Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume14 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 12===

The Nitrogen Mirage’s anti-air lasers were absolute.

Since they would have been slaughtered above water, Quenser and the other survivors fled into the ocean.

However…

(This won’t last forever.)

Quenser added an attachment to his radio, attached the wireless mic to his throat, and covered his mouth with the mask he had been given.

The problem was the size of the oxygen tank.

It was small enough that Heivia had been able to throw it by hand.

(No matter how much we conserve, I doubt this will last even an hour.)

And just as he thought that, Heivia grabbed his shoulder. When he looked in the direction his awful friend pointed, he realized a shelf of the ocean bottom was quite nearby. The depth here was apparently much shallower than where they had picked up that submarine.

But that was not the real problem.

“A sunken ship?”

A giant rusted ship was rolled over on its side. Even from here, they could see it had become a fish reef covered in seaweed and surrounded by hundreds or thousands of small fish.

Radio signals did not travel through the ocean well, but that was not an issue when they were right next to each other.

“No, not that. You see those things attached with wires? Those are Information Alliance luxury cars in the parking lot. Those are their submersibles.”

Something was wrong with the flow of time.

Those “new products” seemed as out of place as something in a doctored ghost photograph and they never would have ended up here for no reason.

“That’s the Information Alliance that fled from New Caribbean Island? Are they holding Katarina Martini there?”

“How did we end up on an ocean mission with no swimsuits and some old woman? After this is over, I’m gonna demand worker’s comp from that busty commander. I’ll have her personally make up for the lack of swimsuits.”

The Nitrogen Mirage may have made an appearance because the diver team had sent out a distress signal when they found themselves pinned below water and unable to move. They had been sitting tight until their Second Generation eliminated the Object and helicopter unit.

“…That leaves one conclusion.”

“They might have enough air in there to wait around for quite a while. Attacking them would be worth it.”

When Heivia gestured with his thumb, Myonri and the others showed their agreement by beginning to move.

As usual, this was a fight over resources.

Swimming was difficult without dedicated flippers or a lead diving belt, but they still managed a gradual approach. Before long, it grew more obvious that the 100m ship on the ocean floor was actually a transport ship. And not a civilian one. The giant communication antenna and crane-like refueling arm suggested it was a military supply transport ship.

The rusted walls appeared to be broken through in several places, so they thought getting in would be easy.

But just as they were within arm’s reach of the brown rusted ship, they heard some odd noises and several straight lines of air bubbles approached them like white spears.

The confusion reached Quenser’s mind before the fear.

“Eh?”

“Watch out!!”

But after Heivia shoved him behind some rocks and those rocks were torn away, the situation finally hit home.

“U-underwater rifles!? They’re shooting at us!!”

There were a few different ways of creating underwater firearms, but based on the rapid-fire speed seen here, these were likely based on assault rifles. The water would sap their momentum and the ballistic path was anything but stable after only 100 meters, but that did not overturn the Information Alliance’s advantage here. Having fireable guns was enough.

“We don’t have any underwater firearms!” said Myonri. “What do we do!?”

“Damn, where are they? I didn’t see any air bubbles from an oxygen tank…”

“Go back to the basics, Quenser. You just have to determine the distance and angle from the bullet holes.”

Heivia pointed to where the gunfire had come from.

4 o’clock and 9 o’clock.

As things were, this could develop into an inescapable crossfire.

“We’ll be slaughtered before we can do anything…”

“We just have to wipe them out without firing a single bullet. What do we have at our disposal? Knives, a gas-operated pile driver…”

(The current is…what do you call it with water? Anyway, it’s like a tailwind from us to them. And I know I saw seaweed torn like this and a crab shell crushed like this in a documentary. If I can just find something to use for bait…)

As he gave this serious thought, Quenser casually reached a hand toward Myonri’s small butt.

“Eek!?”

The maiden jumped straight up because she had been completely focused on the enemy in this tense situation, but all Quenser wanted at the moment was her large combat knife. After rudely swiping it from someone else’s sheath, he used the thick blade to pry off the univalves attached to the rocks they were using as a shield.

As the many shells followed the currents and flowed out in every direction, something happened.

The Information Alliance soldiers were gradually taking up position for a crossfire, but then something like a giant blanket dropped down on them from above.

No.

“That’s a giant squid!! This is pretty shallow for one of them, but you can still find them around!!”

“You look pretty proud of yourself, but don’t think I’m ever forgetting what you did!!” protested Myonri.

