"How can you manage to carry that guy? Seems like he weighs a lot." Aya asked in a polite fas.h.i.+on.

At this point, the gang had walked for a good 5 minutes. They had found out Kenjiro's address through calling a certain teacher. According to their calculations, there were around 6 minutes of walking before they reached his house.

"Oh, this? I'm not actually carrying him. I'm just using my ability 'A way to carry things' to make his body float a millimeter from my back. We can't let people know we have powers, you know?"

Anami responded in an arrogant fas.h.i.+on.

"What? At least 5 strangers just saw Kenjiro receive and upgrade powers. How is that even an attempt at 'not letting people know the powers'!?"

Narino said, annoyed at the response they had gotten from the s.a.d.i.s.tic girl.

"The truth is, I'm disappointed in myself as a result of that. I was just so shocked about what Kenjiro received that I didn't even notice..." Anami said quieter

"And the reason for going to a gra.s.s field right out in public?" Aya added to the QnA they apparently were having.

"You already know why! No one would expect the orb to react that way, right? Please don't unnecessarily embarra.s.s me, I'm a s.a.d.i.s.t not a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t." Anami said, this time even quieter.

"Why are you so open about that fact?" Ibuki asked

"Not you too, Ibuki. Just stop, please." Anami said

Everything went quiet after that. An awkward air surrounded the girls.

"Hahahahahahah" Aya laughed

The others followed soon. The air swept through their hair gently.

Anami blushed and looked down at the ground in embarra.s.sment.

"Guess I have some sort of understanding as to how Kenjiro feels..." Anami whispered to herself.

…

"We're here!" Narino screamed out in excitement.

Before them, a fairly regular house stood. It was painted in a bright green color, which made it stand out a lot compared to the generally white houses that surrounded it.

"Sorry" Aya said before reaching into Kenjiro's pockets and grabbing what she thought was keys to the house. What she actually pulled out was an anime-themed flashlight.

"Why does anyone in this world own something like this?" Aya commented.

"I already took his keys… but, why are they also anime-themed?" Sora said, concerned for Kenjiro's item taste.

*Click*

"And… We're in." Sora announced and took the daring first step into the house.

"Excuse me, is anybody home?" Narino asked in a loud voice.

When being met with silence, they looked at each other.

"Looks like n.o.body is home. Let's throw him on the floor and see how he reacts when he wakes up distressed!" Anami said excitedly. Anami moved Kenjiro's floating body from her and prepared to just drop him on the floor.

"What!? Why would you!? You're part of the pact, aren't you? Put him down on the sofa normally." Aya scolded Anami.

"Fine..." Anami said and pouted her lips in discontent.

Slowly and gently, Kenjiro's body was put on the sofa.

"It's almost a miracle he hasn't woken up yet… ! I just realized something, We're in a boy's house!" Aya said

…

I was floating in the middle of a dark s.p.a.ce, with nothing around me.

I looked around but failed to see anything. Suddenly, like a light switch had been flipped the entire s.p.a.ce changed color to white. I wasn't floating anymore but stood up.

- I wonder if there's any gravity here. judging from what I see. I must be inside my own consciousness. It's an interesting idea to see if one's inner mind has gravity as planets do. Of course, a normal person would normally never even consider that possible, the 'inside your conscious'-thing and the gravity thing. But I had gone beyond 'normal' today, also my mental state isn't quite normal so that's also a thing. I've been taught that literally anything's possible. If there exist powers in this world and an absolute n.o.body like me managed to unfortunately receive a power that should be someone else's, then next thing I know I'll think a harem is actually possible. This is really bad for my sense of reality...-

I jumped up in the air to test out the theory. To my delight, Gravity in my consciousness seemed to be relatively weak so I could almost float in there.

I looked around the s.p.a.ce once again and actually found something this time, a woman in the distance. Having nothing better to have done, I screamed out to the girl

"Heeeeeeeey! What are you doing inside my mind!?"

The woman turned around in surprise, and in an instant she was right beside me.

The woman had short brown hair, a shrine maiden outfit and an adorable set of eyes. From what I could see, I would have guessed that she was around 21 years old. Although my ability to guess the age of people is questionable, Once when I watched an anime I thought one of the characters for sure was 19. Later, I found out she was canonically 14. The amount of guilt and thought-erasing I had/had to do upon that was unbearable. I wanted to ask to make sure

"Before I ask the very obvious question. For future reference; How old are you?"

The voice that responded was very recognizable

"Depends on what aspect. Spiritually, I'm around 2100 years old. Physically, I've existed for less than one day..."

Ouch, yet another mental blow right to the stomach. I said

"Wow… I think that I've never been this illegal before. I think I'll take the '2100' part for the future reference. Also, could it be that you're my system?"

The girl got a surprised look on her face and said

"How did you know…? No normal person would guess that, nor would they correctly guess that we're inside the person's consciousness."

I scratched the back of my head and said

"Come on, anyone can put two and two together. Also, could you stop praising me? I've gotten waaay too much praise today. Actually on the contrary, could you insult me? I'm begging you."

The girl got a bit scared and moved a couple of steps back, as any reasonable person should after a line of dialogue like that. She said

"Wow, that was a disgusting sentence. What are you, an M!?"

