Chapter Sixteen: Our Ordinary Day
Once more the week repeated as it did.
At a loop Morgan couldn't escape.
Wake up early in the morning, exercise before school,
Go to class, attend club activities, return home to train, learn to cook, and explore the town a little.
Rinse and repeat.
That was Morgan's monotonous routine.
Yet, he stuck with it all the same.
Unfortunately, most of his ideas had to be put on hold for now.
It was good to have them,
But since Territory would be his main method of combat, he decided to focus on mastering that first.
"Haaah."
At present, the boy slumped over his desk, letting out a lazy yawn as he stretched his arms across the table.
The faint shadows beneath his eyes told the rest of the story.
"Psst- what happened to you?"
Shidou by the sides couldn't help but turn his attention to Morgan.
"Mah, don't worry about me, just an aftermath of not getting enough rest."
Morgan muttered with eyes half-closed.
He knew himself best when he said that.
Shidou only tilted his head and said nothing more. Classes would be ending soon anyway.
Today, of all days, was physical activities, or whatever they called it.
Morgan was already planning to skip it for the time being.
Other than his clouded eyes, his shoulders, no, his entire body has been aching since.
Guess pushing myself can only take me so far, he thought.
He continued to squirm around in his seat all throughout the class until, at last, the bell rang.
Ringgg~
"Haah, finally it's over."
Morgan muttered under his breath, watching as the teacher left the classroom.
Just as he placed his head back on the table—
"Alright now, attention everyone. If the males could. Please excuse us for the mean time."
Morgan groaned softly, tilting his head to the side just in time to see Shidou slinging his bag over his shoulder.
"Come one, let's go."
"Alright, alright, let's go."
The girls were about to change for P.E.
While they could do that in the girls' locker room, they preferred the much larger classroom space instead.
Standing up,
Morgan slipped his bag off the hook, slung it over his shoulder, and followed Shidou out.
As they stepped into the hallway, they caught sight of a commotion—
Someone was on the ground, surrounded by several girls.
Amidst the chaos, shouts like "You pervert!" and "Die, pervert!" filled the air.
Eeeeeeee-
Both Morgan and Shidou froze for a moment.
Rather, Morgan stared with an expression of pure disappointment, while Shidou simply chose to ignore it.
Without another word, they continued out of the classroom.
"Screw it, I'm not participating today."
Rolling his shoulder, then stretching his arms overhead, Morgan muttered under his breath.
"Stress?"
Morgan paused, hearing Shidou's words.
It's not impossible, no, if anything, it was exactly that.
He was still human after all.
All the training, late nights, and constant mental strain that had been piling up… was finally starting to show.
"I guess so."
"You could go to the infirmary then."
... right.
That was also an option. Morgan nodded.
"Well, I guess that's also another way, but I don't know,"
Morgan rolled his shoulder once more; what he needed was more than that.
After all, even then the pain that spread throughout his body didn't allow peaceful rest.
Still, he dragged his body over to the gym.
On the other hand, Morgan flipped his phone open as an icon flashed.
The icon: β
Beta.
Another side project he'd been working on, or rather, one that he left for Anima to work on.
He'd been relying on Dr. Elric's tech this whole time, especially its artificial intelligence.
To update it to running complex computations,
Even if he could get the slightest bit close to a quantum computing AI, even if just close to it,
Then it'd help a lot.
Vector Manipulation, multi-layered barrier, external mana manipulation, and so on.
If he wanted to get better at using his abilities, then an AI close to Maria's, Fraxinus's sentient AI, level was needed.
"I've injected the AI into my phone, and if possible,"
Additionally, Morgan was willing to go as far as wanting to inject the program into the Realizer.
Parallel Processing.
If anything was possible through Magic and Technology in this world, Morgan was willing to try it all.
Of course, project [Beta β] has to be completed first.
"Sensei, what's that?"
At some point, while he was deep in thought, Tonomachi had slipped up beside him, peering over his shoulder.
"Oh? An Artificial Intelligence program?"
"What the—"
Morgan turned, startled, and instinctively jumped back. His eyes narrowed slightly when he saw who it was.
Seeing him, he exhaled.
"It's you. Please don't sneak up on me like that again."
"No, no, I called your name a couple of times. You seemed pretty lost today, so I snuck up behind you."
Tonomachi said it matter-of-factly with a shrug before pointing at the smartphone in Morgan's hand.
"By the way, I can't help but be curious."
