Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume16 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 2===

And in a desolate battlefield country of Eastern Europe, while the main battle was fought between two Objects, the Legitimacy Kingdom’s 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion found themselves in a harsh battle of their own on the frozen land infamous for its war crimes. Now, how to explain what it was they found there?
This may be the best place to start:

The Panda War had begun.

With sweat soaking his face, Battlefield Student Quenser Barbotage shouted at the top of his lungs despite knowing it would never reach the roaring jet engine passing by overhead.

“Wait, you dumbasses!! We’re on your side! Fire on the enemy!!”

“Who the hell called this a battle of love, justice, and humanitarianism? There’s something wrong when they get paid more than us!”

A double delta attack plane protected by thick armor had sprayed its Gatling gun at them right from the beginning, so the armored truck carrying Quenser and Heivia had come to a stop on the cracked asphalt. They had gone to the trouble of chasing the poachers down a curvy highway while ramming their vehicles against each other, but then that son of a bitch in the sky had fired a machinegun down at them while showing off its threatening paint job that looked a lot like the eye pattern on a moth’s wings. Thanks to that, the difference between enemy and ally meant squat. Both trucks had overturned and Quenser, Heivia, and the others were forced to use the half-scrapped military truck as a shield. Idiots were never rewarded for trying to do a good deed every once in a while.

Perhaps due to the cold, the land was rough and short on vegetation.

Some conifer trees dotted the bare wasteland, a jagged mountain rose in the distance, and old monasteries and castle spires could be seen on its slope. When it came to both plants and animals, it was unclear what people were supposed to eat to survive in this area.

And now was not the time to be getting a tour. The overturned Ivory Garden truck was only about 10 meters away. They would not have been wiped out in that one blast, so a close-range battle was about to begin.

“Let’s end this quickly, Quenser.”

“Using a bomb at this range would just blow us all up, but why are you so motivated today of all days?”

“Because that thing that zoomed by overhead is making a U-turn! If we don’t end this before it comes back for a second pass, we’ll end up as mincemeat!!”

But this also meant something important.

Objects were equipped with anti-air lasers powered by the ultra-high levels of energy from their JPlevelMHD reactors. So there was no place for aircraft in a clean war between Objects.

That hinted at the situation Quenser and Heivia found themselves in.

This was not a clean war.

It was a unilateral purge of a criminal group without an Object.

“I still can’t believe they sent human beings to engage in a firefight just to rescue a baby panda. Are human lives less valuable than animals these days?”

“It’s a panda, so what’re you gonna do?”

“Yeah, they’re cute, but still.”

“They apparently go for 2 to 3 million euros a year when rented out to a zoo. Human lives? Worth way less.”

“That damn thing is making as much as a sports star on nothing but its cute face!?”

That was when they heard a quiet sound.

Whether they had high-level training or not, both sides’ lives were on the line here. An enemy had apparently done his best to not make a noise as he circled around the Legitimacy Kingdom armored truck. The young Eastern European poacher held a large knife instead of a gun.

“Oh, crap!” shouted Quenser in horror. “At close range, a blade is faster than a bulle-…”

Heivia fired his assault rifle like normal, the bullets punched a few holes in the chest and gut of the Ivory Garden soldier like normal, and he collapsed to the ground like normal.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Quenser’s mouth flapped wordlessly with an indescribable look on his face, so his awful friend spoke up in annoyance.

“Stop looking so disillusioned. Of course a gun is faster than a knife. Not even a kung-fu master can beat a gu-…”

A second man showed up while Heivia was speaking and stabbed the boy in the side.

“Heiviaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!?”

“Cut the theatrics and actually help me!!”

The idiot was doubled over, but he seemed fine. The tip of the blade had apparently been stopped by his magazine pouch. But despite Heivia’s insistence, Quenser could not use his Hand Axe plastic explosive while within 2m of the enemy. The idiot and villain were grappling, so in a split-second decision, Quenser grabbed a giant wrench meant to remove the lug nuts on the side of the armored truck’s tires and he swung it down on top of the criminal’s head.

Crash! And now the man was seeing stars.

…Well, that was the idea, but instead, blood and spinal fluid splattered around and the second man collapsed to the road. His face looked kind of funny since his skull had been split open. His skin was stretched and distorted like a robber with a stocking over his head. Quenser felt like he had even ruined the guy’s funeral.

And he was unsure what to say when the wrench proved more destructive than expected.

“Ah, ahh…”

“So what now? Is it gonna turn out shovels are unmatched on the battlefield?”

Surprise attacks lost their effectiveness once the surprise wore off. While Quenser felt his balls shrivel up at what he had done, Heivia, Myonri, and the others managed to calm down and began suppressing the enemy with their assault rifles. The rest was over in a blink of an eye. Light bursts of gunfire snuffed out lives.

“Oh?”

One of the young men on the ground held a grenade.

His courage on the verge of death was commendable, but Heivia used his foot to roughly roll the man over.

“Human shield!!”

“You’re awful!!”

There was a muffled boom, but the wall of flesh was enough to suppress a normal grenade blast. After having the enemy clean up his own mess like that, Heivia shot the bottom of the overturned poachers’ truck, opening a hole in the gas tank. The Ivory Garden members fled from their vehicular shield and were shot for their trouble.

“Man, today is nothing but disappointments. Why didn’t the truck blow up when you shot the gas tank?”

“Reality has a way of robbing people of their dreams, Quenser.”

As soon as Heivia said that, sparks scattered on the road and an explosion erupted out. The two idiots were knocked onto their asses together. Quenser did not bother getting up and instead climbed on top of Heivia and threw a straight-A-student punch.

“You dumbass!! This is what happens when an idiot tries to act smart!!”

“Ow! Shut up and get off of me or I’ll shoot you along with the enemy, Quenser! The leaking gas vaporized and reacted to the static electricity! It wasn’t the liquid gas in the tank that exploded!”

However, there was no more resistance. The explosion must have taken out the rest of the enemy. All that remained was a container that looked like a thick acrylic die. It was an incubator for the baby panda that could earn a yearly salary of 3 million euros.

“There’s something wrong when an animal gets thicker armor than our bulletproof jackets.”

“I don’t even want to imagine what would have happened if it had blown up along with the poachers. Thank goodness it’s all righ-…”

Quenser trailed off.

He picked up the large transparent die and viewed the target within from multiple angles.

“This isn’t a panda.”

“What?”

“I-it’s a bear cub made to look like one with white powder camouflage!! Who would this ever fool!? It’s like those legendary dyed chicks at Island Nation festivals!”