Gundam: A Gundam Enthusiast's Journey with a Mecha Girl

However, Kira was very concerned about Raven's fighting style of "only taking away the opponent's fighting ability without destroying the opponent".

But to achieve that level, you definitely need to put in a lot of effort.

"Thank you, teacher. However, I still want to resolve my matter with Aslan myself. But, if you have time, could you perhaps conduct more mock battles with me? I need to practice a lot more to use the combat methods you just mentioned on the battlefield!"

Kira's tone was less confused, and his eyes gradually became more determined.

But looking at Kira's expression, Raven suddenly realized that a casual remark he made seemed to have flipped a switch on Kira.

'Is Kira's path of becoming a human puppet starting here?'

Chapter Twelve: Graves in the Universe

PLANT, the highest council meeting room in the country.

PLANT Defense Committee Chairman and Supreme Council Member Patrick Sala is delivering a passionate speech at the meeting.

"We must never forget that bloody Valentine's Day, the tragedy of Julius VII! 243,721 people—a year has passed since the tragedy of losing so many of our compatriots. We made many efforts to end the war as soon as possible, but the natural man has made our efforts futile!"

On the screens in front of the attending members of parliament, combat footage of the Dagger and Assault, filmed by ZAFT forces at the front lines, was being played repeatedly.

Faced with the Dagger and the Assault, ZAFT's main force, MS King, was powerless to resist. All members of the High Council realized that the situation of the war was quietly changing and a tense atmosphere was brewing.

Patrick's speech and his concerns about the war situation swayed even moderate lawmakers who advocated for limiting the scale of the war to support the bill to increase military spending. Ultimately, the bill was passed by Speaker Siegel Klein.

Ultimately, Siegel was a leader of the moderates, not the surrender faction; he did not want ZAFT to be defeated by the Earth Alliance.

However, this would undoubtedly mean a further expansion of the scale of the war, which is definitely not a good thing for PLANT, a country with scarce human resources.

and……

Siegel glanced at Patrick.

This comrade-in-arms who once fought alongside him for PLANT independence became increasingly fanatical after his wife was tragically killed in the Junius 7 incident, and the atmosphere within PLANT became increasingly extreme under his instigation.

Siegel did not rule out using war to achieve his goals when necessary, but war could only be a means, not an end.

The current atmosphere, however, made him increasingly worried. When the right time for a ceasefire arrived, Siegel was no longer certain whether the war could end as he wished.

Sitting in a corner of the conference room as a witness, seemingly detached from the world, Kruse took in the starkly contrasting expressions of Siegel and Patrick and smiled with pleasure.

The pointer, a symbol of destruction, is slowly approaching its end.

-----------------

Having temporarily escaped pursuit, the Archangel is currently anchored outside the Junius 7 wreck zone.

Following Raven's advice, the Archangel did not travel to the nearby Artemis Fortress for support and supplies, but instead headed directly for lunar orbit.

However, this would force the Archangel to face a shortage of supplies on board.

As the newest and most advanced warship of the Earth Alliance, the Archangel should theoretically have such poor self-sufficiency. However, the Archangel has taken in a lot of refugees and set sail hastily before replenishing its supplies, which has led to its current predicament.

At Mu's suggestion, the Archangel sent a workboat into the Junius 7 wreckage zone to collect usable supplies.

Assault and Dagger, acting as escorts for the workboat, also entered the wreckage zone.

The short sword, damaged in the previous battle, has been restored to its former glory thanks to the efforts of Raven and the maintenance team.

Not only were his damaged left arm and right leg repaired, but he also had a 94mm high-energy choke rifle and a 350mm anti-armor shotgun installed on his shoulders. In order to supply these two power-hungry weapons, Raven installed two small battery packs on both sides of the main thruster.

However, this additional equipment reduced the short sword's mobility. To address this, Raven added new thrusters to the outside of the lower legs of the machine to ensure the short sword's maneuverability.

This modification significantly enhances the short sword's firepower to handle situations where the user is outnumbered. However, the trade-off is that the short sword cannot use the three types of assault backpacks unless these temporary additional equipment are removed.

Raven was certainly aware of this flaw, but the limitations of the assault backpack forced him to do so.

