The captain and his subordinates all panicked. Even so, they followed his orders and crouched down on the spot. There was nothing more stupid than being blown away by friendly fire.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” the girl said, calmly standing in place. It was as though she didn’t realize the danger.
The next moment, something red appeared in the sky above them, accompanied by several unmanned crafts. Immediately after that, shells rained down, sweeping away the front row of monsters. The shells didn’t explode; they had been made to fire faster and more often. Instead, explosions were happening farther back, where the Liberation Army soldiers were, caused by missiles fired by the unmanned craft. The Liberation Army had antiair weapons, but before they could intercept, the link to the weapon operator had been cut, rendering the weapons inactive. The Liberation Army took a lot of damage, while the Imperial Army was mostly unharmed thanks to the distance and ducking down.
“You can stand up now,” the girl said. “But be careful. Koutarou—I mean, the Blue Knight—will be charging through the enemy force from behind.”
Despite supposedly being hit by the blast of the explosions, the girl acted like nothing had happened. The captain wondered who she was before picking up on something even more shocking in her words.
“His Excellency is already here?!”
“Yeah, he made it over here in a hurry,” the mysterious girl said with a smile. She looked proud, as if she were the one being praised. It was finally at that moment that the captain realized who she was. The uniform she was wearing had the crest of a knight fighting a dragon: the Blue Knight’s crest, which meant that the girl was part of his band of knights.
In order for Theia to fly freely, she needed some kind of defensive measure or evasive methods, and to eliminate the antiair weapons along the way. If not, then no matter how much of a genius she was, she would be under focused fire from saturation attacks. So she initially flew low and stayed with the ground forces. Her Combat Dress had the same new hover function as War Emperor, so she could be protected by the large-scale distortion fields the infantry had. While fighting with the troops, she would occasionally fly up and unleash a volley of fire. But it wasn’t until Clan and Maki made their moves behind the scenes that she could properly fly around.
“Maki, we will aim for that next,” Clan said.
“Got it; please guide me there,” Maki answered.
Clan jammed communications and radar in a specific area while Maki used the opening to take down the antiair weapons there. They specialized in such attacks, and they were effectively destroying the antiair weapons. From the Liberation Army’s perspective, it was a nightmare in which their allies were just disappearing.
“There she is! It’s Princess Theiamillis!” an enemy soldier cried.
“What are the antiair weapons doing?! Shoot her down!” another yelled.
“We can’t contact them!” the first soldier said.
“Impossible! Try it ag— Aaahhhhh!!!”
The antiair weapons had fallen silent, and they couldn’t contact the soldiers in charge. They didn’t know what was going on, and before they knew it, Theia’s bombardment had rained down on them.
“What’s happening?!” a soldier yelled.
“Sorry, we’re passing through,” Koutarou answered.
“It’s the Blue Knight! He’s here!” the soldier cried.
“Ahhhh!” another screamed.
“It’s rude to look at a girl and scream...” Shizuka said.
“I don’t feel all that bad about it,” Nefilforan answered.
“You’re a warrior to the core, Nefi-san.”
Even if the enemy endured Theia’s bombardment, War Emperor, Shizuka, and the Nefilforan unit were charging through them, so they stood no chance. It was an unfair situation.
At last, War Emperor landed inside the fortress courtyard, allowing Koutarou to see the gray monsters.
“So, those are the creatures...” Koutarou muttered.
“Satomi-kun,” Harumi called.
“Can you feel it too, Sakuraba-senpai?” Koutarou asked.
“Yes, Signaltin is on alert.”
She could feel Signaltin’s power increasing on its own. She believed that it was on guard against the gray monsters. Koutarou felt it too, albeit not to the same degree, which lent credibility to Harumi’s claim.
“Koutarou, they’re on alert too. They look like they’re going to try something,” Sanae warned them. She could feel hostility from the gray monsters, but she couldn’t sense any intent to attack. Instead, she felt that they had some kind of desire. The monsters’ thoughts were chaotic, and she couldn’t tell what they were, but it was clear that they were trying to do something.
“Koutarou, those gray things are going to merge. Like the waste did. Fighting individually would just get them burned up by Signaltin, so they’re merging to fight back!” Sanae-nee reported.
The haniwas’ spiritual energy sensor had detected that the gray monsters were slowly starting to merge. Two became one, and their spiritual energy swelled to more than twice of what they had individually. By repeating that, they hoped to withstand Signaltin’s power.
“Master, the Liberation Army is headed your way! You have to hurry and defeat the enemy!” Ruth reported.
If this is the Gray Knight’s plan, he has a rotten personality, Koutarou thought.
Using these monsters of chaos to break through the fortress’s gate meant that Koutarou’s group had to hurry. While the monsters merged into one and fought back, the remaining Liberation Army soldiers would gather and attack them from behind. Koutarou’s side had to force their way through to save the fortress, so most of the Liberation Army remained, and they could cut off his retreat.
“This is bad, Satomi-san; I can sense magic everywhere! They probably have spiritual energy weapons too,” Nana commented, giving Koutarou even more bad news. She had lost most of her ability to use magic, but she could still sense it. And that sense was telling her that the Liberation Army was using weapons integrated with magic.
Naturally, one could assume that they were using weapons with spiritual energy technology as well. Spiritual energy weapons and magical weapons couldn’t be mass-produced, so there was a limit to their number. The Gray Knight was likely planning on using all of them against Koutarou’s group.
It’s just one thing after another! You’re pretty good to have calculated all this, Gray Knight! Koutarou thought. His group had come as reinforcements knowing that they would be at a disadvantage, but the situation had exceeded his expectations. The Gray Knight was walking a narrow path to make the best moves to take his side down. But it wasn’t so much outwitting them as depriving them of all of their options. It was a plan that was being carried out after considerable information gathering and deliberation, and Koutarou had no choice but to acknowledge the Gray Knight.