HEAVY OBJECT:Volume11 Chapter 1

Status: Incomplete

5/15 parts completed

   

Chapter 1: A War of Two Birds with One Stone >> Crashed Plane Rescue Operation in the Rio Grande District

Part 1

It was July in the middle of the desert in the Central American Rio Grande District. Below a blazing sun that would have fit in right alongside cacti and cowboy hats, the Legitimacy Kingdom’s 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion was faced with an unprecedented danger.

Namely…

“As the independent Black Uniform unit, we will now hold an unscheduled inspection! All members of the 37th must follow our instructions regardless of rank!!”

It was absolute chaos.

The Black Uniforms were an independent unit with special privileges. Their primary mission was to police the troops. In other words, they performed investigations, made reports, and supplied punishments to ensure the Legitimacy Kingdom units deployed around the world did not go on a rampage or secretly commit war crimes.

They were of course frightening. Incredibly frightening.

That was hardly surprising when they carried guns filled with bullets meant for their allies, not the enemy.

Quenser and Heivia’s maintenance base zone was a collection of over one hundred large vehicles, but shouts, screams, sobs, and lawyer-like arguments blended together in the barracks where the soldiers lived.

“Nooo!! I can’t sleep without Honey the Bear! It has a major effect on my combat readiness, so you should actually pay for it!!”

“Not a chance. Confiscated.”

“Wait, wait. This may look like the latest handheld gaming system, but the electronic simulation division is constantly researching terrorist equipment made by modifying civilian devices to develop countermeasures. If you check the special addition to Article 30 Line 2 of the regulations-…”

“Confiscated.”

“Ahhh, wait! I’ll give up on everything under the bed, but please don’t check above the ceiling!!”

“Why do these people have so many personal items!? And what is this!? Who filled this gun’s control chip with access keys to strip chats!? This is military property!!”

In the middle of it all, Battlefield Student Quenser Barbotage looked like a deadbeat husband trying to stop his wife from leaving after she handed him divorce papers. Atop the scorching desert sand, he clung to the waist of a young woman with glasses, short blonde hair, and giant breasts. The size of her breasts must have been a sign of how well-behaved she was!

His face was of course covered in tears and snot.

“C’moooooon! Don’t be like that. Surely you can let this much slide!! Right, miss!?”

“No, no, no! B-besides, why do you have so many massagers!? It’s indecent!!”

“Ehhh? They’re just health devices. If they look inappropriate to you, I think that’s a sign of your own dirty mind. Grin, grin. Does that mean you know of an indecent way of using these things? Smirk, smirk.”

“Confiscated.”

“Noooo!! Wait! Tits! Hear me out, miss! Tits! I have a legit reason to have these! Tits!!”

“Where do you think you’re shoving your face!? Do you want me to add lack of respect to your list of offenses!? Do you want to spend the night in a cell!?”

“Ehhh? Spend a night in a cell? With you?”

“Why would-… Why would I spend a night locked up with you!?”

“Heh. They do say the summer sun can lead people to dangerous love affairs. What’s wrong with spending some time together in a cramped space? Don’t worry. I’m down with being on the top or the bottom.”

“Major Capistrano! I would like to request a drug test!! His language is a complete mess and I cannot make heads or tails of what he’s trying to say. Are you sure he’s okay!?”

Busty and silver-haired Frolaytia Capistrano lightly scratched her head with a long, skinny kiseru in her mouth while she leaned against a metal container placed on the sand.

“That guy can see angels when completely sober, so there’s nothing you can do.”

“Major, you aren’t much better. Don’t try to distract me with that clean and upright atmosphere.”

Frolaytia’s love of the Island Nation was well-known within the battalion, so Quenser wondered if her collection would be confiscated too.

“This is an issue of authority, lieutenant. I’m willing to grant the Black Uniforms their independence, but you must also respect my right to secrecy as an officer who remotely commands multiple units and their Pilot Elites. Simply put, stay out of my room.”

