Contract with the Outer Deity (3)
I had just finished a Korean-language practice exam booklet equivalent to five full test sittings. From now on I would have to keep grinding like this for at least twenty more days. Only then could I complete the Outer Deity’s quest.
01 MINUTE 08 SECONDS
I let out a long sigh. I had been concentrating for hours; it was time for a short break. I pulled up my status window. A message from the Outer Deity waited there.
The God of Wisdom and Curiosity is pleased by your concentration and diligence.
You have received 100 Fron as a reward!
Fron. In simple terms, it was the coin given by the Constellations. A currency used when trading with Outer Deities. Unlike ordinary coins, however, handling and storing Fron required caution.
If the PN value exceeds a certain threshold, side effects such as mental derangement, hallucinations, vomiting, chills, aphasia, damage to the cerebral frontal lobe, and death may occur.
Fron could not be allowed to accumulate past a certain point. Like it or not, it had to be spent down regularly. Otherwise you would quite literally go insane.
The etymology of Fron (PN) is Prion.
As most people know, mad cow disease is caused by prions. When you considered that Outer Deities parasitized the brain, the name was frighteningly appropriate.
The maximum Fron capacity for an average human is 1000.
Ordinary people began showing signs of mania around 500 Fron. At 700, hallucinations appeared. By 900 they were reduced to invalids, and at the absolute limit they died. Of course, it was possible to raise one’s Fron storage capacity—for example, by training in Ether.
I still could not handle Ether. The amount I could safely hold was probably average. Without much expectation I checked my PN value for the first time.
What?
“What the hell?”
“……?”
The God of Wisdom and Curiosity is bewildered.
NULL. Literally “none.” What was that supposed to mean? That I had no mind?
Flustered, I scrolled up and down the status window.
Attempting to readjust your PN upper limit.
The same exchange repeated several times. Then the god dumped ten thousand Fron into me on the spot.
The God of Wisdom and Curiosity is greatly flustered.
Status lines scrolled down at blinding speed, like a compiler gone mad. The Outer Deity tried forcing my PN value near infinity, then attempted to create fissures inside my body.
“Ugh…!”
My skull felt ready to split. Tiny threads flickered before my eyes, seeming to cut and tailor the world itself. My lungs felt flooded; every breath scraped. My entire body burned as though I had been beaten by a mob.
What was this feeling? I had experienced it somewhere before…?
While the déjà vu washed over me the pain suddenly stopped. Even the Outer Deity had grown tired.
PN value cannot be adjusted.
The God of Wisdom and Curiosity has taken great interest in your mental world.
As an inspection reward, you have received 850 Fron!
“Hoo…”
I wiped away the cold sweat and lay back.
I had done almost nothing and already sat at a thousand Fron. That was enough to kill an ordinary person. I had essentially swallowed an entire pufferfish and lived to tell the tale.
Ding!
The shop for contractors has been unlocked.
A shop. The Outer Deity must have prepared it. Shops were spaces where one could buy and sell fragments of advanced Outer Deity civilization. It was revealed much later in the story, but Outer Deities were undeniably physical entities. They resided in seven-dimensional space where the outer product of vectors could be defined. There they could rewind time or partition our universe. Their civilization level was naturally far beyond anything four-dimensional beings could comprehend. In short, the place overflowed with useful elements if one knew how to exploit them.
The type and quality of any given shop depended on the sponsoring Outer Deity’s capability.
Cartesia’s Secret Laboratory :)
The God of Wisdom and Curiosity desires entertainment. Browse the shop and strengthen yourself.
I stepped into the shop. Real space vanished, replaced by a dim, gloomy world. Glowing white tentacles coiled around its borders. Stone tablets inscribed with text floated before me.
1650 Fron
1770 Fron
2800 Fron
Everything was still far beyond my reach. Ordinary humans were never permitted to purchase these in their lifetimes anyway; the prices made that obvious. Buying the answer to the Riemann Hypothesis alone would require dying twice and losing one’s mind three times.
The tablets numbered as many as the soldiers who had fought in the First World War. Most held no interest for me. What I truly sought was something else.
Time flowed even here. I had to find what I needed and leave as quickly as possible.
“…Found it.”
I stopped in front of a small, unassuming stone drifting among the tablets.
Thought Acceleration (+1%)
10 Fron each
An element I needed immediately, and would continue needing. In game terms it was the intelligence stat. For the time being I planned to dump every point into it. The Goddess of Wisdom had a habit of issuing quests that could only be cleared with genuine academic skill.
Would you like to purchase Thought Acceleration (+1%) in bulk?
I bought everything I could afford.
1000 Fron deducted.
You have acquired Thought Acceleration (+100%).
No Fron remains. You have been forcibly expelled from the shop.
Flash.
“……”
It was fast. Definitely faster. The speed of my thoughts had doubled. Whether the power came from me or from the Outer Deity no longer mattered. Time was too short to be picky.
I decided to test my new ability at once. Without hesitation I opened the next practice booklet.
Whirring.
At that moment the automatic door opened. Before picking up my pen I glanced behind me.
“…Young master?”
Navy-blue hair cut in a sharp bob. Eyes as pure and white as fresh snow on a frozen field. The cute tail-fin decorations on both ears. A beautiful android. Sonia set the strawberry sherbet she had prepared as a snack on my desk and murmured in quiet admiration.
“Are you solving practice books again?”
“Yeah.”
“This already makes three today.”
