“We’ve identified a unique red Kyklops that’s different from the colossal one. I believe that to be the wicked devout,” Linze notified all the Valkyries. Upon hearing that, Yumina looked through Brunhilde’s rifle scope and caught sight of it within the rear lines that were just emerging from the sea. Its metallic red body reflected the light of the sun. Compared to the other Kyklops, it was much slimmer, more like a Frame Gear in stature. That said, it still had a single camera eye just like the others, and it held a rapier the same color as its body.
She’d seen that rapier before. It was the same as the rapier wielded by the wicked devout who had intervened in their infiltration of the Gandhilis ruins and ran away with the Ark. It was the one who wore a black coat, black-shaded goggles, and a plague doctor mask.
If he was the one leading this army, then...
“Shall I try and snipe him?” Yumina asked, hovering the crosshair right over the red Kyklops’s head. It was quite far, but not so far that she couldn’t hit him. In fact, he might not even have his guard up at this distance.
She began to pull the trigger...and then stopped. Just as she was about to fire, her divine trait, her Mystic Eye of Foresight, activated and showed her the red Kyklops dodging her shot. There were times when the ability activated without her even trying. It tended to happen in situations like this, where it was impossible to do something even if she tried, or at times when she was in extreme danger.
Yumina had begun to suspect that her body instinctively activated it in order to avoid any truly disadvantageous situations. Had she fired here, the enemy would have dodged and most likely grown much more cautious. Her body had tried to prevent her from making their situation worse.
She moved the camera from Brunhilde’s rifle scope.
“Sakura, support magic, please. Engaging enemies now!”
“Okay...”
Two symphonic horns were equipped on the shoulders of Rossweise, looking like cannons, while several magic speakers were deployed from the frame.
“Yoshino.”
“Let’s do this!”
Following the lively rhythm of the drums, Yoshino’s guitar joined in. The girls in the Valkyries chuckled as they recognized the song. Written in the 1960s, the song was later used as the theme song for a megahit American romcom. The girls greatly liked the song after watching the movie themselves—had they chosen the song knowing that?
Soon after, Sakura’s singing began. The lyrics, which praised a pretty woman, stimulated the ether liquid inside the Frame Gears, increasing their output.
“Soldiers of Lassei! Advance!” the Grand Potentate of Lassei commanded his men from inside a loaned Knight Baron of his own. Upon his order, the Frame Gears began an earth-rumbling assault on the army of Kyklops.
Most of the Brunhild knights were deployed in the Nereids for this battle, so the majority of the Frame Gears on land were being piloted by Lassei knights. Lassei had always been a country that prided itself on its military prowess, and they viewed Frame Gears as just another weapon, so they had put in much training with the Frame Units.
Once they had grown accustomed to operating them, they were able to move them as if they were an extension of their bodies, their combat skills within them improving so much that even the Brunhild knights struggled against them. Such a trained knight order would have no trouble against the Kyklops.
“I got the first kill!”
The second prince of the Military Kingdom of Lassei, Zanbelt Gal Lassei, a man who had once challenged the god of combat and had his nose completely shattered, had indeed pierced a Kyklops with his Knight Baron’s spear. However, despite being stabbed right in the stomach with Zanbelt’s spear, the Kyklops’s movement never stopped, and it immediately went to swing its mace down.
“Die already!”
Zanbelt let go of the spear and instead punched the Kyklops right beside where he had stabbed it. The Kyklops’s armor warped as it lost its balance and fell.
“Punching gets the job done so much faster!”
Gripped in both hands of Zanbelt’s Knight Baron were some simple weapons made from phrasium. They were knuckle dusters, a weapon fitted to four of a hand’s fingers to increase the power of one’s punches. It seemed the people of Lassei loved fighting barehanded and had asked for weapons similar to Elze’s Gerhilde.
Those knuckle dusters were what Touya had decided on as the perfect choice. Knuckle dusters were a simple weapon—you just gripped them and then punched. In order to strengthen them even further, they had four sharp rivets, turning them into truly deadly weapons.
After having taken down the Kyklops, Zanbelt was so happy he was caught off guard by another Kyklops swinging down its mace from beside him.
“Shit!”
Zanbelt moved to sacrifice his arm to block it, but before he was hit, there was a loud crack and the Kyklops who had been moving to attack him suddenly went flying.
“Why are you getting all distracted? Pay attention to your surroundings!”
“Boss!” Zanbelt cried out in joy at seeing the familiar red Valkyrie. The one who had sent the Kyklops flying was Elze in her Gerhilde.
After being thoroughly beaten to a pulp by Takeru, Zanbelt began calling both Ende and Elze “Boss” as a show of extreme respect, since they were both Takeru’s students and all, but neither especially liked being referred to in such a manner. When they told him to stop, though, he wouldn’t, and in the end, the two simply gave up.
“Don’t just stand there, get moving! You need to be aware of what your allies are trying to do!”
“Y-Yes, ma’am!”
At Elze’s scolding, Zanbelt readied his fists again. Gerhilde’s camera eye looked up at the gigantic Kyklops in the rear.
“We need to do something about that big ol’ hunk of junk.”
“Mama Elze, I want to fight too!” Linne cried out in boredom.
“Afterward, ’kay?” Elze called back to the girl as she punched through the Kyklops.
Right now, Elna was riding in the Helmwige with Linze while Linne was riding in the Gerhilde with Elze. At some point, they’d decided that was how they’d pair up while in the Frame Gears. Elze thought it a good judgment, given if something happened to her, she wasn’t sure if Elna would be able to handle Gerhilde well in her place. Linne’s style of fighting was much closer to Elze’s, while Elna’s situational awareness was more like Linze’s.
Elze was very fond of her daughter Elna, but Linne was just as precious a daughter to her.
“All righty, time to get moving.”
Elze rang her fists together before firing them at the Kyklops charging toward her.