Wakagi-chan Pffft!! "Nooooo!!"

Rinho, piloting Amaryllis Unit One, Ein, was on a battlefield showered in light.

"Enemies everywhere! Isn't this the best!"

Contrary to her neat and quiet appearance, the radical Rinho's eyes were bloodshot as she scanned her surroundings.

She cut down an approaching Mobile Knight.

The katana-style blade was longer than the one wielded by Fuuka's Zwei.

Rinho's Ein fought by swinging a single sword.

The twin eyes of Amaryllis Ein.

The lenses within them moved, reacting to the enemy units around it.

She turned and cut down an enemy unit approaching from directly behind, causing it to explode.

As enemy units swarmed from all directions, sweat trickled down Rinho's forehead.

"If I were fighting in person, I could cut them all down!"

The Amaryllis, a recreation of Avid, was also capable of reproducing the One-Flash.

However, unlike Avid, its self-repair function was greatly inferior.

Intense movements put a great strain on its joints.

Even the Amaryllis, built with an abundance of rare metals, couldn't reproduce Rinho's full-power One-Flash.

Ein and Zwei continued to destroy everything around them.

But the white armor of the Amaryllis units was covered in scratches.

An enemy battleship closed in on Rinho.

"Go down!!"

As she shouted, Rinho's One-Flash was unleashed, cleaving the enemy ship in two.

The space junk—debris—generated by the explosion slammed into Ein's armor.

The battlefield was filled with a massive amount of debris.

Both friend and foe were covered in scratches from fighting while colliding with the debris.

However, the scratches on Ein's armor were only from enemy attacks.

They were wounds inflicted by powerful blows, but not enough to destroy the Amaryllis.

But no matter how many she defeated, there was no end to them.

The moment she destroyed one enemy ship, another from behind it was already in front of her.

The main cannon fired, scoring a direct hit on Ein and sending it flying.

The Amaryllis deployed its energy shield, but it was pierced, and the shot hit its armor directly.

The rare metal armor blocked the attack, but Rinho was furious.

"You son of a bitch!!"

As Rinho screamed, Fuuka's Amaryllis Zwei shot past her.

When the dual-wielding Zwei arrived, the surrounding enemy units were destroyed one after another.

Fuuka was better at handling multiple enemies than Rinho.

"You can just take a nap over there."

Hearing the teasing words as it passed, Rinho gritted her teeth and furrowed her brow.

"You bastard, I'll kill you!"

Rinho's Ein swung its sword from left to right, cleaving the swarming Mobile Knights in two.

Explosions constantly erupted around Ein and Zwei.

The Zwei that Fuuka piloted held a katana in each hand.

"Bring it on. Should I kill you here too?"

Their conversation sounded like two allies about to kill each other on the battlefield, but this was just how the sisters communicated.

For the two who had been abandoned and raised in back alleys, this was no different from a normal conversation.

Thanks to Yasushi and Liam, they usually put on a front, but they were foul-mouthed by nature.

As they continued to defeat the enemies swarming the flagship Argos while trading insults, a different kind of Mobile Knight appeared before Ein and Zwei.

An earth-colored humanoid weapon.

The weapon, too grotesque to be called a Mobile Knight, was eighteen meters tall, the standard size for one.

But its atmosphere was different.

It looked as if it had emerged from ancient ruins, with eight arms instead of legs.

Seeing the unit, Rinho immediately pulled her Amaryllis back.

"A creepy one has shown up."

Fuuka felt the same way.

"I've heard about it from our senior disciple. He said the Hegemony has ancient Mobile Knights. And that they're insanely strong."

"Heeh, in that case... if I defeat this thing, you think Master will praise me?"

Rinho unleashed a One-Flash at the earth-colored Mobile Knight.

But before she could, the enemy sensed the danger and moved.

Fuuka grew suspicious of the enemy, which had sacrificed four of its arms.

"Is it all for show?"

For an enemy they had judged to be dangerous, it was too weak.

Rinho, however, couldn't forgive the fact that her One-Flash had been dodged at the cost of four arms.

"Who the hell are you?"

The earth-colored Mobile Knight, despite losing four arms, answered with composure.

"How fortunate to encounter swordsmen of the One-Flash School. I am Alyuna—the Crown Prince of the Hegemony."

On the battlefield.

And at the Crown Prince appearing right before them, Rinho's eyes widened.

The enemy Mobile Knight certainly exuded the aura of a powerful warrior.

She didn't know if he was really the Crown Prince, but for Rinho, he was an enemy she had to defeat all the same.

