Eta felt that her luck had been terrible lately. If the luckiest thing in her entire life was meeting Master, then everything that happened afterward, as long as it had nothing to do with Master, had been nothing but tragedy.
Back when she still lived in the Elf Kingdom, her parents had been research fanatics. When her Demon Possession manifested, her own parents treated her as research material. Later, after their experiments went horribly wrong, Shadow saved her.
Eta had originally thought she could remain in Shadow Garden, diligently absorb Master's Wisdom, and develop at a steady pace. Instead, when she was around fourteen, Alpha dragged her outside and made her strike out on her own.
That was the beginning of Eta's life as a corporate slave.
She designed the headquarters' defenses. She created the training equipment and magical puppets. She personally used slime to construct, upgrade, and replace the facilities. Whenever some idiotic client came up with a bizarre weapon concept without the slightest concern for whether it was remotely practical, she was the contractor forced to build it. Gamma also came to her whenever she wanted Eta to research all sorts of Shadow Wisdom products...
It wasn't as though all that work had been useless. After all, each project was an expression of Wisdom and helped Eta expand upon and verify the theories in her mind.
But anything became boring once it turned into work, no matter how much you originally enjoyed it.
After their technology had progressed beyond what was needed for ordinary civilian life and military equipment, the remaining fields were no longer things Gamma or Alpha actually needed.
In Gamma's words, those technologies were too grand and impractical, developed far too early for their time. Rather than pouring vast sums of money into technology that would show no visible benefit anytime soon and would only become useful after more than a decade of developing every related field alongside it, that money could instead be invested in weapons research and immediately strengthen Shadow Garden.
Eta had to admit that Gamma made a lot of sense.
Once technological research reached a certain level, they needed to produce enough practical results to support further development. There was no point trying to invent nuclear fusion in a primitive tribal age when no one would even be capable of using it. If anything, doing so might create a monster they could no longer control. Coal and steam power would already be more than enough.
That was what happened when someone managed the finances.
Eta, who was responsible for research, only needed to obediently follow Gamma's instructions and develop technology. Gamma, on the other hand, had far more to consider. How to stop the wicked Eta from wasting the budget on bizarre technologies, how to make Eta obediently develop profitable products, and how to continuously upgrade medical and combat technology all required careful thought.
But Gamma's concerns had nothing to do with Eta.
Eta had no interest in civilian welfare or military affairs. She only wanted more knowledge.
To gain knowledge, she needed research.
To conduct research, she needed funding.
But Gamma controlled the funding.
And if Eta wanted money from Gamma, she had to obey her and waste precious time developing things that merely repurposed existing technologies.
How could she possibly waste her precious time on that?
With that thought in mind, Eta, who could no longer tolerate her miserable life as a corporate slave, chose to walk away with nothing and establish herself independently.
Then she was thoroughly screwed over by her useless teammate Sherry.
A whole pile of secret projects Eta had snatched from elsewhere were ruined. Beta, that idiot with no eye for value, even destroyed a stockpile of rare, irreplaceable materials.
Those materials were valuable enough to buy an entire country!
After being grilled until her resolve was almost shattered, Eta finally confirmed the bitter truth. Unless she invented a time-acceleration machine, restarting those destroyed projects would require years of repeating all the work she had already done just to return to where she had been before, and that was assuming she somehow got lucky enough to gather some of those irreplaceable materials again.
So Eta surrendered.
At least that allowed her to preserve what little remained.
But as the saying went, blessings never came in pairs, while misfortunes always arrived together. When your luck was bad enough, even drinking water could somehow get something stuck between your teeth.
After returning to Alexandria, Shadow Garden's headquarters, Eta had temporarily decided to turn over a new leaf. All she wanted was to hug No. 712, the sole surviving result of her projects.
Instead, while visiting No. 712, Eta was struck by the "Eta-Specific Attack Unit." Every one of the wonderful gadgets she carried was rendered useless, after which No. 712 hit her with a full combo and brought her to her knees on the spot.
Eta remained completely incapacitated for several days before finally waking up.
She would have been better off staying unconscious.
By the time she opened her eyes, No. 712 had already escaped with another experimental project, No. 711.
Beta, that useless Elf who had nothing going for her besides her big breasts, had failed to stop No. 712. She had also been beaten to her knees and had only regained consciousness slightly earlier than Eta.
The secret passage Eta had left hidden inside Shadow Garden headquarters' defense system had been uncovered.
The storage room containing her wonderful gadgets had been completely looted by No. 712.
And her experimental equipment had been blown to pieces.
Standing amid the wreckage of her laboratory, Eta nearly passed out on the spot.
