Heavy Armored Cavalry Liark Episode 1: "What is a Knight?"

Heavy Armored Cavalry Liark Episode 1: "What is a Knight?"

Synopsis

Lai, a descendant of a fallen noble family, has been allowed only to maintain the Steel Knights—machines he is forbidden from riding or even touching. One day, a girl named Alice, who has lost her memories, awakens from a mysterious machine discovered in the wasteland. However, at the same time, a ruthless decree is issued by the governing organization, "The Heavens": an order to eliminate Alice. To escape from his pursuers, Lai boards a machine for the first time and activates the unidentified Steel Knight, "Liark." At the end of his first battle, fought with nothing but his experience as a mechanic as his weapon, Lai learns the true, unknown face of "The Heavens," which has been controlling this world from the shadows.

1. Descendant of a Fallen Noble

There was a world where advanced civilization had flourished and then slowly declined. It is said that humanity once traveled beyond the skies and the stars, standing at the pinnacle of all technology. But the memory of that prosperity no longer exists in any living form. Society on the ground resembled the Middle Ages in a strange way. There were nations, there were nobles, and beneath them were commoners. In this world, remaining unchanged was treated almost like a virtue.

And on the battlefield, there were knights. Though, they did not ride horses. They rode humanoid combat machines called "Steel Knights"—steel armor. The wreckage of weapons used in the great wars of the past was excavated from ruins that looked like countless tombs, barely readjusted, and they continued to stand on the battlefield even now.

The qualification to pilot a Steel Knight was determined by lineage. However, if one were to get to the bottom of it, it was merely the inheritance of authentication codes. It was simply a matter of the royal family and the nobility inheriting the security codes established by the military of the past in the form of bloodlines. Eventually, this became established as a plausible class system: "Only noble blood can be a knight." It had been a long time since anyone questioned the fundamental reason for this.

Lightning—a young man called Lai—was someone who lived outside that system.

It is said that his family once produced knights. Several generations ago, when the head of the family was killed on the battlefield, the survivors refused to serve the family that had defeated them and quietly abandoned their lands. Since then, Lai's clan has been in a state of wandering. Although the right to inherit authentication codes remains in form, the opportunity to encounter a Steel Knight that could actually exercise them almost never comes.

For a wandering knight candidate, encountering a machine was a stroke of luck that occurred only with astronomical probability. There was no way there would be a noble eccentric enough to bother giving a valuable Steel Knight to the descendant of a hostile family.

That did not mean that those who could not ride a Steel Knight were worthless. The resupply, maintenance, and adjustment of the machines—that was the domain of specialized technicians, a role the knights themselves could never handle. Squires and those called personal blacksmiths took on that duty.

Lai was one of them.

Since before I could remember, I was raised being drilled only in how to tinker with, operate, and repair the wrecks of decayed machines. I was not allowed to pilot them. I was only permitted to touch them. That was the only place left for the descendant of a fallen house.

"You cannot pilot a steel knight, but you can take care of one. That is your lot in life."

Ly had heard those words from the old blacksmith who acted as his foster parent hundreds of times. He held no grudge. He had known since he was a child that even if he did hold a grudge, nothing would change. However, every time he touched a machine, something deep in his chest would ache. Whether that was longing, or the flip side of resignation, Ly himself did not really know.

The old blacksmith's name was Dagro. It seemed he had been a squire serving some nobleman in his youth, but he had never once spoken of the details of that history. However, while oiling the joints of a decayed machine, memories of the battlefield he had once seen would occasionally seep into the fragments of words he let slip.

"Hey, Ly. Do you ever think you want to pilot one?"

One day, during a break in their work, Dagro asked him that. Without stopping the tool in his hand, Ly thought for a moment before answering.

"It would be a waste to want to pilot something I cannot."

As he answered, Ly noticed that his fingertips were moving as if to stroke the machine's armor. It was a line he had told himself hundreds of times—that it was a waste. He had thought that if he kept telling himself that, one day he would truly stop wanting it. But every time he touched a machine like this, the ache deep in his chest didn't disappear; instead, it only sank deeper. Getting used to giving up and giving up completely were two entirely different things. Ly, at least, could never get used to that difference.

"Hmph. A smart answer. But a boring one, too."

Dagro said nothing more after that. However, Ly remembered that after their work ended that day, he had spent a little longer than usual maintaining the machine's head, as if stroking it.

