Chapter 119: Approach
"...I’m sorry, Professor...I didn’t know you were...well...you told me you wanted to see all of us..." Charlotte apologizes as she looks away.
"What a hottie you are, Professor. I knew you were incredible underneath those clothes!! And my god...what slutty clothes. Did you really need such tight panties and such a tight bra? If you wanted to impress me, you succeeded!" Edith says with a naughty little grin while I bite my lips.
My clothes really are quite tight and form-fitting, but that’s for practical reasons. Tight clothes are better for moving around without my breasts bouncing around, and tight panties let me hide a knife in the strap.
"Charlotte, I said this was for tomorrow." After getting what I wanted at the party, I spent some time watching the auction to give Charlotte enough time to make contacts who could help her in the future.
After that, I went home with her and said I had things to give to my students, but I had no idea this idiot would understand that I meant right now.
"Professor, it’s your fault for not explaining yourself properly!! When I brought you home, you said you wanted to see the students to give them things!! How was I supposed to know you were getting ready for bed and had just gotten out of the shower wearing nothing but your underwear!" She says as drops of water drip from my hair.
"And Edith was the closest one, so I went to get her first!!" Charlotte tries to defend herself from the stupidity she committed.
"I didn’t want to see anyone today, Charlotte! I don’t even have what I’m supposed to give you!! Ask next time before bringing anyone here...EDITH, STOP TAKING PICTURES!" Does she really think I can’t see her phone?
"Professor Zenith, don’t be so mean. You’re really pretty. I’m just trying to keep a little memory here, and besides, it’s late at night. I didn’t know this was what you meant...Charlotte called me out of nowhere. The blame is 101% hers!"
"...Haa...wait here while I go get changed." I quickly run to my bedroom, open the closet, and grab whatever I can.
"Damn Charlotte...the night was already exhausting enough without her..." I managed to get good weapons for each of them, but they still have to be delivered to me.
’I can’t believe Charlotte was actually trying to be proactive with me...it’s so strange...’ I take a deep breath as I finish putting on my clothes and head to the living room where the two of them are sitting on the couch.
"And look at this, she’s so strong, but her skin looks so smooth! It’s perfect!! No exaggerated muscles, but a well-kept body! And look at her boobs, they’re bigger than they look. The tight clothes hide some of their size! She must be a D cup!! Maybe even close to an E cup." I hear Edith talking nonsense about me while showing the picture she took to Charlotte.
"...Oh, Professor, you’re here. There’s no point taking my phone, I already sent it to my other devices! I think tonight is going to be veeeery long." Despite Edith’s lewd and sexual implication, I’m not going to fight with her, because this is all Charlotte’s fault.
"Do whatever you want, but if I see that picture anywhere, you’ll pay dearly, and you, Charlotte, should expect punishment for your intrusion into my house without permission."
"You two can leave. I want to sleep! Come on, go home already."
"Wait a second, Hottie!! Where were you and Charlotte, and why did you apparently want to see us? You two weren’t fooling around, were you!? If you were doing that, you can call me next time. I’d love a threesome with two beauties like you." Edith asks with far too much curiosity.
"Shut up, Edith. Don’t put me in your fantasies...I’m going to give a present to all of you. Think of it as an early graduation gift. You’re going to graduate anyway. Your grades are excellent, so despite everything, that’s all it is."
"I put in a little effort to give all of you something." That’s only partly true. The other reason is to help them by giving them something that will be useful in the army.
"Oh...that...that serious? Now I feel bad for taking the picture and making jokes...wow, Hottie, you really have a way of making people feel guilty." She says it in a joking tone.
"And what’s this present?" Charlotte stays quiet while Edith keeps asking questions.
"I’m not telling you. Get out of my house before I throw you both out the window." I want to sleep. Spending so much time around those rich people completely drained me. Having to put on manners I hate is frustrating.
Besides, I was also testing a few things with this prosthesis and trying to see if the Cube would obey my requests. Unfortunately, the Cube completely ignored my requests and only kept the prosthesis functioning the way it already was.
"Hmmm, Professor, I don’t have a family. Can I sleep at your house tonight since Charlotte dragged me here? The couch is fine." I don’t know if Edith is being serious or if she’s being lewd again.
