Although the three spent a lot of effort on this investigation, solving the problem only took a few hours.
And the combat part wasn't particularly difficult either.
Instead, it was the subsequent sudden intrusion into the luxury residential area and killing the only researcher not in the hospital that took some effort.
After confirming that the environmental department official had no officially announced travel plans, the three began to research the yakuza on the new list.
After a short rest, by the next evening, no one from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had come looking for them, and the three continued their intelligence gathering work.
However, despite saying so, Kazuma was already playing Yu-Gi-Oh with Keli, a game for two players, but only one could play.
Only Kirito was simultaneously operating three computers, looking for the old man who had incited the thugs to cause trouble earlier, while also looking for bureaucrats and yakuza.
Kazuma ordered takeout.
This time, because it wasn't urgent, he ordered some hotpot ingredients from a relatively cheap takeout platform.
As it turned out, the delivery person was an old man wandering around late at night.
The old man even enthusiastically introduced himself, saying he was retired and took on delivery jobs for exercise. He chatted with Kazuma at the door for a while before leaving.
However, the delivery time was indeed a bit slow; it had been two hours since Kazuma placed the order.
As the old man ambled past the streetlights on the night street, his Shadow stretched and moved slowly along the wall with his steps.
"Hmm?"
The old man rubbed his eyes strangely.
He seemed to have just seen another Shadow swiftly pass by in the opposite direction next to his own Shadow as he moved.
"I'm really getting old. It must have been a stray cat."
The old man scratched his head and continued walking.
At the same time, across from Keli's house, in that row of residences.
A familiar place, a familiar large group of old men and women, standing in the shadows without lights, staring intently at Keli's house.
"They're here. Don't worry about what they're doing; if they survive tonight, they'll be lucky."
However, except for the leader, whose eyes were full of ferocity, everyone else was trembling slightly.
"Shadow Adult… Shadow Adult…"
They murmured some words, but dared not raise their heads.
They gathered here almost every night before bed, staring at the opposite side, just waiting for whatever was in that house to harm these young people.
As a result, for several days, there was no movement at all.
The strange thing in that house seemed to have disappeared, completely silent.
They found it very strange; wasn't it fine before?
Could it be that the spirit transformed from a teenage Sakura girl had developed puberty and couldn't lay a hand on young males?
But it was fine, Shadow Adult would solve all problems.
Although even they didn't know what Shadow Adult truly was, because they couldn't see anything, only a Shadow.
However, at this moment, the three who had just experienced a series of twists and turns were in no mood to care about what was happening on the street.
The three sat around the dining table, Kirito and Kazuma clapped their hands together.
"Let's eat!"
(X2)
Keli watched, then clapped his hands in a similar fashion, muttering something.
"Chibaku Tensei!"
"You, you should properly thank the ingredients!"
Kazuma grumbled unhappily.
"If I sliced you up and ate you, would saying 'thank you' make you forgive me?
The most respectful beef live stream on the whole internet, right?"
Keli grinned and put the beef into the hotpot.
This time, because Keli had enjoyed it so much last time, all three tried Keli's recommended compound dipping sauce.
"Hmm… so spicy!"
Kazuma stuck out his tongue, unable to bear it.
Kirito, however, nodded repeatedly, indicating that he would eat it this way from now on.
The three ate hotpot lively, and in the middle, Asuna made a video call to Kirito. White steam filled the room, and their chopsticks never stopped.
However, all three paused at the same instant, then looked at each other in confusion.
They seemed to have just felt a momentary impulse, coming from the side of the house, but that impulse then disappeared.
"Maybe that ghost came out for a stroll. Everyone, keep eating."
Kazuma explained, and everyone continued to eat.
But at the same time, a Shadow had already crawled along the side of Keli's house to the second floor, then to the third floor.
This supernatural scene fell into the eyes of the people across the room, who were both terrified and delighted.
"Good, next, once they die, we can have some peace for a while. No matter what they are, they won't escape this time."
And at this moment, on the wall of Keli's house, that Shadow climbed higher and higher, spreading over the windowsill of Keli's master bedroom on the third floor, extending to his desk, and then down…
It failed to go down, because a statue covered with a red cloth was placed on the desk by Keli.
"Ga la la la…"
A somewhat eerie, low sound echoed in the empty room.
Then, the red cloth was slowly lifted.
"Awooo!"
The few people across the street, watching excitedly, suddenly saw the Shadow that had entered the room burst out of the window like crazy, just like how ordinary people would react to seeing a ghost.
It even darted around the street like a headless fly.
The three sitting in the living room on the first floor looked at each other strangely again; they had just felt an impulse again, but this time it was in Keli's room.
"Strange, what's going on today? That lady who was like a land-bound spirit, besides peeking at me from the mirror when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, wasn't this active?"
Keli scratched his hair in confusion, but still decided to go up and check.
But when Keli pushed open the door to his room, everything was normal. The statue was quietly in its place, even the cloth was neatly covered.
Then Keli went back down to eat hotpot, still confused.
However, while they were enjoying their meal, the expressions of the people across from the house were not so good.
What… what happened?
Watching their Shadow Adult run from the left side of the street to the right, and from the right to the left, like a startled stray dog, darting into one house, then another, but never daring to return to the house that should have been its target.
This group of people stared with wide, dumbfounded eyes.
No, what's in that house?
They were terrified and wanted to flee this street immediately; if that Shadow discovered them, they would be completely finished.
However, fortunately, a person appeared on the street, which seemed to give that Shadow a target.
Because she was under the minimum working age for minors in Japan, and Xiang Zi's father didn't want to go out to vouch for her, Fengchuan Xiangzi could only do the kind of work that people without household registration did: low-paying, hard, and tiring black-market jobs.
Just now at the restaurant, after washing dishes for several hours straight, she was told disapprovingly that she was too slow and shouldn't come tomorrow, and she didn't even get paid for today. The girl was tightly pressing her lips together, locking her tears in her eyes, not letting any weakness show.
The salty water blurred her vision, turning her sight into a kaleidoscope of colors, where even looking at a streetlight could refract into thousands of different, glass-bead-like sparkles.
Thinking about having to study when she got back, and how she had to get into Haneoka, a school that emphasized high university acceptance rates, to get a scholarship, she felt a surge of stifling frustration, even a feeling that she might as well just die and be done with it.
However, she didn't notice that when she pulled open the door, a Shadow also slowly followed her inside.
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