Over 80 percent of Academy City’s residents are students, and precisely because of that, the students living here naturally have their own source of income: using their own abilities to receive the living subsidies the city officially provides.
From the Level 0s, whose abilities show almost no effect, to the seven Level 5s standing at the very top of Academy City, everyone gets a living stipend of varying amounts—it’s just that a Level 0’s barely covers food and shelter, while a Level 5’s is more than enough to support their extremely lavish spending.
My ability is Level 3 Telekinesis—the so-called spoon-bending power people could already see ages ago.
It’s called one of the oldest abilities humanity can trace, yet it’s also one the researchers look down on most.
So the subsidy I get in Academy City has only ever been enough to cover the tuition I need at Tokiwadai.
Living expenses and the like still have to depend on my dad, who’s far away outside Academy City.
To keep certain scientific and technological secrets from leaking, Academy City has isolated itself entirely from the outside world.
Apart from certain designated days when outsiders are allowed in to visit, the rest of the time it’s not just that outsiders can’t get in—even people inside who want to get out have to go through layer upon layer of applications before they can get approval.
Thankfully, remittances and transfers can make it into Academy City, or my life would really be in trouble.
Honestly, I’ve always sneered at those researchers’ mentality.
You have to understand—the purpose Academy City was built for was to get someone to reach the fabled Level 6.
For that goal, even an ability as ancient and unremarkable as Telekinesis ought to be valued.
Researchers who only care about an ability’s type and rank are destined to never achieve anything great in this life.
Still, even though I think those researchers are a pack of good-for-nothings, I had no choice but to start thinking about my own living situation.
There’s still some money in my bank card right now—enough to support me for about half a month if I’m frugal—but after that, I really won’t be able to keep going.
Actually, I imagine the creditors out there have wanted to freeze my bank account more than once, but I’m currently inside Academy City.
This high-tech city has the means to feed over a million students; the backing behind it is absolutely not to be underestimated.
Even with the big conglomerates lending a hand, getting their tentacles into Academy City won’t be so easy for them.
“Should I get a part-time job?”
I set the laptop in my hands aside and frowned, a bit troubled.
After a good while, I gave up on the idea.
It’s a little beneath me to admit, but I really do have a fair amount of princess syndrome.
Those glamorous, respectable jobs rarely let a student do them, while the rougher work I, first, am unwilling to do, and second, wouldn’t know how to do anyway.
So a part-time job really is something I can’t manage.
“Make money with a skill…?”
I turned my gaze to the laptop I’d set aside; the faint glow of the screen struck me as a little gloomy.
After thinking it over, I could only shake my head and abandon the idea.
There’s no telling how high the science and technology in Academy City reaches.
My half-baked skills might still earn a place out in the world, but inside Academy City they’d only be showing off in front of true experts—they wouldn’t get me anything. Get faster updates on novelping.com.
(Don’t tell me I really do have to go live off someone… and what’s more, it has to be off a woman…?) The moment I thought of it, my whole body shuddered.
According to Dad, I’ve perfectly inherited the excellent genes of his younger days—and Dad’s rise to fortune in his youth was thoroughly dishonorable.
He got where he did by living off women with his outstanding bearing.
And now I possess that same trait of his: my bearing is extremely attractive to girls, even though I myself am a girl too.
(So what the hell kind of “excellent genes” are these?!) I gritted my teeth and turned my head to look at the mirror hanging on my bedroom wall.
Though I thought I was gritting my teeth, in the mirror my expression was still only a faint furrow of the brow, my pearly-white teeth lightly clenched.
At the risk of self-flattery, I really am a beauty—and with the faintly fantastical pale-blue long hair, this appearance ought to attract a fair number of men.
But the problem is, the only ones surrounding me are those Tokiwadai young ladies, practically dripping with yuri energy!
Even out on the street, the ones constantly fixing me with dazzled looks aren’t men, but women of every age.
Even the little lolis gaze at me with a trace of infatuation.
This is no longer a question of being precocious or not!
(Damn it—being a woman, yet having to live off a woman. What kind of situation is this?) Looking at that perpetually placid face in the mirror, I thought, a little helpless.
Though my inner monologue was fairly intense, my face could rarely manage any dramatic expression.
