‘This child, even though her chest is so flat, she’s a total airhead.’
Shioya massaged her forehead, thinking to herself that it was a good thing this stupid loli was easy to fool… Wait, no. Why was she hiding it? It seemed it would be better to let Cthusu know?
‘If she conspires with Huang Xiaoyi, it will actually benefit Xiaoyi, and she’ll just go even harder on me later.’
Thinking of this, Shioya raised her hand, her lips trembling. However, she then met Huang Xiaoyi’s sidelong glance. She silently lowered her hand and shut her mouth.
“Guh…!”
‘This is tyranny! This is oppression!’
‘Damned Evil God…’
Withdrawing her gaze, Huang Xiaoyi used her index finger to lift a strand of her hanging golden hair, winding it around her finger like she was swirling noodles. She asked calmly, “Now it’s Cthusu’s turn to answer. Why did you show up here at this time…?”
“Ah, I came to find Teacher Shioya,” Cthusu answered frankly, her small head tilting to the side. She rested a fingertip against her lip, looking quite puzzled. “I saw her come to the library.”
“Hmm?” Huang Xiaoyi’s hair-twirling stopped for a moment. She used the corner of her eye to once again size up the little sakura dragon poking her fingers beside her. She pressed, “And then?”
“And then she disap —”
“Ah —!”
Shioya hastily let out a loud shout to interrupt their conversation. After the two girls turned their gazes toward her simultaneously, she waved her hand and said with a twitching lip, “Speaking of which — I came to the library with Teacher Shioya. Later, Teacher stayed here for a little while and then left. I don’t know anything after that…”
Even Shioya felt her tone was a bit exaggerated. She had obviously been able to keep a straight face in situations like this before, so why was she so nervous now…!
“…”
As she spoke, she suddenly felt a chill crawl up her back. Her fingers twisted together uneasily, and her eyes flickered between the two girls’ faces.
Cthusu looked thoughtful, while Huang Xiaoyi wore a look of blatant suspicion.
“Teacher was here…?”
Huang Xiaoyi slowly walked up to Shioya. At this moment, her eyes had returned to their usual golden color. Her triangular pupils stared fixedly at the pink-haired girl’s face, as if she were trying to find someone’s shadow in it. “You said you came with Teacher?”
“Y-Yes…”
Shioya bit the bullet and answered.
At this point, besides stubbornly sticking to this claim, there seemed to be no other way.
“…”
The blonde girl fell silent for a moment before turning to walk down the stairs. “Whatever. I’ll have the answer soon anyway.”
This sudden remark caused Shioya’s heart to sink. She jerked her head up and looked at that slender back.
‘She’ll have the answer soon? What does that mean?’
‘Does she have some means of gathering information? Magic… no, if she could use magic, she would have used it long ago. Cameras? I didn’t see any when I came in…’
Shioya’s brain was like a storage room, with every memory stored in an individual compartment. When needed, she could take one out and see the scene at the time.
‘At that time, I walked into the library using Shirley’s body and passed the librarian…’
‘!!!’
‘Right! If she wants to confirm if someone entered the library, she just needs to ask the librarian at the counter. There’s only one entrance to the library; they see everyone!’
“W-Wait!”
Shioya stumbled after her. But just as she reached Huang Xiaoyi’s back, she felt her body lighten. A faint sensation of weightlessness hit her, along with a tightening feeling around her waist.
She had been lifted off the ground!
“Huang Xiaoyi, you… put me down!”
The little sakura dragon’s legs kicked twice as she tried to pry the tentacle away from her waist with her small hands. The tentacle didn’t budge an inch, exhausting the girl until she was huffing and puffing.
Huang Xiaoyi said coldly, “Behave yourself.”
Cthusu hopped along behind them. “Where are you guys going?”
“The front desk.”
As they spoke, the three of them arrived at the counter one after another. The librarian was sitting on a high stool.
The face of a green owl wearing round-framed glasses was pressed against an open book, and drool was pooling on the table.
*Slap!*
Huang Xiaoyi’s tentacle gave it a hard smack. It jumped in fright, springing up from the stool and losing several clumps of feathers in the process.
“Gua!”
‘Is that the kind of noise an owl should be making?’ Shioya didn’t forget to silently mock it while hanging bound in mid-air.
The owl wiped its beak with a wing and stared wide-eyed to see which audacious fellow dared to disturb its nap. “Who!?”
Having just woken up, its vision was still blurry. It blinked, and the flash of gold in its sight gradually became clear.
An exquisite, doll-like girl was standing expressionless before it. A green tentacle, emerging out of thin air, was coiled around a sakura-colored little dragon girl who was so cute it almost wanted to kidnap her and take her home right then and there.
After seeing who it was, the owl stood at attention, nearly giving Huang Xiaoyi a salute. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you just now!”
It decisively chose its safety over its curiosity. After all, these two sisters were quite notorious in the academy, collectively known alongside the new teacher as the “three most untouchable people in Arkham.”
Huang Xiaoyi didn’t respond and asked directly, “Around 12:30 PM this afternoon, did you see a beautiful woman with black hair and red eyes enter the library?”
When Huang Xiaoyi asked this, Shioya couldn’t help but hold her breath. She thought she was finished. Everything was over. Not only would her identity be exposed, but if she was found to have lied, her punishment would surely be even worse…
At the thought of being locked in a dark room that no detector could find and being tortured mercilessly, the girl felt a wave of despair.
‘Yukino, save me!’
“Ah, about that…”
The owl rubbed the back of its head. Then, it noticed the cute little sakura dragon nodding at it frantically, so it followed along. “I think… y-yes?”
In reality, it had no idea if that woman had come to the library because it had been sleeping earlier. But since that girl was so certain, she must have seen her, right?
“Hmm?”
Noticing the owl’s gaze, Huang Xiaoyi turned her head sharply. Shioya immediately stopped her movements, her toes curling and her tail going stiff as a board, as if she had been hit by a petrification spell.
The little sakura dragon didn’t dare meet that scrutinizing gaze, and cold sweat broke out across her back.
“Why are you looking at her?” Huang Xiaoyi asked icily.
“Me?”
The owl pointed to itself with the tip of its wing, clearly unaware of why Huang Xiaoyi would ask such a thing. It looked at the blonde girl, then back at the dragon girl.
‘Don’t tell her!’
Shioya, unable to move, tried to communicate with the owl through lip-reading. In the next second, something cold and slimy was stuffed into her mouth.
“Puwu! Wuu-wuu!”
With her mouth stuffed by the tentacle, Shioya whimpered, glaring resentfully at Huang Xiaoyi. The blonde girl ignored her and said, “Keep talking.”
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