HEAVY OBJECT:Volume14 Chapter 3

Status: Incomplete

11/17 parts completed

   

Chapter 3: Welcome to the End of a Stable World >> Defense of the Chesapeake District

Part 1

This was the worst.

The clean wars had never provided any particularly nice experiences for those two idiots, but this time it truly was the worst.

“Hey, Heivia, weren’t we working to bring love and peace to the world not long ago?”

“Don’t talk, you bastard. That’ll use up more of our oxygen.”

They were in a cramped living space no larger than two bathtubs stacked on top of each other.

The capsule-shaped device had thick anti-pressure armor, two thin arms with propellers on the end that could turn in any direction, a powerful light, and a round window.

It was a small submersible that looked like the product of a startup’s hard work. It seemed to show off how handmade it was, like it was meant to demonstrate how its production had breathed new life into a failing downtown factory, but it was surrounded by complete darkness. However, it was not currently nighttime. The hot sun shining on the Atlantic seemed to have forgotten that autumn had arrived, but the sunlight could not reach this depth.

They were more than 200 meters deep.

The water pressure at the depth was not enough to crush the human body like a punctured basketball, but it was too deep for free diving. It was undoubtedly a deadly region of sea.

To intentionally recover the ocean’s oxygen, thin wires had been laid out lengthwise and widthwise and seaweed had been planted along them. However, that oxygen plant had been split apart by a giant mass of steel that had torn a line across the ocean floor.

In place of sunlight, pale ultraviolet lights revealed the identity of the dark mass: an 85m missile submarine.

Heivia grabbed the radio mic which was attached with something like a phone cord.

“Hey, hey, heyyy. We’re as short on time as you are and we’re only going to bother with humanitarian aid while we’re in a good mood. If you don’t want this to end in a fight over invisible oxygen, then obediently follow our instructions, Capitalist Corporations.”

“Unique Publishing to unidentified craft. The hit to our propeller shaft that ruptured our ballast tank was caused by a torn wire from your oxygen plant, Legitimacy Kingdom. That is a serious case of sea route disruption and a violation of international law. If we get back alive, we will see you in court.”

“Could you put someone else on the line? Overly-serious student council presidents and class reps only work when they’re girls. I think coming down here was a complete waste of time.”

“And do the Capitalist Corporations auction off the right to name their weapons? Y’know, like they do with sports stadiums?”

At any rate, they had to get to work.

There were a few different ways of rescuing people from a sunken submarine. For example, they could send out a small submersible, attach its hatch to the submarine’s, and ferry the crew to the surface bit by bit. However, that would take time and only worked if the submarine had plenty of oxygen to spare.

But there was another way:

“We’ll be going the balloon route on this one. After attaching a few nitrogen-deployment balloons across the submarine to secure some buoyancy, we will use several submersibles to pull it to the surface.”

“That could easily fail,” replied the submarine. “What if the submarine breaks in two on the way up!?”

“Trust in the sub you guys designed. We’re not as greedy as you in the Capitalist Corporations, but we aren’t stupid enough to rescue enemy soldiers for free. We’re building up experience by testing out an experimental method. Here we go.”

With no motivation at all in his voice, Heivia watched as the various submersibles surrounded the submarine. After getting the submarine to float up, they had to do some work alongside it, but it was not actually supported by pillars. If it suddenly tilted, it would crush them underneath it, so they had to see just how stable it was first.

“We’re risking our lives here, so you’d better be thoughtful enough to greet us with a crew full of bikini babes.”

“Heivia, they can’t violate causality. We were sent out only after the sub sank. No matter how thoughtful they are, they couldn’t have selected the crew for our benefit.”

“We’ve got a teacher’s pet over here too!? How many times do I have to tell you only girls can get away with being that straight-laced!?”

If possible, they wanted to avoid being anywhere near that submarine and all the dangers it presented, but then they would have to ask themselves why they came down here in the first place. So Heivia kept in contact using the short-range radio while they hesitantly took wires attached to large spheres and directly welded the ends of the wires to the submarine’s exterior.

“What a strange sight. This isn’t going to cause a water vapor explosion, is it?”

“Wait,” protested the submarine.

“There’s a method to this. Offshore oil rigs are made of metal, so they’ve developed ways to weld underwater. Not that that’s our specialty or anything.”

“Can we please play a word game or something?” asked the submarine. “They play classical music even when you’re under general anesthetic for surgery, so being stuck here listening to your terrible conversations is going to make my heart burst!!”

This was not a life-risking group date with several girls, so they were not about to play a party game with a bunch of filthy guys. Instead, Heivia and the others moved on to the next stage of work.

Once they had successfully attached the balloons, the submersibles temporarily moved away. After they sent an electronic signal, the spheres of synthetic fiber ruptured from within.

They were balloons, but they were not like airbags.

The large deep-sea lights showed a translucent sludge covering everything.

The gel was lighter than water and detonating several balloons at once had coated the heavy submarine in the gel, giving it buoyancy.

Quenser commented on the unnatural haze floating in the ocean.

“It’s like seeing the aftermath of that one kid in the pool who couldn’t hold it in and betrayed everyone.”

“Please stop surrounding our submarine with your horrific imagination!”

However…

“Crap, some of us were too slow. #7 and #9, watch the portside tilt. Don’t get caught by that piece of junk!!”

“We really are going to sue you!!!!!”

“If you’re okay with telling the world how you got your own sub sunk and then had to get help from an enemy nation, then go right ahead! If it gets out that you sank the sub plastered with your sponsor’s name, won’t you have to pay damages!?”

The submarine just about rolled over, but with the eel-like slippery substance surrounding it, it began to float up instead.

The gap of a few centimeters below it was the beginning of a miracle.

Once it began to float, the submarine moved so easily it was hard to believe it had been stuck in place just a moment before. Now that it had buoyancy, it floated so lightly that a push from the hand was enough to move it in any direction.

“Let’s grab that thing and drag it up. I can’t believe everyone in there has such a stick up their butt.”

“Oh, you poor thing. Why are all you Legitimacy Kingdom boys so irritable? Try smiling every now and then☆”

“Please don’t force that falsetto! It’s creepy!! Why is it that hard workers tend to put all their effort into the wrong things!?”

The amount of oxygen in the submarine was a concern, but there was also a danger of the buoyancy-providing sludge coming off during the rapid ascent.

“How long is this going to take?” asked the submarine.

“Think of it like an elevator. 200 meters would be taller than a trendy hotel’s observation deck restaurant, wouldn’t it? That’s not a height you can travel in a flash.”

“Gather the best of the Capitalist Corporations and we could create a silent elevator that travels a 1000m building in a minute. And the ride would be so smooth that it would not rouse a sleeping baby.”

“Do you die if you don’t brag about something every five minutes!?”

The arguing continued during the careful twenty minute journey to the surface.

Eventually, the scene outside the round window changed.

The surrounding water remembered that sunlight existed. And they saw schools of small fish swimming ever downward as if afraid of something.

As their ascent continued, they could see some larger fish floating around. They were clearly not here of their own free will.

They felt a low rumbling.

It was clearly coming from above.

“Wh-what?” said the submarine. “What is going on???”

“It’s the same as landmine fishing. The fish hit by the shockwaves are knocked out. Honestly, they had even built an oxygen plant to help the bluefin tuna population recover, but that’s all ruined now that some idiot has come to this marine reserve. The conveyer belt sushi chains are going to get a lot of international criticism again.”

“So they’re gonna continue rubbing lard on random deep-sea fish to pretend its tuna, are they? That Island Nation-obsessed busty commander is not going to be happy…”

They had so longed to reach the surface, but they only found gloom as they approached it.

The submersible the size of two bathtubs broke the waves as it floated to the surface.

And they saw the two combatants.

The Baby Magnum and the Nitrogen Mirage.

Those Legitimacy Kingdom and Information Alliance monsters were firing back and forth on this marine battlefield.

While the Princess switched out her seven main cannons to swap out shell type and moved all around on her attached naval floats, her opponent was a Second Generation Object with nitrogen laser main cannons and an aircushion propulsion device specialized for marine combat. It had three main cannons stacked vertically on either side. It seemed to fire the thick bluish-white beams in the wrong direction, but then they suddenly bent in various directions and accurately targeted the Baby Magnum.

“Ultraviolet nitrogen lasers… Those are hundreds of times more harmful than sunlight, so don’t they violate the treaties?”

“According to the electronic simulation division, the reactor is surrounded by several low-temperature conduction power generators that use liquid nitrogen. They use the reactor’s excess energy to generate even more power to throw into the cannons. Either way, a direct hit will vaporize you, so the cancer risk is kind of irrelevant.”

Laser beams were not visible to the naked eye, but they fried and reflected off of the dust and moisture in the air, which left something like an afterimage behind.

The thick ocean water had cut off the signals, so they found a lot of radio chatter once they arrived on the surface.

“Princess!! Update your meteorological data and reference the nitrogen and temperature distributions! That thing alternates between liquid nitrogen and a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum to create extreme temperature differences, those create mirages that disturb the ocean’s surface, and that is used to bend the light!!”

“Understood, Frolaytia.”

“Listen, Princess,” added the old maintenance lady. “The light should change direction as if being drawn from the high temperatures to the low temperatures. Once you understand the rules, you can predict this mirage laser-bending trick.”

Several clouds of white smoke expanded around the Nitrogen Mirage, but the sound was too soft for something meant to kill. It was reminiscent of the fireworks used to indicate the beginning of an athletic festival. There was a plate-like component raised above the spherical main body and container-shaped ejection devices were lined up along its edge. Most likely, they had exposed -195 degree liquid nitrogen to the outside temperature so that it would expand explosively.

