Chereads / It Started With Devils & Artefacts / Chapter 87 - Slightly Famous

Chapter 87 - Slightly Famous

"It's strange. The space gun is nowhere to be found for two and a half days." One of the workers in the observatory said to his colleague.

"No, it's not. Initially, we were not even supposed to see it. It revealed itself when Marcus Goldman wanted it. By this point, it could be where it was initially getting upgraded or something." The other one said with a perplexed look. He wonders the same thing.

The space gun is the ultimate deterrent. Or one of many deterrents the inventor has.

Yet, it disappeared the same way it appeared like a ghost.

But, yes, the second worker was right. The APSOS-class orbital station is getting its needed retrofits.

At this moment, behind barriers in Earth's orbit, the Ars Almadel Salomonis is taken apart by the Aurora bots, and the barrel is getting replaced by a superior Magnetic-Graviton Barrel.

Before this, Marcus has classified this weapon as a Civilization/life-ending. With this upgrade, it will be a literal planet buster.

Since the orbital weapon is in space, there is no resistance. The new barrel warps space to accelerate the energy at insane speeds.

Before, it could reach far because of the absurd amount of energy it could discharge, but now, it can discard and ignore space and distance. Such capacities make this weapon deadly anywhere in the solar system.

Not to be left behind, the original four diamond cores are getting replaced by experimental rhombus formation-set four diamond reactors. Not only are they specially prepared for power output, but they also have resonance systems to synergise the power output.

The rough estimation of its power is that it could crack planets like eggs and quickly terraform planets when necessary.

It is a weapon with the power of a death star, but it has the power to birth a star, too.

It will live to its name, 'Ars Almadel Salomonis- the One who Masters it all.'

~~~~~~Meanwhile, on Earth's Surface, within the Parliament, inside the Ministry of Education in Marcus' Home country of Lithuania~~~~~~

The minister just received a package like never before!

"Is this true?"

"Yes. Look at what HE has sent over to us!" The subordinate handed over four documents to the Minister of Education.

The minister opened them and started reading. Sweat began to drop from his forehead.

"I did check the database before. It appears he did this before." The subordinate nervously pointed out.

"If he did this before, why didn't he do it now!?"

He would instead remain ignorant than this! What he is reading is lunacy! Or more like science fiction!

"Biological combat models!? Human-dragon hybrids!? Interdimensional aliens! How are we supposed to react to this!?"

He saw documents about four girls who were supposed to transfer into Marcus Goldman's class!

These girls were all silver/white-haired girls with insane backgrounds.

'He is making those warships into girls!'

"...Sweet god… I am not getting paid enough to deal with this shit!"

"What should we do?"

"Approve! I don't care! Please send this information to NATO and our allies. Let them know the full extent of this mad scientist's reach! Plus, send it to the president! Let him know what is going on."

After saying that, his hand went to the lowest drawer and opened it. It was a bottle of vodka. He opened it and prepared a single 'shot'. Without wasting time, he drank it.

"..."

"..."

"...Don't look at me like that. President issues bottles to everyone." He pointed at the window. At that moment, one of the airships leisurely passed through the capital.

"Right on time." The minister pointed out that he was tracking their movement. That was the third time now.

"...Makes sense. Can I get one, too?"

~~~~~~Next Day, Morning~~~~~~

Enterprise, Tirpitz, Gu Yuena and Sirin looked at the big mirror in the bathroom. They did that one after another. They were checking out how they looked in school uniforms.

"It's strange without my hat." The Aircraft carrier said with a complex look.

"You look gorgeous in any clothes. My dear, let me help you with your hair." Marcus proceeded to pull her hair into a high ponytail.

As he was doing that, other girls checked out their clothes. The blue and white school uniform fit well with Tirpitz but not so much with Gu Yuena and Sirin. Blue is not their colour.

However, it's not that bad.

"Oh, I have something for my dear Sirin as well~" He pulled a white headband for her hair.

"You are prepared." The Herrscher commented as she allowed him to place it on her head. She looked at herself in the mirror.

