A structure floated oddly on the lead-colored ocean.

It was somewhere between five and ten meters long and it was spherical in shape, but it oddly did not roll as it was shaken between the waves. The hatch remained on the top at all times and the porthole on the side remained in the same spot.

It was a type of lifeboat.

It had plenty of emergency supplies, communications equipment, a heater, and even a generator making use of the current and the wind. As opposed to something prepared on a s.h.i.+p, it was more of a product for the wealthy disaster-prepper.

Inside that cradle were three blonde girls with red military uniforms meant for parades.

They each had a different hairstyle, but their identical faces made it clear they were triplets.

Alisa Martini Sweet.

Rica Martini Medium.

Orsia Martini Dry.

They were all genius girls created by the Information Alliance’s Project Whiz Kid. It would be hard to find a more severe upbringing in any of the four world powers, but the girls themselves barely seemed to care. They elegantly grabbed tea cakes and reached for the cups inside the round boat.

Instead of coffee or tea, the cups contained an energy drink full of caffeine and other stimulants that was “kind to the body in its lack of sugar, yet somehow unsatisfying”. That showed the Information Alliance side of things most of all.

“A-are you sure this is safe? We left the fleet a long time ago and we’re just floating out here on the ocean with no one to protect us.”

The young man in charge of their care was sweating bullets.

Alisa, the triplet with the largest chest, replied lazily.

“Dooon’t worry. This isn’t some big s.h.i.+p like a cruiser or a missile submarine.”

“Right?”

“Right?”

The other two were not so much agreeing as they were driving away the question because they did not feel like dealing with it. However, the normal young man was too worried to accept anything but a proper explanation.

“B-but we’re in the middle of the battlefield here, the Legitimacy Kingdom Object will be here any moment, um, and all of you are officers with medals hanging from your chest, so it would be very bad if you were captured. In the worst case, you might meet the same fate as someone in a light SM video!!”

“Yes, but there is nothing to worry about. Look, our Laser Cracker 001 was sent out to this region of sea. That’s turned this into an ocean of death, so there’s plenty of wreckage from cargo s.h.i.+ps and cruise s.h.i.+ps. And of course, there are plenty of lifeboats that dried up after no one detected their SOS signal.”

“You’re just scaring me more!!”

“I’m saying no one will notice us because we’re disguising ourselves as one of those. Do you want us to completely vanish from the Legitimacy Kingdom’s radar? Cutting-edge stealth fighters might be able to reduce their cross-section to a minimum, but not even they can completely vanish. The clever approach is to create a situation where the enemy will remove you from consideration even if you appear on their radar screen. Don’t you think?”

But the normal young man did not grasp that at all. He could not even imagine a chess game three moves ahead, so it may have been asking too much of him to stand in the same world as the Martini Series that would look a hundred years into the future. Blaming only him would be cruel.

After all, the girls were intentionally avoiding a smooth conversation.

Alisa responded to his question by showing off more knowledge than necessary, Rica toyed with some playing cards while feigning apathy, and Orsia feigned disinterest in the opposite s.e.x while clinging to the young man’s arm.

The triplets all held the same thing in their hearts.

It was said these unmanageable geniuses would stage a jailbreak even if they were thrown into a top-security prison, but for some reason they acted like proper members of society when around this young man. That fact explained what was going on here.

“Hey, Dry. It looks like the Laser Cracker 001 has reached its position.”

“I’m monitoring the Legitimacy Kingdom’s movements, Medium. You need to get ready too, Sweet.”

“Understood, Dry. Now, let’s get to work.”

The young man nervously looked around.

His presence was the sweet chain tying the three Martinis to the Information Alliance.

He was the sword that divided genius from eccentric.

He was oblivious to this great feat, but that was exactly what made him so adorable to them. The Martini Series narrowed their eyes in his direction and then spoke in unison.

“Let’s begin the mission. Let’s charm them with our angelic performance.”

“Wow.”

“This is awful.”

Quenser and Heivia wrapped their arms around themselves and s.h.i.+vered in the cold on the flight deck of a small gray aircraft carrier. Their breath was white and the sky was the color of lead. Dull vibrations occasionally ran through the deck because the blade hastily attached to the bow was breaking through some pure white drift ice.

Just to be clear, it was currently mid-July.

They watched two connected icebergs that looked like giant b.r.e.a.s.t.s float past the fleet.

“What happened to our summer? For what possible reason were we sent to the tip of the Southern Hemispheeeeerrrrrre!? The seasons are reversed here, so it’s freezing midwinter! There are penguins jumping into the water over there! What happened to my paradise of the Princess and our busty commander in swimsuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuits!?”

“The pamphlet said the average temperature at this time of year is eleven degrees.”

“Like h.e.l.l it is! Our breath is white! How could it be that far off average!? There’s a giant t.i.ts iceberg right over there!!”

“Heivia, it’s your fault for saying you wanted to get out of the heat after that desert. Our higher ups always take things too far.”

“There could have at least been some swimsuits in there somewhere.”

“Sigh. Speaking of swimsuits, Lieutenant Meena was shot. That’s actually a real shock. Both that she was the one behind all that and that I’ll never get to see that great rack that was about as underappreciated as baby’s-breath.”

“Eh? Why do swimsuits make you think of her?”

“What a shock…”

“Hold on! We’re supposed to keep each other informed in this unit, so tell your pal Heivia what happened!!”

Heivia shook Quenser by the shoulders, but Quenser’s soul had half-escaped his mouth and he would not give a proper answer.

Then something else stopped Heivia.

The handheld device in his pocket rang.

“What? Are you using video chat to pretend you’re having phone s.e.x?”

“This is a little cla.s.sier than that.”

After checking the screen, Heivia walked away from Quenser.

Once he reached the landing on the narrow stairway from the flight deck to the maintenance area directly below, Heivia leaned against the metal railing, touched the screen with his fingertip, and answered the call.

It was not a soldier contacting him.

It was a blonde n.o.ble girl in a white dress.

“Took you long enough to answer.”

“I’m not trading stock, so don’t get so upset.”

“Even if it’s over the internet, we still arranged for this date in advance. You’re a disgrace to the t.i.tle of n.o.bility if you keep a lady waiting, Winch.e.l.l boy.”

