ‘hmph!’ or

‘pht!’ or ‘tch!’.

Sergeant Aroha and Ensign Meihowa were

sitting next to her.

“Hey, come on Luise. You can save your

holiday fees and go shopping instead. Shopping.”

“Shopping?”

“I want to buy this, but what do you think?

Do you think it would suit me?”

Sergeant Aroha used the hologram feature on

the portable personal terminal to visualize an image of her holding a handbag

in her hand. Ensign Meihowa knit her brows.

“It wouldn’t suit you in a full dress

uniform.”

“Handbags would obviously not go well with

military uniforms.”

“Sergeant has red hair and blue eyes, so….

what about this?”

“No way, this looks too mature.”

The girls were instantly caught up in

chattering over the shopping catalogue. Admiral Luise was also caught up in

the flow and forgot that she was angry.

Whew, what a relief. It was a relief for now,

but I was worried that a tempest would occur when they, or rather we, go

shopping.

I looked outside the window, deep in my

thoughts. Then suddenly, something strange flashed past my eyes.

A girl with long, blue hair was standing by a

streetlamp. But her hair wasn’t just long. Her hair was so long, it made me

wonder whether it wouldn’t bother her with everyday chores.

Thinking that I was just seeing things, I

opened my eyes wide and stared at the girl. Then suddenly, the girl’s lips

moved.

I could only see the movements of her lips

without hearing what she was saying, but I knew what she was saying instantly.

‘Good morning Lezirth. Long time no see. Did

you sleep well for the last 120 years?’

That was what she said.

Then suddenly, something flashed before my

eyes.

Only she and I remained in the middle of the

empty universe. And around us were stars, stars, stars…

A great sea of stars!

‘Lezirth… do not abandon me. I have waited

for you for such a long time. A lot longer than you may think.’

I could hear her voice. Her voice that echoed

inside my head was soft and desperate, yet shook my brain like thunder.

“

Gasp!?

”

I extended my head outside in surprise and

looked at the streetlamp that the bus just passed. However, the girl was

nowhere in sight. Were my eyes playing tricks on me?

“What are you doing!”

A car on the other side of the road swore at

me as it drove past. I quickly tucked my head back inside to avoid the car.

Was it because I was feeling fatigued? I

think it’s because I was injured after piloting the Alter-Armour after such a

long time. I should be okay after the month long holiday.

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes,

anticipating about the holiday. It was quite fulfilling to be the shield of the

Human-Race and the Commander of Dawn Corps, but this foot soldier’s life was

not all that bad.

But above all, I was looking forward to the

holiday.

## 02. Volume 2

### 001. Part 1

Hell, it's about time. *closes helmet visor*

Remember to thank Narane & Co. for bringing you this glorious [sub]chapter.

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix,

Foodpenguin

Please enjoy.

____________________

The Space Federation had been in a constant state of war

since its formation.

The heavy military spending posed a severe problem for the

Federation's economy. Not even its superior technology could provide a relief

for the worsening deficit in its trades with its autonomous member planets. The

lack of trade income caused the Federation to levy military funds, and that

could only be detrimental to the trust between the Federation and its members.

Out of fear that the members would attempt to overthrow the

Federation's government, the Federation committed the most appalling crime against

all of humanity.

That is... the Federation's assistance policy for women

relocating to Federation-controlled planets.

For unmarried young women, employment priority was given to

them in Federation-controlled areas. This led to a mass migration of the female

populace out of rural and developing planets, thus heavily skewing the ratio of

the sexes.

With a great percentage of the eligible women gone, many

young bachelors were left behind on their home planets. It is clear that the

policy is the Federation's vile plot to stymie the members' population growth

and ultimately remain in power.

Thus, we, the Autonomous Planet Manus Solidum

[1]

, publicly

denounce the Federation's attempt to unbalance the population's sex ratio, and

we demand that the Federation discontinue the manufacture of male Replicants

and relinquish the technology to produce female Replicants.

- Head of Autonomous Planet Manus Solidum, William Mayer

* * *

I thought I'd take my time to read what looked like an

ambitious declaration pasted on the message board at the airport lounge. Quite

amazingly, it seemed to be incorporating a sophisticated literary device that

was popular on old Earth, which commonly followed with a gleeful expression

from those with finer tastes that went "What a twist!"

"What a beautiful piece of writing. It's almost

nostalgic."

Well, despite the idiotic message, the data that they've

presented was at least believable. It made sense that the Federation was trying

to prevent their loss of power through financial deficit by decreasing the

number of females on member planets.

"Hmm. I think it's safe to ignore the last part, but

there's some truths in it, yes? It really is unnatural for an entire planet to

have significantly more males than females in the middle of a war. It's

definitely purposeful."

A girl stood beside me, reading through the poster as I did.

She had short, brown hair-- maybe hazel-gold is more appropriate-- and below

were her bright, emerald eyes that stood out, contrasting her gentle, almost

docile face as they sped through the words.

"It's not surprising that there's a feeling of dissent

against the Federation. Now they ended up with the Alliance on their hands, so

the Federation should prepare for the time when the Alliance grows powerful

enough to attract more Autonomous Planets into their union."

She walked closer to me as she talked.

...Ah, her hair had a pleasant scent.

At a glance, she almost looked like a prepubescent boy. At

another glance, she had a very pretty, womanly neck that drew a pleasing curve

downward, meeting with her collarbones further below. Her clothes weren’t very

revealing, yet that one area was particularly satisfying to look at. Maybe this

is what people call a classy sort of beauty?

'......Wha-? What was I doing just now? I better focus.'

That almost sounded like it's straight out of an adult

novel! I surprised myself with the way I thought about her.

No, no, control yourself! If I didn't know any better, I

might have thought that she was some cute girl traveling on her summer break,

but she was actually Luise Maynard, the Chief of Staff and the Admiral of the

old Space Federation.

Despite the title of Chief of Staff, her appearance was that

of a teenager who barely began maturing. If I didn’t know the truth, I would

have said that she’s seventeen-- no, definitely a lot younger than that.

Of course, I, myself, used to be a Vice Admiral of an entire

space fleet, a hundred and twenty years back.

Vice Admiral and Commander of Dawn Corps, Lezirth

Dawnbringer. History says that the Vice Admiral had died a hero in a great

final battle against the Letix, but as everyone could see, I was alive and

kicking. And yet I also looked like a common teenager.

It was partly because we were born from an alien race, the

Old One of the Letix Uberlords, the beings that revealed the secrets of

hyperspace travel to humanity. We were the first generation of the Replicants,

the Children of Letix. On top of that, we were in cold sleep for about a

hundred and twenty years...

Yet there was no scientific support about why we weren't

growing older. There were many more Children of Letix, most of whom grew older

and sometimes died of old age. As far as I could remember, the only Children of

Letix who never grew older were Admiral Luise Maynard, and the one named the

Alpha Type for being the first of its kind: me.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be saying this while we're

on a vacation... I'll never drop this habit, really. Heh heh." Admiral

Luise apologized, apparently believing that she bored me into silence.

I shook my head. "No, that's fine. I was just thinking

to myself. I'm sorry that I didn't pay any attention, actually."

"Oh, you. Let loose a little! How often do we get these

vacations? I can't wait~!" Her emerald eyes sparkled.

I felt for her. Back when she was the Chief of Naval Staff,

she tirelessly slaved over the Federation's military computers. It was all

thanks to the hundred and twenty years of cold sleep that she got a break from

it... wait, that's a strange way to put it, isn't it?

"I'm happy, too. They gave us an entire month of paid

vacation! Did the Federation finally have a change of heart?"

"Giving a well-deserved break to fighting soldiers is a

natural thing to do, of course. If you were a normal human being, Lezirth, I'm

sure you would be in a hospital bed for at least a month after that last

battle! This is only normal! And if you consider all the vacations that we've

missed, not even ten years would make up for them!" She shouted, and

turned her head away.

I couldn't see her face then, but I heard her say something

along the lines of 'This should have been just us two, but he ended up bringing

two thieving cats along. Psh.' I must have been hearing things.

At the same time, across the airport lounge, around the taxi

lounge, two more girls were calling for us from afar. "Luise! Lezirth!

The taxi's here!"

Surrounded by walls of overgrown palm trees and aloe plants,

a model-like girl with silvery hair waved at us. She had a pink sun cap that

neatly shaped her shoulder-long hair, along with a semi-backless blouse, short,

tight jeans, and synthetic fiber skirt that was vertically asymmetric. Perhaps

embarrassed of her considerable height, she wore a pair of glossy sandals that

lacked heels, and yet her smooth, athletic legs did not fail to attract

attention.

If any other feature pulled even more attention, it was

definitely the pair of white wings on her back. They were small enough to pass

as a costume piece to be worn at a masquerade ball, but those were real,

natural wings. She was born between a human and an Elcro, an alien race noted

for their wings.

She is Ensign Meihowa, our superior after the hundred and

twenty years of cold sleep.

Beside her was a tan girl with long, striking red hair and

pointed ears, chewing bubble gum. She is Sergeant Aroha Pereira, also our

superior like Ensign Meihowa.

The two girls respected their difference in rank for

official matters, but they seemed to have a friendly relationship when off the

record. The fact that Ensign Meihowa is a Half-Elcro may have contributed,

since Sergeant Aroha is also a hybrid, though with a human and another alien

race called the Asa.

She wore blue jeans that looked a bit too tight, a white

tank top that contrasted her copper skin, covered up by a shirt to presumably

protect against the blazing sunlight, as shown by her baseball cap which bore

the logo of the Chicago Cubs, a team that had never seen a single victory after

its debut in the space-wide stage.

"Hurry up, I didn't come here to get a tan."

"Aren't you tanned already?"

"What? No, this is my natural colour!" She

giggled.

I approached the taxi to start loading our baggage into the

trunk.

"Aloha! Welcome to Critik!" The taxi driver, an

aging man with white hair and dark skin, came out to greet us in his shorts and

a generic Hawaiian shirt. His greeting felt a little exaggerated, but it did

gently remind me that I was indeed on a relaxing vacation.

The surprising part was that the taxi was driven by a human

being. While most military vehicles needed to be precisely driven by humans,

most civilian taxis were remotely operated from taxi companies. It was

astonishing to see a taxi operated by a human on a civilian planet.

The taxi driver took and stacked our baggages in the trunk,

and when it was full, he put the remaining ones on the roof of the car.

"Welcome to Critik-4, everyone. Is it your first time?"

"Ah, yes."

"I suppose I could say it's my first time."

Vacation Planet Critik-4.

Specifically, it was the Dominion of Space Federation

Critik-4, but this place came to be widely known as the Vacation Planet. It

was understandable, considering how Critik-4's major industries were mining,

farming, and fishing.

Back when I was still a Vice Admiral, this planet was in

development as the terraformation phase had just completed, and basic

infrastructure had settled in. So, I was pretty hopeful for my experience here.

It had one hundred and twenty years to completely change itself, so it was safe

to say that it was my first time on this planet.

'That aside, I'm a little worried about my vacation funds.'

How much would it cost to pay for a human-driven taxi? The

Space Federation's minimum wage was about ten thousand credits an hour, right?

To add, Admiral Luise and I were lowly Apprentices in the

navy as of now, so our wages were right at the minimum. What's worse, we'd been

in the navy for less than a month. In that short time period, we encountered an

incident in the Azoran System and got a month's break as compensation for our

efforts.

Well, we did have five million credits as an extra

compensation, so maybe that would be enough?

But soon, I noticed that the numbers on the taxi meter had

been barely climbing up during our trip to the our destination hotel. We were

going to a busy city full of casinos and hotels, and yet the taxi fare seemed

to be less than two thousand credits. So, the taxi driver earns less than our

minimum wage?

Oh, wait, maybe the Federation minimum wage only applies to

Federation-controlled planets, and the other planets are given different

minimum wages to follow?

"That was pretty cheap." I exclaimed as I

approached the hotel entrance.

Sergeant Aroha grinned, and gestured a V-sign at me.

"Prices at these autonomous planets are extremely low, you know. What we

really need to watch out for are hotel prices and limousine services operated

by large companies. They usually adjust to Federation prices."

"You sound like you've been having some fun, Sergeant

Aroha. How do you know all this?" Ensign Meihowa asked.

Sergeant Aroha shook her head. "Hey, I'm a soldier too.

Do you really think I'd have a lot of vacation days? I've mostly been window

shopping and having vacation fantasies online."

"I get online window shopping, but what do you mean by

vacation fantasies?"

"I read about other people's vacations, and then I

dream about how I'd feel like if I were there myself."

I felt sad after hearing that.

"But hey, we have an entire month of paid vacation!

This is going to be great!" Admiral Luise shouted, raising her arms into

the air. She looked like a playful child for a moment.

"I know! We haven't even been in service for a month,

so we're going to end up with more vacation days than work days."

"Yay~! Look at that! It's a roller coaster!"

She mostly ignored my reply and became excited over roller

coasters that twisted around various hotels. We weren't at an amusement park,

and yet there were still all kinds of rides like the swinging ship and roller

coasters. As expected of casino resorts.

Our destination was a casino city, full of hotels that each

had a massive casino on the first floor. The entire city sparkled and dazzled

like a part of a musical theatre set, with a large circular lake at the center

with a musical fountain. Along the edges of the lake were many, many brand name

stores.

Sergeant Aroha's eyes sparkled as she turned her attention

toward the brand name stores. "Fufufu. I've been waiting for this

day..."

Tsk tsk, Sergeant Aroha. Don't let your window shopping

habits become anything other than window shopping.

They were quite blatantly placed there to attract customers

that had just hit the jackpot. A sergeant's pay couldn't possibly afford any of

that!

"But why a casino resort?" Admiral Luise

restlessly glanced around. She had the eyes of a surprised rabbit after

spotting some waitresses walking around in revealing bikinis, serving people in

the hall of the casino. It was understandable how she would be shocked after

spending most of her life in a formal military setting.

"Because casino resort hotels are cheap, Luise. And

all the food is even cheaper! Look, they're serving free margaritas!"

"Wait, Aroha, that's just a plot to get gamblers drunk

and make them waste all of their money! That's not what's important anyway,

look at this here! Shanghai mitten crabs! It's not some mixed meat or canned

crab, it's real crab meat! It's the first time I've seen something like

this!" Ensign Meihowa shouted in excitement, which was a rare sight.

Usually, she spoke in an extremely formal and cold tone, but even she was quite

relaxed for her vacation.

And she really likes crab, huh?

I do recall seeing a strange label on a military ration

energy gel that said... 'crab meat included', or something like that. I

remember complaining about it, thinking to myself 'Who'd eat this crap? They

really don't care what goes in military rations as long as it's edible! There's

no saving military foods!' … But in retrospect, I was wrong about everything.

I came to a realization that the world is full of different

people with different tastes. Ah, I should be clearer; I'm only talking about

the energy gels. Shanghai mitten crabs are probably quite delicious.

"It shouldn’t even be twelve o'clock in this time zone.

It's too early to check in. Shall we leave our baggage here and walk around the

city first?" Admiral Luise suggested, and everyone agreed. She was

visibly excited. And I was, too; I could have fun just by looking at the

streets in front of the hotel!

"Alright, let's get to the reception!"

We strolled over to the front desk. The receptionist happily

greeted us. "Welcome, how may I help you?"

"We're checking in today. We reserved a room with this

ticket.." Sergeant Aroha presented a ticket that she claimed to have been

given by her sister. The receptionist took it.

...Hmm, everything is going a little too well.

And then the receptionist was going to say...

'This is fake! You think some lowly minimum-wage Apprentice

has any right to stay a month at our great hotel?! Dream on!'

Then we'd probably be kicked out of here.

But the receptionist kept her smile up, tapping gently on

her keyboard. "Miss Aroha Pereira? Yes, check-in can only be done after

noon. Do you want us to hold onto your baggage?"

"Yes, please."

We left most of our belongings with them, other than a few

essentials.

"I was incredibly worried that they wouldn't take the

ticket." I commented honestly.

Admiral Luise nodded and agreed. "Yes, me too."

Originally, Admiral Luise and I were quite the penny-pinchers.

While we received huge paychecks as higher-ups in the navy, we had nowhere to

spend any of it in a meaningful way. Moreover, both of our saved wealth had

been fully returned to the Federation, since we were officially dead to them.

In the end, we were just poor, homeless Apprentices! I was

afraid that we'd have to sleep out in the streets if the ticket hadn't been

valid.

"Even if it's a reward for a frequent-flyer program --

a whole month's worth of hotel reservation? I'm almost sorry for Sergeant Aroha!"

"Yeah, so why don't you praise me?"

"Oh, praised be the Aroha. Grovel, grovel."

I playfully pretended to grovel at her feet, like Ensign

Meihowa did to her a while back, and everyone burst out in laughter. We all

seemed to be quite excited for the first day of our vacation.

But soon, Ensign Meihowa, Sergeant Aroha, and Admiral Luise

sat in front of the musical fountain, looking incredibly depressed. After a

single trip around the brand name shops, the girls had noticed the price tags

on their products and immediately fled from the shops in sheer terror.

Tsk tsk, I did warn them to not to go in unprepared.

I bought ice cream from an ice cream cart nearby to try and

lift their mood back up.

"Okay, the matcha-flavoured one is for Luise,

chocolate chip cookies for Aroha, and, uh... toothpaste mint ice cream... is

for Ensign Meihowa... right?"

What the hell is 'toothpaste mint'? Is it legal to sell it

in the first place? I know, the universe is infinite and all that, but there

has to be some limit on people's preferences!

The girls sluggishly took their ice cream. Even Sergeant

Aroha looked like she was going to cry, and she usually was the brightest, most

energetic person here. The power of the price tags must have been pretty

deadly. Unlike a jewelry store found in an average mall, every brand shop here

was owned by their original respective companies.

When a customer approaches any of them, a tall, suited man

appears to guide them and treats them like they're talking to the emperor of

the universe. While they wait, an employee who looks more like a butler than

anything else brings in tea, then finally a woman absolutely covered in

products of their company appears, suggesting products that fit the customer

the best. The service was so formal and well-organized that it was almost too

much for me.

"Holy... I thought this place would be like a trip to

the mall. This is too... luxurious for me!" said Ensign Meihowa, after

taking deep breaths.

"Hah, well, it looks like a Platoon Sergeant's payroll

is nowhere enough. What about your wages, Ensign?"

"Probably about the same as yours. I got to be an

Ensign right away because I'm from an officer cadet school, but I haven't been

in the service any longer than you."

"Hahahaha! Looks like our only hope is getting a

jackpot at the casino!" cried Sergeant Aroha, who sounded like she was

about to go insane.

She didn't appear to be joking about it, so I immediately

spoke up. "Hey, no! Don't walk into their trap! We need to spend a whole

month here! We can't afford to waste any money!"

"Yeah, that's exactly why! I need to get a

jackpot!"

"If you can get a jackpot just because you feel like

it, they won't be in business like this."

Admiral Luise sighed quietly as I tried to stop Sergeant

Aroha. "What I'm wearing right now is borrowed from Sergeant

Aroha..." She sobbed, "I only have my naval uniform apart from this.

I don't have anything to change into tomorrow, what do I do?" She looked

like she was going to break out in a tantrum at any second.

Really, she and I had spent more than a century in cold

sleep, then joined the navy with nothing but a military rashguard. I, myself,

had nothing to wear outside of a war setting, apart from cheap jeans and a

shirt that had I purchased for basically nothing.

"I thought I could take care of that by shopping

here..."

"Well, shouldn't there be at least one discount store

somewhere here? There must be some place where we can buy things with minimum

wage's worth of money."

"Shopping at discount stores in a place like this? Ugh,

what a disaster." Ensign Meihowa complained, taking a bite out of her ice

cream.

Maybe because of its name 'toothpaste mint', the blue chunk

on her ice cream cone looked nearly identical to a clump of solidified

toothpaste. That said, I got very curious as to how the mysterious 'toothpaste

mint' would taste.

"Can I have some of that?"

"Hmm? Ah... Ah, oh-okay. Only if you eat the part that

I haven't touched yet." Ensign Meihowa held her ice cream towards me, her

face slightly red. I took a small bite.

Hmm... It tasted somewhat like a cross between peppermint

and spearmint, and it's like-- something found in a gum factory in the Iberian

Peninsula, where an employee would brush her teeth at the common room before

returning to the production lines-- and she would use a toothpaste that tasted

exactly like this.

Weird.

Well, it wasn't terrible, but I couldn't tell any difference

between that and some flavoured toothpaste intended for kids. One difference, I

guess, was that the former is edible, latter is not.

"How is it? It's good, right?" Meihowa asked,

brightly smiling.

...Agh, my eyes! I averted my eyes from her bright, radiant

smile and began sweating profusely. "Uh... yeah, oh, ha-ha, what a...

freshening flavour!"

Anyway, I needed to raise their spirits immediately by doing

something special for them... I dug around in my travel bag and pulled out

everything I could. I had a bunch of pamphlets taken from the information kiosk

back at the airport. Maybe one of these would prove useful.

"Oh, this is, hm... aquarium ticket discount

coupon?"

One of the pamphlets indicated that the Federation's largest

aquarium was on Critik-4. And it was very close by.

Casino resort hotels placed attractions like circuses, theme

parks, and concerts nearby to bring more people to their casino. The aquarium

was one of those attractions, and it was built into a hotel.

"Alright, we should go there! What's an aquarium?"

"Aquarium? Isn't that some glorified sushi ingredient

storage?" Sergeant Aroha replied, uninterested.

What happened to ladylike sentiments? Did she accidentally

sell it off? Of all the things she could think of aquariums… sushi

ingredients?!

"A long time ago, back in the days of the Earth

Federation, I heard that people held religious ceremonies based around watching

fish swim. Is that true, Lezirth?"

Neither of those girls seemed to know what an aquarium was,

as expected of young girls born in the space age.

"Aquarium, huh? I'm sure I saw most types of fish

through digital holograms... do you think I missed anything?"

Admiral Luise appeared to be equally uninterested. Ugh. It

was probably an aftershock effect remaining from the brand name shop's onslaught

of price tags. It couldn't be helped.

"Let's go anyway, I'll pay for the tickets! You'll go,

right?"

The aquarium was a bait set by casinos in the first place,

and with a thirty percent discount, I thought it would be fine to pay for four

people's worth of entrance tickets.

The three ladies were still apathetic, but they didn't

reject my offer that I'd pay for them. I briefly worried that I dug a trap for

myself, since they were suddenly willing to go.

"I guess we have some time before check-in."

"Alright. I am a little interested in the old culture

of the Earth Federation."

When the two space-age girls began following me, Admiral

Luise hurried along, her face glowing red. "I-I know what an aquarium is,

Lezirth! Don't bunch me in with them!"

Was that really something to be embarrassed about?

* * *

Soon, I found myself surrounded by some over excited girls

going 'Kya~ Kya~' every second. A bunch of space-hicks, that's what they are.

The girls were quite high-strung while viewing the aquarium.

Sergeant Aroha's apathy was nowhere to be found, Ensign Meihowa stopped seeing

it as a religious ritual, and Admiral Luise, after being so sure that she'd

already seen everything that needed to be seen, had been reduced to a

blubbering wreck.

"Lezirth! Could you buy this for me?"

Admiral Luise picked out a shirt from a souvenir shop near

the aquarium's exit. It had the aquarium's mascot drawn on it. Beside it, there

was clearly a label that read 'for children'... It would fit her, regardless.

But why should I pay extra, when I had already paid for

their tickets?

"It doesn't feel right to be at a place like this and

buy souvenirs with my own money, you know? It would feel better if someone else

were to buy it for me."

"All of these would work a lot better as gifts,

really."

Sergeant Aroha and Ensign Meihowa butted in. Well, since

Admiral Luise didn't even own a set of clothes to change into tomorrow, a

single shirt wasn't too much of a problem. It was unfortunate that I had to pay

for it on an Apprentice's salary, but she seemed to want one really badly,

anyway.

"Oh, that's not fair. You're only buying for Luise?

That's favouritism!" teased Sergeant Aroha.

Ensign Meihowa smiled and pointed at the largest space manta

plushie in the shop. "Lezirth, I won't ask for anything pricy. We'll

compromise with this plushie."

"...I'll buy one if I get a jackpot."

"Is that so?"

That's the most expensive one here! The price tag read seven

hundred thousand credits. My weekly earning before tax deductions was about

four hundred, so I would have to survive on just air for two weeks to afford

that. Absolutely not!

"Ah, I'm getting hungry now. Shanghai mitten crab, was

it? Let's get over there."

Feeling like seafood after a trip to the aquarium, huh?

Ensign Meihowa gestured like she was wiping drool off her face. Admiral Luise

was tenderly holding onto the shirt and Sergeant Aroha was busy passionately

flipping through a travel guide, so it seemed that I was successful at lifting

their mood.

"Shanghai crabs? That's happening at night. Hey,

there's a seafood buffet nearby that we can enter for eight thousand credits

each. Let's check it out."

"A buffet for only eight thousand credits? What if they

have nothing but seaweed?" Admiral Luise questioned, yet her eyes were

gleaming in anticipation. Since she had psionic powers, her eyes literally

sparkled with Cherenkov radiation with a slight change in her emotion.

"I told you, they're all traps set by the casinos. The

plan for our vacation is to take all the bait but not get reeled in,

okay?"

'Though I just wanted to enjoy a shopping trip...' Sergeant

Aroha quietly complained directly afterward. Still, she looked happy.

I exited the aquarium in a good mood; the girls' happiness

had rubbed off on me. I noticed that the exit of the aquarium was just another

entrance to a casino, which was quite clever. Of course, we simply ignored the

casino machines and walked right by.

Huh?

Outside, there was a protest with people holding up sign

posts.

"Down with the Federation's oppression of free

planets!"

"Down with the Federation! Down with the

Federation!"

A man with a loudspeaker stood up front and shouted, and the

crowd before him followed. There were maybe a hundred people there. They

marched down the road in front of the casino. A few groups of journalists

traced their path with news cameras.

"Stop favouring Federation planets and take your

anti-immigration laws back!"

"Take it back! Take it back!"

Whoa, what a perfect rhythm! They must have had a lot of

practice. I knew that there had been a lot of opposition against the

Federation's government, but I never thought I'd get to see a protest in

action.

Suddenly, the angry mob stopped in place, and the man with

the loudspeaker walked towards me. The various cameras soon followed the

obvious leader of the mob.

"Hey, you! You're a worker of the Federation, aren't

you?"

"Huh? Are you talking to me?" I asked, looking

questioningly at the man and the barrage of microphones that made their way

towards me.

"What are you people doing?!" Admiral Luise

shouted. The man turned around to look at her, and suddenly looked away, his

face red. Then he turned around to face me again, now bearing an even angrier

expression.

"So, you work on Federation planets, right?"

"Well... I guess you could say that. What about

it?" I answered.

The man put his loudspeaker up and shouted towards the mob.

"Take a look, comrades! Look at this Federation worker walking around with

three women in his arms! This is exactly the kind of atrocity that the

Federation has shown us!"

The mob's shouts grew louder than ever.

"Waaaaaaagh!"

"That’s not fair!"

"This is an outrage!"

"Let's go destroy the Federation!"

Whoa... wh-what's up with these people?!

My face lit up bright red.

Three women in my arms? Was he talking about me?! I suppose

he was half right about that, but... what a joke! I had to explain myself! But

that would be too embarrassing! If I spoke another word with them, I'd end up

with even more of an embarrassment!

"Wait! What are you talking about?! We're just

co-workers out on a group vacation! Stop making up crap!" Sergeant Aroha

screamed at the mob leader.

Ensign Meihowa pulled her back. "L-let's just move on

from them, Aroha."

"Yes, Aroha, please don't get angry. We shouldn't deal

with these kinds of people." Admiral Luise added, signalling me with her

eyes. She was silently suggesting that we could easily quell the mob with

telepathy, if things were to develop any further.

But I shook my head. There were cameras pointed in our way.

If not for that, Admiral Luise could knock out every one of these people with

no effort..

"Okay, it's just about time. Let's go check in, shall

we?"

"A-alright."

We turned our back towards the mob and headed for the hotel.

"There! There goes the debaucherous pig of the

Federation!"

"Look at him! In the Federation, men get to enjoy the

company of three women at the same time!"

"...Ugh."

What the hell is up with these people?! Just as the girls'

mood settled down, they just ruined it again!

I turned around, but Admiral Luise pulled my arm from

behind. "No, Lezirth, don't mind them."

"Okay." As she said, it looked like the situation

could only get worse if I talked to them.

We returned to the hotel, almost as if we were fleeing from

the mob.

...Ugh, those damn protesters! They weren't going to pester

us during our entire vacation, were they?

______________________________________________________________________

Notes:

1.

The original name is 남성연대, which likely alludes to a

real Korean group

of the same name. Since 'Man of Korea' hardly fits the setting and there are no appropriate translations for it anyway (barring terrible word salads coming from direct translation), now there's a... Latin... name?

←

### 002. Part 2

It's a crab!

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix,

Foodpenguin

Please enjoy.

____________________

"So, uh… About this situation..."

In my hand was a single key taken from the hotel's

reception, and I fell deep in thought.

There were three women and one man. And there was only a

single key. How should I have understood the situation?

Shamefully, I was reminded of the tirade given by the mob

leader. There were more women than men on Federation-controlled planets.

...What has the world become during my hundred and twenty years of cold sleep?

If it's the world that had gone crazy and not me, why did Admiral Luise stay

silent like the others? She was sleeping for the same time that I was!

While the elevator made its way up, I stood still like a

statue, with only my eyes moving around to evaluate the developing plot.

The girls looked down from our mishap with the protesters;

they were blankly staring at the cityscape outside of the elevator. It didn't

appear to be a good time to ask about my problem. Not that it would ever be

appropriate, anyway.

--Thump... Thump... Thump...

I felt Dawnbringer's-- ...Er, my furious heartbeat.

Huff... Huff... I became extremely nervous. As the elevator

went further up, my heart hammered my chest even harder. It was the slowest

elevator that I'd ever seen! My heart was going to explode at this rate!

And then the elevator finally stopped.

--Creak.

My blood ran cold as the elevator doors opened. W-was that

the right thing to do? Lezirth Dawnbringer, was that the right path for him? A

hundred and twenty years after, did the world's sense of morality and justice

finally deteriorate like this?

But if the world around me had really changed, then that

could only be a step forward, not a step back! Is it not natural for a living

being to adapt to the changes in the surrounding world? Yeah, that's all there

is to it!

A million thoughts crashed into each other as I took a step

into the hallway.

Our belongings were already brought up to our room. A

bellboy opened the entrance, and Ensign Meihowa gave him a tip.

It was difficult to face the bellboy. What kind of a man was

I in his eyes? The protesters undoubtedly saw me as an awful person, and it was

possible that he saw me the same way.

I carefully walked into the room. Hm... The hotel was shaped

like a capital 'E', so the scene outside the window was mostly this building's

walls. Since the view was terrible, it was clear that the room wasn't this

hotel's best. Oh well, though; it was a perfect fit for an Ensign, Sergeant,

and two Apprentices.

In the room were two large beds. Was this meant for a single

family?

"You take this one, Lezirth. Us three will take the

other one." Ensign Meihowa directed me to the window-side bed. She walked

over to the wall behind the beds and pulled something down. It was a room divider,

which was then unfolded to separate the two beds.

Oh, so I guess now we virtually had our own rooms? Psh! I

knew it was too early to get excited.

...

N-no wait, I was never excited!

...I knew it was too early to get embarrassed. I-I mean, worried!

Too early to be worried!

...

Sob, sob... I'm sorry, I just made up a lie that I wouldn't

believe in myself. I actually looked forward to it happening. Yes, I'm a guy,

too.

Family rooms had two shower rooms and washrooms, so Ensign

Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha went to shower first. Meanwhile, Admiral Luise

connected her portable computer's displays to a large projector in the room and

began searching for something.

Soon, the mob leader’s ratty face showed up on the screen.

Head of Autonomous Planet Manus Solidum, William Mayer-- fading blonde hair

receding from his crown, amazingly thick glasses. He was the very image of an

eccentric, old professor. He was in his early thirties-- Wait, with that face?!

I thought he would be fifty, minimum!

“Is this the punk?!”

It had been quite a long time since the last time Admiral

Luise said the word ‘punk’. It was important to note that Admiral Luise would

never say such words when calm. Know your enemy, she spoke to herself, as she

browsed around to find the main website of Manus Solidum.

----Dah-danana, dananana…..

...Star *ars opening theme?! A very familiar music played,

along with a wordy narration scrolling down on screen. The gist of it was

similar to the announcement posted back at the airport lounge’s bulletin board.

The Federation is oppressing them, they said. The men of autonomous planets

must band together, they said. And then they somehow came to the idiotic

conclusion that they must oppress female Replicants and Elcro, Asa hybrids.

The sadder part of the story was that there was a sizable

support for their movement. They even pressured the Federation’s government by

threatening to join the Alliance should they not listen to their demands. Scary

people.

What kind of thought process would lead them to think that

it’s a good idea to try and ally with a faction composed primarily of Elcro,

Asa, and Replicants? As a group that publicly denounced them? Did they all

install warp engines in their heads? How else could their train of thought take

such an intergalactic leap?

“Wait, now that I think about it, weren’t they filming us?

What if that gets on television?”

Admiral Luise replied to me as she opened a command console,

grinning. “I deleted it before it got broadcasted.”

Television networks used inter-warp communication networks

too, but they were likely using low-security civilian channels instead of

military-grade ones. Still, she managed to hack their system in such a short

time? I stared at Admiral Luise, now with a fearful look. “Ah… y-yeah, that’s a

relief.”

Right, something like that has always been trivial for

Admiral Luise.

Soon, Meihowa and Aroha exited the shower room. Admiral

Luise and I separately showered later, and… wore the same clothes again, apart

from our underwear, since we didn’t have anything else to wear. Ugh. I really

needed to buy more. Even the clean underwear was military-issued, so… it was

quite depressing. Not that the quality was any problem-- the designs consisted

of bland patterns of grey, or jungle camo.

“Then we’ll go buy clothes for the two of you, then eat.

Let’s go down.”

“Yep. That eight-thousand-credit-buffet that I mentioned

turned out to be in this hotel, too. Let’s eat down there first.”

Meihowa, Aroha, Luise and I all had the same plan.

* * *

After waking up from hibernation, the only things that touched

my mouth were military rations, emergency foods, and energy gels. Maybe that

was the reason -- the cheap, eight thousand credits’ worth of food tasted so,

so good. I was mildly annoyed that we had to eat among the busy noise of a

dozen slot machines, but it was bearable. I was too satisfied with the food to

complain.

“Tasty, but a little salty.” said Admiral Luise, looking

just as happy.

Ensign Meihowa soon brought drinks to our table. “Wow… they

have nothing but alcohol to drink.”

What a blatant trick. Salty food encourages drinking, and

all drinks are alcoholic. Was it safe to understand that as them saying ‘Get

drunk and spend all of your money here~!’? That was the only reason why they

had food and drinks at such a cheap price, huh? Who did they expect to fool

with such obvious intentions?

“Don’t drink too much, alright?” I advised the group as I

received a pint of beer from Ensign Meihowa. Sergeant Aroha took a rimmed glass

margarita, Ensign Meihowa took a lime garnished fruit punch cocktail, and

Admiral Luise took a glass of pineapple punch.

We’ve had some depressing moments on our first day, but the

memory quickly faded away after a swig from my pint. The three girls also

looked pleasantly surprised at the taste of their drinks after a sip each. I

quickly downed the beer, thirsty from having salty food.

They were free, sure, but was it really fine, drinking so

heavily when we already knew that this was a trap?

But when I saw the happy smiles on everyone’s faces, I

couldn’t help but smile myself. They were beautiful normally, but smiling made

them even prettier.

And soon, one empty glass became two, then three, then four,

and finally Ensign Meihowa began looking in her wallet. “Alrighty~ then… ju~st

a little. Let’s just play one ve~ry quickly, okay?” She slurred, and slowly

staggered away.

Sergeant Aroha tried to stop her, but she was equally out of

it. “Meihowa, n-no, don’t do it… twenty thousand per day~ over twenty thousand!

Twenty thousand! No more than thaaat, okay?”

