Incubus Living In A World Of Superpower Users-Chapter 442: That Boy’s Illusions.... They Do Not Act Like Normal Projections
A technician raised a hand without looking away from her keys. "Wind variance on the second canyon set," she said.
"A pair is reading by ear." "Approved," Elira said. "Make it honest, not cruel." Screens kept moving.
The room softened a degree as the day found its middle. Coffee cooled. Someone laughed once under their breath when a student realized a map was upside down and fixed it without trying to look clever.
Someone else sighed when a different student made a mess and had not learned anything from it yet. The canyon tile flashed again, smaller this time.
The trio crossed a narrow spine without hurry. Lovely, someone thought, not meaning graceful, meaning fit for purpose.
The feeling lasted one breath, then became work again. Recognition held, quiet and real, not brittle hero talk.
It sat in the room like a chair pulled up to a table needing one more seat. No one named it out loud. Naming would have made it thin.
Elira turned a page on her console. The digital sound sounded somehow like paper, even in a room without paper.
She set three small markers no one else could see and let her hands fold behind her back.
On the wall, a hundred small lives kept moving at the pace of their own breath. The midterm would scatter them soon enough.
Today, it had sorted what it needed to sort. In the canyon below, dust had long since settled. In the control room above, breath did the same.
And when the trio’s tile came back one more time, even smaller, almost a thumbnail now, more than one teacher looked toward it without meaning to.
The look passed, and travel continued. With the neat scar across her chin, the battle instructor leaned in toward a tile that showed a boy coming out of a ravine with his shirt torn and his smile too wide for the hour.
He had just thrown himself at a construct twice his mass and somehow lived. The instructor tipped her chin, approving the grit, then let out a small, weary sound.
"He keeps trying to be a story," she said. "If he learns to be a person, he will be dangerous in a way that lasts."
She wrote, hand quick, a note for placement: give him narrow ground, low ceiling, targets that punish flourish, proctor with a voice that never raises.
The healer instructor, quiet as a cat that has never needed to announce itself, watched a different pair halt mid-slope because one of them had a pebble in a boot and did not want to admit it.
The other knelt without comment, shielded the first with her body, and fixed the problem with small fingers that did not tremble.
No speech, no scolding. A hand pressed once to a calf to check a cramp that had not arrived yet. The healer’s pencil moved.
She marked, not names but habits: protects without asking for credit, touches only with permission, reads pain before it speaks.
She drew a small star in the margin, which meant that if you send an extra wrap to this kit, they will spend it on someone else.
At the back, a strategist who wore old glasses even though he did not need them for anything but the act of thinking, clicked his tongue once.
"Pause Six," he said. A tile froze. It showed four students in a ruin cutting across a courtyard with three exits and one promise of shade.
"They are turning their backs to a window line with no glass. Half the class missed it. There is a sightline there that will cut them in a real zone."
He tapped the angle. "They all learned to fear doors. Good. Teach them to fear rectangles."
A younger instructor, the one with new shoes that had already learned to stop squeaking, watched and scribbled.
He did not argue as much as he had an hour ago. He listened, and listening shrank the sharpness in him into something that could be shaped.
A tile near the left edge flared briefly. It caught a boy alone in a stretch of rubble. He raised a hand and waved a pair past him onto his safe strip without trying to own it.
He took the soft ground and made it firm with measured steps, then caught up without asking for thanks.
The history teacher smiled to himself. "Road builders," he murmured. "Every class has a few. Pay attention to them. They do not call for attention, but you can build a city on their backs."
A different feed bled sound into the room, a low, steady buzz that meant a hive nearby. Two girls did not take the bait.
One circled with chalk and drew a clear mark that would remain in the sim after the day ended.
The other wrote a word next to it, not for points, for kindness: Hair. It meant tie yours before you come here. The room was noticed and put away for later.
The conversations drifted outward as work does when hands grow sure. Someone said,
"They will be in a forbidden zone in a year if the schedule keeps its nerve." Someone else, older, shook her head.
"Less than that, if the Association wants to be seen doing something brave, and I think it does." The medic’s mouth tightened, not in fear, in memory.
"They will bleed earlier than they should. We will be careful with what we praise." The strategist pushed his glasses up his nose and let his thoughts out where the room could hear them.
"Some will not make it to graduation. We say that every year. This year, the words taste different."
The fencing coach nodded once. "The cult pulled their childhood up by the roots," she said. "They stand steady anyway. I am proud. I am not pleased."
The history teacher folded his arms and let silence sit for a breath. "Hard seasons grow hard fruit," he said.
"We must try not to grind the sweetness out of them in the name of preparation." The bored-voiced instructor found his humor again and set it on the table like a small cup of water.
"First-years still think they are invincible," he said dryly. "Which is, of course, why they put rocks in their pockets to run faster."
A ripple of soft laughter eased the room. The medic shook her head. "I will check pockets at the gate," she said. "I will find rocks." The technician at the wind panel smiled at her keys.
On-screen, a reckless boy hopped a banister to shave a yard off his run. The battle instructor sighed and fetched the toggle that would add one loose stone to his following path and one long shadow that would look like a shortcut and be nothing of the kind.
"He will curse me today," she said. "He will not fall in the real place later. That is the trade."
The strategist leaned forward, finger tracing air above a grid that held the midterm’s starting slots. "East run will burn bright," he said.
"Too many sharp pieces near each other. We should scatter them a little more, or we will get noise instead of learning."
Elira listened, head tilted, eyes on a point no one else could see. "Agree," she said. "Move two to the northern third.
Keep one in the east who thinks he wants the crowd. He needs to discover silence."
The technician moved marks with fingers that felt like they had always belonged to maps.
A second technician, the one who had asked for wind, added a thin line of breeze to the canyon long enough for one pair to realize their habit of listening had worth.
"Honest, not cruel," she said again, reminding herself of the rule she had been given.
A tile that had stayed quiet all morning woke. It showed a girl with a steady jaw and a boy who overthought steps until they turned to knots.
They reached a pedestal. She set a shard, and he wrote three words with chalk along the base: Share water here.
The healer wrote another star. The history teacher underlined something no one else could see.
Near the center of the wall, the canyon thumbnail flashed and grew one size. This time, it’s not the main window; it’s just enough to gather a few eyes.
The trio moved along a ridge that did not forgive hurry. Everly took point because her legs wanted the work and because she had learned to make want answer to rule. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚
Evelyn tracked their rear and cut glance checks from three to two, trusting what had stayed true all morning.
Ethan walked between them and let his illusions rest unless the ground asked. Light bent around their feet sometimes, making small widths feel safe without lying.
"Back on them," the fencing coach said softly, not trying to hide her interest. The bored-voiced instructor clicked his pen and forgot to be bored.
"That boy’s illusions," he said, not to pick a fight, to offer a thread, "they do not act like normal projections." The strategist glanced over like a bird sighting a glint. "Explain."
