Chapter 38

1. SECOND-GENERATION RAZOR-EDGE MODEL EXELIA “This is data retrieved several days ago from a battle.” The second-generation Exelia was a new unit loaded with a flow engine, which generated an output that placed it head and shoulders above existing models. But it was precisely because of that unique characteristic that they couldn’t be mass-produced. Thus, only a few were created for testing purposes. Among those units was the Razor-Edge Model. And the footage they’d just seen made it clear just how powerful it was. “The black unit you saw is one of the second-generation Exelia units, dubbed the Razor-Edge Model. There are several other second-generation models, but that one was the earliest manufactured unit. In fact, you could even consider it the prototype for all the rest. The flow engine was perfected alongside that unit.” The flow engine was a piece of technology created in the eastern country of O’ltmenia by the nuclear physicist Kreis Falman. The cutting-edge technology took a great deal of the nation’s funds to develop, but a unit loaded with that very engine fell into the hands of their greatest enemy. “Of the two units the West stole, this one has appeared in several battles. They’re likely gathering data through deployments, since they don’t understand the technology behind it.” Kreis’s analysis seemed rational and calm, likely because she’d spearheaded its development. She observed the recording as mere data, then offered a detached, organized, and objective analysis on the performance of the unit she’d created. But one boy frowned as he listened to her words. “……” This cadet, Rain Lantz, had been called to Alestra Academy’s headmaster’s office, where Kreis had shown him footage of the Razor-Edge Model stampeding through the battlefield. And as he did, Rain’s fingers dug deep enough into his hand to draw blood. The second-generation Exelia… Rain quickly found himself lost in thought. Two days ago, Rain Lantz had narrowly escaped death’s door and survived a fatal battle with the Ghost Deadrim. She’d arrived armed with her powerful Crystalline Bullet to steal the Turret-Model Exelia. The battle had concluded when the power of Oblivion struck down her partner, Isuna Cole. Oblivion was the power to erase a person from existence, destroying them more completely than death ever could. The Devil’s Bullet that Rain wielded erased every accomplishment and achievement of the person it struck, remaking the world into one untouched by their presence. Reprogramming… The girl who’d produced the Devil’s Bullet had used that term to describe the shift in the world. She’d entrusted the bullet to Rain and watched over his actions. And he’d used that bullet with wild abandon. Time after time, in as many battles as it took for the sake of his one true goal. He wished to end the century-long conflict that had raged between the East and the West. To sever the cycle of destruction and tyranny. With that purpose, Rain used the Devil’s Bullet to change the battlefield over and over, wiping his foes from the annals of history once and for all. But he knew, of course. The power of that bullet was… Literally, the power of the devil. …something no human should have ever wielded. The power of Oblivion even wiped away its victims’ deaths, inflicting an absolute erasure, an affront to life itself. Such a power became an inescapable cross Rain had to carry. But he’d already resolved to carry that sin, to sully his hands with crimson blood as many times as it took, in order to end the war… To that end, he would fight on. And so, a mere few days ago, Rain had erased a man from existence: a western officer by the name of Isuna Cole. Cole had been a factor in the creation of the Ghost Deadrim, and now they found themselves in a world where he had never even existed. Deadrim remained dead and likely had no means to resurrect. With Deadrim’s presence as a Ghost wiped away, the West should not have been able to steal the second-generation Exelia, so the East still had it as a trump card. Or so Rain had assumed… Unfortunately, the situation in a world without Isuna greatly deviated from his expectations. How’d the West get their hands on a second-generation Exelia? “Hmm,” a silver-haired girl mumbled, gazing at the footage. “That’s an impressive rig.” “That’s all you’ve got to say?” “Given the little information we have, yeah, that’s all I can say.” Three people occupied the room, Rain included. One of the other two was the academy’s headmaster and developer of the second-generation Exelia, Kreis Falman. And the other had long, silver hair that shifted as she spoke. “So what’s this Razor-Edge Model?” the girl asked, pressing Kreis for information. “Put simply, it’s a heavy, sturdy unit.” “Hmm…” “We basically went with the most primitive design concept imaginable, yes.” The girl looked like an ordinary person, but nothing was further from the truth. She had died a century ago, but resurrected in a new body. She was the one mage capable of producing the Devil’s Bullet…the Ghost Air. As Rain took in her face with a sidelong glance, he thought back to what had happened over the last few days. Nothing about her looks out of the ordinary… The Ghost Deadrim had now never been created, which resulted in two phenomena. The first was that the