"...Not bad. But I feel that I am approaching Kiana Kaslana's territory." The Golden-orange eyed girl said with a slight frown as she inspected her hairstyle. This headband was close to the one used by her counterpart when she was a novice Valkyrie.

"Do I need to remind you that you two are the same? That means your style would be similar." He pointed out the obvious.

*Sigh*

"Don't speak like that if you want to impress me. You should know better than this, Marcus." The girl made her point across.

He chuckled, hearing how sour she was about the comparison.

"Don't worry. I am simply giving you what makes you look amazing."

"Right…" All he got was a sarcastic comment.

After checking themselves in the mirror, Marcus got a pair of neckties for the ship girls. That led them to put one on him as well, as they wanted something similar, something like uniformity. Then Quinella and Sirin ended up with one as well.

The thing was, the necktie was optional, but they all had one.

"Fantastic! You all look so lovely!" Inventor's mother clapped her hands, seeing all six dressed like this.

"Where is Athena?" Marcus looked around. He didn't notice when his Fiance sneaked out.

"She went to enrol in your school through normal means."

"Hah. sounds like something my Athena would do." Marcus wasn't surprised by her move.

"Yes. Apparently, a maths teacher from your school is retiring, so she is aiming for that position."

'Righttt—! One of the teachers… no, wait. A bunch of them are old farts who have been working since the Soviet Union fell.' Marcus realised how old and outdated the system was here.

"Yeah. I think only one English teacher is new. The rest are quite old."

"What are you implying, mister?" His mother slightly narrowed her eyes. Age is a very delicate thing.

"Nothing. I am worried that a school in my town will lose quite a bit of educators." He pointed out the obvious.

"Well, as the next Mayor, you must do something." She said that with a confident tone.

"Hmm, I could just use time travel to collect talented individuals to teach in my school." He recalled that he was studying time at a certain point.

"Or entice kids to become teachers in future," Rose said with an eye roll. Why on earth is he looking for a more difficult choice all the time?

"Or that. Yeah, anyway, going to store this info for later." After saying that, he proceeded to eat his food and give some bacon to his lion pet, which descended from upstairs when he smelled meat.

Soon after, his girls joined for food. By this point, Nyx was already gone. Primordial Night has sneaked back into the base and is feasting on a pile of sweets in his kitchen.

Thankfully, he has a small army of maids who can watch over her.

'I should do something like a young master act with all my maids. Lining up for me when I return from school.' A random thought popped into his mind as he was eating his breakfast.

After finishing their meals, everyone proceeded to leave the house and start walking to his school.

This 'journey' was his first time walking with Sirin, Gu Yuena and the ship girls around his town. Before this, they had never explored it. Funny how it is supposed to be the 'heart' of his faction.

Well, now they have a chance. After walking for a few minutes, they had to stop.

When Marcus saw what was happening, he started laughing.

It confused the girls.

"I suppose I scared them enough to start putting asphalt on the road." He pointed at the gravel road and then at the hill in the distance. On the hill was a big factory of some sort.

"This part of the town expanded around 1950 to 1960s around that concrete slab factory. The government back then used these slabs to build soviet style flats all over the country and beyond.

As you all probably know, thanks to knowledge, I gave you all communism a focus on complete government control over people.

Since they built that factory, this part of the road has never been asphalted. As it's the back side of the factory, barely anyone uses it. I use this road to get to school." As he explained to them, he watched with some glee how this freaking dusty road was getting properly laid down.

"I feel that you have some sort of enmity with it," Sirin commented with a deadpan look. She is surprised that Marcus' hometown has roads like these! They are indeed in the sticks.

"I do."

His comment made Quinella look at him for a second. She was confused since she had no data about this. Marcus never walked enough of this road to develop such feelings.

She doesn't know that this is his second rodeo in life, and this road is still haunting him. Well, it used to, as now it's getting patched up.

"...Come now, you still don't understand." He saw a confused look on Quinella's face.