Meanwhile, the Princess moved back and forth with MMA-like steps and accurately dodged all of the blue light dancing around her. To reiterate, what Quenser and the others could see was not the laser beams themselves. It was only the bluish-white afterimage left after the lasers passed through and fried the dust and moisture in the air.

The timeframe and world in which she fought was on an entirely different level.

This was a battle at light speed. By the time your senses could catch up, the attack would have already punched through you.

“…Wow. Is it just me or is the color fading from the Princess’s armor?”

“The dense nitrogen and laser heat being scattered around the area is causing a chemical reaction in the onion armor’s surface. It’s called nitrogen iron oxide.”

“What happens if we carelessly breathe in that colorless fog…?”

“Nitrogen itself isn’t toxic, but it drives out the oxygen and creates a state of hypoxia. I don’t know where the invisible minefield is, so we just have to be thankful we’re inside an airtight submersible.”

“The temperature difference is affecting our radio signals!” said Frolaytia. “The thermomagnetic effect is probably being used to produce an extreme electric potential difference in the air. Watch out for any adverse effects on your radar locks!!”

“But when I use visual confirmation, it looks like the thing is floating,” said the Princess.

“Use the meteorological data to calculate back!” said the old maintenance lady. “It’s only using mirages, so it can’t create an image out of thin air! The giant plate-like meteorological radar on its head is proof of that!!”

Quenser could picture the troubled look on the Princess’s face as she received that avalanche of instructions. Worst of all, they were doing it out of concern for her, so she could not ignore them either.

He also heard a voice of surprise from the sludge-covered submarine they were towing.

“H-how did this happen? You never said anything about this! We’ll sue you for guiding us into danger like this!!”

“Is that your catchphrase or something!? If you like, we can always cut the wires and let you sink back to the bottom again!!”

“Why is the Information Alliance interfering in this…?”

“That’s what we’d like to know.” Quenser breathed an exasperated sigh before continuing. “What exactly are you carrying in that submarine?”

Part 2

Frolaytia Capistrano did not look happy.

The civilized convenience of air-conditioning removed the heat of Central and South America from the room while her laptop screen displayed a close up of someone she did not recall adding to her address book.

It was Wraith Martini Vermouthspray.

The small girl had long blonde hair and a distinctive black uniform.

“No need to worry. I am not here to discuss an international conflict today.”

“…”

“Or should I have explained this first? I am an Information Alliance citizen, but I am partitioned off from the standard military. After all, I am the troubleshooting specialist known as the Stopgap Grim Reaper. I thought I would give some advice to the swine that position demands I respect, but if you refuse to listen, I will end this call instead. Yes, I would like for you to take a certain action.”

Frolaytia grimaced and said nothing.

Just how many people on the planet could find that reaction to be undeniably delightful?

“Your time is up, but in a useful way. I will take that as acceptance since you did not reject the idea, Major Tortoise.”

“…You goddamn search engine.”

“I will treat anything other than a yes or a no as an invalid response.” Wraith giggled and spun a pen in her hand. “The problem is that submarine the Legitimacy Kingdom picked up. It belongs to the Capitalist Corporations, doesn’t it? As I am sure you know, its cargo will spark a new war.”

“I believe it was your Information Alliance that attacked us.”

“And that is why this call is such a delicate tightrope to walk. Didn’t I say I am partitioned off from the standard military?”

“What are you saying was on that sub?”

“It would be best if you saw for yourself. I could always tell you here, but I doubt you would listen to a word I said after you learned the truth.”

“?”

Here alone, Frolaytia wrinkled her brow in honest confusion.

Wraith sighed on the screen.

“You can interpret this however you like, but I will cast pearls of human words before swine here. …I am on your side for this one. No matter what the Information Alliance chooses to do.”

She sounded oddly sincere.

Then something else happened on the screen. The butler-like young man standing behind the small girl bent over and whispered some kind of report into Wraith’s ear.

“My apologies, Major. I too have some business to take care of. I know your battalion will take care of this one no matter what I say, so there is no need to say goodbye. Until we meet again on this seemingly vast but surprisingly small battlefield.”

That was when something occurred to Frolaytia.

It was mostly just a hunch, but…

“…Where are you right now?”

“Did you think I was simply with an Information Alliance maintenance fleet? Didn’t I already say I am partitioned off from the standard military? Yes, that makes the third time. Anyway, you surprisingly birdbrained commander, I will troubleshoot the problems presented to me in my own way. …And this time, I am on your side. Do not forget that, okay?”

Part 3

They were near the equator in the Atlantic Ocean.

The region of ocean was right between the Information Alliance home country in eastern North America and the Legitimacy Kingdom-controlled South American Amazon District.

The Baby Magnum and the Nitrogen Mirage had not concluded their battle, but a lull had begun when the Information Alliance temporarily withdrew. The Legitimacy Kingdom predicted they had only withdrawn because the submarine had arrived at a dock.

“Welcome to the artificial volcano base known as New Caribbean Island.”

The submarine was welcomed by the battalion’s busty Major Frolaytia Capistrano who was flanked by bodyguards, but one part of her greeting caught their attention.

The dock had been quickly dug out of the coast with construction equipment, but the coast was not a sandy beach or a rocky cliff. It was a rough ground made of black pebbles hardened together like crunchy chocolate. The surface readily crumbled away just from scraping the sole of your boot against it.

The ground looked like a failed attempt at pavement and like it would be incredibly painful if you tripped onto it, but it was actually volcanic rock.

After struggling to get out of the goop-covered submarine, the middle-aged man who seemed to be the captain gave a somewhat sulky-looking naval salute.

“Rigas Blackpassion, Navy Captain. Thank you very much for your uncompensated assistance.”

“Don’t screw with us, Capitalist Corporations. You greedy people know better than anyone that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Do not forget until the day you die that we have an extremely useful diplomatic card to use against you. You have no hope of reaching admiral now, Captain.”

“W-we cannot permit you to have a base here!!”

“Oh, this is just a bluefin tuna breeding base. There is nothing military about it. You see, my foolish brother is as obsessed with the Island Nation as me and he is the most troublesome sort of charity giver.”

“You expect us to believe this is a civilian installation!? When it can maintain an Object!?”

“It took a lot of doing rigging it up like that. It was not designed that way to begin with.”

Now, what was an artificial volcano base?

The rules governing the sea said that the area within 200 nautical miles of a country’s territory could be claimed as that country’s exclusive economic waters. However, that did not apply to manmade things such as megafloats and offshore oil rigs.

But here they had found a loophole.

“I don’t like borrowing a phrase from the Faith Organization, but this was a heavenly blessing. Who would have thought an underwater volcano would erupt and create an entire new island at just the right time?”

“We are well aware the seismographs detected some unnatural shaking. You drilled into the ocean bedrock and filled the hole with explosives, didn’t you!?”

“I’m not about to listen to any accusations made without definitive proof. Go speak with those lawyers you love so much in the Capitalist Corporations. I’m sure they’re just as impotently frustrated as you.”

…That was the explanation.

“(This whole island is a toy made by that Sir Bloodrics guy, right? And he did so as casually as tossing some change in the donation box next to a convenience store register. Nobles scare me.)”

“(That pretentious bastard apparently wants to bring back the bluefin tuna filleting shows. I bet he wants to be served by geisha girls instead of maids and experience the Eastern wonder known as nyotaimori.)”

The rules of the sea were based on where the land was, but what if a brand new island appeared in the middle of the ocean one day? If it was inside a country’s territorial waters or EEZ, it would naturally redraw the lines. And whether they were honest about it or not, modern technology allowed them to trigger a volcanic eruption in a calculated way.

It was the same as how image-editing software had wiped away the fear of ghost photographs. The questions about the island were on the same level as noticing the number of legs did not match up on a group photo at school.

Unlike the Pacific, the Atlantic Ocean had relatively few islands, so this new technology could easily provide a naval transportation breakthrough along the arctic routes that were more accessible thanks to global warming.

Frolaytia continued speaking with a cruel smile.

“If you wish to lodge here, we will need your cooperation. Now, what do you have aboard that submarine? The marine resource of migratory fish is enjoyed evenly by the entire world, so why has the Information Alliance abandoned their stable supply of tuna by sending in an Object?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“To repeat, we are merely borrowing a civilian bluefin tuna breeding base. I can of course withdraw our military forces from here. I would only need to apologize to my foolish brother. Naturally, we would be leaving your broken submarine and its crew here. I’m not sure why, but it seems the Nitrogen Mirage is very interested in getting at you. It should be obvious what will happen once our excellent protector leaves. If we were placing bets on how long you would last, my money is on less than half a day.”

An unpleasant silence followed.

But it did not last long.

There was no need to mention which way the power balance had tilted here.

“Enough. There is no point in hiding it any longer. Tell them everything, Captain.”

It was a graceful voice, but it belonged to a wrinkled old woman.

The middle-aged man frantically looked back in time to see an old woman in a white coat receive support from Quenser and Heivia because the ground was slippery around the submarine.

“Ma'am!!”

“I said enough.”

The way she cut the man off told Frolaytia this woman was not part of a military-style hierarchy.

The old woman’s gray hair had some blonde remaining and she did not even glance in Rigas’s direction.

“And in the worst case, any destination other than the Information Alliance will work. I can always defect to the Legitimacy Kingdom instead.”

“!?”

“I only want one thing: asylum in a free location where the Information Alliance cannot reach me. Now, which group can better protect me: the Capitalist Corporations that failed after making an elementary mistake, or the Legitimacy Kingdom that made up for that mistake?”

This comment made the Captain look like a chained dog, but it also made Frolaytia narrow her eyes in displeasure.

“You seem to be under the impression that you are Cinderella at your age, but we do not even know who you are. And do not think that you are good enough company that we would just accept this kind of trouble.”

