“The situation is quite simple,” began Major Froleytia Capistrano in the pre-mission briefing room which was filled with soldiers. “The Information Alliance is turning false accusation against us and the Legitimacy Kingdom’s 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion intends to respond in full force. Beginning now, the entire battalion will prepare our response. They will be sending a second generation Object, so if you don’t want to die, help the princess score as many points as possible.”

Froleytia stood on a large platform and the white wall behind her was being used a projector screen.

Their greatest threat at the moment was displayed there.

“Our only confirmed enemy at the moment is the Information Alliance’s second generation Object named Simple Is Best. Its main cannon is a low-stability plasma cannon and its propulsion method is an air cus.h.i.+on for both naval and land use, but its most unique features are the pointed beak-shaped armor added to the front and the countless high-output ion thrusters attached for auxiliary propulsion.”

Several doc.u.ments were displayed at once.

The intelligence division’s research and a.n.a.lysis of the Object had made enough progress for that much information.

Heivia leaned over and whispered to Quenser.

“(What were those high-output something or others?)”

“(A type of ion engine. Normally, ion engines are attached to s.p.a.ce probes to provide weak but lengthy effects in zero-gravity, but this thing uses the energy of an Object’s reactor to forcibly produce an insane output. You can think of it like a s.p.a.ce shuttle sitting on its side.)”

“(Why would they use such a pain-in-the-a.s.s method?)”

“(There are several rumors about that. Some say the Information Alliance is trying to build a flying Object. Others say they’re trying to develop a perfect circulation system to search for habitable planets outside the solar system. Either way, the Simple Is Best is a project being used as a starting point.)”

“(What? I thought it was the Faith Organization that was desperate to make a flying Object. Wasn’t it called the Sky Castle Project or something? Instead of going with the more scientific-sounding ‘outer s.p.a.ce’, they wanted a more religious-sounding ‘kingdom above the clouds’.)”

“(It’s nothing but a reckless project for the moment, but if another world power completes that great desire of theirs ahead of time, it would break the hearts of the Faith Organization’s people.)”

“(I see. Attacking at their weak spot like that does sound like the Information Alliance.)”

“(But I hope it all ends up as a pipe dream. A flying Object would be hard to shoot down and shooting it down might cause an impact on the level of an asteroid and cause an ice age.)”

Looking over the diagram told them the Simple Is Best had a V-shaped board-like part at the bottom and a long straight part extending from the back. Overall, it had an arrow-like shape. The spherical main body was essentially attached atop the three lines making up the arrow.

The V-shaped part was used to regulate the horizontal direction and the straight line on the back was used to provide s.p.a.ce for the aforementioned high-output ion thrusters. Atop that long board like float, several cylindrical thrusters were attached at an angle. Each and every one of them was over twenty meters long.

“As the name suggests, the Object’s strategy is very simple. It does not try to evade at all. It ignores any damage, approaches its target along the shortest and fastest route, and fires its main cannon at almost point-blank range. Despite being an Object, its top speed reaches the sound barrier. Once targeted by it, your average Object cannot escape.”

“The sound barrier,” muttered Quenser who had become just one of the crowd. “But that thing’s a 200 thousand ton hunk of metal. Can it really maintain control while moving along the surface at the speed of sound?”

“Keep your comments to yourself, war criminal.”

“I can see that nickname sticking, so please stop calling me that!!” cried Quenser with tears in his eyes.

Froleytia ignored him and continued speaking.

“The beak-like armor on the front is a collection of extremely thin metal leaf. You could call it a crystallization of the best aspects of reactive armor technology. Whenever it detects an effective attack such as from a low-stability plasma cannon or railgun, the thin armor is detached to reduce the damage. If you keep at it and continue fire, it will eventually run out like a roll of toilet paper, but that is where its speed comes into play. While you are taking your time doing that, it will reach point-blank range. In other words, it will not take evasive actions. It will trust in the strength of its s.h.i.+eld and charge in from the front, no matter what kind of main cannon it is up against.”

Its specs could make one think otherwise, but the enemy’s greatest feature was its armor rather than its speed. Even the Legitimacy Kingdom was already developing Objects that focused on speed and tried to approach within close range of the target. However, it was something else entirely to not take any evasive actions and stick to the shortest course no matter what.

This direct weapon would charge in on a straight line and endure any attack to the front.

And based on the difference in speed, the Baby Magnum could not escape.

Being targeted by that Object would essentially mean the end of the match.

“The aforementioned toilet paper is only equipped to the front of the Object. Attacks from the side, back, or above will get through just fine. …But the Simple Is Best will of course be aware of its own weakness. If the Baby Magnum tries to circle around, it will likely antic.i.p.ate the action and adjust its position to compensate. The situation would be different if we had more than one Object as well, but we only have one at present. It will be extremely difficult to get behind the Simple Is Best due to its superior speed.”

Heivia had been casually listening, but then he frowned.

“Wait a sec.”

“What is it, war criminal #2?”

“At least make me #1! Being ranked under him is the biggest insult!!” he shouted before getting to his question. “Did you just say if we had more than one Object ‘as well’?”

“Oh, that.” Froleytia brushed up her bangs in annoyance. “According to some information the intelligence division got their hands on, the Information Alliance is trying to use the false accusations against us to contact the other world powers. They are suggesting they work together to defeat a common enemy. I do not know who will go along with it, but we might have to deal with more than one Object if someone wants to use this as an opportunity to damage the Legitimacy Kingdom.”

Quenser and Heivia grimaced.

The current age was known as one of clean wars fought by Objects. Objects influenced everything in those wars. The funds and technology poured into the opposing Objects was important, but the number of Objects was even more important. If it came down to one-against-three, the result was immediately obvious, so it was best to retreat as soon as possible.

“But any newcomers will simply be trying to take advantage of the situation. The Simple Is Best is the main pillar of the enemy force, so destroying it could easily convince the remaining Object or Objects not to stick around and bring even more damage to themselves.”

In that case, their primary target was the Simple Is Best.

To escape a disadvantageous battle against multiple Objects, their only option was to swiftly destroy that central pillar.

