novelFrom the Land of the Rising Sun >> Unofficial Island Nation Landing Operation (2)
| ← Ch.181 | Ch.183 → |
When a 110mm cannon fired on them from the roof of some short buildings a short distance from the station, Quenser's group quickly hid behind the station mall. It was another of those powered suits. That made it a job for the Martini triplets' armored truck. It helped that they had attached a mortar they had picked up somewhere. Alisa - or was that Rica? - crawled out from the hatch, crouched at the back of the roof, and performed some kind of work.
Heivia aimed his assault rifle toward the night sky and checked through the scope to detect something through all its sensors.
"Air temperature: 2 degrees. Humidity: 50%. Not much dust or dirt in the air. The wind is mostly 3m/s from the southwest, but the skyscraper walls are creating their own winds too."
"Got it."
With what sounded like a louder version of a popping cork, a projectile flew like a long throw in baseball. The first shot exploded near the roof, catching the powered suit in the blast.
The enemy had been silenced.
The filthy potatoes used their binoculars to check where the mortar had hit.
A building labeled "Kadokawa" was now tilting at an angle.
"Uh, oh. Let's get outta here."
Part 6
The Baby Magnum and the Rush fought a high speed battle in late-night Tokyo Bay against the mysterious Island Nation Object known as the Asian Monster.
Tokyo Bay was not as large a battlefield as you might think. There was a chance of being fired on from Tokyo, Chiba, or Kanagawa there, but that was all.
The terrain worked in the Princess and Oh Ho Ho's favor.
With less available space to move in, the enemy would have trouble avoiding the simultaneous attacks from the Baby Magnum and the Rush.
However...
"Stubborn thing. We have to have hit it so many times, but it won't sink!!"
"Oh ho ho. The Object's primary job appears to be holding us here, so their real weapon must be-"
The two Objects took nimble evasive action the moment before a white beam split apart the dark night. The giant laser fortress gun installed at Mount Fuji's peak was to blame. The large circle from Kantou to Chubu was within its firing range. If they took too long with the naval Object, the laser would target them out here in the open ocean.
The Princess was using special goggles that placed a burden on her pupils and irises to read the movement of her eyes with lasers, but the Baby Magnum felt so slow it was like swimming through an invisible slime. This wasn't about whether any immediate attack could hit or whether she could avoid the enemy's shots - she was falling behind in a more fundamental way.
Frolaytia sent a tense suggestion.
"Princess, we can use our thermobarics to create a mirage if necessary."
"That would affect my targeting, so don't. But if they target your ships, do it immediately."
"Oh ho ho. I will move out ahead to keep the Island Nation's attention on me. I can't have them targeting the slow fleet."
Even Oh Ho Ho was the Pilot Elite who fought as the central figure of a battalion.
The two Objects approached even closer to the Asian Monster.
They were not the only ones that could make simultaneous attacks.
In fact, the Island Nation had the greater destructive power. The Mount Fuji laser fortress gun was powerful enough to destroy an Object in a single hit.
"That thing has a lot of power, doesn't it?"
"Could it be adding volcanic energy on top of an ordinary reactor? Oh ho ho. It might be stable now, but Mount Fuji is technically a volcano."
"But how is it getting rid of all that heat?"
"The summit is more than 3000m up, so maybe it's covered with a thin layer of ice or something."
But the attack was nothing to fear when they knew what direction it would be coming from.
The fortress gun was still a fortress gun. A stationary sniper was much less of a threat.
"We sent out meteorological weapons to produce thick clouds around Mount Fuji's summit, but it isn't going well, " reported Lendy Farolito."Missiles and shells are just a poor match for anti-air lasers."
"Oh ho ho. Try not to draw so much attention they focus their fire on you. It's best if your attacks appear ineffectual."
The Princess sighed.
(I really want to reach land so I can support Quenser and the others. )
The Asian Monster slid gently to the right and then cut sharply back to the left.
It was a classic feint.
The Princess kept an eye on the laser fortress gun's movements while sliding out of the way of the low-stability plasma cannon aimed her way. Then she repaid the enemy by firing a railgun counterattack a bit to its left to cut off its escape route. That stopped its movement long enough for the Rush to fire the killing blast.
The unpleasant sizzling of vaporized metal burst into the air. The Rush's rapid-fire beam Gatling cannon had punched right through the center of the Asian Monster's spherical main body. Tens of thousands of deadly shots formed a single thick line that tore through more and more of the Object. The mechanical wound melted with an orange glow, giving the Object an actual donut shape.
"Oh ho ho! Do you see now what I am capable of? Spectacular results like this are all the proof you need I am a true idol!!"
"You never could have done it without my support."
"Kyah!!" shouted Lendy Farolito over the radio."A global top idol just does things differently!!!!!"
"Stop encouraging that idiot, you stupid commander, " replied the Princess in disgust."Sigh. This is how popularity messes with people's heads, isn't it?"
The Asian Monster produced a creaking sound as it tilted.
The reactor would not last like this. To avoid getting caught in the blast before it sank into the ocean, the Baby Magnum slowly backed away.
The Princess caught it at the last second.
That was the only reason she managed to send her Object sharply to the side in time.
A beam of light roared through.
One of the Baby Magnum's seven main cannons - the leftmost one - was sliced away by the intense energy.
But that hadn't come from the laser fortress gun atop Mount Fuji.
It had clearly been a low-stability plasma cannon blast from the Asian Monster on the ocean directly in front of her.
In fact...
"Oh ho ho. It...isn't sinking? But I destroyed its reactor!"
"There must be more to this. It is an Island Nation model, after all!!"
Part 7
After passing Iidabashi, they finally arrived at Ichigaya, where the self-defense PMC had their base.
"Ichigaya, huh?" muttered the old maintenance lady over the radio. She may have had some memories regarding the place.
It was officially registered as a Capitalist Corporations garrison, but it was effectively a shared facility where all four world powers came and went freely.
The location they wanted was obvious enough from the distinctive antenna towers sticking up past the building rooftops. One area's were very different from the rest.
Heivia let out a visible breath in the late February night.
"So we've finally arrived at Azumaya's home. Can we just blow up that building?"
"Azumaya is only four people out of the self-defense PMC personnel packing the place like a beehive, " said Quenser."Do we know their names or what they look like? The end of the world war is counting on us doing this right, so we want to make sure they're actually dead."
"I feel bad for all those PMC soldiers who are only following their orders here."
"If you feel that bad, then throw down your weapon and go try to convince them with a rousing and courageous argument. Me? I'm afraid of the Island Nation tech. Let's silence all of them and then check through the computers in the building. There's bound to be something left inside-"
Quenser came to a sudden stop.