“If you don’t do something about your att.i.tude, you’re going to be in the news for being divorced on your honeymoon, Vanderbilt girl.”

Even if it was a private conversation (in fact, because it was), this conversation over the military line was being monitored. However, the member of the electronic simulation division monitoring the line may have been wide-eyed in shock.

The Winch.e.l.l family and the Vanderbilt family were two of the biggest n.o.ble families in the Legitimacy Kingdom as well as enemies going back centuries. The dark age that had triggered the collapse of the UN had occurred just under one hundred years before, so they had carried the feud of an older age across the end of civilization.

“Well, um, how should I put this?” said Heivia. “Sorry about interrupting your vacation.”

“My, my! That is like work to me, so I don’t mind. I am currently in the middle of the Atlantic – oh, excuse me –enjoying the world’s greatest fireworks festival, so are you having trouble hearing me?”

“No. And you people have to be insane to gather more than five hundred cruise s.h.i.+ps and launch fireworks for a full week. Are fireworks even any fun during the day?”

“Oh, dear. Our rocket fireworks reach an alt.i.tude of ten thousand meters, you know? I can’t have you thinking the Technopics is the only festival in the Atlantic.”

Heivia nearly said those were normally called surface-to-air missiles or surface-to-surface rockets, but he held his tongue.

“And once night falls, the fireworks and the aurora will create a wonderful collaboration,” she said.

“Where are you right now? It isn’t the Arctic, is it?”

“Ah ha ha. The aurora is created when solar winds reach the ionosphere. Um, I think it’s a large railgun meant to clear debris, but they said something about chemically producing a ma.s.sive amount of electricity just like a laser known as a COIL.”

“Oh… So instead of firing a huge sh.e.l.l, it uses debris reduced to a sandstorm of metal fragments measured in microns to directly repel the entire ‘field’?”

“Solar winds are streams of plasma and easily influenced by electric and magnetic fields, so that whatever-it’s-called can alter their course to a certain extent. By guiding it to the desired coordinate in the ionosphere, they can create a manmade aurora.”

“Don’t solar winds and the aurora play a role in electromagnetic pulses? Won’t that violate some treaties?”

“It’s okay as long as we aren’t using it for military purposes. It’s the same as X-rays.”

That was truly entertainment for the rich. Although that kind of performance to say “look what we can do” could be seen as a sort of wartime PR.

“So how did things go with the favor I asked of you?” asked Heivia.

“Do you think I can’t accomplish a simple task? Besides, I only had to check through the newspapers and the TV news. That was easier than looking up a fish recipe.”

“I see. I’m awful at that formal stuff, so reading through a week’s worth of newspapers sounds harder than sharpshooting from a thousand meters.”

“If you wish to call yourself my husband, you need to be more cultured.”

“Let’s get back on topic,” insisted Heivia.

The girl on the screen sighed.

“Yes, it was just as you said. There was no article on the Special 15th led by Lieutenant Meena Stinger. Of course, there are wars occurring all over the world every single day, so listing out every last death would fill up the entire paper. Plus, they provide a variety of ‘anesthetic’ to ensure the fear of war does not spread to the safe countries. There was a lot of talk about the surprise visit from that…Blue Rose, was it? Heh heh heh. They may not have had any s.p.a.ce left after talking about your little sister so much.”

“Nothing about a drug war either?”

“Hm? Is that something from a movie?”

Heivia silently grimaced when he saw his fiancee’s confused look on the screen.

(No sign of Colorful Vanilla, then. So any news that would disgrace the military as a whole might as well have never happened, is that it? I thought they would at least stick in a cover story that pinned the war crimes on Meena Stinger alone, but they aren’t even showing the lizard’s tail.)

When (supposedly) Quenser had shot the Special 15th as they tried to burn away the ergot containers with white phosphorous, he had used a Capitalist Corporations carbine.

Even when Meena Stinger had been shot in the maintenance base zone, the crushed bullet they had later found was the kind that same faction commonly used for heavy machineguns and anti-materiel rifles.

That meant no further investigation would be done.

There was nothing they could do.

Lieutenant Meena Stinger and her Black Uniform Special Platoon 15 had bene killed by enemy soldiers during battle. There was nothing more to say and they were being treated as normal war dead.

That was all.

“If you’re curious, I could look further into it,” suggested the girl on the screen.

“No, knowing what the safe country newspapers and news shows are saying is enough. Besides, what does a civilian know about the military and war?”

“Oh? Nothing is more frightening than the wealthy when they have nothing better to do, you know?”

She bowed with a smile and her image vanished from the screen.

Heivia toyed with the device in his hand for a while and slowly exhaled.

After that, he gave another annoyed comment.

“It’s too clean. Whose plot am I getting involved in here?”

The Cape of Good Hope was the southern tip of Africa.

It was hard to tell on the standard Mercator projection maps, but that area was a quick southward trip over the ocean away from the South Pole. Penguins walked through the streets, so it was not the sweaty land of the blazing sun that people normally pictured when they thought of Africa. Lat.i.tude-wise, it was about the same as the Oceanian continent, but it looked more like the kind of rough waves, leaden skies, and rocky land that suited a traditional Island Nation enka song. In terms of the North Wind and the Sun, the north wind was going all out, so no one would ever think of trading their uniform for a swimsuit.

Or so one would have thought.

“Ahhh. It’s so hot in here. I know you’re trying to be hospitable, but don’t you have the heat cranked up too high?”

“Blue Rose, the Island Nation has a saying: oden for the air conditioner and ice cream for the kotatsu. This is truly the best.”

Just one of the small aircraft carrier’s rooms had all its windows fogged up.

In that sweltering heat, Frolaytia Capistrano was providing a mistaken sort of welcome and Azureyfear Winch.e.l.l was accepting that mistaken sort of welcome. They had traded their uniform or dress for swimsuits and were unnecessarily sweaty.

The plastic pool that Black Uniform Meena Stinger had secretly used in the Rio Grande District was filled with water and the two of them sat in chairs with their seductive feet soaking in the pool. They were clenching and unclenching their toes and topping it all off by sucking on vanilla popsicles.

Quenser had been called here for some reason and he had been struck by a thick wall of feminine aroma the instant he opened the door.

He had reflexively raised his voice.

“You people are awful!! You d.a.m.n bourgeois are killing the earth in about every way possible!!”

