That night, a curfew was imposed on the staff dormitories. Brenda also requested that the professors remain in
their rooms and not go out after 8 pm.
The professors had a lot to gripe about it.
They all looked at Brenda.
“Are you treating us as prisoners? This is too much!”
“We are your targets of protection, not your targets of surveillance! The police are too
much!”
“What makes you think you can stop us from going out after eight o’clock? Never mind that you’re stopping us
from carrying out our experiments at night, but you’re even starting to dictate what we can and cannot do tonight?
This is too much!”
The professors protested but the iron-fisted Brenda still forced them to stay in their rooms. When the professors
were asked to return to their rooms, they dished out tough talk. “Just you wait! I’m definitely going to report you
tomorrow! You people shouldn’t be here at all!”
Brenda had already become immune to such words by now. She replied, “Okay, if nothing goes wrong tonight as
well, I’ll get out of here by myself tomorrow.”
Her reply shut up all the professors.
Seeing that they weren’t talking anymore, Brenda left.
More than a dozen SWAT officers were protecting the staff dormitories.
Aaron said, “With this, even a housefly can forget about getting in there, right?”
Brenda stroked her chin. “Yeah, under such circumstances, it is impossible for Barbarian to head there again!
Aaron, get our men to follow me to the laboratory building!”
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtAaron followed behind her. He looked at Nora curiously and asked, “Captain Brenda, are that student’s skills good
enough? Barbarian has a hacker with him, so surely we can’t rely on a student here, right…?”
Brenda: “…”
She said to Aaron, “Don’t worry.”
Aaron then asked, “By the way, Captain Brenda, didn’t you work with Anti when you went to the US? I remember
Anti once revealed that she’s Q, and Marcus also used to admire the hackers Q and Y the most. Is Q really that
amazing?”
II
11
Nora listened to their conversation and followed behind the two with a smile as they walked to the laboratory
building together.
She had already encrypted the surveillance camera system at the staff dormitories. No hacker-including even Y-
would be able to breach it.
Thus, Nora wanted to go with Brenda to arrest Barbarian.
Brenda was worried about her, though. “Are you really going to the lab?”
Nora nodded. “Yeah.”
Brenda was still very worried. “You’re weak and powerless, so you have to keep yourself well-hidden, okay? Don’t
let Barbarian catch
you!”
Nora wanted to laugh when she heard the words “weak and powerless.”
She said quietly, “Don’t worry, no matter what, I’m still capable of protecting myself.”
Although she couldn’t beat Barbarian in a fight, she wasn’t someone to be trifled with, either.
While Nora was on the way to the laboratory, Brenda, who was ultimately still worried about her, handed her a
small button and said in a low voice, “Nora, if anything goes wrong, press this button immediately. We will rush in
right away!”
“Okay.”
Nora placed the button in her pocket and went to the upper floors. When she entered Epson’s laboratory, she
happened to run into Oscar, who’d just had dinner and come over to work. Upon seeing her, Oscar grabbed her
wrist and asked, “Why are you here?”
Nora: “?”
Oscar looked around. “The SWAT team has surrounded the area. Judging from how they look, they are dead certain
that Barbarian will attack us tonight. Why did you come today when you weren’t here yesterday? Aren’t you just
throwing yourself into danger?”
Nora: “??!”
Since when did she become so close with Oscar?
Oscar, however, looked around and stuffed a pepper spray into Nora’s hands. “Take this, I bought it at the
supermarket today. If a bad guy really comes, we can at least use this for self-defense!”
Nora: “…”
The pepper spray was probably useless on Barbarian but she thanked Oscar anyway. Then, she entered the lab with
her.
Epson happened to spot the two of them. He walked over at once and began to mock Nora. “What are you doing
here? Didn’t you quit this project? Did you come to grovel because you heard that we are completing the project
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmtonight?”
Nora was surprised. “The project will be completed tonight?”
Epson said smugly, “Yes, we’ll be able to complete the project tonight! We’re left with just the last step now!”
Nora: “…”
She really wished she could tell him that it was exactly at the end, when she collated all the experimental data, that
she found out that the project would never succeed. However, going by how confident Epson looked, even if she
were to tell him that, he probably wouldn’t believe her.
Thus, Nora simply shut up.
On the contrary, it was Oscar standing next to her who said, “Professor Epson, Lisa knows that she was wrong. In
order to demonstrate your magnanimity, and also to give her the chance to tell Anti that she once witnessed a
great experiment, you should keep her here, right?”
Her words convinced Epson. “You’re right. In that case, follow me, Lisa. I will let you see with your own eyes that I
am greater than Anti!”
“… Okay.”
She followed behind Epson and walked into a deeper part of the laboratory.
The postgraduate students passed all of their experimental data to Epson.
Epson stood where he was and stared solemnly at the numerical values on the computer screen. “You see this?
This is our experiment that will be successfully completed very soon! Lisa, you are about to witness a historic
moment! Oh, I forgot, you’re just an undergraduate student, so you probably don’t understand my data, right? It’s
okay, once the data finishes compiling, you should at least be able to recognize the word “Success”, right? I hope
you can remember how you feel then, so that you can report it to Anti…”
Amidst Epson’s loud and excited talking, all the data was uploaded.
He looked behind him. Even his expression had become somewhat abnormally excited as he said, “Do you see
that? Once I give this button here a push, all the data will start collating! I am only one step away from success!”