Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume11 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 16===

The fireworks continued exploding both in the night sky and near the water’s surface.

On the Rose & Lily’s outdoor party deck, the middle-aged royal named Flag Eggnog was sweating bullets.

What was this?

What had happened?

What in the world was going on?

Under Azureyfear Winchell’s command, the Destruction Fes had been preparing to kill the members of the Vanderbilt family and everyone else here, but that monstrous weapon had come to a complete stop. That in itself was a good thing, but how many problems still remained? Wasn’t there some other chain of bad news even after that thing stopped?

He received a whispered reminder from a servant whose black clothes were unnaturally swelling out from within.

“The Vanderbilt lady.”

“Oh, goddammit!! That’s right! She’s trying to get that wireless router! If we don’t get rid of that, it’ll be analyzed and eventually lead back to me!!”

The bodyguard sighed because he had made sure to whisper the reminder and yet the gaffe machine had shouted loud enough for everyone to notice.

The royal seemed to be easily excitable and he had not noticed his mistake. In fact, he began muttering inside his fatty mouth.

“No, that isn’t it. Oh, no. Oh, no. If I don’t trigger a major incident between Winchell and Vanderbilt, I can’t distract everyone from what I said at that press conference! That goddamn press conference! Why do they upload the same news to video sites so many times!? I’ll hunt down and kill every last one of them!!”

“Due to the electromagnetic interference, we cannot currently contact the outside world.”

“I can’t believe thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!!”

Flag realized people were quickly distancing themselves from him. He was letting things slip left and right, but no one wanted to end up in a royal’s sights because they had overheard his secrets, even if he was the one being careless.

Or perhaps they simply wanted nothing to do with a VIP who was on the decline.

“Ksshh!!”

That was when some unnatural static ran through the bodyguard’s earpiece. 

He was a truly loyal man.

“A radio transmission has come in for you, Your Excellency.”

“How? I thought the signals were being blocked!?”

The bodyguard did not know the answer, so he could only answer with silence. He removed the earpiece and held out the radio itself he kept on the back of his waist. Flag Eggnog snatched it from him.

“Hello, Your Highness. Do you know who this is? It’s one of the Martini Series.”

“Oh! From the Information Alliance, you mean!?”

The bodyguard was just about ready to abandon the gaffe machine and run off. If it was found out a member of the Legitimacy Kingdom’s royal council had a connection to their enemies in the Information Alliance, he would be charged with more than just treason. It was possible he would be executed right in the palace.

“H-how did you get this line through?”

“We are the Information Alliance. Do not underestimate our primary desire. But to reveal the trick, we used a directional antenna just above the ocean’s surface to get a signal through despite the Legitimacy Kingdom’s fireworks jamming. Ah ha ha ha. That should tell you we’re hiding in the ocean quite close by, but is it in a fishing boat? Or maybe a cruiser?”

“Oh, oh. The Information Alliance is giving me some valuable information for free. Does that mean you still trust me enough to help me out?”

“…”

He received a short silence in reply, but he seemed unable to judge what it meant.

“If I can use the radio, that speeds things up. Contact my rear guard waiting outside of this place. With the Destruction Fes in that state, I need to start a war in some other way if I’m going to make up for my gaffe. Even if that means poking at these two hornet’s nests.”

“About that, Your Excellency. This is very difficult to say, but…”

“What is it? Out with it. We’re on the same side, aren’t we?”

“Well, if you insist. …Isn’t it about time we stopped creepily pretending to be friends?”

He did not know what she meant.

His mind went entirely blank.

Finally, he let his emotions take over and shouted back with no real plan in mind.

“Y-you!! Wh-what!? What the hell is wrong with you!? Who do you think I am!?”

“Um, some bastard from an enemy nation we should probably defeat?”

He received what should have been an obvious answer.

“Your Excellency, the Information Alliance may have assisted you with the drug war and in the construction of the Plasma 177, that you’re calling the Destruction Fes, but it was not to help you achieve your goals. We of course had something to gain there and we of course have obtained that. You could say that we’ve reached our quota, that continuing any further would only be a negative for us, or maybe that we chose the wrong person to work with. …Well, you get the picture.”

“What…what are you saying!?”

“Sigh. This is one last favor, okay? You can think of it as payment for breach of contract if you like. The Information Alliance only ever wanted to gather, analyze, and store data on the micro-level mental structure of the noble Winchell family and on its macro-level opposition with the Vanderbilt family. You probably wouldn’t understand, but for a project known as Perfect Browsing, we wanted to gather data on as many sample incidents and disasters as possible. However, we were talking about the nobles near the top of an enemy world power. They are too well defended to easily send spies or saboteurs across borders, so we instead contacted some fool who would open the gate for us from within. The puppet you gave us, Azureyfear, was a very, very, verrrrry excellent sample. You could say the twisted side of the Winchell family is concentrated inside her.”

“…”

“Oh? So even someone as talkative as you can quiet down. Or did you finally catch on? We are experts at handling all kinds of information. Our privileged classes can manipulate stock prices with insider trading or rumors while the information illiterate will dry up and die. Spreading someone’s careless gaffe across the internet to ensure a specific target is too panicked to make a rational decision is hardly difficult for us.”

Flag Eggnog felt sweat pouring from his entire body.

This was not right. How could a royal be under someone else’s rule?

But this girl was from the Information Alliance, so she existed outside the Legitimacy Kingdom’s pyramid hierarchy.

“We had thought it might be interesting to gain your trust by gathering and controlling data on Winchell and Vanderbilt to use you as a spy within the royal council, your highest decision-making institution, but it doesn’t look like it will be that easy. Not bad, Legitimacy Kingdom. Your ability to cleanse yourself is praiseworthy.”

He sensed that the conversation was coming to an end.

He was not in charge here, even though he was a royal.

“But it does look like we’ll get an interesting sample. Perhaps I should name the file, ‘Full-Speed Collapse of a Royal’s Life’. Royals are supposed to be thoroughly protected by the preferential treatment of horribly biased laws, so how does one fall to the bottom? The chance to follow the process in real time is suuuuuuch a rare opportunity. We will be making good use of you, Your Excellency. Thank you very much☆”

“Owaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

He shouted in anger, threw the radio to the floor, and crushed it underfoot.

He was beyond worrying about gaffes. He ignored the negative attention he was receiving and pulled a handgun from his sleeve. It was a strangely-shaped self-defense gun that resembled a miniature stapler and held only a single bullet.

“I’ll kill you!! I’ll kill every last person who mocks me!! Grab your guns and follow me. First is that Vanderbilt girl with her evidence! Once that’s over and my position is stable, I can start a war with the Information Alliance to-…”

He trailed off and looked over with bloodshot eyes.

The bodyguard who had been standing next to him a moment before had vanished.

He then heard a loud splash as something heavy fell into the ocean.

“I’ll kill them aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!”

Flagg Eggnog set off with the men who had failed to run off in time.