Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume20 Chapter 6 (section)

===Part 14===

Once they were ready to go, they left through the torpedo tubes.

“You’d think we would be done with strange new equipment at this point,” said Quenser.

“Hey, it beats being short on supplies during battle,” replied Heivia over the radio. “And now we just pray these things don’t malfunction and sink to the bottom of the ocean.”

Each of them was contained inside a long cylinder that resembled a torpedo made of the thick synthetic material used for sandbags.

But these were not torpedoes.

The power of gas propelled them out and the cylinder came apart once it arrived at a specific coordinate. The “bag” rolled up like a big cigar then inflated like an airbag, transforming into a rubber motorboat. Then its buoyancy carried it upwards.

The ocean surface smelled somehow oily, perhaps a remnant of the resource mining.

The student removed the mask from his face.

The rain had already stopped, perhaps because the massive storm had been artificially created by the electromagnetically-launched reactor cannon.

The process wasn’t perfect, so a lot of soldiers ended up flailing in the water.

“'''Quenser.'''”

“Geh! That cutesy act is just plain creepy coming from you!! Oh ho ho. You never act that way around me!!”

Quenser started by retrieving the Princess and Oh Ho Ho who were already arguing about something.

“I…sob, I so wanted to fight alongside that girl…”

“Why is there a cursed voice coming from my radio? Assuming the Manhattan 000 isn’t equipped with the Ghost Changer, that must be Lendy!”

He also helped Putana, Myonri, and Mariydi into his boat when he found them holding onto some scrap materials floating in the ocean nearby.

Heivia piloted his own empty motorboat over to them.

“Why do you get the paradise boat!?” shouted the jealous boy. “How do you even end up with a harem full of Elites!? It’s not fair!!”

“Not that it matters, but aren’t you engaged? And I’d pay more attention to the murderous looks coming from the boat over there, if I were you.”

Heivia screamed.

The approaching murder boat happened to contain both the Vanderbilt daughter and the Winchell sister. The sparks flying from their eyes were something else. Even Eyepatch Maid Karen looked intimidated seated between them.

Meanwhile, the Princess and Oh Ho Ho continued their argument.

“Little one, the seat next to Quenser belongs to me.”

“Oh ho ho. Someone who has finished growing and someone who has only begun to grow are two very different things. The possibility of G still lies within me.”

“Does it now? And what does that G stand for? Gross? Enjoy growing up to be a roach, I guess.”

“Bfff!? M-my hair is not black and it does not stick up like antennas!!”

The boat rocked hard and Oh Ho Ho chose not to fight her momentum, landing squarely in Quenser’s lap and kicking her legs excitedly.

“Kyah☆”

“What was that you said about cutesy acts being creepy?” murmured the Princess.

At any rate, it was time to take action.



A lovely voice rang through the submarine’s combat information center.

It was a nervous but firm voice.

“I-I protest this special treatment. Everyone is risking their lives up on the surface to preserve world peace and create a kinder future, so surely there is something I can do too.”

“Princess Staivia, this submarine is only effective while hidden. A flagship should avoid drawing attention to itself. Your job now is to let them do their jobs and ensure they have this submarine to return to once they are done.”

Princess Staivia and Maid Mikfa were arguing. The Unicorns simply watched in amusement. They were outlaws through and through, so they did less than was perhaps wise to keep her out of danger.

“Surfacing would be meaningless if we were blown away moments later,” said Frolaytia Capistrano with an exasperated look toward the sheltered princess.

“Then why don’t you head up there like the bored Martini Series girls did? I’m sure a commander would gather the Manhattan 000’s attention and be designated a priority target. You might be able to keep your people alive for the length of one shot. Personally, I prefer to support them with intellectual work.”

Frolaytia was not about to respond to Lendy Farolito’s provocation.

(The surface has to be covered in wreckage from Together By Chance ships. If we could locate and detonate the missiles and torpedoes, it might function as a diversion.)

That thought was cut short by someone marching across the combat information center with her gorgeous doll-like dress fluttering around her legs.

It was Princess Staivia Nikolaschka.

She squeezed her eyes shut and poked her index finger against a red button.

She followed the procedure whispered to her by one of the Unicorns obeying their princess’s request.

The button in question was the release and launch button for the vertical missile launch tubes.

“Poke.”

“Waiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!???”

“Waiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!???”



Several somethings erupted from the dark ocean surface.

Once 5m above the water, the rocket boosters ignited and they flew just off the surface.

