CHASE 2: BLUE KNIGHT (part 3)
I heard a noise close by. An enemy!?
I jumped up. It was only my subconscious. Maybe it was the anesthetic, but my head was throbbing. My limbs, which still had no strength, were limp. The surroundings were dim. There was a bright light in the center of the room. The ceiling, supported by several steel beams, was so cracked that it looked like it might crumble at any moment.
I thought it was a prison. But then, it didn’t seem that way. There wouldn’t be a doorknob inside a prison cell. It seemed that I was lying on a hard sofa.
“Are you all right?” a monotone voice said. I turned to the direction of the voice and saw Sha Bak bending over and undoing the laces of his boots.
I opened my mouth and felt a sour pain in the back of my throat. “Where am I?”
“This is my roost,” he said in an expressionless voice, kicking off his boots and standing up barefoot. His gigantic body blocked out the light.
Sha Bak and the other Quent people are giants whose average height exceeds 2 meters, and they are racially different from us. Their home planet, Quent, is located almost in the center of the Astragius Galaxy. The area is called “inviolable space,” and doesn’t belong to either the Gilgameth or Balarant military.
However, they have extremely high combat capabilities. They’re particularly effective in battles using A.T.s. Moreover, they’re absolutely loyal to their contracts. Therefore, as elite mercenaries, they participated in the Hundred Years’ War using Quent-made A.T.s, the Bersergas. Sha Bak was one of those Quent mercenaries.
I didn’t know anything about the Quent people until I met him in the Corpse Squad. All I’d heard was about the superiority of Quent-made sensors. That’s why I remember being surprised when I saw his huge body.
Sha Bak took out a bottle of alcohol and a glass from a rack at the edge of the room.
“Would you like a drink? It’ll wake you up.”
“No, I don’t need one.” I was deceived just a few hours ago. I was still jumpy. “Did you save me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said in a low voice. “You can do what you want now.”
Quent people generally speak like this. Quiet and monotone. Their ethics make it taboo to show emotion.
“Sorry,” I said, and sat back on the sofa. I was completely drained. To an outsider, I must have looked sloppy. My back was bent along the curve of the backrest, and my legs were stretched out. “Why are you still here on Melkia?” I asked. “Quent mercenaries returned to their home planet when the war ended, right?”
“The war is still going on here,” Sha Bak said.
“War?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “The Hundred Years’ War is supposed to be over. I got kicked out of the army, and now I don’t have a job.”
“I got kicked out of the army, too,” Sha Bak said, without changing his expression. “I’m not a mercenary, but I’m still under contract.”
That was a roundabout way of putting it. I’ve always hated the way the Quent people talk, even when they’re trying to help you out. The only places where you could handle an A.T. and fight were in the military or the military police. If he was working for either of them, then I wasn’t saved, I was captured.
“What’s this war you’re talking about?” I demanded.
“When I saved you, I was fighting in a Berserga. That’s it,” Sha Bak said, not paying any attention to my attitude. “Battling.”
“Battling?”
“You don’t know? You just came back,” he continued, still expressionless. “It’s a betting match using A.T.s”
“A betting match? What’s that?” I leaned forward on the sofa.
“We sign a contract with a matchmaker and get paid. We only know how to fight with A.T.s. This is how we make a living,” he said, pouring a glass of alcohol. “I thought you stole the MP’s A.T. to use for battling. After all, the A.T.s we have now were either discarded or sold off. The muscle cylinders and polymer Ringer’s solution are lower quality than they were in the military. My Berserga can only get up to about 60 percent of its power. But the A.T.s from the military and police produce almost normal power.”
“I see,” I said, dazzled.
Sha Bak was right, the quality of commercially available polymer Ringer’s solution was worse than that used by the military. After all, the type used in the military’s main A.T. “Scopedog” just before the ceasefire was still a military secret. The commercially available type is from about five years ago. I’ve had bad experiences with it.
“That was a good story,” I said to Sha Bak, who put his mouth to the glass.
“Are you going to do battling?” Sha Bak asked, his eyes red. It seemed to be true that Quent people can’t handle alcohol. “I’ll tell you, you can’t win at the military level. They’re all too strong. Plus, A.T.s have quirks in their operation.”
“Is that so,” I said, brushing him off. “Can I have a drink?”
Sha Bak poured alcohol into a new glass. I took a sip, offering him some more.
