86 - Volume 10 - Chapter 1.2

5

The 57 mm tank shell accurately hit the back of the Löwe’s turret…and was deflected in a spectacularly anticlimactic fashion.

“…No good,” Shin whispered as he looked at the footage on his optical screen.

The armor around the tank’s turret was especially thick. He’d been taught as much, but apparently, the Juggernaut’s main armament couldn’t even reliably penetrate the relatively thin armor at the back of the turret.

The Löwe’s optical sensor and the sights of its cannon swerved toward him. Seeing this, Shin switched over to his secondary armament, a pair of 12.7 mm heavy machine guns…which of course were of no use, either. But upon sustaining damage to one of its sensors, the Löwe froze up for a second, allowing Shin the time he needed to evacuate its line of fire.

The heavy machine gun sitting on the Löwe’s turret revolved to chase him. Unlike the Löwe, the Juggernaut’s frontal armor couldn’t even block heavy-machine-gun rounds. Shin retreated to avoid the barrage. He then strafed horizontally, avoiding a shell from its 120 mm cannon.

Shin paused, taking a single, sharp breath. The machine guns were useless. They lacked the necessary firepower to deal any damage, at least against a Löwe. In terms of its operation speed, the Juggernaut’s reaction time was sluggish. It was a hastily built weapon that was slow to jump and rotate, and it didn’t even have a proper lock-on system.

Right now, it was impossible for him to cut around the enemy and assume a position where he could aim at the top of its turret—or at its back, which had relatively thin armor. Looking at the enemy unit’s giant, imposing form made Shin’s mature, bloodred gaze turn cold. His eyes somehow took on the same artificial, heartless chill of the Löwe’s optical sensor.

In that case…

When he dodged the Löwe’s first cannon shot, Alice thought it was just a stroke of luck or a coincidence. But when he dodged a barrage from its heavy machine gun and a second cannon shell, she had to admit it couldn’t have just been luck.

Despite technically being a Feldreß, an advanced polypedal weapon, the Juggernaut’s mobility was low. And so Shin’s unit dodged the Löwe with slow, sluggish movements. He then began barreling toward it.

Upon realizing what he was thinking, Alice couldn’t help but shudder with terror. The Juggernaut’s 57 mm cannon was too weak. It could perhaps handle lightly armored Legion types like the Scout-type Ameise or the Dragoon-type Grauwolf, but a heavyweight target like the Tank-type Löwe was another matter altogether. The Juggernaut’s main armament couldn’t damage its frontal armor, and depending on the distance, even its rear armor was too tough for the shell to penetrate.

But if he was to close in on it, he’d maintain his shell’s kinetic energy upon impact by minimizing the distance it had to travel. Theoretically, it made sense. But a Löwe had a high-firepower 120 mm tank turret, 650 mm pressurized steel plates, and the absurd maneuverability shared by most Legion units. Challenging this kind of unit in close-range combat on his own felt like an act of suicide.

Especially considering he was a child soldier who’d only stepped onto the battlefield for the first time that day.

The Löwe changed its bearing. The fifty-tonne massive machine silently barreled forward, as if mocking the clumsy Juggernaut for its cheeky attempt at defiance. The Legion were graced with high-performance actuators and shock absorbers that muffled their movements. Jumping from a static stance to its top speed in the blink of an eye, the Legion unit closed in on the Juggernaut.

The Tank type brandished its stake-like leg, trying to stomp out the insolent insect in its way, just as Shin’s Juggernaut fired a wire anchor into the ground diagonally in front of it.

Reeling the wire in, the Juggernaut skidded along the ground, weaving past the kick aimed at it and sliding into the Löwe’s backside.

And then he fired his cannon. At point-blank range.

This time, he aimed at the back of the fuselage—an area that was thinly armored compared with the turret. And he fired at a short distance that a tank turret wouldn’t normally be in, with timing too precise for the enemy to dodge.

The APFSDS shell hit its target, finally penetrating the armor. It destroyed the Löwe’s internal mechanism, causing the metallic giant to burst into flames. A moment later, the fuse on its depleted-uranium core went off. That made the ammunition within the Löwe’s turret erupt in a series of induced explosions, splintering the cannon with a spectacular blast.

“What…?!” She heard one of her squad mates exclaim in surprise through the Sensory Resonance.

She couldn’t blame them. Alice herself could only stare at the sight in disbelief. The other Legion, despite being murder machines wired only for slaughter, also seemed to freeze up, like they couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.

Black flames billowed out of the Löwe’s metallic form, melting the snow around them. The light of those flames cast a crimson shadow over the Juggernaut’s armor as it stood motionlessly. It was a brand-new unit, its plating still a light-brown shade.

It was like an ominous skeleton, crawling across the battlefield in search of its lost head.