'Esper Society Introduction - The Supreme Force.'
"What a domineering name," Rina couldn't help but remark, her eyes flashing with interest.
Kaizer, for that matter, only narrowed his eyes and flipped open the folder, reading silently with Rina beside him. There were only the sounds of pages flipping slowly and the occasional gasp before the final page was turned and the document was closed.
By this point, the expression of Kaizer and Rina were vastly different from before, with Kaizer being thoughtful while Rina was bored. Keith saw their reactions and shook his head, asking directly: "Well, what do you think?"
What did they think?
Kaizer was not exactly sure how to put it. The document they just read was very informative, almost too much. It not only included the current situation of the esper world but also a brief history about it.
As expected, Espers had existed since the first gathering of homo sapiens, with small tribes appointing them as shamans, chiefs, and even carving totems based on their power. It was precisely because of espers that homo sapiens could suppress all the other homo species and become the supreme foundation, leading to humans today.
Every major event since history featured them: the Greek Gods were espers, the Roman Gods, the Egyptians, etc. Of course, the name given to espers changed over the course of history, which was why ancient espers called themselves gods and such.
This lasted up until today, where espers had become more regulated and organized with the growth of humanity, gradually fading into the background after the introduction of modern weaponry that could defeat 99% of espers.
They no longer dared to call themselves gods and create myths nor rule empires as god kings and command armies to war, but now existed under the thumb of the non-espers, with non-espers' governments even recruiting their own espers to form a regulatory department that monitored the esper world like a hawk.
The current esper world is split into various factions based on their power, makeup, and strength. Factions were ranked internally from F to S, with an F-rank faction being a small group of like-minded espers looking to do what they wanted freely, while S-rank factions were behemoths that survived from eras long before.
Currently, the document only introduced the S-rank factions in detail, and some notable A-rank ones, but the rest were left blank because they were not important. At least, the creator of this folder did not deem them important to the young duo.
According to this document, there were four S-rank factions. The first and presumed strongest was the Supreme Force, the very faction that created this document for them.
The Supreme Force was naturally the given name for the government-backed agency and department that recruited espers to police the esper world. As they had the backing of the government, their payment, knowledge, and treatment were the greatest, leading to the best of the best signing up with them.
The Supreme Force was acknowledged as the strongest because they were led by the strongest esper in the world, Reaper. He was a death ability user who could control the life and death of anyone within his purview and even bring the dead back to life, his ability so overpowered that all other factions acted like meek cats in his presence for the years that he exerted his influence.
It was only that about 20 years ago, the fellow suddenly disappeared one night, creating a power vacuum at the position of strongest that was now held by another temporarily.
The current strongest faction was the Esper Academy. This was a semi-governmental force that took young espers with significant talent and trained them in the usage of their abilities, with graduates mostly going into the Supreme Force to serve or joining other recognized factions depending on their quality.
The Esper Academy was semi-governmental in the sense that it was fully funded and subsidized by the government, but did not take any directives from it. This was done because no esper would send their young to be trained by this academy if they were going to be bossed around by the government, not to mention that the espers at the top of the academy were abhorrently strong.
The current strongest esper was the Director of the Academy, who was the former second place when Reaper was around. Because of this, the academy had been growing in influence the past two decades and even faintly suppressed the Supreme Force.
The third S-class force were the Esper Commission. These were free-spirited espers who answered to no one, their main purpose being to take on various jobs and commissions from all around the world to use their power to perform various things.
It could be common things like construction, healing, or divination. It could also be things like exorcism, ghost-busting, and spirit communion. Finally, there were darker things like bounty hunting, assassination, stealing, or sabotage.
This neutral faction offered jobs of all types for payment that was used in reality. Unfortunately, espers did not have a special currency like 'esper crystals' which conveniently boosted their power. They used paper currency like all of us, needing the same food, sex, and shelter that we did.
The Esper Commission just offered specialized jobs that only espers with certain powers could do as a way to earn money and become rich enough to live like lords.
The final S-class faction were the Ancients. This group was a secretive faction that merged esper power with religion, being the ones who still believed espers to be akin to gods and that all humans should worship them.
They were a borderline dark esper faction that had a bad reputation in the esper world because most terrorist attacks that occurred in the world today were linked to them, and many human wars like World War 1 and 2 were orchestrated by them.
Looking at the description of this faction, Kaizer grimly understood that this was likely the one that Carla and her group were from as their details matched what he extracted from Barnes' mind when he questioned them.
Kaizer did not understand why they were marked as a borderline dark esper faction until he realized that this group didn't actually harm espers, but only harmed normal people. The Supreme Force did dislike them, but not that much since they were quite lenient when espers were involved.
So his car exploding was seen as lenient? Lyle and the others definitely reported that he was an esper, and he was one who killed Carla and beat them all up.
So they had to retaliate somehow and they chose a car explosion that would only inconvenience him at best in order to send a message?
What about the cars that almost spun out of control and would have created a horrific chain accident had he not used his telekinesis to save them?
Borderline dark esper faction… heh.
Among the listed A-rank factions were only two, one light esper faction and one dark esper faction. The light esper faction was called the Dawn Light Organization, which was a group of kind-hearted fellows who used their powers to help the weak and needy.
The dark esper faction were the Dark Hunters, who were those like Carla who freely indulged in their power at the expense of both normal people and other espers, killing, raping, and stealing as they pleased.