When the mackerel off distant shores flicks its tail, the price of canned goods in Academy City risks fluctuation.
When a popular Academy City program aired a beauty recipe, a blonde girl from far away found herself unable to buy mackerel cans to eat.
For now identified as the blue-eyed, blonde Seivelun-senpai, presumably from Norway, she swept her scrutinizing gaze back and forth between the two girls opposite her, a feeling of slight bewilderment rising in her heart.
She never expected this seemingly ordinary, unremarkable girl to possess such sharp information-gathering skills.
To deduce her general origins based solely on the production area of mere cans—it was a truly unexpected talent.
As for the esper who seemed to have a sudden flash of understanding, Seivelun-senpai felt she had already lowered her expectations multiple times. She concluded this one was purely filler material, most suited to being a tool, strictly speaking.
Had the pinnacle of Academy City's espers really fallen to such a level?
"Something like that," Frenda said, resting her chin in her hand, neither confirming nor denying the conclusion that her hometown was Norway based on the mackerel cans.
Though Norway bordered the Atlantic and was a frequent haunt of mackerel schools, Sweden was right next door, pressed tight against Norway.
There were no real barriers to the flow of mackerel between them, so it couldn't be considered conclusive evidence.
But the odds of guessing right were about fifty-fifty, and Frenda seemed quite willing to play along with this friend she hadn't known for long.
Norway, Sweden, or even Denmark, which shared a similar language with both—in truth, none of that mattered anymore.
After coming to Academy City, unless Seivelun-senpai was willing to risk being purged by the Board of Directors, leaving this place was likely impossible.
Even for an esper, escaping the city's sphere of influence under the relentless pressure of purges and retrieval teams was far from guaranteed.
So for Frenda, the idea of returning home was fundamentally unrealistic. She could only rely on the taste of mackerel cans to recall that place.
"Talking about mackerel just makes me hungry again."
"If I go too long without eating mackerel, I get severe heart palpitations, my hands and feet shake, and I even start hallucinating. One of my seniors says it's a psychological condition, but I believe… mackerel is the one thing that must not be betrayed."
Holding the mackerel cans aloft, Frenda didn't directly confirm Saten-san's guess. Instead, she looked at the cans in her hand with great anticipation.
Her feelings for her homeland had gradually transformed into a genuine, heartfelt love for a certain food. In a way, it was a very simple, earnest trait for a girl to have.
These cans, obtained from Saten Ruiko, had yet to be victimized by her unique can-opening methods, thus sparing it the tragic fate of being blown in half.
Under the gaze of a certain famously powerful esper, and having confirmed the basic safety of the situation, this dark side girl finally relaxed a little.
She prepared to toss her ice cream aside and savor the spoils she had gone to such lengths to acquire.
It was a pity she only had this one can, falling short of her intended goal. But if Academy City could restore normal mackerel supplies before her body, starved of mackerel, succumbed to hallucinations and collapse, that would be enough.
Judging by the reach of that popular program, shortages were likely to persist for the next few days.
"If it's mackerel you need, I think I have a few cans left at my place," Natsume-san said, almost without thinking, having sensed the girl's near-fanatical attitude towards mackerel cans.
"Really?!"
Frenda shot to her feet, grabbing the arm of the girl who was only a tad shorter than her. The fervor in her eyes was impossible to hide.
As long as her dark side identity remained concealed, normal interaction with the #8 was perfectly fine. If Mugino and the others found out, it might trigger a rather unpleasant round of questioning.
But compared to mackerel cans, a little risk was nothing.
Worst case scenario, her identity gets exposed, the #8 hauls her off to the Anti-Skill headquarters, then some Judgment member with a green armband gives her a lecture, looking down on her with contempt.
Looked at that way, the safety factor around the #8 was pretty high—at least no immediate life-threatening danger, far safer than most dark side activities.
These hothouse young ladies of Tokiwadai probably hadn't even killed a small animal, let alone a person. The law of the jungle simply didn't apply to them.
