162. Welcome, everyone. 163. Im the commander of this place Sam Solomon. 164. Although its for a short period of time, theres many things for you to learn here. 165. absorb various things by all means, I want you to put them to use

Commander Sam is speaking while going on squatting, no one has any words to return. I mean, I dont know what to respond with. More than that, I dont know what to do!

Look! Even Leon thats usually go around being cool, his expression is so twitched that you can tell at a glance! As Baptiste, hes suppressing his laughter while holding his belly, Layla is looking at the commander with cold cut terminated eyes[TN: It must be talking about this: (@_@)?]. Those eyes are saying crap. Although its more or less like this, its because hes the most important person among the knights of Jakarta!

Just as he introduced himself, Commander Sam Solomon is one who has the authority on all aluminares in Jakarta.

basically, hes the one that decide on each aluminare squads mobilisation, its destination, its strategy and things like that

In other words, when the aluminare squads from the Imperial City , Fortran and various places are dispatched, its due to the kings and the General Commanders orders. From there, more details such as how to deploy the troops and other such detailed strategies are determined by every base commander.

In other words, this old man. Contrary to his muscular appearance, he sould be pretty good at strategic command. If that wasnt the case, he wouldnt have been appointed as commander of a front-line base going through skirmishes with Obardo.

Commander Sam, from now on, along with the students, were under your care

Thank you very much. If youll excuse us

As the Professor concluded, when we were leaving the room behind, Commander Sam suddenly stopped squatting.

Hmm, to all the present students. I expect to meet you as a knight

Yes!

When you are told such a thing, what if I dont want to see him once I became a knight?

At a glance, one can that hes a ridiculous person however, I feel that theres something that charm people hiding behind those words. I wonder what is it. Is this the so-called charismatic guy.

As we left the headquarters facility, we head toward the hostel we planned to stay at today. Thats 4-storey building not that far from the headquarters.

In the hostels ground floor, we stopped our feet.

Well, as for the rooms division

The Professor looks at Layla while saying so. As Layla couldnt understand why shes being looked at, she was puzzled. Recently,

isnt she starting to forget that shes a woman from being surrounded by men only?

Layla, depending on your wish, it is also possible for you to be alone in one room

Hearing the Professors words, she finally understands the reason why shes been looked at.

If its about that, I am fine. Please treat me the same as other people without minding my gender. Even if I ever got assaulted, I can turn the table on them all

I see. What a pitiable lot

As the Professor sigh, boos flew from the students.

I guess even the Professor knew about Laylas physical ability and sword skill. In these 2 years, increasingly polishing her movements, her sword muscle became atrocious! Dare to even try to sneak in at night, your son will be cut in an instant!

Well, if you say so, Ill put you in a four-person room. Originally we rented our own room and only 2 four-persons rooms

Well of course. We were moving as group, we should also be lodged as a group.

Wait, doesnt that mean that if Layla had wished for a single person room, the remaining six people would have been pushed into a four-persons room! ?

The 1st group is 2001, the 2nd group is 2002. Tomorrow Lets meet here. After everyone has taken their breakfast, well go observe this base

Youre dismissed for today. Youre free to go out as long it is in the environs of the hostel however do not cause any trouble. Dismissed

Thank you very much!

Concludes with the same words at the end of lessons, the group activity ends here.

Well, for now Ill to the room

Ill immediately go to the red district

No way

While dragging him by slightly gripping the nape of the neck, We head toward our assigned room.

Time promptly pass by until the next morning.

And out of the dining room, we head toward todays first destination the hanger No 1. So that we van meet the one that will be our guide.

When you go in front of the hangar, a slender men was standing at the entrance of the place. When the man found us, he comes closer of his own accord. I guess hes our guide.

Nice to meet you, Academys students. I am Arnold Riot,I serve as the Vice-Commander of Jakartas headquarters. Today, because I will be everyones guide, Im looking forward to work with everyone

Hes a very courteous person. Hes the exact opposite of that commander. That person, even when he was introducing himself he didnt stop doing squats.

In there, two aluminares have been stored.

The aluminares in here are in the middle of their maintenance. Those are the 21st squad and the 26th squad

These two, with their armors removed, their internal mechanism is in an exposed state.