“Noooo fairrrrrr! Why do you get the only safe space!? And if you knew this inspection was coming, why didn’t you hide our things in there too!?”

Quenser’s eyes opened wide, but then something unbelievable happened.

The Black Uniform woman recklessly snatched Frolatyia’s kiseru from her mouth.

“I will keep out of your room as asked, but nothing is stopping me outside of that space. I will be confiscating this, major.”

The busty commander replied quite charmingly with an indescribable smile.

“Do you want me to ***** your ***** all the way to the back of your *****, you *****?”

“Threats will get you nowhere. Confiscated☆”

Even if it was unscheduled, why was such a large scale inspection being carried out now? Quenser asked and his busty commander answered.

“A carefree noble from a safe country is apparently making a surprise visit, so we’re getting all cleaned up so they won’t see anything that might offend them.”

“Talk about a nuisance! And how is it a surprise visit if we know it’s coming!?”

“Who was it again? Oh, right. Some girl known as the Blue Rose of Winchell.”

“I’m going to kill Heivia!!”

Pissed, Quenser looked around with killer intent in his eyes (and while still clinging to the young woman). Word must have already gotten around because Private Heivia Winchell was being ganged up on by several other soldiers.

The noble boy tried to explain himself.

“I’m telling you, this has nothing to do with me! B-besides, the Blue Rose? With a flower in the name, it’s obviously a girl, but I don’t even know her name. She’s some sister several places or even a dozen or so places down the line from me! This is as much trouble for me as for you!!”

“This guy has more little sisters than he can count and he has the nerve to call it ‘trouble’!? This is worse than that legend from the Island Nation who had a dozen little sisters!!”

“Get him!”

“Death to the bourgeois who have grown fat in this age of plenty!!”

Blows could be heard landing and the short-haired blonde glasses woman managed to remove Quenser from her waist. She was blushing a little and she raised her index finger in front of her face in scolding gesture.

“Anyway! We will be taking away all items that are not mission essential. No excuses! Goodbye!!”

After straightening her back in a salute, the frustrated young lady left with her butt wiggling back and forth inside her tight skirt. Frolaytia spoke to Quenser who had collapsed to the scorching desert sand.

“Well?”

“Yes?”

“You got awfully close to that Black Uniform, but I assume you had a reason.”

She grinned and Quenser gave a wicked smile in return.

He tossed up the handheld device hidden in his palm.

“With some help from the electronic simulation division, I successfully stole the data using a contactless transmission. I’ve located the planned storage site of the confiscated items. If we can swap out the items before they write up their list, they’ll be happy with a pile of worthless junk.”

“Very good then. …That kiseru used the Island Nation’s Wajima lacquer. I’m not losing it to some little girl with no eye for value.”

With that irritated comment, she knocked on the door of the container behind her.

The contents avalanched out. It was packed full of cheap folk crafts of unknown use that had likely been bought at local souvenir shops.

“When I heard an inspection was coming, I wanted some insurance just in case. Now, time for Round 2, Quenser.”

“This is scary. That busty commander makes for one hell of an ally when she’s actually on your side.”

Part 2

Quenser Barbotage began his unofficial mission. He used the stolen data on his handheld device to approach a cluster of tents in one corner of the maintenance base zone. The tents were large, like circus tents. They were lined up like harbor warehouses, but he accurately pinpointed one of them and peeked inside while pressing up against the wall and wondering if that actually made him stand out more. Then he snuck inside.

The warehouse seemed to have originally contained components for the vehicles making up the base. There had been a lot of spare space so that the components could be taken out at any time, but those calculated gaps were now filled with confiscated personal items.

He thought back to what Major Frolaytia Capistrano had told him.

“Since we’re out in the blazing sun in July and the Gulf of Mexico is so nearby, I was honestly thinking of giving us all a break at the beach once we completed our mission. But I guess I’ll have to cancel those plans now that all of our swimsuits were taken away. It really is a shame.”

