Chapter 80: Return of Kingfisher
Author’s Note: It’s probably been about a week, so I’m resuming updates (withdrawal symptoms).
Long ago, the first giant fell upon the world. The rampaging, grotesque colossus swung its arms through the capital of an advanced nation of the era, scattered its breath, writhed in agony, and finally burst apart and died. With that as the spark, giants fell upon the world one after another, reducing human civilization itself to a half-ruined state.
Who the very first one was — that is uncertain. But that it truly existed is beyond doubt, for the present exists because of it.
The fusion of giant and human. By merging a pilot into the heart of a giant, humanity gained the giants' power and bodies. The First Nephilim War — now called by that name — was a conflict between giants piloted by humans and maddened giants. When two hundred and some years had passed since that war, human civilization had come to incorporate giants as a system within itself.
The Nephilim Company — which regards giants as resources and has built a corporate-style social system around them, earning its renown as the closest thing to a hegemon on this planet.
The Celestial Church — which worships giants. Led by the "Pontiff," its "Holy Knights" pilot giants to hunt heretics.
Giant Killing — which advocates the extermination of giants, equipping every giant in its faction with self-destruct devices and launching indiscriminate attacks on the other factions.
The world now maintained its balance through the equilibrium of these three powers.
Mechanical Voice: "Good morning, Lady Rust."
Rust: "...Mm."
At five in the early morning, she returned the mechanical voice's greeting with a half-hearted one of her own and headed for the dock where her beloved machine was stored. Stepping onto the transfer device, the girl passed through a moment of whiteout and looked up at the giant that stood silently in the hangar — a strange form, its deep crimson base color adorned with thinly flickering flame paint. The giant bore the name Crimson Wing Union. In this world, it was no self-proclaimed title: it was a Nephilim, a Machine-Clad Person, that embodied the girl who factually held the title of "strongest."
The base Nephilim model was a medium-class biped. A laser gatling on the right shoulder, a missile pod on the left leg. Both arms could duck back to the waist to deploy laser blades and physical blades — one pair of two, for a total of four — switching between them as the situation demanded. It was a machine built primarily for close-range combat. Its most defining feature was not just the boosters on its back, but additional boosters mounted on the left shoulder and right leg, enabling irregular and unpredictable maneuvers. The fact that she wielded it to perfection was the reason she stood as the strongest.
Mold: "Ah, morning, Rust. You're up early again today."
Rust: "...Mold. You're five minutes late."
Into a place that should have been accessible only to her, a young man appeared. By physique alone, he should have cut the figure of a solidly built, imposing man, yet his bearing and gait left an impression of softness. This young man — who radiated an incongruous delicacy — addressed the girl in a voice several degrees younger than his appearance.
Mold: "Couldn't you let five minutes slide... ah, yes, never mind."
Rust: "We're diving in. Now."
Mold: "Yes, yes... Which rules are we using today?"
Because she unfailingly appeared between the hours of five and seven in the morning, the girl had been given the embarrassing moniker "Queen of the Early Dawn." The young man shrugged his shoulders and asked his partner for the details of the day's battle.
Rust: "Today... I'm in the mood for a duel."
Mold: "So you don't need me, right? It's one-on-one, yeah?"
Rust: "Interference, analyzing first contacts... that's your job."
Mold: "As you command... Hold on a moment, I need to do maintenance on the Support Puppet... ow! Ouch! Not the shins, not the shins!"
The fact that the Support Puppet — a small Nephilim, so to speak, that could be mounted in a Nephilim to provide operator support — hadn't been maintained yet was met with the girl's low kick stabbing into the young man's shin.
Rust: "That kind of maintenance is something you finish beforehand...!"
Mold: "B-But yesterday club activities ran really late!"
Rust: "Mmm..."
When the girl reluctantly ceased her low kick, the young man let out a wry sigh and got to work on the Support Puppet's maintenance.
When Rust and Mold arrived at the Nephilim Company pilot entrance, they noticed that the other pilots and operators were abuzz about something.
Mold: "Did something happen?"
Pilot: "Hm? Ohh! If it isn't the Phoenix! Perfect timing — check that out!"
The Phoenix. When she — Rust — and her Crimson Wing Union had successfully defended their seat at the summit of all Nephilim for the fifth time, the Nephilim Company CEO had awarded her a massive cash prize alongside a special privilege: a unique paint job permitted only to her. "Phoenix" was the epithet derived from the name of that unique paint. But that was not what was currently stirring the crowd. Their gazes were fixed on the holographic monitor displaying a battle now unfolding.
Rust: "That's..."
Mold: "...King's Gambit. The Nephilim of 'Heppoko Knight,' ranked third."
Loaded with a vast array of detection radar and ultra-long-range equipment, the build was designed to lock onto the enemy at maximum speed, maintain distance at all costs, and rain down one-sided attacks from extreme range to finish the opponent off. True to its name, it was a preemptive-strike type King's Gambit machine — one that always seized the initiative and pressed the advantage before attacking. Under one-on-one conditions, it was a Nephilim whose design was as troublesome as could be. Of course, the skill of the third-ranked player was not limited to this alone; the evasive and concealment techniques used to maintain distance were extraordinary, and that player was well-versed in handling close-range encounters as well. He was a formidable opponent whom even Rust, ranked first, could not defeat easily.
And yet — that very King's Gambit was being mercilessly trampled. The holographic monitor displayed the sight with brutal clarity.
Unidentified pilot: "It hit again! That time it was the head sensor!"
Unidentified pilot: "No way... they're both in high-speed maneuvers, you know? Sniping with a single-shot railgun, a piece of garbage like that... is this pilot a monster?"
Unidentified pilot: "Look — King's Gambit's attacks can't keep up. How fast do you have to be moving to outrun homing missiles...?"
