There Was No Secret Organization to Fight with the World's Darkness so I Made One (In Exasperation) Chapter 22

Chapter 22 PSI Drive

After summer vacation, middle school third-years say goodbye to club activities and dive full-on into exam season. Of course, these students were already starting to study over the break, since it would be impossible to catch up if they only started in the late summer. The same applies to “FK (Freezing Knight)-kun” and “BG (Burning Girl)-chan”, even if they now have two names like some sort of character from a manga. In class, the amount of topics they study increases, and things like “How many hours did you study yesterday?”; “I just started going to cram school”; and, “What were your results on the mock test?” start to appear in conversations. No matter how much they may wish otherwise, the shadow of exams is drawing near.

It's my job to put the battles against the humanoid world's darkness on hold so that these fights can continue to act as breathers for these students. Good luck and work hard, exam students.

While the students were focusing on their exams, Baba was going to Kaneyama Tech every morning and staying until late, working on developing blueprints for a prototype of the PSI Drive. Because Kaneyama Tech and Amaterasu are deeply connected, I decided to give Baba a dog-tag with the Amaterasu crest engraved on it that would work like an inrou1 from Mito Komon 2.3 Though because she has silver hair, elf ears, looks like a little girl, and has an inhuman range of motion in her hands, it's already obvious that she's not ordinary. But the staff at Kaneyama Tech don't try to dig deeper, and instead are friendly and cooperative. They've already dealt with strange things like rare metals and methane hydrates being effortlessly pulled up from the sea and suspicious black boxes that somehow make them more energy efficient, after all. The employees know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Especially since these mysterious phenomena are causing Kaneyama Tech to experience rapid growth and become a prestigious venture company. All of them in the back of their mind are probably thinking something like, “We've partnered with ESP'ers, haven't we?”, but because they know that if the supply stops, the company will die immediately, they don't dare say it out loud. Also, there's one more reason that Kaneyama Tech isn't likely to betray us. It's young president is madly in love with Kaburagi-san.

Every morning, Baba leaves the Takahashi household at the same time that Shoutkun leaves for school. I then pick her up and take her to Kaneyama Tech. I also pick her up from Kaneyama Tech in the evenings. It's not that I have to worry about Baba getting lost or something, it's just that she looks so young, I'm afraid she'll be taken to the police if she goes by herself. I'm also afraid that she may get attacked by lolicons or thugs, since the crime rate in Tokyo is increasing due to the rapid increase of foreign tourists.

Well, since Baba does have good judgement and can run away rather quickly, I doubt anything too bad would happen. The problem is that Baba doesn't have any documentation, so if something does happen, she'll end up raising all sorts of red flags at the police station. I wish Kaburagi-san would come back soon and help me deal with this. We could make her cover story be that she's a young genius from Marineland4 who's already graduated from school.

When I pick up Baba from Kaneyama Tech, I also look in on how the development of the PSI Drive is going. It's quite interesting. Baba quickly learned how to use the second-hand tools that Kaneyama Tech bought for her from a factory that was going out of business. She does the micro-processing manually. By coincidence, a skilled mechanic who had been plying his trade for 50 years happened to see her work, and cried out in surprise, “It's better than the work of the top three guys in this company!” Anyway, things are moving along rapidly, and with precision processing techniques, we've begun to do the fine-tuning to work out any kinks in the mechanism. As I thought, even though there's no magic here, Baba is still an elf after all.

The “PSI Drive” is a mechanism for enhancing superpowers that's made out of platinum and runs on the blood of ESP'ers. It roughly consists of three parts: the engine, the frame, and the fuel.

The engine is made of platinum, is about the size of a single thumb, and is a precise combination of intricately carved and highly detailed parts. Ideally, we would strengthen the platinum by making it an alloy, but if we do that, then it no longer has an affinity with superpowers, so we decided to use pure platinum and reinforce it with an exoskeleton made of titanium alloy. By sending fuel into the engine, the selected superpower is amplified and activated.

The frame is for protecting and operating the engine. Even cars don't run with engines and fuel alone. They have tires, brakes, gears, steering wheels, and etc. In order to utilize the engine, it takes a mountain of auxiliary parts.

The fuel is, of course, the blood of ESP'ers, but it needs to be refined before it can be used. As a result of a simple experiment using Shoutkun's blood, it was found that the fuel for the PSI Drive is not strictly the blood of ESP'ers, but just the red blood cells. Components such as white blood cells and platelets turned out to be a hindrance. Even if blood is thrown in as it is, it can move, but it's very inefficient. Therefore, in order to obtain a high-concentration fuel, it's necessary to separate and purify the blood to obtain the red blood cells and then mix them with a preservation solution.

Because red blood cells form the base of the fuel, after 100 days – the lifespan of red blood cells – the fuel is no longer good and can't be used. The purified blood fuel is stored cold, and it's necessary to use a cooling agent when carrying it around. When used, oxygen is injected into the fuel, which has turned red-black due to lack of oxygen, which activates it and causes it to become bright red. It fills the PSI Drive, causing it to take on the abilities that are in the blood. It's also important to properly dispose of the fuel once it expires. It looks troublesome.

