Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume14 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 10===

While following after their major (who was pulling on her brother’s ear), Quenser and Heivia caused something of a commotion.

“Can you really just make that decision!? If the military isn’t intervening in the silo city, then we can’t place the maintenance base on top of it to fortify its defenses, can we!?”

“It’s true this makes the silo city untouchable. But I said nothing about the area around it. We just have to surround it with our vehicles to form something like a fried egg. That still makes the place difficult to target for the Jack in the Box.”

“…Are you serious? So we finally really ''are'’ acting as meat cushions…”

“Onii-ch-…Bloodrics, you have your personal troops draw back into the city. Their classification only allows them to engage in battle for self defense and they’re civilians, but they’re equipped well enough that the enemy probably can’t tell them apart from the 37th’s normal troops from a distance. That is our only way of keeping our promise with that sheriff and also placing the maintenance base zone on top of the silo city.”

“Ehh? Then who’s going to manage traffic on site!?”

It was said the military had formats and standards for everything, but things were not actually that tightly-controlled on site. Having the timetable fall to pieces due to a superior’s independent decision or prejudice was as much a problem for civil servants as it was for workers at an exploitative business.

But no matter what reason the higher ups had and even if you were to blame, no one wanted to make up for the resultant delay.

Despite saying she would not interfere with civilian matters, Frolaytia stuffed her brother into a truck and gave a harsh order to the subordinates she trusted to have her back.

“Figure out how to make this work.”

“How much must you exploit us!!!???”

“Don’t forget that your life is on the line too, you busty commander!”

Incidentally, the charity site manager triplets did not stick with Bloodrics and seemed intent on following the sheriff’s instructions to evacuate. This seemed to be the end of their offline meeting.

With the sheriff and Bloodrics’s “civilian” troops looking after the silo city, the Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes boarded their military vehicles. Quenser and Heivia were separated from Myonri.

“This is the worst! I thought having that cutie around would help soothe the pain!! And if that busty commander is going to work us to death, she could at least wear a bikini while she does it!!”

“…Huh? Was that why she was dressed as a cow bikini cowgirl? Am I more loved than I thought???”

“Okay, I’ve heard enough. It’s time to die, Quenser!!!!!!”

Their struggle led to the truck swerving, crashing into a telephone pole, and denting its bumper, so the two idiots calmed down quite quickly.

The repentant wise men spoke once more.

“How about we take this war seriously?”

“Yes, let’s bring peace to the world, shall we?”

In a way, the idiots were in their most dangerous state as they left the city and entered the battlefield.

It truly was a wasteland.

Specifically, they were to the south of Giant Pizza. Their formation there was meant to stop the attacking Faith Organization unit.

A green land had failed to become a desert covered in fine sand, so it had instead become a scorching wasteland covered in cracked earth and stones with the color of brick. In places, a long river had deeply eroded the earth, creating different shelf-like levels of land.

As they drove their trucks through a land with only cactuses and unfamiliar weeds growing on it, their radios received a transmission.

“Baby Magnum to all. My movement seems to have drawn in the Faith Organization. I have confirmed the Jack in the Box’s presence. The rest will be a race against time.”

“Let’s settle this by sunset and get out of the base tonight. I mean, the city’s called Giant Pizza, so I’ve gotta have at least a slice before leaving here.”

“I’m eating an eight inch olive and anchovy one right now.”

“Already!? And isn’t that a little big for a girl to eat on her own!?”

“Try playing a chess master while being shaken by extreme inertial Gs. Then you’ll understand. Your mind and body both need carbs.”

While holding that conversation, Quenser mentally sorted through what they had to do.

Their job here was to support the Baby Magnum.

The enemy Jack in the Box was an Object that used powerful springs and its main cannon was a metal shell cannon that concentrated the combined force of eight arms on a single point, just like a collapsible parabolic antenna or an umbrella frame. Instead of storing shells in a magazine or cartridges, liquid lead was released from the tip of the floats and wrapped around the base of the main cannon until it had the proper thickness in a baumkuchen-like shape.

