A Proper Boss Fight
"Ba-ba-ra-ba-bam~ Ba-ba-bam~ Doom-chit doom-chit~"
Having turned the entire battlefield into absolute chaos, Jincheon swayed his upper body in a steady rhythm, humming along to the music that automatically replayed inside his head.
After weaving through the Crymal fleet as its formation collapsed into a complete mess, he glanced back—
KWOONG! KWAANG! SCREEEEECH!
—and saw Confedon's fleet charging in to catch him, only for Crymal's ships to slam into their flank like a spear through the ribs.
"Maybe I should provoke them a little more."
Utterly delighted that he had created this spectacle, Jincheon began to dance for everyone to see.
In a mecha, no less.
"Hum-hum~ Hum-hum-hum~"
He could no longer remember the lyrics, but the beat burned into his brain remained. Humming that half-forgotten song, Jincheon danced in his machine. Using the zero-gravity of space, he fired thrusters in short bursts and moonwalked across the void—a performance clearly visible to both the Crymal and Confedon fleets.
"That son of a bitch!"
"Fuck! I'm killing that bastard myself!"
Curses erupted from every mouth that saw it. The gesture was an unmistakable mockery of them all.
But one among them was more enraged than any other.
"Kill him! Kill that bastard! Kill him right fucking now!"
Confedon had been completely consumed by the characteristic ferocity of the Kelkata. His patience was stronger than most of his kind—but once that limit shattered, he became just like every other Kelkata. He was living proof of why you never put a Kelkata in command. Right now, he could think of nothing except killing Jincheon.
—Confedon! If you ram the entire fleet just to catch one bastard—!
"Shut up! I told you I'd kill you if you got in my way!"
—You absolute fucking idiot—!
Crymal pounded the floor in bitter regret at Confedon's refusal to listen. Why hadn't he stripped the man of command earlier? If he had, Confedon's rampage would have been limited to his own flagship.
But even if he could go back, he still couldn't have taken command away. A Confedon who still had his composure would have known that handing over authority meant being discarded before he ever got his revenge.
"Main guns, load!"
—What?!
"Get out of the way or I'll wipe all of you out!"
In the end, Confedon—devoured by Kelkata rage—crossed a line that should never have been crossed.
—Y-you… damn it! All ships, disperse! Do not stand in front of Confedon's forces!
Crymal wanted nothing more than to kill Confedon on the spot, but ordering an attack while their own flanks were already locked together would be pure suicide.
This war is already over. Even if we somehow pull ourselves together here, the momentum has already shifted to them.
With the last shreds of his reason, Crymal crushed down his fury and assessed the situation, tentacles trembling. They had lost. Even if they forced a victory through sheer stubbornness, the only future left would be mutual annihilation. Other pirate bands still operated in this star system—any further losses would make recovery impossible.
So Crymal ordered his mecha units to retreat. He would focus on preserving as much of his force as possible and withdrawing intact.
Whether Confedon knew of that decision or not, he remained fixated solely on killing Jincheon.
"Fire!!"
KWAAAAAAAA—!
As the massive laser lanced out, Jincheon finally stopped dancing and began evasive maneuvers. Lasers powerful enough to detonate a mecha with a mere graze to the torso formed a web of fire and came screaming toward him.
"Heh-heh-hahahahah!!"
The tension only made him laugh. Fine-tuning thrusters and boosters, Jincheon slipped smoothly between the beams.
"Hm?"
After dodging Confedon's concentrated barrage, he spotted Crymal's fleet trying to break free and flee outward.
"Running, are they? Sharp situational awareness."
Most people in that position would explode with rage. Suppressing that fury and making a cold judgment spoke to genuine ability.
"Fighting those guys one-on-one would have been several times harder."
Jincheon was right—if Crymal had fought alone, it would have been a far more difficult battle for Jotala. Jotala herself thought the same.
KWOONG! KWAAANG!
The moment Crymal's fleet showed signs of flight, Jotala's main guns opened up to inflict every scrap of damage they could. Crymal's ships, focused on defense, raised shields and minimized the damage—but Confedon's fleet, still locked against their flank, took the hits full-on. Dozens of ships exploded.
"It's over."
Jotala's mecha units, victorious in the three-way free-for-all thanks to fleet support, began hunting down Crymal's remaining forces. Even if Confedon came to his senses now, every chance of victory was gone.
