Chapter 4:
Fanoss’s Black Knight
AFTER BOARDING ONE of the castle’s Armors, Vandel had taken to the air. There, he spotted an unnatural ripple moving through the sky over the capital.
“I’ve never heard of magic rendering a person completely invisible,” he said to himself. “This must be the effect of some kind of Lost Item. But whatever tricks they’re using, it’s my own old age that undermines me.” He muttered the last few words bitterly to himself.
If Vandel were still in his prime, his eyes would’ve spotted the intruders sooner. He’d already have sniped them down. How vexing that age had diminished him. Perhaps equally infuriating was this piece of junk he was piloting—the castle guards’ sad excuse for an Armor.
“It only looks fancy on the surface. It has no functionality!”
Vandel had felt that something was off from the moment he entered the cockpit. His instincts proved accurate; he’d now realized that the Armor had less powerful output than he was accustomed to. This suit had probably been stored as a spare in case of emergencies, so perhaps it wasn’t shocking that it wasn’t in peak working condition. Still, its inferiority was obvious.
Despite his defective Armor, Vandel had sped past the other guards. None had caught up with him yet.
The Black Knight’s rifle eventually ran out of bullets. He tossed the weapon aside, lightening his load so he could fly faster.
“You vermin, stealing into the princess’s bedroom as she slept… I’ll rip you to pieces!”
As if responding to Vandel’s intense desire, his Armor accelerated until it at last reached the anomaly in the air. Vandel raised his blade, ready to cut whatever it was down, but stopped pressing the pedal at the last second.
“An Armor?!” he cried in disbelief.
An ash-gray suit descended from the sky, snatching something out of the air. On a subconscious level, Vandel sensed that this new enemy was truly dangerous—far more so than the anomaly he’d been pursuing a moment ago. He moved his focus to the suit instead.
“It’s enormous,” he noted. “About twice the size of my personal Armor, I’d wager.”
That was part of the reason he was wary. Under ordinary circumstances, the larger an armor, the less mobile it was. There were a few exceptions, but larger models were generally at a severe disadvantage. Therefore, under different circumstances, he might not have taken his opponent so seriously—but something told him this was a definitive exception.
“A hatch opened on his chest,” he murmured to himself. “What a fool I am!”
Embarrassed though he was by his belated realization, he immediately sped toward his target, but it was already too late. In the few extra seconds he’d taken to react, he’d given the enemy a chance they never should’ve had.
“I really didn’t want to have to fight the Black Knight,” the enemy Armor said as it lurched forward, charging toward Vandel. It reached for the enormous container on its back and pulled out a battle axe, which it skillfully wielded in only one hand.
Vandel’s face pinched as his sword parried the attack. This Armor’s incredibly powerful! Is it on the same level as my personal suit? No… No, its functionality, at least, is superior.
The Black Knight fought calmly, analyzing his enemy all the while.
“Time for you to take a dirt nap, old man!” the enemy suit’s pilot cried.
The timbre of his voice clued Vandel in to his age. “You’re awfully young,” he said.
Thanks to his armor’s superior capabilities, the enemy was gearing up to overpower Vandel, but the Black Knight interrupted him with a swift kick that launched the two apart.
“Gah!” There was a note of panic in the enemy’s strangled cry.
Vandel took that as confirmation of his suspicions. “I can tell you’ve been training, but it’s all too obvious that you have no real combat experience,” he said. “Unfortunately, that shows that you’ll be a true threat in the future, so I cannot allow you to live. Your life ends here.”
He sped forward and swung his sword.