HEAVY OBJECT:Volume12 Chapter 4

Status: Incomplete

3/9 parts completed

   

Day 4

Part 1

A gag order was quickly placed on the information.

For that reason, the only people aware of the term “infection base” were the top level members of the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion and the soldiers directly involved in the attack on the Pillar of Truth. If that dangerous information had reached the entire battalion or even spread to the makeshift housing outside the maintenance base zone, there would have been no stopping it.

That said, Quenser and Heivia had only obtained the phrase “infection base”. They did not know where it was controlled or what deadly package had been set up in place of the natto bacteria for soil improvement or the harmless bacteria meant to increase people’s immunities.

Time passed meaninglessly and the date changed.

Frolaytia had apparently been investigating the matter somewhere and she now called a limited group into the briefing room. It was of course only those who knew about the infection base after taking part in the broadcast tower mission.

“I’ve finally found a way we can take action.” Frolaytia looked exhausted as she began. “We found a few possessions among the mangled bodies of the Information Alliance soldiers thrown to the ground from the observation deck. The electronic simulation division and the intelligence division investigated the manufacturer and production number of the key we found. Performing a cyber-attack on the Information Alliance is something I would much rather not do, but we found a few interesting tidbits of information. Well, even if it was used to store military equipment, the manufacturer itself was a civilian workshop. Old-fashioned craftsmen are great at work that can’t be emulated by machines, but they’re weak on the data management front.”

The busty silver-haired commander turned on the projector to display a map of Second Venice on the wall.

“The lock maker made an installation here in the underground block of the west side. That is likely the entrance to the infection base in question. I want you to investigate it.”

“Um, isn’t the deadly package disseminated through the agar mixed in with the soil? Have you found anything in any soil samples?”

“We have found nothing at all.”

Frolaytia answered Quenser’s question while placing a hand on her forehead.

“I had our doctors and medics look into it, but for the time being, there is nothing of note they can see under the microscope. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any germs, but it’s only what you would expect to find in the soil. They have no idea what this deadly Pathogen X could be.”

“Then…”

“While treating Myonri, we checked her blood and found nothing out of the ordinary. Quenser, you also had a bullet extracted and your blood test also came back clean. There wasn’t a problem.”

“Th-then what is this? Did that Jax guy just jump the gun?”

Heivia asked his question with a thin smile carrying some wishful thinking.

But his busty silver-haired commander did not confirm or deny the possibility.

“It’s hard to say. But the Rush’s actions are certainly worrying. I can’t imagine she would do anything so suicidal unless she had a reason like this.”

And based on a report from the Princess, there was suspicion that the Rush had jammed the Baby Magnum when they were intercepting the Supernovas and the asteroid.

Had it begun all the way back then?

If they wanted to blow away Second Venice and its possible largescale infection, an attack from satellite orbit may have seemed like an effective means of “sterilization”.

“So should we at least assume the talk of an infection base is true?”

“That would be better, but I wouldn’t call it best.” Frolaytia sighed. “Did the virus fail to spread because it could not travel through the soil properly, or is the deadly package still in place and just hasn’t been activated yet? Either way, I want data on this infection base. If we’re going to prove we haven’t been infected, I want data on this Pathogen X… And if in the worst case the device simply hasn’t activated ‘yet’ and starts disseminating it through the soil, I want to remove the deadly package from the device before that can happen. Whatever the case, we have no time. Even without the virus, don’t forget that we have limited food and water.”

However, Quenser and the others did not know what was inside the deadly package or who had set it up. Even if the infection base itself belonged to the Information Alliance, it may have been someone else who swapped out what was to be disseminated.

Who had attacked the astronomer who had predicted the impact from the Appetizer Asteroid?

How much had the Capitalist Corporations in the container yard known and what were they trying to gain by stirring things up with the copied grenade launcher?

The mysteries never seemed to end.

They had far more questions than answers.

Quenser placed a hand on his bangs and muttered a fundamental fact.

“We’ll just have to investigate them one at a time.”

Part 2

With that, they had to set out for the underground entrance thought to lead to the infection base based on the production number of the key held by a corpse.

“Hm, hm, hm, hmmm.”

“You’re in a good mood, Catherine. What is it?”

“I’ve almost got all my stamps. I’m one away from the full set!! I’m almost too good at this. Heh heh heh.”

They took a hovercraft along the canals to the west side, but they could not bring it the entire way.

“Looks like this is as far as it can go,” said Evans in a short and squat powered suit. “Even if the hovercraft gets us up a little higher, we can’t go any further.”

Quenser did not try to argue. The scene before their eyes said it all.

“This is awful…” said the student as he viewed the city of rubble in front of them.

The canal should have been quite deep, but something like black stone jutted sharply up from the surface. And it was not just the canal. Stones larger than refrigerators had stabbed into the sides of high-rise buildings and gotten stuck. More than that, several buildings had entirely collapsed, creating something like runways.

Heivia stepped out from the stopped hovercraft and voiced his annoyance.

“You’re kidding, right? And this is after the Princess broke it apart in midair? How huge was that nuisance of an asteroid to begin with?”

“The vector was also broken up when it burst in midair, so this was much less devastating than it might have been,” said Catherine.

However, Quenser could not imagine something being much more devastating than this.

