Chapter 395
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 395
Chapter Title: What Did You Do?
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Smashing expensive research equipment beyond repair on the very first day was just the tip of the iceberg.
Not only did she ruin months' worth of research data.
She fed the precious lab animals whatever she pleased, forcing them to start experiments from scratch.
She even misdelivered waste materials, leading to the creation of bizarre prototypes.
It was utter chaos.
In just a few days, the entire R&D department was turned upside down, and Vatchmensky even developed acute gastritis and started losing his hair.
And yet, despite all that mayhem, she hadn't been fired.
Now, the looks directed at Aynsha had shifted from suspicion to outright terror.
But there was an even more terrifying fact.
There wasn't a speck of malice in any of this chain of accidents.
"I've never caused any accidents. I was just doing what Ri ordered."
"I said I had no reason to hide anything suspicious, but I don't remember ordering sabotage...?"
"It's not sabotage. It's the result of diligent work."
[...If she gets diligent twice more, this factory might shut down for good.]
Of course, Rimon and Yuna Kyung could understand to some extent.
Whether as the princess of the White Dragon Clan
or as a priestess of the Holy Alliance,
Aynsha had been pampered like a forbidden fruit her entire life—she probably hadn't even changed her own clothes before.
And now, out of nowhere, she was pretending to be a researcher handling cutting-edge weaponry. It wasn't simple manual labor, familiar arts, or business tasks.
Problems were inevitable.
...Even accounting for that, Aynsha's accidents were off the charts in scale.
Rimon, who had deliberately acted suspiciously to draw attention, was completely overshadowed by her.
'Team leader, shouldn't we send White Sis back now?'
'If that were possible, we wouldn't have brought her in the first place.'
Rimon rubbed his temples in frustration.
They could move freely now because Aynsha was, on the surface, following Yekateriche's plan.
Pretending to search for the Liberation Brigade to lure Rimon—that absurd scheme.
But if they split up from Aynsha now?
Who knew what Yekateriche might do? In the worst case, she could spring into action immediately.
That was why,
after agonizing over it, Rimon finally sighed and spoke.
"Foolish princess, it's good you're working hard, but no more accidents from now on. What you've done so far is already too much."
"Rest assured. I've gotten the hang of the work. I won't make the same mistakes again."
[...Does that sound like she's saying she'll make different mistakes? Or is that just me?]
"...Who knows."
She should have been humbled by the scale of her mishaps,
but seeing Aynsha boldly promise future success left Rimon and Yuna Kyung feeling deeply uneasy.
Still, they had it better than others.
Someone else nearly had a fit upon seeing Aynsha show up for work the next day.
"I want to know what tasks I should handle today."
"......"
"Please answer."
"Ah, well... Researcher Elshar. Do you really have to do something?"
"Of course. I'm a researcher here. I was hired to work. So I'll work."
Despair crept across Vatchmensky's face.
Having experienced firsthand her talent for turning any task into a disaster, that confident declaration sounded like a trumpet from hell.
Yet he couldn't mistreat someone the factory manager was protecting.
After wracking his balding head, Vatchmensky assigned her the simplest job: sorting the old warehouse.
It was the only place where any further accidents would cause minimal damage.
Anyone could see it was half a dismissal.
The state of the military factory's warehouse, which she reached under Vatchmensky's guidance, made that obvious.
"Ahem, this is the warehouse. It contains classified materials, so only researchers with data processing clearance can sort it."
Broken equipment at a glance.
Discarded, damaged disks.
Devices missing half their parts, and more.
Not a single item was intact. It looked less like a warehouse and more like a junkyard or waste dump.
Vatchmensky grew uneasy just looking at it and tried to backtrack.
"There are a lot of heavy things here that might be tough to move alone, so if it's too hard, I can assign something else..."
"It's fine. I can do it."
"...Are you sure?"
"Of course. Leave the warehouse to me."
But Aynsha didn't care.
She nodded stoically, as if determined to complete the task she'd been given.
Once the anxious Vatchmensky left, Aynsha began by effortlessly lifting and moving massive piles of scrap metal.