“Of-of course. We gotta play around an entire month… Hic-...

ohh, my…” She covered her mouth in surprise. She was pretty cute then, the way

she embarrassedly looked at me with rosy cheeks-- but she was going to get

rosier if I kept looking at her. I pretended to not notice her and looked away,

and she continued, “We-we can’t waste an entire month while we spend nothing at

all! Yeah! Twenty thousand per day! Let’s do it.”

“Mmh, let me play for a short while, then.” Admiral Luise

also stood up. Agh, that just made me want to play too!

There were holographic numbers displayed at the top of each

slot machine. Okay… That’s the jackpot? Let’s see… The ten-credit slot machine

had a payout of eight hundred million credits. Wow, we could spend the most

luxurious vacation ever if we could get that money! The other machines were

equally shocking; their prizes grew to numbers that Apprentices could never

hope to see in their lifetime.

Jackpots are called that because they usually don’t happen,

of course, but what was stopping me from getting it today? I remembered that I

joked to Ensign Meihowa that I’d buy her that expensive toy if I won a jackpot…

Should I buy that for her? Well, if I had that kind of money, a mere toy would

mean nothing.

I started by turning twenty thousand credits into a stack of

chips.

“Lezirth is playing too?” asked Sergeant Aroha, already

holding a set of chips.

I shrugged. “I’m only going to spend twenty thousand

credits.”

“Fufu. Don’t forget about me when you win the jackpot, okay?

Ah, how about marrying right here if you do? I hear marrying here can take less

than an hour.”

“Psh. Don’t you be the one to forget me, Sergeant.” I stuck

my tongue out as a retort to her silly remark, and submerged myself into the

sea of slot machines.

Hmm… what now? The cheapest slot machines to start, I guess?

I started by playing with the ten-credit slot machines.

…

Th-that was lucky! I was maybe playing for ten minutes tops,

and my starting twenty thousand credits bloated up to twenty four thousand. I

earned four thousand! I used a ten-credit machine to earn four thousand, so I

would have earned four hundred thousand at a thousand credit machine! And the

ten thousand one would have given me four million! Ugh, what a waste!

And the jackpot for that machine? Twenty giga credits!

Twenty billion! B-but wait, wouldn’t my starting funds run out in seconds if

things don’t go too well? Then, I should move up to thousand first..

…

Soon, I got away from the machine with none of my starting

chips.

That was to be expected. I may have underestimated the

casino.

Well, what about the others?

I walked around the casino and quickly found Ensign Meihowa.

She seemed to have lost all of her funds like I did; she was staring at the

hologram television installed in the middle of the casino, taking sips from her

cocktail. Some men tried to get close to her and flirt with her, but she

refused to give them any attention.

When I approached her, she drunkenly giggled after noticing

me. “Ah, it’s Lezirth. Heeh heh heh.”

Yep, she was drunk. She acted very differently than usual.

The men around her got up and left angrily when they saw her smiling at me.

“What are you doing here? Did yours go well at all?”

“Uhhm, no… I losht it all, heh…”

“............”

She mumbled with a drunken slur and pretended to hit her

head with her fist. If she were to gesture like that out of context, I might

have mocked her for trying too hard to be cute, but she was drunk at the

moment… and cute.

“I lost everything too. It doesn’t take too long to lose

twenty thousand, huh.”

Ensign Meihowa laughed in a silly ah-ha-ha and gently patted

my back. “Me too, me too… but that’s okay! Let’s just say that was payment for

the buffet and the drinks! Considering how much we ate and drink, this is a

fine trade.”

Truthfully, if we were to eat and drink that much, we would

have easily lost a couple hundred thousand credits. With that thought, I felt

that we did indeed get our money’s worth.

“Right? Hey, this is pretty tasty.”

“Don’t drink too much. What about the others?”

I looked toward my side.

Hmm?

Sergeant Aroha sat crooked with a gloomy face, pulling on

the lever of a slot machine. In front of her was a huge mound of empty margarita

glasses. Most importantly, that slot machine was the ten thousand credits one!

“Whoa?!”

Meihowa and I immediately broke out of our drunken stupor.

We ran behind Aroha and pulled her away. “What are you doing, Aroha?!”

“Ah… Meihowa, Lez-...irth…”

Aroha had the most depressing expression.

...Wait, seriously? She was kidding, right?!

“...How much did you spend?”

“About three million credits, maybe?”

“....”

Colours drained from our faces.

She hadn’t spent our entire vacation fund yet, but all that

on the first day?! We were supposed to use it for at least a month! Still, I

had to keep calm and feel sorry for Aroha. The victim is always the most

distressed one in a tragedy, after all.

“Th-that’s alright. We’ll scrape together whatever we have

left for you, so let’s stop here.”

“Mmh, okay…”

Aroha’s usual grin was nowhere to found. She looked more

like an empty husk of her former self. Whew… what a scary place, this casino! I

should have known that this place was a source of all evils!

“Wait a minute! Where’s Luise?!”

“Oh-oh no! I can’t find her!”

I left Aroha with Meihowa and began looking around for

Admiral Luise. But only an endless line of slot machines came into my sight.

She had no ordinary appearance, so I should have been able to notice her right

away. Maybe she was kidnapped? Mugged? Even though the casino had psionic

suppressors, Admiral Luise could beat an ordinary human being without any

effort. But what if there really was a secret organization that’s trying to

remove us, and now they’ve come to kidnap her?!

Suddenly, a loud cheer came from somewhere and stopped my

panic attack.

Huh, what was that? I turned around, and there was a huge

crowd surrounding a card table.

“Excuse me.”

I dug through the crowd. On the other side and behind the

card table was a short-haired girl, sitting on a gigantic pile of chips.

“Oh--!”

Seeing her, I became frightened. Could she have used her

psionic powers to cheat her game? Admiral Luise was powerful enough to bypass

the effect of psionic suppressors, but that could not stop her from getting

detected. And the casino’s network should be mostly localized, so it wasn’t

likely that she was able to hack their system.

“Uh-...” Meihowa and Aroha caught up to me and joined my

surprise. Admiral Luise kept herself busy by stacking her chips into towers, and

winked at us when we approached her.

“What is it, Sergeant Aroha? Why the long face?”

“Oh, about that…”

When I explained our situation to her, she grabbed a tower

of cookies-and-cream-coloured chips and spread them on a chip counting panel.

She then shoved it towards Aroha. “Get those cashed in. After you make up for

Aroha’s losses, you three can split them equally.”

Aroha took a single chip from the pile with shaky hands and

brought it closer to me. The chip’s label read ‘100K’.

...Uh, so, each chip is a hundred thousand credits? At a

glance, I counted about a hundred chips, so there was at least ten million.

Aroha and Meihowa shivered all the way to the casino

cashier.

We weren’t all going to get arrested right there, right?

There won’t be a certain sergeant and an ensign getting arrested today, right?

And we won’t be sent away along with them?

A bunch of horrifying thoughts crossed my mind, but Aroha

and Meihowa soon returned safely, smiling their happiest smiles yet, hopping

back to us in joy. If they haven’t gone insane after losing all of their chips

for cheating, they were probably happy about cashing in all of those chips.

“Hmm… alright, how about a little break? I should go

shopping for new clothes. Fufu.” Admiral Luise acted like she was the queen of

the world, stretching her arms like she had done nothing. That was okay; for

that moment, she really was the queen of the world. When the crowd around her

cheered in awe, she grabbed a handful of hundred credit chips and threw them in

the air. The crowd cheered even louder and piled around the flying chips.

Hundred credits. I imagined it would just be a hassle to

bother picking them up, but I had forgotten that there was a big difference

between the Federation planets’ economy and theirs. A hundred may have meant a

lot more to them than us.

She looked like a real, professional gambler. A pair of

sunglasses and a huge lit cigar in her mouth and the scene was perfect. While

the onlookers busily mobbed around the fallen chips, I scraped the chips off of

the table in front of Luise. Seriously, how much was that?

“Maybe I should give up being a soldier and become a

professional gambler!” Admiral Luise contemplated, and… that really did sound

like a great idea.

* * *

Cashing in every chip totalled to about twenty million

credits. That was after making up for Aroha’s losses. An apprentice’s weekly

pay before tax deduction was about four hundred thousand credits, so there was

no further explanation needed.

She earned that in less than an hour! And she hadn’t used

her powers to cheat. She combined math, bluffing, and mind games together for a

flawless victory of her wits.

The cashier smiled brightly and asked if she wanted to store

the money in the casino’s vault. Admiral Luise shook her head. Once the money

got transferred over to her account, she held the tips of her skirt and

curtseyed, and returned to us.

It was difficult to look directly at her.

“Fufufu. Praise your new queen!” Admiral Luise grinned. Her

boastful attitude did not fit her childlike visage too well, but for that

moment, a strong desire to praise and serve welled up from within.

“Oh, praised be the great Admiral Luise Maynard!”

“We are not worthy! Grovel, grovel!”

“Grovel, grovel MK-II.”

We praised her together. Sergeant Aroha, especially, talked

like she was conversing with the living form of Ksitigarbha. That was

understandable, considering how she was sent to the afterlife and then back.

“Ahem, Lezirth~! My shoulders feel stiff from lifting those

playing cards! Massage them immediately!”

“Yes, my lady!” I immediately jumped up to give her a

massage, but her smooth shoulders and her beautiful neck distracted me.

It was difficult to look directly at her.

Kiss kiss, sigh sigh, were all I could think when I looked

at her neck. No, wait! I will never succumb to such dirty thoughts! Instead, I

will think of huff huff, slap slap…? Okay, no, that’s much worse than before. I

should stick with my previous plan. ...Wait, what was I thinking about? It was

going to get extremely awkward if I suddenly didn’t give her a massage!

I earnestly massaged her shoulders, looking away from her

body. Admiral Luise giggled and continued her arrogant act, and soon stopped.

“Alright~ shall we go shopping soon? I really need something

else to wear. Follow me, everyone! I had a few lucky streaks today, so I’ll

celebrate it with gifts for all of you!”

Such heartwarming words! We followed her out with pure

admiration radiating from our eyes. Sergeant Aroha and Ensign Meihowa looked

particularly ecstatic as they pranced toward the brand name shops by the big

fountain. Those shops may have thrown the two ladies into depression at one

point, but they say that the sun shines even on mouse holes. They were in very

high spirits for once.

…But after a while, I suddenly noticed; where was Admiral

Luise? I turned around to find her moving to the opposite side, a huge discount

store that mostly sold cheap necessities.

“...Hey, hold up.” I quickly approached and pulled back

Aroha and Meihowa. I had grabbed Aroha by the tip of her shirt, but for

Meihowa, it was one of her wings.

“Kyaa-!” Ensign Meihowa turned around and angrily glared at

me, crossing her arms to hide her chest (Chest? Why not her wings?).

“Ah, I’m sorry. But Admiral Luise went that way…”

“Oh… Why’s Lu-Luise going over there?”

“She’s being cheap after all that?”

Meihowa and Aroha flashed a dejected look. But when Admiral

Luise spun around and scoffed at them, their expressions quickly disappeared.

Aroha, especially, was in no position to be complaining to her about anything.

No one had any courage or right to complain to our one and only saviour (?!).

We quietly followed her.

The two girls looked unwilling to begin, but their walking

posture returned to a joyous prance. They looked like some muppets from a

morning cartoon for kids. Now was a good time to apply a CG effect that would

make flowers bloom from their footsteps.

Discount shop or not, who’s going to refuse free stuff? It

could be fun!

* * *

Though nothing like the brand name shops or luxurious malls,

discount stores offered their own unique feeling of abundance. A huge variety

of items lined the shelves, waiting for a buyer. I felt like I’d become rich

from seeing them.

There we bought some things needed for our travels, and some

sets of clothes. Admiral Luise and I especially lacked things to wear, so we

took our time buying more. We were worried that we would end up with too much

to carry around, but it turned out that there was an automated delivery system

that brought them directly to our hotel room.

“Ah… it was scary, but it was also fun.” Sergeant Aroha

sighed in relief, drinking coffee. We were taking another short break at a café

near the entrance of the shopping mall.

“You should really take a moment to reflect, Aroha.” Meihowa

criticised, but she was smiling instead of being angry. I was just as happy

after being given free money and new clothes.

“Heh… we’re still on our first day of our vacation, right?”

“Kuh, O-oh no, I can’t stop laughing!”

It really was only our first day, and many fun things had

happened already. I couldn’t wait for the days to come. What could we do with

the money? Heliskiing? Ah, I’m already excited over thinking about things we

could do

“Ahem! All is due to my generous act of charity, Lezirth!

Continue massaging my shoulders!” Admiral Luise shrugged exaggeratedly and

turned her back against me. She looked so cute acting high and mighty with the

face of a child… And the mood of the moment made her look just that much cuter.

“Yes ma’am!” I approached her and began working on her

shoulders. Aroha and Meihowa worked on each of her feet in the meantime, and it

really looked as if she were a queen… or that we were operating a massage

parlour.

“Now, shall we go have some Shanghai mitten crabs?” And

Ensign Meihowa was still thinking about the crabs.

“We’ll get fat. Give us some time to digest and then we’ll

go.” Compared to toothpaste-mint ice cream or crab-flavoured energy gel, real

crab meat was far more of an acceptable food. Yet, I was still full at the

moment, partially because of the huge buffet from before, and then some alcohol

shortly after that.

“Then, can we return to the hotel instead? There’s probably

a fitness club in it. Let’s get some exercise and sweat away everything we ate

today, and we’ll spend time there until dinner.”

“No, wait, I want to unwrap the things we bought and think

about what to wear.”

And so we all left the café.

I could hear a few people whispering about us outside of the

café. They seemed to be tourists, too, judging by the ragged doll-hat that was

probably from an amusement park nearby.

“Whoa, look at that! It’s an Elcro! And an Asa, too…”

“Kya, aliens! What’s going on? They have to be part-timers

in costumes!”

“Shh, they might hear us! Hm, they look too real to be

costumes.”

It was a couple, quietly whispering to themselves while

peering at us.

The Federation was at war, primarily against the Elcro and

the Asa, so it was understandable for people to be curious about Sergeant Aroha

and Ensign Meihowa, whose races were apparent from their looks.

But we weren’t monkeys at a zoo.

“What a great world! There are aliens on this planet!”

“Stop staring at them! You’re just checking out the cute

girls, aren’t you?” The woman yelled and poked the man in his sides. The couple

left, arguing with each other.

“...Those bastards.”

“Ha ha ha. Don’t mind them, we get that a lot.” Sergeant

Aroha guffawed.

Ensign Meihowa shrugged. “It’s a little too late to get mad

about little things like that. Let’s just return to the hotel.”

We made our way back to the hotel, our mood having taken a

small hit.

* * *

As expected, everything that we had purchased at the stores

was brought to our room. The mound of boxes and packagings reminded me of

presents beneath a Christmas tree. My annoyance from a moment ago quickly

disappeared when I took a look at all of this new swag. “When did Santa come

by? Oh, but I might be a little too old to be getting Christmas presents from

him!”

Ensign Meihowa didn’t seem too pleased with my joke. “That’s

no good, Lezirth. It’s not even Christmas yet, and you’re not too old for…

for…” But she soon began unwrapping a box for herself with a great, big smile

on her face. Inside the box was a civilian-use electric bike. Compared to the

military’s, it was extremely light-- at only five kilograms or so-- made with

carbon nanotube. If I recall correctly, it wasn’t cheap at all, but Admiral

Luise had earned too much to care for such details. “Mmph… can I really take

this?”

“You already bought it, you know.”

Ensign Meihowa smiled, gently caressing her shiny new bike.

“Nngh… th-that’s obvious, but… thanks, I’ll put it to good use.”

Sergeant Aroha had purchased various cosmetics, makeup kits,

and health foods, in addition to new clothes, swimsuits, and sunglasses.

Combined, they were much more expensive than what I had purchased, but they

still amounted to less than Ensign Meihowa’s bike.

Admiral Luise bought, other than new clothes, a bunch of new

software. She booted them up on her computer and began talking about her new

tech. “I see that they’ve added a new library of instructions for their

language. Who would have ever thought that ‘Alpha C++ Blender’ would live to

see its twentieth major release? There were no improvements in the world of

hardware, but it looks like the software side is still going very strong.”

Quantum computers could theoretically improve infinitely

with additional qubits. However, for conventional computers, reducing the size

to lessen circuitry delays was an important but limiting consideration.

Unfortunately, before Admiral Luise and I were put into cold sleep-- that is, a

hundred and twenty years ago-- conventional computing had already reached its

physical limit. That was only a part of the bigger problem; kinetics,

electrical engineering, material science, many fields of research had been

stunted. They were all already pushed to the boundaries of the physical realm.

“Lezirth. Are you really fine with just that, Lezirth? I

have a lot of credits remaining.”

“Oh, I’m fine with these.” All I had for myself was some

clothes, underwear, and a hat and a pair of sunglasses to cover myself from the

sun. In total, they added up to one-tenth of Meihowa’s luxury bike… but I

didn’t want anything in particular, either.

We were going to be fighting a war after the vacation,

anyway.

After having unboxed everything, Aroha and Meihowa had begun

arranging the clothes in the hotel’s closet.

Suddenly, a ringtone echoed in the room.

Sergeant Aroha shrugged, pulled out her portable computer

and answered the call. “Yes, Aroha here.”

“Hey, Aroha? Did you get there safely? I heard you were on

vacation with friends.”

I could hear the voice of a young woman. Her voice was

remarkably clear and easily understandable-- probably an announcer of some

kind.

Sergeant Aroha slumped over as soon as she heard the woman’s

voice and saw her face on the screen. “Hey, big sis. What’s happening?”

“Nothing, really; Mom set up a blind date for you… can you

spare some time during your vacation? If you’re too busy to travel from your

end, I’ll tell the guy to fly over to you instead. There should be a lot of

places to meet on that planet anyway.”

“Uh, no thanks? You haven’t married either, so why am I the

one to be set up like this? I’m still too young for my family to be forcing me

to marry up!”

Admiral Luise, Ensign Meihowa, and I remained quiet. We

didn’t want to bother her phone call, but our silence made it easier for us to

overhear their conversation.

“That’s because I’m not a soldier like you. Mom and I still

disagree with your choice to become a soldier. She probably thinks that you

might give up on the military when you marry.”

“Yeah, I don’t like being controlled in that way. If she

wants me to quit my job, then tell me to quit my job directly. What the hell is

this crap about finding a guy?”

Their conversation revealed some unexpected facts. Sergeant

Aroha must have had some complicated family problems behind her reasoning to

become a soldier. I had never asked her about it in consideration of her

special status as a half-Asa.

She must have belonged to a powerful family.

Then again, Sergeant Aroha’s big sister was the kind of

person who was capable of renting a casino hotel suite for an entire month

through credit card rewards alone. Even if casino hotels exist mostly to trap

customers into playing at their casino, a month’s worth of room and food had to

cost a significant amount.

If a director of a corporation is able to rack up a huge

number of points for a frequent flyer program, that means that the director

holds control over great many parts of the business.

She had a clear-cut voice that made me think that she

received training to become an announcer. She was stern yet mannered, and

obviously prideful of herself. And hearing her made me realize how curious I

was of Sergeant Aroha.

“Anyway, you should at least meet him. He’s not that bad of

a guy. He’s a little old, but he graduated from Harvard with a master’s in law,

along with MBA.”

“No. I’m on vacation. And when the vacation’s over, I’m

going back to the front lines. Why would a Harvard graduate want to marry a

military woman who could die at any moment? And I’m an Asa! If you really think

he’s such a great guy, why don’t you meet him yourself?”

“I’m fine. I have a lot to do here. And Aroha, don’t you

realize how attractive you are to guys out there?”

“Of course I’d be attractive; I have the Pereira blood. Why

else would that be? Did he say that he wants to burn his lust with an Asa’s

fire?”

“Then, are you going to run around the battlefield like a

monkey instead? You’ve already been in a life-threatening situation once

already… you’re going to die at this rate! Do you realize what people would say

to your mother or I if you were to die?”

“That the family’s shame was lawfully murdered? Something

like that, right?”

“...” The sister fell silent.

I sighed. I thought that Sergeant Aroha may have been

pushing her too much, but I couldn’t say anything. It was her problem to solve,

and I had no say in it.

“...I’m not telling you to marry here and now, so at least

meet him. Who knows? Maybe you’ll feel better about it after meeting him. Both

Mom and I are begging you to do it, so please, at least spare an hour for us.”

“But I’m here with my boyfriend right now! Look!” Sergeant

Aroha pointed her computer’s camera towards me.

I was taken back in surprise. The face that appeared in the

screen was that of a fine example of an office lady, with neatly combed black

hair. She looked… hm, maybe Mestizo? Latin-American?

She inspected me from head to toe. She sighed. “Hello. I’m

Flora. Aroha’s big sister.”

“Oh, uh, I, um…”

In panic, I glanced at Aroha, Meihowa, and Admiral Luise.

Ensign Meihowa and Admiral Luise were both panicking like me, but Sergeant

Aroha was gesturing at me to go with the flow.

“Ah, hello. My name is Lezirth. N-nice to meet you.” I

greeted her.

I explained myself to her; without lying, of course. I was

indeed Lezirth, and I was undeniably going to spend a month with Sergeant

Aroha, together in a single room. Though with a divider between us that made it

less ‘living together’ and more ‘sharing a room’.

“Hm. Mister Lezirth, I’d like to ask a question directly to

you…”

“What are you going to ask him?” Sergeant Aroha got in the

way by turning the camera around to face her once again.

“Can I not ask a question to your boyfriend? I’d like to ask

if he thinks he’s in a serious relationship, or if he’s just here with you for

your vacation…”

“Ah, whatever! You’ll have your nephew or niece in ten

months! That’s fine, right?”

“What? Aroha! Wh-... wait!” The big sister yelled in

surprise, but Sergeant Aroha quickly ended the call and disabled the phone

feature on her computer.

“... … …”

I had no words.

“Uh.” Sergeant Aroha squeaked.

“Eheheh… who’s whose boyfriend now?” Admiral Luise muttered

to herself, smiling the evilest smile.

Sergeant Aroha laughed, and charged into Admiral Luise for a

big hug. “Sob, sob! My family’s being too cruel to me! Please comfort me,

Luise!”

“Argh! Stop that, please! Let me go!”

Admiral Luise struggled to get out of Aroha’s grasp. She was

cute.

But I was still scared.

Sergeant Aroha’s mom, and her big sister, they both sounded

like they were extremely powerful people, and Sergeant Aroha openly announced

that I was her boyfriend, complete with the showing of my face. She was

obviously trying to avoid having to continue her tiring debate, but… I somehow

had the feeling that her decision was going to bite us back in the future.

“Aroha, I understand how you felt, but isn’t it a little too

rude to do that without Lezirth’s consent? It’s unlikely that your sister is

going to tell your mother about it, but she definitely will investigate Lezirth

on her own.”

“Huh, she looked like a normal office lady to me. Can she

really do that?”

Ensign Meihowa’s expression became much more serious in

response. “Wait, are you saying that because you don’t know about the Pereira

family? Ah, of course, you wouldn’t know about it.”

“Wh-what is it?”

“The Pereira family is, um… was it about eighty-three years

ago?”

“Eighty-six.”

“Right. They own Kedric Trading Company, which was

established eighty-six years ago. They got into military productions and saw a

lot of money from it. They’ve had hot-blooded women in the family succeeding as

owners throughout its history.”

“Huh…”

Whoa, now. So she really did belong to a powerful family!

But why was she just half-Asa? I became confused with Ensign Meihowa’s

explanation.

“Then… Sergeant Aroha’s sister will be checking me out?”

“That’s right. A director of a trade company is safely

comparable to a spy. Not only will your personal information be leaked to her,

they might actually find out that you’re Lezirth Dawnbringer himself.”

“That’s not good.”

“Oh, you! We’ll just have to make what I said no longer a

lie! What’s the issue?”

I felt my face grow hot. Sergeant Aroha’s face was also

bright red; that alcohol from before hadn’t fully left her, I hoped. Her words

from before-- ‘You’ll have your nephew or niece in ten months!’ --echoed in my

head. If she wanted to make that statement not a lie anymore, then, uh, that

would mean, um…

“Wait a second! What do you mean ‘what’s the issue’?! That’s

a terribly big issue!!” Ensign Meihowa yelled.

Admiral Luise grinned dreadfully, glaring at Sergeant Aroha

and I. “Fufu… very funny. Great joke. Hahaha. Ahahahahahaha-!”

...Okay, she knew it was a joke, but, what was that?!

Nngh. I felt my life twist and turn into a knot. But delving

into this issue any further was just going to be extra bother with no reward

I immediately made a suggestion.

“Shanghai mitten crab.”

“What?”

“Shanghai mitten crab. Now.”

“...” Ensign Meihowa jumped up into a standing stance.

“...I-It’s not because I really like crabs or anything!”

...Whoa, is that what Pencolt meant when he explained

‘tsundere’? But Ensign Meihowa, what are you being tsundere for? Was it for a

crab?

A scenario played out in my head…

...

There stood a legendary tree, known to give happy endings to

love confessions made underneath it.

Meihowa, in her school uniform, ran underneath the tree,

gasping for breath lost from a sprint.

And there, a Shanghai mitten crab waited for her.

Meihowa: Phew… I-I’m sorry, Mittencrab. I hope I didn’t make

you wait.

Mittencrab:

(He had a few choices for his dialogue. He

must be the protagonist.)

No, I got here just now, too. Was that letter

from you?

Meihowa: I-I didn’t write that letter because I like you in

particular! I just thought it was a little sad graduating like this, a-and…

Meihowa prattled to herself, shifting her legs around in her

school uniform. ‘Heh, what a cute girl!’ Shanghai Mittencrab thought, looking

at her bumbling about. He lifted his soft, well-roasted pincer and revealed its

fragrant insides. A sweet, rich smell penetrated Meihowa’s nose.

Meihowa: Ah… s-so, what’s your answer?

Mittencrab: I’m… of course, it’s a yes.

Meihowa: R-really? I-I’m so happy!

...

…What the hell am I thinking about?!

“I think all that venting made me hungry again. Alright, I

think I can eat now.”

Admiral Luise agreed to go to have some crabs. Sergeant

Aroha nodded, too.

Phew, that went well. I successfully defused the bomb. It

felt like my bluffing feat helped me gain an extra level.

Lezirth Dawnbringer! Level up!

Lezirth gained a new ability: Misdirection!

### 003. Part 3

Dear readers, please choose your military waifu: Luise, Meihowa, Aroha.

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix,

Foodpenguin

Please enjoy.

____________________

Unbelievably, and especially so for a hotel restaurant, the

crab buffet had offered quality food. They hadn’t forced in alcoholic drinks or

salty food either, since it was dinnertime anyway.

“Ah… th-this is so good! Can we eat here every day?” Ensign Meihowa’s

eyes sparkled as she cried in glee.

Even if it were good food, I wasn’t too sure about having

crabs every single night.

Admiral Luise shook her head as she wiped her mouth with a

napkin. “It’s delicious, yes, but… it’s embarrassing to have to get help from

Lezirth for every bite.”

She was terrible at picking meat out of the crabs, so I had

been doing it for her. Sergeant Aroha and Ensign Meihowa followed along as I

helped Admiral Luise. I felt as if I had suddenly become a fish cleaner working

for some fish factory. But I didn’t mind; I liked seeing everyone having a good

time, and preparing crabs was just cakewalk for my superhuman strength. “Don’t

mind me. It only makes sense to leave meat-picking to someone who’s actually

good at it. Heh heh.”

It was a small price to pay if I could have the girls forget

about that last incident, and even better if they could stop being gloomy about

it. Still, Sergeant Aroha grumbled to herself as she folded paper cranes.

“Alright, shall we leave?”

We finished our dinner and dived back into the bustling

streets. In the casino streets, there were various shows, circuses, and

musicals being performed for extremely cheap. In return, the roads to the

entrances were lined with slot machines and card tables. We remembered our

tragic history with them and simply walked past.

“Hmm? What is that?” Ensign Meihowa pointed at a line of

people.

I recognized that it was a waiting line for a bus. “City

tour bus. I heard that it went directly to a night market at a Chinatown.”

“Night market?”

“Let’s go there!”

It was a very impulsive idea, but we were feeling too great

to care. Those Shanghai mitten crabs probably had a lot to do with it. I was

personally happy, to be honest; back in my days as the Commander of Dawn Corps,

Lezirth Dawnbringer… not that I’d spent my entire life in wars, but there were

limits to my ability to travel on my own. I couldn’t ever imagine taking a

relaxing vacation at a planet built entirely for vacation trips.

And so, for that very moment, I was very happy that I could

spend my time with these girls, laughing like an idiot, even with nothing

happening in particular. Though I did end up in a foreign world after a long

sleep, I had no special feelings for my previous life.

--I was always a foreigner.

A memory from the past slipped by.

In that second… all the excitement, happiness, all of my

feelings died down.

I remembered my duties; the things that I had to live by,

but ultimately failed.

I am…

--I am not your messiah!

You ask me to save every one of you, but I failed to save

myself. My weakness pains me. Why must you pain me further by having hope for

me? What do you expect by begging me? And why am I unable to stop trying to

fulfill them… Why?!

I felt sick.

“Lezirth, are you okay?” asked Ensign Meihowa with a worried

look.

I looked up at her in surprise. “Ah, nothing… I think I ate

a little too much.”

“Oh, dear. Want a digestive tablet?”

“It’s not that bad. Thanks anyway. Hey, we’re going to miss

the bus! Let’s hurry up.”

“Of course!”

And we managed to catch one of the city tour buses. But…

“Whoa!” A tour guide on the bus exclaimed as he saw our

faces.

I glanced at his face and realized that he was the mob

leader who harassed us in broad daylight a few hours ago. In other words, he

was the writer of that weird poster, William Mayer. He must have remembered us,

too, though I suppose we were quite the special group in the first place. Not

to mention all the weird looks we got from the people here.

“Tsk. It’s the walking symbol of the Federation’s

corruption. Having fun, are you?”

“Big words, huh?” Sergeant Aroha crossed her arms and stood

in front of him.

“What do you want?”

She pulled out a Federation banknote. “You. You’re a tour

guide, right? How about you show us around?”

“Th-this is only my part-time job! I really am a scholar

otherwise!” said the man, but he clearly couldn’t resist eyeing the money.

“...”

I did not at all enjoy his actions during the day, and I

also did not appreciate his rude comment towards me a moment ago, but Sergeant

Aroha had gone a little too far. It was just too much to make a fool out of

someone for his means of survival.

I interrupted Sergeant Aroha and apologized to him in her

behalf. “Sorry. She’s a bit drunk right now and she doesn't know what she’s

saying.”

“Wait, I’m not drunk, Lezirth! I’m completely awake now!”

shouted Sergeant Aroha, but Ensign Meihowa quickly put a hand over her mouth.

After my apology, the man scoffed and eyed to the side. “...

Hmph.”

“I really am sorry. None of us meant to offend you. Please

forgive us.”

“Uh, well, whatever. ...A-anyway, are you all new to

Critik?”

“I suppose so.”

“People only speak Chinese at the night market, you know?

I’ll guide you around for only five thousand credits per person. I can speak

Chinese, Tamil, Tibetan, Hindi, and more. I also got a doctorate. ...I can tell

you about all the fun places around the town, too, but it doesn’t look like

you’re going to need any of it.”

And yet he held a little flag that said that the tour price

was twenty-five hundred. Trying to rip us off with double the price, huh?

I assumed that he was merely accepting our apology in his

own way, which didn’t make me feel bad. He was chock full of misaimed pride; he

had a doctorate and yet he had to make do with his job as a nightly tour guide,

working for way less than Federation wages. So, even his twisted way of

accepting our apology was understandable.

Well, both Admiral Luise and I could speak fluent Chinese,

but I decided to hire him as our guide anyway. A man like him was too much of a

hassle to keep as our enemy.

I nodded. “Deal.”

“Er, alright. Then you people are my customers now.” He

picked up the little flag and stood up. “Here, follow me. I’ll show you how to

get around the place without being ripped off.”

Soon, the bus arrived at the Chinatown night market, about

two kilometers away from the casino hotel area. Around the entrance were young

ladies in cheongsam, throwing colourful confetti around, and dancers with large

masks that resembled lions. They did the traditional lion dance as they walked

up and down ladders with dazzling fireworks and noisy crowds as their backdrop.

...How can they do that without any daylight and their blinding masks?

… Must be tough having to work for all these tourists.

Though, it was probably weird that I felt sorry for them at

all, considering how my job as a frontline soldier is the bluest of all the

blue-collar jobs. I suppose they would feel even sorrier for me if they knew

that I was a soldier, let alone a lowly apprentice.

We stepped out of the bus and passed through a doorway of

decorative lights. The streets were brightly lit, and the market sold a huge

variety of things.

William Mayer held his flag up and began doing his duties as

our tour guide. “And this is Critik Chinatown, the Bazaar. Anyone can take up a

spot and start selling things at the front of the plaza. Down the road, you got

the registered shops. All the antiques and old art are down the southeastern

road, and the food stalls are at the northeastern part.”

As expected, the area around the plaza was full of people

selling various trinkets from square mats. There were plastic dolls made out of

scrunched up cola bottles, and some others sold secondhand shoes that clearly

had faked brands. Right beside them was a vendor selling a mountain of very old

magazines.

“Oh.” Sergeant Aroha suddenly stopped in place as if she ran

into something.

“Hmm? What?”

“Uh… excuse me, this magazine… how much is it?” Sergeant

Aroha asked the magazine merchant, pointing at one of the magazines.

“Ten thousand! Ten thousand credit!” The merchant replied in

the Federation common language with a slight accent.

“Hmm…” Sergeant Aroha pondered, picking up the magazine.

Developed areas like Federation planets and independent

planets had fully networked exchange of information, but developing planets

usually lacked the energy sources to maintain a large enough network. So,

printed materials like these remained in use up to this date.

William Mayer walked up to her arrogantly. “Huh, you’re a

strange woman. Not surprising for an Asa, I guess. Want me to haggle with him?”

Sergeant Aroha frowned. “Do you always talk like that to

customers?”

“Heh, what’s the problem? I’ll try to get the price lower.

That fine with you?”

He and the merchant became engaged in a loud discussion in

Hindi. Wait, I thought he was Chinese! Soon, he was able to cut the price down

to fifteen hundred credits.

“That’s good enough.” said Aroha, paying the merchant.

Mayer appeared irritated at her decision. “Hmph. If you gave

me more time, I could have cut the price down even more for sure. I swear, all

of you Federation tourists throw money around like it’s nothing. And somehow

give less tip at the same time.”

“...”

He really doesn’t care about his quality of service! I could

understand why, though. He didn’t seem to get the respect that he deserves as a

scholar. He’s holding demonstrations by day, and he works a tour guide by night

for the exact same people that he was denouncing in his demonstrations.

...Anyone would feel terrible in his shoes.

I feared that Sergeant Aroha would end up insulting him

again… but she was staring blankly at the magazine in her hands.

She held a sports magazine that had an unfamiliar mixed

martial arts fighter striking a pose in the cover.

“...Really, I didn’t think I’d find a treasure here. Heh

heh, it was a good idea to come here.” Her eyes welled up in tears as she spoke

to herself. A second later, she had her bright smile back on her face like

nothing had happened. “Right! Let’s go and see if we can find more good stuff!”

“O-okay.”

We walked around the night market and came across all sorts

of strange items. Mayer explained most of them for us, explaining which one’s

fake, which one’s real but gutted out the insides, and how to avoid being

ripped off like a dumb tourist. He wasn’t a bad guide.

Admiral Luise and Ensign Meihowa seemed to have understood

my sentiment towards the guy, despite his obnoxious choice of words. And

Sergeant Aroha was no longer a problem since her vocabulary was reduced to

“Huh, what?” and “Uh… okay!” since she got the magazine.

We spent our time in the market like that, until Admiral

Luise froze her footsteps in front of a showroom surrounded with old neon

signs.

“H-how?!”

“What is it?”

“Lezirth! Come here, quickly!”

I ran to where Admiral Luise shouted. And then, I stopped in

place just as she did.

“What?!”

“Rabbitte the Rabbit?!”

“Colorado?!”

Admiral Luise and I screamed at the same time. In the

showroom of one of the antique shops stood a humanoid rabbit with human arms

and legs, leaning on a coffee machine. Beside it was an old M8-inspired ground

combat knife with a red blade. That blade, extending about sixty centimeters

long, was definitely Colorado!

