Ten Minutes to Nine
"You're really going to kill them?"
The instant the blue flashes of flame carved a vertical line through the air—
KUUUUNG—! A colossal rumble erupted from the earth. The shock of the ground flipping over wholesale sent even the Titans' massive frames lurching in unison.
KRRT-KRAK—! A moment later, where the dust had settled, a heap of scrap metal resembling a colossal jellyfish lay crackling with sparks.
The single blow—gravity and thrust piled on top of Rosetta's own mana—had blasted three escort sentinels to fragments and punched clean through the leader's skull.
"..."
The spreading echoes slowly died away. Light surged back into the eyes of the Kingdom knights who had been dying on their feet.
The enemies are falling.
Why all of a sudden?
KUGUGUGUNG—! For some reason, roughly half of the colosseum's sentinels were collapsing to the floor all at once, the red glow that had blazed from their eye sockets snuffed out like candles.
Of course. The leader is gone...
With the second leader's death, the minions under its control had frozen mid-motion as well.
This is a fight we can win!
Are we... actually going to live?
Hope had come within arm's reach at last. But unlike her subordinates, who could dream of nothing but victory, Karinne's heart was pounding for an entirely different reason.
It's them. I'm certain of it.
A Titan like a chimera stitched together from scrap heaps. One look at the eerily stuttering, disjointed motion of its joints and all doubt vanished—that was the very one she had been searching for all this time.
The "No Flood Damage, No Accidents"... Titan.
But so much had changed since then. The seven other Titans trailing in its wake, the flames soaring through the sky—none of those had appeared at the academy's entrance exam.
Which nation do they answer to?
Had they revealed themselves here as spies of the Holy Kingdom? No—too many things didn't add up for that. If the Holy Kingdom had mastered Titan flight, they would never have left the Kingdom in peace all this time. They could have simply flown over, smashed the elevator at the Abyss entrance, and fled, and the Kingdom would have been powerless to stop them.
Then what in the world are they?
Besides, if these were Holy Kingdom agents, there would be no reason for them to soak up the enemy's attention alone at this very moment while shielding Kingdom soldiers like her. Why, even the Holy Kingdom native standing beside her was staring blankly, utterly unable to make sense of it.
Or... are they not human at all?
The state of the battlefield filled Rosetta's screen. Only one leader remained now, and the trash mobs had thinned to roughly a third of their number. At a glance, it looked like nothing was left but cleanup.
Ha. And I've already burned through everything.
But from where Rosetta sat, things were anything but simple. The flight technique was so appallingly inefficient that a mere two sorties had devoured every last drop of the special fuel. Titan flight was a technology that demanded astronomical sums of money and mana alike.
So much for the free ride.
Without flight, plucking the boss out with a precision strike like before was off the table. The leader was burrowed deep behind its wall of minion sentinels, after all.
"Stalling for time, are we, Boss?"
And that wasn't the only problem.
"Will I even last until nine...?!"
Ten minutes to nine. She'd been topping up her caffeine in every spare moment on the theory that she wouldn't conk out the instant the hour struck—but either way, this was unmistakably a time attack now.
Breaking through with a single Titan is a stretch.
She turned her gaze toward the pulse of mana she could feel. There was the Triceratops-like leader, cowering behind its minion sentinels. The remaining sentinels had all bunched together into a dense square formation; punching through that with her main body alone was asking too much.
Guess it's a full rush, then.
Operation change. She left just two Titans in the rear to guard Marcus and the loot—there no longer seemed to be any entrance worth holding—and switched the remaining four into attack formation. Counting her own main body, that made five. Five should be enough to make short work of the trash mobs and the boss inside ten minutes.
KUNG. KUNG. Calculations complete, they began their advance on the leader. The math, at least, had been perfect.
Hold on...?
But the situation refused to go that smoothly. Even before the fighting started, an ominous premonition was creeping up on her. Strength kept draining from her limbs; her vision kept going soft at the edges... For some reason, wasn't the curse of nine o'clock already gnawing at her consciousness?
But why am I sleepy already?
There were still ten whole minutes left. Nod. Every time her head dropped, heavy as a hammer, another mistake slipped out—a hand sliding off the controls, a timing window missed. Her body simply wouldn't listen. Even mid-nod, she wanted to scream at the injustice of it.
I drank my coffee milk! I definitely did!
She snatched up the milk bottle at her side in desperation, clutching the last mouthful in both hands and draining it in one long pull. Khh... She briefly regretted not packing one more bottle, then shook her head. That single sip had left her stomach bloated and sloshing again; no amount of tricks would have gotten a third bottle down.
No—I have to finish this while the caffeine's still in my system!
The five Titans quickened their pace. The moment engagement began, the mistakes came pouring out.
KUUUNG—! A sentinel's body slam sent the lead Titan staggering. But there was no time to rebuild a formation that had collapsed in an instant. Rather than re-form the front line, the only option was to plow straight ahead!
Eat a few hits if we must—let's just end this fast!
That choice handed the enemy the advantage. Before she knew it, her formation was encircled, coordinated strikes raining in from every direction! KRAK, KRRT-TRRT—shields shattered, armor plating ripped away into open air, and in the blink of an eye the damage began piling up across all five Titans.
There's really not much time left...!
