Ch.128Become a Science Girl (2)

I woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling.

“…Where am I?”

“Oh, you’re in a hospital room. You idiot.”

“…?”

***

“Do you enjoy passing out every chance you get? Don’t you ever think about how your family worries?”

As soon as I woke up, Seti started lecturing me. I had to endure the verbal abuse without knowing what was going on.

“You really are something else.”

Sonia’s physical attack followed right after.

Since I was a patient, she didn’t hit me with her fist.

She flicked my forehead instead. I had to offer my forehead to Sonia for a flick with every bite of apple I took.

“Are you okay?”

After being thoroughly scolded by those two, Rustila Kersil comforted me. Is this some kind of good cop, bad cop routine?

“Who in the world passes out from laughing?”

You were the worst of all.

Since I had only briefly lost consciousness, the discharge process wasn’t difficult. Seti grumbled that I’d unnecessarily incurred hospital expenses.

“How else would I get to use my health insurance benefits if I don’t visit occasionally?”

“Don’t bring up health insurance. Don’t bring up health insur—blrgh.”

I made one joke and got hit by my sister again.

Meanwhile, Rustila’s expression had softened considerably compared to before. She seemed to have been wary of Ireh initially.

“Hey, we’re leaving.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t waste money.”

“Yes…”

Seti and Rustila soon returned to Stellarium. Everyone’s busy with graduation and entrance exams coming up.

So.

The only people left were me, Sonia, and Ireh, who was crouched in a corner.

When I started walking, Sonia automatically followed. And Ireh trailed behind us from a distance.

I could guess why she was acting that way. She probably still felt uncomfortable around men.

“Yes, Professor. Yes. I just woke up. Yes, they say there’s no problem. I understand. I’ll be there right away.”

When we returned to the lab, it was like a festival.

“Graduation! It’s graduation!!!”

“Woooooooah!!!”

Two doctoral students who participated as co-first authors in the resonator research were shouting loudly while popping champagne. Are they people or beasts?

They were shaking their butts without any shame despite an undergraduate student being present, showing they were completely caught up in the moment.

When I turned around, Ireh’s expression was quite amusing.

“What on earth…”

“This happens sometimes.”

“Could it be external god…”

“No.”

Despite my denial, Ireh couldn’t hide her suspicious gaze.

Anyway, passing by the two graduate students doing twerking while holding experimental equipment, I greeted Professor Stranov.

“Hello, Professor.”

“Welcome. Are you feeling better?”

We nodded with small smiles. She knows. She knows why I fainted.

“You succeeded in changing the properties of the irregular polyhedron.”

A processed product of an irregular polyhedron with its coordination environment transformed by <Star-Building Bullet>. That material surpassed the reflectivity and hardness of the “Crystal of Hundred” that was originally used in resonators.

That’s why I couldn’t breathe.

With just this alone, one could sweep all the Archea Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Peace Prizes. That’s not my opinion, but the professors’.

“This person did it.”

I gestured to Sonia to bring Ireh over. Ireh hesitated before giving Professor Stranov a slight bow.

“Oh.”

Professor Stranov’s eyes sparkled.

“How?”

“It’s a long explanation…”

With my help, Ireh explained in detail the process using constellations. However, Professor Stranov, being a scientist herself, seemed to have trouble believing it.

“I’ll show you directly.”

Seeing is believing.

Ireh fired the <Star-Building Bullet> again in front of everyone. As the bullet containing starlight grazed it, the texture of the irregular polyhedron subtly distorted.

We conducted a structural analysis again. After confirming the exact crystal structure using 4D electron tomography, the professor…

“Ah, hnngh, haaaa…”

What’s wrong with this woman?

“Young master, something’s wrong!”

“No!! Professor, breathe! Breathe!!”

Professor Stranov clutched her chest and placed both hands on the desk. Her breathing was irregular. Her face gradually reddened like a heat rash.

“What, what’s happening?”

Ireh asked with a startled face.

“Is it an external god? I knew it, because of the irregular polyhedron…!”

“…Student!”

Huff, huff, then Professor Stranov straightened her back and grabbed Ireh’s hand. It was a swift movement as if she had used some kind of teleportation technique.

“Why, why are you doing this? Suddenly!”

While Ireh was confused, Stranov intertwined their hands even more. Looking closely, the professor’s eyes were shining brilliantly like gems.

No, that look in her eyes?!

I immediately realized.

Of course.

“Your name is… Ireh Hazlen, right?”

For a professor.

To look at a student.

With such an intense gaze.

There could only be one reason, couldn’t there?

“…Would you perhaps consider graduate school?”

Ireh blinked blankly before realizing what she had just heard and gaped.

“Graduate school, me…?”

I quickly gave Professor Stranov a signal. In a very brief moment, the professor and I exchanged glances and nodded slightly.

[Professor, it’s not the right time yet.]

[Oh, really?]

[Yes, you’re being too obvious, Professor. Hehe.]

That’s right. Now was not the time to bring up such a topic. Professor Stranov cleared her throat and cut off the conversation.

“By the way, one of the investors came by yesterday.”

“Why?”