Instead, driven by overwhelming fury, she spent several hours raging helplessly at everything around her.
Then, finally feeling relieved, she fainted again.
After waking up for the second time, Eta began searching for clues about the escaped No. 711 and No. 712 with a heart filled with grief and indignation.
Eventually, she reconstructed the deleted messages from the traces of magical power left on her private communicator.
And Eta finally learned the truth.
"Damn you, Laugus!!!"
"I'm so stupid. Really."
Looking utterly devastated, Eta raised her cloudy, lifeless eyes. Her lips trembled as a weak voice escaped them.
"I only knew everyone in that group was made up of lunatics who cared more about experiments than their own lives and would jump straight into another project as soon as they finished one. I never knew those heartless bastards would actually steal someone else's project! Even I only freeloaded off their materials and labor. I never even thought about stealing each other's projects! Do they have no conscience at all?!"
Eta had clearly been the person in the group who followed the rules most faithfully and cared the most about equivalent exchange.
Sure, she still looked down on their shortsighted brains, but she had at least grudgingly acknowledged them as gorillas worthy of basic interaction.
And yet the shameless, despicable Laugus had backstabbed and deceived her.
Even her experimental subject had grown legs and run away on its own.
The moment Eta thought about this unbearable humiliation, the cloudiness vanished from her eyes.
She sprang upright in a single motion.
"Master, this is an emergency! Let's kill every member of the Cult of Diablos right now!"
Eta stared intensely at Cid, who was sitting across from her drinking tea. Her gaze held a level of determination never seen before.
At this moment, her desire to kill the Cult of Diablos surpassed everyone else in Shadow Garden.
Someone who obstructed her path to knowledge was an enemy beyond reconciliation.
"I finally understand. An evil organization whose members only care about fighting for power and personal gain has no right to exist! Technology should transcend race and national borders. If everyone simply worked together, any form of knowledge could be conquered and obtained with ease, yet they chose to deceive my experimental subject and lure her away!"
Flames of fury burned in Eta's eyes.
She had never regarded the people in that group as good people. She had always been extremely cautious when trading with them, and even when they collaborated on research, everyone remained anonymous and only exchanged data for comparison.
Still, Eta had always treated the group as something like a black market or an improvised research team.
She had never thought about backstabbing the others.
She had assumed that would be enough for her to take advantage of the group chat.
But instead...
"Shadow Garden may be somewhat behind the Cult of Diablos technologically, but if it's you, Master, then even without technology at their level, you can definitely overcome whatever stands in the way and locate the Cult of Diablos's true headquarters! Let's wipe out the entire Cult of Diablos right now and seize all their treasures and experimental projects!"
After this ordeal, Eta had finally realized something.
The world's resources were limited.
Rare materials were precious precisely because choices had to be made over who got to use them.
No. 712 was an experimental subject unlike any human from any of the three worlds, and the unique seed within her was something even the wealthy Cult of Diablos would try to seize from Eta.
Even Laugus, whom Eta considered the most intelligent person in the entire Cult of Diablos, had been willing to backstab her for the peerless treasure that was No. 712.
Eta didn't even dare imagine what sort of vicious struggle for power and profit took place inside the Cult itself.
As expected, Master was the only one she could rely on.
Eta looked tearfully at Cid.
Only Master, the wisest being in the world, a God born already possessing Wisdom, would never compete with her over something so unnecessary.
Everyone else would eventually betray others for their own desires and selfish interests when the stakes were high enough.
Only before Master, the fairest, most just, and most impartial God, could everyone open their hearts, cooperate freely, and explore the truths of the world together.
With that thought in mind, Eta felt motivated for the first time to wipe out someone's entire family.
She needed to recover her resources and projects.
She also needed to make sure she could conduct research in peace from now on.
Anyone who pursued science not from a desire to explore Wisdom and satisfy their thirst for knowledge, but for selfish worldly ambitions, had to be driven out!
"Mm... Ah, right... Eta, your goal and ambition are admirable. Keep working hard. I'm sure you can do it."
Cid froze under Eta's burning gaze, then set down his teacup and encouraged her with a brilliant smile.
Eta's explanation had been so chaotic that he wasn't entirely sure what she was actually talking about.
Still, judging by the fact that she was in enough of a mood to joke around, it probably wasn't anything serious.
Of course, Cid had managed to grasp the general idea.
Basically, Gamma the capitalist had been mercilessly exploiting Eta according to the principle of "if she isn't dead, keep working her to death," until Eta finally couldn't take it anymore and tried to quit.
