The Interview Snowballs
The interview dragged on far longer than I expected. Seeing not only the senior pilots but also Rane and Kirié show up made me wonder if this was some kind of pressure interview. A little curious, I pulled up the fan site, and the bulletin board was already burning hot from the battle that had just taken place.
From the reactions, it looked like the conversation I’d had with Carson and Muri during their interview hadn’t been broadcast. Thank you, production team. You cut the amount of hate I’d have to eat by about half.
But were they showing the interview scenes right now? I was skimming through the sparsely updated board when suddenly the posts started flooding in at a rapid pace.
What on earth was going on? I clicked on a random post, but all I could gather was that Rendel seemed to have gotten into an argument with one of the freshmen. There were no details. It would be nice if I could actually watch the animated scenes, but while past works played just fine, the footage from Aindium – Wing of Union, the one I actually appeared in, wouldn’t load. At best I could only see short GIFs.
My name kept popping up here and there, so it was clearly related to me… but no matter how much I looked, I couldn’t figure out what kind of conversation had taken place inside.
The final interview for the new pilot cadets was conducted in pairs, with each duo talking to the second-year seniors of the CT Club. Muri and Rendel had suggested just taking Yui—the only first-year who piloted a Bivald-class—and Mikhail, who specialized in close combat, and calling it a day. But Carson and Rane were against it.
“Luna would make an excellent commander, but she can’t handle on-site command as well. Her machine is so unique that coordinating with the rest of the team would be difficult.”
“From a tactical standpoint, it’s best to complete a formation like ours. Yui can fill Muri’s role as long-range artillery, and Mikhail can take Rendel’s close-combat specialist position, but Luna would struggle to fill Carson’s role of holding the center. She’d be too far from the front lines.”
“Hmm. Is that so? I thought Luna could handle it easily.”
“Rendel. Luna is sharp, but she’s only been handling an Aindium for less than two months. Even with an operator’s help, reading the battlefield from a distance is tough. It would put too much burden on Mikhail. Besides, the more people we have, the better, right?”
“That’s true. We struggled a lot because we had fewer pilots than the seniors.”
“Now that I think about it, are the seniors not coming anymore?”
“They’ll probably drop by occasionally once things settle down. Alright, let’s finish the first-year interviews first.”
After their discussion, the second-years called in Yui and Mikhail first. Yui was tall but had a gentle, fragile-looking face. She seemed a bit nervous, but Rendel hadn’t forgotten how she had chosen to self-destruct during the recent mock battle. No matter how subtly Luna had suggested it, how many people could actually go through with something like that? It could easily backfire if they ran out of ammunition. Either she had been determined to beat him by any means necessary, or she was following Luna with absolute loyalty. In Rendel’s opinion, both were positive attitudes.
“Don’t be too nervous. Alright, let’s begin the interview.”
“Y-yes!”
“Understood.”
Yui and Mikhail’s interview ended quickly. Since they had essentially already been chosen, it was mostly just a check of their basic character. Everyone liked the two serious and sincere students. In particular, Yui and Muri spent a long time talking about Bivald-class units, which surprised the other second-years.
“This is the first time I’ve seen Muri talk this much.”
“…….”
When the interview ended and Muri sat there with bright red ears, firmly shutting her mouth, Rane let out a small laugh.
“Then we should pick at least one more from the remaining four. I’ll call the next pair in.”
The next two freshmen to enter were Grik, the top pilot who had taken command during the battle against Rendel, and Shaton, who had placed second. Both had good grades, but they hadn’t made a great impression on the seniors during the mock training interview. Whether they knew that or not, the two walked into the clubroom with relaxed expressions.
“We’ll start right away. Grik first. You were the freshman representative at the entrance ceremony, right?”
“Yes. You remembered.”
“Of course. It’s usually the students who stand out quickly among the freshmen or were already somewhat famous before enrollment who end up doing it.”
“Haha. I’m not that special. I just got lucky.”
While cracking a light joke, Grik glanced not at Rane, who was speaking to him, but toward Rendel. Rendel tilted his head slightly and spoke up.
“I was a freshman representative too. Well, all it really meant was standing at the front and reading the oath a few times.”
At Rendel’s words, Grik’s face stiffened a little. Sensing the strange atmosphere, Rane quickly jumped in.
“Luna said she felt bad for pushing it onto you.”
“L-Luna said that?”
The moment Luna’s name came up, Grik’s expression visibly softened. After a brief moment of thought, Rane decided to keep the topic going.
“Yeah. Apparently the teachers called her first. Did you know that?”
“Yes. Of course I knew. Luna helped me a lot during the entrance ceremony.”
The look on Grik’s face whenever he mentioned Luna was quite something. He even went a step further and began showering Luna with unprompted praise. Watching Rendel’s eyebrows twitch more and more, Rane flashed a mischievous smile. And then the little devil inside her, which had been sleeping, awakened.
That’s right. It’s about time Rendel realized his own feelings.
As the saying goes, a big sister can never pass up the chance to tease her little brother. As both his childhood friend and someone who was like an older sister to him, Rane decided to push Rendel’s buttons just a little more.
