“Kio, what are you on about?” Mom demanded.

“Aiko has changed after he got sick.” Kio declared. “He doesn’t act like himself anymore.”

My hand slowly went into my pockets and I started working toward the appropriate mixture. From the first moment I had come into this world, I had readied myself for the possibility that my identity would be discovered. When that happened, there was naturally only one choice. I would knock them all out, wipe their memories of anyone even named Aiko, and then I would go on the run. With luck, I could set up a new identity in another town. I had plenty of experience fleeing and setting up a new life, so this would be easy.

“I think Aiko is fine.” Hina declared.

“She’s been acting differently too!” Kio declared, moving her finger to Hina. “You start to look a little prettier and suddenly you start acting like you’re confident.”

“Kio, what is your problem?” Hina demanded, for the first time not backing down from her bigger sister.

“Tcht…” Kio made an irritated sound, taking a step back. “My brother isn’t a cool guy who brings women home and cooks and takes care of his family. He’s a loser loner who stays in his room all day and reads stupid comic books!”

Mom’s eyes widened. “Kio, are you jealous?”

Kio stiffened, her face turning red. “J-jealous? I’m not jealous! How could I be jealous of him?”

“She’s not jealous of him; she’s jealous of mommy!” As the family had broken into a fight, Ivy had been trying to get Maya to finish her meal so they could get out of there.

Upon finishing her juice, she made such a declaration before slamming down her cup. Her words had cut through the yelling, and everyone had ended up turning to the little girl. Ivy had her arm out as if to protect her from their wide-eyed looks.

Mom put on a smile, lowering herself to Maya’s level. “Honey, I’m sorry we’ve been raising our voice. I’m not sure if you know this, but Kio and Aiko are brother and sister, so their relationship is different than Aiko’s relationship with your mommy.”

“I know…” Maya nodded. “And she’s angry because she loves daddy!”

“Who’s your daddy?” I yelled angrily.

“You are!” Maya broke into giggles.

“Honey, he isn’t… we’re not there… yet…” Ivy seemed not to know what to do with her mischievous daughter.

“He takes care of me and he teaches me things and he’s super nice. That’s why he’s my daddy.” Maya declared.

“I-I don’t love him!” Kio’s voice rose an octave, her reaction seeming delayed and causing everyone to turn to her. “I don’t!”

“Sweetie, it’s okay if you care about your brother and worry about him.” Mom smiled. “I think it’s good that you guys are starting to get closer. I was afraid when I was gone there would be nothing to keep you together as a family, but I’m less worried now.”

“You don’t understand at all!” Kio cried out, shooting all of us a glare before spinning around and walking away.

I slowly took my hand back out of my pocket. It seemed like no one was buying her words. At the very least, there might be something more to what she was saying. I didn’t feel like my position was in danger just yet. I finished up serving the meals and then mom drove us to school. Kio had already left for the bus before we took off, but that was her own decision.

It was another unremarkable school day. I was getting the hang of things though. I hadn’t been sent to the office a single time. The trick was simply to keep my mouth shut and not express a single creative thought or idea. As long as I regurgitated exactly what I was told to regurgitate without a response, I was generally left alone. Some students even got away with sleeping. Was this the education system of this world? I had been starting to think this was an enlightened world, but it turned out that was an illusion.

It wasn’t that the people of this world were smarter, it was just that there were more of them. The human populations of this world had seemingly exploded with the advent of technology. Since magic wasn’t a convenience in this world, the people had to get creative, and those creativities in technology, which could be seemingly used by everyone, not just the elites, had caused an explosion in population growth. If only one percent of the population was intelligent, just by mere numbers a population with a billion people would have more smart people than a population of a million people. The other 99% seemed to just be pawns, cogs in an ever-turning wheel of corporatism.

That may sound like I was condemning the whole system, but I was impressed. The lords and ladies of my old world were convinced that if peasants were able to obtain the power of magic, access to privileged knowledge, or the freedom of time, they would turn on their leaders and the country would collapse. They went to great efforts to make sure the population was dumb and clueless. That’s why I had so many colorful events in my past that nearly killed me.

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I learned though that you didn’t need to restrict knowledge and you didn’t need to keep them busy. You didn’t need to deprive them of power either. All you needed to do was keep them distracted. As long as people had a means of entertaining themselves, they would spend every day staring at screens while being fed completely useless information that didn’t improve their existence whatsoever.

Since I had a lot of free time while I was sitting in class, I pulled out a notebook and worked out some magical equations. I was getting slowly acclimated to how this world processes magic. This world had an extreme deficiency of mana. This meant that obtaining mana was more difficult. If someone simply wanted to absorb it from the air like in my world, it was impossible. However, this had a side effect. Mana in this world was more potent. Spells that should have been minor turned out far bigger than expected. This meant I should still be able to cast some of the more powerful spells, even though the mana of this world normally wouldn’t have been enough.

