Chapter 4: The Tower (Upright)

Chapter 4: The Tower (Upright)

CHAPTER 4

THE TOWER (UPRIGHT)

As a battleship, there was a height difference of nearly twenty meters between the flight deck and the water’s surface. The bottom of the enemy base, which was supported by the pillars, was directly above them. The base itself was made of steel beams forming a grid, like a metallic spider’s web.

One could sum it up as a steel frame, but it extended well over a hundred meters into the air, forming a gigantic fortress. Each beam was the breadth of a Juggernaut, and the gaps in the grid were wide enough that not just a Juggernaut but even a Löwe could easily fit through them.

The interception unit remained on the bottom floor of the fortress to mow down the artillery, while the Spearhead squadron acted as vanguard and invaded farther in. They fired their wire anchors, tangling them around the beams. They then jumped, releasing and retrieving the wire anchors as they landed.

The Mirage Spire base’s interior consisted of multiple floors. For the sake of convenience, every set of three floors was designated as a Level. There were Levels A (Agate) to E (Erze). Standing on Level Agate One, the bottom floor, Shin looked up at the base, examining its interior. It was massive from the outside, but upon coming inside, the absurd size of the place was even clearer. A whole base…a whole munitions factory could fit on every individual floor.

Three beams connected to form an equilateral triangle, and a countless number of such triangles formed the grid that served as the bottom for each floor. Looking down from above, the whole base looked like a hexagon propped up by the pillars. The concrete pillars that supported it were six in number and as thick as the one they’d seen. They extended all the way up to the peak, across the naked metal scaffolding.

The vertical construction materials and truss structure were put together to form transparent pillars set in a geometric shape. The outer walls of the fortress were made of half-transparent solar panels overlaid on the vertically built materials. They didn’t let the wind and rain infiltrate the interior of the structure, but they did let sunlight faintly shine through.

It was dawn, but the storm shrouded away the sun, so only scant amounts of light passed through, refracted by the panel and casting a faint-blue glow over the Mirage Spire. It felt like dusk, when the sun was setting but the darkness of night hadn’t quite settled in. An interstice of night and day, when a gloomy, cold blue washed over the air.

That ultramarine shade washed into the mesh of each level’s floor, casting triangular patterns of light into the interior. Each beam was large enough for a Juggernaut to either walk across or reel up to. The sheer size and scale of this marine multistory building induced a sense of vertigo, as if one was in the midst of a daydream.

The topmost floor of the structure was likely meant to house the Morpho, as well as supplies of its ammunition and consumable parts. A rail, larger than multiple beams, extended all the way from Level Erze down to the bottom floor’s western tip. That shadow, along with the ghosts’ wailing and the shadowy pattern of the eternal dusk light flowing into the base, formed a backdrop. And with their backs to it, the distinctive metallic-colored shadows of countless Legion rose to their feet at once.

“Sir Reaper, as planned, our Alkonost unit shall scout ahead,” Lerche said, hopping down from Chaika.

She was followed by a group of Alkonosts. Aside from the rails extending from the top floor, the only other way up was a metal-beam staircase forming a double helix. Of course, the enemy was lying in ambush across both routes up. The rail especially offered no cover from above, which meant that the higher they went, the easier it would become for them to be targeted from the top floor.

This meant they would have to go up using something that wasn’t intended to be utilized as a footing. Such as the walls’ beams, or the fulcrums dotting each floor. By using the units’ light weight to their advantage, they would be able to use their wire anchor to climb up vertically in a straight line during this operation.

The Legion wouldn’t overlook this, of course. As the Alkonosts ascended to Agate Two, a force of Grauwolf descended to surround them. Behind them, Stier fixed their muzzles on them. Apparently, the composition of the base’s defensive force consisted of Grauwolf and Stier.

The poor footing of this base made it difficult to deploy the heavyweight Löwe and Dinosauria. By contrast, the Grauwolf—which were lightweight and highly mobile—and the Stier—which were equally lightweight but possessed high firepower—were more effective in this terrain.

Of course, there were also Ameise surrounding the base. Serving as the eyes and ears for the other Legion types, they lay in wait in the shadows, following the invaders with their composite sensors.

Shin’s ability allowed him to track the Legion’s positions to an extent. As such, the scouting party’s role was to compensate for Shin’s inability to discern what Legion types were present, as well as decrease the enemy’s numbers to some extent until the rest of the Eighty-Six advanced into this section of the base.

“We begin by crushing out their eyes… Hunt the enemy down, while prioritizing the Ameise.”

Having finished unloading two Juggernaut detachments, the Stella Maris began retreating a hundred twenty kilometers away—outside the range of a Löwe’s turret. Supercarriers were another relatively brittle type of ship. If the Legion were to board them, the ship would be scuttled, and the invasion force would be left stranded without a way back home.

This was a marine base located far from land, and the Stella Maris was the only means of crossing the sea to this point. That was the most dangerous factor in this operation.

The top floor of the Mirage Spire—Level Erze. There, the Morpho, which they assumed had run out of ammo, inched outside the circular canopy. Its turret aimed at the lowest possible angle of depression, and the railgun’s rails came alive with crackling electricity, with the thundering sky as its backdrop.

This was the omen of a coming bombardment.

Its sights were fixed on the retreating Stella Maris, sailing defenseless in the face of its 800 mm shell.

“…Figures. I’d do the same if I were you,” Ishmael muttered under his breath.

At that very moment, the three long-distance cruisers, which had sailed to three different positions around the Mirage Spire, fired their 40 cm turrets.

While these ships were meant for hunting down the leviathans lurking in the depths, the Fleet Countries, diminutive as they were, lacked the funds to equip their ships with guided weapons. As such, the ship’s armaments weren’t meant for destroying ground targets. Instead, they were designed for casting depth charges up to a distance of several dozen meters ahead.

