"Phew..."
Gongsun Ce reached into his pocket. His glasses case was exactly where he had left it before dozing off.
He slid his glasses on.
The world sharpened, the blurriness of sleep fading away. The young man calmed his breathing and took in his surroundings.
He was in a noisy fast-food restaurant. Even though the peak lunch rush was over, the place was still packed.
"It was terrifying, I tell you! My uncle happened to be on a business trip in the Morton Kingdom three years ago..."
"Did you catch Xingli-chan's concert yesterday? Her new song is a banger. You have to check it out..."
Most of the customers were students from nearby schools. Groups of adolescents crowded the counters and self-service kiosks, laughing and shouting with zero regard for volume control. Their chatter drowned out the news broadcast on the video wall.
"...The suspect in the Zero Island massacre remains at large. The Zero Island police have raised the bounty to two million..."
On the wall-mounted screen, a news anchor was reading a serious script, but her voice was lost in the sea of noise.
Gongsun Ce wasn't an Enhancement-type Esper; he couldn't isolate specific sounds in such a chaotic environment. He shook his head, dispelling the last wisps of the nightmare, and glanced at the TV again. The anchor had already moved on to a report about bio-carriages.
He sighed, losing interest in world affairs, and focused on his immediate situation.
He was sitting in a booth by the window. His bag was tucked safely under the seat; his phone and keys were still in his pocket.
Everything was normal. Except for the three "friends" staring at him from across the table.
"Ah Ce, you look terrible," the girl directly opposite him said. She stabbed a french fry with a fork, her face completely expressionless. She pointed the utensil at him like a weapon.
"A tragedy. An absolute tragedy," the girl diagonally across from him exclaimed, her expression exaggerated as if she were witnessing a puppy being kicked.
"Gongsun, your face right now reminds me of the protagonist in a horror movie being haunted by a vengeful spirit." The young man on his left handed him a pocket mirror.
Exaggerated, he thought. Even if I had a nightmare, it can't be that bad. Right? ...Right?
Gongsun Ce took the mirror. The reflection showed a young man with grey hair and black eyes, framed by square glasses. Red marks from sleeping on his arm crisscrossed his cheek, making him look like a student who had passed out during a boring lecture.
Aside from that, he looked fine.
He frowned, stared at the mirror for three seconds, and then heard the stifled snickering of the trio.
I've been played.
Gongsun Ce immediately decided to retaliate. He handed the mirror back, pressed his palms to his forehead, and spoke in a voice trembling with three parts shock, three parts confusion, and one part sorrow.
"...Who are you people?"
The laughter cut off instantly. He didn't look up to admire their expressions—that would break character—but continued in his perfect disguised voice. "I... Where am I...?"
The girl diagonally across gasped. She slammed her hands on the table and stood up. "Hey, is it serious this time?! Do you actually have amnesia?!"
She had sharp, deep features, wearing a black hat, a white shirt under a black jacket, and a brown culotte skirt. Her short golden hair shone under the lights. Just by looking at her, you could tell she was from the Empire.
Her name was Cardia. A citizen of the United States with mixed blood from the Kingdom and the North. A setting straight out of a shoujo manga protagonist. The fact that she, a foreigner, spoke the Empire's language better than most locals only added to her anime-protagonist vibe.
Gongsun Ce fought the urge to laugh.
"What are you saying? Where is this place...?"
The black-haired young man on his left patted his shoulder gently.
"This is the Azure City. A floating metropolis situated above the border between the Empire and the United States. A city built upon the corpse of the Azure Dragon."
This man had a beautiful face, a slender figure, dashing medium-long hair, white gloves, and a pristine black suit. His attire was impeccable... which meant that sitting in a fast-food joint on the second floor of a mall, he looked like a total pervert.
He was Shigure Reiichi, a handsome young man from Zero Island.
