Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume8 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 6===

The two idiots named Quenser and Heivia were crammed into submarine torpedo tubes along with the other soldiers. It was one to a tube and they felt as small as coffins. The diving suits and oxygen tanks only made it feel more cramped.

“What is wrong with them? This is discrimination!! I’m a radar analyst. I shouldn’t be launched from a torpedo tube while holding an oxygen tank and an underwater gun! I don’t remember the contract I signed saying anything about doing this!”

“Shut up, Heivia. Sound is everything for subs. Make too much noise and the enemy will notice us.”

“Fine by me! I’ll make them wrinkle their nose at the most tremendous fart they’ve ever heard!!”

“You’re in an enclosed space, so you’ll just end up cursing your own asshole.”

As they chatted over the radio, Quenser’s coffin filled with red light. The torpedo tube was about to open.

The greeting from the weapons officer reached his ears.

“Carefree little birds, you have the precious free will of a human, so you can shit yourself if you want, but wait until you’ve left the sub first. Rock & roll!”

“Goddammit. Should I have brought an alarm clock along to set off after I left!? Well!?”

Heivia’s complaints were immediately followed by the external door opening and seawater rushing into the torpedo tube. Quenser did not fight the current and waited until the tube was filled with water before he slowly left the submarine.

“There’s nothing but sludge and oil around here. I’d heard ocean oil drilling always let some oil leak out, but this is crazy. You could set the ocean ablaze with a burner.”

“When you weigh ecology against resources, people tend to choose the more profitable one. Not that it matters to us.”

“What’s that giant mass over there? A new type of mutant?”

“It’s a clump of oil. It’s just like running into sewage. You can’t move once it gets all around you.”

Quenser, Heivia, and eight other soldiers travelled through the dark ocean using devices resembling kickboards with motors attached. They were on their way to the Ame-no-Darin, but doing so was not easy when the area was in a state of civil war.

Several vague silhouettes measuring a few meters across came into view.

As they came into focus, Quenser felt a chill run down his back. Long narrow cylinders which appeared to be torpedoes were stabbed into the clump of oil.

“Those are the Capitalist Corporations’ smart torpedoes,” said Heivia calmly. “I don’t know which side of the civil war fired them, though.”

“W-wait. Are we going to pass by them? If they detonate, we’ll be torn to pieces.”

“I said they were ‘smart’, remember? They only react to the acoustic signature of enemy ships that are updated over their network. They aren’t made to kill humans.”

“Really?”

“They cost 20 thousand dollars apiece. They’d lose a ton of money if a fish swimming by could detonate them. They’re made to only react to top priority targets.”

“But these didn’t go off! We can’t trust them.”

Heivia went ahead as a guide and Quenser nervously followed while weaving between the smart torpedoes.

But that was when something approached while producing a rumbling vibration that sounded like a coin laundry amplified several times.

A giant mass slowly passed by the two idiots.

It was a submarine.

Quenser’s eyes opened wide.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!! We’re swimming between unexploded torpedoes right this very instant! If they react to that acoustic signature, we’ll be blown away!”

“We have a bigger problem!! I don’t know whose sub that is, but the current created by its propeller is going to carry us off!! If we don’t grab onto something, it’ll suck us in and slice us to pieces!!”

“What am I supposed to grab onto!?”

[[Image:HO_v08_043.jpg|thumb]]

The sensation of something tugging at his body created an instinctual fear in Quenser, so he immediately reached for the closest object.

It was one of the torpedoes sticking out of the oil.

“Kyaaaaah!!!!!”

Any kind of tactical thoughts were sent to the farthest reaches of the universe as he entrusted himself to what looked like a propane tank and prayed it would not explode.

“This is it! I’m gonna piss myself! I really am this time!!”

“Shut up!! That’s no different form peeing in the pool! Stop making such a racket!!”

“How about you try it! It’ll just fill your diving suit and there’ll be no escape from that hell of your own creation. I don’t want the kind of embarrassment that leads to suicide!!”

Those boys were from the nation of kings and knights, but they were desperate to protect their pride on an elementary school level.

An unpleasant noise rang out.

“What now!?”

“The sub ran into the clump of oil! It’s coming this way!”

The back of the giant sub swung around like a bat and the propeller passed right by them like a lawnmower.

