Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume12 Chapter 7 (section)

===Part 6===

Second Venice was a giant artificial island.

It looked like a floating city 20 km across, but it was actually made by combining giant dice made of aluminum alloy or reinforced stainless steel. The air inside those was used to keep the entire city afloat. They were basically giant metal beach balls.

They naturally could not allow water in, but destroying the connection between dice was also a bad idea. To ensure the safety of Second Venice, a set number of spares had to be preserved at all times.

They had borrowed those.

They had borrowed them and used submarines to drag them down to the bottom of the ocean. The rest was no different from the previous asparagus farm. They had cut the wires and allowed the air inside to pull them up.

“Ah.”

The Old Fashion floated up into the air.

It weighed 200,000 tons, which was twice that of an outdated nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. That frightening weight was pushed up just a bit by the float used to support an entire city.

And even an Object could not accelerate or turn while on unsteady footing. When performing a long jump, it was impossible to change direction after leaving the ground.

“Phew…”

The Princess breathed a slow sigh of relief.

Her low-stability plasma cannon burst out. This time she made full use of the few seconds of opportunity by targeting the very center of the Old Fashion’s main body.

But even after that…

“You’re…kidding!” shouted Heivia.

The Old Fashion had not been destroyed. It had aimed its main cannon and all of its secondary cannons downwards to blow away the giant piece of artificial land that had knocked it into the air. And the intense shockwave slightly changed the Old Fashion’s own path through the air. That allowed it to just barely avoid the Princess’s low-stability plasma cannon. Most of its armor turned orange and tore away, but the reactor and cockpit escaped unharmed.

“You damn genius!!” groaned Oh Ho Ho.

The badly-damaged Old Fashion landed in the ocean rather than the land made of aluminum and stainless steel. Great waves spread in every direction. The float arrived right in front of Quenser and Heivia. In only a dozen or so seconds, they would be tossed around.

But Quenser did not care.

The ocean was filthy. There were boats, wreckage, buoys made from steel beams, and the dice-shaped pieces of the float drifting around. The student grabbed a piece of equipment from their patrol boat that he spotted among it all.

It was a wire shooter that used pressurized gas to fire a metal hook.

It was part of a winch used to drag around a captured enemy ship.

“The float wasn’t just to throw you into the air.”

He ignored the approaching wave and grabbed onto the float. He attached the edge of the wire shooter device onto the latch of the joint holding the dice together.

“We don’t even have to break through your armor to defeat you.”

Then he looked up at his giant foe.

He rested the wire shooter on his shoulder and took aim.

“Even an Object will sink if it capsizes!!”

With the sound of compressed air escaping, the metal hook shot out.

He was lucky the Object’s own massive shockwave had forcibly altered its trajectory. That had prevented it from using its secondary cannons to shoot down the metal hook with an anti-air laser.

Then the wire attached itself by wrapping around the main cannon.

The giant spare float was attached to the Object by a wire.

It happened just as the Object regained its balance and swung itself around to aim at the Baby Magnum from the side.

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The Old Fashion was already unstable, but then the wire and spare float tugged at it. It was like a horse being dragged around by a rope caught on its neck. The Object rocked and tilted. The air cushion engine blew a massive amount of air downwards to create a layer of air between the float and the ocean. If the float itself flipped upside down, the Object could no longer remain afloat. The 200,000 ton mass would simply sink.

“Sink.”

As the Old Fashion wobbled, Quenser raised what sounded like a prayer.

“Sink already, ace!!”

But then he heard the sharp sound of the thick wire snapping. Even if it was made to drag around captured ships, it had been unable to bear the Object’s weight.

Quenser glared at his powerful enemy even as the wire flipped back like a serpent and nearly took off his head.

A moment later, a further impact arrived from the side.

It was the Baby Magnum.

And the Rush.

This went beyond a volley of main cannons or secondary cannons. They used their full speed to charge in and ram their Objects against the Old Fashion as it tried to regain its balance.

“It’s time you gave up that position for someone else, ace.”

“Oh ho ho. How about you rest in peace, you ghost!?”

That clinched it.

The Faith Organization legend flipped over and sunk. The two-by-two arrangement of floats writhed about and blew air out, but they accomplished nothing while not in contact with the ground or ocean.

“He didn’t eject,” noted Quenser as he drifted in the ocean.

“Well, he flipped upside down. The water may have gotten in the way and kept the emergency exit from opening.”

“…”

Quenser could not agree with Heivia’s suggestion.

That ace had stuck with that old Object for a promise with an old friend. Quenser suspected the man had never had an ejection device installed in the first place.