"Barry!"
Lin Youfu and Gaskell shot up from their seats the instant they saw their student fall into the ice pit, unable to contain themselves.
Fortunately, the competition organizers had installed cameras inside the cockpits this time, so they could clearly see the students' condition.
After the initial shock wore off, Hiranuma Yusho and the others quickly calmed down and started figuring out what to do.
Taylor gritted his teeth and pulled out his short sword, trying to jam it into the ice wall to slow their descent. The blade carved a deep gash into the ice, sending chips and debris spraying all over his and Hiranuma Yusho's faces.
A few mutated worms clinging to the ice wall were sliced clean in half. With no vital signs left, they could no longer grip the slick surface. They froze solid and quickly tumbled down…
Everyone kept trying to manipulate their mechs into transformation, but they were falling too fast, and the space around them was too tight — they couldn't find the right opening.
"Ugh! Ah! Oh! Hrk…"
The lower section of the ice pit wasn't as straight as the top. Barry took several hard knocks, and the cockpit display flashed with harsh red and yellow warnings — the text was impossible to read — but the impacts at least slowed his fall.
He reached for the controls again… Damn it, even the grappling hook was dead!
Before hitting the bottom, Taylor finally managed to sink his short sword deep into the ice wall, while his other mech hand grabbed hold of Hiranuma Yusho beside him.
Hiranuma Yusho reacted quickly. The moment he stopped falling, he fired up the anti-gravity engine and, like Taylor, jammed a cold weapon into the ice wall to stabilize himself. Then he moved to grab Barry or Wu Fangyu.
But Barry had already fallen out of sight. Wu Fangyu, quick on the draw, fired her grappling hook toward the captain and was yanked into the air like a little bug, dangling and swaying at the end of the line.
The sounds of Barry's impact came in broken rhythms from below — he clearly hadn't reached the bottom yet.
"Barry! Don't forget to activate your defense system!"
Wu Fangyu hurriedly shouted over the team channel.
Just before hitting the ground, Barry finally struck a slope. He curled his body, used the momentum for a roll, bounced a few times, and then slammed onto the floor.
"THUD!"
"Ugh…"
He lay there for a moment, slowly pulling himself out of that blank, dazed state.
As feeling started to return, a dull, spreading ache crept over his back and the side of his shoulder — the parts that had taken the brunt of the slope.
His mind was still buzzing even though he was awake… He just lay on the ground, not knowing what to do next.
"Hss… that hurts."
"Barry! Barry?"
No matter how they called, there was no response from him. Wu Fangyu, hanging at the very bottom, couldn't even bother to activate her anti-gravity engine first — she flicked on her searchlight in a panic.
The passage below twisted and turned; the bottom was nowhere in sight.
"Barry, are you okay?"
"Cap… belo…"
Whether Barry's comm unit had been damaged in the fall or the signal down here was just bad, his voice crackled in and out, punctuated by bursts of static.
"Everyone, be careful. We're heading down. Wu Fangyu, activate anti-gravity first."
Hiranuma Yusho spoke in a low voice. Someone falling from that height… Barry better be alright.
"Watch out for the ice walls and the mutated flora and fauna. Icicles might fall from above — keep an eye out and dodge."
"Yes, sir!"
"Barry, we're coming down!"
"Shhhhk…"
The deeper they went, the wider the passage became.
When they reached the bottom of the ice pit, they realized it sat right next to one of Blizzar's geothermal fissures — the temperature here was far warmer than the surface!
Barry was still lying on the ground, nearly getting stepped on by Wu Fangyu.
"Whoa! Sorry, sorry."
"Ugh, move. Let me…"
"Just stay down! Don't get up!"
Relying on his medical training, Hiranuma Yusho told him not to move. He tested Barry's name, then asked him to open the mech cockpit, wiggle his fingers, and assessed his overall condition.
At least it wasn't freezing cold down here like on the surface — otherwise he'd have frozen to death even if the fall hadn't crippled him.
Barry was still a bit dizzy, but assault-class soldiers had genuinely tough constitutions. The three teammates observed him cautiously for a long while, had him breathe slowly and rest for half an hour, and finally concluded that he had at most a mild concussion.
The bruises and scrapes inside the cockpit were negligible, and the sympathetic pain from the mech faded significantly once he stepped out.
"If you feel sleepy, nauseous, or any bleeding, tell us immediately. Don't bottle it up."
Hiranuma Yusho said sternly.
"Don't worry, Captain. I'm not going to gamble with my life."
"Phew, thank goodness!"
Wu Fangyu let out a sigh of relief.
"I was thinking we might have to send you out of the match… Honestly, you could just sit on the sidelines and watch us win the championship. That works too — three against four, and we'd have bragging rights!"
Barry looked at his teammate's "grand vision" with an expression of sheer disbelief.
"…Did you hit your head too?"
Three against four? Against Kirin or First Military Academy? He'd fallen from that height and wasn't even that delusional.
Wu Fangyu pouted.
"Sister Zebra said you've gotta have dreams — what if they come true?"
Hiranuma Yusho had reached his limit.
"From now on, don't learn any of that useless stuff from Wang Tianwei."
"…Okay."
Seeing that all four of them were fine, the weight that had been pressing on the audience's chests finally lifted.
"Those Valk students are really resilient — even after an injury, they keep fighting.
That said, if you ever find yourselves in a situation like this in daily life, please be extra careful. The risk of falling from heights is…"
The host dutifully reminded the public.
"Thank goodness, thank goodness."
Lin Youfu and Gaskell sat back down, but their eyes never left the screen. That kid Barry — was he just toughing it out?
They'd better keep a close watch. Worst case, they could always withdraw. The students had already gained more than enough from this competition.
"Valk has had some brutally bad luck this round. Blizzar really has it out for them, huh?"
"Ha, so the endgame of technology is superstition?"
"Oh man, that kid got knocked silly!"
"Only an S-rank physical soldier could fall from that height and just be dazed… If it were A-rank or B-rank, they'd be seriously injured or crippled."
"Are they really going to keep competing? Shouldn't they go to a hospital for a check-up?"
"A little injury like this is nothing for a military academy student or a soldier. On the front lines, you push through even with a broken bone!"
"They're still students, though! No, I can't watch this."
"So jealous of Barry's physique. But you couldn't pay me to train with him."
"First, you'd need to get into Valk to even try."
"One guy with a concussion… is Valk about to be eliminated?"
"What are you talking about? Watch Valk turn this around!"
