After making her way to the door of the first victim’s home, Blazing Flame took a deep breath, raised her hand, and knocked on the door, her mind already rehearsing the introduction she had prepared.
“Knock knock.”
“Who is it?”
From inside the room came the sound of a man getting up and the rough scraping of the sofa.
It seemed the whole family of three was at home.
Good, the trip wasn’t wasted.
After cheering herself on internally, Blazing Flame delivered her opening remarks right on the spot.
“I am Blazing Flame, a combatant from the Monster Response Department. I suspect that your recent hospitalization was due to a monster’s influence, so I’ve come here to look for some clues.”
“Blazing Flame? Magical Girl Scorching Flame?! Hurry, please come in!”
Upon hearing Blazing Flame introduce herself, the middle-aged man’s voice became excited at once.
He quickly came to the door, opened it, and invited Blazing Flame inside.
“Uh… Thank you. Sorry for the intrusion.”
“Not at all! Getting to see Blazing Flame in person—I’m more than thrilled!”
The middle-aged man shook his head hurriedly, his face full of excitement, just like a frenzied fan meeting his idol.
Feeling the other’s intense, almost fanatic gaze of admiration, Blazing Flame felt her scalp tingle and didn’t know what polite words she ought to say.
What is going on? Why is someone she doesn’t even know treating her with so much respect?
Thankfully, when Director Xu asked her earlier, she hadn’t nodded and said she wanted to be an idol, otherwise, when faced with so many audience members staring at her, she really might have turned into a timid lizard and run off stage.
“Ahem, sorry about that. Faced with the great hero who saved Yunjin’s life, I got a little carried away.”
The man seemed to realize that his gaze was a bit odd, so he coughed twice, scratched his head awkwardly, and explained why he was so excited.
After hearing his explanation, Blazing Flame let out a soft “Oh” and could understand.
Back then, her performance had been far too dazzling. It was difficult for Yunjin’s fans not to remember her.
Well, for someone who needed attention, this could be considered a good thing.
“No worries, I quite like Yunjin too. At the time, I was just lucky there were no casualties.” Blazing Flame replied casually. “By the way, do you remember where you lost consciousness? I’d like to check the scene.”
“Me? I remember fainting in my room, but the neighbors said they found me on the sofa…”
“It doesn’t matter, anywhere is fine. I’ll need to look around your home anyway.” Blazing Flame smiled.
“That’s true…”
The middle-aged man nodded and immediately led Blazing Flame to his room.
As soon as she entered, Blazing Flame sensed an extremely dense, abnormal magical aura, making her frown as she looked around every corner of the room.
A boy in the room glanced at his father and Blazing Flame curiously, then went back to his game, not caring at all about their arrival.
Seeing this, the middle-aged man assumed the air in the room wasn’t circulating well, so he hurriedly opened the bedroom window, apologizing with a guilty look.
“Sorry, my kid gets so caught up in his game that he forgets to open the window. Please don’t mind…”
“No, it’s not an air problem, it’s a monster problem.”
“Mon—monster?” The man was dumbfounded. “How could that be? My room is so small, how could there be a monster in here?”
“There’s certainly no monster in your room now, but there are traces left behind from when a monster was here.”
Blazing Flame ran her hand along the wall, and with a motion, extracted a ball of black threads from inside the wall and crushed it.
“Looks like the first place the monster went was your room.”
“Th—then will this affect our daily lives?” The middle-aged man asked with a worried expression.
“Hard to say. I’m not sure if this monster’s magical aura will affect ordinary people… Hm?”
Just as Blazing Flame was pondering what else to ask, Pandora, who had been silent at her side, suddenly jumped off her shoulder.
Pandora seemed to have discovered something, and started pawing along the wall, pulling out more balls of black threads and eating them one by one.
Although Pandora’s actions were filled with a sense of eeriness, Blazing Flame couldn’t sense anything truly strange from them.
“What’s the matter, Miss Blazing Flame?” The middle-aged man asked with concern.
“…Nothing.” Blazing Flame shook her head, ignoring Pandora, and continued the earlier topic, “Can you tell me what you dreamed about right before you lost consciousness?”
“Ah, sure. I remember I was on the sofa playing on my phone. Then, when it was time for bed, I went to my room and saw something that looked like a ghost. It made the room very dark and knocked me out.”
The man’s simple explanation matched what Miss Sapphire had described earlier.
How odd…
Blazing Flame raised an eyebrow, still unable to figure out why the Nightmare Monster had chosen this family of three.
If the Bomb Beast had picked Yunjin because she was the most famous, and that would cause the widest panic—
Then why had the Nightmare Monster chosen them?
From any angle, this family of three was very ordinary, nothing stood out about them.
…No, that’s not right!
Blazing Flame suddenly realized something, her eyes widening as she looked at the boy playing games so calmly.
She walked over and watched him enjoy his paid shooter game, then suddenly chuckled.
Honestly, how had she missed such a simple clue?
“Since waking up from the hospital, have you noticed any strange changes in your body?” Blazing Flame shook her head with a smile and asked the middle-aged man.
“I don’t think so. I’m still in good health.”
“What about your relationships? Your emotions?” Blazing Flame pressed further.
“Well…”
The middle-aged man hesitated, as if unsure whether he should answer something so private.
But the boy playing the game suddenly put down his mouse, turned around, and shouted at Blazing Flame.
“I have! I was really unhappy at my extracurricular class today!”
Just as expected!
Hearing the boy’s answer, Blazing Flame instantly became excited.
She crouched down so the boy wouldn’t have to look up at her and asked gently, “What happened? Can you tell me?”
The boy looked at Blazing Flame, then at his father beside him.
Pressing his lips together, he nodded firmly and said to Blazing Flame, “I… when I was at school today, it felt like the teachers and classmates were acting weird. The teacher would ask me to answer questions, and when I didn’t know, he’d call me stupid, and the other kids laughed at me.”
“I got really angry right then, and I felt super strong, like I could punch them all down.”
“But Dad always taught me not to fight with others, to protect myself, so I held back and didn’t hit anyone.”
“When I thought about going to the extracurricular class again later, I felt really scared. When I got home, I wanted to tell Dad, but I noticed he was acting strange too, so I didn’t dare say anything…”
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