"Do you remember your name? Your ability? Can you recall Espers and the Dragon Calamity? It is somewhat troublesome to explain from scratch," Shigure said, his tone gentle and his vocabulary simple, like a preschool teacher guiding a slow child. "We would have to start from the Azure Calamity ten years ago..."
There was no mockery in his concerned eyes, but Gongsun Ce knew better. That bastard definitely sees through my act.
"I know... I remember... I am Gongsun Ce... But this place..."
The girl across the table skewered five fries at once.
"This is the Azure City," she droned in a monotone voice. "The City on the Corpse. The Asylum for Espers. The City of Sin that violates the world's moral baseline every year. Rumor has it the complaints received from human rights activists could form a small mountain... Nom."
She shoved all five fries into her mouth at once.
Long black hair. A dark green plaid shirt and a pale yellow puffy skirt. Since the moment Gongsun Ce woke up, her expression hadn't shifted a millimeter. Aside from her moving lips, she was a statue.
Qin Qianbai.
She poked her own cheek with two fingers. "Commonly known as the Aerial Grand Prison. Look. Look at this face. This is the smug expression of someone misleading you with biased information for the sake of a prank."
"I'm sorry, but I really can't tell."
"Your observational skills are as poor as ever. Shouldn't amnesia grant you some special insight?"
Expecting facial changes from you is impossible unless I awaken a specific 'Micro-Expression Detection' superpower, Gongsun Ce thought.
However, her description wasn't wrong. As she said, this city of 5.7 million people shattered common sense. It was a terrifying place.
At the same time, the Azure City gathered the highest technology from around the globe, offering the world's best education and services, built solely for one demographic: Espers.
The only city in the world that belonged to them.
"Oh... oh! I remember everything now..."
He felt their skeptical gazes. If he kept this up, the joke would go stale. Gongsun Ce decided to end it with a bang. He pointed a dramatic finger at the golden-haired girl.
"I know you! You are...!"
Cardia looked overjoyed. "Has your memory returned?!"
Gongsun Ce pressed his temples, feigning a desperate struggle to recall. "You left a deep impression on my heart... I remember! You are... The Chunibyo Sadist!"
The golden-haired girl's smile froze.
Gongsun Ce immediately spun and pointed at the man in the suit. "The Suit Pervert!"
"My heart has received critical damage," Shigure said, clutching his chest theatrically. "That title is far too excessive."
The girl across the table raised her plastic knife and fork with both hands.
Where did she even get those?
This place only served burgers and fried chicken—finger food. Most restaurants in Azure City didn't even provide plastic straws anymore due to environmental regulations.
Those utensils are glistening with grease. Did she bring them herself just to threaten me?
Holding weapons that would give a mysophobe a heart attack, Miss Qin Qianbai issued a flat threat. "Look. Look at this face. This is the expression of someone who will stab you if you finish that sentence."
Regrettably for her, Gongsun Ce lived by a strict creed: Never yield to violence.
He stood up resolutely, waving his hand like a lawyer delivering a closing argument, shouting with desperate resolve.
"The Masked Ironhead!"
He shouted it loud enough to drown out the noise of the entire restaurant. Every head turned toward their table.
"Get him, Little Qian. Explode him," Cardia cheered.
"Agreed. Do it. I will fund your ice cream purchase afterwards," Shigure added.
The plastic cutlery in the emotionless girl's hands suddenly glowed with a dark, metallic sheen.
Clang.
She struck the plastic knife and fork together, and they rang out with the clear, sharp sound of steel.
Qin Qianbai nodded with satisfaction and aimed the tips of her reinforced cutlery at Gongsun Ce's eyes.
She had used her Superpower.
"Superpower" is a collective term for supernatural phenomena triggered by a small percentage of adolescents. Manifestations varied wildly—pyrokinesis, super strength, telepathy... none had any scientific basis. Every Esper was a living headache for physicists.
Miss Qin's ability was "Property Alteration."
Hardness, stiffness, strength, rigidity... as long as it was a parameter defining a material's property, she could tweak it. She couldn't change the shape or mass, but she could turn soft plastic into military-grade steel. Or turn steel into playdough.
