Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume3 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 11===

Letnahe Kurent was dumbfounded.

The bespectacled silver-haired, brown-skinned soldier forgot to even breath as she viewed the data displayed in the floating general airport’s control tower.

Her tea had gone cold.

“The Threat…”

She squeezed her trembling right hand in her left.

But she was not the type to look away from the reality before her eyes.

She located the most crucial piece of information and read it aloud.

“The Threat might have units capable of surviving a nuke?”

“We haven’t tested it, so we can’t say for sure.” The Student Council President looked entirely calm. “But with that sea urchin and lion, there are far more varieties here than we saw in the decoys at the Crystal Beach. They have more distinct roles. For example, there was a hippo-like Threat that is so specialized for defense it shrugged off a direct hit from the Sparkle’s laser at the Port of Kobe. Not to mention the lion-like Sparkle itself. Wielding that much energy means it must have some means of containing that much energy inside it. And I can only imagine there are ''tons more'' Threats we have yet to see.”

“B-but with the destructive power of the Pinaka III…!!”

“It won’t work. The Sparkle’s lasers have an instantaneous temperature that appears to exceed that of a nuclear reaction. Since we haven’t heard of any of them being properly destroyed, we can assume they do not just charge in with overwhelming numbers like the decoys did. They understand their individual roles and they monitor the situation so they can cover for each other’s weaknesses when need be. So they will likely do the same with a nuke.”

Kyouka spoke bluntly and clearly to ensure the soldier could understand even after her thoughts partially ground to a halt.

“And have you forgotten that the Threat will devour their own destroyed allies to endlessly customize themselves? That has been confirmed among the real ones with the water strider and jellyfish types seen earlier. Nukes are powerful, but they would leave behind a mixture of defeated Threats and surviving Threats. The amount of damage will differ depending on their individual strength, how close to the center of the blast they are, whether they are alone or gathered together, the terrain, and what kind of battle formation they take. The Threat is not a giant kaiju – it is a great army. If there is any discrepancy in the scope of the damage and even one survives, the hellish customization will begin. I would rather not imagine what would be born from that pile of rubble. What about you?”

“…”

“We can take advantage of their customization with the poisoning tactic that inserts a bomb or virus in the destroyed remains, but a nuke would leave so many remains behind that we would have a hard time ‘poisoning’ them all. The best way to do that is to make a pinpoint attack and prevent the remains from being taken back to the others. That requires swift movement and high firepower, but it also requires a check to make sure they really were destroyed and the nimbleness to ‘poison’ them at the same time. That means those of us wearing crystal armor are best suited for it. A nuke or any other wide-scale attack that spreads its power unevenly would only give them the chance to grow.”

“Y-you must be joking.”

Letnahe’s voice was trembling.

What emotion was burning in her heart: anger, impatience, or fear?

Whatever the case, she exploded once the tremor reached a certain point.

“You have to be joking!! You expect me to believe Crystal Magic is some convenient cure-all here? When you haven’t managed to defeat even one of them? If those kids fighting out there can’t do it, who are you saying ''can'' destroy them!?”

“I am a Main Category Regulation 3,” smoothly replied the President. “I doubt the dimensional leap ability would be enough on its own. Anyone who reaches their third year in our high school learns that technique, after all. No, it needs to be ''someone who assumes anything can happen in combat and prepares for the worst'' even after reaching that level. That may be something that no one can learn from a textbook, but the opportunity is there for everyone. The Four Living Gods are not the only ones to have seen hell, after all.”

“You can’t expect someone like that to just conveniently exist.”

“But they do. I’ve already found one.” Omotesandou Kyouka could see a single ray of hope. “There were VR goggles on the fancy plane we took on the way here.”

“?”

“That was convenient enough, so I played a sparring match against Karuta-kun. Using my parameters from when I was in my prime.”

Letnahe gasped. She was the one and only Regulation 3 in the world. In her prime, she had been a completed form of the strongest that was nowhere to be found anymore. But the true shock was yet to come.

“How do you think that turned out? ''Karuta-kun defeated me. Without using Aine-chan.''”

“How!?”

“He took advantage of a bug. He baited me into using my dimensional leap, causing my VR avatar to freeze. As soon as he noticed he could not summon Aine-chan in the VR, he realized there were things the simulator could not reproduce and put together a plan built around that. And then I couldn’t move.”

Silence followed.

The President grinned at the brown-skinned soldier whose mouth flapped wordlessly.

“Ah ha ha. That wouldn’t even occur to you normally, would it? You would look at Crystal Magic’s real abilities and try to plan a way to defeat me at the peak of my abilities. But not him. He viewed the conditions of the battle on a higher level. …When fighting the Threat, you can’t let your assumptions get the better of you. You can’t win using the standard processes. If you can’t look at things from a different angle, all your efforts are nothing more than running down a path leading straight to destruction. Just like your nuclear attack would only help the Threat grow.”

“…”

“It was the same with the Problem Solvers and with the decoy Threat. ''He has the ability to defeat powerful opponents he should not be able to defeat.'' And he is pulling it off again here.”

The only report of a destroyed Threat was the two that destroyed each other on the ocean. It had happened so quickly that he did not seem to realize how great a feat he had accomplished, but the President could see the hope presented there.

“Karuta-kun was the first to pull it off, but the possibility exists for everyone. Our students panicked when the decoy Threat attacked, but not so against the real ones here. What changed? I think it is because they can see their home here. When focused on a positive goal, people can think, put together a plan, and reach for it. Unlike the Threat that focuses on their negative deficiencies and tries to make up for those to grow stronger.” 

She seemed to be criticizing the adults for using the nuclear Pinaka III as a joker meant to make up for their own deficiencies, but she also seemed to be expressing some sorrow about herself.

She stuck out her tongue as she added one more thing.

“But I’m their wicked big sister, so I doubt I can believe in the same dream they do.”

That boy was the only person with fully separate Crystal Magic.

He was a true abnormality who had succeeded in controlling a Crystal Blossom without relying on an existing god’s name. That extraordinary boy was struggling every day and worried if he could ever improve, yet he already stood in a position that Omotesandou Kyouka had failed to reach even after mastering “proper” Crystal Magic.

She never wanted to betray him.

Even as she hid that weaker side like a girl pining for the prince in a picture book.

What was she hoping to gain with this smile?

“If he has the true talent required to break free of Grimnoah’s ranking system and become a Category Error, then I know he can find an opening here.”