These two machines came back after finishing their patrolling mission in the Buffer Zone. The period was roughly one month. Their job consisted of making rounds in the Buffer Zone in addition to contacting the villages there in order to check if theres any anomaly. The majority of the troops that are assigned to this base are doing these kind of missions. Although this times mission ended without any battle, these days Obardo has been doing quite a lot of stirring so the chance of conflict is also quite large. Itll be mostly declared a draw due to injuries and come back

A draw Well, its because the worst that could happen would be having your machine taken away. I guess each side would be cautious of its surrounding.

in spite of being attacked, this side doesnt attack. From time to time, there have been complaints from the people about that. However, weve never marched to Obardo with the aluminare squads. Do you understand the reason why? Baptiste-kun

Because were on our own As for the empire Obardo, the number of aluminares it possesses is large. I think?

Currently, the number of aluminares operating in Fatale Kingdom is a total of 36. It has increased to about three machines from two years ago.

The Obardo Empire, The Fatale Kingdom, each side knows how many aluminares the other side possesses. By freely making use of the intelligence department and the reconnaissance department the can possibly tell the general location of that machine.

So, Commander Sam who knew that they have obtained a new machine, proposed a blitzkrieg. It was to put into the front-line the repaired machine faster than the transmission of the information about the machine to the enemy. It seemed to be just a rush job where they built the exterior with spare parts and crammed a generator into it.

However, even if they were successful capturing 2 aluminares, it doesn;t change the fact that the empire still has many more machines in their possession.

Certainly, with just this much difference in the number of machines, it is difficult to attack. But, the machines that are actually moving should be fewer since theres the defense of the empires capital, other countries and the national border. Therefore, theres no way for all the machines to fight against Fatale, theres many ways to fight.

But, Baptistes answer is half correct and half wrong.

if this was a test, youd get 60 points? Then, can I hear Leon-kuns answer?

Yeah, with this answer Id raise your points up to more than 90 points

War is not only about clashing each others aluminares. Each has its own victory condition, in order to achieve it, it will lead to some sacrifices.

If that happens, the towns on the way will be burned, I can tell that there will be many casualties. Still, the king being the king might have the resolve to sacrifice his people by starting an invasion war. However, luckily the king of Fatale is the type that cherishes the people. Therefore, like right now, hes adopting the strategy of expelling the ones that are attacking.

No, it is not necessary to take them all. If I reduce them to half their current numbers, Because of the strategic difference, next time Obardo will have to fight a defensive war.

Although it will take time, its far better than both sides causing uncountable casualties.

While it may be true, were not just defending. Ill show them After this but, were doing best everyday in reinforcing the machines by doing such things as the development of new weapons, the construction of even more efficient Sense boards, generators with improved fuel consumption and so on. Therefore were also stocking up on information from various places. Even the manual control that you guys thought about, its currently in the experimental phase to find out whether or not the knights can use it. However, I seems quite difficult

Ohhh, If can manually control it youll certainly become stronger but youll sacrifice many things. After all, if the left arm is too busy it becomes unusable.

Look, when I first rode into a machine it originally didnt have a left-arm, I ended up experiencing my first battle, even as it is, I feel like Im getting better. After three years, I even started direct combat training, without a single loss until now. Thinking about something like what if I lost!

So lets try walking on the catwalk. Its your first time seeing machines in a hanger, right? Also in the hangar, there are various useful functions

Arnold Vice-Commander advances his foot to the hangars stairs while saying so. We went further into the hanger while following him.

Overlooking the machines from the catwalk gave me a fresh mood.

As aspiring mechanics, the hangars tool may look like gems that will cause them to drip drools, but even if a crane is shown to us aspiring pilots its quite lacking. Well, I could pilot that Id happy even so Id be unsatisfied.

Basically as theyre installed near the Headquarters, it seems that lesser its importance is the further away from the Headquarters its installed. Such as the garage of the magic car had been isolated in a corner of the base.

Now, are you all unsatified with the places weve visited until now?

Vice-Commander Arnold says so with a smile as if he was trying to through our feelings.

Well, children are aiming to become a pilot, since there are too many of them that love piloting aluminares. the children that just want to be involved with aluminares, even if they aspired to become pilots, they end up being admitted into the mechanic and sense board departments. that way, its far less life threatening and its above all easy

Indeed, except for the special case, such as Layla, the members in here in no small numbers are here because they love piloting aluminares.

Indeed, you cant keep up just because you want to be involved with aluminares.

Even for guys like you, I think youll enjoy it a little if its the following facilities

Vice-Commander Arnold pointed at one building while saying so. It is a building that has about the same size as a hangar.

