The Isekai Police [Books 1 + 2 Complete!]

Class ended without any fanfare. The students got up from their seats and left the classroom with looks of satisfaction and bemusement at the day's novel lesson.

It was the best thing Artyom could have asked for from them all things considered. He was thrown into this whole substitute teacher mess head-first without enough context to come up with a proper lesson plan, after all. And the fact his lesson plan was a good fit, one he had to come up with on the fly after talking to the students, was a downright miracle.

"That'll keep them busy for a while, and I'll teach them some more fundamentals tomorrow," Artyom said to himself once the room was empty. "Now to take care of my own business".

The outside hallway was barren. There was a scheduled break right now, and it looked like nobody wanted to be anywhere near a classroom for those precious thirty minutes. However, there was one other person leaving their classroom.

"Oh! Are you taking classes too?" asked Neitra as she walked over to Artyom, looking a little tired but otherwise excited. "I was able to sit in on a practical magic class and they're currently covering locks and barriers. Pretty good timing, huh?"

"Yeah, that is convenient," replied Artyom with a nod.

"What classes are you taking?"

"The headmistress actually roped me into teaching their magical combat class," he said with a slight grumble. "Apparently Xerica too, but we weren't told until after we'd both arrived to teach."

"Sava doesn't strike me as that air-headed."

"That's because she isn't. She did it on purpose and is stoking our rivalry so we try to outdo each other."

"Huh… that's really smart of her. But what are you going to do about it?"

"Teach the class better than Xerica, of course!" he said with a proud huff.

"And fall into her trap?"

"Eh, it's not so bad," Artyom replied with a shrug. "These kids need a good teacher for magical combat, and I haven't met anyone qualified yet." That wasn't to mention that Tommy was in Xerica's class, and he wanted to convince the hero to join his class instead.

And especially not to mention, even to himself, that he wanted to show Xerica up.

"By the way," Artyom continued. "Since we're both free, can you meet me in my room? There's something important I need to talk to you about in private."

"About the others in the party?" she asked.

"Yeah," replied Artyom with an easy lie. She didn't remember their actual discussion from yesterday after all, and he still needed to remind her. "Come on."

The two navigated several winding hallways and stairs until they reached the hallway that held the boy's dormitories. As they approached Artyom's room, Neitra began to look more and more worried, which reached its peak when he invited her inside.

"Um, am I actually allowed in? Am I even allowed in this part of the school? This is the boy's side and I am a girl after all…"

Just like last time.

"Yeah, they allow this kind of thing," replied Artyom easily. "Besides, we're not even students, it's not like they can tell us what we can and can't do to this level."

Netira let out a held breath and quickly stepped inside. "So what did you want to talk to me about?" she asked.

Artyom didn't immediately reply and instead walked over to his desk. He pulled out the center drawer completely and placed it down before sticking his hand into the empty space, rummaging around animatedly. It took a few seconds before he found what he was looking for, and pulled out two sheets of paper, handing one to Neitra.

"What's this?" she asked while looking it over. "And why does it look like it's my handwriting?"

"That's because it is."

As the rogue's eyes went over the paper, her eyes began to grow increasingly wide. First in surprise, then shock, and finally horror.

"I-I don't remember any of this!" she exclaimed, forcing herself not to tear the paper where she held it with a stone-like grip that left her hands bone-white. Her eyes then darted to her wrist and saw a hairband wrapped around it. "I woke up with it like this, and I kept it on because I had a feeling I shouldn't take it off, but now I know why."

"Wait, you had a feeling?" asked Artyom.

"Yeah, like a mental note to keep it on. It's an instinctual rogue thing."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"But I only told you about the hairband trick at the same time you learned everything written in your notes. Are your instincts System-based? Is that another workaround for the anti-meme?"

"They are, and I think so," she replied with a thoughtful nod. "But I can't remember anything specific, it just tells me if something is dangerous if I should know it's dangerous."

"And those are the specifics?" asked Artyom. "As in, the actual wording of the Skill?"

"What do you mean? Skills don't come with descriptions, but that is the closest thing to one from what I've seen of it."

"Well, it's a start," replied Artyom with a sigh. He plopped himself down onto his bed and closed his eyes. "So how much of yesterday do you remember? Any new pieces of information we can add to our collective pool?"

Neitra sat down on the chair facing him and began to ponder. Soon she replied, "I remember everything until we got dinner. After eating, the party got together to do something, but you couldn't join because you were sick."

"That was the excuse you said you'd give them for why I couldn't join, so that part is only somewhat accurate. But it's a surprise that it wasn't fully erased, only the details related to the search."

