Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume16 Chapter 3

The surprisingly loud sound of the wheels wore on Quensette’s nerves.

The wheels belonged to a cleaning cart he had borrowed from the linen room on the same floor.

He was rolling it down the air-conditioned hallway to the office from which he had come.

“Is everything fine, Rosa?”

The dog barked in response.

Grinov managed a weak laugh with his hands tied behind his back and the dog keeping an eye on him.

“What do you hope to accomplish by stuffing me in there? Do you really think you can even escape this mansion?”

“If that isn’t going to work, I can always chop off your bearded head and stuff it in a barf bag. Is that what you would prefer?”

“…Are you enjoying this?”

“What?”

“I have what you do not. In fact, this fate has befallen me because I have it. This is how oppressive our world is. There is no freedom here, only despair. How does it feel to prove that with your own actions?”

“…”

“We have almost certainly killed more criminals than all of you have. Everyone kills to keep themselves safe. The only difference is the set of rules we follow, but no one can really say which set is the correct one. You must know just how selfish the laws and international treaties enacted by the four world powers are. The justice you believe in is simply that which is poured from the tap when you hold out your hands. We have constructed a different set of rules on the other side of the coin. That is the truth of the matter.”

After instilling some politeness in the bearded man using a kick to his defenseless gut, Quenser chucked him into the cleaning cart and then had Rosa join him in that cramped space. What would happen to the man if he did anything to displease those two? Without the use of his hands, he could not avoid Quenser’s kicks and now there was a legit military dog right in front of him. There was no escape this time and no clever suicide was available, so it was sure to be a fun little picnic.

“Tear out his windpipe if he says anything, Rosa. Bringing back his corpse is good enough.”

It was unclear if she could actually understand such a complex command, but it only had to keep Grinov quiet.

After placing a few sheets over the cleaning cart to cover up the openings, Quenser glanced over at the drawers he had pulled out from the desk. They contained everything from documents to a handgun, but he was interested in something else: a car key.

“A Dynamix EV Grade 500s? That’s a luxury self-driving electric car, right?”

Seeing the maker’s logo reminded him of the TV commercial. It was an odd choice for Grinov who disliked the cloud and big data, but Dora Blue-Hawaii, the naked woman from the arms dealer he had met back in Hawaii, had wielded special equipment based on a flying car. He had also seen a self-driving tractor rolled over in the farms and the sprinkler system supporting those farms was program controlled. Perhaps Grinov’s personal desktop was its own thing and the organization as a whole had an online environment. …Of course, they would be paying a hacker to provide specialized maintenance and inspections of the system just like paying a personal lawyer or accountant.

Quenser could not drive a car or motorcycle, but he could not be picky. He would let the machine handle it.

A peaceful solution had ceased to be an option from the moment he stun gunned Grinov. The snowball was already rolling down the hill, so he had to leave this Southern European mansion before things got worse at an accelerating rate.

“Okay.”

He pushed the cleaning cart down the hall now that it was much heavier than before. He could not use the stairs with this, so he needed the service elevator used for carrying food.

This was supposedly the top floor, but for some reason, there was both an up and a down button. Had they simply used the same standard panels for all floors, or was there an attic area? Either way, Quenser was only interested in going down. He pressed that button and waited.

The elevator was not like those found in a department store or hotel. It was the simple type with a metal accordion door that pulled to the side to open. It was small enough that the cart would almost entirely fill it. The wires were exposed and you could likely reach them if you stuck your hand through the gaps in the door.

Was this so plain and old-fashioned compared to the rest because the mansion’s owner would never use it?

For a while, Quenser only heard a clanking sound much like an old clothes dryer. The building was only 3 floors, but the elevator must have used a pretty cheap motor.

(Hurry, hurry.)

Standing still only fueled his impatience. He had to consciously suppress the urge to tap his feet.

How long did it really take? A minute? Three minutes?

Finally, the view through the accordion door showed a giant mass appearing in the emptiness of the elevator shaft. There was no sign of a safety device, so there was nothing you could do if your finger or clothing got caught. Quenser waited for the elevator to come to a complete stop before he reached for the door.

And…

“Wait, don’t do that! You need to press the button before sliding the door. If the elevator starts moving, you’ll be caught in it!!”

He gasped.

But he was pretty sure he managed to keep it from showing on his face.

A sexy maid who looked a lot like a young wife stepped around a corner of the hallway and responded to Newcomer Quensette’s clothing rather than his face.

“Wait. Why are you wearing the outdoor uniform for indoor work?”

He just about clicked his tongue. When he put on this maid uniform back in the prefab hut, hadn’t he assumed the thick, heavy-duty uniform was meant for farm work? There was more than one variety of maid uniform here.

He did not need a lame excuse right now.

He shoved the cleaning cart into the elevator.

“Ah!”

He left behind the young wife maid, who clearly took her job too seriously to be wasted on a criminal organization, and he rapidly tapped the down button inside the elevator. The sexy and panicked maid ran over, but just before she arrived, the elevator (which was probably older than her) started moving with that disconcerting clanking sound.

Three floors.

Just three floors.

His heart was pounding. If that pheromone-leaking maid ran down the stairs or calmly used a radio or internal phone to call down to the lower floors, he might find some swarthy soldiers waiting for him when the elevator arrived. He was reminded of Grinov’s amused threat about executing people by tying them to a car, dumping lighter fluid over their head, setting them on fire, and dragging them around until the flames died down.

“It does not matter if you achieve your dream or not.”

“Shut up, Grinov.”

“If an undesirable individual achieves success, this is how they are rewarded. Those in power will steal success from anyone who shows up later. And which side of that equation would you fall on? I doubt your position is as safe as you think it is.”

“I said shut up!!”

(It doesn’t matter if he’s dead. Would it have been easier to chuck him out the window and just casually walk down the stairs? Dammit!)

The best ideas always came to you after the train had passed that station.

The elevator arrived at the first floor.

The garage could not be that far away. He was sure to find it after walking 20 or 30 meters down the hallway.

But he ran across a maintenance soldier the instant he pushed the cleaning cart out into the hallway.

A gold necklace glittered at the man’s neck.

This could have been a chance for sweet Quensette to test her acting skills, but…

“Gyah!”

A low zapping sound rang out.

The instant he was in range, Quenser hit the guy with his electric bug sprayer stun gun. He had no way of knowing how far word had spread from the young wife maid on the third floor, so he had to abandon the possibility of a safe option.

