Chapter Four: The Great Shinichi Rescue

I thought I had an idea now of how condemned prisoners must feel waiting to be executed.

My mouth was so dry I could hardly swallow. I was awake all night, but had nothing to do—I didn’t even have any writing utensils to leave a will with—so I just tossed and turned on my bed, restlessly checking my watch.

“Time to go.”

Soldiers showed up and ushered me out of my cell. Amatena wasn’t one of them. It looked like she had finally decided to wash her hands of me.

They led me down the stone hallway, then out of the building. From the outside, the research facility looked like a single huge structure, but actually (apparently), the towering fence that enclosed the entire area hid several more buildings. I had been in “Storage,” the building where they kept subjects for experiments, and now I was being ushered to “Procedures.” The fact that I got to see the sky one more time before they did their work felt like a tiny blessing.

Then again, if I was going to try anything, this was literally my last chance.

There were five soldiers transporting me: three in front of me, two behind. All of them were carrying swords. Why no spears or axes? Maybe because they assumed they might have to fight inside the prison. It didn’t really make a difference; for a complete combat layperson like me, the enemy could be armed with swords or spears or daggers. I was still gonna get stabbed.

So going toe-to-toe with them was out. I considered whether I could bowl some of them over with Tifu Murottsu. If I could somehow get the two behind me in front of me instead, then hit all of them at once, I might be able to knock them down. Of course, there was always the danger that they would notice me chanting, but if I were careful to do it softly and with minimal lip movements, I might be able to pull it off.

“You,” one of the soldiers behind me said, giving me a smack on the back of the head. “Pick up the pace.”

“Y-Yeah, sorry.”

Crap. Why did I reflexively apologize? Stupid me.

No! That’s not the point!

This was very, very bad. If I chanted a magic spell, there was a distinct possibility I would be cut down on the spot.

A deep despair began to weigh on me.

“Ahh...”

I suddenly found I couldn’t stop imagining moments from the past, memories that flitted through my mind. Was this what they meant when they said your life flashes before your eyes?

I thought of my life in Japan, with my parents and sister. I remembered being brutally shot down by my old friend when I confessed my feelings to her. I recalled shutting myself up in my room and doing nothing but playing online games, watching anime, participating on various major message boards, (etc., etc., etc.).

I remembered being deceived when I tried to apply for a job in Akihabara.

And then...

I remembered the first day I came to Eldant. Meeting Myusel and Minori-san. How much seeing Brooke shocked me. The way Petralka decked me when we first met. The day Elvia came to our house.

I remembered setting up the school, being captured by terrorists, getting to know Myusel and Petralka better and better, being attacked by the JSDF Special Forces, the soccer tournament, the movie production...

Yeah. It had all been a lot of fun. I felt like my life had really blossomed after I came to this world. And always it was thanks to Myusel and the others, thanks to the people of this world.

“Myusel...”

They had accepted me. A worthless otaku of a home security guard had come to them, and they had cared for me.

I really wish I could have seen everyone one last time.

And then there were all the anime and manga that hadn’t yet finished their runs... You know, I remembered seeing an article in some magazine about season two of Rental☆Madoka. I wondered what they decided to do about the voice actors for the new characters. Plus, the computer game Step on my Corpse 2 was supposed to be in production. Would it ever come out? And I had that Kamen Rapper Weathered model kit I had never built...

And on and on.

It appeared I was and would remain a lost-cause otaku to the bitter end.

But at that moment, one of the soldiers noticed something. I don’t know who spotted it first, but one of them said, “H-Hey, what’s that?”

All of them looked up. Almost unconsciously, I craned my neck, too.

And then just about choked at what I saw overhead.

The sun was so bright it hurt to look at the sky, but even so, I could tell immediately what I was seeing.

Smack in the middle of the endless blue field was a hovering shadow. A shadow that was getting closer by the second...

“Dragon!” the soldiers shouted, panic creeping into their voices.

They were right: it was definitely a dragon. And not one of the little domesticated wyverns the Eldant Dragon Knights used. This was several times—several dozen times—bigger, a monster so violent and dangerous that every country was perpetually on the alert for them. A real dragon.

Dragons, said to be part sprite, were the absolute apex predators of this world—and this one was coming straight down at me!

“Run—”

“No, get the puppet drake—”

“Call a mage!”

The terror of the dragon had sown evident confusion among the soldiers. This was my chance to escape! Or would have been, except that there was no particular reason a dragon would distinguish between me and the soldiers, meaning that I was probably still done for along with everyone else...

“Shinichi-samaaaa!”

“...Uh...?”

I don’t mind saying I was pretty darn surprised at that moment. Maybe, I thought, the depression had grown so acute that I was starting to have auditory hallucinations. Because I was sure I had just heard a voice I couldn’t possibly hear, the voice of a girl whose smiling face I could picture in my mind’s eye even at that moment.

“Shinichi-sama!”

“It can’t be...”

I looked up again at the dragon, which actually appeared to be slowing as it came inexorably nearer.

I saw a face peek out from behind it. A face I knew.

“Shinichi-sama!”

She wasn’t dressed in her familiar maid uniform, but it didn’t matter. The person riding on the back of that dragon, reaching her arms out to me and desperately calling my name, was...

“Myusel?!”

“I’ve come to save you, Master!”

Looking up at her framed against the sun and the blue sky, I felt a rush of happiness, astonishment, and a slew of other emotions I couldn’t even put into words, so many feelings all at once that I thought I might just burst into tears.

With wind sprites supporting its wings, our Faldra landed in the courtyard of the facility (it was a bit of a squeeze). Released, the sprites went flying off in every direction, almost as if a large-scale Tifu Murottsu had been let off. It wasn’t enough to knock over the Bahairamanian soldiers nearby, but it certainly worked to confuse them.

Then there was Minori-sama, who jumped from the Faldra’s back shouting and with something called an “em-nyne” in each hand.

“Yaaaaaaaahhhhhh!”

