Chris answered with a bitter smile.
“Until I brought it up, I’d completely forgotten about Uncle Walter. To call it worry is too shallow. I’m just, my feelings are complicated.”
While pretending to be shocked that an acquaintance, even if not close, had met with misfortune, Chris changed the subject.
“I hope I get a chance to meet him again.”
With that, the sensitive topic was sealed. People talked about what they’d learned today, the lunch menu, and such things. Though some glanced at Chris’s reaction, thanks to the unwritten rule of not deeply digging into each other’s pasts, Walter Evans’s story didn’t come up again.
Before going to the center’s cafeteria, Nasthenka discreetly called Chris out.
“Chris, this way.”
“Nasthenka-ssi?”
“Shh.”
She took Chris to a corridor with little foot traffic.
“About Evans-ssi… Actually, he’s still within this center.”
“Pardon?”
Chris asked back, pretending to be surprised.
“He’s one of the people staying in the addict section I mentioned yesterday.”
“That…”
Though the center had taught him to stagger slightly at times like this, he gave up, thinking Nasthenka’s slender arms couldn’t support his body.
Instead, Chris covered his mouth, pretending to be shocked.
“Why is he… in such a place? Uncle Walter was quite a diligent person.”
Nasthenka smiled bitterly.
“Does addiction pick and choose people? Whether a diligent person or a lazy person, falling into the abyss takes only a moment.”
It was a meaningful tone, as if she’d dealt with many addicts before.
“It would be nice if I could meet him, but that would be difficult, right?”
“It would be better not to go.”
Nasthenka said with a clouded face.
“I think that person might be an Esper.”
Chris’s eyes widened. The information he’d received also stated that there was a high possibility Walter Evans was an Esper. But how had Nasthenka, who’d only encountered him at the Reeducation Center, guessed that fact?
“I heard the oven temperature suddenly rose sharply in the baking practice room and almost caused a fire. After that day, Walter-ssi went into the addict section. Of course, I didn’t suspect Evans-ssi from the start. I just thought the equipment might have malfunctioned.”
The reason Nasthenka judged so was simple. Since Espers weren’t that common, an ordinary person might just assume it was an accident.
“But I also heard from the person who told you about Evans-ssi’s whereabouts about his burned hometown store. But to almost have a fire in the practice room again… It’s suspicious, right? If we assume Evans-ssi is an Esper, I understand the reason he was taking dangerous drugs too. In the winter continents here, meeting a guide is like picking stars from the sky, so there are many Espers who rely on drugs. To kill the overly heightened senses.”
An Esper without a guide is like an engine without coolant. It only keeps getting hotter without any chance to cool down. Power and senses begin to exceed the control range, and when it reaches an uncontrollable state, it leads to rampage. Like an overheated engine exploding.
Releasing power is something that turns the surroundings into ruins, but what approaches the Esper themselves more painfully is none other than the rampage of senses. Sight, smell, hearing, touch, even taste—all begin to run wild as they please.
You can’t control the amount of information taken in through the eyes. Light and darkness are both just excessive, and you become buried in what you see. What would appear to others as just a red apple transforms dizzingly as if the diverse colors dwelling within it have increased to hundreds, thousands of varieties.
Even a faint flower scent becomes so violently intense it feels no different from a foul odor. Even the clear scent of a rainy dawn transforms into something so disgusting it makes you retch.
The sound of a person in the same space swallowing saliva, the sound of insects flapping wings, the sound of people walking beyond the wall, the sound of cars racing down the road—all of it echoes in your head like a roar, and that pain is no different from splitting your head with a hammer.
Even a soft gentle breeze touching your skin becomes as painful as sharp blades scraping your flesh, and what touches your tongue isn’t just food—even air approaches with an intense taste.
Eventually, you can’t swallow even a drop of water down your throat without tasting fishiness.
When such time continues every minute, every second, you can’t help but think it would be better to die. Espers who don’t receive Guiding all die in the end.
Half die from rampage, and the other half end their lives by suicide.
“Uncle Walter can’t be an Esper. First of all, I heard that drugs don’t work well on Espers… Even if he really is an Esper, isn’t it dangerous to leave him in the addict section?”
