a.s.sault

The Banfield house's fleet– the fortress-cla.s.s s.h.i.+p's hangar.

Avid– Liam's exclusive machine, was stored there.

The large black* aircraft had no master to pilot it, so it wasn't currently in use.

And manifesting itself inside such a hanger– was a dog.

Looking up towards Avid, it let out a bark.

At that moment, Avid's two eyes started to s.h.i.+ne.

It's engine began to roar with life, and armaments began materializing from the magic circles that manifested around it.

Three large rocket boosters were summoned and connected to Avid.

Moving by itself, Avid walked towards that exit hatch and pried it open.

The dog had already disappeared, leaving one of the mechanics stationed there to panic as he reported the machine's sudden movement to his boss.

“Hey, did anyone give Avid clearance to sortie?!”

“What are you talking about? Avid can only be used by Lord Liam, who here could possibly move it?”

“But it's still moving!”

“No, I'm telling you–”

Exiting out into s.p.a.ce, the boosters on Avid's back sprung to life as it rushed into enemy lines.

I had grown bored of shooting at the enemy.

Right now I was leaving that to the originally a.s.signed gunner, as I sat in my seat yawning.

A few days had pa.s.sed since the battle began, but I was surprised by how fragile the enemy actually was.

Their counterattack was pretty lukewarm as well.

How do I put it? They were weak.

Cedric called out to me,

“Special Staff Officer, aren't you taking things a bit too lightly?”

“Haven't we already won?”

“I think it would be better to stay vigilant until it's officially over.”

The serious Cedric still somewhat tense about the situation.

In comparison, Wallace had already dozed off and was asleep.

–why was there such a difference between these two brothers?

Of all the royals out there, I feel like the one that I chose to be my underling was probably the biggest failure among them.

Eulisia brought me a report just when I was considering returning to my room.

“Lieutenant General, we've received confirmation that a part of the enemy forces are charging directly towards our location!”

“What?”

Turning towards the monitor, the simplified image of the battlefield showed that a section of the enemy had broken off and was beginning a.s.sault maneuvers towards our flags.h.i.+p.

They were coming straight for us.

Tia immediately started giving out orders to our allies.

“Pull back the flags.h.i.+p! Change our formations to intercept and surround them!”

Soon after the fleet formed a shape similar to a crane's wing and tried to envelop the enemy, but the momentum they had built up was too strong.

I crossed my arms.

“…it's no good. They're going to reach us.”

As an expert in a.s.sault tactics, I instinctively knew.

Wallace woke up from all the noise and began to tremble.

“W-what are we going to do?! Can our battles.h.i.+ps endure their a.s.sault?!”

Cedric twisted Wallace's arms behind him.

“Quiet down! Special Staff Officer, you need to escape immediately. You're probably what they're aiming for.”

To Cedric's proposal, I asked,

“Then what do you plan to do?”

“I'm sorry, but I quite like this s.h.i.+p. In the stagnant life I've lived so far, I'm lucky I got to experience this at the end. Don't worry, I promise to keep fighting until my last breath.”

…wasn't this guy more useful than Wallace?

Well, he was a different kind of person than I was– he was a serious guy.

“I see. Do whatever you want. However, I don't intend to be defeated by something of this level. Tia, prepare for me a mobile knight.”

“Lord Liam?!”

When I asked for an aircraft to pilot, Tia immediately objected,

“No, please give up on that idea. In this situation, you absolutely can not be dispatched, Lord Liam!”

Marie then refuted her while agreeing with my opinion,

“If this is Lord Liam's order, then it's your duty as his knight to follow it. Don't start causing trouble!”

Tia drew her weapon,

“You fossil! Are you going to take responsibility if anything happens to him?! Lord Liam's life is worth far more than trash like yourself!”

The surroundings went silent at the intimidating atmosphere building up between the two.

…I was sick of it.

“Hey.”

Approaching them, I grabbed their heads and pressed them down against the floor.

“L-lord Liam?!”

“W-what the meaning of this?!”

Marie and Tia were struggling against my grasp– clearly upset, but they couldn't go against my strength.

I pushed down on their heads a bit more as their b.u.t.ts stuck out.

To their clear confusion, I explained,

“Are the two of you going to keep fighting in front of me forever? I don't remember asking for my knights to be constantly in discord with each other.”

Marie hurriedly made an excuse,

“I-it's not my fault! Lord Liam, it's because this minced meat b.i.t.c.h was refuting your orde– urgh!”