After Sha Bak passed out, I opened the doors around the room. The first door was an exit that led directly outside. I opened another door and found myself in a garage. In the center of the garage, a blue-painted A.T., Berserga, was landed with both legs bent backward.
I ran over to Berserga’s side. I’d planned to steal it while Sha Bak was drunk. If I could get my hands on it, I’d win in any city I went to. I was sure of that. Even if its power was down to 60 percent, Berserga still had one or two times the output of an average A.T. I owed Sha Bak for saving me. I felt ashamed of myself. But I needed a strong weapon.
I put my hand lightly on the hatch of Berserga. At that moment, Sha Bak appeared with a voice saying “Kain!” My blood flowed backwards.
“Kain, you can’t handle Berserga.”
“You pretended to be drunk…” I gritted my teeth.
“You really want to do battling. There are a lot of people who say it. But the best they can do is slink away. That’s why I pretended to be drunk.” Sha Bak looked stern. “I’m looking for friends. Can you join me?” he asked.
“I don’t have an A.T.”
“Leave it to me. I’ll set up a match,” he said with a smile. “Come on. Let’s eat.”
“Sorry…” I said this from the bottom of my heart and returned to his room.
“Shall we eat this?” Sha Bak held out some food in front of me. It looked like a bird, the type that was edible. Its surface was covered with tiny pores. I snatched it and bit into it. After all, I hadn’t eaten anything for two days.
“It tastes better when cooked…” Sha Bak was saying something, but I didn’t hear him. I devoured the whole thing,
“It’s thanks to the god of fate that I can eat this and that I met you.”
I spoke words I had never used in my life. But maybe it was a mistake. Either the meat was bad or I’d eaten something else I shouldn’t have, because I was soon suffering from severe diarrhea.
And so I started battling. All the matches in Coboto were held on the street. However, it wasn’t the street fight style of early battling. The venues were mainly in three places in the city, at intersections surrounded by tall buildings.
Sha Bak and I had the territory of Quaver Street, the easternmost. There was a bar called Winby on the corner. The matchmaker sold betting tickets and ran the bets here.
I didn’t have an A.T., so I borrowed a normal one of the ST Tortoise type from a female matchmaker named Phyl Comb, who was mainly under contract with Sha Bak. I preferred the dog type A.T. that I was used to, but the matchmaker didn’t like the dog type very much. Dogs are M-class, and Tortoises are H-class. H-class is the more popular bet. Phyl’s office didn’t have a single dog A.T.
Phyl Comb had long, lustrous black hair tied back. She was around 26 or 27 years old. Her pale skin and thin eyes gave her the impression of a good-looking woman, but I didn’t like her piercing gaze, which seemed to see through people’s inner selves.
I’ve never confirmed it, but it seems that Phyl and Sha Bak had a deep relationship. Normally, Quent men do not interact with women from other planets. They have a deep fear of blood mixing. Sha Bak could be called a heretic by the Quent people, but he’s the kind of man who wouldn’t return to his homeland even if there was a ceasefire. I didn’t find him strange.
On the 10th day after meeting Sha Bak, I rose to the challenge of my first battling. I was nervous until I drove my Tortoise out to Quaver Street. It had been six months since I last rode an A.T., so I was a bit confused. But by the time I reached the street, I had gathered my courage.
Anyway, I had an A.T. as my weapon. All I had to do was use my skills to win.
My opponent was also an H-class A.T. Its ring name was Lucky Strike. It was the same ST Tortoise as my model, but it had been modified for battling. The exterior had been reinforced with triple triangular head armor, and two sharp protrusions had been attached to each shoulder plate. However, the real problem was inside.
I only realized this after fighting it, but his A.T. had been modified in a way that violated the regulations.
In battling, especially in regular games where close combat is involved, weapons other than the basic equipment of the A.T. are prohibited. In other words, if you’re using an ST Tortoise-type A.T., the 22mm machine gun built into the chest is removed, and the only mechanisms that can be used are the left and right extendable arms — the arm punches — and the gliding wheels built into the legs. Anything else is a violation.
Also, modifications aimed at increasing the size of the A.T. itself, such as extending the range of the arm punches, are prohibited. Even so, it’s considered acceptable to increase the power of the gliding wheels or increase the number of liquid cartridges used to fire the arm punches. However, in this town, even if a violation is discovered, the match is never stopped. After all, it’s a match for customers. The point is to keep them entertained.
