“You did well noticing that attack, little student!”
“So the young lady of the Padyuel isn’t just a Padyuel in name.”
Unlike the rest of the class, Myuhi and Aristel were attacked once more.
Their assailants had weaved in between the rain of beams and slashed at them.
They received their attacks with their own blade, and their assailants praised them.
“…”
“…”
But the two girls didn’t say anything and just quietly threw a kick.
The girls wanted to kick their assailants up, but they managed to dodge and get away from them.
“Whoops, didn’t expect you to have such poor leg manners.”
“Don’t look down on them. Those two have better Status than us. Also, the order from Omega 1 is to catch the special class, and in the worst case scenario, suppress them.”
When the voice of the man, who seemed to be their commander, resounded, everyone nodded, but their attitude was somewhat frivolous.
“Just from how they move, I can already tell it was a good idea to change the plan and send beta team(us) instead.”
The enemy looked down at the tense special class from the sky. Despite their surprise attack failing, they didn’t look even the slightest bit tense.
Without their knowing, they were already looking down on the students because they were merely students.
“…Ari-chan, I wonder why,” Myuhi said.
“What?” Aristel.
Yet despite being on the receiving end of that gaze full of contempt.
Why was it that the two girl were brimming with the intent to fight?
“I feel like Icchi is telling me right now to ‘go and do something about these’,” Myuhi said.
“What a coincidence, I feel it too,” Aristel said.
As the two girls slipped a chuckle, the loneliness from before completely vanished.
They had zero basis for it, but when they thought of Shinichi ordering them to fight here, for some reason, they could feel power welling up from within them.
These weren’t foes that they should be able to contend with in terms of experience, and yet for some reason, they felt like they couldn’t lose at all.
『If you know that much, then maybe I shouldn’t have bothered to reach out to you then.』
That’s why they weren’t surprised at all when they suddenly heard his voice.
The smile on their face only grew deeper.
『So, can you beat those misguided fools for me? I’m a bit busy right now, you see.』
Despite the gravity of his request, he spoke casually as though nothing could be more trivial.
Surprisingly, the two girls actually felt themselves being uplifted because of that.
“Fu fu, it can’t be helped,” Myuhi said.
“It can’t be helped indeed,” Aristel said.
『Thanks, Hina, Aristel. I’ll leave it to you.』
“Daughter of Padyuel, we are the Gaen Volunteer Army. We don’t want any unnecessary combat, so obediently surrender— KU!?”
While the commander of the Beta Team was talking, Aristel suddenly threw her sword at him.
Although the man had managed to dodge it, her sudden attack left all of the terrorists in shock.
They did expect that they might have to fight, but they never imagined that the students wouldn’t even hear them out.
As far as these two girls were concerned, however, there was never a need for a conversation in the first place. All the more so, after he’d contacted them.
An invincible smile appeared on Aristel’s face.
“You seem to have said something, but you should know that, I am the successor of the noble House of Padyuel. As one who has inherited the blood of the proud guardians of Garesto, there is no need to talk with some filthy terrorists!”
“Wow, Ari-chan! You’re so cool!” Myuhi said.
“Tsk, this little girl!”
So the students wouldn’t negotiate with them and neither would they surrender.
But what really infuriated the terrorists was that they were called terrorists.
They had taken up arms only because of the sad state of the world. They were fighting for a just cause.
“We just want to restore Garesto to how it ought to be— GU! Shooting at me from below!?”
Just as she proclaimed, Aristel didn’t listen to any of their excuses and just gave the order to her class to attack via Thought Transmission.
Without trying to intimidate the foe before them or declaring war, the students shot with their ranged weaponry without any hesitation.
The terrorists didn’t expect that they’d be attacked this quickly and with such precision, causing their formation to become a mess.
The students of the special class weren’t in the special class just for show, so the terrorists couldn’t afford to take their attacks head on.
After all, the students also had the assistance(support) and strengthening(boost) of the exoskeletons.
Their exoskeleton may be meant for students, but looking down on their attacks would be a fatal mistake.
“Impossible! Theses students are seriously intending to take us on!?”
And yet Beta Team found it hard to reconcile that they truly intended to fight them.
Because of that, despite Beta Team’s intention of not looking down on the students, they found themselves actually being pushed back. Because unlike them, the students understood that they were fighting enemies that were their superior, and so fought their best.
Strangely enough, the students were actually more desperate because they believed this was an exam.
“That suits you just fine,” Myuhi said “Fools who are merely being used by the likes of Gaen.”
“Wha— GAH, GUHA!?!?”
In the midst of the confusion, the fox girl appeared in front of their commander and attacked.
Without giving him the time to respond, she used the long spear she had taken out and made a sweeping attack with its handle. As she spun, the handle buried itself deep into the commander’s side.
The sound of the long spear breaking resounded, but that just meant that she had put enough power to make it break in a single attack.
