<929 – Titosso's Test (10)>
Titosso was terrified the first time she entered Professor Buzhaar’s research dimension.
“Senpai… why is the water cooler like this?”
“Water…? If it’s monster cultivation fluid, you can drink it for free…”
“I just want to drink regular water, not that weird stuff!”
“Use points… If you know purification magic, you can somehow drink the low-grade contaminated water that comes out…”
“Aw, just give me clean water!”
Not even able to drink a glass of clean water in this facility!
Oknodie occasionally said the teaching assistants working in the professor’s lab were treated like slaves, not even regarded as human, and that it would be better to graduate quickly in such an inhumane environment. Honestly, I couldn’t empathize with that at all.
It sounded ridiculous because I had never experienced it myself.
After all, being a second-year student meant much more freedom and opportunities than first years, so why would a teaching assistant, who is practically a fifth-year, be in worse conditions?
But I realized that only after experiencing it myself.
“Human rights! Students have the right to drink clean water! The principal wouldn’t torment us like this!”
“That’s because you’re a ‘student’… researchers aren’t ‘students,’ you know.”
“Is that how it is?!”
“It’s in the school rules. Probably in the databank building? It’s somewhere in there.”
“That place is flooded and under reconstruction though?”
“…What? The building containing the human rights ordinance was destroyed? Who said that?”
“A friend of mine’s acquaintance is the student council president, and they said so!”
Titosso’s perception of Jezel was just at that level.
It was enough to send a researcher into a panic.
“Keekyaaah!! It’s the end times!! The end times have come!!! Even the students have no human rights as teaching assistants!!!”
Seeing her senpai bubble at the mouth and convulse, a terrified Titosso quickly called for help.
Then she fled downstairs as if escaping.
And she gained an astonishing realization.
“Clean water? There’s a water cooler around the corner in the hallway. If you use your Magic Watch to scan the QR code, it’ll come out.”
“Why didn’t they have this up above?”
“Those fools up there couldn’t even get the basics of research down. They won’t feed the likes of that, you see. The facilities get better as you go down.”
Excited, Titosso continued down, down, down.
However, there was a researcher who disapproved of her.
“What are you doing here, coming down from your position as a newbie? Don’t you know coming down with no research achievements is a nuisance? Even if you have access rights, learn the skills up there first and then come down.”
“The one who took me in said I just need to wait around and the professor would come teach me!”
“Ha. You think just because you have a pretty face that our professor is that kind of person? Until he feels like it, there’s no teaching aside from the automation program, so dream on.”
“Hey, why are you saying bad things!”
“Seriously. Don’t get cocky just because you’re cute. Wanna die?”
Startled by the malicious actions of the abusive senpai, Titosso reflexively reached out.
Having seen what Oknodie and Jiang do and learned practical counterattacks from Professor Sadako’s lectures, she executed a surprise counterattack that caught the senpai’s forearm!
“Ha. You don’t even know what monster cells are and you’re just crashing into a monster-fied body. Silly girl.”
The senpai’s arrogant thoughts were interrupted by the sound that shouldn’t be heard.
Crack!
It wasn’t meant to imply that you should break before your attack reaches the top score. The defensive capability of monster cells was lower than that of Giant Blood Serum.
I, who had been the weakest in Professor Sadako’s and Weird’s labs, was now a powerhouse in Professor Buzhaar’s lab?
Titosso, having tasted the sweet reversal of compatibility in isekai reincarnation stories, was ecstatic.
“Wait, stop! You have so many points, why would you engage in collecting combat data on monsters?!”
“Eh, but the monsters are totally weak! Points are falling into my lap, so why wouldn’t I catch them?”
“What?!”
No one could stop the newbie who had gotten hooked on Body Reinforcement and wanted to take down monsters all over the deep lab for as many points as she could get.
Thus, she descended deeper and deeper, having a jolly good time beating up monsters, with more points than she had spent on benefits.
One day, overflowing with joy, she noticed someone new.
“Uh? Isn’t that the frail senior with huge breasts from back then?”
Munching on potato chips while watching the CCTV, Titosso commanded the monsters she had subdued with her strength.
“Go help that senior!”
The monsters were thrown into confusion by the sudden commands from the apex predator of their kind, telling them to kill Pai, a command that only the monsters could hear.
While Owen, who had a friendship with Pai, rushed over without hesitation, the other monsters went berserk in response to the later orders.
