Chapter 417
Chapter 417
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 417
Chapter Title: The Second Purgatory (4)
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[417] The Second Purgatory (4)
“Shirone?”
Kanya’s voice trembled.
It was undoubtedly Shirone. But how was he here?
No, that didn’t even matter anymore.
If the person on the screen was Shirone, it meant they could bring new hope to the despairing rebel army once again.
-Unit 5 is down! Provide cover!
Hearing the transmission, Kanya finally snapped back to her senses and turned her head to the multivision display.
Most of the mechs were immobilized, but they still had functional weapon systems.
And they were all aimed at Shirone.
“Wait, no!”
Kanya hastily pressed the communication button.
“Don’t shoot! He’s not an enemy!”
With no response, she remained anxious even after sending the message and checked on Shirone.
He stood there brazenly, making no effort to hide.
“Damn it…!”
She slammed the emergency eject button, and the reinforced glass of the cockpit shot forward with a bang.
Having disconnected the Piper from the Kuroi’s Synchro Machine, Kanya crawled out of the bushes with her hands raised.
“Ceasefire! Hold your fire!”
The platoon leader’s voice boomed from the speaker of the ejected Unit 5.
-Open fire.
Click! Click! Click!
Kanya squeezed her eyes shut, but the only sound coming from the remaining three Kuroi was the clinking of steel.
“Wha-what?”
Looking around with a dazed expression, Kanya realized the scenery was distorting.
At the center of the distortion, a pair of massive gears were interlocked and spinning.
It was Sain’s Equilibrium, which had stabilized the changes occurring in the gas’s chemical reaction.
“Misfire! It’s a misfire, sir!”
“Same here. Check the spark plugs.”
“They’re fine! This is…! Gack!”
Thud!
Kuan and Etella brought down one of the Kuroi.
It had taken them longer than their skills would suggest, but the significance lay in the fact that two people specialized in anti-personnel combat had just demolished a machine with their physical abilities.
The Kuroi’s reinforced glass popped off.
The pilot was unconscious, still strapped into the Synchro Machine, with Armin standing beside him.
It was the distinct eeriness of a space-time mage, capable of infiltrating even a sealed space as long as the coordinates were known.
The other team members easily destroyed the remaining Kuroi, leaving only the platoon leader’s mech relatively intact.
Gaold approached the Kuroi, stroking his chin with interest as if encountering something unknown.
Instead of offering a handshake, he looked up at the machine’s purple face and said.
“Get out. If you don’t want to die.”
Bang!
The reinforced glass shot up toward the ceiling as the platoon leader, equipped with his Piper, leaped toward Gaold.
“Die!”
“No, sir!”
Kanya screamed, but the Signa in the platoon leader’s hand was already descending upon Gaold’s head.
“Kanya?”
Gaold glanced back at Shirone. Then, as if it were a separate action, his fist shot out and struck the platoon leader’s jaw.
“Augh!”
He crashed unceremoniously to the ground, his eyes glazed over as he rolled on the floor.
If Gaold hadn’t released his Press Magic, the blow would have wiped the man’s face from existence.
“You know him, Shirone?”
Shirone squinted, looking closer as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“It’s Kanya, right? You are Kanya, aren’t you?”
Kanya’s tension finally broke, and she walked forward with weak steps.
Clank! Clank! Discarding even the Piper midway, she ran bare-bodied and threw herself into Shirone’s arms.
“Shirone, Shirone! Waaaaah!”
Everyone was bewildered as the hostile, life-or-death battle suddenly turned into a sweet reunion.
“Is that really… Shirone?”
No one in the rebel army didn't know of Shirone.
The first Nephilim to stop the Divine Art of Oneness.
The rebellion had organized around the uprising that began in Shamain District 73, and they revered Shirone as the ‘Light of District 73,’ honoring his will.
Kanya belatedly wiped her tears and gave an embarrassed smile.
“Sorry. I didn’t recognize you with that strange thing on.”
Shirone didn’t mind; anyone would have reacted the same way if they had met him as an enemy while he was in disguise.
“It’s okay. Is Lena doing well?”
“Yeah. She’s with the main force. She’ll flip out with joy when she sees you.”
“Haha! Good, and your parents?”
“Dad’s still as spry as ever.”
“…I see.”