Wait! Why was that there? No way, that must be a fake!

Hahaha!

I glanced at Admiral Luise for confirmation. She was nodding

with a very solemn look on her face, biting her lips.

… Eh? Then that’s… the real deal? No way! Why are our

greatest tools being shown in some random antique shop in a tour destination?

“Ah, I see your got the eyes for valuable things. But that

looks like a well-made fake.” William Mayer followed us and grumbled loudly.

“That rabbit robot is ‘Rabbitte the Rabbit’, a robotic computer made by Admiral

Luise Maynard, the pilot of Tetragrammaton and the creator of the Federation’s

tactical systems. And that old looking sword is actually the one in a billion,

they call-- the perfect sword made from a billion attempts, a sword named ‘Colorado’

that was the favourite of an old war hero named Lezirth Dawnbringer. Or, so the

owner says, which is why the price tag is just as crazy.”

Like he had said, the prices were horrendous. Colorado

itself was five hundred million credits, and Rabbitte was a billion.

Admiral Luise was strangely content about it. “Heh heh,

Rabbitte is worth a billion credits? Maybe a little too low for what it’s

worth.”

“Uh, no, this isn’t the time to be happy about it. ...Mmh,

but why is Colorado so much cheaper than Rabbitte?”

“Colorado’s just a military weapon.”

“B-but it’s the one in a billion, the priceless treasure of

eternity… you can always remake Rabbitte, right? Colorado, though, you’d have

to ask around legendary artificers to make another.”

“Erk… did you really go there, Lezirth?” Admiral Luise

pouted, hurt from my remark that Colorado should worth more than Rabbitte.

Ensign Meihowa sighed from beside. “Combine them both and

they’re a billion and a half. Shouldn’t that be the bigger issue here? And how

can there possibly be the original Rabbitte or Colorado in a place like this?”

Mayer began laughing half-heartedly when he noticed our

interest in those two items. “You think they’re real? Hey, seriously, you’re

going to buy them? Unfortunately for you two, this shop doesn’t open at night.

Want me to call the owner over? He’s a very persistent guy, though. Everyone

already tells him that they’re clearly fake, but he still claims that they’re

the real Rabbitte and Colorado. Even if I manage to drop the price to ten

percent, it’s still a hundred fifty million, so to even think about making a

purchase for a possible fake…”

Mayer paused his long chatter after taking a look at our

faces.

“Eh? You serious? This is real?”

Ensign Meihowa looked just as shocked at our expressions.

“If this shop won’t open at night, I suppose we’ll have to

come back here later.”

Mayer came back to his senses from Admiral Luise’s comment.

“H-hey, lady, are you seriously buying this thing? How are you planning to pay

for this?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ll try to haggle with the owner and try to fit the price

to your plan. In return, pay me ten percent of it as commission.” Mayer pulled

out a bottle of water and emptied it in an instant. He seemed to be agitated by

the scale of money involved in the deal.

Admiral Luise understood his intentions and told her plan.

“My current budget is… about twenty-five million.”

“You’re trying to pay for a billion and five hundred million

with only a twenty-five million budget? Aren’t you asking for too much?”

“Isn’t your wit supposed to pull us through? If you manage

to lower the price that much, I’ll be paying you two point five million

credits. And if you can lower the price even further, I will give you half of

the extra cut you make.”

“What?”

“So, if you lower the price to five million, I add ten

million on top of the promised two and a half million. Here, I’ll give you the

room number of our hotel. No… wait…”

“You can have my mail address.”

I gave him my personal mail address. Mayer gulped as he

looked at it. “I’ll haggle and tell you how it goes tomorrow. B-but I can’t

promise that I’ll get it lower than two and a half!”

We left the night market after Mayer’s last words and

returned to our hotel with the city tour bus.

* * *

We returned to our room after a quick detour to buy some

drinks and snacks.

Admiral Luise momentarily left to do some research on

Rabbitte and Colorado, leaving me with Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha in the

room. Sergeant Aroha was absentmindedly reading the same pages in the magazine

over and over again. And those pages were… an interview with the MMA fighter on

the cover?

“Who is that? That guy on the cover?”

“Oh, it’s my dad.”

“...Huh?”

“Why, are you surprised? You thought we grow from each other

like mushrooms?”

“N-no, it’s not that.”

I looked at the cover of her magazine again. In the picture

was a muscular, young man, giving a thumbs-up with a belt on his shoulders that

recognized him as the champion fighter of universe-wide, low-gravity mixed martial

arts fighting.

That man is Sergeant Aroha’s father?

“So, he used to be a really popular low-gravity fighter. You

do know what low-gravity fighting is, right?”

“Of course.”

As the war with the Letix waged on, standard forms of combat

that originated on terran planets had become meaningless. To prepare for close

quarters combat in space and space-like environments, new forms of martial arts

were developed. Even my personal Dawnbringer Technique was developed during

that space-wide trend.

But the official Federation-use method of close quarters

combat was the ‘low-gravity mixed martial arts’, based on new studies that

focused on environments with little to no gravity.

Regardless, I made it mandatory for members of the Dawn

Corps to learn the Dawnbringer Technique. But it doesn’t look like that

technique survived to this day…

“But, at the time… we were in the middle of a war, so my dad

had no choice but to join the military under the conscription law. Then he was

captured as a prisoner of war by the Asa, and you know what happened next.”

Amazoness legend. As the story goes, there exists a kingdom

of women where men only live to continue the bloodlines. I knew little of the

Asa, but as long as people call them the ‘Amazoness’ I had a good idea what

might have happened to Sergeant Aroha’s father.

“I-I only know the gist of it from hearing rumours. But I

don’t exactly know anything. The first alien race I contacted with was the

Elcro, and the Asa contact happened after I slept, remember?”

Ensign Meihowa began explaining for me. “Mm-hmm. The Asa is

split into five castes: Harakal, Sedanu, Omere, Umea, Lokir-- and the men are

outside of these castes, and they must prove their worth on their own. They

must accomplish something great in order to prove that they have superior genes

than others, so that they are allowed to leave an offspring with the higher

castes.”

“Is that how it works?” I asked Sergeant Aroha for her

confirmation.

She nodded. “Yep. But my dad, before getting pulled away for

military, he was already lawfully married with a woman from the Pereiras. They

already had my sister, Flora, by that time.”

“...”

That was why Flora was a normal human. Their father was the

same, but their mothers weren’t.

“And when my dad became a prisoner, he had relations with

the Asa and had many children, including me. I’m pretty sure there are more of

my sisters somewhere out there.”

I… I didn’t know what to say to that. It was a complex,

uncomfortable story.

“Fortunately, the Federation rescued my dad and brought me

along, but his mental state was already broken. You see, he came to really love

my biological mother, that is, an Asa woman. And when a bunch of Federation

soldiers, as my dad watched on, went rat-tat-tat-tat--...” She held up two

fingers and pretended to make cartoonish gun noises. And yet in her happy,

toying eyes, I could sense a hint of pain. “Right in front of me, even…”

Death by plasma rifle was a horrifying, gruesome sight.

Superheated plasma acts like a sticky substance, so it sticks to the human

skin, burning it and digging deep into the bones underneath. If she had to

witness her mother’s death as a little girl, with a plasma rifle no less, that

must have left an indescribable trauma on her.

“And what about your father now?”

“Got divorced with my current mother and holed up in a mental

hospital. On top of that, during the raid on Asa city and the rescue mission,

he had taken a bullet to protect me, an Asa. He isn’t…” She held up the

magazine. “He isn’t proud and strong like this, and he doesn’t smile anymore.

So… so I bought the magazine, because this was amazing to me. Hmm, there should

be a lot of pictures of him before this time, right? Plenty of interviews, and

even more information on him over the network, probably. Why did I buy this old

magazine? I’m an idiot, sometimes.”

Sergeant Aroha’s shoulders quivered as she talked. Ensign

Meihowa gently hugged her.

...I had been expecting that there would be a complicated

story behind her family history, but I never thought it would be like this.

I felt my mind get tangled up, so I cracked open a can of

beer and gulped it down. Then I passed the other cans to her and Ensign

Meihowa. They silently accepted the cans. Just this morning, Sergeant Aroha had

been gambling drunk all day, but she drank that beer like she had been rescued

from a middle of a desert. I thought I’d stop her, but… nah, it would do well

for her to be drunk instead.

“You lived a pretty tough life.”

“Well, it can’t be worse than Vice Admiral Lezirth Dawnbrin…

*Burp* …aw.” Sergeant Aroha cast her eyes away, embarrassed that she burped

mid-sentence.

I chortled and shook my head. “No need to be embarrassed.

And, um… even if my life’s been going wrong, none of it really feels real to

me. So then, about Flora Pereira’s mother, so your sister’s mother is…”

“She’s legally my stepmother. When my dad brought me out,

they weren’t immediately divorced so she inducted me into the Pereira family. I

mean, she had plenty of reasons to dislike me, but she has a good enough

personality to not hate me for them. But she’s very overbearing.” explained

Sergeant Aroha, finishing her can of beer in exactly two gulps. And then she

opened a new can.

“Aren’t you drinking too much?” worried Ensign Meihowa.

Sergeant Aroha grinned. “Beer’s just a drink. I’m strong

with alcohol, Ensign.”

“No one ever says that and doesn’t get drunk after.” But

Ensign Meihowa was drinking beer herself. I suppose she couldn’t avoid

drinking, considering the mood.

“I meant to say-- you two are very friendly to each other.”

“W-well, our situations are pretty similar.” Ensign Meihowa

blushed.

Sergeant Aroha reached at her for a hug, and began rubbing

her face into her chest. “Aanh, Ensign Meihowa… I love you, please marry me!”

“S-stop it! Aroha!”

“Hmm? Did your breasts get bigger?”

“N-no! What are you saying?!”

“How can you say no for sure? Alright, let’s measure it!”

“D-don’t you dare!”

Oh no. Aroha became drunk after all.

Ensign Meihowa quickly hid behind me, away from Sergeant

Aroha. I laughed at the two.

“Ugh, beer is way too filling. Lezirth, go buy some

tequila.”

“Sergeant Aroha, you can’t send me on an errand like that.”

“‘Sergeant Aroha’? What is that~? We’re on a vacation! Call

me ‘Aroha~’, or even ‘Darling~’ or ‘Honey~’ is fine by me!”

Everyone! We have a hopeless drunkard here!

And before I could respond, soft arms wrapped around my neck

from behind.

“...Hey, Lezirth?”

Ensign Meihowa smelled of alcohol herself, looking at me

with unfocused eyes.

...W-wait, what is this lady doing?! She wouldn’t do this

normally! Ah, then again, she did drink a lot during the day! Did she finally

break past the point of drunkenness by adding a couple more cans of beer to

them?

“Colorado’s that good? To pay five hundred million for it?

Even twenty five million for Rabbitte and Colorado combined sounds like a waste

to me.”

“Yeah! Twenty five million means Luise is pouring all of the

money that she won today! I-I mean, sure, she won all of that in the first

place, so I can’t tell her what to do with it, b-but it’s not like I’m sad

about it!”

Aroha seemed to have been wondering about Colorado and

Rabbitte too.

“That’s because…”

“Yes, yes? What about it?”

I stopped talking to face away from Meihowa for a moment.

Whoa! H-her face is too close! Those rosy cheeks are so

cute, I’d lose myself if I faced her directly!

When I eyed her again, Ensign Meihowa was continuing to

stare at me shamelessly. Her drooping ears made her look like a doe.

A-alright, let’s calm down.

“A-anyway, it’s definitely worth that price.”

“Why? Aren’t bayonets all the same?”

“Mm… but you’ve seen Dawnbringer’s Sacred Sword, right?”

“That last Kishin technique you used in the fight with

Diablo?”

“Yes. It’s where the blade is quantised. Then what happened

to the Alter Armour blade?”

“It melted and disappeared.”

“Right. But when Colorado is quantised and reversed, it

doesn’t disappear, but it forms the whole blade again.”

“Eh? Really?”

“It’s the only weapon to withstand the ‘Sacred Sword of

Justice’ and revert back to its original form, so of course it’s valuable. I

don’t know what kind of methods were used to create it, and I definitely don’t

know how that works, but all I know is that entire blade forms a single

molecular pattern instead of it being shaped.”

“Okay, so it is an amazing sword. Then, what about

Rabbitte?”

“That thing is a computer made with Letix tissue, and it has

an AI mounted on it. Admiral Luise also holds it dear.”

“Hm, is that so? Enough to spend twenty five million on it?

But the problem is going to be that one-point-five billion price tag. It’s

going to come down to whether or not that strange guide succeeds in haggling

for it.”

Ensign Meihowa sipped her can of beer, then held the can

upside down on top of her mouth. Somehow, she went from short sips to finishing

an entire can. She crushed the empty can. “Ugh, I’m full. Beer is just

needlessly filling.”

“Right? Tequila and lemon and lime would be great.” Sergeant

Aroha smiled.

Ensign Meihowa added, “Rum and whiskey would be perfect for

me. Mix it with mint liqueur for a cocktail.”

I know where this is headed… I have to go get them, right?!

“Hey, aren’t you all drinking a bit too much? You should

control yourselves…”

But Sergeant Aroha suddenly made a very saddened expression.

“Oh, my poor little daddy. He used to be able to smile like that, and now he’s

stuck in a mental hospital… sob, sob.”

“Hey, you’re not even crying right now.”

Using her troubled past as a weapon? Aroha, you scary woman!

“Sob, sob… my mom, too…” And Ensign Meihowa joined in.

“...Don’t plagiarize her, Meihowa.”

“Hmph. Adviser Lezirth. That’s not cool at all.”

Why is that adviser thing being mentioned again?!

“Okay, fine. I’ll be right back.”

I stood and walked towards the hotel windows. I opened them,

but as I expected, they wouldn’t open further to prevent people from jumping

out. Aroha and Meihowa looked surprised at what I was doing.

The windows would not open and the glass was reinforced. A

normal person would need to go through significant effort to break them and

drop through it, but for me, I had a way to get past it without breaking

anything.

I looked intently towards the bottom of the window, and I

could see the shocked expressions on Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha.

“Wh-what are you doing, Lezirth?!”

“H-hey, stop! Wake up! You’re not thinking of jumping out,

are you?”

They realized that I was thinking up jumping down, and they

quickly tried to talk me out of it.

“It’s faster than taking an elevator, so, I’ll be back.”

“No, wait! This is a casino city, so there’s a psychic

canceler everywh…”

But I ignored their warnings and phase-shifted through the

window, dropping straight down. As they had said, the area was filled with

inhibitors-- a lot more than Ibis-2 starport.

That wasn’t a big problem for me.

I gently landed on the pool area at the base of the hotel.

From there, I went to the convenience store nearby for tequila, whiskey, rum,

various liqueur, and some fruits. Then I climbed back up the outer walls of the

hotel and shifted back through the windows

Meihowa and Aroha were still stunned, staring in my

direction.

“Didn’t you want me to go buy these? I suppose it was a good

idea to send me. It’s totally faster than waiting for the elevator--”

“Oouuhh… I… I was so scared! I thought you were drunk and

not thinking straight…”

“Phase shifting is a lot more difficult than jumping from

the seventeenth floor, you know? Do you really think I’d drop to my death after

getting through the windows?”

Surviving a drop from the seventeenth floor was guaranteed

at the moment that I phase-shifted through the windows. Well, using psionic

powers causes a little radiation, but it mostly consisted of alpha particles

and so the human skin protected against that.

“How could we know? We’re not psionics. Anyway, did the

convenience store sell fruits, too?”

“Yep. We’re not the only ones thinking of making cocktail,

apparently. Okay, time to show off what I can do!”

I began making very thin slices out of a lemon.

Then, after I passed the cocktail glasses around…

Then…

I lost consciousness.

### 004. Part 1

Somebody set up us the bomb.

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix,

Foodpenguin

Please enjoy.

____________________

[While the Federation has publicly denied, our trusted sources

have reported that hundreds of salvage corvettes have been sent to rescue

surviving troops in the Oden system.]

[The Federation’s stock markets are seeing steep declines in the

aftermath, and investments in reinsurance sidecars are quickly growing.]

We returned to our room to watch the television on our own. The

Federation’s television networks were still broadcasting the usual screenings

like news, sitcoms, movies, and animations, but Critik’s channels were rowdy

with the recent developments in the war. Popular Internet communities have also

begun spreading the latest word around.

“Damn, I guess it wasn’t a dream after all.”

I quickly explained my earlier vision to the others-- the

dreamlike vision with the girl with blue hair. The Kishin that appeared in the

Oden system that was too much like Dawnbringer had to be Duskbringer. News

reports agreed. Duskbringer had activated the Sole Power of Heaven and Earth

and destroyed the majority of the Federation’s fleet.

“In a single activation, forty percent of the Federation’s fleet

disappeared. And then…”

The sheer power of the ability caused Duskbringer to black out temporarily,

and the Federation attempted to take advantage by capturing or destroying it.

But then, instead of remaining paralyzed from the aftereffect of the Sole Power

of Heaven and Earth, Duskbringer transformed into Tetragrammaton.

The others were utterly surprised by my story.

“I-I’d normally say that you’re just being crazy, but it’s too

believable, coming from a psionic.”

“Given our situation, too.”

Sergeant Aroha and Ensign Meihowa simultaneously scratched their

heads as if they had become twins.

“But Lezirth’s ability works differently from future sight or

telepathic vision. He does have the ability to teleport, but that won’t take

him that far.” explained Admiral Luise, closing her eyes. Suddenly, a soft

light emanated from her hair. She must have been using her telepathic vision to

observe the Oden system.

“I don’t know too much, but I am sure that there was a gamma-ray

burst in the area. There are residues from a supernova, and there’s still an

extremely powerful wave of energy passing by at light speed. Thankfully any

populated planets in the projected path won’t be affected, but any smaller

celestial objects will be destroyed.”

She opened her eyes to fix them on me. “How did you find that

out?”

I shrugged. I wish I knew how, too. “I told you, the blue-haired

girl told me.”

“Hmm. A blue-haired girl?” Admiral Luise fell into silence.

Sergeant Aroha saw her chance to complain. “Wait a second, does

this mean our vacation’s over? We have to pack up already? And we’re going to

be back in the war again? I knew I shouldn’t have been too happy getting a

month of vacation.”

If the situation in the Oden system was really that bad, the

Federation was sure to rally their troops back to the front lines for emergency.

They were likely to go all in and fight to the death against the Alliance-- and

with that plan, they weren’t going to reward war heroes with vacations that

would take them away from the fight.

Our month-long vacation was given out because we were a training

platoon that survived a dangerous mission. However, if the Federation decides

to go into a state of total war, dangerous missions like that would become the

daily life for every troop. When they begin throwing away the lives of every

soldier to the war, they aren’t likely going to give away long vacations for

those who risk their lives.

Every society, and every able-bodied man and woman of these

societies was going to become mindless cogs in the war

“The vacation’s hardly our problem. When we get back to the war,

our lives are going to be in danger all the time. ...That’s normal for me, but

shouldn’t you try to tell your sister about it and stay away from this fight,

Aroha?” Ensign Meihowa worried for Sergeant Aroha.

Objectively speaking, if she decided against joining the war,

someone else was going to be forced in to make up for her absence. These

fillers-- the grunts that get thrown into the front lines-- weren’t going to be

too kind towards those who ran away from their fight.

Yet humans were capable of throwing away their own lives to better

the lives of friends and family, and there were many who fought harder to keep

their comrades away from dangerous battles. Sergeant Aroha understood Ensign

Meihowa’s worries well.

“But… If what they said is true…”

What Fake Luise and Fake Lezirth said in the broadcast had to have

some degree of truth. No-- if they were entirely lies, then their words raised

even more questions.

The Dawn Corps fought against the Federation in order to save

Admiral Luise and I, thereby becoming targets of the Federation. We were left

trapped in the freezing chambers, hidden on Ibis-2, until the nuclear batteries

in the devices ran out of power and awoke us, a hundred and twenty years later.

If that wasn’t the case, then there were no explanations for this

world. If the Dawn Corps remained active to this day, then no one would dare

impersonate Admiral Luise and I. If there were many left who remember our true

faces, no amount of effort in manipulating public knowledge could make the

fakes seem convincing.

Even if they had used some powerful telepathic ability to

brainwash the viewers, what about any written material? Even as of now, various

discussions on the Internet were bringing up past magazines or advertisements that

involved our faces and used them as proofs that the fakes were real. The

Federation had been denying their proofs and their original publishers

explained that the photos were edits or parodies.

As expected, the Federation was purposefully burying the

identities of Lezirth, Luise, and the Dawn Corps.

It didn’t help that the Alliance was also spreading lies…

“So, who are these impostors pretending to be Lezirth and Luise?”

Ensign Meihowa asked us. Of course, none of us knew. How was I supposed to know

after missing out for more than a century?

“Maybe… they’re just lookalikes from the Replicant rebels. One

thing’s very likely: they’re the pilots of Duskbringer and Tetragrammaton. If

that’s true, then as Kishin-level pilots, there should be no match for them in

the Federation.

At that moment, all of our PDAs rang at the same time.

“It’s about time.”

I opened the PDA, and as I thought, a mail had arrived. It was an

order for all soldiers on vacations to immediately return to their respective

stations. We were to go to the nearest spaceport and schedule ourselves for an

army transport at an army office within a day.

Federation planets aside, autonomous planets and even developing

planets had a Federation army office in every spaceport. In twenty-four hours,

every registered soldier would be transported back and to the front lines once

again.

“I can’t believe our vacation ended before we got to do anything.”

“I know! And I bragged to my sister about how she’ll be getting a

nephew soon! Now she’s just going to be angry at me for not keeping up with my

promises.”

No, please, I’d rather have you not keep that promise. Were you

actually thinking about keeping it?!

I gave a panicked look at Aroha. For some reason, Admiral Luise

seemed to be looking at her the same way as I did.

“Well, we still got to find out that Rabbitte and Colorado are

here. Even if we’re in a hurry, I think we have time to ask Mayer if he can

make a purchase under five hundred million credits.”

With Admiral Luise’s words, I looked up Mayer’s contact

information. Unfortunately, his mail account was inactive and it was not

possible to call him. It seemed to be true that many people on autonomous

planets still had no access to standardized networking services. I became

afraid that we weren’t going to be able to get Colorado and Rabbitte back

before our time was up.

“How long do we have, again?”

“We have to get to an army recruiter office, starting twenty-four

hours from now. We’re on a tight schedule.”

Sergeant Aroha and Ensign Meihowa were frowning in disappointment

that we had no more time left in our vacation. We blankly stared out the window

in unison, cursing the spaceport that could be seen far away.

“I wish that spaceport would just explode. Then we’d have an

excuse for not being able to schedule our flight back to base, right?”

“If the spaceport suddenly exploded, I’m pretty sure that’ll be a

problem on its own.” Ensign Meihowa shot a look at Sergeant Aroha’s childish

remark, but she looked just as displeased. “We were going to be hiking, and

surfing, and skiing… we could have had so much fun.”

“Yeah, that’s why that spaceport needs to explode! Like, right

now, there could be a big BOOM--”

Sergeant Aroha’s words stopped right at that moment.

Suddenly, the room’s windows simultaneously turned dark brown. It

was blocking off a powerful radiation from the other side by the reaction of

graphene coating and iron oxides with electromagnetic waves.

And on the other side of the darkened window, the spaceport was

reduced to a huge, black cloud.

“...Huh?”

“A-Aroha, did you actually--?”

“No way! I don’t have any bombs with me!”

“Whoa! What’s going on?”

Be careful what you wish for, huh?

* * *

[We are the Critik pro-Alliance group, standing against the

tyranny of the Federation! We announce the departure of Autonomous Planet

Critik from the Federation and we will join the Transhuman Alliance! We will

not stand for the Federation’s blatant attempt to enslave us for their own

benefit! We will fight for our freedom!]

Televisions and holographic banners around the city now displayed

a middle-aged officer in the middle of a declaration. Various signs that once

showed advertisements were now repurposed to spread the message. On the roads,

old Striker and Spider APCs carried peacekeeping troops around and the skies

were controlled by a group of Alter-Armours.

In the lobby of the hotel, a Tri-Walker guarded the area, an

autonomous robot that stood on its three legs that extended about a meter and

twenty centimeters. It patrolled around the area by spinning around, keeping

two legs in place while the third leg rotates and moves forward. It could have

been repurposed anytime to suppress a riot by mounting a Colion rifle and a

scouting camera, or it could aid in an urban warfare situation should one occur

here.

[Citizens! Please return to your homes or the nearest building! I

repeat, citizens on the streets…]

The Tri-Walker repeatedly played a single recording, warning any

passersby. Some of the walkers were firing warning shots at tourists, which

caused a few unfortunate slot machines behind them to explode. The streets were

nearly empty as a result, and most tourists in the area were trapped in the

hotel.

“Nngh. A coup d’etat by the autonomous government.” I sighed. For

all those rebellious spirits who had problems with the Federation, their defeat

in the Oden system had been a good excuse for them to start a riot. Still, they

didn’t have to cause a violent uprising such as this one-- they could have

easily brought this to the Federation Council to start a vote, avoiding violent

confrontations. How many militaristic rebels did they have in this government?

“Meihowa! What’s the size of Critik’s rebelling army?”

“About a single regiment’s worth. The leader is Colonel John

Rafield.”

A group of rebels formed an entire regiment? That was quite a lot.

For an autonomous government, their army dealt with matters of space battles

and anti-alien missions. Those missions usually involved no more than a single

frigate’s worth of manpower, and maybe even a couple fighters if they didn’t

feel that’s worth the effort. A single regiment, on the other hand, was about

three frigates strong.

Admiral Luise began digging for information on the planet’s army

with her PDA. “John Rafield, Colonel, commander of a Blue Fin-class cruiser and

three Bunnies-class frigates. These four ships make up the hyperspace-ready

fleet of Critik’s military. The one behind the coup is the main army’s

Lieutenant Colonel Islamov Kasik.”

“Eh? A cruiser?”

Cruisers normally were assigned to highest ranking officers of the

military. It took at least a one-star general to have the rights to command a

cruiser, so how did a single platoon end up with it?

“The number of autonomous governments that own a cruiser is… just

one, the government of Critik. Their army is divided between the space combat

division and the planetary troops.”

The coup had been set in motion by the planetary division. The

space division focused on intergalactic missions with their cruiser, but

Kasik’s troops were allocated all available ground arsenal. He was able to use

these to destroy Critik-4’s main spaceport and take over the local government

and its parliament. The space division was still in orbit, but the raw power of

their ships could not guarantee safety of the civilians within the city. A

single quantum torpedo from one of their frigates could demolish Critik-4 down

to its last blade of grass, but they weren’t about to fire one with innocent

people on the planet.

Their other option was to send their landing crew onto the planet

to suppress the uprising, while landing ships provide covering fire. This

wasn’t as easy, however. Not only did they have to mind the potential of

civilian casualties, they also had to watch out for planetary defenses. No sane

marine would volunteer to get stuck in a drop pod with a bunch of anti-air guns

pointed at them, ready to turn them into space dust at any moment.

“If you were Rafield, what would you do in this situation,

Lezirth?” Ensign Meihowa asked. She was an officer herself, so she must have

wanted to learn what a high-ranking official would do, as I was before.

“If it were up to me, I’d allocate as many resources as I could to

the landing party. The fleet above should pressure the enemy as much as

possible, while the landing crew drop right on the edges of the city. The

troops can then fight their way into the city, trapping the rebels and forcing

them to concede.”

Unfortunately, dropping into a battle was extremely difficult for

marines without sufficient training, and the entire mission revolved around the

skill of the landing party to deal with any threats. Back when I was commanding

the Dawn Corps, my division had the Federation’s greatest marines and I was

confident that they could carry out any difficult missions. If it were up to

them, they would do an assault drop to divert the enemy’s attention to them

while snipers disguise themselves as civilians and take out the key leaders of

the revolt.

“Then what would Kasik do himself?”

“Too many factors to give a straight answer. I have no idea how

much preparation they had. Critik is too close to Federation-controlled

sectors, so this couldn’t have been done without careful planning. If they

don’t have the Alliance’s backing, the whole deal is too dangerous.”

Either way, this rebellion would not last without the Alliance

helping them. Even if the Federation lost most of its fleet, if they tried to

continue asserting their position without a cruiser of their own, all they

could do later was take the civilians as hostages against the Federation’s

cruisers. Surely Kasik knew this too, if he indeed graduated from a proper

military school.

“Aww, does that mean we’re going to be trapped in this hotel?”

Sergeant Aroha grumbled.

“Probably. …For the rebels, keeping the civilians indoors is their

best bet for holding them hostage against the space fleet.”

The rebellion consisted of a single ground platoon. As long as

they had weapons with them, no number of unarmed civilians could overpower

them. Yet, controlling civilians took significantly more effort than simply

killing them off.

“I guess we have no choice, then.” Admiral Luise sank into the

massage chair. The machine whirred and began doing its work, and she soon had

the face of total relaxation.

“Uh-- um, by the way, I’d like to try that chair out too.” Ensign

Meihowa blushed. She wasn’t the type to be open with her desires. ...Did she

like the chair that much?

Aroha followed. “Y-yeah, actually, I’d like it too…”

“Luise? Hey, come on…”

But Admiral Luise was already deep in sleep. So fast!

* * *

Thanks to the utter destruction of the spaceport, we were unable

to report to the nearest military office. It was nice that we didn’t have to

turn in our vacation prematurely, but we knew we weren’t going to be enjoying

any of it. We were trapped in this hotel, kept as hostages by the rebelling

army.

The television continued to show nothing but updates on the

Federation’s defeat in the Oden system and the rebellion on Critik. Even the

Federation’s channels decided that they couldn’t hide these developments

anymore, now that they issued a massive draft call. Hyper-Kishin Duskbringer

and self-proclaimed Lezirth and Luise occasionally showed their faces on their

channels, but their actual speech was cut out.

Still, civilians on autonomous planets had already spread the

contents of the speech on the Internet, so most people already knew what had

happened. Discussions on the Internet were mostly about whether or not the

other Lezirth is real, and how much the fakes’ words could be trusted. The

general consensus seemed to be that, even if the Alliance wasn’t telling the

whole truth, they could be trusted more than the Federation at the least.

“Aw, man. How long are we going to be trapped in here?” Sergeant

Aroha continued to whine, playing a game on her PDA in front of the television.

“Isn’t it bearable when you’re playing a game?”

“No way, playing games on a vacation? Who am I, Pencolt? You’re

supposed to do this at any other time, not now.”

“Pencolt, huh.” I sighed, thinking of my roommate. The war in the

Oden system worsened over time, and with the draft call, the entire squad’s

vacation days expired.

We used a civilian network to explain our situation to the online

drafting office. We weren’t going anywhere anytime soon with the coup

happening.

“Ugh. What am I gonna do now?” Ensign Meihowa changed the channel

repeatedly in annoyance.

Then, one of the channels caught our eyes. On the screen was a

man, wearing a very unfitting tuxedo, makeup done very obviously by a team of

makeup artists, and a very fake wig-- William Mayer, himself.

[Here we have the head of Manus Solidum, Professor William Mayer.]

After the reporter’s introduction, Mayer proudly strutted forward

and stood in front of the camera. He had the getup of a cheap comedian, but he

looked like he was ready to take on the world. People usually get embarrassed

showing their face on camera for the first time, but that guy was clearly

enjoying it. [Hello, citizens of the world! I am the Head of Autonomous

Planets’ Manus Solidum, Professor William Mayer.]

[Wasn’t Manus Solidum famous for representing the oppressed male

citizens? We had many stories about how the Federation government confronted

you numerous times for your anti-Federation statements. What do you think about

the latest developments with the rebellion?]

I had to admit, it was courageous for him to ask that in the

middle of the coup in question. Or maybe that was just the culture on Critik.

Mayer scoffed before answering and brushed his long, flowy hair

back. That’s a wig, right?!

[Hah! We’re only returning to the natural, original way that this

government should have worked. Our current government was too busy being a mere

colony to the Federation, giving them countless resources and manpower for

nothing in return.]

[However, our government under President Cole had been seeing

positive net gains in the last four years, and our unemployment rate had been

reducing by two percent every year, down to twelve percent from twenty percent.

Many seem to disagree with the rebels arresting President Amanda Cole. What do

you think about that?]

The reporter’s question was on the spot. The problem wasn’t just

that the rebellion was aimed at overthrowing a government that was established

through democracy-- The current leader of Critik was Amanda Cole, a brilliant

woman, praised for getting things done. Critik was developing very rapidly

under her direction, and then this rebellion occurred.

[The mistake made now by the masses is being blinded by the

current state of the economy and not seeing the future. Throughout history,

there have always been problems when using resources from the future to improve

the present. An example we all know is ‘futures contract’, a market based on

trading now based on values of the future. Dealing with present worths based on

predicted interest and inflation rates, you can create an illusion of a booming

economy. But when that future comes, trades occur through the non-negotiable

values of the past. Trading like this can and will stimy the growth of economy.

It is a tragic, destructive loop, having to pull the economy of the future into

the present to make up for the present economy belonging to the past! As such,

Cole’s government is blinding you all, degrading the future to make the present

appeal to you.]

[So, what are you talking about in specific?]

[Single women, of course!]

[What?!]

We were just as shocked as the reporter. After all that dramatic

discourse, what’s this about single women?!

[The Federation had been stealing women from our free, autonomous

planets to control the population growth. In return, they gave away paltry

bonds to migrators so that the autonomous governments maintain economic

stability for the moment. Also, the money sent by migrated families to families

still on Critik had been the primary source of currency for autonomous

planets.]

[That is expected, yes, but is Critik not already earning more

than enough money from the mining business?]

[Yeah! That’s exactly the problem! The Federation is full of

lower-class citizens who pillage young, single women from autonomous planets

and turn the lives of men of autonomous planets into living hell! Can you not

see?! Have you not seen the Federation men around these tourist areas? Who else

would get to go on vacations with multiple women accompanying them?!]

The discussion was no more. Whether they had a simple discussion

or argument, broadcasts on autonomous planets did not seem to have anyone with

a sane mind. And yet, as Mayer finished up his absurd speech, I could faintly

hear agreeing shouts and hollers from around the city.

What is this? Throw away logic to capture people’s hearts? Is this

what people mean when they say something is “so ridiculous, it’s actually

convincing”? I was thoroughly impressed by how willing he was to… break.

[I don’t give a damn about shame! Getting a job isn’t the end-all!

The Federation only gave migration benefits to women, so men like us have no

future! Just look at our horrible gender ratio! The Federation is not our ally!

If it is truly our ally, then it would not ruin the planet and try to train us

like animals! Have you imagined what would happen in twenty years with this

gender ratio? We’d be slaves of the Federation by then! How can we stand for

this?!]

[But…]

The reporter began trying to argue, but it was too late. The

screen blacked out and only the audio was left. It seemed that the broadcast

only appeared to be a discussion between two people, when they were only

interested in Mayer’s message. Thus, only Mayer’s objective was worthy to the

rebellion.

Was he a puppet used by the rebels? Or was that actually the

reason for the rebellion?

“Whoa, what was that? What a clown!” Aroha clapped.

“I’m amazed that someone can be that much of an idiot.” Meihowa

joined her for clapping.

We were all very amazed by Mayer’s straightforwardness and idiocy.

Instead of clapping like the others, I opened up my PDA. I

personally knew little about Manus Solidum, but browsing around in certain

Internet communities produced handy summaries. At the same time, the forums

exploded with praises and curses at Mayer.

[Wow, how could he do that on camera? What a creep!]

[Yeah, but wasn’t he pretty bold? There probably hasn’t been a

crazier guy on camera!]

[Everyone already knows that the Federation treats autonomous

planets like doormats.]

[It’s over if all the autonomous planets side with the Alliance!

What of the humanity?!]

[What are you saying?! Transhumanity is still humanity!]

[Are you all crazy? Are you okay that the pure human blood is

being tainted with filthy alien blood?]

[Oh boy, here we go again.]

[How many aliens have you slept with after white-knighting for

them? What’s the point of defending them?]

[Asa! Asa! Asa! Asa!]

[Elcro a best!]

[pls, im talkin about asa traps]

[A homo?!]

There were also predictions about the Federation’s plan.