(Curse you, Black Uniform!! Don’t think you can get away with everything just because you wear intellectual glasses and have giant tits! I’ll make sure to get your email address later!!)

Quenser’s heart burned with (supposedly) righteous anger as he used his handheld device’s map to jot down the general location of the personal items. Once he was done, a unit with a cargo cart would show up. He had to remove a few of the tent’s stakes, secretly invite them in, and then replace the real personal items with the container’s worth of decoy folk crafts.

It was a race against time, but he wanted to check for Black Uniform patrols, cameras, or IR sensors.

They could not fool the Black Uniforms unless they pulled off their magic trick before a list of the items was made.

But…

“Zun-cha-cha… Zun-zun-cha-cha…”

“?”

He heard a female voice that sounded out of place in the tense atmosphere of the tent warehouse.

He doubted an unrelated soldier had just so happened to come here, so it had to be a Black Uniform. Quenser knew nothing about infiltration, so he pointlessly crouched down and checked on the situation.

The student peered out from behind a giant metal rack.

“Ahhh. It’s so hot today.”

It was a Black Uniform.

Specifically, it was the young woman with glasses, short blond hair, and giant breasts.

She may have had a habit of speaking her thoughts aloud when she was alone. Even if the tent was larger than a school building, she must have still thought of it as “indoors”. He could not deny the possibility that she was the type to talk to the TV while she ate dinner. Regardless, she was completely defenseless here.

But something was strange. Even if she thought no one else was around, he could not figure out why she would be stripping off her black uniform and its tight skirt. A cutesy and frilly pink one-piece swimsuit was revealed below.

And she was not done there.

It may have belonged to someone in the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion, but she used a hose to fill a round inflatable pool and then she sat down in it. Her long legs could not fit and had to stick outside the plastic edge. She acted like she was relaxing in a bubble bath at home and a waterproof bath TV must have been floating in the water. He could hear the sound of the broadcast picked up from the Capitalist Corporations.

“…and for the aforementioned reasons, the stockholder meetings for 7th Core, the seven corporations ruling our home country, are filled with lively debate over the so-called home remedy suggestion. Pressure from the related agencies has shown signs of relaxing the standards, but some experts have indicated fears that it will increase the burden on the patient…”

The topic on the TV was oddly serious, but it still excited Quenser because it too was a sign of that well-behaved young lady’s private side being defenselessly exposed.

What happened next clinched it. As she relaxed in the pool, she held up something familiar. It was one of the massagers she had taken from Quenser earlier.

(Dammit. I was trying to make an experimental naval destruction device by lining them up along the aquarium wall, but she had to ruin everything. …Wait, what is she doing?)

“Hm? Is this how you do it? You hit this switch and…ah!?”

She hesitantly pressed it to her shoulder and her finger seemed to touch the switch. It vibrated more than she had expected, so her shoulders jumped and she dropped it.

She stared at it for a bit and tried again.

“I never knew these were so amazing… Oh, ohhhhhhh. I see. Ohhhhhhhh. So you go like this, and…ahhh…”

The young woman who had traded her Black Uniform for a pink swimsuit gradually got used to the massager as she held it to her shoulder, relaxed her entire body, and sank into the plastic pool. She rested her head on the edge of the pool and stared blankly up at the ceiling.

As you might have guessed, a whispering voice grew at an explosive rate inside Quenser Barbotage’s mind.

(What should I do? What do I do now!? This well-behaved Black Uniform’s eyes are beginning to wander as she opens the door to a brand new world, but do I give her a hands-on lecture or do I adore her ignorance from afar? I can’t decide!!!!!)

To be clear, this place had temporarily been setup as the Black Uniforms’ personal space, so even a student would be in serious trouble if discovered inside. And if it was found out he was plotting to retrieve their confiscated items, he could not possibly avoid being disciplined.

