I'm fighting the evil mega-corps and secret villains of this world, but hooking up the MC with his harem is the real challenge! 6 (Overpowered Isekai CYOA / Gakuen Toshi Asterisk)

"Heh-heh… Ha-ha-ha! How unexpected. Yes, very surprising… Quite beyond my expectations. Young Enfield really is something." Madiath's uncontrolled laughter resounded throughout his office as he offered her his unfeigned applause.

The chairman of the Festa Executive Committee, Madiath Mesa, had watched the now deleted recording from her partner's channel after Galaxy's information control measures finally kicked in.

"She didn't even wait for the Festa. What an impatient young lady she is..."

While she didn't exactly reach the mass audience required for her words to produce the maximum effect it could have, considering Meyer's audience consisted of people that received his anti-foundation views to various degrees, the potential damage to Galaxy could be much greater than one might expect. The foundation's reports on Claudia's partner had a footnote on notable 'disruptive grassroots movements' having originated from his non-subtle ideals against the current world order, spread forth from his online channels and the people connected with his little school club. That could certainly be leveraged for some of their plans.

"…What's the meaning of this, Madiath?" A disinterested voice asked from the corner of the room of their usual meeting place.

Said meeting place of the currently titled Golden Bough Alliance was aboard a private, unregistered airship in the skies above Asterisk, at an altitude far above the flight paths of the more legal airships.

The figure of the young woman, all but dissolving through the wall like a shadow and sporting a mechanical necklace-like object wrapped around her throat, belonged to Varda.

"Why does she want to see Ladislav?"

"Oh? Are you worried about your dear father? How touching. As a father myself, I'm quite jealous. If only my daughter could have such a loving relationship with me."

Then again, such a thing was unlikely after what he had done to her. He fought off the fleeting bitter feeling that came upon him whenever he thought of what Akari would think of him now, and refocused his attention on the light-blue haired woman.

"…He might have created me, but we don't have that kind of relationship."

It was the understatement of the century, he thought to himself.

Madiath allowed his thoughts to drift briefly towards the statistics on dysfunctional families in this day and age before schooling his response as to not offend his associate.

"It was a joke. But as for why young Enfield wants to meet the professor, even I don't… Hmm?"

At that moment, his mobile began to ring. As he opened an air-window, the face of a fuming, redheaded young man appeared in front of him.

"What's the meaning of this, Madiath?!"

Madiath couldn't help but grin at the words this time, exactly the same as Varda's, it was almost predictable. "I'm afraid I'm just as shocked as you are. Why don't you try asking her directly at the regular assembly to save us some time? I'd like to know myself."

He was referring to the regular meetings of the six student council presidents, also known informally as the Rikka Garden Summit, named after the place where it was held on Asterisk.

"Don't play dumb with me! If you know something, spit it out!"

"Believe me, I have no idea what she's trying to achieve," he answered honestly. "All I know is that she's been looking into the professor for some time now, which seems to have upset Galaxy quite a bit. It was the reason why they arranged to have the exceptional team she put together in the last Gryps face… unexpected difficulties."

Dirk Eberwein, student council president of Le Wolfe Black Institute, glared back at him as if he was telling him a preposterous tale.

"…Fine. But that woman's out of her mind. Picking a fight with a foundation, and the one backing her own school at that… Does she have a death wish or something?"

"I can't deny that that does seem like the most probable outcome at this rate. But I do think this will make things slightly more complicated."

"What?"

"What I mean is that dealing with this won't be straightforward." Madiath leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head as he curled his lips. "This is a near-perfect chance to bring Galaxy down. And given that there's been a power balance among the six foundations for so long now, do you really think the others will let this opportunity pass by?"

"But the others shouldn't even know about Varda. And Ladislav was only known to the public as the ideological leader behind the Jade Twilight Incident, nothing more. Yes, it would be damaging for them if that was to get out, but…" Dirk paused there, crossing his arms, deep in thought. "To begin with, hasn't Galaxy already come to some kind of agreement with the others about how to deal with him? They can't break that now, can they?"