When their tentacles were extended from their body, they were more than 15 meters long, making them big enough to capsize a small fishing boat when caught in the boat’s net. Once captured by one’s countless suckers, human strength was not enough to break free.

With the 4 o’clock group eliminated, the enemy could no longer complete their inescapable crossfire.

“You bastards!!”

Heivia leaned out from the rocks and aimed something at the panicking Information Alliance soldiers to 9 o’clock. It was not a gun, but it looked similar. It was a gas-operated underwater pile driver he must have found in the naval rescue helicopter.

It was meant to drive stainless steel hooks into rock so they could support work wires, so it would not function as a projectile weapon. It was even more doubtful it would reach the enemy soldiers with the great resistance of the water.

But its lethality was fairly irrelevant.

Just like the previous univalves, he just had to fire it in their general direction.

Squids and octopuses tended to chase after shiny things.

And that infinitely increased the value of a light. Holding a light source was dangerous, but having it reflect wildly was even more effective.

“…!?”

“!!”

The merciless ocean did not even allow them to cry out in death. Having spotted a new toy, the giant squid charged toward the soldiers to grab them along with the jewel it wanted to claim as its own.

Flavor, smell, and light could all become life-protecting weapons. Bullets were not everything.

Thanks to that, some of the soldiers were discarded once the giant squid grew tired of them. But…

“What? They’re holding their throats and writhing around.”

“Since we didn’t see any air bubbles from an oxygen tank, they’re probably using a caustic soda circulation system. The carbon dioxide from their breath is absorbed so they can reuse that air, but if it gets punctured and water contacts the chemical, it produces toxic gas. …Then they’ve built themselves the world’s smallest gas chamber. It’s a good candidate for one of the worst ways to die.”

“Ehh? I thought the worst was the steamroller???”

“You mean getting crushed by your own side’s Object in the safe maintenance area? But I’ve also heard of a Pilot Elite fighting motion sickness during a long mission and ultimately foaming at the mouth from the pathogens coming from their own barf bag.”

“Ah ha ha!”

“Wa ha ha!!”

“Uehhh…” groaned well-behaved Myonri as she listened in and grew pale.

Nevertheless, they had a chance now that they had driven the capricious giant squid toward the Information Alliance soldiers. While shining their handheld lights on the distant pieces of metal, Quenser’s group left the rocks and approached the rusted supply transport ship.

“Oh, looks like the others on the helicopters spotted this ship.”

“…Isn’t this way too few to be all of them?”

While praying that everyone else was working toward some other means of survival, Quenser’s group dove into a split in the supply transport ship that was as beat-up as an empty can chewed on by a fierce dog.

“This is a waterproof door.”

“Opening it won’t cause seawater to pour in, will it?”

“It’s marked as an airlock. It’s meant for marine rescues, so it should be fine.”

Quenser turned the round handle in the center of the rusted door to open it. They found a small door inside. It was of course much darker inside than outside, so they would have to use their lights to continue any further. After entering and closing the door, they used a hand pump to remove the water from the room. Only then did they open the other door leading inside.

“Bwah! Finally, some air. Yes, we were born on earth, weren’t we!?”

“This is a really strange sight, isn’t it?”

They immediately removed their masks to preserve as much oxygen as possible and they made sure to attach them at their hip instead of discarding them. The supply transport ship itself had rolled onto its side, so the position of the long corridor’s walls and floor had greatly changed. The doors lining the wall were now pitfalls, so it felt like wandering into a world of trick art.

And with air surrounding them, they could use their assault rifles and submachineguns again.

“Everyone, make sure you don’t have water in your gun’s combustible gas pathway. After checking on your partner, let’s head on in.”

That was when a dry bursting sound rang out down the corridor.

Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance, but they could not see each other’s expression because they immediately shut off their lights.

“…Who was that?”

“It was pretty far away. I don’t think they were shooting at us.”

A second and third gunshot followed. Someone had clearly run across some kind of trouble. Even if this was a conflict between two groups of the cornered Information Alliance soldiers, Katarina Martini was with them. Quenser’s group had to check on the situation immediately.

They switched their lights back on and advanced across the dark and dangerous footing.

“Our feet could easily break through with all this rust, so be careful. Make sure you don’t step on any of the doors.”

“Do you think I’m an id-…hwah!?”

“You klutz!!”