So he used all his willpower to break free of this honey trap and made the right decision to complete the retrieval mission given to him by Frolaytia.

But…

“Oh, whoops. I need to get that list made.”

She had said it.

That blonde young woman had said it.

Quenser had to swap out the confiscated items with the decoy items before that list was made.

If the list was made ahead of time, their plan would end in failure.

That meant he had to do whatever it took to prevent that list’s completion!

That gave him the justification he needed.

The boy would later describe as if it were a part of his memoirs:

That was when I could no longer restrain the demon growing inside my chest.

-Battlefield Student Quenser Barbotage.

“Geh heh heh!! Looks like you’re enjoying yourself there, Miss Black Uniform!! I never thought you’d be using someone’s confiscated possessions to have such a nice relaxing time in here!!”

“Eh? Eh? Ah…hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

“You fool. Crossing your hands now isn’t enough to hide those giant tits!! And if you want me to keep quiet about this, you’re going to help me with a few things, Miss Relaxation! Oh, this is so much fun. There’s something wrong with having such a straight-laced young lady only able to say ‘yes’ or ‘of course’! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!”

“Wh-why are you even here!? We have used our special privileges to temporarily make this a protected zone, so if I report you-…!!”

“Ohhh? You talk big for someone in a swimsuit. You must have been looking forward to this. Were you wearing that swimsuit under your uniform? Are you a child? Were you that excited about going to the beach?”

“Ghh!?”

“But do the uniform rules say anything about allowing that? I don’t remember seeing anything about wearing a frilly pink swimsuit underneath the uniform. Hmm? Does that mean you were breaking military regulations by bringing your own personal items here? But surely one of the well-behaved Black Uniforms wouldn’t do that.”

“…”

“What does a dog say?”

“Wo-…woof.”

“Heh heh heh Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

Part 3

That bout of information warfare was continuing below the surface, but…

“Today’s mission is to rescue a Legitimacy Kingdom transport plane that was shot down by the Capitalist Corporations.”

Frolaytia feigned ignorance while briefing her troops in the meeting room.

She gently waved her kiseru around as if to show it off to everyone, but the Black Uniforms mixed in with the others did not notice. That was proof that they had successfully swapped out the warehouse contents before the list was completed.

“The mission itself is simple. Travel to the site of the crash and rescue the crew if they’re still alive or retrieve the bodies if they’re not. That’s all. The problem is where it is.”

She projected a map onto the white wall behind her. It was the region just south of North America that bordered the Gulf of Mexico.

“As you know, North America is a hot zone with the Capitalist Corporations’ home country to the west and the Information Alliance’s to the east. The Central American Rio Grande District here is the entrance to both those world powers. The vast desert is the site of a territorial dispute between the two, so for over thirty years, throwing an empty can there could easily trigger a war.”

And then a Legitimacy Kingdom transport plane had crashed in that desert.

But why had it been flying somewhere so dangerous?

“A large-scale demilitarized zone exists down the center of North America to divide the Capitalist Corporations on the west and the Information Alliance on the east. It’s known as the Greater Canyon and it’s a two hundred kilometer wide blank zone cutting north to south through the center of North America. …Since the two armies are too busy glaring at each other to do anything, it also acts as a silk road for a wide variety of people, but someone must have been in a particularly bad mood this time.”

“You mean the Legitimacy Kingdom transport plane was trying to cut across North America using that silk road, but it messed up and was shot down in the Central American entrance?”

Quenser summed up the issue and Frolaytia nodded.

“Where it crashed is also a problem. Water is very important in a desert and it crashed right on top of an oasis. That’s right in the center of the territorial dispute. Both the Capitalist Corporations and the Information Alliance will try to interfere if we go to rescue the plane’s crew.”

“If they’re gonna insist they have authority there, then they need to rescue anyone that’s crashed there, dammit,” complained Heivia who was bruised and swollen all over.

