Reverse Contact: I Became the Professors' Obsessed Prospective Grad Student (2)
I soon received hundreds of emails. After filtering and condensing them down to only the ones that mattered to me, the subjects looked like this.
[Please Come to Our Lab]
[Graduate Admission Offer]
[Hello, Student Idel. I am a professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Iruyel College…]
It felt strangely new. Instead of me emailing professors, the professors were contacting me. The thrill surpassed even the moment a professor asked me to visit his office after a lecture.
“Heh… hehehehehe.”
─ The God of Wisdom and Curiosity is horrified.
─ The Orchestra of Mud and Flesh cannot close its mouth.
Emails were still piling up in real time. Reading and replying to every single one was difficult in many ways. Honestly, it was just annoying. The subjects needed proper clickbait.
I approached it like picking a web novel. I scrolled slowly, examining each subject. This one’s no good. That one’s no good either.
[The Professor You Scooped]
Now that looked insanely fun. I opened it immediately.
The email itself was compact. Our research topics overlapped, which is why this happened. But the sender wasn’t angry. On the contrary, they had grown greedy and wanted to scout me.
State-of-the-art research facilities. Abundant funding. Papers published in top-tier journals. Lab mates who felt like family. All of it was waiting for me.
Therefore, please.
It was so well-written it practically oozed venom. So what was my job? To reply, of course. I prepared the same response for a few other promising professors. With their passion, they might just help me achieve my goal. The thought made me smile.
That was when it happened.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
“Student! Open the door!”
The impact reverberated from the locked door. It was Warden John Whitewood. He seemed determined to throw me out of this prison.
“Warden, stay back! I think my madness is acting up! Aaaaaagh!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs while hammering the keyboard.
“Stop talking nonsense and open the door!”
“Warden! Glurk, gweeeeergh.”
“You little bastard!”
It was a reinforced steel door with the latest smart lock system, so opening it wasn’t easy. I munched on the preserved rations I’d stockpiled and clicked the send button. Now I just had to wait for the replies. In the meantime, I could handle other tasks.
Those tasks were the prison’s administrative duties. I wasn’t paying any rent, after all. The least I could do was pitch in.
“This should be enough, right? What more do you want from me!”
“I don’t want to die. I’m so sick of this! Aaaaagh!”
Number 888887. That girl was at it again today. Of course, she wasn’t the only crazy person in this prison. I categorized the outbursts that erupted every few minutes by type and turned them into a spreadsheet. Checking the timeline, it seemed the number of people whose symptoms were worsening had increased lately.
They say the early bird catches the worm. It means a person should be diligent. Like many professors, Calis was indeed a diligent one. But unlike other scholars, she overflowed with sincerity and devotion—so much so that she would bow her head to a student who had stolen her paper.
It was humiliating, but what could she do? She possessed unmatched ambition and a burning desire for revenge.
‘Richard. Just as you abandoned me, I’ll make your precious pupil abandon you too. Let you taste the same pain of loss. And soon you’ll be on your knees begging me. Hehehehe!’
It was a story more than ten years old. A scar from the past with no reason or need to obsess over. But who could have known? The emotion called love is far more stubborn than anyone imagines. The lingering dregs of unfulfilled lust had smoldered like embers, constantly gnawing away at Calis’s heart.
Her memories returned to her days at the Academy. A boy obsessed with research. And the girl who had fallen for that boy.
“I like you.”
She had mustered her courage and confessed. She was pretty, her grades were excellent, and their family backgrounds were similar. She had been certain they could date. She had believed it without a shred of doubt. That was why, despite her shyness, she had pushed forward with pride.
But.
“Sorry, I can’t accept your confession.”
“W-why…?”
“I decided not to date anyone until I finish my research. Frankly, it’s a waste of time.”
Richard had escaped with a ridiculous excuse. Furious, Calis followed him into the physics department. She confessed again, suggesting they do research together.
“Then we can just stay research colleagues.”
She felt as if her heart had dropped to the floor. Why? At college age, wasn’t it normal to at least think about wedding rings? If he disliked her, he should just marry someone else. That would have been cleaner.
Richard had left the door open until the very end. He remained single, and Calis, due to outside interference, had never married either.
‘I will change this dependent relationship starting today. Student Idel, I’m sorry to Professor Feynman, but you are destined to become my graduate student.’
A reply had arrived before she knew it. Calis read the email with a bright, beaming smile.
“…Huh?”
Calis’s eyes lost focus. This… this simply made no sense.
[It appears they have no intention of releasing me from Alcatraz. Exchanging emails like this is the full extent of the privileges I have been granted.]