Driven by the sudden fear of falling, Quenser searched for anything at all to grab onto and ended up wrapping his arms around Myonri’s hips, causing her to jump. In the darkness, his face was buried in a fairly scandalous place, but his life really was at risk.

“Phew. That was a close one. We really are at war here, aren’t we?”

“…You have no idea how much I want to ‘accidentally’ shoot you right now…”

Cute Myonri was tearful and trembling. The corridor was difficult to walk down with all the columns and pipes, but the sporadic gunfire came to a stop before long. The gunfire had squeezed their hearts with tension, but its absence brought an eerie sensation crawling up from the darkness.

“I don’t like this smell…”

“…”

“This isn’t all the rust everywhere. It’s similar, but it’s stronger.”

The corridor led to a long, narrow stairway. And with the ship on its side, it was like a right angle turn. Heivia approached while on the lookout for an enemy attack and he peered up it with his light and gun both at the ready.

There was no reaction.

Puzzled by his awful friend’s lack of movement, Quenser approached too.

Then the boy saw the scene past Heivia’s shoulder.

So much red covered everything.

And a blonde girl in a black one-piece swimsuit stood calmly in the center of a pile of corpses.

Time stopped.

Heivia’s light illuminated a group in thick rubber diving suits who lay unmoving with dark red holes in their foreheads or hearts. They were probably the Information Alliance surprise attack unit. Quenser and Heivia had no reason to sympathize with them after that group targeted their maintenance base, but that was not the issue.

What had Katarina Martini, leader of the genius girl project, feared?

The black swimsuit girl accompanied by a butler-like young man may have been the true threat.

She was Wraith Martini Vermouthspray, the Stopgap Grim Reaper.

Driven by fear, that amateur boy raised his voice without thinking.

“You…!!”

“Stop, Frank. There is no need to kill them. Not those honest perverts.”

“…Why a school swimsuit?”

“That’s your first question? This Island Nation legend’s aura is something else indeed.”

The young man took a step forward, but Wraith stopped him with a quick command.

What would have happened if she had not done that? It was not that she killed because she had a reason to. She did not spare them because she had no reason to. That was evident enough from the twenty-odd slaughtered soldiers.

But that was exactly why a question occurred to Quenser.

“…This isn’t…an indiscriminate…killing mode…?”

In her special black one-piece swimsuit, Wraith gave an exasperated snort and snapped her fingers, so the young man pulled something out of the pile of red corpses. No, some''one'' who was desperately trying to blend in with the dead bodies.

It was Katarina Martini.

The instinct to immediately join the dead on the ground may have come from her experience surviving a harsher age.

“I don’t know what this cowardly defector was telling you, but, well, she’s the one we have business- kyah!?”

[[Image:HO_v14_349.jpg|thumb]]

Then something strange happened.

Cool and composed Wraith suddenly stopped speaking and jumped in shock. Then she frantically grabbed a nearby sleeve.

She may have thought it belonged to the butler young man, but by some twist of fate it actually belonged to Quenser Barbotage.

“Wh-what is it!? Is the enemy targeting us from somewhere!?”

“Ahem. I-it’s nothing. There is no need to make such a big deal about-…”

“Heivia, Myonri, be on your guard! This was enough for ''Wraith'' to scream and jump. Something horrific must be lurking in the shadows!!”

“…wharf…on the…”

“What, what? Since this is the Information Alliance we’re talking about, is it an amphibious attack drone? You’ve gotta be kidding me. Their weapons can keep moving around after all the soldiers were killed?”

“I was afraid of a wharf roach crawling in the wall!!!!!”

Swimsuit Wraith could not bear it any longer and raised her voice.

He did not understand.

“…After you created this sea of blood and mountain of corpses?”

“Alive or dead, humans are humans. But they’re different.”

Wraith blushed but refused to let go of Quenser’s sleeve as she got back on topic. Her eyes turned toward her objective.

That person was the only one the grim reaper had allowed to continue breathing in this red-stained world of stopped time.

“Katarina Martini.”

“…”

“You must have had a reason to request asylum now. What and how much do you know about the X Day our Information Alliance is facing?”

While supported by the young man, the elegant old woman remained seated and maintained her silence.

Wraith seemed to know more than Quenser and the rest of the Legitimacy Kingdom. In fact, she was looking at it differently.

“What? She must have had a reason to request asylum now?”

“There has to be something that only Katarina can see. Let me ask you this instead: What would you think if an earthquake prediction expert suddenly abandoned their job and left on a trip?”

