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Volume 19, Chapter 2: When You See a Ghost on the Battlefield ]] Ghost Unit Interception in the Tunguska District Part 1-7

Part 1

Quenser Barbotage and Heivia Winchell were frozen half to death in the frigid ocean of Scandinavia. Their situation was dire enough for them to start fighting to the death over a single plank floating in the dark ocean.

Needless to say, they were with the Legitimacy Kingdom.

Specifically, the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion.

“B-brr. Brrrr.”

“Th-that’s the Northern Restricted Zone for you. The rules of the clean battlefield do not apply. We never should’ve gotten involved in this Objectless hell.”

Needless to say, Quenser and Heivia could not afford to die here.

Without any Objects, the Northern Restricted Zone brought back the battlefields of a bygone era where fighters and bombers still held sway. The people there continued to fight those emotional wars like it was normal. When ground-attack helicopters and multirole Zig-27s, which could be equipped for anti-air or anti-ground, both decided to show up, it was an all-you-can-eat buffet for those grim reapers. And currently, the Capitalist Corporations’ naval police were shining searchlights into the dark ocean from their boats. If all the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers here were assumed to be part of the infamous Chain Cutters, then they might not even be taken prisoner.

The screams of the others after having burning petroleum dumped over their heads still rang in Quenser’s ears.

He was a self-interested person and he hated that part of himself at times.

Instead of feeling sorry for those people who didn’t even have their dog tags collected, he mostly felt relieved that he hadn’t met the same fate.

“Ugh, it’s so cold. There’s no way we can swim back to shore. Hey, skinny boy, let’s climb onto one of the mining platforms around here. We can talk after that.”

“Those are civilian facilities. If the Capitalist Corporations finds us, they’ll shoot us, claiming they were preventing an indiscriminate attack on civilians! Even though they’re the ones who attacked the civilian-run Plant Castle!!”

“Which is why we make sure they don’t find us. It’s the same game of hide-and-seek but with us out of the freezing water.”

The 37th’s potatoes were new to the Northern Restricted Zone, but they had chosen their guides there very poorly. Quenser and Heivia had never imagined the Chain Cutters would take things so far. They had evolved in a disturbing way inside the Northern Restricted Zone, so they had done things the 37th couldn’t believe fellow Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers would do. The bombing of Warsaw had only needed to be a bluff, but those madmen had swapped the warhead out for a real one behind the 37th’s back. They had also killed off the Plant Castle’s owners to take over there. None of that could be called a clean war.

“A clean war, huh?”

“Hm? You say something, skinny?”

They climbed the ladder onto the mining plant.

They were so soaked with seawater they thought they were going to turn to sherbet in the cold air. February in Scandinavia was not to be trifled with. They shivered as they snuck into a heated room.

They would be forced to kill anyone who found them, even a civilian.

That placed all the more tension on their shoulders.

But for now, they needed to send a report.

Using their military radios would only gather the attention of the Capitalist Corporations search. If they were discovered, they would be surrounded by people wielding weapons more efficient and dangerous than a chainsaw. They used the mining plant’s civilian equipment to use an ordinary wireless LAN.

They knew this transmission would be intercepted.

But that was fine. Quenser pulled a water-resistant manual from a waterproof bag. Not all encryption used complex high-level math. If they hid their real message in something other than the actual words - sighs, footsteps, rustling clothing, head scratches, etc. - the Capitalist Corporations would focus only on the actual spoken words and thus couldn’t discover their real meaning even with the full use of their finest supercomputers. Everyone else might find the transmissions puzzling and ignore them, but anyone working off of the same word list could hold a secret conversation that way.

Quenser used that method to send the following message using an ordinary prepaid phone.

“This is Battlefield Student Quenser Barbotage. The mission was a failure. Our (supposed) allies in the Chain Cutters got themselves wiped out. From what I saw of the compound eye-like ground sensors on those attack helicopters, I doubt any of them are going to survive. The transport plane has passed through our airspace and vanished deep inside the Northern Restricted Zone where we’ll have a real hard time getting at it. That means we can no longer destroy the item ahead of time. No one can stop it from being installed in the Information Alliance Object.”

But even this wasn’t perfect.

The Capitalist Corporations of course had their own large intelligence agency. They might have already cracked this old-fashioned method. If so, they would immediately detect the message and surround the civilian mining platform. Sending the message might even get some innocent civilians killed in the attack.

It was a risky gamble.

Quenser continued his message while feeling the weight of the extreme tension.

And he of course made sure to cover the real message with some boring small talk no one would bother listening to.

“Frolaytia, tell the Princess the Ghost Changer remains intact. You need to be on high alert. …We’re up against a ghost this time. Nothing can change that now.”

Part 2

Difficulty level: +2

Troop death rate +40%

“…”

Object Pilot Elite Milinda Brantini, aka the Princess, formed a small triangle with her mouth when she saw the scene.

The Legitimacy Kingdom’s 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion had set up its maintenance base zone at an old harbor just outside of the Northern Restricted Zone.

Frolaytia Capistrano was seated with her long legs crossed, but the problem was how her butt was squashing Quenser’s cheek while he lay on his side. The many curves pushing out her officer’s uniform may have been the first thing most people noticed about the 18-year-old, but she also held a long, skinny kiseru and decorated her long silver hair with several kanzashi since she was an avid Island Nation lover. The military ruled with an iron fist, not even allowing a single undone button, so openly carrying personal items and modifying your uniform demonstrated just how much power she had here.

“So what are you doing to do about this, Quenser?” asked the kiseru-smoking demon.

“Squeal. I-I came back instead of running away, so can’t you cut me some slack!?”

Quenser and the others who had been rescued from that hell were the lucky ones. Yes, being thrown back into the February ocean by the rescue team and having to make a near-suicidal trip across the dark, cold ocean inside a human torpedo still qualified as very lucky indeed!

The results reached by the electronic simulation division were brutal. And that was without any accurate specs on the Information Alliance Object. There was a chance of some unexpected surprises to come.

The real threat this time wasn’t the Object itself. It was an add-on weapon called the Ghost Changer.

“We can still make this work. It’s not too late. Like cooking up your leftovers in curry mayo.”

“All of our initial plans need to be scrapped, Quenser. It sounds like we need to review so you understand just how badly you screwed up here.”

“Hwokay.”

“Half a month ago, the Legitimacy Kingdom and Information Alliance fought in the Hornos District. As usual, it was a fight over an important transportation route - in this case, the southernmost naval route needed to get past South America without using the Panama Canal.”

“Guh, that’s near Antarctica, so it’s actually super cold despite being in the southern hemisphere, right? Like Alaska in the northern hemisphere.”

“More or less. To be honest, it isn’t that important a position and the Legitimacy Kingdom had the advantage. It was nearly time for the carnival in Rio, so there was even talk of a temporary ceasefire if things weren’t settled by January’s end.” Frolaytia explained it all while her butt squashed his face through her tight skirt. “But then things changed. All 800 soldiers in the Legitimacy Kingdom’s maintenance base were slaughtered in a single night. There were signs of gunfire, but no Information Alliance bullets were found. That suggests the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers were shooting each other. More than 99% of the soldiers were killed, including the base commander and the Pilot Elite. Looking at the bullet holes, the seemingly random gunfire is most noticeable, but it looks like the nature of the battle changed once friendly fire detonated the ammo dump. …Some bodies were found with bite marks in their uniforms and flesh, suggesting the fighting continued even after they used up all their ammo. The bites were deep, leaving toothmarks on the bone in some cases. And since the same corpse sometimes had multiple sets of toothmarks, it looks like they were attacked in groups.”

“Are you serious? That’s way worse than I’d heard. That’s more like a splatter film than psychological horror.”

“The few soldiers who survived that hell all have severe PTSD from the psychological damage. And they’re all saying the same thing: they saw a ghost.”

“…”

A ghost.

If something that vaguely defined was being seen on a battlefield with physical bullets flying, then battlefield morale really was dying. It could lead to a lot of unnecessary harm.

But some soldiers had seen one.

Or maybe it was better to say they had been shown one.

Curses and vengeful spirits were finally making an appearance on the battlefield.

“The accuracy of their statements is not being officially recognized, but we do know the Information Alliance higher ups were getting frustrated with their inability to end that war and lent their Object an add-on we have called the Ghost Changer. We don’t know what it does, but they are clearly using an Object to do something. There’s no other explanation for more than 800 people with different personalities, memories, tastes, and beliefs to go nuts and attack their own people at the exact same time. I’m not saying this is really a curse or spirit possession, but it’s almost like someone threw an invisible switch in all of their heads. There is no psychological explanation for that.”

“And the Information Alliance loves to use information as a weapon.”

“We don’t know what it is, but the Ghost Changer fits in a single container yet they are treating it as an even more highly classified weapon than a 5-billion-dollar Object. This is their trump card against deadlocked wars. They move it from Object to Object even though Object weapons aren’t made to be reused or mutually compatible like that, so you would never even notice it exists if you were only following an individual Object. Our intelligence pursued the unit that left South America after that job, but that container alone was sent elsewhere. They swapped out containers several times along the way while zigzagging it between the east and the west to disguise where it was going, but fortunately we were able to figure out where it was being sent next.”

“Gulp.”

Military uses of parapsychology and the supernatural were generally thought to be a Faith Organization thing, but apparently the highly logical Information Alliance were getting in on the fun too.

