The battlefield the Kingdom had designated was at sea, far from the land.
A floating island had been brought there, and preparations for battle—resupply and maintenance—were underway.
The floating island they used was the one
It had once passed into the Kingdom's hands, after which it had undergone extensive renovations in order to be reused for the war against the Empire.
Looking down at the Kingdom's grand fleet from an airship was
"Pops, it's airships above and below us, everywhere you look."
Front, back, left, right—and above and below as well—the Kingdom's airships were floating all around.
Nicks had seen battlefields before, but he was astonished at the sheer number of friendlies.
It was the same for
"I've never seen this many myself."
On the bridge of the airship, the sailors of House Bartfort were taking their stations with tense expressions.
The captain spoke up to Balcus.
"Still, I never imagined young master Leon—oh, excuse me, Lord Leon—would be leading this many airships."
Balcus scratched his head.
"That kid really is a mutation. I never thought my own son would end up doing something like this."
Nicks felt the same.
"With this many of us, I'm starting to think we might actually beat the Empire."
From Leon's floating island, airships whose renovations had been completed were taking off.
Maintenance, resupply, and renovations were being carried out free of charge and at a rapid pace.
From the underside of that floating island, a large airship appeared.
Seeing the Partner emerge, Nicks put his hand on his hip.
"That's the Partner, right? Why does it have all those big tubes attached to it?"
Besides the renovated Partner, a flat airship also emerged.
It was the main body of the aerial carrier, Fact.
Other airships of shapes different from the Kingdom's ships also came out—no, space battleships.
Balcus put a hand to his forehead.
"Weapons of the ancients, weren't they? Moving even without people aboard—our ancestors really were something."
Hearing the word "ancestors," Nicks recalled something.
"Pops, come to think of it, didn't you say once that our family also has some kind of ancestral legend?"
"Idiot. After seeing something like this, talking about our family's ancestor will only make us feel miserable."
"What kind of story is it? Come on, while we're at it, tell me."
House Bartfort's airship had been placed near the front of the battlefield.
This was because Balcus had said, "Precisely because we're Leon's relatives, we have to be at the front—otherwise it'll cause him trouble."
If House Bartfort hung back, it would affect morale, so they had moved to the front.
In other words, the probability of dying was high.
Since it had come to this, Nicks wanted to hear the story now.
"—Our ancestor was, if anything, not the type who succeeded as an adventurer. You know that much, right?"
"He was someone who rose up through war, wasn't he?"
"That's a much later story. Our ancestor was actually an adventurer who drifted in from outside."
"That's news to me."
In the Kingdom of
"The story goes that he was betrayed by his comrades or something like that. So he'd had enough of being an adventurer. The reason he came to our island was apparently so he could relax doing farming."
"Sounds kind of like Leon, somehow."
"Yeah, doesn't it. In that case, maybe he isn't a mutation but—a throwback?"
"Still, after seeing a sight like this, it does feel like a small story."
"That's why I didn't want to tell it. Well, he's our ancestor, so I doubt he was ever a famous adventurer either."
While the father and son were chatting, an ear-piercing sound came through the communicator.
After that, a human voice could be heard.
"Report from reconnaissance! The Empire's grand fleet has been sighted! Numbers—over three thousand!"
The bridge erupted into a stir all at once.
After all, the enemy had brought a force nearly twice their own.
What's more, the exact number wasn't even known.
If things went badly, it could even be three times their size.
Balcus raised his voice.
"Don't panic! If we move according to the plan, we will absolutely win!"
As the Empire's grand fleet closed in, Nicks wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
◇ Inside the Ricoeur.
A spacious room had been prepared, and there a sapling of the
The Ricoeur drew in the mana in the atmosphere and supplied it to the sapling.
Through the sapling, it converted that into energy, which served as the Ricoeur's power source.
The one controlling the Ricoeur was
"The mana density is rising.
By absorbing that mana and feeding it to the sapling, the Ricoeur stored up even more energy.
The ones watching over the sapling were
"I get that you're storing up energy with this little one, but what are you going to use it for?"
