Chapter 13
The classes weren’t particularly difficult.
It was like a typical fifth-grade elementary school curriculum, with almost no arts or physical education classes.
Lunch time was scheduled to start at 12:10, but since classes didn’t resume until 2:00 after meals, everyone usually played in the classroom and ate late around 12:30-1:00.
Following Yoon Cheong’s advice, I sat quietly at my desk, and the Guide students gathered around, taking seats nearby and chattering away.
I had just been introduced to my classmates, but I couldn’t remember much about them.
I only remembered that there were five Guides including myself and fifteen Espers, and that those three tall male students took the lead position among the Espers.
“So it’s Yoon Seong-jin, Sun Cheol-ho, Baek Da-hyuk?”
“No, it’s the opposite.”
“Baek Da-hyuk, Sun Cheol-ho, Yoon Seong-jin?”
“No, no… Baek Da-hyuk, Yoon Seong-jin, Sun Cheol-ho.”
That’s not the opposite, you idiot, Yoon Cheong…
They were already famous as the trio of boys in the elementary division.
All three were physical enhancement-type Espers—tanks, in gaming terms—so they grew tremendously after manifesting. They had manifested as early as first or second grade, making them the first among the current fifth graders to transfer to this school.
It wasn’t unusual for physical Espers, both male and female, to be tall and even exceed 2 meters in height, but I was surprised they started growing like this from such a young age.
Of course, with my adult mind, I found myself envious of their height, good looks from being Espers, and toned bodies from being enhancement types. At this rate, they could probably just walk into a store and buy alcohol… in a negative sense, they looked prematurely aged.
Though unlike me, their mental age was still that of fifth graders.
Since I barely memorized their names and kept getting confused, I decided to just think of them as the enhancement trio.
I’d memorize them eventually.
“But why is our class gender ratio like this? It’s full of boys, why are there so few girls?”
“It’s just our grade. Fourth and sixth grades have more girls.”
The fact that only 3 out of 20 students were girls was more shocking than 5 out of 20 being Guides.
When Espers and Guides first appeared, there was this absurd logic that men should be active as Espers and women should support them as Guides. They say there was a time when women hid if they were Espers, and men hid if they were Guides, but nowadays you’d be considered ignorant for saying such things.
You could tell just by looking at the Guild Master of Calling, the number one guild in Korea, who was a woman.
Of course, that guild was where Yoon Cheong, Ji Yeohoon, and I were temporarily registered.
An S-class Guide and an extremely rare high-class healing Esper wouldn’t be found just anywhere.
There were still some people with old-fashioned ideas who occasionally spouted nonsense about abilities manifesting differently according to gender, but let’s not pay attention to such nonsense.
“Excuse me… Moon Soo-young? You’re S-class, right?”
“Yeah.”
While the Esper kids were keeping their distance and glancing over, a girl named Yoo Ji-ae, who was described as a close-range dealer type Esper, cautiously approached and asked.
From what I heard, she was also a physical type, but since her awakening time wasn’t much different from mine, our heights weren’t that different.
After checking growth plates and such, they said she would grow to 180cm. That made me feel a bit sad.
Before the regression, I was barely 179cm…
…which was rounded up from 178.5cm.
Anyway, Yoo Ji-ae seemed excited when I responded well to her and quickly extended her hand to me.
“I still have a bit of a headache. Could you hold my hand? Is it okay to ask?”
While I was looking at her with a “what is she doing?” expression, the Guide students sitting nearby blinked their eyes, saying “Ooh, that should work.”
“Shouldn’t you explain what this situation is first?”
“All the Guides in our class are B to C-class. But when I received guiding during class before, none of them matched with me. So I haven’t been able to use my ability well lately.”
She said it was frustratingly difficult, and other Esper students who were a little distance away nodded slightly as if they had been listening.
The fifth-grade Guides consisted of three B-class and one C-class, all with decent matching rates with Espers, so they were quickly recruited by guilds and came to School 3.
The problem was this girl. She had terrible matching rates with all the class Guides, so during ability control practice she couldn’t work with her friends and had to practice with the teacher, which she found very frustrating.
“The teacher times everything precisely…”
Is fighting like that a good thing?
She had such an aggressive personality that I wondered if she was actually a dealer type.
Thinking a brief contact would be fine, I raised my right hand, and she gratefully tapped it lightly before pulling away.
“Why?”
“That’s enough…? Actually, I started feeling better as soon as you came in. Just your presence should make the others feel it too? Since there’s not a single S-class Guide at our school, this is the first time we’ve felt something like this… Right, guys?”
“How do I describe it? Refreshing?”
“It feels incredibly good but I can’t explain it…”
The Esper students standing nearby listening to the conversation either scratched their heads or frowned as if trying to recall the right words at Yoo Ji-ae’s prompt.
The Guide students were also watching curiously, but since they couldn’t be certain, they just kept making eye contact and blinking at each other.
