Amongst them, only Maki was able to damage the opponent. Since she was a magician, she could adapt her way of fighting depending on the opponent. Maki concentrated her power to forcibly break through the robots’ defenses and shoot electricity through the internal workings of the robots.
But knowing that Maki was a threat, the coup d'état army wouldn't simply leave her be. The human soldiers that had arrived at the battlefield as backup prioritized targeting Maki. Because of that, Maki had to deal with the onslaught of bullets and shells coming her way, and was unable to attack the way she pleased. Knowing that only Maki could deal with the robots, it wasn't that hard to limit her actions.
“...As expected, not having Theia-dono and Ruth hurts”
Kiriha bit her lips as she used her haniwas to protect Maki.
If Theia and Ruth had been here, they'd be able to launch a more powerful offensive. They could summon weapons from the Blue Knight, or bombard the battlefield with lasers directly from space, which would allow them to defeat a large amount of the robots. But right now, Theia and the Blue Knight were headed towards the far side of the moon in order to deal with the three ships over there. Since those ships were sending the robots in, that was something that had to be done.
And Theia's absence didn't just impact their offensive capabilities. Theia's strong willpower, her leadership that would bring them victory was absent as well. Kiriha had some talent as a commander too, but she was aware that she wasn't as good as Theia. Kiriha formed plans, while Theia stood at the front and executed them. That was how things had always played out until now. Theia was their shining beacon. With her now gone, they didn't know who to turn to.
“Everyone, hurry! Get to Kiriha-san and the others, quickly!”
That was when Yurika and her three subordinates jumped out of a bush to the right. Yurika sent the three out ahead of her while she would remain to buy them some time to escape.
Yurika’s squad had been dealing with the coup d'état army's detachment up until now. As a result of just the four of them standing against the enemy forces, they were all wounded.
The three subordinates were already in a state where they couldn't continue fighting any longer, and one of them had taken an injury so severe it wouldn't be strange for her to die. The two who were relatively unharmed compared to the third one carried her towards Kiriha and the others.
And the one protecting them was Yurika, who had taken the least amount of damage. However, Yurika had a lot of bruises and scorch marks on her, so she was far from alright. But as long as she had something to protect, she would never fall back. She desperately bought time for the three subordinates who had been protecting her until now.
“Nijino Yurika, that's enough, hurry and get over here!”
Thanks to Yurika's efforts, the three subordinates managed to safely reach Kiriha and the others. The three of them collapsed into a trench, and seeing that, Kiriha called Yurika over.
“O-Okay!”
“Yurika-chan, hurry up Ho-!”
“We don't have much time Ho-!”
“Thank you, Karama-chan, Korama-chan!”
Yurika retreated while being protected by the haniwas. Before long, Yurika was able to reach Kiriha and the others. With a ragged breath, Yurika then posed a question to Kiriha.
“Kiriha-san, how is it going here?! Is everyone okay?!”
“It's hard to say that they're okay. It might be better to fall back before we take any more damage”
Kiriha and the others had prepared many defensive positions around the cottage where Harumi and Elfaria were hiding. One of them had now almost been overrun by the enemy. That's why they only had the option to fall back to another defensive position.
“Wait, Kiriha-san, if we retreat from here, the detachment to our right will be completely freed up! Sakuraba-san will be in danger!”
Maki objected to falling back. Since they had made several defensive positions, they could make use of more traps if they fell back to another one. However, it would also give their enemies a chance to regroup. And since they would also move closer to Harumi and Elfaria, it was dangerous to just fall back.