{It's eerily quiet, Host}

The system's blue window popped open in front of my eyes as I made my way through the central plaza of the academy. The students had mellowed down with the noise after the Special Exams, but there was still a large bustle in the central plaza of the campus.

But now, the summer streets were only eerily quiet. Dust and leaves swept up in the winds were the loudest things around as the galleria of lavish stores and establishments remained mostly empty. Staff working in the Academy somehow outnumbered the students while the sight through the glass panes of all the shops displayed only empty streets and no happy smiles.

I held a hand above my head as I passed through the lines of shops. The sun remained tame for now, but the little sunlight that did come in hurt my eyes a bit.

Would I have to turn on the ventilation in the room soon? I honestly didn't want to.

I decided to hit up some of my other friends for a bit. It was just the third day since the exams had ended, and honestly, I didn't want to push myself in coursework yet.

"Hmm..."

I first sent a message to Zachy.

[Me: Yo bird boy, wanna hang?]

The reply came almost immediately after.

[Zachy Bird: Bird boy...?]

[Zachy Bird: Also, I left two days ago! You even saw me out!]

Oh, right. He had an Ainsworth gathering to attend.

I decided to leave him on read and move on to the next. While aimlessly wandering around the campus, I picked the next person in my list of contacts.

[Me: Remy]

I had to wait a bit, and the message was seen. Unfortunately, I didn't get a reply. Remy must have seen the message and got distracted by something else, it happened a lot with her.

[Me: Remy]

It was seen again. She left the screen open.

[Me: Remy]

[Me: Remy dear!]

[Me: You left the screen open!]

The holographic screen stretching out of my watch was pushed back and immediately replaced by another. Remy video called me and I picked up right as I saw it.

[Oh hey, Holmes. Thanks for letting me know about the screen.]

{She's clueless}

Remy on the other side of the screen was lazily staring at the screen while suppressing a yawn. She still had her black tank top and cinder glasses on her, but today, a ton of black grease was adorning her face as well.

"Nice makeup, you look pretty."

Remy touched her nose and brought her finger close to her eyes. She seemed a little troubled about the grease for a second, but then just shrugged it away, it must have been too bothersome to deal with.

[What's up? ReRa alright?]

"Yup," I said. The background around her was something I didn't recognize despite having accompanied her to most of her hideouts in the Academy's engineering department. Dozens of magical equipment and heavy machinery were laid out haphazardly behind her while even more documents and papers made a mess out of the ground. Two or three people dressed similarly to Remy were operating some of the machinery while moving around in a rush.

"Ah nothing, I just called to see what you were up to."

[Right... my teacher called me back in the break. I shoulda told ya.]

"Oh not at all, don't mind me. Let's go out and eat when you come back."

[Aight, your treat.]

I chatted a little more with Remy, steering the conversation toward the news of the break in Furudal. In the end, I ended the conversation after saying I was worried about her and called her up, Remy did not back down and listed off a ton of ways for me to take care of myself as well.

Still walking around, I scrolled down the contacts again.

Who next? Anna and Reina? I texted them and Florris and Cauldron as well, though I doubted they would know much that I wanted to learn about, so I only asked them if they heard about the break and whether they and their families were doing good.

Anna and Reina aside, Florris' family was from a line of businessmen with Florris being the first of them to move into the work of Awakeners, and the other was a half-witted lizardman whose first and last name were the same, and for all I know, he was probably named that because he always wore a damn Cauldron on his head. Those guys were no good for information.

{Well, why are you even calling up all the kids? You never reach out first}

"Pfft, I am currently reaping the benefits of coming all the way here, system."

It was an integral thing to do. I almost let out a wicked smirk while thinking of things.

{What does that mean?}

"The best part of coming to Agriche are the connections! Connections! We have no idea about the S-Ranked break, but all the people around us do."

"Just take Jin for example, that he's gone back and mentioned his guild means an international effort is possibly being put together. Next was Remy, she isn't good, but her 'teacher' is contracted by the Awakener Association."

{Right, she said she can't mention who}

"Exactly. If I assume it's someone of a big standing and repute, then they are probably not going to be very involved since Remy video-called me openly and was even spotted by her co-workers. It means it's not something that's going to rely heavily on the big machinery. And moving on and assuming that Remy's teacher is not someone of high standing, then how busy everything seemed was a bit odd. They must either be greatly messy or preparing for something urgent."

{Something urgent... they could be mobilizing something big.}

"Of course," I said, the buildings around us had grown sparse and we were moving away from the central plaza again. "There are a ton of holes in these assumptions, but that's why I am contacting more people and getting more data. This is what it means to be around influential people. Padding the conversation right now with me being worried for them will get more results later when they learn of important things too."

{Sounds like a lot of complication for what could be handled with simple friendship}

Now, that was plain rude.

I ignored the system and scrolled again. My eyes stopped at Blaine's name for a second, the cute little bunny on her profile pic was quite the attention grabber.

I hadn't seen her around. She was pretty down last time as well.

[Me: Hey]

I typed down a greeting, and decided to just leave it at that, thinking it would be better to have a proper talk when both of us were active since she was one to know a lot of things, but I wasn't close enough to just things from her. She wouldn't ignore my text since there was no subject line, would she now?

The screen flashed again and the hologram disappeared from my watch. Still walking around, I stretched my hands and stifled a yawn while turning to my sides.

There, on the left, it seemed I had reached a park without noticing it. My eyes fell on the swings at the center of the park and the two people sitting on them side by side.

"Oh! Ralph!" The black-haired man noticed me and beckoned me over, while the girl next to him looked up and gave me a nod.

Rank 2 and 4 of our grade, and also the undisputable strongest two among the first years, Luke Reese and Kristina Steitz.