He did not know the right way to do this.

Nothing he was doing may have resembled the recommendations in the manuals of the Legitimacy Kingdom military’s intelligence division.

But he had to trust that he had done the right thing.

“Hh!!”

He had seen the general location of the garage when viewing the mansion from outside, so he gripped the cleaning cart’s handle and pushed it forcefully ahead. He sped up to a run and slammed the cart into a maintenance soldier who turned around in the center of the hallway to see what was happening.

With a sound louder than a bicycle crash, the cart hit him in the back of the hip and he writhed and rolled on the floor. However, he had a friend who stuck his head out of a nearby door.

“Rosa!!”

At his shout, the sheets placed over the cart were swept off from within. A dog leapt out like a jack-in-the-box and attacked before the surprised soldier could grab the assault rifle from the sling belt.

Quenser did not have time to see how it turned out.

He simply pushed the Grinov-carrying cart further on.

Then he heard a short scream.

He looked back with skirt fluttering and gave a quick shout.

“Rosa, leave her alone! Come here!!”

The dog ran right past a crouching girl in overalls.

“Dad…? No, how could this happen!?”

“Kh.”

This is what it meant to fight the arms dealers. The only people here were their friends and family. Nothing he did here would be appreciated in the slightest.

He still had a ways to go before reaching the garage.

The German shepherd caught up and easily passed him.

He did not bother opening the door.

Instead, he used the cart’s weight to smash through the door like a battering ram and continued right on in.

The place smelled of motor oil.

The air conditioning must have been off since no one was here, so it was sweltering inside.

It was quite large for a garage. Brightly polished luxury cars were lined up like at a dealership. They looked more like they were being displayed than stored.

Quenser walked quickly across the garage while making sure he did not accidentally kick any of the imitation platinum lying around. Enough to fill a 1-liter bottle would weigh 21.4kg, so he could easily break a toe on those things. He checked the inscription on the car key he had found.

“Rosa, search with me! N-A-5-7-8-7-6-4-4-3!!”

She cheerfully barked in response.

He patted Rosa’s head when she found the car he wanted. The Dynamix EV Grade 500s was a silver 4-door, but despite looking like a sports car, it had proper 4-wheel drive. It even had a winch. It was made powerful enough to drive around in the desert here. It was also quite spacious, making it perfect for car sex.

Quenser pressed the button on the key to unlock the door.

He pulled the bearded man out from the cleaning cart.

“Do you want the passenger seat or the trunk!?”

“I would prefer to see my fate coming so I can respond accordingly. You remind me a lot of me. I can tell you wish to turn this confused world on its head even if it means breaking the rules. What you see happening to me here is a path you too will walk one day.”

Without waiting for the man’s response, Quenser grabbed his head and shoved him into the car with his hands still tied behind his back. He had Rosa sit in the back seat where she could leap at Grinov at a moment’s notice. Quenser took the driver’s seat even though he did not know how to drive.

All he could do inside the hot car was switch on the air-conditioning.

(What do I do? I’ve never used a self-driving car before! I don’t even know how to start it up!!)

For some reason, the keyhole was on the side of the GPS screen. You inserted it like USB memory. The GPS seemed to be linked with control of the car, but it of course did not have the location of the coalition force’s maintenance base zone in its map data. He ultimately had to manually input the numerical coordinates and then the 500s started up with a quiet vroom. …Although it was an electric car, so that was only a sound effect meant to sound the part.

However…

“Oh, oh? What?”

The garage’s exit was covered by a metal shutter, but the EV continued forward regardless. Based on the ads on TV, it could even parallel park on its own and it had the image recognition and collision prevention radar needed to stop just before actually hitting something. But those ads were just CG, weren’t they? Hadn’t there been a bunch of fine print at the edge of the screen saying that scenario was only for advertisement purposes? How real had it actually been??? Quenser’s shoulders tensed up, but then he saw something: Grinov Quarterdeck in the passenger seat.

The man’s hands were tied behind his back, but he kicked through the bottom of the dashboard, pulled out the bundled-together power cables, and tore them apart.

“Only miniskirt martial artist women should be that skilled with their legs!!!!!!”

Quenser stopped the man with the electric bug sprayer stun gun, but it was too late. That wiring must have been part of the auto-brake system because the luxury EV ignored the obstacle up ahead, broke right through the metal shutter, and drove out into the garden.

A maintenance soldier stood in their way.

“Waah!?”

Quenser frantically grabbed the wheel and jerked it to the side. The self-driving car was program controlled, but it still gave priority to a manual override. They just barely avoided hitting the soldier, but there was no time to step on the brake pedal.

Stopping now would mean death.

He heard a short burst of gunfire from behind and the rear window shattered. The sweltering 40-degree air poured in. This was what he got for not killing that soldier. They must have wanted some level of bulletproofing but not wanted to be trapped in the car either because the glass was designed to break into beads with rounded edges. Rosa barked in annoyance as they landed on her.

The program was still running just fine.

However, the 500s could not use its brakes no matter what stood in its way: a flower bed, a metal fence, or a human. It was like a chaotic thrill ride.

“There is no saving you.”

Either he had yet to recover from the stun gun or he had lost more blood from his neck wound than expected because the bearded man slurred his speech a bit in the passenger seat.

“No matter what happens in the meantime, you will reach a dead end. You will ultimately be surrounded and forced to beg for your life.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Why was the man provoking him like this while within arm’s reach? Quenser used another stun gun blast to silence that king of the hill. People could get used to anything, so it looked like the electrical violence was not going to work much longer. He missed when he was looking after Hina Liqueurball back in the Hawaii District. Why were there no cute girls around here? He wanted to sulk.

They noisily broke through the main gate and went airborne for a moment as they left the mansion’s property.

There was no such thing as safety around here.

But things were about to become even more dangerous. Once they reached the circular farms, they would have reached a giants’ colosseum where multiple Objects fought.

(Oh, whoops. My uniform and explosives are still in that prefab hut. The little things don’t matter as much, but I need to retrieve the communications equipment to save us some encryption trouble. This is an arms dealer’s hideout, so they’ll definitely sell them to the highest bidder!!)

After swerving around as best he could to avoid a rolled tractor and the remains of a grain silo, the hut came into view. He slammed on the brakes, pitched forward a bit, awkwardly pulled on the hand brake, and only then noticed the shift lever. He had the order backwards, but he tried grabbing that. It was an automatic, but he pushed too hard, shifting from drive all the way to reverse, and had to pull it back into park. He made a quick comment while opening the door.