When I put a bit more force into pus.h.i.+ng down on their heads– dents were made in the floor.

“All you needed to do was prove your worth to me and build up your achievements, and I would've made sure to reward you properly. You can't keep bickering like children forever.”

Tia looked up towards me with tearful eyes,

“P-please forgive me! Please! I beg of you!”

“…I'll forgive you in deference of the things you've achieved so far, but I'm depriving you two of your statuses as my head and deputy knights.”

Tia and Marie made expressions filled with despair, but I didn't care.

Honestly, I should've disciplined them earlier.

“Now what are your replies?”

When the two of them sulkily whispered “Yes” in response, I released them with a smile.

“Okay then, let's sortie. Someone prepare for me a mobile knight.”

After lifting themselves off the floor, Tia and Marie directed flushed expressions my way.

Surely they were frustrated to the point of wanting to cry.

But it couldn't be helped.

I had just deprived them of the statuses they had so much pride in after all.

Tia and Marie didn't follow him as Liam left the bridge.

Her face completely flushed, Tia had a spellbound expression on.

Wallace was kind of creeped out by it.

“Hey, why are you so happy?”

Tia scoffed derisively, and looked at Wallace like he was an idiot for not understanding her feelings.

“To have the strength to hold the two of us down with only one hand each, and the boldness to immediately intercept enemies that had resolved themselves for a suicide attack. This is Lord Liam!”

For Tia, even being admonished by Liam was nothing more than a reward for her, so she was delighted by the fact that she got to see this side of him.

Cedric's shoulders dropped.

“That's fine and all but, can somebody give me my orders already?”

Against the incoming enemy forces, their allies were losing ground.

Snapping out of her daze, Tia immediately started giving out commands.

“Prepare the mobile knights for dispatch! Bring out the s.h.i.+ps that were built for short range combat! Pull back any vessels with less armour and have them focus on artillery, but make sure they're wary of friendly fire!”

Switching mentalities, she gave out orders one after another to prepare a battlefield where mobile knights could display their strengths to the fullest.

Eulisia looked at her figure and nodded.

“…putting her personality aside, she's actually quite capable, isn't she?”

The neglected commander silently prayed in his heart for his survival.

The Berkley fleet.

Dolph received a report saying the enemy's mobile knights had sortied, and immediately sent out a dispatch order for his own.

And with that, the aircrafts they specifically built to deal with Liam's Avid would be released.

“All special models are to sortie!”

The special machines prepared by the Berkley family were mobile knights of the same size cla.s.s as Avid.

Although large models were considered obsolete in modern times, these were the latest generation of weapons created by the first and second weapon factories based on Avid's data.

However, it was no exaggeration to say that these were made specifically to defeat their predecessor.

After seeing Avid easily destroy their previous creations, these machines were built with all the frustrations their developers had hammered into them.

Twelve aircrafts were prepared.

The operator raised his voice,

“There are no confirmed sightings of Avid!”

“That's fine! If he won't come out himself, then we'll just attack his flags.h.i.+p!”

Despite not being trained in a.s.sault tactics, the Berkley fleet approached to take Liam's head without having their numbers significantly reduced.

This was all due to Dolph's tenacity and the guide's blessing.

Standing next to Dolph, the guide shouted,

“Hey! Liam is actually there! Dolph, destroy the aircraft leading the interception!”

With that scream, Dolph noticed what should've been impossible for him to know.

“It's the foremost aircraft! That's where Liam is!”

Dolph rationalised it as his intuition, but it was actually the guide who revealed his location.

Spreading his hands, black smoke was emitted from the guide and spread into the floor.

The dark smog reached out and entered into the special anti-Avid aircrafts.

“LIAMMM!!!”

Growing excited, the guide directed the special machines to the ma.s.s production model Liam was piloting.

The c.o.c.kpit of one of the ma.s.s production machines.

It was a mobile knight just like Avid was, but it felt exceptionally brittle.

“As I thought, ma.s.s production machines are no good.”

When you're rich, custom order models were the only way to go.

Following behind me was Marie, who went on to explain what model I was using,

“Lord Liam, that aircraft is one of the new prototypes for the next generation of mobile knights.”

“There's nothing I can do about it, but that's a bit worrying.”

In the first place, it wasn't unheard of for prototypes to have various problems.

And even if this was a next generation model, it was still a ma.s.s production one in the end.

I don't know how useful it will be.

“As I thought, I should've brought Avid with me.”

I missed the luxury seat I had installed in it.

