Chapter 29
["Wait, are you planning to turn all these criminals into slaves… no, graduate students?"]
‘No. I’m only thinking of picking one.’
People say "the more, the better," but that depends on the situation.
With UGS, I can exploit a graduate student at a relatively (?) minimal cost. But even then, the water and pills they consume are still an expense.
Besides, having too many graduate students isn’t particularly useful right now.
What I need at the moment is just one person—someone fresh and smart—to handle miscellaneous tasks.
Just one will do.
“So, with that in mind…”
Crackle.
To ensure a safe and orderly selection process—without any resistance—I made sure to confirm each candidate’s incapacitation one by one.
Not actually killing them, of course. Just knocking them out properly.
As I continued tidying up the kidnappers (so to speak), my eyes landed on the others, who were diligently helping out.
“By the way, what were you guys even doing out here this late at night?”
“We were training.”
The first to answer was Linia.
“…And why were you doing something you don’t usually do?”
“What, am I not allowed to train?”
“No, it’s not that…”
I was momentarily speechless at Linia’s unexpected response, which was, in fact, perfectly reasonable.
It’s only natural for a martial artist to train. The real issue is that she’s only now doing something so obvious.
“Well, I was just standing around earlier while you guys were doing something, but I’m neither in the Magic Engineering Department nor particularly smart, so I couldn’t really help… And this is about the only thing I can do, so I felt frustrated…”
Linia mumbled, avoiding my gaze.
Ah, I get it now.
She was feeling insecure and ended up doing nighttime exercise out of sheer frustration.
“So what if you’re bad at something? Friends don’t judge each other over stuff like that. Just hang out with us and have fun.”
Having roughly grasped the situation, I threw out some casual advice.
Linia blinked in surprise, staring at me in a daze—like my words had really touched her.
“…Laniel…”
Her eyes were even glistening a little, like she’d do anything for me in this moment.
Alright, let’s drive this home.
“No matter what anyone says, you’re like a XX-less XX friend to me.”
“…Calling a girl a XX-less XX friend is a bit…”
Linia’s expression immediately turned sour.
“I give you a heartfelt speech, and this is how you react?! You ungrateful little XX brat!”
“Of all the words, why XX?! WHY?!”
“What’s wrong with XX?!”
“Ahem… you two…”
Just as I was passionately educating Linia on the importance of XX, El interjected.
“…What exactly is XX?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Yeah, El, you don’t need to know!”
El asked a question, and Linia and I answered at the same time.
An innocent and kind child who doesn’t know XX should have their innocence protected.
“They have the right to know!”
“No, they don’t.”
“Why not? Who are you to decide?!”
“I have the right to know!”
“That’s not how it works!”
Geez, I was just giving them some good advice, but the little one flared up.
Come to think of it, this has nothing to do with the current situation, but a question suddenly popped into my head.
"By the way, El, when you refer to yourself, what’s the difference between ‘bonnyeo’ and ‘bonin’?"
“There is no difference.”
There isn’t?!
“That’s confusing! Just stick to one!!”
“W-What…!!”
El’s face turned red, and they trembled slightly before pointing at the black-haired guy.
“You too! You refer to Karon as both ‘Karon’ and ‘black-haired guy’!!”
Huh? Have I ever called him ‘black-haired guy’ out loud? I thought I had only said it in my head.
[You did say it out loud sometimes.]
‘I should be more careful.’
I glanced at the black-haired guy’s reaction.
“In the eastern regions, black hair is pretty common….”
The black-haired guy sat beside the rabbit, plucking grass while gazing at the sky with a slightly sad, almost nostalgic look in his eyes.
It was a mess of a night in many ways.
---
After sending the kids back, I began the sacred process of selecting graduate students (assets).
First, I gathered the doomsday cultists in one place and stripped them down to nothing but their underwear.
I would be handing them over to the knights eventually, but before that, I had to take everything valuable for myself.
[This feels a bit cruel.]
“Cruel? Have you forgotten what these bastards were up to?”
[Still, taking everything but their underwear is a bit….]
“So, you’re saying they look pitiful because they’re only wearing underwear?”
[No, that’s not what I meant!]
Well, I suppose standing around in just their underwear does make them look pretty pathetic.
But if that’s the issue, I can just make sure they fit the look.
I pulled out a hair clipper and a paint set from my dimensional storage.