“Saying his daughter might die soon… yes.”

The professor didn’t continue. That was enough to understand the context.

My head lowered involuntarily.

In order to save Ireh, the share that should have gone to the original investors couldn’t be delivered. This was entirely my fault.

Glancing sideways, I saw Ireh also hanging her head with pursed lips. She probably thought other people’s turns were being skipped because of her.

In truth.

Liberating her from the external god first was the best choice.

The irregular polyhedron that Ireh just processed.

If we could mass-produce this, all problems would be solved.

***

There was a man.

He was a funeral director. In the Federation, many people died in the war against monsters, so after conducting a few joint funeral services, money quickly piled up.

Although it was an avoided profession, the income was considerable. The man had thought of this job as a blue ocean since he was young, so he was wealthy enough to buy a small satellite.

Then one day, he had to go to a frontier planetary system.

‘I heard the planetary administrator passed away. The inspectors have already recovered the body, so go and guide them well to the constellation lords.’

Honestly, he wasn’t keen on it.

The frontier? Isn’t that where humans infected by external gods swarm? Even without external gods, it was a place with poor security due to the slum’s characteristic underdeveloped economy.

It’s a place anyone would avoid. It would be better to conduct funeral services for soldiers. Serving the country and getting paid.

But once he arrived at the planet, his thoughts changed.

Just a little away from the central area, corpses were everywhere. Dignity stuffed into every corner of building debris, neither burned nor buried.

As a human being, he couldn’t just ignore it.

After finishing the planetary lord’s funeral, the man took personal time to bury those people. He felt he wouldn’t be at peace otherwise.

That’s when he realized.

People die. And while there may be discrimination in death, there is no high or low. Death is equal to all, so funerals should also be equal to all.

After that, whenever a request came from a frontier planet, he volunteered first.

It was somewhat dangerous work, but it was rewarding. Before he knew it, the man had become someone who focused on the funeral itself rather than the income.

Then he met a woman.

‘Thank you for sending off my parents.’

The parents of that woman, who possessed exquisite beauty, lost their lives due to the machinations of a Descartes-type external god.

Her parents, known for their good relationship, suddenly went mad and started biting each other. They fought every day.

Eventually, the husband developed delirium and schizophrenia, while the wife developed Othello syndrome and an eating disorder. These weren’t ordinary mental illnesses. What the man heard at the funeral that day went beyond mere pathological issues.

‘Father stabbed Mother with a kitchen knife, thinking she was a monster. And Father… suddenly died while eating food Mother had prepared.’

The man embraced the sobbing woman after bestowing the blessing of the stars.

‘I have no family now.’

‘If you wish, I will go with you to the grave.’

He doesn’t know why he said such a thing to a woman he had just met.

Because she was pitiful and pathetic?

Of course, that might be part of it. But the man was beginning to realize that a bigger reason was taking root somewhere in his heart.

Probably love. Does falling in love need a reason?

Kekeke.

After that, the man established a base with the woman from the frontier planetary system. His workplace colleagues waved him off, asking why he married a woman from the frontier, but he didn’t care.

It was really fine.

But happiness didn’t last long.

‘…The mother has passed away.’

The crying baby and the limp wife.

Birth and death. At that stark contrast, everything before his eyes turned white.

Kekeke.

The man blamed the midwife and then cried like a madman on the spot. He collapsed. He had lost his loved one, and only the child she left behind cried desperately, pleading to live.

‘I’m sorry for leaving first, honey.’

Yes. He had to live.

Because there was a treasure his wife had left behind.

‘Your name is Liza, from now on, you’re Liza.’

He conducted the funeral for his loved one with his own hands. An indescribable feeling. And the man raised the child with all his heart and soul.

That was his only purpose in life.

They say life is full of unexpected turns. The planetary system where the man settled wasn’t a place with bad people.

Some women breastfed the newborn baby, and they taught him various things needed for childcare. Drawing strength from that kindness, he regained his energy.

His daughter, Liza, grew up healthy. Since she inherited her father’s surname, she could hide the tag of being from the frontier.

But she was still from a single-parent family. Liza always asked:

‘Where is Mom?’

Each time, it felt like his heart was being torn apart and his intestines were being cut. The father inevitably had to hide his emotions. That way, his young daughter wouldn’t worry.

He didn’t drink or smoke. That too would be a way to die early and leave his child.

When time passed and his daughter turned eight and entered elementary school, not long after, she came home crying.

His daughter was quite pretty and received a lot of affection from the boys in her class, but some girls who saw this bullied her.

‘What did they say?’

‘Well, that…’

Girl without a mother.

Elementary school students these days were particularly aggressive in their speech.

Liza was so upset that she vented her frustrations to him. Why was she the only one without a mother? Was she really his daughter, or was she picked up from a space station?

The man swallowed his emotions for the first time in a long while.

So it was a bit better. Indeed, there’s nothing better than alcohol to make one feel the hardship.

Staggering, nodding, barely holding onto his fraying sanity as he returned home, what he saw was:

‘D-Daddy, h-hehehehehehe.’

His daughter was scribbling all over the house with a red crayon.