While I thought that, the Berkley fleet started to dispatch their mobile knights as well.

They seem to have prepared a lot, because there were thousands of them.

And their numbers were still increasing even now.

If taking the Berkley fleet's position into account, we were attacking them from above, and the enemy was rising upwards to reach us.

However, since there was no gravity in s.p.a.ce, the direction they came from wasn't relevant.

“Okay, here they come!”

Pressing down on the accelerator, I felt the c.o.c.kpit shake a little.

Avid wouldn't even budge at this.

Mobile knights approached one after another as they targeted me.

The enemies were an a.s.sortment of state of the art models and mainstream ones.

In the vastness of s.p.a.ce, I pa.s.sed by another mobile knight holding a blade, swinging through and destroying it.

I swooped down on them with a hail of lasers and bullets– avoiding enemy missiles and destroying them with a swing of my sword.

“You guys are just a little more crunchy than Derrick!”

An allied mobile knight shot down an attacking enemy with their rifle.

“Lord Liam, I'm here to support you!”

Marie had come to my a.s.sistance.

Thanks to her taking down the troublesome enemies, I could take down my targets with ease.

Whenever my mobile knight swung its sword, five enemy aircrafts exploded at once.

“It's amazing that they'll even explode in s.p.a.ce! How does that even work?!”

I beat them down with overwhelming power.

The mobile knight was able to reproduce the One-Flash, but it's reaction rate was dismal compared to Avid.

It wasn't able to reproduce my movements that well either.

Marie shoots and destroys another aircraft that tried to take my back.

Just by defeating the enemies in front of us, our kill scores gradually increased.

“Well, I guess it's okay for a prototype.”

When I said that, a huge aircraft appeared among the enemy forces.

Even though Marie tried shooting at it with her rifle, the bullets and beams were easily repelled off of its armour.

“These b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Lord Liam, leave this one to me!”

“Don't be stupid, I've been waiting for someone like this.”

I advance my aircraft forward and slashed at them with my blade, but the enemy deployed a spherical barrier of light around them.

It's output was nothing to laugh at.

If the aircraft I was piloting was considered a standard model, then my opponent's machine was a super one in comparison.

“You're pretty good, but that's nothing to me!”

The enemy moved to catch me, so I cut off both of their arms.

Unable to process what had just happened, the enemy hurriedly tried to pull back.

“As my opponent you should entertain me more!”

Closing the distance and swinging down my blade, I broke through the enemy's barrier s.h.i.+eld– but then was stopped by their armour before I could bisect them.

“Tch.”

I clicked my tongue, letting go of my sword while backing away, and immediately after a rain of beams and bullets rained down on the place I was just a second before. Swallowed up by the attack, the enemy aircraft exploded.

“…this might be a little difficult.”

Looking upwards, there were eleven more similarly built large aircrafts.

The red eyes in each of them were s.h.i.+ning.

Marie moved forward as if to protect me.

“Lord Liam, these ones are dangerous. We need to take them down before they surround us.”

“That sounds like a good plan, but I don't think they'll let us.”

An enemy battles.h.i.+p pointed their bow m way and started firing at me.

Completely disregarding their allies that were still nearby.

Honestly? Looking at things I was probably scre–

“…Avid?”

Turning towards a new a new presence I felt approaching, there was an aircraft rocketing towards my direction while weaving between enemy s.h.i.+ps.

Marie broke out into confusion in the comm lines,

“Avid's here?! That's impossible! Who's piloting it?!”

Apparently, Avid seems to have flown out from the Banfield fleet.

Alone– without authorisation.

I smiled.

“Perfect follow up, guide!”

I charged the aircraft towards Avid, and as I adjusted it to match its relative speed, enemies started gathering around.

But Avid spread its arms, letting out lasers to destroy them.

The boosters attached to Avid disconnected themselves.

Catching the aircraft I was piloting with both of it's hands, it opened its c.o.c.kpit hatch to receive me.

“Good job.”

Lowering the visor on my helmet, I opened the aircraft's hatch and jumped out.

After that, Avid reached out and caught me, sending me into its c.o.c.kpit.

Inside was the nostalgic and s.p.a.cious chamber I was used to.

I took off my helmet.

“It's been a while since I rode you.”

No one was sitting in the pilot seat.

–in other words, this was all the work of the guide following up on me.

As I thought, he truly was reliable.

He brought Avid to me at the best moment.

“I need to make sure to thank him again.”

Sitting down on the seat and grabbing the control stick, I was finally able to rampage with Avid for the first time in a while.