Battle Without Sacred Weapons

Start in player-versus-player mode, and on the match selection screen, choose to specify the opponent.

Um, Kimura was on Unit A, right? Since it's a unit at the same game center, specifying should be easy, but the unfamiliar menu is difficult to use. To be clear, the player-versus-player related menu screens in this game are not intuitive. The designer in charge was probably an amateur. 

"A duel request has been sent from Amazeus Corporal on Unit A. Will you accept?"

It seems Betty will be the navigator even in this mode. I trust her quite a bit as a capable AI. Whoever made her must be a genius. Maybe I should leave all the troublesome menu operations to Betty.

Is Amazeus Kimura's pilot name? I was just promoted to Sergeant, but which rank is higher between Sergeant and Corporal?

Come to think of it, Betty called me Sergeant Zack from the start. When I got promoted to Sergeant Zack, it felt incredibly strange after being called Corporal Zack for so long. I became a Corporal at the same time as receiving my Lynx, I believe. There seem to be several promotion conditions, but aiming for the two-rank special promotion by clearing a new stage is apparently the easiest. Well, difficulty-wise, I could probably only aim up to around Stage 2.

I remember being called Private Zack when I first rode the Orange Pegasus in this game. The navigator back then wasn't the current Betty. It was more of a robotic machine voice, I think. There was a pretty long tutorial, but I skipped everything skippable. If the current Betty had been explaining, I probably would have patiently listened to all the explanations.

Wait, now that I think about it, is Betty not the game's system navigator, but an AI installed in the Lynx? I hadn't deeply considered those settings, but if so, it means I really can't switch to other units. 

By the way, the name Betty is apparently a term of endearment, and navigators of fighter jets and such are traditionally called Betty in real life too. It's an established thing like calling a butler Sebastian, I guess.

"Um, this is Unit A at this game center, right? Yeah. I made a promise to fight him."

As usual, I gave Betty a vague response. She can pick up my intentions from our vague conversations and respond accurately without me having to give detailed instructions, but this time it backfired.

"Eh, wait a minute."

Before I realized it, the transfer effect occurred, and the stage became a battlefield.

Of all places, it's the dune stage with no cover, difficult to run on. More critically, my armament is problematic. Only Tomahawks (lol) equipped on the left and right legs. The Buster Sword was broken in the last battle and hasn't been repaired. Not being able to use the overpowered Xcalibur in an unmissable battle is painful.

"My apologies. It was my mistaken judgment." 

Betty's voice sounds dejected, or is it just my imagination? Well, it's my fault for not giving proper instructions in this unfamiliar situation. You can't rely so much on an AI. Then again, there are humans who can't do anything without being instructed from the start.

"No problem. It's just a good handicap."

Suddenly hard mode, but really, wouldn't a duel with a predetermined winner be boring? I might have gotten a bit carried away recently since I could breeze through with Xcalibur.

If I just win with an overpowered weapon, isn't that the same as those punks who delight in picking on beginners?

Thinking about it, this is the perfect setup. If I can win with just the joke items Tomahawks (lol), even that brat Kimura won't be able to say a thing.

At least in this game, I should wholeheartedly think positively.

This time, the enemy's current position and armaments are displayed on the screen. It seems both sides can customize when starting player-versus-player mode. It looks fair since the conditions are the same for both sides, but it negates the advantage of the Lynx's high stealth capability. Well, it's my fault for leaving it on the default settings.

Kimura's unit is Scutum, huh. A stable, powerful character, as expected. The shield and beam gun are also the standard equipment I predicted. But I was surprised that it's equipped with a grenade launcher and gatling gun on the shoulders. That's too greedy, the weight will reduce mobility. Well, I guess he'll just discard them when he runs out of ammo, but that's something I can't afford as a broke guy. Students these days are so rich.

Looking at the enemy's armaments gives me an idea of what kind of battle this will be. I bravely grip the Tomahawks (lol) in both hands and start running. 

The desert sand is soft, so running takes some technique. The speed and angle of landing, timing of lifting the feet. I could just use a boost dash to move, but I like running. For me, the boost dash is more for emergency dodging. The Lynx can run pretty fast without relying on the boost dash too.

The enemy fires some scattered beams, but they're still far off. They probably don't expect to hit me from that distance either.

