Infiltrating the Superhuman Training Girls’ School of the Republic of China!

Chen Yayuan isn’t the only one talking about another world war. Countless people are discussing the possibility of a second world war. No, the whole world is talking about a second great war that might come someday. Half-jokingly, half-seriously.

It’s an era where the Soviet Union deploys dozens of nuclear missiles in Brazil, and in response, the United States deploys nuclear warheads in Germany and Turkey. Russia makes an unprofitable deal exchanging nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers with Japan, and in response, Korea receives nuclear weapons from China. Of course, Germany, Turkey, and Korea.

They all have their own nuclear development capabilities. Nuclear weapons provided by other countries cannot be launched without the permission of the providing country, but self-developed nuclear weapons can be launched at any time by the decision of each country’s government.

Korea is understood to have 12 Chinese-made hydrogen bombs and 33 self-developed nuclear warheads deployed. The size of the standing army maintained through a 12-month conscription system is about 400,000 for the army alone. If reserves are mobilized, it’s estimated that… the U.S. government understands that a large army of 3 million can be called up within 3 weeks.

Including reserves, there are 3 company-grade, 1 field-grade, and probably 2 general-grade superhuman officers. Following the tradition that superhumans don’t take non-commissioned officer positions, that’s about the total number of superhumans in the military, or in fact, in the entire Republic of Korea. Of course, 6 superhumans in the military is plenty. No, it’s top-tier worldwide.

If the CIA hadn’t reached out to me that day, I would surely have been one of them. But now, these ‘superhumans’ are no longer the most decisive factor in military power as they once were. While superhumans might have been more important when nuclear technology was underdeveloped and there were more superhumans than nuclear warheads, with the advent of the hydrogen bomb, the ultimate weapon of government power to counter superhumans, it has become even more difficult than before to quantify and rank any country’s military power.

This monstrous weapon, created jointly by Heisenberg and Oppenheimer, was developed in the 1930s due to the U.S. government’s insistence on a solution to the ‘superhuman problem’. The partner chosen by the United States, which kicked away all cooperation proposals from potential allies like Britain and France, was Germany, the most unstable country in Europe at the time.

The United States, which had been reluctant to intervene in European issues after the memory of the World War, received a warning that the same revolution could occur in Germany after the communist revolution in Japan and the establishment of the Japanese Soviet Republic. The fate of the republic, where extremists like Ernst Thälmann of the German Communist Party and Adolf Hitler of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party were rampant, was barely set right by U.S. intervention.

But Herbert Hoover’s real purpose, under the pretext of purging the German Communist Party, might have been to make contact with Heisenberg, the greatest theoretical physicist of the time.

Anyway, it’s too long ago. After the United States suppressed the German Communist Party uprising, Germany couldn’t escape from American influence for decades.

But recently, just as a party aiming to break away from Chinese influence has taken power in Korea, in Germany too, for the first time in 30 years, the center-left Social Democratic Party has won a majority in parliament.

There could be various reasons. It could be economic issues, or it could be that Germans felt more security anxiety than safety due to the recent deployment of nuclear missiles in Berlin.

One of the current Social Democratic Party members is Olaf Katerfeld, who was elected at the young age of 40. He is the father of Rebecca Katerfeld, the Chinese exchange student.

The reason the higher-ups are concerned about Rebecca Katerfeld is probably due to this delicate relationship between the U.S. and Germany. I don’t know exactly whether the U.S. wants to compromise with the Social Democratic Party or wants to overthrow it. That’s for someone like the CIA director to decide, not something that would reach the ears of a low-level agent like me.

But the CIA’s method has been consistent so far. If there’s a regime they want to change, they dig up the backgrounds of key figures to find weaknesses. They spread it to the media to create scandals.

Unless it’s absolutely necessary, they don’t crudely kill or threaten. That’s been the American way.

For that reason, I often made efforts to get closer to Rebecca Katerfeld and explore about her, in preparation for any possible situation.