Unidentified pilot: "Seriously, what the hell is that hit-and-run? Maintaining supersonic flight, transforming, slashing King's Gambit, then transforming back and escaping... that'd mess up anyone's equilibrium."
Unidentified pilot: "Isn't that the meme build that was popular for a while? This is insane..."
At a careless glance, it almost looked as if King's Gambit was disintegrating in midair. But a closer look revealed that something of jade color, flying with such super-high-speed maneuverability that the camera recording the footage could barely keep up, was slicing King's Gambit apart, shooting it to pieces.
Rust: "...!"
Mold: "Whoa."
It took several seconds to realize that the flash of jade that appeared on the screen for an instant was the color of the machine unilaterally destroying King's Gambit. And it took several more seconds to grasp that it was not a custom paint job, but the default color combination of the costume parts the Nephilim wore — a combination that, by pure chance, had turned out to resemble the hues of a jade kingfisher, and which had become the origin of that machine's name. The moment he realized this, Mold unconsciously took a step backward, overwhelmed by a pressure that emanated from directly beside him.
In this world, everything was data and systems — nothing more than illusion. And yet, Mold unmistakably felt a pressure as though flames had ignited right next to him.
Rust: "Back again... Kingfisher...!"
Mold: "Kingfisher?"
Veteran Pilot: "Ah, you newbies wouldn't know. Let's see — it was around the Phoenix's second defense of the top ranking. That's when he suddenly showed up. Using that exact same equipment, Kingfisher fought from dead last in the rankings, winning every single match... and then fought the Phoenix to a draw. A monster. After that, Kingfisher stopped showing up completely, so we all thought it was a retirement..."
As the veteran pilot explained to the few newcomers, Mold found himself being dragged by Rust toward the matching room.
Rust: "Mold. Send Kingfisher a challenge... now...!"
Mold: "I-I get it, stop pulling on my clothes!"
As the operator, Mold sent a challenge to Kingfisher. A short while later — perhaps the match had ended with King's Gambit's defeat — a message arrived from Kingfisher accepting the challenge.
Mold: "It came! Kingfisher accepted, Rust!"
Rust: "Mold. I'm going all out."
Mold: "Understood!"
Kingfisher. A "transformable-type" Nephilim, built with such an excessively high-risk, high-return peak-oriented design that its build recipe still survived to this day, despite its pilot having been active for a mere two days.
What set it apart was its monstrous mobility — prioritized at the cost of nearly all its armaments and armor. Its only weapons were the Overheat Rod, a heat exhaust conversion blade mounted on the right arm, and a single-shot sniper railgun mounted on the left arm. Its armor was extremely fragile — the bare minimum, just enough to withstand the stresses of super-high-speed maneuvers. It was a peak-oriented build so extreme that even the AI worried about its lack of weapons and armor. Its legs, meanwhile, had abandoned walking entirely: they were a specialized type called Jet Legs, fused directly with the boosters themselves. Combined with the wings and boosters on the torso — reminiscent of a bird's wings — its speed in cruising form was, according to testers, theoretically the fastest among all Nephilim.
For the sake of "speed," virtually everything else — even the ability to stand on the ground — had been sacrificed. Called the "Jade Kingfisher Build," it had been dismissed as a meme build: "You won't get hit if you don't get hit, but you're so fast that your own attacks won't land either, and your fuel efficiency is so terrible that you stall out and get shot down — a one-trick pony." But that assessment applied only to those who were not Kingfisher.
Mold (operator): "Left-rear... no, upper right?! Ah— a shot! Dead ahead!!"
Rust: "...Guh."
Merged with Crimson Wing Union, Rust evaded the electromagnetically accelerated bullet — fired with deflection shooting from the super-high-speed Kingfisher — that had aimed for her shoulder joint with near-zero error.
Mold: "Diving! The Overheat Rod is coming!"
Rust: "I already predicted that...!"
Crimson Wing Union unleashed its gatling and missiles, mounting an aerial defense. But Kingfisher, slipping through the rain of attacks launched from below to above with acrobatic maneuvers, transformed into humanoid form. In its right hand: the Overheat Rod. Due to its nature of converting heat accumulated in the machine into weapon energy, it required a charge period during which exhaust heat was stored — but if it landed, it could deal massive damage in a single blow. The incandescent blade was swung in a passing slash, but Rust barely evaded it using the irregular maneuvers enabled by her left shoulder and right leg boosters.
Rust: "Mold! Where's Kingfisher?!"
Mold: "You're kidding me...! Kingfisher reversed straight back up the same route...!"
Just before crashing into the ground, at the very last possible instant, Kingfisher transformed, used its Jet Legs in rapid succession to perform a midair somersault, then transformed back into cruising form and shot straight upward along the same path it had fallen. A maneuver that, if attempted by a human body, would completely destroy any sense of equilibrium — and Kingfisher had forced it through, bearing down on the unstable Crimson Wing Union.
Mold: "Rust!"
Rust: "Don't... underestimate me!"
She wrenched her machine into a rotation with enough force to send her left shoulder booster into overheat, and with that momentum she met Kingfisher's attack — a sudden assault from below — with her laser blade. One was blown away, unable to fully kill the momentum of its super-high-speed charge; the other was blown away by the recoil of the collision, its armor too flimsy and light to absorb the impact.
Mold: "Left shoulder booster, overheat! Three minutes until cooling!"
Rust: "Where is Kingfisher?!"
Mold: "Kingfisher is recovering position!"
Rust: "If we're going to attack, it has to be now...!"
The crimson Phoenix flew at full speed to close the distance. The jade Kingfisher steadied itself and raised its railgun. The two birds were about to collide...!