Ch.77The Guy Writing a Thesis in Prison (4)

[Morning, 7:28 AM]

“It’s okay. Everything will be fine. Nothing unusual will happen…”

[Prisoner number 888887. Engaging in incomprehensible self-encouragement. Anxiety symptoms appear severe.]

At 7:30 AM, I headed to the cafeteria, having skipped the dawn jog and leaving my cell later than usual.

“Hmm?”

Today was the first time I sat at the same table as the girl from the neighboring cell. Somehow, I ended up right next to her.

I rarely saw her during meals, so I thought she might have been possessed by a Darwin-type transcendent, but apparently not. She must have eaten at different times than me, or perhaps hidden somewhere to eat.

“Please, there must be an answer. I have to escape somehow.”

She seemed out of her mind, but I quickly tuned her out. People like this aren’t uncommon here.

More importantly, my paper.

I placed my printed paper beside me and slowly read while stirring my soup. Today’s menu was ox bone soup.

Ox bone soup with rice, and tofu pancakes too.

Food in this world was surprisingly diverse. They served dishes from both Eastern and Western cuisines. Thanks to that, I could enjoy a relatively rich culinary experience.

Sometimes they’d serve fried insects which disgusted me. I reminisced about the past while swirling my spoon.

“Hoo, hoo…”

The girl next to me slowly lifted her soup bowl. She was blowing on it to disperse the steam before eating.

But somehow, her grip on the spoon seemed awkward.

“Ah…!”

In that moment, with my <Future Sight>, I witnessed her ox bone soup performing a tap dance on the table.

Soup

Paper

Soup

Paper

Soup

Paper

Whirr—

And then, crash.

According to Newton’s laws of motion, it would slip, rotate, and inevitably spill.

And in its path were me and my precious paper.

Damn, this can’t happen. Even if my thighs get burned, I must protect my paper at all costs.

What should I do?

I’ll use the reflexes I honed under Rustila and Isaac Clarke. I caught the girl’s tilting soup bowl with my spoon.

Pause.

Good. I avoided the worst-case scenario of my paper being violated by soup.

However, the second-worst scenario began to unfold.

“…What do you think you’re doing?”

The girl started glaring at me.

Normally, I would have apologized and left.

Because I’m a gentle and soft person. A peace-loving philanthropist.

[— The ‘God of Wisdom and Curiosity’ tilts her head.]

But!

“I almost had my paper soaked because of you.”

This is something I absolutely cannot forgive. In a situation where I can’t even print freely, do you know how infuriating it would be to lose the one paper I managed to print?

“Please focus on your meal instead of being distracted.”

“What are you saying, you pervert.”

“Pervert…?”

Did I hear that correctly? Pervert? Me?

“You tried to touch my food. Who wouldn’t know you were aiming for an indirect kiss? Really, this is why I shouldn’t associate with uneducated men.”

“…Is she crazy?”

I got up from my seat with a grimace.

Of course, taking my lovely 74-page review paper (assigned by Professor Feynman) with me.

“Come on, paper. This doesn’t seem to be an elegant or sophisticated enough place to read you.”

“…Is he crazy?”

Who’s calling whom crazy? That’s hilarious.

It’s a loss to exchange words with a woman who baselessly accuses people of being sex offenders.

I looked around to find another seat.

Damn, there weren’t any. The cafeteria had filled up in the meantime.

Slow eaters and maniacs showing signs of madness. This really isn’t a place to stay long.

I quickly scooped up a few spoonfuls of tofu and soup, then shoved my tray onto the return rack.

And that decision came back to haunt me in the form of hunger.

Growl.

“Ah, I’m starving.”

After an unsatisfying breakfast, I headed to the computer room for work, but my stomach was completely empty. I tried to write a bit of my paper, but couldn’t concentrate.

In this situation, I also had to monitor for people showing signs of madness and report them to the guards.

It was truly busy beyond measure.

“What’s that guy doing now?”

A man from one of the cells suddenly approached the wall, lifted a poster hanging there, and pulled down his pants.

A hole.

There was a shallow hole dug into the wall.

And in the man’s hand was a piece of tofu that he must have smuggled from somewhere.

“Oh transcendent.”

I rubbed my face. I felt like I’d need to gouge out my eyes if I saw any more. Without delay, I pressed the siren button.

Waaaaaang—!

Fortunately, the man was subdued early.

This kind of depraved behavior is exactly what the Darwin entities cause.

The most violent and cruel forces. If we’re going to defeat those who will push up from the south later, Rustila must be kept alive. No one else can stop the wave of complete organisms.

“Haah.”

Anyway, they say freedom comes with responsibility. How long do I have to keep witnessing this stuff?

Come to think of it, maybe that girl had reason to be harsh with me earlier.

Officer Weisel, who had just finished enthusiastically pounding the man’s head, showed me respect.

