“What are you planning to do by asking these things?”
The Old Lady faced the Chuunibyou Girl’s questioning with a calm gaze, as if she didn’t care at all about her aggressive attitude.
“Of course, I want to investigate matters related to the Blood Banquet Cult!”
The Chuunibyou Girl replied as if it were only natural.
She crossed her arms, her face full of ‘I’ve already found your anomaly, you’d better confess honestly,’ and said, “Don’t tell me you don’t know about these things, Old Lady.”
“Recently, in our Nanling City, many innocent Spirits have disappeared without reason.”
“And all these things started happening after those Devils appeared. They must be involved.”
“If there are problems here, then other cities can’t be safe either. Old Lady, you can connect your Store to cities all over Eastern Radiance. I can’t believe you wouldn’t have any information at all.”
The Chuunibyou Girl looked at the Old Lady, speaking with certainty.
“……”
After hearing the Chuunibyou Girl’s words, the Old Lady fell silent.
She didn’t react as the Chuunibyou Girl expected, with her ‘tiger body’ trembling and obediently spilling the information.
“Eh, so even in Nanling City, a large number of Spirits have disappeared. I guessed it might be related to Devils, but I didn’t expect the same in other cities.”
The two, old and young, were talking without trying to lower their voices.
Ling Xiaoyou and Bai Shuanglian had been paying attention to them, so they overheard the whole conversation.
At this moment, Ling Xiaoyou was surprised—not because the disappearance of Spirits was related to Devils as the Chuunibyou Girl said.
She had already suspected this before, so now it only confirmed her guess.
She was surprised for several reasons.
First, as Bai Shuanglian had just said, in other cities, too, many Spirits had disappeared, and it was related to Devils.
Second, she was curious about the Old Lady’s identity.
The Chuunibyou Girl had come to question the Old Lady, and the Old Lady seemed to know something as well.
To know these things, her identity definitely couldn’t be simple.
Third, there was something odd about the Chuunibyou Girl’s words that Ling Xiaoyou found strange—namely, the ‘Nanling City’ she mentioned.
The city where Ling Xiaoyou and the others were located was called New Sea City.
Its only connection to Nanling City was that both were cities and relatively close geographically.
There was no other special relationship.
It’s impossible that the Chuunibyou Girl had come all the way from Nanling City to New Sea City just to ask this question, right?
That would be too foolish.
Ling Xiaoyou guessed it might be related to the ‘Store connecting to cities all over Eastern Radiance’ that the Chuunibyou Girl mentioned.
As if noticing Ling Xiaoyou’s confusion, Bai Shuanglian whispered to her:
“This Store isn’t just open in one city, but is located in a hidden, independent space. The Portal you entered when coming here is the way in.”
“That Portal exists in every city. This girl probably entered from the Nanling City Portal.”
“Oh~ so that’s how it is.”
Ling Xiaoyou nodded in realization.
After being influenced by many anime and novels, she easily understood Bai Shuanglian’s meaning.
In short, it’s just an Any Door.
It’s just that the teleport location of this Any Door is fixed.
“But, Xiaoyou, you just said ‘Spirit disappearance’—what’s going on? From what you said, are there Spirits disappearing in our New Sea City too?”
After explaining some of Ling Xiaoyou’s doubts, Bai Shuanglian immediately asked her own question.
Hearing this, Ling Xiaoyou remembered that she seemed to have never told Bai Shuanglian about this matter.
But it wasn’t because she was forgetful.
She hadn’t planned to tell Bai Shuanglian about this in the first place.
After all, strictly speaking, these were matters of the Underworld and had nothing to do with Bai Shuanglian, an Exorcist.
She originally planned to investigate if there were any clues before returning to the Underworld, after fulfilling the Summoner’s ‘question.’
But unexpectedly, after returning from vacation, her first Summoning was by Bai Shuanglian.
Then…
Then nothing happened, because of Xiaoyu’s matter, the Yanyang Resistance Training, and being invited to eat by Bai Shuanglian—if not for the Chuunibyou Girl’s reminder, she would have almost forgotten this.
“This is something I only found out about recently. Here’s what happened…”
After Ling Xiaoyou’s explanation, Bai Shuanglian roughly understood the situation of the missing Spirits.
“I see. Then it must be related to Devils.”
Bai Shuanglian nodded, pinched her chin, and pondered.
“I investigated Devils before. Although I didn’t find out specific details, I discovered they had once transported a large amount of goods using a lot of manpower and resources.”
“At the time, I thought it might be materials or sacrifices for rituals, but now it seems it was probably the missing Spirits.”
Ling Xiaoyou, like Bai Shuanglian, pinched her own smooth little chin, deep in thought.
“But what do those Devils plan to do with the Spirits they abducted? For them, Spirits can’t be used for sacrifices, nor are they edible. They should be useless, right?”
“Not sure.”
Bai Shuanglian shook her head, looked at Ling Xiaoyou, and suddenly said:
“But I’ll help you.”
“Eh?”
Ling Xiaoyou was stunned, just about to ask when the Chuunibyou Girl, still arguing with the Old Lady, suddenly shouted:
“I already said, Old Lady, I don’t need to eat! I just want to ask what exactly those Devils are planning!”
The Chuunibyou Girl was genuinely angry now.
She had asked the Old Lady a question, but the Old Lady either refused to answer or kept changing the subject—one moment saying the Store was closing soon, another asking if she wanted something to eat.
How could a ghost eat anything?!
She wasn’t a ghost who craved food!
Fortunately, Ling Xiaoyou didn’t have mind-reading abilities.
Otherwise, if she knew the Chuunibyou Girl’s inner thoughts, she’d be furious.
What’s wrong with craving food?! It’s not like she ate your family’s rice!
“……”
The Old Lady looked at the Chuunibyou Girl, who couldn’t hold back her outburst, and after a moment of silence, she sighed.
“If I tell you, what will you do?”
“You really do know!”
The Chuunibyou Girl was delighted—this was the sign she was about to get answers.
“Of course, I’ll take down all those Devils at once!”
The Chuunibyou Girl replied with great confidence and conviction.
Upon hearing this, the Old Lady wasn’t too surprised.
She sighed again.
“Little girl, I understand that children your age are full of vitality.”
“Being spirited is a good thing, but spirit alone can’t solve everything, can it?”
What the heck is she talking about?
The Chuunibyou Girl frowned.
“What do you mean by that?”
The Old Lady didn’t speak.
At some point, Ling Xiaoyou, who had walked over, couldn’t help but interject:
“Of course, she’s saying you’re too weak. Senior doesn’t believe you can handle this.”
The Chuunibyou Girl’s expression stiffened.