The accuracy of their bombardment on a naval target wasn’t particularly high. However, their depth charges’ built-in shells weighed in at nearly one tonne and were meant for hunting down large species of leviathans. With a range of thirty kilometers, they traveled at supersonic speeds, exceeding seven hundred eighty meters per second. And while they weren’t made for the sole purpose of penetrating armor, their payload was tremendous.

Having left the canopy that protected it to fire at the Stella Maris, the Morpho exposed itself to the stormy weather. Shells rained down on it from three directions. The outer crust of the shells triggered at short range, spewing out the depth charge within it.

Depth charges meant to hunt down massive leviathans struck the Morpho’s charge. Many of them were deflected by the main unit’s armor, but one depth charge hit the base of its gun barrel. One of the long rails snapped at the base and went flying.

“—We’ve successfully destroyed the Morpho’s barrel… It’s as we expected. It has expanded the number of shells it can fire simultaneously since last year.”

Even though they’d expected that and the plan was for the cruisers to shoot the Morpho the moment it left the canopy’s protection, Lena was nevertheless inside the Stella Maris when it was being aimed at by the railgun. Lena’s chime-like voice was still a bit strained with fear and nerves. Out of consideration for her, Shin spoke calmly.

They were climbing up after the Alkonosts and were currently in the midst of suppressing Agate Two. Additionally, each individual component of the Morpho was heavy, making maintenance and the changing of ammunition a slow process. Despite that, the number of shells it could carry at any one time and the life span of the barrel were components that could be modified and improved. Last year, the Morpho’s limits seemed to have been one hundred shots. Assuming things would remain unchanged during this operation would have been an overly optimistic estimate.

“Yes, but I can still hear its voice. It hasn’t been downed. If it still has shells, it’ll probably resume firing at the Stella Maris again as soon as its barrel is replaced.”

Which meant that was their limit for capturing this base and eliminating the Morpho.

They had assumed the Mirage Spire was a factory, but all its floors so far had been empty and the second Shepherd—which they assumed was the base’s control core—was on the top floor, same as the Morpho.

Their second target being in the same spot as the first was very much to their benefit, but… Shin still didn’t know what kind of unit the other Shepherd was.

“What’s our estimated time until it can replace the barrel?”

Put another way, their time limit for completing the operation—how long until the enemy shot down the Stella Maris—was…

“The interval between its bombardments on the Fleet Countries over the last month was a minimum of six hours… We should assume that’s how long it will take.”

Due to weight limitations, Lena and Vika had to decide which of their respective units to bring onto the ship. Lena’s Vanadis had superior calculation capabilities, but Vika’s Gadyuka was eventually chosen, its superior firepower being the deciding factor.

As he commanded the Alkonosts, which were acting as scouts, Vika squinted as he received a visual feed of the Mirage Spire via data link. He was sitting within the Stella Maris’s hangar, which was now empty of the Juggernauts that had filled it not too long ago.

Such a bizarre fortress, made entirely out of framework, like the skeleton of some huge, extinct creature… What was the purpose of its construction? Vika didn’t know. Zashya called it an arsenal, but it didn’t have any facilities for producing ammunition.

All they discovered was ammo that looked primed to be carried over to the Morpho for reloading. And this base couldn’t have simply been an artillery position for the Morpho, either. If that was the case, why build it so remotely, in the middle of the ocean?

The purpose of this place wasn’t clear. It also wasn’t clear where all the iron resources that went into building this base had even come from. Why would the Legion invest so much into this base when its value seemed to be so low?

No…

“The origin is fairly obvious.”

There were many countries that were still sealed off by the Eintagsfliege’s electromagnetic interference. Countless nations they still couldn’t contact. There was no way of confirming those countries even still existed. Even if any of those countries were to have perished in the large-scale offensive, their dying voices wouldn’t have reached the Federacy or the United Kingdom.

The fact that their downfalls weren’t confirmed…didn’t mean those countries hadn’t perished.

Yes, Zelene had said so. The first large-scale offensive wasn’t just a failed battle for the Legion .

“…Your prediction might just be right on the money, Milizé.”

In exchange for their light weight and high firepower, Stier were lacking in mobility and thinly armored. They were considered a Legion type optimized for ambushes. As such, they were set in thick artillery pockets built on every floor, where they rained fire upon the enemy as soon as they entered.

In addition, Grauwolf prowled the base, fearless of the ravine beneath them as they jumped through vertical space without any wires to support them. They lunged at the enemy, the high-frequency blades on their legs swinging with lethal accuracy.

Most menacing of all, though, were both the Eintagsfliege flocking down to Agate Three from Level Erze, unleashing a curtain of silver, and the Morpho’s six-barreled revolving autocannon looming over them all.

Hearing the Legion’s wailings and the Morpho’s howl grow louder through his Resonance with Shin, Raiden brought Wehrwolf to a sudden stop and hopped back. The next moment, the spot right in front of him was torn apart by the diagonal trajectory of autocannon fire. The steel beam was reduced to scrap by the barrage, its coupling coming off and making the rest of the beam fall.

If this rapid-fire barrage of 40 mm shells were to hit them from above, it would penetrate even a heavily armored Vánagandr, to say nothing of a Reginleif. This autocannon was intended as an antiaircraft gun, but the Morpho compensated for the long distance between it and the Reginleifs with mechanical precision, shooting through the beams with deadly accuracy. A red-hot shower of metal bore down on them, threatening to pierce the Juggernauts like a spear.

The autocannon depleted its several hundred bullets of ammunition in the flash of an eye, but even if it had any more, its barrel couldn’t rotate indefinitely without overheating. Despite this, Raiden couldn’t find a long enough interval between its shots. Last year, Undertaker single-handedly cut down all six of the Morpho’s guns. Apparently, the Legion learned from that lesson and put even more guns on this Morpho.

At the edge of his vision, Raiden saw a Juggernaut jumping after scaling a fulcrum. This was one of the Juggernauts under the Spearhead squadron, led by Shin. It evaded a Grauwolf that slid down the fulcrum, and its blades swung down. The Juggernaut’s wire anchor was coiled around an upper level’s beam, and by kicking away from the pillar, it avoided the trajectory of the enemy’s rush.

Having missed its mark, the Grauwolf fruitlessly slid down as the suspended Juggernaut fixed its sights on its back.

But the next moment, a self-propelled mine lying hidden on the beam lunged at the Juggernaut. It was done at perfect timing, just as the Juggernaut’s attention was fixed on the Grauwolf.

“…?!”

Raiden happened to be looking in that direction, so he was able to move in at just the right moment. At a hairbreadth, Wehrwolf fired. A barrage of heavy machine-gun fire moved like a single lump, slamming into the self-propelled mine from its flank, tearing it into two and blowing it away.

As the Grauwolf slid down, Undertaker had apparently also noticed the situation and shot it down. The missiles on its back triggered an induced explosion, making the Grauwolf disperse. The attacked Juggernaut’s optical sensor turned in the direction of the blast, taken by surprise.

“…Thanks, you two. You saved me.”

“Don’t mention it, man. Just be careful.”

Shin seemed to nod wordlessly at him, then connected his Para-RAID back to the rest of his unit, as well as Yuuto. Shin’s serene, well-projected voice filled the battlefield.

“All units, we’ve confirmed the presence of self-propelled mines in the enemy’s interception force. They’re small and very easy to overlook. Don’t rely on the data link too much, and stay vigilant.”

Urging them to remain cautious—though his voice always seemed to suggest this—the Reaper then added:

“We still have a fair amount of time to complete this operation. We can’t afford to be lax, but there’s no need to rush, either.”

After destroying the enemy in Agate Three’s northeastern block, they finally seized control of Level Agate. Yuuto’s Thunderbolt squadron entered the second level, Level Bertha, in place of Shin’s Spearhead squadron. Bertha One’s suppression began, and as it did, the Spearhead squadron, including Anju’s Snow Witch, replenished their ammunition.

Leaving behind a force to guard Agate Three, they moved back to Agate Two, where four Scavengers equipped with wire anchors to follow them climbed up. Fido was the first to reach them and hurried over to restock Undertaker.

Horizontally, this base was vast, but there was less than a thousand meters between the bottom floor and the top floor, placing it within the minimum range of an anti-tank gun, a heavy machine gun, or an anti-tank missile. This, of course, also included the Morpho’s revolving 40 mm autocannons, which were originally antiaircraft guns.

And so despite retreating from the fighting and taking a moment to restock, they couldn’t let down their guard. With their Juggernauts’ optical sensors vigilantly turned upward, Shana spoke.

“…It kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Meeting the people of the Open Sea clans made them realize this, but come to think of it, it was probably obvious. Just how precious pride could be.

“Seeing them go out like that, right in front of our eyes… I wonder what we’ll do if we ever find ourselves in their position… Will we be able to smile like they did?”

Kurena knitted her brows grumpily, cutting into her words. Curtly, as if she was rejecting the very act of thinking about it.

“Shana, that’s not something we should be thinking about right now.”

“Then when should we think about it?”

That riposte rendered Kurena speechless. Shana continued, her voice pensive, as if she was more thinking aloud than speaking.

“If you ask me, we haven’t been thinking enough about this very topic. If we ever do lose our pride, it’ll happen the day we stop fighting. We already saw where fighting to the bitter end would land us when we climbed over that mountain of Sirin corpses back at the Revich Citadel… But we never once considered that we might not get a bitter end. This operation could be it, for all we know. And that’s…something we should really be considering.”

“Maybe, but now really isn’t the time, Shana. I do get where you’re coming from, though.”

Raiden cut into their exchange, and Anju nodded in agreement. He was right. They were on the battlefield. They couldn’t afford to cloud their minds with unnecessary thoughts. But even so, Shana’s apprehensions were reasonable, and what she said was probably true.

In order to fight to the best of their ability, they had to cut away any thoughts and emotions they didn’t need… And because this was the mindset they believed kept them alive, they eventually stopped thinking about anything that didn’t pertain to the battlefield altogether.

“Right. Let’s revisit this later… After this operation ends. While we watch the ocean.”

Once that moment came, they wouldn’t be able to push the conversation off till later… One day, they would no longer be able to make excuses.

The Reginleif’s output was high compared with its weight, and that high mobility was a bit excessive when it came to horizontal maneuvering in this base. So Shin thought as he piloted Undertaker, feeling as if it had more power in it than room to expend it in this environment.

The only level space on any floor of the Mirage Spire consisted of beams. Besides those continual triangles, there was nothing on the surface—only a gaping abyss. He could easily sprint along the beam, but a vertical jump would require that he make a precise landing on the adjacent, diagonal beam, and he would need to constantly confirm how far it was at any point along the beam.

Jumping at the wrong time could make him miss his landing spot and plummet to the bottom, which was a situation he naturally wanted to avoid. The beam offered very little in terms of braking distance and width, so he only ever committed to small, safe jumps. The Reginleif couldn’t exhibit the agile, savage sprinting it was made to perform on this battlefield.

But when it came to vertical movement, its high output and mobility became powerful weapons.