"I'm guessing we were actually searching for the armor piece after eating?"

Artyom nodded. "And the excuse was so only one of us would have our memories erased each day, and the other would be able to remind them."

"That's what I wrote down here," replied Neitra, holding up her notes. "This is all a single day's notes, right?"

Artyom nodded again.

"That's what it looks like, but I can't even remember how long we've been at this school, come to think of it."

"It's day three. On the first day we arrived in the evening and started exploring. Second day I woke up with your hairband around my wrist, " he said, holding up his hand. "And I told you about it too. Then you went with the others on the search for the armor piece. And today is day three."

"I didn't even consider how long it's been," replied Neitra. "Do you think the others won't realize they're stuck either?"

"If nobody reminds them how long it's been, the anti-meme will keep them from thinking about it. But if they do remember, there might be especially big trouble."

"How come?"

"I joined some students hunting for treasure yesterday and I went down a corridor trapped with an anti-meme. Daisy and Ecole apparently followed me and tried to kill me after we were past it."

"Did they actually try to-"

"Yes, they very clearly stated, out loud, that they were going to kill me and use the fact nobody else was around to claim it was the trap," replied Artyom, somewhat annoyed.

"Sorry. It's still hard to believe. Lensa said it outright sure, but I was hoping the others…"

"She already said they're in on it too," replied Artyom.

Neitra grew silent and took a deep breath. As she exhaled, her eyes steeled in resolve and looked directly into Artyom's. "I need to accept the truth, I can't let how much it hurts cloud my judgement about it." Her gaze went to the side as the severity of her expression softened. "But it's not easy. Learning that all of my teammates have always wanted me dead? I can learn to stop questioning whether it's the truth, but not how or why it is that way."

Artyom felt his own facial features go slack. "It's not something you can ever get used to," he said in a low whisper. "My first friends away from Earth, brothers and sisters-in-arms, did the same to me."

Neitra didn't know what to say. She looked at him in shock with her mouth partially open, choking back the gasp in her throat.

"But that was a long time ago!" Artyom exclaimed with a loud clap that forced any uncomfortable thoughts out of everyone's minds. "I have better friends now who have saved my life more than enough times for me to fully trust. Anyway, back to Daisy and Ecole. They said they were able to get past the trap because they've encountered ones like that before."

"So they know about anti-memes. But how? Xerica's the only one of us who's been a student here, and I'm the one who disarms all of the traps. I've seen how she deals with them; she just walks through them without ever getting damaged!"

"Remember, they're fatewatchers. They have history beyond this party, but we don't know how much, or at what point they would've encountered anti-memes."

"That doesn't leave much of a window, seeing as how they're about as old as Tommy."

Artyom nodded, not having anything else to contribute after that. The conversation as a whole died down too, neither of the two having much else to say.

Neitra awkwardly scratched at her hair as she rose from her seat, but then stopped. Her hand reached further into her brown curls and under her hair band. After fishing in there for a few more seconds, much to Artyom's apparent confusion, the rogue finally pulled out a torn sheet of paper.

"Is that…"

"I must've written myself a note!" exclaimed Neitra. She quickly unfurled it and took a look, before her bright and excited smile quickly turned into a confused frown.

Artyom saw her expression and felt his sour as well. "Let me guess, you can't read it?"

"No actually, I can. But…" she didn't say any more and just handed him the scrap of paper.

Artyom gingerly took it and looked upon its surface. "There is one," he read aloud.

"That's all it says, and I don't even know what it means," said Neitra with a sigh. "Wait a minute, we can read it! This is still big!"

Artyom nodded with a smile. "Yeah, you've found a limit to the anti-meme! I wrote down a lot more details but we couldn't even read it last time, the fact we can understand this means there are some details that can get past."

"And we have a clue about what it is. There's one, it could mean there's one anti-meme, or that it has a single source."

Artyom put a hand to his chin. "But the school has more than one anti-meme in it, I dealt with one yesterday and I have an intact memory of it."

"So that narrows it even more," replied Neitra with a bright smile.

He couldn't help but match her enthusiasm. "I guess it does. And I'll keep all of that in mind when I search with the others tonight."

"Good luck, and I hope you have better luck than me."

With everything said, Neitra got up and left the room, leaving Artyom to dread what was coming up.

"But there are still things for me to do before tonight's search," he said, feeling his stomach beginning to rumble. "Such as getting lunch, and doing another search of my own. Let's see if I can find those junior archeologists in the cafeteria."