Strongest Extra In The Academy

Kaidren walked back toward the white couch, his footsteps soft against the clean floors of the apartment. The white towel he'd used to dry his hands hung neatly back on the wall hook behind him, still damp with the trace of his touch. As he lowered himself into the familiar comfort of the couch, his eyes flicked toward the television, where the dumb comedy show continued its nonsensical skits without pause. The exaggerated acting and artificial laughter track grated at his nerves.

He briefly contemplated changing the channel—maybe to something more educational, something that would actually inform him about this world. A local news network, a documentary, even a boring finance program would have offered more value. But he quickly realized the danger in that thought. If the show was interesting, he might end up splitting his attention—something he couldn't afford right now. So, with a subtle sigh, Kaidren decided to let the mindless comedy play on in the background, its noise just a dull hum against the quiet tension in his thoughts.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as his gaze landed on the small glass coffee table in front of him. There, nestled beside the silver laptop and TV remote, was the blue phone—silent and still, the screen completely dark.

"Huh," Kaidren mumbled under his breath. "Auto-sleep, I guess."

He picked up the phone with care, and as if responding to his touch, the screen automatically lit up with a soft blue glow. Kaidren nodded slightly in acknowledgment—nothing impressive, but still a welcome convenience. Reclining back against the couch, he adjusted himself into an optimal lounging position—back nestled into the cushions, one leg tucked beneath the other, and phone held steadily in both hands.

The Zbook app opened with a faint loading flicker before settling on what looked almost exactly like Facebook back on Earth. A home page. A feed. Random people with real faces and real names were recommended to him with the familiar prompt: Add Friend?

He stared at the screen blankly.

"Of course… they're real people now," he murmured. His voice held no emotion, but somewhere behind those words was a quiet realization. These weren't NPCs anymore. These weren't pre-scripted avatars with branching dialogue trees. These were real people, living real lives in this world—a world he now had no choice but to accept.

Still, they didn't matter. Not right now.

What he wanted—needed—was information.

City Z, he thought. Other cities. Other continents. Global espers. Psi Guardians International. Esper Studies and Training Institute…

Kaidren's mind flooded with the possibilities. Names. Places. Organizations. Threads of a world that mirrored the game he once knew. A game that, back then, had been one of his escapes from reality… and now was his reality.

His fingers hovered over the search bar. Should he search for the Psi Guardians International first? Or maybe the main cast? If they were real in this world too, maybe they'd have their own Zbook accounts. Or maybe the Esper Studies and Training Institute had a home page. Something official. Something with structure.

He leaned his head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling as if searching for answers in the swirling texture of plaster above him.

The truth was, his knowledge of the game—Espers of the World—wasn't as deep as he wished it was. Yes, he finished it. Yes, he knew the basic outlines. But he had played it back when he was fifteen. And even then, he hadn't played it seriously.

He'd been in the middle of surviving his own internal war.

When his parents died in that accident, when the world turned gray and meaningless, he'd only played the game to pass time—to feel something. To distract himself from the dull, hollow ache in his chest. His memories of the story weren't carefully catalogued lore entries… they were scattered fragments, half-remembered names and events glued together with intuition.

He remembered the main cast. The key arcs. The major disasters that struck the institute, the world-threatening villain groups, the betrayals, the impossible boss fights. But much of it had already faded.

He grimaced slightly at the thought, his fingers tightening around the phone.

Back on Earth, he'd even joined an official fan group online—mostly just lurking, never really posting. The community had helped fill in some gaps, refreshed some of the more obscure details. But even then, he'd never been the type to memorize side quests or deep lore.

And now, the stakes were no longer just some fictional player character dying. They were his stakes. His life. His world.

This isn't a game anymore, he thought, his eyes slowly narrowing. This world… is unpredictable now.

And that… scared him a little. Not that he would ever admit it aloud.

He felt the faint buzz of the comedy show still running in the background and realized he hadn't heard a single joke for the past five minutes. He was too deep in his thoughts again. Too caught up in analyzing, in trying to predict what may come next.

"Tch… thinking useless things again," Kaidren muttered, scolding himself.

He sat up straighter, grounding himself in the present. His attention returned to the phone in his hand. For now, Zbook would serve as his window into this world. A window to confirm what he knew, and uncover what he didn't.

After all, knowledge was power.

But first… he needed to satisfy his curiosity. Indulge that quiet hunger in his mind before he started looking for the true gold: his esper abilities.

He gave the screen one more glance, thumb hovering over the app navigation.

Time to explore the threads of this new reality.

With a soft tap, Kaidren pressed the search icon. Instantly, a gray keyboard appeared at the bottom of the screen, and a flickering white cursor blinked expectantly in the blank search field, waiting for input.

He stared at it blankly.

