episode_0217

As the orientation dragged on, the Violets began to feel tired.

“Boring! Don’t we already know all this?”

The orientation was simply too dull.

“…Therefore, history can be defined as a continuous dialogue from the past to the present, simply by its existence. That is why we are learning war history this semester. Please bear with us, even if it’s boring.”

During war history class, as I pretended to listen intently to the lecture while peeking at the game the resting Violets were playing, a predicament befell me.

“But one student seems to be enjoying my class very much. Student Violet?”

“Gasp! Yes?”

The history professor, with a stern-looking impression, pointed me out. The students’ gazes focused on me.

“I have a question for our student who loves history. During the Great War, there was a battle that became a turning point in the war. It was the Battle of Erngart. What was the name of the general who commanded this battle?”

Violet 243, startled, looked around.

‘Daphneya, help me!’

But I realized.

Daphne was in a class at a different time, so she wasn’t here!

I looked at Kalia, who was right next to me.

‘Tell me!’

‘What? Why are you looking at me? I don’t know!’

But there was salvation. Looking around, I saw another friend.

‘Ireneya! Save me!’

Irene, who had turned to look at me from the front row, seemed to read my expression. She let out a deep sigh and mouthed something.

“What do I do? I can’t see it well!”

“Ugh! I’m going to get points deducted!”

At this rate, I’d definitely get scolded for slacking off.

Just as the professor’s brow was about to furrow slightly, I quickly contacted the Violets at headquarters.

“Girls, big trouble!”

The Violets hastily searched through their data.

“Uh, um. So… General Emmanuel Raix?”

A response squeezed out with all my might for 5 seconds, what was the result?

“That’s correct. Applause!”

The professor’s face brightened. Fortunately, it was the right answer.

“As you all know, General Raix of the Parmia Imperial Federation was one of the first Awakened heroes, and he was the first to develop combined air-ground tactics consisting of tanks, biplanes, and Awakened hunters.

The academic world says that the true human counterattack began before and after the emergence of these tactics…”

The class continued as I let out a sigh of relief.

“But these are not the only heroes of the Great War. Anyone else know?”

In the front row, a student with a somewhat gloomy, military-loving appearance shot up their hand.

“General Alexandre Haiburn! He was General Raix’s friend!”

Was this class filled only with military buffs who loved war history? Everyone answered smoothly.

“Adriana Belestan. The Witch of Lightning!”

“Cedric Cascadia!”

“Jemond Lestrade! The Immortal Knight!”

“What are they talking about?”

“Ugh… so many otaku!”

Clicking our tongues inwardly, we tried to understand our fellow students.

Perhaps these people were like Admiral Yi Sun-sin or King Sejong in this world.

“But they didn’t save us Violets, did they? They couldn’t save us, right?”

“They’re just ordinary folks from a hundred years ago!”

“Right! A scholarship student who saves the hearts of modern people might be more of a hero!”

As everyone spoke excitedly, the lecture hall became heated with enthusiasm.

It seemed everyone had their own heroes.

That was until someone poured cold water on the discussion.

“Noctis Valefor…?”

“…!”

The moment one tactless individual mentioned Noctis Valefor, the former chairman of Polaris and a crazy criminal currently undergoing detention and trial, cold water was splashed all over the lecture hall.

The students’ rebukes immediately flew.

“That crazy old geezer? He’s a villain!”

“Th-that’s not what I meant! I heard he was friends with the heroes mentioned earlier. He really was a hero back then.”

“Are you insane? What kind of hero is a mage who conducts human experiments?”

“He must have taken bribes from Magnavis…”

The lecture hall was enveloped in an awkward and uncomfortable silence, as if Adolf Hitler had been nominated for a peace prize.

“Ahem, let’s stop talking about that person. Ongoing incidents are political issues, so let’s not mention them. That’s all!”

Only after the professor intervened did the students calm down.

“As expected, the world needs a true hero.”

By the way, is the Ariel Group a hero or not?