“Wait a second…”

“And what if that disaster was an artificial earthquake that could be reproduced by human hands? That would seem like more than just abandoning their duties, don’t you think?” Wraith did not even look back at Quenser. “I don’t know if you did it intentionally or if you discovered it by accident, but you know the exact date of X Day, don’t you? That’s why you frantically contacted the Capitalist Corporations, and then the Legitimacy Kingdom after that submarine screwed up. It was all so you could avoid the bog the Information Alliance is being thrown into.”

“…”

Katarina had yet to provide any kind of response.

Was she bound by direct fear, leaving her mind blank? Or was she afraid she would say something to hurt her case if she opened her mouth?

Either way, there was something to this. Something that only Katarina could see.

“What did you embed inside the Martini Series? What is the true identity of these ‘deviations’ in our heads?”

If necessary, she was willing to use special weapons and drugs.

And with those options on the table, Wraith’s raised voice may have been relatively calm and gentlemanly.

“Answer me, Katarina Martini! Why are the other Martinis plotting an attack on the center of the Information Alliance at Manhattan, New York!?”

Quenser thought he was choking.

He flapped his mouth for a bit before realizing that no sound was coming out.

“Man…hattan?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the Information Alliance home country! The very center of the Chesapeake District! If it falls to a military attack…!!”

“Yes!! One of the four legs supporting the table will break. Clean wars? The age of Objects? The other world powers won’t have time to take advantage of the chaos and rise to the top!! The world will collapse and enter an age engulfed in flames!!”

Quenser thought of Lady Monica who had lost her home after her family “collapsed”. Arriving at a new age did not necessarily mean a change for the better.

“I don’t understand it.” Wraith Martini Vermouthspray clenched her teeth. “It can’t be explained with any kind of economic advantage, but could we really produce enough hatred to want humanity to burn to the ground? After we’ve become partially embedded in the AI network administration system? What kind of bug remains in the Martini Series? And is it eating away at my own mind as well!? You created me, so tell me!!”

There was no response from the old woman.

Before she could give one, an electronic tone sounded from the radio on one of the corpses.

A radio signal could not reach this deep underwater, so the Information Alliance had likely placed a wired antenna buoy or something on the ocean surface. The communication infrastructure lived on even if its users did not.

“Ah, ah, ahh☆ Master 00 to Slave 21. The Legitimacy Kingdom helicopter unit has been destroyed. Their Generation One is persistent, but the Laser Beam 069 is falling back to draw it to another region of sea. How’s your oxygen supply? It’ll take a while longer to put together a recovery team, so preserve as much as possible with a proper breathing rhythm☆”

It was a young girl’s voice.

It contained something that gave away her youth, but Quenser and his group had also cheated. They had already heard this voice through the wharf roach spy robot they sent to the Flagship 019.

However, someone else spoke softly before the boy could.

It was Katarina, the old woman who had created all of them.

“That is Piranirie Martini Smoky. She is #7. Her administrative role is to smoothly restart work on the warfront when things have stalled due to the restrictions of various treaties, power balances, habitats of protected species, and so on. In other words, she oils the rusted gears and reignites any wars that have spontaneously come to a stop.”

“…”

This girl was from the same generation as Wraith.

Knowing that was enough to put a sharp look in the Martini girl’s eyes.

“Oh? No response. Hey!! …Did they run out of air and kick the bucket earlier than expected?”

In her school swimsuit, Wraith grabbed the radio in her small hand, took a breath, and started to speak.

“Slave 21 to Master 00. There is nothing to report here.”

“Ah ha ha. You’re missing the code word, whoever that is. But if you managed to get inside the sunken ship now, I’ve gotta praise your precision. Are you perhaps one of us?”

“This wasn’t as impressive as you make it out to be. A separate group made it here as well.”

“It doesn’t matter either way. You’re a step behind. In fact, I would say you’re about three days behind me. There’s nothing you can do to catch up now.”

“Why are you so intent on bringing ruin?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. That doesn’t follow at all. If you really are part of the Martini Series, you should know what this is: I’m not doing this because I have a reason to. I’m not sparing them because 
I have no reason to. That’s how we work, isn’t it?”

“Did you think you could pull this off by corrupting a local fleet out here? That’s an impressive level of foolishness. Do you have any idea how many cutting-edge Objects are protecting Manhattan!?”