“So you’re finally here, commoner. Come closer. Yes, close enough to touch me.”

“Woof woof!”

“Heh heh heh. How wonderfully obedient. Do you like ladies’ swimsuits that much?”

Blue must have been her favorite color because Azureyfear smiled at Quenser in a blue bikini that glittered like a tropical b.u.t.terfly.

Frolaytia pulled her popsicle from her mouth and pointed it at the student.

“I may not be one to talk, but she is a powerful n.o.ble. And the type who can actually use the Winch.e.l.l family’s authority. Don’t screw this up.”

“Um, can I ask why you’re calling for me so often today?”

“I’ve taken a liking to you,” said the young lady in a blue swimsuit. “Yes, this visit is something of a performance, but if I’m going to be shown around by someone, I’d like it to be someone I have some slight connection to. I heard what you did. You fought well against those Black Uniforms involved in the drug war in the Rio Grande District.”

“Eh? But that was-…”

Confused, Quenser spoke on reflex, but then a sweet flavor filled his mouth.

Azureyfear had stuck the tip of her popsicle in his mouth.

While he was unable to speak, vanilla-flavored lips moved from extreme close range.

They mouthed the word “no”.

“…”

“Commoner, if you are to be my guide, I would like to know what kind of person you are. As a test, find an online video that can amuse me.”

“Um, eh? Okay, but…”

“Look at this cleavage. I’ll even squeeze my b.r.e.a.s.t.s together and give you an upturned look. Do you also want me to put the popsicle in my mouth and faffefaafafhfhefh?”

“Woof woof woof woof!!”

There seemed to be a difference in understanding concerning the previous incident, but the idiot decided to set those issues aside and take advantage of this opportunity.

He began his first mission with his handheld device in hand.

“Wh-what about a kitten chasing a laser pointer on the wall?”

“Old hat.”

“This is the silver snowscape from the peak of Mont Blanc.”

“What’s the point if you don’t conquer the mountain yourself? I climb Mont Blanc twice a year. You need physical strength and knowledge of nature to hunt well, after all.”

“Kh!! …Since it’s come to this, I’ll break out this video showing a breakdown of a chronometer. Look at all these gears! It’s controlled by springs and gears instead of electronics, so just think of the accuracy needed in the mechanic’s fingertips to…pant, pant…make this a reality…uuhhhh!!”

“Calm down, tech nerd. Are you one of those people that would prefer I step on them?”

Quenser thought the exasperated look in Azureyfear’s eyes would crush his soul. Out of ideas, his fingertip accidentally touched the banner for trending news near the search box.

The small screen filled with a greasy middle-aged man’s face. A stand was covered in microphones and cameras flashed like machinegun fire. A female newscaster spoke over the footage of some sort of press conference.

“As a royal and a member of the royal council, First Prince Flag Eggnog’s words gather international attention. This was a portion of the standard press conference after the council session ended the other day.”

“As I have been saying, drug wars only exist in spy movies. Besides, this nonsense is likely only being spread by the weak-willed youth. The addicts who cannot stop abusing Colorful Vanilla must be clinging to conspiracy theories that blame their problems on the military and government.”

“Many groups and individuals have fiercely opposed this statement, including the Legitimacy Kingdom Academics of General Medicine and the White Knights of Women’s Rights. They claim the prince’s statement is inconsistent with the medical facts of Colorful Vanilla’s spread and addiction and they ask whether he is forgetting about the victims who have been forced to use these illegal drugs due to their surroundings. These groups are filling the road in front of the safe country royal palace with various protest signs in hand.”

“If you can say those insane things with a straight face, we can’t let you lead our country!!”

“The royal family needs to kick that b.a.s.t.a.r.d out right away!!”

“I’m bored, so I want to cause a scene!!”

“Hooray!!”

Quenser found the festival of anger to be a horrifying scene.

“French fries! Does anyone need some French fries!? d.a.m.n I’m going to make a killing out here!!”

“Wait, you idiot! Put the mustard mayonnaise on your own fries! Ahhh! They’re absolutely covered!!”

He doubted any of the news videos could move the heart of a bored n.o.ble girl, but…

“Heh heh heh. Ah ha ha!!”

“You’re completely carefree!? I know they say teenage girls find anything funny, but really!?”

“No, no, no. Quenser, you have quite the sense of humor. To n.o.bles like us, the misfortune of others is like the most exquisite honey. Isn’t that right, Major Capistrano?”

“Ahem… I would prefer not to answer that.”

Frolaytia cleared her throat to hold in the laughter, so this was apparently not just Azureyfear’s personal tastes. It did not really make sense to Commoner Quenser.

“Sigh. It must be tough being a royal. He was definitely careless, but any man his age probably says stuff like that with a mug of beer in hand.”

“This is n.o.blesse oblige. Authority brings responsibility. The greater authority of a n.o.ble or royal brings just as great responsibility with it. If a royal acts like a gossiping commoner at a press conference, it’s obvious what will happen.”

At any rate, he had cleared his first mission of amusing her. In her blue bikini that glittered like a tropical b.u.t.terfly, Azureyfear slowly lifted her small b.u.t.t from her chair.

“Major Capistrano, may I borrow him for a moment?”

“Yes. But…ehhh!? You’re going out dressed like that!?”

“I have completely boiled, so I could stand to feel the chilly wind for a bit. Quenser, bring that bath towel with you.”

With that said, she really did move to the heater-filled room’s door in her swimsuit. Quenser looked back and forth between Azureyfear and Frolaytia, but his commander only shrugged in her swimsuit. She was apparently ordering him to obey the selfish n.o.ble girl.

When they left the room, Quenser was a little chilly even in his uniform.

Much like after leaving a sauna, Azureyfear looked comfortable even in her blue bikini. She raised her hands, bent backwards, and let the chilly air wash over all of her skin.

Quenser asked the main question on his mind.

“Um, about before…”

“Oh, you mean in the sunflower field?”

She did not seem to care much.

She even shrugged while mentioning the sniping attack on the Blue Uniforms at the desert oasis.

“That is simple. The Winch.e.l.l family is not permitted to hunt humans.”

“No one is!!”

The idiot leaned forward without thinking and the n.o.ble girl’s cleavage filled his vision.

