Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume18 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 8===

At that moment…

“What if you knew the world would be destroyed tomorrow?” asked a speaker on the stage in a large school’s lecture hall. “That is a very simple hypothetical, but its simple scenario helps inspire your imagination. Now, what would you do in that situation? Would you give up and accept it, or would you fight to the end? Would you return to your old favorites one last time, or would you try to experience as many new things as you could? Your answer to these questions might just point to who you really are deep down.”

The voice spilled out into the hallway.

''That’s a tricky question,'' thought a middle-aged man. His boss got mad at him if he did not use up his paid leave, but he had nothing to do when he did take a weekday off. That was why he had decided to take a look at his son’s school. Of course, his son was not actually here since he was a battlefield student, but the man could not have taken this look if his son was here. Teenagers loathed having their parents invade their territory.

Some called this school a den of eccentrics, but he could not see anything particular unusual about it. Then again, the eccentrics here may have been intelligent enough to blend into society when they had to.

The school contained a variety of departments that were all doing their own research and experiments, so there was a lot out on display: next-generation cities, clean energy, the possibility of developing Mars due to the limited land on the moon, etc. It was probably all arranged to be accessible to outsiders, but just reading through the names was difficult enough.

“They really are doing a lot here.”

Adults learned how to make general statements to save face at times like this. Even though they knew that avoiding the issue in that way would prevent them from learning anything new as they grew older.

There had been a time when he had thought he would know everything there was to know about the world once he grew up.

Once he had whittled away his childish side, he had assumed he would know how to rid himself of all of his childhood worries.

But in truth, growing older only led to being bowled over by how complex the world was.

He heard a beeping from the smartphone he carried mostly because his family insisted on it. He had received three messages in a row from the same person on a social media app he was still not used to using.

“Where are you?”

“I’m starving already. You aren’t out getting something to eat on your own, are you?”

“And you’re the one that got lost, right? It wasn’t me who wandered away, right!?”

He was looking after that girl at home, but she was not his blood-related daughter.

His son would sometimes come to him with a problem. Like with that girl Monica who was now living her best life as an idol.

His son was never around, but he always felt like he was closer to the boy when looking after those people for him. His son was a kind boy, so he could not sit idly by when he saw someone being slowly dragged to their doom on the conveyer belt of death. But the boy was not the best at considering the consequences of his actions, so he would sometimes find himself in a jam and need some help from his parents. But that imperfection was what made him so adorable.

The man did not know much about the girl living in his home.

He did not know how she had ended up with him, what problems she carried, or what secrets she held. His mind had grown so inflexible in adulthood he could not even imagine the answers to those questions.

But that was fine with him.

A father was there to help when his child came to him.

He was working to be the kind of man he felt his former childish self would have been proud of.



At that moment…

A girl was walking down a large road. This metropolis was seen as the world’s safest home country, but she still should not have been walking around without any bodyguards. She was the daughter of the Vanderbilt family. As usual, she climbed through a window, cut across a women’s locker room, removed her security buzzer that constantly tracked her location, tossed it into the air so it caught on a delivery drone passing by, and managed to escape the cramped parade of black bulletproof vehicles that insisted on following her around.

(There isn’t even anywhere I want to go this time. I think I’ve started to enjoy simply outwitting those professionals.)

She was aware she was developing into something like a wealthy shoplifter, but she still enjoyed the brief freedom this bought her.

A few smiling children ran past her. There were a lot of food stalls along the side of the street. She wondered if they were holding some kind of event here, but then she saw the poster on the side of a streetlight and quickly hid behind a vending machine.

The poster said, “This is the place if you want to catch a glimpse of the Vanderbilt daughter! She passes through here on the way to and from her lessons!!”

(H-has this country never heard of privacy!?)

She had thought the crepes, ice cream, roe pasta, and hot dogs sold at the food stalls were oddly well matched to her tastes, but that was apparently the result of careful research. And the stands along the road were not just selling food. They also sold opera glasses, zoom lenses for phones, and even disposable cameras in this modern digital age. She was not quite sure how to react when she realized they were all spying tools meant for use on her.

After buying a pair of old-fashioned red and blue 3D glasses sold there as a joke and putting them on, she continued her stroll.

Her life was so restrictive and predictable, but she could still make new discoveries when she tried.

She understood none of this had just been dropped into her lap. Her peaceful life was only possible thanks to the people crawling through the mud as they moved between battlefields all over the world. She was not a military expansionist. In fact, she focused on peaceful and philanthropic activities meant to bring an end to war. But she knew there were people out there fighting to hold things together until the day that ideal could actually be realized.

“Master Heivia,” she muttered while looking up into the sky.

It was a bright and sunny day perfect for hanging laundry out to dry, but that blue felt somehow heavy.



At that moment…

Bloodrics Capistrano entrusted himself to the rhythmic beat of hooves. Flying cars existed these days, but he was using a four-horse carriage. They were not all that unusual in a large Legitimacy Kingdom city like this. Although most of those were tourist attractions, so a carriage owned by a private family with its own dedicated coachman was indeed quite rare.

(The truly powerful families actually avoid this sort of tradition. Insisting on all the formalities is really a sign of desperately trying to look the part because you fear you will be found out as an imposter.)

He let out a gentle sigh.

“Are you sure about this?” asked the maid seated across from him.

He tilted his head.

“About what?”

“You could have taken your private jet to the shelter in your villa on the outskirts.”

Cowards gathered information because they could not rest easy without listening in on everything.

That was why they received all the information that the more powerful families might miss.

The young noble smiled a little.

“That would change nothing.”

“But…”

“What good is a dingy basement with only half a year’s worth of food and water? That’s just a slow burial over the course of half a year. It would only make for a strange sort of execution.”

Bloodrics had no one seated next to him.

The neighboring seat instead had a sheathed Island Nation sword known as a katana leaning against it. Although mastering that blade had not allowed him to protect anyone he cared about.

His smile gained a tinge of self-deprecation.

“If my adorable little sister fails, then I die too. I will accept that fate. What point is there in living in a world without Tia-chan’s smile?”

“…”

“You are awfully faithful yourself. Maids do not follow their masters into death these days. Why did you not run away?”

“Because life in a world without you would only bring me pain.”

She did not hesitate for even a second.

He recalled that she was much too skilled to be serving a small-time noble like him. With a single letter of recommendation, she could have gone knocking on the door of any family she liked – even the Winchell or Vanderbilt families. Yet she did not. There would of course be a reason for that.

Just like Bloodrics had strayed from the path laid out for him in life so he could protect his sister who refused to obey their family’s traditions and let herself be used as a tool.

This simply meant he too had someone who refused to abandon him.

“What an awkward person you are.”

“That makes two of us.”



At that moment…

A girl gripped the control column in the cockpit of a colossal nuke-resistant weapon.

This was not about her work or her private life.

She had been surrounded by emptiness, leaving her with only herself here in the cockpit as she she looked up into the sky.

“Quenser…”



Death came for everyone the same.

And wars were not determined by morality or emotions.