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“What?”
Though he’d been in the midst of apologizing, Livy was caught off guard slightly by Claude’s words and stopped speaking mid-sentence.
“The Pure-Hued Lady is not special. As long as I have the necessary resources, I can always remake it.” Claude looked dead serious. “However, the one who is irreplaceable is you… if you were lost, then everything will have been for naught.”
The roar of artillery fire reverberated overhead. The air quaked with every blast, but Claude’s voice was distinctly subdued, as if he was simply stating a truth.
“Ha……don’t be like this. I’ll become conceited.” Livy realized he was always afraid of this serious side of Claude. More specifically, he was afraid of Claude’s gaze, which seemed capable of congealing an entire space and halting all of his movements.
“Please have more patience.”
Just as Claude was about to step toward him, Livy suddenly spun around.
“I’m going to find my original fighter; while I can wait for the Pure-Hued Lady to reach her optimal state, that doesn’t mean I have to stop fighting.” Livy paused. “You know what? Only when those alien pigs disappear from my sight forever and when I don’t have to live in a fortress city where I can never see the sky will I be able to realize my dream.”
“Your dream?” Claude smiled thinly, “I thought your dream was to fool around with all the women in K11.”
“My dream is to one day swim in the sea.” With these perfunctory words, Livy exited from Claude’s sight.
The battle had entered a tense phase. Many warplanes were returning for maintenance. Livy arrived at the channel where his Blue Crisis was parked, pressed a button, and — within ten seconds — welcomed the sound of the repair team and mechanics running in.
Chrisley, seeing Livy, was a little shocked: “Little rascal, why are you here?”
“Is this not my warplane?” Livy jabbed his thumb back at the Blue Crisis behind him.
“I thought you would only pilot the Pure-Hued Lady in the future!”
Dummy Novels, TL by Lucia Rose (ko-fi.com/luciarose)
“But, you still kept this jet in such good condition? Looks like all the offensive weapons are fully equipped, and the only thing left is to fill it up with oxygen.”
“I just wanted to wait until you were famous; then this warplane would gain a high value as a collectible — that is, as the jet Livy Van Perle, the pilot of the Pure-Hued Lady, once flew!” While bantering with Livy, Chrisley skillfully prepared the warplane for battle.
“Chrisley, you just knew that one day I would still need it.” Livy lifted the hatch and entered the cabin.
In an automated voice, the system began to confirm the equipment was in place and the oxygen tank was fully replenished.
Three seconds later, Livy’s Blue Crisis shot out of the passageway, jamming itself into the crossfire of the battle.
※※※
His current speed couldn’t even be compared to that of the Pure-Hued Lady. In a state that was less than that of the enemy, all he could rely on were skill and complicated loops to throw off the other side while looking for opportunities to attack.
This was a mass battle royale, and what made it even more ridiculous was the fact that K11 and St. Louis had dispatched fifty warplanes yet were still being played by the enemy’s dozen or so ‘flying machines’.
Amidst this chaos, Livy was able to locate Leslie’s presence in a single glance because his superior flying skills were not easy to imitate. Zipping through the enemy’s artillery fire, Livy and Leslie flew side by side.
<b>“Hey, Leslie.”</b> Livy was a little excited; he suddenly wanted to know what kind of effect he and Leslie would have if they worked together.
<b>“Hey, slug.”</b> Though Leslie’s tone seemed to perpetually be encased in ice, Livy was nevertheless able to detect within the other’s frozen voice a hint of emotion.
Flying in a large loop, Livy left a furiously approaching alien airship to Leslie, while Leslie drew close to Livy in parallel flight. Both pilots fired a missile in tandem, only at different angles. One missile forced the enemy into the trajectory of another missile, and the sound of the explosion was particularly pleasant.
<b>“Why didn’t you come out with your Pure-Hued Lady?”</b> Leslie deftly dodged a stray missile.
<b>“I wanted to be on equal footing with you.”</b> Livy laughed lightly, <b>“It’s unpleasant for us to be chased by the enemy like this; should we take the initiative?”</b>
<b>“Okay.”</b> Leslie turned his jet around and sped off towards an alien craft that was firing at them a little too happily.
Livy followed closely behind Leslie in spiral flight, continuously helping him to disrupt the enemy, and the duo’s improvised dance dazzled the eyes of all who beheld it.
In the control room, Lieutenant General Montel looked at the scene on the screen and couldn’t help but ask, “Who are the pilots controlling those two fighters?”
“Livy Van Perle and Leslie Lucrécy.”
“Livy? Isn’t he supposed to be flying the Pure-Hued Lady?” Lieutenant General Montel frowned, and the sound of anxious footsteps soon rose up from behind him.
“That b*st*rd really ran out! Is it so hard for him to sit still?!” Miller’s fair face was red with anger, but his tightly clenched fists betrayed his trepidation as he watched Livy and Leslie zig-zagging back and forth across the dark sky.
Every couple of milliseconds, Leslie fired a missile at the enemy. He seemed pretty relaxed, but if he missed, Livy would be blown to smithereens.
“What do they think they’re doing—” Miller was about to freak out.
Lieutenant General Montel, however, only chuckled, “They are now the most perfectly-matched pair of fighters inside the entire K11 and St. Louis Air Bases.”
“But Livy, he should know how special he is to K11; even without the Pure-Hued Lady, he can’t just go out with the Blue Crisis! The Blue Crisis’s speed is only ninety percent that of the aliens! A little bit of inattentiveness and……”
Dummy Novels, TL by Lucia Rose (ko-fi.com/luciarose)
Miller was cut off by Montel before he could finish.
