Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume8 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 16===

Quenser heard a quick burst of gunfire.

His fellow soldiers collapsed nearby.

“Shit, they’re here!” shouted Heivia. “It’s Moss Green!!”

They could not raise their heads for fear of the sniper, but the mercenaries had shown themselves by blocking the pure white corridor that led to the sixth secondary power supply. They were about 250 meters away and they numbered between 10 and 20. The straight corridor had no cover, but they had loaded several push carts with thick metal pipes and used them as shields.

On the other hand, Quenser’s group had nothing to use as shields.

And they would have to travel several dozen meters to fall back. They would be shot in the back well before they reached safety.

“Oh, c’mon!!”

Still on the floor, Quenser reached for his back and pulled out a Hand Axe plastic explosive. He attached a pen-like electric fuse, tossed it toward the ceiling, and hit the switch on his radio.

The explosion was followed by the ceiling collapsing.

As he coughed, Heivia pressed up against the pile of rubble and used it as cover.

“Dammit, Quenser! Leave the firefight to us and treat the wounded. There’s nothing more for a bomber to do here!!”

“I’m not a medic!”

“No one else has their hands free!! If we don’t push them back, they’ll throw a grenade and wipe us out!!”

Heivia and the others started firing and left Quenser alone, so he nervously turned toward the fellow soldiers who were collapsed on the floor. The pools of blood were growing and he had no idea where to start.

Along with the ones whose injuries were light enough to still move, he searched through his pouch for anything usable and lined them up on the shiny white floor.

“What’s this? Did the bullet leave the body!?”

“How should I know? But stopping the bleeding comes first. He’ll die if you keep hesitating! Hold that leg. We can wrap a bandage around the thigh to stop the bleeding!!”

“Saline? What is this and how do I use it!?”

“The same as a blood transfusion!! You pour that in instead of blood to regulate the blood pressure!”

“How do you do a blood transfusion!?”

“Just like a normal IV! You find a vein on the elbow and stab in a needle!!”

Quenser’s group was surprisingly lively. They sounded like students preparing for a school festival. As they desperately fired bullets from behind the rubble, Heivia’s group would occasionally turn a jealous eye behind them.

“Ow… Stop, you idiot. That hurts. Don’t dump disinfectant on there. It stings!”

“Ha ha ha. I’m not gonna treat you gently if you refuse to pay back the money I lent you.”

“What!? Wait. Is that glue!? You’re gonna seal the wound with that!? I’ll pay you back with interest!!”

“Of course you will. By the way, the only other options we have here is a stapler or safety pins.”

“Are there no medics over there?”

“There’s one! Hey, you! The one firing the submachine gun! Being an angel in white suits you more than blood and smoke. Stop filling your body with adrenaline and get over there!”

“Eh? Eh? But my boyfriend here asked me to help out.”

“It’s time to ditch him! C’mon over here!!”

Heivia was finally unable to stand the flirting mood of afterschool festival preparations developing behind him, so he shouted angrily at his allies.

“Don’t go stealing our nurse!! She’s our one refreshment up here!!”

“What are you talking about?” said Quenser. “If you need a blonde twin-tail in a nurse cap, you have me. You should count yourself lucky because I’m too good for you.”

“I get it now, Quenser. You want me to kill you, don’t you!?”

Suddenly, an explosion drowned out all nearby voices.

“Bwapph!!!???”

“Dammit…. They’ve started firing 25mm grenades! We just don’t have enough firepower!!”

Those grenades had been developed to kill humans, so they did not destroy the rubble.

But if they were fired in an arc over the rubble, there was nothing Quenser’s group could do. The explosive blast and shrapnel would wash over them.

The previous explosion had not been a simple missed shot.

They were firing a few test shots to calculate the ideal course.

Once they fired for real, Quenser’s group would be slaughtered as they hid behind cover.

Heivia clicked his tongue.

“Gather all our rockets, missiles, and whatever other explosives we have! Let’s blow away the push carts they’re hiding behind!!”

“I’ll leave it to you if you can manage it, but they’re better shots than us! They’ll put a bullet between your eyes while you’re holding up the launcher and taking aim. And the best barrage we can manage isn’t fazing them at all!!”

“Who the hell even are you!?”

“That’s just mean!! I’ve been protecting your back this entire time!!”

Boy A started sobbing despite not looking at all feminine, so Heivia ignored him and turned toward Quenser.

For some reason, Quenser was operating his radio with bloody hands.

“What are you doing!? The cavalry isn’t gonna show up if you send out an SOS!!”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“What?”

Heivia looked confused and his mocking expression turned to a serious one.

Quenser lightly shook his radio.

“We made our way above the waterline to escape their flooding, but I thought of another way to make use of it.”

“You mean the sixth secondary power supply!? Sure, we might be able to bring down all the power supplies by messing with the emergency switchover system, but we can’t get near the thing! Charging in will just get you driven back by bullets and grenades!!”

