The Genius of Cloning in the Academy City

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Boxes were meticulously stacked on the truck. The side of the vehicle was emblazoned in bright blue with the name [Fresh Home™].

As the workers in their worn-out exoskeletons organized the last few boxes, armed staff meticulously checked the checklist before slamming the cargo door shut.

Everything proceeded systematically and smoothly.

The truck set off gently toward its destination, and in that moment, no one noticed a small shadow stealthily crawling deep into a food box.

“I’m Lime from V-rat! Infiltration complete! Successfully hidden!”

Lime, who volunteered for this perilous mission, cautiously peeked out from between the boxes.

The dark, cramped space felt tailored perfectly for a mouse. Moreover, the surroundings were bursting with food supplies.

In an instant, a sweet temptation flashed through Lime’s mind. Would it be so bad to have just a little taste?

“What… is that delicious smell…!”

As Lime instinctively licked its lips, it remembered its mission and steeled its resolve.

It had snuck in here alongside the boss to defeat the villains.

For the sake of paradise, this trivial desire had to be suppressed!

“For the sake of animal democracy… I can endure this much!”

In the darkness, Lime’s black eyes shone with determination.

Recalling the teaching that “All animals are equal and free,” Lime’s tiny heart swelled with courage.

– We must pursue democracy!

– Democracy?

– The boss says it every day, so it must have a good meaning! It’s definitely a precious word that shows the way to paradise!

The wise crow Almond and its group had spread this great thought among the animals in secrecy long ago.

Deciding to focus on the mission, Lime cautiously navigated between the boxes.

The task entrusted by the boss was singular: to infiltrate the evil Luminexa Research Laboratory and gather internal information.

And this food supply route was the perfect passageway to slip in most naturally.

With each jolt of the truck, Lime held its breath. How much longer must it wait?

As boredom and anxiety jostled along with the low hum of the engine, the little creature’s heart raced faster.

How much time had passed when the truck finally came to a complete stop after several intermittent halts? The engine noise faded, and faint vibrations were felt.

Footsteps.

As the truck door swung open, Lime quickly hid deep within the box.

Just a little more, and it would be…

– Clang!

The brief feeling of relief vanished.

Suddenly, a dizzying sensation overcame it, its vision blurred in an instant. Lime belatedly realized the dreadful truth: a colorless, odorless gas filled the truck interior.

“Gah!… I can’t breathe!”

The last desperate breaths of the tiny mouse thrashing between the wrappings didn’t last long.

“It’s cold… my eyes… are closing… snap!”

In the increasingly dark consciousness, Lime faintly heard a cold mechanical voice ringing in its ears.

“Intrusion prevention nano-quarantine protocol activation procedure complete, secondary disinfection process followed by import procedure—”

With the last piercing light blaring down, the little mouse’s consciousness sank into complete darkness as if being sucked into the network.

**

In the Violet Plaza waiting room, I noticed the appearance of the mice that had suddenly met their demise and returned to the network.

At first, I was taken aback, then I sighed and scratched my head, observing the despondent ones who had fallen into the network.

“No! We failed!”

“Where is this? Is this paradise? It feels so awkward!”

Just a few hours ago, I had sent them sneaking in through various routes.

From personal deliveries to food supply lines informed by external collaborators, and various suppliers as well.

But as you can see, the results weren’t great.

“This isn’t right! We didn’t want to die like this to come to paradise!”

The despairing mice. The 13 mice deployed for the trial infiltration mission were forcibly banished to paradise—meaning the Violet Network.

After managing to calm them down, I was finally able to grasp the situation.

“Poison gas, you say?”

“I think they used something even more horrible!”

All of us Violets trembled. Those foundation folks were vicious enough to make even Nazi Germany cringe.

Under the pretense of quarantine, they sprayed some unidentified substance on all external imports and even conducted a secondary disinfection with some rays who even knew what.

“Hey! Unit 7200! Why didn’t you tell us about this beforehand? Our mice died!”

