The Next Generation, Along with Smartphone

The character name is not finalized. The character name will be fix once the official light novel is release.

A battle like a storm was unfolding inside the screen. Slashing, parrying, thrusting, and dodging. It looked as if they were reading each other’s attacks, repeatedly engaging in razor-thin offense and defense… or so it seemed. To my eyes, the orange unit—Astraea—still looked like it had room to spare. No, there were just a few moments where I thought, If it were me, I would move like this to gain the advantage, but I have no basis for that whatsoever. Suddenly, the longsword of the yellow and black unit—Indra—broke apart into pieces. No, they were all connected by thin wires.

“A whip-sword, huh.”

Listening to Carrol’s muttered comment, I focused on Indra’s sword. What had been a longsword just moments ago became like a whip, driving Astraea into a corner. It wasn’t just a whip; the blade was cloaked in the lightning of the Gear Spell [Heavenly Thunder]. You could call it a lightning whip. Swinging the lightning-clad whip-sword with a whir-whir sound, Indra unleashed lightning strikes from the tip of the blade. Hundreds of lightning bolts rained down all around. Is this the origin of her nickname, [Hundred Thunder]? However, Astraea was dodging all of the hundreds of bolts of lightning rain by a hair’s breadth, almost as if dancing. Amazing…! The movement of lightning isn’t something you can read that easily. Even if you could, can you really move a Frame Gear like your own limbs to this extent? Before I knew it, I was captivated by Astraea’s movements. I want to try fighting that person, too. I might not be a match for her, but I want to test my strength. Can I reach that height? No, I will reach it! Suddenly, the two swords on Astraea’s back detached with a clank. The two swords floated in mid-air and began to spin around Astraea.

“Floating Swords, Fragarach…!”

Sherry’s mutter made me snap to attention. ‘Floating Swords, Fragarach.’ One of the special equipment for Frame Gears, said to allow free manipulation of floating swords. There were a few Troopers using them in the ‘Mecha Great War: Ragnarok.’ However, I heard that you can’t master the Fragarach without considerable training. It is said that the first Sovereign Duke manipulated dozens of Fragarach as freely as a meteor shower, but…

“Incredible…”

Astraea was controlling only two swords, but combined with the two swords in her hands, that made four swords launching a continuous attack on Indra. It was like a storm of blades. The tip of the lightning-clad whip-sword was deflected by the two Fragarach, and in that opening, Astraea dashed into close range and slashed at Indra with the swords in her hands. Indra managed to block one with her shield, but couldn’t fully dodge the remaining sword and took a solid hit to the flank. Realizing that the whip-sword state was disadvantageous for close combat, Indra returned it to its longsword form and tried to fend off Astraea’s attacks using her shield and sword. However, Indra was gradually being pushed back by the four raging swords.

“The [Sword Empress] is showing her true colors.”

Just as Carrol said, the sight of her freely manipulating four swords and cornering Indra was truly befitting of her nickname. Eventually, Indra’s shield shattered, and her sword was knocked away. In the next instant, the four shining swords simultaneously severed Indra’s limbs. In a mock battle using Frame Units, the match is decided by surrender or when the opponent becomes unable to fight. There are several conditions for being unable to fight: destruction of the cockpit, destruction of the head, or functional shutdown due to half-destruction.

“That’s it! Winner, Zeldigard Minas Lestia!”

Thunderous cheers echoed through the auditorium for Lestia-senpai, who won showing overwhelming strength. Amazing. Indra was strong, too. And yet, she won without taking a single hit. This is the ability of Rank 1. The two egg-shaped Frame Units beside the stage slowly opened, and two girls emerged from inside. One was a tall, brown-haired girl. Her uniform consisted of a skirt with spats, a loosened tie, and short hair that gave off a wild vibe. She had a look on her face like she’d chewed on a bitter bug, so this must be Limitecus-senpai, who piloted Indra. Her tie color is purple. A fifth-year, the highest grade. And the other one. A slender, fair-skinned beautiful girl with long blond hair. Her uniform was a skirt and an orange tie. Her dignified demeanor and sharp, slit eyes captivated the viewer and wouldn’t let go. She was a girl for whom the word ‘Princess,’ or rather ‘Princess Knight,’ was a perfect fit. So that’s Lestia-senpai. She really looks like a princess… wait, she is a real princess.

“Tch, the whip-sword didn’t work, huh. I thought I could do a little better.”

