Ch.368368 – Past Connections

<368 – Past Connections>

Jona readily granted permission to use the laboratory.

“Now that I’ve returned, security won’t be as lax as when the facility was abandoned. From now on, please obtain official permission before entering.”

“Beep. Target scan complete. New user <Oknodie> has been registered.”

“Hey, what about me?”

To Zhang’s question, Jona drew a cold line.

“Your friend can enter without being attacked if she accompanies the young miss. Of course, entry is also permitted for those under 150cm in height even without accompaniment, but please be aware that security policies may change at any time.”

His courtesy was solely for the young miss.

Zhang received benefits only because she was the young miss’s “friend,” not because Jona held her in high regard or found her likable.

“Can I farm materials then?”

“Please use it as much as you like.”

An excited Oknodie flung open boxes throughout the laboratory and stuffed the materials piled inside into her bag.

While Oknodie was busy mindlessly gathering items, Zhang couldn’t understand the nature of these strange boxes.

“Did the professor bring all these materials?”

“They’re automatically collected. This laboratory is equipped with a system that processes and stores items collected through the ingenious wisdom of the previous user. It’s a type of productivity improvement measure implemented because time spent collecting materials meant less time for research.”

“That’s impressive. Are those golems collecting the materials?”

“Rather than explaining verbally, it would be faster to see for yourself.”

When Jona spread a specific mana frequency wave, the ceiling suddenly opened and a swarm of rats dropped to the floor.

“…”

Zhang backed away with a horrified expression.

“Is it okay to use materials brought by such filthy creatures for experiments?”

“Look carefully. These are not biological rats.”

“…?”

As Zhang stared intently at the rats, she noticed something unusual.

They were oddly docile for rats.

Upon closer inspection, their appearance was somewhat different.

They had pouches or backpacks for storing materials, and their bodies were more angular than ordinary rats.

Recalling Jona’s <Metal Manipulation>, their identity was easy to guess.

“Metal rats?”

“They’re degraded versions of the Blue Metal Rats you saw on the uninhabited island.”

Catching one and placing it on her palm for closer examination, Zhang could see there were no hygiene issues.

This small rat was densely enchanted with movement enhancement, memory imprinting, material identification collection, auto-cleaning, stealth enhancement, and automatic recovery.

So there was a secret to how they could collect materials for so long without breaking down, even without an owner.

“It’s surprising these rats survived safely in the Academy. First-years might not bother them, but upperclassmen might try to seize ownership.”

“Within the school, seizing ownership of familiar spirits isn’t something students do carelessly unless they’re quite confident. Especially for familiar spirits with enchantments exceeding a certain number.”

“Because it indirectly proves how formidable the owner is?”

Even Zhang found it quite chilling.

Imagine grabbing a passing metal rat because it looked useful, claiming it as your own, only to have a professor appear in the middle of the night…

It wouldn’t be strange to be captured by the professor, dragged to the laboratory, and forced to help with experiments all weekend before finally being released.

If caught by a student, you’d probably face even more trivial and annoying tasks.

If you’re not caught, who knows what might happen to you.

Even first-years would be afraid to do such a thing, and the consequences for upperclassmen making such mistakes would be truly terrifying.

“So please be careful, young miss.”

“It’s fine. Just don’t get caught!”

“…My advice was completely unhelpful. How unfortunate.”

Zhang understood the secret of material supply.

However, looking at the amount of materials in the metal rats’ pouches, she noticed something strange.

“How often do they collect this much material?”

“Information about weekly collected materials can be checked by those with user qualifications by manipulating the mana panel. I’m referring to the young miss, of course.”

That young-miss-parrot.

Zhang glared at the annoying butler uniform.

“Don’t you need to educate Oknodie?”

“For the young miss’s sake, I’ll explain that, for example, gallbladder grass, which has low collection difficulty but minimal medicinal effect, is collected at 100g weekly for experiments verifying the mixed effects of similar medicinal materials.”

“What about rare materials?”

“For materials that can only be collected in specific seasons, we collect as much as possible without damaging the ecosystem. For September’s rare materials, there’s sun pepper. We collect 200g weekly from early August to late September.”

Among the various boxes, Zhang noticed the capacity of the sun pepper storage box and realized it was too small to store all that weight of sun pepper.

“There are too few boxes. If you collect so much, where do you store it all?”

