Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume17 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 8===

It was undeniable that the hurdles toward becoming a soldier had dropped considerably with the introduction of the clean wars. A lot of soldiers were sent to a maintenance base after spending only around half a year learning to use a gun and more as a game than anything. And for that matter, peopled like Quenser were not even soldiers; they were students.

So what good was a Special Training Unit in an age like that?

They were the elite of the elite who recruited promising individuals from within the military and gave them additional training to become the kind of special forces seen in movies. That additional training was not something you could complete just by spending enough time on it like with low-wage part-time work. There were documentaries on the harsh training those people underwent, but it was best described as giving them harsh external stimuli to change them. There was a famous story about a safe country comedian known for his crazy stunts explaining with a straight face how it had been too much for him: “I’ve ridden some creature I couldn’t even identify, I’ve done a reverse bungee jump in the nude, and I’ve even been tricked into going into outer space, but the trial training I attended there is the one thing I couldn’t handle.” A strange survey even said the best way to get a stubborn child to go to bed at their bedtime was to tell them a lady from the Special Training Unit would come for them if they stayed up late.

Heivia looked dejected after regrouping with the others.

“Does that busty commander want to kill us? What did we ever do to her? I heard anyone who has received the ‘TLC’ of the Special Training Unit ends up being a monster who can trek across the Northern Restricted Zone barefoot. So even without all this trouble she got us into, she was already planning to work us to death this holiday season.”

“No, um, I think Major Capistrano did this because she cares about you! It has apparently been bothering her how quickly she goes through soldiers, so she pulled some diplomatic strings to ask the 7th for some skills training.”

“Hold on! Does that mean that Santa mission was a set up too!? You purposefully got the higher ups mad at us so you could train us on that hellish holiday tour!?”

“(Well, um, that was really just a mistake on my part and that made it hard to come out and explain who I am or why I’m here. No, I should probably keep that part a secret.)”

“Elise, did you just about let something crucial slip out there???”

The two idiots might have normally put her in some tortoise shell bondage and kicked her down the snowy slope, but they did not feel quite so comfortable doing so now that their relative positions were so unclear.

Also, there were plenty of things they were more worried about at the moment.

“Um, Elise? What if – hypothetically speaking! – what if – heh heh, eh heh heh – we said we don’t want that skills training?”

“I happen to know the perfect way of waking up my adorable students when they start daydreaming about silly things like having a say in the matter. Soaking up to the shoulders in an ice bath for 30 minutes will erase most naïve delusions from the mind☆”

Quenser’s balls shriveled up more than any other time that year.

The glasses woman grinned.

“(Don’t think I have forgotten how you treated me all this time.)”

“Teach, you need to have a carrot to go along with the stick!! Where’s our reward!?”

This was the kind of brainwashing that would kill people. If they obeyed Elise, they would probably become the perfect soldiers, but they would also lose their free will as a human being. They were not about to live a life of adoring those boobs while shouting “yes, ma’am” with utterly pure and vacant expressions on their faces. They wanted those boobs as a standalone product, not part of a dangerous package deal.

But anyway…

“So, Elise, does your position outside of the 37th tell you anything about what the Body File is?”

“Unfortunately, no. Due to the 7th Special Training Unit’s unique position, we exist outside the standard military hierarchy. After all, we are meant to train people, not fight on the battlefield. That Body File sounds like part of some kind of conspiracy, but I have no idea what it is.”

Quenser was not skilled enough to tell if she was lying or not, but he decided it was unlikely she would be hiding some secret here. For one thing, they never would have seen the term without the mobile device she had stolen from the 21st. Even if they had stepped on the landmine itself without realizing it, Elise could have just not given them that device if she was trying to hide it.

“The enemy is working with their Second Generation to kill us by hunting down any light source on the mountain,” said Quenser. “We’ll be trapped like rats even if we try to play dead here. We need to get away from here and find a weakness in the Crystal Scrying before they can close in on us.”

“Are you serious?”

Heivia quickly got down on the snow after hearing rotors beating the air overhead.

A military tiltrotor was aiming a searchlight around. It had probably carried a bunch of soldiers and snowmobiles from the opposite eastern side of Mont Blanc. Its bulky shape looked somehow brazen because it was showing off its belly while the Princess was still out there fighting with so many anti-air lasers at her disposal.

Heivia continued speaking while waiting for it to pass.

“Information on Object’s is as classified as it gets. We aren’t going to find a manual lying around on the mountain somewhere!! And that crazy-suspicious Body File thing is probably hidden in some vault or on a classified server. It isn’t mineral water, so it isn’t going to well up from the ground when we dig a hole here in the Alps!!”

“Elise.”

“Oh, yes. When a student’s innate determination is insufficient, it is a teacher’s duty to kindly increase it for them. Shall I start by sticking a firecracker up your ass?”

“Okay, I’ll do it, so please no!! Do you not know how the male body works, you ditzy teacher!? There’s an etiquette to teasing that part of our anatomy!”

