The traitor event that was going to revolve around Baba would start with the disappearance of a few PSI drives. Upon having succumbed to the demon lord’s wiles and trickery, Baba would secretly pass the PSI drives and various blueprint to “an evil person” (no, not really). Internal information of Amaterasu would also get leaked (again, not really).
The students would coincidentally realize that there were PSI drives missing and then report it to Kaburagi-san, but then—oh no!—she would get the wool pulled over her eyes by smart, wily Baba. With the unreliability of the adults fanning their sense of urgency, the students would then take matters into their own hands and conduct an internal investigation of their own.
To put it simply, it was going to be a detective make-believe. The more they dug, the more clues they would find, eventually learning that the culprit was Baba acting while under the demon lord’s influence. All that would be left after that would be “Return to your senses, Baba!” followed by a wake-up punch, or a detective series reveal scene with the line “The culprit is...... you!” after which Baba would return to her senses and everybody would live happily ever after.
In other words, Baba’s betrayal and the spawning of World Shadows and the prolonged recession and the never ending ethnic conflicts are all entirely the fault of the demon lord. Curse you, Demon Lord! How could you do such horrible things!
In the end, it would still be external pressure (demon lord) that causes the internal pressure (betrayal of an ally). If it really was Baba betraying us out of her own will, then that would truly cause us to collapse from the inside out. So since we so fortuitously had a villain who would stoop so low as to manipulate people’s hearts in our script, then we might as well shove all the blame onto him.
After we finalized the script of the event, then next we had to set the stage for it.
Firstly, in order to make the smuggling out of the PSI drive more believable, we needed to have a certain number of them. If we only had a few of them and all of them were to go missing, then us not noticing their disappearance would be a touch too idiotic, and overlooking the crime at the end of the event would seem far too lenient. “We have a large number of PSI drives, and sure, some of them got stolen. But because we were also partly at fault for not managing them properly, we can just let bygones be bygones” was the situation that we wanted to create.
Both Shouta-kun and Touka-chan were quite sharp. If we set the difficulty too low, then there was a risk of them realizing that this was a set-up.
Additionally, because PSI drives run on blood as fuel, we began endorsing organization members to donate blood once every three months. To make this happen, I spent two whole weeks studying up and also creating a blood collection room down in our underground base. In the room, I installed centrifuge machines, mixer machines, and industrial-grade refrigeration units. With this, we now had the capacity to centralize both the processing and storage of the blood fuel.
The cover story for the mass production of PSI drives was that it was for the members who will be joining our organization in the future, spares in the case of breakdowns, and as test products for continuing development and improvement.
I was hoping for around 100 units, but that was far too much work for Baba to accomplish alone. Therefore, the parts that were the same between all the PSI drives were going to be mass produced through machinery, and then Baba would finish them up. This was also so that Baba could focus on the unique ones that she could not entrust to the machines.
We were referring to all of the PSI drives under the same name, but depending on the fuel being used, units could differ greatly in terms of effects and efficiency. For example, the short sword that was made as Prototype #1 was specialized to use pyrokinetic fuel, which meant that it also had high heat resistance and was shaped in a way to help concentrate and direct supernatural flames toward a certain direction. If cryokinetic fuel was loaded into the short sword, it would still activate, but all the cold air would just spill everywhere. If chronoprohiberic fuel was loaded, then apparently it would cause even the wielder to become frozen in time, just needlessly depleting the fuel. So basically, the PSI drive had to match the fuel being used.
What happened to Prototype #1 in the end was that it blew up when we tried to activate it with telekinetic fuel loaded in. Afterward, we gathered up all the dust into a can and then put it into storage for commemoration’s sake.
Upon replaying the footage from a high resolution camera at super low speed, we barely managed to confirm that the PSI drive had exploded from within. The frame had been unable to withstand the ridiculously high output. Sorry I’m too strong.
As a side note, even after we diluted the telekinetic fuel by 100,000 times, it was still more than enough to easily blow apart a thoroughly reinforced frame. Okay come on, Baba, don’t look at me with those eyes.
“My telekinesis is just way too strong” may sound like boasting, but I could not gloat in good faith while watching the PSI drives that Baba had poured her heart and soul into making getting blown apart into nothingness. I really had become far too strong. If Shouta-kun and Touka-chan were said to be living out a supernatural school-life story, then I was left being the only one living out a space sci-fi story where planets get blown to smithereens. The only silver lining—if it could be called that—was that even if we manage to produce 100,000 PSI drives, I would still be able to power every single one of them with no trouble whatsoever. It didn’t really make me feel better knowing that, though.
One idea we had was that by optimizing healing PSI drives, maybe we could one day see the day when we could casually keep a few on our persons like recovery items in games. Another was that if we could develop a PSI drive that could mimic my telekinetic barrier well, then it could be utilized to make a contraption that could deploy a special field that would protect the surrounding area during our fights. There were as many applications as the sea was wide.
Surely a PSI drive could also be made to replace my manual (telekinetic) efforts at turning the turbine blades for the power plant that we were working with. If so, then it would help free me up for doing other things.
Lastly, I requested for the damage feedback function of the PSI drives to be removed, at least until such a time when I was capable of defending against it. It didn’t matter that the damage was only on the level of a scratch; I didn’t want to get pricked again and again and again and again every time we had a World Shadow fight.
The PSI drive’s feedback attack function was like a computer virus sent over the internet to crash someone’s computer in that even if I protected the computer with a physical barrier, the virus would still get through. I could defend myself against a physical attack from a PSI drive, but the feedback effect would penetrate straight through. I needed specialized training.
To that end, I had Baba make me a knife-type PSI drive specialized to deal feedback damage, and used it for self-training every night at Ama-no-Iwato.
After starting it up with telekinetic fuel that had been diluted five hundred billion times, I enveloped the knife with an invisible field. Then I lifted it above my barrier...... and I stabbed my arm!
Ouch! But gotta focus on defending myself!
Stab. Ouch! I slowly pushed it in while trying to use telekinesis it push it back. It penetrates regardless!
Stab. Ouch! I visualized clenching my telekimuscle as I would any other muscle.
Stab. Ouch! That method didn’t seem to work. Should I try vibrating the barrier?
Stab. Ouch! Guess that’s wrong too.
In this way, I continued stabbing my arm in trial and error. Kaburagi-san, who had come to watch, averted her eyes with her face twitching.