Chapter 108: Factory

“To fall into a mold” did not necessarily mean “boring.” It meant taking the optimal form for that match format.

Howard-san’s machine was a pickup truck type. Loaded in the back were one propeller-drone control unit and one wheel-drone control unit.

Secure mobility, then use that mobility to deliver accurate attacks by flying, or rolling, drones under Monoz control. It was something like the optimal answer for high-speed combat in the Crash Race.

“Craaaash! The first glorious victim of the semifinals is entry number 42, Howard Wargman! But Team B’s fighting strength is far from gone! Touji! Shinzo! Two mercenaries who are first-rate even as Crash Racers remain!”

Apparently, that machine had been eliminated almost immediately.

“…”

What are you doing?

I held back the many things I wanted to say and opened a channel.

“Shinzo.”

“…Please.”

“I don’t mind, but… are you sure?”

What about defending our territory? That was the question.

“Look and you’ll get it. Their strategy is pure defense.”

“I don’t really understand, but all right. I can’t move much, so I’ll mostly be support.”

“That’s fine. Sorry.”

I cut the communication, slid into the driver’s seat, and gripped the wheel.

“Horse Unit.”

One call. One answer.

Problem: None.

Listening to that reply, I had Rat Unit run a check.

Orange.

Not in top condition. Combat movement was impossible, but he could still move. I checked the surrounding terrain and the enemy positions Shinzo had sent me. Then I picked out three high points we could climb. Moving too much would be bad, so I chose the closest one and turned on Rat Unit’s navigation.

I slowly spun up Horse Unit, climbed the rocky hill, and looked through the scope.

Ah. I understood what Shinzo meant.

And I understood why the commentary sounded biased toward us.

That huge thing was probably where this Julius person was riding.

Had it been like that in the preliminaries too? I had not watched, so I could not say, but it was impressively thorough.

It probably was not against the rules.

But it was against manners.

They were not thinking about what the audience wanted. Winning was enough. They were not strong enough to choose how they won, so they would use whatever method helped them win.

That was probably the concept behind that especially large machine.

Like mine, it used four normal tires. But the main body was absurdly heavy. The shafts were bending, and as the underside of the chassis scraped the ground, it was clear that driving was impossible.

“…”

I operated my terminal and searched.

The machine’s registered name was “Factory.”

No irony, no joke. It openly declared, “I do not run.”

I tried whistling.

The teammates were probably there entirely to support it. The two armored vehicles connected to Factory’s wings seemed capable of driving, but for now, they were supporting Factory by controlling drones.

The propeller drones popping out one after another were so numerous that, seen with the naked eye from here, they looked almost like a column of mosquitoes.

Even more specialized in firepower than me.

A fighting style built on overwhelming numbers.

The drone control range was absurd. They must have noticed me looking down from the high ground. Several headed my way.

After finishing off their opponents, they would leisurely occupy the territory.

A fully reactive defensive strategy.

“Shinzo, I’m in sniping position.”

I contacted Shinzo, who was running through enemy territory while being chased by countless drones, still moving with a strange kind of composure.

“As you can see, I’m a little busy.”

“So it seems. I have guests too.”

It probably was not timed to match my words.

Snake Unit, standing in front in Boar Unit’s place, shot down the first drones with precision fire. Dog Unit and Rooster Unit on the sides ate the ones that slipped through with shotguns. Rat Unit supported them through the gaps, and our safety was secured in no time.

“…How is it?”

“They didn’t have an appointment, so I sent them home.”

Even if we lost in total firepower, in this place, at this moment, I had the advantage.

“Sorry to push you, but help me out. Can you do it? Can you hit it?”

Fifteen seconds.

I looked through the scope and thought.

A sniper shot came from the enemy side. The front armor cried.

“…”

Was it the distance and height difference? The auto-snipe system seemed only about as useful as a below-average sniper. If that was all, then well…

“I can do it. I can hit it.”

“Then go and… do it.”

“Roger,” I said and fired.

I aimed for the propeller-drone outlet. Hellhound, which could punch through tank armor, should have bitten through it easily.

Instead, it tore into the ground beside Factory, completely unrelated to the target.

Huh. Strange.

I watched the dust cloud drift away in the wind and thought that.

I missed.

“…”

A stationary target.

I had missed a stationary target.

Impossible. How could I miss at this range?

That was the kind of thing I wanted to say, but what happened had happened. I adjusted for the deviation, shifted my aim by that amount, and pulled the trigger again.

Miss.

This time, the shot went wide toward the front.

“…I see.”

So there was a trick to it.

“Rat Unit, forget the machine gun control. I need you spotting.”

Five shots in one clip, counting from the first.

After firing them all, I understood one thing. There was no pattern to the deviation. The only consistent point was that the shots never deviated in a way that would hit the vehicle.

What to do?

I thought.

Naturally, no answer came.

“Shinzo, my bullets are being deflected. So I need to check something. Can you get close to Factory’s main body?”

“…”

The answer I got back was silence, but even while being chased by drones, Shinzo approached Factory and skimmed his zanbatou across its surface armor.

Apparently, Shinzo could get close.

What was this?

I thought again, but still found no answer.

…What should I do?

I looked at Rat Unit. Rat Unit said nothing.

“So? What do you think of Factory’s electromagnetic shield?”

A transmission came in from someone I did not know.

Who is this? I wondered.

Well, given the situation, it was probably Julius.

“How does it work?”

“It’s a shield. An energy field. Sniping is something that gets bent by wind, by a single leaf. Bending it is nothing difficult.”

“…”

“Lost for words, are you? Of course you are. Do you see now? This is the true power of Primula Arawn, the woman you mocked and the woman I love! I will not lose! Not as long as she stands behind me!”

His tension was high.

I appreciated learning the trick, but he was not the sort of person I wanted much contact with.

“Rat Unit, end transmission.”

So I cut the communication off one-sidedly. Then I returned to the driver’s seat, tapped the steering wheel with my fingers, and reached a conclusion.

“Dragon Unit.”

Full charge.

Dragon Unit picked up the words I had not spoken and fired an enormous beam. That was deflected too. Apparently, at long range, it could handle both physical and non-physical projectiles.

No helping it.

“Snake Unit, Dog Unit, Rooster Unit, come inside. Let’s have ourselves a little crafting contest.”

“Rat Unit, take over the machine guns. Shoot down anything that comes close.”

“Dragon Unit, it’s a little early, but let’s play our trump card. Deploy the ball drones.”

My words were answered with acknowledgments, and each person, or rather, each Monoz, began to move. Snake Unit, Dog Unit, and Rooster Unit came into the vehicle. I fed them the materials we had loaded and started the crafting contest. As for Dragon Unit, I had him play the trump card I had meant to save for the finals.

Spheres about the size of fists, a little larger than Rabbit Unit’s scouting ball drones, rolled out one after another. The fundamental difference from Rabbit Unit’s model was probably that these were connected to Dragon Unit by wires.

The ball drones spread out around us so their wires would not tangle. When enemy propeller drones passed nearby, the ball drones burned through their rotors with thin lasers and dropped them.

The reason I had called Dragon Unit a Nu Gundam was because of this weapon. Wired funnels, more or less.

Their power dropped. Even so, they increased our number of attacks and the angles we could cover.

Dragon Unit, who until now had not been suited for defense, would handle defense.

Dog Unit and the others would handle the crafting contest.

“Now, the first semifinal match is still at a standstill! Team B can’t quite attack, and Team A has no intention of attacking! The audience is getting bored with this sloppy match and looks ready to go home! We need movement soon!”

And then, ten minutes.

I had no intention of answering the noisy commentator’s request, but our preparations were complete.

“Shinzo, we made a toy out of whatever we had on hand. Come pick it up.”

And so we began moving.

I handed the thing we had made to Shinzo when we met on the way, then casually moved to a nearby high point.

“What’s wrong, Hound? What’s wrong, Touji? Is your partner going to wash my car for me? Do you think splashing a little water on Factory will do anything, you savage? Are you admitting defeat?”

It seemed he had noticed I was rejecting his calls, because Julius changed signals and contacted me again.

I muted him.

“Shinzo, light it up.”

Just that one line.

Then, when I reached the high ground and looked down, Factory had been steam-cooked and was hurriedly raising a white flag. Its armored cars abandoned it and rushed off, trying to gamble on a reversal.

They said quick and clumsy beat slow and clever, but they could have stood to calm down a little.

They were running in a bad direction.

Well, I suppose that was impossible. Shinzo was harassing the armored cars and herding them this way.

I decided to do the job that had finally come around to me.

In other words, shoot and hit.

Prey that had not “escaped,” but had been “allowed to escape,” was very easy to hunt.