Chrome Shelled Regios

Chapter 6: Scarlet pride

A bad feeling made him irritated and impatient.

"......Uh."

Someone collapsed on the ground, underneath the trees by the entrance of the Mechanical Department. Gorneo went down to check on the person. She was the Psychokinesist of the 17th platoon, named Felli, who had unashamedly drawn Layfon into the Military Arts course. He felt her forehead. She had only fainted.

"Looks like she hasn't gone overboard."

He was worried when he saw Shante and this girl arguing.

"Geez, she's not that little anymore!"

As if a beast was living temporarily inside her, sometimes Shante acted in a way unfitting for a Military Artist. This had given Gorneo a headache.

Shante was an orphan, a point that made her similar to Layfon. Unfortunately, she had lived for a long time under the care of non-humans. Erupa, an enormous city-like forest, specialized in raising livestock. In its possession were many different kinds of animals, and Erupa sold information to other cities on the best breeds of animals it had. Among this colossal number of animals in the city, some of them had escaped the eyes of the management and lived in hiding in the deeper parts of the forest.

Although no one knew whether Shante's biological mother abandoned her in the forest, but when the Wild Animal Investigation Unit found Shante, the young girl was already hunting alongside her "other" mother, a beast. Her ability in Kei had allowed her to live together with these animals that hunted for food.

The Military Artists in the Investigation Unit took Shante away from the forest, gave her a name, and educated her together with other humans. Yet, for someone who had been living with wild animals, she was lacking some decisive factor that would allow her to naturally fit in the human world. In the end, she was delivered to Zuellni like someone unwanted.

Gorneo knew what the lacking factor was. Shante had been raised by wild animals. The concept of trading labor for food was nonexistent for her. In the five years since Gorneo had entered school, he had been looking after her. Only recently did he manage to turn her way of thinking back onto the right track, but that was only thanks to Shante's hunting instinct and her place in the platoon. Wild animals hunted in packs. A platoon was similar to a pack for her, keeping her entrenched in the way of animals.

"Damn. It was my mistake to tell her about Layfon."

He laid Felli down neatly and entered the Mechanical Department, jumping in through the hole in the floor of the lift. It wasn't easy to climb down the cable, but that was probably the same for Shante.

Because of Gorneo, Shante had marked Layfon as the enemy. Although Gorneo had explained to her about Layfon's past, she still had been waiting for a chance to hunt down the enemy. The narrow space inside the Mechanical Department, a place where movements were made difficult, was the best hunting ground for her. She thought she could definitely defeat Layfon here.

"Damn."

What a naive way of thinking.

Raised by wild animals, Shante's patterns of thought and action were different from other Military Artists, making her unpredictable. Gorneo taught her variations in Kei because it suited her, and she had proven her suitability, but......

"She can't defeat him at her level."

He knew the level of a Heaven's Blade successor. He understood it more than anyone else, because since birth, he had been around the person who later became a Heaven's Blade successor.

"Does she want to die?"

He prayed as he descended through the darkness.

Layfon couldn't see anything after taking off the helmet, but he couldn't have seen anything with it either since Felli's reinforcement was gone.