Morgan froze, glanced at his phone for a moment, then sighed. There was no point hiding it.
"Yes, I'm developing an artificial intelligence capable of running complex calculations at high speed."
Now that he thought about it, Tonomachi was surprisingly handy.
He knew his stuff.
For an otaku, or basically a character like him, they're the type that knows a friend that knows a friend that knows about this kind of thing.
An example was the junk store he took him to not long ago.
"Ooooh. Not bad, what's the personality?"
"Hm?"
On an unrelated note, Tonomachi's words spurred the male back to attention as Morgan settled his gaze on him.
An uneasy feeling washed over him.
Was Tonomachi about to start doing his Tonomachi things again?
"You can't just create an AI without giving it a personality. I, for instance, would make it say, 'welcome master,' every time I switch her on."
Tonomachi said, puffing his chest slightly.
Morgan cringed.
It was the kind of expression Tanjiro would make whenever Zenitsu opened his mouth to say nonsense.
As expected, this guy was truly a degenerate.
Ignoring him, Morgan slid the gymnasium door open.
He'd already been standing in front of it, lost in his own thoughts, and inside, most of the girls were already present.
Most of the boys were on their way however,
Naturally, he left Tonomachi behind.
'...maybe it's not a bad idea after all.'
Though, eventually, the male facepalmed. To think he'd actually started entertaining Tonomachi's nonsense.
Good grief.
Good riddance.
"Oh, Sinclair-kun, what's up today. You don't look well."
Their P.E. male teacher, with a standard bodybuilder build, came in front, rubbing his chin as he looked at the male.
"Aaa. A lot of things have been weighing me down recently, so, I guess you can say I've built up a lot of stress."
"Stress, huh?"
Naturally, Morgan had grown nearly as infamous as Haruka.
It was only natural the P.E. teacher would know about it.
The monster who could go one-on-one with that gorilless.
While that had shocked most of the school, others were simply relieved.
Haruka no longer had the time to drag random people into the Kendo Club since Morgan joined.
"And here I was hoping to see you in action today… can't be helped, I suppose."
With his hands on his hips, the man exhaled.
Then, he patted Morgan on the shoulder with a smile.
However, the moment he did, the P.E. teacher's brows shot up in understanding.
"But, perhaps, taking a trip to a spa might help loosen those tense muscles of yours. You've been overdoing it."
His muscles were stiff.
For his frame, he was quite muscular. He could tell from that alone, and thus.
Perhaps, by getting those muscles massaged,
... right.
Morgan then blinked as though he'd attained enlightenment.
He was no Goriless!
Why hadn't he thought of that sooner?
Unknowingly, he'd begun picking up quirks from the weird people around him despite already having the worst of it all.
'I'm cooked as a human being, huh? Guess I'm not one to talk.'
Nodding his head,
"Thank you for the advice, sensei."
As soon as Morgan entered, the males soon began filling in with words like "oooh, look at them",
... along with, "Origami looks good in bloomers", and, "Ai doesn't look too bad either."
Well, Morgan does see the vision.
"Alright, since everyone is here, boys, go get the equipment."
The P.E. teacher's voice boomed, calling for order before turning back toward Morgan once more.
"I guess Morgan here will act as my assistant today."
"Yes, sir."
Pah!
Their P.E. instructor clapped their hands.
"Yosh, today's agenda is dodgeball!"
In response to those words came a wave of cheers from the students.
With males and females acting as separate teams.
But when Morgan heard this, he turned to look at their P.E. teacher.
'… well, well, isn't this a bit unfair.'
Morgan thought.
Unfair, yes. For the males, yes.
The girls were in the clear due to many factors, with number one simply being because,
Origami was on their side.
As expected,
Just as Morgan thought.
the opening round began with Tonomachi catching a ball straight to the face.
Courtesy of a perfectly thrown no-scope shot from the stoic Origami from across the gym.
What followed was a massacre.
Every living, breathing male in that space that was not Shidou was eliminated in record time by her.
In the end, the boys lost spectacularly, with Shidou being the only one left standing.
"Dammit! Why was Shidou not attacked!"
"Go to hell Shidou."
"Raijuu, die!"
Naturally, this meant that Shidou received plenty of hateful glares from his so-called classmates.
Even Tonomachi, his face still red from the earlier hit, was tying a straw to a pen, glaring daggers in Shidou's direction.
'Is that a voodoo doll? …You know what, forget it.'