Chapter 3(2/4)
And by this point, Quenser had realized how strange this was.
“Wh-where are the guards?”
They were in the detention barracks, the prison that one’s own war criminals or captured enemy soldiers were thrown into. Unlike the other facilities, it had strict security, but no one showed up when Quenser screamed and no one had reported on the bugs. They had not even received a radio transmission.
What was going on outside?
Were those bugs really so violent that they could bring down soldiers equipped heavily enough to deal with escapees or rioters?
“Wh-what is this...?”
Elfily was dumbfounded by this threat that went beyond mere bullets or knives. Her mind’s ability to face a threat may have short-circuited. Quenser understood all too well what that was like.
The only one with any real guts was Frolaytia.
She narrowed her eyes and observed the black bugs covering the entire surface of the windows.
“They look like a type of bell cricket. I don’t know the exact name, though.”
“Bell?”
“Because their chirping sounds like a bell. These look a lot like the ones I saw in a pet shop that specialized in the Island Nation.”
Frolaytia blew smoke from her seductive lips, but it did not reach the insects on the other side of the window.
“But this might be bad.”
“Why? When raising crickets, you feed them sliced cucumber or eggplant, right? Then this isn’t as bad as wasps or scorpions.”
“Bell crickets are omnivorous. They will even start eating each other if they aren’t given some occasional animal protein like dried sardines or ham. So with this many... Take a look at that, Quenser.”
“I-I’d rather not look at that disgusting mess!!”
“Just do it. Besides, bell crickets are nocturnal, so it isn’t normal for so many to be out during the day. They also generally can’t fly despite having wings, so it isn’t normal for so many of them to be covering the window. Most of all, most of these have faded to a slight brown instead of being pure black. Do you know what that means?”
“You don’t mean...”
It was busty Elfily who answered, not Quenser.
“Their instinctual behavior and color are meant to keep their natural predators from attacking them, right? So if they’ve abandoned that effort...”
“This might be what you call ‘brazen bugs’. When a swarm of locusts grows too large, they abandon their camouflaging coloration and begin attacking other animals and plants. This must be a similar phenomenon with the bell crickets.”
Frolaytia brushed up her bangs with a hand.
“And bell crickets are omnivorous. They normally only eat small bug carcasses and they wouldn’t think about actively preying on other creatures like this, but as you can see, things change when there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of them. Even we could be bitten to pieces if they swarmed us.”
“...”
“...”
It was not a nice death to think about.
Their focus naturally turned toward the window. Even the group that had been carefully observing Skuld through the one-way mirror was looking out into the corridor.
Some of the crickets were chewing on the wire mesh installed on the outside of the window and some kind of strange liquid was flowing out. Was that because they were squishing each other under their combined weight? Or had they started feasting on each other?
This was different from a bullet or knife. It was also different from being attacked by a lion or tiger. The thought of being brazenly eaten by creatures lower on the food chain brought feelings of humiliation and disgust. The worst part of all was the cruelty of how they could not be communicated with, how they could not be killed easily, and how they were entirely indiscriminate.
They knew all that, but what were they supposed to do now?
“I can’t believe this. It doesn’t matter how many bullets or explosives we have, there’s nothing we can do. We’ll use up all our ammo in no time and then they’ll swarm us,” said Quenser. “But if we ask the Princess to deal with them using the Baby Magnum, she would just blow away the maintenance base zone with us inside. ...Hm? Come to think of it, what happened to the Princess!?”
He quickly pulled out his radio, but no amount of pressing buttons got any response.
He only heard even static.
“You’re kidding, right? Don’t tell me a bunch of bugs took out a colossal weapon that can survive a nuke!”
“No, they wouldn’t be able to do that much. Quenser, as a future engineer, you should know a lot of random trivia. Have you ever heard of insects being used to predict unexpected tornados?”
“When the radar picks up the bugs that are caught in the supercell, they know a tornado is probably coming. ...Hold on.”
“Yes. Insects reflect electromagnetic waves. It normally isn’t a big deal, but when his many of them form a wall, they can probably cut off a weaker signal.”
That meant all the bugs swarming the maintenance base were separating the soldiers of the 37th from each other. It was like a blinding sandstorm outside and their allies had to be right there, but they could not reach each other.
