It had been an hour and twenty minutes since I launched from the land battleship Alice, and now the sun was beginning to set.
Come to think of it, I haven’t slept at all since capturing the imperial capital with Lirin and the others last night...
I rubbed my tired eyes with my right hand as Kon began growling and gesturing toward the monitor with her tail.
“Kon! Konkonkon.”
“What is it? Have you found something?”
I let my suit hover while I aimed the main camera in the direction Kon was pointing to and zoomed in. The shape of a person was displayed on the monitor, but the area was too dark for me to make anything out. I switched the camera to night vision mode using an instrument panel to my side.
“It looks like a person. What’s that behind it...? That’s a ghoul! I can’t believe they’ve spread so far already.”
The enlarged image showed a man holding a child and frantically running from the ghoul behind him. I immediately disengaged the safety on my weapons and was about to shoot the ghoul, but Kon produced some text in front of me before I could open fire.
“Master, there are more ghouls between us and the people headed this way.”
Damn! If they get any closer, the ghouls in front will notice them. There must be something we can do. Should we shoot now? No, we can’t. Bullets passing through the ghouls would injure the people behind. I need to warn them, but I don’t know how to do it.
Oh, that’s it! I’ll use the roar.
After accidentally using it that one time, I totally forgot I had it equipped. I jabbed the button full force and began firing my rifle into the air.
“GYRAAAH!”
A roar that sounded just like a distorted violin rang out across the evening sky. At the same time, a muzzle flash was produced from the rifle making me visible to everyone looking in my direction.
Don’t come this way! The fearsome Satanachia is here. Go somewhere else, I prayed as I watched the monitor screen.
Thankfully, the people seemed to decide this monster was more terrible than the ghouls behind them, and they changed direction.
“Great. Now we can open fire on the ghouls safely.” I breathed a sigh of relief before landing and aiming my rifle.
I started up the unfamiliar firing system, got the targeting reticle into position, and was about to pull the trigger. But something didn’t feel right, so I took my finger away from the trigger.
“What’s wrong?” Kon questioned.
I ignored the message. I needed to think with all of my concentration.
Why did the ghouls in front of me stop? They were chasing after the humans at full speed, but now they’ve suddenly stopped. There has to be a reason. What happened just before they froze?
“...I made the roaring sound and fired my rifle.”
If they reacted to the light of a rifle, they would react similarly to things like magical explosions. If it hadn’t been the light, the cause could only be the cry the Satanachia produced when I used the roaring device.
Could this be a way to control the ghouls?
“Kon! Use my terminal to search through the intelligence department’s databank. Try to find footage that includes the sound of ghouls and then extract that sound.”
“Konn!”
Kon followed my instructions and used her tail to operate my terminal. I watched her from the corner of my eye as I extracted the noise used by the roar device from the Satanachia’s information system. If one coincidence had been followed by another, then by some string of coincidences it was possible that the roar of the Satanachia and the voice of the ghouls...
“Master! I’ve found it. Here’s the audio data.”
I took the data that Kon gave me and loaded it onto the suit’s main terminal so I could view the sounds made by the Satanachia and the ghouls as waveforms.
I knew it! These two waveforms are virtually identical.
I couldn’t believe how quickly Kon had been able to separate out the sound of the ghoul from the other creatures that were found together with the ghouls. It really demonstrated how skilled an ancient dragon could be.
“Good work, Kon. Thanks to you, this won’t take long at all.”
I petted Kon’s head as I began programming some new basic sounds for commands to congregate, advance, retreat, disperse, and more into the roar device.
I’m so glad I got Shingo to teach me the basics of programming! When I get back to the Hakone base, I’m buying him whatever food he wants.
“All right. Let’s try it. We’ll start with a retreat, followed by an advance, and then stop.”
I flicked the switch on the device to create the sound, and the ghouls moved according to my instructions. I wanted to study their reactions to figure out how to create more precise instructions, but before that, I needed to contact Mom.
I used a terminal to the side of the monitor to send a transmission to the CIC of the Alice.
“Alice, do you read me? This is call sign Goetia, Kouki Arakawa. I’m transmitting from the Satanachia. Could you please relay this transmission to the personal terminal of Miki Arakawa?”
“Understood. Please wait a moment.”
I waited some time before getting a response. Then I heard Mom’s voice together with some background noise. “Kou, it’s me. What’s wrong?”
“Um... I figured out how to control the ghouls.”
“.........Oh. I see. Sorry, could you give me a moment?”
“Okay.”
Mom forgot to put me on hold and ran off somewhere. I heard the sounds of footsteps running through a corridor followed by a loud slam of a door being thrown open. Then I could hear her talking to someone.
“My son found a way to control the ghouls.”
“Huh?!”
“I need to confirm this. Have the reconnaissance satellite ready within five minutes.”
“Wha?!”
Mom, five minutes is asking a little much. Give them a little more time than that. I’ll bet the personnel of the engineering department are used to my mom giving them unreasonable requests... I’ll have to do something nice for them.
I waited, imagining the crew changing the angle of the satellite with tears in their eyes. Then I heard my mom’s voice again.
“Can you hear me? I can see you right now in the satellite image. Try making the ghouls back off, then call them back toward you.”
I made the ghouls move just as she said.
Mom was silent for a while, as if deep in thought. Finally she sighed and asked, “Is there a limit to how many you can control? And are you sure you’re not in any danger?”
“I don’t think there’s any limit. They probably consider the Satanachia to be the leader of the pack because it has the loudest voice, so I think it’s just limited by how far the Satanachia’s cries reach. There’s no danger. Ghouls can’t break through a powered suit’s armor.”
“...Okay. Here are my orders as the chief executive of Noa. We’re changing Operation Future. Special Major General Kouki Arakawa is to use the Satanachia to take control of all ghouls on the continent. I’ll determine which route you should take and where you’ll receive fuel and food.”
“Understood.”
“Good luck,” Mom said before ending the call.
With changes being made to an operation that had already been running on an unreasonable timescale, I was sure that the Alice would be so busy, it would be something like a battlefield.
I used an instrument panel to bring up the new route that had been plotted for the Satanachia.
“Looks like we’ll start by heading to a town in the east. All right! Let’s go, Kon.”
“Konn.”
It made me smile to see how enthusiastic Kon was, and I made the Satanachia begin walking east.