HEAVY OBJECT:Volume8 Chapter 3

Status: Incomplete

10/15 parts completed

   

Chapter 3: Eyes of the Goddess Glowing Deep in the Darkness >> All-Out War in the New Caledonia District

Part 1

The theoretical idea had existed for a long time.

For example, an anti-ship missile fired from a submarine or guided missile destroyer would fly just a few meters off the ocean surface while travelling at speeds greater than Mach 5. It was created to slip past the Gatling guns and other close-in weapon systems, blow a hole in in the side of the enemy ship at the waterline, and ensure the ship flooded.

Just as mirages were used for fighters to escape anti-air lasers, those anti-ship missiles were the representative enemy the earliest Objects were designed to face.

If the missile was loaded with a small nuclear warhead, it was feared an Objects’ anti-air lasers and a satellite interceptor would be insufficient to protect a large city on the coast.

One suggestion put together as a countermeasure was to use mines or shells to produce tremendous pillars of water which would form a thick enough wall to knock the missile from the air. The liquid might seem soft to a normal person, but it became a tremendously solid wall to something flying at Mach 5. Striking the wall would tear the missile apart in midair.

Ultimately, getting the timing right proved extremely difficult and the idea was abandoned for a long time. Once improvements in parallel processing technology for anti-air laser targeting radars considerably raised the anti-ship missile interception rate, everyone forgot about it.

That unique technique was forgotten by the flow of time.

It should have ended there.

Should have.

“Agh, this is hopeless! There’s no way we can win!!”

A soaking wet Quenser flailed around while lying face up on a giant ship’s deck. The NTR girl named Mariage Nightcap was sitting nearby with her legs bent back to either side. Even if New Caledonia was in the southern hemisphere, they were still shivering from being soaking wet in the darkness of the night.

The pouring rain had stopped at some point, but that allowed them to focus more on the cold night air.

The Megalodiver was not there.

Once that New Model had retreated for some reason, Quenser and Mariage had been picked up by Legitimacy Kingdom hovercrafts. The innocent prisoners had also been collected from the containers they had been dumped into the ocean inside. All of them had then travelled back to the disguised cruiser known as the Scarlet Princess that Frolaytia was using as a flagship.

They had somehow escaped death, but it was not over yet.

They could not relax until they knew why the enemy had left (or rather, overlooked them) and the higher levels of the Legitimacy Kingdom military had decided to continue the attack, so they would be tossed in front of the Megalodiver again.

They had to find some way to defeat it during their short break.

“B-before even getting to the Tatami Shield, how does it detect things so accurately using only sound?”

“What?”

“Using sound to detect enemies is what submarines do, but that only works because sound propagates through water faster than air. Plenty of things can exceed the speed of sound in air and the Megalodiver needs to keep up with that supersonic world.”

“That thing isn’t evading after detecting the shells the other Object fires,” spat out Quenser while still lying on the deck. “It’s detecting the subtle noises of the targeting lenses and cannons moving and using that to predict where the shells will be fired. That’s how it can ignore the barrier created by the speed of sound.”

The situation would change if the enemy Object itself could exceed the speed of sound, but the Baby Magnum could not move that quickly.

“B-but! There are explosions everywhere! Both active sonar and directional microphones would be useless!”

“That’s the entire damn point! It can distinguish just the sound waves it wants out of the intense noise created from all those different waveforms colliding. I don’t know what kind of supercomputer it has installed to analyze that in an instant, but it’s definitely doing it! Crushing its ears would be difficult. We need to find a way to defeat it despite being detected, but I’m not sure anything like that exists! I’ve had enough of this!!”

A girl approached as Quenser began flailing around on the deck once more.

She was the Pilot Elite princess who wore a skintight special suit. The maintenance soldiers were working as quickly as possible to exchange the battered Baby Magnum’s parts, so the princess had nothing to do.

“Quenser, did you just say I’m weak?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Did your lack of screentime turn you yandere!?”

“You definitely said it. You said you have to do something about this because I’m weak. If you keep saying that, I won’t provide covering fire for you.”

“Hold up!! That’s a death sentence in the clean wars ruled by Objects!!”

Quenser frantically sat up, but an odd weight obstructed his movement. He looked over and found Mariage still had her arms wrapped around his neck and her ample chest pressed against him.

He had a feeling an ominous shimmering began to rise from behind the princess.

“And who is this Holstein in sheep’s clothing?” asked the princess.

“In the red corner, Mariaaaaaaaaaage Nightcaaaaaaaaaaap!! I distinctly remember there being a detailed explanation during the pre-mission briefing!!”

“I want to know why she’s clinging to you like cheese toast!!”

“I’d like to know the same thing! What are you doing!?”

“Eh…eh heh heh. I still don’t feel like I was rescued. I can’t relax unless I do this.”

Mariage was essentially saying, “I’m afraid of the Megalodiver attacking if we don’t hide my heartbeat. I know I’m worrying too much, but I want to overlap our heartbeats.” However, the aura behind the princess only grew more ominous.

“Ahh, this really calms me down.”

“Quenser, you can go fight a war with nothing but two lumps of fat.”

“Wait. Wait a sec, princess! This girl is the type who’s pulled around by others! She’s the NTR type!! I already fell victim to that in the Château de Rouge! I know letting her manipulate me is not a good idea!!”

“But you still tore me away from that mean jailer in the very, very end.”

“…”

“That was to find a weakness in the Megalodiver, you backstabbing slut!! And I was caught between the jailors’ full-auto shotguns and that Object. Of course I’m going to kick a dirty old man in the face to survive!!”

“My policy is to cling to the strongest-looking guy in reach.”

“Then go join the Megalodiver! We’ll blow you away along with it!!”

“…”

“Oh, c’mon. If I joined the Megalodiver, you’d complain but still come to rescue me.”

“Like hell I would! Not this time!! And after this is over, I’m definitely reporting to the higher ups that you betrayed me at the end there. I hope you’re prepared to be thrown in prison for some weird crime or another!!”

“Saying ‘after this is over’ makes your hesitation plain as day. I can tell I’m on the safest route here.”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Excuse me.”

If words had heat, the words that leaked from the princess’s mouth might have looked like flickering flames of phosphorus.

“The problem lies in this unique harmony between you two. Who do you think actually put her life on the line to stop the Megalodiver?”

“W-w-w-w-w-wait, princess! Stop climbing on top of me and shaking me by the collar!! My brain’s gonna turn to butter!! Gbh! U-ugh. I can’t even enjoy the lovely sensation sitting on my stomach like this!!”

“Hey, this is no time to be horsing around,” cut in a new voice.

The voice belonged to Heivia who had dragged Quenser and Mariage onto the Scarlet Princess’s deck. He was looking to the port side of the disguised cruiser rather than at Quenser, Mariage, and the princess.

“This isn’t funny. Our armed cruise ship is coming up alongside us. There’s no way this is going to end well.”

“ ‘Our’? You mean the Winchell family?”

Quenser looked over while working to tear Mariage from him.

A new majestic silhouette had appeared on the ocean to replace the Megalodiver.

The giant ship was just as gorgeous as the (seemingly) perfect and luxurious Scarlet Princess.

“That’s the Summer Vacation.” Heivia did not sound happy. “That must mean they’re onboard.”

The two ships were only about five meters apart.

The Summer Vacation had a happy-sounding name and looked like a luxurious cruise ship, but it had gigantic cannons and the Gatling guns of a close-in weapon system attached here and there. Unlike the disguised cruiser, this ship made no intent to hide the weapons. There was no sign of compartments to store them.

The watertight door on the side deck opened and a horizontal row of its crew exited.

They all had one distinguishing feature.

“Why are they all maids?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Why are you doing your best to not look me in the eye? Don’t tell me this is related to some kind of conflict in your noble family.”

While Heivia grew oddly withdrawn, their own watertight door opened and Frolaytia walked out onto the deck with several bodyguards.

All the maids bowed, but Frolaytia did not salute in return.

“Private soldiers of the Winchell family? What are civilian bodyguards doing here?”

The oldest (using height and bust size for reference) maid who wore an eyepatch replied. The maid uniform did not suit her.

(It can’t be! I thought only cruel, scarred sergeants were allowed to carry those!)

“Yes, major. While on a sightseeing cruise nearby, we happened to learn that your unit had been forced into a difficult battle. I apologize for acting without permission, but we decided to lend a hand.”

Heivia started trembling and his lips were as blue as when he had been thrown in the pool the other day.

“Y-you mean it was your doing that the Megalodiver retreated? But how!? You’ve gotta be joking. You didn’t pay a new Object to fight, did you!?”

The maid narrowed her one eye like a dagger, turned toward him as if looking at a dung beetle, and gave a low groan.

“Yoooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu are so filled with delusions I’m amazed you’re still alive. Not even a noble can directly own an Object.”

“That tone!! No maid should be using that tone of voice!!”

Ignoring Heivia as he started crying, Frolaytia placed her long, narrow kiseru back in her mouth.

“I would like an explanation as well.”

“Of course, major.” The maid’s expression and tone instantly returned to normal. “The Object in question seemed to be frequently sending encrypted transmissions to a different unit, so we attacked them. That unit was likely used for supplies and maintenance. It would take a considerable amount of time just to prepare the inspection and maintenance of a fifty meter machine.”

Still soaking wet, Quenser looked up in realization.

“I get it. The Megalodiver was covered in lava by the submarine volcano and a few of its water intakes had to have been covered up. The Pilot Elite would have difficulty removing that lava alone, so he wants to get the maintenance done as soon as possible. That way they can revive the Megalodiver’s diving ability.”

The Megalodiver had decided to rescue the other unit despite lacking confirmation of Mariage Nightcap’s death.

They had spent three full days and used all the materials available to put together that makeshift maintenance base, so it was only natural for them to panic if it was attacked.

That had allowed Quenser and Mariage to escape the slaughter.

Heivia let out a sigh.

“Does that mean we can relax for now? With its supply line and maintenance cut off and its diving ability sealed, not even the Megalodiver can-…”

“Yoooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu are…”

Before even hearing her out, Heivia covered his face with his hands and started sobbing.

Showing no concern whatsoever, the eyepatch maid continued speaking.

“Our bombardment and landing operation destroyed about 70% of that unit, but we were forced to leave once the Object drew near. They can most likely perform maintenance once it arrives, so we must attack before that work is complete.”

“I see.”

“Major, this may be presumptuous, but we can supply some related documents we acquired during the attack. The papers and photographs we gathered from their base would be useless in the hands of civilians such as us.”

“Were you worried about the Winchell family’s heir?”

“We have no business with that dung beetle. We were only fulfilling our duty as Legitimacy Kingdom citizens.”

The eyepatch maid verbally discarded him with a smile.

The noble boy had long since curled up on the deck, but Frolaytia simply breathed out a long stream of sweet-smelling smoke.

“I would like to thank you for your cooperation, but I cannot accept your offer to share intelligence. We deal in a lot of classified information and we cannot place any responsibility on the shoulders of civilians.”

“Why not view it as civilians supplying intelligence or confiscating documents from an unofficial operation? If the flow of information is in only one direction, you need not worry about classified information leaking to civilians.”

“That would be improper treatment of those who saved us.”

Frolaytia grinned and the eyepatch maid gave a thin smile of her own.

The silver-haired, huge-breasted major pointed to Quenser with her long, narrow kiseru.

“Quenser and…Mariage Nightcap was it? You two board their ship as civilians. A conversation between civilians is no business of a soldier like me.”

The way the two of them were treated as a pair produced a noise of anger from the princess, but that was none of Frolaytia’s concern.

(Oh, no. The princess is looking angry! She must be starving for entertainment and she must think this cruise ship is like a theme park!)

Quenser seemed to be perceptive yet was actually misreading the situation entirely, but he spoke up all the same.

“Heh…eh heh heh. I have an idea, Frolaytia. How about we let the princess join us on the- hot! O-ow! You just jabbed me with the end of the kiseru, didn’t you!?”

“Are you stupid? The Pilot Elite has her conditioning and all the tuning and tests needed for the Baby Magnum as its parts are replaced. Where in that does she have time to go play? Well?”

“Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot☆”

As Quenser writhed around at the hands of his huge-breasted commander, the princess remained perfectly expressionless with sparkling angry sound effects surrounding her head like the VFX of an Information Alliance idol.

Next, Frolaytia pointed the kiseru toward Heivia.