They hadn't done anything yet, but an explosion had already erupted from the Ichigaya garrison building. But the location of the smoke was unusual. Instead of the windows, toxic-looking smoke billowed from something like vents leading underground.
Heivia stared blankly for a while. It took an exasperated tap on his shoulder from Karen to snap him out of it. The noble boy realized what the enemy was up to a few seconds later.
"Th-the bastards set fire to their server room, didn't they!? Those four are more interested in eliminating any information on them than in stopping us!!"
The mission was falling apart.
To protect their classified information, the self-defense PMC apparently did not call in the fire fighters all their neighbors in the city used. When some soldiers rushed out, attached a thick hose to the fire hydrant, and started toward their own fire fighting equipment inside the building, Heivia, Myonri, and some others aimed at them from behind and mercilessly fired into their backs.
It wouldn't have gone that well under normal circumstances, but unexpected accidents were one of the greatest threats during a battle.
The four villains hiding behind their anonymity as random soldiers could not run away without getting shot as deserters.
But that changed here.
Soldiers and prisoners were allowed to evacuate their posts or cells during a fire. And it would take time to count and ID the bodies, so even if those four went into hiding for a while, it wouldn't stand out too much if they later insisted whoever was taking roll had marked it down wrong.
Meanwhile, Quenser's group could not stay in the Island Nation for long since they were reliant on the element of surprise. The sh*tty quartet knew perfectly well it was Quenser's group that would be surrounded if they stayed too long.
(Carat. )
If the villains could escape for just a moment here, they could get away forever.
So Quenser's group had to capture them here.
(I will create an age where you can blame me for what I did. So let me fight just a bit longer. )
It was like they had stirred up a hornet's nest.
The unlucky self-defense PMC soldiers were caught between a fire and gunfire, but there was no way to know who was part of Azumaya. The four villains had likely expected a lot of lives to be lost here. Meanwhile, the fire was spreading and enveloping the distinctive building.
"Find something we can use! I don't care what!!" shouted Heivia, his assault rifle at the ready.
"I guess we'll have to run into the burning building, huh? And this was a base, so there will be an ammo dump inside, won't there!?"
They only knew Azumaya had four members, but they had no information on the names or appearances of those four. It wasn't a problem if the Azumaya members were among those they had shot here, but they doubted it. No matter how good those four were at blending in with the other random soldiers, surely they would have done something more once a gun was pointed their way. Surely they would have played some kind of trump card that an actual random soldier wouldn't have. But Quenser's group hadn't seen anything like that.
That meant they needed to check through the burning building.
Azumaya setting fire to their own hideout proved there was something there they needed to erase lest their identities get out. Assuming they hadn't just been paranoid, there was some evidence in there. But that evidence would be erased if they didn't act fast.
On the other hand, this was extremely dangerous. No matter what people thought, you couldn't guarantee your survival in a burning building by dumping a bucket of water over your head.
"I think you should stay here, big brother, " said Catherine Barbotage when she saw the main entrance spewing dark smoke and embers.
"No!! I'd rather go in there myself than sit back and watch my 12-year-old sister do it!!"
In the end, war was all about vanity.
He charged inside with the Little Girl Army of Catherine and Wraithy accompanying him. His vision immediately narrowed due to the smoke. It was also as hot as a sauna. He was worried about his plastic explosives. Soft plastic could melt in high heats, so he feared the explosives in his backpack were being transformed.
"Hey, " called Wraith Martini Vermouthspray while cautiously aiming her submachinegun this way and that. The taciturn young man wasn't with her, so he was likely doing some other job."Time is of the essence, so where should we start the search, my panicky but slow pawn."
"We need to read Azumaya's mentality. Whatever they most wanted to hide will be at the source of the blaze!!"
When you wanted to erase evidence as quickly as possible, no one would set the fire far away from said evidence. Thus, Quenser and the others couldn't avoid the fire as they searched. They would never find what they wanted that way.
Quenser started to open the door leading further in, but Wraith and Catherine both tackled him aside. As soon as the door opened a crack, it exploded out from within. That was a backdraft. They couldn't do that every single time.
"Eek!!"
"Hee hee hee. I love the way you let your guard down and let your weak side show only for me, big brother."
"You are delusional. He wasn't trying to open up to you there."
They needed equipment allowing them to walk freely through the fire.
Quenser made a trembling suggestion while collapsed on the floor covered by little girls.
"L-let's find some powered suits. The self-defense PMC has been using a lot of them, after all."
Fortunately, the search didn't last long.
But instead of finding the cutting-edge Island Nation tech lined up on standby in the maintenance bay, they found them abandoned in a burning hallway. Those enormous suits couldn't always fit through smaller doors. There would be a labyrinthine path that allowed them this deep in the building, but the pilots hadn't been willing or able to exit the same way during the panic of the fire. Quenser, Wraith, and Catherine each procured and boarded a powered suit.
Wraith's emotionless voice arrived over the radio.
"This is better than nothing, but if an ammo dump detonates, we're dead along with anyone else in the building. Make sure you complete your mission before that happens, my cowardly attackers."
The suits did more to stop the smoke-induced pain in their eyes and noses than it did protect them from the oven-like heat, but they still appreciated it. Image correction let them see despite all the smoke, so they clanked their way through the orange heat zone with ornamental plants burning like torches and an anime-style poster for some kind of public awareness campaign blackening and peeling off the wall.
"Will that poster of a smiling and saluting anime girl really get anyone to join the self-defense PMC?" wondered Quenser."I mean, she's a short magical girl with inexplicably big tits. You aren't finding anything like that in the macho world of the military."
"Don't ask me. But we do have a lot of people who enlist because of that G-cups idol. It probably works better than a wild plant sommelier or a yoga instructor, " said Wraith, giving her big powered suit her usual cool but cute mannerisms.
Apparently Quenser wasn't the only greedy person out there. But he did wish for a word of warning before he was confronted with a girl's cold and calculating greed. It was bad for his heart.
Their objective was the source of the fire. That naturally brought them down the stairs into the basement. There were secret areas not found on the official diagrams and the place was full of smoke, so it was a nerve-wracking ordeal. Would a diver feel this kind of anxiety if they were trapped below a rusty ceiling while exploring a sunken ship and they discovered their oxygen tank had less left than they had thought?
They descended a metal stairway heated as hot as a grill and unintuitively found the intensity of the flames decreased as they approached the source of the fire.
"That means the oxygen is decreasing."