In the true desert away from the city and devoid of the asphalt and concrete that gathered heat, the nights grew cold quickly.

Quenser’s military uniform was made to handle the cold, but his teeth were chattering as he watched a 1seg broadcast on his military handheld device. The backlight dimly lit up his face as if he was holding a flashlight below his head.

“Oh ho ho. Welcome to the New York Miracle Net Festa! All of you around the world in front of your monitors, be charmed by this enchanting song and dance!! Yay!!”

“Yay!” shouted Quenser. “Bouncing b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a shaking a.s.s!!”

“Quenser, you idiot! What are you watching in the middle of our night mission!?”

“It’s called escapism! I came to the battlefield to learn about Object design, so why am I freezing to death out in the desert!?”

“Just turn it off, you idiot! Do you want to die!? …No, wait. Let me see it before you turn it off!! Come to think of it, why do you have an invitation code to that net concert!?”

“I don’t know why, but I get emails from her a lot. She can monitor whether the code was used or not and she said she’d shoot me on the battlefield if I didn’t watch it.”

Suddenly, Quenser’s radio emitted a quick electronic tone.

The princess’s voice soon followed.

“Quenser, explain further.”

“Wow! I don’t know what’s going on, but the princess is p.i.s.sed! Since she hasn’t realized her request to explain further contradicts that, she must be the type who doesn’t realize how angry she is. But why!?”

Quenser frantically asked Heivia for help, but his friend gave the wonderfully gentlemanly response of raising his middle finger and shouting “How should I know!! Maybe it’s divine punishment!!”

“All military transmissions are checked in the server, you know? What do you think you are doing there?” asked the princess.

“Wow!! Are you mad because I’m watching an Information Alliance idol’s a.s.s on a mission against the Information Alliance? I didn’t realize you were such a stickler for the rules.”

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

Comments of “this is very bad” started coming from the other soldiers spread out across the desert whose names Quenser did not know.

“If you’re gonna go with divine punishment, keep it to him!! If you use your main cannon, you’ll blow me away too!!” shouted Heivia without even trying to hide his self-centered fears.

“Honestly, why are boys so easily manipulated by girls who sing? Anyone can sing.”

“I can’t let that comment go, princess. I hope I can expect great things of your singing ability. If you aren’t aware, a certain island nation has this thing called karaoke!!”

“(Twitch) …Y-you’re on.”

“You can kill me!! As long as he dies, I don’t care if you fire the Object’s cannons!!”

Quenser ignored Heivia’s shouting and pulled the night vision goggles down from his forehead.

His vision was digitally corrected and filled with green light.

But he continued to make desperate jokes.

“So it’s finally come to this. I’m dressed in all black and wearing night vision goggles.” In the moonlight and the chill that seemed to stab at him through the darkness, his breath was white. “All right! Now I’m part of the special forces! I’m the same as the Capitalist Corporations’ Hollywood movie stars. You can shake my hand at an amus.e.m.e.nt park!!”

“Hey, Quenser. Could you quit being so annoying and get down? If one of their snipers blows your head off, I’m not gathering your remains. They’d be too heavy.”

Heivia was dressed in an all-black uniform as well. He was lying face down on the fine sand while complaining to his rotten friend who was approaching the limit of what Heivia could put up with.

The desert was cold at night.

Some deserts were made of cracked earth and some were plains with a few weeds growing at about the thickness of a filthy middle-aged man’s half-grown beard, but the ones seen in sightseeing pamphlets that were covered in nothing but sand had a large temperature difference between day and night. Because it was midsummer, the temperature did not drop below freezing, but Heivia still clicked his tongue after stabbing an electric thermometer into the sand and reading the display.

“Six degrees. It’s six degrees Celsius. You could throw some fish out here without needing to refrigerate it. What the h.e.l.l is going on?”

“I think the distance is a bigger problem,” said Quenser as he lay down on the sand. “We’re ten kilometers away. Why did we have to get off the truck so far away? This isn’t a carefully maintained sports field. Walking there and back is going to shorten my life.”

“Shut up. Don’t act like you could even run a city quarter marathon with plenty of water stations,” spat out Heivia. “At ground level, you can only see about five kilometers away. The earth is round, so the horizon covers up everything beyond that. But this is the empty desert. If the tires disturbed the sand and created a dust cloud as we travelled, it could poke up above the horizon.”

“I know what you’re trying to say, but shouldn’t the dedicated scouts handle these long-range reconnaissance missions? This doesn’t make sense. Everyone may have forgotten, but I’m only a student who wanted to learn about Object design on the battlefield.”

“And I’m a radar a.n.a.lyst! That’s an indoor job!! I’m supposed to have a cool intellectual position in an air conditioned room and a bottle of mineral water in hand, so how did I end up on this h.e.l.lish picnic where I’m freezing my a.s.s off in the desert!?”

Their commanding officer then contacted them over their radio.

Froleytia seemed to be as annoyed as them.

“Quiet down, war criminals. Do you really think you are in any position to choose your job? You should be thankful we actually need you.”

“Wow. I’ve been wondering. Shouldn’t we add a monitor to our radios? Then we could be supplied with someone – anyone – in a micro bikini.”

“You don’t get it, Heivia. This is the world of imagination. If everything is out in the open, it isn’t as arousing.”

“Okay, war criminals. Keep in mind that I can dock your pay for disrespect at any time.”

Quenser and Heivia solemnly prostrated themselves in front of the radio.

However, their apology was cheaper than a movie theater hot dog.

“(Quenser, this is because of your creepy comment about the world of imagination!)”

“(Are you sure it isn’t because of your comment about wanting ‘anyone’!?)”

“Sorry, but I can hear everything the two of you are saying.”

After having that pointed out, the two of them travelled through the desert night while keeping close to the ground.

The desert reflected the moonlight, so it was a bit brighter than a thick forest. However, Quenser had not undergone the basic training to receive the benefit of that. He had been relying solely on the overall greenish image produced by his night vision goggles.