“Nya ha ha ha ha!! …It’s that way of thinking that tells me you’re a step behind.”

That was when a dull tremor assaulted the sunken ship.

It had originally been a supply transport ship rolled on its side and it was just sitting there on the unstable ocean floor. It was entirely possible something had coincidentally caused it to collapse and roll, but it was more likely this was no coincidence.

This was something much more ominous.

As Quenser’s group shined their lights around, Piranirie’s mockery slipped into their ears.

“There were some things I was hoping to discuss with Old Lady Katarina, but, well, if the alternative is having her taken in by the Legitimacy Kingdom or Capitalist Corporations, I should probably send her to oblivion even if it means losing a piece of the truth. What do you think, old lady?”

“What are you-?”

“Nowww, a question: How was the Legitimacy Kingdom’s New Caribbean Island created? And are they the only ones capable of messing with submarine volcanoes???”

Another disconcerting tremor reached them.

“This is an artificial eruption!!” exclaimed Quenser. “They’re using explosives or an Object’s cannon to stimulate the buildup of magma on the ocean floor. At this rate, we’ll be engulfed by the lava erupting up from below!!”

“Piranirie learned a great variety of techniques for restarting wars that had fallen to a standstill for any number of reasons. She must have learned how to redraw EEZs, territorial waters, and national borders using the appearance of volcanic islands.”

“Just to be clear,” said Piranirie herself. “You don’t get to live happily ever after if you do manage to escape that sunken ship. This is covering a much, muuuuch wider area☆ Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!”

They had no time for this anymore.

Swimsuit Wraith threw aside the radio and lightly snapped her fingers.

“Frank.”

That was apparently enough to convey her demand. The butler-like young man grabbed Katarina Martini’s arm.

And Heivia finally recalled what their mission was.

“Ah, wait!!”

“I know you’re loath to part ways with such a kind young woman in a swimsuit, but don’t call out to me every time I take a step. I’m not telling you to leave me just yet. And this is no time to be arguing over who gets to take Katarina. If we want to survive, we’ll both be headed to the same place.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Since Quenser bothered to ask, the blonde girl in a black swimsuit must have decided he was willing to listen because she turned toward him instead.

“Several submarine volcanoes will soon be erupting in quick succession. We cannot stay in the ocean, but if we head to the surface, we will only fall victim to the Laser Beam 069…oh, excuse me. To use your adorably pathetic naming sense, that would be the Nitrogen Mirage. Or we could be crushed by the Legitimacy Kingdom Object’s butt.”

“…”

Quenser paled when he was confronted with those facts once more.

In some kind of habit, Wraith’s hand wandered through empty air like it was searching for a pen.

“Given the distance, escaping to your New Caribbean Island would be difficult. And in the worst case, the series of eruptions could propagate there as well.”

“Then what are we supposed to do…?”

“There is one safe zone. There is a single paradise in this world which will be unharmed by the submarine volcanoes and not fired on by the Second Generation acting as Piranirie’s puppet.” Wraith pointed straight up. “The Information Alliance maintenance fleet. I don’t know which ship Piranirie Martini Smoky is hitching a ride on, but if we join her there, the Object’s great firepower will actually work against her and she won’t be able to attack us.”

That was indeed closer than New Caribbean Island.

And a product of that genius girl project would not be dumb enough to place her own fleet in a position where the artificial eruptions and Object under her control would destroy it.

“Katarina, I would like to ask you, our designer,” said Wraith. “Which of those hundred-odd ships is she on?”

“The Flagship 019 in the center. There is no need to look out for trickery, so you can go with the obvious answer. There is no need to go through a profiling process; I made her to be that kind of person.”

Katarina made it sound obvious.

Did she not even need to flip through the pages of a file? It was possible she was imagining an isolated aspect of her mother instead of the individual girls.

However…

“Th-this is insane,” said Heivia. “Even war has rules. But this is what happens as soon as the Martini Series shows up. And now we’re supposed to enter their maintenance base zone!?”

“You can continue following your precious rules to the end if you like, you foolishly well-behaved swine. But anyone who wants a real shot at survival should focus on the number and capacity of the submersibles the Information Alliance divers used. …There might not be enough space for everyone.”

An especially powerful tremor shook the sunken ship.

They could not wait any longer.

Just as Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance and took off running, the rest of the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers followed suit. They shined their lights around while passing and being passed by each other and they even started grabbing at each other’s hair in a race for the submersibles.

