Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume16 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 1===

All of a sudden: bunny girl.

Frolaytia Capistrano raised her voice with rabbit ears swaying.

“Listen up, everyone!!”

The potatoes were obviously going to listen to this. They were far more focused than usual.

They were on the west side of South America, in the battlefield country of the Atacama District. With a general altitude of more than 2000m and some areas reaching 5000m, it was the world’s most unhealthy desert because it even caused altitude sickness.

[[Image:HO v16 BW8.png|thumb]]

The person in the amusing costume put on a serious face and attempted to hold a pre-mission briefing.

To repeat, she was a cute bunny.

To provide more detail for the connoisseurs, she was a white bunny with the appropriate fishnet tights. She had the full set of cuffs, collar, and bowtie and she even had a lighter in her cleavage for true authenticity.

“We have details on the enemy group. They are an arms dealer called Woodstock. They started out as an Eastern European gang, but they have grown like an amoeba as they absorb criminal organizations, court-martialed soldiers, engineering groups, cults, and more from territories belonging to all four world powers. We estimate the total number of actual members is greater than 50,000, but we should assume that number increases tenfold if you include their patrons, front groups, corrupt cops they’re paying off, and others receiving indirect benefits. This is not about a battlefield country or a safe country. They have roots everywhere, so assume this is like eavesdropping on your neighbors.”

You could see how serious a matter 50,000 was when you recalled that the bunny commander’s battalion was only about 1000 strong. Since Woodstock was assumed to have a fair number of members with a military background, they had to assume all of those members had been given high-level specialized training.

People were currently being arrested all around the world, but those were either low-level delinquent boys or the aforementioned indirect benefiters like the presidents of exploitative corporations and the corrupt cops.

The real members were slipping through the cracks and fleeing their respective countries. They were using land, sea, and air routes to gather here in the Atacama District.

However.

That was not the potatoes’ main dish.

“(There’s something up with Frolaytia, so what’s the deal?)” whispered Quenser. “(A phantom pregnancy?)”

“(I dunno, but I’m going to sit back and enjoy it,)” replied Heivia. “(But she must not know that bunny color follows the same rules as underwear color. You don’t wear white with tits like that!)”

The 18-year-old commander was actually using her body to apologize, but those idiots had completely forgotten what they demanded she do and ended up attacking her instead. Even though Frolaytia had told them not to forget how they were treating her. The old maintenance lady sighed in exasperation, perhaps because she had seen more than her fair share of people who were uncompromising about the weirdest things back in the good old Island Nation.

The one and only sensible person (who was dressed as a white bunny that could die from loneliness) trembled as she continued.

“Given the size of Woodstock, how deeply they have worked their way into the militaries of the world powers, and most importantly, the decent possibility they have prepared a Second Generation from the unique technology of their Parasite Plan, the Legitimacy Kingdom, the Information Alliance, the Capitalist Corporations, and the Faith Organization have gathered their forces for a joint operation. This mission shall be known as Operation Southern Cross Grim Reaper. That’s exactly the kind of juvenile name I would expect from the military, but keep in mind that anyone who finds it too embarrassing or annoying to say will be punished.”

“(How is that any worse than you for giving the arms dealer’s Object as straightforward a name as Gangster?)”

“Quenser.”

He was a smart boy, so he immediately fell silent.

“Heh. So we’re getting all buddy-buddy to protect the common feeding ground known as clean war?” said Heivia. “This reminds me a lot of Oceania.”

“Miss Bunny, just the other day, we fought the Capitalist Corporations in the Hawaii District, blew up their Second Generation, and even ruined their Oxyocean Operation,” said Quenser. “I’m fine with a joint operation, but aren’t you worried they’ll suddenly shoot us right in the ass partway through?”

“I have no interest in their grudges or any discord on the battlefield. Take care of yourselves while you’re out there. All joint operations and joint exercises have conspiracies going on behind the scenes, so there’s always a chance you’ll be killed and have it blamed on ‘friendly fire’ or ‘mysterious food poisoning’.”

