Editing HEAVY OBJECT:MonicaSS (section)

===Part 3===

Every part of the building was a brutal scene. The hallways and stairs were impassable due to piles of desks and chairs. There were holes in the walls and floors and collapsed building materials were scattered across the floors. The bulletin boards on the wall had only the corners of printouts remaining after the paper was violently torn away, perhaps for use as kindling.

Amid it all, a redheaded woman wearing a lab coat and a long skirt walked along a hallway of professors. She held a wicker basket, she stood tall with dignity, and she nodded at the armed men and women she passed.

“Hello. I am here with supplies. The water bottles won’t last too long since they were only filled from the tap, but you never know when the tap water will be stopped.”

“Oh, thanks. The students are right over there. Make sure they don’t attack you.”

After watching the professors rush to the front line, the woman breathed a sigh of relief.

She continued walking until she had left the danger zone and then she spoke to no one in particular.

“Looks like we’re in the clear.”

There was a sound like the wind beating at a curtain.

Quenser poked his head out from below her long skirt.

“Phew. Sorry about this for, um, a few different reasons.”

“It’s fine. I am an intermediary, after all.”

The Academy was divided between the students and teachers, but with an elementary through graduate school, not everyone knew each other. Generally, people only recognized people from the same class, lab, or club. They had used that fact to have mature-looking students change clothes, temporarily infiltrate the teachers, and gather intelligence.

But the opposite was not an option.

Unless there was a genius girl who had skipped a bunch of grades and become a visiting lecturer, not even the most baby-faced teacher could pass themselves off as a fellow kid.

“It’s this classroom, right?” said Quenser. “Okay, I’ll leave here. You be careful, okay?”

“I will. By the way, do I really look that mature? I’m hesitant to ask, but that means I look sexy and not old, right!?”

“I’m praying you can finally graduate this year. Also, the panties worn below pantyhose don’t have to be beige. Something more exciting would be better. Like red. Adieu.”

After a bitter farewell with the mature upperclassman girl, Quenser entered one of the empty classrooms. Allen and Monica were already there after arriving by different routes.

“Servant… Don’t you think your solution was somewhat inelegant?”

“Quensette, you never change, do you? But maybe you shouldn’t do that in front of Monica. Or are you trying to get her attention?”

“That doesn’t matter. We need to do something about the school store woman’s food cart that’s giving food to the teachers, right? You said there was a safe route from here, didn’t you?”

With impromptu weapons in hand and zip ties to use as handcuffs, they got started.

The hallways and stairs were blocked by occasional barricades and the areas controlled by either side were arranged in a confusing manner, but there were exits. There were holes large enough to crawl through in the walls and floors and some had rope ladders dangling from them. It was arranged so looking at the blueprint would not tell you where to go.

Super-mini dress Monica sounded annoyed (while being very cautious of her skirt during the extreme vertical movement).

“I hope you didn’t set it up this way just to make it feel more like a secret base.”

“Setting the mood is surprisingly important. A battle begins before the fighting actually starts.”

“S-servants should not act more knowledgeable than their master!!”

“You really haven’t changed at all!! Not that’s gonna stop me from enjoying the view up your skirt!!”

“Do I need to stomp on your face, servant!?”

While they argued, they made it outside the building. All the doors and windows were marked by the teachers and had gun turrets aimed at them, so only the holes in the walls were accessible. The flowers of a flower bed apparently happened to hide this hole from view.

They did not feel any freer with the evening sky overhead.

Allen spoke while curled up in his blue blazer with elbow and knee pads.

“Let’s stay low and follow the walls around to the back of the building. It’s a lot easier than sneaking through the ducts like in an action movie. The route between the middle school building and the shortest fence is their silk road. That will bring us right by it.”

There was no real reason to disagree. Quenser and Monica followed Allen as he led the way.

There was little cover outside, but that did not mean it was completely deserted. Some people with highly specialized bicycles used the almost complete silence to ride around out there. They were couriers. They were probably from the Cycle Racing Club or something, but they were transporting supplies between buildings or delivering letters containing information that could not fall into the teachers’ hands.

Since the teachers had an armored truck with a flamethrower on top making occasional patrols, that job really was putting their life at risk.

“Stop, Quensette. Don’t leave the bushes. We need a detour.”

“Seriously? But if we’re spotted, we’ll be blown to bits.”

“Look up. See those ‘party balls’ hanging up there? Those weren’t in the reports, so the teachers must have set them up recently.”

