Back to the current situation. The clock on the wall showed that it was 8 AM, and I was now taking an academic measurement test.

I did a bit of research before enrolling in Kiseki High School. It's a kind of test to measure students’ capabilities in academics.

The test comprises multiple standard subjects like Math, Science, and English. Although not for grades, it’s used to help teachers understand the academic standing of each student.

When I found out about this, for some reason I felt happy knowing that teachers care a lot about our growth… well most of the time.

Unlike back in noble school, there's no such kind of test like this. Everything has been measured up based on your family status.

Basically…

There's no real surprise or whatsoever in your life, like— ugh… this question is really hard… I'm skipping question 6…

Ehem, like it's all just a plain clear path stretching towards an endless horizon in front of you. It's like walking like a— Man, question 7 is hard as hell too… well, guess I'll have to skip this one too…

...

What? What was I saying?

Wait no, I didn't say those. It sounded just like me, even I got mixed with that voice and my own thoughts...

"I guess I can do this one... never mind."

It was the same voice again, but I ignored it.

I snapped back to reality and realized the test had started. My mind was still on that voice that sounded just like me. I turned my head to the source of the voice.

"Ugh..."

This guy next to me, he sounded like he was struggling with this test.

His uniform was a mess, tie loose and all. Is he a delinquent or something? But he looks like the kind of handsome guy who would get a lot of attention from the girls.

Also, what was he struggling with again? Number 7... Number 7... Let's see...

“If Bob has two buckets and he gives a bucket to cooler Bob, how many buckets does Bob have?”

What...?

I quickly turned my head again over that guy, questioning.

Was he being serious!? It was basically just 2 minus 1...

I mean, I expected there'd be someone who's bad at school stuff... But I didn't expect it to be this bad.

Though, I shouldn't have been bothered by it... Actually no, the fact that he questioned that, still doesn't sound right.

ARGH! Whatever, I gotta focus on mine first. There was like an hour left. This kind of test should be easy for someone from a noble school. So I shouldn't have any problem with it.

I took a deep breath, regaining my composure, then went back to focusing on the test. But of course, easier said than done. This guy had been muttering easy questions like he was questioning life.

"If X equals 10, what's X minus 9... urgh..."

Yeah, this dude... Really, he kept getting me distracted. I could barely keep my focus straight.

The problem was that— If X equals 10, then X minus 9 could either be one of these options...

Yeah that was the problem. No, not the X equals 10 thing. But his voice sounded just like me. It's like hearing my own voice and it keeps bothering me. And oh boy it kept going for a while.

“If I multiply this by zero, it should be zero… Wait but isn’t everything to the power of zero is always one?”

That’s not even related... Actually, how do you know that kind of stuff but not basic multiplication!?

“The field is 49 feet long… My foot is like 27cm so that’s mean…”

No, that’s not… Do you even know what “feet” measure here!?

“If you have D such qubits, and you need to store the complete, perfectly lossless digital consciousness of a single human being, what is the maximum number of conscious entities you could store, assuming optimal compression and instantaneous data transfer at a rate of E exabytes per Planck time unit? Hm… Since D is…”

Wha- Is that even in the test!?

Minutes had passed, and there was still no sign of this guy next to me stopping whatever he was muttering about.

It really bothers me to the point I couldn’t take it anymore. Like, DUDE—

“It’s A, just answer A. Literally, it’s not that hard.”

Uh oh—

I didn’t mean to say that out loud. He looked at me with wide eyes. Pretty sure he thinks I’m insane now.

“Huh? Oh, aight gotcha!”

Eh?

HUH!? You can’t just go on and— Urgh I don’t even know anymore with this guy…

The test is now over. I went back to my seat after taking my test result. There was still a bit of time left before the next agenda, so I was thinking why not relax and take a load off?

“Hey man! Thanks a bunch for before!”

Ah, the guy who had an identical voice like mine and uh… questionable intelligence.

"Ah yeah, no worries... It's literally just basic math."

"Still, I was struggling a lot and dunno what to do without ya haha!"

"That's... the concerning part..."

Really, I don't know if this guy was being serious or not. It was really troublesome having to hear this guy's mutters... Actually, it's quite rude of me for thinking like this. Still... what he was doing was still questionable.

"By the way, what's your score?"

"A hundred, what about you?"

"Woah, that's real impressive! Well, I got zero!"

Huh!? How is this guy even able to be that bad? Like the chance of getting zero is really low in the first place!?

"Are you being serious? Can I see your test results?"

"Mhm yep, here ya go."

He handed his test results proudly. And it really was zero... and full of red X's down the page too. I suddenly remembered that I, out of frustration... gave him an answer to one of the questions. I searched for the question and it is marked correct.

"Wait, this one is marked correct... why is your score still zero?"

"Ah, I got it wrong in the name field."

HUH!? Does that mean that if I didn't help him back then, he would have a negative score? Actually... What am I even witnessing just now!?

“Y-You… now that I think about it… You sounded just like me, am I dreaming or something?”

“Now that you mentioned it, yeah our voices are identical! Sick!”

“...So am I dreaming or not?”

“Haha! Well, the name's Masaki Hashimoto, call me Saki!”

“Ah, yeah… I'm Yukihiko Fukunaga… you can call me— wait what? You remembered your name just now!?”

“Oh yeah!”

“Don't ‘oh yeah!’ me!?”

What the heck is with this guy? My butt hasn't even been in normal society for long, but I'm rational enough to know that this guy is definitely not normal…

"Alright, Yuki! Glad to know ya!"

"You sounded like we’re parting… also don’t call me that."

"Gotcha. By the way, Yuki..."

"Didn't I tell you not to call me that?"

"You're a genius huh. Just like that girl over there. Well, you're second to her."

Saki pointed at a girl across the class. It was the same girl I met this morning... her roast still felt like it was poisoning me. At the same time, I realized she got into the same class as mine, which was quite surprising.

"She scored 140 out of 100 by the way."

"WHAT!?"

Oh boy. Here I thought today couldn't get any weirder. That girl that bumped into me, actual massive robots casually sitting next to students. And now this guy— Handsome-looking, friendly, and cheerful guy that you'd never regret being friends with!

"Did you just put words in my thoughts?"

"What thoughts?"

"Whatever."

Honestly, part of me felt slightly happy. Being with this kind of guy felt so refreshing and maybe, this was the first time I actually felt like I have a genuine friend.

Though...

I doubted that any of this could really be considered... normal.

Yeah, that was my own voice, I meant it.