As the bell to the second-to-last class rang and I started gathering my bags, a familiar head poked into the classroom. The kids who were getting ready to leave stopped as the vice-principal Alma stepped into the class.

“Miss Alma!” The male teacher who had been running this class flushed at her sight. “Wh-why have you graced us today?”

The man was completely flustered, even trying to fix up his comb-over as he stood with an elbow leaning against the chalkboard, trying to look casual. She was popular among the boys of this high school, but she was known as an unattainable beauty. The same could not be said among the male teachers. Even though this teacher was fat, balding, and middle-aged, even he seemed to want to impress Alma with the hopes that she would smile his way. She gave him a polite nod as her eyes scanned over the students. When her eyes landed on me, I could see a distinct reddening of her cheeks.

“I’ve come to take Mr. Aiko.” She spoke.

“What did you do this time?” Ivy glared up at me.

Lana had a more worried look on her face, glancing between Ivy and the teacher. I could only shrug. I hadn’t done anything today to warrant a visit to the office. I had gone out of my way to avoid any additional conflict. Was Miss Alma looking for me because of our last meeting regarding the aphrodisiac? I had only done what was needed to prevent her from having a backlash to the drugs. They were more potent in this world than my own.

I decided if there were any lingering issues, it was best to get it over with and out of the way, so I stood up and left with Alma. As I headed to the front of the room, I could hear muttering from various students.

“What does she want with him?

“He causes trouble and he gets to hang out with Vice Principal all day? How is that fair?”

Most of the conversations were of similar caliber. They were guesses about how I had gotten in trouble, and how it wasn’t fair that a beauty like Miss Alma was always giving her attention to the bad students. I didn’t think I had grown a reputation as a bad student, but the sight of getting kicked out of class several times the last week was too fresh in their minds. Even the teacher was glowering at me as I passed him and joined Miss Alma.

I didn’t know if she could hear the banter, or if she was just exceptional at ignoring it, but she turned and led the way without another word. The classroom didn’t start emptying until after we were already gone, but the hallways were already filled with students heading to their final class of the day. Instead of going to class, I could only follow Miss Alma as she led me back to her office.

“L-leave the door open.” Alma declared in a near panic as we walked into her room.

I hadn’t even reached for the door, but it didn’t matter to me. I stood in front of her desk as she seemed to retreat behind it, almost like she wanted to put a barrier between the two of us. Miss Alma finally found her seat, but then she seemed to freeze a bit like she had become lost in thought. I put my arms behind my back and stood patiently, but after a minute passed by and the late bell rang, I decided to speak up.

“Did you need something?”

“Ah!” She nearly jumped, looking up at me with surprise. “That, right… A-aiko…”

Did you need anything?” I asked again. “You pulled me out of class.”

“That is… I…do…” Her voice drifted off slightly, and she looked down at her desk, avoiding my sight.

I leaned over until I could see her eyes. “What is that?”

She jumped again, and her face turned red as she finally shook her head and seemed to recover. “You’ve been in a lot of trouble recently. Getting into fights with your teachers, a-and the drug thing…”

“They weren’t drugs, as you’re aware…”

Her face grew even redder. “Either way, I haven’t called your parents and reported the things you have been doing.”

“Just one parent, my mother.”

She blinked and then nodded. “That’s right, you have a mom… and two sisters?”

“That’s right.”

“Is that why you’re so experienced with…” She suddenly shook her hands. “Nevermind! The reason I haven’t told your mother about your problems is that I know you were sick recently and needed some adjusted time.”

“Okay.” I shrugged.

It might have been a slight inconvenience had Mother known about such things, but I wasn’t that concerned with it. I had never felt like I was in the wrong in the first place, and it might be advantageous to explain things to my mother and gain her support, especially if the school continued to hinder me.

“Even though I haven’t told your mother about what we… ahem… I mean what you did, it is still undeniable that you acted inappropriately in school. There should be a proper punishment to go with the crime.”

“Are you giving me a detention?” I asked.

“No!” She shook her head, putting her fingers together. “I was thinking that we should make use of you in another way. Ah! I mean, I’d like you to help out with something.”

“Help?”

“Are you aware that there is a school dance coming up this Friday?”

“No.”

“R-really?” She blinked. “But… there are flyers everywhere. Never mind, the point is that this project was suddenly dumped on me last second… ah, I mean that we need students who are willing to help set up for the dance.”

“You want me to come after school on Friday and help set up for the dance?” I asked.

“Yes! If you do this, I-I’ll overlook the issues you had over the week.”

It seemed that this had been her aim all along. I didn’t work on weekends, which included Friday night, so I was available. I knew she was just using me to get out of trouble, but I also understood it was good to have people in high places owe you favors. She may say that this was to settle my debt with the school, but I suspected I might be able to use it at another time when needed.

“In that case, I accept.”