Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume6 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 12===

Even a child who kept up to date with the news sites that had replaced newspapers would know Quenser Barbotage was proficient with explosives. After all, he had been awarded for blowing up Objects with them. It was perfect for a quick topic to discuss at mealtime.

And that was why the masked men from the Night Edge Platoon grimaced slightly when they realized Quenser had kicked open the door to the workshop and holed himself up inside. They knew about the gunpowder used for metalworking. And Quenser Barbotage was known for doing his own thing no matter what he was told.

“He’s probably going to blow away one of the walls when we try to break in through the door. Ignore the passageways. Assume he can pass through the walls.”

And then something exploded.

The four walls of the workshop were blown away simultaneously.

But something they had not expected also happened.

The workshop’s ceiling must not have been able to support the load without the walls because it collapsed.

“…What? Did he accidentally kill himself? …I guess he is just an amateur.”

Failures often appeared in the process of making a novel idea a reality. But when those ideas did occasionally succeed, they could slip past the standard theories of the experts and cause unexpected damage.

That was the truth of how the boy had managed to defeat those Objects in the past.

“Tch. Well, that was a dud.”

The four Night Edge members stepped past the crumbled walls and into the workroom…or technically, its remains. The collapse of the ceiling made it impossible to tell what kind of equipment had been inside or even what color the floor had been.

“Digging him up is going to be a pain.”

“Can’t we leave that to the trash outside?”

“This facility itself is considered classified, so we can’t let them in.”

“…….”

The fourth voice was not heard.

It seemed he actually had said something, but his voice did not reach any of the others’ ears.

The reason for this was simple.

The second wave of explosives Quenser had set up in the room had detonated.

The shockwave swept out in every direction. Regardless of how trained the Night Edge members' bodies were, they were knocked out by the blast. Just as even the strongest person would die if thrown into a fire or dragged deep underwater, the shock did enough damage to cross the line between pro and amateur and overcome the basic limits of the human body.

Incidentally, Quenser was below the rubble.

He had set the first wave of explosives after checking where the pillars were. The explosives had been positioned so the ceiling would collapse with an empty space in the spot Quenser was curled up within.

And the explosions Quenser was causing were the type to create only a shockwave. They created no flames, shrapnel, or other dangerous side effects. The wall of sound that knocked out his enemies was not powerful enough to pierce through the shelter of rubble covering him.

“You should thank me. You don’t often get taken out by a nonlethal explosion. More often, you just get shot by a normal bullet.”

Quenser picked up a carbine from one of the unconscious masked men and swiped his handheld device. The Night Edge Platoon had a few dozen men spread across the Cook Additions Islands. Reinforcements would be immediately sent out once the rest realized what had happened here.

“That means I need to finish this before a large-scale battle begins. That laptop’s communications are monitored by higher ups in the military. If I send out an SOS over that line, it will naturally reach them.”

“That is a dangerous plan. And it isn’t necessary,” said a sudden female voice.

Quenser held up the carbine and turned around to find the designer Claire Whist lightly putting up her hands while wearing her lab coat and bikini. She was surprisingly close by. She was close enough to charge at him if he looked away even for a second.

She grinned and said, “Do you actually understand the situation here?”

“A wall has been altered to allow communications outside the building without the higher ups monitoring it. You are suspected to have a connection with the Capitalist Corporations. There is competition between the water resource business and megasolar business in southern Africa. Communications from Heivia have stopped. …And on top of it all, you want to get rid of the Baby Magnum which is currently in southern Africa.”

“The evidence you need to confirm your suspicions is on that handheld device. Why don’t you check it?”

“I’m not stupid enough to take my eyes off you and give you a chance to attack.”

“I won’t do anything like that. You took them out with a shockwave, remember? You should probably at least check to make sure it turns on and wasn’t broken.”

“That’s a good-…bh!?”

