Your Student is Awesome (6)
Virgo frowned as she spoke.
"You carry a filthy body."
Zernya furrowed her brows in return.
"What?"
She called me dirty?
That was ridiculous.
As the heir of the Adelbein family, she kept herself immaculate every single day. She had never once skipped a bath. She had never done anything indecent, either.
"That is not what I meant. You have artificial constellations implanted in you."
"……!"
"Three of them, no less."
Virgo covered her mouth and made a retching sound.
"What a vile procedure. What on earth happened to you? Were you tortured by someone?"
Zernya tightened her scarf. The barcode-like traces of the artificial constellations. They were hideous, and she never wanted anyone to see them.
Yet this constellation had noticed them in an instant.
"How could anyone carve such a dreadful tattoo onto their neck?"
"Shut up. I said shut your mouth!"
"Who did this? What kind of trash performed such a horrific procedure?"
"I told you it is none of your business, so shut that mouth of yours!"
Implanting the artificial constellations had been half her own choice. The other half had been at her parents' request.
"This is all because of you people."
The twelve signs of the zodiac were finite. Even the great Adelbein family had never been chosen by them. The same held true for Zernya.
"My family has everything. And yet no constellation ever descended upon us."
"That is because you are not virtuous. We lend no power to the wicked."
"Fine. Think whatever you like."
"In any case, you created artificial stars modeled after us because of that, did you not? How utterly repulsive."
"If you have no intention of contracting with me, then get lost already."
Virgo clicked her tongue. Zernya glanced around anxiously. Everyone must have heard. One of the Adelbein family's secrets had just been exposed.
"Look at that. They are all staring at you strangely now."
"This is all your fault!"
"We constellations always speak only the truth. You should be grateful I offered this advice even though I am not your patron."
"You are so annoying……!"
Zernya ground her teeth.
"Ah, at least your heart is clean."
"……?"
The unexpected praise left her momentarily dazed. Virgo pointed at Eidel and continued.
"He is better than that boy over there. That one is pitch black. You cannot even see inside him. Compared to him, you are a light gray at best? You could become worse, but you could also become clean."
Then Virgo leaned in and whispered so only Zernya could hear.
"One piece of advice. Try living with humility."
It was a phrase she had heard somewhere before.
"Ugh, there is no one here I like. I am going back to rest. If I see someone decent enough to be my master, I will wake up again. If any of you have someone worth recommending, bring them here. Everyone got that?"
Shuuuuk.
Virgo returned to the crystal. She looked like a fairy entering a magic lamp.
At that very moment, the crystal was being examined by Eidel, who wore a bright smile.
"What the—"
His expression darkened rapidly as he analyzed the crystal.
The impurity concentration had suddenly spiked.
"No way, my research sample—!!"
Realizing what had happened, Eidel screamed.
***
"We have a problem."
The strategy meeting began. The participants included one professor, a dozen graduate students, two postdoctoral researchers, and two undergraduates.
"Even with terahertz wave interference, the constellation will not awaken."
"You do not suppose the crystal has been rendered unusable, do you?"
"That cannot be. Our paper!"
Everyone clutched their heads.
"Professor, is there any way at all?"
"I wish I knew. This is new even for me……"
Though they had studied constellation physics, nothing like this had ever happened before. The descent of one of the twelve zodiac signs. A single paper on that alone could spawn hundreds more.
"Should we invite specialists from other fields?"
"And risk turning this crystal into a shared academic topic? The rare material we finally obtained would slip away, and it would be obvious we would never get to publish."
"Nngh."
There was no other way.
"In the end, we have to find someone this constellation can possess."
"How?"
"We will have to mobilize every connection we have."
"Before that, we need to figure out exactly what kind of person this constellation prefers."
After countless discussions, the graduate students seemed to reach a conclusion. Someone pure, innocent, and upright in character.
"They must possess noble integrity. Rustilla, the previous contractor of Virgo, was said to be frugal in all things and always considerate of others."
"Sounds like a saint or a nun."
"Yes. She was so extreme that she gave most of her salary and research funds to her subordinates. She said she only needed enough to get by. It was a famous story on the front lines."
"What an incredible saint. Where are we supposed to find another person like that?"
It was a difficult task. Most humans were greedy. They hated giving away what belonged to others.
"Eidel? Got any bright ideas?"
All eyes turned to Eidel. He had been zoning out in the corner. Muttering something like a man possessed by an Outer Deity, he stood up.
"……Even if we find such a person, we would just be dumping the responsibility on them."
Virgo was one of the twelve zodiac signs. Whoever received her would suddenly be burdened with an enormous duty. Moreover, they would have to live pure and clean for the rest of their life.
"We cannot just inform them unilaterally. It would be a nuisance. What we are doing would be no different from what the Outer Deities do."
"Then……"
"A scientist should settle things with science."
Zernya let out an incredulous laugh.
A mere first-year undergraduate was spouting such irresponsible nonsense in front of graduate students and professors.
If that had been possible in the first place, they would not be racking their brains like this. Not that it concerned Zernya personally.
