Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume1 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 5===

It was easy to tell who controlled which portions of Oceania.

The areas controlled by the military nation were covered in forest while the areas controlled by the coalition forces were covered in desert.

Quenser and the others were in the green forest.

At first, they had been travelling across cracked, arid land, but after crossing a certain line, the land became covered in grass. After that, the land quickly became covered in a thick forest. The state of the soil completely changed depending on whether the artificial soil that had high water retention had been distributed in that area or not. It was no surprise that the tribes that had loved the natural land there for over 1000 years saw the unnatural sight of those plants foreign to that continent as a desecration of the land.

Quenser got down off the urethane portion of the Object and looked around.

“Now then, the battlefield lies just ahead. Although I suppose we’ll just be sitting idly by and leaving everything to the real stars of the show.”

“…I’d rather you just left right now,” muttered Heivia.

Unbeknownst to Quenser, Heivia had had a horrible time trapped between the two Objects while Quenser relaxed atop one of them.

Heivia looked around too and said, “Y’know, this really is one hell of a forest. They improved the genetics for the sake of urban greening, right? I can’t believe this was originally a desert.”

“Don’t be stupid. Even if they altered their growth rate, they couldn’t have grown trees with trunks that large. The shorter trees are one thing, but these ones that look at least 100 years old were probably swiped from other countries in the area.”

The princess then spoke through the speakers on her Object. 

“We are going to head out. Be careful and make sure you are not taken out by stray shots or radiant heat.”

“Thanks for the concern, but doesn’t that just mean we’re useless?”

“Oh ho ho. You can just wait here while completing a 10-minute brain training or something.”

The two giant Objects then charged off into the thick forest at high speed. Quenser and the others were left with only the trailing sound of dark thunderclouds that came from the princess’s Object.

Those giant machines that have main bodies over 50 meters across had headed off at 200-300 kph. The artificially-grown large trees snapped like chopsticks as the giant masses passed by. Before long, there was a flattened path through the forest.

Their target was a collection of rectangular concrete buildings in the middle of the thick forest.

An alarm started blaring in the military facility as those cutting-edge weapons of massacre approached.

Quenser pulled out a pair of binoculars and Heivia spoke to him, sounding annoyed.

“I’m betting this one’s another miss. If the Oceanian Object was really here, it would have left a path through the forest. You saw how the princess’s Object snapped all those huge trees, right?”

“No, I’m observing the Information Alliance Object,” responded Quenser as he adjusted the magnification of the binoculars. “If it was attacking us as an enemy, I wouldn’t have a chance to calmly analyze it, but this is different. This is a good chance to study it. I can take my time and visually steal information on their tech.”

“What, are you that crazy about some foreign girl’s sexy dress? C’mon, if you keep chasing after her, our cute princess is going to kill you.”

“What is it you keep going on about lately?”

As they spoke, the battle began between the coalition Objects and the normal soldiers in the Oceanian base.

From the looks of things, the enemy’s Generation 0.5 Object was not there.

The inevitable result of the battle was as plain as day.

Explosive beams of light covered the battlefield, ripping through the night sky.

They were being fired by a rapid fire beam cannon.

It was a powerful beam cannon that fired continuously at extremely short intervals.

The Information Alliance’s Object’s 35-meter main gun was made up of five giant rapid fire beam cannons linked together like a Gatling gun. Some people might wonder why it was necessary to construct a Gatling gun-like device when the weapons fired beams rather than metal bullets, but the powerful beam weapons would damage their barrels and other equipment if fired at too short an interval. Also, they used large amplifiers to instantaneously amplify and release electric power, so it was important to switch on and off in short intervals to divide up the burden on each individual cannon.

Supposedly, the Information Alliance Object could use those five cannons to fire those rapid fire beams indefinitely.