“My eyes hurt. You aren’t supposed to have light s.h.i.+ning on your eyes from so close. Are you sure this isn’t going to ruin my eyesight? Is the blue light really okay?”

“You’re complaining about that on a battlefield where you could be blown to pieces in one second? More importantly, we need to keep following the remains of the pipeline. We’re surrounded by nothing but desert, so we’d lose our way even with a map.”

Heivia pointed toward a two meter thick metal pipe a few hundred meters away. It continued in a straight line from the horizon behind them to the horizon in front of them. However, it was brown and rusted, it had large holes in places, and it simply disappeared for a while at some points.

“Is that a remnant of the old Oceanian military government?”

“Yeah. It was a pipeline that drew water up from deep underground and carried it to large-scale farms.”

“It isn’t for oil?”

“It’s what you call water resources. These days, the trendy thing to do is add ‘resources’ to something and find a way to make money off of it. As long as it makes money, it could be anything. Water resources, underground resources, power resources, food resources, human resources, sightseeing resources, living resources, forest resources, IP resources, and so on. It feels like they wouldn’t worry about endangered species if they didn’t have a price tag.”

“Sounds like something the Capitalist Corporations would love.”

“The Faith Organization would probably love this too. There are rumors of ghosts appearing at the ruins of the purification facilities and water gathering facilities the pipeline is centered around.”

“Are you sure it isn’t people searching for anything of value?”

“Honestly, I don’t know why I even mentioned it. There’s no point in a test of courage when there isn’t a single girl around.”

The desert was not level. It undulated like a stormy sea. When they did not choose their route carefully, they were forced to walk up and down large hills again and again. To avoid exerting unnecessary energy, they tried to choose the most level route possible.

“I feel like I’m lost on Mars.”

“This is better than that. I hear there’s tungsten buried below our feet.”

“Tung…what?”

“Just to be clear, this isn’t gonna make you any money. It’s spread out too thinly for that. If this area had a valuable vein, the old military government would have dug it all up in search of funds.”

After continuing a little longer, they saw some faint light beyond the desert horizon.

Heivia crouched down even lower and whispered to Quenser.

“That’s gotta be it. They’re really going all out.”

“What is the Simple Is Best doing right now?”

“It is preparing to charge in from a position thirty kilometers from our maintenance base,” cut in Froleytia. “That’s much further out than that light you can see. It’s hiding beyond the horizon.”

There was no sign of any enemy soldiers, but the closer they approached their destination, the higher the risk of cameras and sensors. Quenser and Heivia hurried on while checking for those things using their night vision goggles’ sensors.

“This is insane,” said Quenser as he walked across the cold sand. “We haven’t heard anything back from the intelligence division team that went in ahead of us, right? Would you normally send a student somewhere that dangerous?”

“You are not the only one involved in this,” answered Froleytia.

“Still…”

“We are both professionals, so we need to be prepared for the worst case scenario. But if you run across the intelligence division team that screwed up there, take them back with you. Over.”

“I am not a professional! I’m a student!!”

Once they arrived within three kilometers of their destination, even those two idiots stopped speaking as much.

They began to crawl slowly across the undulating sand dunes. Once they arrived at the top of one dune, their vision opened up.

“Ow…”

The night vision goggles’ display filled with fluorescent green.

Feeling a slight pain in his temples, Quenser raised the goggles to his forehead and used his naked eyes.

The dark and calm desert landscape had completely changed.

The brightness had come from countless lights, both large and small.

“Yeah, it’s just as we thought,” groaned Heivia.

The scene several kilometers ahead of them resembled a temporary supply base. What stood out the most were the twenty large truck-like vehicles. They also saw prefab lodgings for over one hundred soldiers, gondola-equipped cranes in place of watchtowers, a communications facility, and defensive weapons ranging from tanks to mobile surface-to-air missile vehicles.

The lights ranged from large searchlights held by cranes to vehicle headlights and military flashlights. The one common factor was the complete lack of concern about hiding the light in the darkness.

While lying on the sand, Heivia pointed at one of the large truck-like vehicles.

“That’s one of the Capitalist Corporations’ mobile barricades. Were they called Ex. Walls? This confirms it. Another world power has joined in to crush us along with the Information Alliance’s Simple Is Best.”

“That vehicle is a barricade?”

Instead of a container on the back of the truck, it had what looked like a cylinder lying on its side. Both the front and the back of the vehicle had what looked like a driver’s compartment. Overall, it was reminiscent of a train.

Heivia bluntly answered Quenser’s question.

“You’ll see soon enough. C’mon, let’s get moving.”

As soon as he spoke, the driver’s compartments on both sides of the vehicle began moving in opposite directions. The metal cylinder in the middle expanded like an accordion. In no time at all, it formed a giant spring-like barricade that was seven meters thick and three hundred meters long.

Quenser expressed his understanding with a displeased look.

“Oh, I get it now.”

“Stupid, isn’t it? By lining up two rows of ten of them, they can form three kilometer barbed wire walls on either side.”

“Are they planning to stop our princess with those so the Simple Is Best can crush her?”

Barbed wire was most often viewed as a tool to prevent intruders, but it could also be laid out on the ground in coils to wrap around tank treads and armored vehicle tires.

But Quenser frowned as he lay on the sand.

“Are the Capitalist Corporations really thinking that? Forget barbed wire. You could surround the world in walls made from the same reinforced concrete as nuclear shelters and it would mean nothing against an Object’s main cannon.”

“Look closely and think about it. Why do you think their toys are called Ex. Walls?”

“What?”

“The Ex. stands for explosion. Change the magnification and look more closely. That coil of barbed wire is made to break into pieces if it receives a powerful shock such as from a bombardment. And each individual piece functions as an anti-personnel mine. That one truck probably has somewhere between two and three thousand.”

“Why? Scattering landmines isn’t going to stop the princess.”

“It would still be a problem concerning the image of clean wars using Objects.” One corner of Heivia’s mouth twisted up in a smile. “The war treaties forbid indiscriminately laying or scattering mines. But they can weasel their way out of it in the international conference room by saying their enemy was the one that scattered them. In other words, the princess could end up being labelled the bad guy for pulling the trigger. It would be awkward to be accused with that while stationed in Oceania to help with the war recovery. That weapon is meant to stop her with that threat.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s a weapon that ignores its actual ability and plays word games? It sounds like the stupid games n.o.bles play.”