However, because she had signed some kind of confidentiality agreement, Eta had been dragged back.
After she returned, one of her employees had taken something extremely important to her and defected to a rival company with it.
But apparently, whatever had been stolen wasn't particularly important to Gamma's company. At the very least, it wasn't urgent enough to require immediate action, so Eta had been ordered to recover it herself.
If she failed to get it back, some sort of terrible punishment would probably await her.
It sounded pretty miserable.
And if any part of that interpretation was wrong, then it was simply because Cid hadn't been listening closely enough.
It was just like before.
Eta was always bringing things to him that looked incredibly impressive at first glance, and she would also stare greedily at the worthless mysterious magical items he happened to pick up.
Since Cid never knew what any of those things were for, he would generously give them to Eta every time.
In return, Eta would shower him with praise.
Hehehe...
"Huh? Master, aren't we going to attack the evil Cult of Diablos right now and absorb them into our organization?!"
"Well... heh!"
Cid couldn't stop himself from laughing.
If this had happened a few days earlier, he might have casually gone along with Eta, wiped out the other side's entire family, and robbed them blind.
But now...
"Why get so worked up? This world has always been one where people devour one another. Do you remember what I once told all of you? My feud with the Cult of Diablos has nothing to do with you anymore. They are my game alone, while all of you are free to live beneath the sunlight."
An Eminence in Shadow who murdered someone over a minor business dispute and a little money somehow felt incredibly lame.
Besides, an organization had been causing him trouble recently, so he was busy grinding achievements by wiping out other people's entire families.
He didn't have time to help.
"B-but, Master, they took my precious otherworldly material."
"Mm, I know. But the Cult of Diablos has nothing to do with any of you. I'll deal with them myself. So I'll compensate you for the otherworldly material. What do you want?"
Cid couldn't be bothered worrying about Eta pestering him over something so minor.
He would just let her name a price and buy her an identical replacement.
Spending some money to avoid trouble and save time was an incredible bargain.
It wasn't as though that thing could possibly be worth enough to buy the entire Mitsugoshi Company, right?
"No. 712 isn't a question of whether she's valuable. She's unique. She's priceless."
"Mm, I understand. Then you don't need to worry about it. Or, Eta, you can figure out a solution yourself."
I see.
If she refuses to give me a specific value, that means its worth depends entirely on how badly someone personally wants it.
At least you have enough conscience not to use this chance to scam a huge amount of money out of me.
I'll help you whenever I have time.
"...You're right. Only this way can Master be said to treat absolutely everyone with perfect fairness, justice, and equality. I understand now, Master."
Eta watched Cid finish his tea and leave.
The moment he disappeared, her listless, expressionless face collapsed.
She slammed her fist onto the table and sighed in profound admiration.
"As expected of Master!"
Because Master possessed absolute Wisdom, he had no interest whatsoever in the methods a fool like Eta used to pursue Wisdom.
He viewed everything equally.
Even No. 712, a unique material found nowhere else in the entire world and worth more in pure value than the whole Mitsugoshi Company, was nothing more than an ordinary research material in the eyes of a God.
There was no difference at all.
"So, Eta, what are you going to do now? Shadow-sama doesn't seem to want us getting involved in this..."
Beta, who had chosen to stay behind rather than follow Cid, looked at Eta helplessly.
Eta's answer was simple.
"Obviously, I'm going to kill every last Laugus. I can't find the evil Cult of Diablos itself, but as for the Cult members currently in Midgar, I'm going to wipe out them!"
How Master chose to treat the Cult of Diablos equally was Master's business.
Eta's business was making the Cult of Diablos pay.
"But first, I need to assemble the Anti-Eta Special Attack Unit. Otherwise, No. 712 is invincible."
The Eta-Specific Attack Unit, whose full name was the "Eta Product Series Special Attack Unit," operated by exploiting the backdoors Eta had secretly built into the blueprints of every Eta-series item.
Once activated, it could disable every piece of Eta-series equipment, allowing someone with functioning equipment to completely overwhelm an opponent whose equipment had been rendered useless.
Unless they found a way to ban that thing, excluding Master, it wouldn't matter how many people Shadow Garden sent after No. 712.
They would all just be feeding her free kills.
"Oh, I see!"
Beta nodded as she listened to Eta's explanation and examined the blueprint in her hands for the device meant to disable those hidden backdoors.
Then she placed both hands on either side of Eta's head.
"But Eta, before that, could you explain the backdoors you secretly put in equipment without telling any of us? And while you're at it, could you also explain what you just told Shadow-sama about who was blind and who was nothing but big breasts with no brains?!"
"Uh... uh..."