Cleare's eye, as she answered Noelle's simple question, was turned toward
"We'll use this energy for the defensive shield. Protecting our allies from the enemy's attacks is our role, after all. And besides—"
Livia, who had been looking out the window, turned back to Cleare.
"You're going to use the device on the royal ship, right?"
However, the way they would use it was different from how it had been used during the war with the Principality.
"Since the enemy has prepared countermeasures, we'll use it on our allies."
Cleare projected an image inside the room.
"We'll use the device's mental interference for communication. This isn't affected by mana, so it's really convenient."
Yumeria tilted her head.
"Umm, what do you mean?"
The one who explained to Yumeria was
"It means you'll be able to have a conversation through your heart."
"Oh~, that's amazing. Huh!? W-Wait, does that mean the embarrassing voices in my heart can be heard too!? W-What do I do? The fact that I always think I love Kyle is going to get through!"
Faced with Yumeria, whose face had gone red, Kyle blushed all the way to his ears in embarrassment.
"—Mom, please just be quiet already."
"To be precise, it only delivers words. Since we can receive them, we'll process them and convey the situation to our allies. I'll help with the information processing too, but Livia-chan's burden is going to be huge."
Hearing this, Livia actually looked relieved.
"I'm fine."
"Livia."
A worried
"I'm sorry. I can't help out."
Livia shook her head.
"No, Angie, you worked hard up until we got here. So now it's my turn. Finally, I can be of help too."
Angie's eyes welled with tears, and she wiped them away with her fingertip.
"—All I did was the preparations. I can't directly help Leon the way you can."
"That's because I couldn't do those preparations."
Cleare, who had been listening to the two of them talk, looked at
She had a brooding expression on her face.
"What's wrong, Marie-chan? Is your stomach hurting? See, this is why I warned you not to eat too much."
"—Hey, what kind of person do you normally take me for?"
"Huh? It's not that? But you ate ten of the rice balls I prepared—"
"It was nine! I didn't eat that many! I, I just felt nostalgic, so I ate a little more than usual."
Thinking that wasn't much different, Cleare nevertheless asked Marie for her cooperation as well.
"I'll lend the Ricoeur's energy to Marie-chan too, so please handle defense with the
"Leave it to me. I'm a girl who can do it when she tries. More importantly—how do you operate this ship?"
Since Marie asked her various questions, Cleare gave her an explanation.
Noelle put her hands in her pockets.
"I kind of feel like I'm the only one who's out of place here."
As she muttered this, a communication came into the room from Fact—the carrier-type spaceship being managed by a single-eyed sphere.
"High heat-source reaction detected."
Hearing this, Cleare immediately issued instructions.
"Shield output to maximum."
Immediately after, layer upon layer of flat, pale light deployed in front of the Ricoeur.
It was just like a translucent curtain.
Noelle's eyes went wide.
"Huh? What?"
The instant after she thought she saw something flash in the distance, the Ricoeur was enveloped in light and struck by violent shaking.
◇ The carrier Fact had detected an enemy that could not be seen with the naked eye.
"To land a hit at this distance, hm."
The artificial intelligences at Fact's side, supporting it, reported on the damage situation.
"Shield ship, one heavily damaged."
"No damage to the Kingdom's fleet."
"Move the next shield ship forward."
From the Kingdom-side fleet, one spaceship emerged.
It was a shield ship prepared to block Arcadia's main cannon—a spaceship that deployed a defensive shield to protect its allies.
It could protect against Arcadia's powerful main cannon, but it would be heavily damaged and sunk by a single shot.
"Enemy's time until next shot—estimated 1,800 seconds."
"Imperial Army fleet, deploying in front of Arcadia."
"Monsters under enemy control, rapidly approaching us."
Fact immediately issued orders.
"Intercept. Deploy the mobile weapons units."
From the carriers, unmanned Armors sortied one after another.
And then the spaceships of the
"Fire."
At Fact's command, optical weapons and live ammunition were fired all at once from the cannons, followed by missiles launched one after another.
The optical weapons that pierced through the swarm of monsters bore down on the Empire's airships trying to protect Arcadia—but they were shielded by a magic barrier.
"Enemy shield confirmed."
"Identified as Arcadia's magic barrier."