"That is indeed the case. This is an internal problem for Galaxy. They will, of course, try to deal with her in a more permanent fashion, but if the others merely object to their methods, that won't be enough to constitute a violation of the agreement, wouldn't you say? Even from an ethical standpoint, the blame will fall squarely on Galaxy."

"Hmph! I guess it will be difficult for them to do anything out in the open if the other five are breathing down their necks…" Dirk snorted in irritation.

"And this time, it will be five against one. Even Galaxy won't want to do anything reckless… not without a little push. Varda, will your assets in the foundation be capable of turning this spark into a wildfire?" Madiath addressed their equal partner in the alliance that had remained silent for quite awhile.

Varda thought for a moment, then shook her head without giving away her personal thoughts on the matter. "Not at the moment. Not directly. I can have them table the motion, however, influencing the result will not be possible for now."

"Do it anyways. With the appearance of the other entity we should consider accelerating the plan, or put the foundations in a position where they would have to claw over each other while we engage with the new element without interference." Dirk growled in frustration.

"It's not like you to make such a quick decision, especially on one's acquaintance."

Madiath words elicited a candid response from Dirk, "Like I give a damn on what happens to that black-hearted bitch. And on rushing into this… we have bigger problems."

"Should we bring this entity to our side then we wouldn't have a need for the tool… and your backup."

Upon hearing Varda's words, Madiath carefully rested his chin atop his clasped hands, in order to not give away the slightest hint of reluctance.

With all his daughter had done it was obvious why the both of them would want to force him to eliminate 'unnecessary' risk factors like her so that the plan would not be foiled again. Madiath deftly moved the topic away from her to focus on their lack of intel.

"That path is too risky for the moment. With what we know of its prior activities against the foundation's large-scale mobilization, it is conceivable that the entity prioritizes maintaining human life, which would contradict the expected results of the plan."

"Tch. We need more information. It could be lying about the whole 'judgement day' warning, it could have been the truth, it doesn't matter when the fact is that we can't be sure of its goals!" Dirk fumed, his voice was positively seething with anger. "If we brought it in the wrong way, everything could just get screwed up. We're not so stupid as to poke a thicket knowing that a snake is going to jump out, are we?"

"So we wait. Perhaps we could even stage a situation where it would intervene and use that chance to engage with it?"

"It would require a damn lot of luck to arrange such a thing, especially if we want to be there in a position of power over it-"

"Good grief…," muttered Varda, "You humans are beyond comprehension. Why are you trying to further complicate things for yourselves? How illogical."

She probably wasn't expecting an answer, but Madiath let out a small laugh anyway. "Come now Varda. The way I see it, things are more interesting that way."

"And you keep watch here, okay? Rotate out with your replacement when your power goes under 30%."

I gave my orders to the cyborg to keep watch over Claudia's room from the rooftop.

"Affirmative." The mechanical construct activated it's invisibility module and other sensory modules before moving into position.

Seeing as the IEF's made their move to wear down Claudia's stock of pre-cog seconds these past few weeks, either as a way to force her out of the competition, lower her chances of winning or as a lead-up to a blatant assassination, it would only be prudent to assign her even more resources to keep her safe and sound.

I couldn't get her to accept mutual monitoring measures when I myself wouldn't agree to them, going for the more advanced and invasive methods would damage the trust between us two, so I went and settled for a lesser solution.

They weren't exactly capable of fending off particularly strong Genestella especially since these were the models focused on espionage work but they would be able to alert me, indirectly through the Psi-Energy powered technopath-telepath network that Orianne is connected to (which runs on a completely different wavelength than magic-based telepathy), on Claudia's status, allowing me to reach her quickly as and when required.

"Orianne, everything set up?"

"Yup, everything's a-okay boss. Now that I can send the information right into your mind and the psi-networks are all running just fine we won't have to worry about the city-wide surveillance. God, what a city. A girl can't even shit in peace here. The top execs must be perverts."

With this, Orianne can deploy a surveillance free 'zone' anywhere in the city, by coating the area with artificial psychic energy from the Psi-generators I set up. She'll also be capable of transferring information into my devices without leaving a trace too, in the event that I need to share or provide the information we gathered to others through a device.