second-generation Exelia, and its superior performance, fell into the hands of the West. Put another way, technology that should have been exclusively in the hands of the East had leaked. The second thing that happened was that this previously confidential technology seemed to be in wide use in the Reprogrammed world. It was a serious discrepancy. The second-generation Exelia was exceedingly powerful, yes, but it carried far too many state secrets to roll out into live combat. If someone seized it during a battle, the technology it carried would be stolen. And so, they would only send it out to battle once mass production was within sight. But the situation had drastically changed in the newly Reprogrammed world. In this world, the West had successfully seized the unit. And then they’d developed the second-generation Exelia faster than the East and sent it out into battle. Now they were already gathering information on its performance. Two days ago, Rain had learned that fact. After shifting the world, those capable of recognizing the changes had to figure out what happened on their own. On realizing he needed more details, he consulted Air. The two of them then went to Kreis, who likely had the most intel on the circumstances currently surrounding the second-generation Exelia. The explanation she’d offered them was this combat footage of the Razor-Edge Model. “The Razor-Edge Model…” They had twenty minutes worth of footage that had been retrieved from an eastern soldier’s combat recorder. The black-and-white screen constantly shook, and simply looking at it made Rain sick to his stomach. However, the footage did a good job of conveying the key details…like the Razor-Edge Model’s offensive capabilities. “Let me tell you a bit about the Razor-Edge Model,” Kreis said. Unlike Rain and Air, she didn’t possess the Devil’s Bullet and couldn’t tell that the world had shifted. In her mind, there was nothing unusual about the current state of affairs. But since she’d been friends with Air for forty years, Kreis divulged all the information she had when asked about the current state of the world. And the main thing she talked about was the second-generation Exelia. “The Razor-Edge Model’s main strength is its sturdy and heavy frame,” Kreis explained as she pointed at the footage of the machine ramming into its enemies and crushing them. “I’m sure you can tell at a glance, but while normal Exelias are about thirteen feet long, the Razor-Edge Model is almost twice that size. It’s also about twice as tall, so it weighs eight times as much as a normal Exelia,” Kreis said, then spread out a few sheets of paper. They were detailed blueprints of the Razor-Edge Model, which she had drawn once upon a time. A second later, Kreis pointed at a certain figure written over the blueprints and stated, “But in actuality, this unit is fifty times the weight of a normal Exelia.” “Fifty times…?” “Roughly forty thousand pounds. Twenty tons.” Both Rain’s and Air’s expressions stiffened upon hearing the unbelievably large figure. The fact that it even gave Air pause proved just how absurd Kreis’s words seemed. Fifty times… They’d expected it to be heavy, considering its size, but the weight Kreis mentioned exceeded their wildest imagination. “It’s the weight of a large freight-train car. Of course, an engine is normally never that heavy, but this is no ordinary vehicle. It’s an Exelia, a tactical weapon designed to be as fast and maneuverable as possible through a combination of graimar-nuclear-alloy armor and a high-output engine. Under most circumstances, it’d never be this heavy.” To be ever lighter, ever faster. To dominate the battlefield with its diverse, precise movements. An Exelia aimed to go beyond the horizontal movement of a four-wheeled vehicle. Its creators had a single, simple concept in mind. They wished to create a machine capable of mimicking a living being’s movements. Humans and other animals controlled their weight by bending and expanding their multi-jointed limbs. An ordinary tank, by comparison, couldn’t jump or suddenly change its course. Only the strong-yet-soft structure of a living being’s limbs had the ability to manage that kind of mobility. And so, Exelias were built with four legs, fashioned after the limbs of a quadruped but with rotating wheels at their edges. However, in order to allow for precise movement, the fuselage had to be as light as possible. The greater the weight, the stronger the inertia during movement, making it harder to brake. So if the aim was for Exelias to move in more complex ways, the fuselage needed to be lighter and easier to control. To that end, mages replaced turrets, which weighed several hundred pounds. And Bullet Magic developed in tandem with Exelias. However, the Razor-Edge Model had rendered the premise itself obsolete, making how much weight the first-generation Exelia cast off its primary focus. “How can it be so fast if it’s that heavy?” Air asked the obvious question. “We have the flow engine’s massive supply of energy to thank for that. It has an output that puts any other engine to shame, so even with fifty times the weight, it can move just as quickly… No, it’s even faster than a standard Exelia.” “Mmm.” Air nodded and turned her eyes back to the footage just as it showed the