When that gang of powered suits looked into the distance, they could see a new landmark in the city of rubble. If they had not known better, they might have thought it was the silhouette of a domed stadium.

It was a piece of the Appetizer Asteroid.

It was dozens if not more than one hundred meters tall. If the asteroid had fallen straight down without breaking up, it could have invited in a new ice age.

Quenser and the others used the power of their powered suits’ legs to march across the float as it creaked disconcertingly.

“I have no idea which road is which.”

“More importantly, what is this noise? Please tell me the entire float isn’t bending under the asteroid’s weight.”

The seawater occasionally welled up from below. It seemed to be spraying from large holes much like the narrow crevices on a snowy mountain, but that was inaccurate.

Evans stopped in front of one crack and made an unnaturally awkward movement of his powered suit’s arm. He may have been trying to wipe the sweat from his brow before realizing he could not.

“Hey, there’s nothing but the ocean below here, right?”

“The bottom is uneven. When they developed the underground, they built it up like an upside-down pyramid, but when they didn’t, there’s only a thin layer between the surface and the ocean. So don’t fall. I don’t know how deep the ocean is here, but you’ll end up on the bottom if you’re wearing your powered suit.”

The buildings had crumbled and filled the pathways like there had been a landslide. In fact, the supposedly flat ground was slanted in some places.

“That isn’t going to break right off at some point, is it?”

“Big brother, wouldn’t it be faster to follow the ‘path’ cleared by the asteroid instead of following the roads?”

The four of them walked in silence for a while.

Quenser asked a question on the way.

“Is the ocean nearby?”

“Why do you ask that, Quenser?”

“Well, I can see a huge silhouette out at sea. The Rush is slowly patrolling the area.”

That was the greatest threat at the moment, but there was nothing they could do about it.

They continued marching through the rubble-filled city with their powered suits.

“By the way, Catherine, what do you want to do after getting into a safe country?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to go to school or play at a park or something?”

“Where did you live, big brother?”

“Paris. The Legitimacy Kingdom home country. Well, I was actually born way out in the countryside, but that’s what feels like home now. My childhood friend named Monica could be dangerous. I’d finally managed to move thanks to my dad changing jobs, but then I ran into her at school! I shouldn’t have chosen the best science institute in the country!!”

“Hmm…”

He could not see her expression through the powered suit, but he had a feeling Catherine’s shoulders had relaxed.

“Paris, hm? That sounds like fun.”

Meanwhile, they somehow managed to arrive at their destination.

They found a stairway leading down. Originally, it had likely been disguised as some kind of building, but after all the boulders raining down, the boxy building had entirely vanished and only the stairs remained.

“Wow, there really is a secret underground facility here. And this is supposed to be a classy resort for the rich.”

“But this place is all a giant manmade megafloat, so it would have been way easier than if they had to dig out the place with a pickaxe. They may have just rearranged the aluminum and reinforced stainless steel blocks back at the planning stage.”

It looked a lot like the entrance to a subway station.

“I’m guessing it’ll be pretty beaten up down there. Let’s just pray the door hasn’t bent so badly we can’t get it open.”

“We’re in powered suits, so can’t we just break it down?”

“This is an infection base we’re talking about, remember? It wouldn’t surprise me if they used a giant sealed door of thick duralumin. Y’know, like something used for a bank vault.”

They adjusted their grips on their weapons and descended the stairs one at a time.

The solid space of concrete and tiles did indeed feel a lot like a subway station. But large cracks ran through the walls, entire ceiling panels had fallen down, and the wiring within hung down like noodles in a Chinese restaurant.

Quenser noticed something and came to a stop.

“Frolaytia? Can you hear me? …Damn, is it because we’re underground? The signal’s dead.”

“Or maybe they shielded the infection base.”

But something else was more worrying.

“What?” said Evans as he looked around. “This area’s power is still running?”

The fluorescent lights that had not broken were lit. They were blinking in and out and most of them were out more than they were in, but it was still surprising for the west side to have some hint of civilization remaining since it had received the most damage.

Quenser groaned.

“Maybe wind power or solar power? No. If it was on the surface, it would’ve been taken out by the asteroid strike’s shockwave. Maybe they have a backup power source on the bottom…like ocean current power.”

“That’s not a good thing. These wires are torn to shreds. If there’s a short somewhere, who knows how far the fire would spread.”

Either way, they could not rely on the fluorescent lights that could go out at any time. They messed with their powered suits’ cameras to enhance the lighting and then continued on.

Further in, they found a large and imposing door, just like Heivia had feared.

However…

“Hey, look. It’s been cut through.”

“Did the Information Alliance cut their way out after being trapped inside?”

“It was cut from the outside, so I doubt it,” pointed out Catherine.

They exchanged a look with their powered suit lenses.

“Then did someone force their way in?” asked Evans.

None of them had an answer.

Still confused, they stepped through the large door someone had cut through.

And as soon as they did, they were struck by the sound of a weapon firing. It was loud enough to feel like a shockwave.

Being in an enclosed cave-like facility likely helped, but it may have harmed their eardrums had they not been protected.

But they were currently wearing powered suits.

Quenser only saw orange sparks scattering from his chest.

“You son of a bitch!”

“Stop, Heivia! Don’t kill him!!”

