“Okay, I got the intel.”

Ten minutes later, Ryuuko-chan came back looking completely nonchalant.

We had been watching from the rooftop, and Ryuuko-chan had approached people on the street like old friends, casually chatting and gathering information with a cheerful smile.

She even hit it off with some and took photos together.

By the way, the actual info-gathering happened in the first few minutes. The rest of the time, she was just buying ice cream.

You’d be fooled by how normal her reactions are, but seriously, you’re still ridiculously strong.

And you haven’t even used your full Dragon Rank Inheritance yet, right?
How do you manage to keep acting like such a background character?

“First, let’s all calm down with some ice cream. Here, which ones do you two want?”

She had the composure to even buy ours too.

“Then I’ll have chocolate ice cream!”
“Ah, I think I’ll go with sorbet.”

I was already full, so I went with whatever seemed least likely to upset my stomach.
Hey, how can you two eat so much?

Toa-chan, just today—how much have you spent on food?
Unless I miscounted, it’s over fifty thousand yen, right?

『Recovering magical energy through food is surprisingly efficient. If there’s going to be a fight soon, it might actually be rational to eat now, you know?』

That only makes sense if you’ve been using magic.

I get Rei-chan, sure. She went wild with her powers at that crepe shop.
Ryuuko-chan’s been actively using Baltius too.

But you, Toa-chan—what have you been doing?

『She might be casting some sort of magic too, you know? Just being my contractor means you’re constantly expending magic, and you’re compensating for that purely with love for cute girls. Frankly, you’re the abnormal one.』

…Well, I guess people come in all kinds!

『Ah, he dodged the point.』

“Alright then, time to share what I found out!”

Ryuuko-chan raised her hand and announced.
She was still holding the tiny spoon that came with the ice cream.

Are we back in a wholesome yuri four-panel comic now?

“So, turns out those bracelets are being handed out at the gate to the Chroma Music Academy District. If you have one, you can attend tonight’s Chroma Academy-hosted live event for free. There’s a chip inside that also works as a discount coupon.”

“They’re really going all in with this…”

Giving them out with perks shows a serious intent to distribute to everyone.
Still, isn’t that scale a little much?

“Can I ask a question?”
“Yes, Kei-chan.”
“If they’re handing those out at the gate, it would draw attention. Also, if the discount function is active, this had to be pre-planned. Isn’t there something huge backing this?”

“Exactly. This campaign’s actually been in preparation at Chroma Music Academy for months now. In fact, I was initially supposed to appear as a promo figure… though I quickly got replaced by a popular idol explorer.”

A slightly gloomy mood settled over us for a moment.
Only Rei-chan kept quietly eating her ice cream.

“S-So, basically, something was always going to be distributed, and it probably got switched out for these bracelets. That means the upper brass at Chroma must be involved. Otherwise, this couldn’t happen.”

Ryuuko-chan continued her explanation.

“And I don’t think this was done to capture us… There had to be another purpose.”

I nodded at Ryuuko-chan’s words.

Yeah, no way they could’ve set this up just to catch us.
Even as a backup plan for if Rei-chan escaped, this scale is way too big. It must be for something worse.

“There’s no way we can take the bracelets from everyone. Plus, the enemy’s using regular people as shields. Rei-chan mustn’t hand hers over either.”

Ryuuko-chan reiterated our current situation.
We’re being shielded by civilians, and we don’t even know the enemy’s objective.

Hearing it laid out like that… yeah, this is bad.

『By the way, with our current power, we can’t deploy an interference field over the whole district. At best, we could cover a single block. And we don’t even have a clear target for interference, so it would take time too.』

Well, in that case, we’d just use teleportation as a last resort.
Teleporting really is convenient.

Still, this doesn’t feel like the time to go full Sorciera mode.
Ryuuko-chan might still get her moment to shine.

And if something’s happening inside Chroma Music Academy, we need to deal with it.
The Hinotsuchi Culture Festival might get ruined.

『That’s absolutely unacceptable. It’s the sacred land of our souls!』

Don’t drag me into that.
My soul lies with beautiful girls.

“So, I think we all know what we have to do now, right?”

Ryuuko-chan looked at us as she spoke.
Toa-chan and I exchanged glances and nodded.

Toa-chan, with a determined look, opened her mouth.

“First, we head to Chroma Music Academy and look for whoever’s behind this incident. And in the end, we take down the bad guy who started it all!”

“Yeah. For this level of brainwashing, there must be some major system in place. We should destroy that too.”

We really do need to take action to resolve this.
Toa-chan, you’ve grown strong…!

Feeling proud, I looked at Ryuuko-chan.

“Ugh… what the heck, that’s terrifying…”
““Eh?””

Ryuuko-chan looked at us like she was seeing something horrifying.

“Why is that your first instinct? Normally, you’d ask for outside help, regroup, and then move to suppress, right? Rei-chan’s with us too, so we should focus on getting out first!”

“…Is that so?”
“I don’t really know.”
“Exactly!”

Ryuuko-chan shouted and pointed at us.

“We still don’t understand the enemy’s goal! What are the bracelets for? How big is the enemy group? How many clones even exist? We don’t know anything, so why are you already talking about storming the final boss!?”

“Well, when you put it that way…”
“It is the fastest route…”

Toa-chan and I exchanged another glance and said “Right?”

“No, seriously, we need backup for something of this scale… Why are you both so ready to just charge in alone? Did something happen to you before? You’re supposed to be normal students!?”

“”……””
“You’re both blatantly looking away!?”

I mean, we did pick a fight with Kisou Academy, and most of our Zilnius Academy stuff was small-scale anyway…

When you think about it, maybe we’re actually pretty competent?

“Wouldn’t it be faster if we solved it rather than waiting for help?”
“Where does that confidence even come from…?”
“It’ll be fine, it usually works out somehow.”
“What even happened in your past!?”
“……”
“Don’t go quiet only there!”

This is actually really fun.
We were totally messing with Ryuuko-chan.

She always reacts so perfectly.

Maybe Fectom Academy could use someone like Ryuuko-chan.

“Anyway, from here on, our goal is to escape from Chroma Academy District! Then we contact Arianrhod for help! If the Chroma higher-ups really are involved, the board of directors will have to act. And hopefully, they’ll send more S-Ranks besides just me. Probably Rokuhara-san or Tatari-chan.”

At that point, there was no reason to argue.

We nodded obediently.

I mean, logically, if you’ve got a place you can turn to for help, you use it.

『I could also split off as No. 0 and go search.』

But then we wouldn’t be able to make you pull off any emergency stunts.
This time, let’s just run quietly.

“Okay then, plan’s set—let’s go. Rei-chan, finished your ice cream?”

“Mm, it was delicious.”

Rei-chan smiled with satisfaction.
To protect that smile, we have to fight.

“Alright, Baltius, carry all of us.”

Baltius once again took all four of us on its back and began leaping from building to building.

In this form, its wings apparently serve only as camouflage to disappear from sight.

Basically, it’s like a ridiculously overpowered chameleon.

“If we can escape through the gate, that’s ideal. Seriously, let’s get out of here and cry to the other S-Ranks.”

Even saying that with a serious face, Ryuuko-chan still didn’t have the dignity of an S-Rank.