25: Stalking
A bunny girl was waiting for the light to change in the middle of a crowd of people.
It was a strange sight.
Her appearance matched the description Makoto had given perfectly.
Her face had a creepy unnaturalness to it.
She gave off an aura of strangeness, yet no one seemed to notice anything unusual about her. Ryugo was surprised by this.
A couple of years ago, he had seen an old man wearing a sailor uniform walking around in front of the station. No one had made eye contact with him then either. It was possible that the same phenomenon was at work here.
“Should we follow her?”
Ryugo nodded at Madoka’s suggestion.
The light turned from red to green, and a sparse crowd of people began to cross the street.
The girl known as Miss Bunny Suit let the wind blow her skirt as she entered a nearby shopping mall.
That was the place she had chosen to meet the mysterious voice.
“What is she going to do there…?”
“Let’s go.”
The atmosphere inside the mall was soft and gentle, with cream as the main color scheme. Even the store signs were carefully designed not to disrupt this.
The three-story lobby had stairs and escalators side by side leading to the upper floors.
People were everywhere you looked, but the bunny suit was easy to spot. Her distinctive rabbit ears bobbed above the heads of the crowd.
It seemed like she was going to the second floor.
There shouldn’t be a fountain there.
Maybe she wasn’t checking the meeting place after all.
“It’s like she’s in a toy store.”
“Hey, is she looking at puzzles?”
“Let’s get closer.”
“Good idea.”
Crouching down, they stealthily hid behind a shelf.
This area was filled with children’s superhero toys, with colorful soft vinyl figures, transformation items, and toy weapons.
It seemed like the bunny suit was browsing through them.
Looking for toys in that getup.
“Hey, Tanuki-kun. Look at this.”
Enka’s eyes sparkled as she picked up a soft vinyl figure.
It was a transforming hero called Armdroid.
With its horns and overall appearance, it looked like a demon, but it had a really cool form.
“Do you know about it, Tanuki-kun?”
“Y-yeah. I watch it sometimes when I’m in the mood.”
Trying to keep his distance, he went along with the conversation.
How could she be so cheerful in this situation? Was she just an airhead, or was she an otaku?
“So, do you know about the famous twentieth episode that was trending online?”
“Yeah, it was trending.”
“Right? The heroine, who was on our side, turned out to be a third party and wiped out all the other Armdroid heroes! And then, at the end, she told the main character, Hayasawa Kei, ‘Every time you transform, someone in the city dies.’ That scene gave me goosebumps! They neatly tied up all the loose ends, like his best friend’s mysterious death in the first episode and his nightmares! That’s when I knew it was a masterpiece.”
“It’s pretty dark, right? Sacrificing a civilian every time he transforms.”
“I know. They can’t defeat the demons without Armdroid, but Hayasawa Inui, who transforms into it, is already dead, so he has to take energy from others to keep his heart beating. But the doctor doesn’t tell him anything about it, which is a bit weird. But the story that follows is really intense. The citizens find out the truth and start blaming Armdroid, and Kei Hayasawa can’t bear it anymore and decides to disappear, and then his friends… “
Ryugo let Enka’s words flow in one ear and out the other as she forgot all about their original mission and got carried away.
When he looked back at the bunny suit, who was still standing there motionless, something else caught his eye.
It was a suspicious-looking man with a shoulder bag. He was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and a mask.
He kept darting his eyes around, but it was clear that he was focused on the limited-edition miniature cars that had just been released today.
“…What the?”
Ryugo stared at him, but the man didn’t seem to notice him. Instead, he stuffed the figure into his bag.
He was shoplifting.
Ryugo couldn’t believe his eyes.
–No way, why now of all times!?
Even if he was going to steal something, it was strange. It was almost as if he wanted to be caught stealing…
While he was thinking, the thief left the display and headed deeper into the store. Maybe he was trying to avoid suspicion by wandering around.
He should tell a store employee.
Even if it’s a misunderstanding, I can’t let it pass.
“Enka, keep an eye on the bunny suit.”
“Sure… what’s wrong?”
“Shoplifting. I’m going to report it to the clerk.”
“Huh!? What the heck, at a time like this!?”
“… It’s a day with too many events. Is it like a social game where Bon, New Year’s, and Christmas all came at once?”