“You should avoid saying that in a Legitimacy Kingdom safe country.”

Froleytia then spoke up over the radio.

“Those mobile barricades form a block three kilometers across. They are being prepared simultaneously in eight places to surround our maintenance base and the Baby Magnum. Once that is complete, they will approach to tighten the circle. If we grow impatient and send out the princess, the Simple Is Best will charge in at supersonic speeds.”

The missing intelligence division team had snuck into one of those eight places, but they did not know which one.

“Those barricades are mobile, so they can connect to their military network and move to match the Object’s location. Once they have sealed off the princess’s actions as best they can, they will create a path for the Simple Is Best to charge in. To be honest, this could be bad if they are able to work together well.”

The Simple Is Best’s strategy was quite broad. It used its thick front armor and the acceleration of its high-output ion thrusters to ignore the damage done to it and charge in close enough for an extreme close range main cannon blast.

The princess’s only chance was at the moment of intersection.

The Simple Is Best had a monstrous top speed, but that meant it could not make tight turns. And to reduce weight, its additional armor was only on the front. If its charge was evaded by moving quickly to the left or right, it would be the princess’s turn. If she fired on the Simple Is Best when its backside was showing, there was nothing it could do to avoid destruction.

Effectively sealing off the left or right evasive routes using the barricades could be called a fatal means of hindering the princess.

“And that’s why the intelligence division tried to do something about it. But they failed. I don’t know if it’s the Capitalist Corporations or the Information Alliance behind this, but they aren’t stupid.”

“They’re connected by their military network. Even if someone can’t hack in from outside, that link can be cut off by sneaking a virus directly into one of the barricade’s communications facilities. A single 25 euro chip can bring an end to this.”

“And that’s what we’re on our way to do?”

“If we weren’t needed, we wouldn’t have been called out here. Also, all eight sites are being infiltrated at the same time. As long as the virus gets in at one of them, we win.”

“That means there isn’t a problem if seven of the groups fail. Doesn’t that make us expendable?”

Quenser was relatively useless in normal combat unrelated to Objects, so Heivia ignored his whining and double-checked the layout of the barricade facility they were about to swiftly attack. He checked the arrangement of people, the patrol routes, the directions and strengths of the lights, the presence of various types of sensors, and so on. When his life was at risk, it looked like a treasure chest of information that he never got tired of looking at.

“I see an unfamiliar armored vehicle. Is that one not from the Capitalist Corporations?”

“Does that make it from the Information Alliance?”

“I’d say so. It’s probably an Information Alliance officer’s vehicle. He’ll be here in order to make sure the Capitalist Corporations goes along with their secret arrangement. It has a lot of antennae on it too. It’s probably for a VIP.”

“A VIP? So does it have 24/7 air conditioning, a fridge full of sodas, a microwave to reheat fried chicken, a home theater system, internet access, a simple shower, and a sofa that turns into a bed?”

Despite Quenser’s comments, his expression showed no jealousy.

“Even if he has a bodyguard team, I can’t believe an officer would head alone into the middle of an enemy nation’s unit like that. If the Capitalist Corporations changed their mind and decided to get some information from this powerful officer, he could end up on the receiving end of torture and truth serums.”

“He was probably ordered here. As we know all too well, if a higher up orders you to do something ridiculous, you can’t fight it. …As a student, you may be unaware, but the military is a constrained and harsh place.”

“I would never guess that from looking at you.”

The two idiots began a light fistfight, but then the hatch for the VIP armored vehicle opened. They frantically resumed observation.

“Wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait! What the h.e.l.l? She looks twelve. That girl is about the same age as the one we saved from the human traffickers, but she’s arrogantly wearing a military uniform.”

“As I said, the military is a harsh place.”

“Yeah… She’s a young Information Alliance officer, so she might be a product of their genius girl project. I don’t know the official name, though.”

“Why is it limited to girls? Some old man’s tastes?”

“You joke, but that might actually be the reason.” Quenser’s expression was perfectly serious. “It’s an issue of the symbolism. There’s a lot of difference in nuance between a manly hero standing before the people and a feminine saint standing before them. By showing a delicate, weak, lovely, and fair maiden working towards the war, the people will confuse their desire to protect her with a desire to fight.”

“I want to send my applause and a bomb to the person who seriously thought that up. How long will the people continue to be innocently moved by some child actor hired with money?”

“That ‘oh ho ho’ is a popular idol back in the Information Alliance safe countries. It’s no different from that. I hear one’s status in the Information Alliance changes based on your ability to insist that clearly deviated justice is correct. Supposedly, a popular dog from some commercials gets better medical care than your average office worker.”

Quenser glanced toward the a.s.sault rifle hanging from Heivia’s shoulder. It was primarily used as a mid-range weapon, but its various sensors allowed it to be used for sniping to a certain extent.

“So are you going to do it? I bet you could shoot her right in the head or heart from here.”

“She’s just the poor overseer the Information Alliance sent here. She’s unrelated to the surrounding barricade, so shooting her won’t stop them.”

“That’s good.”

“Tell me about it. We need to thank G.o.d that we can actually choose our enemy.”

Also, causing a commotion before injecting the virus would ruin any chances of their plan succeeding.

After checking over the entire enemy formation, Heivia slowly stood up.

“Okay, let’s get this horrible job over with.”

“Are we really going to sneak in there? They’ll spot us immediately with those lights everywhere. Shouldn’t we at least get an invisibility coat, an infinite health recovery first-aid box, and a charged particle bazooka? It’ll be impossible otherwise.”

“Shut up. Didn’t you know human beings can defeat a demon king with only cotton clothes and a wooden stick?”

Heivia led the way and Quenser followed. Rather than heading straight in, the two of them circled wide to the side as they travelled through the darkness.

