Huckebein – Villainous Bird
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Translator: SFBaka
Editor: Thor’s Stone
「I was sent to the Nemesis system about thirty years ago. Those were pretty tough times.」
「What happened back then?」
「The local inhabitants of Asia were fighting it out with the Murders using work Silhouettes armed with makeshift spears and iron pipes. The Familiars fought while driving construction vehicles armed with mere spear guns. This is all regardless of the Murders firing laser cannons at them.」
「I was told the people decided to abandon any semblance of military power when they first woke up in this world.」
「It looked like it was only a matter of time before humanity was eventually cornered and subdued. Planet Libya was quickly brought down, and their main forces immediately went to attack Europa. Due to us transferees, their advance on Asia stalled, but things developed into a precarious deadlock.」
「I heard the transferees managed to develop various weapons.」
「That’s right. Fortunately, due to their Whis-powered dimensional projection armor, Silhouettes were pretty tough, if nothing else. Hence, it was possible to bring enemies down as long as you had the numbers. The Enyos proved pretty troublesome. The Silhouette-use greatswords were developed and manufactured specifically for dealing with them.」
As they walked along, Kurt told Kou about his experiences when he first got transferred to Asia.
Kou regarded it as a valuable discussion. So he made sure to listen intently. Aki followed after the two of them from behind and recorded their conversation.
「I thought that if you directly dropped something with mass like that to a Fortress Area, it would get destroyed in a single blow.」
「Such attack attempts on Fortress Areas and Defense Domes were thwarted by satellite cannons. Though the system’s original purpose was actually a meteor impact prevention measure.」
「There’s actually such a system……?」
「Indeed. There’s a hypothesis that the red dwarf Nemesis was a star that caused a huge meteoroid to hurtle to Earth from the Oort cloud 26 million years ago. Meteor groups do exist and often rain down on the surrounding planets. Hence, humanity can only live within giant shelters. However, thanks to that, they were able to put up a resistance against the Stone’s forces.」
「Does that mean that direct attacks on shelters are always prevented?」
「Yes. Okeanos also watches out against NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) weapons. Those are designated as doomsday weapons, and the Stones are well aware that if they tried to use them, they would be immediately eliminated. They were also formerly humans after all. Hence, they thought of ways to augment their forces without touching Okeanos’ bottom line, and the result was the use of Murders to invade and take control of human bases.」
「So the war developed into an arms race huh.」
「It started with the development of Silhouette-use rifles. It took three years since the transferee’s arrival in Asia for the first Silhouette-use assault rifles and combat Silhouettes to be developed and manufactured. The facilities that can be used to develop new weapons are limited after all. Railguns were put into practical use only ten years ago. It was only recently that Silhouettes were finally able to perform three-dimensional maneuvers using vector thrusters.」
Kou thought back to his first battle with a Keres. He could somehow imagine just how hard his predecessors had it in the past.
「Have you noticed? You haven’t seen any human holding a pistol or rifle here, right?」
「Now that you mentioned it, no, I haven’t.」
「It’s because there’s no need for them. There’s no actual institution that would approve and regulate their use, so they are seen as unnecessary luxuries. And crimes are dealt with by the patrolling Familiars. The small birds flying in the sky can turn into bullets if need be. Though there’s also the problem of relying on Familiars too much……」
「But this might still be better than them being manufactured unscrupulously.」
「That’s true as well.」
When they arrived at their destination, Kou came face to face with a machine that made him feel a sense of déjà vu.
It looked just like Unit 5 when he first encountered it – a machine that was supposedly abandoned. It was such a machine.
It held a huge greatsword and stood quietly. Its dynamic lines clearly defined it as a Silhouette.
However, its exterior was just too shabby. The artificial muscles that were also used by the Lanius were exposed. Moreover, the appearance of its legs looked strange. They were devoid of any covering, leading to the exposure of the artificial muscles that were attached to steel frames. It appeared to have toed feet. They resembled a crow’s talons.