[The Federation won’t leave this alone for sure.]

[If they leave Critik alone, then they’d be giving the green light

for other autonomous governments to separate, so they have to stop them with

full force.]

[But Critik is a tourist attraction. There are at least a million

Federation citizens in the area, so they won’t try to destroy the planet,

right?]

[If they let the rebels kill them off, wouldn’t it look nice to

the Federation?]

[No way! The rebels won’t dare to do that in the first place!]

[Is it true that the Federation has a powerful telepathic psionic

who’s controlling them from behind?]

[If there was one, then they would have stopped the rebellion in

the first place!]

And then, a new post rose to the top of the page and into my

attention. It was rapidly gaining upvotes from its readers. A little too

rapidly, in fact--if it wasn’t actually liked by that many people, it must have

been the Federation rigging it.

[Hey, I saw something interesting on the Federation broadcast.]

[That’s insane! Are they trying to kill innocent civilians?!]

I quickly turned my attention to the Federation news network.

[A rebellion has begun in the Critik system. We discovered that

their leader is Lieutenant Colonel Islamov Kasik. He is currently holding over

a million tourists hostage, and they are demanding the separation of Critik

from the Federation and the joining of the Alliance.] A young lady reporter

with golden, braided hair summarized the events on Critik.

An extremely circular, middle-aged man replied with exaggerated

movements. [Isn’t it too soon to side with the Alliance, even with their recent

displays of their strength?]

[Yes, it is quite an unexpected development. Is Critik not famous

for its entertainment industry? Why would they start a rebellion there?]

[I suspect that it is because of Lieutenant Colonel Kasik’s

personal reasons, along with the interests of a local, unpopular protester

group. Kasik has not yet married despite his age, and he hardly has any

experience with the opposite gender!]

[Aha, I see.]

I became annoyed at how the other reporter was willing to accept

the man’s explanation. Was it normal for people to start violent uprisings if

they’re single and old? Were they saying that not marrying made him so mentally

unstable, so that starting a riot isn’t strange anymore?! What a leap in logic!

[What was the general consensus of his female classmates back in

Kasik’s days in the military academy? We asked them to find out.]

The report now switched to a recording of an interview with a

woman whose eyes were censored away. She had a baby in her arms, giving a

distinct contrast to Kasik, who apparently has not yet married. Definitely

intended.

[Islamov Kasik… Oh, that stalker?]

[A stalker? How was he in the academy?]

[He was no joke. He was just the biggest loser of the world of

losers back in Critik military academy. One time, I pissed off the seniors at

the academy and they made me send a love letter to Kasik, and… I had to do it

and, ugh, I just had the worst time of my life. I would have rather gone back

and slapped the seniors’ faces instead.]

[What happened?]

[You see, as if he wasn’t a loser already, right after he got the

fake letter from me, he started planning when and where to have dates, how far

we can get on the first day, how many times to date per week, where to station

to see each other at work, which military culture centre to use when marrying at the

end of the third year of work, and when to get buried after death… He had the

whole thing planned in a day.]

[Wow, he’s quite a piece of work!]

The screen switched back to the studio. The female reporter was giggling

quietly, unable to stop her laughter.

It was a little funny, I had to admit. A high-ranking officer, who

even started a rebellion, was a stalker. But he also had the lives of a million

people in his hands-- what were they thinking, provoking him?

Following that, personal insults against Kasik continued. There

were countless stories, like how he harassed female soldiers soon after

becoming an officer and got an intervention order; how he had the most amount

of meetings listed in meetup websites; how he begged the female worker at the

matchmaker website to marry him; how he had spent over ten million credits on

adult websites. …Not only did they violate his privacy, they beat on it with a

bat and spat on it before throwing it away.

Mass media was truly a thing from hell.

At that point, Kasik’s name was completely destroyed. Sure,

negotiation was difficult from the Federation’s standpoint, but they really

should not have been provoking him while he still had a large number of

hostages with him. Was that the Federation’s doing, or the news network going

absolutely nuts?

After completely wrecking Kasik, the story further devolved into

comedy.

[Next, we will examine Professor William Mayer, who reportedly had

been the guiding figure in Kasik’s movement.]

Mayer’s history began listing on the screen. They had no mercy for

Mayer, either. They delved into his private life, twisted it around, and showed

it to the entire world. This level of violation of privacy was well beyond what

was allowed by Federation laws. Yet, despite this horrific disregard for

personal life, the viewers of the network and its reporters were casually

laughing it off.

“Wow.”

“That’s going too far.”

“I never knew that humans were capable of being this cruel to

another human being.”

We all froze in place, stunned by the broadcast-- excluding

Admiral Luise, who slept through the news. I thought I’d already seen

everything in my century’s worth of life experience, but I was clearly wrong.

And, at that moment--

--*BAM!*

The hotel’s windows turned brown once more, and

another part of the city lit up in flames.

### 005. Part 2

Valentine chocolates

Bitter yet so lovingly sweet

Unlike these tears of solitude

Anyhow, time for some Dawnbringer action!

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix,

Foodpenguin

Please enjoy.

____________________

“...They actually fired on the

city?!”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. They

actually attacked! The ships in orbit fired on the planet! There are millions

of hostages here, and they still fired at us!

The cannon fire flew straight

from space and landed somewhere in the city. Its power was likely reduced

beforehand, but it was still a shot from a destroyer. They had plasma cannons

that could charge up to fifty gigawatts of power. At full power, a single shot

was far more powerful than Little Boy, a nuclear bomb that was dropped upon

Hiroshima sometime in history. They had not charged the cannon to that degree,

but I still felt a powerful quake sweep over the city.

“B-but there are innocent

civilians here!”

Another light flashed in the sky

as if to answer my shout, and another plasma shot landed elsewhere in the city.

A giant explosion raged in the distance, and its shockwave triggered the

automatic shielding to lower in front of the hotel’s windows. They kept the

windows from shattering apart.

I immediately switched on the

television to look through the camera on the outer hotel walls. Assault

dropships were slowly descending from space. They had just begun entering the

atmosphere, supported by covering fire from the destroyers.

“They’ve gone insane! Do they

even care about the non-combatants here?!”

“They might be thinking that

they’re being careful enough.” Ensign Meihowa answered my question. She seemed

just as distressed by these insane acts of terror, however.

Our sense of duty as soldiers was

crumbling down. There are countless innocent civilians here, and they’re doing

an assault drop into the heart of the city! And it’s a full frontal assault!

Have they thought about how many casualties they’d end up with?!

The assault ships continued

dropping down. The ships with platoons ejected various equipment and began

retaliating against the ground defense on their own. Plasma cannons wildly

fired, hitting the defending Alter-Armours and parts of the city.

Those cannons were nothing like

the main guns on a destroyer, but they still weren’t something that minor-class

Alter-Armours could withstand-- and, just like that, any missed shots had a

huge risk of civilian casualties.

One of the Alter-Armours nearby

dodged an attack, and the plasma landed on a distant part of the hotel. The

plasma burned through the wall and left a huge hole, filled with a cloud of

superheated concrete, metal, and asphalt. Any people on the other side of that

wall likely suffered the same fate.

“This is just crazy!”

The anti-air guns in the distance

swiveled in the rain of assault ships and their drop pods, blowing their parts

that crashed into the hotel and other buildings nearby to create a thick cloud

of dust. This operation… had absolutely no consideration of civilian

casualties. They were only interested in finishing quickly.

Only the insane could think of

such a plan. I couldn’t sit there and watch it happen! I dressed up and

prepared myself to head outside.

“Lezirth! What are you doing?!”

“Everyone, get to an underground

shelter! It’s too dangerous to stay in the hotel!”

“But…”

“Ensign Meihowa! Pull the fire

alarm! We need to bring all the civilians here to a shelter!”

Ensign Meihowa nodded. “Okay-- I

mean, roger!”

Determination flared from her

blue eyes. The vacation was over. The playful half-Elcro girl was no more, and

she was once again an Ensign of the Federation. Though without any weapons, she

armed herself with an armour of will and a sword of determination.

“Alright. We’ll need something to

start taking control, right?” I kicked a window out. The glass shattered along

with the protective shielding in front of it. It might as well have been a

sheet of paper against a dropship’s plasma cannon, anyway.

“Let’s go!”

I jumped out of the building.

Leaping from at least twenty-five floors above the ground floor, I turned

around to slide down against the building’s exterior and reached the first

floor lobby.

There, a Tri-Walker was firing

upon the panicking civilians who were escaping the hotel en masse. Its three

legs, standing over a meter and twenty centimeters, steadied its Colion rifle

like a camera tripod and fired on the move. As a mindless drone, it was

programmed to prevent anyone from leaving the hotel, and so it was mercilessly

shooting at the civilians who fled the building before it collapsed under fire

from the invasion.

One of the Tri-Walkers found and

confronted me. [Please return to the building. If you attempt to exit the

building, we will attempt aggressive persuasion.]

Damn it! I swung my fist in

response.

--*Crack!*

The Tri-Walker was crushed into a

metal scrap without contacting with my fist. I used my telekinetic powers, of

course.

[Hostile detected!]

“That’s right!” I grabbed the

scrapped ex-Tri-Walker and threw it at the other walker. They collided and were

both reduced to an ugly mess.

At the other side, guarding the

entrance to the casino, another Tri-Walker began firing its Colion rifle. I

quickly turned around and projected a field of vector reversal.

The barrier could change the

vectors of oncoming objects to deflect projectiles, but it required a lot of

focus to be able to handle more than one projectile. Trying to use it against

an enemy that was out of my sight was a little… risky.

--*Pew!*

The Colion round smashed against

the barrier and changed its trajectory back at the Tri-Walker. Its legs snapped

off and the main body crumbled with it. As if it were undergoing rigor mortis,

it fired its rifle wildly into the air before dying down completely.

I turned my attention to the

scared civilians nearby and the victims of the Tri-Walkers.

“...Damn.”

The local navy initiated a fight

despite the hostages. And the rebels killed off even more hostages in order to

secure their control. They were having their own war above this planet’s skies,

in place of the Federation and the Alliance.

...Why did the local government’s

military attack the civilians?

A little thought produced an

answer. The Federation certainly wanted this situation to be over as quickly as

possible. The local military was capable of doing just that, and the Federation

would owe them a favour. Looking at the sequence of events that led to the

moment, there was definitely a secret deal between the Federation and this

planet’s government. They were probably promised some financial and political

support.

Unlike the Federation-owned

planets, the autonomous planets had their own economy and social structure, so

they had to be mindful of the Federation government. Unsurprisingly, the

winners in politics tended to be the ones with some backing from the

Federation. And those people were the type to be unmindful of some civilian

casualties if they could continue receiving their backing.

What a bunch of dirty pigs. There

are innocent people dying here, all in the name of securing a political

standing.

In retrospect, I should have

realized this a lot sooner. How could I have been so slow to know that they

were going to start firing on the city? Maybe I was subconsciously wishing that

the Federation had not reached such a level of corruption. But now, they had

fully wronged me.

Then, what about the Alliance?

Could I trust the Alliance?

Were they serious about leading

an alliance of diverse races? Could it be more than mere propaganda? My

instincts were screaming at me otherwise. ‘Don’t trust them, they are all

liars’.

After their major victory in the

Oden system, they were able to strike a peace treaty with the Federation in

their favour. As long as they had the Hyper-Kishin Duskbringer and

Tetragrammaton, they were too dangerous to provoke. The Federation Fleet was

not in any condition to consider resistance, so they had to accept any

unfavourable terms. This was how the universe saw its peace from the war.

Yet, they clearly did not want

peace. What they really wanted was the total destruction of the Federation and

the full inheritance of their power.

They demanded the autonomous

planets to betray the Federation and join their ranks. If they were bringing

peace to the world in exchange for the death of their major political enemy,

then they could not be trusted to be bringing peace for the sake of humanity

and love.

I could feel their hatred towards

the Federation.

“Is it really a war between

villains? Ugh, I’m tired of it already.”

I scrounged around the fresh

scraps of metal for a Colion rifle. The gun was originally designed for

infantry, so a little hacking could get the rifle functional for personal use.

I tore apart the rifle’s control panel and ripped out the Hyperspace-net

communicator, leaving the gun at a factory state where pulling the trigger

fired the gun directly. Anyone could use the gun now.

With the gun in my arms, I hopped

up a pillar and jumped on the hotel’s walls. As I ran up the building, the

rebel Alter-Armours were exploding into fragments around me from the invading

ships. Far away in the distance, the government building and the parliament

were turned into rubble from the cannons of the ships above. It did not look

like there were many surviving rebels.

Was it the end of this skirmish?

Of course, this fight had

basically gone off like a hostage situation where neither party actually cares

about the hostage. If you just shoot everything that gets in the way, it was

surely going to end quickly. It was horrible murder, yes, but I had to admit

that it was an efficient solution.

But the fight couldn’t have been

over just like that. The rebels had to have expected this.

As if to answer my questions....

something dropped down from space and pierced through one of the landing ships.

The ship split cleanly into two halves, and a bluish, metallic board spun

through it.

The flash happened first, and

then came the deafening blast of sound. I couldn’t help but panic whenever I

saw an explosion-- worrying about how much damage it would do this time, maybe.

--*Kaboom!*

“Kuh!”

I jumped through a broken window

and returned to my room. Meihowa and Aroha hid behind a pillar to avoid the

storm of shrapnel that blew inside.

“Kyaaa!”

“Meihowa! Aroha! Take this!”

I threw the rifle at them.

Sergeant Aroha grumbled loudly as she checked the remaining ammunition. “Agh, I

don’t even know what’s going on anymore. It’s all downhill from here, right?

What’s gonna happen now?”

Then, another ship exploded in

the sky. After that, a cruiser slowly descended from the sky-- closer look

revealed that an Alter-Armour was carrying the entire cruiser. The Alter-Armour

was projecting a dark force field that engulfed the cruiser!

That size was definitely a

Kishin!

It wasn’t like any Kishin I had

seen before, however. It was covered in metal shells, yet retaining its figure

and standing at… thirty-eight meters tall? Its reflective, red shell was

reinforced by black plating. Its body was slender and thin overall, making it

look swift by design.

Around its hips, it wore a skirt

made of metallic boards, accentuating its womanly proportions. But that skirt

wasn’t just decoration-- it was the object that previously split one of the

ships in half. It seemed to be a remote-controlled BIT weapon that could

individually send and control each piece, and since it was a Kishin weapon, I

had to watch out for special powers that may have been hiding within them.

--Discordant Thundergod, Saika

has arrived!

As the will of the Kishin made

its presence known, it threw the cruiser down. An eight hundred meter long

cruiser was flung at the city without any of it being scraped off by the

atmosphere!

Or so I thought-- the cruiser was

maintaining its height within the atmosphere. Not only that, the cruiser and

the Kishin was working together. It fired its cannons and destroyed the

surrounding landing ships, and more frigate halves fell from the sky.

The cruiser was taken over!

“Of course. I was wondering what

got them so confident-- this whole rebellion was done with the help of the

Alliance.” I sighed.

“A Kishin? Again?!”

“The Alliance probably didn’t

have any Hyperspace-warping ships to spare.”

Right, what to do now? The

situation had been turned upside down. At first, I thought I would punish the

local military for their complete disregard for human life and save the

innocents. Then, some other guys showed up and killed off everyone who I wanted

to punish. And they weren’t any nicer, either. Really, what was I supposed to

do? I may have risen to the rank of Vice Admiral at one point, but when

situations change this rapidly, I couldn’t get used to it myself.

Then, Admiral Luise rose from her

seat, yawning loudly.

“Ahhh…. Lezirth?”

“Yes?”

She rubbed her sleepy eyes. “I’ll

try to take over the Alliance’s network.”

“What?!”

Ensign Meihowa, Sergeant Aroha,

and I stared at her, jaws dropped, while Admiral Luise simply smiled back at

us.

What was she thinking?!

* * *

The Kishin of the Alliance,

Discordant Thundergod Saika had made its appearance. With it came its

supporting troops that quickly captured the cruiser. The local military

continued their resistance, only to be destroyed by the overtaken cruiser.

From these events, we came to a

conclusion: the Alliance had their own autonomous military AI, and its system

was comparable to, or able to outright steal the Federation’s systems. If that

wasn’t the case, even if they were able to kill every single personnel within

the cruiser, they couldn’t possibly have taken over the ship that easily.

Without the authorization from

the military AI, it was impossible to make any militaristic action through the

system. The AI controlled every aspect of the Federation’s military, down to

the individual infantry-issued rifle. Perhaps in old films you might have seen

a boarding crew taking over a ship through force, but such a strategy was no

longer possible.

And yet the Alliance managed to

do it.

I should have known, however--

the whole reason the Replicant rebellion remained strong was because they

managed to overcome the problem with the military AI. And, of course, the

rebellion at this moment couldn’t have succeeded without the Alliance’s support

with its own military AI.

And now, Admiral Luise wanted to

control it as her own.

If anyone else were to suggest

it, I would have dismissed it as someone rambling in their sleep. However, she

already held the record of gaining the highest level access into the

Federation’s systems. Since she could hack into the Federation systems, she

should have no problem with the Alliance’s.

“So, what should I do?”

“Hm. First, we’ll need to acquire

some communication equipment that is networked with the Alliance’s system. Oh,

nothing simple like the Colion rifle. I doubt there is any information to be

had from a soldier-level access. And it would be helpful for my hacking attempt

if we had something owned by the rebellion’s leader, yes? Or maybe we can get

an Alter-Armour?”

Sergeant Aroha waved her hand in

disapproval. “Wait, but we only have three Colion rifles! Are we going on a

suicide mission?”

But Ensign Meihowa, who had been

on board Dawnbringer Minion with me, shook her head. “It’s possible if it’s

Lezirth.”

“Wha-? It’s possible?”

Then, Admiral Luise arose from

her seat. She looked back at the massage chair with a slight look of longing,

and then turned away. “Lezirth, could you bring me to one of the enemy

Alter-Armours? I feel more comfortable stealing one myself.”

“No need. Let’s call an

Alter-Armour to us.” I shrugged and aimed a Colion rifle out of a nearby

window. The rifle fired a blinding blast of plasma as I held down the trigger.

When Sergeant Aroha noticed what

I had done, she began panicking. “What are you doing?! They’re going to come

for us now!”

“That’s what I’m doing!”

About the same time that I

replied, a clanking sound echoed from a ventilation shaft. Tsk. I wanted to

call an Alter-Armour over, but it seemed that I ended up with a Tri-Walker

after us instead.

I waited for the right moment,

and leapt as the Tri-Walker broke the vent in the ceiling and dropped down from

above. I gave it an uppercut.

--*Crack*

The Tri-Walker split cleanly into

two metallic halves. I salvaged another Colion rifle from the broken wreck. I

took the Colion nanomachine rounds since I had no time to waste on hacking it.

Then I saw an Alter-Armour fly to

my direction from outside.

“Alright, then!” Admiral Luise

clasped her hands behind her head. And as she combed her hair up with her

palms...

Her hazel-blonde, tomboyish hair

suddenly extended to great lengths. Various transparent, almost colourless

lines peered out from her hair. One of these lines, brightly shining as it

reflected the sunlight, shot towards the approaching Alter-Armour.

[Wh-- What?! Why are these

sensors going wild?!] The pilot within the Alter-Armour screamed as his vehicle

slammed straight into the hotel’s outer walls.

Admiral Luise and I had enough

psycho-telepathic powers to shut down any low-ranking Alter-Armours through

direct contact alone. Our brains had sensory capabilities that far transcended

a normal human-- in comparison, the Alter-Armour was too weak to withstand the

sensory overload caused by a connection to our nerves. Normally, the sensory

connection was only possible from the pilot’s seat, but Admiral Luise forcibly

broke within to knock its systems out.

“What in the world?!”

“Her hair?!”

Aroha and Meihowa were quite

surprised by Admiral Luise’s new looks, and even more at the fact that she took

out an Alter-Armour with no other means than direct contact. But we still had

the pilot within to take care of.

I picked up an emergency fire

extinguisher from the room and threw it towards the Alter-Armour’s cockpit.

With phase-shifting applied, it flew straight through its outer armour. When it

broke halfway through the armour, I reversed its phase. Then, the pilot

screamed from within the cockpit as the fire extinguisher popped inside. I

approached the Alter-Armour and pulled the pilot out, who was struggling to

escape.

“First off-- this rebel

Alter-Armour should be… connected to the Alliance’s systems, yes? It should

have a networked computer, somewhere. Check the pilot’s rank for me.”

Ensign Meihowa looked at the

rebel’s rank insignia. “Oh my, a master sergeant!” She rummaged through his

pockets and produced a pistol and a radio, which she handed over to Sergeant

Aroha. Sergeant Aroha, meanwhile, used cable ties to restrain his arms behind

his back.

The master sergeant tried to

spout what probably was a flurry of angry words, but ended up throwing up foam

from the fire extinguisher, and…

*SMACK!*

Sergeant Aroha punched him square

on his head, knocking him out.

....Why not at least let him

talk? And how did a lady knock out a well-built military man out in one punch?

It wasn’t even on his chin or temple, but right on his cheeks!

“Come on. What else would he say

in this situation other than insults? What, did you want to hear him bark?”

Bark, huh. Well, I did want to

hear him talk. One of my favourite things is hearing useless complaints of

P.O.W’s, and… er, I mean, only in war movies, because I’ve only been in major

wars with aliens and the Letix, not other humans.

I shook my head and watched

Admiral Luise hack through the Alliance’s systems.

“He should have all the basic

user rights as a master sergeant, so where should I begin? I need to see what

kind of defenses the Alliance has…” Admiral Luise brushed her hair aside and

connected directly to the computers.

Soon, she had a master sergeant’s

access into the Alliance’s Hyperspace telecommunications network. She fiddled

with the computers eagerly to try and gain a higher-level access. But soon, the

Alter-Armour’s alarms began screaming.

[Self-destruct sequence

initiated. Would you like to continue? If you wish to detonate within the

atmosphere, please press the enter key.]

“Gah!”

“Wh-what is that?!”

Everyone began panicking and

backed off.

Admiral Luise quietly sighed, and

nimbly moved her fingers around. “A systems administrator from the Alliance

must have found out what I was doing. I thought I had already shut down the

automated system.”

And when Admiral Luise pressed

the enter key, the Alter-Armour flashed brightly in a violent, nuclear

reaction…

....In my mind, that is, and the

Alter-Armour merely restarted its systems instead.

“It’s under the Alliance’s radar,

now. It looks like I lost the master sergeant access, though. Hmm? Is this

counter-hacking?” Admiral Luise asked herself as she turned on the

Alter-Armour’s pilot computer.

On the screen was a zoomed-in

face of a young girl. After recognizing that the video feed was on, she backed

away and smirked. [I was wondering who dared to hack into my system, and what

is this? It’s just a little girl!]

To my surprise, she was the girl

from the television a few moments ago: the self-proclaimed Luise Maynard, a

chief of the Alliance.

“Oh, my, aren’t you glad that

you’re so much older? I can see from those wrinkles on your forehead.” Admiral

Luise retorted, calling the girl old. ...Please, you should know better than to

say that, Admiral.

[Kya! Wrinkles?! For your

information, I look so incredibly young for my age that lolicons would be

drooling and praising my looks! I look younger than you, you know!]

“Wow, is that so? You must be

happy that you’re loved so much by lonely perverts! I’m so jealous of you! Golf

clap!” Admiral Luise’s words were very clearly laced with malice. She was

smiling and clapping for the girl in the screen, but it was nothing short of a

blatant taunt.

‘She’s angry?’

She was angry that she wasn’t

successful in her hacking attempt. Normally, a hacking attempt consisted of stealing

and breaking apart an enemy computer or equipment so they could be repurposed

for allied use. No one tries to take over an entire military network. So, even

if she wasn’t able to take over the Alliance’s network, she was at least able

to commandeer the Alter-Armour.

But the fake Luise must have felt

that the hacking attempt was a personal challenge to her, and so she took it

upon herself to counter-hack despite being in the position of a chief. Still,

the real Luise was able to skillfully deny her efforts.

[Ugh. You’re such an annoying

little brat, you know that? Who are you, anyway? Federation hacker? Maybe a

freelancer?]

Admiral Luise hummed to herself

and replied half-heartedly. “Who knows?”

[Fine, that doesn’t matter now.

Hey, do you want to come work for us instead?] The fake Luise bravely offered

the real Luise a scouting offer.

Admiral Luise smiled. “Depends on

the conditions.”

[Oh? Alright, you can be my

personal advisor. If you want, I can get you assistants. I’ll even give you an

officer’s rank! We’ll go into details in a meeting later, but I’ll guarantee

that whatever it is, it’ll be a lot nicer than the crap you get from the

Federation.]

“Is that so? Could I also bring

over my friends and family? It’s going to be awkward with me alone.”

[Are they all on Critik-4? If so,

sure.]

“My family is a kind of a big

family… Will that be okay?”

[Sure, that won’t be a problem.

So, if you want to accept my offer, surrender yourself to the next Alter-Armour

or soldiers in the area. I’ll send one of the rebel soldiers to your location.]

One of the soldiers, she said--

but from a distance, two Alter-Armours were approaching. One of them stood

behind the hotel to keep watch while the other flew over to receive our

surrender. As if that wasn’t enough, a battalion of Tri-Walkers barged through

the corridors nearby. It seemed that we weren’t being trusted just yet.

“Oh, my mistake!” Admiral Luise

exclaimed in a very unconvincing way as she began moving the Alter-Armour. She

moved its arms to quickly fire its rifle at the forehead of an approaching

Alter-Armour, and another strand from Admiral Luise’s hair shot towards the

other Alter-Armour to knock it out.

Meanwhile, I fried the creeping

Tri-Walkers with my psychic bolts.

[Hey! You brat, what have you

done?!] The fake Luise exploded in fury as her offer got denied. Her anger was

fully justified this time, I felt.

Admiral Luise scoffed. “It was

just a mistake! Could you send another for us, please?” She jumped out of the

open cockpit of the Alter-Armour and jumped to my side. At the same time, it

projected a psychokinetic barrier that was too powerful to be maintained by an

Alter-Armour of that class.

However, a metallic plate from

the skies roared through the air, penetrating the barrier and splitting the

Alter-Armour in half.

“Ah!”

I grabbed Admiral Luise mid-air

and pulled her back. The angry chief of the Alliance, the fake Luise, had

informed Kishin Saika of our location.

“Ugh… What were you thinking,

provoking a Kishin?”

“But Lezirth, we can’t go to the

Alliance! The Federation might not be any better, but it’s at least…”

“... Yes, you’re right.”

I realized that Admiral Luise had

figured out the contradictions in the Alliance’s promises. Well, I was never

particularly smart, but Admiral Luise was a certified genius-- she should have

already realized it long ago.

“... At least, I already have the

Federation’s systems under my control.”

“... … … … Oh.”

Okay, never mind.

For her, it seemed,

the importance lay in whether or not she

controlled them rather than the actual intentions of either faction. That’s…

scary.

“Run!” I yelled at Meihowa and

Aroha as I ran away with Admiral Luise in my arms.

The wall crumbled apart as Kishin

Saika reached into the hotel with its arms, and swept across the hotel’s

hallways. Ensign Meihowa, leading us forward, shot her Colion rifle at the

elevator door in front of us, and she jumped into the elevator shaft to hold

onto the elevator’s traveling cable.

“Lezirth! In here, quickly!”

“Of course!”

I lowered my body to slide on the

ground under the broken elevator doors. I flew right through, and grabbed the

cable firmly with my legs.

*-Cr-rack!*

Kishin Saika felt around the

hotel floors with its arms, looking for us, but retracted its arms after many

futile attempts. Fortunately, it was quick to give up on us.

I stood against the walls of the

elevator shaft using my powers, still holding onto Admiral Luise. Meihowa and

Sergeant Aroha stuck their Colion rifles between the cables, sliding down the shaft

with slowed descent. The way they rappelled down without any proper tools but

some rifles was… quite professional, even from the perspective of a vice

admiral. Maybe my personal relations with the two ladies affected my judgment,

but they were definitely skilled nonetheless.

*--Bam!*

Suddenly, the walls of the

elevator shaft exploded apart as an arm of a giant Alter-Armour broke through.

It tightly gripped onto Sergeant Aroha and pulled her out of the building.

“Kyaa!” Sergeant Aroha screamed.

Her cries soon faded as she was fully pulled away from the hotel’s interiors.

‘Did they throw her out of the

building?!’

I had to rescue her! I prepared

myself to burst out of the building.

But then, a soft, warm hand

pulled my arm away. It was Admiral Luise. She quietly shook her head.

I quickly came back to my senses.

Maybe I could have gone out if I were by myself, but I had Admiral Luise in my

arms. Ensign Meihowa had her rifle to rappel down the shaft, but Admiral Luise

had no such means. Facing the Kishin with her in my arms wasn’t an option,

either.

But what about Aroha?

[

Chi! Tarsus! Apimel, Inuit!

] I heard a woman mutter.

Curious, I tried to look outside

through the hole. Admiral Luise stopped me, connecting her strands to me,

changing my sight to the eyes of one of the security cameras on the outer walls

of the hotel. The mutterings of the woman, the pilot of Kishin Saika, was also

translated from the Asa tongue to what I could understand.

[Damn! By the name of Tarsus! Did

I only get one of them?]

In her hand was Sergeant Aroha.

She was laying still, unconscious.

[Maybe I should crush her right

now? … But wait, she’s the same race as I am. What is happening? Have I made a

mistake?!] Kishin Saika scratched its head-- without any hair, it was only

mimicking the pilot’s habits.

I leapt towards Ensign Meihowa,

grabbing her too as I dropped down the shaft. At that moment, Saika rummaged

through the broken elevator shaft with its arms to inspect further inside.

‘Shouldn’t an Alter-Armour have

advanced sensors like heat detection?’

Having a Kishin rely on ‘eyes’

for vision was extremely primitive. As I had suspected, they had no clue how to

operate Alter-Armours. It resembled the way primitive humans would act when

faced with computers-- they would operate it only by memorizing input and its

matching output, rather than having a complete understanding of its inner

workings.

[I suppose this will do. This

woman will have value after interrogation. We are done with the suppression of

the counter-attack, so we must retreat and regroup with the rebels!] A young

woman spoke from within Saika.

And throughout, we hid in the

shadows, powerless and defeated, while being forced to watch Sergeant Aroha get

captured and taken away by Saika.

### 006. Part 3

Yay, got platinum on Bloodborne

~

Now, to finish watching Battlestar Galactica...

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix

Please enjoy.

____________________

“I-I’m sorry. I’ve made a

terrible mistake.” Admiral Luise apologized for angering the enemy leader.

“That’s alright. You wanted to

dig intel out of her by making her angry, right?” Ensign Meihowa did not blame

Admiral Luise. She understood that the Admiral taunted the enemy so that they

might slip useful information.

“So, now what do we do, Lezirth?

Sergeant Aroha is taken by the enemy, so…”

“We have to rescue her, of

course.” I shrugged, and began some quick research on Saika from my PDA. It

took only a single search with its name in a search engine to find information

on the Kishin. Shouldn’t something like this be kept as a closely guarded

military secret…?

I had no idea how, but it seemed

like there was a lot of information about Saika available on public networks.

There were many videos of it in action, and a few blogs for analysis on its

machine specs. Some of the videos were fan-made compilations of Saika’s

achievements.

“Saika has always been piloted by

Asa’a princesses.” Ensign Meihowa spoke as she performed quick maintenance on

her Colion rifle.

“Princesses?”

“The women of the Harakal-class in

their caste system, the ones who have not yet produced an offspring are called

princesses. I don’t know the specifics myself, but what is known is that the

pilots of Saika are the most powerful people of the Asa. The culture of the Asa

is the survival of the fittest-- only the greatest of the Asa are allowed to

pilot the Kishin.”

“Is that so? Would that mean the

Asa have a very militaristic culture?”

As I asked that question, the

city’s civil defense siren blared throughout the area. Only the sirens around

the streets surrounding the casino were active.

[Attention! If you are currently

situated within the hotel, you must relocate down to the end of Twentieth

Street.]

With the announcement, multiple

military cars entered the street. Admiral Luise looked through the security

cameras around the hotel and found that at least a single platoon was

transported there, and multiple Tri-Walkers could be seen.

“What is this? Trying to control

the civilians themselves?”

“I found the Kishin’s location,

Lezirth. Their Kishin is to the south of this street, down Twentieth, and

stationed inside Hyondai Stadium.”

“Erk. A sports stadium?”

The rebels must have been trying

to gather the civilians at the stadium. The stadium’s purpose may be for

playing sports, but that was going to be changed if the rebels were sending

people there; in places like a stadium or a concert hall, a small military

force could effectively control a large group of people by blocking the key

exits. Forty Tri-Walkers armed with Colion rifles could shoot down about fifty

thousand people before they could escape the building. Perhaps the rebels were

going as far as thinking about executing the civilians.

“I doubt they will try to kill

the civilians. I believe their objective is to transport every single civilian

on Critik-4 off the planet.” Admiral Luise assured me confidently.

I became curious. “Hmm? How can

you be sure?”

“I asked her a few moments ago,

remember, if they could guarantee my family’s safety even if I had a huge

family. But she was very quick to agree to my demand, without asking how many

people I had with me, as if the number of people was of no concern as long as

they were on Critik-4.”

“Ah! Of course.”

“The Elcro army used a technique

called the Gate to transport their troops from one place to another, yes? Maybe

the Asa have another special way to do the same thing. Or maybe Kishin Saika

was equipped with a special technology?”

I nodded. Admiral Luise’s plan

from before seemed to be finding out from the enemy leader if any of those

guesses were correct.

Ensign Meihowa had not yet

understood that. “Hold on, why would they move the hostages? To where?”

“To the Alliance, right?”

“Then they’re aiming to kidnap

civilians? What in the world?! That’s a serious war crime!” Ensign Meihowa

exclaimed.

They were committing a war crime,

admittedly-- however, they also did not have the same history as Earth’s humanity.

Before the eighth century, humans went as far as having a culture of burying

prisoners of war alive, but humanity’s culture had evolved to find that to be

horrifying.

“Calm down, Meihowa. You can

think of them as having an old human culture. The Alliance needs manpower the

most right now. Their civil production should be severely weak with only the

Replicant rebels and two factions that failed the space race. You can see that

from the way their weapons are mostly from Federation rebels.”

The Alliance was limited to

weaponry from the Replicant rebels-- the same weapons and armours issued to the

Federation. While they were certainly capable of producing their own equipment,

they did not have the economy to support a stable production. They had to fight

with severely limited ammunition and equipment, and so they were very willing

to take dangerous shortcuts like using Duskbringer to wipe out the Federation

fleet.

They had to do whatever it took

to survive.

And to support their unstable

production, they had to invest more manpower. The quickest way to do that was

to kidnap educated people from the Federation who were exposed to high levels

of studies in science and culture. By putting educated people into work, they

could facilitate quicker growth in their infrastructures.

“What about the rebels here?”

“They’ll likely be sent off to

the Alliance, too. I don’t know how, but…”

“Then Sergeant Aroha is in

danger, too. Could she be taken by the Asa?”

“Probably.”

I sighed. It was foolish to fight

Kishin Saika with my bare hands. I had to find an Alter-Armour of my own… “...

What about Dawnbringer Minor...?”

“It’s currently being held at

Ipis Sector.” Admiral Luise responded to my quiet grumble.

Dawnbringer Minor. It was

originally a Minion-class Alter-Armour that was assigned to Ensign Meihowa,

created from sampled cells from Dawnbringer. However, during the battle in the

Azoran system, it was able to evolve to Minor-class after consuming a part of

Dawnbringer’s Alter-Core that was integrated within Kishin Diablo.

Admiral Luise’s studies found

that the Alter-Armour had visibly grown to a Minor-class size, but the

potential power resting within was much higher than any other Minor-class, and

it could even use Dawnbringer’s abilities if it was for a brief moment.

If I could use that, then I had a

chance against Kishin Saika. But I had no time. As long as Sergeant Aroha was

taken hostage by the enemy, if she doesn’t get tortured and killed, she was

going to be taken out of reach by the Alliance.

“Lezirth.” Admiral Luise called

to me, as if she read my thought.

“Colorado.”

“Hmm?”

“If we can get Colorado back…

we’ll challenge Saika then.”

