Dean Gran
The Dean was manipulating us using the despicable method of hypnosis.
I was deeply shocked when Lady Jua told me this.
"Are you aware that you have been hypnotized?"
"Not at all."
"Then it is not that the hypnosis has been broken... But how is it that you can attack these puppets?"
The "puppets" Lady Jua referred to were the mechanical weapons blocking our path.
Security robots.
Combat units.
Chimeras.
Under normal circumstances, they were important school property that must not be damaged.
But I was.
I was completely ignoring the school rules and destroying them left and right.
The reason I could do this was simple.
"Because you asked me to help you, Lady Jua."
"……Is that all?"
"Yes. My Master told me to do so."
My martial arts—the Heavenly Maiden Lotus Flower Art—existed for that very purpose.
That was why I could do it.
To help someone in need, I could smash the mechanical soldiers blocking my way and point my sword at the Dean, the root of all this evil.
"...Is that so? By the way..." Lady Jua asked.
"Are you truly fine wearing nothing? You may have these clothes back."
"It's fine. It's not like my skin will wear away. You are a woman, Lady Jua, so you should keep them on. And cover yourself up a bit more."
"Are you not a woman as well...?"
Purchase new clothing?
I could buy new clothes from the Shop, but it felt like a waste of points.
And as I said, it's not like showing a little skin would hurt.
Besides, strictly speaking, I wasn't actually a woman... right.
Anyway.
Wrapping up our conversation, we dashed up the final flight of stairs leading to the surface.
Having broken through the underground forces, Yeon Dohwa and Dan Jua finally reached the surface.
"……."
"I was beginning to think you'd never show up, students."
They had arrived at the lobby on the first floor.
Waiting for them was a force more than double the size of the one they had faced underground.
Standing at the forefront of this army to greet them was none other than Dean Gran.
In one of his hands, he held a black case.
"If you had just waited quietly, we would have come to find you. You went through a lot of trouble to meet us here, Dean Gran."
"In the five years since I settled in this land, no one has ever caused this much of a ruckus. I thought it was a festival, so I just had to rush over."
It was the truth.
In this primitive Central Plains, almost no one could achieve this much when pitted against the technology of his former world.
He had only recently learned that the student who accomplished this was Yeon Dohwa.
Yet, even after finding out, he wasn't particularly shocked.
This girl was strange in many ways.
There was no shortage of suspicious things about her.
Investigating the academy wasn't all that unusual.
The Dean had known about it and allowed it, judging that it wouldn't pose a problem.
But there was more.
Even while under hypnosis, she had refused to answer his questions.
Although he had continued to interrogate her, he still did not know everything about Yeon Dohwa.
Irregulars.
And there were two of them.
Yeon Dohwa, who hid things from him even while hypnotized.
Dan Jua, who sensed something was wrong and resisted despite undergoing the hypnosis procedure.
Has Dohwa's hypnosis been broken as well...? If she can destroy school property, it's safe to assume she can lay a hand on me too.
"Well, whatever. A little trouble like this is trivial compared to the ups and downs of my life."
Dean Gran reached out.
The black attache case in his hand flew open, and its contents burst out, unfolding rapidly.
Whirrrr—
Clack, clank, clatter, thud!
"……."
"Haha! How is it? Do you like it? It's a toy I built packed with my personal tastes!"
What appeared was a massive robot standing four meters tall.
It had emerged from a case less than seventy centimeters wide, swallowing Dean Gran whole and merging with him into its current form.
...Isn't that kind of cheating?
More than that, it seemed to completely ignore the law of conservation of mass.
Despite these thoughts, Dohwa's expression barely wavered as she gripped her sword.
"Hmm, I thought you'd be a bit more surprised."
"Well..."
She was surprised. Dohwa was definitely surprised, but not enough to show it on her face. That was all.
After all, this was well within the realm of what she had anticipated.
"If it's a ■■■■, that's how it is, right?"
"Star... what? I have no idea what you're talking about."
The peach-colored true qi rising from Dohwa's body flared even more violently.
Along with it, her appearance began to change.
Her hair.
Her eyes.
They transformed.
Seeing this, Dean Gran was the one who was surprised this time.
However, what he had to do remained unchanged.
"To cause such a fuss, you energetic little sows."
"You bitches will surely bear healthy babies."
"I'll process you into special female slaves and get you fucking pregnant over and over, you damn girls."
*Ruuuuuuuuuumble!!!*
With a heavy mechanical roar, the giant machine piloted by Dean Gran charged forward.
The accompanying security robots moved in unison, unleashing a hail of bullets and lunging forward to subdue the two.
The battle resumed.
...
Gran Tel.
That was his full name.
He was the last survivor of an advanced civilization.