The next tour location is, the new technology research building. As I said before, this is the place where we can build aluminares new weapons, construct sense boards and think

I see. Unlike the facilities until now, such things like as the construction of a new weapons and sense boards, things that well use.

After all, the fact that its in development now means, once we becomes pilots, after a few years by the time we become the main pilots there is a possibility that the things developed in here will be released.

Except for me, for some reason the other members expressions suddenly changed from the dull atmosphere to a firm one. Looking at the situation, Vice-commander smiled wryly.

When we were approaching the research building, the number of soldiers visibly increased. They are only dealing with state-of-the-art technologies, the security seem a notch higher than elsewhere.

Where the Vice-Commander told us to wait for a while and brought papers from the next room.

Sign in here. Its a pledge to promise that you wont speak about the information you saw in here to others

As each one of us is receiving the paper, we roughly skimmed through its contents. Legally speaking, I should be reading up to the corners but, Im not the type to read every single terms and things like that.

That well not talk about what we saw and heard in the research building. Its prohibited to write any information on a note.

So, in case of a breach, its punishable from imprisonment to in the worst case death penalty.

Well, it cant be helped. If you are trying to protect confidential information in this world, you will have to do this much.

The Vice-Commander confirmed that all papers were gathered, returning those papers to the next room and guided us back of the passage.

No, to be exact,thats wrong. Those arent hangars for securing aluminares, it doesnt even have any machines. However, just the parts taken from the arms and the legs have been fixed with weapons.

Here is the new weapons research facility. What were studying now are firearms that does not use any magic. Its a research on guns, so to speak. You can see that the hand has something, right?

The Vice-Commander was Pointing at the firearm fixed onto the aluminares arm. It certainly holds a huge cylindrical object. It might be better to fix it into the arm itself.

That isnt that possibly a cannon?

That is an enlarged gun. When we enlarged it, it became quite misshapen but, its function is still the same

Why are you trying to use such an outdated thing like a gun at this time?

The one being puzzled is Baptiste.

But, the value of heavy weapons in this world is a lot lower compared to the previous world. After all, theres such a convenient thing as magic. If you actually used magic, youll have seen that magic is definitely more convenient. No equipment, no maintenance, with no replenishment the degree of freedom is higher. Well of course youll use magic.

It seems like cannons were used as a countermeasure against aluminares when they first appeared, when an accidental encounter turned into an important battle similar to now, both enemies and allies stopped using them because it takes too much time in carrying and preliminary preparation.

However, Baptiste! If youve been aiming to become a pilot even as a joke, you should at least immediately understand the meaning of adding a heavy weapon!

Leon was also shaking his head while saying Oh, dear!.

Baptiste When aluminares are fighting, what should they really pay attention to?

Well, its the remaining High Magia Liquid amount?

If you do know that, notice it!

Yes. Aluminares entirelly move with High Magia Liquid. Of coourse, the High Magia Liquid is also cunsumed by magic. So, it consumption increases, there are many situations where youre unable to use any magic. Then, how would you use the heavy weapon?

Its as Leon-kun says. If this all goes to the practical use phase, we will be able to fight in a way while curbing the consumption of High Magia Liquid. If that happens, we will be able to successfully increase the range of action of aluminares, above all itll keep the national treasury afloat

Well, the consumption of High Magia Liquid when an aluminare unleashes a magic attack, seems to roughly cost several hundreds of thousand yen worth. Some things can reach several millions

However the Shock Burst from the training machines, because one shot is several thousand yen, if you change that ball of money with gunpowder, Im sure that the minister of finance will be overjoyed.

As I said, the practical phase is still far away. When we enlarged it, it became heavier then we thought, you also cant aim unless you fixed it on the arm. Then theres also the bullet problem, the problems are piling up. Well, lets go to the next one

I guess the required research has been delayed. If Im not mistaken, on earth, there should have been arquebuses from the 9th century to the 15th century. Still, if needed, precisely because it has been emphasized, it has undergone an explosive evolution in a very short period of time. Do this mean that if the demand for guns in this world increases in the future, itll inevitably undergo a rapid evolution similar to my previous world. Perhaps if they included magic into it they might get a newer type of gun.

Then surely, the way aluminares fight each other until now will come to change.

Now, lets go

I, while looking at the gun barrel held by the mechanical arm, am seeing a vision of aluminares exchanging gunfire, which put a smile on my lips.