Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume19 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 10===

Some kind of shadow fell on Quenser’s group.

The battlefield student looked up without thinking because he still wasn’t fully used to being at war.

The world’s smallest Object dropped like a shooting star.

“Huh?”

“Teacher!!”

Putana tackled him out of the way just before an attack from above separated the fire truck’s front and back halves as it raced down the street. There was no sound. The slash was met with no resistance at all, like a taut electrically-heated wire melting through a foam material.

But Quenser didn’t have time to question it. He and Putana were thrown toward the asphalt which was rushing by like a belt grinder.

“Gahhh!?”

It was truly no more than coincidence they didn’t end up dead. Just before they struck the pavement, they slammed into the soft wall of a tent-style food stall set up on the roadside.

They heard a sound like straining steel muscles.

There was at least one of the things on the same road as them.

When Quenser looked up with Putana in his arms, he saw a few more round shapes on the roofs of the cathedrals and apartments lining the road. Something like a long tail swished gently behind them and six sharp insect-like legs supported them. He could guess these were Object reactors with the bare minimum of a cockpit attached.

“There are more than one? Are they Septimontium!?”

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They prioritized evasion over all else, so a single hit would mean instant death. The design was absurdly specialized.

All the energy produced by the reactor was focused on the triple electrodes sticking out from the front of the round body. That was pure electrical energy. That fearsome white light could probably instantly blow apart a bank vault door with only a light touch.

He thought those were electrodes like on a stun gun.

But he was mistaken.

“Those are the prongs for a power plug. That’s the plug used to send power from the reactor to those colossal main cannons, but they’re just using it as a weapon.”

“Did they design more maneuverable Objects so they could operate them in the city?” Putana looked like she had wandered into a nightmare. She might have been more sensitive to this since she used to be an Object Pilot Elite. “No, if they were only meant to protect their home country from external attack, they would have been designed to keep the enemy out of the city in the first place. That means their ability to attack within Rome wasn’t designed to defeat an external foe. They were built to attack the Faith Organization’s own people. That threat was used to scare the people into behaving, thus giving them peace of mind.”

“This is the Object’s other role. The world’s strongest internal discipline weapon.”

Instead of just providing physical attack power, it mentally bound the people with fear, ensuring they would submit.

In a way, it was exactly the kind of oddity you would find in the Faith Organization that focused so much on people’s beliefs. And a system that accepted every form of belief into a single organization would require a system to avoid infighting. A monotheistic believer could not accept the existence of any other gods, after all.

So they ruled with an iron fist to ensure their organization didn’t collapse.

So they prepared the insurance needed to fix things if it did collapse.

Those things would not hesitate to kill you even if you fled down a narrow alley, shut yourself up in a small building, or took a good person hostage.

They would blow away everything in the way even if you hid inside a historic cathedral or used one of the many world heritage sites as a shield.

Their insect legs inspired disgust in everyone who saw them, their tails moved in way that felt too emotional to be a machine, and their horrific weapons executed their targets with a direct touch of a high-voltage current so great it caused them to explode. Everything about these Objects, including their size and shape, had been designed using the science of fear.

Come to think of it hadn’t lightning become a symbol of divine punishment in the east and the west because the bright light and loud noise inspired an instinctual fear in people?

There was no use in trying to reason your way out of it, so you might as well give up.

You could avoid any harmful misunderstandings if you just didn’t think about it in the first place.

The accuracy of their killing was designed to eliminate the possibility of an insurrection before it even began, creating a dull and mentally dead world where everyone was at peace and no one physically died.

That was the Faith Organization’s home country.

That was the true face of one of the world powers. The days were calm and peaceful, but that was all their leaders gave them. It was an empty quiet where the people forgot how to create anything inside themselves.

No.

The people at the top may have been of secondary importance. In their efforts to provide peace of mind, they had gradually stripped away all else until they stumbled upon a new experience that, unfortunately, made the people feel like their prayers really had reached their god.

There were ideologies that had people approach an empty mind through harsh training, but this was fundamentally different.

This was a dead spring that had gone dry and produced nothing. No moisture would ever form in this dried nothing. And if nothing was done about it, the empty dryness would only spread from there. The people exhausted by their physical bonds, who ended up wandering the world in search of an unseen god and arrived at the Faith Organization, would have their hearts remade into a buried spring that would never produce a single drop of water.

