Interview (3): The Boy in Sunglasses
The boy wearing sunglasses and holding a caliper was Eidel. He smashed the head of an android approaching from the opposite direction.
“Huh?”
It all happened in the blink of an eye.
The God of Purity and Tenacity is horrified.
Rustilla, who had been staring in confusion, finally realized the seriousness of the situation a beat too late. What Eidel had done was unmistakably property destruction.
“Y-you… what are you doing?”
“Removing the listening device.”
Eidel took off his sunglasses and answered in a flat tone. He damaged the android’s auditory sensor, pulled a small black box from inside it, and crushed the device in his grip.
Using her Mind’s Eye, Rustilla instantly read his intentions. She understood he had done it to help her.
But he had gone too far. “This is someone else’s property. It’s vandalism! It’s wrong…!”
“Even if it belongs to your family?”
“…….”
“…Sorry, but this is just how I am.”
Eidel answered indifferently.
“This is how I’ve lived until now.”
Deep regret pooled in his golden eyes. His reputation had already hit rock bottom, so an act like this wouldn’t make any difference. That was the indifferent attitude he wore.
Rustilla, on the verge of raising her voice, could only close her mouth.
The God of Purity and Tenacity feels pity.
What more was there to say?
Eidel was a good person. The stars that formed this galaxy and this universe declared it so. Constellations do not lie.
“Do well on your interview, Rustilla.”
With those words, Eidel walked away without a backward glance. There were no security cameras nearby. More precisely, they were in a blind spot. He had taken the android away after making its exterior appear undamaged.
It was a perfect crime. Clearly not his first time.
“Rusti.”
“That’s the aura of an Outer God from Descartes’ Legion. And a fairly high-ranking one at that.”
Rustilla swallowed hard.
Descartes’ Legion. The term referred to Outer Gods and the monsters under their command that slowly erased human free will and turned people into puppets. Among the four legions, they were famous for being the most difficult to deal with. They barely possessed physical form.
“It would be nice if you could cut them in two with a sword… but slicing something without a physical body is impossible. They’re like an incurable disease.”
In the end, the only option was for the possessed person to endure it themselves. Soft-hearted Rustilla felt countless waves of despair at the fact that she could not help Eidel.
“It must be a destructive Outer God. That boy called Eidel can’t control his own violent urges. How pitiful.”
If Vega’s words were true, it was fortunate that his violence had manifested in the way it had earlier. At least he hadn’t hit a person.
Eidel’s patience must be extraordinary. Simply being called a good-for-nothing was already impressive. If not, he would have gone mad long ago or ended up in prison. Rustilla let out a sigh. What was done could not be undone. At any rate, the listening android seemed to have disappeared, so she could take the interview in peace. She decided to view it as Eidel’s kindness. Accepting that kindness and focusing on her current goal.
That would be the best course.
Three days earlier, when Rustilla had mentioned the eavesdropping, I realized her parents had lied to her. The evidence came from a single passage in the novel I had read.
…A giant watchdog swallowed Zernya whole. Her lower body vanished without a trace.
Zernya screamed until her final breath, but the walls of the building—commonly used as an interview venue—had excellent soundproofing.
No one heard her dying cry….
It was a part that remained vivid in my memory even in a web novel exceeding 1,800 chapters. Because of that description, the likelihood that Rustilla’s parents had dispatched the listening android was extremely low. They had probably installed the real device elsewhere.
Having reached that conclusion, I scouted the area the day before. Finding the actual listening devices was not difficult.
Material Search
Locating the position of the desired object.
Consumed Fron: 500
All thanks to Cartesia’s assistance. As long as you kept your sanity, an Outer God could provide help beyond what any Constellation could offer. High risk, high return.
At any rate, I destroyed every listening device the day before. They had been hidden with truly cunning precision.
Even so, I judged that this alone would not completely erase Rustilla’s anxiety. Therefore, I went through the extra effort of preparing one event: bringing in a third-generation obsolete android that had reached the end of its operational life, having it appear at the perfect moment, and smashing its head in.
Rustilla might think less of me for it. Still, if it could put her mind at ease even a little… that was enough. Rustilla had to pass. That was the path that would reduce the number of variables.