“Rosa, kill him if he tries anything funny.”

He received a reassuring bark in response.

Once outside, the scorching 40-degree sunlight hit him.

He was interested in the vent on the side of the concrete base, not the inside of the prefab hut itself. He crouched down, reached inside, and pulled out the gear he had stuffed inside a garbage bag.

He had only been gone for two minutes, but he returned to find the bearded man covered in blood. And not because his neck wound had reopened.

Quenser reacted with his expression flat.

“That’s what happens when you try to run away, moron.”

He had expected for Rosa to look proud of herself, but she was actually cowering down in the back seat. The problem seemed to be the garbage bag Quenser was carrying. She must not have wanted to put her bulletproof jacket back on. The maid(?) made sure to brush the round shards of glass out of the dog’s fur, and then…

“C’mon, Rosa. Don’t struggle. A girl needs to look nice!”

Rosa barked in protest, but this was a battlefield. The jacket could be the difference between life and death, so he had to harden his heart.

Quenser got the bulletproof jacket on her.

“There, you go, Rosa. You look cute.”

She only whined in an incredibly displeased way.

Quenser returned the shift lever and hand brake to normal and let the program take control once more.

At that very moment, the prefab hut was vaporized by a deafening explosion.

He was nearly knocked over even inside the car. No, it was the 500s itself that rose up on two wheels like someone lifting one side of a tea table.

A stray shell had hit.

By the time he realized that, the windows and mirrors had shattered and transparent flakes had poured down on his head. They were designed to shatter in round bead shapes, but he might have been soaked with blood otherwise. With those reflective additions to the maid uniform, Quensette had finally begun to sparkle.

The cool air-conditioned air was escaping the car.

A normal car might have stopped running at this point, but this was a self-driving car with its safety features gone. It forcibly returned to its designated course with an unnatural grinding sound.

The sound of corn and sprinklers being knocked down was rapidly approaching from the side.

Could anyone still call this Operation Southern Cross Grim Reaper without a care in the world? The joint operation was a complete mess.

“They’re already this close!?”

This was not to the time to shout about the Object moving right in front of them. Something fell onto the hood with a sticky splat. This was not something they had hit; it had clearly fallen from above.

It was the upper half of a soldier.

“Hee! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!?”

Quenser’s eyes met those fully widened ones. There was nothing he could do. When the program-controlled electric car made a smooth turn, the corpse slid to the side and off the edge of the hood.

Only after it vanished from view did he realize it had worn a Legitimacy Kingdom uniform. But after seeing that, he did not have the courage to retrieve the dog tags.

Even now, the giants were chaotically duking it out above the heads of the mere worms. It did not matter whether or not they intended to attack. They could easily hit their own allies without meaning to. And regardless, it was obvious who would break if it was human against machine.

“Whose Object is that!? Which side are they on!?”

He tried to look up and check, but they were too close to see past the bottom. It was hard to look straight up while inside a car. He remained uncertain of anything as the windowless car ended up passing between the two fighting Objects.

And that was not the only battle.

It was happening everywhere.

The neatly-maintained circular corn fields were blown away, self-driving tractors burned on their sides, and all the grain silos had collapsed. Fresh water was precious in the desert, but it gushed from the broken sprinklers. Some horses must have escaped from somewhere because they were running around in a panic. This was hell on earth. And it was gradually approaching that mansion filled with noncombatants, even if they were the friends and family of the arms dealers. The end result was not a pleasant thing to imagine.

“Oh, right. My radio.”

Since it was a self-driving car, Quenser was free to take his eyes off the road(?). Before he even twisted around and reached into the back seat, Rosa had already dug through the garbage bag and grabbed the device in her mouth. He gave her a quick pat as he switched it on to hear different voices describing the state of the battlefield. It was a little like the audio tour at a museum.

“Ho ho. Oh ho ho ho ho! To be honest, my Gatling 033 is perfect already and has no need for a scattershot weapon, but you would make for a nice, if pitiful, backup dancer. Now watch in awe and think about how you could help accentuate what I can do. Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho!!”

“Nice, that one earns you a lot of points. The Capitalist Corporations is edging out the Faith Organization now! Is that the final offer? Anyone else want to show off what they can do for us!?”

“Ehhh? Sticking with it longer will increase the price of fuel??? Then what’s the point of any of this!?”

“This is a gift from god! It is no mere coincidence that a cutting-edge Second Generation is within our grasp here!! Just take apart the words ‘Parasite Plan’ and rearrange them. We must not waste this opportunity!!”

“It’s almost laughable how much they’re all letting this arms dealer mess with them…”

It was complete chaos.

They had set up a temporary joint channel for Operation Southern Cross Grim Reaper, so everyone’s reports were jumbled together.

Quenser clicked his tongue in the driver’s seat and looked off into the distance.

There he saw a familiar Object: the Baby Magnum.

It had been half-dead when he left, but it was still under attack from multiple other Objects. The Legitimacy Kingdom’s Escalibor must have had trouble joining the battle, so it had yet to show itself.

Was the Legitimacy Kingdom the only one opposing the fight to take the arms dealer Object for themselves? She had to treat every other participant in this giants’ fight as an enemy. Even more than the illegal Second Generation Gangster had to.

The others were ganging up on the weakest one so they would not end up in last place themselves. They had been tricked into thinking that was the right thing to do. This was the cold principle of “survival of the fittest” applied to the economic and financial fields. This was how Grinov Quarterdeck manipulated people using profit and loss.

Simply listening was not enough.

The Princess would never last at this rate. As long as the Gangster remained at the center of it all, the coalition force would continue to be manipulated and they would continue ganging up on the Princess who was insisting on what was right.

It did not matter if they would not listen to a reasonable argument. Quenser decided to do this according to the dirty logic of the arms dealers and their Parasite Plan.

He needed to move the eye of the storm.

He hit his radio’s switch in order to save the Princess.

He had just one goal:

“What the hell, Oh Ho Ho!? Are you still stuck on something so shallow!?”

“Wha- huh!?”

