You've Been Kidnapped
It was time for school again.
Between the cultists, the Order, the Hunter Management Bureau, and everything else, it was hardly a situation that lent itself to focusing on academics. Still, right now, it was something I needed.
"We're already in week three. Is everyone preparing well for midterms?"
The curriculum here split roughly into two tracks: mana-based subjects, and non-mana subjects that didn't require any magical ability.
First-year mana courses covered things like the elemental magic fundamentals and mana acquisition I'd already studied. The non-mana track was mostly the traditional subjects from my previous life.
True to an academy founded by a great magical house, the mana courses ground you down with daily exams. The non-mana ones, though, got by with a casual midterm and final.
Given that most students were ability users, non-mana subjects simply weren't treated as all that important. Unless you were headed for civil service, pure science, or law, the general vibe was to scrape past the minimum score and call it a day.
Engineering was a bit different, since magic circles and mana engines were essential to the field — but that part didn't matter much to me.
I hated that stuff.
Engineering formulas alone are brutal enough, and you want to bolt magical calculations on top of that? Oh, just kill me already.
Anyway, subjects like math and Korean weren't all that different from my previous life. Social studies and ethics had a few extra things to memorize, but nothing unbearable.
History was the problem.
In a world that had coexisted with gates, there was a considerable gap between what I knew and how things had actually gone. At first I'd been lazy about it and just skimmed Elaine's study notes… but after the whole UN incident, I'd felt the need to study properly. And once I looked into it, the whole thing was pure fantasy.
"All right, shall we review last class? Can anyone explain what the Great Gate Outbreaks were, and how many times they occurred? There's a mana potion for whoever gets it right."
The elderly female teacher smiled kindly, and hands went up all over the room. She gave the chance to a bespectacled nerd in the front row.
He lowered his hand and answered.
"There were three in total. The third-century Great Outbreak under China's Qin Dynasty, the fourteenth-century Black Death Outbreak, and the twentieth-century World War II Outbreak. All of them were disasters in which a sudden surge of gates caused massive loss of life."
Three periods when a lot of people had died. Mental Power had probably piled up in a short span of time and triggered the whole mess.
The teacher nodded, satisfied.
"Well done."
A man who looked like an assistant shot forward and handed a mana potion to the skinny glasses kid.
I listened carefully to the rest of the lesson and started cramming as much as I could into my head.
Surprisingly, the major events themselves weren't that different from my previous life. The invention of iron tools, the invention of gunpowder and the social changes that followed, even the rise of imperialism — it all resembled the history of my old world to a startling degree.
The problem was the causes behind those events.
Take World War I. The Sarajevo incident still kicked it off, and the timing matched — but the details were wildly different.
Here, a young Serbian man hadn't "assassinated" the Austro-Hungarian crown prince… he'd just punched him in the head and caved his skull in.
Because the Serbian kid had been ridiculously strong.
Something about a Dravan — I wasn't sure if he was the same person as the gunman from my previous world. Either way, the young man had openly declared a rebellion, and the enraged Austro-Hungarian Empire had dispatched its ability-user knight order, quartered him, and then invaded Serbia as the power behind him.
That was how World War I had gone down in Gate Apocalypse.
"Pecia, you're really paying attention. I was about to fall asleep over here."
Near the end of class, the girl beside me struck up a conversation.
Yoo Ye-ji.
A kid I'd somehow gotten friendly with because of Elaine. She had a habit of watching me with this assessing look sometimes, but she never made herself a nuisance, so I got along with her just fine.
I answered while organizing my notes.
"History's kind of fascinating to me."
"…History is fascinating?"
"Yeah. Isn't it to you?"
"What's fascinating about it?"
Pretty much everything.
For starters, monsters were pouring out of gates left and right, and humanity still found time to beat the crap out of each other. That alone was weird. Dig deep enough and there were reasons, sure — but from a modern person's perspective, it still looked like pure insanity.
If it were me, I'd have held hands with everyone and never started a single conflict. Honestly. Humanity really is a bunch of idiots.
Then again, that's why they fight each other in the first place.
"By the way, where's Elaine?"
I looked around. Normally the second break hit she'd be clinging to me going Koalaaa~, so the empty space felt oddly hollow.
Ye-ji pointed ahead with her chin.
"She's face-down over there. Anything that even smells like history and she just collapses."
"History has a smell? It's not a physical thing. How would it smell?"
"It's just an expression."
Ye-ji shrugged and stretched. At first she'd frowned at the way I talked, but she seemed to have adapted enough by now to just let it slide.
One of the few friends who appreciated the refined quality of my speech.
She's a good kid. Maybe I should give her a present.
"What's this?"
"A teddy bear."
I pulled a mini Party Bear from my bag and held it out. Small enough to hold in one hand, but packing roughly D-class power all the same.
I'd been handing a few out as promo samples before the official sales launch.
Ye-ji took the teddy bear, and her eyes suddenly went wide.
"Huh? This looks just like the one in Elaine's bedroom."
"I made that one too."
"You made this?"