Quenser had started to breathe a sigh of relief, but his 12-year-old stepsister's comment forced him to rethink that. If not for the powered suits, they either would have had their eyeballs and lungs roasted by the heat or they would have passed out from asphyxiation.
They found a blackened metal door at the bottom of the stairs. Catherine and Wraith checked the door's seam and knob, perhaps to prevent a backdraft, but Quenser couldn't tell what they were looking for. In the end the two little girls in big armor exchanged a cute nod and gently opened the door.
They found a large space within.
That was the large server room supporting the self-defense PMC's datalink. It felt like a locker room larger than a soccer field lined with vending machines instead of lockers. The place had to have more than double the processing power of a communication data center covering all the phones and tablets in Kantou.
The stairs leading down by the wall suggested this was just one floor, so how many computers did they have set up in all?
"The flames must have spread out through the ducts in search of air, " said Quenser."Okay, where should we start the search?"
"The emergency data transfer route. There's no way a facility this size doesn't do backups."
"Wouldn't the people wanting to hide their data know about the backups?"
"What if these backups were done secretly outside the usual official military regulations? In the military, it isn't unusual for a commanding officer to install keyloggers on all the computers in their unit to monitor everyone under their command. Although sometimes it backfires when the poor bald-headed fool discovers one of his subordinates is sleeping with his wife and his daughter and essentially taken over his family. You don't want others to know you're gathering their data. If they don't know, they have no way of defending against it."
Wraith really was a former(?) Information Alliance commander.
All of the cases had melted from the heat, but not all of the computers were broken. Wraith pointed at a functioning one (using her powered suit's thick fingers) while explaining that to the others. And Azumaya's fire gave them a hint here. The computer that had been directly set on fire was the most suspicious one.
"Big brother, the fuel was only poured on this one. It's labeled N-88."
"There's your answer, Wraith."
"N-88 itself was physically burned, but these are parallel computers. The shared cache should remain in the surrounding servers. Yep, there it is. N-88 contained a personnel condition visualization and quantification service providing their skills, physical condition, motivation, etc. Basically, it's the data used to determine their pay. The place is officially Capitalist Corporations, but it was actually a mix of the world powers."
Quenser frowned, but he made sure to speak aloud since she couldn't see the frown through his powered suit.
"Um, but won't that database have tens of thousands of people in it?"
"The four we want were sent to the Island Nation from the Legitimacy Kingdom, Capitalist Corporations, Information Alliance, and Faith Organization at around the same time. Coordinators like them would have no past offences on their record and know at least three languages. We know they have to be experts in psychology and negotiation technique and they definitely have to know a thing or two about economics and geopolitics....And unless you're putting together a hacker team, you wouldn't care too much about the academic history of your general personnel, so the unusually educated ones will stand out. And voila: here are exactly four with a ton of qualifications unrelated to killing."
She read off the list.
"From the Legitimacy Kingdom, we have Caines Ambrosia. Age: 28. Sex: Male.
"From the Capitalist Corporations, we have Isabelle Millionaire. Age: 22. Sex: Female.
"From the Information Alliance, we have Fong-Lan Greendevil. Age: 39. Sex: Male.
"From the Faith Organization, we have Daria Weddingbell. Age: 15. Sex: Female."
They had finally found them.
They had identified Azumaya, the villains who benefited from this sh*tty world war.
"I can't believe this, " groaned Quenser."I thought this was an Island Nation conspiracy. But this is all outsiders - not a single Island Nationer among them. I know they're all mercenaries, but the self-defense PMC really got the short end of the stick here."
"Azumaya only wanted a magician's table they could use to fool everyone watching. And the taboo of this place worked quite nicely there."
Snipers, hackers, and global string pullers all had one thing in common: they worked best when no one knew who they were.
Part 8
Shooting through the Asian Monster's reactor wasn't enough to sink it.
The battle against an immortal monster had begun.
"Tch!!"
Lendy Farolito had returned to the combat information center at some point and now she clicked her tongue while facing a whiteboard. She used multiple pens to fill that board with letters and arrows colored black, red, and blue.
* Multiple reactors?
* Sub power system?
* Reactor not fully destroyed?
* A spare sent up and attached from the ocean floor?
* Does it even use a JPlevelMHD?
She wasn't even considering if these possibilities were realistic. She would list out all of her ideas and pit them against each other to achieve greater inspiration. The possibilities would grow more specific and realistic as she went. As long as the countless theories combined into the right answer in the end, it didn't matter how absurd they were to begin with. This may have been how she organized her thoughts.
"Oh?"
Frolaytia Capistrano was somewhat impressed. Not so much by the technique than by Lendy's willingness to show it off in front of the Legitimacy Kingdom.
That may have shown she had accepted them more than Frolaytia had thought.
Then there was the text written extra large in the center of the whiteboard.
* How can I shine the spotlight on that girl?
"..."
Frolaytia Capistrano silently put her kiseru in her mouth when she saw it. Why was defeating the enemy Object not her top priority?
She stiffly turned her head to look at the brown woman using the pens and saw she was breathing heavily.
"Risks are necessary for a return. Risks are necessary for a return. Yes, a true idol can't just be strong. She needs a weaker side that you feel like she's only letting you see! Pull that off and it becomes the greatest rocket fuel toward stardom!!!!!"
"Hold on."
Lendy may have seen war as nothing more than a way to advertise her idol. Frolaytia began to wonder if she had only joined Together By Chance because ending the world war was the most heroic option.
But there was something else written in tiny letters at the very edge of the whiteboard.
* The Legitimacy Kingdom would make a good sacrificial pawn☆
Frolaytia finally grabbed the heavily-breathing woman by the collar.
"That's it!! Don't you dare write that with all those cutesy decorations!!!"
Part 9
The Baby Magnum and the Rush needed to gather information and come up with a new plan fast. They were the ones being exposed to enemy fire after all.
Time didn't actually stop when the unexpected happened.
In her cockpit, the Princess glared at the unbelievable sight through her special goggles.
"How is it still operational!?"
"Oh ho ho. Could it have another reactor attached elsewhere?"
That couldn't be.
Even a bare reactor was 10m across. There was no way it could be hidden in the main cannon or propulsion device. There would be an obvious bulge there if it was. That was how it had worked with the Extra Arc.
They were making some kind of fundamental misunderstanding.
And if they didn't figure it out fast, they would be in serious trouble.
"This one looks stronger than the Lizard Tail, so we need to find a solution fast. But it sounds like the important people like Frolaytia and Lendy aren't going to be much help here."
"Hey!"
"Hey!"
She had forgotten to switch off her radio, but she didn't have time to worry about those complaints.
