The Red Reaper Storms the Flagship
The Imperial Guard Captain exploded in fury the moment the Red Reaper's squad reached the flagship without a single craft shot down.
"What the hell are our allies doing?! They made it all the way to the flagship without taking a hit!"
He immediately barked orders at his own unit.
"Imperial Guard! Defend the flagship!"
Then he charged straight at the Red Reaper's group, laser rifle blazing. True to their elite status, the Guard opened fire without needing further commands, weaving dense nets of laser fire that anticipated every possible escape vector. But the ones who had already punched through countless such nets were no less skilled.
Fwoooosh!
Engines and boosters roaring, the Red Reaper's squadmates scattered in every direction and slipped past the laser rifles. The Red Reaper himself simply twisted left and right, gliding through the heart of the fire net as if it were nothing more than a light drizzle.
Is that bastard actually a monster…?!
Speed that transcended a pilot's physical limits. Sudden stops, steep dives—maneuvers that should have shredded a human body—performed as casually as breathing. That alone was enough to earn the title of monster. But threading a laser net without a single scratch using pure control alone? That was a level of demonic skill no one had ever witnessed.
S-class mechas could pull off similar feats, but only because of their special systems. Doing it on pilot skill alone was supposed to be impossible.
"Amada! Halon! Follow me! We hit the Red Reaper and no one else!"
-Yes, sir!
=Understood!
Two alien pilots of completely different races answered over the comms.
"We'll pin the Red Reaper down! Everyone else, take out his squadmates!"
-Roger!
The Captain opened the missile ports on both shoulders of his machine and locked onto the crimson Gareld.
Fwoooosh!
Missiles streaked toward the red machine. Jincheon casually swatted them out of the sky with his head vulcans.
"Now!"
The explosions blanketed the crimson Gareld's sensors. The Captain, Amada, and Halon raised their rifles and prepared to pour fire into the smoke. Before the flames even finished blooming, twin laser shotgun blasts tore through the firestorm and raked across them.
"Ghhk!"
-Aaaagh!
Laser rifles, arms, and sections of torso armor were shredded in an instant.
=C-Captain!
KRA-BOOM!
Halon's machine took the worst of it; the hit location was fatal and the entire unit detonated.
How?! The explosion should have blinded the main cameras—the targeting systems couldn't have been working!
The Captain had no idea how the enemy had fired with perfect accuracy through the blast. The truth—that Jincheon had long since switched his targeting system completely off and was aiming by pure combat instinct alone—was something he could never have imagined even in a nightmare.
The crimson Gareld burst out of the firestorm and fired the twin laser shotguns again.
KRACK! KRRAK-KRAK!
Powered by energy packs, the laser shotguns needed no reloading and could simply keep spitting death. Amada's machine was next; it vanished in a second explosion.
"Tch!"
Judging that staying would only get him killed, the Captain threw his thrusters into reverse and opened distance. The crimson Gareld did not bother chasing a pilot who had already lost his weapons and one arm.
THUD-KRAK!
Instead it turned on the rest of the Imperial Guard and began tearing through them in its own savage style.
So I'm not even worth chasing? That arrogance will be paid for by your comrades!
Then he checked the surrounding battlespace and froze in pure horror.
"Th-this… this can't be…!"
-This is N-31! They're on our rear! Help—static—
=I-I can't hit them!!
[Die! Die! Just fucking die already!]
He had believed that even a brief delay of the Red Reaper would let his men overwhelm the rest of the squad. The opposite was happening.
Fifty Imperial Guard machines could not even shoot down three enemy mechas. Screams and desperate calls for help filled every channel.
Pew-pew-pew!
A Guard pilot lined up a perfect shot on the Trooper Package mounted on Calsira's back.
Fwoosh!
Calsira's thrusters flared sideways before the heat-source warning even lit up. She never stopped pouring fire into the Guard machines in front of her. More lasers stabbed at her from behind; she never once looked back, simply weaving and continuing her relentless barrage.
KRZZZT!
