Chapter 4: CH 4

Kou activated the machine. Meanwhile, Master made itself comfortable on the rear seat.

Unit 5 proceeded to forcibly push aside the scrapped units piled on top of it.

And then, it finally regained the ability to move freely.

What was unexpected was that Unit 5 didn’t give Kou even a single word of advice.

In displayed the info database onscreen, but Unit 5 didn’t tell him anything about it.

It listed all the usable weapons that can be found within the junkyard, but only a few of them were effective for anti-Keres combat.

Unit 5 didn’t sport a loadout expansion-type backpack either. If it had that, then it would have had some additional weapon bays and hardpoints at its disposal.

In other words, it can only use the weapons its two hands can wield.

After hesitating for a while, Kou ended up choosing the great sword Unit 5 was originally equipped with.

Of course, there was also the option of wielding a long-range weapon with one hand and the great sword with the other, but considering the overall concept of the unit, he judged that wielding the sword alone would be more effective.

The other Silhouette models all had hardpoints or latches built-in to equip or store away long-range weaponry, but Unit 5 didn’t even have those.

「The Murder you have to face is a Mantis-type Keres. As I said earlier, Keres are evil spirits that appear on battlefields. It is multi-legged in order to ensure stability. Its primary armament is a large-caliber railgun. It also sports a multi-barreled Gatling gun as its secondary weapon.」

「A railgun huh. I’m familiar with it.」

「Its maximum range is 200 kilometers. Its maximum power output is more than 30 megajoules and is roughly three times more powerful than a tank’s main gun.」

「T-Two hundred… kilometers? Three times? I’m gonna die before I get the chance to cut it down!」

「That’s just its absolute maximum range. You have to take note of the elevation. As long as it’s on level ground, a distance of ten kilometers or so won’t affect its hit rate. It’s good for strategically capturing and securing positions. There’s also the deviation of the turret to take into account. The projectile speed, to put it simply, is more than Mach 7.」

「Uhee.」

Even that sounded quite hopeless to Kou.

Master gave Kou a slightly awkward look.

「Shall I give it to you straight? That Mantis-type… You see, in your world’s gaming terms, that’s actually a mid-boss. There aren’t that many Keres equipped with railguns after all.」

「So I’m supposed to fight a Boss without even undergoing a proper tutorial huh…」

He thought it certainly did look strong, but Kou didn’t expect it to be Boss-class.

After hearing Master’s confession, Kou unconsciously formed a bitter smile on his lips. ‘So I’m actually playing in Nightmare mode huh’, he lamented internally.

「The smoothbore cannons of the tanks in your era are quite accurate at 500 meters. The infantry has no choice but to approach and strike from a close distance.」

「Even though it’s shaped like a bug, it’s a tank in essence huh. Just why do I have to go against that thing with a humanoid weapon using melee?」

「There’s no use lamenting about it now anyway. Railguns aren’t suitable for rapid-firing, and unless you get hit in somewhere really critical, you won’t go down in one shot, so don’t worry. The humans of this era also still employ tanks and armored vehicles, but there’s none of those here, so it can’t be helped.」

「Can’t you just tell me the reason behind it already? Even if you tell me slashing it with a sword would be more effective, I just don’t see the logic.」

「I’ll tell you the details later. It’s very difficult to explain it clearly. Both your Silhouette and your enemy make use of high-dimensional projection armor. Basically, it’s armor that underwent higher dimension treatment so its mass efficiency is several times higher. It’s also prevented from rusting due to this. Unit 5’s frame also underwent additional treatment to further increase its defensive strength.」

Master replied impatiently while seeming to find it very troublesome. However, Kou found the explanation completely incomprehensible.

「I totally don’t get it……」

「See. I told you. Just remember these basics then. The material comprising the armor is transformed by using a special molecular binding process projected through a higher dimension. And special energy called Whis that’s produced by a power unit is key to this process. Whis is basically the combination of electromagnetic force and gravitational force projected from the fifth dimension. And letting Whis coat and permeate armor makes it extremely durable.」

「I don’t get the fifth dimension stuff, but basically, it makes the armor super tough, right?」

「It can also raise the Hugoniot elastic limit of materials.」

「The heck is that…?」

「Just remember that it makes armor extremely durable. It doesn’t just make the armor harder. To be precise, what it does is increase the armor’s mass and thickness to a level that can’t be measured in three dimensions. And one weapon that’s effective on such tough materials is precisely the railgun.」

「So you’re saying I can’t let my guard down even though my armor’s tough. And the enemy is also using the same thing, right?」

「The quickest and most effective way to deal with it is to hit it with a weapon that has also undergone high dimensional projection.」

「And what’s the catch?」

「Using throwing weapons is impossible. If you want to use such a weapon from a distance, you’ll have to make use of a conducting wire. You’ll have to constantly let the fifth-dimensional energy, Whis, run through it for it to be effective after all.」

「So it has to be handheld.」

「That’s right. Wires are part of a Silhouette’s standard equipment you know.」

Kou found something out after finally piloting Unit 5 There were two different movement modes. For normal movement and cruising, the Silhouette uses rollers installed on its feet to slide on the ground. However, in combat situations, it makes use of normal foot movements.

