I didn't understand the combat suit anymore, even after hearing how it worked.
Something about fluid-type nanomachines and blah blah blah.
The graph that came with the data sheet was a three-dimensional rendering of four-dimensional space using only real-number solutions... uh-huh... I didn't get it!
I gave up at the part where it said "solving the equation yields six dimensions."
Was it like that thing in tag matches where one plus one doesn't equal two, but two hundred—like a tenfold multiplier?
Imaginary numbers and four-dimensional space were probably involved.
...I was a humanities guy!
I'd originally aspired to be a lawyer!
I had no milliclue what this meant!
No, wait—I could solve the problems, but I couldn't understand how this graph related to the nanomachines!
How were they even implementing this?!
You couldn't know unless it was your specialty!
You know what I meant.
Even among science types, if you brought up fighter jet technology to an electrical engineering guy, he'd only understand the internals!
It was like asking whether the guys on the fighter jet's exterior side understood circuit design. They didn't, right?
Occasionally there was a monster at the officer academy's Combat Engineer course who understood everything from a fighter's landing gear to circuit design to programs at the low-level language level—no, the electrical level—and could reduce it all to mathematics, but that was a special case...
Whenever I hit phenomena like this that I couldn't wrap my head around, I felt reassured that I hadn't stepped outside the bounds of humanity.
At the very least, I wasn't omniscient and omnipotent.
I thought Kyoko and Fairy-san were beings closer to gods.
But you science types felt like punching the author when you read philosophy books, right?!
It was the same thing!
That concluded: "Heard the explanation, still didn't get it. Checkmated."
When I put it on, it was lighter than expected.
"What about the material?"
I asked Kyoko about something I could actually understand.
"It's a further reinforced and lightened version of Zork structural material. The critical areas use a newly developed, new-type exoskeleton plate."
Her gaze drifted toward her ultimate mega-cannon.
"The heart section."
"Ah, yes."
"Only Riko's is a full-body exoskeleton."
Couldn't be helped, since she fired a Gatling gun while taking hits.
"What about the helmet?"
"The Zork exoskeleton frame can withstand the impact from that bike race the other day."
Whoa.
"What about this shield part?"
The transparent part of the helmet, that is.
"It applies Zork technology that can't be visually confirmed to allow light to pass through."
Whoa.
In other words, the Space Marines' defensive capability had reached the level of a Zork Crab.
Those nostalgic days of pasting shells onto things during the early Zork War.
"What about the Anti-Ship Rifle?"
Now, setting aside the scariest topic to ask about—Kill Night-chan's modifications—this was about that defective weapon.
"We developed one for Alissa... um, it amplifies ESP..."
"So it's like a magic wand!"
"Essentially, yes."
GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
They'd gone and developed something outrageous.
"Then what about mine and Leonidas-kun's?"
"This."
The fact that she brought out a simulator meant it wasn't done yet, huh.
Would've been fine if it never got completed at all.
A dirty smile crept onto my face.
"Oho... multiple battleships... it pierces right through them!"
It wasn't a Destroyer or even a Cruiser, but something that pierced through Battleships and detonated, catching surrounding ships in the blast.
If we used this in a normal war, everyone would die from friendly fire.
No matter how you thought about it, this was equipment meant for Battleships!
"Yeah, honestly, this power is scary. I'd like to use it only for the subjugation of the Planet-class Corpse Eaters."
"We're actually going to use iiiiiiiiiiiiit!"
Even on a Battleship it'd be dangerous.
"We plan to mount it on the Ancient Fortress currently under repair. Even doing that, I suspect it would be a close call to defeat that Corpse Eater."
"No way!"
"Because it can fire attacks at that output! Even estimating from the amount of energy storable within its body, even a Planet-class Fortress going all out might barely be enough to destroy it..."
Nooo... that was scary!
You know what was scary? Despite having that much energy, it hadn't ignited.
"If we defeat it, it'll explode and catch everything around it..."
"If the temperature rises rapidly, that's what would happen."
"...Oh."
Scary!
It was like those chemicals that suddenly burst into flames the moment they touched air!
"We might get a pass because there's no air... maybe?"
"I think that's the most likely possibility, but... honestly, I don't know."
"I don't wanna do this anymore!"
My spirit was about to break before the battle even started.
And so, Kill Night-chan's modification was apparently "please look forward to it."
"Ah, that's the thing that's gonna nearly kill me."
"We're verifying it so you won't die!"
Really?!
With that, we disbursed.
In other words, it was "The time has come! That is all!" leading to "What idiot thinks about losing before even stepping out?!" resulting in "I cannot see my own bright future!"
In short, "Don't straddle it."
Hmm, the fusion of math and physics was like pro wrestling.
Essentially: "Because you unleash it believing it can kill your opponent, that technique can kill a person."
Truly a case of "Do you want to bite or not want to bite? Don't swallow the words you spat out, you."
I didn't think anyone had any idea what I was talking about, but right now the inside of my head was a jumbled mess like this.
Too space cat. Meow!
While I was being a space cat all day, Charlotte came over.
"I came to play."
"What are we going to play?"
"I'm joking! Set up the board game!"
Tch!
"And here I was actually thinking we could play!"
Ren came by and poured tea for me.
A hot one.
"Because your body gets cold, a warm one..."
"You're a girl!"
"I mean, sweet potatoes aren't in season yet. The potatoes I was supposed to dig up for work started drying up, so the gardener harvested them before they rotted. So I can't move my body and it's tough! I want to exercise! My body temperature is dropping!"
"Is this really the King?"
Don't point at me!
Ren was giggling.
"This is my beloved Majesty."
"That must be difficult... Anyway, the matter at hand."
"What's up? You've got a serious face."
"You should be able to guess why I'm not rushing to return."
"I've predicted several scenarios. Including destruction is among them."
"Exactly. If I go back, the country might be gone. That possibility cannot be denied either."
"In that case, will you defect to us?"
"No. I will return and rebuild the country."
Impressive.
If it were me, I'd be searching for a way to escape right up until the last moment.
Then I'd dilly-dally until I couldn't flee here anymore and end up fighting to the bitter end.
Someone who'd decided to return to their country from the start was more admirable.
This was what born Royalty looked like!
I couldn't pull that off.
I was a more half-hearted creature.
"So with that, you can't expect reinforcements. I was able to speak honestly... Are you not surprised?"
"Well, actually, I kinda figured. I talked it over with Wifey multiple times."
Essentially, that was that.
It meant all of Rosaria's military.
"Anyone who wants to immigrate to Chronos is welcome."
"I appreciate it."
I'd already grasped that there were couples cohabiting between Chronos People and Galactic Imperial People.
We should just make it official that they could be on either side.
Even if some of them were spies, it wouldn't trouble me.
See, I was Free Material, after all.
I kept a cool face.
"Lady Charlotte. This is Husband-sama."
"Ah... What an incredible man."
Unfortunately, that wasn't really the case.
After all, even though I was maintaining my poker face, I was terrified of riding the modified Kill Night-chan.