86 - Volume 10 - Chapter 5.2

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The Bayonet squadron’s frontline base was made by reusing a small airport’s hangar that had been abandoned when the Legion War broke out. It had likely housed aircraft in the past, because it was far taller and more spacious than the Juggernauts it now hosted needed.

The aircraft that were once here had likely been recovered with the civilians who were evacuated into the eighty-five Sectors. Or perhaps they’d simply been recycled in a factory to produce more Juggernauts. Whichever it was, they were nowhere to be found.

Either way, now that the Legion had stolen the skies away from humankind, aircraft were only good for transporting within one’s borders and, at best, sightseeing flights within the walls. It’s said that every so often some idiots do make sightseeing flights to the battlefield in pursuit of excitement. Saiki didn’t care much for how those people ended up.

Stopping his Juggernaut at its designated spot, Saiki opened the canopy and exhaled. The cockpit was dark and cramped. It was closed up by armor, and three of its walls were covered in optical screens, which were the only way to see outside the unit.

It was almost suffocating. Saiki was still an adolescent. He was slender and hadn’t grown to his full height. So if it felt cramped for him, it surely would have felt even worse for an adult Processor.

Indeed, compared with the size of the cockpit block, the head of the maintenance team, who was leaning over the machine, seemed too large to fit inside. He looked like a tall dwarf and had a large build.

“Shin… For the love of God, pilot your rig a little more carefully. Put yourself in my shoes for once. We fix and fix and fix, but you just keep breaking.”

“Sorry,” Shin said as he disembarked.

“Ugh… You always have to run wild, don’t you?” The head of the maintenance team sighed, casting a sidelong glance at him and mumbling behind his mustache.

Shin landed on the hangar’s floor, the tough soles of his military boots hitting the hard concrete without making any sound. It felt like the footsteps of the Legion. He scanned over the hangar with his crimson eyes.

Over the old building, faded from dust and exposure to sunlight. Over the lined-up Juggernauts. Over the Processors and maintenance crew walking through it. His indifferent gaze didn’t settle on any of them.

Contrasting the intense ferocity of his combat skills, the captain looked almost deceptively young. Enough so to pass as one of the youngest Processors in the squadron. Saiki was turning fifteen this year, but the captain was two or three years younger.

Despite this, no one in the Bayonet squadron dared make light of him. Instead, they regarded him with reverence. Awe. And there really was something otherworldly to Shin. His expression was serene. His thoughts were always cold and precise. His fighting style was intense and experienced. Like a sharp blade that had been broken, reforged, and whetted over the course of countless battles.

It wasn’t too long ago that his tenure in the Eighty-Sixth Sector had gone over one year, and he’d been serving as captain since the squadron before this one.

Everyone in that squadron had also died except for him, but that was because they had to launch an attack on a Legion advance position. A bridgehead the Legion set up in order to push deeper into the front lines.

Of course, it’d been surrounded by a considerably large force, set up to patrol and defend the point. They had to break through the Legion’s counterattack and strike the enemy position, meaning that the Juggernauts were bound to take heavy losses. Depending on the size of the advance position, it could have become a do-or-die operation where not just one squadron, but the whole ward’s four squadrons might have to be dispatched.

The fact that Shin could return alive from that was impressive enough.

And that was part of what made him so otherworldly. He walked through the hangar without interacting with anyone, his footsteps muffled. This made the Processors and maintenance crew stop chattering and fall silent. Like birds kneeling before a king eagle soaring composedly through the sky.

That was a Name Bearer. A monster who survived this battlefield of absolute death for over a year. He had something they lacked.

Shin didn’t regard his comrades with a glance, either. Did he even realize they distanced themselves from him out of respect? To that end, Saiki and the other Processors could only look at him from afar. Both sides kept their distance, refusing and unable to cross that invisible line.

Saiki had to ask himself if that didn’t make Shin feel alone. He wanted to reach out to him, speak up, but it always ended with silence. What could he even say?

Perhaps noticing that he was struggling for words, Shin turned his eyes to Saiki. For a moment, his emotionless gaze settled on Saiki’s brown eyes, but then he looked away from him a moment later.

That intense yet serene shade of red.

No one had ever seen him take off his blue scarf, so no one knew what he was hiding under it. And because of that, someone once said something. By now, it was a joke everyone shared, hiding their fear, envy, and perhaps even a hint of pity behind it.

He lost his head long ago, and he’s hiding the stitch marks behind that scarf.

The rider of a Feldreß shaped like a skeleton seeking its lost head, always followed by a mechanical Scavenger that picked through the wreckage of his comrades. The single most despicable and beloved god of this battlefield, who would someday collect the Eighty-Six who died in the midst of combat.

They called him—the eastern front’s Headless Reaper.