Heavy Object

Volume 12, Afterword

And with that, Heavy Object reaches its 12th volume.

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

Damn, this afterword made me realize the arrival of the 10th volume passed me right by. But since the 1st volume is a starter pack and the rest are booster packs you can start reading from anywhere, maybe that’s how it should be.

This time, I focused on military jobs besides gunfights. That was mainly disaster relief and disease prevention. Then again, maybe Quenser and the others were working against that when they left and reentered the quarantine zone.

And as I suggested in the afterword to Vanilla-Flavored Chemical Formula, I used some of the old characters and concepts to build up a stronger foundation. I would like for all of you readers to decide what you thought of that different way of doing things.

People’s immunity weakening due to the proliferation of antibacterial goods, skyrocketing medical costs, an infection base made into a global tourist destination, and a plan to strengthen people’s immunity by spreading germs... I always focus on going all out with the craziness in Heavy Object more than my other series, but what did you think of the flavoring of this one? Let us hope that there was not a shred of realism to it. I am praying that we live in an age that can laugh this off as ridiculous.

The Objects this time were the Rush and two one-off ones.

The Lizard Tail had the same self-destructive protection technology as a car given an intentionally weak structure so it can destroy itself and protect the driver. It was also a Zombie Object that could take control of the enemy Object with a cyber-attack. I was trying to combine it with the image of the infection base hidden in Second Venice (even if one belonged to the Faith Organization and the other to the Information Alliance). When you have a secret military facility and microbe research, it’s gotta be zombies, right? I think I really made a strange Object here. It was an undead soldier that would return no matter how many times it was shot down. I also think I made a different sort of Elite for it. By the way, the runner up idea was an Object that devoured other Objects with metal-eating bacteria.

The even more bizarre Object was the Old Fashion. To keep a promise with an old friend, that one fought the flow of time to continue his love of the old Object while also continuing to reign as the strongest. Now that is an Object just brimming with romance. You can probably tell if you compare them, but this was the polar opposite of the undead soldier. I made it an ace that had never lost. Personal circumstances trumping the organization should never happen in the military, but that may be what makes it so romantic.

Catherine was similar to Putana and Mariydi in her ability to fight directly, but I tried to differentiate her with her inability to find her own reason to fight. She was even more mechanical than a mercenary. Due to being Flide’s pawn, she fights by being “booted up” in combat mode and does not question the justification given to her. That is why I think you can feel her own will breaking free of the chains of justification when she hands over her gas mask to protect Quenser. (From a purely combat perspective, Catherine’s survival would be more important than Quenser’s.) She is the girl who wants to leave hell but cannot cut herself free of war so easily. I hope you were able to accept her.

I give my thanks to my illustrator Nagi Ryou-san and my editors Miki-san, Onodera-san, and Anan-san. With the container yard mission where the containers were moved around like a crane game, the vertical tower defense mission on the broadcast tower, the underground facility mission with changing water level, etc., I was focusing more on video games than B-movies for these battlefields, but I doubt representing those locations was easy. Writing it out in text is simple enough, but drawing them in illustrations has to be entirely different. Thank you for sticking with me this time too.

I also give my thanks to the readers. With Second Venice and Councilor Flide’s pawn Elite, I tried focusing from the very beginning on what I had built up in the previous volumes (and in the other media like the manga and anime). I thought that might open up some new possibilities, but I will leave it to you to judge. Thank you very much once again.

And I will end this here.

I hope this book will remain in your heart in some way.

I have a habit of making the protagonist’s dads really cool...

-Kamachi Kazuma

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