The Nemo Buster Phenomenon
When it became known that the third development product, the Nemo Buster, possessed performance exceeding ordinary computers and overwhelming every existing AI, people immediately began analyzing how such a small toy could achieve those results.
The method was simple: reverse engineering. If there had been no physical units available, it might have been different, but the Nemo Buster was one of the easiest items to obtain.
Basement-dwelling YouTubers, professors from prestigious universities, and even government scientists—all sorts of researchers got their hands on a Nemo Buster and took it apart. Yet not a single one of them could understand how this tiny wind-up robot produced such incredible performance.
“What the hell is this?”
“How can a circuit this small deliver that kind of power?”
“This is insane! It completely defies the laws of physics!”
The scientists were stunned. No matter how they thought about it, they couldn’t comprehend how a palm-sized toy could generate such capability.
It must have felt like how medieval people would have reacted upon discovering a smartphone. The results were right in front of them, they could even use it, but they couldn’t understand how it worked.
Naturally, every attempt to reproduce it ended in complete failure.
“You failed to replicate it?”
“…I’m sorry, sir.”
“No, does that even make sense? We bribed factory workers to steal the blueprints, we have working units built exactly to those blueprints. And you still can’t replicate it?”
At the supervisor’s words, the scientist kept awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck, looking ashamed.
“It appears there must be a special manufacturing process that isn’t listed in the blueprints…”
“Then figure it out!”
“We’re continuing to try, but if the manufacturing sequence was deliberately hidden from the blueprints, discovering it is nearly impossible.”
“What’s so hard about simple replication?”
“Of course, with the blueprints and physical samples, blindly copying it would eventually succeed… but the number of attempts required would be astronomical…”
The supervisor let out a long, heavy sigh as he listened to the scientists who kept saying it couldn’t be done. As a liberal arts major, there was no way he could understand their technical explanations. In the end, all he understood was that these so-called scientists were utterly incompetent since they couldn’t even copy something being mass-produced in a factory despite having the blueprints.
“Then what about that mysterious power source? Did you figure out how that much energy is coming from a wind-up spring?”
“The spring itself doesn’t differ much from ordinary ones we use. Even when wound to maximum, the most it can do is briefly light up an LED…”
“Wait. Then how on earth is it generating that kind of power? And how does it even operate the built-in circuitry?”
“It seems to be a hidden function within the circuit. Which means the power required for that circuit is only at that level…”
Extremely low power—just enough to barely light an LED bulb. Yet it delivered computational power surpassing the latest graphics cards and high-output energy capable of moving a robot. Only after hearing those words did the supervisor finally realize what kind of technology was packed inside that toy robot. And just how monstrous the company that created it—Evils Enterprise—truly was.
“…Just what kind of people are running Evils Enterprise?”
“Who knows. Maybe they caught an alien or something?”
“I see…”
The supervisor seriously contemplated whether he should report to the Hero Association that some poor alien seemed to be imprisoned inside Evils Enterprise and needed to be rescued immediately.
“I’d really like to see the face of whoever made something like this.”
I suddenly received a date invitation from Aile.
“S-Science Guy… w-would you like to go shopping with me?”
“Hm? Sure. When?”
“R-Right now!”
It was surprising since Aile didn’t seem like the type to be interested in shopping. Still, I followed her to the mall and quickly realized it wasn’t surprising at all.
Aile was carrying armfuls of magical girl merchandise with a huge, beaming smile on her face.
“—Ehehehe. Th-Thank you, Science Guy.”
“I wondered why you suddenly wanted to go shopping…”
“I-I can’t buy everything by myself… There’s a purchase limit per person…”
She hugged the magical girl goods tightly to her chest as she spoke. Whether she liked them that much was beside the point—I didn’t think she’d have any trouble getting what she wanted.
After all, she was a dark magical girl and an executive of a villain organization. She could get as much money as she needed. All she had to do was squeeze it out of the boss.
“Couldn’t you just buy them secondhand? If you look for resales, you should be able to get everything.”