Perhaps because it was simple manual labor,
unlike her previous blunders, she sorted the warehouse without issue this time.
...Or so it seemed.
Until she spotted a strangely familiar device.
"...?"
She tilted her head, wondering why it looked familiar.
After a moment, Aynsha clapped her fist into her palm with a thwack.
Then she trotted over.
Perhaps because they had all arrived around the same recent time,
a singed research device, discarded disks piled on it, an empty animal cage beside it, and a half-assembled rod-like object inside.
All these eerily familiar items were sorted by Aynsha with practiced hands.
Click.
She inserted a disk into the device.
Clank.
She shoved the entire animal cage into the machine.
After neatly arranging the useless junk out of sight, she picked up the last item: a heavily singed, bulky plug.
She approached a nearby high-voltage outlet and compared their sizes.
"Just as I thought, perfect fit."
As if confirming she hadn't been wrong,
Aynsha nodded expressionlessly and moved her hand without hesitation.
The moment the plug she held connected to the outlet...
BOOM!
...Catastrophe arrived at the Moscow State Armaments Factory's old warehouse, right on schedule.
Aynsha had screwed up again.
When Rimon first heard the news,
it was no wonder he pressed his fingers to his temple.
Not just him—most others wore expressions that plainly said, She did it again.
Aynsha's infamy over the past few days was that legendary.
That was why
their faces turned baffled upon hearing the details of the incident.
"...What did who do what now?"
"Researcher Elshar completed a new weapon!"
"Unless my memory's faulty, wasn't she assigned to warehouse sorting?"
"Exactly why it's so impressive!"
As if his near-death expression from Aynsha that morning had been a lie,
Vatchmensky bubbled with excitement and admiration.
"Completing a scrapped prototype on the spot in the warehouse due to unstable output? What incredible intuition!"
"...Intuition?"
"No, 'on the spot' doesn't fit. This was all part of Researcher Elshar's plan from the start."
"Plan...?"
"Yes, a very ingenious plan."
Test the new plasma injector’s durability with overvoltage.
Manually rewrite the research data to adjust output for withstanding overvoltage.
Use the dungeon-alloy animal cage to contain the discharge, successfully completing the previously failed compressed plasma battery.
After lavishing praise on her astonishing achievement,
Vatchmensky declared,
"Researcher Elshar is a genius!"
"Ge...nius."
He'd simply overlooked it before.
Aynsha possessed genius-level talent.
Thanks to her, they could now implement several theoretically possible new weapons, earning massive bonuses, and so on.
Watching Vatchmensky speak with fervent eyes, Rimon was finally at a loss for words.
He immediately sought out Aynsha and asked,
"Foolish princess, what the hell did you do...?"
"Don't worry. This time, it wasn't an accident. Everyone praised me."
What on earth had she done?
Not just her researcher lab coat,
but sunglasses and a mask too.
Seeing Aynsha, covered head to toe in singe marks, speak so casually, Rimon groaned in agony.
Of course, if asked whether this was an accident, it clearly wasn't.
She'd produced results, averting immediate expulsion from the factory.
The problem was how big those results were.
Not to Vatchmensky's extent, but the wary admiration in others' gazes toward Aynsha made it obvious.
So Rimon asked with half concern, half suspicion,
"You haven't forgotten our goal, have you?"
"Of course I remember."
As if to say she wasn't an idiot,
Aynsha puffed out her modest chest and answered stoically and proudly.
"I show my abilities to make Ri fall for me. Proof of a capable woman."
"...That's your hidden goal. Not mine?"
"It's fine. I hide nothing from Ri. So I tell you all my hidden intentions too."
"Your attitude's great and all, but next time, how about getting prior approval instead of after-the-fact reports...?"
Maybe it would've been better to send Aynsha back, even if it raised Yekateriche's suspicions.
Rimon could only sigh.
But his sighs didn't end there.
The next day,
and the day after,
Aynsha's non-accident accidents continued in succession.
"How did you know using a PTK fuse instead of an ATK fuse would solve the next-gen tank engine's issues?"
Next-generation tank engine research.
"Pouring man-eating whale oil on stone turtle hide to create leather this supple yet tough—it's a revolution!"