“You’re free to invest in whatever you want, but if you don’t get Woodstock’s Object, everything you’ve spent on it goes right down the drain. Do you have any idea how much a single shot from an Object costs!? Surely you know wars between powerful nations are a lot like throwing attaché cases stuffed with cash at each other! This is your choice, so it’s your responsibility. You do understand that the more you pay, the riskier a gamble it is, right? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the future idol of newspaper clothing, lady of a cardboard home, and saint of styrofoam!!”

“Quenser…?”

Weapons, ammo, fuel, and personnel. War was expensive.

They might be hoping to confiscate money and valuables from the criminal organization.

They might be after the resources in the nearby salt lake.

They might be filming material for a music video.

They might be using the result to demand funding from an international anti-crime foundation.

…After all, this was not the usual clean wars fought against other nations. You did not earn money simply by defeating dirty criminals. And no one wanted to go into debt. The world powers had only joined this fight after counting their chickens before they hatched and assuming they could make some money from it.

But what if it did not work out?

Without the income they assumed they would receive, all the money they spent would not be coming back. It was the same as investing in wheat futures or flipping real estate. If their estimates proved naïve, the amount they invested went down the drain and the VIPs in a supposed position of safety would lose their jobs.

“By the way, Oh Ho Ho, what happened to the Information Alliance’s Perfect Range? If it was blown away into scraps, you’re going to have a real hard time making up for that loss.”

Who would be forced to take responsibility there?

A deadly game of musical chairs was fast approaching.

“Ho, oh ho ho. Don’t be silly! War is a serious matter that cannot be discussed in terms of simple morality and heroism. Be a sore loser if you like, but your bluffs cannot rattle me…”

“Say cheese!”

Quenser ignored her and instead held up his mobile device. He made sure he and the restrained arms dealer boss were in the frame, snapped a photo, and uploaded it using the coalition force datalink.

“Grinov Quarterdeck has been captured. Can you really continue your deal with Woodstock if I slit his throat? Every deal they make requires his approval. These are criminals we’re talking about, so you can’t expect them to follow a verbal promise made on the battlefield. And with their boss out of his mansion, who’s going to sign the contract!?”

A tremor raced across the battlefield.

Operation Southern Cross Grim Reaper had entered a new phase.

A tiny dot on the map held Grinov Quarterdeck’s life in his hands. If he threatened the big boss with a knife or gun, Woodstock might ignore the world powers’ courtship dances and sell their Object to him instead.

This was not a metropolis with EM signals flying around 24/7. They needed to locate the source of the radio transmission and decide whether to protect it or attack it.

It was a tangle of various information and intentions.

For example…

[[Image:HO v16 BW16.png|thumb]]

“Who…?”

Frolaytia Capistrano was trembling in the Legitimacy Kingdom maintenance base zone.

The coalition force had their bases set up adjacent to each other and a direct attack in violation of the war treaties could come at any time. The base commander was forced to keep a carbine on hand, but the busty silver-haired officer ignored that abnormal situation as she raised her voice.

“Who in the world is that maid!? Why does she have our equipment!? That’s Quenser’s ID number, so…did she find his radio somewhere? Investigate this immediately!!”

While crawling through the desert of fattened flies, Private Heivia Winchell stared in disbelief at the screen of his mobile device along with Myonri who had entered nightmare mode after her eyes met those of what was buried below the sand.

“The legendary maid? What is she doing here!?”

In the Information Alliance maintenance base zone, silver-haired and brown-skinned Lieutenant Colonel Lendy Farolito said something she could never say in earshot of the girl she was producing as a world-famous idol.

“This maid…has what it takes!!”

And.

All four world powers roared at once.

“The holy girl seen at the Eastern European monastery hotel has reappeared here!? The goddess of victory is smiling upon us! This battle is ours!!”

(Oh, crap. I forget I was still Quensette.)

Quenser only realized that after he had uploaded the photo, but this was no time to worry over it like a social media mistake.

Definite killer intent turned his way from all across the battlefield. Those 5 billion dollar giants focused on the bug crawling around at their feet. And they took action to exterminate it.

“Did you really think you could change things?” The muscular bearded man scoffed from the passenger seat with his hands still tied behind his back. “There is no changing the outcome now. This is what happens when you try to create a world not bound by the four world powers! You squandered what little chance you had. How could someone like you stop so many rampaging Objects!?”

Quenser punched Grinov from the driver’s seat in the 40-degree air entering through the broken windows, but it did not silence the man.

“What did you see in the Hawaii District? What about in that Eastern European tourist region struggling for independence from the old system?”

“…”

“There is no such thing as pure evil. We simply wished to walk a different path from those corpulent monstrosities seated above us and devouring so much money. That was all! We couldn’t trust the laws or international treaties decided by those world powers, so we tried constructing a different set of rules. We tried clinging to the other side of the coin!! We have killed more criminals than all the police in the world. Were we good or evil? A ridiculous question. If you insist on categorizing everything that way as an excuse to take all the lives you want, then we were the ones standing on the side of justice!”

“So what? Did you think you could do anything just cause you were clever enough to break free of the yoke? How many people do you think died for your selfish ends!? We act like Hina’s case was resolved, but was it really? It’s not like she gets her parents back after they were fed to sharks in a cruel execution!!”

“Woodstock had its beginnings making guns from the wood of a bloodstained forest and selling them to spread chaos throughout the world.”

The man gave an odd smile.

It looked like an overinflated balloon that would pop as soon as someone touched it.

“It was a joint military exercise, so they claim no one knows which side shot that shell. More than 30,000 innocent people died, but no one was punished. So many were slaughtered and not a single person was arrested or thrown in prison. And everyone forgot all about it not two months later. By then the headlines were all about how cute some panda in the zoo is!!”

“You…”

“My dream was to discover the truth and reveal it to the world. I needed enough power to prevent the countries and their governments from suppressing it. But the more power I gained, the more they interfered and worked to hide the truth!! No matter how big the organization grew. What is your dream? Whatever it is, you will one day walk this same path whether you have power or not. Because that is how our world works!!”

They had seen something while pursuing the Ivory Garden poachers in Eastern Europe.

A black forest unnaturally burned to the ground.

“…”

The electric car played a simple “vroom” sound effect as it bounced over a bump in the ground.

“Who is it you resent?” asked Quenser. “Because you’re as much a killer as them now.”

“The same fate awaits you.”

They left the torn-up circular farms and reached the rolling sand dunes of the desert. That land of scorching sand contained mystery huts and unnatural swarms of flies that carried an atmosphere of death. The car used a program to drive, but it seemed to be sliding to the side more than before. Quenser’s stomach was squeezed by a unique fear different from slipping on ice.