After all, there is only one set of empty backpacks that are most suitable for MS battles, and it should be given priority to the Strike Rifle. The other two backpacks are too restrictive.

In the previous battle, the Dagger equipped with a sword-mounted backpack managed to wound Duel and Storm by utilizing the debris floating in the combat zone. After ZAFT reacted, the firing of Duel and Lightning alone effectively blocked the Dagger from initiating close combat. Later, when Raven was rescuing Kira from a three-on-one situation, if El hadn't overloaded his mind, instantly increasing the mobile suit's response speed, Raven would undoubtedly have been shot down on the spot.

Therefore, in order to avoid being unilaterally suppressed by the enemy, Raven made this modification to the short sword. Although the modification was quite a lot of work, by utilizing the pre-installed assault backpack interfaces in various parts of the short sword, Raven completed the modification in just a few days.

Besides modifying the short sword, Raven also took this time to complete the initial debugging of the natural human OS.

In some ways, this is a more important task than modifying the short sword.

Now, Raven is using the escort workboat as an opportunity to conduct operational tests on the short sword.

The short sword's silhouette moved nimbly among the wreckage, but unlike before, Raven now completely controlled the short sword's movements.

[Leg thrusters #1 and #2 are functioning normally. Shoulder weapons #1 and #2 are powered without issue, and the aiming system and main monitor are working in sync.]

"Hmm, it seems that the newly installed equipment is running normally and its performance has fully met the design standards. The trial-run OS is also normal. In this way, you can save a lot of computing power from the real-time calculation of the machine's movements, El."

That's true, but if I intervene in the machine's movements, the smoothness of the machine's actions can be improved by another 20%.

"20%? It seems there's still room for optimization in this OS. Never mind that for now, the next test is... uh, live-fire test?"

[Raven, shall we begin now?]

"forget it."

Raven unusually interrupted the test. Normally, he would be flying around in his short sword, full of excitement, but today he seemed rather uninterested.

A year ago, this region of space was home to an agricultural satellite called Junius 7, but now it has become a giant graveyard.

On that day, countless nuclear bombs struck the hourglass-shaped colony. The violent energy released by the nuclear explosions tore the colony apart in just a few minutes, killing all 24 people living inside Junius 7.

Raven felt he would be punished for conducting live-fire tests in a place like this.

And just like before in Heliopolis, Raven felt a slight throbbing in his head, and the cries of the victims of the Junius VII incident echoed in his ears.

'That feeling again.'

After Raven experienced these symptoms last time, the ship's doctor diagnosed him with hallucinations caused by stress and fatigue, and prescribed him some sleeping pills.

But Raven's current symptoms clearly don't indicate that.

Raven's unpleasant expression did not escape El's notice.

[Raven, are you feeling unwell?]

"I'm fine, I just have a bit of a headache."

[Lack of sleep?]

"Probably."

Raven took off his helmet and rubbed his swollen temples.

"Raven, if you have time, could you make me a human-sized body?"

"Of course, no problem. This is a rare request from you, and I'll do it for you as soon as I have time. But, may I ask why?"

[I'm a little curious about what it feels like to have a body that can move freely. And, knowing your personality, Raven, once you get engrossed in your work, you become oblivious to everything around you, and without reminders, you can't even take care of your own body. If I'm gone, you might just work until you pass out.]

Although the words were spoken in an emotionless electronic voice, Raven still felt a warmth rise in his heart.

[Besides, I'm a little... alone in the hangar.]

"Huh? What did you just say, El?"

El's voice suddenly became softer, and Raven couldn't hear what she said.

It's nothing, probably just noise from the machine running.

"Noise? Fine. Anyway, I'll keep the new body in mind, so just look forward to it."

But as soon as Raven finished speaking, a faint sense of hostility suddenly appeared in Raven's mind, and then the alarm sounded throughout the cockpit of the short sword.

[ZAFT MS spotted ahead.]

[Model: Armed Reconnaissance Type Kim Eun, Quantity: 1.]

Chapter 13 begins, and then you pick up the pink-haired songstress.

"Reconnaissance officer King? Is he here looking for the Archangel?"

Upon hearing the news of the enemy, Raven forcibly suppressed the unease that welled up in his heart and manipulated his short sword to hide behind the wreckage.

