Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume19 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 7===

He did not remember what he had yelled.

He only vaguely remembered that he had shouted so much his throat and stomach squirmed like they were turning inside out and he had spewed the undigested contents onto the snow.

Azureyfear had him restrained while he trembled. He may have rolled off the cliff otherwise.

That corpse was not the only one.

And not all of them had been burned. Something dark red had been splattered across a large rock sticking up from the white snow, but was that human mincemeat? Several internal organs were still dripping blood while skewered at the spear-like top of a conifer tree.

There was real cruelty on display here.

This was the result of someone who found humor in death, not someone who wanted to kill with maximum efficiency.

(Goddammit.)

Quenser was soaked with sweat and too disturbed to even think of covering young Elina’s eyes.

(These aren’t Information Alliance or Unit X. These bloody uniforms and scorched guns…were they Legitimacy Kingdom!?)

For some reason, Sladder Honeysuckle spoke while staring down at the crumbling carbonized corpse on the snow.

“It happened at 7:40 AM on June 30, 1908.”

He was referencing a certain legend.

It was one of the few remaining “living legends” because not even all of modern science had arrived at a clear answer.

“The Tunguska event. Suddenly and without warning, an unidentified explosion burned down 2000 square kilometers of old-growth forest. The damage was mostly to undeveloped forest, but the actual human damage is unknown. The explosion was so powerful that unnatural noctilucent clouds appeared across Europe and the land over a several dozen kilometer radius of the blast site remained barren for more than 20 years. The most likely theory is an asteroid breaking up in midair and scattering heat and shockwaves in all directions, but there are plenty of other theories.”

“What?” Quenser wiped at his sour mouth. “Are you saying a ghost did this? You must be joking!! This a modern battlefield ruled by bullets and blades! If someone burned, then there was a weapon here that burned them!!”

“This wasn’t just a flamethrower or incendiary bomb.”

“What, how can you possibly know that!?”

“The method is different.” Sladder pointed at the corpse’s chest – at the disturbingly dry wound that Quenser had accidentally caused. “When your stick poked through the carbonized corpse, did you notice how little resistance there was? And why is it still burning in this blizzard of 15 below?”

“What is your point?”

“Wax,” stated Sladder. “It wasn’t just the proteins of muscle and calcium of bone that were burning. That would only cook them even with a specialized flamethrower. This was wax. The entire body has turned to wax. That allows it to function just like old-fashioned candles. The uniform, equipment, and hairs are the flammable wick and the fire that starts there is supported by the waxy body. That explains the body’s unnatural softness and how it can continue burning out here.”

Wax.

A candle.

Quenser did not understand what he was hearing. What did any of that have to do with humans and corpses?

But Azureyfear placed a hand on her chin.

“Come to think of it, I have heard of corpses remaining stable instead of rotting in certain special environments: when dried, when frozen…or when the body is turned to wax.”

This didn’t sound like a contagious panic.

Quenser was too terrified to think, but the villains like Azureyfear and Sladder could still calmly access their knowledge.

Sladder sighed.

“If you want to turn the human body into wax, you have to cut it off from all oxygen and leave it in a damp location for an extended period of time. Simply put, you either submerge it in water or bury it in the ground where no germs can grow.”

And.

He had one last example.

“Buried below a thick layer of snow works too. Any corpse left to be buried by the blizzard in the Tunguska District might end up like this.”

“Then…then what is this? Is the Information Alliance using a new weapon that doesn’t just burn people – it turns them to wax?”

“That isn’t possible.” Sladder had supposedly made the suggestion, but he shook his head now. “Fully turning a body to wax requires a lot of time. At least a few months, but it could take years. You can’t turn a corpse into wax with the speed of making instant noodles.”

“Then what ''is'' happening out here?”

Quenser sounded lost.

Sladder looked away from the carbonized corpse half buried in the snow. He viewed the soft organs caught unnaturally at the top of a spear-like tree.

“There are more puzzling factors.”

“What…wait! I’m still trying to work out what I’m looking at down here!”

“Those organs in the tree…or should I call them a piece of a corpse? Don’t they look awfully soft for something exposed to -15-degree winds? They only seem to be freezing now.”

“True. But the Tunguska District is so cold a wet towel will freeze solid in only a minute if you hang it out to dry,” noted the local(?) girl Elina Silverbullet in a monotone voice.

Quenser’s spine finally froze.

He only now realized what Sladder was getting at.

“Hold on. Then when was this person killed?”

