Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume4 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 9===

Valkyrie member Sarasa Gleamshifter clicked her tongue while clinging to a tungsten plant and commanding a small number of subordinates.

(I never expected to run into the Legitimacy Kingdom at this stage.)

Roybelz Oldnick’s reckless comments were the same as ever, but she got the feeling he had intentionally gotten the Legitimacy Kingdom involved in order to help him escape Valkyrie.

He had intentionally disrupted the flow towards checkmate by causing a conflict between the Legitimacy Kingdom and the Faith Organization so that he could complete his escape to somewhere safe.

Normally, making a direct enemy of an Object was suicidal, but he could just barely get away with it by having the Capitalist Corporations eliminate it for him.

(We were deployed because those impudent ideas of his reached a level where they violated our religious rules. But our reasoning means nothing to the Legitimacy Kingdom. We cannot avoid a conflict here.)

“Maria, Rachel.” Sarasa gave instructions to her subordinates over the radio. “We must finish them off quickly. Prepare your 50 mm mortar. I will intentionally fire well off target. Once they know we are using short-range sniper rifles, they will assume we cannot hit them at this range and grow negligent. Fire at them once their heads surface.”

“Understood. We can hold the mortar one-handed, so the setup takes no time at all.”

“If we don’t take care of this quickly and get out of here, we might even end up with that Object pursuing us.”

After seeing Maria and Rachel dive under the water, Sarasa peered through her scope once more.

She then noticed something strange sticking up from the ocean surface

It was the standard issue assault rifle of the Legitimacy Kingdom.

She would have understood if just the barrel was sticking out, but for some reason, it was sticking out with the portion of the stock that pressed against the shoulder up. Also, some kind of white cloth was tied to the stock. She had no way of knowing, but the cloth came from a survival kit. The cloth could be used as a bandage for a wound, as a sling for a broken arm, or to hold a sprained ankle in place.

(Is that supposed to be a white flag?)

Sarasa frowned as she could not determine what they were trying to do.

When she looked at the rifle sticking up out of the water once more, she noticed something written in permanent marker on the white cloth.

It was a number several digits long.

She thought for a second and then pulled out her radio.

“What is the meaning of this? Are you trying to determine my location from the signal?”

“Thank goodness you have plenty of curiosity.”

When she set the frequency, she heard a voice that clearly did not belong to anyone in her unit. For one thing, it was male.

The voice likely belonged to a Legitimacy Kingdom soldier.

“We are also targeting Roybelz Oldnick. However, only one of us can kill him. That issue could start an unnecessary firefight that will just give Oldnick a chance to escape. …Am I right in assuming you see this the same way?”

“It seems you are not an idiot.” Sarasa gave a thin smile. “I assume you are not thinking the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Valkyrie will eliminate any enemies of god no matter what. We have no intention of giving you his head. I do not like that he set this up, but we cannot avoid a conflict over this.”

[[Image:HO_v04_14.jpg|thumb]]

“You can have his head,” replied the Legitimacy Kingdom soldier immediately. “We just need to get DNA evidence. After Oldnick is dead, we’ll give you some time. You can chop off his head, but leave the rest of him for us. We’ll retrieve that.”

“…”

Sarasa thought for a bit.

“I will deem that an official proclamation. If you do anything that works against our interests, we will officially register you and your unit as enemies of god. It does not matter if it is intentional. If a single stray bullet hits me or my subordinates, the Faith Organization will pursue you for all eternity.”

“That’s fine.” Whether he truly understood what it meant to make a promise with Valkyrie or not, the Legitimacy Kingdom soldier did not hesitate. “Our orders were simply to confirm that Oldnick is dead. Unlike you, it does not matter to us who kills him. Also, I’m not about to fall into our enemy’s trap and get into a pointless firefight during this age of clean battlefields. The fewer corpses in the end, the better.”