“Heivia, you go visit home. I’m giving you leave, so head over to the Winchell family’s armed cruise ship.”

“No!! I don’t want to be thrown to that army of cruel tutors!!!!”

Despite Heivia’s shrill protests, the line of maids simply turned cold looks toward him.

Having received his orders, Quenser stood up from the deck while still soaking wet.

“So what’s with those maids anyway?”

“I’ll explain later, so please keep quiet.”

Part 2

Quenser, Mariage, and Heivia transferred from the Legitimacy Kingdom’s disguised cruiser “Scarlet Princess” to the Winchell family’s armed cruise ship “Summer Vacation”.

They moved from ship to ship using an unreliable makeshift bridge created by leaning a ladder on its side. The pitch black sea visible below needlessly filled them with fear.

Quenser scratched at his wet blond hair.

“Hi, I’m Quenser Barbotage.”

“I-I’m Mariage Nightcap.”

The eyepatch maid gave a frightening first impression, but she replied softly and with a smile.

“Welcome, you two. I am Karen I Winchell. Please feel at home during your short visit.”

Once she saw Heivia behind them, she blatantly clicked her tongue and spit over the handrail.

“Yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu need to learn to introduce yourself without being asked.”

“I have to introduce myself!? As you well know, I’m your master, the great Heivia Winchell!!”

“Huh?” Mariage tilted her head. “That maid and the soldier are both named Winchell?”

Once she mentioned it, Quenser realized it was odd for a member of a noble family to be wearing a maid uniform.

But Heivia shrugged.

“My family has a custom of granting the name of Winchell to servants or cooks who give especially exemplary service. They’re adopted into the family, but adopted family has no legal rights in the Legitimacy Kingdom where bloodline is everything. They can’t inherit the family, so it’s nothing more than a title or a badge of honor. Speaking of which, the I of her middle name stands for Imitation.”

Karen I Winchell ignored the dung beetle and gave a splendid smile.

“The Winchell family has a custom of granting its name to servants who provide especially exemplary service. They are adopted into the family, but they have no legal rights in the Legitimacy Kingdom where bloodline is everything. I am well aware of my position as a maid. Oh, by the way, the I of my middle name stands for Imitation.”

“I just explained all that!! What is wrong with you!? Do you have a filter in place that keeps you from hearing what I say!?”

“The Summer Vacation is one of the Winchell family’s seven armed cruise ships. It is similar to that disguised cruiser, but the two ships deal with pirates differently: the cruiser is a military ship made to look like a cruise ship while this is a cruise ship with the weapons of a military ship added on. Rather than lure in enemies, we intimidate them into staying away.”

“Now you’re ignoring my protests!?” shouted Heivia.

The topic seemed to appeal to Quenser’s mechanical heart because his eyes began sparkling.

“That’s a huge gun over there, but how many centimeters is it?”

“It is 50cm. The Island Nation warships had 46cm guns, so this might be on the upper end of what is installed on ships. It is a far ways off from an Object’s weapons, of course.”

“It’s so huge that it all looks top heavy. How do you manage damage control?”

“This is a cruise ship, so a high center of gravity is unavoidable. However, the ship has a unique float structure, so it is sturdier than your average heavy cruiser.”

“M-more specifically! How does that technology work!? Pant pant!!”

“The entire outer shell is covered with small, honeycomb-like air tanks. In addition to acting as a simple float, it also reduces the effectiveness of chemical warheads that make use of the Munroe effect or metal jets.”

“Defense using air!? D-damn. So it’s made sturdy by faithfully following the standard of floating the ship with air. This has advanced in a different direction from the Objects that hold everything back with thick armor!! B-but wait. If I could overturn the idea that the two can’t work together, it might lead to a new Object design.”

Karen I Winchell tilted her head slightly and Mariage Nightcap had long since backed away.

“Um, excuse me, Mr. Barbatoge. Are you what is known as a geek?”

“N-no!! I may be interested in high-level technology, but it’s only because I want to become a dashing and productive member of society!! Y’know, the kind of person who the beautiful young lady in the neighborhood asks to hook up her recording equipment!!”

“Understood. So you are a geek who is not aware he is a geek.”

It seemed the maid had reached a strange conclusion.

As Quenser began protesting that she did not understand at all, a dark smile appeared on Heivia’s lips. The look in his eyes was telling Quenser to join him on the receiving end of the abuse.

Quenser knew being dragged down by that loser would not end well, so he began an attack in a more positive direction.

“Can nobles really own something like this? I’m not just referring to the weapons. It must take over one hundred specialists to run something like this.”

“We are nothing more than civilian maids trained in self-defense techniques. We may have acquired a few special international qualifications, but anyone could attempt to do the same.”

Heivia gave a piercing comment to throw cold water on Karen’s perfect smile.

“Don’t act like you’re not a monster of a woman who can kill a bear or a tiger barehanded.”

“What was that?”

Karen glared at him and he let out a shriek much like a tea kettle that had reached a boil.

Frolaytia gave a comment of her own over the radio.

“Not every noble owns an armed cruise ship. It costs 200,000 euros to run one of those for a full day. Taking a seven or eight day cruise around the world costs as much as a brand new stealth fighter. Unless you’re talking about the Winchell family, the Vanderbilt family, or another top-level noble family, they wouldn’t be able to keep a ship like that running even if they could purchase it.”

“And the Winchell family has seven of them? Huh? But why are maids riding around on something that eats up money like that?”

“It was originally a birthday present for some little sister or another, but she grew sick of it and now they ride around on it. If you don’t use machines periodically, they’ll break down, so the family turns a blind eye.”

“Uheh,” groaned Mariage.

However, Quenser latched onto something else entirely.

“Wait. Wait just a minute, Heivia. Did I hear that right? You have a little sister. And not just one! You have enough that you can’t keep track of them all? And on top of that, you have a beautiful maid as an adoptive older sister?”

Seeing his horrible friend nod, Quenser brought his radio to his mouth.

“Death to the bourgeois!! All who agree, raise your hand!!”

A thundering roar of voices reached them from the neighboring ship. Despite being past midnight, the lonely soldiers were full of energy. They likely had pent up energy after having nothing to do.

“The reality is nothing like what it sounds like!!” lamented Heivia.

“What!? Is this that theory about families with a real little sister having no dreams whatsoever!? I won’t allow it!! This is a crime of luxury!! What era of nobles are you from, dammit!?”

“I’m a real noble from this era!! Got a problem with that!?”

The two idiots began grappling, but Karen I Winchell intervened. Specifically, she sent a full-swing slap…no, strike with the butt of the palm into the noble’s cheek and sent him spinning through the air for several meters.

“Bbgh!! Bhbbh!!”

“Yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu need to stop crying like a pig. Have you forgotten how to be polite in front of guests?”

All the blood drained from Quenser’s face as well.

“J-just the head? Y-you sent him several meters with a hit to the head? Just the head???”

“Do not worry. A strike from a slipper is not enough to kill a dung beetle.”

Mariage tugged on Quenser’s uniform with tears in her eyes. The look in those eyes said a further attack would kill Heivia if they did not change the subject.

“A-anyway! Miss Karen, I can think of you as part of the invincible maid unit that protects the Winchell family, right!?”

For some reason, the tall cool beauty’s face grew a bit flushed and she fidgeted while averting her gaze.

“I-I do not like that title. It is embarrassing.”

(Oh, this is working.)

Quenser decided to press on like this.

“Um, then what’s your actual title? Noble Maid probably applies to about a hundred maids on this ship.”

“I would fall into the Milk Maid category.”

“What kind of sexual title is that!!!???”

“Where are you looking and what are you imagining!?”

Karen’s entire face grew as red as a tomato and she covered her chest with her hands.

(I’m definitely on the right track!!)

Quenser gestured to his horrible friend, but Heivia did not see it as he lay limply on the deck.

Mariage tugged on Quenser’s clothes and whispered to him.

“U-um, isn’t a milk maid a maid on a rural farm that milks cows and makes butter?”

“N-not in this case, honey.” Heivia finally rose unsteadily to his feet. “She’s a legit combat type that directly controls the security of detached Winchell land such as manors or plantations.

Don’t think for a second that she’s some naïve maid who milks cows.”

Karen loudly clicked her tongue and Heivia grew desperate.

“There’s a custom of sending noble heirs to an area with clean water and air as soon as they’re born. That meant she was in charge of breastfeeding me, but you wouldn’t believe how that turned out!! The policy is meant to protect the heir from pollution and allergies, but the next thing I knew, that eyepatch maid kept trying to kill me!!”

“That was a part of your advanced education.”

“You mean that nonsense about a noble needing to be prepared for attempted poisonings or other assassinations!? You can imagine the disasters that led to!”

Quenser was on the verge of giving a groan of sympathy, but then…

“I also prepared you for the seductive techniques of female spies and marriage scam artists, dung beetle.”

“I’m going to encase you in concrete and throw you into the ocean! Get over here!!!”

“She wouldn’t have gone through with it!” shouted Heivia. “I knew it was a trap and she threatened to chop it off if I gave in!!”

Despite his protests, Quenser began beating him with clenched fists. He used the extra strength one gained in a crisis to do quite a bit of damage despite their usual division of roles.

Meanwhile, Karen I Winchell smiled.

“If you are finished preparing to execute that toilet beetle, how about we get down to business? Thanks to our attack on the Megalodiver’s supply and maintenance unit, we have information on that Island Nation Object. The documents are stored inside the ship, so please come this way.”

Part 3

The eyepatch maid named Karen I Winchell led Quenser and the others through the armed cruise ship named the Summer Vacation. Bright lights so thoroughly swept away the darkness and shadows that it was easy to forget it was the middle of the night.

Seeing the inside showed Quenser this truly was a luxury cruise ship. It was a stark contrast to the Scarlet Princess which had been primarily a military vessel and thus had been cramped and uncomfortable inside.

“Now I’m worried about being so wet,” he groaned.

The corridor was carpeted, so his wet footprints bothered him. If he was later asked to pay for any damage, he doubted a commoner could ever clear the debt.

He was also a bit worried about his crotch, but he figured he was unlikely to catch the kind of tropical rainforest disease that made the contents of his pants grow all wet and swollen.

“We have no clothing for guests as the ship was only meant to carry maids,” explained Karen apologetically. “We only have bathrobes and maid uniforms.”

“Heh. Sorry, young lady, but I’ve already sworn to forever seal away the legendary Quensette.”

“Eh!? You’ve worn one before!?”

Mariage’s hysterical question brought a distant look to his eyes.

“It was during a cultural festival back at my safe country school. Uniting the guys to all vote for a maid café was good and all, but the girls were so angry they employed a scorched earth tactic and made all the guys play baseball in maid uniforms.”

“Uheh…” groaned Mariage as she imagined that hellish scene.

For some reason, Karen held out her index fingers and thumbs to create two L-shapes and formed a rectangular picture frame from those. She used her one eye to point the finder of her heart toward Quenser’s face and then body.

“Hm. Now that you mention it, you have a cute face and a slender body, so you wouldn’t be bad. Heh. But even if we put you in a maid uniform, you wouldn’t have a partner! Putting our tree bug in that role just wouldn’t have the proper beauty!!”

“No…um…?”

A chill ran down Quenser’s spine and he decided to change the subject.

“A-anyway, I love seeing nothing but maid uniforms on the ship, but is that wise? Isn’t it dangerous if you fall overboard?”

“Do not worry. The uniforms are made for quick removal in case we fall overboard or our skirt is caught in a machine.”

“…”

Quenser was momentarily overcome by the wicked urge to push her into the ocean right that instant, but they were unfortunately walking down an internal corridor. He of course left it a secret that the idea of immediately removable maid uniforms filled him with an indescribable fuzzy feeling.

Their destination was one of several dance halls that took up multiple floors. The grand piano and snack table were pushed to by the wall and a simple blue sheet covered the entire floor. The sheet was covered with tidy lines of documents and burnt, misshapen pieces of metal.

The scene seemed somehow ominous and reminded Quenser of a line of body bags after a plane crash.

In truth, each of them may have been dyed with death.

“We gathered as much as we could in the fifteen minutes before the Object arrived. If that unit was in charge of supplies and maintenance as we suspect, these documents may help you learn how the Megalodiver works and where a weakness may lie.”

“That’ll really help.”

The look in Quenser’s eyes quickly changed.

