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Super Hard [Time Keeps Slipping and Other Annoyances]
Act 3.3 (Rebanking: Psychologist Teacher & Wise Mentor)

Act 3.3 (Rebanking: Psychologist Teacher & Wise Mentor)

Psychologist Teacher & Wise Mentor, Or (One Step At a Time)

“I want to find someone,” I said to Alex for unable to suppress the ever-growing urge any longer.

Alex stopped to look at me. “What?” he asked, tilting his head. “Who are you looking for? Did something happen?”

I grabbed a paper towel, rubbing my hands absentmindedly before crumpling it and tossing it aside. “I don’t know who they are,” I admitted, softly, “but my memories of them are… faded. I can’t remember their name or face. But I feel like we had some kind of connection because every time I close my eyes, these scenes keep replaying, and I can’t seem to focus on anything else.”

Alex’s frown deepened, a flicker of concern crossing his face. “Are you sure someone’s not messing with your head?” he asked. “Have you been in contact with any telepathic metas recently?”

I shook my head firmly. “Not that I’m aware of,” I said, brushing off the thought. “But I don’t think it’s external manipulation. It doesn’t feel like that.”

“Well…” Alex trailed off, finishing another piece of chicken and tossing the bone onto his plate. “We don’t have any such metas in our class—or even in the academy—who deal specifically with memories or dreams. Those types usually attend specialized classes because of the whole invasion of privacy thing. Regular students don’t interact with them for that reason.”

He paused, thinking. “I don’t personally know anyone like that,” he admitted. “We do have a guy in our class who can attach his thoughts to someone else’s head and listen in on what they’re doing. There’s also that girl who can manipulate the emotions of entire crowds. But nothing like what you’re describing. Nothing that lets them mess with someone’s memories or thoughts directly.”

Alex leaned back, folding his arms. “So, if it’s not external… then.”

I wondered if Alex was subtly implying that I might be losing my grip on reality—or even going full-on mental. Honestly, he wasn’t wrong. I was teetering on the edge of both.

If I didn’t find that person soon, I might just lose it entirely.

Clicking my tongue in frustration, I sighed. I wanted to take my time sorting things out, but my restless mind wouldn’t let me.

Alex finally finished his food, and even the boys who had been loudly debating the competition between the System metas had quieted down.

Out of nowhere, Alex’s expression brightened like a lightbulb had gone off. “You know, we have the Wise Mentor from the Hive GhostWriter Meta and the Psychologist Teacher—also a GhostWriter—here at the academy. Why don’t you go and ask one of them for advice?”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Alex noticed my doubt and continued. “Their entire job revolves around helping students. Wise Mentor helps people find the right direction, and the Psychologist listens to problems. That’s literally what they do.”

“Do you really think they can help?” I asked, still unsure. I wasn’t doubting their abilities or expertise—far from it. But the thought of opening up to anyone, even a so-called professional, made me uneasy. If it wasn’t for the fragmented memories of the last loop, and he'd forget everything tomorrow, I wouldn’t even be talking to Alex about this.

Alex seemed genuinely confused by my hesitation. “Why does it matter if they can help or not? It won’t cost you anything. Personally, I went to Wise Mentor a while back, and he helped me a lot with some trouble I was dealing with.”

He leaned forward, lowering his voice slightly. “And I’ve heard the Psychologist Teacher can even induce hypnosis to help students uncover deeply buried problems or traumas.”

I nodded thoughtfully, mulling it over. “I see.”

It wasn’t like I had much to lose. By tomorrow, everyone would forget everything anyway. There was no point in staying so closed off.

“Let’s go,” I said abruptly, standing up. There was no time to waste, and honestly, it wasn’t like I was being productive sitting here.

Five minutes later, we were on the fifth floor of the building. This floor didn’t house any student classes; it was reserved for student council offices and other administrative activities.

Stopping in front of a door, I turned to Alex before knocking.

“I want you in the room if—when—she decides to use hypnosis,” I said, fixing him with a serious look.