She was incredibly cute, but he was not sure what to do when she had the same blood as Heivia. Or rather, that guy’s unwelcome face flashed through his mind and he could not concentrate.

“So it would be convenient if you took the credit for those kills as you were the one to pick up a Capitalist Corporations gun. What must be done and one’s reputation are very different things, especially in n.o.ble society. Well, try not to think about it too much, commoner. I suggest you take the credit for saving your unit. More importantly…”

Azureyfear rotated her raised arms behind her back, bent her hips forward, and peered up at him from below.

“I would like to hear about my brother. You are closer to him than anyone, aren’t you?”

“…So that’s it.”

“You look like you want to know why I would not meet him directly when we are brother and sister. I can almost sense the warm image commoners have of family. …But that concept is meaningless among n.o.bles who are constantly in conflict with their own flesh and blood.”

“But if you want to know about it, you must not be completely divided.”

“I can’t tell you how he feels about it, though. Besides, he is something of a heretic when it comes to the Winch.e.l.l family. When someone is hated by their surroundings, they will in turn hate their surroundings. It’s a sort of defensive measure.”

“Well…I’ll admit he isn’t your stereotypical n.o.ble.”

Quenser did not quite understand and Azureyfear laughed. She seemed to like that he could not imagine what it was like to be in conflict with his own flesh and blood.

It was the proof that he had a truly happy relations.h.i.+p with his family.

“Quenser, my bath towel.”

“So it was only a short luxury, huh?”

He held it out and she draped it over her shoulders like a cape to keep some of her warmth.

“Then again, Heivia’s Heivia. It would be heard to find something that’s different from normal. In fact, I can’t imagine his condition would change much even if he ate a rotten egg he found on the side of the road.”

“Oh, my. He must really be spreading his wings here.”

Quenser wondered if the boy had been different in his safe country mansion, but he had difficulty picturing Heivia Winch.e.l.l during peacetime.

“Is he receiving letters or telegrams with any frequency?”

“I’m not some kind of Echelon Quenser who monitors all of his communications, but he gets calls and emails. It’s monitored by the military server, but everyone here at least plays an online golf game.”

Then Quenser remembered something.

“But I do see him messing with his handheld device a lot lately.”

“My.”

“I asked if he was pretending to have phone s.e.x, but he denied it. I wonder if he was telling the truth.”

“My, my!!”

Azureyfear elegantly brought a hand to her mouth and her eyes sparkled for some reason.

She may have just had too much time on her hands.

“Then he must have a hotline to the Vanderbilt family after all… No, there is no reason to let this get to me… I already knew he had a relations.h.i.+p with our sworn enemy… That is just the kind of person he is…”

“?”

Quenser tilted his head as the n.o.ble girl faced the wall and muttered something under her breath.

Then an irregular tremor ran down her spine. She rubbed together her pale thighs, fully wrapped the bath towel around her body, and glanced awkwardly toward Quenser.

“I have cooled down a fair bit. Thank you for the amusing chat, commoner. I need to visit the powder room, so return to your normal post.”

“So n.o.bles really call it the powder room…”

“Do not even think about asking too much about this.”

“Our mission today is to eliminate a negative campaign being run by the Information Alliance.”

In the briefing room, Frolaytia began her briefing (having changed into her usual uniform).

A map of Africa was displayed on the white wall behind her and a red dot had been added to the cape at the southern tip.

“As you know, the Cape of Good Hope is a crucial marine transportation point. With instability in the Mediterranean and Suez due to a conflict between the Legitimacy Kingdom and the Faith Organization, tankers are using the safer but longer route around Africa and through the Cape of Good Hope. That means having an Object sitting there is a major problem.”

“And some idiot’s done that?” asked Heivia.

Frolaytia hit a b.u.t.ton on the remote, the projector emitted a mechanical whir, and the map zoomed in on the Cape of Good Hope.

“It’s an Information Alliance Second Generation named Spectre Q&A. It’s an amphibious air cus.h.i.+on model with a laser beam main cannon that uses a dye laser. But the specs can come later.”

She used the remote again and a completely different map appeared.

It was of the Arctic at the very top of the Northern Hemisphere.

“Since the Arctic ice has begun to melt due to global warming, a new sea route is appearing: the Arctic route. The Information Alliance is actively pus.h.i.+ng for the opening of that route, so they must want to force everyone to rely on it by blocking the Suez and Cape of Good Hope routes.”

“So they want to hara.s.s everyone at the Cape of Good Hope and stop all the tankers and cruise s.h.i.+ps to gather attention?” Quenser sounded disgusted. “Are they grade schoolers?”

“But this is no laughing matter.”

Frolaytia hit another b.u.t.ton and a few photographs appeared.

They were of the ocean around the Cape of Good Hope.

“The south” brought warm images to Quenser’s mind, but this was the extreme south of the continent. It was also midwinter due to the reversed seasons of this hemisphere, so there was drift ice everywhere. In fact, some areas were completely covered with thick white ice.

However…

“No matter how bizarre the weather here, the formation of the ice is apparently meteorologically impossible. The odds are good the Information Alliance is using some kind of meteorological weapon. So without a truly large icebreaker, no one can cross this thick layer of ice. To be blunt, even this aircraft carrier fleet we borrowed won’t cut it. Our makes.h.i.+ft icebreaking blade can only do so much, so we can only get so close. I’d rather not meet the same fate as the t.i.tanic out here.”

“Hey, wait. Then…”

“That’s right, Quenser. This battle is mostly a naval one, but there are also several layers of thick ice all around here. The Princess uses static electricity which requires attaching or removing a float when switching between land and sea. But I don’t want the Spectre Q&A noticing that and targeting the ground below her. I don’t even want to think about that two hundred thousand ton ma.s.s sinking to the bottom of the ocean.”

“Then the Princess will be doing this with the naval float attached?”

“Precisely. But that makes things difficult for us. Footwork is everything in battles between Objects. Particularly in the Spectre Q&A’s case since it’s laser beam main cannon will require quick movement. And yet the Princess will be restricted by the need to break the ice. That will increase the resistance and slow her down. If she gets careless, she could play right into their hands.”

The Spectre Q&A was an amphibious air cus.h.i.+on model. They had not been shown the specs yet, but it may have been able to freely move between the ocean and the ice. If it did not need to break the ice, it would have nimbler footwork.