Labeling them 'hothouse flowers' was entirely accurate, and that had nothing to do with their actual power.
"Of course it's true."
"There used to be a black cat near the student dorms, and I'd always feed it mackerel cans. But later, a friend adopted the cat, so the few cans I had stashed away became completely useless."
Natsume-san nodded seriously. She remembered that black cat that always bothered her at night quite well.
But she ultimately wasn't the type to blatantly violate school rules, nor did she have the patience to care for a small animal, so she ended up with nothing.
Besides, she wasn't particularly keen on eating fish herself. The cans she'd bought on sale were all just sitting in a box.
The thought of having to pick out bones always dampened her enthusiasm.
Though if all the bones were already removed, that was a different story. Clearly, the cans' suppliers hadn't considered the opinion of a picky eater like Natsume-san.
"…Feeding mackerel cans to a cat…"
"Even if you're a danger level ten individual, that is unforgivable."
Her expression dazed, Frenda couldn't help but mutter to herself, her gaze towards a certain temperature controller now tinged with dissatisfaction.
If she weren't no match for that seemingly harmless girl, she'd definitely make her apologize properly to the entire mackerel cans industry, until she understood the charm of mackerel.
But considering the size of the other girl's fists and the complex web of Tokiwadai influence behind her, Frenda had no choice but to cool down.
"You don't want them?" Natsume Sonoko asked, sounding concerned. She was the type who liked giving gifts to friends.
Even people she'd just met, she'd try to give them a little something.
Of course, this seemed to apply only to girls around her own age. When she first met that Kamijou Touma-senpai and the eternally youthful teacher Komoe-sensei, she hadn't shown such habits.
"I do!"
Instantly discarding her previous thoughts, Seivelun-senpai nodded vigorously.
Forget it. As long as there were mackerel cans, minor issues like that weren't worth worrying about.
"Since there are extra cans, we can make more of the beauty recipes. Natsume-san, Seivelun-senpai, you should both join me."
"Not just curry mackerel, but soy sauce mackerel, steamed mackerel, braised mackerel… they're all good."
Suddenly thinking of something, Saten Ruiko spoke up excitedly.
Great! If Natsume-san had extra cans in reserve, their measly beauty cooking session could evolve into a proper mackerel feast.
Come to think of it, Saten Ruiko had plenty of confidence in her own cooking skills.
Unlike a certain someone who followed recipes and heat instructions mechanically, Saten's skills were honed through long practice, forged by a self-sufficient dorm life.
For humans, the most important thing is energy intake.
Having firmly adhered to this principle, Natsume-san finally managed to extricate herself from Saten-san's dorm, having solved part of her cans storage problem.
Combined with the stash she'd stuffed into the Judgment branch office, the storage space in her dorm was finally back to normal levels.
It had to be said, as long as food was present, Natsume-san was never one to refuse. Unless it really didn't suit her taste, she rarely considered indirect factors like weight.
Come to think of it, Natsume-san had actually gotten rather skinny lately.
Her once slightly chubby cheeks had grown thin, to the point where you could almost feel the bone structure beneath.
Coupled with her unusually short stature, she looked somewhat malnourished. Not long ago, Index had even remarked that her condition seemed a bit off.
These subtle changes were imperceptible to Natsume-san herself, but to others, they were becoming rather noticeable.
"Have I really gotten thinner? I don't feel any different."
Stopping in her tracks, Natsume-san stood dumbly in front of a shop window, staring at her own reflection in the glass.
Just moments ago, Saten-san had again brought up whether she was dieting. The girl who never gave such things a thought had, of course, flatly denied it.
But the idea of getting thinner the more you ate… was that really happening?
"Could it be related to ability development?"
Natsume-san paused, connecting it to her own situation.
She was using her brain almost constantly, which meant her mind was perpetually in a state of development.
Even when asleep at night, part of her consciousness maintained the AIM diffusion field network connected to Reiko, even subconsciously sustaining the surface thermal layer and some of the radar systems used for early warning.
Under this high-intensity development, her computational power was growing steadily, and she still hadn't hit any so-called 'ability stagnation period.'