“A lot more recently than we were thinking, it would seem. If that girl is correct, then there is something out here close enough to reach us through the thick snow in less than 60 seconds.”

Quenser quickly looked side to side, but he couldn’t see anything through the white screen. Not the Information Alliance, not Unit X, and not the Ghost Changer-equipped Retro Gunner that had to be out there somewhere.

Those organs still hadn’t frozen.

Did that mean whoever had killed that person and cruelly decorated the forest with their organs was still nearby?

But who had done it?

And how?

Footprints wouldn’t disappear in just a minute, yet there was nothing. Visibility was poor, but Quenser’s group would have heard any gunshots. And if an Object had fired some strange superweapon, they should have at least passed out from the shock. Yet this gruesome corpse was sitting right there unfrozen.

And that corpse was not the only one. Another was splattered across a rock and more gore could be seen in some more distant trees. If that many people had died, there would have been screams and defensive gunfire, but they hadn’t noticed anything. Had the victims not even had the chance? Had their assailant been that overwhelming?

Something out here could creep up behind its target without making a noise and then mutilate professional soldiers with just a touch.

Almost like a ghost.

A silent fear crawled up into Quenser’s mind. This was very different from the threat of bullets and bombs that made so much noise. It felt like time had been stolen from the victims. A human body was only supposed to fully transform into wax after months or years under special conditions and the mincemeat and organs should have frozen solid in this frigid forest.

What could possibly lead to this result?

Could some new tech mess with special relativity to speed up time at a specific coordinate? Could some special camo fully neutralize a human’s senses? ''No,'' thought Quenser, shaking his head. Those weren’t physically possible. He kept working his mind to come up with more ideas, but none of them held any weight.

There had to be something out here.

But was it really time to conclude none of the rules he knew could explain this?

For now…

“Then…then what was this? Did the Information Alliance use the Ghost Changer to summon the ghosts of the soldiers and hunters who died during the Tunguska event? Are they dooming people to the same fate they met turning to wax under the thick snow?”

“We can’t even say we know for sure what caused the Tunguska event. There are plenty of theories beyond the asteroid one. And since the event actually happened and was recorded, those theories cannot be ruled out no matter how absurd they might be.”

“…”

“We really only know two things for sure here: The Tunguska event happened and the Information Alliance brought their Ghost Changer weapon here.”

Azureyfear took a step away, crossed her arms, and viewed silenced Quenser in an appraising way.

Young Elina tilted her head with no readable emotion on her face.

“If we fail to identify the cause before it reaches us, we might just get to experience it firsthand. I am the Information Alliance’s top priority target after all.”

She accurately stated the conclusion none of them wanted to think about.

The two geniuses were in agreement: what they saw here could not be explained with ordinary chemistry and physics.

Quenser still couldn’t believe it. He may have wanted someone else to objectively deny it for him.

Because the terror would capture him otherwise.

He felt like laughing at himself for having such a silly concern after seeing all of this.

What had the Information Alliance awoken in this land? Sladder was right. The presence of those mutilated corpses meant the ghost was something physical. It wasn’t just an illusion like a chemically induced hallucination or an image projected on the snow with laser art.

This was a physical ghost.

That increased the danger level considerably.

The Ghost Changer was not just a bluff. Their “ghost” was undeniably lethal.

“A-animals…”

Quenser was nearly taken in by the atmosphere, but he quickly shook his head.

He couldn’t start arguing over whether this was a natural or artificial ghost. Starting the discussion there meant he had more or less accepted it already. He wouldn’t disprove a thing that way.

He had to stay calm.

A curse? Spirit possession? But ghosts didn’t exist. He wasn’t going to give in on that point.

So he forced himself to laugh it off.

“Sladder, you yourself said earlier that the Siberia is home to the world’s largest bears. A ghost isn’t the only explanation for all this. A wild animal could have attacked the soldiers after some kind of image was used to panic them.”

“Yes, the human sherbet splattered on the rocks and tree trunks could have been from a bear attack and the organs in the trees could have been birds of prey hanging them up to save them for later. And wild animals might be able to swiftly hunt down their human prey without us noticing,” said Azureyfear. “But that does not explain the initial carbonized corpse. Animals do not ordinarily use fire. I did not notice the flash of lightning or rumble of thunder and I doubt there is an active volcano here. Besides, this would require fire hot enough to carbonize the body down to the bones. Even a crematorium needs several hours to accomplish that.”

