Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume20 Chapter 5 (section)

===Part 2===

The world war blossomed before a freelance battlefield cameraman’s eyes.

Sewax pulled his SLR camera from his face and muttered to himself: “This world deserves to be destroyed.”



The Legitimacy Kingdom home country of Paris was surrounded by three defensive lines and the outermost one had been breached.

But the attackers were not free to do as they wished.

A 50m colossus crushed the massive wheat field in its path, switched the format of its main cannon, and unleashed a deafening boom and a bright orange beam of light. That was a brutal railgun.

The infantry down below covered their ears and shouted up at it.

“You’re overdoing it, Excalibur!! If we really do eradicate the Faith Organization, the table will permanently lose one of its legs. As much as I hate it, this world needs all four of those legs. As knights of the Legitimacy Kingdom, we have a duty to protect world peace!!”

The Pilot Elite did not care.

Even if the target was officially a civilian medical group arriving on the battlefield for peaceful purposes.

The Elite figured there was probably a Faith Organization assassin hidden among the doctors.

Their food and water supplies had been contaminated earlier, leading to several losses among the Legitimacy Kingdom troops. The only outsiders on base at the time had been a choir there to provide some comfort during such a difficult time, but the entire choir had been “dealt with” by the soldiers after the problem was detected.

The clean wars system had already collapsed.

And it was ''their'' fault. So they only had themselves to blame if the Legitimacy Kingdom made some harsh decisions during this world war.

“Excalibur to 22nd Division. Then are you asking me to sit here twiddling my thumbs while we lose more of our people? They are directly attacking Paris. I was granted this sword by my king, so I must use it to protect our people.”

The ordinary soldiers had done the right thing.

But at least three suicides by sidearm had been reported after the execution of the choir. The number of soldiers who were clenching their teeth and suffering from PTSD had to be tens or even hundreds of times greater. And this result had probably been part of the Faith Organization’s plot. Knowing them, they might even cut open a baby’s belly to hide a bomb inside or threaten an elderly woman into wielding a gun.

The Excalibur’s Pilot Elite would not let their horrific deeds continue. He would not allow any more losses from the youths who had sworn to fight for the good of the world.

…So he had chosen to shoulder all the dirty work himself.

He calmly double checked the defense target only he would be attacking.

They would learn the hard way not to underestimate the sword granted him by his king.



The Faith Organization was not going to take this lying down. 

The Capitalist Corporations and Information Alliance intervened a lot sooner than expected. The Faith Organization had assumed those third parties would just keep watch from a distance and only join in at the very, very end when they knew which side would win, but they had jumped into the fray almost immediately.

They didn’t want this European war to reach the New World.

Perhaps the greatest driver of war was fear, not desire.

“Yes, yes. We just called in the Bad Maidens, the Tartaruses, the Poison Forests, and all the other infamous units engaged in unofficial missions in the Northern Restricted Zone. We might not have as many Objects, but we can turn this around with their help.”

“What about the volunteers?”

“They don’t even suspect what their real purpose is. Or that they have bombs packed inside their bags.”

This conversation would have been unthinkable once, but now no one questioned it.

They would use everything at their disposal.

In this new era, even a stuffed rabbit was no more than a weapon that could be stuffed down an enemy soldier’s throat to suffocate them to death.

“Detonate those in hospitals and schools across Paris and the Legitimacy Kingdom won’t know who they can trust. We must not fear their wrath – we must use it to our advantage. Once their battleline panics, they will make mistakes and their superior number of Objects will not be enough to determine the outcome.”

Why should they fight fair and square?

Quite a few of their Objects had been rendered inoperable or unmaintainable during the chaos following the collapse of Rome, so they had been forced out of the fight before it even began. They were starting at a disadvantage. If they chose to ignore that reality and attempted to fight fair and square, the raging Objects would cause even further damage in Naples and Milan where they had established a distributed emergency government.

So the Faith Organization would not rely on a direct fight.

“I pray the peaceful age of god will arrive to this sinful planet.”

But their faith was not broken.

When people had something to protect, they gained the ability to accept even the cruelest of actions.



It was strange how they had gotten to know each other.

The black-haired, dark-skinned bodyguard crossing his arms must have left a good impression back when they met at the Technopics. They were inside a luxury hotel room on Bali, but nothing sexy was going on here.

People gathered around the rich when they were winning.