There was a series of earsplitting cracks, and clouds of dust flew up from the ground ahead of us. I had to assume the enemy soldiers weren’t aware of how powerful the em-nynes were, but the noise combined with the tiny holes appearing in the earth must have alerted them that this was a weapon on par with offensive magic like Terab Redonas, the lightning spell. They quickly dove for the cover of a nearby building.

“Myusel!” Minori-sama called.

“Right!”

Just as we had planned, Minori-sama had drawn the Bahairamanian soldiers’ attention; now I jumped down from the Faldra, carrying the weapon I had borrowed from Minori-sama.

My objective, of course, was Shinichi-sama.

He was kneeling on the ground—he had probably been caught up in the whirlwind just like the soldiers. I went running toward him.

“Shinichi-sama!”

He didn’t immediately answer, but only stared at me distantly. He was probably too shocked for words. At last he seemed to come back to himself; he blinked several times, then shouted, “Myusel! Behind you!”

I spun around and saw a Bahairamanian soldier, his sword coming down at me. I instinctively raised the weapon Minori-sama had given me.

Clang! It blocked the sword that was coming at me. But...

“Ergh...”

“You—!”

The soldier was forcing his blade down toward me. I simply didn’t have the physical strength to resist a trained, male soldier. I found myself forced to one knee...

Then, suddenly, the pressure from above disappeared. In fact, the soldier went spinning through the air, then hit the ground hard enough to knock him unconscious. I stared at him in amazement.

“Shinichi-sama!”

Elvia-san, however, rushed past me. She must have pulled the soldier down from behind.

“Are y’ okay?!” She hardly slowed down, all but slamming into Shinichi-sama as she embraced him.

“Gurgh?”

“Shinichi-sama!” I rushed over to him as well. “Are you hurt?! Are you all right?!”

It was really Shinichi-sama standing in front of me. I was happy to see him for the first time in so long. I was transcendently glad that he was safe. I felt like if I wasn’t careful, I might break down crying right then and there.

“I’m not... hurt, but...” Shinichi-sama groaned. “I think I might... choke to death...”

“Elvia-san!”

“Oh! S-Sorry!” She quickly let him go. She was as happy as I was to be reunited with him, and caught up in the moment, had forgotten her own strength.

“But why in the world are all of you here?” Shinichi-sama asked.

“To rescue you, of course!” Elvia-san said. “Big Sis Ama told us where you’d be!”

“‘Big Sis Ama’?”

“She means Amatena-san,” I clarified.

“Amatena told you?” he asked. “And that dragon—”

“Oh, Loek-sama and Romilda-sama—”

Elvia-san jumped up. “Details later! Run now! We have to—geh?!” She hadn’t finished her sentence before something blew her sideways.

“Elvia!”

“Elvia-san?!”

We watched in shock as Elvia-san bounced once on the ground and rolled several times more. Whatever had struck her must have been very powerful.

It had to be some kind of—

“Magic!” Shinichi-sama shouted.

Yes: we could see several of the Bahairamanian soldiers peeking out from the shadows of the nearby building. The two closest to us each had a hand raised. I assumed they had used something like Tifu Murottsu on Elvia-san. Their uniforms looked subtly different from the other soldiers’; they were probably special forces trained in the use of magic, or perhaps they were a couple of the mages conducting research at this facility.

“Elvia, are you okay?”

“I—I’m fine!” Elvia-san bounced to her feet. “I’m nothing if not tough!” She jogged back toward us.

The mages, however, appeared to be chanting another spell. Not the same one, but something probably considerably more powerful. I saw fire sprites collecting in the outstretched palm of the man closest to us, gathering into a bright beam.

I couldn’t imagine even Elvia-san standing up to a direct hit from something like that. For that matter, there was a good chance Shinichi-sama and I would be caught in the blast as well. And so...

“Huh? Hey—Myusel!”

“Elvia-san, take care of Shinichi-sama!”

“Got it!”

I saw Elvia-san grab Shinichi-sama up in her arms, while I took a step forward to cover them. Elvia-san might be carrying Shinichi-sama, but as for me, I was carrying the weapon Minori-sama had lent me.

In the space of a breath, the globe of fire sprites had become so bright it was hard to look at. There was no question the mage intended to burn us all alive.

It was terrifying. But all I could do was trust.

The mage released the beam of light. I didn’t dodge out of the way, but instead ran headlong toward it.

Your Majesty!

The image of Petralka an Eldant III flashed through my mind. With my mouth, I was intoning a spell...

BOOM!

To either side of me, there was a deafening noise.

But as for me myself—

“What?!”

“A magic shield?”

“No, that was—”

The Bahairamanian soldiers were thoroughly confused.

I was wearing the battle dress Her Majesty had handed down to me. The dye was made from a rare ore which conducted magic readily; the cloak was woven of metal threads that incorporated the same ore, and the entire thing was made with magic-amplification spells that specialist mages had spent much time and effort developing.

This was magic that made magic many times more powerful.

Her Majesty had long borne anti-magic inscriptions on her honored body. Such charms of resistance would repel magical attacks up to a certain point, but they had their limits. A spell that exceeded the charms’ ability to defend her would overcome them, just like an ordinary weapon could pierce through a shield if it were strong enough.

And on the battlefield, such powerful magicks were not uncommon. That was why Her Majesty had this “magic-amplifying magic” on her battle dress. When combined with the spells of resistance on her body, the cloak could withstand even the assaults of a magical siege weapon, let alone a troop of individual soldiers.

I obviously had no such spells of resistance, so instead I chanted my usual Tifu Murottsu. The cloak, however, increased it to dozens of times its usual power, strong enough that when my spell collided with the beam of light, it caused an explosion and even deflected the attack to the side.

“Just chop her up already!” The soldiers seemed to have realized that magic wouldn’t stop me, so they drew their swords instead.

“Sirs,” I shouted, “if you don’t want to die, then move aside!”

To illustrate my point, I made use of the weapon Minori-sama had lent me.

The “Mini-mee Em Too For Nyne Squad Auto-matic Weapon.”

