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Azur Lane: Episode of Belfast Volume 3 Chapter 1 Part 11

「Are you deliberately trying to follow my pace?」

Achilles turned around and asked her rival that question, but Jamaica said nothing to that and just continued doing what she was doing.

「Was it Belfast-san who told you to follow me like that? I’m sure that’s the best way for you to pass the baton to Newcastle-san, otherwise there is no way that she is going to be able to catch up, right?」

「Everything I do, it is also all for the sake of my ‘Justice’」

It was an overall unsatisfying response from Jamaica, who finally opened her mouth after remaining silent for a while.

「I don’t really understand, but okay, I guess. ☆」

Abandoning the dialogue early since there was no use in dragging it on, Achilles began to accelerate even more.

「I took it as a strategy that you were to follow me so that you wouldn’t let you go. But if so, can you actually keep up if I do this?」

As Achilles accelerated further, Jamaica stuck right behind her, as Achilles expected for her to do.

Achilles grinned that she had guessed right here.

As it currently was, the two of them were way ahead of the pack, while other contestants stayed slightly behind, other shipgirls mixed with Destroyers. Both groups continued to rush ahead, maintaining their speed and distance between both groups.

At that moment, a large number of gunboats came into view right up ahead.

Achilles knew immediately what it was all about.

The gunboats were one of Akashi’s obstacles prepared for this year’s race.

The boats’ cannons fire simulated bullets made of a special material that stuck around when they would hit something, and last year there was a number of Destroyers who got slowed down at this stage quite a lot.

The two were now in a seriously tight spot, having to pay extra attention to avoid collisions with other ships, which were positioned almost right in the middle of a dense crowd of Destroyers, and to avoid bullets that were being shot by them.

「Here they come!」

A heavy bass could be heard, one that made the air tremble, accompanied by a booming sound coming from the gunboats, and then the bullets were fired straight towards Achilles and the other racers.

「There we go!」

Achilles was dodging the incoming shells with quite a bit of leeway in between each shot, but the shells then would twist and turn instead of flying straight, as if they were trying to home in on Achilles.

「H-Huh!? Are you kidding me!? You’re using homing bullets this year!?」

Right about now Achilles was glad that she did not dodge with a sharp turn that she decided to do last year, so she kept her distance from the guided bullets while keeping an eye out for any of the following bullets.

As for the rest of the gunboats, they were firing a shell after shell one after another with no end in sight.

The Destroyers, who couldn’t dodge the guided bullets in time or do so properly, were hit one after another and got caught up in the sticky contents of the shells, eventually slowing down and coming to an abrupt halt because of that.

And as to be expected, realizing that the shells were hiding a nasty surprise inside of them, what followed here was the Destroyers going into a panic attack, effectively bumping into one another and making the race course even more chaotic.

「Everyone, listen up! If you deal with it calmly, there shouldn’t be any problems!」

Saying that with a carefree tone, Achilles suddenly turned around and found that Jamaica was still staying right on her tail, and it seemed that she too had managed to calmly evade all of the shells that were directed at her.

「Well I’ll be damned! Way to go, you! This is supposedly your first time ever taking part in this race, right?」

「If you keep believing in the ‘Spirit’ that moves forward without giving in to the ‘Evil’ that blocks your way, you will continue to move forward with no effort at all.」

「Whoa, so cool! ☆」

Achilles laughs chaotically at Jamaica’s statement, who even firmly stroke a pose while she was at it.

After successfully surviving the gunboat’s continued onslaught, the first island was finally in sight of all the racers.

On the signboard right next to the group of next-runners who were all gathered in one place, the number “3” was written, which was the number of times that you needed to flip the pancakes on the frying pan.

「What? Only three? Oh my goodness, it’s so easy! An easy win coming right up!」

Achilles deftly flipped the pancakes three times on her frying pan.

「Here you go, Jajax」

After handing over the frying pan to her sister ship, Ajax immediately headed for the next island.

Jamaica, on the other hand, managed to safely flip the pancakes and passed the frying pan over to Fiji, even though it took her a little bit longer than Achilles.

「Fiji, we’re counting on you!」

「Just leave it to me!」

* * *

Although being slightly behind her rival, Fiji somehow manages to keep up with Ajax to an extent, and even though the Destroyers were still putting up quite a bit of fight in the race, there were still more of Akashi’s traps lurking for the unsuspecting racers up ahead.

「—— Sounds like you think that you have a lot of time to spare, huh?」

Fiji said that to the person right in front of her in an attempt to throw her off her game.

「Hmm~? Is that what it seems to you?」

Ajax turned around and looked at Fiji with a smug smile on her face.

「As for Achilles, I did not have any particular concerns about her performance. It’s actually more like I expected her to put on a top performance.」

「Then everything is going according to our simulations. In that case, the only thing that is left for me to do now is to pass the baton onto Newcastle-san, and the rest is going to be a smooth sailing from there!」

When Fiji said something like that and grinned in a confident way, Ajax asked her in turn.

「According to what I heard from Neptune beforehand, you should have been unable to flip the pancakes correctly no matter how hard you tried.」

「Well, that’s right! But you see, I have been training properly and diligently ever since that time!」

「Hmm, I see, it seems that Belfast-san’s education is really as wonderful of a thing as I heard it to be.」

While saying that, Ajax suddenly began to accelerate.

「Ah! Oh no, you won’t!」

Seeing that, Fiji soon accelerated as well.

At that moment, when it seemed that Fiji would be able to actually overtake Ajax, the Leander Class Light Cruiser actually came to a halt.

At that moment when she had a bad feeling about this and Fiji started to slow down as well,

「What the!?」

Just as Ajax’s body veered slightly to the side, a suicide boat rammed straight into Fiji. Although she managed to dodge it just in the nick of time, the next suicide boat would attack them one after another relentlessly.

「Whoa now! As expected, there are too many of them for us to be able to avoid them all!」

At that moment Fiji had no choice but to break away from Ajax, and as a result of switching to a strategy centered around avoiding the suicide boats by identifying them one by one, her speed dropped significantly, and the gap between her and Ajax widened considerably.

「But if she is going that fast at all time, she will eventually be hit by them eventually……」

Just as Fiji said that, she could see the two suicide boats closing in on Ajax’s position.

「Watch out!」

Despite being her rival and enemy, Fiji involuntarily shouted at Ajax.

But on the contrary,

「—— It’s not dangerous at all.」

Aiming the barrel of her gun, Ajax fired a mock round at the suicide boat.

The boat that was hit by it exploded with a loud bang, and white husks of its hull scattered all around it.

「I haven’t heard of any rules that would prohibit us from firing bullets at the obstacles.」

「I-I guess you’re right, but…… B-By the way, aren’t they all made out of rubber!?」

According to Fiji, all the suicide boats that were approaching were rubber boats that were specifically made by Akashi. It seems to have been made quite elaborately, and the white powder that splattered when their exterior was cracked seemed to have a lachrymatory effect.

「If you aim and use them properly, even something like this can be used to your advantage.」

Horrified by Ajax’s words, Fiji immiediately left her position and moved on.