I’d heard from Sha Bak that there was an A.T. that violated the rules, but I never expected to face such a person in my first match. As soon as the match started, I was attacked by a foul. Lucky Strike shot out a steel stake from the part of its chest where the 22mm machine gun used to be — the part that looked like it had two holes in it.
My A.T. was pierced through the foot by the stake and pinned to the ground. If I’d been able to use its full power, it would’ve been easy to escape. But an A.T. that was just refurbished military surplus was no match for this. No matter how hard I pressed the accelerator pedal, the situation didn’t improve.
I dodged Lucky Strike’s attacks, lowered the frame, and made the A.T. pull out the stake. Then I moved into a counterattack. As per theory, I launched an attack that combined a roller dash with an arm punch, but it was completely ineffective.
Lucky Strike performed a second illegal attack. It blinded me. I lost my sight due to paint that was shot from its right arm. At the same time, I received five arm punches in my waist and fell to the ground.
For me, the first match in Coboto was a crushing defeat. I can’t stop thinking about the parting words of the pilot of Lucky Strike after the match.
“You’re trash. A kid like you shouldn’t be riding an A.T.”
There was something else I couldn’t forget. After the match, I was surrounded by three guys, punched and kicked. They were probably customers who had bet on me. So my face was covered in bruises, and three days later, I challenged Lucky Strike again.
This time, I also prepared illegal equipment. An eye for an eye. And I won. An ejectable chain attached to the inside of my right arm worked. The chain trapped both of his legs, and I was able to finish him off with an arm punch. Even if I cheated, it didn’t change the fact that I won. I felt great.
But Sha Bak was furious at my actions. He said, “Battling is not just a contest of strength. Victory comes from advanced technique and accurate judgment.”
I argued, “Battling is not a contest for cunning merchants. It’s a battle where Votoms riders who know nothing but fighting put their lives on the line.” That’s right. It was Sha Bak himself who said that battling was a battle. To me, battle was all about strength.
But I continued to cheat. It didn’t last long. Even when I cheated, I started to lose. I lost two or three times in a row to normal, orthodox A.T.s. It wasn’t because of my A.T.’s performance. It was always my opponent’s superior technique that won out.
It was infuriating. And I fell into despair. The combat logic I’d held dear was shattered into pieces. It was around that time I ignored Sha Bak’s pleas to stop, and participated in a Real Battle. A Real Battle is a type of battling that uses firearms to simulate real-life combat.
I chose to compete in a match with the heavy machine gun used by a Tortoise. Of course, I didn’t decide to compete without a reason. It was a way to regain my sense of real combat.
My opponent was a Tortoise-type A.T. with the ring name Bloody Dan. His machine was almost standard, with the only notable feature being its red paint job. But I never thought it was covered in paint mixed with real blood. He always killed his opponents and kept their blood as a trophy.
And so, I lost this match too. Both arms of my machine were torn off, and my muscle cylinders completely overheated. I was cornered to the point where I couldn’t even move. He aimed his gun at my body, specifically at the cockpit. There was no doubt that it was aimed at me inside.
At that moment, Sha Bak’s Berserga burst in. It knocked the heavy machine gun off Dan’s A.T. and pierced Dan with a pile bunker. The customers were ecstatic at this unexpected appearance. But in the end, we had to pay a huge penalty of 10,000 gildans. Of course, I didn’t have that kind of money after losing so much. Sha Bak paid the full amount.
And he said, “If anyone tries to kill you, I will fight them. If you are killed, I will take revenge.”
“Why? Why would you do that for me?” I asked. In this day and age, no one would protect you, even a relative. But he gave me the means to earn money, and on top of that, he tried to protect me. It was true that he reminded me of the time before war, when people lived honestly, but it was beyond my comprehension.
“You’re my comrade. And you make me feel something.” Sha Bak said quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know how we got the name Berserga?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Berserga is a name from Quentian lore.” With that introduction, Sha Bak began to speak calmly.
Once upon a time, there was a race of people called the Overmen on the planet Quent. Most Quent people hated them. It was Berserga who drove them out of Quent. Berserga was a warrior of unparalleled ferocity. He led everything to destruction. That’s why the name Berserga came to be given to their A.T.s, a weapon designed for destruction.
It’s said that the Overmen who were driven out by Berserga scattered all over the Astragius galaxy and perished. However, according to Sha Bak’s research, there are a small number of them with an extremely high biological adaptability to machinery everywhere. They now live as a solitary race.
