Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume5 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 4===

The passageway ran in a straight line and Erie Greenhat’s athlete locker room was located at a corner of the passageway. The back door was also near that corner, but anyone who tried to make a run for it would be turned to Swiss cheese by the 5 or 6 attackers.

The distance from Mariydi’s door to the attackers was about 30 meters.

(What idiots. They’re so focused on Greenhat’s locker room that they’re leaving their backs wide open.)

And she had no reason to hold back.

Mariydi leaned out from the door and relentlessly pulled the handgun’s trigger.

Gunshots rang out and about three of the attackers collapsed. The remaining Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers frantically dashed around the corner to avoid the bullets, but Mariydi kept up the attack.

She darted out the door and ran down the passageway.

Before the attackers could poke their heads out once more, Mariydi arrived at the corner they were using for cover.

(If there is nothing but another straight passageway around the corner, they won’t have much to use for cover. If I keep firing while they are lost in confusion, I can finish this all at once!!)

But in the next instant, she heard a metallic noise come from the side.

It was coming from Erie Greenhat’s locker room.

“!!”

Mariydi immediately dove to the ground and assault rifle fire swept across at about waist height in the next instant. Bullets flew from the broken door and struck the opposite wall of the passageway causing sparks to fly.

At first, Mariydi thought a Legitimacy Kingdom attacker that had made it within the locker room had fired.

But she was wrong.

(Those are Greenhat’s Information Alliance bodyguards!!)

But that was their standard job. Mariydi was the one stepping out of the normal bounds and she did not exactly have the time to give a leisurely explanation. It was only natural for them to think she was another enemy.

In other words, this was the type of job that was simply not worth doing. The same as she had experienced so many times in the Northern European Restricted Zone.

The Information Alliance men turned their sights on Mariydi once more, but they did not pull the trigger.

Mariydi’s bodyguard who had chased after her fired a short burst of rifle bullets into the locker room as warning shots while shouting at the other bodyguards.

“You useless bastards! Even if you can’t protect your client, at least don’t get in the way!!”

“Oh, so you came with me?”

“I demanded Miss Alicia pay me extra for this, but she refused.”

As they spoke, the two began their next action.

The enemy would be around the corner of the passageway. It would not be difficult to finish off the attackers while they had little cover and were panicking. With that in mind, Mariydi and the bodyguard poked as little of themselves around the corner as possible and fired.

But the remaining attackers were not left sinking into puddles of blood.

The bullets ricocheted away with orange sparks flying.

An 8-wheeled armored vehicle had crashed through the thin external wall and acted as a shield for the attackers.

“Tch. Another Legitimacy Kingdom brand! Why do they even have one of these on Olympia Dome!?”

[[Image:HO_v05_09.jpg|thumb]]

“They could probably get an application approved if they said it was to safely transport the athlete. Even with that 30mm autocannon installed!!”

Just as the two of them frantically ducked back around the corner of the passageway, the autocannon installed on the top of its roof let out an explosive roar.

Mariydi tackled the bodyguard to the ground just before the corner they had been using as cover was smashed to pieces.

“We need to fall back! An assault rifle isn’t enough to shoot through that armor!!”

Mariydi grabbed various pieces of gear from the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers she had shot with the handgun before and then ran down the straight passageway. The bodyguard followed behind her.

The passageways for the athlete locker rooms were laid out in a grid pattern and the rooms themselves were arranged in 2x5 blocks of 10 rooms. Mariydi and the bodyguard circled around the block to reach another corner to escape the autocannon fire.

“It isn’t pursuing us.”

“Their top priority is Erie Greenhat. They probably want to finish this before Olympia Dome ‘intercedes’.”

The armored vehicle had thinner armor than a tank, so it could be penetrated with the explosives or shells small enough for a foot soldier to use. They may have feared a trap if they followed enemy soldiers around a corner.

But then, this was not a target that Mariydi and the bodyguard absolutely had to defeat.

The bodyguard asked, “What do we do? If it uses that 30mm autocannon, they will take control of Erie Greenhat’s locker room in no time at all.”

“We blow up that armored vehicle of course. And we even have something we can use to do so,” said Mariydi as she took the equipment she had taken from the dead soldiers and laid it out on the ground.

She had a handgun, a semi-auto shotgun, a grenade launcher, and…

“Propeller-style RPG warheads.”

“The honor student of anti-armor weapons. And that armored vehicle did not have explosive reactive armor.”

“But these are just the warheads. They’re just the part on the end that explodes. They need the propellant to be fired like an arrow.”

That type of weapon came in several different types, but this was the type that required a launcher that one held over one’s shoulder and two 30cm stick-shaped propulsion attachments in addition to the warhead. In other words, it would not fly without those sticks.

“It doesn’t have to fly. Its fuse is pressure activated. It will detonate when something impacts the end. It will detonate if we pull out the safety pin and throw it.”

“You mean you’re going to go stand in front of that 30mm autocannon?” The bodyguard frowned. “How far can you throw it by hand? The passageway ceiling is low, so you can’t throw it in a long arc like a long throw in baseball. Also, the warhead is not round like a ball.”

“True. Thirty meters is probably the limit by hand.”

