Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume15 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 13===

The raging storm had calmed and the ocean glittered bright red as it absorbed the color of the setting sun.

This was a small tropical island, a common sight in the Central American ocean.

It would likely be described as a desert island. It had a single palm tree and a large refrigerator that must have washed up from somewhere. The island had a radius of at most 10 meters, but it oddly showed no sign of sinking below the waves as a result of global warming.

But at the same time, someone who could land on the tiny and generic island was not supposed to “exist”.

The legends of ships suddenly vanishing in the Bermuda Triangle was proof of that.

Whether intentional or coincidental, everyone who discovered and landed on that island would “disappear” from the world. They were promised the full support of the Information Alliance, but in exchange, the secret was preserved by fully erasing their very presence from the vast network. It was like being rejected from the connections of human society and receiving the position of a god who sat one step removed.

The greatest privilege in a highly digitized society was not to be a king or president who stood above the masses in a high-risk/high-return position where a single wrong word would lead to an onslaught of criticism.

It was to be a skilled hacker who was unknown to the masses but knew everything about them. It was to fall into the gap of that no-risk/high-return position.

No one could escape the far-too-sweet temptation of being an emperor who stood one step to the side.

That was why they had all kept the secret so far.

“What’s this, what’s this? You got here first?”

A carefree voice rang out.

The ocean and the island were dyed by sunset. A twintailed girl had ridden a high-speed motorboat onto the opposite beach from a boy and she walked over to him with a smile. That girl with risqué undeveloped bodylines approached like a puppy.

“You always are first, aren’t you? Then again, that’s what makes you so worth obsessing over.”

“I would really rather you didn’t.” The blond boy slowly sighed. “So you managed to reach the island too, huh? I had a feeling you would find it no matter what you chose or what happened.”

“The Idol Elite was doing it all manually, but only over the network. The route was disguised thousands or even tens of thousands of times over, but the Capulet AI Network had to be secretly contacting the Manhattan somehow. They’re two separate things. So I thought I would find something interesting if I found the actual cockpit. For example, a way to send out an undisguised code for the AI network to pick up directly.”

In other words.

Skuld Silent-Third casually pointed at the large and beaten-up refrigerator that had washed up below the palm tree.

“That’s Capulet’s core, isn’t it? Or was it upgraded to Anastasia for this generation?”

“…”

“No, a network wouldn’t have a core. It would be ‘stronger’ for it to all be parallel so that the system could survive even no matter what part of the world was enveloped in flames. So was there some other purpose? For example, maybe the AI company set this up as a breaker so they could bring down the entire network from here if it went berserk. Or maybe they were just more comfortable giving the network an obvious form. To put it in Faith Organization terms, it’s like how legendary goddesses are always drawn as beautiful women.”

At that point, the twintail girl placed her index finger on her slender chin and tilted her head.

If you forgot she was a pure serial killer, she would have looked like a fairy or something.

“By the way, everyone was saying you’re dead, so what was that about? A funeral gift scam?”

“Wraith put on an act.” The boy shrugged. “At the time, the Information Alliance maintenance fleet had sent down a small submersible. And Taratua’s outside group had only been told to search for the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers. That left Katarina Martini free. She was overlooked.”

“Hmm. So she pretended to shoot you in the head or chest, dropped you in the ocean, and let someone else pick you up to escape in the submersible?”

“More or less. After Wraith pretended to shoot me and dropped me in the ocean, the silhouette of the approaching submersible may have been mistaken for a shark or something. Speaking of sharks, that kind of submersible apparently carries blood to lure sharks away during rescues. Anyway, whoever the target was going to be, that old woman apparently predicted Taratua’s cruelty perfectly.”

It was not the boy who had put on the act or collected him from the ocean, so there was nothing for him to brag about.

Wraith had so hated the old woman responsible for the genius girl project, so how had it felt for her to ultimately leave everything in Katarina’s hands? It would be nice if she had managed to get over her issues with her stepmother during the battle against Piranirie, but had that really happened?

Either way, she had to have been in a tough position ever since. No matter what kind of verbal abuse she received from the people she had fought with up to that point, she would not have been given a chance to clear her name of shooting an ally for self-defense.

Even if the girl had chosen that path herself, he could never make it up to Wraith. Without that choice, the boy really would have lost his life there.

“Wraith let me live because she focused on solving the issue from a viewpoint outside the four world powers framework. That’s why I didn’t report my survival back to the Legitimacy Kingdom. And this was the result. You may have been the only one to reach this island if I had stayed inside the framework.”

“Probably so.” Skuld put her hands on her hips and smiled innocently on the twilit island that felt even more detached from the busy world than a private beach. “But is that fridge really so important? I mean, what can you even do with it?”

Skuld Silent-Third’s indifferent tone made it clear which of the two options she placed more weight on.

The boy carefully observed the serial killer’s actions.

“Throwing the breaker is exactly what Tyrfing wants. The fall of the Information Alliance would lead to a war involving all four world powers.”

“So?” She looked confused. “Whether the world is filled with peace or slaughter, I will still kill. And I want to kill as many people as possible. I know you know what kind of person I am, teacher. You managed to stop me and you learned so much about me, so you must understand.”

