86—EIGHTY-SIX, Vol. 11: Dies Passionis

10.12

D-DAY PLUS ELEVEN

With “his” black armor shot through, “his” mechanical viscera were ruthlessly torn apart. But the Legion felt no pain. So his body no longer ached like it had during the final moments of his life.

<>

From the gaps in his broken armor and the space between the prongs of his barrel, Liquid Micromachines seeped out in the form of silvery butterflies. The micromachines that formed his central processor unraveled into a kaleidoscope of butterflies that attempted to flee to safety. This was the immortality feature, tested by the Phönix and then added to the Shepherds.

His fabricated central nervous system was melted and dripping, dissipating and growing vague, but the ghost known as Nidhogg felt no terror. Between being turned into a machine and integrated into the Legion and the madness he’d lapsed into when he was still alive, this feature, which effectively cut up and divided his brain to pieces, was no longer frightening at all.

But more than anything, it was nothing compared with the end he’d once experienced. Compared with how he’d died behind the front lines when countless Legion rushed through the crumbled Gran Mur.

Compared with the pain of being dissected alive, the agony of his still-thinking brain boiling over. The feeling of his central processor divided and then reunited was nothing at all in comparison.

And it was no match for the sheer euphoria of having the wish he’d gone so far to see granted come to fruition.

He wished for it with every fiber of his being. To see the despicable Gran Mur and the Republic—the hellish Eighty-Sixth Sector, which had held him captive—crumble away. On the northern front’s battlefield, faced with the ghosts of his comrades, now turned into metallic monsters.

The end has come. So…now’s the time, right? We’ve endured so far, so now it’s our turn.

The silvery butterflies soared up into the starry autumn night sky.

<>

Be it in the form of a dark dragon or of countless butterflies, he continued to call out time and again, with words only the Reaper in the distance could hear.

It’s our turn now.

Shin clicked his tongue bitterly. The Kampf Pfau seemed to have done its duty. His ability could clearly hear the Morpho’s wailing cease.

However.

“Enemy unit silenced. But all units, stay on your guard! The enemy railgun successfully fired one volley!”

At Shin’s warning, the Para-RAID’s resonance filled with tension at once. The Morpho was defeated, this much was true, but Shin’s ability did pick up on the Morpho’s howling intensifying in volume the moment before it did—the kind of howling that was unique to when it attacked.

The mechanical ghost’s artificial bloodlust, the unknown ghost occupying the Morpho, had not neglected to pull the trigger at the end.

“Are there any signs of the Morpho recovering—?”
Lena asked.

“None. We can assume it’s destroyed.”

Through the battles with the Noctiluca and the Halcyon, they’d observed that they were capable of turning their central processors into butterflies to escape and revive. Shin anticipated the possibility, but there was no sign of that happening. Or to be exact, it was possible that Morpho had turned to butterflies and escaped, but there was no sign of it reconverging. It had likely decided to abandon the battlefield.

“Roger that. I’ll report it to the Special Artillery Regiment along with your warning.”

Lena’s presence temporarily disappeared from the Resonance. True to her words, it was possible the Morpho’s final shot was aimed at the Kampf Pfau and the Special Artillery Regiment.

In fact, it was highly likely this would be the case. The Morpho was meant to fire large shells at high velocity, aiming for fixed targets like enemy heavy artillery, bases, or fortresses. It was a weapon meant for blasting the battlefield itself, and it showed its worth as a tactical weapon when attacking fortified strongholds and fortifications.

Its original target had likely been the Federacy’s or United Kingdom’s reserve formations. Even if its plans had changed, it would be to fire a counterattack on the Kampf Pfau instead. The possibility of it firing on the Strike Package’s battlefield was highly unlikely.

It wasn’t a cannon meant for attacking mere Feldreß. Their armored division was spread out across hundreds of kilometers; even if it aimed at their entire battlefield, even if it shot shrapnel shells, it wouldn’t deal much damage.

And this was why, when the Strike Package’s howitzer unit’s counterartillery and counterbattery radars brought up their report, everyone couldn’t help but be seized by momentary doubt.

“We have a reading on radar! High-velocity shells—the railgun fired on us!”

“It aimed at the Strike Package…?! Now?! Why would it aim at us?!”

