Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume7 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 8===

And so Quenser, Heivia, and the other soldiers exhausted from the mock battle were loaded into the back of military trucks and carried over cracked asphalt. Each and every vibration of the trucks made them feel like they had been cursed by god.

“This isn’t funny… This isn’t goddamn funny!! I lose the all-you-can-eat kill bonus and now our commander is sending us off to rescue some kid for nothing but righteous indignation!? There’s not a single good thing about this. Please tell me a girl in a micro bikini is gonna show up soon!!”

“I hear the girl who was kidnapped is nine. We need to put the work in now to enjoy a lovely micro bikini ten years from now.”

Feeling fed up with it all, Heivia looked up toward the sun.

It was so bright it looked right off an orange juice package.

“And another thing,” he spat out.

An official Legitimacy Kingdom battlefield cameraman was with them on the truck. That in and of itself was no problem, but they recognized this particular cameraman and not in a good way.

“Why is ''he'' with us?”

“I went through all the proper channels,” smoothly answered the man who had a history with Oceania.

His name was Sewax.

He had previously slipped into Oceania with a press non-combatant permit, but he had broken tons of international laws by disturbing the battlefield with a sniper rifle.

“This time, I only have my camera. I’m not armed and I have no intention of getting in your way.”

“I should damn well hope so!! I doubt you’ve made up for the lives you took!!”

Heivia almost grabbed at the man, but the surrounding soldiers held him back.

This was not because they disapproved of how he was handling this civilian. Their expressions made it clear they simply did not want a disturbance within the limited space of the vehicle.

Quenser shrugged.

“Try to keep your cool. Punching him isn’t going to summon girls in micro bikinis.”

Hearing that, Heivia clicked his tongue and muttered something in a low tone.

“Y’know, Quenser, it isn’t like all you need is skimpy clothing. What you need for a beautiful woman is-…”

“I know, Heivia, I know. It’s what’s inside that counts, right? It doesn’t matter if some side character is suddenly wearing a micro bikini. What we’re after is more than simple sexiness.”

They continued chatting as the truck shook.

They showed no concern for the deadly firefight that lay ahead.

“So about this kidnapping. Is this area really that dangerous?”

“Mafias and gangs from around the world used the confusion of this postwar period to work their way in. Plus, the remnants of the old military government are still trying to earn funds to continue the war. And since the black market has become necessary for your average citizen, the criminal organizations are being welcomed.”

“What? Oceania wasn’t that bad last time we were here. Wasn’t it pretty peaceful and wasn’t everyone smiling?”

“Haven’t you heard about the wild fluctuation of the Oceanian dollar? The assistance from distant countries and relief funds from charities have come in large amounts, but they’re sporadic. Huge amounts of money briefly come flowing in like some kind of fad or sudden idea. Intermittent support is the most difficult to deal with. You can’t rely on it as a lifeline, so the local people end up finding a dirty but stable way to earn an income and supply products.”

He could have left well enough alone, but Sewax decided to butt into the conversation.

He held up his camera.

“You have to ignore where it came from, but the quality isn’t bad. One of my lens case sets was stolen at customs, but I found an identical one on the black market. I should actually get some work done now.”

Heivia seemed to decide yelling at the man would accomplish nothing, so he restrained himself while the veins on his temple bulged out.

Quenser glanced toward Sewax.

“If they just want to profit from the black market, they wouldn’t kidnap someone.”

“I’m just saying they’re no Robin Hood. No matter what they claim, they’re villains who gather money for their own convenience. They aren’t really thinking about the starving people or the fate of the country.”

The clattering line of trucks was headed toward an old industrial city along the eastern coast of the ocean. During the time of the military nation, only the discriminatory privileged class had lived there, so it had been destroyed by an Object.

All of the nearby buildings had toppled over and large piles of rubble could be found even on the road.

Only the so-called “white targets” such as schools, churches, and hospitals remained. They were completely untouched, so it showed just how frighteningly accurate the Object’s carpet bombing had been.

