Death Flags and Hidden Arms
Kakakakakang!
What greeted Jincheon was a barrage of covering fire from the ground support units escorting the Culvest. Railgun rounds came screaming toward him with that distinctive iron-striking crack, a swarm of projectiles filling the air. Jincheon weaved through them with casual ease, slipping past the enemy fire as if it were nothing more than a light drizzle.
Piking! Kukung!
Even as they poured fire on him, lasers streaked down from a diagonal above and began tearing into sections of the support force. Jincheon had become a named presence on every battlefield now — and a red mecha stood out no matter where it fought. He was the bait, drawing attention so the specialist team could sortie safely.
The six-person specialist team was composed entirely of ace-class pilots, each issued a personal custom machine.
"Alpha Three! Five! Attack the target!"
As the highest-ranking officer, Beatrix had been assigned callsign Alpha One and command of the team. She issued the order toward Calsira and the other senior knight.
"Yes, ma'am!"
The two opened fire on the Culvest's dorsal gun barrels. The Culvest simply raised its shield and swatted their shots aside with contemptuous ease.
"Now! Thin out the support units as much as you can!"
Even the Culvest alone was a dangerous proposition. Having to deal with its escorts on top of that would make the whole operation a nightmare. Still, every pilot here had volunteered for a mission this hazardous — skilled enough that even Jincheon found himself nodding in satisfaction. Not bad. These ones might actually be useful.
By now thoroughly accustomed to ground combat, Jincheon tore across the field at blistering speed, picking off enemy mechs with precise laser and rail-cannon fire, steadily whittling down their numbers.
"Whew~ Not bad at all, Red Reaper. Or should I say Alpha Two?"
As he continued dismantling the support units, a transmission came through on his channel. It was one of his own teammates — a man whose face he only vaguely recognized.
Even at a glance, the guy radiated the kind of loose, swaggering energy that had nothing to do with hard work or grit.
"What do you want?"
"Huh? What do I want? I'm Alpha Four. Didn't you memorize the callsigns?"
"Don't open a channel if you're a guy. It creeps me out."
Alpha Four piloted a machine of distinctly non-mass-production design — a Calsorn-made mech excavated, maintained, and refined by his own house. An ace pilot in his own right. Jincheon scowled in his direction and kept right on putting rounds through enemy support units with surgical accuracy.
"Aw, come on, don't be like that. Fellow geniuses ought to stick together, right?"
"Fellow geniuses?"
Alpha Four kept talking even as he lined up and dropped enemies with near-perfect accuracy — a level of marksmanship almost on par with Jincheon's own.
"I live off pure talent too, you know. One look and I could tell you're the same type. We're gonna be seeing a lot of each other, so I figured we might as well get friendly early."
Pikikiking!
Alpha Four snickered as he casually slipped past incoming fire, then counterattacked and blew the mech that had been targeting him into scrap.
"Ahhh~ Nothing beats the fun of crushing weaklings!"
"Hey. Alpha whatever."
"Hm? What?"
Something about Alpha Four's whole performance seemed to amuse Jincheon. A faintly mocking smile tugged at his mouth.
"You know you're acting exactly like Extra Number One who's about to die in this fight, right?"
"Wh-what?"
"Stomp on that many death flags and you're basically committing suicide. If you somehow punch through them and survive, I'll at least remember your name."
"You—!"
Click.
Whatever Alpha Four was about to say, Jincheon cut the channel.
Get a little famous and all kinds of freeloaders start crawling out of the woodwork. If you want to stick to me, at least come back as a beautiful woman.
Whatever the guy's real agenda, it was obvious he wanted to latch on and suck whatever benefits he could from Jincheon's coattails.
Still… I'm genuinely curious. What actually happens if you plant death flags like that on a real battlefield?
In comics and movies, any character who made themselves noticeable enough tended to die. Whether that held true in actual combat was a pure, idle curiosity. For now, though, the enemies in front of him came first. Jincheon went back to cutting down everything in sight.
Meanwhile, Alpha Four — thoroughly rejected — was seething.
"Goddamn Terra bastard! I try to be friendly and he looks down on me!? If it weren't for the higher-up's orders, I wouldn't even speak to a lowborn like him!"
From the start, the noble he served had ordered him to cultivate a connection with Jincheon as a hedge against the future. That was the only reason he'd approached at all.
"I'll show him that 'Red Reaper' is nothing but an empty title!"
Dismissed and insulted, Alpha Four resolved to prove that Jincheon was nothing more than a lucky nobody who'd stumbled into a fancy nickname.
"Alpha One to all units! Anyone with free hands — hit the Culvest with Particle Splitters!"
Every member of the team had been issued one common piece of equipment for this mission: a spear-like Particle Splitter designed to disrupt energy shields. Supplies were limited, so each pilot carried only one — but for ace-class pilots, one was enough.
At Beatrix's command, everyone except Calsira and Alpha Five — who were still baiting the Culvest into keeping its shield up — hurled their Particle Splitters with full force.
Swaaaeek! Pachichichik!