Right now, she had undoubtedly used "Multiple Interference," adjusting various parameters simultaneously to turn harmless utensils into lethal hidden weapons.
"I assume you know the common sense that stabbing sharp steel objects into human eyes leads to hospitalization."
"Don't be afraid. You won't die. Stand there and don't move—Qin Secret Art: Twin Lotus!"
With a flick of her wrists, the jet-black knife and fork shot toward Gongsun Ce's face, tearing through the air with a sharp whistle.
"Just throwing stuff isn't a 'Secret Art'! You came up with that cheap name on the spot, didn't you?!"
"A finishing move I created is, by definition, a Qin Secret Art."
Gongsun Ce used his precious reaction time to retort verbally rather than dodge.
Not because he trusted his friend not to blind him. And not because he underestimated the attack.
Simply because there was no need to move.
An instant before piercing his eyes, the jet-black knife and fork froze in mid-air.
Without support, without contact, the weapons halted as if caught by an invisible hand.
Like the emotionless girl, like the other two friends at the table, like the vast majority of residents in this city... the young man with glasses was also an Esper.
Gongsun Ce pushed up his glasses. The knife and fork bobbed up and down in the air, then drifted back to Qin Qianbai's plate like they were dancing.
"As you wished. I didn't move."
The onlookers buzzed with excitement.
Cardia leaned back, hands behind her head. "What's there to look at? Everyone here has superpowers. Why are they making a fuss?"
"True, but few students use them as blatantly as we do," Shigure said, picking up a chicken burger with his gloved hands, hesitating on the proper etiquette for eating it. "Besides, whether it's Gongsun Ce's 'Telekinesis' (Momentary Spiral) or Qin Qianbai's 'Property Alteration,' both are high-tier talents. Curiosity is inevitable... I suspect someone will come to hit on Qin Qianbai soon."
"Stop giving my simple ability such a chunibyo name!" Gongsun Ce protested, sinking back into his seat. "And why do they only hit on Miss Qin? I'm considered handsome too! Where are my admirers?"
"Even with superpowers, an idiot is still an idiot."
Miss Qin's brutal assessment made the other two nod in solemn agreement.
Gongsun Ce sighed. "Fine, fine. The prank war ends here. I had a nightmare, and I haven't turned into a monster yet. Don't you think that's worth celebrating?"
The three shook their heads in unison.
The Suit Pervert: "I don't think so."
The Masked Ironhead: "What a pity."
The Chunibyo Sadist: "It would be way more interesting if you turned into a monster!"
Why do I have friends like this?
Is this misfortune? They say the truly unfortunate are those without friends, but having two women and one man roast you immediately after waking up feels like a special kind of hell.
Jokes aside, he wasn't angry.
Gongsun Ce had never been a pessimist.
He lived his life like a surfboard on a calm sea—moderate expectations, moderate confidence.
He didn't blame them for not asking about his well-being. On the contrary, he was grateful.
This banter, this noise... this was daily life. This was the atmosphere that allowed him to feel at peace.
A nightmare is just a nightmare. It had passed.
Only fragmented memories remained.
He squinted at the window.
It was afternoon. The sky was clear, and the bright sunlight bathed the streets in gold.
He stretched, shaking off the last chill of the dream, and began to plan his schedule for the rest of the day.
But first, there was a pressing issue...
"I remember before I fell asleep, I ordered a Spicy Burger Set. Why is it that now, let alone the burger, even the plate is gone?"
Cardia flashed a peace sign. "We saw you sleeping and figured you weren't hungry, so we helped you eat it. Ehe~"
One second later, chaos erupted in the restaurant once more.
The disturbance lasted thirty minutes and ended with the "Idiot Quartet" apologizing to the waitress in unison.
Gongsun Ce received an extra-large Family Bucket, paid for by the three.
Fortunately, no innocent passersby—or fried chicken—were harmed in the incident.