"...No…I don't…" She shook her head, still trying to grasp the gaps.

"You never wondered how I know stuff, even if you don't know?" He asked with a slight smirk.

"...No…" The AI-turned-human shook her head some more.

"All your coding experience is not fake; it's my memories synthesised. No amount of talent I possess could shrink the expertise needed to build a self-aware AI." He pointed out the hard truth.

"...But to have experience, you would need—" She stopped in her tracks and looked at him.

"...I see— I see. I understand. To think— no wonder." The beauty connected the dots as she proceeded to smile.

"...You already lived before."

Sirin looked at him with wide eyes when she heard Quinella say that.

"...You are from my world!?" Her first question was to ask that!

"No. Different. In my past life, I was just like now a car fanatic. I used to spend my time building cars, supercars, and mega cars and programming my life away. In my free time, I used to play gacha and whale a lot."

"... 'Whale'? What is that?" Quinella asked with confusion.

"Spend money on free games. Regardless, this road is closed, so let's take the alternative."

Marcus didn't clarify what gacha is. That term is not worldwide yet. Smartphones haven't taken off yet, which means gacha games are not mainstream.

He motioned to walk in the opposite direction. Sirin continued observing the mundane-looking houses, trees dotting the streets as well.

It's a simple-looking suburban area. Once the group reaches the end of the street, they end up on another street which goes horizontally. The one thing which attracted their attention was the grassy expanse in front of them.

It was quite a considerable sway of land with nothing on it.

"Right, this area. I remember my neighbour bringing his cows here." He recalled this area from his past life and the few times he passed here with Serafall.

"...Your neighbour has cows!?" Quinella reacted with weird shock.

"How does that shock you?" He asked with confusion.

"...Weird! This place is a town! Not the countryside!" She pointed out her reasoning.

"Our house is second from the crossroad. His is first. The way territories for houses are allocated makes his house, which is at the street corner, nearly twice our size—giving him enough space to raise cows.

Anyway, I forgot there is this much land right next to my place!"

He stroked his chin.

'Maybe I should place my Entertainment Dome here?' He looked to his left. There was a whole block of five-storey soviet style flats. They are next to a bendy road which ends up to the main road which goes to the highway to the south and north to the city centre.

To his right, the road goes down towards the river valley. There are just basic suburban houses.

'Well, the place is not the best for a games centre, considering it will be a big flashy ball.' He pondered on this some more before his girls pulled him out of his thoughts.

"We should stop standing like idiots in the middle of the road!" Sirin hissed at him.

"Right." He turned to the left and proceeded to walk. His small army of females followed him. His ship girls didn't comment at all. They were like small girls exploring the outside world for the first time.

This place was not the underworld! This land was their creator's homeland, so they wanted to sink into it and enjoy it to the fullest.

Once on the main road, they went south towards the highway. Marcus' school is next to the forest at the edge of the town itself. It has vast sways of land. One of the most common things they do in springs on P.E. is to run around the forestry area.

But before that is a supermarket on the right side, while on the left is an expanse of semi-warehouses and other buildings made for commerce around the concrete slab factory.

However, in the distance, they can see a blocky and squarely school made from grey concrete, another soviet relic which is his school.

'This place was refurbished when I graduated in my last life.' Marcus recalled his town becoming much more colourful by the time he moved to Germany to get closer to his cars.

The flats would get a colourful makeover away from the bland soviet style grey.

"So that's your school. It's so close to your mother's workplace." Gu Yuena realised that Marcus' place of study was literally five minutes away from his mother's workplace.

"Precisely, my point. She loves to work here—all the gossip. Incredibly close to my school, she can speak with my homeroom teacher." He said with a snort.

"Yes. But then you revealed the space station, and things went wild." His assistant smiled at him.

"Yeah. I suppose I ruined her gossipful days. Now she must deal with gods who want to shop at her supermarket. I didn't expect the Norse to be that patriotic."

