I'll Teach That Nightmare Customer a Lesson

"Could you open the cockpit for me?"

"Yes... wha?"

The question was one Karinne could no longer hold back.

"Open it... you say?"

"Purely out of personal curiosity."

"One moment, then."

Clunk. Clunk. Screech.

From within came the sound of something straining and groaning, and ten seconds passed, then twenty... but even after a full minute, the firmly sealed hatch showed no sign of budging.

When a voice finally emerged, it was flustered and at a complete loss.

"I'm sorry... it won't open..."

...

"Haaah... hoo... ugh... for now..."

The breathing was ragged, gulping air down to the very bottom of the lungs.

"If there's a problem, you needn't open it."

Karinne put a stop to it, having taken in the situation.

It seemed the exertion of the battle just now had finally caught up. The pilot had been forced into one desperate maneuver after another to evade her attacks — perhaps the cockpit hatch had simply malfunctioned.

So the blows weren't entirely absent after all.

A strange flicker of relief passed through her. If she had unleashed that relentless offensive against a mere exam candidate and landed not a single clean hit, her dignity as Royal Guard Captain would have been in shambles.

Her Majesty was right, after all.

That was the purpose of this special examination — to unearth the hidden gems who might be lurking anywhere across the nation.

Astonishing.

The candidate's movements utterly ignored the standard training manuals — an almost insolent instinct for raw, untamed combat. Not a single trace of formal academy instruction anywhere to be seen.

And if that unpolished gem were to receive proper training? There was every possibility the candidate could become a knight to surpass even herself.

"You may return home for now."

She set her musings aside. Hundreds of candidates still waited outside.

"I will contact you at a later date."

The curiosity that had gone unsatisfied — never having seen the pilot's face — would simply have to wait. They would meet in person at the Academy within days, after all. Discovering even a single gem of this caliber had proven Her Majesty's decision to hold the examination more than justified.

A few days later.

The results everyone had been waiting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for were plastered across the front gate of the mana communications network.

Needless to say, the moment the results went live, the Titan Knight forum quite literally exploded.

Most of it was the wailing of people refusing to accept reality. But amid the wreckage of that thread, one name in particular kept snagging every eye.

Meanwhile, at the Academy main hall, Karinne knew nothing whatsoever of the forum's meltdown. She would likely live her whole life without ever learning that such a shallow Abyss existed in the world.

Where are they?

Her only concern was meeting the person who was due to arrive at the Academy that day. As a swordswoman, she yearned for a conversation of true depth — and perhaps she had even entertained the thought of grooming the candidate as her successor.

"It still feels like a dream... that I'd ever become an Academy student."

"Our whole house is in an absolute uproar. It must be the same for everyone, no? Haha!"

"Let's look out for each other, yeah? Cheers!"

Glasses clinked beneath the chandeliers. A celebration swelled with the laughter of successful candidates whose lives had just been turned upside down.

Not among them.

The person was nowhere to be found. That peculiar, halting way of speaking — crawling into each sentence — would have stood out in an instant.

Pacing restlessly, Karinne at last crossed the hall and approached a large-framed boy.

"Are you 'FloodDamagedButWorkingTitan'?"

"No... my name is Garen."

She asked a girl in a dress next.

"Do you know the one called FloodDamagedButWorkingTitan?"

"Is that... a person's name?"

A woman gravely reciting an absurd word to anyone within earshot. Had no one recognized her, she would surely have been mistaken for a madwoman who had barged in uninvited.

"Wasn't that lady just now Captain Karinne?"

"What? No way... really?!"

"So the rumor's true — the Royal Guard Captain herself oversaw the examination..."

"Gods above, it's an honor to our entire family!"

Once her identity spread, a crowd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of newcomers began trailing after her in hopes of making her acquaintance. But Karinne spared not a single glance for the flock at her heels, repeating only her incomprehensible ritual.

"Is FloodDamagedButWorking here?"

"FloodDamagedButWorkingTitan — where might they be?"

"FloodDamagedTitan! Answer if you are present!"

confronted with an aura so imposing that none dared approach, the new students could only flinch and shrink back.

Captain... Karinne?

Is she... all right?

Something about her is... kind of terrifying.

And so she combed the banquet hall for a long while — until, at some point, her footsteps came to an abrupt halt.

Something was wrong. Her lips, pressed with growing unease, began counting rapidly.

"Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen..."

"Nineteen, nineteen, nineteen... nineteen......"

The same number, murmured as if under a spell, snapped off clean.

Twenty candidates had passed. One was missing.

They didn't come?

The assumption surfaced belatedly — a development that upended every expectation. The sole reason she had remained at the Academy all this time was to meet that person.

Was there an accident on the way?

It could simply be oversleeping, I suppose.

They wouldn't spurn a position Her Majesty has so graciously conferred.

Still... I suppose I should confirm it.

After a moment's thought, she drew a holographic communication pad from her coat — the application forms had required every candidate to register contact information.

Her fingers moved swiftly across the panel.

After that, she simply stared at the screen. One minute, two — and then, as still more time slipped by, the message's read status finally shifted from 1 to 0.

They read it!

So no accident after all, then. Merely running late?

She decided to push the schedule back a little — every event on the itinerary was hers to rearrange, after all. She sent another message to determine when the candidate would arrive, and then—

'—!'

