The Evil Scientist is Too Competent

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A mountain of documents is piling up. It’s a gruesome stack of paper that an executive with a heinous cheat superpower has desperately gathered over the years without anyone noticing.

Of course, Six wasn’t an admin job that neatly organizes spy data and files. The papers she accumulated were a jumbled mess of various information hastily scribbled down. The kind of stuff that was hard to look at and even harder to understand…

I spoke to the Boss, who had buried her head in those documents.

“I’ll have the AI organize them once. There might be things we already know, and if we separate them nicely…”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Eh? But Boss, reading through all these documents is…”

“─Is there any guarantee they’re not there?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Ability users like the Meister you have as an assistant can dominate AI, or the kind of ability users who can figure out that their information has been exposed.”

Upon hearing the Boss’s words, I clamped my mouth shut. I wondered if there were other ability users similar to the Meister, but the chance wasn’t 0%. There’s no such thing as 0% in this world. Even if the powers weren’t exactly the same, similar effects could be achieved with different abilities.

I shook my head in silence, and the Boss resumed her scrutiny of the documents.

“The only ones who can read these documents are those who know of Six’s existence… In other words, only those who have been freed from the cognitive alteration measures, right? So even if such kinds of ability users existed, they wouldn’t know their information had been leaked?”

“Uh… theoretically, that’s correct.”

Even if such a type of ability user existed—an ability user who could confirm that some information was leaked—they wouldn’t realize it was due to Six. She was the ultimate ability user who concealed her presence from the world.

However, if the AI were to read and categorize these documents, that concealment would inevitably be shattered. The source of the information would shift from Six to the AI.

“That’s why, even if I have to read through all these documents, I won’t rely on anyone else. Scientist. Your help won’t be needed either. I appreciate the thought, but… this is my hidden agenda.”

“…Understood. Then I’ll take my leave. But, Boss. Remember one thing.”

“What is it?”

“We are always ready to be the arms and legs for you.”

“I know that.”

Leaving behind the smiling Boss, I exited the boardroom. She kept her attention on the mound of documents without giving me a glance.

Watching her like that made something stir deep within me. I didn’t know what the Boss’s aim was. I didn’t know why she created the Evil Organization or who she targeted to gather S-grade troops.

‘Surely, she mentioned her parents were killed on her birthday…’

I only knew that her hidden agenda was connected to that. I hadn’t delved deeper into it because prying into the Boss’s secrets without her permission could lead to an invasion of privacy and overstep my bounds as her subordinate.

However, that’s not the case anymore. Now that I realized she wanted information badly enough to dig into every corporate secret besides Evilus, I understood how sincere she was to devote her entire being to that goal.

It was my duty as her follower to find out what her goal was.

‘Well, as the Boss said, there could be nonsense ability users like that… So where should I start investigating?’

I fiddled with my smartphone and accessed the net world. It was a sea of information with thousands of times more data than all the materials created in modern times. I knew that with all this gathered information, the confidential data the Boss sought wouldn’t be here.

But if there’s no tooth, it’s fine to bite with gums. If there’s no information, there are ways to obtain it as needed. After all, one cannot process everything in an analog way in an information society. Do CIA agents receive their salaries by hand instead of via bank transfer?

If I could connect to all the information in the world, theoretically, I could overlook everything in the world. The sheer amount of data was insurmountable for a human body…

“Time to work hard for the first time in a while.”

I smiled while looking at the computational device emitting scorching heat in the corner of the laboratory. It was AI I had prepared for such moments; a replacement for things humans couldn’t do.

It would handle processing an immense quantity of data, enough to say it’s infinite, instantly managing all knowledge in the world.

—In an instant, the world stopped.

* * *

“Hmmm… Ah, it’s done.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh— it’s nothing serious. The AI suddenly froze…”

At that, the man frowned slightly.

“That AI of yours… just turn it off for a sec here.”

“I intend to. Isn’t it half a public secret that this AI is eavesdropping on our entire conversation?”

“What a time to be living in, huh… Who would have thought we had to be feared of such machine devices?”

Despite grumbling, the men stored every mechanical device into a locker. Even after volunteering their gear, the security guards stationed at the entrance, looking untrustworthy, presented them with metal detectors.

The men who breached an even stricter security than at an airport sat down at a pre-set round table. As I turned my head to look around, I saw familiar faces. They were rulers who controlled individual cities. Not every ruler from all 26 cities was present, but at least nearly half had gathered.

“—I apologize for being late. The fortune today wasn’t very favorable.”

The last woman to appear said this while swinging the sword she held, filling the room with a divine chime. Yet, the expressions of the rulers watching were rather grim.

“Do you still believe in that fortune reading?”

“Given that we have superpowers, are you saying you can’t trust the Demon God?”

“Well, your fortune reading is more of a superstition than an actual supernatural ability, isn’t it? It’s different from scientifically proven superpowers.”

“Oh! The divine spirit says that your hair will fall out a bit more.”

“Wh-what!?”

While the man speaking to the woman unconsciously patted his empty head, the woman who promptly took her seat glared silently around. Despite creating a rather ridiculous scene, no one seemed to care about it; in fact, it was quite the opposite.

Everyone wore serious expressions, silently gazing into the void. Just that alone was a signal of how grave the current situation was.

“…Let’s begin the meeting.”

At the instigation of the main host, the rulers started to exhale frustrated sighs. It was that dire of a situation.

“This month, the number of businesses that went to Evilus Corporation has increased by 20% compared to last month. It means the already large corporation has grown even bigger.”

“…Aren’t we supposed to find a way to counter it?”

“How? You all know well that regulations wouldn’t work, right?”

The businesses of Evilus Corporation were growing explosively. However, the same could be said for other corporations as well. The only difference was that they couldn’t grow as explosively as Evilus Corporation.

It wasn’t that there was a vast difference in capability, but rather there was only one reason for the enormous growth gap. That damn AI was the problem.

“To put it bluntly, we’re still here because that AI was distributed to everyone. You all know this well, right? If Evilus changes their mind even today, then we…”

“We’d be doomed.”

“Exactly! Since they unleashed that tech without asking for any price, we’re akin to livestock with leashes on!”

I never imagined just how terrifying this thing called AI was. Long ago, I once heard my own scientists spout nonsense like, “If we develop AI a week early, it’s like getting 2000 years ahead of everyone.”

Back then, I thought it was an impossible statement… but now, being swept away by the current of AI, I realize that the words I heard back then were not baseless at all.

“…Since it’s come to this, shouldn’t we use him?”

“Are we talking about ‘him’?”

“Yes. It’s the perfect justification. We’re at the moment where we must break the world’s balance, right? If we could at least get a majority’s consent…”

The moment the existence of ‘him’ was mentioned, the meeting room fell silent. Everyone knew well that it was the only means available. But the caveat was that he could only act if the majority of the alliance consented.

At this very moment, what existence would dare to challenge Evilus? Even if everyone present agreed, passing the motion wouldn’t be easy.

“That… that needs some more thought…”

“Then what do you propose? As time passes—”

“We can’t all die together, right? If Evilus were to wipe everything away overnight—”

They spent the entire day chatting away, looking for measures against Evilus. A futile passing of time.

They should have cherished this moment.

They needed to realize that time was not solely on their side.