Quenser’s words fell on deaf ears.

Heivia was carrying a weapon that looked like a two meter version of the jitte seen in Island Nation period dramas. Attached to both of the branching ends was a “plate” much like the parabolic antenna for a satellite broadcast. The short end had a concave one and the long end had a convex one.

The convex one exploded.

The plastic explosive attached evenly to the surface and the 800 small metal balls meant to further increase the explosive power filled everything in the 120 degrees in front of Heivia.

It sounded like raindrops striking a thin metal roof during a squall, sparks flew from the walls, floor, and ceiling, and every surface appeared to glow orange.

“Hell yeah!! That’s what I wanted from a fancy powered suit. Holding a directional landmine in your hand is completely insane! …Anyway, Quenser, what were you saying?”

“Never mind, you moron! I thought that guy might know what was going on, but you had to blow him to bits with the Halberd!!”

Quenser shouted at Heivia who casually swapped out the “plate” on the end. All that remained was a dark red jelly that would teach them very little. It did not even look like a solid object anymore.

And Catherine did not seem to mind at all.

“But big brother, we were only issued the Halberd, so there’s nothing else we could have done. Well, I suppose we could have punched him with our giant fists.”

“He’d be torn to pieces either way,” said Heivia.

“The convex one is for broad-range anti-personnel attacks and the concave one is for single-point anti-tank attacks, right? Why would Frolaytia only give us such a tricky suppression weapon!? She isn’t writing up reports on experimental weapons to make some money on the side, is she!?”

“The powered suits have big fingers, so they can only use firearms specifically designed for them. The fingers also aren’t suited for taking apart and maintaining a weapon, so it’s best to use a simple but powerful weapon.”

They walked further in while listening to the obedient girl’s explanation.

They occasionally ran into a soldier of unknown affiliation, but they never received much information. After all, their only options involved blasting them to pieces in a single blow. These were soldiers instead of criminals, so they were not going to stop just because they were told to. And the Halberd scattered metal balls in a fan shape, so there was no such thing as a warning shot. It was hard to not hit someone directly and the 800 metal balls would still ricochet off the walls, pillars, and powered suits, so they would blow away the enemy soldiers regardless.

“They really need to ban this thing with a war treaty,” grumbled Quenser.

“I know you don’t exactly like being soaked in people’s dark red remains, but you should be thankful these things are letting us win and survive. It’s working amazingly well for something our busty commander issued us. Maybe she’s finally done pretending she hasn’t fallen for my dashing good looks.”

Meanwhile, they had no results to speak of.

But when they descended some stairs, they found something different.

“Someone’s collapsed over there.”

“Wait, Quenser. Don’t just walk over like an idiot. What if they’re lying on top of an anti-tank mine?”

Idiot #1 ignored Heivia’s warning and recklessly walked down the straight corridor to check on the corpse lying face down. He crouched down and brought his face in close even though he could zoom in with the powered suit’s lenses.

“Odd…”

“What is? If his map case or rations are connected to a thin wire to pull the pin from a landmine, I don’t want any part of this. Powered suits aren’t invincible.”

“It’s nothing like that. Look at this, Heivia. Oh, and stand back a little, Catherine.”

“Why should I hold back after all the gore I already saw, big brother?”

Catherine walked right on out. It was somewhat unfortunate when she was supposed to be learning how to function in normal society.

“He doesn’t have any visible injuries. He wasn’t shot.”

“And what’s this? He’s soaking wet.”

Heivia and Evans also nervously approached. A powered suit could deflect an assault rifle, but anything more than that would be dangerous. Their general position was obvious enough from the fact that they had been unable to replace tanks and armored trucks. Simply put, no one believed they were perfectly safe.

Evans seemed to be the biggest chicken because he viewed the corpse while a little further out from the rest.

“W-was he tortured like that?”

“No, Evans, it wasn’t that. He has no marks on his wrists. If he had been bound with rope or kept in handcuffs, he would have scrapes from when he struggled.”

“And look…”

Because Quenser had mentioned the wrists, Heivia looked at the corpse’s arm and groaned.

From the wrist to elbow was a tattoo of two snakes coiled around a single staff.

“I was wondering who these idiots were, but they’re Kerukeion. I don’t even want to touch this.”

“Who are they?”

“A Faith Organization group in charge of bioethics. They belong to the Greek Mythology faction and they’re as insane as you might expect. Well, that last part probably describes just about anyone in the Faith Organization that’s holding a gun.”

“What exactly do they do? Are they ‘anti-sperm bank’ robots, ‘radiation therapy is the work of the devil’ rangers, or something like that?”

“They’re ‘we can use it both no one else can’ warriors.”

“Hmm. That’s just the worst.”

But a bioethics group that would know a lot about medicine and biotechnology sounded quite ominous at the moment. This was an infection base secretly built by the Information Alliance to take advantage of the global tourist location and Quenser’s group was here because some third party had apparently used that to create an incredibly dangerous situation. None of it sounded hopeful.

“I wish we’d done a proper investigation of the group that had captured that old astronomer. They might have used some thick foundation to hide their tattoos.”

“But if the Faith Organization is behind this, isn’t it weird for one of them to be dead here?” pointed out Catherine.

