Vol 4 Chapter 3 (2/2)
Quenser and the others continued their desperate pursuit of Oldnick even as their ally seemed more likely to kill them than their enemy
The Deep Optical could not capture humans under the water because it was a Second Generation Object specialized for fighting other Objects
”I beg you Don't fire any stray shots this way If all the water around us suddenly boils, we'll have no way to escape”
”These vibrations in the water aren't going to destroy the oxygen tanks' valves or the aqua scooters' motors, are they?”
Suddenly, the Deep Optical fired its h speed
Laser light could not actually be seen by the naked eye when viewed from the side However, it roasted the dust andone wanted to look directly at
For that reason, Quenser and the others kept their heads down and looked toward the depths of the ocean like so race
And yet the brilliant white light stabbed into their eyes nevertheless
”Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
Quenser let out a less cry as he felt an intense pain as if his eyes and even his skull had been pierced
He lost his sense of up and down
It did not ht that could find its way around was enough to rob a flesh-and-blood human of his senses
”QuenserDon't let go of your aqua scooter!! Focus on that feeling!!” shouted Heivia
Quenser grabbed the aqua scooter tighter as if he was clinging to it and his nuravity once more
”damn We're only 100 meters away That is way too close to a y”
”If you can see, help ht up at the surface They have their oxygen tanks, so they won't drown right away, but we still need to give them support”
At Heivia's urging, Quenser grabbed the ared woman who had started to sink towards the bottom of the ocean She , but Quenser had already shut off the personal channel on his radio Listening to it would do no one any good
And the Baby Magnum and Deep Optical's battle continued on above the surface
”I'd rather not have the side effects of their battle crush ative effects of the optical weapons will lessen We need to get away from this area of sea as quickly as we can”
Quenser and the rest of the group so as they trembled in fear
However, they did not head up to the surface even then They were not about to underestiet far enough away that the enemy Object's focus on the princess would take precedence
”Look, Heivia Isn't that Oldnick's boat!”
”Tch He's gotten pretty close to the sub!!”
The two decided they were far enough away and rose to the ocean surface
They reen hose out of their mouths, but the submarine's hatch had already been opened and a crew member had just stuck his head out An old whitecharter boat, but ed to climb up onto the submarine just as it looked like he would be swept away by the waves
”The end is finally in sight!”
”Let's finish this with a hole in one”
But the distance was too great
The submarine was about 1500 meters away
”dae!!”
”Heivia, what about an anti-tank missile!?”
”I thought it h, but I can try for an albatross”
”Aren't albatrosses actually harder?”
”Yeah, but people get more excited about a hole in one”
As they spoke, Heivia pulled out a large tube that was inside a clear plastic bag that had been sealed with duct tape He tore apart the packaging and threw it away That sort of weapon was not too affected by a bit of water, but that could change if water got into the targeting coas At the very least, it did not hurt to keep the water out
Heivia rested the missile launcher tube on his shoulder as he treaded water
”shi+t! I can't aiht with these waves!! Quenser, hold me in place!!”
”No!! I don't want to euy in this blue sea!!”
”I don't want you to do it either!! But if that troubleso a bogey rather than an albatross! That'll just get us another lecture froe-breasted commander! If you don't want that, then help me!!”
Quenser seriously thought he wouldinto him, but the situation required soet him blasted by the missile's blowback, he supported Heivia from the side
”Here goes! Hold on tight to et knocked over!!”
”Just get it over with!! Oh, God I need to find a way to invite the princess out swi so I can blot out these memories”
With the roar of co for a path out, the explosive shot towards the submarine
The subned to withstand extre like that was not about to sink it
However, they hadthe hatch to let Oldnick in
When the crewmember saw the projectile, he frantically attempted to close the hatch, but the missile struck the wall just below the hatch before he could A shockwave burst out along with an explosive roar, but the metal hatch survived the blast However, the intense force pushed the hatch closed even though the crew out of it
Heivia winced slightly when he saw that huht However, he did not have enough of a conscience to regret his actions
”I got lucky!! I hit with the first shot! Heivia, the genius, beautiful, and rich noble, is just too a!! It looks like that bastard Oldnick was knocked off He fell into the ocean”
”The sub is leaving”
”Theyaround da!! Quit finding fault with Heivia, the genius, beautiful, and rich noble!!”
”I guess an albatross was too much to hope for I hope we can at least make par”
Oldnick waved at the submarine in hopes that it would save hi
The cardinal continued waving for a bit, but he finally gave up He then desperately s to take him in a different direction
”What now? Is he just swi off in desperation?”