Alex raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “Oh? You trust me that much to listen to your secrets?”

It wasn’t trust, not entirely. Truthfully, I was worried about this GhostWriter character. Titles like Wise Mentor and Psychologist Teacher weren’t just descriptions—they carried roles and goals within the broader narrative. They had tasks to fulfill, and I wasn’t about to become an unwitting pawn in someone else’s game.

“Just be there,” I said firmly.

Alex shrugged. “Fair enough.”

We knocked, and a voice from inside called, “Come in.”

I was relieved that I didn’t need to set up an appointment beforehand.

As I explained my situation, the Psychologist Teacher listened attentively. She gestured for me to take a seat on the sofa. At one point, she urged Alex to leave, explaining that therapy sessions were meant to be private. But I insisted he stay. The teacher initially resisted, her expression firm, but after some persistence, she sighed and relented.

Finally, we were face to face. The Psychologist Teacher was tall and dressed in a sharp black suit. She exuded an air of authority, the kind that made you sit a little straighter without realizing it.

“Let’s go over the facts one more time before we move forward,” she said, her tone calm and measured.

“You’ve recently been experiencing hallucinations of a figure whenever you close your eyes,” she continued, her gaze unwavering. “These visions are now interfering with your ability to focus. However, the problem is that the figure’s face is blurred, and there are no clear details to identify them, which adds to your frustration and confusion.”

“Correct,” I replied, nodding.

“It does sound like the work of a meta,” she said thoughtfully, her words slow and deliberate. “Someone who can plant fake memories or dreams, perhaps. But let’s not rush to conclusions.”

She leaned forward slightly, her gaze softening. “Describe the figure to me.”

I nodded, trying to get comfortable in my seat. “It’s a girl,” I said simply.

“And?”

What else do you want me to say? I thought, mildly exasperated. I didn’t remember much else about her. Well… except for one thing.

“There’s something else,” I admitted after a pause. “I feel very… sad when she appears. Like, deeply sad. Enough that sometimes I stop breathing for a moment.”

The teacher’s eyes narrowed slightly, considering my words. “Let’s assume no one has tampered with your mind,” she began. “If that’s the case, then it’s possible this person left a deep subconscious cue. Something strong enough to trigger such a profound emotional response. It can also be a past, deeply buried trauma resurfacing.”

I nodded slowly. What she said made sense. It was as good an explanation as any.

“Okay,” she clasped her hands together and picked up a notebook from her desk. “Let’s start by remembering more.”

Her gaze locked onto mine. “Take a deep breath,” she instructed, “then focus on the movement of my pen—the sound of it scratching against the paper. Let your mind loosen, let it drift, and listen to nothing but my voice.”

Then, she turned to Alex. “Stop breathing.”

Alex, who had been lounging in the desk chair, shot her a mildly exasperated look.

I couldn’t help but smile at him.

I followed her instructions, inhaling deeply, exhaling slowly. Of course, she could try all she wanted, but I wasn’t about to fall under any hypnosis unless I chose to loosen the mental restraints myself.

Still, I played along.

My mind stretched like a rubber band, tightening and then slowly retracting, pulling inward until all that remained was the rhythmic scratch of her pen against the paper. Her voice became a lullaby in the background, soft, distant, untethering me from the present.

I began to forget where I was.

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Alex watched North curiously.

For the past few months, he had been trying to figure out exactly what kind of person his friend was.

Their friendship had started over something absurdly simple. When they were still new to the academy, Alex had been heading home when North, whom he didn’t even know at the time, had taken a step toward him at the school gates and said something strange.

A warning.

"Your luck is depleted. A great trouble is ahead of you. You should avoid going home or change your route. Danger might come from anywhere."

Alex had been skeptical, of course. But he hadn’t ignored the warning. After all, students at this academy weren’t frauds—if someone told you something, it carried weight, both inside and outside these walls.

That was the moment he started paying attention to North.