Heliane, heavily armored yet moving at terrifying speed, carved through the Guard units attacking Calsira with her high-output laser sword. Her booster trails painted glowing lines across the void as she danced through the melee.
The only one who looked remotely manageable was Beatrix, former captain of the Giranlek Imperial Guard—yet she too proved she had not earned her rank through connections alone, carving out a full share of the kill count.
N-no… At this rate we'll be wiped out…!
They held the numerical advantage, yet every shot their side fired missed while every enemy shot found its mark. The fifty-strong Imperial Guard had already been reduced to thirty-five while they were focused on Jincheon.
KRA-BOOM!
Somewhere another friendly machine vanished in a flash of light; the holographic status board lit up with another kill marker.
"Fleet Commander! The Guard alone can't hold! We need to call in support from the surrounding units!"
Realizing the situation was about to collapse completely, the Captain opened a channel to Dolche.
The moment the transmission reached him, Dolche bit down so hard his tusks drew blood.
"We are the Seventh Fleet of the Resily Mercenary Group! We can crush half a dozen minor nations with our strength alone! So what the hell is this pathetic display?!"
He spat pure rage at the sight of his men being toyed with like raw recruits who had barely finished basic training.
"Fleet Commander! Enemy mecha units have broken through on the left flank!"
"What?!"
"Reports say they used booster units for a surprise assault!"
The moment Dolche's attention locked onto the battle raging near the flagship, the rest of the mercenary fleet's movements became ordinary—static defensive fire. Eirin, reading that the enemy commander's focus was elsewhere, deliberately pushed a few ships forward as bait, then sent a mecha force loaded onto booster units on a wide flanking arc until they slipped inside the jamming-reduced radar envelope.
When close-quarters combat erupted among the friendly fleet, Dolche's thoughts grew even more tangled.
"First, relay to the left-flank ships—!"
KUUUUNG!
Just as he prepared to issue orders against the enemy mecha force, a small tremor ran through his flagship—followed by a sound that should never have been heard inside the bridge.
"Ghk?! What was that?!"
"The Red Reaper has entered the shield! He's destroying the anti-air batteries!"
"What?!"
Jincheon had used the grenades supplied by Eirin to punch a hole in the shield and slipped inside the moment the gap appeared.
"Fucking huge prey! The loot's gonna be fucking huge too! Hahahahaha!"
Meanwhile Jincheon, faced with a Dreadnought-class ship far too massive to reach the CIC in one go, focused on carving apart endless anti-air guns and secondary batteries with the Anti-Ship Sword.
Almost 1.6 times… no, closer to 1.7 times the size of a regular battleship. Armor's thicker and denser too.
Outwardly he looked like a berserker lost in slaughter, but inside he remained ice-cold, calculating exactly where to strike to sink the monster.
Carve it open with the Anti-Ship Sword, then shotgun the CIC.
Decision made, Jincheon moved to the frontal sector he had already stripped of guns—now a perfect blind spot—climbed, then dove hard, slamming the Anti-Ship Sword down with everything he had.
KRZZZZZT!
"Red Reaper is attacking the flagship itself!"
"Enemy fleet fire is intensifying!"
"Fleet Commander!"
Operators who had never been this thoroughly dominated waited desperately for Dolche's orders. Then a voice cut across the open channel.
GRIND!
The instant Dolche recognized the Red Reaper's voice, his tusks produced a sound like stone cracking. Never since becoming Seventh Fleet Commander had he been pushed this far. The fact that this absurd kill count had been achieved almost single-handedly stirred something beyond rage—something close to reluctant respect.
But the flippant tone, combined with the declaration that the ship gifted by the White Snow Dragon Emperor would become the Red Reaper's personal toy, burned that respect straight back into pure fury.
"Prepare my mecha!"
"F-Fleet Commander! You can't mean—!"
"Order every ship to hold with whatever means they have! I will personally eliminate the Red Reaper and reverse this battle!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Fleet Commanders of the Resily Mercenary Group did not rise through clever strategy alone. Only those who possessed both outstanding command ability and elite piloting skill could claim the title. If the flagship or the battle itself was in danger, the commander was expected to take the field and break the crisis personally. That was the duty Resily herself had drilled into every fleet commander. In the early days of the mercenary group, a commander's personal intervention had more than once turned a losing battle around simply because they could see the entire picture and know exactly where their strength was needed.