This was the moment when Titosso and the monsters all faced each other.
“How could you get the mana control skills you’ve been learning for over a year just through experience?”
“Hehe. Maybe I have talent for martial arts!”
“Well, considering your usual antics, I guess no one thought to make you do martial arts.”
Indeed, you shouldn’t judge a person by appearances.
“Want to have a spar?”
“Is that okay?”
“Someone’s probably already monitoring you in the research lab by now. Once we met, we’re all caught.”
“Hehe. That’s not it, I’m actually super strong now! Even Jiang wouldn’t hurt me!”
“…Try if you can.”
“No crying after you get hit!”
Ecstatic, Titosso lunged at her.
Jiang could already see the imbalance in her center of gravity and the narrow field of vision.
By gliding over shadows and subtly kicking her knee, Titosso fell flat on her face with the momentum she had been rushing in with.
As she fell to the ground, holding out a dagger’s handle, Titosso’s solar plexus got hit thud.
“Gah!”
Even someone of extraordinary beauty couldn’t shine amidst such an embarrassing sound.
Everyone watched with dazed eyes as Titosso quickly recovered and rolled over.
As she quickly searched for Jiang, he dropped a drop of water from the bottle he pulled from his sleeve onto her head.
“Huh?!”
Looking up at the ceiling, Titosso began tossing around random junk she had picked up towards the vents and gaps.
With the thuds and crashes of broken vent covers and ceiling structures, her strength was definitely impressive.
Even Oknodie would find it difficult to overpower Titosso in her current state.
Of course, fighting wasn’t all about strength.
Following the ceiling lights Jiang broke and destroyed, the increasing shadows began to move.
Sneakily, Jiang appeared behind Titosso, pushed her back, and scared her out of her wits as he began tossing dead frogs, snake corpses, and leftover toxins from poison-making down the collar of her shirt.
“Eew! Stop it!”
“What did you say earlier? No crying after you get hit?”
“I thought I could win!”
Titosso, tensing up anxiously as she braced herself with one hand tightly grasping her collar to prevent anything from coming through, was fully ready.
Meanwhile, Jiang remained comfortably squatting and casually drinking water behind her, then suddenly yanked on Titosso’s skirt with his other hand.
Panicking, Titosso flailed about, but ice slipped right down from his sleeve and went into the gap of her skirt.
“I give up!!”
“Took you long enough to say that.”
No matter how strong Titosso became, she was only strong in physical specs; among the monsters that fought with strength, she could become the top monster, but this showed how the outcomes of human combat were different.
“Let’s go back.”
“I haven’t learned anything from the professor yet?”
“You’ve already picked it up beating weak monsters. The mana control skills. Glitzy and shiny, right?”
“This?”
Titosso’s light punch.
Contrary to its shabby name, it visibly showed that she was properly controlling mana, evidenced by the body reinforcement magic cast on it.
Jiang thought that any assassin who wasn’t as agile as he was would get hit at least once by that punch, and what awaited them afterwards would be a very harsh reality.
Anyway, it seemed like her friend had gotten stronger.
And that feeling wasn’t so bad.
“Uh… You see that CCTV over there? You guys don’t seem like you’re going to get out anytime soon.”
An astonishing scene unfolded on the CCTV attached to the labs higher up than the Deep Research Lab.
Every monster on each floor was congregating right in front of the isolation zone, unable to stop the monstrous mass from pouring out of the isolation room whoosh.
“That’s meat samples. Usually, they’re super regenerative cells used for research on monster cells, but someone has artificially overgrown the samples to retrieve the original form.”
“…Stronger?”
“Just from the spar we saw? It’s not even close. If they expand that much, they need to lose 80% of their body in one strike to outpace their regeneration rate.”
“How did the researchers survive when an accident happened?”
“They hid cleverly. Those who couldn’t hide all died.”
The teaching assistants in Professor Buzhaar’s lab seemed quite intent on not letting Titosso slip away easily.
What would Oknodie have done in such a situation?
Jiang quickly came up with an answer.
He would have caused even more chaos.
Begging us to get out, probably.
“Those horrible monsters shouldn’t be let out, right? There are some in the Deep Research Lab too?”
“There are, but… isn’t it scary?”
“What’s scary? We have the strongest monster right here.”
Jiang pointed to Titosso, and everyone was stunned, wondering if that was really the same person who had just been desperately toying with her.
