"Ehehehe~! I knew that Annalie would reach the correct conclusion before detective defective here!"
You what? Madi-san with the clues scattered just about everywhere, how can you even definitively tell where Rufti went? Dont be an idiot like Madi-san, we need more clues---
"It all really started this morning, when Aya-chan was... what's that word Aya-chan likes to use?"
"Yuribaiting!" , Madi-san so helpfully shouts!
No! I do NOT yuribait!
"Yeah! Aya-chan was yuribaiting the grey-haired tomboy with... with... becoming her lover!"
Wide gasps go up from the pair of crazy Frxnchwomen at the production truck's side!
Stop that! Especially you, Madi-san! You KNOW I like intellectuals! The psychological manga lead kind! I was about to protest that baseless accusation, but the blue truth was shot like a bolt of lightning right through my heart, paralyzing my mouth even!
"But Aya-chan always does things halfway! Always lying!"
Oi!
Even as I was about to protest, a second shot of lightning-shaped red truth strikes me in the shoulder, staggering me backwards! Not being able to retaliate against Annalie, she just continues her barrage of misled truths!
"So when Aya-chan flubbed it, the Prinz ran straight out of [Hauntsgirl]! She was chilling at the [Elise Phanto Cafe] when someone," Annalie looks in the direction of the orange-haired Frxnchwoman, "... picked her up and invited her to the show to sort out her issues! That's what this show is about, isn't it! Sorting out your issues with magick!"
"So there was that sort of backstory behind Contestant Rufti! Production crew, did you hear that? Did you catch that on audio?! We can fit this into the show, double time!" Saint-Taiga circles a finger in the air for the duck-capped girls to work that into her personal narrative about myself! The white-robed ''saint'' must have heard a completely different story from what is obviously a misunderstanding this morning, for now she's csping MY hands, like she had just heard the greatest love story ever told not named Txradxra!
"This must be what you [Sanae Fleet] people call 「unme」[1] ! Would you not come on our show, and be part of the nightclub crowd tonight, only for one night, on "Keys To The Loft"...!"
My entire body is still numb from how Annalie suddenly mennifested the ability to use MY [Truths, Red and Blue] against me, but at this point pretty much everyone is bullying the detective with her own ability now! I might as well not have a personal magick in the first pce!
I can already feel the swirling vortex of madness Madi-san like to suck me and everyone around her into, but if I am to get to the bottom of the mystery behind Fox-Mask and her pink gas, I have to find Rufti! And if this messed up game show is how I find Rufti and clear up any misunderstandings, I, the detective shall do so!
There was still a doubt lingering in my mind though.
So far, there hasn't been anything nefarious.
This Saint-Taiga person strikes me as odd, but not malicious.
She could just be acting, but she gives off a completely different feel from Fox-Mask.
"... I'll py your messed up game, solving the mystery always comes before everything else as the detective of this story... One question... Rufti isn't the sort of person who trusts people easily. How did you manage to trick and distract her Horseguy guards?"
Saint-Taiga looks completely puzzled. She scratches her head like I was speaking in a foreign nguage!
"Trick? I wouldn't know anything about that, I've been in the production truck all day! Entertainment doesn't produce itself, mon' petite!! Mademoiselle Rufti was introduced by a local, that person too is on the juding panel today!"
"Huh. And who might this person be?"
"Its an old friend of the Earl's, she apparently works as a psychologist in the city...
... have you heard the name, Doktah?"
Eh?
Ah?
Ha?
Alert dings ring off in all three of our heads.
We... know that name.
The three of us even met over a dinner table not two weeks ago!
Moments ago, [Hauntsgirl].
"Ey!"
The silver-haired Wolf-Ears is biting into rge drumsticks of fried chicken, delight seeping through the juicy thighs that are streaming down the side of her cheeks. The monstrous speed which she tears through the meat piled up on the table would rival a certain boob-for-brains if they had a shokxgeki, but for eating!
"For someone who doesn't talk, you do eat a fair amount." Val-sama dabs at the side of Wolf-Ears' crumb-stained happy face with some apprehension. They were dirtying up Annalie's room, but Annalie has a pretty big heart, so she wouldn't mind, unlike Ayano-dono.
Hey. I heard that!
"Its something ced into the cult's food. Keeps their 'sacrificial mbs' docile and mute."
Piinku is seated with crossed legs at the other side of the bed across Val-sama, watching Wolf-Ears scarf down the rge pte of chicken and more! Next to her is a serving trolley that had been wheeled into the room, stacked with ptes of more fried meat for the ravenous guest!
"Ey! Eyeyey!"
Wolf-ears nods like a small child who finally got an adult's attention, her tall, triangur ears pricking up at Oracion's words! Oracion doesn't make a reply, probably so that she can appear cool and cute, despite being a complete dork and having been in Wolf-ear's pce once before!
The other side of the bed is a completely different affair though.
Neko-chan is seated stony-faced, both feet in casts outstretched a small colsping table turned into an overbed table for the catgirl. She doesn't seem to appreciate this gesture, turning her head away from the indulgent Wolf-ears while biting her lower lip! All this while, she is holding her breath, refusing to even take a small sniff at the fragrance, even though her swaying bck tail betrays her heart!
"... what's with her, Valerie? I thought you said you know her?"
"Ohohoho, don't worry Senior, Neko-chan's a proud little thing, she'll eat when she wants, right?"
Val-sama nudges Neko-chan's ribs lightly, which causes the injured catgirl to wince and jerk back! Val-sama's brows are full of concern, but even so! She still refuses to accept Val-sama's help and turns her body away! What a typical cautious and guarded girl! When the does, the only direction she can look away at is the back of long pink hair that falls onto Annalie's polka-dotted bedsheets.
"Pink-hair... I remember seeing you."
When Neko-chan was battling the 'fake Lord Protector' in Madi-san two nights ago, the two had a brief moment when Oracion hurled a dagger from beyond the line of goatgirls blocking her, nearly giving Neko-chan a new air-hole in her head if she had not blocked it with her cymore!
Sitting here and piecing the clues together, Neko-chan realizes that not only was the 'fake' present that night, the 'real deal' in Piinku was too! There aren't many people in an exclusive faction like [Trono Palido], if Val-sama calls the pink-haired one 'senior', it goes to reason that this person is...
... the true 'ace' behind [Trono Palido].
From even that brief flicker of combat before, Neko-chan sensed that cold and icy intent from that hurled dagger, now put into human form before her!
As Neko-chan gulps down her apprehension, Oracion turns her head with the lightest of movements to meet eyes with the catgirl full of misgivings,
"Whatever you are imagining, our Master probably wouldn't allow it."
"Doesn't mean you didn't think of it, senior~" Val-sama pyfully waves a drumstick near Neko-chan's face, whose perplexion rexes a little...
"Master...?"
Neko-chan narrows her eyebrows.
There is a higher power above even the [Lord Protector]?
"Pft, that person is useless most of the time, except to do up a good meal." Oracion motions a head to the stack of ptes that Wolf-ears has clear by now. Val-sama suppresses a grimace at Oracion just casually bad-mouthing their mentor again, but Oracion pays no heed,
"In fact, Master is downstairs right now.
Have you ever heard of the Earl of New Coimbra?"
Go Go And Learn Moonrunes With Aya-chan![1] 「unme」- What is it with you Frxnchwomen and not being able to speak Moonrunes properly? In Vespanol,unmei means 'destiny'! Get that right at least! Its in the opening chapter of Hxyxte no Gotoku!