“S-Secondhand?! I can’t stand the thought of my magical girls being touched by someone else…!”
“‘My’ magical girls? They’re not yours though…”
“A-And I hate resellers too…! Unless the money goes to the magical girls themselves…!”
“Yeah, I’ll give you that one.”
As we walked along chatting about various things, shouts suddenly erupted from inside a store we were passing. It was a customer’s voice, thick with dissatisfaction.
“—Why don’t you have any Nemo Busters?! I came here because I knew you had them!”
“I’m sorry, sir. That product has already sold out…”
“No way! I know you have them! Stop hiding them and hand them over right now!”
I gave a bitter smile as I watched the man desperately searching for the new Evils product, the Nemo Buster. I was grateful that people wanted to buy something our company made, but it was obvious at a glance that he wasn’t looking for it because he actually needed a toy.
“It’s really popular… the Nemo Buster.”
“Prices have shot up like crazy on the internet.”
“Ah, so that guy is…”
“Definitely trying to resell them.”
Once people heard that the circuit inside the Nemo Buster outperformed the latest high-end graphics cards, they began sweeping up every remaining unit in stock.
Thanks to that, the current market price of a Nemo Buster had exceeded one thousand dollars. Considering the original retail price was less than ten dollars, it had increased more than a hundredfold.
Naturally, once the price rose this much, it wasn’t going to come back down. Evils Enterprise had already halted production and sales of the Nemo Buster.
At least they didn’t issue a recall. That’s a relief.
If they had gone as far as recalling them, the uproar would have been even bigger. Fortunately, Regalia had decided only to stop sales rather than recall the product.
The first reason was that recalling a product with no defects or problems simply because its performance was overwhelmingly good would drag the company’s image through the mud.
The second reason was that if they unnecessarily recalled them, people would think Evils Enterprise hadn’t anticipated this situation either. But if they treated it like a one-time limited edition release and acted completely unfazed, people would end up praising the company’s technological prowess.
More precisely, it was to hide my identity…
I smiled bitterly at that thought. Honestly, I hadn’t expected this world’s scientific technology to be so far behind. After all, their weapons were incredibly advanced.
Fighter jets that could perform inertial maneuvers at twenty times the speed of sound, spacesuits that could safely drop people from satellites—there were many technologies that couldn’t have been achieved without considerable advancement. So I had assumed their tech level was fairly decent.
But when I looked into it again, it turned out all of those things were created using ESP.
Who would have thought they made all of that with ESP?
The so-called ESP engineering. They just made a plausible-looking exterior and relied entirely on espers’ abilities for everything else. It was less engineering and more like a circus act wearing the mask of science.
However, having come from Earth where there was no such thing as ESP, I couldn’t have imagined such a system existed. That was how all these misunderstandings had arisen.
I’ll have to be more careful from now on.
Thanks to this incident, I now clearly understood just how valuable the knowledge I possessed was in this world—and how much danger I could face because of it.
Technologies that, if carelessly released, could casually trigger a world war… I could roughly understand why Regalia had made such a fuss about it.
“U-Um… Science Guy?”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“Sorry for interrupting your thoughts… but could you keep me company a little longer?”
I nodded readily at Aile’s request. Even if we went back now, I didn’t have anything particular to do. Aile smiled at my answer, then quickly pulled out her smartphone and searched for something.
“Th-There’s a magical girl collaboration café nearby! I-I’ve never been because it’s usually full of popular people…”
“Ah, so that’s why you suddenly started talking to me.”
“U-Usually people go with friends or their boyfriend… but I don’t have either…”
“Then today I’ll be Aile’s boyfriend?”
“E-Eeeehhh—?! D-Don’t tease me like that!”
I burst out laughing as I watched Aile jump in surprise at my light teasing. I played along with her flustered protests as we headed toward the magical girl collaboration café together.
On the way, Aile, who had run out of money, suggested stopping by the bank, so we changed direction. I thought she could just use a card, but she said she didn’t want to waste even one percent of the money going toward magical girl stuff.