And Sha Bak is one of them. He learned the secret of the Overmen just before the ceasefire and awakened to his own ability. The powers he’d always had suddenly surfaced.
Sha Bak said he saw similar qualities in me. The two of us on the planet Melkia were closer than family. That’s why he was helping me, waiting for me to awaken to my own special abilities.
“How do you know I’m such a person?” I retorted.
“I saw your identification tag. And it was my intuition.”
I knew the ID tag contained personal data, and that the military used it to decide on units and missions. But…
“Do you remember when you were discharged from the Corpse Squad?”
“That? I’d rather not think about it.”
“You killed 2,000 people by then, including civilians. That’s why you were removed. The Corpse Squad was originally a unit whose purpose was to wipe out soldiers.”
“That’s right. At that time, I didn’t know what was going on. I don’t remember the reason, but I felt like there was another person inside me…I felt like I was being controlled by that person.”
“But you handled machines better than even the Overmen. Even if you’re not one now, you could obtain incredible power if you were.”
“Power? How can I get it?”
“You can’t do it now, but at the appropriate time, you can ride my Berserga. We’re being targeted by a group similar to us. By finding out their secrets, you can also obtain the power of an Overman.
“There’s a group similar to the Overmen?”
Without answering my question, Sha Bak grabbed my hand and shed tears.
“You’re alive, and that’s what matters.”
They were tears of genuine joy at my safety.
From that time on, Sha Bak became my most trusted friend. After my fifth defeat, I bowed to Sha Bak. There was no one else I could rely on.
Sha Bak taught me many techniques. How to control the direction of travel in a roller dash that can only go straight. Shift the center of gravity of the machine, and spin the gliding wheels just before it loses balance and falls. The feet will skid, and the biggest problem is how to maintain balance. Don’t rely on the computer for attitude control. Make full use of all your perceptions.
I inherited techniques from Sha Bak one after another. There was something he always kept saying: “Become one with the A.T.” And after half a year of battling, I had gained unparalleled skills.
I fought many different opponents. One tried to bite me to pieces with giant fangs attached to the chest of a ST Tortoise, while another dyed the shoulders of his Scopedog red and claimed to be a survivor of the Red Shoulder unit, feared as the strongest soldiers during the war.
But none of them were strong enough to get me excited. I gradually began to feel mentally thirsty. It was like when you smoke too many cigarettes. You drink enough water to satisfy your body, but for some reason your mouth still feels dry. That kind of frustration.
I reached a level where I could tell the strength of my opponent just by looking at their facial expression. A match where I was guaranteed to win was boring. I wanted a strong opponent. But no matter how many times I fought, that never appeared. Yes, none of them except for Sha Bak. Before I knew it, an intense desire to fight Sha Bak had begun to grow inside me.
One day, the female matchmaker Phyl Comb appeared in front of me and said, “I’ve got a challenge for a tag match, but Sha Bak says he doesn’t want to.”
Her small, fleshy lips were completely dry. She must have been arguing with him for quite some time.
“He doesn’t want to? Is the opponent really that strong?”
Phyl shrugged, and her black hair rustled. “Yeah, as soon as he heard the name, he said he didn’t want to…”
“What kind of guy is he?”
“His name is Shadow Flare. He rides a black A.T. I’ve never seen before, and he seems to be strong. I wonder if Sha Bak is scared…”
An indescribable excitement welled up inside me.
“Phyl, make the deal. I’ll handle Sha Bak.” I blurted it out without thinking. If he was strong enough to scare Sha Bak, he’d make a worthy opponent.
“Okay, I’ll settle things right away.” Phyl said, and left Sha Bak’s lair.
I stood in front of Berserga in the garage and began to persuade Sha Bak.
“I accepted the challenge.” He didn’t answer. “Shadow Flare…are you really that afraid of him?”
“No, I’m not.”
Sha Bak turned around. His face clearly showed fear…or rather, the tragic expression of someone desperately fighting against their fate.
“Kain…do you remember the Overmen?” Sha Bak said in an uncharacteristically weak voice.
“You told me that story.”
Sha Bak looked me in the eye. His eyes were unusually sharp for a Quentian who makes it a virtue to hide his emotions.
“By the way, have you noticed any changes in your body?”
“Nothing…” I said, not caring about what he said. “What I want to know is whether we’re going to fight him or not.”
“He’s tough, and if you’re not careful, you’ll die. Do you know the rumors about him?”
