Volume 2 Chapter 10 part3
Garrett escaped into a wars.h.i.+p.
He issued commands while yelling inside the bridge of that wars.h.i.+p.
“What are you doing?! Hurry and sink it!”
A soldier objected.
“Our allies are there! Besides, isn’t the princess still safe?”
When Garrett tried to touch his non-existing moustache, he realized that it was already gone and tightly clenched his fist.
His moustache was his pride.
He had been grooming it daily, and yet it was completely gone now. His handlebar moustache had vanished when he woke up.
That knight. That knight was the one who did it. Garrett burned with a desire for revenge, seeking no rest until he could get back at his opponent.
“Why did you charge?!”
The soldiers averted their eyes in response to what Garrett said.
(These people must have purposely charged forward in order to save the princess. That must be the reason why they aren’t bombarding them! She even has a replacement, though!)
When Garrett kicked some nearby equipment in frustration, it was surprisingly st.u.r.dy, hurting his leg.
“Gah! T, this is also the work of that hateful man. I despise the one who robbed me of my moustache!”
A sailor shouted.
“W, we’ve spotted a new wars.h.i.+p! It’s estimated to span around seven hundred meters!”
Garrett looked outside in a hurry.
“Foolis.h.!.+ For reinforcements from the kingdom to come at this time──”
He violently s.n.a.t.c.hed binoculars from a soldier, and when he examined the area, he saw one strange airs.h.i.+p heading towards them.
“What? I can only see two cannons.”
The soldiers were also curious.
“It’s shape is also unnatural. Also, moveable cannons? And there’s only two of them?”
It was common to fight by suppressing an enemy with numerous cannons fixed to the side, making the shape of this airs.h.i.+p too unnatural.
Garrett stroked his lonesome lips.
“Sink it. Such a crude airs.h.i.+p is an eyesore. There is no problem if we collect its floating stone.”
The objects that allowed airs.h.i.+ps to fly were called floating stones.
It was due to them that airs.h.i.+p technology had developed. This was a world where airs.h.i.+ps could be made with designs that were anything but simple, all due to the existence of floating stones.
It would have been no problem if the opposing threat in front of them was just a mere airs.h.i.+p.
“Surround it at once.”
Thereupon, the opponent faced towards the wars.h.i.+p Garrett was in and fired a cannonball at it.
The wars.h.i.+p shook tremendously and navigation became impossible due to an important engine being damaged.
“W, what’s going on?!”
“The enemy is bombarding us!”
“A bombardment? As if it can reach us at this distance!──Augh!”
Once the opponent began more bombardments, wars.h.i.+ps of the princ.i.p.ality began to successively lose their ability to navigate.
Garrett saw something ejected from the opponent and noticed it heading towards the inclining luxury liner.
“W, what in the world?”
After a portion of the ceiling fell down due to the bombardment, hitting Garrett directly on the head and causing him to bleed, he could only imagine what would happen afterwards.
◇
A large box had descended onto the deck.
The students’ eyes s.h.i.+ned with hope after seeing that box.
Chris made a complicated expression, but it seemed that he was still relieved.
He descended near me with his battered armor and called out to me.
“Baltfault, is this your doing?”
I held Luxon with one hand and turned around.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? Rejoice──this is my victory.”
It was natural that the victor had already been decided.
Luxon addressed me.
[Master, units of armor from the opponent are heading this way. I request for permission to deploy the drones.]
Once I nodded my head, Partner began ejecting battle drones one after the other.
They had only an upper-body, making them look like legless armor, and each of them carried a different weapon.
Once the box unfolded and opened, a unit of gray armor, Arroganz, appeared.
Its chest was open, waiting for me to enter.
Anjie and Livia seized Hertrude while watching me.
Hertrude looked at Arroganz and narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t tell me that’s a lost item.”
While getting on Arroganz, I replied to Hertrude.
“It seems you’re well-informed. That’s right. It’s a lost item.”
“I remember now. There was a young knight who earned fame in the kingdom as an adventurer. Was that you?”
Luxon said something like [That’s not really convincing,] but I ignored it and closed the chest of Arroganz, looking at an image of my surroundings.
The monsters gathered together and the knights from the princ.i.p.ality began to move.
I smiled as Arroganz began starting up.
“Let’s go at them relentlessly. My one-sided battling continues here!”
[Master, you’ve already counterattacked them, though.]
“This is a matter of how I feel! I’m here to let them know just who exactly they picked a fight with. I will drive fear into the minds of the fools from the princ.i.p.ality!”
