Chapter 21, Day 4 (Intermission)
Armed Detective Agency.
"Didn't Egawa come today either?" Kunikida Doppo asked.
Kunikida Doppo quickly scanned his surroundings from behind his glasses, and he was hardly surprised that he didn't see the boy with light blue hair.
His question didn't contain much doubt.
The current time is between dawn and noon, but leans more towards the latter.
Obviously, if Edakawa were going to come, he would have arrived long ago. On the contrary, since he hasn't come yet, he probably won't be coming at all today.
Therefore, the phrase "Didn't Egawa come today either?" is more accurately defined as casual conversation, and it is similar to "What should we eat for lunch today?" to some extent.
“No,” Yosano Akiko said. “Based on the average length of time he has been asleep in the past, it will be a few more days before we can see Egawa again.”
Akiko Yosano, whose main job is as a doctor, is used to Ori Egawa's intermittent sleep.
Because she is a doctor, Yosano Akiko understands Edagawa's physical condition better than others.
Kunikida Doppo pushed up his glasses: "Is it really okay for Edagawa to be in this condition?"
"Huh? Of course it's related." Yosano Akiko looked at her with a "What kind of question is this?" expression. "Is this the first day you've met him? Although Edagawa never says it, I'm not so stupid as not to see that he likes his ex and his ex-girlfriend."
He smiled politely and cautiously when we first met, but his eyes lit up when she agreed, as if the sun had been poured into a vast ocean.
Yosano Akiko remarked at the time that teenagers were full of energy, but she still fiercely emphasized, "Reaching a near-death state is very painful, so don't be too happy too soon."
However, Edakawa said, "I know, Dr. Yosano. Don't worry, I've bled a lot, I'm not afraid of these things."
Yosano Akiko: "..."
Yosano Akiko, now dressed as a doctor, turned to look at him and asked, "Aren't you a student?"
“Yes. I’m a student at Tokyo High School of Spellcasting, and I’m also a spellcaster.” He excitedly gestured a number, his light blue short hair swaying slightly, “Level one.”
Dr. Yosano, who had never been a sorcerer, could barely deduce from Edakawa's slightly smug expression that this first-level sorcerer must be quite powerful, but unfortunately, Dr. Yosano didn't care much.
She took out a chainsaw: "Then I'll trouble you, Level 1 Spellcaster Zhichuan, to lie down right now."
Edakawa: "..."
Egawa: "Dr. Yosano, isn't this device of yours a bit cruel?"
The impartial Yosano Akiko: "This is all. If you're scared, you can get anesthesia."
"Won't anesthesia make you stupid?"
"Where did you hear these fallacies?"
"Huh? Isn't that right?"
"Of course not."
Yosano Akiko lowered her eyes and met Egawa Aru's gaze. The boy smiled slightly, almost unconsciously.
A very faint smile.
But it was this smile that made her sense that Edakawa was completely relaxed. She was somewhat surprised because it confirmed that Edakawa had almost complete trust in her.
She really is just a child.
She was so glad she had met her.
Yosano Akiko has extreme confidence in her medical skills and supernatural abilities. Before meeting Edagawa Aru, she had healed people with wounds of all sizes without fail.
Therefore, it is only natural that Yosano Akiko believes that Edagawa may be the latest patient to be cured by her.
Unfortunately, the surgery failed as expected.
The moment Yosano Akiko saw Edogawa fall down in front of her, her mind went blank. She heard footsteps outside the room, stiffly looked up, and saw a figure standing in the doorway—Edogawa Ranpo.
As the detective agency surrounded the sleeping Edakawa, Kunikida Doppo asked her, "What's going on?"
“I’d like to ask that too,” Akiko Yosano said. “Medically speaking, there’s nothing wrong with his body.”
"From a doctor's perspective, I cannot explain it."
This was absolutely a Waterloo in her medical career.
However, what Yosano Akiko found more troublesome was what would happen after Edakawa woke up.