At the edge of his field of vision, he could see a pillar that supported the entire structure, as if knitted together by the steel frames that composed the tower. Within, his ability picked up on the presence of the enemy, and indeed, a large, steel-colored form awaited. It had eight legs like steel spikes, serving as lethal weapons in their own right. A gun turret coated in thick armor. A characteristic, coercive 120 mm smoothbore gun that Shin had seen more times than he’d cared to.

A Legion Tank type—a Löwe.

…It was effectively placed there as a fixed cannon, but that structurally sound position did afford them a way to deploy heavyweight Legion types. As obvious as it was, and while that point was solid enough to position a Löwe in, the way it was set in a point where multiple scaffoldings interconnected meant that blowing it up might be dangerous.

Shin evaded the APFSDS shell fired in his direction, willingly rolling off the beam he was on to the beams below him—the third level’s first level, Carla One. Most armored weapons, the Löwe included, had difficulty swerving their turrets vertically, and so Undertaker approached it from below, from a point where the Löwe couldn’t comfortably shoot at it.

Accelerating rapidly to max speed, he soon reached the pillar the Löwe was hiding in. While maintaining this velocity, he brought Undertaker’s legs to the structure and began sprinting up along the pillar. The Löwe turned its turret, swinging it to meet Undertaker, which simply kicked against the structure to avoid it and began running up another nearby pillar. Before long, he was positioned above the Löwe and behind its head.

The Löwe’s body was squeezed into a corner of the truss structure, which now left it with nowhere to run as Undertaker lunged at its turret.

Armament selection: leg-attached 57 mm armor-piercing pile drivers. Trigger.

A tremor jolted through the Löwe.

The electromagnetic pile struck into it, and it convulsed for a moment before crumpling on the spot. The shock of the attack made the panels on the outer walls rattle and vibrate. Confirming its dying cry had petered out, Shin let out a breath.

This was fighting on high elevation. One wrong step could send him plummeting into a free fall. It was more nerve-racking than usual. They had finally successfully infiltrated all the way up to Carla Two. Only four more floors remained before they reached the top. Looking up at the floor extending above them made Shin felt shaken and jittery. Countless geometric patterns of light shone in, dark blue like the color of an unending twilight. The half-transparent panels coating the other walls and the fortress being shaped like a hexagonal prism cylinder came together, giving Shin the feeling that he was walking within a kaleidoscope.

It felt as if his inability to perceive this endless repetition, the sheer boundlessness of this shape was being thrust before his eyes. In the end, he couldn’t truly perceive everything before his eyes… It made him realize just how diminutive he was. He was really no different than a fly.

…In the grand scale of things, humans…were unnecessary in this world.

This cold thought that had been ingrained in him in the Eighty-Sixth Sector crossed his mind, and Shin shook his head, dispelling it. Maybe it was because of what Ishmael said on the Stella Maris. They who would lose the history and pride of the Open Sea clans with this mission. It was as if it was meant to show the Eighty-Six their possible future. Even though the captain might not have intended to do so.

A blue space with shadow images dancing above one’s head and geometric patterns flickering at one’s feet. Countless steel-colored Legion. As deep as one ventured into the Spire, the sights were all the same. It made Theo dizzy.

Just how far did they go? When had the fighting begun, and how long would it last? It was a winding hell of reflections, made of mirrors built against mirrors. It was a space of mirages and false images that seemed to stretch on forever.

How far had he advanced into this peculiar space? What was he seeking here? Where was he headed? It felt like being in this strange world was making him lose sense of himself.

I…

“Nouzen, you’re at Level Dora. It’s time for our shift.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

At some point, the Thunderbolt squadron had climbed up. Seeing this, Theo realized it was time to advance to the next floor. But suddenly, Yuuto, who was leading the Thunderbolt squadron, connected to him via the Resonance.

“Rikka? Fall back; it’s our shift.”

“Huh?” Theo asked back dumbly, at which point he came to his senses.

He’d misheard his instructions.

“…Sorry.”

When it came to taking over the base, Shin’s Spearhead squadron and Yuuto’s Thunderbolt squadron alternated every three floors. They needed time to replenish ammunition and fuel, and most important of all, a person’s concentration would wear thin from prolonged fighting. Theo was part of Shin’s Spearhead squadron, which meant he’d need to fall back while the Thunderbolt squadron handled the fighting.

As Theo hurriedly cleared the way for them, Yuuto suddenly started speaking.

“I heard a legend somewhere that those who try to surpass humanity do it by scaling a tower.”

“…Huh?”

“A tower at the end of the world, made up of spiral staircases. The higher one climbs, the more they discard their vices, prejudices, fears, and desires. And once they reach the top, they shed away all their suffering.”

What was this story all of a sudden?

“Yuuto… Are you shaken up?”

But upon saying it, he realized that it was the other way around. Yuuto told him this random story to make Theo realize that he, himself, was shaken up. And so he listened, without cutting him off by saying that it wasn’t something to talk about in the middle of an operation.

…Climbing a spiral staircase, and shedding away one’s sufferings in the process. It wasn’t unlike how they discarded their memories of happiness as they fought for their lives against the enemy, overcome by terror and indignation. How they continued to battle, forfeiting their natural instinct to live on.

Like the Eighty-Sixth Sector, where they were once locked up.

Yuuto spoke, his unit’s optical sensor fixed on Laughing Fox like a pair of cold, emotionless eyes.

“Yeah. That speech from earlier made me think this tower might be that place.”

Was this…really Yuuto he was speaking to? It almost felt like he was having a conversation with himself. It was as if all the doubts and misgivings he’d sealed away were being reflected onto Yuuto and coming out as his words.

“When I heard that story in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, it got me thinking. If the Eighty-Six were to scale that tower, would they be able to do it without discarding their pride? Or would they lose even that?”