Grenades fired from the shoulder-mounted launcher arc towards me. Many of the bullets in this game are unrealistically fast for a game, but once you get used to dodging, the faster bullets are actually easier to avoid. They pass by in an instant so you can move on to the next action. In that sense, the slow-moving grenade rounds are more of a hassle. If fired in a barrage, I have to keep my attention on all the sluggish projectiles. When they hit, they explode with a wide shockwave effect that also does damage over a broad area. So I have to predict the future shockwave range and move accordingly.

However, a single grenade launcher's barrage is not too threatening compared to something like Sagittarius' saturation attack. Likely trying to restrict my movement with the grenade shockwaves to land beam gun hits. 

Ah, it seems the opposite. The beam gun is for suppression while going for grenade hits. Not a bad tactic, but meaningless against me. I'm used to batting away beam guns with a sword.

The Tomahawks (lol) are technically proper melee weapons too. I can just bat away any beams one-sidedly. Their durability is ridiculously high, so I can deflect physical projectiles too.

Speaking of which, the Buster Sword's durability was being depleted by lasers. Are beams and lasers separate categories? I should confirm details like that on a strategy guide later.

He must have realized beams were useless against me after I batted them away a few times. He changed his tactics. He started mercilessly firing the grenade launcher in a carpet bombing attempt. Kimura seems to be using fairly expensive grenade rounds with proximity fuses. Unlike normal ones, they explode even if they just pass by an enemy in the air, making them usable for anti-air attacks. In other words, I can't jump to evade them.

There are 7 grenades coming at me in total. He scattered them skillfully, leaving me no escape. I can deflect them before they explode, but not with proximity fuses. Wait, I have an idea.

I throw the Tomahawks (lol) at the incoming grenades. I couldn't score a direct hit, but the proximity fuses reacted, detonating them mid-air. This opened a gap in the encirclement, giving me an escape route. 

I retrieve the thrown Tomahawks (lol) with the wire anchors. Come to think of it, this is their intended use. I should practice throwing them going forward.

He seems to have run out of grenades, as the grenade launcher disappeared from his displayed equipment. He must have discarded it. What an idiot. Even if the remaining ammo count isn't shown, just having it equipped applies pressure. I would have kept it until the last round.

Well, the problem is the gatling gun. One of my most hated weapon types. The individual rounds don't pack much punch, but it sprays close to 100 rounds per second in a spread.

I can't possibly deflect every single incoming round, and attempting that would just deplete my blade's durability in an instant. Even if the minimum damage, my blade or shield's durability gets shaved down by the sheer number of hits, destroying it quickly. The main purpose of using gatling guns in player versus player is to destroy the enemy's shield durability.

The gatling gun's downsides are the split-second startup lag and limited ammo capacity. Depending on the situation, the delay between pulling the trigger and firing can be fatal, and if you keep mashing the button excitedly, you'll run dry in seconds.

I want to make him waste ammo unnecessarily, but he's not that dumb. He'll try to bait me in just until the last moment for a guaranteed hit. 

Scutum stands firmly with its shield, while the Lynx dashes nimbly across the desert's uneven terrain. The distance between us gradually closes. The moment I thought "this is getting dangerous", Scutum's three-round beam burst came. So predictable.

I glance at Scutum's shoulder expecting the gatling gun. The barrels seemed to start slowly rotating. Or at least I thought so.

I bat away the beams while closing in to the last moment, then boost dash right for an instant dodge. The gatling gun unleashes a rain of bullets trailing me as it changes aim. I quickly whip back around to my original position while it re-orients itself. In that split-second turn, I grazed the bullet stream. I managed to deflect most, but took some hits.

The shield gauge showing my unit's damage barely dropped by one tenth, but for some reason the monitor's energy gauge turned yellow. It means my energy has dropped below 50%. I don't use high energy consumption weapons or spam boost dashes, so my energy gauge is usually green. It doesn't go yellow unless I'm spamming something intense like Xcalibur's boosted slashes. Did I do something weird? A bug? 

Well, I can think about it later. I can't waste this chance I opened for even an instant. I instantly fire the wire anchor at his gatling gun, tangling and ripping it clean off with barely any resistance. Was it out of ammo?

Scutum's beam gun should be coming off cooldown soon. Charging in now is cutting it extremely close timing-wise. 