“As a side note, as the name Spectre Q&A suggests, it is a Second Generation that specializes in optical sample a.n.a.lysis. Quenser, as a battlefield student, I a.s.sume you’re familiar with femtosecond optics, the world of one quadrillionth of a second.”

“Well, yes. But…you can’t possibly mean…!!”

“That’s just one of its Swiss army knife of options. An atom’s oscillation lasts from a few dozen to a few hundred femtoseconds, but a pulse laser of only a few femtoseconds is even shorter. That special light can isolate and record the movements of atoms like movie film and then a.n.a.lyze the footage frame by frame. Simply put, the chemical changes are stripped bare in their microscopic states. Even if you mix yourself an original drink at the soda fountain, it can probably break down each of the components and list them in order. And even more accurately than the person who mixed it.”

Quenser gulped, but Heivia had not understood any of that. The difference was so stark it was almost sad, but Frolaytia continued regardless.

“This Swiss army knife was probably originally designed to extract and a.n.a.lyze the makeup of fragments of the enemy Object’s armor, the static electricity repellant floating in the air, or the special gas for low-stability plasma cannons. That way they can find an effective means of attack.”

“Originally?”

“We’re getting back to that drug war. The various ‘products’ may seem the same, but there are differences depending on where they were made. You could call it the drug’s ‘fingerprint’. A detailed examination of the impurities introduced in the refinement process would show slightly differing signatures even in the same sort of drug. For example, the impurities will differ depending on whether a certain ingredient was obtained by soaking commercial cold medicine in alcohol or if it was grown as a plant. By combining all those differences, a unique signature for a manufacturer will appear. Colorful Vanilla has a cloyingly sweet smell from the vanillin-like impurity it gains during creation, so it’s worth looking into a little more.”

Frolaytia spun the remote in her hand.

“We found the ergots used to make Colorful Vanilla in that crashed plane in the Rio Grande District. Out of the seventy-five drugs circulating through the Capitalist Corporations, the intelligence division has acquired samples of the Colorful Vanilla that has increased so dramatically recently. If we could use the Spectre Q&A’s optical sample a.n.a.lysis, we could determine just how it’s made. By the way, the Spectre Q&A’s Pilot Elite has a PhD in pharmaceutics and physiology and is suspected to have created a few different designer drugs in the past. A designer drug is one with the original chemical structure changed slightly to slip past drug tests like a variation of a computer virus. But it doesn’t seem they’re targeting safe countries in a drug war. Their MO seems to be using the internet to send the recipe to the worn-down soldiers in the enemy maintenance base zone and triggering a moral hazard there. But either way, nothing good can come from the spread of funny-smelling cigarettes or sodas that make you feel a little too happy.”

In other words, the ergots made in the Legitimacy Kingdom were being made into drugs in the Information Alliance and the completed Colorful Vanilla was being sent to their common enemy, the Capitalist Corporations. It was a little confusing and it made one wonder how much any single part of the process knew about the whole.

“It looks like the drug war run by Black Uniform Special Platoon 15 was just one gear in the giant contraption that is the Legitimacy Kingdom. In other words, there is still a mastermind behind all this. It hurts that Meena Stinger was killed before she could say who, but we’ve found another line back to them here. If we can get to the Spectre Q&A’s Pilot Elite or get the necessary data out of the Object itself which doubles as an optical sample a.n.a.lysis lab, we might be able to uncover the mastermind hiding in the Legitimacy Kingdom. We can’t ignore someone who seems to think they’re a chess master as they infect both battlefield countries and safe countries. We will find the clue we need here and settle this. That is all.”

Any maintenance base tended to be full of motion just before a mission.

The naval base made of a fleet built around several small aircraft carriers was no exception. Quenser, Heivia, and many other soldiers were rus.h.i.+ng through the s.h.i.+p’s narrow corridors. They were all preparing cold weather gear and small boats. Basically, they were scrambling for the most well-maintained gear. Getting the short end of the stick would mean being thrown out in the midwinter ocean with only a coat that had a big hole on the b.u.t.t.

“This is just plain awful! Isn’t this a one-on-one between giant Objects? Why is that busty commander sending worthless soldiers to the front line? What possible reason is there? She isn’t just using up a quota like road construction at the end of the fiscal year, is she!?”

“I want to be on the battlefield even if I don’t have to. There’s no point in being a battlefield student otherwise.”

“It’s because of idiots like you that war will never end!”

“What movie do you have a hard-on for now? Some Capitalist Corporations anti-war film?”

Of course, the two idiots were not the only ones running around.

Men and women, old and young, were desperately grabbing for the newest gear. If he was going to be crushed in the middle of a crowd, Quenser decided he would make the most of it and charged right into an area with a high concentration of female soldiers, but then he noticed a different voice in the mix.

“Marie, I swear I’ll come back to you. Wells, take care of your mother while I’m gone.”

“Hey, Kevin, let’s not get all melancholy while staring at a picture before heading out to the battlefield!”

“Oh, Quenser. h.e.l.lo. But don’t worry. I’m not about to lose here. Once this battle is over, I promised to put in for some leave and take my family to an amus.e.m.e.nt park. Eh heh heh.”

“Kevin, you idiot! What kind of setup is this!?”

As he began that fruitless argument, another voice cut in.

“Commoner.”

It was the previous Blue Rose, but she was not in her previous blue swimsuit. She instead wore her previous blue dress with. She had her arms crossed as she leaned against the wall to stay out of the way of the soldiers rus.h.i.+ng around.

But unfortunately, she did not have a large enough chest to lift up the way Frolaytia did.

When Quenser came to a stop, he was immediately driven out of the race for the best gear. Even gloomy Kevin left, but that was hardly surprising when staying still was a lot like fighting an even greater current than a salmon swimming upstream.

But even before Quenser, Heivia looked over to her and their gazes met.

“Tch.”

“Hmph.”

The siblings barely spoke.

Heivia clicked his tongue irritably and left the unwelcome family member to continue preparing for battle. The look on his face made it clear her very presence was a problem, not just anything she would say or do.

Azureyfear Winch.e.l.l left the wall and approached the student who had been left behind. When her sudden approach brought her face right in front of his nose, Quenser lost his nerve.

She whispered to him so no one else could hear.

“Take care of my brother, will you? I can only watch from here, after all.”