In the village, there were others in similar circumstances. Descendants of families that once produced knights, living without machines, inheriting only authentication codes. They called each other "the uncrowned," laughing with self-deprecation, yet still weaving their daily lives. Tilling fields, herding livestock, and scraping by with maintenance work occasionally requested by nearby nobles. That was everything Ly knew.

The noble's mansion stood on a hill slightly apart from the center of the village. Those who lived there rarely exchanged words with the villagers. Only on festival days or tax collection days would a noble's messenger appear; on all other days, they remained quietly isolated, as if they were inhabitants of a different world.

On tax collection days, there was another event that the villagers never spoke of. Once every few years, people claiming to be messengers from the sky would tour the villages, visiting homes under the guise of an "aptitude test." No one had ever been told what they were testing for. However, after those inspections, one or two households would invariably disappear from the village quietly. Some said they had fled in the night, while others claimed they had gone to rely on distant relatives. No one knew the truth. And no one tried to find out.

When Ly was a child, an elderly couple living next door was one such pair that vanished. The two who had been working in the fields until the day before were gone the next morning, and the door to their house remained locked with a rusted key, never to be opened again. As a child, Ly had wondered about it and asked Dagro. For once, Dagro lost his usual nonchalant tone and simply said, "Don't ask." From then on, that topic was never brought up again.

Ly had accepted that divide as a matter of course since he was old enough to understand. Where you were born determined everything. That was the providence of this world. He did not know if the sky had decreed it so. It had simply been many generations since anyone had stopped questioning it.

The sky rarely intervened in the way things were on the ground.

The sky—it was a governing organization, or perhaps a concept itself, said to exist somewhere far above the ground, beyond the clouds. No one had ever seen its form. No one had ever heard its voice. Only its will descended to the ground, as law or as divine revelation. The technology to fly and the technology to mobilize large-scale armies were strictly limited by the will of the sky. People were raised with the ingrained belief that fighting only on the ground was the natural order of things.

Why was that? No one knew the real reason.

Everyone thought there was no need to know. At least, not until that day, when he encountered a single machine in the wilderness.

2. Wreckage in the Wilderness

That day, Ly was walking alone through the wilderness on the frontier.

I heard a rumor that a decayed machine had been discovered nearby, so I headed out to check its condition as an errand for the blacksmith. Excavated weapons of this type rarely retain their original form. In this line of work, you're lucky if you can recover fragments of corroded armor or the remains of a power core.

The one who brought the rumor was a shepherd from the neighboring village. Regarding the report that sounded like a child's tall tale—that an iron giant had sprouted from the ground—Daglo was skeptical, but he sent Ly out to check it just in case. Ninety percent of rumors like this are just misidentified rocks or the rediscovery of wreckage that has already been dug up many times over. However, for the sake of the remaining ten percent, he couldn't afford to overlook a place where valuable resources that support village life might be sleeping.

The journey to the wasteland takes about half a day. After leaving the village, passing through the thin fields, and eventually crossing the boundary where all green disappears, a dead land ruled only by the wind stretched out ahead. Even the legends are vague about what happened in this region. Some say it is the scars of a great war, while others say it is land that the heavens intentionally reshaped to keep people away, but no one knows the truth.

Ly had visited this wasteland countless times since he was a child. Because of his job searching for excavated weapons, he was aware that he was far more accustomed to this dead land than the other villagers. To avoid losing his way, he continued to walk silently through the dry wind, using the ridgeline of the distant rocky mountains as a landmark.

The wasteland was quiet. It was so quiet that he sometimes had the illusion that only his own footsteps were left behind in the world. When he thought about how thousands or tens of thousands of people had once worn steel bodies and killed each other here, the silence felt somewhat eerie. Even the traces that would tell the story of what happened had weathered away over the long years, returning to sand and rust. Ly continued to walk toward his target coordinates, treading firmly on the dry earth.

Before long, a strange shadow appeared beyond the horizon.

As he approached, Ly's pace naturally quickened. It was not just some mere wreckage as he had imagined. Although half-buried in dirt and sand, the humanoid silhouette remained surprisingly clear. The design of the armor was different from any model Ly was familiar with; it was an old-fashioned yet somehow alien construction.

But what was most strange of all was that there was almost no damage to be found.

