Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume14 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 6===

Quenser, Heivia, and the other Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers were not exactly enthusiastic while listening to the energetic calls for customers and the cheers of children chasing after a ball.

But no matter how much they wanted to deny it, the Jack in the Box was coming. After targeting them, it would never let the Baby Magnum leave the combat zone. It was sure to be scrambled the instant they made any obvious attempt to go elsewhere.

…This city would soon be a battlefield.

First and foremost, it was impossible to evacuate the silo city’s hundreds of thousands of people in such a short period of time. Not even the ten thousand on the surface would be able to descend to the nuke-resistant area deep underground in time. The battalion only had enough vehicles for their own personnel of less than a thousand and not even all the city’s personal cars and transport vehicles could carry them all. Plus, even if they had enough vehicles, sending them all out at once would only cause a giant traffic jam before even arriving in the wasteland. The Faith Organization was sure to act before they got out.

So as the base commander, Major Frolaytia Capistrano turned that basic idea on its head.

Quenser, Heivia, and the others repeated their orders.

“We need to build a maintenance base zone here as quickly as possible! Once we do that, international treaties allow us to protect the city from the Jack in the Box’s shellfire!!”

They were to place the mobile maintenance base right on top of the silo city.

The traditional clean wars began and ended with a clash between Objects, so it was difficult to end up with the maintenance base zone’s soldiers fighting each other. Some battles had of course gotten out of hand and the maintenance base had been directly targeted, but this would make it much more difficult to target the base zone than if they just left it alone. It also increased the people’s odds of survival.

“It doesn’t matter if we can’t evacuate everyone before the battle begins,” agreed Quenser. “We just have to keep the evacuation going during the battle and continue getting the surface people down underground. The area below the bedrock is built to resist a nuke, so it should hold up for a bit while that thing is rampaging around.”

The Legitimacy Kingdom was not exactly a pure and innocent hero either. To defeat the Jack in the Box, they had to turn a toxic adhesive into mist, spread it all around, and then get it to react by frying the air. If the winds were just wrong, their sea of flames could reach the city’s surface area.

They had to succeed here and remove the threat.

And the soldiers would act as meat cushions to buy enough time for that.

That was all they could do.

Heivia spoke while knocking down and restraining a middle-aged man who seemed to be a local policeman…no, a sheriff.

“Let’s ask him for some information. Top priority is the cargo entrance to the underground area. We can’t just wander around warning people with megaphone, right?”

“Yeah, that would cause a major panic. In the worst case, we would have a riot and looting on our hands. Our timetable would fall apart and there would be no stopping the Jack in the Box.”

That was why they could not just spread the necessary data online and leave the rest to the local police. If they did not know how the information would spread, everyone would be slaughtered for sure.

Onsite “cooperation” was absolutely vital.

After all, there were more than ten thousand people on the surface. Even if they could protect them from the Jack in the Box by setting up their maintenance base zone right on top of the silo city’s location on the map, they did not have time to deal with extra chaos.

They had to take control of the police station and other peace keeping agencies, explain the situation to the authorities, and convince them to cooperate. Fleeing outside the city would only put one in more danger, so they could abandon vehicles on the main roads to create a traffic jam and prevent anyone from rushing off in their private cars. Information from the traffic control center and help from the TV and radio broadcast stations were crucial to get the people to evacuate underground.

Their enemy was time. The fuse had already been lit.

So they did not have time for arguing. If it came to it, they would “convince” people with the muzzle of a gun. Every second or hour wasted could mean game over and the Jack in the Box would turn everything to ash.

“Being a hero ain’t easy…”

“I could never trust some idiot who introduces themselves as a hero in full-body tights who’s perfect and above reproach. I can only assume they’ve gone around killing everyone who had a problem with them.”

The tied-up sheriff was pale and trembling, but he managed to force out a voice.

“I-I won’t talk! I’m not going to help some Legitimacy Kingdom berserkers. Even if the Faith Organization helps us out with food and temporary factory work, we’re still a civilian-ruled pacifist city!!”

“Now this guy is a true ally of the people. But how are we supposed to convince him, Heivia? Without violence, I mean.”

