Masat's Super-Science!
Click-clack—
I walked the flickering corridor, the white lab coat billowing with every stride.
"Hmmm…"
Hongryeon's last words kept circling through my head.
What kind of business, exactly? I was dying to know.
And I had a bad feeling about it. A really bad feeling.
Don't tell me…!
She wasn't planning to kill White Tiger as a Main, was she?!
No. No, no, no. That couldn't be it. I'd hammered it into her that he was a precious test subject, an essential piece of my plans…
Then again, people did grow attached when they fought each other. For all I knew, Hongryeon was already drifting over to the heroes' side.
Hongryeon, Hero of Justice!
Ugh. I couldn't even picture it.
And yet—once the thought had landed, a warm little glow spread through my chest.
…Huh?
My feet stopped.
Why hadn't I thought of this sooner?
Reform the Mains. Turn them to the side of good!
That option had been sitting there the whole time!
It never hurt to keep plenty of plans on the board. In the worst case, I might never escape this place at all—and if that happened, Plan B was simply to change the environment I was stuck in. Of course, the ideal was still to get out from under the Mains' thumb entirely.
"Ksssssss."
Time to do a little eavesdropping on the other side.
"Pungryeong! Establish communications with the Maid Corps!"
"…Yes. Contacting them at once."
The Chudeungdae served as the Maid Corps' general staff. I'd plucked the entire backup-and-command hub right out of the field, so the battle had to be turning against them.
Sure enough, Pungryeong hesitated.
"Um… that is…"
"Yohohot! What seems to be the matter?"
She forced the words out with visible effort.
"…Communications with the Maid Corps have been lost."
There it was. The line I'd been waiting for!
A rush of pure delight surged through my whole body.
Yes! That's it! That's the stuff!!
It meant Hongryeon had gone down. It meant the Maid Corps had been thoroughly crushed!
Heh heh heh.
She never knew I'd injected a Nanocore when I modified White Tiger, did she?
Hongryeon. We did share some time together, after all. I'll set you a proper memorial table—seasoned chicken on the right, fried on the left, all arranged by the ancestral code.
Pungryeong asked carefully,
"Lord Masat, shall I send Danpung and Chudam as reinforcements?"
I seized the gas mask and answered with a laugh steeped in madness.
"Kishishishishishit! Pungryeong! Are you implying that the super-science Maid Corps this very body completed has been defeated?!"
Pungryeong floundered, shrinking back and sliding her gaze away.
"Th-that isn't what I meant… I was only… worried for my comrades…"
I understood the feeling perfectly. But I still couldn't send reinforcements!
They needed to lose completely. They needed to be taken hostage.
"Hongryeon is a maid bestowed upon this body by the Lord of the Underworld of the Mausoleum Temple herself! She is not so frail as to require your concern! Hiyohhohohohot!!"
"…I see."
Only then did Pungryeong accept it, dipping her head.
"Forgive me for causing you undue worry."
"No no! No problem! If you are now a member of the Super-science Dungeon, then you will place your faith in the creations this body has wrought! The word failure does not exist in my dictionary! Kihihihihihit!!"
The eyes behind Pungryeong's gas mask trembled.
"…I shall take it to heart."
Whew. I'd talked my way around that one somehow. Thank goodness.
Well. Fine.
I thrust the Protocol Cane forward. Waves rippled from the crystal orb, and a map bloomed across the gas mask's HUD. Soldiers were posted everywhere. Judging by the energy signatures, the heroes had all been concentrated at the entrance.
Which meant I could snatch up the little rat with ease.
I looked over the four members of the Chudeungdae.
About time I sent them off, wasn't it? The heroes would have finished regrouping by now.
I clasped my hands behind my back and gazed idly the way we had come.
"Hmmm…"
Every maid's attention snapped to me at once.
"Is something the matter?"
"Having no communications is rather inconvenient! It would be best if the Chudeungdae restored the network on-site."
I raised a single finger and added,
"Of course, Hongryeon will have already settled everything, so there's no need whatsoever to be tense! Hiyohhohot!"
What? Why are you looking at me like that?
A gentle smile gathered at the corners of Pungryeong's eyes.
"Yes. Chudam and I shall go restore the communications network. However, I will leave Geumseo and Danpung here as your escort."
Huh?
No, that wouldn't do at all… They all needed to get captured.
I snapped the lab coat into a violent flare. Plasma flashed from the pair of coil springs risen along my back.
"An escort?! Kishishishit! Who, precisely, is escorting whom?!"
I wriggled my fingers in a distinctly unwholesome little crawl.
"Do you know who I am?! The name that makes even a newborn smack its own knee and stop crying—Ma—sat!! That super genius is none other than this body!!"
I leveled the Protocol Cane back down the corridor we had come from.
"Therefore the entire Chudeungdae will go! I expect a report as flawless as befits the Maid Corps of this Masat! Kihihihihihihit!!"
The maids exchanged glances, then bowed their heads.
"We receive your command."
The Chudeungdae departed with Pungryeong at their head.
