After summer break ended, the third-year students said their farewells to their clubs and plunged into test season with great fervor. Although it is said by many that the amount of time invested into studying during the summer break could make or break one’s results, the frenzied catching up of the students in sports clubs—who spent their entire summer on their respective sports—from autumn onward was also nothing to scoff at.
Despite having earned nicknames like characters in a manga, FK-kun and BG-chan were third years just like all the rest. Gradually, a greater and greater percentage of conversation among their classmates at school began shifting toward studying. Questions and comments like “How many hours did you study last night?” or “I’ve started attending cram school...” or even “How were your grades on the latest mock exam?” contributed to the sense of urgency felt in the face of the encroaching shadow of the exams. It was enough to make anyone sick.
Thus it fell to me to make sure that our organization members got enough rest by slotting in an appropriate number of World Shadow fights. Do your best, exam students.
As for Baba, now that Shouta-kun had resumed going to school and could no longer take her everywhere, she took to commuting to Kaneyama Tech every day in the early morning, throwing herself into designing and testing prototypes of the PSI drive. Because of how close Kaneyama Tech and we were together (in a partners in crime sort of way), the dog tag that I had presented to her had the effect of Koumon Mito’s seal case. It didn’t matter that she had silver hair, or that she was an elf, or that she looked like a little girl, or that her hands had more flexibility than was humanly possible; the staff received her welcomingly and courteously, careful not to pry too deep.
Honestly, what with our “mysterious technology” for lifting rare metals and methane hydrate from the bottom of the ocean and the Black Box that we had lent them, the workers at Kaneyama Tech probably had at least a nagging suspicion regarding the real identities of the espers who played such prominent roles in the Super Water Sphere Incident. However, they were all smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
In actual fact, my supply of rare metals and methane hydrate was the very heart of this up-and-coming start-up company. If they went around saying “We’re working with the espers,” then I would cut off their supply and the company would die right then and there. Therefore, there was absolutely no way that Kaneyama Tech would rat us out. And if that wasn’t enough, the young president was head over heels for Kaburagi-san too.
The latest addition to my daily schedule was to drive to the Takahashi residence around the time when Shouta-kun left for school to give Baba a lift to Kaneyama Tech and then drive her back around dusk. She was not of an age where she would be getting lost, but her appearance being what it is, there was a slight worry that the police might take her into protective custody if they saw her walking alone on the streets during the day.
In addition, her physical strength was average, and she had no experience with martial arts or anything of the sort. Therefore, it would actually be quite problematic if she got attacked by lolicons or hoodlums in these days of worsening public order due to the sharp influx of foreign tourists. That said, she had very sharp situational awareness skills and prided herself on being able to run away really fast, so the chances of something terrible happening to her were low. However, it never hurt to be extra careful.
In regards to how Baba had no legal identity, I was expecting Kaburagi-san to do something about it once she revived. I had even thought up the cover story that Baba was a genius kid from Marineland—the country that Kaburagi-san had received her duchess peerage from—who had skipped through mandatory education in its entirety.
While driving Baba everyday, I also took the opportunity to check in on the progress of the development of the PSI drive. What I saw fascinated me to no end.
Kaneyama Tech was buying all necessary manufacturing machinery second-hand from small factories that were downsizing or going out of business, and Baba displayed an astonishing ability of being able to master them all in the blink of an eye. She apparently could even do detailed work on the micron scale by hand. A fifty-something master mechanic who just happened to be overseeing one of the machines being set up was extremely astonished, commenting that she “does the work of three copies of the best guy in my factory.”
The point was, she was incredibly fast and incredibly precise. When she encountered especially detailed parts that required particularly still hands, she would even stop her heart to eliminate even the slightest bit of hand shaking. For someone who wouldn’t use magic, she sure was managing quite inhuman feats at a regular basis. As expected of an elf, I suppose.
The supernatural machine made of platinum that would run on blood from espers as fuel—confirmed to be named “PSI drive” going forward—could be generally thought of as the three main components of “engine,” “frame,” and “fuel.”
The engine was made out of tiny platinum parts carved with complicated grooves all joined together so finely that the whole thing was only about the size of someone’s thumb. Because the affinity with superpowers would drop if the platinum was alloyed with other metals to increase its toughness, the parts themselves were pure platinum, but then supported by an exoskeleton made of a titanium alloy. When fuel was supplied to this engine, it would activate while amplifying the effects of the superpower in the fuel.
The frame was necessary to protect the engine and also make it usable. In the same way, a car does not move with just the engine and fuel. It also needs tires, brakes, gears, and a steering wheel, just to name a few. A whole mountain of supporting parts are necessary for that engine to be useful. All the detailed theories flew entirely over my head, but this was the main gist that I got.
The fuel was, of course, the blood of an esper. However, this also needed to be processed. From a simple experiment performed with Shouta-kun’s blood, it was determined that what the PSI drive needed was not technically “an esper’s blood,” but only the red blood cells. In fact, the other components, such as white blood cells and platelets, were actually in the way. Throwing blood in as is would still activate the PSI drive, but the fuel efficiency would be pretty bad.
Consequently, there was a need to separate out the blood and mix the red blood cells with preservative liquid to process it into high concentration fuel. However, as the core component of the fuel was still the red blood cells, the fuel came with an expiration date of a hundred days, which is the lifespan of red blood cells. In other words, after a hundred days, the red blood cells would die, rendering the fuel useless.
After processing, the blood fuel would have to be preserved in refrigeration. If there was a need to carry it around, it would have to be carried together with some means of keeping it cool. During storage, the fuel would be a dark red due to the lack of oxygen, so before usage, one would have to pump in enough oxygen to activate all the red blood cells and turn them into a vivid red. Only then can it be loaded into the PSI drive. And well, that was the rundown.
What this meant was that after production, we would need to keep an eye on the expiry date of each pack of fuel, and also arrange for their disposal and replacement periodically. Honestly, it sounded like a huge pain.