Because they did not understand it themselves, they did not hesitate to trample the things others held dear.

They were like a tin robot wearing a suit of flesh that’s heart had rusted away until it forgot the simple fact that its own actions might bring others pain.

“No…”

Putana Highball trembled in Quenser’s arms.

But her reaction was not from fear. She was radiating anger from her entire body as she glared back at those seven demons designed for nothing other than killing internal and external threats.

“Did you think I would just accept this horrific truth? You don’t get to make a mockery of all those people who only want to pray to their different gods, purify their souls, and use their heartfelt beliefs to live good and righteous lives!”

Unsurprisingly, the seven Septimontium Objects did not respond.

They may not have understood why she was criticizing them or where her anger even came from. If so, Quenser almost felt bad for them. And he was a realist who only ever pursued whatever best advanced his own interests.

And because they didn’t even have enough freedom to feel doubt, they didn’t hesitate.

The seven detached reactors – in other words, the seven lightweight Objects – all moved at once.

Out of the corner of his eye, Quenser glimpsed Millia Newburg slipping down a side road while their attention was on him and Putana. That was definitely the right move.

“Putana!!” he shouted while nearly shoving Putana into a narrow alley and falling in after her.

“Teacher, don’t interfere!!”

“Cool your anger, Putana. Once you’re calm, tell me where exactly my gaze is directed while you lie on the ground next to me. Hint: it has to do with your naughty miniskirt.”

“~ ~ ~!? You pervert!!!!!”

She used one hand to hide the answer to his question and the other to slap him.

He was glad this anger had overwritten her previous anger, taking her off that suicidal path.

They could not forget that their objective was not to defeat Septimontium. It was to protect Rome – although their definition of “protect” was depressingly different from that of the Objects who were willing to crush their own people underfoot. Rome would be submerged in a sea of magma if Bad Garage was not stopped before they could detonate their reactor underground.

As awful as this home country was, the people who lived there had done nothing wrong.

These may have been the world’s smallest Objects, but they were still 10m spheres.

“Heh heh. Saving a cute girl, getting an eyeful, and even receiving a slap as a reward? Have I died and gone to heaven? I bet I’d get something unbelievable if I ate a fortune cookie right now.”

“Why did I take more damage from that slap than you? Stop being such a creep!”

They heard a loud crash near the entrance to the alley. One of the Septimontium Objects was trying to approach, but it couldn’t fit in a space that would be a challenge for a pizza delivery scooter. And the thing wasn’t equipped with any projectile weapons. It could gather a blinding light between its electrodes, but that energy couldn’t be launched.

However…

“We can’t relax quite yet. If that’s electricity, there are any number of ways to get it to us. We’re dead the instant it finds some water or iron powder to spread around. So face the facts, Putana! We can’t lose those monsters on foot, so we need a car or a motorcycle to-”

Quenser’s thoughts were cut off by a whooshing sound.

It was the tail.

No, they had to still be safe. The spherical body did have a tail-like part on the back, but it was only two or three times the body’s diameter. When swinging it around to attack to the front, its own body got in the way. Just like a scorpion’s stinger or a carnivorous dinosaur’s tail, it was only useful at close range, so it couldn’t reach them back in this alley like an anteater’s tongue.

They were safe.

Perfectly safe.

…So why had his fear frozen the passage of time?

“Teacher, get down!!”

Putana Highball’s shout saved him. He finally realized what was really happening. While the spherical body struggled at the alley entrance, the tail had whipped around and thrown a vending machine it had snatched off the street. The tail had wrapped around the machine like a chameleon’s tongue.

The improvised projectile weighed easily more than 300kg. If Quenser hadn’t immediately kissed the filthy ground, everything above his hips might have been torn away, leaving just his lower body still standing.

After the heavy metal device passed by overhead, Putana quickly got back up, grabbed Quenser’s arm, and pulled him to his feet. They supported each other as they made their way to another exit from the alley.

They heard something passing by overhead while the sun was briefly blotted out.

The Septimontiums were leaping between building rooftops.