Heivia let out a whistle.

“Welcome to the Mouth of Truth.”

“What?”

“It’s a sightseeing spot in Rome. If you’re a student, try studying some history.”

“I don’t know anything about the Faith Organization.”

Heivia pointed toward the scenery with his thumb. Quenser could see remains of crumbled buildings that had piled on top of each other so they looked like mille-feuille.

“They go digging through all that and grab anything they can sell on the black market like music players and cans of dried milk, but if they get too greedy, the jaws of rubble bite into them.”

“…Is this country really in that bad a state?”

“Weren’t you listening? There’s nothing they can do until the local currency stabilizes. There are even rumors that straight up bartering works better. This chaos isn’t going to calm down until our euro and the other dollars stop being preferred.”

Sewax aimed his lens out the truck and toward the surrounding piles of rubble.

“When you get down to it, the liberation of Oceania is still in a period of chaos. A lot of people are being crushed underfoot. The normal people need to use the black market for food to eat and those in too much debt to use the black market are being forced to risk their lives in places like that. And they’re either working for free or for so little it barely makes a difference.”

“Seriously? We’re about to have a firefight there. And do you know what my specialty is? Explosives.”

“The area’s too dangerous, so the local police don’t go on patrol here. And the lack of police causes dangerous people to gather. But that makes the area even more dangerous. It’s a vicious cycle. All the lower level criminal organizations are crowded in together.”

The convoy of military trucks came to a stop about two kilometers away from the abandoned building that the call to Froleytia’s phone had come from. About one hundred infantry got out onto the cracked asphalt.

“Isn’t this a bit much? You’d think we were fighting a war.”

“Fighting in wars is our job. Now let’s go, student.”

A few battlefield cameramen had come along, but Sewax seemed to be travelling with Quenser and Heivia’s group. This annoyed the two boys even further.

“If you screw up, I’m not saving you. If you get injured, I’m leaving you behind. If you bring danger to the unit, I’ll use you as a shield and escape. I don’t give a crap about international law. That’s just what I’m gonna do. Got it?”

“Is your unit really weak enough to lose to a local criminal organization?”

Depending on what the enemy did, Quenser, Heivia, and the others would be forced into one of two types of battles.

First, they would besiege the enemy headquarters while the enemy was unaware they had been traced.

Second, they would pursue the swiftly fleeing enemy vehicles and carry out a car chase on the single long line of asphalt through the desert.

Either way, they controlled the satellite above, so they would not lose track of their enemy. As they were attempting to rescue a hostage, the attack on the base would be easier than a car chase.

“Would they really think they hadn’t been traced after their call passed through a military switchboard? Surely they didn’t believe the old police dramas where quickly hanging up keeps you from being traced.”

“We need to be on our guard. They might be well equipped and plan to escape after causing some damage to our first wave.”

“I pray they’re at least that smart. They need to be a worthy enough opponent for someone as great as me to head all the way out here.”

While remaining on the lookout for traps, cameras, snipers, or other dangers, Heivia and the others travelled from pile of rubble to pile of rubble. Quenser simply followed Heivia who had more or less taken the lead.

“By the way, why was a student like me sent with you?”

“God himself insisted you don’t get to lie around in bed all day while the rest of us work our asses off.”

“But I can’t take part in the firefight,” complained Quenser.

It was unclear what exactly he was taking photos of, but Sewax was pointing his camera here and there among the piles of rubble. Quenser had no idea what pictures would be worth what.

Unlike a normal stroll, they had to climb up piles of rubble that could collapse at any moment and be on the lookout for enemy soldiers that might not even be there. Even a distance of only two kilometers, a single station’s worth in a city, was rather exhausting.

“Hey, Heivia. Do you think I’ll be popular with the girls if the lower half of my body gets big and strong? Depending on your answer, I might give up right here.”

“Eh? Do you mean that in a dirty way?”

As he received an answer which earned a perfect 0 points, Quenser really did curl up on the ground. Heivia was forced to grab the stubborn child’s arm and drag him along.