“Focus on a single happiest memory of the girl you see,” the Psychologist Teacher's voice was soft, pleasant—almost too pleasant. Under hypnosis, it seemed to carry a weight that compelled him to do things North might have otherwise avoided.

Left to his own devices, he never paid too much attention to these memories. Maybe out of fear. Maybe out of self-preservation. Digging too deep meant unearthing emotions he wasn’t ready to face. It meant finding the locked box of things he had long since buried—things he wasn't willing to unravel.

Most importantly, it meant accepting something he had been running from.

That someone had broken through his defenses. Had unraveled him like a loose thread in a sweater—one gentle pull, and he had scattered instantly. Alex, sitting across from him, watched closely. And then he saw it. North smiled. Not his usual half-hearted smirk, not the sarcastic quirk of his lips—this was something else. A genuine, full, happy smile. It was the happiest he had ever seen him.

It caught Alex off guard. In all the time he had known North, he had never seen that kind of expression on his face.

And then the Psychologist Teacher spoke again, her voice slipping into his subconscious like silk. “Now, tell me—what do you see?”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The question entered his ears, and without hesitation, North responded—his voice lighter, almost amused. A quiet chuckle escaped him before he answered.

“She’s hugging me,” he said, his tone carrying a warmth Alex had never heard before. “She won’t let go until I kiss her and agree to her demand.”

His breathing softened as the memory pulled him deeper. “She doesn’t want me to go home. She doesn’t want to be alone. She’s begging me to stay, even saying she’ll agree to one of my demands if I do. And she’ll give me one free pass to order her around. Which apparently she hates quite a lot.”

His words lingered in the air, and in the quiet that followed, Alex noticed something odd.

The teacher’s pen had stopped moving.

She hadn’t judged him, hadn’t reacted in any visible way—she was too much of a professional for that. Her face remained unreadable, composed. But the fact that she had stopped writing at some point in time told Alex that something about North’s response had made her pause as she was experiencing the moment with him.

Meanwhile, Alex himself found it difficult to form words. There was a strange expression on his face—one even he couldn’t quite describe. Because for the first time since he had met North…It felt like he was seeing a piece of him that wasn’t meant to be seen.

“Let’s move on,” the teacher said softly, her voice carefully measured.

“Can you remember her name? Don’t focus on it directly,” she instructed, “but listen for echoes—fragments of sound, something bouncing off someone or something. Clues that might be harder to erase.”

North fell silent.

Minutes passed. His expression shifted in waves—happiness, pain, sadness—then back again, like a cycle of emotions tearing through him. His breathing grew uneven, his chest rising and falling as though he were struggling against something unseen, something deeply buried.

Then—

"Let’s go."

The words tore out of me before I even realized I was speaking. My eyes snapped open, my mind recoiling, my entire being pulling itself back to reality like I had been on the verge of drowning. The hypnosis—whatever trance I had been under—vanished in an instant, as if it had never even touched me.

The teacher frowned, clearly confused by the abrupt reaction.

Alex, too, stared at me, waiting, trying to read me.

But I was already moving, pushing myself up and heading straight for the door. My feet carried me forward, but my head… my head was spinning.

Alex was on me before I could take more than a few steps, his hand gripping my shoulder.

I let him.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice steadier than my own thoughts. “Did you see something bad?”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

“You looked really happy in there,” he pressed. “And now—” His fingers tightened slightly, grounding me. “Now you look like someone just ripped your soul out.”

I swallowed hard.

I wasn’t sure what I felt. Panic? Dread? Something far worse?

“Did you get her name?”

A pause. I nodded. Alex didn’t hesitate with his next question, but when he asked it, my body froze.

“What about her face? The girl—is she real?”

The world tilted. A sharp, unbearable pain erupted behind my eyes, like a rusted blade carving through my skull. I staggered, my balance slipping, my breath hitching in my throat as memories I wasn’t ready for came crashing in.

