Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume12 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 8===

“You damn monsters…” groaned Quenser down in the world below.

He was holding his handmade ultrasonic skull shaker like a bazooka, but he could not aim with any precision. Just like shining a flashlight on someone, he aimed in his target’s general direction to knock out everyone there, so even if he aimed at the girls moving around with such great speed, he might harm Catherine too.

And the same was likely true of the Capitalist Corporations soldiers even though their sniper rifles were specifically designed to pierce a single point.

No one could interfere. They could not protect their side of the two girls fighting hand-to-hand. Every one of their movements was too acrobatic to predict, so there was no way to safely eliminate just the enemy. Catherine knew she was outnumbered, so she was likely sticking close to the Capitalist Corporations mobile user to create just such a situation.

And the idiot had to hold his head in his hands.

“''Her'' skirt keeps fluttering up and ''her'' bikini is about to come undone!! If you’re going to take this oddly seriously, can’t you focus on that kind of threat too!?”

It was like watching two cats in heat fighting as they jumped from rooftop to rooftop.

But Quenser could not afford to just sit there and watch the catfight between 12-year-old girls.

They were outnumbered.

Quenser’s side knew that, but the Capitalist Corporations might not. They had only taken a look at the whole container yard after the trouble had begun, so it was possible they did not know that Quenser, Catherine, and Heivia were the only ones attacking. There was a good chance they would suspect those three were scouts and a large unit was waiting outside the container yard.

And Quenser’s side needed them to think that.

Now that a largescale firefight had broken out, Quenser’s side could not win if the Capitalist Corporations regained their cool.

(I guess bluffs work better during this kind of confusion.)

Before the waves of confusion could settle down, he wanted to overwrite that with an even more impactful attack. He wanted an attack large enough to surpass the limits of their hearts and drive them into a panicked flight. The best way to do that would be to take out the Capitalist Corporations’ landmark, the weapon key to their strategy, and the support for their psyches. What would that be? Setting aside how realistic it was, he knew the answer.

(The gantry crane. I guess I have to break that thing after all, dammit!!)

He had to destroy their largest weapon to drive them all back. He may have reached that specific answer due to his position as someone who went around destroying Objects to reject the clean wars.

At any rate, he made his way toward the bottom of the gantry crane that ran along the thick rails installed on the asphalt road.

As previously stated, the gantry crane was not like rooftop construction cranes or mobile cranes. Instead of fixing itself in place and rotating from there, a tower several dozen meters tall used metal wheels larger than a train’s to travel along a set of rails. Even if the rails ran front to back, the crane itself could only move side to side. Those two directions of movement meant the containers could only be moved along a cross-like path, so it was a lot like a crane game.

Meaning…

“It would be fastest to destroy the rail or wheels.”

He spoke the idea aloud because he was not confident he could actually do it.

If he could destroy one of the metal wheels or destroy a rail to derail the wheels, the giant gantry crane would be unable to support its own weight and collapse. But that first step was no easy task. Those thick metal wheels were designed to easily support a metal tower that weighed over a hundred tons, so attaching a bomb and detonating it would barely affect them.

The rails were the same. The gantry crane’s rails were embedded in the ground like at a railroad crossing, but stuffing a clay bomb in there and detonating it would not bend them. The explosive could break through a normal steel beam, but it took a lot of work to set up. The explosive had to be attached to the top of one end and the bottom of the other end to bend the beam in an S-shape and break it. That kind of work was hard to do when the rails were embedded in the asphalt.

(I’ve heard a train can be derailed if a crow places a small stone on the rail.)

He thought for a bit but rejected that idea too. The gantry crane’s weight was simply too great. Not only was the overall weight an issue, but the burden on each individual wheel was entirely different. Those heavy and slow-moving wheels would crush just about anything in their path. If he placed a bicycle or scooter along the rails, it would be smashed to pieces. Even if he used an explosive blast to knock a metal container on top of the rails, the crane would simply push it forward as it moved.

“What do I do?”

He could not destroy the wheels or the rails with his explosives.

He could not derail it with an obstacle.

“What do I do, dammit!?”

Quenser ran toward the giant wheels that were rumbling back and forth along the rails. Unlike a car, they could only follow that set path, so he did not have to worry about being hit unless he stepped on the rails. Even so, he felt a squeezing in his stomach as that great mass approached.

For the time being, he did not need the metal tube on his shoulder. He crouched down, placed it on the ground, and pulled some Hand Axe from his backpack. He kneaded the clay explosive again and again and desperately tried to figure out what to do with it.

“…”

After slowly breathing in and out, he stabbed an electric fuse into the bomb.

He had settled on a plan.

And at that very moment, he heard deafening gunfire from directly behind him. At the same time, orange sparks flew from the thick metal at the base of the gantry crane tower. Quenser quickly ducked down, but it did not help much.

Scorching pain surged through his shoulder and he fell to the ground.

“Ghhh…!!”

“Sorry, I meant that as a warning, but a ricochet hit you.”

A disconcerting sweat much too thick to be mistaken for rainwater oozed out from below Quenser’s skin as he looked around from the ground.

He saw a large dark-skinned man holding what appeared to be a Capitalist Corporations assault rifle. However, he seemed somehow different from the container yard soldiers. He was not disguised as port security and he was already fully equipped for urban warfare.

“This was unfortunate for both of us. I’m betting you were trying to sabotage the crane, but no handheld explosives would be enough for that.”

“Who…are you?”

“I’m from the money-obsessed Capitalist Corporations, so I prefer to take the enemy hostage than kill them. Spies are especially nice. I’ll send you back to your unit and they’ll send me a little spending money.”

“…”

“Get up. You’re on top of the rail. I doubt being slowly bisected would be much fun.”

“…No, I’m fine right where I am.”

Quenser held a radio in his hand.

And a short distance away, some clay Hand Axe explosive was stuffed into the rail’s indentation in the asphalt.

The dark-skinned man was not too bothered by that. Even if it did detonate, it could not destroy the wheels or rail. The gantry crane would remain standing, so the boy’s resistance was futile.

But the student had not set his hopes that high.

He could not destroy the rails or wheels with his explosives.

Derailing the crane with an obstacle was not realistic.

His situation looked hopeless, but he could not let the magic of his own words fool him. If he rationally compared the two options and chose only the workable aspects of both, another possibility showed itself.

In other words, he could use the explosive to lift up the crane and derail it.

The explosion sounded muffled, but that was to be expected when it had occurred just as the metal wheel interlocked with the rail while the clay explosive was between them, like a giant smashing herbs below its feet. The blast had nowhere to go, so it lifted up the giant wheel ever so slightly.

And that led to something that should not have happened.

The top of the solid and unshakable gantry crane tower shook somewhat.

When the dark-skinned man gave it a second look, he saw some slight space between the wheel and the indented rail.

No.

No…!!

“Tch!!”

“Shoot me if you like, but don’t let that detour delay you too much! When that crane falls, no one can predict how the containers will collapse!!”

“Goddammit!! Mariydi!!”

When he saw the wheel rising up even further, the dark-skinned man seemed to make up his mind. He removed his rifle’s sight from Quenser and ran off somewhere as fast as he could.

The gantry crane could not regain its balance now.

It was going to collapse.

“Farewell, Babel. Welcome to the age of war.”

Quenser gently smiled on the ground and then the world was smashed to pieces around him.