"I thought my senior disciple was crazy, but you're something else too. But—it was a mistake to appear before me."

Frustrated that her One-Flash had been dodged, Rinho went for the finishing blow this time.

As the bisected earth-colored Mobile Knight exploded, Fuuka muttered regretfully.

"My prey!"

"First come, first served. Now Master will praise me for this. I'll have to expect a reward from my senior disciple, too."

She had defeated the Crown Prince.

Just as she thought it was over, allied Mobile Knights around them exploded.

"Huh?"

Thinking it was just allies being defeated, she looked over, and her eyes widened in shock.

"Hey, you've got to be kidding me."

There stood a unit identical to the earth-colored Mobile Knight.

Moreover, it was emitting the same pilot's presence as before.

Allied communications came through the cockpit.

"Th-The enemy's Crown Prince has appeared, piloting a Mobile Knight himself!"
"He's over here, too!"
"A body double?"
"Confirming appearances in various locations. Their number exceeds one hundred!!"

Rinho clicked her tongue as she listened to the operator's frantic report.

"Come to think of it, didn't our senior disciple have clones made of him? You too?"

Alyuna, having been called a clone, chuckled softly.

"What's the point of that? I alone am sufficient. But I'll give you a hint. If the one here is me, then the one piloting the other units is also me. All of these units on this battlefield are piloted by me."

Fuuka, who hated complicated things, cut in between Rinho and Alyuna.

"I don't give a damn! You, and all the other yous, I'll destroy every last one of you!"

Fuuka's One-Flash struck Alyuna's Mobile Knight, but this time it survived by sacrificing two arms.

Alyuna was impressed.

"Even that could hit me? The One-Flash School is truly fearsome. If we had faced each other in person, I would have truly been dead."

Fuuka, quietly enraged, unleashed a series of One-Flashes at Alyuna.

"—I'll kill you."

The joints of Fuuka's Zwei were screaming.

Alyuna watched this and laughed.

"Did you mass-produce Avids? But they're more fragile than the real thing. The mechs can't keep up with your skills!"

Fuuka's Zwei reached its limit, and the joint of its left arm burst.

Having lost its left arm, Fuuka screamed inside the cockpit.

Rinho cut the communication and threw off her helmet.

"What a pain."

◇

The advance of the Banfield family's forces came to a halt.

The one who stopped them was Alyuna, piloting an ancient Mobile Knight.

However, the Mobile Knight Alyuna was piloting was—over one hundred meters in total length.

It looked like a space battleship, but the upper body of a Mobile Knight was attached to its bow.

Its form was that of a monster with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a spider.

The very image of an Arachne.

In the cockpit, Alyuna wore an earth-colored visor.

All alone, he was piloting over a hundred of the Arachne's child units.

The eighteen-meter Mobile Knights were all child units of the Arachne.

"—Hoh, thirty units have already been destroyed, have they? As expected of the Banfield family. Still, it's lucky I ran into swordsmen of the One-Flash School. They're perfect practice for my fight with Liam."

It didn't matter to Alyuna if the child units were destroyed.

The amazing thing about this ancient weapon was that Alyuna was piloting all one hundred-plus Mobile Knights. He wasn't physically inside them, but he was able to control them all.

At the same time, even if he lost, the experience of defeat was fed back to Alyuna.

In other words, Alyuna could fight the One-Flash School swordsmen over and over again.

"Oops, lost again."

After the thirty-first unit was destroyed by the white Avid, Alyuna sent the next one.

In the Arachne's torso, child units were being mass-produced and sent to the battlefield one after another.

The Arachne's child units were being destroyed one after another by the white Avids, but on other fronts, they were destroying the Banfield family's Mobile Knights and battleships.

The Arachne possessed the power of a swarm, capable of taking on a fleet with a single unit.

It wasn't to Alyuna's taste, but there were parts he liked about it.

"Excellent. I will become even stronger. Fight me until you die, swordsmen of the One-Flash School!"

◇

"So annoying!!"

Fuuka, piloting the one-armed Zwei, destroyed an Arachne child unit while drenched in sweat.

Out of breath and soaked in sweat inside the cockpit, Fuuka gritted her teeth upon confirming the appearance of a new child unit.

"There's no end to this."

When she complained, only her sister Rinho agreed.

"If you had just moved more carefully, this would have been much easier."

"Shut up!"

"You're acting tough, but you broke the Zwei. You'd better think of an excuse for our senior disciple."

"Sh-shut up."

Unlike before, Fuuka's voice was faint, afraid that Liam would scold her for breaking the Amaryllis Zwei.