If they were to die now, would they make it to the bitter end with their pride intact? Or would they go out like the Open Sea clans and leave absolutely everything on the battlefield?

The sea roared loudly.

“—Mm…”

Shin blinked, hearing a voice from below . A wailing unlike human speech, or anything he’d heard from the Legion. It wasn’t a machine’s words, nor was it a human’s scream. It was an utterly foreign sound—one he could not compare to any other sound he had ever heard before.

And it was coming from below.

“From under the sea…?”

The strike force was currently on the fourth level—the lowest floor of level Dora: Dora One. The Thunderbolt squadron was currently handling the fighting, while Shin and his Spearhead squadron were restocking on Level Carla’s highest floor. As soon as they were finished, they would ascend to Level Erze, where the Morpho lay in wait.

With the level cleared, there was no sign of the enemy, but Level Dora was still full of enemies, and Level Erze’s underbelly was full of Eintagsfliege. And of course, there was the Morpho, which was obstructed by their silver wings. While still wary of the enemies above, Shin looked down at the floors they had already passed.

Far below him, impeded by both the storm and the depths of the sea, was a world unlike the surface. A place governed not by light and air but by darkness and water, the realm of cold-blooded creatures.

Right now, he couldn’t hear that voice anymore… But he refused to believe he’d imagined it.

“Lena… Is there any way you can scout what’s going on under the sea? It…sounded like there was something down there.”

“Under the sea…? I’ll check,” Lena replied, turning her eyes to Ishmael.

She shortly explained Shin’s request, only for Ishmael to quizzically nod while saying the sonar did not detect anything at present. The radar was of little use in this situation, since unlike in open air, the radar waves were hampered when traveling underwater. The sonar, however, was the main scouting tool for underwater environments. It made use of sound waves to detect distant enemy vessels or leviathans lurking in the depths.

Ishmael phoned in the order to the sonar room and soon got a response.

“Brother, there’s a leviathan singing in the waters. It’s pretty far, though… Could that be the cause?”

“…For real?” Ishmael groaned.

This time, Lena watched him curiously as he looked up and whispered bitterly.

“Yeah, I imagine you’d be pissed with us shooting up the place right under your nose… But I’m begging you, stay the hell away from us now.”

“A leviathan…?” Shin blinked as Lena relayed the response to him. “I suppose I wouldn’t confuse that voice for a Legion’s, but…”

His ability didn’t perceive physical noise, but the final thoughts and words of ghosts that lingered after death. It was hard to imagine he’d mix up the cry of a living creature like a leviathan with a Legion’s wail.

He couldn’t deny the possibility altogether. Upon reaching the Fleet Countries, he did hear a leviathan’s song faintly in the distance. The open waters the leviathans roamed were several hundred kilometers away from the shore, and yet their voices did reach the mainland. So perhaps a leviathan’s “song” wasn’t conveyed by sound but was categorically similar to a Legion’s wailing in nature.

“Roger that. But stay alert just the same.”

“Yes, that’s always our intention. Hmm… Captain, you should remain vigilant, too.”

She’d added those words hurriedly, her voice suppressed. Shin blinked once in surprise.

“Your progress in securing the base is going faster than planned… If you feel pressured somehow, then—”

“…Right.”

The words Ishmael told them before the battle with the Morpho began. A few hours had passed, and everyone looked calm on the surface. But truth be told, quite a few of the Eighty-Six were still shaken up by it. As their commander, Shin had noticed. That was why he’d urged them to be watchful of their surroundings. He’d warned them that fighting with one’s field of vision so narrowed would be dangerous. And even still, they weren’t being cautious enough.

“Roger. The operation’s entering its endgame, so it’s about time fatigue sets in… We’ll be careful.”

“Hmm. To clarify, by no means am I finding fault with your command—”

“I know that… Lena, we’re… At least, I’m fine.”

Yes, don’t worry. I won’t lose my way like I did in the United Kingdom. If anything, that taught me that I can live even without anyone to turn to.

That was likely Ishmael’s intent… Something within Shin had changed so much that he could realize that on his own.

And that was why what she needed to worry about in this mission wasn’t him. After a moment’s thought, he switched over his transmission to everyone and continued:

“—About the leviathan bones we saw before. Nicole, I think it was called? I’ve actually seen it once before the war started.”

Despite the sudden change in subject, and it being a subject that wasn’t at all pertinent to this operation at that, he could feel Lena nod on the other side of the Resonance.

“…Yes.”

“If it weren’t for the war, it might have even inspired me to research it. When I was little, I was…well, as interested in monsters as most people are, I think.”

Lena seemed to have understood. And despite that, she regarded him with an intentionally teasing sort of voice.

“I know… The fake reports you sent me all the time in the Eighty-Sixth Sector were always so bombastic and exaggerated. I can imagine you really had trouble writing that last one. It read like you were fighting a monster from some old cartoon or something.”

She jabbed back at him with an old memory he’d managed to forget by now. Shin let out a strange sort of groan. Right. That did happen. He’d assumed no Handler would actually care enough to read a report, so he had kept sending the same report for months. He had no intent of actually writing a serious one, so he’d basically fabricated the whole contents of the report. He’d written that particular report soon after drafting, back when he was eleven years old… Looking back on it now, that report mostly felt embarrassing to think about.

“Are you taking care to write your reports properly now?”

“I do. I mean, someone is reading them this time around. Assuming you’re not using them to make paper airplanes.”

“Oh, didn’t you know? It’s a good way to gauge the quality of the report. In the case of a bad one, its contents are too light, so it flies better.”

“Harsh…”

Hearing their commanding officers talk, some of the Eighty-Six chuckled through the Resonance. Their tension seemed to melt a little… As uncharacteristic as their exchange might have been, it proved useful in its own way.