Even as their swords, spears, and teeth sank in, she never stopped advancing. With her consciousness fraying at the edges, she wrung out every last drop of focus she could muster.
THRAANG! When an enemy drove its spear into a Titan's abdomen—KWADUK!—she swung her greatsword right back around and cleaved the attacker in two. CLANK—even when a fallen foe seized her Titan by the ankle, she tore the foot free with a crunch and staggered onward. Fists, blades, body slams—whatever came flying, it made no difference. She simply barreled straight through it all, body against body. A rush of pure offense, with no dodging and no defense whatsoever. If she was too drowsy to control them properly, then tanking sloppy hits to finish quickly was the efficient play. The Titans besides her main body carried no pilots, after all—a few sword strikes weren't nearly as dangerous as they looked.
You...
But to anyone watching, it was a battle of sheer, unrelenting desperation. A savior's battle—flaying her own flesh to save everyone, to raise the odds of victory by even a sliver.
Just how much smaller do you intend to make yourself in my eyes?
The Shadow Unit Leader's shoulders shuddered. He had trembled in awe when the angel descended like a miracle; now, witnessing the sight of her shattering herself to lead the charge, his chest constricted all over again. She tore her own wings and bled—surely to suffer in place of the frail souls abandoned in the dark. And he, watching such sublime sacrifice with a body that refused to move, had never felt so wretchedly small.
No—the reactions are slower than before.
Karinne, who had been watching with bated breath, bit down on her lip. That person, too, had surely reached their limit! That sky-rending strike from moments ago must have been a joint spell, wrung out by staking every life present as collateral. From that point on, every one of the Titans had slowed visibly—so much that even from this distance she could feel it.
If this goes on, it will end in disaster!
Karinne tightened her grip on her Titan's sword. She had held back all this while, fearing she would only be a stumbling block in their flawless formation—but now was no time to hesitate. She, at least, Royal Guard Captain of the Kingdom, still had strength to spare. No one else could move. Even alone, she had to go help them!
"I will support you!"
KUNG. KUNG. KUNG—! Karinne's Titan kicked off the ground and went racing across the temple floor. She no longer cared who those eight were. If they fell, everyone remaining here was as good as dead anyway.
Oh no, you don't, you little—!
From Rosetta's standpoint, of course, it looked entirely different. As if the woman had been lying in wait for precisely this crisis, she came sprinting out with demonic timing—and for one blessed moment, the sleepiness blasted clean away. That damn thieving cat had finally shown her true colors.
I knew it! I knew she'd pull something like this!
Her hands turned frantic. Could it be—had the woman realized the remaining boss mob was the most valuable one? What else could explain it? Why else would the one who'd been sulking in a corner this entire time come crawling out now, of all moments, at this exact timing?
So you're finally going to wake the monster inside me.
This was entirely that woman's own doing. On humanitarian grounds, Rosetta had been willing to overlook the pilfering of a few junk items—but if it was going to be like this, then she had no choice but to make her decision.
"Stop...!"
KRRT-KRAK, BZZT—! Sparks surged up across the Titan's entire frame. The pale-blue current sheathing the machine streamed down along the seams of its armor, gathered at the tip of the metal tail, and forged itself into a dazzling bolt of lightning.
"Come any closer... and you'll... die...?"
Had the threat landed? The charging Titan faltered mid-stride, and Rosetta whirled her tail in another showy, wide arc, brandishing the warning a second time. Thug? Fine—call her a thug. In the Abyss, where the law's reach ended, nothing ruled but the logic of power.
"But... I can fight too!"
Even under that murderous warning, the woman showed no intention whatsoever of backing off. She was still hovering at the edge of things, spouting her nonsense.
"Please, let me fight alongside you!"
Ah. Completely shameless, then. Did she think this was an empty bluff? People like this never yielded an inch until you showed them you meant every word.
"N-No, I'm... I'm not joking!"
Rare for Rosetta, she shouted at the top of her lungs. This time she rammed her tail bolt upright and issued her threat again.
KRRT-TRRT-TRRT-TRRT—! The blue light writhing at its tip was a coalesced mass of mana compressed to ferocious density. At that compression ratio, the slightest contact would trigger a detonation—her intentions be damned. Which meant a single careless swipe of that tail would blast the woman to pieces.
"I-If you don't want to die... back ooooff!"
Not that Rosetta was entirely without a conscience—she had no real intention of killing her. If the woman kept up her antics, the plan was to settle things with a light dismemberment, at most. Shatter her mobility, and she wouldn't be able to pull anything ever again.
But at that very moment—
Huh?
An alien shadow fell abruptly across the edge of her vision. Already half dead from sleepiness, with the thieving cat heaping nuisance on top of nuisance, she had noticed the crucial fact far, far too late. Since when, exactly, had the Triceratops been charging straight at her nose?
Ah, fuck.
Time slowed to a crawl. WEEEEENG—! At the tip of the creature's horn, she glimpsed a sphere of densely packed mana—built in exactly the same way as her own. One look and she knew it in her bones: there was absolutely no dodging this.
And what, exactly, would happen if her Titan's tail collided with that horn right now?
We're fucked...
A truly hideous thought! Not that she needed to imagine it. By the time the idea finished forming, the event was already unfolding right before her eyes.
We're so fuuuuucked—!
The very next instant, the entire colosseum drowned in light.