“I don’t see any Information Alliance soldiers, so did they run away? Or were they already killed?” asked Evans from a short distance away. “Either way, we should assume those Kerukeion people have taken over.”

Heivia tried to scratch his head through the thick armor of the powered suit.

“I don’t like the sound of this. We aren’t going to find out they were the first ones wiped out by their own mysterious virus, are we!? This isn’t a zombie movie, so I’m not sticking around for that!!”

“No, wait. This is water and not sweat, right? He only drowned. I don’t think he was killed by a virus or whatever.”

“Then did someone throw the Faith Organization soldiers into some water to kill them? Did the Information Alliance survive, take back their facility, and torture the Faith Organization? Are we not seeing any Information Alliance soldiers because they’ve moved to some kind of shelter somewhere?”

“Wait, Evans. We’ve already gone over this. There are no marks on his wrists, so he probably wasn’t tor-…”

Quenser trailed off.

Heivia’s powered suit swayed to the side, so he may have tilted his head inside.

“What is it? What annoying thing did you notice now?”

Quenser did not respond.

It may have been because he was an amateur student that he noticed it first. He had lowered his eye level when he unnecessarily crouched down to inspect the corpse, so when he looked toward Evans, he naturally ended up looking up.

And then he saw it.

A line ran along the wall near the ceiling which was tall enough that they were not about to hit their heads even in the powered suits.

“What? The color of the wall…changes?”

“?”

“No, that isn’t it. It’s water. That’s how high the seawater flooded this room!! It’s taller than the powered suits… I don’t know how it happened, but I think this guy drowned when the corridor was flooded without warning!”

That was when an ominous creaking sound surrounded them and weighed on his stomach.

Heivia looked around.

“Hey, what is that?”

“Oh, no. Just run! We won’t float back up if we’re submerged in these thick powered suits!!”

They were unsure whether they should return the way they had come or continue on, but the sound seemed to be coming from the way they had come. They naturally chose to move away from the oddity, so they ran further in.

Was the entire float creaking as a “wound” in the ground grew wider?

Geysers of seawater burst up from all around.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit!!”

“Big brother, there’s a waterproof door in our way!!”

“We have a Halberd that can break through a tank’s armor, so we just have to blow through that metal door!!”

Heivia shouted from the lead and held out his weapon. Instead of using the convex end that sent the blast over a wide area and scattered metal balls, he used the concave end that focused the blast on a single point to pierce even a powered suit. To avoid being hit by accident, Quenser and the others slowed down to ensure they did not pass Heivia. But…

“No, wait…”

“What is it, big brother?”

“Stop, Heivia!! The door’s seal is damaged and water is leaking from below! The other side must already be-…!!”

It was too late to stop.

An explosive roar filled the sealed space and a thin spear-like blast tore through the steel door like a flimsy empty can.

Immediately, the fearsome explosion was answered by something other than flames. It was a water gun like water shooting from a dam. With the equilibrium broken, the hinges burst off and the remains of the thick steel door were torn from the wall. It left incredible scratches on the concrete wall, but they did not have time to watch.

They were knocked from their feet even in the powered suits.

In just a few seconds, the corridor was inundated with dirty seawater at waist height. The bloated corpse was swept away and the water was clearly going to reach the ceiling before long. No matter how strong they were, the powered suits would become humanoid coffins if they were submerged.

Catherine was the youngest and the first to make up her mind.

With the sound of compressed air being released, the armor opened. The girl with a blonde braid left the back of the powered suit.

“Catherine!”

“Big brother, you and everyone else need to take yours off too!! Once you’re submerged, the water pressure will keep you from opening the hatch!!”

“Dammit, we have to swim through a pool filled with corpses? What the hell!?”

Heivia cursed but removed the powered suit as he was told. Quenser took too long, so Catherine and Heivia worked together to activate the external emergency release. The student was dragged out into the dirty seawater, swallowed a mouthful, and got his head above the water as it burned his throat.

“Evans!!”

“No…”

“You’re a soldier, aren’t you!? It’s a little late to say you have a phobia of corpses!!”

“This is a mysterious infection base, isn’t it!? We don’t know how far it’s spread throughout Second Venice, but a half-destroyed lab has got to be the worst place to be!! I’m not taking this off!! I refuse to die here!!”

Catherine and Heivia clicked their tongues and reached for the external emergency release like they had with Quenser, but Evans was so panicked he swung the powered suit’s arms around to keep them away.

Meanwhile, the situation reached the point of no return.

The entire float tilted.

However, it was hard to tell for Quenser and the others who were floating in the water. No matter how much one tilted a cup of water, the surface of the water would always remain level.

The truth of the matter was only apparent to Evans whose powered suit was standing on the ground. He seemed to trip over nothing and vanished into the filthy water.

“Evans! Where are you!?”

“It’s no use, big brother! The water is flowing weirdly. It’s probably all pouring into a big crack in the floor!!”

Evans never returned to the surface.

He had likely fallen. Still in his humanoid coffin, he had fallen through the “bottom” of Second Venice where he would simply sink deeper and deeper.

“How long…will his oxygen last?”

“His mind will probably break first while trapped in there and unable to move! We need to report this to our busty commander and have her send out a deep sea probe for him!!”