They started on an advanced and specialized topic of conversation, but they could easily imagine what they needed first if they were to get some information on the 21st Mobile Maintenance Battalion.

Sexy Teacher (of the gentle and clumsy type) Elise Montana stated the simplest way to get the information they craved.

“We need a soldier from the 21st. The previous ones were blown to bits, but let’s leave the next ones more intact so we can actually speak with them.”

“I’m not sure they’ll be willing to talk.”

“Getting everything out of them might be difficult, but we may be able to get the passwords for the individual files on the mobile device.”

“Why do I have to spend my holiday fighting fellow Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers and hunting down filthy old men? We’re in the European wilderness, so can’t we at least run across a slender, long-eared elf?”

That said, it was a simple answer. If they wanted to know about the 21st, it was best to ask someone from the 21st. And since the 21st was attacking the 37th with delight, they could hardly complain if they were counterattacked by those would-be victims.

But the 21st was not going to show up on their own.

Well, they would, but giving the 21st the initiative would mean being surrounded and waiting for certain death.

They had to make the move themselves.

They were in the complete darkness of a snowy mountain at night. Plus, they were not on a single route up to a log cabin or to the peak, so they had to wander around until they found their prey. The risks were endless: falling, slipping, getting lost, hypothermia, and ferocious animals awoken from hibernation. A mountain climbing guide might question their sanity if they heard about it.

“Okay, let’s get started.”

With that, they began their walk through hell.

Nowhere was safe. Snow blown from the slope created a cloud like cotton candy not far away. And that cloud formed an unnaturally straight line.

One of the 21st’s tiltrotors was flying just off the ground to intentionally scatter the snow. Just like a summer mist shower, the small snow crystals would cause vaporization heat and make the already freezing mountain feel even colder. Once the 37th’s potatoes could stand it no longer and used a fire to warm up, the Crystal Scrying would fire on them.

If they toughed it out, they would freeze to death. If they tried to warm themselves, they would be blown up.

The enemy was using unorthodox hunting methods here because the soldiers feared being held responsible if they tried to do everything as instructed and screwed it up. The 21st no longer saw any chance of them losing.

And in fact, the Princess did not seem to have the focus to spare to save her allies on the ground. Even if she did shoot down the tiltrotor with an anti-air laser, the flaming wreckage would only act as a giant light source. It would only make the 37th’s soldiers suffer even more.

Was the Body File really this important?

They had no idea what it was and had no way of knowing if they really had stepped on that landmine or if the 21st was simply mistaken.

Elise Montana kept walking even as she clenched her teeth at being unable to help the allies she saw suffering so close by.

“The 21st is getting carried away,” she said while taking the lead. “Because they caught us by surprise and are in fact keeping pace with their planned schedule. Also, hunters cannot truly hide themselves. Once they start viewing the fleeing enemy as their prey, the biggest threat becomes friendly fire instead of the enemy’s small fangs or claws. So even when hiding, they need some way of saying ‘I am here, so do not shoot me by mistake’.”

Quenser and Heivia may not have seen it since they were following after that glasses woman’s butt, but Elise Montana gently licked her lips while wielding the stolen machine pistol.

“And that creates an opening. It makes them easy to find.”



“Ugh!?” quietly groaned a 21st infantryman who had made the mistake of checking the time on his watch, which had a cover but still used glow-in-the-dark paint.

The woman from the hellish Special Training Unit snuck up behind him, but she could not shoot him since a muzzle flash would cause the Crystal Scrying to immediately fire on them. Instead, she covered the victim’s mouth from behind and pressed a pen-like pneumatic injector full of a sleeping drug against the side of his neck.

She did not need to worry about sterilization or disinfection with an enemy soldier. Or perhaps she was the type who felt more hostility toward embarrassments on her own side than toward foreign enemies.

“You two grab his arms and legs and carry him somewhere else since that tiltrotor is flying around unpredictably. Hmm, this is about the Body File, so this is bound to be a long talk. We might also want to use that mobile device, so I hope we can find a glacier cave or something.”

“Wait, why do you instructors get the good stuff? No fair! We don’t get to use sleeping drugs!”

“This is for emergency use to help out the children who have trouble sleeping in the cold. Do not underestimate the mountain nights. I can adjust my own internal clock, so I do not need it.”

Quenser and the others lugged the 21st soldier into a cave made entirely of ice. It may have been a tourist attraction during normal times.

“Let’s start with a standard check of his belongings.”

His radio and mobile device were a must. Paper maps were a valuable source of information, so you always wanted to check what was hand-marked on those.

They did not find the Body File as any sort of paper document.

Of course, that was expected when the 21st wanted to keep it hidden.

The hands on the poor victim’s watch were pointed up.

The hour hand, the minute hand, and the second hand were all pointed directly to the top, so…

“Tah dah. Happy New Year,” whispered Quenser.

“For some reason, I don’t feel like celebrating,” groaned Heivia next to him.

They did not feel like anything had changed and dawn felt a long way off. The heavy darkness would be with them for a while longer.

Elise turned back toward them.

“Oh, can you two head further into the cave?”