After having re-stabilized my mental state, I answered the rhetorical question

"For what I think is the 3rd time, I'm not a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t. I have a special mindset where I both hate and love myself but I know that I'm probably the worst human there is, blah blah blah. I really don't want anyone to ask me that anymore, it gets annoying to answer."

The tone I used to answer was really unenthusiastic.

The girl sat down in the middle of the air, a very bizarre sight. She answered

"That's quite unique. I don't think my host has ever had a mindset like that. Now, could you move on to the mandatory question please."

I sighed and sat down, not on the air but on what seemed to be the ground. While sitting down, I was staring at the ground in a similar fas.h.i.+on to an elementary schooler in love but too embarra.s.sed to say anything. Only in this situation, I wasn't in love with the person in front of me. I was simply unnecessarily procrastinating to ask the question because it felt like such a boring cliche.

- I can't stall too long, I'm taking up this person's…? Wait, is this a human or is it a robot or what is it? I mean, it completely looks like a human blessed with good looks. But it feels really unsettling so think that a person lives inside of me. I don't have that fetish. -

I just had to get an answer, otherwise the fear would consume me forever. I already have enough things to be scared about in my life, like group a.s.signments in school. I asked

"Wait, are you a human, a robot or what are you?"

The girl answered

"Neither actually, we systems are a special species. We exist solely to a.s.sist Kaito power users. Some systems act robot-like and speak likewise and some act human-like, have personalities and speak as a human would. I fall into the second category and if I remember correctly, only 5% of us systems actually act like humans. If you upgrade me to level 6, I actually gain the ability to move out to the real life world. Out of the 872 hosts I've had, only 10 of them have ever gotten to level 6. Not because it's specifically hard to get to it, people just usually spend their points on combat abilities instead. Now, could you ask?"

I stared at the girl with short brown hair in a state of awe and confusion. I did the usual shake to get myself active again and said

"That's quite hard to comprehend, but sure I'll take it. Now onto more important matters, what the h.e.l.l am I doing inside my own mind!? It seems incredibly unlikely for this to be something that's actually happening. If it is something that's actually happening right now… I'm going to start to fear for my mental state!"

The girl joked

"C'mon, you already have a lot to fear over your current mental state. But yeah, this is something that's actually happening. I was waiting for you to crack, no one can mentally accept something like this so quickly."

I said

"You'd be surprised with how much I can accept. I've already accepted the Kaito powers, the ruin of my free time and I'm around 75% done accepting that there's a 'system' living inside of me and that I'm inside myself right now. That's a sentence I never wanted to say. Why am I here though?"

The girl got a serious look on her face and said

"The reason is…

Something I don't know."

"Eh?" Slipped out of my mouth without me realizing it.

She continued

"I honestly don't have a clue as to why you're here right now. It has never happened before with any of the hosts that I've had. So basically, you're the first one to see me inside of the host's mind"

I asked

"So… How do I get out of here? I mean, you seem like a great person so I don't want to bother you with my presence. Also, I have torture to attend to in real life."

The girl got a mild frown on her face and a mildly lonely aura around her. She thought for a bit before she said

"O-okay…? Let's see… I did get a tutorial on how to operate things here, but that was 2100 years ago. I don't know if I remember how.

...

Oh, I remember now."

Suddenly a staircase leading to a platform popped out of nowhere. In an instant, The girl was standing at the top of the staircase where a lot of electronics and weird tools laid.

"You see, this is my control center. Ever since I forgot what it was, I was wondering what this cube was for." She pointed at a cube and lifted it "But, I think I remember what it's for now. I realize now that it's a very convenient realization… but that's how it is."

She placed the cube down in front of me and pushed it in a pattern

up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, and she pressed the B b.u.t.ton and then the A b.u.t.ton on the cube and lastly she pressed the 'start' b.u.t.ton under the A and B b.u.t.ton.

Upon realizing what the girl just did, I commented

"Oh my G.o.d, Was that a just a Contra reference!? I can't believe someone invented the Konami code before Konami even existed."

When she had completed the act, a yellow-ish portal opened up to the left of us.

"I'm not going to comment on that, because I don't recognize the reference."

I started walking towards the portal, but I stopped, looked back at the girl and said

"Makes sense. Hey, do you want me to upgrade your ability to level 6?"

The girl brightened up and asked

"Wait, what? Do you really mean that? There's a lot of other combat abilities you could use your points for."

I smiled and said

"Of course. I don't have any interest in fighting anyone. As I said, I'm sub-human trash there's no way I could win against a normal human even."

The girl thought about it for a quick moment and said

"Well, I am very interested in seeing the modern society with my own eyes. But why though?"

I kept my smile and said

"Well, I have to compensate somehow for you having to spend time with trash like me. I can't think of a better way."

The girl brightened up even more and said

"I'll gladly accept, then. But please don't rush to it, it would pain me if you didn't evolve any other abilities."

I took a couple of steps forward and responded

"I understand. I'll respect your wishes. For now I'll say, See you later"

While I walked into the portal, the girl responded

"See you later!"

…

Immediately as I returned to my body, I screamed at the top of my lungs

"Guess who's back from the dead!"

The girls got scared and shouted

"EEK!"

"The zombie lives!"

"Oh."

"That's funny."

"KYAAH! You d.a.m.n..."

The last person was, of course, Anami, who decided to take physical action towards me.

"Ouch! I was kidding!"