Chapter 14: 14

Chapter 14 – Necessity Is the Mother of Invention

Despite the regressor’s cold stares, I managed to convince her using everything I could say. She was still wary of me, but it seemed like she had decided to wait for now because she put her sword away.

After a sigh of relief, I suddenly became curious about something.

“But Trainee Shei…”

“What?”

“What are you here for? Did you follow us?”

“I didn’t follow you! I just… happened to come here looking for you.”

The regressor cocked her head to the side, arms crossed with Chun-aeng floating above her head.

“Tyrkanzyaka asked. That thing you said about teaching her about the times. What time it would be at.”

“Huh? We’re actually doing that?”

「You suggested it?!」

The regressor looked bewildered. Feeling guilty, I nodded.

“Alright, alright. I’ll go prepare for it now.”

“Try your best. I hope it goes well.”

Turning around, the regressor added one more thing.

“Of course, I’ll be listening in as well.”

‘Me? Teach? I’ve been living off the streets. I don’t have the knowledge to teach someone.

‘I am highly educated among the people here, but all I have is graduating from standard public elementary school and dropping out of military middle school. I did get more education than a typical security level one citizen the moment I entered military middle school, but that was only because I read the mind of the kid with the second-best scores. If it wasn’t for my mind reading cheating abilities, my education would’ve ended at elementary school.’

Oh, by the way. The reason I read the mind of the kid with the second-best scores instead of the first was because I was the person who had the highest scores in the school.

It wasn’t done with my own studying of course. I just borrowed a little help from everyone during tests. 

O students, lend me your strength.

I’d like to thank and apologize to every student who had their rank pushed back by one because of me.

Because of my insanely high scores, all the instructors went overboard, telling me that I would be the genius to drive the Military State forward by an entire generation. But I completely failed the practical portion of the entrance exams to military high school, so I dropped out, trying to run away. And now, I ended up like this. 

As people who wasted their life often did, I thought back to my school days.

“Maybe those days were the golden days of my life.”

I missed the days when I lived so freely just with the ability to read minds.

Albeit the issue is that I still can’t think of what I’m going to teach Tyrkanzyaka.

Unconsciously fidgeting with my pockets, I realized something.

“Oh! I’ll just use this!”

‘This will work.’

The first three floors of Tantalus were the cells meant to hold the prisoners. Typically, those words would remind you of an atmosphere that felt confining and cramped. 

However, as a prison with prisoners but no wardens, Tantalus was a little different from the typical stereotype of prisons in the sense that the stone walls were broken and the metal bars were bent in all kinds of directions.

Walls and bars didn’t suffice as obstruction for the prisoners that were sent here. The metal door was now in the shape of a metal croissant, and the bars that were bent whichever way reminded me of wet pasta. One of the walls had an intricately made spear—three metal bars twisted all together—embedded in it, and another cell had a perfectly smooth square hole cut out of it. 

‘Fuck. It seems that the prison was nothing more than a toy to the criminals placed here. That’s scary. Just how did the workers that had to live amongst these criminals survive? Oh, right. They didn’t!’

After solving the secret, I made my way up the stairs.

The fourth floor was where the workers resided. It was also where I was staying since I had nowhere else to go. The doors didn’t lock, but they opened and closed properly, and there was still a kitchen and a place to do laundry. 

I headed to the worker training room at the end of the fourth floor hallway.

“Welcome!”

There, the ‘trainees’ were waiting for me.

A coffin, having pushed aside the chairs to make room, was floating in the air. The regressor was hunched over on a chair, arms and legs crossed, glaring at me the moment I walked in. Azzy was lying down on the floor playing around. I doubted she actually came to learn.

With everyone’s focus on me, I headed to the lectern. It was a small class consisting of a dog, a corpse, and a person, but standing in front of people still made me a little nervous.

I took deep breaths before I began to talk.

‘It’s fine. I’ve done this plenty of times. It’s not any different from swindling people into buying worthless things.’

“I’ll start by establishing the goals of this class. From what I’ve seen the past two days, all you superhuman beings severely lack some common sense. If we release you to society, you’ll have a hard time fitting in. And if that happens, you’ll end up back here again. So…”

[Just a moment.]

An eerie voice creeped out from within the coffin. The vampire seemed rather annoyed.

[…Why do you wear such casual clothes when you’ve come to teach?]

“Huh? What’s wrong with my clothes?”

The standard supplied button-up shirt and a pair of shorts that had built-in underwear. I was casually dressed, but this was fairly common. 

However, to a thousand-year-old boomer like the vampire, even that was not formal enough.