”No, isn't there a precious dom just north of here? It uses various filters to draw out and condense the tungsten dissolved in the ocean water”
”Not good Not good! That place is like a bunker!! And if it gets caught up in the battle, that huge-breasted co to completely erupt!!”
”Heivia, can you directly target that old man with a missile?”
”I can't reload in the ocean like this” Heivia reequipped his goggles and oxygen tank, and then grabbed his aqua scooter ”Life isn't always that easy Our only option is to get close and shoot him with a normal bullet”
”I suppose this is still better than having the ene to be easy, but we le”
Part 7
Froleytia gritted her teeth in her officer's room
The higher ups had hoped to deal with Roybelz Oldnick in the sa coed it, but now that the Capitalist Corporations' Deep Optical was involved, the problem had turned into a war
On top of that, the Deep Optical had a special blinding weapon that interfered with their ability to take evasive actions
It had created a number of clones of itself
It created i diffractive waves and used optical interference to disturb the various locking sensors
Froleytia and the others back at the base constantly received information fro
Froleytia opened a line to the electronic simulation department as she tried to think up a countermeasure
”Do you kno that blinding weapon works!?”
”It can freely ee the wavelengths as needed!! By siths at one point in space, the norether to create the ie that is viewed as three dimensional At the same time, it interferes with the infrared rays, ultraviolet rays, and every other optical device used to netic data from radar and the like!!” explained the operator frole of eh distance, the diffusion of the light waves would interfere with each other, so it should be within a few kilo ”Also, a norht eye and the left eye, but this is using enough inuulated by the diffractive rays Intentionally cutting off a portion of the lenses should cause a disturbance in the ie That could be used to determine where the real one is, but”
”They can immediately determine which lenses are active froht?”
”The ti shorter! If the paraed liked this, even that slight 'out of place feeling' could disappear!!”
For the moment, the princess was not fooled at all It was partially due to the fact that she would never believe that a single Object had suddenly becoh the false footage and continuing the battle
But
”With 1 of doubt, you lose the ability to trust the re 99,” commented Froleytia
”The false ie that is harder to tell apart frorows accustouard grows!!”
And the tirow
Being able to see through the false ies for too long was a problem too
”Right now, she is just barelyto take action in advance because she knows her sensors are being interfered with, but if she does not make it in time, she will take a direct hit”
The blinding weapon displayed its greatest effects within a range of a few kilometers In that case, the princess could escape the threat by falling back further than that and beginning a bombardment from there
But
(No The first shots from 10 kiloe is the best range for the princess to defeat the Deep Optical Also, I doubt the Deep Optical would let her leave If she tried to, it would do whatever it could to stop her)
”What if we link the foot soldiers' cameras and the satellite to the Object to provide different points of view!?” suggested the operator
”Those would have a slight lag and soh speed of the battle while relying on those!!”
They had no options
This was not an offensive cannon or defensive armor The 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion's predica else entirely
But then
”?”
Froleytia frowned
The Deep Optical should have been drawing in and attacking repeatedly, but it wasIt was clearly overlooking an opportunity In fact, it was activelybackwards away from the princess whenever it had a chance
Its actions seeless
(What? Why would it abandon its advantage here and begin to retreat?)
What was behind the Deep Optical?
What was to the north?
What lay beyond the battlefield?
Part 8
Even though it was funded by the Legiti been treated like a blank area due to the confusion over the tyrannical regime in the Oceanian military nation In other words, it was not defended by a dedicated Object An Object was deployed to the preciousplant in times of political unrest, but it did not have a unit stationed there for its defense
That here Roybelz Oldnick arrived at the end of his swim
The plant itself was similar to a cultivation facility The entire facility floated in the ocean Over 80 of it was made up of 10 meter square frames The frames were made of reinforced plastic and they floated from the multiple drums that were attached to the into the ocean Those filters would gather the tungsten dissolved into the seawater
”Coughcough!! Cough cough!!”
Oldnick had arrived at one of the frames at the very outside of the facility
Ain the plant hesitated over whether he should help him or report him, but he was unable to even let out a screaun out toward him
”Do you have a helicopter here?” asked the oldwill do Do you have any kind of transportation!? I need to get away from here as quickly as possible This is a blank area If I can lose them here”
Suddenly, a high-pitched gunshot cut off Oldnick's thoughts
A bullet hole appeared in one of the dru a nearby frame afloat
From 500 meters away in the ocean, Quenser shouted, ”You suck at this, Heivia!!”
”I can't bracewater in these waves, dammit!!”
Their target see the worker who could get in his way
Quenser pulled so on his back and shouted as loud as he could
”Jump in!!”
