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The alchemists made their way orderly to the gardening club.

With a mission to rescue the gardening club that had provided them with the defensive aid, they moved with a sense of purpose, but…

“Huh? That’s strange? Why is it so quiet?”

Oddly, the gardening club was silent.

As if there were no people at all.

No, wait.

There’s a presence inside.

But oddly, there’s no sound.

‘Could it be?!’

One of the alchemists couldn’t help but picture a scene.

Like a landscape in ruins.

The residents, having lost their homes and all their possessions, sat blankly staring at the ground…

‘Oh no! Are we too late?!’

The alchemist sensed it.

Inside, a tragedy as serious as their own was unfolding… perhaps even more severe!

The alchemist felt their instincts as a capable person surge.

It’s undeniable!

Their head and body were screaming: There’s a tragedy inside.

They needed to go in right away!

Without hesitation, the alchemist acted on their overwhelming instinct.

And then, they burst through the door.

To comfort those stricken with despair and eliminate the source of the tragedy.

To exact revenge, if necessary…!

“Hey! We’ve come to save you…!”

…That was the intention with which they opened the door, but…

“Huh?”

“What’s going on? Is it an assault?”

“What’s this?”

Upon opening the door…

Something felt different.

“Uh?”

Unlike the ‘instinct’ she had confidently relied on, the inside of the gardening club was incredibly serene.

The flowers they proudly tended were all intact, and the expressions of the club members didn’t reflect despair at all.

“Uh….”

It’s peaceful.

It doesn’t feel like the horrors of war are approaching at all.

Can it really be this… peaceful?

The alchemist stood in shock, blinking in confusion at the atmosphere that was completely different from her instincts.

Suddenly, she remembered something her warrior friend had said…

“Hey, don’t go using words like ‘alchemist’s instinct’ or ‘woman’s intuition.’ How can you be worse at picking than the program?”

Ah.

That’s right.

She really couldn’t pick…

Seriously…

“What’s going on?”

“Looks like she’s confused?”

Realizing why she was so bewildered and staring at them, they began to talk among themselves. One of the leaders approached her.

Thud.

The gardening club president threw the 70kg dumbbell he had been holding to the floor and approached her for a handshake.

But actually, maybe it wouldn’t be quite right to say he “requested” it.

He forced her hand out using the energy pumped from his muscles to shake hands.

So to be accurate, she was ‘subjected to’ the handshake.

“You came to help, right? Thanks for coming.”

Even in a school uniform, he couldn’t hide his incredible muscular presence.

The gardening club president, with an imposing figure, thanked her.

In a remarkably gentle tone that contrasted with his fierce muscles.

“You guys were assaulted by ants, right?”

“Uh? Uh…”

“Yeah. They suddenly appeared in droves and we were surprised too.”

After saying that, he casually averted his gaze.

His eyes landed on the flowerpots.

The glorious blossoms they had nurtured.

They watered them daily, fed them nutrients, pruned them… They even played classical music to help them grow, like cherished children.

“But as you can see, we defeated all those ants, so you don’t have to worry.”

“All of them? How?”

The alchemist couldn’t hide her confusion at the president’s words.

They had barely managed to fend off the ants with a large amount of pyrethrin sprayed everywhere…

How is this club so intact…?

“Haha.”

The gardening club president chuckled lightly at her eager gaze and provided the answer.

An answer that was going to sound utterly absurd to her.

“We don’t need to be cautious about energy like you guys, do we?”

“Oh.”

She could immediately comprehend.

Unlike their club, filled with materials and apparatus sensitive to energy, the gardening club had nothing that was affected by energy. In fact, it was the opposite…

‘Only flowers or exercise equipment…’

There were even things that were downright dull lying around.

‘So… flowers and… exercise equipment…’

True to its name, the gardening club was packed with plants.

Despite being a considerable-sized room, it felt cramped enough to give an illusion of being tiny.

Flowers planted in pots. Flowers growing in the flowerbeds set up in the corners of the room.

There were even flowers and sprouts growing from devices pulled from a failed smart farm.

This place was truly filled with plants.

And nearby those plants were the exercise equipment.

From worn-out to state-of-the-art equipment.