As the strips of bluish-white energy sliced through the night sky, the thick concrete buildings were ripped apart one by one. The wreckage that was blown into the air like in a volcanic eruption was almost entirely melted around the edges. The Oceanians tried to return fire with tanks and missile launching vehicles, but the Objects paid them no heed. The wreckage of the buildings raining down from the sky was enough to blow up the armored vehicles.

By the way, the princess’s Object was not merely watching all this go on.

It was using its quick maneuverability to cut off the escape path of the fleeing tank unit and firing at them from its 7 arm-shaped main guns. The princess’s main guns could switch out their devices like a microscope switching out its lens. By rotating the core of the barrel, she could attack using laser beams, low-stability plasma cannons, coil guns, or a number of other options. That was why her Object was known as a composite model.

Explosions, beams of light, and great roaring noises split through the battlefield, but no screams could be heard.

The shouts of anger and terror were likely there, but the sounds of destruction caused by the Objects drowned them all out.

The scene was overwhelming in just about every way.

It was a hellish sight that made one renew one’s desire to never stand before one of those monsters.

“Wow. I guess this is what the Oceanians get for ignoring all war treaties and just doing what they want. But I kind of feel sorry for them because I know what it’s like to not be able to use the white flag.”

“I can see why the princess warned us to not get caught up in it all. Hey, Quenser, can you tell how that giant Gatling gun works? It’d be pretty cool if we could have that as one of the princess’s options.”

“Eh? I’m more interested in what’s going on down below,” said Quenser while removing his eyes from the binoculars and pointing toward the Information Alliance Object. “I was thinking about why it would use both the air cushion and the treads, but I think I figured it out. Hovering with the air cushion is its basic means of propulsion, but it uses the treads to strike the ground and give it some instantaneous thrust for when it needs to make a quick dash. In fact, those look more like chainsaws than treads.”

“So what would happen if we put something like that on the princess’s?”

“She’d be able to get quick bursts of speed. Like this: whoosh.”

As Quenser and Heivia continued their idiotic conversation, the battle came to an end.

The enemy had been annihilated and not a single ally had been killed or even injured.

It had been the kind of ideal usage of Objects that would probably make the higher ups clap their hands in joy. No result could seem more reliable to those who fought alongside the Objects.

The Elites’ voices then came in across the radio.

“Hey, we’re done.”

“Oh ho ho. I did a scan with my sensors, but still be on the lookout for landmines or enemy troops waiting in ambush. …That is what it means to be truly concerned for others, you unrefined Legitimacy Kingdom Elite.”

Upon seeing the two Objects banging into each other, the soldiers started whispering things like “Looks like it’s still dangerous” and “Let’s just wait a bit longer”.

However, military actions were not something a soldier could simply refuse to do.

Quenser and the others headed toward the battlefield along the path of snapped trees left by the Objects. They felt safe because they assumed any traps would have been destroyed by the giant Objects heading through. Of course, this did not guarantee their safety, but it made them feel safer nonetheless.

When they arrived, the princess spoke through her speakers.

“It seems this was another dummy base. It did not have the functionality a base zone would require and the Oceanian Object was not here.”

“We’ll do a search just to be sure, but it really doesn’t seem there’s a space large enough to hide something that huge,” replied Quenser while looking around.

The area had not simply been burned down.

The buildings had been blown away, the asphalt had been torn up, and the ground itself had been split wide open in places. Trees, steel, and everything else was burned black and had lost their original shapes. The level of destruction seen there could not be achieved even by setting fire to a petrochemical complex.

It was simpler than a nuclear weapon, more powerful than a nuclear weapon, safer than a nuclear weapon, and destroyed its target with more pinpoint accuracy than a nuclear weapon.

The enemy soldiers had been blown to such small pieces that it was impossible to tell where their bodies were.

“Uehh…” groaned Heivia. “I’m glad we finished talking about our military rations before coming here. I heard the Information Alliance military has flavored powder to put on their rations. You can choose curry or cheese or whatever flavor you want.”

