Green auxiliary lines flickered across my vision. I quickly recognized the familiar artificial horizon and altimeter as the moonlit forest flashed past below me. The view beneath the moon was mesmerizing. To be honest, this was my first time piloting a mech on an independent flight. Before this, I’d piloted nearly every mech in the Human United Army, from the Hound to the latest Argos. But not one of them could fly on its own; at most, they could perform a jet-assisted leap. If a mech needed to be deployed by air, there were generally two ways to do it: parachute from a transport plane, or be carried in by a dedicated armed transport helicopter. Either way, the mech pilot had no control over the aircraft. So piloting Astaroth, the Magitek Machine God that could fly on its own, suddenly gave me the strange impression that I was flying a plane.
Beep, beep!
The scanner chimed. Sky Eye sent Astaroth the coordinates of the target location, and I made a slight adjustment to our heading. Astaroth immediately responded to my will, turning its massive steel body to correct course beneath the moonlight before accelerating toward the Orcs’ camp. When we came within ten kilometers, the fire-control system framed the camp in red. The auxiliary reticles in my vision changed, too. It looked like the fire-control system had activated automatically. I glanced at the right side of my vision, and the weapons menu popped up. I needed a ranged weapon, preferably one that could fire in rapid succession.
One weapon in the menu, named “Feather of Light,” was listed on its own. It seemed to be a precision weapon capable of striking multiple targets, which was just what I needed. In the few seconds it took me to select it, the enemy camp was already right in front of us. The scanning system locked onto every Orc and goblin moving around the stockade. As red targeting frames snapped around them, I immediately pulled a trigger that wasn’t really there.
Beneath the moonlight, the armor on Astaroth’s shoulders sprang open to either side, revealing red lenses underneath. In the next instant, red laser beams bent sharply through the air and shot toward their locked-on targets. A moment later, flesh and blood flew through the stockade. The lasers blasted the Orcs and goblins who were gathering there into flying chunks, clearing the landing zone in an instant! Before the enemy could react, I piloted the mech straight down into the stockade.
The surviving Orcs let out fearful cries as they stared at the Machine God descending from the sky. The goblins scattered like rats, but when their leader—the Orc centurion—let out a roar, the cowards immediately stopped in their tracks.
“No running!” The centurion pointed his battle-axe. “Waaaaaaaaaagh!”
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”
With their fighting spirit rekindled, the Orcs and goblins charged at Astaroth with bloodcurdling roars. I sneered and activated another weapon: “Photon Grenades.” Two spheres of light popped free of the huge crystal orbs on the outside of Astaroth’s bracers. They drifted leisurely over the Orcs and goblins, then suddenly rained a dense hail of light-arrows down on them. In the blink of an eye, two patches of red ground opened up in the monsters’ ranks. The corpses, riddled with light-arrows, made a gruesome sight, and the enemy’s numbers had dropped by eighty percent. I couldn’t help whistling. Weren’t these just anti-infantry airburst grenades? Argos had something similar. With the right angle, they could easily blast through an AI mech’s top armor and blow its quantum processor right out.
The few surviving goblins and Orcs stared at me, dumbstruck. I looked down at them through Astaroth’s electronic eyes as red targeting frames flashed over their bodies. The fire-control system had locked onto them. All it would take was a twitch of my finger, and they’d be reduced to minced meat. Just then, the Orc centurion shoved aside his cowering subordinates and raised his battle-axe to challenge me. Good. This was exactly what I wanted. At my thought, Astaroth extended a mechanical hand and made a contemptuous, taunting gesture. Enraged, the Orc centurion charged with a bellow, swinging his enormous battle-axe with unstoppable force—only for Astaroth to crush him underfoot. He met a deeply humiliating end.
The surviving Orcs and goblins were stunned with terror. They stared at me, then quickly fell to their knees and bowed again and again. Meanwhile, I was busy adjusting the microphone’s output settings to turn my voice into a deep, sonorous bass.
“Get lost,” I said in Orcish. “Tell your kin this is what happens to fools who cross the mountains.”
The cowering goblins and Orcs nodded repeatedly. Like defeated dogs, they whimpered in fear as they ran up the mountain without looking back, soon disappearing into the night. I watched them flee with satisfaction. Just then, Pandora’s phantom appeared again.
“Why let them go?” She looked at me. “Shouldn’t you wipe them all out at a time like this?”
“Pandora,” I sighed, “war is never the goal. It’s a means to an end. I let these demoralized enemies go so they’d tell their kin what they’d been through. Fear will soon spread to the other side of the mountain. Only by burying fear deep in the enemy’s hearts can we make sure they don’t attack again anytime soon.”
Pandora looked away slightly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
I stopped paying attention to her and turned my gaze to the hunters and mercenaries locked in wooden cages. They trembled as they looked at the Magitek Machine God I was piloting, silently awaiting their fate. And I was the one holding their fate in my hands. At my thought, Astaroth knelt on one knee and carefully reached out with its blade-sharp mechanical fingers. It gently broke open the wooden cages, and the terrified hunters scrambled out. Many of them were injured, some seriously. If I left them here on the mountain, there would definitely be casualties.
What should I do? Oh, right—the item box.
I opened the item box in Astaroth’s left palm. To my surprise, it worked on the first try. It seemed the item-box magic now treated this Magitek Machine God as my body, so I had no trouble placing the large supply of healing potions and antidotes I’d made into its palm. Let’s see… Ah, found him. Faenda, the hunting party’s leader, was still alive. He was Nagu Town’s second-best hunter, second only to Rosen. The two were rivals. Faenda was great in every other way, but he loved showing off, so his reputation was nowhere near as good as Rosen’s.
“Faenda,” I said through the external speaker, “hand these potions out to everyone else.”
Faenda timidly reached out toward the pile of healing potions and antidotes in the mechanical palm. He picked up a healing potion and, willing to give it a try, poured it over the deep, bone-exposing wound on his arm. It healed before our eyes. This guy had guts—he’d tested a potion of unknown origin on himself. I gave him a point in my mind. Once he confirmed the potion worked, Faenda immediately distributed them to the wounded. Before long, everyone had gotten a potion. But basic healing potions could only treat external injuries; they were useless for broken bones and internal damage. I looked at the two seriously injured people. They seemed to be in very bad shape. What should I do?
“My Lord,” Pandora suggested, “Astaroth’s computational core can run various magical formulae, including alchemy programs. You can use your skills to make intermediate healing potions. Intermediate healing potions of bronze quality or higher can treat broken bones and internal injuries.”
“That’s a good suggestion.” I nodded. “Thank you, Pandora.”
“Hmph…”
Who knew? Pandora just gave a little huff and looked away.
Was she sulking?
