The next day was tutoring as well.
It seemed sorrowful, watching a student sitting in the middle of the classroom on an evening. At first, Kamijou thought, "Come on, is this an elementary school of a depopulated town?" but as it went on for three to four days and then five to six days, the brightness of his soul had disappeared, and tutoring only left him feeling sick of it.
But that tutoring would be over in two days, today included. Kamijou could have felt hopeless that "Summer break finally starts on August 22!?" but he was happy to be getting out of tutoring at all.
Kamijou stared at the teacher's desk in front of him.
There stood a twelve-year-old-looking female teacher with a height of 135 cm, Tsukuyomi Komoe, showing only her face. She was talking with her paper placed on the desk, but Kamijou wondered why she had put it on the desk. It would have been far easier to read if she had just held the paper in her hands.
"So for the ESP card experiment, the card's material is changing from vinyl resin to ABS resin, a needed condition reinstituted by America in 1992. This is a trick in which the fingerprints on the card make it possible to figure out what the flipped-down card is... Hey, Kamijou-chan, are you listening?"
"...Yes, Komoe-sensei. I am listening, but what does this have to do with powers?"
Kamijou was a Level 0. By the check of a peerless machine, he was told that no matter how much effort he put in, he wouldn't be able to even twist a single spoon, but it didn't make sense that he was getting tutored because he was "weak".
It looked like Komoe-sensei seemed to know about the contradiction, as she said,
"You can't give up just because you don't have any power. If you give up, things you can achieve won't get achieved. So, by learning the basic basics of power, I think that you can find the way of finding your very own skill."
"Sensei."
"Yes?"
"...Well, you seem to be working very hard, but things that can't get achieved won't be achieved."
"Kamijou-chan! I can't say that effort will always lead to success, but people that never try will never succeed! Even the third place out of 2,300,000 people, Misaka Mikoto from Tokiwadai Middle School, was once a Level 1, but she worked hard and got all the way up to Level 5! So, Kamijou-chan should work hard, too!"
"...Elite? That? She's the kind of girl who kicks vending machines!"
"? Kamijou-chan, you know her?"
"Not really. Well, going back to the topic, seeing some TV show like that and saying 'Look at that high schooler: they have the same age as you, but look how active that person is! Compared to that, look at yourself, don't you think you're worthless?' I'm not the kind of person that gets motivated by those kind of speeches! Arrrggghhh..."
"Don't go 'arrrggghhh' on me! That troubles me!"
"Okay? Then why do you look so happy when you're troubled?"
"Oh, um... Well, that's because… Um... It's because I... like you…?"
"Buowahh!"
"...Teaching you."
"...Oh. Okay, teaching. Ah, that scared me... Oh, wait! Come on! I had just let the conversation go a different way, and then it immediately gets put back on the path again!"
"Ahaha. You are 100 years too early to fight me with words. Now, Kamijou-chan, open up your textbook to page 82 and read about the Psychometer's mind-protection power used in criminal investigation."
Like this, today's tutoring time went by.