Alexei and Thomas had placed two chairs to his sides, while Evan sat slightly further away, on the lower bed of the bunkbed to the right of the room.

Alec, on the other hand, sat on the ground, on his knees. There was an apologetic smile on his face, contrasting with the angry frowns on his friends’ faces.

“Do you know how worried we were?” Evan asked coldly. After crossing over, Alec hadn’t paid much attention to his friends’ emotions. Although he had kept his conduct to an acceptable level, ‘an acceptable level’ wasn’t exactly the type of treatment he should have given to the people who saw him as their friend.

‘I might not be the previous Alec, but these people have treated me well so far,’ he thought. They had gone as far as worrying about him, following him around, and specifically not alerting the authorities about their presumed worries to try and keep his record clean.

“I’m sorry,” he answered honestly. “I had been too… Engrossed in my own endeavors. I forgot my duties as a friend,” Alec continued. In his opinion, friendships were two-way deals. If people treated him well, he would treat them the same to keep the deal going. He found it unfair to always be on the receiving side of his relationships.

“It’s okay, Alec,” Alexei said. “We will forgive you, as long as you give us an explanation.”

Hearing Alexei’s words, Alec felt slightly suffocated. He tugged on his necktie and took a deep breath.

“It all started some time ago,” Alec said. The trio all focused up and started listening intently. “I started reaching out to different Professors to get a mana brain engraved.”

“Didn’t you start doing that, like… last week?” Evan asked. Alec nodded, which made Evan continue. “It was prior to that when we noticed your situation, Alec,” he said.

“That was because I was drinking the potions I made. You remember how I told you that the potions I made were of abysmal quality and that I had dumped them?” Alec asked. Evan nodded uncomfortably and gestured for Alec to continue. “Well, I technically dumped them. But the garbage bin was my mouth. Because I didn’t want to waste them. Then I got really sick but barely managed to hide it.”

“Hm…” Evan hummed to himself. The trio seemed to be deep in thought. An awkward silence encompassed the room, which lasted for about a minute before Evan spoke. “I have some questions about that part, but continue.”

“So, after talking to almost all the teachers I could manage to, I had to go and talk to Mr. Andrew as a last choice,” Alec continued. However, Thomas chipped in with a question of his own.

“Andrew as in, Professor Andrew Walker? That’s an… Interesting choice,” he said.

“As I have said, he was my last choice,” Alec said. Seeing that no one spoke further, he continued. “Anyway, he started asking me to participate in some… Potion trials. He was apparently making some sort of experimental potions, and needed someone to be his lab rat.”

“Huh. That’s not unexpected,” Evan commented.

“Yeah. In exchange, he would help me with the mana brain,” Alec continued. “During the trials, I got… Sick and a bit addicted let’s say. In the end, he didn’t manage to finish the formula. But I managed to help him with something else.”

“What is it?” Evan asked.

“It was about a paper he had been working on. When I helped him, he found my thinking process interesting and decided to take me as a personal assistant,” Alec said. The sudden dropping of this information caused all of his friends to frown in confusion.

“You..?”

“He..?”

“What?”

They muttered to themselves.

“You became his assistant? Of Professor Andrew at that?” Evan asked. However, without waiting for Alec’s answer, Alexei continued.

“He does work on telekinesis…”

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“Yeah…”

An awkward silence descended upon the room. No one said anything for a good minute before Evan spoke up.

“I will believe what you said Alec. Not because it was very believable, but because I trust that you would have a good reason to lie to us. But please don’t make us worry like that again.”

“Mm,” Alec nodded before sighing a deep sigh of relief. It was good that he had such understanding friends.

“And now that we are done with that,” Alexei muttered as the trio all got up and walked toward Alec. They formed a circle around him with devious smiles on their faces. “You got the mana brain?”

“W- What?” Alec asked. “Yeah…”

He got up and tried to break out of the circle, but Evan held him in place. Alec’s legs had gone numb from sitting on his knees.

“Take off your shirt.”

“Huh?”

***

“We are sorry!”

“Yes! We won’t fight anymore! Please don’t hand us over to the Professor. Please, please, please!”

“The next time I catch you two fighting, you’ll be begging me to hand you over,” Alec said with a demonic smile on his face. The two underclassmen scrambled to leave as fast as they could. Alec sighed while watching them depart and pushed himself off of his crouching pose.