“Oh my. Grik, you must really like Luna.”
“N-no, that’s not it!”
“Hmm? Then you dislike her?”
“No, absolutely not!”
While poking at the end of Grik’s sentences and watching Rendel’s reaction, Rane skillfully stepped back at the perfect moment. The one who spoke up instead was Rendel, who had been fidgeting restlessly the entire time.
“Your name was Grik, right?”
“…Yes.”
Rendel narrowed his eyes sharply and glared at Grik.
“Are you trying to join the CT Club because of Luna?”
“To some extent, yes.”
Grik didn’t bother hiding his intentions. Moreover, his attitude and tone were completely different from when he had been speaking to Rane—almost as if he were picking a fight. Rendel let out a dry laugh internally and lifted his chin.
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but this isn’t a club for hanging out or dating.”
Kirié, who had been quietly listening, almost said, I don’t know about the latter, but it’s definitely not the former, but she barely managed to hold it in. While everyone except Rendel and Grik watched their standoff with great interest, Grik hesitated for a moment before squeezing out his voice.
“Speaking of which, I heard rumors that you, Senior, have been following Luna around since the beginning of the semester.”
“…That was because I had a debt to repay to Luna. After that…”
Rendel, who had been about to make some excuse, suddenly couldn’t continue. In that instant, all the moments he had spent with Luna flashed through his mind. If he wasn’t going to lie, he couldn’t claim that nothing had happened. As both Rendel’s and Grik’s expressions grew increasingly fierce, Rane, who couldn’t stand it anymore, stepped in.
“After that, Luna has been helping Rendel improve his skills. She’s apparently acquainted with that foreign player who beat Rendel. And she has a good eye for things too.”
“Y-yeah. Luna has helped me a lot. Plus, she’s been a temporary member of our CT Club since the beginning of the semester, and she’ll soon become an official one.”
Rendel had been rambling, but after organizing his thoughts, he looked straight at Grik and curled the corner of his mouth upward.
“And she’s a talent who will become not only the ace of our CT Club, but of the entire academy.”
Rendel leaned forward threateningly. As the rather large Rendel drew closer, Grik flinched and pressed his back firmly against the sofa.
“So if you’re thinking of holding Luna back, I suggest you look somewhere else. Since you were the student representative at the entrance ceremony, how about joining the student council?”
Grik lowered his head, clenched his teeth tightly, and sat silently for a long while. After a moment, he muttered something under his breath, gave a half-hearted greeting to the seniors, and bolted out of the room.
“…….”
A heavy silence, like the aftermath of a storm, settled over the CT Club room. Shaton, who had been sitting right next to where Grik had been, looked utterly frozen. With a tearful face, he barely managed to finish his own interview.
I decided to ask about what had happened during the interview later and instead turned my attention to the game bulletin board. I had heard that Rendel and the White Fang had been added not long ago to the Aindium mobile game I used to play before coming here. They were probably the first characters from this installment to be released. Ruwina had only appeared as an event NPC, not a playable character.
When I entered the board and checked the information tab, I easily found posts analyzing Rendel’s stats. They weren’t much different from what I remembered, so it seemed the game hadn’t changed much. But there was one thing that was different from what I knew. I clearly remembered Rendel being wind attribute, yet right after the word “Wind” there was an asterisk (*). There had never been anything like that when I played. When I searched it up, it said the mark was added in cases where the attribute in the animation setting differed from the one in the game. Back when I played, I couldn’t have cared less about the animation settings.
For example, the protagonist of the second series, Norad, was originally light attribute, but when they released a swimsuit version, a water-attribute Norad appeared. In those cases, they didn’t attach an asterisk like this. Naturally, when Black Wolf—the protagonist of the first work and one of the series’ biggest pieces of bait—was released, there was no debate over his attribute. The animation and the game had always operated on completely different rules when it came to attributes.
I had thought they were just paying a bit more attention to the setting this time, but when I thought about Rendel’s attribute, it didn’t seem that simple. Was Rendel not actually wind attribute? His acceleration ability and the streamlined curves of the White Fang were classic characteristics of a wind-attribute machine. Come to think of it, Rendel had mentioned before that he had been with the White Fang for over a year. If that was true, there was a high chance Rendel himself had a special attribute.
The personal machines given to the top five students had only just been released. If what Rendel said about having piloted the White Fang for over a year was true, that meant they had built the machine before his grades were even out. I should talk to Rendel separately about his attribute later.
If Rendel really did have a special attribute, all sorts of problems might start snowballing from now on. Because in this series, the more special the attribute, the harsher the story tended to become. The production team had a habit of putting protagonists with special powers through especially brutal ordeals. The paths laid before protagonists with special attributes were almost always filled with thorns. That had been the case for the second, sixth, and even the first protagonist whose attribute remained unclear. I was worried that Rendel might end up walking a similar path.
Of course I was worried about myself and the others too, but more than anyone, the story’s protagonist Rendel needed to do well for things to turn out nicely. I was sick and tired of the series’ bad endings. I would seize a happy ending with my own two hands. Even if that wasn’t what the production team had in mind.