“Young man, I do believe Second Lieutenant Van Perle possesses an exceptional sense of responsibility. This sense of responsibility lies in the fact that he never forgets who he is — a fighter pilot. Regardless of what type of fighter he flies, he is never afraid to face his enemy head on, and that is what makes him invaluable as a fighter pilot, not his ability to fly a certain type of fighter.” While Montel was speaking, Livy and Leslie took down another alien airship.
The entire control room erupted in applause.
On the contrary, Miller’s heart was trembling in fear.
“That guy… it’s not because of a pilot’s sense of duty…… he’s just a risk-taker.” Miller muttered.
While Claude, who was in Zone Z, was still debugging the system’s data, a sudden and violent sound was heard overhead; it was such that all the researchers could not help but look up.
“A warplane must have crashed atop the fortress. Everyone, do not worry and continue working.” Claude calmly instructed his team.
Maurice handed a cup of coffee to him, “No need to cover up your worry with busyness. It’s a messy war out there.”
“If you were sincere in not wanting me to worry, you wouldn’t have told me the war out there was chaotic.” Claude did not reach for the cup of coffee but instead walked aimlessly to the other side, as if he did not want to waste his breath on Maurice.
But Maurice trailed after him and put his arm on Claude’s shoulder, “Why does it feel like Livy joining the fray is troubling you more than one of our fighters being struck down by the enemy?”
“Now that everyone is laboring over the Pure-Hued Lady, please put more thought into the system’s settings as well, Lieutenant Colonel Maurice.”
“I don’t even know if Livy will survive this melee. If he croaks, you’ll have to restart your search for a fighter pilot. Then, the system will have to be retuned again, and all my efforts will have been in vain. So, I’ll wait for the kid to come back before exerting myself. It’s not in my book to do useless work.” Maurice looked around and, finding that this overly serious environment really did not suit him, left with his coffee. <sup>1</sup> [Lucia]: My dear Lieutenant Colonel, Claude is never going to buy your beer again. (≧▽≦)
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At that moment, Livy was immersed in a new kind of excitement; he had never felt so happy.
Unlike the Air Force Academy’s warfare techniques, which were flashy yet without substance and pointlessly emphasized useless things such as battle formation and timing, in this melee, he didn’t even need to communicate with Leslie for the other side to completely understand his intentions and be able to anticipate his next moves.
Soon, a dozen alien craft had been whittled down to six or seven.
Good pilots are capable of turning the tides of battle in their favor. Such were the words frequently uttered by a certain professor of the Air Force Academy. Livy begged to differ, but at least now he somewhat concurred.
Just as K11 and St. Louis were secretly rejoicing in the fact that the scales of victory had begun to tip in their favor, there was a humming in the air which grew progressively louder, and this was followed by a swarm of aircraft flying at high speeds and coming their way.
More alien invaders were soon spotted by those in the control room.
“Lieutenant General Montel, enemy reinforcements have arrived, a total of……” the liaison officer looked toward the lieutenant general behind him; his previously elated face instantly turned heavy, “twenty-two in all.”
The entire control room fell silent.
“Call all warplanes to return to base. There is no resource mineral more important than our pilots.” Lieutenant General Montel clenched the cane in his hand, “Absolutely. No. Unnecessary. Sacrifices.”
The command was sent out, and all fighters retreated at full speed.
<b>“Alas, we’re outnumbered; looks like we have to go home, Leslie!”</b> Livy whistled, receiving a cold snort of disdain from Leslie.
Dummy Novels, TL by Lucia Rose (ko-fi.com/luciarose)
The warplanes in the sky were like meteors tearing through the black night; all the landing ways were open, and the expected return time was twelve seconds.
But, in those twelve seconds, one of the alien craft that had been preparing to rendezvous with the backup suddenly shot out a missile which cut through two adjacent friendly fighters and headed straight for Leslie.
<b>“Look out—”</b> Livy’s mind seemed to go in slow motion. The incident was so sudden that it caught Leslie off guard. With quick movements, he tried to avoid it, but……
Just as Leslie’s eyes were wide open thinking he would be hit, Livy’s fighter was suddenly staged between him and the missile.
<b>‘Boom—’</b> An ear-splitting shockwave was transmitted through the air.
Leslie pirouetted in time to see Livy’s warplane folding its wings, falling rapidly towards the ground. In this gap, two enemy aircraft did not forget to swoop in for the easy pickings.
Leslie promptly circled around the two enemy planes and shot them down.
All Blue Crises were equipped with a last-resort protection mechanism that would automatically be activated once their main bodies were critically hit. A rescue cabin would be ejected, forming an airtight protection seal around its precious cargo and allowing a shock buffer at the time of landing.
Though these rescue cabins had temperature tolerances between two thousand to three thousand degrees Celsius, their oxygen reserves could only last twenty minutes.
Along with his fighter jet, Livy’s heart was also falling in a downward spiral; less than half a second later, he was in his sealed rescue pod.
This type of situation was something that could only be experienced in the Air Force Academy’s simulation system. In reality, once the emergency mechanism was activated, the sure-fire outcome was death in action, because rarely could a battle be won in twenty minutes and even rarer would allied fighters have the luxury to rescue their comrades while in the midst of an all-out war.
This was especially true for a day like today, in which Livy was hit during an evacuation.
<b>T/N:</b> Oof. Livy has the worst luck, doesn’t he? >.< Still, I’m happy we get to witness another battle — I think the author is good at writing action-packed scenes. (●’◡’●)
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@ Found at https://dummynovels.com TL by Lucia Rose
( https://ko-fi.com/luciarose )
1
[Lucia]: My dear Lieutenant Colonel, Claude is never going to buy your beer again. (≧▽≦)