“So you are worried for him,” he muttered in annoyance.

What was even the point of her surprise visit? If it was for foreign negotiations or a performance for the press, she would not have stayed for the move from Central America to southern Africa. It was possible she was using the status of her family to disguise the fact that she was simply checking in on her family member.

“Listen, n.o.ble girl. He wouldn’t die even if a sh.e.l.l blew up right next to him. After all, he doesn’t have an ounce of pride, so he’ll immediately curl up and reduce the odds of being hit. Did you know the rate of death from a sh.e.l.l explosion drops from eighty to fifty percent depending on whether they’re standing up or down on the ground? In other words, there’s statistical backing for his endurance, so don’t worry.”

He sighed and gave that arbitrary comment, but then he felt a soft sensation and a faint rosy scent on his right cheek.

After pulling her head back, Azureyfear placed her index finger on her lips and peered up at him from below.

“If you bring my brother back safely, I’ll do the same thing on the other side.”

“…Ohh.”

“If you have time to stand around, then get moving. You take care of things where I can’t go, Quenser.”

With that said, the girl in a blue dress spun around and left.

For once, Quenser was left behind with a hand on his cheek.

“Oh, you’re finally here, tech nerd. It was like a fight for soba bread at the school cafeteria, but I snagged us a high-tech boat. Hurry up and help me fold this-…bgyah!?”

As soon as the n.o.ble boy faced his awful friend, a fist slammed into his nose.

“What!? Wait. What the h.e.l.l was that for!?”

“I guess it doesn’t matter, but take care of your sister, you spoiled b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

“Mh…”

The Princess puffed out her cheeks while sitting on the very top of the Baby Magnum’s spherical body.

The 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion’s prized weapon was currently held between two small aircraft carriers by hundreds of wires as it underwent maintenance, but this meant the Princess had to wait and thus had nothing to do.

Rather than doing any direct work, the old maintenance lady was using a tablet to manage the maintenance as a whole and give instructions, so she spoke to the Princess while operating the touchscreen.

In the modern age of clean wears which were entirely focused on Objects, the mental state and conditioning of a single individual could lead to serious problems for everyone.

“Does it bother you?”

“I feel like Quenser has been neglecting his studies lately. He isn’t coming to see the Baby Magnum.”

The old lady gave an exasperated sigh.

This was a matter of impressions, not statistical data. A greedy commoner hoping to strike it rich would never overlook a treasure trove like this.

However, there was a reason for the Princess’s inaccurate “impression”. Arguing back with accurate data was not going to convince her and the old lady was used to dealing with her, so she continued the conversation in search of another angle to use.

“It’s an issue of frequency. He sees the Baby Magnum all the time, but he only gets to see the enemy Object once. A new Object might seem more important to him because it holds fresh new surprises.”

“Boo. So I’m the boring girl he can see any time he wants?”

“Honestly, who do you see as your enemy here? The Spectre Q&A or the Blue Rose of Winch.e.l.l?”

Only then did the Princess realize her mistake, so she began waving her hands around.

“No. I was being serious here.”

“Who ever said love isn’t serious? And since bloodline comes first in the Legitimacy Kingdom, you could call it the foundation of society.”

“Uuhhhhh… Uuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The Princess completely overheated. She seemed to be at a complete loss as to what to say. They could not have her getting a fever like a child too excited about an upcoming field trip, so the old lady intentionally changed the subject.

“It may not be our place to talk since it’s Objects that put food on our table, but weapons development is a sinful business. Meteorological weapons in particular make me think that.”

“You mean the ice?”

The Princess stared into the distance where the horizon was dyed white. The scale made it hard to tell, but the thick ice had to have covered kilometers of the ocean. The fleet built around small aircraft carriers could not cross it, so normal tankers and cruise s.h.i.+ps could easily sink after colliding with it.

That unnatural ice blocked off the sea.

As the old maintenance lady operated her tablet, it looked less like she was maintaining weapons and more like she was using big data to optimize inventory work at a large drug store.

There was a reason for that.

“That’s why you’ve been checking over the secondary cannons so carefully, isn’t it? This is a fight between Objects, so anti-personnel and anti-vehicle weapons would be meaningless.”

“You were planning to do that from the beginning, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” the Princess readily admitted. “Why would I just break through the ice like normal? I don’t need to fight on their turf if I don’t want to.”

The Cape of Good Hope was stormy.

The tall waves of the ocean were gray, as if they had absorbed the color of the cloudy sky. The worker ants of the Legitimacy Kingdom advanced using the electric motors of their rubber boats and they quickly ran across some white “mines”. In other words, drift ice. At first, they were the size of a stone one could carry with both arms, but they soon grew to the size of bathtubs and finally a n.o.ble’s mansion.

“d.a.m.n, it’s that t.i.ts iceberg from before. Kevin, watch where we’re headed! I’m not about to crash into that thing and sink.”

“Wow, they’re covered in penguins. Do you think they and the ice came all the way from Antarctica?”

“They might just be taking a vacation in this area.”

There were about ten people per boat. The middle-aged man named Kevin was pointing his handheld device’s lens around taking photos.

“What are you doing, Kevin? If you’re a.n.a.lyzing the ice, could you share that data?”

“Sorry, Quenser, but I’m taking pictures of the drift ice. My son Wells absolutely loves penguins, so he’s sure to love this.”

“Hey, you aren’t summoning the grim reaper and getting us caught in the crossfire, are you?”

The ratio of ocean to ice gradually reversed and they found themselves sailing through rivers or valleys in the gaps between the ice. Eventually, there was no excess s.p.a.ce and they had trouble getting the boats any further.

A white wall over a meter tall waited ahead of them. If it stuck up that far from the water, they could not even imagine how far it spread beneath.

“This ice really is weird,” said Quenser as he stroked its surface through his thick glove. “It’s like one meter dice were packed together like chocolate crunch. That gives it a lot of handholds though, so we shouldn’t have any trouble climbing up it.”

However, the student did not hear any of the usual complaints from his awful friend, so he sighed.

“Are you still in a bad mood, you gloomy n.o.ble?”

“A pat on the nose from some skinny SOB isn’t about to deter the Great Heivia. But I still can’t believe you would take Azureyfear’s side and treat me like a villain when you have no idea what’s going on there. Being a beautiful girl must be nice. A single teary look and you can overturn any law!”