“You’re doing a great job, student. I’m impressed.”

“Thank you for saying so.”

“I’m sorry about the email from your girlfriend. She seems to be waiting eagerly, but I couldn’t send it quickly.”

Weisel patted my shoulder and smiled.

“But at this rate, you should be able to return to society soon. Hang in there.”

“Ah, yes.”

This guy is really letting loose. He’s being so friendly because I do all the paperwork he’s supposed to report to his superiors.

“I’d like to give you some kind of reward. Is there anything you want? Any improvements you’d like to see?”

Somehow, the situation had reversed—instead of me sucking up to him, he was sucking up to me.

“Then, could I eat and stay here every day?”

“Why?”

“It’s too annoying to commute from the cell.”

Especially that black-haired, black-eyed girl in the cell to my left.

The sound of her sobbing every night recently was driving me crazy. Even when I tried to read my research notes under an LED lamp, I couldn’t concentrate because of how noisy she was.

Officer Weisel scratched his head and replied.

“So… you want to eat, sleep, and do everything here? Just get rid of that prison cell altogether?”

“You’ve already entrusted me with the prison keys. Is there any reason for me to be in prison? No. I’m ‘sane’ and neither a criminal nor anything else. Just an ordinary citizen.”

“That makes sense.”

Weisel grinned. I matched him with a smile of my own.

I know we have different motives.

But what does that matter? Weisel is happy because his workload that would kill him from overwork has disappeared, and I’m happy because I can use the computer in exchange for handling his chores.

The important thing is that we’ve entered a symbiotic relationship.

Good. Now let’s check today’s email…

Ding!

[— The presence of transcendent ‘Orchestra of Mud and Flesh’ has been detected. (Location: Inside Alcatraz Prison)]

What is this?

[“Youngster, something interesting has happened. It seems the one who attacked you back then has come here on its own two feet.”]

I nodded as I heard Cartesia’s continuing words.

This is Alcatraz. A planetary system located in a space zone where the Aether Belt is abnormally folded.

Due to the unusually dense aether concentration, transcendents could leave freely but couldn’t enter.

Moreover, prolonged stay here was like drinking radioactive tea every day for humans.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

[“It likely entered by parasitizing another human’s brain. Probably came to get revenge on you. An eye for an eye?”]

I sighed.

Populus, the transcendent with the epithet ‘Orchestra of Mud and Flesh.’

I’d rather not die by its hand here.

But it would be reckless to ignore the mastermind behind the Celestine incident.

“Ah, I need to write my paper.”

I had been relatively at ease since entering Alcatraz, but I didn’t expect such a troublesome situation to arise.

[“Youngster… you have the guards’ trust. If we use violence here, it’ll be troublesome for both you and me. So just this once, I’ll help you for free.”]

Creeak. The sound of the transcendent rising from her chair echoed faintly in my head. Her voice followed.

[“I’ll take care of it quickly and come back, so continue with what you were doing.”]

[— The ‘God of Wisdom and Curiosity’ has temporarily terminated the channel connecting with you.]

“…”

Gone?

“Phew.”

It’s becoming clearer as time goes on.

Cartesia wanted me to create a graviton bomb, and she seemed to have particularly bad relations with other transcendents. It even seemed that way among her own Descartes forces.

Combining these two pieces of information, her purpose was singular.

Suicide.

The transcendent was searching for a way to die.

***

Cartesia entered a girl’s mind in search of Populus.

A space of nothingness, stained with an ashen color.

Unlike such a description, it wasn’t truly empty.

The imaginary space is a world that expresses the mental image of transcendents. Therefore, it’s also their home base. Perhaps because it’s a place where humans and true forms can exist simultaneously, it was bustling, making the word “nothingness” seem inappropriate.

Yes, bustling.

There were at least twenty transcendent bodies.

Some looked like bizarrely connected electronic devices, while others dripped rotting flesh. The former belonged to Maxwell’s forces, the latter to Darwin’s forces.

There were even transcendents from the Descartes forces, her own kin. Most of her kin took the form of cloud-like entities contained in flasks.

‘This girl, what on earth.’

Cartesia took interest in a human other than Eidel for the first time in a long while. But it wasn’t a primal curiosity.

This girl clearly had a limit to her pron count.

Being contracted by multiple transcendents. Though rare, it wasn’t something beyond her understanding.

Her interest quickly faded.

Cartesia’s purpose was solely Populus, the one who had angered her.

Thwack!

The next moment, Cartesia’s body flew through the air.

“Well, look who it is.”

A chuckling voice.

A TV screen-like entity emerged from the darkness.

“Isn’t it the half-baked transcendent who can only take the form of a lowly mortal?”

“…Sapaul.”

A monitor for a head. Below it, a form covered with cloth like a teru teru bozu. However, the wires coiling around it like snakes were eerie.

