Chapter 80: Rout

Contact with the enemy. The call came from the Snake Unit.

The defensive line I had prepared for the worst did its job. The gunfire was probably from the Snake Unit. Being discovered hurt, but I had included this among the possibilities. I opened the tactical map on my headset. I pulled my hat down low. Now then, time to work.

“Alpha has contact. How are things on your end, Bravo, Charlie?”

“Bravo, no contact.”

“Charlie, same here.”

“Then this is a fighting retreat. Fall back to me.”

As I spoke, I operated my terminal. I ordered the Tiger Unit and Boar Unit, which I had attached as escorts, to link up with the Snake Unit.

“B-Bravo to Alpha! For some reason, the Tiger Unit won’t listen! It won’t retreat!”

“Calm down. I only had the Tiger Unit link up with the front line. Charlie, the Boar Unit is the same. Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah.”

“Understood. H-Huh? What should I do with our Monoz…?”

His voice over the comms was nervous and flustered. Kirie seemed to be the type who fell apart when he panicked. By contrast, Touka was calm. She was already moving her Monoz on her own judgment. Following the Boar Unit. That was fine. I wanted more bodies on the front line.

“Think, Kirie. The command rights for your Monoz are yours.”

“But! What should I…?”

“…Do you want to go back to camp? Say you couldn’t do it? Think.”

“No, I don’t! I’ll leave one unit behind, then have the rest follow the Tiger Unit and link up.”

“That’s good. Touka, you keep one unit as your guard too.”

End communication. I picked up the Rat Unit, which had rolled to my feet, and looked around.

There it was. There it was. A perfect tree.

“Your Excellency, please wait here.”

“Mm.”

I climbed smoothly up the tree crystal. My ancestors were monkeys, so I was used to this.

Using the branches as footholds, I put my back against the trunk. I set the Rat Unit down by my feet and took the Type Five from my back. I looked through the scope. The crystal branches were in the way. Even so, my eyes found prey.

Insectum Light Cavalry. Roaches. Cockroaches. Black devils. Their mouthparts, made from an insect’s body structure, were light and sturdy. I could see them. Five of them, dodging Rudo’s lightning strikes.

Yes, I could see them.

That meant I could hit them.

That was how it worked.

I pulled the trigger. The bullet slipped between the branches. The Roach’s shell, hard but without any softness, was not pierced. Instead, it broke, as if snapped apart.

One shot. But whether the position was bad or its vitality was strong, it was not dead. Well, that was fine in its own way. On a battlefield, the wounded were more of a burden than the dead.

Next. My hands moved. My field of vision moved. The next one came into view. I fired.

The line was stalemated, or rather, we had not even managed to bring it to a stalemate.

While the advance force was being picked off, my support was not reaching them either. I could shoot the Roaches that came to the front line, but I could not touch the Ants in the rear that were flinging what looked like formic acid.

This was bad, I thought. But, well, I had known that from the start.

There had been a difference in force from the beginning, and on top of that, they were the ones lying in wait. They had probably picked up the traces from our previous reconnaissance. Not only Light Cavalry, but other forces had been gathered too.

That was why I hated pointless reconnaissance.

If you moved, you left traces. If traces were left, they would be found. If they were found, countermeasures would be taken. This was what happened to fools who wandered right into a place where countermeasures had been prepared.

The Boar Unit, Tiger Unit, and the children’s Monoz linked up with the front line. A temporary increase in firepower confirmed.

“Sheep Unit, Monkey Unit, prepare traps. Finish them in three minutes. Dog Unit, Rooster Unit, take His Excellency and fall back. Withdraw five hundred meters and stand by.”

Ah, this was bad.

That was what I thought. Through my right eye, looking at the front line, I saw a Monoz get smashed apart. There were too many Roaches. The Ants had joined the line too. The Monoz’s core was safe, but it would be bad if we did not recover it.

Tsst.

My back burned.

An illusion. I knew that.

Even so, I followed that premonition and moved my neck to the side. A conical needle skimmed my cheek and stabbed into the trunk with a hiss. It seemed the Insectum side had a sniper too. Was this a Bee? The Bee was not that far away.

“Rat Unit.”

An order to my spotter. A predicted sniping point appeared on the map over my left eye. I brought my right eye in that direction. Ah, there it was. The front line had been breached. This was bad. I bumped it up in priority and fired. But I did not have enough hands.

Compared to the insect-type Tooth, the Bee Man was much closer to an insect. It stood on the ground with four legs, aiming the stinger beneath its abdomen at me.

VS sniper. It was much easier than facing E.B., but there were too many enemies. I could not kill them all. Suddenly, one Bee collapsed. The hit report came from Kirie. I was grateful he had joined the battle line, but…

“Kirie, good. First, fall back.”

“Understood. …What about the Monoz?”

“The difference in experience is showing. Several of your Monoz are down. Wait, Touka. We’ll recover the cores.”

So do not turn around. Just hurry up and come over here. The ponytail that had come within visual range had spun right around.

Five minutes passed.

The front-line units were slowly falling back. They would not last much longer. But if I made them turn around, they would be shot in the back. What should I do? Choose the worst option? Should I order the Snake Unit, Tiger Unit, and Boar Unit to go die?

“…”

I did not want that.

Then what should I do? What was the problem? The problem was that there were too many enemies, so I just had to peel them off.

Could I do it? No. What should I do?

I thought. Thought. Kept thinking as I fired.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait for the situation to move. Wait for the enemy to move.

Before I knew it, Kirie and Touka had joined the sniping too.

“…”

The Snake Unit was better, I thought. They needed training. The Tiger Unit collapsed. The Snake Unit recovered its core. Ah, now this was seriously bad.

The enemy must have thought so too.

That was why they shifted to the offensive.

In my field of vision, the commander, a Soldier Ant, appeared.

I fired.

A moment of stagnation.

In one sense, the fact that their numbers had fallen may have been fortunate. Several Monoz, starting with Rudo, broke away from the battle line.

“Well, unfortunately… this is a rout.”

Even so, I looked through the scope to cover that rout.