The terrorist commander felt like all of the oxygen within his body had left him and he found himself unable to move.
“Go, fall intoxicated with your vain ideals.”
“!?!?”
Myuhi said that coldly with a smile just loud enough so that only he could hear it as she dropped her heel on his head and sent him flying to the ground.
Moreover, she specifically picked out a rocky place, a rare sight among all the sand, to send him to.
“Commander!!”
All of that happened in a single breath.
None of the other terrorists could help. Watching was all that they could do.
They watched as their commander’s visors broke and as he fell to the ground with his eyes turned white and his consciousness gone.
Even if they wanted to help, the attack of the students wasn’t relenting. Not to mention, they were still yet to process what was happening to them.
When the commander fell, the attacks of the students grew even fiercer.
“You don’t have the leisure to be looking away! You should know, this is one feisty weapon when combined with ‘Homing’!”
Aristel brought out a Gatling gun, and then started shooting an endless amount of light bullets at the enemies. To make things worse, these light bullets had a homing feature added to them.
Despite seemingly shooting without aiming properly, every bullet she fired landed on the enemies.
“GU, this is so annoying!”
“There’s no opening to fix our formation!”
Below them was a relentless barrage, while in front of them was a buffet of light bullets that never missed.
When all of that was mixed in with the confusion and agitation that they’ve yet to shake off, the terrorists could only defend.
No, they couldn’t even do that. As for why…
(Altitude Control Balancer, abnormalities detected. Cowl Wing, half-damaged.)
It was because everyone’s(・・・) exoskeletons were sounding alarms about the same abnormalities(・・・・).
When they realized what the warning messages were saying, their confusion and agitation reached a peak.
“W-What!?”
“T-This is impossible!”
“Did she aim for that!? You’re kidding!”
They shook violently and inclined mid-air. Although their Gravity Control Device was fine, the balancer and their wings have been damaged, making flight difficult.
“Wow, Ari-chan! You actually hit such precise targets with a Gatling gun!”
“Tactics to neutralize exoskeletons is a must among the Ten Great Noble Families.”
Other than the feints she’s been shooting, her Gatling gun was basically a sniper rifle homed in at the enemy’s flight capabilities.
As a successor of a great family, Aristel has already been briefed on the structure and weaknesses of the exoskeletons.
Which parts were most prone to failure and how much damage was needed to cause it. The consequences of losing the balancer and the wings to flight… etc.
It was because Aristel knew all of that that her attacks were so precise and fatal.
“Now then, I wish you all a good day.”
Her conduct still as graceful as ever, Aristel threw the Gatling gun at the terrorists, and the massive gun barrel took several terrorists with it in its descent.
They had just managed to finally get themselves to float, but then a Gatling gun fell on them. There was no way they could have resisted.
As for the remaining people in the air, Myuhi beat them back to the ground.
“…Still, you pushed yourself too much, Ari-chan,” Myuhi said.
“Ugh… I suppose having to aim everything and process all those skills took a much bigger toll on me than I expected.”
As Myuhi pointed out that she’d pushed herself too much, Aristel held her head as though she was trying to keep herself from feeling dizzy. Despite that Aristel was as brave as ever and smiled.
The Homing skill adds an automatic-tracking feature to the light bullets, but the user has to specify what to track before the bullets fire.
Because of that she actually had to assign a target for every bullet that she fired, including the decoy bullets she shot.
Since she had to do that for nearly 20 targets, the burden on her was considerable.
In a sense, the combination of an automatic-rapid-fire weapon and Homing was terrifying both to the user and the target.
“But we can’t stop now,” Aristel said. “If they regain their bearing, we’ll be disadvantaged once more.”
Although the terrorists seemed to be on the losing side now, it was mostly because they were taken by surprise.
Once they’ve calmed down and are able to work together, they’ll easily be able to turn the situation on its head.
That was just how big the difference was between their experience and equipment.
Aristel had been locked in sword to sword with one of them earlier, so she knew just how big the difference was between their exoskeletons’ performance.
If not for her superior Status, she would’ve likely been pushed back earlier.
Myuhi likely understood that too, which is why she attacked with enough force to destroy her weapon.
“That’s why you’re having them attack now, huh,” Myuhi said.
When Myuhi glanced down, she could see their classmates attacking the terrorists after they’d landed.
Thanks to the confusion and impact from the terrorists’ fall, plus the difference in numbers, the special class was able to successfully keep the enemies’ superiority in abilities from showing.
“Haa, haa… Fuu. He entrusted this mission specifically to me. I will not fail. Let’s go!”
“Ah, wait! Sheesh, this is why maidens madly in love are so… Ah, whatever! I’m feeling great too anyway! Let’s do this!”
As Aristel got her breathing in order, she controlled her exoskeleton and shot straight down for the ground. When Myuhi saw that, she smiled and descended to the messy battlefield below.
Like this the mixed special class and the Gaen Volunteer Army moved their fight to the land.