And that was how we ended up encountering a bank robber at the bank we stopped at. A bank robber who used ESP.
“—Nobody move!”
Whoosh—! The robber instantly set the security guard on fire and threatened everyone while flames erupted from his hands.
“Get down on the ground, all of you! You don’t want to die a worthless death like this, do you?!”
“U-Uhh…”
“Kyaaaaah—!”
“I-It’s a robber!”
People quickly dropped to the floor. Since the robber had already burned one person to death, they couldn’t ignore the possibility of suffering the same fate if they disobeyed. I pulled Aile into my arms and lay down on the floor as well.
Aile, who had been forcibly pulled down and held against me, glared furiously at the bank robber while biting her lip hard. Seeing her like that, I quietly whispered into her ear.
“Don’t.”
“…But—! How can I just sit here and watch…?!”
“If you transform here, your identity will be exposed. If your identity gets exposed, I’ll be suspected too since I’m with you. And above all, we’re not heroes.”
At those words, Aile clenched her fists and trembled. It was understandable. She had been a non-powered person until recently and had only just obtained the power of a dark magical girl. Of course she didn’t want to miss the chance to use her strength.
But she wasn’t a magical girl of justice. She wasn’t a hero. She was an executive of a villain organization. A dark magical girl. In other words, a villain.
“But… if we just stay still, the citizens will—”
“It’s fine. Where do you think we are right now?”
This was the main bank that did business with Evils Enterprise. In other words, it was one of E City’s most critical facilities. There was no way a place like this would only have a single guard.
Sure enough, the moment I finished speaking, someone wearing a police uniform came rushing in from outside. The bank robber must have heard the footsteps too, because he turned his head, but the speed at which the officer charged was too fast to follow with the naked eye.
In an instant, the officer subdued the robber, slammed him to the floor, covered his eyes with a blindfold, and cuffed both his hands. The bank robber, subdued before he could even react, struggled and shouted.
“Ugh—?! Wh-What the hell! Let go of me!”
Perhaps in a final act of desperation, flames shot out from his cuffed hands. The quick-witted officer couldn’t dodge the flames fired at close range—or perhaps chose to take them head-on to protect the other people. Either way, the officer received the flames with their entire body.
It was the same flame that had melted a person in seconds. People screamed “Kyaaaaah—!” as they watched. But astonishingly, the officer survived being hit by those flames and swung a fist at the robber.
“Guh—!”
After knocking the robber unconscious with a single punch, the officer spat on the ground. Then, realizing that their uniform top had been completely burned away, they quickly covered their chest.
“—Ahem. Citizens, the robber has been subdued! You may now relax and continue with what you were doing-nyang.”
“W-Wooooow—!”
At the officer’s words, people burst into cheers and began applauding. The officer accepted the applause with a slightly awkward expression, then put on the jacket a colleague who arrived shortly afterward handed over and started walking toward us.
I deliberately turned my head away and avoided eye contact as the officer approached, their jacket only loosely covering their front. Had they noticed me staring earlier…?
“Aile-!”
“L-Levitan.”
“Fancy running into you here! What a coincidence-nyang!”
But the officer approached Aile instead of me and greeted her. Aile had said she didn’t have any friends to go shopping with, yet she knew a police officer?
I looked at the officer with curious eyes. The officer met my gaze and gave me a bright smile. It was the look of a hunter who had found its prey.
“So this is the rumored Science Guy?”
“…You know who I am?”
“Eh-? The boss didn’t tell you-nyang?”
As the officer spoke, she brought her hand up beside the rabbit ears growing from the top of her head and struck a cute pose.
“Pop pop— Evil organization executive. I’m Levitan-nyang! Call me Levitang-nyang~!”
Watching the officer wiggle her rabbit ears as she introduced herself, I couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh. I wasn’t one to talk, but this city really seemed completely out of its mind.
Who could have guessed? The police officer who had just risked her life to protect citizens from a robber was actually a villain?
Probably no one would have ever imagined it.