Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume6 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 16===

It was summer year-round at the Cook Addition Islands and the ocean there was blue enough to be a tourist location, but the designer Claire was leaning against a wall in an air conditioned passageway. The damage to the research facility had been completely repaired. The corner of the building in which Claire stood had drink vending machines. But it was also the corner in which the material meant to prevent signals from getting out had been removed.

She was of course holding a laptop and she was wirelessly communicating with a communications device left outside the building by the Night Edge Platoon.

The information she transmitted was sent to the Night Edge Platoon, then to a satellite, and finally to South America.

While communicating with Quenser’s group and Unicorn, the woman wearing a lab coat over a swimsuit (who claimed to be a member of the genius girls of the facility) whispered to herself.

“I can’t have you getting yourselves killed. If you have time to give in to this tragedy, then I need you to bring it to an end.”

While sipping on a chilled carbonated beverage, she thought of what had started all this.

When the Object designer named Claire had first heard what was happening from the Night Edge Platoon (that was actually Unicorn in disguise), she had of course thought of the possibility it was a trap. After all, putting on that kind of act was Unicorn’s specialty.

Prince Dimiksy was meticulously preparing a plan to assassinate Princess Staivia.

When she had been asked to help stop that, it would have been odd if she had not doubted them.

The following conversation had played out:



“If you doubt us, then use your own network to do some research. I’m sure you have a broader and more detailed network than we do. If you didn’t, we wouldn’t want your network.”

“Hmm…”

Claire Whist gave a small sigh as she controlled an old-style game pad with both hands. The cable connected to her laptop and the screen showed a filthy middle-aged bearded man crawling out of a transport helicopter that had made an emergency landing. The mission was to travel from the spot in the middle of enemy territory where the helicopter had landed to the national border. It was a hellish marathon of about 500 kilometers.

“Do you know what kind of training is needed to develop weapons?” she asked.

“No. I’d guess you need math and physics…and maybe something in the arts for the design side of things.”

“Empty sadism.”

Claire swung the game pad lightly to the side.

The bearded man shot an enemy soldier, stole his off-road vehicle, and drove off.

“In the end, you can’t do this job unless you view killing someone in a distant land as a great deed. Even if all you see are symbols on a military network.”

“You’re saying the ability to carefreely look at those symbols indicates talent as a weapons developer?”

“I don’t like the word ‘talent’. You only ever hear it from the losers who put no real effort into anything. They use it to express their jealousy of the winners. The only difference between the winner and the loser is their growth rate and the time they put into it.”

“What you call the growth rate is what people normally call talent.”

The man from the Night Edge Platoon muttered that last comment under his breath, but he likely intentionally let her read his lips.

He likely had the ability she spoke of as well, so she could not have him be jealous of her. For one thing, his ability for direct killing and trickery were likely greater than her own.

And so the woman wearing a lab coat over a swimsuit continued speaking.

“I am not creating Objects out of patriotism or benevolence. I create them because they are powerful. I create them because they are cool. That is all it takes for me to change history. I’m the kind of woman who would be boring to drink with at a bar. So don’t expect to find any proper, standard, or average humanity in me. I don’t care about Princess Staivia’s situation. If she’s afraid of dying, all I can do is tell her to get more powerful. And that can be physical power or political power.”

That was the opinion of someone who had succeeded in creating something from scratch.

She was overwhelmingly correct and overwhelmingly cold.

If you put enough effort into it, you will succeed. She did not mean that as a shallow platitude. She had truly achieved that, so she could not understand the anguish of those currently struggling through it. Why can’t you succeed even though you’re putting so much effort into this? How long will you be stuck back at that stage? Are you even trying? She was the kind of person who could innocently ask those much too cruel questions.

“But…” 

Claire Whist’s tone of voice changed slightly and it broke through the iciness from before.

While an intense firefight played out on the screen, a bit of the humanity she had denied not long before entered her voice.

“You said it was the Assault Signal, right? Prince Dimiksy acquired the first generation Assault Signal as a pawn for his plan.”

“Yes. The pilot Elite was assassinated while on leave in a safe country so that the Object would be removed from the battlefield.”

That was an old Object.

The model fell in the middle to later end of the first generation. In addition to the standard cannons, it had been equipped with the result of an experimental project that used powerful electromagnetic waves and various wavelengths of light to destroy the devices used in the enemy’s sensors. The experiment had been a failure. The idea only worked in theory and was completely worthless outside of the laboratory.

The design philosophy behind the Baby Magnum had been different, but it had inherited a few of the Assault Signal’s genes in its fundamental theory. It was not as deep a connection as siblings or parent and child. At most, it was like being relatives or cousins.

The Object held many memories for Claire.

It had been the first Object she had designed.

A few technologies had been rejected by the ignorant higher ups of the military for misguided reasons, but she had added them in without recording them on the official plans. When she thought back, that had been rather reckless of her.

But…

That was not the core of what she took issue with.

It was something else. Something much more important.

“…The pilot Elite. Excelsyla was a pitiable girl.” She spoke a single name. “She came from a poor family. When she was scouted as an ideal candidate for an Elite, she was overjoyed that she would finally be able to help out her parents. But she made a mistake in how much of her first paycheck she sent them. She was trying to save her parents, but she ended up destroying both their sense of the value of money and their lives.”

“…”

“People who are only able to wear first-class products are truly pathetic. Especially those whose outfits do not match the amount of money they make. Excelsyla fought hard to save her parents from their brand name addiction. The counseling lasted three years, but it never bore any fruits. She almost never took leave, but she had decided to do so that one time in order to finally give her parents the sweaters she had knitted herself.”

It had all ended meaninglessly.

An Elite was a powerful asset for the nation, so even on leave, one would never be wandering around a city without bodyguards. For her to die in some ridiculous bombing, it was very likely there had been at least one enemy from Dimiksy’s faction inside her bodyguard team.

Excelsyla’s courage, dedication, benevolence, great effort, and small successes and fortunes had all been crushed underfoot for nothing more than the power lust of some sleazy man.

She had been roasted black.

All to acquire a pawn for some plan.

“Fine,” said Claire Whist quietly as she held the game pad tighter in her hands.

A creaking noise could be heard, cracks entered the plastic device, and then it broke.

With the commands suddenly having stopped, the bearded man could only sit there and be shot to death. Claire ignored him and glared at the man from the Night Edge Platoon.

“I’m surprised to find I can still make this expression, but since these feelings have welled up within me, I’ll help you. Then again, you contacted me because you knew you could use the incident with Excelsyla most effectively on me, right?” But then she added, “There is a chance my anger could destroy your carefully laid plans from the inside. Do not forget that and make sure to hold my reins properly, okay?”



Dimiksy Nikolaschka might have been a truly excellent tactician.

He had expanded his wealth, power, equipment, and personnel by way of all sorts of wicked deeds.

But those wicked deeds could hurt him just as much as they helped him.

They could hurt him from a place he had no interest in.