The ever-composed expression of Karinne collapsed in an instant.

Blocked...?

She stared wide-eyed, unable to believe it. Not once in her career had a message from the Royal Guard Captain been ignored — by anyone other than the Queen, that is. And being outright blocked was, unmistakably, a first.

Why... in the world?

Karinne stood gazing into empty space, her eyes wavering, unable for a long while to shake off the shock.

Outskirts of the capital, in a ramshackle scrapyard.

Rosetta hadn't the faintest inkling of the commotion at the Academy main hall. In truth, she hadn't spared a single thought for the so-called "acceptance notice" to begin with.

Ding-a-ling! Ding-a-ling!

More psycho customers, huh.

Lately the numbers had ballooned — people claiming she'd scammed them, following her around like stalkers. As if she had time to deal with each and every one of those pests individually.

Haaah...

A deep sigh leaked out even in the middle of work. Her mind kept circling back to what had happened at the examination grounds days ago.

I'm not as insanely strong as I thought I was, huh.

By unwritten rule, Academy examiners were usually second- or third-year cadets. Granted, one-on-one duels weren't her specialty, but ending the whole fight on pure evasion against a mere student still stung.

Better to know it now than never, I guess.

In her previous playthroughs it hadn't felt nearly this brutal. Was real combat really that different from the game? If she'd kept coasting on overconfidence, she could have been seriously screwed.

I've gotta work my ass off.

She took a cold, hard inventory of her own abilities. Honestly, trying to trade blows head-on with Rosetta's stats had been the stupid part. Her real specialty was multitasking — orchestrating whole swarms of Titans at once.

From now on, it's numbers and multi-control. Always.

I need more money.

Parts had to be scraped together by any means necessary. She needed at least eight more Titans fully assembled, or her plans going forward would stall.

Just as she was revising her survival plan and stoking her resolve, a voice boomed from outside the scrapyard.

"Delivery!"

The same delivery driver she saw every time.

"Yes... just leave it there..."

The yard was piled with client-requested parts under an enormous tarp. She pulled up the mana-comm panel and punched in the order number, and a hologram popped up the client's message.

This order, huh.

...What kind of villain wrote this?

The smug, try-hard tone dripped from every line. The client's name and the order itself made it plain as day: this person knew absolutely nothing about Titans.

The moment Rosetta grasped that fact, her serious mode ignited.

You're dead.

Originally she'd planned to quietly skim a part or two off the top — but now the client had the audacity to pull psycho-customer antics on her? This one deserved a proper lesson.

You said as long as performance doesn't drop, right?

She committed the client's demands firmly to memory. Squeezing respectable performance out of cheap, bargain-bin parts was already her bread and butter.

"Hehe... hee-hee."

The smile that curled across the girl's lips was the smile of a child playing with toys. She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stripped out the power lines and swapped in budget alloy, replaced the core engine with two half-output units—

The condition's worse than I thought.

The deeper she dug into the interior, the harder her brow furrowed. It wasn't just the control panel. Main core, synchronization settings, wire management — all of it a complete disaster. Left alone, the thing could have exploded at any moment without her lifting a finger.

But damn, the parts are top-shelf.

And yet every component bolted in place was premium grade. Shoving parts this expensive into a slapdash mess like this... Once again, it was confirmed beyond all doubt: this client knew jack squat about Titans.

Some rich heir's brat, probably.

Either way, it was a windfall for her. Drooling slightly, she began downgrading the parts one by one.

Pull the pricey components, slot in cost-effective ones, then re-tune the settings to claw the performance back — creative economics! She even channeled her full, serious mana into a total overhaul of the whole assembly, because the better the performance, the more parts she could walk away with.

Then, as she kept snickering to herself through the long stretch of work—

...Hm?

She blinked and looked down at her feet.

At some point, a mountain of the Titan's absolute finest parts had piled up on the floor.

Did I... take a bit too much?

Running serious mode at full blast had made her strip far too many components. The factory settings were such utter garbage that no matter how endlessly she downgraded, the specs actually read higher than before.

I won't get caught... right?

A faint unease crept over her. A machine slathered head to toe in expensive parts running on garbage-tier efficiency — this was, without question, the Titan of some silver-spooned rich kid whose entire life was burning money for sport.

Performance didn't drop, though.

Purely on paper, it was actually an upgrade. If nobody looked too closely, no one would ever notice. But the day it got hauled into some repair shop and cracked open?

A report, certainly — and a very real chance they'd march straight to her shop and wreck the place. People with more money than sense tended to have a thoroughbred streak of vindictiveness.

Time to start thinking about skipping town?

Complaints had been piling up fast lately as it was. More and more of these "scammed" stalkers shadowing her — people she'd built machines for that performed the same or better, yet who still had the gall to treat her like a con artist.

It's about time to move anyway.

She'd never intended to settle for being a back-alley hole-in-the-wall. To make the really big money, she had to break into the capital proper. The only question was where, in a district where even the dirt cost a fortune, she'd set up the new shop.

Yeah — that place would be perfect.

A location flashed to mind. While fencing her recent haul, she'd spotted one very promising spot. And a man like that would know better than she did how to deal with nightmare customers, too.

She decided this current job would be the last — then she'd relocate her base of operations.