Chapter 5: Broken System For a Broken School
[The Devil System is currently idle]
[Waiting for conditions to fully activate...]
[Calculating...]
[...]
...
It was Monday morning.
As I sat in my seat for homeroom, the teacher had a pretty big announcement to make.
"We are introducing a new ranking system that is new for this year, this is currently a work-in-progress and we hope to improve on it in the future. We have developed a new app called Preseqta which will be accessible to every student and will host this new ranking system."
She pulled up something on the tv which guided us on how to download and set up Preseqta.
-
Yokusuka Academy
The Preseqta app has been activated, you may check the information that has been released. Any information on the app that you cannot see has been hidden intentionally.
If you have any problems or concerns, please notify your teacher.
Good luck.
-
I guess I'd check it out at lunchtime.
*
"What would you like?"
"Just some vegetable soup please?"
"You're a weird boy, ordering vegetable soup when we have all these options, oh well, please wait, I'll get one of the chefs to prepare some."
"Thank you."
It wasn't anything special, I was just craving vegetable soup.
The cafeteria lady sighed and walked towards the kitchen.
I moved to the side, letting the people behind me get served. I looked up at the menu screen above, there was an array of appetising pictures of delicious meals and food. Students could order anything they want at this school and could have the chefs make it for them. This was a school for the best Espers in the entire area, having hundreds of millions of dollars funded by the government each year.
"Order 132, vegetable soup!"
I collected my soup from the collection zone. Then I walked over to the dining area. Everything in the dining area was clean and modern. The tables were sanitized several times a day, janitors wandered around collecting any rubbish. Furthermore, there were large windows allowing for lots of light to enter, allowing a beautiful view into the professionally kept garden and courtyard of the school.
I found a seat on a sizable couch and placed my bowl on the table. The school was generous with seating space so I didn't have to worry about occupying such a large area.
Slowly, I removed my spoon from the plastic wrapping and began drinking the soup.
I guess I'd have a look at Preseqta, I began by searching up my own name.
-
Oliver Ruth - First-Year Student
Physical Strength: E
Agility and Movement: F+
Adaptability: D-
~~~
Overall Intelligence: **Unreleased**
Interpersonal Skills: **Unreleased**
Cooperative Reliability: A-
~~~
Rank: 80/80
Overall Score: F+
Potential: Unknown
-
Well, it was to be expected. I didn't have a Realiser so there was no method for me to effectively increase my normal aptitudes. The more I thought about it, however, the more I considered that such a grading system is basically obsolete. In a school completely about combat and fighting capabilities, such a complex yet the unnecessary system was rather useless.
I assumed that they'd likely change it over time.
**
I received a message from Aiko telling me to make my way to the Spectrum-Judgement branch. It was apparently the day when we were going to raid the Rework facility. I put on some comfortable clothes and made sure that my sword was firmly attached to my hip. After a few final checks, I opened the door of my room and began walking towards the station.
I was greeted by several large groups of people. It appeared that there were quite a few squads gathered here. I guess the headmaster must have said some good things about me if they were willing to put me into the main task force just a few days after joining.
We all made our way towards the meeting room, in total, there were around twenty-five of us. The meeting room felt quite cramped with all these people inside, but no one seemed to mind, in fact, it felt like the tension in the room was quite high.
Aiko pulled out a map of the area and hung it on the board and at the front of the room.
"Alright everyone, I want to see absolute cooperation, your personal glory will be the success of the mission. I will now go over the plan.' She grabbed out a black marker and began drawing on the map, 'the 7th regiment will enter first through the front, you are to disengage as soon as you see a significantly powerful enemy, then you will enter the main hall via..."
She continued talking to the 7th regiment for a little while before then turning her attention to another regiment. I noticed that the next regiment had members who were even younger than us, they looked as if they were in middle school.
"Now the 11th regiment will hold on flanks and secure any key offices and locate key members of Rework. You are only permitted to initiate combat with members who do not have ESP abilities..."
After a little more discussion, Aiko finally turned her attention to us.
"Now, we will only enter once we confirm that all Disrupters have been removed. We have snipers on the location who will target people with Disrupters. Once we enter, we are to all engage with any strong enemies marked out by the 7th and 11th regiment."
It was a simple enough plan. Just enter as soon as we are sure that there are no more Disrupters.
Now I needed to think of a plan to delay this mission as much as possible.
I had been feeding information to the NPO through an informant provided by the headmaster, they are likely to arrive at the scene around the same time that we are entering.
I wanted an opportunity to observe Aiko's ability and the abilities of the other 21st regiment members. The best way was for me to cut off their ESP with my Interceptor but I also needed to make sure that I wouldn't accidentally leave them to die.
Now that the plan had been explained, everyone began packing and sorting their equipment before the mission which was set to begin at 6 pm.
As everyone began leaving the meeting room, the regiments split up and I followed the rest of my teammates in the 21st regiment.
"By the way, the 7th and 11th regiments will communicate the strength of the enemies they find with colour names. 'White' means it would be risky for a 7th regiment member to take on; 'orange' means they are quite strong and would need a member of the 21st regiment; 'red' means they're incredibly powerful and would need everyone to group up to take down, likely a strong B or A-rank; and black means we need to retreat and call Upper-Spectrum to deal with the issue, likely a very strong A-rank or an S-rank. Oliver do you have any questions?"
"Who is Upper-Spectrum?"
It seemed that there were even more groups in this complicated political balance.
"Upper-Spectrum is the organisation that keeps the strongest Espers in check. They are the city's only mechanism to fight against extremely powerful criminals."
They were basically the elites of Spectrum-Judgement.
"Anyways it's practically impossible that we'd find a black or even red Esper in Rework so there's no need to worry about that. Anyways are we all ready to go?"
Everyone agreed and we began making our way towards our designated location. We were positioned in a motel directly across the street from the Rework hideout. We travelled to the motel in a big van and entered after showing our ids to the clerk in the reception. It was a relatively old and run-down motel with a distinct smell of flowery perfume.
We were given access to three adjacent rooms and peeked out the window. The rooms included a clean, single bed, a bathroom, a wooden desk and chair and some other random motel things. The large windows allowed for a very clear view of the entire situation when it begins. I could see everything from the street to the entrance of the hideout and the nearby buildings.
The Rework hideout building was relatively old-looking, similar to the motel we were staying in and it seemed that their building was constructed practically completely out of brick with only very slim and small windows every few levels.
Our regiment was split into groups of two with two of us occupying each room. I was with Aiko and she began pulling some binoculars out of her bag.
I sat on the bed and waited for the mission to begin, Aiko was constantly surveying the area with her binoculars and sending messages on her phone. I felt kind of useless as I watched her constantly communicating with the other members of the task force.
As the clock ticked closer to 6:00 pm, Aiko returned her binoculars to her bag and pulled out a very large sniper rifle.
"You know how to use a sniper rifle?"
"I don't really need to know how, I can just manipulate the bullet using gravity manipulation. That's not to say I wouldn't be able to use one without my power though, I've been trained since I was young."
"Oh, that's handy."
She propped the sniper on its stand and positioned it out the window. She pulled the blinds in to cover us as much as possible, the room suddenly got a lot dimmer.
"Do you want me to turn the lights on?" I asked.
"No, it's fine, we'll probably be out of here soon anyways."
"Are we meant to like jump out of the window or something once we are set to enter?"
"I mean you could if you wanted to, but unless there's a big problem we can just exit through the front door."
"Alright."
There was a brief moment of silence, the clock displayed 5:59 pm.
I made my way to the window and pulled the blind a little bit so I could clearly see the action.
"The mission will begin now."
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone