Chapter 104: Machine

Cars had already existed five hundred years ago, when I was born.

Monoz had not.

In other words, there was no need to turn Monoz into tires. We could simply use tires as tires.

…What am I even saying?

Well, I confused even myself a little, but that was the idea. Tires had become luxury items, useful for one single purpose and nothing else.

Attach those tires to a chassis and load Horse Unit in as the power source.

The form would be different. Even so, I decided to let Horse Unit run, just as he, or rather, the unit himself, wanted.

There were mountains of downsides. I was forcing one unit to handle the work that had been spread across four Monoz. It would be slower. It would have less power. Compared to ball-wheel types, its freedom of movement would drop dramatically. Slow, dull, and clumsy. If this had been an actual race, there was no doubt we would have been fighting for last place from the moment we entered.

But this was the Crash Race. It had the element of destroying opponents, and since the regulations limited the number of Monoz, there were benefits too.

If the other teams used Monoz for all four wheels, they would only have two left. But I was having Horse Unit handle all of that alone. Which meant the number of Monoz I could put on offense was five. In terms of unit count alone, that was two and a half times the firepower.

The machine was slow.

No question, it was slow.

But I was a sniper to begin with. Yuri, my parent, had personally told me, “Assume you’ll die if you go walking around.” I was the king of shut-ins. The King of NEETs, so to speak.

That felt a little wrong.

“…Touji, it’s finished exactly as ordered.”

Akito’s cheek was black with machine oil. His voice lacked its usual energy, but it still carried the clear satisfaction of having done the job.

“As expected, Akito. You’re the best.”

“The job you brought me was interesting. I got a little carried away.”

We bumped fists.

Then we looked at it.

An iron horse.

It was jeep-shaped, with large block tires made to handle every kind of bad road. The driver’s seat used iron plates instead of glass on the front and sides, with cameras installed to project the outside view inside. A design concept that prioritized defense.

The only open part was the roof. That was for my sniping, with a gun mount installed to fix my rifle in place.

Rat Unit would sit in the driver’s seat, navigate for me, and control the two mounted machine guns.

Boar Unit would be placed on the hood, spewing a rain of bullets from the mounted LMG.

On the sides would be Dog Unit and Rooster Unit, two units skilled at shooting and rich in combat experience.

And in the cargo bed, mounted over Horse Unit’s engine block, sat Dragon Unit, our heaviest firepower.

We did not need speed.

What we wanted was firepower.

An iron hound that, once loaded with Hellhound, could even slaughter tanks.

“…Iron Hound.”

“Jagd Hund Eisen!”

“…Yes. Jagd it is.”

Akito’s suggestion sounded cooler, so I went with that.

Shinzo’s machine looked somehow futuristic.

It was like a motorcycle, with four ball-wheel-type Monoz arranged in a line: Zenki, Goki, Gozu, and Mezu. Its streamlined body let the wind flow over it, and if Shinzo rode low against it, his body practically became one with the machine. Leaving aside the sides, it minimized the area exposed to fire from the front and rear as much as possible.

It was a high-mobility machine that relied entirely on Shinzo’s piloting skill. Its only firepower was whatever Shinzo carried himself, and every bit of unnecessary weight had been cut away. Its design philosophy was the complete opposite of my Jagd.

He did not need firepower.

What he wanted was speed.

That was the monster machine assembled under Karys’s supervision.

“Blade.”

“…Touji, hasn’t Jagd already lost at the name stage?”

“And you’ve already lost to your outfit.”

I said that while looking at Eevee, who was wearing something like a cheerleader outfit.

Are you supposed to be a race queen? Don’t you lack the body curves to call yourself a queen? Which means there is no point in showing skin. Put on a jacket.

“I’ll bite you.”

“Please don’t bite me.”

“You could just honestly say you don’t want other people looking at me.”

“…”

Just wear it. I forced the jacket onto her and pulled up the zipper.

What should I do? Now it looked like she was not wearing anything underneath.

Well, whatever.

That was the conclusion I reached.

“My Jagd has high firepower. Your Blade has high mobility. Since our strengths don’t overlap, we should be able to get pretty far, don’t you think?”

“If it were that easy, sure. But specialized types are strong when the situation fits them. When it doesn’t, it gets ugly.”

“Shinzo, let me teach you something as your senior hound.”

“?”

I put on a slightly senior air and spoke with pride.

“A hound is someone who can force the situation to fit his specialty.”

That was what I told Shinzo.