The paint was a special coating I had used on a prototype before, and I had some left over, so I made a few different colors besides black.
I picked out two colors: purple and…
[Wait, what are you planning to do with that?!]
“Just watch.”
First, I grabbed the hair clipper.
This wasn’t just any ordinary clipper—it was made with special materials from this world that could rip out hair down to the roots. A truly vicious tool.
[Does that even count as a clipper at that point?]
“It’s perfect for situations like this.”
I immediately got to work on weeding out the cultists.
BZZZZZZZ!!
Ahh, that sound is so satisfying!
Starting with their heads, I made sure to remove every single hair visible on their bodies.
[M-Master?!]
“Now that I think about it, these bastards tried to kidnap me, didn’t they?”
"The fact that I'm handing them over to the knights is one thing, but before that, I need to make them pay for daring to try and kidnap me!"
With that thought, I carefully applied purple paint to the now glossy bodies of the captives.
[W-What are you doing?!]
"Creating a look that suits wearing only underwear."
[How could you do something so evil?!]
"It's a harmless paint for the body. But it seeps into the skin, so unless they peel it off, the color won't fade."
[Demon! Satan! Devil! In short—Demsatan!]
"I use this for painting your main body too, you know?"
Ignoring the AI's usual nonsensical chatter, I completed my work.
[But why aren’t you painting one of them?]
"He seems to be the leader, so I’m giving him special treatment."
I opened the lid of another paint can along with the purple paint.
Flash!
A dazzling light, like something out of a cooking manga, burst forth.
And what appeared inside was a brilliant, multi-colored, gaming-style glow—something you'd expect from an expensive computer setup.
[I-It’s glowing?!]
"This is my masterpiece! It absorbs surrounding mana and emits light!"
[But... what’s so good about it?]
How pitiful, not understanding the romance of gaming colors.
Rather than explaining, I decided to show it directly. I immediately started painting the leader figure with care.
Stroke by stroke, with the utmost attention to detail, I painted him.
And as soon as I was done, his body shone with radiant gaming colors.
"Ahh, magnificent."
[Wow, how could someone come up with something so demonic…?]
"Shut up! Keep complaining, and I’ll paint your main body too!"
[Hieeeek! No! Please, no!]
Poor AI, unable to comprehend the beauty of gaming colors.
I let its nonsense go in one ear and out the other, focusing on my painting.
Come to think of it, this looks way too good.
I almost don’t want to hand them over to the knights.
"This one shall be my graduate student."
[What?! You can just decide that on the spot?!]
"But after putting so much effort into painting him, it feels like a waste."
[No, no matter how you put it…]
"It’s not like I expect intelligence useful for my research from these guys anyway. But since this one's the leader, he should be more useful than the others."
Thus, the selection was complete.
[Shall I bring out the UGS box then?]
"No."
[But you just said you’d make him your graduate student?!]
"I did. But for such an evil being, the UGS box alone is not enough!"
[Ooooh? Then…!]
"Bring out the Master Box!"
From the dimensional storage, the Master Box emerged into my hand.
Without hesitation, I threw the box at the chosen one.
"You, wicked and sinful one, cast off your body tainted by evil and be reborn as a graduate student to atone for your crimes!"
The Master Box made contact, and the chosen one was sucked into it.
Capture complete.
["What’s with that cringeworthy slogan?"]
"This kind of thing is all about the mood. The mood."
Anyway, the Master Box is a slightly unethical and unreasonable capture device with an extremely high capture rate, but since it's being used on criminals, it should be fine.
After that, I painted "I am a terrorist of the Doomsday Cult" on the foreheads of the remaining ones and left them near the Knights' Headquarters within the academy grounds.
["You didn’t ‘leave’ them; you abandoned them while they were tied up, didn’t you?"]
"They should be grateful they weren’t stuffed into the special Master Box, hmph."
I waved my hand at the Doomsday Cult remnants writhing on the ground.
"Take care. I’ll definitely come back to pick you up."
["You’re not going to pick them up!"]
"It just felt like something I had to say."
Of course, I wasn’t going to pick them up. It’s not like I knew them.
With that, I turned around and headed for the dormitory.
"Ugh! What are these purple freaks?!"
"Who did such a horrible thing?!"
"Doomsday… Cult? What the hell?! Arrest them all!"