“There’s something else,” said Quenser without a moment’s pause. He began explaining as if he had been planning this all along. “Heivia, the cavalry has changed quite a bit these days. They have armor that can resist nukes, they have gigantic cannons that can split open the earth, and they’re piloted by beautiful girls.”

“You don’t mean…”

“What else could I mean but an Object?”

Their sight and hearing were completely blown away.

This went well beyond an explosion.

This was meant to aid Quenser’s group, but they were thrown to the pure white floor. The soldiers already on the floor were sent rolling.

“B-babh!? Bbah!? Bbgweh!!”

“D-don’t worry. I understand, Heivia. This is time for explanations, right? I received a report that the princess destroyed the Mad Cooker. That increased her range of motion, so I had her assist us during the openings in her battle against the Be Ablaze. Wink☆”

“Bh… I was trying to ask if you had any last words!!!”

Object shells generally could not attack deep below the sea. In order for Quenser to request assistance from the princess, they had to make their way above the waterline.

The Ame-no-Darin’s corridor had twisted like a sugar sculpture and some of it had been torn off. The first shot had been near Quenser’s group in order to mark off their safe area. The subsequent shells gradually moved farther away and brought death closer and closer to Moss Green.

Metal pipes on push carts were not enough to protect them from this ferocity.

The Moss Green mercenaries frantically tried to retreat, but the entire structure shook with tremendous force and they could not run properly.

The corridor was destroyed as if being bitten into.

The pure white corridor, the structure, and the soldiers were all crushed and thrown through the air.

Quenser covered one ear with a hand, pressed his radio against the other ear, and shouted into it.

“Stop!! Stop firing!!”

“There’s too much noise on your end, so I can’t hear you,” replied the princess.

“You just fired on the sixth secondary power supply!! Our destination is gone!!”

The metal door three hundred meters ahead was blown up from the other side and it spewed flames and smoke.

Heivia tapped Quenser’s shoulder in resignation.

“Our luck ran out once our great demon god had to take part in a conflict between humans. If it was blown up, there’s nothing we can do. We’ll have to go to the next closest power supply.”

The embankment-like place a few kilometers over the ocean was struck by the Baby Magnum’s shells. The structure was torn to shreds where the sniper was presumably lurking.

“The other secondary power supplies are still okay, right?”

“I want to leave the rest to the princess and go home.”

“I’d love to, but our mission will end in failure if the Ame-no-Darin splits in half and sinks. We need to put in a little more effort to lengthen this civil war.”

But then they spotted motion beyond the rubble that no longer functioned as a corridor. It was 250 meters ahead at the corner from which the Moss Green group had appeared.

They saw a woman with long silver hair and brown skin.

She was part of Moss Green, but the simplified medals on her ample chest suggested she held a fairly high rank.

“Now you’ve done it, Legitimacy Kingdom dogs! This is a Capitalist Corporations problem.”

“No, it’s an Island Nation problem! We’re both outsiders here!”

Heivia targeted the brown woman with his assault rifle, but the Ame-no-Darin lurched disconcertingly as an aftereffect of the Baby Magnum’s bombardment. He could not aim steadily and his bullets hit the wall next to her.

The thorough Object bombardment had destroyed the walls, the ceiling, and even the floor.

It felt like Quenser and Heivia were separated from Moss Green by a 250 meter ravine.

Quenser raised his middle finger.

“Let’s call this a tie, so withdraw your unit! Whether you’re from the Northern Restricted Zone or wherever else, flesh-and-blood soldiers can’t withstand the ferocity of an Object!”

“Is that so? Don’t forget your goal, sheltered little boy.”

The Ame-no-Darin shook once more and the ground below their feet felt like a small boat on a stormy night.

“What was that!?” Heivia paled. “That didn’t match the timing of the princess’s bombardment!”

“Our goal is to sink the Ame-no-Darin. We can operate the necessary bulkheads and seawater valves from the central power supply, so now we only have to wait for leverage to bend the giant float until it breaks down the center like a biscuit.”

The ground shook even more.

It sometimes reached a tilt of thirty degrees. Quenser wanted to grab onto something so he did not fall, so he reached for a crack in the floor. However, he heard a gunshot and orange sparks flew from nearby.

The silver-haired brown woman 250 meters away held a handgun.

Normally, 150 meters was the limit for a handgun even with careful aim. The fact that it had taken her only one shot to accurately fire right next to his hand while everything shook showed just how well-trained she was.

Quenser reflexively drew back his hand like a turtle sensing danger and drawing its head into its shell.

And that was exactly what the woman wanted.

“Wait! Watch out, Quenser!!” shouted Heivia.

But as if he were slipping down a slide, Quenser was thrown into the giant “ravine” opened in the pure white floor.

After seeing that, the brown woman licked her lips and jumped in after him.

They would be below the cold ocean there.

The Object could not provide proper support for anyone down there.