He recalled that Odin requested to allow them to visit his place. It's like a club experience. Considering his control freak nature, allow gods to be here. But they comply with his requests. So, he allows them to be patriotic and pay their patronage.

'I guess it's a valuable thing being a Conqueror of a supernatural Realm. I should meet Odin to discuss what happened to Thor, Baldur and Loki.' He pondered on that as he looked around his mother's supermarket. This place used to be some sort of ruins until a Supermarket chain bought this place and turned it into a shop.

His eyes eventually end on people who look at him with strange looks.

It appears people finally recognised him.

"It appears they know my face~"

"Well, you are handsome," Quinella said with a matter-of-fact tone.

"I am certain it is not what he meant," Sirin said with an eye roll.

"I know. And I was not designed to care about some random people." The artificial intelligence-turned-human said with her eye roll.

"...Right." Sirin deadpanned. She was feeling Deja-vu, like looking at the mirror. It's something her old self would say.

"It would appear your mother was right. They don't look THAT terrified." Gu Yuena said with a somewhat interested look.

"Small town effect," Marcus said with a questioning tone. He was thinking along the lines that they felt proud that their town produced such a person.

Besides, his people don't like communists, so they might be proud that he exterminated such a nation. Who knows. He is not planning to read their minds.

"I guess. Doesn't your mother know most of the people from this area?" Quinella enquired after seeing everyone speaking with gushed voices as they looked at how Marcus' group was walking to the school.

"I am not psychic— wait, I am. But no, I don't enquire about details in her work. I leave that to my father. I leave him to suffer in that regard."

"...For some reason, I am feeling offended," Sirin said with a confused look.

Is he indirectly saying that females talk too much!?

"Are you saying that she talks too much?" Gu Yuena asked as she tried to understand his roundabout way of speaking.

"No, you must be dreaming." He brushed her question aside.

"All I am saying is that he has to listen to all the gossip she gathered over the day. I didn't mention anything about talking too much."

"Uh-huh… didn't you forget that we all are psychics here?" Sirin said with a huff.

"Oh right— as if I forgot that I made you that." He sarcastically replied.

After some more bickering, they crossed the last road and entered the vast lands of the school. Marcus remembered that a lot of this land was given away in future by the school itself. The pavement he was walking would, at this moment, twelve years from now, end up destroyed. This whole part would become car wash services and new modern flats.

In a way, He feels nostalgic. His busy life made him forget about those small details.

"There is so much free land here. Why don't you make something here?" The Herrscher said with a frown. She recalled St.Freya as a beautiful place. It's a big place with all sorts of buildings. He could easily make this place into something similar!

"Any suggestions? You do realise you could do something as well? All you need is to brush your finger down and order something." Marcus explained while looking at the school in the distance.

"Not my place to do such things. I am an outsider to this world." Sirin said with a plain voice.

"Outsider? Who told you that?" He swiftly pulled her into an arm hug and stroked his cheek into hers, making her extremely embarrassed!

"S-Stop with your childish behaviour!" She started to complain with a red face. She was trying to push him away.

"Nope. Who told you that you are an outsider? My Sirin is where she belongs~" He continued to tease her. In the end, she gave up and proceeded to play along.

"O-Okay! I am where I belong! Just stop thisss!"

She couldn't take it anymore!

"Good. That's what I like to hear!" He stopped with the tease and instead switched from an arm hug into a 'lewder' act of hand holding.

Sirin was relieved that she was released from such an embarrassing act.

However, other girls were jealous of the pampering she was getting! Especially Quinella, who sees this girl as an upstart!

She would want to call her 'outsider' to their ecosystem, but since Marcus approves, she has no means to oppose him.

Eventually, the group arrived at the school. More and more gazes went to the Inventor's group. After all, it was a group of girls with white/silver hair surrounding one black-haired teen who had a very confident smile on his lips. He was holding the hand of a girl with distinctive orange/gold eyes.

"...I-Is that Marcus Goldman!? Holy fuck! What is he doing here!?" One guy from a group of students exclaimed with wide eyes. He stopped walking for a second.

