Chapter 107: Start of the Semifinals

“Replace the left monitor! Replace the armor too!”

“I can’t fix this machine gun! Bring the spare!”

“Does anyone know wiring? The monitor’s blue for some reason!”

“Wait, it’s heavy! I said don’t let go! Hellhound is heavy! I can’t hold it by myself!”

“Lend me a small Monoz! I’m checking the suspension!”

“Gyaaah! The wheel is dead!”

“I brought liquid nitrogen! Let’s cool Horse Unit down!”

“Boar Unit’s bad! Boar Unit’s really bad! Hey, someone go get Sheep Unit! He has the blueprints!”

The moment we pitted in, the mechanic apprentices swarmed Jagd all at once.

Howard-san had withdrawn while his damage was still light, and Shinzo had apparently barely taken any hits, so almost every mechanic on the team had been assigned to me.

“…”

Hot.

The driver’s seat, surrounded on all four sides by iron plates, was a proper steaming hell. I pulled off the head armor, handed it to Ox Unit, and started removing the upper half of my Centipede.

“Rooster Unit’s repairs are done, but I’m not sure Boar Unit will make it in time for the next round. What do you want to do?”

Akito stood there with a plastic bottle of water in one hand.

I took it, opened the cap, drank about half, then dumped the rest over my head.

Lukewarm.

“If it comes down to it, Snake Unit. We’ll lose firepower, but the rules will change too, so I don’t think it’s that bad a move.”

Is Boar Unit really that badly damaged?

I asked with my eyes as I started walking so I would not get in the way of the work.

“Ahaha, don’t worry! His body and crystal only took light damage! The problem is the built-in LMG. He fired too much. The barrel’s ruined!”

“Can we swap the whole barrel?”

“Touji, nested barrels are expensive.”

“…Meaning?”

“We only have one spare.”

“Then save it for the finals.”

“Got it.”

I dropped into the pipe chair prepared for me like I was collapsing into it. I wanted to strip off the lower half of the Centipede too. But if I took it off once, I probably would not feel like putting it back on again, so I stopped myself.

“Any other problems?”

There had to be, I meant.

“You drove too long on flat tires. The wheels are one thing, but I’m worried about the suspension too. I wish you’d given up sooner.”

“Youth means not backing down, Akito.”

“Ahaha. Grow up, Bernie! I’ll somehow get it ready for the semifinals,” Akito said, then left.

“Good work, Touji. Want something to drink?”

Eevee came over in his place, carrying a cooler box. Three little girls were clinging to her legs, using her as a shield.

They were probably children from the kindergarten section that Eevee often looked after. They were usually scared of my sharp eyes and rarely came close to me, but…

“We’ll fan you.”

“Fan.”

“They said there’s ice cream too.”

Now that the entire campsite was helping with this, they seemed willing to cooperate a little. They fanned me with paper fans as I sat there drenched in sweat.

“…Ah. Thank you.”

They were fanning me, yes, but with the strength of small children, it was not especially cool.

I took care not to let the complicated feeling show on my face.

“Touji, let me wrap a wet towel around your neck.”

Unable to watch any longer, Eevee said that with a wet towel in one hand. She had taken it from the cooler box, and for reasons separate from my own body heat, it was giving off steam.

I held out my neck like a condemned man awaiting execution.

“Ooh… uh.”

A strange sound slipped out.

But it was cool and felt good. I accepted a bottle of cold water and leaned back in the chair.

“…”

Melted into my seat while three little girls fanned me.

From the outside, my current situation probably looked rather unacceptable. As I was thinking that, he arrived.

“Good day, Hound Touji.”

It was Rudo, the walking embodiment of a bread roll, shaking the ground with his awkward little thumps.

“Ah, pardon my late introduction. My name is Julius, and I will be your opponent in the semifinals.”

His tongue was hanging out in his idiot face. He was probably excited by my performance. His tail wagged like it was dancing, and I could see shed fur scattering through the air.