The worker immediately dove headfirst into the middle of one of the frames, but Oldnick ardless
After stabbing an electric fuse into it, Quenser chucked the Hand Axe toward the old man
As Heivia had said, he could not brace hi arc, but the explosive did not even make it 50 meters
He hit the switch on his radio regardless
A loud explosive noise rang out and Oldnick got down on the ground despite being well out of range of the blast
However, it had been ical attack in the first place
Oldnick did not seeh the battlefield He had no idea what the range of danger from an explosion was, so he seeht pain on his skin and ears from the shockwave
He looked over at the two boys and fired an occasional shot froe) as he jumped from frame to frame As there was no cover to be found in that area, he felt the need to ht occurred
While 80 of the plant was20 was different
”When we clierous part Even if he just has a handgun, we're goners if he targets us while we're defenseless”
”We have our oxygen tanks and aqua scooters Let's dive down and use the ocean water as a shi+eld”
Quenser and Heivia h the water The outside of the square frames was made up of thin pieces of cloth oneWith all the fra down looked soht down despite the slight rocking of the waves, so they ht attached to the bottom
”(Asten? It looks like you could make all the construction equipment for a mid-sized automobile factory with just one of those filters)”
”(Heh It's al as my sexy face)” commented Heivia
”(Man, I kind of want to take a souvenir home with me)”
Meanwhile, Oldnick ran down a pathway on the exterior of the frames and entered a facility made of steel Even that facility was built atop the type of large float that was co airports
(My odds are not good in a straight fight)
The former cardinal came to that conclusion
After all, he was up against a professionalof a world power They had better equiple handgun could hardly hope to oppose them
He had also been abandoned by the submarine
As a cardinal, he was supposed to be a sy from the moment he had to stretch out his arrasp any means of escape
(I have always been right I have always been on the right side)
And yet he had shaken hands with Hyena, a group that had no proble civilian convoys and facilities that distributed cargo
(If nothing was done about the expansion of the Greek power, the Christian Church would have lost its land, funding, people, and culture, one after another I stood up to protect those things)
To escape Valkyrie, he had shouted to the Capitalist Corporations that the Legitiht about a real war in the sea to the south
(My actions will shi+ne brilliantly within the history of the Faith Organization! Everyone will sing my praises and revereelse would be nonsense! Yes, utter nonsense! It would be unjust! No one is looking at this properly!!)
However, Oldnick had been abandoned by his allies' subun at a civilian worker of that plant, and had fled through the sea to save his own skin
But the old aze from that pathetic reality
His hopes had not yet been completely destroyed
He still had a tru as he had that, the Capitalist Corporations' Object was on his side
Oldnick arrived at a piece of equipment that was likely used to help with air traffic control for helicopters He set the frequency on the large radio to contact the Capitalist Corporations military
Of course, he was using a civilian piece of equipnal, so Quenser and Heivia could easily intercept it
The two boys recognized the voice that came in response
A bit of age could be heard in the voice, but it maintained a core of discipline
It belonged to the commander they had run into in the Loyauté district
”Cardinal Oldnick Do not use that device Our transave you a radio to contact us with”
”If I could use that, ould I be using this roundabout method!?”
Quenser and Heivia had already arrived at the botto for a point they could safely surface and climb out of the water at
”Send the Object this way as soon as possible!! I thought you were going to cut off the path of any Legitih? Also”
”You want to knohy that plant you are in has yet to be destroyed, cardinal? Not all operations go precisely as planned We are currently working to fulfill our quota”
Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance while underwater
That comment had made it sound like the destruction of the plant had been part of the plan all along
”Listen” While too worried to even think about the possibility of his soaking wet state putting hier of electrocution, Roybelz Oldnick shouted into the radio microphone with an almost hysteric tone to his voice ”If I die here, you cannot acquire what you are after Do not forget that!”
”And don't you forget that just knowing the method does not allow you to produce it Keep in ive you better terms than us”
After deciding on a point to surface, Heivia removed the scope from his rifle and poked it out of the water like a periscope in order to check for any guards
While listening to the radio, Quenser muttered, ”Platinum”
”What do you mean?”
”Oldnick first ca the Oceaniana plant used to acquire tungsten I can only think of one reason” Quenser see ”I've heard of a project that is atte carbon and tungsten atoms It's called the Treasure of Electron Mathematics It's a technique in which an atom with an unstable nu it with another ato taken intoindustrial platinum, so I searched the military database for information on it”
Basically, it was the technology to create incredibly valuable platinum out of 2 completely different types of atoms
”Tungsten is classified as a rare earth, but it still isn't as valuable as platinum”
”While they are creating as much synthetic platinum as they want, they also want to drive up its value by obstructing any other sten plant is likely athe same method as themselves”
While sending out his transrinding his teeth He then reached out for the last thin life line re for him
It was a connectionbut money
The old man kne risky that was
However, no card was s with the Capitalist Corporations military
”Once the syste platinum is in place, I will once le Object costs more than 5 billion dollars, but thatthat much money I will recover my territory from the hands of that Greek power”
”Do you wish for a coht the church council had yet to come to a definitive decision over whether this method of production was in violation of divine providence or not I thought there was a danger that this constitutes bringing impurities into the world created by God”
Most religions believed that God had either created the world or was largely involved in its origin and therefore allbeen created by God
In that case, was it acceptable for humans to create materials that did not exist in the natural world?