“Isn’t your lack of information merely a failing on your part? Oh, excuse me. I can’t seem to shake that Information Alliance mindset, annoyingly enough.”

“Shall I box you up and ship you to New York?”

Even that old woman lightly raised her hands at the busty silver-haired commander’s words.

As had always been the case, the most frightening thing for a political criminal seeking asylum was being sent right back to their original country.

“Katarina Martini.”

She plainly confessed her name in a fairly theatrical way.

She was used to having her name work in her favor. And she maintained that irritating self-importance as she continued.

“Would you understand some of my value if you knew I was the one who created the Martini Series, an Information Alliance genius girl project that implanted talent into thousands of girls?”

Part 4

“Hello, Major. Have you finished checking what that submarine was carrying?”

Wraith seemed to be treating her like an online friend, but Frolaytia could not stop grimacing.

“…If you were within reach, I might have punched you.”

“You said that out loud, you savage with delusions of intelligence. The mother of the Martini Series is attempting to defect from the Information Alliance. Katarina Martini makes for quite the bombshell, doesn’t she? I mean, she will make for a most delicious prize for whoever grants her asylum. She could create a second or third Martini Series that fills a different sort of container, or she could find vulnerabilities in the girls who make up the core of the Information Alliance. Whatever the case, she makes for bait so incredible it could bring one of the world powers crumbling down.”

With a grunt of effort, the footage blurred a bit.

Wraith had apparently taken a quick hop while holding either a smartphone or camera. She was probably hopping from a dock to a cruiser.

She had previously mentioned that she was partitioned off from the Information Alliance’s standard military and was acting separately from them.

“Where are you planning to intervene from this time?” asked an irritated Frolaytia.

“Let’s just say it will be via a third country. You etiquette-obsessed swine are making a mess of New Caribbean Island, but this is all happening in the Information Alliance’s own-…hyah!?”

“?”

Frolaytia had to frown when little Wraithy suddenly jumped.

“I-I am fine. This had nothing to do with anything crawling around at my feet. (Oh, I can’t believe this. Knowing fish eat these gross things makes me never want to eat seafood again.)”

Wraith was muttering something, but she had not gone inside the boat. She was lying on a beach chair on the deck. She placed her communication device on the side table and relaxed.

“Now, I assume you are no longer willing to listen to anything I have to say.”

“…”

“Yes, when this concerns the mother of the Martini Series and one of her creations contacts you, even a ringlet curl ape with special blood in its veins can tell how dangerous things are. You have to be well aware that the Information Alliance is willing to wage war to preserve their secrets here.”

That was exactly right, but Frolaytia could find no logical reason for the girl to contact her. There was no point in giving advance warning of a head-on clash.

“My specialty is troubleshooting. No more, no less. I primarily find a way to deal with our own people’s shameful behavior, so I am not all that interested in an outside group like the Legitimacy Kingdom. That means I have nothing against you, but it also means I am not particularly fond of you either.”

“Your point?”

“That means the ‘true enemy’ I have my sights on is not you. So this time alone, I have no real reason to kill you. As I said, I doubt you’ll listen, but as a sign of my wonderful good conscience, I will give you one more warning. As an information specialist, I find it fascinating how much the same words must change before someone listens to them.”

Wraith grinned and her butler handed her a cold drink in a clear glass with lots of sliced fruit stuck around the edge.

“I am on your side this time. Keep that in mind and you will not regret it.”

Part 5

The situation had grown troublesome.

“Hyah, I thought it was supposed to hold off until nightfall.”

In her skintight special suit, the Princess splashed through the puddles as she fled below the eaves of the normal barracks. The dark crunchy chocolate of volcanic rock provided poor drainage, so puddles quickly formed when it rained and those soon grew to small ponds or lakes.

What had happened to the scorching sun from earlier in the day?

The sky was covered by thick clouds.

“I guess they get these sudden downpours everywhere in the world,” said Quenser with a sigh.

“I wonder if it has anything to do with the nitrogen and whatnot the Nitrogen Mirage was spreading around. You know, like a meteorological weapon that fires a missile into the clouds to make it rain.”

“I just hope it doesn’t turn into photochemical smog.”

They had been planning to lie on the beach chairs and stare at a mobile device. The waterproofed screen showed them what was happening in the interrogation room.

The Information Alliance’s Nitrogen Mirage had apparently withdrawn once the Capitalist Corporations submarine had arrived at New Caribbean Island. It was about evenly matched with the Princess, but some line must have been crossed and they felt the need to rework their whole strategy.

So.

They could not deny that the Information Alliance’s next strategy might be to blow away the entire bluefin tuna breeding base that Frolaytia had borrowed after begging her “onii-chan”.

“Phew…”

The Princess quietly sighed below the eaves with her golden hair wet with rain. Her special suit revealed every contour of her body, so the boy’s eyes followed the droplets flowing down her to burn every last curve into his brain.

Not even the strong downpour had cooled the area. It only increased the humidity, like pouring water on the heated stone in a sauna.

“This footage is really grainy.”

“According to the electronic simulation division, the wiring is messed up. Frolaytia had the military parts attached onto the existing tuna base, so they were saying something about us exceeding the capacity on the grounding line that runs from the facility and into the ground.”

“?”

“They called it electrolytic corrosion. Send too much electricity into the ground and the earth and moisture around the underground cable will work in place of an electrolytic solution. You know what electrolysis is, right?”

“The process that separates water into oxygen and hydrogen?”

“Yes, that. The same process can apparently break down the cable or steel frames. This weird signal noise must be from corrosion to a fiber optic cable somewhere.”

Quenser felt like a guy helping out the young woman next door hook up her TV and DVR, but he had to ask.

He pointed at the mobile device’s screen as he did so.

“It doesn’t really matter, but why are you so interested in this?”

“Well, because the old maintenance lady said she was helping with the interrogation.”

Quenser just about asked why, but he found he could make a pretty good guess.

“Does she think the old woman will open up more to someone from her own generation?”

“We will of course have another witness there.”

Meanwhile, the interrogation in question was beginning.

It would all be recorded and every last word and facial expression would be thoroughly analyzed, but Quenser and the Princess leaned forward to experience it live.

The camera must have been near the ceiling because the footage looked down on the two old women from a somewhat diagonal angle. The Legitimacy Kingdom and former Information Alliance women faced each other across a table bolted to the floor.

“It would seem neither one of us survived this long with a clean conscious.”

“Very true. I am jealous of your position since you don’t have to explain what it is you have done.”

“As someone who was done this myself, let me tell you that defection is not as optimistic a choice as you think it is.”

“There are times when you have to choose the lesser of two evils. Surely you understand that as someone who lived through that age.”

With only about a decade and a half of life under their belt, Quenser and the Princess could not imagine how much was hidden behind each of those words.

“The Martini Series is now viewed as living hardware to fill the holes in the Information Alliance’s administrative system. The idea is to make up for the deficiencies in the giant network by using human brains for the parts that computers cannot yet process. …Well, you could say that relationship between AI and humans is an expanded form of the Object-Elite arrangement that the Information Alliance has developed a few experimental examples of.”

“Based on that, it would seem the project was a success. As someone surrounded by the military in her research, you would have had all the money you could have wanted.”

“True enough. I was too successful.” Katarina gave a weary smile and elaborated as if gently nudging a giant metal ball from the top of a slope. “Personally, I only ever wanted just one member of the Martini Series. All that talk of living hardware to fill the holes in the machine-ruled administrative system was no more than a convenient way of gaining the research funding I needed. And even after they more or less threw cash my way, I never did manage to create a perfect Martini.”

“Was there a specific individual they were modeled after?”

“Cassandra Martini. She was my mother. She lived in that insane age before the four world powers formed, when Objects spent all their time wiping out land, sea, and air forces to prove the title of strongest belonged to them. In that truly lawless age of upheaval, she passed away protecting her young child to the very, very end. She is my personal hero and she is the purest, the original, and the truly perfect Martini.”

“…”

A short silence followed.

A parent protecting her child sounded like a simple thing, but since they had not lived in that time, Quenser and the Princess could not even imagine how difficult that must have been. And it was because that woman succeeded that Katarina Martini was here now.

“So you were driven by a juvenile drive toward womb regression.”

“Yes, the child attempts to create her mother and return to her protective care. The Martini Series was an experiment to take the MRI cross sections of the original, intentionally create the same ‘deviations’ in someone else’s brain, and give them the same balance as that genius. But from the very beginning, my research violated the rules of this world. I would rather not come off sounding like the Faith Organization, but perhaps you could say it was god’s will. As each roll of the dice continued to not come up in my favor, I found I had countless children who had each inherited just one cross section of my mother’s brain.”

The old maintenance lady let out a soft breath after listening this far.

And she did not hesitate to speak.

“So why do you want to defect? If you have an issue with your research environment and were hoping to get a fresh start elsewhere, the Legitimacy Kingdom’s answer is no. We aren’t going to hand you living children for your juvenile game of dress up.”

“Even though you continue to mass-produce Pilot Elites?”

“That might be a necessary evil in this godforsaken world. But what you’re doing is clearly more focused on your own little games.”

“The self-proclaimed sensible side in the Information Alliance said the same thing at first. But when faced with geniuses who were completely off the charts, that alleged sense of theirs was clouded by greed.”

That demon scoffed.

Almost like she had held this same conversation many, many times before.

“…But that is not the crux of the issue. It is true I am displeased with the Martini Series’s failure, but I do not wish to do any of that ever again.”

“What?”

“The Martini Series carries a severe problem, so I am seeking the assistance of a powerful force that can fight them and eliminate them from the Information Alliance’s system.”

