Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume20 Chapter 4 (section)

===Part 1===

How long did Quenser Barbotage stand there staring?

A few minutes?

A few hours?

Looking to the big clock didn’t help since it was scorched and the hands had stopped.

Everything was black and orange.

Rome had been so full of world heritage sites, but now it was submerged in a sea of lava erupting straight up from the cracks in the pavement. The Faith Organization’s home country had been destroyed. This marked the end of an era and symbolized the collapse of the global power balance.

It was beginning.

There was no going back to the clean wars now. This was an endless global war that would continue until all four world powers were gone. It was a world war.

But Quenser Barbotage could not just stare forever.

Time was passing.

A stained glass window shattered overhead, sending colorful shards raining down toward the boy. Even a historical building or work of fine art would be transformed into a downpour of blades when falling from sufficient height.

Quenser was wearing some rough casual clothing to blend in, so he wasn’t protected from embers and shards as much as in his military uniform.

“Kh!!”

He grabbed the nearby small child’s hand and crawled below a wooden bench. A moment later, they were surrounded by too many sounds to count.

He shouted out from below the bench.

“How are the train passengers!? Was anyone hurt!?”

“They went back into the tunnel, so they’re fine!! You worry about yourself, Quenser!! These people are civilians, so the Faith Organization police will protect them if we leave them here. …The problem is us. The Faith Organization has already declared war. Who knows what kind of justifications they’re using, so they might just treat us like mass shooters without evidence. If it gets out that we’re Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers, the angry masses might just hang us from the roadside trees!!”

Heivia Winchell, Myonri, and Putana Highball were here too.

Millia Newburg from the intelligence division was in Rome as well, but she had gotten separated from them. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like they would be able to get everyone out of the city like this.

Quenser crawled out from under the bench, still holding the boy he had rescued. He of course had to watch out for the glass shards as he did so.

(God, saving people is just not worth it.)

Just then…

“Eek! Kidnapper! Those Legitimacy Kingdom murderers are snatching children off the streets!!”

The false accusations were already beginning.

(I’m not in uniform, so how’d she know I’m Legitimacy Kingdom!? My clothes? The scent of my hair? My mannerisms? I don’t know, but it’s a good reminder that Rome is enemy territory!!)

A dangerous change came over the crowd’s mood. It wasn’t that they all heroically wanted to save a strange child. When subjected to an inexplicable disaster, people wanted to locate and attack some kind of cause or villain.

“Dammit!!”

“Heivia, they’re civilians!! This isn’t war!!”

Quenser couldn’t believe how hollow his words sounded. Was that argument even valid anymore? It was like seeing an old TV ad from a time before a major disaster struck.

If Heivia and Myonri hadn’t held out their T-shaped submachineguns, the murderous crowd of civilians probably would have started firing. Yes, soldiers weren’t the only ones with guns.

They had reached a dangerous stalemate.

The tingling on their skin was from more than just the lava’s heat carried on the wind.

But it didn’t last long.

“Oh, no.”

The first to notice was Putana. Her pupils constricted and her face paled.

Quenser heard a deep grinding sound approaching.

“Are you kidding me? These eyes…run away, everyone!!!!!”

The 8-wheel armored truck that charged in from the side ran over the Faith Organization civilians by the dozen.

It was utter pandemonium.

The Faith Organization military had put defeating their enemy over protecting their people. What were they even fighting for at this point? What did they hope to leave behind?

The Faith Organization armored truck approached with its beautiful feet and skirt coated with red and black gore. The groans of the people who hadn’t quite died were drowned out by the humming of a motor as the 120mm gun on top of the truck rotated to aim at the Legitimacy Kingdom group.

The gun’s specs were the same as a tank gun.

“Goddammit!!”

Quenser picked up the boy and ran into a narrow alley just before an explosive roar filled the world outside. Heivia had said to leave the tourists behind because they would be protected, but the young boy would have been obliterated along with that church’s wall if Quenser had followed that advice.

That armored truck was in charge out there and it was so focused on killing its enemies that it had lost sight of its allies.

The recoil of the shot must have slid it to the side, killing even more of the civilians it had run over. Although to the ones caught in the 8 wheels, half crushed but unable to actually die, the dead ones may have seemed like the lucky ones.