“Why? I don’t want to walk around needlessly and fall into a crevasse.”

“This boy here is about to wake up and on-site interrogations are always a dangerous endeavor. I have performed a body search, but you don’t want to be around if he removes the pin of a grenade he has hidden somewhere, do you?”

Teachers apparently knew very well how to make naughty boys’ balls shrivel up.

The two idiots could only obey after hearing that. The busty blonde glasses woman waited until they were out of sight before getting to work.

“Now, then.”

After tying the enemy soldiers’ hands behind his back, she lightly tapped on his back. The 21st infantryman groaned and woke up.

She circled to his front side, crouched down, and spoke from close range.

Yes, she intentionally invaded his personal space to make this a form of close-quarters combat.

“Good morning.”

“!?”

“I don’t have to tell you what battalion we belong to, do I? You’re the ones that attacked us, after all. But hogging all the information to yourself is hardly fair. It makes you look the bad guys here. Sharing is caring, right?”

“I-I won’t talk.”

“The Body File.”

“Eek!!”

His rejection was a little too obvious.

They were clearly up to no good here, but based on that reaction, their decision must not have been based on a careful cost-benefit analysis. This seemed more like the Faith Organization. The 21st seemed to fear even hearing other people speak that name.

“Can’t you tell us? Surely we have the right to know what it is we’re being killed over.”

“You…you must be joking!! Listen, our Second Generation Crystal Scrying outside can see anything and everything. If you release me now, your good deed will not go unrewarded!!”

“Oh, it can see anything and everything, can it?”

She gave him a tormenting look.

That strongest teacher finally allowed a cruel look on her face.

“By the way, we are currently so deep inside a glacier cave that none of our lights will be visible from outside. You know what that means, don’t you? You bothered to bring flares with you, so you can’t tell me you don’t know how important light is here.”

“Wai-”

Two gunshots rang out. It did not matter that he had his hands bound behind his back and could not resist. She shot straight through both his shins. While it was a handgun, it was a .45 caliber, so the bones had undoubtedly shattered.

His scream was louder than the gunshots.

“Your shins can be repaired since they are such simple bones, so I hope you can see my good will and friendship in not shooting out your knees instead.”

“K-kahh!? Aghahhh!!”

“On the other hand, you can never descend the mountain on your own like this, can you? You have only one option left: waiting for someone to rescue you. But do you really think anyone will notice you are here if we leave you in this cave?”

His breathing grew erratic.

His eyeballs rolled around in his head.

“I…I…won’t talk. No matter what…you do to me!! This is a sign of my loyalty. I should count myself lucky I can demonstrate it in such a concrete way! Yes, this is all for the glory of the royals!!”

“Concrete? Concrete, you say? Are you sure you aren’t clinging to a formless fantasy in the face of a very real death? But don’t worry. That does not make you a bad person. Now, are you thinking I have to keep you alive as long as I need that secret from you?”

Elise smiled, pointed deeper into the glacier cave, and spoke.

Spoke cruelly.

“By the way, I happen to have another of your soldiers lying back there. I know it is cliché, but let’s go with this: whoever talks first gets to live. The Alps are a dangerous place in the winter. Whoever gets left behind is sure to freeze solid without even getting to rot.”

That was of course a bluff, but the soldier had no way of knowing that. He was in so much pain his vision was fading, he was terrified of the death fast approaching him, he felt overwhelmingly alone knowing his allies would never realize he was here, and the world around him seemed entirely under the control of this incomprehensible sadist. All of those facts helped make the nonexistent illusion of a fellow prisoner back there seem so very real.

“I want to know everything you know: about the royals you mentioned, about the Body File, and everything else. I will do whatever it takes to get it out of you. You sent an Object after us, so surely you understand that being a fellow Legitimacy Kingdom soldier isn’t going to save you here.”

He believed she would do it.

Yes, he had been unconscious, so he did not know she had asked Quenser and Heivia to wait back there. He only knew he could sense someone stirring after the ominous gunfire and screaming. And when someone was afraid, they could mistake some pampas grass for a ghost if their thoughts had been primed correctly.

That nonexistent doubt would blossom into so much more, just like a microscopic piece of dust forming the core of a snow crystal.

“Now.”

Elise Montana of the 7th Special Training Unit spoke as slowly and gently as a hypnotist.

After sealing off all paths of escape, her bewitching voice could bend people to her will.

“Now.”



Two more loud gunshots rang out.

And finally…

“You can come out now.”

The two idiots nervously did so.

“H-hey. What happened? It reeks of gunpowder smoke in here. And what happened to that enemy soldier?”

“I got him to tell me most of what we wanted to know about the Body File, so I sent him back home.”

“Really?”

“We can’t lug a hostage around with us, can we? We have what we wanted to know, so letting him go is best. More importantly, I learned something about the Crystal Scrying, so I will share that with you.”

“Okay, if you say so,” said Quenser and Heivia as they hesitantly approached her.

“Also, there is a fairly deep crevasse over there,” she added with a smile. “It’s a little hard to see, so make sure you don’t fall in☆”