novelIn Search of the New Year >> Mont Blanc Borderline Mopping Up Operation (2)
| ← Ch.157 | Ch.159 → |
"You two grab his arms and legs and carry him somewhere else since that tiltrotor is flying around unpredictably. Hmm, this is about the Body File, so this is bound to be a long talk. We might also want to use that mobile device, so I hope we can find a glacier cave or something."
"Wait, why do you instructors get the good stuff? No fair! We don't get to use sleeping drugs!"
"This is for emergency use to help out the children who have trouble sleeping in the cold. Do not underestimate the mountain nights. I can adjust my own internal clock, so I do not need it."
Quenser and the others lugged the 21st soldier into a cave made entirely of ice. It may have been a tourist attraction during normal times.
"Let's start with a standard check of his belongings."
His radio and mobile device were a must. Paper maps were a valuable source of information, so you always wanted to check what was hand-marked on those.
They did not find the Body File as any sort of paper document.
Of course, that was expected when the 21st wanted to keep it hidden.
The hands on the poor victim's watch were pointed up.
The hour hand, the minute hand, and the second hand were all pointed directly to the top, so...
"Tah dah. Happy New Year, " whispered Quenser.
"For some reason, I don't feel like celebrating, " groaned Heivia next to him.
They did not feel like anything had changed and dawn felt a long way off. The heavy darkness would be with them for a while longer.
Elise turned back toward them.
"Oh, can you two head further into the cave?"
"Why? I don't want to walk around needlessly and fall into a crevasse."
"This boy here is about to wake up and on-site interrogations are always a dangerous endeavor. I have performed a body search, but you don't want to be around if he removes the pin of a grenade he has hidden somewhere, do you?"
Teachers apparently knew very well how to make naughty boys' balls shrivel up.
The two idiots could only obey after hearing that. The busty blonde glasses woman waited until they were out of sight before getting to work.
"Now, then."
After tying the enemy soldiers' hands behind his back, she lightly tapped on his back. The 21st infantryman groaned and woke up.
She circled to his front side, crouched down, and spoke from close range.
Yes, she intentionally invaded his personal space to make this a form of close-quarters combat.
"Good morning."
"!?"
"I don't have to tell you what battalion we belong to, do I? You're the ones that attacked us, after all. But hogging all the information to yourself is hardly fair. It makes you look the bad guys here. Sharing is caring, right?"
"I-I won't talk."
"The Body File."
"Eek!!"
His rejection was a little too obvious.
They were clearly up to no good here, but based on that reaction, their decision must not have been based on a careful cost-benefit analysis. This seemed more like the Faith Organization. The 21st seemed to fear even hearing other people speak that name.
"Can't you tell us? Surely we have the right to know what it is we're being killed over."
"You...you must be joking!! Listen, our Second Generation Crystal Scrying outside can see anything and everything. If you release me now, your good deed will not go unrewarded!!"
"Oh, it can see anything and everything, can it?"
She gave him a tormenting look.
That strongest teacher finally allowed a cruel look on her face.
"By the way, we are currently so deep inside a glacier cave that none of our lights will be visible from outside. You know what that means, don't you? You bothered to bring flares with you, so you can't tell me you don't know how important light is here."
"Wai-"
Two gunshots rang out. It did not matter that he had his hands bound behind his back and could not resist. She shot straight through both his shins. While it was a handgun, it was a. 45 caliber, so the bones had undoubtedly shattered.
His scream was louder than the gunshots.
"Your shins can be repaired since they are such simple bones, so I hope you can see my good will and friendship in not shooting out your knees instead."
"K-kahh!? Aghahhh!!"
"On the other hand, you can never descend the mountain on your own like this, can you? You have only one option left: waiting for someone to rescue you. But do you really think anyone will notice you are here if we leave you in this cave?"
His breathing grew erratic.
His eyeballs rolled around in his head.
"I...I...won't talk. No matter what...you do to me!! This is a sign of my loyalty. I should count myself lucky I can demonstrate it in such a concrete way! Yes, this is all for the glory of the royals!!"
"Concrete? Concrete, you say? Are you sure you aren't clinging to a formless fantasy in the face of a very real death? But don't worry. That does not make you a bad person. Now, are you thinking I have to keep you alive as long as I need that secret from you?"
Elise smiled, pointed deeper into the glacier cave, and spoke.
Spoke cruelly.
"By the way, I happen to have another of your soldiers lying back there. I know it is cliché, but let's go with this: whoever talks first gets to live. The Alps are a dangerous place in the winter. Whoever gets left behind is sure to freeze solid without even getting to rot."
That was of course a bluff, but the soldier had no way of knowing that. He was in so much pain his vision was fading, he was terrified of the death fast approaching him, he felt overwhelmingly alone knowing his allies would never realize he was here, and the world around him seemed entirely under the control of this incomprehensible sadist. All of those facts helped make the nonexistent illusion of a fellow prisoner back there seem so very real.
"I want to know everything you know: about the royals you mentioned, about the Body File, and everything else. I will do whatever it takes to get it out of you. You sent an Object after us, so surely you understand that being a fellow Legitimacy Kingdom soldier isn't going to save you here."
He believed she would do it.
Yes, he had been unconscious, so he did not know she had asked Quenser and Heivia to wait back there. He only knew he could sense someone stirring after the ominous gunfire and screaming. And when someone was afraid, they could mistake some pampas grass for a ghost if their thoughts had been primed correctly.
That nonexistent doubt would blossom into so much more, just like a microscopic piece of dust forming the core of a snow crystal.
"Now."
Elise Montana of the 7th Special Training Unit spoke as slowly and gently as a hypnotist.
After sealing off all paths of escape, her bewitching voice could bend people to her will.
"Now."
Two more loud gunshots rang out.
And finally...
"You can come out now."
The two idiots nervously did so.
"H-hey. What happened? It reeks of gunpowder smoke in here. And what happened to that enemy soldier?"
"I got him to tell me most of what we wanted to know about the Body File, so I sent him back home."
"Really?"