One of the squadron members called out, speaking Shin’s doubt out loud. But even as they spoke, the demonic shot traveled at eight
thousand meters per second, approaching them from the night sky. The artillery battalion’s warning made a few squadrons and a Vánagandr company evacuate their position, which was within the shells’ predicted impact point. An evacuation train that was just about to depart slowed down to a stop behind them, bracing for the impact of the shell’s shock waves. The Reginleifs scattered in all directions, seeking cover. The sturdy Vánagandrs jumped in front of the more thinly armored spiders, blocking them from the touchdown point.

“Brace for impact!”

A moment’s flash.

And then the 800 mm shells reached them and exploded. The Reginleifs, Vánagandrs, and the high-speed railway they guarded were enveloped in intense waves of fire and kinetic energy.

A certain Eighty-Six once said:

If we have to pick between fighting the Legion and dying or giving up and dying, we may as well fight and survive for as long as we can. We’ll never give up or lose our way. That’s why we fight—that’s all the proof we need to know we existed.

They would not tarnish their pride in the name of vengeance. Not taking revenge on the Republic was their part of their identity as Eighty-Six.

But it was also because they knew there was no point in taking revenge. Risking their lives to do so wouldn’t make the white pigs reflect on their faults. They’d remain blind to how useless, unprepared, and foolish they were and die while thinking they were tragic heroes. And the Eighty-Six wouldn’t really get the revenge they wanted in the truest sense.

And on top of that, exacting revenge on them wasn’t realistically possible. The Gran Mur stood shut, and their path to it was blocked by interception cannons and minefields. The Republic was the one who controlled how many and what supplies they got anyway, and most of all, the Legion attacked in waves, day and night.

All they had were their Juggernauts, which were as good as coffins, so attacking the eighty-five Sectors was an impossibility.

That was why the Eighty-Six never chose revenge. They chose to protect what small modicum of pride they still had over clinging to a wish bound to end in vain.

But this did beg the question.

They chose to protect their pride, even at the cost of their lives. But if they could do that, if they could give up their lives in the name of something, would it not stand to reason that they could choose to give them up in the name of revenge?

It wouldn’t be odd if one might wish for that. If one valued their dignity and justice over survival, then pride and revenge would surely weigh the same when placed on the proverbial scales.

Would it not make sense, then, that some Eighty-Six might choose revenge over their pride? Indeed, as stated earlier, revenge would not have been possible. The Eighty-Six lacked the power necessary to exact revenge on the Republic’s people.

But what if they weren’t Eighty-Six anymore?

What of the very army of mechanical ghosts that threatened to crush both the Republic and the Eighty-Six and always sought to bolster its ranks with the war dead?

This begged yet another question.

If one wished for revenge enough to risk their life for it, surely they wouldn’t fear their own death anymore. Then would they not willingly
desire to become a Legion? To become a Shepherd, with the memories of the dead copied onto them and re-created in their Liquid Micromachine central processor?

Could one say for certain that there were no Eighty-Six who willingly joined the ranks of those powerful, menacing metallic ghosts—even if it came at the cost of their life and their very humanity?

For some reason, the 800 mm shells didn’t even contain any shrapnel. They were specially made shells, with a minimal outer crust packed with high explosives. It was not a heavy shrapnel shell that would have been extremely effective against armored units spread out over a large area and especially fatal against the lightly armored Reginleifs.

For both antipersonnel and anti-tank projectiles, adding shrapnel and fragments made them more lethal compared with relying solely on the explosives and the shock waves.

These shells were specially made ones that only produced a blast. And while several tonnes worth of high explosives did produce a very strong explosion, Reginleifs were still armored weapons, even if they were relatively fragile. An unarmored, one-tonne or so civilian vehicle would be sent flying by such a shock wave, but a ten-tonne tank would not be blown back. These were, after all, units piloted by experienced Eighty-Six.

Undertaker and the Reginleifs crouched so as to avoid being propelled back, and the blast’s shock wave bore down on them from above. Their powerful shock absorbers and actuators withstood the intense pressure pinning them down, and for less than a second, the headless Valkyries remained locked in place as they evaded the evil dragon’s flaming breath.

That moment of immobility was what the Morpho sought in
making this illogical attack. It was what the Legion wanted, and it was so inconceivable that the Eighty-Six never would have predicted it.

The ghosts’ howls rose up in the distance. It was the screams the ghosts inhabiting the Legion would make when attacking. The voices were far, but not as far as a long-distance cannon like the Morpho—it was the range unique to the Legion’s howitzer troops, the Long-Range Gunner type, Skorpion.