“It might be best to stay put,” said Elfily while uneasily looking back and forth between the black window and the tablet that was of no use with communications cut off. “At the very least, there was no warning about this kind of natural disaster in the environmental report before this mission. That means this has not been seen in the last few decades. Plus, this is not something we can deal with using bullets or knives. We might take less damage if we wait for the storm to pass instead of trying to exterminate them with what we have on hand. Don’t these abnormal swarms of bugs tend to end fairly quickly?”
“Yes. It’s the sad story of the food chain. The more of them there are, the greater the threat, but they also end up eating each other. And as I said, bell crickets are perfectly willing to eat each other if there isn’t enough food. The problem should solve itself in two or three days.”
Quenser felt himself relax when he heard that passive solution.
He had truly been worried he would be ordered to build a handmade flamethrower and then run out to face the storm of bugs.
“Still...this is insane. Who would think these tiny bugs could paralyze a base for the weapon that ended the nuclear age and rules the current battlefield?”
“Insects and small animals were a constant nuisance in older wars too. You might cover the ultimate tank in dried grass for camouflage, but mice would use it as a bed and then chew through the wiring, turning it into a metal coffin.”
That reminded Quenser of running across Heivia having trouble with a malfunctioning vehicle. It had been something about a bunch of bugs getting into the engine. That may have been a sign of things to come.
However, this was a military facility and one made sturdy enough to prevent war criminals and POWs from escaping. Even if all hell had broken loose outside, the crickets could not get in so easily.
Or so he thought.
That idea proved na?ve.
“Wait a second... What is this noise?”
He heard a bell-like chirping.
Frolaytia and Elfily looked up at the corridor ceiling in shock. It was the same reaction people gave during an earthquake or lightning strike.
“Are you sure it isn’t from outside the window?”
“No, it’s too clear for that. There aren’t many, but it seems some have gotten in somehow.” Frolaytia calmly shot down the Class Rep’s wishful thinking. “Quenser! We need to split up and check all the corridor’s windows and doors. Take some duct tape with you and apply it like weather stripping!!”
“Why just the corridor!? The cells also have windows!”
“Wait!!”
This time Elfily cut in with a powerful voice.
Quenser looked puzzled, so the busty glasses Class Rep continued.
Her face had grown pale.
“We cannot open the cell doors. The Faith Organization prisoners would rush out if we did!!”
“This is no time to be worried about that!”
They only had to press a button in the guard room.
No keys were needed. This kind of prison used strict security to keep people from getting in or out, but to ensure the bare minimum of human rights, there was always an emergency evacuation system that opened all of the cell exits and corridor doors.
But despite that...no, because of that, Elfily quickly stopped him.
Because it was easy, she could let him do it so easily.
“There are more than two hundred of them!! And there are only five of us including the analysts in the monitoring room. This might be a Legitimacy Kingdom base zone, but we can’t expect any reinforcements. If we open those doors, the detention barracks will become an isolated piece of Faith Organization territory!!”
“I can’t believe this,” spat out Quenser.
Painstakingly opening and closing each door to check on the windows would take too long. The crickets were getting in and they would quickly fill the entire building. Yet if they opened all the doors to ask for help, the Faith Organization prisoners could easily gang up on them. And fear of that had to be double for women like Frolaytia and Elfily.
The risk was too great either way.
Quenser understood that, but after thinking on it, he made his decision.
“Opening the cell doors is the only option.”
“Are you serious!?”
“The Faith Organization are human too, so we can explain the situation to them. The bugs on the other hand aren’t going to wait around! If they pour in here, we’ll definitely be eaten. There’s no persuading or threatening them! So we need to go with the option that has some slight chance of working!!”
Quenser and Elfily turned toward Frolaytia. After taking a puff on her kiseru, their commander exhaled the smoke.
“Let’s go with Quenser’s idea. If we don’t apply the weather stripping as soon as possible, we can’t survive.”
“~ ~ ~!!!???”
Elfily was about ready to stomp her feet in frustration, but Quenser ignored her and ran to the fire alarm on the wall. Once he smashed the glass and pressed the button, a shrill bell rang, red lights flashed, and all of the doors along the corridor slid open with an unsettling noise.
Men in neon prisoner uniforms rushed out, so Quenser raised his hands and shouted to them.
“If you want to head outside, be my guest!! But only if you have the guts to make an escape right now!!”
The cells had windows, so the prisoners would know the situation outside. A few of them still stepped forward with bloodshot eyes and it likely had to do with more than just being frustrated.
“What is-...? ...!?”