The Princess nodded with a completely serious look on her face.
"Help me, Quenser. I'm scared."
"Hey, no fair!! What kind of puppy dog voice was that!?"
They were up against an immortal Object they couldn't seem to destroy and a laser fortress gun accurately firing from Mount Fuji's summit.
When she explained the situation over the radio, Quenser Barbotage responded with exasperation in his voice.
"So you have two problems: you don't know where the Asian Monster's reactor is located and there's a laser fortress gun using an absurd amount of energy on Mount Fuji's summit. Sounds simple enough to me. So, Princess, what is the surrounding EM situation like? Have you encountered any radar or communication interference? Like a bit of static or a drop in transmission speed?"
"Yes, but it isn't on the level of jamming. The Island Nation is desperate, so aren't they sending all their radars out from Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa?"
"That's not it at all." He fully rejected her idea and gave the real answer."It's wireless power transfer. And the communication interference confirms the medium they're using is EM. Simply put, the reactor is located up on Mount Fuji and the naval Object is running off of the power sent from there. We thought it was waiting for you out in the middle of Tokyo Bay because fighting in the complex urban area is tricky - and I'm sure that is part of it - but all the buildings would get in the way of the EM waves while the open ocean doesn't."
"Oh ho ho. But it rose from below the surface at the start of the battle. EM waves have trouble penetrating water. That's why sonar is used instead of radar."
"That's probably why it uses an air cushion. The initial surfacing action was just it using its floats. It only started receiving the wireless power after reaching the surface....The 400mm railguns on the artillery islands didn't have reactors either. Heivia guessed they used an undersea cable, but they didn't need to. It was all EM."
"..."
"And if the Object isn't acting scared after you've given it such a beating, I doubt the cockpit is there either. But drone-style remote control signals are pretty distinctive, so you would have picked those up by now. It may use a form of human body communication instead."
"Human body?"
"The body is mostly water, so it conducts electricity. Human body communication uses that fact to send and receive data using the body in place of an antenna or wire. The idea is to keep the data inside an implanted chip or a wristwatch and have it sent when two people shake hands or something. That way the signal can't be intercepted by a third party....Isn't that perfect for this? Tokyo Bay is full of salt water, so if you wanted to, you could send electrical signals through it and control the Object floating in it."
Simply put...
"The Object's true identity is Tokyo Bay itself. The Pilot Elite's nerves reach every part of that ocean, so what looks like a clean hit doesn't really matter. Even when it reacts like it's hurt, that's just an act like the bit parts in a samurai movie who have to be 'safely cut down' by the samurai's sword. You'll never deliver a finishing blow to the Asian Monster if you fight normally and strike where you think will work. But now that you know the trick, you have nothing to fear. Existing tech gives you plenty of ways to scatter and attenuate the EM waves and the electrical signals in the ocean. Wars aren't won by clever tricks. Show this monster just how frightening the fundamentals can be, Princess. You can win this."
Part 10
After removing the radio from his mouth, Quenser stared off into the distance.
"Yeah, that's the job I should've been doing all along. Why am I even on this mission?"
"You don't want to spend time with me, big brother?" asked his sweaty sister with a glare.
But as much as the blonde braid girl put her hands on her hips and puffed out her cheeks, she still had a lot of growing to do and lacked the seduction skills needed to draw that idiot's attention.
After escaping the burning Ichigaya garrison, they had removed the powered suits. The armor had done the job, but those weren't specialized firefighting gear. The overheat alarm had been beeping at them the entire time, so they hadn't been comfortable staying in them longer than necessary. Staying at the site of the fire would have cooked them alive in those oversized foil wrappings.
Azumaya.
They had names and faces to search for now, so they wouldn't have to shoot all of the PMC soldiers here in Ichigaya. Well, they would unfortunately still have to silence those soldiers if they resisted.
Just as Quenser was thinking that, he heard some heavy tires tearing at the ground.
It was an eight-wheeled...something. The hunk of metal was about the size of a large fire truck, but it didn't seem to be a black armored truck. It appeared to have a boxy silhouette at first, but it actually had a folded-up crane arm on the back.
"That's an armored recovery vehicle!!" shouted Wraith Martini Vermouthspray, eyes wide.
"Eh? It's a what???"
That was apparently a type of military vehicle. Quenser wasn't sure what it meant, but it didn't particularly matter right now. He could only think of four people who would try to escape in the confusion right now. Unlike an ordinary bus or van, it had no rear windows, but Quenser still glimpsed the young man in the driver's seat.
That was Caines Ambrosia, one of the Azumaya members in the data they had extracted. Quenser had also glimpsed some other people inside.
"You're not getting away!!"
"This sounds like a job for us."
An armored truck started forward.
Most of the potatoes had come here on foot, so they didn't have many vehicles available for a car chase.
When the Martini triplets' truck passed by, Quenser grabbed onto the side. The tank-style continuous track seemed like it would be slow, but the truck could actually move at highway speeds.
"Big brother!!"
"You stay there, Catherine!!"
"Your clothes will get caught in the track! Climb up on top!!"
His stepsister cutely formed a megaphone with her hands to give him some very helpful advice that made his balls shrivel in fear. He was now intensely aware of the track grinding away as loudly as a chainsaw. He was dead if he didn't obey her and fast.
He found Heivia had climbed atop the truck from the other side. When their eyes met, the idiots exchanged a greeting.
"Wanted to be a part of ending this mess?" asked Quenser.
"Nah, I just don't trust those triplets, " said Heivia."Who knows what they'll do once we're not watching."
That was the way of things in a messy war.
The elevated highways had already been destroyed by the Island Nation, so the vehicle the size of a large tour bus was trying to escape along the labyrinthine collection of ordinary roads. It couldn't quite make the turns, ignored the lights, and covered both sides of the road. That was all necessitated by its size, but it still felt like too much.
"Yikes. Am I imagining things or is the rubble burning over there?"
"That isn't the explosives. There was a parking lot below the highway and the crushed cars would have been full of gas. That could explode at any time."
Anyone who would have been out this late was staying indoors due to the war, but they would have run over quite a few people in just a few minutes otherwise.
Heivia checked the blue sign hanging over the road as the wind whipped at him.
"Looks like we're headed west. They aren't driving all the way to Mount Fuji, are they? Come to think of it, that laser fortress gun is still up there, isn't it?"
"Are they trying to get help from whoever's at the summit? Or they could be trying to lose us in Aokigahara forest at the foot of the mountain. The thick forest creates a tunnel that satellites can't see through and I've heard compasses malfunction in there too. Not to mention the self-defense PMC has a largescale training camp at the foot of the mountain."