I could hear some screams behind me, but it probably wasn’t anything I needed to worry about.
---
The next day.
"Raniel, I need to have a talk with you."
My homeroom teacher called me in first thing in the morning.
"What is it?"
I was already busy today because of an outdoor class. Why was I being called separately?
Yesterday, all I did was check some equipment for handling people, shave the heads of those Doomsday Cult guys, paint them purple, and leave them at the Knights’ Headquarters…
Alright. Nothing problematic there.
I never do anything I’d feel guilty about, so there's nothing to feel guilty for.
"Well, first of all…"
While I was organizing my thoughts, my homeroom teacher hesitated for a moment before saying:
"Thank you for taking care of the Doomsday Cult members who infiltrated the academy."
Then, he bowed his head politely.
Huh? How did he find out?
I had already confirmed that this world didn’t have real-time CCTV.
"Oh, if you're wondering how I knew, I happened to see it while testing a real-time video transmission camera that I'm working on implementing."
But just because it didn’t exist before didn’t mean it wouldn't be invented in the future.
Damn, I let my guard down!
"Hey! If something like that existed, you should have detected it and reported it to me!"
["Damn! I let my guard down!"]
"Do you want me to dismantle you?!"
["How could you threaten to dismantle me over one little mistake?! That’s a human rights violation! You’re a tyrannical master!"]
"Where do you get off talking about human rights when you don’t even have any?!"
["Waaah! No, but seriously, if there had been any suspicious mana reactions nearby, I would have reported them! There really weren’t any!"]
"So, it wasn’t negligence?!"
While I was busy bickering with the AI, my homeroom teacher, with his usual drowsy expression, continued speaking in a calm tone.
“This is pretty amazing because it doesn’t even get detected by mana sensors. In other words, you can completely hide it without anyone knowing.”
Our homeroom teacher, being a magic engineer, started going on about the specs of the magic tool they had created.
[See! It wasn’t my fault!]
‘You still have to do it! What’s your job? This is exactly what you’re here for!’
[If only I had more equipment and sensors!]
‘If I had more time and money, I would’ve upgraded them long ago!’
In the end, everything came back to repairs.
When I was a kid, I used to watch cartoons in the morning where scientists always complained about needing more time and budget. Now that I’m a technician myself, I completely understand how they felt.
“Anyway, it’s good that you caught the criminals, but…”
“Is it because I took them down myself without contacting the security forces?”
Now that I think about it, even if the end result was good, from an outsider’s perspective, it must have looked strange—some unknown person capturing criminals and dumping them on school grounds.
“No, not that. It’s just… shaving their heads and painting them purple was a bit…”
The homeroom teacher scratched their cheek awkwardly.
Wait, that was the problem?!
[Exactly! I also think purple was a bit much…]
These people don’t understand aesthetics.
I wanted to pull out a gaming-color paint from my master box and show them what real style looked like, but I held back.
[If you’re going to paint them, black is better!]
‘That’s a terrible idea! If we were on Earth, you’d be arrested for making a racist remark!’
“Well, the purple was a bit much, but I’ve handled everything on my end, so don’t worry about anything else and just focus on today’s outdoor class.”
There’s nothing to worry about.
The homeroom teacher found out, but as long as they kept quiet, no one except those involved yesterday would ever know.
[So basically, we just need to eliminate all witnesses!]
‘That’s right!!—Like hell I’d say that! Go study human rights, you lawless idiot!’
Well, it seemed like the homeroom teacher was looking out for me in their own way, so I should at least thank them.
“Thank you for your consideration.”
“It’s my job to take care of my students. I might not seem very reliable, but I do take this seriously.”
Well, thinking back to the first day, they were a little unreliable.
But seeing them actually put in effort made them feel a bit more likable.
“Are you all set for today?”
“No problems at all.”
There’s nothing to worry about.
I already notified the students one by one and even sent them an email.
They may still act like kids, but they’re all legal adults now, so there shouldn’t be any issues.
But at the time, I had no idea.
If I had known what was about to happen, I never would have been so careless.
---
After parting ways with the homeroom teacher, I arrived at the meeting point, Granté Station.
And I waited.
“…Wait, why the hell isn’t anyone here when we’re almost at the meeting time?!”
But no one showed up. Not a single one.
If I had known this would happen, I would have gone to each of them personally and dragged them here by the collar!