Just as Quenser used his thumb to try to turn on the device, Claire sent a kick in his direction. Quenser frantically tried to move out of the way, but a stabbing pain ran through his entire body before he could. Strength left his legs and he collapsed to the ground.

“A…stun gun!?”

“I showed it to you when we first met, didn’t I?”

Quenser used his arms that he could still just barely move to keep himself from completely collapsing, but Claire calmly sat on his back. The boy in a crawling pose became her chair.

Claire pressed the electrodes of the stun gun against the back of his head and picked up the handheld device.

“Stay still.”

[[Image:HO_v06_09.jpg|thumb]]

“If you use the stun gun now, the current will flow into your ass too…”

“But it will be worse for you. What do you think will happen if 30 thousand volts are sent into your head? The user’s manual listed it as the worst place to use it after the heart.”

With that simple comment, Claire folded her legs and operated the handheld device with one hand.

“Are you going to erase the evidence?”

“No. This is as good a time as any, so I’ll begin here.”

“Begin what?”

“Giving some answers. It seems things have gotten noisy outside, and this will get troublesome if the Objects’ maintenance units come to investigate the island. The Night Edge Platoon…that is, Unicorn won’t be enough to stop them. And so I would like to finish this before that happens. Got it?”

Claire Whist used one of the handheld device’s apps to begin a conversation. It seemed the signal was able to leave the building from where they were because Quenser had blown a hole in the ceiling. The person on the other end seemed to be a high official of the military.

But was he from the Legitimacy Kingdom military?

Or the Capitalist Corporations military?

“Brigadier general, I was thinking about pulling the trigger in southern Africa,” said Claire.

“This is a video chat, so I am receiving video of you. That is quite an…odd situation.”

“I’ve recently taken a liking to this kind of thing. It’s not like I have much else to do here,” said Claire in a casual tone.

The man she had referred to as brigadier general cut straight to the main topic.

“If you say the timing is right, I will go along with it, but isn’t this a little early to pull the trigger in southern Africa?”

“The peak value is only theoretical. Aiming for it in reality will actually hurt us.”

Claire then tapped on Quenser’s head with the stun gun’s electrodes.

Once she had his attention, she spoke.

Spoke to Quenser, not the handheld device.

“This is what is really going on in southern Africa. The water resource business using clouds and the megasolar power generation business are in conflict. That conflict is used to create a financial black hole. We lure influential people within the Legitimacy Kingdom to have us invest their money in this black hole and put them deeply into debt.”

“Wait a second. Why are you telling him this?” asked the man.

“You may think I have a connection with the Capitalist Corporations, but you are wrong about that. There are people within the Legitimacy Kingdom itself who wish to weaken other influential members of the Legitimacy Kingdom. Political conflict, infighting…there are plenty of reasons for it.”

“Shut your mouth!! Do you have any idea how valuable that information is!?” shouted the man Claire had called a brigadier general, but she merely grinned and continued speaking.

At this stage, it did not matter to her what anyone thought. Her body language made that clear.

“But certain events are needed to keep a financial black hole causing losses indefinitely. If it stays the same, people grow tired of it. The fire burning in their minds cools off. If that happens, the investors realize it is a dangerous deal. And so we need to arrange periodic events to ensure that does not happen. And one of those will be the Object you know being deployed to southern Africa.”

“The Baby Magnum?”

“If it clashes with the Capitalist Corporations and loses spectacularly, the situation there will change greatly. The water resource business is supported by the Legitimacy Kingdom and the megasolar business is supported by the Capitalist Corporations. The investors’ money will all go into megasolar. And the people of the Legitimacy Kingdom won’t even know it because we are handling the investments. But it will not be enough to destroy the financial black hole. The more money they pump in, the greater the losses expand. My job,” whispered Claire Whist while removing the stun gun from Quenser’s head, “is to uncover the idiots who are trying to wear down the Legitimacy Kingdom’s own national power over internal conflicts when we are in the middle of a worldwide war. That is why I used Unicorn to set up an independent network that slips past the higher ups. I can’t have the people I’m supposed to trap catching on to what we’re doing.”