"We can't lug a hostage around with us, can we? We have what we wanted to know, so letting him go is best. More importantly, I learned something about the Crystal Scrying, so I will share that with you."
"Okay, if you say so, " said Quenser and Heivia as they hesitantly approached her.
"Also, there is a fairly deep crevasse over there, " she added with a smile."It's a little hard to see, so make sure you don't fall in☆"
Part 9
Pleading for the higher ups to end this clash between the 37th and the 21st would be useless because the 37th would be wiped out before the home country completed their plodding investigation.
That was why Frolaytia had narrowed her focus down to Bullrank Happy-Youth, commander of the 21st Mobile Maintenance Battalion.
She did not know what the higher ups were doing, but she could end the battle if she found some compromising personal secret she could use against him.
Bullrank's analog and digital personal information had been modified to make him look like a painfully average person. However, his social media records had been rewritten without the civilian corporations noticing. If they were told they had fallen victim to a cyber attack and needed to investigate some deleted or modified data, they were sure to notice the unnatural changes to Bullrank Happy-Youth's history.
Someone was sure to try to stop that.
He might have a great many friends in the government offices, but they might not all be as strictly protected as Bullrank himself.
The more helpers he had, the more chances they had to find a lead.
However...
"It's no use. The 37th's server just went down. All the datalinks have been severed, so we're entirely isolated!"
"That was fast."
Frolaytia clicked her tongue at the shouted report from one of the geeks in the electronic simulation division.
It had only been a few minutes since they sent the warning email to the SNS corporation. The corporation was not about to trust very single email they received from a public agency. Targeted attacks spoofing such official notifications were common these days, so they were sure to check to make sure it was legit first. If they received no response while checking, they were sure to determine it to be fraudulent.
For that matter, any external suggestion to rethink your server maintenance posed a considerable risk from an internet security standpoint. Just like with people claiming they can tell you how to get a refund at an ATM, changing your settings based on the instructions from some sincere-sounding voice on the phone was liable to leave you with a hole in your thick firewall.
However, Frolaytia Capistrano had figured some things out by now.
(I see. )
The geek had grown very nervous very fast with the internet down.
"Wh-wh-wh-what do we do now? Is that mobile device Quenser's group stole our last hope? It's supposed to have some files related to the Body File, right?"
"Those are additional documents explaining what to do with the data and not the Body File itself, right? Then they aren't enough. In fact, does it even exist in an accessible form? Bullrank may simply have it memorized."
"Then there's nothing we can do."
"Don't be so sure." Frolaytia grinned at the electronic simulation division's words."They may look untouchable, but they have already made a major mistake. Do you know what that is?"
"?"
"Listen, whatever my personal opinion of you is, I trust in how obsessive you are about your job. I know you will never betray your own work. So I have a task for you, but don't let anyone else know, okay?"
Part 10
The Legitimacy Kingdom's 21st Mobile Maintenance Battalion supported the Second Generation Crystal Scrying.
Quenser's group held a strategy meeting in that glacier cave while eating flavorless soap-like rations.
Elise was the first to speak.
"Crystal Scrying apparently refers to crystal ball divination."
"Hey, does the origin of the name really matter? Don't you have some more, y'know, technological information?"
"My, my. Knowing the enemy's beliefs and tastes is very useful in predicting their actions. To continue, the 21st is attacking the 37th over that Immortanoid business. You know, the largescale 'deposit' you happened across in the Uyuni Salt Flat."
They were using their lights since they were in the cave, but that was enough for fear to clutch at their hearts. They knew the light could not get outside, but it still felt like they were marking themselves for death.
"Our busty commander left that out of her report, didn't she?" Heivia grimaced at the flavorless food."The fact that word still got out makes it something of an open secret, doesn't it?"
"The less accurate the information, the more people expect from a treasure map, " said Quenser."So does the 21st want to dig up that Immortanoid that can't be found in the natural world? Or do they want to hide the Immortanoid they deposited in that secret bank?"
"Neither." Elise shook her head."The 21st isn't interested in either of those things."
"Huh? That doesn't make any sense! There are only two options here! There's a ton of valuable rare earth hidden in front of them, so they must either want it or want to keep it hidden. Or are you saying they attacked us for something entirely unrelated to that treasure map!?"
"It would be best to say their circumstances here are unique to the Legitimacy Kingdom. It's about land." The blonde glasses woman shrugged her shoulders that had to be stiff due to her large chest."I mean, that's what the Legitimacy Kingdom's royals and nobles are all about, right? A king with lots of land orders the nobles that serve him to manage different parts of that land. The Legitimacy Kingdom is the world power that formed by gathering together as many of those monarchs as possible. They openly place a lot of weight on bloodline and history, but they must place just as much weight on territory."
"Well, yeah. My Winchell family has land all over the place, including a vineyard and a lunar villa. But isn't that basically a special bonus you get for having the high-level bloodline of a noble or royal?"
"No." Elise Montana laughed as she rejected that idea."Quite the opposite in fact."
"The opposite?" asked Commoner Quenser with a frown.
The blonde glasses woman sighed and looked to Heivia for some reason. She seemed to be reacting to her last shred of a conscience, just like someone who could not bring themselves to kick an elderly person in the back.
"The Legitimacy Kingdom wanted land first and foremost, " she said."Because with land comes opportunity."
"Opportunity?"
"The obvious example is for making money, such as building a town, establishing trade routes, or mining underground resources, but those might as well be bonus prizes. What the royals wanted most of all was the opportunity comes in the form of medicinal herbs or minerals."
"Herbs?"
That word sounded out of place here.
That was not something that could be sold for plenty of money like gold or Immortanoid.
It could instead be made into medicines.
"Am I wrong?" She gave a gentle smile."If we set aside the historical background of the Legitimacy Kingdom's honorable royals and nobles, then they are set apart from the commoners by the rare and special blood in their veins, right?"
"Y-yeah, but what of it?" awkwardly asked Heivia.
Was he being considerate of the commoner seated next to him, or did he have a bad feeling some fundamental belief of his was about to crumble away?
Elise did not stop regardless.
