Once they fled back to the renovated storage room, Ariyama explained everything to her. He left out the part where he accidently fondled Odomura's chest, however. This was time for a serious debrief of his first mission technically for the Pilgrims’ Society, not some humorous recap.

Once he was finished, Matsune was left standing there, tapping her chin thoughtfully, her other arm cupping her elbow.

“I see. And your mana detection picked up nothing?”

“Zero trace.”

Matsune nodded in affirmation.

“Well, that settles it. Odomura-chan is off the list.”

Ariyama noted a hint of relief in her voice, as if Matsune was proportionally more relieved over Odomura being disregarded than Ariyama assumed she would.

In many ways, Odomura and Matsune were similar. Both were pretty – though Odomura signified ‘cute’ while Matsune was more ‘beautiful’ – as well as both being geniuses in academics, at the very least. They were both so kind as well, caring for everyone they came across.

But Ariyama knew there were differences, as there were amongst all people in the world. Odomura seemed more motherly and soothing, putting up with antics from the likes of Kazura and Yaranagi constantly.

Matsune, on the other hand, was far less of a pushover. She was nice and nurturing to everyone she crossed paths with, but Ariyama could tell she was confident enough in herself to know when people deserved her kindness. Take Kajima and his gang, for example.

As Matsune finished tapping away at her phone, she looked back up at Ariyama with a gaze which had his heart skip a beat.

“Great work today, Ariyama-kun. I know it's hard mentally to be forced to investigate and possibly even suspect one of your friends of being a criminal. But all unregistered Tributes have to be brought to justice, even if they're just living their lives peacefully. The risk of a sudden outburst and mass loss of life is enough to intimidate the Society enough that they banned all unregistered Tributes living on their own. You're either with the Society, or a criminal.”

“Wow, that sounds like a harsh rule.”

“It very much is. Also, the Pilgrims’ Society has a saying: “Rules are limits to one's progression, not targets to ascend beyond. However, once a rule is ascended, it is simply that another rule will perch itself on a higher branch”. Essentially, it's a message to the rouges out there – namely the unregistered Tributes, innocent or otherwise – that their lives are breaking the rules. “Stick by those rules and comply, or an even greater penance with await at a more heightened rule.””

Ariyama couldn't help a sudden smile spreading across his face.

“That's their ‘saying’, huh? Was that really a saying or was it a whole essay?”

Matsune flashed a smile in return, focusing her attention on her phone again.

“Yes, it's quite the mouthful. But when you've been around for hundreds of years, like the Society has, the amount of info needed to be stuffed into a singular phrase expands more and more.”

She tucked her phone away in the pocket of her blue blazer, crossing her hands behind her back.

“Well, I know you must be dying to go home. Right, Ariyama-kun?”

“It's crossed my mind more than once by this point.”

Matsune began shifting her weight left and right onto each foot.

“As I thought. I'll let you go, just after this last bit of vital info, I promise.”

Vital info? If she had just said that at the beginning, Ariyama would've ignored his homesickness and stuck by her without needing to be questioned.

“Vital? If that's the case, of course I'll stay.”

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“Thank you, Ariyama-kun. Now, about that information. In simple terms, one of the people I was examining today was this person right here–”

She took out her phone again and showed Ariyama the image of a man, seemingly a third-year with teal hair and yellow eyes…

“Hey, why does he look like–”

“This is Matsuragi Jouji. He's in class 3D, president of the book club, and also the older brother of Matsuragi-kun.”

Matsuragi had an older brother? Ariyama had never known, and that just proved that he really didn't know much about that guy at all.

Since Odomura was cleared from his list of targets – and Kazura was for sure the last one he'd get to – that meant Matsuragi Kento would be Ariyama's next examinee, didn't it?

Looking at Jouji's picture, Ariyama frowned at it, then frowned at Matsune.

“He's a third year? So you really are going after everybody in the school, huh? Even the staff, I assume?”