**

Even after the history lecture, which sparked complicated debates, the professors’ questions continued.

Business management class.

“What do you think is the most important quality in leadership?”

Biology class.

“Based on the bio-energy metabolism process of magic beasts, what determines the differences in variation among species?”

Up to this point, I managed to answer, albeit with effort.

In fact, from the perspective of pure knowledge acquisition, studying is meaningless for us Violets.

All problems regarding knowledge can be solved by putting Violets into a library full of computers and stacks of books.

It’s called the Violet Room!

With the power of the Violet Room, we flawlessly navigated the barrage of questions.

However, the tide of questions came relentlessly, like mountains stacked upon mountains, and we finally cried out in despair.

During Introduction to Ether Dynamics.

The green-haired middle-aged woman, who introduced herself as Professor Sharia, pointed me out and threw a sharp question.

“You, in the second row from the back, in the left corner? Don’t doze off, look here?”

“Yes, yes, Professor?”

“Would you like to come up and solve this curvature calculation problem for Ether Equation 3 written on the blackboard? The hint is that the key is to find the reciprocal of the radius of curvature.”

“M-me?”

“Yes, Violet, right?”

I don’t know why professors always ask me questions when they see me. Do they dislike me?

“I looked it up, she’s forty this year, so maybe that’s why she’s like that!”

“Uwaah! It’s math!”

“We haven’t learned this yet!”

I decided to use my new friend card. My smart blue-haired male friend right next to me.

‘Lucian! You know that, right? Give me the answer right now!’

However, Lucian’s face stiffened seriously as he looked at the problem.

He whispered.

‘…Even I don’t know that one.’

That mage-auntie might be jealous of us beautiful Violets and trying to test us.

“Then let’s use a cheat!”

I immediately rushed to the Violet headquarters’ lab.

The moment I opened the door, I was met by two researchers enjoying coffee amidst piles of papers.

“Professor Albert! Help me!”

“What’s with the sudden commotion? You’re not asking me to solve a problem, are you?”

I immediately showed him the magic formula.

Professor Albert, upon seeing the problem, frowned and questioned me.

“Tsk tsk, I knew you’d come running here as soon as it got difficult…

Wait, that professor at Aegis Academy, her hair is red, isn’t it? Her name was Sharia, I think.”

“How did you know?”

“Hmm, this might be…”

The professor looked at me and the problem for a moment, then chuckled as if something interesting had occurred to him.

“That woman is messing with her students. Anyway, you want the answer, right?”

“Yes, can’t you do it? Please help me just once!”

Professor Albert readily agreed to my request.

“Alright. I’ll solve it for you, just copy it down.”

I didn’t know why he was helping us, but the Violet on site watched the professor solve the problem.

And I, at the academy, copied it exactly onto the blackboard.

A feast of complex, incomprehensible formulas and numbers. The blackboard was packed.

“I’ve finished solving it. Is it correct?”

Professor Sharia’s face was a mixture of admiration and shock.

“Th-that’s right. Student, but how did you… how did you… This is an advanced-level problem…”

Upon seeing the professor’s reaction, the students sitting in the classroom were divided in their attitudes.

“What? How did she solve that?”

“Is she really in the same first year as us?”

“Doesn’t look like she used a calculator.”

Half the students whispered, staring as if I were an alien. The rest were…

“Crazy… she’s a genius!”

“She solved that on the spot? Even our seniors couldn’t do that!”

I sat back down triumphantly, receiving the gazes of the first-year students.

“Now, the problem that Ms. Violet just solved is…”

Lucian, who was next to me, asked.

“How did you solve that? Professor Albert didn’t even cover that in our lessons.”

“I asked the professor!”

“It was a cheat, huh…”

He shook his head.

**

While the student Violet attended class, the assistant Violet, far away, conversed with the researchers on site.

“By the way, what did you mean by ‘messing with them’?”

When the assistant Violet posed the question, Professor Albert kindly replied.

