3-13: Written as Technology, Read as Crazy (1/4)
There was never a peaceful school life waiting for him.
“Hey Hina (Myuhi), who do I need to threaten to drop out of school?” Shinichi asked.
“KyuI!?” The fox cried.
When Myuhi found Shinichi and her, the first thing she heard was an oddly violent question.
If anyone heard that, they would take him to be joking, but the person-in-question was currently holding his knees, balled up in a corner, with a dark and heavy atmosphere emanating from him.
“You sure say some scary things despite being depressed,” Myuhi wryly smiled.
Myuhi used to be full of smiles, but since accompanying Shinichi, she’s begun to smile wryly more frequently.
That wry smile didn’t last long though, as it quickly turned into a serious expression.
“…Forget it.
You know, right? That the moment you enrolled this school, you can no longer leave,” Myuhi said uninterestedly.Shinichi’s enrollment actually fulfilled two purposes: monitoring and protection.
He could have rejected the school and chosen another way of life, but the moment he accepted it, his only path out was graduation.
The school wasn’t taking care of Shinichi just for show, after all, but Shinichi was well aware of that.
Whatever has happened between him and the Senba siblings was irrelevant.
“Sigh… I chose wrong again. Why do I keep messing up like this? If I knew they were here, I wouldn’t have come,” Shinichi grumbled as he eventually laughed out of depression. Meanwhile, ‘she’ jumped on his shoulders and licked his cheeks to comfort him.
“Kyu,” she cried.
“Thank you…” Shinichi said to her, then he turned to Myuhi. “What happened to them?”
“After you left, the younger brother took Yoppi away.
It seems he’s used to it, but that was my first time seeing her like that.”
The younger brother seemed to be mumbling something, almost as if he were chanting a curse, so Myuhi was unable to talk to him.
No offense to the younger brother, but the sister was usually the center of attention.
As a member of the public morals committee, she was a just and diligent student trusted by many teachers.
It was that same student who ran off her mouth, saying things Myuhi never thought she would ever hear from her.
It was a sight so shocking that she couldn’t help but back off.
“I guess it would be better if I don’t ask,” Myuhi said.
She was clearly referring to the scandalous details of the usually sociable siblings.
Shinichi nodded, then he stood up. “…Show me around. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing in the afternoon, right?”
“Yeah. We’re here already, so we might as well visit the technology class building. It’s nearby and normal students rarely visit it,” Myuhi said.
Shinichi’s expression was back to normal, but the depressing aura about him was still there.
Despite that, however, he still asked about the two siblings.
“Umm… Hey, what kind of position do those two have here?
You mentioned something about the public morals committee, and they seem to know you pretty well,” Shinichi asked as they walked toward the technology class building.
Myuhi quietly thought to herself that it would be better for him not to ask about things if it hurts so much, but she answered anyway.
“They are renowned as the twin stars of normal class, 2-B.
They have one of the best aptitudes in school and are earthlings attending a normal class. I’d say they’re currently the closest to entering the special class.
Depending on how good their grades are before summer, they might even be promoted to the special class this year,” Myuhi said.
Shinichi’s eyes twinkled as if he was hearing something unexpected. “So they’re good students?”
“For earthlings, anyway. Guu-chan’s an exception, but normally, earthlings have huge differences in their attributes. Even if they have one point they specialize in, they still lose out overall.”
“I see… Well, this is a school, after all.”
“If we were in battle, people inclined toward a single status could be used.”
Garestonians tended to grow their attributes together, resulting in a higher average, whereas earthlings tended to grow one point greatly, inclining them toward specialization.
Unfortunately, in a school like this that graded by averaging the various attributes, that was a huge handicap.
Moreover, the Garestonians had the benefit of receiving bonuses from their parents’ status through genetics, while earthlings only learned about status recently. That’s actually the main reason why earthling status was such a mess.
One world was burdened with a history that demanded its people to hone their status, while the other did not even know about status until recently. It was only natural that there would be a huge difference between their people.
“Actually, Yoppi is the only one who’s a member of the public morals committee, but the younger brother is always with her, so people have taken to calling him a supplementary public morals committee member. Because of that Guu-chan and I often meet him.”
“…Did you just admit that you’re a problem child?”