The artillery-equipped Reginleifs were stalled in place, unable to detect and attack them ahead of time. And all the shock waves around them made it so they couldn’t even escape if they did.

A shower of shells rained down on them, blotting out the stars. As the Reginleifs recovered and went on guard, the shells soared far above them, leaving a trail of flames in their wake.

“…!”

Shin realized what they were aiming for and turned around to look at the direction they were going—as the incendiary shells hit the refugee train that had stood still to brace for the impact of the blast.

“What…?!” Shin swallowed in shock.

He remained breathless—the sight before his eyes was hellish enough to make even him freeze up.

Slightly before impact, the outer crust of the shells broke apart, spilling countless incendiary pellets, which easily penetrated the unarmored aluminum-alloy body of the train. They tore into the locomotive’s interior, mercilessly unleashing the hellfire they contained within.

Incendiary bombs had combustible fluid within the shell, which sprayed over obstacles to light them on fire. The temperature of their flames exceeded one thousand three hundred degrees Celsius. Even live trees, which were considered difficult to burn, would be helpless in the face of this much heat.

Which meant that the human body—which was covered with cloth and hair and, despite containing a high percentage of water, also
contained oil and fat—would naturally be defenseless in the face of such an inferno.

The aluminum-alloy train caught fire at once, burning along with the thousands of refugees within it.

“
”

Underneath the cover of the dark, starry night, red flames surged up. Like a magnificent campfire, the flames shone brightly in front of the Reginleifs. The one thing it seemed they couldn’t hear were the howls of the victims inside. Some were gouged into by the pellets; others had their clothes or body catch fire. Any attempt to scream only made them suck in hot air and flames, burning their throats and lungs and rendering them unable to emit any sound at all.

Instead of their wails, countless hands extended out of the ruptured body of the train and the broken windows. They writhed madly, seeking help, the transparent flames coiling around them describing their agony more clearly and keenly than words ever could.

With them packed tightly into the train, the refugees had no chance of escaping the flames and pandemonium. The panic that rained on them along with the fire robbed them of the intellect required to manually undo the doors’ locks.

On top of that, napalm was made by mixing in thickener with fuel, making it highly viscous. It clung to its victims, spreading the flames. Victims turned into human torches, and the sticky fluid forbade them from even writhing about, meaning they could only stand still as they burned.

It was a strange, hellish scene.

“Wh…what?!”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!”

“Fire! We’re on fire!”

“We’re under attack!”

“The rear car is…!”

The passengers in both the front and rear cars understood the
situation as the flames lit up the dark. Before long, panic and speculation spread like a plague. Passengers tried to move away, running to escape the fire, which only spread more confusion to the adjacent cars. There was no sign of anyone trying to help the victims—their own countrymen—as they burned alive.

And honestly, with the flames having expanded so much, an amateur couldn’t help to extinguish the fire without a water supply. And napalm fires couldn’t be put out with water in the first place.

It was too late. All too late.

And it’s because they knew this that the Eighty-Six and the Federacy soldiers stopped in their tracks. The impact of the 800 mm shells exploding stalled the troublesome Federacy weapons with its shock waves. On top of that, they had to spread out to avoid the Morpho’s attack. All that gave the Legion ample time to approach.

And so in perfect coordination with the Morpho’s bombardment, the Legion’s blips rapidly filled up their radar screens. A proximity alert blared loudly in Shin’s cockpit.

“Tch…!”

The most fatal error they’d made was prioritizing dealing with the Morpho, which let the enemy unit draw close, but thankfully, Shin’s ability allowed the squadron under his command to sense the enemy’s approach. The data was shared to all the other squadrons and the Vánagandrs.

Tearing their eyes away from the inferno that was consuming human lives right beside them, the Reginleifs and Vánagandrs rapidly switched gears and turned to face the approaching Legion.

“All units, fire at will, but don’t destroy the rails or the train. Defeat any enemy you reasonably can!”

The burning train was beginning to move, while still on fire. It probably assumed that staying there would just get in the way of the battle—but while that was a factor, they had another reason.

If they stayed here, there would be no medical aid or rescue to offer the injured. There was no way of turning off napalm fire here, and all the noncombatants—including the highly valuable military doctors—had been among the first to evacuate.