"But what does that mean from a genetic standpoint? If the commoners have the more standard and generic genetic information, then the nobles and royals have the more irregular and unique genetic information. But is that really better?"
"Ah."
"Genetics determine how susceptible you are to certain diseases and how resistant you are to environmental changes. The thing is, the more standard commoner genes have had more of a chance to mix all of that stuff together, so wouldn't they have the greater resistance to different things?"
"W-wait. Hold on!! You could say the same about the nobles with more unique genes. Even if some virulent infectious disease is causing normal people to drop like flies, the unique part of our genes might let us survive!!"
"Yes, if you look at the nobles as a whole."
"What do you mean as a whole?"
"Let's say you have 26 different noble bloodlines, A through Z. The only one to survive the immediate threat would be the one with the X genes, so most of the nobles would be wiped out. That really does not seem like an efficient way to survive as a group."
It all came back to this.
This was why the nobles and royals wanted so much land and it was why they accepted other monarchs from countries with entirely different histories and cultures.
"So are you saying the top level of the Legitimacy Kingdom is working together to conquer that weakness and fragility in their blood? And that's why they want medicinal herbs and minerals?"
"Thinking of it as strong and weak is inaccurate. It may be better to think of it in terms of being generic enough to survive as many different threats as possible. Now, it seems the Body File is a list of all reported hereditary vulnerabilities in the different noble and royal bloodlines."
It was understandable that they would not want that getting out.
First of all, the nobles and royals were a minority when compared to the commoners. And since the Legitimacy Kingdom ruled itself by having a minority of superior people guiding the general masses, they could not possibly let their weaknesses show.
Those kings and knights could not accept a situation where the majority assisted a weak few.
Also, the commoners would be incensed if they learned of that weakness. They would question why they had to fight wars and bloody themselves to protect those people's land...and sometimes steal other people's land for them. Those medicinal herbs and minerals meant nothing to the commoners, so why should they work so hard for some new medicine that would not benefit them in any way?
"They cannot let this get out." Elise Montana described the cause of death currently stalking them."So the Legitimacy Kingdom covered up the truth with a different form of bait. They invented the idea that ruling all that land would give them plenty of underground resources such as gold and rare earths."
"Then the artificial Immortanoid was caught up in all this by pure chance?"
"I do not know. More money is one way of achieving greater medical technology, so my guess is the Legitimacy Kingdom wanted to be as rich as possible. In that sense, they might prefer if the world economy is run on a simpler system based entirely on underground resources like gold."
"You've gotta dumb down this talk of economics for me."
"Sure, sure. For example, the current economy runs on currencies like the dollar and euro, right? There are other items you can use, of course, like virtual currencies and jewels."
"Well, yeah."
"But currency started out as gold and silver coins, right? And paper bills were originally a ticket you could exchange for a set amount of gold because the gold coins were too heavy to carry around. A system like that, where everything is a stand-in for gold, is known as the gold standard."
"So while the Legitimacy Kingdom was working to break into a dollar-ruled world with the euro, they decided it would be easier to bring back the gold-focused gold standard system since their control of the land gives them control of the gold too?"
Reviving an older system was exactly the kind of thing the Legitimacy Kingdom liked to do. The royals and nobles would see it as a worthwhile cause since they were so desperate to reclaim their authority.
"Come to think of it, we do tend to make new money at the drop of a hat, like with those commemorative gold Christmas coins and gold New Year's coins."
"That would be the ideal for them. But at the moment, they have not managed to make any headway outside of the Legitimacy Kingdom."
Quenser and Elise were discussing the matter in a friendly manner, but then Heivia quickly interrupted.
"B-but what does that have to do with Immortanoid? How was any of that a problem???"
"Because if they make dollars and euros into tickets that can be exchanged for gold, they are ultimately making it all subservient to the enormous framework known as the gold business. And that gives the Legitimacy Kingdom a huge advantage since their obsession with land gives them control of so much of the underground resources. But what if Immortanoid takes over instead? That is an artificial element created in a particle accelerator, not something buried in the ground. If dollars become tickets that can be exchanged for Immortanoid, then all the dollars in circulation around the world will essentially be owned by whatever world power controls that."
"Hmm, so you're saying boobs are justice???"
"I am saying all their hard work to bring back the gold standard system would be for nothing! They want to keep the Capitalist Corporations from taking the lead role in the world economy using their experiments in creating artificial elements with particle accelerators!! Explanation complete!!"
This topic was better suited for the money-obsessed Capitalist Corporations. Quenser did not understand a lot of it (even though he wanted to become richer than the nobles), but he could kind of see how the Legitimacy Kingdom would be harmed by that turn of events.
But anyway...
"The Legitimacy Kingdom nobles and royals believe in the superiority of their bloodlines, but they see the inherent inferiority as well. They know there is a genetic risk of them dying from a disease or disaster that normal people can survive. Or perhaps it would be best to say they believe there is one. So they have been researching their genetic information in secret while also buying up land around the world to efficiently acquire the medicinal herbs and minerals needed to create various medicines."
No one knew which genes would actually come in handy.
If everyone had the same optimal genes, then the entire species could be annihilated by a single disease.
Being a minority could be seen as a plus or a minus depending on how you looked at it.
In that sense, the royals and nobles needed to trust in the value of their privileged class to the very end. They had to believe the very propaganda they spread. Because once they started to suspect there might be a downside to being a minority, it would gradually cloud their hearts.
They would go from being a powerful minority to a weak one.
"That is the identity of the conspiracy surrounding the Body File. Major Capistrano had the opportunity to secretly discover this while dealing with that land-based underground bank both in the Bering Sea and in the Uyuni Salt Flat...or so the 21st and their higher ups concluded. She would have seen unnatural land that was bought in an unnatural way and, if she investigated that, it could have revealed the secret behind the acquisition of that land."
So they had decided to eliminate her.
Those powerful people were willing to kill others in the Legitimacy Kingdom over this.
The Legitimacy Kingdom believed that the noble bloodlines would guide the people.
