How to Drink Tap Water for Lunch

We arrived at the training dummies — wooden dummies, to be exact. They looked astonishingly intricate. Apparently, the standard procedure here was to test your ability against one.

"These wooden dummies… I think they're the kind that move."

At my words, Lucia nodded with great enthusiasm.

"That's right! Just standing there swinging at a dummy is boring, after all."

"Well… that's a fair point."

I murmured the response as I stared intently at the dummy's joint structure. The mechanical design was laid bare before my eyes.

"Hold on a moment, Shiota… If I set it to move like this… there we go! Now the dummy will move as nimbly as a beastfolk."

"You can do that?"

"Don't let the appearance fool you — this dummy was built by a technician of the Shiota family who studied under the dwarves. It's no different from the real thing!"

Lucia's hands moved busily. The moment mana flowed into the dummy's chest, its wooden joints twisted with an eerie creaking sound.

The mana circuits embedded in each joint glowed red. Wood on the outside — but within, a murderously precise killing machine.

"I see… Though I don't see any dwarves in our class…"

"Right, there aren't many dwarf students this year. I hear there are one or two in the class next door. But three of my fellow angels ended up in our class, actually!"

"Angels are a far rarer species than dwarves, though…"

"Ah, well… most dwarves are grumpy old men who refuse to leave their workshops. Angels, on the other hand, are friendly toward humans. So to human eyes, we seem relatively more numerous. Now then, shall we test it out before the measurement?"

"Sounds good. Then I'll just go ahead and—"

BOOM!

I had just planted my foot forward with gusto.

WHAM—!

My jaw rattled. They hadn't been exaggerating about beastfolk agility. The dummy bored in on me like the wind itself and drove an uppercut squarely into my chin. My body left the ground.

"Shiota~ Beastfolk are masters of the swift, sneaky attack, you know~"

Lucia clapped her hands and giggled. Splinters of wood rolled across the floor.

Five times.

Every time I came to my senses, the dummy was already exploiting an opening — solar plexus, temple, solar plexus again.

"Hah… hah…"

No matter how intricate a mechanism is, it must have a weakness. Focus… read the structure…

"Shiota~ That dummy is running on mana right now, so if you don't cloak yourself in mana before striking, you'll be the one who gets hurt!"

So she warned me. Right — remember that sensation I channeled into the crystal orb…

'Otonashi, that power of yours is dangerous.'

Out of nowhere, a forgotten memory surfaced. Why now, of all times…

In that instant, the wooden dummy lunged. But after taking five hits, I had its patterns down. This attack would come for my temple.

CRACK—!

I caught the dummy's arm as it whipped toward my left temple, and my mana-wreathed right fist drove into its solar plexus.

KRAKOOM—!

The moment my fist connected with the dummy's core, the surrounding air seemed to vanish entirely.

It was not merely a fist wrapped in mana. Human technique, dwarven engineering, beastfolk movement — every convention and every law of all of them was forcibly rendered void, leaving behind a single trajectory optimized for nothing but destruction.

As if it would tolerate the slightest resistance, my fist pierced through the dummy's core in one point, one strike.

Before that blow, every intricate mana circuit the wooden dummy possessed shrieked and collapsed.

Crack-rattle, thud!

The dummy's arms and legs separated like blocks and scattered in every direction. The shockwave of my fist, still buried in its chest, traveled through and slammed into the wall, leaving spiderweb cracks across the solid stone.

Only then did a faint groan escape Lucia's lips. The cheerful laughter was gone without a trace.

She stood frozen, dumbstruck — utterly unable to believe what had just unfolded before her eyes… the spectacle of common sense itself shattering.

"Sh-Shiota… that was…"

The moment my fist connected, the dummy's mana circuits hadn't been *damaged*. The 'Void' rising from within me had simply erased the laws binding its components together.

I had done nothing more than forcibly release the 'form of existence' the dummy had been stubbornly maintaining.

"Hah… hah… I've mapped out this dummy's whole structure, so wouldn't breaking it down like this make cleanup easier?"

"Even with mana wrapped around your fist! There's no way a wooden dummy is supposed to collapse like a bunch of building blocks!!"