Frolaytia ignored him and continued.

“We will send out the Baby Magnum, but as I said, the main countries of the Capitalist Corporations and Information Alliance are just north of here. That means we’ll be overpowered if it comes to a serious fight. We only have to settle the transport plane issue. I repeat, do not think about fighting and winning. Poking at the hornet’s nest will only call in an inexhaustible supply of enemy reinforcements.”

Next, the Black Uniform with glasses and short blonde hair stepped up onto the platform.

She had of course changed from her pink swimsuit to her tight skirt uniform.

She spoke flawlessly as if the “previous incident” had never happened.

“Attention, everyone. I am Lieutenant Meena Stinger of Special Platoon 15.”

She gave the bare minimum of an introduction.

“This mission is not protected by any official treaties, but we have been told even the Legitimacy Kingdom home country is watching because an implicit agreement has been broken. And as a Black Uniform that enforces the rules of the battlefield, I am very worried about any moral hazards that may cross a line, either internally or externally. …In other words, I would like to bring an end to this chaos.”

“Lady, what exactly are you saying?”

When Quenser spoke to her, her shoulders jumped and she cleared her throat to regain her train of thought.

“Enjoy this daytrip and be back tonight. This is a simple mission as always, but the location is a tricky one. As we are asking this of you, we will not leave you empty-handed. The Special 15th will lend you as much personnel as we can. The oasis in question is at the center of an endless back-and-forth territorial dispute between the Capitalist Corporations and the Information Alliance. We expect it will be much more heavily equipped than it appears. Of most concern…”

Meena paused before continuing.

“…are the reports of landmines. Be very careful.”

Part 4

Period 1 of hell had begun.

The potatoes of the Legitimacy Kingdom were crawling below the blazing sun and the scorching sand that reached temperatures exceeding sixty degrees Celsius. There were more than three hundred of them. Every last one of them was dripping with unpleasant sweat, some were aiming handgun-shaped sensors toward the ground, and others were slowly sticking knives into the sand to carefully retrieve can-sized pieces of metal.

Heivia tossed one to the side and spat out a complaint.

“All that worry and it’s an empty can? I don’t want it to be a real one, so why do I feel so disappointed!? There are decoys buried all over the place, but the next one could be the real deal. I can’t believe they would do this!!”

“It’s better than having real landmines all over the place, right? And getting angry is only going to make you overlook a real one.”

“And it’s a can for beef stew! They even get good food!!”

“Watch the anger.”

Quenser was just as fed up with the situation.

They were more than one thousand meters from the oasis. The tall sunflower field blooming unnaturally in the desert was already visible in the distance, but the Legitimacy Kingdom troops were moving at a snail’s pace and they never seemed to get any closer.

Plus, they were more than just sandwiched between the scorching sun and sand. Every time they heard the beeping of a metal detector, they were assaulted by enough tension to feel like an invisible stake in the heart. In all serious, it felt like they had been crawling along for over a week.

“Don’t let your guard down just because there are empty cans everywhere. You heard what the Black Uniforms said, right? There are an estimated thirty thousand mines around here. It’s a flower garden of landmines. Carelessly step on one and you’ll set off a fireworks festival at ground level.”

One of those well-behaved Black Uniforms was already melting into the desert a short distance away. They usually investigated war crimes in the maintenance base, so she was not used to being out on the battlefield. Her trademark black uniform seemed downright suicidal in the July desert. Quenser was impressed that she did not strip it off like in the North Wind and the Sun.

He was whispering his assessment while looking over at the long black-haired young woman with an exposed forehead who was likely one of Meena’s subordinates.

For some voluntary help in the ESP research rumored to be a top secret military experiment, he focused on her defenseless chest to see if he could develop X-ray vision. Really, he was just staring intently at the yellow bra showing through her sweaty blouse.

