Eleanor's body reacted faster than her brain.
The mont the Thug-III type heavy machine gun began to rotate and preheat, she had already rushed out.
The wound on her right leg protested fiercely, but she couldn't afford to care.
Pavel stood in place, not moving.
It wasn't that she was too slow to move, but—
She had never intended to move at all.
Eleanor saw the expression on that face.
It wasn't fear, it wasn't panic, not even numbness.
It was still calmness.
A calmness akin to relief, accepting fate.
Damn calmness.
It was as if she had long anticipated this mont, and now it had finally arrived.
"You damned—"
Eleanor's curse was drowned out by the sound of the machine gun firing.
As she lunged toward Pavel, bullets sparked against the ruins behind them.
Gravel scattered, and dust billowed up.
The two of them rolled together into a shell crater.
Eleanor shielded Pavel with her body, feeling sothing graze her shoulder—whether it was shrapnel or a stray bullet, she couldn't tell, nor could she care.
"Are you out of your damn mind?!"
The bullets paused temporarily.
Eleanor scrambled up, grabbed Pavel by the collar, and yanked her up from the ground.
"Why didn't you run? Why did you just stand there waiting to die? Do you really want to die?!"
Pavel blinked.
She looked... very confused.
"How did you get back?"
"Nonsense!"
"Why?"
This question made Eleanor pause.
Right, why?
She had almost reached safety.
Just a few dozen more ters and she would be within the effective range of their own forces.
That Usar ch wouldn't dare pursue her.
If she had just kept moving forward, she would have survived.
But she ca back.
To save an...
Enemy?
Prisoner?
Guide?
Or...
"Because you're an idiot!"
Eleanor ground out through clenched teeth, "And I don't want to owe an idiot a favor."
Pavel's lips curved slightly.
"That reason... is pretty la, honestly."
"Shut up!"
The footsteps of the ch were getting closer.
The ground vibrated, every step sounding like a giant knocking on a door.
Eleanor released Pavel's collar and raised the rifle she had picked up from a corpse at her waist.
Seven bullets.
To deal with a main battle ch.
This was probably the worst combat configuration of her entire military career.
"Got a plan?"
Pavel also drew her own weapon, her voice regaining that infuriating calmness.
"Does telling you not to stand there waiting to die count as a plan?"
"That's an order, not a plan."
"Then treat it as an order."
Pavel chuckled softly.
"Yes, Sister Eleanor."
...
The Thug-III type was the main ch of Usar, a full two tiers above the thug-iv type Pavel once piloted.
Its armor thickness was sufficient to withstand ordinary rifle fire, and its steam-powered system allowed it to move at astonishing speeds.
Its weaponry included a steam warhamr and a heavy machine gun—the forr could easily punch through buildings, while the latter could turn an infantry squad into a sieve in three seconds.
Two injured people, two rifles, fourteen bullets.
Against such a ch.
The forr Eleanor would have considered this suicide.
But after experiencing this night, she had begun to believe that the word 'reasonable' held no aning around Pavel.
"Its weak points are the joints," Pavel's voice ca from beside her, "the knees, elbows, and the neck connection—the thinnest points of armor coverage."
"I know."
"The cockpit is slightly to the left of the chest, but it's protected by twenty centiters of composite armor; rifles can't penetrate it."
"I know that too."
"Then what is it you *don't* know?"
"I don't know why you're still wasting ti talking."
Pavel grinned.
"Because I'm waiting for it to walk into position."
She pointed to a pile of ruins about twenty ters outside the shell crater.
"There's an anti-ch landmine buried under there. I didn't plant it, but it has enough power to blow off one of the ch's legs."
Eleanor looked at the ruins, then at the approaching ch.
"How did you know there was a mine there?"
"Well..."
Pavel didn't finish. The ch's searchlight swept over them again, and she imdiately fell silent, pressing against the crater wall with Eleanor.
The beam of light passed over their heads without lingering.
The ch continued to move forward, each step causing a tremor.
Fifteen ters.
Twelve ters.
Ten ters.
"It won't step on it," Eleanor murmured, "the route is wrong."
"Mhm."
"Then you—"
Pavel suddenly leaped out of the crater.
"What are you doing—"
Before Eleanor could finish speaking, Pavel was already running toward the ch.
Not running away.
Charging.
A girl under sixteen, holding a battered rifle, charging toward a three-ter-tall steel behemoth.
This was probably the craziest thing Eleanor had ever witnessed.
But Pavel's movents were surprisingly fluid.
She didn't run in a straight line but moved in a strange zigzag pattern, each change of direction precisely evading the machine gun's sweep.
Bullets kicked up a series of dust columns behind her, yet none ever hit.
That wasn't evasion a normal person could achieve.
Was this... prediction?
Pavel seed to know exactly where every bullet would land, dodging a step ahead of ti.
Eleanor rembered that night.
That ch from the Punishnt Camp.
Its movents were the sa—not like a human, but more like so entity beyond common sense.
But she didn't have ti to think.
Pavel's objective was clear: attract the ch's attention and lure it toward the mine's location.
And what Eleanor needed to do was ensure Pavel wasn't riddled with holes before achieving that goal.
She raised her rifle, aiming for the ch's head—the location of the sensors.
Fire.
The bullet hit the target. Although it caused no substantial damage, it was enough to interfere with the pilot's vision.
The ch's movent paused for a beat.
Just that mont.
Pavel seized the opportunity, changed direction, and ran toward the ruins where the mine was buried.
The ch turned to pursue.
Eight ters.
Five ters.
Three ters—
Boom.
The flash of the explosion illuminated the entire dawn.
The shockwave tossed Pavel into the air. She tumbled several tis before crashing heavily onto the ground.
But her objective was achieved.