…While not being sure if the effort would be meaningful.

“Ah, aah, Platoon Leader. I had something I was curious about.”

While I was enjoying a light rest sitting on a bench after Sunday lunch, Katerfeld spotted me and suddenly approached to talk. I had no reason to refuse her question, so I nodded while sitting.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Do you take notes?”

“…Pardon?”

“Sleep talk. Do you take notes? There’s something I want to study.”

Jet-black long hair as if painted with ink. Eyes just as black as her hair color, and body joints that always seem slightly uncomfortable, creaking a bit.

Although she’s called a spiritualist, it’s impossible to know exactly what she does – that’s Rebecca Katerfeld. And even now, I can’t guess what on earth she wants to say.

“Whose sleep talk? My sleep talk?”

“Aish, really. Of course, Briar Churchill’s! Do you still not know me that well? Even though you’re the platoon leader?”

“Well, we need to be close for me to know anything…”

“Ah, that’s not the important issue. Sleep talk. Notes. Even shorthand records. If you have them, I’ll buy them. How much do you want?”

Why are so many people talking to me about money today? I shrugged and answered.

“Of course I don’t take notes on such things. How did you know she sleep talks?”

“I saw her sleeping sprawled out on the ground under this bench. The content of the sleep talk I heard then was interesting, but I couldn’t hear it all properly…”

“…Not even on the bench, but on the ground under the bench?”

“Yes.”

Let’s not mind it. I knew my roommate was a strange person from the first day.

“When I tried to take notes and got closer to listen, she suddenly opened her eyes wide and shot a vacuum wave… I forgot even what I had remembered. Isn’t that too much?”

“If I woke up while sleeping rough on the ground and someone was putting their ear close to my face, I think I’d be surprised and shoot a vacuum wave too.”

“Come on, you can’t shoot one.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“Anyway, so I grabbed her head and asked her to go back to sleep while laying her on the ground again.”

…You mean you got hit by Maestro’s vacuum wave, then grabbed her head and tried to lay her on the ground, right? Why wasn’t I there? It might have been the most interesting sight I’ve seen at this school.

“So what happened?”

“Since I’m not a combat-type ability user… I got hit by consecutive sound wave attacks from Maestro and ended up falling asleep instead. What a shame. I’m thinking of asking that Vietnamese hypnotist next time. But before that, I thought, surely a roommate who sleeps together every night would have taken notes of that person’s sleep talk? That’s what I thought…”

There were many points to address, but I decided to let it pass for now. Seeing that Churchill didn’t say much to me about that incident, it probably wasn’t a big deal.

By the way, I had forgotten because we hadn’t had much conversation until now, but this woman is quite a strange person too. Just as Churchill was sent to China due to her eccentricities, perhaps Rebecca was also exiled to China to prevent political scandals from her eccentricities during her father Olaf Katerfeld’s term?

Although they both seem satisfied with their school life, it’s a combination that makes their classmates who came to study abroad in the same place of exile seem a bit pitiful.

It would be fine if they just bothered each other.

“Well, I don’t take notes on such things. It’s true that she falls asleep singing loudly every night, but the lyrics change every day…”

“Ah, the lyrics do change.”

“It’s not consistent, and the content is creepy…”

“That’s exactly why it’s important. A completed spell without a single letter or particle wrong. Such things are neither spells nor sorcery, just symbols. Political symbols. Because… there’s no need to memorize them, right? Real spells that summon spirits, I mean.”

“…Anyway, I’d like to say I don’t have any notes.”

“No, why?”

“Conversely, I don’t understand why I should take notes of my roommate’s sleep talk.”

“That’s… that seems like an important spiritual clue. This, this, how should I explain this…”

I had a feeling the conversation was going to get longer. I sighed, stood up from my seat, and suggested to Katerfeld:

“It’s awkward for you to keep talking standing there, and it’s also a bit awkward to sit side by side. Why don’t we go for a cup of tea? I think it would be better to talk face to face.”