They had failed to shoot down the transport plane. That failure meant the estimated troop death rate was up by 40%. They no longer had any way of safely ending this before the Ghost Changer was deployed.

They would have to directly face that mysterious secret weapon which was discussed more like a legend than anything.

“Thanks to our morons’ poor performance and some mischief from the Chain Cutters who were guiding you through the Northern Restricted Zone, we lost our one and only chance. Now, Quenser, it’s time to for the real fun: cleaning up your mistake☆ You see, the higher ups are reluctant to send their own adorable troops to a battlefield where the Information Alliance holds sway and are likely to send in an Object equipped with the Ghost Changer. So I know just what they’re going to tell the 37th after we screwed up so badly: go take responsibility by crawling through the mud.”

Thanks to that, they were (punished by) being sent to a war not on their original schedule.

The stage was frigid Siberia, at an inland point of eastern Eurasia. Worse, it was the Tunguska District, which was known for its mysterious legends.

Their base equipment and large vehicles were loaded onto more than 100 transport planes that traveled from Moscow to Siberia while giving the Northern Restricted Zone a wide berth. The Baby Magnum could not be carried by plane, so it had to travel at 500km/h across the ocean, arriving on the scene from the Arctic.

Inside their plane, Major Frolaytia Capistrano gave them their mission.

All of this was new information for Quenser and Heivia.

Another new war was beginning.

“The Information Alliance has gathered their forces to kill an innocent young girl.”

The two idiots frowned.

These sh*tty wars were all a blend of good and evil, so a simple and noble objective was a dangerous sign. It was best to assume there was a catch.

“How did you get this information?” hesitantly asked Quenser.

“From a POW, of course.”

And what kind of horrific methods did you use to get a tough, trained soldier to talk, miss?

“(What’s with Frolaytia? Her face looks like a swollen dickhead and I get the feeling she’s close to her breaking point.)”

“(Shush. She’s just exhausted, so leave her be until that stiff nipple is soft again.)”

“I heard every word of that. And who do you think got us into this situation anyway?” noted the busty silver-haired commander while biting her kiseru hard. “Elina Silverbullet. Age: 9. Sex: Female. She only took online classes, but she has already graduated top of her class from Columbia University and has published a total of 69 academic papers to date. Her fields of expertise are geology, environmental engineering, and 31 other related fields. For whatever reason, this Information Alliance girl is living a life cut off from civilization in a Siberian log cabin. And for whatever other reason, the Information Alliance is deploying a large force to either capture or kill her.”

“Umm, why would they do that? I mean, the Martini Series is enough to know the Information Alliance has a thing for genius girls, but this feels different.”

Quenser hesitantly raised his hand and asked his question, but the others all glared at him. Not even timid Myonri spared him.

It was understandable when this entire mission was a punishment for the mistake those two idiots had made.

Frolaytia fidgeted with her kiseru before answering.

“That remains unknown.”

“Why do we always get stuck with the worst missions? You aren’t supposed to throw away your life without even knowing what you’re fighting for,” complained Heivia.

But their beautiful major was not one to be swayed so easily.

“Now, Elina was born in the Information Alliance, so securing her should only require some government paperwork, not sending in a military force. Also, she might be an unparalleled genius, but we’re only talking about a single child here. Yet they’re secretly sending the Ghost Changer to handle it. There must be more to this kid. Elina Silverbullet has something the enemy higher ups want badly enough to use the secret weapon they have worked so hard to keep a secret. I don’t know what that is, but given the size of the fore they’re sending, they must value her higher than a Pilot Elite.”

Quenser worked to organize all this information in his head while he prompted his commander to continue.

“And?”

“We don’t know what she has, but it must be a major secret. If we were to steal it from them, we are almost guaranteed to do significant damage to the Information Alliance. …Well, I think that’s the excuse that was used on the officers back at our home country. Whether she’s captured or killed, that kid is not in for a good time. If no one from the Information Alliance is willing to stop this due to the internal politics involved, we can do it for them. So let’s head out there and assist a peaceful defection. Protecting the weak and asking for nothing in return is the job of the righteous knights, after all.”

“And?”

Quenser lowered his voice this time and Frolaytia couldn’t look him in the eye.

She childishly pouted her lips when she continued.

“The 37th is being honored with this mission as a punishment for failing to destroy the Ghost Changer, so I figure we might as well harass the Information Alliance as much as possible while we’re at it, right? They don’t want anyone to save Elina Silverbullet. If we succeed, some high-ranking officer over there is bound to lose their job, so giving this the most wonderful happy ending we can seems like the best revenge available to us.”

“Much better. This is finally sounding like a proper war.”

He couldn’t rest easy without some kind of ulterior motive like that. Nothing was more suspicious than your commander telling you to fight for the good of humanity. You were definitely being set up to do something shady as hell. It was less trustworthy than a mystery burger that shined bright in the light.

Frolaytia placed her kiseru back in her mouth before continuing.

“According to the intelligence division and the electronic simulation division, the unit deployed to the frozen Siberian forest is the Information Alliance’s 1st Mobile Maintenance Battalion, aka Fish. Their Object is the First Generation Retro Gunner. That rusty old hunk of junk was retired from the front line a decade ago and spent the rest of its life being used for endurance tests and testing new weapons technology.”

“Hold on. They’re using a First Generation for this?” asked Quenser.

“Weirdly troubling, isn’t it?” replied Frolaytia with a cruel smile.

Not only was it a First Generation, but it was a nearly scrapped and retired Object. It should have made for a much easier opponent than a cutting-edge Second Generation decked out with the latest tech, but that made no sense here.

“Don’t tell the Princess,” added their busty silver-haired commander. “The situation is pressing enough for them to use their secret Ghost Changer weapon, but then they send in an Object that’s a piece of junk even for a First Generation. None of it fits together. Does the Ghost Changer give them so much of an advantage the quality of the Object is irrelevant? No, that isn’t how it works. When using their powerful Ghost Changer, they would want to eliminate any chance of losing and having the Ghost Changer captured. We’re talking about one of the twisted technological wars of the current era, so they should be sending in the most powerful Object currently available. But that isn’t what they did. Why not?”

They had no answer.

Not a single one of them did.

They were risking their lives in this war, but their deadly enemy felt as elusive as an evil spirit or curse.

Something was beginning out there.

The ghost was already waiting for them away from prying eyes in the old-growth forest of the Tunguska District.

“The Ghost Changer and Elina Silverbullet would both be enough of a mystery on their own, but there may be some dangerous secret to the Retro Gunner as well. …True to their name, no one is better at manipulating information than the Information Alliance. Keep in mind that the on-paper specs of this First Generation might not be entirely accurate.”

Part 3

Quenser Barbotage was seated with his arms around his raised knees. He only found angry glares wherever he went, so he had to stay indoors. And this was the most calming place for him.

He sat within the Object hangar constructed in the colder part of Eurasia.

“Move, you fool. This is the front line for us maintenance soldiers.”

“Noooo!! Please don’t kick me out of my last utopiaaaaa!!”

“We have no need for a meatball curled up on the floor. If you want a place here, then start working that brain of yours.”

The cute Princess, who wore a skintight special suit resembling a sailor uniform with its unique collar and the pouches around the hips, tilted her head curiously while her emotionless eyes watched Quenser cling tearfully to the old maintenance lady’s leg. Her short blonde hair shook from the motion.

“Is that the latest fad?” she asked.

“Absolutely not! A wrinkly old lady dominatrix!? How niche a kink are we talking about here!? That’s like several levels of avant-garde past what I’m comfortable with. I’m still trying to figure out the appeal of moms, okay!?”

Quenser’s eyes widened as he made his case, but the old lady simply kicked him away.

The rest of the battalion’s anger was not going to die down anytime soon.

The Princess, however, clasped her hands behind her back and fidgeted awkwardly.

“Quenser, I have a riddle for you: what is February’s biggest event?”

“Eh? We’re doing riddles now?”

“I’ll give you a hint: it starts with a V.”

“???”

Quenser could only tilt his head.

The Princess got most of her information from the old maintenance lady or Frolaytia, so whether they were telling the truth or just messing with her, she often had a very Island Nation-centric view of things.

The old lady, who knew a lot about Island Nation celebrations, sighed.

“That event was artificially set up that way. …Hey!! What imbecile filled up the #3 grease!? Use that stuff in the icy weather out there and it’ll freeze!!”

“Grease? Grease, huh? I guess even nuke-resistant Objects need that stuff.”

“They aren’t protected by a futuristic forcefield. They can only withstand a nuclear attack thanks to being 200 thousand tons.”

“Give me something - anything - to do. But please make sure our Object doesn’t freeze up out there. That has to be one of the stupidest ways to die.”

“Ignorant boy. Most weapons - including tanks and fighters - have a long history of battling against the dangers of ice.”

The Princess had been zoned out, but she finally responded here.

“Ice…chocolate ice cream. Yes, that could work.”

“Eh? Um, Princess? Do you like to make sweets?”

“Do you want me to make some for you? Hee hee hee.”

“Bff!?”

Quenser couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The 37th’s potatoes lived off of flavorless rations that looked like giant erasers, so anything with real flavor that was made with an identifiable process was the greatest luxury. If you weren’t the commander like Frolaytia or the Pilot Elite like the Princess, you weren’t allowed to bring any inefficient personal items with you.

