Welcome to the Classroom of Espers (Classroom of the Elite x The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)

Chapter 1: The Misfortune of an Esper

Psychic powers.

Abilities ordinary humans aren’t supposed to have—unexplainable by science, far beyond common sense.

Telepathy: reading another’s thoughts without speaking.

Clairvoyance: seeing through another’s clothing.

Telekinesis: moving objects without touching them.

Teleportation: instantly traveling vast distances from where you stand.

Truly, powers anyone who hears of them would long for—who wouldn’t want to be an esper?

But only those without such powers think of them as convenient or wonderful.

You’ve heard the saying, the grass is greener on the other side, haven’t you?

Take telepathy, for example.

If you can’t turn it off, if you’re constantly assaulted by the unending stream of people’s thoughts flooding directly into your brain—

To put it mildly, it’s hell.

Like right now.

(Man, I just wanna sit down. Hurry up and get off already.)

(A lot of students on board today, huh.)

(Someone gave that old lady a seat already.)

(Ahh~ I’m beautiful again today.)

(Buses shake more than I expected.)

(Yaaah! Bread tastes great again today!)

This is just what happens from simply riding a bus.

And that was only a small fraction.

The bus is packed full, standing room only.

Every single thought from every single person crammed in here is being fired at me nonstop.

It must be something like what a special-grade cursed spirit feels when struck with Unlimited Void.

Since the time I was old enough to be aware, other people’s thoughts have been pouring into me. At this point, I’m used to it.

(That glasses guy hasn’t looked anywhere but forward this whole time. What’s his deal? Creepy. Ugh, I wanna sit too… but the old lady’s still standing, so at least two people would have to get off first. Well, most of the passengers are wearing the same uniform as me, so maybe seats will open up soon.)

Even someone who looks like the cute type on the outside is thinking things like this inside.

Not that it matters where I’m looking.

Though, for someone who sounds two-faced, she does at least have the decency to think about letting an elderly person sit first.

Clairvoyance is another unbearable nuisance.

The average teenage boy might think, Whoa, I can see the naked bodies of my crush or random pretty girls—awesome! But they’d be dead wrong if they thought it only stopped at clothes.

First the clothes disappear, then the underwear.

Then bare skin.

Then the blood vessels, bones, and organs inside.

And this, too, I cannot turn off. I could see it all from the time I was little.

So, needless to say, I’ve long since gotten sick of looking at naked bodies. Instead, what really catches my eye are the slight differences in people’s organs and bone structures, or how someone with early signs of illness has organs that look distinctly wrong. Which, frankly, is just plain grotesque.

I can reset it temporarily by blinking or shifting my gaze, but three seconds later I’m back to full nudity, and five seconds later the blood vessels show through. Which means if I want to hold a normal conversation with someone wearing clothes, I can’t afford to blink too much.

(Ouch… there goes my back again. Must be my age…)

Which is why I can tell that the old lady standing diagonally behind me—her back pain has nothing to do with her age.

(Or maybe it’s just because I shook my hips too much trying to show off for my grandkids…)

Inflammation of the muscles around the waist.

The true culprit was spending four straight hours on “Ring Fit Adventure” long after the boom had already passed.

Seems all grandparents alike want to look cool in front of their grandkids.

As for teleportation, as long as it’s somewhere I’ve “seen before,” I can travel there instantly—even to places I’ve never actually set foot in.

There’s no restriction like “you have to know the exact location.” And if someone is touching me, I can bring them along too. So if Earth’s ever about to explode, just leave it to me.

—Or at least I’d like to say that. But there’s one big drawback: I can’t use it again until after a one-to-three-minute interval has passed.

By now, you should understand.

Psychic powers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

“With psychic powers, life would be a bed of roses.”

That kind of thinking is a huge mistake.

It’s constant spoilers and nonstop privacy violations.

Even though I don’t use social media, my brain is basically forced to scroll through the timelines of everyone within a 200-meter radius.

And just moments ago, the very same girl who’d been inwardly fuming that “someone should give up their seat” for the grandma with the hip pain-from-hip-shaking was now raising her voice.

The thoughts of the other passengers immediately poured into me in a torrent.

(Should I give her my seat…? But it’s only five more minutes… no, but…)

(Come on already! Poor old lady! I’d give her my seat if I wasn’t stuck till the last stop!)

(If I were sitting, I’d totally give it up…)

(Can’t this bus just get to school already…? It’s getting boring.)

(Maybe I should… but I don’t really want to stand out…)

(Ugh, shut up already. I finally got a seat, and it’s not like people usually give them up anyway.)

(She really does look like she’s struggling though…)

Strong sense of justice or not, the girl who spoke up still had that selfish streak of wanting to stay seated herself. And since the next stop wasn’t coming up right away, everyone else just averted their eyes.

Me? In situations like this, I just pretend to be asleep.

Sorry, Grandma, but I don’t want to draw attention either.

Before long, the spotlight shifted onto a male student sitting in the priority seat—someone who had shown no reaction to her call.