“No, I don’t.”
“He only appears in Real Battles. And everyone who fought him has died.”
I see, a Real Battle. This would be my second experience, but I’d never stopped practicing my gunfire with an A.T. every day, thinking I might do it again.
“Sounds interesting.” I chuckled to myself.
“Okay, let’s do it.” Sha Bak reluctantly agreed to the match. And he added, “Finally, I’m going to fight him…”
The day of the Real Battle against Shadow Flare arrived.
Sha Bak and I parked the A.T. transport trailer under the Oremoda Beer sign on the corner of Quaver Street as usual, and waited for the match to start. Then a man appeared. It was Kuu Layer, the matchmaker and pickpocket boss who tried to frame me.
He glared at me and said, “Kain, I’ll pay you back for six months ago.”
“You’re Shadow Flare’s manager?”
He had a creepy smile on his distorted mouth. “No, I called him here to kill you.”
From the opposite side of the street, we heard the roar of two A.T. gliding wheels.
“He’s coming,” Rayer said.
Sha Bak and I got into our respective A.T.s. I was in a normal Tortoise. Sha Bak was in a Berserga, as everyone knew. That was when it happened.
“Kain,” Sha Bak called out after opening the cockpit of the Tortoise. “Take this.”
He stood next to the Tortoise and handed me a gun. It was an Armor Magnum, a large handgun with a magazine under the barrel.
“Why do you have this now? It was discontinued before the ceasefire.”
“I kept it when I was thrown out of the army,” Sha Bak said. “I’m giving it to you.”
“Why!?” I asked, but Sha Bak ran back to the Berserga without answering. Just as he jumped into his cockpit, the corner of the surrounding crowd broke with a loud cry, and two A.T.s appeared.
Both were equipped with black armor. I immediately recognized one of them as a modified dog type M-class A.T. It just had three turret lenses surrounded by a roll bar. It was a type commonly called a Strongbox.
The other unit was a type I’d never seen before. It had a dome-shaped head attached to the body of a Tortoise. However, the head was not equipped with a scope lens, which could be called the eye of an A.T., but just a single vertical sensor. Moreover, it had a huge, silvery claw on its left arm — a type of weapon called an iron claw, I think, but it was the first time I’d actually seen one.
They charged forward without slowing down. I tucked the Armor Magnum into my waistband and leaped into the Tortoise’s cockpit. Sha Bak and I raised our control sticks at almost the same time. Our hatches closed with a smooth sound. We also simultaneously rose from landing position with our legs bending forward.
The black-painted A.T.s closed in rapidly, and the screeching of their gliding wheels grew louder. I put the goggles over my eyes to check, and the one equipped with the iron claw was scattering sparks from his feet, heading right for me.
Are you planning to crash into me?
I waited until the Black A.T. got as close as possible, then I stepped on the wheel axle with all my might. I made sure to tilt the body’s balance forward enough. The gliding wheels screamed under my feet. A sideways G-force slammed into the cockpit.
At the same time, a scene of Quaver Street was displayed on the monitor, and the Black A.T. disappeared into the distance behind me. I made a sharp turn to dodge its next charge. It wasn’t as bad as the rumors said. That machine was just showing off, I thought, when suddenly, “Ugh!” Sha Bak’s scream burst through the communicator.
“What’s wrong?” I shouted into the mic and turned my head to the left where the Berserga was. The image on the monitor screen shifted to show Berserga entangled in wires extending from the back of Strongbox’s hand.
“That’s cheating!” I shouted.
“Kain, behind you!” Sha Bak’s voice came.
“What!?”
I turned around and quickly slammed the control stick to its limit. But a split second earlier, I felt a sharp impact on my back along with the high-pitched sound of metal being shredded. It must have been the iron claw of the Black A.T. striking me. Half a second later, as my machine turned, all that was visible on the monitor was the Black A.T.’s red glowing sensor.
“You bastard!” I yelled, and stepped on the accelerator pedal, but it was too late. A flash of light ran through the cockpit hatch directly in front of me. It was a flash of an iron claw.
However, my machine started forward, driven by the gliding wheels. We collided head-on. Then I saw an unbelievable sight. The bumper on the chest of the Black A.T. was being forced into my cockpit through a crack in the hatch. There was a crunching sound, and the 18mm thick armor plate bulged outward. At the same time, the screams of those around me flooded in.