But if they could get to the Federacy, if they could finish the four-hundred-kilometer journey to the Federacy’s domain, they could possibly save some of the dying, severely injured victims.

The evacuation train’s wheels spun with the desperation of an animal dragging its feet, eventually building up enough speed to escape into the night. As they pulled away from the raging inferno, as well as the victims burning within, they acted with the cold understanding that they couldn’t save everyone.

Shin saw it off with a glance and then narrowed his eyes, focusing on the howling and dying screams that filled his ears.

Dying screams.

These were Sheepdogs that had their personalities removed. These were Shepherds, and there were many of them. Just over the radar screen, he could see dozens of Dinosauria, otherwise accompanied by lightweight Legion, approaching them at maximal speed.

A report came in from the squadron ahead of them that served as their safety net.

“They’re in our range. Engaging the enemy—”

The next moment, the Legion descended on them.

True to the radar display, it was an odd formation. Dinosauria led the charge followed by nothing but Ameise. The top of the Dinosauria’s frame, their turret, was swarming with self-propelled mines seated on it like a tank desant—enough of them to make their silhouette visibly different.

Even their presence didn’t make the formation any less strange. Especially considering that they were up against Vánagandrs, which were far too armored and heavily armed for lightweight Legion to handle—and Reginleifs, which were far too agile for a Dinosauria to keep up with.

And then there were their voices.

“Slaughter you all”

It was the clear voice of a girl, like the chiming of a crystal ball. The girl’s voice sung, frozen and yet at the same time burning with an infernal grudge and bloodlust. Her last words, the final desire she ever felt before she died.

She was a child soldier. And in all likelihood, an Eighty-Six.

Following her voice, the howls of the other Dinosauria—the other Shepherds—rose up like a cacophonous gale, in low grumbling growls and high-pitched shrieks that shook the night air.

“Slaughter you all”

“Kill them all”

“Take vengeance”

“The white pigs”

“Revenge on the Republic”

“You’ll learn” “I’ll trample you”

“Tear you apart” “Scream and die” “You deserve it”

“Beg for your lives” “Burn to death” “Shoot them dead” “Crush them” “I’ll make you hurt” “I’ll never forgive you” “Put you through the same hell” “Punish you even harder” “Pain” “Until I’m satisfied” “Break you” “Damn Republic” “Kill the Republic” “Kill the white pigs” “How dare you” “Fall to ruin” “Tear you to bits” “Crush you” “Feel my grudge” “Taste my revenge” “Die” “Burn to death” “You will pay” “Revenge” “Tear them apart” “The white pigs” “Let them all die” “All of them” “You killed my friends” “My family” “Give them back” “All their fault” “They’re the ones who should die” ”You’ll learn your lesson” “Kill the white pigs” “My grudge” “Fall” “Republic” “White pigs” “You’ll pay” “Kill” “Slaughter” “Them” “Vengeance” “Everything” “Grudge” “Let them all die” “Die” “Destroy” “Kill” “Everyone” “Everyone” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Kill” “Slaughter” “Slaughter”
“Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter”

Everything and everyone.

“SLAUGHTER!”

Like a storm, like a blazing fire, the mechanical ghosts’ voices echoed resonantly with screaming, with howling, with anguish, with lamentation, with fury, with anger, with hatred, with bloodlust, with curses. Even when their heads were torn off and taken from them, at their final moments, it was these emotions that burned through their minds: intense hatred for the Alba and the Republic, for the Eighty-Sixth Sector and the battlefield, for all who had oppressed them.

And with their brain structure copied at that moment of death, even years later, that hatred never healed, festering in all its striking intensity.

Each and every one of these Shepherds was an Eighty-Six—a ghost who loathed and raged even unto death.

“…!”

Shin reflexively had to plug his ears. It was a meaningless gesture, but he felt like if he didn’t do this, this intense maelstrom of howls would drag him down under and consume him. The Eighty-Six decided they would not abandon battle in the name of their grudges. That they would not let hatred tarnish their pride.

But even so, none of them could say they never once felt hatred or indignation toward the way the Republic treated them. And so he couldn’t help but relate at least somewhat with the hatred these Shepherds harbored. And it felt like the longer he had to listen to it, the closer he came to being dragged down into that hatred.

“Ah…”

One Reginleif fell back, as if its pilot unintentionally did so. They fell back, neither ignoring nor deflecting the voices lashing out at them.