The steel tube nearly jumped out of my hands, golden metal cylinders flying from it along with a series of roars. The cylinders slammed into the ground around the feet of the Bahairamanian soldiers, leaving gouges in the dirt and kicking up hot, sharp rocks.

The soldiers almost stumbled as they came to a screeching halt.

The power of this Ja-panese weapon was astonishing. It was tremendously heavy, so much so that it had been challenging for me even to carry it with me, but now I saw how worthwhile that effort had been. All by myself, I had halted a group of a dozen Bahairamanian soldiers.

“It hurts to get hit with this!” I shouted. “It hurts very much! You’ll die!”

Clutching the Mini-mee, which was still spitting fire, I dashed forward. The soldiers were kind enough to be worried about this.

“Yikes!”

“Stay back!”

“Eeyyargh!”

The little flakes of fire had struck some of the soldiers in the leg. They screamed and bent double, but I ignored them and continued my advance.

I found that Elvia-san, still carrying Shinichi-sama, had jogged up beside me.

“Now’s our chance!” I shouted.

“Got it!”

We used the Mini-mee to keep the soldiers at bay, making our way to where the Faldra was defending itself with great sweeps of its tail and wings.

“Sensei!” Loek-sama and Romilda-sama were grinning from the back of the monster. “Are you all right, Sensei?”

“Loek?” Shinichi-sama said. “Romilda? You’re here, too? Hang on, this can’t possibly be the dragon we used for the—”

“Uh-huh!”

“We did a little work on it, so now it moves with magic!” Loek-sama and Romilda-sama looked very pleased with themselves.

Then they chorused: “‘It’s so crazy it just might work!’”

“What are you, the scientists on some space battleship?!” Shinichi-sama demanded. But he sounded genuinely moved as he muttered, “I guess I’ve rubbed off on you.”

“Enough quoting, everybody hop on!” Minori-sama shouted, running up to us. “Hurry! We can’t wait around until reinforcements get here!”

We scrambled onto the Faldra’s back.

At that moment, there came a roar unlike anything I had ever heard. We looked back and saw thick black smoke billowing from the ceiling of the largest building in the area, the one that stood on the edge of the premises.

“Wh-Whazzat?!” Elvia-san exclaimed. “What is that?!”

“That’s...” Shinichi-sama’s face was tight, as if he already knew something about that building. “...a dragon!”

Something blew the roof of the building clean off. Then we saw it. It was, indeed, a dragon.

It was huge, dozens of times bigger than any wyvern, two or three times the size of even our Faldra. It ascended into the air with lazy flaps of its wings. And in its forehead was—

“Puppet drake!”

Minori-sama was right: one of the “spikes” used to make puppets was pounded into its head.

This thing was a weapon. Bahairam’s weapon.

How could we have been so oblivious? If this was a research facility dedicated to puppet magic and technology, then of course there could be a puppet drake here. Although granted, given our understanding that the puppet drake was still a work in progress, there was no reason we should have expected to suddenly have to face one in combat.

GRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

The monster opened its jaws and let out a resounding roar. Its cloudy eyes searched this way and that—and then a second later, it was flying toward us.

“Skyward! Double-time!”

“On it!”

At Minori-sama’s urging, Loek-sama, Romilda-sama, and I started using our magic to make the Faldra fly. Wind sprites swirled beneath its outstretched wings, lifting its huge body into the air.

But then Elvia-san shouted, “Look out!”

The puppet drake opened its jaws, fire sprites gathering in its mouth. It looked a lot like the spell the mage had used earlier—only much, much bigger.

“Fire breath...!”

“Dodge! Circle right!” Minori-sama shouted. The Faldra wheeled around to the right. I was desperately clutching at the handholds on its back when—

BLAM!

The dragon’s fire breath flew through the air, scorching the Faldra’s side. The attack flew past us, landing in a field with a tremendous explosion and a flash. The blast was so powerful we could feel the shockwave even at this distance. If it had hit us head-on, we probably wouldn’t even have left corpses for them to recover.

Things were only marginally better now: the Faldra had dodged the attack, not escaped unscathed. The glancing blow from the fire breath had caused patches of the mech’s leather skin to burst into flame.

“That’s hot!” Elvia-san shouted.

“There’s fire there! And there! And there!” Shinichi-sama babbled, pointing to one place and another. At this rate the flames would soon consume us as well. With the Faldra itself literally going up in smoke, an airborne escape was looking less and less likely.

But then Loek-sama suddenly shouted to Romilda-sama, “Romilda, scuttle the exterior covering!”

“Right!” Romilda-sama shouted back, and suddenly the “skin” fell off the Faldra as if it were shrugging off a set of clothes.

“Whoa!” Shinichi-sama exclaimed. It was certainly a startling sight. Without the leather, the Faldra looked altogether different. It appeared less like a dragon and more like a suit of armor in the shape of a dragon. The Faldra was formed of overlapping layers of metal, which scraped over each other to produce the creature’s unique sound. It looked very tough and brought to mind a dragon’s skeleton.

What was more, a green light glowed from between the plates. There was probably a magic gem or something buried deep inside the Faldra to enable it to move. Broadly speaking, it might be something similar to the ore used in my battle dress. The glow indelibly marked out the Faldra as something other than a living being.

With the Faldra revealed in this way, there was a lot of shouting:

“Whoa! Whoa, whoa! That is awesome!”

“Isn’t it? Isn’t it just great?”

“We’re so glad you understand us, Sensei!”

Specifically, shouting between Shinichi-sama, Loek-sama, and Romilda-sama.

“I sure wish you could’ve had this set up in time for our movie!”

“That’s what sequels are for, Sensei!”

“Can we save the box office chatter for after we get home alive?!” Minori-sama bellowed.

“Here it comes!”

“Yikes!”

Having missed us with its fire breath, the puppet drake was now rocketing through the air in our direction, as if to deliver a body slam. Loek-sama and I directed the wind we were controlling so that the Faldra lurched upward and avoided it. The puppet drake’s claws grazed the Faldra’s wings, sparking and screeching as they dragged along. But then the creature was past us.