The old maintenance lady was the one who had told the Princess the legend of February 14 in the Island Nation while they were working, so she sighed while watching the ignorant battlefield student.

Quenser was trembling with excitement at this wonderful opportunity.

“You mean I’d really get a girl’s home cooking? And not just ‘home cooking’ as a euphemism for mixing gasoline and detergent to make a napalm bomb in the kitchen!?”

“If you really want me to, Quenser.”

“Hip hip hooray!! I can finally say goodbye to those boring rations! I can move beyond my days of mere subsistence and start to enjoy my life!!”

Part 4

And so they were thrown into another hellish war.

Quenser and Heivia stood in a blowing blizzard.

“Did I just see my life flash before my eyes? Where are we?”

“This can’t be real. We only got out of the truck 5 minutes ago. How are we already lost!?”

They turned around and rushed back the way they had come, but there was no truck and no tire tracks. Only the thick white curtain of snow.

Farewell, sweet treats.

The unwanted scent of war pushed in toward them instead.

They saw no sign of their fellow Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers despite how many of them were supposed to be out here. Quenser was no longer confident they had actually gone back the way they had come. He feared they were walking in circles thanks to this white screen of snow that kept them from seeing even a few meters away.

“My mobile device isn’t working either. How can we be 120km from the 37th’s maintenance base zone? The Baby Magnum should be nearby, but I can’t see that 50m giant anywhere.”

“It’s -15 degrees out here. I’d be amazed if our electronics weren’t breaking. And let’s not forget that I’m a noble. This cold had better not be killing all my valuable sperm.”

“If it’s so valuable, you should probably stop wrapping it up in a tissue and throwing it out.”

The two idiots warmed themselves with a nice fistfight.

Their objective out here was to secure and retrieve Elina Silverbullet, the genius girl hidden somewhere in this forest of spear-like conifer trees. They didn’t need to battle the Information Alliance or the Retro Gunner loaded with the Ghost Changer. But if it did come to a fight, they could probably find some reason or another to slaughter them all.

The temperature was 15 below freezing.

The thick layer of snow made it easy to lose track of distance and direction. That gave it an otherworldly feeling, like they were surrounded by greenscreens.

The trees standing more than 20m tall were packed in as close as the crowds downtown on the weekend. They were probably cedars, but they looked all fluffy thanks to the blowing snow. Quenser and Heivia knew they would be frozen solid like that too if they weren’t careful. It was colder than a kitchen freezer, so they knew their corpse wouldn’t rot until spring.

There was no sign of civilization out here.

No homes or stores and no roads or power poles.

“And if that wasn’t enough…”

Quenser Barbotage glanced to the side.

“A ghost, huh? Dreadfully unscientific, but rather amusing for Tunguska. 2000 square kilometers of this old-growth forest were reduced to ashes by a mysterious explosion. There are many theories, including that it was an asteroid breaking up in the atmosphere.” (Sladder Honeysuckle)

“Underestimate past knowledge like that and you will come to regret it. The exact same drugs developed from a complex chemical formula in a sterile lab can also be found in Chinese medicine made by crushing up tree roots over a thousand years ago. And the very idea of breaking free of gravity and flying into the heavens above came from old fairy tales like Kaguya-hime or Jack and the Beanstalk.” (Louisiana Honeysuckle)

A stubbly man and a silver-haired 17-year-old were both grinning darkly.

Sladder Honeysuckle was a mass driver researcher who had led the Capitalist Corporations’ Mass Driver Conglomerate and used the Second Generation Break Carrier to start a war so he could defect to the Information Alliance.

Louisiana Honeysuckle was a space elevator researcher who had used the Elevator Alliance, jointly funded by the Capitalist Corporations’ 7th Core, to create the 100 thousand kilometer balancing weight needed to correct the earth’s axis from the distortion caused by the use of 200 thousand ton Objects.

They were both geniuses in the bad way.

They were global-level war criminals who never should have been released from the prison located on a remote African island.

(Why are we reusing prisoners just because they can think in unique ways? I know the Ghost Changer is eating through our troops like crazy, but this can’t be a good idea. Controlling these monsters is way harder than fighting some ghost.)

Quenser gulped.

Those siblings had been given the bare minimum of camouflage, but they were not given any pockets where they could hide stuff. And to prevent them from hiding anything inside the clothing, they had belts wrapped tightly around them like a parachute harness, forcibly filling in all the internal space.

They were tough and easy to move in, but they looked more like prison uniforms than military ones.

And more than that…

Quenser heard the jangling of thick chains. Those two had long chains attached to their ankles. They also had handcuffs on their wrists. He didn’t see how they could possibly fight like this, but they were here for their knowledge. The higher ups had apparently decided they only needed enough freedom to work with their fingers and to fire a handgun for the bare minimum of self-defense. They were still basically prisoners, and they had been sent into this ghost battle without any real preparation. The higher ups didn’t expect them to come back alive any more than the 37th’s potatoes.

(And what’s this about the bare minimum? Even the puniest gun is still a gun. Did the higher ups give even a second’s thought to how we’ll feel getting shot in the back by them!?)

The Legitimacy Kingdom had decided to reuse brutal war criminals.

Which meant another pair of siblings was here too.

“Oh, my beloved brother! At long last, the time has come for us to work side by side! Hee hee. Hee hee. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!” (Azureyfear Winchell)

“Nooooooo!! Please, someone tell me the blizzard is making me hallucinate thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis!!!” (Heivia Winchell)

Oops, he was starting to place Heivia in the war criminal category alongside his sister.

The girl with long blonde hair blowing in the wind was a daughter of the noble Winchell family. However, she had used the secretly-constructed Second Generation Destruction Fes to attack a civilian cruise ship and start an internal conflict with the daughter of the noble Vanderbilt family. All because she loved her big brother a little too much.

They were all bad news.

In a way, these villains were more frightening than the Objects themselves. Spending time in a prison in the middle of nowhere had done nothing to rehabilitate them. These were the human irregularities whose charisma could infect the rest of the prison instead.

Thanks to them, Quenser and Heivia’s group was the only one without an animal robot to carry their gear. Because no one wanted the prisoners to steal that gear.

“H-hey, it could be worse. Skuld and Mariage could be here too.”

“You need to fix your habit of staring at the ground and smiling, Quenser. You’ll never get promoted like that.”

“I’m not even a solider. Students don’t get promoted.”

“Oh, shut up. If we’re playing that game, then I’m a noble heir, so I’m supposed to be set for life! So why am I out here nearly freezing to death when there aren’t even any enemies around!?”

“You love to call yourself the heir, but where in the line of succession are you among all your siblings?”

“I’d better at least be above Azureyfear since she’s a goddamn war criminal, but I’ve gotta be in the top 3 at least. And with some military accomplishments under my belt, I’ll be #1. But not even I know how many candidates there are out there. I’d rather not count up how many times my relatives decided not to use a condom.”

“Y-you’re talking about blood-related relatives here, right?”

“Of course he is. But the dirty old men distantly related to us don’t care about the line of succession. They just use their money to cum inside their maids, random sex workers, orphanage directors in need of funding, and god knows who else, making a complete mess of our family tree. If we included the mistresses who claim a blood relation they don’t have and all the illegitimate children, the number of candidates might increase tenfold or more,” explained Azureyfear with a shrug (and rubbing her cheek against her big brother). Evidently, she was not a sheltered girl who was appalled by the filthy turn of the boys’ conversation. “Of course, the Winchell women with nothing but time on their hands after being kicked out of the line of succession are known to sleep around a lot too, but the risks associate with pleasure are a lot greater for women. Their fun rarely leads to us suddenly having more new brothers and sisters. Hmm, I wish they had given me some perfume when they let me out.”

“Wait, so that wasn’t just this idiot’s values being messed up? Is the entire Winchell family like this?”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” spat Heivia. Louisiana must not have been as bad as them because she gave those siblings an exasperated look. “Anyway, everyone from my godawful siblings to the bastards I’ve never even heard of claim they’re the heir. And the Winchell family controls way too much wealth to simply pass control of the family to the oldest son. That’s why I have to prove my worth in the military! And I was supposed to get an easy deployment meant for hyper VIPs. I’m a radar analyst! So why the hell was I kicked out here to destroy the world’s most dangerous superweapon!? It’s not right!!”

They were already lost.

They were enjoying a nice picnic surrounded by war criminals in a white forest cut off from civilization. It could hardly get worse. It was wrong that the number of prisoners was greater than the number of jailors just five minutes after leaving the military truck. And those prisoners were armed with guns. Quenser could see them in his mind’s eye grinning past a fanned-out hand of cards. A revolt was inevitable.

“Where did Myonri get off to anyway?” Quenser felt a little dizzy. “An annoying odd job like this is perfect for that jack-of-all-trades with all sorts of qualifications that seem entirely useless in combat. Get back here, you wildflower sommelier!”

“What, does your unit have a failed idol who never got a chance at stardom? If she wants to win the guys’ hearts, she needs to throw out all those high-level qualifications and show off how good-looking but scatterbrained she is. On days off, she could strip down to something indecent and take a nap with the rest of her clothing lying around her. With lots of tossing and turning to show off her body, of course.”

“Shut up, Louisiana. Boys don’t fall for that calculated crap. And we aren’t interested in some wrinkly clothes on the floor. What matters is the body wearing them!”

“Oh, really? A funny thing to say for the guy who ate my sports bloomers and underwear. Don’t act like the sweet smell didn’t knock your brain out of commission for a bit there.”