The girl insisted he should give up his seat for the old woman. But instead of pausing to think, he shot back with a denial, as though the response had popped into his head fully formed, this is what I should say.

A quick thinker, that one.

In the end, it was another student entirely who gave up their seat, and with that little drama over, the bus finally arrived safely at Advanced Nurturing High School.

Advanced Nurturing High School… unlike PK Academy, my first choice, this is a fully boarding national school.

Fully boarding—that means every single student here lives under the same roof and takes the same classes. Which in turn means that as long as even one of them is awake, my mental timeline feed will never, ever have a peaceful night.

As for why I ended up here in the first place, that would take too long to explain, so let’s skip it.

“Kuu-chan, don’t gooo!”

“Kusueeemon!”

My parents had gone ahead and submitted my application without asking, and then bawled their eyes out about it later. Still, not having to worry about tuition anymore turned out to be pretty convenient.

By the way, “Kuu-chan” and “Kusue-mon” are nicknames derived from my name, Kusuo.

My mom has always called me that consistently. My dad, on the other hand, only uses “Kusue-mon” when he’s asking me to use my powers. Most of the time, he just calls me Kusuo.

Since this is a boarding school, if I ever have trouble sleeping, I can just teleport back home. I told them to keep my room the way it was before I left, so there shouldn’t be any problems.

Well then… what kind of school life awaits me here?

(So they’ve arrived… the new first-years this year.)

(They don’t know a thing yet, do they. Poor kids.)

(Just like me a year ago.)

…Huh? Poor kids?

As far as I heard, this is a government-run high school where your desired career path is guaranteed after graduation. Why would getting in here be considered “unfortunate”?

Not that I have any particular career path in mind myself. I only came here out of my parents’ “goodwill.” So it’s not like I’m attached to it or anything.

Still… that bothers me.

(I wonder how many points Class D will have left this year.)

(100,000 points, huh… I still regret blowing it all back in April.)

(Bet those Class D idiots won’t even think about what the surveillance cameras are for.)

(What do you mean we don’t get 100,000 points every month?! They should’ve told us that from the start, damn it!)

(Saying only Class A gets guaranteed career paths after graduation… that’s fraud! If only I’d flunked out on the very first test…)

—And just like that, all kinds of information I was supposed to learn a month later came pouring in from the oh-so-considerate senpai around me.

Apparently, the school is divided into Classes A through D, with the lower letters being made up of students with worse grades or evaluations.

At the start, everyone is given 100,000 points to spend in school or nearby facilities.

But from the second month onward, that allowance decreases depending on the class’s grades and behavior. And behavior is monitored by surveillance cameras.

What’s more, that “guaranteed career path after graduation”? It only applies to those who are still in Class A when they graduate.

So that’s how it is.

From what I picked up, the third-years haven’t had any class changes, but in the second year, a class that started out in Class B managed to climb its way up to Class A.

Other spoilers flying around include where students go over summer vacation—sounds like some deserted island—whether anyone’s going to ask for past test questions, and so on.

From the looks of it, I’ve enrolled in a truly troublesome school.

Good grief. Welcome to the academy of endless spoilers… or something like that.

(So I’m in Class D, huh… but, uh, what’s with that guy? How long is he gonna stand there?)

(Class D… come to think of it, hasn’t he been standing there since we got off the bus? Maybe it’s just me.)

(Ugh, don’t tell me I’m in the same class as Horikita… this is the worst. Ughhh, I’m depressed already. Seriously, unbelievable! Huh, what’s Horikita looking at…? That guy’s still standing at the gate? The building’s not that unusual, is it?)

Apparently, my just standing there while everyone else from the bus had already checked their class assignments was starting to draw attention.

Guess I should hurry up and check mine, and get to the classroom.

<+>

Note:

I’m not sure which class to throw him into.

Class D ▶︎ Easiest to write, but with both Saiki and Ayanokoji it’d be way too overpowered. Still, if Saiki wants to stay in Class D no matter what, maybe there could be a development where he drags Ayanokoji down a bit. But if the class points just keep going up on their own, he might just ignore it—since that would mean more funds he could invest in sweets.

Class C ▶︎ If Dragon Boy decides he’s “useful,” even if it’s not due to psychic powers, he’d probably get worked to the bone. Saiki would reluctantly go along, but since Ryuen gives proper rewards to people he considers useful, he might just end up getting bribed with sweets.

Class B ▶︎ There aren’t any stand-out talents there, so I’d kind of like to place him in. But since Saiki isn’t the type to aim for the top, they’d probably stay in Class B forever—never dropping, but never making it to Class A either.

Class A ▶︎ Even if he does nothing, there’d still be plenty of points, with two commanders already there. As long as he stays neutral, there shouldn’t be any problems… but then Katsuragi might start forming a troublesome deal with Ryuen, and Saiki would probably have to step in to stop it. Then he’d get labeled as part of the Sakayanagi faction. Poor guy.