Naturally, Resily herself kept a personal machine aboard her flagship—an S-class mecha capable of single-handedly rewriting the course of a war.
The operators of the Seventh Fleet felt a strange mixture of dread and relief at the news that their absolute best pilot was taking the field. The situation had grown that desperate… yet now there was hope.
While Dolche was still moving to board his personal machine, the Imperial Guard Captain—having heard the same news—hurled himself at Jincheon, who was still carving the flagship apart.
"Hraaaaaah!"
He had failed to protect the flagship. The Fleet Commander himself was now forced to sortie. The shame of that failure as Guard Captain burned so hot that he was determined to buy at least enough time for Dolche to launch.
FWOOSH!
"Guhk!"
But willpower alone was worthless against a being who had already climbed to a height no ordinary sentient could even imagine. Jincheon simply rotated his wrist and fired a shotgun blast past his own hip. The Captain's machine, still under full forward boost, tumbled end over end. The side and shoulder that took the shot were completely destroyed; even the remaining intact arm was blown clean off. Combat capability: zero.
Jincheon turned back to the Anti-Ship Sword—then paused.
"Hm?"
One of the Gareld's legs suddenly lost balance. He looked down. There, with a machine already reduced to scrap and an arm that was little more than twisted wreckage, the Guard Captain was still clinging to the Gareld's leg.
"Hhk… kuh… You… I will… definitely…!"
The earlier impact had shattered the reinforced glass of his helmet; blood streamed down his face as he fought to the last breath to hinder Jincheon.
"Tch. Annoying."
Jincheon leveled the shotgun—
Click.
"Oh, for fuck's sake!"
The power pack chose that exact moment to run dry.
"Aargh! Past life or this one, why is it always the same?! The universe itself always jumps in to cockblock me at the worst possible second!"
Jincheon reloaded the shotgun with pure irritation. Even a transcendent being, it seemed, still suffered the same cosmic timing when the universe decided to be a bastard.
"Thanks for that. I haven't been this pissed in ages."
He finished reloading and raised the shotgun toward the Captain again—
"Hm?!"
A wave of murderous intent and raw energy slammed into his senses. Jincheon kicked the thrusters and shot upward.
SHRAAAK!
A machine painted in dark green and dull metal, its head shaped like a canine predator and its entire frame sharp and angular, carved through the space he had just vacated with a blood-red laser sword.
That approach speed was insane. Faster than my Gareld.
Jincheon's interest flared at the new machine that had closed the distance faster than his own customized unit and launched a perfect ambush. His eyes locked especially on the crimson laser sword in its hand. Ordinary laser swords glowed red with a pinkish tint; this one burned the pure, deep red of fresh blood.
Output's higher than my own laser sword. Pure power alone—two, maybe three times greater.
Sensing the difference through pure combat instinct, Jincheon licked his lips like a predator that had just spotted delicious prey.
I'll be taking that.
He had never been the type to obsess over treasures, but he had sworn to fight exclusively through mechas in this life. Anything that directly increased a machine's combat power now stirred genuine greed. The fact that it also looked cool as hell was a personal bonus.
Having launched the ambush to save the Guard Captain, Dolche now poured pure killing intent into the open channel.
"White Snow Dragon Emperor? Ah, that white mutt bitch?"
Of course Jincheon had already searched the Bio Device the moment he learned the Resily Mercenaries had been hired by the enemy side.
-…What did you just say? White mutt?
"Hey, if you're the White Snow Dragon Emperor's hound, you don't even need to fight me."
-What nonsense is that?
"Because I'm going to fuck that white bitch myself. Once she's mine, you'll belong to me too—so there's no reason for us to scrap."
GRIND!
The declaration that Jincheon would become the White Snow Dragon Emperor's master finally snapped the last thread of Dolche's restraint.