The ma.s.sive amount of light seemed to cut off the barricade facility from the rest of the desert, but that created a large gap between the lit areas and the unlit areas. And because it was an outdoor facility, the lights did not illuminate everything evenly.

In other words, there were still dark areas.

“(Do you really think we can sneak through the darkness without being noticed? What if there are a ton of sensors that you can’t see?)”

“(I’m being careful. But you don’t set up traps along animal trails. No one wants the alarm going off all throughout the night because of every little boar and rabbit. While preparing to set up the barricade so quickly, they don’t want delicate sensors everywhere. Their own people would be setting off the alarm all the time.)”

Quenser tilted his head, wondering if that was how it worked.

This was hardly the first time, but it was still quite thrilling to entrust his life to something he did not understand himself. However, he did not want to be left behind by Heivia while so close to enemy territory.

“(We can’t hide our footprints in the desert.)”

“(They’re working all over the place. There are already footprints everywhere.)”

But just as they took the first step, they stopped.

“What?”

Quenser looked around in confusion with his goggles still on his forehead.

He was focusing with his ears rather than his eyes.

“I hear an odd rumbling noise.”

“!?”

Heivia immediately pushed Quenser to the ground. While getting down on the cold sand himself, Heivia whispered to Quenser.

“(Hey, you idiot! Turn off all your sensors! Goggles, binoculars, everything!! Don’t answer your radio even if our huge-breasted commander calls. We’ll be blown to pieces the instant we send out any radio waves, infrared rays, or anything else!!)”

“(What?)”

“(This is no time to be clueless, Quenser. Unless this rumbling is being caused by a legendary dragon, there’s only one thing big enough to cause it!!)”

“(Wait a second!!)”

An unpleasant sweat covered Quenser’s body in an instant.

But time was not going to wait.

While lying on the sand, he dug through his coat pocket. He pulled out an electric thermometer and stabbed it into the sand.

“(7.5 degrees!)”

“(You’re kidding. It was six degrees earlier. d.a.m.n, have all these lights raised the ground temperature!?)”

As they whispered back and forth, they reached for a different pocket. What they pulled out was nothing special. It was a cold spray used for wrist sprains and such.

Quenser stabbed the thermometer into his uniform and sprayed the cold spray over his entire body. He sprayed it enough to bring it to 7.5 degrees just like the ground.

“(Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!! It’s all over if its sensors pick us up!!)”

“(We can do this, but will it really fool that collection of cutting-edge equipment? It has tons of sensors to detect people other than thermo!!)”

“(From what I’ve heard, it’s the type that can detect a mole using a combination of body temperature and electromagnetic field disturbance. All the iron sand in the desert should keep that from working perfectly!!)”

Quenser’s ears were slammed by a sound like the roar of the wind or like the air being crushed.

He could not move a finger any more.

The countless stars and the faintly colored moonlight in the cold desert sky should have spread thinly across the entire area, but a giant shadow seemed to devour one area of that. It was an artificial device. It was a colossal weapon. It was the synonym for war that had brought an end to the nuclear age and still reigned as strongest.

It was an Object.

This was a 1.5 generation Object from the Capitalist Corporations.

“It’s just as the final transmission from the missing intelligence division team said.” His voice sounded truly unhappy. “That’s the Hornet Storm from the Capitalist Corporations. Completely unlike any other Object, that demonic machine was developed to attack large cities.”

The giant spherical main body that was the symbol of Objects appeared to be supported by an air cus.h.i.+on propulsion device. The back of the Object was covered by several giant metal panels that looked like a rounded version of peac.o.c.k feathers.

However…

The biggest oddity about Hornet Storm’s design lay elsewhere.

“It’s an Object without a main canon,” muttered Quenser. “It only has 100 anti-personnel laser beam cannons. When fighting another Object, it uses its peac.o.c.k feathers to refract and reflect all of its lasers to create a concentrated attack on a single point of the enemy’s armor.”

The princess’s Baby Magnum also had its main cannon distributed over seven cannons that could be used to cut off the enemy’s escape and use the opening to focus an attack on a single point.

However, it was rare to take it to this extreme.

This was similar to tearing everything down to the ground in order to distribute and focus the attacks.

“That weapon wasn’t made for a clean war,” groaned Heivia. “When a dictator uses all the people in a large city as a s.h.i.+eld, that Object can kill him without leaving room for negotiation. This modern day grim reaper can ignore the hostages, charge into the city, and accurately fire on only the target. Once that thing has you located, it can kill you as easily as entering a name into a search engine. It’s specialized toward human targets, so you could call it our natural enemy.”

Even if its weapons were known as “small” laser beam cannons, that was in reference to Object-sized weapons. A single shot had the destructive power to easily melt a tank or shoot down a fighter.

Each of the 100 cannons could accurately target anything in a five kilometer range and it could penetrate any obstacle to utterly destroy its target. And a flesh-and-blood human could not evade a laser beam cannon that approached at the speed of light.

In a single action, it could accurately and precisely eliminate 100 enemy soldiers.

And what if, with only a few seconds of lag for cooling and re-aiming, it could repeat that action indefinitely?

What if, no matter how many hostages were gathered as s.h.i.+elds, it could slip its attack through the gaps and hit only the target?

What if any human counterattack could be completely ignored thanks to the thick armor unique to Objects?

That would no longer be a fight. It would be divine punishment unilaterally poured down on them. In a way, the overwhelming intimidation this brought was more than that of a second generation Object that fought a war in a distant country. That Object could be sent to battlefield or safe country alike. It opposed the idea of the clean war and it was a nightmarish existence for guerrillas and terrorists hiding in cities.

And that Object was calmly crossing the battlefield as its air cus.h.i.+on blasted sand into the air.

Unpleasant sweat covered Quenser and Heivia’s bodies as they held their breath and tried to hold onto their lives. It travelled extremely close by the Capitalist Corporations soldiers working to prepare the barricade in the artificial lights.

The countless cannons attached to its spherical main body moved slightly in the darkness and its targeting sensors constantly scanned the ground.

This was the king of the food chain.

It did not run or hide. It simply travelled the world searching for prey.