Quenser and Monica hesitantly looked up and saw something like fist-sized fruits hanging from the tops of the streetlights. They were cans full of explosives and they had razor blades blatantly tied on with wire. If those exploded over your head, you would be hit by a storm of blades.

“Those are tripwires, right? It’s different from the normal method, but there’s a straight line from the bottom of the can to the ground.”

“That’s why I called them ‘party balls’, Quensette. But there might be another switch besides that obvious tripwire. And that half-assed setup might go off just from a strong gust of wind shaking the can. It would be best to find another way around, right?”

They ever-so-carefully crossed that deadly territory.

After returning to the bushes and circling to the back of the building, they all groaned together.

“This is crazy. It’s that railgun!!”

“So even if it stands out too much, they’re completely focused on securing a food supply, huh? But that just shows how cornered they feel.”

“U-um, you’re kidding, right? All we have is my stun sabre, an electric nail gun, a slingshot bow gun made from a bicycle tire tube, and around 20 zip ties. Surely you aren’t planning to charge an armored truck with a pellet launcher attached!”

Monica’s face tensed with her modified foil in hand.

Her response was only natural after seeing that thing’s destructive power earlier. If the teachers noticed them, they would be blown to smithereens along with whatever wall they were hiding behind.

Quenser and Allen exchanged a glance.

“It’s not possible.”

“Not even a little.”

Twintail Monica breathed a sigh of relief when she heard that, but then things changed.

Allen pulled a small egg-shaped device from his pocket, surreptitiously tossed it toward the railgun truck, and spoke up while operating his smartphone.

“Allen to High School General Building Rooftop Team. Requesting support.”

“?”

It happened just as the battlefield idol reporter frowned.

“Activating marker. Volleyball regulars, go get it!!”

Several small scale explosions followed.

More and more melon-sized items were fired down from the rooftop.

In no time, the armored truck protecting the food cart was engulfed in orange flames. Rather than the dry explosions of explosives, this was the sticky flames of Molotov cocktails.

Quenser and Allen sounded carefree as they looked up at the roof.

“Damn, you gotta love those demons in bloomers.”

“It’s even hotter when they have those elbow and knee pads on. You don’t see them all geared up like that very often.”

“You mean like how the exact same busty girl has a way stronger upperclassman aura when she’s wearing a Student Council armband?”

“God is in the details, right?”

The two continued their calm chat while the explosions continued. Meanwhile, twintail Monica was nearly knocked to the ground, so she clung to Quenser and shouted. He enjoyed her warmth, but the proximity of the stun sabre caused his balls to shrink. He could not focus.

“Wh-what is that!?”

“You can’t tell, Monica? It’s a volleyball launcher. But the balls are filled with gasoline instead of air. What I threw over there was a kid’s personal alarm, so they’re using the GPS signal to aim the bombs.”

“Oh?” asked Quenser. “That must be tricky since they don’t break like a bottle would. What’s the ignition method?”

“Molotov cocktails.”

“Wait, so they’ve taped eye drop bottles all over them or something? Talk about dangerous!”

“Your slingshot bow gun’s arrowheads are pretty much the same, aren’t they? You stuffed a bunch of things in a glass fiber bag the size of a ping pong ball so the contents will scatter like a shower when it hits.”

“It’s more like a plastic balloon with caps attached here and there. The Academy developed it to scatter the jelly food for killing roaches.”

While those two described the weapons like they were on an infomercial, the railgun truck burned before their eyes. Monica was still clinging to Quenser and trembling.

“I-it isn’t going to fire back on us, is it?”

“Railguns – or rather, the large-capacity batteries used to power them – are generally weak to heat. With that much fire covering it, it’ll swell out like Island Nation rice cakes and stop working altogether. I mean, it is only an experimental prototype. It doesn’t have proper insulation or cooling.”

Incidentally, the aproned young woman pulling around the food cart had completely panicked and fallen onto her butt. They would not even need Monica’s foil or the zip ties. That woman had lost the will to fight.

“Does that complete our mission, Allen? If we don’t show some mercy soon, she’s going to piss herself.”

“Not a chance. There’s still some trash left over there.”

The problem was the burning armored truck.

“Then let’s end it quickly. The driver is going to scramble out before they roast to death and the volleyball team is leaning over the edge of the roof despite the danger. Let’s finish the driver off for good before they can cause some damage with a handmade rocket launcher or something.”

Quenser held the slingshot bow gun made from a tire tube and Allen held the electric nail gun as they began to approach the burning armored truck.

