The Birth of a One-Man Army
Nine mechas, each of a different design and armed with different weapons.
From the sheer force of their presence, Jincheon could tell at once that these were no ordinary pilots.
Even so, if I just get in close and open fire, they'll all go down!
With the performance and armament of his new mecha, he no longer had any reason to hold back. Intent on tearing through the enemy fleet, he shot forward to clear the machines blocking his path.
"It's Bayonetta time, you lowly bastards!"
The drip was so old it had become a complete mash-up of half-remembered memes. Jincheon charged ahead, hammering the trigger of his lance gun in a wild spray.
In the same instant every mecha but one slid behind the heavy-armored unit. The lance-gun rounds slammed into the anti-laser shields the heavy machines carried.
Bang! Thud-boom!
He answered with a single rail-cannon shot at each of them, yet the heavy-armored mechas simply raised their shields and took the hits without a scratch.
Then the machines that had been hiding behind the heavies peeked out and lobbed grenade-shaped objects in every direction.
Whoooosh!
The objects ignited thrusters and streaked away on trails of flame.
Pop-pop-pop!
"What the hell?"
They had never been aimed at him. They detonated at a distance, scattering clouds of glittering particles in every direction.
Jincheon focused his senses just to be sure—and felt the savage high-voltage signature rippling through the cloud.
An electric net.
They're boxing me in. First priority: get out.
Left and right were sealed. Only forward, aft, up, and down remained open. Even he could not tank attacks with nowhere to dodge, so he kicked the thrusters and climbed hard, trying to break free of the kill zone.
The response team had been waiting for exactly that move. From far behind the lines, the man whose sole job was to watch Jincheon's every twitch gave the order.
The two teams split into parallel lines and raced up and down. The lower line poured fire at Jincheon—not ordinary covering fire, but every last round they carried, filling every possible escape vector with bullets and laser beams. Even he had nowhere left to go.
"You sons of bitches…!"
The moment he was pinned, Team A formed a single file behind the heavy-armored lead machine and came straight at him.
Charging in a line? Don't tell me—
A formation he had seen somewhere before. Centuries of memory flickered through his mind until he recognized the pattern and the attack method that went with it.
Flash!
"Ugh!"
The heavy mecha's shield erupted with a light so vicious it hurt even behind closed eyelids. A lesser pilot would have been carved apart by the laser sword that followed. Jincheon forced his vision back online and dropped hard.
Can't dodge left, right, or up!
The enemy had already accounted for that. The second-rank machine fired a recoilless cannon straight downward.
Pop-pop! Whoosh-boom!
The shell burst almost immediately, vomiting a cloud of scatter munitions. This time there truly was no room left. Jincheon flung the gatling shield over his head and tanked it.
Crack-crack-crack!
The barrier held; barrels and plate stayed intact. But when he flicked his eyes to the right-hand display, the shield energy had plummeted from 100 % to 32 %.
Pew-pew-pew!
Third and fourth ranks opened up with short, vicious bursts of laser machine-gun fire, stitching the remaining free space shut.
Team B, already descending, swung wide around the high-voltage net and came screaming in.
"You bastards!"
Jincheon hosed them with the lance gun. The heavy mecha's shield simply ate every round.
At this rate I'm finished!
He yanked the stick and climbed again. Once more the second-rank scatter munitions hammered the shield.
Crunch!
The shield—!
The barrier shattered. The gatling barrels twisted into scrap. Jincheon bit his lip and tried to break free, only for the third and fourth ranks to pin him again with more suppressing fire.
So this is Ace Killer Hanbes…!
At the booming laugh of the man who had once picked a fight with him, Poltein finally understood the true face of the Ace Killer whose name was spoken with fear across the sector.
Hanbes was an excellent pilot—but not quite ace-class. What he possessed instead was a terrifying grasp of tactics; he could dissect any formation in moments and make it his own. The quiet, intellectual man who planned beside him—Selden—was, at best, a commoner-born pilot of average skill. Yet he had the rare mind that could invent and refine tactics on the fly. In ordinary circumstances a man like Selden would have died unnoticed as just another faceless pilot. Knight-class Hanbes had spotted the talent and taken him as squire. The two of them had complemented each other perfectly and cut down ace after ace.
Selden designed and improved the plans; Hanbes internalized them and drilled the team until the moves were muscle memory. The original doctrine had been a full surround that left no room for counter-fire. Against that, Jincheon's rail cannons would have wiped them out long ago.
But is winning like this really all right?
It was a perfect tactical victory. Still, Poltein felt a sour unease. The revenge he craved was to crush the Red Gareld with his own hands and skill.
Monster reaction speed. Monster accuracy. In a straight shooting match we die. Chaotic, overwhelming pressure was the only answer.
Hanbes, however, saw Jincheon's reflexes and decided this method was correct. Pride as Ace Killer burned in his voice.
Hanbes, sealed inside the heavy-armored lead machine of Team A, charged once more. The shield energy was gone; this pass would shatter the remaining plate, and the next would start chewing the frame itself.
"Keuk… kuhuhuhuhu."
In the middle of certain death, Jincheon let out a laugh he had been holding back.
"So this world was demanding the Hero Sword Technique from me all along!"