“There are seven of them, so we’re completely surrounded. The one at the obvious exit is like the hound that guides the animal in front of the hunter’s rifle. It’s a combo play.”

“I get that, but I can sense their ‘eyes’ on us. That means I know when they are about to attack. This way, teacher.”

When they arrived at another exit, Putana cautiously observed things outside and then swung her leg up high. Her kick caught a passing motorcyclist on the head and she stole his motorcycle.

“Um, Putana! That’s a civilian!”

“Are you just ignoring the scrapes at the base of his thumb, his distinctive muscle balance and tan lines, and the marine tattoo on his arm? He belongs to a Capitalist Corporations PMC! Now hurry!!”

With the signs that obvious, it didn’t sound like the man was undercover. Was he just a soldier here to see the carnival while on leave? That still made him a Capitalist Corporations soldier, though.

Putana hopped onto the seat and Quenser climbed on behind her. It took less than thirty seconds to steal the motorcycle and start driving. Still, that was a critical delay. Something blotted out the sun overhead again.

Septimontium had arrived. Worse, three of the 10m spheres leaped down from an abbey roof. Their six insect legs almost looked like a complex alien maw that wouldn’t close properly.

“Ahh!!”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Putana pretended to be driving straight while actually sending the motorcycle through a rapid 180-degree turn and giving them a flying start in the opposite direction. The airborne predators had made their leap based on their prey’s expected future position, so they fell for the feint and struck at an empty portion of road. If Putana had thoughtlessly taken the direct path away, they would have been crushed to death one second later.

Quenser buried his face in the brown girl’s nape while melting like cheese. It looked ridiculous, but he was holding on for dear life.

“Ooh, you’re nice and warm. Soft too. And you smell nice.”

“Teacher, I get you’re so terrified you might wet yourself, but please do not use me to distract yourself. My patience has its limits.”

“I want to eat this ponytail. Woof, woof.”

“I will throw you off the bike, you know?”

Putana sighed in exasperation and took a sharp turn at an intersection.

Quenser tightened his grip around her hips just a bit.

“Damn, I wonder what happened to Millia,” he said.

“Don’t worry. She’s an expert at hiding in the crowd, so I’m sure she escaped. If we searched for her with Septimontium after us, we might actually put her in greater danger. We need to leave her be and draw these things away from her.”

Yes, the threat wasn’t over yet.

If those were Objects, they could handle high-speed battles fought at 600km/h. The motorcycle was far better than being on foot, but it wasn’t enough. It would be harder for those Objects to reach their top speed in this complex urban battlefield than out in an open desert or field, but a commercial motorcycle still couldn’t lose them. If those two wanted to win the battle of speed, they would need a drag racer installed with a rocket engine.

Quenser looked back with his hands tight around Putana’s hips and then he screamed.

“Here they come! Oh, god!! They’re here, here, here!!”

“Teacher, details would be nice.”

They heard what sounded like a thick sheet of metal being torn apart. These things did not use wheels or an air cushion. They only used those insect legs, which were equipped with some kind of spring. They would make short hops to zigzag back and forth in pursuit of the fleeing motorcycle.

“We’re going right, teacher. Lean that way,” said Putana before leaning her body to tilt the motorcycle.

That let a leaping Septimontium fly by overhead while their sharp right turn slid them below a hurdle-like barrier and they drove across a railway crossing that was sounding its alarm.

The Septimontiums didn’t care.

They kicked off the wall of a nearby church or hopped across the roof of a mobile home next to the railway crossing to leap over the freight train and continue their pursuit of the motorcycle.

They even used their tails to throw each other onto tall rooftops. The tails were not just balancing weights or made to look threatening. They could grab things, support the rest of the Object, and otherwise behave like a hand.

But the brown girl at the motorcycle’s handlebars was focused on something else.

“They can jump on rooftops and walls and that mobile home wasn’t crushed.”

“P-Putana?”

“They must not be very heavy. That means their armor is thin. Teacher, do you have any bombs? These Objects lack the usual nuke resistance. Ordinary weapons can defeat them.”

“How dumb are you!? Those are active Object reactors!! There’s plasma of up to 100 million degrees Celsius trapped inside there with magnetism. Blow up even one of those in this populated city and millions will die! We need a better plan!!”