A door slowly opened next to Quenser’s group and Skuld stepped out looking puzzled. That Pilot Elite was almost a target of reverence for the Faith Organization. The interrogation room had no windows, so she was clearly shocked by the truth she found before her eyes.
Frolaytia pulled a handgun from her waist.
However, she did not aim toward the prisoners. She aimed at the window right next to her.
That window was still absolutely covered with black insects.
“If I find I cannot expect all of you to act logically, I will immediately break this window. Then we will all be bug-food together. It would be a tragedy either way, but I’ll take that over being made into your plaything. Now, which will it be?”
“...”
“Help us. We need to apply weather stripping to the cell windows!”
Before they could waste any more time glaring at each other, Quenser tossed a few handcuff keys and rolls of duct tape to Skuld. When she saw the boy get to work on the corridor window, the twintail girl sighed and nodded. That seemed to settle it for the Faith Organization. Skuld followed Quenser and the soldiers given some duct tape returned to their cells.
“(Watch them carefully. They might be searching for something they can use as a weapon.)”
Elfily moved in close and whispered in Quenser’s ear while helping with the work.
She discreetly warned him without letting Skuld notice.
“(Wearing a plastic toothbrush down to a point is enough to kill and you gave them duct tape. Combine that with something else and they can make any kind of ‘science project’ they want. That is how things work here.)”
“I know that.”
“(I am not saying your decision was wrong, but you still need to be careful. And since you have explosives with you, you are the last one we can have falling into their hands.)”
“We’re done over here!”
A man in a prisoner uniform rushed out of a nearby cell.
Elfily ended her conversation, grabbed the duct tape from Quenser’s hand, and casually moved to another window.
The Faith Organization soldier continued speaking without noticing.
“Saint Skuld, allow me to do that so you need not dirty your hands ...What is even going on here? What are those? Bell crickets!?”
“What’s your name?”
“Eric. Eric Kingsvalley. Nice to meet you.”
“I’m Quenser Barbotage. Just come with me! Oh, right...”
Quenser removed his backpack and handed it to Eric.
Elfily stared at him in shock from a short distance away, but he did not care.
“This is my Hand Axe plastic explosive. You take it. Carrying a weapon around like that is stifling me.”
“But...”
“You can’t set them off without a fuse. Not even throwing them into a fire would work. I’ll keep those fuses, so now neither of us can detonate them.”
“...”
After some thought, Eric put the backpack on.
Then he and Quenser shook hands.
The hot-blooded exchange between guys must not have gotten through to her because Skuld tilted her head and cut in.
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know! Just double check all the windows and doors! We can hear the crickets chirping from somewhere, so we need to seal up wherever it is as soon as we can!!”
“No, wait.”
Just as he started to do that, Eric came to a stop.
He and the other Faith Organization soldiers looked up to the ceiling.
“What is it?”
“It might not just be the windows and doors. I don’t know the exact layout of this place, but how do the ventilation ducts work?”
“Goddammit, are you serious!?”
They all looked up. It was a tall ceiling and the ventilation duct covers were out of reach. Then Skuld beckoned Quenser over with her index finger.
“You said your name is Quenser, right? Give me the tools and bend over. I’ll ride on your shoulders.”
“Saint Skuld! Allow one of us to take your place!!”
“Shut up. We don’t have time and we need someone light on top, don’t we?”
No one argued.
A lot went through Quenser’s mind as he did as he was told.
(Instead of using two Faith Organization people, she’s making sure Eric can still move freely. She hasn’t forgotten the most basic etiquette.)
“But who cares about the details when I get to have a cute girl’s legs and crotch wrapped around my head!?”
“Eh? What?”
Skuld looked confused as she climbed onto his shoulders from behind with surprisingly shameless motions.
As soon as Quenser gathered strength in his back and straightened up, he nearly lost sight of reality thanks to the sensation on the back of his neck and his cheeks.
“Ahahh...”
“There, right there. Stop, stop! Why do you keep moving back and forth like that!?”
That was of course because he wanted to delay her work and enjoy her warmth for as long as possible, gravity of the situation be damned, but then something went wrong.
Once Skuld removed the ventilation duct cover and stuck her head inside, she completely lost her balance.
“Hyah!?”
“Saint Skuld!!”
Quenser nearly performed an accidental suplex on her, but since diligent Eric faithfully held his hands out from behind, they only fell to the ground. Eric and Quenser screamed when they looked to Skuld who had cutely fallen onto her butt.
A single black bell cricket sat on top of her head.
