Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume7 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 16===

(This is a strange ship.)

The man referred to as Blue Bottle, the name of a poisonous jellyfish, thought blankly to himself as he sat in a chair in the cargo ship’s control room.

Ships used fuel to move. Fuel efficiency was greatly affected by the weight loaded on the ship. Normally, cargo ships were almost entirely automated and had only around a dozen people in their crew. The people themselves weighed something and they needed food and water to last them anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, so the number of people onboard was kept to a minimum.

Nevertheless, this ship had a large number of people onboard.

Officially, they were exporting scrap metal from Oceania’s ruins so it could be recycled in other countries, but a quick calculation would show some things did not add up.

“That was an explosion,” said Blue Bottle.

“We will look into it right away,” immediately replied a man staring at the instruments.

Blue Bottle doubted the refrigerated containers with the human trafficking “merchandise” inside could be opened from within and he doubted the merchandise inside could resist or escape after being kept at such a low temperature.

But his men were not proper soldiers or even trained mercenaries.

They were nothing but thugs. It was possible one of them had forgotten to lock a container or turn on its refrigeration mode.

Nevertheless, he seriously doubted they were stupid enough to let an unarmed civilian steal a gun or grenade and fight back.

Blue Bottle’s expression showed no panic or concern.

“Tell them to be careful if they kill an escapee. Just like preserved fish, their value goes down if they die. And the amount it drops changes depending on how they are killed. Blowing them to pieces with a grenade is out of the question.”

“I will tell them, but I can’t guarantee they will listen.”

Blue Bottle did not bother listening to what the other man said.

The cargo ship was not headed directly toward the country the “merchandise” was being shipped to. It would instead travel to a certain island just outside Oceanian territory and load the containers onto a different ship. Blue Bottle would remain with this cargo ship in its short journey back and forth. To make the best use the free pass given by the Information Alliance, he had wanted a setup that travelled through that area of sea as frequently as possible.

Suddenly, the same man as before continued speaking despite the conversation having ended.

“This is from the Information Alliance Object. They want to speak with you.”

“Hand it over.”

The man sitting in front of the console removed his headset and tossed it over. Blue Bottle caught it in one hand and brought the microphone to his mouth without putting it on his head.

“What is it? We paid the fee. If you cause any unnecessary problems here, the Objects from other world powers will notice. The Information Alliance doesn’t want to damage its public image, does it? You can’t have our arrangement come to light.”

“That’s why I contacted you,” replied a staticky and slightly irritated voice. “Why are you not following our arrangement? Our free pass means nothing otherwise. We are forced to handle this normally.”

“Wait. I don’t understand. Explain what you mean.”

“The flag.” The polite Elite spoke slowly as if kindly speaking to a young child who was only just learning to speak. “Our Information Alliance flag should be on the bow of your cargo ship. Without that, we cannot prove you are under our protection. If you do not obey our arrangement, we must perform a surprise check like we normally would.”



As Quenser entrusted his life to a hard float in the dark ocean, he threw away a piece of cloth printed with the Information Alliance logo and spoke.

“Their ship was treated differently because they were announcing that they were under the Information Alliance’s protection by displaying their flag. They have a free pass with the Information Alliance and it would cause conflict if the Legitimacy Kingdom or Capitalist Corporations performed a surprise check on a ship approved by them. They had intentionally set up that situation so they could carry out things they wanted kept secret.”

“Th-then…” Dorothy looked toward the flag floating away on the waves. “If you take that flag…”

“At the very least, they won’t be treated differently anymore. The Information Alliance will have to perform the same check as with a normal ship. If they let them go, the Legitimacy Kingdom or Faith Organization would try to perform a check instead.”

“B-but!” frantically exclaimed Dorothy because there were human lives on the line. “Will that really save everyone? I thought the Information Alliance was friends with that ship. Won’t they perform an intentionally insufficient check and give their approval without looking inside the containers?”

“Perhaps. In fact, that would be the best option from their point of view. They need to perform a check before the other world powers can. They can give their approval and announce that no one else needs to check the ship. Then no one will find out there are people in those containers.”

“Th-then…!!”

“But,” said Quenser, cutting off Dorothy. He held a radio in his hand. “That’s why I set up another trick.”



The Information Alliance’s naval patrol boat rushed over.

The others in the cargo ship’s control room muttered nervously, but Blue Bottle was not worried.

It was not that he had given up.

It was quite the opposite.

An Information Alliance group he held sway with had taken action before security teams from the other world powers could intervene. Once the Information Alliance group boarded the ship, they would perform an intentionally shoddy inspection and give them approval. Rechecking the ship would be seen as doubt in the Information Alliance, so doing so was implicitly stated to create cracks in the friendly relationship between coalition members.