“Back when I was a tenured professor, I used to interact a lot with professors from other academies. We shared knowledge, met at seminars. So, naturally, it’s normal to meet many magic professors from Aegis Academy, isn’t it?”

“Aha…”

“Each professor has a different teaching style, but Professor Sharia believes that a student gets stronger the more they use their brain. So her style is to throw a difficult problem and then observe how they solve it to determine their direction.”

The moment I heard the professor’s explanation, I understood why she brought out such a difficult problem in a first-year second-semester class.

Anyway, I wondered what these people were doing here, and assistant Violet 112 looked at the desk.

A stack of papers with a familiar symbol caught my eye.

A purple phoenix with wings embedded with electronic circuits and a tail shaped like a DNA helix.

“Isn’t this Luminexa?”

Several titles were written on the research papers.

[Integration of Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning and Quantum-Enhanced Neural Networks for Combat with Magic Beasts]

[Construction Process of Parallel Connected Computation Networks for Dynamic Task Allocation of Swarm Entities]

[Learning in Parallel Neural Networks: Ether Computation and Inference through Elastic Weight Integration]

“What are these?”

Dr. Yurik answered my question.

“Oh, it’s nothing special. These are just materials I’ve been looking at in my leisure time recently. They’re research materials from when famous scholars in Trist tried to create super-intelligent computers.”

“Super-intelligent computers?”

I tilted my head at the unfamiliar term.

When I looked at them as if I truly didn’t understand, the two calmly began to explain.

“Simply put, it’s artificial intelligence. It was a global project to analyze ether and artificially implement magic. It was canceled before I even entered elementary school.”

“It couldn’t be helped. Only a living creature’s brain could properly track and handle the movement of ether. Moreover, computer circuits can’t withstand the electromagnetic waves or radiation that occur when ether is activated. Even if you surround them with protective equipment to block it, they eventually transform into something grotesque, like artifacts excavated from dungeons.”

Finally, a topic I knew came up, and I chimed in.

“Oh, that’s right! That’s why wireless communication doesn’t work inside dungeons or heavily eroded areas. And unprotected electronic devices break down quickly too.”

It seems the people here also tried their best to fight magic beasts.

“Hmm, by the way, Violet. You said you were at Raphlaxia, right?”

“Yes! They’re bad guys.”

At my answer, Professor Albert stroked his chin, lost in thought.

“Now that I think about it, it’s quite strange. I wondered why those guys turned their own specialty upside down.”

“They changed industries?”

“Luminexa Research Foundation’s main focus is biotechnology and nanotechnology. But at one point, electronics was the core of the foundation.”

“Electronics, you mean things like electricity or semiconductors?”

Yurik nodded and replied.

“That’s right. Decades ago, there was a brief AI boom. Approaches like defeating magic beasts with robot armies and solving difficult problems in ether dynamics with AI were popular. But when the AI project failed, many of the existing foundation personnel resigned.”

“General Secretary Pagan seized control of the foundation in that vacuum. His twin brother then led his own people and independently established Raphlaxia.”

So that’s what happened.

“But why are you explaining all this to me? And why are you looking at AI data?”

The doctor and the professor glanced at each other. The professor answered gruffly.

“Well, you had a bad experience with those Raphlaxia guys, didn’t you? I explained it in case it might be helpful. And this is just our hobby. Don’t meddle in adult business and go on.”

The assistant Violet, still bewildered, prepared to go outside again.

“Oh, right. Violet. I forgot one thing. About that magic professor’s characteristic.”

“What is it?”

Professor Albert said in a rare, excited voice.

“Professor Sharia is said to like students who take her pranks well. Good luck.”

I didn’t understand the meaning of Professor Albert’s words.

Only after the class ended did I realize what the professor had meant.

“Hehehe, Student Violet. Would you mind coming to my office for a moment?”

The green-haired witch-professor called me with a strange look in her eyes.

“You are clearly a talent who will achieve great things…! Are you perhaps more interested in studying?”

I got goosebumps and quickly ran away.

“Eek! No!”