Her expression turned serious, and she started stroking the Party Bear's brown fur with her thumb. Elaine's friends tended to be rich, so they usually recognized mana-crafted items on sight — quality included.
She spoke in a faintly admiring tone.
"This is really well made… Where'd you learn how?"
"I didn't learn it anywhere. Just taught myself."
Ye-ji's brow furrowed.
"Self-taught?"
"Yeah."
"……"
"What?"
"What do you mean, what? This looks like something a decades-long veteran finished under deadline. If you really taught yourself this, you're a genius."
Heh. A genius is a genius. Sure, it was thanks to Pecia's passive ability — but an ability's still an ability, right?
I grinned with confidence.
"If you're that suspicious, want me to whip one up in whatever design you want?"
Ye-ji shook her head.
"I'm not suspicious. People like you don't usually lie. If anything, being too honest is the problem."
"Huh? Why is being honest a problem?"
She ignored me and muttered to herself.
"They say four-dimensional weirdos always have one special talent. Guess it's true."
"……"
My pride took a hit, and I asked for the Party Bear back — but Ye-ji just said "You already gave it to me" and stuffed the teddy bear into her school bag.
Four-dimensional? Drop dead.
I pretended to explain how to use the Party Bear while quietly plotting my revenge.
Ye-ji's eyes went round.
"For real? This is a golem?"
"Yep. It understands body language pretty well, too. For example, if you tell it, Steal someone's underwear at dawn and wear it on your head, it'll do exactly that."
I made a rough jogging gesture that had nothing to do with the actual command, and Ye-ji asked, looking unsettled.
"…What was that? That shushuk, shakshak sound?"
Beast speech generally sounded like a serpent's whisper. It wasn't ordinary vocalization — it was a resonant language mediated through demonic energy. That was how I could communicate with the squeaking Party Bears.
I just smiled without answering. Ye-ji blinked, then shifted her gaze to her bag.
"Anyway, I'll help promote it. If this is a real proper golem, they'll sell like crazy."
"You think so?"
"Yeah. The design's cute, and for a toy golem, the mana density is solid."
Oddly enough, my "one-tenth pure mana" had started gradually applying to the Party Bears as well. So right now, Ye-ji was sensing one-tenth of the mana the Party Bear actually held.
She asked in a tone laced with interest.
"When are you selling them?"
"As soon as I get a quality guarantee from the Manufacturing professor."
"Hmm… okay, got it. Seriously though, you're impressive for someone our age. No wonder Elaine's so obsessed with you."
Looking at the sleeping Elaine, the corner of Ye-ji's mouth curved up slightly — like she was thinking, You little brat.
I decided to rush the Party Bear sales.
I had no idea what moves the Order might make, so I figured I'd dig the trap in advance and wait. The merchandise was more than ready. Excluding the combat units, over a thousand were standing by. Yena would be sad when the bustling little crowd disappeared, but I could fix that with the next batch of toys.
The moment morning classes ended, I headed for the Manufacturing research lab.
For reference, the on-campus shop permit process went: 1. Product inspection → 2. Price review → 3. Expert endorsement → 4. Shop lease → 5. Final inspection and approval.
The shop lease I could handle with the money I had. Final inspection just meant not displaying anything outside the approved products. The problem was the expert endorsement…
"Um, hello. I'm Pecia — I submitted a consultation request."
"Ohh, finally here! Of course you are. No way you wouldn't show."
Takahashi Griebe. The crazy teacher who'd kidnapped me on my first day of school.
As I'd learned during the whole "golem sales" thing, if I wanted to start selling Party Bears right away, I needed this annoying human's cooperation. His specialty was golem engineering, after all.
Griebe, who'd been waiting in the consultation room, grabbed my wrist without ceremony and dragged me straight to the research lab.
"Everyone, say hello! This is Pecia, our new first-year!"
"……"
The lab was bleakly sparse. Unlike the classroom buildings plastered in ornate decorations and paintings, this place had little more than a massive white table in the center. Scattered across it were glowing crystals, metal fragments, dozens of unidentifiable pins, papers covered in magic circles, and more.
The bookshelves lining the walls were packed with old tomes and scrolls, but cobwebs hung white in every corner — clearly no one had cleaned in a while. And just so we're clear, it was currently winter. Meaning that stuff had been sitting like that for at least six months. Honestly, looking at the dust buildup, it might have been a decade of neglect.
The lab was about the size of a small auditorium, but still. This was excessive.
Is a "research" lab allowed to look like this?
"Welcome."
A male assistant in a research robe offered a brief greeting. There were about a dozen other men and women present, but they might as well have been furniture. Everyone had the dark, hollow look of wild animals that hadn't eaten in a week — muttering incomprehensible things like Why won't it move… and I'm casting the spell, so why is the waist spinning? Where did I go wrong?
Griebe cleared his throat and added a short note.
"For the record, this is the girl who made the teddy bears."
"……!!"
In that instant, every assistant snapped their heads up and locked eyes on me. Faced with expressions of pure mania — like they'd just struck gold — I swallowed hard and took a step back.
…I was just here for a quality guarantee. I could still leave after that… right?