The mine detonated beneath the ch's left leg, shattering the steel limb.
Off balance, the ch crashed down, smashing into the ruins and kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Little Pa!"
Eleanor burst out of the crater and ran toward where Pavel had fallen.
Pavel lay on the ground, covered in blood, but still moving.
She struggled to get up, only to find her right arm completely unresponsive—the explosion had jarred her ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) shoulder.
"Don't move," Eleanor ran to her side, trying to help her up, "I'll carry you—"
"Careful."
Pavel's voice was muffled, but Eleanor heard it.
She turned back.
Although the ch had lost one leg, it hadn't completely lost combat capability.
Its upper body was still operational, and its right arm raised the steam warhamr.
And that warhamr was smashing down toward Eleanor.
Eleanor didn't have ti to dodge.
Her right leg had reached its limit during the previous run; she couldn't execute any effective evasion now.
She watched the warhamr descend, countless thoughts flashing through her mind—
Then, sothing knocked her aside.
It was Pavel.
With a surge of strength Eleanor didn't know she possessed, she shoved Eleanor aside with her injured body, and at the sa ti—
She aid the rifle in her hand at the junction between the ch's cockpit and the neck armor.
That was the weakest point of protection on the entire ch.
And the hardest spot to hit.
Before the warhamr could strike her, Pavel pulled the trigger.
Bang.
The bullet pierced that gap and shot into the cockpit.
Simultaneously, the warhamr slamd into Pavel's body.
It wasn't a direct hit, but a glancing blow from the side.
But even so, the force was enough to send a slender girl flying.
Pavel's body arced through the air, landing amidst the ruins a dozen ters away.
No movent.
"—!"
Eleanor struggled to stand up, trying to rush over.
But the ch was still moving.
Its right arm raised the warhamr, preparing for a second strike.
A groan ca from the cockpit—Pavel's shot hadn't killed the pilot, only severely wounded him.
But it wasn't enough.
Not enough to stop it.
Eleanor picked up the rifle Pavel had dropped.
She checked the magazine.
One round left.
Only one.
She took a deep breath and raised the gun.
The gap Pavel had shot earlier—now, due to the bullet penetration, a larger opening had ford.
It wasn't a seam anymore.
It was a hole.
Eleanor von Schwartz was never skilled at rifle shooting.
Her specialty was ch close combat, charging with a lance.
But at the Royal Knights Academy, her shooting scores had never dropped below ninety-nine points.
Never.
She aid at the hole.
Fire.
The bullet passed through the damaged armor and shot into the cockpit.
This ti, the groaning inside stopped completely.
The ch's arm dropped, the warhamr hitting the ground, kicking up the last bit of dust.
Then, everything went quiet.
...
Eleanor stumbled toward Pavel.
She fell twice; her right leg was completely unresponsive, but she still managed to crawl forward.
Pavel lay motionless in the ruins.
Her silver short hair was scattered across her face, her pale skin covered in blood and dust.
Her right arm was bent at an unnatural angle—dislocated, or worse.
There was a large bruise on her left ribcage, where the warhamr had grazed her.
Eleanor squatted down and hesitantly reached out to check Pavel's breathing.
There was breath.
Very faint, but present.
"Little Pa? Pavel!"
No response.
Eleanor gathered her into her arms, feeling again how incredibly light that body was.
Too light.
So light it hurt her heart.
"You idiot," Eleanor's voice trembled, "who told you to rush out and save again? Our deal is over, you don't owe anything, you—"
She couldn't continue speaking.
Because she rembered what Pavel had said.
"What's there to be afraid of when you're already dead?"
She truly wasn't afraid of death.
It wasn't an act; she genuinely, completely didn't care about her own life or death.
This realization sent a bone-deep chill through Eleanor.
Shouts ca from the distance.
"It's Lord schwartz! Lord schwartz!"
It was the soldiers from the Victoriana position.
The recent explosion and gunfire had finally alerted them.
Eleanor looked up and saw a squad of soldiers running toward them.
The leader was a young lieutenant whom she recognized—a man from the Third Knight Order.
"Lord schwartz, are you alright? We heard—"
The lieutenant approached, then stopped in his tracks.
He saw the girl in Eleanor's arms.
"My Lord, who is this...?"
Eleanor paused for a second.
In that second, countless thoughts flashed through her mind.
She could say this was a prisoner, an Usar prisoner, captured during the battle.
She could say this was an insignificant person, a civilian who happened to appear on the battlefield, whose rescue didn't matter.
She could say many things, each one making her situation simpler.
"This is my..."
She paused, her voice growing firm.
"This is my sister."
The lieutenant froze.
"Sister? But, Lord schwartz, your sister isn't—"
"An adopted daughter."
Eleanor looked up, eting the lieutenant's eyes with her ice-blue gaze.
"An adopted daughter of the Schwartz Family. Her na is..."
She looked down at the pale face in her arms.
Silver short hair, delicate features, a slender fra.
"Her na is Pavela. Pavela von Schwartz."
The lieutenant opened his mouth, wanting to say sothing.
But Eleanor's gaze made him swallow all his questions.
That was the look of the eldest daughter of the von Schwartz Family.
Indisputable, unchallengeable.
"Yes, My Lord. What are your orders?"
"Call the dics."
"The best dics, imdiately."
"Yes!"
The lieutenant turned and ran back toward the position.
Eleanor lowered her head, looking at the unconscious girl in her arms.
"Did you hear that?" she whispered, "From now on, you belong to the Schwartz Family.'"
"The dead can go anywhere, beco anyone—"
"You said that yourself.'"
The morning light grew brighter.
The Empire's flag fluttered in the distance.
And Eleanor von Schwartz walked toward her own camp, holding a 'dead person'.
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