“Wait a second! Is no one taking that old woman with them!?”

“Don’t ask me! If you care so much, Heivia, you go back for her!!”

Was the problem that she was not a cute girl? Or that she was not an adorable and kindly old woman with a round back?

And the idiots noticed something as soon as they arrived.

“Hey, there’s more than enough of these things.”

“Dammit. Manipulating the enemy with information is their specialty, isn’t it? She tricked us!!”

Nevertheless, they had no choice but to board them.

Wraith had stolen Katarina, the designer needed to predict Piranirie’s actions, from right under their noses, but she would still have to escape to the same area of sea in some kind of vehicle if she was to survive. They could always stay right on that girl’s ass and demand she come to a stop somewhere. Although they would have to use the Princess as a threat if these things had no weapons.

The submersibles looked like giant double-edged swords made of a chemical materials and Quenser’s group split up between a few of them to leave the sunken ship.

A moment later, a large orange explosion erupted.

“Wahh!?”

“Are you kidding me!? That rusted ship suddenly split in two!!”

Once one point ruptured, it happened quickly. More and more large cracks ran through cold ocean floor and passed by the submersibles Quenser’s group was riding. They even saw that fearsome giant squid fleeing like a puny fish. Soon after they saw an orange glow in the depths of the earth, the eruption shot up like a reverse guillotine.

“Surface, Myonri! Surface immediately!!”

“I’m trying! But there’s something wrong with the rudder! Oh, no! We’re going to roll over!!”

That was when they received a transmission over the submersible’s communicator rather than their personal equipment.

“Ksshh!! Here is some advice in the hopes that the signal will reach through the ocean at this distance, my hard-working but foolish neighbors. During a submarine volcanic eruption, the obvious lava is accompanied by lots of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. If that dissolves in the seawater, it will create the carbonated water we all know and love. This will surround the submersible in air bubbles, making it difficult to steer, but it will also increase the buoyancy and lift the submersible more than you might expect. So be careful.”

“Does she have to be so arrogant about everything!?”

“Oh, I get it. I had thought Wraith seemed awfully calm, but she reached that sunken ship with her own submersible.”

“By the way,” added Wraith. “While yours are specialized for covert movement, mine is loaded with four short-range torpedoes for self-protection. So try not to anger me. That is rule one of survival.”

The idiot duo felt their balls gently shrivel up.

“The maintenance fleet is 20 kilometers north-northwest of here. The carbonation should be affecting you right about now, but do not poke your head above the surface. Not only is this part of the migration course for those giant bluefin tuna, but the artificial eruption has those jewels of the sea in a panic. This is the one rare instance where their picket ships won’t notice submersibles of this size in the ocean.”

Not only did they have to worry about the erupting lava and volcanic rock, but they could also be hit by a tackle from a large panicked fish. While so many hazards just barely passed them by, Quenser and the other Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes made their way directly below the Information Alliance fleet.

“Piranirie is one thing,” hesitantly began Heivia. “But why are the other soldiers going along with this reckless plan? Attacking Manhattan will only make their situation so much worse. It’s horrific to contemplate, but they could even find their own families criticizing their actions.”

“As part of the Martini Series, that point of view honestly irritates me to no end, but I am beautiful and generous enough to overlook it. Anyway, this may be a unique aspect of the Information Alliance. Did you know this? The more dedicated someone is to justice, the more diligently they will derail when they are led astray by sweet words.”

“…Seriously…?”

“You couldn’t work up the courage to stop the bullying? But you took a stand by never actually taking part? That’s wrong. Dead wrong. Someone like that was simply pouring all their effort into pretending not to see it. No one was going to praise them for it, but they faithfully stuck with their decision to abandon the victims and prevent the bullying from coming to light. That is where bad deeds come from. It’s someone careless who pulls the trigger, but it’s the diligent ones that see it through to the end. That’s why these things never end in a group. No matter how much they think something is wrong, they never speak up about it. If they did, they would cease to be their diligent self. And the masses have been quite thoroughly taught that their lives will fall apart and they will die if they cease to be diligent.”

Using information to control the system was how the Information Alliance’s pyramid structure worked.

They wanted a social structure where everyone thought they were free to choose what they wanted, but they were in fact manipulated into choosing what was convenient for someone else.

Just like how even the most niche book imaginable could be described as a best seller if you divided the genre down narrowly enough. And just like how you could manipulate the majority answer on a survey by selecting 1000 respondents from the slums or from the financial district.

