8 I Give It My All Even on an Abnormal Difficulty

Author: Bishamon Mine
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n0664js/10/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

◆◇Sight: Suzusaki Suzuhi◇◆

 

When I say “Come with me” as I climb the ladder, Yachimata-san climbs the ladder too.

When we get to the cockpit, Yachimata-san’s mouth opens in a small “eh.”

“Wasn’t Swallowtail a single-seater?”
“I remodeled it to a two-seater for today. There’s a lie-flat horizontal mode so there wasn’t room front-to-back, so it ended up up-and-down——ah, put on a pilot suit. I’ll try to fly in a way that doesn’t put much G on, but I think there’s a limit.”
“Yes, of course I have one ready.”

Yachimata-san changes into a pilot suit she apparently brought.
A red-like, pink-like suit.
Not an initial suit like the one I use; it looks a little nicer.
But Yachimata-san is wearing only the pilot suit. I tilt my head and ask.

“Huh? You’re not putting clothes on over it?”
“I don’t think there are many people who wear clothes over a pilot suit…… To be honest, unless the fabric is stiff, in space it floats and flutters and gets in the way.”

Yachimata-san looks my clothes, sleeves and skirt all frills, over from bottom to top.

“——You…… fly well, in that.”
“Eh…… is that so!?”

❝So that’s what the discomfort was❞
❝A pilot in a virgin-killing outfit❞
❝It hits my kink. It stabs the kink to death❞

“Maybe I should take the clothes off……”
“Well, a pilot suit does show your body lines, though.”

That’s no good…… body lines showing is bad.
I’m not a model build like Isshiki Alice——over here.

“Th-then, like this.”

Yachimata-san is muttering things like, “But I think that pilot suit is dangerous, you know.”
And she mutters scary things like, “If you made a gothic-lolita pilot suit with player design, would you take the clothes off”!

I-I’m not taking the clothes off, okay?

“I’ll take the lower seat for the two-seater. I’m the one imposing.”
“No no, camera person, what are you planning to film from below.”
“Ah…… right, from below you’d only see inside the skirt. It’s a pilot suit anyway, though. Sure you won’t take the clothes off?”
“Stop the from-below angle……”

I move a somehow-sulking Yachimata-san to the upper seat.

❝This angle, you can see all of Suu’s piloting, best❞
❝You can see the outside well too. The stars are pretty❞

Maybe because it’s diagonal-behind, from the viewers’ line of sight this angle doesn’t seem wrong either, so I start the engine.
Then, first, launch from the base.

I check the window that displayed.

“Looks like there isn’t a free catapult.”

When I say that, Yachimata-san gets a little flustered.

“Wh-what will you do?”
“Time is precious, so I’ll launch manual.”

With real airplanes, launch and recovery are apparently the scariest part, but Versus Frames don’t have much of that kind of fear.

“I do want to hurry, but——you pick manual so casually. I’ve heard a manual launch in flight form under gravity is harder than humanoid form.”
“It doesn’t change that much. I’ll fly humanoid at first anyway.”

Having a humanoid form really does make launching easy.

Even with Earth fighters—F-35B, Harrier, thrust-vectoring nozzles that can change engine direction. Vertical takeoff and changing the direction of thrust are treated as very important.
There was even a plane called the VJ-101 researched in Germany and such, where the jet engines go vertical or horizontal.

Earth variable-geometry wings are wings for switching between a wing that’s easy to take off with (not only that, though) and a wing that’s easy to fly fast with.

Even in FateLege, which has transforming mechanisms, it seems they started with research into transforming wings or engines.
On Versus Frames too, you can see traces that they made them able to transform from the wings or the engines.
That’s why the legs with the rocket engines are truly designed to make takeoff and landing easy.

I press the blue button in the center of the analog-instrument panel at the front of the cockpit and turn Swallow-san from flight form, “heave-ho,” into humanoid form.

The leg movement is like a certain Super-Dimension show. That transformation really is realistic, huh.
When it goes humanoid, the controls change from the stick and such to VR.

The lamp on the hangar hatch goes green and the hatch opens, so I tip my body forward in VR and tip Swallow-san on a slant.

Swallow-san tilts on a slant, same as my posture in VR.

In this state I hop up lightly and imagine fire jetting from the feet in VR. Some people say “ignite rocket engine number whatever” in their head, apparently.

But imagining makes the frame respond faster, so I process it by image.
Rocket engines jet from Swallow-san’s feet, as imagined.

Swallow-san lifts, so I imagine transforming in my head. Words are fine for this too.

Then Swallow-san goes back to flight form, and the controls go back to real.

At my actions, Yachimata-san lets out a slightly strained voice.

“Eh——you don’t become a plane after you get into space!? You go plane in the hangar with the rockets still firing!?”

❝Dangerous!!❞
❝What is this kid actually doing!?❞

“Eh, does nobody do this!?”

❝Nobody does something this dangerous!❞
❝Normally you’d hit the frame on something……!?❞

Or rather, if I keep talking I’ll actually hit the frame on something and that’s dangerous.
So I just shove the throttle in the cockpit forward, raise rocket-engine output, and fly out into the sky.

“I’ve only ever done it this way……”

❝There’s a limit to how little common sense……❞
❝Well if it works this way it isn’t a problem, though. I’m surprised you never wrecked the frame❞

Alice is a little surprised.