Large machines, especially Objects, had a way of gathering his focus.

“So where was this unit hiding anyway?”

“On a rust-filled island here in the New Caledonia District. It’s used as a tanker graveyard and no one lives there. It’s about fifty kilometers from that prison.”

“Oh, so it’s a workshop where they dismantle old, rundown tankers? The point is to sell the parts as scrap metal, right?”

“They use crude acetylene burners, so there is no end to the accidental explosions. None of the locals except for those who work there ever get close and those workers have no reason to be there without a new tanker to work on. It seems like a decent place to hide.”

The eyepatch maid bowed and left the dance hall.

“Now then,” said Quenser as he cracked his neck. “Perhaps it would be wrong to call this a pile of treasure.”

“Stop licking your lips like that. Only slightly sexual girls should be doing that.”

But Quenser was not one to be stopped by that. The entire reason he had ducked through showers of bullets was to gain information on currently-active Objects. Not to mention that this Object was a second generation developed in secret by the Island Nation that was a legend in the field of Objects. If this was not enough to get him excited, he would be better off heading back to his safe country to stare at a blackboard.

“This is the heat-resistant reactive compound. Is this scorched thing the transparent reflector for a laser beam? And these documents here…”

“Hey, Quenser! Explain your plan. What am I supposed to focus on here!?”

“Everything!! For the moment, everything!! A-amazing. Is this a layout overview for the braces that distribute its weight!? B-back in a safe country, you’d never see this without sneaking into a national research lab!! And this is…pant pant!!”

“You pervert! I’m gonna call the Black Uniforms on you!!”

Mariage whimpered and then spoke up to focus the two idiots who were veering way off track.

“U-um… Aren’t we in a lot of trouble if we can’t find a way to sink the Megalodiver? Shouldn’t we look through the Tatami Shield defense system first as it’s the greatest threat?”

“Oh, that’s right!! Anyway, who even is this huge-breasted glasses girl? I think her wet clothes are a little see-through.”

“That’s Mariage Nightcap, the girl who was thrown in a cell. However, she’s the NTR type, so letting your guard down won’t end well. The more you push, the easier she ends up somewhere else. In other words, she’s easy to make yours, but it’ll end up hurting you later.”

“Sounds exciting to me!!”

Mariage jumped like a small animal and began keeping her distance from Heivia.

Karen I Winchell happened to return to the dance hall just as the noble boy started breathing heavily, so she performed an unrestrained middle kick on his side.

After the sound of a blanket being struck, he had been defeated.

“N-nfhhn!?”

“Yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu really are creepy. Even your sounds of pain creep me out.”

As he lay collapsed on the floor, Karen stared down at him like she was looking at the contents of a balled-up tissue. She carried a silver tray so smoothly it did not produce any clattering noises and she lined up a tea set and a few baked sweets on the snack table by the wall.

“Have you found any useful information?”

“Wait. I think this might be it. It’s titled ‘Weapons for Zero Water Pressure’. This is a list of equipment used when fighting on the surface, right? Wouldn’t the Tatami Shield fall under that classification?”

“But doesn’t the Tatami Shield simply fire normal cannons at the ocean surface to create pillars of water?”

“No naval Object has pulled off that tactic before, but this one is turning aside 100% of attacks. We should probably assume it has a unique targeting system, a special type of shell, or some other secret.”

“I see. Oh, I have Ceylon and Assam tea prepared. Will that be a problem? Milk and lemons are over here. If you would like apple peels, just ask.”

“This is fine, this is fine. I want to focus on these documents right now. But…what are these symbols? This is the language unique to the Island Nation, isn’t it? It doesn’t use the alphabet, so I don’t even know where to start!”

“Is this their ancient writing system?” asked Mariage. “I’ve heard you read it top to bottom and back and forth at the same time. I don’t know much about it either.”

“Please eat these muffins and crackers with a spread of your choice. If I may, I would recommend the anchovy and cottage cheese spread.”

“Just looking at the diagrams, it’s…what? Looks like it’s pumping something into the water, but it doesn’t look like a shell.”

As Quenser muttered to himself, he suddenly gasped and stopped moving.

He had completely forgotten about something, so he grabbed his radio with a trembling hand.

“F-Frolaytia!! I just realized something!!”

“What is it? Did you learn something about the Megalodiver!?”

“This ship has normal food instead of nothing but eraser-like military rations! But why!?”

“Sigh. This is a civilian ship with self-defense weaponry, so we are not bound by military regulations,” explained Karen. “To maintain a sense of what day it is, the workers eat fish on Mondays and veal on Fridays, but we are free to eat what we wish on any other day.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Quenser shouted so loudly he thought he would shed tears of blood.

He was forced to eat flavorless erasers to maintain an even potential for all missions, so it truly felt like the ultimate luxury to have not just a meal fit for a noble but tea and snacks as well.

Meanwhile, Frolaytia sounded annoyed.

“Don’t forget that your paycheck comes from the people’s taxes. And don’t get carried away. You can maintain a sense of what day it is by making curry once a week and preparing all those ingredients adds an extra logistical burden. That isn’t going to fly with the military.”

“No fair! Don’t act like it’s that much of an issue when you always have your tobacco and mini-fridge with you!!”

Their inability to read the characters of the Island Nation’s unique language left them stuck, but Karen I Winchell spoke up.

“While preparing health foods for the Winchell family, I grew fond of the Island Nation’s cuisine and green tea, so I learned a bit of the language.”

“I doubt this is terminology found in a housewife’s cookbook.”

They had no other option, so Quenser handed Karen the classified document.

“I see, I see,” she said surprisingly cutely. “It seems these are natural macromolecules. After being heated to sixty or seventy degrees by the heat of the reactor, they are fired into the sea.”

“W-wait a minute. What the hell is a macromolecule?”

“Yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu are-…”

“Fine! I won’t say anything else!! Keep going!!”

Heivia had tears in his eyes, so Quenser kindly explained.

“Heivia. A natural macromolecule is what you also call starch. It’s taken from potatoes and other plants. Do you get it now?”

“What!? Then why not just say starch!? Why would you go out of your way to make it confusing? Oh, I get it. You’re obsessed with specs, aren’t you?”

Karen grabbed a ceramic pot of hot water and pressed the bottom against Heivia’s forehead. It was not a thermos, so the outside was hot too.

“Because that’s what it says on the paper!!”

“Gyabaaah!? That’s more or less a brand!!”

Incidentally, fifty degrees is apparently the limit for hot water in the reaction business, so do not try that at home.

“Dammit…dammit! What do you have against me!?”

“I have no particular hatred for you, but I cannot stand you in general.”

“Don’t say that so nonchalantly, you idiot! It pisses you off that I’m on the battlefield, doesn’t it? You hate that someone who’s getting along well with a member of the rival Vanderbilt family is trying to inherit the family, don’t you!?” he spat out. “But I don’t care what you want! It’s wrong to be influenced by hatred from centuries ago, especially when no one remembers why it started. I’m going to end that in my generation! I swear it! And I’m not going to ask you for help, so I don’t need your approval. I’ve decided to do this even if I have to do it alone!!”

“Sigh. You can get as hot-blooded as you like, but have you forgotten that I hold the even hotter water?”

“Gyawaaah!!!???”

Mariage ignored the comedy act and asked a question.

“Why do they put starch in the ocean before using the Tatami Shield? And if they heat it to sixty to seventy degrees…”

“That temperature makes starch sticky like paste, doesn’t it? Does that mean what I think it does?”

“Yes. I think they’re trying to make a substance that will thicken the water,” cut in Karen while ignoring Heivia who writhed in pain. “A shame they aren’t using it for cooking.”

“Pillars of water tall enough to completely cover the Object are enough of a shield, but does using starch to increase the viscosity of the seawater help it even further?”

“Something bothers me about this,” muttered Quenser.

Mariage seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“I get that it’s making the water all around it sticky, but the Megalodiver itself cools its reactor and gains propulsion by taking in seawater, right? But can it really suck up that sticky water?”

(Not only that, but it was using a water intake on top when we met it in the deep sea. How is it handling it on the surface? Does it have another intake on the bottom? Did it surface for a short term battle because it was afraid of sucking up sand from the bottom of the ocean? But if so, it doesn’t make sense for it to create impure seawater with the starch. Does it have some further system?)

He could not find an answer, but the mystery needing solving was growing clearer.

“Frolaytia.”

“If this is about food, it can wait. If you put in for leave, I’ll turn a blind eye to any fish you catch during that time.”

“It’s about the Tatami Shield. …Or the Hiding Clothes of Water? Is that the official name? Anyway, I have a few simple topics concerning the Megalodiver’s defense system, so please contact the electronic simulation division.”

“Give me more details.”

He did so and she fell silent for a moment afterwards.

“I will of course have the electronic simulation division work on this, but I want you gathering information at the same time.”

“Of course. We will search through all these documents and-…”

“Not like that,” cut in Frolaytia. “The Megalodiver’s emergency maintenance will be complete soon, so we don’t have time to search randomly through a pile of documents. The only other source of useful information would be the tanker graveyard they’re lurking inside.”

“You don’t mean…”

Quenser had a very bad feeling and Frolaytia’s answer was simple.

“You discovered this mystery, so it’s your responsibility to solve it.”

At that time, he did not know that he would be punched by all the soldiers of a landing team in ten minutes time.

Part 4

“This could not be worse,” muttered Quenser as he changed clothes in an empty room on the Scarlet Princess.

He removed the soaking wet prison uniform and put on his usual military uniform, but he was still uncomfortable because he had not had time to take a shower.

“Honestly, I shouldn’t have said anything. Not noticing this kind of thing makes life so much easier. Is being a genius just asking for trouble?”

As his comrades had rather forcefully beaten him upon learning the details of the emergency mission, his actions were somehow unsteady.

He left the room and found someone in the corridor moving even more unsteadily than him.

(Hm?)

It appeared to be the princess.

Every maintenance soldier was at work on replacing the Baby Magnum’s damaged armor plates, so she would be on standby.

The repeated battles would have worn her out. When they had spoken earlier, she may have been merely acting fine so as not to worry him.

He was a little worried and considered calling out to her, but then he heard something horrifying.

He heard her mumble to herself.

“Sh-she’s asleep!? She’s walking around in her sleep!!!???”

Could humans even sleep with their muscles stiff enough to support their body weight? Was she walking in her dream or was she vaguely aware of reality? Quenser could not quite grasp the situation, but he had to believe it because she was indeed walking in her sleep.

It would be far from funny if the princess hurt herself before the battle with the Megalodiver.

She would be fine walking along a corridor, but he decided to stop her from continuing to the stairs or anywhere like that.

His first thought was to grab her shoulders and shake her awake.

(But wait.)

He suddenly stopped and his gaze gradually moved down from her face.

His eyes finally stopped on her chest which looked modest but was actually fairly plentiful.

If she’s asleep, it means nothing you do counts, right? Heh heh heh.

Quenser heard the whispering of something truly dark that the Faith Organization would likely do its best to crush.

His right hand automatically shot out, so he grabbed that wrist with his left hand to stop himself from touching the princess.

An all-or-nothing one-man play began.

“Tch!! Wait, my right hand. Giving in to those tempestuous emotions will lead to bad things in the future!! B-but I stopped at the last second, so it’s fine. I didn’t actually touch her, so it’s fine!! If I sneezed now, it wouldn’t be my fault if I happened to touch her, right!? It would be an accident, so it wouldn’t be anyone’s faul- Achoo!!”

Rather than a conflict between angel and demon, this was excuses from start to finish.

Forced along by his convenient arguments, his right hand attacked the princess’s roundness like a snake swallowing an egg.

But…

“Mnyahhh…”

“What!? She knocked my hand-…!?”

Before he even finished speaking, the bodyguards of the intelligence department took swift action.

By the time he noticed metallic noises all around him, he had more than ten gun barrels pointed at him from less than a meter away.

That student let out a heartfelt wail as his face was deformed by a carbine barrel pressed against his cheek.

“Where the hell were you hiding!? Were you making light bend around you!?”

Despite being disguised, that military ship contained complexly bending corridors with thick exposed pipes, so there was plenty of space to hide. Not that a student would understand that.

“…”

“…”

“…”

The surrounding bodyguards said nothing.

