Chapter 47: Come to Think of It, My Father Also Shares 50% of My Genes

【The broadcast has ended.】

I casually turned off the stream and let out a deep sigh, my middle-school-girl self feeling utterly drained.

[……Whew! For an impromptu, spontaneous stream, that was pretty profitable and successful……!]
[……Right? God-chan? A-Are you okay?]
“Agh… ugh… How could I possibly be okay…?”

I just couldn’t hold it in.

No matter how much pampering I got from my viewers after going live.
No matter how much money I squeezed out of Professor LoliQuantum out of sheer spite.
This awful feeling just wouldn’t go away.

Why is it that these people only start acting like this after I’m gone?!

“……Damn it, why can’t people just appreciate me while I’m still here?!”

Family! Lab members! Professors!!
Everyone I knew from school, regardless of gender, age, or nationality!!

……Well, okay, I’ll exclude Mom and Dad since they were good to me.
But my damn rotten little sister?!
You can’t just throw something in the washing machine and expect it to come out brand new!!

“Hmph, so you think the same about Uchtel, huh?”

Just then, I heard a familiar golden voice from behind my statue.

—Step, step.

The owner of that voice looked nothing like a typical KAIST student.
Dressed in a gothic lolita cosplay outfit that would fit right in at Seoul Comic World or Comiket in Odaiba.

Just the sight of her was enough to make any Korean’s blood boil.
And to make matters worse, she wasn’t even East Asian—she was an actual Westerner.
Which meant the outfit suited her way too damn well, making it even more infuriating.
Of course, she wasn’t really a loli anymore, but a legal, adult pseudo-loli.

In short, she was the embodiment of a headache times five hundred.
Speaking in slightly broken Korean with a vaguely Slavic accent, she addressed me while leaning casually against my statue.

“I feel the same way. Everyone should’ve appreciated Uchtel while she was around… But instead, now they’re all busy trying to hop on the bandwagon.”

It was none other than Iryna Rosenkranz.

If I had to rank the people in my past life who should’ve appreciated me while they had the chance but didn’t,
Iryna would be a guaranteed top-10 contender. Maybe even a top-3 finalist.

“…….”
[…….]

Naturally, neither Shizuko—who still carried my past-life memories—nor even the kind-hearted Jinzukoma could find the words to respond.

Jinzuko, who looked exactly like me but with a different color scheme, must have been making the same exact expression I was right now.
Something along the lines of: “With what nerve is she saying that?”

[……God-chan. Setting aside Iryna-chan’s ridiculous hypocrisy for a moment…]
‘Yeah?’
[……You see how she’s only half-turning her back to us, like she’s striking a dramatic pose against your statue…?]
[……Could it be that Iryna-chan has the disease that even eighth graders don’t catch anymore?]
‘…Chuunibyou?’
[Yes.]

Jinzuko’s phrasing—“the disease even eighth graders don’t catch anymore”—was a little over the top, considering she was a literal eighth grader herself.
But she wasn’t wrong.

‘Now that I think about it… At first, it just seemed like some Slavic folk costume, but at some point, she started acting like this.’
[So, this is a manufactured character trait?]
‘Yeah, pretty much.’

It was no use explaining that, for a grad student, tracksuits were the pinnacle of fashion and function.
Iryna had a habit of wearing these elaborate outfits even in the lab,
and I’d lost count of how many times parts of her dress had gotten caught in the optics table and torn.

……Wait, never mind, I can count. It happened over ten times, at least.
And about 70% of those incidents came with an unintended panty flash.
Weirdly enough, though, whenever she was working with others,
it was like she had some supernatural censorship ability—she never exposed even a hint of skin.

[Hmm… But something about her outfit feels really familiar. It doesn’t seem like just a cosplay…]
[……Ah! Now that I think about it, Iryna-chan from your past and Iryna-chan the grad student have something in common!]
‘…I think I already know, but go ahead and say it.’
[Yeah! Isn’t that outfit super similar to the ones worn by the loli characters in the anime and manga that you, God-chan, used to love?!]

If that’s what you’re thinking… then you’ve got your answer.

And at the same time, you can probably guess why—despite knowing Iryna’s feelings in my past life—
…I still did everything I could to dodge them.

If I’d ever accepted them, I wouldn’t have ended up as a depressed KAIST grad student.
I would’ve ended up on the news for violating child protection laws in real time.

Not that I approve of the media’s clickbait tactics,
but I get why they do it—to get views and make money.

“Hmph, everyone should’ve appreciated Uchtel while she was around! Now they’re all just jumping on the bandwagon! You agree, don’t you?!”

Yeah, at this rate, she’d probably just keep dramatically repeating herself until someone acknowledged her.

[……God-chan, maybe you should respond soon?]
[She didn’t really say anything new, just changed the word order and added an exclamation mark this time, but still…]

Well, if Jinzuko insists.
And I guess, from genius middle-schooler Shizuko’s perspective, she isn’t a complete stranger.

I mean, at one point, we did trade gut punches, right?
That’s a kind of bond.

“Why don’t you smoke?”

Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to dignify her with a meaningful response.

Instead, I just voiced a completely random and utterly trivial curiosity that popped into my head.

Everyone else in the lab had turned into a full-fledged chain smoker.
So why was Iryna the only one who remained a non-smoker?

