The Lady Who Flies Planes
—BOOOOM!!!
"Kyaaaaah!!!"
"Fire! Pour it on them!"
"Supporting fire on the southern line! They're coming again!"
A battlefield reeking of gunpowder and blood.
Abysses without end formed a black tide, surging forward in waves, while hunters threw everything they had at them — guns blazing, shells screaming, blades swinging. This was the Korean military's frontmost defensive line.
The Hamhung front.
Every second here was a blood-soaked struggle, a scale of combat utterly different from anything Dreamouth had ever handled on contract.
"Damn it! When's the air support getting here?"
"Just a little longer… just a little—ah, there!"
—WHOOOOSH!!!!
A formation of aircraft cut across the open sky. Laden with bombs, they began dumping their payloads in a torrent over the Abyss advance.
—BOOOOM!!!
The bombers swept the battlefield, shaking the earth itself. Wherever the formation passed, the ground became a sea of fire, and the Abysses beneath were reduced to ash in an instant.
Having bought the hunters a precious breath of relief, the bombers banked and turned for home.
But the end for those aircraft that had just annihilated an entire wave of Abysses was far from kind.
—Kyaaaaah!!
In the next instant, small Abysses launched from the ground like living artillery shells. They shot upward at speeds almost too fast for the eye to follow and slammed their bodies straight into the bombers.
And then—
—CRACK! BOOOOM!
The Abysses' ramming charges punched clean through even specialized alloy plating, and the bombers began to fall. The pilots threw their craft into evasive maneuvers, desperate to cut their losses, but the Abysses' anti-air fire operated on a level far beyond anything humanity normally faced.
Of the bombers that had sortied, fewer than half made it home. The rest crashed down among the Abysses and were destroyed.
True, no Abysses capable of flight had ever been discovered. Even so, anti-air fire of this terrifying precision made humanity extremely reluctant to commit air power, and any aerial assault demanded the utmost care to avoid detection.
Return rate per sortie: roughly forty percent.
Yet the human cost was surprisingly close to zero — because the major attack craft, including the bombers that had just gone down, were almost entirely unmanned drones rather than manned aircraft.
And the ones operating that air power were hunters as well.
"Tch… no matter what we do, keeping more than half is still impossible, huh…"
Unlike ordinary hunters, these were specialists who piloted swarms of unmanned aircraft with frightening precision. That skill stemmed from the simple fact that a hunter's dynamic vision and physical ability far surpassed those of a normal human — which was why the bulk of current air force operations rested in hunters' hands.
Even so, the Abysses' anti-air accuracy was so absurdly broken that the return rates remained this dismal. But even these numbers were only possible because hunters were flying them.
Before hunters stepped in, the return rate had been under twenty percent, and the manned air force had suffered near-total casualties. Measured against that, this was an outstanding record.
Having stabilized the battlefield for the moment and guided the remaining bombers home, the pilot felt a sudden wave of exhaustion and slowly closed their eyes.
Stamina for days, dynamic vision and physical ability beyond human limits… honestly. Hunters really are enviable no matter how you look at them.
From the temporary headquarters on high ground, I watched the hunters' performance — the kind of display that never failed to draw admiration and envy — and turned my attention back to the battlefield unfolding in vivid detail before my eyes.
After a single bombing run, the enemy's offensive had visibly weakened. In that sense, air power was useful in any number of ways — but the resource cost made frequent use difficult. On top of that, drone piloting required unexpectedly precise skill, which meant that anyone who wasn't an air force hunter could barely operate them at all.
As the adjutant of the 28th Guild, an army unit, I had only ever received indirect support during joint operations with the air force. I had never operated the systems myself.
But I understood their necessity and usefulness perfectly well — which was why, throughout my time as an adjutant, air power had been one of the subjects I had studied with consistent interest.
Still… looking at it that way, aren't the conditions a little better now than they were back in the 28th Guild days?
In the past, military organization had imposed all kinds of limits. Now I was the adjutant of the Black Hunter company Dreamouth. Our scale was far smaller, and that meant real constraints on available forces — but in terms of diversity and freedom of approach, we were far freer than before.
Especially when it came to air power, the very subject holding my attention at this moment. The fact that we had a useful talent for it already on our roster was, for me, a genuine stroke of luck.
Of course, there were still quite a few problems to solve first.
Setting everything else aside, the cost of actually acquiring aircraft is the real sticking point… but if I put a proposal up the chain, maybe something will come of it?
With that thought — a mix of mild regret and quiet anticipation — I kept my eyes fixed on the battlefield.
"Ugh…"
"Don't make that face so openly. You think any of us are eating this because we like it?"
"Ugh… but… as a Français, food this empty of âme is simply…"
"It can't be helped, can it? This is a war zone, and Abysses are watching for any opening right in front of us. The food may taste terrible, but being able to eat a hot meal every sitting without going hungry is something to be grateful for."
"Hic…"
Glass, launching into the familiar mealtime complaints of the battlefield, and the two people trying to soothe her with practical reasons.
On short-term missions, things often wrapped up in a single day, and even when they ran longer, the supply chain usually provided decent meals. But that only applied when they were operating as their own independent unit.
When working alongside others — specifically real soldiers rather than mercenaries — they had no choice but to share the same mess, like it or not. The logic was simple: if the mercenaries sat around eating well on their own, it would wreck the soldiers' overall morale.
So Glass, bound by a rule that was practical in principle and thoroughly unpleasant for the person living under it, pushed through a meal that did not suit her palate at all.
Then a sudden vibration started against her hip.
"Hm? What is this?"
Ordinarily, absorbed in her food, she might not have noticed — but right now the buzz was sharp and clear. Glass picked up her phone and checked the message.
Huh? Why is Aide suddenly calling me…? And this is…
She felt a flicker of confusion at the abrupt summons. But the moment she saw the photo attached to the screen, she rose from her seat without a second's hesitation.
"Huh? You're already done?"
"Yes. I have a call, so I'll take my leave here. I'll see you both a little later."
With an expression strangely at odds with the one she'd worn moments before — something almost like quiet delight — Glass started moving. Are and Kwon Soon watched her go with puzzled looks, then returned to their meal.
"Mmm… délicieux! A person really must eat well, after all!"
"Haha… sorry for calling you out so suddenly."
Glass sat in front of me, blissfully working through an instant cup of rice. Honestly, under normal circumstances it was nothing special — but compared to the absolute rock bottom of military mess food, produced by the unholy combination of poor ingredients and a cook of thoroughly mediocre skill, this counted as a feast.
Watching Glass look as though a single meal had given her the entire world, I found a wry smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.
Yeah… the story about her discharging over the food was never an exaggeration.
In any case, baiting her with food and getting her alone had worked. Once the short, happy meal was over, Glass set down the empty cup and looked at me.
"That was excellent, Aide. You may get straight to the point."
"…You already knew?"
She still wore that contented expression, yet she had already said everything that needed saying. Her sharp instincts caught me slightly off guard, and Glass answered with complete confidence.
"Of course. There's no way Aide would go so far as to prepare a meal for me unless there was something to ask. Go ahead."
"All right, then… I'd like to ask a favor."
Grateful that the conversation was moving quickly, I looked at the former French soldier sitting across from me and spoke.
"Glass — can you still pilot aircraft?"