‘Am I not the leader of this branch? Why am I even going on patrols anyway?’ he asked himself before stretching. ‘Oh right. We only have two people. Including me.’

It had been three days since he had gotten his mana brain. He had spent the last few days interviewing some people and relaxing. He had directly taken Evan into the committee but still had to fill three more positions. He also kept the mana brain active to get more used to it. He would have to start doing some practical exercises with the thing soon.

While thinking, Alec heard a shriek from behind him, which made him turn around quickly. His nerves relaxed when he realized who the person was.

“Iris?” he said. The white-haired girl was finally out of the infirmary. Although Alec had heard of this fact, he hadn’t gotten around to seeing her in person.

“You are that person… Alec,” Iris muttered timidly. Compared to her cold demeanor from before, she was much more sheepish now. Although Alec still felt suspicious of her true motives, the fact that she hadn’t ratted him out was enough for him.

“Yeah…” Alec muttered. They waited silently for a few seconds before Iris continued.

“T- Thank you!” She suddenly said. Alec tilted his head in confusion. “You were the one who healed me, right? I felt your presence back then.”

“You did?” Alec asked.

“Yes. Even while comatose, my mana eye kept my senses awake,” she said. Hearing her words, Alec’s gaze wandered toward her forehead, where the small, slowly rotating magic circle was engraved.

Taking a step forward, he inspected it a bit closer. It had a lot of features similar to the mana brain but was much simpler.

“It’s interesting, right?” Iris said after noticing what Alec was looking at. “It feels like the last thing connecting me and my past self…” she said, her voice trailing off as she finished her sentence.

‘Huh… I guess that would be true. She didn’t have friends like me who might tell her about her past, as she is still a freshman,’ Alec thought to himself. Then, his mana brain jolted him with an idea. ‘Hm…’

“Hey, you said that your mana eye kept your senses awake, right?” Alec asked. “Did you… Did you feel it when you lost your memories? I mean the exact moment.”

“Yes, actually,” Iris muttered with a frown on her face. She looked around and noted no one to be around other than them. “I’m telling this because I have heard that you too have lost your memories.”

“It is true. We are sort of like comrades when it comes to that,” Alec said.

“Mm,” Iris nodded. Then she took a deep breath and started telling her story. “I was lying there, inside a haze-like darkness in the bed. That, I somewhat remember. Then, someone came… Or more like… Something. It penetrated deep into my mind and started browsing through my memories like they were made for it to read.”

“Didn’t you resist?” Alec asked. Memory magic was a very complicated and esoteric area of magic. The human mind was incredibly hard to crack. If Iris had tried putting up resistance, she could have stopped most people from doing so.

“I…” she thought with her hand on her chin. However, no matter how deep the frown on her face got, she couldn’t answer. “I don’t know. What I know is, it didn’t try outright deleting memories.”

“What did it do then?” Alec asked.

“I remember… Some magic spikes. I don’t know what they were, but it cast some magic. Then some memories kind of… Faded away.”

“They went away on their own?” Alec asked. “Not deleted?”

“Not deleted. The deletion part came later,” Iris explained. “I remember struggling… Trying to keep some memories… But I failed.”

‘The going away on their own…’ Alec thought. His mana brain had started pinging his main brain like crazy a short while ago. It was as if it was trying to confuse Alec. ‘Stop..! Not memory magic, but Anti-memetic?’

“You didn’t fail,” Alec said as he crossed his arms in deep contemplation.

“Huh? But I don’t…”

“Whatever happened,” Alec cut her off. “The things you do remember. Your struggle, and that thing…” Alec explained. He looked around with anxiety. “It failed to delete the memories of your struggle. You managed to keep the important stuff. That’s a first.”

“What’s a first?”

“We don’t have much time,” Alec said with a deadpan expression. He hurriedly sent some orders to his mana brain. Then, they both zoned out and stopped talking for half a minute.

“It was great talking to you, Iris,” Alec said with a wide smile on his face. He was genuinely happy to see the girl back on her feet.

“Thank you,” Iris answered sheepishly. She turned around and took off, her gait hovering between a jog and a skip.

Watching her get further away, Alec felt a weird jolt. His mana brain was still pinging him repeatedly, but those pings too, slowly faded away.

"Huh... Why was my mana brain pinging me..?"

It was time for him to leave…