“I get the feeling that their grilled flavors aren’t going to be too popular for a while.” Quenser looked up at the two Objects. “By the way, what are we supposed to do now that you finished the battle so easily? Will we be leaving after we finish searching around the area to make sure there isn’t an underground Object maintenance base zone?”

“Oh ho ho. I doubt there are any weapons nearby that are on a large enough scale to destroy an Object, but would you please be on the lookout?” replied the Information Alliance Elite.

“?”

“I merely want to take a bit of a rest after going all out in that battle. Oh ho ho.”

“I see. Are the extra g’s from inertia wearing you down?”

The designs of the special suits for Elites differed from Elite to Elite, but for the most part, they were all pressure-resistant like an air force pilot’s suit. Objects did not move around at supersonic speeds like a fighter, but they had an extremely huge mass. To simplify the problem, think of it like a metal ball on a chain. The pull would be greater the faster the metal ball was moved around by centrifugal force and the heavier the metal ball was.

Quenser realized that the Information Alliance Object and the princess’s Object had been completely motionless for a while.

“Oh ho ho. If I had to fight, I could, but staying on edge like that when no enemies are around would be foolish. And Elite suits are very tight around the legs.”

“Oh, that’s right. When you’re moving around at high speed, they cut off the flow of blood to your legs to make sure your blood can circulate to your brain properly. …Does it make your legs go to sleep?”

“After a high speed battle that requires a lot of concentration, a lot of heat is left in my body, so it is quickest to take my legs out of the suit and use a cooling spray on them. Oh ho ho.”

“I see…” said Quenser, in vague admiration, but then he froze in place.

(Wait… If the princess is cooling off her legs too, does that mean she’s taking off her special suit behind those thick steel walls right now?)

Still frozen in place, Quenser started thinking deeply like a philosopher.

[[Image:Heavy_Object_v01_270.jpg|thumb]]

When he did, the Legitimacy Kingdom’s Baby Magnum turned its main guns toward him.

“You don’t need to think about those kinds of things,” said the princess.

“Gyaaahh!? Isn’t that a little too much firepower for a joke!? And it was the Information Alliance Elite that brought it up, not me!!”

Having been brought back into the discussion, the Elite in question spoke up through her speakers.

“Heh. Oh ho ho. It seems I need to strip off this high-leg leotard-style suit and cool off my glorious G-cup body!!”

“R-really!? I didn’t know a single sentence could hold so many attention-grabbing terms! I know our princess’s suit is already on that end of things, but why would the Information Alliance go that far!?”

“It was the designer’s request. Oh ho ho.”

“…!? Now, I have no intention of defecting, but if that’s an actual occupation over there…!”

“Don’t be stupid, Quenser. Don’t get those sparkles in your eyes over the Information Alliance’s obviously fake information!! If it was actually a high-leg leotard, it would have no way of tightening around the legs for pressure resistance!!”

“Oh, you saw through it. Too bad. Oh ho ho. It does indeed cover my legs, but it instead has slits in various places to let me easily get the cooling spray inside. …And some of those places are in even more risqué places than the slit on a school swimsuit.”

“Hey, Heivia, could that one be true!?”

“Quenser!! If you keep latching onto everything she says, you’re just going to let her get under the princess’s skin!!”

After Heivia punched him in the face, Quenser came back to his senses.

(Weren’t we just about to take control of an enemy base? Why was my head filled with nothing but the shyness of a pure girl and the sexiness of special suits?)

“We have to continue with the mission,” said Quenser, working up some motivation.

“In that case, there is still a job left for you to do. Oh ho ho,” announced the Information Alliance’s Elite. “Oh ho ho. We have a request from the local tribes. Because these genetically altered forests are unnatural, they want us to burn them away.”

“Oh, right. We need to change this area to our side’s color,” responded Quenser. 

The princess then spoke up in a slightly apologetic tone.

