The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL]

It was an undoubtedly crazy statement, and Jax hadn’t been the only one to react like that.

Even the faraway spectators, both those watching legally and those who most certainly weren’t, practically spat out their respective drinks when they heard what Luca had just said!

Take one Duke Leander, whose epitaph might as well have something to do with choking at this point.

Of all the things he expected his precious son to say in the middle of an ongoing aerial battle between manual mechas, announcing that he was about to jump out certainly hadn’t been one of them!

Because even if Leander put himself in the shoes of those Battalion 10 cadets currently struggling against their opponents, he couldn’t imagine considering such a strategy unless he happened to be evacuating an exploding vessel.

Jump to where?!

More importantly, to do what?!

But yes.

As difficult as it was to believe, several cadets who’d once faced something as horrifying as the Aberrant Bloom back in Zone Four were currently caught in a genuine bind.

And while Luca’s father might permanently view his son through the rosiest pair of glasses imaginable, Duke Leander was still a phenomenal soldier and experienced leader.

Enough to understand that a problem like this was bound to surface eventually.

”They’re all out of sync,” Leander muttered.

His expression made it look like he desperately wanted to reach through the projection and personally fish his child out of danger.

At the same time, he knew perfectly well that situations like this were exactly why the Academy had arranged the exercise in the first place.

Surprisingly, someone nearby caught what he’d said.

”But Your Grace, weren’t Brother Chipmunk and his group doing really well earlier?” Princess Marin asked, her face filled with genuine confusion and worry. ”How did they even get ambushed like that?”

Several people turned toward her.

Marin had come to watch with Princess Nina, and unlike most people gathered around them, she hadn’t grown up constantly exposed to discussions about actual military tactics and battlefield strategy.

She’d been extremely sheltered for most of her life, only ever hearing scary stories whenever her second older brother was determined to scare her senseless.

Still, she’d like to think that since coming to the dungeon space, she’d learned quite a lot from everyone else and had even helped organize a few of their crime-fighting activities.

So from her perspective and admittedly limited experience, Battalion 10 had been doing great!

They’d improved their equipment before arriving.

They’d carefully selected which supply location to approach.

They’d scouted the surrounding area instead of charging in blindly.

They’d even taken Big Brother Jax’s unusually reliable intuition into account when deciding whether anything felt suspicious!

And for a while, everything had gone so smoothly that Marin thought they looked incredibly cool.

Battalion 10 successfully located the supply-drop crates they wanted, secured them, and began moving everything back toward their established rendezvous point without any obvious problems.

Unfortunately, that was apparently where the easy part ended.

Because not long after the cadets transporting the crates started making their way back...

Something emerged from the surrounding desert.

Red-orange mechas.

Their armor matched the distinctive shade of Caldris Minor-7’s sand so closely that, from a distance, they practically blended into the landscape.

And before Battalion 10 could properly reorganize around the unexpected threat, those unfamiliar mechas came gunning straight for them!

__

Admittedly, the fight had started out pretty well!

Brother Chipmunk had managed to swoop in just in time to stop the attackers from shooting down the two mechas carrying their hard-earned supplies.

But things quickly took a turn for the worse when artillery fire started raining down across the entire battlefield, and Marin couldn’t help but squint nervously at the projection, afraid one of them might actually take a direct hit.

Strangely enough, while Battalion 10’s cadets were suddenly struggling to avoid the scattered projectiles, the attackers seemed perfectly capable of dancing around them!

But just when she thought they’d managed to repel the incoming attacks, things took a far more serious turn when one of the hostile mechas latched onto a B10 unit and immediately went straight for the cockpit without the slightest hesitation.

Big Brother Jax managed to intervene before his teammate could get hurt or knocked out of the exercise, but doing so forced the others to break formation. Several cadets had to confront the attackers directly just to give their pinned teammates enough time to escape.

Now, the children understood that this was only an exercise.

They also knew that, as members of their respective royal families, this was the reality many of their people trained for every day. In fact, it was something they should’ve been preparing for themselves, if not for their older brothers deliberately giving them a little more time to simply be children and have fun.

But that was what makes this all the more unusual!

They’d seen both Brother Chipmunk and Brother Jax fight before, and neither of them had ever looked like they were having this much trouble with any sort of fight!

So what exactly was wrong?!

”The hostiles knew enough to remain just outside the detection range of the cadets’ mechas,” Duke Leander explained smoothly. ”Then they waited until Battalion 10 was burdened by cargo before attacking.”

He gestured toward the holographic projection.

”That immediately reduced the number of mechas available for combat and forced the others to fight more carefully because they also needed to protect their newly acquired supplies.”

The children stared intently at the screen.

”As for Luca and Jax doing well...” Leander paused. ”Individually, they are. The problem is that they’re out of sync with the rest of Battalion 10’s pilots, while their opponents seem like they’ve been fighting together all their lives.”

He pointed toward the ongoing battle.

”Watch how they move like they’re performing a well-choreographed dance.”

Sure enough, the hostile mechas were doing something strange.

Rather than confronting Luca and Jax directly, they seemed to be deliberately leading the two around while targeting Battalion 10’s noticeably slower pilots.

”Every time Luca or Jax commits to one opponent, another hostile switches targets,” Leander continued. ”They stop simply harassing the other cadets and launch attacks capable of causing actual damage.”

”!”

Right on cue, Luca abandoned the mecha he’d been pursuing and turned sharply to intercept an attack aimed at one of his teammates.

Almost simultaneously, Jax did the same thing elsewhere.

”Their opponents have already realized those two aren’t willing to sacrifice their teammates just to finish a fight,” Leander explained. ”So whenever either one gets too close to catching someone, another cadet gets threatened.”

Princess Marin’s eyes widened.

”Tha-that’s so mean! They keep on having to turn around!”

”Exactly.”

Then again, Duke Leander and practically everyone around them who’d fought in various wars knew that things truly could’ve been much worse. No one had been exaggerating when they said a team was only as strong as its weakest link...

He could only hope that his son, who was about as selfless as one could possibly be, would take away the lessons he needed without his heart suffering too much in the process.

The patriarch of House Kyros really wanted to throttle a few people, but judging by the expression on his wife’s face, he might have to wait his turn.