It was the kind of line that would make anyone else snort, "What the hell are you talking about?" He stomped the thrusters and drove straight at Team A.
Pop-pop!
The shoulder-mounted rail cannon locked onto the head of Hanbes's machine and fired.
Up to that point it still looked like desperate thrashing.
Dangerous—!
"Scatter!"
Hanbes had survived too many near-death moments as Ace Killer. The instant the shell blotted out his vision, instinct screamed. He barked the order.
Selden echoed the command, but the pilots stacked behind Hanbes could not process the sudden change. They hesitated.
Crunch-crack!
A colossal blade punched straight through the glare of the shell and carved the torsos of the second- and third-rank machines in half.
—Huk!? Wh-what the—!
The fourth pilot yanked his stick and climbed hard—
Pop-pop!
—Khaaak!
The rail cannon cored his torso. He squeezed his eyes shut against the shock. When he opened them again, a massive laser blade was already descending.
Crunch! Boom!
Three mechas gone in a heartbeat. Jincheon now gripped the Anti-Ship Sword in both hands, the mounting locks already purged. The ruined shield and the lance gun that had failed to pierce anything had been discarded long ago.
"I'll give you this—you're strong!"
Still locked in the first form of the Hero Sword Technique, he opened the public channel and roared at the men who had tried to stop him.
"But meeting me was pure bad luck! There's only one reason you have to die—because you ran into me on the battlefield!"
Whenever he climbed into a mecha and the blood started singing, Jincheon's full-blown chuunibyou side exploded. He danced the unit through a series of razor-sharp evasions, dodging the Jetstream Attack he had only just remembered.
"You're the command tower for this whole pack!"
—Th-this is bad—!
Team B was still reorganizing after their pass; Team A had just been carved apart by the Anti-Ship Sword. Jincheon drove straight into the gap and locked onto Selden.
"No! Don't let him reach Selden!"
Hanbes screamed for covering fire. Selden threw his machine into desperate evasion and returned fire, but Jincheon dodged every shot coming from behind without even looking and answered with the rail cannon.
Pop-pop!
—Keuuk—!
Brilliant mind or not, Selden was still only an average pilot. The shell that had anticipated his predictive dodge slammed home. The frame buckled; escape became impossible. On his main monitor the Red Gareld filled the screen, Anti-Ship Sword already mid-swing.
—Captain… I'm sorry…—
Crunch! Boooom!
=Seldeeen!!=
Hanbes's scream tore across the channel as Selden's mecha was bisected and detonated. His squire, his comrade, the man who had walked every battlefield beside him—gone.
Yet the Ace Killer's judgment did not die with him.
"All units, retreat! I'll hold him!"
The formation was shattered. The enemy had already adapted to every tactic they possessed. With Selden—the one who could invent new ones—dead, retreat was the only option left.
—B-but—!
=That is an order! Do you want to die for nothing?=
Poltein, still burning with hatred for Jincheon, started to argue. Hanbes cut him off with the weight of command. In the end Poltein had no choice. He and the surviving machines turned and fled toward the mothership.
Damn it! Goddamn it! I lost to that bastard again…! I even sniped him this time…!
Lips bitten raw with defeat, Poltein trembled as he retreated, eyes locked on the Red Gareld whose armor now wore the colors of the Giranlek Empire.
The Red Gareld…!
"Ha! You think I'm just going to wave goodbye?"
Across every age and every world, shooting a man in the back was the safest and most profitable move. Jincheon swung to pursue—
=Your opponent is me!=
Hanbes's heavy-armored machine slammed into his path.
Flash!
The shield flared again with that same blinding light. Jincheon, already braced for it, simply slid aside from the laser sword that followed.
In the next fraction of a second panels across the mecha's chest snapped open, revealing nested gatling guns and missile racks—
Kiiiiiiing!
Gareld's head vulcans spoke first. Every open bay erupted in secondary explosions as the gatlings and missiles cooked off inside their own housings.
Impossible reaction speed…!
The chest panels had been open for less than a tenth of a second. The moment they parted, the head vulcans had already answered and erased the counterattack.
Was this man truly the nameless mercenary no one had ever heard of?
With the surprise firepower gone, the Anti-Ship Sword came around in a horizontal arc that would have split the heavy mecha from hip to shoulder.
Crackle-crackle!
Hanbes caught the blade on his shield and tried to riposte—
Whooooa——!!
Booster engines buried in the reverse edge of the physical blade ignited. The laser edge sheared straight through the shield and carved Hanbes's machine in a single continuous stroke.
So a new one-man army has been born.
Watching those absurd reflexes, Hanbes closed his eyes. Across the entire known universe there were fewer than ten pilots who truly deserved the title of one-man army. He had just watched the newest one take the stage.
Boom!
The Anti-Ship Sword came down a second time, vertical, and Hanbes's machine vanished in a fireball. Jincheon filed the man's name away carefully. Without the Anti-Ship Sword, that fight would have ended in his first real defeat.
If I'd been nothing more than a talented ace pilot, I would have died here. The universe really is vast.
Having dismantled the sniper team that had nearly killed him, Jincheon gunned the thrusters, Anti-Ship Sword still in hand, and streaked toward the enemy capital ships.