No. No, no, no—

It hurt. It hurt so fucking bad. My nails dug into my wrist, trying to ground myself, to pull myself out of whatever hell I had just unlocked. But Alex saw. His grip turned from firm to urgent, his other hand steadying me as he quickly guided me down onto the hallway sofa before I collapsed under the weight of it all.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice a sharp contrast to the dull, ringing pain in my head.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my jaw clenched so tightly I thought my teeth might shatter. I forced myself to breathe.

Inhale. Exhale.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I whispered the name that had shattered everything.

“Jade…”

A second passed. A lifetime. Then, finally, the full name slipped out, fragile yet heavy.

“Jade London.” My voice shook as I said it. “That’s her name.”

"She’s real. Somewhere."

I grabbed my head, fingers threading through my hair as I tried to make sense of it all. Without wasting another second, I pulled out my phone and immediately started searching through HyperSpace. My hands moved on instinct, pulling up social networks, databases, anything that might lead me to her. I glanced at Alex, silently urging him to do the same. For the next thirty minutes, we scrolled, shuffled from one link to another, scanning endless profiles, news archives, and hidden corners of the web.

But nothing. Nothing. It was like she had never existed.

Alex exhaled sharply, then raised his phone, a holographic display flickering between us. “Do you think this is her?”

I glanced at the girl in the image—standing on the red beaches of Mars, smiling at the camera, her hair caught mid-motion by the planet’s soft winds. She was pretty. But no.

I shook my head. “It’s not her.”

Alex sighed and leaned back against the sofa, running a hand through his own hair. “How the hell is this possible?” he muttered. “There’s no one in this age who isn’t on the web. Even if they keep their accounts private, they still leave a trail—a government record, a school registration, something.”

He was right. Mostly. And that only made my frown deepen.

My fingers drummed against my phone as I stared at the blank search results. “What if she’s not here?” I murmured, mostly to myself.

Alex glanced at me. “What do you mean?”

I hesitated, then spoke my thoughts aloud. “What if the person in my memories doesn’t actually live on Earth?”

Alex blinked, clearly taken aback. “What?”

“I mean, it’s possible she lives on another solar system, right? Maybe she has her own local server network that doesn’t connect to ours.”

Alex stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Then he scoffed, shaking his head. “Okay, but how would that even make sense? If she was from some other planet, why the hell do you remember her? Crossing the solar system? You know, unless you have high enough reach or some highly important matter, the government is not happy with letting civilians use Stargates. And people who could teleport that much distance are literally legends.”

I pressed my lips into a thin line. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we can’t just ignore the possibility.”

I had already opened Pandora’s Box. Now, there was no shutting it. I needed to see this through—otherwise, I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest. Alex exhaled, clearly not thrilled about where this conversation was going. But instead of arguing, he powered off his phone and turned to me.

“Alright,” he said, leaning forward. “Do you remember anything else? Any detail from that memory that might help us narrow this down?”

I closed my eyes, digging into the fragile echoes of my past, searching for anything—anything—that could lead me to this enigma names Jade London.

A light flickered in my head.

“She liked plants,” I murmured, the thought slipping past my lips before I could even process it fully. “So much so that even the smallest plant in her home had a name. Every morning, she had a routine—she would water each and every one of them, saying good morning as if they were her children.”

I chuckled at the ridiculousness of it.

Alex gave me a flat look, as if I had just told him I’d found the meaning of life, and it was houseplants.

I quickly wiped the grin off my face.

But the girl—Jade—was just too silly. I mean, who did that?

“Not helping,” Alex sighed, shaking his head. “If this is just some elaborate fabrication by a meta who can manipulate memories, I’d say they’re a pro at their craft.”

Despite his words, there was a noticeable ease in his shoulders. Maybe seeing me smile, even just for a second, had taken some of the tension off him.

“Alright,” he said, clasping his hands together, already shifting gears. “Here’s what I’ll do—I’ll leave a message in the group chat. Someone might know a meta who can track a person through memories. Given how bizarre some abilities are, someone in this city is bound to have that kind of skill. And we even have a name to go off of. What do you think?”