“…All units. If you feel it’s too much for you, switch off communications. At this point, recon is meaningless, anyway,” Shin said, squinting with one eye open.

He could relate to them—understand how they felt—and that was what made everything fall into place. The Morpho’s and the Shepherds’ illogical actions had a reason to them.

A Dinosauria approached from straight ahead, a deep, familiar voice of a man moaning from within it.

“Take revenge for you”

Shin felt his breath catch. This voice. Shin still had the same Personal Mark he had
back then
. Shin doubted that this was why he’d gone to the trouble to appear before him, but…

This voice.

This voice.

—Shin! Shinei Nouzen! Ya fucked it all up again, ya little shit!

—I ain’t telling you to apologize—I’m telling you to change yer ways! That crazy fightin’ style of yours is gonna get ya killed one day!

That voice would shout at him after every sortie. The Republic Juggernaut’s suspension system was weak as it was, so the head of the maintenance crew was always worried about how Shin’s piloting strained and damaged it.

Shin remembered him. In the first ward’s Spearhead barracks. How the lead chief of the maintenance team, his voice as low and thick as a Löwe, had taken off his glasses to reveal the silver eyes he hid behind them.

“Lieutenant Aldrecht…”

Hearing Shin utter that name over the Resonance, Raiden, Anju, Kurena, Rito, and Lena all reacted with shock.

“Aldrecht…?!”

“No! But why…?!”

As everyone’s voice tangled together in a bundle of shock and sorrow, Rito let out a dumbfounded moan.

“You told us to run.”

Rito was the one Aldrecht had spoken to in the end. In the face of the Legion’s large-scale offensive, he saw Rito and his comrades off with those words.

Run. It doesn’t matter where, just run and live on.

And the last Rito saw of him was how he and the maintenance crew remained in the base, armed with nothing but sidearms. He didn’t flee from the Legion, staying behind like he welcomed death—like he was accepting his due punishment.

“You said you had nowhere to go. That there was no place for you. And you…”

The crew said that they had nowhere left to go after they abandoned so many of the Spearhead squadron’s child soldiers. Like they had been bound in that place by their duty as the grave keepers of the countless soldiers who’d died in this squadron but were never afforded graves.

He swore to serve that duty to his last breath. That was his promise. And yet…

“Why did you go to the Legion’s side…?!”

…in the end, he abandoned the Eighty-Sixth Sector, the massive gravesite for all those dead soldiers.

“Aldrecht” stood haughtily upon the battlefield, lit up by a campfire stoked by human bodies, as if showing himself off. His howls rung nonstop in Shin’s ears due to his ability.

“Revenge for you” “Revenge” “Revenge” “Take revenge” “revenge” “revenge” “take revenge for you” “revenge” “revenge” “revenge” “you” “take revenge” “you” “revenge” “revenge” “revengvenvenvenvenge”

Shin gritted his teeth tightly.

“—Didn’t I tell you there were no Legion looking for you?!”

It felt like the distant past by now, but two years ago, in the Spearhead squadron’s base, he’d told him this in the hangar. This was before Haruto’s death, so at the time, there were six remaining Juggernauts. Standing in the now mostly empty hangar, he’d asked him a question.

Asked if his wife and daughter became Legion who begrudged and sought him still. And Shin could tell, through his ability, that they hadn’t. So he told him as such.

Even if there were ghosts calling out for Aldrecht, Shin wouldn’t have kept it a secret. After all, Shin himself had wandered for five years, seeking his brother, who was still held captive on the battlefield. So if Aldrecht had been called—if there was a ghost calling his name—why would Shin hide it?

But Aldrecht’s family wasn’t on the Eighty-Sixth Sector’s battlefield.

“You could have just gone to the other side, to them—you said so yourself!”

And despite that…

“Revenge”

“Take revenge for you”

…Aldrecht repeated the words, the wish he’d made at the moment of his death. Revenge for his daughter and wife. Revenge on the Republic—his own homeland, his own countrymen—which had thrown the ones he loved onto the field of battle. He would exact vengeance in their name.

If Aldrecht had died, he would have just met them again on the other side. And yet he’d cast aside that wish at the very end.

“Your wife and daughter must be waiting for you. Why? Why didn’t you go to them…?!”

Even if it was to take revenge in their names.

After one long moment of gritting his teeth, Shin slammed the switches for the radio and external speaker angrily, switching it to all of the
Federacy military’s frequencies—including the emergency unencrypted ones.