“As expected of the young miss’s friend, a sharp observation. This also highlights the young miss’s discerning eye in making good friends. I commend you.”

“Heheh. Did Jona just praise me?”

I made the observation, so why is Oknodie getting praised?

As Zhang frowned in disbelief, Oknodie asked.

“Are you jealous?”

“I’m not.”

“You can’t have Jona. He’s mine. So you have to endure, okay?”

“I said I’m not.”

“Hmm~ Really? Jona is an amazing butler! High strength, high agility, high intelligence, a perfect butler who can do anything needed!”

“Do you want me to be jealous or not?”

“You shouldn’t be! …But I’d like it if you were a little bit!”

‘What am I supposed to do with that?’

Zhang smiled wryly, thinking how difficult it was to understand Oknodie’s reed-like heart.

“May I continue with the explanation?”

“Yes!”

“Excess collected materials are used as ingredients for higher-tier crafted items, so quantity isn’t an issue.”

This meant the system was well-optimized to prevent waste of collected resources.

“Where did all these previous users go? Did they graduate with you?”

“They all died.”

“!?”

“One correction. For one of them, it would be more accurate to say they’re missing, which is as good as dead.”

The fact remains they’re all dead.

There was a heavy atmosphere from Jona suggesting not to probe further.

Despite the air growing heavy, Oknodie remained cheerful.

“Were they your classmates?”

“It’s not a story worth telling to the young miss.”

“But I want to know! It’s a new event!”

“…Young miss, you always loved events at the mansion too. Just as the Chairman loved what he called destiny.”

After some contemplation, Jona nodded as if believing Oknodie’s peculiarity, which overlapped with the Chairman, was trustworthy.

“There were three types of people who accessed this laboratory. First were my classmates who built this laboratory with me. They are now the <previous users> whose records have been erased.”

“Why did the records of the deceased disappear?”

“Because it would be troublesome if someone were to peek at their records.”

“You mean you, Jona?”

“That’s right.”

“Then who was the second type?”

“Other young misses before you.”

“Eh.”

Oknodie looked around.

“But there’s hardly any trace of people coming and going here? And all the materials were full!”

“That’s because all the young misses couldn’t endure life at Gift Academy.”

“Ah, so they all dropped out!”

“…”

“And the last type must be illegal intruders? Not important people!”

Zhang wanted to ask what happened to those illegal intruders when they were caught by the golems, but the atmosphere didn’t allow for such questions, so she maintained her silence.

“But Jona, you’re from the Foundation, right?”

“I am now.”

“Then couldn’t the Foundation protect the information of those who passed away?”

“It’s the opposite. I erased the information because I didn’t want my friends’ information to enter the Foundation.”

‘Is it okay to say such things to the Foundation’s VIP young miss?’

Zhang couldn’t understand, but Jona didn’t want to lie in front of the young miss.

Because he had already lost three young misses.

Erasing his friends’ past, revealing the secret laboratory he built with them to the young misses, allowing Oknodie and Zhang to intrude—all for the same reason.

‘Wait, that makes the story strange. Oknodie definitely said she came here before, but she just reacted as if she’s learning about the lack of traces and abundance of materials for the first time.’

If that’s true, it means Oknodie came all the way to the laboratory but never took materials from the boxes despite seeing no signs of human activity.

Was it because she didn’t have a backpack with seemingly limitless capacity back then?

As always, a child whose details don’t add up.

The Dark Princess, who seems to harbor deeper darkness the more you look into her, like being trapped in a tunnel.

As always, Zhang felt a strong sense of kinship with Oknodie’s darkness, finding it fitting for an assassin.

So the sense of incongruity was pushed aside.

The original purpose of coming here was a kind of investigation to determine if Jona Wiheomhae was involved in the disappearance of a student named Dobby.

If so, there was one thing that needed to be confirmed.

‘If there’s a special material box here, then Giselle’s concerns would be confirmed. For example… a material box that fills up using people as ingredients.’

There were too many missing persons connected to Jona Wiheomhae’s past—dead classmates, expelled young misses, people entangled with him.

Enough to warrant such suspicion.

So she searched diligently and finally discovered one suspicious box.

‘Letters?’

It wasn’t the human material box she was looking for, but something equally intriguing appeared.

It was a letter box containing letters left by Jona Wiheomhae’s “young miss.”