As Quenser was forced to lie on the ground when faced by its arrogance, he could not even feel frustrated by it all. He could only wait as time pa.s.sed. He dreamed of the moment when he could think in the past tense that it had left. He wanted to shout out and run away, but he had to desperately suppress that desire.

For five minutes, the Hornet Storm moved slowly as if evaluating its surroundings.

That must have been its standard procedure because the Object did not find any prey and it quickly accelerated away from the barricade facility.

Quenser felt like he could not breathe.

Even after its giant form disappeared beyond the horizon, he did not immediately get up.

“It must be going around to the eight barricades in order like that.”

“Yes, but it is estimated to have a top speed of over 550 kph. If the alarm goes off somewhere, it’ll be there in no time. We can’t use this cold spray forever and there’s nowhere to run in the middle of the desert. Once it detects us, our lives are literally over.”

“So when will it be back here?”

“If it uses that same pattern for all eight spots, I’d say a little under an hour. Of course, that’s a.s.suming we don’t trigger the alarm.”

They did not want to meet that monster again.

The two of them both wanted to finish their business here as quickly as possible.

The real mission was still to come.

In and of itself, their task was simple.

Their enemy was a unit made up of both the Information Alliance and Capitalist Corporations. This unit had the second generation Simple Is Best, the 1.5 Generation Hornet Storm, and the multiple Ex. Wall mobile barricades that would keep their own Object from moving.

It would be difficult for the princess’s Baby Magnum to deal with it all on its own, so Quenser, Heivia, and the others were secretly infiltrating the communication facilities for the mobile barricades. By directly injecting a virus into the hardware, control of the barricades could be stolen at the crucial moment.

The mobile barricades would remain within the enemy unit until the battle began. At that point, they would be used to block the movements of the Simple Is Best and Hornet Storm.

Normally, they could be easily blown away with the overwhelming firepower of the Objects, but this would occur in the middle of an Object vs. Object battle. When an instantaneous decision could influence the direction a war was headed, a lag of a few seconds could be fatal.

The primary target was the Information Alliance’s Simple Is Best.

The Capitalist Corporations’ Hornet Storm was simply trying to take advantage of the situation, so they were likely to swiftly retreat the instant that advantage disappeared. But if it did not, the princess would then have to defeat that 1.5 generation Object.

Even with two Objects attacking at once, the princess had a decent chance of winning as long as they set up the battlefield so she could fight them separately.

“As usual, this is one h.e.l.l of a blueprint. Was this really simulated on a super computer?”

“Try to think more positively. If they could draw up this blueprint, that means there’s at least that much hope left. And complaining isn’t going to change anything.”

Heivia took the lead and Quenser followed through the moonlit desert. They were already within the grounds of the barricade facility.

The facility itself was meant to allow the preparation of the large truck-like mobile barricades and provide access to the military network, but it had many other buildings and vehicles.

“Why did they prepare such a large area? The barricades are mobile, so they’re just going to approach our maintenance base once they’re set up. I can understand a convoy, but won’t the prefab lodgings be left behind?”

“The barricades are going to gather around an Object to stop it from moving. Staying away from the front lines is safer. They can retrieve the other things once the battle is over.”

There were a lot of lights. The gondola-equipped cranes used in place of watchtowers had their own spotlights, the vehicles parked around had headlights, and the large halogen lights usually used for stages and construction sites were set up on large stands here and there.

Heading out into the light would have been suicide and cutting in front of a light would cause a giant shadow.

But the lights were not set up to provide even light and there were spots they missed. By circling behind them and mixing in with the shadows, Quenser and Heivia’s silhouettes were hidden by the bright backlights. Lights that produced a lot of light and heat also helped fool different types of sensors.

Even when they were less than ten meters from enemy Capitalist Corporations soldiers, the soldiers could not see them behind the lights.

While walking across the sandy ground, they spoke quietly to each other.

“We have to inject this virus into their system. Where’s the communications facility?”

“That’s it fifty meters ahead. That small prefab building. The one with a lot of antennae on the roof.”

“Will it also be left behind when the barricades close in?”

“I’m sure they have separate armored vehicles for command control. By dividing the system up, there is less of a risk of being cut off from the military network. Of course, that provides more ways into the system for people like us.”

The communications facility was the cornerstone of the mobile barricades, so it had strict security and a lot of lights. They would not be able to reach it by walking through the darkness.

Heivia pointed at a line of military trucks parked nearby.

“Hey, Quenser. Let’s hide under those to get close. It’ll be harder to spot us than if we walk around with our heads down.”

He got down on the fine sand and slid under the back of the nearest truck. That left Quenser with no choice. He imitated Heivia and crawled under the tuck without knowing the right way to do it.

He smelled something that resembled demi-glace.

“d.a.m.n them. What do they have loaded in this truck? Why does the enemy get to eat such nice food?”

“They have over 100 people working to set up the barricade. They’re probably busy supplying soap and toilet paper too.”

Suddenly, they heard footsteps on the sand.

And from more than one person. An unpleasant sweat appeared on Quenser’s cheek as he hid under the truck and pressed against the sand.

“(Three, four…no, five. Dammit. This is pretty much up to chance now.)”

As Heivia complained, he pulled his handgun from its holster and attached the suppresser. Quenser’s eyes opened wide.

“(If they notice something’s wrong, the Hornet Storm will rush over here, remember!?)”

“(I’m not preparing this because I want to use it, you idiot!)”

Meanwhile, multiple military boots were clearly headed their way. Not only could they hear the footsteps, they could feel a kind of pressure. These soldiers were not simply walking around the trucks. They were obviously walking toward the trucks.

Quenser squeezed his eyes shut when he saw Heivia holding up his handgun in the cramped s.p.a.ce below the truck.

He waited for a while.

But nothing happened.

“…?”

He heard the sound of truck doors opening and closing. The truck above them then creaked like a bed. He doubted it would actually happen, but he felt as if it were going to crush him from above. They were on soft sand rather than hard asphalt, so the s.p.a.ce between the bottom of the truck and the ground might not remain the same.

