Stand Against the Mobile Fortress Golgotha
Today was a dessert tour with Earl Grey.
It was a shop I visited after struggling until 3 AM, looking up places and planning the route just for her, who had never been able to eat something sweet to her heart's content in her entire life. Earl Grey agonized over the menu for thirty minutes.
What she chose was a pink strawberry cake topped with white cream. I was incredibly tired and sleepy, but seeing Earl Grey so happy made all that trouble feel rewarded.
Earl Grey's eyes sparkled as she took picture after picture with her phone. The decorations on her phone were quite pretty and cute, making her look just like a girl of her age. How many people would be able to see this side of her? How many could see Earl Grey as a woman, not as a Saint?
"Are you looking forward to it that much?"
"Of course! Because it's the specialty of the shop that Evan-nim picked out so carefully for me yesterday, hehehe."
So she had been watching all that effort.
What do I do? I think I'm going to die from Earl Grey before I die from Logos.
From a heart attack.
Death confirmed.
No, no, not yet. I'll at least see her date, even if I can't see her get married.
Earl Grey's fork was just about to touch the cake. That was when the shop door opened, and armed knights filed in. The customers' chatter cut off abruptly. The clerk froze, holding the order pad.
"Friend. Sorry, but."
Jack Daniel shrugged his shoulders from among the knights.
"Captain Maclellan is calling for us."
Earl Grey looked at the cake with regretful eyes, then at me. The strawberry cake I had picked out so diligently remained on the plate, untouched.
"...Shall I ask them to pack it? I'll go tell them."
I stood up from my seat. Honestly, I wanted to ignore the knights and continue having a happy time with Earl Grey.
But I couldn't do that. The Order of Knights had come to fetch us while armed. I wasn't such a fool that I didn't know what that meant.
A new battlefield was waiting for us.
Order of Knights Headquarters, Operations Room.
Maclellan was a large man with a whiskey-colored beard.
Chief of Capital Defense.
The strongest in the Southern Cross.
He opened his mouth in front of the war map.
"You all know the war situation is bad."
Of course I did. A month before I arrived in this world, a large-scale battle had already broken out across the Southern Cross. The capital, Nova Crux, was raided, the main fleet evaporated, and a power vacuum was created in the middle of the Pacific. Kyungdanryeon was filling that vacuum at the speed of light.
"The mobile carrier strike groups from Africa and Ceylon have departed, but it will take time. In the meantime, the holy land, Luzon Island, has been taken. The fortress cities on the Malay Peninsula surrendered after a desperate fight. Sumatra is waging guerrilla warfare in the mountains, but it's not enough."
The red markers on the war map increased one by one.
These were the reports of the fall that had passed by in a few lines of text in the game. Now, I felt like I knew how many hundreds of thousands of people had died under each place name as it was painted red.
The core routes of the Southern Cross, which had held out for thousands of years, were being taken over in real-time.
"From the 1st Saint Faction to the 6th Saint Faction, all elites have been deployed to the Borneo and Luzon offensive. The Southern Cross's direct Advents have left for an expedition to the Southern Islands. I am unable to move because of the capital defense."
"However."
Maclellan's finger pointed to a spot on the war map.
"In this situation, Kyungdanryeon is using their superior air power to strike at the gateway of the Coral Sea."
"The target is Timor Island."
The air in the operations room sank.
Timor.
The last gateway to the heart of the Southern Cross, which has its base in Australia.
If that is breached, the Southern Cross is effectively a fallen nation.
"Enemy strength?"
At my question, Maclellan was silent for a moment.
"7 Advents. And 2 air-sea general-purpose mobile fortresses, Golgotha."
"One Golgotha headed east without Advent escorts, and the other is moving west while being escorted by Advents."
Golgotha.
A moving fortress. A hull the size of a city that traverses the sky and sea, putting everything beyond the horizon in range with the batteries lined up on its upper deck. A technological Tower of Babel created by humanity to reach God/Advent.
It was probably the most powerful weapon on the ground, excluding Advents.
Jack let out a dry laugh.
"It's insane no matter how I think about it. Golgotha is something you use to catch a rank 20 Apostle. Two of those, and seven Advents?"
