"I will now explain the lay out of the strike team."
The woman – Shelly Cod – raised her glasses as she handed over stack of papers in front of the four people in this meeting room.
"As this team is formed with 'efficiency' in mind, not all of you will attack at the same time. Let me explain."
She switched on the projector and continued, "Our bureau plans on conducting a three years trial for this team. An S-Rank only team that could work well within that estimated time span will be used as an international weapon to deal with dangerous gates in other countries that lack espers. For your positions, Xain will be the vanguard, Cedric the middle range attacker while Ethan will be the support and back up. This way, when the boss showed up, you had more energy to wipe them within minutes."
"What?! Are you telling me to do all the job myself?! You know my ability never work well with these two!" Xain roared in dissatisfaction.
However, Shelly didn't hesitate to meet his anger head on, "That's something you guys have to work on the field, it's the higher ups decisions, if you still want your life and paycheck, deal with your coordination within this month."
Xain grumbled, but having no way to refute her words he stayed still.
"Actually Xain will not be the one doing the most job anyway, it's you Cedric."
For the first time since this meeting start Cedric raised his head, putting down his phone, "Why me?"
"Your ability is the most suitable to deal with large number of monsters compared to Xain's barbaric punches. Remember the last time you freeze the bridge connecting District 1 and 2? That just proves your specialty in wide range area attacks."
"Hey! Who are you calling barbaric- Mmh!" Xain protested but immediately got slapped in the mouth by Cedric.
"No Shelly, listen to me! If you want a wide area attack, don't we have another person in this room who can do it?"
In an instant all pair of eyes turned to Ethan sipping his tea, he even had a half smile and closed his eyes while enjoying it.
Sensing the disturbance in my zen, I placed the cup gently, opened my eyes, lazily smiled at him and said with the bluntest tone.
"You just want to play your games and slack off don't you?"
"...."
"…."
"Tsk, you know huh?"
Releasing his death grip from Xain, Cedric switch on his phone again – a gesture of disinterest.
Looking at Cedric's attempt to avoid responsibilities, Shelly rubbed her forehead. She could feel a headache coming.
"You guys surely know what kind of power Ethan has, if he is used as a wide range attacker, he would die from blood loss before you guys reach the boss. Just do as you are told okay?"
Xain and Cedric groaned in frustration, each didn't feel satisfied with their assigned position.
Glancing around, Ilyas raised his hand, "Um, sorry but I don't know the extent of his power yet."
This time Shelly was the one widening her eyes, "You... Don't...?"
She slammed the desk, "Ilyas Anderson! Did you not read the files I sent you?! It contained all information about Ethan and his abilities! How about Xain or Cedric? Do you not read theirs either?!"
"N-No! I read them and more or less know what kind of abilities Xain and Cedric has, but the only one I can't understand is Ethan's..."
Shelly sighed, "Ask him privately later, for now let's do the guiding compatibility first."
Guiding compatibility test was an essential factor for espers to receive guiding from a guide. The higher the compatibility percentage, the better quality of guiding the esper received. Which would help stabilized the esper's wavelength and would help them avoid death.
Shelly guided the four of us to the test room. It was a room separated by large one-way glass with one side full of researchers standing by observing different monitors and the other was a soundproofed room with a pair of machines shaped like coffins. The only thing connecting these two were a microphone and a speaker for two ways communication.
While I had already been here several times, Ilyas hadn't. He looked around in awe until his gaze went back to Shelly.
"While we have already matched your compatibility through our system's database, the procedure is to personally guide the esper to avoid any room of error. So Ilyas, you and Xain are up first."
Shelly ordered the two of them to enter the machine and the researchers immediately started typing on their monitor.
Cedric had already sprawled on the sofa playing his games, while both me and Shelly observed the process.
"Haah, I knew it, the only person I could rely on is you Ethan. But now I'm your team manager I have to deal with these people all day." She dramatically shook her head and cracked her shoulder.
I chuckled, sharing the same sentiment as her. Working here for the past year, I'd known a lot of employees here, including Shelly. And the espers here could be crazy sometimes, though there's law to not hurt a civilian physically, there's none for emotional damage. Shelly was one of such cases.
"Cheer up, it's not easy to manage four S-Ranks at the same time. Think of it as a promotion."
"That's what I thought at first, until I realized what kind of people I'm dealing with. At least two of my team members are sane."
I just smiled at her, I was sure it wouldn't be long until the main protagonist changed these S-Ranks' personality. Who knows? Maybe after our protagonist gave them his heart and sprinkled some romance in their lives they would change for the better.
Shelly quietly glanced at me and asked in a low voice, almost a whisper, but as an esper, my hearing was enhanced and she took advantage of that to ask.
"I heard your insomnia is getting worse these days... People keep talking about it because the dark circles on your eyes are getting bigger."
My attention which was focused on the two people beyond the glass shifted to Shelly.
"I mean, I know it's not my concern before... But you're my team member now, at least I need to know what condition you are in. I don't want you to suddenly go rampage." she explained.
Her words might seem distant, but that's the reality for espers. Though we're close as a colleague, we're not close as friends. There would always be an underlying fear for esper from the civilians as we were basically a time bomb.
Moreover, using an ability took quite a toll on the user, it caused too much illness. In my case it was severe headache and numbing pain. Sometimes when I sleep, the pain from impurities inside me would spike up which resulted in me developing insomnia. Taking sleeping pills wasn't much help either.
Not finding a suitable guide with above 20 percent compatibility while the minimum for smooth guiding being 40, made it hard for me to stabilize my wavelength, that's why my complexion wasn't great in people's eyes.
I clenched and unclenched my fist as I could still feel dull aches spreading all over my body. But In my opinion, having lived my one year of life on edge like this was already a usual thing for me, so there's nothing to worry about.
"It's fine, now that there's an S-Rank guide I will be able to sleep like a baby."
I smiled at Shelly, it wasn't an assurance to hide my pain, but it was a testament — or maybe my arrogance. After all I knew my own limit the best.
"The result is out!"
One of the researchers shouted for the room to hear.
"The guiding compatibility for Xain Trevor and Ilyas Anderson is 94%!"