What did Grinov himself think?

In his attempt to outdo everyone else and make a case for what was right, he had created tons of secrets he could not reveal even to his family and he had been forced to bury them all in the desert.

Was he plagued with nightmares, or did he not bat an eye at it anymore?

“Welcome to the beyond.”

It was like the words of death itself.

The muscular bearded man with distinctive tattoos all over his body spoke with an odd nervousness in his voice.

“These are the farthest reaches of the earth, outside the world powers. All is permissible here, no matter how unreasonable. A world where 1 plus 1 does not equal 2 is a very cruel thing. Now tremble as you see white become black before your eyes.”

Quenser considered using the stun gun again, but things changed before he could.

The earth rose up before them. The Dynamix EV Grade 500s flipped sideways like it was caught on the tea table as a giant overturned it.

“Gaaah!?”

With the windows already broken, the sand rushed in and his head was nearly taken off, but he did not have time to writhe around while upside down. An Object had targeted them. He grabbed Grinov’s shoulder, called out to Rosa in the back seat, and crawled out through what had once been the windshield.

The direct sunlight stabbed into him in that 40-degree hell. He would have to travel by foot in the scorching desert.

(5km to go. But I can’t reach the maintenance base zone!!)

A shadow enveloped them.

The first to arrive was…

“The Rush!!”

“Oh, dear? Oh ho ho. You have the makings of an excellent idol, but who are you? Are you the legendary maid the internet is making such a fuss about? …No, wait. This can’t be. This voiceprint belongs to…no, no. This must be an error.”

Not even an Object’s high-quality cameras had revealed Quensette’s identity. Quenser was a little impressed with himself for that, but for now he reached an arm around Grinov’s back to squeeze at his injured neck and stuck a pen-shaped electric fuse in the man’s nose.

“I hold Grinov Quarterdeck’s life in my hands! This fuse is enough to blow out the son of a bitch’s brains. An Object is powerful, but you can’t shoot just me like a police sniper, can you!?”

“Oh ho ho. What a filthy mouth you have, Miss Legendary Maid. But you must not underestimate Objects. I would hate to eliminate such a promising future idol, but if you do not watch your mouth, social media will not be so kind to you.”

He glimpsed some Information Alliance uniforms from beyond the dunes. They were coming his way. If those more precise soldiers surrounded him during his standoff with the Rush, it was checkmate. It was idealistic, but Quenser was convinced he had a way out.

Why had the Dynamix EV Grade 500s driven along the ridge of those dunes as if avoiding something?

“Call your soldiers off.”

“Oh ho ho. Why should I?”

“They’ll have nightmares if you don’t.”

There was a short shriek.

The secretly buried landmines would not be recorded on the GPS system’s map, so if something had caught those soldiers, it had to be a natural trap. For example, some quicksand that acted like a bottomless bog.

He had thought it was suspicious due to the flies swarming around.

The Information Alliance soldiers might be all about rationalism, but he doubted they could just laugh and accept the company of some dismembered and rotting corpses.

“Rosa.”

The dog dragged the winch wire out from the overturned four-wheel-drive car and threw it to the Information Alliance soldiers seeking help. But Quenser could do nothing more for them since his life was at risk here.

“Looks like you can’t rely on those soldiers. If you think you can save Grinov with those giant cannons, then try it.”

“Ho, oh ho ho.”

“Operation Southern Cross Grim Reaper? All deals require Grinov’s approval, so any business with Woodstock goes out the window if you turn him to ashes. And a single shot from your main cannon is like several attaché cases. How much have you spent already? Do you want to live a life of never-ending debt, idol of newspaper clothing!?”

“Tch!!”

He heard a clear tongue click over the radio.

The Rush turned 180 degrees around and spoke to the Faith Organization Second Generation that soon showed up.

“Oh ho ho. The Information Alliance will settle this! The rest of you slowpokes can stand back!!”

“It is up to the lord to decide what happens, not us lowly humans. Now, let us pray to god! Succeed or fail, it is all part of his plan!!”

“You damn endorphin junky!!”

The aircushions gave a roar as the two Objects began a meaningless clash.

Quenser gulped.

The center of the conflict had shifted from the Gangster to him. The Objects were fighting over him now. It was like he had uttered some magic words to change the flow of battle and bring death to different people. The maid student slowly walked backwards while using Grinov as a shield.

He was 5km away.

If he crossed the desert, he would find the Legitimacy Kingdom maintenance base zone waiting for him. If he brought Grinov there, the others would no longer be manipulated by the possible business deal. Whether it came down to a plea bargain or hellish torture, they could get the man to “officially” annul the Gangster’s verbal promise.

“Princess, the overall formation has changed. Find a gap in the chaos and escape! I’ll take care of myself, so you don’t need to force yourself to support me!!”

“Quenser, where are you? If I don’t have a clear signal, I might hit you with a stray shot!!”

“…It is no use,” said the bearded man.

“Shut up, Grinov. You aren’t some revolutionary commander or strategist. You’re nothing more than a stamp of approval for us!”

“Do you think you will keep your life if you always make the reasonable, safe, and secure option? This is the beyond, where 1 plus 1 does not equal 2. The more you outdo the others and break free of the rules, the clearer the outlines of the grim reaper grow.”

“If you don’t want one of these fuses up your ass, then shut your trap!!”

Quenser did not so much hear the deep rumbling as he felt it shaking the entire desert below his feet.

This was coming from much further away than the nearby battle between the Information Alliance and Faith Organization.

Woodstock had lost its original form as the truth it wished to reveal was suppressed. They had eventually built the Second Generation Gangster.

It was supposedly a close-range Object.

Remote targeting drones flew around it like flies, perhaps to cover its blind spots. The arms dealer Object was reminiscent of the stench of death despite being a machine. Its main cannon was a double shotgun made from the coilgun and rapid-fire beam cannon on the right side. It was designed so it could not aim very precisely.

But the next thing Quenser knew, muscular bearded Grinov was moving his mouth while bound and used as a shield. He was not actually producing any sound, but he could still communicate with someone who could read his lips via a long-range camera.

“What did you tell them?” Quenser roared into the man’s ear while shoving the pen-shaped electric fuse hard enough to give him a nosebleed. “What did you tell that monster, Grinov!?”

“A 20-digit random alphanumeric string. A temporary emergency authorization code in case I cannot use biometric identification.”

“It can’t be.”

“Woodstock is a criminal organization supported by its charismatic leader, Grinov Quarterdeck.”

His entire body had gone limp.

After giving up on everything, he may have been enveloped in a sort of ecstasy.

Yes.

Hadn’t he immediately tried to slit his own throat when Quenser initially knocked him out with the stun gun!?

“I told them not to leave any trace of my body. As long as no definite proof remains, people can claim I am still alive.”

He said nothing more.

Quenser shoved muscular Grinov away and got down on the desert sand such that he lay protectively on top of Rosa.

And a moment later, it all swept toward him like electron beams reflecting through a storm of heavy metal.

There was no attempt at all to rescue the hostage.

His entire body groaned with dull pain. It was like all the cartilage in his body had been replaced with instant glue. It was hard to move and forcing it felt like it would cause something to snap.

He was soaked with cold sweat.

He could almost forget this was the 40-degree desert.

“…Rosa…” groaned Quenser while trying to catch his breath.

The Rush had tried to jump into the line of fire, but how effective had that really been?

“Are you okay, Rosa?”

Even the weak whine he got in response may have been a blessing.

There was an unnatural dent in the dog’s bulletproof jacket. Had a shard of stone hit it?

Spots of the desert were melted orange. When they cooled and hardened, they would likely become muddy glass. The shape of the rolling dunes had been torn away.

“Dammit, did they really kill their own boss?”

Grinov Quarterdeck had “disappeared”. And he had passed on the temporary 20-digit code needed to approve a deal without their godfather’s biometric ID. Now on one could overturn the Gangster’s verbal promise.

Was it now impossible to stop the dirty business deal of the Parasite Plan? Was there no preventing the Objects of the four world powers from continuing to tear each other apart with this needless fighting?

That man had acquired a vast fortune by selling weapons all so he could rise above the existing hierarchy of power and have his way.

It was possible to view him as a predecessor to Quenser on his journey to be an Object designer.

But that man was now dead.

And his death had closed off the future.

(No.)

“Not yet, Rosa! Bring me that head over there!!”

With a woof, Rosa ran over while avoiding the boiling sand puddles. It was a horrific game of fetch, but it contained a glimmer of hope.

It really had been a scattershot weapon.

Its aim was poor at mid-range. Grinov Quarterdeck had been killed instantly and mostly vaporized, but a few body parts remained. The Gangster’s Elite might claim the man was still alive if it was only a hand or a foot, but the head was a different matter. The brain and heart were too decisive. If Quenser brought that back to the maintenance base zone, he could prove Grinov was dead. Without their charismatic leader, the arms dealer would fall apart and they could not guarantee their verbal promise. The Object’s Pilot Elite had been given the temporary authorization code, but it was only temporary. It was not enough to overturn Grinov’s actual biometrics.

(It had secondary cannons on its spherical body and float, but that Second Generation is illegal and it wasn’t built under normal circumstances. It might not have been given proper anti-personnel weapons.)

Yes.

Grinov had used a scan of his inner ear to identify himself.

As long as his head remained, they could stick the earphone in his ear and pass the biometric scan.

The godfather’s official code would have greater authority than the temporary authorization code.

And who would trust the Elite who had directly killed Grinov Quarterdeck?

They may have been a faithful subordinate who only did as told, but the dead boss could no longer vouch for the Pilot Elite.

The Elite was on the precipice.

“Wait, Grinov’s…head!?” exclaimed Oh Ho Ho. “What am I supposed to do now!?”

“Do you really think the deal is still on? From here on, Operation Southern Cross Grim Reaper is all about staying out of last place. Will you continue spending money throwing attaché cases at each other, or will you pull back your hand while the burn is still light!? Think for yourself, idol of newspaper clothing!!”

It would have been too grotesque just to carry it around, so Quenser pulled the windshield sun shade from the flipped-over electric car and wrapped the bearded head in that.

“This is an economic shock. All four world powers are carrying some debt thanks to that idiot’s manipulation. At the very least, you aren’t making money here! So whoever ends up with the least debt is the winner!! It’s the logic of the insurance industry: think of other people’s misfortune as your profit. You want to take a relative view and get the last laugh, don’t you!? You win this battle if you aren’t the world power in last place!!”

“Argh, I can’t stand feeling like an amateur maid is bossing around an idol like me!!”

“Hear me out, little lady. I’ll treat you right.”

He could not flip the car back over, so he was facing the nightmarish visual of a maid making a deadly trek across the desert with only a severed head and a German shepherd for company.

There were of course those who pursued him: the Gangster who did not want Grinov’s death to be proven, and the Faith Organization that was still after their tech.

Incidentally, the previous conversation was held over the coalition force’s shared datalink.

That meant it had gone out to all four world powers who had initially been allies. All four armies had learned which side would benefit them the most and how the battle’s win conditions had changed.

It probably took them a few seconds to think about it.

And then everything changed.

The masses of metal belonging to the Legitimacy Kingdom, Information Alliance, and Capitalist Corporations turned to face the Gangster.

At this point, it was bizarre that the Faith Organization was still siding with the arms dealers, but they were working off of the mysterious idea that both success and failure were a gift from god. So once they had a plan, they intended to stick with it to the end.

It was now 3-against-2.

The Princess’s Object was barely functional, so it may have been more like 2-against-2.

In the initial thunderclouds, the Gangster had come out on top despite being outnumbered. This was not enough to say anything for sure, but the situation was much better than when everyone had been ganging up on the Princess.

This was the beyond.

Grinov had called it an unreasonable world where 1 plus 1 did not equal 2 and white could become black. Quenser was protected by the world powers, so he could not even imagine what kind of reality the man had faced in that bloodstained forest. But the world was gradually catching on to the all too obvious result of letting a criminal organization influence them.

He had to keep this going.

He had to return everything to the original rails

“Pant, pant!”

It was only 5km. No more than that. Traveling across a scorching desert of fine beach-like sand and rolling dunes was completely different from walking across asphalt. It was a lot easier than dragging around an entire hostage, but if not for the situation, he would have tossed aside the head which was far more disturbing than a roast turkey. Rosa the German shepherd easily passed him by and repeatedly looked back and waited for him to catch up.

Quenser did not care what happened to the other Objects as long as the Princess was safe.

He could determine the flow of battle as long as he brought the big boss’s head back to the maintenance base zone as material evidence of Grinov’s death.