“Oh crap! Down! We’re going down!”

“Stay calm, Sensei!” Loek-sama instructed. However...

“Erk!”

“Eek!”

Loek-sama and Romilda-sama both cried out almost simultaneously. With a jerk, we stopped moving. When we look back, we saw that the puppet drake had the Faldra’s long tail in its mouth. It must have grabbed hold as it went by us.

The puppet drake twisted in midair, dragging the Faldra along.

“Gaaahhhh!” All of us let up a cry. Our mount flew toward the earth like a hammer...

“You think you can get away with that?!” Loek-sama and Romilda-sama cried in unison. A tremendous blast of wind caught the Faldra, but even that wasn’t enough to stop its momentum; its front legs dug into the ground.

I was used to seeing Loek-sama and Romilda-sama fight all the time, but somehow they were in perfect harmony at this moment.

“You let us go!” Minori-sama cried. I had given the Mini-mee back to her, and she used it now to spit little shards of fire. They impacted against the puppet drake’s face and the spike in its head, and it backed away with an earsplitting shriek. Thankfully, that meant letting the Faldra go.

“I—I thought we were done for,” said Elvia-san, pale. She was the only one of us not strapped in on the Faldra’s back, so there had been a real danger of her being thrown off.

“Looks like escape isn’t going to be that easy,” Minori-sama said.

Clearly. That puppet drake could probably run us down if we tried to take to the sky, not least because our dragon was weighed down with six separate people. Even if the two monsters had basically the same airspeed, ours would be at a disadvantage.

If we couldn’t run, that meant we would have to fight. But our opponent was impervious to magic, which left us effectively powerless—or so I thought.

“Minori-sensei!” Loek-sama said. “Leave this to us!”

“Huh?”

Minori-sama was more than a bit flummoxed by this request. But even as she sat blinking, Loek-sama and Romilda-sama nodded at each other, then shouted together:

“Ultimate Transformation!!”

“Ultimate Transformation!!” Loek and Romilda shouted, their voices almost in harmony. “GO! Faldra—standing mode!”

“Whaaaaat?!” I found myself shouting.

Transformation? As in, change? As in variable, modular, multiform—

And when you say transformation, that can only mean...

“Wh-What?! What’s going on?! Minori-san looked as surprised as I was; apparently this ability was new to her, too. More to the point, was this stuff even possible with magic, no matter how strong you were? Way to go, Loek and Romilda!

The green glow coming from inside the dragon-like thing—the Faldra, as they called it—began to get stronger. In the blink of an eye it had encompassed us and continued to expand, forming something. The armor plates separated and began sliding around, some of them turning backwards or spinning in place. The dragon disappeared, and in the green light of that magic the Faldra took on a new shape.

With us still on board.

“Whaaa?!”

This was one crazy transformation! Wouldn’t this be pretty hard to do with the toy? But then again, maybe Ban**i’s prodigious transformer-toy technology could manage it?!

“Wait...!”

For some reason, I was in the driver’s seat.

Wh-What was I talking about? What had been done to me? I felt like I was going crazy... It sure wasn’t anything as simple as hypnosis or high-speed; it... (blah blah blah).

Seriously, this happened so suddenly that I thought I was going to go into some Sta*d-user-esque monologue, complete with elaborate ASCII art.

“What in the world...?”

Even as I asked, though, I had a certain idea. We had just gone from flying on the back of this thing to riding in the middle of it.

True, having the pilot sit right out in the open air pretty much screamed “Here’s my weak point,” so a transformation only made sense. Plus, because everything that had been tucked inside the dragon was now on the outside as armor, the Faldra was considerably larger than it had been while flying. That was why all of us were able to fit comfortably inside.

Okay, with six people, comfortably might have been a stretch. A glowing green stone was positioned directly above my head where I sat in the pilot’s seat, and it was a little claustrophobic.

“Woo-hoo!”

“It worked!”

Loek and Romilda were both overjoyed. As for Myusel, Elvia, and Minori-san, they just looked relieved.

Which was reasonable, I guess.

Incidentally, just in front of us was something like a screen, a half-sphere perhaps also made possible with magic, on which was displayed the view outside. There were some small crystal-like things near my hands, on which were what appeared to be the figure of the Faldra’s “standing mode.”

I guess you could say it looked pretty good. It was a humanoid figure covered in dark, steel-colored armor. There must have been more than one magic stone, because in addition to the big main one in the chest, a green glow came from the shoulders and hips as well.

Although they referred to this as the “standing mode,” the Faldra didn’t exactly stand the way a normal human would. Instead, its legs came to pointy tips that seemed to dig into the earth. But that also gave it an impression of lightness, like a blade held at the ready.

Wow. Cool...!

Gun**m and the tradition of “realistic robots” it inspired were all well and good, but I could definitely get moe for the sort of all-together-now, power-of-friendship combo robot that everyone piloted together. I would definitely have to make sure everyone struck a pose when we did our special move!

I was just basking in the excitement of all this when Minori-san shouted, “The drake! Where’s the puppet drake?!”

Oops. I forgot.

It seemed like Loek and the others had too, because there was a lot of “Huh?” and “Oh” and “Hmm...”

We moved the screen in front of us, searching for it.

Then Minori-san shouted again: “To the right!”

Romilda brought up the Faldra’s right arm, which also moved its vision to that side. And there was the puppet drake, smack in the middle of charging right at us.

“Hwah?!”

There was a clang as it hit us. The shock threw the cockpit into disarray. Elvia and Myusel tumbled on top of me, and scandalously, there I was with someone’s soft boobs and someone else’s soft butt right in my face, in my face, in ahhhh

“Here it comes again!” Minori-san said, bracing herself against the walls and floor of the cockpit. Each of us tensed against the inevitable impact—but then...

“Yah!” Romilda exclaimed, and the puppet drake slid underneath us.

No—she had caused the Faldra to jump and avoid it.