“You were trying too hard to be tricky. If you had used your usual war hammer, it would have been much harder to deal with.”

“Look at you talk, you…!”

The microphone picked up their conversation, but the atmosphere didn’t seem hostile. Limitecus-senpai looked a bit twitchy, though.

“This concludes the entrance ceremony. First-year students, please move to the small auditorium indicated on your terminal smartphones.”

Opening my smartphone at the MC’s words, I saw I had received an email from the academy. Moving to the small auditorium, huh? Probably an orientation for academy life. Like details on classes, textbook distribution, and such.

“Man, Lestia-senpai really is strong. Maybe I should set up my Frame Gear like that, too.”

On the way, perhaps caught up in the heat of the match earlier, Carrol said that with a bit of excitement. Her Frame Gear? Eh, Carrol has her own Frame Gear!?

“Eh? Hahaha, no, no. See, to do [Star Duels] in the Frame Units from earlier, students are issued one set of Frame Gear data for the virtual space. You can customize it however you like to make the unit that’s easiest for you to fight with. We’ll probably get it after this.”

Ooh! So that’s it! We get a unit to fight in virtual space using the Frame Units! That means I can build a unit to my liking… I think fighting with an Armed Gear suits me better fundamentally, but after watching that match, I’m getting a little excited about this, too.

“I think I want to customize mine for long-range sniping~”

“But if your rank is low, you can’t use decent equipment with that setup, you know? You have to customize it to win first…”

Sherry and Carrol are excitedly discussing what kind of units they’ll make. What should I do…? Specialize in close-quarters combat, or go dual-wielding like Lestia-senpai? A transformable unit is also something I aspire to. Hmm, tough choice. While thinking about that, we arrived at the small auditorium. As expected, it was an explanation regarding academy life and classes. Basically, classes are credit-based. We were handed materials summarizing lecture outlines and lesson plans in detail. So we look at this and decide which lectures to take… There are required subjects and elective subjects, but the electives cover a wide range… What is this, ‘Great Sea of Trees Language’? Learning the language of the clans living in the ‘Great Sea of Trees’ south of this continent? …Will I ever have a chance to use that? The required subjects are set, but for electives, it seems we can take them on a trial basis for about a week. If we think it’s not for us, we can change them. Basically, mornings are classroom learning and afternoons are practical skills. I’m a little interested in the elective ‘Taijutsu.’ ‘Magic Beast Studies’ looks interesting, too. Magic-related classes also seem useful for the future. The fact that ‘Armed Gear & Frame Gear Practice’ is a required subject is very Machinist Academy-like.

“Now then, we will send new Frame Gear data to each new student’s terminal. Please choose one from the basic frames, which have nothing but a few initial equipments. You can reselect later, so don’t worry.”

Ooh! Finally here! Following the staff’s instructions, I operated my smartphone and reached the unit selection screen from the home screen. There are a lot of them, but…

■Basic Frames■

[Ritter Frame] [Titan Frame] [Lightning Frame] [Clock Frame] [Mystic Frame] [Custom Frame] ・・・

Let’s see… Ritter Frame is balanced type, Titan Frame is power type, Lightning Frame is high-mobility type, Clock Frame is precision movement type, Mystic Frame is magic combat type, and Custom Frame is fully free type, huh. There are various others, too… Power types lack speed, speed types lack power… everything other than the balanced type has its pros and cons… The Custom Frame seems to be for building a frame from scratch, but I can’t touch that without specialized knowledge. There are representative Frame Gears shown for easy understanding, but combination/transformation types are Custom Frames, I see. Well, combination is probably out. You can’t make use of that unless it’s a team battle. Transformation… I am interested, though. Hmm, out of these, if I match it to my style, it’s either Ritter or Lightning… If I have to choose, I guess Lightning. The Lightning Frame has weak durability, but as my master says, ‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t get hit.’ When I selected the Lightning Frame, it moved to the unit name registration screen. Unit name… That’s a problem, I apparently have no naming sense… Oh, there’s a random generate button. I’ll just use this to pick something I like. Corolla, Prius, Stepwgn… Hmm, kinda meh… I glared at the screen, which changed every time I pressed the button, going ‘Mmmm…’ Apparently, even if I give it a random name, I can change it later, so anything is fine for now… Oh? When I saw that name, I intuitively thought, This is it.

[Lucifer].

Alright, decided on this.