ROFL Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news

[LilFluff]

From The Sea of Knowledge, an interesting twist on a Zero no Tsukaima summoning fic. The short version of the opening -- summoning fails, Louise's mind is sent to another world spending time as an infomorph in a computer system before being drawn back to her body. But at least she returns with the knowledge gained over 60 megaseconds as a digital life form with free access to the data networks of the other world. Of course she also returns with a great annoyance with the limitations of a physical body.
Colbert  on the other hand is excited by the knowledge she's gained and offers to take her on as an assistant so she has an excuse to remain at the school despite the failed summoning...

“Oh, right, computers. People who compute for living.” Louise finally answered.
Colbert raised an eyebrow. “You thought I was referring to something else?”
Louise nodded. “In the world of the
Sea, the word ‘computer’ refers to a machine that computes. What I would
like to do is to try and construct such a machine. A very crude and
slow by the standards of the Sea, but one that would be able to outdo a
human computer none the less.”
The professor perked up. “Machines
that replace computers? How fascinating. I assume that such would
eliminate human errors from the process?”
Louise nodded.
“Excellent. Those are always annoying when they crop up. And crop up they do. How fast could such a machine compute?”
“Well, the computers – the
computation machines that is – from the world of the sea can do
trillions of calculations per second, but those are numerous orders of
magnitude more sophisticated that what we could… Professor?” Upon
noticing the completely flaggerbasted expression on Professor Colbert’s
face, Louise stopped.
“Are you all right, Professor?”
Colbert had taken off his glasses, and was using both of his hands to rub his face and forehead.
After a minute, he stopped long enough to glance at Louise and say a quick “No, I’m not,” before resuming the activity.
Louise waited. Inside, her thoughts
were churning. She didn’t know what had happened to Colbert. What had
she said that had caused such a reaction? Had she done something wrong?
What was Colbert going to do? Could she help him somehow? Should she get
a maid? A healer? The headmaster? What had she done to cause that? Was
it her explanation? Was… It was her explanation, was it not? Trillions
of calculations per second. Right. Oops.

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Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.