“Ho ho?” laughed Big Bro Sladder in great interest. Like he had spotted a vintage wine at a neighborhood bar, or like he had seen someone make a highly unorthodox move in a chess game. Quenser paled, fearing the man felt a new affinity with him because geniuses were so often also eccentrics.

“Y-you’re the one that shoved them in my mouth! Listen, don’t you forget I can tighten all those belts enough to strangle you at the press of a button on my radio. And once the switch is thrown, they give off a GPS signal and the glow-in-the-dark paint and scent capsules burst. Even if you try to attack us and run off, you will be immediately shot to death. No matter where you try to run in this white forest, the dogs will track you down.”

“I thought these were positioned oddly for a harness. Is this the Island Nation’s tortoise shell bondage? You said your mobile devices weren’t working, so let’s hope the simpler radios still function. I mean, that GPS will scatter its signal everywhere once it switches on, right? I certainly don’t want to summon the enemy to us if it malfunctions.”

“Gh!?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I have no intention of running away,” spat blonde Louisiana with a shadow over her face. “Because there isn’t anywhere to run to on this planet. With all those 200 thousand ton weapons moving at such high speeds around the globe, the earth’s environment has already been fatally thrown out of balance.”

“…”

There was no point in listening to their nonsense.

If they were civilians trapped out in the blizzard, it would be better to stay in one place and preserve their strength while finding some way of letting the others know where they were. But they were in the middle of a military operation. With a time limit, waiting was not an option.

It was unclear how useful it was, but Louisiana blew on her thickly-gloved hands before saying more.

“It’s awfully presumptuous of you people to just march us out here and expect us to have some way of fighting that Ghost Changer thing. Admittedly, there are no end of UFO sightings at high altitude and space.”

“Isn’t that just the high g’s, weightlessness, and oxygen levels messing with people’s perception?”

“I refuse to accept that the human brain is that simple.”

Needless to say, no one knew how the Ghost Changer worked. The story sounded absurd, but since a maintenance base zone of 800 really was wiped out in a single night, the Legitimacy Kingdom needed to analyze this ASAP. And when they weren’t even sure if this was a bio, chemical, or physical weapon, they needed to send in geniuses from a variety of fields to analyze it.

On the other hand, they didn’t want to needlessly kill off the Legitimacy Kingdom’s treasured scientists and engineers.

That had created a need for geniuses who could be sacrificed. The criminals whose talents were going to waste behind bars were perfect for the job. And ones with a familiarity in several fields were even better.

(Why don’t the goddamn higher ups ever consider how we feel having to babysit these people!? But how could they when they’re so far up the chain of command I’ve never even seen them?)

At any rate, they needed to find Elina Silverbullet, the genius girl living in a log cabin tucked away somewhere in the Tunguska District. And they needed to do this before the Information Alliance and their Ghost Changer-equipped Object got there.

Quenser sighed.

“We know the Princess, Myonri, and the others are somewhere around here and we know they’re headed to the same place. We just have to trust that we’ll find them as we approach the log cabin.”

“Yeah, but where is that cabin? Damn, getting scared and turning back may have been a mistake.”

Heivia complained while checking the distribution of trees, the rises and dips in the terrain, and the water sources and comparing them against his paper map.

Quenser frowned.

“What will that tell you? All I see out here is fluffy white snow. It has to be more than a meter thick.”

“Don’t you know how to glean information from the terrain? A forest’s trees grow with a different distribution between sloped and flat areas and they won’t grow at all without any water. …Oh, here we go. We’re at A9. So if we follow this Y-shaped river south for 20km, we’ll find the log cabin from the satellite photo.”

“What, you could find her secret base in a search engine?”

“Apparently, it was normally hidden by a tunnel of tress, but the weight of the snow brought down some of them. Without the thick layer of snow to deflect everything from IR to UV, the heat source was impossible to miss.”

The color white tended to deflect all wavelengths of light instead of absorbing them, and that included the near-infrared often used for mechanical searches by satellites and drones. Far-infrared was absorbed on the interior, so the log cabin was covered either way. It also created an insulating layer of air like inside an igloo.

“What are you saying - it was protected by snow that never melted?”

“Don’t die out here. Who knows how many years you’ll be buried in the snow for. You’ll end up on display at a museum someday.”

They couldn’t trust their mobile devices in this cold, so they trusted Heivia’s trivia that moss grew thicker on the north side of a tree trunk because it would avoid the sunlight. Once they had their bearings, they began their hellish march through the snowy forest with criminals in tow.

Whenever a gust of wind would blow in and alter the density of the white curtain, they had no choice but to stop and bear with it. Quenser looked back time and time again, but not because he wanted to head back the way they had come. He was obsessively checking on the number and positions of the untrustworthy criminals.

Sladder grinned while frequently shaking his hands so the metal handcuffs didn’t stick to his skin in the cold.

“What are you so worried about? We’re not going to snatch you up and eat you. Life in solitary confinement wasn’t all that bad. There was a window, even if it did have bars over it. And the combination of the damp, cracked wall and the sunlight allowed some small flowers to grow.”

“Okay, Sladder. I get it. If you hold a grudge, just come out and say you want to kill me.”

20km.

They had to travel 20km. That was a half marathon, but those would be run on paved city streets, not in over a meter of snow while carrying more than 10kg of military gear. They were risking their lives just reaching the log cabin. Quenser could only pray they would not be the ones needing help when they arrived.

“We were not given any detailed information on this mission. How do you plan to retrieve this Elina Silverbullet girl once you reach her? The blizzard might obscure us, but there is still an enemy Object on this battlefield. That means anti-air laser beams, which in turn means no helicopters or tiltrotors.”

“Shut up, Sladder. And stay out of my sight because I don’t want to see tortoise shell bondage on a guy. To answer your question, that extra gear Heivia is carrying is a reinforced rubber motorboat. If we climb to the bottom of the ravine and escape along the river, we can leave the battlefield at nearly 200km/h without worrying about the las- dwah!?”

Quenser nearly bit his tongue.

His vision suddenly dropped straight down and he would have fallen 10m to the bottom of that very ravine if Sladder hadn’t grabbed his arm. The height was bad enough, but he would have fallen into rapids rough enough to keep from freezing at this temperature.

“That was a snow cornice. The snow blown from the edge of the ravine will freeze and stick out like a roof or bridge. You can think of it like a naturally-forming pitfall. Step through it and you win a one-way trip to the bottom.”

“…”

“You are one of the jailers, meaning you are supposed to look after us prisoners. We might be doomed if our caretakers need to rely on a skinny scientist like me on the physical front. I was hoping to live the good life on the taxpayers’ money, so do your part, civil servant.”

Quenser had not mentally recovered enough to respond. His heart was hammering away in his ears, but probably not because he was falling in love with Sladder due to the suspension bridge effect.

Louisiana laughed lightly, holding her handcuffed hands up to her mouth.

“Heh heh. Extremely low temperature oxidants such as liquid oxygen and ice accretion on artificial surfaces are common causes of trouble in need of a lot of research, so aerospace scientists like us know a lot about the structure and traits of ice. With an elevator, we use wires and pulleys. With a mass driver, they use grease to control the trail of the projectile.”

“Oh? In my field, ice and powder are more commonly associated with stimulants and synthetic drugs. Hee hee. Like amphetamines or MDMA. Although if you’re only interested in cost-effectiveness, you can’t go wrong with LSD that can be mass-produced from the ergots on wheat infected with a certain fungus.”

Why didn’t Azureyfear notice how depressed it made Heivia to see his dangerous sister show off the expertise she had developed while securing the 5 billion dollars she needed to build a brand new Second Generation? That cute and sexy sister was not going to win the heart of her big brother (who was engaged to a rival family’s daughter) anytime soon.

To repeat, their mission did not truly begin until they had arrived at the log cabin 20km away and secured the 9-year-old girl there.

This trip was meaningless if they couldn’t get back afterwards.

They could not rush this and collapse on arrival. They had to worry about the Information Alliance army and their Ghost Changer-equipped Retro Gunner who were after the genius girl. Not to mention escaping along the ravine river.

They took occasional breaks and checked to make sure they were still going in the right way. The meter-deep snow came in handy for building a shelter since they only had to dig into it by hand to create something like an igloo.

There were no landmarks to go by when they were surrounded by a featureless white void the entire time. It was dispiriting to feel like they were endlessly walking in place like that.

At one point, Quenser nervously glanced around, even though he knew he could only see 5m at the most.

“D-did you hear something?”

“It’s just the wind. With that blowing in your ear, we’d be in a shootout already if we were close enough to actually hear someone whispering.”

Quenser had lost track of how many breaks this was, but munching on his second flavorless ration helped remind him that time really was passing. He tried looking up and found things were getting darker. He couldn’t actually see the sunset, but he knew it had to be that time of day.

“It’s finally time for the ghost to come out to play,” he said, feeling discouraged.

“Show some tact and let me sit next to my brother. And I don’t see why a ghost should only come out at night. Anyway, commoner, is this ghost of yours dressed in cold weather gear, equipped with a cutting-edge sniper rifle, and frequently contacting someone by radio?”

“?”

Quenser frantically ducked down, earning him a smack on the head from Heivia and Azureyfear both. The siblings wore identical exasperated looks. Apparently getting down was important, but moving too quickly would disturb a thick layer of snow and draw attention to them.

