Ch.234Jagang Ducheon (2)

The door closed, and a few seconds later, the lights went out, darkening the interior of the laboratory.

“C-calm down.”

The door was a sliding type. It was automatic and didn’t look easy to open by force. Above all, being made of steel meant there were limits to breaking it.

That meant hacking was necessary.

Pina checked the intercom with the door lock installed.

[Please enter the password.]

“What, that’s easy?”

It was a very basic level of security. No need to even look for hints.

Pina took out the “door lock hacking device” received from Bruce.

This equipment couldn’t open the door directly, but it could find the unique number of the lock.

In other words, she just needed to enter the number that appeared on the screen.

[Hacking complete]

[The password is 483968734950389438349034834835]

“Huh?”

Was the hacking equipment broken?

“That can’t be right?”

Pina tried the device again. The same result appeared. It didn’t seem to be an error.

Then there was only one conclusion.

Eidel Rheinland was extremely sensitive about security.

“Who makes an entrance password this long?”

She regretted leaving through the door earlier.

No, wait. If he was this sensitive about security, why did he leave the entrance door open earlier?

Pina felt a chill. Even though she was an android without pores or hair, she still felt a shiver.

Something, something was wrong.

She hurriedly entered the number. It was so long that she kept checking if she was entering it correctly.

Beep!

[Incorrect password.]

“Huh…?”

That’s impossible.

Being an android, there’s no way she could have misread a single digit. Nor would she have processed a 30-digit password as a 4-byte integer. She wasn’t that stupid.

Still, just to be sure, she brought the hacking device close again.

[The password is 921934743234098492833490456490]

“Wh-what?”

The password had changed.

“Th-this can’t be happening.”

In a desperate state of mind, she tried entering the password more quickly.

[Incorrect password.]

“This can’t be happeninggggg!”

No matter how many times she tried, it was the same. The password kept changing, and even if she somehow managed to enter it, it showed as incorrect. The door wouldn’t open.

A hypothesis suddenly occurred to her.

“N-no way… is there a time limit?”

As she kept using the device, she found that the password was being reset approximately every 15 seconds.

In other words, unless she could check the 30-digit random number, enter it perfectly, and press the asterisk button, she couldn’t escape from this room.

“Are you human?!”

It’s physically impossible!

If an android can’t do it, how could a human possibly manage!

Pina changed her thinking. The random password must be fake, and there must be a master key somewhere.

The problem was that no matter how much she looked around, she couldn’t find that key.

Suddenly finding herself in an escape room game, Pina looked around.

Ventilation, none.

Window, exists but too small. Calculations showed she would definitely get stuck if she tried to enter.

Wall, solid.

Door, very solid.

“I’m doomed…”

Just as Pina was despairing.

“Looks like our new graphics card has arrived?”

A man’s voice saying those words came through the thick steel door. Pina jumped like a frog, startled.

All sorts of thoughts raced through her mind. Rheinland, this person. Could he possibly know about her and Dr. Bruce’s existence? If so, how and since when did he know?

But she reached one conclusion.

Now was her chance to escape.

Pina might not be smart, but her physical specs were decent enough. Thanks to the doctor’s modifications, she could run faster than most military androids and easily pull heavy metal carts.

Click.

Pina took a crouching start position.

And as soon as the door opened, she shot out like a bullet.

Using agility like a martial arts master, Pina leaped out of the room and ran toward the exit she remembered.

“Wh-what? Hey, research data thief! Catch that kid!”

Looking back, she saw Eidel Rheinland and a maid android chasing after her. Eidel was fast, but not enough to keep up with her. The problem was the android.

How can she move at this speed while wearing such a wide skirt? What kind of sturdy modules did they install in her legs?

“Stop right there!”

“As if I’d stop just because you said so!”

“If you come back now, the young master won’t punish you!”

Whether he punished her or not didn’t matter.

Escape was the only answer!

Patter patter! The distance between the two robots grew closer. Pina was faster, but she had a child-like body. There was a limit to her stride length. Being caught was just a matter of time.

Just then, the end of the corridor appeared.

The path split in two: either go down the stairs or break the window in front of her and jump out.

“You’d better give up now!”

In this critical moment.

Pina took out a grappling gun from her chest and threw herself forward.

Crash!

“Oh no…!”

