Another ordinary morning at Tokiwadai Dormitory. Natsume Sonoko, who had woken early and couldn't get back to sleep, closed her browser and tucked her phone into her schoolbag.
After washing up and meticulously styling her hair into a neat bun, she looked entirely refreshed, without a trace of fatigue.
It seemed she had fully adapted to the Tokiwadai schedule, a far cry from the sleep-deprived state she'd been in just after enrolling.
Pulling back the curtain, Sonoko gazed outside. The sun was only partially visible, a faint corona of morning light bleeding into the sky.
'So this is the Tokiwadai Dormitory at five in the morning?'
A few days ago, she'd declared her intention to start exercising seriously, to transform her currently frail physique.
They say the first step is always the hardest.
Though she'd completely forgotten her grand ambitions yesterday and the day before, today she was determined to make a proper start.
Pumping herself up silently, Sonoko resolutely stepped out of room 210. The hallway was still utterly quiet, the doors of the other rooms firmly shut.
She closed her own door as softly as possible, avoiding any noise, and soon made her way downstairs.
But to her surprise, she ran into the Dorm Supervisor right around a corner.
This Supervisor, however, was very different from her usual imposing self. Her hair was slightly disheveled, she was dressed in casual clothes, and she clearly hadn't switched into work mode yet. She was holding a freshly cleaned ladies' pantsuit, making her seem both familiar and strangely unfamiliar.
"Natsume, what are you doing lurking over there?"
Even freshly awakened, the Supervisor was sharp enough to notice something amiss. Her keen gaze felt like a knife scraping against Sonoko's dumbfounded face.
"Good morning, Supervisor."
Sonoko offered an awkward smile. Her principle of maintaining 100% reverence for the Supervisor, no matter the circumstance, kicked in instantly, making her body tense up and locking her into an unreadable, rigid posture.
"I was just passing through, actually. I was planning to go for a morning run. The weather outside is really lovely today, Supervisor."
Natsume did her best to speak in a calm tone, even attempting a few stretches for good measure. Simply managing to hold a conversation with the Supervisor felt like a major accomplishment.
"I don't object to you exercising, Natsume," the Supervisor said, giving her an unexpectedly long look.
She adjusted her glasses slightly, peering over them with narrowed, scrutinizing eyes.
"However, it's not yet dormitory opening hours. You can do your morning workout in the lobby for now."
"Oh, and if you're not going to exercise," the Supervisor added, her voice shifting back to its familiar, stern tone, "then go back to your room and sleep properly."
This put Sonoko in a difficult spot. Under the Supervisor's watchful eye, she steeled herself and jogged into the lobby, where she began a set of warm-up calisthenics with as much form as she could muster.
She'd made a resolution, after all. She had to give it her best shot.
After watching for a short while, the Supervisor finally remarked, "It almost looks like you know what you're doing," before walking off, pantsuit in hand.
When the dormitory doors finally opened on schedule, Sonoko stepped out into the six o'clock sunshine, finally feeling like she was truly doing her morning workout. What she'd done earlier was basically just indoor exercises.
"Remember to be back on time for breakfast. You need to shower and change before school—don't come back all sweaty and messy." The Supervisor's voice called out from behind her before she'd gotten very far.
"I know!"
"Warm-up exercises done, now for the jog," Sonoko thought, recalling the simple exercise plan she'd made for herself—just calisthenics and running, plus a little self-defense stuff she'd learned online.
Honestly, with her psychic ability, learning self-defense was pretty much unnecessary. But, influenced by Shirai, she'd developed a significant interest in combat sports. She'd even once bought a bogus "secret martial arts manual" from a street vendor.
She hadn't been running long after leaving Tokiwadai Dormitory—only a few hundred meters—but Sonoko was already completely winded. She could only collapse onto a bench at a bus stop to catch her breath.
The Tokiwadai uniform really wasn't suited for exercise. School rules demanded it be worn at all times, whether during holidays, on the way to school, or on the way home.
The more practical Tokiwadai gym clothes could only be worn on school grounds. Because of this, for any activity even slightly strenuous, Sonoko now followed Misaka's example and wore safety shorts underneath.
Sweat dripped steadily from her face onto her uniform. Damp and clinging unpleasantly to her skin, the feeling was deeply uncomfortable.
After recovering a little, Sonoko stood up to continue.
After all, she was someone who could run two kilometers in P.E. class. But as she pressed on, her resentment towards the uniform grew stronger. 'This is so annoying,' she thought, already toying with the idea of writing a letter to the school board.
She persisted for about half an hour, though her pace had long since deteriorated from a jog to a walk. She finally stumbled back to the dormitory entrance, panting heavily.
--+--
In the Tokiwadai Dormitory dining hall, Natsume Sonoko looked visibly drained.
"What? You actually went for a morning run, Natsume-san? Are you sure you haven't been replaced by a doppelganger?"
Shirai immediately set down the baguette she was holding, staring at Sonoko with utter disbelief.
The feeling was akin to the classmate who always slept in lessons not only staying awake one day, but actively raising their hand to answer questions.
"Kuroko! Everyone has moments where they want to strive and change themselves. Don't use that kind of tone," Misaka chided, giving Sonoko an encouraging pat on the shoulder while shooting a mildly annoyed glance at Shirai.
"When I hit my bottleneck," Misaka continued seriously, seemingly recalling her own struggles to reach Level 5, "I pushed my calculation limit every single day, just to get one step closer to my goal. I'm just the type of person who, once I see a target, can't rest until I've reached it."
"I'm really just trying to get some exercise," Sonoko clarified.
"By the way, Misaka-senpai, how is your investigation going? The one about those lively 'tree attack' incidents that have been all over the news lately?" Sonoko asked curiously after finishing her sandwich.
"We caught the perpetrator," Shirai said with a sigh, sounding deeply unsatisfied. "But the higher-ups told us to drop the case. They said it would be handed over to a specialized team."
"The culprit was using a certain device to perceive the bio-fields of trees that had reached a specific age. He then compressed those fields into a special type of crystal. We don't know the exact value of these crystals, but there are already buyers on the black market offering extremely high prices for them."
"As for the tree attacks themselves, they were just a smokescreen. The culprit used nanomachines to manipulate the trees after he extracted the crystals, causing them to dehydrate and die. The goal was to have Anti-Skill destroy the tree bodies as a result." Shirai explained, her frustration evident.
"A device that can perceive and compress bio-fields?" Sonoko felt a chill. "What if the target was a human?" The idea that someone could steal a bio-field was terrifying.
"Humans are far more complex than plants," Shirai countered. "And the device doesn't steal the field, it compresses it. If the crystal isn't removed, the field returns to normal after a while."
"But what's the purpose of designing such a thing in the first place? Could it really just be for gathering information about trees?" Misaka mused, frowning in thought, though no immediate answers came to mind.
"Does Onee-sama remember that monster formed from the 'Level Upper' incident?"
"That monster had a core that stabilized its AIM Diffusion Field. It wasn't until 'Meltdowner' shattered that core that the monster was completely destroyed. What if, in this device's original design, compressing life fields is just a byproduct? What if its main purpose is to compress AIM Diffusion Fields? Couldn't it then create a similar kind of core?"
"And our culprit just somehow got his hands on the device, or maybe just one of its components."
Shirai Kuroko's imagination was running wild, quickly jumping to what seemed like a very bizarre possibility.
"How is that possible?" Misaka was startled, but it did seem plausible.
"And judging by the higher-ups' ambiguous attitude," Shirai stated with conviction, "that device is clearly connected to them in some way they don't want to talk about."
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
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