It was late morning. Inside the Dream Witch’s Underground Garden, Clara was buried in her thoughts, planning out her manga, trying to stockpile as many drafts as possible before the website officially launched. Then she received another call from an unfamiliar number.
Clara had a bad feeling about this, but she still used a small tentacle to roll the phone over and answer it.
“Clara, it’s Alice.”
‘I saved her number just last night, so why did it change overnight?’
[To avoid being eavesdropped on, she’s probably using disposable numbers.]
‘Really?’
Clara twitched the corner of her mouth and asked, “Miss Alice, what is it?”
“Before we get to the main topic, there’s something I want to confirm with you again.”
“Huh?”
“Whose button was that one I showed you yesterday?”
Alice asked.
“Why are you asking about this again? I really did drop it by accident.”
When she picked it up, she realized it had automatically dissipated because its magic power ran out.
Across the world, that button existed in only two people’s hands—either Kamui herself or Clara, the two of them sharing the same source of magic.
“Uh, that might be a problem.”
Alice’s tone sounded ominous. She continued:
“Actually, we found the owner of that button.”
“Huh?”
Clara panicked, but Alice continued:
“To be precise, the Administration Bureau found it.”
“Did you show them the video footage?”
“They requested the footage from during the incident. I wanted to prove my innocence, so I had no reason to refuse.”
“After examining it, they also noticed that button… and their view was the same as mine last night—they also believe that button is the key piece of evidence.”
‘Even if I told Alice that button is mine, in the end, the Bureau would still investigate and collect evidence, wouldn’t they?’
“This is ridiculous! How could a thief leave their own button at the scene?”
“It’s understandable that they’re suspicious.”
“Even so, that’s the only clue left at the scene.”
Clara understood. If she put herself in the Bureau and Hero Association’s shoes, that mysterious button that suddenly appeared in the Relic Vault was bound to seem suspicious no matter how you looked at it…
“So who do they think the owner of that button is?” Clara asked.
“Kamui.”
‘Geez, the Administration Bureau’s efficiency is terrifying.’
“When they summoned Miss Kamui today, they unexpectedly discovered that the buttons on her clothes were exactly the same as the one serving as evidence.”
“So now Miss Kamui… as the prime suspect in this relic theft case, has been temporarily detained by the Bureau.”
“Huh? They can arrest someone without sufficient evidence?”
“It’s just questioning.”
“But that’s still restricting her freedom!”
‘Even if they found a button at the scene, it doesn’t prove it was left by the thief.’
The Association and Bureau’s actions made her very dissatisfied. Moreover, Clara had repeatedly stated that it was her own button that was left behind.
“If nothing unexpected happens, you’ll soon receive a summons from the Bureau.”
Because Miss Kamui had become a suspect, Alice continued:
“Furthermore, I’m afraid I can’t help you prove it either. Because your act of entering the storage room makes you look like you were scouting the area for Kamui. She took advantage of the gap when I was escorting you to the elevator to commit the crime.”
“Miss Alice, please don’t joke like that.”
“This isn’t a joke. This is the current hypothesis. The Bureau probably thinks the same way, so there’s no point in telling me more.”
‘This means I’m being set up to take the fall!’
Clara put down her pen and slumped into her chair, momentarily stunned.
“Then what should I do?”
“My suggestion is, before the Bureau agents summon you, try to find evidence that can prove your innocence…”
“Can’t we just use the Hero Network to find the relic thief directly?”
“The Hero Network didn’t foresee this happening.”
‘So future prediction isn’t all-powerful?’
“It seems the ‘Hero Network’ can only deduce the future within a certain range. It’s not an omniscient and omnipotent god, so of course it can’t know everything.”
‘How troublesome. It’s useless when you need it.’
“And speaking of suspects, the evil organization hostile to the Association, or ‘World Tree Technology’ behind that lab, are also suspects, and even more suspicious, right?”
“The Association and Bureau will naturally investigate those organizations too.”
Sound of knocking came from Alice’s end.
“The Bureau people are here again. The Association is still under lockdown, so it’s not convenient for me to say much… I wish you good luck.”
Alice hung up, but Clara was crestfallen.
‘And on top of that, it’s a presumption of guilt, requiring Clara and Kamui to prove their own innocence…’
‘No, the main thing is to prove Kamui’s innocence.’
‘If she’s innocent, then Clara, who was with her, can clear her name. After all, her entire entry and exit process was with Alice, so she shouldn’t have been suspected in the first place.’
“Ah! How did it suddenly come to this—going up against the Administration Bureau!”
Anxious, Clara lay on the table, hitting her own head with a small tentacle.
Being targeted by the Bureau would make her position very troublesome. The other party was an organization that managed the Abyss.
If they checked Clara’s soul data in the God Abyss System, the fact that she was actually a Mutant named Squill would most likely be exposed. And that would naturally implicate the NIX-Driver.
If Monsters and Heroes were the two ends of the scale, the Bureau was the pillar in the middle. In theory, it was a neutral organization that treated both equally, and it had to remain neutral.
But when it came to a “god’s relic,” whether they could maintain that neutrality was unknown.
Once her identity was revealed, not only would her undercover mission in the Undercover Department be compromised, but even her identity as Magical Girl Clara, and even her dream of serializing her manga, would be easily destroyed.
“Miss Nangong…”
And as for those she had deceived—when they found out she was just a slimy big-headed squid monster, what terrified expressions of shock and disgust would they show? Just thinking about it made Clara afraid.
[Don’t rush. It hasn’t come to that yet. As long as Kamui’s innocence is proven, it’ll be fine.] Nyx comforted her.
“Do you have any way to prove her innocence?”
[When you were being interviewed by Alice, Kamui was probably wandering around nearby. There are surveillance cameras everywhere in the Association building. They should have caught her on camera.]
[If you can retrieve the footage from that time, it should serve as direct evidence that she didn’t steal the relic. Proving her innocence isn’t that difficult.]
‘That makes sense, right?’
‘No, if surveillance footage could prove her innocence, then how did Kamui become a suspect in the first place?’
Clara muttered this to herself, then the phone on the table rang again.
As it turned out, it was another call from an unknown number.
“Is that Miss Alice?”
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Well thats troublesome