Look This Way, Times Tables (2)
Of course, that anxiety was a separate matter entirely. The system was structured so that users couldn't touch any of it even if they wanted to.
No matter how complicated and uneasy our thoughts got, just as I'd said — there wasn't really anything we could do about it.
"I'm not saying you're wrong, Commander…"
"Right? And if you think about it, no matter how much of a mad scientist Griyanaar is, she doesn't make anything truly grotesque."
"…She doesn't make grotesque things?"
At my words, Jessica's expression crumbled for a brief moment. But as I continued, she nodded along with a look of understanding.
"If you look at the gallery, some commanders team up with their mad scientists and literally remodel their superhumans into something bizarre."
"…Oh."
Among the disgusting images I'd taken down after reports last time, there was one guy who'd replaced a beautiful girl's entire lower half with some grotesque octopus-monster thing, then used it to pin down other superhumans and do this and that. And then there were the lunatics who skipped the actual fighting entirely and used their own or their clanmates' superhumans for weird biological experiments.
Compared to that lot, Griyanaar — who quietly stuck to growing tails, enlarging or shrinking chests, and cultivating tentacles — was practically a fairy. That wouldn't be an overstatement.
Jessica considered my attitude for a moment, then spoke.
"Commander, from where I'm standing, it seems like your threshold for peak grotesqueness has risen considerably from working as that community's moderator."
"What… did you say."
"Looking at strange things nearly every day, seeing so many of the twisted creations other commanders cook up as their souls wither away — wouldn't that do it?"
"What."
She was essentially saying my aesthetic sense had been warped, and I couldn't help but feel like I'd just taken a clean hit to the head.
While that was going on, we'd already reached the entrance to the Nest of Life. The entrance — or rather, the mouth — opened, and the moment we stepped inside—
"Oh, the Commander and Jessica! You got here fast!"
"…"
"…"
"This right here is the SSS-grade Smeragi you entrusted to me, Commander!"
There floated Smeragi — who had once been a classic cat-girl beauty in assassin-style gear, all soft nya-nya sounds — suspended inside a translucent test tube.
"Eung-nyanyanyanyat, red bean powder eung good and nice!"
"Just hold on a moment. There's still residual drugs in her brain and spinal cord, and her language centers are a bit scrambled."
"…"
"Jig-gugugugugut, times tables goo!"
"Bah!"
"Eung-gooooooot!"
Unidentifiable things — pipes or wires or tentacles, who could say — snaked out from the facilities inside the test tube and attached themselves all over her body. They were plugged into her ears, and as she spat out those strange words, tiny tentacle strands wriggled from within those same ears.
I immediately turned to Jessica beside me and declared with full confidence:
"Jessica, it would appear my aesthetic sense is still perfectly intact."
"…Pardon?"
"Because looking at that, I feel that it's grotesque."
At my reaction, Griyanaar — who had been administering a fresh injection to Smeragi — immediately bristled with indignation…
"Grotesque?! I've upgraded her insufficient physical capabilities along with securing ample favorability!"
"That's a relief, Commander. You still have a human heart left in you."
No matter how much our Professor Griyanaar protested, anyone who saw Smeragi's twisted state would surely shake their head in dismay.
And so I shook my head just as expected, watching Griyanaar inject some unidentifiable biomatter that was spreading over Smeragi's entire body like Venom.
"Times tables goo, looking this way."
"Neuiiiiit."
Drugs, hypnotic brainwashing broadcasts, conditioning… biological modification… holy moly.
Looking at that absolute peak of brain-breaking absurdity, I could feel it — this was the point where I had to stop Griyanaar's rampage.
After putting a stop to Griyanaar's brain-breaking attempt to turn a superhuman into a superhuman-(formerly), I received a greeting from a somewhat transformed Smeragi, released from the test tube that Griyanaar had opened while pouting and grumbling.
"Nice to meet you-nya! I'm Smeragi-nya!"
"Mm…"
"Sorry about last time-nya, but now there's absoooolutely no chance of that, so rest easy-nyaaa♡"
But just what had Griyanaar done to her?
When she'd been captured and dragged off, the light in her eyes had still been bright and alive. Now that she was out of the test tube… how to put it…
She looked like she'd gone more than a little off the deep end, so I was about to file a complaint with Griyanaar.
"Griyanaar."
"What is it, Commander?"
"There's no light in her eyes. They look dead."
"Human eyes don't have light in them to begin with."
"There are tentacle strands wriggling out of the cat ears on her head."
"SSS-grade superhumans have sturdy brains, you see. Simple drugs don't even make them flinch."
"…"
"Don't worry too much. Those will all go back in shortly and won't come out again."
Holy moly.
She refuted every single point with surgical precision, wearing an expression and attitude that practically demanded praise for her "masterpiece."
Setting the external appearance aside for now, I decided to first check whether her favorability had actually been filled in properly.
So I pulled up Smeragi's status window, then opened the favorability check window alongside it…
Her traits increased somehow, and her stats changed.
Had she thrown out her original animalistic senses and replaced them with things like Brain Parasite, Body Overhaul, and Obsession?
Her stats had shifted in various ways as well. HP, Physical DEF, and Mobility had each gone up one tier…
(HP S → S+, Physical DEF S+ → SS-, Mobility A+ → S-)
But MP — which was lore-wise connected to the mind and brain — had dropped one tier, and Magic DEF had been downgraded a full two tiers.
(MP B- → C+, Magic DEF S+ → S-)
Just what kind of process produced results like this? I stared blankly at Smeragi, but instead of the now thoroughly cat-brained Smeragi, it was Griyanaar beside her who answered my silent question, resting a hand on her head.
"Ah, and Commander — to make her friendly, I inevitably had to mess with her brain, you see?"
"Eung-nyaaaaat♡"
"So that might be why the magic systems, which I suspect are directly linked to the brain, ended up with reduced performance."
"…Hmm."
"In exchange — well, not exactly in exchange — I thoroughly modified other parts of her body to compensate for the drop, so she should still be quite useful."
"Eung-at, euk, eunya… nyaaaaat…!"
"…Is that so."
But why, while answering, was she sticking her fingers into Smeragi's ears and rubbing them around?
The incomprehensibility of the situation aside, I simply couldn't concentrate on the conversation like this. So I nodded and gestured for her to stop touching Smeragi and give me a proper explanation.
Of course, at my attitude, Griyanaar stuck her lips out like a duck's bill and pouted grumpily.