He could only see 5m at best through the thick curtain of falling snow, but the blizzard’s density was uneven. When the wind weakened and the white wall opened up for a brief moment, the view miraculously cleared up.

There it was at the bottom of a gentle slope.

Quenser let out a visible breath and leaned against a nearby tree while viewing the scene below them.

Snowy conifer trees surrounded a log cabin. The building was a little bigger than a studio apartment and looked to only be a single story. He saw some soldiers in white camo around it. At a glance, he noticed at least three, but there might be more behind the cabin and in the surrounding forest.

Maybe it was to fight the cold and maybe it was to hide their identity, but the soldiers all wore white masks with ski goggles over their eyes. That made them look somehow inhuman.

They had not heard anything about the 9-year-old girl being guarded by a bunch of heavily-equipped soldiers.

That meant someone had arrived ahead of Quenser’s group and taken control of the log cabin. What was happening inside there? Tension gripped Quenser’s heart, but he forced himself to stay positive: if these people wanted to kill her, they would have done so already and then left.

The delinquent noble clicked his tongue.

“What the hell? Who do those assholes belong to?”

“Wasn’t the Information Alliance supposed to be deployed here ahead of us?” asked Louisiana.

Heivia shook his head, looking disgusted.

“Those sniper rifles aren’t Information Alliance and they’re not Legitimacy Kingdom either. They’re the luxury model that won the shooting event at the Technopics. But we’re not scored by judges on the battlefield, so no pro uses them. None of the world powers issues those to their soldiers.”

“…”

Sladder was looking elsewhere.

Quenser’s thoughts turned to his backpack.

“So they’re as special and unusual as me and my Hand Axe, which is more expensive than platinum?”

“Don’t get cocky, skinny boy. And when soldiers are using nonstandard gear to hide their affiliation, you just know they’re up to no good.”

“So is the Information Alliance running an unofficial operation, or is there some third party here?”

“We can kill them either way. But first let’s check on Elina. As long as they aren’t in position to take her hostage, we can gun down all these soldiers. If they are, we start by taking out the soldiers immediately around her to keep her safe while we slaughter the rest. Simple right? First order of business is getting a look in the window, Quenser.”

Quenser did not react when his name was called.

Heivia found that odd, but then he realized what was going on. The blizzard may have been a blessing after all.

The red laser pointer line was actually visible thanks to the reflection of the snowy screen. More than 10 such lines crisscrossed vertically and horizontally to create something like a spider web trapping them.

“I know there’s supposed to be a ghost in this forest…”

Needless to say, all of those red lines were directed at someone’s chest or forehead.

Not one of them could survive.

Quenser Barbotage slowly raised his hands.

“But I hope that isn’t referring to us in the near future.”

Part 5

Their situation could hardly be worse, but it was also curious.

The enemy had their weapons trained on the 37th group’s vitals, so they only needed to fire - no warning necessary. Yet the mysterious Unit X opted to wait. That was strange and it reminded Quenser of the fact that Unit X was still here when they could have shot Elina Silverbullet and left.

The two idiots whispered to each other while being held up.

“Maybe they want the assistance of my staggering intellect.”

“No, they’re hoping to get some ransom money out of this handsome and influential noble.”

It turned out neither of them was right.

They were guided inside the log cabin by soldiers in all white jabbing them in the back with sniper rifles.

(…? They’re holding us up, but they aren’t confiscating our weapons? And our mobile devices are chock full of Legitimacy Kingdom classified data and decryption keys.)

Unit X was not interested in weapons or data.

But they had still left the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers alive and taken them inside the log cabin.

Quenser was only more confused now. They hadn’t been tied to a chair and tortured with endless eyedrops or ear cleanings, but it was still worrying to not know what these people wanted. …In the worst case, they might be used to film a torture video using some innovative new tools, or they would be lined up and forced to clear out some landmines.

Even up close, Quenser and Heivia could not tell which world power Unit X was from. Were they even professional soldiers? They could always be guerillas or terrorists.

The log cabin had a plain interior.

It was all one room except for the bathroom, so the bed and kitchen space were right next to each other. The poor excuse for a fireplace must not have been enough to keep out the cold because an extra wood-burning stove had been added in one corner.

A small girl sat in a rocking chair next to the fireplace.

The 9-year-old girl had shoulder-length blonde hair and she wore a knit poncho, sweater, and skirt which all looked handmade. That outfit had to be nice and toasty, but with that level of dedication, even her underwear may have been wool.

She did not appear restrained by the mystery unit. In fact, two soldiers in white masks carrying cutting-edge sniper rifles were standing on either side of her rocking chair like bodyguards.

She stopped moving her knitting needles to look up.

She gave the newcomers a somewhat sleepy look. How could she be so relaxed right now?

“A second group this deep in the forest? Today is the day for visitors, it seems.”

“Elina Silverbullet?”

“I don’t know what your exact mission is, but surely you know what your mission objective looks like.”

She breathed an exasperated sigh this time.

What was going on here? It seemed safe to assume Unit X was not interested in harming the girl. Having a masked and armed group wandering around your home was a lot like being under house arrest, but she seemed awfully relaxed dozing off in front of the fireplace. They didn’t seem to be her soldiers, but then who were they?

Meanwhile, Elina Silverbullet shifted her focus to someone other than Quenser.

“?”

That person was Louisiana Honeysuckle. Louisiana herself tilted her head curiously, but Elina nodded with her rocking chair creaking below her.

The genius girl slowly shut her eyes in acceptance and finally spoke.

“I see… So that’s what this is about.”

Maybe she understood, but Quenser and the others felt left behind.

Once she eventually reopened her eyes, she pointed at Unit X with one of her knitting needles.

“Are you after the same thing they are? Or have you not reached that point yet?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Confused? The latter it is, then. They are a step ahead of you. Getting killed without even knowing why is a tragic way to go.”

Quenser did not like the sound of that.

The guns surrounding them weighed a lot heavier on his mind.

“Everything you need is on here.”

The 9-year-old girl reached into her pocket, pulled out a flash card smaller than a stamp, and flicked it his way.

“This paper was suppressed by academia and got me branded a heretic. But if it wasn’t true, they wouldn’t have been so desperate to make sure no one read it.” Elina spoke in a pleasant but somehow cold and inhuman voice. “Do you know what my specialties are?”

“Geology and environmental engineering.”

“I also have doctorates in 31 other related fields.”

She must have been at a bragging age.

That was weirdly childish compared to her emotionless eyes.

“But all of those are just classifications on paper. If you ask me what my specialty is, I have just one answer.”

“…?”

“The severe influence on the natural environment from the dams, skyscrapers, and other massive structures we foolish humans have thoughtlessly produced - with a focus on remotely triggered earthquakes caused by distortions to the tectonic plates.”

Quenser couldn’t find anything to say, so no one stopped the genius girl from talking.

“My life goal is to divulge the devastating lies that have created the current clean wars. Especially in regard to the global artificial disasters caused by the mass usage of Objects.”

Silence followed.

Quenser and Heivia both turned toward Louisiana Honeysuckle. What had she wanted to do so badly she had even constructed a space elevator measuring 100 thousand kilometers long?

“Just one is 200 thousand tons,” said Elina in a singsong voice. That disturbing lullaby sounded like something that would summon disaster if you were to carelessly hum it. “They move at speeds of 500 or even 1000km/h and they battle with constant quick movements similar to mixed martial arts footwork. The main cannon blasts that can pierce through a nuke-resistant Object do not all hit their mark. The effect on the tectonic plates and the earth’s axis itself cannot be overstated.”

“…”

Louisiana Honeysuckle had said something similar.

The colossal Objects battling all over the world had caused the earth’s rotation to shift, so she had tried to use a 100 thousand kilometer balancing weight - the space elevator - to fix the earth’s motion before it shifted too far.

Quenser, Heivia, and the rest of the 37th had heard her claims when working to stop her.

But they had not reached a consensus on how seriously they should take those claims.

If they rejected the age of Objects, they would be throwing out the hopes and dreams that had brought them to a battlefield full of real bullets. For Quenser, that meant becoming an Object designer so a commoner like him could financially surpass the royals and nobles. For Heivia, that meant proving his worth on the battlefield so he could become the head of his family and end the fighting with a rival noble family. The others all had their own reasons as well, but the most reliant on Objects was the Princess. That was why none of them had shared Louisiana’s claims with her yet.

Quenser wished he could just forget he had ever heard it.

The difference between a genius and an eccentric was paper thin, so he had hoped Louisiana was just delusional.

But she wasn’t.

An aerospace expert like Louisiana Honeysuckle and a geology and environmental engineering expert like Elina Silverbullet had both arrived at the same conclusion from different directions. Quenser knew they were both far more intelligent than him. If it came down to their sense of what was reasonable and his, he didn’t stand a chance.

There was no escape now.

He could not look away from the coming failure of the clean wars.

“B-but isn’t that all theoretical?” asked Heivia, a tremor in his voice. He was probably trying to smile, but he only let his strained mental state show on his face. “It’s the same as the expanding sun engulfing the earth one day or the earth’s axis slowly shifting out of place over time. It might happen someday, but it’s not something we have to live in fear of today.”

“And what pray tell,” said the rocking chair girl with a cold tilt of the head, “makes you think that ‘someday’ isn’t today? It is already too late to stop it.”

Even Heivia was rendered speechless by that.