“Can we just clarify who’s controlling this thing and how?!”

Squad-robot pictures usually involved everyone striking poses while they fought. (Not that there was any reason that should have made a humanoid fighting weapon move.)

“It basically works like a clay doll,” Romilda said.

Clay doll? Was that—you know? The exo-skeleton-like things the dwarves had conjured up during the soccer tournament? That made sense: the dwarves were masters at working with the earth, or more generally with inanimate objects, so it was only logical that the Faldra with all its armor would operate on a similar principle.

Though if you wanted to know what exactly that principle was, I couldn’t begin to tell you.

“So it moves where I tell it to!” Romilda concluded.

“And it flies where I tell it to!” Loek piped in.

“How is flying relevant right now?!”

“What do you mean? The Faldra can only stand on two legs like this because it’s supported by wind sprites...”

Ah, so even though the Faldra was walking around on two legs, it was wind magic that supported it whenever it seemed like it might fall over. That’s why it could respond with such astonishing lightness to Romilda’s intentions.

“Everyone hold on tight!” Romilda shouted, and then the Faldra ran forward. Of course, as Loek had explained, it was supported by wind magic as it went, so it looked as much like it was floating as running.

“Throw a punch, Romilda!”

“Right!”

Loek and Romilda piloted the Faldra in perfect harmony, without a trace of their usual acrimony. The Faldra’s fist glowed a magical green for an instant, then flew toward the puppet drake. You’d think those joints would be really fragile, but maybe that was a defensive spell I’d seen, because they slammed into the puppet drake’s face with an audible crash but no sign of breaking.

Roooooaaaarrrr!!

The puppet drake rose up slightly and howled, whether from pain or anger I wasn’t sure.

“Launch a kick, Romilda!”

“Right!”

As Romilda shouted enthusiastically, the Faldra rotated its blade-like leg, throwing a kick diagonally at the puppet drake’s head. As I expected by now, there was a magic gem in the Faldra’s hip, or kind of in its shin, which glowed green, ensconcing the entire body in that defensive magic.

This boom! was even louder than the punch. Several of the dragon’s scales shattered, and we could see startled sprites letting off sparks and lightning bolts around it.

Awesome! This Faldra was so strong!

Or was it Romilda who was so powerful? Hmm.

At the moment, though, it was an academic question.

Rooooaaarrrrrrrr!!

This time the puppet drake was even noisier. It made a half-turn, then lashed out with its long tail as if it were a whip.

“Anti-impact defense!” Minori-san cried out.

“Got it!” Myusel responded.

Almost simultaneously, a whirlwind enveloped the Faldra’s left arm. It was an instantaneously-created layer of pressurized air that acted like a shield, deflecting the dragon’s tail and neutralizing its power.

The dragon next tried to take a bite out of the Faldra, then scratch at it with its claws, but we deflected or dodged each attack.

At the same time, though, despite how loud and impressive they were, several of the Faldra’s attacks didn’t seem to have slowed down the puppet drake. Was this just because our opponent was reptilian and didn’t feel much pain? Was it really that tough? Or did being a puppet mean it didn’t feel pain and fatigue?

But that suggested...

“Aim for the spike!” I yelled.

That was pretty obviously its weak point. In fact, I kind of wished Bahairam’s mages had thought a little harder, you know? If they had succeeded in turning me into a puppet, I would have just kept running into everything, and then eventually... (shiver).

“Got it!” Romilda said, a kick from the Faldra slamming into the puppet drake’s forehead. It hit the spike square on.

Roooooooaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr!

The drake shook its head violently and backed off.

Awesome! It was working!

“This is our chance!” Loek said. “Finish it! Use the special move—Drill Hand!”

“Sure thing!”

The Faldra’s hand pulled way back, its fingers joining to form a point, which started spinning very much like a drill bit.

Yeah. These kids know how it’s done.

A drill! And a spear hand, at that!

Now that’s a special move!

You’ve made your sensei so happy, kids! You’ve learned his lessons so well!

But while I was busy being moved by how much Loek and Romilda had grown as otaku...

“H-Huh...?”

...Romilda was not sounding very triumphant.

The Faldra’s right hand suddenly slowed and then stopped rotating altogether. In fact, the mech’s movements all seemed to be growing sluggish.

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than the puppet drake’s tail hit us.

Boooooonggg!!

“Eeeek!” The girls gave a collective scream when we got hit. Even the wall of wind that was supposed to defend against attacks like that didn’t seem to be working. What in the world was going on?!

“It’s not... moving like it’s supposed to...”

“Huh...?” Loek and Romilda exchanged dark looks.

And then I put the pieces together.

The magic gems in the Faldra’s chest, legs, and shoulders. The vein-like pattern that ran along its armor. The green glow that suffused all of it was obviously getting weaker, flickering like a fluorescent lamp at the end of its life.

“But why?!” Loek shouted.

The Faldra was clearly running out of gas, but... Wait. Gas?

“The dragon’s energy drain!” I exclaimed.

Dragons—especially the huge creatures properly known as True Drakes—were immune to magic. Because they used sprites themselves to support their huge bodies, breathe fire, and even fly, they had bodily organs that allowed them to metabolize magic and sprite power. So when unstable magical power like that from a human got anywhere near a dragon, it was simply absorbed.

We had completely forgotten about that as we engaged with the puppet drake.

When the magic was simply latent inside the gem, that was one thing, but because we were constantly using magical power to control the Faldra, that power was always coursing over the vehicle’s surface. We needed even more magic to kick or punch, or to stop an opponent’s attack. Fighting the dragon in that state was as good as begging it to absorb our energy...

The premise was sound: you couldn’t fight a dragon with magic, so you would have to do it hand to hand. Powering your hand-to-hand fighter with magic defeated the point.

“Ahhhh, Romilda, you idiot!”

“You’re the idiot, Loek!”

Gosh. And they had been getting along so well.

And frankly, they were probably both idiots.

“Eeek!”

“Ahhhh!”

More blows assaulted the Faldra.

