The skies of the battlefield.
Leinhart was running his sword through a Kingdom knight — armor and all.
"There, that makes ten. Kingdom knights really are weak, huh~"
Clad in magic armor and swinging around a longsword-like weapon, he was downing Kingdom suits one after another.
The way he fought looked more like hunting than combat.
"It's no fun unless I'm up against someone stronger."
He'd torn into the broken vanguard of the Kingdom army, and right now the fight was completely one-sided.
A space warship — a destroyer — was bearing down on this Leinhart.
It fired optical weapons and tried to corner Leinhart with its swarm of drones.
Leinhart's magic armor spread its demonic wings, accelerated, and closed in on the drones.
On contact, it cut every one of them apart and bore down on the destroyer.
He drove the empty left hand — the one without the sword — into the destroyer's hull, and the magic armor's twin eyes glowed red.
"Blow up~"
The moment he said it with a laugh, the destroyer detonated from within and began to swell.
The metal bulged outward from the inside, made a strange noise, then exploded.
Leinhart emerged alive from the blast and began searching for his next prey.
"Sorry, senpai, but maybe I'll just go ahead and take down Duke Bartfort myself~"
He wanted to bring down the enemy's hero.
With nothing but that thought, Leinhart scoured the battlefield for Leon.
But he was nowhere to be found.
"Don't tell me he's already been shot down?"
As he muttered it sullenly, a Kingdom knight came charging at him.
"I won't let you do as you please any longer!"
The one charging in seemed to be a middle-aged knight.
He had momentum, and it looked like he had a fair amount of experience under his belt, too.
Seeing that he'd survived even in such a battered state, it was possible he'd already taken down several of their allies.
This knight was probably strong.
But he wasn't to Leinhart's taste.
"An out-of-date chivalry kind of guy? Charging in like a one-trick fool. Think about the gap in our skills, old man."
He kicked the head of the enemy armor away, and as the opponent reeled back, he moved to drive his sword in.
Just then, a massive explosion sounded from the rear.
"Wha — what was that!?"
He glanced back, and the angle of his blade shifted — piercing the enemy near its cockpit.
"D-damn yooou!"
Ignoring the thrashing enemy armor, Leinhart looked toward the Arcadia.
Something had crashed into the Arcadia, and smoke was rising from it.
"Did someone get past the shields?"
Then, when His Majesty the Emperor issued the order for the Ranked Knights to return, Leinhart clicked his tongue.
He pulled his sword out of the rampaging enemy armor, then aimed his left hand and let loose purple lightning.
The pilot of the enemy armor struck by the purple lightning screamed.
"Uoooohhh! Nicks! Leon! Everyone — I'm count — ing —"
Not the least bit interested in the armor that was now falling while exploding, Leinhart raced back to the fortress at full speed.
"In the end, I only managed eleven kills."
◇
The corridors inside the Arcadia were wide.
The passages leading to the power reactor had been designed broadly so that the New Humans clad in magic armor could pass through as well.
And the ones defending such corridors with modern weaponry were the Empire's soldiers.
Armors carrying machine guns and bazookas, and some armors held shields at the ready as well.
"Aren't there any idiots who'll charge with a sword?"
When I grumbled inside the Arroganz's cockpit, Luxion answered earnestly.
"The design philosophy isn't built around being operated by knights. Also, the Empire's armors are a full generation apart from the Kingdom's main models."
Performance-wise, the Empire was ahead, and on top of that, the design philosophy was different.
Truly a nasty opponent.
But —
"None of that matters to me!"
— I made Arroganz slide across the floor and bisected a shield-bearing enemy with the battle axe in my right hand.
Then, with the rifle in my left hand, I shot down an enemy armor holding a firearm.
Pushing through recklessly, I took some hits, but Arroganz's armor deflected every one of them.
Come on, keep pushing!
Once Arroganz broke through the enemy line, Julius and the others followed.
"Leon, don't get too far ahead!"