"B-besides, our allies are useless."

When the Arachne's child units appeared, the allied Mobile Knights were forced into a difficult fight.

No, they were being destroyed one after another.

The Arachne's child units were inferior to the Avid—the Amaryllis—but they possessed higher performance than the Banfield family's main Mobile Knights.

And there were hundreds of them.

All of them piloted by a monster-class pilot named Alyuna.

Even if they tried to overwhelm them with numbers, the problem was that the enemy had the numerical advantage.

Each new Arachne child unit that appeared came with countermeasures against the two of them.

No matter how they tried to unleash a One-Flash, they could no longer defeat them.

"Is your unit at its limit? Hurry up and run back to call Liam. You have no chance of winning anymore."

"Hah! We don't need our senior disciple to deal with the likes of you!"

Fuuka acted tough, but she sensed her unit was reaching its limit.

(This is bad. If our senior disciple isn't here, we're going to be pushed back. If only this was a fight in person...)

Saying they would have won if it were a fight in person was pointless.

As Rinho and Fuuka prepared to face the Arachne's child unit with their two mechs, a communication from Liam came in.

"—How long are you going to take?"

The bone-chillingly cold voice sounded as if he was exasperated with his useless junior disciples.

"Ah, Senior Disciple!?"

"N-no, it's not like that!"

The moment the two showed an opening, the Arachne's child unit fired beams from its eight arms.

Fuuka's Zwei was blown away by the attack, and a part of its armor was stripped off.

"Damn it! You cheating bitch!!"

She hurled foul-mouthed curses at the Arachne, but just then, that same child unit was shot through by a battleship's main cannon.

When Fuuka looked behind her, the Argos had come up alongside their two units.

Liam's order could be heard.

"Return at once. We've already achieved our objective. The Argos will push through."

At the appearance of Liam, who was about to leave the battlefield, the Arachne's child units began to gather.

"Liam! Face me—"

However, even upon encountering Alyuna, Liam seemed uninterested.

"—Argos, maximum output."

◇

—My junior disciples were weaker than I thought.

"They can't even push back someone like Alyuna? They didn't lose, but that's as far as they go."

As I sat in the bridge seat and voiced my dissatisfaction, Eulisia, standing beside me, widened her eyes.

"I think they fought quite well, though?"

Indeed, their performance would be worthy of praise for ordinary knights.

However, the two of them carry the banner of the One-Flash School.

—To carry Master Yasushi's name and only perform at this level is out of the question.

"What I expected was victory. With them in this state, I'll have no choice but to deliver disappointing news to Master."

As I said that, an operator reported their return.

"Amaryllis Ein and Zwei, both units have landed."

I extended my right hand forward.

"Playtime is over."

The Argos's output increased, and its energy shield thickened.

With the Argos, which could repel any attack, at the lead, the Banfield family's fleet broke through the Hegemony's fleet.

Eulisia looked up at the ceiling.

"Allied shield ships? They belong to the Second Fleet. Ships from the Fourth Fleet are heading this way as well."

"That Klaus is overprotective."

I couldn't help but give a wry smile, appreciating Klaus for being able to make the best move to protect his lord even in this situation.

"If the shield ships caught up to the Argos in this situation, does that mean he predicted this beforehand? I'm truly lucky to have him as a retainer. I wonder why he was so poorly evaluated at his previous job."

When I voiced my question, Eulisia answered.

"Being too competent can also be a problem, you know. Perhaps he was judged to be too much to handle and was pushed into an unimportant post?"

"That's possible."

Convinced by Eulisia's words, I watched the eight-armed Mobile Knight closing in on us.

It was launching an attack on the Argos.

"Running away, Liam!"

Alyuna's voice reached the Argos.

He was probably broadcasting to me on all frequencies—but honestly, I had no intention of dealing with him.

"That's an interesting machine you're piloting. I'm curious, but I'll deal with you next time."

"Wait! Fight me—"

"No, I won't wait."

The eight-armed Mobile Knights that crashed into the Argos's energy shield tried to break through but failed and exploded.

"I'll be back. When that time comes, I'll play with you in my junior disciples' place."

Forcibly pushing aside the enemy Mobile Knights and battleships that came into contact with the Argos—destroying them from the point of impact.

The ultimate brute-force push.

The Argos possessed the performance to make that possible.

"Fight me, Liaaammm!!"

Listening to Alyuna's screams, we broke through the Hegemony's fleet.

It seems the Banfield family won the charging contest.

"Well then, shall we head home?"