“Lemon yellow, huh? And a size-enhancing bra? …I guess not all of those well-behaved Black Uniforms have giant tits.”

“You’re scaring me. I don’t know anyone else who could say that kind of thing about a woman with the right to kill her allies.”

That said, the two idiots knew perfectly well why the flat-chested Black Uniform was so annoyed.

They too had been crawling across the scorching sand at a snail’s pace.

It was all thanks to those mines buried everywhere.

“Why would they use so damn many of them? Were they trying to use up some extra inventory or something? Have they forgotten anyone gets blown up just the same if they step on these things?”

“These are smart mines, Heivia. They have a safety that picks up their allies’ IC signal, so they feel perfectly safe scattering them everywhere. I saw on a news site that these things have passed the assault rifle to become the most common weapon on the battlefield.”

“Are you serious?” Heivia looked around while still lying on the ground. “Then what are those rusty trucks and armored vehicles I can see all over the place? They were clearly blown up by the mines.”

“They’re about as reliable as the shoplifting alarms at the entrance of a store, unfortunately.”

An irregular rumbling reached them from the distance. The Baby Magnum was probably in an exciting clash with the Capitalist Corporations Second Generation Antlion.

“Besides, this isn’t how people break through a minefield these days. Why can’t we send a downpour of shellfire this way to blow up the entire minefield and then cross safely after the fact?”

“Have you forgotten that this is the entrance to the Capitalist Corporations and the Information Alliance and that poking at the hornet’s nest will only summon an unending supply of reinforcements? The Princess is gathering the worker bees’ attention over there, so we can’t trigger a huge explosion over here.”

Quenser pulled a card from what looked like a deck of playing cards and placed it on top of the desert sand. It was a marker that reflected radio signals and connecting those dots would reveal a safe route without any mines.

“If these are high-tech mines, then can’t we sit back and get a nice tan while we wait for the batteries to die?”

“They apparently generate their own power from the desert’s heat, so they can keep running indefinitely.”

After setting down a decent number of markers, Quenser and Heivia took a break behind a sand dune while the others followed along the safe zone they had created. Clearing mines wore at one’s nerves, so they made progress by taking turns and giving each other short breaks.

However, the group for the next shift was dressed oddly.

“What the hell? Are those powered suits?”

“They’re bomb squad equipment,” said one of them. “We remembered they were gathering dust in storage, so we just dug them out.”

“Damn that busty commander! I swear I’m going to give her such a groping!!”

“Are you all okay wearing those suits out in this blazing sun? I feel like I’m going to get heatstroke just looking at you.”

“That’s why we’re covered in cooling patches. It’s so much I’m a little afraid we’re going to be too cold.”

The hunks of metal crossed the sand dune.

Quenser could only curse Frolaytia for leaving them poorly-equipped and only able to clear the mines by hand, but he guessed they could probably borrow the powered suits for their next shift. His radio conveyed the cheerful conversation of the group protected by the thick armor.

“Found a mine.”

“That was fast. Good, good. …This is the fuse here. Now let’s transform this into a lovely tray even a waitress would be comfortable using.”

Heivia took a sip of his water bottle.

“Disarming bombs sure is easy. All you have to do is grab and twist the bottom of the fuse with some pliers.”

“That’s because the puzzle-like detonators in dramas are completely unnecessary. They just get in the way if you want to remove the bomb yourself. That can happen if one fails to detonate or the situation changes, so only criminals who just have to leave them can make puzzles out of them.”

The powered suit group continued speaking over the radio.

“Dig up the sand around it. We need to see if there are any wires connecting elsewhere.”

“All checked. Lift this one up and it won’t go off.”

“Hm?” said Quenser with a frown.

Then he paled.

“Wait, you idiot! It isn’t that simp-…!!”

He did not have time to yell into the radio.

There was an explosion beyond the sand dune and the wall of sand itself crumbled like a landslide.