Simply put, they needed to take those four out before they left Tokyo.
Together By Chance's two Objects were in Tokyo Bay and Quenser's group did not want to get too far away from their Objects in the unfamiliar Island Nation.
The Martini triplets used their radio to speak to them from within the truck.
"If we know they're the villains, we can just kill them now, can't we?"
"Wraith, " said Quenser.
"It would be best to leave one of them alive for a court martial, but the documents and data we have acquired is enough to prove their murder exchange and that they started the world war through Bad Garage. Think of taking one alive as a bonus. Now get firing."
"You heard the lady."
With the hum of a heavy motor, the gun on the roof slowly turned. It was a lot slimmer than a tank's gun, but a 40mm autocannon still had more than three times the caliber of an anti-materiel rifle. A spray of bullets from that could tear someone apart along with the thick reinforced concrete wall they were hiding behind.
Two seconds before it started firing, something hopped up from the ground.
It came from the armored recovery vehicle. It was basically a large tow truck used to tow destroyed military vehicles and missile launchers from the battlefield. The wire had been released and the J-shaped hook that resembled a monstrous fishing hook had had bounced off the asphalt.
Orange sparks flew while the wild hook soared toward the Martini triplets' truck. It crashed into the side of the autocannon barrel that was a bit thicker than a construction pipe.
The 25ton truck slid diagonally from the hit.
Quenser clenched his teeth and clung to the roof before shouting about what he had noticed.
"Stop!! Do not fire!!"
"Eh? Why not?" asked the triplets.
"The barrel is bent. Fire now and you'll blow us up!!"
The truck had no device to detect a bent barrel with laser reflection, probably because the reflectors would get wet whenever the amphibious vehicle went in the water.
With more heavy clangs and crashes, the thick wire and metal hook flew into the air again. It was like a morning star used to crush a knight's helmet. Quenser would be helpless to stop it if it happened to fly toward his head. And if it caught the edge of the truck, the entire truck would probably be thrown around.
Their only remaining weapons were the 12. 7mm heavy machinegun attached near the hatch and the 81mm mortar forcibly attached at the rear.
Heivia slid back across the roof to get at the more difficult mortar.
"I doubt I can hit a moving target with this, but I can give you a shot if it lands in front of them and forces them to slam the brakes. Quenser! You aim for their ass with that machinegun! Just get it aimed and pull the trigger when the time comes! It's fixed to the roof, so you don't have to worry about the recoil!!"
When Quenser hesitated uncertainly, the nearby hatch burst open and triplets in red parade uniforms crawled out from between his legs while he sat on the roof.
Alisa Martini Sweet.
Rica Martini Medium.
Orsia Martini Dry.
They moved more like a single sea anemone than individual sisters. Quenser could only tell them apart by their hair styles and chest sizes.
"What are you doing? Hurry it up."
"Oh? Do you not know how to use it?"
"Fine, we'll show you how it's done. First, hold this like this."
They were all over him a moment later. If they were going to lean against him and move his arms for him, why couldn't they just operate the gun themselves!?
Meanwhile, Heivia was shedding tears of blood.
"Why is it always him!!!???"
Also, hadn't Catherine mentioned in her journal that she liked how he didn't use guns?
Alisa Martini Sweet licked her lips and blew a breath in Quenser's ear.
"Now, just move this like this and you can shoot out all of that hot stuff built up deep inside☆"
"Um, um, wait. I made a promise to innocent Catherine. Stop! I can't betray a 12-year-old like this! No, I can't stop iiiiit!!"
The 12. 7mm bullets showed a complete lack of stamina by shooting out in full-auto mode at the lightest of touches. Sparks blossomed from the asphalt to the left of the armored recovery vehicle, so Orsia Martini Dry's slender hand grabbed the long, thick shaft and yanked it to the side. The full-auto bullets formed a line like a sewing machine that finally found its target.
The bullets tore through thick metal and sent orange sparks flying. The flying wire thicker than a thumb was severed and the metal hook bigger than Quenser's head flew toward them.
Terrified, Quenser accidentally buried his face in the boobs of one of the triplets.
"Watch ou- mgh!!"
"Oh, my☆"
"(Medium, do you really think he's going to notice we're trying to make him jealous when he has his hands full driving?)"
"(He's as dense as they come, so I seriously doubt it. But it's his clueless and harmless side we fell for, so it's not like we can complain. )"
The triplets were smiling darkly about something, but Quenser had bigger things to worry about.
A few of the heavy machinegun's bullets had hit eight-wheeled armored recovery vehicle, but it was still running. Just like a fire truck or crane, its special equipment doubled as thick armor. Think of it like a dump truck full of gravel. That wouldn't matter if they could fire directly to the front or side of the driver's compartment, but it was hard to do serious damage when firing from the rear.
A light flashed in the night sky.
By the time he noticed that, a powerful laser beam had already sliced through the darkness and torn through Sendagaya. The luxury apartment buildings alongside the road glowed orange after being melted through.
"Damn them!"
"Are they twisting around in that shaking vehicle to use a binoculars-style handheld targeting device? I don't see any other way an anti-air optical weapon would miss a moving truck like that."
Quenser was boiling with anger, but the Martini sister supporting his face with her boobs kept her cool. And once he extracted his face from those soft cushions, he noticed something else.
"What?"
Quenser was forced to look back to get a second look at the destruction alongside the road.
"Those aren't office buildings. They're apartments where people live. But I didn't hear any screams as they collapsed and I don't see any bodies among the rubble."
"They're probably empty."
But why?
He could understand an office building or department store being empty in the middle of the night, but it didn't make sense for apartments. Those were people's homes, so they should have been there sleeping at this hour.
(Have they already completed a largescale evacuation of all the residents? No, we caught the self-defense PMC by surprise, so they barely had time to get their railway gun set up. I doubt they would have had time to think about anything other than defense. )
But now was not the time to worry about this mystery of Island Nation culture.
He noticed a few signs for musical instrument stores and live music venues before they drove past a blue road sign saying Shinjuku. A distinctive building shaped like a rugby ball standing on end was visible in the distance. They also passed by the wreckage of an elevated railroad. Heivia gave a shout when he noticed.
"We've moved outside the Yamanote Line loop!? How far are we from the ocean now? We can't move any further from Tokyo Bay. Nothing good comes from leaving your Object in enemy territory!!"
This was never going to end at this rate.
The buildings rapidly grew smaller and more closely packed after they crossed the Yamanote Line. That meant the layout of the roads would get more complicated as well. Only so many routes were accessible to the large armored recovery vehicle and armored truck, but Quenser's group was still worried they would lose sight of the enemy at any moment.