Why had their flag vanished?

That mystery remained. One of his men may have forgotten his instructions, it may have been poorly attached and blew away in the wind, or someone may have maliciously removed it.

But no matter the reason, they could recover.

An oddity of that level would not defeat Blue Bottle.

“The Information Alliance security team is requesting permission to board. What should we do?”

“Hide nothing. Give them permission according to normal procedures. Do not leave any unnatural actions in their records. There is no reason to panic here. This group is in on it.”

Having said that, Blue Bottle took several men and left the control room. He was on his way to greet the Information Alliance security team. And that was not a criminal euphemism for shooting them. He was truly going to greet them.

He stepped out onto the deck and found several thick metal devices attached to the railing. Synthetic fiber ropes were attached and men dressed all in black were climbing up from below.

One of the men gave a polite salute to Blue Bottle while carefully articulating each word and syllable of his script.

“This is a surprise inspection in order to stop international crime within Oceania. We will be inspecting your crew and cargo.”

“Fine. Do as you wish.”

Upon receiving permission, the men in black formed teams of two and scattered across the ship.

All of this was pre-arranged.

It was possible the other world powers forming the coalition were watching with a satellite or an Object’s ultra long distance sensors, so they had to perform a bit of role playing for safety’s sake. Nothing would go wrong and anything illegal would not be recorded. That was the agreement.

Blue Bottle spoke to one man in black standing nearby.

“How long should this take?”

“There are a lot of containers, so we would like an hour to check through them all.”

“…That’s a long time.”

“We are not doing this because we want to.”

That last comment sounded like an implicit accusation regarding the missing flag.

Even if it was meant to keep them safe, it was hard to put up with this when it would accomplish nothing. Every minute and every second seemed to stretch on forever. He had to maintain his expression and attitude in case they were being viewed from afar, but he felt as if he would yawn if he let his guard down.

But then he heard what sounded like a light explosion.

It came from the ship and it was clearly the sound of gunpowder exploding.



“I won’t let it all go so smoothly,” said Quenser while pressing the switch on his radio. “The leaders of this Information Alliance group and criminal organization have an agreement to get along, but not all the criminal thugs will be privy to all that information. After all, secret arrangements are made behind closed doors. The more the big boss handles those things on his own, the less the men working below him know.”

“Heh. So even if this is actually all a farce, you’re saying not everyone in the criminal organization will be aware of it? All they know is the Information Alliance security team has boarded them after some kind of mistake and the cargo ship is full of their half-dead human trafficking ‘merchandise’. They can’t let that get out, so they’ll be staring at the Information Alliance’s guns with their heart pounding.”

The same naturally went for the Information Alliance security team.

The leader would know about the understanding with the criminal organization and the soldiers underneath him may have received an explanation. But could they really trust those criminals? They might have been lying. Who knows when those uncontrolled criminals would fire. They would be filled with those fears.

“So.” Quenser slowly shook the radio. “With a small impetus, the guns they have pointed at each other will start to go off. For example, a radio signal could lead an electric fuse to cause an explosive noise and they could mistake it for the ‘first shot’.”

Fuses were tools used to induce the detonation of an explosive by providing a strong stimulus.

They were made to create a more intense explosion than a firecracker.



And the ocean night was filled with countless bursting noises.

A few of them were the electric fuses Quenser had prepared ahead of time, but some of the noises were clearly different. If one paid careful attention, they were obviously different noises, but these people were not calm enough for that.

“Stop them!!”

Blue Bottle covered his ears with his hands and approached a pile of metal containers while yelling at the nearby Information Alliance man. If he had not yelled, his voice would have been drowned out by the explosive noises.

“Which side shot!? It doesn’t matter! Stop them!! This is a meaningless battle. Didn’t your higher ups explain this to-…!?”

Blue Bottle trailed off.

With a damp noise, the man in black he had been speaking to collapsed to the side. His head slammed into the container and red blood splattered across the wall as if a fruit had been crushed there. Simply slamming his head against the wall would not cause that much blood. A bullet had obviously disturbed the contents of his head. The cargo ship was enveloped in such chaos that it was impossible to tell which side of the conflict the bullet had come from.

“Shit!!”

Blue Bottle felt a chill run down his spine and pulled his handgun from its holster.

And then his gaze met that of an Information Alliance soldier.

A short pause followed.

As soon as his thoughts recovered, Blue Bottle realized he had committed a fatal mistake.

“N-no!! I wasn’t trying to fight!!”

His words did not reach the soldier.

As soon as the soldier’s gun barrel moved to target him, Blue Bottle reflexively fired three bullets into the foolish soldier’s upper body.

Naturally, everyone aboard the chaotic ship witnessed it.

There was no going back now.

A hopeless battle with one of the world powers had begun.