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When Asakura walked out of the classroom, he saw a beautiful splash of pink.
"Asakura, are you on duty today?"
Chihaya Anon asked him cheerfully: "You're coming out a bit late."
"I remember this is the second-year floor, right?"
Asakura didn't answer, but instead asked a question.
"Ah, that…"
Chihaya Anon looked around hesitantly. Although some time had passed since school ended, there were still many students in the school building.
Asakura immediately realized that she was looking for him about a supernatural problem, so he led the girl to a secluded, empty spot at the corner of the stairs.
"What happened?"
"This, it was already like this when I saw it today…"
Chihaya Anon said worriedly, holding the Mirror pendant in both hands.
Asakura took the pendant and found that the fingernail-sized 'Mirror' part of the pendant was now covered in cracks.
He instinctively wanted to take off his glasses, but then remembered that his right eye was temporarily blind due to overload, and he couldn't use Truth Vision.
So he could only settle for the next best thing, immersing Curse into the pendant, attempting to sense its condition.
Fortunately, the situation with the pendant wasn't complicated, and he quickly reached a conclusion.
"It's nothing, a normal phenomenon, just a side effect of using it too much yesterday, but don't use Curse again for the next few days."
He handed the pendant back to the girl, speaking in a relaxed tone.
Seeing his indifferent demeanor, the girl immediately felt relieved.
But that wasn't actually the case.
In Asakura's perception, the pendant's condition seemed quite bad; if he had to say, it was somewhat similar to his current right eye.
It's understandable when you think about it: yesterday, in that Mirror space, there was a violent explosion, and an Evil God almost descended. The girl holding the pendant was even glimpsed by the Evil God's embryo. If Anon and Yui's resilience had been slightly weaker and they hadn't endured, leading to the Curse [Mirror] being dispelled and the Mirror space collapsing, allowing the divine embryo to escape back to reality, then the super explosion Asakura caused through the composite Curse [Scale], powerful enough to shake space, would probably have brought a small mushroom cloud shock to Chiba, and might even have triggered PTSD in some people on the island nation...
And these continuous impacts would certainly affect the carrier of Curse [Mirror], which is the pendant in the girl's hand. Not to mention that it had unfinished Curse attached to it; even a complete Curse might not have been able to withstand it. It's normal for such cracks to appear; in fact, it's already fortunate that it was only 'damaged' and not directly 'destroyed'.
However, Asakura's right eye isn't truly blind; it will eventually recover, just like his hair, which has gradually started to turn black. But the pendant is not a living thing and has no self-repairing ability. Although Asakura has some alchemy materials on hand, he is completely ignorant of alchemy, so he can only wait until Truth Vision recovers before seeing if there's a way to repair it.
Telling the girl this now was just to prevent her from worrying or blaming herself for the time being.
Asakura looked at Anon, and the girl, holding the pendant, showed a cute, heartfelt smile, like a big dog, genuinely happy that the pendant was fine.
This made Asakura unable to resist reaching out and rubbing the girl's head, as if stroking a dog's head.
"That... why is Asakura-kun touching my head?"
The girl looked at Asakura with some confusion.
"Should I say it was unconscious, or that I instinctively felt it was what I should do...?"
"What kind of answer is that...?"
The girl complained helplessly.
"Then consider it praise for your performance yesterday, Anon."
Asakura said softly, as if coaxing a child: "Being able to persevere to that extent was truly amazing, incredible, incredible~"
"Really, Anon won't be happy with such childish flattery~"
The girl said, baring her small canine teeth, but the smile on her face couldn't be hidden at all.
Isn't she very happy? Asakura thought, and so the movements of his hand became a little gentler.
It was evident that Anon was the type who had a certain pursuit of fashion and trends. Among the people Asakura knew, she was probably quite similar to Yuigahama Yui. Therefore, she also paid great attention to hair care and maintenance, so it felt especially soft and smooth to the touch, with an excellent feel, somewhat like touching high-quality fur...
After a while longer, perhaps tired of Asakura's touching, Chihaya Anon shook her head and escaped from Asakura's clutches.
Asakura regretfully withdrew his clutches and asked the girl: "There's nothing important to do in the Magic Club today. Are you planning to go straight home or stay at the Clubroom for a while?"
"Going back so early feels like there's nothing to do. I'll definitely go to the Clubroom... Huh, when did I join the Magic Club?"
The pink-haired girl tilted her head in confusion, trying to recall when she had signed an application to join the Magic Club.
Meanwhile, Asakura smiled and greeted the girl, who was still deep in thought, then took his backpack and headed to the Service Club activity room first.
As soon as he entered the activity room, he heard Yanami loudly demanding that Yuigahama Yui hand over the address for buying cookies, while the latter evaded the question, talking about unrelated topics.
"Asakura-kun, you're too late!"
The blue-haired foodie girl, holding a small plate so clean it looked new, said regretfully: "The cookies are gone... This is a case!"
"No, no, they were just simply eaten up!"
Yuigahama Yui retorted.
"According to the usual case development in detective anime, there should now be three suspects provided for Asakura-kun, as the detective, to choose from..."
Yanami said in a heavy, narrative-like voice, pinching her throat.
"The culprit is Yanami..." Asakura clapped his hands: "Alright, case closed."
"So fast?! This is too arbitrary... No, what evidence do you have...?"
"Because it's that Yanami."
Asakura said as a matter of course, and Yuigahama Yui beside him nodded repeatedly.
"My existence is the evidence?!"
The girl was greatly shaken, as if she had discovered some incredible truth.
"Also, the cookie crumbs at the corner of your mouth and the sweet buttery scent on you have already given you away."
"...Hmph, as expected of the famous detective Asakura-kun."
Yanami Anna slumped in her chair and began to speak in the heavy tone of a culprit who has been identified, saying, 'I didn't want to': "It all started when Yui took out that bag of cookies..."
"Skip."
"Don't skip!"
"Because the plot feels like it will be very long..."
Asakura sat down in his seat and said, spreading his hands.
Then he suddenly noticed that Yukinoshita Yukino, who had been silent since earlier, was frowning delicately, watching him with a strange gaze.
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