The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 172: [Research] Start: Atomic Bomb Development (1)

Chapter 172: [Research] Start: Atomic Bomb Development (1)

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An elf’s body was more durable than a human’s. In that sense, the unexpected trip to the infirmary for the four exchange students including Vermel was the talk of the school.

“What’s going on from the first day?”

“They had a duel and it seems like one person from our side beat all of them.”

“Really? Who?”

Aether passed by the whispering students and headed to the welfare center, a fruit basket in her hand.

─ Did I or did I not tell you not to fight from the first day?

“Fuck, can’t even not visit.”

She was reamed out by Heerlein yesterday, saying that she’d gone overboard even if it had been a duel.

[You should’ve gone easy on them.]

“But I did.”

How did they all get knocked out with just one hit?

Smacking her lips, Aether opened the door of the infirmary.

“.......”

The other elves were in a different room. Vermel was the only one lying inside the place that she’d entered.

Her fellow countryman looked like a wreck. If this had been South Korea, she would’ve been locked up for assault and battery.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Do I look okay to you?”

Vermel tried to yell but ended up groaning instead. His bones ached so he couldn’t raise his voice at all.

“Anyway, it’s good that you came.”

When he called for the Status Window in his mind, Aether’s information appeared.

Health? Attack? Fragments of information like those didn’t matter to him.

Holding back a noise, Vermel flicked his hand up and down. The Status Window hovering in the air scrolled down and down.

[Stress level - 35 (Normal)]Vermel let out a sigh of relief; it had gone down quite a bit.

“How many times did I get hit again?”

“About seven, eight times?”

“That’s a lot of hits.”

“It’s still not enough for me.”

Without a single change in expression, Aether pulled out her staff from her sleeve. Vermel freaked out and escaped to the far end of the bed.

It was only when she saw his complexion turn blue that Aether’s frosty expression melted.

“I’m joking, I’m joking.”

“...Seriously, you make my life difficult.”

“Well I thought my life was difficult while you were gone.”

Another noise spilled from Vermel’s mouth. He had nothing to say.

It had only been about a month, and in that short time Aether’s number was on the verge of Breakdown.

Any later and she would’ve been overtaken by the original personality. The thought of it sent a shiver down his spine.

“Alright, I said I’m sorry. But can you call it even with this? I don’t think I can take any more of a beating.”

“Sure, why not.”

Aether didn’t have a sadistic hobby of beating up sick people, either.

“And don’t freak people out like that. You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

Aether only grinned even as he advised her with a sincere face. Vermel just let out sigh after sigh from his throat.

How strange. He’d heard that those who’d finished grad school or were in it had masochistic tendencies....

So why was this one the opposite?

It couldn’t be.

Perhaps?

“...Does she have the face of a professor?”1

“What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Tap. Aether put the fruit basket on the table, then sat down on a chair and opened a book. It looked like she planned to study even while visiting. Vermel looked at her like he was sick of it.

Did she really want to study that much even after coming to this world?

“Peel some apples for me.”

“Peel it and eat it yourself.”

Even as she grumbled, Aether took out an apple from the basket and began peeling it with the blade of the caliper.

That’s possible with that...?

Her hands were clumsy. When he asked why she sucked at it, she replied with ‘I eat it whole’.

Shff, shff.

“Anyway, is it okay that I come here and talk to you like this?”

“It’s no problem.”

“Why?”

“Rosemary can’t turn on Scope right now.”

“Huh, wonder why.”

Aether handed him the apple with slightly surprised eyes, and ate the other half herself.

This asshole. If she’d smacked him eight times, then shouldn’t she give him at least one whole apple?

Vermel put the apple in his mouth and organized his thoughts until he finished eating it. The crunchy texture stimulated his taste buds.

Gulp.

“She’s busy as hell.”

“Because of the Lodestone?”

“There’s that, but also there are exchange students everywhere.”

Currently, there were about three hundred elves who came to Tilette. And most of them possessed the sense of energy to be able to use Elementals that were intermediate level and above.

“If she decides to show malicious intent, then she’ll be caught. Same goes if she uses Scope.”

“What does using Scope have to do with having malicious intent?”

“It’s voyeurism.”

“...Is that how that works?

If she thought about it, it wasn’t completely wrong as peeking on someone was bad in itself.

Rosemary mistakenly assumed that Vermel had an Elemental, and so that was why she had been desperate to kill him while there was only one of them.

Not that he actually had one.

“Things would go much easier if I had an Elemental, too.”

Vermel let out a deep sigh, a bemoaning of sorts.

“Elementals don’t appear to you?”

“They don’t. Maybe it’s because I’m originally human?”

“You’re a transmigrator, don’t you have any ideas? Like using a cheat to summon one or something.”

“It’s not that there’s no method.”

Aether quirked her head.

