Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume20 Chapter 4 (section)

===Part 2===

The tiltrotor escaped westward, flying just above the ocean surface. Once they crossed the Mediterranean, it was only a short flight to the Legitimacy Kingdom’s Normandy District, which meant their home country of Paris.

But they could not celebrate. That showed just how close they still were to the furious Faith Organization’s headquarters. Rome and Paris were only about 1000km apart. Everything here was packed into a distance only about half the length of the small Island Nation floating in the Asian sea. If their defensive line fell, Second Generation Objects might rush in all at once. After all, those things could perform high-speed mobility at 500-600km/h. A single open seam could cause it all to fall apart.

The clean wars had protected them from all this.

Nothing was designed for a true battle between home countries.

“So what’s your name?”

“…Carat Affinity.”

Quenser pulled out a large, eraser-like ration, broke it in two, and handed the boy half.

“Okay, Carat. Are you hungry? You should eat while you have the chance.”

“What is this? It has no flavor.”

“Good, I’m not the only one that thinks that.”

Quenser smiled a little and some other soldiers gathered around. A lot of them had red stains on their undercover clothing or bandages and makeshift splints on their arms, but they all wanted to help look after the kid. Some even showed the small boy a magic trick with a coin or how to fold some complex origami with exhausted smiles on their faces. They may have wanted to keep their hearts from being corrupted by this new age by reminding themselves of the goodness there. Quenser himself felt Carat’s presence had saved him in that hell. Without that young boy trusting in the existence of heroes, Quenser may have already started down the path of killing. And if that had happened, he doubted he would be on this tiltrotor now.

(Heivia, Myonri, and Putana aren’t here. They did get away, didn’t they?)

He felt his weight tilting to the side. The tiltrotor had just turned off of its straight-line course.

He thought he saw a lightning-like flash tear apart the sky and then an escort fighter that had joined them was sliced through by a laser beam. With the alarm belatedly blaring, Millia Newburg grabbed the receiver on the wall and shouted at the pilot through it.

“Why the hell are we flying this high? Stop getting scared and bring us down now! Aerial refueling? That can wait! We’re in an Object’s anti-air zone. We’re screwed if we don’t have a mountain to shield us!!”

The Faith Organization had begun their attack. The Alps defensive line was starting to fall and the Legitimacy Kingdom forces were falling back to their secondary defensive line further north. No aircraft could survive when in range of an Object’s anti-air lasers.

Quenser spotted a familiar silhouette.

“That’s the Princess.”

The main cannon on the very edge shook like a wiper, perhaps to mimic a wave.

The Baby Magnum was not alone.

The Faith Organization’s Second Generation Zombie Powder and Blast Samurai were already crossing the Alps. Millia had said they needed a mountain, but it looked more like they needed to put the horizon between them and those Objects or they would be shot down at the speed of light.

(We can’t let the Princess know it was the Objects’ presence there that caused that disaster.)

Once they moved inland from the Mediterranean, he could feel the tension gradually fading. Paris did not have a unique defense network like the Information Alliance’s Manhattan or the Faith Organization’s Rome did. They only had three layers of simple but powerful defensive lines constructed around their home country. He could see the wheat fields, the vineyards, and the thick transport routes spread out like a spider web. Those eight-lane highways were large for farm roads and were designed to allow a 50m Object through. To allow for that, they had no real median and there were no streetlights on the sides.

Strange and unique systems tended to cause unexpected errors once they were actually used.

To protect what truly mattered, it was better to trust in the tried-and-true methods.

It was simple – extremely simple – but would that simplicity get the job done in this new world war? Quenser wasn’t confident. After what had happened to Rome, he had no idea what they could even do to make him feel safe. Had the people at the top really designed the defense system with a situation like this in mind?

“If you’re still alive, then listen up!!”

After their tiltrotor landed in a vineyard on the outskirts of Paris, Major Frolaytia Capistrano gathered everyone who had escaped Rome in the garden in front of the vineyard’s residence. They were about halfway between Paris’s center and the third defensive line, which left them still outside the city.

Why hadn’t they flown directly into Paris?

Quenser guessed Frolaytia was about to explain that for him, but he doubted it was going to be good news.

For now, he left Carat with Charlotte Zoom, the Black Uniform glasses woman who happened to be nearby.

“Here.”

Carat Affinity held something out to Quenser. It was a small cloth bag with a string attached. Rubbing it revealed it had a flat piece of wood or thick paper inside.

“It’s an Asian amulet. You aren’t supposed to open it.”

“Thanks. I hope it brings me good luck.”

That was all Quenser said before waving goodbye and joining the other filthy potatoes. Frolaytia was continuing her speech.

“Currently, the Faith Organization is approaching Paris along two primary invasion courses. The first is a land route over the Alps and the other is a sea route across the Mediterranean. However, we have discovered the possibility that both are only diversions.”

Quenser was relieved to see Heivia, Myonri, and Putana among the potatoes covered in soot and mud. They hadn’t had time to change, so they were hard to miss when everyone else was wearing identical uniforms. This meant he wasn’t the only one lucky enough to escape that hell.

The initial problem had been started by Bad Garage, but they were dead now.

This war was all about finding someone to blame when the real culprits were gone.

When Quenser had encountered Sarasa in Rome, she had seen Carat, clicked her tongue, and secretly let him past. There were good people in the Legitimacy Kingdom and the Faith Organization.

But Frolaytia described a situation that didn’t allow for that sort of idealism.

“The enemy used those obvious invasion routes to hide the elite commandos they sent to Charles de Gaulle Airport, located only a few dozen kilometers from the center of Paris. We have received a report of the airport being occupied using poison gas weapons! This war is over if they get the airport running again. The Faith Organization will be able to send in transport planes full of soldiers and vehicles. We must take the airport back before that happens and nip their direct attack on Paris in the bud!!”

At a distance of a few dozen kilometers, the Faith Organization airborne troops might not even need to set foot inside Paris. They could line up rocket launchers in the airport and send fire raining down on Paris.

But they were hesitant to immediately gather several Objects to defend Paris with their anti-air lasers. They had already seen what happened to Rome. Heivia raised his voice while forgetting all about the chain of command.

“So are we going to have a ton of Objects gathered around Paris now? Damn the Faith Organization. Is that how they hope to get revenge – an eye for an eye or whatever!?”

Logical arguments were not always convincing to someone who was running off of emotion, but Quenser cut in all the same.

“I don’t think there’s a large magma reservoir underneath Paris.”

“That just means they have something else planned. Like pressurizing the groundwater to liquefy the entire city into a marsh!! We can’t just assume everything will work out all right!”

Frolaytia agreed with Heivia’s frantic shouting.

“I sent in a report, but I have no idea if the higher ups will even see it. The clean wars structure has collapsed, after all. Everyone has awoken from that dream and now an unprecedented world war has begun. The higher ups are probably buried alive in more reports than they’ve ever seen before. …If the gravity of this threat is not conveyed to them, Paris might just become a second Rome. That’s why we need to take back Charles de Gaulle Airport before all those Objects arrive in the name of air defense. Got that!?”