The Evil Scientist is Too Competent

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Evilus Corporation employee exclusive cafe.

As I approached the table with a tray holding two cups of coffee and two pieces of cake, Sixth, who had been following along with a smile, expressed her gratitude.

“Thank you. I can’t order things like this.”

“……No, it’s nothing.”

“Come on! Let’s sit down and eat quickly!”

Saying this, Sixth dragged a chair over and plopped down on it. Considering that she was invisible to others, the chair seemed to move on its own, yet the people around showed no reaction.

I wondered if it was because her superpower wasn’t merely a presence-blocking ability but had reached the level of altering perception, or perhaps this world was accustomed to such phenomena.

I set the coffee and cake on the table and slowly observed her. As she took a bite of the cake, she beamed and savored the flavor joyfully.

“Mmm—! The chocolate cake here is delicious no matter how many times I eat it!”

“No matter how many times? You said others can’t see you, so how did you pay for this?”

“Huh? I just stole one piece at a time! I’m not broke, so I can just leave money and take it.”

“……Then why did you ask me to buy it for you?”

“Well, because cake that someone else buys is delicious no matter when you eat it?”

With that, Sixth crammed the cake back into her mouth, looking overjoyed. As I sipped my coffee and watched her smile, I realized that the people around really couldn’t see her—not just couldn’t see, but didn’t even acknowledge her existence.

‘If they’re not even feeling weird about the coffee and cake disappearing, and aren’t even looking this way… Is her ability similar to the Fairy Queen’s perception-altering skills?’

After savoring her cake and coffee for a while, Sixth seemed to have filled her belly and began waving her fork as if it were a conductor’s baton. Suddenly, she looked at me, startled.

“Oh, right, you can see me—? How embarrassing…”

“No, please continue.”

“How could I? You don’t understand a woman’s heart—?”

After saying that, Sixth scrunched her face in frustration. Watching her expressions clearly reveal her feelings, I could tell she hadn’t just been living this way for a short while. She seemed unrestrained in expressing her emotions, almost like a child who hasn’t learned about social norms…

Given her abilities, it was unlikely that she hadn’t received proper home education as a human, and it was more likely a result of living a life unnoticed by others for too long.

I took another sip of coffee and looked at Sixth.

“So, can you explain?”

“Huh? About what—?”

“Who you are, why no one knows you, and why I can see you.”

Upon hearing my words, Sixth fell silent for a moment, collecting her thoughts, before she spoke up a bit later.

“Well, first, I don’t know why you can see me either. I want to ask you, actually. No one has noticed me until now.”

“I don’t know either. I just suddenly started being able to see you.”

“And if you’re asking why no one knows me… uh, maybe it’s a kind of incident—?”

“Incident?”

“Yes, an incident.”

She said this with a bitter smile and explained what she had done, or rather her ability.

“My ability is presence-blocking. It was just a simple ability not to be noticed during school days… But as I used it more, it grew stronger, and at some point, it became so that even if I touched someone, they wouldn’t notice.”

“That wouldn’t explain how even the high-ranking members and the Boss don’t know you.”

“That’s exactly it! I was scouted by the Boss to join the Evil Organization—so here’s the problem. What do you think my role would be with such an ability?”

“Um… Spy?”

“Correct!”

Clap, clap, clap—.

As Sixth clapped a few times, she said there were no prizes and rested her chin, sighing.

“While it was fine receiving the Boss’s orders and moving around various companies gathering information… as I mentioned earlier, my ability wasn’t always at this level, you know?”

“……You said it was just a level of reducing presence at first.”

“It’s an ability that grew stronger without any training, and at some point, it crossed a threshold.”

The ability that Sixth spoke of was presence-blocking. So, she could reduce her presence slightly. But when seeing the ability she was using now? It was hard to believe it was just a slight reduction in presence.

Superpowers grow.

The rate and limits of that growth vary from person to person, but the fact that they grow remains unchanged.

And unfortunately for her, the talent she possessed was quite extraordinary. Just by repeating its usage, her ability had grown immensely…

“People started to forget me. They forgot I existed, that I was there, and what they did to me.”

Even her parents, who gave her life, and even the Boss who had employed me forgot her existence.

“So, I’ll ask you again.”

Abandoned by the world.

Isolated from the world.

Forgotten by the world.

Desiring that one day someone would recognize her existence, she had even changed her name to Sixth, and now she looked at me and opened her mouth.

“How did you notice me?”

*

Back in the laboratory, I first thanked myself for not fooling around inside. She had admitted to coming to the lab a few times after realizing her existence. Every time, she seemed really focused on her research, which was quite impressive.

‘That could’ve been a disaster…’

If I had let my guard down and spent time alone in the lab, it could have ended up being an embarrassing sight. Thankfully, that had never happened, and Sixth hadn’t always been lurking around the organization headquarters.

While forgotten by both her parents and the Boss, she was the sixth executive of the Evil Organization. Moreover, she was employed as a spy to extract information from other companies. Even if everyone had forgotten her existence, accounting and systems hadn’t forgotten her. Her salary was still being paid.

Believing that one must work if they receive a paycheck, she normally gathered information from other companies.

“However, these days, watching what our organization is doing makes me feel like I wasted my efforts.”

“……Wasted your efforts?”

“Some are struggling to gather information, while someone just breaks through the front door and wrecks everything to get what they want… Recently, they’ve even been demolishing cities! If this is going to be the case, why do we even need a spy…”

There was no need to say who that someone was; it was evident. Wasn’t it the Evil Organization? Several members had rather eccentric and violent personalities. Whether it be Galm or Vira…

Anyway, as I listened to her grumbling like this, a question arose in my mind.

“Have you ever thought about trying to control your abilities? Like purposefully stopping them?”

“Can you stop breathing if you try not to breathe?”

“Ah, I’ve dug into the realm of the subconscious. I see.”

Well, if she could do that, she probably wouldn’t have been living a life like this. She would have already released her powers and reclaimed her position as an executive of the Evil Organization by now.

Hearing that made me conclude that her ability had penetrated deep into her being, and thus, simply getting rid of it wouldn’t be easy.

‘In the first place, why did I start being able to see her? It’s not like she intended to show up like this…’

I pondered over why Sixth had suddenly become visible only to me. Did I suddenly awaken a superpower? No. I can’t genetically awaken a superpower. Did her abilities change, making her only visible to me? That wouldn’t make sense either. Why would I, neither her parent nor the Boss, suddenly be able to see her?

In short, the reason lay not with Sixth, but with me. Something had changed in me that allowed me to perceive her. Thinking that way, I started to trace back through recent events in reverse.

‘Aout a while ago, I planted the World Tree and met Flower… Ah-.’

Then, suddenly, I remembered another entity similar to Sixth.

An existence that usually doesn’t exist anywhere, but shows itself the moment someone recognizes it and, even if they don’t recognize it, it appears when certain conditions are met.

A ghost residing in a non-dimensional space. A Beast.

If perceiving that a monster like a Beast existed in this world triggered some transformation, causing me to see Sixth, then…

“What are you staring at—? It’s making me uncomfortable. Seriously.”

“……”

“Excuse me? Are you not hearing me—? Hello?”

If that’s the case.

I might be able to send her back to the embrace of the world.