The thrown splitters struck the shield like javelins. Violent electrical discharge crackled across the barrier, and the Culvest's shield began to thin.
"Alpha Three! Five! Particle Splitters!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Calsira and Alpha Five followed with their own throws. The Culvest's shield, no longer able to hold, shattered completely.
There's the opening!
"Become my war merit!"
Burning with spite toward Jincheon and hungry to make himself the star of the battle, Alpha Four was the first to charge the exposed Culvest.
"Alpha Four! Do not drop your guard!"
It's just big and heavily armed. Strip that away and it's nothing special!
He ignored Beatrix's warning entirely, firing his lance gun as he surged forward in a full lance-charge assault.
"Die!"
Kwajijik!
"Guhk!?"
At full speed, Alpha Four was slammed by a sudden impact that hurled his body hard against his restraints. Without the safety harness it would have been catastrophic; as it was, he got away with cracked ribs. The real problem was whatever had stopped him cold.
"Wh-what the hell is this!?"
What had seized Alpha Four were sub-arms — massive secondary limbs that had unfolded from either side of the Culvest's enormous continuous-track body. Despite their great length, the three-clawed sub-arms snared his machine with terrifying speed.
Wajijik! Udeudeuk!
"Wait! Wait, stop! Stop—!"
Alpha Four screamed as the cockpit walls began to crumple inward around him.
Kwajijik! Kwaang!
The sub-arms finished the job first, crushing his cockpit completely flat.
Yeah. When a character built to be a sacrificial extra also stomps all over the death flags… no mercy.
Watching Alpha Four appear just long enough to demonstrate the enemy's lethality and then die, Jincheon was once again reminded how merciless death flags could be.
"Damn it! It had sub-arms!? All units, prioritize the enemy's gun barrels—!"
"Ah! The Culvest's gun barrels are retracting!"
"What!?"
Beatrix had intended to cripple the Culvest's long-range capability by destroying its dorsal cannons first — but the barrels mounted on its back were already folding inward and stowing themselves away.
Pushushushuk!
Then small guided missiles erupted from both the front and rear of the continuous-track chassis, saturating the specialist team with a storm of projectiles.
"Evasive maneuvers! Intercept!"
On Beatrix's order, the team broke into evasive patterns while shooting down the incoming missiles.
Kiiiiiiiiing!
Peopeopeopeopeopeong!
Jincheon shredded the missiles bearing down on him with his head-mounted vulcan cannons — and through the keen sense of presence wrapped around the Culvest, he felt something else emerging from its back. Two more arms, identical to the ones it already possessed, were unfolding from behind.
"Two more arms!?"
Beatrix reeled at the revelation, but she was too busy intercepting missiles to do more than watch them emerge.
Pikiing! Kwaang!
"Ah—?"
A single laser lance streaked in and struck the back of one emerging hand. Jincheon had extended his arm and fired his lance gun even while clearing missiles with the head vulcans.
"Tch. Ridiculously tough."
Until now, a direct laser hit had usually made enemies explode outright. The Culvest's absurd armor merely scorched and cracked around the impact point. Jincheon clicked his tongue.
The Culvest's pilot flinched for a moment — then, with solid judgment, began doing exactly what needed to be done.
Cheolkeong!
Both previously concealed arms thrust forward. The rear arms extended fully as well. Small apertures opened along every limb.
"Guided lasers! Everyone — remember the pattern!"
Pishuuung!
Two arms alone produced twenty-two guided laser beams. With the rear arms added, forty-three beams lanced outward (one aperture damaged by Jincheon's earlier shot). The specialist team, having finished clearing the missiles, watched for the moment the beams would curve and prepared to dodge.
One. Two. Three. Four! Now!
Here they come!
Each pilot counted their own private rhythm, then snapped into sharp directional changes and evasive maneuvers. The first volley seemed to pass without major damage —
Kwakwakwang!
"Kh! It's diverting part of the fire onto our allied forces!"
"The enemy pilot isn't an idiot either."
Of course the Culvest's pilot had noticed the specialist team marking him so intently. Focusing solely on them would worsen the overall battle situation — so he had chosen to split his fire, striking both the specialist team and the loyalist army at once. Two birds with one stone.
"I'll make you regret underestimating us! Open fire!"
Beatrix and her teammates unleashed a coordinated barrage. At the same instant, the enormous circular shield mounted on the Culvest's shoulder deployed along with an elongated metal rod, sweeping through smooth, fluid motions that casually batted their attacks aside.
"Goddamn it! How many more functions is this thing hiding!?"
She had expected discrepancies from the known intelligence. But the Culvest kept producing new weapons as if mocking every countermeasure they had prepared, pouring on the pressure without pause. Beatrix's frustration boiled over.
"This is getting pretty dangerous."
Thick heavy armor. New weapons unveiled specifically to laugh at their countermeasures. The Culvest's sheer presence was enough to put even Jincheon on edge.
Thump— thump— thump—
And precisely because of that, the tension set his heart pounding. A serious expression settled over his face as he hunted for an opening — already savoring the pleasure of bringing down an enemy that would not fall easily.