As I began drifting off to sleep, alarms were suddenly blaring.

My eyes shot open, and red lights were flashing before my tired eyes in my room. I looked at a screen that popped up but was too dreary to read anything.

Rubbing the sleepiness out of my eyes, I look at the screen that reads emergency sortie, all available pilots are being called, situation developing.

I rub my eyes again to see if I’m reading it correctly, but it remains the same, and I wonder what is going on. Our aias is being repaired and we were resting, so to call everyone means something big is happening.

Reading that Norn, who was sleeping on her bed on the opposite side of our room, said in a lazy and groggy voice.

“What’s with all the noise?”

As I got out of bed, Norn covered her ears with her pillow to block out the noise, which, to my pleasure, I dragged her out of her bed, letting her fall onto the ground.

“Hey, what was that all about?”

I felt slightly happy that she fell on her rear end because, again, I was the responsible one for this week, which I was laughed at when I had to be responsible for writing up a report to Commander Sharp as a punishment for both of us causing a mess at the training area again.

“It’s an emergency sortie; I don’t know what it is specifically.”

Rubbing her rear end, Norn ran to her closet while I went to mine to change into our circuitry suits.

Putting on our matching jackets to cover ourselves since it was skin tight, we ran to the hangers.

As we ran, we saw the base was even more busy than usual. There were pairs of pilots and aviators running to the hangers.

They all made way for us since we took priority, and as people were making way for us, coincidentally, we met up with Scott.

The three of us were surprised that we were running into each other, but it wasn’t really the time to be surprised.

Norn asks Scott what is going on right now and why everyone is being sent out because Scott is an aviator and he is wearing his flight suit, which includes a helmet directly connected to his brain, meaning that he can get a constant flow of information.

“Any updates on what is going on?”

“Yes, apparently base 38 has been attacked. I don’t know if I'm seeing this footage correctly or not, but a gate somehow opened up directly in the base itself.”

“What? How did that happen?”

I was surprised that it happened because gates are normally open in places away from human civilization. I wonder if it was intentional or just bad luck that it happened that a gate appeared in base 38.

Reaching the hangar, we separated into our respective machines. There were already aiases being moved up from their ports and into the airfield to be airlifted, as well as APCs and other transport aircraft being sent out.

At our port, maintenance personnel repairing our named aias were getting out of the way for us to sortie.

As we were being plated up, I asked the people plating us how much they had repaired our Aias.

They told us that they managed to repair most of the damage; however, they weren’t fully done with the right arm’s repairs but still usable and to take it easy with the right arm.

Putting our helmets on while going up the elevator, we made sure everything was secure and working properly. Then we used our helmet, similar to Scott’s aviator helmet but specifically made for named pilots, to call for Commander Sharp to know what was going on.

Commander Sharp answered immediately, and we got straight to business. I asked what’s the current situation and told him that we already knew that a gate suddenly appeared in base 38.

“I see, I don’t have much time to explain, but you're leading the mission; other named Aiases are too damaged to be used right now or on a different mission and are occupied. Your mission is to protect the transport aircraft moving key personnel and equipment out of the base. More details will be posted.”

The call ended and we looked at each other; both of us were thinking the same thing, it was time to fight some more kaijus, causing us to grin.

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Once we reach the top of the elevator, our faces return to their normal expressionless faces as we enter our cockpit and secure ourselves into the control system to start up the core in addition to all the main systems and sub-systems.

After that was done, the hatch above us opened, and the platform our named Aias was standing on moved us up to the airfield, where Scott was ready to pick us up.

Up in the sky, we grouped up with a formation of Aias and other transport aircraft, in which Norn, Scott, and I coordinated everyone flying to base 38 and made a plan to secure a perimeter to protect the landing zone when we arrived.

As we were doing that, we were also monitoring the situation and communicating with the people in base 38 fighting the kaijus coming out of the gate.

They were doing a good job of fending the kaijus off with their Aiases and defensive weaponry, which are mostly level 2s to 3s and the occasional level 4s, with their fortunately not being any level 5s or higher kaijus coming out. However, this would not last forever, and the base was already deemed lost because a gate had appeared at the base, which was a big black sphere that engulfed a part of the base, causing the entire base to be a warzone.

