Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume4 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 1===

The air was oppressively hot.

Buckets of torrential rain poured down on his head.

The large leaves of the tropical trees growing thickly around him caused a rumbling similar to a percussion instrument being struck repeatedly.

In all seriousness, Heivia Winchell wanted to check to make sure his neck was working properly. That was how heavy the rain constantly falling on his head was.

“…Dammit. Everything stinks of mud. Whatever happened to the coral ocean?”

The time was just before midnight.

He was in complete darkness. No artificial lights were lit and the thick rain clouds above his head cut off any light from the moon or stars.

As Heivia crouched down below a thick palm tree, another boy dressed in the same uniform crouched next to him. The other boy was named Quenser Barbotage. Instead of a rifle, he carried a bag filled with explosives.

“I thought we were supposed to have a champagne party after the princess blew away the Faith Organization’s Generation 1 Object. Why are we going through this mental training out here in the rain?”

“Didn’t you hear the additional radio announcement?” asked Heivia in annoyance. “This is the Loyauté district, an archipelago right next to Oceania. Due to the multinational coalition attack, the dictatorship in Oceania was destroyed and the area is in the process of being restored. You know that much, right?”

“Well, we were the ones to blow up the dictator in question.”

Quenser recalled hearing something about Oceania having plenty of resources, so it could earn money so long as the facilities needed for mines and refineries were brought in.

Little by little, Oceanian coal, steel, and platinum was scheduled to be taken to the Legitimacy Kingdom, but that meant it was no longer just an area requiring protection. It was an area that could have business negotiations and enact trade.

“Well, the Loyauté district is being used as a midway Object resupply base. For that reason, the Oceanian resources are being brought through the Loyauté district where they are moved to different boats before heading out to the world.”

“What does that have to do with us being neglected out here?”

“There will always be idiots who start scheming over this kind of thing. For example, some might attack the transport ships to steal the valuable resources.”

“…What does that have to do with this?”

“The media is referring to them as Hyena. In this age of ‘clean wars’ that use Objects, the higher ups would lose face if they were done in by that analog method, so they sent these orders down to our unit.”

“What does that have to do with this!? I don’t know anything about Hyena! This isn’t a war; it’s a crime. They should send in uniformed police officers!!”

“These are our orders. And what clean freak police officer is going to come to an unstable area like this?”

“But we have Objects we could be using. Oceania is right there. The coalition is still intact, so we have plenty of Objects. I thought the Capitalist Corporations’ Deep Optical was dealing with cleanup on the sea. Isn’t it a brand-new Generation 2 that uses tons of laser technology?”

“Why are you grinning like that while thinking about enemy weapons?”

“At any rate, this isn’t our kind of job! It just doesn’t have the right sense of intelligence to it. We’re more suited for some kind of smarter mission!!”

“I would like to get to sleep, too,” cut in their commander Froleytia over the radio. “But this is the sad side of a Multi-Role Generation 1 Object that is seen as a convenient tool for any job. The Baby Magnum can fight people as well as vehicles, so the higher ups view it as more suitable for this kind of thing than the specialized Generation 2s. …So let’s just crush these island platinum thieves and get to bed. You two, get down and cover your eyes. It’s about to begin.”

“…Seriously? The ground is stickier than some chocolate out in the summer sun.”

“I think this much mud might make my skin a little too shiny and healthy…”

Without the tension of facing enemy troops, the two took a bit too long to take action.

They regretted this soon after.

The darkness was blown away by a flash of light as an Object bombardment roasted the earth.

It came from the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion’s Generation 1 Object known as the Baby Magnum.

The giant weapon had 7 main cannon arms stretching up from behind and over 100 other giant cannons covering its main body.

It had not just fired one of its main cannons. That had been a variety of the other cannons attached all over its spherical main body.

It fired laser beam cannons, rapid-fire beam cannons, coilguns, railguns, and low-stability plasma cannons.

They came roaring down like a shower of light, but Quenser and Heivia were unable to leisurely watch the sight as if it was a show in a concert hall.

“Ow!! Damn, the light is stabbing into my eyes!!”

“Rolling around on the ground isn’t going to make your sense of pain go away! Let’s just get our job over with, Heivia!!”

Quenser and Heivia headed on while meaninglessly rubbing at their eyes.

The Baby Magnum was bombarding an area about 5 kilometers away where Hyena had a beach bunker in which armored vehicles and high-speed patrol boats were hidden.

A thumb-sized piece of stone fell at Quenser’s feet amid the great squall.

It was a piece of the bunker/hangar made of quick-dry concrete.

(As usual, that is a level of firepower I do not want to have as an enemy!!)

They were afraid to get any closer, but they had a job they had to complete.

“Quenser, do you have that kit?”

“I can set it up in 7 places in 10 minutes.”

“Well, hurry. Hyena will be fleeing in this direction after being woken up by that horribly flashy alarm clock.”

And so Quenser pulled out a few devices known as Cursors. They were cylinders 5 cm across and 10 cm long mostly made of reinforced plastic.

He checked the Cursors’ frequency with his radio and then bound the cylinders to trees in the area using wires.

After setting up a few Cursors, he heard a few dull noises.

They were coming from palm trees that had been torn to pieces by the Baby Magnum’s bombardment.

“(Quenser, get down! They’re coming to show us their hospitality!!)”

“(Isn’t this sooner than expected? I’ve only set up half of them!!)”

“(You should know by now that this always happens. Just get down!!)”

The undergrowth in the area trembled from something other than the torrential rain.

(Is it Hyena?)

Quenser looked around as he hid behind some trees.

Their job was supposed to have been setting traps to take out Hyena when they ran off in confusion due to the Baby Magnum’s bombardment.

However, something else was happening.

Foot soldiers would not affect the undergrowth to such a great extent and the Baby Magnum was attacking a point over 5 kilometers away. Quenser doubted they could have made it that far so quickly.

Which meant…

“…Look, Heivia.”

“Wait, don’t raise your head. Do you want me to shoot you in the back of the head?”

“Is that thing noisily headed this way a tank?”

Heivia kicked the trunk of a palm tree without thinking and then curled up, holding his toes.

“(That damn large-breasted commandeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!)”

“I don’t think there is any job here where you can make a lot of money while remaining in complete comfort. We’d just give up if there was.”

“But pay is even across a rank!!”

“Heivia, what about an antitank missile?”

“That would be fine if a single shot could take care of it, but its sensors might detect the lock. Also, the missile would probably hit a tree before reaching the tank in this forest.”

Quenser clicked his tongue.

Naturally, a normal rifle could not pierce tank armor. And Quenser’s explosives would need to be brought close enough for the tank to be in range of the blast.

Of course, the odds were good the tank would notice him before he could get close enough to throw it and then he would end up being mowed down by a light machinegun.

“What do we do, Heivia?”

“I’d like to bring out some beer and have a round with them. This killing is wrong. The world should be at peace.”

“…Pacifistic ideals tend to come from the losers, don’t they?”

“Yeah, I guess they wouldn’t go along with that.” Heivia sighed as he scratched at his soaking-wet hair. “Then I guess we have no choice but to go through with this. Quenser, what about that kit?”

“Cursor?”

“Yes.” Heivia pointed at the device attached to a palm tree. “It’s an infrared trap that sends targeting information to the Object. Its sensors are directly linked to the Object’s lock data, so the target caught in the trap has an almost 100% chance of being hit. Let’s hurry up and set up that invisible net of lasers and blow them to pieces.”