Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume11 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 10===

It was raining.

Raindrops large enough to hurt on the cheek poured down like a waterfall.

The artificial rain shower created a great din. The previous water vapor explosions had caused this. 
The vaporized water had cooled in the air, solidified, and fallen as water once more.

“Is it just me or is the Princess the one kicking us around this time?”

“It’s probably just you.”

“No, it’s because you were flirting with Azureyfear! Nothing good comes from pissing off the goddess of victory that holds all of our lives in her hands!!”

“You’re blaming this on your sister again, you gloomy noble!? I’m sick of hearing that. That has nothing to do with the Princess’s mental state!!”

“Are you on Colorful Vanilla!? How else could you be so clueless!? You’re the real spoiled bastard here, so I think you’re the one that deserves a fist to the face!!”

“S-stop that, you two. C’mon, you shouldn’t fight.”

The two idiots ignored the weak-willed middle-aged man and started grappling on top of the artificial ice shelf, but they soon realized they had bigger problems.

A flash of light much brighter than before stabbed into their retinas.

“Gh…ah!?”

“What the hell!?”

They curled up like lightning had struck nearby, but the light had not been targeting them. If so, they would have been vaporized already.

It was a laser beam.

It had grazed one of the Baby Magnum’s seven main cannons as the Object continually dodged the Spectre Q&A’s man cannons.

“Dammit! It didn’t react that much before, did it!?”

“Wait a second. I think the Princess was shaken by that!”

The optical weapon had done more than tear at the thick armor. A tremendous explosion and shockwave followed. The half-melted main cannon had already been rendered useless, but it bent and strained like a fishing rod. The entire two hundred thousand ton mass seemed to be shoved to the side and it stopped moving.

The Spectre Q&A’s main cannon moved carefully.

It fired the main cannon again and again. The Princess quickly resumed her evasive action, but it lacked life.

Heivia muttered to himself in the downpour.

“What was that? It didn’t look like a normal laser.”

“A dye laser. Damn, Frolaytia even mentioned it back in the pre-mission briefing!!”

“Wh-what is that, Quenser?” asked Kevin. “How is it different from a normal laser!?”

“A dye laser has color added to the medium used to oscillate the laser. By switching between media, this almighty laser can theoretically create light with any wavelength, from ultraviolet to visible light to infrared.” Quenser demonstrated the fruits of his studies to his awful friend. “But dye lasers are pretty inefficient. Enough that a different type of laser is needed for the pumping…that is, adjusting it to a usable band of light. You could say that thing’s main canon is a combination of different types of lasers, like a multi-stage rocket. Since it uses different wavelengths of light, it has to switch between different media like a color palette. And of course, the more complicated the system, the harder it is to maintain and the greater the risk of it malfunctioning. Normally, a dye laser isn’t well-suited for use as a weapon.”

“What are you trying to say, Quenser!?” asked Kevin.

“It’s a really useful but really inconvenient laser! The end!!”

“Yeah, well that giant thing’s gotten it to work. There has to be a reason why. Unless some shitty government official had some shitty plot to embezzle the people’s shitty tax money.”

“Heivia, how do lasers do damage in the first place?” asked Quenser. “Setting aside some special cases, they transmit the energy of the light to their target and destroy it with that. That’s the basic idea of a laser. That means efficiency matters. What wavelength of light will build up the most energy in the material making up the armor? What matters here is that the Spectre Q&A’s dye laser main cannon can produce light ranging from the ultraviolet to visible light and infrared.”

“Hold on. So that blast just now…”

“We already know it performs optical analysis on the stripped pieces of armor panels and the special gas floating in the air and puts together its tactics based on that. There are countless variations in Object armor. The expert craftsmen add in the fire-resistant reactive material almost by instinct and no machine can emulate it. But what if the Spectre Q&A’s analysis has reached that level?”

“It can choose the laser that will have the most effect on the Princess’s armor? That’s what caused that explosion!? She took far, far more energy than from a normal laser!?”

“Yes, but it’s more about efficiency than power.”

“It doesn’t matter. That isn’t just a tricky-to-use optical weapon. Is it more like an explosive laser that destroys the material with all its built-up energy!?”

Kevin trembled in fear at what Heivia was saying.

Even now, the Princess was making quick evasive actions. Her footwork was as nimble as a mixed martial artist’s, but the Spectre Q&A was sending in more drift ice. That artificial ice was created by freezing the sea water with great pressure. Once that stopped her, her enemy could get a definite hit in. The preparations for that were already underway.

“B-but it’s still a laser isn’t it? She already knew it was bad to get hit by it! So she just has to make sure she isn’t hit! Then it won’t explode, right!?”

“Weren’t you listening, Heivia?”

Quenser rejected that optimistic view.

“Its dye laser can create any wavelength.”

A moment later, several explosions erupted from the space around the Baby Magnum rather than the Object itself.

The noise alone was enough to not just pound on their eardrums but fill their heads with internal pressure. Heivia curled up and yelled while suffering from a dull headache.

“What is it now!?”

“It created the optimal wavelength for either the surrounding air, the low-stability plasma cannon gas floating around, or the static electricity repellant!! It’s just like a laser space elevator. The air expanded to create explosive shockwaves that hold the Princess in place!!”

The laser contained enough energy to pierce through an Object which could survive a nuclear blast.

That pressure exploded in the air and scattered around.

The Baby Magnum was not at the center of the blast and was not destroyed, but entirely avoiding the surface of pressure created by the shockwave was not easy and that pressure approached from multiple directions at once. The fifty meter machine’s movements were cut short and it could not keep up its nimble evasions.

The Spectre Q&A had no reason to rush.

It had the optimal game piece on the optimal square on the game board, so it could tease its opponent until they self-destructed.

With the drift ice interfering from below and the shockwaves from above, the Baby Magnum was losing valuable seconds and would eventually be fatally delayed.

Then the monster’s dye laser would switch its palette and fire the most efficient attack for the Baby Magnum.

Whether opening a photo album or activating a voice recorder, Kevin curled up and muttered something while staring at his handheld device.

“Marie, Wells. Dad is doing his best on the other side of the globe. I swear I’ll keep my promise, so let’s have a blast at the amusement park. But…ahh, but if dad can’t make it back…Wells, listen up. You need to support your mom. This is a promise between men, okay?”

“Oh, shut up you. Stop praying like that. More importantly, what are we going to do?”

Still curled up, Heivia clenched his teeth against the shockwave that was breaking apart the icy land.

“We were caught in this thing’s web from the beginning! How are we supposed to win!?”