It was while I was thinking along those lines.
“No way, who is this?”
A girl approached and spoke to me.
“My interview location is here too. What a coincidence.”
Lost in thought, I slowly lifted my head. Flowing silver hair. Purple eyes. An impressively wide forehead. And that trademark arrogant attitude.
Zernya von Adelbein stood with her arms crossed, looking down at me as I sat.
I kept my expression neutral and gazed into the distance. Zernya promptly sat down right beside me.
“You must have done pretty well on the written test, huh?” she began chattering. “Still, I wouldn’t get your hopes up about scoring higher than me. When I self-graded, I got a perfect score.”
“……”
“Honestly, this test was easier than the private mock exam I took last time. If they had mixed in some college-level questions it might have been different… Are you even listening?”
“Ah, yes.”
It is not a bad thing when a beautiful girl talks to you. Yet right now it simply felt uncomfortable. Getting entangled with her at all felt uncomfortable.
Zernya was the final boss of the ‘Outer God Slayer’ college arc. She had excelled in every field and longed to transcend humanity. She wanted to become a god-like existence. However, her heart was too wicked to form a contract with a Constellation, so she chose to contract with an Outer God and let its madness consume her.
In that manner, Zernya perfectly completed every quest the Outer God bestowed upon her. As a result, Stellarium gradually crumbled. By the time the protagonist enrolled, the academy had been completely destroyed from within. In the final chapter of the college arc, Zernya, as student council president, confronts the protagonist. And the outcome… well…
‘S-save me…’
The Outer God she contracted with reveals that even Zernya is nothing more than an ordinary human. Only then does she finally abandon her arrogance, but by that point there is no chance to atone for her past actions. Pitiful as it may be, whether she is someone who can stand beside me remains to be seen.
Whether she knew it or not, Zernya continued to run her mouth. Arrogance dripped from every word.
“…Anyway, by that logic I’m first and you’re second. I’ll admit second place is still impressive. But in the end the world only acknowledges first place. You need to understand that. The one standing on the podium as the freshman representative at the entrance ceremony will be me.”
The God of Wisdom and Curiosity is tired of Zernya’s chatter.
At some point Zernya finished speaking while looking straight at me. “Be careful. It only takes an instant for everything to flip.”
She meant that no matter how well I had done on the written exam, I could still crash and burn in the interview.
I smiled and replied, “Not my problem.”
“Next applicant, please enter.”
When his turn arrived, Cadet Eidel stepped into the interview room. The format itself resembled a graduate school entrance exam. First you selected a problem and solved it. Afterward you explained your solution to the interviewers and answered their questions. Once the discussion about the problem ended, the interviewers would ask about career paths and post-admission plans to evaluate the applicant’s character and aspirations.
I solved the physics problem with ease and finished my explanation. One of the interviewers nodded and asked a question.
“Student, did you take any advanced courses beforehand?”
“I did not.”
“Why not?”
“I postponed them in order to master the fundamentals first.”
“Was study time insufficient?”
“I gave my all in every moment.”
I smoothly deflected the pressure interview.
The God of Wisdom and Curiosity feels mild satisfaction at your eloquence.
100 Fron sponsored.
Meanwhile I examined each interviewer’s face. I was checking whether any important characters from the novel were present. Of course, because I had only read about them, it was not easy to tell.
At that moment one interviewer laughed heartily. “Hahaha, aren’t we putting too much pressure on the student?”
He had neat hair and thick eyebrows. He looked young, but did not seem like an ordinary ‘teacher.’ His crisp shirt, the sharp gleam in his eyes—nothing about him suggested an average person.
That interviewer changed the subject. “Regarding question three, could you explain it through a method other than energy conservation?”
The problem he indicated asked for the principle behind a light bulb turning on in a simple circuit connected by resistors. A middle-schooler could have explained it as ‘the battery’s energy traveled to the bulb.’ Attempting a more complex explanation, however, required at least second- or third-year college-level electromagnetism. It was not a question one should pose to a fledgling applying to high school.
The moment I realized this, I understood the interviewer’s identity. A small smile curved the corner of my mouth.
“…Of course.”
It seemed I had found my second advisor.