“...”

Akim stood up from his seat as the lecture in his classroom just finished. A few boys from his class did the same and walked up to him. “Akim! Let’s go to the cafeteria.”

Nevertheless, in front of the silver-haired boy’s impressive frame, the others looked obviously weak-looking. Even more, due to Akim’s nature and natural caring for people, he had been the center of the class and the object of admiration for some of his fellow classmates.

Still, Akim tried to not make this go over his head. He smiled and gestured to his classmates. “Go ahead. I will catch up in a bit.”

He walked outside the class, making his way toward the restroom.

“Ugh, It still hurts a bit.” Cold water was running on his hands as he was washing them. His reflection alongside his pained face was visible on the surface of the mirror attached to the wall. The training he had with Talia had been so hard compared to his previous personal ones. His muscles were still sour and stiff. It was like having all his bones filled with lead.

But even in his condition, he still did his best to maintain a good posture and a calm face as he exited the male restroom. As his steps were taking him to the place where he could finally savor a good meal, his mind wandered somewhere else. ‘...Father will come back this week. Knowing Leon, he had informed him about what happened last Friday. I wonder what he thinks of my decision.’

He was genuinely grateful to Talia for accepting his request. But, this had been something that he had decided by himself for himself. As his father had not been here when he had heard about Talia, only his mother Ditrish had been aware. However, it had been settled on the fact that Akim would have to take the final decision.

And, for the moment, it seemed to have been a good one.

As Akim was deep in thoughts, he suddenly arrived at a junction of the hallway. If his mind had not been occupied, he would have been able to hear the small footsteps coming from the other connected corridor on his left.

The moment he took the next step, a mass of brown hair appeared in his field of vision. The result was that he bumped into a brown-haired girl directly without even being able to stop himself.

“Hya-!” The girl lost partially her balance and was about to fall to the ground. Energy filled Akim’s body as he hastily grabbed the girl’s thin right wrist with his left hand and placed his right hand against the back of the maiden. He had to put down one of his kneel to lower his body enough to catch her.

His face showing his obvious guilt looked at the girl’s expression. “Sorry! Are you o-...Wait, I know you. Zesty, right?”

“U-Uwawawa! Y-Y-Yes!” Zesty blushed up to her ears as she was held by the silver-haired boy’s firm and brown muscled arms. Her mind was such a mess that she didn’t know if she should be happy or not to have bumped into him.

On the other side Akim tilted his head, still holding Zesty in quite a close range. “Your face is very red. Do you have a fever? Want to go to the infirmary?”

“...I think her “fever” will stop the moment you let go of her, Akim.”

“Ah, you were there too.” Akim lifted his head upon hearing his name called. Talia, Sanya, and Ellen were standing just a meter away, looking at the scene with wry expressions. Except for Ellen who was wondering why Zesty was so flustered.

Ellen tilted her head. “Zesty?”

“! Yesh! I mean, yes!” Zesty tried to stand up, but her posture was so bad that the only result was her leaning more and more against Akim. The sole boy present finally realized her intention, so he stood up, lifting her in the process.

After finally letting go, Zesty hid her face behind the dangling bangs of hair. Nevertheless, a faint voice could be heard. “...Thanks.”

However, Akim slightly bowed his head. “No, I’m the one to blame. I should have been careful. You might have got hurt...Well, even if I say this, there was Talia with you”

It was true that Akim’s actions had been swift. Still, if he had been too slow, Talia had been ready to step in. In the end, there was no need.

Akim looked over at the group of girls and asked a question. “Are you perhaps heading to the cafeteria?”

Ellen, who finally shifted her glance from the beat-red Zesty, answered with her hand high in the air. “Yes, hunky big brother! food is important after all.”

Next to her, Sanya sighed out with her eyes closed. “Our teacher from last period thought that it was a good idea to increase the pace due to the oncoming exams. In the end, the lecture ended later than usual.”

“I see.” Akim nodded in understanding. He had also seen the print in the hallway.

Talia took a step forward as she gave him a glance. “Well, then we should not delay too much. We might get stuck waiting in a long queue.”