“…!!”

Quenser heard a clicking noise.

The man Claire had referred to as a brigadier general had ended the connection.

But Claire showed no sign of worry.

“It’s too late,” she said. “Before he can even chug some whisky and shoot himself with his handgun, the Black Uniforms charged with barrier duty will capture him.”

“…This was all a sting?”

“It just turned out that way this time. Sometimes I am the one doing the underhanded things. But that is why I’m not all that mad about you interfering in all this. I’m not some honor student that gets a stomachache when things don’t go exactly according to plan. When you accept any means necessary, war can get even more twisted than this. In fact, when I think about how the situation must have looked to you, you made a refreshingly wonderful decision.”

War.

That was what Claire Whist had called it.

Quenser very rarely had a chance to hold a gun, but that woman would have had even fewer chances. It was quite likely she had never once fired one from the day she was born.

And yet…

“You need to take this more seriously, Quenser. This is a war waged above your level. The wars using Objects cost a lot of money. And even more is gained from them. If that was not the case, no one would keep these troublesome wars going. This creates a lot of plans to profit from it all as well as quite a few conflicts.”

“What about the financial black hole? Aren’t those influential people from the Legitimacy Kingdom still pouring tons of money into it!?”

“It is just a dummy market made to look like a financial black hole,” replied Claire smoothly. “The issue with southern Africa is that the water resource business using clouds and the megasolar business using sunlight are in competition due to the weather. Time after time, one succeeds and the other fails. In a seesaw market, the losses outweigh the gains no matter which one you invest in. That is why only the debt increases. That is what forms the financial black hole.”

“And…?”

“Oh? Didn’t you know? We have completed a system to somewhat freely create clouds and make it rain.” Claire sounded like she was enjoying herself. “That just means we have to create multiple facilities. Area A is equipped with water resource pools and megasolar panels and area B is also equipped with water resource pools and megasolar panels. Afterwards, we just make it rain alternatively on area A and area B. While it rains on area A, it is sunny in area B. Area B can generate power and have water piped in. When it rains in area B, the opposite is done. That way you can perpetually supply both water and electricity. The two businesses are no longer in competition and everyone can get along and make money. Do you get it now?”

“Would that really work so well?” asked Quenser. “Southern Africa is a battlefield. Building pipelines across territories belonging to different world powers would create friction. And even if it does not cross any borders, an enemy unit could attack and destroy it. It just wouldn’t work.”

“And that line of reasoning is why that brigadier general believed southern Africa really was a financial black hole.” Claire still did not seem worried. “I bought up all the stock of a construction company that worked at being charitable rather than on widespread advertising. They are well known and influential throughout different territories all across southern Africa. I can use them to expedite negotiations between different territories and I have Unicorn attack those that still refuse to cooperate. That is how I am building up the foundation. The pipeline will not be destroyed. …And people tend to be better off with stable infrastructure.”

“…”

Claire had no intention of betraying the Legitimacy Kingdom.

She had been using Unicorn to take action without the traitors higher up in the military noticing.

In fact, she had actually been protecting the Baby Magnum from being used in the financial black hole project.

But…

Just as Quenser breathed a sigh of relief, Claire Whist lifted herself up a bit and then sat back down to put more weight on his back.

“Gyahh!?’

“And now it is time for you to give me an answer. …This workshop has been completely destroyed. Four members of Unicorn have been splendidly knocked out. And from what I have heard over the communications lines, a gunship made from a modified tiltrotor has been brought down into the ocean outside. How do you plan to logically explain this situation?”

Quenser’s mouth flapped open and closed, but no words came out.

Claire folded her legs and smiled as she looked down at him.

“If you can’t come up with anything, you will have to be sent away again. But I can’t think of anywhere worse than here.”