Finally, he realized there was something else he had to focus on instead.

“(Hey, hey! Quenser, you idiot! Pull yourself together!!)”

“(Eh? Ah?)”

“(They just climbed into the truck. Why do you think that is? Unless they’re planning to kill some time with some rural car s.e.x, they’re going to drive the truck away!!)”

The engine rumbled to life.

As Quenser’s lungs filled with the unpleasant smell of exhaust, he desperately suppressed the instinctual urge to cough.

If the truck drove away, Quenser and Heivia would gather more attention than a birthday cake.

Heivia had already started to crawl to the next in the line of parked trucks.

“(Hurry up, Quenser! If you stupidly get caught, it’ll put me in danger too, so hurry!!)”

“(Wait, wait, wait! The truck’s about to drive off. If I move now, I could be crushed by the tire!)”

“(That’s better than having your head filled with holes by tons of bullets bought with the money from the donation boxes next to convenience store registers, isn’t it? Quit panicking and get over here!!)”

Quenser felt like he was choosing the better of two deaths as he desperately began to move. He crawled out from under the ominously vibrating truck, pa.s.sed right by the tire supporting a weight of several tons, and managed to reach the next truck.

He just barely made it out when the truck drove off.

But it was too soon to breathe a sigh of relief.

They once again heard the sound of an engine starting from overhead.

“(What the h.e.l.l!? What the h.e.l.l!? What the h.e.l.l!?)”

“(They’re sending out each truck in turn. They might be forming a convoy to drive across the desert!)”

“(What? Was eating all that delicious-smelling food not enough!? A n.o.ble like me can’t even hope for dessert after a meal!!)”

Quenser and Heivia could not have themselves brought into the open, so they rolled along the line of trucks as the trucks drove off, one at a time.

More than ten trucks left and only two remained.

“(What the h.e.l.l was that? Is it finally over?)”

“(No, wait a second.)”

In addition to the drivers of the trucks, there had been some soldiers who had helped load wooden boxes and other things into the trucks. They were scattering as they returned to their normal posts.

But…

“Hm?”

A single pair of boots stopped.

The boots had their heels pointed toward the two boys, but they quickly turned 180 degrees. The toes were now pointed their way. The ground had been made of soft sand and the trucks had created tire tracks when driving away, but this soldier may have noticed another unnatural trail as if something large had crawled along the ground.

The legs bent as if the solider were crouching down.

A soldier about their age poked his head down to peer under the truck.

Without hesitation, Heivia fired his suppressor-equipped military handgun into the soldier’s face.

Quenser instinctually covered his eyes with his hands.

“(Do you have a death wis.h.!.+?)”

“(Shut up. If I hadn’t done anything, he would have caused a commotion! More importantly, Quenser, you cover up the blood with sand. I’ll drag the body under here!!)”

“(You could at least let me be the one to shoot him. The last thing I want is to get killed while cleaning up after you.)”

A shot to the brain did not create as much blood as to the heart. Heivia hid the body under the truck as if moving a sack of flour while Quenser did as instructed and hid the blood with the desert sand.

“Either way, they’ll find him as soon as they move the truck. Let’s get this virus in the system and get the h.e.l.l out of here.”

While ignoring the blood on their hands, Quenser and Heivia crawled out from under the truck and approached the nearby single-story prefab building. To keep sand out, the floor was elevated like with buildings along the beach. Quenser hid under the floor while Heivia pressed up against the door. Heivia removed the parabolic microphone from the front of his rifle and tossed it underhand to Quenser. Quenser caught it and pressed the microphone against the floor above him.

(One set of footsteps in each corner save the east. Also, one hard sound. Chair legs maybe? It’s near the center.)

After acquiring the necessary information, he jotted down a general diagram, folded the memo into a paper airplane, and threw it to Heivia.

Heivia checked it, jammed a large military knife into the gap of the door, and forcibly destroyed the lock.

Quenser hid under the building for a dozen or so seconds and then approached the door.

He peered inside and saw Heivia had already cleared the room.

“Ugh. There’s blood everywhere.”

“I’m not planning to send this image into people’s living rooms. More importantly, it’s time to get to work, Quenser,” said Heivia as he swapped out his handgun’s magazine.

The prefab room had tables chaotically lined up within. Many different pieces of electronic equipment were placed on top, but there were only two obvious computers. The others were mostly old audio equipment and phantom equipment that radio enthusiasts would pursue within an electronics district.

“Ahh, ahh. Everything’s soaked. They’re covered in so much red I can’t read the displays.”

“Don’t complain, student. I went to some effort to keep my bullets from destroying the machinery.”

Quenser ignored the specialized radio equipment and approached one of the computers. The Legitimacy Kingdom had given him a postage stamp-sized chip with the virus on it. Once he infected the system with it, their job was done.

“Huh? Where’s the s.h.i.+ft key on this thing? This one’s Esc, right?”

“This is a Capitalist Corporations machine. It isn’t gonna be exactly the same.”

“It does have a chip slot though, right?”

The two idiots exchanged a glance and frantically looked around at the outside of the computer. Fortunately, the media type used here seemed to be common between systems. There was a small slot for inserting the stamp-sized chip.

“Hey, Quenser. Can you actually hack?”

“If I could, I’d be working somewhere that pays better. I just have to leave all the work to the program here.”

As he spoke offhand, Quenser typed on the unfamiliar Capitalist Corporations keyboard.

“Let’s see… If I just insert the chip in normal mode, it’ll be rejected, so I ignore this. I need to reboot, spam the function key to bring up the BIOS screen, and switch the boot device priority so it’ll boot up from the external media.”

“Hey, how much longer? They’ll discover the dead soldiers from the lack of periodic reports. We need to get ready to leave.”

“Wait, wait. I just need to reboot again! Okay, done!! The virus has begun to overwrite the system before the military security can catch it. We can just leave it now!”

After seeing the blinking of the access light move from the stamp-sized chip to the HDD, Quenser removed the chip from the slot.

He moved over to Heivia who had the door cracked open to check outside.

“We just have to leave now. What’s our escape route?”