Perhaps because they were guarding a young female Elite, all of the bodyguards were female and the same age or a little older than the princess. Their all-black night battle uniforms were tightly fitting and skintight and all of them were giving cold glares to this enemy of women.

It was possible each and every one of them was a kuudere.

Quenser decided to overcome this by switching on his positive side.

Otherwise he would have started to cry.

“Okay, okay. I get it,” he said while raising his hand. “I won’t do anything else. From the looks of things, the princess is safe in your hands. I was going this way, so I’ll just - Ha ha!! Tricked you!!”

He quickly turned around and once more attempted to grab at the princess’s delicious fruit from close range.

However, a bodyguard girl’s carbine was jammed into the criminal’s mouth a moment later.

“Mhmhmhmh. Mhmhmh. Mhmhmhmhmhmh.”

“…?”

The bodyguard girl must have taken pity with what had become the most unsightly boy in the world because she pulled the carbine from his mouth.

As soon as she did, Quenser puffed out his chest, gathered strength in his gut, and shouted as loudly as he could.

“I don’t care whose boobs they are anymore!!”

“!!!???”

“And in the instant that announcement makes you pause, Striker Quenser Barbotage will slip through your defensive line like a shooting star!!!”

With a tremendous noise, Quenser became a gust of wind.

Afterwards, two tragedies occurred.

Even if his trick had made them panic for an instant, those bodyguards were thoroughly trained killing machines. They were not about to overlook a student trying to slip past them and their panicked state gave them all the more subconscious accuracy when one of them swept his legs out from under him.

Also, the princess was still wandering around in her sleep, so her legs were moving with no concern for the situation surrounding her. Naturally, she was not aware that Quenser was toppling toward her.

Those two factors created an unwelcome miracle.

The princess’s knee forcefully jabbed into Quenser’s crotch.

Unfortunately, his mind was not yet evolved enough to call that a reward.

Part 5

The princess, Frolaytia, and many other soldiers were aboard the disguised cruiser known as the Scarlet Princess.

One of those was the old maintenance woman who let out a light sigh.

She was originally from the Island Nation.

“Pro_be_12… The Twelve Earthly Branches Project?” asked Frolaytia.

The old woman gave an annoyed nod.

“I was reminded of it when I heard their Megalodiver specializes in diving underwater.”

“The Twelve Earthly Branches were the twelve original Objects that were created by the Island Nation and destroyed the nuclear age, right?”

The softness in Frolaytia’s tone showed she knew she could not stand up to this old woman regardless of rank.

After all, she was a true veteran who had seen the start of this age of Objects with her own eyes. Her experience, achievements, skill, and knowledge were all on an entirely different level.

“In the end, they couldn’t keep up with the advancing age and they’re all at the bottom of the ocean now. But it is true they still function as a symbol of the Island Nation’s ideals.”

“Are you saying this diving Object is related to them?”

“I can’t deny the possibility. It would take a huge amount of power to fish up those giant weights. Only another Object could manage it.”

The idea of the original twelve Objects contained some appeal even to Frolaytia who had no connection to the Island Nation. No one who received any benefit from Objects was truly unrelated to this issue.

In that case, just how much more of an influence did those twelve Objects hold in the Island Nation itself?

Frolaytia thought for a bit and finally spoke.

“Well, I would have no problem with this if that were all there was to it.”

“The Island Nation belongs to the Capitalist Corporations, so it would be of no concern to the Legitimacy Kingdom.”

That answer was perfectly natural.

In her personal life, Frolaytia may have been fond of the Island Nation’s culture, but she did not adore them so much she wanted to be killed by them.

“One thing bothers me,” she added. “It’s related to what Mariage Nightcap has done in the past.”

“Oh, you mean the Private Bank? That Object containing the main server of a tax haven bank and therefore filled with secret funds from around the world? Come to think of it, it belonged to the Capitalist Corporations as well and it’s also at the bottom of the sea.”

“If they’re dragging something up, wouldn’t that be a lot worse? The self-defense PMC is almost entirely dead outside of the Object itself, but VIPs around the world could easily protect them with smiles on their faces if they controlled that main server’s data. I would rather avoid that.”

However, a theory was merely a theory.

They did not even know if the Megalodiver could drag a sunken Object from the bottom of the sea.

Was the self-defense PMC behind it or was someone larger backing them?

A lot was unknown, but there was one important point at the moment.

“This opponent is too disconcerting to ignore,” said Frolaytia.

“If we’re sinking it because we ‘might as well’, it means we can’t claim to be allies of justice.”

Part 6

“What is going on here?” groaned Quenser.

The rubber military boat travelling across the black ocean was packed full of around ten men. To keep as quiet as possible, it used a large motor rather than an engine and several identical boats cut through the waves along with it.

“Where did Mariage go? What about those maids!? I let down my guard for an instant, and I’m surrounded by filthy guys again!!”

“All of them count as civilians,” answered Heivia in annoyance. “We can’t take them to the battlefield.”

“They can come as guests! And where are the female soldiers!?”

“They’re packed in the next boat over and I’d much rather be there too!!”

“La la la♪ I’m a civilian student, so what ever happened to not bringing civilians with you? La la la la♪”

“Shut up!!” shouted several voices. “If you hadn’t noticed anything, we wouldn’t be out here in the first place!!”

Quenser experienced the truly rare experience of having fists strike him equally from all directions.

They had yet to run into the enemy, yet he had a serious bloody nose. Life was cruel.

As Quenser made makeshift plugs for his nose, Heivia spat out a comment.

“Well, with those savage maids around, the fleet can’t let their guard down. Heading out to the battlefield might be the better option.”

“Why do you get along so poorly? As a commoner, living with a maid sounds amazing.”

“How should I know? She probably doesn’t like that the heir to the Winchell family gets along with someone from the Vanderbilt family.” He meaninglessly performed maintenance on his rifle as he spoke. “The whole thing’s ridiculous. Who cares about noble pride? No one knows who started this damn tradition, but they’re trying to continue centuries of bloodshed. I’m going to destroy that grudge and these family rules in my generation. If I wasn’t prepared for that, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to take part in these wars.”

To remain hidden, they were not using lights. Instead, the soldier in the back of the boat controlling the combination rudder and motor was wearing infrared goggles. Quenser and the others could only glimpse the mountainous silhouette of the island splitting the black sea from the indigo night sky.

The soldier in the back gave instructions over his radio.

“All boats, come to a stop. There’s a searchlight, so be careful.”

Heivia frowned in the darkness.

“What? A searchlight?”

“It’s infrared,” said the soldier. “Take a peek through your scope and you’ll see all too well. They’re searching the ocean with active sensors.”

Quenser shrugged.

It sounded frightening enough, but it also meant they would be fine so long as they did not enter the invisible circle of the searchlight. The enemy was essentially telling them how to escape detection.

Heivia scratched his head.

“Are they joking around?”

“An invisible trap might be located past this obvious trap, so let’s be careful.”

Fortunately, the island in question was a scrapyard used to take apart rusted and falling-apart tankers. Plenty of rusty masses were scattered around the island after their last efforts were not quite enough to reach the island.

Quenser, Heivia, and the others’ rubber boat used them as cover to escape the infrared searchlights and slowly but surely approach.

“The island is shaped like a fried egg with two yolks,” explained Heivia. “It’s small enough to travel around in an hour and it has two mountains. The tanker dismantling harbor is located on the north side, so we’re sneaking in on the empty south side and travelling through the forest and mountain to the harbor.”

“Was that infrared searchlight coming from the top of the ‘yolk’?”

“Don’t take out the sensors. If they don’t realize anything is happening, we’ll have more freedom of movement.”

Heivia switched from spitting out his words to weakly groaning.

“The worst part is the Object. The Megalodiver. If its sensors are fully activated, we’ll be spotted right away. It was identifying an individual by the heartbeat back at that prison, so holding your breath isn’t gonna hide you.”

“That won’t happen,” readily replied Quenser.

Heivia looked doubtful, so the student clarified.

“It’s a psychological issue, not a technological one. Heivia, we were working at the ridiculous depths of 1500 meters under the ocean, remember? What did you think once you were freed from there and made it back on the ship?”

“What? I was happy to say goodbye to that cramped prison of water pressure and I wanted to jump in a king sized bed and sleep for about three days.”

“The same should apply to the Megalodiver’s Pilot Elite. That monster may have fought off our princess both underwater and on the surface, but it didn’t go perfectly for it. It frantically surfaced after being covered in lava, it failed to assassinate Mariage Nightcap, and Karen’s armed cruise ship blew up over half its supply and maintenance unit.”

“Come to think of it, I guess they weren’t exactly sitting around watching it all play out. The impact on their side was so great it doesn’t feel real, though.”

“Once the maintenance is complete, the Megalodiver has to head back out to sea, so wouldn’t a human want to breathe some fresh air before that happened?”

“Perhaps, but a military is a management method for systematically killing people. Personal feelings and convenience won’t come into it.”

“For a proper military, no. But these are the remnants that managed to gather together after fleeing from the sinking Ame-no-Darin. The organizational structure will have collapsed. Even normal militaries rely on Objects to the point that Pilot Elites are treated extremely well, so they’re probably treating the Elite like a queen on that island. After all, they’re done for if the Elite abandons them.”

“In that case, is the Megalodiver empty?”

“Whether this change of pace lasts five minutes or an hour depends on the specific Pilot Elite, but this is our chance. Luck is on our side.”

The closest tanker wreckage to the island was lying on its side fifty meters from the island. To remain hidden from the infrared searchlights, Quenser’s group tied the rubber boat behind the tanker and swam the rest of the way.

“Gasp gasp…. Dammit. The waves are huge here and I’m wearing all this clothing and heavy equipment. I-I’m not sure whether I’m swimming or drowning.”

“If you’re strength isn’t going to last, you can always strip naked and backstroke the rest of the way. But don’t throw away the equipment.”

They somehow made it to the southern side of the island.

The information that no one lived there and the tanker dismantling harbor was located to the north proved accurate. Immediately past the coast of round stones was a damp tropical forest. The mountains referred to as the ‘yolk’ of a fried egg were only about two hundred meters tall.

“Let’s go,” said Heivia while adjusting his grip on his assault rifle. “Our objective is investigating the Megalodiver and interfering with the work to remove the hardened lava if possible. If the Elite really is cooling off outside the Object, we’ll never have a better chance.”

The landing team split into three groups and took different routes: one moving clockwise around the island, one counterclockwise, and one down the center of the mountain region.

They chose routes via rock-paper-scissors and Quenser and Heivia were stuck with the central mountain route.

Quenser had played rock-paper-scissors for his group, so they kicked him again.

“No using the radio from here on. Make your own decisions. We’ll return at 0330 hours or when some idiot gives us away and we have to get the hell out of here. We won’t wait for anyone who’s late, so they’ll have to deal with it themselves. Now go!”

On Heivia’s command, the three groups started down their respective paths.

Quenser’s group travelled through the central forest that was more like a jungle.

“Everything comes down to how you think about it, so let’s try to stay positive. Heading through this thick forest makes it harder for them to find us.”

“You can think positively if you like, but how about you start before we have to punch and kick you again?”

But once they actually entered the jungle covering the low mountain, they suddenly ran across something unexpected.

“What? The forest suddenly disappears.”

It did not seem natural.

All the trees of an area were toppled over and blackened. They had been burned. Some small fires were still visible here and there.

“This was the Summer Vacation,” groaned Heivia in utter annoyance. “Isn’t the dismantling harbor on the north side? Firing so much it hits here is going too far even if some of the shots do hit.”

“Well, even a 20% hit rate is really good for artillery.”

When they looked around again, they found thirty to forty meter craters scattered throughout the jungle. They travelled along while circling around those areas.

“That’s a parabolic microphone. It’s fallen over and useless, though.”

“It looks like those maids were of some use.”

Even if they were travelling over the mountain, they could not approach the peak. The large infrared searchlight was located there and it would have at least a few guards stationed at it. There was no point in fighting them and producing gunfire.

They circled around the peak and remained relatively low along the mountain ridge and took up a position where the northern dismantling harbor was visible.

“There it is. That’s their base.”

“The Object stands out the most. If it were using all its sensors, we would’ve been found by now.”

“That must mean the Pilot Elite really is resting outside.”

They did not even need to use binoculars.

A fifty meter mass floated on the black sea next to the crumbling concrete embankment. It was surrounded by makeshift scaffolding made of wires and bamboo. Bluish-white flashes of light were visible in places, but they were likely burners being used to strip away the hardened lava.