THUKAKAKAKANG!
But Confedon, now the very incarnation of vengeance, did not stop. Half the mecha units he had summoned to the battlefield poured fire toward Jincheon as they closed in.
"So you're going all the way? Fine. If that's how you want it, I'll play along!"
Jincheon charged head-on to meet the dozens of mechas streaking toward him.
"Waaah! We won!"
"Luck was on our side too. Once they lose their temper, they stop seeing anything around them—that's the Kelkata limit."
Calsira and Heliane finished their final resupply and moved out with allied units to strike Confedon's fleet. For the enemy to reverse this situation, they would need reinforcements of considerable scale. But the enemy had already committed their full strength—that wasn't going to happen.
"That aside, Jincheon-nim has completely left the category of 'human.' I never imagined one man could produce a result like this."
"That man Gebel played his schemes well, too."
"Honestly, he's wasted under a pirate."
It was no exaggeration to say those two had nearly won the war by themselves. Jincheon, who had upended the entire strategic foundation. Gebel, who had seized the chaos and turned the enemies against each other.
"The pirate called Crymal is running."
"No need to bother chasing that side."
"A half-hearted pursuit would only give them a chance to counterattack."
Both women, rich in battlefield experience, understood that striking Confedon was several times easier and more profitable than chasing Crymal. Jotala seemed to have reached the same conclusion—her main fleet kept hammering Confedon's exposed flank without pause.
"Ah! Unnie! Over there!"
"Hm?"
Calsira, watching the allied fleet tear into the enemy while they advanced at a steady pace, suddenly pointed. Heliane received the feed from Calsira's screen and zoomed in on Gareld—Jincheon's machine, fighting Confedon's mechas alone.
"We have to help him—wait…"
"Ah…"
The words died in Calsira's throat. Heliane could only let out a soft breath of awe.
"…Beautiful…"
Heliane, watching Jincheon fight, found herself speaking a word that had no place on a battlefield. Dodging concentrated fire from countless mechas with the barest, cleanest motions, then answering with every weapon he carried—Jincheon's performance was like a stage play. If a textbook of mecha piloting existed, his movements deserved the first page.
The Jotala pirates who noticed him late felt the same.
"Hey. Hey. What the hell is that?"
"Insane…"
"He's dodging it like that?"
"Holy… fuck…"
In mecha combat, once you were surrounded, even the greatest skill meant nothing—so pilots fought desperately to avoid encirclement. Jincheon moved to avoid being boxed in as well, but not with the frantic desperation of other pilots. He slipped past enemy fire by the thickness of a sheet of paper and answered with his laser rifle. That visible composure was a work of art that left any mecha pilot breathless.
—Hey. Someone want to come back me up? I'm starting to run dry on ammo, so it's getting a little dangerous over here.
Jincheon's voice cut across the Jotala pirates' channel. The laser rifle's power packs, the machine gun rounds, the multi-launch missiles—he had burned through all of them, and the bottom was starting to show.
"Ah! Qu-quickly, Unnie!"
"R-right."
Only then did Calsira and Heliane snap out of it. They slammed their boosters and streaked toward Jincheon. The other pirates finally recovered as well and raced to finish Confedon off.
Meanwhile, Confedon—
KWAAANG!
"Ghhk!"
A main gun blast punched through his shields and slammed into the flagship's flank, finally jarring him back to his senses.
"…Damn it."
Once a Kelkata went berserk, words no longer reached them. He had always despised that racial trait and trained his patience against it. But Jezer's death, and the knowledge that there was nothing left behind him, had driven him past the edge.
What he saw when reason returned: Crymal's fleet fleeing, his own ships exposed to enemy fire along the flank, and Jincheon calmly thinning the numbers of dozens of mechas while dancing between their attacks.
"Surrender."
"Boss?!"
"Fighting any further will only throw your lives away for nothing."
With that, Confedon rose from his seat.
"Where are you going, Boss!"
"To finish this."
He unbuckled his harness, left the CIC, and fired the thrusters on his spacesuit, streaking away. In the hangar waited the single mecha that had never launched.
A classic power-type machine, armored far thicker than a standard mecha. In zero gravity he floated up, caught the edge near the cockpit, flipped the switch, and climbed inside.