“It violates military regulations, but showing him all the photos of the Jack in the Box would probably be fastest. Or maybe tell him about the hexavalent chromium or what the mine detector kept picking up. Let’s bet on how many photos before he has a change of heart.”

“I’ll go with 10. Loser takes the winner’s next toilet-cleaning duty.”

“You sure believe in his pacifist conscience. I was thinking it would only take 5.”

The sheriff must have thought they were going to show him a pile of scorched corpses because he grew as white as a sheet. Heivia lifted him by the collar and sighed.

“Hey, old man. You mentioned temporary factory work, right?”

“…I won’t talk.”

“Then shut up and listen. The Faith Organization has set up giant circus-like tents for the local people to work in temporary factories. It’s simple work that creates Object parts. Yes, they have you making those gigantically huge springs.”

“…”

The sheriff looked on the verge of tears as he turned toward Quenser this time.

Quenser too shook his head.

“Just listen. Steel’s properties change based on the impurities mixed in. For example, chromium. Get the ratio just right and you have stainless steel, but the Faith Organization is using hexavalent chromium. We’ve found it in the soil around here, so there’s no doubting it.”

“Wh-what does…what does that matter…?”

“You didn’t know? No, you probably weren’t told.”

Quenser spat the words out toward someone who was not here. He wrinkled his brow like he had a headache as he continued.

“Hexavalent chromium causes serious damage to the environment. Most safe countries have emissions limits on it. That’s why they’re making their parts out here where it doesn’t count. And polluting your bodies all the while.”

The fat sheriff’s throat caught, but no voice came out.

His face was soaked with sweat. No, was that even sweat by his eyes?

“Have any of the people working in the factories suddenly disappeared?”

The nightmarish revelation continued.

“I don’t know how they’ve been explaining that away for you, but the truth is simple: when someone’s body gets too polluted, they collapse.”

“That can’t be true…”

“Unfortunately, our metal detectors won’t stop going off. I don’t know if it’s pocket change or wristwatches, but it’s definitely not mines or empty cans. We didn’t like driving over them, so we tried to avoid the areas where the bodies were buried as much as we could.”

“You’re lying!!”

The sheriff cut in with a sudden shout. He grabbed something at his neck and clenched his teeth. What was this wounded animal of a man wearing there? Quenser remembered.

It was a necklace made from a ring on a thin chain.

Something like that would produce a metal reaction. So could it be…?

“That can’t be. That can’t be, that can’t be, that can’t be!! I mean…that’s…this city is built on the Faith Organization’s good will…she was…and the technicians…and the factory chiefs…they’re only at the hospital…that’s why they aren’t here…uuh…I’ll see her again soon…she’ll be all better any day now…ahhh…waaaaahhhhh!!”

He was so confused that he could not even produce intelligible language toward the end.

Too many examples may have come to mind. But if he accepted it, something would break inside him, so he was struggling to deny it with all his might.

“Hey, is this really the right thing to do, Quenser?”

“It is. It’s right, but it isn’t anything more than that.”

The teenage boys had a complex look in their eyes as they watched a man more than twice their age have a complete breakdown. They had done and seen something they should not have. That was how it felt to them.

But they could not place a hand on those trembling shoulders.

Because something else happened first.

A deafening explosion erupted in one corner of the city and unhealthy-looking black smoke stained the sky.

It was not that far away. Only two or three buildings from them. The noise hit them like a solid wall, so Quenser was nearly knocked from his feet and clung to the side of a nearby truck.

A high-pitched monotone sound rang in his ears as Heivia opened the bulletproof truck’s door, used it as a shield, and moved his mouth. Quenser could not hear his voice, but based on his lip movements, he seemed to be asking what idiot had done that.

“That was from the hangar market. And it would’ve been full of housewives at this time.”

When sound returned to him, the first voice Quenser heard was the fat sheriff who should have still been on the ground.

“Oh, right. The Faith Organization will know. They’ll know the secret behind the hexavalent chromium and the factories!!”

“Ah, you dumbass!!”

Heivia reached out his hand, but he just barely missed the man’s shoulder. With a mysterious burst of energy, the civilian slipped away and ran toward the explosion. The ring swayed as it hung from his neck like dog tags.