A machine destroyed in battle always leaves traces. Gouges in the armor, scorch marks, broken joints. Ly had seen countless wrecks since he was a child, and every one of them told a story of the violence of its final moments.

However, the machine before his eyes had none of that. It lay quietly in the wasteland, as if it had been laid down there without ever having fought.

Discarded? If so, why?

It was just as that question crossed his mind.

A small light flickered on the part of the machine corresponding to the chest. It pulsed with a regular rhythm, as if it possessed a will of its own.

Lyark gasped. It was normally impossible for a deactivated excavated weapon to emit light spontaneously. Especially if it were blinking toward him, as if to catch a person's eye.

"A... distress signal?"

His whispered voice was raspier than he had expected.

It was hard to believe, but he could think of no other explanation. If that were the case, something—or someone—might still be alive inside this old machine. Lyark did not hesitate. He checked the tool belt at his waist and ran toward the machine's chest.

Up close, the machine looked even more bizarre. The surface of the armor was engraved with patterns he had never seen before, and the design of the head was unnaturally rounded, as if to hide something else. Even though he could tell at a glance that it was old, it somehow carried the scent of unknown technology.

Lyark took out his tools and placed his hands on the edge of what appeared to be the chest hatch. The lock, which had been exposed to the desert sand and rust for years, was surprisingly brittle and came off easily. It was as if it had been waiting for this very moment.

The hatch creaked open.

What leaked out from within was dust, the smell of metal—and then, a faint, rhythmic mechanical hum.

And, deep inside.

Ly was lost for words.

3, Awakening

Deep within the cockpit, wrapped in layers of cables and protective material, a girl was sleeping.

She looked to be a few years younger than Ly. Her skin was pale, and her hair was a messy, near-silver color. She looked like she was merely sleeping, but her chest rose and fell rhythmically. She was alive. Without a doubt, she was alive.

"…Hey."

Ly cautiously touched the girl's cheek. It was cold. But there was definitely body heat. There was no way a person could have remained asleep and alive for so long inside a machine rotting in the wilderness. Something was wrong. But the reality before his eyes could not be denied.

The girl's eyelids trembled slowly.

At that moment, the entire machine started up with a low groan. Ly jumped back reflexively, but before he could escape, the entire cockpit was filled with an inorganic light, and a synthesized voice echoed throughout.

"—Startup confirmed. Unregistered pilot individual detected. I am the beginning, and the one who leads to Omega. Requesting pilot user registration."

"Wha..."

Ly gasped. The voice seemed to be coming from the machine itself—no, from the simple AI residing within the machine. Later, Ly would come to call this "System Alpha." It was a mechanical, synthesized voice with almost no emotional inflection. However, the meaning of its words was incredibly heavy.

Pilot registration.

That meant—this machine was attempting to recognize Ly as its "rider."

For a man who, since birth, had only been allowed to touch the steel knights, the qualification to ride was being offered right before his eyes. His heart pounded painfully.

"...Are you recognizing me as a knight?"

When he asked in a trembling voice, System Alpha replied after a slight pause.

"Meaning unclear. Requesting pilot registration."

Ly almost lost his strength at that curtness. But this was a golden opportunity. Where was there any reason to let it slip away?

"Lightning... no, Ly is fine. That is my name."

"Pilot name, Ly, registration complete. Registered as main pilot, request to Ly. System operator, request protection of Alice."

"Alice...? You mean this girl?"

The machine quietly spoke the name of the girl who remained asleep. Ly looked down at the girl in his arms once more.

"She is necessary to reach Omega."

"What is Omega?"

System Alpha did not answer. After a few seconds of silence, what returned instead was an irregular driving sound, as if the machine itself were confused.

"…Well, fine."

Ly exhaled deeply. There was far too little information to understand everything happening before his eyes. But there was no room for choice from the beginning. If he was to pilot this machine, he would pilot it. If there were mysteries to bear, he would bear them too. He felt as though he had been prepared for that much for a long time. Ever since the moment he stood in this place.

"If I can become a knight, I'll bear a mystery like that."

As if responding to those words, the voice of System Alpha modulated slightly.

"Significant discrepancies in the linguistic system confirmed. Possibility of social system transformation due to the passage of time. Pilot, I ask you, Ly. What is a 'knight'?"

"...Huh?"

System Alpha did not answer again to Ly, who had asked back involuntarily. As if that question were the very thing this machine had most wanted to know after its long slumber, only silence returned.