I could understand what these little kids (well, some weren’t small physically) were trying to say.
They were talking about the refreshing energy they felt.
Of course, I didn’t perceive it as such energy—I used my ability as if applying some kind of force from my body onto others. Espers seemed to experience that sensation as refreshing or cooling.
When the conversation seemed to have concluded, Yoon Cheong suggested we go eat lunch.
Perhaps pleased that I had been receptive to the conversation, the three giants tagged along.
The Guide students seemed a bit awkward around Espers; even as they walked together with the Esper students, they kept a slight distance.
“Let’s go eat lunch. He woke up late this morning, so he hasn’t tried the food here yet.”
“What? You didn’t eat breakfast?”
“The food here is really delicious!”
“It’s even better than what my mom makes…”
“I like that it’s not burnt like my dad’s cooking.”
They seemed hesitant and awkward when starting a conversation, but once one sentence came out, several more followed, making me nostalgic as I realized this truly was a place full of elementary school kids.
It would be nice if their hearts grew as much as their bodies, but these children were just twelve years old, barely at the cusp of puberty.
From my perspective, with my mental age growing due to memories from before the regression, it felt like the number of kids I needed to care for had suddenly increased, and I already started feeling drained.
Moreover, unlike the other friends, Yoon Cheong and I tended to listen more than speak, which seemed to make the children even more excited to talk.
“Breakfast, dinner, and lunch are served in different places. We eat breakfast and dinner in the dormitory cafeteria, but lunch is in the school cafeteria. Our school food is really delicious. You’ll like it a lot too.”
I couldn’t tell if this was Yoon Seong-jin, Sun Cheol-ho, or Baek Da-hyuk.
One of the trio followed closely behind us with a somewhat happy face.
With a somewhat puppy-like face, he followed obediently, seemingly overflowing with love for the school.
Or rather, love for the school’s menu.
As we approached the machine installed in the cafeteria, we were supposed to press a button to select which menu we wanted.
I pressed Western food and, following what the person in front of me did, rolled up my sleeve and held my bracelet to the machine, which made a short electronic sound.
“Did it work?”
“Yeah. It’ll be confirmed when you scan it later.”
The spacious cafeteria didn’t seem very crowded.
Partly because School 3 itself had few students, but also because we came in late.
The students who had rushed in first received their servings in a flurry and sat down in a flurry.
“Ah, I should have chosen Western food.”
One of the trio who had overflowed with love for the food had hastily glanced at today’s menu and pressed Korean food, but once inside, he looked grumpy with regret.
“Can’t you ask for more Western food instead?”
“You could, but then there’d be leftovers. They said we shouldn’t waste food.”
“Then let’s share.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll give you some of mine.”
I was surprised when the kids looked at me as if they found it strange.
Since some of them had entered at a young age, they might have developed behaviors of ‘what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours’ rather than sharing.
Yoon Cheong seemed accustomed to it since we had been together from a younger age, but the other children seemed concerned, staring quietly at their bracelets or alternating glances between me and that large child.
“Should I give you some too…? Seong-jin?”
“Yes!”
The Guide student who had first spoken to me seemed to think for a moment before asking Yoon Seong-jin, as if making a big decision.
Children certainly change easily.
Just by seeing examples, they think, feel, and change for the better.
I felt somewhat like a teacher, but from an adult’s perspective, it couldn’t be helped.
Of course, in appearance, I looked more like a child than they did.
“Let’s sit here.”
As I took a seat, the Guide kids and Yoon Cheong sat down one by one in the seats beside and across from me, placing their trays. The Espers were at a different table. Hmm… they were this separated. They didn’t seem to dislike each other, but they stuck closely to their own kind—Espers with Espers, Guides with Guides.
Except for Yoon Cheong.
Meanwhile, only the Esper kid named Seong-jin sat close to me with shining eyes, creating a situation where I absolutely had to share.
Another Guide hesitantly pushed their tray slightly toward Yoon Seong-jin.
“You can eat from mine!”
“Really?”
They’re cute too.
Yoon Seong-jin picked at the spaghetti and cutlets I had shared with him, then smiled brightly with excitement.
The atmosphere felt warm, making me proud.
Ability users who lived in dormitories from a young age and were separated from general society for a long time often couldn’t integrate well with regular society later.
It was somewhat tolerated due to the special nature of being Espers and Guides, but there were frequent issues, and by the time I was active as a Guide before the regression, there were active discussions about socializing awakened individuals.
If the reason for their poor social skills was that no one properly taught them how to live like this, shouldn’t someone do it?
Especially since the teachers who educate children at school tend to focus only on training them to safely navigate gates as soon as they graduate and enter society.
But please…
“It shouldn’t be me…”
“What? You don’t like it? Is the Western food not good?”
“No, that’s not it. It’s delicious. I should have Western food for dinner too.”
I have a feeling I’m going to end up doing it, somehow.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
