Chapter 23
Translator: True Detective
### Chapter 23: Railgun Experiment (2)
The scream heard from beyond the wall brought me to my senses in a flash.
*'Don't tell me, she didn't die, right?'*
[If she was hit, it's instant death. You saved her the trouble of having a funeral. Rihan.]
*'Senior, please stop saying unlucky things! The genre is about to change right now!'*
Now it's about to turn from [Romance Fantasy] to [Crime Thriller].
I hurriedly ran to the lab next door.
Please, praying it only smells of burning instead of blood, I kicked the door open.
Between thick dust and stone fragments.
A female researcher with mugwort-colored hair was sitting on the floor trembling.
Tears were welling up in her teal pupils.
The coin I launched is stuck in the wall a span above the crown of her head.
A pungent burning smell vibrates along the trajectory the coin passed through.
It really was a hair's breadth difference.
"Are...... you okay?"
When I asked carefully, she jerked her head up.
"Do I look okay! I just heard the sound of one of my hairs burning! This crazy......!"
She, who was shouting, checked my face and suddenly her jaw dropped.
"......Don't tell me you are that Chief Researcher Rihan the Duke spoke of?"
"Ah, yes. I made a little mistake."
At my answer, her complexion turned pale blue in an instant.
With an expression almost on the verge of crying, she slammed her forehead on the floor and prostrated herself flat.
"I am sorry! I am truly sorry for standing in that position! I am sorry for using the room next to your lab! Please don't drill a hole in my head!"
"......?"
No, I am the perpetrator, so why is the victim apologizing.
That man Cassian, what on earth has he been saying around.
[Hoo, Rihan. Have you now developed a hobby of intimidating and making a pitiful woman cry.]
*'Senior, I'm not that much of a trash.'*
I am also a modern person who went through the socialization process in my own way.
I am a sensible human being who knows how to apologize and take responsibility if I made a mistake.
I carefully grabbed the arms of her who was prostrating and stood her up.
"No, I am the one a hundred times in the wrong. Do not apologize. Well...... As long as you are not hurt, it's fine."
"Are you really...... really not going to kill me?"
"Why would I kill a person."
Suddenly treated like a homicidal maniac.
It's unfair, but thinking about my performance just now, I don't really have anything to say.
She rubbed her tear-smeared eyes with her sleeve.
"My name is **Celly**. I am in charge of fluid mana analysis."
The appearance of Celly whom I helped up is quite attractive.
Although she gives the impression of a graduate student with dark circles settling on her hollow eyes.
Her green hair and delicate features reminded me of a forest fairy.
Of course, probably a fairy steeped in night shifts.
[Rihan. Look at that child's face. Seeing with my eyes, it is undoubtedly the face of one who lost sleep for a week.]
*'It looks like that just by looking at it.'*
Beyond feeling a sense of kinship, a corner of my chest aches.
I in my past life was in exactly that state too.
[Causing an accident and running away feigning ignorance is not the duty of a mage.]
*'You only look for duty at times like this.'*
But it's as Eleanor said.
Celly is holding the hem of my clothes and still trembling.
My conscience does not allow me to just apologize and leave like this.
"Ms. Celly. Is there perhaps anything I can help you with? I will help you with just one thing as a reward. I can do things like formula correction or experiment design quickly."
At my proposal, Celly's eyes opened wide.
"Really? Are you really going to help me? Um...... Is it okay for me to see Sir Rihan's heterogeneous magic analysis in person?"
"Yes. Anything."
"Then! Could you perhaps go to Asterion Academy with me?"
"......Yes?"
Why does the Academy suddenly come out here?
****
**Asterion Academy.**
The main stage of the original novel
The Magic Flower Language of the Academy
.And the place I put so much effort into detaching Yveline from.
But she's telling me to go there on my own two feet?
"Why go there suddenly?"
"There is a rumor that ghosts appear at the Academy so we are investigating, but we can't figure out the cause at all. Whether it's a magical anomaly or simple magic power residue...... We absolutely need the Chief Researcher's heterogeneous perspective!"
Celly clung to me with the momentum as if she would grab my pant leg.
*'Wait, a ghost disturbance......?'*
Wasn't that the main event that decorated the early part of the novel?
That episode where the heroine Yuna sees a vengeful spirit and achieves her first growth by solving the case together with Crown Prince Edwin.
The scenes of the two roaming the school grounds late at night, enjoying a date doubling as a courage test, flashed through my mind.
But suddenly a sense of incongruity is felt.
*'Wait, what month is it now?'*
It is currently the end of May.
If my memory is correct, this incident should have been wrapped up neatly by early April at the latest.
But they are still investigating it?
In other words, it means the main story has been stagnant for almost two months.
Why? Just what is the problem?
Wasn't it not even an episode with such high difficulty?
It's content that ends by simply resolving the vengeful spirit's resentment and letting it pass on without even a battle.