“Don’t look. Don’t look at any of it. This is just a bad dream, so you don’t have to look at it.”

Quenser’s head ached from the close-range gunshot. He ran deeper into the alley with the small boy in his arms and he also radioed the others.

“Heivia, Myonri, Putana, are you still alive? We need to meet up somewhere. Check the color of the sky. The lava shouldn’t have erupted quite as much to the east, so head that way!!”

There was no response.

He prayed they had at least heard him as he made his way to their rendezvous point.

The boy in his arms asked the most fundamental question.

He must have been oversaturated with emotions because he sounded weirdly calm.

“Is it over?”

“Don’t worry. I swear to you I’ll get you out of here. I won’t abandon you, so there’s nothing at all to worry about.”

Quenser was not at all confident in what he was saying.

And that lie revealed itself even sooner than he had feared.

He held his breath at the alley’s exit while a bunch of Faith Organization soldiers marched down the street with bayonet-equipped assault rifles. Once they were gone, he turned back the way had come, hoping to find another way around.

That was when the stone wall exploded and a mass of composite armor burst into the alley, blocking the way.

It was that armored truck. He had no idea what kind of shortcut it had taken and he noticed a stuffed rabbit caught in its bloodstained 8-wheel undercarriage.

…How could they carry such hate in their hearts?

Quenser honestly didn’t get it. It sounded exhausting. He knew militaries came in many different forms, but what good were they if they prioritized killing the enemy over protecting the people they held dear? That didn’t sound sustainable unless the soldiers enjoyed the killing itself and everything else was just an excuse.

He heard the humming of the motor turning the gun his way.

That was when static came from his radio.

“Ksshh! Burning Alpha here. Hey there, little knight, do you have an anti-friendly fire card on you? If not, then I’ll mark your radio signal as friendly. Keep transmitting on a safe bandwidth, hold that kid tight, and keep your head down.”

Quenser had no idea what this was about, but his understanding wasn’t necessary.

A Legitimacy Kingdom delta wing fighter shot by overhead.

A moment later, the smart bomb that separated from the bottom of its wing accurately blew away the 8-wheel armored truck.

He was outside the range of the blast, but the invisible shockwave still hit him like a solid wall.

He was knocked backwards with the small boy in his arms. He found himself a few meters away from where he thought he was, which just showed how far he had flown.

“Cough!! Cough cough!?”

He was coughing hard, but he was more worried about the boy than himself.

“A-are you okay? You weren’t hit by any shrapnel, were you? Good.”

(But this is the Faith Organization’s home country. How is one of our planes flying here!?)

“Burning Alpha to my virtuous Legitimacy Kingdom brother. Your rendezvous point is outside Tiburtina Station. Get there now if you don’t want to be stuck at the back of the line. Especially when you have that kid with you. Don’t forget that this is a battlefield and the odds of death rise by the minute.”

“…”

Quenser walked through the burning and smoking city of Rome while holding the boy’s hand. The air support was perfect. He had a gun aimed at him a few times along the way, but each time a 40mm Gatling gun or missile from the sky accurately eliminated the threat. The fighter must have been using specialized ground attack equipment.

No distinction was made between the Faith Organization soldiers, powered suits, and armed civilians.

Of course, his ally was really only interested in protecting the child.

One person was torn to pieces by a stream of bullets and another was transformed into a living pillar of fire. One person couldn’t bear the pain and jumped into a river of lava while dragging along something dangling from their ruptured gut. …Quenser had expected that to result in an instant death, but the actual result was very much not that.

“Why is this hap-”

“Don’t look!! Listen, I’ll hold your hand and guide you, so just close your eyes. Then we can escape all this scary stuff!!”

How was he a hero?

The most he could do was hold the trembling boy and cover his eyes. He was a frail and pathetic liar without any ability to influence this war.

This was happening because his team had failed to stop it.

Of course, they had been pursuing a decoy into the subway tunnel and there hadn’t been any way for them to stop it. He was honestly relieved once the fighter flew elsewhere.

Right up until he heard a quiet metallic sound.

Someone was aiming his way through the dark smoke.