That was when new instructions arrived over their radio.
"Ice Girl 1 to ground team. We finally neutralized Haneda Air Base's ability to get aircraft in the air, so we can provide you with air support. You just want to stop that vehicle in front of you, right? I can take care of that before you leave Shinjuku. I'll give you a countdown, so prepare for a bumpy ride."
The unique silhouette of a Zig-27 fighter flew in from out ahead with an aerial bomb already detached from its main wing. Instead of hitting the fleeing armored recovery vehicle itself, it blew up the road ahead to keep the vehicle from continuing.
"That's a hit."
"What happened to the countdown!?"
To Quenser, the noise felt more like being hit by an invisible wall.
Even with its continuous tracks holding tightly to the road, their truck slid to the side. An expanding gray cloud of dust rushed in at them from the front.
That filthy screen blocked their view of the armored recovery vehicle up ahead.
But that wasn't their biggest problem.
As the armored truck regained its balance and continued on ahead, it suddenly broke free of gravity.
Or rather, it fell into a large hole opened by the aerial bomb.
The actual fear crawled up Quenser's spine after they were already falling. He clung to one of the triplets' waists and buried his face in her boobs again.
"An underground...space!?"
"I don't care if you bite your tongue when we land, but I have to admit I'd be mad if you bit my nipple off, okay?"
Part 11
A distinctive delta wing fighter cut across Tokyo Bay late at night. That was Burning Alpha's S/G-31. The enemy Object was still functional and the anti-air laser continued to fire from Mount Fuji's peak, but the ace pilots' dance continued unabated.
The fighter flew above the Baby Magnum and radioed a report and a suggestion to the Pilot Elite.
"Burning Alpha to naval team. We liquefied all of Haneda's runways, so nothing is getting off the ground there. We're switching our objective to supporting you."
"Burning Alpha, the Asian Monster is using EM-based wireless power transfer. Do you have any ideas how we can prevent that!?"
"This'll be the easiest commendation I've ever earned."
The delta wing fighter reduced altitude and flew between the Baby Magnum and the Rush at supersonic speed while dropping something. What looked like glittering confetti was the chaff normally used as a missile countermeasure.
The metal foil spread through the air would scatter the EM waves used for radar.
However...
"Th-the output levels we're talking about are on another level entirely! Oh ho ho. I doubt that can block energy on the level of a power plant!!"
"I wasn't expecting it to. This is the Age of Objects, isn't it? You two aim your main cannons at the ocean. Fire on the surface and you'll create pillars of chaff-filled seawater!!"
The Princess's low-stability plasma cannon and Oh Ho Ho's rapid-fire beam Gatling cannon produced deafening booms.
The instant their shots contacted the dark ocean surface, they produced a loud sizzling sound. But that was not just a steam explosion from the seawater. It included a lot of the chaff Burning Alpha had distributed beforehand.
It all transformed into a hot spray.
That coated the Asian Monster's surface, making it shine like a mirror's silver coating.
And what happened next?
"Oh?"
The Asian Monster's fierce movements clearly slowed. The wireless power coming from the mountaintop could be blocked if its EM receptors were given a metal coating not even a millimeter thick.
"But this won't stop it for long. This is far from a perfect solution. Young lady, does it have any other weaknesses!? Or is the wireless power all we've got!?"
"U-um, Quenser said it uses something called human body communication. The ocean surface itself is used to send it electrical signals to remotely control it."
Lendy Farolito cut in, pounding excitedly on something. Maybe a combat information center console and maybe a whiteboard.
"Then move your Objects around to stir up the seawater!! Make a circle with a diameter of greater than 100m and you can win!! This part is crucial!!!!!!"
They complied on reflex.
The Baby Magnum and the Rush repeatedly swapped positions. It looked like they were ballroom dancing, but their naval floats were rotating the seawater like a washing machine.
Sending a faint electric current through the water meant there would be some magnetism there too. And it was a known fact that rotating a fluid containing a magnetic field would generate electricity. For example, it was theorized the earth's geomagnetic field was produced by the planet's own rotation turning the magma deep below the surface and its own core into a massive generator.
This was the same.
They already had the information they needed. The Asian Monster communicated with electric signals passed through the ocean just like similar signals passed through the human body. Changing the direction of the existing electricity and giving it a rotation would create a new electromagnetic field.
And as weak as that might be, it would still interfere with the electrical signals.
The Asian Monster stopped moving altogether.
The error lasted less than a second.
But Burning Alpha's delta wing fighter passed right by the colossal weapon in that moment. The laser fortress gun atop Mount Fuji was still active. It might try to shoot down the interfering aircraft now that the situation had changed.
In fact, Burning Alpha had goaded it into doing just that.
"Go to hell smeared in your own sh*t, you freak."
After that rude declaration of victory, the enormous laser fortress gun's thoughtless shot missed the fighter and pierced the Asian Monster.
Part 12
How many meters did they actually drop?
"Ugh..."
When Quenser came to, he found himself on his back. He had been clinging to one of the Martini sisters last he remembered, but none of them were around. He noticed a scorching smell and found the armored truck lying on its side.
He was below Shinjuku.
The vast space was encased in concrete.
There were lights, but not nearly enough. A tunnel-like darkness remained.
Containers were piled up like this was a supply warehouse, but the space was larger than a soccer field.
Yes, this was simply a space. It wasn't a subway tunnel or a highway. It wasn't a route leading somewhere. It felt more like a public facility of some kind. He shook his heavy head and slowly got up while guessing this was a common utility duct used to manage rainwater, power cables, and more.
A handgun he didn't recognize lay nearby.
He silently picked it up and walked onward. The armored recovery vehicle they had been pursuing was stopped a short distance away. Its eight wheels were on the ground, but the driver's compartment was half scrapped after crashing into a concrete wall.
Someone was groaning below the passenger side door.
She was a blonde-haired brown-skinned girl of about 15. That would make her Daria Weddingbell of the Faith Organization.
She was part of Azumaya.
She was one of the villains who had started a world war for their own benefit. The shock of falling underground must not have killed her, but she appeared to have severe internal injuries. Quenser slowly approached from head on, but she didn't even have the strength to ready a gun or knife.
If not for her...
If not for that piece of sh*t, that boy and his mother would still be...
"You..."
He immediately fired a shot into the center of her body.
He didn't care if he was violating the rules. She continued groaning even after collapsing into a pool of her own blood, so he fired another shot into her head at close range. That fully silenced her.
