Editing HEAVY OBJECT:MonicaSS (section)

===Part 7===

Headmaster Cliff French-Connection felt impatient.

At first glance, everything seemed to be going according to plan and he appeared to be unilaterally manipulating the students and teachers from the safety of his throne, but all of his actions from the very beginning had been unplanned and adlibbed.

He had failed to turn young Board Chairman Elritta Champs-Élysées into his puppet.

He could not use her for cover and, now that he was finally using the false funding project to line his pockets with public money, Elritta’s supporters had begun investigating the financial malpractice.

And then the high school Student Council President, who he had planned to guide into a dead end for Operation Foie Gras, had been on the verge of discovering his plans to sell the data to other world powers and fund a private Object.

Attacking her and accelerating the conflict between teachers and students was only a temporary measure.

He had successfully weakened Elritta’s supporters among the teachers, but no matter how much he searched the school buildings, he could not find the Student Council President’s crucial secret file.

It was all for show. He had no real power.

His position was identical to that of the nonexistent Objects.

And then…

(The high school special classroom building. Are they after the Student Council Room?)

He knew this because of the sensors he had set up in the underground fiber optic installation and maintenance passageways.

There was a simple reason why he had not hooked a bomb up to those sensors. If he created a delicate enough situation that a rat could trigger an explosion, he might accidentally clue the students and teachers into the existence of the tunnels. Plus, he was not stupid enough to create the risk of catching himself in his own trap. So he had avoided any lethal traps.

However, data on someone’s location could be just as deadly depending on the situation.

Cliff clenched his teeth as he thought about it.

(Did I suspect it? Of course I did. I checked there again and again during all the chaos! I even used the experimental laser to drive out all the students I couldn’t manipulate into leaving!! Yet I found nothing. Dammit, am I missing something here!?)

It honestly did not matter whether or not the secret file was in the Student Council Room.

Or even if it was anywhere in that building.

What mattered was that Elritta’s group had used the secret underground passageways to enter that building and that they had likely acquired the secret file from somewhere.

In other words, if he killed them here – if he slaughtered everyone in Elritta’s group – it would never see the light of day. It would all be over if he grabbed the secret file lying there next to the corpses.

He could not stay here forever.

Without that conclusive evidence, the military’s Black Uniforms could not act. Same for the local police and prosecutors. If he crossed the fence and had the police protect him, he could lie his way through their questioning and then prepare to escape overseas. If he sold that data on the Academy to the Information Alliance, found his way somewhere he could use as a foundation for a similar false funding project, and stole enough public funding there, he could finally travel to the Capitalist Corporations. That world power determined the meaning of justice and the hierarchy of civil liberties with cash and money, so he could buy an Object there.

The game only came to an end once that happened.

As long as he remained on the Academy’s campus, he was still in the opening stage of the game.

He could not afford to screw up this initial step.

In his luxury suit, Cliff walked up to a snowplow with thick armor panels welded on and shouted to the silly-looking teacher inside it.

“Can we still not get inside!? There can’t be any students left in there after using that laser so much! Taking back that building is a crucial step toward breaking their spirit and destroying their morale without any bloodshed!!”

The adults here were not Elritta’s supporters. They were the poor lambs who were being pursued by the students just for being adults. That meant none of them viewed Cliff with any suspicion or hostility.

But this teacher shook his head.

“The laser has increased the temperature inside by a lot! Searching the inside would be far too dangerous!!”

“It’s important!!”

“Maybe so, but it has to wait!! Safety has to come first!!”

(You dumbass!! What good is a pawn that’s afraid to die!?)

Cliff just bout said that out loud, but he caught himself at the last second.

If they took too long here, Elritta’s group would escape through the underground route once more. And with the secret file in hand. He had to avoid that at all costs. He has several sensors set up in that network of tunnels below the campus, but that was far from perfect. He could only make general guesses like “there were readings at Point A, Point B, and Point C in that order, so they are likely moving from west to east”. If he misread something for whatever reason, they would escape. And if that happened and the secret file made it outside the fence and to the Black Uniforms, there would be no stopping it.

Cliff French-Connection’s life would be over then and there.

(I have to settle this here. I must! I need to annihilate Elritta’s group before they leave the high school special classroom building.)

Cliff suddenly looked up.

He focused on what he was using as a shield: the armored snowplow.

Of course, it was more than just a plow. Just like all the other vehicles out here, it had a handmade cannon attached.

And that was the very cannon which had transformed that entire building into a scorching furnace.

(Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Once I have the secret file, I can leave the Academy. So who cares what the people here think of me? If I use the title of Headmaster to earn people’s trust, I can claim the students are preparing ABC weapons inside so the military will bomb the place to the ground. That will erase any negative image I might have earned. So why worry about standing out? Besides, in a battle like this, they won’t have time to thoroughly investigate each and every deadly bullet.)

“Headmaster?”

“Sorry about this.”

Cliff reached into his luxury suit’s pocket just like someone pulling out a pack of cigarettes for a smoke.

But his hand emerged with a self-defense handgun in its grasp.

“I was a little confused for a bit there, but I should have just done this from the beginning.”

Before the surprised driver could shut the armored door, that handgun fired a bullet, just like it had once before already.