If I detached Yveline, wouldn't it be normal for the protagonists to solve it more comfortably?
Wait a minute.
Don't tell me.
*'.........Fuck, is it because of me?'*
The so-called Butterfly Effect.
They say the flapping of a butterfly's wings calls a typhoon.
It seems my flapping wings smashed the development of the original work.
In the original work, Yveline was the catalyst who tormented Yuna at every turn.
And Crown Prince Edwin built a connection acting as a shield protecting Yuna.
Especially this vengeful spirit incident can only be put to an end if Edwin's unique magic is present.
But the villain Yveline is sticking next to me acting as a lab fixture.
The opportunity itself for the two to get intertwined disappeared in the first place.
"........."
Is it okay to leave it like this?
I didn't read that damn novel to the end, so I don't exactly know the later content.
Because I got sick of the frustrating development and threw it away in the middle.
The problem is that according to genre grammar, the end of such a novel is a great catastrophe.
Of course.
There might be no great trial or anything.
It might just end fizzling out after the kids have a bit of a war of nerves.
*'Because it's a romance fantasy of all things, the development cannot be predicted at all.......'*
Honestly, wanting to roll around the lab wasting salary is my true intention.
But if a variable occurred, checking it directly prevents later trouble.
And above all, if the world is utterly destroyed, salary or whatever, it has no meaning at all, right?
I also thought I might as well raid rare papers in the Academy library while I'm at it.
"......I will go."
At my sudden change of attitude, Celly's eyes became round.
"Then in about a week, the documents......."
"No. Let's go right away within three days."
"Yes? Three days?"
There is no harm in moving fast.
It's an episode already delayed by two months.
It is beneficial for mental health to hurry and check.
[Rihan. For what reason are you so enthusiastic? A guy who would normally be stuck to the bed saying it's bothersome.]
"Something came up that I need to check."
I urged Celly while packing my lab coat.
Then Celly started scribbling something in a notebook while looking at my reaction.
"Then shall we approach it from a slightly different perspective this time?"
"A different perspective?"
"Yes! Actually, we dispatched investigators last time too, but as a professor or researcher, it was difficult to access the secret information the students hide. Everyone kept their mouths tightly shut......."
Celly suddenly clenched her fists and stared intently at me.
"So Mr. Rihan will transfer as a freshman! Hearing rumors from a student's perspective would be much more accurate!"
"......Yes?"
I almost dropped the pen I was holding.
What is this saying.
Telling a person who tasted hell up to graduate school, let alone undergraduate, in his past life to become a student again?
"No, can't I just go as a researcher and actively investigate?"
"That won't work! Because the Academy is such a prestigious school, it's full of children of high-ranking nobles. So the higher-ups want it solved quietly."
"......."
[Oh my, what a good idea! Rihan, fill that desolate head of yours with some youth romance at least. I also want to observe the vivid magic power of young kids. I am simply curious about the level of the Empire too.]
Eleanor fans the flames.
"Tuition will be fully supported by the laboratory, and we will keep your identity as Chief Researcher thoroughly secret!"
"No matter how I look at it, I think a professor suits me better than a student......."
"With your appearance, Sir Rihan, it will sufficiently pass as a freshman! You have a baby face and you're handsome!"
Celly went one step further and grabbed my hand.
"Maybe you'll meet your destined partner there! Let's make a girlfriend while we're at it!"
Going in as a student is too different from my expectations.
"Excuse me, Ms. Celly? I have no intention of returning as a student—"
It was then.
Suddenly, it feels like the air inside the lab became cold.
*'.........What is it? Did they turn on the air conditioner?'*
Celly's expression stiffened.
A cool sensation felt from behind my back.
Turning around slowly, Yveline, who said she went to the library, was standing by the door.
"What. You're here?"
"......What did you just say?"
"Huh?"
"Where are you going to make a girlfriend? With whom? How?"
Uh-oh. The atmosphere is strange.
Vitality completely disappeared from Yveline's eyes.
"Hiiik! Mr. Rihan! Then I'll see you tomorrow! I'm busy so I'll be going!"
Quick-witted Celly hurriedly ran away.
Inside the lab where silence hovered.
Yveline slowly approached and stopped in front of me.
"Rihan. What conversation did you have while I was at the library......?"
No, weren't we getting close?
This is the face I saw in the illustrations in the novel?
"No, it's not that, I ended up going to the Academy to investigate. Something like an undercover investigation. As a student."
"So? You're going there to date girls?"
"Of course not. Haha."
"........."
"Yveline, you stay at the lab. I'll solve it quickly alone and come back."
If I send Yveline to the Academy, there is a possibility she will get intertwined with the original male lead, Crown Prince Edwin.
That is a scenario I must desperately avoid.
But Yveline tightly gripped my sleeve to the point where her fingers turned pale white.
"I hate it. I'm going too. You're going to leave me here and go somewhere to meet someone?"
It seems it won't be resolved so easily.
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