The sky was partly cloudy, with wavering light scattering broken shadows across the red brick ground.
A spacious and bright courtyard.
Kurusu Akira leaned against the railing, holding a can of instant coffee, and looked up at the school building before him.
Hundreds of glass panes uniformly reflected the blue sky and white clouds, like a massive, fragmented mirror, vaguely showing boys and girls walking together in the world within the mirror.
Tap, tap, footsteps approached from afar.
The newly acquainted yellow-haired boy, carrying an empty bento box, came up to Kurusu Akira, "Sweetened condensed milk? Isn't that too sweet and cloying?"
"Sometimes drinking something sweeter can be more refreshing," Kurusu Akira took out his phone from his pocket and checked the time. Only six minutes had passed. "You eat lunch pretty fast."
"Athletes always eat at this speed."
Just then, a few girls in school uniforms walked by quickly. Their short skirts slightly lifted with the midday breeze, revealing their fair legs, causing Sakamoto Ryuji to steal a few extra glances.
Kurusu Akira, however, was indifferent to this.
When he passed the gymnasium earlier, he saw Sakamoto Ryuji's photo in a corridor on one side.
He hadn't expected this delinquent-looking guy to be the ace of the track and field club, having already qualified as a Class 2 track and field athlete last year. No wonder he didn't listen in class like himself; after all, he was already at a level where he could get into university through sports scholarships.
At the age of second year high school, he had already won countless trophies for Shujin in various competitions, big and small, and had the potential to be promoted to a Class 1 athlete at any time. He was indeed quite impressive.
As they got closer, he heard the track and field ace say, "Is there anywhere else you want to go?"
"Where else do I want to go?…"
Kurusu Akira murmured to himself.
A famous philosophical question: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?
When asked a similar question, Kurusu Akira thought of many things in an instant.
He took a sip of coffee and turned his face to look at the flowers, plants, and trees in the courtyard.
Suddenly falling into a calm and ordinary life, after a brief period of disorientation, he realized that he might genuinely be a bit tired of his identity as a "Phantom Thief," constantly busy traveling the world:
Seven consecutive years without rest, flying or driving from the south to the north of the Earth, remaining anonymous to avoid causing public panic and greater destruction, and actively concealing dangerous truths. His personal time was minimal, and his studies were repeatedly delayed… Even after saving the world, no one knew that the legendary "Phantom Thief" was just a college dropout and freelancer in reality.
Now, being forced to have more choices, Kurusu Akira wanted to rest as much as possible, which was a very greedy thought. But he hadn't signed a contract with the Velvet Room yet, so the burden of saving the world wasn't on his shoulders. Perhaps this was his last chance for "greed"… But thinking of Shinba Takakiyo's face, and the innocent people who might be harmed because of him, his occupational disease finally flared up.
"I want to check out the administrative building."
'I really can't sit still.' Kurusu Akira thought with a hint of helplessness. When a person with normal values gains extraordinary power, it's hard to remain indifferent to the evil that is about to happen before them.
"No problem."
Sakamoto Ryuji was a very competent guide.
The two walked one after another through the courtyard, and thick clouds drifted overhead, suddenly obscuring the sunlight.
"Do you know anything about the new principal?"
"Why ask that all of a sudden?"
"Curiosity."
"I don't know much about the new guy, but I do know some things about the former principal."
Kurusu Akira threw the empty can into a nearby trash can, "Tell me more?"
"You must know about the 'Shido shooting incident,' right? The prime ministerial candidate who was shot during a street speech a few days ago."
"Of course."
"The previous principal was a very fat guy, and his speech was full of arrogance, often using inexplicable grand principles to lecture others. It is said that he had a very close relationship with that Shido councilor. So after Shido's rescue failed, the political interest group centered around him immediately collapsed, and everyone involved was purged. This included that big-mouthed fat man; a lot of his dark history was exposed, and he's now in jail."
"Can these things be said?" Kurusu Akira's heart tightened. He looked around to make sure there were no cameras or eavesdroppers before he finally relaxed.
"Of course they can be said. These are all things that have been published in newspapers." Sakamoto Ryuji clasped his hands behind his head, looking nonchalant.
Passing by the library, the atmosphere grew colder, and there were fewer students to be seen. Occasionally, one or two figures in suits carrying briefcases walked along the path.
Sakamoto Ryuji noticed this atmosphere and instinctively lowered his voice: "Speaking of the new principal, I suddenly remembered some gossip about him... I heard it from a senior in the club who used to work in the student council."
Kurusu Akira adopted an expression of serious listening.
Sakamoto Ryuji: "Didn't the student council hold new officer elections a few days ago? All the positions were fiercely contested."
"It is said that Principal Shinba personally presided over this election to enhance his prestige... It's quite surprising, all the members of this current student council are very beautiful girls."
Kurusu Akira: "Such a coincidence?"
Sakamoto Ryuji: "Yeah, many people were surprised when the list was announced."
Kurusu Akira: "You're the vice-captain of the track and field club now, right? I saw your personal introduction at the gym. Have you met Principal Shinba?"
Sakamoto Ryuji: "I have. I feel like he's a good guy, very gentle, and easy to talk to... Anyway, much better than that fat guy who got sentenced."
Chatting, the two walked into the administrative building and then quietly began to explore inside.
"This is the principal's office."
On the top floor of the administrative building, Sakamoto Ryuji pointed to a locked office and said to Kurusu Akira, "The principal shouldn't be in the office right now."
Kurusu Akira, who had memorized the layout of all the rooms in the administrative building along the way, took out his phone to check the time. "Thanks."