They were anti-ship missiles launched from a submarine.

They would surely be shot down in a storm of anti-air laser beams from the Manhattan 000, but the blasts and beams and would briefly hide Quenser’s group down on the surface.

The noise hurt their eardrums, but it was better than nothing.

Feeling some small level of protection, Quenser’s group began to move.

The Manhattan 000 was 20km long. It was the ultimate weapon that not even an army of ordinary Objects could damage, but they needed to scare it into moving. Firing bullets from rubber boats wasn’t going to scare it or even concern it.

So…

“We use the fuel spread out on the ocean.” Quenser gave instructions over his radio while Mariydi operated the motor that doubled as a rudder. “Now, a fire can’t actually harm the Manhattan 000 itself, but what about Melly onboard it? The situation shouldn’t be much different between being on a boat and being on the Manhattan. If we set fire to the fuel and the wind carries the smoke over, it’ll smoke her to death. Keep it up until she can’t escape it! She’s an ordinary human herself, so she’ll have to take it seriously!!”

“Sounds great, Quenser!” said Heivia over the radio. “Quick question though: what if Melly enters a shielded cockpit below New York? I’m finding it hard to believe ordinary smoke could be a problem for a nuke-resistant Object!!”

“That won’t happen. It’s why she never throws a reactor into the same area of ocean as herself,” replied Quenser. “She isn’t sending instructions from the other side of the world – she’s on the Manhattan itself. That means she believes it’s more efficient to include herself in the mix instead of going with the safest and most optimal settings. So there’s no way she’ll go hide in a cockpit, as sensible as that might be. She’ll do something definitely not recommended by the manual you can access by scanning the QR code.”

The roar of flames consuming oxygen erupted from several directions at once.

They only had to chuck lit smoke bombs into the filthy ocean. The Manhattan 000 moved quickly in response, but then it noticed something. The entire Object rumbled and it didn’t fire a single shot. It could manipulate the air currents to protect the city from its own movements, but that wasn’t perfect.

Melly could not ignore the smoke. She herself had concentrated the metropolis’s exhaust gasses and polluted water and reused it as a weapon for the drones.

“Big brother…”

“She understands firing on the ocean could ignite even more of the fuel. But that means she’s going to try and crash into us instead of firing. Make sure to dodge it!!”

First, the entire Manhattan moved side to side, creating waves more than 30m tall. When those waves were covered in sticky fuel fires, they could be seen as weapons of war.

But that was only a feint.

The Manhattan 000 itself broke through that wall of seawater and fire to directly crash into the foolish flies buzzing around the ocean surface nearby. The fizzy sound of air bubbles was the approaching footsteps of death.

A single hit from this attack could tear a cruiser to pieces in midair.

Inertia sent containers tumbling away and glass poured down much too close for comfort.

But the light weight of the rubber boats paid off here. They responded very differently from a landing craft large enough to carry a tank and a cruiser large enough to be a threat to pirates.

The V-shaped split of the ocean would always arrive sooner than the Manhattan itself. By guiding the boats up onto the waves while being very careful not to capsize, they could avoid the Manhattan. Its own movements were enough to create large waves, dig up sand from the ocean floor, and otherwise influence the currents themselves. Surfing the waves it produced let them move faster than the boat’s motor ever could.

It was like how a thin bar of soap in the bathtub would seem to flee your hand with a mind of its own when you reached out toward it from the water.

No matter how close the giant got, its colossal hand could never reach the leaves being tossed about by the seawater.

It must have lost its temper because the night sky began to move.

No, that was the swarm of drones released by the Manhattan.

“Frank!!” shouted Wraith from a nearby boat.

The weapon the taciturn young man repeatedly fired diagonally upwards appeared to be a grenade launcher. Instead of targeting individual points, he was filling the entire space with explosions to take out as many drones as possible. Clustering together proved to be a mistake because they kept colliding with the wreckage of another one, creating a domino effect.

But they couldn’t ignore the wall of black smoke created by the drones’ destruction. Melly had increased their killing power by concentrating the city’s exhaust gasses and wastewater.

“Now we are even. The rest is up to you, well prepared yet habitually late potatoes!!”

The Stopgap Grim Reaper waved over before directing her boat away. She was luring as many of the drones away as she could to give the rest of them a chance to act.

Something exploded nearby.

But this wasn’t the Manhattan 000’s doing. Some unexploded ordnance among the wreckage must have gone off.

Quenser felt dizzy.