It had incredible power, but it had a separate tail-like unit to negate the recoil of firing. The tail could move freely along a guiderail placed along the back 180 degrees of the spherical main body and it used a powerful spring to fire a giant stake. The stake was either fired in the opposite direction of the main cannon to negate the recoil or it was fired into the ground for a quick dash that would have been impossible for its static electricity propulsion system.

In other words, the Jack in the Box could not withstand its main cannon’s recoil without that tail.

If they prevented the tail pile bunker from functioning properly, it would be unable to control the force it created itself and it would roll over.

“Now that a lot of the wasteland’s sand is up in the air, we have to mix in some vaporized epoxy adhesive to change the viscosity of the air, right?”

“If we change the force of the tail pile bunker’s kick, it can’t keep its balance when it fires its main cannon. If a stronger kick than expected causes it to topple over, then we win.”

Keeping something as large as an Object afloat was an impressive feat in and of itself, but a static electricity system like the Baby Magnum’s was a worse match than an aircushion system that directly blew out air. To ensure this worked, they had thick chains hanging out the back of the trucks to drag along the ground as they drove.

“Wow, it’s like we’re in the middle of a sandstorm. It’s gotten so dark.”

“I guess it’s time to get the adhesive mixed into all that sand.”

“This is all based on the ideal outcome, right? Will this really stop the Object?”

“You can complain after seeing for yourself.”

Just as they were discussing that, something happened.

Something massive tore through the air and instantly blew away that thick wall of sand.

“The main…cannon!?”

“Quenser, you idiot! You’ll bite your tongue!!”

They did not have time to just sit around watching.

It did not matter how skillfully Heivia operated the steering wheel when all four of the truck’s wheels left the ground. It fell on its side and then rolled a total of fourteen times.

Their view was now upside down and they could hear a transmission from the Baby Magnum, the one part of their force that had survived.

“Contact with Jack in the Box confirmed. Engaging.”

“Dammit…”

Heivia kicked open the driver’s side door and got out.

There was no cloud of dust or adhesive. They had lost the curtain that should have obscured their vision as the 50m Object and its simple main cannon stirred up the air. They also had no way of setting up that situation themselves. They could tell the eight arms were gathering strength in their springs and the sprayers at the tip of the floats were releasing liquid lead to form the baumkuchen-shaped shell at the base of the main cannon column.

“Get the hell out here too, you idiot! Quenser!! I’ve seen for myself, so it’s time for me to complain! You really are the worst, you know that!?”

“Th-that’s odd. I thought the electronic simulation division had calculated everything out…”

“Their computers are still on the fritz, so they’ve been doing it all pen-and-paper. That probably introduced some kind of error.”

Quenser was the one who had not completely fixed the hub for the parallel machines, so in a roundabout way, he could not even complain to anyone else about it.

The very first move had betrayed their expectations.

The two Objects were firing back and forth at a distance of two or three kilometers, which was close range for an Object battle, but if they let the hectically-changing flow of time leave them behind, their lives were undoubtedly over. If they wanted to live, they had to come up with another plan.

Quenser grabbed his radio.

“Epoxy Team!! Are your sprayers made from air-conditioning units still working? If so, get them ready!!”

“This is Myonri. Um, our truck’s tires were blown, but the device itself should still work.”

“We’ll meet up with you, so tell us where you are.”

Heivia’s eyes widened as he listened in.

“Are you continuing with that failed plan!? There’s no way to get all the dust up in the air!!”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” Quenser was breathing heavily even while sitting on the ground. “That static electricity propulsion device has to be spreading a repellant ahead of it. Creating an electric repulsive force between the ground and the Object is how both the Baby Magnum and the Jack in the Box stay afloat.”

“Why does that matt-…you crazy son of a bitch.”

“We spread the adhesive spray near the ground to clog up their sprayer. And once it’s stopped, the Princess can blow it away with her main cannons!”

They did not have to stop the Jack in the Box as fully as a car with blown tires or a stalled engine. As long as it had trouble for just a few seconds, the Princess’s straight right could accurately break the macho man’s jaw.

“The surface is too risky. The ground is full of thick cracks, like a cookie someone dropped on the floor. Let’s climb in there to make our way along.”