“…”

Quenser looked like someone who had just noticed a pile of old newspapers after the recycling truck drove by, middle-aged Kevin looked nervous, and Heivia raised his voice because he could not stand the annoying “pressure” bearing down on him.

“Fine, fine! I’ll admit it. I may not know where exactly Azureyfear falls in my list of sisters, but I do know her!! She was pretty cute when she was a kid, but that completely changed after I started dating Lady Vanderbilt. It turned out she didn’t have a personality of her own and she was only following the program placed in her head by the Winch.e.l.l family. She was completely done in by her n.o.ble blood.”

“So you started having trouble with your cute little sister because of your girlfriend? Do you want me to punch you again, you spoiled b.a.s.t.a.r.d?”

Seeing a boy pout his lips and sulk was only creepy. Quenser dealt with him and turned back to the rough ice wall again. The rocking rubber boat made for unsteady footing, but since it was higher than the ocean’s surface, the meter tall ice was between waist and chest height when he stood up.

Everyone on the boat crawled up onto the ice land where they found a different world covered in a flat plain of pure white. The ice literally continued to the horizon. It may have been bigger than a small megafloat airport.

“This iceberg is practically an ice shelf. It’s like a continent.”

“Quenser, I know your eyes only know how to stare at girl’s a.s.ses, so quit pretending to appreciate the scenery and help me with this work.”

“You get so hesitant, complain-y, and just an all-around pain-in-the-a.s.s when it comes to your family. Are you in a rebellious phase or are you a kid with his parents at school for parent’s day? The problem is that you actually think it makes you look cool.”

They used the synthetic fiber rope prepared in the boat to pull the boat up from the ocean. Then the ten-person boat visibly changed form. The air inflating the balloon was released, the umbrella-like framework bent like an arm, and the alloy armor opened up. In less than twenty seconds, it had become a rectangular suitcase-sized ma.s.s. It had treads and looked like a miniature snowmobile or tank.

Kevin used his handheld device, but not to take photos of the penguins this time. He seemed to be controlling the miniature.

“It’s called an Armadillo. It normally follows along automatically to a.n.a.lyze images and monitor the situation, but it still needs some human help. Although that makes it kind of cute.”

Quenser scratched his head while listening to the middle-aged man.

“Will this thing really help?”

“We have a lot to carry this time, so a robot should come in handy.”

“True…”

There was not much infantry could do in a battle between Objects.

The mission these idiots had “gladly” received from Frolaytia was to take samples of and a.n.a.lyze the makeup of the unnatural ice as well as scattering decoy armor and sh.e.l.l fragments to interfere with the Spectre Q&A’s a.n.a.lysis work.

That meant carrying back containers of the ice they had carved off as well as carrying around some amount of trap fragments to spread across the wide range of the battlefield.

“Yeah, this is a pretty unwieldy job.”

“Ah ha ha. Well, it’s still better than going out for a firefight with other human beings.”

They did not know when, where, or how the Spectre Q&A would take its samples, so they could only place the fragments at evenly s.p.a.ced intervals as if aligning them on graph paper. They had to carry around the equipment and measure everything out, so the robot was a lot of help.

“Come to think of it, they sent bull robots after us in the Rio Grande District. Everyone’s developing this kind of thing, aren’t they?”

“I would think this style makes more sense than adding legs. I’d heard whispers that the infantry is starting to need power station vehicles for all their electronic equipment. Having your soldiers worried about their phone battery would be pretty sad, after all.”

In his own stupid way, Heivia must have realized that his bad mood was not very productive because he casually replied.

“Basically it’s a durable caddy. It’s got power, water, food, and even that boat we were using. There’s more of a demand for these indirect weapons that don’t help fight but carry the equipment needed to maintain the front line. It can be used to block bullets in a pinch, but the electronic simulation division’s calculations didn’t recommend it. They said the gunfire could trigger a spark explosion in the transformer and we’d be caught in the blast.”

“Eh heh heh. Isn’t it cute? It reminds me of a cleaning robot. When we would run ours back home, Wells would chase after it.”

“Hey, you might be missing your family, but don’t draw a face on it with permanent ink. It’s military property.”

That said, they would not need to use it to block bullets.

Their enemy was not infantry with a.s.sault rifles or handguns.

“…”

The pure white land underwent a great change. An unbelievably large crack ran through the icy surface that continued to the horizon. Seen from a satellite, it may have looked like a pane of gla.s.s after it was stabbed with the tip of an umbrella, but it looked like a giant valley to those on the scene. The rocking of the waves caused an even greater height difference between the two sides of the fault.

“Here she is,” spat out Heivia. “That was our Princess.”

The icy land seemed to be made from one meter dice packed together like extra-large chocolate crunch and a giant form crashed into it with its naval float still attached. It was the Baby Magnum with its seven main cannons and reverse Y-shaped support.

And if the Princess was here, then the other Object would be somewhere nearby too.

The Information Alliance Second Generation was known as the Spectre Q&A.

It was an amphibious air cus.h.i.+on Object, so it smoothly slipped up onto the flat-looking ice in the distance. It looked like a fusion between a spider and a crab. It was supported by four long, narrow legs and it had four pincer-like arms on the front. The surface of the pincers was likely covered with vacuum cleaner-like suction devices. Those would collect the armor panel fragments or low-stability plasma cannon gas floating in the air, find their weak points with its optical sample a.n.a.lysis, and construct its tactics based on that.

This battle was one-on-one, so it was obvious what would happen next.

“Quenser, Heivia, and everyone else. Be on your guard.”

The Princess warned them over the radio.

Immediately afterwards, a frighteningly indiscriminate bombardment began.

They did not begin with their main cannons.

Instead, it was the many secondary cannons covering the spherical bodies like a sea urchin or chestnut burr that moved first. The Princess did not bother breaking the ice with her icebreaking blade. She started by firing metal railgun and coilgun sh.e.l.ls to break the white scenery into countless blocks and then fired laser beams and low-stability plasma cannons to instantly vaporize the blocks. She advanced while turning the field ahead of her into the ocean and water she needed for her naval floats.

Quenser and the others had no choice but to watch.

But they did not have a chance to just calmly watch as the Baby Magnum and the Spectre Q&A exchanged fire with their low-stability plasma cannon and laser beam main cannons.