“You made these children, but now you’ve deemed them failures and plan to kill them yourself!? Using war and assassinations!?”

“Just hear me out.”

With that, Katarina placed a hand on her own aged chest.

No, that was not quite accurate.

It was unclear when she had picked it up, but she held a Legitimacy Kingdom mobile device just like the one Quenser and the Princess were watching the footage on.

When it emitted a beeping sound, the people in the interrogation room also noticed something was wrong.

But Katarina tossed it onto the table before they could do anything.

“I kept the truly sensitive data embedded in my heart. I placed the files in my pacemaker’s unused memory and set it up for contactless extraction, just like the automatic ticket gates at a train station.”

“…What…is this?”

“The core of the Martini Series’s problem. This is a history of the life my mother, Cassandra Martini, lived under a second handle name.”

The old maintenance woman was speechless.

The footage did not let Quenser and the Princess see what she was reading.

But they could tell it was something shocking.

“My mother was a rational killer. …Although, in that age of insufficient resources, it may have been necessary if she was to support a young child like me.”

Katarina was blunt as she discussed the woman she had called her personal hero.

“That was a lawless age of upheaval. That file provides details on 39 incidents or uprisings that can no longer be investigated. These records must have been like a trophy to her. Succeed or fail, she would write out the series of events and add a flowchart leading to the next incident. Unsatisfied with a single coincidental success, my mother used this to refine her skills. Yes, her skills as a professional who systematically plundered from highly secure facilities, both military and civilian.”

“So…so this is what you meant?”

“I only learned of this truth after I began the genius girl project in search of my mother. And as a result, I cannot even predict how much of my mother’s violence any one of them inherited. The closer to perfection they came, the more willing they will be to kill people as long as it is ‘rational’. In the worst case, every last one of them may have reached that threshold.”

“Didn’t you say the Martini Series numbers in the thousands and has worked its way deep into the Information Alliance administration and military!? If the original’s violence has been reproduced in them, they won’t just rely on knives or guns. What if they take the great influence they have been given and begin ‘prowling around’ using it as a weapon!?”

“You should assume the state and military are entirely controlled by the kind of people who would readily kill the elderly or the very young to have fewer mouths to feed during a famine. We might see the onset of an age of joyous malice that makes the oppression and slaughter of the infamous witch hunts pale in comparison. In fact, it may already be starting simultaneously across Information Alliance-controlled territory.”

Quenser and the Princes exchanged a glance.

In this case, they could not expect the Information Alliance to purify itself. After all, the budding violence would come from the genius girls who had been positioned to fill the holes in the supercomputer-controlled administration and military. They had been placed in control of a worldwide vulnerability from the beginning, so they could bring the normal system crashing down just by switching off their own duties.

And Katarina would not have chosen to defect without good reason.

She had to have worked to fix the problem from within the Information Alliance. She had only shifted focus to an external attack because those efforts had produced no meaningful results.

Was that because no one around her could sense the danger?

Or had some member of the Martini Series already gone around and made sure nothing could be done?

“This age is supported by the constant conflict between the four world powers. It sounds strange, but that balance will fall apart if one of our enemies truly collapses.”

“…”

“So if the Information Alliance crumbles from within, the table supported by those four legs will fall over. Once that happens, the entire clean war concept will vanish like so much mist.”

For some reason, those words brought Quenser’s childhood friend Monica to his mind. She had been a haughty and sharp-tongued noble girl until her family had collapsed one day. Then she had been pursued by the people of their town and forced to tremble with her family in a commoner family’s small food pantry. The shift to a new age was not always a positive change. No matter what choices someone made, a great power outside their control could decide whether they would have fortune or misfortune. That was a nightmarish idea for a commoner like Quenser who was constantly oppressed and forced to obey the decisions made for him.

And now chaos on that same level – no, on an even greater level – would spread around the entire world.

“We might see a return of that lawless age of upheaval my mother secretly thrived in. I could easily see it happening if they decide to end this fattened age of temporary peace and instead live a life ruled by rationality and efficiency.”

Part 6

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Frolaytia Capistrano maintained a stony silence with an expression to match.

On her laptop screen, Wraith Martini Vermouthspray had withdrawn into her cruiser where she was casually selecting a swimsuit.

“Hey, Frank, I’ll go with this one. We aren’t on our way to have some fun, so something that covers this much skin would be best. We have to take this seriously.”

The butler-like young man only ever agreed with his arrogant master, so it was up to the busty silver-haired commander to confront the girl who was blowing up a swim ring despite what she said.

“Hey, brat.” Her voice seemed to rise up from the depths of the earth. “That’s what people call a school swimsuit.”

“Oh, I am well aware. This is a legend from that technological powerhouse of the Island Nation, isn’t it? I can’t seem to figure it out myself, but the incredible knowledge contained within this swimsuit must be ahead of its time. Yes, how could I choose anything else before heading out to the battlefield? This battle costume has a real…I suppose you would call it an aura.”

“I am only contacting you as a form of insurance. I know you people are as hard to kill as a roach infestation, so I’m betting on you not collapsing quite so easily.”

“…”

“From the barbs in your voice, I can only assume you insects have finally heard the truth of the Martini Series.” Wraith laughed and spread the simple swimsuit out between her hands. “The more you learn, the more it traps you. And no further information will bring any peace of mind. It’s like a bog, and is the worst case scenario in information warfare. Do you understand now what it means to take on the Information Alliance?”

“I doubt an actual murder machine would give me an honest answer, but I’ll ask anyway: Are you a murder machine?”

“I would like to say everyone participating in war is one, but no one likes a philosopher on the battlefield. And I guess jokes will only harm your impression of me. …To be honest, that is the exact question I am trying to answer.”

“Are you afraid of your origins?”

“Very much so. And as something like the early signs of an earthquake, the primary researcher is now attempting to defect to some distant land. Do you see now why I am in such a rush?”

“What good is asking her? If Dr. Frankenstein tells you you aren’t a monster, would you, as her creation, really believe her?”

“…Perhaps not.”

Here alone, Wraith had the look of a weary old woman in her eyes.

The butler-like young man gently supported her shoulders from behind, so the blonde girl shut her eyes and leaned back.

“It’s the dilemma of searching your own name. You know the search isn’t going to turn up anything pleasant, but you can’t relax until you do it anyway. You aren’t hoping to find something good; you’re investigating yourself because you fear there is something bad out there. And you keep doing it over and over.”

“…”

“By the way, Major. Even a fool like you is free to view me hostilely and I cannot stop you there, but I do have one piece of advice. You are of course free to believe me or not.” The girl opened her eyes and the usual intensity had returned to them. “There are thousands of Martinis throughout the Information Alliance. So I may not be the only monster who was sent to this region of sea.”

“You mean…?”

“Because of my distance from the standard army, it’s difficult for me to determine who exactly it is. …But, Major, you should consider every possibility right now. Because every last member of the Martini Series holds some kind of emotion for our designer, Katarina Martini. And that emotion could be love or hatred.”

Part 7

A dull thudding sound repeated on and on without end.

Frolaytia had laid her head down on a briefing room table and she was banging her forehead against it with a truly displeased look on her face.

“(Wow, I don’t want to get anywhere near her right now.)”

“Heivia.”

“Why do you have to call me over now of all times!?”

When he heard the low voice slip out from the gap between face and table, Heivia jumped right up into the air. But whatever his reasons were, he had to obey in the military. There was simply no way for a private to outdo a major.

“When did we start having to protect scum that doesn’t even belong to the Legitimacy Kingdom? Answer me.”

“Which mode do you want here? The teacher’s pet or the back alley drunk? …Well, let’s see. We are a peacekeeping force that attempts to share the common asset of world peace with everyone for the stability and prosperity of the entire international society, so…”

“No one wants that teacher’s pet answer, you dumbass!!”

“Agh, I chose wrong!?”

It was a ridiculous demand, but that was how the military hierarchy worked. If anything did not work out, the higher ups could simply blame it on their subordinates.

(I need to become the head of my family so I can boss these meatheads around.)

“You look like you have something to say, Heivia.”

“What, are you policing my thoughts now too!? What a pain in the ass!!”

Frolaytia finally lifted her head from the table. And it seemed she intended to look him in the eye while continuing the conversation. Realizing he was not going to be released anytime soon, Heivia sat across the table from her.

The Major began speaking with her boobs resting on the table.

“We have a few problems here.”

“Including a busty, silver-haired commander who exploits her workforce. …Whoa!?”

When the end of the long, narrow kiseru dropped right next to the hand he was resting on the table, Heivia just about jumped straight up along with his chair.

Frolaytia ignored that and continued.

“First, is what this alleged Katarina Martini says really true? Keeping this a secret is working against us. Our intelligence division has been negotiating with their Information Alliance contacts, but the most they’ve managed to do is confirm the name Katarina. They have yet to get a photograph.”

“Yeah, if that part isn’t true, this whole thing falls apart. And weaponizing information to sow confusion is exactly the kind of thing they would do.”

Heivia answered with his eyes glued to the boobs changing shape atop the table, but Frolaytia was apparently too irritated to notice. She lethargically brushed the hair off the side of her face.

“Second, even if that old woman really is Katarina and she is telling the truth, how much does the Information Alliance know? Why was the Nitrogen Mirage sent here? Was it simply to retrieve or kill the defector and prevent an information leak, or was it sent by the Martini Series?”

“Well…that might change what kind of aftertaste this leaves with us, but is it really all that important? It’s an enemy Object either way, so can’t we just have the Princess blow it away?”

He received a blatant tongue click from across the table.

She must not have liked something about that, but Heivia knew asking about it would only bring more trouble, so he simply accepted his reward with a smile.