Crap. We’ll never hold up to this.

But without even the power to move an arm, let alone a leg, running away wasn’t looking very likely...

“Th-That’s it!” Romilda exclaimed suddenly. “We can use the emergency power supply!”

“Huh? Do we have one of those?” I asked.

“Yes!” she nodded, then gave the magical gem above our heads a very solid smack.

“Yipes!”

The crystal had already nearly gone dim; now it cracked down the middle, and I saw something emerge from within. Wait, so that thing wasn’t solid?

What came out was...

“A... wheel?”

It looked like something a hamster would run on, but about ten times bigger. About human-size, actually.

“This thing was originally built as a marionette, remember?” Romilda said. “It has some gears to help it do things that strings alone couldn’t manage.”

“Wasn’t that for when it was flying?!”

“The mechanism is still there! Our range of movement will be limited, but if we turn this wheel, we should at least be able to walk—and it won’t use magic!”

“W-Will that really work?” Would the Faldra really move if we turned this wheel? I mean in this armored configuration, and with six passengers?

Talk about your hostile working conditions...

And all this was to say nothing of the fact that the wheel only looked big enough for one person...

“Elvia!” I said suddenly, turning to the werewolf girl and grabbing her by the shoulders.

“Y-Yes?” she said, startled.

“We need your strength!”

“Wh-Who, me? Mine?”

“Only you can do this!”

“Only I can—?” Her eyes got bigger.

I understand that forcing a young woman to do this kind of physical labor is a questionable proposition, but all our lives were on the line here; this was no time to be getting caught up in notions of chivalry. Elvia, as a werewolf, was far and away the strongest of any of us.

“We need you!”

“But I...”

Hey, why are your cheeks getting so red?

No! Not the time to be wondering about that!

“Run, Elvia! Run for our future!”

“Uh... Okay? Whatever you say!” She nodded and jumped on the wheel.

Then she started to run.

“Whoaaaa!”

Fzzzzzz! The wheel spun with a very familiar sound, the Faldra creaking in time along with it. Meanwhile, Romilda had taken hold of a collection of exposed pegs, a smile on her face. Apparently, those pegs were what would let her control the Faldra by hand.

“It’s working!” Although with much less fluidity than before, the Faldra had started to move. “We can do this, Sensei!”

“Great! L-Let’s start by getting some distance.”

“Sounds good,” Romilda said, nodding. Our ride began, totteringly but unmistakably, to put some space between itself and the puppet drake.

Our enemy was holding station up in the air. Maybe it thought it could use its fire breath again.

“Hrrraaaaaahhhhh!” Elvia bellowed as she ran and ran and ran. She was already covered in sweat, her breath coming in ragged gasps, but somehow she kept going faster and faster. I had never seen anyone work so hard. It was incredible. Thanks to her, the Faldra was able to walk without falling over.

But even so...

“This is bad...!”

We still couldn’t jump or fly. Those actions were obviously enabled by magic. Worse, our gems seemed to still be recovering; the green glow wasn’t quite back at full strength. And there was no way we could move the entire Faldra using just our personal magic...

In this state, we wouldn’t be dodging any fire breath.

I thought I saw despair peeking over the horizon of panic.

Is there something we can do? Anything! Anything at all!

Myusel, Minori-san, Elvia, Loek and Romilda—they had all come specifically to rescue me! And now they were going to be slaughtered for their troubles...

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Minori-san look up resolutely. Did she mean to take on the dragon in bare-handed combat like she had before?!

No, Minori-san! It just isn’t possible!

“Looks like there’s no choice. Romilda, open up the cockpit!”

“Wha? But Minori-sensei, that’s—”

“Open it! That’s an order!”

“Y-Yes, ma’am!”

Romilda flipped something, and the armor that had been protecting the cockpit suddenly opened, connecting us directly to the outside world. Now I could see the glowing globe forming in the dragon’s jaws with my own eyes. Crap! We’re all—

“Everyone, get down!” Minori-san shouted, then grabbed something in the cockpit and jumped out of the Faldra.

“Hey—Minori-san?!”

“Sensei!”

Romilda quickly directed the Faldra to bring its hand down to Minori-san. She jumped on its open palm, then I heard her yell:

“So-Crazy-It-Just-Might-Work Finishing Move!!” She sounded so loud. So proud. “Panzerfaust Drei!!”

W-Wait just a second...!

Before I could even get a smart remark out of my mouth, Minori-san had braced the object against her shoulder—it was a rocket-boosted recoilless weapon—and fired.

The exhaust gasses came flying out the back.

“Waaahothothot!”

They obviously didn’t come directly at us, but the gout of smoke and flame from the shot built up against the cockpit armor, immediately and dramatically driving up the temperature.

As for the 110-millimeter personal anti-tank shell, it went flying off, trailing white smoke.

It was headed straight for the dragon, which probably couldn’t even see the rocket in the glare from the magical globe in its own mouth. The projectile scored a direct hit.

The sound of the ensuing explosion filled the area. Half the puppet drake was obscured by a cloud of white smoke.

We took in a collective breath: when the smoke cleared, we saw that the dragon’s head had been blown clean off.

“Yikes...”

Even from this distance, it wasn’t a pleasant sight. But at the same time, it meant the dragon had been neutralized...!

“M-Minori-san...”

“Heh heh!” Minori-san chuckled as she climbed back into the cockpit. “Crazy like a fox. I’m glad I brought this puppy along.”

“That thing’s not exactly a travel necessity! Are you a lab coat-wearing nutzoid scientist, too?!” There’s a line to draw when you’re packing for a trip! “And what do you mean ‘puppy,’ anyway?! You could at least call it a 110-millimeter personal anti-tank weapon or a LAM or something!”

“But can’t you just imagine it being glossed Finishing Move in a manga?”

Well, yes, I could, but...

“Anyway, thank God it only took one shot.” Since, Minori-san added, I only brought one with me.

In point of fact, except for the sight and grip, a Panzerfaust 3 is entirely disposable.