“When the shaking of each cannon blast causes them to close up? We’d meet a worse fate than a worker caught in an industrial press!”

The two idiots complained as they crouched low and ran along the wasteland where two colossal weapons were duking it out. Myonri was waiting for them at her damaged truck. It did not matter if she was not as busty as Frolaytia or as beautiful as the Princess. A short, cute, and well-behaved girl was more than enough! Those Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes came preinstalled with an extremely high-level homing function that would hunt down anywhere with nice-smelling girls, no matter where that might be!!

“Hey, are you still alive!? Here are some reinforcements to reward you for clenching your teeth and sticking it out this long!!”

“I don’t care if it’s just Myonri! There’s something missing in my life if I don’t have someone firmly stepping on me!”

But after working up a sweat with fear squeezing at their hearts, those guys only found an empty and broken truck with a canopy over the back. Stones were scattered around from a cannon blast that must have scored a direct hit to the front. The windshield had shattered and the bumper was unbelievably dented. There was a simple winch on the front that made use of the truck’s horsepower, but it too had been crushed and the finger-thick wire had been partially expelled.

And a hastily scratched-out note had been left on the side of the military truck.

“This is looking really bad, so we’re getting out of here. Take care of the rest.”

Their oasis had dried up.

The adventurers fell tearfully to their knees.

“Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!?”

“No! I’ve had enough!! I don’t care if it’s a cute elf or a cute mermaid! A parallel world fantasy without any girls isn’t a true parallel world at allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!”

It was unclear when exactly they had crossed over to another world, but screaming seemed to have released the limiters in their heads like a hammer throw contestant. It was best not to point out that the dam had burst long before this.

With plenty of chemicals pumping through his brain thanks to extreme exhaustion and his own scream, Quenser clung to the side of the khaki-colored truck, which was diagonally tilted due to the partially-removed tires, and crawled up on shaky legs.

“W-we have to win this… We have to win and survive…”

“Eh heh heh. Ah ha ha. Yes, I’ll collect the legendary Echidna and make out with her all day long…”

The other boy had overclocked his brain to the point that he seemed stuck in a parallel world, but they had to keep moving if they were to win this.

The back of the canopy-covered truck contained a few devices made by taking apart the air-conditioning units at the maintenance base zone. Their intended use was to have their fans spread the particulate spray of adhesive into the air.

“I hate this world… I hate every last part of this world and its dearth of girls!!”

“Don’t be silly. I mean, this virgin world is populated by nothing but pure girls and I was summoned here from earth as the one and only guy. Didn’t you hear the explanation? Eh heh heh heh heh.”

The Jack in the Box was not at all to blame for their complaints, but the two idiots continued preparing for battle based on a misguided fighting spirit.

And one of them shouted into his radio.

“Quenser to all. This isn’t how we planned it, but I’m about to spread the adhesive!! Pay attention to the wind direction and wear your masks even if you aren’t in the designated area! This might get your hair all dried-out, so run away if you care about your roots! Here we go!!”

“Ah!? …H-huh? I feel like I was just having the most wonderful dream. Why can’t I stop crying…?”

After twisting the hose nozzles attached to the drums and powering on the giant fans, Quenser left the area with the boy who had made a miraculous return.

The Baby Magnum and the Jack in the Box were moving back and forth with MMA-like footwork, which made it extremely difficult to predict their paths, but that did not mean it was completely impossible.

Yes, the Jack in the Box would drive a thick stake into the ground with its tail-like unit to make quick dashes faster than its static electricity system would allow.

(For one thing, it shouldn’t get much of a repulsive force from driving that stake into fragile ground. This wasteland is especially fragile, so it should want to avoid anywhere with large cracks.)

Whether it was offensively messing with the enemy Object or defensively making an emergency evasion, the Jack in the Box’s quick dashes were indispensable. If it failed just once there, it would grind to a halt, greatly increasing the threat of an attack from the Princess.

And while an Object was a collection of military secrets, the fragility of the ground below its feet could be judged by the naked eye.

All they had to do was keep an eye on the Jack in the Box’s movement sand surreptitiously spread the adhesive spray along the tougher areas it was likely to travel through.