But the truth was very different. Those "noble bloodlines" were nothing more than filthy landowners who were so terrified of genetic vulnerabilities (which might not even exist) that they clung to unproven medicinal properties and healing methods.
For example, the longevity mineral known as Immortanoid.
That miracle rock was said to activate the cells with its faint radiation and add a 30% extension onto the lifespan set at either end of the chromosomes.
A commoner like Quenser found that idea to be absurd and it seemed a lot more likely someone was using disinformation to intentionally inflate the price of that artificial element. But he had also heard that it was highly popular with the rich people led astray by those rumors.
And if that was enough to fool them, they must have had a desire strong enough to let themselves be fooled.
Something had made them desperate for anything that ensured their health.
"..."
Heivia Winchell remained silent for a while.
No, he may not have had anything to say.
After fighting enough money-driven wars, it became all too obvious how phony the causes advocated by the world powers really were. But that did not mean he could so easily throw out the time he had spent growing up as a noble.
There had even been times when that power had shown its usefulness.
For example, when he had rescued those children on the aurora observation ship.
So what if he was told it was all a lie?
"For now, let us set aside whether or not their claim is accurate."
Elise Montana remained calm.
Since the 21st and the 37th were both from the Legitimacy Kingdom and she was from the 7th Special Training Unit, she could have taken either side, but she was saying she would stick with Quenser and Heivia.
"The problem is that the 21st fully believes it and has decided the 37th is an enemy of the Legitimacy Kingdom as a whole for trying to hide the Immortanoid found at the Uyuni Salt Flat. Words will not be enough to stop them. We have no hope for tomorrow unless we kill them and drive them to the point of utter annihilation."
She took control of the conversation before Quenser or Heivia could.
"The 21st's Object is the Crystal Scrying."
However.
Therefore.
"Like I said, it is named after crystal ball divination. The name imagines the Object as a giant glass ball and a fortuneteller. But why is it known as that? Because the primary material used to construct that Object is glass."
"Gl-...?"
A glass Object.
Battlefield Student Quenser craved bizarre forms of inspiration, but even he could not keep up with that idea.
"Standard Objects are made by taking steel armor panels mixed with a heat-resistant reactive material and layering them like leaf springs, but this one is made by taking reinforced glass and protective film and layering them like a baumkuchen. We had a vague idea of that in advance thanks to our intelligence collection. There was still some data in the military servers, after all. But this battle has shown us that the glass fixation is seen in the weapons as well. It sends messages to the railgun shells through fiber optic cables and those are made from glass, right?"
Knowing the enemy's beliefs and tastes was very useful in predicting their actions.
This did follow from the 21st's dislike of artificial elements.
"With the exception of some special acids, glass is extremely resistant to nearly all chemicals - that is, to the artificial elements and compounds they so despise. Plus, it does not stimulate people's greed with its rarity the way gold does. From their meager perspective, it is the perfect Object for extracting the poison and changing the world in a pure and proper way. I initially wondered why they would make it from glass of all things, but that must have been the idea behind it."
They saw themselves as the ones removing poison from the world.
In that case, they would see Quenser's group as a toxin needing elimination now that they knew what was in the Body File.
If they were that obsessed, they likely used glass in a lot of places beyond the armor and main cannon trajectory control. For example, the capacitors supporting the incredible power requirements of the container railgun main cannons may have used Leyden jars and the image processing may have used an image intensifier.
On the other hand, it seemed unlikely that the Crystal Scrying used no non-glass substances. In other words, that it did not use any rare earths. Even if it did use thin film integrated circuits made from glass, that was not enough to perform data processing. The semiconductors would be made of silicon, aka glass, but other metals would be needed too.
Were they okay with using anything as long as it was not an artificial element made in a particle accelerator?
Plus, these were haughty nobles. It would hardly be surprising to find they gave themselves exemptions to the rules they insisted everyone else follow.
However...
"The enemy's armor doesn't use the usual temperature-resistant reactive material, " said Quenser."It uses special glass armor made by layering reinforced glass and film like an onion. In that case..."
"Hey, you aren't thinking the firepower we have on hand is enough to deal with that, are you?" said Heivia."We don't have any tanks or armored vehicles that can still run out there. Even the Princess is having a hard time of it, so we can't just stand out in front of the thing!!"
"I never said we would be doing that. We aren't going to blast all the way through the Crystal Scrying. But if we could roast the surface a little..."
"Yesss?" prompted Elise in an odd way.
"Its armor is definitely tough." Quenser sighed."Since it's been made into Object armor, our fists couldn't break it even if it was originally glass. It must already be too strong for that."
Simply putting it to words seemed to be medically wearing down his body's strength, but he kept going.
If he stopped thinking, he would lose sight of their only escape route.
"But what if we remade it into something else entirely?"
He said it all in one breath.
Their comeback started now.
"Glass can be processed into many different forms. Glass fiber, foam glass, insulators, etc. If it can be melted with heat, then it can be changed by mixing in an impurity before it rehardens, right?"
"And that would make it more brittle?"
"Not necessarily, but we might be able to pull off something neat." Quenser spelled out his thoughts."I don't know if it's in panels or blocks, but that Object is formed entirely out of combined pieces of glass, right? If we break down that form, it shouldn't be able to move the way it was designed to. Take the joints for example. If we distort those, we can lock up its movements."
"But where do we get that impurity?" asked Elise."Hiking back down to the maintenance base at the foot of the mountain and bringing back a ton of some kind of chemical substance does not sound realistic to me."
"Foam glass doesn't require any other materials. Snow is being blasted into the air all over the place, right? As long as we melt the surface of the glass, snow will get into it without us having to do a thing. And I mean a lot of snow. The snow will melt and the water will evaporate, but the holes will remain. So as the below-freezing air causes it to cool and harden, the glass will become a fluffy and spongy material. If the apparent volume changes and it expands enough, the joints won't be able to move."
Of course, that would not be enough to defeat the 21st Mobile Maintenance Battalion's Second Generation.
That would only slow it down.
"Heivia, do you have a missile?"
"Kh."