“Wait a second,” I said. “If you had something like that along, why didn’t you use it in the first place?!”

“It’s surprisingly hard to just, y’know, use,” she said. “You have to be careful of what’s behind you.”

“You weren’t!”

“Plus, if you’re too close, you get hurt, but if you’re not close enough, you won’t hit anything. Normally you at least get to brace yourself against the ground when you’re using it.” Minori-san shrugged.

If nothing else, she was right that you didn’t normally fire one from atop a giant robot.

“Not to mention, I wanted to keep Bahairam from learning about that technology if I could.”

“Ah...”

Now that she mentioned it, that made sense. We didn’t know how much the Kingdom of Bahairam actually knew about Japan, but based on what Amatena had said, we at least knew that they entertained the possibility of conquering it if they got the chance.

That meant this kingdom was a potential enemy. The less they knew about our weapons and technology—even if ours were vastly superior—the better. Personal weapons like the Type 89, the Minimi, or the M9 were one thing, but anti-tank munitions would definitely be something of a military secret vis-à-vis a country like Bahairam.

“And then there’s the fact that unlike a handgun or small arms,” Minori-san said, her eyes growing distant, “when you use one of those things, the paperwork is a huge headache.”

“Don’t tell me that’s the real reason you wanted to avoid it.”

“...............................Okay. I won’t tell you.”

She was pointedly not looking at me.

“Can you look me in the eye and say that, PFC Koganuma Minori?”

“The point is, Shinichi-kun, we have to get out of here!”

What a bold change of subject.

I looked around. Maybe it was because the puppet drake was dead, or maybe our magic regeneration had finally caught up with us, but in any event, the Faldra’s crystal was glowing at full strength again.

“After that sort of noise, Bahairamanian reinforcements are sure to be on the way!” Minori-san said.

“Right!” Loek and Romilda nodded, and then the Faldra’s armor started shifting again, returning us to the flight mode that would get us into the sky and out of Dodge.

We kept flying, straight out of the eastern city of Borfoi.

The only catch was, the Faldra was sounding kind of creaky, maybe on account of having just done hand-to-hand combat with a dragon, and we weren’t sure it was fit for a long-distance flight.

So we were just looking for a place to set down and do some simple repairs on the mech when...

“Huh...?”

I looked out across a wasteland of sand and rocks, toward the mountains that formed the border with Eldant. Smack in the middle of it stood two figures.

Were those...?

“Sorry, Minori-san, but can I borrow your binoculars?”

“Sure, here.” She handed me a pair of folding binoculars. I held them up and set the magnification.

“Hey...”

It was just what I had sort of almost expected. In fact, it was exactly what I had expected: Amatena and Clara. And for some reason, Amatena wasn’t wearing her usual military uniform, but a traditional outfit much like Clara’s. A lot like Elvia’s, for that matter. It showed a lot of skin (or fur), and yeah, I have to admit, it definitely turned me on... But even ignoring the part of my mind that was in the gutter, I personally thought the outfit looked really good on her.

“Stop here!” I cried. “Er, I mean, put ’er down!”

There was a collective “Wha?”

“You see those people there? I want you to set down there for a moment.”

“Wait. Isn’t that—”

I might have guessed Elvia would have good eyes. She didn’t seem sure about this.

“Shinichi-sama, that’s...!”

“It’s okay, trust me,” I said, my tone admitting little argument.

There was no sign of other Bahairamanian soldiers in the immediate area, and neither Amatena nor Clara was dressed for battle. Finally, at a nod from Minori-san, Loek and Romilda brought the Faldra down to land next to the two beast girls.

I immediately jumped off the fake dragon. Minori-san, ever my bodyguard, was right behind me with her M9 at the ready, but everyone else stayed on the Faldra. Even Elvia didn’t make any move to dismount. In fact, she perched watching Amatena and Clara like a wary animal.

“I had a feeling it might come to this,” Amatena said with a sigh as Minori-san and I approached. It didn’t seem like word had reached the army yet of my escape. Well, we had flown straight here after busting out of the research facility. If anything, it suggested that Amatena had known this might happen.

“Thanks,” I said earnestly.

It was because of Amatena that Minori-san and the others had known where I was. Her position in the military had prevented her from personally helping me escape, but without the hint she gave Minori-san, I would probably still be on my way to get spiked.

“I hear this is all thanks to you,” I said.

“Me? I didn’t do anything,” she said expressionlessly. “If anything I did happened to benefit you pieces of filth, I certainly didn’t do it for that purpose.”

“Sure, I know,” I said, smiling at this display of tsundere-ishness.

“I believed that someone like you was absolutely necessary to the future of this country.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. In its quest for power, the Kingdom of Bahairam was starting to treat people like mass-produced consumables (even if this world, not yet having experienced an industrial revolution, probably didn’t have that concept). A rich traditional culture had been thrown away wholesale, replaced with attempts to control the populace and a philosophical fixation on a strong army.

And maybe, just maybe, that didn’t sit right with Amatena.

Or maybe the other citizens of this country, either. Maybe that was exactly why the king and his advisors thought it was so important to reinforce the people’s loyalty. They could probably sense the discontent spreading.

“Elvia is... different now,” Amatena said suddenly.

“Huh?” The voice came from the back of the Faldra—from Elvia.

Maybe she hadn’t realized it herself. Honestly, I hadn’t known Elvia long enough to be sure either way.

Something tugged at Amatena’s lips; she looked perilously close to a smile. A wry smile, maybe.

“She would never have stood against me like that before. She would have quietly run away. I suppose it’s meeting you that has wrought this change in her.”

I was hardly in a position to be all, “Oh yeah, obviously. You should be grateful.” I hadn’t even thought of myself as having enough influence with Elvia to cause her to act differently. Literally all I did was to have her stay at the mansion drawing pictures.

“For all the beating and shouting we gave her, we were unable to change Elvia. Not us her sisters, not her parents. Perhaps it only shows that such things lack the power to change people.”

I didn’t say anything.

