“Hah, haha. Well, I don’t have much of an opinion.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. How am I supposed to imagine what that place looked like?”

For now, I gave a vague response to the protagonist. 

He had a suspicious look in his eyes. 

Is he doubting me? 

Well, he has reason to.

I suddenly disappeared. 

At the site of the massacre, a spider was drawn in blood.

I can control threads, so it’s not strange for them to be suspicious.  

Then, I remembered.

When I left that hideout, the Author acted strangely.

She probably skipped ahead quickly so she wouldn’t miss Siwoo’s exploits.

There is no way she added something in between, right?

“Arachne” came? 

How do I handle this…?

Just as I was racking my brain, the protagonist spoke up.

“Well,  if you say so. Oh, do you like cake?”

“Huh?…Yeah, I guess.”

“Then let’s get some cake. It’s not much for a life, but since I’m still a student, this is all I can do now.”

“Y-yeah…?”

Huh?

…Why isn’t he interrogating me? 

That’s weird.

Even  if he doesn’t think I’m the culprit, he usually asks more questions, assuming I’m somehow involved.

While I was flustered, the cake we ordered arrived.  

It was a slice loaded with fresh whipped cream and chocolate.

It does look tasty. 

Can I eat it?

“Come on, eat up. You said you like cake, right?”

“Oh, yeah…Thank you for the food…”

What in the world is going on? 

Is Siwoo, the protagonist, treating this as trivial?

Well, it’s better for me that the protagonist isn’t too sharp. 

I didn’t really know what to say anyway.

…Hmm, this is good.

As I cut into the cake and put it in my mouth, the sweetness spread through.  

Mmm, this is a good bakery. 

I should remember this place.

One of the best parts of possessing this body is being able to eat desserts without worrying about what others think.  

When I was a guy, I was way too self-conscious.  

But that didn’t matter now.

No matter how much I ate, I never seemed to gain weight, so I could do so freely.

“Ah, can I order another one?”

“Um, sure…? Go ahead.”  

And so, Siwoo’s wallet became tattered that day.

Because I ordered a ton of cake slices and sweet drinks.

His eyes shook slightly when he opened his wallet, which was a little pitiful, but I took it as payment since he brought up the life debt.

It’s not that expensive for a life debt, is it?

Later that night, when I was alone in my room, I gave the Author an earful.

“Why in the world did you do that without saying anything?”

[W-Well, I thought I was running out of time…]

“Time?! Time?! Are you kidding me right now?” 

[But…! Isn’t it cool though? If I set up the hook now, I can resolve it later by adding to the setting! Someone lurking in the shadows…! Isn’t that cool?!]

“Then, at least tell me! What  if Siwoo gets the wrong idea from this?! What were you thinking pulling a stunt like that?!”

[W-Well…I thought you’d scold me…Hic…]

Ugh, my head.

She’s not even a kid, and she hid it because she was afraid of being scolded?

My chest started to feel tight.

“I’m not going to let you sleep tonight.”

[H-Hic. Please, go easy on me…]  

“What was that just now?”

  

[N-Nothing!]

Haah.

The Author really needs me around.

***

“…Well? That was a success!”

“A, success…?”

Siwoo couldn’t understand Amelia’s words at all.

A success? 

That was? 

Why?

“You had a conversation and ate some tasty food together. If that’s not a date, then what is?”

“…I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If you don’t get it, just do what I say!”

Is this right?

No, he couldn’t even comprehend how it was a success in the first place.

Does she mean she successfully emptied his wallet?

Is having a conversation and eating dessert together a date?

Seriously?

“That’s how people naturally get closer. Nurturing affection for each other…Well, Arte already seems overflowing with affection.”  

Amelia kept telling me that Arte seemed to be in love with him.

At first, he naively believed Amelia’s words, but thinking back, Arte didn’t seem that way at all.

Is Amelia mistaken?

When he brought that up, Amelia sighed heavily.

With a look that seemed to say, “You’re hopeless.”

“I mean, Arte has no reason to be interested in you, remember? We talked about this before.”

“…Yeah.”

That heavy truth hit him again.  

While he’s been involved in many incidents lately, he’s otherwise unremarkable, so Arte wouldn’t have any reason to be interested in him when she first showed him.

Siwoo was just a decently performing student at the time.

The incidents started happening after Arte showed interest in me.

“So the fact that she saved you from the Übermensch’s attack and comforted you…is there any explanation besides love?”

“B-But what  if it’s really not that?”

“So what  if it’s not? Then we’ll just find another way. We don’t have a much better plan than that, do we?”

He had so many rebuttals he wanted to say.

But her confident tone and eloquence left him speechless.

