Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume16 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 12===

Hina Liqueurball could not just sit there.

She and the air pump facility workers had hidden in the sturdy storeroom added after the initial construction, but she could not stand it any longer.

Quenser and the others who had cut the chain from her ankle were fighting on her behalf.

If they lost, they were sure to die. If they won, they could not escape the label of murderers. But they had not hesitated in the face of that harsh choice.

“Nn!”

She opened the heavy door and left on her own.

She gave no concern for her short skirt and ran out with the legs now freed from the GPS ball-and-chain. She swayed unsteadily and tilted a bit diagonally as she ran down the corridor. She had meant to head to the exit, but the third floor wall had crumbled away, revealing the scene outside.

“Ah…”

There, the chocolate-colored girl became a witness of history.

“Ahh!?”

The ocean had changed color.

It was no longer the beautiful clear blue with a hint of green used on postcards and tourist sites. It had a sinister fury. Something like a dark clump of rock jutted out from it. It must have been quite hot because steam was rising into the sky with more intensity than smoke from a chimney.

It was a submarine volcano.

Quenser and the others had filled the air pumps with hydrogen and sent it into this area of ocean. But how far had it gone? Not just in length or width, but in depth. If the “single bomb” that had created reached the ocean floor, it would have violently shaken the earth’s crust itself.

The pumps had been designed to send oxygen-filled water to the deep pits where the hypoxic Sea of Death was most common.

To start with, heavy pressure had been used to infuse the seawater with lots of hydrogen and that was sent to the depths of the ocean.

Even if the pressure of those depths was insufficient and some of the hydrogen separated from the water, hydrogen was the lightest element. It would only rise, so large bubbles of hydrogen would have been rising from the bottom of the ocean like an upside-down waterfall.

In other words, it had all been connected.

If one point was detonated, the explosion would instantly spread to the entire area.

That created an artificial earthquake.

And that led to a forced eruption.

The Hawaii District was known as a disaster-prone area due to its many active volcanos and more than 30 hurricanes each year.

As all that lava flowed out, it had rapidly cooled in the seawater and hardened into rock. As that rock continued to grow, the ocean bottom broke the surface and formed an island.

The Over Cavitation, or Antoinette, was a Second Generation built for naval battles, so it was like a fish out of water. It could not move on land even with the new bipod-like legs.

A heavy rumbling arrived.

The battered Legitimacy Kingdom Object used a barely-functioning main cannon to slowly take aim from the distance.

As badly damaged as that Object was, it would never miss a stationary target that had been flipped onto its side to reveal its belly.

This was checkmate.

“…”

Hina had skipped all the way to college, so she understood the science behind the trick.

But she still softly gripped the ID card at her flat chest. No, she was reaching for the cartoonish character sticker she had placed on the card.

The character was from a legend known all across Polynesia, which included the Hawaii District. The generous man had never grown out of his mischievous nature no matter how much power he gained and he had taught humans how to use fire.

Maui Tikitiki.

That god of hers was said to have fished their islands from the bottom of the ocean in order to save someone’s life.

With a deafening blast, the Baby Magnum’s low-stability plasma cannon pierced the wicked monster.