Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume7 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 4===

Enough time had passed that the mobile barricade group had likely noticed the dead soldiers. However, the military truck Quenser and the others were aboard had already left the area.

After Heivia decided they were far enough away, he fired a few times toward the driver’s seat.

The truck immediately swerved to the side and crashed into a sand dune.

Heivia climbed out of the back of the truck, forced open the driver’s side door, and dragged the body out onto the sand.

The blonde woman checked over the body for ammunition, rations, and the like.

“My name is Lisa Deauville. My rank is second lieutenant. I would appreciate it if you would help me handle my team’s mistake.”

“I’m impressed you managed to escape. What about the others?”

“They were not so fortunate,” the intelligence division soldier named Lisa said.

Quenser did not try to ask for further details. There were people at the maintenance base zone who would do that. Right now, he needed to rejoice that even one of them had survived.

He pointed at the truck with his thumb.

“Our vehicle is about ten kilometers ahead. We’ll head there, switch vehicles, and return to the maintenance base.”

“I’m sure I’ll be stuck driving. Hey, Quenser! You sit in the passenger seat to navigate. I’m not gonna let you get a head start on flirting just because you’re useless.”

After sitting in the driver’s seat, Heivia operated the shift lever and freed the truck from the sand dune it had run into. Before the truck even came to a full stop, Quenser grabbed onto the passenger side, opened the door, and tumbled inside.

And then blonde-haired Lisa also sat in the passenger seat by sitting on top of Quenser’s lap.

At this point, Heivia pulled out his military knife.

“Quenserrrrrr!!”

“Ask her what’s going on, not me!! (I won’t deny I like it, though.)”

Even through the thick military uniform, Quenser could feel the unique softness and warmth of a woman.

Lisa, however, showed no sign of being bothered by the situation.

“There are only two seats in here and I cannot assist you from the back of the truck. If I sat in the driver’s seat, I would get in the way, so the only possible place for me is the passenger seat.”

“Quenser, swap seats with me!! You don’t have a license? There’s nothing but desert as far as the eye can see. You just have to step on the accelerator and turn the steering wheel. Anyone can do that!!”

They would be spotted regardless with any cutting-edge sensors, but they still did not have the guts to drive through the desert night with the headlights on.

But as previously stated, the desert was not flat. It had sand dunes with height differences of several meters. It may have been similar to stopping time and driving over the stormy ocean.

And so…

“Ohh, ohhhhh, ohh. Th-this is a very bumpy road. Hey, boy. Stop squirming below me. And why has something been pressing up against my butt for a while now?”

“Don’t underestimate adolescence, officer cadet! We can fill the time waiting for the elevator by talking about nothing but a large tree that looks a lot like a woman’s waist. You need to be prepared for this kind of thing before you choose to sit on my lap!!”

“At least look at the map, you idiots!! You’re pissing me off! Do you want to frighten everyone away by bringing tears and snot to the face of Heivia, the super genius, beautiful, wealthy, athletic noble who will infiltrate enemy territory, rescue hostages, or anything else you need!? Is that what you want!?”

However, there were some things one did not give up even after such a desperate plea.

Quenser was in the same mindset as someone refusing to hand over the bit of ice cream stuck to the bottom of the lid, so he began contemplating pulling out a Hand Axe plastic explosive to stop Heivia from switching seats with him. He also feared the possibility of Lisa alone sitting in the driver’s seat. If it came to that, he would bite his own tongue.

“Huh? Wait, Heivia. We need to contact the maintenance base and the princess to tell them we injected the virus and what our escape route is. Once we have control of the mobile barricades, the Baby Magnum can begin its attack and we need to make sure this truck isn’t destroyed in the process.”

“Don’t be stupid!! As soon as the virus took effect, it sent a log from the enemy server to our electronic simulation division! Also! My hands are full driving!! If you need something done, do it yourself!!”

At any rate, they needed to give a report.

There were eight mobile barrier locations. A dangerous infiltration mission had been carried out at each one. If they reported their success, the other teams could abandon their dangerous mission and leave. He doubted it would happen, but if another team managed to infect the system at the same time (or slightly slower), Quenser did not want them to make the first report and take the credit.

And so Quenser reached for the radio.

“Huh? Damn, I can’t reach.”

“Of course not. Your arms are wrapped around me like you are holding a log. Do you need a radio? You can use the one in my pocket. It is in the chest pocket.”

“Ngh… So it’s near your chest? …Is this it? Huh? This is awfully soft…”

“Stop that! Why are you touching my-…no, don’t make me say it!”

“Why can’t this truck divide down the middle and leave a bike for just me?” grumbled Heivia in the driver’s seat.

After some difficulty and some occasional squirming from Lisa, Quenser finally managed to remove the radio from her uniform.

He held it in front of her, set the frequency, and entered the encryption key. Once he secured a mission bandwidth, he brought the radio to his mouth while his face was covered by the blonde hair flowing down Lisa’s back.