Those who profited off of the Objects were so frantic because the situation really was that pressing. They had to take such desperate measures because the change could be seen right there in the numbers. If a country was reliant on fishing or diamond mining, what would they do if their marine or underground resources dried up? They couldn’t exactly let someone publish an article proving they had nothing left to sell, so they would plot to assassinate the journalist to protect their people from starvation and thirst.

There was no time left.

The devastation had already begun.

Quenser gulped.

“Th-then are you saying the Information Alliance didn’t bring their Ghost Changer-equipped Retro Gunner out here because they wanted their genius girl’s brains? Did they send in all those forces to make sure they killed you to silence your theory that puts Objects at risk!?”

“Is the Information Alliance here too? I am not about to defend the people trying to assassinate me, but it would be wrong to treat the Information Alliance as the sole villains here.” The genius girl’s rocking chair creaked in front of the fireplace while she fully relaxed in the heat. “Maybe the Information Alliance are the only ones who directly sent troops in to assassinate me, but don’t you think the other world powers indirectly support that attempt? The Information Alliance aren’t the only ones who reap the vast benefits of this age of Objects. If you ignore the borders, it becomes obvious that the people who benefit from the clean wars control a majority of the world. Thus, all four world powers are colluding to eliminate someone who could take those benefits from them. And if you need some evidence…”

Elina Silverbullet cast her gaze at someone again.

This was the person whose presence had informed her what was going on here.

“Louisiana Honeysuckle here should be locked away deep inside a Legitimacy Kingdom special prison, yet here she is out on the open battlefield. And some other war criminals were thrown in with her to help hide that she was the true target.”

“…”

“The world powers’ plan is obvious: gather all the scientists who threaten the clean wars in one place and kill them all. And include some other notable people to hide the inconvenient truth when people see the bodies.”

The white-masked soldiers next to Elina held a hand up to their ears. After hearing something over their radios, they got moving fast.

But it was already too late.

If their comrades outside had sensed something was wrong, then it was already close. The Information Alliance’s trump card here was the Ghost Changer-equipped Retro Gunner. It was best to assume they were already trapped in the eerie ghost story that had led to 800 Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers killing each other at the frozen cape at the southernmost point of South America.

Elina had seen this coming from the moment she saw Louisiana here.

So she remained calm and composed as she spoke.

“You poor things were sent here as nothing more than camouflage corpses.”

An unbelievably powerful attack crushed the log cabin like it was a tissue box.

Part 6

It was a very strange Object.

Shockingly, the spherical main body was only supported by one leg. The leg was jointed like an excavator or a desk lamp and it was attached to a long propulsion device that extended backwards like a ski. The device did not use static electricity or an air cushion. It was more like a roller skate.

It likely distributed and managed the 200 thousand ton weight with rows of countless massive, heavy wheels. Even with the sturdiest metal wheels, the axles wouldn’t survive otherwise.

The main cannon was a set of three large-caliber railguns attached near the top of the spherical main body’s front side. The trio of powerful weapons lined up in a row like that could look frightening, but it was also a sign that the designers had not been confident in its accuracy. It lacked the accuracy to hit the enemy in a straight line shot, so it fired three in a row to hopefully hit even if its aim was a little off.

It was a rusty scarecrow.

That old-style Information Alliance First Generation was close to being scrapped. The outdated thing had been pulled from the front line to test fire new weapons and test out new technologies.

But if that was truly all it was, they never would have given it the Ghost Changer. Not when they couldn’t afford to have that secret weapon captured by the enemy.

There had to be more to this First Generation that balanced itself with sliding weights on its rear side.

The true hell was about to begin.

“Pant, pant.”

Quenser Barbotage kept tripping and falling in the thick snow as he frantically left the log cabin…or what was left of it. It had only been a bit bigger than a studio apartment, but it had still been a building. Seeing it crushed like a tissue box underfoot was enough to get a feel for how ridiculously huge Objects were.

Gunfire erupted all around him.

“Yikes!!”

He kept his head low, but he had no idea if that was the right thing to do.

He could hear different types of gunfire: the lighter repeating sounds of submachineguns or PDWs and the heavier singular sounds of sniper rifles. He guessed the Information Alliance troops were clashing with Unit X surrounding the log cabin. He still didn’t know who Unit X was or how powerful they were, but they were outnumbered here. A small unit of elite troops attacking a large army with their own Object would meet the same fate as a swarm of army ants being swallowed by a lion.

Quenser kept nervously looking over his shoulder while trying to figure out how he was still alive.

(Those morons are attacking each other when no one asked them to. That means I’m only free to move until they recover from their confusion. I need to get as far away from here as I can now, or I’m in trouble!!)

He couldn’t look after Sladder, Louisiana, and Azureyfear like this.

He wasn’t even sure where Heivia had gotten off to.

But he wasn’t alone. He held a skinny wrist in his hand and tugged its owner along with him.

He was accompanied by Elina Silverbullet, the 9-year-old genius girl.

“Not what I would call a wise decision. If you were hoping to survive by abandoning your comrades, taking me with you was the worst thing you could have done. In case you have forgotten, I am the top priority of all sides of this conflict.”

“Shut the hell up. You say we’re just decoy corpses meant to disguise the deaths of the geniuses who’ve discovered the truth? To hell with that. I am not dying for such a stupid reason.”

No matter where he looked, all he saw was the white curtain of snow.

Until he saw a dark shape moving up ahead.

“Wh-who’s that!?” he shouted, stabbing a pen-like electric fuse in a Hand Axe plastic explosive resembling balled-up clay.

“Don’t throw that,” said the shape. “If I am attacked, I have no choice but to shoot.”

“?”

Their visibility would be as bad as his, so they would only be able to see him as a vague shape. So why had they known he was using a bomb instead of a gun? After a moment of thought, it hit him. Elina Silverbullet breathed a visible sigh of exasperation.

“This must be one of your people. Otherwise they wouldn’t know your unorthodox means of attack.”

“S-Sladder?”

‘Yes.”

The criminal approached in his handcuffs and with the chain around his ankles. The stubbly mass driver researcher was not alone. A gorgeous blonde stood by his side.

“I captured this scrawny scientist when he was wandering off on his own through the hail of bullets. Ha ha. The entire Legitimacy Kingdom should thank me really. …Anyway, where is my brother?”

“Louisiana is missing too. I hope Heivia has that criminal restrained.”

“(Why oh why am I stuck with the commoner? This pairing is all wrong.)”

“Agreed. I find Louisiana so much easier to deal with.”

After exchanging a glance and checking on the survivors, the natural question came to mind.

Louisiana Honeysuckle was also one of the geniuses who had discovered the truth, so she was a top priority target for the Information Alliance - and maybe all four world powers. But their current complement of weapons was Quenser’s bombs and the two prisoners’ self-defense handguns. It would be suicide to pursue Heivia and Louisiana while the Information Alliance and Unit X clashed and an Object was on the loose. Most likely, they would be spotted through the curtain of snow and filled with bullet holes.

Then a deafening boom and a shockwave temporarily swept that snowy curtain away.

“Whoa!?”

The Retro Gunner’s main cannons were a trio of railguns.

The forest had a lot of steep ups and downs, but it still wasn’t an actual mountain. Yet powerful rumbling in the distance caused part of the white ground to slide. Similar to a thin layer of sand sprinkled on a vibrating panel of glass, a thick layer of snow was moved by the trembling ground below. Quenser’s arms scrambled for purchase but found none. He was nearly swallowed up to the hips by the snow.

“Ugh, dammit. A-are you still alive, Elina?”

“Yes. My lighter weight makes it harder for me to sink into the snow.”

Buried so deep, Quenser could not crawl back out on his own, so he actually needed the 9-year-old’s small hand to help pull him out.

The Object attack had silenced the sniper rifle gunfire. Conversely, the submachineguns and PDWs had grown much more intense.

That meant fewer enemies, but that was nothing to celebrate. With one side of the Unit X and Information Alliance battle gone, Quenser’s group would be the next target.

Sladder stared into the distance as if he could see through the blizzard.

“Splitting the power between multiple cannons reduces their individual initial velocities. That’s about as insulting as being served instant coffee, but I suppose it is sufficient if you don’t need to reach orbit. …Those railguns have turned the tide.”

“A-a-a-anyway, we need to get out of here,” said Quenser. “I don’t know who Unit X is, but I doubt they turn this around now. With the chaos dying down, the Information Alliance will use their superior numbers to seize this area. Once they can set up a perimeter or checkpoints and begin the hunt, we can’t escape them just by hiding in the forest. We need to escape the battlefield before they have us surrounded.”

“That is all very sensible.” Elina Silverbullet did not seem particularly bothered that her home and possessions had been flattened. “But how exactly do you suggest we escape ahead of them? Surely not on foot.”

“…”

The plan had been to ride a rubber motorboat down the cold river. The river running down a V-shaped ravine had a rapid current, so it would carry them from the battlefield at nearly 200km/h without the Object noticing.

But that was no longer an option.

Heivia had been carrying the inflatable boat, but he was currently missing.

(Heivia wasn’t the only one with a boat. Damn, what is the Legitimacy Kingdom doing? This is a job for the Princess’s firepower or for jack-of-all-trades Myonri’s bag of tools that are barely ever useful!)

Quenser had a radio, but the electronic device was malfunctioning in this -15-degree hell. And if he did send out a Legitimacy Kingdom signal here, the Information Alliance might notice.