"Heivia. It'll be okay. I'm not saying we have to defeat that Object ourselves. We can pass the baton to the Princess and she'll save us. But you're still scared?"
"Why the hell wouldn't I be?"
"Let's end this before sunrise. We can't let this problem linger for too long."
They had a plan.
Quenser, Heivia, and Elise ended their last supper and walked to the exit of the glacier cave with their respective equipment.
Even now, the cave was shaking from a low tremor. They had not thought about it until now, but that sturdy cave could have collapsed at any time. That just drove home the point that there were no safe zones on the battlefield.
As they approached the exit, Quenser switched off his light.
If any oddity was noticed or even the slightest light was detected, those extraordinary shells would be flying their way. The time had come to stick their tongue out behind the grim reaper's back while hoping like hell they were not noticed.
"I'm not going to defeat it." While carrying the missile launcher over his shoulder, Heivia repeated that under his breath like some kind of incantation to ward off evil."I'm relying on the Princess. I'm just letting the Princess win this for us. This is still a standard Object vs. Object battle. I'm sticking with the normal rules. So it'll be okay. I can survive this. I just have to let the Princess finish it for us."
Yes.
They only had to pass the baton to the Princess.
They only needed the Princess's help.
When they stepped out of the glacier cave, the very first thing they saw was the Baby Magnum being pierced through by a giant railgun shell.
The deafening boom and shockwave arrived after a short delay and all the snow on the slope crashed down in an avalanche.
Something was launched diagonally back from the Baby Magnum's pierced spherical main body. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but that was probably a person rather than a flare dangling from a parachute in the cold sky. That was the Princess.
The Baby Magnum was at a higher point on Mont Blanc while it dirtied the night sky with black smoke. That might not seem like anything unusual, but it was. The Crystal Scrying was designed for use in mountainous terrain, but the Baby Magnum did not have the mountain-climbing capability needed to scale the highest peak in the Alps. It could not climb the steep slope past a point, so the jagged mountain peak was a dead end for the Princess.
Meanwhile, the Crystal Scrying could move as it pleased and had circled around toward the base. It had moved rapidly in every direction, adjusted its position, and fired its octuple railguns from the optimum angle. It had controlled the tail fins with fiber optic cables so those shells gathered around the Baby Magnum from a variety of angles.
This was the result.
After being driven up the mountain, the Princess had not had anywhere to escape.
"You have got to be kidding me."
Heivia dropped the shoulder-fired missile launcher tube he had been preparing to fire.
They could no longer rely on her.
They had no Object. It was just those puny foot soldiers.
And the battle was not over.
The delinquent noble's voice trembled.
"What the hell are we supposed to do now, goddammit!!!???"
Part 11
The Baby Magnum had been destroyed.
It may not have been completely destroyed since the reactor had not exploded, but it could no longer move now that the Princess had decided to eject. Heading there and repairing the Object on the scene was not realistic.
"This is why I didn't like the idea." Heivia's tears froze as he curled up on the spot and held his head in his hands."Fuck off with all of this!! Why should I care about this genetic vulnerability and Body File stuff!? I tried. I did what I could, didn't I!? No one could possibly complain if I turned back and curled up in that cave until all this is over!!"
"Heivia."
"Kh."
The awful friend turned toward Quenser with wavering pupils.
And he raised his voice.
"Besides, what do I even gain if we win here? If the Body File goes public, the entire concept of nobles might go away!! The commoners who believed we were so healthy and strong aren't going to take it!! They'll drag us down from our position of privilege!! Is that really something I should risk my life to fight for!?"
"Then are you saying the 21st is in the right here? Are you really willing to say that, Heivia?"
"You're a commoner, so you don't understand the hardships of a noble life!!"
"Whether or not we commoners respect you is supposed to be based on your actions! All this talk about beautiful genetic sequences sounds like something the Information Alliance would be into!! I can tell you one thing for damn sure: no one's following the kind of people who cover up the truth and get all snippy the instant their position is threatened!!"
"~ ~ ~!!"
"Who cares about history!? Why should we give a crap about tradition!? If you're worried about that stuff, Heivia, then you'll have to build it up yourself!! By becoming someone everyone can respect!!"
"Oh, shut up!! It isn't that easy!!!!!"
"You can head back into the cave if you like, " bluntly cut in Elise. She was in her strict instructor mode."Based on the training menu, you were only issued three days' worth of food. We have no idea at all how long they will remain in Mont Blanc, so there is a good chance you will end up fighting starvation."
"Elise, do you have an idea?"
"Not really. But the Crystal Scrying should be relieved after defeating its enemy Object. It will have relaxed now that the only real threat has been eliminated. Once they calm down, they will close in on us, so now is the time to act if we hope to shake them. This is our last chance."
"Last chance, my ass." Heivia shoved aside all other opinions with the voice of someone having a nightmare."We never had a chance!! Our busty commander set us up, threw us into a battle we never agreed to, and now we're paying the price! Actually, it's worse than that. What good is winning even? We've already stepped on the landmine. We took the wrong path from the very beginning. There's no route to the destination from here!! Continuing on will only get us stranded until we die!!"
"Let's leave him behind, " said Elise Montana after no longer than a second.
Heivia looked shocked, but she tilted her head.
"Oh? You can throw a tantrum and desert if you like, but who said we would follow you? We need to use this chance to fight, and even if we just want to run away, we should try to escape the troops surrounding us before they close in too far. At the very least, holing up the cave will not get us anywhere. The most we could do there is eat up all our soap-like rations, lick the glacier walls, and grow skinnier and skinnier with nowhere to go. I would prefer not to die while wondering if I should start running my own urine through a filter."
"Elise."
"And if we do end up defeating the Crystal Scrying, you will have no place there. In that case, you will be court martialed, found guilty, and thrown into a military prison."
Quenser tried to stop her, but she did not listen.
Elise Montana was the perfect strict military instructor, but she got a perfect 0 as an infirmary counselor.
"Thank you for your work thus far, Heivia, but your life ends here. Whether we win or lose against the Crystal Scrying, you have run into a dead end. The path forked to the left and right, yet you chose to plow right on through into the bushes for no good reason. But this is your life, so I will not stop you. Quenser, the two of us can rejoice in life together."
