Chapter 8
Editor: Eclarion, llyboshi, Creis
Today\'s school agenda are only physical examinations and some explanations about the lessons we will be learning. Seems like regular classes will start from next week… Since we still have some free time after the aforementioned academic briefing and physical examinations, the teacher told us to spend some quality time to get to know our classmates better.
"Fuhi! Fuhihi!" ED : Pig-like laughter. You know who it is.
Sitting in front of me is Saitou-kun. It\'s not like I don\'t like him or anything. It just feels weird when two boys sitting just by themselves in the cafeteria drinking coffee. I wanna try talking to that girl with thin presence, but I can\'t afford to leave Saitou-kun alone.
"A bond within men is the most solid thing in the world!"
…Is what Macho said, but in his case, I think what\'s solid about that muscle-brain is just his muscle.
"So, all the previous types of Military Power Suit doesn\'t have emergency escape mechanism?"
Saitou-kun looks excited as he asked me about that. That\'s right, I was in the middle of explaining to him the concept of military power suit developed by Mom. It turns out that Saitou-kun is a big fan of military stuffs. I noticed he was mumbling about something like that, so then I told him about the power suit Mom developed, and he really went crazy with that topic. Back to the power suit topic, just like Saitou-kun said, the earlier version of military power suit didn\'t have the emergency escape mechanism. One day, Mom saw a picture I draw, a picture of a person jumping out from the back of power suit.
"What, is this?"
She asked me that, and I told her it was an emergency escape mechanism.
"…Eh…"
She was frozen still. After a while, she came back to her sense and laughed as she said it\'s not necessary. Her argument is that, the main usage of military power suits are to penetrate right into the middle of the enemy formation, so if the pilot were to abandon the suit, the pilot will get caught or killed immediately.
…No, Mom. Come on, you know things doesn\'t work that way. I desperately tried to explain why it\'s necessary to have an emergency escape mechanism.
- Training new pilots needs lots of funds
- You can reduce the pilot\'s anxiety if you can guarantee the ability to escape
- In case the pilot succeeds in returning, the pilot can bring back lots of useful information.
Actually there are more reasons, but those three are the main considerations.
Yet, she\'s still overly concerned about the post-ejection, and it was really starting to get bothersome.
"Then why don\'t you just wear another powered suits inside those powered suits?"
It was a sudden idea that randomly popped out of my mind.
"Ah…"
After that, she locked herself in her room for half a day. When she got out, she called to me like, "Kou-chan, how\'s this?", as she showed me a design of a new powered suits, where the pilot wears a reinforced exoskeleton suit before entering the main suit. As for the emergency escape, the pilot basically has to tear the upper body part of the power suit by hand from the inside. Honestly, I think it\'s lame…
Can\'t it do something like, where the attached parts goes Dokkan! after detaching and gets purged over? Hearing that, Mom looks down as she went back into her room. A few hours later, when I\'m starting to get worried of what kind of dinner are we having today, Mom came out again and showed me another design.
"How about this!? Upon activation, all the joints are ignited to purge the outer parts. With this detachment system, the purging of the parts can also be used to attack enemies.
This is it! This is how it should be!
It looks cool, and it\'s a mark of revolution!
Mom looks happy as I praise her like that, then she starts preparing for dinner.
Though after that, I told her that might as well making that power suit part to be detachable, so we can produce it part-by-part and so any broken parts can be easily replaced, and so we ended up having dinner by midnight.
Hence is the invention of the "6th Generation Military Power Suit -ARAKAWA-", aka Arakawa Model. Right now, all military power suit around the world are mostly using Arakawa Model as the base design.
"So Arakawa-kun, the one that came up of the new power suit design is you?"
Saitou-kun getting closer to me as he asked that, and of course I replied no. It was only an advice… No, that can\'t even be called an advice, I\'m sure mom would\'ve thought up that much by herself, and in the end, the one created it is mom herself.
"I, I see…"
That\'s right, Saitou-kun. If I went on and claim the credits for something like that, I wouldn\'t be able to live with my mom, moreover I won\'t be able to mentally keep up with her.
You see, she\'s the kind of person that would build a nuclear reactor inside the house, during her free time. Hearing that, Saitou-kun finally convinced.
