NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22 part2
The Taste of Betrayal
PSI Drive
Part 2
There seems to be some confusion about what's going on with the light novel and my translations, so let me clarify. Secret Organization is originally a web novel that currently has 97 chapters (including the side stories). It was picked up to become a light novel by Overlap, but was cancelled after 2 volumes. J-Novel Club has officially translated those volumes into English. These 2 volumes cover chapters 1-30 plus side stories. What I am translating is the web novel. As you can see, I still have a lot of chapters to go to catch up to the light novel, and even more to catch up to the web novel, so I have no plans to drop this anytime soon.
Hope this helps clear things up. If you have any questions, please leave a comment, or message me on Discord or Novel Updates (I'm rosie94hrpr there as well). Thanks for reading!
A small plastic bottle of the same size as the tip of a little finger, filled with refined fuel (flame) provided by Touka-chan, was fitted to the handle of a dagger. We laid down fire protection mats in the training room at Kaneyama Tech, and then, with myself and several researchers on standby with fire extinguishers, we activated the PSI Drive.
"*Uwa~!*"
"Ooh!"
"No way, are you kidding me?!"
The researchers exclaimed in surprise as flames burst forth from the dagger. Even though I knew how it worked, it surprised me as well. This means that you can actually use psychic powers even if you are not a psychic. It's good that it runs on red blood cells, because that makes it easier to keep it under our control. Long-term storage is not effective, so management is troublesome; however, even if we inadvertently lose it, it will automatically disable itself after 100 days. This will help prevent the spread of superpowers.
Right now, it's just a dagger that shoots out flames. However, if I apply my psychokinesis to it, the range of strategies and events will be greatly expanded. It will also allow Baba's dreams to expand, which is the perfect way to keep her working hard on this.
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I speak with Baba, who's waving around the dagger in her hand in order to put out the flame.
"Congratulations on your success.This may sound odd, but can you make a PSI Drive that looks like a wand from a magical girl anime?"
"Huh? I can make it. But why do you want something like that? Oh, wait, is it for Touka?"
"No, it's for Kaburagi-san."
"…What? Did I hear that right? Aren't only young girls into things like magical girls? Kaburagi is an adult, right? She's not in the target demographic, you know?"
Baba is puzzled. Speaking of which, since Kaburagi-san started recuperation early, Baba and her haven't had much contact with each other.
"It's fine. She likes that sort thing."
"Hmm…"
"You can't do it after all?"
"Oh, no, it's not that. After all, a large tree with weak branches is nothing more than firewood.1 The hero's companions need to be strong too. I have no objection to making a weapon for Kaburagi."
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Baba willingly accepted the task, and continued talking to me while handing over the dagger.
"Give this to Shouta and tell him to attack the demon king's subordinates with it. I will make adjustments based on how it goes."
"Ok, got it."
That's right. Testing its effectiveness in actual combat is important. Well, since I constantly have a psychokinetic barrier up around me, it should be fine. I highly doubt it'll do anything to me, especially since it's a low-performance prototype. I know all too well how disappointing reality can be. You can’t damage me with such a dagger.
I freely let Shouta-kun stab the world's darkness as hard as he could.
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†∼‡∼†
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"Guh!"
On the evening of the day I handed the dagger to Shouta-kun, I was alone at Amanoiwato when I suddenly held my stomach and cried out in pain.
Even though I had prepared in advance, it apparently wasn't enough, since the moment Shouta-kun stabbed the humanoid world's darkness with the flame-clad dagger in the sewers, I instantly felt the pain travel to my stomach. That hurt! Although it's less painful than tearing off pieces of Nenrikin, what hurts hurts, you know?
When I took off my shirt to examine my stomach, there was only a little blood. Ig reached out and healed me right away, so while I was instantly cured, there's no doubt that I was definitely injured. It wasn't a cut from some sort of accident. The timing is too coincidental. Some of the damage Shouta-kun did to the world's darkness has spread to me.
"Ah, shit!"
I stood up and scratched my head.
What is this? It worked, didn't it? It really worked, right? I'm the Demon King! And even though I put up a psychokinetic barrier, I still took damage! My psychokinetic barrier is usually incredibly effective. It's never failed before. It felt like the damage was the result of it overflowing past my psychokinetic barrier, rather than directly piercing it, so there's a possibility that I could defend against it if I trained, but it's quite ominous that just a small prototype dagger caused this much damage. What would have happened if this were a completed hero’s sword?
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Ahhhhhhhhh.
It’s already a mess. I hate it. Is it because it's from another world? It it because it's another world's technology? Just because it was made with technology from another world, it can penetrate my perfect defensive barrier, that not even a meteorite on the same level as the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs could penetrate? That's bullshit. Is it really that ridiculous? But I guess that's the truth.
This is enough…
No…
But…
…Sorry, Baba. It's no good. As one would expect, I can't do this.
I understand her feelings of longing for an extraordinary life and her passion for exterminating the demon king. Even though she's 905 years old, she decided to take on a new challenge and permanently leave to her birthplace. I deeply respect the resolve and zeal that she has. I want to make her dreams come true as much as I possibly can. I truly think so. She's spent hundreds of years longing for this, after all. That's much deeper and heavier than what Kaburagi-san and I, who have only lived for around 30 years, have experienced. I can't even begin to imagine what that's like.
But it's no good. If I try to support Baba's dream, I could die. Even if Baba is my senpai in dream chasing, I still can't give my life for her.
Lonalia Linalia Vava-Nyan; person from another world; mechanic and former queen of Alves. My apologies, but I'm going to have you come over to this side of the match-pump.
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- 枝弱き大樹は薪に過ぎぬ (eda yowaki taiju wa takigi ni suginu). Tried looking up what this means but couldn't find anything on it. I'm assuming it's some sort of Japanese proverb. ↩