While taking care not to lose sight of the culprit, I called out to a young man wearing an apron with the store name on it.
“Excuse me. I just saw someone shoplifting.”
“Huh… do you know which customer it is?”
I guided him to the culprit and pointed him out with my finger from a slightly distant position.
As soon as the guy saw the clerk, his shoulders shook in surprise, and he
“Ah! He ran away!”
He ran off like a startled rabbit and dashed towards the exit.
He couldn’t have predicted this and reacted so quickly unless he had planned to do this.
I hurriedly chased after him, but unfortunately, the other customers were obstacles, and I couldn’t quite reach him.
The culprit was about to reach the exit.
There was no way I’d make it in time.
Should I use Hypnosis: Order?
But I don’t want to waste my level on something like this.
I couldn’t make a decision with only two or three seconds to spare…
I was still hesitating as the time limit approached when it happened.
At some point, the bunny suit was standing in front of the exit.
She was standing tall with her arms crossed, glaring at the shoplifter who was running towards her, but
“Well then, shall we begin the experiment (Now, let’s start the experiment.)!!
In an instant, a blinding white light enveloped my vision.
A flash that dyed the space pure white, making it impossible to look directly at it.
My skin tingled, and when I closed my eyelids and opened them again in the darkness, a normal amount of light had returned.
“Huh…? Huh?”
The bunny was no longer in front of me, and only the culprit remained.
It was a moment that could have been an illusion, but the change was clear.
“W… what the…!?”
The bottom of the culprit’s bag ripped open, and the figures he seemed to have stolen rolled out with a clatter.
He hurriedly tried to hide them, but it was too late.
Ryugo, the clerk, the customers, and the security cameras had seen everything.
When it was over, I felt a little tired.
Fortunately, she released me right away, but I had completely lost sight of the bunny. Or rather, she had probably disappeared.
I had only taken my eyes off her for a moment, but she had suddenly vanished.
Does she really have supernatural powers?
That woman in the bunny suit.
I wonder if she helped get the shoplifter arrested.
I don’t understand the purpose. But I’d better be careful. I don’t want to get my finger cut off like Makoto.
Even though I couldn’t help with the arrest for shoplifting, it was good that I leveled up a bit.
Currently, I’m ‘Level 57’.
“Hey, Madoka?”
I had returned to the place where I had parted ways with her, but she was nowhere to be seen.
She must have chased after Bunny who had moved, but she shouldn’t have been in a position to pass each other.
As I was thinking about calling her,
“Tanuki-kun!”
Madoka came running from the direction of the cash register. She was holding a bulging plastic bag in her hand. It seemed like she had bought something.
“Sorry, did I make you look for me?”
“Yeah. Well, yeah. What were you doing?”
From Noble mtl dot com
“Bunny was gone, and the shoplifting thing seemed to be taking a long time, so I thought I’d get Tanuki-kun a present in the meantime.”
“A present?”
“Yes. This. An Armed Hero figure.”
She took out the toy we had talked about earlier.
“You can move its arms and legs freely, you know? Isn’t that amazing?”
“It’s true that it has a lot of movable parts. How much was it?”
“Money doesn’t matter. I was happy to talk to Tanuki-kun about Armed Hero. If you want anything else, I’ll buy it for you.”
“Eh… it’s okay, really.”
As a child, I would have cried and begged for it.
Now that I’m older, I don’t want to have a female classmate buy it for me.
“Ah, um…”
Perhaps because I refused, Madoka looked down, embarrassed. Her ears were bright red.
“III’m sorry… I just got excited on my own… It was annoying, wasn’t it… I’m sorry…”
“No, you don’t have to apologize that much!”
“There aren’t many people I can talk to about this kind of thing, so I got carried away… hehehehe.”
“I know how you feel. I’m kind of similar.”
“R-really?”
“I can’t stop talking once I start talking about saunas.”
“Huh. You like saunas? What do you like about them, for example?”
“First of all–“
◆
An hour later.
There was Madoka, her soul having left her body after listening to too much talk about saunas, and Ryugo, who couldn’t stop talking as if he still hadn’t said enough.
She would later say, “I truly understood the saying that ‘silence is golden’.”