Chapter 20: Am I special?

Frankly, my ego was crushed. The teacher who used to teach me kendo called me 'gifted' and I could beat most people my level there. Although I hadn't practiced in a while, getting crushed that badly was more than just surprising.

After a few sword swings, I threw my sword on the floor with frustration. No matter how I looked at it, I would lose against him, even if I practiced like I did before. There was no way for me to beat him.

I stormed out of the room in frustration. My shoulder was hurting a lot more than it should have, so I decided to go to the infirmary.

I entered the room. No one was there, not even Daphne, who was probably the nurse or doctor of this place.

She wouldn't mind if I searched around for ice, would she?

I looked around and noticed there was a small fridge below a table. I went over to it, and took some ice.

'Ahhh that felt better', I thought to myself, putting an ice pack on my shoulder and sitting on the chair there. That is when I noticed the thick file of paper sitting on the table.

It looked extremely important… and I wanted to take a peek into it.

Then again, what if Daphne caught me snooping around her stuff. She wouldn't exactly be too happy about It. And what if the papers had some really important information that would get me into trouble?

'Well what's the worst that can happen?', I thought to myself, my curiosity getting the better of me.

I flung open the cover to take a look at the documents inside.

There was a picture on the first page, along with where he lived, where he studied, who his parents were, and what they did for a living.

Ah.

This was data on people. I flipped the pages. More data on more people. Most of them were 30 years or below.

I looked at the cover page once.

"BATCH 2 DATA" was written on the bottom right-hand side. How did I not notice it? I flipped through the pages some more.

Then I saw the picture of a boy with gray hair on one of the pages. That wasn't what caught my eye. What caught my eye was the fact that his picture had a red border around it.

I didn't know what it meant, but I knew it definitely didn't mean anything good.

I read through his information.

Name: Wilfred

Education: Senior Secondary Pass.

Place of Origin: England, Birmingham

Status of Parents: Deceased

Note: Responsible for the murder of 3 of his classmates, as well as his homeroom teacher. Might have antisocial personality disorder. Handle with care.

What the…?

No wonder he had a red border. Why the hell was he even here? He is a murderer for god's sake.

I flipped the page, to see if there was more information.

Just the generic parent's occupation, address, relatives et cetera. I turned the page again.

There was just one sentence. Everything else on the page was blank.

Talent: Repulsion. Has the ability to repel things at will, even at a distance. The distance is estimated to be 20 meters.

I flipped the page, pretending I didn't see anything. That ability was way too overpowered for a murderer. You could kill people from a distance. Was there anything more to elaborate on?

I flipped through the pages faster. There were a few more people with their photos on a red border. Their notes weren't even half as interesting as that Wilfred dude's was. They were just 'Regular shoplifter' or 'Smoker who did some drugs'.

Until I came across Maria's page.

Her photo was also in a red border. What kind of a crime did she commit?

My eyes immediately went to the notes section.

Note: Responsible for burning down a police station. Almost 17 people died, with 33 severely burnt.

HUH? What did I just read…? I reread it a few times to see if I was reading it wrong.

Nope. That is exactly what the report said.

Why would she burn down a whole ass police station? Should I ask her about it? No… definitely not.

But then… you know what? Forget it. I'll ask her about this when I feel the time is right.

Then I heard footsteps. I closed the folder and went to the fridge, pretending like I just took out an ice pack.

"Why are you here?", I heard Daphne say, entering the room.

"I wanted an ice pack. I thought the infirmary might have it.", I shrugged, trying to act as natural as possible.

"Is that right…?", she said, sounding suspicious. She looked at the desk with the folder and smiled. "You looked through it, didn't you?"

"W-what?", I stuttered. "No, I just came to get an ice pack."

"You can't fool me girl, you have been in this room for a while. I was in the corridor. If you had really come here right now, I would have seen you enter this place. And if you were here for a while, why did you pretend like as if you had gotten an ice pack right now?", she said, grinning.

"…"

"Don't worry, I won't do anything. Instead, I'll ask you for help.", she said.

"… Help? From me? Why don't you choose someone else…?", I asked, pretending like as if I didn't get caught.

"Well, two reasons. One: you are a newcomer. Chances are that you aren't in cahoots with anyone around here.", she said, going over to the desk.

"And the second reason…?"

"Because you stand out.", she said, sitting at the desk.

"I… stand out…?", I asked.

"You were in the forest for a while right? You must have seen Maria's nihilism."

"That aura thing? Yeah I did see it."

"What color was it?"

"Some shade of red if I remember correctly."

"And have you seen your own aura, as you like to call it?"

"Mine is water-like in color… why are you asking this though? Isn't it normal to have different colors of aura or something?"

"Normally you would be right. In fact, the color of your nihilism reflects your attributes. There is just one minor problem with that."

"Which is?"

"That color of yours is clear. The aura of a god also happens to have the same color. The color of belief, the antithesis to nihilism."

"I have the aura of a god?", I asked, not understanding much, other than the possibility of me being special.

"Maybe. So far it doesn't seem that way. But to people seeing your aura for the first time, that is probably what they infer.", she said.

"Is it really that rare?"

"Rare?", she scoffed. "Sweetheart, you are one of a kind. There is no one else I know of who has a clear aura. Not a single soul on earth."

"What…?", I said, slightly shocked. Maria had said that my talent was utter dogshit. So did that mean I was weaker than everyone? But Daphne said I had an aura similar to that of gods. But what if it was only in appearance…? Am I special or not??

"So will you help me?", she said, breaking me from my train of thoughts.

"Help you with what?"

"You probably don't know this, but there will be a meeting between the directors in two weeks."

"And? What do you want me to do?"

"The job is really quite simple. Spy on one of the people coming here."

Instead of asking a reasonable question like 'Why should I?' or 'Are you stupid?', I asked, "Why are you spying on them?"

"I don't know either.", she said, shrugging. "That's why we are spying on them. To see if our suspicions are confirmed or not.". She was lying through the skin of her teeth, and she wasn't even trying to hide it.

"What exactly are you suspicious of?", I asked, raising my voice ever so slightly.

"You are sounding like you are interrogating me…!", she said, still smiling. She was definitely just playing around with me. And that pissed me off, ever so slightly.

"Oh…", I said, backtracking. "Sorry about-"

"Well, anyway.", she said, interrupting me. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"I would want to help if I knew how to spy on them properly.", I said, not even considering the possibility of turning her down. Why did I accept so easily?

"If you don't- wait what?", she said, clearly taken aback by my easy acceptance of her proposal. "… Don't worry about the spying part of it, I'll train you to be fit for the job. My promotion is lying on this y'know."

"And you are trusting the girl who came here just a few days ago for your promotion?", I asked, seeing if she was just stupid or naïve.

"Yup. Why? Is there a problem?", she said, sounding carefree. I could see the look in her eyes. They were anything but carefree. I don't know what she saw in me, and frankly, I didn't care. I just wanted to know why I had to spy on some random people.

"And what do I get in return?", I asked.