Quenser and the others did not have time to worry about Evans. A crack ran through the bottom of the float and the “wound” widened as the entire float groaned under the asteroid’s weight, so the amount of water was increasing endlessly. If the water reached the ceiling, only death awaited them.

Catherine grabbed at a handhold on the wall and looked behind her.

She looked to the staircase leading up at the end of the long corridor.

“Let’s keep going.”

“Why!? What do we do about Evans!?”

“We can’t reach the stairs in time even if we let the current carry us! I don’t know what we’ll find further in, but we have to gamble on that!! Our radios can’t reach anyone outside, so if we die, they’ll never know that Evans fell!!”

“Goddammit!!”

They were fighting the current and it was too powerful to make any ground while swimming. They had to grab at the handholds on the wall and pipes on the ceiling to slowly drag themselves in through the broken waterproof door.

Everything about the situation was terrible.

But fortunately, the next room had a higher ceiling and the water level stopped after the waterproof door had been entirely submerged. Only the unnerving creaking continued.

Was it due to the waves, the asteroid’s weight, or the west side float slanting with the buildings collapsed on top? Whatever the case, the “wound” seemed to widen from time to time.

“This can’t keep happening forever… The water is only rising or stopping. Since it can’t drain, we’ll be stuck eventually.”

“We can only pray there’s another way out. We can’t turn back now since that long corridor is filled to the ceiling with water. We wouldn’t be able to breathe without oxygen tanks.”

The scariest part was how their survival hinged on some unknown factors. Even now, seawater was trickling in from various points on the walls. The wall could burst and fill the room with water at any time, so their safety could vanish in the blink of an eye.

Plus…

“We were relying on the powered suits before, but now we’ve only got handguns. If we run into a group of the Faith Organization’s Kerukeion, we can’t win.”

“I just hope they’re too busy dealing with everything else…”

“We’re stuck in the same boat, so we’re dead either way.”

Quenser grabbed a floating plastic tank and handed it to Catherine. The three of them swam onwards with their heads above water. They wanted to climb up onto solid ground again, but they could not be picky. Although they did feel a squeezing at their hearts when they saw some torn cables hanging from the ceiling and scattering sparks just above the water’s surface.

“I hope they have an emergency drainage pump like submarines do,” said Catherine.

“Was this place even designed for a situation like this? I mean, an asteroid fell on it.”

Their conversation was cut short by an unpleasant creaking.

The idiots looked to the tall ceiling.

“Please tell me the wound isn’t widening again…”

“The ceiling’s a lot taller this time, so we should have some room to spare.”

“Did you forget about those wires hanging down earlier, Heivia!? If the water level rises any further, we’ll be roasted!!”

“!! Hurry, hurry!!”

But then something unexpected happened.

The water level actually dropped. Their eye level noticeably lowered and their feet reached the floor. The filthy seawater remained at ankle level, but that was far better than feeling the salty flavor fill their mouth every time they breathed.

“But why?”

“There may have been an unflooded area below,” suggested Catherine. “When the wound widened, the water may have fallen there.”

In addition to what areas were flooded and unflooded, the waterproofing could change things. If they shut all the waterproof doors now, they might be able to secure plenty of oxygen even below the flood line. It was like creating an empty space when screwing up in a falling block puzzle.

But if another wall or ceiling broke, the water would flow in and they would drown.

“Does that mean someone might have just lost their lives? In exchange for saving ours…”

“It’s like a miniature version of war. Including how your actions can influence the lives of people you’ve never even seen.”

Quenser and the others’ safety was not guaranteed. They may have just been lucky as the seesaw tilted back and forth. They wanted to keep moving as soon as they could.

Heivia waved around his soaked military handgun.

“Fresh water is one thing, but seawater can be a problem. Catherine, how’s your gun?”

“It’s probably fine. Big brother, you have no gun like always, right?”

The powered suits were a tight fit, so the spare weapons they could bring with them were limited. They only had those two handguns to fight with. A backpack would have been too bulky, so Quenser had no Hand Axe on him.

They cautiously progressed and closed every waterproof door they came across, but they could only say that was “better than nothing”. If the wall burst open and seawater poured in, it would all be for naught.

“That thing sure is dangerous,” said Heivia as he looked up. “It’s even showing up here.”

The ceiling should have been tall, but it suddenly lowered at a certain point. But this was not due to the building’s structure. The ceiling had been crushed down and they could see black lustrous rock breaking through. And Second Venice was an artificial island of aluminum and reinforced stainless steel, so it had no natural rock.

“Is that a piece of the Appetizer Asteroid?”

“We might have made our way underneath that ‘domed stadium’ we saw in the distance.”

That sent a chill down their spines. That weight was enough for Second Venice to creak as a whole and to allow seawater inside, and it was hanging up above them with no pillars or wires to support it. Who could say when it would crush these puny humans.

“I’m actually glad I don’t have any Hand Axe this time. I wouldn’t want to disturb that thing.”

This area had apparently been flooded at times depending on the exact conditions because a few soaked corpses were lying around.

But these were a little different from the Faith Organization ones.

“Their equipment is different. Are they Information Alliance?”

“They have the same uniforms and rifles, so they’re probably still the Faith Organization’s Kerukeion. They might have had different duties or ranks. Like some guarded the outside while the others did the actual work inside.”