As the girls were beginning to leave, Akim acted without thinking. “Please, wait.”

“Um? Yes?” Talia alongside the three other girls turned around a bit in surprise. Akim himself seemed quite taken aback by his own action. However, the next second he opened his mouth in resolution.

“Can I join you?”

--------------------------------------

Inside the cafeteria, teenagers from all origins were sitting at tables, sharing a meal with their fellow students.

At one particular table near the entrance, just after the cafeteria rails, were a group of 5 boys. They had already started to partake, but their pace was for some reasons significantly slower than their peers. From time to time, they were giving glances to the place where people were entering with their stray.

Suddenly, one of them’s face lightened, before freezing in shock. The others looked at him in confusion. But, when they saw the scene that their friend had witnessed, further explanation was unneeded.

“...Hey, this is Akim, right?”

“Akim, surrounded by girls?! N-Nonetheless, none of them are below average.”

In the direction they were looking, one could see Akim, the young heir, with four girls just beside him. Maybe because of the boys’ intense stares, the blue-haired girl looked in their direction with a blank expression. She then turned to Akim and told him something too quiet to be heard in this noisy place.

Akim finally noticed the table of boys and moved closer to them after saying a few words in return to the abilityless girl. The boys’ wide-open eyes were fully locked on him as he moved closer.

When he was in range, he opened his mouth, ready to maybe explain the situation. “Sorry, guys. For some reasons, I plan to eat with those girls today. Once again sorry for making you wait for me. See you later.”

As he was about to leave only after giving the bare minimum of details and some apologies, one of the boys stood up in panic and stopped Akim. “W-Wait a sec! We are not mad at you for waiting. Still, do you believe we will accept so little details?!”

“Details? About what?” Akim tilted his head in surprise. He was happy that they were not angry about his sudden change of plan, but that should be it normally. What else was there to say?

The young boy looked at the group of girls a bit embarrassed. The same was true to the others just behind him. The thing on their mind was clearly slightly hard to be freely talked about. Regardless, the brave guy asked the general interrogation. “...You never seemed interested in girls, but you suddenly are surrounded by four of them? A-Are you perhaps dating one of them?”

“? Not at all. They are just friends and workout partners.” Akim’s total non-reaction to the question made the boys’ expression to freeze.

At their age, things like love and relationships were sensible subjects. Rumors about A dating B could easily spread like wildfire throughout the school. The sources of those rumors could only be based on any signs of them being somehow close to one another.

So, for Akim, who had always seemed uninterested, this was a great shock on its own.

In the end, Akim left after those final words. The standing boy looked at the not-so-far white-haired young man with mixed emotions. “So, the rumors about him being a bit dense were true?...”

At their table, the group of one boy and four girls were enjoying their meal. Talia took a bite of a black chocolate bar filled blueberries paste. Her eyes wandered to Akim, who was chewing on a piece of bread. “The earlier group of boys seemed to know you. Is it fine to not eat with them?”

Akim lifted his head and smiled. “Yes, they are friends from my class, so I told them that this time I would be eating with you four.”

Ellen pushed aside her stray and put her head inside her crossed arms. Her head was still looking at the sole man at the table. “Not that I don’t want you here, but why did you ask to eat with us? You prefer to eat with girls than boys?”

Akim waved his hand while chuckling. “Of course not that’s not it. The real reason is that we will train together now. Knowing each other will surely make it easier for the organisation and avoiding awkward situations where we will be too formal to point out problems...At least, that’s what my superior did when I first started my part-time job. We ate together at a table in order to break the ice.”

Akim’s answer was certainly more than what was expected from Ellen’s question. It seemed he had put some thoughts about the training session that had been decided on every Friday.

On the other side of the table, Talia nodded while finishing off a defenseless apple-flavored candy. “Good idea, indeed. Knowing how hard it will be, for you at least, it’s true that formalities would only be in the way.”

Akim grimaced as flashbacks from the previous week crossed his mind.

“...Aah.” Just as he was recalling the mind-breaking training, a quiet sigh escaped the person right on his left.

