‘Ah, they said they’d delay the presentation until next year for free, but I should have just accepted it.’
Sighing in frustration in front of a mountain of measurement data, I felt completely at a loss.
I wasn’t particularly good at studying even in my past life.
Now, having to hit the ground running here, preparing for the thesis presentation all in a short amount of time, I felt like I was losing my mind.
The research was practically finished. Now, I just needed to compile the data in a presentable way and come to a conclusion…
But the amount of work involved was massive.
And it’s not just physical labor, it also drains my focus, so it’s exhausting both physically and mentally.
I wanted to call Julia for help, but…
I couldn’t burden her with this, especially when she seemed busy with her own studies.
This was my research, and it was my responsibility.
If it really got to the point where I was running out of time, I could always call for help then.
‘By the way… if I finish this, will I even fill one page?’
Suddenly, as I gauged the final version of the paper, I hesitated.
My grand research goal was to reveal the principles and structure of Black Magic, something that was an unknown realm until now.
But, now that I was starting to unravel it, wasn’t it simpler than I expected?
In the end, there wasn’t that much content to include in the actual thesis.
Of course, if I wanted, I could use the introduction and outline, and elaborate with a lot of fancy language to stretch the paper out.
But that wouldn’t suit my style, and I wasn’t good at writing, so it would probably look even more pathetic if I tried to stretch it.
‘One or two pages, maybe…’
Could my thesis really be that short?
Especially for a paper that was supposed to be the first to uncover Black Magic.
Oh well, I wasn’t a scholar anyway, so I decided to approach this with the idea of just making the first achievement.
Once I put out the paper, other geniuses would add the details and complete the theory of Black Magic, after all.
And of course, after I used the Neomium, which I had sold for a high price, to conduct the research.
I already felt a bit greedy at the thought of the money I could make.
‘Is the sun rising?’
When I stepped outside, the sky, which had been dark, was now tinged with a reddish hue.
It seemed I had stayed up all night.
Inside the lab, there were no windows with light coming through, so I hadn’t noticed the passing time.
“Sylvia, that girl…”
Something was lying in the garden, blocking the way.
As I approached, I realized it was Sylvia.
She was lying flat on her back, holding a sword, fast asleep.
She must have been swinging her sword all night and fallen asleep from exhaustion.
Her hand was wrapped in cloth. She must have tied it to prevent her from accidentally dropping her sword, possibly so it wouldn’t come back to me.
Anyway, since I had been awake all night, if she dropped her sword, she could just come and pick it up again.
Perhaps she was just trying not to disturb me.
“You foolish girl…”
I unwrapped the cloth from Sylvia’s hand, and as I opened her fist, a long sword turned into a glowing form and was absorbed into me.
I was worried she might end up with her face on the ground, but I couldn’t imagine someone as tough as Sylvia catching a cold or anything like that.
So, I grabbed a pillow from the bedroom and tossed it at her.
Without waking up, she automatically placed it under her head.
Smiling warmly, I was about to turn away when…
“Hmmm… My Lord… Don’t… Ah… Mmm…”
“…”
[The Evil God ‘Kali’ furrows her brow, wondering what exactly she just heard.]
I froze at the unexpectedly seductive voice coming from Sylvia’s mouth.
She was wriggling in her sleep, twisting her body and then turning over.
She snuggled her face into the pillow, then slowly opened her eyes.
“Huff, huff, ah… Huff… huff… huh…?”
She took a deep breath while still holding the pillow to her face, and when our eyes met, her sleepy eyes widened in shock.
In an instant, she snapped out of her grogginess.
Her eyes darted around, and suddenly her face turned bright red.
“D-Did you hear that!?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Phew. It was just something I said in my dream… Ah, no, forget it… Nothing…”
“I heard you moaning and calling for me, but I didn’t hear anything else…”
“Aaaahhh!!”
With a loud scream, she scrambled up like a ghost emerging from a well, her long hair flying wildly.
She quickly rushed over, covered my mouth, and pinned me down.