Heivia rolled up one corpse’s sleeve and found the staff and twin snakes tattoo.

The main reason they bothered to check was the corpses’ faces.

“Those are gas masks, aren’t they?”

“They look like octopus aliens,” said Catherine as she reached for one of the masks.

Instead of trying to look at the corpse’s face, she twisted the cylindrical filter and removed it.

She traced her finger across the alphabetic writing on the metal surface before taking it apart and checking inside.

Quenser frowned while leaning over like they were peered inside the same lunchbox.

“Hey, this isn’t activated carbon. What is it? Does it have a drying agent inside?”

“Those masks come in a lot of different types, but this isn’t to protect against poison gas. If it’s removing the moisture, it must be to protect against something biological.”

“Biological…? So like a bacteriological weapon!?”

“I’ve never heard of a drying agent being used against bacteria…”

“That might not be it,” cut in Catherine with her blonde braid. “When I piloted my Object, I remember being told to watch out for this kind of microscopic sabotage in addition to simple firepower. And there was one thing I was warned about in addition to poison gas and viruses. And I think the countermeasure was a drying agent.”

“What was it?”

Catherine readily answered Quenser’s question.

“Mold. Deadly mold.”

Part 3

This was the situation according to Catherine:

“Acquiring a strange virus or bacteria isn’t easy and it’s hard to maintain their destructive ability. It’s an emergency if they escape and, since they’re alive, you have to look after them or they’ll die. You can’t just leave them in an airtight container. They’re known as cheap weapons, but it isn’t actually that easy.”

“Well, yeah. It would be like living in the same room as some influenza with a 0% survival rate.”

Heivia agreed but did not seem to get her point.

Quenser was also out of his element when it came to biology.

“So how is that deadly mold different? Don’t you still have to look after a creature that kills you if you breathe it in?”

“Not necessarily.” Catherine giggled. “It’s called deadly mold, but the mold itself can’t kill you. The mold can be found anywhere. You just have to alter the genetics of the black stuff that grows between your kitchen or bathroom tiles.”

“But that can’t kill anyone, right?”

“Right.” The small girl readily nodded. “So the mold itself is just the carrier. The toxin that kills people is something else.”

“…”

“It can be blowfish or aconite. You just have to make a microscopic powder out of it and mix it with the ever-growing mold. There’s a ton of specialized equipment here, but you really only need to make some slight adjustments to the safe country kitchen equipment to let bread dough ferment. Then when the supposedly harmless mold spreads, the people who breathe it in start dropping like flies.”

“Ugh,” groaned Heivia. “That comes up in a legend about Napoleon, doesn’t it? His health continued to decline while he was kept imprisoned and he finally died a mysterious death, but scholars still argue over whether it was something occult or an assassination. But one theory was that a toxin and the mold in the wallpaper mixed together and slowly ate into his body.”

“I don’t know if this is the same, but I have heard about pollen, dead mites, or other allergens getting in mold.”

“The deadly mold is nothing more than a carrier, so you can control the extent of the damage,” said Catherine. “Even if the mold grows more than expected, the deadly part only comes from the separate toxin. That deadly part can’t be copied, so there’s no fear of it mutating into something incredibly toxic.”

Catherine’s answer was so perfect that Quenser felt a chill down his spine.

“And both the type and density of the material carried by the mold can be controlled. You can make everyone cough up blood and die or you can put them all safely to sleep. To put it another way, it might be easier to think of the mold as a tiny pill or injection.”

“Is there anything it can’t do…?”

It was obvious just how stubborn a life form mold was by the fact that everyone was constantly fighting it in their bathrooms with a sponge and cleaner in hand. The reproducing mold and the deadly toxin were separate, so it could not mutate into something uncontrollable, but it was still not a pleasant idea.

“That would explain why the Rush’s Oh Ho Ho was so desperate to keep everyone here. Mold spores can travel overseas on travelers’ shoes, can’t they?”

Even if they scattered absolute alcohol or lime across the entire city, they could not fully eliminate the mold growing in it. From the grout between tiles to dirt, some would definitely be missed. Even burning the entire city to the ground might not be enough.

And even if not all of it was deadly, the possibility remained, so the entire city would have to be sterilized before they could relax. It may have been the same fear as a minefield.

“But what toxin was Kerukeion planning to have the mold spread to the entire world from this infection base? No one can make a serum or antidote without knowing that.”

“We might be able to figure that out with this.” Catherine looked to the gas mask filter she had opened. “The drying agent would kill the mold, but the toxin itself would remain since it’s a chemical. Just like with a water purifier’s filter, it would all build up here.”

If that was true, they did not need to stay in the infection base any longer. They would need to find an exit and return to Frolaytia at the maintenance base.

However, Catherine’s theory assumed something.

“But wait. That assumes the deadly mold has already been disseminated. If that hasn’t happened yet, there wouldn’t be any in the air and this filter would be clean. The people handling the deadly mold may have worn the gas masks as standard etiquette.”

It was unclear whether the Rush’s Oh Ho Ho had actually sealed off the island after the deadly mold had been released. It was possible she had done so preemptively.

“Come to think of it, our busty commander said they didn’t find anything in the nearby soil or Myonri’s blood. Same for you, Quenser.”

