Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume1 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 1===

Government Award 930, Golden Luxury.

Her real name was Azalea Magentarain. The girl seemed too delicate even for her young age of fourteen. She had smooth white skin, transparently blue eyes, and extremely long reddish blonde hair. Her ringlet curls were long enough to reach her waist.

She wore what looked like a business suit with a tight skirt, but it also had frills and lace in places. It was of course custom made. She would never be allowed to touch a premade product that could have been soaked with any number of strange chemicals.

She elegantly crossed her legs in the cargo space of a mid-sized vibration wing craft known as a Hornet.

A Hornet was an armored weapon meant for ground attacks and personnel transport in place of helicopters. It was fifteen meters long and it went without saying what its silicon shell was shaped to resemble. It was of course more than a hobby item. It used various deception weapons and its four rapidly vibrating wings created unique lifelike movements. It had achieved overwhelming results in tests, only being hit by one of fifty surface-to-air missiles and by zero of fifty air-to-air missiles.

Recently, Repliglass had been used for more than just military and construction purposes. A giant one hundred meter silicon core had been closed in a concrete box for a new type of power plant. It only consumed water and earth (or silicon waste like glass and silicone), so it was being touted as an environmentally friendly energy source. The lights decorating Toy Dream 35’s night came from the massive energy produced by that Repliglass core.

Inside that cutting-edge weapon, the girl held several colorful disks two centimeters thick and ten centimeters in diameter.

They were reels of silk ribbon.

“What do you think? If I want high speeds and am expecting a long match, then I think it would be best to shift the Blood-Sign’s center of gravity a little farther forward than normal and to make it a little thinner. I think #6 would be best.”

Her dignified voice resembled a Buddhist monk’s bell used to drive out impurities and its loveliness overwrote the surrounding atmosphere.

A single person was listening.

Due to its lifelike movements, the Hornet shook quite a bit, yet the old man in a suit stood perfectly straight.

He was her vessel and his name was Fractal Leskins.

Normally, vessels wore handcuffs, a collar, or other tools that bound them in order to avoid summoning something “unnecessary” beyond what their summoner ordered of them, but this old man wore nothing of the sort. Or rather, his suit itself was the symbol of the servitude binding him. It had grown that way over many long years.

“If you wish to suppress his movements with a series of swift attacks, I would suggest the thick, short, and heavy #5. Or if you would prefer to attack from outside his field of vision by avoiding obstacles with a spin, then what about #12?”

“No, if I’m going up against him, it’s going to be a frenetic battle from extreme close range. There will be no easy victory here. So don’t you think it would be best to take the time to build up the ideal form?”

“Ha ha. My aging eyes are no match for your discerning vision. Then I suppose #6 would be best.”

Azalea and Fractal could achieve a certain level of results in any environment, but they still had their preferences. They preferred a high speed battle in an urban environment. That was their territory.

The girl re-crossed her legs and did not even glance at the old man who respectfully lowered his head. This was nothing special. In Azalea Magentarain’s life, this was no different from drinking water or breathing oxygen. She did not think much of it, but she would be in trouble without it. That was who he was to her.

“Freedom Award 902, Alice (with) Rabbit, is it?”

“We only have a report from the men down below, so it could be a fake,” said Azalea while grabbing the pink reel labelled #6. “Still, it would be wise to be careful. And if it really is him, nothing could be better. It’s been so long since I had a satisfying battle.”

When using an Incense Grenade, summoners and vessels could not be seen by mechanical cameras and sensors. Precision GPS-guided bombs and cruise missiles could not be used for a surprise attack. That was why no unmanned devices were being used as the summoners’ eyes and ears. They were forced to rely on hearsay from their subordinates and they had to assume their target could vanish from the monitor at any moment.

However, Government’s infantry were not normal soldiers. They were all new summoners who had been late to acquire a vessel. A lot of them died before being promoted, but those that fought through a true battlefield without a vessel gained quite a bit of power. Those who knew fear and had conquered it were strong.

Tentatively deciding to trust the reports from those novices still going through their baptism of blood, Azalea brought the radio mic to her mouth.

She spoke to the Hornet’s pilot.

“What is the hold up? When are we going to reach the location in the report?”

“Our ETA is ten minutes from now.”

“Make it five. If you don’t, the five units in Block R will be wiped out.”

“B-but…”

She switched off the radio without waiting for the response and she spoke to the old man next to her.

“What is the meaning of this? I personally designed this Hornet and its speed and mobility are its selling points. Is it malfunctioning?”

“I am sorry to say it, but I believe they are worried that shaking the craft too much could harm you.”

“Ridiculous,” spat out Azalea Magentarain.

The old man gently continued.

“Four groups of Government Elites from Award 501 to 780 were deployed. Don’t you think they have enough pride to fulfill their roles?”

“You say that, but you don’t actually think they can win, do you?”

Azalea and Fractal were not simply looking down on their subordinates. She had more going for her than being from a wealthy family and being a high Award summoner.

Quad Motors was the world’s greatest defense contractor that supplied cutting-edge weaponry for all four branches of the American military. These two were deeply involved in the core of that corporation. They did not design tanks using the knowhow of the automobile industry. They designed them as weapons from the ground up.

Most of her family had intentionally left themselves at around Award 50 so they would not vanish from normal society while also properly perceiving summoners. High Award summoners like Azalea were an extreme exception for her family.

On top of that, her family was not technically an American power. Quad Motors had ruled the defense industry in place of the big names of the domestic automobile and aviation industries who had lost the ability to compete, but they were in fact a Trojan Horse sent by the Round Table, a European alliance of nobility, because they were unwilling to let those “newcomers” of the New World hold the position of the world police.

They were a family of unrepatriated golden birds of prey who had sharply honed military knowledge, development skills, and financial knowhow yet possessed the iron will needed to cast aside their position of nobility to secure American citizenship as immigrants, infiltrate the field of national defense, acquire political power, and achieve their goal.

For that reason, their opinions were surprisingly cold yet accurate.

“Award 501, Perfect Game. Award 590, Tricky AAA. Award 719, Diabolos. Award 780, Bloodbath Rhapsody. …They’re all useless. Especially 501. Is that supposed to be a joke? He probably only has a perfect record because he only ever finishes off the losers that another summoner let live. Can’t he at least die here?”

“We will arrive in ten minutes, but the units deployed there will be wiped out. So what should we do?”

“Hand it over.”

The old man immediately complied with the girl’s brief instruction. That summed up just how long the two had known each other.

The butler held out a giant tube made of layered plastic. It was 130 centimeters long and the bottom surface was equipped with a cushion for the shoulder.

Azalea did not hesitate to rest it on her shoulder and Fractal forcefully slid open the cargo door on the Hornet’s side.

A chilly night wind struck the girl’s delicate body, but she did not even flinch. In fact, she gained a challenging look of fierce joy.

She stared at one point of the night scenery and spoke to the pilot over the radio.

“Sorry, but it looks like I will have to make up for everyone’s incompetence.”

The giant tube was in fact an 80mm ''grenade'' launcher.

And if a summoner was going to put all of her trust in a single projectile, it could only be one thing.

She rested the launcher on her shoulder and smoothly whispered under her breath.

“Oh, White Queen who guides us to victory in extraordinary battles, please save this fragile human soul.”