Even behind cover, Quenser and Heivia had the breath knocked out of them when the blast struck their backs. A little further away, the (flat-chested) black-haired exposed-forehead Black Uniform was flipped over with her legs spread, so her shapely butt was sticking up into the air.

Quenser covered his face with a hand.

“Damn, so her panties were sky blue. You mean the bra and panties don’t match!?”

“That’s not the issue here and why do I have to be the straight man!?”

The two idiots coughed and peered over the new shape of the sand dune. A portion of the desert had become a crater and the powered suits were squirming about quite energetically.

“What was that? Didn’t they say they’d removed the fuse!?”

“There was another mine buried below that one. That’s what happens if you let your guard down!”

However, the detonation of the mine was not what mattered.

The sound of the blast had reached the oasis protected by those countless smart mines.

“The Capitalist Corporations’ border patrol is going to respond to that!”

They had poked the hornet’s nest.

Continuing to crawl along quietly would be the same as waiting for death. The military force at the oasis would be coming and it was also possible a Second Generation guarding the home country would get off its butt to deal with them.

In other words, they needed to settle this quickly.

They swiftly sent a report back to the maintenance base zone and their plan was changed.

“Brave pyramid-building slaves, if you don’t want to be trampled underfoot by your own allies, then get out of the way!”

When they heard that announcement over the radio, Quenser and Heivia rapidly rolled to the side. Several armored trucks with bulldozer-like shovels on the front drove past. They scraped a bit into the sand to intentionally detonate the mines and clear a route.

But the oasis did not sit idly by.

Again and again, they heard the sounds of compressed air being released.

Narrow trails of smoke flew in long arcs and stabbed into the top of the armored trucks.

After a tremendous explosion, the scorched masses of metal flew up into the air.

Weak-kneed Heivia complained loudly about the unfairness of the world.

“Can you really call those mines!?”

“They’re top-attack weapons that target the top of a tank. There are landmines that are fired up from a thicket when a sensor detects something and then fall back down on the target. This is just a broad interpretation of that concept!!”

“We saw this coming,” someone said over the radio. “Those armored trucks are unmanned and remote controlled. Don’t think about rescuing them. Continue along the already cleared route to reduce our losses as much as possible. No matter how good their mines are, they only have a limited number. We’ll trample them all underfoot!!”

Several more vain explosions sounded.

Still, if this continued, the minefield did seem like it would run out of mines.

Quenser and Heivia plugged their ears and breathed slowly, but then things changed.

They heard a few noises much like the fireworks that signaled the beginning of an athletic festival.

Narrow trails of smoke passed over their heads and exploded in midair.

Then a total of several hundred devices fell down while spinning like bamboo copters.

Needless to say, they were additional smart mines.

If the wind blew just a little, they would probably vanish below the sand.

“Ugh.”

“Could this get any worse?”

The two idiots had to complain.

All their effort over the past several hours had been reduced to nothing, plus their escape route had been cut off.

Part 5

Inside the Baby Magnum’s cockpit, the Princess was irritated.

For once, her role was not to defeat an Object or to win a battle. This was the entrance to the home countries of the Capitalist Corporations and the Information Alliance, so the enemy was simply too powerful for that. The more she stood out, the more enemy reinforcements she would summon. Even the extraordinary firepower of an Object was no exception there.

She had to get close but not too close.

She was shaking up the Second Generation guarding the oasis and maintaining a stalemate. She had to keep the situation stable and unchanging and that perfect balance was her top priority.

This was of course a necessary role.

If the enemy Object ignored the Baby Magnum and focused on its surroundings, the hundreds of infantry crawling along the minefield would be blown to Valhalla in no time. The soldiers could not have appreciated anything more than having the enemy Object kept far away from them.

She understood that, but that was not the same as liking it.

(I want to go help Quenser and the others already.)