"Ah… they're not just any blocks. The pre-Chaos Era humans called them Interlocking Toy Blocks, and—"

"That's not what I'm asking!! By any sane logic, with that kind of destructive power the dummy should have been blown to powder — why did it come apart like building blocks?!"

"Hm? Either way it's broken, isn't it? Perfectly ordinary, from where I'm standing."

At my words, Lucia's face flushed red as an apple.

"Grraaagh…"

Her brain, unable to process the surreal scene before it, had simply overloaded.

The result: Lucia fainted on the spot.

"So let me get this straight, Shiota. These are 'Interlocking Toy Blocks'? I've never even heard of them."

"A pre-Chaos Era invention, from the height of civilization's efficiency. Perfectly standardized fittings, unchanging strength. That, I believe, is the true pinnacle of efficiency. That dummy just now had nothing going for it but convoluted mana circuits — junk that couldn't even maintain its own joints."

"J-Junk?! That's the distilled essence of dwarven craftsmanship, passed down to your family's technicians!"

"Maybe it scores well on artistry, but its physical efficiency is a flat zero.

Lucia, how about next time you give me a massage or something, so I can learn how joints are supposed to move? Even for an angel, your body structure should be nearly identical to a human's, so approaching it anatomically would work nicely."

"Are you making fun of me right now?!"

My sister came sprinting toward us at full speed. The youngest teacher in Academy history, indeed — her mana control was first-rate, so polished I occasionally wondered if she was really human. Oh, right — her name is Shiota Yuzuru.

"I heard a massive crash — are you two okay?!"

Her usual gentle warmth was nowhere to be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠found; she was genuinely flustered.

"Sis? Why are you in such a rush?"

I asked casually, busy stacking the scattered block fragments into a tidy pile.

But instead of answering, my sister froze, her eyes darting between the shattered remains of the wooden dummy and Lucia, who sat slumped beside it with a beet-red face.

"Did… did you two do this? What on earth happened that the school wall is cracked, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and Lucia looks like someone just woke up from fainting?"

"Ah, it was a test. The efficiency was terrible, so I made some adjustments. I also advised Lucia that she could use a joint massage."

Lucia's face now looked ready to burst. My sister stared at me with a blank expression for a long moment, then finally sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead.

"…Efficiency? Otonashi, sometimes you seem more terrifying than an actual demon. I'll handle the cleanup here, so you two go on ahead to class."

And so we left my sister at the scene and headed back to the classroom first.

By the time we returned, the other students had already changed into their uniforms and taken their seats.

Since we'd come up late, we were still in our gym clothes. Even I could feel the embarrassment of it, so I had no intention of changing in front of the classroom. It looked like self-study time for now. I'd change during lunch.

Sitting there at my desk, I turned my mind to my power… to the ability I'd channeled mana into. This time, it felt like it had manifested through my own will.

Before… my 'friends' and I… our abilities had blossomed at the orphanage, but we couldn't control them ourselves. We were ticking time bombs.

Maybe… maybe they were sitting in some classroom right now, listening to lectures just like me.

If I could truly feel emotion again… in this cruel world, would I be able to find those children once more…

The lunch bell rang. I could hear the class stampeding out the door ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠toward the cafeteria. Lucia, however, came over to me.

"Shiota, would you like to have lunch together?"

An invitation to lunch. According to my sister, our Academy let you eat in the cafeteria or sort out your own meal, whichever you preferred.

"I appreciate it, but I'll pass. I like to eat lunch quickly."

"…? Don't tell me you eat lunch *efficiently* too! As class representative, I need to know what your usual lunch is!"

And so she followed me. But the place we arrived at was not the cafeteria — it was the drinking fountain in the hallway.

"…?? Don't tell me… Shiota, your 'lunch' is…"

"What's so surprising? It's tap water."

"Who in the world drinks tap water for LUNCH?!"

"? Of course I know the world's five major nutrients. Sugar, salt, tap water, rainwater, and spring water — those five. Hydration in particular is an essential component for every 'person.'"

At those words, Lucia's jaw dropped all the way to the floor.

"Are you even human?!"

…? What did I do wrong this time?

"I don't know about other 'people,' but for humans, the five major nutrients are carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals!"

She was yelling at me like this, but had I really done something wrong…? I honestly couldn't tell anymore.