It had been a few days since someone had come up to Keita to ask him for tips. Each time, he’d hit them with a reply so blunt that even a macho, muscle-bound fire dragon would have been left speechless: “Don’t think. Just push the buttons.”
Now that they had confirmed the mass-produced units could at least clumsily perform combat maneuvers using the Command System, the military had shifted focus, building out simplified command patterns and developing a new operating system. In the past, such systems had always been downplayed because they relied too heavily on the pilot’s own abilities. But not anymore.
Thanks to that, what had started as Press the red button to jump right was expected to evolve into far more complex maneuvers.
That part was fine by Keita. More meat shields…sorry, reliable allies meant less pressure on him.
But reality didn’t care about fairness. For all of Keita’s brilliant ideas, the sheer number of monsters hadn’t changed. Japan was still barely hanging on, fighting to defend its territory. It wasn’t as if better-performing mass-produced units meant he got to sit out the coming battles.
If anything, now that those models were up and running, the message was basically “Good job on those. Now it’s your turn.”
Until now, Takafumi had shielded him by insisting his team needed to check the mech’s growth and condition. But this time, even Takafumi was looking forward to testing it in real combat. As soon as summer break began, there was nothing to stop Keita from being officially deployed back to Kyushu.
The one bit of good news was that his classmates from the Third Division would be too busy training with their own mechs to cause him any trouble, so the chances of Yuna being attacked while he was away were practically zero.
Honestly, that’s the best reward I could ask for.
He really was a simple guy at heart.
Last time, Keita had returned to base immediately after a single skirmish, run a few system checks, submitted a report, and gone back to Tokyo. But this time, they were planning to stay for at least two weeks of military activity.
On the plus side, if I make it through two weeks, I’ll have the rest of summer to relax. I’ve got to survive the first half so I can spend the rest hanging out with Yuna!
Despite their circumstances, the fact was that his sister had been yanked out of her normal life without warning and forced to leave her friends behind. Now, during summer break of all times, she was stuck living alone while her only family member was off at war.
He couldn’t possibly say, “Well, at least she’s safe now, so that’s the only thing that matters,” and actually mean it.
Regardless, blissfully unaware that he was practically waving a death flag with his Once I get back alive, I’m gonna do this and that! attitude, Keita headed off to the monster-infested shores of Kyushu again.