Earl Grey raised her hand and stood up.
"What about our allied strength?"
"There is Earl Grey, an artisan of the 7th Saint Faction, Jack Daniel, and reserve Apostles. The total number of reserve Apostles is five."
Now that I looked, I saw a total of 10 Apostles and Saints sitting next to Jack and us. The atmosphere was so green that I hadn't even thought they were people who rode Advents.
Earl Grey's complexion changed. Against Golgotha and Advents, reserve forces were merely a nuisance.
"...Isn't this basically telling us to go buy time and die?"
Earl Grey said.
"It is an order to die."
Maclellan did not deny it.
"But if you don't go out and fight now, the country will fall. I'm sorry, but we have no other way."
The young Apostles in the room clenched their fists. No one could open their mouth. I stared at the war map. It was just like the original story. Around this time, the Battle of Timor takes place, and the Southern Cross's forces are thoroughly ground down.
"What is Timor's defensive capability?"
"It's quite sturdy. If conventional weapons are the opponent, that is. But if seven Advents and two Golgothas pound it, it can't hold out."
"How long do we have?"
"Right now. In 30 hours, they will reach Timor."
Jack scratched his chin.
"I've caught a Golgotha from Europa before. I don't know much about the Kyungdanryeon spec, though..."
I recalled Kyungdanryeon's Golgotha.
That magnificent figure.
The firepower that shatters even Advents, which guarantee absolute protection with their Sanctuary Fields, with a few barrages.
But there was a clear weakness there.
"Kyungdanryeon's Golgotha has a weak point at the bottom."
I took over the conversation.
"Since all the batteries are concentrated on the upper part of the airframe, if you avoid the wings of slow light and destroy only the conventional weapons stored in the lower part, you can win even alone."
Jack admired.
"Apostle Raven, you really were something."
"Evan."
Earl Grey turned to look at me.
"Golgotha is a weapon made to catch Advents. And knowledge is different from actual combat. They said Kyungdanryeon's Golgotha can also operate Afterglow Weapons. If you get hurt..."
Her voice trailed off. If you get hurt. She couldn't bring herself to say the words that would follow.
"I can definitely take it down."
'Unless you're driving while drunk, Golgotha isn't a threatening opponent to a skilled user.'
...I swallowed that sentence. It was useless talk.
"Oh my. Since you're this confident, Saint-nim, why don't you trust him too? If so, you take the East, where there are no Advents. I'll take the West."
Jack interjected slyly. I nodded.
"You seem confident too."
Maclellan grinned.
Then Jack gave a bitter smile.
"If you give me a ridiculously strong sniper rifle? Since I know the weak point, I think I could take one down with a sniper shot."
"Probably after that, you'll be trampled and killed by the escort Advents, so you need an escort to block them..."
"Don't act high and mighty when you don't even have a Covenant!"
A young Apostle snapped.
"Do you both even know how dangerous it is to face Golgotha!"
"Kid."
Jack replied, yawning.
"This old man has been through a lot more than you? I know better than anyone whether it's possible or not."
"You bastard..."
"That's enough."
Maclellan raised his hand. And he looked straight at Jack.
"Jack. But you know that if you form a Covenant, all these problems disappear, right?"
Maclellan was right. If he formed a Covenant, he wouldn't die helplessly. But forming a Covenant wasn't as easy as it sounded.
"That talk again. I refuse—"
And that guy didn't seem to have any intention of forming a Covenant. But Maclellan was firm.
"This time, it's not a request. You are riding an Advent with Ori... Origin Ridgeway."
The operations room went quiet.
The slyness was erased from Jack's face.
"You're putting that child, who hasn't even formed a Covenant, in an Advent? Captain. Are you insane?"
"The permission from the Ridgeway family of the 3rd Saint Faction has been granted."
"You, are you even human?"
Jack's voice lowered.
"To use that child as a meat shield. That child is..."
"Origin Ridgeway."
Earl Grey muttered quietly.
"The... illegitimate daughter of the prestigious Ridgeway family, who leads the 3rd Saint Faction."
I see. So she's a political tool.
"Saints are originally like that."
There was no emotion in Maclellan's voice.
