Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume17 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 10===

The battle was over.

Frolaytia’s long, narrow kiseru wiggled a bit inside her personal room covered in her Island Nation personal possessions.

“Sergeant Elise Montana.”

“Y-yesss?”

“I would like the opinion of someone who fought on the scene. What was your impression of the Police Queen battle?”

“Unnatural, I guess I would say.”

The busty blonde klutz in glasses was more nervous than sharp, so she shrank down (and subconsciously squeezed her large boobs between her arms) while giving the opinion she was asked for.

“Fine powders were a weakness for that Second Generation. And the Capitalist Corporations was clearly aware of that since they had it solidify the salt flat with napalm as a makeshift solution. But why? If it was that poorly suited for use in a salt flat, I have a hard time understanding why they would have deployed it to the Uyuni District.”

“Continue.”

“That means they were not monopolizing that area because they wanted to. Could there have been something forcing them to do so? I couldn’t tell what they gained from doing so, though.”

It sounded like Elise had not figured out what exactly this was about.

Frolaytia enjoyed the sweet smoke of her kiseru as she asked another question.

“By the way, Elise, did you know you can find more than just salt in a salt flat?”

“Um?”

“For example, anhydrite, potassium chloride, magnesium sulfate, and borate minerals. As the powerful sunlight dries out the land, the materials that would normally be spread out thinly as moisture end up being concentrated.”

That led to a certain suspicion.

And if that suspicion proved accurate, it would explain why the Capitalist Corporations had wanted to send in that new police Object even though it was a poor fit for the environment. There was some “power” there they wanted to obtain as quickly as possible.

Yes, and for the Capitalist Corporations, money was power.

In other words…

“The rare earth known as Immortanoid. There was already a theory that a massive deposit was hidden somewhere in South America.”

This topic was a familiar one for the 37th.

Those children on the Julius Caesar aurora observation ship trapped in the Arctic had been used as carriers by filling them with that same rare earth that had grown to be 200 times the value of pure gold.

It was said to emit a special form of radiation, so if it was used in the right quantities (such as in a mineral spring), it could extend an individual’s lifespan by 30%.

However…

“U-umm.”

“Yes?”

“Well, didn’t you say before that Immortanoid can’t actually be found in the ground?”

“I did. That’s why this entire story is a bluff. After all, they can’t sell it unless they announce where it was mined from. Just like with gold and diamonds, you need an official certificate to sell it on the market.”

Mineral resources were still commonly sold to fund guerillas and terrorists, but that was why buyers wanted to know where it had come from.

So…

“Immortanoid is an element located after #93. Simply put, it is an artificial element found nowhere in the natural world and must be created in a particle accelerator.”

“…”

“All of that talk about it being good for your health or extending your lifespan is bogus information meant to increase its price. Y’know, just like how they fill mineral water with oxygen or nitrogen and sell it at a higher price. If you call it a health product, no one will question how far you jacked up the price.”

And there was one thing that was an absolute necessity if you wanted to sell health goods: the magic words “all natural”.

“I mean, no one would touch the stuff if they knew it was a new radioactive element created with chemicals in an accelerator and that isn’t found naturally anywhere on the planet or even in the universe. You get a lot more customers by saying it’s a rare stone that absorbed the earth’s mystical energy in some strange unexplored region.”

“But, wait, that doesn’t make any sense! They sent the Police Queen to the Uyuni Salt Flats when that’s just about the worst place for it. If they were only burying their artificial rare earth and then pretending to ‘discover’ it, they could have used any number of more convenient locations!!”

“It’s a bank.” The busty silver-haired woman smiled in response to the busty blonde-haired woman’s confusion. “Remember that secret bank for rare metals in the Bering Sea? Where do you think they store the gold and platinum their customers deposit? Surely you didn’t think they kept it in a safe in the back of the bank.”

“Um.”

“With petroleum and any other mineral resource, a simulation is run before the prospecting process even begins. After all, you have to buy the digging rights for that land before you can actually dig it up, so no one wants to spend a bunch of money on empty land. Yes, if you earn a little more authority, you can learn just how long humanity has left. It’s a readily available figure.”

“I-I would rather not know. But what does that data have to do with this?”

“No one is going to dig somewhere worthless. That’s just how the industry works. So if you want to hide some secret precious metals, those ‘worthless’ spots are perfect. The secret bank used the simulation data to find areas no one else was going to dig in and buried all the ingots they wanted there. My guess is the Police Queen chose the Uyuni Salt Flat because it was the only area within its reach that fit the multiple conditions they needed.”

“…”

“And we happened across one of those – their Immortanoid vault – and pried open the door.”

The Uyuni Salt Flat had been dug up like a labyrinth, but that was only to extract the salt. The secret bank’s “buried treasure” would have been at the very edge of the salt flat where even the salt miners would not think to dig.

The Police Queen was the only Object the Capitalist Corporations police had.

They apparently wanted to overtake the PMC army, but that meant they had to stand out. The Capitalist Corporations in particular would not run full speed into an ideological war while forgetting all about the monetary factors.

Also, a bank could not make money on its own. It needed customers to deposit money and keep the cycle of cash flow going. They may have been protecting the secret bank they hoped would fund the mass-production of police Objects, but the Legitimacy Kingdom had driven off their guard.

“Um, doesn’t that put us in a very dangerous position!?”

“It does. This is no longer a simple matter of the Legitimacy Kingdom vs. the Capitalist Corporations. We’ll have made an enemy of all the wealthiest members of the world powers. Including those in the Legitimacy Kingdom.” Frolaytia Capistrano blew out some sweet smoke in an exasperated way and placed a hand on her forehead. “By the way, Elise, there’s an interesting story from the past related to a secret bank. A local TV station began airing a show about locating buried treasure, so they kept digging up areas entirely unrelated to any mining simulation data. What do you think happened to them?”

“Th-they found something they shouldn’t have and the show got canceled?”

That would have made for a strange enough legend, but the truth was even more shocking.

“Some of the mining explosives detonated early, so the host and all the shooting staff were killed on site. And during a live broadcast at that.”

“…”

“Something similar might happen here, but on a much larger scale.”

Whoever had done that had only been doing what they thought was necessary.

They had only wanted to protect their secret and their fortune.

It was not that killing the TV crew was the only method available to them. They had used that method because it was the optimal solution. So if they had to eliminate a military force, they might just crank up the scale accordingly.

The secret the 37th had stumbled upon was simply that great.

It was more than enough to start a war.

“To be honest, I really want to rebury it and pretend we never found anything. I’m not sure if I should even report this to the higher ups. Because I know some of them will be stupid enough to want to snatch it up despite knowing how dangerous it is.”

The rules of the military said she had to report it.

But if she did report it, her name might go down in history as an unbelievable fool.

The busty blonde-haired woman’s face clouded over and the busty silver-haired woman whispered one last thing.

“So, Sergeant Elise, you need to prepare for a major battle. If this goes beyond the limits of the clean wars, I am certain we will need to rely on your unique skills.”