She was as irresponsible as could be.

Besides, the four world powers were enemies who were always staring each other down with Objects. It was not even an issue of being betrayed. They were not supposed to trust each other in the first place.

“Woodstock has apparently long had their headquarters on the bank of a lake in the Atacama Desert. It includes some circular farms created artificially. Their main crop appears to be corn.”

The satellite photos showed a series of unnatural green circles lined up in the desert. It was like the reverse of crop circles. A few large Southern European style mansions and some apartments for servants were located near the lake providing a water source. With 50,000 people in an area measuring 2.5 kilometers long and wide, it looked something like a small town, but it still did not stand out much when compared to the scope of the farms as a whole. Those sprawling fields could extend past the horizon and were cared for by scattering agrochemicals from small planes, so this was not too surprising a size for a large farm.

…Then again, their estimates were dependent on technology and the number of personnel could be greatly reduced through use of robots and automation.

Given that, 50,000 people was probably about right.

It was unclear how much money would be lost to food alone on a daily basis, but Woodstock could manage it. Money was power and they used that power to earn the right to wage war.

“Until now, it seems they actually paid taxes with their above-the-board identities and hid themselves in the paperwork, but they must have decided there was no hiding it once they began gathering the individual parts from around the world to build their Object. Our satellites can detect clear oddities now. Wiping them out is going be a multi-stage operation.”

“But…the Over Cavitation in the Hawaii District was a naval Object, wasn’t it? Can they really use part of its design in the desert???”

“They apparently had two or three candidates for each part. It was Woodstock that set all this up and I doubt they were dumb enough to go to these lengths if they couldn’t even use the Object they were building.”

“Okay, one more question: you said we would be ‘wiping them out’, but aren’t there people working on the farms they used for cover? And wouldn’t the arms dealers have brought their ignorant families and mistresses here?”

“Yes, it is possible they brought people they know, but those people must have noticed something was up. They probably just turned a blind eye because they enjoyed the glamorous lifestyle the dirty money bought them.”

Quenser had his doubts, so he made a mental note of the issue.

He would have to think about this more during the mission.

Heivia, on the other hand, was the kind of person who would obediently kill when ordered to, so he had a different question.

“What’s our final objective? Destroying the Gangster created with their Parasite Plan, or killing the 50,000 people?”

“Grinov Quarterdeck.”

Frolaytia Capistrano used the projector to display a middle-aged man’s face and personal information on the wall.

“Sex: Male. Age: 43. He was the top of the aforementioned Eastern European gang. He has worked as a criminal planner, a counselor, a novelist, and an organizational restructuring advisor. He has four PhDs and he is known as the current age’s most devilish godfather. He supposedly belongs to the Orthodox Church, but he apparently has at least 5 wives. Woodstock is a fusion of several different organizations, but none of that could have happened without his charismatic leadership. It would have fallen apart well before now otherwise. …After all, even after growing to this size, every single deal they make requires his personal approval. He is a true genius when it comes to creating new crimes and organizations. You have him to thank for the modern forms of fraud and online murder that have spread across the globe. Those have probably caused more damage than the wars he’s caused. At the very least, we must hunt him down. The handmade Second Generation can come second.”

“…”

“There are a number of unverified legends about Grinov, but according to the intelligence division, the truth is even more than the legends let on. We have heard more than one story about a police station announcing their intent to stamp out organized crime and then finding a bunch of skeletons in the walls of their new office. And it goes without saying whose corpses those were.”

This time, they were not up against the military of another world power.

So if they were captured, the war treaties would hold no power. Who could say what cruel and brutal method would be used to execute them.

“And like I said, joint operations always come with conspiracies. Like that incredible accident during the joint exercise in Eastern Europe. During Operation Southern Cross Grim Reaper, assume the other powers are trying to take you for a ride no matter how much they grin and rub their hands together. Don’t trust what they say, read all the fine print, and don’t let anyone but me order you to certain doom.”