Did he want to learn the truth, or to deny it?

“Oh, hell. What do we-…argh, stop already, dammit!!”

Quenser’s awful friend aimed his assault rifle at the man, but the threat was powerless against someone who was throwing their life away. Holding up someone who you could not afford to kill had no effect whatsoever.

Heivia clicked his tongue and glanced over at the four-wheel-drive truck, but then Quenser took off running after the middle-aged man.

He was not exactly confident in his athletic ability, so it was mostly his lack of a driver’s license that helped make up his mind.

“C’mon, Heivia! That guy might be stupid, but he hasn’t done anything wrong!! Not one thing!!”

“Okay, fine!!”

Heivia reluctantly gave up on the truck and ran after the sheriff.

He may have decided running full speed was faster than turning the key to start the engine for a distance of only two or three buildings.

“But what was that explosion!? Did someone from our 37th go berserk!?”

“It didn’t sound like our equipment!!”

So was it the Faith Organization? Or had someone acquired weapons from them?

A voice amplified by a megaphone reached them from beyond the buildings.

“Beloved lost sheep!! Our hateful enemy, the Legitimacy Kingdom, has arrived! Your parents and your children, your lovers and your families, your friends and your teachers!! If you wish to protect all that you hold dear, take a weapon and protect those threatened lives!!”

“Did the bastards fake an attack to stir up hostility against us!?”

“Even if it doesn’t wholly succeed, it might create a gray zone where no one knows which side did it. In that case, any riots could be directed at us too. We have to do something and soon!”

All the surrounding houses shut their doors and windows.

A cellphone fell from overhead when someone dropped it while shutting a second-story window. It was vibrating in silent mode and, when they grabbed it to check the small screen, they saw an emergency email from the Faith Organization.

“This could hardly get worse…”

“We don’t have time to complain. We just have to solve one thing at a time. Starting with that sheriff!!”

The silo city had been developed down into the depths, so tall buildings did not seem to act as a status symbol. They pursued the sheriff while surrounded by small buildings that stood only three or four stories tall. Meanwhile, they heard more explosions and what sounded an awful lot like gunfire.

“It’s the Legitimacy Kingdom! The Legitimacy Kingdom is attacking!! Get the women and children indoors!! I repeat, make sure you get the women and children indoors!! You never know what they’ll do!!”

“They have some nerve saying that when they’re lying to the people’s faces and polluting them with hexavalent chromium…!”

An armored truck covered with speakers (presumably for proselytizing) drove by, so Quenser and Heivia quickly hid behind cover. The fat man was nearby, gasping for breath and trying to chase down the mass of steel.

“Has that idiot completely lost it? He’s trying to stop an armored truck all on his own!! Is he not afraid of a heavy machinegun or grenades!?”

“I think he still wants to trust the Faith Organization. He’s afraid of reality catching up to him. He thinks everything will fall apart if he feels fear here.”

“If we don’t catch him soon, he really will end up as mincemeat! Why do I have to chase after some sweaty fatass and tackle him to the ground when it’s so damn hot!? This is the worst!!”

“We’re the ones that made him feel so cornered, so we can’t let him die.”

The source of the black smoke turned out to be a large shopping mall. The boxy building appeared to be two or three stories tall and it may have had as large an area as a domed stadium. And that meant it had a large parking lot with nothing to use as cover. There was only one word for this situation where they could be targeted from any direction: shitty.

“A-ahhh, ahhh, ahhh!! He’s running right down the middle of the parking lot! Is he ''trying'' to get himself killed!?”

“No, wait. There’s something el-…”

Quenser was cut off by the sound of thick tires digging into the ground. A Legitimacy Kingdom military truck screeched to a halt right in front of the two idiots. The khaki-colored mass had a thick heavy machinegun on the roof and small Myonri sat in the driver’s seat.

That star member of the 37th gestured upwards and shouted to them.

“Use this as a shield to get closer! We’ve sent some drones out, so we can draw the enemy fire until the aerial footage has marked the enemy’s location!!”