Damn it.

“And it was good that you let that incident slide too.”  

“…Is that so?”

“Yeah. Digging too deep could be dangerous.”

He could be certain from Arte’s reaction that the “Arachne” referred to her.

‘How am I supposed to imagine what that looked like?’ That was an obvious lie. 

Probably something she blurted out in a panic.  

Anyone who was completely clueless wouldn’t even bring up that kind of wording. 

They should not understand what is being referred to.

Just by choosing those words, she revealed that she knew what “that place” was, even  if she didn’t realize it in her flustered state.

“But it is a little strange. If she was going to panic like that, why would she leave that behind?”

“…Who knows. Maybe she didn’t draw it herself or something?”

“…You mean, the doing of that ‘Author?'”

“Just speculation.”

“Haah. I guess we still don’t know anything for sure…Looks like one plan won’t be enough. I need to make a move too.”  

Amelia proudly pulled something out of her hospital gown.

It looked like some kind of high-quality item. …What is that?

“I really had to beg my dad for this. It was super annoying brushing off his questions about what I’d use it for.”

“So, what is it?”

“A magic detector. Way better quality than the one that senior gave us. My dad used this one himself, after all.”

“…!”

A magic detector, huh.

The same device they used to track down the Chameleon villain.

While it had flaws, with this one…!

“No guarantee we’ll find it, but it’s worth a try at least.”

“The Secret Room.”  

“Right. It’ll probably take some time, though. So we’ll be running two projects simultaneously.”   

She held up two fingers.

“Seducing Arte and finding the Secret Room before her. Our ultimate goal is still to stop Arte. As long as one succeeds, that’s enough.”

“…I see.”

Their theory is that Arte is behind all the incidents.  

Whether that groundless speculation will turn out to be a shocking truth remains to be seen.

***

“What are the results?”  

“No villains match the conditions. We didn’t detect anything unusual in the blood samples either.”

“Sigh…”

In a secluded cabin with no signs of life, a blue-haired beauty was receiving a report amidst the bustle of various agents moving about.

“What do you think, ma’am?”

“Hmm, it’s troubling. A traitor to the Übermensch?”

“It’s possible, or it could be the work of another criminal organization. There’s nothing definitive yet.”

Letting out a sigh along with a grumble, she took out a cigarette from her pocket and lit it up. 

Understanding her feelings, her subordinate gave her a wry smile as he continued speaking.

“There’s no villain in our data capable of flaunting their crimes in such a way. It must be a new player.”

“Why would someone so strong resort to villain acts? They could just hunt fiends and be praised for life.”

“The thought process of villains is hard to comprehend.”

The villain’s lair, still giving off the stench of blood, resurfaced in her mind, causing her face to contort.

Ugh, she shouldn’t have thought of that. 

It just made her feel queasy.

“A villain who shows no mercy, flaunting their crimes…”

“They effortlessly took out nearly 200 villains, too.”

“Evidence?”

“Just bundles of threads with unknown purpose. Nothing else. The people were likely sliced up by extremely reinforced threads.”

“…Did you have to put it like that?”

“Ah, my apologies. I misspoke.”

She was trying to forget that gruesome scene, but she recalled it vividly again.

She never wanted to erase her memory of that.

Some of the subordinates who went had weak stomachs and threw up, and those with weak wills still couldn’t sleep properly after days.

She wasn’t any different. 

She was dumbstruck for a while.

Having witnessed countless crimes, that level of brutality was a first for her.

“Threads, so a spider then. Hah.”  

“The playful handwriting suggests they don’t feel much guilt over taking lives.”

“Well, did you expect someone who did that to feel guilty?”

“…”

Her subordinate’s expression also rapidly soured, likely reminded of what he had witnessed.

Nice one. Now she’s made him think of it too.

“Report it to HQ. Register a new villain.”  

“Understood. The details, ma’am?”

“Villain name, Arachne. Presumed thread-based abilities. Details unknown. Likely female.”  

“…Female?”

“Arachne is a female name, right? Don’t you know the myth?”  

Villains who like to show off tend to leave behind clues in trivial details like this.  

If they left nothing at all, the investigation wouldn’t progress, but their desire to flaunt leads them to slip up.

For those types, you have to scrutinize any evidence they left behind.

“Threat level…A-class should be fine. Oh, and have the Association increase security at the Academy.”   

“The Academy?”  

“There’s been a lot of incidents there lately. It just feels uneasy.”

The people who reported this incident were probably Academy students.  

The instincts she had honed from long experience dealing with villains were ringing alarm bells.  

There’s something at the Academy.

Author’s Notes

Hmm, nothing much to say today.

Ruminas, be careful of the heat!