In two weeks, the silver, dagger-shaped PSI Drive prototype was completed. When I saw the internal structure, it made absolutely no sense to me, but it seems that for Baba, it's actually fairly simple structure. According to her, the amplification rate and power are not that great. The titanium alloy used for the frame and exoskeleton is a material that doesn't exist in Baba's homeworld, so she's unsure how that will affect it. There's a chance it could fail and, at worst, it could even explode. We'll just have to test the prototype and see how it goes.

A small plastic bottle of the same size as the tip of a little finger, filled with refined fuel (flame) provided by Toukchan, was fitted to the handle of a dagger. We laid down fire protection mats in the training room at Kaneyama Tech, and then, with myself and several researchers on standby with fire extinguishers, we activated the PSI Drive.

“*Uwa~!*”

“Ooh!”

“No way, are you kidding me?!”

The researchers exclaimed in surprise as flames burst forth from the dagger. Even though I knew how it worked, it surprised me as well. This means that you can actually use psychic powers even if you are not a psychic. It's good that it runs on red blood cells, because that makes it easier to keep it under our control. Long-term storage is not effective, so management is troublesome; however, even if we inadvertently lose it, it will automatically disable itself after 100 days. This will help prevent the spread of superpowers.

Right now, it's just a dagger that shoots out flames. However, if I apply my psychokinesis to it, the range of strategies and events will be greatly expanded. It will also allow Baba's dreams to expand, which is the perfect way to keep her working hard on this.

I speak with Baba, who's waving around the dagger in her hand in order to put out the flame.

“Congratulations on your success.This may sound odd, but can you make a PSI Drive that looks like a wand from a magical girl anime?”

“Huh? I can make it. But why do you want something like that? Oh, wait, is it for Touka?”

“No, it's for Kaburagi-san.”

“…What? Did I hear that right? Aren't only young girls into things like magical girls? Kaburagi is an adult, right? She's not in the target demographic, you know?”

Baba is puzzled. Speaking of which, since Kaburagi-san started recuperation early, Baba and her haven't had much contact with each other.

“It's fine. She likes that sort thing.”

“Hmm…”

“You can't do it after all?”

“Oh, no, it's not that. After all, a large tree with weak branches is nothing more than firewood.1 The hero's companions need to be strong too. I have no objection to making a weapon for Kaburagi.”

Baba willingly accepted the task, and continued talking to me while handing over the dagger.

“Give this to Shouta and tell him to attack the demon king's subordinates with it. I will make adjustments based on how it goes.”

“Ok, got it.”

That's right. Testing its effectiveness in actual combat is important. Well, since I constantly have a psychokinetic barrier up around me, it should be fine. I highly doubt it'll do anything to me, especially since it's a low-performance prototype. I know all too well how disappointing reality can be. You can't damage me with such a dagger.

I freely let Shoutkun stab the world's darkness as hard as he could.

“Guh!”

On the evening of the day I handed the dagger to Shoutkun, I was alone at Amanoiwato when I suddenly held my stomach and cried out in pain.

Even though I had prepared in advance, it apparently wasn't enough, since the moment Shoutkun stabbed the humanoid world's darkness with the flame-clad dagger in the sewers, I instantly felt the pain travel to my stomach. That hurt! Although it's less painful than tearing off pieces of Nenrikin, what hurts hurts, you know?

When I took off my shirt to examine my stomach, there was only a little blood. Ig reached out and healed me right away, so while I was instantly cured, there's no doubt that I was definitely injured. It wasn't a cut from some sort of accident. The timing is too coincidental. Some of the damage Shoutkun did to the world's darkness has spread to me.

“Ah, shit!”

I stood up and scratched my head.

What is this? It worked, didn't it? It really worked, right? I'm the Demon King! And even though I put up a psychokinetic barrier, I still took damage! My psychokinetic barrier is usually incredibly effective. It's never failed before. It felt like the damage was the result of it overflowing past my psychokinetic barrier, rather than directly piercing it, so there's a possibility that I could defend against it if I trained, but it's quite ominous that just a small prototype dagger caused this much damage. What would have happened if this were a completed hero's sword?

Ahhhhhhhhh.

It's already a mess. I hate it. Is it because it's from another world? It it because it's another world's technology? Just because it was made with technology from another world, it can penetrate my perfect defensive barrier, that not even a meteorite on the same level as the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs could penetrate? That's bullshit. Is it really that ridiculous? But I guess that's the truth.

This is enough…

No…

But…

…Sorry, Baba. It's no good. As one would expect, I can't do this.

I understand her feelings of longing for an extraordinary life and her passion for exterminating the demon king. Even though she's 905 years old, she decided to take on a new challenge and permanently leave to her birthplace. I deeply respect the resolve and zeal that she has. I want to make her dreams come true as much as I possibly can. I truly think so. She's spent hundreds of years longing for this, after all. That's much deeper and heavier than what Kaburagi-san and I, who have only lived for around 30 years, have experienced. I can't even begin to imagine what that's like.

But it's no good. If I try to support Baba's dream, I could die. Even if Baba is my senpai in dream chasing, I still can't give my life for her.

Lonalia Linalia VavNyan; person from another world; mechanic and former queen of Alves. My apologies, but I'm going to have you come over to this side of the match-pump.

Chapter end