At this range, deflecting the beam is extremely difficult, but the gun barrel is clearly visible. If I time the deflection just right, I can manage.

I keep running while focusing on the barrel aiming squarely at the Lynx's abdomen. If he's waiting for cooldown, Kimura is probably mashing the trigger button by now. 

I spot a faint glow from the barrel, the Cherenkov radiation they call it. There's about 0.1 seconds between seeing that and the beam firing. More than enough time.

I bat the Tomahawk (lol) into the barrel mouth as the beam fires. The initial beam particles burst out, and the very next instant, the beam gun itself exploded.

A misfire...The blast rivaled a grenade. I get why there's a safety that activates when attempting

 point-blank firing. Though at the crazy timing I pulled, even the safety couldn't keep up. 

Scutum's right arm is blown off from the elbow down. His remaining armament should only be the integrated beam gun in the left arm now, but for some reason he won't drop the shield. Planning to bludgeon with it?

Normally this would decide the match, but the pathetic Tomahawk (lol) attack power leaves room for a reversal. It can only deal as much damage as a pistol whip after all. That pointed acute edge they use to plant the shield could be a formidable weapon, the Scutum's specialized shield might even be stronger than mine.

Wait, pistol whipping reminded me of something. The other day when I satisfyingly slugged an enemy's head with the plasma launcher grip, their neck bent in a spectacular way, didn't it? 

I strike Scutum's head unit at a 35 degree right diagonal angle with the Tomahawk (lol). 

It didn't do much damage, but the enemy robot's head bent at an odd angle. Without missing a beat, I strike again from the opposite angle with the Tomahawk (lol).

Right, left, right, left. Continuously striking while varying the angles with the dual-wielding technique I just learned by watching. No signs of counterattack so far. I wonder how it looks from Kimura's cockpit?

After about 10 strikes, the head unit came off. It took about 10% damage, but that seems low for decapitation. A human would be instantly killed. Is it just treated as the main camera being destroyed since it's a robot?

Come to think of it, these gauges called shield gauges or HP gauges are mysteries themselves. It's a game convention that running out means combat incapacitation and losing, but isn't it weird that over half remains after losing an arm and head? Having the HP gauge give a clear win/lose condition is certainly necessary, but it also feels like an artificial element tacked onto the overly realistic "Guardian Troopers" world.

The gauge didn't drop much, but without a head it seems quite disoriented. What should I wreck next? The high-performance custom shield is probably impervious to the Tomahawk (lol) no matter how much I whack it, but what about the elbow joint supporting that heavy weight? The shoulder and hip joints could also be targets. The exposed knees are vulnerable too.

It was so defenseless that I tried a debilitating kick to the knee joint. Destroyed it clean. Oops! I just remembered that's an illegal strike in many martial arts after kicking. Probably fine by this game's rules, but the clean fight image is important. This makes me look like the heel.

With its knee wrecked, Scutum toppled over. It finally dropped the shield but hasn't lost its fighting spirit, attacking with the integrated beam gun in its left arm. Nice guts.

I stomp on Scutum's left arm to immobilize it. I tried to dramatically finish it with the Tomahawk (lol) but the puny attack power made it impossible as expected. The win is basically secured, but can't get careless. If Kimura was the protagonist of a hot-blooded anime, this would obligatorily be the setup for a miraculous comeback. He's undoubtedly burning with fighting spirit.

I guess I have no choice but to systematically stomp out the remaining joints one by one.

"Amazeus Corporal has surrendered."

Betty's delighted voice echoes in the cockpit. There's even a surrender function, huh. She spared me the discourtesy, which is good. If I had continued that sadistic dismantling, I would have just looked villainous. 

In any case, I won. A wave of exhaustion washes over me. I'm at my limit, so I'll quit the game. Normally winners can continue in player-versus-player mode, but quitting actually rewards a premium gacha, so it's lucrative in a way.

As I exit the unit, I'm greeted by the cheers of the old men. Apparently our battle was displayed in real-time on the large wall monitor.

Kimura came crawling out of Unit A, wheezing and gasping for breath. Playing seriously does burn surprising stamina. I can't really talk, struggling to breathe with an annoying cough persisting for a while. I don't mean to put on airs like Hijikata Toshizo, but I'd hate to be misunderstood.

Kimura shot me an intense glare, but then walked over and abruptly bowed his head. 