“If we wanted to, we could burn it all away in an instant with our Objects, but…”

Using the low-stability plasma cannons powered by the Object’s reactor, everything above ground and even things deep in the ground could be burned away. However, the Oceanian tribes saw the land as sacred, so they did not want it damaged any more than necessary.

“A bit of destruction and a bit of restraint, hm? Sounds like a superhero from an American comic book to me.”

“Apparently, the Cultural Protection Agency is protesting that term. They say they should be called Capitalist Corporation comic books since the country known as ‘America’ no longer exists.”

“It’s because they get so worked up over pointless crap like that that no one likes them.”

As Quenser and Heivia argued back and forth, flickering flames roared up in numerous places throughout the nighttime forest. The Information Alliance powered suit unit had activated their flamethrowers in preparation to light the fires.

“Hey, we don’t have powered suits or anything. We aren’t going to get caught up in the flames are we?”

“It’s still safer than a defoliant though.”

Suddenly, some static came from Quenser’s radio followed by a transmission from an ally.

After listening for a bit, Quenser switched it off and turned to Heivia.

“We have a minor job to take care of. We need to check for villages in the area before the fires are lit.”

“Can’t they use a UAV or something?”

“Actually, is it really okay to burn the villagers’ houses?”

“Contact Froleytia over your radio and talk to her about it. Apparently, the coalition forces are going to take care of getting them relocated afterwards. And since the tribes were half forced to move here in the first place, they probably don’t mind abandoning it all to get their original lifestyle back.”

They complained, but they were still glad to be doing ''something'' before leaving. And so, the Legitimacy Kingdom and Information Alliance troops began the search while keeping an eye out for landmines or traps.

“According to the map, our area is 3 kilometers square. If we find an old cabin or something in that area, we need to knock on the door and check it out.”

“War is surprisingly boring. Well, it’s better than having it be too exciting I suppose.”

Quenser and Heivia walked along while chatting about things like how stupid they would feel if they stepped on a landmine, but they suddenly stopped.

The forest had suddenly opened up.

They were standing atop a small hill about 7 or 8 meters high. A rainstorm or something had caused the front of the hill to collapse, so it was a bit like a cliff. And at the bottom of that cliff was a small village with only about 20 buildings.

If that was all, they would only have had to gone in and given them an evacuation warning.

The problem was the military truck blocking the entrance to the village.

Oceanian troops had come to the village.

Quenser and Heivia had assumed all the fighting was over, but they now had to frantically get down on the ground. Quenser looked through his binoculars and Heivia through his rifle scope.

“(…Damn. Why is it always us that has to have the exciting things happen to them!!)” complained Quenser in a whisper. “(The princess and the other Elite were ''just'' fighting over there. Did they not hear any of that!?)”

“(How should I know!? Maybe they’re a reconnaissance unit. They may have informed their higher ups where our Objects are and are stopping by here on the way back,)” replied Heivia casually. “(So what are we going to do? It would be a pain to handle this on our own, so how about we call in the Objects?)”

“(No, wait. They would certainly notice something that large approaching. They might take the villagers as hostages. And think about the specs of the Objects. The princess’s may have those anti-personnel lasers, but the Information Alliance’s just has that gigantic rapid fire beam cannon Gatling gun. That would just blow the entire village away.)”

From what they could see from atop the hill, the Oceanian soldiers did not seem about to shoot the villagers or set the village on fire. When they looked closely, they could see an old man who seemed to be the village chief handing money to a man in a military uniform.

“(Is that this month’s ‘rent’ or something? It looks like something they’re used to doing.)”

According to the map, the area they were in was near the border between Oceanian land and coalition land. The village must have been created in order to aid with the loading and unloading of cargo from trucks going between the two and inspecting the contents.

Heivia made a general inspection of the enemy troops through his rifle scope.

“(There are about 20 of them. Each of them is armed with an old-style rifle with a grenade launcher attached. Since there’s only the one truck, there are unlikely to be any more of them that we can’t see. What do we do?)”