His bones still remembered the rumble from that triple railgun.

Even if the metal shells didn’t hit him directly, he would still be blown away with enough dirt to form a crater.

“We have to make do with what we have. For now, let’s follow the ravine downstream.”

“They will catch up if we move on foot.”

“We can’t contact the rest of the Legitimacy Kingdom, but they must be spread out across this area. Each team was supplied a boat, so we just have to run across another group and hitch a ride on their boat!”

That was no guarantee of course.

But if they wanted to increase their odds of survival, they had no choice but to trust that the others would still be following the plan.

He was worried about Heivia and Louisiana, but they needed the Princess to deal with the Retro Gunner. Since he couldn’t trust his radio enough to send out a signal, they couldn’t request a rescue until they escaped from here.

The only way to save their stranded comrades was to escape alive and call in the rest of the Legitimacy Kingdom forces.

(No, that excuse won’t convince Heivia. He’ll resent me regardless.)

“Pant, gasp. How am I still walking? I thought for sure I’d be worn out after walking a half marathon in the snow, but my body actually feels light.”

“Oh? Standing downwind of me must have given you a boost of energy,” said Azureyfear. “I didn’t realize you were the kind of pervert who gains endless stamina from smelling girls.”

“P-please don’t talk about fetishes in front of a 9-year-old. I-i-i-it makes me feel guilty.”

“I notice you aren’t denying it. And did you know that taste can be weakly absorbed and sensed through the skin and intestines, not just the tongue? And taste and smell use the same chemoreception process, so you may be able to absorb scents through your pores. You can never let your guard down around a pervert. They could be stealing away your precious flavor and aroma at any moment. Ah ha ha. Now, what happens if I brush my hair back upwind of you?”

“Stop!!”

The already darkening sky was approaching actual sunset.

The white world was changing to black.

The log cabin had been the one artificial structure out here, but it had been flattened. The darkness was dreadfully deep in the empty wilderness. Especially on a moonless snowy night.

It was a simple matter, but it still robbed Quenser of his previous confidence.

“We need to go…damn, where’s the moss on this tree? No, there’s too much snow caked on to see it!”

“Even in this blizzard, using a light would be suicide right now.”

“Then what do you suggest, Sladder!? If we can’t see, we’ll step on one of those snow cornices, or whatever you called them, and fall into the ravine. We’re trying to walk along a ravine’s edge in the dark, remember!?”

“Hee hee. If you had half a brain, you might have considered finding a 2 or 3 meter stick to poke at the ground ahead of you. The eyes are not the only human sensory organ, after all. …Oh, if only my brother were here so I could give him a hands-on lecture on the topic.”

Azureyfear made sure to mock him as she provided some advice, but he decided he could trust her advice since she wouldn’t want to freeze to death with an idiot like him. He wasn’t happy about it, but he followed her advice. He broke off a young tree that was only about as thick as his thumb. The base of the tree was buried in the snow.

“Don’t worry. This will work just fine,” muttered Quenser, mostly for himself. “You can test the ground ahead of time. I don’t have to worry about stepping right through the snow if I test it first.”

“That is not the only threat found in the forest. This is Siberia, home of the world’s largest bears. And unlike Alaska, there are tigers here too.”

“Can you please just shut up!!”

Battlefield etiquette was quickly collapsing with Heivia missing. He was forced to begin a nervous escape without a guide.

Fortunately, the Retro Gunner did not immediately notice and pursue them. It may have simply not seen them, or it may have had another target it wanted to destroy first. That other target might be remnants of Unit X, or it might be Heivia, Louisiana, and the others. War was frighteningly equal. When one person was given a chance to survive, it meant someone else’s life was at risk.

“Brother…”

Azureyfear Winchell placed a hand on the side of her head and held down her long hair while looking back.

They found the escape river quickly enough. The fluffy layer of snow suddenly ended and they saw a dark ravine that seemed to have absorbed the colors of the night. It looked like a pitch black fissure in the earth. It felt like a wound allowing shadowy blood to seep out from the depths of hell, which made it terrifying. The sound of the water below was unusually loud, giving them an idea of how rapid the current was. The current was enough to avoid freezing. Had they really wanted to descend that 10m cliff and ride a rubber boat on that?

There was still nothing but nature surrounding them.

There had to be some Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers around, so the plan was to hitch a ride down the river on one of their rubber boats. …But had that been too naïve? It at least seemed more realistic than felling some nearby trees with bombs and tying them together with rope to create a raft.

Quenser brought a hand to his chin and muttered under his breath.

“The temperature is 15 below and the water is probably 1 or 2 degrees. A handmade raft? Tried and true professional military gear is one thing, but attempting a handmade vessel without any testing would definitely dump us in the water and turn us into frozen dinners.”

“Hm? What are you talking about?”

Elina Silverbullet tugged on his sleeve. His life was truly over if a 9-year-old was worried about his mental fortitude.

(We’ll get lost if we stray from the plan. We’ll end up walking circles forever. We need to keep going. Maybe it won’t show results right away, but someone has to be traveling down the river by boat. If I’m right about that, we’ll run across them eventually. We only have one real choice, so what can we do but keep choosing it? If we get worried and start focusing on other things, we’ll lose this one chance we have.)

He tried to convince himself of that while poking at the thick snow with his long stick.

But he felt something odd this time.

That wasn’t snow. It was a dry, light sensation, like the sugar figures on top of a cake crumbling away.

“…”

That wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

He had found a figure doubled over and lying on its side. It was too badly burned to identify the clothing, the face, the gender, or even the age. And it was still wrapped in pale flames like burning alcohol.

It was a human corpse.

His poking stick had easily broken off the arm, punched into the chest from below the arm, and burst out the other side.

The corpse easily crumbled.

Quenser Barbotage screamed.

Part 7

He did not remember what he had yelled.

He only vaguely remembered that he had shouted so much his throat and stomach squirmed like they were turning inside out and he had spewed the undigested contents onto the snow.

Azureyfear had him restrained while he trembled. He may have rolled off the cliff otherwise.

That corpse was not the only one.

And not all of them had been burned. Something dark red had been splattered across a large rock sticking up from the white snow, but was that human mincemeat? Several internal organs were still dripping blood while skewered at the spear-like top of a conifer tree.

There was real cruelty on display here.

This was the result of someone who found humor in death, not someone who wanted to kill with maximum efficiency.

(Goddammit.)

Quenser was soaked with sweat and too disturbed to even think of covering young Elina’s eyes.

(These aren’t Information Alliance or Unit X. These bloody uniforms and scorched guns…were they Legitimacy Kingdom!?)

For some reason, Sladder Honeysuckle spoke while staring down at the crumbling carbonized corpse on the snow.

“It happened at 7:40 AM on June 30, 1908.”

He was referencing a certain legend.

It was one of the few remaining “living legends” because not even all of modern science had arrived at a clear answer.

“The Tunguska event. Suddenly and without warning, an unidentified explosion burned down 2000 square kilometers of old-growth forest. The damage was mostly to undeveloped forest, but the actual human damage is unknown. The explosion was so powerful that unnatural noctilucent clouds appeared across Europe and the land over a several dozen kilometer radius of the blast site remained barren for more than 20 years. The most likely theory is an asteroid breaking up in midair and scattering heat and shockwaves in all directions, but there are plenty of other theories.”

“What?” Quenser wiped at his sour mouth. “Are you saying a ghost did this? You must be joking!! This a modern battlefield ruled by bullets and blades! If someone burned, then there was a weapon here that burned them!!”

“This wasn’t just a flamethrower or incendiary bomb.”

“What, how can you possibly know that!?”

“The method is different.” Sladder pointed at the corpse’s chest - at the disturbingly dry wound that Quenser had accidentally caused. “When your stick poked through the carbonized corpse, did you notice how little resistance there was? And why is it still burning in this blizzard of 15 below?”

“What is your point?”

“Wax,” stated Sladder. “It wasn’t just the proteins of muscle and calcium of bone that were burning. That would only cook them even with a specialized flamethrower. This was wax. The entire body has turned to wax. That allows it to function just like old-fashioned candles. The uniform, equipment, and hairs are the flammable wick and the fire that starts there is supported by the waxy body. That explains the body’s unnatural softness and how it can continue burning out here.”

Wax.

A candle.

Quenser did not understand what he was hearing. What did any of that have to do with humans and corpses?

But Azureyfear placed a hand on her chin.

“Come to think of it, I have heard of corpses remaining stable instead of rotting in certain special environments: when dried, when frozen…or when the body is turned to wax.”

This didn’t sound like a contagious panic.

Quenser was too terrified to think, but the villains like Azureyfear and Sladder could still calmly access their knowledge.

Sladder sighed.

“If you want to turn the human body into wax, you have to cut it off from all oxygen and leave it in a damp location for an extended period of time. Simply put, you either submerge it in water or bury it in the ground where no germs can grow.”

And.

He had one last example.

“Buried below a thick layer of snow works too. Any corpse left to be buried by the blizzard in the Tunguska District might end up like this.”

“Then…then what is this? Is the Information Alliance using a new weapon that doesn’t just burn people - it turns them to wax?”

“That isn’t possible.” Sladder had supposedly made the suggestion, but he shook his head now. “Fully turning a body to wax requires a lot of time. At least a few months, but it could take years. You can’t turn a corpse into wax with the speed of making instant noodles.”

“Then what is happening out here?”

Quenser sounded lost.