New material discovery.
"My God! Just tweaking a few lines of code solved this?"
New program development, and more.
Each time Aynsha "accidentally" succeeded across fields, Vatchmensky's exclamations grew louder.
And he wasn't alone.
The other researchers, skeptical even after the plasma battery, now looked at her with awe.
Even the factory manager who helped with their undercover jobs always gazed at Aynsha reverently.
After a few days, at the Moscow State Armaments Factory, Aynsha was established fact: a bit spacey-looking, but actually a genius.
That was why
Yuna Kyung, upon hearing the rumors, didn't just doubt her ears—she denied reality.
[...What kind of dream is this?]
"A dream called reality."
[You're telling me White Sis is actually an amazing genius?]
"The foolish princess did produce real results, didn't she?"
[That's why I'm asking how this is possible!]
Yuna Kyung was flabbergasted.
For any other princess, maybe, but Aynsha being a genius developer? It was harder to believe than if she herself were a blue chicken instead of a bluebird.
Rimon, meanwhile, accepted the situation coolly.
He'd figured out her trick-not-trick behind the string of successes.
"You know about the infinite monkey theorem?"
[That if monkeys bang on typewriters for infinite time, they'll eventually write masterpieces?]
"Yeah, nonsense that enough coincidences can lead to inevitability."
[...You're saying White Sis's successes are all coincidences?]
"Not all, but to some extent."
Rimon shrugged.
Like sorting collapsed blocks, Aynsha might've absentmindedly shoved a floppy disk and battery into the plasma injector and plugged it in.
Similarly, inserting the wrong fuse,
spilling oil on research leather,
inputting random code—
All could happen through carelessness or complex coincidence.
"Technology has always advanced through such serendipitous discoveries."
Penicillin from a culture experiment mistake.
Safety glass from a broken flask.
Microwave from radar tech.
X-rays by accident, and more.
From ancient times, most innovative tech or inventions weren't deliberate.
They recreated coincidental phenomena into technology.
That's why there's a term: serendipity, for such happy accidents.
"Of course, these don't happen often, and forcing them is hard..."
If such coincidences could be conjured at will, sorcery wouldn't have faded against magic.
After muttering softly,
Rimon added,
"But if it's a coincidence that could happen someday, there's a way to make its probability 100%."
[Wait. That way is... surely not...?]
"Foresight of the future where the coincidence occurs, then recreate it."
Tomorrow, the day after,
next month,
or the year after.
If he could foresee similar accidents or events in this factory,
the rest was easy.
Recreate the coincidence, and the researchers would handle the admiration and technical refinement.
[...Is that even possible?]
"Not elsewhere. No other prophet could do it."
In other places, mere coincidences wouldn't yield such results.
But this was the Moscow State Armaments Factory.
With humanity's top tech from an advanced nation developing cutting-edge weapons, a single coincidence could complete mountains of pending tech.
Even so, the future is inherently vague.
Low-probability coincidences,
especially foreseeing only those leading to success, was near-impossible for most prophets...
"But the White Dragon Princess can."
Music, art, film, novels—
fields where outcomes vary wildly by trends or luck.
Yet Tiamat, one of the Seven Dragon Group companies, succeeded by investing only in surefire hits.
And that was thanks to the world's greatest prophet, the White Dragon Princess's power.
Watching Rimon speak calmly,
Yuna Kyung realized anew.
No matter how many odd things she did, Aynsha was a true dragon heir.
Owner of the world's top conglomerate, one of the Seven Dragon Society princesses standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Li Chingwei.
[...White Sis is a way bigger deal than I thought.]
"Obviously. Do you think any of the Seven Dragon Society princesses are pushovers?"
[I know, but...]
After scratching her head at Rimon's point for a moment,
Yuna Kyung blurted,
[So what now? Thanks to White Sis, baiting the revolutionaries seems harder.]
"We'll see."
[Huh?]
As Yuna Kyung tilted her head at the unexpected reply,
Rimon crossed his arms.
He frowned at Aynsha in the distance, strutting expressionlessly amid a crowd of awed researchers.
"I don't know about now, but the revolutionaries I know..."