4-12: Quick Extract (1/3)

4-12: Quick Extract (1/3)

Anyway, its fortunate that we were immediately able to figure out the cause. Its a good thing that youre a returnee, Nakamura, Frire said.

Fu fu, indeed. We probably would have figured something out in the end, but I doubt we would have gotten this far this quickly without Icchi, Myuhi said.

What do you mean? Shinichi asked.

It seemed as though his being a returnee was important, but Shinichi couldnt understand why.

At that, the others couldnt help but be shocked and make a face that seemed to say how come you dont know?

N-No one really taught you anything, huh, Icchi. We dont know why just yet, but people whove undergone dimensional drift have a tendency to be much more perceptive of photons, Myuhi said.

We Garestonians are always surrounded by photons, so were more sensitive to it than Earthlings, and yet people whove undergone a drift are even better, Aristel said.

Come to think of it, I think that teacher was saying something about returnees when I got my foster, Shinichi said.

Hey! Listen properly when big bro I mean, Teacher Frank is saying something!

Clearly, she was saying that because of her brother complex and not because of her position as a teacher.

At the time Shinichi wasnt as calm as he was now and his attention was also taken by the foster, so he didnt remember it all that well. That being said, he does recall becoming more perceptive of photons.

When he drifted into Falandia for the first time, he was immediately able to see mana.

At first, he thought it was normal since everyone else was able to do it, but he later found out that it was a necessary technique that everyone had to train for.

It was one of the few boons of being an otherworlder.

Of course, it was completely useless to him.

But its really strange that no one taught you anything. Normally, the countermeasure department or your guardian would teach you about these things, Aristel said with a puzzled face.

It was at this point that Shinichi finally realized why he didnt know about these things. Ah, so thats why. My guardian had a lot of difficulties, you see. First, I was mistakenly arrested under the charge of illegally traveling across worlds. That was eventually resolved and I was released, but my guardians had to put in a lot of effort to make that happen, and in the end, they never really talked to me a lot about Garesto.

Somehow Shinichi was able to fool them by uttering some half-truths.

Other than Frire who knew the specifics, the other students here didnt find anything suspicious.

Huh? They didnt talk to you about Garesto? Why?

Probably to be considerate. I just came back, but it was a mess right from the start, and bombs kept being dropped at me one after another, so they probably wanted me to get used to my new home first. Besides, I didnt have any intentions of going to school when I was first taken in.

Her conjecture was right on the money.

Normally, either the countermeasure department or Rinko should have explained things to him, but the impossible time difference and the secrecy of the information sent the countermeasure department into disarray. To top things off, Rinkos superior gave her such a heartless order that only served to confuse her even more.

Because of that she prioritized dealing with the other problems at hand and helping Shinichi acclimate to his new surroundings before anything else.

And so, matters pertaining to the otherworld were put on hold in the Nakamura family.

She decided to teach Shinichi gradually, but Shinichi suddenly made up his mind to go to school, and just like that it was suddenly too late for her to tell him anything.

But enough of that. Do returnees have any other special characteristics? From what I heard when I first transferred, it sounds like there are a lot of high rankers among them.

As I told you back then, returnees just tend to be better at surviving. After all, not everyone drifted into a safe city or somewhere nearby, Frire said.

In fact, the odds of being drifted away from the territories inhabited by Garesto were a lot higher.

All the more so in a place like this where the hubris of the high rankers stood tall and the low rankers were treated poorly.

They probably wanted to see how he would react in an environment like this.

What they didnt expect was for Shinichi to ignore all the tumult around him.

This was not the kind of topic that could be told to a girl who didnt know who to believe and who to doubt.

It was a topic already too dangerous by itself even if there wasnt anything to worry about, so there was no need to tell her about it.

Well, enough of that. Since we know the reason why these guys are like this, is there anything we can do to help them?

Frire said as she pointed to the yet berserked people as though she wanted to drop the topic immediately.

Aristel wasnt happy with that, but she knew that this too was an important topic and was in fact of higher priority.

Hmm~ Id like to do something, but since someones already used a skill on them, its difficult to intervene. Especially, since this is something that deals with the mind. Carelessly tinkering is too dangerous, Aristel said.

Unfortunately, this wasnt an easy problem.

Especially since it was the all-too-important mind that was affected.

The odds of worsening the situation or leaving lasting after-effects was too high.

Officially, the correct way of doing things is to analyze them externally with a skill program, and then analyze the information, but That would take a long time.

Moreover, they cant order the people of this city to analyze a skill thats related to the mind.

There were trust issues too, but in the first place, it was dubious if they even knew or had the technology to analyze it.

They could call someone from the army to analyze the data, but even then there was no telling how long it would take.

On top of that there was still the question of how long it would take to actually dispel the skill after the analysis.

At this point, it was more realistic to hope that the skill would wear off after enough time passed.

Either way it looks like theyll have to stay like this for a while Oh, their poor throats, Myuhi said.

Ruona, I think their throats are the least of our concern right now. Anyway, since we have to watch over them, in the worst case, we might have to put them to sleep. But even that can only continue for so long Exactly what should we do? Frire said.

Thanks to Shinichi they were able to make a lot of progress and find out what the cause behind their current state was, but unfortunately, they were still a long way from curing them.

Frire found it painful having to listen to them continue to run their mouths with abuses and all the things they were unhappy about.

Is it really that big of a problem?

While everyone was thinking that they could only watch over these people, Shinichi suddenly came out and said that.

And then before anyone could ask him what he meant by that, he suddenly flicked one of the students on the forehead with the finger from his left arm which was equipped with his foster.

Gyan!?

A DAN! sound resounded as the students head was suddenly sent backwards.

While everyone was dumbfounded, unable to keep up with what he had done, someone suddenly angrily yelled.

Oww!? What are you doing!!? Huh? Wait, who are you? And why am I tied up like this!? The student asked.