She recalled the expression on Zhichuan's face when she was a first-level sorcerer, and suddenly realized that her earlier thoughts were wrong. It might not be lucky for him to find her; it might be unfortunate.
Hope and despair are separated by a fine line; such a vast difference can easily cause a person to break down.
When Edakawa woke up from his deep sleep, his first words to her were, "I'm sorry, Dr. Yosano, it seems we failed."
Yosano Akiko suddenly understood something.
The contradiction she felt in Edakawa was resolved in that instant—although everything he showed was a plea for me to return to normalcy, he would say that I could refuse if I didn't want to or found it troublesome when asking for her help.
She would initially think it was just a polite way of putting it, because doctors generally don't refuse patients.
But at that moment, Yosano Akiko finally realized that it was not just a polite remark from Edagawa.
That's simply due to a personality trait that's incredibly simple yet extremely rare.
****
After being thrown out by Panda and picked up by Inugami countless times, Kugizaki Nobara finally understood why Fushiguro Megumi had said earlier that none of them were worthy of respect.
Because they are indeed not very worthy of respect.
However, of the three people accused by Fushiguro Megumi, she hasn't yet identified Zenin Maki.
"Fu Hei, you go."
Kugizaki Nobara scratched her slightly disheveled hair and walked towards Fushiguro Megumi, who was sitting outside the arena talking to Zenin Maki about something.
Fushiguro asked, "Have you rested?"
The moment she looked up, Kugizaki Nobara saw his long, thick eyelashes.
Kugizaki Nobara: ...
Why are Fu Hei's eyelashes so long?
"Okay." She and Fushiguro Megumi gave each other a high five, as if in a handover ceremony. "You and Maki-senpai go ahead."
And so, Kugizaki Nobara, Inu-maki Thorn, and Panda took over the spot that Fushiguro Megumi and Zenin Maki had just occupied, with the latter inheriting the former's spot.
Kugizaki Nobara rested her elbows on her knees, her hands supporting her cheeks.
Next to her was a panda.
“I said, Panda Senior.”
"What's wrong?"
Kugizaki Nobara's gaze fell on Fushiguro Megumi and Zenin Maki on the field. Fushiguro Megumi was a summoning-type sorcerer, whose weakness was that she was weak in close combat and was clearly being suppressed by Zenin Maki.
But she was thinking about something else entirely.
She also remembered the other two people that Fushiguro Megumi mentioned when she said that Zenin Maki, Inuyama Toshi, and Panda didn't know how to show respect, and they were used as a contrast.
One is a senior student named Yi Gu who is studying abroad, and the other is a senior student named Edakawa who is studying in Yokohama.
How many students are there in the second grade? Five?
Panda was taken aback, probably not expecting this to be brought up so suddenly. He hesitated for a moment, "It was originally five, but now it seems like it should count as... four?"
"???" Kugizaki Nobara turned to look at him in surprise. "Wait, why? How come there are four already?"
Zenin Maki, Inu-maki Thorn, Panda, plus the previously unseen Otsuko and Egawa.
There can't possibly be four.
Whenever Panda says five or more, Kugisaki Nobara thinks it's fine; even if he says fifty, it's still more normal than four in some ways.
Panda quietly leaned closer to her: "Because one of them dropped out of school."
Kugizaki Nobara guessed: "Senior Yigu?"
"No, it's either ...
"Huh? Why did you drop out of school?"
"It was due to health reasons. When I was in my first year, I suddenly developed some health problems, but Ms. Shoko—you've met her, right? The school doctor came to Shoko's house, and she couldn't do anything about it. I felt it wasn't convenient for me to stay any longer, so I withdrew from school and went to Yokohama to recuperate."
"That's such a pity... Is it possible to restore it?"
“Or he told us that he was trying to find a solution, and later the situation changed somewhat,” Panda said. “So I believe he will be alright.”
His gaze swept over the dog-like thorn on the steps ahead and the Zen-in Maki in the distance. "After all, we made a promise to meet when Yuta returns to Japan."
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