Editing HEAVY OBJECT:EX Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 1===

It was an early summer night in June that smelled of exhaust.

A shaking military truck passed through a gate and entered a port.

The back of the truck was crammed full of thirty to forty Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers who were known to look “at least more gentlemanly than muddy potatoes”.

As usual, a certain two idiots were among them: Quenser Barbotage and Heivia Winchell.

“They say chicken is healthier than beef or pork, but that’s a lie. Boom! I got a weird marker on my health examination, goddammiiiiiiiiiiiit!!”

“That’s because you were acting like the people who drink light mayonnaise straight from the bottle. You ate way too much of it just because it’s supposed to be good for you. How much did you even eat during our week of leave?”

“Shut up. And for that matter, what did you do?”

“Returned home to my safe country. Oh, but it was the worst. They were having a strike at my school. The teachers and students were taking control of the school building back and forth from each other and homemade laser cannons and railguns were being shot all over the place, so it was a bit of an adventure.”

“You’re the kind of guy that never takes a break from work, aren’t you?”

“During it all, I ran across a girl who was grazed by an attack so perfectly it only tore off her clothes, I had to escape an explosion by jumping out a window while princess carrying a girl, and I had to hide under an upperclassman’s long skirt to escape the enemy. It was just awful. I don’t care whether it’s a battlefield country or a safe country. I just want peace.”

“Why the hell didn’t you call me, you idiot!? Is this what you call an age of plenty!?”

When Heivia started grabbing at his awful friend, the other soldiers grabbed the rich noble boy’s collar and beat him up. None of them wanted anyone causing trouble when they were all crammed into the back of the truck. Their own actions were an exception, of course.

After they had taught him some manners, they released Heivia like they were throwing out an old sack.

“Bh…bffhh… I just remembered how things work in the army.”

“More importantly, look over there, Heivia. It’s the Princess. The Baby Magnum’s already arrived at the military port.”

“More importantly? You have issues too.”

The idiot’s complaints did not matter to Quenser whose eyes were already sparkling as he poked his head out from the back of the truck’s canopy.

This was a vast gray land. Not even the mountainous piles of containers could hide the colossal weapon that could not be destroyed even with a nuke. It was over fifty meters tall, it had seven main cannons attached to its spherical main body, it had one hundred other cannons covering the surface of the sphere, and it used a reverse Y-shaped static electricity propulsion device.

It was the Baby Magnum, a First Generation Object of the Legitimacy Kingdom.

“That giant thing really is amazing!! I wonder if it’s having the naval floats attached right now. I’d never get to see a treasure trove like that if I holed up in a safe country school like a good little boy. Damn, I bet there’s a ton I could learn if I saw it up close, but those containers down below are in the way!”

“Ahh, ahh. I’m glad to see you’re the same pervert you always were, Mr. Student. Why are you eyeing a hunk of steel like it’s the women’s bath?”

Meanwhile, the truck circled around the large grounds and stopped near the barracks. The soldiers stepped down to the asphalt of the military port while carrying synthetic material bags that looked like small sandbags. They looked exhausted because they had all started at different parts of the globe and changed transportation methods several times before arriving at this relay point.

Frolaytia Capistrano, their busty, silver-haired commander, was leaning against the front of the barracks with a long, narrow kiseru in her hand.

Heivia frowned.

“Why is the great major bothering to welcome us muddy potatoes? Heh heh. Could you not wait to see me (and maybe do even more), my kitten?”

“You’ve gotten fat.”

“Ghhh!! That hurts more than I thought when a girl says it!!”

“The inside is a no smoking zone. A strict glasses-wearing class rep type is complaining about everything in there. I do have to wonder why the current commander of the base has to be driven out, though.”

“It’s been a while, Frolaytia. I brought you a souvenir. There’s a Wagashi shop near my home, so I got you something called Dorayaki. They apparently have custard and blueberry inside.”

This greeting she obediently accepted and Quenser handed her the somewhat mistaken Island Nation treats.

“How’s the Princess doing?”

“Let me ask you something: Do you think the Pilot Elite gets any real time off? She’s been holed up in the cockpit this whole time. In a way, she’s been enjoying the ultimate shut-in life.”

“Oh, damn! What a waste! If I could’ve done that, I would’ve learned so much!!”

“Even if you don’t really need anything, try calling her,” said Frolaytia with a smile on her face and sweet smoke surrounding her. “She hasn’t had anything to do for the last few days, so she might let some technical information slip if you prod her a little.”

“We can see that more than enough once we’re out on the battlefield! More importantly, we need to say a tearful goodbye to proper food, proper entertainment, and proper girls!!”

“(And now Heivia has crushed any chance he had with the Princess while also creating a small grudge.)”

Frolaytia adjusted the kiseru in her mouth and prayed for his happiness in the afterlife. When Objects ruled the battlefield, getting on the bad side of the Pilot Elite was an unimaginably bad idea. He might as well have already had vultures circling overhead.

Meanwhile, Quenser showed no sign of bringing the conversation back on track. In fact, he too rushed away from his own chance with the Princess.

“More importantly, where’s the battlefield this time?”

“More importantly? …No, never mind. But if you’re going to get yourselves killed by a ‘misfire’ from an upset Princess, leave the rest of us out of it.”

“?”

Frolaytia winked while scratching at her silver-haired head.

“It’s in Africa. The Antsiranana District to be exact. It’s commonly known as Experimental Battlefield Madagascar.”