Thank for Dr. PSIcho for all the great stuff you 'gave' me! I'll make sure to send you a care package when I visit you in prison.

"Somehow I doubt those corporate robots give a damn about that. Now then, back to work."

As I continued working in my laboratories and performing my usual cross-world activities, Orianne kept me updated on the results of my "main protagonist hunt".

It looks like Orianne managed to narrow it down to a handful of candidates.

Criteria Numero Uno, the main protagonist is most likely Japanese.

This helped to focus the search results on individuals with either notable records for special powers or very odd records, for example, they could be rated badly due to certain criteria's (like Mahouka's Onii-sama) or rated very lowly while their actual powers were sealed.

Criteria No. 2, every main character of a harem battle academy story needs a childhood friend.

With the Genestella population being a minority, this helped a lot in narrowing down the number of students that had significant interactions or lived within the vicinity of a member of the opposite sex.

There were other minor, logical criterias that I used to drill the results down further, but the one that narrowed it down to a single male subject was perhaps the most ingenious condition yet.

Criteria X, the main character has a complicated family background.

"Let's see… childhood friend moves overseas. Older sister goes missing and is actually his half sister. His mother changed her name from Akari Yachigusa to Akari Amagiri after divorcing… ooh, an executive of Galaxy, the only Genestella on the Executive Committee Madiath Mesa? Older sister power is listed as "Sealing", the boy's records list unusually high mana levels that drastically dropped five years ago… Ayato Amagiri has 'main protagonist' written all over his plain, uninspired face and hair style."

Orianne gleefully digs into his background and also pops up a file showing that he was also one the students offered a scholarship by Claudia.

"Goooooood. Now, dig up all we can find on Madiath Mesa and any unusual movement of his."

"Already done boss."

"Woah! Dang girl, that was quick."

"Oh my god, please don't use that accent again."

Hmm, so for some reason, he takes a trip far away from Asterisk by different boats, then disappears for some time… most of these aren't tracked by the city's extensive surveillance, but thankfully, the 'doom sat' from that particularly mad man came in pretty handy, and allowed I alone (and Orianne) to lookup his movements since the time I set it up in space.

"And he conveniently stops below an airship flying way higher than normal airships, guess that's the pickup point. And with the path it takes from Asterisk to… different Galaxy branch offices… I smell a conspiracy here."

Unfortunately, the altitude was a bit of a problem, the network wasn't made to extend that way so I couldn't get Orianne to place a couple of robots, surveillance drones or other devices there and still be connected to them.

I also don't want to overplay my hand at this point and spook them too early. While I was confident in my ability to overwhelm any opposition it would be a huge headache for me if they had typical villainous escape artist capabilities (e.g. teleportation) that I couldn't track easily.

"It can't be healthy to keep pouting like that."

"Hmph."

Claudia was in a particularly petulant mood the next morning. She kept looking at me as if I was to blame for something over breakfast in the private training room.

"Do you want to talk about it Claudia?"

"You should be more respectful of a ladies' privacy."

"Somehow I doubt that you're referring to my last question…"

"Lucas, you may have full permission to come into my bed and ravish me-" I'm not risking that without having it in writing! "-but stalking a young lady by pacing atop the roof of their home is another matter entirely. Especially if you're leaving your gadgets there."

Did I get found out already? While it would be stupid to admit it at this point I didn't intend to lie about it, but I can tell the truth, from a 'safe' point of view, that is.

"The main point of those is to keep the annoying buggers wanting to hurt you from getting into your room. Or at least, letting me know so that I can play the knight and come to your rescue."

"Well, if you put it that way, I can't very well ask you to remove them. I just feel that… nevermind."

"Don't say that. It's not a small matter to you is it? Tell me what's wrong."

Claudia let out a huge sigh, her shoulders drooping downwards in yet another display of vulnerability that she would not show anyone else.

"It's not that I don't appreciate your concern, in fact, I feel happy to know that you care about my safety so much. My room has always been a place where I felt safe, I'm confident enough in my capabilities to feel that way but your extra efforts makes me feel… even if it's not logical, knowing that you don't think I'm safe makes me feel less secure in my own home."

