“Well, duh,” Shinichi said.
“What he said,” Myuhi said.
But Myuhi and Shinichi’s response couldn’t be more casual.
It just wasn’t a threat anymore the moment it was exposed.
It was obvious anyway since there was something so big hanging over the stage, so they could have dealt with it anyway.
And besides, Shinichi has already dealt with it appropriately.
“As you can see, I’ve already scrapped the restraints and also apprehended this guy who’s responsible for them.
I’ve also reinforced the monitor already, so it won’t collapse even if a missile hit it. It’s pretty much impervious to destruction by this point.”
“…Isn’t that overdoing it?”
But of course, there was a gap in what Shinichi considered appropriate when solving matters.
“Don’t worry, it’ll last only until tomorrow,” Shinichi said.
“Uh, am I the only here who thinks that it’s not an issue of duration?” Monica said.
“Don’t bother. It’s hopeless,” Myuhi said.
While Monica was hailed as a peerless songstress, her sensibilities in that regard were within the realm of ordinary people.
Unable to keep up with how cavalier they were being about this, she couldn’t help but shake her head.
Then Shinichi nodded and continued down the runway as though nothing could be more natural.
He was so confident in his stride that he looked like the protagonist, unlike Monica, who was being somewhat timid after the recent revelations.
“There a strange fragility to the runway too, so I reinforced it as I walked. There’s an internal hollowness with a mechanism at the tip. Is that part of your act?”
“Yes, will it be a problem?”
“…Not anymore.”
“So there was something wrong!”
“It’s solved already. Let’s go.”
Without answering Monica’s question, Shinichi jumped down into the audience seats.
The height of the runway was roughly equivalent to the height of your average Japanese adult male.
There were fences to keep the audience from getting too close, and it was inside those fences that Shinichi landed.
“Hey, at least explain it to me properly!” Monica said.
“Calm down,” Myuhi said.
Monica yelled as she watched Shinichi leave her, but Shinichi just ignored her.
She yelled some more, so Myuhi took it upon herself to calm her down. For some reason, this has been her role for awhile now.
She was all smiles, but deep inside, she was starting to grow weary.
“If he says there’s no problem, then it’s probably fine already. He’s probably not explaining anything because he doesn’t want to scare you like he did earlier.”
“Huh?”
It was such a nasty way of speaking, but she was probably right.
“If you understand, let’s go,” Myuhi said.
“Huh? Hyaa!?” Monica said.
Without even the time to be bewildered, Myuhi effortlessly picked her up and jumped down.
They weren’t that high up, but it was still a frightening jump without any preparation, and all the more so while being carried in someone’s arms.
“Heave ho.”
Despite that, Myuhi landed as though nothing could be simpler, and it was all that Monica could do to look at her with a somewhat deflated and resentful expression.
But of course, such a look was completely powerless in the face of Myuhi’s business smile.
“…Now that I think about it, you’re someone who would attack another person out of the blue.”
Evidently, Monica realized that Myuhi too wasn’t someone that could be judged with common sense.
“Ahahaha, I was actually being considerate of you since you looked like you wanted to move together.”
Myuhi pleaded innocent. Really, this wasn’t a prank on her part to try and startle her, who was her employer. Though technically speaking, her employer was really Shinichi, who was employed by Monica.
“If you want to come, then do it properly. Let’s go,” Shinichi said.
“Ah, wait a moment!” Monica said.
“What!?” Shinichi.
Shinichi had waited for them inside the fences, and upon seeing them arrive, he was about to move out, but Monica easily caught him before he could, causing a look that was a mix of surprise and bitterness to surface on him.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to touch me?” Shinichi said.
“It’s your fault for always going ahead alone. If you want to be considerate, then at least remain within reach.”
“Are you really saying that while knowing what I’m doing? I’m looking for dangerous objects. Yet the person I’m trying to protect keeps tagging along.”