(Almost there…)

His exhaustion was at the limit.

His thighs and calves would have started convulsing if he let his guard down.

(Almost there!!)

A deafening roar blasted his naïve assumptions to smithereens.

The attack had come from the side. By the time he flinched back, an orange river cut across the desert before his eyes. It was the reflecting attack made from a mixture of a metal coilgun and a rapid-fire electron beam cannon. This cut off the direct route. There was more than one kind of glass, but pure silicon glass required something in the neighborhood of 2000 degrees. He was almost to the maintenance base zone, but this had stopped him.

The Object must have shot down some of its own drones because the destructive power was so great

The Gangster’s “winged eyes and ears” covered with arrow-like patterns had crashed into the scorching desert in a few places. Quenser’s sense of scale had been thrown off when they were flying in the sky, but now he could tell they were larger than a light car.

“Kh!!”

He heard a low rumbling coming from the side. The Gangster had approached surprisingly close.

It aimed its scattershot main cannon at a mere human. It wanted to erase any and all proof of Grinov’s death.

“Rosa!!”

Quenser practically rolled along the desert to slide down one of the large dunes. There was a deafening blast and blinding light, but the massive mountain of sand would be melted instead of blown away. It would function as a shield.

But he doubted it would last forever.

He looked down at the wreckage of a drone that was half broken and stabbed into the sand.

The large cross section was larger than a small bed and broken shards of silver metal were strewn across the hot sand.

(That’s not steel. Is it aluminum? Or silver? No…)

“Ugh, what!?”

He traced his fingers across the brick-sized chunk and then tried to pick it up, but it was so unusually heavy he nearly hurt his back. It was too heavy to lift with one hand.

The density was much greater.

Lead wasn’t enough and not even silver would provide this kind of weight.

Quenser could only think of one option.

(Platinum…? Why would they use that?)

“No, wait. Is this the imitation alloy I saw in Grinov’s mansion?”

But even so, it was made to imitate platinum, giving it a density of 21.4. Enough to fill a 1-liter carton of milk would weigh 21.4kg. He could see why trying to lift it with one hand had nearly hurt his back.

But that only raised further questions.

Why?

In every branch of the military, vehicles were generally designed to be light and sturdy. Whether the power came from an engine, a motor, or a sail to catch the wind, it was a set amount of power. That meant the key to harnessing that power was reducing the vehicle’s weight.

Objects were the 200,000-ton behemoths they were because they had been crammed full of everything needed to end the nuclear age. That was their completed form with nothing going to waste.

Why would someone intentionally make something heavier by filling it with weights? This was different from a rich person covering a vehicle with gold metalwork to show off. When Quenser looked inside the cross section again, most of the car-sized drone looked like a weight made from the imitation alloy.

(Were they designed to make ramming attacks if necessary? Do they use the absorption of hydrogen? No, then they would use a cheaper and more effective material like lead or titanium. Also the imitation alloy is just an imitation. It only resembles platinum, so it doesn’t have all the same traits. But it does have the 21.4 density. Was Woodstock attracted to its weight, like with tungsten or depleted uranium?)

Rosa barked next to him.

It was hard to find anywhere to hide in the desert, so he could not just stand out here in the open. He knew that, but he could not stop thinking either.

This was something he could not afford to slip past him.

It was crucial.

(Think…)

The Gangster could circle around and fire on him from a different angle and, even if it missed, it would only create more deadly orange rivers. If he was surrounded by that melted glass, he would be stuck here.

Fortunately, the business deal had almost entirely collapsed. The other Objects would fight the Gangster as long as that was in their best interest. Quenser did not need to charge toward it with a bomb in hand. What was its weakness? Where was the weak point that could take it out in a single hit!?

(It’s a blind killer that can see through all forms of camouflage, deception, and cover. But if it was really that convenient, they would have built the entire Object around that. Think back to the attack from the thundercloud. How did it overturn being outnumbered? The scattershot weapon? Why is that most effective!? The two different systems have to add to the maintenance costs, so why bother with the dual main cannon system!? It shouldn’t have been able to see through the cloud and the lightning would have affected radar. What’s the purpose of the drones swarming it like flies and why are they filled with that imitation alloy!?)

He heard a loud sliding sound as a bunch of sand pushed toward him like something from a surfing video.

“Quenser! I don’t know where you are, but check your map. I’ll create a path for you!!”

It was the Baby Magnum. The Princess was intentionally scraping the ground with her static electricity propulsion device to cover the orange river with a mountain of sand. Sand was the most primitive firefighting method, but it was also the most effective if you had enough of it. The scale was quite different, but the principle was the same as a campfire. If a thick layer of sand covered it faster than the heat could propagate, you could walk over the top.

(She’s such a good girl, but she’s way too reckless!!)

[[Image:HO v16 BW17.png|thumb]]

The Gangster’s dual scattershot weapons would be aimed at the intruder. The coilgun and rapid-fire beam cannon were powerful enough at midrange, so what would they do at close range? A clean hit could blow away the already-damaged Princess’s reactor.

This called for a gamble.

Quenser hit his radio’s switch.

“Fire either a railgun or coilgun into the sand below you!!”

This attack was like a smokescreen.

Sand burst up in front of the Baby Magnum like a cumulonimbus cloud and the hit to the ground knocked Quenser from his feet.

But that did not matter.

The thick cloud of sand was immediately torn apart as the frightening scattershot attack flew toward the Princess.

There was no dodging it.

Lots of sparks flew from the already-damaged Baby Magnum’s armor.

It was a direct hit.

And from close range, where the scattershot weapons could deliver their full power.

But.

But.

But.

“…?”

The Princess hesitantly spoke after receiving the scattershot storm.

“I’m…alive?”

The villain was apparently confused as well. The Gangster moved horizontally and fired its dual scattershot weapons from a different angle. By unleashing both metal coilgun shells and the electron heating beams, it should have produced a deadly storm that not even specialized armor could stop.

But.

Even so.

“Again, Princess.”

A massive cloud of scorching sand rose from the 40-degree desert.

There was a loud scraping sound and orange sparks blossomed wildly from the surface of her Object, but that was all. That violent scattershot weapon did not make its way inside the Object. It was deflected by the armor.

“What just…happened?” asked Oh Ho Ho.