[Learning is like a river. It flows from a high place towards the low. So the one who teaches must always maintain a certain air of authority and formality. Who would want to learn from someone so poorly dressed?]

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“I can’t believe it. I didn’t think someone who lives in a coffin would try to tell me what to wear.”

[…That is—]

“I know, I know. It’s like your wheelchair. I get it. I’m not going to berate you for that.”

Cough! Cough!

The regressor’s face grew red as she violently coughed in reaction to my statement.

「…A ‘wheel-chair’? I do not understand what he means… but what is a ‘wheel-chair’? I feel as if I am being insulted.」

‘Alright. Note to self: never explain what a wheelchair is.’

I gripped the lectern with both arms and shouted towards the coffin.

“And Trainee Tyrkanzyaka, there’s a clear reason as to why I came here dressed like this. Please do not doubt the instructor when the class has not even begun.”

[Alright. Speak. I hope your words serve more purpose than just excuses.]

“Don’t get too surprised.”

‘I’ll show this outdated vampire the greatness of modern technology.’

I stretched out my left arm.

“Citizens of the Military State undergo a recording of their biological statistics when they reach the age of eighteen. Height, weight, body shape, bone structure, and even the length and width of their limbs. All of these things are recorded and engraved into our bodies.”

I turned my wrist to face the class. A peculiar hole was in my left wrist. The dip made from digging out flesh looked as if something needed to be fit inside.

“Because of that, the Military State has the most advanced identification system. Utilizing it, they’ve made a few useful inventions.”

I dug out the object Azzy and I had found in the control room. The small dark-blue marble was a size that would perfectly fit the hole in my wrist.

They were realizing it now. The regressor who already knew what it was, and the vampire who had questioned the strange hole in my wrist.

They had a sense of how to use this marble.

“The Military State’s science is the best in the world. This is the pinnacle of alchemic technology, the clothing technology of the Military State.”

With those words, I fit the small orb into my wrist with a resounding click.

Instantly, blue filaments began to cover my body. 

Firm, strong fibers made the base structure. Thin blue strands layered themselves in between. The clothes instantly built themselves based on their alchemic pattern. Strands became fabric, and fabric became a bolt of it. They piled up, step by step. 

I did a quick twirl in place because I felt like I needed to. On my third way around, an instructor’s outfit perfectly tailored to my body had covered my entire body.

Quickly taking the form of a trained instructor, I saluted, according to the State standard.

“The Clothing Packet.”

It took only ten seconds for the stiffly ironed suit to cover my entire body. The invention of the century that used the information recorded in your own biological data to transform into the perfect clothes. Even if it ripped or got messy, all you needed to do was change it back into a packet and wipe it away.

It was one of the best inventions, even among the seven great inventions of the Military State.

I boasted as I lifted up the collar of my brand new clothes.

“With the invention of the Clothing Packet, citizens of the Military State were freed from the curse of laundry. Also, they spent less money on buying new clothing. A person only really needs a couple clothing packets, and they could keep using them.”

[Interesting.]

“Now, do you understand why I came so lightly dressed? I wanted to show you the Clothing Packet in action. It’s better to just wear the standard underwear beneath.”

Hums of amusement echoed from the coffin, but I could hear the vampire’s thoughts clearly.

「That’s amazing…! The world really has changed so much!」

I knew she’d love it. 

It was a stereotype that old people disliked new technology. Actually, they were often willing to spend more time exploring it. Curiosity was something that existed within everyone, regardless of age.

The only issue was that, for some reason, old people tended to revert back to analog ways, saying ‘It had a nicer feel to it.’

However, currently, the vampire was entirely focused on the clothing packet.

“An instructor’s outfit… Hmph.”

Shei’s expression soured after seeing my outfit. Then, the vampire asked the regressor.

[Child, you didn’t have any hole like that on your wrist.]

“I won’t ever get that kind of stuff.”

The regressor shot back in a moody way.

“That’s for surveillance. It’s a product of totalitarianism, made by the desire to track and control every single citizen.”

[Totalitarianism?]

“It means they watch every citizen. You need a Bio-receptor to enter major roads or buildings. And if someone goes into the wrong place, the authorities can use it to arrest them immediately.”

[…What is the issue with that?]

The regressor—who had only experienced the future—probably didn’t understand, but the vampire was from a totally different time. One with complete monarchy.

‘Do you think human rights was a thing back then? If it were, the vampire probably wouldn’t have died at such a young age when she was alive.’

Realizing that, the regressor clicked her tongue.

“Additionally, there’s an even bigger issue with the Bio-receptor.”

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