"If I'm going to die anyway, I might as well take my revenge first."
With its flank exposed and hammered by gunfire, Confedon's fleet declared surrender over open channel. The pilots under his command who had been charging to kill Jincheon stopped their attacks at the flagship's order.
"Ahh~ that was fun."
As Confedon's pirates ceased fire, Jincheon stretched as if working out a pleasant ache, a satisfied smile on his face. For a man who had wanted nothing more than to fight in a robot, today had been perfect.
"…But what is this? This hollow feeling."
No—more precisely, perfection was still one step away. The problem was that even he wasn't sure what that last step was.
—Jincheon-nim! That was incredible!
=I never thought you could do all that alone…=
Calsira and Heliane, who had come to his side, could not hide their awe at the man who had single-handedly rewritten the battle.
"Heh heh. For someone of my caliber, this much is only natural."
—Normally I'd call that insufferable, but this time it's so true I can't even argue.
"I had my fun, so now we can—hm?"
Bantering with Calsira, Jincheon felt killing intent closing in and turned his gaze toward its source.
"It's not over yet."
—Huh?
=What?=
The two women tilted their heads—then their radars confirmed a single enemy unit closing at high speed.
=That's… Saisalas?=
Heliane's expression went blank with shock. Saisalas was a B-class machine, a charge-type mecha specialized for chaotic melees. High output, heavy armor, heavy weapons—a textbook power-type. But what stunned her was not the machine's specs. It was what the machine was.
=Why is that thing here?!
Saisalas had been jointly developed by the Anti-Zabalcan Alliance. The head design looked like an older model, but the idea of a B-class mecha in the hands of some pirate boss was still a shock.
—Looks like someone smuggled it out. Finished units going missing would raise flags, so they sold the parts and assembled it outside.
=We're all supposed to be united just to maybe win a war, and yet—!
—Don't take it so hard, Unnie. There's always someone lining their own pockets, no matter where you go.
=Ghhk…!
While Calsira soothed the stricken Heliane, a transmission came over the public channel from Saisalas.
Confedon pointed at Jincheon and demanded his name.
"I was already feeling a little unsatisfied ending it like this. Perfect timing."
The chaotic free-for-all had been enjoyable, but Jincheon had not yet faced an enemy he could truly call a strong opponent—and that left a small itch.
"My name is Jincheon. Here for Jezer's revenge, are you?"
"Didn't you just surrender a moment ago?"
Answering on the same open channel, Jincheon smiled with genuine satisfaction at the killing intent thick with a resolve to die. Anyone carrying intent like that would not fight half-heartedly.
"I accept the duel. This one's my prey—nobody else interferes."
=What?! You're taking him alone?!
—There's no reason you have to fight one-on-one!
"It's fun."
—……
=……=
That short answer left Calsira and Heliane speechless. When the man himself said he was doing it because it was fun, what exactly were they supposed to say to stop him?
"In exchange, I'll resupply first. If you want a fair one-on-one, don't interfere, Confedon."
Confedon smiled at the bearing of a true powerhouse. Against an opponent like this, his end would not be shameful.
"Hey, employer. Fair warning—don't even think about butting into this duel."
Having barred everyone else from the one-on-one, Jincheon took weapons from Calsira and Heliane and resupplied. He stripped off the missile launchers he had already emptied and no longer needed, loaded fresh power packs for the machine gun and laser rifle, then ran a systems check.
No major damage. The joints have taken a lot of wear, but nothing critical.
Jincheon's movements put more stress on Gareld's joints than the frame was fully meant to bear. Still, the machine was built tough—he doubted a joint would suddenly give out mid-fight.
Saisalas. B-class unit developed by the Anti-Zabalcan Alliance. A heavily armed power-type, but with high charge speed. Low turning radius is the trade-off. Fights more with built-in weapons than external loadouts.
Jincheon pulled up what he knew of Saisalas. Full military specs were classified, but he had a solid sense of how the machine performed in action. One fact, at least, was certain.
It was a higher-class mecha than his Gareld.
Thump— thump— thump—
A duel against a machine superior to Gareld.
Yeah. After the small fry, fighting the boss is the proper order of things.
Only then did Jincheon understand the hollow feeling that had been nagging him.
The boss fight required to clear this stage had still been waiting.