On another note, aren\'t you had your 3rd cake already? You\'ve been told that you\'re obese at the physical examinations, shouldn\'t you hold back a bit…?
—-Saitou Shingo POV—-
I was surprised when Arakawa-kun told me about the military powered suits. All this time, I though Arakawa-kun\'s mother made it, but it was based from Arakawa-kun\'s thought… And he was telling me like it was nothing. I wonder if Arakawa-kun understands what kind of change he brought upon… Enhancing survivability, or detachable parts, all of that idea defies the existing concept of powered suits.
For example, in the old version of powered suits, if a powered suit got badly damaged, the repair process would took several weeks. But with his new concept, it only need to swap the broken parts, so it would only took hours.
I\'m the one people called military otaku (ED: GunOta anyone?), so I know really well how amazing the invention is. Unlike the old suits, with this new powered suits you could just change its arm parts into a rocket launcher, or even into a plasma cannon. One suit could change into any type of suits. Despite that, Arakawa-kun doesn\'t boast about it.
"My mom is the one that made it. I didn\'t do anything."
He\'s humbly denied it. I see, he must be holding back for me, since I can\'t do anything… I can tell that he\'s not being sarcastic or anything, so I feel really happy with his concern. So I decided to take up on his good will.
"I, I see…"
I answered like that. I can feel my smile twitching, but I can\'t help that. I really think he\'s amazing. I can\'t put my smile off, so I continue smiling while eating my 3rd cake.
—Alice Alford POV—
Arakawa-kun and Saitou-kun are sitting near me… Looks like their topics changed from trivial things to powered suits…
I want to join…
I was always a girl with thin presence, so I\'m not really good at making friends.
Well I did have some friends, but that friend of me is just the same as me, someone with a thin presence.
She\'s almost unnoticeable to the point that at one occasion, the whole class almost left that friend of mine because almost everyone forgot about her.
Ew, this juice is kinda sour…
So this time when the school just starts, I have to make my presence known so I can make friends, but when getting here, I am all alone like always…
I did my best. But the students of this school are all unique people, they\'re just too difficult for me.
Things can\'t go on like this! So I tried listening to those two conversations, but I can\'t find the right timing to join.
Even if I go now, they\'re talking about things I can\'t understand about power suits. If there\'s any topics I can talk well with, it\'s just pharmacology, since I\'m only good at that field. As I was lost in thought, it looks like they\'re almost done with the previous topics, and Saitou-kun starts eating his cake.
I made up my mind, so I get myself up to talk to them.
—-Arakawa Kouki POV—
"Hey, do you guys have a minute"
It was a really cute girl. Hmm…Who are you?
I asked that to the girl as I tried to suppress my overflowing excitement.
Saitou-kun even go "FUHIHIHI" due to his excitement…
…Hey, wait. Calm down.
"My name is Alice. We\'re in the same class… do you remember me?"
Was there a girl this cute?
I don\'t remember. Saitou-kun also goes "Fuhi?"
More like, the \'Fuhi?\' sounds he was made sounds like a cry
The rest of us are making awkward faces.
"It\'s okay, I don\'t mind… I do have a weak presence, after all…"
Ah, I\'m sorry Alice-chan! I didn\'t mean that!
Hey Saitou-kun, you apologize too!
We desperately apologized to Alice-chan. And then she said something like this.
"Please be my friends!!"
It\'s here! At last it\'s come! I\'ve been waiting for this!
I\'m glad, I was worried my whole high school life will end with just Saitou-kun as my friend. When I was about to give her my answer, Alice-chan tilted her head and asks.
"Can I? Saitou-kun…"
"Fuhi!?"
SAITOOOOOOOOOUU!! I\'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!!
"And Arakawa-kun too, can I?"
Ah, my bad Saito-kun. I forgive you… Sorry I got all heated up by myself.
—- Alice Alford POV —-
"Heee, so Alice-chan specializes in pharmacology?"
Arakawa-kun looks interested as he asked me that. That\'s my specialization, yes, but I haven\'t made any notable achievement yet, unlike Arakawa-kun\'s mother and Saitou-kun that has done great deeds. Especially Saito-kun, I remember he was once featured in a monthly electronics magazine.
"Seriously? Saitou-kun got into a magazine? Why didn\'t you tell me?"
"W..well, that magazine\'s front cover was your mom, Arakawa-kun. I was only featured a bit at the very end. I can\'t brag about that."