After pushing the Princess down and shielding her with his body, he felt something sticky on his forehead. Given how pale Catherine got when she saw him, he guessed it wasn’t just a scratch.

“Big brother!?”

“Ow…I can check a mirror later. We need to focus on the Manhattan right now!!”

The enormous Manhattan continued to pursue them.

There had to be similar explosives floating all over the ocean here.

One wrong move and they would be blown away before they could do anything.

“Oh Ho Ho!! And Catherine too!!”

“Roger that.”

“That still isn’t enough weight. …Putana, you come here too!! If you don’t all move to one side, the boat will capsize!!”

“I don’t like the indecent way you’re grabbing me, teacher.”

They waited.

They waited some more and then Quenser threw some Hand Axe into the dark ocean.

He was increasing the density of smoke. Melly Martini Extradry had to be breathing in that same smoke. And the more she panicked, the more intent the Manhattan 000 would be on pursuing the pesky flies. They didn’t need to fear its wrath or hostility. If they didn’t do anything, it would kill them as part of a streamlined process. The only thing they earned by not drawing that girl’s attention to them was an inevitable death.

They had to take this seriously.

They had to keep moving with enough speed.

The ocean was covered in the oil they were setting alight as well as destroyed armor panels and metal pipes. A large enough difference in water quality would create a fault line. The Manhattan 000 would be unable to withstand the intense pressure as it parted the water and it would tear itself apart.

A deep groan reverberated across Tokyo Bay.

“It’s working!! I can hear the bastard’s frame screaming!!”

Heivia’s voice over the radio was interrupted by some static.

Someone bloodthirsty was interrupting. This member of the Martini Series didn’t seem to have any major desires, but she never did hold back in a battle.

“991. Quenser…”

The student clicked his tongue at being called out by name.

“159, 083. I will remember you. It will be a very, very vivid memory. Even if the optimal move calculated out by the AI network is to crush your body into a paste.”

Death had pointed its finger his way.

The Manhattan pushed through the great burden on itself to continue forward. That weapon and metropolis was definitely targeting him personally. He noted the warmth of the girls he was holding at one end of the boat to keep its balance.

Myonri, Putana, Catherine, Mariydi, Oh Ho Ho, and the Princess.

He could not let them die.

And they were just about to cross paths with Heivia’s boat.

(Dammit, time to get a little adventurous!!)

“Hi, buddy!!”

“What the hell, Quenser!?”

He jumped alone over to Heivia’s boat because he knew that would direct the Manhattan 000’s attention away from the girls’ boat.

Its primary target had to be him as he stuck a fuse into a plastic explosive.

“Over here, Melly!! Let’s settle this, why don’t we!?”

“Why am I always the one you drag into danger for no reason!?”

He had given the girls some safety, but Mariydi appeared to be attempting to pilot their boat back this way. However, she wasn’t likely to succeed with all the wreckage floating in the ocean.

She used her radio to contact him instead.

“This isn’t good. It’s making a lot of noise before this does any real damage. If she notices something is up, she’ll get cautious!! We can’t expect a fatal blow if she slows down now!!”

Yes.

If Melly didn’t take the bait, they were doomed. They had no other plan. They were all out of options if the Manhattan 000 rationally came to a stop and ignored the ocean fires to focus on shooting them instead. And its very first target would be Quenser (along with surprise guest Heivia).

Melly just had to be willing to breath in some smoke.

In fact, the Manhattan 000 could win at any time as long as Capulet decided to break free of the Martini Series in charge of New York security.

“Hee hee. Quenser…”

“Melly.”

“So you’re attacking using the invisible fault line created by a large enough salinity difference? 352. An interesting plan, to be sure. Capulet was so worried about this she rewrote her commands to keep us at the southern end of the bay. But I nixed that. Your tricks are meaningless once I know what they are, so is this the end of the line for you?”

“…”

He couldn’t answer her.

The Hand Axe he held meant nothing now. He indeed couldn’t think of any other way of dealing significant damage to the Manhattan 000. That was the largest and most powerful Object, measuring 20km long. Using its own power against it was the only real way to attack it.

And now that it had stopped, that power was no longer available.

“So let’s end this already. 119. If I blow away that entire area with my electromagnetically-launched reactor cannon, I can eliminate even the fire burning on the ocean. 693, 700, 101.”

Quenser heard a straining sound.

And on the other boat that pulled up alongside his, the Princess looked straight up in confusion.

There was an unusually shaped cloud in the sky.

“?”