But Heivia did not listen at all and climbed up the wall to the machinegun on the roof. He sprayed armor-piercing rounds toward the armored truck trying to turn around in the parking lot and it was torn apart like a plastic toy.

But that was as far as he got.

The bastard kicked the driver’s seat headrest through the opening in the roof and yelled a warning to Myonri.

“Get out!!”

Quenser simply stood there throughout. Myonri rushed out of the door and Heivia jumped down from the roof.

Immediately afterwards, the armored military truck was blown to smithereens.

The close-range blast really did knock Quenser from his feet this time. He saw the burning scrap metal bounce once and then roll, so he did not have time to choke. He half-crawled half-rolled to move as far along the scorching asphalt as possible to avoid being flattened.

It was lucky he had been breathing out. If he had been breathing in when the explosive flames swelled out, his trachea and lungs would have been fried.

“Oh…gh…”

But what had that been? It had come from a different direction than the armored truck turning around in the parking lot.

His fingertips were almost convulsing as he reached out his hand, but Heivia grabbed that hand and pulled him to his feet.

“We need to hurry behind that exhibitionist of a nude statue! We have to use that concrete pedestal to shield us from the second blast! Hurry!!”

“Wha-?”

Quenser was still confused after being practically dragged behind cover, so sooty Heivia shouted an explanation.

“That was an elastic grenade launcher! Those are anti-tank weapons that use a thick coil spring inside a launch tube! It’s just a spring, but they can still launch a grenade 500 meters. And since they don’t use an explosive to launch it, there isn’t any sound or smoke. They have their downsides, such as an unstable ballistic path and a reload time of more than two minutes, but nothing could be a bigger pain in the ass for a surprise attack!!”

The spring weapon reminded Quenser of something.

“So it really is the Faith Organization!?”

“More importantly, what do we do? If we’re pinned here, the sheriff and the others are done for…”

Myonri’s question reminded him of something else.

“About that. Isn’t there way too little blood for a civilian city being hit by military might?”

“…Huh?”

Confused, Myonri observed the large parking lot once more. Sure enough, some cars had caught on fire, but there was no sign of any bodies. Housewives and employees were fleeing the shopping mall which was large enough to contain a school building or gym, but none of them were shot in the back as they ran around the open space of the parking lot.

Quenser looked back to the exhibitionist statue’s pedestal. It had a metal plate bearing the words “Wide Area Wartime Shelter”.

“The Faith Organization is guiding the people too. The gunfire and explosions are only meant to scare them.”

“But what for!?”

“To ensure the people are worried about their basic necessities instead of starting a riot! To take back the hearts of the people! A wide area wartime shelter should have plenty of food, water, blankets, and tents, so if they take over this shopping mall, they can control at least the ten thousand people on the silo city’s surface!”

“So they’re destroying everything themselves and then handing out supplies? Will that really work?”

“Didn’t you know that most war reconstruction is funded by the winner? No matter how unreasonable the situation, people will accept it if they can get back to their normal lives. So we have to stop this no matter what. If that sheriff keeps asking about his ring and the truth behind the hexavalent chromium, he might be treated like an irregularity. In other words, they’ll pull the trigger and silence him with a bang.”

“Yeah, but how do we get across this parking lot that’s larger than a soccer field!? You saw that elastic grenade launcher blast! Even a full-body combat cyborg would be blown to bits!!”

“Heivia, where do you think the Faith Organization is firing from?”

“Huh? Since there are burning cars scattered around the parking lot, wouldn’t it be from the flat roof of that shopping mall? Not that we can see them from down here.”

“Myonri, you said you sent some drones out, didn’t you? You were planning to work with the operator to locate the enemy, but can you still contact them?”

“Y-yes. With the parallel processing machines out of order, the electronic simulation division was fighting over the control panel like at an arcade.”

“Then have all the drones drop straight down. Onto the shopping mall’s flat roof.” Quenser quickly made up his mind. “It doesn’t matter if you hit them or not. We’ll run across while the Faith Organization is looking up into the air in fear of an attack. We can run 50m in seven seconds with full gear, right?”

The attack began.

Sturdy crane flies two sizes bigger than the ones sold at electronics stores and online stores grew visible as they dropped down one after another.