"I understand." Hearing Claudia explain it from her point of view allowed me to see things from her shoes, it's understandable, even if I don't necessarily agree with it. "I'll keep the observation points away from your room then."

While I didn't promise to remove them it seemed that she was satisfied with that.

"Thank you. It makes me feel much better… Lucas, are you looking into anything in particular these days? About the… mega-corps, as you say."

"... Nothing much. Well, I guess I'm a bit curious about one of our alma mater's history."

"Oh?"

"Madiath Mesa. He used his wish to get into Galaxy's Executive Committee, at least, that's what I can surmise. I'm just a bit curious about his past since public records don't go into too much detail. He's quite a fighter if I recall so I can't help but wonder what got him to that level."

"Ah, him. Hmm, alright, I'll look him up."

"Don't do it if you think it's too dangerous, especially with Galaxy hot on your heels."

"Hee hee, you worry too much Lucas."

And you're worrying too little.

I got a call from Alessio late in the afternoon, it sounded like Ben had run into a bit of trouble with some people running an illegal casino and a different school's intelligence agency. The story sounded really far-fetched to me.

It all started when he managed to get the funding for his fast food store by striking it big in a particular casino (that allowed someone his age to play and win), using money gained by selling information to Shadowstar, Seidoukan Academy's intelligence agency.

Completely by accident. Apparently, dead-drops were still a thing in this day and age. It was after a part-time catering job that Benjamin went through a trash can looking for something he accidentally threw inside, then found a device, looked through it and immediately sold it to the school.

It took a long time for the other IEF to actually trace the leak back to him and it looked as if they wanted to clear up some loose ends. Thankfully, my Terminators and other robots were on the job, and the casino operators who had been outsourced to 'deal with him' and the other resources had been dealt with by 'unknown parties' according to Alessio.

"Goddamn, I should just replace the city with Terminators at this rate."

Feeling pretty good about myself for having the forethought to send out killer robots to protect the people I care about, I began making plans to Orianne about setting more combat ready robots around Claudia once she believes I wasn't checking up on her too closely.

"Thought you could take us could you?!" "You messed with the wrong crowd-" "Time to pay us back with your body!"

"Hiii!" "No, please-!"

Huh? Since when did I end up walking to the Rotlicht?

It made up only a small portion of the entire redevelopment area, one-fifth at most. Between the rows of shops, there were passageways on every floor, and the sky was obscured with layers upon layers of aerial corridors. Pillars supporting the corridors were haphazardly placed, without any sign of order, it was one of the few places in Asterisk where such disorder went unchecked.

There was a diverse range of businesses, from ordinary liquor-serving establishments like clubs and bars to illegal ones such as underground casinos and brothels. The clientele also seemed to be on the older side. School-aged patrons were not completely scarce, but almost none wore their school crests, which was against the rules to do so off-campus.

Of course, I flaunted the rules too by messing with the signal and other such things so that I wouldn't be tracked.

"Hello there. What seems to be the problem, good sirs?"

Naturally, right after ending up in the seedy part of time, I immediately bore witness to typical gangsters about to assault some female students from the all-girls school that wandered upon this area in what was probably a trip borne out of ignorance.

As expected, the would-be assaulters kinda forgot that they were just mob characters, so they tried to attack me after spouting out typical villainous lines.

My freeze ray dealt with them quite decisively. I even got to say "chill out" like in those old cop shows. Granted, old cop shows didn't have freeze ray guns in them.

"Okay then. Off you go girls."

I shoo-ed them away like a proper responsible adult. Actually, I probably should have escorted them back, but I didn't want to add any more witnesses to my in-promptu assistance here. Especially not to an all-girls school… god knows what kind of incessant fangirls could sprout up from there.

Still, a few protectors wouldn't hurt. I looked up in the sky and manifested a few weaponized drones with stealth modules a few hundred meters off the ground, then had Orianne take control of them to watch the girls on the way back.