Immediately afterwards, a scorching bullet tore through the air from a different angle.
It hit Quenser, knocking him to the side. Someone else was lurking in the shadows here. When the younger girl had said "you", she may not have been talking to Quenser.
Had she been cursing this other person for using her as bait?
The four members of Azumaya had used the confusion to escape Ichigaya together, but that didn't mean they were good buddies. It was damage to the Faith Organization alone that had led to the start of the world war which had made the strength of the world powers crumble, so they may have been at each other's throats already.
"Ha. Ha ha. I'm not dying here."
"...Azumaya."
This one was an Asian man of around forty.
He was probably Fong-Lan Greendevil.
"I will do whatever it takes to survive. It's not like this world is worth protecting anyway!!"
Quenser had still not let go of his gun. His muscles may have locked up while he gripped it in his overexcited state.
He held the gun out while collapsed on his side.
But the man was faster.
A dry gunshot echoed through the enclosed underground space.
Quenser was untrained and his hand was trembling, so his shot missed. It hit the wall, sending orange sparks flying.
But the Azumaya man, Fong-Lan, didn't hit either.
"Oh?"
The global villain had a final question on his lips as he doubled over and collapsed to the filthy floor. The man had sacrificed his comrade to survive, but his fate was a swift one.
There was someone else here.
That was the answer to his question.
"Are you alive, boy?"
That someone else wore a Legitimacy Kingdom uniform.
But Quenser had never seen him before. His smile did nothing to put Quenser at ease. But the last time Quenser had seen this man, he had already used plastic surgery to alter the face he was born with.
He could only think of one person this could be.
"Are you...Nyarlathotep?"
"That name holds no meaning, " said the faceless man.
He was a monster in a different way from the Objects.
He had started out as a Capitalist Corporations spy, but he had refused to forgive the society that stole his family and birthplace from him and become a true "evil god" who had assassinated a 7th Core CEO all on his own.
"If you can ask a question like that, you must not be bleeding too badly. Something in your survival kit pouch must have stopped the bullet. Your gear will be a mess, but it's better than dying."
"What are you doing here?"
"I never intended to show my face again, but the current age demanded it. And I think I'll repay it by tearing down this world war."
When had he infiltrated the 37th? Come to think of it, hadn't someone Quenser didn't recognize pulled him out from below the rubble after the plasma strike on Charles de Gaulle Airport?
He heard some movement.
From deeper in.
"Let's go."
"...Yeah."
They opened the door to find stairs leading down.
Their eyes met someone else's when they took a look down the metal stairway. Quenser and Nyarlathotep fired simultaneously.
The third Azumaya member was holding something, but she could only shoot one person at a time. One of the two bullets hit the woman, knocking her back against the wall where she slid to the floor with a red stain growing around her.
Quenser remained standing.
Nyarlathotep had fallen to the floor and stopped moving.
There was nothing special about it.
No matter how long he had remained undercover and no matter how much he acted like it was a piece of cake, a single bullet was all it took in a real war. The same conditions applied to Quenser as well.
But Quenser would almost certainly have died without him here.
"Nyarlat-"
"You moron!! This is Yog-Sothoth!! The last one is still alive and unfortunately you're the only one still capable of doing anything about it!! So go!! End this world war!!"
The voice of an elusive female hacker came from the phone in Nyarlathotep's pocket. She would have been the one who gave him the electronic ID he needed to infiltrate the Legitimacy Kingdom military.
Quenser didn't have time to be sentimental.
There was only one left.
He had no one left to rely on. From here on, it would be one-on-one.
He would stop them, no matter what.
(Wait just a little longer, Carat. )
"Caines Ambrosia."
He was the bastard who had come to the Island Nation from the Legitimacy Kingdom.
Quenser had four rounds left in his gun. Killing this man would eliminate the Azumaya group that had taken root in the Island Nation. That would prevent him from attempting the same thing again.
Quenser pictured the hemispherical prosthetic eye lying on that roof.
And he recalled the message inside the amulet: Good luck, mom.
"..."
At the bottom of the metal stairs, found a door leading to a small chamber and another door. That was to keep people from tracking dirt inside and to keep even small amounts of dust from blowing in with the air as the door opened and closed. It was a common feature at semiconductor plants. He passed through both doors.
On the other side, he found bright lights and a model roller coaster filling a vast space.
The automated factory had a great number of test tubes traveling along conveyer belts arranged in all three directions. Some kind of thick, clear jelly filled the bottom few centimeters of the tubes, but he had no idea what the factory was meant to do.
"Those are sperm and ova."
Quenser wordlessly spun around and aimed his gun toward the sudden voice, but that spot was already deserted. A young man's voice came from behind a metal box larger than a refrigerator. It may have been a control panel of some kind.
That was Caines.
The final member of Azumaya and the bastard who had started the world war.
No one would have suffered without him.
"The Island Nationers are created here. They labor away, follow the government's recommendations even in how they use their days off, and make sure to pay their taxes - all without questioning any of it. You should have noticed something off about things on the surface."
"The apartments you blew up were empty even late at night. And again, those were apartments, not office buildings."
"The civilian evacuation happened awfully quickly for how unexpected your attack was. You didn't see anyone out on the streets or a single abandoned civilian vehicle, did you?"
Quenser slowly circled behind the piece of machinery with deadly gun in hand, but there was no one there.
Caines Ambrosia's voice came from a second-floor walkway overhead. There weren't any stairs nearby, so what had he used to climb up?
"They didn't disappear - they weren't there to begin with. The country's poor birthrate has caused the population to fall to critical levels over the past decade. Maybe 20% of residences are occupied anymore. Really, the mystery is how they built up such large cities in the first place. Do you know the Island Nation's food self-sufficiency rate? Even with ample ocean resources, the place couldn't support itself without importing a lot of food if all of those windows really did have people living behind them."
That was why the place was full of empty homes like a city set up for a movie shoot.
That was how they had continued on with the resource and food consumption rates dwindling.
That was why the world powers no longer considered the Island Nation a threat.
Eventually, the resource and food consumption rates would drop to zero. The country would destroy itself on its own, so why bother fighting it? This was the trick to turning that around.
The real population of Island Nationers could be massive.
There could a hundred million of them, if not a billion.
They were mass-producing humans to bolster their national strength without anyone the wiser. If you could create humans like that, you could build factories for other kinds of meat as well. And if that wasn't enough, chemically-created jellies and supplements could be made.
It was all meaningless of course.
It was an empty trick created to cling to their pride. They didn't want to grow old and die off, so they were using their precious technology to fool the rest of the world.