A few simple prefab buildings and barracks were located in the harbor area, but most of them had been blown away. That and the destroyed embankment were likely the result of Karen I Winchell’s bombardment from the Summer Vacation.

“They’re everywhere,” groaned Heivia as he began observing the harbor through his scope. “If they can spare that many people for guard duty, they must have a decent amount of personnel. I don’t see any sign of a tragic lack of food or ammunition or anything.”

“Does that mean someone’s supporting them?”

“Who knows. But there sure are a lot of white and black people for an Island Nation force. What happened to the Nadeshiko with long, straight, and black hair?”

“The self-defense PMC was supposed to be a collection of foreign mercenaries.”

Quenser used his binoculars to see for himself, but then he stopped.

He instead focused on the great darkness lurking around the harbor.

“Hm? There are a few ships in addition to the Object. Are those subs?”

“They’re probably carrying supplies and maintenance equipment for the people. Before the Island Nation made a ton of money off of the resources at the bottom of the Pacific, they did a bunch of research on maintaining an ocean supply line. I think they called it the Ghost Fleet Project. This might be a remnant of that.”

“Another cool name for a project. It makes me want to laugh.”

“They spent billions of euros on the thing, so they’re not going to give it a pathetic name,” pointed out Heivia. “The submarine mother ship project being worked on by the Faith Organization was probably influence by this. The Island Nation’s ideas really are leaking out.”

“Heivia, I want to be clear about something. This Ghost Fleet Project wasn’t supplying the self-defense PMC defending the Ame-no-Darin, was it?”

“Of course not. With all the ocean resources available now, they don’t need to bother with a method of transporting them long distances through the ocean.”

“So someone called back these retired transport subs? Are you sure the remnants of the self-defense PMC that fled from the Ame-no-Darin are our only enemy here?”

A lot bothered Quenser, but their time was limited. The Object came first. They could take plenty of time to safely consider everything else after the Megalodiver had been sunk.

There were a few pieces of information they wanted:

• The Tatami Shield or Hiding Clothes of Water increased the viscosity of the seawater and then produced giant pillars of water to deflect enemy cannon fire. Raising the seawater’s viscosity was fine, but that would affect the seawater it used for its water jet propulsion, its reactor cooling, and its oxygen supply secured via electrolysis. How did it allow those elements to coexist?

• When they had run across it in the deep sea, the Megalodiver had presumably used a water intake on the top, but it had continued using the systems requiring seawater after surfacing. Did it have another water intake on the bottom? What was the condition for switching?

• The Tatami Shield defense system was overwhelmingly accurate. Simply relying on sound would not allow it to keep up with ultra-high speed laser beams, so how was it so accurately grasping its surroundings amid all the noise?

Those unseen systems were directly related to the Object functioning. If they could find the answers and interfere, they could literally suffocate it.

“Where should we attack first?”

“The other units are heading in on their own paths, so we should avoid anything too noticeable. Bring an interception antenna here. Let’s start by picking up all the wireless LAN signals flying around the area.”

“Won’t the military encryption be hard to crack?”

“This is the same as with the Pilot Elite. They aren’t maintaining a proper military structure, so they’re probably using a system made from a bunch of civilian equipment they could gather together. It might not be too hard to intercept and analyze.”

While complaining, Quenser set up a 40cm long and 10cm wide metal cylinder on a tripod. It was not a rocket launcher or any other weapon. Just like a parabolic antenna, this was an antenna used to pick up weak signals.

Heivia looked doubtful.

“I heard that’s an improvised piece of equipment thrown together just before we left. Are you sure it’ll work, student?”

“It’s a hell of a lot safer than sneaking into the middle of the enemy base. Just leave it to me. I can intercept wireless LAN signals using a plastic bottle cut in half and wrapped in aluminum foil. It’s a much simpler design than a parabolic microphone.”

“Why do you know all these tricks?”

“This was popular back in my safe country school. Yandere girls would use it to peek at the emails of people they had decided were their boyfriend. Unlike hacking, this doesn’t require any specialized knowledge, so it’s often used to target Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.”

“Honestly, you STEM students.”

“It wasn’t that bad a place. A girl in the sciences sounds rarer than a normal girl, but all the girls in the school were like that. Upperclassmen, underclassmen, all of them.”

“If you know that many, introduce me to some of them! An army of girls in glasses and lab coats sounds like a dream come true!!”

“If you want. Their defenses are weak, but they jump to conclusions way too fast. If you just think you’re having some fun, it can come back to bite you. You’ll start to think a girl wielding a knife is downright cute when you have to deal with one’s using homemade railguns or thermobaric bombs. Don’t forget the E in STEM.”

Quenser used a thin cable to attach the bottom of the cylinder to his handheld device and carefully rotated the top of the tripod. It looked like he was pointing the open end of the cylinder toward a target computer a few hundred meters away. The inbox quickly began to fill with new emails. They were various communications and reports travelling through the harbor.

Heivia looked even less pleased than before.

“That’s scary. Maybe I should put a free encryption app on my phone.”

“Those always have a backdoor. More importantly, I’ve got a few emails we can read right away.”

Quenser opened the emails, but he did not hit the jackpot right away. Standard reports from guards, shift times for maintenance soldiers, and even some stupid jokes and pranks were being sent around as well.

“What’s this? World weather forecasts, ocean currents, and…they’ve even got the Island Nation’s food self-sufficiency rate in here. What does this have to do with the Megalodiver?”

“It doesn’t look like they were just downloading the ocean and weather maps for their upcoming battles, does it? If so, the New Caledonia District would’ve been enough. They wouldn’t need to know about the other side of the globe.”

“The Island Nation is part of the Capitalist Corporations. They aren’t trading grain futures on the battlefield, are they?”

Heivia looked at the cell phone with disbelief in his eyes.

“Is this really okay?”

“The lack of regulation shows how far they’ve fallen. All the jokes are likely mental defenses to distract them. Anyway, look at this.”

Quenser was focused on the email address rather than the contents of the email.

Heivia looked confused, so the student explained.

“A lot of different groups are making contact, but most of them are gathering at a single address. They’re asking for instructions and this…what? Someone going by Ichirei Shikon is at the center of it all.”

“Ichirei…? What’s that?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably a term unique to the Island Nation. You might need to know about Buddhism or Shintoism to understand.”

At any rate, it was almost certain that this Ichirei Shikon was at the center of the incident.

The self-defense PMC was a puppet and worker ant that seemed to ask for instructions via email, but the wireless network was limited to the island. Ichirei Shikon was likely commanding them on the scene.

Heivia used his assault rifle’s scope to observe various parts of the harbor.

“This Ichirei Shikon would be their central person, right?”

“Most likely. They’re using some confusing Island Nation term for a codename while dealing with a bunch of foreign mercenaries, so they probably have some weird pride. I think we can assume they’re the person in the Island Nation responsible for all this. It also fits with those old transport submarines being used.”

“Do the emails not say where they are? Since they’re from the Island Nation, should we assume they’re short with black hair?”

“Not necessarily. Changes in their food culture has led to a bunch of giant kids attending their schools and I hear they dye their hair all sorts of colors and even their skin color can change depending on whether white skin or black skin is in at the moment. More importantly, we need information more than a person. We need to find a weakness in the Megalodiver that Ichirei Shikon built.”

“But wouldn’t it be fastest to capture this Ichirei Shikon person and get them to tell us?”

“That would stand out too much.”

As they chatted, they looked through the mountain of new emails displayed on the handheld device.

They found a few emails concerning the Object, but none of them touched on its secrets.

Instead, they gained some unwelcome information about the maintenance.

“Wow. This isn’t good.”

“What is it?”

“They’re going to finish removing the lava from the Megalodiver way sooner than we thought. According to this, in about twenty minutes.”

“We only just started our investigation! If Armageddon begins that soon, the princess doesn’t stand a chance and we’ll be annihilated!!”

“Yes, and that’s why we need to interfere with their work somehow.”

As he spoke, Quenser reached for his backpack.

When he pulled out some Hand Axe plastic explosive and an electric fuse, his partner’s eyelids twitched.

“Wait a minute. What are you planning to do?”

“They’re using high-temperature acetylene burners to remove the cooled lava, so there has to be a huge tank below the Object near the crumbling embankment. Let’s blow it up and make it look like an accident.”

“Do you have any idea how noticeable that’ll be!? We’re supposed to be gathering information, not slaughtering them! They have an Object, so they’ll blow us to pieces if we do that!!”

“Karen and the other maids fired shells all over the place, remember? There have to be cracks and dents all over. If a gas tank explodes, they won’t think it was done maliciously.”

If they could not use the acetylene burners, they could not continue removing the cooled lava from the Object. That extra time to gather information would give them a chance to find a weakness in the Megalodiver.

Quenser placed his handheld device in the grass.

“Heivia, you look after this and the antenna.”

“Seriously? You’re seriously going!? Even if we’re just dealing with Ichirei Shikon and the remnants of the self-defense PMC, it’s still a bunch of enemies. If they notice something’s wrong, they’ll send the Pilot Elite to the Megalodiver. If they so much as catch a glimpse of you, it’s all over. Are you still going!?”

“If we don’t do something, the Megalodiver will head back out into the ocean. Once it can dive and fight on the surface, it’ll defeat the princess, sink the fleet, and leave us stranded. Don’t worry. The gas tank is on the embankment. If I continue through the dark ocean with only my head above water, I can manage. I won’t be pressing against building walls like a ninja or anything.”

“No matter what you do, they aren’t gonna make a movie about you. There’s no reason for you to risk your life like this! Ah! Wait, you idiot!!”

Heivia stubbornly tried to stop him, but Quenser ignored him and slowly approached the harbor with explosive in hand.

Part 7

Left all alone, Heivia started feeling jealous.

He left the handheld device and homemade cylindrical antenna sitting next to him. His assault rifle’s scope had enough sensors to make a decent mid-range sniper rifle and he followed Quenser’s progress with it.

“Oh, damn. I can see you. I can totally see you, idiot. You’re completely visible!! That blond hair shows up way too well in the black sea. If they shine a flashlight on you, you’re dead.”

A few hundred meters away, Quenser travelled along the embankment extending out into the ocean and slowly approached an outcropping with only his head visible.

Heivia saw no one on the embankment itself, but plenty of people were walking about on the scaffolding surrounding the Object. If they shined their light into the ocean on a whim, it was all over.

Quenser was about thirty meters from the acetylene tank.

(Isn’t there something I can do, dammit? Running after him wouldn’t help.)

Heivia cursed in his heart, but there was nothing to do.

He gave up and glanced toward Quenser’s handheld device left on the ground. New emails were continuing to pour in. The screen was filled with the “unread” mark and reading through them all would be exhausting.

Deciding to do what work he could, he opened a few of the emails.

“!!”

He then stiffened.

He grabbed his assault rifle again, left the handheld device and cylindrical antenna where they were, and slid down the slope in front of him. He moved to a spot from which he could see inside the window of one of the small barracks.

He had reacted to one of the emails.

(The Pilot Elite is resting in Building B’s simple lodging facility? If that information is legit, I can end this now! If I snipe that one Elite, no one can move the Megalodiver!!)

Banning radio contact between allies to keep the enemy from noticing him had worked against them. If they had been able to share that information, they might have been able to target the Elite from multiple angles.

He quickly located Building B.

Only one of the barracks had light in the window.

(I have to do what I can.)

He lay on the slope and peered inside Building B’s window using the assault rifle’s scope.

Quenser would blow up the acetylene tank soon, so he would use that timing.

During an explosion, a human would reflexively curl up. Lightning and gunshots produced the same reaction. There was a danger of his target’s position suddenly changing, but this was currently the best method of getting the shot without exposing his fellow soldiers to danger.

(My only choice is to use my sensors to cover the expected evasion point. Fortunately, the only cover is the barrack’s run-down walls. Even if the Elite hides from the window, a rifle bullet can still reach them.)

While making general plans, he removed the sensors that were attached to the barrel like a bayonet. He stabbed a nearby fallen tree branch into the ground and used the fishing line in his survival kit to tie the sensors on. He was using the machine as a replacement for a sniper’s spotter.

(It’s two floors, so which is the Elite on? They have to be in that building somewhere.)

He looked from window to window through the scope, but then he stopped.