“Indeed, and I've even cleared a good few of them too. It gets frustrating the more and more people get crossed off without anything to go off of. I just want to find this criminal already.”

“Ditto, and I've only been working with you on this case for one day. But anyways, what was that about this ‘vital info’?”

‘Oh, yes, you're right. We've been thrown off course. So, I mentioned Masturagi-senpai as he actually revealed to me that he'd been doing some digging as well. Don't worry, I confirmed that he wasn't part of of Society or an unregistered Tribute.``

“OK, and what about that info you got from him? What's it on?”

Matsune paused for a moment.

“If we get lucky, it’ll lead to us finding our mysterious person. He said that he'd been noticing weird things about some figure wandering the school after hours. As mentioned, Matsuragi-senpai is president of the book club, which can run fairly late into the evening after school. He told me, one night, he saw someone tall in a hoodie snooping around the premises. When going to investigate, he came upon a ‘mark’ on one of the walls. Does this look familiar?”

Matsune surfed through the images on her phone again, her screen, showing a stone wall with a dark stain tuning through it, as if it had begun weeping darkness that crawled across its surface.

Ariyama recognised it almost instantly.

“Huh, oddly like those patches where there's residual mana, courtesy of our mysterious person.”

“Exactly. If all this is genuine, then the person Matsuragi-senpai caught has to be the unregistered Tribute. However, there's more. Matsuragi-senpai also mentioned that he had seen this hooded figure multiple times, and out of pure curiosity and a stroke of luck, he managed to lay down a somewhat-reliable schedule for him.”

Was she serious? If so, Matsuragi's brother was turning out to be a proper help in all this. Ariyama doubted they'd have gotten much farther without this information.

“What kind of schedule?”

“Matsuragi-senpai figured out that the hooded guy appears every other day for a week, then every three days for a week, before resetting.”

“Can you explain that in simpler terms? Only one of us got full marks in their literature exam, and it wasn't me.”

“Basically, if he were to start on a Monday, he'd then go Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, then Wednesday again and then Saturday, before going back to Monday.”

“Gotcha. Wait, but isn't today–?”

Matsune's lips curled at the corners in a mischievous smirk.

“Today is Wednesday.”

“Hold on. Isn't that perfect? Like, from what you said, he goes every Wednesday, doesn't he?”

“Indeed he does. So, Ariyama-kun, would you be interested in accompanying me tonight–”

“Absolutely. I mean, um, yes. Of course.”

He wanted to do anything other than have to confront his old friends. If they caught the unregistered Tribute tonight, that would mean he didn't have to survey anyone else.

But then again…

He wanted to talk to them again eventually, didn't he?

Sure, the conversation with Odomura was a little awkward, but in hindsight, he was glad to have reconnected with her. It had been over a month since he'd seen her, after all. He couldn't lie and say he wasn't starting to miss her. Her and Matsuragi. And Kazura was another issue entirely.

But for now, he just needed something to preoccupy his mind.

Matsune tapped his arm gratefully.

“Awesome. So, we can head home for now. Let's meet up here again at around nine? That's usually when Masturagi-senpai saw this hooded man lurking around. Oh, and bring your sword.”

The mention of his Enchanted Tool made Ariyama snap to attention.

“Really? Why?”

Matsune gave him a grave look, as if she was wary about something.

“Ariyama-kun, we may be intercepting an actual unregistered Tribute. As I've mentioned, they can be extremely volatile and dangerous. More dangerous them even those monsters from the Shrine, I'm afraid. This could be a whole new experience for you, so you need to be prepared if push comes to shove and you have to fight back.”

Ariyama's heart raced. This was it. Probably. This was the scenario he was dreading. A time when his life was in danger, just like it had been on that night.

But this time, at least he had the sword with him. His sword training for the past five years gave him an above-average competence with the weapon, so as long as he kept that knowledge in mind, he should be OK.

And even still, he had Matsune to rely on, as always.

Swallowing thickly, his voice quiet but dripping with newfound determination, Ariyama answered.

“OK then. Let's go catch ourselves a criminal.