“...” Admiral Luise lowered her

head in thought.

Ensign Meihowa was shocked to

hear what I said. “What?! Did you just… are you actually trying to fight Kishin

Saika with your bare body? No way, Lezirth! Even with your powers, that’s

suicide!”

“But we don’t have time to waste

if we want to rescue Sergeant Aroha. I have to earn time for us until

Dawnbringer Minor can get to Critik. And no, I’m not trying to fight Saika with

nothing to help it.”

Take back Colorado, and use it

with an Alter-Armour stolen from the enemy. That was my plan.

“But… hold on.” Ensign Meihowa

fiddled around with her PDA. Soon, noises of glass shattering came from

somewhere, and soon a big object climbed over the broken walls of the suite

room. It was her bike that she had bought before, called over here remotely.

“”Let’s go together!”

“A-alright!”

We jumped out of the hotel.

Outside, there were many armed soldiers and Tri-Walkers guarding the

surrounding area… Hmm? Why are there so many soldiers here?

“P-put your hands up!” One of the

soldiers shouted, his arms quivering. The soldiers’ faces here looked very

awkward to me-- they weren’t familiar to me, yet I felt some sort of deja vu.

Wait a minute, these are the

protesters from back then! William Mayer’s groupies!

“Y-you!” Mayer made his

appearance, wearing a very unfitting black beret. He looked distraught that I

showed up here. “Hold it, don’t shoot him!”

“But he’s holding a weapon!”

The soldiers were afraid of the

Colion rifle that Ensign Meihowa had been carrying around.

Mayer jumped down from his

military transport. “These guys and I know each other!”

“If chief comrade knows them,

we’ll hold.”

Wow, what an embarrassing choice

of words! Who calls each other “comrades” nowadays? It makes me cringe just

hearing them!

They weren’t rebels, nor were

they the resistance, so they seemed to be inducted into the rebel forces after

the government’s counter-attack reduced their numbers. I was wondering why the

rebels were so devoted to Mayer’s words; he seemed to be Kasik’s mentor after

all.

‘It took a guy like him to start

this rebellion?!’

Well, the coup would have

happened regardless of Mayer’s presence. The local population was clearly

against the Federation’s rule, and the Federation was clearly corrupt in their

dealings with them. At least, Kasik might not have become the leader of the

rebellion and taken as a complete fool by the Federation’s civilian news team.

The strangest part of this moment

was that I felt like I was talking to an actor in a perfect costume-- someone

in a convincing outfit that was unmistakably a soldier’s, yet could not have

been more apparent that he was only acting in the end. William Mayer was that

man.

“I have turned my back against

the Federation for the future of Critik and have joined forces with the

Alliance. You… we’re far from strangers, so I will not stop you if you quietly

went back into the hotel.” Mayer spoke coldly, but obviously with good

intentions. He apparently kept in mind that I stood up for him last night, when

he was working for us as a tour guide.

I suppose this is what they

called the ‘tsundere’ archetype, but at the moment, exploring that side of the world

wasn’t going to be any more helpful than going back to exploring the world of

Shanghai mitten crabs.

“Eh, about that.” I raised my

hands above my head. The bike broke through the hotel walls and dropped on my

hands. It was a very light bike, weighing less than twenty kilograms, but it

had dropped from sufficient height to create cracks on the surrounding ground

below my feet.

“Whoa!”

Surprised, the protesters

scrambled for their guns. These people were definitely unsuited to act like

they were soldiers. Tsk. I almost worried for the state of the rebellion’s lack

of proper military personnel myself.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“What? Wait, why not?!”

“What are you people going to do

after transporting the civilians over to the stadium? You’re not going to kill

them, are you?”

I definitely knew they weren’t

going to, but I asked to seem like I was suspicious of them. Any stuck-up

people like Mayer were guaranteed to reply in fury. He had great education but

always felt underrepresented in society. He felt that he deserved more from

this world, going as far as mentoring for a rebel leader to gain respect. It

was obvious what he would say next.

“Don’t make such stupid

assumptions! That’s not it at all! I am a part of this rebellion for a greater

cause!”

“...”

“This is all for the future of

Critik…!”

Just as planned.

Though, there was truth in his

words. This man had gone through the trouble of acquiring a doctorate, yet he

had to resort to a job as a tour guide that was not suited for him. For most

citizens of Critik, their biggest source of income was the spending and tips

from rich Federation tourists. Just to survive, they had to sell their smiles

and souls, while their hatred for the Federation grew.

I wondered how strongly he must

have felt that the Federation owed him. It wasn’t difficult to understand why

he would have done the things he did-- but that was then.

I thought about Sergeant Aroha,

and what kind of trouble she might be in…

Following that thought, a large

digital sign on a distant building began displaying Sergeant Aroha’s face. She

had bruises on her face and bled from a cut, likely injured when she was

forcefully ripped out from the building before. Her injuries seemed pretty

light if that was the cause, but…

[Smile, traitor!]

A young lady’s voice came from

the speakers around the sign.

Sergeant Aroha was restrained to

a chair with ropes, and multiple ladies surrounded her, armed with a sword

each.

I was surprised at how beautiful

the ladies were. They had amazingly pearly-white skins as if they were

physically glowing, and their bodies were slender and enchanting like a white

lotus. These stunning ladies surrounded Sergeant Aroha.

The camera turned around to then

focus on a different lady, with silver-blonde hair and dark-brown skin,

laughing at Sergeant Aroha. Her healthy tone, sizable chest yet thin waist, and

her Alter-Armour pilot suit that tightly wrapped around her body to reveal

every detail and curve were enough to possess any man. Despite all that, I

found myself wanting to see more of the other girls.

W-wait, that’s not important right

now!

[An Asa, willingly working for

the Federation military?! I haven’t seen a more despicable thing!]

The silver-haired lady chopped

the top of a bottle on a nearby table with the side of her hand. The top

section of the bottle cleanly fell away, causing its content to bubble out and

drip down. Bubble champagne? She picked up the bottle and began chugging it

down voraciously.

...Huh? She’s going for a

wild-wolf-style attitude with an appearance like hers? It was cool how feisty

she was, but she was failing at instilling fear-- I was confused, instead.

Maybe because she had none of the elegance of her appearance. A quiet,

gentle-looking girl appeared next to her and cleaned after her.

[Now, pay attention, everyone!

Ahem. I am a princess of the Sentosa system and a pilot of Kishin Saika, Rear

Admiral Riznah Eresiki-gal of the Alliance!] She shouted, pointing the broken

bottle at Sergeant Aroha. Sergeant Aroha moved back in surprise, and the lady

almost contacted the broken edge of the bottle onto Aroha’s face. If she moved

the bottle further, it was sure to cut a new wound on Aroha’s face. But the Asa

princess called Riznah played around with the bottle rather than cutting her,

spinning it around dangerously. [This girl is an Asa just like us, yet she

claims to be a soldier of the Federation. That is worthy of a punishment, yes?]

[Yes.] [That is correct, Harakal.]

The elegant girls to the side simultaneously agreed.

Suddenly, a line of text appeared

on the screen to accompany her speech.

---Harakal: Royal ranks of the

Asa, the top of their caste system.

“....”

What was that for?! I thought

this was a horrible public execution, but now it just looks like they meant it to

be a reality show!

“Ugh.”

“Man…”

Even the protesters beside me

groaned. I couldn’t say anything, either.

But the lady on the screen,

Princess Riznah smiled in satisfaction, spinning the bottle on her hand.

Hey, lady, you can’t seriously be

happy with that kind of acting! I wished I could have told her that, but she

spun the bottle only an inch away from Sergeant Aroha’s face. If she slipped

even by a tiny margin, Sergeant Aroha may have ended up with her face full of

glass.

[Agh, what do you think you’re

doing?] Sergeant Aroha began speaking. Unafraid of the situation, she looked at

the camera and grinned. [If you’re going to show my cute face on television, at

least dress me up first! And clean up these scars, while you’re at it.]

Her confident, smiling face

gained a fresh, bloody scar at that moment.

The Asa princess grimaced,

pointing the bottle at Sergeant Aroha’s face. [Are you trying to look brave?]

[Not at all, I’ll gladly beg for

my life if you’ll let me live.]

[But?]

[But it doesn’t look like you’ll

let me live regardless, you see? So, what do you want? My deepest, sincerest

apologies? Or… a wild, hot show for the audience?] Sergeant Aroha took a look

at the camera, and purposefully entwined her legs together. She was still in

her hot pants, and her new pose accentuated her athletic, well-crafted hips.

--Gulp!

The bunch of hastily formed

soldiers simultaneously gulped nervously. Men.

And the caption did not fail to

show up again.

--Ooh~!

...What am I supposed to think of

this?

[You seem to want to get

something out of this, if you’re broadcasting all of it. Why don’t you tell me

what you want, Harakal?]

[Hm.... yes, that’ll be nice.

Umea!]

--Umea. The warrior caste of the

Asa. Third highest rank.

Of course, the caption showed

again. ...Also, Umea? I had little idea how the caste system worked, but it

sounded like Sergeant Aroha was a part of a highly respectable rank.

[I remember you, Umea. Your

father is a human, yes? And I have heard that the ‘Black Sisters’ have trained

you so that you may join their ranks, is that not correct?]

[...] Sergeant Aroha flinched.

The caption again did not fail to

explain this new development.

--Black Sisters: The highest

level Asa Council of Elders. Controls the politics of all Asa nations.

[You’re not trying to say that

you’re my little sister, are you?]

[What are you talking about? I’m

only interested in the Umea that the Black Sisters once wanted to recruit. Now,

become my handmaiden! If you promise to repent for your past with the

Federation and become a part of the Alliance, then I will forgive your sins!]

--The Generous Harakal!

Terrible show! That act was so

fake that I’d rather believe an Easter musical at a Sunday school was the real

deal! And that caption ruined it even further!

But now it was clear-- they

wanted to show that they would even take Federation soldiers into the Alliance

if they intended to jump ship. Gross! This is the most blatant, up-front

propaganda I’ve ever seen! They could not have expected Sergeant Aroha to

accept that!

And Sergeant Aroha was a

Federation soldier, after all. If she had said ‘Yeah, sure!’, she would earn a

free ticket to the Federation military prison if she were to be rescued and

returned. There were too many witnesses around to avoid that fate.

But if she made a mockery out of

the Asa princess instead, then her life would be put in danger. What could she

do? She may very well accept the Alliance…

[Can we talk about this again

when we know each other better? We’re not at that level yet, I don’t think.]

said Sergeant Aroha, smiling. She was expected to beg for her life and look

cowardly, but she looked like she was enjoying the situation, instead. That was

her charisma.

In any case, that was a great

response. She had earned extra time for us

* * *

The broadcast went quiet as the

tense moment passed by.

“Eh…” Mayer turned back around,

snapping out of confusion from the broadcast. He looked absolutely befuddled,

as if he drowned in bottles of vodka not a second ago. “Anyway, you--”

But I was already on the bike

with Admiral Luise in my arms, with Ensign Meihowa sitting at the back seat

with her Colion rifle trained on Mayer.

“Wait, what?!”

“Sorry, friend, I have to go save

that lady in the television. Could you kindly not get in my way? Or would you

like to join me as a bargaining hostage?”

“Argh! You’re insane! You’re

going to die if you go there! And it looks like she was that Asa girl after all!”

Mayer warned me. The soldiers around him immediately pointed their guns at us.

“Thanks to that broadcast,

everything is clear now. There really is a way to move an entire city’s

population from Critik to someplace else, huh?”

My rhetorical question surprised

Mayer. “H-how did you know that?!”

“Well, because they went through

the trouble of doing that broadcast. If you guys are bringing people to the

stadium while making a show like that one, you’re trying to convince them what

a nice time they’ll have when they’re with the Alliance, right?”

“...”

“Are you sure you people are from

this age? All these things are the oldest tricks in the book! You might have a

better time convincing people back on eighteenth century Earth. Hell, the act

was so hilariously bad, I have to give it to Sergeant Aroha for not laughing

through the whole thing. No, wait, you guys will probably take it as a

compliment if I said it was funny. Let’s just stop at ‘you suck’.”

Mayer ground his teeth after

listening to my stream of insults. But soon, even he had to agree. “I-I can’t

refute that. The Asa and the Elcro are culturally equivalent to sixteenth

century Earth, so their sense of dramatics is… outdated. But she’s also the

Rear Admiral of the Alliance…”

Ah, so he went unheard because of

his inferior rank. The rebellion took on the full risk at the start of this

coup, but it seemed that the Alliance took full control of the situation over

time. So that’s why these poor people had to play along…

“You should think about quitting while

it’s still early. Anyway, see you later!”

“Wait!”

I revved up the bike and spun

around, and then I was off. The soldiers panicked and reached for the triggers

on their guns, but I had already used telekinesis to accelerate the bike

forward. We blasted forward at an amazing speed, while plasma shells from

behind harmlessly bounced off of my projected black barrier.

Normal force barriers were able

to effectively deflect an average plasma shell. However, an untrained

practitioner occasionally burned or blinded himself from plasma shells creating

powerful light and heat from friction with the barrier.

A black barrier, on the other

hand, operated purely through the force of gravity, by creating a localized

ergosphere. It wasn’t something that could be created on the spot-- I had to

remember the universal location of micro-black holes created by the Sole Power

of Heaven and Earth, and their ergosphere was projected at a location at my

will. The black barrier ignored the limits of distance of a conventional

teleportation.

“Whoa! What the hell is that?!”

“A power user?!”

“No way! How can anyone use

psionic powers at a casino city?!”

I continued onwards, leaving the

shocked soldiers behind me.

“Ugh! What do those Asa think

they’re doing?!” Ensign Meihowa groaned from behind, hanging onto me as the

bike gained speed.

“How should I know?! Our first

course of action is retrieving Colorado and Rabbitte the Rabbit! And we’ll

rescue Sergeant Aroha after that! I can’t believe she has to deal with those

insane maniacs alone!”

I felt like I was committing a

terrible crime. Sergeant Aroha was a very strong woman, so that alone bought

some time for us. I imagined that anyone else would have gone completely insane

after being thrown into a reality show produced by writers from the medieval

age. My own body couldn’t take it after taking a short glimpse of their act--

what would it feel like, being the center of attention within it?

--Haah… Haah…

I heard someone breathing

roughly. I looked down in surprise, and there I saw Admiral Luise heaving deep

breaths as she latched tightly onto me. Was it too hard to breathe at the speed

we were going?

“Are you alright?”

“I’m not-.... I-I’m alright.

Don’t worry about me.”

“...How can I not worry?”

I became overly conscious of

Admiral Luise’s soft breaths brushing against my chest. Whoa, no way, I

shouldn’t have become aware of it! I tried to separate away from her a little.

But suddenly, Admiral Luise shook violently and hugged me tightly.

O-okay, so she was holding on

because the bike was jerking around too much. No other reason, right?

By the time I came back to focus,

we had already made our return to Chinatown. Even the Chinatown entrance was

guarded by soldiers and Tri-Walkers.

“Should we make a forceful

breakthrough?” I asked.

Ensign Meihowa shook her head.

“No, that’s going to bring more of them here. I’ll lure them away.” She set her

Colion to remote control mode and approached a worn car on the road. She struck

the windshield with the back of her rifle and fit it between the broken bits.

She opened the door to the driver’s seat, set the car on automatic driving

mode, and held down the trigger to the rifle remotely.

--*Pewpewpewpewpew--!*

The Colion rifle sprayed its

plasma shells around Chinatown. The car drove itself on the road encircling the

area. The stationed soldiers, Alter-Armours, and Tri-Walkers all turned their

attention to it and dispersed. We used the opening to sneak to the antique

shop, but its door was closed for the time being.

“One and a half billion credits…

Is it really going to be okay for us to take them? Shouldn’t we at least get

the owner’s consent?” Admiral Luise spoke nervously. She was worried that,

instead of working up the proper quest line to acquiring these items, we were

stealing it in the end.

I shook my head. “We can’t be

choosy at a dangerous time like this. Necessity of defense! The laws of the

world protect us with that reasoning.”

Ensign Meihowa had already begun

picking the lock to the display case while I spoke. It was a traditional metal

lock, rather than a modern, electronic lock, so Ensign Meihowa had to

physically work it herself.

“Wait, when did you learn how to

pick locks, Ensign Meihowa?”

“You know, I like to watch old

movies from Earth. I practiced with it, but the real thing isn’t as easy as I

thought.”

“Hmm…”

I could have gone inside myself

by phase shifting, but it was meaningless for me to go inside alone. W-wait,

what if I just brought everything out through the display window?

But then--

“Customers?”

A voice called out from behind

us. Behind us was an old man, slouched down and staring at us.

“Erk!”

“Kyaa!”

“Ah!”

The too-suspicious trio ceased

their burglary and jumped in surprise. How did the old man approach us without

us noticing?

“Hm. Looks to me that you came

here for Colorado and Rabbitte. Since you have an Elcro with you, I presume

you’re the hagglers that William Mayer worked for. But-- I am not selling these

to you. Please leave me be.”

The old man asked us to leave and

turned around to leave, when it was obvious that we were trying to steal from

him.

“But wait, there’s a price tag…”

The old man answered Ensign

Meihowa. “They are my personal values for Colorado and Rabbitte the Rabbit.

They are meant to show how much they’re worth to me! I do not mean to sell them

off!”

“...But why is Colorado cheaper

than Rabbitte?”

“Hmm?!”

“N-nothing.” I immediately shut

up. Admiral Luise shrugged at me and smiled. She probably meant to look smug,

but with her face, she just looked like a little girl doing a preschool

exercise routine. In a good way, of course, not to make fun of her.

“Hold on, wait.” I came back to

my senses and stood in the old man’s way. “I really, really need Colorado. A

friend of mine is being held by a dangerous enemy…”

“Humph! You think you can use

Colorado?”

“Of course.”

“Do you take that sword for a

fruit knife, boy? That sword is…”

Ensign Meihowa sighed as the old

man began a lengthy grumble. “Lezirth, you don’t have to deal with an old loony

like him.”

“Hmm? ‘Lezirth’?”

The old man fell silent and

inspected me from head to toe. Erk, what’s going on?! I felt like I was being

touched by his eyes, like hardened prisoners looking at a fresh inmate at a max

security prison…

“Hmm. Well-built body, and, hum, hmm…”

“E-excuse me?”

“Maybe? No, no, that cannot be.”

The old man muttered to himself,

and passed by me to the door. He produced a key from his pockets and opened the

case to Rabbitte the Rabbit and Colorado.

“Try using it.”

“...”

I took Colorado. I felt a wave of

nostalgia wash upon me. The heavy weight on my hand was exactly that of the

last feeling I had, when it had fell from my grip a hundred and twenty years

ago. My companion blade had been waiting for me for more than a century.

‘Even if it had become so

arrogant and took upon such a ridiculous price for itself.’

The blade had gone from being a

free, military-issued blade to being an antique worth five hundred million

credits. What a promotion! Meanwhile, its owner had gone from being the Vice

Admiral to a shopkeeper on a resort planet.

I sighed, and raised the sword

above my head.

And then,

“Hey, there they are!”

“I knew they’d be here!”

A crowd of soldiers ran towards

us. Even an Alter-Armour came after us, smashing into walls left and right as

it staggered forth.

“Surrender now!”

[We’ll let you live if you do

so!] The Alter-Armour aimed its rifle at us.

I smiled.

--Sacred Sword!

At that moment, Colorado became a

crimson, blinding beam of light within my hands. It had been quantized, so

naked eyes saw nothing but light. I gently swung the blade down, and cut apart

the Alter-Armour’s rifle.

[Kwargh!] The Alter-Armour’s

pilot screamed.

The soldiers reacted by aiming

their rifles at me, but I swung my blade once more to destroy their rifles.

Those who continued to resist found that their rifles were no longer

operational.

Admiral Luise hugged the robotic

rabbit like it was a child’s toy. Light emanated from beneath the rabbit’s face

and projected comical expressions. It opened its enamel-red eyes.

Rabbitte the Rabbit-- it was the

first reboot after more than a century of sleep.

From the robotic rabbit, multiple

transparent lines flew forth and penetrated the soldiers’ weapons and the

Alter-Armour. That was all it took to shut them down completely. Even reverting

to factory mode could not get the guns to fire-- it was more than a digital

shutdown.

[Hello, mistress! Great to see

you again! Our last meeting was a hundred and twenty years, twenty-eight days,

and fourteen hours ago!] Rabbitte spoke in a robotic tone. Its AI was highly

advanced, but most of the AI was designed for Admiral Luise’s convenience, and

it did not have emotions or a personality. Yet, Admiral Luise calmly pet its

head-- as if she was proud of it for staying operational after more than a

century of our absence.

The old man was utterly shocked

to see these events unfold.

“Whoah! Oooooooaahh!”

Take a breather, old man! The man

suddenly ran towards us and held my hand. He looked pleased to see us, like

looking at an old friend. Unfortunately, he looked like a decaying zombie when

he lurched towards us, as if he was from an old horror movie.

“That was the real Sacred Sword!

Th-then, you are…!”

“Ah…”

I regretted what I had done. I

had revealed my true identity to the old man. Admiral Luise had also revealed

herself by having Rabitte call her its master.

But the old man’s next words

defeated my expectations.

“I was waiting for you, Vice

Admiral Lezirth! Admiral Luise! Finally, the Prophecy is set in motion!”

“...What?”

What’s going on?!

### 007. Part 4

A fine new addition to the cast!

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix

, Foodpenguin

Please enjoy.

____________________

The old

shopkeeper handed over Colorado and Rabbitte to us for free.

Rabbitte’s

irises changed their shape into two question marks. Admiral Luise asked,

“Wh-why would you do that? These are worth one and a half billion-- no, you

said you wouldn’t sell it for any price!”

The old man

shook his head. “I’ve never meant for these treasures to gather dust in my

display case for eternity. Admiral Luise, Vice Admiral Lezirth, you are the

people that these treasures were waiting for all along.”

The man

reached for his necklace. The necklace opened up, revealing a small hologram

chip within. The chip played a holographic picture of a middle-aged man,

bearing a befuddled expression as he carried a young boy in his arms. The

middle-aged man was in the uniform of the Dawn Corps. The mark of a breaking

dawn and a sword-- that was the symbol of the Dawn Corps.

“They are my

father and my grandfather.”

“Hmm?” I

returned my attention to him.

The old man

gently opened his eyes with his fingers. His aged, focusless irises had golden,

translucent, and sticker-like attachment. “I also am a Replicant.”

“But that

doesn’t...”

“A cross

between a human and a Replicant, to be specific, but I was still a Replicant by

law. So, when I was young, I was made to put these in my eyes.” The old man’s

cane began violently shaking in his hands. “Not only that, the Dawn Corps’

existence had been written out of existence.”

“What do you

mean?”

“Humanity

could not accept the great achievements of the Dawn Corps. No, they wanted to

convince the world that humanity itself had done all those achievements, rather

than relying on the inferior Replicants, who should have been the lowly tools

for humans. That was their reasoning.”

“But how

could they have done that? There should have been many people who knew the

truth! How could they write them off, just like that?”

I became

curious. After the countless battles between the Federation and the Letix, only

the Dawn Corps had remained in stable numbers. It began with only Kishin

Dawnbringer as the sole member, but as the other groups were nearly wiped out

after each battle, the survivors gathered into the Dawn Corps.

Sometime

during the latter half of the war, the Dawn Corps had grown large enough to

nearly equate to the definition of the Federation military. What could they

have done to change history to forget the existence of such a powerful group?

Even worse, this hadn’t occurred thousands of years ago, but it was merely a

century ago.

“I do not

know the details myself, but I have heard that a powerful mind-control was

involved. The Alliance’s Lezirth Dawnbringer and Luise Maynard were speaking

the truth in that regard, though clearly not about their identities.”

A power user

to that degree… But the notion of altering the minds of the entirety of

humanity was at an absurd scale, and even if such power existed, it should have

created a disastrous level of Hyperspace corruption around the universe.

But it

wasn’t the time to be asking questions. If I didn’t rescue Sergeant Aroha soon…

“B-but,

before you go…” The old man rummaged around his belongings for a camera. “M-may

I take a picture of you, sir?”

“...”

I didn’t

know what to do. The old man looked on with very eager eyes.

I remembered

seeing those eyes before. When the Letix army revealed itself to humanity and

put us at the brink of destruction, the military wanted me to lead an army

parade to give hope to people. I didn’t want to do it at the time, but I had

done it reluctantly due to Admiral Luise’s insistence. And so I led the parade,

while people watched on with eager, hopeful faces, wishing their sons and

daughters to return from the war in one piece.

I remembered

those days.

“S-sure.” I

stiffly stood in front of the camera.

The old man

gleefully took a picture. “Thank you very much! Ah, I am so very glad that I

have not perished earlier!”

“I, uh,

that’s nice of you to say.” I scratched my cheeks in embarrassment.

“So, how did

you end up with Colorado and Rabbitte?” Admiral Luise appeared from beside me

and asked.

“My

grandfather was a Lieutenant Colonel of the transport squadron of the Dawn

Corps. So… ha ha-- ugh- *cough*, *cough*--....”

When I first

saw the old man, I thought he was a stoic, quiet man who would never talk

unless he needed to. But at that moment, he looked like a little boy meeting

his hero, shaking my hands vigorously. He talked so rapidly that he was

coughing for the rest of the words instead.

“A-are you

alright?” Admiral Luise patted the man’s back.

The old man

nodded. “I am fine. I must be too old for this.”

“...”

“Should you

not be leaving soon?” The old man asked, cautiously inspecting us.

I nodded

back.

Admiral

Luise wanted to give her earnings from the casino to him. “To be honest, I had

more money than I suggested. Please, take these.”

“No, there

is no need. These treasures were here for safekeeping, but they are ultimately

your belongings. Are they not?”

“Even that

coin-operated case should cost a lot to maintain for a hundred and twenty

years. Please, I insist that you take at least five hundred million credits.”

But the old

man refused vehemently. “If you continue to insist, I will bash my head against

that stone statue until I perish.”

We really

couldn’t argue against that, and so we quietly left the shop.

“May you

bring the light of dawn into this universe.” The old man softly spoke as he saw

us out.

Ensign

Meihowa sighed. “So they did exist after all. The Church of Dawn, that is.”

“The Church

of Dawn?” I quickly looked it up on the network. The first thing that showed up

was an insult, calling them a crazy cult. “Wh-what is this?”

“Oh, it’s

just a crazy cult that worships Lezirth as their god.”

“....................................

Huh?”

“A… a god?!”

Admiral Luise was just as surprised.

A god… like

the beings that people pray to?!

“It’s one of

the few religions that the Federation tries to suppress, since all the

Replicant rebels believe in it. Hmm? What’s going on, Lezirth?”

“...Nothing,

I’m just very embarrassed.”

I had always

been called a war hero a century ago. I realized that I’d never had too much of

a thought about that. I was trained to fight as a soldier since I was young and

fought against my enemies as a soldier should, and then I had found myself

leading the Dawn Corps into a great war that decided the fate of humanity.

For a man

like me, I felt that I was undeserving of the old man’s attitude. I became

burdened by a suspicion that I might have had an important purpose in my life.

Burden. Yes,

that’s what I had always felt.

I wasn’t a

better man than any other. I was only a single person. People expected too much

from a guy like me. It wasn’t just the old man-- people from a century ago had

burdened me with too many expectations. And I was constantly afraid that I

would never be able to meet their expectations.

The old man

had trusted me enough to trade his life away. Rather than take the half a

billion credits from us, he insisted that he’d rather break his skull on a

stone statue. What kind of beliefs did he have, to drive his life to this point?

I would

never know.

After taking

our leave, we prepared an Alter-Armour to pilot. Admiral Luise reprogrammed the

rebel Alter-Armour so that I could use it. In the mean time, I inspected the

tall gate at the entrance of Chinatown.

“That’s made

of metal, huh?”

I thought,

if I could take the gate apart and pierce Colorado through it, I could make use

of it with the Alter-Armour. By rigging the metallic parts as the hilt of

Colorado, I could convert them to be a part of the Sacred Sword’s blade.

I imagined

that it would make the sword look somewhat like a slightly long knife, or maybe

a small sword in the hands of a Minion-class Alter-Armour. And maybe a fruit

knife in a Kishin’s hands.

“But this

doesn’t share Dawnbringer’s core. It’s using a Nameless core. Are you going to

be okay with that?” asked Ensign Meihowa.

All of my

abilities were specialized for Dawnbringer. Back then, I was capable of

fighting against a Kishin with a Minion-class Alter-Armour only because Ensign

Meihowa piloted one with a Dawnbringer core.

But what

about a Nameless one?

…I was

honestly worried.

When I

challenged Diablo, the Black Tyrant, its pilot was so inexperienced and fresh

that he looked like he couldn’t do any more than baby steps. Even then, despite

the best of my efforts, I wasn’t able to do a good deal of damage to Diablo. On

the flip side, all it took for Diablo to do significant damage to me was

slamming the ground with a single finger.

Compared to

Diablo’s pilot at the time, Prince Tenseron, I had been told that Asa Princess

Riznah was much more competent. Could I, with nothing but Colorado to my

advantage, stand my ground against her?

But I knew

that I had no choice. As long as Sergeant Aroha remained captive, I had to

rescue her before she could be sent away from this planet. Knowing that I had

no other choice, I had to be thankful that I at least didn’t have to charge in

with my own human strength.

I jumped on

the Alter-Armour and pulled apart the metal gate to hack it onto Colorado.

“Alright,

Lezirth! We’ll try to do what we can by hacking and calling reinforcements.

Even if it’ll be slightly late.”

“Is the Federation

sending a rescue force here?”

“They’ll

have to send one. No, we’ll force them to send one no matter what. But if we do

that…” Admiral Luise made a bitter, hollow smile. “That means we’ll have to

call back our squad from their hard-earned vacations.”

The Bomb

Cadet Squad that went through hell and back in the Azoran system. The group of

expendables, composed of Replicants and half-aliens. That was our squad.

The problem

was that Dawnbringer Minor belonged to this squad. To make the Federation send

it to the Critik System, we had to make sure that the rescue squad was them,

specifically. Although they already had to give up their vacation days to

answer the call to arms, how could we dare bring them back to a

life-threatening battle after they had to endure so many already?

It wasn’t

the right thing to do. Maybe I should have stolen another Alter-Armour that

stood a better chance.

But then,

“Okay,

they’re inbound!”

Admiral

Luise had already manipulated our squad to reinforce this area without a second

thought.

…...

Admiral

Luise was… in a way, maybe, perhaps, a very cruel being. If not for her, the

Bomb Cadet Squad would have likely avoided the dangerous front lines, but...

...Oh well, it was too late.

I needed

Dawnbringer Minor, after all.

“Lezirth!

That armour is technically registered as Federation-owned, but the Alliance

systems should recognize it as their property. You should be able to stay

undetected until you can get near Kishin Saika, and launch a surprise attack

whenever possible. Or maybe, if the pilot hasn’t boarded yet because she’s too

busy with that stupid reality show, you could take control by killing the pilot

immediately.

“Y-yes, of

course.”

“But be

careful! That systems administrator for the Alliance, that little girl we saw--

she can’t be taken lightly. And the pilot, too.” Admiral Luise moved away from

the Alter-Armour.

Ensign

Meihowa and Admiral Luise planned to hijack more enemy Alter-Armours to

distract the enemy.

Before I

began, I went to a supermarket within Chinatown. The Alter-Armour’s arms

rummaged around the storage room to gather a pile of energy gels. I brought

them into the cockpit and stacked the contents in the corners around me.

Alter-Armours

are living beings. Though they produced strength that exceeded the energy that

they gained from whatever they consumed by using other sources of power, they

still needed a source of nutrients, like energy gels.

After

procuring enough energy gels to fill up the cockpit, I also found myself a

folding shovel from a nearby tools shop.

My

preparation was done.

It was time

to fight another battle against all odds.

* * *

Heavy squall

swept my path. The south of the casino street was a great turquoise sea, and

its condensation met with the cold wind from the mountains to form into a

sudden but frequent rainstorm.

The

raindrops fell on Hyondai Stadium and rolled down its transparent ceiling. The

open stadium had an antigravity dome as its ceiling to protect from weather,

but let the sunlight through.

In front of

the stadium, in the parking lot that was several times larger than the building

itself, the rebels were busy screening the civilians. All around the lot,

Tri-Walkers patrolled watchfully, and many military trucks and buses came and

went to drop even more civilians. The rebel soldiers divided the civilians by

their worth, based on their jobs. It only took a single step through the

identifier to gain complete information on each person, so the process did not

take very long.

Thanks to

the numerous members of the Manus Solidum who joined the rebellion, the

screening went by even quicker.

“Damn it.”

I knew the

locals were very unhappy with the Federation, and I couldn’t fault them for

taking action to better their lives, and yet I couldn’t help but sigh. The

Federation was clearly not doing a great job, but the Alliance couldn’t have

been any better for them. The Asa had a caste system, and the Elcro had a

monarchistic government. These people were leaving the Federation because of

its rule based on the economic power held by dominating governments, and were

joining the Alliance where the ruling power was based on social classes.

I slowly

moved my Alter-Armour towards the stadium. Fortunately, the armour must have

been recognized as an Alliance asset as explained before-- other Alter-Armours

and soldiers didn’t seem to be too mindful of my approach. I could even hear

through the Alliance’s private channel.

[The first

round of screening is eighty percent complete!]

[As

expected, there aren’t too many experienced technicians. Should we start

transporting people in district twenty-two?”]

From the

talk that went on, there was no more doubt that the Alliance was kidnapping

everyone in order to find more skilled workers to aid their war efforts. It was

obvious why they were classifying people based on their jobs.

[What the

hell is up with that Amazoness princess, anyway?]

[She really

likes that Asa girl, huh? Making her a handmaiden…]

I could also

hear their casual conversations.

Curious, I

looked within the stadium. Inside, beneath Saika, Sergeant Aroha and Princess

Riznah Eresiki-gal were having a talk. I wanted to eavesdrop on them, so I turned

on the light sensors. The sensors picked up the vibrations of objects near

sound sources by echoing laser on them, and converted the vibrations to a

audible sound waves.

[....Ushu?

Toride anakil devka?]

[Zashi,

anzai toride…]

Whoops. I

had forgotten to turn the translators on.

I opened a

translator application on my PDA, but all it did was tell me to pay for a

premium downloadable content if I wanted to translate Asa languages. Damn. If

it were military property, it would have been free, but I had to use a civilian

machine for my vacation.

After

quickly paying up, the translator program flashed and began translating their

conversation properly. Wait a minute, where was the download? It seemed like

the application had the Asa translator installed all along, but locked behind a

paywall.

[We Asa

consider you as one of us, even if you were born between a human and an Asa.

Our bloodlines are considered from the mother’s side, not the father’s, and you

are a worthy Umea. It’s also quite nice that you have the knowledge of the

latest Federation military technology during your career as their soldier. Did

you know that only a handful of Asa soldiers are capable of piloting an

Alter-Armour or a cruiser? Knowing that, will you not help us? If you will,

then I will turn the broadcast back on so you may publicly tell me of your new

allegiance. If you do so, then I shall consider you as my second in command.]

[I’d really

like to do that, but I’m telling you, that’s going to be difficult since one of

my friends is coming over to rescue me.]

[Here?

Rescue you? Do you really believe that?]

[I survived

a problem like this once already, so why not?] Sergeant Aroha boasted, not

mindful of her situation yet. When a hostage is that confident, it would be

strange for the kidnapper to not feel overwhelmed.

[Really, I

do wonder where your confidence is coming from…] As expected, Princess Riznah

had become confused. [Hmph. No matter. I’ll be bringing you over before anyone

else.]

[Are you…

thinking of using Black Magic on humans? You’ll create a Hyperspace corruption.]

[Preventing

that is the true power of the Thundergod Saika. Kishin Saika with Black Magic

should be more than enough to safely teleport everyone in the stadium safely.

Repeating that several times should be enough to teleport every citizen before

the Federation army gets here. Think carefully-- there may be many who oppose

the Federation rule here, but they have no means to take act because the

Alliance is too far away physically. But what if we can prove that their

problem is not actually a real problem? The Federation will soon meet its end.]

[No. This is

just kidnapping. You’re not taking people who are volunteering to go! I don’t

know about your culture, but don’t you know what a grave crime it is to involve

innocent civilians, much less kidnapping them?]