"Hold on, Eli- ouch!? Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!?"
Elise had only grabbed Quenser's hand and lightly twisted it, but what did it look like to Heivia left behind in the cave entrance?
His last two companions had walked off together and vanished beyond the snow.
"Wait."
It started as a whisper, but it finally grew to a loud shout.
"Wait!! Okay! Okay, I get it! Please don't leave me here!!"
The glasses woman stuck her tongue out where Heivia could not see.
Now, she had given him some motivation, but she had done nothing to improve their circumstances here. If they did not come up with their next move soon, they could only wait for the 21st Mobile Maintenance Battalion to arrive and kill them.
"So is that armor really made of reinforced glass?" asked Elise."They really altered its properties by adjusting the pressure while it formed?"
"Given how they think, I can't imagine they would have made it sturdier by mixing impurities in, " said Quenser.
"Right? I just hope it isn't borosiliclit glass."
"Elise, do you mean borosilicate glass?"
"Hm? That's what I said: borosiliclit glass."
Quenser celebrated in his heart at managing to secretly record it on his mobile device this time (even though a single light source meant death). That might seem entirely pointless, but idiots like him were the type who would grab a highlighter whenever they spotted a dirty word in the dictionary. There was no real reason. It merely satisfied his collector's spirit.
Elise only tilted her head because she had not noticed what she said.
"What should we do? If we need a weapon, we could probably find a tank or armored vehicle if we dug into the snow."
"Can you use a cannon, Elise?"
"If it is one meant for use by a single person. If it needs multiple people, I might just have to give that spoiled noble boy a spanking."
"..."
Quenser thought for a short moment.
"The enemy's armor is made of glass. Glass is an insulator, so how is it sending power from the central reactor to the main cannon railguns?"
"?"
He quickly reached a decision.
"Elise, search out a gun of 90mm or bigger. It can be a maneuver combat vehicle or a mortar for all I care!!"
"In that case, I see an adorable silhouette over there."
Elise pointed at an odd vehicle half buried in snow.
It looked like a bulky snowmobile with armor panels and continuous tracks, but there was a large indentation on the back and it had no roof. Instead, a thick barrel aimed diagonally up toward the night sky behind it.
"This is an open-top mortar carrier. It carries a powerful 120mm mortar but it has stripped away all the unnecessary exterior and was slimmed down with ultra-thin armor, so it weighs less than 10 tons and can be carried anywhere by helicopter or ship. It can follow the common troops around like a puppy."
"No one wants a puppy here. A normal machinegun could pierce that armor, so it might as well be an aluminum can. Whoever gets stuck using it clearly got the short end of the stick!!"
Also, it had an open top, so had they been driving it around the Mont Blanc night while exposed to the cold air? They could only pray the crew had not been frozen solid by vaporization heat.
Also, an Object could blast through a warship or a nuclear shelter in a single blast, so death was assured either way. But Quenser's group only needed to get one shot in, so the thickness of the armor was irrelevant.
After brushing off the snow and exposing most of the gun, Elise inspected different parts of the giant mortar that extended back like a fishing rod.
"It appears to still have a round inside. How dangerous....So, Quenser, what should I aim at?"
"Hold on a sec, " cut in Heivia."What good is firing that thing? The bright muzzle flash and loud blast will gather everyone's attention on us!"
"Chickens deserve to be plucked of their feathers and soaked in an ice bath. Now, what are my specific instructions?"
"I'm not taking Heivia's side here, but screwing this up really is the end for us. I appreciate your help, but you're free to run away as long as you teach me how to fire it first."
"That is not something that can be learned overnight. Not at this adorable thing's size." Elise smiled bitterly."Also, I have no other ideas either, so I will bet on whatever has even a slight possibility of working. I am doing this of my own free will, so do not worry."
Hearing that was all Quenser needed to complete his preparations.
That left just one more person.
"Hey, Heivia."
"What?"
"A commoner like me has no way of knowing how fragile and precarious a position the nobles and royals are in. That foundation has been there from the moment you were born, so it might feel like your very soul has been shaken."
Saying that may have qualified as disrespectful, but they had no idea how long that entire hierarchy would still be around.
However.
"But you know what? I don't think it was meaningless."
"?"
"I mean, you saved those kids on the aurora observation ship. They saw you as the knight who brought Santa to them. It might sound like something from a picture book and it might sound unrealistic, but that was Heivia the Noble standing there in that moment. A commoner like me couldn't have saved those kids' souls too."
"That's a bunch of idealistic hogwash. It doesn't change the reality if the situation."
"Maybe not, but no matter what the Body File says, there are people out there who can be saved by clinging to those dreams....So you can't let that power be stolen from you here. Nobles are supposed to be dignified, right? Royals are supposed to be respected, right? But that has nothing to do with a sequence of AGCT!! We commoners are looking for the kind of people you see in picture books! The kind of people who always stay strong and who will stand up for anyone in need or in tears!! Are you kidding me right now? What happened to chivalry, what happened to ladies first, what happened to mercy and charity, what happened to noblesse oblige!? Don't hand your justice over to the people killing their own out of fear of losing their power! Heivia!! Aren't you one of the nobles who were born to protect the people from those very cruelties!?"
Heivia Winchell hung his head for a while.
He could not find anything to say.
But eventually, he found something.
It was quiet at first.
"Shut up."
But he spoke.
He finally spoke his mind.
"Do you think I didn't know how pathetic, ugly, and hopelessly small a person I am!? How could I not be terrified!? How could I not be shaken when something I've believed in all my life is being written off as a lie!?"
Quenser said nothing.
Elise started to act in her utilitarian nature, but he stopped her with a hand.
He had to stop her.
"And I know it isn't right!! I know if I hide from the truth there's no coming back from it. I want to hold my head high! I want to look ahead to the future as I live my life!! So I can't accept what the 21st is doing! I never asked for their help. They bloodied their hands all on their own, so like hell I'm going to agree if they ask all of us nobles to share the responsibility there!! You can go straight to hell on your own, you assholes!! Yeah, yeah! That's right!! Are you saying the Winchell family isn't good enough the way it is and you commoners won't accept us right now!?"