Even among espers, many reached a point of stagnation. Her own Shokuhou-senpai was, strictly speaking, in such a state.
Though in Shokuhou-senpai's case, it was because her initial upper limit was so high she couldn't fully control her ability, forcing her to focus on refining its branches and improving precision.
As for how far it could develop, the external brain extracted from Shokuhou-senpai's mind probably gave some indication, though it surely fell far short of the Level 6 Absolute Esper threshold.
Now that she thought about it, the rumor that espers overusing their brains consumed fat rapidly seemed to be proving true in her case.
The energy required for an esper to maintain brain activity far exceeded that of an ordinary person, which was part of the reason Tokiwadai Middle School's rules included a ban on dieting.
As an esper's level increased, this energy consumption naturally intensified.
But compared to a certain well-fed Mental Out who also used her brain frequently, this reasoning seemed shaky. The energy consumption of a Level 5 didn't seem to have that effect.
"Then I must just not be eating enough."
"That's it. I'm in a growth period right now, a time when I need to properly supplement my nutrition. I'll ask Shokuhou-senpai for advice another day."
Having reached this conclusion, Natsume-san felt a wave of relief.
The subtle changes in her body were worrying, but the overly optimistic girl paid them no mind.
In her vision, she rarely devoted extra energy to unimportant matters, often actively avoiding troublesome but preventable problems.
Who knew how she'd developed such a mindset, but Natsume-san lived this way quite contentedly. It often led to her true inner will being influenced by this side of herself, until the underlying anxiety kept her awake at night.
Though the only things that could keep Natsume-san awake were probably the destruction of the environment she relied on for survival, or being affected by a friend's plight.
"Speaking of which, that Seivelun-senpai was way too dramatic."
"She actually cried eating the mackerel dishes, with that moved expression on her face. She and Saten-san really seemed to hit it off."
Raising an eyebrow, the girl skilled at finding and spreading gossip seemed to ponder something, a thoughtful look crossing her face.
She felt a bit sorry for casually judging Saten-san's cooking, but perhaps because Natsume-san was used to the exquisite lunches prepared by her maid, and coupled with her lack of strong interest in mackerel, she found it just an ordinary meal.
Yet that made the senior's exaggerated reaction all the more noticeable. It seemed Seivelun-senpai truly loved her homeland.
Back in the brightly lit Tokiwadai dormitory, a girl sat quietly at her desk.
The open notebook was filled with indecipherable scrawl. A nearly maxed-out bank card lay carelessly on the corner of the desk, seeming to tell a sorrowful tale.
Oh, and there was an Indian Poker Card in Natsume Sonoko's hand.
Lately, she'd heard a slew of news about Indian Playcards, both good and bad.
After returning to her dorm in the evening, she'd asked Shirai-san for more details about the assault case from the afternoon, which more or less confirmed the rumors Saten-san had mentioned.
And similar incidents weren't limited to just one; they seemed to be entering a high-frequency occurrence phase.
According to a certain pigtailed Judgment member who just happened to pass by the scenes of over ten such incidents, Indian Poker Cards had finally attracted the attention of District 7's Anti-Skill system.
It was still unknown what measures Anti-Skill would take regarding the Poker Cards, but one or two district branch offices alone couldn't possibly stop the spread of Indian Poker Cards.
To curb the circulation of such items, only a direct order from the Board of Directors would be effective.
Come to think of it, this card really did seem to have the power to influence people's thoughts.
It could incite those with weak wills to action, even giving them the courage to violate Academy City's regulations.
Thinking this, the curious girl blinked and began studying the card again.
But it was just like before; she couldn't detect anything unusual. The saying 'every man to his trade' applied to espers as well.
Even when she shifted her perception to the AIM phase perspective, she couldn't find any useful information.
"According to what Shokuhou-senpai said, Indian Poker Cards are likely used for ability development… but I can't detect any trace of a field at all."
Slightly baffled, Natsume-san had once again exhausted her patience.
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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL