“Oh Talia, my friend. I didn’t see you last week. Are you ok?” Sanya’s face paled when she saw the group. She recalled everything that Talia went through since the start of the school year. On the other hand, Talia could not remember who they were!

‘I was friend with this type of person? Truly surprising.’ Obviously, they were the ones that bullied her, but during these 50 years she overcame many of her weaknesses and troubles and totally forgot who they were. She had not the time to remember these unnecessary people. So she assumed that they were her friends.

“Yes, I’m alright now. Thank you for worrying.” She even smiled while passing past them. This stunned everyone, including the bullies. The Talia who was called a failure, the Talia who was openly badmouthed, the Talia who was frightened when the trio was in the same room. This same Talia casually returned the “greeting” and even ignored her bullies.

Of course, the leader of the group was not the type to have her pride trampled on. Her eyes flashed with anger and she roared toward Talia.

“What do you think you are doing, you failure of a human?!” Her roar resonated through the room. She was discriminating in broad daylight. Normally at the level of persecutions that Talia suffered, the bullies should have been already expelled from school. However, there was a reason why they turned a blind eye. They had good abilities.

Abilities were ranked by the Union from G to S. G was the lowest and the less useful, While S was the strongest. the basic level of the abilities was set at the birth. Most of the people had a G or F ability. There were only 13 S-ability users.

The purpose of the school nowadays was to nurture these abilities to make them rank up. It was possible to do it with training and luck. However, it was very hard to raise it more than 1 rank.

The leader of the trio had a D ranked ability. This was really high for high schoolers. They played a big role in competition between schools so they had more privileges. And since the rise of abilities, The world clearly entered in a new era. Somes said it was an era where the strong, the high ranked users, will dominate on the weak, the low ranked users.

The girl approached Talia and tried to grab her arm to turn her around. When she was about to touch Talia her hand passed through the air. Talia had avoided just by taking a step on the side, without looking back. Meanwhile, Talia could only have a hopeless face.

‘Aaaah, It seems I mistook bullies for my friends. It can’t be helped. Their existences were so insignificant to me that I forgot. Well, I will take care of this in less than 10 seconds. I still want to talk with Sanya.’

Thinking this she turned around with a face expressing that for her this situation was a loss of time. “My bad, my bad. I remember now that you’re not a friend. But I still have a more important thing to do. Goodbye !”

And she once again turned to leave. At this point, the girl was red from anger. Even the other students were scared that she might start using her ability. When she saw the direction where Talia was going. She snorted and said with disdain: “You’re going to see your sh*t of a friend. At least you’re perfect for each other, A failure and an ugly.”

The room was silent as everyone watched for Talia and her response. Sanya could not take it anymore. When Talia was bullied in the past she wanted to react, but each time Talia stopped her. She didn’t want her to be involved, in fear of also getting hurt. Sanya always felt guilty and ashamed. She was scared but she nearly lost Talia once. She would not let her go a second time.

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Talia had already reached Sanya’s table. When she heard this she stood still for a second before patting the head of the scared Sanya, who tried to stand up. Talia’s action prevented her from doing so.

“You should watch what you say.” She just turned her head. When the leader of the trio was about to reply she closed her mouth. It was only her body that reflexively did it. Because it knew that something bad would happen if she told only one more word.

Talia’s eyes were cold. Like the piercing wind of winter or the blade of a knife. Its pressure was enough to have everyone taking deep breaths in order to keep with their beating heart.

“If you talk about her like this once again, I will shorten you by a head.”

“!”

The girl was completely scared. It was like she really could behead her with just her eyes. The leader and the two other girls fell to their knees and trembled in fear. They were about to leak out when Talia blinked once, retracting the bit of killing intent that she released. She then proceeded to head-patting the disbelieved Sanya.

At this moment the teacher entered the class and immediately noticed the strange atmosphere. He saw with surprise the bullies on the floor and the grinning Talia who was in the middle of head-patting. He took a few steps in the room and looked at the group of bullies.

“Class is starting. Sarah, Lucy, Tiang, go to your class.”

Sarah, Lucy, and Tiang were the names of the three bullies. The leader, Sarah, finally noticed the teacher. She shouted while pointing at Talia.

“But Mr. Smith, Talia -”

“Go to your class. I would like to do my lecture.” He wore an expressionless face as he opened his bag to take out lecture notes. Seeing this Sarah fumed with anger but she restrained herself. She waltzed her way out while glaring daggers at Talia. Lucy and Tiang followed her.

Not all teachers were giving preferential treatment to some students. For example, Mr. Smith the math teacher was totally neutral. He would not take a position in a conflict between two students. He would also not try to solve the problem. He would only give his lecture and answer questions. He was reliable and unreliable at the same time.

Seeing that the teacher already arrived, Talia reluctantly went to her seat. She pulled out the notes from the lesson. Of course, she didn’t remember what they did during last week. Nonetheless, she was pretty confident that she will not be lost.

After a few minutes, Talia once again collided with a big problem. Boredness. When she was in the Stellar Temple, besides her training, she also received lessons about everything that she needed to know for her work. This included sciences lessons, so of course maths. Basically, she was at the level of a graduate of university specialized in sciences.

So the first year high school’s maths was, without saying, easy. She had to wait two hours for the lecture to end. In normal circumstances, she could perfectly wait hours without moving. But, with Sanya in the same room, the mission became extremely difficult! She had nothing to distract her so she could not help but think of Sanya. But She could not turn around to look at her because it would disturb Sanya!

‘...I didn’t want to do this, but I can’t endure it anymore’

She decided to resort to the big means! She closed her notebook and placed it on the side. She put back her pens in her pencil case and closed it. She leaned on her table while resting her head on her crossed arms. And finally, she closed her eyes!

She decided to sleep.

‘If I sleep I will prevent myself from thinking of Sanya! I just have to wake up when the lesson ends.’

Of course, her actions attracted the looks of the other students that were near her and Sanya who kept stealing glances at her. The class became a bit noisy with her actions. She just came back from a leave of a week and she slept during the first hour of the first day of the week! Smith didn’t care if a student sleep during his class as long that they take their responsibilities and don’t complain if their grades drop. But one thing that he disliked was that the actions of a student disturbed his lesson.

“...” Smith looked at Talia with an expressionless face and thought for a moment. He erased everything that was on the blackboard and started to write something else.

“Don’t note what is on the board” He instructed the other students. The students looked more and more confused while he was writing. What is he writing? What is a ‘matrix’ and a ‘differential equation’?

After a few minutes, he stopped writing and looked at the sleeping Talia. “Talia, come solve this”

Talia’s ear perked up as she woke up. By the noise around her, she knew that she screwed up.