It really didn’t seem to matter he wasn’t in uniform. An outsider like him stuck out like a sore thumb.

“!?”

Soaked in sweat, he tried to protect the small boy, but the gunshot and pain he expected never came. He was surprised to find himself taking that action since he thought of himself as more inappropriate and disorderly.

He hesitantly opened his eyes to see a familiar face nearby.

It was the local commander of the Faith Organization police special forces known as the Valkyries.

Her name was Sarasa Gleamshifter.

She wore a tight-fitting black combat outfit with add-on parts resembling lingerie.

Her gun was a short-range sniper rifle with an awfully big caliber for its compact size. The cool woman with short blonde hair aimed that at Quenser and the boy and clicked her tongue like she had found something she didn’t want to find. Whether that meant Quenser or the small boy was unclear.

She had control here. With Rome in this state, she would have a hard time finding a reason not to shoot an enemy soldier.

(I don’t have time to pull out a bomb and insert a fuse. I can’t beat her. But can I shove her out of the way? Could I at least get this kid to the alley right over there?)

His pulse rang loud in his ears.

Time remained stubbornly frozen. It felt like making any move on his part would cause everything to collapse around him, so he couldn’t even bring himself to construct a ridiculous plan in his head. Which meant the fool couldn’t protect the life in his arms.

And eventually…

“Go,” said Sarasa.

Quenser blinked in confusion as the Valkyrie commander aimed her gun upwards and stepped aside to clear the way.

She gestured behind her with her shapely chin.

“Take that kid and get out of here! If the others see this, I’ll have no choice but to shoot you!!”

Propelled by her voice, Quenser pulled on the boy’s hand and took off running. Sarasa intended to remain in this hell. When he took a hesitant look back, his eardrums were struck by a warning shot fired into the air.

Running full speed with the small boy in tow was his only option.

Toxically bright lemon yellow smoke was rising from Tiburtina Station. That would be a smoke grenade. That was their rendezvous point and tiltrotors capable of carrying trucks were currently landing, their rotors loudly beating at the air. The people gathered there weren’t in uniform, but they had to all be Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers. They didn’t have insignia or dog tags to identify themselves while undercover, so they were instead holding up their mobile devices to a device that read its registration data.

A blonde beauty wearing a hoodie and tight pants over a bikini waved her full arm his way.

“Over here, Quenser!”

“Millia.”

“Who’s the kid? Not that it matters. Just get over here. Looks like I’ve got a lot of praise to give you, but this place is far from safe. Get onboard!!”

Obeying the instructions that the blonde intelligence division woman shouted over the din of the two giant rotors, Quenser and the boy boarded one of the midsized VTOL transport crafts. After around 30 people poured in, it lifted from the ground before the cargo door was even closed. He couldn’t tell if Heivia, Myonri, and Putana were on the same tiltrotor as him. He was also surprised to find so many Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers had been in Rome.

The aircraft wobbled to the side and rapidly gained altitude.

Quenser realized he had been wandering Rome for a long time. It was already night time. Dark smoke had covered everything and he had been too focused on the hell below to notice the change in the sky’s color overhead.

The view down from the open door was hell itself.

The orange lava and black smoke had taken over, leaving none of the colors of the white marble world heritage sites. And millions of people were still trapped in that hell.

But he didn’t have time to get sentimental.

A trail of white smoke shot up from the surface. A surface-to-air missile flew directly past them and struck one of the other tiltrotors. The metal manatee stuffed full of Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers ruptured from within and fell back toward the Roman hell as burning scraps.

This wasn’t calculated.

Even the slightest difference and that would have hit Quenser’s tiltrotor instead.

The friendly craft drew a streak of dark smoke as it dropped to the ground 400m below and exploded. But instead of mounting a rescue, gunfire rang out from below. The Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers still on the surface must have surrounded the missile launch point and opened fire. After several explosions, the school being used as a hideout collapsed. A school, usually a symbol of safety, had been destroyed to get at a single killer.

Why did everyone so happily flock toward the killing?

Quenser knew the odds were slim, but wasn’t there something they could have done before revenge?

He covered the boy’s eyes with a hand and spat out a few words.

“This is wrong.”