Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume3 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 4===

The area was covered in pure darkness.

As the operation hinged on a surprise attack, not even a single penlight was allowed.

Out of fears that infrared rays or electromagnetic waves would be detected by the UAVs, the correction features in the rifle scopes had been limited.

Amid it all, a few light footsteps could be heard.

They were from Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers.

They continued through the darkness while occasionally peering through their rifle scopes to check on the terrain with the electronically enhanced images.

“This is wrong. This just isn’t right,” muttered Heivia, one of the soldiers wrapped in heavy coats to protect themselves from the cold of the nighttime blizzard.

However, the usual response did not come as Quenser was not with him. In the other boy’s place, the Asian girl walking next to him spoke with her breath coming out white.

“What is?”

“Well, Myonri, I was sent out to the front lines where it’s most dangerous while that bastard Quenser gets to stay back on standby.”

“It does seem Miss Froleytia Capistrano wanted to send Quenser along with us,” said a large black man.

He was carrying a large piece of communications equipment on his back. The device was being used to send short range radio signals over long distances using directional ultrasonic waves. This was simply so those signals would not be intercepted by the enemy UAVs.

“But those Black Uniforms are hanging around. Quenser is technically a civilian, so she can’t exactly send him to the front lines,” continued the man.

“Cookman’s right. And it isn’t like he is just sitting around at the base,” cut in the Asian girl named Myonri. “He is headed for Point 2 where the Faith Organization UAVs will be neutralized.”

“You just don’t understand how the world works, Myonri. Him having even the slightest bit of a better time than me is criminal,” said Heivia while pouting.

A white girl with a brown ponytail and freckles turned toward him.

“Oh, are you lonely without your usual partner?”

“Shut up, Westy. Why are you always trying to put two guys together? That isn’t the natural way for living things.”

“Heivia, you wouldn’t say no if it was two girls though, would you?”

“It would still be pointless unless they both had a thing for me.”

Those four were the soldiers headed to Point 1 to sabotage the information network made up of large radar facilities.

Heivia, Myonri, Cookman, and Westy. Except for Cookman who was the oldest, they were all teenagers. With a bitter smile, Cookman had called himself the “leading teacher”.

They were walking across a damp rocky area.

A blizzard was blowing around them, but the heat from the coal mine below the ground poured out through exhaust ducts located here and there. Thanks to that, areas of melted snow dotted the terrain. Heivia and the others were travelling from melted area to melted area to avoid as much snow as possible.

“Not leaving any footprints is nothing more than a suggestion,” said Cookman. “If you focus too much on the ground and let your guard down, it will all be for naught. Luckily, the weather will cover up any footprints before long anyway.”

“I’m worried about visibility,” said Westy as she peered across the battlefield that was divided into white areas and black areas. “There’s nothing at all as far as the eye can see. The ups and downs of the ground itself are the only things here to provide cover. Don’t coal mines usually have buildings? This is nothing more than large dumping sites for dirt being carried out.”

“The facility has likely been kept underground as much as possible.”

“Why?”

“This mine was created using a submarine base construction plan. They might have been doubling it as an experiment in constructing military facilities below ground.”

“This terrain is something else,” said Heivia.

It was unclear if Heivia had been listening to Cookman and Westy’s conversation, but he was now staring down into the darkness off of a cliff.

It was 10 meters to the ocean surface and about 20 meters to the opposite cliff. The only trace of the submarine base was the depth of the water.

If they fell off, they would be killed.

And it was not just the height that made Heivia think that. Due to the cold, the ocean surface was covered in thick ice. The ice had cracked apart either due to the waves or ships passing through, but each individual piece of ice looked large enough to allow a polar bear to lie on it without it sinking. The ice was much too thick to simply “soften the blow” of landing in the water.

“Areas like this stretch for 150 kilometers along the coast and 90 kilometers inland. It’s like a giant spider web. Human technology is amazing.”

“A lot of rumors had started after they went through four different outdated submarine base construction plans. Some people claimed the Faith Organization was creating a large scale base to house a supply unit for a supposed submarine Object they could be creating,” said Myonri.

Westy cut in to say, “But what we found was a bunch of coal. No amount of dirt being brought up is suspicious in the construction of a submarine base. And since submarine bases are so outdated, the other world powers did not consider it worth attacking. It functioned as nice camouflage, I’ll give them that.”

“But now the Legitimacy Kingdom is heading out to destroy the mine.”

“That might be thanks to things calming down in Alaska. It is true that being able to construct a steady supply line over the Bering Sea allows us to carry out a large scale invasion on the Kamchatka Peninsula.”

“Which means the higher ups might be intending to stay here awhile even after shutting down that military coal mine. Dammit, so that’s why we had to use such a complicated strategy.”

“Speaking of complicated, won’t this complicated terrain make it difficult for even the Wing Balancer to move around?”

“I don’t know,” replied Cookman as he adjusted the shoulder straps for the communications equipment on his back. “We don’t know any details about the enemy Object. It might have some bridge building device stored in those long legs that it can use to cross between cliffs.”

“Ahn? That wasn’t in the data on its estimated specs.”

“The data from the intelligence department and the results from the electronic simulation department aren’t everything. We must keep in mind that it can always have some hidden ability that defies imagination until we have actually fought it ourselves.”

“Is that so?” muttered Heivia as he looked around. “So what are we going to do, boss? We have to get across to the other cliff to continue on.”

“According to the map, there is a suspension bridge 3 kilometers north of here,” suggested Westy.

“They will have some sort of surveillance set up for the few routes you can use to get through. Just a single camera can provide quite a bit of safety. We are much less likely to be spotted if we head through an area far away from where they expect.”

As he spoke, Cookman gestured toward Myonri. She set down what she was carrying.

“…Are you serious? A deflated rubber boat?”

“Climbing down, crossing the sea, and climbing back up is the simplest method of getting to the other cliff, don’t you think?”