“Crusher!” Elze roared as she held out Gerhilde’s arm, shooting a phrasium spike that gouged into the chest of the Kyklops in front of her. Its chest was pierced by the sheer destructive power of the shot as it fell to the ground.
Another Kyklops swung its mace from behind, but Elze easily dodged it with a duck before countering by spinning Gerhilde’s right leg backward like a sickle and sweeping it across its legs. Lu was watching Elze from directly behind in wonder as the girl showed off how easily she was able to carry out a rear kick in her Frame Gear.
“She’s very...excited, isn’t she?” Lu muttered as she watched how lively Elze was despite beating up enemies on the battlefield.
“It’s Mother Elze. Of course she is,” Arcia fired back, confused that it even surprised her mother by this point.
In fact, Lu was gracefully dodging enemy attacks in Waltraute even as they had that conversation. Thanks to the booster unit installed on the back, the Waltraute had the swiftest maneuverability of the Valkyries. Talking purely in terms of speed, that crown would go to Helmwige in its aerial form, but on land, Waltraute was far faster.
Using that speed to swiftly approach the Kyklops, she raised the two blades of the Waltraute and slashed both down at once.
“I’ll turn them all into mincerobot!”
Having been slashed from the shoulders to the waist, the Kyklops split into three and fell apart on the ground. Lu immediately dashed up to another Kyklops and cut it down with a cross slash, splitting its torso in half. Leaving the enemy to fall to pieces, she sped up toward her next target—when suddenly, all of them were shot through with holes.
Helmwige soared past Waltraute at low altitude before changing back into its regular Frame Gear form. The double rifle in its right hand blew fire, and the surrounding Kyklops exploded one after another through the infinite loading allowed by the teleportation magic and the mana-infused shell bombardment.
After defeating the most immediate Kyklops, Helmwige morphed back into its aerial form and took the opportunity to slash through two more Kyklops with its blade wings as it soared back into the sky.
“She’s...really quite ruthless, isn’t she?”
“It’s Mother Linze. Of course she is.”
Once more, Arcia was confused that her mother was even surprised by this point.
For all the kids, the scariest mother to anger was most definitely Linze. Not because she would scream and shout, but because she would thoroughly scold them with a perfect smile on her face. She showed no mercy. She would tell them in great detail why she was mad at them. What did they do wrong, and what should they avoid? Why did they do that? Did they not think this would happen? Why had they not reflected after their previous scolding? Did they realize how much trouble they’d caused everyone around them?
Even if they earnestly apologized, she would question if they really understood what the problem was, if they’d truly reflected, and if they could prove what they would do to make sure the same thing didn’t happen again. It never ended.
Linze very rarely got mad, but after the kids invited her wrath once, they firmly swore they would never make that mistake again. Arcia had been scolded by her once before herself, and she’d greatly reflected after that moment—she didn’t want to have to go through that again.
“Mother, one from the right.”
“Got it.”
At Arcia’s call, Lu turned the Waltraute right while swinging her left sword around, slashing it right into the Kyklops’s side.
“What?”
Lu’s eyes widened in surprise. The Kyklops had firmly gripped the sword she had just embedded into it. Actually, no, it was because the Kyklops had gripped it that the sword hadn’t slashed all the way through.
Having never had that happen before, Lu’s response was delayed. Aiming right for that moment, another Kyklops charged to stab Waltraute with its spear.
“Ngh!”
Lu let go of the sword and dodged the spear, but a mace-wielding Kyklops was ready and waiting for her near her landing spot.
I can’t dodge this!
Just as Lu went to use Waltraute’s left hand as a shield, the mace Kyklops’s head suddenly exploded.
“Are you all right, Lu?”
“Yumina! Nice timing!”
Yumina’s cover fire allowed Lu to collect herself. Turning on the Waltraute’s boosters to full, she stabbed her other sword right into the spear Kyklops’s chest before immediately reversing and setting her sights on the Kyklops she had failed to completely slice in two. She then slammed her sword into its opposite side and finished off what she had started.
“Whew... That was close.”
Lu breathed out a sigh of relief after narrowly escaping danger. If Yumina hadn’t been around to provide cover fire, she might have lost an arm.
“Please be careful. Unlike the Kyklops we’ve fought before, these ones can coordinate with each other, and they’re not afraid to sacrifice themselves to do it. Make sure you aren’t caught by them. The moment you are, they’ll hold you there while their allies blow you both up.”
“Understood.”
As Yumina said, all the attacks from the enemy would be coordinated, just as the one there had been, and those coordinated attacks would be incredibly reckless. She had to be careful.
Lu picked up the other sword from where it had dropped and pumped herself up again.