[Furthermore, I am currently a student in the Academia course. Even if I were released, I could not immediately apply to your laboratory. If I were a prospective graduate of the College course, I would have already requested an interview with your lab.]
Idel had sent the identical email to multiple professors. Every single one of them desperately wanted him. Their number easily exceeded three hundred. The will of Sparta was attempting to awaken here in the Laniakea Union after thousands of years.
“That concludes the presentation of the paper written by myself and my pupil. Thank you.”
Applause rang out.
Professor Feynman clapped while wiping away tears. The genius had been his alone to know. His own little Idel. Now the competition ratio had reached three hundred to one.
Idel was not yet a formal graduate student. There was a chance he could be stolen away by another lab.
‘…But I have something these people don’t. Idel only contacted me. I am the only one he visited of his own accord. Therefore, it is inevitable that I become his advisor.’
Besides, hadn’t they co-authored two papers together? Feynman forcibly moistened his cracked lips and looked around. To rescue Idel, he needed the power of everyone present. After all, he could not represent the entire academic world alone.
The professors who had listened to Feynman’s presentation united with burning determination, as if they had received a buff, and began discussing strategy.
“I have petitioned the Akea Committee. Since it is the most authoritative body in academia, the government will surely apply pressure.”
Incidentally, more than half of the scientists gathered here were Akea Award winners. If Idel had seen this scene, he would have stopped breathing and fainted, but fortunately he was not present.
“Let’s send emails to prominent journals including Universe.”
“I happen to have the chief editor’s address. I’ll reach out right away.”
“One of my relatives holds a fairly high position in politics. I should speak with them.”
“Let’s request solidarity from other research institutes as well.”
Connections were the greatest weapon professors could wield. In truth, there was nothing connections could not accomplish. Burying a single person in both academia and society was commonplace, and the reverse was equally possible.
The wingbeats created by this three-hundred-man suicide squad soon transformed into a massive storm.
Federal Basic Science Research Group Begins Protest Demanding ‘Idel’s Release’
156 Organizations Under the Supreme Institute of Technological Innovation Announce Strike Starting Next Monday
Akea Committee Warns, “Alcatraz Must Not Misjudge the Greater Picture” — De Facto Threat Toward the Government
The news quickly spread to the public.
“Do you remember the Rheinland family’s notorious good-for-nothing who appeared in a few news articles before? That’s right—Idel von Rheinland. He has returned as an extraordinary genius.”
“The achievement Student Idel has accomplished this time can be summarized in one sentence: ‘Humanity has secured its right to survive against the Outer Deities.’ Correct. We have now discovered a method to repair the holes in the Ether Belt.”
“Why is this significant? Applying this theory will eliminate the very concept of frontier planets. The entire region where humanity lives will be filled with Ether! Neither Avatars nor Outer Deities will be able to enter.”
The research results, disseminated instantly through mass media, created powerful aftershocks. Engineering professors poured their efforts into follow-up studies. Money was inevitably involved. The giant corporations dominating space competed fiercely to obtain the ‘Ether Barrier Restoration Technology.’ The value of Professor Renkel, who had first created the theory, skyrocketed along with it.
Renkel smiled faintly and deposited every penny of the invested funds—minus actual research expenses—into his account.
‘Idel, my boy. All of this money belongs to you.’
He had not yet reached retirement age and desperately needed a brilliant graduate student.
And soon, a response came from the government.
[Idel von Rheinland has been confirmed to be suffering from a recurrence of Outer Deity-induced madness and requires additional treatment at the Alcatraz sanatorium.]
“What did they say?”
“He wrote a paper of that caliber and they claim he’s being controlled by an Outer Deity?”
“This is nonsense. There’s definitely something going on. It stinks!”
The scholars immediately pushed back. However, when the subsequent CCTV footage was released, everyone was forced to fall silent.
Video 1.
“Heh… hehihihi.”
Video 2.
“Warden, Warden. Glurk, gweeeeergh.”
Video 3.
“Air raid alert, haaaaa, air raid alerrrrrrt!”
Video 4.
“Huk… heooook… heeeeeooook…!”
The professors watched the tapes with dazed expressions. Even in this moment, their brains worked at full speed. They had to find something strange. But no matter how they looked, it was clearly madness.
“Why are you suddenly giving me a mission and acting crazy? No, this one’s actually decent. But why is the failure penalty pregnancy again? Do you like me or something?”
And finally, Video 15.
Calis, who had been sitting like a corpse, shot to her feet and shouted.
“It’s fabricated! It’s a government conspiracy! This makes no sense!”