Shirone didn’t ask about her mother.
Her life expectancy had been short even back then, so he could guess what happened from Kanya’s silence.
There is no such thing as a good death in this world.
But Shirone hoped she had passed peacefully, surrounded by her family.
“How much time has passed since I left?”
“Exactly 432 days.”
Kanya didn’t have to think long. The day Shirone stopped the Divine Art of Oneness was a monumental day for the rebel army; she didn’t even need to calculate it.
‘432 days.’
The flow of time wasn’t much different from where Shirone lived.
The Gate of Guffin worked by distorting space, so there was no time discrepancy caused by distance.
The reason time here was slightly faster must have been the influence of the gravitational field around the planet.
Shirone asked the question that was most on his mind.
“I heard you were at war with Heaven, but I haven't seen a single angel, or even a Mara, on my way here. Why is that?”
Kanya shook her head.
“We don’t know for sure either. We were fighting so fiercely, well, mostly running away, but anyway, one day the angels just disappeared. Even on the day of the full moon, when they always did their patrols.”
Sain, who was listening in via a mental link, interjected, his eyes gleaming.
“When exactly did this change happen?”
“Um, about 130 days ago, I think?”
130 days.
Compared to the timeline of the original world, that was roughly three months ago.
The first thing that came to mind was that it was around the same time they had lost contact with Gaold’s Royal Guard, who had infiltrated Heaven.
‘Something definitely happened in Heaven. What could it be? Is it related to Miro? Or maybe…’
The platoon leader looked at the Kuroi with a bitter expression.
If it was Shirone, the so-called Light of District 73, there was no reason to fight, but the cost of that misunderstanding had been too great.
“This is bad. The mechs are severely damaged.”
Shirone approached with an apologetic look. They were wrecked beyond repair, short of a full depot overhaul.
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. We were the ones who struck first.”
The female squad leader, who bore some responsibility for the situation, held up her palms and pleaded her case with an aggrieved expression.
“But that man over there was the one who cast that grotesque illusion first. If you’d experienced it, you would’ve seen him as an enemy too.”
Flu shot back.
“You aimed your Arc at us before that, didn’t you?”
“That man provoked us before that.”
“You misunderstood before he provoked you.”
The woman couldn’t hold back and shouted.
“How can you not misunderstand when he looks like that! He came at us like he was about to throw a punch!”
A brief silence followed.
Faced with the argument that Gaold’s face was ultimately to blame, the platoon leader wanted nothing more to do with the discussion.
“That’s enough. Stop it and let’s secure the mechs and rejoin the main force. The main force isn’t in a good position right now either.”
Sain asked.
“Where is the main force?”
“The Plains of the Dead. They’re currently conducting an operation to exterminate giants.”
The platoon leader walked to his Kuroi.
“This is the only unit that can be deployed immediately. I’ll take the lead, so follow me… huh?”
Gaold was standing behind the platoon leader.
As the leader, who had one foot on the mech, looked at him questioningly, Gaold gestured to the side with his chin.
“Move. I’m getting in.”
“Wh-what are you talking about? You’re going to pilot this?”
Kangnan approached with a sigh.
“Why on earth do you want to ride that? It links with the Piper, so it won’t even move if you just get in.”
Gaold’s solution was simple.
“Then give me the Piper, too.”
Kangnan looked back at Sain.
It was an official question directed at the team’s decision-maker, asking if it was okay to let this man do as he pleased.
Sain nodded.
Shirone would destroy Heaven, but Gaold had to handle the angels. He was the only one who could buy them any time against a multitude of angels, so it was best to leave combat-related decisions to him.
“For now, let him do what he wants.”
Five minutes later.
Clank! Clank!
Gaold, equipped with the Piper, boarded the Kuroi.
The platoon leader, who had been stripped of everything, could only stare off into the distance.
Shirone, watching with concern, asked Flu.
“Is this really okay? The atmosphere just cleared up, but seizing their equipment seems a bit…”
“He must have a reason. He’s not the type to mess things up just because he’s curious, right?”
Shirone fell silent.
Flu, too, seemed to feel a pang of conscience and eventually changed his tune.
“To be honest, I don’t really know either. But everyone here followed the Association President this far because he’s who he is. I’m just trusting in him too.”
Gaold connected the Piper to the Synchro Machine.
