Yeah right, Ed thought to himself as he jogged off to Kim’s classroom. What were they even thinking? Killing? Mind scouring? It was the weirdest thing too, because for the life of him Ed couldn’t figure out what sort of crazy cultural bubble could have created whatever sort of thing was going on here.

He’d sort of just tuned it out after the first couple days but Kim was probably the closest thing he had to a friend at the moment and since she was apparently still around for whatever reason he was just gonna go ahead and give her a heads up the local thought police were inbound for a brain suck.

An unbidden memory came up of Kim in her moms van, white as a ghost, hands gripped against the back of the driver's seat as she tried to warn them about Mr. Garry. Ed coughed a little. Funny how she’d hit the nail on the head like that.

He rolled out a kink in his neck as he came up to the class. He’d tested this before when Cham’d waved him into a classroom one time. People would either ignore him, eyes glazed over the space he might be, or perhaps treat him like a very low presence bystander. When he asked why, Cham had reluctantly explained that the most he knew was that it had something to do with some sort of deeply ingrained suggestion. Though he could ask Serah to turn it off for him if he’d like. One of her jobs was apparently to manage the artifact that controlled all that stuff. Ed had declined.

Though maybe he should have taken the offer before he’d left.

Regardless, if he shook her for long enough she’d eventually snap out of it. The suggestion was deep, but that was also one of its weaknesses. While most people didn’t care enough to think about stuff they’d never think to care about (because why would they, that was literally the definition) the downside was that if someone who’d they’d previously thought had no right to even exist straight up punched them or something the construct would very quickly collapse and in fact never be able to be used on them again.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

In fact, this was actually the method described by the church to build thrall resistance. A chained caster would be forced to repeatedly cast common versions of the spell on acolytes and the overseeing priest would slap them out of it. Incredibly barbaric and yet another reason humans could never be considered actual people under the law.

Ed had ended up closing the book and checking if the cover was indeed that of the fourth edition prime material law that Mr. Garry had given him because that particular section had felt very emotionally charged and not exactly something he’d expect to find in a supposedly impartial book of law.

Ed wiped his hands on his jeans, they were very sweaty for some reason, and then because he’d somehow gotten up to it at some point, opened the door to Kim’s class.

Predictably, and unlike last time, no one batted an eye as he walked in. Err, no, that wasn’t quite right. They were sitting, listening to something about polynomials or something and almost the instant she’d heard the latch to the door Kim had sort of jerked half awake out of her very bored looking slump, looked around a little, before instantly brightening up at the sight of Ed coming in.

Her hand shot up.

“Mr. Lee? Can I use the bathroom?”

Mr. Lee seemed to raise an eyebrow at her. And Ed swore there were a couple of snickers. “Of course.” He said, before looking back to the white board so he could finish answering one of the other student’s questions.

“Yo, Ed, dude, what the fuck!” Kim all but barreled him over as she stuffed him out the door. Despite the words, she sounded very amused and was even laughing a little too. “I’ve been here like a week!” Ed quickly found himself being swept down the hall, “Where even were you?”