“…”

“I will hide within the chaos of war and kill as I please. So a world-encompassing war isn’t a problem for me. In fact, I would appreciate the extra space to hide. Then I can enjoy so much death.”

Wasn’t that what Skuld had come here to do?

It was unlikely that serial killer had gone out of her way to do something unrelated to killing.

Wanting to stop a coming war would seem natural to the people of a peaceful country. But to those already soaking up to their shoulders in war, the two options could be hard to tell apart. Their everyday was war. They killed like it was normal. And to a true madwoman who had freely crossed the battlefield to satisfy her own desires, war was not even worth stopping.

“There’s something wrong with the current age.”

The serial killer spoke from a somehow innocent viewpoint.

Her eyes contained a light never seen in a normal person.

“The four world powers keep talking about these clean wars, but aren’t they so twisted? You understand after seeing so much war, don’t you? Stopping me will not end the tragedy. In fact, continuing like this might actually mean a greater number of victims. But you’ll let it continue? These clean wars focus entirely on being ‘clean’ and don’t protect anyone’s lives, so are they really worth believing in? Plus, we’re from the Legitimacy Kingdom and Faith Organization, but this is an Information Alliance system.”

The world’s breaker was within reach.

This would not end with just the Manhattan. No one knew what would happen, but at the very least, the world would enter a new age. Whatever form it took, there would be no going back. This was a one-time-use breaker with devastating power.

“C’mon, let’s do it.”

The twilight tropical island would provide liberation to anyone.

And a demon whispered there as if tempting a student into pulling the school fire alarm.

That hopeless girl’s voice was a temptation to slothful, degenerate, selfish, ephemeral, and sweet change.

“Let’s end the world. We can end it. Why we do it doesn’t matter. I’ll end it to kill and you can end it to save. Isn’t that good enough? The way things are is so oppressive and boring. So let’s just go for it and see what happens.”

The words of the insane were most frightening when they made a certain amount of sense.

Allowing the clean wars to continue would only mean more vague sacrifices they were barely aware of and it was obvious to everyone that it would not bring peace. Forcibly ending it might indeed require a powerful wake up call. Even if that would come with many sacrifices for a time.

However…

On top of that…

Quenser Barbotage placed his finger on his radio.

That was the deadly trigger which sent a signal to the electric fuse stabbed into the Hand Axe plastic explosive.

“Oh?”

Skuld Silent-Third did not look at all displeased as she stood on that small, twilit island.

In fact, she smiled in apparent enjoyment of her opponent’s reaction.

“Can I ask one thing? Why are you fighting?”

“It isn’t even worth mentioning,” spat out the boy while toying with the clay-like bomb. “I owe Wraith Martini Vermouthspray big-time for what she did. I would have died if not for her painful and difficult decision. So no matter what might happen to the world, I can’t ignore that she wordlessly ordered me to save it. That’s why my objective was this island and not the Manhattan. Running to the same place where my companions were getting killed one after another would have just added another body to the pile. And after my investigation revealed the existence of this island, I knew you would be here. It wasn’t a rational thing. I just knew you would find your way to the last place anyone wanted you.”

“You’re so cool.”

The twintail girl said that in all seriousness.

And like magic, she now held something in her hand.

It was a Hand Axe plastic explosive identical to Quenser Barbotage’s.

Was that part of her admiration for her “teacher”?

The serial killer had not stopped updating. Left unchecked, just how far would her evil grow?

“But you understand, don’t you? This is an unknown desert island, so there is zero chance of your companions rushing in to save you like normal. An extreme battle against an Object would be one thing, but I don’t see how you can defeat me one-on-one as humans.”

“Have you completely forgotten the Madagascar Report incident? Who do you think ultimately brought that nightmare to an end?”

“Nee hee,” she laughed.

This was different from before. Skuld did not even try to hide her killer intent. But this was not the same as malice or hostility. It was more like hunting. She was enveloped in the joy of a hunter who walked through the mountains and followed the footprints to find a great beast that could kill her if she made even the slightest mistake.

“Yes, yes. You really are wonderful… Quenser Barbotage is the best in the world. Cute like a girl and willful like a boy. You’re completely and utterly enjoyable.”

[[Image:HO_v15_435.png|thumb]]

Quenser altered his view of her.

In the end, that may have been all there was to Skuld Silent-Third.

The heart of the Information Alliance, the fate of the world, and even enjoying countless deaths all came second.

What that pure serial killer wanted first and foremost was a second chance at tasting the flesh she had missed out on the first time around. That was all. That was why she had set out for the location he was sure to visit. She was truly insane because she did not hesitate to throw the world’s 7 billion people into hell for that purpose.

At the same time, Quenser Barbotage had to settle things with her too. There was also the silent promise he had made to Wraith. If he did not defeat Skuld, he could not continue onward. That was who she was to him.

With no concern for the world’s breaker sitting below the palm tree as a broken fridge, those two sworn enemies calmly observed each other’s actions.

Bomb vs. bomb.

They glared at each other with the exact same weapons in hand.

“Let’s do this.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

And…

The “choice” that would determine the fate of the world was made on an unknown tropical island.

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