Razor-Edge Model crash into older Exelias. “So it uses its weight to crush other units, huh?” The Razor-Edge Model’s main tactic seemed simple. It rammed its opponents. That was all. “Even older Exelias have very sturdy armor. Bullets and anti-materiel shells can’t pierce it. However, the impact of the Razor-Edge Model’s massive weight can topple them.” An Exelia’s armor was thick enough to deflect bullets. But when something fifty times its weight crashed into it at high speed, the connection of its legs to its fuselage failed under the strain. That also explained why Bullet Magic could destroy Exelias. They couldn’t tolerate localized explosions over their structural weaknesses. “During its initial development stages, it was a trial unit meant to test how much strain the flow engine could handle before suffering a drop in performance. We never intended it to be a battering ram, but when we added weight by placing armor on its joints, it gained the ability to crush an Exelia. Essentially, it became an anti-Exelia armored combat vehicle.” The footage came to an end right as Kreis concluded her explanation. Six eastern units blew up, and the footage cut off as the one filming it started to retreat. After Kreis’s report, Rain left the Alestra Academy headmaster’s office. The meeting took place during lecture time, so there wasn’t a single student outside the classroom aside for Rain. As Rain walked through the silent corridor, he tried to put all the information he’d gathered so far into order. Two days ago… Rain had used the Devil’s Bullet on Isuna. One man had disappeared; then the world had shifted. In doing so, Rain thought he’d protected the second-generation Exelia’s secrets, but he instead found himself faced with the opposite result. The Razor-Edge Model… The technology had fallen into western hands. Apparently, it had been stolen three months ago. The Razor-Edge Model had been stored in a satellite base, where it underwent tests. While it was in operation, the West sent out a raiding party and pillaged the two units stored in the base. Of course, none of that had happened in the world before the Reprogramming. It had only happened in the new world. What caused this? The West’s first attempted theft should have only happened a few days ago, during the raid launched by Deadrim… Rain recalled that skirmish in the snowy field, when he and Air had defended the second-generation Turret-Model Exelia. That clearly seemed like their first operation to steal a second-generation Exelia. But for some reason, that changed with the erasure of the Ghost Deadrim and Lieutenant Isuna Cole. But why, how…? Something that shouldn’t have happened suddenly became reality. One person’s disappearance had led to a totally new situation. Rain had seen accomplishments vanish from history plenty of times. He’d wielded that power in battle because he thought that was all it did. And yet, the opposite had happened. This time, the loss had produced something new. “Someone else stole the second-generation Exelia in Deadrim’s place.” Rain turned around, startled, and spotted a girl with silver hair. She was far too short to be a soldier… “Don’t sneak up on me like that…” “It’s your fault you zoned out and failed to notice me,” the girl reprimanded him for letting his guard down. “Well, whatever. Let’s get back to the topic at hand,” Air said as she walked beside him. Their height difference appeared even clearer when she moved next to him. Air stood two heads shorter than Rain. But despite that, she remained a mage of the highest order, the kind Rain couldn’t hope to match even with years of experience—a Ghost. “Understanding what happened is easy enough.” And on top of all that, she was exceptionally perceptive. She’d already gleaned the answer to the questions Rain was mulling over. “Deadrim led the team tasked with stealing second-generation Exelia technology. But with her gone, someone else pulled it off earlier. Simple, isn’t it?” “I guess, but…,” Rain muttered and trailed off. Air’s logic seemed sound. Deadrim was out of the picture, so someone else had pulled it off in her place. But… “Who did it?” …somehow, the operation that should have happened a few days ago shifted back to three months prior to the Reprogramming. Stealing the unit was no simple task. A person had to infiltrate another country’s territory and fight without any reinforcements or support. And after winning, despite the stacked odds, they still needed to escape with the stolen unit. It seemed exceedingly difficult to complete unless one was a Ghost, a being capable of superhuman feats. And yet, it had happened all the same. Under normal circumstances, the change would have appeared to be a sequence of tangled, unrelated events. Rain and Air would have simply ignored the question despite their doubts. But their battle with Deadrim had yielded a critical clue… “Who did it instead of Deadrim, eh?” Air whispered. “Only one option comes to mind.” They’d learned his name through their battle with Deadrim—he was their only clue, and the only possibility. “The person who stole the Exelia doesn’t matter. Instead, we should focus on the man who planned the operation. And I’d bet it’s the same person who gave Deadrim her orders,” Air said, summing up her conjecture. “I’m talking