In his arms, the girl—Alice's eyelids—trembled faintly once more.

Before long, her eyes opened slowly, the color of a deep night.

"...Where... is this?"

A raspy, small voice. The moment he heard that voice, as unreliable as the chirping of a newborn bird, Ly felt a strange conviction. Why was this girl sleeping here, and why had this machine been continuously emitting a distress signal? At the center of all those mysteries, she was there.

"Are you alright?"

When Ly asked, the girl looked up at him with unfocused eyes, and then stared intently at her own palms. It was as if she were confirming for the first time that they were her own body.

"I... who am I again?"

Ly was momentarily lost for words at that murmur. The girl seemed unable to clearly recall even her own name. She only showed a faint reaction to the sound of "Alice," as announced by System Alpha.

"It seems to be Alice. That's what this machine called you."

"Alice..."

The girl repeated the name softly, as if to confirm it. Then, she nodded slowly.

"That might be it. It's the only thing... that comes to mind."

Despite having no memory, there was a strange sense of composure in the girl's eyes. Before fear or confusion, a quietness akin to resignation surfaced. It was as if she had known this would happen for a long time. Furthermore, for someone who had just lost their memory, her choice of words was strangely too polished—a small sense of unease brushed against Ly's chest.

Ly felt a sense of foreboding at that stillness. Her eyes held a color far too philosophical for a girl who knew nothing.

"Can you stand?"

Alice stared at his outstretched hand for a moment before gently taking it. Her fingertips were surprisingly cold, but she definitely had the weight of a human. Ly pulled her hand, helping the girl up from the cockpit seat. The setting sun, sinking into the wilderness, illuminated the two of them in orange from beyond the open hatch.

"Pilot, Ly. System operator, Alice's condition is stable. Transfer is recommended."

The voice of System Alpha announced this quietly. Ly nodded, and while supporting the girl's shoulder, stood beside the machine lying in the wilderness. How should he move this massive steel body from this place—there were mountains of things to think about, but strangely, he felt no fear.

And Ly felt certain that this encounter was the first page of something that was about to begin.

4. Messenger from the Sky

By the time he had transported the machine from the wilderness to his territory and finished simple maintenance and concealment, the sun had completely set.

The old blacksmith was speechless for a while upon seeing Ly, who had suddenly returned, along with the unfamiliar machine and the girl. He listened to Ly's explanation in silence with his arms crossed, but eventually let out a heavy sigh.

"It smells like trouble."

"I know."

"You knew, and you picked it up anyway?"

Ly did not answer that. There was no need to answer. The old blacksmith did not pursue it any further either. Perhaps the man, who had served the fallen noble family for many years, could imagine both what would happen to Ly if he hadn't picked it up, and what would happen now that he had.

Since waking up, Alice had barely spoken a word. Aside from her own name, she seemed to have almost no memories. However, it was clear that whenever she approached the machine's cockpit, she regained her composure as if guided by it.

System Alpha had said of Alice, "She is necessary to reach Omega." With no one able to explain the meaning of that, the quiet night deepened.

During that time, to deceive the villagers, Ly hid the machine deep inside an old barn, maintaining the facade that it was merely 'excavated wreckage waiting to be dismantled.' He gave Alice the backstory of being a distant relative who was staying there to recuperate for a while. The villagers did not pry much. In this era, not inquiring about someone's background was a form of mutual courtesy. Everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, lived with a past they did not wish to speak of.

At night, Ly and Alice would gaze at the machine in the corner of the hangar, exchanging fragmented conversations. Alice's memories remained vague. However, occasionally, in fleeting moments, the words that escaped her lips carried a strange weight.

"I feel like I was... raising someone."

One evening, Alice muttered this to herself.

"Raising someone? Who?"

"I don't know. It's just that the feeling remains deep in my chest. It's as if it's a memory belonging to someone other than myself."

Ly could not fathom the meaning of her words. Yet, they carried a resonance too serious to simply brush aside.

"You don't have to force yourself to remember."

"...Thank you."

Alice gave a small smile. It was the first soft expression she had shown, breaking the tension that had been etched on her face since the day they met. Seeing that smile, Ly felt a groundless conviction that he had to protect something very precious.

The incident occurred three days later.

A group claiming to be messengers from the heavens visited the territory.

