Chapter 85: Taking Command

The morning sun glittered off the tree crystals.

The smell of gunsmoke drifted through the morning mist.

The Insectum did not use gunpowder.

The scent of gunsmoke hanging in the air must belonged to our side.

The smell of gunpowder made me just a little more cruel.

I walked slowly along the outer wall, slowly raised my rifle, and slowly pulled the trigger.

I aimed at the Grasshopper at the front. Shot through, shot dead, ended. It caught several behind it and sent them tumbling.

But that was all.

The madness of the swarm painted over the fear of death.

The swarm of locusts advanced without stopping for even an instant. Ah, this was not my battlefield. I gave up.

“Yuri, I’ll leave it to you.”

“Understood.”

As her cool voice trembled against my eardrum, I ran my eyes over the map.

Why am I the one
stuck playing commander here?
Fake commander me.

Touji, a haiku¹ of the heart.

That being the case, I issued orders. The mercenaries gathered this time as teaching material for His Excellency were all highly skilled. Even so, there were ranks among them. I formed the plan around Yuri, who was clearly on another level.

The order was bombardment.

With long-range fire, we would scatter the cavalry and make them choose a path. Waiting at the end of the path they chose was… well, that was the idea.

They had the advantage in numbers, but our pieces were stronger. In other words, what I was doing was, in a sense, also a battle of numbers. Even an idiot could do it. Therefore, even I could do it.

“Dragon Unit.”

Dragon Unit had penetrating power. A moment later, light ran through the sky. The air scorched. The light pierced through the locusts, reached the ants, and even burned through their simple nest. Ah, this was good. Thinking that, I picked out Monoz, who could handle optical weapons like the Dragon Unit. Some mercenaries mainly used optical weapons. I gave them new orders. I fiddled with my terminal, and they fired in time with the count. Everywhere except the path to Yuri was filled with the stink of burning protein.

Even after we forced them to choose a path like that, some still refused to choose it.

While Insectum swarmed toward Yuri, either carried there by the flow or perhaps thinking they could take her, several charged into the fortress wall according to their original objective.

A large hole opened. The hard heads of the Grasshoppers easily punched through the makeshift wall.

Well, that sort of thing happened often.

Sad as it was.

So I stayed calm and dealt with it. I operated my terminal. Checked the nearby units.

“Outside stays outside.”

The enemy was gathering toward that hole. For that reason, I could not use the units outside. The closest ones on the inside were…

“Ah, that’s not good.”

His Excellency and Kirie.

Those two had little more than handguns.

Well, it would work out.

Because from here, I could see that Grasshopper.

If I could see it, the bullet would pass through. If the bullet passed through, I could reach it. There were many obstacles. But since I did not have that much work to do, my heart had room to spare.

Slowly, I pulled the trigger.

***

About an hour passed.

The Insectum temporarily pulled back. While the enemy’s rear guard, or rather their suicide squad, held Yuri in place, I could see the Ants and Grasshoppers returning to their nest. If we chased them, they would probably do to us what we had just done to them.

Well, we did not have that kind of leeway, so I had the outside units fall back.

“…”

I let out a long breath. The tension drained from my shoulders. We should be able to rest a little now.

I set the workaholic Monoz to repairing the walls, sent the latest data to my replacement, and gave him a quick rundown of what came next.

“Good work on the defense, Hound.”

“No. This side was the main objective this time, but…”

“Right. We’ll watch the rear too.”

“Please do. I let them go for now, but there were units moving that looked like scouts.”

“Understood. We’ll keep an eye on that as well. And?”

“Damage is light… is what I’d like to say, but the Monoz are in bad shape. Quite a few bodies are broken.”

“We’re repairing them, but we need Monoz for those repairs too…”

“If it were Gunpla, even I could build them.”

“Then you’re officially useless here.”

See you. See you.

With that sort of exchange, the handover ended. The Ox Unit must have been assigned to me instead of heading off to repair the wall, because he came over. I handed him the Type Five and rolled my shoulder once. Then I leaned my weight on the Ox Unit and descended the stairs.

Everything was inconvenient. It felt wrong to say that when we could barely even repair the Monoz, but I wanted to do something about my left leg.

“Good work, everyone! Food is over here!”

I heard the voice of a boy whose voice had not yet changed. When I looked that way, His Excellency was shouting in front of a deep stockpot.

They were probably distributing rations. …Ah, so that was why the Ox Unit had come. Looking a little proud, the Ox Unit opened his mouth. I took a metal mug from inside and joined the line.

We could not let His Excellency hold a gun.

We had no intention of letting His Excellency make plans.

So His Excellency had been put in charge of distributing combat rations.

But the line I joined was Kirie’s.

I would like to say there was no deep reason for it, but unfortunately, there was a reason of some sort.

A complaint had come in about the ration distribution team, so I had to deal with it.

“…”

What a pain.

The line moved, and Kirie appeared in front of me, not even trying to hide his dissatisfaction.

“…Touji-san.”

“You look rather unhappy, Kirie.”

“…Of course I am. I didn’t come here to do this.”

“I see. …Then what did you come here to do?”

“I came here as a sniper!”

I answered his angry shout with a smile.

“Shut up. Don’t get carried away because you lacked the skill and weren’t chosen. ‘This’? Don’t screw with me. I don’t want to leave ‘something this important’ to you either.”

“…”

“I’ll put it in terms you can understand. Learn from His Excellency.”

I took the miso soup from the silent Kirie. It was mixed miso. I wanted red.

In my heart, I marked Kirie with an X. I would place my hopes for a pup on Touka.