“I didn’t know either! I knew they were doing a quarantine, but I didn’t expect it to go this far. The departments are different, so I didn’t know the details!”

I stopped pressing Unit 7200. If they didn’t know, then they truly didn’t.

Luminexa’s security system was excessively tight.

I’d anticipated they wouldn’t break through with simple methods, but I felt acutely that it was going to be truly difficult.

“Emergency! Emergency!”

As I tossed comfort cakes to the resurrected mice, more dire news came in.

What was transmitted through the network were the screams of crows scouting the expected area.

“Caw! We’re crashing! Eagle claws are after us! Likely enhanced!”

“I’ll buy you time, so scatter! Long live animal democracy! Caw!”

A few crows that had gone too deep found themselves unable to escape due to the sudden emergence of various security systems.

Fortunately, reports from the crows observing from a distance indicated that there were no additional moves aside from turret or remote-operated monster attacks.

“No human movement was detected. Boss! The suspicious animals seem to be attacked unconditionally. Oh, look over there!”

Almond requested a connection, and I immediately shared vision.

In the eyes of the crow, a pigeon flying from afar was seen.

– Pachi-chik!

As soon as the pigeon crossed a specific boundary, it suddenly burst into flames and turned to ash.

“Clearly, something is beyond that, but I can’t be certain. It looks like they used camouflage or optical illusions. Further access is impossible. Boss, I request a withdrawal!”

This improvised infiltration operation using V-animals ended in a complete failure.

Thinking I could easily breach it due to the experience of crushing the Nemesis Protocol with Lemon’s sacrifice was merely a stroke of luck born from an extreme situation.

“And besides, we recently wiped out one of their enforcement units, right? They might not fully realize our identity, but their alert level has surely heightened.”

“Yikes! That could be the case!”

Inside the network, the Violets engaged in intense discussions for some time.

With July right around the corner, it seemed that a more meticulous approach would be necessary to confront the foundation.

We needed to fight differently this time.

Clearly, simply rushing in with more weapons and bombs wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

“There’s still plenty of time, right? I don’t think we need to rush!”

“Yeah, let’s be cautious this time!”

We still had several options in front of us. The Scholarship Officer seemed to be making moves too.

“Let’s borrow the power of allies!”

**

A yellow arrow, seemingly kissed by sunlight, traced a graceful trajectory through the air. The elegantly gliding arrow suddenly changed direction and accurately struck its target running behind a wall.

The Skullcat, with an arrow lodged in its head, trembled and collapsed.

“Wow! Bullseye!”

As Violet marveled at the pile of monsters stacked outside the outdoor training ground, she clapped her hands in awe.

Adela gently adjusted the electronic monocle over her left eye and smiled gracefully.

“Every time I see it, it’s truly an amazing archery technique.”

“Hehe, though I appreciate the praise, I’m still quite lacking. I have so much more to show to Violet!”

Violet’s crimson eyes sparkled with curiosity. But that moment was brief as Unit 3122 suddenly turned towards the training ground like an automated turret.

With reflexes, its arms brandishing a rifle-type machine gun moved. With a deafening noise, a Skullcat running behind the wall exploded into pieces.

“Now it’s a tie!”

With a giggle, Violet put down her gun and extended her left arm. As the V-crow landed softly upon it, Adela followed suit and raised her right arm.

With the sound of flapping wings, a cybernetic hawk, augmented electronically, landed and let out a sharp cry.

“Violet’s crows are truly amazing! They can instantly connect to the network to share information. I’m so envious. By any chance… have you thought about learning archery?”

“I’m sorry! Archery isn’t really my style!”

Adela felt a deep disappointment. There couldn’t be a simpler and more elegant weapon than a bow for that cute kid.

Sadly, Violet was excessively enamored with firepower and explosions. Though the clunky tools of destruction, accompanied by deafening sounds, were undoubtedly practical, they lacked beauty.

If she merely had the heart, as a senior and patron, she could have imparted the refined etiquette of upper-class weaponry.