“……‘You’? How rude. At least call me Onee-san.”

With a dramatic flip of her half-down, half-twin-tailed golden hair—the ultimate gothic lolita hairstyle—
Iryna struck a poised, refined stance before replying.

“The only person allowed to call me ‘you’—past, present, or future—
is Uchtel, and Uchtel alone.”

Then, all of a sudden, she gently placed a hand over her lower abdomen,
as if cradling something precious, and finally answered my question.

“And besides, smoking is bad for Uchtel the Second.
That should be obvious. Aren’t you supposed to be some ultra-genius middle schooler?”

“…….”

……To be honest, I would’ve preferred to remain blissfully ignorant of this forever.

At this point, I wish she’d just start smoking.

At least that way, I could safely rule her out, along with Gwak Youngjin, Yoon Hyuna, and Ha Eunhee,
as potential threats to the future horror I’m desperately trying to avoid.

Dying and leaving behind nothing but my genes, with none of the pleasure and all of the responsibility…
Even if I’m TS’d and technically genetically unrelated,
mentally, that’s still a damn nightmare scenario.

But the world doesn’t always move the way I want it to.

In reality, when I visited my family home this week, Iryna was working harder than anyone else toward the future I least desired.

“But didn’t you say you were going to stay at your professor’s place until the weekend?” “…….”

Even when my little sister and I had to go to Daejeon for our KAIST interviews, she stayed behind at what she called her “family home” (a term she arbitrarily assigned to my actual home), claiming she would help alleviate my parents’ loneliness.

So why are you back at KAIST before the weekend is even over?

My question, loaded with all these implications, was instantly understood by the self-proclaimed genius Slavic girl.

I could tell just by the awkward look on her face.

“……I told you, call me Onee-san.” “Iryna-oneesan, didn’t you say you were staying the night?” “……Hah, fine, call me whatever you want. You, Onee-san, whatever.” “So? Why didn’t you stay?” “…….”

I refused to be sidetracked by Iryna’s usual tactic of pretending to fixate on something irrelevant.

I’d dealt with her long enough to know better. It was obvious.

“……Yeah, I was going to stay. Until the weekend.” “And then?” “Then I misspoke, and Mother kicked me out.” “…….”

This time, I was the one left speechless, just like Iryna had been earlier.

No, seriously, what the hell did she say?

My mom isn’t the type to get mad over just anything.

You guys saw her yourselves. When I made that joke about “Nongnong-whatever,” she only furrowed her brows slightly—that was it.

“……It was nothing serious. We were just having a conversation, and I mentioned something that is, scientifically speaking, an undeniable fact. Then suddenly, Mother got incredibly angry…….”

Iryna’s voice suddenly dropped to a whisper, so soft that without Jinzuko’s ghostly auditory abilities, I wouldn’t have caught what she said next.

(“……Are you seriously eyeing my husband, you damn fox?!”)

……I had a vague idea of what she might have said.

But just to make sure, I pretended I hadn’t heard her muttering and asked again.

“……What fact?” “Uchtel and…… come to think of it, Father also shares 50% of my genes, you know? That’s what I said.” “…….” “……And of course, I might have batted my eyes a little cutely while saying it.” “…….”

I got chills.

For real, my whole body broke out in goosebumps.

My instincts had been right all along.

Iryna was by far the most dangerous element in all this.

If she ever managed to obtain my genetic material, there was no doubt in my mind that she would pull an Elizabeth of the European royal family and launch Hemophilia 2.0.

She absolutely would!

She’d keep rolling the genetic gacha until she got a son, no question about it!

And that son… who might, in a way, be my forced-descendant from my past life… would one day be told by his mother Iryna…

“You know, 50% of you is also Uchtel, right?”

……Let’s not think about this any further.

Anyway, look!

Even Jinzuko is so stunned she can’t say anything!!

[……Indeed, I have never once in my existence considered such a thought… It is almost like a Copernican Revolution…] [……Is this the true power of a KAIST graduate student?] “N-no, absolutely not!!” “?”

At my outburst, Iryna tilted her head in confusion.

And yet, she looked utterly confident.

“No? What do you mean? Which part of what I said? Hm?”

Her face practically screamed, If I said anything scientifically or biologically incorrect, feel free to refute me.

‘Jinzuko…….’ [Yes, God-chan? What is it?] ‘……Prepare for the possibility of a second Kismat.’ [W-wait?! No way! God-chan, are you serious…?!]

……In the end, I had made up my mind.

Come to think of it, the fact that Iryna had returned to KAIST at all meant she was, at the very least, available as a graduate student labor force.

“……Professor, about that Uchtel you mentioned.” “Hm? But I’m not wrong. What I said was correct. Biologically and scientifically, you can’t refute it. If two individuals inherit exactly 50% of the same genes, then genetically speaking, they are over 99% identical. I mean, even mice and humans share 99% of their DNA, so if you go an additional 50% beyond that, then my future child, Uchtel the Second, and the current Uchtel, Uchtel Zero, are fundamentally the same Uchtel. Right? Right? Go ahead, try to prove me wro—” “You’re not dead yet.” “—ng……?”

My abrupt statement stopped Iryna mid-sentence.

So much so that she even forgot to pronounce the final syllable properly.