A loud bang—the deafening crash of clubs striking against equipment.
“There, that’s the last one on this street.”
Then came footsteps, one set after another.
The girl was already awake, yet she kept her eyes shut, forcibly suppressing the reflex everyone has to open them the instant they come to.
She wasn’t sure what kind of situation she was in, so she didn’t dare rashly let these people see that she was conscious.
Thinking back, she’d been too reckless—she’d just been so terrified.
Her mind-reading had accidentally uncovered a killer hiding among her classmates, and the person meant to silence her, or something…
Though that transfer student really was good-looking.
Normally, shouldn’t a killer show their face day to day and only hide their true identity when they killed?
How had she done it backwards?
She’d been so frightened at the time that she’d actually bolted straight out after class—that must have been what tipped the other party off.
In the last instant before she blacked out, she’d only felt something like a rag clamp over her nose and mouth, followed by an acrid smell.
To abduct someone right out of the school and pull it off—this was certainly the work of an esper.
From her posture, the cushioned seat beneath her, and the unpleasant smell of leather, she could tell she was in a car.
But even though she’d resolved to feign unconsciousness, when someone touched her, she—being a girl—couldn’t help reflexively throwing up a hand to block it.
“She’s awake,” a boy said.
A boy—and from the voice, not very old.
Knowing the act was up, Lu Mingxue opened her eyes and looked around.
She was indeed in the back seat of a car, one that hadn’t started yet.
They were on a small road downtown; from the buildings it looked like a bustling northern district, somewhere she’d never been.
That was normal enough—a city was so vast that there were plenty of places a lifelong local might never once set foot in.
It was very dark out, and the road was empty.
The digital clock at the front of the car read 10:53, though there was no telling if it was accurate.
One, two, three…
Three people—two boys and a girl.
One boy sat in the driver’s seat, the girl in the front passenger seat, and the boy who’d just touched her was in the back seat with her.
The killer transfer student wasn’t among them.
They were all around her age, maybe a little older, but still school-age.
Her hands and feet were unbound, but facing three people who were likely espers, she still couldn’t act rashly.
The sunglasses were gone from her face.
When she opened her eyes, the two in front who’d been looking back at the rear seat visibly glanced away, and the youngest boy beside her instinctively averted his gaze too—but then met her eyes with a face full of sincerity.
We mean you no harm.
That was the thought in the boy’s mind.
How rare—it had been ages since she’d met someone like this.
It would’ve been so much nicer if she could just ignore his actual underlying thought: to earn her trust, he was deliberately not shying away from having his mind read.
Lu Mingxue began to size the boy up properly.
About her age, hair dyed blond with a bit of black showing at the roots, decent-looking—from appearance alone he gave off a “good person” impression, with a little scruff of adolescent stubble on his chin.
“Kidnapping someone in public?” Lu Mingxue deliberately put on a displeased expression, wanting to peer into his mind.
Since they hadn’t killed her, there had to be a reason—after all, a rare ability like hers was prized whether on the side of the police or the criminals.
“Sorry about that, but we chose a crowded spot on purpose—to show you what we can do.” The dyed-blond kid shrugged, not feeling much remorse inside; if anything, he was rather proud.
He pointed at the two who had their backs to them.
“Let me introduce you.
This one’s a Level 3 optical esper.”
The boy he pointed at obligingly turned invisible for a token second.
“And this one’s also Level 3—a Hypnosis esper, able to hypnotize the five senses of any human within a twenty-meter radius (about sixty-five feet).
It’s only by combining their two abilities that I managed to carry you off.
The Feds assigned to protect you never noticed a thing.” Blondie flashed a confident smile.
Lu Mingxue could hear him, inside his head, cursing the police out in the most gorgeously flowery language.
She couldn’t really blame her bodyguards for not noticing today—invisibility plus five-sense hypnosis, even she with her mind-reading couldn’t have sensed anyone, since she had to see a person to read them.
“Oh, right—you’ve probably heard of our organization.” Blondie stared at Lu Mingxue without the slightest evasion, which instead left her a little uncomfortable.
“Classmate, we, Carry Out Justice on Heaven’s Behalf, sincerely invite you to join us.”
“Oh?” Lu Mingxue frowned.
Of course she’d heard of the organization—whether in the media, in short videos, or in browser news feeds, you could catch traces of coverage about them everywhere.
Under the banner of justice, standing outside Federation law, they meted out punishment—even extermination—on those they defined as “evil” but whom the law had failed to sanction.
Online opinion of them was split; in the comment sections you’d often see two camps going at each other over them.
“The people the police can’t arrest, we’ll arrest; the people Federation law won’t touch, we’ll handle; we deliver true punishment upon evil.” Blondie calmly recited their slogan.
But all Lu Mingxue could see written across his face was pure edgelord posturing—because she could read minds.
The boy’s true inner thoughts gave her secondhand embarrassment so bad it flared up like a disease; reading this person, she now realized, wasn’t torturing him so much as torturing herself.
She hated these people.
Hated them intensely.
Lu Mingxue lowered her head and gave no response.
She couldn’t be sure they’d let her go if she refused, and they didn’t seem to know she was a Vigilante—perhaps she could pretend to join them.
She deliberately made herself relax, leaning slightly against the window.
“So what is it you want me to do?
My ability doesn’t have the slightest thing to do with your ideals.”
Blondie didn’t answer, just waved toward the front seats.
The car started up, bound for who-knew-where.
Lu Mingxue frowned but said nothing, only turning to look out the window at the vandalized cameras.
There was just one question she was genuinely curious about.
“Champion of justice—do you know that thanks to your lot’s vandalism, this city’s crime rate is already two or three times higher than last year?”
“I know.
But isn’t that perfect?”
“What?” Lu Mingxue knew her expression right then must look ridiculous.
“With no surveillance, the wicked will naturally grow bold and expose their true faces.” Blondie also turned to look out the left window—though he was really checking whether any cameras had been repaired.
Those cunning police had lately been installing the tiny, hard-to-spot kind of camera, but they still couldn’t escape his crew’s “discerning eye.”
“You want to bait people into committing crimes?” Lu Mingxue understood now.
Just as she’d thought—she hated these people.
Especially now that she saw this person actually believed it, and took it for the right thing to do.
“Then what about the people who never would have committed a crime in their whole lives?”
“But if they dared to do it, doesn’t that just prove they were wicked all along?” Blondie answered her with a smile.
“And the victims?” Lu Mingxue asked.
Blondie turned away and went back to looking for cameras, pretending he hadn’t heard.
At that, Lu Mingxue fell silent for a good while.
She wanted to reply with a flat “heh” and end the conversation, but she was afraid he might hurt her.
Lu Mingxue knew that no amount of further arguing would mean anything.
It was like two sides flaming each other online—neither could ever get the other to accept their point of view, yet they’d tirelessly squander the energy trying to reason it out, until it escalated straight into trading insults about each other’s families.
Utterly pointless.
“Once we reach our destination, you’ll join us,” Blondie said with certainty.
“George, that car on our right’s been glued to us the whole way, and speeding up won’t shake it—it’s been tailing us since that last intersection.” The boy in the driver’s seat spoke up.
“Turn left up ahead toward the outskirts and see if it follows.
If it dares, ram it.” The blond kid called George pushed his sleeves up, and turning to look, he did indeed spot a van on their right.