“We can’t just walk out.”

Quenser and Heivia had slipped past the guards by crawling under the line of military trucks, but all but two of those trucks had left. They could not use that same route.

“Then what do we do?”

“Let’s climb into the back of one of the remaining trucks. I doubt they’re going to stay here all night.”

As soon as he had finished speaking, Heivia crouched down and ran toward canopy-covered back of the truck. Quenser followed and Heivia pulled him up into the truck.

Half of the truck was filled with wooden boxes, but they did not have the warnings about flammability and shaking that boxes of weapons would have.

“G.o.ddammit! It’s bananas and milk! Are they preparing a nice healthy breakfast!?”

“Should I go see the base counselor if that combination sounds dirty to me?”

The two idiots opened one of the boxes and quenched their thirst with some of the milk inside refrigerated containers.

Then they waited.

A few footsteps approached the military truck. One toward the driver’s seat and two or three toward the back. Heivia hid behind the boxes and used his knife to silently attack them when they had fully climbed into the truck.

After making sure they were all dead, Quenser approached the front of the truck. He knocked twice on the metal panel dividing the driver’s compartment and the back.

The driver mistook it for a sign that they soldiers were all onboard, so he smoothly drove off.

“We need to have a serious discussion about our pay. There’s definitely something wrong with you getting paid the same as me.”

“If you have a complaint, go talk to the people that pay us.”

That was when they heard an unnatural clunk in the back of the truck.

“!?”

“!!”

Quenser immediately took a defensive stance but was unable to do much of anything. Heivia used an arm and a leg to knock Quenser to the ground and used his other hand to draw his military handgun. He had seen movement behind one of the wooden boxes. Whoever it was must not have thought the box would function as a s.h.i.+eld because they swiftly moved to eliminate Heivia.

The two of them held their handguns toward each other at a distance of less than a meter, but they both suddenly stopped moving.

Heivia frowned.

“What? Is that a Legitimacy Kingdom handgun?”

“You aren’t from the Capitalist Corporations?”

The person who uttered that confused comment and moved from behind the box (without lowering the gun) was a blonde-haired woman a bit older than Quenser.

Her uniform had a different camouflage design than theirs, but it was a Legitimacy Kingdom format.

The uniform had an unfamiliar emblem sewn into the shoulder.

While lying helpless on the floor, Quenser spoke up.

“Come to think of it, wasn’t there an intelligence division team that went in ahead of us and disappeared?”

Enough time had pa.s.sed that the mobile barricade group had likely noticed the dead soldiers. However, the military truck Quenser and the others were aboard had already left the area.

After Heivia decided they were far enough away, he fired a few times toward the driver’s seat.

The truck immediately swerved to the side and crashed into a sand dune.

Heivia climbed out of the back of the truck, forced open the driver’s side door, and dragged the body out onto the sand.

The blonde woman checked over the body for ammunition, rations, and the like.

“My name is Lisa Deauville. My rank is second lieutenant. I would appreciate it if you would help me handle my team’s mistake.”

“I’m impressed you managed to escape. What about the others?”

“They were not so fortunate,” the intelligence division soldier named Lisa said.

Quenser did not try to ask for further details. There were people at the maintenance base zone who would do that. Right now, he needed to rejoice that even one of them had survived.

He pointed at the truck with his thumb.

“Our vehicle is about ten kilometers ahead. We’ll head there, switch vehicles, and return to the maintenance base.”

“I’m sure I’ll be stuck driving. Hey, Quenser! You sit in the pa.s.senger seat to navigate. I’m not gonna let you get a head start on flirting just because you’re useless.”

After sitting in the driver’s seat, Heivia operated the s.h.i.+ft lever and freed the truck from the sand dune it had run into. Before the truck even came to a full stop, Quenser grabbed onto the pa.s.senger side, opened the door, and tumbled inside.

And then blonde-haired Lisa also sat in the pa.s.senger seat by sitting on top of Quenser’s lap.

At this point, Heivia pulled out his military knife.

“Quenserrrrrr!!”

“Ask her what’s going on, not me!! (I won’t deny I like it, though.)”

Even through the thick military uniform, Quenser could feel the unique softness and warmth of a woman.

Lisa, however, showed no sign of being bothered by the situation.

“There are only two seats in here and I cannot a.s.sist you from the back of the truck. If I sat in the driver’s seat, I would get in the way, so the only possible place for me is the pa.s.senger seat.”

“Quenser, swap seats with me!! You don’t have a license? There’s nothing but desert as far as the eye can see. You just have to step on the accelerator and turn the steering wheel. Anyone can do that!!”

They would be spotted regardless with any cutting-edge sensors, but they still did not have the guts to drive through the desert night with the headlights on.

But as previously stated, the desert was not flat. It had sand dunes with height differences of several meters. It may have been similar to stopping time and driving over the stormy ocean.

And so…

“Ohh, ohhhhh, ohh. Th-this is a very b.u.mpy road. Hey, boy. Stop squirming below me. And why has something been pressing up against my b.u.t.t for a while now?”

“Don’t underestimate adolescence, officer cadet! We can fill the time waiting for the elevator by talking about nothing but a large tree that looks a lot like a woman’s waist. You need to be prepared for this kind of thing before you choose to sit on my lap!!”

“At least look at the map, you idiots!! You’re p.i.s.sing me off! Do you want to frighten everyone away by bringing tears and snot to the face of Heivia, the super genius, beautiful, wealthy, athletic n.o.ble who will infiltrate enemy territory, rescue hostages, or anything else you need!? Is that what you want!?”

However, there were some things one did not give up even after such a desperate plea.

Quenser was in the same mindset as someone refusing to hand over the bit of ice cream stuck to the bottom of the lid, so he began contemplating pulling out a Hand Axe plastic explosive to stop Heivia from switching seats with him. He also feared the possibility of Lisa alone sitting in the driver’s seat. If it came to that, he would bite his own tongue.

“Huh? Wait, Heivia. We need to contact the maintenance base and the princess to tell them we injected the virus and what our escape route is. Once we have control of the mobile barricades, t