about Kaisei Reisman. He was behind Deadrim, and he probably had a hand in stealing the second-generation Exelia. That’s the only coherent explanation.” Kaisei Reisman… Rain kept thinking about that name as he walked forward. He didn’t know the man’s face or voice, but he couldn’t get him out of his mind. …… Rain had learned his name at the end of their battle with Deadrim, when her body was damaged and her insides were exposed. Within her remains, they found a pact bullet. And the name of the person who controlled Deadrim, Kaisei, was etched upon it. That meant one thing… Deadrim was manipulated by the owner of that bullet, by Kaisei. Perhaps they’d been overthinking the information they were lucky enough to gain. But learning about a person capable of manipulating a Ghost produced theories they couldn’t easily ignore. For example, what if he didn’t just manipulate Ghosts? What if that man created them? In that case, he’s… Rain’s thoughts wandered, and his expression turned grim. “Anyway,” said Air, walking beside him. “We don’t have enough information right now, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Keeping every possibility in mind is important, sure, but the changes the Devil’s Bullet produces are complicated. We’ll never run out of questions if we keep mulling over it. So we have to gain clear, certain information.” “How?” “By meeting Kaisei.” “……” “I know, he’s an enemy officer. And that means we’ll have to catch him and beat the stuffing out of him until he talks.” “…Right.” Air’s voice sounded thick with malice. She seemed incapable of holding back her emotions in this case, and Rain could almost see the steam rising from her head. Her anger was understandable, however. Air was a Ghost, a soul forced to rise and fight after death. And she’d learned that another Ghost like her was manipulated by that man. That wasn’t to say she felt some kind of camaraderie. If anything, other Ghosts were enemies Air had to kill. But even so, the Ghost of black they met on that snowy mountain felt special. …Even Air gets angry sometimes, huh? Seeing that part of Air didn’t overwhelm Rain, though. Honestly, it was something of a relief, because he rarely saw her get emotional. When they first met a few months ago, Air felt to Rain like a mysterious, inhuman presence. She was a girl of transcendent skill and knowledge, as well as the mage who created the Devil’s Bullet, a power that bent the rules of reality. Frankly, Rain almost felt she was from another world entirely, looking down at him and manipulating him freely. She always seemed to sneer at him disparagingly and act so high and mighty. But lately, while she still apparently took pleasure in Rain’s flustered confusion, she treated him more like an equal. And that honestly made Rain feel happy. Maybe we’re finally getting closer… There were still parts of each other that both of them couldn’t intrude on, but little by little…they’d opened up. That was how he felt. “What’s happened over there?” Air raised her voice in a quizzical tone. As they walked through the external corridor connecting the headmaster’s office to the lecture wing, they encountered a large group of students crowding around the bulletin board. There were about a hundred, all looking at some posting. Except… “Hmm…” “What’s wrong?” “I have a bad feeling about this.” “Yeah, you would, wouldn’t you?” Most news within Alestra Academy, with the exception of orders directed at individual cadets, was posted on that bulletin board. And Rain couldn’t recall a single time that news on it hadn’t caused him grief. “Despite appearances, you’re a major problem child, aren’t you?” “Shut up.” “What trouble did you get into this time?” Air snickered. …I take that back. I don’t want to get close to someone this evil. Honestly, the posting interested him. The fact that it was up for all to see implied it was a message directed to the entire student body. And so, considering past experiences, Rain couldn’t help but be curious. He wanted to check right away, but the large crowd surrounding the board blocked all paths toward it, making it inaccessible. “If someone’s going to get mad at you again, maybe I should join you?” Air spoke playfully, having found a reason to tease him, while Rain squatted near that petite girl’s legs… “This time, Kreis should— Waaah?!” “Up we go.” …put his head right below her, and rose up, lifting her in the process. “Wh-what…?!” Air babbled. Rain had, simply put, given her a ride on his shoulders. “Can you see it?” “See what?!” “Isn’t it obvious…?” Rain mumbled as he pointed toward the audience. He clearly meant the bulletin board. As short as she was, sitting on Rain’s shoulders should have let her see the document plastered on the bulletin board with her keen eyesight. “M-my…” “What?” “M-my legs…” Air mumbled something, but it didn’t seem related to the posting. Rain looked up in confusion, only to realize his mistake and exclaim, “…Ah!” Air stared at him, face red as an apple. “Hey, Air, what’s wr—?” Rain moved his head as he questioned her, and when the back of his neck rubbed against her crotch… “Ack!” …Air’s legs suddenly tightened around his neck. “Ugh!” “Y-you…” She paused there, took a deep breath, then continued. “You idioooooot!” Pow! Air’s fist bashed the top of Rain’s head.