"My bad...You're crazy strong. From now on, call me your little bro."

So he was serious about becoming a junior if he lost? What a nuisance, but owning up and apologizing is admirable.

"That was an amazing match. How about we go out drinking to celebrate? Let me treat you."

Browbeaten by an intimidating-looking uncle I vaguely recognized, I ended up holding a victory party at a nearby conveyor belt sushi place. 

In addition to the scary uncle, five salarymen players joined, making for quite the lively drinking session. It's been ages since I had such an enjoyable drink, the obligatory company bounenkai parties were just torturous. 

"Whoa, awesome. The replay views for that match are skyrocketing." 

A dapper young guy in a nice suit checked the official site, cheering loudly.

I've become somewhat famous lately, match replays often reaching 300+ views. The Guaranty System awards 80 points per view, so that's already around 20,000 points. Cashed out, the appearance fee for one match is about 2,000 yen.

Not even an hour has passed since that battle, but the view count is already in the five digits. Someone must have posted about it on a forum. A nice little bonus income.

"By the way, Kinchi is incredible. Did you see him slicing those beams?"

"He's always like that. Unbelievable reflexes."

Huh? Deflecting beams isn't a common technique? Well, sword-users are rare I suppose.

"For us, CPU battles on Stage 2 are still the main thing. A whole other dimension." 

I see, they're still beginners. It's nice to see the player base growing rapidly lately. If it gets popular enough, maybe a home version will come out? Playing at home has the footpedal issue though.

"Amazeus was a pain. He'd pick player-vs-player fights with any beginners he saw, that brat. No match for us, we'd just get farmed."

"You could just decline. Nothing wrong with CPU battles. Even Kinchi-oyaji here only does CPU battles usually, right?"

I do monopolize Unit D for nearly an hour daily. I've probably been a nuisance to these guys too.

"Sorry, I've been hogging units for too long."

"We're all the same, no need to mind that. The player-vs-player only crowd just doesn't get it."

"Um, but Zack, you have quite a lot of player battle replays uploaded, don't you? Surely you're not anti-player-battles?"

A youngster accusingly closed in on me like player-vs-player fans were the enemy. It's not like there need to be factional disputes.

"I go as far as I can in CPU battles, then just hop in random player matches when I get stuck, I guess."

Everyone's giving me weird looks. Huh? Isn't that the normal thing to do? Am I wrong?

"For our skill levels, that method is just pointlessly doubling the repair costs." 

Err, why would it do that? In my case, I just let player battle damage persist until the next day for self-repair, so no repair costs.

"That's presuming you survive in the first place though."

"Come to think of it, it's quite rare to actually get shot down when losing."

...I feel awkward like I was bragging. I'll just listen from now on.

"Player battles could be fun if I could win. I'm at my limit just aiming and shooting though."

"Getting the Knight Shield would make it way easier."

"Speaking of, Zack's Lynx is a rare unit, isn't it?"

"The shop only sells Lynx IIs. Kinchi has the old original Lynx model." 

"The old Lynx was rated as underperforming, but after today's match, it has to be a divine machine."

"I heard rare units were hit-or-miss performance-wise, but I might switch to one next time."

"I'm sticking with the Orange Pegasus legend of awesomeness." 

"My Cancer is a rare unit too. Brawnily durable, that's for sure."

Huh? Cancer, did he say?

I was starting to doze off tipsy, but that snapped me right awake. I can't believe there are players who already have and are using that unit.

"You can actually use Cancer?"

"Ah, yeah. The downside is only being able to equip rear weapons in the back weapon bays."

The scary uncle's pilot name is apparently Triskey. He laughed that if he'd known Cancer was coming, he would have named himself Crabskey.

"So Cancer is the only one that can use dedicated rear weapons for now? Nice, I want one too." 

"Rear weapons have limited selection. Not being able to use shoulder armaments is too painful."

Everyone gets so excited talking about the units. As someone who can't even use weapon racks, I only half understand the weapon coordination talk, but I get the appeal of these discussions.

"So why does Zack stick to melee self-imposed rules anyway?"

I was hit with that odd question out of nowhere. Saying shooting is difficult for me is lame.

"Robots fighting with swords is just cool, isn't it?"

I deflect vaguely. I should probably start practicing shooting too though.