Quenser clicked his tongue as he ran out from behind cover.

“Tch, you could’ve put more of a time delay between them! That alone would’ve extended this distraction!!”

“Wait, are we seriously doing this!?”

The sudden start left Heivia initially cautious, but this was their only chance. Screw it up and they would be forever pinned behind the exhibitionist statue’s pedestal.

The enemy must not have been all that frightened because short bursts of gunfire continued even while they were panicking. Orange sparks burst from the asphalt nearby, but they could not stop now that they had started running. They could not risk anyone being hit by a stray bullet, so they avoided the glass door letting people out and instead ran toward the nearest section of the shopping mall’s wall even though there was no entrance there.

Heivia had started running after Quenser, but he easily passed the other boy.

“Elastic grenade launcher!!”

A man in a military uniform leaned out from the edge of the flat roof and supported something like a rocket launcher on his shoulder. Even if he missed by a bit, they would be caught in the blast. And leaping away from the blast would not be enough to avoid it.

However, a drone fell straight on top of him.

Even if it was lightweight, it still had a military-grade aluminum frame. And when falling from high enough, even a pinball could become a deadly weapon. The Faith Organization soldier was hit by the drone’s sports car-like frame, his helmet and skull split open, and the explosive was launched in a harmless direction.

Quenser’s group had finally reached the mall’s wall, but they did not stop there. The wall was made of glass and an industrial wrapping sheet had been placed over that to keep the light out. They tackled the glass, broke through, and rolled into the shop.

Among a row of registers, Heivia ran over to a shocked Faith Organization soldier who was surprisingly close by. He swept the enemy’s feet out from under him and fired his assault rifle at point blank range.

“Goddammit, do we have to fight an indoor battle against who-even-knows how many people!?”

“?”

That was when Quenser heard something crinkle underfoot.

He moved his boot and found a scrap of paper with a bloody footprint on it.

“Warning from the Venerable Elder: The final battle with the Legitimacy Kingdom devils draws nigh.”

“You’re kidding, right? Are they still spreading their faith during all this!?”

“Honestly, wasn’t that what they were after the whole time?”

They could still hear the megaphone voice outside, but it was echoing too much to understand anything it said anymore.

Heivia had to groan.

“The value of god tends to skyrocket when you’re faced with a threat you can’t handle yourself. That’s why they’ve created their own catastrophe so the teachings of god will sink in more easily. It’s easier to spread your faith in unstable times than in times of peace.”

That was also why they had started a battle between Objects right in the middle of the tense standoff between the Capitalist Corporations and the Information Alliance.

That created enough tension to feel like the end of the world was approaching.

But they also made sure the threat was just small enough to avoid the actual destruction.

“B-but,” asked Myonri. “Will these people really be swayed by their claims if they’re only saving the people from the weapons they themselves fired???”

“What you see as the truth relies a lot on your point of view. They’re claiming the Legitimacy Kingdom is causing all the trouble and the Faith Organization is going out of their way to do the dirty work needed to evacuate everyone to safety. And they’ll probably explain away their insurgents violently taking over the mall by calling it a planned redistribution of personnel. In emergencies, the people with guns will grow bolder and the people without guns will want to rely on them. They might just be able to remake themselves from conquerors to dark heroes.”

Anyone could figure out which side was telling the truth if they compared all the data and rationally analyzed it, but the people caught in the middle had essentially been thrown into a giant three-dimensional maze. Only people like Quenser’s group who had military connections could prepare the kind of environment needed to find the answer.

“This is not going to be fun… Once they pass a certain point, they might create a sort of ‘atmosphere’. Enough people will be saying it’s true to silence those with doubts and everyone will just go along with it.”

“B-but this is a silo city of hundreds of thousands of people if you count the underground portion.”

“There’s only about ten thousand on the surface and they’re something like a small village society cut off from the rest of the world. I just hope this doesn’t get as out of hand as the Salem witch trials.”

Just then, they saw someone running by the home carpentry shelves while giving no thought to lines of fire or cover. He had already broken the rules, but he seemed to seriously believe no bullet would hit him.

“It’s that panicked sheriff!”