“Ahahaha, you could say that!” Myuhi said energetically with a salute, but for some reason Shinichi didn’t find her trustworthy.
The building of the technology class was situated to the east. It was completely surrounded by walls, having only a giant door in front with a computer console to open it.
Seeing that, Shinichi couldn’t help but look wordlessly at the fox girl (Myuhi) as he pointed at the door.
“Ufufu, a shocking sight, ain’t it? I’m sure you didn’t expect a school to have doors like this, but it’s necessary to keep technology still under wraps from being leaked. Besides, there are many ‘people who can’t fight’ from this class.”
After hearing Myuhi’s satisfactory explanation, Shinichi headed toward the thick door and held up his foster over the console monitor. When he did that, an electronic sound resounded and the door began to open.
“Only the students of the technology class and teachers can freely enter. Some members of the special class can also enter, but other than those, students would have to ask permission before being granted access.”
And because there wasn’t much point to playing with machines, most of the students of the normal class rarely dropped by. The number of times a normal students would visit could be counted with one’s fingers.
“What about me?” Shinichi asked.
“You have permission, for today, anyway,” Myuhi replied.
“Hmm…”
Shinichi followed uninterestedly after Myuhi. Upon entering the building, Shinichi traced his hand across the wall while Myuhi’s attention was focused ahead.
At one glance, it might seem like he was only touching the wall, but what he did was actually something known as ‘Marking’.
By leaving a mark with magic power, one could create a point, which one could use to invoke magic from a distance.
Such a mark could be used as a coordinate point for dimensional magic or as a point to monitor things from a distance.
Shinichi has actually been leaving such marks throughout the various facilities of the school.
“By the way, Hina,” Shinichi said.
“Hmm? What is it?” Myuhi replied as she turned to Shinichi.
She had an innocent look on her face at first, but that gradually went stiff.
“Class time has already ended, huh,” Shinichi said.
“That’s right. You can tell because… IT’S SO NOISY!!”
Myuhi only laughed when Shinichi pointed out that classes were over.
GAKIGON!
DON!
GATAGATA!
DOKAN!
PIGAKU!
DOTAN!
GANGAN!
CHUDON!
If the sounds booming throughout the building could be put into words, it would look like that.
It was the technology class, so machinery sounds would be perfectly normal, but over half of the sounds were explosions.
“What on earth are they doing?” Shinichi asked.
“Huh? Experiments, duh!” Myuhi replied.
Shinichi tried to ask the specifics, but Myuhi just dodged the question.
Shinichi figured she was probably not permitted to say anything.
“Ufufu, anyway, let’s go to the teacher’s office.
We may have gotten permission, but we should still say hi.
After all, even normal class students have classes with the teachers of the technology class.”
“Okay.”
“From here on, it’ll be better if you don’t ask so much,” Myuhi laughed, then she skipped onwards and Shinichi followed from behind.
As they continued along, the various labs came to view.
“If I were to attach this special neuro mechanism into this beta engine, I would be able to increase power by over 30 times…” A student said as he attached a suspicious looking mechanism into a suspicious looking engine.
“Fufufu! Naive, you’re too naive!
Did you think a firewall of that level could block my virus-tan!?” A little girl said as she slammed the keyboard while laughing.
“AHAHAHA! If my theory is correct, then the world’s strongest alloy shall be born! GAHAa!?” A student proudly exclaimed before the mechanism he was handling suddenly blew up.
“You little-! How dare you make fun of Fenri-kun Number 4!” A student said.
“Hmph, that wooden doll of yours is nothing but a toy before my great Terobe-kun!” Another student said.
The two students had their machine puppets grappling each other inside a small room.
“If we move the flow of photon like this, and then like this, it should— huh? That’s odd.
It seems one of these could blow the whole school away. Ufufu…” A female student said something terrifying before laughing manically.
“Butsu butsu butsu butsu butsu…”
And then there was one guy muttering something completely incomprehensible.
Tl Note:
Haven’t gotten any word from Sylvie, so I decided to just go and translate this. It’s been 3 months already, after all.
I’ll be translating KmF chapter parts at least once a week from now on. You’ll probably get them at the end of the week after TMPG.
This chapter is verrrrry long, so I’ve split it into four parts.