There was a white explosion near the surface.

The dangerous drift ice could have opened a hole in the side of a cruise s.h.i.+p, but the intense heat had forced it to flash vaporize, triggering an explosion of water vapor. But by the time they realized that, a white wall several kilometers long was approaching the soldiers with intense pressure.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

They got down on the ground. Quenser and Heivia both got down, realized they had nothing to grab onto, and got chummy with the suitcase-sized Armadillo power vehicle made from folding up the rubber boat. The white wall struck a moment later. The beads of ice stung their cheeks. Their vision was as poor as in a sandstorm and Quenser saw a large silhouette flying by at greater than his height. Rather than a UFO, it was a poor Legitimacy Kingdom soldier who had not been blessed with anything to grab onto.

“Keviiiin!!”

“I told you! This is what happens when you carry a picture of your family around on the battlefield, you idiot!!”

“We can’t investigate the ice or scatter fragments like this. What do we do!?”

“Shut up! Just focus on surviving, skinny boy! At this rate, they’ll grab our corpses and use their optical sample a.n.a.lysis to reveal the locations of every last mole and erogenous zone on our bodies!!”

Next, they heard yet another explosion like a balloon popping.

The Princess was not using these water vapor explosions to damage the enemy Object. They were simply meant to destroy the endless obstacles getting in her way, so these white walls would reach the soldiers again and again.

“You’re kidding! You have got to be kidding! Let’s head back to the crack in the ice shelf. If we stay up here, we’ll be just like a line of ants being sprayed with a hose!!”

“When the land is shaking this much!? The chunks of ice are rocking in the waves, so if we climb between them, we’ll be crushed by a giant mouth!!”

An icy South African wind blew through.

It quickly washed away the water vapor and the scenery opened up once more.

Quenser felt like he was seeing something he should not be.

A giant mushroom cloud covered a radius of one hundred meters. It looked like a scene from some old footage.

That too may have been a ma.s.sive water vapor explosion and Heivia’s eyes widened as he shouted out.

“I don’t think the weather can get any more bizarre than this!!”

They did not have time to stick around.

They were a.s.saulted by intense pressure, like an invisible giant’s hand was sweeping them away. This time, they were pulled up into the air. There were not given a choice in the matter and tossed right into the nearby canyon-like crack.

They plunged into the gray sea.

The Armadillo had fallen with them, so it opened on its own and instantly filled with air to form a rubber boat.

The seemingly depthless water squeezed at their hearts, so they frantically swam for the surface and grabbed at the boat. But then they noticed someone else with them.

It was Kevin.

He seemed to have fallen into the crack ahead of them.

“Cough, cough! A-are you two okay? L-let me grab on too.”

“Kevin, grab on here. That was the Princess. Our life insurance only pays out if the enemy shoots us, so you’ll lose big if you let that kill you.”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’m not going to die. My son Wells gave me a good luck charm to ward off bullets. Dying here would mean rejecting his efforts and I’m not about to have him feeling down.”

“Ahhhh!! Someone please stop this guy from calling in any more bad luck!!”

Even soldiers decked out with cutting-edge equipment were superst.i.tious. The two idiots covered the man’s mouth so he could not do anymore to summon an unknown grim reaper.

Also…

“I don’t care anymore! Why are we even out here again!?”

“There is a lot we need to do. Let’s review, Heivia. We’re supposed to get the Spectre Q&A to gather decoy materials so it performs an erroneous optical sample a.n.a.lysis and we’re supposed to gather samples from this unnatural ice. If we know the system behind its solidification, we might be able to use a chemical to instantly melt it.”

“Leave all that to the Princess! With all that firepower, what does a little ice matter? If she wanted, couldn’t she fire some plasma into the South Pole to wipe out all of mankind?”

“No, not necessarily.”

Quenser climbed onto the Armadillo boat, stood up, and observed the battlefield like a pervert peeping over the fence of the girl’s bath.

Kevin asked a hesitant question.

“Wh-what is it, Quenser?”

“She’s melting the ice before she moves. That means her route is visible in advance, so the Spectre Q&A can predict the Princess’s next move. Nimble footwork is everything in an Object battle. It can predict where she’ll be one second later and fire its laser main cannon there.”

“Then what do we do?”

“What we were sent out here to do: search for a way of melting these mountains of ice without relying on the Princess. If we can get rid of all this unnatural ice, we can overturn the Information Alliance’s advan-…”

Quenser trailed off and looked down at his soaking wet uniform. Then he looked to his surroundings: Heivia and Kevin who were still submerged in the water and clinging to the Armadillo boat, the gray sea, and the ice wall made from unnatural dice packed together.

“This is strange.”

“Eh?”

“Dammit, did my a.s.sumptions about the winter sea and this waterproof and cold-resistant equipment get the better of me? They did, didn’t they!? This isn’t right at all!!”

Heivia looked at his awful friend in confusion because Quenser removed his glove and stuck his hand in the seawater.

“And even if she’d been in a sauna, it was strange that Azureyfear could walk around the s.h.i.+p in only a swimsuit.”

“That pervert! Is my sister the type that says she can only sleep in the nude!?”

“It’s also strange that you two can soak in that seawater while only looking chilly and that my uniform didn’t freeze after I climbed up into this biting wind! And to top it all off, there’s this!!”

Quenser slapped the water’s surface from the boat.

“This water isn’t cold.”

“Eh? Eh?” asked Kevin. “What do you mean, Quenser?”

“It’s just your average seawater. This isn’t anywhere near the midwinter environment you need for it to freeze! That’s right. If this was cold enough to create an Antarctic-style ice shelf, we probably would have died a few minutes after falling into the seawater. The average temperature for the southernmost part of Africa is eleven degrees. It just isn’t the right environment for ice to form naturally!!”

Heivia and Kevin skeptically removed a glove and checked for themselves.

The idiot was right.

They did not feel the piercing cold of icy water. They felt the lukewarm temperature of water left sitting in a cup.

“Wait. Wait, wait. So what? This ice drifted here from Antarctica, right? Then it isn’t that strange that these giant icebergs are floating in normal seawater, is it?”

“One meter dice of ice were packed together into this giant ice shelf. It’s clearly manmade. And there’s no sign of the corn