Akim turned his head, only to see the shy girl named Zesty looking down at her plate. He could not help but ask. “Are you ok? Did you get hurt earlier?”

Zesty took a second before realizing it was to her that he was talking to. When she did, she immediately waved her hands in denial with a flustered face. “N-Not at all...It’s just that I get nervous when I think of training my ability.”

The table fell silent for a moment upon hearing Zesty’s voice. It was no longer a secret for anyone here that Zesty was frustrated for being unable to use her ability. Still, the feeling of having the shackles removed was pressuring on a whole different level.

Fortunately for her, she was surrounded by good friends.

Akim flashed a smile and pointed to himself. “Your ability is related to minds, right? How about using it right now on me.”

“Euuh?!” Zesty stared at him in panic as confusion took over her head.

Sanya raised an eyebrow after hearing the conversation. “I know that you agreed to help her in her training too, but are you not afraid of having a mind-oriented ability used against you?”

The white-haired boy held his chin for a second before glancing at Zesty. The girl looked slightly away under the pressure of the pair of eyes. A wry smile spread on Akim’s face. “...If this is the face of someone that uses their ability for bad motives, then I can consider every other ability user not trustworthy. Besides, I think of you all as friends.”

“...” The others remained silent after his statement.

Akim’s view could maybe be considered as naive, but this was not how he saw it. He instead felt that being always cautious was unproductive and even untasteful.

Ellen rolled her eyes once before directing them to Zesty. “Why not use it? He seems fine with it.”

Zesty shifted her eyes right and left as she was unsure of what to do. It was only after a few seconds that she whispered with a soft voice. “...Okay, here I go.”

Her hidden eyes shone with a strange light as she was staring at the only boy present. However, Akim tilted his head in confusion. He felt nothing strange or out of ordinary.

In fact no one, not even Talia, felt anything unordinary.

Regardless of what the others were thinking, Zesty turned to her stray once more and took the cereal bread that was placed on top of it. She then held it toward Akim with a complicated expression. “...You like this type of bread more, right? Unfortunately, it was the last one when I took it. You can have it if you want.”

Akim opened his eyes wide open in shock. He still took the bread in silence and fixed his stare on it. “How?... I was not even thinking about it, so it can not be mind reading.”

“My ability is called Mind Probing. I can see deeper than just the surface of your mind. I see the mind as something like layers. The surface is your current thoughts, emotions, and feelings. The layer just under is the recent memories. The content varies from memories from the same day to a couple of minutes before. It's actually the first time I read something here. As for the underneath layers… I never tried to probe them.”

“I see…” Akim lowered his head to look at the bread that he had previously failed to get one of the same type. He then pushed it back to Zesty with a smile on his face.

“Thanks for the bread, but I’m fine without it.”

Flustered Zesty shuttered, still trying to have him to eat it. “N-N-No, it’s okay! You can have it!”

“You say this, but to begin with you don't seem to eat a lot. Your arms are so thin, they look like they would break if you tried to lift something too heavy. You definitely need more food.”

Red-faced Zesty used one arm to hide the other, but this of course didn’t help at all. Still, she would refuse to take back the bread. Seeing this, Akim finally settled the issue by tearing it in half and giving her the larger piece with a grin on his face. “This much is fine, right?”

“...Yes.” Zesty took the piece of bread and began to munch on it silently.

“...” On the other side of the table, Talia and Sanya were giving them a warm look. If all training session would turn out to be like this, this ought to be interesting.

Talia then broke the silence by speaking to Zesty. “I’m no expert in mind-oriented power. I just know how to train one’s mind to develop a strong mental resistance. I can’t project it outside and even less inside someone else’s mind. However, I felt nothing when you read Akim’s memories. Can your ability target only one person at a time?”

Zesty stopped her nibbling of the crusty bread and thought a bit. “No, I can reach multiple minds at the same time, but I never went further than three. More than this and I feared I would lose control.”

“I understand. So, you really don’t know your upper limit yourself.” Talia nodded as she found the answer logical. Zesty had a complex about using her own ability. It was not strange if she knew only a fraction of it herself.