“Look! That bastard Sewax is pointing his camera at you!!”

“It is my job to bring people the truth of the battlefield.”

“If you don’t want to be a source of international shame, stand up, Quenser!! Start walking!!”

As per their instructions over the radio, they arrived at a spot where they could look down on the abandoned building. Heivia clicked his tongue.

“Dammit. It’s a hospital. It survives the bombing and now it gets used for this. Let’s download a diagram and the distribution of people inside, so we can slaughter them all.”

“Just out of curiosity, what ever happened to rescuing the hostage?”

Of course, if they just had to kill everyone inside, there was no need to charge into the building. They could bombard the building from a distance and destroy it entirely.

Based on the distribution of enemy soldiers they received from the satellite, Quenser and the others used their sensors in a variety of ways to check on the details of the people inside.

“This is a pain in the ass. There are over fifty people in there.”

“Here we go. On the first floor…what is that place? Looks like an internal medicine examining room. Anyway, I found a child bound with duct tape. Oh, dear. And she has a blindfold, earplugs, and tape over the mouth. Um, I don’t see any other abducted children.”

“This is the world’s least rewarding place to peep. Let’s get this over with and peep on our huge-breasted commander’s bath.”

“Did you know that joke violates the rules regarding classified information?”

The one hundred infantry split into five groups and Quenser’s group took their position.

Sewax was still with them.

“So we get a student and a cameraman. How much variation does one unit need?”

“If you don’t need me, I’ll go set up a parasol and fall asleep. I’m not here because I want to be.”

“You all get to show the people back home that their tax money is being well spent. You should be thanking me.”

Heivia put up with a headache and spoke into his radio.

“The kid is on the first floor. Everywhere else doesn’t matter. You can make the corpses as gory as you want, so use your wall-penetrating rifles to shoot them on my signal.”

“Understood. Will you be using your pistols out of concern for the child? Seeing any corpses at all will probably traumatize her, but go to the extra effort if you want.”

“There are some lines you don’t cross. Then again, deciding where that line is for yourself is getting a bit self-righteous.”

Quenser and his group were not bothering with the strictly-guarded entrance.

They instead made their way to the outer wall of the examination room the abducted child was confined in. Quenser placed several Hand Axe plastic explosives on the wall in a systematic fashion. He finished the setup by stabbing electric fuses in.

“I’m ready.”

“Just to be sure, the explosion isn’t going to blow out the kid’s eardrums, is it?”

“We saw she had a blindfold and earplugs, remember? If we handle this well, she won’t even see the corpses. So what’ll you do, PTA?”

“Tch. Let’s do this. On a count of three.”

He casually counted down three seconds.

Immediately afterwards, an explosive noise burst out. It had actually been 53 anti-materiel rifles being fired simultaneously, but the timing was so perfect that it sounded like a single explosion.

At the same time, Quenser hit the switch on his radio while pressing against the wall.

The outer wall was blown to pieces and the filthy men inside the room were knocked to the ground. Before the criminals realized what was happening, Heivia and the professional soldiers stepped in and did not hesitate to pull the trigger.

Phase 1 took only five seconds.

Phase 2 was taking out anyone they missed in Phase 1. The existence of some leftovers who had luckily escaped the anti-materiel rifles was proven by short bursts of assault rifle fire.

“Clear?”

“Clear, clear. Help me out here, Quenser. Let’s hide the corpses before removing the kid’s blindfold. C’mon, Sewax, you help too!!”

“This was a hospital, so is there a mop and bucket anywhere?”

They could not remove the blindfold with corpses lying all over the place, but the duct tape covering the girl’s mouth could keep her from breathing. Quenser approached her and gently removed the tape over her mouth.

He expected her to cry.

But she did not.

“Run!! Hurry!!”

He had a very bad feeling.

He belatedly realized her clothes bulged out oddly and he gently lifted them up.

He saw a cell phone and colorful leads.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!!” shouted Heivia.

At the same time, someone in a distant place pressed a speed dial button.