When someone only tried to reach for what was popular, you could easily control them by selecting what was displayed as the word of the day.

And in the maintenance fleet built around the Flagship 019, Piranirie Martini Smoky had become the word of the day.

“I thought the Legitimacy Kingdom was bad, but I guess everywhere is hell.”

“We can at least promise you a ‘happy’ life,” said Wraith. “Because the masses are not even allowed to question their situation. And the administrator looking down at all of them and laughing? They have no idea someone is laughing at them in the same way. It just repeats like that, so I’m sure there’s someone laughing at me too.”

Meanwhile, the submarine volcanic eruptions began to weaken.

That was partially due to putting some distance between them and that hellish area of sea, but it had more to do with arriving at their destination coordinates.

An early-warning picket ship was directly above them.

And further in, they could see the gray bellies of the ships like a school of fat and round fish.

“Where’s the Flagship 019?”

“Check the propeller shapes, Myonri. You saw what it looked like when getting those spy robots on board, right?”

They saw the especially-large belly of the battlecruiser surrounded by several guard ships.

The small submersibles gradually approached and silently surfaced after confirming it was their target. Heivia grabbed some rope he had found in the submersible, opened the hatch, tied a special kind of knot on the end of the rope, and tossed it straight up.

After it attached to the railing, they began climbing up.

It was a climb of 8 or 9 meters, so it took less than a minute for those who were used to this sort of thing.

“M-Myonri, I’m not used to this kind of thing, so pull me up!”

“Why do I get the feeling you specifically chose me?”

Well-behaved Myonri tilted her head as she pulled up the skinny and unathletic boy. And no matter how much everything had been automated and digitized, there were still guards on the deck, so the rogues were quickly spotted.

It had already begun.

As they exchanged short bursts of gunfire, Heivia killed a few guards with his assault rifle.

“Dammit, they’re girls? A warship has a crew of about 200, right? That’s the same as a company. I really don’t want to fight a small war in this steel ghost house, so what are we supposed to do!?”

“That guard ship is going to respond before it comes to that!!”

After finally climbing over the railing like a stowaway, Quenser tried to flee inside the ship, but something odd happened first.

Close-in defense Gatling guns were installed at even intervals along the side of the battlecruiser like streetlights along a highway, but they all turned in unison like the fan section of a home appliance store.

With an explosive sound somewhat reminiscent of a broken buzzer, the horizontal rain released from the Flagship 019 tore apart the surface of the neighboring guard ship. No distinction was made between personnel and materiel. The sailors on the guard ship had raised their rifles without feeling very threatened themselves, but now they were utterly taken aback and fled inside the ship where the thick armor would protect them.

The electronic simulation division had finally made itself useful. (17-Year-Old ♀) Lilim Gazette (the Vomiter) gave a cruel smile and an OK sign with a mobile device in her other hand.

“Nee hee hee. They might have decent defenses against external cyber attacks, but it looks like they didn’t consider the possibility of an infection from inside. These might have been added later on because the close-in defense Gatling guns and missiles are connected just like IoT appliances. Although for the ship’s guns and missiles that are used for offense instead of close-in defense, it looks like we would need to directly visit the CIC.”

However, the idiots could not hear a word she said thanks to the great din.

“…what…you…!?”

“…punch that smug…off your face…so get inside!!”

“…boobs…!!”

They could have sworn they heard a shocking word from Myonri in the middle of it all, but all the noise left the details unclear. They might have misheard, but they might not have.

Since this could easily deafen them or get them hit by a stray bullet, Quenser and the others opened a watertight door and ran inside the ship.

They did not have time to catch their breath.

They heard pounding footsteps and then some female soldiers in sailor uniforms appeared from around a corner in the surprisingly narrow corridor.

“Shit!!”

Fortunately, thick watertight doors were prepared all over the place to prevent flooding. Heivia and the others opened doors to random cabins and used them as shields as they returned fire.

But…

“Watch out! What is this? There are sparks everywhere!? Are the bullets ricocheting all over the place!?”

“Here comes a shotgun!”

“Ahhh!!”

With the complex layout and the walls and doors made of thick steel, the advantages of an assault rifle were mostly negated. Their range did not matter and they could not penetrate the walls or doors. That meant a short-range but powerful shotgun was the better choice.

At this rate, the enemy would move in and do major damage, but that was not what happened.