“Knowing whether our enemy is a Martini or not would tell us how persistent their pursuit will be, but fine. …Third, if the Martini Series really is carrying this time bomb, what can we do? The Nitrogen Mirage is only the vanguard, so blowing it up isn’t enough to earn a happily-ever-after.”

“What? If we get that old woman to Legitimacy Kingdom territory and send the data she has to the top brass of the Information Alliance…no, wait. That wouldn’t work.”

“The Martini Series has already worked its way deep into their administration and military. Any warning sent like that would just be suppressed.”

The world was like a car supported by four tires and one of those tires was trying to puncture itself. They knew it was happening, but there was nothing they could do. They did not particularly care if the Information Alliance destroyed itself, but they did not want to be caught in the great crash afterwards.

Looking annoyed, Frolaytia once more laid her head on the table.

“…We have so much on our plate here. This would be so much simpler if this alleged Katarina Martini turned out to be lying about everything and the world isn’t in any real danger at all.”

“Wishes can’t alter reality.”

“I know. War would be easy if the bullets avoided you as long as you wished hard enough. And the military needs to assume we’re always a step away from the worst case scenario.”

“Meaning?”

“We need to face the possibility that the Martini Series is near collapse. The real question is what we do about it…”

Part 8

Wraith Martini Vermouthspray stood below the blue sky after taking her fancy cruiser out to sea. The feel of the unfamiliar swimsuit must have bothered her because she reached for her small butt and stuck her index finger below the edge to adjust it.

To allow the bluefin tuna population to grow, fishing boats generally did not cruise through this area. The region of sea was primarily used for the idle rich to enjoy diving or some scenic sex, but now a great many ships were fleeing through it to avoid the naval battle being fought across the horizon. Thanks to that, no one would notice a suspicious radar blip on their sea chart.

“Frank.”

When she called for her subordinate, the tall young man walked over without a word or even a noise. The rocking of the boat did not hinder him at all. He was always like this. He was so perfect, so skilled…and so obedient that he did not truly fill the hole of loneliness in the girl’s heart.

She was a troubleshooting specialist, the Stopgap Grim Reaper.

That role meant she more often targeted her allies’ backs than an external enemy.

That meant a bodyguard whose skills were not up to snuff would be meaningless, so only someone as sharply honed as him could serve her.

The ones who had been great company had died first and this young man was the only one who had survived this long.

The silliness in the Mekong District had reminded Wraith of a forgotten period of her life.

Those were the kind of people who vanished from her workplace.

The grim reaper slowly narrowed her yes and whispered to her loyal servant.

“…Am I insane?”

She grimaced as soon as she said it.

What good was asking that question to a dog who knew only how to obey? Frank could only coldly do as Wraith said or infer the answer she wanted by viewing her expression. Either way, she could not draw out his honest thoughts. That was hardly surprising after he had seen so many of his colleagues fall to deadly bullets after disobeying one of Wraith’s selfish orders and running off to rescue the unit at the center of a scandal.

He would not rid the girl of her loneliness.

This was like a curse of Wraith’s own making by only allowing the most obedient by her side.

The small blonde girl knew how sick of this she was, so she shook her head. She smiled bitterly at how much she craved disobedience.

She thought of Quenser Barbotage and Heivia Winchell.

And then she looked to Frank who was their polar opposite. Finally, she spat out some words that seemed to stab into her own heart.

“I can’t be picky when I set it up this way myself.”

Part 9

What were they to do if they assumed the Martini Series was near collapse?

This was their answer:

“Can we really gather information with this thing?”

“Just watch. Besides, we’ve long since passed the days when actual people are sent in for spy work. Although this was originally a personal project to see if it could help with maintenance inside the Object.”

The excitement was occurring in the electronic simulation division’s space. Quite a few people were gathered in that filthy room that smelled of dried squid and was known as either the toy box or the junk room.

The chorus pounding on the roof had ceased, so the unexpected downpour must have ended.

But rain or shine, this person was just as talkative. The technician who was introverted but wanted recognition was Lilim Gazette, Age 17 (♀). She was the type who had few inhibitions on her blog but grew much more withdrawn at an offline meeting, so she was fairly flustered from all the attention on her.

“It was lucky this was a bluefin tuna breeding base. To determine the migration route the tuna take, they embed transmitters in a few samples and have them swim around. That means the Information Alliance should just ignore any suspicious signals coming from the ocean. More than that, we can use those transmitters as wireless routers.”

“And you attached thumb-sized spy robots on the back of those tuna?”

“Do you have any idea how fast those sushi ingredients swim through the ocean? They’re faster than some torpedoes. A toast to Sir Bloodrics and his Island Nation obsession!!”

“Let’s see,” said Quenser as he pulled out an analog paper sea chart. It seemed out of place in the electronic simulation division that wanted to turn everything into data, but spreading out the sea chart on the table and lining up kid’s meal toy ships made it feel more like a simulation game.

“We’re on New Caribbean Island which is here. The Information Alliance fleet is holding position 120km north of that. Umm, if I place the tuna migration route on the map…”

“This should work. And if it doesn’t, we can always place them on the backs of seabirds that will carry them over.”

The Princess seemed somewhat zoned out as she poked at a spy robot sitting on a shelf. It was three or four centimeters long, its shiny silver body was made of a few overlapping panels, and a bunch of tiny legs could be seen when it was flipped over. It may have been based on a pill bug…no, on a wharf roach.

The necessary tuna had been captured and set up in advance. That jewel of the sea had already been released and it was quickly approaching the Information Alliance ships. The indecent LCD screens in here normally only displayed fighting games or swimsuit models, but one of them now showed the giant propeller of a warship from below. Using the tuna had been even more useful than expected because the footage was surprisingly stable. The wharf roach that had hitched a ride both physically and signal-wise was doing perfectly.

“Incredible,” said Heivia as he watched from the side. “If we converted one of those into a tuna torpedo, we could sink them like this.”

“They would learn what to look out for after the first time and we’d be excoriated in an international conference. Those things are still protected ingredients that nobles spend a fortune on.”

Undaunted, Quenser tried to learn as much as he could about this rival technician’s technology.

“But how do you get the spy robot up onto the ship? Tuna don’t jump out of the water like dolphins, do they?”

“Heh heh heh. They’re lighter than water, so if they let go of the tuna’s back, they’ll float right up to the surface. From there, they just have to ride the waves to the side of the ship. They can also kick at the water with their feet when the waves aren’t enough or they need to adjust their direction. No matter how steep a slope it is, these cute little wharf roaches can climb right on up.”

Is that how it works? wondered Quenser and Heivia as they and the other potatoes focused on the screen.

But then an accident occurred.

“Urp, ughh… Th-the footage…is rocking in the waves…”

“Keep at it, Lilim. Don’t let go of that stick that’s been so worn out from playing too many fighting games. This was your idea, wasn’t it?”

About half of the potatoes were hit by the motion sickness, but it was especially bad for Lilim Gazette, Age 17 (←Important), who was leaning forward and focusing more than any of the others. But all Quenser could do for the pale-faced girl was create a double-layer motion sickness bag out a plastic bag and a paper bag.

But after a long and hard battle, she managed to attach the spy robot to the side of the ship by using the long-range remote control system that was hijacking the tuna tracking signal.

“That’s their command ship, the Flagship 019. Let’s see what they’re up to.”

“Wait, isn’t that the ship we saved before!? I knew helping someone was only going to come back to bite us!!”

“That captain was sent elsewhere, so I imagine it’s being run by someone else entirely.”

Once the spy robot had attached to the side of the 200m battlecruiser, the footage did not move around nearly as much. That said, it was still out at sea, so the movement did not vanish entirely.

While undergoing an internal struggle, Lilim used the hijacked signal to send the spy robot further and further up the ship. Some of the potatoes watched on from the side and others had been defeated and driven to vomit, so it was a dramatic scene of sweat and tears for a variety of reasons. It may have taken a different form than usual, but this was undoubtedly war.

After climbing the steel wall that leaned out further than vertical, the wharf roach arrived on the deck. However, this was where its mission truly began.

“Okay, let’s review, Lilim. Frolaytia wants to know who it is commanding the Nitrogen Mirage. She wants to know if the Martini Series is interfering in any way, so let’s work at figuring that out.”

“While you’re at it, try to find any classified data or blueprints for the Nitrogen Mirage itself,” added the Princess. “It would be great if there was a maintenance manual lying around.”

Just then, something like a giant suspended ceiling of rubber fell down and the screen went dark.

“Eh? Ah!? What, what, what!? The signal just cut off!!”

“Was that…? I really don’t want to accept this, Quenser, but I recognized that zigzag pattern on the falling ceiling…”

“”Don’t pass this off to me! And don’t you say it! Don’t say that was the sole of an unsuspecting Information Alliance soldier’s boot!!”

“…”

“What’s wrong, Lilim!? C-c’mon, reaching for that motion sickness bag is like accepting defeat! Ahhh!!”

Something must have snapped inside her when all her effort went to waste, so the 17-year-old gave in quite spectacularly. Their dreams destroyed, Quenser and Heivia could not suppress the tears.

Good camouflage could be a problem in its own way.

But Lilim Gazette seemed to have recovered now that her stomach was emptied out.

“D-don’t worry. A bluefin tuna weighs 350 kilograms. We could fit tons of finger-sized spy robots on that thing, so we’ve got plenty of extra lives!!”

They had apparently scattered a lot of the small robots across the ocean surface like bait. The 17-year-old accessed another one and tried again at this instant-death action game.

“Wait, Lilim. You have to memorize that fat guard’s patrol route!!”

“…”

“Ahh, that’s a rat. You were eaten by a rat!!”

“……”

“Are you stupid!? How do you fall from the ceiling plumbing and drop right into the toilet!? Waaahh!!”

