“Cooldown complete. I’m going to reboot it now,” Leen said as she stood Grimgerde up after it had finished cooling down from its overheat state following Full Burst. She then immediately hovered toward the approaching Kyklops and shot at them with the Gatling gun on her right arm.
Usually, Grimgerde couldn’t attack at will while any allies were around, as they’d very likely get caught in the cross fire, but if the enemy was big enough, that stopped mattering. Leen dashed across the battlefield toward the giant Kyklops with the eye in its chest, firing her Gatling gun at its upper body as she did.
The giant Kyklops took the rain of bullets without even flinching.
“It’s so tough! It doesn’t seem to be completely ineffective, but...”
From what she could see from the distance monitor, she’d managed to shave off a bit of the outer plating, but not enough to make a real difference.
“They appear to have used quite efficient strengthening magic. I think you could break through if you focused fire on a single spot,” Quun suggested.
“And how long do you think that’s going to take me, hm?” Leen retorted. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it would take far too long. In which case...
Just as Leen went to enact her plan of attack, the giant Kyklops’s chest began to morph. The parts of the chest clattered as they moved and the central eyeball rotated and extended like a camera lens. Suddenly, the lens started sparking and a ball of light started gathering in front of the eye, getting bigger and bigger along with the sparks.
Quun gasped behind her.
“Mother Yumina! Tell everyone to pull back! Get them away from the line of sight of the colossal Kyklops!” she yelled.
“Everyone, fall back! Get away from the front of the giant Kyklops! Quickly!” Yumina immediately called out.
The Frame Gears that reacted fast enough stopped their battles with the Kyklops and scattered all at once, and in the next moment, there was a deafening roar as a massive laser shot right out from the giant Kyklops. That beam of light pierced the ground and continued all the way to the mountain range in the distance.
“Was that...an Upper Construct’s particle beam laser?” Leen wondered aloud, thinking back to her battles with the Phrase. To be precise, the Upper Constructs’ attack wasn’t a particle laser beam, but Touya had taken to calling it that so at some point, it became the default name.
“Cesca, damage report!” Yumina frantically yelled.
“There were fourteen units who failed to escape in time and were destroyed by the Kyklops. However, their pilots were successfully evacuated to the base through the emergency teleport. They are all safe,” Cesca reported from where she was observing the fight in the sky. Leen sighed in relief.
It seemed the automatic ejection was triggered the moment it sensed an abnormality in the frame. It had to have been cut incredibly close. Most likely, upon the pilot themselves realizing they would be unable to dodge in time, the thought support system installed in the Frame Gear made an independent decision and forcefully teleported its pilot.
The part that had extended from the gigantic Kyklops’s chest returned to its original position. Apparently, it couldn’t use that laser repeatedly. Leen couldn’t help but observe how even that was similar to an Upper Construct. Perhaps the part most reminiscent of the Phrase was the way friendly fire was normal, the way they had no sense of camaraderie—no, even before that, it was the mercilessness that they had because they weren’t living beings to begin with.
“Anyway, whatever’s going on, we need to take down that big hunk of metal... Linze! Could you land for a moment?”
“Hm? Oh, yes!”
Responding to Leen’s request, Linze flew back down to the ground and changed the Helmwige into its Frame Gear form.
“Cesca, transfer the Brionac, please.”
“Understood. Transferring Brionac.”
A gigantic cannon appeared in front of them. An anchor was shot out from its body, stabilizing it on the ground. The weapon, which was three times bigger than a Frame Gear, was aimed right at the colossal Kyklops. Leen’s Grimgerde and Linze’s Helmwige supported the cannon on either side.
Meanwhile, Quun’s excitement peaked.
“Th-This is the massive magic artillery, the Brionac! The ultimate weapon for use against Upper Constructs that requires incredibly precise control of magic and uses special drill bullets! I never imagined I’d get to lay my eyes on it in this time! I’m gonna cry! I’m so happy I came here!”
✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦
“Thank you for your explanation,” Leen calmly responded. Linze could only let out an awkward laugh as a reply.
It seemed Quun knew of the Brionac, but hadn’t ever seen it in person before; it must have become unnecessary in the future. Leen and Linze boasted the greatest mana capacity among the grand duchesses, but even they could only fire off one shot of the Brionac. Such a weapon was deemed far too unwieldy. In this time, however, it still had its uses.
“Charge at fifty percent...sixty... It’s charging faster than before, huh?” Linze remarked.
Despite it being a casual observation, Rosetta spotted the opportunity to give an explanation and cut in, saying, “I thought something like this might happen, ma’am! And so, I made improvement after improvement to it! Magic science is rapidly evolving! It will never stop!”
Brionac originally took much longer to charge, but the improvements allowed it to charge to full much faster.
“Ready to fire!”
“Let’s do this, then! Fire!”
“Waaait! Mother, let me fire— Ah!”
A gigantic drill fired from the cannon with a loud roar. Just as it was about to strike the Kyklops’s chest, it dodged to the side. Though it managed to avoid a direct hit, its movements were so slow that the drill still managed to hit its left shoulder.
The shrill screeching of the drill gouging into the metal plating could be heard by them all as it penetrated through the limb, the now-detached left arm falling to the ground with a massive thud.
“Ugh, we missed!”
“Only being able to fire one shot is definitely a weakness of the Brionac...”
Leen and Linze recovered their completely expended mana with their marriage rings enhanced with [Transfer]. But even with their strength recovered, the Brionac itself was completely destroyed. There were cracks all over the barrel—no way could it fire another shot.
The gigantic Kyklops’s chest began to morph again; it was going to return fire with its particle beam.
“This is bad. We have to move!”
“Not a problem, ma’am! I thought this might happen!”
Rosetta’s voice once more entered Leen’s ears. Right at that moment, another Brionac was teleported to where they were.
“I made a second one! Now that Grimgerde and Helmwige have been improved, you can fire another shot!”
“You’re the best, Rosetta! An engineer should always have a spare! Oooh, I’ve got goose bumps! I hope I can be like you one day!”
Ignoring Quun getting worked up in the back, the Grimgerde and Helmwige immediately connected to the new Brionac and began charging it with mana.
“Will we make it in time?!”
“We’ll be fine, mother. Look,” Quun reassured her, pointing at the giant Kyklops on the monitor. Since the left shoulder had been blown off, the left side of its chest was all distorted. The gun barrel was getting caught on it while trying to extend.
The Kyklops tried to pull off the part that it was getting caught on with its remaining arm. The distorted part deformed further until it was practically ripped off. The barrel from the center of the chest began extending again...but it was already too late.
“Fully charged!”
“Fire!”
The drill bullet shot out of the Brionac, sending cracks up the cannon. The Grimgerde and the Helmwige came to a stop, only their bare minimum systems still functioning, and they fell to their knees. Rosetta said they could fire a second shot, but she never said the frames would be able to withstand it. Even they couldn’t withstand two consecutive shots of the Brionac.
The all-or-nothing shot that had cost them two strong Frame Gears hit the Kyklops’s extended barrel. The drill ate through the Kyklops’s frame, spinning at high speed into its insides. The [Spiral] enhancement on the drill went wild, pulverizing the Kyklops’s G-Cube—its heart.
With a hole now punched through its chest, the giant Kyklops unceremoniously fell to the ground with a massive rumble. It seemed the fortification and lightness magic had worn off because the impact and its own weight caused it to fall apart in seconds.
“We somehow managed it.”
“I wanted to shoot it...”
Leen sighed and shook her head at her daughter’s complaint.