After three days, the melee combat competition was finally going to be held. The last three days weren’t exactly peaceful.
『My name is Shunji Gaiden! I desire to have a bout with you!』
『My name is White Rose! I would like to have a duel with you! It does not matter whether you opt for a spar or a serious match!』
『Hiro-dono, let’s train! The rest of the imperial guards are waiting for us already! C’mon!』
Drawn Sword experts who didn’t manage to participate in the swordsmanship competition, a suspicious person who wore a gaudy white mask and costume with a rose motif, and disappointing beautiful female imperial knights… These people kept bugging me to either fight or train with them nonstop for the last three days. I already told you guys I’m busy preparing for the melee combat tournament, right!?
Or rather, you imperial guards! Yes, I’m talking to you guys! Why haven’t you thrown out that weirdo in a white mask and costume yet!? The heck are you guys doing!?
『Um, it’s because Michael– I mean White Rose-dono has no problem regarding his background.』
Hey, White Rose! Your true identity’s already been found out y’know.
『Please just treat it as if you haven’t heard anything. He is the mysterious swordsman White Rose. He most certainly has nothing to do with Duke Greizes. Are we clear?』
Ah, I see. So everybody’s seen through the good duke’s gaudy cosplay, but they just chose not to expose him huh. Or rather, they can’t.
『He’s basically not doing anything particularly vile… or rather, he’s actually a big help since he uses his own well-built information network to get rid of nobles who do bad deeds, so he’s sort of like a local hero around these parts. Though he does make quite a ridiculous mess of things at times, so we have to break our backs trying to clean up after him. Haha.』
I see. So they treat him like an elderly nobleman who makes blunders from time to time huh. But dukes really have a lot of power and influence huh. By the way, Mr. White Rose was knocked out by a maidroid who made a late appearance and brought out of the room. She was a cool-type maidroid who possessed a different temperament compared to Mei. I feel like White Rose and she will become good friends with each other.
I fended off the advances of such individuals while continuing to prepare for the melee combat competition. The prep work was surprisingly troublesome as well, and I had to make a list of what I would bring to the competition in advance and submit it for approval.
Well, since I had to do it, I might as well be thorough. I have a lot of stuff I want to have approved after all. The nice thing is that the imperial family will cover all the expenses for consumables such as grenades, ammunition, and energy packs. I’m gonna go ham and hand a huge invoice over to that f**king emperor!
…Nah, it’s no use. Yep, no use at all. Consumables for melee combat aren’t particularly expensive no matter how much you buy after all. At most, I’d be able to use up a few tens of thousands of Enels. Oh well. Let’s stop thinking of unnecessary stuff and do what we gotta do, shall we?
“Hiro-sama, are you okay?”
Mimi called out to me while looking up at my face with a worried gaze.
We were now inside the training facility that will serve as the competition venue for today. A large number of audience seats have been hurriedly installed within the building for the tournament, and the facility already resembled an indoor stadium.
Normally, public events like this one weren’t really supposed to be hosted by military training facilities, so there weren’t any pre-installed audience seats. Even though there weren’t any originally, they made full use of the training facility’s battlefield simulation capabilities in order to create the seats on short notice. Man, the scale of the empire’s methods really is something.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just thinking about what happened these past three days.”
“Ahaha…… It sure was hectic, wasn’t it?”
Mimi smiled bitterly and laughed it off, but even she had it rough since Princess Luciada invited her every day for tea as well. I wasn’t able to observe what happened at those tea parties all that much since I kept getting bothered by those idiots, but it looks like they were able to properly get along at least.
By the way, Elma had it the easiest out of the three of us. She would either quietly drink some tea while fiddling with her tablet terminal or join Mimi and Princess Luciada at their tea parties.
“I’m sure you won’t get yourself injured, but be careful anyway, okay?”
“Understood. I’ll properly look out for myself.”