“Shit that was close. I don’t know whose sub that is, but any closer and it would’ve wiped all of us out.”

“Shouldn’t we help it?”

“How? And whichever side it’s on, it’s an enemy.”

Quenser’s entire body was covered with an uncomfortable sweat, but annoyingly enough, he could not wipe it away. He, Heivia, and the other soldiers moved carefully to the side of the oil clump and met up with the units that left a different submarine.

Ultimately, a group of around one hundred Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers were swimming toward the Ame-no-Darin.

“Is that it? It’s incredible that something so gigantic can float.”

“That just shows how reckless they’ve been. That’s gotta be the king of pollution around here. In an American comic, it’d be the villain’s secret base.”

As they looked up at the Ame-no-Darin from below, it looked like a never-ending ceiling. They had needed to travel directly below the floating island to sneak in, but having the surface sealed off made the ocean seem all the more oppressive. If their oxygen tank malfunctioned, there was no escape. It would mean certain death.

“Let’s go. Our way in is the emergency drain pumps used in case of flooding. They aren’t normally active, so we can make our way up into the float.”

“If they notice us, it’s all over. One flip of a switch and seven tons of seawater will be ejected every second. We’d learn what a bug in a drain feels like.”

After using their tools to destroy a few sensors and remove the wire mesh cover, they entered the drain pump pipe one at a time. The pipe was over two meters across, so they had plenty of room to move.

After working their way into the Ame-no-Darin’s spare engine area, they could finally remove their diving suits and heavy oxygen tanks.

“Hey, where’d our commander go?” asked Heivia in annoyance. “We can’t start without him.”

“It looks like we got separated somewhere,” answered a nearby female soldier. “He isn’t responding over the radio, so should we wait until he catches up?”

“No, thanks! He’s the one who got all worked up on the Scarlet Princess, wasn’t he? I’m not going to get myself killed for him. A group of one hundred can’t hide forever. If they throw a bomb in while we’re waiting for that jokester, we’ll all be taken out.”

“Um, Heivia? This is enemy territory, so wouldn’t it be bad if our commander was captured?”

“If his allies can’t find him, how is the enemy supposed to? And aren’t the rest of you pissed at him, too? Teacher won’t get mad, so be honest and raise your hands.”

None of the honor students raised their hands, so Heivia changed the question.

“Do you want to die for the kind of commander who returns to the sub without telling us, or do you want to continue the mission and get back alive? Raise your hands if you want to survive.”

All of the idiots raised their hands.

Their plan was decided.

The Ame-no-Darin was a float the size of a fair-sized island, but it was still an indoor facility. A group of one hundred travelling together would be too large for the passageways, so it would be more effective to split into groups of ten and travel down different routes to target the enemy from multiple angles.

And so it was time to split into groups.

Quenser raised his hand.

“I’m willing to follow a guide, but who takes the lead?”

“That’s decided by rank.”

Heivia’s offhand comment turned everyone’s focus on a new second lieutenant, but he trembled, shook his head, and grew pale.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” said a female soldier in irritation.

“Then let’s go with experience and achievements.”

Heivia’s new suggestion turned the focus to the two idiots.

Needless to say, no one could outdo their achievements of destroying several Objects on their own. It was just that their negative achievements were also quite amazing, so it all cancelled out in the end.

“Seriously?”

“If we keep complaining, the enemy will spot us and get in the first attack. Let’s get moving.”

And that settled that.

The other ten-man groups determined their leaders based on the number of battles they had fought in and they all began to move.

“We have no guarantee we’ll come back here and who knows when we’ll need to jump in the ocean. It’ll be a bit of a burden, but we need to carry the diving suits and oxygen tanks with us.”

“Where will the enemy come from? Specifically, the saboteurs who are destroying the Ame-no-Darin to cut off the self-defense PMC’s supply line.”

“They’re boldly making their way in using transport helicopters with spoofed identifiers. They should be arriving any time now, so let’s head toward the heliport. We’ll probably run across them on our way there.”

“Quick question. How do we tell the saboteurs from the self-defense PMC protecting the Ame-no-Darin? They should both be using Capitalist Corporations Island Nation equipment.”

“Do we even need to? They’re both enemies.”