“Argh, curse those things. You could say these Objects use the city to their advantage, couldn’t you? What a pain.”

They heard a grinding sound as something joined them from another street.

Heivia and Myonri were each riding a toy similar to a snowmobile. Except these hadn’t been designed for use on the snow.

Quenser’s eyes widened.

“What’re those!? Some Faith Organization secret weapon!?”

“They’re one-person vehicles. Think of them like sporty convertibles. Perfect for Rome’s complex layout, right? I see you’ve hitched a ride on a girl’s ass, like usual. You get all the luck!!”

“You won’t find a nicer smelling ride anywhere. And did you know a girl’s body is smooth no matter where you touch it? I can even feel Putana’s pulse when I hold her from behind like this.”

“…Teacher, have you ever heard the phrase ‘even the Buddha gets mad if you touch his face three times’?”

“I’m not from the Faith Organization, so I can’t say I have. Does that mean you’re in trouble after doing it three times, or do you have to go for a fourth time before there are consequences?”

Myonri wanted no part of this conversation, so she did her best to pretend she didn’t exist.

It bothered Quenser that Millia Newburg, their de facto leader, wasn’t with those two, but all the Septimontiums were after them. He had to trust this was making her safer.

At any rate, their objective was Bad Garage in the subway tunnels.

But the threat presented by Septimontium was very real. Ignore them for even a moment and they were dead.

Quenser pressed his forehead against the top of Putana’s head and clenched his teeth.

“We’ll have to take a gamble somewhere.”

“Teacher?”

“Heivia, Myonri! Keep driving, but get ready to attack. On my mark, target the Septimontiums behind us. You don’t have to twist around and aim a gun at them – pulling the pin from a grenade and tossing it behind you is enough to hit them. Get ready!!”

“Wait, are you serious, Quenser?” said Heivia.

“Quenser, are you planning to blow up those reactors in the city!?” said Myonri.

“This isn’t about the reactors! And use smoke grenades!!”

Just as they took a sharp turn, Heivia and Myonri both dropped a metal can to the pavement. Colored smoke rapidly spread out behind them.

This was in the middle of a curve and the Septimontiums used thin legs to hop around instead of using continuous tracks or wheels. Needless to say, they had no way of course correcting if they left the ground after misjudging their route.

Flailing their tail around wasn’t enough to regain their balance. With nothing to grab onto, they were helpless.

“Eek!!”

Myonri’s shoulders shrank down. They heard a deafening crash as one of the Objects failed to make the turn and broke through the wall of a belltower, embedding itself in the building.

“S-something’s coming. Ahh!?”

Furious, another Object jumped up to a building rooftop, passed by Quenser’s group, and then hopped back down onto the road ahead of them. It was blocking their way ahead while its friends pursued them from behind.

Heivia’s chicken spirit kicked in and he started to step on the brake, so Quenser slammed the sole of his boot against the streamlined chassis of his friend’s snowmobile-like one-person vehicle.

“Don’t chicken out!! Stop and they’ll catch up and kill you for sure. Putana, keep us going straight!!”

“You can’t be serious…” protested Heivia.

“Oh, and you’ll have to figure out how to survive on your own. I don’t really have a plan for that part.”

“You can’t be seriousssssssssssssss!!!”

Heivia and Myonri’s one-person vehicles parted to the left and right to pass by near the building walls. The Object wasn’t sure which one to block on the wide road. Meanwhile, Putana’s motorcycle drove straight down the center.

The whip-like tail swept by right next to Quenser’s ear.

Putana tilted the motorcycle to skillfully slip between the insect legs like a baseball player sliding into base.

Quenser threw something while passing below the Object.

The clay-like item was a bomb with an electric fuse attached.

After seeing the clay stick, he hit the switch on his radio, detonating it. He was after one of the long, skinny legs, not the reactor. Since those legs were filled with machinery and heavy-duty springs, there couldn’t be room left for thick armor.

He didn’t even need to look back. One of the legs bent at an unnatural angle, the joint was crushed, and the Septimontium tilted like a table with a broken leg.

Another two Objects tackled the disabled one out of the way and continued pursuit.

There wasn’t even time to cheer. Myonri raised her voice nearly to a scream.