An Object could take a nuclear blast, so it could clear a minefield in an instant just by moving across it. That was the simplest solution, so it was wrong for the flesh-and-blood soldiers to be sweating bullets and risking their lives clearing the mines.

But despite her thoughts…

“Princess, leave your thinking until later. Maintaining that balance is what matters now. In a way, you need to view this mission as even more difficult than normal.”

“Understood, Frolaytia.”

She focused on the battle again.

The Capitalist Corporations Second Generation was known as the Antlion. As its name suggested, it was specialized for combat in the desert. In addition to the static electricity float directly below the spherical body, it had four arms attached to the top. They drove thick stakes into the soft sand to grab at the ground and pull the main body along for powerful short dashes in any direction.

But something else left the biggest impression.

“…?”

In addition to a rapid-fire beam main cannon on the right, it scattered a hail of something from the left.

The Princess took high-speed evasive action while opening a new window for analysis. The projectiles seemed to be tripods several meters long. They were a single spear when fired, but they would open up in midair so they could set themselves up on the ground. They looked something like the pyramid-shaped barricades made of metal bars that prevented parachute descents.

Then something changed.

There was movement, but not from the Baby Magnum or the Antlion. Everything else moved. The sea of sand making up the entire landscape undulated like a living creature. It looked like an area of several kilometers had suddenly turned to quicksand.

Again, the Object’s name was the Antlion.

“We saw that in the control room too,” said Frolaytia. “That’s its unique form of artificial quicksand!!”

“Unknown devices spotted. They’re probably antenna rods used for resonance. I have also detected some very high power HF waves. Unless it’s making sonar-like acoustic scans, it must be vibrating the rods to shake the sand.”

But the Princess was unsure what that mattered as she continued her high-speed battle.

Whether it used static electricity or an air cushion, Objects floated in the air. Even intense quicksand would not swallow them up or even obstruct their movement. This would probably be more frightening than a stormy sea to infantry or tanks, but was it really any use in an Object vs. Object battle?

But just as she was thinking that, something exploded right below the Baby Magnum.

“!?”

Nothing had been fired at her, but she could see new devices in previously empty parts of the wriggling sand. The spherical protrusions were as large as fighter aircraft and they rose and sank within the wriggling desert like a fishing float in the waves. There was no way she would have overlooked them. Which meant…

“Princess, those are mines! The quicksand must have pulled up the equipment they had hidden deep underground!”

“I know that.”

Of course, no matter how effective the explosive inside, the mines could not destroy the Baby Magnum. Not even the ultimate nuclear landmine could do that. Objects were built to survive a nuclear attack from any direction, so that was only natural.

But whether it used static electricity or an air cushion, the field that kept the fifty meter two hundred thousand ton Object afloat was delicate. Having a large explosion mess with the repellant was not exactly a good thing.

Even if it was only for a fraction of a second, an opening was an opening.

(Here it comes!!)

The Princess saw the Antlion’s main cannon blast coming from the movements of the cannon itself and its targeting lenses. She immediately moved her Object far to the right. All the while, the shape of the desert was changing.

An intense cannon blast followed, but she was on a course out of the way.

Nevertheless, the electron beam cannon bent in midair like a snake.

“Wha-…?”

This was entirely unexpected. Time seemed to slow to a stop like when about to collide with an oncoming truck. She instantly figured it out. Electron beams were easily influenced by magnetism. Before firing its main cannon, the Antlion had created artificial quicksand using multiple ultrasonic resonance rods. Targeting her with landmines would be useless.

So what was the true purpose of creating the quicksand?

(Some iron sand was arranged systematically along the surface like a magic circle.)

The Princess gulped.

(And that iron sand cut off or guided the earth’s magnetic field so the electron beam would bend on its own!?)

The speed of time returned to normal.

A dreadful blast of fire rushed toward the Baby Magnum.

She could not dodge in time.

The heated onion armor on the left side was peeled up like a giant flower and a storm of alarms filled the cockpit.