Drones equipped with machine guns were ejected from a container on Arroganz’s back.
As they continuously decimated each monster, I spoke to Anjie and the others.
“Take refuge!”
Anjie and Livia nodded their heads.
“Alright, we’ll leave the rest to you.”
“Leon, you must come back.”
Thereupon, Chris stood beside me.
“Let me help you.”
Was he still holding out despite how battered his gear was?
“Do whatever you want. Just don’t get in my way.”
Chris made a slight smile despite my abusive language.
“I’ll make the most of it!”
Well, I was troubled by how he just accepted it. I was expecting a response like “I don’t want to hear that from you!”──Whatever.
“Luxon take out the large rifle and──the blade.”
[Opening container number one.]
While carrying a large rifle in my right arm, I held a blade with the left.
As Arroganz slowly lifted away from the deck, Chris flew next to me.
Seeing Arroganz appear up in the sky, the monsters came rus.h.i.+ng to attack it.
“It’s futile.”
Drones gathered around Arroganz, immediately clearing out the monsters with machine guns.
Seeing that, Chris contemplated while saying “I was crazy to think I could challenge that with a sword.”
He should have realized that sooner.
The drones sent from Partner kept company with the monsters and units of armor, protecting the luxury liner.
When armor from the princ.i.p.ality approached me, I pointed the rifle at it and pulled the trigger, blowing the armor’s head away.
“Now then, how about breaking that fighting spirit you all have?”
[You really do seem like a villain, Master.]
With a grin, I clutched the joysticks controlling Arroganz.
◇
Garrett saw the scene from the wars.h.i.+p’s bridge.
“Is he a monster?”
Not just the princ.i.p.ality’s wars.h.i.+ps, but even their armor were being put out of commission.
The gray armor was heavily plated, a form far from mainstream.
At first he had laughed at how unshapely it was, but his face paled as his allies kept going down.
A nearby soldier spoke out.
“Earl, should we retreat now?”
Garrett sent a blow to that soldier.
He had strengthened his fist using magic and sent him flying.
“Retreat? What a stupid thing to say. If the troops of the princ.i.p.ality return after having lost to schoolchildren from the kingdom, we’ll be the laughing stock!”
The soldier got up and wiped the blood from his lips.
“H, however, the damage to our troops has already──”
“They stole our princess, stole the magic flute, and now we might lose to a child! There is no way we can retreat!”
If Garrett and the others returned home in such a state, there would be no future for them.
Garrett, who would have to take responsibility for that, had no choice but to sink the enemy in front of him.
He chewed on his nail and his eyes became bloodshot.
“So the kingdom has a new model of armor. My position will be in danger at the very least if we don’t sink that before we return.”
As Garrett muttered to himself without worrying about the glances around him, some knights came to the bridge.
Seeing the specially made black uniforms they wore, Garrett instantly lifted his face.
He looked at the knight leading them and smiled.
“That’s right. We have you. The princ.i.p.ality’s strongest hero.”
An aging man looked at Garrett’s face while seeming annoyed.
The top of the man’s head was bald and there was a large scar on his forehead. He had a large muscular body and unlike the other knights, he wore plate mail.
He was the only one wearing plate mail, and since the people around him wore military uniforms or knights’ clothing, he seemed to stand out.
However, this was the attire of a man who was constantly ready for combat at any time.
The people of the princ.i.p.ality did not feel any discomfort in this man’s getup.
“I was told that there were orders to not let me lead an a.s.sault. I even heard that the princess had been captured. You’ll be chastised for this later. We’ll be forming a sortie.”
There was a glimmer of hope in the eyes of the soldiers.
They wanted this person to do something about the rampaging airs.h.i.+p and armor in front of them.
Garrett nodded his head many times in delight.
“Well, that’s no problem. Viscount ‘Bandel Hymn Zenden’. I leave it to you and the others.”
The knights left the wars.h.i.+p’s bridge.
Garrett made a stifled laughter.
“With this, everything has been settled.”
However, the beaten soldier spoke.
“B, but, we were given an order from the country to not let Viscount Zenden──”
Garrett laughed scornfully.
“Zenden made the sortie of his own accord. Besides, are you stupid enough to not let us play our strongest card? The ‘Black Knight’ will be able to kill that monster. After all, he’s the strongest knight in the princ.i.p.ality.”
The princ.i.p.ality’s strongest knight began to go after Leon.