"Look at his clothes!" another one from the same group pointed out.

"Holy shit!! The madlad is going to school?" Another one realised that Marcus, with all his craziness, is STILL going to school!? Just how absurd is that?

Why!?

Is there something going on!? Why does he need this? Is he here to see what normal people think of him? Instead of being in his faction, he is coming to see it first-hand.

The student tried to understand this from their perspective. But all they got was Marcus smiling and waving to the students like he was just a 'famous' student.

"I do feel like I am a celebrity. My hikikomori senses are going all over the place." Marcus said to Sirin, who was next to him.

"You still call yourself Hikikomori? You have been on the battlefield and commanded warships in a fight." She pointed out.

"All the time, I was surrounded by my creations. Even now. If you can't stay in your garage all the time, then just make the garage come with you. That's what I say. And it worked wonders, don't you think? I own the Underworld now, alongside my homeland." He explained to her as they passed the main hall and then took the stairs upstairs to their first class.

"You should face your shortcomings." She said with a cute frown. Trying to help him when she never acknowledged it herself.

"Hah. Now you sound like Kiana. But it did address it. As I said, I just made my garage travel with me." He said that with a smile.

"You took the long route out." She replied with a deadpan tone.

"I am someone who, if get isekai'ed, would starve and make a weapon to sell instead of asking for help." He said with a small smile. He is confident at least one version of him did get isekai'ed. Considering he got sent back in time to an alternative reality. There should be a version of him who got sent to a medieval fantasy world.

"So pride?"

"Just like you." He replied with a teasing smile.

She didn't argue with that. She, indeed, is proud. But that pride kept on getting battered.

Instead, the beauty mumbled under her breath. This was more annoying than she thought. She should stop this, but for some reason, she wants him to become a better— person. It sounds strange from a literal angel of death, but then again, she is probably the best person to listen to when she says to become 'better'.

"Here we are. My home classroom~!" He winked at the girls before opening the door and proceeding to enter.

Quinella wondered why he was that excited. But then again, he has five creations with him at once. He can brag more than ever this time around.

As he entered, he was followed by five of them. The class instantly got quiet. He noticed that the teacher was already at the class. For a second, he wondered if he was late. He looked at the clock on the wall.

Nope, he still had over five minutes.

"Marcus— Goldman." His teacher removed her glasses and looked at him as if he were a ghost.

"When your mother said you would come to class, I was sceptical. What are you even doing here?" She asked him with a deadpan tone.

"To get the diploma?" He pointed out the first thing.

"As if you need it." She countered.

"Well, I need that stuff for the mayor's job. No? Or do people want a 'non-educated' mayor as their leader?" He pointed out again.

"If you consider yourself non-educated, then the rest of the people are primates. Not everyone has floating warships, clone armies, and robots." She reasoned with him.

"Sure. I guess. But I am not the one inventing the rules. Suppose you want to argue about this stuff. Try speaking with my mother and the government. Since I just checked the requirements, a high school diploma is needed now."

'I do wonder if it's a new law? Last time I checked, I needed proof of adulthood, like an ID, but now I need a high school diploma.'

For a second, he wondered if people wanted him to attend school just to get close to him.

In truth, Marcus didn't realise that his existence created entire bureaus to predict his movements. Psychologists are working with agents and politicians to grasp and understand what Marcus Goldman is.

What he wants and what he does. All of that. Truthfully, some predictions are horrifying, as some of the most intelligent people in the world have predicted that something like Project Eden might exist.

To get more clues, they added something to the constitution to make him leave his house. That was a gamble as he could quickly get a high school diploma by taking exams now. But they predicted that he would take his time.

And they were right!

"So you are here to get a legitimate right to build on land?" She was somewhat baffled. The woman was slightly cynical as, just like many other people, she knew this teen didn't care about laws.

But that is not entirely correct. Marcus is flippant. Sometimes, he does according to rules, and sometimes he does not. Everything depends on efficiency. At the moment, he does not need to rush.