Then, she slowly removed her hand from my mouth.
“Could you… pretend you didn’t hear it…?”
“With your bare mouth?”
“Uh… W-What can I do for you…?”
“…”
Her face was once again turning red, and she was avoiding my gaze.
It seemed like she was secretly expecting something.
Just like a heavy masochist…
She seemed to like it when I scolded her.
What kind of punishment should I give her?
The world before my eyes went dark.
It felt like I was facing an insurmountable, distant wall.
“Let’s put this aside and talk about something else first.”
“A-ah! Yes! But, about what just happened! I swear it wasn’t weird! In the dream, my lord appeared and… kept…! Ah, right! It was because you were taking away my allowance! I was sleep-talking about it!”
“Your excuses are getting longer. If it wasn’t really weird, why would you need me to pretend I didn’t hear anything?”
“…Ah.”
Sylvia was left speechless, letting out a sigh, her body frozen in place.
Her excuses had come to an end.
She had clearly put effort into squeezing them out.
“I understand. You’re at that age, so having such dreams is normal. All I can say is to take care of your desires at the right time.”
“Ah, no, that’s not…!”
“Let’s leave that aside. How did your intense training, to the point of sleeping on the ground, go?”
“Ah, yes. I tried swinging my sword while changing conditions such as posture, breathing, and direction, to recreate the phenomena that happened during my fight with Reinhardt. As a result, I was able to replicate the same phenomena several times.”
“You were able to cut the past multiple times…?”
“Yes. However, it’s probably not the result you were expecting. I couldn’t control it with my will; the outcome was completely random, which was a rather absurd conclusion…”
“…?”
Sylvia muttered with her head lowered, almost as if she were embarrassed.
She had the ability to cut the past, but she couldn’t control it at will, and it was entirely random?
What in the world…?
“Random? What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. After swinging my sword about thirty thousand times, altering the posture, breathing, and direction each time, the sword only interfered with the past five times. However, there was no pattern to these five occurrences.”
“…”
I was left speechless by Sylvia’s grim report.
Five times in thirty thousand swings…
Expecting to be able to use it in battle, with that absurdly low probability, it seemed utterly impossible to make it useful.
I had been looking forward to using it in combat, so this was a big disappointment.
Sylvia also seemed quite disheartened.
‘What kind of useless ability is this?’
In contrast to reality, in games, every element has a purpose.
So, the sword that cuts the past shouldn’t be a meaningless ability.
But with such a low chance and completely random activation…
How am I supposed to make use of this?
‘No… maybe it really is just a useless ability.’
As soon as this thought crossed my mind, I remembered how this game was nothing more than garbage, worse than trash.
In games with actual meaningful elements, everything is foreshadowing that gets tied up.
But in this terrible game, they insist that these foreshadowing elements are just distractions and leave them unresolved.
I had greatly overestimated the original game.
A game that I gave 1 point could hardly be a masterpiece.
Thinking like this, it made sense.
“Using it in combat seems impossible…”
“There might be some conditions we haven’t discovered yet. Keep training and researching. And since you now know the sword only cuts the past once in every six thousand swings, be careful not to hurt yourself.”
“Of course, I’ll be careful… Do you really think I’m that stupid…?”
Sylvia puffed out her cheeks, clearly sulking.
How could I possibly think she was stupid…?
Looking at her usual behavior, it’s obvious enough.
I shook my head and turned to leave.
“As for the price for keeping your mouth shut, I’ll assign you a task.”
“Eh? What… task are you talking about…?”
“…It’s not that kind of task, so don’t look at me with those expectant eyes.”
“Expectant eyes!? I never…!”
“Take that dirty pillow of yours and wash it, then return it to my room. That’s the task.”
“Is it really that dirty where my head touched…?”
“…It’s obvious it’s dirty since you were rolling around on the dirt in the garden.”
“Ah.”
Sylvia’s face turned red again, and, possibly embarrassed to the point of no return, she collapsed on the spot.
Who else could handle this troublesome girl except me?
Sighs kept escaping from me.
