Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume5 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 2===

Before heading back to her room in the resort hotel, Mariydi stopped by Stacy’s place. The Technopic Village that Mariydi stayed in was meant for the athletes, so her support members had to use a different hotel. Since every athlete had dozens of other people supporting them, there really was no other option.

That woman who was easily swept up in fads looked delighted at her small visitor.

“What are you here for? Do you want to give me your autograph?”

“Do you have anything I can eat for a late-night snack? Something like a hot dog would be great.”

“Oh? I thought you just finished eating dinner?”

“I’m not going to eat it now. Would you rather I wake you up in the middle of the night when I get hungry? I’m not allowed to eat or drink anything from the normal stores, remember?”

“Hmm. I guess you are a growing girl.”

“…Where do you think you’re looking?”

“But will the nutrients actually go where you want them?”

“Again, where do you think you’re looking!?”

Stacy did not seem fazed by Mariydi’s anger. She headed back into her hotel room and began looking through a refrigerator that was much too big to have come with the room.

“You said a hot dog would be fine, right?”

“It just has to be something to prevent me from being too hungry to sleep. It doesn’t have to be all that substantial.”

“It would be simplest to just take a sleeping pill, but…Hm?”

Stacy let out an odd voice while sticking her head into the refrigerator and rummaging through it.

Mariydi frowned.

“What is it?”

“I’m out of lettuce.”

“I don’t need any. You just need a bun and a sausage for a hot dog.”

“No!!” Despite it being 10 at night, Stacy let out a cry that rivaled the roars of the crowd in the stadium. “Lettuce is important. Incredibly important! With just a bun, butter, and a sausage, it will be way too greasy!! And then if you add ketchup and mustard, you have something that doesn’t even count as food!!”

“I was just asking for something that is anything like a hot dog.”

“Without the moist lettuce, it isn’t a hot dog!! You can’t just replace it with cabbage or something! Oh, no. I need to head to the team HQ and secure some supplies!!”

“Just give me a sausage!! That’s enough!!” shouted Mariydi, but Stacy ignored her.

She grabbed Mariydi’s hand and half-dragged her out of the hotel room.

When the bodyguard who was waiting outside in the hallway saw them, he asked, “What happened?”

“I’m learning something about Stacy’s household preferences. Dammit!!”

“…If possible, I’d like something for myself as well. Late night bodyguard work makes me hungry.”

Stacy completely ignored their conversation and continued on through the hotel with Mariydi in tow.

It seemed each team had their equipment stored in rented storage rooms located in the hotel’s basement. Capitalist Corporations guards were deployed there as well.

Stacy rummaged through an industrial refrigerator that was practically a small refrigerated room. The look in her eyes only returned to normal once she found the lettuce.

“…Hoo. Now I can make a perfect hot dog.”

“Have you completely forgotten your initial goal?” said Mariydi in shock as they headed for the elevator.

Stacy’s room was on the 20th floor, but the elevator stopped at a floor before that. It was the floor the lounge was located on. The bodyguard who was wearing a bulletproof jacket immediately raised his guard, but Mariydi found an attack unlikely. There was close to zero chance of someone gaining information on an unscheduled outing like this.

But something Mariydi was truly not expecting appeared on the other side of the elevator door.

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“We can’t have that. The Technopics is full of plots and attacks, so I will escort you,” said Alicia with a huge smile.

She was trying to enter the elevator while clinging to the arm of the PR manager of the sponsor company.

Mariydi Whitewitch had continually fought in the long-drawn out wars of the Northern European Restricted Zone where the use of Objects was banned. Her expression would remain completely unchanged even while sitting atop an enemy soldier and smashing his head open with a large rock. But this sight caused her mind to go completely blank.

Alicia’s eyes met Mariydi’s as the girl’s mouth silently flapped open and closed. She then spotted the bodyguard and Stacy on the elevator. It was just an instant, but her smile definitely froze over.

Would her pride or her sense of business win out?

As a true member of the Capitalist Corporations, she chose the path that led to money.

No one had pressed the close button, but the elevator door started to close on its own. Alicia grabbed it and forced it back open.

By then her smile had completely returned and she was once more nestling up against the young PR manager from the sponsor company at the ideal angle and with the ideal strength.

“Don’t you think there isn’t enough to drink at the bar? I may not look it, but I know quite a bit about cocktails. If you like, I could make some for you in my room.”

“E-excuse me. Excuse me a moment! You are Miss Whitewitch, the athlete my company is supporting, correct!?”

While Alicia continued to lean up against him, the PR manager spoke to Mariydi.

With a suspicious look, she said, “Yes?”

“I have just been assaulted with praises for 3 hours straight. I’m a bit afraid my internal sense has been thrown off balance. If you don’t mind, could you insult me so I can realign myself?”

(As much as you act like you don’t, I take it you actually like having a beauty like Alicia clinging to you like that.)

With that thought, Mariydi looked at the man with a horribly icy look.

“So you’re some *** of a mental *** bastard who can’t get a boner without looking at a girl holding a giant gun? Get back to your dismal house and start licking a doll or something.”

The PR manager crouched down facing into a corner of the elevator.

“…Sorry. That was a bit more than I was expecting.”

“It was a request from my sponsor. I had to go all out.”

“Oh? If that is what you like, I could insult you too.”

The elevator stopped at another floor and Alicia and the PR manager headed down the hallway. After a few steps, Alicia turned back toward the elevator and threatened Mariydi and the others with a horribly obscene gesture using her thumb.

The door closed again and an awkward silence fell over the elevator.

“…I guess there really is no business you can easily make money in.”

Mariydi’s muttered words touched on one of the major truths of the Capitalist Corporations.