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When Kou asked why they equipped rollers on the feet even though a Silhouette can just walk to move around, Master obliged. Apparently, it’s a measure to prevent pedestrians from accidentally getting stepped on by the Silhouettes.

It’s part of the basics to switch to bipedal walking when entering combat though. The Silhouette’s overall stability will improve significantly when using bipedal movement. Kou was convinced by the explanations provided to him.

The machine does shake around a lot when it walks. But since the cockpit has a function that absorbs those impacts, the pilot wouldn’t really feel them all that much.

Wire operation was also incorporated into the piloting basics. You need to identify and get a lock on the target via sight and fire the anchor straight at it. It seems there were a number of practical applications for it.

Kou switched to maneuver learning mode and started to learn how to swing Unit 5’s sword.

It was pretty simple. Unit 5 was reading how he wanted to move directly from his brain and incorporating it seamlessly in the inputs.

Of course, humans and Silhouettes were quite different. To be specific, there was a great difference in the two’s range of motion. Kou had to take note of the differences and do his best to remember them instinctively.

「There’s a Murder wreckage that’s similar in type to the enemy you’ll have to fight over there. You can try your hand at attacking it to get a better feel for how the battle will go.」

「Swinging around a real sword huh…… It’s been a year since I’ve actually gotten to use a real sword, so I’m not sure if I can pull it off well.」

Kou had borrowed a real sword from his swordsmanship master only once the previous year and only practiced brandishing it that one time. He was only able to do it once because taking real sword classes was seriously too expensive for him, and there was a lot of hassle involved in personally owning one due to the Swords and Firearms Control Law.

Since there was a Keres wreck conveniently available, he decided to try his hand at cutting it as Master suggested.

The wreck was cut in two accompanied by the grating sound of metal striking metal.

「This is more like hacking it in two forcefully instead of cutting it cleanly.」

That was the feeling he got. The metallic sound was similar to what’s given off when a machine press shears steel.

「Even if it’s been exposed to high-dimensional projection, the original material still matters a lot. Your sword is also made of heavy metals similar to what was used in the armor.」

Kou proceeded to adjust the settings for the sword-swinging postures. Since a great sword was shaped very differently from a Japanese katana, adjustments were necessary.

Even so, he had to apply what he could from his own swordsmanship style.

He tweaked the settings to his liking and gradually refined them.

With the help of the truly excellent OS, the operation efficiency of the unit steadily improved to something quite satisfactory for Kou.

Next, he moved on to practice switching between roller cruising and bipedal walking.

Moving via rollers made the machine prone to overturning whenever it receives a strong enough impact. Bipedal walking, however, had a limit on movement speed.

When breaking away from an enemy, it was better to use the rollers instead.

The speed falls when moving backward. It’s due to stability being extremely low while performing the action.

Next, Kou switched to bipedal walking.

Surprisingly, sidestepping to the left and right felt quite quick and responsive. Thanks to this, performing evasive actions was pretty easy.

The forward dash was also excellent. According to Master, the machine he was piloting was a particularly excellent one after all.

The speed when moving backward on foot was even slower than when using the rollers.

Moving with the rollers, switching to bipedal mode, and swinging the sword.

He managed to narrow down the attack patterns to three.

Originally, there were default attack patterns for other weapons pre-registered, but it looks like he was able to overwrite them with sword commands since he only had a sword as his weapon anyway.

Kou thought inwardly that it would be nice if the machine could automatically switch between short and long-distance attacks like in a fighting game though.

Another surprise was that Unit 5 could actually jump. It seems the performance of its legs was quite good despite the heavy weight they had to support.

According to Master, there were actually lots of models that can’t perform jumping maneuvers.

From a roller dash to bipedal mode, then a quick sidestep to the right. Then he performed a slash after a short frontal dash.

Kou performed these sets of maneuvers repeatedly.

「So I guess this can be considered as the tutorial, right?」

「Yes, a tutorial indeed.」

The pair couldn’t help but wryly laugh.

「Normally, Silhouettes are supported by operators and controllers. I hear many of them are beauties. Are you disappointed that you only have me around?」

「You’re cute too, Master.」

「Nyaaaa!」

Master protested furiously after hearing Kou’s teasing remark.

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