Chapter 98: Ch 98: A Grand Opportunity - Part 1

Ethan took out an artifact that allowed him to peek at people’s memories at the cost of not being able to feel anything for a while. And by a while, he meant that he was not able to feel emotions for the same duration he took to look at someone’s memories.

But it was a small price to pay for the excellent information he got from the target.

He decided to use it on Ethan for various reasons, but even he had to admit that Noah’s concern for him played a part in this.

Alan had a feeling he was getting far too involved with Noah. This had started as a game for him, but it was quickly evolving into something he could not explain or put into words. All he knew was that he needed to continue being by Noah’s side.

And right now, Noah was being distracted by Ethan, so Alan was going to take care of this and bring Noah’s attention back to him.

’Now, let’s take a look at what happened.’

The power of the artifact opened up a window-like projection.

[Would you like to view the memory alone? Or show it off in front of everyone?]

The artifact’s interface asked, and although it put more of a mental toll on Alan, he decided to hit the second option to project a window above Ethan’s body.

"What the hell-"

Daniel gasped in awe, but Alan ignored him and focused on the matter at hand instead. He clasped his hands and concentrated on what he wanted to see.

And then, the artifact buzzed to life, and Alan’s emotions started to dull. He was in a trance, and there was no need for him to feel anything now.

But despite that, he knew that he was making the right decision if it was for Noah’s sake.

...

The blue screen lit the room, and it showed Ethan heading from his class to the teacher’s office, where he was being made to wait for some time.

Ethan looked agitated as he tapped his fingers on his legs to pass the time.

After what felt like forever, the doors opened, and their teacher came out to greet Ethan.

"You are finally here? Come and take a seat. I have a feeling we have a lot to discuss with each other."

The teacher started like this, and her words would have made anyone nervous. But Ethan was a high-class esper born into a wealthy family. There was not even a hint of fear on his face.

He lazily took his seat in front of the teacher, who sighed and frowned at him.

"Let me ask you this straight- Ethan, do you have no desire to change how you live? Don’t you feel like you are wasting away your youth by not utilizing it properly?"

The teacher seemed a little annoyed that she had to say all this, but Ethan just shrugged at her words.

"I don’t understand what you mean by ’not utilizing it properly’. As far as I know, I am free to live however I want to. What is it about my life that is bothering you so much that you have to pull me away like this?"

Ethan looked genuinely confused by their teacher’s actions, and he looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

Seeing this, their teacher looked offended, and her hands curled into fists that hid her true emotions.

Instead, she took deep breaths to calm herself down before she looked at Ethan again.

"Are you truly asking this question because you don’t know? Or are you trying to get a rise out of me?"

Their teacher asked, and Ethan looked genuinely confused by what she meant.

"I mean...I am just confused here. Why am I being singled out? It can’t be just because I am lazy. I still do enough to maintain a passing grade, and I know that there are students who are much worse than me."

The more Ethan pointed these things out, the worse the expression on their teacher’s face looked until she snapped.

"Fine! I will tell you why I called you here. There was a recent survey on all the espers at this academy, and you passed the compatibility test for an experiment we are conducting to see if we can raise the grade of espers or not. We want you to participate in our research-"

"I am not interested. Anything that says ’experiment’ is bad news. My family specifically mentioned never taking part in such a thing."

Ethan was quick to avoid the trap, and their teacher sighed, taking it rather gracefully.

"Ah, it’s understandable. However, you won’t be able to leave this place with your memory completely untouched. After all, these experiments are a sensitive matter, and I would rather have you forget them if you cannot handle it."

"What do you mean-"

An esper grabbed Ethan’s face before his memory started to get hazy.

The screen also started to flicker slowly, causing small incidents of memory loss. But it did catch a few segments of information.

"Are you sure he will forget?"

"Well, the memory gets suppressed in the back of his mind, so we are safe unless someone uses external means." ℴ

"Darn it! Why did you not bring the permanent memory modifier-"

"The labs did not give permission. But I did bring the pill that I will give him now."

"This is dangerous! We are already on uncharted territory. We are messing with the labs by doing this. Are you sure we should be betraying them and running their own experiments? The rumors say that they send someone to look into this stuff-"

"Ah, don’t worry about it. I heard a few interesting things before I left the labs. Apparently, their watcher is on borrowed time. And once he’s gone, the main experiment will start again. Until then-"

"Shhhh, he is waking up. I will take over from here. You should head back now."

"Alright. Good luck with the kid and the labs. Hopefully, it won’t come back to bite you later."