"We need to take out this fortress's power reactor as fast as possible!"
If we destroyed the Arcadia's power reactor, they wouldn't be able to produce mana.
Once that happened, the win was ours.
"Luxion, what's the status of the drones?"
"At present, while holding back enemy reinforcements, they are searching for the route to the power reactor."
The drones we'd brought along were doing their best, but the enemy had quite a number of them stationed inside the fortress too.
Then, Luxion's red eye flashed.
Did something happen?
"What is it!?"
"— One of the drone units has been wiped out. After analyzing the final footage, it appears a knight clad in magic armor emerged."
If that's what they're defending, then it's likely a route to the power reactor.
"Lead the way. If it's Fin — I'll take him on."
"This way."
I had Arroganz head over, and Julius and the others came along.
"I've heard magic armor matches Arroganz in pure performance, but is anyone besides Fin a serious opponent?"
It was Jilk who answered Julius's question.
"Frightening, isn't it. We've borrowed powerful armors too, but it sounds like taking them down will be a struggle."
Brad was in high spirits.
"We've worked our butts off trying to beat Leon. Think of it as a chance to test how far we've come."
Greg seemed to like Brad's take, and agreed.
"That's right. We'll prove that our three years weren't wasted!"
These guys had been training for three whole years just to beat me?
No, technically speaking, it shouldn't have been three years.
While I was thinking about pointless things like that, the drones that had been scouting ahead were blown away.
The wall was sliced to ribbons, and what emerged from the gap was a magic armor.
Purple lightning crackled all over its body — at a glance, this one looked dangerous.
"Not Fin, then."
Still, it wasn't the same as Fin's Brave.
"Fooouuund yoouuu~"
The drawn-out voice sounded young, and it looked like he was enjoying having us in front of him.
When we braced ourselves, he was delighted to see Arroganz.
"Heeey~ the Duke himself came charging in personally. Heroes really do things differently, huh. Even so — six of you, is it?"
Even with the drones mixed in, he correctly named the number of manned units among us.
"This is a pain. Let's all gang up and —"
Just then, Chris — who had been silent up to that point — stepped out in front of us.
"Leon, sorry, but I want you to leave this one to me."
"Huh? What are you saying?"
Chris had taken a fighting stance against the magic armor that had appeared.
"Do you see the crest on the magic armor's armor plate? That's the Empire's Sword Saint."
The enemy, with his longsword-like weapon, sounded impressed.
"Oh? You know about me?"
"I only just inherited the title of Sword Saint, but if anyone's facing him here, it should be me. Leon, hurry on ahead. I'll deal with him."
He was raising flags — like that whole "don't mind me, go on ahead" deal.
"Are you an idiot!? We should all just gang up on him and move on!"
"Time is precious."
When Chris said that, even Luxion sided with him.
"Master, we should hurry ahead."
"— You idiot."
Hearing my mutter, Chris showed a smile.
"Sorry. I have my own pride too."
Leaving Chris behind, we pushed on ahead.
◇
Having decided to fight the Empire's Sword Saint, Chris announced his name.
"Chris Fia Arclight."
His opponent, with his blade shouldered, gave his name in return.
"Leinhart Lua Kirchner. By the way, are you really the Sword Saint's son?"
"That's right. Recently, I inherited the title of Sword Saint from my father."
In truth, he had wrested it away from him, but since there was no need to tell him that, Chris kept quiet.
Leinhart looked dissatisfied.
"Mind if I ask one thing?"
"What is it?"
When Chris readied his weapon without dropping his guard, Leinhart's irritated voice came back.
"Why are your weapons firearms!?"
Chris's machine — the weapons it held were guns.
On its backpack it carried a missile container, and in its left hand it held a Gatling gun.
In its right hand it held a weapon resembling a submachine gun — something easy to handle.
Chris tilted his head.
"Because on the battlefield, guns are superior!"
When he said it as a matter of course, Leinhart looked disappointed.
