Glory to Mankind!
After shouting that slogan in a solemn, reverent tone, another woman rammed her already barely flyable fighter in a suicidal collision into a large aerial Machine Lifeform carrier.
And this was not an isolated case.
On this battlefield, there was almost no such word as "retreat." There was only death in battle.
If your hands were gone, you still had your feet. If your feet were gone, you still had your mouth. If even that would not work—then you self-detonated.
That was how brutal, and how heroic, it was.
You could see what a staggeringly strong-willed army this was—advancing without fear.
So, for the "viewers" watching this, if they did not already know these were androids, they would genuinely believe this was a human army launching a final general offensive against alien Machine Lifeforms, fighting to reclaim humanity's land, humanity's seas, humanity's skies.
To reclaim humanity's home world!
For the sake of their home world, all of mankind was fighting with its back to the wall. Not a single coward among them.
But in truth, these "people" who looked almost human were, in fact, androids created by humanity.
On this battlefield, it was all androids. Humanity itself was not fighting.
So some people pitied the androids. Some condemned humanity as inhuman, for sending androids to die.
Because these androids were not thoughtless machines. They were androids with individuality. Calling them living beings would not be wrong.
And yet they were being made to fight wars, to die in place of humans—how pitiful.
But the truth was: humanity had already perished long ago. These androids were still carrying on humanity's last wishes, fighting to take back Earth.
And the androids' attitude remained the same as ever—yearning for humanity, worshipping humanity, believing that going to war for humanity was an immeasurable honor.
That only made the viewers' feelings even more complicated.
"The last enemy aerial Machine Lifeform carrier has been shot down!"
That suicidal strike just now had detonated and destroyed the final large carrier in the enemy's skies.
Now it had become a massive fireball, then shattered apart, raining down toward the ground.
And on the ground, quite a few Machine Lifeforms were crushed to death by the falling wreckage.
"Ground forces' advance mission has reached nearly eighty percent, thirty minutes ahead of projected time."
The camera shifted toward the coastline, where roiling dust plumes surged up like an oncoming sandstorm.
That was the advance of vast numbers of armored vehicles rolling off the sea transport ships. They had already all but destroyed the enemy's coastal strength, and were pushing inland.
"Enemy XXX-type factory successfully destroyed."
The explosion erupted from inside a gigantic factory complex the size of a town.
This could also be called the Machine Lifeforms' city—also a factory—wrapping countless factories large and small within it.
In the earlier Operation "Fireworks," it had been blasted into a huge block of cheese that looked ready to collapse.
Now, the human army's air power exploited the gigantic holes, infiltrating inside to sabotage the deeper internal factories.
"Enemy hacking is coming in through the bunker server's previous vulnerability!"
"Good thing 9S already handled it here, or we'd be finished!"
"So they took the bait!"
That exchange came from the Bunker in Earth's outer space.
"Our assigned sector has enemy strength exceeding estimates by thirty percent. There are also five ultra-giant Machine Lifeforms. Requesting support!"
The camera cut again. A unit assaulting an enemy mining zone had fallen into a hard fight—massive Machine Lifeforms had appeared unexpectedly.
"This is the human army's XX Unit Command. Ordering the YoRHa unit led by A2 to proceed and suppress the threat."
That message was transmitted directly to A2's side.
"I refuse. That is not within our mission scope!"
Ms. A2 refused without hesitation.
As for why she refused, the "viewers" could already see the problem. The YoRHa forces and the non-YoRHa forces did not seem to have a good relationship.
But that was not the point.
The point was that A2 cared about the presence of a special member in her current team—someone who was not an android, but a human.
That special member was Mr. Golden Toilet, the invited guest. A2 clearly did not want him taking too many risks.
And as for the fact that he was participating in the battle, most of the android forces did not know.
"What do you mean? Your air detachment clearly has spare capacity right now."
"Enough. I've already redirected other units to reinforce your sector."
"Ah? O-Okay, Commander White."
Commander White was the overall commander of this operation, and also the direct commander of the YoRHa forces.
She seemed somewhat biased toward YoRHa, yet it was also strange—YoRHa did not seem particularly grateful to her either.
"A2, 2B, you must protect our hope."
The Commander contacted those two separately, issuing a demand—no, an order.
"Understood!"
2B answered like a soldier who felt almost emotionally flat, her reply crisp and purely procedural.
"I don't need you to remind me!"
A2 answered with total bluntness, showing no respect to the Commander at all, as if there was personal hatred between them.
Well, there clearly was some real grudge.
At the beginning, A2 had seemed like she was going to become hostile to 2B.
But because of Mr. Golden Toilet's involvement—and because he later told them something—she returned to YoRHa, and they fought together.
Even so, it looked like something the Commander had done had made A2 furious enough that she still could not forgive her.
Then A2's team surged toward another battlefield.
This time, they did not continue using their fighters. Perhaps their fighter ammunition was nearly exhausted. They abandoned the aircraft, jumped down, and began engaging the ground enemy directly.
However, some sharp-eyed "viewers" saw the truth.
In reality, A2, 2B, and the others were accompanying the special guest to conduct mobility training and armor testing.
That guest's previous armor had been shattered, and now they had prepared a new suit of power armour for him to test on this battlefield.
And then the "viewers" noticed a plaque-like insignia on the new powered armor, the same insignia as the one on the heavy, clunky, ancient-knight-style power armor he had worn before.
It did not look like this was simply a newly painted emblem added onto the new power armour—this was the androids' own powered armor, after all.
The sharpest viewers analyzed more carefully and arrived at the truth.
The metal plating on this power armour was likely not material native to this world.
It was probably rebuilt and refashioned from metal fragments taken from his original, destroyed power armour.
Why rebuild it using pieces of his old armor?
Most likely because the material of his original power armour had greater physical defensive strength than the power armour materials in this world.
And the redesigned, rebuilt power armour now looked truly futuristic—pure science fiction brought to life.
(End of Chapter)
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