It had been a day that only soured her mood for no reason. Just as she was about to slip out quietly—
"W-wait, you actually have a method?"
"You have a good idea?"
Graduate students, postdocs, even the professor. Everyone rose with startled eyes and focused on Eidel. Zernya flinched at the sudden movement.
"I just drafted something."
Eidel held out a sheet of paper. He seemed to have written something else in the meantime.
"We modify the resonator slightly. So it can trap not only Outer Deities but constellations as well. And so it can continuously apply thermal stress inside. Then it will go crazy and be unable to stay hidden."
A shift in thinking.
"We connect the cryogenic equipment and high-pressure apparatus like this. There should be electrons inside the crystal, right? When they are subjected to low temperature and high pressure, they form Cooper pairs. That is the superconducting effect."
"Are you perhaps……"
"We set the Cooper pair spin to 1. And the theoretical spin of the graviton that constellations dislike is 2."
"So you are saying you will create a pair of Cooper pairs?"
"If that does not work, we will try another method. I am also considering smashing it with an accelerator."
At that, the graduate students leapt to their feet with cheers. Professor Stranov gave a wry smile. The postdocs' pupils looked ready to swallow their sclera.
Zernya's mind went blank. What on earth was happening? More importantly, why was she even here?
Stranov slammed the desk to draw everyone's attention.
"Mr. Reinland. You are an outstanding student. If I were your advisor, I would have you graduate with a doctorate this year."
"Thank you for saying that, Professor."
"Anyway, we will flesh out this idea. Our goal is not the twelfth sign. As long as we can use the crystal without impurities, that is enough. Lab head!"
"Yes, Professor!"
"Contact the low-temperature physics lab. Since it has come to this, we are going with a collaboration!"
The lab began to bustle with activity. For once, even the theorist Eidel was running around on his own two feet. Setting up equipment, returning the crystal to its original position, cutting a portion to mount on a specimen.
Zernya's gaze followed his every move.
"What the hell……"
She did not understand, but something—something was happening.
Their preparations continued past midnight until dawn broke. The moment they contacted external labs, equipment arrived like a swarm.
"This is a cryogenic probe capable of measuring the coupling between gravity and electromagnetism."
"Huk, heok……!"
Eidel choked and stopped breathing.
"Hey, what are you doing! Breathe, breathe!"
Zernya pounded his back.
"Kek, kek, heok."
"You stayed up all night and lost your mind?"
"W-what. Zernya. Why are you still here?"
"That is……"
She had been watching what he was doing and missed the timing to leave. Trying to say that made her lips refuse to part. For some reason, it was embarrassing.
"……None of your business."
"Right. Whatever."
Eidel rubbed the corner of his eye and smiled. It felt like her breath had stopped. Her heart pounded violently.
Zernya pressed down on her meager chest. It did not hurt, but it felt strangely uncomfortable.
New equipment kept arriving.
"This one is a spin regulator. It can directly manipulate electrons or muons to create pseudo-bosons."
"Whoa, shit, heoook!" "Breathe, you crazy bastard!"
If this continued, her one and only rival might die of overwork. If that happened, she would be lonely. Probably.
So she had better stick around.
Because she was a doctor, after all.
***
The research team, which had started with barely a dozen members, had grown enormously. Its scale already reached a hundred.
As the team expanded, the speed of conducting experiments accelerated as well.
Moreover, Professor Stranov spared no expense.
"I contacted every engineer and technician. Two thousand of the federation's finest engineers will solve any defects that come up."
"How much did you spend……?"
"I am not sure."
Stranov shrugged at the flustered Eidel.
"There is not that much expenditure in my lab, after all."
"Heok."
"In any case, including all the co-authors, we are looking at roughly a hundred people. Congratulations on leading a research project of this scale, Mr. Reinland."
"U-um, Professor? What do you mean……"
"I told you last time. You are the first author, Mr. Reinland."
Professor Stranov winked. Eidel nearly died of hyperventilation. If Zernya, who had been dozing, had not immediately woken up, his breath would have been gone.
"Idiot. What is so great about this research?"
"It is fun."
"Fun, my ass. It looks exhausting, and it does not seem to pay much."
"Being a doctor seems just as exhausting."
Eidel glanced at Zernya and smiled.
She was going insane. Her pulse would not calm down. Somehow Eidel was the one running around, yet she was the one whose stamina was draining. Zernya shoved Eidel away and clicked her tongue.
"We have already been camping here for a week."
"You said you had nothing better to do. If you think it is boring here, I will buy you a ticket so you can go watch a movie or something."
"Movie, my foot. The movie is whatever you guys are filming right now."
Zernya looked up at the resonator. The crystal, attached through an ultra-fast process, sparkled brilliantly. A signal came from the optics research team.
"We will begin mode locking."
Clack.
The test run started.
Waves were generated, passed through the gain medium, and circulated along the device like standing waves. Heat rose, was cooled back down to cryogenic temperatures, high pressure was applied…… After all sorts of procedures, the result was—
— The 'Fragment of Chastity' screams.
The first time in the universe.
Humanity had succeeded in tormenting a constellation.