“But you didn’t tell me not to follow you. You also looked like you would rather have me somewhere you can see.”
“Uu.”
“See? We’re not that much different.”
Monica was worried over Shinichi, so she wanted him close by.
When Shinichi heard that, he made a sullen face and sighed.
Myuhi watched over them with a smile, but deep inside, she was tilting her head.
“What’s with these two?”
Shinichi wasn’t acting like himself. He might try to put on an act and pretend as though he was getting back at her for being given a role he didn’t want, but Myuhi could tell that his issue was with something else.
“He was the one who didn’t say it to her, yet he’s acting like he can’t stand being misunderstood by her?”
Myuhi followed along as she murmured that to herself.
Most of the people here feared Shinichi because of his actions, but while neither Shinichi nor Myuhi minded, Monica did mind.
Monica was frustrated by Shinichi’s arbitrary actions, and in a sense, she wasn’t wrong.
Shinichi knew that too, but that didn’t mean he had to appreciate it.
“By the way, what did you come to the audience seats for? There’s nothing here.”
As the quarrel between the two subsided, the Songstress suddenly changed the topic and said that while looking around them.
It was an outdoor live performance, so the “seats” for the audience were essentially just patches of grass, and it was a standing-room-only setup too.
To prevent the audience from getting too jumbled up together and to differentiate prices slightly based on proximity to the stage, there were only segmented barriers within certain ranges.
There were no staff members in sight, and there were no objects to hide anything either.
“This is the most suspicious place.”
But Shinichi didn’t agree, and he nudged the grass with his foot.
Myuhi said, “Ah!” from behind Monica, and Monica realized that she should just follow.
“…Underground?”
“It’s a lot easier to set something up here than inside the building.”
They had been led to pick this venue, so it wouldn’t have been strange if the enemy managed to prepare something in advance.
It was easy to hide things in the soil too. All you have to do is avoid prying eyes, and after a little digging, you can hide anything.
“So what’s there?”
“That’s what I’m about to find out.”
His attention had long been directed from the surface to the ground beneath.
By relying on his senses to search for any foreign objects or devices, he was able to scan the place for abnormalities without discrimination.
He wasn’t relying on just detecting photons, a tip his childhood friend had given him.
This was a degree of sensory scanning that only an S Rank Skill could pull off, a degree of scanning that easily surpassed state-of-the-art detection systems.
However, there was a simple yet fatal flaw to it.
It brought about abnormal fatigue and calorie consumption.
But he still forced himself to use it because he couldn’t afford to spare his attention elsewhere.
“…Tch.”
After a moment of silence, he clicked his tongue. But before anyone could even react to it, he had already directed his arm to the ground.
“It’s going to shake a bit.”
Myuhi paled when she saw him snap his fingers.
When that snap resounded, a piercing shock shook the ground.
But no one seemed to react badly to it. At the very least, no one within hearing range.
At most, there were some voices suggesting that there might have been an earthquake, but it was too brief, so few could be bothered to show too much interest.
It would take a much bigger earthquake to elicit a bigger reaction from the earthquake-veteran citizens of Japan.
“…What did you do this time?”
But the people that saw him couldn’t afford to remain uninterested.
Myuhi wryly smiled, Monica’s face twitched, and Shinichi sighed as though to say they were being a bother, but he still answered dispassionately.
“I just cleared away a foreign object. It’s in the process of breaking down into harmless substances.”
“You make it sound so simple, but you’re doing something amazing again, aren’t you?” Monica said.
Something abnormal appear to have been buried there, and Shinichi dealt with it without even touching it.
Though they couldn’t see it, whatever remained was currently breaking down.
It was business as usual for him, but it was beyond common sense to everyone else.
His actions were so unconventional that everyone else could only wryly smile.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Monica wasn’t privy to either violent matters or Garestonian technology, so she was easily able to accept that Shinichi could accomplish that.
“────You look unhappy, though. Like a kid getting praised for something not related to himself,” Monica said.
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