Transcendents take such deformed and incomprehensible forms.

Not human forms like Cartesia.

“It’s been a while.”

“I’m not idle enough to accept greetings from someone abandoned even by their kin.”

“I didn’t come to see the likes of you either.”

Cartesia naturally stood up, dusting off her clothes.

“Where is Populus?”

“You mean the newborn transcendent that caused trouble in your southern galaxy? Truly foolish, though it is our kin.”

At that moment, two other transcendents dragged something in.

Tentacles cut in various places. The form of glowing red wires. Black blood flowing like viscous oil.

There was no doubt.

It was Populus.

“We taught it a lesson for arrogantly meddling with the place of exile.”

“Don’t you have even minimal generosity toward your own kind?”

“Generosity? Sorry, but that word isn’t registered in our forces’ dictionary.”

Slash! Arrow-tipped wires emerged from beneath Sapaul’s cloth. They advanced, piercing Populus’s entire body.

The half-dead Populus rolled in front of Cartesia.

“We don’t need it, so take it away. And you get out too.”

“…Hey, this is my territory.”

“You consider a place of exile as territory? That’s absurd.”

“Get out of my domain right now. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?”

Kekeke. The transcendents laughed in unison. An earthquake began in the imaginary space. The sound of the girl outside suffering could be heard.

“If you’re weaker than me, get out. Don’t interfere with our entertainment.”

“Entertainment?”

“This girl is very fun to play with. There are no leftovers for the weak.”

Cartesia frowned. She dragged Populus by the collar and returned to Eidel’s mind.

Populus, cast out in her imaginary space, spat out viscous blood.

“Beings like us, transcendents, have immortal bodies. Isn’t that right, Populus?”

“Kuk, cough.”

“So I’ve been thinking. If someone appears who interferes with my plans or my host, how should I cook them?”

“Please, stop. Stop… cough!”

The tentacle at Populus’s neck was grabbed. Cartesia’s eyes turned blue.

“You know, I’m short on pron right now. I want to stay by Eidel’s side, but as you know, the air here is foul. It’s not a situation where I can synthesize pron at all.”

“W-what are you trying to do…!”

“It’s simple.”

Cartesia giggled as she grabbed his tentacle.

“From now on, you’ll be my pron tank.”

[— Omega-level Transformation: <Transformation>]

<Transformation>, one of the most noble skills of Descartes-type transcendents.

The range of transformation is vast. Any race, any thought, it changes everything. Literally transforms everything.

Caught in Cartesia’s grasp now, Populus could only writhe while emitting heavy groans.

“First, I’ll change that body. If you want to fill a vessel with water, you need to clean the vessel first, right?”

Populus’s body underwent transformation. The glossy tentacles gradually disappeared, and limbs sprouted between the bizarrely straight body.

Populus was horrified watching his own transformation.

“I’m, I’m becoming a lower being…!”

“What gender should I make you? Yes, a female form would be good.”

While the concept of gender is almost non-existent for transcendent bodies, Populus was a transcendent with strong masculine traits in human terms. He liked to take, conquer, burn. Or at least, he didn’t dislike such things.

Such a being began transforming into the form of a modest and weak human girl.

“This, this is insane…! No! I said no!”

[— 500 pron has been extorted.]

The mechanical sound gradually disappeared, and the voice became thinner.

Cartesia pulled out tentacles to create breasts and wove wires to shape hips.

The transcendent had transformed into a human.

“Haha, a masterpiece, isn’t it?”

“S-stop this nonsense! How dare, how dare you turn me into a lower species, and a worthless female at that…!”

[— 500 pron has been extorted.]

Yes, be more flustered. The more you are, the more composure I’ll find.

Good, what should I change next?

“…Right. I just happened to have something good.”

[— Omega-level Transformation: <Binding>]

The <Binding> skill that she herself had suffered during the Celestine incident. Cartesia had always wondered what would happen if she used it on Populus.

“N-no. Anything but that. Not binding!”

The girl, who had almost exhausted all her transcendent power, wailed miserably.

But Cartesia is the transcendent of wisdom and curiosity.

“What would happen if I applied mental modification with <Binding>?”

When a question arises.

“How about it? Aren’t you curious?”

It must be resolved no matter what.

“N-no! Don’t! I’ll call you master! Please, just not binding…!”

With Populus’s bizarre scream, Cartesia was able to regain mental stability.

[— Successfully extorted 20000 pron.]

Not a large amount, but it’s better than nothing.

Cartesia looked down at the lower world.

“Heh, hehe. Heehee.”

Eidel was searching for papers with an inexplicable smile. He looked as happy as could be.

If only the weapon he aimed for could be created as soon as possible.

Thinking this, Cartesia slowly lifted the collar that had just been created due to the effect of <Binding>.