Would that not be nothingunnecessary impurities into the world God had created?
Many had whispered of that probleanization had not spoken out against the creation of things like plastics
Creating water fro a portion of the world God had created The central authority felt that was nothing more than an extension of the world God had created and it therefore did not violate providence
”But that reasoning does not apply for the Treasure of Electron Mathe atoms to create a molecule, the number of electrons between atoms is manipulated to create a different atom when two ato the ato blocks”
And that was not the only problem
The created atom was not so platinu created was key
”Even though this sten atom with a carbon atom, it is exactly the san atouishable fro brought into the world created by God, but this artificial substance fits right in without any problems whatsoever That ly than si some toxic new substance”
This was different fro a natural environment to create an artificial diamond out of carbon
This was a case of taking two non-platinule platinum atom
It was nota different form of platinum that was seen as blasphemous
It was the exposure of the vulnerability of the universal system of atoms and molecules that was seen as blasphemous
However, Oldnick responded immediately
The instantaneous responseon as convenient to hi from a deeply-held conviction
”I will reclaies stole There is no valid reason to criticize me for that”
”Even if you have thean Object”
”It does not oal of an Object in the end Did you know that the Faith Organization's exchange rate has been fixed? In order to deal with the exchange rate of the worldour own currency”
”Yes, but economic analysts have called that a roundaboutwith it”
”Greek's prie rate is tied to platinum If its value crashes, their culture will fall into chaos My true desire would be to personally send an Object in, but it does not necessarily have to besh rather forceful methods That has earned them a lot of hatred Once their momentum has been sloith the chaos over platinum values, others will tear into them”
Quenser and Heivia approached the facility through the sea in that old man's blind spot
They double checked the point and then grabbed onto the edge of the giant float, but then a high-pitched gunshot rang out
The edge of the float burst open slightly
The two boys frantically let go and hid in the ocean once more
”What the hell was that!? That wasn't Oldnick! It ca direction!!”
They could not see far through thetheir heads above the surface would bring the risk of being shot
A bullet ripped apart the ocean surface and shot by Quenser and Heivia while acco like a spear made up of air bubbles
”It looks like they don't know exactly where we are” Quenser and Heivia say fro about what to do ”Have some comrades of Oldnick's arrived?”
”Or have souards from the Capitalist Corporations been sent out here?”
Heivia floated up near the surface and poked just the scope of his rifle out of the seawater
Using it like a periscope, he checked around the area
”Not good I don't think those are Capitalist Corporations soldiers”
”What do you mean?”
”It's Valkyrie So to one of the plant's frames!!”
Quenser moved up next to Heivia and took the scope from him
He checked for himself
Sure enough, so fa on top of the frae sniper rifles with their elbows pressed against the frame for stability
”It seems they're as aware as us that there is really nowhere to hide”
A s up above the water a bit away from them
Quenser handed the scope back to Heivia
”But why is Valkyrie here? Since they're froanization too, is it related to Oldnick!?'
”If so, this could be even worse than running across some Capitalist Corporations' soldiers But at the same time”
Heivia trailed asout
The two boys hunkered down, but the bullets were not headed in their direction
”What? Are they targeting our other comrades?”
”No, they aren't They're firing at the giant float Oldnick ran onto!!”
”Why!?”
”That's their standard job Valkyrie is a global divine punishroup that executes any 'eneeting Oldnick as anization!!” Heivia reattached the scope to his rifle and then checked to ht ”But we can't assume the eneet as us At this rate, we can't avoid a conflict!!”
They were targeting the saument between them could provide Roybelz Oldnick with a chance to escape And any extra tiave Capitalist Corporations' troops more time to arrive to defend him
”” Quenser thought for a bit ”Heivia, hand me your rifle”
”What? You've never had anyto be of any use here!? Do you think they can't hit us at this distance because they have short-range sniper rifles? With their skill, they can hit us easily!!”
”No, not that” Quenser shook his head ”I know a more effective method than bullets”
When he told Heivia what that method was, Heivia expressed his disapproval just as Quenser had expected he would
”That's craz