“(What do you mean? It’s not like there is anything we can do.)”

“(Yeah, I guess not. Taking on a force while outnumbered 10-to-1 would be pretty stupid.)”

Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance and were overcome with exhaustion.

If the enemy troops gathered all the villagers in the center of the village and were going to shoot the men and rape the women, they would have no choice but to fight, but it did not seem things were headed toward that worst case scenario. After the usual payment of money and items was complete, the Oceanian soldiers would likely leave the village. Quenser and Heivia just had to wait until they were gone to give the evacuation warning.

If they started a firefight in the village, it would likely just increase the number of victims.

Also, Quenser was a combat engineer, so he only had explosives. The only practical weapons they had were Heivia’s rifle and handgun. When there was no real reason to fight, neither of them wanted to start a fight where they would be at a disadvantage.

However…

“(Hey, wait. Something’s wrong,)” said Quenser as he looked through his binoculars.

The Oceanian soldiers who had been standing idly about before had suddenly begun to move. They were holding up the rifles hanging from their shoulders and searching for an enemy with nervous expressions. Meanwhile, the women and small children were fleeing for the buildings.

“(What happened?)”

“(Look, Quenser. Over there!)”

Heivia pointed toward an open area in the village. Someone was collapsed there. It was a man wearing an Oceanian military uniform. Blood was gushing from the center of his body. He had likely died instantly.

“(That doesn’t look like heat stroke to me.)”

“(So…What? Heivia, did you accidentally shoot him while looking through your scope?)”

“(How stupid are you!? Do you really think this shitty rifle has a silencer so amazing you wouldn’t notice I had fired it while you were lying right next to me!? Also, he fell in the wrong direction for it to have been me!!)”

Quenser looked in the direction opposite of the direction the man had fallen.

What he saw was…

“(That’s the border with the coalition territory… Was he shot from beyond it? So did someone purposefully throw a ‘pebble’ in from outside their territory?)”

Suddenly, a slight bit of static came from Quenser’s radio. He thought he was getting a transmission, but he was not. Small bursts of static continued intermittently.

“(Bursts of static at 0.8 second intervals… I think that’s coming from a long sight for sniper rifles! It uses lasers and electromagnetic waves to assist in the aiming.)”

“(Huh? No proper military device would broadcast its sniper’s presence so obviously. Is some idiot using some piece of crap to pretend he’s part of some volunteer army or something!?)” said Heivia angrily, but then a sour look appeared on his face. He then held up his rifle and groaned. “(Oh, shit. Not good, not good, not good!)”

In addition to the optical scope, his rifle could pick up infrared and ultraviolet and it had a microphone for searching for enemies. Since he had the headphone in one ear, he must have been listening in on the conversation between the villagers and the Oceanian troops using the microphone.

His rifle was pointed toward the one soldier and the old man who seemed to be the village chief.

“(What? What’s not good?)”

“(I don’t feel like taking time to explain it properly, so I’ll just act it out. ‘Damn you, you tricked us!’ ‘No, you’re mistaken. We would never do something like this.’ ‘Shut up. We’ll kill all of you and burn this village to the ground!’)”

“(I think ‘not good’ was an understatement!!)” said Quenser in shock. 

Heivia then turned to him for his opinion, asking “(What are we going to do?)”

“(If we called in the Objects, they’d probably just shoot everyone before they arrived.)”

“(So what are we going to do!?)”

“(Well, we don’t know where this sniper is hiding and those Oceanian troops are just going to cause unnecessary harm if we don’t do anything.)” Quenser stabbed electronic fuses into the Hand Axe he had been specially issued. “(We have no choice but to just do it!!)”

Already fed up with the situation, the two nodded and began to move.

Quenser started throwing the explosives he had stuck fuses into from atop the hill. They landed a bit away from the village, but Quenser sent the signal to detonate the Hand Axe anyway. The repeated explosions sent the Oceanian soldiers frantically running behind buildings for cover.