The next moment, my body shook and leaned forward. I grabbed the bumper of the Black A.T. in front of me to keep my balance. My machine fell on top of the Black A.T. Seeing an opportunity to win, I operated the control stick and pressed the trigger. The monitor showed my Tortoise’s right arm pointing a heavy machine gun at the side of the Black A.T. and pulling the trigger. But suddenly, it flashed white.
There was a thunderous roar, and the right side of my cockpit, just around the Tortoise’s shoulder, was blown away. It was a misfire. Just before I pulled the trigger, the Black A.T. had pressed itself against the muzzle of the gun. And now there wasn’t a single scratch on it.
The moment the Black A.T.’s right fist appeared on the monitor, the image disappeared. I took off my goggles. Now that the monitor was dead, there was no more use for it. But then, my machine began to creak. The seat began to lean into a horizontal position. The Black A.T. was gripping my head and bending my body backward. I pushed down the control sticks with both hands, desperately resisting.
Steam was beginning to drift inside the cockpit. The polymer Ringer’s solution in the muscle cylinders was beginning to overheat. I didn’t care. Even if I destroyed myself, if I could defeat the Black A.T. here, the burden on Sha Bak would be reduced. No, more than anything, I was happy to have encountered this monstrous enemy.
The seat was almost horizontal. Despite my desperate resistance, my machine was lifted vertically. It was incredible power. There was no way a conventional A.T. could have that much difference in ability.
I maneuvered the Tortoise’s left arm to make a final attack. The Black A.T. raised its left arm, which was equipped with the iron claw. It flashed.
I triggered the Tortoise’s left arm to perform an arm punch. With a low burst, everything from the elbow down exploded toward the Black A.T.’s side. A gust of wind blew past my head. With a shriek, the cockpit hatch that had been covering me was ripped off. The Black A.T.’s iron claw swept it away.
It lashed out with its iron claw again and again. There was no time to counterattack. In an instant, the outer wall of my cockpit was cut to pieces and disappeared. Terror was the only word that could describe the situation. Having lost all means of resistance, I could only wait for the moment of destruction.
It held its iron claw straight up in the air and brought it down for a crushing blow. The sharply-honed tip cut through the air, closing in on me.
At that moment, I was pushed aside by something that jumped in. It was Berserga. Sha Bak rammed into me, dragging the Strongbox along with him.
I fell in front of the crowd of spectators on the street. And with my very own eyes, I saw the moment when the iron claw bit into the hatch of the Berserga. There was a flash of light and some of the paint burned. The iron claw planted two sharp wounds in the front of the machine. It was as clear as a slow-motion film.
“Sha Bak!” I shouted, pulling out my Armor Magnum from the holster on my waist. I started to run, but Phyl, the female matchmaker, grabbed me from behind.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Stop it,” Phyl shouted. “Your A.T. lost. If you go out with something like that now, it’s a violation.”
“But they’re also breaking the rules…”
“You idiot!” Phyl interrupted. “Sha Bak hates rule breakers. He won’t be happy even if you go in there and win.”
“If it was just breaking the rules, I wouldn’t do this,” I shouted in frustration. “They’re too strong. No matter how strong Sha Bak is, he can’t handle two of them.”
But Phyl remained firm. “I know. But Sha Bak hasn’t given up the match. He thinks he can win. Quent people don’t fight recklessly. If he thought he couldn’t win, he would’ve given up the moment your A.T. was defeated. Or do you think Sha Bak will lose!?”
I was at a loss for words.
“That guy is far stronger than you. There’s no way he’ll lose.” Phyl’s words sounded like something she said to convince herself.
But there was no need to worry. Sha Bak’s Berserga tore off the wires that had been coiled around its body like snakes and stood up. It spread its arms wide and shook its fists sharply at its waist. With one smooth movement, it raised its heavy machine gun. It wasn’t the standard firing stance programmed into the A.T.’s basic system. The pile bunker mounted on its left arm was aligned parallel to the gun barrel.
The machine was facing sideways toward the enemy in front of it. Facing an enemy sideways, unable to make a roller dash, is considered taboo. But this was Sha Bak’s favorite fighting pose, and it meant a one-hit kill.
The two black A.T.s charged forward without flinching. Right toward the pile bunker. The muzzle of Berserga’s heavy machine gun fired, and I was sure that Sha Bak had won. At that moment, sparks flew from under the feet of the Black A.T., and it moved at a speed that was probably three times faster than average, sweeping the heavy machine gun aside.