"A life lived to be sacrificed. Changing that life is not our concern. All we Apostles can do is stay with them until the end."
"You..."
"Why. Then are you going to keep sitting there?"
Maclellan stepped forward.
"Leaving aside the fact that you won't form a Covenant, are you going to remain a loser who couldn't protect his Saint? This time, you can prove it. That you aren't that kind of person."
A loser who couldn't protect his Saint.
At those words, a vein popped on Jack's temple. His fist trembled. The Achilles' heel; Maclellan had touched the Achilles' heel. However, looking at Maclellan's expression, I could tell. Maclellan had deliberately poked at a spot that shouldn't be touched carelessly.
Jack gritted his teeth and barely chose his words.
"...How am I supposed to keep Ori alive."
"I'm a sniper. A sniper is finished once their position is discovered. Can these recruits handle the suppression of 7 Advents?"
"Acting all high and mighty when you can't even form a Covenant... what are you saying?"
The young Apostles sneered. Jack didn't even look their way.
"...Well, I thought you would say that."
Maclellan nodded.
"No matter what, in the end, surviving is your job."
Jack's expression darkened.
"Ha... Should I make Ori-yang run away halfway through."
"That is not permitted for a Saint."
Earl Grey shook her head.
"Because running away is like the death of the soul. That child will not run away."
Come to think of it, Earl Grey, who was saying this right now, was a woman who was calm in the face of death.
"...One person."
Jack said.
"Find me someone skilled to disrupt the enemy Advents."
Maclellan smiled and nodded.
"Yes. I knew you'd say that, so I've already found one person."
"Who is it. Is it a skilled person from the Southern Cross?"
"No. It's a mercenary."
"...What?"
Jack's face turned sour. The next moment, he grabbed Maclellan by the collar.
"You want me to trust a mercenary nobody whose skills and reliability haven't been verified as Ori's escort?"
"Aren't you a mercenary too?"
When I pointed that out, Jack shouted.
"That's why I opposed putting Ori in my machine from the start!"
"The Apostles are already all drafted... so I hired him with my own money, just let it slide."
The large captain, held by the collar, broke into a cold sweat.
"You don't have to worry."
An unfamiliar voice cut through the operations room.
"Oh. You've come."
At the door,
A young man was standing there.
Beautiful features that seemed to be a mix of Western and Eastern beauty. Pale hair and skin, and artificial red eyes were impressive.
There were no footsteps. Up to the door of the operations room, guarded by armed knights, no one had noticed him coming. I couldn't forget that face. Because he was a character I had piloted directly from behind the screen.
"My name is Mokjul. That is all. In this request, I am tasked with disrupting the movements of the Kyungdanryeon Advents."
Jack flinched.
A mercenary who had been through all sorts of battles reacted to the pressure of a single young man who had just appeared. It was a reaction like a mouse full of vitality in a field meeting a lab mouse that had just escaped from a laboratory.
"Come to think of it."
Mokjul's gaze was fixed on me.
"You next to the escort target."
"Huh? Uh..."
"They say you are the one who repelled the Kyungdanryeon Advents and killed that Cheonrang."
"Uh... that's right."
"Evan? Is something wrong?"
Earl Grey tugged at my sleeve.
"It's rude to someone who is being so friendly..."
I scratched my head and said to him.
"Sorry. I've had a lot on my mind lately."
"Hmph. It's fine as long as you don't lose focus on the battlefield."
Mokjul reached out his hand. I took that hand. His body temperature was low, just like touching an ice sheet.
I couldn't help but be flustered. First of all, the Golgotha repulsion battle itself is the canon route. So I had secretly expected it to come someday.
But if there was a difference from the canon, it was two things.
The participation of Jack and that mercenary.
I was especially concerned about that mercenary.
The protagonist of the Kyungdanryeon route. The only pilot among the 6 protagonists without a Saint. A human born in a lab and raised in a lab. The Mokjul of Kyungdanryeon.
That Mokjul has a unique True Ending. He takes revenge on Kyungdanryeon, which used him as a lab mouse, and eventually physically incinerates the world with those flames.
The culprit of the so-called Massacre Ending.
Mokjul
That man was now holding my hand, looking at me, and smiling.