I’m even in the habit of expressing myself in the most concise language possible when I talk, to the point that I sometimes wonder whether I have some kind of communication disorder.
But it’s precisely this seemingly fake-kuudere trait that’s gotten me hailed as an ice-cold beauty by those bored Tokiwadai young ladies, raising my impression score in their hearts quite a bit—even though I don’t like that impression score one bit.
(Forget it, take it one step at a time. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it; things always work out somehow.) I gave my long pale-blue hair a troubled scratch and let out a soft sigh.
Even with no small amount of worry weighing on me, the days still have to go on the same as ever—I can’t just stop living over things like this.
Tokiwadai Middle School is located in the School Garden in Academy City’s District 7.
It’s a private aristocratic girls’ school second to none in Academy City and the entire world—one of Academy City’s Five Great Schools—and has only a middle-school division.
In ability development it stands at the forefront of Academy City, and one of its admission requirements is “Level 3 Strong-Level esper or above.” Its policy is so thorough that it once judged a certain country’s royal child to be unqualified, nearly escalating into a diplomatic dispute.
And I, a Level 3 Strong-Level esper, only just barely cleared the threshold for getting into Tokiwadai.
Tokiwadai’s ability development emphasizes practicality and practices elite education; the school’s founding spirit is to become talent capable of going out into the world before compulsory education ends.
It doesn’t just focus on esper development—it also covers education in many areas, even teaching how to repair a frayed Persian rug in home economics class, while music classes include piano and violin.
And over the winter and summer breaks, students aren’t given any vacation homework.
Right now, I was walking along the streets of Tokiwadai Middle School.
Honestly, I really dislike this stretch of road—because over a walk of less than ten minutes, I have to exchange greetings with at least a hundred people, even though I don’t know any of them.
“Good morning, Yurika-sama.”
“Good morning.”
“Greetings, Onee-sama.”
“Good morning.”
“You’re as radiant as ever today, Yurika-sama.”
“Th… thank you.”
This scene, like something straight out of Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru, is truly unbearable for me.
As painful as it is, I can’t lose my manners either, so I can only swallow my inner complaints and greet everyone.
This unpleasant feeling didn’t end until I stepped into the school building.
Tokiwadai’s building requires quiet, so here, at most there’s some low murmuring rather than overly loud greetings… Though I still get my share of staring, it’s already far better than greeting people until my mouth runs dry.
But at Tokiwadai, there’s one person who can ignore the rules here.
In just an instant, an invisible ripple flooded the first-floor lobby of the school building where I now stood.
Under this strange ripple, everyone in the lobby except me had their pupils go vacant, like dolls that had been played with until they broke, losing all motion at once—like 3D dolls fed a command to halt.
I frowned, gathered my Telekinesis a little, and forcibly squeezed the psychic force trying to influence my mind out of my head.
Then I lifted my gaze toward the edge of the lobby, where that figure who looked nothing like a middle-schooler ought to was coming down the stairs:
“Playing this game first thing in the morning? Shokuhou Misaki.”
Shokuhou Misaki—one of the mere seven Level 5s in Academy City, ranked fifth among them, and Academy City’s strongest psychic-type ability user.
Her ability is “Mental Out”: memory reading, mind reading, telepathy with distant targets, thought erasure, will amplification, thought reproduction, emotion transplantation… handling every psychic phenomenon single-handedly, an all-purpose Level 5 esper like a Swiss Army knife.
The ripple just now was put out by this one.
Her ability can make the people around her completely forget what happened over a stretch of time—in other words, if Shokuhou Misaki wanted to, even if she wanted to strip every girl here naked, no one would remember who did it… Of course, if she actually did that, everyone could still deduce who the culprit was from her ability.
“I only came to say hello, Yurika~”
Helping herself to a thoroughly intimate form of address, her gorgeous golden hair swept into my view, brimming with a queenly air.
Shokuhou Misaki stood on the stairs leading to the second floor, watching my face with a smile.
“I’ve been waiting for you a long time…”
I narrowed my eyes, looked at the star-shaped pupils of Shokuhou Misaki, and gave a slight twist of my lips.
Has this girl’s ability improved again?