For one thing, why were the armed sailor uniform girls exposing themselves to direct fire instead of holding a position at the corner?

Gunshots rang out from a different direction entirely.

It was the same sound they had heard in that sunken ship. And it came from beyond the corner the sailor uniform soldiers had come from. They had not come to attack; they had been on the run.

“Urp. I really hate seeing girls die…”

“What the hell…? Whatever-that-is is punching through the walls our assault rifles couldn’t get through.”

One by one, the sailors were picked off.

And then the culprits stepped out from around the corridor. It was Wraith in her black uniform and the butler-like young man. Black-uniformed Wraith held a small handgun in her right hand and Frank held something like a revolving grenade launcher with a shortened barrel.

But Quenser ignored that and shouted about something else.

“What, is school swimsuit time over already!? Why did you change!?”

“This is my proper uniform. …And don’t be so blatantly disappointed. It makes me feel like I did something wrong. Am I just too sexy? Is that it? Then I have no choice but to wear it again for you sometime.” Wraith shook her head in exasperation. “Regardless, you are late, Legitimacy Kingdom. Surely you aren’t going to say you will only put in as much work as you are being paid for.”

“Are you kidding? Did you use that grenade launcher to get through the wall? I didn’t see any explosions.”

“You are astonishingly dumb. It is admittedly based on a grenade launcher, but the barrel was replaced with one of tungsten steel and it fires lead bullets that fit perfectly inside. You could call it the world’s most powerful magnum.”

An anti-materiel rifle would be 12.7mm while a grenade launcher would be 40mm, so considering both the caliber and the overall mass, the weight of the lead bullet and the amount of powder would be Quenser gave up trying to calculate it and just smiled. Finding the answer would be a bad idea. He would only feel his balls shrivel up again.

(The little Martini tends to gather all the attention, but that handsome guy is a monster in his own right. Oh, but if he relies on that one trick, maybe he’s more like me. If he doesn’t have the fundamentals down like Heivia does, he might be going for a powerful impact that prevents anyone from noticing how little he can really do.)

It was theoretically possible to refer to the old woman as “little Martini” as well, but Katarina was still being held by the young man. He had to be able to provide as much force as a vise if he needed to, so she would be more secure there than in handcuffs. And even if nothing had been done to her, she might have gone limp from exposure to the loud gunfire in this enclosed space.

“We will now secure this ship and settle things with Piranirie.”

“Will you be okay, Wraith? We’ve seen rats and wharf roaches on this ship. And all I can do is hold you, pat your head, and call you a good girl.”

“Try to hold that over me again and I will tear off your limbs and pull out your entrails!!”

As Wraith blushed and shouted back at him, elderly Katarina calmly began to speak.

“Settle this? Given #7’s structure, she will be in control of the bridge or the combat command. In other words, the most secure control point.”

“Isn’t this what you wanted, designer? There are more than 200 sailors on this ship. That’s the size of a small company, but you needn’t be afraid.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Heivia looked skeptical, so Wraith explained while toying with her blonde hair.

“The toxic atmosphere running rampant in this maintenance fleet is coming from Piranirie Martini Smoky, the symbol of an administrative system. But now I have arrived as another Martini and a troubleshooter. By introducing a new order and providing a second control tower, her unilateral control can be fairly easily shaken. Think of it like the class bullies being surrounded by their target’s colleagues at work and the rest of the class seeing it.” Wraith tossed Quenser a roll of sticky tape. “If they surrender, bind and gag them. If they don’t, kill them. I have no obligation to worry about the sailors, but as an Information Alliance officer, I will remind you that it can be tempting indeed to know that surrendering gives you a chance at survival. And this is not just some ideal. I have the experience to back it up.”

“In other words, this is the perfect chance to legally tie up some sailor uniform girls. (Grin)”

“What part of this looks even remotely legal?”

The discussion was over.

No matter how formidable a foe the Nitrogen Mirage was, the chaos would end if they could stop Piranirie who had sent the entire maintenance fleet out of control in the first place.

“Oh, right. Wraith, you might see what look like squished wharf roaches, but don’t worry. Those are probably the remains of our spy robots. But if you are scared, feel free to grab onto me. I can even carry you around and toss you in the air for fun.”

“I warned you, didn’t I? Now tell me what it was I said I would do to you.”

Just then, Quenser happened to look out a window.

A bluish-white nitrogen laser scorched the air and mercilessly tore away the Flagship 019’s bridge.