“This is Team A. Mission complete. The virus has infected the system. We are, um…”

“We’re the Capitalist Corporations Steel Father 8-ton truck travelling down route 32 with no lights on. Tell them to make sure the Object doesn’t fire on us,” supplied Heivia in annoyance.

Quenser began to repeat the information.

“Um, we are the Capitalist Corporations Steel-…”

But then another transmission cut in. It came from one of the teams infiltrating one of the other mobile barricade facilities.

“This is terrible! HQ, can you hear me!? Please respond!!”

“Team F, this is HQ. We can hear you just fine. If there is a problem, it lies in your ability to speak. Simply put: calm down.”

“How am I supposed to stay calm!? What the hell is going on?”

Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance. Lisa reached over from Quenser’s lap and used a hand to point Heivia’s head back toward the road.

(Did one of the teams screw up and get spotted?)

The virus had already been injected into the Capitalist Corporations military network. There was no reason to continue the infiltration mission any further. Quenser adjusted his grip on the radio to make sure they did not die for no reason.

But then he stopped.

Team F continued their report from another mobile barricade facility.

“We found the missing intelligence division team. We counted, and this is all of them! They’re all dead!! Damn them. They gathered all the captured soldiers in one place and ‘prepared’ them. They ignored all the war treaties and tortured the prisoners!!”

Quenser felt a chill run down his spine.

He felt like he had just learned the cute kitten sitting on his lap was a strange carnivorous beast.

Heivia immediately slammed on the brakes as hard as he could.

As the truck came to a sudden stop as if it had caught on something, Heivia drew his handgun.

But before the boy could aim, Lisa had already accurately pressed her own handgun against his temple.

Unlike Quenser and Heivia, she was not held in place by a seatbelt and the sudden stop could have easily knocked her through the windshield, but she still moved more quickly.

“Who the hell are you?” asked Heivia while almost dumbfounded.

Lisa was obviously more skilled. Heivia must have sensed that fact because he began to sweat.

Lisa showed no sign of caring about Quenser who was held down beneath her butt. She must have thought she could immediately handle any movement he took.

“That report said Team F found the bodies of the intelligence division team. They said they counted them. Then who the hell are you!?”

“I am a Legitimacy Kingdom soldier. I did not lie when I gave you my name and rank.”

“Hah! Are you serious? If you weren’t up to no good, you wouldn’t have pretended to be who we thought you were. There was something you didn’t want us to know, wasn’t there!?”

“Even if you checked the military database, you would not find any data on me. That is the sort of unit I belonged to! If we had remained back there, we would have been found by the Capitalist Corporations and Information Alliance who were protecting the mobile barrier. I intended to tell you the truth once we reached safety!!”

“Yeah!? And what is that truth!?”

“I…My unit was-…!!”

Lisa – or the blonde woman going by that name – began to tremble as she started to speak.

But then a giant shell landed near the truck.

It landed to the left from Quenser’s perspective.

They were struck by a tremendous impact.

Quenser thought the reinforced glass on the door would shatter instantly, but the entire door came off. The heavy military truck was a mass of metal protected by bulletproof equipment, but the entire thing floated up into the air. In all seriousness, it spun horizontally in midair twice. It landed on the tires, but its momentum caused it to roll on its side.

“Gh…bh!?”

Quenser could not breathe as he was practically hung by his seatbelt. But it was not strangling his neck. The pain came from the pressure to his ribs and lungs.

“What…the hell?”

Quenser heard the high-pitched sound of something breaking. Once he focused on his unsteady vision, he saw Lisa Deauville breaking the windshield. She bent her supple body, slipped through the hole, and escaped into the desert night.

“Get…back here!!”

Heivia broke the windshield and made his way out as well. Quenser was left behind, struggling with his seatbelt.

“Damn… What even happened!?”

Because of the unusual weight on it, the seatbelt would not come undone even once he pressed the button. He searched through his uniform and pulled out the survival kit. There was a small cooking knife inside.

(That was an explosion from a shell… A shell!? It wasn’t targeting the truck, but I doubt there’s another target in this empty desert. So was it a stray shot? But from who!? Wait… It can’t be!!)

He received his answer almost immediately.

A giant form passed by in front of the truck. It was on such a large scale that it could flatten the several meter tall sand dunes. It was a mass of metal and weapons. A massive amount of military budget had been brought together to construct that symbol of war.

It was an Object.

“The princess!?”

It was not just the Baby Magnum. The Object was making constant organic movements to the left and right as if taking the small steps of a boxer or mixed martial artist. Those were evasive actions. And there was only one thing that an Object had to fear taking damage from.

Another giant form was moving quickly through the desert night as if performing an intense dance on a scale of hundreds of meters.

This was the assistance from the Capitalist Corporations.

That urban invasion Object had no main cannon and was deemed generation 1.5.

“The Hornet Storm.”

An Object’s main cannon could easily hit at a distance of ten kilometers, so seven or eight hundred meters was extremely close range.

At that point, Quenser came to his senses.

“And I’m in the ring with them!!”

He frantically pulled the cooking knife out of his survival kit, but he did not have a chance to use it.