Sladder looked away from the carbonized corpse half buried in the snow. He viewed the soft organs caught unnaturally at the top of a spear-like tree.

“There are more puzzling factors.”

“What…wait! I’m still trying to work out what I’m looking at down here!”

“Those organs in the tree…or should I call them a piece of a corpse? Don’t they look awfully soft for something exposed to -15-degree winds? They only seem to be freezing now.”

“True. But the Tunguska District is so cold a wet towel will freeze solid in only a minute if you hang it out to dry,” noted the local(?) girl Elina Silverbullet in a monotone voice.

Quenser’s spine finally froze.

He only now realized what Sladder was getting at.

“Hold on. Then when was this person killed?”

“A lot more recently than we were thinking, it would seem. If that girl is correct, then there is something out here close enough to reach us through the thick snow in less than 60 seconds.”

Quenser quickly looked side to side, but he couldn’t see anything through the white screen. Not the Information Alliance, not Unit X, and not the Ghost Changer-equipped Retro Gunner that had to be out there somewhere.

Those organs still hadn’t frozen.

Did that mean whoever had killed that person and cruelly decorated the forest with their organs was still nearby?

But who had done it?

And how?

Footprints wouldn’t disappear in just a minute, yet there was nothing. Visibility was poor, but Quenser’s group would have heard any gunshots. And if an Object had fired some strange superweapon, they should have at least passed out from the shock. Yet this gruesome corpse was sitting right there unfrozen.

And that corpse was not the only one. Another was splattered across a rock and more gore could be seen in some more distant trees. If that many people had died, there would have been screams and defensive gunfire, but they hadn’t noticed anything. Had the victims not even had the chance? Had their assailant been that overwhelming?

Something out here could creep up behind its target without making a noise and then mutilate professional soldiers with just a touch.

Almost like a ghost.

A silent fear crawled up into Quenser’s mind. This was very different from the threat of bullets and bombs that made so much noise. It felt like time had been stolen from the victims. A human body was only supposed to fully transform into wax after months or years under special conditions and the mincemeat and organs should have frozen solid in this frigid forest.

What could possibly lead to this result?

Could some new tech mess with special relativity to speed up time at a specific coordinate? Could some special camo fully neutralize a human’s senses? No, thought Quenser, shaking his head. Those weren’t physically possible. He kept working his mind to come up with more ideas, but none of them held any weight.

There had to be something out here.

But was it really time to conclude none of the rules he knew could explain this?

For now…

“Then…then what was this? Did the Information Alliance use the Ghost Changer to summon the ghosts of the soldiers and hunters who died during the Tunguska event? Are they dooming people to the same fate they met turning to wax under the thick snow?”

“We can’t even say we know for sure what caused the Tunguska event. There are plenty of theories beyond the asteroid one. And since the event actually happened and was recorded, those theories cannot be ruled out no matter how absurd they might be.”

“…”

“We really only know two things for sure here: The Tunguska event happened and the Information Alliance brought their Ghost Changer weapon here.”

Azureyfear took a step away, crossed her arms, and viewed silenced Quenser in an appraising way.

Young Elina tilted her head with no readable emotion on her face.

“If we fail to identify the cause before it reaches us, we might just get to experience it firsthand. I am the Information Alliance’s top priority target after all.”

She accurately stated the conclusion none of them wanted to think about.

The two geniuses were in agreement: what they saw here could not be explained with ordinary chemistry and physics.

Quenser still couldn’t believe it. He may have wanted someone else to objectively deny it for him.

Because the terror would capture him otherwise.

He felt like laughing at himself for having such a silly concern after seeing all of this.

What had the Information Alliance awoken in this land? Sladder was right. The presence of those mutilated corpses meant the ghost was something physical. It wasn’t just an illusion like a chemically induced hallucination or an image projected on the snow with laser art.

This was a physical ghost.

That increased the danger level considerably.

The Ghost Changer was not just a bluff. Their “ghost” was undeniably lethal.

“A-animals…”

Quenser was nearly taken in by the atmosphere, but he quickly shook his head.

He couldn’t start arguing over whether this was a natural or artificial ghost. Starting the discussion there meant he had more or less accepted it already. He wouldn’t disprove a thing that way.

He had to stay calm.

A curse? Spirit possession? But ghosts didn’t exist. He wasn’t going to give in on that point.

So he forced himself to laugh it off.

“Sladder, you yourself said earlier that the Siberia is home to the world’s largest bears. A ghost isn’t the only explanation for all this. A wild animal could have attacked the soldiers after some kind of image was used to panic them.”

“Yes, the human sherbet splattered on the rocks and tree trunks could have been from a bear attack and the organs in the trees could have been birds of prey hanging them up to save them for later. And wild animals might be able to swiftly hunt down their human prey without us noticing,” said Azureyfear. “But that does not explain the initial carbonized corpse. Animals do not ordinarily use fire. I did not notice the flash of lightning or rumble of thunder and I doubt there is an active volcano here. Besides, this would require fire hot enough to carbonize the body down to the bones. Even a crematorium needs several hours to accomplish that.”

“We misjudged the initial conditions. Forget about the burning human being remade into wax. They would burn more easily like that.”

“There has to be more to this!! That’s so much more realistic than thinking some formless grudge or curse mutilated these people and set them on fire. Battlefields are chock full of death and grudges. Movies love ending on a beautiful image of a soldier dying with a satisfied smile, but that’s bullsh*t. If curses could actually kill, then the winning side of every war in history would have been slaughtered shortly thereafter!!”

Sladder, Azureyfear, and Elina.

Those abnormal geniuses all shrugged after watching Quenser sweatily yelling in the -15 degree weather. With so many bizarre things happening around him, he wanted to find some stability by reconfirming the “common sense” he took for granted. Did that ordinary way of thinking really make him the odd one out in this bizarre alternate dimension?

Or was his idea of common sense really that different from theirs?

He heard a scraping of metal coming from somewhere.

It was an artificial sound that clearly did not belong in this biting blizzard.

“Sh!”

With a quick warning, Quenser grabbed Elina Sliverbullet’s hand and got down on the snow. The genius girl did not bat an eye.

It appeared to be a truck.

But it had no obvious headlights. Driving like that through the forest during a blizzard on a moonless night seemed like suicide, but the military truck was approaching them all the same. It was driving slower and more carefully than normal, but it was definitely coming their way.

The next threat had arrived.

Quenser tensed while Elina asked a quiet question without even moving her lips.

“What now? If that is the Information Alliance, this is insufficient to hide from them. They will detect us with ease if they have a thermo sensor, an anti-personnel radar, or light-amplification night vision gear.”

“Quiet. We wouldn’t have a chance on ordinary ground, but this is the snow.”

Sladder and Azureyfear seemed hesitant, but they ultimately got down to join Quenser.

The deep rhythmic rumbling of the machine gradually grew louder.

But the loudest sound for Quenser was the beating of his own heart.

(We’re dead if they find us. One call for support and the Retro Gunner will be after us. Or that ghost will kill us.)

The sound did not stop.

He started to worry the truck wouldn’t notice them and they would simply be run over by its thick tires.

It approached, approached some more, and then passed them by.

The source of the sound continued on behind them without them ever even seeing what it was.

“?”

“(Be quiet.)”

Confused, he started to lift his head to look, but Azureyfear forced it back down with a hand.

“(That engine sounded like an Information Alliance four-wheel-drive military truck. And it was on the other side of the ravine. That’s why only the sound passed us by.)”

Quenser had been afraid they were dealing with a ghost truck now, but apparently not.

Azureyfear was definitely a bad person, but he found himself tempted to rely on her strength here. That may have been the negative sort of charisma found in gang bosses.

The ravine was more than 10m across. The blizzard made it impossible to see anyone at that distance, but a truck was a different story.

Quenser regained his cool and took a look.

“I see something swiveling on top of that truck.”

“You aren’t as clever as my brother, are you? If they are using active night vision, that is probably emitting IR or radar waves.”

The thick layer of snow would reflect light, which meant thermo sensors using infrared would have trouble detecting someone hiding below the snow. Same for night vision that mechanically amplified even small levels of light. Anti-personnel radars detected a target’s location from the reflected microwaves, but you had a chance of escaping detection if you curled up to mask your distinctive human shape.

Quenser breathed a sigh of relief just before he heard some dry gunshots ring out.

He felt a squeezing at his heart.

He forced his hands over his mouth to suppress a scream while tears spilled from his eyes.

After a short scream, he heard a few more gunshots followed by silence. Someone had just been shot. As a student, he didn’t know all that much about guns, but even he could tell only one type of gun had just fired. The lack of return fire suggested someone had just been shot after surrendering and begging for their life.

And that someone was probably wearing the same Legitimacy Kingdom uniform as him.

If that truck had driven along this side of the ravine, Quenser’s group would have met that same fate.

The sound of tearing metal was probably one of the gear-carrying animal robots the other groups had been given.

“Damn.”

“Looks like the ghost isn’t the only thing to fear,” said Sladder while the roar of the engine slowly faded into the distance.

Driving along in a loud vehicle with the heater running felt really brazen.

“And this may be our chance.”

“?”

Quenser tilted his head, so Sladder explained.

“The Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers were issued rubber boats, remember? We might just find what we need if we search those foolish corpses.”

Quenser couldn’t stand it anymore.

He pulled a softball-sized stone from the snow and chucked it at the war criminal without so much as a warning.