The Object used a static electricity system.

If they could clog up the repellant sprayers, they could keep the Faith Organization from moving. It did not have to be permanent. Even a few seconds would be enough.

Quenser held his radio to his mouth.

“I’m beginning distribution of the epoxy resin. The more solid areas the Jack in the Box prefers are marked on your map, right? Don’t go there and get yourself destroyed, okay!?”

“Just give me the signal.”

“Prepare a laser beam secondary cannon. If it moves to anywhere from D4 to F2, fire at its feet! The heat-hardening adhesive will react and clog up its repellant sprayers!!”

“Wait! Hold on, Quens-…”

Heivia seemed to realize something and quickly tried to stop him, but Quenser had already given the signal.

The two idiots’ visions were filled with a flash hundreds of times brighter than welding light.

The laser beam itself could not be seen.

But when it scorched the ground, the secondary light and noise pushed up at them from below.

“Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Quenser held his eyes and writhed in pain. He could tell someone else was screaming nearby, but he never would have imagined it was Heivia trying to grab his collar, failing, throwing out his fist in frustration, and happening to hit a giant cactus.

(Damn. But that had to have worked! If the adhesive below the Jack in the Box reacted, then…!!)

He may have been lucky the laser beam had been a secondary cannon and not a main one. Quenser did not have to worry about going blind and his vision started to return after he rubbed his eyes for a few seconds. His vision was blurry, like it was covered in tears, but he could just barely make out the image.

(What happened to the Jack in the Box? Did the Princess manage to finish it off…???)

He was not even 200 meters away from the monster.

Since it could no longer spread its repellant, it must have lost the ability to keep its 200,000 ton mass afloat with static electricity. The Jack in the Box dug up a giant cloud of sand as its floats scraped at the ground and it was desperately trying to recover its balance after pitching forward. The tail that could freely move along the rear 180 degrees was sliding back and forth. It almost looked like a person on the edge of a building rooftop swinging their arms and legs around to regain their center of gravity.

Quenser knew it was working.

They had succeeded.

The Jack in the Box had been stopped. If the Princess fired one of her main cannons now, she could blast right through the spherical main body. This would end it. The Baby Magnum circled around the enemy Object, moved its seven arms, and prepared to fire low-stability plasma cannons to end this.

A moment later, the Jack in the Box stabbed its tail into the ground and leaped to the side.

It weighed as much as two old-fashioned nuclear aircraft carriers. But despite weighing more than 200,000 tons, it nimbly evaded.

It slipped through the gaps in the seven bluish-white lines of the Princess’s low-stability plasma cannons.

Quenser, Heivia, and even the nearby cactuses and the destroyed military truck were lifted from the ground. It was almost like the entire ground had become a trampoline, but the forces were simply too great. Around the point the tail had struck, incredible cracks ran out like a window pierced by the tip of an umbrella.

After falling back to the ground, Quenser was nearly crushed by the rolling truck, but he did not have time to scream about something so trivial.

After skillfully dodging, where exactly had the Jack in the Box flown?

It was coming.

It was coming here!?

“Oh, no!! Heivia, run away!! We’ll be caught in the middle!!”

“When the hell did you learn the Island Nation’s sexy kunoichi replacement techni-…wahhh!? What the hell is that, goddammit!?”

If that 200,000-ton mass reached them, they would be turned to mincemeat. The two idiots must have thought that being on the ground was too dangerous or that they had to avoid becoming bowling pins when someone threw a strike. They climbed up onto the rolled-over truck and then tried to climb onto the dried brick-colored rocks it was leaning against.

There was no way they could have made it up in time.

By the time they got on the truck, the Jack in the Box arrived.

“…!!”

“…!?”

Either they did not have time to scream or they were screaming until their throats tore but their brains forgot to process the sound.

One of the Jack in the Box’s four floats sent the truck flying and knocked down the rocks they had been trying to climb onto. After just barely scrambling onto the truck, the two idiots were left in the air like the Island Nation Daruma Otoshi game. The truck vanished from below them, they swam through the air with an odd sensation of floating, and then they fell straight back down.