Zesty still had her eyes turned to Talia. She put down the bread down and gathered her courage. Having friends around her to push her forward was a blessing that she never thought she would have. Nevertheless, she knew that if she was unable to walk by herself she would just stubble down.

With a quiet voice she made a proposition. “...There is a lot of people here. Do you want me to test how much I can reach?”

The atmosphere around the table changed slightly. Talia narrowed her eyes. “It depends. If you think you can reach them without posing a threat to them, then yes. Can you do this?”

Zesty put up a strong face and nodded with a determined expression. “If I go one by one, I think I can stop myself just above the first layer, just to connect myself with them. There would only be a bridge between us.”

Sanya looked at Talia with a bit of a worried expression. The regulation of abilities was strict on certain aspects. One of the points was that the use of the abilities was allowed if no harm was done in the process. Zesty’s case was certainly hard to judge. One could argue that connecting her mind to another was like a privacy intrusion. In that case, it would be illegal.

“It should be fine, right?” Ellen added her opinion to the conversation. Talia and Sanya gave her a silent bitter smile. Coming from the girl that had broken inside the most highly protected building, this was not very convincing.

Talia closed her eyes for a moment before opening them while nodding at Zesty. “Okay, Let’s use this opportunity to see your upper limit. However, disconnect immediately if you feel something wrong, understand?”

“...Yes.” Zesty took a deep breath and shut her eyelids. Her hands were gripping each other tightly under the table.

“? This is?” Talia narrowed her eyes as she felt some kind of presence caressing the surface of her mind. It was a lot different from the first time that Zesty had used it against her. The thing was just trying to see if there was any opening possible to form a connection, but maybe after realizing Talia’s mental resistance was too huge for it, it just dissipated. Next to her, Sanya’s bell shone for a split of a second.

But, this didn’t stop here. Zesty’s eyebrows frowned more deeply after each passing second. From her lips, something could be heard. “...1, 2,..3”

This was just the beginning. “6...8, 11, 17, 24…”

The crowded cafeteria was still as loud as ever, but the numbers coming from the young girl’s mouth were only for the four people at the table.

“...106”

‘...Hey, isn’t this too much?’ Talia felt the number she just heard was a bit too absurd. A lot of students were eating here at noon, so there was maybe around two hundred or three hundred of them right now. Nevertheless, the number finally reached its peak.

“318…I can’t go higher than this.” Zesty opened her eyes and released a soft sigh. But when she looked at her friends, they were looking at her in shock.

Akim opened his mouth with difficulty. “You just connected your mind to 318 other people? No matter how you see this, it’s a lot even for an upper limit.”

However, as to betray his comment, Zesty tilted her head in confusion. “Eh? Ah, no. 318 is the number of people in the cafeteria. The reason I could not go beyond was that there was nobody left. I even felt like I still had some leeway.”

“...”

‘This is bad.’ Talia gathered everyone’s attention to her.

“We should stop here for today. I hope everyone understands, but not a word about this to anyone we don’t think trustworthy. This would be too dangerous. Fortunately, I can’t feel people observing us, so the probability of someone hearing us should be pretty low.”

“Eh?”

Ellen raised her head with a sleepy face. “That’s a given. Mind-oriented abilities are already rare and dangerous on their own. I’m pretty sure some criminal organisations or even research centers would be happy to have someone with her level.”

“Euuh?!” Ellen went back to sleep, not reacting to Zesty’s panicked face.

The brown-haired high school girl turned her head right and left as she felt she did something bad. Seeing her, Akim added his own comment with a sunny smile. “Don’t worry. My family’s influence is quite important. Just by being my friend, people would think twice before trying stupid things. Though, I think Ellen and Talia’s influence could potentially be greater than mine.”

‘...Is this supposed to make me feel better?’ Zesty was only an ordinary girl. When the talk shifted to things like the influence of the Aym family or even her friends’, she could not help but feel overwhelmed.

In the end, only Sanya was sympathizing with her.