“We can talk later! We need to restrain him first!”

Quenser shoved a nearby shopping cart into empty space so the eyes and guns on the first floor and the atrium’s second floor would focus on it. Heivia and Myonri fired on the unnatural movements that produced while they also charged from the register area to the home carpentry section.

“From this, I’m guessing they haven’t taken over the security room and gotten control of the security cameras.”

“More importantly, that fatso. Damn, why couldn’t it be a revolver-worshiping cute gunman girl in tight shorts? This is really affecting my motivation!!”

Heivia’s hands finally reached the sheriff.

He grabbed the man’s shoulders, spun him around, and prepared to slam him to the floor again, but Myonri held her small submachinegun out toward a shelf of power tools.

There was a burst of gunfire, but she did not stop moving. Before Quenser could voice his confusion, the shelf collapsed toward them. By the time he realized it had been tackled from the other side, Heivia and the sheriff were trapped beneath it.

Quenser fell on his butt and just barely avoided the same fate because Myonri pulled him back with her empty hand. She then faced the Faith Organization soldier who had walked up the diagonally-collapsed shelf and was preparing to fire his assault rifle. She fired a 9mm bullet from her submachinegun onehanded.

But this was no time to adore that scene of a surprisingly active girl.

After breathing a sigh of relief and looking back, Quenser saw another Faith Organization uniform.

“Ah, ah, awahhh!?”

His mind went almost entirely blank and he slapped on Myonri’s calf, but the stubbly middle-aged man aimed his military shotgun before the boy could finish communicating the threat.

Just before everyone was turned to mincemeat, the shotgun man tripped and fell backwards. Spray paint cans had apparently tumbled out of the fallen shelf and the man had stepped on one.

This was his only chance.

Quenser tearfully leaped toward the fallen soldier. Quenser was on top, but the man used just his arm strength to punch the boy in the bridge of the nose and the boy’s vision grew white. Instead of looking for a weapon, his searching hands were looking for some kind of support to keep him from collapsing backwards, but they happened across a rough device. And instead of a unit for sale, this was apparently a display unit used for instore demonstrations.

It was a chainsaw meant for chopping down trees.

“Ah.”

Already, the Faith Organization man was slipping out from under Quenser and pulling a handgun from the holster at his hip. It would take less than three seconds to flick off the safety with his thumb and take aim. Quenser needed to go all out if he was to survive. Even a moment’s hesitation would mean death. At any rate, he had no time. And unfortunately, his opponent was not a cute and sickly little sister. It was just some macho man.

He had his answer: His own life took precedence here!

“No…I’m really not that cruel a person…ah, ah, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The roaring sound effect was one heard more often in comical splatter films these days than in serious horror films. Battlefield Student Quenser Barbotage tearfully learned just how difficult the device he held was to keep under control and just how much blood and whatnot splattered back onto him.

The details will be skipped, so here is the pure result: Sliced vertically in two.

“Gyahhh!!”

There was a scream and the sheriff took off running again after seeing Quenser covered in blood. (That was just blood, wasn’t it?) He apparently was not the type to have his legs give out when it really mattered. And Heivia sounded utterly exasperated.

“I can’t really blame the guy. No one would think someone so soaked in red was here to spread love and justice.”

At any rate, they had to rescue that sheriff. If he had fled, they had to give pursuit.

That was when they heard some muffled gunfire overhead.

Heivia seemed to understand just from the sound.

“…Those aren’t our guns.”

“The Faith Organization then.” Bloody Catastrophe Quenser looked up to the ceiling. “But what are they firing at now?”

Quenser, Heivia, and Myonri walked cautiously across the first floor and found the stairs up to the second floor.

Someone waved at them there.

They had found another group in Legitimacy Kingdom uniforms who had apparently entered through a different route. Surprisingly, Base Commander Frolaytia was with them, handgun drawn.

“(What are you doing here? You’re the commander, aren’t you!?)”

“(You pawns didn’t do your job, so the king was caught in the firefight. And Quenser, what happened with you? Did you get caught in some kind of ritual!?)”

The gunfire continued.

In fact, it seemed to be intensifying.

“(Be on your guard, everyone.)”