His thumb hovered, hesitating. Sure, he could've used the Pergle app—this world's version of Google—to dive deep into whatever questions popped into his mind. But he knew better. There were too many sources, too many possibilities. And in this world where espers existed—espers who could manipulate energy, thoughts, even data. It wasn't just information overload that worried him.

It was infiltration.

He couldn't risk opening some random website that was secretly a trap. For all he knew, it might be a hacking vector masked as a cooking blog. An esper, somewhere, using the website as a medium to access minds or manipulate tech. In a world like this, every click could be a gamble.

So for now, Zbook was the safer path.

He typed slowly:

Daily News.

Then he hit the blue search button and waited.

The screen blinked once. A loading circle spun in the center, slowly inching its way to completion. While it loaded, Kaidren leaned further back into the couch, stretching his legs out. The comedy skits still blared in the background from the TV—now showing two middle-aged men dancing in chicken suits for reasons he didn't want to know.

He didn't change the channel. Not yet. He didn't want something interesting on-screen stealing his attention while he was trying to learn.

Finally, the screen finished loading.

A poster-style news article filled the display.

A high-resolution photo sat front and center: a man in a sleek black tuxedo, shoulder-length white hair braided neatly into a tight ponytail. A wide, almost manic grin stretched across the man's face, his red eyes gleaming with intensity—or madness, Kaidren couldn't tell which.

The headline underneath was bold and elegant, written in the stylized Japanese script used throughout the app:

Tier 6 Esper Hero: Benjamin Reed — Clan Leader of the Apex Rank Clan "Cerebro" Announces 1 Million AUR Donation to Citizens of City F Affected by the Critical Rank (MI-10) Graviton Beast

Kaidren blinked.

Then blinked again.

After a few seconds, his lips moved slightly. "...Why the hell would they use a photo of this guy smiling like an idiot?"

The disapproval in his voice was soft, almost murmured. His expression, of course, didn't shift—it stayed flat, unreadable. But internally, Kaidren was a little annoyed. Using that kind of grinning photo for an article about disaster relief? Seriously? It made Benjamin Reed look like he was gloating.

Not that he particularly cared about media representation. It was just… dissonant.

He narrowed his eyes and glanced at the article's source. A circular logo showed a stylized "24hN" in sleek silver-blue font, with a verified checkmark beside it.

24h News.

So this was probably one of the major news outlet of this world. Verified, official, and followed by millions.

He scrolled down slightly. The reactions counter showed over 1.5 million interactions, mostly hearts and thumbs-up. Praise flooded the comment preview section—endless walls of admiration, gratitude, and gifs of Benjamin with shining red eyes and angel wings.

Kaidren made a quiet, dissatisfied click with his tongue.

"These people have no idea who they're praising," he muttered, tone dry.

Benjamin Reed... The name surely stirred a few memories. Not many, but enough. Kaidren recalled this old man—definitely a side character in the original game Espers of the World. He was tied to a few minor events. The leader of Cerebro Clan. Powerful. Influential. But back in the game, he had never done something like... this. Donating a million AUR?

He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling.

Was this part of the new, unscripted world? Or had he simply forgotten?

His brows furrowed slightly. In the game, Benjamin Reed had always been more of a neutral party. Always grinning. Always scheming. Always one step ahead, but never stepping in unless it benefitted him. There was no early plot event involving him donating to disaster victims. And there had certainly never been anything about a Critical Rank Graviton Beast.

His gaze snapped back to the article.

Graviton Beast. Critical Rank. City F.

Those three details felt like red flags waving in the wind. A monster that manipulate gravity. And Critical Rank nonetheless … that was one step below Catastrophic, if the power tier system remained the same. City F wasn't part of the early-game danger zones either, was it?

His memories of the game flickered like a fading flame.

He hadn't really paid attention to the smaller side quests or regional events. He'd coasted through them, focused only on progressing. Maybe something like this was in the game and he just never noticed.

Before Kiadren could think further, a memory clicked in his very thoughts.

"This world is real,". And that meant unscripted chaos. New elements. Unwritten stories.

Kaidren closed his eyes and took a quiet breath in quiet acceptance.

After a long pause, Kaidren opened his eyes and scrolled past the article. More headlines filled his screen, ranging from city news to intercontinental politics, from esper tournaments to monster migration warnings. This world was alive, and its stories were unfolding in real time.

He nodded once to himself, a rare flicker of intrigue lighting his usually dull gaze.

"This is the kind of information I needed," he murmured.

His thumb hovered over the screen again, already scrolling deeper into the Zbook rabbit hole.

But in the back of his mind, he reminded himself—he still hadn't seen his esper abilities. The ones the system granted him for robbing him.

He'd check soon.

For now, he let the news feed flow, his eyes scanning for names, cities, headlines—anything that could give him a glimpse of the unwritten world he lived in.