Let’s turn our attention back to the residential district of Penglai Island.
Staring at the screen, Yu Xiao scratched his head, somewhat vexed.
Just moments ago, he had maneuvered the Leo to save one of his side’s Tierens.
After reaping the technical points for rescuing a teammate, he had charged once more into the thick of the monsters.
Seizing the moment before the Beta could fully react, and relying on the gaming skills he had honed through his past simulation training, he had, so to speak, cut a swath through them.
As a result, even the Leo’s color had gradually shifted from its military-green tones to a gradient of dark crimson.
Needless to say, this was all thanks to the bodily fluids of the Beta that Yu Xiao had sliced and diced.
Those somewhat nauseating fluids had splattered onto the Leo’s frame one after another, thus becoming a dye of natural artistry.
It was more than enough to serve as proof of his kill count.
…And yet he still looked thoroughly unhappy.
As for the reason…
“…These teammates, why are they all so trash?”
Exactly.
Sitting before his home computer, he found his mind filled with nothing but this perplexity.
Yu Xiao did not understand.
Clearly, during the simulation drills, the AI pilots who fought him to the death were all first-rate in skill.
So how was it that when it came to actual combat, his allied NPCs dropped the ball so badly?
At first, the fact that the battle line had been crushed by the Beta went without saying.
After all, it might have been a scripted event.
But when he himself charged forward on the offensive, only one person came to cover him—what kind of reasoning was that?
And even that one teammate who had followed along, when they had just been ambushed by the Destroyer-class, had acted completely like a block of wood… as though they had been caught entirely off guard.
If this were a human player, fine, but buddy, you’re an NPC, aren’t you?
Could a programmed AI really possess the emotion of surprise?
Even knowing it might be to pave the way for the player’s entrance, you still can’t do it like this…
“…Sigh. Maybe it’s because there are too many of them, so the AI’s processing capacity is being limited… Yeah, that must be it. Otherwise, I could fry eggs on my computer case today…”
In the end, Yu Xiao could only find a fitting excuse for himself, explaining the current situation this way.
And though he kept marveling at the game’s content, he did not neglect the controls in his hands.
Beep-beep-beep-beep—!
The radar’s incoming warning assailed Yu Xiao’s eardrums.
Sensing from this that a great number of monsters were approaching from ahead, he pushed the joystick in response.
With a clunk, Yu Xiao maneuvered the Leo to release the connection mechanism between itself and the canister-style magazine at its waist, letting it drop to the ground, and immediately after, jetted backward with its thrusters to evade.
Then the Leo gave a light flick of its right wrist, and the beam saber in its palm was hurled out at extreme speed like a throwing dart.
It did not point toward any of the Beta lunging at him, but instead stabbed straight down into the magazine abandoned on the ground.
Piercing through the outer steel, the high temperature of the beam ignited the gunpowder of the rounds within.
Thus, after several seconds passed, the charges within the magazine cooked off, transforming this steel cylinder into a high-yield anti-personnel landmine, triggering a violent explosion before his eyes.
And it annihilated the cluster of relatively smaller red monsters that had been attacking, the Beta’s main force strain, the “Tank-class”; utterly and completely.
The charred limbs and severed torsos of the monsters that had not been completely destroyed were scattered across the ground by the force of the blast.
The filthy bodily fluids of the Beta also gradually seeped into the soil, dyeing the ground a deep brown before his eyes.
…This scene had a certain thrilling, grotesque quality to it.
“…Well, I’ll be damned. How on earth did this game pass the publisher’s review…?”
Seeing this spectacle on the screen, Yu Xiao could not help but cover his face, muttering to himself with a touch of resignation.
The production team of Mecha War VS not only refrained from substituting oil or the like for these scenes, but in places like this, they had gone so far as to reproduce things as realistically as possible without any scruples whatsoever?
He truly did not know whether to call it artisan spirit, or simply a psychological abnormality.
“…Forget it. It’s a game that can still update even after changing worlds, anyway. This nameless, faceless production team might really be that well-connected, for all I know…”
Yu Xiao shook his head, deciding to put the game’s strange production team out of his mind for the time being.
As a player, what he needed to concern himself with right now was the battlefield unfolding before him.
After all, the situation was still within his grasp, but right now, the slightest negligence or carelessness could lead to one wrong step bringing eternal regret.
Yu Xiao had already fallen for the arrogance-inducing tactics of those high-level AIs countless times during simulation drills.
And now, he had no intention of repeating the same mistakes.
“Let’s see how much ammo and energy are left… And the enemies? Oh boy. This is a bit of a headache…”
Opening the mobile suit’s backpack load system and confirming the Leo’s current condition, Yu Xiao let out a somewhat helpless sigh.
The Leo’s energy was now down to only half, and its spare ammunition had been about eighty percent depleted.
And as for the number of enemy Beta, the radar was still densely packed, as though it had never thinned out.
If he wanted to completely annihilate the enemy under such conditions, it was likely a very difficult task…
It seemed that he had perhaps underestimated the strength of this species, which in its original world had once driven humanity to the brink of despair through sheer numbers.
And Yu Xiao thought, if he were a soldier truly on the battlefield, at this moment he would probably be so despairing of his situation that he would not even have the will to keep struggling.
Fortunately, the Leo, taking advantage of the opening created by the earlier explosion, had finished reloading the rifle in its hands.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
Immediately after, the 105mm caliber solid-round gun in its hands rang out in rapid succession.
And wherever the bullets swept, the oncoming Beta were blasted into the air without exception.
This was Yu Xiao’s mad strafing, entirely disregarding his remaining ammunition stock, and it indeed succeeded in suppressing this horde of monsters for a short time.
As though realizing that continuing this way would be futile, those small and medium-sized Beta halted their movements one after another.
But this did not mean that their offensive would stop because of it.
Next, three multi-legged titanic bodies radiating considerable oppressive force appeared in Yu Xiao’s line of sight, accompanied by thunderous footfalls.
Those were… the Fortress-class!
Yu Xiao recognized the origins of these fellows at a single glance.
…The largest and most threatening monsters from the original work of Muv-Luv had finally appeared before Yu Xiao’s eyes.
And right off the bat, there were three of them.
From this alone, one could see just how strong the Beta swarm’s resolve was to eliminate this troublesome fellow.
Faced with this scene, the Leo silently drew the last beam saber stored in the inner layer of its shield.
—Fortunately, he was a player.
And a qualified player would absolutely not fear the challenge brought by high difficulty.
“…All right. Bring it on!”
Yu Xiao gave a light shout, and the thruster nozzles of the Leo’s rear backpack fired at maximum output.
Under the propulsion of blue jets, its steel body overcame the gravity of Earth for the moment and took to the air.
Then, brandishing the pink beam blade in its hand, the Leo pounced fearlessly toward those three titans a full 60 meters tall.
As the saying goes, the Leo’s performance varies greatly depending on the pilot… The battle to follow might well become the most powerful proof of that.