The Evil Scientist is Too Competent

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Something feels off.

“Kyahh—!”

Ayle, who tripped over nothing and landed on the floor, clutched her knee and groaned. I rushed over, helped her up, and dusted off her clothes.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes…”

“You scraped your knee a little. I’ll apply some ointment. Let’s go to the laboratory.”

On our way to the laboratory, I stepped on something squishy and realized it was dog poop. Was Galm finally losing his sanity and leaving droppings all over the place?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that. In the distance, a soldier with wet wipes and a plastic bag was running toward us, horrified.

“Scie- Scientist? I-I’m sorry!”

“…What is this?”

“I’m so sorry! My pet I brought with me pooped on the floor…”

“Pet?”

“Oh, is that not allowed? But there was no one at home to take care of my pet…”

As I listened to the soldier rambling about how there was no mention of it being prohibited and how everyone else liked it, I smiled as if it was perfectly fine.

Right, this was the kind of place it was. Not a gathering of professionals bent on revenge against the world, but rather an organization reminiscent of a social welfare facility.

If I were to compare it to my previous life, it was like a rehabilitation center for public service workers…

“Next time, please bring a plastic bag along too.”

“Yes, yes! I’ll keep that in mind!”

I passed by the soldier, who bowed to me and immediately began cleaning up, and I made my way to the laboratory, only wearing my socks. I couldn’t let anything as disgusting as poop sully my laboratory.

I sat Ayle down on the sofa in the laboratory and searched for the red ointment to apply. Strangely, I couldn’t find the ointment container anywhere. When I asked the AI where I had put it, it informed me that a muscular beastman had come in and taken the entire container.

For a moment, I was dumbfounded by the absurdity of someone taking the whole ointment container without saying a word, only to realize I had run out of the materials needed to make more.

It was a total disaster.

‘What is this? A superpower attack?’

I was so unlucky that I could think that way. In the end, I applied a store-bought ointment to Ayle and added a band-aid. If I had made my own remedy, she would have healed immediately.

“Th-thank you…”

“It’s nothing really. By the way, Ayle, have you thought you’ve been unlucky lately?”

“Huh? W-What do you mean…?”

“Just anything is fine, go ahead and tell me?”

“Well, um…”

Ayle went on about how whenever she guessed a problem on her practice test, she always got it wrong, how she got rejected every time she entered the magical girl merchandise lottery even though she used multiple accounts, and how she went to a dessert shop only to find that the menu she wanted was sold out right in front of her.

They were all trivial things, but when they piled up, they became surprisingly significant stress.

“So, so—I was trying to relieve my stress by summoning magical girls, but now the association president is saying it’s almost exam season and I shouldn’t call for them…!”

“Hmm, I see. But Ayle, don’t you have the same big exam coming up too?”

“That’s true, but… if I accumulate stress, it’ll affect my studying…?”

After smiling and sending Ayle off to study, I cautiously sat down in front of the computer and started looking up events happening in our organization. Specifically, the incidents occurring within the Evil Organization and the entire Evilus Corporation as well.

Indeed, within the past few days, it was easy to find social media posts about people belonging to the Evil Organization or employees of Evilus Corporation, or even those working for subcontractors, experiencing a string of unfortunate events. Not just one or two, but tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people were encountering simultaneous misfortunes?

Could it be that a wave of bad luck suddenly descended upon the entire world? Yet, other cities didn’t seem to be experiencing this phenomenon.

The only ones who noticed something unusual were a few internet news articles, and there were only a couple of absurdly unbelievable lines indicating that bizarre things were occurring only in City E.

‘Well, I suppose it could happen from a statistical standpoint…’

What if everyone on Earth suddenly stopped what they were doing and looked blankly into the sky for about ten seconds? People would believe something supernatural had occurred, but it could easily be a random statistical event.

The probability may be astronomically low, making it seem unreasonable to consider it pure coincidence. If something is statistically possible, it is bound to happen.

In this vast universe, atoms—smaller than dust—colliding to form planets the size of Earth, those planets whimsically becoming potential homes for life, and those life forms evolving into intelligent beings capable of cultivating civilization.

All of these have outrageously low probabilities, but such events happen from time to time in this world.

“But something still feels off.”

However, in this world, there are not just physical variables, but also fantastical elements like superpowers. I was convinced that this could very well be an attack from others as well.

So what’s next? Quite simple. I needed to search the association and government databases for who could possess such abilities and furthermore, find out if there were any intentions among people around the world to attack Evilus Corporation.

With the help of AI, this task was finished rather quickly and easily. I could even determine the culprit with ease.

“Liu Spirit… the boss running a major corporation in City S.”

The culprit’s name was Liu Spirit.

Boss of the Spiritual Center that dominates City S.

An influential figure who holds the position of CEO in her female form.

‘She usually worships supernatural beings known as divine spirits… Her powers are telepathy and mind control…’

When looking at her capabilities, it seemed hard to believe she could be behind these incidents, as her abilities appeared to be rather pitiful. Telepathy? That’s a skill that could easily be replaced with just a phone!

Could she truly bring misfortune to tens of thousands of people? This would require powers beyond just having superpowers—she must be a transcendent being with an output above rank S.

‘Is it possible this divine spirit actually exists?’

I turned my attention to the peculiar notes on her profile. Had she really been noted to worship divine spirits? Had it not been so in the past—back when I had just fallen into this world—I would have dismissed such beliefs easily. However, since landing in this realm, my perspective had shifted substantially.

Fairies, magical girls, devils, denizens of other worlds, elves, dragons—all of them exist in this realm.

So it’s not impossible for something called a divine spirit to exist. Furthermore, there was a reasonable possibility that an achievement unreachable by mere superpowers could have been accomplished through assistance from such a divine spirit…

Of course, all of this could also hint at a single possibility.

‘…Is this a trap?’

It was so easily discoverable who the culprit was that I couldn’t help but entertain the thought. I briefly considered the chance that the information provided by the AI could be incorrect—that perhaps her very existence was a trap, and she might not even be the culprit.

That would be entirely possible. Countless people harbor unwarranted malice toward a global corporation like Evilus Corporation. Just skimming the internet reveals an avalanche of jobless individuals peddling baseless threats to bomb the Evilus Corporation.

The reason the AI didn’t identify those individuals as potential culprits was that they lacked the actual ability to follow through. This meant the person that the AI had pinpointed was merely the most likely candidate among those with both the capability and motivation, but not someone I could be absolutely certain was the culprit.

That only deepened my suspicions.

“No way, it’s far too easy to find someone like this…”

Liu Boss boldly declared that she didn’t intend to hide, as though she were the culprit, even knowing that her communication was being monitored.

This could only be interpreted as an act to provoke a reaction from me—as a trap to reveal that Evilus Corporation was spying on the entire world.

It could be an attempt to build a case against Evilus when we went out to confront her…

“Ugh—are you foolish or clever?”

It wouldn’t make sense for someone to be both simplistic and dimwitted, so this had to be a trap. My rational mind asserted that. However, my instincts were saying the exact opposite, and it made my head spin.

What’s certain is that this woman is the most likely culprit.

Yet I couldn’t just attack her. If this was a trap, it could potentially endanger Evilus, and—

‘If I just charge in blindly and she’s not the culprit, I would feel unnecessarily guilty…’

I had to consider the innocent parties involved.

It was a battle between corporations.

The innocent employees, numbering in the tens of thousands, could be swept up in it.

The mere thought of innocent people made me tread carefully.