“Urp… I-I can’t take any more of this!”

She should not have had anything left in her stomach, but Lilim Gazette, Age 17, (who was quickly acquiring a new defining trait) grabbed the barf bag and began dry heaving. Still, she had made it pretty far. This was their chance to acquire some classified information, so they could not have her give up here.

“Lilim.”

“…(Tremble, tremble)”

“Please, Lilim. Do us a favor and gently grab this thick and curved stick again!!”

“Stop!! Don’t put that dirty stick in my face!!”

…She seemed to have been deeply traumatized. Even the potatoes started feeling sorry for her as they surrounded her and poked hard things against her cheeks that were puffed out to fight the rising urge to vomit.

Plus, Quenser and the others wanted to try their hand at this. However, this instant-death action game was too difficult for just anyone to play. In fact, if even the developer herself could not beat it, a real video game would have received nothing but complaints.

“Does anyone here know how to use joysticks like this?”

“Yes, we need someone with plenty of qualifications, who’s skilled with their hands, and could probably pilot just about anything…”

As Quenser and Heivia listed off the conditions, the potatoes’ gazes all gathered on one person.

The person pushed up to stardom in place of the 17-year-old vomit girl was a pure wildflower and their true jack-of-all-trades: Myonri.

“Eh? Ehhh!?”

“Please, Myonri.”

“Please wait! There’s someone on the floor right over there showing what this does to you! This is a demonic machine that no girl should ever touch!”

“We get that, but please just grab this stick. You can look down and slowly, hesitantly reach out your trembling hand. You can even shut one eye like you’re being handed a water balloon that might burst at any moment.”

Meanwhile, the Princess was adorably and silently puffing out her cheeks at receiving no attention whatsoever despite this being a piloting mission.

And despite how much she complained, Myonri got the hang of it super fast once she got started.

“Hmm. So you don’t move each individual leg. You just tell it front, left, or right and it does the rest for you. It can move forward or turn to the left or right, but it can’t back up. And when it reaches a wall head on, it automatically performs the action to climb up the wall. This is really neat.”

“…I see Myonri’s the type to intentionally let a few of them die to test things out.”

“And that smile on her face as she sends them to their death kind of scares me. Is this what girls are like on the inside…?”

The cute little wharf roach had left the simple floor and was instead crawling along the ceiling as it moved deeper and deeper into the ship. It could not pass through the watertight doors that did not leave any gap at all and the hijacked tuna signal could not reach too far inside, but other than that, it provided a high level of freedom.

“What can this thing do?”

“Umm, it was originally meant for Object maintenance, right? In addition to the standard camera and microphone, it can apparently intercept local signals. That means phone calls and emails too. Of course, it will all still be encrypted, so we’ll need another computer to handle the decryption.”

The spy robot was surprisingly high spec.

It was fun using it themselves, but they did not want to be on the receiving end.

“Zzz…mutter, mutter…”

The Princess must have gotten sick of being ignored because she had gone to sleep in the middle of the mission.

And since she leaned defenselessly against Quenser, the rest of the potatoes’ hostility focused in on him.

“Okay, that’s it. We need to kill him.”

“Okay, that’s it. We need to kill him.”

“Okay, that’s it. We need to kill him.”

“Hey, I thought it was my turn to be the center of attention!” protested Myonri. “I’ll quit on you, dammit!!”

When the less noticeable girl grew tearful, everyone focused back on her.

Everyone faced Myonri like they were looking at someone who had tried to up their popularity on a social network by announcing they were shorting some stock and then got arrested for it.

“Umm, we drew up a diagram of the Flagship 019 before, right? Y’know, when taking measurements for the rescue operation.”

“We wouldn’t know since we were looking after some tanks at the time. But is this it?”

“Hmm… It looks like they won’t let us into the bridge or combat command. And I’m afraid the tuna signal won’t reach very far inside…”

“Wait, Myonri, then where are you headed?”

“The best place to find sensitive information has always been the break room.”

She once more causally revealed the true face of girls. The potatoes’ balls shriveled up and they did not want to direct the conversation any further in that direction, but they were the ones who had put her in control. Quenser focused on the soft sensation of the napping Princess in order to tilt the scales toward his ideal image of girls. He would not have much of a future if he grew disillusioned with teenage girls at his age.

He watched the cute little wharf roach that was infiltrating the ship using a tuna signal.

A lot of girls in white sailor uniforms were gathered there.

“Wow, they’re squatting, wow! And they’re scratching there quite a bit! Ah, ahh!! I don’t want to see this! I don’t want to see any more of this group!!”

“Be quiet. I can’t hear what they’re saying.”

“But all they’re talking about is who slept with who and how someone got promoted so fast by screwing their commander!”

“I said be quiet!! Mhh, this is a big deal…!!”

This seemed to have lit some kind of fire in Myonri.

The potatoes tilted their heads and wondered if the entire mission had gotten sidetracked, but then something happened on the screen.

“Hi, everyone. Mind if I join you?”

“Geh! It’s Little Miss Perfect!”

“The name is Piranirie Martini Smoky. And being a genius girl can actual make it easier to get stiff shoulders. Oh, or is it taboo to mention stiff shoulders when you don’t have any boobs?”

A small girl of about 13 joined that no-rules death match.

Most of the girls wore sailor uniforms because they were in fact sailors, but this new girl with wavy black hair was somewhat different. She wore a blue parade coat with gold stitching on top of her uniform. The sleeves were baggy enough that only her fingertips poked out and the hem dragged along the floor. It actually seemed to accentuate how short she was. And it was blue. That color was used in the Princess’s special suit since it symbolized the Legitimacy Kingdom, but it was best avoided for a naval force. It was well known for making someone harder to find if they fell overboard. Since she had gone out of her way to wear something like that, she must have had the same privilege as a Pilot Elite to overpower a group with her own individual ability.

But she had given some important information for Quenser who had a girl’s head on his shoulder like he was being blessed on the train ride back from school. He looked to that girl who was skillfully spinning a fountain pen with the fingertips poking out of her baggy sleeve.

“One of the Martini Series…? So are they really interfering with this mission?”

He demanded someone quickly check with Katarina, but Heivia only dug out some earwax with a dubious look on his face. Quenser’s message had not reached anyone.

“But do you really need to hold this girls gathering in such a cramped place?” asked the girl on the screen. “You could always go somewhere with more space.”

“…We have our reasons.”

“Heh heh. So you still have enough innocence left to care what the boys think about you.”

“Why you…!!”

“Good, good. You’re so cute. …Oh, and you can punch me if you want, but leave a bruise anywhere visible and it’s game over for you. In fact, if I just so happened to trip and hit my forehead here, you would never receive another promotion. Never. Ever☆”

“…”

“That’s more like it. It has not been easy making all the necessary adjustments with those old men at the top, so let’s be more candid down here. I made sure to leave behind my safety device – that guy who looks after me – so I really was just hoping to relax.”

Piranirie sounded casual enough, but her cheerful tone hid a hint of mockery. She may have been used to this kind of treatment.

She controlled the people around her by taking advantage of how delicately she had to be handled.

Finally, one of the girls in the break room hesitantly opened her mouth.

“Um, does that have anything to do with why we haven’t seen any of the guys recently?”

“Yes. This is what I was trying to convince those old men to do.”

Piranirie Martini Smoky casually confirmed it.

And…

“If we really want to get that defector back, is this any time to be pitting Objects against each other? Save me this clean war nonsense. The only real answer is to put together a team of divers and attack the Legitimacy Kingdom base. I mean, it’s a remote island. Who’s gonna see?☆”

Just as a chill ran down all of their backs, the windowless electronic simulation division room’s lights went out and they were surrounded by complete darkness.

Part 10

“Tch. So it’s started. Your test has begun, Legitimacy Kingdom.”

While still bothered by the butt of her black one-piece swimsuit (which was apparently called a school swimsuit in the Island Nation), Wraith Martini Vermouthspray spoke quietly on her cruiser.

“Don’t you die yet, my beloved fools.”

Part 11

They heard an explosion and felt a tremor.

Gunfire followed.

Only now did Quenser realize his mobile device and radio were not functioning. Powerful jamming must have begun at the same time as the blackout.

The enemy had no intention of hiding it any longer.

“Oh, no! This doesn’t sound like the infiltration phase! They’ve already set everything up and are starting the attack phase!!”

“More importantly, what caused them to start shooting? Their target is that old woman named Katarina Martini, right!? I doubt they would be shooting this much before reaching her!!”

The Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes shouted to each other as they swiftly got to work. The sleeping Princess woke up with no need for an alarm clock.

They split into two general groups.

The first was a search team confirming the safety of Katarina Martini. The second was a bodyguard team guiding the Princess to the Baby Magnum where she would be most safe.

“Even with all the insanity at that silo city, the maintenance base still functioned as a shield. But as soon as the Martini Series shows up, we get this!”

“You only realize how much you liked a rule after it’s been broken. The collapse of the Martini Series has arrived. If we don’t stop it here, this will spread to the safe countries around the world.”

The enemy was already breaking the rules, so they would have no way of stopping the violence if they lost their Object. Then they would have no one to stop the Nitrogen Mirage from reaching New Caribbean Island.

They wanted to know more about Piranirie Martini Smoky. They had to see Katarina to approach the core of this, but Quenser and Heivia had chosen to guard the Princess. Without solidifying their footing, they would be unable to advance any further.

Heivia raised his assault rifle as he spoke.

“This is bad… We’ve reached an age of slaughter led by rational killers. I feel bad for the Information Alliance soldiers for being sent out by someone like that…”

“Those arguments are meaningless if we don’t win first.”

“Damn right!”