It took time to get there, around 45 minutes, and once base 38 was in our sights from up high, we told everyone in the formation to prepare to engage.

Seeing that we were close to the landing zone, a screen popped up showing a map of where the Aiases were going to drop that we made.

After finishing the preparations for neural synchronization, I told Charlotte to start neural synchronization.

Suddenly feeling the surge of Ori energy flow through my body, and then my mind, melding with Norn and our Aias, my eyes shot wide open to see a wooden ceiling.

Looks like I had a dream about my past life again. Getting up from bed slowly because my right shoulder still hurts, I make my way out of my room while making sure I didn’t knock over the small piles of books.

It was early into the morning, I thought to myself. It looks like I slept through the entire day again.

My stomach grumbled, so I went to the tavern next door to get something to eat.

After ordering and receiving my food, which was a simple porridge, I was deciding on what I wanted to do that day.

It would take a few days for the city guards to sort everything out with that bastard Yulis, his family’s black knights, and Alice’s guards.

Going dungeon diving is going to be a problem with my injured shoulder so that just leaves one thing.

After finishing my breakfast, I went to Mila’s bookstore to check up on the prototype I asked her to make to see if it was done.

I knocked on the door to her shop and told her it was me for her to let me in more enthusiastically than usual.

“How is the prototype?”

I asked Mila how the prototype knife I had asked her to make was going because I was also eager to see the finished knife.

“I just finished it yesterday; I really want you to try it.”

Replying with a bright smile, we went straight to her workshop, and she showed me the knife I had given her, which was bought from a random weapons shop for cheap by Acton’s standards and was similar in shape and size to my own throwing knives.

I gave the throwing knife a feel, and Mila told me to give it a try with a wooden board she had already prepared.

Readying myself, I aimed the throwing knife at the wooden board, hitting dead center.

Immediately, once the tip of the knife touched the center of the board, tiny sparks of electricity came out of the knife for a brief moment, leaving a small electrical burn mark on the wooden board.

“Woah, that is quite impressive.”

Mila was amazed that I hit dead center on the wooden board, but it wasn’t too impressive, to be honest.

Approaching the wooden board and removing the knife from it, I saw the magical circle on the knife was almost unidentifiable, with a majority of the magical circles mostly melted.

I gave it to Mila for her to look at so I could get her opinion.

“Well, they work as intended.”

“Then could you make a small batch of them to try out in the dungeon?”

“Yes, however, I think you should buy some knives with better materials because they would probably be able to last more than once since the one you gave me was made from cheap iron.”

“So I have to get some throwing knives with better quality material, then?”

Nodding yes, I told her to use the throwing knives I was already using.

“That shouldn’t be a problem because I have them.”

I took out one of the throwing knives I bought from Kinwall, which has mithril mixed into it.

“This should do because they have some mithril in them.”

Mila was skeptical when I said there was mithril in them, which was to be expected because mithril is very expensive; granted, I don’t know how expensive they are, but somebody like me shouldn’t be able to afford them.

“Really? Can I see?”

Giving it to her, she looked at it suspiciously as she began to examine it, then her hair suddenly turned into a watery blue color, causing a very thin layer of mana to start covering the knife.

“Unbelievable, my mana flows through it very well; there is definitely mithril in it.”

Shock, Mila asked me how I had gotten my hands on the throwing knives.

“Oh, it was from a blacksmith, and I also bought this sword from him. I believe he said around a quarter or third of it is made out of mithril.”

Mila was surprised by the answer, so I gave my sword to her to hold.

“Please don’t ask me for his name because he does not like being found.”

Nodding, Mila’s hair glowed a watery blue again, and the sword I let her hold was completely wreathed in her mana instead of the thin layer from my throwing knives.

Mila shouted out in surprise even more, and she questioned me about the blacksmith I bought it from, really wanting to know, but I told her that it was a secret.

After giving her all my throwing knives for her to engrave magical circles on, I left her shop wondering what I was going to do next.