I nodded. “Yeah… yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Then, more sincerely, I added, “Thanks, Alex. For all of this.”

He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, but I knew he didn’t have to care this much. He didn’t have to waste his time chasing some phantom from my past. And yet, here he was.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get sentimental.”

“But, uh…” I hesitated, then flashed him an embarrassed smile. “Could you post the message now? So we might have some clues by the end of the day?”

Alex gave me a look of utter annoyance.

“You—” He opened his mouth, then promptly shut it, probably deciding I wasn’t worth the energy.

In all honesty, I could handle this on my own. There were plenty of people on HyperSpace who did tracking jobs for money—it was practically an official business. If I wanted, I could even go through a real search agency, one of those private investigation firms that took on custom tracking cases.

The problem?

I only had one day.

Even if I paid someone, there wouldn’t be enough time for them to start anything substantial. By tomorrow, I might be back at zero. Which meant… I also needed to find a mage. Someone who could take a look at whatever the hell was happening inside my head.

Alex typed out the message in the class group chat—one that, apparently, I wasn’t part of—and then we finally parted ways.

The sun had already begun its descent, painting the sky in hues of deep orange and purple. The exhaustion in my body weighed heavier with each passing minute, and my head was still throbbing from earlier. I didn’t want to stay out any longer. So I took the train and went home.

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At home, surprisingly, Aunt Grace wasn’t back yet, which only made me more curious about what kind of work she actually did. But that wasn’t important right now, so I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and climbed the stairs to my room.

The moment I stepped inside, I dropped my bag and pulled out my Chromium HyperSpace band. Sliding it over my eyes, the familiar logo flashed by, and in an instant, I was inside the Public Lounge.

Without wasting time, I jumped straight into my Personal Lounge.

I had no interest in checking what my past self had been up to—I had more important things to do. My focus was locked onto one thing: Network Hub.

I clicked on it, and the interface expanded immediately, unfolding a vast array of links and access points—games, chatrooms, community hubs, and specialized applications for every purpose imaginable.

Ignoring all of it, I scrolled down until I found what I was looking for.

Silk Road: Meta Services and Trades.

As soon as I tapped the option, my avatar materialized on a vast, digital road stretching endlessly into the horizon.

I had always liked this part of HyperSpace. Anything could be found here with just a few clicks, and the best part? There wasn’t much censorship. The government couldn’t control HyperSpace, no matter how hard they tried. In fact, in recorded history—and in my three centuries of life—no one had ever figured out who the real owner was. And no matter how many attempts had been made, HyperSpace had never been successfully shut down. So instead of fighting a losing battle, the government chose to watch from the shadows, monitoring instead of interfering. It wasn’t perfect. But it was still better than not having a free platform where people could speak their minds, seek services, and trade without restrictions.

At the moment, there were millions of services listed—countless virtual shops dotted the street, glowing neon signs flickering with advertisements and trade offers.

The sheer volume of information was overwhelming. But I wasn’t here for sightseeing. I needed efficiency, not chaos. I quickly applied another filter to refine the list, sorting out the irrelevant businesses and narrowing it down to what I actually needed. Immediately, the number of available shops dropped to just a few thousand—still a lot, but much more manageable.

Most of the users were offline. Half the shops had been shut down permanently. But even with those limitations, I still had hundreds, if not thousands, of potential leads—people I could ask for their services.

If only finding a mage was this easy. If I could just get in touch with the right one, most of my problems would be solved. I exhaled, rubbing the back of my neck as I scanned the remaining listings.

Hopefully, I’ll find what I’m looking for. And who knows—if this search worked out, maybe I could even set up my own virtual shop in the future. Sell my own services, earn good money. The thought made me grin.

With that in mind, I continued moving along the digital road—an actual silk road, shimmering and shifting beneath my feet, exactly as its name suggested.