"And I'd heard the Kingdom's Sword Saint was strong, too. What a letdown. I'd been told you were the man strong enough to defeat the Black Knight — but this is just disappointing."
Against Leinhart, who readied his sword, Chris pulled the trigger without a word of debate.
"Sorry to disappoint you. The one who defeated the Black Knight was Leon."
Bullets and missiles rained down on Leinhart, only to be cut apart.
The bullets shaved away at the magic armor's plating, but Leinhart avoided fatal hits.
"Then I'll chase down the Kingdom's hero and take him out myself. I love bringing down aces."
From those words, Chris realized his opponent was enjoying the battlefield.
Chris tried to bring Leinhart down with the Gatling gun, but he easily dodged it and closed the distance.
"A Sword Saint shouldn't be using guns!"
"Sorry, but I've cast aside the pride of clinging only to a sword."
Holding onto that kind of pride wouldn't let him beat Leon.
Chris had learned many things from his encounter with Leon.
One of them was that, in a duel, carrying only a sword left you with a glaring weakness against long-range opponents.
In a duel it wasn't so bad, but on a battlefield, it was fatal.
There's no battlefield where you can fight with nothing but a sword.
"Don't call yourself the Sword Saint if you've thrown away the sword!"
Leinhart's blow was extremely sharp — beautiful, even from Chris's eye.
Tossing the Gatling gun aside as a decoy while putting distance between them, Chris attacked with missiles and the submachine gun.
Leinhart's magic armor darted skillfully through the narrow corridor, but precisely because of that, there was little room to escape.
He was definitely being hit.
Falling back, Chris purged the spent missile container and hurled it at Leinhart.
Leinhart sliced it apart and closed in.
"You can't win with a sword? That's because you're weak! For someone who can't win with just a sword to call himself the Sword Saint is a joke!"
Even being told that, Chris didn't waver.
If anything —
"You can put up a fight because you have something as powerful as magic armor, but an ordinary knight wouldn't stand a chance — wouldn't you say?"
— he calmly fired back.
All the while, Chris's machine was discarding its weapons one after another and getting lighter.
"Just as I thought, it was a stopgap solution."
He had started practicing with guns and the like, but compared to the other four, he was still clumsy at it.
So instead of taking aim, he had chosen to scatter sheer volume of fire to bring the enemy down — but even after using a massive amount of ammunition, he hadn't been able to destroy Leinhart.
"I'll need to keep practicing from here on out."
Against a Chris like that, Leinhart went past anger and straight into disbelief.
"You have no future left. — Die."
In a cold voice, Leinhart accelerated his magic armor and closed in on Chris all at once — his strike sheared off a piece of the armor's plating.
Chris's machine dropped to one knee.
Inside the cockpit, Chris was breaking out in a cold sweat.
"Good thing I was wearing a fundoshi."
Just barely reaching into the cockpit, a small fragment had embedded itself in his stomach.
It had pierced through the pilot suit, but only by the slimmest of margins.
Thanks to his tightly bound fundoshi, it hadn't reached his body.
He stood up and turned around — Leinhart's magic armor was gushing what looked like blood from various parts of itself.
He had dropped his sword and was clutching his stomach.
"B-blood! My stomach! Hurry, treat — gakk!"
Chris's machine was gripping a sword.
As they had passed each other, he had drawn his blade and sliced through Leinhart's torso.
Slowly, the magic armor's upper half separated from its lower, and it slid down and toppled over.
Chris adjusted the position of his glasses.
"It's true I use guns — but I use a sword as well. It's your carelessness for stepping into my range so recklessly."
It seemed he was still alive — Leinhart's voice could be heard.
"I don't want to die. This is wrong. I — I'm the Sword Saint."
Looking at Leinhart, who had been obsessed with the sword and underestimated the battlefield, Chris closed his eyes.
(You're just like the old me.)
Chris drew closer to that Leinhart.
"I'll end it for you now."
After finishing Leinhart off, Chris began moving out to catch up with Leon and the others.