“…Be careful out there.”

“I will be.”

As that unusual exchange did manage to get a fit of laughter out of him, Theo spoke. Unnecessary stress, excitement, or unrest could negatively impact an operation. At times like those, casual, frivolous conversation could be an effective countermeasure. But he never expected it out of stone-faced Shin and straitlaced Lena, of all people.

And it wasn’t just them. Yuuto was the first to bring something up in casual conversation to distract him.

“By the way, Shin. Rito said the same thing.”

There was an odd pause. Shin was frowning, apparently.

“Why don’t you go for it? Research, that is. You could join Rito.”

“…Research sounds like a nice idea, but I’d rather not be Rito’s babysitter.”

“Wow, mean.” Theo chuckled and then continued. “You know, Shin, you…”

He tried to ask his question as casually as he spoke before, but it didn’t seem to work.

“Are you sure coming to this operation…was a good idea?”

Undertaker’s optical sensor swiveled gently in his direction. Behind the artificial crimson glow of that sensor was a pair of equally bloodred eyes that had grown to be far more evocative than they were before.

Shin’s changed.

He had developed an earnest desire to live…and began wishing for happiness. He had willingly met his grandparents, from whom he’d been separated by the war. This Reaper, who would save anyone in the Eighty-Sixth Sector but would never find salvation for himself, had learned how to express his feelings to that crybaby of a Handler—the only one who ever tried to save him.

He’s completely different from me… I can’t bring myself to go anywhere.

“I mean, coming with us. Fighting in this war. Should you really still be a Processor? I mean…you don’t have to fight anymore.”

But as he said those words, it dawned on him. No. It wasn’t that Shin didn’t need to fight anymore. Theo didn’t want him to fight anymore.

Because he didn’t have to any longer. The pride to fight to the bitter end wasn’t the only thing he had, and the battlefield was no longer the only place he belonged. And if that was the case, Theo didn’t want him to fight. He didn’t want him to be there. The battlefield was a place that took until there was nothing left to take.

Just like Ishmael and the people of the Open Sea clans. No matter how precious their pride was, no matter how strongly they held on to it, they had lost it so easily. Laughably so. And that made him remember something he seemed to have forgotten at some point since leaving the Eighty-Sixth Sector.

Pride was the one thing you gained from fighting until the bitter end. Nothing more. And that pride was a transient, fickle thing. One could never know when it might be taken from them.

There was nothing in this world that could not be taken away. That was, perhaps, the one, irrefutable truth. Losing things to the absurdities of life was just the way of the world.

And if that’s the truth, you… you …if no one else…should leave before something else is taken from you. Before you lose everything. Just like the captain did.

“You should quit the war… Forget about all this.”

They were words that bordered on insult for an Eighty-Six. If nothing else, hearing them come from Theo’s lips must have been especially offensive. But Shin simply cracked a small, bitter smile.

“Theo… Who were you really talking to just now?”

Theo froze up. He’d been overlapping the old captain’s image with Shin. These were words he’d wanted to tell the captain, and Shin could see right through him. At some point, the Para-RAID had been set so that he and Shin were only talking to each other.

“Yeah. You’re right. Maybe I don’t have to fight anymore. I can’t say pride is all I have anymore, or that I have nowhere to go but the battlefield… But I can’t get where I want to go unless I fight. And more importantly than that, I don’t want to live while being ashamed of myself.”

So long as I don’t bring shame to myself, I’m satisfied.

If I don’t, I’d never be able to look the fleet commander in the eye.

“So that’s why…”

Suddenly, another Resonance target joined their exchange. A flat, cold voice.

“Nouzen. We’ve seized control of Level Dora.”

Shin fell silent, then switched his Para-RAID’s targets from only Theo to all the troops under his command. His tone had changed from his casual one to his voice as operations commander for the Strike Package.

“Roger that. All units, we’re entering the top floor. It’s time to take out the Morpho.”

The enemy force had finally reached its vicinity. They had gotten close enough to open hostilities. The Morpho—and the ghost inhabiting it—admitted this fact, gritting its nonexistent teeth in frustration.

Using this defensive function should have been a measure it never needed to resort to, given this base’s function and purpose . But it had been left with no other choice. If it were to be destroyed before it was completed , they would have truly lost everything.

<<Colare One to Colare Synthesis. Activate defensive mechanism at minimal configuration.>>

At the edge of Shin’s field of vision, an explosive bolt triggered. The beams holding the scaffolding in place all crumbled at once. The floor directly beneath Level Erze, Dora Three, gave out. The grid-like, kaleidoscopic floor collapsed under their feet.

“What…?!”

Shin, who had just fired an anchor into that floor, preparing to reel himself up to Dora Three, was sent helplessly plummeting down. Yuuto and the Thunderbolt squadron, who had been deployed there to cover for them, also fell. Before they could secure a landing, another bolt exploded, this time tearing apart Dora Two.

Their consorts hurriedly approached Dora One’s corners or jumped down to Level Carla to clear space for a landing. Just barely avoiding the shower of steel beams, the Alkonosts nimbly clung to Dora Two’s walls.

As soon as he was about to jump onto Dora Three’s beams, the cave-in happened. This placed him in a poor position. Shin adjusted Undertaker’s position in midair, somehow successfully landing on one of Dora One’s beams.

“…!”

Compared with the Vánagandr, the Reginleif was built for high-mobility combat and equipped with powerful shock absorbers. But the unexpected collapse and fall resulted in a rebound shock that nearly knocked Shin out cold. Undertaker’s legs froze up. The other Reginleifs around him didn’t fare much better; some dangled from a beam using their wire anchors, while others landed, the air knocked out of their Processors’ lungs.

