Back at my house.

The first official day of school had ended. Currently, I was heading to the house where I lived together with Rin and mom.

“I’m back.”

“Welcome back, Soseki. Oh my... you look tired. Hard day at school?”

Hmm... to tell the truth it was kinda hard to answer her question. My body was fine, perfectly fine, but my mind been active for more than 20 hours... so yeah, was there a word for I wanted to fall asleep but my body didn’t want to? Still any moment now I was expecting to be facedown on the bed and fell asleep.

“Nope~ just your feeling mom. I’m perfectly fine.”

I said while punching the air, hey, couldn’t make her worry, right?

“Is that so... Well, Dinner is almost done, so put away your things and get ready.”

“Ok~ Will come back after I change.”

After I spoke with my mom, I went to my room, placed my bag on the floor and jumped in bed.

As I laying in my bed, I began recalling about Powers.

Kawamoto used it by saying its name... so I guesses I should just do the same.

“Inventory.”

...

Weird, nothing happened. Did Powers could be only used when we were doing test?

Or because I didn’t really thinking or even trying about using it when I said that?

Okay, let’s try the former.

Inventory huh... if this was a video game then... I grabbed my pillow and this time thinking about it being stores into some kind of very big bag.

“Inventory.”

“Oh?”

The pillow was twisted and getting sucked into a mini black hole.

Then about taking it out... I should’ve just thought about the other way, right?

Yep it came out... though, it seemed always came out either from my palm or in front of me.

Alright, let’s tried Map.

When I was thinking about Map, it was radar on the top right corner or bottom left corner of your vision... oh?

How should I put this... It was like I was looking at some kind of map and yet at the same time I wasn’t... nothing blocked my vision and yet I was sure I could see it on my mind.

What a weird feeling.

But hey, it appeared even when I didn’t say anything. So thinking and imagining about using Power was the key huh? Kawamoto didn’t seem to know about this... yosh, let’s told her tomorrow.

After casting Inventory after Inventory, Map after Map for a while, I’d finally started to get the hang of it, and only stopped after my Force had run out.

Yeah... Unlike the video game, it seemed like opening and closing Inventory or Map also cost some Force, but to put it in the simplest way, seemed like every 100m radius or every 10 minutes of Map costed 1 Force, for inventory it was either 10 kg of things or 30 cubic centimeter. And seemed like no matter how small the radius of my Map or how light and small things that I put into Inventory, it seemed like using them 10 times also cost 1 Force... and taking out things didn’t cost me anything.

Well, that was good to know I guess.

The rest of the night passed by at a blaze, or a crawl, or like watching paint dry, it was all the same.

Maybe failing the test really put a mental toll on your mind.

After dinner, I blinked away sleep, and whatever might have come before was gone in an instant. My dream slipped away from me before I could even think about chasing it. Light was filtering through the window of my bedroom, but to me the world consisted entirely of the pillow pressed into my face, the mattress beneath me, and the warm web of my blankets wrapped around me. In this moment, I was completely sure that I had never been more comfortable in my life... yet it was kinda scary knowing I would immediately fall asleep for a moment and the next thing that I knew it was already morning.

The alarm on my phone continued and I was just as sure that I might never get this feeling back again. I could only manage a groan in response as I grabbed my pillow and buried my head beneath it, thinking about all the things I would do if only it meant I could go back to sleep.

And yet I still stood up.

Outside my window, birds were chirping. I stared at them with eyelids composed of pure lead, the morning sun's rays stinging painfully.

“Grr... Birds shouldn’t chirping in the morning.”

Though, I managed to get ready for the day without any further delay and did our routine as usual... then again, mom was going back today, so I guesses I should wake early tomorrow to prepare our boxed lunch.

The next day, it was same as the previous day, I was taking a nap every now and then whenever I had the chance.

One thing that I found was that Mado’s lesson especially boring.

It was, in his typical style, quite a boring one, and before long at all I felt my eyelids began to droop. I tried to shake it off, propped my head up with one hand, squinting to make out the words the teacher scrawls over the blackboard. It was all getting a bit fuzzy. I tried to blink a couple times, but everything seems to get a little darker each time.

Sorry teach... but could I eat waves? If not I just didn’t care knowing about it.

And so I slumped into my desk... waking up just right on time for the lunch break.

Weirdly enough, even though I didn’t speak or do any attempt to make friend on the second and third day, somehow I still able to join a group... maybe this was what they called as guy’s power?

It all started from the simple talk about comic book, and escalated to the most beautiful girl in our class. When we talked about this topic my eyes wandered around the classroom looking for those unmistakable pink girl, but came up empty.

Anyway, in front of me was Nakano Izumi, shoveled down rice as fast as humanly possible, at the center was Mizuhara Toma, the orange-haired boy, slowly nibbling at his bread, face buried in a book.

“Are we allowed to eat at the rooftop?” I thought out loud from our of nowhere. The weather seemed nice and it was kinda fool to not to eat outside at a time like this.

Izumi, munched on some sort of pretzel for his dessert, his expression thoughtful. He shrugged.

“I chonno. Whychdo youf ask?” He didn’t even bother to swallow before replying.

“Are you the type of a fool that like watching the city from high place?” Toma said without even looking up from his book.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“...No, I was only asking.” It seemed like I already took the tittle of sleepyhead in my class.

I took another bite, and then accidentally, my eyes were drawn to Kawamoto. Who poked at her food as if she was dissecting something for science class.

“Oi~ Kawamoto, would you like to eat together with us?”

“Eh? Um...m...I...”

“It would better than eating alone you know?”

A huge, huge blush spread on Kawamoto’s face and her eyes widen far larger than I thought it was possible for eyes to do. Uh-oh. Did she interpret my lame attempt at small talk as a feeble attempt to pick her up?

I still looking at her while she still restlessly stabbing at her lunch.

...Urgh, I should’ve just left her alone.

Now she didn’t give an answer, it would be rude if I decided to throw my face away and I would look like forcing my intention if I kept pushing it.

Then again, it might be weird to suddenly eat with three unknown guys from out of nowhere, so I kinda understood how she felt... maybe.

In the end, Kawamoto who looked confused politely declined my offer.

“You’re a carnivorous type huh?” Said Toma while carefully folded the wrapper of his bread.

“Ho~ is that so? That’s bad you know, You should eat more vegetables you know, it’s good for you body.” Izumi said, thumping his dense, solid belly.

And the rest of the day peacefully ended. Club activity introduction was still hype in my school and this time I managed to find the Archery dojo.

Peeking inside, I saw all of the student all wearing their dogi and sat in seiza, while the big sis from my village, Higashi Hinata also did the same thing.

“She still does that huh.” I thought on my heart.

The atmosphere was very still, almost felt like even the slightest noise would crumble this stillness.

And It seemed like besides me, there were several other students that also not wearing the dogi nor brought a bow, so I guesses they all were the student that wanted to join? All of them seemed to be choked by this stillness.

Suddenly, the mood changed. Hinata-nee stood up and gave the ‘hit in the middle’ stare.

Fired. Hit.

Continuing, nocked another arrow. Hit.

The third shot was right in the middle. It pierced the arrow before it. Somehow, though.

Damn... she was still a beast. I bet it was far harder for her to not hit the bullseye rather than hitting it ten times in a row.

Though, it seemed like it would be hard to greet her when she was in the middle of club activity, and so I only stared and nodded from a far when our eyes met.

Yeah, I still had something else to do.

Opening the mission screen, like usual there were a lot of them, but for today I decided with ‘cat collecting.’

After I took the mission, it told me the mission objective, reward, and the delivery coordinate.

I strolled around the city and it didn’t take long for me to find the first cat, it was an abandoned kitten sleeping inside the cardboard box.

Supposedly, it would be far more efficient if I gathered all the five cats and delivering them in a single journey, but it was freaking hard capturing the other cat while bringing a cat with you. If I left them they would just wandering around. If I tied them with a rope I might just say goodbye to my social life. Not to mention the chance for them to fight against each other, so after some attempts I decided it would be best to deliver them one by one.

When I took the first kitten to the designated coordinate, I found it was a small hidden abandoned yard.

Putting the cat, I opened the mission screen once again and touched on the ‘deliver’ button.

“Oh?”

The kitten body was wrapped in floating pattern like a cocoon and it disappeared. With the milestones also increased to 1/5.

Second cat was some cat on this neighborhood, it happily followed me when I gave it some food.

Third cat was kinda fierce, it scratched me when I tried to grab it, the Shield blocked it though

What? Was I cared about the cats? Not really... I meant, hunting a boar or rabbit and collecting a cat didn’t differ much, right?

Then again, this was the first time I hunted something not for food or because they started becoming a pest, so it kinda gave me this weird guilty feeling, like I just did some kind of illegal but still right things.

Fourth cat was another kitten, sleeping on the street.

“...Ah, right... I should’ve bought some food ingredient.”

Since mom told us she would go back after we went to school, I did not think she would make a dinner for us.

At shopping district.