“Gyah!?”
“Gyah!?”
Quenser quickly brushed it off and Eric crushed it underfoot.
“?”
Only Skuld looked confused.
She had likely lost her balance after looking it in the eye at point-blank range, but she must not have known it had gotten in her hair. If she had, she would have been far more panicked.
“Crap! Crap, crap, crap!!”
Frolaytia ran over when she heard the commotion.
“What is it, Quenser? Give me an intelligible report!”
“There’s...some of...a few of them in here! A few crickets!!”
“Did they eat through the gas filter?”
Frolaytia sounded annoyed and she tore her medals and battalion patch from her coat. Then she stripped off the coat.
“We need to buy some time. Stuff a few balled-up coats into the ventilation ducts to block them off. They aren’t big enough for someone to crawl through, so it should be easy to block them off.”
“B-but! There isn’t just the one duct. We would have to figure out which filter was eaten through and-...!!”
Elfily trailed off because the entire corridor shook and tilted unnaturally. No, the entire building did. The solid detention barracks creaked like a rickety suspension bridge.
Quenser grew pale.
“What is it now?”
“This is bad,” replied Elfily.
She gave a blatantly cautious look to Skuld and Eric who had the Hand Axe.
“They must have eaten through the tires. The entire maintenance base zone is made from a convoy of more than one hundred vehicles, so all of the buildings are actually a number of panels put together on top of those flat vehicles!”
The weight was distributed between thirty or forty tires as tall as Quenser was, but if one of them blew, that equation would no longer work. With the extra weight, the odds were good the rest would blow too.
And if the overall balance had shifted...
“The entire detention barracks will collapse onto its side?”
If that happened, the windows and doors would be the least of their worries. The panels of the exterior walls would bend, break, and create large gaps. Once the omnivorous crickets poured in by the hundreds of thousands, the soldiers equipped with puny guns and explosives would be bug-food.
“Does that mean we can’t hope to hole up here?”
Eric asked that while protecting Skuld and looking like even the saliva he needed to gulp had dried up.
“Then what do we do!? Are we just going to wait here for the bugs outside to eat us!?”
The rain-like sound of the bugs on the windows applied pressure to all of the human hearts inside.
Quenser thought and then looked to Frolaytia.
“Frolaytia, tell me more about the gas filter they ate through.”
“Hm? Okay. I think it was a filtration membrane type rather than an activated charcoal type. I believe several thin stocking-like membranes were placed over it.”
“Next question: Does this maintenance base have any buildings built solidly on the ground instead of on a vehicle?”
“A few impromptu storage buildings next to the Object maintenance facility. The wreckage of the Trinity Style took up some of the space for the other equipment, so I believe they threw the less-used equipment in there.”
“Then that’s our only path to survival. If we escaped to anywhere else, the tires could blow just like here.”
“Escaped?”
Elfily sounded like she was questioning his sanity.
That was hardly surprising. Anyone would think that with those brazen bugs covering the windows so thickly they blocked out the sun.
“You’re saying we should leave here and run to those other buildings!? That’s suicidal!!”
“So is staying here. And once the building does topple over, we’ll lose all chance at survival. We won’t know which direction to run. With the windows like that, it must be worse than a sandstorm out there. You won’t even be able to see a few dozen centimeters away. If we’re thrown out there while panicked, there’s no way we can survive.”
“Are you saying we can reach the sturdy storage building if we remain calm?”
Eric spoke up as the representative of the prisoners.
He continued to stand protectively in front Pilot Elite Skuld and he seemed to be choosing his words carefully in her place. He and the rest of the Faith Organization may have been judging Quenser here.
“If you have a compass and focus only on the direction, you can reach your destination without being able to see. And were you listening, Eric? The filter is only as thick as a stocking, yet it was only just now eaten through. There are still only a few crickets in here, so their jaws aren’t that strong.”
“Are you forgetting they can eat through military tires meant to bear several thousand tons!?”
“Yes, but those are on the outside, so the crickets would have been targeting them from the very beginning. That means it takes them a long time to blow a tire. Again, they aren’t that powerful. Our uniforms, Skuld’s special suit, and your prison uniforms are all sturdy. Wrap duct tape around the collar and sleeves and I think we can walk outside for a short time.”
Then he looked around and spoke to the other Faith Organization soldiers.