Before he could, the darkness of the desert night was split apart.

He had not seen the attack itself. He had seen the afterimage of the dust and moisture in the air being instantly fried. Several dozen thin orange lines of light gathered together and landed near the truck Quenser was struggling within.

The landing spot produced intense light as if from welding.

But he did not have time to complain about the sudden headache. The massive heat caused the surrounding air to expand, so what resembled a blast of wind struck the truck. The 8-ton truck had already rolled on its side, but this rumbling wind caused it to roll like a plastic bottle. The latch for the seatbelt finally gave out and Quenser was freed from his bonds. He was then slammed into the driver’s side door.

“Gbh!! Damn…it…”

The truck was lying on its side again, so Quenser crawled out the broken windshield.

The two Objects were continuing to fire their giant shells while taking relatively small evasive movements.

Quenser did not know what had triggered the direct conflict.

The Legitimacy Kingdom’s electronic simulation division might have noticed the virus was in the system and sent the Baby Magnum out before Quenser and Heivia could report. Or the Hornet Storm might have gotten too close to the maintenance base zone and the Baby Magnum had been sent out without knowing if they could win.

Either way…

(Wait, wait, wait!! We’re supposed to be attacking the Simple Is Best that is waiting for a chance to charge in from a distance. If it charges in at supersonic speeds now, the princess will be attacked from two sides at once. Can she really win even with control of the barricades taken!?)

Also, the Legitimacy Kingdom’s plan had been to use the mobile barricades to stop the Simple Is Best and have the Baby Magnum destroy it. They would then watch the Hornet Storm and attack it if it decided to continue fighting.

That plan was no longer going to work.

Two back to back battles against a single Object was different from fighting two Objects at once.

“Well, sitting around isn’t going to help. I need to contact Froleytia and see if there’s anything I can do.”

However, he was on the verge of passing out from the intense pain assaulting his entire body. He lay on the cold sand that almost felt frozen and pulled out his small radio.

But then something else happened.

Lisa had escaped and Heivia had pursued her, but the two of them were running back to the truck.

“…?”

Quenser grew cautious even as he lay on the ground.

It was unlikely they had gotten completely turned around in the empty desert. He could only think something had happened. For example, Heivia could have lost his gun, so Lisa was now pursuing him.

(But Heivia had more than just his handgun. Whether his gun jammed or he had it shot out of his hand like a movie villain, he would just have to switch to his assault rifle.)

But Quenser did not have time to think.

He did not know who Lisa Deauville was, but she was likely an enemy.

As tension ran through his body, he pulled out a Hand Axe plastic explosive and a ballpoint pen-shaped electric fuse, but then something unexpected happened.

Heivia ran right past Quenser.

And just before doing so, he frantically shouted to his terrible friend.

“You idiot!! How long are you going to sit there!?”

“…?”

He wondered if the other two had agreed to flee to safety due to the two Objects.

He was partially right and partially wrong.

After a few seconds, Quenser finally realized what Heivia and Lisa were running from.

The ground was disappearing.

A strange sand waterfall had appeared maybe 100 meters away and more and more of the ground was disappearing into the depths. The region was expanding and it was approaching where Quenser lay.

“Wh-what is that!?”

“How should I know? There must have been something under the desert and the Object fight caused it to collapse!!”

Surprisingly, it was Lisa who answered his question.

Not only that, the blonde beauty stopped in front of him, grabbed his arm, and pulled him to his feet.

“Are your legs hurt? I can’t escape the collapse while carrying you. If you don’t want to be caught in the middle of it, then run! Right now!!”

Still not knowing what was going on, Quenser retreated along with Lisa.

The collapse of the fine sand continued behind them. They had no idea how far they would fall if it caught up to them, but it was certainly more than a few meters.

“What is this!? Did a natural cave start to spread!?”

“I said I don’t know! It might be manmade, but this is no time to worry about that!!”

“Dammit. I thought it was supposed to be tungsten below our feet!”

“What are you talking about!?”

In a desert of nothing but fine sand, there was no meaning in making maps with detailed contour lines. The desert was commonly compared to a stormy sea and the strong wind continually changed the terrain just like one. Dunes several meters tall were easily formed. It was possible a warehouse or factory had been completely hidden below the sand.

“Heivia, wait up! Don’t escape on your own!!”

“Shut up!! This is divine punishment! The crime of flirting deserves death! Don’t get someone as cool and stoic as me involved in your punishment!!”

The coldhearted boy’s back was a long way ahead.

Suddenly, the two Objects continuing their battle beyond the collapse sent a frightening stray shell in their direction. The shell landed over three hundred meters to the side, but it was still enough to send Quenser’s entire body into the air. For an instant, he had difficulty breathing. He rolled across the ground and Lisa tried to pick him up.

But that was a mistake.

The maw of the collapse caught up. He felt the ground disappear below him. It was less a vertical waterfall and more of a steep waterslide. Quenser and Lisa were mercilessly dropped into the abyss that light could not reach.