“Agwosh!?”

An indecipherable word left Quenser’s mouth and he finally realized his circumstances here.

He was on top of it.

He had ended up right on top of one of the static electricity floats!?

“Heiv-…he’s not here!? Did that bastard manage to escape danger all on his own!?”

Failing that game of Daruma Otoshi meant he might have been turned to mincemeat below the float, but the thought did not seem to occur to Quenser. In a variation on a bizarre weather event where frogs rained from the sky, various parts of the truck fell all around: screws, bolts, destroyed tires, bent wheels, etc. Meanwhile, the Jack in the Box began to swing its tail around with a creaking noise.

(What!? Is it going to keep fighting using its pile bunker tail dashes!?)

It was time to make a decision.

Would he remain on the float and be thrown high in the sky, or would he jump down and be crushed by the explosive winds produced by that 200,000 ton mass. After thinking about it, that idiot who probably had an erection year-round definitely felt his balls shriveling up. He was going to die. No matter what he did, there was no saving him!!

“Gyahh! Gyahh!! Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

And an indecisive guy always met the same fate: time up.

The Jack in the Box fired its giant stake into the ground once more and leaped toward the other side with flustered Quenser still onboard.

But he did not suddenly lose his footing and fly into the sky like a human homerun.

Something dug painfully into his right hand.

He hesitantly opened his eyes to check and saw a metal wire as thick as his little finger tangled around his hand.

It was a piece of the simple winch attached to the front of Myonri’s abandoned truck. The other end of the wire was apparently tangled around one of the many secondary cannons sticking out of the spherical main body like an urchin or chestnut burr.

''I’m saved,'' he thought, just before another thought came to mind.

(Huh? If it lands like this and all the force is concentrated on that single point, won’t it just sever my right hand? Y’know, like slicing through a boiled egg with piano wire.)

“E-ee-eeeeeek!?”

He only had a few seconds until they landed. He did not know what his options were, so he simply swung his left hand over and grabbed at the wire.

The basic idea was the same as a parachute harness. By distributing the force over his entire body, the impact on any one point would be reduced.

He forcibly wrapped it around his torso as the asteroid fell toward the dried brick-colored wasteland.

“Bwohhh!!!???”

His ribs creaked and he choked at the strange sensation of pressure on his internal organs. He seriously may have broken some bones, but his right hand was intact. It had not been severed.

He understood just how disgusting he was with a strange sweat covering his face and back, but then he realized something.

He was somewhere else than before.

The Jack in the Box had swung him from the long, long winch wire like a pendulum, the wire had gotten tangled around another secondary cannon on the spherical main body, and he was now dangling down from that.

Was that really just a coincidence?

No, the Jack in the Box was not a natural phenomenon. Since it was moving around based on the Elite’s decisions, he could control those movements by interfering with the basis behind those decisions.

Which meant…

“Princess! Keep an eye on your location and have the Jack in the Box move in a zigzag!! I’ll try to climb up to the top using this pendulum motion!!”

“I’m pretty sure that would get you killed.”

“I’d be in even more danger if the Jack in the Box moved around less predictably! Please do this before my belly is crushed like an empty milk carton!!”

This was a lot like assisted suicide.

The Princess followed Quenser’s instructions as she moved around and maintained a lock so the Jack in the Box would counterattack with tail dashes to the left and right. With each dash, the idiot dangling from the wire was thrown around on his midair swing. His path sometimes drew out a downward-facing fan shape and other times he gained enough momentum to make a full circle. Like he was tangling a string around the nails in a pachinko machine, Quenser got the wire caught on more and more secondary cannons as he made his way higher and higher.

“I think it will notice the wire when there’s an error in the secondary cannons’ movement,” said the Princess. “It might conclude it’s just a problem caused by the adhesive, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Urp. The Jack in the Box is screwed if its movement is taken from it. Even if it receives an error message, will it really have time to worry about anything other than the main cannon which can defeat you? Gwehhh…”

“What are you even hoping to accomplish by getting on top of it?”

“Exactly what we initially planned,” said Quenser while he finally clung to the top of the spherical main body. “Take out that goddamn main cannon.”