In the bodyguard business, you helped build your brand by being the first person who came to mind when the rich began to lose and felt they couldn’t trust anyone anymore.

A woman calmly sat behind a laptop at a nearby table.

Her name was Alicia Sloppyjoes.

But wasn’t she supposed to be an agent for an advertising firm that worked mostly with Capitalist Corporations’ companies?

“Alarms are sounding in South America, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. This could be a problem. I need to decide where to shelter my assets soon. The LA main bank could be shutdown at any moment. Oh, but I can’t trust Oceania because they’ve always been politically unstable.”

“Quit trying to make yourself sound smart. The point is you can’t trust any of the digital data, so you want your assets with you in a physical form, right? Diamonds would be your best bet. Cash and gold are too bulky to guard while on the move.”

“Can you guarantee they would be safe during this world war with no safe zones to speak of? Diamonds are easily broken by impacts and I have heard they scorch in fires.”

“If you don’t like it, then I’m leaving. This is stupid and I’m only here to earn money for my family. Especially for my little sister who was separated from me when our parents divorced. It doesn’t really matter to me who I earn that money from.”

They heard hurried footsteps in the adjacent room. (Their suite actually had multiple rooms.)

That would be Pharmacist Stacy Palmetto providing a special service for a mercenary working for them. …Specifically, she was providing the “safe doping” designed for professional athletes. The bodyguard man had no interest in receiving that service himself.

He sighed and asked another question.

“Dammit, I can’t believe we’re still stuck counting money during a world war. Is the Capitalist Corporations going to come out on top again with the war industry consuming the world?”

“It doesn’t look that simple. The situation has moved past the limits of the investment programs. Everyone is pretending things are working out just fine, but it’s looking like the New World won’t be able to stop a chain reaction financial crisis. If this keeps up, a lot of companies are going to go bankrupt and shut down. And there are signs of the Information Alliance using cyber attacks to take out the crypto assets spread out across the world.”

“Will this affect 7th Core too?”

“Yes, even them. Are you familiar with the Object that guards LA?”

“I’m not familiar with its detailed specs, but I have heard it controls animals. Something about using ultrasonic waves, artificial pheromones, and other things to summon swarms of locusts and edible earthworms to form a massive wall protecting the border with Central America.”

“The Xanthippe is the Capitalist Corporations’ strongest Second Generation. It’s a special Object designed and constructed by the burger chain that’s globally famous even for a 7th Core company. Beyond simple combat, it was apparently designed to prevent starvation tactics where a unit is isolated with all supply lines cut off.”

“…”

The bodyguard man grimaced slightly. The combination of earthworms and burgers may have been to blame.

Alicia, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind.

“Its title as the strongest should help discourage an attack, but simply preventing the damage from spreading too far is costing so much money that actually fighting would probably cause the company to go under.”

“Seriously?”

“Their funds are already running low. It isn’t a fierce warrior or a mysterious prototype weapon that brings down major countries and ends wars – that honor always goes to economic collapse. 7th Core might be the seven wealthiest companies in the world, but the more money required to keep things operating normally, the greater the risk if the ordinary financial engineering equations fall apart. To be fair, this hasn’t happened overnight. The CEO of Salem Logistics was assassinated by Nyarlathotep recently and the Elevator Alliance jointly funded by 7th Core failed pretty spectacularly. This blow hit all the harder because they had yet to recover from those other issues. Things are reaching truly scary territory here. That’s why I can’t trust the banks. Maybe I really should convert it all into diamonds or platinum and look after it myself.”



A dull roar reverberated across the dictator’s ocean.

The roar came from the Manhattan 000, the Information Alliance’s strongest Object and their home country itself.

No one remained who could stop it.

The baptism of fire and lead had taught the smart ones to remain silent. The less smart ones had been plunged into the watery depths along with their weapons.

“But the Manhattan 000 is our home country. No matter how effective it is, I can’t keep it on the front line for too long. 114. I need to cause enough damage to open the way for our other Objects and then pull back.”

Melly Martini Extradry was speaking as a Pilot Elite, not as the Martini Series in charge of New York’s security.

She spoke like she was humming the latest hit song.

Was she speaking out loud to help organize her thoughts, or to assist the massive AI network that operated the Manhattan 000?

“But it bothers me how a few Objects have vanished from such a crucial battlefield. The Information Alliance is supposed to be second to none when it comes to information, so I don’t like the feeling that I’m being manipulated by some unseen information. 994.”