It was a swift movement. The average A.T.’s top speed was 40 kilometers per hour, and even with Sha Bak and I maneuvering skillfully, we could only reach 60 kilometers per hour. This thing managed to do more than twice that, astonishingly fast.
Phyl pressed her face against my back. A terrible creaking sound echoed all around. It sounded exactly like the screams of an A.T. That’s right. The Black A.T. thrust its steel fingers into the wound it had torn in the hatch of the Berserga and forced the cockpit open.
But Sha Bak, seated in the cockpit, wasn’t afraid at all. He sat with his back pressed against the seat, motionless, as if calmly accepting his fate. He was caught by the Box’s arm, which had been thrust into the cockpit. The Box quickly thrust his right arm, which was holding Sha Bak, toward the Black A.T. The Black A.T. slowly aimed the muzzle of its black, gleaming heavy machine gun at Sha Bak.
But Sha Bak’s expression did not change. The Box let go of Sha Bak, and the Black A.T.’s heavy machine gun roared.
No matter how much the Quent people may be considered a different race, they were still human after all. If an 11mm bullet passes through your body, you die instantly. But the bullets fired from the Black A.T.’s heavy machine gun tore through Sha Bak’s body for about a minute. During that time, Sha Bak continued to arc through the air without a single cry of pain. Most of his flesh was torn away, his limbs were severed at the joints, and blood sprayed everywhere.
When the heavy machine gun stopped firing, Sha Bak fell to the ground. His giant body, which had been over two meters tall, was now no bigger than that of a five- or six-year-old child.
The Box stepped on Sha Bak’s fallen body with its thick steel legs. In that moment, I heard a sound I never wanted to hear again. The sound of Sha Bak’s skull breaking.
I screamed. I pushed away Phyl, who was sobbing at my back, and ran forward. I raised the Armor Magnum I was holding tightly, aiming it at the vertical sensor of the Black A.T. At that moment, the Black A.T. suddenly began to open its hatch. I hesitated and stopped.
The inside of the cockpit gradually revealed its entire form. There, bathed in the faint light of the instruments, sat a man. He wasn’t wearing a helmet. He had a sturdy body and straight, jet black hair. His outline was unclear, but a black spot between his eyebrows only enhanced his mysterious aura. His eyes, devoid of all emotion, were a deep, jet black that could swallow anyone whole.
The moment I saw his eyes, my body stiffened and I couldn’t move. I felt like I was paralyzed.
Beside the Black A.T., the Strongbox approached with its hatch open. In the cockpit sat a black man with a hateful expression. He glanced at the pilot of the Black A.T. and said to me, “Hey, kid, you’re lucky you didn’t die. You’re the only one who survived a match with this guy. You better thank the guy who’s lying there dead.” His voice was low and mocking.
After he finished speaking, they started to walk their A.T.s forward with the hatches open. Slowly. And when the pilot of the Black A.T. passed by me with his icy, expressionless face, I was freed from the spell that had kept my body rigid. My mind screamed at me to shoot that Black A.T. from behind. But I couldn’t move.
Sha Bak’s body lay on the road before me. It was no longer recognizable, just a pool of blood and mash on the pavement, and it held my gaze captive.
“Sha Bak…” I blurted out.
My arms, still gripping the Armor Magnum, began to tremble. I spat out every curse I could think of, lamenting my carelessness in accepting Shadow Flare’s challenge.
Before I knew it, a cry had started to surge from the back of my throat. For the first time in my life, I felt something hot flowing from my eyes. I don’t remember ever shedding tears like this, not even when I lost my parents and siblings.
A tremendous sense of loss ran through my body. It felt like all the blood was flowing from the tips of my fingernails. Sha Bak was my only true friend and my greatest ally. In other words, he was everything I had become as a human being after the war. In an instant, he was gone.
When everything that had flowed from my eyes completely dried up, my body began to burn. That heat may have been the only thing still left inside me.
–And then I roared.
From then on, I became a Votoms rider burning with a desire for revenge.
I rode my friend’s Berserga from town to town. It was a journey in search of word of the Black A.T.
I stayed in each town for about a week. I battled there two or three times, both regular games and real battles. Of course, it was also to earn a living every day, and to improve my Berserga in preparation for battle with the Black A.T.
For half a year after Sha Bak’s death, I continued to win. People began to call me “Blue Knight” because of the blue-dyed body of my Berserga.