「What’s this machine?」
「It’s a machine whose development got halted due to the lack of technology. It was supposed to be developed as a next-generation Silhouette, but the project was canceled halfway. It has no model number. Its name is the Huckebein.」
「Huckebein…… I often heard of that name back on Earth. What does it mean?」
「It’s the name of a mischievous crow that appeared in a German children’s book. It was the incarnation of pranks and mischief. A crow that portends calamity. This machine’s legs look pretty unsightly, right? The name Huckebein can also mean “ugly legs”.」
「Why did you design its legs like this in the first place?」
「I developed a more advanced artificial muscle system by integrating servomechanisms into the artificial muscles themselves, and this machine was designed to solely use that new technology for its drive system. As a result, its movement performance rose compared to the existing Silhouette models. However, in order to achieve this, the machine’s design suffered directly from the square-cube law. And the result of that were these legs.」
「So why did its development get suspended?」
「It was simply too heavy. They utilized the new artificial muscle system, but in order to ensure sufficient armor strength, there was no way other than increasing the artificial muscle amount used to an excessive degree. It was essentially a case of putting the cart before the horse. Also, its movement performance did not improve as much as I expected despite the higher cost.」
「So its artificial muscles increased, its defensive strength decreased, and its weight shot up to an unacceptable level.」
「That’s how it is. Repair and maintenance are relatively easy though. All you have to do is to replace the artificial muscle bundles. Would you like to try piloting it?」
「Is it okay?!」
「Of course. I’d like to hear your impressions as a fellow swordsman.」
「Sure. Please let me try it!」
Kou excitedly boarded the Huckebein.
Kurt watched over him with a warm look in his eyes.
The Huckebein’s interface converted from 21st-century German to Japanese. Now Kou would be able to pilot it without any problem.
He made the machine perform a joudan-no-kamae (upper-level stance) and swung the sword down. He then paused. He then performed the same move several more times.
He took one step forward. And stepped back afterward. He did this repeatedly for a while.
「Amazing……」
He then made the machine perform the sword techniques registered in its OS. All the moves were stable and smoothly transitioned from one to the other.
Kou was shocked by the experience.
The Huckebein had achieved the feat of almost perfectly replicating a human’s natural body movements.
This applied even down to its little fingers. In other words, even the fingers of the machine utilized artificial muscles. The machine dropped its waist position and swung its sword. There was next to no lag in its movements. It was unclear whether or not this level of micro-control was really necessary, but in a fight between two sword-wielding machines, this agility and handling was indeed a huge advantage.
Perhaps this was a machine that was merely ahead of its time. Its agility would likely prove too much for regular unmanned opponents to handle.
Kou put up the machine’s drive system on display on the cockpit screen, and what he saw made him gasp. He finally knew the reason for its peculiar three-clawed feet design. It was to make full use of the artificial muscles that extended to each individual toe. It was so it could replicate organic movements. However, achieving something like this should have increased the production cost by quite a bit.
Kou performed a couple more sword swings and finally got down from the machine.
「This is an amazing machine. It’s a waste to leave it in this unfinished state……」
It was a machine that made Kou unknowingly grit his teeth due to how amazed he was.
「I want to complete this machine. In fact, you can even say that I owe this guy my life.」
「Please do. I was also saved when I met Lanius Unit 5. So I want to make Unit 5 even stronger. I’m trying to learn as much as I can with that goal in mind.」
「So that’s the case. So that means we’re comrades aiming for the same purpose!」
Kurt’s mood had visibly gone up. He seemed genuinely happy. His eyes were squinting and his smile deepened.
「Yes!」
「That’s great. Well then, first things first. A compound drive mechanism might actually be more suitable for Lanius rather than what’s used in this machine.」
「Meaning?」
「Even if you increase the mobility and handling through artificial muscles, you won’t be able to output as much power as you’d like. You will still have to employ a mechanical drive system of some sort in conjunction with the muscles in order to remedy this shortcoming. Hyoue-san left a solution to this problem in Lanius’ design.」
「Please tell me about it! Ugh. That was rude of me. I’m sorry……」
Kou thought it was rude to demand that the other party teach him everything.
「It’s fine. Shall we move on to a lecture about developing machines then? That was your original request, right?」
Kurt didn’t seem bothered in the least and laughed in amusement.
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