From the fifth floor of the laboratory. Even for an android, falling would cause shock. Pina used the grappling gun to scrape down the wall. Screech! She minimized the impact as much as possible.

After landing on the ground, Pina continued running. She didn’t even look back.

After putting several kilometers between herself and the laboratory, Pina put on a windbreaker inside out and boarded a shuttle.

“Hehe!”

Mission complete!

***

“Well done, assistant!”

“Hehe!”

Pina grinned like a child at the rare praise.

“Research notes and a dedicated tablet too. These two are like the lifeblood of a theoretical scientist.”

Bruce’s plan was simple.

Find out what Eidel von Rheinland was going to research next. Then scoop that topic.

He could do it because he was a genius. Or even if it was impossible, he could just upload the content to the internet. Researchers are sensitive to information.

“Doctor, let’s look at the research notes first!”

Even in the digital age, truly important information is written by hand. The core notebook containing research topics was a prime example. Unless it fell directly into someone else’s hands like now, there was no worry about information leakage.

In other words.

“This is the guy’s ideas themselves.”

Depending on the circumstances, it could determine a researcher’s entire life.

“Now you’re finished, Rheinland!”

Bruce smiled cynically as he opened the notebook.

[I love you so much, Professor♥]

“…?”

[Mom, I want to be a professor when I grow up! Mom, I want to be a professor when I grow up! Mom, I want to be a professor when I grow up!]

“…Wh-what is this?”

[Advisor, my light. My salt. Advisor, me.]

“What kind of crazy person is this!”

Bruce was about to throw the notebook away but took a deep breath instead.

Let’s calm down.

It’s probably just an act to impress the professor. Or maybe he went crazy because the professor pushed him too hard. Yes, thinking about it that way makes it somewhat understandable.

[I entered university because I was sick with scholarship / You entrusted me with graduate students eight hundred miles away / Hawawawa President, your grace is increasingly boundless]

No, that didn’t seem right.

This guy wasn’t fixated on the title of professor itself, but on the merits that come with becoming one.

Bossing around graduate students, freely securing research projects, and eyeing outstanding students from the undergraduate program.

“This is…”

No ordinary monster.

But Bruce felt anger more than fear.

What kind of psychopath would write such scribbles in their research notebook? He’s disqualified as a researcher, disqualified!

“I don’t like this! You call yourself a scientist?!”

Bruce angrily tore the pages from the front. It was natural that the back pages became visible.

[If a man enters graduate school, he should get a doctorate]

Rip!

[You researched that much and couldn’t write a flagship paper? Pathetic~ External~ Internal~]

Riiip!

[20 years. Theoretically enough time to earn 20 doctorates.]

Riiiip!

As he tore out page after page, Bruce felt something strange.

This research notebook.

It was as if Eidel von Rheinland had written it specifically to taunt him. It didn’t seem like random scribbles.

“Pina! Are you sure you brought the right one?!”

“Y-yes! I brought what was on the desk there!”

Pina, who had been munching on potato chips, choked as she answered. Bruce completely tore out the last page.

[Proton Bead ●]

[Neutron Bead ○]

[●○ + ●○○ → ●●○○ + ○ + E]

“Well, this is at least somewhat scientific…”

[E = ∫e^x]

“Sigh…”

It’s okay.

There’s still the tablet.

If he could get useful information from there, that would be enough.

Oh ho. Seeing that it had a lock screen, it seemed like quite important data was stored here. Bruce skillfully hacked through the security.

And what he found was a novel. It featured a protagonist with the same name as himself, who was gender-transformed by a Darwin-system alien and then violated by the tentacles of an avatar body.

“Ugh, ugggh…!”

Bruce felt the blood drain from his head. It wasn’t just plain text; with each word he read, he felt nauseous.

A familiar sensation. It was similar to the headache he got when reading records written by aliens. A pain often felt when living on a frontier planet.

Yet strangely, the writing was so good that he kept reading…

Crash!

Bruce threw the tablet down and shouted.

“…This shit! It was a burner phone!”

“S-so we were completely fooled?”

“We? Weeeee? Not we, YOU were fooled! You stupid tin can!”

“Hiing.”

In the end, they gained nothing.

But then.

Thump, thump, thump!

They felt vibrations of someone knocking on the shabby wooden door.