“The mold is found everywhere, so they might have just overlooked it,” said Catherine with uncertainty in her voice.

If the deadly mold had yet to be released, leaving would be the worst choice. They would have been in arm’s reach of the greatest threat but turned back and thus allowed the deadly mold to spread through Second Venice.

Quenser sighed.

“Catherine, let’s take that mask with us. And just to be sure, we should investigate the infection base’s dissemination equipment. If it hasn’t activated yet, we might be able to stop it. And if the mold is never released, the Rush will have no more reason to keep everyone here.”

“…Right.”

The blonde braid girl sounded reluctant, but she still nodded.

She reattached the can-like filter to the mask and placed it on the side of her head like at an Island Nation festival. She likely wanted both hands free for her handgun. It had been on the pale face of a drowned corpse, but she did not seem to mind.

“Where’s the heart of the infection base? Is there a map anywhere? This underground facility is huge, so wouldn’t the people using it get lost?”

“Heivia, are you the kind of person that gets lost at home if you don’t have doorplates?”

“You clearly don’t know how many rooms my home has. I’m a noble, remember?”

They did not find anything for a while.

They occasionally ran across a drowned corpse, but that did not provide any new information.

With the giant asteroid blocking the way above them, they continued deeper and deeper until they finally found it.

“Wait, wait, wait. This looks dangerous.”

That was Heivia’s opinion of what he saw.

Unlike everything they had seen before, one room had been kept separate with clear glass. The entrance used an airlock, so it definitely seemed designed to prevent microbes from getting in or out.

They saw no one inside.

The glass walls had shattered from the asteroid impact and only the frames remained on the floor.

In the center was what looked like a broken water tank with a water-filled container inside that looked something like a pot or a spring. A thick metal pipe ran straight down, so it was likely connected to some kind of liquid inside. When the plug was released, the microbes would be sent throughout Second Venice, mixed with the soil-improving agar powder, and scattered across the city.

And something was soaking in the center of the witch’s pot.

It was a synthetic bag the size of a college notebook.

Assuming it was not a bag of pre-made curry…

“Oh, no… The deadly mold has already been set up!!”

Heivia held a hand to his mouth as he shouted his warning, but Quenser frowned and stepped over a corpse to reach the center and all its shattered glass.

“Hey, Quenser. That’s dangerous!!”

“No, wait. Look at this.”

Quenser focused on the industrial computers surrounding the broken water tank and large pot. Most of the monitors had broken, but one of them displayed a warning window.

Catherine approached and read it.

“An unexpected error has occurred. Would you like to restart the work task? Or would you like to continue?”

“Good. I don’t know if it was the impact or the switch to backup power, but it stopped running and hasn’t started back up! If we remove the curry from the pot, we can stop it from disseminating!!”

Quenser quickly turned around and reached toward the bag at the bottom of the pot.

And a moment later, he heard a dry gunshot.

Before trying to find where it had come from or ducking down on reflex, Quenser stared at the deadly mold package.

It had a hole in it.

The hole was only as large as a fingertip, but it had torn apart around that as well.

“Big brother!!”

Catherine grabbed his hips and then swept his feet out from under him. They both fell onto the glass-covered floor, but he could not say for sure that not a single drop of the bag’s liquid had reached him. He had been soaking wet to begin with, so he could not say what was seawater and what was the grim reaper’s seeds.

“You son of a bitch!!”

A few more gunshots sounded. Heivia had shot the drowned corpse that Quenser had stepped over earlier. Except the man must have actually been alive, even if just barely.

Catherine lay on top of Quenser and shouted to Heivia.

“Just grab that guy’s mask!! Hurry!!”

The blonde braid girl reached for the gas mask on the side of her own head. The deadly mold had already been released. The infection base’s work task was still stopped and there may not have been any immediate risk of it escaping the facility, but this room was a different matter.

And between the half-drowned soldier Heivia had killed and Catherine, they only had two gas masks.

One of them would be left out.

“Dammit…”

Quenser relaxed his entire body as the small girl lay on top of him.

“I’ll just give up here. But promise me you’ll bring me an antidote or vaccine or whatever before I run out of time…”

This was not his specialty, but even he knew it was not that simple. There were plenty of so-called “killer viruses”, but it took years to develop a vaccine after a sample was acquired. And a lot of them were still far from a successful vaccine. Antidotes were developed for chemical toxins, but the initial amount consumed or a delay in treatment often left the victim suffering from severe after-effects.

But as all that passed through his head, something unexpected happened.

While lying on top of Quenser, Catherine pressed her gas mask onto his face.

At first, he did not understand.

And once he realized what Catherine Blueangel’s choice meant, he yelled at her.

“Wait, Catherine! Wait!! Do you understand what you’re doing!?”

He tried to grab the mask pressed against his face, but Catherine kept him from moving by using her legs to hold his torso and arms in place. He tried to move his hips to knock her off of him, but she was holding him solidly to the ground.

Meanwhile, Catherine’s hands moved along the mask. She grabbed the elastic bands and attached it to Quenser’s head.

Quenser shouted over at his unrestrained friend.

“Heivia, do something!! At this rate…!!”

“It’s too late. I’ve been exposed for too long. Placing the mask on me now wouldn’t solve anything. Removing the mask now would only get us both infected, big brother.”