“It’s the rate of convergence,” whispered Quenser. “Scattershot weapons are so powerful at point-blank range because the target is hit by all of the scattering shots. At mid and long range, the target is only hit by a few of the small shots, so it doesn’t do enough damage to kill instantly. The damage is spread over a wider area. …That must have felt like a waste, so they used the lead scattershot to reflect the electron beams to provide the optimal rate of convergence as the scattershot blast spreads out over a fan shape.”

The initial clash had happened in thick thunderclouds that rendered all forms of sensor unusable.

Yet the Gangster had unilaterally slaughtered its enemies.

How exactly had it done so?

And if its advantage had really been that unilateral, wouldn’t it have been racing freely across the battlefield?

No, that was not it.

The most effective attack with a scattershot weapon was to move in to close range, but the Gangster had made no real attempt to do so.

It had shown no real sign of moving around. It had fired its main cannon from one direction and then blown up the scattered coalition Objects one at a time. That was odd when its scattershot weapons could not use their full power unless it moved in close. It had instead responded from mid and long range.

Even while inside that thundercloud.

“So how did the Gangster accurately measure the distance from its target? Normal vision and laser beams were useless in the thick cloud, the electrification rendered radar waves useless, and the noisy thunder did the same for ultrasonic sonar! Come to think of it, those red wings in Hawaii were the same. And the Transylvanian Object never made its debut, but it may have used some kind of special sensor system too! That must be Woodstock’s trademark!!”

“What are you trying to say, Quenser?”

That was obvious.

Once you understood this, the fearsome Second Generation Gangster was a complete joke.

“The desert might look like pure sand, but it’s actually full of sharp rocks. GPS systems choose a single path through the vast desert to make sure you don’t blow a tire on those obstacles.”

“What…what does that matter?”

“If the density of the ground changes, so does the speed at which waves propagate through it. In fact, a ground of sand and a mineral deposit containing iron ore cause a slight different in the earth’s gravity.”

In other words, this was the crucial sensor system.

This was the secret behind the blind killer that could see through any camouflage, deception, or cover.

“It uses gravity surveying! It searches for the slight differences in gravity created by the giant hunks of metal that are Objects!!”

His hint had been the drone the Gangster had shot down itself.

It had contained a valuable and unnatural metal that only served as a weight.

At more than 20 euros a gram, platinum was the king of precious metals. Although this was only an imitation alloy.

“Gravity surveying? Isn’t that used for mining?”

“Yes. The earth’s gravity isn’t uniform. For example, there’s a bit of a difference between the North Pole and the Equator and the reading would change if there was a vein of heavy iron ore in this sandy desert. So by placing a bunch of sensors out there in a grid, you can tell if there’s a difference in just one spot. Dig there and you find the vein.”

“Heavy iron. So it works for an Object too?”

“That’s a bit too imaginative.” Quenser grinned. “The Gangster probably has high-precision electronic scales inside it. Some of those can measure down to a 10 millionth of a gram and it’s the exact same equipment gangs use to work with white powder.”

Of course, that would not be used to simply measure something’s weight.

Scales could be used for more than just that.

“It’s using those as accelerometers to measure its own speed. Usually, you only feel an inertial vector opposite to the direction of movement. Just like how you feel a floating sensation in an elevator. But the needle will wiggle if there’s a giant mass nearby. It’s small, but another vector is included and the value changes.”

“And?”

“The drones flying around the Gangster were loaded with a lot of imitation alloy. That alloy has a density of 21.4 and is normally used to fool the other party in an illegal transaction. Filling them with that sort of ‘decoration’ makes no sense when designs should be aiming for light and sturdy. That means the weight was necessary. And unlike tungsten or depleted uranium, this imitation alloy could be acquired cheaply and in large quantities. They wanted something heavy enough to cause a 10 millionth of a gram error in the electronic scale even at a distance.”

In other words…

“They’re an alternate form of remote sensor that uses gravity. There are invisible threads of gravity between the Gangster and the drones. If something – yes, like the tug of gravity from an enemy Object – slightly alters the movement of the drones, the Object can sense it through the invisible threads. It’s kind of like having your hair blowing in the wind. There aren’t actually nerves running through the hairs. It wasn’t light, EM, or sound. It was universal gravitation itself. With that information, no Object can hide from it!!”

That said.

The gravity surveying might be able to see through any form of camouflage or deception, but it was not without weaknesses.

“When you get down to it, it’s all dependent on a reaction in the invisible threads connecting the Object to the drones. It’s the same as a cheap wind gauge. If you prepare plenty of obstacles to tug on a bunch of the hairs at once, it will get a bunch of false readings! There’s nothing it can do when there are too many dots on the map to process. It blinds the Gangster like a stun grenade!!”

The thunderclouds and clouds of sand had obscured their vision back at the beginning, but those were natural phenomena. With accurate meteorological data, you could predict the flow of the clouds and sand and make corrections in advance. That Object had planted its roots here in the desert, so unlike the newcomers of the coalition force, it could respond to sudden downpours and other weather phenomena that were hard to see coming with no more than a satellite weather map.

But this was different.

It was intentional obstruction.

There was no way to predict it in advance and apply a filter.

Once you understood that, there was nothing to be afraid of.

No matter how powerful it was, a weapon you could not aim was the same as a gun with a broken sight. A main cannon that could not defeat an enemy head-on and at close range was meaningless. And like anything on the battlefield with no means of attacking, that Object was now a sitting duck.

The Gangster had plenty of secondary cannons on its spherical body and float, but there was almost no chance of those breaking through an Object’s thick armor.

“Attention all armies.”

Quenser held the radio to his mouth.

And he gave the death sentence.

“The Parasite Plan? Are you really going to keep throwing around attaché cases full of your own cash to get your hands on a defective weapon cobbled together by amateurs?”

Wartime interests could be truly coldhearted.

Woodstock had to understand that deep down after trying to use exactly that fact even if it meant trampling on the line between good and evil.

It was like taking an insect with excellent camouflage and throwing it onto a hot pink floor.

Once revealed, its grotesque insect side was all anyone could see.

This time, the entire coalition force aimed at the criminal organization’s Object.

Even the Faith Organization had snapped out of it.

The Gangster’s scattershot weapon was of no use and it had no white flag signal since it did not belong to a proper military.

This was the beyond, the ends of the earth outside the clean wars.

It was Operation Southern Cross Grim Reaper.

Woodstock had made a risky gamble that traded safety for freedom.

And the pig had just been dropped in the piranha-infested river.