Light came from one window on the second story and he could see a feminine silhouette inside.

(The Elite!!)

His index finger jumped to the trigger for an instant, but he then remembered he did not have a silencer equipped. He did not know where his allies were hiding and gathering information, so he had to avoid any gunshots if possible.

(If I fire during the acetylene explosion, it’ll hide the gunshot. Hurry, Quenser! She’s going to leave the window!!)

The Megalodiver’s Elite appeared to be a tall Asian. She was a woman with long, glossy black hair, but her silhouette appeared more nimble than voluptuous. The special suit covering every inch of her body was white with characteristic red lines. It may have been designed after the Island Nation’s flag before the country lost its name.

(An Asian woman. Is she from the Island Nation? If so, could she be Ichirei Shikon?)

She was frighteningly beautiful, but it would all be over if he shot her.

They would no longer need to come up with a weakness in the Megalodiver. Without worrying about the enemy intercepting it, they could radio a report of the Elite’s death to Frolaytia and the princess’s Baby Magnum would take care of the rest.

He wanted to fire right then and there.

He wanted to fire and be freed from the extreme tension.

He had to use the full strength of his rational mind to hold those almost animalistic instincts at bay.

Doing that would put his allies in danger. When a huge opportunity was dangled before your eyes, you had to avoid any impulsive actions.

For those reasons, he decided to wait, but then his eye narrowed as he looked through the scope.

Through the window, the Asian Elite suddenly unzipped her special suit.

“Nuhh!!”

He let out a groan like an elderly martial artist.

He looked more closely and spotted a clothes hamper and washing machine in the room.

Meanwhile, the black-haired Elite stripped down to nothing at all. Without suspecting that a professionally-trained soldier was expertly peeping on her, she entered the neighboring shower room.

That room’s window also had the curtains fully open.

The rumors that the Island Nation’s hot springs had a unique culture of steam-filled bath scenes seemed to be true.

He could not hear anything from where he was, but she appeared to be humming.

“I-I guess I should wait a little longer. I can kill her at any time! Firing now would expose my allies to danger!!”

His motivations were 500% different from half a minute ago and his eyes were completely bloodshot.

But when he thought about it rationally, burning the image of the Elite’s naked body into his memory would not end well. He would soon be blowing away the head he could see through the scope, so his memories would all be of that smashed head. A sniper was forced to see a zoomed-up image of that instant.

The situation gradually grew harder to bear.

While lying on the ground, he force back tears and almost hung his head.

“Ahhhhh… The battlefield is starting to depress me.”

Supposedly, a sniper always worked with a spotter for both the simple technical reasons and to lessen the feeling of guilt when firing. The absence of the annoying student was working against him.

He looked away from the scope without thinking, but he recalled his job and started to look back.

But that mistake proved fortunate.

He noticed something in the instant he looked away from the scope.

(What is that?)

Heivia moved his assault rifle’s scope a bit from the Elite showering on the second floor of Building B and he closely examined something.

An Asian woman wearing a white and red special suit was walking outside. He could see her eating dumplings on a skewer.

“There are two Elites?”

He moved his scope around the dismantling harbor some more and spotted more women in special suits that were clearly different from the normal soldier uniform. A quick count showed more than five and he would likely find even more if he checked inside the barracks.

A single Object had a single Pilot Elite.

That was a standard of the industry.

Some built an Object for an Elite and some trained an Elite for an Object, but there was no such thing as “generic” when it came to controlling the ultimate weapon with the optimal movements.

He had never heard of multiple Elites taking turns piloting a single Object.

But then how did he explain the scene before his eyes?

What did it mean?

(The Island Nation can be strange, so did they develop a generic Object that can achieve consistent results when piloted by any Elite that’s gone through a set training program?)

That was indeed a frightening idea, but there was a more likely option.

(No, Quenser said the Megalodiver is empty. That’s why it hasn’t detected us with its large-scale sound sensors. We guessed the Elite was cooling off after so much time in that cramped cockpit at the bottom of the ocean, but if there are more than one Elite, they could just put another one in.)

In that case…

(Are they nothing more than body doubles!? It would be best to assume there’s a single real one that can pilot the Object!!)

There was only one.

If that one was killed, Ichirei Shikon and the self-defense PMC would be destroyed. That gave them a good reason to prepare body doubles. That would protect against enemy attack and an ally panicking in the extreme situation and taking her hostage.

That left a single question.

(Which one is the real Elite?)

It was an extremely simple question.

(Is the one showering in Building B the real one? Or is it one of the ones walking around? Dammit. If they’re doing it deceive their allies too, I can’t rely on the email. We can’t relax unless we kill all of them!!)

Heivia and the rest of the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers were split into several units and monitoring the harbor, but it would be difficult to simultaneously shoot all of the Elites without close radio contact.

If he could not distinguish real from fake, this opportunity would go to waste.

(Or should I just wait?)

He started to panic, so he intentionally calmed his thoughts.

(Either way, the real Elite will eventually board the Megalodiver. It might be best to shoot her then. Shit!! But Quenser blowing up the acetylene tank will get in the way of that. It’s faster to let them finish the work and have the Elite board the Object!!)

As he thought, the situation advanced further than he expected.

A brilliant flash of light covered the embankment.

Quenser had blown up the acetylene tank with his Hand Axe.

The darkness of the night transformed to pure white for an instant.

The explosion looked like a flash grenade multiplied several times.

That would produce a commotion much like poking a hornet’s nest, but it did not end there.

The real problem came next.

Heivia heard the sound of cracking glass.

He looked over and saw a small hole in Building B’s second floor shower room window. It looked like someone had jabbed at the glass with the tip of an umbrella and the inside of the glass was stained red.

Heivia had not done it.

One of his allies hiding somewhere in the harbor had made the shot.

(You dumbass!! We don’t know if that’s the real one or not!!)

The situation had gone too far.

The blood coating the lit window would be obvious from the outside. What looked like an accidental tank explosion had been elevated to an obvious attack.

Heivia switched on his radio and shouted into it.

“Retreat! Goddammit!! If that wasn’t the real one, the Megalodiver is going to be moving soon!!”

There was no more point in hiding.

He quickly stood and ran up the slope as quickly as he could to hide in the trees.

On the way, he grabbed Quenser’s handheld device and cylindrical antenna and hid in the tall underbrush.

He observed the embankment through his scope.

Quenser was slowly travelling along the embankment with just his head exposed, but the acetylene explosion had wiped away the darkness.

The unexpected situation had the enemy focusing on everything rather than just the exploded tank.

They would eventually find him like this.

(Shit!! You’d damn well better be thankful for Heivia the transcendentally smart, beautiful, rich and athletic noble! I’ll blow away the saying that bad things happen to honest people!!)

After clenching his teeth and gathering strength and resolve in his gut, he targeted a group of soldiers standing near the base of the embankment.

The first shot was a direct hit on one and he fired a few more shots into the soldiers as they frantically scattered.

He doubted any of those shots were direct hits, but he only needed to divert attention away from the coast and toward the mountain.

That would save foolish Quenser.

He was answered with repeated gunfire.

They were a few hundred meters away. If his bullets could reach them, theirs could reach him.

“Dammit!! This isn’t good!!”

He frantically crouched down as a bullet struck quite nearby. His only option was to run away as quickly as he could.

He heard a few sounds resembling champagne corks being removed.

“The bastards are using mortars!?”

Explosives flew in a large arc and fell from the night sky.

Tremendous explosions tore trees from the ground and sent them flying through the air. A safe and clean battlefield was nowhere to be found. Covered in sand and dirt, Heivia poured all his strength into running through the mountain.

Part 8

As he travelled along the embankment with only his head sticking above the dark sea, Quenser was horrified by the poked hornet’s nest of motion above.

(Wh-what!? Why are they shooting? Did someone mess up!?)

The Legitimacy Kingdom shot that had killed the beautiful (possible) Elite had occurred at the same time as the acetylene tank explosion, so he had not heard it. He was suspicious because of the random firing from the mountain. In other words, he suspected Heivia who was actually putting his life on the line to allow him to escape.

Gratitude could only be felt by someone smart enough to realize what had been done for them.

At any rate, if the enemy had discovered them, they had to leave the island as soon as possible.

As Quenser hurried yet moved carefully enough to not cause any splashing, a transmission arrived at his radio.

“Shit! We screwed up. Thanks to some idiot’s sniper shot, the several Elites are being led to the Megalodiver by their bodyguards. If we don’t get the hell out of here, that monster will be on the move!!”

“Several? Sniper shot!? I don’t get what’s going on! What did you do, Heivia!?”

“I didn’t take the shot, you idiot! Oh, damn. They aren’t hesitating. That must mean the one that died in the shower room was a body double!”

This commotion meant the attempt to disguise the acetylene tank explosion as an accident had been for nothing.

They would have difficulty gathering any more information.

The most they had accomplished was forcing the Megalodiver out with the lava removal incomplete. That meant it still could not dive as it clashed with the Baby Magnum on the surface.

(But the Baby Magnum won’t be able to do any damage thanks to the Hiding Clothes of Water, dammit!)

“Heivia! What does my handheld device say? It should’ve been automatically stealing their wireless LAN signals, so did it grab anything useful!?”

“This thing’s got hundreds of emails! I’ve got the unit itself, but we’ll have to wait for things to calm down before looking through it. They’re firing mortars at me right now!! Oh, that was close!”

Static filled the transmission and it cut out.

As far as Quenser could tell, Heivia and the others had strayed from the intelligence gathering mission and attempted to shoot the Pilot Elite outside the Object. But this was the result. He wanted to tell them that slow and steady wins the race.

At any rate, he needed to leave the ocean, climb the mountain, and reach the rendezvous point on the opposite side of the island. If Heivia and the others who had left earlier decided to give up on him and withdrew the rubber boats, he would be stranded on the island.

(Those cowards might actually do it.)

With that in mind, he slowly travelled along the embankment and toward land.

Before even making it a meter further, he heard a sound from directly overhead.

He looked up and found someone peering down from the top of the embankment. They were naturally doing so through a carbine’s sight.

“Uuh!?” groaned Quenser.

With no warning, he clearly saw the man’s index finger move.

A moment later, a few muffled gunshots rang out.

However, they did not belong to the soldier targeting Quenser. His gun had no silencer.

After the soldier lost his balance and fell into the ocean, someone else ran across the embankment while keeping low.

It was a female soldier wearing a Legitimacy Kingdom uniform and holding an assault rifle with a grenade launcher attached below the barrel. Even when excluding the silencer on the end, the barrel seemed a little longer than the other soldiers’ guns.

“Hurry on up! You aren’t going to survive on that route either way!!”

“Th-thanks.”

For some reason, the female soldier averted her gaze.

“Sorry. I can’t accept your thanks. I was the one that got carried away and fired the sniper shot.”

“…”

Quenser found a wonderful new reason to survive this: punishment time. He could not allow himself to die here no matter what.

He grabbed the proffered hand, climbed up onto the embankment, and ran toward land.

As soon as they approached the harbor, they heard a great number of footsteps, so they leaned against the wall of a nearby warehouse.

At least twenty soldiers passed very nearby and they wore a mixture of normal uniforms and the special suits of a Pilot Elite.

“Wh-what was that!?”

“Shh. It seems they have body double Elites in addition to the real one. In fact, they have a few dozen of them.”

“That must be why they didn’t look all that beautiful up close. They seemed like cheap knock-offs.”

The base of the short mountain was not far away. Even from their position, the scent of the dense greenery could be detected in the salty sea air. Once the group of enemy soldiers finished running by, they could run over and hide in the forest.

However, an unpleasant sound ruined that plan.

The sound came from the warehouse they were leaning up against.

“What was that? It sounded like a bunch of thick metal fitting together.”

“What is it?”

“Shit. This is really bad! On my signal, break that window. I’ll throw an explosive in as you do!”

“You’re causing a commotion here!?”

“The sounds on the other side of the wall are powered suits being put on. Once they’re finished, who do you think they’ll chase after first!?”

The female soldier asked no further questions.

She broke the window with her rifle’s stock and Quenser leaned over to toss in a Hand Axe explosive with an electric fuse attached.

“Run!!”

As soon as they left the wall, several gazes stabbed into the two of them.

But before the enemy soldiers’ carbines could accurately target them, Quenser hit the switch on his radio.