“A-aren’t those Objects operated by Pilot Elites!? How can they just shove one aside like that!?”

“Knowing the Faith Organization, the spirit of martyrdom is part of their training. Anyway, turn left next, Putana. We can get underground there!! Heivia, Myonri, you two find your own entry routes!!”

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Some plywood formed a ramp up to the short curb of a flowerbed. Some local kids may have placed it there for their skateboards, but Putana used it to send the motorcycle into a jump that exceeded anything the vehicle had been designed for.

They cleared a metal fence and landed on the subway track situated a level below the road. Putana shouted back some useful advice during their moment of airtime.

“Teacher, keep your mouth shut and try not to bite your tongue.”

“Wahhh, Putana!”

“You don’t get to be a spoiled child just because you’re scared!!”

After clinging to the girl’s hips and sniffing her hair in fear, a sharp impact hit him from below. They had landed on the tracks, but they couldn’t afford to slow down. Putana sent the motorcycle full speed into the tunnel entrance.

“I-I can’t believe you, teacher! Do you have no shame at all? How can you act so weak and childish around a younger girl!? Really, I just can’t believe you!!”

“Huh? Am I imagining it or is your pulse speeding up?”

“Bffff!! You are most definitely imagining it! Wh-why would you ever think otherwise!?”

The underground area had a different aesthetic from the cross-flooded surface. The tunnel had concrete walls and evenly-spaced support pillars, but those pillars had white goddess statues alongside them. They were probably designed after Roman mythology. Some might have even been from an older minor religion that Quenser wasn’t even familiar with.

“Welcome to the underground ruins dungeon.”

“Ahem. Rome was famous for its public baths, right? Where do we find one of those?”

“Oh? I sense a bath with Putana in my future☆”

“Say something that repulsive again and I really will push you off without slowing down, teacher!!”

Then a maintenance door burst open on the wall nearby. Heivia and Myonri’s one-person vehicles emerged after taking a bumpy ride down the stairs.

“Hey, Quenser! Where’re the Septimontiums!? How many are after you!?”

“Odd… None of them are. But the tunnel entrance should have been big enough for them.”

Just then, they heard a warning whistle and a sharp light shined straight out at them.

“Kyah!!”

“Watch out!”

Putana, Heivia, and Myonri all swerved over toward the walls, somehow avoiding the train that caught them by surprise. Even the blast of wind it caused felt like it was going to knock them off balance and make them crash into the wall. And this close, the arms and legs of the goddess statues were frightening indeed.

Then Quenser realized the truth.

“The tunnel itself is big enough, but they can’t avoid the trains.”

“Yeah, those things are 10m spheres, so that’s their width too. They can’t move over to the wall like we can.”

They heard screaming metal behind them.

The Septimontiums were horrific things that used their extraordinary weapons to bind the people’s hearts with fear, but they were still an official Faith Organization fighting force. That meant the government was on their side. They must have put in a call and had the trains stopped.

But this still gave Quenser’s group some time.

They had to use that time to put as much distance between them as possible.

“Heivia, let’s focus back on our original job here. Bad Garage is trying to detonate a reactor deep underground to trigger an artificial earthquake so they can plunge Rome into a sea of lava. They need to reach a depth of at least 60m for that, so what parts of these subway tunnels meet that condition?”

“Just one. But if the Septimontiums aren’t watching right now, we can lose them. These tunnels are spread out like an ant colony down here. The odds are slim they’ll find us if they have to search this labyrinth without any clues.”

That was good news.

Luring the Septimontiums toward Bad Garage to let the Objects do the job for them was always an option, but there were too many uncertainties to risk it. They couldn’t have the dumb defense unit blowing up the reactor along with Bad Garage, triggering the artificial earthquake themselves. And if the bottom-level terrorists did somehow manage to defeat a Septimontium or two, that would only give them more reactors to detonate. Those Objects had thrown out their nuke resistance, which was supposed to be their biggest selling point, to cram themselves into these narrow tunnels, so who could say what would happen now.

The baggage boy seated on the back of the motorcycle continued talking like he was actually important.

“Then let’s start on our real job and treat those terrorists to a pummeling. We owe Bad Garage for what they did to us at the start of this whole mess, so let’s go repay them with interest.”