The gloomy and windowless electronic simulation division room was one thing, but it was a sunny day outside. And yet Heivia groaned as soon as he opened the door.

They could not see.

A pink chemical smokescreen was obscuring their vision. They could not even see the crunchy chocolate volcanic rock below their feet.

“Ugh, cough!! This is the worst. Watch out for enemy attack and friendly fire!!”

“My eyes are watering…” muttered the Princess.

It was all over if he lost sight of her, so Quenser firmly held her hand.

“So what are we supposed to do?” he asked.

“Grab the Princess’s head and have her crouch down. Don’t let that VIP’s head get any higher than our you-know-whats!”

The enemy did not seem to be evenly spread across the island. They could hear gunshots from a short distance away. And the smokescreen did not seem to have been fired at them in particular. It had only been blown here by the wind.

“This tuna base is basically a noble’s manor, right? And an enemy nation is seriously trespassing and firing guns? If Sir Bloodrics had a short temper, this would trigger an international incident…”

“The war has already begun, you moron! And it sounds like the worst of it is at the detention barracks where we hold POWs. This isn’t random. They know the layout.”

Myonri drove a military truck over from the front of the building.

Even if the smokescreen was only what the wind had blown over, they could barely see anymore. Quenser opened the back door, pushed on the Princess’s small butt to help her inside, and then climbed in after her. Heivia circled around to the passenger side and then clicked his tongue.

“Damn, if I was gonna operate the heavy machinegun on the roof, I should’ve gone to the back!!”

The Princess tilted her head at that.

“I could be the gunner.”

“Quenser, you can grab her this one time! Just stop the Princess! In what world do you stick your VIP up on the roof!?”

“We don’t have time, so I’m leaving with or without you!”

With almost zero visibility, Myonri clenched her teeth together and floored it with a submachinegun in her lap.

Not ten meters into their drive, what could only have been a human silhouette was sent flying by the bumper. Myonri screamed and started to brake, but Heivia slapped her head from the passenger seat.

“That was an Information Alliance uniform, so one down! Keep going!!”

The drive was entirely reliant on luck. All the windows were covered with walls of pink, so it was easy to lose your sense of direction. They had to determine direction from the compass in their hand instead of the sun in the sky.

“But don’t trust that too much, Myonri. This is an artificial island made from volcanic rock, so it’s chock full of metal. That can mess with the geomagnetism, so the needle might change directions.”

“Can someone with two hands free please handle the navigation!?”

“That soldier you just hit was carrying a drum and cables.” Quenser had a knack for not hearing anything he did not want to hear. “They brought combat engineers who specialize in explosives just like me. And New Caribbean Island was made by gathering magma using artificial earthquakes triggered by a ton of explosives, right?”

“Are you kidding me!? If there’s an eruption now, we’ve got nowhere to run!”

The idiot duo’s conversation seemed to have inspired enough fear in Myonri to have a negative sort of awakening.

While driving through the thick smokescreen, she used her instincts to lock onto silhouettes and ran over several enemy soldiers in a row.

The Princess turned her emotionless eyes outside the window which seemed coated with cotton candy and she listened to the gunshots coming from mostly one direction.

“There’s no hesitation in their movements… Do they have a drone flying overhead for support?”

“In this smokescreen? They set it up, so how are they telling friend from foe?”

“How should I know?” said Heivia. “Maybe they have IR markers on all their allies. We don’t have time to check one of their corpses, though. Getting the Princess onboard her Object comes first!”

A few dull explosions rang out.

It came from their destination.

“The Object hangar is under attack,” said the Princess.

“The reactor stays active even when it’s on standby, right? If they get inside and mess with the reactor, this entire island could be wiped from the map…”

“That would be terrible, but not even a nuke can destroy the Baby Magnum, so I doubt they can break it open so easily. Let’s get in there before we lose our foothold!!”

The smokescreen really was the worst.

Myonri crashed the truck not through the wide-open front door entrance but through a completely normal and entirely unrelated wall.

The engine grill was crushed like an empty can and Quenser’s butt rose from his seat and he gave a rather forceful kiss to the driver’s seat headrest.

“Bwah!?”

“Quenser, you idiot. You’re supposed to act as the Princess’s meat cushion at times like this.”

Myonri tried shifting into reverse and backing out, but it was no use.

“Dammit. My eyes are stinging again. Prepare yourselves!!”

Heivia placed a hand on her shoulder as a signal and then left through the passenger side door. Quenser grabbed the Princess’s slender shoulders and they jumped out of the back seat and onto the rough black ground.

The sound of gunfire pounded at their entire bodies instead of just their eardrums.

“It’s close,” said the Princess. “That gunfire is coming from inside.”

Quenser looked around and moved so nervously it was unclear who was protecting who.

“This is bad. Those are definitely the sounds of war. I could really die here.”

“Quenser, why did you even come out to the battlefield countries anyway?” said Heivia.

They choked on the smokescreen, but they had no choice but to keep going.

Quenser, Heivia, and Myonri surrounded the Princess in a single clump as the potatoes moved along the giant hangar wall. They came across a human-sized entrance on one side.

“Armageddon is underway in there. Quenser, you take a gun just in case.”

While pressed against the wall, Heivia tossed over his magnum sidearm, but it was not his awful friend who caught it. The Princess reached over and grabbed it first.

“I’m worried about the old lady,” said the expressionless girl.

Heivia and Myonri were unsure what to do when she immediately started aiming it around, but they had to chase after her regardless.

The aforementioned old lady must have realized reinforcements had arrived because her familiar voice reached them from atop the scaffolding.

“Watch out for 25mm grenades! They fire them in quick succession and they’re smart weapons!!”

“Are you kidding me?” muttered Heivia in shock as they hid behind some spare onion armor stacked up to waist height.

With smart weapons, it was game over once the electronically-controlled sight locked onto them. The grenades would alter their trajectory midflight to accurately hit them. And hiding behind cover would not be enough to escape. If they fled behind any kind of shield, the enemy just had to fire somewhere past the cover so the shrapnel would do lethal damage to everything behind the shield. If they were driven out by those and then shot down with rifle bullets, they would never recover.

But that also told them something.

(How are the launcher and the grenade linked? They’re jamming the place and infrared wouldn’t work well in this heat. And if this chemical smokescreen is blocking out all kinds of light, everything from IR to UV would be suspect. In that case…)

“The grenades are coming! Get down and protect your head!!”

“Kh.”

Just like with hand grenades, the standard was to attack from two places at once.

Even if they took care of one attacker, the other explosion would get them.

While Heivia and Myonri tearfully covered their head with their hands, Quenser alone did something odd. He opened the door to a nearby fire hydrant, pulled out the thick hose, and aimed the nozzle toward the Information Alliance soldiers.

He gave it a somewhat wide-angle spray by rotating the metal ring surrounding the nozzle and he forcibly held the bucking hose in place as the high-pressure water shot out.

That was precisely when the 25mm cylinders flew out in parabolic arcs, but they soon turned in the wrong direction. The explosive noise and shockwaves pounded on their right ears, but Quenser’s group was unharmed.

“Wow…”

“With a wide-angle spray, it’s a lot like a searchlight, so controlling it isn’t hard. More importantly, Heivia, you take over the hose. Don’t move too far forward and get yourself shot, okay?”

“Wait, hold on! What are you gonna do!?”

“I’ll be making some sparks with the circular saw in the work area back there, so cover me.”

“Why!? Are you making some kind of secret weapon!?”

“They aren’t using radio or IR. But the old lady’s voice reached us loud and clear. It’s ultrasound. They’re sending out their signals using sound waves beyond the audible range.”

Heivia looked surprised, so Quenser drove his point home.

“That’s also why they bothered with a blackout in the middle of the day. They wanted to shut off any kind of speaker. But handheld power tools are generally battery-powered. If I make a whole bunch of noise scraping at metal, the smart control of their grenades and their markers preventing friendly fire won’t work anymore!”

They did not have time to hesitate.

Quenser could not use a gun properly, but he ran over to the work bench while Heivia created a barrier against the grenade launchers and rifles using the firehose water and Myonri fired her submachinegun to keep the enemy soldiers behind cover.

Once he pressed the rapidly-rotating blade against a thick metal panel and orange sparks scattered everywhere, things began to change.

The detonation of the grenades was program-controlled, so once that function was lost, the enemy was outnumbered. The firehose was no longer necessary. The potatoes used cover to accurately avoid the line of fire as they surrounded the Information Alliance attackers and mercilessly filled them with lead.

Historically, strategists and tricksters would occasionally have their time in the limelight, but there was one thing they had to watch out for. Their fame was all well and good when they were winning, but their fate would be even more tragic than most when they lost.

“Okay, clear! Watch out for any remaining wires and get the Princess into the cockpit!!”

“Heivia, I found an ultrasonic wave marker on one of the corpses. See that band wrapped around the upper arm? It’s just like the mosquito noise devices hanging under the eaves at a convenience store.”

“Quenser, pass one of those to me,” said the Princess. “Only the Information Alliance is wearing these things, right? I can scan the frequency and take out every last one of them with my anti-personnel laser planetarium.”

(Hmm, the Princess really is a warfighter. I guess she isn’t the type to shriek and cling to my arm in a haunted house.)

Quenser kept that honest opinion to himself as he saw off the cutting-edge warrior girl with a grin. If he said anything to upset the Pilot Elite here, every last one of his allies was sure to punch him later on.

Once the Generation One was moving, the battle was as good as won.

Unlike the Generation Twos which were specialized for Object battles alone, the Baby Magnum was designed for battles with tanks, aircraft, and even infantry groups. Even inside that smokescreen, she could accurately determine who was an enemy and send a horizontal storm of laser beams their way.