But then something odd happened.

A girl of about 10 ran out from the wall of a nearby building.

“Stop!!”

She ran on unsteady legs to reach the (remains of?) the armored truck, spun around, and held her small hands out as wide as she could as if to protect it.

The short-haired girl wore something like a red suit with a tight miniskirt and she shouted at the top of her lungs.

“That’s enough! Both sides lay down your weapons! It’s wrong for us to be killing each other like this!!”

All of a sudden, she was in tear-jerker mode.

Quenser’s group had been interrupted at the last second and was not sure what was happening, so they could not decide whether they should run out there or crouch back down.

“Who is she!? A pacifist from the elementary school!?”

“Wait, this is bad!”

The burning armored truck’s door opened behind the girl.

Just as they had expected, a large, muscular man grabbed the girl’s shoulder from behind. Then he wrapped his arm around her neck to use her as a shield.

“None of you move or this kid-…!!”

Quenser and Allen started moving before he had finished his threat.

With two dry sounds, orange sparks flew from the side of the armored truck behind the large man.

He cowered down and glanced back without thinking.

“W-wait, you understand the situation, don’t you? I have a hostage!!”

Quenser and Allen ignored that and boldly approached him.

But instead of burning with an indomitable fighting spirit, they did so while tilting their heads a little.

“Hey, Allen. Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

“Don’t ask me. You’re the battlefield student, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but they don’t let students touch them. So how are you supposed to hold one? Like this? Or do you hold it sideways like this? Looks like something from a mafia movie, doesn’t it?”

“No, like this. See?”

Another odd sound rang out.

The sparks coming from the armored truck behind the cowering man were enough to know a metal nail had shot right past him at high speed.

“Quit acting like you know what you’re doing. You didn’t even hit him.”

“Hm, that’s weird.”

“You’re supposed to use the…sight, is it called? Line that up to aim.”

“Yeah, but does your handmade bow gun even have a sight?”

“I dunno.”

“Well, not that it matters.”

“Wha-, wait, hostage!”

The large man trembled and stammered, but it was too late. It was obvious a 10-year-old girl was not large enough to function as a pure shield.

They continued approaching him.

And those inscrutable modern children spoke their conclusion in unison.

“We just have to keep trying until we hit.”

“We just have to keep trying until we hit.”

Only a scream followed.

The large man shoved the small girl away, turned tail, and ran.

Quenser lowered his bow gun and caught the girl, but Allen was different.

A few dull sounds rang out in quick succession.

And while watching the large man writhing on the ground holding his leg, he spat out some cold words.

“What an idiot. The hostage was the only reason he was still alive.”

But Quenser was in no position to make a witty comment.

The red suit girl in his arms gave him a solid chomp.

“Ow!? Wait, wait, let me explain! That was all an act to get him to let go of his hostage! It was all a plan that put your safety first!!”

“You fool!! Why do you have to take the easy way out? He had lost his will to fight. He was trembling. You didn’t have to go that far!!”

The struggling girl tried to approach the injured man, so Quenser quickly and firmly held her back. He did not want her taken hostage again.

But once twintailed Monica decided it was safe and finally came out of hiding, she looked at him like he was absolute scum. She poked him with the tip of her modified-foil stun sabre.

“Okay, servant. That was assault, groping, and kidnapping. That’s three outs. Better luck next life.”

“Wait, really!? You’re counting that!? But it was necessary to keep her safe. If I had let her go and do what she wanted, she might have been killed! Would you arrest someone for molestation after they rescued a drowning child from the ocean? Of course not!”

Allen also sounded somewhat gloomy.

“Quensette.”

“Please, say something. You’re about to start on an important plan to capture the Board Chairman or Headmaster, so you need all the help you can get, right? You don’t want to lose a useful soldier to bizarre accusations, do you?”

“Quensette.”

“Hey, Allen, what’s with that tone? Is no one on my side??? F-fine then. I’ll follow the safe country rules. But please let me choose my lawyer! I-If I’m remembering right, my aunt’s cousin’s friend’s neighbor’s tutor’s social media friend’s impersonator is an eloquent son of a bitch from some law office or another!!”

“This isn’t about that, Quensette.”

Allen pointed at Quenser.

No, at the girl in his arms.

“Now that I have a closer look, this is Board Chairman Elritta Champs-Élysées.”

“Hm?”

Quenser looked down at the girl in his arms.

She responded by clearing her throat.