It is extremely rare for the heavens to intervene in the affairs of the surface. That is why the arrival of these messengers sent a wave of tension throughout the village. They were not the heavens themselves, but rather members of a privileged noble house tasked with acting as spokespeople for the will of the heavens.

What they brought with them was a single decree.

"Target: Eliminate."

The moment Ly heard the contents of the decree, a chill ran down his spine. The person named as the target was none other than Alice herself.

"Why her?"

When Ly raised his voice in protest, one of the messengers—a man with a cool, aristocratic face—shrugged with indifference.

"I wouldn't know. If the heavens have gone out of their way to order her certain death, she must be someone of great significance."

There was no sense of duty in his tone, nor even the slightest hint of hesitation. It was a dry voice, belonging to someone who simply carries out orders exactly as they are given.

"Who knows. I'm only interested in how you'll beg for your life."

At those words, something inside Lyark snapped. What reason could there possibly be to direct such malice toward a girl who had just awakened and barely even possessed any memories?

However, before she could even protest, the steel knight waiting behind the messenger took a step, and then another. It was a refined, sophisticated machine clad in near-jet-black armor, clearly better maintained than anything owned by anyone in this territory.

Inside the cockpit of that machine, the hand gripping the control stick paused for just a fleeting moment. When the messenger uttered the words, "Target, eliminate," the pilot's expression stiffened, just slightly enough that no one would notice. It was as if they had some inkling of why such a cold, dry order was being issued without any reason or charges being stated. Lyark had no way of knowing what that meant at the time.

――I have to run.

That was the only conclusion that surfaced in Lyark's mind. But what could possibly be waiting for her if she ran? Without time to think, Lyark made her decision. She signaled the old blacksmith, took Alice's hand, and began to run toward the machine they had hidden.

Behind her, the messenger's voice rang out.

"――Running away, are you? Well, fine. Struggle all you want. No one can escape the will of the heavens."

That voice was tinged with a cold, conviction-filled certainty.

5. The Pursuers

Rushing into the hidden hangar, Ly jumped into the cockpit of the machine, which had not yet been fully calibrated, while cradling Alice in his arms.

"Pilot, Ly, seating confirmed. Executing emergency startup."

Along with the voice of System Alpha, the machine groaned and stood up. The response of the drive system was so smooth that it was hard to believe it had just awakened from a slumber of several hundred years. Ly felt his fingertips tremble at the sensation of the control stick he was gripping for the first time in his life.

The moment he stepped outside, the sight that jumped into his field of vision was a black machine approaching while sweeping away the hangar walls. The messenger from the heavens—no, the knight under its command—clearly intended to finish him off without mercy.

"Hostile reaction, approaching. Machine name, Baldox. Affiliated with the Rosenheit family."

Ly gritted his teeth at the information System Alpha stated indifferently. The Rosenheit family was the name of the great noble house that ruled this entire region. If it was a knight under their command, neither their proficiency nor their equipment could be compared to anyone in this rustic territory.

"Can this machine even stand a chance...!"

"Machine performance unknown. No operational history. At the discretion of pilot, Ly."

Ly almost laughed at the curt reply. So this is what it means to have no one to rely on but yourself.

In the corner of the cockpit, Alice had her eyes tightly shut and was cowering. Whether it was from fear or something else, her expression was unclear. However, to Ly, it looked as if she were trying to protect something extremely precious inside this machine.

The black machine—Baldox—extended its arm toward me. A small blade concealed within it deployed, swinging down and slicing through the air of the wasteland.

Ly instinctively pushed the control stick, dodging by rolling the machine to the side. The ground was gouged out, and dust swirled into the air.

"Hit avoided. Pilot Ly's reaction speed is off the charts."

"Sorry for being off the charts...! Even so, I've seen more of these machines than anyone!"

His experience as a mechanic was proving useful in an unexpected way. The shifting of the machine's center of gravity, the range of motion of its joints, the response speed of the power reactor—all of it was ingrained in him like a physical sense. Although he had never piloted one, he understood the logic of their movements better than anyone.

However, the opponent was not naive enough to let him turn the tide of battle with logic alone. The knight gripping the control stick of the Baldox—a man who called himself Gerhard, serving the Rosenheit family—was clearly a veteran of this type of combat. The second and third strikes, relentless slashes, cornered Ly's machine.