“Also, we can protect our faces and heads with duct tape too. We would suffocate if we covered our mouth and nose, so we’ll have to stick with towels there. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about our eyes. We don’t have enough goggles for everyone, so we’ll just have to use our own hands to protect them the best we can. Is that good enough!?”
“I see. So only the great Legitimacy Kingdom gets to safely use goggles, hm?” asked Eric. “And are you going to send us out first to see if we get eaten?”
“That would be best,” admitted Quenser. “But unfortunately, I’m only a student. I can’t make use of that kind of privilege.”
“Wait. You mean...?”
“I’m going without goggles too. We’re all in this together, so is anyone coming with me!? Or will you stay here and wait for the building to fall over!? The choice is yours, but we don’t have much time!!”
The entire corridor gave another disconcerting creak.
The building was already twisting and it could rupture at any time. If a gap opened and the bugs got in, all of this discussion would be meaningless.
It was only a matter of time.
“Get a clue already. If we wanted to kill you, we wouldn’t have taken you prisoner. Food costs money no matter who eats it. Why would we bother spending money on you just to trick you later? It would’ve been faster to just shoot you on the battlefield. Right?”
“...”
Eric began to open his mouth, but he must not have had an argument because he glanced over to his comrades for help. None of them complained, so he finally turned back to Skuld who nodded.
“Let’s go with that. The Faith Organization and Legitimacy Kingdom doesn’t have to start getting along, but I’m only here because that Quenser took me with him when he didn’t have to.”
“If you say so, Saint Skuld.”
That settled it for them.
“Let’s get started.”
Once Quenser said that, they got down to business. They sealed off the important parts of their clothes with duct tape and covered their mouths and noses with towels.
Frolaytia whispered to Quenser from nearby.
“(You need to give Second Lieutenant Elfily a thank-you gift later on, Quenser.)”
“?”
“(It might have sounded like she was snapping at you before, but that cut off any complaints the Faith Organization might have made. If they had started a flood of complaints, you wouldn’t have been able to deal with them all. I guess she really is part of the intelligence division.)”
Quenser glanced over at Elfily who was wrapping duct tape around herself not far away, but she looked away when she noticed him.
Meanwhile, they completed their preparations.
They were of course all worried. Training books for new soldiers said nothing about situations like this, but waiting around would mean waiting for the bugs to eat them.
“Once you’re outside, only focus on the compass in your hand. The safe storage building is eight hundred meters southeast. Got that? Eight hundred meters! The compass will tell you the direction, so calculate the distance using your steps. There will be almost zero visibility, so you won’t be able to see even a meter away. Looking up will probably kill your senses of distance and direction! So focus on the compass in your hand!! Only on the compass!! Got that!?”
Quenser shouted at them to motivate them.
“As I said, each individual cricket isn’t that strong. They won’t break through your uniform right away! So as long as you don’t get lost, you can reach the storage building safely. Don’t think about rushing forward. No matter how many bugs get on you, keep moving in the same direction at the same pace. This is the safest way. So let’s do this. It’s time to open the door!! Are you ready!?”
“Ohh!!”
Quenser and Frolaytia tore off the duct tape covering the door. They were discarding their own temporary peace of mind, but they had to say goodbye to that. That “temporary” peace of mind was a bottomless swamp. Once they sank into it, they would be stuck and could only wait for death.
That action changed everything.
Elfily and Skuld both gulped and looked to the door.
This would normally be unthinkable, but the detention barracks were of no more use. This felt like a symbol of that.
“We just have to do it.”
Quenser unlocked the door and grabbed the doorknob.
As he pressed his shoulder against the heavy metal door, he gave one last yell.
Instead of encouraging the others, it may have been to make sure he himself did not come to a stop.
“Begin! Let’s go!!”
He made up his mind and opened the door.
A moment later, he saw something truly unexpected.
An intense wave of heat struck his entire body.
Instead of a black storm, he saw an all-encompassing sea of flames.
Part 6
A little earlier, Heivia had also been facing the black hell.
Since he had been fighting the stalled vehicle outdoors, he would have noticed the strange situation earlier than Quenser and the others.
“Dammit. What the hell is that!?”
At first, it looked like a black tsunami approaching from beyond the horizon.
Once the guard in the watchtower realized it was a swarm of bugs, a biological sense of fear and disgust must have come over them. Heivia could hear them firing their semi-auto sniper rifle wildly.
But even if each bullet took out a few bugs, it did not even make a dent in a swarm of tens or even hundreds of thousands.
Heivia threw his tools aside as soon as he -->>