“How unfortunate… It’s such a pity we won’t have much time left together in Aegis. I told you before, right? I’ve decided to advance my graduation.”

Ah, right.

Violet recalled Adela grumbling half with frustration and half with joy about how her work had exploded after securing the Pax Nova Archipelago.

While she knew her own contributions were bolstering Cascadia’s position, she hadn’t expected it to turn out like this.

“Yikes! I won’t be able to see you, sis…”

“It’s fine! We’ll see each other often, right? Because of Rugilinn’s iron fist or the flight squadron duties.”

With the notion of seeing each other often, Adela decided to bring up the suggestion she had put aside the last time.

“But actually, where Violet stays is a military facility. The location is remote, making transportation inconvenient, and the facilities are aging. How about we place a liaison Violet in our mansion? We have plenty of rooms, and it’s possible for a direct line of contact!”

Violet’s ruby-colored eyes sparkled with excitement.

“Wow, can I live at your house?”

Adela unconsciously controlled her rising smile with elegance. Grateful for her long years of etiquette training and self-discipline, she slowly smiled.

“Of course!”

Perhaps there would be a way to bring the iron fist of Rugilinn together with this cute little girl.

If that happened, she could face those two adorable doll-like girls at home together.

A delightful prospect blossomed in Adela’s mind. What if she dressed them up in the cute dresses scattered in her wardrobe?

‘They’d look like little angels descending from the sky!’

But just as the pleasant imagination stirred, the conversation over tea after shooting practice returned to the harsh reality.

“The security is way too stringent! We need to punish the bad guys, but we can’t even find a way in.”

Bad guys…

“That much is true.”

The events from Circlef that she heard through various channels flashed through Adela’s mind.

The fact that they were trying to seal off that cute kid named Enrique merely because she seemed dangerous was pretty infuriating if she added personal feelings into it.

The foundation was once again revealing its malicious intent, as if they were the twin companies.

“It makes sense. MagnaVis had let their guard down a bit, right? Violet, during times like this, you don’t need to struggle alone. We were planning to help you, anyway.”

“Wow! It’d be great to have assistance from Cascadia! Actually, we were planning to move simultaneously from Helios to various places… but why?”

To satisfy the cute junior’s curiosity, Adela responded.

“Didn’t you say President Laplacian is a target as well? If that’s the case, we can’t just sit still. Laplacian tried to raid our ancestor’s grave.”

The justification was already sufficient. The crazed president intended to create a clone hero legion by digging up Cedric Cascadia’s corpse.

Moreover, the ensuing bloodshed was an added bonus.

Because the family’s situation had been dire at the time, Cascadia could only swallow their anger and wrap things up with the intervention of Restraid and a formal apology.

There was no need to endure any longer.

“Yikes! They tried to dig up the body of a war hero! Of course, we must take revenge!”

Watching the fussing Violet, a chilling aura floated across Adela’s smiling face.

“Indeed, Cascadia never forgets a grudge. So this time, I’d like to participate personally. Is that okay?”

“Of course, that’s okay!”

Though the actual motive was different. The suggestion from the Scholarship Officer, which she had heard through her father, was intriguing.

They’d hand over the foundation’s technology completely and invest it to nurture enterprises.

Such a shocking proposal was burdensome even on the receiving end. Securing the mine was certainly a quite constructive goal in terms of the overflow of funds.

‘What could their ulterior motive be? The foundation’s technology would surely be perfect for creating toys that my cute junior loves!’

In Adela’s mind, public interest and personal ambition harmonized exquisitely. Suddenly, she became curious about what Violet was currently thinking.

She wanted to see how it felt to connect to that network just once.

Surely, they were devising some bold strategy to topple Luminexa and Laplacian using advanced collective intelligence.

‘Violet is a genius!’

However, her assumptions completely missed the mark.

“Adela sister will fight with us!”

“Wow!”

“Adela sister is strong!”

Violet’s mind was just clear as a bell.