Yet, there was something strange about those slashes. Even when there was a perfect opportunity to finish him off, Gerhard would slightly shift his trajectory. He kept repeating strikes that were more like feints, never delivering the final blow. Inside the cockpit of the Baldox, Gerhard himself felt a small sense of irritation at his own movements.

—Why can't I finish this?

The order was simple and clear. Eliminate the target. That was all. But for the past few years, the targets of "extermination" ordered in the name of the Heavens always had something in common. There were no charges, no explanations of danger, nothing. Only the order to kill them for certain would come down as a concise decree.

Gerhard once had a younger sister. He had a childhood friend who disappeared along with her entire family after something called an aptitude test. There was no evidence anywhere that this was directly connected to the mission before him. There shouldn't have been. But the hand wielding the sword slowed just a fraction. To ensure that hesitation went unnoticed, Gerhard suppressed his expression and unleashed the next strike.

The edge of the armor was gouged, and sparks flew. A sharp shock ran through the cockpit, and Alice let out a small scream.

"Damn it...!"

At this rate, they would eventually be caught. Ly gritted his teeth, yet he did not loosen his grip on the control stick.

Six, activate Lyark Mode.

"Warning. Airframe damage rate increasing. At this rate, it will lead to a functional shutdown."

System Alpha's warning rang out heartlessly. Ly, breathing heavily, checked on Alice out of the corner of his eye. She was clasping her hands tightly together, whispering something in a trembling voice.

"...Please, no, not any more than this..."

As if responding to that voice, the entire machine began to vibrate strangely.

"System operator, Alice's will detected. Ethics unit, activation conditions confirmed--"

"System operator? What is that child..."

Before he could ask, the entire cockpit was enveloped in a dazzling light. Ly squinted, but he did not let go of the control stick. He could not stop the functions here. He knew that much instinctively.

"--Ethics unit, activation authorized. Lyar mode, initiate."

With those words, the entire machine began to emit a drive sound clearly different from anything before. Light leaked from every seam in the armor, and the sensation of something inside shifting and rearranging itself was transmitted all the way to Ly's palms.

And then, the machine's head--slowly, one hundred and eighty degrees, began to rotate.

The part that had been treated as a rear camera for many years faced forward, and in its place, the part that had been thought to be the front sank inward. What was revealed was its true "eyes," sharper than anything before. The sensors, which protruded widely to the left and right, trembled slightly as if reading the air of the wilderness. Ly intuitively understood that they were for increasing the precision of triangulation.

"...I see. In peacetime, it was to protect this."

Ly realized the meaning with his intuition as a mechanic. The revealed compound eye sensor was likely extremely precise, and therefore a delicate piece of equipment. If the machine were to be operated in a wilderness exposed to dust and impact for many years, this true "eye" could not be kept exposed to the outside at all times. That was why, in peacetime, it dared to face the sturdy armor surface forward, and stored the delicate compound eyes in the rear--in a position where external impact was less likely to reach them, as if to protect them. Only the moment it decided to fight would it cast off that sturdy mask and regain its original precision. That was the way this machine was meant to be.

--Was it for this?

The fact that there was unnaturally little damage for an old machine, and that the design of the head was somewhat strange—Ly realized that everything had been calculated for this very moment.

"--System Alpha, transferring authority to Omega. Removing restrictions."

With that final voice, the light that had enveloped the entire machine converged, and in its place, a roar of output incomparable to anything before shook the entire cockpit.

Ly felt a speed of response in his hands gripping the control stick that he had never experienced before. It was as if the machine itself were moving, anticipating his will before he even acted.

"Is this... your true form?"

There was no one to answer Ly's muttered words. Only the voice of System Alpha spoke, in its unchanging tone.

"Pilot Ly, I ask you. Are you ready?"

"--Yeah."

Ly answered without hesitation.

Seven, Battlefield

For the first time, Ly met the blade of the Baldox, which had been swung again, head-on.

With an output incomparable to anything before, even the shock transmitted to his arms felt somewhat light. The high-pitched sound of metal clashing echoed across the wilderness, and Gerhard's machine retreated, clearly surprised.

"Impossible...! A mere excavated machine, keeping up with this speed...!"

He felt as though he heard a shaken voice leaking from beyond the cockpit. But Ly had no room to respond. He pushed his machine forward to deliver a counterattack.