“My wife has told me about you. Hmph. Just as I heard, you are a man of truly poor breeding.”

Brutal.

Corgi shedding season was brutal.

The way you could grab the fur around his rump and pull out a whole clump was no joke. Just by moving, he filled the air with hair.

“I cannot accept that a savage man like you is a hound of the historic Doggy House! I hereby declare that I will win, become Sheepherd Dog, and drag you, no, you cur, down from your seat as Hound!”

This was bad.

Very bad.

Because I was shirtless and covered in sweat. If a walking fur factory came near me in this state, I could only imagine a tragic future. I looked up and silently sent Eevee a plea for help.

“Gh! G-good eyes. As expected of the man called Hound. You are no unworthy opponent. Then let us settle this in the match!”

Eevee understood what I meant, smiled wryly, and gave a small nod before moving to capture the bread roll. The long-bodied, short-legged creature was caught easily and lifted into the air.

Let me go, damn it, I gotta say hi to the boss… I had no idea whether that was what he was saying, but his short legs were kicking all over the place.

And so the bread roll was kidnapped.

He probably would not be turned into fried bread, but he would likely be handed off to Akane in the cheering seats.

After confirming that the disaster had passed, I took a sip of water.

Cold. Delicious.

“What were you talking about with Julius?”

Shinzo came over, shirtless like me.

“?”

And said something I did not understand.

“Julius?”

“…He was just here, wasn’t he?”

What the hell are you talking about? Shinzo said, stealing my line.

Unfortunately, I had no memory of that.

Was there such a person? I asked the little girls with fans using my eyes.

“He was here.”

“He declared war.”

“He said he’d put ketchup on you!”

They pointed toward the opposite pit.

“See? That person.”

There was a man talking with Primula-san.

“…Shinzo.”

“What?”

“Why did that Sheepherd Dog candidate declare war on me?”

“How the hell would I know?”

Three minutes later, Shinzo and I concluded that he had challenged the wrong person because he was an idiot.

***

Why was Rudo’s fur in Jagd’s driver’s seat when he had never ridden in it?

Thinking that, I looked down at the stiff animal hair lying there, its color shifting from brown to white.

“…”

I tried to pick it up, but the Centipede’s fingers could not grasp it. I had no choice but to remove the hand armor, somehow pinch the hair between my fingers, and toss it out through the open roof.

The instant I did, engines roared all around me.

I snapped my eyes to the front monitor.

Shinzo and Howard-san had already started.

“Now the first semifinal match begins! Representing Block A, entry number seven, the team led by Julius! Facing them, representing Block B, entry number forty, the team led by Shinzo! All eyes are on Team B! The top individual kill count in the preliminaries was seven, and second place was six! That’s right! The two machines with the greatest destructive power are both on this team! Shinzo and Touji! Will we see these two rampage again in the semifinals?”

Watching the two of them race away, and hearing the commentator’s roar, I finally realized it.

Ah.

This was bad.

I was not focused.

Troubling. Well, even so, it was not a problem. My job was not now.

The preliminaries had been a deathmatch. A no-questions-asked slugfest. But from the semifinals onward, the rules changed.

The format was Assault.

Each team had its own territory. Occupy the enemy’s territory for a set amount of time, and you won.

Jagd had been heavily damaged in the preliminaries, and repairs had not finished.

So the technical team told me not to move. In other words, I had been declared useless as mobile combat power.

Even so, under these rules, I still had a job.

“Now, what strategies will each team choose? Ohhh, Team B! To think it would be Touji! To think it would be the god of destruction! The ace of the preliminaries is waiting in his own territory! A guardian deity! Can Team A slip past the defense of this top-class sniper?”

Exactly.

I raised the headrest as high as it would go and sat on it. Since I had no intention of moving around, I removed the Centipede’s head armor and put on my hat.

Then I looked into Hellhound’s scope.