The Shepherds—the Dinosauria—bent their bodies like animals primed to pounce. Looking up, he saw the turret sitting atop their gigantic four-meter-tall forms, noticing the two gatling guns swerving atop them.

Yes, gatling guns.

And they were within its effective range. With the Shepherds having encroached so close,
all of them
likely wouldn’t make it, but…

“Evacuate the refugees! They’re trying to massacre the Republic’s civilians!”

“…!”

…the Dinosauria sprung forward, and the Reginleifs and Vánagandr tried to intercept them as well as they could. They stayed out of its powerful 155 mm turret’s line of fire, slipping behind them so they could aim at the thinly defended top of their armor. They tried to stall them, alternatively mowing down the self-propelled mines that got in their way with machine-gun fire or dispersing shots.

But even the Vánagandrs, with their firm armor, couldn’t risk exposing themselves to the Dinosauria’s main turret to protect the crowd of people from the enemy’s barrage of bullets with their bodies. Likewise, the Reginleifs’ armor could only withstand 12.7 mm bullets, and they couldn’t risk trying to block shots from the Dinosauria’s machine guns. The Dinosauria the Federacy faced were typically equipped with 14 mm machine guns.

Additionally, the Republic’s administrative officers and untrained Republic civilians couldn’t be expected to have the same reaction speed as the Eighty-Six and the Federacy soldiers.

A thundering staccato of gunfire—lighter than a cannon’s roar but infinitely more deafening than a sidearm’s shot—tore through the air. 12.7 mm or perhaps 14 mm heavy machine guns.

These were armaments that were far too weak against armored targets. They were ineffective against tank armor from every angle, and in some situations, it wasn’t even effective on the weakest points in its
armor, the treads and turret. Even armored infantry could deflect this ammunition.

But against soft-skinned targets, they were incredibly powerful rounds. They could tear a vehicle’s engine to shreds and reduce concrete bunkers to rubble. So needless to say, they were overwhelmingly lethal against weak, frail humans with nothing but thin skin and brittle bones to protect their brains and circulatory organs.

Heavy-machine-gun rounds had an effective range of roughly two thousand meters. The hostilities opened roughly two kilometers away, a distance that felt far to human eyes, on the terminal square located beyond the Gran Mur, which seemed protected by the crumbled walls. The other edge of the crowd had gathered there to evacuate. A group that stood between the main street and the plaza popped like pomegranates.

“…!”

Machine-gun and rifle rounds had heavy warheads that traveled at high velocities. When they hit the human body, they didn’t just punch bloody holes the size of their diameter through it. No, the impact of the shell and the kinetic energy of the round ruptured the surrounding tissues in a wide area, crushing and tearing muscles, blood vessels, nerves, and internal organs alike in the space of a moment.

These weren’t shells made for disposing of humans to begin with, making them far too powerful for use against personnel. They destroyed the human body on much too great of a scale.

Those hit in the head had everything above the neck blown away. Limbs were reduced to a blood mist. Stomachs ruptured, severing bodies in half, which toppled over each other. It was instant death, too quick for the victims to even scream. Even the sound of bits of flesh and bone falling to the ground was blotted out by the tumult of the battlefield.

Republic citizens stood frozen as the blood of their countrymen showered down on them, but the Shepherds continued to swerve their machine guns. As powerful as these rounds were, they didn’t penetrate bodies to hit the ones standing behind those unfortunate enough to get hit.

These were tumbling rounds, meant for killing personnel, and upon
penetrating the human body, they didn’t go through it, instead lingering inside the body with their kinetic energy, further increasing the damage they caused to the victim’s insides.

This wasn’t the kind of ammunition the Dinosauria, which usually handled heavily armored targets, would load into their machine guns. These mechanical dinosaur-like monstrosities wouldn’t aim at anything as fragile as the human body to begin with.

The sheer malice of it all.

“Slaughter”

“Slaughter” “Slaughter” “Slaughter them” “slaughter” “slaughter” “slaughterslaughterslaughterslaughterslaughterslaughter”

The machine guns revolved and swerved, their lines of fire and howls intersecting. The nearby trees toppled over as if swept away by a tidal wave, at which point the civilians finally realized they had to run.

Civilians fell back and began trying to escape. The voices of the administrative officers, drowning in the deluge of fleeing citizens, was hardly audible. The Dinosauria took off after them. They charged ahead, vainly ignoring the Vánagandrs and Reginleifs before them.