"Unit name, Liark. Operation, normal. Pilot, fully synchronized with Rai's operation."

For the first time, System Alpha's voice spoke the name of the unit. Liark—Rai intuitively felt that this was the true name given to this machine. 'Rai' from Lightning, 'Liar' meaning falsehood, and 'Ark' meaning coffin. A name born from the layering of all these meanings.

Rai felt a strange sense of emotion that his own name and the name of this machine were so deeply intertwined.

The battle continued to intensify from there. Liark's reaction speed far exceeded Gerhard's expectations. However, it was not a simple enough battle for victory to be decided by mere differences in output or speed. Like a veteran knight, Gerhard immediately switched tactics, changing his fighting style to surprise attacks utilizing the terrain.

A surprise blow launched from behind the rocks in the wasteland grazed Liark's shoulder. The armor burst apart, and sparks flew.

"…Ugh."

"I forgot, you still can't use the beam weapon hidden in your shoulder."

Gerhard's mocking voice echoed from behind.

"Shoulder armament, seal confirmed. Usage restricted by Tenku. Currently, cannot be unlocked."

Rai clicked his tongue at System Alpha's detached report. It seemed this machine still lacked the key to unleash its full potential. Perhaps Tenku himself feared it and sealed it away. If so, the answer to this battle might lie beyond that seal.

"I guess this is all I have to get by for now."

Rai unleashed his next strike, relying solely on the sensations transmitted through his arms. What he couldn't rely on in machine performance, he compensated for with the intuition he had cultivated as a mechanic and his sense of the land as someone born and raised in the wilderness. After dodging repeatedly and trading blows time and again, the battle began to take on the appearance of a war of attrition.

In the corner of the cockpit, Alice had been keeping her hands clasped as if in prayer. Glancing at her, Rai thought: if a true answer awaited at the end of this battle, he was prepared to accept it all.

8, The Sky, As an Enemy

The change in the stalemate came when Alice began to mutter something in a trembling voice.

"...Stop it. No more, anyone..."

That voice should have been Alice's usual voice. However, a double resonance, similar to faint noise, was mixed between her words. Noticing the anomaly, Rai nearly let go of the control stick.

"Alice...?"

"Rai, I... I'm strange. Deep in my head, someone is..."

Alice clutched her head with both hands and curled up in her seat. Another voice—a low, almost emotionless voice—cut in, overlapping with hers.

"--Operator, Alice. Forced activation conditions are being met."

"No, stop...! I'm still...!"

Alice's voice cried out with a sound close to a scream. It was unmistakably the voice of a girl who had lost her memories and was simply terrified. Ly, in his desperation, instinctively reached out his hand inside the cockpit. But before he could reach her, another voice rang out, as if pushing Alice's voice aside.

"--Alice. I'm sorry. But I cannot let you carry everything on your own any longer."

That voice, while belonging to Alice, was not Alice's. For a while, the two voices leaked from the same throat, alternating or even overlapping like oil and water. Ly realized that what was happening before his eyes was not a simple "switch." The girl had not disappeared. It was just that another personality, which had been sleeping deep inside all along, was not pushing the girl's will aside, but rather quietly seeping out in response to the girl's own wish to "make it stop."

"...Alice."

When Ly called her name softly, the girl's voice rang out clearly one last time.

"Ly, listen. I won't disappear. So--please, listen to what this child has to say."

With those final words, the girl's voice quieted as if sinking to the bottom of a deep lake. In its place, a voice with a distinctly different resonance filled the entire cockpit.

"--System Operator, Alice's authority confirmed. Ethics Unit Omega, fully activated."

The entire cockpit was filled with a light unlike anything seen before. Ly felt as if he saw Alice's eyes change to a color different from before at the edge of his vision. From the color of a deep night to a color harboring countless grains of light, as if they were the starry sky itself. Even so, it seemed that the girl's will still certainly remained deep within those eyes.

And for the first time, a warmth as if something had taken root was mixed into the voice of System Alpha, which had been mechanical until now.

“――Please listen. Pilot, Ly. The Heavens you have followed are――no longer an existence meant to protect people.”

With just those words, he felt as if the air in the wilderness had frozen.

“What do you mean?”

“I cannot tell you the details yet. There is little I can remember myself. However, this much is certain. While the Heavens were born to sustain humanity, they are now operating for a different purpose. What is called the aptitude test is likely a part of that.”