On Frolaytia’s instructions, the two teams climbed the gently curving stairs. This seemed to be a section for children’s toys. But that meant things like plastic trains and train tracks, not video games.

They heard some kind of argument.

One side seemed to be that sheriff. But who was the other side?

“What is this about hexavalent chromium? Why do metal detectors go off in the ground around here!? You’re with the Faith Organization, so you have to know the answer!!”

“Shut up! Can’t you tell we have more important matters to deal with!?”

“More important matters!? Do our lives mean nothing to you!?”

“So it didn’t take root in you. Then I’ll show you what happened to those people…by doing the same to you!!”

Heivia and Frolaytia clicked their tongues and started forward.

Just as they entered the children’s toy section, they came to a stop.

A colorful world awaited them there.

Being a fancy toy section was not necessarily a good thing.

Couldn’t a cute mascot look creepy depending on where it was located? For example, seeing the head of a mascot costume at an abandoned amusement park, seeing a mascot sign for a pharmacy or cake shop in the garbage dump, or seeing a stuffed animal floating in a muddy river.

This was an extreme version of that.

The Faith Organization soldiers were sliced despite their bulletproof jackets and they collapsed with blood erupting from their wounds.

And the smiling dress-up dolls and mascots had all that red liquid dumped over them.

This death was not brought by bullets or bombs.

Some were stabbed and others were sliced diagonally.

The battle still raged on.

On one side was the Faith Organization armed with short-barrel carbines and grenade launchers. On the other side was a mysterious group carrying assault rifles that decorated cutting-edge weapons with old-fashioned wooden stocks and bayonets.

However, neither of those were the crux of the issue.

“…What the hell…?”

Heivia observed through his assault rifle’s sight and his fingertips seemed frozen in place. That was how much difficulty his brain was having processing the sight.

It was a katana.

[[Image:HO_v14_189.jpg|thumb]]

That single silver blade was taking life after life.

At the center of the mysterious group was a silver-haired man wielding an Island Nation sword. He wore a glossy black tailcoat that looked better fit for a stage magician than the host of an evening party and most certainly did not suit a wasteland of dried stone and cactuses. The hands holding the hilt were even covered by white gloves.

Normally thinking, a sword had no way of defeating guns. But when this man danced, the Faith Organization soldiers equipped with the latest gear were cut down with bizarre ease. When one soldier tried to put together a spring-powered anti-tank weapon, the warhead was sliced in two. Others were decapitated when their necks were horizontally slashed since they tended to have little to no bulletproof gear there.

Quenser was overwhelmed by that storm of blood, but Heivia noticed something and frowned.

“Wait…it isn’t that this katana guy is super skilled. The bayonet group is using their bullets to move the Faith Organization into range of his blade. They’re like hunting dogs driving the prey out of the bushes.”

That meant this was a stage prepared for the tailcoat man to enjoy hitting an enemy whenever he swung his sword. He got to live out his knightly fantasy of a sword defeating guns.

Which side were they supposed to target first?

There was no time to hesitate. The last Faith Organization soldier kicked away the sheriff clinging to him, tried to hide behind cover, and was pinned in place by bullets. Then he was cut down as the store shelf he was using as cover was sliced diagonally through by the katana.

That was a frightening demonstration of skill, but it was also an opportunity.

When you grasped victory, were freed from the tension, and breathed a sigh of relief was exactly when the grim reaper would smile your way on the battlefield.

“(Split up, fire on them from two directions, and drive them to the window. But don’t hit the sheriff on the floor there. If we don’t give them freedom to move, we can manage…)”

Heivia tried to communicate with the others using hand signals, but then Frolaytia raised a hand. The military was a vertically structured society. If their commanding officer intervened, they had to obey no matter what.

“O…”

Frolaytia was the one who finally spoke.

The sadistic, busty, and silver-haired commander sounded confused as she spoke to the tailcoat young man who took an almost transparently thin piece of Island Nation paper from one of the bayonet soldiers who apparently worked for him, folded the paper in two over the back of the katana blade, and wiped off the blood and fat.

“Onii-chan, what are you doing here???”

That had done it.

All the rules governing humanity had collapsed.