So why not follow what these people want? He has time to waste.

Part of his sadism is that he will be at school and attend everything like nothing happens while his faction keeps on taking over the space. Turns Mars and Venus into habitable planets, followed by building up infrastructure on the Moon and Saturn.

None for Marcus is required. He put all of that in a 'building queue' like it's a strategy game.

"I wasn't the one who put my name on candidates for the Mayor position. I am simply following what they want since it looks fun to upgrade the town with my tech." He said the last part with excitement. He already has ideas for an Olympic stadium, an Entertainment Dome, a town's metro system, fixing the roads and expanding highways in the area.

By the way, the mayor is, in a way, a regional leader, too. So he would have a radius of 30 to 40 square kilometres to play with!

'Maybe something akin to Academy City? It would be amusing to have!'

"Right. Anyway, take your seat." She motioned for him to sit. She then saw a small army of silver/white-haired girls following him.

"Let me guess your creations?" The woman jokes, but Marcus nodded with a huge smile.

"...I–" She wanted to say she was joking, but he brightened before explaining.

"This is Sirin! She is from a parallel world! This one here is Quinella! She is my first proper creation! Artificial intelligence turned, girl! Then this one is Gu Yuena! She is a human and dragon hybrid!"

He explained the first three, which caused her brain to turn blank.

"Then these two are ship girls! They are something I made via resonance with the warships I collected!"

By that point, the teacher just leaned her head on the table.

"Please take your seat, Mr. Goldman."

"...Okay…"

For a second, he wondered if his stuff was not that impressive with how ignoring she was!

'I guess I need to try harder next time. I should get my other ship girls rolling out and bring over Raiden Mei and Bronya. Maybe Elysia would impress her.

Hmm…'

He pondered on bringing Herrscher of Human Ego over to his world.

That pink elf could work wonders for that lady's enthusiasm.

Marcus never considered that some people prefer to get over their shocks by ignoring them altogether. He has not found those kinds of people yet. His interaction levels are negligible. Before the war, he didn't even interact with people that much.

So he thought that she was not impressed.

As the Inventor was thinking about how to impress his homeroom teacher, as his pride was on the line, the rest were staring at him and the girls with open mouths. Did he just say that they are his creations!?

"So this dude, instead of finding a girlfriend, makes them!?"

"Holy—"

"Damn…"

"Does he take apprentices!?"

Quinella looked at the last one with narrowed eyes. She recalled how Azazel was trying to butter up. She should make a Saturn 5 rocket, pack that fool on it, and send it flying!

"Hiiii!!!" The guy squeaked out loud when he saw Quinella staring daggers at him. Not realising that she was thinking about the obnoxious Fallen Angel.

Marcus ended up sitting at his table, which had been empty for over two weeks. Next to him was Quinella. Who smugly smiled at Sirin, who frowned back at her.

"There are two more tables added for you four. Use them." The assistant pointed at the tables.

"... Right."

The dragoness and ship girls didn't complain as they knew they would have their chances. They did their research on this school's curriculum. They will have their chance to sit next to him as they will have to change their classes constantly.

That means different rooms with different seating.

*Ringing Bell*

The classes have started, and Marcus proceeded to pull out his stuff. Apart from the books, he pulled out his drawing book and opened it.

He first saw his pistols, rifles, BMW, then Daedalus Airship, followed by Scavenger.

The last thing he drew was his submarine.

'I do have to consider Project Trailblazer. I only assigned the project name for the future spaceships.' Solomon's successor pondered what he should make for his space odyssey.

As he was doing that, behind him was Sirin, who used her hand to hold her head. At this moment, she dearly wished to change with Kiana Kaslana and let her take over while she could nap or read a manga!

'Oh…'

With a slight grin, her HUD activated as she used half of her vision as a web browser! Build in HUD for the victory!

While Sirin was having fun reading Manga, the rest of the class paid attention to the elephants in the room! Five hot chicks and a literal 'conqueror of the world'…

~~~

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