Then.
Then.
Then.
"I just have to do it myself!! I'll be the good kind of noble! I'll make the Winchell family something worth honoring! And that's something I can never do by covering up the truth and going around killing innocent people like these pieces of garbage!!!!!!"
Quenser Barbotage was a commoner.
That had been set in stone from the moment he was born, so he could never become a noble or royal. That meant defending them would never benefit him in any way.
But he still smiled.
"That's more like it."
He thought of the children on the aurora observation ship.
Once Heivia had decided he would never do anything that would disappoint those children, he had proven he had a truly noble soul.
What did genetics matter? Why should anyone care if someone has a beautiful sequence of DNA? No one was out there writing haikus with AGCT sequences.
"Okay, I'm ready to do this!! The Legitimacy Kingdom might go down in flames, but I'll protect the Winchell family no matter what! Because that's what I've decided I'll do!! And these assholes out here are standing in the way of that. How can we blow them up and protect the world!!!???"
"Sounds like you've had an awakening, " said Elise."But emotions will not save us here, so I would really like some concrete targeting instructions."
They had finally reached this point, so there was no need to hesitate.
Quenser immediately gave her the answer.
"Heading: 2080. Angle: 450."
"Umm, that's nowhere near the Crystal Scrying."
"Shut up, " growled Heivia like a wounded animal. He was picking up a heavy shell and shoving it into the muzzle."Listen, Quenser, I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, but promise me one thing. If we do as you say and fire this thing, can I avoid having to turn my back on those kids!? I need to remain a noble no matter what might happen!!"
"Yes."
Quenser Barbotage knew what they had to do, so he accepted everything his awful friend left with him and raised his voice.
"So fire! Immediately!!"
The entire vehicle was struck by the powerful recoil and the 120mm shell tore through the air.
The flash of light and boom were just like a nearby lightning strike.
The attack was powerful enough to warrant that comparison.
A mortar usually launched an explosive in a large arc like a long throw in baseball to drop it on a distant enemy's head.
But with Mont Blanc's steep slope, it could be fired diagonally upwards to directly hit a target.
Quenser had not aimed for the Crystal Scrying.
He had aimed for the Baby Magnum where it had been cornered and destroyed up toward the peak.
More specifically, he had aimed for the slope below it.
The crumbling rock dislodged it from what it was caught on and the 50m mass slid down the steep slope. It gathered white snow and glacier ice around it as it tumbled down toward the 21st Mobile Maintenance Battalion's Second Generation!!
"Ah!!" shouted Heivia as a dull thud exploded out."It actually goddamn hit!?"
"Get down from that thing, Elise! The enemy will have noticed this!!"
That open top provided no defensive power whatsoever and any soldiers forced to use it must have been reduced to tears, but the one advantage was how easy it was to escape. You could climb down in any direction.
The glasses woman dove down to the snow while asking a question.
"Was that a diesel ignition, or a stiletto heel?"
"What?"
"The 200, 000-ton masses colliding looks fancy, but Objects are spheres. As you can tell when pressing two balls together, the surface of contact will only be a single point, so all the force will be concentrated there. Just like a nail tip or a stiletto heel, that would have considerable penetrative power. If the incredible pressure created heat, it would be even more destructive than subterranean magma!"
Ideally, that would destroy the Crystal Scrying.
But a deep cacophony of scraping metal echoed across the Mont Blanc night. It was pulling through. Even after being hit by an entire other Object, the Crystal Scrying could still move!!
"What do we do?" shouted Heivia while having trouble breathing."Where are we supposed to run now!? If it strikes back just once, we're boned!!"
"No."
On the other hand, Quenser had a smile on his sweaty face.
His gamble had ended with hitting the enemy with the immobilized Baby Magnum.
"That won't happen."
The following sound of destruction was reminiscent of a large tree being split vertically.
It was a blast of electricity.
But not because there were storm clouds in the area. The sound came from the Crystal Scrying.
Specifically, from its glass armor.
"This isn't a normal Object. That giant form is made from glass armor pasted together in onion-like layers, but that alone doesn't let it send power from the central reactor to the main cannon railguns on the exterior."
"Um, wouldn't they just place metal leaf wiring in between the layers of glass like with a printed circuit board?" asked Elise."Even normal Objects use that method."
"Yes, and it works just fine with a normal Object."
The sound was not stopping.
In fact, it was growing louder by the moment.
"Like I said, its armor is made from glass. The electrodes are contained between insulating glass. Do you know what structure that forms? It should come to you almost immediately if you're enough of a hobbyist to have struggled with a soldering iron to create a self-propelled robot loaded with a deep learning AI."
"Only you're enough of a geek to do that, so just get to the point already!!"
"A capacitor. That's an electronic component used to store electricity. They're a major component of stun guns."
It might as well have been an explosion.
This was deadly force formed from electricity.
"This wouldn't happen if the wires remained connected to both ends, but if they end up breaking for any reason, that thing's glass panels and metal leaf start to function as a gigantic capacitor. All the power pumped in from the reactor will build up there and have nowhere to escape."
"Then..."
"But, Heivia, you've at least heard that lithium ion batteries can explode if used improperly, right? Electricity is a form of energy, so that's not really surprising."
With a flash of light much brighter than welding, the darkness of the Mont Blanc night was swept away.
The Baby Magnum and Crystal Scrying had collided, but the 21st's colossus hopped up unnaturally. Then it lost balance. It failed to land properly, rolled onto its side, and was helpless from there.
It rolled.
The 50m giant rolled down the steep slope of Mont Blanc.
"Heh."
They did not even need to imagine what had happened to the Pilot Elite inside that Object that showed no sign of stopping.
Quenser pulled out some Hand Axe plastic explosive.
"Heivia, Elise. Prepare every weapon you have."