“…!!”

That clearly stopped Heivia from moving after he put on the mask he had stolen from the soldier he had killed.

“…That’s fine.”

Unable to move anything else, Quenser desperately moved his mouth.

“That’s fine!! I won’t leave you all alone!! I was asked to help bring you back to a safe country and I swear I will! Why do you have to give up your own mask!?”

Quenser was shouting so loud he thought his throat would tear, but the girl’s lips relaxed slightly as she sat on top of him.

“That’s the last stamp…”

Her body shook.

She collapsed forward.

“ ‘Think about what you can do for a friend in need’…”

It may have helped that she had been lying on top of him already. As her face approached his, her soft lips bumped into his gas mask’s filter can.

It was a flavorless kiss.

After that, she did not wake back up.

“Goddammit…”

Quenser was finally able to pull his arms out from between the girl’s legs. He wrapped his arms around the Pilot Elite’s abnormally hot back and embraced her with his trembling hands.

With the mask in place, he could not even wipe away his tears.

“Goddammit!! I won’t let it end like this!! Help me, Heivia!! Catherine completed everything for the Civilian Acclimation Assistance System, so I swear I’ll send her to a safe country. We should be able to keep the spread of the deadly mold to a minimum right now!!”

“R-right. Right!!”

Quenser and Heivia both wore the masks they had gained in exchange for someone else’s life and they ran around the heart of the destroyed infection base.

“There has to be some kind of emergency method. It can be lime or absolute alcohol, but there has to be a kit for sterilizing the facility in case a microbe gets out!!”

“There’s something inside this locked cabinet. It’s the powder used to draw lines on the schoolyard during an athletic festival!”

“That’s lime! Heivia, break the glass if you have to, but scatter that around!!”

“What about you!?”

“We can’t disinfect inside Catherine’s mouth, so we have to throw her in a body bag and duct tape up the zipper to keep any more from getting out. She’ll still have two or three hours of air and the mold spores should be larger than pollen. It’s less precise than a virus weapon, so it should be fine!!”

“Oh, I hope you’re right, dammit!!”

Whatever the case, it was a race against time. The fact that everything was soaked from the flooding was a real problem. If the deadly mold began to spread at an accelerated rate, they would have to seal everything off. And that included Quenser and Heivia. If that happened, there would be nothing they could do.

That was the major deciding factor in whether or not they could bring Catherine back to the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion’s maintenance base zone.

Even if there was no vaccine or antidote and even if they could only fight the symptoms, there was specialized equipment and military doctors there. That would be far better than anything Quenser and Heivia could do.

After sealing up the body bag with duct tape, they poured a bunch of lime powder on it. This girl had saved his life, so it drove Quenser insane that he had to treat her like she was unclean.

“Will that do it!?”

“I don’t know, but at least we haven’t passed out yet.”

But things were not over yet.

The heavens shook.

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Oh, please no.”

Heivia groaned as he looked up.

Something gigantic was moving above their heads.

What looked like black rock was actually a 100 meter piece of the Appetizer Asteroid after it had been broken by the Princess’s anti-air lasers. Or so they had thought.

Had they been wrong?

If it was moving, they had to be wrong.

That black rock had looked so sturdy, but now cracks ran through it from within. And several metal towers came into view. No, that was wrong too. The scale was simply so large that they could not see the whole picture from here. That had only made it look like a wall and towers.

If they had been able to step back and view it more calmly, it may have looked different.

They would have seen a 50 meter spherical main body with cannons covering its surface. That colossal weapon could move at more than 500 kph, it had ended the nuclear age, and it contained a JPlevelMHD reactor that provided the firepower for the giant main cannons which were the one thing that could exterminate others like it.

“What dumbass did this!? Were the parts carried ‘up there’ and then constructed like a ship in a bottle!? Was that Object actually embedded inside the Appetizer Asteroid!? Was it hiding there like that was a ghillie suit made of heat insulation and cushioning!?”

The Princess’s anti-air attack had destroyed the giant asteroid and caused it to detonate in midair, but now that they thought about it, it had split apart a little too cleanly. It may have been customized to do that from the beginning. By cutting into and cracking the asteroid with an Object’s firepower, it had been remade into a vehicle for reentry.

But which world power had done it?

Was it the Faith Organization’s Kerukeion who had planned to disseminate the deadly mold? Or was it someone who wanted to stop that by destroying the infection base even if it meant crushing Second Venice?

It had been constructed in space, embedded inside the asteroid, and accurately dropped toward the surface. Its internal systems and the Pilot Elite would also have to have been perfectly preserved, so an unimaginable amount of technology had been poured into this. It would undoubtedly be a cutting edge Generation 2.

“Goddammit… Is this why that old astronomer was attacked? The asteroid was named after him, so he must have checked it on a daily basis. Did he notice something was up, so they came to silence him?”

Quenser Barbotage had come to the battlefield to learn about Object design, but his eyes were not sparkling now.

“Shut up, you…”

He picked up the body bag holding the girl who had saved his life and viscerally felt the approaching time limit. That unarmed boy did not even have Hand Axe this time and his expression was hidden by a mask.

The puny human only had one thing to say.

“This is not the time, you idiot!! Do you want me to tear you apart right this instant!?”