There were devices you’d only find in a gym scattered all over.

Weight plates, dumbbells, stair climbers, and so on…

If one didn’t know better, they’d mistake this place for an exercise club instead of a gardening club.

‘Right… this is… yeah, they were fine.’

Naturally, such exercise equipment wouldn’t get damaged that easily.

Designed with warriors in mind, they were often sturdier than the average weapons, and could withstand both high and low temperatures, let alone a simple projection of energy. Even if they broke, their straightforward, dumb designs made them easy to repair, or even usable without repairs.

They were fundamentally different from the flimsy incubator-like tools in her club!

Fundamentally!

Just like this muscular gardener president!

“This is great. We were in a bit of a mess after defeating the ants. We didn’t want our flowers to be hurt while exercising either, you know.”

The gardening club president seemed to understand the “absurdity of the situation, where one fell short of realizing obvious facts” that was haunting her, smiling brightly.

“Man, I was so shocked when I was exercising with the hyacinth. The place where ants were crawling all over! If I hadn’t been exercising with it, it would have surely been a disaster.”

He laughed heartily while looking at his hyacinth.

There was a beautifully blooming purple flower in a heavily reinforced, special alloy pot, with a gyroscope device crafted through magical science inside.

“It seems like we’re going around looking for a way to help get rid of the ants. We can help you. While we can’t change materials like you, we can certainly carry the ones you change.”

After saying that, the president turned his back.

“Hey, everyone! Let’s go get revenge for our flowers! Just think of how much the flowers must have been scared by the ants! Let’s turn the ant corpses into fertilizer and feed them!”

“Sure!”

“And I heard ants are full of protein. It would be good to catch a lot and make protein to eat, right?”

“Yeah. They have a bit of a sour taste? They’ve got a nice little kick, which makes them a good delicacy.”

“Alright! Then let’s get moving! If anyone’s worried about the ants coming back while we’re away, feel free to take along your exercising flowers.”

“Sure!”

“Let’s go!”

The gardening club president then rallied with the alchemists.

…

‘…No one asked for permission though…’

Forcefully.

* * *

Suddenly, the number of rescue teams multiplied, setting forth to save many from the gardening club.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

“Thanks to you, we were able to drive away the ants…!”

What remained in the places they passed were the remnants of pyrethrin.

The scent of the defensive aid filled the air.

“We’ll help too! We just need to sprinkle the powder, right?!”

“I can assist with my summon too. Since it’s a slime type, it can spray pyreth… well, insecticide in every nook and cranny.”

And so, the rescued began to join the rescue team one by one, growing in numbers.

Thus, they succeeded in rescuing all those who were suffering.

Working together, they overcame this sudden calamity…

However.

“The ants, the ants…!”

“The ants are retreating from our magical materials! This is a miracle…!”

“My—my artifact… oh… oh no, the circuits, the circuits are all a mess…!”

“Ugh, my circuits are ruined too…! This means we have to make it all over again…!”

What remained at the end of this rescue was ruin.

The assets vanished in the sudden Ant Wave.

“Oh no. When will we clean this up…?”

What was left, like ashes, were the white powders.

“If we don’t clean up the ant corpses quickly, won’t they rot?”

The corpses of the ants, shaking as they lay dead.

“The blindness of humanity and the miserable circumstances, the silent universe… Ah! I felt the terror of not being able to escape from the horrendous, distant island…!”

…And there were even students who seemed to have gained a dangerous realization.

Thus, after the horror of war passed, the students mourned for everything that remained.

They despaired.

And then….

“Hey! Didn’t you guys present on ‘The Phenomenon of Ant Colonies Responding to Changes in Magnetic Fields and Their Considerations’ last year?!”

“What? Why is that coming up now? So you say we summoned this ant horde?!”

“Didn’t you guys write a paper about ants plainly?!”

“What nonsense are you spouting? Didn’t your club present ‘On Methods of Controlling Insect Colonies Using Magical Power’ five years ago?! You guys did that and now you’re trying to pin it on us?!”

“Did you just say that! It’s obvious you wanted to have fun with the ants last year, so you’re trying to repeat it this time!”

They erupted into anger.

 

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