“If you know, then why don’t you do it?”

“It’s not easy.”

“What’s the method anyway?”

“Simply put, it’s throwing myself into a pit.”

The cheat to summoning an Elemental was this: first, face a trial that was difficult to overcome, despair as a result, but show an unwillingness to succumb to it. Then an Elemental impressed by this would appear before you and offer to form a contract.

The key was to ‘display heroic spirit and conviction in the midst of difficulty’.

That was the condition of goodness that Elementals looked for.

“If a situation like that happens to me, then this world will be wrecked beyond hope.”

“Oho, we have a savior here.”

Even while ribbing him, Aether listened to the end, because his complexion was even gloomier than usual.

Turning the page of the book she was reading, she hummed.

“By the way, Lotte has been strange lately.”

Aether chose to change the subject. Hearing that, Vermel let out an ‘ah’.

“Right. Her stress level exploded.”

There was a stress feature in <Darkest Academia>.

The main character...... That is, playable characters all had stress levels.

When the stress level of each character went past 85, ‘Breakdown’ or ‘Corruption’ initiated. The difference was that Breakdown progressed slower than Corruption.

“Then Lotte is in a Breakdown.”

“That’s right.”

Vermel nodded and continued his explanation.

“The remedy for Obsession is simple: just stay away from the cause of the Breakdown for a while.”

“You mean Rosemary?”

“It’s you, too.”

Vermel let out a groan, and Aether looked at him with a puzzled face.

“Why me?”

“You’ve been hanging out like best friends. Have you done anything wrong recently?”

“I got scolded badly for returning late to the dorms once.”

“......There it is.”

She still looked like she didn’t get it. Vermel had to keep going.

“LIsten up. Out of all the characters in DA, Lotte Saliere has the most keen sense of energy. It’s to the point that she can read the malice of a Beast without an Elemental.”

“What, that’s possible?”

“If you’re that good a person, yeah. It’s people like Lotte who get called to the Goddess when they die later.”

Was it a human being reincarnated into an Elemental? That was how Aether understood it and nodded.

“She probably has a vague idea of who Rosemary is. And you as well.”

She suddenly got goosebumps, for no reason other than it was the transmigrator’s words.

“Still, Lotte trust you. For now.”

“For now...?”

The memories of sharing drinks with Lotte during the summer break came to mind.

Lotte, when she met Akasah, had even suspected Aether once. But in the end she had decided to trust her rather than doubt.

“It means the behavior you’ve shown until now has been positive. But if the Breakdown gets worse, that thought might change.”

“Huh.”

The obsession Lotte had been displaying was a kind of defense mechanism, her own way of trying to stop Rosemary from taking Aether away.

But if Aether kept siding with Rosemary...

She might feel abandoned.

“Even so, I can’t just distance myself from Lotte right away. Is there no other way?”

“That’s easy. Stay away from Rosemary, and do something that Lotte would like.”

Something that Lotte would like.

Ah.

It was then that she realized.

The development of the atom bomb she was supposed to do with the Saliere family.

This whole time she’d taught her aimless things saying White Night this and that. Freyr had been working hard on the shell of the bomb, while she’d assigned Lotte only tedious work.

In a way, it was a bad contract. She hadn’t even properly told her about what they’d promised.

“Thanks. I know what I need to do.”

There wasn’t much time. Aether waved Vermel goodbye then headed straight for the central fountain.

It was time to speed up everything.

The process of going back to her original world, and making the weapon that would blow the Demon King’s head off.

**The first weekend after the arrival of the exchange students.

Whump!

A large bag was set down on the desk in the club.

It was the saggy bag that Aether carried around often, big like it was for hiking.

Aether carefully took out mana stones from the bag, and Freyr watched this scene with excited eyes.

Lotte was also at the club, nearly done with the theory part of White Night. She had gotten help from Aether, but she herself was also talented at deciphering scrolls.

A yawn came out of her mouth. Right, this was fun, too, but...

There was something missing.

There was a lot that she learned when she was with her best friend.

However.

When are we ever going to use this in actual combat....

Lately, she had been bored just working on theories.

Lotte came out to the middle of the club for a change of scene.

There was a structure in the middle of the room, a large, thick steel structure that was for the art fest.

Lotte looked over it with blank eyes; it was an unconscious thing that didn’t have anything to do with reason.

Then suddenly, she saw Aether put familiar-looking stones on the table one by one.

Her and Aether’s eyes met. Aether curved her lips and beckoned with her hand.

“Come here, Lotte.”

“Ah....”

“Let’s make that thing we promised before.”

From that moment, the girl’s heart began to beat with the same vigor as before.

Finally.

[SYSTEM : Named Entity ‘Lotte Saliere’s stress level is adjusted downward.]Finally...!

Footnotes

1. In the sense of face reading as a kind of fortune telling