But at the same time, there was some rage to them—anger at their fellow Eighty-Six for standing in their way and shielding the Republic citizens.

“Dammit…!”

“Shit! Intercept them!”

And at the same time, Aldrecht charged ahead before Shin. His eight legs warped, bending, the metallic monstrosity’s hundred-tonne body jumping from a state of rest to its absurd maximal speed.

“Revenge”

However, his charge was stopped as Rito’s Milan lunged on the Dinosauria from its flank, clinging to its body.

“Rito!” Shin called out.

“I’m the one who was there at Lieutenant Aldrecht’s last moments
and saw him off! Not you, Cap’n! So stopping
this
first lieutenant should be my duty, not yours!”

Like a spider lunging on its prey, Milan spread its legs out, clinging to the top of the Dinosauria’s turret. Rito’s reply came as he withstood the force of the Legion swinging its body around rapidly, trying to shake off the pest holding on to it.

Milan’s red optical sensors alone turned to Undertaker.

“So you go ahead, Cap’n! There’s no chance of stopping all of them now, but…they’re Eighty-Six, just like us! Make them stop!”

His earnest shout made Shin purse his lips. He then took a single breath and gave his reply.

“Take care of him.”

“I will!”

But unfortunately, it was like Rito said. The Dinosauria were the Legion’s advance guard, sent in concentrated numbers to break through humankind’s firm defensive lines. They were a unit meant to trample over everything, from mines to anti-tank obstacles to soldiers and even Feldreß.

Pushing their charge back without any defensive facilities or artillery support would be difficult for a group of Feldreß. Especially not the Reginleifs, which stressed mobility over firepower and armor, as they were poorly equipped to stand their ground and block an opponent.

They could handle combat where they anticipated the Legion’s movements and were capable of launching an advance raid in an act of offensive defense. But not a battle where they had to protect units a few kilometers behind them, without any option of falling back.

The frail silvery metal units hurriedly formed a defensive line, but its clash with the Legion’s armored tidal wave only lasted for a few moments; the Dinosauria soon tore through it and began encroaching on the targets behind them. As they passed through, 88 mm shells were shot at the Legion, but their thick armor unflinchingly deflected
the rounds. The Dinosauria slipped away from the Feldreß with a speed that went in contrast to their massive weight, avoiding melee engagement.

Their speed and heavy weight became a weapon against their human targets as the Dinosauria plunged headfirst into the crowd of refugees.

By the time Raiden’s Wehrwolf surged ahead, over ten Dinosauria had already invaded the Eighty-Third Sector. They were still a few kilometers away from the Ilex city terminal, where a train was waiting to depart at the platform and was currently in the process of taking in refugees. Those inside the train or waiting on the platform remained outside the line of fire, but there was a group of people standing in the plaza and awaiting the next train, as well as groups on the twelve streets extending in a radial from the plaza.

All of them began running for their lives, driving the night view of the Eighty-Third Sector into a whirl of chaos. Fearing the menacing sight and gunfire of the Dinosauria, the people scattered and fled. No, they tried to run but instead kept bumping into and blocking one another.

With thousands of people gathered in the plaza and roads, it was a catastrophe. The civilians kept getting in one another’s way, unable to move, and what voices did try to guide them in an orderly fashion were drowned out by screams and the howling of gunfire. There was no orderly evacuation—only a blind, confused mob for the Shepherds to butcher with leisurely ease.

The Reginleifs couldn’t jump into the crowd, of course, and Wehrwolf couldn’t utilize its autocannon and machine guns with people in the line of fire. Even if he tried to use his external speaker to get them to move away, it was doubtful the panicked mob would listen.

“Shit…!”

The enemy units, this massacre—all of it was beyond his control, and it frustrated him. Raiden couldn’t even grit his teeth bitterly in his cockpit.

“Dammit… This is just like the large-scale offensive! Those stupid white pigs! They keep running around and getting in the way!”
Claude heard Tohru grumble from within Jabberwock, which sprinted beside him.

“I agree about them getting in the way, but…this isn’t anything like the large-scale offensive, Tohru,” Claude replied from within Bandersnatch.

It happened one year ago, which by now felt like an eternity away, on the day of the Republic’s final fall. The large-scale offensive. Back then, the Legion, among them Dinosauria, did wash over the civilians like an avalanche, too. But…

“They weren’t this persistent back then… They didn’t kill people like this was some kind of manhunt.”

