Academy City

Academy City!

Inside the AIM Analysis Institute in District 5, in a pitch-black office, more than a dozen computer monitors cast their brilliant glow. Streams of data samples scrolled rapidly past, recorded onto the hard drives, while Duke, the assistant deputy who should have been on duty, lay sprawled on the sofa, snoring away.

Click!

The lights came on. The harsh brightness pierced his eyelids, and Duke rubbed his eyes, yawned groggily, and swayed upright on the sofa.

"Ah! Professor Kiyama…" Duke blinked and adjusted his focus, finally seeing who stood before him.

"Tonight’s experiment is very important. Every piece of data must be recorded. Why are you slacking off here? If you can’t give me a reasonable explanation, I’ll have to reconsider this month’s salary."

Kiyama Harumi spoke in a low voice, her face weary. In Duke’s eyes, this mature beauty could score above ninety for both looks and figure, but only when she was conducting research did she become intensely focused. At all other times, just looking at her made him want to sleep with her… pfft, looking at her just made him sleepy.

She wore the standard researcher’s lab coat, with a white shirt and black tie on top, and a skirt with black stockings below. Kiyama Harumi clearly had an excellent figure and was no slouch in looks, yet she always liked keeping her hands tucked into her coat pockets, giving off an air of utter decadence. The heavy dark circles beneath her eyes and her gloomy gaze made men who had been stunned by her appearance keep their distance.

She was a tragically beautiful woman who never wore makeup, had a casual personality, and possessed absolutely no feminine self-awareness—in other words, an older unmarried woman.

Generally speaking, older unmarried women were invariably outstanding in some field. They had devoted their youth to their careers and had no time for romance. Kiyama Harumi was a typical example. She was a fairly renowned brain physiology expert in Academy City, specializing in research on the AIM Diffusion Field.

"Haah…" Duke sighed. "Professor Kiyama, my cheat has finally come online!"

"What?" The decadent beauty looked adorably blank.

"Nothing. Just a random thought."

"Get up already. Your job tonight is to sit in front of the monitors. No more slacking off. I know it’s hard working overtime for two days and nights straight, but this experiment is extremely important, so stop complaining." As Kiyama Harumi spoke, she suddenly fanned herself and unbuttoned her shirt.

"Here we go again…" Duke looked speechless, but his eyes remained fixed on her without blinking.

"Is the air conditioning broken in here?" Kiyama Harumi took off her lab coat and shirt, revealing her upper body clad only in a small bra.

"The AC is wired to the light switch. The cooling had been off until just now." Duke stared hard at the trembling cleavage, trying to discern Kiyama Harumi’s taste from her underwear.

An old-fashioned white style, and it seemed to be one size too small… She was an incredibly sloppy woman. What a waste of that body and face.

"This is what’s bad about offices from ten years ago. They wired the air conditioning and lighting to the same power switch. Did they think that would save electricity?" Kiyama Harumi was completely unaware that she was being ogled as she bent over to rummage through the cabinet.

A pair of inverted peaks filled his vision. Duke hardened slightly in respect. He had told her more than once that women ought to be a little more reserved; her habit of stripping could easily be mistaken for an invitation to hook up.

"Would any man really have improper thoughts after seeing a body as lacking in curves as mine?" she had answered. She had no idea how devastatingly lethal she truly was.

Only a good kid like Duke could restrain himself. If it had been another man, he would have put her through a hundred and eight different positions in minutes.

"Duke, where did you put the coffee?" Kiyama Harumi asked with a frown. For researchers who often stayed up late, coffee was an indispensable companion. Duke from the Marvel World loved the stuff too.

Without taking his eyes off the view, Duke pointed toward the trash can. The bin had not been emptied in nearly three days and was stuffed to the brim, with more than twenty empty coffee cans scattered around it.

"Go buy some!" Kiyama Harumi turned and glared at Duke, folding her arms over her chest and emphasizing a Level 6 degree of feminine dominance.

"I’m going." Duke covered his nose, stuffed the coffee cans into a garbage bag, and ran off carrying the trash in both hands. The benefits tonight had been a little excessive—he had just caught a glimpse of pink.

It was the dead of night outside. The streets were quiet and nearly deserted. After throwing away the trash, Duke headed toward a convenience store open twenty-four hours a day.

Academy City!

A modern high-tech metropolis with a population of 2.3 million, eighty percent of whom were students. The reason for this bizarre population ratio was that the city existed solely to develop espers… probably!

Academy City was a massive collection of educational institutions made up of twenty-three districts. It provided specialized educational courses aimed at uncovering supernatural abilities and mainly recruited students from outside.

Besides educational institutions, the city also had research facilities for students, manufacturing and commercial facilities, international exhibition grounds, an international airport, and all the other necessities of urban life.

Its territory was divided into twenty-three districts, each with different functions. Academy City had no standing armed forces and did not even have police. In their place were the Disciplinary Committee, selected from among the students, and the Security Force, made up of volunteer teachers.

Its technology was highly advanced, leading the outside world by roughly twenty to thirty years. Its advanced science and technology not only gave it partner organizations across the globe, but also earned the hostility of the Magic Side. To prevent magical forces from infiltrating and scientific technology from leaking out, Academy City strictly controlled the movement of people in and out.

It was precisely because of those strict travel restrictions that Duke could not easily leave Academy City. But now… Academy City seemed pretty good too. There was always plenty of excitement to watch every day.

The institute was located in District 5, right beside District 7 at the center of Academy City, but Duke rarely went there. Even when he did, he chose to go late at night when no one was around.

There was no other reason. District 7 was home to a good boy with an unlucky constitution. Duke was afraid that if he accidentally ran into him, then, as an unscientific existence who had crossed worlds, he might be erased completely. Although countless predecessors had claimed that staying around Kamijou could rid one of bad luck, Duke still kept a respectful distance from him.

If he got wiped out, who would take responsibility?

But tonight, he had no choice. The nearest convenience store was in District 7, and any farther meant a long walk. Kiyama Harumi was still waiting in the office, and Duke figured that if he hurried, he might still catch the last train of tonight’s benefits. So he stepped into District 7.

Rumble—

The instant his toes crossed into District 7, thunder suddenly boomed across the clear night sky. Duke raised his head in confusion. A full moon hung high overhead, and not a single cloud could be seen for miles.

"What kind of place is this? How is it thundering in perfectly good weather?"

As Duke wondered about that, a teenage boy and girl came sprinting toward him. One had spiky hair, while the other had tea-colored hair. The two fled at full speed, with blaring alarms behind them and over a hundred cleaning robots relentlessly pursuing them.

"Idiot, who told you to start discharging electricity there?!" The Hedgehog-haired Youth looked on the verge of collapse as he complained while running.

"Shut up! Just get out of here!" The flat-chested tea-haired girl snapped back without yielding.

Duke blinked first, then silently moved to one side and watched the two of them and the cleaning robots disappear until the alarms faded into the distance.

"Running after Spiky Hair in the middle of the night instead of going back to the dorm… Railgun, do you want to join Imagine Breaker’s harem that badly?" Duke looked disgusted… A boy and a girl out so late at night instead of going home… How indecent.

About five minutes later, Duke reached his destination.

He was lucky. The convenience store had not lost power due to the lightning strike and was still open, unlike a certain ill-fated person who had lost an entire refrigerator full of supplies to a blackout.

The automatic doors opened, and a red-eyed white-haired person with an expression that warned others to keep their distance, their gender indeterminate, brushed past him, carrying a plastic bag full of canned coffee.

"District 7 really is full of hidden monsters. I’d better not come here for coffee next time…"