And that was it. Maid Corps, all sixteen members: liberation complete!
Aigoo. What a relief.
That's right. Heroes belong in the light, not the dark. That power I modified for you—go put it to work for world peace.
Heh heh heh.
All that remained now was to dispose of the garbage hiding inside the Association.
"Off to the mountains to catch a little rat! Lululu!"
I was humming along when I jerked to a halt.
"Hoyoyoyo…"
Sandbags piled up ahead. Soldiers crouched behind them in cover, every last rifle trained on me.
"Th-that's… an S-Class Main…"
"…We're gonna make it out of this, right?"
"Ah, you sons of bitches! Don't you dare freeze up! Every man is equal in front of a muzzle! You think that bastard's any different?"
The sergeant was overflowing with fight. Excellent leadership, really.
The company commander, on the other hand, was shaking hard enough to chatter his teeth. A moment later he flung his rifle aside and bolted.
"Eek! I—I can't die here! I went to the Military Academy! Why should someone with a career like mine die in a place like this?!"
"Commander!!"
The platoon leader stretched out a hand, but the man was already long gone.
Aigoo. What a mess.
I aimed the Protocol Cane's crystal orb straight ahead.
"A biologically wise choice—but this Masat is disappointed in the company commander! Kishishishit!"
A single thread of brilliance.
Crack-k-k-k-k!
Plasma slammed into the commander's back.
"Urbubububu!"
He convulsed and pitched face-first onto the floor. I hadn't killed him, of course. He'd be facing a disciplinary board anyway. With this many witnesses, his career was finished.
I spun the cane in a lazy circle and planted it on the floor.
Thud!
"To our hardworking soldiers of the national army, toiling day and night! I have absolutely not come here to do anything wicked! I've merely come to meet someone! So if you would be so kind as to open the way…"
The platoon leader cut me off with a shout.
"Shut your mouth! You came to meet someone, and you turned the mountain into a sea of fire?!"
No, you people were the ones about to open up with the anti-aircraft guns.
"Kill the Main, Masat! Cut this Main down right here and earn yourselves a hundred-day reward leave, you hear me?! Come on, boys!!"
Tsk.
If they'd actually slain a Main, shouldn't the reward have been a discharge, not leave?
Regardless, the effect of reward leave was tremendous. There I stood, a known S-Class Main—this Masat—and they were roaring battle cries and opening fire with their rifles.
Dadadadadada!
"Leeeeave!"
Dadadadadadadang!
"Die, you Main bastard!!"
Part of me genuinely wanted to give them that vacation. Instead, I extended the cane.
In that instant, the soldiers squeezing their triggers stopped, one after another. They stared at me, slack-jawed.
"What… the hell is…"
"Oh my god… I-I'm dreaming, right?"
"That's… impossible… what kind of magic is this…?"
A swarm of bullets hung suspended in midair, frozen an inch from my face.
"Magic? Bzzt! Bzzt! Wrong! Incorrect!"
I popped my hip and pranced in place.
"The correct answer is, without further ado—whew! Ha! Masat's super-science! Kishishishishishit!"
The principle was simple enough. Lead bullets are conductive metal. The moment a round punches into a high-speed magnetic field, a swirling induced current is born. Then Lenz's law takes over. That induced current generates a magnetic field opposing the original one, and just as magnets shove each other apart, the bullet's motion is resisted and bled of speed.
In other words—make the field strong enough, the reaction fast enough, and track the target precisely enough…
Ta-da!
You can stop a bullet dead.
See? Easy, right?
"Guns are relics of a bygone age. It would be like… attacking a space battleship with a rock, shall we say? Hiyohhohohohot!"
The cluster of bullets clattered down around my feet.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chang!
The cane still pointed forward. I gave the gas mask a cute little poke with my index finger.
"And now it's Magical Boy Masat's turn! Tehe~!"
The platoon leader bellowed until his voice tore.
"D-danger! Everyone take cover!!"
The soldiers dove behind the sandbags. What I was aiming at, however, was not them. It was the ceiling.
Plasma unfurled across it like a spider's web.
Crack-k-k-k-k-k-k!
"Wee-oo! Wee-oo! Lightning advisory!"
I brought the cane down.
"Here comes the sting!"
Bolts of lightning crashed from the ceiling all at once.
Rumble!
"Gyaaaaaaaaah!"
An electric massage, guaranteed to work wonders for muscle aches and fatigue! They'd wake up feeling fantastic.
The corridor fell quiet. I strolled onward, humming under my breath.
"Hmm-hmm-hmm! Hmm! Lalalalala!!"
Soldiers lay crumpled across the floor, every one of them sleeping like a baby.
Nothing like doing a good deed to warm the heart!
Heh heh heh.
"Now then, let's see…"
I checked the map on the HUD. A location where soldiers had massed in huge numbers—and beyond it, a crowd. Heroes plus researchers, most likely.
One of them… or perhaps every last one of them… could be the rat.
"Shall we have a look at the faces of those greedy little things who coveted someone else's prey? Kssssss."