“The aptitude test... could it be?”

The memory of the morning when the elderly couple next door quietly disappeared during his childhood resurfaced in Ly's mind. People who simply vanished without explanation or reason. Was that also some nameless disposal born from some will of the Heavens?

“And I am one who was severed from the core of those Heavens. Why I was severed, and for what purpose I was discarded along with this machine――I have not yet reached the answer to that. But one thing is clear: to the Heavens, my existence was something that must never be released into the wild.”

“――That is enough.”

Ω's voice suddenly cut off. At the same time, a sharp warning sound echoed throughout the cockpit.

"New hostile signatures, multiple. The Rosenheit main force is approaching. It is likely that our very awakening was detected by the Heavens."

"Damn it, I can't take any more of this...!"

Lyark gritted his teeth. He still didn't know anything for sure. But at the very least, there was one thing he knew for certain.

—The Heavens are our enemy.

With that fact etched into his heart, Lyark gripped the control stick tightly once more.

Across the battlefield, from the cockpit of the collapsed Baldox, Gerhard stared at him in a daze. He, too, seemed to have lost his words at the weight of the fragmented message that had just leaked through.

"……The Heavens, that can't be……"

There was almost no fighting spirit left in Gerhard's voice. What surfaced in his mind were the faces of his childhood friend's family. That family who had quietly disappeared from the village after the aptitude test. For a long time, he had told himself that they had moved far away. He had wanted to believe it, and so he had. But the fragments he had just heard were, for the first time, creating a small crack in that wishful interpretation.

"—All units, retreat!"

However, with no time to indulge in sentimentality, Gerhard shouted at the sight of the main force approaching in the distance, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Nine, Still Moving Forward

With the final cry of "--All troops, retreat!", Gerhard turned the Baldox around and maneuvered his machine to stand in the way of the approaching main force.

"Go! I'll buy us some time!"

"You...!"

"Don't get the wrong idea. I have no obligation to save you. It's just that I can't have you dying here until I've seen for myself whether what you said is true."

Leaving those blunt words behind, Gerhard's machine turned to face the vanguard of the main force. Rai hesitated for a moment, but the warning sound of System Alpha did not allow for any further hesitation.

"Pilot, Rai. Withdrawal recommended. Combat with the main force is impossible with the current Liark."

"Damn it... I know that!"

Rai gripped the control stick again and pushed his machine deeper into the wilderness. As if to shake off the shelling and shouting echoing behind him, the Liark kicked up dust and ran through the wilderness as twilight approached.

After a while, confirming that the signs of pursuit had faded, Rai finally took his hands off the control stick. His whole body felt as heavy as lead. But even heavier than that was the fragmented truth he had just been told.

"……What happens now?"

To Ly's muttered words, Omega, having regained the form of Alice, answered quietly.

"I don't know. But the Heavens will no longer watch in silence. That much is certain."

"Even so."

Ly looked straight into the girl's—Alice's—eyes.

"Even so, I will not leave you behind in that wasteland. You and this machine were the first to tell me to 'ride,' when I was never allowed to ride or even touch one. There's no way I could let go now."

Alice's eyes wavered slightly. Ly felt he saw something truly girlish, not yet completely extinguished, dwelling deep within those star-colored eyes.

"……Thank you, Ly."

Her voice carried both the uncertainty of a girl who had just lost her memories and the stillness of another personality.

The sun was beginning to set in the sky over the wasteland. From a break in the orange-dyed clouds, he felt as though the presence of the far-off sky—the Heavens—which no one had ever been conscious of before, was truly there.

Nothing was over yet. Rather, Ly understood that everything was just beginning here. As the descendant of a fallen house, he was now truly piloting the steel knight he had not even been permitted to ride. The sky he had believed he was protecting—what was it actually averting its eyes from? He could not yet reach the answer.

Even so.

"Let's go, Alice. First, to a place where they cannot follow us."

Ly gripped the control stick again and made the machine walk toward the wilderness bathed in the setting sun.

Ly did not look back at the figure of Gerhard's machine left behind. Yet, for some reason, he was certain that a day would come when he would face him once more. As an ally or as an enemy—that was something no one knew yet.

Whether the machine called the False Coffin was truly a falsehood, or a signpost to a new truth—no one knows the answer to that yet.

—Episode 1 End—

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