In reality, it was only a student throwing explosives, but they likely thought it was anything from a mortar on up to a tank. The repeated explosions needlessly increased their worries.

Next, Heivia began firing one shot after another.

To hide from the new enemy, the Oceanian soldiers had hidden from the wrong direction. Heivia could see them sticking their asses out toward him and trembling, so he easily picked them off one by one. In an exciting firefight, Quenser and Heivia would have been hopelessly outnumbered, but their disturbance tactics were completely one sided.

“(Hey, I’m not going to be able to shoot them all!!)”

“(Once you take out a certain number of them, won’t they just cast off their pride and flee into the forest? They don’t seem noble enough to fight to the last man to me.)”

“(Hey, Mr. Battlefield Student, they don’t seem to be fleeing. They look like they ''are'' planning to fight to the very end!)”

“(Dammit, it’s that sniper! He’s shooting at them again! He’s aiming to cut off their route of escape, so they can’t flee even though they want to!!)”

The longer the battle went on, the higher the odds of the unrelated villagers getting hit by a stray bullet. Quenser and Heivia had no reason to insist on absolute victory, so they did not care if the Oceanians escaped into the forest, but the mysterious sniper did not seem willing to let that happen.

Suddenly, a plump man who seemed to be the commander looked up at the hill.

He gave a command with a gesture and all the soldiers held up their rifles.

“(Oh, shit! They’ve figured out where we are!!)”

Quenser and Heivia frantically moved back. Immediately afterwards, a storm of bullets flew their way. Since they were shooting up at the cliff-like crumbled hill, the hill acted as a shield for them.

“(Luckily we’re far enough away that those cheap old-style grenade launchers can’t reach us.)”

“(Before long, they’ll have a force circle around and flank us. Hey, Quenser, can you set up some explosives to cut off their path before they get here?)”

However, before they could do anything more, someone grabbed their shoulders and yanked them backwards.

They frantically spun around and found Information Alliance infantry.

“(I’m not sure what the situation is here, but we’ll help out. We can send in our powered suit unit and have this finished in less than five minutes.)”

“(Five minutes, hm? Not bad, but it’s already too late.)”

Heivia pointed with his chin toward the bottom of the hill.

Various collapsed forms could be seen from people getting caught up in the firefight within the village. And they did not all belong to the Oceanian soldiers. Some of them were villagers who the soldiers had shot in their desperation.

Also, a great number of children’s toys were scattered about from where someone had knocked them to the ground in their hurry to escape.

Among those toys covered in sand, dirt, and blood was a single picture book. They were some distance from the village, but the details of the cover could be seen through a rifle scope.

The title of the book was The Kind Beasts of the Rocks.

It was the same book they had seen the local girl holding outside the barricade to the coalition maintenance base zone.

Heivia clicked his tongue and threw his rifle to the ground.

“(Fine, I get it. This is fucking war. Innocent women and children are killed for no good reason. …Do it. Go kill all those god damn Oceanians.)”

The Information Alliance man nodded silently and gave the order to the powered suit unit. Paying no heed to the downpour of bullets, they jumped down from the top of the collapsed hill.

“Hey, I found him,” said Quenser as he put down his binoculars and pointed.

He was not pointing at the village. He was pointing at the border between Oceanian and coalition land.

“I found that sniper. Look, he isn’t Oceanian or coalition. It’s one of those reporters. He’s switched out his camera for a rifle. That explains why he isn’t using a proper military sniper sight. He was starting a battle for his own personal satisfaction. Maybe he’s one of those mercenaries turned cameramen Froleytia was talking about.”

“Okay,” said Heivia as he picked his rifle back up from the ground. He then turned to the Information Alliance man. “We’ll take care of the sniper. I won’t feel satisfied until I’ve punched him a few times.”