They started to joke with each other… This is my ideal view of friends… how nice, I want to do that too…
Arakawa-kun told me a lot about her mom. About how she would get absorbed in research in her own room that she forgot preparing dinner. About how she would inject an experimental drugs into her own body because she\'s sure it\'s safe. About how she would ask for some advice from Arakawa-kun.
…Hm? What did you just say?
"Like I\'m saying she would inject a…"
No no! After that!
"About her asking me for some advice?"
Does that mean he\'s someone that can give advice to such a genius? Don\'t tell me Arakawa-kun also specializes in pharmacology… I tried asking him about that.
"No, I don\'t specialize in pharmacology"
He answered like that. I see, so she just like to try asking her own family. After I made such a conclusion, Saitou-kun said something I can hardly believe.
"You said it wasn\'t your specialization, but you did developed a new type power suit, right?"
Arakawa tries to explain something, but I can hardly hear what he said…
"I don\'t specialize in anything, I\'m just a genius that even exceeds the renowned genius Arakawa Miki."
I can almost feel that was what he was truly trying to convey. Now that I remember it, there was a time I heard the higher-ups of the laboratories back in my country said something that, "Arakawa Miki is only publishing the results of Arakawa Kouki research in his stead. Arakawa Kouki is the true genius, or to be more precise, the demon child."
At that time, I thought that a child that\'s around the same age as me, could never have done that, but as far as I can tell from how Saitou-kun is reacting, it\'s probably the truth. I can\'t look at Arakawa-kun the same as before, as I start staring at him in awe.
—- Surveillance Team; Information Officer POV —-
My job is to analyze and report all information that is sent to Arakawa Kouki-kun\'s personal device to the higher-ups. I was supposed to submit all information, but that boy once launched a new type spy satellite just for me, so I exclude all sort of "information" that a boy of his age look around for.
Let\'s just say that boy has quite a unique preference… Blondie with bunny suits and net stockings, what\'s with that old man kind of taste!
"Let\'s see today\'s mail…"
Hmm, a mail from his friend Saito Shingo. This is about animal trivial… let\'s send it to my device too. Nothing else in particular, let\'s move to his browsing history. Hmmm what\'s this…
『"Guide to Making Laxatives at Home!"』
Hmm…He seems to be reading this page for quite a long time, where did he get his hand on this page…
『How to Secretly Mix Medicines, No More Worries for Medicine-hating Children"』
『How to Interact with Dads』
『 Manual to Perfect Crimes -How to Bury Bodies Chapter-』
…
"Commander, it\'s me"
I unconsciously called the commander…
"Yo! Wassup?"
Here he is with his usual carefree speech, but it\'s probably because he doesn\'t realize he\'s in danger.
"Please close down all the site I\'m about to inform you. As for the criminality factor, all of them are green except for 1 site, freezing down the server should be enough"
As I verbally instruct him, he would respond sluggishly, except for the one that was about "How to Interact with Dads" part where his tone returns to that of a commander on the field. Now, for the time being, the commander should be safe… Let\'s check out some insider\'s information now, this looks like a diary. That\'s strange, I don\'t remember seeing this before, the last update was two days ago, huh. I see, it was probably sync-ed from the other device. I\'ll check up on that one too later. What\'s inside… This thing goes back quite far, oh there\'s something about me? Here it is…
"I met a lady that\'s supposedly Macho\'s colleague. She said she wants to see the Earth from the space. Let\'s try talking to mom about it."
Oh, a lady he said…. You\'ve got good eyes, boy.
"When I asked mom about it, she said she\'ll modify the rocket firework. I wonder if that will make that lady happy?"
Yes, I\'m really happy, Kouki-kun.
"The launch was a success! The lady said that the pictures that was sent from the satellite was pretty. But her happily smiling face is prettier than anything!"
So cute! What\'s with this kid, he\'s so cute! I really want to eat him whole!
Since I\'m in a really good mood, I opened his hidden "Studying material", and added "School Swimsuits" under the "Bunny Girl" folder.
—————————–
RindouRuri : inb4 busy because of Guild War. Also, Mein Heroine appeared
Eclairion : back from the grave just to walk around the depths of hell (read: college) all over again. RIP free time for real.
llyboshi: finally,… an update…
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