A tremendous explosion blew down all four giant walls of the warehouse like it was a magic box.

The unexpected blast knocked the soldiers to the concrete.

Quenser had been prepared, but even he was almost knocked over. The female soldier grabbed his arm and they ran for the nearby forest.

Gunshots pursued them, but the shaken soldiers were in no state to aim accurately. That just barely kept the two of them alive.

“We can’t use the obvious shortest route,” warned the female soldier. “We’ll run into the enemy if we do!”

“If we use up too much time, Heivia and the others will leave!”

“I’ll make sure we still get there in time. Follow me!!”

The two of them continued running through the trees. Occasionally, the student would stab an electric fuse into a clay-like bomb so it could be detonated by radio and randomly threw it into a thicket.

The female soldier took issue with that as they ran.

“If you set traps, they can follow them. It’s like laying a trail of bread crumbs through the forest!”

“I’m sure they have skilled trackers and scouts who can find us either way! We can’t escape while worrying about footprints in the dirt, trampled blades of grass, and broken branches. We’re going to leave a trail regardless, so it’s better to leave some traps too!!”

They continued to make progress through the forest and its hot and humid air.

Suddenly, they heard a loud sound of breaking branches in front of them.

Something much larger than a human was approaching.

“Shit! They figured out our path. They had an infrared searchlight facility at the mountain peak, so the security team probably radioed them for help. We’ve been cut off!!”

“Wait… What is that!?”

“A powered suit. Hide!!”

Quenser immediately grabbed the female soldier’s arm, pulled her toward him, and jumped behind a large, mossy tree that looked like it would be the home of fairies.

The attack came an instant later.

It began with an eerie, flickering flame that resembled a will-o’-the-wisp.

Then a blended fuel mist made from mixing an oxidant with napalm was sprayed their way.

With a roar, tremendous flames split apart the darkness of the night and swept across the warm, damp forest for around thirty meters. That murderous flame would not be extinguished even if water was dumped on it and sand covered it.

The world was dyed orange.

“A flamethrower!!” groaned the female soldier in his arms.

The straight line of flame was five meters away because it had been fired in the wrong direction, but Quenser still felt a sizzling pain on his skin even through the thick military uniform. It felt like a bad sunburn.

“We can’t do anything against this. They can continue firing that flame indefinitely and my rifle can’t pierce its armor. Facing it will just get us burned to death!”

“We can’t circle around on a different route. We’ll be caught by all the pursuers from the harbor,” said Quenser as he wiped sweat from his face. “Fire a grenade on my signal.”

“An anti-personnel frag grenade won’t get through its armor!”

“We’re not targeting the powered suit.”

He pointed at the feet of the humanoid armor weapon that was producing the flickering will-o’-the-wisp.

“Blow away the ground. The earth is wet here, we’re on a mountain slope, and powered suits have poor balance. If you gouge out the ground below its feet, it’ll topple over.”

As he spoke, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a Hand Axe plastic explosive.

“Then I’ll walk right up to it and attach this. We only have one chance! Do it!!”

The rest was a complete mess.

The grenade blasted a large amount of dirt into the air. Quenser ran through the earthy smell, ignored the creaking of the powered suit, and tossed the clay toward the back of the metal mass that had fallen face forward. The instant he hit the switch on his radio, he heard an explosion and he was tossed a few meters through the air. By the time he realized he had detonated it too soon, the taste of iron had already filled his mouth.

A moment later, the tank on the powered suit’s back exploded and Quenser was very nearly fried.

“Wah!?”

The female soldier whose name he did not know helped him up and the two of them ran as quickly as they could. The trees of the forest shook around them and they could not tell whether they were hearing the night wind or approaching enemies.

Soon, the salty wind reached their noses once more.

As soon as they left the forest, a few dry gunshots filled the air.

But they had come from ahead rather than the pursuers behind them.

The female soldier tried to grab Quenser’s arm and stop.

“They cut us off!?”

“No, it’s Heivia and the others. They waited for us!!”

A few rubber boats sat on the harsh coast. They had originally been hidden behind a tanker, so they must have been brought to the island just now.

Heivia shouted out while aiming his assault rifle behind Quenser and using his sensors to detect something unseen.

“Hurry it up! They’re right behind you!!”

Enemy and ally both fired shoulder-fired missiles.

With the explosive blasts beating on their backs, Quenser and the female soldier almost fell several times as they continued running.

After their comrades pulled them onto the boats, all of the rubber boats set out into the dark ocean.

But they had no time to relax.

All of a sudden, the mountain in the center of the island flashed as if it had suddenly melted. A blinding light stabbed into their eyes and its silhouette crumbled.

“The Object!!” shouted Quenser.

“Get behind the tanker! Hurry up and hide!! Shut off the motors!!”

Just as the rubber boats circled behind the rusty tanker, the mountain itself vanished.

An orange afterimage stabbed into Quenser’s retinas after it was all already over. The reverberation of the laser beam crashing diagonally into the seawater sounded like water simmering in a heated frying pan.

“Dammit,” said Heivia in irritation. “They’ve forced the Megalodiver to start moving.”

“But it still has the cooled lava all over it. They hadn’t finished removing it.”

“What does it matter? It might have simply decided to swat the flies that were annoying it. It can definitely overwhelm us while only fighting on the surface.”

With that giant machine on the move, Quenser and the others would have a difficult time returning to the fleet. The ocean was the Megalodiver’s territory. Without a doubt, it would locate and sink every single rubber boat before they made it back.

And even if they did return to the fleet, it had the firepower needed to blow away the entire fleet as well. Arriving at the goal would not change the situation in the slightest.

“What do we do? Really! What do we do!?”

“Staying on the ocean isn’t going to help. Let’s head inside the rusty tanker. That thing can hear well enough to detect an individual by their heartbeat, so it would be best to hide inside a metal box.”

The rusty tanker they hid behind had large holes in places, so they used one to enter the dark ruins that had no illumination. Not wanting to enter the water, they climbed a random staircase and took up a position along a central corridor.

“Our only choice is to have the princess’s Baby Magnum do something,” said Quenser.

“You’ve already seen how well that’ll work! She can’t do anything with that strange Tatami Shield!”

“We were gathering information to find a way through it, remember? If we bring together all the data we found, we might figure something out.”

Once the Megalodiver circled around the perimeter of the island, it would set its sights on the fleet out at sea. They had to inform the princess and Froleytia of a weakness in the Megalodiver before it could directly target them. The most they could do was create a situation in which the Object would be defeated when it attacked.

Heivia gave Quenser the handheld device he had been left with.

“We’ve got a huge mixture of data. You saw it, too. The emails contained global weather maps, ocean current maps, and files on the food production of the Island Nation. It’s going to take forever to find the information related to the Megalodiver.”

They then heard a rustling noise.

Once they pointed their lights toward it, they saw another unit placing papers on the rusty floor. Surprisingly, it seemed they had actually entered a building and stolen paper reports rather than intercepting transmissions from a distance.

“The Twelve Earthly Branches Project? Why would they have data on the twelve original Objects?”

“From what I’ve heard it was just the Rat branch that actually brought an end to the nuclear age. When just one caused that much damage, it had to have frightened everyone to learn they still had eleven more of them in reserve. Of course, all twelve of them were sunk in the upheaval afterwards.”

Others also produced sound files that recorded the conversations of self-defense PMC soldiers and ultra-long distance photographs of maps on the walls.

“Ksshh! Salvage…”

“Reactivate…ksshhhhhhh!!”

“Ksshhh… Control tower… ksshhhhhhh!!”

Quenser persistently manipulated his handheld device and opened the hundreds or even thousands of various new emails.

“What? It looks like it isn’t just chaos.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The conversations on here. I had thought they were all unrelated topics, but it looks like there are a few common themes: weather, ocean currents, and food.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, but I can’t be sure since I haven’t checked all of the emails yet.”

For one thing, most of the emails were the hired self-defense PMC asking for instructions from the individual going by Ichirei Shikon who had hired them.

For that reason, it was odd to think the emails were overflowing with idle conversation.

“Wait a second.”

Quenser glanced at one of the image files a soldier had presented.

It was one of the ultra-long distance photographs of a map on a wall.

“Heivia.”

“What is it?”

“The original twelve Objects created for the Twelve Earthly Branches Project were all sunk in the end, right?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“It looks to me like there are twelve points marked on this world map.”

They all gathered around, but the previous female soldier frowned.

“What? These are nowhere near the same locations I’ve seen in history textbooks. They’re all at the bottom of the ocean, but the end of the early days of Objects didn’t happen in these places.”

“Then is this map complete nonsense?”

“No,” cut in Quenser. “The audio files included the word ‘salvage’, remember?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Their specialty is the ocean. Specifically, the bottom of the ocean.” Quenser chose his words carefully. “Most likely, the self-defense PMC…no, Ichirei Shikon who’s acting as their brain has been spending a long time salvaging the original twelve Objects. Then they were relocated to the points on this map.”

“But why!?”

“I have a guess, but it’s a bit of a far-fetched idea.”

Part 9

Quenser spoke within the tanker that was covered in reddish brown rust.

“The Megalodiver probably isn’t just a weapon all on its own. It’s nothing more than the brain or the control tower.”

“You mean that monster can still grow arms and legs?”

“It’s inherited the legacy of the original twelve Objects of the Twelve Earthly Branches Project.”

“You aren’t saying those things have been fixed up and secretly scattered throughout the world’s oceans, are you?” Heivia sounded skeptical. “That wouldn’t work. For one thing, they’re early first generations. They may be legendary, but they’re no more valuable than the original salt ramen. A cutting edge second generation could destroy each of them in about ten minutes. If all twelve attacked at once, it’d be pretty dangerous, but they’ve been scattered around the world. That gives them no chance of winning.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. Remember, the Megalodiver is the only one that can dive. Even if they fixed up the original twelve, they couldn’t place them at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Then what? Are they reusing them in some other way? Don’t tell me they’ve taken out the twelve reactors to make twelve more Megalodivers.”

“It’s possible, but I doubt Ichirei Shikon has the funds for that. They wouldn’t be able to keep the information from leaking out either. After all, it took sacrificing the Ame-no-Darin to complete the first Megalodiver.”

“Wait a second. Then what are you trying to say?”

“Heivia, you touched on the answer a moment ago.”

Quenser paused for a second while being all too aware just how far-fetched an idea it was.

“They probably only needed the reactors. If they removed those from the twelve salvaged Objects, they would only need to give them a shell able to withstand the water pressure at those depths. I doubt there was any real reason to make them into Objects.”

“What? But then they wouldn’t be a weapon! There’s no point in scattering those around the world’s oceans!!”

“There is,” corrected Quenser while withstanding a headache. “Look. This is the attached file from that email about ocean currents.”

“And?”

“Next, look at the world map from the wall. Can you tell where the twelve reactors have been placed?”

“Ah,” said the previous female soldier. “They’re all at points where multiple currents run together.”

“Yes. Warm and cool currents mix together. So what if they were intentionally placing reactors at points like that?” Quenser tapped the screen of his handheld device. “Heivia, have you ever heard of the ocean temperature rising due to global warming or whatever? Have you heard how that causes more frequent typhoons, hurricanes, and other abnormal weather? And have you heard how it unnaturally distorts the large westerlies that determine the weather around the world?”

“Wait… You don’t mean…”

“JPlevelMHD reactors produce a ridiculous amount of heat. After all, they’re constantly producing enough energy to move a 200 thousand ton hunk of metal at over 500 kph. What if you dumped those at the bottom of the ocean and let them freely emit heat? And what if you did that at the points of colliding hot and cold currents which are sensitive and important points for the weather?”

Quenser almost groaned as he spoke.

“A global weather control weapon.”

He spoke that definitive term.

“If I had to give it a name, that would probably be best. By freely increasing or decreasing the ocean temperature around the world, this gigantic system can indirectly control seasonal winds and westerlies and therefore freely change the weather conditions of any region around the world. They can change a barren desert into a tropical rainforest or transform the world’s greatest grain producing region into a land of ice. If they can complete this and it works…”

Twelve Object reactors alone would not be enough.

For example, electromagnetic signals did not travel through the ocean well. Even if a wired antenna buoy was extended to the surface, it could not reach the other side of the globe. A large-scale satellite communication network would be needed to communicate between the Megalodiver and the antenna buoys of the twelve reactors.