Quenser Barbotage thought carefully and aimed his handgun straight up.
"So what?"
"..."
"I'm not talking about the Island Nation's crisis or contradictions. Don't dodge the issue, Caines. You're part of Azumaya. You aren't an Island Nationer; you're one of the coordinators sent in from one of the world powers. You don't really care if this nation of modified Asian DNA crumbles - you just want to use it to escape."
"Can't really deny that one."
"Why did you start the world war? War profiteering? But if that's all, you could have lived the high life using the clean wars just as well."
"I removed the hindrances, " said the young man."Each of the world powers has its own problems just like the Island Nation. And those distortions are concentrated at the very top of the four pyramids. Did you know about this? Bloodline and history are everything to your Legitimacy Kingdom. You might think that means the royals and nobles there are lionized, but that's not actually true."
"..."
"Ever heard of the Caesar Project? That isn't a specific name - it's just a catchall term for all the titles like Kaiser and Tsar. Not that I expect you to have heard of it since you need to be at least a major general for that. And in fact, no one in the military even get to know what it entails. The real leaders of your Legitimacy Kingdom are sperm and ova. They're being automatically crossbred in a shelter deep below the home country even as we speak. The calculations apparently said the 59th generation of crossbreeding was the earliest that the process could create the ideal ruler, but they are apparently in the middle of around 176 generations of detours to reduce or neutralize hereditary diseases."
The young man continued with amusement in his voice.
"The Body File saying the Legitimacy Kingdom is fighting wars to gather the rare herbs and minerals needed for the frail royals and nobles is secretly a way of gathering materials for the Caesar Project. The nobles are all catalogued and the commoners are only allowed to live as sources of highly-randomized genes. Did you realize what it was you were kneeling to? If you're fine with bowing your head to a smelly refrigerated pool sprinkled with pubic hairs and if you're fine being no more than a faucet that provides all the white goo your superiors demand, then feel free to turn around and go home."
Quenser heard an electronic beeping.
Was it coming from Caines Ambrosia's pocket?
Whatever it signified, he laughed quietly before continuing.
"That means the bomb sent by the Faith Organization has blown away Caesar. The gilded test tube has been shattered and the Legitimacy Kingdom's idol is no more."
"..."
"It's a real tragedy what happened to the Faith Organization. With Rome sunk, its people have finally realized that relying on charismatic religious leaders does not actually protect you from bullets. The alchemy holding together the Capitalist Corporations' 7th Core is in fact a financial calculations computer designed for computing life insurance. To them, human life isn't even something to preserve. It is a resource to be either sold off or consumed as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately for them, the incalculable world war caused such violent fluctuations that the 7th Core companies are filing for bankruptcy left and right....The current world is ending. Anyone should have seen that from the very beginning. This was never about the disasters brought by Objects or what the Island Nation did to avoid its slow demise. Our world was broken in a more fundamental way from the word go."
The world powers were like the four legs of a table.
If just one of them broke, the table would be tilted.
But what if all four were broken? Then they would reach a new stability after the catastrophic fall.
Quenser Barbotage had considered that a bit himself.
And he had arrived at an answer.
He did not hesitate to fire straight up.
Something wobbled, tumbled over the walkway railing, and dropped down.
Quenser aimed his gun at collapsed Caines.
"Everything about this stinks."
"Kah...ah."
"You said you needed to reach the rank of major general to have even heard of the Legitimacy Kingdom's Caesar Project and no one in the military knows what it entails, didn't you?"
The boy's expression was unchanged.
No matter how disgusted he was, he couldn't just ignore that long-ass speech.
"Then how did the coordinators of Azumaya learn about it?" His tone was icy."How would a member of the military like you know a secret no one in the military knows about? Did you think it was a coincidence? Did you think you were just so clever you were the only exception? Not a chance. No one can keep a secret like that if there's a loophole someone like you could exploit."
"..."
The man must have realized the truth.
But it was too late now.
"How did you learn about it? That'll tell you who was really behind it all. You were only being fed information like so many others."
"Ah."
Quenser aimed for the center of the head and pulled the trigger multiple times, permanently silencing the poor young man.
Now he was out of ammo.
He tossed the empty handgun aside.
He didn't need to hear the answer from the man because he had already arrived at it himself.
It all came down to paying attention to what Caines Ambrosia had said.
The top of the Legitimacy Kingdom, the Caesar Project, had been blown up with a bomb.
The top of the Capitalist Corporations, 7th Core, was being driven to bankruptcy.
The top of the Faith Organization, their religious leaders, had disappointed the people and lost their charisma.
But what about the Information Alliance?
The massive AI network that ruled over all people and things in that world power was the sole survivor of this world war. More than that, it was entirely untouched.
The human factory shook violently around Quenser. An error must have been detected because the many conveyer belts carrying the test tubes came to a stop and the lights switched to red.
It didn't matter how far he was from Tokyo Bay or that he was deep underground.
A normal Object never could have done that. Something so massive was approaching that it required a 200 thousand ton Object that cost 5 billion dollars to be qualified as "normal".
He could only think of one option.
"That damn thing."
Part 13
There was no applause.
No one got to work analyzing who deserved how much credit for the Asian Monster's destruction. They had even forgotten about the presence of the laser fortress gun atop Mount Fuji.
Everyone had noticed the appearance of a much more dangerous enemy on the battlefield.
And this may have been an enemy of the Island Nation as well as the Princess and Oh Ho Ho.
"Th-there's something there." The operator paled inside the combat information center."It's 20km long? I don't believe it. This isn't a megafloat airport. It's...it's an Object!!"
Frolaytia and Lendy both watched in silence.
Only after working up the nerve did they quietly speak.
"Hey, that toy belongs to your people, doesn't it? Got any information on it?"
"It isn't from my department. I might be able to find some small loophole or trick to use, but do you really think I have the detailed plans for that thing?"
Tokyo Bay was completely sealed off by something rising from the ocean to the south.
The culprit was more than 20km long. With it stationed at the narrow entrance to the bay, it physically blocked the way out to the open ocean, no need for cannons at all.
That was the Information Alliance's strongest Object and its home country.
That was the Manhattan 000.
"Ah ha ha."
Melly Martini Extradry.
- 29 of the genius girl project.
The blonde-haired brown-skinned girl had her butt inside a large swim ring and wore VR goggles upside down while gently speaking toward the notebook-sized video game system she held.
"Now, let's extract the rest of the world's pus. 819. I lend the Manhattan 000 to you, Capulet. I'll just make any necessary corrections☆"
| ← Ch. 181 | Ch. 183 → |