Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume10 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 5===

And so Quenser and Heivia were hiding on the ground with some other soldiers. The area was covered by waist-height grass, so crouching down a little was all someone would need to do if they wanted to get away with some outdoorsy baby-making.

“It’s called a Slingshot,” complained Heivia.

The metal tube on his back was two sizes larger than his normal shoulder-fired missile launcher. There was even a small LCD monitor attached to the side. Just like modern laptops, the screen could be removed, allowing someone other than the firer to set up the targeting.

It was cutting-edge, but the soldiers hated it because it was heavy, fragile, expensive, and filled with so much technology they were not allowed to abandon it on the battlefield.

“Are they morons? Did they name it that because they ''want'' us to point out that isn’t what it is!? Why do weapons developers have to have such a warped sense of humor!?”

“Quit shouting. This is the battlefield, so we need to be quiet. Got it?”

“It doesn’t matter what we do. There are eight objects here and they’re all bristling with sensors. They’ll find us even if we take a nice leisurely nap here. Maybe I should ask someone to rub some sun oil on my back.”

Quenser and Heivia both had a reinforced plastic case in each hand. They contained the missiles warheads and firing powder for the Slingshot. They would never be able to fight while trudging along with such a large burden, but this was a joint military exercise.

“Oh, there they go,” muttered Heivia as he heard explosive sounds in the distance.

They did not come from Object cannons. If they did, the shockwave would have been enough to knock them over. They were hearing the little people firing on the giant from Gulliver’s Travels.

“That’s meaningless,” decided Quenser.

“You’re damn right it is! They’re attacking the…which one is that?”

“The Sand Cluster. It’s a Faith Organization Second Generation that uses a low-stability plasma cannon.”

“Oh, I see. And are those multiple rocket launchers the little people are firing at it? Did their Object ask them to judge its interception accuracy?”

“And yet a direct hit from one of those wouldn’t even scratch it. It sure is nice to bother shooting them all down.”

The soldiers were firing like crazy now that they had seen the Object would not fire back at them. Otherwise, they would only have been able to tremble and ball up on the ground in fear.

Then a cheerful voice arrived over the radio.

“…Ksshh… Yes, this is a momentous occasion, so I would have loved to send in Cynthia, our company’s cutting-edge Second Generation, but she is currently busy suppressing the Soberania Disturbance near the Panama Canal. That said, the two Objects we did send in are wonderful as well. The copycats made elsewhere can never hope to match how we give physical form to the fighting spirit of our Pilot Elites.”

“That concludes the scheduled interview with Acre Kiss-of-Rose, the very busy CEO of Salem Logistics. Also, a Capitalist Corporations PMC is planning some wartime evacuation training based on an imagined attack by special commandos from another world power…ksshh…”

“What was that? Are we picking up some other radio broadcast?”

“This is just a giant plain and broadcast stations from all over the world have shown up to relay the Gigant Hustler. Add in the amateurish news site reporters and the people obsessed with uploading videos to the internet, and the chaos only grows. There are no rules about what frequencies to use here, so people will end up using the same one.”

“Does that mean our transmissions are reaching them?”

“We just have to pray whoever developed our encryption tech wasn’t slacking off. …Anyway, it sure is peaceful on the ‘outside’. And what good is evacuation training if you announce it’s only training in the first place? Even a school’s evacuation training has a little more tension than that.”

At any rate, Quenser and Heivia had work to do and could not get caught up in a pointless conflict.

The two of them gave the Faith Organization’s Sand Cluster a wide berth as they stayed low and walked through the waist-height grass.

“This can’t be good for my hips.”

“Yeah, and I’ve decided I don’t want to hurt my hips from anything other than a night spent with a woman.”

A few wild birds flew into the air about five hundred meters ahead.

Heivia raised a hand horizontally and Quenser stopped moving.

“Someone’s there.”

“You mean that rustling? But all this shooting is bound to scare some animals.”

“It isn’t timed with the explosions.”

Heivia’s rifle had a number of sensors, but infrared could be blocked to a certain extent with special materials and both ultrasonic waves and the microwaves of radar were not very effective in this tall grass. But holding his breath and observing carefully revealed something in the scenery that did not belong.

“Found them. The Faith Organization’s Valkyries are five hundred meters ahead and an Information Alliance powered suit unit is three hundred to the left of them.”

“What do we do?”

“One group is an internal discipline squad meant to deal with the unfaithful and the other is made up of walking wireless routers meant for electronic warfare. Small fries like us aren’t going to get paid any more for fighting each other and the Gigant Hustler is underway, so ignoring each other is the best plan for everyone involved.”

As soon as Heivia moved to the side, the other groups started moving as well.

The three groups did not want a direct confrontation, so they moved in giant circle to pass by each other without moving closer than a few hundred meters to each other. It looked like the roundabouts seen on European roads or rotating sushi being removed from the conveyer belt after no one chose it.

Quenser spoke quietly to his awful friend while following him.

“We handled that peacefully. Mankind has finally overcome our history.”

“Oh, shut up. They’ll be marking out location on their maps. We need to assume they’re burying a landmine while smiling so kindly our way. And there are plenty of landmines made from wood, glass, or plastic that can slip right past a metal detector.”

The two of them looked back to watch the other figures disappear.

“Did you see all the antennae on those powered suits?”

“I said they’re for electronic warfare, didn’t I?”

“You can’t jam an Object that has a control center bigger than a fortress’s and the amplification provided by any targeting assistance would be less than a decimal point.”

“Still better than the Valkyries. Those scouts are sent out to observe the infantry at the bottom in an attempt to read the intentions and movement patterns of the entire pyramid structure, but that’s completely useless if the Object decides to trample on its own allies to win.”

Distant explosions rang out once more.

There had likely been a lag to reload the multiple rocket launchers.

“Those must be the Capitalist Corporations’ mechanized combat engineers.”

“Oh, what a cool name.”

“Just to be clear, that doesn’t mean they’re cyborgs. It means they use vehicles. They’re apparently all from civil engineering companies and their main mission is to stop the enemy Object by digging tunnels through the battlefield to create pitfalls, by pumping water to submerge the area, or by whatever means they can come up with. Basically, they’re specialists in military tractors and tunneling machines.”

“Neat. They sound like the most effective ones.”

“How!? One stray shell from an Object creates a giant crater. Slowly digging a little tunnel isn’t going to stop those cutting-edge machines, you idiot!!”

“Sure the pitfalls would be useless, but what about the water? If the Object uses static electricity propulsion like the Princess…”

“This entire map is a giant green plain. Do you see any rivers to draw water from?”

As they argued, they continued through some even taller grass. They occasionally came across the paths left by other units, but they chose to trample their own way through the grass instead of using the easier “premade” paths. Simply put, they were afraid of mines.

Heivia came to a stop again when he heard some unnatural rustling to the side.

“They’re on our side.”

Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers gathered in this one spot after taking different routes to get there.

And up ahead…

“Looks like it’s still warming up.”

Quenser looked at its majestic form through gaps in the grass.

Going all out, an Object could instantly reach speeds of over five hundred kph. It could easily lose these infantry soldiers, but a total of eight Objects were taking part in the Gigant Hustler. Any thoughtless movement would be like making the first shot in a game of billiards.

It might seem harmless at first, but that one move could end up placing a noose around its neck.

And so it tried to give that first move as much thought as possible even if that meant ignoring the insignificant infantry.

The crawling challenger spat out the name of the ruler sitting in its throne.

“A Capitalist Corporations Second Generation… The Mobius Infinity.”