"Now then…" I carefully laid down the frozen punks on the ground, "You're all still conscious so I'm just going to tell you that none of you will die, you will all thaw off in a while and…"

"YOU! What did you do with my boys!?"

"Is there a fucking spawn timer on you mobs?!"

And so, I withdraw cooly.

"GET BACK HERE!" "DIE ASSHOLE!" "EAT SHIT!"

Normally I would just turn around the corner and start speeding up until I find a safe space to disappear, but these guys were a slight cut above the usual, so I needed to play it a bit smarter.

"Hey there. Are you on the run?"

The voice was so quiet, it would have been easy to miss amid all the footsteps and hubbub for anyone else. But there was a tinge of mana in the voice that captured my attention and led my eyes to its owner.

"If you're in trouble, I could help." A few paces in front of me, a girl stood against one of the pillars supporting the open-air corridors with a thin smile.

She was a young girl that wore a bulky hat covering her head that looked about my physical age. Her chestnut hair was tied carelessly, and she wore jeans with a loose blouse. I could tell that there was a hologram disguise over her, but it only seemed to have altered her hair and eye colors.

"This sounds totally suspicious." But what's the worst that could happen? "But okay, I believe you."

When in doubt, just do a Kingdom Hearts and fall for the trap anyways.

Not that I thought it was a trap since she wasn't lying, but this could be part of some elaborate plot involving her and she could be the one accidentally falling into a trap due to some weird habits of helping out random guys like me.

"Sure. Follow me!" The girl grabbed my hand, then started at a run toward the opposite alley.

The men noticed and chased after us both, shouting, but the girl paid them no mind as she led me through these streets as if she knew them by heart.

As the girl rushed along the narrow corridors, she sang under her breath, it was a melody infused with mana. A special ability to do with music? Or perhaps she was using some sort of magic sonar to find her way around?

Eventually, the voices of the men became distant, it sounds as if we made it out safely.

Come to think of it, compared to other Genestella, her mana was so controlled to the point where I would actually have to put in effort to detect her. While I wasn't the type to assume someone's age, if she matched her physical appearance and was actually a student, she was either the strongest student I've met on this island or simply has a talent for keeping her power veiled.

"Whew. I think we should be okay now." Arriving at a vacant lot surrounded by decrepit structures, the girl turned to me with a small smile.

"Thanks. You really helped me out back there. I should be able to get back to the dorms safely from here."

The girl laughed. "Well, I can't very well leave you there, not after you helped out my schoolmates like that."

So she is a student from Queenvale then...

"You were there? I didn't notice at all."

"I just got there and would have jumped in but you seemed to have it all well in hand. Are you from Arlequint?"

My mood soured the moment I heard the name of that morally bankcrupt school, I suppose it would be a reasonable assumption given my use of technology, so I really shouldn't hold the assumption against her.

"No. I'm from Seidoukan Academy. Making fancy gadgets like these is a hobby of mine. Can't very well defend myself without them."

"Ah! You're Lucas Meyer aren't you?"

"Token Human Teammate, at your service."

"You kept up with my running speed."

"I was hoping to keep it a secret until the Festa but guess I'll just show you. Here, I have an exosuit that will let me keep up a little. I don't really expect any help from others so I always have a contingency in place. It's not as if I think doing a good deed will result in someone else coming to my rescue."

"Eh… that's pretty amazing. Ah, just so you don't get the wrong idea, I didn't help you because you helped my school mates and all. I wouldn't have left you alone even if you didn't help and got caught up with them anyways."

"Is it because I look like I have money and can pay up…?"

"Nope! It's only natural to help someone in need, isn't it?" She answered my question as if it were glaringly obvious. "Well, as much as I can, anyway. Besides, you don't look like a bad guy."

She was terribly straightforward. Again, she didn't lie, not one bit.

"…Sorry for assuming that it was my fat digital wallet."

"That's the strangest humble-brag I've ever heard."

"I wasn't really trying to say 'that', it was more like, well, sorry for assuming everyone here is greedy. Anyhow, leaving that aside, is there anything I can help you with in return? Since you were going to help me out anyway I dare say I owe you for getting me out of there."

