“It’s Yukiha! I found her. She’s on the bridge of that Ride Carrier!”

After hours of surveillance, we finally confirmed Yukiha’s location. We couldn’t find the hero, but this was enough to form a plan.

“If she’s positioned there, we might be able to launch a surprise attack and retrieve her,” Fistina suggested.

As she pointed out, the flagship of the Crimson Mecha was not stationed at the center of the enemy formation but rather near the edge. If we acted quickly, we could storm in, rescue Yukiha, and make our escape.

“Yukiha’s situation seems manageable, but I can’t predict what will happen with the hero… If we could persuade him while he’s in the MagiCraft, it would be ideal.”

“It will be a race against time, but we could also consider capturing the entire Ride Carrier,” someone suggested.

“And how do we pull that off?”

“We rush in, disable the flagship of the Crimson Mecha, surround it, and then extract Princess Yukiha and the hero before making a getaway. It’s an aggressive plan, and with enemies all around us, escaping afterward will be difficult. But if we want to retrieve both Princess Yukiha and the hero, this might be our best option.”

“Alright, let’s go with that! We’ll figure out how to escape later!”

“No, that won’t do. We need to have backup plans for secondary and even tertiary contingencies,” another objected.

“Don’t worry. No matter what happens, I’ll handle it!”

“Honestly… when you say it like that, I can’t argue anymore.”

With a resigned sigh, Fistina agreed to proceed with the assault plan.

We quietly returned to our allies and began preparations for the operation. Since we wanted to avoid detection until the last moment, only an elite squad would carry out the initial capture of the enemy vessel. That’s when Mayu started whining.

“I want to charge in with big brother too!”

“No, Alvion is way too conspicuous. The vanguard team is focusing on a swift assault, so it’s not possible. Instead, you can shine in the rear guard.”

“Aw, but I want to be with you!”

“You’re going to be nearby, so just bear with it.”

“Fine, but you have to play with me later!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll play with you. Just behave for now.”

It was an odd thing to say, asking her to “behave” when she’d soon be piloting a massive MagiCraft into battle. But no one bothered to point it out.

The strike team consisted of me, Fistina, the Zajuna squad, and Raiden—the second-in-command of Fistina’s unit, an elite Exlander-class rider. Raiden was an old acquaintance of Fistina’s and was originally a member of the Order. He mysteriously showed up and joined us around the same time Fistina officially became part of the Musou Iron Cavalry. Some people were wary of letting such a suspicious guy in, but since we had already accepted a former spy like Fistina, we figured there wasn’t much difference.

The rest of the team would wait until we successfully seized the enemy flagship before launching an attack to secure our escape route.