As he folded his arms inward, the Kuroi mimicked the motion.
“This feels pretty good.”
With the reinforced glass gone, Gaold navigated the tank-like mech while observing the scenery with his own eyes.
“Hmm, what about this?”
He twisted the drive joint at the waist to its limit, and the Kuroi’s torso began to spin like a top.
“Hehehe. Kangnan, look at this.”
When Gaold playfully attacked with the Kuroi’s arm, Kangnan, who had effortlessly dodged by leaning back, couldn't help but shout.
“Ugh, seriously! I’m tempted to just smash it to pieces!”
Coming from those who had already destroyed four Kuroi, Kanya pleaded with a look of genuine desperation.
“Please, don’t do that. The Kuroi are incredibly valuable assets.”
“Hmph, fine. This guy is stressing me out.”
Gaold finally began to inspect the mech properly.
While it couldn’t compare to the synesthesia of the Spirit Zone, the multivision provided an excellent field of view, and its firepower was formidable enough to rival an air gun.
“How many of these does the rebel army have in total?”
“That’s classified. I can’t tell you.”
With a clank, the Kuroi’s cannon turned toward the platoon leader.
It was impossible to tell where the joke ended and the threat began.
“It’s classified, but also, I don’t know. At most, I know the equipment status of my battalion. A mere platoon leader wouldn’t know the total production numbers for the entire rebel army.”
Gaold clicked his tongue and stopped the machine.
He leaped out of the Kuroi, tossed aside the Piper, and casually rejoined Shirone’s group.
Kangnan glared at him with her arms crossed.
“What now? You acted like you were going to ride it all day.”
“I’m getting motion sick. It’s worse than a horse.”
Kangnan snorted.
Meanwhile, Gaold’s mind was racing.
‘This won’t be nearly enough. At least 2,000 units? No, more than that.’
That was Gaold’s calculation for the Kuroi force needed to take down a single, standard angel.
***
As the sun began to set, Shirone’s party emerged from the forest.
Arriving at a hill overlooking the Plains of the Dead, they saw a scene stretching to the horizon: the procession of giants they had witnessed that morning engaged in localized skirmishes with the 23rd Battalion of the Rebel Army’s 1st Command.
The battalion possessed a total of thirty Kuroi.
However, since Kanya’s squad of five had been sent as reinforcements, only twenty-five Kuroi were currently in operation.
The Kuroi force, divided into five squads, was employing a tactic in coordination with the infantry: they would lure small groups of giants at least a kilometer away from the main procession and then unleash a concentrated barrage of fire.
Every time the giants were torn to shreds and fell, Shirone wore a horrified expression.
Giants were human too.
The members of the Mecha Tribe, who were once subjects themselves, would know this better than anyone, which was why a shadow also lingered on Kanya’s face.
“The rule is to eliminate giants on sight. If they reach Jötunheimr and achieve Mental Unification, they will be able to wield the power of giants.”
The platoon leader’s words sounded like an excuse, but he wasn’t wrong.
With eight egos overlapped, their Schema would be as powerful as that of an elite swordsman. At that point, the forces of a single battalion would be no match for them.
The party entered the plain and quickly returned to the main force.
Upon seeing them return with only one Kuroi, the company commander first stared in disbelief, then flew into a rage.
“What happened! You said it was the Kergoin! I sent five units to deal with them quickly, not to come back like this!”
“I apologize, sir.”
The platoon leader could only repeat the same words.
In the end, he was responsible for the platoon, so he had no excuse, even if he had ten mouths to speak with.
But Kanya was different.
Shirone had returned. And this time, with much stronger allies.
This was a boon that couldn't be compared to the loss of a few mechs.
“Company Commander! I have something to report!”
“Who are you! Can’t you see I’m chewing out your platoon leader! Are you ignoring the chain of command!”
While a Kuroi pilot held a rank equivalent to an infantry squad leader, reporting directly to the company commander in front of the platoon leader was a major breach of etiquette.
But Kanya couldn’t wait.
With the sound of the giants’ advancing line drawing closer, this was a matter the highest-ranking officer needed to know immediately.
“It’s the Light of District 73!”
“What? What nonsense are you spouting now?”
Kanya shouted, her frustration boiling over.
“Shirone is here!”