She took a seat on some construction debris.

"You are a nice guy," she laughed. "Well, unless you can find a missing person for me, I'm afraid you're out of luck.

"Give me a name or description. You'll be surprised, maybe I have a lead?"

She pursed her lips, swinging her legs a bit from her seat as she thought about my offer for a moment.

"Have you seen a light-blue haired woman around?"

"Do you realize how little that narrows it down?"

"Aw, whooops. Forgot about that. Her name's Ursula Svento."

Orianne looked it up instantly and sent all the relevant information right into my head. I slapped my palm onto my forehead when I recognized the patterns of the data from yesterday.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me. Just my luck."

"Did you see her?!"

The girl got off her seat quickly and dashed up to me in an instant.

"I've certainly got some information on her but… look, I'm going to give you different levels that you have to select from. Level 1, confirmation of her status. Level 2, where I've seen her and various suspicious sightings. Level 3, full conspiracy level disclosure."

She seems to be a nice, straightforward girl with some good amount of power. I kinda like her.

On a more pragmatic view, she could be an ally into sniffing out the hidden villains and the conspiracies of this world. But first, I needed to see how willing she was to dive right into this.

"I want to know everything you know right now."

Why is it that all the girls I take a liking to have a tendency to charge right into danger?

I had Orianne send the information to my device so that I could display it electronically. Before I did so, I briefed the girl that I would be isolating this area so that I could provide her the information without having our knowledge leaked to dangerous parties.

"This is… that's her."

"Yeah. She's been seen across various Galaxy branches and across Asterisk, though rarely in the latter. And over here… see how she takes a boat then disappears right as this illegal airship passes by?"

"You think she's up there?"

"Most likely. It's not as if there aren't ways to bring people up to airships rapidly and discreetly."

"How did you come across all this?" The girl eyed me with a little suspicion.

"It's because I've been tracking this guy. An alma mater of my school." I displayed a picture of Madiath Mesa, and showed how he followed the same pattern as the other woman did.

"Also, I will note that there is another person that has a similar pattern."

This time I displayed the records of Dirk Eberwein.

"That misogynist prick? What does he have to do with this… no, if it's something this shady, then of course he's involved in this."

"You know him?"

"Aw, geez… I guess I've been holding up a bit too much on my part." The girl looked skyward then reached up to remove her hat and unbound her hair.

She touched her headphone-shaped accessory, and the color of her hair gradually changed.

It turned from chestnut to bright purple…

"You're… that Queenvale's student council president girl. I think."

"Yup that's me. Sylvia Lyyneheym."

"So that's your name…"

Sylvia froze on the spot for a full second, "Excuse me. Could it be that you may not have heard about me?"

"I probably saw you on some online advertisements but I'm a bit out-of-touch when it comes to the media, a bit hyper focused on my hobbies, you see."

"Boss, she's kinda a world famous idol."

"What, you serious?"

The girl started to hum an eerie tune before she gathered herself and got her head back in the game.

"You back?"

"Yeah…"

"Okay then. Now, can you notice anything off in this picture?"

"Huh?"

"Have you seen this odd necklace before?"

"No, in fact, that kind of looks like a Lux-"

"Boss, bad news, fuck! Our robots just got diced up and Claudia's on the run somewhere!"

"FUCKING HELL! What's with my luck today!?"

I ended up reacting out loud instead of responding through the telepathic connection by mistake. Guess I'm not very used to it yet.

"Did you recognize something?" Sylvia asked with a worried expression.

"Uh, no, it's not that. I just, can we continue this sometime? I have to find my partner, like, right now."

"Claudia? Let me help!"

"Miss Lyyneheym-"

"Call me Sylvie. That's what people I actually like call me."

"Okay, Sylvie, this is going to be extra dangerous so maybe you should sit this one out."

Yes, and let me use my game-breaking abilities more blatantly, please and thank you!

"If it's that dangerous then you're going to need more than that suit and your fancy gadgets. You're going to need my help."

Why is it that all the girls I start to like keep getting themselves into these types of situations?