They all stood fatally seeded in place—an unavoidable, shameful display owing to their humanity. Aiming at that opening, the revolving autocannons composedly parted the silvery veil of the Eintagsfliege as they took aim. These eight antiair armaments turned their barrels on the water—at the flock of paralyzed spiders, suspended and frozen between heaven and sea.

And then Shin heard something descending, sliding along the walls of the fortress. As the floor collapsed, something awakened, its freeze status lifted. Both their optical sensors and radar systems couldn’t pick up anything, but Shin could hear it. The sound of a ghost. A mechanical voice.

It only took a moment, but the effects of adrenaline drew it out. It was unavoidable. Too quick to follow with the naked eye. They looked up helplessly as the autocannons’ motors began to whirl—

“Darya.”

“By your will.”

Eight Alkonost units lunged off Dora Three, plummeting directly into the line of fire between the autocannon and the Juggernauts. Alkonosts were relatively small units, but a machine gun’s muzzle couldn’t expand its firing radius. Their positioning was good enough to cover for the Juggernauts.

“Let us meet again, everyone. In the next battle.”

The autocannons spewed fire, their 40 mm rounds tearing the Alkonosts to shreds with their immense firepower. The Alkonosts’ slender limbs and cockpits were reduced to shreds, along with the Sirins that occupied them. With several of the units, the high explosives they packed for self-destruction purposes triggered in an induced explosion, blowing them up in midair.

The intense shock waves and flames produced a heat wave that blew past the autocannon and extended outside the fortress. The Juggernauts just barely assumed evasive maneuvers, the blast lighting up their ivory armors with a red glow.

The Juggernauts somehow evaded both the autocannon fire and the heat wave’s blast. Looking up at her monitor and breathing a sigh of relief, Lena pursed her lips bitterly. Those girls might have called this a worthwhile exchange… But she didn’t want to get used to making this kind of sacrifice.

“…I’m sorry, Vika. Thank you, you saved us.”

“It’s fine. That’s their role.”

Combat was ongoing. His words were curt, as if to remind her not to waste time needlessly.

“That trap just now.”

“I doubt it can pull that off again. If it could do that whenever it wanted, it would have done so as soon as the Juggernauts got in.”

…So Vika’s conclusion was the same as hers. The Mirage Spire was the railgun’s artillery position, and it was shaped as a tall tower. It stood at the heart of the sea, exposed to storms and intense winds with nothing to impede the railguns for many kilometers. Discarding the beams that supported it horizontally meant the Spire would be that much weaker to the blowing winds. The railgun wouldn’t be able to maintain its accuracy that way. This was a negative condition the Mirage Spire and the Morpho would not be able to tolerate. They couldn’t simply drop away entire floors that easily.

“The more troublesome thing is the second, unknown unit’s attack… I’ll handle analyzing it. Vera, Yanina, move to cover the Juggernauts at your discretion in case they can’t dodge.”

The Sirins weren’t human, but they were capable of executing simple orders without a Handler to command them. Ordering the petite, clockwork girls that served as platoon captains to act autonomously, Vika booted up Gadyuka’s systems to perform an analysis.

“Lerche, fall back for a while and deploy your Cicada… Observe everything.”

Exposed to the intense blast, the Eintagsfliege’s brittle, silver butterfly wings wavered like grass as they took to the sky, blowing away the gentle veil they’d created and momentarily exposing the Morpho in all its glory to the Reginleifs.

Fundamentally, its appearance was exactly the same as the one Shin fought a year ago. Two wings that looked to be wove from silver threads, extending to the heavens. A blue, will-o’-the-wisp-like optical sensor that lit up against the black outline of the stormy sky. A black armor module, like the scales of a dragon. A gigantic, eleven-meter-long form. And most striking of all, a barrel in the shape of two lances—though one of them was broken now.

Like a dragon emerging from the sea, the rain and thunder heralded its coming.

The only things to set it apart from the Morpho that Shin knew of were the four pairs of metallic legs extending from between its wings. They were long, bewitching legs, like those of a spider sitting in the center of a silver web. And at their tips were 40 mm revolving autocannons, like the dilapidated wings of a sick bird.

A set of gun arms, reflecting the light.

The autocannons began rotating, each of their individual sights fixed on a different Juggernaut.

Fire.

This time, the Juggernauts dispersed, avoiding the diagonal rows of sweeping armor-piercing rounds. The beams they were on were just wide enough to accommodate their size, but they were in the same triangular pattern. Having climbed all the way up from Level Agate to Level Dora, they’d grown used to fighting in this environment.

Undertaker dodged by making small, repeated hops, braking as soon as the gunfire paused. It fixed its sights on the Morpho, hoping to counterattack. But then, from the bottom of the highest floor, where there was nothing—no, where it couldn’t even hear anything—something fired at it.

“…?!”

Canceling firing sequence, Undertaker moved over to an adjacent beam, evading the lethal spear hurtling toward it. The Morpho’s voice howled, signaling another attack. As soon as Undertaker hopped away to another beam, the one it had just been on went flying, peppered by a barrage of 40 mm machine-gun rounds.

Following that, multiple targets descended on it from a place it couldn’t see, moaning and sobbing as they did. They surrounded Undertaker, moving horizontally along the grid as they fired red, gleaming heat rays. The Weisel’s extension units and protectors—the Fire Extension types, the Biene.

“Tch…!”

Launching a wire anchor downward, Shin swung down to Carla Three in what was almost a free fall, avoiding their attack. Clicking his tongue once, he looked up. He couldn’t see the Biene coming, nor the autocannons gearing up for another barrage.

This must mean…

“Optical camouflage…!” he heard Theo hiss nearby.