The reconnaissance aircraft flew around the wreckage of a civilian spaceship, seemingly checking on its condition.

"The wreckage of that spaceship looks very new; it must have been sunk recently. Is Reconnaissance Agent King's target that spaceship?"

[Raven, should we attack?]

"Wait a minute."

Regardless of the enemy's purpose, the reconnaissance aircraft Jin had not yet detected them, and launching an attack at this time would be tantamount to alerting the enemy.

Therefore, Raven did not rush to fire, but the reconnaissance officer King noticed the workboats moving around and raised his electromagnetic sniper rifle at them.

The locked alarm blared throughout the workboat's cockpit, and Raven's communication channels were instantly filled with cries for help.

We can't wait any longer.

"El, initiate ballistic correction, and also keep an eye on data collection."

Raven pulled over the high-precision firing sight in the cockpit, and the beam cannon newly installed on the shoulder of the short sword began to charge.

Although the short sword is not equipped with a sensor of the same specifications as the Storm, and its accuracy at long distances is not as good as the Storm, it is still sufficient for the current distance.

The moment the enemy plane aligned with the crosshair, Raven pulled the firing button.

The emerald green beam arrived in an instant. The ambushed reconnaissance officer, Kim, had no time to dodge, and his gun-wielding arm disappeared into the beam.

The reconnaissance officer Jin finally realized that something was wrong and decisively began to make irregular maneuvers, trying to interfere with the aim of the short sword and take the opportunity to retreat.

But Raven had no intention of letting him off the hook.

Al quickly completed the calibration, and Raven decisively pressed the fire button. This time, the beam accurately hit the torso of the reconnaissance-type King.

Seeing the fireworks of the MS explosion in the distance, Raven let out a long sigh of relief and leaned back in his chair.

Although he had shot down the enemy plane, Raven felt no joy whatsoever. The discomfort that had just been forcibly suppressed surged up again, and in Raven's ear, he seemed to hear the dying voice of King, the pilot who had just been shot down.

"This is absolutely terrible."

But before Raven could process this indescribable emotion, something that looked like an escape pod floated into his field of vision.

'Wait, this can't be...'

A wrecked civilian spaceship, a reconnaissance agent named King searching for something, and an escape pod.

Raven felt like he knew who was in the escape pod.

"Could it be such a coincidence?"

-----------------

Some time later, in a private cabin on the Archangel.

“My name is Lux Klein, and this is my friend, Hello.”

Lux picked up the small toy robot in her hands with her signature kind smile, completely oblivious to the fact that she was on an enemy warship.

Looking at the pink-haired girl with her innocent and carefree demeanor, Maru couldn't help but sigh and cover her forehead, which was beginning to ache.

While the surname Klein may not be a household name, anyone with even a slight interest in politics will certainly know the name of Siegel Klein, the current president of PLANT.

Maru remembered the name of the PLANT Chairman's daughter, which happened to be Lacus Clyne. Thinking about this, Maru felt a headache coming on.

If this girl is indeed Siegel Klein's daughter, it will undoubtedly bring countless troubles to the Archangel, whether from enemy forces or friendly forces.

Out of a sense of wishful thinking, Maru asked.

"What is your relationship with Siegel Klein?"

"Oh, it's my father. Do you know him?"

Even the usually composed Bakirulu couldn't help but sigh and glance at Raven standing to the side.

Why do you MS pilots always have the habit of picking up items on the battlefield?

Although she didn't say it aloud, the resentment emanating from her eyes was fully conveyed to Raven.

“Don’t look at me like that, Lieutenant Bucky Lulu. I only salvaged the wrecked escape pod out of humanitarian reasons. I didn’t know it contained Chairman PLANT’s daughter.”

However, despite Raven's explanation, he actually knew better than anyone who was in the escape pod.

"I am very sorry for the trouble I have caused you all, Mr. Raven as well. I am sorry for the trouble I have caused you."

Upon hearing Raven's words, Lux politely stood up and apologized to everyone, which made the crew of the Archangel feel somewhat embarrassed.

Maru quickly coughed and continued the conversation.

"As the daughter of the PLANT Chairman, why have you come to this space region?"