(A new book is here! The goal is to break six points in the reviews. The author's still a rookie, so please go easy on me.)
(A brain-storage area. The author will keep everyone's brains safe.)
(The author's just a boring person who wrote a boring novel.)
(This time, I came prepared. If you like it, read on; if you don't, toss it and run _(?ω?"∠)_)
At dusk on Blue Star, the sky was painted a warm orange-red.
Lin Mu carried a freshly bought bag of strawberry cream puffs and mango mille-feuille in one hand. With the other, he scrolled through his phone, an Alpenliebe lollipop between his lips.
(Durian smells too strong, so everyone should eat mango mille-feuille.)
The screen was playing a compilation of clips from The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.
The protagonist, Saiki Kusuo, was a pink-haired psychic. At that moment, he was secretly using Psychokinesis to move a coffee jelly toward himself.
(Coffee pudding, more or less the same thing. By the way, double-skin milk pudding is delicious too.)
"Tsk. If this power were real, I'd be the first to clear out all the good stuff from every dessert shop in the city."
(That's not how it works.)
Lin Mu muttered indistinctly, rolling the candy to the left side of his mouth.
The evening breeze carried the scent of freshly baked croissants from a bakery down the street, mingling with the smell of grass that was unique to early summer as it brushed his cheek.
(Croissants are delicious.)
He turned the corner and stepped onto the steel-and-concrete bridge spanning a river.
Traffic flowed below, and ripples shimmered across the water.
(Clear water is so healing.)
"Mom—!"
A sharp scream pierced the quiet of dusk.
Lin Mu looked up, his pupils contracting.
At the railing, a little girl of about five or six was flailing her arms in panic. Her foot slipped, and she toppled backward.
Her mother screamed and reached for her, but only managed to grab a piece of her clothing.
Splash!
Water sprayed high into the air.
Lin Mu didn't hesitate for a moment—not even for a second.
(A lesson in youthful heroism: it can turn the person you are in real life into an adult who has lost so much.)
Lin Mu hung the bag of desserts on the railing, yanked off his jacket and threw it on the ground, spat out the lollipop stick, climbed over the railing, and jumped.
(I really admire people who step up to help others. I used to be like that too, but reality made me cold.)
As he fell, a thought flashed through his mind: The river's pretty deep. Good thing I never skipped swimming lessons.
(I always bring a float ring when I go swimming. I'm a landlubber, sob.)
The freezing river water enveloped him.
He opened his eyes and spotted the little girl struggling in the water.
Lin Mu kicked hard and swam over in a few strokes. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and headed for the surface.
When they broke through the water, a small crowd had already gathered on the bank.
He lifted the girl onto the shore. Her mother rushed over and hugged her drenched daughter, sobbing incoherently. "Thank you... Thank you so much... I didn't know what to do..."
"It's all right." Lin Mu wiped the water from his face and took a towel from a kind bystander. "Be more careful next time."
He put on his jacket and picked up the bag of desserts—the packaging was somehow still intact.
(Isn't that ironic? The rescuer's stuff might even...)
With praise and questions all around him, he waved them off and turned to leave.
He'd walked a dozen steps before remembering that he shouldn't have spat out his lollipop just to look cool.
"What a waste." He muttered under his breath. "It was a milk-flavored Alpenliebe, too."
(What flavors do you all like?)
A few steps later, an unusual light suddenly glowed in the sky.
Lin Mu looked up and saw a dazzling meteor tear through the darkening sky. Its path was so straight it didn't look natural.
It grew brighter and brighter, closer and closer—
"Aw, come on." That was the last clear thought he had before losing consciousness.
(You talk like such a weirdo...)
"Are you telling me I can get hit by a meteor just for doing a good deed? Is there any justice in this world, God? If this is what happens, who's going to do good deeds in the future?"
He didn't get to finish his rant.
Blazing white light swallowed everything.
When he opened his eyes again, it took Lin Mu several minutes to realize what had happened.
He'd been reborn.
In the neon-lit streets of a parallel world, in an orphanage called Sunshine Home. His body had become that of a child, and his new name was Linmu Fujimiya.
(Watch out, he's going to transform into Agul.)
He'd retained all his memories from his previous life, including the absurd ending where he'd been hit by a meteor.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was that one day, when he stared at the cherry tree in the courtyard and thought, "It'd be beautiful if all the petals fell at once"—
Every blossom on the tree really did fall at the same time, like a pink snowfall.
He stood there, stunned, for a full five minutes.
(Brain rebooting. Reboot failed...)
Then he tried something else: he stared at a cup on a table in the distance and thought, "Come here."
The cup rose into the air and flew steadily into his hand.
Third, he wondered what the childcare worker in the next room was thinking.
A voice spoke directly into his mind: "Should I make curry or hamburger steaks for dinner? The kids seem to like hamburger steaks more..."
Linmu Fujimiya—well, that was his name now—sat on the edge of his bed, holding the cup. His expression shifted from shock to confusion, then to an irrepressible delight.
It seemed he now had Saiki Kusuo's full suite of abilities.
Telepathy, Psychokinesis, teleportation, X-ray vision, precognition, matter transformation...
(I've gone straight to using cheats. No skill required, just stats and mechanics.)
Over the following week, he secretly tested his powers and confirmed it.
He also discovered that using his abilities consumed his inner energy, while sugar replenished it quickly.
(That counts as a limitation.)
The energy cost wasn't actually that high, but he liked the feeling of being at "full strength."
(Keeping his phone at 100%.)
From then on, he always kept candy in his pocket.
Using his psychic powers, he quietly paved the way for his future:
He altered several documents and influenced the decisions of a few key people, all while pretending to study hard.
Four years later, an acceptance letter from Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School arrived at the orphanage.
"Advanced Nurturing High School..." Linmu Fujimiya stared at the school's name on the envelope and frowned.
It sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember why. He'd watched some anime in his previous life, but his memories had grown hazy, leaving only fragments behind.
"Whatever."
He tossed the letter onto the table and unwrapped another lollipop. "With these powers, where can't I slack off?"
Slacking off. That was his new goal in life.
He'd lived hard enough in his previous life. With psychic powers on his side this time around, it'd be a waste not to lie back and enjoy life, especially after that meteor had killed him.
Psychic powers? He'd use them as little as possible. Who knew what else this world had in store?
What if trouble came his way? He'd avoid it if he could. If he couldn't, then he'd just have to stop eating beef.
He'd live a quiet life, secretly draw the kind of pure-love illustrations he liked (the kind, so he'd have to hide them well), and make desserts to satisfy his appetite. That would be the perfect life.
As for what was so special about this school?
He'd deal with that when the time came.
The first day of school arrived.
Linmu Fujimiya stood at the bus stop in the standard uniform of Advanced Nurturing High School: a dark red blazer, a white shirt, and brown trousers.
(Event period: May 1 to May 5.)
Before you continue