The sound of the Dinosauria’s machine guns turned light. Shin realized that, at some point, they’d stopped shooting at the civilians with heavy machine guns, instead switching over to all-purpose guns.

There were two sets of revolving machine guns on the Dinosauria’s turret. One of them had apparently been switched out to an all-purpose one: a 7.62 mm–caliber antipersonnel machine gun, which even the Ameise rarely used on the Federacy’s front.

Full-size 7.62 mm rifle rounds could effortlessly penetrate and destroy unarmored vehicles and weak construction materials, which meant they were more than good enough for killing people. And unlike the more monstrous heavy-machine-gun rounds, they didn’t necessarily instantly kill their targets if they hit.

As the civilians ran, the Dinosauria fired at their exposed backs, mowing them down mercilessly. The rapid rate of fire made the shots’ roars link into a single howl like the squealing of a mad boar, but by the time it died down, all that was left was only the appalling sight of torn limbs and the crowd lying down, their stomachs open and leaking. Those who had their skulls ruptured like overripe watermelons or half their heads missing almost looked like the lucky ones.

“Tch…”

He couldn’t turn off his optical or audio sensors, so he had no choice but to watch this gruesome scene. The frail screams and voices crying out had to reach his ears. But they strained his nerves so much more than the familiar howling of the ghosts, and one child’s cries echoed especially hard, making him unconsciously click his tongue.

Just looking at the dying refugees made it clear. There was no saving them.

And there were too many of them to shoot and euthanize. Besides, this was live combat, so he couldn’t waste any bullets. And he’d only use his otherwise-unreliable handgun to either take his comrades out of their misery or to kill himself, which was why he didn’t carry any spare cartridges for it.

There was nothing he could do.

Not even crush them, since any
adhesive substances
that might somehow stick to his unit’s legs could have an adverse effect on his cruising or evasion. He knew that, and yet their voices still reached his ears.

“Please” “Help me”

A small hand extended toward him, but Shin immediately recognized it was a self-propelled mine and kicked it away.

…Of course there would be self-propelled mines here. They were Legion units meant for taking advantage of these kinds of situations and the mental states they induced. Lena, who had grasped the situation through the data link, immediately ordered the rest of the unit to remain vigilant. And after a moment’s hesitation, she issued the same warning to the Republic civilians through the external speaker.

“Do not approach the injured or the dead carelessly. Do not listen to any voices crying for help unless it’s someone you distinctly recognize.”

Her voice feigned coldness, so much so that it sounded strained and stressed, like glass on the verge of shattering.

The streetlights had long since been destroyed by stray bullets, and with the only source of light in this darkness being fires burning here
and there, a person could scarcely distinguish an injured person lying on the ground from a self-propelled mine.

And so Lena, a Republic citizen, had to order other Republic civilians to save themselves, even if it meant abandoning their fellow countrymen to do it.

But then a burst of flame extended through the dark of night, as if to mockingly clarify that this anguish would only add to this campfire. A flamethrower—a weapon used not by land troops but rather by combat engineers—was attached to the strongest of all ground units, the Dinosauria.

Flamethrowers weren’t an unheard-of weapon to be used against humans, but compared with the heavy machine guns, to say nothing of its tank turret, their range was far too short. The spout of fuel hardly extended a hundred meters ahead, virtually making it a water gun compared with its other armaments.

And yet the Dinosauria used it.

A flamethrower’s nozzle had been added to its muzzle, from which it spat out an elongated, almost comical line of fire. They moved ahead, ignoring all conventions and laws of tank combat, burning and smoking the sluggish humans who tried to flee from them. The napalm flames exceeded one thousand three hundred degrees Celsius, reducing the human body to a crisp.

The Dinosauria’s optical sensors likely had antipersonnel sensors appended to them, but even that was being befuddled by the flames. As their silhouettes strode through the fire, the sensors swerved about manically.

Their gaze almost felt gleeful.

They quite literally danced mad, running about and casting complex shadows among the fires burning about. Light and darkness intersected mystically, and in one blinding moment, a Vánagandr allowed a self-propelled mine to approach one of its legs. The mine exploded a moment before it was kicked aside. Owing to its weight, the Vánagandr’s leg fell off instead of being blown away, crushing one unfortunate—or perhaps fortunate—injured civilian.