“I’ll finish the fourth and then sleep.”
Sonia looked genuinely shocked.
“Staying up all night is bad for your health.”
“It’s fine.”
As long as I didn’t actually stay up, it would be.
A week passed.
During that time Seti visited Eidel every single day. Originally she had never wanted to see that repulsive face again. Yet he kept doing things that left her no choice but to come.
The third young master has purchased college textbooks worth five hundred thousand credits.
The third young master has ordered shrimp chicken again…
“Agh, I’m losing my mind—!!”
Seti stamped her feet in frustration every day without fail.
Just how much money was that lunatic spending?!
In the past week she had earned four million credits. Every last one had been devoured by him. The urge to separate the family assets right then and there burned in her chest.
“The young master said he cannot endure without chicken.”
“That’s…! Damn it, that’s not the point!”
Thirty thousand credits on food was trivial. The real problem was that her half-brother was continuously dumping tens or hundreds of thousands of credits into completely pointless places. Seti glared at Eidel and spat venom.
“Stop wasting time on pointless studying.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Do you honestly think you can get into Stellarium like that?”
“I will.”
No matter what Seti said, Eidel’s replies remained ice-cold. He swapped out the worn stylus on his tablet pen and answered indifferently. More than a dozen ruined styluses already lay scattered across one corner of the desk.
“You can’t.”
“If I can’t, I’ll make it possible.”
Seti ground her teeth so hard they squeaked. She felt as if steam were about to shoot from the crown of her head.
“…Hoo.”
It was fine. She just had to endure. There were fewer than four months left. She only needed to hold on until the academy entrance exams were over. Once this year passed, this wretched blood tie would finally end. She had already endured ten years. Failing to endure four more months would be ridiculous.
Seti steadied her breathing and twisted her lips into a thin smile.
“Sonia, continue surveillance.”
“I am already doing so.”
“This time I mean it. Really. Make absolutely certain that this piece of trash cannot spend another credit.”
“Understood.”
It felt like déjà vu, but she let it pass. Seti herself would be taking the Stellarium entrance exam this year. Business was important, but academics demanded her full effort too. She had no time to waste lecturing an idiot who was hopeless at both studying and character.
“Report any unusual activity the instant it occurs. Understood? I will be watching in Father’s place.”
“Underst… Ah, there is an unusual matter.”
“Oh?”
Seti’s footsteps, already headed for the academy, paused. She brushed her cotton-fluff white hair aside and asked.
“What is it?”
“The young master has become good at studying.”
“……”
Seti’s face crumpled. She glanced at her older brother, who was still scratching away at his booklet. Eidel never even spared her a glance; his eyes remained glued to the page.
“He’s become… good at studying?”
“Correction. He has become fucking good at studying.”
“…We’re the ones spending the money, yet even you are using vulgar language now?”
“Please forgive this servant’s rudeness, miss. I could not locate a more suitable word.”
“Fine, whatever.”
Seti’s gaze returned to Eidel once more.
Nonsense.
…Yet simply dismissing it felt wrong.
It really does seem like something has changed…
She could not quite put her finger on what. Certainly the frequency of his swearing had dropped dramatically.
Seti silenced her footsteps and crept up behind him. When Sonia started to speak, Seti pressed a finger to her own lips and hissed. Sonia obediently closed her mouth.
What Seti saw over Eidel’s shoulder was…
‘……?’
Eidel solving a physics practice book.
Or rather, could that even be called solving?
Swipe. Swipe. Flip!
Swipe, swipe, swipe. Flip!
He read, wrote the answer, turned the page, and repeated the cycle endlessly. There was no visible solving process, no moment of hesitation.
Is this guy brain-dead…?
She barely swallowed the sneer that rose in her throat. Was he simply memorizing answers? Or was he only pretending and secretly unable to solve them? Either way it made no difference. The behavior exposed his limits. Such cheap tricks would never work on the Stellarium entrance exam.
At least she could breathe easier.
How foolish.
Seti clicked her tongue and turned away. Still, it was undeniable that some mental shift had occurred in her half-brother. Fortunately she knew someone with keen insight into such matters. She had met the woman at the academy; she was one year older than Seti and the same age as Eidel.
I should talk to Rustilla unni about this.
Ask whether a freak capable of solving physics problems by mental calculation could truly exist in this world.
The God of Wisdom and Curiosity is astonished by your tenacity in ordering additional practice books!
You have received an additional 1500 Fron in sponsorship!
Quite a few changes had occurred over the past week.
I had poured every Fron earned during that time into Thought Acceleration. My calculation speed had now far surpassed human limits. I felt like I had become von Neumann himself.
Seti’s attitude had also softened somewhat. Although I still received a daily barrage of curses for spending so lavishly, it could not be helped. I was using the money to study—what else was there to do? In return I no longer treated her harshly. I had stopped flinging parental insults, swearing, or sneering. No matter what my little sister said, I simply answered with an agreeable “Sure, sure.”
The stress was no joke, but it was tolerable. This sort of treatment would not last much longer. Soon I would bring Seti over to my side. Once she stood as the next family head in place of her hopeless older brother, her business talent would secure the budget needed for Graviton Bomb development.
I intended to rely on her quite heavily.
“Heh, hehehe, hehehehehe.”
“Young master, you have finally gone mad.”
With Sonia’s sigh as the finale, I finished solving the physics practice book.
Just one more volume… No, two more volumes, and then I would sleep.