“All the more reason why revolutionaries like you are crucial for this country. So I simply... I would have hated to see you used up as nothing more than a test subject for puppet technology. That’s all there is to it. And with you escaping, my efforts have come to little.”

“Revolutionary, huh...?”

Amatena really was worried about the future of her country. But given her particular position and talents, there was nothing she could do about it alone.

So instead, she looked for someone like me to kidnap under the guise of strengthening control over the population, in hopes that I might bring even the slightest bit of new thinking to the country... Or was that just my overactive imagination?

“Amatena,” I said.

“Yes. What?”

“If instead of ordering me to create something that would cause the people to be more loyal to the king, you had asked me to think of something that everyone could enjoy together... I would gladly have helped.”

This time it was her turn to be silent, but she shook her head. Did she mean she wouldn’t have done that? Or that what-ifs weren’t worth talking about? Or maybe something else? I simply didn’t know.

Then Amatena said, “You should go now. If you stay here for very long, the pursuit squadron will catch up with you.”

That wouldn’t be any better for her than it would be for us. After all, Amatena had deliberately let Myusel and the others know where I was and when I would be there, and at the same time had failed to inform the research facility that my rescuers knew... And now here she was, practically seeing us off. The government would certainly consider her to be lending aid and comfort to the enemy.

Even if what she was really doing was trying to help Bahairam.

“You’re right. We’re on our way. But... really, thank you.”

Amatena stayed quiet, but she shrugged.

“And... Clara.”

“Yes...?” she asked in surprise. Maybe she had expected me to just ignore her at this point. But instead I said...

“Do you want to come with us?”

“What...?” This time Amatena looked as surprised as Clara. “Why? Why me?”

“No special reason,” I said evasively. After all, Amatena was standing right there.

I didn’t know how serious she had been, but Amatena had once threatened to kill Clara if I didn’t do what she said. It seemed clear that despite the way this society trumpeted equality of all its citizens, there was a pretty clear-cut system of status, and Clara was probably not very high on the ladder.

Amatena had enough station in this country that she could take care of herself, but I thought maybe it would be better for Clara if she came with us.

The girl was silent for a moment, thinking about it. Then she said, “Thank you very much,” and gave me the first smile I’d ever seen from her.

Whoa! Cuteness alert!

“But I’m not coming,” she said. “I’m going to stay with my sister.”

“That so?” I had sort of thought she might say that, so I wasn’t really shocked.

I nodded to Clara and then to Amatena. “We’ll be on our way, then. You both take care of yourselves.”

I turned around and was about to walk away.

“Shinichi-sama.”

I felt a tug on my arm.

It was Clara.

She was surprisingly strong.

“Uh... Wha—?”

I had turned halfway back toward her when...

Smooch.

I felt something warm and soft on my cheek.

“!#$%&~ッ?!”

My gray matter lit up in absolute astonishment.

A second later, she was sliding away from me.

“C—Clara?!”

Was this—could it be—uh—you know—that thing?! That, uh, the—!!

“You told me once that this is what you do to someone you care about, right?”

“Er, I mean, yeah, but...”

“Though you’re still second to my big sister.”

Clara’s mission to ensnare me was supposed to be over. So did that mean she was doing this freely...?

I might be second to Amatena, but didn’t that mean I was number one on her list of boys?!

Whoaaaaaaaa!!

WAS THAT REALLY A GIRL’S FIRST CONFESSION OF LOVE FOR ME?!

My internal monologue was going nuts, but Amatena sounded characteristically unimpressed.

“You should get going, and soon. Everyone’s waiting for you.”

“Y-Yeah, sure.”

Still feeling shaken and stirred, I obediently headed back to the Faldra. Jogging alongside me, Minori-san looked at me with her eyes half-closed behind her glasses.

“Gosh, Shinichi-kun. We put our lives on the line to rescue you, and it turns out you’ve already got yourself a little wife here?”

“Huh? No, we’re not—”

“And so young!

“I told you, she isn’t—”

“What will Her Majesty think?!” Minori-san was practically chortling as we jumped aboard the Faldra.

“No! You can’t—”

“Shinichi-sama...” Now Myusel was looking at me with brimming eyes. “Is it... Is it possible we’ve...” She could hardly bring herself to look at me. “Have we done the wrong thing by rescuing you?”

“Don’t take this so seriously, Myusel!” I said, starting to sound a little desperate. “You do know I was about to have a spike pounded into my brain, don’t you?!”

“Time for liftoff!”

Thankfully, Loek interrupted us with a change of subject. Myusel, still not looking very sure, started chanting a spell that put wind under the Faldra’s wings and started lifting us into the air.

“Big Sis Ama!” Elvia called from the mech’s back.

Amatena squinted up at us. Despite impulsively calling to her sister, Elvia didn’t quite seem to know how to follow up. “Um... Uh...” she said, looking at her sister with a pained expression.

Instead it was Amatena who spoke. “Show your face around here sometimes,” she said. “Big Sister Jiji will want to see you. And Father and Mother, too.”

“Uh...” Elvia looked shocked for a moment, but then she said, “I will!” and waved to her sister, a huge grin on her face and her tail wagging wildly.

At last the Faldra got some altitude, took one big turn, and picked up speed.

Amatena and Clara grew smaller and smaller in the distance, but Elvia kept craning her neck farther, always looking in their direction.

“Right,” Minori-san said with a bit of a sigh. “Now we can finally go home to Eldant.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. It was funny: I had been dragged here basically against my will, but now I didn’t really feel homesick for Japan. It was Eldant I was eager to get back to—even though I had only been away for about two weeks.

Why? It had to be because of all the people who were there.

People like Myusel. Minori-san. Petralka. Elvia. Brooke. Cerise. Everyone at the school...

For me, it really was “going home.”

I pointed to the blue sky and shouted, “Destination: Eldant. Full speed ahead!”

“Right!” Loek and Romilda nodded in unison, and the Faldra accelerated even more.

And with the sudden rush of air across its back.................................... I nearly fell off.