A sizzling sound that could have come from a Chinese restaurant came from outside the hangar.

It was best not to think about what had just been vaporized.

“Oh, looks like the jamming’s gone.”

“The Princess probably blew up a work boat out at sea or an electronic warfare aircraft with a big plate on its back.”

And with the radios functioning again, they received a very welcome message from their commander.

“This is Frolaytia. Listen up, everyone!”

“This is sure to be some kind of hellish work. Quick, get the jamming back up!!”

“If she really wanted us to listen, she should show off those wonderful tits of hers.”

“Things have calmed down, but Katarina Martini is nowhere to be found. She may have already been killed, but begin a search under the assumption she has been recaptured. Check the straight-line path between this artificial volcano island and the Information Alliance maintenance fleet. The Princess has the advantage when it comes to speed, but she isn’t that dexterous. We need infantry to settle things after she’s held them up! And the more the better!!”

“What do we do, Heivia?”

“Nothing. We’ve already done our share of work today. It’s not like we get overtime pay, so I’m taking a dump and getting to sleep.”

“By the way,” continued Frolaytia. “The assembly point is this island and 200 nautical miles around it. If you wish to refuse this mission, please leave that area at once. Otherwise, you might just be stuck here with the rest of us.”

“What are you doing, Quenser!? We need to jump in the ocean immediately!!”

“There’s no way we can swim 200 nautical miles! We’d drown!!”

“Three, two, one, zero. Good, good. I am glad to see I have so many subordinates with such passion hidden in their hearts. Thank you very much! That was the deadline.”

“What the hell was that!? It’s just like a search engine or social network’s notification of a non-negotiable change to their user policy! And our lives are on the line here!!”

“She’s really figured out how to take advantage of us…”

Q. This work environment would never be allowed in a normal company, so why was it allowed here? A. Because this was not a normal company. That simple answer was the worst part about the military. They could not reject this mission no matter how much they complained, so the idiot duo left the Object maintenance area while listening to Frolaytia’s instructions.

The sea breeze was finally sweeping the pink smokescreen away, but the puddles leftover from the earlier rain were now discolored.

“They’re polluting the environment.”

“This war hasn’t gotten so bad we have to crawl around drinking from puddles.”

“And who’s gonna be breathing in the air after the hot sun evaporates those puddles?”

As they argued, the Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes arrived at one of the hangars lined up alongside a makeshift runway. Something was being towed out of that large half-cylinder building.

“A Merman? That’s a marine rescue helicopter, not a war toy!”

“I really want to chew out whoever it was that named it Merman instead of Mermaid.”

Those unproductive idiots only complained no matter what they saw, but busty, silver-haired Frolaytia was waiting for them at the hangar.

“Wherever the enemy is headed, they’re a step ahead of us. We need speed to catch up and these are faster than a boat, so fly low and pursue any suspicious readings. If you want a gun emplacement at the side door, attach one DIY-style. You have 600 seconds!”

She clapped her hands in front of her extremely large chest and the potatoes all got to work. This was no time to be staring at those large and jiggly things. Not because they wanted to dutifully fulfill their orders, but because being too slow here would mean ending up on the front line with no protection.

“Outta the way! That .50 caliber heavy machinegun is mine!!”

“You just took twenty rockets, didn’t you!?”

“Fools. All those weapons will be useless without any power tools to attach them. Ee hee hee. I’ll grab them all for myself and trade them for the best gear…”

The Legitimacy Kingdom clearly had excess energy if they were fighting amongst themselves before heading out to battle. The arguments continued as the marine rescue helicopters of love and peace were covered in deadly weapons.

“Ah, no. I-I want some of that electronic warfare gear…”

“Here, Lilim! Take this motion sickness bag!”

“Oh, no. Has that set in!? Could you stop making that my defining trait!?”

“We’ll be traveling through the air, so make sure to bring lots of barf bags!!”

Quenser looked up after attaching a swiveling heavy machinegun that stuck out of the side door.

“Hey, Myonri, do we really need to paint a face on the front of the helicopter?”

“It looked like it could really use some paint.”

They were apparently in the same group again.

Once the promised 600 seconds had passed, Frolaytia clapped once more and Quenser’s group climbed aboard the large helicopter that had a main rotor in the front and back.

It was finally time to head out.

With Myonri at the controls, the Merman held Quenser, Heivia, and six other soldiers in its cargo space. Because it was originally meant for marine rescues, the wall was covered in a variety of equipment like oxygen tanks, masks, underwater work tools, and even medical devices like an AED and packs of saline.

“You can tell this belonged to a rich guy. They have better medical equipment than we do in the military.”

“More importantly, help me drop this wireless sonobuoy, Quenser! There’s something wrong when a commoner is taking it easy and a noble is working up a sweat!!”

Heivia tossed what looked like a long narrow sandbag out the side door and he unfortunately did not possess a spirit of noblesse oblige.

A sonobuoy was like a large float that was dropped into the ocean so it could scatter the kind of active sonar used by submarines and send back data on any dangerous readings it found. If the Information Alliance was using a submarine after capturing Katarina Martini, this would tell them where it was.

“Do you really think we’ll find them? Even if we are on the shortest path between New Caribbean Island and their maintenance fleet.”

“There’s nowhere for them to hide above or below the water. If we watch from above and drop sonobuoys, they’re trapped. If only it wasn’t a black-hearted old woman we were rescuing. But she’s the only one with info on Piranirie, so we have no choice!”

The 50m Baby Magnum passed by directly below the helicopters.

The top speed of a helicopter was said to be between 300 and 400kph, but an Object could easily exceed 500. The sight of the colossal weapon easily passing the aircraft had enough of an impact to feel completely surreal.

A powerful gust of wind shook the helicopter up and down.

“Kyah!?”

“Princess, I know you want to show off, but tone it down a bit!!”

However, the Baby Magnum did not seem to care.

In fact…

“But you would be in trouble if I didn’t move out ahead.”

It slowly dawned on them what she meant by that.

Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance.

“If the Objects on both sides are working, that means the Information Alliance Nitrogen Mirage can join the battle too, doesn’t it? So wouldn’t this area be ruled by its anti-air lasers and their perfect accuracy…?”

“C-curse that busty commander… She stuffed these flying piñatas with as much living meat as she could!”

A bluish-white beam shot right past the large helicopter.

It probably had not been aimed at them. If it had, they would have been vaporized. It was only a warning shot directed at the Baby Magnum.

But a hit from a stray shot would leave them just as dead.

Also, they had to get to work before they really were the enemy’s target.

“Myonri! Move down as close to the ocean as you can manage!!”

“If we move below 50 meters, we might end up in the Baby Magnum’s path,” said Myonri.

“Are you dumb, Quenser?” added Heivia. “This is about to become a boxing match between Objects. If the Princess’s giant ass hits us during her dance, we’ll be sent straight to heaven!!”

Another laser fried the air right next to their helicopter.

But this one did not come from the Nitrogen Mirage.

“Grab whoever said I have a ‘giant ass’ and hang them out the side door. Let’s play a game of William Tell, Heivia.”

“She already knows it was me!?”

But this was no time to be messing around.

Quenser shouted over the roar of the rotors.

“Our options are the Nitrogen Mirage’s anti-air lasers which can shoot us down with perfect accuracy, or an accidental megaton butt slam. Our odds of survival are higher if we stay low. So, Myonri, just take us right down to the ocean!!”

“…Again, Heivia…?” said the Princess.

“Wait, wait, wait! It wasn’t even me this time!”

As Heivia paled, the large Merman quickly dropped down. And just as it began racing forward as if pushing down the waves, a beam of light flashed by overhead.

It was as bright as welding light and nearly blinded them. Another Merman that failed to escape in time was vaporized.

“Dammit, one down!!”

“Its nitrogen laser uses artificial mirages to bend any way it wants… Keeping our head down isn’t enough to avoid it.”

“I won’t give it time to do that.”

The Baby Magnum moved further forward and began a serious shootout with the Nitrogen Mirage.

That bought them some time, but it was not an absolute assurance of safety.

Quenser grabbed at the shaking helicopter’s wall and checked through the marine rescue equipment there.

“What are you doing, Quenser!?”

“It’s creating artificial mirages by producing extreme temperature differences in the air and it’s using those mirages as a prism to bend its ultraviolet nitrogen lasers.” The student found a monstrous container of cooling spray. “But the Nitrogen Mirage isn’t the only one that can do that. We know its trick, so we can create mirages too!!”

He sprayed a white smoke out the open side door like he was using a fire extinguisher.

Immediately afterwards, they saw a bluish-white beams bend every which way, arrive right in front of them, and then bend toward empty air.

“That was close!”

“We can only see the afterimage, right? This is like unwittingly crossing a minefield and only later learning how lucky you were…”

The other helicopters that had escaped to extreme low altitude must have reached the same answer as Quenser because a few of them were trailing what looked like white smoke.

But then a bluish-white laser punched right through one of the helicopters flying alongside them.

“Wait, what!?”

“We aren’t calculating this out using meteorological radars or computers, so we can’t make perfect mirages!!”

The Princess seemed to have the upper hand, but she apparently could not destroy the Nitrogen Mirage right away.

They would be targeted in midair at this rate.

Once the tension in the helicopter changed to fear, they quickly made up their minds.

“Grab oxygen tanks and masks! And check how many underwater motor-controlled aqua scooters there are!!”

Quenser continued to scatter the cooling carbon dioxide out the side door while Heivia tossed a small oxygen tank and mask toward the cockpit.

It was time.

“Jump out!! We’ll be shot down!!”

Heivia grabbed Quenser’s shoulder and jumped out the side door.

Before they even hit the water, a bluish-white laser tore straight through the large marine rescue helicopter.