the top still just barely moved.

“Wait, so you mean...?”

“That’s right.”

Quenser pointed at the screen and Heivia took care of the actual aiming.

Around them, several welded-on wires and their heavy trucks swung through the air before finally breaking off, flying into the distance, and stabbing into the ground. However, careful observation showed that something was different.

The wires were not snapping and the welding was not coming off.

The small robots – that were called Dvergr according to Skuld – and the armor panels were being peeled away. The Object was a two hundred thousand ton mass, but each individual robot was only the size of a brick. It was not that difficult to forcibly tear them away with the weight and centrifugal force.

This was helped by...no, caused by...

“The armor on the very back should be a lot thinner with the Princess’s main cannons hitting it on the front.”

Quenser grinned.

They had invaded Skuld’s cockpit and he had seen the off-ramp curve of the tunnel on the way there. The other hatches had likely been hidden by the robots and armor panels, but if all three cockpits were positioned at the three corners of an even triangle, then he could take a good guess where the other two were.

He made sure to point at and verbally repeat each item on the screen.

“I’ve removed the safety, the fuse is set, and the final targeting is complete. I just followed the help guide, but is that enough? Will this work, Heivia!?”

“Yeah!! But just to be sure, cover your ears and open your mouth! I’m gonna fire!!”

“Then fire right up the filthy ass inside that naked apron!!”

The armored truck shook from the blast of firing.

This scene may have been out of place in the modern age of clean wars.

It may have been no different from firing a single puny shell.

But at this moment, things were different.

An intense shaking had to have reached the cockpit. The Pilot Elite who felt protected even from a nuke would have been filled with supposedly impossible fear.

And they would have learned that they were under attack from the Princess in the front and the tanks, armored trucks, and shoulder-fired launchers from every other direction.

The Trinity Style’s round armor had pieces missing like toy blocks had been removed. The contents were exposed, especially on the back.

The Dvergr could not immediately rearrange to fill the holes. If they did that, the Princess’s fierce attack would break through on the front. However, leaving the holes might lead to the surrounding infantry crushing the nearly exposed cockpit.

“Hey, what do we do? It’s still moving after all that. We haven’t destroyed the cockpit yet! What do we do now!?”

“Wait.”

If the enemy truly intended to drag this down into a drawn-out battle of possible mutual destruction, then the outcome was still a mystery. If it used its nearly one hundred cannons to slaughter all of the infantry and continued fighting the Baby Magnum despite the damage it would accumulate, it might just turn this around.

But would the Trinity Style go that far? Was it willing to accompany an outdated First Generation and a handful of infantry to the depths of hell?

The next thing they knew, the Trinity Style had stopped firing as it took high-speed evasive actions.

A transmission was already coming in from Frolaytia.

“We’ve received the White Flag signal again. We could always destroy them since they already ignored the rules, but we don’t want to take any more damage either. Do not pursue. Wait for them to retreat.”

“We’ve won for now, but this is no time to celebrate,” said Quenser inside the overturned armored truck. “The Trinity Style can redesign itself to match the current conditions and environment. This weakness will probably be gone the next time we see it.”

Part 10

The Pilot Elite girl named Skuld got up from the depression in the ground with her hands still bound behind her back. She quietly came out from behind cover.

Her beloved Norn had left.

She felt as neglected as someone who had been left in the line of fire by a rescue helicopter. At the same time, she felt relief at the immediate threat leaving. The two conflicting feelings mixed together in her head.

She would likely be taken into Legitimacy Kingdom custody along with the other Faith Organization soldiers. In the initial discussions, the Legitimacy Kingdom had promised not to touch the scrapped Norn or its Pilot Elite, but that verbal promise would have been nullified by that second round.

Skuld was a Pilot Elite.

Her body and mind were both packed full of classified information, so the Legitimacy Kingdom would be watering at the mouth at the thought of getting their hands on her. For the same reason, the Faith Organization would want to silence her as soon as possible.

In that case, it was obvious what would happen next.

“This means war.”

The Norns were the three goddesses of destiny.

Of them, Skuld was in charge of the future and the ultimate destinations of human lives.

In other words, she gave prophecies of death.