“Amazing, you transform so smoothly in this tight space. I…… I’m scared even in a wide place. And you fly with almost no vibration, so before I knew it we were in the sky.”
“Is it smooth……”

I don’t really get it, when it’s myself.

❝The horizon I could see didn’t shake at all either❞
❝The drifting is amazing too, I wonder if she’s good at driving cars❞

“……I’ve never driven a car.”

❝Age where you can’t get a license yet?❞
❝She does look about high school❞

I’ll leave the age-expose there, and eventually we reach space and start warp transit.

“Then Ill-san, planet Enin’s space, please.”

When I say that, a door appears on the dashboard and a tiny hologram butler comes out.

“Understood, My Master. This aircraft will now open a wormhole and proceed to Enin’s warp port——”

There I notice my own carelessness. The comments all get noisy at once.

❝Wait lmao this AI’s voice, isn’t that Iwahata Mitsuo lmao❞
❝How did you synthesize that lmao❞
❝Too much spirit lmao❞
❝And they made him a butler lmao❞
❝Having your favorite seiyuu butler for you, Waro lmao❞

Catching the comments in my awareness, I scream.

“Aaaaaaa!! That’s, that’s not, that’s not!!”
“Suu-san, you like Iwahata-san, don’t you.”

Yachimata-san turns a kind smile on me.

“That’s not iiiit!!”

❝Ah! So that’s why the ‘forehead’ is out?❞
❝It’s Te○o! Te○o!❞

“That’s not iiiit!!”

I cover my ears, shake my head like I’ve gone mad, and flop onto the seat.
Then I give up, and slacken as if melting.

Somehow…… something like a soul is leaving.

❝Ah, she’s been summoned❞
❝Suu-tan, don’t diie!❞

Yachimata-san chants a “resurrection spell” to try to bring me back somehow.

“It’s all right! The viewers all think it’s wonderful!”
“A long time ago, you see, I went to a handshake event and I received a very kind smile——I can’t forget it. That’s how I thought I would go on living. This is my death poem.”
“The mora count is not right at all!?”

“The clothes were the kind you couldn’t tell if they were a man or a woman, and they were uncool clothes. And yet they squeezed my hand with a kind smile——ufu, ufufufu.”
“I understand! I’ll be careful at handshake events too, so please come back to life!!”

To save even one of Yachimata-san’s fans, I decide to stand on the earth again.

I’m stopping Dekosuke and putting my bangs down when the wormhole’s exit comes into view.
Dekosuke graduates today, unfortunately……

We arrive at the moon that is Enin’s warp port. And……

“Suu-san, over there, lines of light and explosions!”

In the shadow of Enin——a huge gray gas giant, three times Jupiter——lots of lines of light appear and vanish.

——Yachimata-san’s clan members must be fighting.

“Ill-san, sublight travel!”
“Yes, My Master. Swallowtail commencing sublight travel.”

The tiny butler presses a button, Swallow-san stores energy for a while, then sublight travel at over 90 percent of light speed begins.

The scenery around us starts warping like waves.

Even if you move at light speed the scenery doesn’t stretch, apparently——stars are in very far places, so it’s like when you run fast on Earth, the moon keeps chasing you.

But because space is being warped, the scenery goes wavy.

Also, during sublight travel there is no G. Because you’re stretching and shrinking space, or so they say.

And with this sublight travel, you can’t accelerate and ram or anything.

This sublight travel is only space being warped; the frame is not accelerating.
If another object enters the stretching-and-shrinking space——it just moves with you for a little while.

While I’m observing the combat happening far away, the comments get noisy.

❝Planet Enin is Floor 15 in domain layers, but is going to Floor 15 out of nowhere okay?❞
❝I’m worried❞
❝The frame really is a last-gen Swallowtail, huh❞
❝I’m worried whether you can even fight in a last-gen Swallowtail❞

“My Master, driving out.”
“Yes.”

While I’m reading comments, sublight travel ends. The scenery goes back to normal.

The frame’s speed drops all at once to 2,000 kilometers an hour.
We went from near light speed to 2,000 kilometers an hour, but no G hits at this time.
Because an Alcubierre Drive is not the frame accelerating.
Here, one comment gets posted.

❝Wait, you guys look in the back of the screen! What is that number!!❞

I look forward too, and tighten my expression. Countless frames shaped like sunflower seeds with wings are flying.
The flocks are in any number of layers, flying freely every which way.
There are just too many.

The tiny butler puts on glasses and looks around.

“My Master, hostile total: over 10,000.”

❝T-ten thousand!!❞
❝I-I’ve seen footage like this somewhere❞
❝Locusts……!❞

Behind the countless enemies, a mothership shaped like a sunflower——like a beehive——sits.

The slowly rotating mothership’s surface has so many holes it could give you goosebumps, and small craft keep being spat out.
If we don’t take that mothership down, won’t enemies just keep spawning infinitely?

❝Wait, a mothership is out too? Does this happen on Floor 15? And those seed-looking ones are Harpies, right——but isn’t the color weird?❞
❝That color is Grand Harpies that show up from Floor 25 on, right!❞
❝Isn’t this a Wandering Event?❞
❝No mistake. A difficulty that shouldn’t exist is occurring, a Wandering Event!❞
❝Suu-tan, no good, run!!❞