Whether he could truly be called the "last" was somewhat debatable, however.
The world he came from had been invaded and destroyed by monsters known as Chaos.
Because those monsters greedily devoured and contaminated the special energy extracted from the stars—the very foundation of their civilization.
Humanity declined because of them.
Men became their slaves, and women were used for their reproduction.
Their compatriots, who had been "Chaos-ized" by them, could no longer give birth to human life.
In other words, it was the extinction of their species.
They could no longer be considered the same race.
That was why he considered himself the last survivor.
Although he too had been Chaos-ized, he was the only one who had not lost his reproductive capabilities as a human, and he still possessed intellect and reason.
But if he remained as he was, he would merely exist as the final survivor of humanity, destined to fade away in solitude as time passed.
Therefore, he conducted research and used the last remaining uncontaminated energy to execute a dimensional shift.
The place he arrived at was this world.
A primitive civilization that, to him, was no different from the Stone Age, worlds away from the advanced civilization he had known.
...
"……To think I would lose……"
A bitter voice scattered into the empty air.
He had been miserably defeated by a primitive, uncivilized people—by those he had looked down upon and despised.
Dean Gran Tel lay sprawled on the floor, his body covered in wounds.
His beloved weapon.
The custom-made external armament he had brought with him from his former world.
His robot, packed with ambitious features, had been sliced to pieces by countless slashes and turned into scrap metal before it could even show off its capabilities.
Pathetic.
Utterly futile.
"Undo everyone's hypnosis, Dean."
Dohwa's sword touched the neck of the fallen, lamenting Dean.
Looking down at the Dean, Dohwa's hair and eyes were dyed a peach color, just like her name.
The sword qi she unleashed fluttered around them like pink flower petals.
The Heavenly Maiden Lotus Flower Art.
Immediately after I fell into this world, I already possessed this martial art.
It was a legendary martial art, known only in myths even within the Heavenly Moon Palace.
The manuals for it had long since vanished, and even my Master only vaguely knew of its existence.
Yet, for some reason, I knew its oral mnemonics, its cultivation methods, and its sword forms.
I could use them as naturally as if they had been mine for a lifetime.
Its power was immense, granting me the strength to never lose, even against experts several levels above me.
As for the minor side effect, the deeper I cultivated the art, the more my hair and eyes changed color.
I didn't think that would be much of a problem, so I focused on training the Heavenly Maiden Lotus Flower Art.
In truth, there was a much larger side effect.
I only realized it a bit later, though.
A martial art that turns both body and mind into a female.
That was the one thing I absolutely could not accept.
And so, I abandoned the Lotus Flower Art and learned a new martial art.
That was the Moon Shadow Sword.
...
With the tip of my sword pressed against the Dean's back, I escorted him.
Our destination was the top floor of the Main Building—the Dean's Office.
"Is it true? Can we really undo everyone's hypnosis if we go there?"
"If you don't believe me, why don't you just chop off my head right now? It shouldn't be hard for you."
"……."
"Though in that case, the students down there will remain like that for the rest of their lives."
Tch...
Dohwa let out a frustrated groan.
But she had no choice.
In a way, he was the one holding the upper hand.
Killing him right here would be easy.
But doing so offered no guarantee that the hypnosis on the academy's students would be lifted.
"But are you sure you only need to capture me? I have clones that look exactly like me, you know. What if I decide to die and leave everything to them?"
"Then I'll just kill all those clones too."
"...Ugh..."
"Besides, you value your own life, don't you? Even if a clone shares the exact same memories and thoughts, it isn't truly you."
"That's true. More than anything, reproduction is impossible in a clone's body. If I die, my world is truly finished. I can't let that happen."
He had already spoken of his past.
That he was not actually a resident of this world, and that he was the last survivor of his original world.
And he desired the continuation of his world.
To him, his world meant humanity.
In other words, his goal seemed to be to father children again, increase their numbers, and preserve his world.
"One wife should be enough. Why do you need to gather so many? No, using a despicable method like hypnosis in the first place is already beyond redemption."
"……We've arrived."
While they were talking, they reached the Dean's Office.
The Dean entered first, followed by Dohwa, and then Jua.
The office space was familiar to them by now, but deep inside, there was a hidden door.
It was a spot they had assumed was just a wall.
But as the Dean manipulated something, the corner of the room shifted, and the wall transformed into a door.
"A door in a place like this..."
"Why are you just standing there? Hurry up and follow me."
Whirrrr—
The door slid open to both sides.
The interior was dark, but lights flickered on one after another.
The Dean gestured for them to follow, and the two continued deeper inside.
Once they stepped inside, the door shut tightly behind them.
A moment later, a strange gas began to seep through the cracks of the door, and a minor commotion started inside.
But such things no longer mattered.