There are only ordinary people here, Chris added. Nasthenka looked at Chris as if looking at an innocent boy and said,
“You’re really something, saying there are only ordinary people here in a Reeducation Center operated by that Yuri Sobolev.”
“…I heard the mafia doesn’t directly intervene in the center. The place operating this is some charity organization.”
“That’s how it is publicly. That way, there’s less justification for the esteemed Northern Light of the summer continents to block the path of center graduates. But everyone knows. Who the true owner of this center is.”
Nasthenka said with a snort. Nasthenka, who had seemed quite cheerful and outgoing, appeared to have no particularly good feelings toward the Esper Union.
“The addict section is cleared out every three to six months. I think that’s the selection period. They send out real addicts at the same time to hospitalize them as a cover, and people suspected of being Espers like Evans-ssi are sent elsewhere.”
“I don’t quite understand why you’re telling me all this.”
Chris muttered as if troubled.
In truth, an attitude of acting as if frightened by too much information didn’t suit him well. It was like a wolf wearing a sheep’s skin inside out.
However, even feeling this discord, the platinum blonde woman pretended not to notice, paused slightly, then pursed her lips.
“This center gives a lot, but if you poke around here and there trying to meet your hometown person, it could become dangerous.”
“Thank you, Nasthenka.”
At Chris’s benevolent smile, Nasthenka also responded with a smile.
Returning to his room, he holed up in his bed. Though he could hear his roommates coming and going, Chris wasn’t affected at all by the surrounding commotion.
He was waiting for night.
After dinner time and before roll call, Chris headed to the infirmary complaining of a headache. Saying he felt dizzy whenever he moved, he was given medicine and told to rest in the side room. While pretending to sleep with his body lying on the bed, when Chris heard the sound of staff leaving their post for a shift change, he turned on his terminal and operated it.
“Andrea.”
After a brief wait, Andrea’s hologram with some noise appeared. Though not as clear as in the June Continent, the outline was quite distinct.
[Hello, Chris. I didn’t expect to receive a date request tonight.]
After nodding to Andrea who greeted him, Chris went straight to the point. Since the shift change time wouldn’t be very long, he had to finish exchanging information in a short time.
“As a result of digging into Walter Evans discovered in the addict section, I got the impression that Yuri Sobolev’s side is selecting Espers at the Reeducation Center. They pretend to separately classify and treat addicts, but transfer them to hospitals every three to six months.”
[Hmm. Here too there are a few admittees who disappeared without a sound without completing the course… I didn’t think to connect it with Espers.]
“Isn’t Andrea-ssi’s mission to take root in the center? I infiltrated to find a way to enter the abandoned factory district, so I think our approach to the problem was different.”
Chris’s words were simply a recitation of facts. At the plain and indifferent tone that didn’t even feel like consolation, Andrea grinned.
[Right. But the fact that Yuri Sobolev is gathering Espers is already well known. The mafia is trying to oppose Northern Light.]
“Shouldn’t we make them close the Reeducation Center?”
[It’s useless because it’s not operated by him directly but through several fronts by a charity organization. I learned this time too—they’re different companies but they share the common name of Reeducation Center, the same curriculum, and operating method. Even if you dig up and close one center, the other one has different operators and support organizations, so to catch that side too, you have to pull it down from the beginning.]
Andrea grumbled that it was obvious who provided the funding but there was no way to deal with it. Chris clicked his tongue at Yuri Sobolev’s thoroughness.
“Then we have to just sit and watch them sweep up Espers.”
[Can’t be helped. And actually, the Reeducation Center contributes greatly to the local community, so if Northern Light comes forward and demands closure, people will rise up.]
Unlike the mafia that could cut off its tail and hide in darkness at any time, Northern Light had too much to bear.
‘About eight minutes left.’
After quickly checking the time, Chris brought out a question he’d been keeping to himself.
“…Even assuming Walter Evans really is an Esper, there’s one strange thing.”
[What?]
“How did he, an Esper, get intoxicated by drugs?”
He’d heard that no matter how terrible a drug was, it only had about the effect of a mild painkiller for Espers. But they were desperate enough even for that much, so they ended up turning to drugs. Naturally, such drugs were so expensive they were difficult to obtain, and there were more than a few unregistered Espers who fell into the path of crime to fund them.
‘Because that would be less than the cost of illegal Guiding.’