“Oh, c’mon. You’ll be blown away if you just poke your head around the corner at that range. And it won’t just be the part you stick around the corner that gets blown away. The entire wall around you will be blown to pieces. In and of itself, I don’t care if you go off and die, but I have to keep you from leaving me in breach of contract.”

“That just means we have to use a different method.”

(…It’s about 750 grams.)

Mariydi grabbed one of the warhead that were shaped like slim rugby balls to check on its weight.

“I’ll be borrowing your rifle.”

“Please don’t swipe my weapons anymore.”

“Just hand it over. Oh, and take apart some bullets to make some blanks,” said Mariydi causing the bodyguard to frown. “A blank won’t fire an actual bullet, but everything else is the same as a real bullet. It produces the combustion gas from the gunpowder and the energy that pushes the bullet out is still there. In other words, if a blank is fired while the RPG warhead is affixed to the rifle barrel, it can be fired further than is possible by hand.”

A screw-like protrusion meant for the stick-shaped propulsion attachments stuck out of the bottom of the RPG warhead. It could be affixed to the rifle by sticking that down the barrel.

If a real bullet was used, the warhead would be destroyed while still attached to the barrel. That was why a blank was needed.

“This method was used in the old wars before Objects. But it puts a lot of stress on the rifles, so the firearm companies didn’t like it much.”

“What range can you get using that?”

“With a high-angle trajectory like a long throw in baseball, two to three hundred meters.”

“Did you forget we’re stuck in a narrow passageway?”

“The locker room building is a large one-story building. And a portion of the ceiling was destroyed along with the wall when the armored vehicle crashed in. There is a large hole right above the target. That means we can get a direct hit if we fire the warhead out of one hole in the ceiling, through the sky, and back down through the second hole above the armored vehicle. Right?”

“The armored vehicle may have opened that second hole, but where is this first one?” asked the bodyguard.

Mariydi grabbed the military semi-auto shotgun from the spoils of war she had lined up on the floor. She aimed it upwards and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

A roar that reverberated in the gut rang out and a 1 meter square hole opened up in the ceiling.

“Done.”

“You people from the Northern European Restricted Zone don’t take no for an answer, do you? Here are your blanks.”

Mariydi took a few blank cartridges from the bodyguard and handed him the sensors and scope she had removed from the rifle.

“You can use the scope as a monitor for the electronic sensors. Set it up at the corner of the passageway. Stick just the sensors and camera out to safely keep an eye on the armored vehicle.”

“…You aren’t going to make this easy for me, are you?”

“I don’t have a radio, so we will communicate using the flashing of our lights.”

“At least give me a weapon to replace the rifle.”

The bodyguard grabbed the shotgun Mariydi had just used and ran off into the dark passageway. Meanwhile, Mariydi lined up the five RPG warheads at her feet.

After a bit, a white light flashed down the passageway.

“The armored vehicle is stopped in the same place as before.”

With that confirmation, Mariydi aimed the rifle straight up with an RPG warhead attached to the end. She pulled out the safety pin on the end of the warhead, looked up at the large hole in the ceiling, and carefully pulled the trigger.

A muffled gunshot rang out and the RPG warhead flew through the night sky like a long throw in baseball.

After about 5 seconds, a vibration and explosive roar shook the entire building.

The light down the dark passageway flashed once more.

“You missed! It did not fall right on the hole above the armored vehicle. You only blew up the ceiling in a completely different place!!”

“This is a high-angle trajectory shot. The wind, temperature, humidity, and path of the combustion gas can cause errors in where it lands. I never thought I would hit with the first one,” said Mariydi in a code that used quick flashes of her light. “Where did that first shot land?”

“What?”

“Tell me exactly where the first shot landed! Then I can finish this!!”

“It landed 5 meters south of the armored vehicle!! That’s past its location from our perspective. It hasn’t moved! But what are you going to do!?”

Even with the representative of the high-angle trajectory, the mortar, the first shot almost never hit. The first shot was used as a basis for the calculations. The difference between the target and where it actually landed was calculated and the target was then aimed at after correcting for that difference.

Mariydi quickly loaded the next warhead in the rifle and aimed the barrel up.

(5 meters south, hm?)

She pulled the trigger and fired the warhead through the large hole and into the night sky.

“This one fell outside. It was most likely 3 meters to the northwest!! But that’s just an estimation based on where the wall collapsed!”

She fired again.

“I can’t see where it landed from here. But from the direction the dust is blowing in from, I would say 7 to 10 meters to the west! 7 meters to the west!! Dammit. The dust is blowing in on me!! Are you sure you can manage this!?”

“…I can, little boy,” muttered Mariydi audibly without bothering to use the light.

She loaded the next warhead. The more data she had, the more accurately she could correct for the errors. For that reason, her failures were not going to waste.

And she fired that final shot.

The warhead was swallowed up by the night sky and accurately detonated after about 5 seconds.

This explosion sounded different. The sound was deeper and a flickering orange light faintly lit up the area down the passageway.

The armored vehicle’s fuel had been ignited.

The bodyguard flashed his light back.

“The armored vehicle has been destroyed!!”

“You keep your gun aimed around that corner. I’ll use a different route. If we fire from two directions into an L-bend of the passageway, we can finish this up all at once.”