By being covered by Eintagsfliege, which were able to deflect all waves, be they electronic or light, the Phönix was able to effectively become a Legion type that was invisible both to the naked eye and the radar. It seemed the Legion had begun applying that technology to other types now.

Burned by the intense temperatures of the autocannon and the Biene’s heat rays, butterfly wings flaked off the Eintagsfliege and turned to ash. Some of the Eintagsfliege that roosted on the top floor’s beams fluttered down, settling into the burned-off spots and disappearing… They joined forces with the rest of the camouflage flock, compensating for those that had burned off.

Raiden turned his machine guns on the enemy, hoping to counterattack… But before he could manage it, he had to jump away and avoid the autocannon’s fire.

“No good,” he spat out bitterly. “Damn pests keep hiding in their nest.”

Just below the Morpho’s roost on the top floor, on Level Dora, the Biene retreated to the underbelly of the top floor after firing. That spot alone had multiple beams converge together to form what looked like a thick iron lattice. Cannon shells and machine-gun fire, which moved in a linear manner, couldn’t penetrate it easily.

“…The Biene are only ever going to come out when they shoot,” Anju lamented. “This is annoying.”

Since he could hear their voices, Shin could track them even when they were camouflaged. He could track them…but there were simply too many of them. Warning everyone every time they fired was too much. And to make things worse, it wasn’t as if every single one of the Morpho’s autocannons had its own independent central processor, so he couldn’t perfectly predict how they’d move, either… The most he could do was warn them just as it was about to fire.

As he kept his eyes fixed on the few autocannons that weren’t camouflaged, making sure they weren’t beginning to rotate, Shin examined his wire anchor’s status screen. The wire anchors were, for all intents and purposes, his literal lifelines in this battle, so he carefully checked for any errors or malfunctions.

He couldn’t track all the Biene, and he couldn’t see how the autocannons would move at all. But so long as they could keep dodging…so long as they could buy time while maintaining their forces, they could gather information and use that time.

“Lena.”

“…Yes. Leave the optical camouflage to me.”

Lena nodded as, underneath the Federacy uniform she was wearing, the Cicada emitted a faint, violet-silver glow. This was why they insisted on bringing units capable of artillery support with the strike force, even when it meant they could deploy fewer units in total.

However, the external panels of the fortress proved more durable than expected, and the artillery Juggernauts’ 88 mm canister shots couldn’t reliably destroy them. Some of the canisters might have been able to slip through the large canopy covering the top floor, but that wouldn’t have enough firepower…

She could hear Ishmael and Esther whispering to each other next to her. They must have been frustrated at being unable to help the strike force’s struggle. As holo-screens displayed their footage from within the fortress, they spoke to each other rapidly, in whispers.

“—Covering fire. Can’t the Stella Maris’s main turret help here?”

“It probably won’t penetrate. And look at how close they are; we can’t ignore the possibility of accidentally hitting friendly units.”

“We’re talking about 40 cm shells here. Even if it isn’t a direct hit, the Juggernaut’s thin armor won’t hold up…”

“Then do we use anti-leviathan guns? At this distance, with the wind being this strong?”

“…No. That’d be even worse.”

The wind… The wind!

Lena looked up at once. It might be hard from the outside, but…

“Captain, I need your cooperation… Lend me the Stella Maris’s main gun!”

Upon hearing Lena’s idea through the Para-RAID, Vika spoke. Chaika’s optical sensor analyzed the Biene’s attack patterns, and they were now on display on Gadyuka’s holo-window.

“My analysis requires a little more information. Nouzen, Crow, I’m sorry, but I’m going to need you to put up with it a bit longer.”

At this point, the Eighty-Six wouldn’t grumble in the face of such an unreasonable demand. Neither of them even responded to his request, as if he was expecting the obvious out of them, and Lena continued instead.

“As soon as the analysis is complete, we’ll switch to a counterattack. Report in, Shin, Yuuto.”

Before she could even finish that order, the experienced Name Bearers of the Eighty-Sixth Sector replied without any hesitation.

“…We should go for the revolving autocannons and the Biene.”

“I’ll set everyone up with that in mind while prioritizing evasion.”

They were under the constant pressure of having to evade invisible barrages and lines of fire, while also having to be wary of their footing. Having to climb up under those conditions strained and fatigued their nerves. Some took wrong turns, resulting in them being shot at, or forgot their consort units were nearby and bumped into other Juggernauts. Others took a wrong stop, falling over to a lower level. The numbers of casualties and injured were growing.

Seeing this happen, Kurena gritted her teeth within Gunslinger. Her job was to eliminate any enemies that threatened Shin or her comrades. The very role that Gunslinger’s sniper configuration was expected to perform was to creep through this mesh and snipe down high-priority targets like the Morpho. This was the skill she had honed to carve out a place for herself at Shin’s side.

And yet here she was, incapable of aligning her sights on the Morpho.

The impatience was overcoming her.

Sniping blind was a hard stunt to pull. There was a total of twenty-four revolving autocannons firing on them in tandem. Meanwhile, the Biene drew a grid on them from the outer circumference of the base with their heat rays; they were capable of attacking in a radius from all directions and firing at random from a vertical angle.

There were too many of both of them, and with Shin’s warnings coming too late, the Eighty-Six were forced to constantly remain on the defensive because of their vast range. So with this web of beams between her and her target, a weak shot would achieve little. She couldn’t counterattack.

The irritation seethed in her chest.

“I’m…his comrade. An Eighty-Six, the same as Shin. And we’ll always be the same. We’re those who fight to the bitter end. That’ll never change.”

She forcibly pushed away the recollection that the very person who told her that would lose her own pride today.

The sights of an autocannon that had fixed on Shiden’s Cyclops suddenly stopped…and focused on Gunslinger instead. With that black muzzle glaring at her, Kurena came to a realization.