The Baby Magnum and the Crystal Scrying had both been incapacitated, but that would not have eliminated the grudges on both sides. They did not care that both sides were from the Legitimacy Kingdom. The White Flag signal would not reach this deep into the mountains, which was why the 21st had driven the 37th up there. And Quenser's group was not about to let the 21st get away if they said they were leaving now that they had used up all the weapons they had on hand.
From here on, they were fighting an unprotected form of war.
No more could they be baby birds begging their parent for food.
Something peeked out from Mont Blanc's summit. It was the sun. Dawn had snuck up on them at some point.
And in the instant that everything was dyed in gold, a new year had begun.
They could get a fresh start.
But in that moment, Battlefield Student Quenser Barbotage had a filthy smile on his face while he made the following announcement:
"Time for the counterattack. Let's slaughter every last one of them."
The time had come to dye the white mountain red.
Using the blood of people who were supposed to be allies.
Part 12
"Phew, " sighed Frolaytia Capistrano.
This conference room had been full of commotion earlier, but it was empty now. She had tried her best to fight from behind the scenes, but the battle outside had ended before she could accomplish anything worthwhile.
"Major Capistrano."
The female officer who acted like a secretary quietly called her name.
"Yes?"
The busty, silver-haired woman had her shapely butt seated on the long table instead of the chair and she did not remove the long, narrow kiseru from her mouth when she replied.
The female officer must have been accustomed to it because she did not seem to mind.
"The 21st has suffered devastating losses. They seem to be begging the higher ups to send a ceasefire command, but it is too late for that now."
"Well, they were the ones who set things up to delay that very decision."
"The bottleneck for us will likely be recovering the stranded Baby Magnum. It might be faster to transport the maintenance equipment up Mont Blanc to repair it on site."
"This is all so very depressing."
"We are almost done now, Major."
Frolaytia viewed the smile on the female officer's face.
And she removed the kiseru from her mouth before continuing.
"By the way, lieutenant, I have one question."
"Yes?" asked the female officer with a polite tilt of her head.
Frolaytia Capistrano was not smiling.
"When were you planning to reveal your true colors and attack me, you 21st dog?"
The female officer drew her knife - no, her secret gun that used the knife's grip to hide the suppressor-equipped barrel - at about the same moment Frolaytia threw her lit kiseru at the back of her hand.
"Hot!?"
"Why would you draw it right in front of me, you moron? And you were aiming for my heart? How were you supposed to pass that off as suicide?"
Without a moment's delay, Frolaytia swept the other woman's legs out from under her. The assassin had reflexively placed her other hand on the burn, so she failed to catch herself and slammed shoulder-first into the floor. She grimaced in pain and tried to get up, but Frolaytia pressed the bottom of her boot against the other shoulder to force her back to the floor.
She felt a dull sensation similar to operating a car's shift lever.
That had dislocated both of the assassin's shoulders.
"Gh, kh!?"
"Now you can't even kill yourself. Resist any further and I will dislocate both legs as well. To be clear, a dislocated hip hurts a hell of a lot more than a shoulder. I will respect your choice, but I do not at all recommend it."
The 21st had reacted too quickly.
The 37th's server had been cut off mere minutes after sending the warning email to the social media company in order to reveal Bullrank Happy-Youth for who he really was. The response would never be that sharp if they were simply patrolling the internet as a whole. A large company would receive hundreds of those coaxing targeted emails every single day, so not even an AI search could have responded with such accuracy.
Thus, it must have come from within the 37th.
Someone very close to Frolaytia Capistrano must have sent out a warning. She had asked a member of the electronic simulation division to investigate who was secretly sending out a signal despite the datalink being down and the server being useless. That would be who was accessing a different server to leak information.
(But I didn't expect it to be her. )
That said, not enough time had passed since the incident in the Arctic Ocean for a spy to have been sent in response to that. The 21st had not sent one of their dogs in response to anything; they had already had people everywhere.
The Princess, Quenser, and Heivia had all worked themselves to the bone for this, so Frolaytia had known she could not just wait safely for the result.
That was why she had laid this trap without knowing who would spring it, but...
(This is so very depressing. )
"We never did find any compromising information on Bullrank Happy-Youth. Except for what you might have, that is."
"!?"
This woman had covered everything up.
And the busty, silver-haired demon spoke cruelly to that person she had thought of as an ally fighting alongside her at this desk.
She spoke her words of farewell.
"I'm glad I managed to lure you out. To be honest, I would have been out of ideas if you hadn't attacked me here. Did you think I would leave you with the intelligence division? How na?ve of you. I don't know where your spies are located, so this is a job for someone I know I can trust."
"You mean you will be interrogating me yourself?"
"No, I know someone even better suited for the job." Frolaytia gave a vicious smile while shaking free of all sentimentality."Sergeant Elise Montana. You used to be a part of the 7th Special Training Unit yourself, didn't you? One of their strict instructors can whip you into shape. Until you tell us everything."
Between the Lines 3
She was like a dried-out husk.
Lendy Farolito stood stock still.
"..."
"Hello?"
The ringlet curls Pilot Elite waved a small hand in the silver-haired brown-skinned commander's face, but she remained motionless. Nothing could get her to move right now.
"Th-the underground bank for rare earths - ha, ha ha - went out of business? It went broke???"
"Oh, dear. And wait a moment. Didn't you use tax money for that Immortanoid business?"
She had been accepting jobs where she took money from people in unstable countries and regions and converted it into precious metals like Immortanoid. The idea had been to make money off of the commissions. But if she could not convert the money as promised, she was in violation of contract.
And whatever money was lost in the process would have to be paid from her own pocket when returning it to the original owner. Along with a contract violation fee.
The introductory section of the bank's webpage had the following written in fine print at the very bottom:
This service does not 100% guarantee profit. Be aware that there is always a risk of making back only a fraction of your principal☆
"M-my Caribbean vacation."
With their budget gone, there was nothing she could do.
So what would become of their New Year's leave that was meant to make up for spending Christmas on a concert designed to improve the military's image?
"My Caribbean vacatiooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon!!!!!!"
| ← Ch. 157 | Ch. 159 → |