"I’m not an orphanage for taking care of orphans. You don’t have a family? Fine, but since when is that a reason for me to let you stay here? I don’t have a family either, and that doesn’t mean I ask to sleep at other people’s houses. Get out already, Charlotte, take this depraved girl home and leave. And don’t enter my house again without explicit permission."
"Wow, Professor, you’re so mean!!" Edith says without any real hurt in her voice, but she runs a hand over her face, pretending to wipe away tears.
"..." Charlotte simply opens a fissure and steps through it to leave while Charlotte gives a wave followed by a little kiss as she enters the fissure and leaves.
"Haa...having students like this is so stressful...thankfully she didn’t gather all of them at once and bring them here. The last thing I needed was every single one of my students seeing me in my underwear." I collapse onto the couch and turn on the television.
"Nexus, tell me if those idiots went home."
"[According to what the street and academy cameras currently show, Edith is being dropped off in front of her dorm at the academy, and Charlotte is talking to her.]"
"...Okay...Nexus, open some research files about the Cube and—"
"[I’m sorry to inform you, but your access has been restricted.]"
"...What did you say?"
"[Your superiors have determined that you took too much advantage of their good faith in not preventing you from accessing data you shouldn’t have been accessing, but your constant use of government systems without permission has earned you a restriction.]"
"[However, for legal reasons, the restriction can be removed by paying a fine equivalent to the amount of money you wasted by using restricted military equipment.]"
"Tsk...how much is the fine? I didn’t spend that much...I think."
"[It would be equivalent to several tons of pure gold, but since that metric is no longer a very useful measure, in your terms, it would be equivalent to 32,000 prostheses like the one you had before.]"
"!!!"
"W-What the hell!! I didn’t spend that much!! That’s enough money to maintain an entire neighborhood for five years!!! Counting electricity, water, food, police protection, repairs, and rebuilding houses!!!" It’s an absurd amount.
"[Zenith, I don’t know if you’re just ignoring it or if you genuinely don’t know, but government systems cost a great deal of money just by being turned on. Every time you ask a question or access a restricted file, I have to pass through thousands of security barriers.]"
"[I have to decrypt and encrypt the file, and that requires the database to be opened, and the government database is normally kept turned off and only activated when necessary.]"
"[Every 1 second it remains active, it consumes enough energy to power the entire island for two days, although the entire process only takes milliseconds. The more questions you ask at intervals of several seconds, the more everything has to be turned on.]"
"[If you asked all the questions you wanted at once, the cost would be thousands of times lower, but you ask one question, talk about a bunch of things, and then ask another. That requires turning it on, turning it off, turning it on, turning it off again and again, and I’m not capable of predicting the future to know what your next question will be and obtain the answer beforehand.]"
"...Shit...okay, maybe I knew it worked like that...but that doesn’t justify this price!! What the hell am I supposed to do if the system’s stupid engineering doesn’t allow it to keep data that has already been accessed?! It’s the fault of this security system that requires getting rid of any exposed data after more than 1 minute!! If we had a normal database, keeping it running wouldn’t be nearly this expensive!!"
"[Do you wish to pay? If you do, your access will be restored.]"
"Forget it...if I can’t access it using Nadir’s authority anymore, then so be it. I’m not paying this shit, and I don’t even have that much money!! I know it’s for security. No one has ever managed to break into this database, but honestly, it’s pretty damn stupid for it to be this expensive to maintain."
"It’s money that could be going toward improvements on the island!! Focusing so much on security...tsk...it’s not that stupid..." I wish I could say this security is unnecessary, but it isn’t.
It contains data that, if leaked, would probably destroy humanity, because there are things that would cause outrage among the population, things that would increase the population’s fear and consequently make the monsters stronger, and things that would cause society as a whole to collapse once people realized the dark things the government had already done to create and maintain the island as it is today.
"[If you aren’t going to cover the financial losses you caused, then you won’t be able to access the system anymore. You can use the smaller database, but it doesn’t contain anything relevant to the questions you ask and only has some extremely outdated data.]"
"I know...shit...then go away. I don’t need to talk to you if you can’t answer what I want..."