Our opponents are combat bots after all. The energy cells they use for their power source might explode due to a badly placed hit or two, so I really do have to be careful. As for their armaments, it seems they were equipped with training weapons to avoid causing the participants any injuries.
“I’ll be going then. Let’s go, Mei.”
“Yes, Master.”
I left the participant’s waiting area with Mei in tow– but Elma suddenly got in our way.
“Just hold on a minute, you! Why are you taking Mei with you anyway?”
“Huh? But she’s part of my equipment y’know.”
“Hah?”
“Eh?”
Elma and Mimi widened their eyes in surprise.
“It’s finally time! It’s the second phase of the tournament, the melee combat competition! The rules are as explained earlier folks! The participants will use the equipment they brought in to break through extremely harsh battlefields! Of course, really careless decisions will be given a death penalty, and the participant’s challenge will end there. If both participants are given the death penalty, we will determine the final outcome through the difference in their scores!”
The announcer’s voice echoed throughout the training facility, and the audience – who were mostly nobles – cheered loudly in response. While that was going on, I stood by while wearing my personal power armor as I waited for the competition to begin with Mei and the other participants.
My equipment this time was my power armor, RIKISHI mk. III, along with my two new hatchet guns. And the weapon mount on the back was equipped with a standard plasma grenade launcher. This particular model was an auto-grenade launcher that fires using the power armor’s targeting system and was loaded with plasma grenades that cause super-heated plasma explosions. I’m planning on destroying most of the obstacles that will get in the way with this baby.
In addition, RIKISHI was equipped with a good number of fixed weapons such as shoulder-mounted laser guns. The hatchet guns I was gonna use for the first time today were close-combat weapons that doubled as laser shotguns.
“Now then, let’s check out the man of the hour, Captain Hiro himself…… Oh my. That sure is one evil-looking– I mean intimidating power armor folks.”
“Fumu, it’s a model I’ve never seen before. It’s a heavy-armored power type from the looks of it. Perhaps it’s specially built to counter other power armors.”
“I see. By the way, a maidroid is with him for some reason.”
“According to the materials I have on hand, he asked the tournament management committee if it was possible to bring in a maidroid as well three days ago. And after a thorough discussion, the committee saw no reason to refuse his request and granted it.”
“I see. I do think maidroids aren’t really suited for live combat though…… However, it looks like she’s carrying some pretty fearsome-looking weapons, isn’t she?”
Mei was carrying the laser launcher that was remodeled by the mechanic sisters. More specifically, she was carrying a modified laser launcher with a brutal feel to it. It seems she could freely use it as a close-range bludgeon without any problem. As a result of the mod, its weight was practically doubled, but it looks like Mei can wield it just fine. And, of course, the limiters placed on her were released, but just for the duration of the competition.
“That she is. It looks like he has quite a few female crew members on his ships, so the maidroid might have been specially customized to double as their bodyguard.”
“I see…… But if that’s the case, then why weren’t the other participants allowed to bring in combat bots themselves?”
“That’s because combat bots are expressly prohibited by the rules. It looks like Captain Hiro has successfully managed to take advantage of a loophole in the rules.”
The guest commentator, who seemed like a guy affiliated with the military, grinned wryly as he explained. Well, Mei ended up costing 470,000 Enels due to her extensive customization though. It goes even higher if you take into account her optional upgrades and other equipment. Honestly, you could probably buy a whole set of combat bots for that price. You can even buy a single specialized combat bot that would be able to somewhat exceed Mei’s performance specs with that kind of money. Spending so much to customize a maidroid that was originally more geared for domestic purposes probably seemed like a crazy idea to most folks.
“I don’t regret it one bit though.”
“Master?”
“No, it’s nothing. Let’s both do our best, Mei.”
“Yes, please leave it to me.”
“Haaaa!”
I repeatedly fired my hatchet guns and cleaned up the combat bots deployed on a passageway with laser scatter-shots.
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