---

Ants.

Ants.

Ants.

Ants smaller than a fingernail.

But what if the number of those ants smaller than a fingernail is vast?

What if there were so many ants that they far exceeded those that could be seen in a bug-infested house and reached the level of an anthill on the street?

“Change those materials somehow!”

“What are you crazy? Just slapping them won’t do…?”

“Hey! With magic…no, if we use magic there will be big trouble! Get—get the insecticide! Go to the teacher’s office and bring the insecticide!”

“Understood, senior!”

A large number is violence in itself.

That rule applies even to tiny bugs like ants.

Where on earth did these ants come from? They took over the clubs. They settled everywhere as if huge stains had appeared here and there, or as if black paint had been carelessly splattered all around, and they began to do what they shouldn’t be doing.

They started nibbling on the materials.

The materials used for magic or alchemy aren’t just simple metals.

The history of magic is the history of efficiency.

Just as science focuses on efficiently mass-producing, magic has also prioritized efficiency.

Because of this, they had sometimes cut and processed parts that had undergone mutations from over-saturation of magical power and made extracts from various plants, or worked to create parchment or alloy plates optimized for artifact crafting.

The fusion of magic and science can also be seen as a means to maximize this efficiency.

Thanks to this, some materials were successfully replaced with synthetic ones, completely bidding farewell to tradition, and even if they couldn’t be substituted, they succeeded in increasing efficiency.

However, accepting something isn’t always a good thing.

Perhaps the current situation is a drawback that magic has to unavoidably accept…

“Pant, pant! Senior! I brought the insecticide!”

“Oh, good…you’ve worked hard, but it seems too late….”

“…What?”

“Look. Everything’s been eaten by bugs….”

Bugs.

That’s right.

They were currently facing the most notorious calamity in the realm of science, the “bugs”…

“Hahaha. We were just laughed at by the alchemists calling us old folks coding…Wow. We’re actually seeing a bug. Hahaha.”

“Manager? Get a grip!”

“Get a grip? Hey, can you stay composed after seeing that? Our artifact materials have been eaten by bugs…!”

“Well, that’s not a bug, but…wait, it is a bug!”

Back in the days of stitching together code.

Humanity began to call the errors in code “bugs” from the point when actual insects appeared and ruined circuits. This term stuck in people’s minds even as technology progressed so much that they no longer stitched code, and even now with the singularity brought by artificial intelligence.

And now.

These Chick Wizards were sharing the experiences endured by the early engineers coding computers, a significant event in the world of science…

Across time and space…

“A curse… This must surely be Carl Jung’s curse…!”

In the midst of this horrible scene, the manager recalled Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology and a renowned wizard himself.

Carl Jung, who was deeply engrossed in magic and sorcery, proposed the concept of “synchronicity” in his later years, but the public denounced it strongly, saying, “Neither magic nor sorcery nor science. It’s merely pseudo-science,” and cruelly accused him of being, “A scholar suffering from mental illness,” and “Going senile in his later years.”

Jung expressed intense displeasure at such public reactions…

Perhaps it was Jung’s curse that had manifested here.

Were they not experiencing precisely what the computer engineers went through, across different times?

“Carl Jung…what grudge do you hold against us, your distant juniors, to inflict such trials upon us…?”

Of course, this was merely a delusion that arose from the shock.

But conversely, it was also an indication of how terrible and absolutely horrifying the situation was.

Thus, the wizards were engulfed in despair and frustration.

But what could they do?

Before a calamity, humanity should only be humble.

These powerless students could only take revenge on the ants gnawing their materials by spraying insecticide…

But perhaps their frustration wouldn’t last long.

“No! Bugs are impurities, they are impurities…! We need to control the variables…!”

Because there were those nearby who could empathize with them.

They were none other than the alchemists.

They were capable people who could change inanimate objects based on the energy called Æther.

Just as the wizards made explosive advancements by combining magic and science, the alchemists also achieved remarkable progress by merging chemistry and science. They became indispensable capable people in modernity, making significant contributions to civilization’s advancement.

But… they too could not escape this calamity.

The club of alchemists was also swept away by ants.

Ants storming into the classroom gnawed at the materials indiscriminately, invaded shelves and pots, contaminating them. They also burrowed into experimental apparatus causing breakdowns, and chewed through wires.

A horrifying situation,

Truly a dreadful situation.

In alchemy, variables are things to be avoided.

Especially for these chicks, it was even more fatal.

They did not know how to control or utilize variables like the alchemists capable of only one serving.

Thus, if they left those ants alone, experiments and everything else could be doomed.

“Senior! A swarm of ants has appeared! What should we do?!”

“What do you mean, what to do! Pull up the Æther and kill those ants… No, wait. Let’s create an insecticide with Æther! Um, what were the effective components against ants? Propoxur? Dichlorvos? Chlorpyrifos? Um… I think it was Dichlorvos?”

“Senior, we can’t synthesize Chlorpyrifos and Dichlorvos! That falls under pesticides!”

“Oh, right… Highly toxic pesticides… If we synthesize, it would violate the Chemical Substances Control Act… Wait. Hold on, calm down and think… Ah! Isn’t there Pyrethrin? Let’s spray that!”

“Yes!”

The only thing that made them better than the wizards was the ability to change inanimate objects.

Therefore, instead of rushing to the teacher’s office to receive insecticide, acting horrendously inefficient out of fear that indiscriminately projecting energy would cause a chain reaction, they could spray substances with insecticidal effects to eliminate the ants.

They began synthesizing Pyrethrin extracted from Chrysanthemum.

Fortunately, there were lots of samples of Chrysanthemum and pre-extracted Pyrethrin in the club, allowing them to synthesize it on the spot.

They generously sprayed the synthesized Pyrethrin.

As if covering the entire classroom with powder.

They crazily mass-produced Pyrethrin powder based on the samples.

The ones standing by began spraying the powder frantically.

They even transformed metals to create shovels to carry and distribute it.

They crafted haphazard smoke-generating devices, infused them with Pyrethrin, and dispersed it as smoke.

They even diluted it in water and filled it in spray bottles to spray everywhere.

In this way, the alchemists successfully subdued the ants in the blink of an eye.

However, what remained after subduing the ants was ruin…

A classroom covered in Pyrethrin powder.

The corpses of ants scattered everywhere.

And the materials they had been gnawed at by ants, alongside the contaminated experimental apparatus…

Furthermore, equipment that had to be disassembled and cleaned because ants had crawled in between…

“Oh…”

At this moment,

The alchemists present felt the futility of war.

Nothing remains after a war…

All that remains is ruin and corpses, just death…

Ah.

War is this futile and useless…

This is precisely why they must advocate against war…

The alchemists stared blankly at the scene of tragedy, now stripped bare by the horror of war.

“Alright! Instead of moping around, let’s go help somewhere else!”

Until one of the seniors shouted out loud.

“Y-Yeah. We can’t be the only ones like this.”

“We’ve completed the subjugation, so… Yeah. Let’s go help!”

“And we have plenty of Pyrethrin powder made!”

“First, let’s head to the gardening club! That’s where they gave us the Chrysanthemum!”

“Right! We must repay our debts! Alright! Grab the Pyrethrin! We’re headed to the gardening club!”

Waaaah—!

The alchemists began to move.

To rescue those suffering from the ants with Chrysanthemum.

 

---