"Our optical weapons are being nullified."
Fact, with its single eye, was analyzing the images sent from outside.
Monsters were appearing one after another from around Arcadia.
It was releasing mana, reshaping it into monsters and placing them under its control.
It could produce monsters almost limitlessly and use them as weapons.
In contrast, Fact and the others were in a state of emergency repairs.
Their performance was far from at full capacity.
"Our performance is lower than expected. —We'll approach Arcadia. Have the Kingdom's fleet advance."
When Fact gave the order, the Ricoeur, which received it, relayed the command to each ship.
The Kingdom's airships began to move, but since they were being operated by humans, there was disorder in their movement.
There were also variations in the level of training here, and on top of that, since they had not experienced a fleet battle of this scale, they were unable to move well.
"Downward revision of evaluation of the Kingdom's forces. Lower advance speed and move two ships to the rear."
Even just advancing was a struggle for the Kingdom's army.
The reason was that there were too many of them, so they couldn't move well.
In contrast, the Empire's army—perhaps because they had been preparing all this time—was moving better than the Kingdom's army.
However—.
"Downward revision of evaluation of the Imperial Army."
—On their side too, considering the preparation period, their level of training wasn't as high as expected.
The supporting AIs began to clamor.
"The group of monsters is breaking through our attacks."
"The Kingdom's army's speed has sharply dropped."
"The Kingdom's army is deploying mobile weapons—Armors."
Hearing those reports, Fact's single eye flashed.
"Ignore them and prioritize advancing. If we can't get close to Arcadia, we'll just keep taking attacks one-sidedly."
The Kingdom's army had no choice but to push forward through Arcadia's main cannon and the charging monsters in order to close in on the Empire.
◇ The Imperial Army.
In the command room inside Arcadia, Bartholt was fretting over the main cannon's power.
"Is this all it can do?"
He had hoped to see how many of the enemy fleet they could sink, but the result was only one ship sunk.
Even though they had fired a beam that ought to have swallowed up airships by the hundred, the result hadn't matched.
A magical creature explained to Bartholt.
"Those oily machine bastards blocked it by sacrificing a spaceship. But if we keep firing, we'll win."
It had a round, black body with a single large eye like Brave, but its size was about a meter in diameter.
Since its master was Mia, even its manner of speaking to Bartholt, the Emperor, was somehow cold.
"Seems we've just woken up and haven't received any proper maintenance."
It didn't know how many spaceships capable of blocking the main cannon they had, but it was saying the advantage lay with them.
Bartholt crossed his arms.
"So they won't let us win easily, huh. How long until the next shot?"
"Forty-five minutes."
"That's too slow. Can't you shoot any faster? It was supposed to be thirty minutes according to the plan."
"With shields against the optical weapons and the production of monsters, we can't divert energy to the main cannon. To begin with, Arcadia hasn't fully revived yet."
"The Kingdom's army is heading our way, though."
"Their numbers will be reduced by the time they make contact."
The situation was advantageous, but Bartholt had concerns.
He didn't show it on his face, but no information about Leon—
"What about the enemy's main force?"
"Luxion has not been confirmed. He might be hiding somewhere, watching how things play out."
"Find him at once!"
To Bartholt, who was wary of how Leon might move, the magical creature spoke as if to reassure him.
"Luxion is certainly a threat, but as long as we block his shot and land the main cannon, there's no problem. Besides, we can also wear down the Kingdom's army like this without using the main cannon, and then strike them with our regular forces."
Bartholt looked up at the ceiling.
"Let's hope so."
Bartholt thought to himself.
(Based on the information I got from Finn, I can't believe this is going to end this easily.)
The magical creature said, "Luxion was originally a migration ship. In that case, there's also a possibility he has already loaded some onto it and fled into space."
Bartholt also thought about how much easier that would be.
(If he would just flee, things would be easier on our end too.)
He was a fellow reincarnator.
He didn't want to fight if he could avoid it, but his reincarnation destination and—position—were just bad, that was all.
Bartholt gave the order.
"All forces, fall back. Don't let the Kingdom's army close in."
The Imperial Army moved in such a way as to keep distance from the Kingdom's army.