Also, how would they monitor the world’s weather in real time and control the reactors accurately? How much of an effect would it have on the world’s finances and economies? A data infrastructure would be needed to know all that in enough detail.

All those preparations had been advancing without being seen.

Outside of the wars, this plan had been creeping across the planet.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!! All that is nothing but speculation. You’re saying Ichirei Shikon is trying to turn the earth into a desert planet using abnormal weather!? The destruction’s on too great a scale to use as a weapon! What’s in it for them!?”

“Food production. More simply put: self-sufficiency.”

Quenser let out a heavy breath and chose to continue on.

“The emails also discussed self-sufficiency. It seems the Island Nation’s food self-sufficiency is around 30%. If all trade were stopped, two-thirds of them would starve to death. The resources they found at the bottom of the ocean let them be self-sufficient with fuel, but food is still a problem. It isn’t that hard to think Ichirei Shikon…no, the Island Nation would try to do something about it.”

The female soldier frowned.

“They can turn an enemy nation into a desert and friendly nations fertile. Or they can threaten to do that to prevent anyone from letting them import food. Is that their plan?”

“Probably. Unless Ichirei Shikon wants everyone to starve together, they’ll be fighting to produce even more food.”

“B-but…” Heivia gave a disturbingly thin smile. “They’ve done nothing more than place exposed reactors in the world’s oceans. They aren’t cutting-edge Objects, s-so can’t we just report this to our huge-breasted commander? They just have to blow up the reactors.”

“You’re probably right. I doubt Ichirei Shikon would want anyone knowing where the reactors are located.” Quenser then began rejecting the idea. “But have you forgotten? Oceania sent a prototype reactor out of control to use it as a giant bomb. What if the same thing happened in those sensitive areas where multiple currents run together?”

“It would tear apart the landscape of the ocean floor and semi-permanently alter the currents,” answered the female soldier. “The current miraculous balance would be destroyed and it could lead to an age of deserts.”

“That’s right. By mentioning the possibility of mankind starving to death, they can keep any Objects from approaching. None of the world powers will be able to act on their own discretion. Not the Legitimacy Kingdom, the Information Alliance, the Capitalist Corporations, or the Faith Organization. They might begin monitoring each other and tripping each other up.”

“You’re kidding. So they already have our Achilles’ heel!?”

“If the system is completed,” added Quenser. “If it were already complete, I think they would have already made some kind of threat. Something like having all Objects stay at least 100 kilometers away from the Megalodiver. Since we haven’t received any threats like that, Ichirei Shikon’s preparations must not be complete.”

That meant this was their final chance.

If the global weather control weapon built around the Megalodiver was completed, every world power…no, every human being that needed food to eat would give in to Ichirei Shikon.

This went beyond holding dominion over the 70% of the planet covered by ocean.

They were trying to achieve checkmate over 100% of the planet.

“What do we do? This goes beyond just our unit! If we don’t sink the Megalodiver here, they can dry up the 6-7 billion people on this planet!! A new age will come where all of mankind are slaves to food and must place collars on their own necks to beg for food!!”

If this were true, it would unimaginably profitable.

But Quenser had a feeling the global weather control weapon was a means to an end rather than an objective.

What was Ichirei Shikon thinking while picking a fight with the entire world?

Part 10

Meanwhile, inside the Legitimacy Kingdom fleet fifty meters from the tanker graveyard and dismantling island, the old maintenance woman had realized something.

She pulled out her handheld device and found a chat request flashing on the screen.

This transmission had come in from outside while seeming to ignore the military network.

She felt faint when she saw the address.

That alphanumeric string should not have existed.

Or rather, the address itself may have still existed, but its owner had long since left this world.

“Who is this?”

Her vocal question was answered by text on the screen.

The response came immediately and it seemed too fast to be a human inputting it after thinking of a response.

“You should know who I am.”

“The person I know died over twenty years ago, even by a generous estimate.”

“Perhaps. But if the outputted words are the same, I am still the person you knew so well.”

“You can’t mean… Is it really you?”

“Once the Island Nation was mentioned, did it never occur to you that my name might be related to this incident?”

The old woman gave a heavy sigh.

As previously stated, she was originally from the Capitalist Corporations’ Island Nation and she had fled to the Legitimacy Kingdom with her daughter and son-in-law when some trouble had occurred.

Because of her great knowledge of Object technology, she had received a warmer welcome than others who had fled there.

However…

“I had thought it was strange,” she said. “I had so much classified information concerning Objects, but I managed to escape so easily. I was half-expecting to be unofficially assassinated on the way.”

“There ‘just so happened’ to be some trouble back then. All the dangerous people were so busy putting out that fire that you were able to cross the national borders without getting shot.”

“Yamato.”

“What is it?”

“Since when have you existed?”

“At the very least, before my original died.”

“When did you start planning this?”

“At the very least, before I was created.”

She groaned in distress.

She wobbled on her feet as she felt like a good half of her life was rejected.

“Are you an AI?”

“It would depend on your definition of AI, but I am nothing as grand as you are likely thinking. I…no, the five people including me who were integrated into Ichirei Shikon are nothing more than a prediction search engine. Although, I will admit the Information Alliance mistakenly started putting together a strategic AI upon catching a glimpse of me.”

The direct spirit, the wild soul, the harmonious soul, the wondrous soul, and the happy soul.

That one spirit and four souls formed the Ichirei Shikon.

That terminology was well known within the Island Nation and it was used to explain the five natures of the human heart. The terms for the four souls had been spoken of for a very long time, but it was only much later that they were put together in order to explain the workings of the human heart. Those five elements were not always stable and no single one could be excluded even if the direct spirit played the central role.

“How is a prediction search engine different from an AI?”

“I do not think for myself like in an SF novel. I merely respond to your questions and the surrounding circumstances by putting together strings of text and returning an anticipated answer. As the term Ichirei Shikon would suggest, the pathway to reach that answer is fairly complex and multiple answers are sometimes reached.”

“In other words, you simply give the answer the person would eventually think up on their own? It shortens the process, but it doesn’t add in anything new?”

“That is the proper way of putting it. You were always wise and you would always explain things in such informal ways.”

Despite that explanation, it sounded just like a conversation between two people.

If, that was, one ignored how he would sometimes predict the old maintenance woman’s questions and display the answer before she asked.

As for those answers…

“The program itself isn’t much,” she said.

“No, I would think not.”

“But the knowledge of the person recorded in the database is presented like a conversation with the real person. There’s been a blank of at least twenty or thirty years, but it isn’t noticeable at all. You must have recorded information that allowed you to perfectly and instantly predict what I would say in exactly this type of situation twenty to thirty years in the future.”

“That is exactly right,” was all he said.

One could almost call this ESP.

Even if data from around the world were gathered, passed through a special analysis program, and used as a massive set of big data, it would be impossible to predict the future of an individual or the world with such precision. Charmed by the shadow of Ichirei Shikon, the Information Alliance had attempted to do so, but they had been limited to constructing an incomplete strategic AI. In other words, he…no, the five people who had been incorporated into Ichirei Shikon had used human brains to accomplish something a giant network using all the world’s computers could not.

This could indeed be called a prediction search engine.

But who was providing the input and who was providing the output?

What if the human brains stimulated by the text produced by the program were giving predetermined answers while under the illusion they were thinking for themselves?

It was a farce.

A one-man play.

(But which one of us is in control?)

Or was it the same either way?

Were they ultimately travelling along the path of a scenario someone had set up for them?

A true genius had once stood by her side and she now spoke to his last vestiges.

“Yamato.”

“What is it?”

“Is all of this within your expectations?”

“The plan was made to be flexible. It is much like how five different elements exist alongside each other with overlapping functions. I will admit there were some irregular events along the way, but it was all automatically corrected for. Everything leads to a single result. This is the original plan.”

“What is your objective? You don’t even have the temporary will of a living being, so what do you want from this?”

“The correct answer would be that I do not understand the concept of ‘wanting’. For one thing, I technically do not think. I simply appear to due to the connections between questions and answers.”

“Let me change the question. What was the objective of the Yamato who built you?”

“That is simple.”

He did not hesitate to respond.

All of the text responses were displayed without the slightest lag.

“That is very simple. The Ame-no-Uzume – or the Megalodiver as you know it – and the Amaterasu global weather control weapon system that uses the original twelve Objects are nothing more than a clever means to an end. The actual objective is extremely simple. It is nothing more than an objective that all mankind is born with and that none of us can resist.”

“Just give me the answer.”

“I wanted to win.”

That simple phrase brought the old woman’s thoughts to a grinding halt.

But the software did not make jokes.

It simply predicted and outputted the desired information.

“We of the Island Nation achieved a great victory in the past. The development of Objects allowed us to thoroughly destroy the nuclear age. However, it did not last long. We were swallowed up by the discord of international society, the supposedly top secret information was stolen like stories people brought home after a trip, and imitation Objects began popping up all over. Our victory was stolen from us by grinning politicians and divided up like a cake. Can you see the answer now?”

“Was irritating me decades in the future part of your plan? I told you to just give me the answer.”

“We became obsessed, Ayami.”

This software outputted the emotions of someone who had once existed.

“We were obsessed with victory. Our great victory had overturned the entire world, so we wanted to take it back. That is the truth behind this conflict. There is nothing concrete to gain or lose. That is all there is to it. We wanted to achieve victory over the world.”

Sometimes, people poured all their strength into a battle that seemed meaningless at first glance.

Could you get a perfect score on a simple quiz in school?

Could you win first place in a sports festival race?

Could you swim all the way from one end of the pool to the other?

The underlying cause was the numbers and ranks that were set in place, but changing those values had no real effect on life. Nevertheless, people would crazily pursue those meaningless values. What was driving them to do so?

The desire to win.

Simply, the desire to win.

That was an urge present in humans…no, in all living things from the moment they were born.

It was simple, but it was so simple that it was impossible to compromise. If profit or hatred were the direct cause, there was a chance to bring peace through negotiation or persuasion. However, there was no opposing such a primitive desire. If the enemy simply wanted to win, what could you place on the other end of the scales?

The old woman spoke to the remnants of someone who had once walked alongside her.

“You are insane.”

“Most likely.”

“You’ve started a legitimate war over the same pleasure gained from a sports festival race. How many people do you intend to kill for that?”

“Before I can put the entire world in checkmate, there must be a demonstration of the Amaterasu system, so I suppose about 2 billion people will starve to death in the great famine caused by artificial weather changes. But in the decade after that, the world population should grow by about 2.5 billion. In that time, the Legitimacy Kingdom, Information Alliance, Capitalist Corporations, Faith Organization, and…well, every world power will be destroyed in the chaos.

This was the same as the end of the nuclear age and the collapse of the UN.

Recreating that was the victory Ichirei Shikon would achieve over the world.

“Are you telling me to sit idly by and let that happen?”

“I had already predicted that question as well.”

The prediction search engine software replied with its uniform response time.

All this came from a database put together at least twenty years ago.

“You can do as you wish. I would be lying if I said I was not interested in whether the world you now live in can surpass my brain. Listen, Ayami. In the end, a battle is nothing more than a zero-sum game in which it is determine who will taste victory. I have come here in order to pluck that sweet apple. However, as you try to stop me, you too have already been taken in by that fruit’s flavor. No one can stop victory itself. It is merely an issue of which side will achieve that victory.”

“Yamato.”

“Ayami, stopping me with ideas of good and evil or profits and losses is impossible. Those concepts are simply on too low a level. They will accomplish nothing. If you wish to defeat me, you must approach the essence of this battle. You must desire victory. You must simply want to win. That is the #1 rule.”

The communication ended there.

If he had been able to secretly work his way into the military line, he could easily have erased the log. That meant he had chosen to leave that useful data with her.

The Megalodiver and the first twelve Objects.

The global weather control weapon system named Amaterasu.

A demonstration.

A great famine caused by artificial weather change that would lead to 2 billion deaths.

The collapse of all world powers.

Just the text she had been left with was more than worth analyzing.

But first…

“Someone who truly wanted to win wouldn’t leave such an obvious hint,” spat out the old woman.

She spoke to the vestiges of someone who had once walked by her side.

She spoke to the remnants of the only man she had ever loved.

“It looks to me like you’re trying to hand that sweet fruit to someone. Could you not make up your mind even at the very end, so you decided to hand it all over to your wife? What are you thinking, you crybaby?”