"Is lunch break almost over?" Sakamoto Ryuji's phone was in his desk, so he could only eagerly wait for Kurusu Akira's answer.
"It ends in twenty minutes. We should go back to class."
...
The dismissal bell echoed over the campus.
A quarter of an hour before sunset, the clouds drifting westward suddenly parted, revealing a portion of the sun. Between two cloud masses, sunlight poured out, its beams clear.
Crimson light filtered through the gaps in the trees, hitting Kurusu Akira's face, half of which was in sunlight and the other half in shadow.
"Hey! Amamiya, don't dawdle, or we won't get a spot!"
Sakamoto Ryuji's voice came from outside the school gate.
Standing beside him were several other male classmates.
After lunch break, Kurusu Akira's phonebook gained another name.
Sakamoto Ryuji was also righteous, afraid that Kurusu Akira wouldn't fit into the new Class D. After club activities ended, he found a way to organize a get-together, intending to drag his newly acquainted classmate to an internet cafe to play for a few hours after school.
Socializing among high school boys is actually quite simple.
Just sit down in an internet cafe, start a game, curse and laugh at each other over voice chat, and you're like sworn brothers.
The hottest online game in internet cafes this year was an FPS game called Valorant. Its gameplay was somewhat similar to a fusion of "CS" and "APEX," perhaps with a bit of "Overwatch" mixed in.
"Amamiya hasn't joined a club yet, has he?"
"It's only the first day of school; where would clubs be recruiting new members?"
"True, haha, so you just sit in the classroom playing on your phone for those few hours after school?" Sakamoto Ryuji remembered he had been on his phone all day.
"Of course I'm playing on my phone."
—This was a lie.
With such high-intensity use, Kurusu Akira's phone should have run out of battery long ago.
From the first class of the afternoon, he had set his phone to "super power-saving" mode, pretending to stare at the screen, but in reality, he was secretly summoning that nameless Persona, reviewing the existing textbooks in a thorough and satisfying manner.
When he got tired, he would nap. When he woke up, he would continue to use [Memory Reading].
Repeating this, by the end of the afternoon, he had completed all first-year high school courses except for "History" and "Geography."
The history and geography he learned in his previous life were completely useless here!
How could Kurusu Akira possibly use a world map to explain to the teachers how "South America, Africa," and the "Indian Ocean" were destroyed by successive human catastrophes?
In his previous life, by 2022, the seven continents and five oceans had already been ravaged by various natural and man-made disasters, leaving only five continents and four oceans.
At the same time, a monster known as the "Border Eradicator" ran rampant across the world, clearing away a whole bunch of chaotic languages, scripts, and political systems.
Kurusu Akira had been entrusted more than once to steal her inner "sins"...
He almost didn't make it back alive.
She was on par with that priest.
Thankfully, this world finally didn't have those strange guys.
At least they couldn't be found online.
Kurusu Akira plugged his phone's data cable into a power bank and began browsing recently popular bands, preparing to learn about the scene.
The power bank was borrowed from Iseri Nina.
The little sidekick, who also hadn't joined a club, obediently took the bus to a cram school in Shibuya after school to start solving practice problems.
Kurusu Akira had originally planned to go to cram school with her, but now that he was gradually regaining the power of his former self as a deviation value beast, he naturally had no reason to go to cram school...
He didn't feel like he was cheating.
Every time he delved into his memories, all he saw was talent and effort.
He typed keywords onto the somewhat unresponsive screen and began searching online...
"No. 1 on the band popularity chart, Imagine Dragons. Representative/latest works - Alternative Rock: 'Morning Fire,' 'Odin.'"
"Why does this band have Japanese, Italian, Chinese, and German members? Can they communicate?"
Kurusu Akira felt an inexplicable urge to complain.
He scrolled down the screen, and the band compositions finally started to look normal.
"No. 2, SOS (inactive for nearly a year). Representative/latest work - Alternative Rock: 'To the Moon.'"
"..."
"No. 9, Morfonica. Representative work: 'fly with the night.'" This band was quite familiar to Kurusu Akira; he had just seen their concert preview in Shibuya yesterday.
He almost reached the bottom of the list before he finally found the name of the group that Iseri Nina often mentioned.
"No. 15, Diamond Dust. Representative work: 'VOID.'"
Being on the list indicated they indeed had some skill.
After all, Morfonica, which just entered the top ten, could already hold concerts at the Budokan.
...
About twenty minutes after leaving Shujin, Kurusu Akira, who had traversed through time to this point, finally completed the achievement of [First Internet Cafe Consumption].
Since LeBlanc wasn't open, Kurusu Akira simply agreed with Sakamoto Ryuji and the others to play until 8:30 before disbanding.
"Is it really okay not to study? The entrance exam is in three days." A somewhat scrawny-looking male student timidly sat down on a small sofa in the internet cafe.
"They haven't studied at all," a friend next to him said, pointing to Sakamoto Ryuji and Kurusu Akira.
"One is a sports specialist, the other is a math genius, are they even comparable?"
"What if he's a sports specialist? Won't he still get scolded if he does poorly?"
The male student named Mishima Yuki immediately sneered, "Don't take the entrance exam so seriously. The new principal just took office, so he's definitely going to significantly lower the difficulty of the exam to make the paper data look good. If I'm not mistaken, this specially added 'entrance exam' was created just to boost performance!"
"So that means..."
"Exactly! According to my deductions, this entrance exam will be an unprecedented 'super-low-difficulty' one!"
Mishima Yuki laughed as he looked at his friends, "Everyone, you must try to get full marks in several subjects this time."
Then he launched the game on the computer.
The red background light instantly bathed his entire face, making Mishima Yuki look like a bloody corpse.
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