“We misjudged the initial conditions. Forget about the burning human being remade into wax. They would burn more easily like that.”

“There has to be more to this!! That’s so much more realistic than thinking some formless grudge or curse mutilated these people and set them on fire. Battlefields are chock full of death and grudges. Movies love ending on a beautiful image of a soldier dying with a satisfied smile, but that’s bullshit. If curses could actually kill, then the winning side of every war in history would have been slaughtered shortly thereafter!!”

Sladder, Azureyfear, and Elina.

Those abnormal geniuses all shrugged after watching Quenser sweatily yelling in the -15 degree weather. With so many bizarre things happening around him, he wanted to find some stability by reconfirming the “common sense” he took for granted. Did that ordinary way of thinking really make him the odd one out in this bizarre alternate dimension?

Or was his idea of common sense really that different from theirs?

He heard a scraping of metal coming from somewhere.

It was an artificial sound that clearly did not belong in this biting blizzard.

“Sh!”

With a quick warning, Quenser grabbed Elina Sliverbullet’s hand and got down on the snow. The genius girl did not bat an eye.

It appeared to be a truck.

But it had no obvious headlights. Driving like that through the forest during a blizzard on a moonless night seemed like suicide, but the military truck was approaching them all the same. It was driving slower and more carefully than normal, but it was definitely coming their way.

The next threat had arrived.

Quenser tensed while Elina asked a quiet question without even moving her lips.

“What now? If that is the Information Alliance, this is insufficient to hide from them. They will detect us with ease if they have a thermo sensor, an anti-personnel radar, or light-amplification night vision gear.”

“Quiet. We wouldn’t have a chance on ordinary ground, but this is the snow.”

Sladder and Azureyfear seemed hesitant, but they ultimately got down to join Quenser.

The deep rhythmic rumbling of the machine gradually grew louder.

But the loudest sound for Quenser was the beating of his own heart.

(We’re dead if they find us. One call for support and the Retro Gunner will be after us. Or that ghost will kill us.)

The sound did not stop.

He started to worry the truck wouldn’t notice them and they would simply be run over by its thick tires.

It approached, approached some more, and then passed them by.

The source of the sound continued on behind them without them ever even seeing what it was.

“?”

“(Be quiet.)”

Confused, he started to lift his head to look, but Azureyfear forced it back down with a hand.

“(That engine sounded like an Information Alliance four-wheel-drive military truck. And it was on the other side of the ravine. That’s why only the sound passed us by.)”

Quenser had been afraid they were dealing with a ghost truck now, but apparently not.

Azureyfear was definitely a bad person, but he found himself tempted to rely on her strength here. That may have been the negative sort of charisma found in gang bosses.

The ravine was more than 10m across. The blizzard made it impossible to see anyone at that distance, but a truck was a different story.

Quenser regained his cool and took a look.

“I see something swiveling on top of that truck.”

“You aren’t as clever as my brother, are you? If they are using active night vision, that is probably emitting IR or radar waves.”

The thick layer of snow would reflect light, which meant thermo sensors using infrared would have trouble detecting someone hiding below the snow. Same for night vision that mechanically amplified even small levels of light. Anti-personnel radars detected a target’s location from the reflected microwaves, but you had a chance of escaping detection if you curled up to mask your distinctive human shape.

Quenser breathed a sigh of relief just before he heard some dry gunshots ring out.

He felt a squeezing at his heart.

He forced his hands over his mouth to suppress a scream while tears spilled from his eyes.

After a short scream, he heard a few more gunshots followed by silence. Someone had just been shot. As a student, he didn’t know all that much about guns, but even he could tell only one type of gun had just fired. The lack of return fire suggested someone had just been shot after surrendering and begging for their life.

And that someone was probably wearing the same Legitimacy Kingdom uniform as him.

If that truck had driven along this side of the ravine, Quenser’s group would have met that same fate.

The sound of tearing metal was probably one of the gear-carrying animal robots the other groups had been given.

“Damn.”

“Looks like the ghost isn’t the only thing to fear,” said Sladder while the roar of the engine slowly faded into the distance.

Driving along in a loud vehicle with the heater running felt really brazen.

“And this may be our chance.”

“?”

Quenser tilted his head, so Sladder explained.

“The Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers were issued rubber boats, remember? We might just find what we need if we search those foolish corpses.”

Quenser couldn’t stand it anymore.

He pulled a softball-sized stone from the snow and chucked it at the war criminal without so much as a warning.