Editing HEAVY OBJECT:EX Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 7===

“Gyah!!”

Quenser flinched back from the intense wave of heat and tried to flee back inside.

But the sole of Frolaytia’s boot kicked him in the back and pushed him back outside.

“We can’t turn back now! If the leader slows down, the odds of survival for everyone following you drops!! You started this, so get going, Quenser!!”

“Dammit! What the hell is going on!?”

Half in desperation, Quenser ran out into the outside world that reeked of gasoline.

There was nothing but fire as far as the eye could see. The heat was like a solid wall and he thought it would burn his hair away. Black smoke caught in his throat. On top of that, the swarm of crickets had not been wiped out. They broke through the screen of flames and smoke to rush toward this new “food”.

Sharp pain reached him through his uniform and the duct tape, but not because he was being bitten. It was the pain of them flying into him. He knew that, but a strange sweat still covered him and he felt like they were eating him to the bone. The source of the pain also seemed to be gradually shifting.

A dull vibration reached him from behind. He could not look back because it would throw off his sense of direction, but the detention barracks had probably toppled over. There was no going back. There were no safe walls or doors. He could only continue forward.

(My compass! The compass in my hand! I need to calculate the distance using my steps…)

He looked down at his hand to shake off the nightmare around him.

Someone was lying on the ground nearby and he tripped over them.

“Wah, wah! Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

He lost his compass as he tripped and he had no way to search for it with the low visibility. And who had that been? Had the explosion taken them out or had they been eaten by the bugs? Just what was going on here?

His mind started going blank with panic, but then someone grabbed his arm and tugged him forward.

It was Eric from the Faith Organization.

“It’s okay. We’ll be okay!! If we make it eight hundred meters southeast we can get through this, right!? I have a compass! We can survive together!!”

“W-wahh, wahhhh!”

“It’s too late for that guy back there. He isn’t moving. But we’re alive, so we have to survive this!!”

Only after Eric grabbed his shoulders and yelled into his face did Quenser regain his focus on reality.

He shook his head and spoke while covered in bugs.

“Sorry. Let’s go. Let’s survive this.”

“That’s more like it!!”

Eric slapped him on the back to urge him onward. The Legitimacy Kingdom and Faith Organization shared a compass to slowly advance.

“What happened to Skuld? Why are you alone!?”

“Don’t look back! We got separated almost immediately. I’m worried about her too, but we can’t afford to lose our sense of direction. We can only pray that the others are heading this way too!!”

It was like a journey through hell.

There was nothing but black bugs and red flames as far as the eye could see. Eight hundred meters to the southeast was the shortest distance, but it was all over if they found a wall of flames in their way. They could not let themselves be enveloped in flames, but they also could not hope to bypass the flames with so little visibility. If they tried, they would lose their sense of direction and lose track of where their destination was.

They were nearly praying as they walked.

The pain of the crickets striking their bodies forced them to continue focusing on reality.

They could not keep up even the mental capacity necessary to think about time, distance, direction, or even the distinction between enemy and ally. Their minds went so maddeningly blank that they nearly forgot their own names. They became machines that simply moved their legs in silence.

Even so, they made it.

Without running into any walls of flames, their hands reached the distant storage building’s wall.

“We did it…”

Even in the middle of hell, Quenser smiled.

“We did it, goddammit!! We’ve finally arrived!!”

They had apparently been near the head of the group, so they grabbed the doorknob for the human entrance with bugs still covering their bodies. Fortunately, they did not find that someone else had already taken refuge there and locked the door. It opened like normal and they poured inside.

Frolaytia and Elfily arrived together.

There was still no sign of Skuld, the Pilot Elite who had been with them when they had left.

“Hurry,” said Elfily. “Hurry up and shut the door. This is all meaningless if the crickets get inside!!”’

Quenser turned around in shock, but the eyes behind her glasses were serious.

“We can’t! We can’t do that, Miss Elfily! There are still Faith Organization prisoners out there. They risked their lives to reach this building! If we shut them out, they’ll all die!! We’d be betraying them after convincing them to do this!”

“The same fate awaits them if the building fills with crickets. They can’t escape hell whether they arrive or not, so shutting the door is the only option!!”

“We can’t…”

“They would have shut us out if the roles were reversed. We just happened to get here first. That’s all this is. Or am I wrong!? Do you have some proof that they would have let us in!?”

“I don’t care if they would or not!!”

“Shut the door, Quenser Barbotage.”

The student heard a quiet metallic sound as Elfily pulled a handgun from her waist and aimed it at his face.

Still, he shook his head.

“Shut the door, Quenser!!”

She shouted at him, but he pressed his back against the open door. Even if she shot him, he would collapse against the door and continue to hold it open.

Just as she clearly clicked her tongue, the second group arrived.

Then the third and the fourth.

As the number of Faith Organization soldiers grew, Elfily lost her influence. She would be unable to deal with all of them even if she fired every bullet she had on hand.

And of course, plenty of bugs flew in with the people.

There were more than two hundred people in all.

After grabbing Skuld’s arm and pulling her in last, Eric shouted from within the bugs.

“Is that everyone? Okay! Close it, Quenser!!”

“Is everyone accounted for!?”

“Yes! It really is okay! I’m not lying!! So close it!!”

He shut the door with his entire body.

A deluge of bell-like chirping filled the building. More than just a few hundred had gotten inside. The number covering the floor and walls clearly reached quadruple digits. Normally, this would mean the building was contaminated and far from safe.

But that was not the case.

“Huh? They aren’t attacking us?”

Elfily looked confused as she kept her gun in her hand and breathed heavily.

Frolaytia explained as she observed the situation.

“These are ‘brazen bugs’. They ignore the normal pyramid structure to attack even large beasts when there are hundreds of thousands of them. …But if there aren’t that many, they lose their advantage and return to being obedient bugs.”

This was just like the cricket Quenser had seen in the duct.

It had been so close by, but it had only sat there chirping. Without a giant swarm, they would not try to bite people.

Meaning…

“Split them up and they’re just bugs.”

Quenser slowly stood up.

“They don’t stand a chance against us now.”