Because that boar talking I somehow bought pork for our dinner. And sneakily, while facing the empty alley I used Inventory to store them away.

Though, it would be better if I was able to store living thing. Not like I couldn’t able to store it, but since the skill explanation said it was a vacuum space, I personally thought living things wouldn’t be able to breathe inside.

“Hm?”

In front of me, Kawamoto was standing still, gazing to the sky.

Coincidence or not, should I greet her? No, of course I should, she was a classmate after all, not to mention she sat next to me... then again, it would be weird if she thought I really tried to hit on her huh? But I thought this might be my chance to clear it up. Did I mess up last time? Maybe it wasn't my fault. But it would be if I messed up this time.

“Yo.” I walked and greeted her, waving my hand. “What are you doing?”

No... stupid, that was the most oblivious question ever, of course she was doing some shopping.

She replied with a nod and pointed upward.

I followed her finger from the side. “Oh? On a mission?” I said with a grin.

It was ash colored your everyday normal cat or should I say kitten? Somewhere between them maybe, so teenage cat? Teencat? Catteen? Wait... concentrate first.

Seemed like it was getting stuck on the roof, and its body was quivering like crazy... well, I guessed this kind of thing always happened, I meant, from my personal experience I knew climbing up was easy but getting down was hard.

“What a poor cat.”

It meowing but seemed like nobody seemed to care. Well, nobody except Kawamoto actually.

Once again, Kawamoto took a glance at me, opening her mouth and closing it down for so many times, it was obvious enough she wanted to ask me to help the said cat but hesitant to do so. Not to mention somehow my sense telling me she would climb it if no one was helping the cat.

But falling from there obviously wasn’t a laughing matter.

Still... It was a cat so I guessed this killed two bird with one stone? Not to mention this was the last cat, so some sort of challenge should exist, right?

Without saying any word, I climbed the electric pole up... yeah it was easy considering there were stepping on the side.

“Uncle... what’s that person doing?” I heard some kid asked something from down the street. Well, I might be looked like this, but thanks to 10 Points in Perception my senses was two times sharper than me from yesterday.

“I guess I’ll leap over there.” I muttered after reaching the sufficient height. Eyes staring at the edge of the roof.

Yeah... this distance wasn’t a problem. I’d been jumping farther than this when I was a kid.

“Whhoaaa!!”

And yet I still shouted something like that.

Rolling in the roof and perfectly landed like some kind of acrobat... I bet they didn’t realize my legs were shaking right now.

Oh? That kid was taking a photo of me? Wait... I wasn’t ready, no wait... let’s just save the cat first.

“Meow!!!!”

....It tried to scratch me... not like it succeeded since Shield managed to block it.

“I’m trying to save you, you know that!?”

I forcefully grabbed the cat and thinking why was I yelling at it.

But...

“Jajaja~ Mission complete.” I said, in more ways than one while showing the cat like it some kind of trophy or something like that.

“Oh?”

Up here, it was like looking down at the world. I could see the sun was hiding behind the building, the grey and red roofs, the sea of cars and concrete with a slight amount of greenness, and the many busy people going on about the day. Up here it was like standing on a giants back exploring the world with awe.

Indeed I usually did the same back on the village, but doing this in the middle of the city kinda gave different vibe eh. Maybe Toma was right about me being like in a high place. Wouldn’t say this was beautiful but it wasn’t bad.

But the moment I climbed down.

“Meowww!!!”

That cat tried scratching me again and ran away. Maybe it knew my intention ?

“...damn that cat.” I said.

Then I noticed Kawamoto looking rather amazed and yet also displeased.

“T-t-that’s d-danger-dangerous y-you k-know.”

Kawamoto exclaimed while turning her sight to a different direction. Hey, her angry attitude was pretty cute.

But leaving her cuteness aside. She was giving the vibe she would also climb that, dangerous or not.

Though, from the way she was acting at school, I had her pegged as a bookworm but she might have an adventurous side too?

“Eh, that height isn’t a problem for me.”

“N-no i-it’s n-n-not t-the height. I-it ju-just t-that ca-cat s-scratches ev-ev-every s-s-s-stranger i-it see-sees.”

That was what you worried about?!

Sigh... seemed like she also had this airhead vibe.

But I guessed I should search for another cat before dark.

“Well, bye then.”

So I left Kawamoto behind and went straight searching for the fifth cat.

The last cat was some random cat I found on the steer. Grabbed it. Went back to the designated location and.

[Congratulations! Your mission is complete! First time reward! 100 Exp and 100 Credits! Your rank is now Z-98]