[No matter.

We need people. We need much more.]

Then, a man

in a suit walked forth from behind them. It was a man from the television some

time ago, Kasik, the leader of the rebellion. Kasik was using the first

standard language of the Federation, English, and the Asa seemed to be using

their own translators to understand him.

[Wait!

That’s not what we agreed on before! You told me you’ll be sending my rebellion

first! And use the civilians as hostages for leverage!]

So his plan

was to extract the rebels first. That was why the rebels were very confident

about fighting against the local government and taking on the Federation,

despite the Critik system being directly next to the Federation systems.

[Our

imperative is to extract the civilians before all else. Lieutenant Colonel

Kasik, you should be remaining here and protecting our flanks against the

Federation so that we may complete extracting civilians. Also, mind your

tongue. I’m a chief.]

Kasik looked

annoyed. [Chief, is it? Just because you’ve been lucky enough to be born to the

right mother?]

[Chief,

because I am capable of piloting a Kishin and leading a troop. Why? Do you

think you could do better than me?]

[Hmph. a

Kishin, eh.] Kasik peeked to the side at the Kishin that leaned over the

stadium.

[There is no

need to worry. It won’t be too long before you get your turn. When you are

brought to the Alliance, you’ll be recognized as a hero. Perhaps many Asa

families will be after your heroic genes. You could very well say goodbye to

the days of being unpopular with women.]

[You…! How

dare you! That report was completely falsified!]

Kasik yelled

as hard as he could, but the other Asa quietly giggled and refused to take him

seriously. What a clown!

[Alright!

Laugh as much as you want! It’ll be the last time you’ll ever laugh. Hmph!

Let’s see if you’ll still be pompous when I ask the Black Sisters to hand you

over to me!]

Princess

Riznah stopped laughing. The other Asa’s faces became stiff.

It was about

time for me to interrupt their little party. I began thinking of my next move.

If I could kill Princess Prizna while she was out of the Kishin, I could easily

end this ordeal. It didn’t seem like there was anyone else who were capable of

piloting the Kishin in her place, either.

But my mind

strongly refused against killing a cute, young lady. Even if she wasn’t an

innocent civilian, but a chief of the enemy faction.

I still had

to kill her. I carefully detached the metal gate from Chinatown. I had already

destroyed the Alter-Armour’s rifle from the previous scuffle and no other

ranged weapons were on the armour, so I had little options. But if I could

throw the metal gate, it could easily kill any human being it hit.

“Now…”

I prepared

the Alter-Armour to throw the metal gate.

But then,

--*Whiiiiirrrr!*

Suddenly, a

red light flashed brightly within the cockpit. At the same time, the cockpit

ejected itself and exploded forward!

“Agh!”

Then,

through the communication view, the fake Luise revealed herself.

[Kyahahahahaha!

You thought I’d fall for that? I’ve been waiting for this moment!]

Damn! It was

a trap?! After being shamed by Admiral Luise, the fake Luise must have been

carefully watching over the equipment in Critik to note any suspicious activity.

[It was a

good thing that I’ve been watchful of any Alter-Armours that went offline.]

Admiral

Luise had stunned the Alter-Armour to hijack it. The fake Luise saw it coming

and kept track of Alter-Armours that went off at any time.

She wasn’t

small-time, huh? I readied myself for the impending fall. Before the cockpit

hit the artificial grass, a parachute deployed itself and slowed my descent.

The cockpit slid gently down the grass. I burst out of the cockpit with a kick

after hitting the ground.

But a

beautiful, blonde girl was waiting outside to greet me with a Colion rifle.

“Hold it

right there, human.” Threats came from her bright pink lips. She spoke with an

unfamiliar, weird accent, but it sounded nice regardless.

Looking at

her again, she was very beautiful. Pale skin, gentle demeanor, and-- her chest

wasn’t worthy of note, but her smooth legs were pleasing to see.

...Wait,

what am I doing?!

I broke out

of my trance and stood up. I first raised both of my arms to let her drop her

guard. I wasn’t registered as a psionic, so there was little reason to be wary

of me if I didn’t have a weapon.

[Riznah! Make

sure he doesn’t try anything funny! He should have a girl working with him

somewhere around here! Also, he’s probably a power user, or at least as

dangerous as one!]

And then my

effort to drop my enemies’ guard went to waste. The self-proclaimed Luise

warned the Alliance soldiers of what I am.

The Asa

princess asked. [Eiredith! Did you say there was one more?]

[Wah! Why

did you just call my name in front of the enemy?!]

[He’s

already captured, so what could be the problem?]

She did not

seem to think too highly of either Sergeant Aroha or I. Also, Eiredith? Was that

the real name of the fake Luise? If that was the case, then the Alliance had

always known that the fake Luise was indeed not the real deal. Or maybe only

the higher authorities like the Princess knew that fact.

“Kiske!”

“Yes,

Harakal.” The blonde girl who was called Kiske dropped a pair of handcuffs in

front of my feet. “Put them on yourself, human!”

“Kiske, was

it?” I looked at her, picking up the handcuffs. They were a specially designed

pair of handcuffs, made to suppress the use of psionic powers on the wearer. Of

course, my powers were still of considerable strength even with disruptions

like these, but to try and rescue Sergeant Aroha with these…

“Quickly!”

The girl known as Kiske hurried me, using the end of her rifle as encouragement.

I sighed,

putting on the cuffs on my wrists.

“Wh-who is

this? A Federation soldier? A Federation agent?”

Kasik was

particularly disturbed by my appearance. He should have already known that

Sergeant Aroha was a Federation soldier, so he was assuming that I had also

belonged to the Federation in some way.

But I was

just a soldier on a vacation. ...We’ve been doing much more than anyone on

vacation ever would, so his guess wasn’t strange. But even if I were actually a

Federation agent, he was more worried than I would have expected of him. He

wasn’t really fit to lead a rebellion, after all.

The Asa

princess scoffed at his attitude. “What a pathetic display! A man like you will

be seen as a hero by the Alliance? Hmph! In any case, I will be starting Saika.”

To my

surprise, Saika moved by itself to bring its hand down in front of the

princess. Once she stood on top of its hands, Saika brought her near its

cockpit beside its chest.

‘She’s

pretty good!’

Moving the

armour without directly piloting it meant that they had a long history between

them. That also meant that Riznah herself had a great deal of field experience.

Even if she belonged to a culture with very little development in organized

military, she must have been quite the formidable pilot if she had enough

experience to move the Kishin without piloting it. That is, even an early human

who used nothing but a crude rock axe would become a great marksman after

spending five thousand hours with a rifle.

[Bring in

the people!]

Saika’s head

shined a bright light. Kishin Saika had been activated. Metallic plates around

its waist hovered up in the air and fell down and embedded in various places

circling the stadium.

---*Vwoooooom!*

A powerful

vibration shook the entire stadium.

“Damn! Are

they starting it already? Let’s fall back!” Kasik ordered his troops and headed

to the dugout area of the stadium. Kiske and other Asa followed with Sergeant

Aroha and I. The civilians soon entered the stadium from various entrances.

“Why did you

come here, Lezirth?”

“To rescue

my Sergeant, of course.”

Sergeant

Aroha smiled at my words. She’d been smiling that same playful smile all the

time, but for some strange reason, her smile looked even more beautiful than

usual. I had a feeling that I might have seen her first honest smile.

She shook

her head and bore a more serious expression. “But what were you thinking,

getting captured yourself?”

The girl

named Kiske poked at my side with the tip of her rifle. “Stop chatting!”

I’ve had it

with this! She asked for it!

I turned

around and glared back at her, and… my face lit up in heat. Whoa, I can’t even

look at her without being embarrassed! I can’t look!

“What are

you doing, Lezirth?”

“Uh, I’m,

um...”

I’d always

thought Sergeant Aroha was one of the most beautiful ladies in existence, but I

had changed my mind after seeing that girl. If she could have heard my thoughts

I’d have been in all kinds of trouble, but she couldn’t possibly have such

powers, right?

“Lezirth,

you’re not thinking of doing something as silly as sparing people just because

they’re cute, or because they’re ladies, right?” Sergeant Aroha stared at me

with sharp eyes.

Occasionally,

there have been idiots among the army who refused to kill women and worsened

the situation.

The space

marines who fought against the Letix, the Dawn Corps, were frequently involved

in missions to cleanse areas corrupted by the Letix. When privates hesitated

killing women, who usually looked normal on the outside despite the corruption,

they usually suffered the consequences immediately when the Letix within them

burst out and proceeded to consume the entire planet.

Since those

problems occurred quite often, I had once replaced all the practice-use targets

with pictures of women and children. The invalid targets that were once

hostages were changed to men who looked like hardened criminals, while valid

targets were children and beautiful ladies. This change had once gathered the

ill attention of the media.

‘Were the

rumours about the state of training procedures of the Dawn Corps true? Are you

actually using these targets?’

The

reporters had asked me, showing me pictures of one of the targets made for the

Dawn Corps, however they got a hold of one. I was unable to avoid the question

as it was a live broadcast.

Looking at

the soldiers who looked troubled by the question, I came up with an answer

myself.

‘What? Are

you trying to make fun of Wally for looking like a scary, tough guy?’

‘Huh?’

‘Wally here,

acting as our hostage in this training gauntlet, is just a normal guy who

enjoys weight training! He might have overflowing testerone as you can see from

his large, bushy beard, but he’s a nice guy who lives with his aged mother,

along with two dogs and five cats in his household! He may have had a troubling

history with his ex-wife thanks to a small difference in beliefs, but he’s

still a hard-working man who still loves his family enough to pay alimony on

time! After all that, he’s had a run-in with a terrorist organization and became

a hostage-- and what, you want him to be shot with a Colion rifle? He’s a

villain because he looks like one? It’s all because of people like you that

this world is screaming that appearance is everything!’

‘B-but one

of the targets is a lady--’

‘She’s a

terrorist! Disguised as a journalist!’

‘And the

children…?’

‘They’re

also terrorists, disguised as elementary school news reporters! Don’t be fooled

by their young faces! The setting is that they’re actually in their sixties!’

‘What? Wait,

why are they all journalists--’

‘Because

terrorists like disguising themselves as journalists! At this very moment,

there may be a terrorist here...’

One of the

journalists in the conference had attempted to run away in surprise. The

peacekeepers of the Dawn Corps immediately moved in to arrest him, and he later

revealed that he was a member of the terrorist organization known as the Cult

of Humanism, who had been terrorizing the Replicant population through violence.

Arresting a

terrorist in a live broadcast in a middle of a conference had put on quite the

show for the crowd. That day felt like it wasn’t too long ago.

And yet, I

found myself reluctant to fight against these Asa girls.

“I’m all for

gender equality, even when it comes to violence, but… I just can’t do it!”

“....Ugh.

Lezirth, listen.” Sergeant Aroha sighed. “That’s a man.”

Hmm? Huh?

What was that?

I was caught

off guard by Sergeant Aroha’s sudden joke. How could that possibly be true? I

looked at the blonde girl behind me, who looked more ladylike than anything

else I’d ever seen. And that’s a man?

“......”

“That’s a

man. The males of the Asa are usually much more beautiful than females by human

standards. The girls are nice too, I suppose, but they don’t compare to guys at

all.”

“...............”

I looked at

the girl-- I mean, boy-- named Kiske again. He nodded. “I am male, yes.

P-please don’t look at me like that.” His aquamarine gaze dropped down, his

cheeks bright. Wait, why are they becoming red?! And why is wearing a skirt if

that’s the case?!

“Also, Asa

traditionally have skirts for men, and pants for women.”

“Is… that

so?”

Looking

around, other Asa boys(?!) talked amongst themselves, laughing as they looked

at me. As they met their eyes with mine, they blushed and looked away. Some of

them gently straightened their skirts and looked down as if to politely bow.

They’re

guys? Them?! They looked like girls in every way!

“Kiske, was

it?” I looked at him.

He aimed his

rifle at me. “Don’t talk to me!”

“No, I just

wanted to make sure.”

“Make what

sure?”

“Make sure

that…”

I quickly

smashed his rifle upward by the link between the handcuffs and went behind

Kiske to grab his neck. How was he so light?! He must have been less than

forty-five kilograms!

“Kyaa!”

Even his

scream was incredibly girl-like! I felt like I had bullied a little girl. I

lifted him up high, and kicked the chairs around the dugout to fling them to

the surrounding Asa.

“Kyaa!”

The guys

screamed like little girls, and the women….

“Yaargh!”

...cried in

a very brutish manner.

I removed

the handcuffs by phase shifting, and grabbed Kiske by the back of his neck. His

neck was so thin that I thought it would snap in half if I grabbed it the wrong

way. I mean, disregarding that I could probably cut a metal plate like paper…

And the feeling of his neck gave me an urge to feel about some more. It was

almost as if I could get addicted to the touch. What manner of creature was

this?! I placed the handcuffs around Kiske’s wrists.

I felt

slight pain digging into my sides. Sergeant Aroha was poking at me, staring at

me with an angry face. Ah, I’d forgotten to remove her restraints, too. I cut

the wires that bound her arms with my psionic power. Sergeant Aroha immediately

picked up a Colion rifle that had fallen on the ground.

“Oh no! How

did he use an ability with the handcuffs on?!”

“Probably

because he’s still pretty powerful even with a little dampener, yeah?” Sergeant

Aroha shrugged. She pointed at Kiske. “We’ll have to use him as our hostage to

escape here. That princess seemed to like him in particular. It’s not normal

for Harakals to call an Onbira by his name.”

“Onbira?”

“The ones

who don’t belong anywhere in the caste system. The males.” Sergeant Aroha

sighed. “My dad was one too, of course.”

After

hearing her, Kiske twisted his body around to try and escape us. But he was too

light and weak to accomplish anything with his strength.

...I thought

our plan was to use him as a hostage, but I felt like I’d become some sort of

criminal who had kidnapped a lady for nefarious purposes.

“Hnh…

*sob*…” Kiske began sobbing and suddenly made a wide motion with his mouth, but

I quickly grabbed his chin to restrain his movement. He had just tried to kill

himself by bleeding to death from his tongue!

“Lower your

weapons, every one of you! If you try to fight us, this Kiske friend over here

will die a painful death!” Sergeant Aroha made a threat in my place. She

pointed her new Colion rifle at the other soldiers. She couldn’t fire the

rifle, however, since the rifle was registered to be only used by those of the

Alliance.

Or so I had

thought. The rifle sounded a beep, and soon it displayed the Federation logo in

place of the Alliance’s. Admiral Luise must have been helping us from somewhere!

With Kiske

forcibly dragged along with us, Sergeant Aroha and I escaped the dugout and ran

towards the stadium exit. The other Asa quietly watched us leave.

This boy was

an Onbira, who couldn’t enjoy the benefits of being in any caste. I didn’t know

enough to say for sure, but he seemed to belong in a low class in the Asa

social structure. And yet the other Asa, not just the males but the women too,

did not move as we made our escape. Did the princess favour him that much?

...Favour?

Many images

popped up in my head as to how Riznah was favouring this boy--

---*Smack!*

Sergeant

Aroha swiftly jabbed at my side with her elbow.

“Why’s your

face going red again?!”

“N-no, wait,

this doesn’t mean anything!”

I grumbled as I followed Sergeant Aroha outside.

### 008. Part 5

Dawnbringer: Do You Remember Love?

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix

Please enjoy.

____________________

Peacocks wear fanciful plumage to get noticed by peahen as mates. Peahen evolved for survival, having no unnecessary extravagance to instead blend better with the environment.This seemed to describe the history of the Asa race.

“That’s why a Harakal is a very dangerous being. I know you’re very powerful yourself, Lezirth, but please don’t challenge a Harakal on your own, okay?” Sergeant Aroha warned, breaking into various lockers around the locker room. She was looking for a PDA, but there were none around.

When we were caught by the Asa, our PDAs were taken from us and we had no way to contact Admiral Luise. We were scavenging around this locker room in desperation.

“Do you know about the Asa well, Sergeant?” I asked while inspecting the lockers myself.

“Considering I grew up as an Asa around other Asa, sure. Anyway, are we gonna be fine with... that?” She jutted her chin towards Kiske. He was cowering in the corner of the room, shaking in his handcuffs.

To think I just found a scared, shaking boy cute... I thought I should poke my eyes out. ...But none of this is my own doing! Everything is because of his existence!

“Then why would the Asa consider humans as potential mates, too?”

The fact that different aliens could mate and form an offspring was insanely unlikely in the first place. How did a race with a culture like that ever consider mating with males from entirely different species?

“The upper-class Asa tend to want stronger genes inheriting the family. Of course, the measure of strength here is extremely ancient: you need to accomplish great things. And human men are likelier to fit that need than Asa males.”

“Accomplishments...”

“Before the war, accomplishments would have had to do with trivial things like hunts, but these became war achievements after the war with the Federation began. The Asa males who hurried to join the war and prove themselves were quickly killed off. That’s when the women began looking towards humans, too, as the history of the Asa goes. Why? Are you interested, Lezirth? The life of being a stud horse destined to make babies for the rest of your life?”

...

...I’ll get punched again if I said that doesn’t sound too bad, right?

Sergeant Aroha looked grave as she talked about the Asa. She wasn’t in the mood for joking around.

“Why do you look so angry about this? Ah, I mean, I already knew that you wouldn’t like seeing other Asa again, but...”

“I’m not angry, but... no, it’s nothing.” Sergeant Aroha glared at Kiske and sighed.

After looking through the last locker, I produced nothing but a few bottles of ionized sports drinks. I opened up the drink, at least, since I was quite thirsty.

Then Sergeant Aroha resumed. “...I’d been lying to you.”

“Hmm?”

“In truth, my dad never loved my mother all that much, but... an Asa man.”

“----Pwargh!” My mouth shot out the drink in surprise. I coughed.

Sergeant Aroha had a bittersweet smile. “The Asa don’t believe in romance between men and women. They only consider the genes involved, and form offsprings. The Onbira need an achievement in order to prove that they are worthy. Those that manage will be chosen by the Asa females, and... they can sell their bodies to many different females.”

“...”

“How could there be any love in a culture like that? Although I was born between my mother and dad, I lived most of my life as an Asa being taught by the Black Sisters, and my dad occasionally came to see me. Him and his real partner in life, that is.”

“A-Aroha...”

“All I wanted was love and attention from my mother and dad. But being chosen by the Black Sisters as an Umea was apparently something amazing-- my mother was very happy to hand me over to them. My dad at least visited me from time to time, but you have to understand, Lezirth, I was just a kid at the time. For a kid that I was, the man that brought me to life, the single family member who bothered to show me family love, he was too important to me. I wanted all of his attention and love! But...”

She was calling her father “dad” but her mother remained as “mother.” Was I right to pity her for her past? Would it have been an insult to her? I didn’t know, but it was hard to not pity her.

“And in the end, instead of living his life as a father, he...” She shook her head violently. “...And that’s why I’m not fond of seeing another Onbira. Sorry, Lezirth, for my tantrum.”

I gently put my hand on her shoulder. Then Sergeant Aroha suddenly hugged me.

“Sergeant?”

“Sorry... can I hug you for a bit?”

“But you already did!”

“....Heh.”

Her body was quite curvy and I had no idea where my arms were supposed to move next. If I moved them around her waist, the... pressure would have been too great on me. I ended up awkwardly putting my arms around her shoulders.

I still had her past as a little kid in my mind. She would have wanted to flaunt her beauty and charm around that time, but she never could, and maybe she was looking for attention now. ...But I felt it was rude to try and analyze her past like an armchair psychiatrist, so I stopped the train of thought.

“...Thanks for coming to save me. I didn’t want to return to my life as an Asa.” Her body shook. She may have acted tough in front of the camera before, but she was surely scared after all. She had more reasons to be scared than anyone else I knew, considering her past.

“No need to thank me. You’re my Sergeant and my precious squadmate, so I couldn’t let you get taken over by the Alliance.”

“Tch! I’m just a squadmate?” Sergeant Aroha grumbled.

It then came to my attention that Kiske was still in the corner, throwing dirty looks at us from time to time. ...I had forgotten about him entirely.

“...Chosen by the Black Sisters? When even the Harakals are rarely chosen?”

Sergeant Aroha moved away from me after Kiske made his presence known by muttering to himself. “A-alrighty, shall we move out?”

“...Excuse me, I am quite thirsty.” said Kiske out of the blue.

I was about to hand my bottle of drink to Kiske. Sergeant Aroha interrupted me with a shocked look. “Wait, Lezirth? Isn’t that bottle what you’ve been drinking from, so far?”

“Hmm? So what?”

“Isn’t that an indirect kiss?”

“I don’t believe in indirect kisses because I’m a realist, and-- no, wait! But he’s a guy!”

“Didn’t you hear me before, Lezirth? I said the Asa don’t believe in romance between men and women, but between just men...!”

“.............”

Wait, seriously?! I looked at Kiske to confirm. He blushed and shook his head. “I am dedicated to Lady Riznah, and I definitely do not have such... I-I’m really thirsty. I don’t believe that you will ever take my handcuffs off, and so I asked despite my shame.”

“And so he says.”

I looked at back Sergeant Aroha, but she had snuck behind me, trying to loosen my belt.

“Whoah! Wh-what are you doing?!”

“Here, Lezirth, try showing off your abs! Let’s see if his body will be honest!”

“Wh-what’s wrong with you! Sergeant, I wouldn’t...”

“Eheheheh, you don’t have to be embarrassed! It’s nothing new over yesterday night.”

Yesterday night? The time when I blanked out for a while after drinking too much? What happened in that time period?!

Dodging away from Sergeant Aroha’s sexual harassment, I brought the bottle to Kiske. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth wide. His small red tongue revealed itself from between his bright pink lips.

Whoa...

I placed the end of the bottle against his lips and tipped the bottle up, sending the green liquid down his throat. His marble-pale face lit up in red as he drank-- probably embarrassed from being made to drink like this as a prisoner, right? If so, why was I also feeling a little embarrassed too?

I pulled back the bottle so he could have a little time to breathe. A stream of the liquid fell from the top of the bottle and down my hand. Kiske stared at the dripping stream with an empty expression, and soon extended his tongue to lick the liquid off.

“Hrk!”

I pulled back my hand in surprise. I thought my heart would stop at the feel from the tip of his tongue. Kiske jolted back, too, realizing what he had done without thinking.

“Ah, um.... Th-the drink was really delicious, and...”

“I-is that so? Th-that’s right!”

The Asa had the technology and culture equivalent to those during the fifteenth century on Earth, so it must have been his first time having such a refined, flavoured drink. Yeah, that must have been it!

“Having fun over there?”

Sergeant Aroha approached and hugged me from behind. Her voluminous upper body pressed against my back. I felt a shock course across my spine-- what was she thinking?!

“This is mine! Don’t even think about it! Grrrr!”

...I belong to the Sergeant?! Wait, that sounds like it could be understood in very wrong ways!

Before I could respond, Kiske gave a snooty look before turning his head away with a ‘hmph’. “My heart belongs only to Princess Riznah! And, also, I am a manly personal guard! I am only doing this to quench my thirst so that I may resist you both in the future!”

...What part about him was manly?

In any case, it seemed like we weren’t going to be finding a PDA for us anytime soon. It was a smarter idea to get away from the area as much as possible. We exited the locker room and entered the hallway that connected the seating area and the exits.

“There they are!”

[Over there!]

A soldier and a Tri-Walker simultaneously shouted as they noticed our entry into the halls. But Sergeant Aroha’s Colion rifle was faster than their reaction. She shot the soldier and the Tri-Walker one after another, and jumped over the glowing, charred remains of the Tri-Walker. Kiske screamed in horror. I followed after Sergeant Aroha, pulling Kiske with me.

“Tch.”

Sergeant Aroha had been busy honing her skills. She was rampaging through her path to the exit, shooting down everything in her way.

But then,

--Swooooooooooooo-!

A loud, booming noise echoed throughout the stadium. The building vibrated along with the noise, shaking the dust out of the ceiling.

From the various monitors around the hallways, we could see the inner area of the stadium. Many scared people were huddled around the area, while Saika watched over them. Saika dismantled its plate-skirts and threw the parts into the air. The plates spun up and made a spherical formation around the edges of the stadium, creating a forcefield that surrounded the civilians. It looked like the field was encapsulating the stadium in a dome.

“What is that?!”

“I think they’re about to teleport. Maybe they’re using that field to protect the civilians against the Hyperspace during the warp, with the Black Magic of the ancient Asa.”

“What’s the Black Magic?”

“You know how the Elcro pray to Artus the White and borrow the White Magic?”

“Yes.”

“In contrast, the Asa use the powers of some unknown number of beings within the Hyperspace.”

“...”

Using the beings of the Hyperspace? I never knew that was even possible. I shrugged.

When it came to developing a technology relating to the Hyperspace, the biggest concern was always the corruption of the Hyperspace. The Hyperspace was home to beings of greater dimensions that were utterly incomprehensible by humanity; greater dimensions, not as in the metaphorical sense that they have superior cultures and technology, but that they literally inhabit a world of different dimensions. And they were all extremely dangerous.

For example, imagine if we were in the 2D world, on a paper. If a being in the 3D world picked up a pencil and drew a point on the page, we could only imagine that the point had appeared from nowhere, and without an explanation. As such, making contact with otherworldly beings, those without explanations, was extremely dangerous for us. But the Asa had a way to make use of them.

“So, they use the magic to transport people, and block the corruption from the Hyperspace with that shield? The Asa have some amazing powers.”

“Of course, it’s expected of the Harakals to use such a powerful magic.”

“The caste matters?”

“The powers of the Asa depend on the bloodlines, so yes. Also, only the females are known to make use of the Black Magic, and none of the males.”

Aroha’s statement reminded me and drew my attention back to Kiske. If that was the case, then it seemed natural that the Asa culture ended up being a very matriarchal society. The males of the Asa had no strength, no magic, and the only positive seemed to be that they looked nice. But that’s a really nice positive, of course!

I sighed and let go of Kiske.

“Lezirth?”

“Sergeant Aroha, take him and run away.” I turned around. The Alliance was about to kidnap a city of people. Not only was it a war crime to kidnap civilians, the Alliance was dominated by groups whose cultures were still back in fifteenth-century Europe.

“No way! You’re thinking of going back in there to fight? The enemy has a Kishin! And she’s a seasoned Alter-Armour pilot who’s capable of moving a Kishin remotely! She’s nothing like Diablo back from the Azoran system! And not even you could easily handle a Harakal’s Black Magic!”

Despite Sergeant Aroha’s insistence, I shook my head. “I can’t let them kidnap civilians, you know?”

“Then take a hostage with you!” Sergeant Aroha pushed Kiske back to me.

I shook my head once more. A hostage wasn’t going to help my situation. Even if he was the Princess’s favourite, the situation did not allow being dragged down by a hostage and restricting my own movement. Also, even if the Princess and the Asa were fond of the hostage, what about the rebels?

And then, an even louder noise permeated the stadium.

* * *

Fireworks.

The stadium vibrated to a different tune-- loud music. Fireworks exploded to the skies like a fountain, and the bottom of the stadium opened up.

The stadium was multi-purpose, able to accommodate different sports such as baseball and soccer, but also musical concerts, by reforming the floor of the stadium. The floor was being controlled by someone.

Sergeant Aroha and I were taken off guard by the sight of the moving stadium floors. When the floor began rearranging, Kishin Saika too stopped moving, its attention taken by the center of the stadium.

At the center was a girl, with hazel-blonde, short hair.

“L-Luise?!” I exclaimed. What in the world?!

Admiral Luise had made a personal appearance in the stadium, within the center of all attention from our enemy. She was wearing a long, one-piece dress, a hat with a wavy brim on her head. She pressed down on her hat with one hand, and waved at the camera with the other.

[What’s an idol singer doing here?]

[What’s going on now?]

We could clearly hear some of the confused exclamations from the civilians through the broadcast. Amongst the panicked people clearing away from the moving floors, Admiral Luise stood alone, winking at the camera. Rabbitte the Rabbit, sitting on her shoulders, also winked with by forming the expression with its LED-lit eyes.

...Was she actually going to perform in the middle of a battle?! Before that, wasn’t she super shy?!

And the song...

The song was called “Supernova,” a popular new song a hundred and twenty years ago, though an ancient song at this point.

By the time my head began clicking together again, the instrumental intro had already gone by. The part with the lyrics was coming up.

Admiral Luise extended her arms high up towards the sky and began singing with more emotion than any professional singer I’d seen.

When I was left alone amidst the dark,

You lit my path like a newborn nova,

And eyes like fire brought light to my world.

Your bright, burning spirit and mind

I fell in love with your lasting fire,

Unquenched desires, unending dreams,

Lone supernova, shining alone.

...3...2...1...0!

Save me from this dark, I beg you,

I asked the supernova, shining in the sky,

Brighter than a comet of wishes and hope.

But you shine alone, burning in silence,

Dreams of a girl, clouded in darkness.

Blinded by selfishness, frozen with pain,

I couldn’t see the dark around you.

Fighting the dark with burning light,

The girl fell in love with the lasting fire.

Shining alone, lone supernova,

I want to shine, but as two

Even if the desire burns my body.

...3...2...1...0!

I’ll save you from the dark, and soon,

Though a lone stranger I might be,

I was saved, by your light,

Light that called me by your fire,

Dreams of a girl, like a supernova.

“Holy crap.” Sergeant Aroha, with her jaw agape, blankly stared at the monitor.

The girl that stood on the stage to dance and sing, Luise Maynard, had a powerful and amazing voice. She might as well have been a professional singer. But why? Why sing in the first place?

“Three, two, one, zero!”

With the countdown that took the song to the back to the refrain, Admiral Luise brought her hands to her lips and kissed towards the audience(?). At the same time...

--Pwoosh!

A strange thing suddenly happened.

All the Alter-Armours that watched on simultaneously ejected their pilots into the air.

An Alter-Armour cockpit was a middleware between a human being and the mind of the Alter-Armour, a living being itself. So, as a part not native to the Alter-Armour’s body, it was possible to eject the cockpit in disregard of the will of the armours.

Kishin Saika also ejected its cockpit into the distance. It flew up into the sky, smashing into the barrier field and gaining even greater force away from the stadium, disappearing into the distance.

As the Alter-Armour cockpits flew out everywhere and embedded themselves into various areas in the stadium, the Alliance army was at a complete disarray. The panicked Alliance soldiers and rebels pulled out their guns to retaliate, but their guns had also been disabled and became paperweights.

Admiral Luise was exacting a revenge for me, back when I had also been forcibly ejected out of my Alter-Armour’s cockpit. And what a stylish way to get revenge!

“Fufufu! Now this is how you do it!”

She was a little too sure of her own skills. She was so occupied in the competition with that Eiredith girl that she was losing her usual self. The shy girl had disappeared off somewhere, and the personality of a scary, provocative lady took place in her body instead, throwing a charming smile at the camera.

It was beautiful. And I was also happy. The girl who had been constantly swamped in the computer-filled basement of the Federation operations room still had a feisty spirit left in her, and I found myself grinning at the television screen.

...Wait, wasn’t I forgetting something? Oh, no, Saika doesn’t need its pilot to move!

I looked at Aroha. She seemed to be thinking what I had in mind.

“Let’s go!”

We bolted towards the stadium.

* * *

The stadium had really been transformed into a heated concert. The beam projector now displayed a 3D broadcast, now showing an angry blonde girl shaking her fist towards the viewer.

[Gaaaaaaaaaaah! I’m going to kill you! Like, seriously kill you!] The chief of the Alliance, Eiredith, was screaming in rage.

Admiral Luise was smiling, looking around the stadium that was under her control with panicked soldiers running about. A bike appeared and raced towards her-- it was Ensign Meihowa, now wearing a biker getup with a black leather suit and sunglasses, however she found the time to change into that.

-Screeeeeee!

With the sound of tires screeching against the stage floors, the bike turned to the side and slowed. When did she learn how to drive like that?! She spun the bike around, pivoting by the front wheel as she performed a spinning burnout with the rear wheel while slowing to a halt in front of Admiral Luise.

The soldiers that attempted to crawl up the stadium backed away, intimidated by Ensign Meihowa’s entrance. She was holding a presumably functioning Colion rifle, after all, and the Tri-Walkers from outside the stadium had joined in while blaring Federation identities. Even Kishin Saika had lost its pilot, so it seemed like a complete disaster for the Alliance who had no quick technicians to recover from the situation.

But Saika did not need its pilot within to be controlled!

“Luise!” I called her, running down the hallway.

I slammed into the stadium door, almost breaking it open. But a huge wave of civilians was on the other side, who then attempted to barge through the now-open door. Damn! I should have known that the civilians were hanging by the exits of the stadium.

“Agh!”

“Aroha! Hold onto my hand!” I grabbed Sergeant Aroha by her arms and lifted her up. Kiske got pulled up along with her. With Sergeant Aroha in my hands and Kiske around my arms, I ran up against the wall to get past the crowd safely.

“Hey! Why am I held by your hands while your friend’s around your arms?!”

Sergeant Aroha was never jealous of the other girls, but Kiske seemed to be special... but that was probably my narcissism talking.

I kicked against the end of the wall, hopping over the last crowd, and landed on the stadium’s front seats.

--Fwoooooosh!

A stream of fireworks exploded behind me.

I dropped Kiske and Aroha down and looked towards the stadium. Ensign Meihowa and Admiral Luise were still standing on the stage floor, and all Alter-Armours were frozen still with their pilots gone.

But Kishin Saika began moving.

The Tri-Walkers simultaneously opened fire. A hailstorm of plasma rounds rained upon the armour. Of course no amount of anti-infantry weaponry could even leave a scratch on a Kishin-- they instead fired upon the pilot outside, Princess Riznah.

“Agh!”

She controlled Saika to have it kneel down, covering her with its arms. Yet, some Tri-Walkers were equipped with smart bombs instead of plasma rounds. The bombs curved around, exploding on top of Saika’s arms.

“Kyaah!” Princess Riznah screamed, a lot more feminine than the other Asa.

Kiske was shocked. “What are you doing to the Harakal?! Cease fire! Please, stop this at once!” He bolted forward, handcuffs still on his arms. He couldn’t get very far, tripping on the stadium bench.

I followed after him, jumping from one bench to another, and landing on the stage floor. “Meihowa!”

Ensign Meihowa waved from her bike. “Lezirth! Did you manage to save Aroha?”

Sergeant Aroha walked up the stage after me, smiling coldly. “Gosh, what was that just now?”

Not only were the Alter-Armours disabled, even Kishin Saika was crippled.

I had approached Meihowa in a hurry to tell her that Kishin Saika could be moved remotely, but it seemed that there was no need. Admiral Luise used the many cameras around the stadium to learn all about Saika, planned a way to take control of the situation, and even came up with a way to make a fantastic entrance.

“That was really cool, Luise. You should be a singer!”

“Oh, Lezirth. A singer? That’s... too embarrassing. Heheh.” She looked extremely smug even as she said that.

Sergeant Aroha smiled. “Want to form a duet-- no, let’s make a band! How ‘bout that?”

Ensign Meihowa was surprised by Kiske meanwhile. “Who’s this kid?”

“An Asa. We needed a hostage, and taking the Princess’s favourite was probably the right move.”

“Huh. The Princess was a lesbian?” said Meihowa, in past tense, as if Riznah had died already. Although, a normal human being wouldn’t be able to survive a smart bomb blast.

But then,

-*Swooooooooh!*

Kishin Saika began moving again! The air around Saika’s arms began tearing apart. As space itself distorted, a group of swirls, like snail shells, shot out the distortions, flying towards us.

“What?!”

Ensign Meihowa quickly started the bike, pulling Luise on it. I grabbed Kiske and Sergeant Aroha and jumped down the stage to dodge the distortions.

“Gaaaah!”

“Aargh!”

Space distorted even further. The stadium became the focal point of dimensional collapse as more tears formed, letting creatures from the Hyperspace through.

“Oh, no.”

Admiral Luise looked at Rabbitte, and Rabbitte immediately began controlling the nearby robots. The Tri-Walkers changed their targets to the swirled, snail-like beings, and fired a barrage of plasma at them. The creatures quickly fell. The plasma rifles are strong enough to burn off an unprotected human’s torso, so that was expected.

But the splattered bits of the creatures on the ground began regenerating. They bubbled up and quivered, resembling shaking jellies, growing back to their original forms. It was sickening to watch.

It was the beginning of a Hyperspace corruption.

I realized why the Asa were significantly better off than the Elcro at fighting off the Federation’s assault. They had the power to summon the Hyperspace beings at will. When the Hyperspace corruption takes place, humans had no options to retaliate other than blowing apart the entire planet from which the corruption began.

It was an experience all too familiar from the Letix War. Was the future of Critik-4 sealed?

“Aaaaaaaagh!”

Kishin Saika stood. It held Princess Riznah in its hands. Surrounding the Princess were tears in the dimension.

“Harakal!” Kiske screamed upon seeing Princess Riznah. It was because she was perfectly demonstrating what happens when Hyperspace corruption takes place in a living being.

Riznah’s left eye had gone and her right arm was nowhere to be seen. In place of her left eye, a blue glow filled the void, and instead of her right arm, a strange tentacular growth wiggled about. The growth was almost, but not quite like her humanoid arm, and yet it moved like it was her own.

Those beings were nothing like humanoid races. Hyperspace corruption was their way of using our flesh to fuel their growth. And Princess Riznah was using their power.

“Kwaaaaah! Aaaaaagh!”

Or, perhaps not. Princess Riznah screamed. As her screams became louder, a wave of powerful force radiated out from her body. Where the waves collided with a physical object, dimensional tears formed on them and produced even more beings from the Hyperspace.

“Waaaargh! Run away!”

“Run for your life!”

I pointed my finger at the distance, where the gate from Chinatown lay after I was ejected from my Alter-Armour. Soon, Colorado broke free from the gate and returned to my hands. I grabbed the blade out of the air.

“Lezirth! We have to defeat the Princess right now! If we’re too late, this entire planet will collapse from the Hyperspace corruption!” Ensign Meihowa yelled, seating Luise on her bike.

“I know this is too much to ask, but... can you do it?” Admiral Luise asked, hesitant.

For any level-headed person, the right idea would have been to get the hell out of there immediately. It was nothing short of suicide to try and fight. Yet I didn’t want this beautiful paradise to be contaminated by the Hyperspace. I couldn’t allow the civilians and tourists in the area to get hurt, either. Now, then...

“Alright! But please, even if I beat the crap out of that Asa lady, don’t be thinking that I’ve lost my gentlemanly ways.” I left, leaving Kiske and Aroha with her.

A Kishin, its pilot, and the Hyperspace. I was going to try and fight them off with only my Colorado.

No matter how many times I thought it over, it was insane. But I had no choice.

“Let’s go!” I charged towards Saika. The snail-creatures and tentacles blocked my path, and I activated the Sacred Sword. “Go, Colorado!”

Colorado spun into a corkscrew shape and separated, reforming into its quantized shape. I cut through the otherworldly beings and jumped towards Saika.

Saika attempted to fend me off with its arms. I created a wall of force in the air, kicked up against it and leapt over Saika’s swinging arms. My only target was Princess Riznah-- I had to take her down to stop the growth of the Hyperspace corruption.

“You!” The Asa princess glared at me and clasped her hands together. Suddenly, formless but strangely menacing forces flew straight towards me, and all the snail-creatures below me changed their targets to me. All around me, shapeless objects shot to my position. I jumped back and forth through the air to dodge them, but they altered their trajectories to continue making their way towards me. They really wanted me dead!

So be it! I leapt again, spinning in every direction. While spinning, I wildly slashed with the Sacred Sword.

---Unique Skill! Schrodinger’s Cat Slash!

The ability was a Kishin Art, a powerful slash that could cut down anything within the range of its attacks. Within the reach of the Sacred Sword, it could cut down anything, even gods, devils, and hypotheticals such as the Schrodinger’s Cat.

One of Saika’s skirt-plates levitated between Princess Riznah and I, blocking the slash. No matter! No matter how thick or strong it is, nothing could stand in the way of the Sacred Sword, which cut through anything in quantum levels! It would cross straight through the plate and slash Riznah! Or maybe even cut the plate along with it!

...But then,

---*Clink!*

The plate deflected the Sacred Sword. The plate seemed to be guarding against my slash on quantum levels.

As soon as the sword glanced off of the plate, I gave up on a direct attack and brought my attention back to the Hyperspace creatures. While my attention was briefly taken away, Saika’s skirt-plates had fully protected Princess Riznah from my further attacks.

“Hmph!”

There must have been a special ability embedded into the Kishin’s outer armour. Was I trusting Colorado too much? It was a great mistake to gamble on the enemy’s capabilities and fight without any knowledge of them.

“Let.... Kiske... Go!” Riznah commanded, springing bloody red and black whips from behind the plates. Instead of dodging them, I projected the Black Barrier so I could get closer. But soon, I felt a piercing pain across my chest.

The bloody whip was destroyed by the Barrier upon collision, but the black whip had broken past and slashed across my chest. I immediately dodged to the side so that the whip could not entangle me after the strike. How could there be anything that nullifies the Black Barrier?!

But that wasn’t the end of it.

---*Crackle! Crunch!*

The wound on my chest began contorting. Many small tentacles formed from the open wound, breaking through the skin! In surprise, I returned Colorado to its solid form and cut the wound from my body entirely. I had to cut the afflicted flesh out of my body in order to stop the Hyperspace from further contaminating my flesh.

A fountain of blood squirted out from the fresh cut. I jumped away and closed my eyes, calming my mind and body, allowing the wound to seal by itself. I was able to stop the Hyperspace corruption from consuming my body, but it seemed too late to deal with Princess Riznah at that point.

Kishin Saika raised its arms, forming a cross with its body, levitating up in the air. Princess Riznah walked into its chest, where its cockpit used to be but no longer.

At this point, the only way to stop the corruption was to defeat Kishin Saika itself!

“Alright! Challenge accepted!”

I had experience fighting against Alter-Armours with my own strength, but a Kishin was my first. Yet, it was a fight I couldn’t avoid if I wanted to stop the Hyperspace corruption. I leapt on the plate in front of me and jumped up to Kishin Saika, aiming for the empty spot where the cockpit was.

--Lightning Fire, Piercing Fist!

Upon landing, I punched Saika’s chest, above its cockpit, and followed up with a stab from my Colorado after its quick shift into the Sacred Sword. Both the Piercing Fist and the Sacred Sword landed squarely on Saika’s heart-- I hoped the shock would at least kill Princess Riznah.

To my surprise, black whips pierced out from between Saika’s outer armour, or rather, seemingly passing through them like it wasn’t there. It was the attack that nullified the Black Barrier.

--Algarb’s Black Whip!

It was an Asa magic! I kicked Saika and propelled myself away to dodge the whip. Though I might have overestimated my Black Barrier and got hit before, I wasn’t about to get hit by such a slow attack the second time.

The world seemed to spin in circles as I flipped around the air. Ugh... I’d lost too much blood from before.

I landed back on the ground and looked up. Saika was still levitating upwards, now too far away for me to attempt another attack. I could use my powers to levitate myself up, too, but that would put me on an easy path for Saika to kill me effortlessly.

“Lezirth!”

Sergeant Aroha appeared with a bike of her own-- it was a mystery where she got a bike in the mean time. I quickly jumped on the bike behind her and steadied myself by holding onto her waist.

“Are you alright, Lezirth?”

“Agh... Let’s just go!”

I had lost a lot of blood and the pain was getting worse. Embarrassingly, I couldn’t do anything about the Princess anymore.

[Don’t make me laugh! Did you believe I would let you out of here alive?! My arm! And my eyes! And Kiske! Return all of them back to me!] Princess Riznah screamed, enraged.

Damn! She was going to have a fight to the death right here!

But then,

--*Boooom!*

A huge explosion engulfed Saika and the Kishin fell down to the ground.

It was a shot from a cruiser in the space above. It seemed that Admiral Luise’s hacks had reached the ships above us.

Even the secondary armament of cruisers were capable of wiping out an entire biome from a land mass. Kishins were no less likely to take the hits too well. I could smell the thick ozone gas from the explosion from here-- It wasn’t safe to get near the blast zone.

[Gaaah! Eiredith, do something! I thought you’re supposed to be a genius?!] Princess Riznah grumbled out loud.

The girl called Eiredith angrily argued through the radio. [This has nothing to do with smarts! I can’t beat a physical hardware hacking of our Hyperspace communicators! Do you maybe see Rabbitte the Rabbit there? If you do, smash it into little pieces! There’s nothing else that could physically hack our system!]

[What the hell is that? How should I know if there’s something like that around here?!]

Thanks to Admiral Luise, once again, I gained some breathing room. I immediately fled the scene with Sergeant Aroha.

* * *

Outside of the stadium, I could see the rebel forces in complete disarray. Mayer was among them.

“You! What have you done in here?!” Mayer aimed his Colion pistol at me. I assumed that his pistol was safely disarmed through Admiral Luise’s sabotage.

“Put that thing down, Mayer. Also, give me your PDA.”

“What?”

“Give me the Alliance PDA.”

“You crazy bastard! You know I’m with the rebels, right?!” Mayer glared in suspicion.

Well, it could have looked like I was threatening one of the leading figures of the enemy to give me access to their secure lines. But right now, it wasn’t a threat-- it was a plea.

“If we don’t do something about this, all of Critik-4 is going to be corrupted by the Hyperspace. Remember the Letix? They’re also one of the Hyperspace creatures, so it’s the exact same thing as the Letix corruption. Do you remember what we needed to do any time the Letix spreads on a planet?”

“They had to wipe the entire planet with quantum torpedoes.”

“Right, when the entire planet is gone, you’re not gonna have either the Federation government or the free government to worry about. They’re going to be floating in space with the stars very soon.” I extended a hand towards Mayer.

Mayer hesitated for a short while, but soon took a PDA from one of his lackeys and gave it to me. “What a piece of crap! After all the things that the Federation had done to us... damnit!” Mayer shook his head, questioning what’s he’d just done. He had no choice but to comply, however; no matter how evil the Federation was to him, it was way worse to see his own nation meet its end.

“Just consider yourself unlucky.” I tapped Mayer on his shoulder and put the headphones in my ears.

Then, the stadium had begun crumbling down. As the Hyperspace corruption grew, the very foundation of the structure seemed to have weakened to the point where it couldn’t maintain itself.

[Run!]

[Aaaargh!]

Many panicked screams were heard over the Alliance channels. Kasik was particularly loud over the channel. [This can’t be happening! I started the rebellion for it to end like this?!]

Suddenly, within Kasik’s channel view, a fleshless arm appeared and covered up Kasik’s camera. Since the camera appeared to be on his head, the arm seemed to be coming from the center of his chest or his neck. Following gurgling, grinding sounds from his voice channel, blood splattered onto the camera. I quickly turned his channel off. Soon, Kasik’s status was displayed as KIA.

“Lezirth! Hold on tight!”

“Wait, can’t I be the one driving?” I asked, still dangling behind Sergeant Aroha. But she was too focused on driving away from the stadium as quickly as possible to care. I had no choice but to hold onto her at that speed. Sergeant Aroha’s hair shook wildly in the wind, getting in my face.

“Wah! Lezirth, watch where you put your hands!”

“But this is about as safe as it gets! I’ll move them further up if you keep complaining!”

“Try it if you dare!”

“What? How innocent do you think I am? You know, I had more ladies after me than there are stars in the entire universe!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever! Let’s go.” Sergeant Aroha giggled mockingly. She went against the road leading into the stadium. There were many other vehicles fleeing the area, buses and military machines that carried civilians and soldiers away. Sergeant Aroha expertly weaved around them to outrun them.

Sergeant Aroha probably believed that I didn’t dare move my hands around in this situation. If I distracted her, she could lose her focus and run into a truck, and probably killing us both! But that’s a problem for a common man, not for a superhuman psionic being like I am! That’s right! Time to move my hands where ever I feel like it! I’ll touch anything and everything I can!

… It came to my attention that I was probably feeling competitive in the stupidest thing imaginable, but there were just certain things that a man couldn’t back down from!

And so I raised my hold up her body!

...

… But some heavy, squishy object blocked my arms and stopped my arms’ progress. I seemed to have underestimated her and overshot the horizontal distance that my arms were allowed to move. If I could just have more room to move around the object...

“.........”

“......Uh, um... sorry, I think I took it too far.”

“Dummy.” Sergeant Aroha shot a look at me. I thought I caught a glimpse of her eyes being… moist.

But then,

*---Swooooooooh!*

The air around us began vibrating.

[This is a demand to the Federation agents!] The Alliance’s Kishin, Saika, was yelling. More specifically, it was the pilot within Saika, Princess Riznah. [Hand over Rabbitte-the-Rabbit-or-whatever to me! And cease your control over the cruisers! Free Kiske and any other Asa you have taken hostage! If you do not listen to these three demands, every living thing in the Critik system will become food for the Archdemon!]

… What happened to the propaganda tactic? They resorted to threats?!

Even as Saika spoke, the cruiser continued firing its secondary cannons at Saika. Saika defended against the bombardment by creating another force field with the six skirt-plates, forming a dome. Saika couldn’t retaliate as the cruiser was likely filled with Alliance soldiers and other Asa, and so it was forced to passively guard against the cruiser.

Princess Riznah must have been angry that we had presumably taken over the cruiser by force, keeping the Alliance soldiers and the Asa hostage. She was threatening that, if we were holding her troops hostage, then she’d be taking the entire planet hostage in turn.

“Luise wouldn’t fall for her threat, but... no, she simply can’t fall for it. Right now, the Hyperspace corruption spread so far that not even a Harakal could easily maintain control over it. That’s how unstable the Asa Black Magic is. It’s extremely destructive, but it always manages to cause problems because it’s indomitable.”

“Luise wouldn’t be fooled, but... I don’t like where this is headed.”

I held onto Sergeant Aroha, looking at the collapsing stadium in the distance. The speed of the corruption was increasing every moment.

By the Federation’s standard practice, the planet was a prime target for complete destruction via quantum torpedoes. The emerald oceans of Critik-4, its artificial coral reefs, seaside resorts, casino hotels, circuses, ski resorts three thousand meters up above sea level, everything was about to be wiped out. And all the people on it-- at least a million who belonged to the Federation alone, and billions more of natives of this planet. Though allowing the corruption to consume the planet was still a gruesome end for the inhabitants, destroying the planet with a weapon of mass destruction was just...

“...”

Then, the PDA crackled, switching itself to Federation channels.

[Lezirth!] Admiral Luise called.

[Luise! Where are you?!]

[I’m on an Alter-Gunship! I’ll be right there!]

Soon, an Alter-Armour approached us. It was called a gunship because a transport module was attached on its side, restricting it to a transport gunship.

“Alright, hold on!”

Sergeant Aroha smashed against the guard rail beside us on purpose, using the force of impact to fling us into the gunship. I used my powers to absorb the ensuing crash against the gunship’s floor and eased Sergeant Aroha’s dynamic entry.

“That was too risky!” Ensign Meihowa was sitting in the pilot’s seat, looking at Sergeant Aroha and I. Admiral Luise was controlling the cruiser with Rabbitte by her side.

The girl named Eiredith seemed to be continuing her efforts to return her control over the cruiser, but traditional long-distance hacking could only affect the communication systems at the application level. Rabbitte the Rabbit, instead, affected the entire system down to the hardware. This was possible because Rabbitte itself contained an Alter Core, its power matching a Major-level Alter-Armour. Rabbitte the Rabbit was a one-of-a-kind technology, a computer made of Letix cells.

Not even the best hacker in the universe could regain control with traditional hacking methods.

“At this rate, all of Critik-4 will be destroyed! What should we do?”

“We’re going to have Federation backup incoming, but... that’s going to make things worse, isn’t it?” Admiral Luise used her PDA to show the location of the Federation forces at the time. The Federation marines had already entered the boundaries of the Critik system through Hyperspace warp. As soon as they’d realize the planet was being consumed by the Hyperspace corruption, they could impatiently shoot a quantum torpedo to end the problem quickly.

“If you were really selected by the Black Sisters... wouldn’t it be possible?” Kiske asked, still handcuffed. He was, of course, talking to Sergeant Aroha.

“Maybe, but...” Sergeant Aroha shrugged, folding her bike for storage.

“What did he mean?” I asked.

Ensign Meihowa answered in Aroha’s place. “The reason why the Asa haven’t killed themselves off despite using the Black Magic is said to be thanks to the Black Sisters taking care of Hyperspace corruption.”

“You can ‘take care of Hyperspace corruption’?!”

So far in history, the only way humanity had dealt with the Letix or Hyperspace corruption was via purification by fire-- destroying individual cells with heat, killing it and preventing regeneration. And I heard now that wasn’t the only way.

“Pah... you want me to use an Asa’s ability, huh?” Sergeant Aroha sighed.

I was reminded of her look when she had seen her dad’s picture on a magazine. Her history with the Asa had given her a scar. Was it going to be too much for her to recollect her memory from those times?

Ensign Meihowa playfully punched Sergeant Aroha’s back. “Sorry, Aroha. We have Luise on her side, so maybe we can get through this without the Federation knowing.”

“Yeah, sure, but... phew. I’m being asked to use an Asa power after everything I said about the Asa.”

“S-sorry, Sergeant, I don’t want to make you do it, but...”

Even if she didn’t like it, she had to try it if we were to have any chance of stopping the corruption.

When Sergeant Aroha saw my grave expression, she smiled. “...I learned it when I was a little kid, so don’t expect too much out of it.” She shook her head. Still, she smiled like her usual self. “If you can do something about Kishin Saika, I’ll try. But I might make a mistake, so don’t depend too much on it, okay?”

Good. Now, what was I going to do about Kishin Saika?

The Federation communication channels reopened at that moment.

[Lezirth!]

In the channel was my roommate, Pencolt, whose weight seemed to have returned to its original state.

“Pencolt!”

[Damn! They went and did it! Our vacation’s done for!]

“That’s really sad news.” I grimaced. The vacation was over for me, too.

Pencolt was wearing an assault diving gear, standing by the entrance to the drop pods.

Behind him was an Alter-Armour, registered as Ensign Meihowa’s belonging-- Dawnbringer Minor. It was the machine that absorbed approximately five percent of the original Dawnbringer’s Alter Core, back in the battle in the Azoran system, now sitting in the drop pod with an assault gear.

[I’ll be shooting that thing unmanned to your location, so make sure you get it, yeah? The coordinates will be C-4-12500, 4800! Take it and make sure you’re alive until we get there! We’ll save you soon!] said Pencolt, sending Dawnbringer Minor out of the cruiser.

Our location was 12496, 4801. We were pretty close to the announced destination of Dawnbringer Minor.

“Lezirth! As soon as we retrieve Dawnbringer Minor, we need to defeat Kishin Saika and end the Hyperspace corruption! If we don’t... the Federation will probably decide to destroy Critik-4!” Ensign Meihowa summarized, piloting the gunship towards the destination.

“How much time do we have?”

“Dawnbringer Minor will arrive within ten minutes to the destination! But about twenty minutes after that... Federation cruisers will enter bombardment range of Critik-4!”

Thus, I had only twenty minutes to defeat Kishin Saika and stop the Hyperspace corruption.

I quickly gathered various energy gels and drinks to recover my strength and equipped myself with a combat vest from storage. Sergeant Aroha wore the same vest and a helmet to prepare herself.

“It’ll be a long run.” I pointed at the nearby mall below us. “Ensign Meihowa! Energy gels first!”

“Roger. We’ll be fighting against the Hyperspace this time... go with Sergeant Aroha.”

“...Roger.”

“And for Aroha, here.” Ensign Meihowa took a military spade that hung on a wall and handed it over to Sergeant Aroha. Sergeant Aroha looked confused, but took it without questioning. “You’ll need it, eventually.”

“Ah.... alright! Okay!” Sergeant Aroha nodded.

Ensign Meihowa pointed at me and gestured to come over. When I walked over, Ensign Meihowa whispered in my ears quietly, “Lezirth. You can’t do the weird things that you did to me to Aroha, alright?”

“....What?”

“Even if Aroha’s like that, she’s pretty pure and innocent.”

...What were Ensign Meihowa’s standards for ‘pure and innocent’? You’d probably need a long stick that you use for pole vaults to jump the hurdle needed to be impure!

“Wait, wait, what did I ever do to you?!”

Ensign Meihowa blushed at my response. “I-if you don’t recall anything, that’s fine, too, I’m sure you’ll handle it. Well, it’s not like Aroha has wings.” She lightly jabbed at my chest as she spoke.

And then, a red comet grew larger and larger in the skies.

Dawnbringer Minor was entering the planet’s atmosphere.

Now... it’s time to begin!

### 009. Part 1

The secret to better relationship is to sit in the same chair whenever possible.

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix

Please enjoy.

____________________

The landed Dawnbringer Minor still had room for just one person. Unfortunately, only specially designed Alter-Armours and Alter-Gunships allowed for double-seater or tandem configurations, and these types of land combat models usually did not. The small cockpit space was inevitable for Minion or Minor-class Armours, after all.

I had to get in the pilot seat first and Sergeant Aroha had to sit on top of me. She hesitated before taking a seat, looking around the cockpit. “Lezirth... this is what Meihowa had to co-pilot? You said 'no' when I asked if you wanted to get in the Spider APC with me!”

“Get in, quickly! There’s no time to talk about this! We only have twenty minutes to defeat Saika and cleanse the Hyperspace corruption from the area.”

“Alright, fine! Damn it!” Sergeant Aroha reluctantly sat on my lap, grumbling. I felt an enveloping pressure around my legs.

...But, wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to sit in parallel to my own direction?

Sergeant Aroha sat on my legs, facing towards me. She continued to mutter to herself, her cheeks turning rosy. “I never thought you’d be this perverted, Lezirth. I can’t believe you fought Diablo while Meihowa sat in this position for the whole fight.”

“But, uh, wait... Sergeant?”

“Hey, c-careful! You’re breathing in my face as you talk.”

I-I’m sweating all over! Sweat dropped from the bottom of my chin, flew onto Sergeant Aroha’s chest, and soon disappeared down into the valley in the middle.

Sergeant Aroha turned increasingly redder and pouted. “I swear, there’s no helping you. Well, whatever-- I understand, Lezirth.”

“No, you don’t-- ngh... s-stop it! Stop squeezing on my sides with your thighs!”

“Hold on, I’m trying to steady myself so I don’t fall off.” Sergeant Aroha answered bluntly.

I honestly did prefer to have her be this way while I piloted the vehicle. ...Piloting with her back against me was fine, too, but this had its own benefits.

But the reason I needed to pilot in tandem with another was because I needed the help. To get any help, it would have been more helpful for her to turn around.

But then, as Dawnbringer Minor stood up, the cockpit shook wildly. When the body of the Armour accelerates at great rates, ten G to twenty G, the G-cancelers should normally activate to reduce the cockpit shaking, but those systems were unavailable during the starting sequence of the Armour.

As the cockpit shook, so did Sergeant Aroha.

As her body shook, parts of her body, the ones that carried a huge portion of her total momentum back when we were on the bike, shook in accordance to the natural order (?) of physics and struck my face.

“................”

Have you ever seen some old murder mystery films, where the murderer suffocates the victim to death by pressing a pillow to the victim’s face? For some reason, the thought flashed through my mind at that moment.

I... I can’t breathe!

[What are you two doing?! We don’t have much time, so get moving!] Ensign Meihowa yelled over the communicator. The screen turned on, too, so she could see what Sergeant Aroha and I were doing... [Wh...What are you doing?!]

“Oh, Lezirth... careful with your teeth, there. I said that hurts, geez!” Sergeant Aroha giggled, unexpectedly. Oh no, she was going to end my social life forever!

“Sergeant Aroha! T-turn around already!”

“Turn around? Are you saying that you want to...”

I immediately let go of the controls and put my hands over her mouth. I had to stop her from saying anything crazy at all costs!

“Hpfh! A-alright, I get it! Don’t be so rough on me, Lezirth!”

[What are you people doing?!] Admiral Luise joined in the yelling.

Damn it, what did I do?! We wasted a minute with this already!

“Okay, Aroha! Open those energy gels and insert them into the bottom of the cockpit deck!”

“Roger!” Sergeant Aroha began her work, filling Dawnbringer Minor with energy. She leaned down to reach the bottom of the deck, and her hips...

No, shut up! I can’t afford to be distracted! It’s not the time to play around!

“Let’s go, Dawnbringer Minor!”

Dawnbringer Minor became fully operational, getting a running start. It sprinted forward, gaining momentum for a great leap in the air towards the stadium and Kishin Saika, who had been surrounded by the Hyperspace Corruption while fighting off the attacks from the cruisers above.

Kishin Saika turned its attention to us. [Fools! What do you wish to accomplish with that flimsy Armour?]

Saika flung the deadly discs from its metal skirt. Dawnbringer Minor evaded it mid-air, kicking against the disc to spin around. I could feel the huge acceleration weighing down on us, but the G-canceler mitigated any danger. I continued approaching Saika without slowing down.

[Hmph! Pretty good.]

[I’ll end this quickly since we don’t have time!]

Saika’s height was about thirty-eight meters, while Dawnbringer Minor was a mere fourteen. There was a massive size difference between the two Armours-- as we approached each other, the difference became far more noticeable.

“Are you gonna be fine, Lezirth?” Sergeant Aroha asked, probably intimidated.

But I had a past record of fighting Diablo with an even smaller Armour.

Of course, my current opponent was a far more competent pilot than Diablo’s. And I hadn’t been at my top condition after losing a lot of blood from a previous fight, where I rushed to kill Princess Riznah without knowing of her abilities, and then got punished by being forced to cut off a part of my body.

Still, I had to toughen up. Nobody wanted to see Critik-4 and its millions of inhabitants die. “Don’t worry, just believe in me! I fought Diablo with a Minion-class, remember?”

I used the momentum from jumping off of throwing discs and rolled forward. Many more skirt-bits flew towards us to cut Dawnbringer Minor into pieces, but they were too predictable to overwhelm my piloting abilities. I hopped around, disc to disc, evading the rapid assault. These kinds of barrages were difficult to evade upon a glance, but the density of the barrage actually allowed me to form a safe path through it by pushing away and causing a chain reaction of projectiles colliding against each other.

And so, Dawnbringer Minor dove straight through the metal storm and approached closer to Saika.

Kishin Saika immediately accelerated backwards.

[Aaaaaaagh!] Princess Riznah suddenly screamed. Hmm? Did I really scare her that much by managing to get close to her? [Agh! H-hold on! Time out!] She requested.

Her reaction was so sudden and strange that I froze in place for a few seconds. “What’s she saying?”

“Saika’s cockpit was ejected, right? Wasn’t she remotely controlling Saika from point-blank range?”

“Ah.” I realized what had happened thanks to Sergeant Aroha.

Cockpits that weren’t equipped with G-cancelers left the pilot’s own constitution to resist the effects of acceleration. Superhumans like me would have no problem, but Asa magic must have been too destructive and unwieldy for such utilitarian uses.

Then, this battle was already closer to victory for us. Before when I had fought Diablo, although the pilot had laughably awful maneuvers compared to Saika, it was at least extremely resilient against my attacks. This fight was very different-- although Princess Riznah was far more skilled, since Saika’s cockpit was no longer properly in place, a small amount of force on Saika could easily kill the Princess. The Kishin would be mostly unharmed, but the pilot within would be violently pulled apart as if the cockpit were a centrifugal separator.

“Huh! Then we pretty much won already!”

[Kuh!]

The fate of this match was decided in the moment she began fighting without a cockpit! Saika wasn’t even able to withstand its own speed. It felt like an empty victory, but a win’s a win!

I glared at Saika. “Surrender, if you don’t want to become a bloody mess!”

[D-don’t make me laugh! I could withstand this much, if I put in a little more effort...]

Before she finished, I kicked at Saika. It was a psionically charged kick that could connect up to a hundred meters farther than it appears to be able.

Saika shot up into the air to dodge my kick, and another scream echoed from within.

“You think fruits could avoid being crushed in a juicer if they put in a little more effort to it? Give up already! It’s terribly wasteful for a fine lady like you to go on a suicide charge like this! You should really help me with the Hyperspace corruption first--”

“Lezirth! Are you really going to let a Harakal live? The Harakal is the Asa’s pride! Even if you let her live today, she’ll come back for you as long as they live! Once you prove that you’re more skilled than a Harakal, the only thing you can do with her is kill her for good or impregnate her!”

I-- Hey, what was that just now? I thought I must have misheard her somehow. I almost thought Sergeant Aroha had spoken something incredibly unspeakable.

Ensign Meihowa joined in to urge me further. [Lezirth! Now’s the best chance you’ll ever get! Kill her now and take the Kishin for yourself! Even if it’s different from Dawnbringer, you should have an easier time finding Dawnbringer’s Alter Core with it!]

The ladies were getting restless. But I shook my head.

Was I letting her live simply because she was a lady? No, it was nothing like that this time. The Harakal had caused a Hyperspace corruption that killed many people, and she was a leader figure of my enemy. She was a war criminal who participated in kidnapping noncombatants. Yet, there was a great reason for me to let her live.

“If we take the Kishin, then our identity will definitely be discovered. I don’t like that.” I spoke into the communicator.

Suddenly, I felt something flying at me from behind. I immediately jumped away.

--*Kaboom*!

A hail of cannon fire came from the cruiser at a distance. Damn, did we lose control over it?

[Riznah! Are you okay?] The Alliance chief known as Eiredith asked Riznah.

Ah, I almost forgot that my PDA was still in Alliance channels. But how could I overhear them? When did William Mayer have the right to a general-level security? Had Admiral Luise already have a hand in this?

[Gah! I need the cockpit back! And a medical device! I have little time before the corruption overtakes me!]

I could see Princess Riznah on the channel view. Her left eye and arm had gone, filled in with some sort of Hyperspace beings. Unlike me, who had to sever the affected area to be rid of it, Princess Riznah had stopped the injury by combining with a symbiotic parasite. It couldn’t have been much safer, however.

[I’ll send a new cockpit with a Portable Medic inside it! It’ll be a special version that can’t be hacked! Do you think you can reinstall the cockpit with that guy after you?]

[To be honest... it’s going to be difficult! He’s a real monster! He mowed down Hyperspace creatures like grass with his own power, and he flew past my Skirt Bit Formation like it wasn’t even there! He must be the man who defeated Tenseron in Azoran!]

[The Federation had a pilot with that skill level? It’s not ringing any bells! If it’s not an Old Blood, or the Children of Letix, who could have such a power?]

Hm? I was indeed one of the Children of Letix, but what was the Old Blood? Maybe they were calling the True Blood as the Old Blood instead? Fanatics of the Cult of Humanism?

While they talked, an object ejected from the cruiser and began falling down. It must have been that cockpit.

“The best time to strike is going to be when they’re exchanging the cockpit, Lezirth.” Sergeant Aroha advised. Indeed, Saika was going to be completely exposed at that stage.

If we took Saika then we were in danger of making our identities known, but I had no choice. I couldn’t just let my enemy repair her biggest weakness right in front of me.

I bided my time, dodging or blocking the cruiser’s bombardment, waiting for the new cockpit to approach. Saika raised its hand and grabbed the cockpit. But, to place that in its chest, Princess Riznah had to get out first to make room. And if I attacked during that time... she was surely going to die.

I squeezed on the controls, waiting for my time. But then...

--*Crash!*

On the ground below me, where the stadium once stood and was replaced with the Hyperspace warp, a huge arm ripped through the ground and reached into the air. It was about forty meters long, appearing to be composed of a material resembling obsidian. If it were real obsidian, it would have shattered to pieces if it attempted to make any arm-like movements, and it did not.

--Gwuuaaaaaahh!!

An unseen creature below the monstrous arm cried. Then, a powerful force erupted and shook the earth. It was as if the ground was a carpet and the arm was dusting it off, clearing the earth with the magnitude of a 9.0 earthquake.

The atmosphere shook in unison. A great tornado formed in the middle, causing the snail-like beings and tentacles to be flung around in the air and get concentrated into the center of the stadium.

“Gah!” I kicked away the arm that nearly grabbed me and dodged to the side. The kick from Dawnbringer Minor could knock away a proper Kishin if it properly connected, but the monstrous arm did not seem to be fazed.

“What on earth is that?!” Sergeant Aroha screamed.

I raised my altitude to escape the black arm.

The Hyperspace creatures were being eaten. It was like a humpback whale inhaling in a group of krills-- drinking, almost, instead of eating, like a huge, huge creature would when consuming a much more insignificant creature. Even those snail creatures were great annoyances to me, so I couldn’t imagine what manner of creature would feed on them so effortlessly.

[Archdemon?!]

“Archdemon!”

Princess Riznah and Sergeant Aroha shouted simultaneously.

“It’s an emergency, Lezirth! A higher-form Hyperspace creature appeared!”

“Really? How much trouble am I in?”

“If we can’t take that thing down, then the portal is going to grow large enough to cover the entirety of Critik-4 with Hyperspace creatures! Even if I use my ability... if something like an Archdemon shows up, it’s useless! We’re already at the worst possible level of the Hyperspace corruption! Even the Black Sisters would give up on this star.”

“I have to defeat that creature to stop the Hyperspace corruption, then?” I asked, glancing to my side.

Princess Riznah was still holding onto the cockpit, watching for my next move. She couldn’t replace the cockpit with me around, since she could be killed the moment she decides to do so.

I gestured at her to go ahead.

“Lezirth!”

“I’m going to take care of this creature first! Saika comes after!”

“But the Asa hate being shown mercy by males! If you do...”

“Let’s just say I’m taunting her, alright?” I escaped the argument, focusing on my next problem.

The Archdemon had both of its arms out of the torn ground in the stadium, and it was struggling to exit the Hyperspace and into our world. The portal became larger with every movement.

“Here I am!”

--Kishin Arts! Lighting-Fire Piercing Palm!

Dawnbringer Minor enveloped its hand with an electric field, creating a trail of plasma, and struck the Archdemon with its palm. The attack landed on the Archdemon as it attempted to break through the portal. The surroundings ionized, creating arcing lightnings between the snail-creatures that have yet to be sucked into the portal.

Dawnbringer Minor landed on the ground, clear of anything other than burnt ashes of the creatures. The attack had wiped the Hyperspace corruption deep below the earth, but the tear on the ground was unaffected. The Archdemon refused to budge from there even after my punch.

--*Ka-ha!*

The Archdemon made a strange sound, almost like a sneer. Then, the scale-like coverings on the monster’s wrist stood up one by one, releasing a countless number of eye-like objects from beneath. The eyes inexplicably hovered in the air like a projected hologram, and then they began firing a burst of light in unison!

“Hmph!”

Dawnbringer Minor evaded left and right while creating a Black Barrier to defend against the attack. I remembered what had happened against the Black Whip so I didn’t solely trust the shielding to save myself.

--*Bam!*

And it was as strong as I expected! Earth around me turned to steam and the asphalt turned into liquid. The sea created a small hurricane as the water evaporated violently. Decorative trees were uprooted by the strong wind.

“Stop this madness!”

--Kishin Arts! Lightning-Fire Piercing Fist!

From a great distance, the fist made from the refined power of mind reached forth and struck the Archdemon’s arm. A pillar of fire was created in the fist’s wake from the plasmified air.

An explosion engulfed the Archdemon’s wrist, and the huge, monstrous arm slowly fell to the ground like an ancient tree being cut down. The ground shook and a dust cloud emerged when the arm finally fell.

But soon, the arm moved again.

Hmph! It was an attack powerful enough that I was almost worried if I were going to be safe, by performing that attack on ground and not in space. I had no chance of defeating this if I couldn’t bring it into space so that the subconscious of the Alter-Armour does not inhibit its power.

--*Kwooooh!*

“Huh?! What’s going on now?!” Sergeant Aroha became alarmed by the flashing panels within the cockpit. It was her first time being in here, after all.

The Armour stood strong even after I had used two powerful Kishin Arts. Of course, I couldn’t be anywhere near my original power with only five percent of Dawnbringer’s Alter-Core. My abilities were doing nothing compared to the days with the original Dawnbringer.

“The gel, Aroha! Right now!”

“R-roger!” She used the sharp edge of the military shovel from Ensign Meihowa to smash open the input port for the energy gels and squeezed the gels inside. Dawnbringer Minor returned to its strength soon.

‘Okay, good!’

The shovel had made her a lot quicker than Ensign Meihowa was. Dawnbringer Minor’s base strength was better off this time, too, so we were at a much better state than the last time.

--*Kwaaaaah!*

The Archdemon shook back and forth. The ground shook in response and the portal became bigger once more. Heat from the surroundings began vanishing into the Archdemon’s arm. Spectral analysis showed that the arm was absorbing energy, while the inside of the arm was at absolute zero temperature.

‘Absolute zero?’

The temperature itself wasn’t the issue. For my space-capable Alter-Armour, it was a temperature I could withstand. But considering the conceptual impossibility of causing anything to be lowered to absolute zero temperature, I couldn’t imagine what kind of power the Archdemon may have possessed.

“Agh!”

The arm alone easily had the strength to destroy the entire planet.

[Hey, you!] Princess Riznah called, using a public channel. Saika must have completed the cockpit replacement while I was fighting the Archdemon. [Yes, you!]

“Hey, Princess--... Huh.” I quietly watched as the screen showed the video stream of her getting her eye and her arm being replaced by the medical robot. The remote-controlled medical bot, the Portal Medic, was attaching a cyborg arm and an eye.

She completed the surgery that quickly? It must have been painful!

But the Princess only looked slightly uncomfortable, and the look of pain was nowhere on her face. She casually continued, [The Archdemon’s defensive capabilities are much like the Kishin! If you want to annihilate that creature, you can’t leave it on the ground! If we do not bring the fight to space, then the Kishins will hold back in fear of destroying a planet.]

“What of it?”

[Kishin Saika’s specialty is teleportation. I will bring the Archdemon to space. That wastes a lot of my energy, so we will need to destroy it together. Understand?]

“So we’re going to be temporary allies until we beat the Archdemon?”

[Yes! And I know that you spared my life. That is the most terrible insult to me, but... I am still thankful. But we will have a proper conclusion to our fight later!]

Sergeant Aroha scoffed in response. “She knows that she was spared and she still talks big! Lezirth, just ignore her!”

I shook my head. “Alright, fine, we’ll destroy the Archdemon first!”

Sergeant Aroha looked bewildered when I accepted the alliance. “You’ll regret it! How can you be so kind to an Asa?”

“It’s fine-- I have a plan of my own!” I reassured her, landing on the edge of the stadium area. I picked up an item for my plan-- I was ready for anything with it.

[Let’s begin!]

Kishin Saika bolted up into the skies. It looked like the old Hydrazine-fueled rockets pushing the earth back with a great force as it elevated into the air.

Saika stopped mid-air and spread its arms. Its skirt-like parts separated apart, shooting off in the areas around the stadium’s edges, encircling the Archdemon. Meanwhile, I took the monstrous arm’s attention, preventing it from reacting to Saika’s actions.

[Kishin Arts, activate! Forced Teleportation!]

As Saika cried, the parts embedded around the Archdemon emitted a light.

I quickly fled the circle. Even if I were allied with Saika, I wasn’t about to expose Dawnbringer Minor and myself to an unknown Kishin Art.

I had to admit, I had made a major mistake.

The activation of the Kishin Art had already been done when the metal circle was created. Before I knew where I was, Dawnbringer Minor and the Archdemon were moved into space.

“Damn!”

[I’ll attack from here, but don’t blame me if you get hit and die from it!] The Asa princess said cheekily. Saika was already on the ground by this time.

[Thundergod Saika can switch places between itself and any of its Skirt Bits! When the Skirt Bit Formation is formed to perform this ability, its movement is said to be discordant, hence the full name of Discordant Thundergod! You have to be careful!] Ensign Meihowa warned, but it was too late. I had to react against Saika’s preparations rather than its activation, but that chance was gone.

The Archdemon seemed to be panicking, unaware of what had just happened. It was quite a humongous creature. I thought the arm was only about forty meters, but with the Archdemon out in space, I could see that the full length was more than sixty meters. The whole body was, including the tail, maybe two hundred meters. It looked like... a deformed, giant dinosaur? Almost like the monsters from monster movies?

--Kishin Arts! Lightspeed Death Formation!

Saika raised its arms into the air and activated a Kishin Art. Earth, machineries, and various debris levitated into the air, and were soon engulfed in a sphere of light centered on Saika’s hands. The ball of light suddenly accelerated to near-lightspeed, appearing as a beam exiting the atmosphere of the planet.

Near-lightspeed objects with high density could destroy the biosphere of a planet. By colliding with the atmosphere, the object could explode from its own speed, and the resulting force could wipe the surface clean. This could happen even if the object headed towards space, rather than the ground. But thankfully, the projectile was teleported outside of the atmosphere first before being set in course towards Dawnbringer Minor and the Archdemon.

[Stop the Archdemon from dodging the projectile!]

“That ********! Hey, you ******* ********!” Sergeant Aroha began screaming words that were too embarrassing to be heard.

It was obvious that she was trying to be rid of Dawnbringer Minor as well as the Archdemon, but Princess Riznah was bold enough to ask me to control the Archdemon into getting hit!

And then, I felt a vibration, though that couldn’t have been possible in space.

The near-lightspeed projectile of debris struck the Archdemon’s body, causing a violent explosion. The extreme speed and force of the collision caused nuclear fission, causing a massive radiation. People on the surface could probably see an aurora happening in this direction.

I realized that I would die too if I idly stood around, so I prepared to dodge Saika’s attacks.

-- Dance of Discord!

The sight of the world changed its colours. Glowing points flashed in various locations around the battlefield, marking the valid travel locations with projected beacons of my mind. I had placed two hundred of these beacons. Now, I could travel to them in order!

Commence chained teleport!

Dawnbringer Minor activated its teleportation device. It teleported to predetermined locations in space, dodging the projectiles from Saika and blocking the Archdemon’s path. The Archdemon struggled to escape the bombardment even as it got repeatedly struck by attacks that could destroy a star, but I kept it down by striking it with more Piercing Fist.

All of these attacks were enough to destroy multiple planets, but the Archdemon was glancing off the blows by leaking some of the damaging force into the Hyperspace.

--Alert! Alter-Armour energy level is dropping!

--Alert! Reaction levels exceeding capacity!

Dawnbringer Minor was struggling to keep up! Sergeant Aroha cursed obnoxiously, while hurriedly shoving more energy gels into Dawnbringer Minor. It was a nice sight, seeing her lean forward in the process and exposing the curves of her back. She was also on my lap at the moment, so...

“Uh-- L--Lezirth?” Sergeant Aroha blushed and turned around to stare at me. She seemed to have a lot to say but couldn’t speak any of them.

“Ah!”

‘What a time to be distracted-- right in the crossroads between life and death!’

I continued jumping through space with the Dance of Discord and throwing punches at the Archdemon. The energy level warnings continued just as much, but I trusted Sergeant Aroha and kept on pushing Dawnbringer Minor to its limits.

The Archdemon attempted to return the favour and fired a ray of light. I did not dodge, but instead created a Blue Barrier to reflect and strike back at the Archdemon.

--*Kweeeaaaaagh!*

I heard the Archdemon scream in agony, despite my senses telling me that I couldn’t hear sounds through space.

“Take this!”

From the eyes attached on Dawnbringer’s shoulders, I used--

--Kishin Arts! Anguish of the Lion King!

A focused wave of electrical energy arced to the Archdemon. And then--

--Ascend!

Dawnbringer Minor followed the arc with the Piercing Fist! The plasma storm and the punch combined to spray and inject deadly plasma into the Archdemon’s body.

--Ascended Kishin Arts! Aurora Slash!

Following up on the last attack was a spinning kick from Dawnbringer Minor. Somehow, despite the size of Dawnbringer Minor, the Archdemon’s back exploded from the hit. The hardened flesh cracked open and spurted blood into space! The Archdemon was flung back from the force, only to be hit by another projectile and get pushed back towards Dawnbringer Minor.

--*Kwwweeeee!*

The Archdemon raised its arms, almost looking like it was surrendering. It then folded the space around it, and like a magician disappearing into his own cloak, it enveloped the fabric of space around it and... vanished completely.

“It ran away!”

[Oh!]

Sergeant Aroha and Princess Riznah exclaimed. I was just as surprised.

“Hmph. After all that, it ran away before I could kill it!”

“No, wait, that’s not what I’m surprised about! How did you manage to make an Archdemon run away?!’

[If the Black Sisters knew about this, they’d faint in shock.] Princess Riznah muttered. Before she could say anything further, Sergeant Aroha shut the communicator off.

“Why?”

“We’re out of energy gels, Lezirth!”

“Hm.”

After withstanding every ability down to the last Ascended Kishin Arts, the energy gels are all out? I nodded.

Saika had already begun its move towards Dawnbringer Minor, quietly and quickly leaving the atmosphere of Critik-4. Though the Kishin Arts must have spent a great deal of energy, it was a proper Kishin, after all.

With Critik-4 behind it, Saika stopped at a distance away from Dawnbringer Minor.

There was about ten minutes before the Federation fleet could arrive and assess the situation on Critik-4. I’d never need more than ten minutes to take down a Kishin!

### 010. Part 2

Rumour has it that there's an alternate story where Lezirth gets his genes stolen! I wonder what that involves.

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix

____________________

Princess Riznah, the pilot of Kishin Saika, requested to reopen the communication channel. Her voice resumed on the speakers after reopening the channel.

[Shall we see the conclusion of our battle, pilot of the Federation? I am the Harakal of the Asa, Princess Riznah Ereshikigal! What is your name?]

“Pilot of Dawnbringer Minor, Lezirth Dawnbringer.”

[Lezirth? Hm, a common name. I have no clue how you are managing to use Kishin Arts from such a weak model, but I assume it is already at its limits? Do you wish to surrender peacefully?]

“I refuse.”

[Unfortunate. Someone like you should have some highly desirable genes.]

“What was that, a marriage proposal?”

If it was a proposal, it was probably the world’s most casual, least acceptable proposal in history. I could almost blush after hearing such a direct request for my partnership.

[Unfortunately for you, we have no tradition for marriages like Humans do. But, once I have Kiske’s child, I could consider having yours.]

“...”

For a moment, I tried to imagine Kiske and her being together, but my mind drew a blank.

Sergeant Aroha interrupted, unable to sit quietly. “I don’t imagine someone like Kiske could have had any accomplishments to serve a Harakal. Why don’t you surrender to us instead? We have a freedom of relationships over here. Isn’t it beautiful, being able to romance anyone without barriers of social class?”

[How impudent, Umea! I...]

“Weren’t you just crying to return Kiske to you a few moments ago? It was recorded too, if you want to hear it,” I added.

Princess Riznah became bright red. [I... no, I cannot. An Asa will forever remain an Asa. But I am a Harakal!]

She... must have honestly loved Kiske, and she had to do all she could to give military decorations to Kiske. However, pushing Kiske into opportunities for earning military honours meant that he was also constantly brought to death’s doorstep. Now that Kiske was taken prisoner by us, her enemies, she must have been writhing in guilt and despair.

“If only you dropped your worthless pride as a Harakal sooner, Kiske would have never been held prisoner by us, don’t you think?” Sergeant Aroha used this to taunt her.

As she was with William Mayer, too, Sergeant Aroha sometimes had shown a surprisingly cruel side of her, and it had surfaced once again. Even after a Smart Bomb blasted off Princess Riznah’s eye and arm, she had maintained her courageous stance; and then, she was struck with great pain by immaterial, harmless words.

[Shut up! I just... no, any more words will only slow down your death, so I will end this chatter now.]

“How troublesome.” Sergeant Aroha sighed, and looked back at me. “So, do you have a plan, Lezirth?”

“Of course.”

At that time, I recalled the cockpit next to Dawnbringer Minor. It was found back at the stadium-- the cockpit that ejected off of the Alliance Alter-Armour when I drove it to the stadium, and inside was a seat full of energy gels from the Chinatown’s supermarket. I had teleported it away as soon as I had discovered it, and then I teleported it back to me for this time of need.

I grabbed the cockpit, ripped it apart, and brought the energy gels into my cockpit.

“I was wondering what your plan was, and it’s this again? What is this, some sort of dictatorship country where you get a stretch break for every thousand times that you shovel?” Sergeant Aroha sighed, unfolding the army shovel.

“If you please, Aroha.”

“Hmph... fine, Lezirth.” Sergeant Aroha leaned forward, but turned back around after a thought. “B-by the way, this pose is a little too dirty, isn’t it? If you and I were naked right now, then...”

“D-don’t say anything like that! I finally started focusing my mind elsewhere! Did you really have to remind me before a big fight?” I grumbled, moving Dawnbringer Minor.

Kishin Saika approached from the front, spreading the Skirt Bits in all directions.

[Here I come!]

“Bring it on, lovestruck girl!”

[Y-you bastard!]

Taking my bait, Saika reacted, opening its right hand. Bright, white rays of light shot from its palm. Though the attack was at lightspeed, I easily dodged it beforehand.

When in a one-on-one fight, even before the opponent begins pulling the trigger, my mind says “this is when my opponent will pull it.” When in a close-quarter battle, even as I frantically beat on the opponent’s defenses, there are moments that my mind says “this is when my opponent will begin to retaliate.” Combat Insight, I believe it was called.

Asa Princess Riznah Ereshikigal was definitely proficient at controlling a Kishin, able to use highly complex Kishin Arts that Prince Tenseron couldn’t, and she had perfectly understood the extent of her abilities.

Yet, she was no match for me.

Cleverness and experience! There was no one who could possibly match me in those qualities. I am Lezirth Dawnbringer! I am the legendary soldier who lived in the battlefield ever since the age of space began!

--Shwooo-!

The Skirt Bits reflected the rays of light, aiming for my backside. Saika’s main plan of attack appeared to be trapping Dawnbringer Minor and bombarding it with deadly beams reflecting all around by the Skirt Bits. I quickly dashed forward to escape the Skirt Bits’ encirclement.

[Kuh!]

Kishin Saika moved back. Thundergod Saika was not a melee-centric Kishin, but a controller-type Kishin designed for mid-range combat. She could not have desired to get in close range with a ground combat Alter-Armour like Dawnbringer Minor.

[Get out of here!]

A ray of light flared from Saika’s chest.

A blast of deadly light!

But Dawnbringer Minor was already in motion to dodge any attacks. Whatever couldn’t be dodged was deflected by the Black Barrier, and then it swung behind Saika.

And a powerful kick to its back!

But suddenly, Saika jumped away at an unbelievably fast speed. It had warped away in place of one of the Skirt Bits, using one of Saika’s special abilities.

--Kishin Arts! Shining Planar Emporio!

And that was not the end of it. One of the Skirt Bits shot away and accelerated to near-lightspeed, flying around erratically. In the blink of an eye, Dawnbringer Minor and Saika were both trapped within blinding lights caused within the flying Skirt Bit’s wake.

--No. For Saika, the area was now her own territory.

Dawnbringer Minor was the prey that fell into her territory!

[Here it comes, Lezirth!]

I grinned.

[Gah! That snarky attitude of yours! We’ll see how long that’ll last! Hiiiiyaaaah!]

Kishin Saika clasped its hands in front of its chest. Between its fingers, bright, luminous spots appeared. It began with one point, then ten, and then a hundred.

[Warning! High energy output detected!]

Its energy levels spiked up, prompting my pilot assistance program to begin throwing warnings.

“Waaah! L-Lezirth! What are we gonna do about that thing?!” Sergeant Aroha panicked, hugging my head in fear. I briefly went back to being smothered to death by her chest.

“Hpfh... ffh... s-stop it, Sergeant! We’re going to be fine, just fine! Ack--!”

S-something went in my mouth just now!

I quickly shoved the panicking Sergeant Aroha away. Quite so, if Saika had released all of its energy from those gatherings of light, they would ceaselessly chase down Dawnbringer Minor as they bounce in every direction by jumping off of the reflective sphere created by the Skirt Bit. Sergeant Aroha was right to be scared!

[You have no need to try and prolong your life by using some useless Kishin Art! This is the end, Lezirth!]

“Is that so?! I never lose to little lovestruck girls!”

And then, Saika disappeared.

Saika switched its place around with the near-lightspeed Skirt Bit in succession, almost appearing to move as Dawnbringer moves with the Dance of Discord, and releasing the rays of light. A shower of deadly beams approached Dawnbringer Minor for a kill from every direction.

However--

--Kishin Arts! Dark Spiral! Palm of Seven Chains!

Dawnbringer Minor struck with the Dark Spiral in a full circle, seven times. Reviving the old black holes that were once created by Dawnbringer in the past, linked together with the Ergosphere, the Dark Spirals twisted the space to grip onto the bombardment of beams.

Dawnbringer Minor hopped back and approached the encircling ring of light. It pulled out the ground combat blade in preparation.

Though I used the Dance of Discord myself, such an ability was an extremely difficult thing for me to control. Then, Thundergod Saika’s Shining Planar Emporio must have been difficult for it to control, too!

With that prediction, I quantized the blade to transform it into a great sword of light.

Saika was afraid of my approach, so it had scattered the Skirt Bits to erratically move itself away from my attacks. If anyone were to try to shoot or cut it down, then they couldn’t even scratch the edge of its armour. That was the true meaning behind the name of Discordant Thundergod!

But what if I were to try this?

I raised the Sacred Sword and stabbed into the shimmering, twisting light. Eventually, Saika’s pilot would throw the armour into the blade on her own, unable to consciously control its movement accurately.

And, of course!

[Kyaaaagh!]

Princess Riznah screamed. Even if Saika could control the quantum field, it wasn’t easy for it to control its movement in near-lightspeed!

The Shining Planar Emporio was stopped, and Saika appeared at a distance very far away from Dawnbringer Minor. Even as the special technique got broken, she was careful to put her a distance away from the melee-specialized Armour. How very practiced.

I gripped onto the Sacred Sword and spun around.

--Sacred Sword! Void Slash!

Dawnbringer Minor slashed upon the beams of light, held from escaping by the Dark Spiral. As the Dark Spiral shattered, the lights bounced away from the Dark Spiral at lightspeed. At the end of the beams was Saika.

[Kuh!]

The Skirt Bit created a defensive formation around Saika. The beams struck against the shielding and exploded, and then exploded again. Even in the soundless space, I could feel the shockwaves and energy radiating, giving a very dramatic feel of a silent film.

At the same time, Dawnbringer Minor was blinking on and off. It had the looks of a student in a lazy afternoon, dozing off in the middle of a class after a big lunch. Dawnbringer Minor had been pushed to its limit!

“Lezirth! We’re out of energy gels!”

As expected, the shovel had made the gel feeding extremely quick. Thanks to that, Dawnbringer Minor was able to use all manner of high-intensity techniques, but was it really it? I had hoped that the Void Slash would have been the end of Saika...

But there was no way that a Kishin would fold that easily.

[Argh! What are you, a monster?!]

Despite the heavy damage done by the Void Slash, Saika was still fully operational. It was the difference between a proper Kishin and a Minor-class. Even after such a one-sided beating, my side was dangerously close to depleting all energy, and the Kishin was making a quick recovery from all damages. Saika was at the height of its rage and fear, retaliating back immediately. Even as Dawnbringer Minor was becoming unoperational!

“Tsk.”

I jumped out of Dawnbringer Minor, teleporting in front of Saika’s chest-- the cockpit. Jumping through the Hyperspace and into complete vacuum with my unprotected body made my insides cry, but I endured it, swinging Colorado and slicing Saika’s cockpit. Colorado quantized, cutting inside the cockpit and splattering the seat with blood.

[Gah!] Prinzess Riznah cried.

I had aimed for her arm-- the one that was mostly intact. Saika normally would have been able to protect its pilot from even the Sacred Sword, but my repeated strikes must have caused lasting damage.

[Aaaaaargh!]

Saika suddenly became inoperational. Princess Riznah could operate Saika remotely, but as long as she was within the cockpit, she had to have been manually piloting. As her remaining arm was cut, Saika had briefly lost control.

I shoved Colorado inside the cockpit, placing it under Princess Riznah’s chin. As she grabbed at her wound, I phase shifted through the cockpit glass to enter inside.

“Haah... haah...” Princess Riznah hugged onto her cut arm and glared at me. Her eyes were full of hostility, but she also bore the expression of admiration.

“You could kill me from the outside, had you wanted to... why have you come inside? Are you intending to hold me prisoner? Or... perhaps?” She rolled up her body, eyeing me. She was trying to hide her body away, but her breasts were looking like they were about to burst out of her tight pilot suit.

“Is this your arm?” I held the dismembered arm up. It was so cleanly cut by the Sacred Sword, that a Portable Medic could reattach it right back with a quick operation. The real problem was whether or not her body could take any more operations...

I used telekinesis to gather up the splattered blood around the cockpit, injecting it back down her wounds, so that she wouldn’t suffer from blood loss. “Use that Medic to put it back on. And, also...” I deactivated the quantized sword and used Colorado’s edge to wound my arm. Blood dripped out, combining with her blood.

With medical nanomachines in my blood, I could transfuse to anybody else. On top of that, my blood repaired the oxidization that occurred in her blood during its time splattering around the cockpit. She could survive the surgery just fine.

“What... are you doing? Are you pitying me?”

“No, let’s call it appeasement. I might have to stay on friendly terms with the Alliance in the future.” I answered, putting the cut arm against her wound. The Portable Medic began reattaching the arm to her body.

I produced the first aid kit from below the pilot seat and handed over antibiotics and painkillers to her. She stared at me like a distrusting wild animal for a moment, but Princess Riznah soon took the medicines and swallowed them down.

“Make your return soon. We’ve run out of time. The Federation fleet will be here.”

“What about Kiske?”

“I’ll return him to you without a single scratch. It’ll be difficult to do that now.”

There really was no time. The Federation fleet was within the Critik system, and they were soon going to be in communication range with Critik-4. At that point, I could make no excuses about the happenings here.

Princess Riznah looked a little better, probably because of the painkiller. I had noticed now that her eyes were a bluish-gray.

“Why are you leaving me alive? Am I not a war criminal from your side’s perspective? And would it not come with a great reward to capture Saika and I?”

“Do I have any duty to answer that?” I shook my head. Even if I told the full truth, this girl wouldn’t understand any of it. So, I backed away. “I’ll be off, then.”

I shifted out of Saika to return to Dawnbringer Minor. As I made my return, Sergeant Aroha was sitting in the pilot’s seat in my place, glancing at me with crossed arms.

“Hmm? What’s happening, Sergeant?”

“Hm. Lezirth, your... clothes smell like some other woman!” She dug into my chest with her face, grumbling.

I grinned. “You also smell blood and medicine, right?”

Then, Sergeant Aroha put her arms around my waist. As she quietly pressed her body against mine, I gently combed down her hair.

“It’s my turn now, right?” Sergeant Aroha looked back at Critik-4. The spreading corruption from the center of the stadium was impossible to see from simple radar. And a camera zooming into the stadium saw... the cracks growing larger and larger.

“Yep. Anytime you want, Sergeant.”

“I really don’t want to be using the power of the Asa...”

As she grew up, she never received her family’s love and became confused by her identity, denying her existence as an Asa. She was, however, needed to end the situation in Critik.

I held both of her hands, and Sergeant Aroha looked up.

“But... Lezirth will protect me, right?”

“That’s right, Aroha. You can do it.”

Those were the only words I could say.

* * *

I brought Dawnbringer Minor into the atmosphere of Critik-4. Behind me was Saika, attempting to teleport away with the captured cruiser.

She was still taking the cruiser after all that?! But it wasn’t the time to get caught up on that. The Hyperspace corruption had to be taken care of before the Federation fleet’s arrival.

“Dammit! It’s always the same: a Harakal starting crap, and a Black Sister cleaning up the mess that’s left behind! Lezirth! The start of the cataclysm! Fly me to the stadium!”

“Right!”

Thankfully, there were no more eldritch beings appearing from the cracks. Thanks to the Archdemon consuming a huge number of the Hyperspace creatures, there weren’t too many left over. It was a good thing to remove the Archdemon after all.

[Lezirth! Are you okay?! You only have thirty seconds!]

[That’s just the time needed for the Federation fleet to get into viewing range! We’ll have a bit more time for them to detect the Hyperspace corruption in the area! Should I try to slow the fleet down?]

“Yes, please, Luise! Just a little more time!” I shouted, standing in the middle of the stadium. Sergeant Aroha walked out of the cockpit and into the warped world, standing on the palm of Dawnbringer Minor.

“I only did this once when I was young, so I have no idea how well this is going to work.”

She inspected the stadium-- what used to be the stadium, and raised her arms towards the cracks. And then she began singing.

It was a foreign song that I couldn’t understand.

It was a very solemn, yet beautiful song.

I couldn’t believe that she was the same girl who’d joke around most of the time. As she sung, her body began glowing as silver tattoos appeared all over her body.

The Black Sisters of Asa, they called them. Would it not have been more appropriate to call them the Silver Sisters?

With that thought, the world began changing.

--Swoooooo--!

The air resonated around us.

And suddenly, a black circle appeared on Sergeant Aroha’s hand.

It was the source of the cataclysm! Even though I had no way of knowing that, I somehow felt it to be true. The ominous feeling and power that crept out of the circle was the same as the atmosphere around the stadium.

“Kyaah!”

At that moment, Sergeant Aroha screamed in pain..

“No!” I jumped out of the cockpit. “Are you okay?! Sergeant?!”

“Lezirth?! What about Dawnbringer Minor?”

“I can control it remotely too! That’s not important! What happened to you?!”

“...Heh heh. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this, so it’s not working out so well. It’s my first time trying it with something this big, and I guess it’s too tough starting with a big one right away.”

“...What?” I was at a loss for words. “So it’s hurting you?”

“... ...That was a joke, Lezirth.”

“No, I... just don’t know how to react to such a pan-dimensional sexual harassment.”

She collected herself and resumed her singing. The dark crack crept up her wrist, and climbed up her arm.

I looked at Sergeant Aroha. She was sweating profusely. She was obviously in huge pain, but she held her ground and continued her song.

[The Federation fleet arrived in the Critik system! I’m going to create an artificial storm over the area, so don’t be surprised if it gets cloudy!] Ensign Meihowa warned. As she announced, it began raining quite soon.

The Archdemon had previously flash-frozen the atmosphere around the stadium, so the area was covered with rain clouds. So the plan was to cover the planet with rain clouds to prevent visual inspections?

The black ring had almost reached Sergeant Aroha’s shoulders. She raised that arm. Her sweat was now replaced with the raindrops, but I could still see that she was in great pain.

She was definitely putting her life at risk.

Stupid...

I should have realized before with a little more thought. It wasn’t normal for a single person to stop a Hyperspace corruption on a planet’s scale. Why did Sergeant Aroha accept such a task so quickly?

If I had realized that this task would have put her life to a test, I wouldn’t have been quick to ask her to do this in the first place. Right. Even if I knew that her life was at stake, this action could save millions of lives, so I still may have asked her to perform this. Still... I couldn’t help but feel powerless.

Sergeant Aroha gestured at me.

I approached behind her.

Her father was taken by the Asa, and she herself was appreciated by neither the Federation nor the Alliance due to her half-Asa identity.

And she was still singing out of a sense of duty and the goodness of her heart.

I watched over her, afraid of her falling down after spending her energy.

‘I promised that I’d protect her... and I can’t do anything but watch her in silence.’

I would be glad to endure the harm in her place, but only the Black Sister of the Asa could accomplish this task.

And finally... the black ring escaped Sergeant Aroha’s hand. She stopped her singing, and slowly collapsed down. I quickly supported her in surprise, hugging her.

She had such a womanly body, and there was not a single part of her that wasn’t attractive that I could lay my hands upon. But my desires were quelled by an even stronger feeling of guilt.

“You really did your best, Sergeant.”

“Yep. I put in my hundred percent this time, Lezirth.”

Rainfall blanketed the earth. I picked the Sergeant up, and looked at the ground through the rain. The cracks around the stadium were disappearing, and the demolished city reappeared. The ruined stadium and the parking lot aside, the place was returning back to normal.

“Heh... I still got it after all this time. Damn, I’m... good...”

“Hey! Sergeant?!”

[The corruption is cleansed! You’re pushing it now, Lezirth! Get back in Dawnbringer Minor!]

[Tell them Sergeant Aroha piloted it! Hurry! Fly above the atmosphere!]

Listening to Admiral Luise and Ensign Meihowa, I walked back inside the cockpit of Dawnbringer Minor with Sergeant Aroha in my arms. She was limp without strength and nearly rested on my body.

“Are you okay, Sergeant?”

“Mmh. I’m... as fine as ever.” Sergeant Aroha resumed sitting on my knees. I had to report this situation as Sergeant Aroha having been the pilot of Dawnbringer Minor, but she was too tired for that to be convincing. How was I supposed to ride Dawnbringer Minor?

But when Sergeant Aroha took over the controls for Dawnbringer Minor... it stabilized its energy levels.

‘Huh? She’s still pretty good, even in this state!’

I had worried that the synchronization level might be low with Sergeant, but she was as good as any other high-ranking officer. In retrospect, she was an elite among elites within the Asa. Her decision making skills and abilities were way above average.

“Are you really okay, Sergeant?”

“Yeah. Phew, our vacation’s over just like that, huh?” Sergeant Aroha rested her head on me. I let her use my shoulder as her pillow and smiled.

“It was fun, though.”

“Yeah, it was.” Sergeant Aroha caressed my face gently.

I spaced out as rainclouds dispersed. The sun was burning bright red as it sunk down the Southern horizon. Above the red sky were the Federation cruisers and destroyers entering the planet’s atmosphere. Sergeant Aroha noticed them, waving Dawnbringer Minor’s hands to signal to them.

It was... very close. If we were even slightly late, Sergeant Aroha’s identity would have been revealed, and she might have been forced to clean corrupted planets like some vacuum cleaner. Even later, and this entire planet may have been burned down by a storm of quantum torpedoes.

I guess, even though Sergeant Aroha got extra weight on her shoulders, everything worked out pretty well.

I blankly stared at the beautiful dusk in the horizon, and nodded.

Yep, everything worked out pretty well.

### 011. Part 1

It's the end of a book! What kind of adventures will Lezirth and his crew get into next? What new things will we learn about how Lezirth came to be? How long will Narane take to translate it?! See for yourself in the next twenty years to find out!

Translator: Narane

Editors:

MadTix

____________________

[The coup at Critik had ended with the Alliance, after their promise to back the operation, massacring the population. The leader of the rebellion, Kasik, was killed. Kasik’s mentor William Mayer was arrested by the Federation police on the charge of creating dissent among the population.]

The television displayed the news.

I turned off my PDA and looked out the window. On the other side of the observation deck of the cruiser’s lobby was the sun setting on Critik-4.

Or, I guess, the sun’s coming up on the other side of the horizon, while the sun’s setting on this side.

There had been a lot of happenings in the short time that we were here.

I smiled bitterly as I looked upon the surface of Critik-4 from the observation windows. Sergeant Aroha was watching with me, though while receiving a glucose drip to recover from overexertion. And I was receiving an IV drip myself from the massive blood loss that I had suffered earlier.

It was almost funny how we looked, being a slave to the IV pole together.

“Aroha, this is the planet that you saved. You should feel proud for that.”

Ensign Meihowa handed her a cup of coffee. She handed me a cup, too, and smiled.

“Is that so? Then, can I get back down to the surface and take everything from the big name brand shops?”

“I would like to do that myself, but neither of us will likely get to use any of them for a while.”

The battle in the Oden system had grown worse, so we were going to be back in the heart of the war. While we were on vacation, the Federation army operations had relocated Ensign Meihowa to a different place.

The Thirteenth Special Forces Brigade.

It was a new group created by the survivors of Oden and the Kishin Ladyhawk.

The “special forces” name alone sounded fancy, but in reality, it represented the will of the Command to put us through whatever difficult task they need solving at the moment. That is, it was the brigade to throw into any dangerous battle!

“And now, we’re joining that brigade.” Admiral Luise said, Rabbitte in her arms. If she had wanted, then we may have all been transferred to a different platoon, but she must have not done so. I never thought about escaping the heat of battle, regardless.

And beside her was a silver-blonde girl, tracing her footsteps without daring to catch anyone’s eye along the way. She was wearing a man’s uniform, but... wait, hold on. Isn’t that Kiske?

His eyes were darting around the room like a scared animal’s, shivering in his unfitting uniform. Understandably, he was in the middle of the enemy’s army, so he was right to be scared. And even though he was wearing the smallest size of the uniform, his sleeves were still too long and flapped around as he moved.

“He’s Kiske Risner. Private. He’s in our brigade from now on.”

Kiske became distressed at Admiral Luise’s introduction. “No, wait, I...!”

“If you don’t like it, do you want to go to the army prison instead?”

Kiske shook violently as Admiral Luise asked. Of course, a lot of bad things were bound to happen if you put a guy who looked like that into prison.

I shrugged and sighed. “Princess Riznah will be after us as long as she lives if we have him around. Are we just going to return him when she finds us?”

“Yes! U-until then, I’ll cooperate with you people! But I’ll never lend my hand to killing another Asa!” Kiske shouted, confidently.

I sighed at her-- I mean, him. “When am I ever going to need your help?”

“I-- uh... nngh.” Kiske held his fists in frustration. But it was the truth-- according to Sergeant Aroha, an Asa, the male Asas couldn’t use the traditional magic, and their only ability was of the dirty kind.

And to think I’ll ever need that help...

Hm.

No, absolutely not! I’ll have none of that!

And as I thought to myself, Private Pencolt entered the break room. The short vacation had put back fat on his body, returning him to his old looks.

“Hey~ Lezirth! You got what you deserved after trying to spend a vacation with great girls! Hehehe.”

“Didn’t you get your own vacation canceled, too?”

“I’m sad too, but I can’t stand watching you building a harem for yourself, yeah?”

“I’m not building a harem for myself!” I explained, but watching Pencolt laugh had made me laugh just as hard. It was terrible-- I was in serious trouble if I felt glad in any way for seeing him again. “So, did you get placed into the Special Forces too?”

“Yep.”

“Then, you’re passing by Critik base before getting passed off into the Special Forces? Then we’ll have a little time, right?”

I tried to recall the time.

But Pencolt was looking at me like I was insane. “But this is the Special Forces.”

“Huh?”

“This cruiser is the Thirteenth Special Forces Brigade’s main base and the command center.”

“... ... ...”

We were returning to the battlefield without a moment’s rest? I could already feel the tough times ahead of us.

I mean, as Lezirth Dawnbringer, I had always lived this kind of life, but I couldn’t adapt after having an actual moment of relaxation as a Private. “So, we’re... going straight back into the war?”

“Yep. Well, we don’t have any orders yet, so we can rest now. Oh, and we got a new roommate that I haven’t met before.”

“Hmm?” I became curious. “Are we roommates in here, too?”

“Yeah, got any problem?”

“No, but I’m not under watch anymore! And you still are.” Was my effort in the Azoran system not enough?

Pencolt scoffed. “What a joke! That’s what I should say to you! Anyway, our room’s down in the corner, so we’re the only room with three sharing while everyone else gets four. And, mmh... let’s see. The new guy is Kiske Risner, I hear. Do you know anything about this guy?” Pencolt spoke into the PDA.

I turned my attention to Kiske in shock. Kiske is my roommate?!

“I had no choice if we’re keeping him around close.” Admiral Luise nodded.

Kiske bowed down to greet Pencolt. “I am Kiske Risner. Pleased to meet you.”

Wait, this can’t be good. Kiske is too pretty-looking, and with Pencolt as a roommate...?

It-it wasn’t going to end in a disaster, right?

Already, Pencolt was giving a full inspection on Kiske with his sharp eyes. “Hmm? Wait a minute!”

“Kyaa!”

Pencolt suddenly felt around Kiske’s body.

Though everyone else knew Kiske was also a guy, I jumped up at how criminal the scene looked. “What are you doing?!”

“I knew it, he’s a guy!” Pencolt shook his hands and wiped them on a wet paper towel. “No matter how pretty you are, I’m not interested in another guy!”

Pencolt left with those words, grumbling all the way back to his room.

Kiske was sobbing in the aftermath of the sudden harassment, but Pencolt refused to even throw him another glance as he walked back.

...It was a terrible sight.

Pencolt, at that moment, appeared like the boldest man I’d ever seen.

“Ugh. We’ve got nothing but bad news ahead of us.” Ensign Meihowa brushed her hair back tiredly, imagining the dark days ahead.