Five minutes before the alarm set on my smartphone was due to ring, at precisely 6:55 in the morning, I awoke with mechanical regularity.
Sitting upright in bed, I let my eyes drift across the room.
I lived alone.
A one-room apartment with a small kitchen attached. Monthly rent: 31,000 yen.
Not especially close to the station, not especially far either. An utterly ordinary apartment for an utterly ordinary college student.
According to Meiko, however, “an incredibly ordinary high school boy” often seemed to come packaged with parents working overseas, leaving him to live alone.
Whether my own parents technically qualified as “working overseas” was a bit debatable, but the fact remained that I lived by myself.
That much was close enough.
And if that was standard for ordinary high schoolers, then surely ordinary college students counted too.
Incidentally, Meiko had also informed me that in such situations, it was apparently common for a “childhood friend” to come wake the protagonist every morning.
However, she firmly rejected that particular scenario.
If the houses weren’t right next door to each other, then it didn’t count as “normal,” according to her.
I climbed out of bed and, as part of my morning routine, set a kettle on the stove to make coffee.
That was when I noticed it.
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『Kettle Filled with Water』
Retail Price: 1,980 yen
Time Until Boiling: 3:34
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“…What’s this?”
Floating over the kettle was a strange translucent display, as though the air itself had become a screen.
Well, yes, it was a kettle filled with water.
And yes, the listed retail price of 1,980 yen was correct. I even remembered Meiko haggling so aggressively on my behalf that she’d managed to get it down to 1,540 yen.
But what possible connection was there between my memory and mysterious information materializing in front of my eyes like some kind of hallucination?
Pulling my gaze away from the bizarre text hovering over the kettle, I slowly surveyed the apartment I’d already lived in for more than a month.
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『Curtains』
Light Blocking Capability: △
──────
──────
『Table』
Maximum Load Capacity: 80kg
──────
──────
『Laptop』
Battery: 100%
──────
“Hm.”
Apparently, if I focused my attention slightly on an object, information would sometimes appear whether I wanted it to or not.
Sometimes it wouldn’t.
As for whether the displayed information was accurate, I could only compare it against my own memory and common sense.
So far, though, nothing seemed incorrect.
“…Meiko said something about this once.”
Meiko was my “childhood friend,” as well as something akin to my personal advisor.
The textbook-like light novels she constantly brought me—sometimes forcing me to buy them, other times lending them to me after she’d finished reading—had terminology for abilities like this.
If I remembered correctly, it was probably called something like an Appraisal Skill.
The power to perceive information about objects simply by looking at them.
Granted, the displayed data lacked any standardized formatting whatsoever, and only seemed to show information I already knew, but there was no denying it:
I could see information floating before my eyes.
I thought about it for a moment.
Then, without hesitation, I immediately contacted Meiko.
『Nnngh… whaaaat is ittt…?』
After around seven rings, Meiko finally answered.
Her voice practically screamed, I literally just woke up.
At this rate, would she even make it to first-period class on time?
Well, whatever.
Right now, I had more important concerns.
“Meiko. I have something I wish to ask you, as my trusted personal advisor.”
『Aye aye. Ask awayy~』
“Do you think ordinary college students possess appraisal skills or things like that?”
『Why are you saying weird stuff this early in the morning?』
Her voice was thick with confusion.
No—more than confusion, it was exasperation.
Meanwhile, despite the seriousness of my question, she answered while clearly suppressing a yawn.
『Listen carefully, okay? Ordinary college students don’t have appraisal skills. Heck, they don’t have any skills at all. That’s what makes them ordinary. If anything, college students are basically still in the tutorial stage where they’re learning the skills needed to survive life.』
“No, but wait. In textbook light novels, ordinary high school boys awaken powers all the time, don’t they?”
『That only happens when they meet some beautiful heroine who destroys their peaceful daily life and drags them into incidents and supernatural nonsense. No heroine, no incident, no powers. That’s how it works.』
“I see.”
What Meiko said made a disturbing amount of sense.
All the “ordinary” protagonists I had observed until now generally started out without abilities.
They got dragged into extraordinary situations, and then awakened powers.
Some even remained powerless but still threw themselves into danger to save the heroine anyway.
Protagonists who possessed abilities from the start usually didn’t consider themselves “ordinary.”
Or rather, they would say things like, “I’m ordinary except for this one thing.”
At the very least, waking up one morning with an “Appraisal Skill” already unlocked wasn’t a common pattern.
“So in other words, Meiko. Ordinary college students also don’t possess appraisal skills.”
『Exactly. Congratulations. You’ve taken another step toward becoming normal.』
“Indeed. Thank you. I’ll see you at the university.”
『’Night~』
And with that, the call ended.
Despite having first-period lectures today, Meiko had somehow signed off by saying “goodnight,” but whatever.
Her life belonged to her.
I only had a slight right to comment on it.
Which left me with one remaining issue.
“…What exactly am I supposed to do about the information appearing before my eyes?”
Now that it had been established that ordinary college students did not possess appraisal skills, there was no way I could possibly possess one either.
Which meant that what I was seeing shouldn’t exist.
There was only one possible answer.
“This is a hallucination.”
I decided then and there to classify every floating piece of information in my vision as a hallucination.
No matter how accurate the information appeared to be, if it wasn’t an appraisal skill, then by definition it had to be a hallucination.
The moment I reached that conclusion, the kettle let out a sharp peeeeeeeep.
My phone conversation with Meiko had lasted approximately three minutes.
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