Her presence felt like an illusion, akin to petals falling from a tree, sliding past my gaze and merging with others on the ground, yet the ripple she left lingered in my mind.
My sister merely considered it a loss, someone with whom she could discuss gossip. Meanwhile I packed up my things and headed back to the loft house I’ve been renting in the city. I lived in this place during my college years, and since my job and activities were all in the city, I decided to continue renting this house after graduation. It’s conveniently located near my suburban home, allowing me to visit my parents and check on my sister every weekend. Currently, I works as a programmer in the company group associated with the best search engine in the world (similar to Google in my previous world).
I’ve been the contract employee of “The Star” since middle school when this company started. Now, I’m considered one of the core members, with authority second only to the founders. This allows me to plan my schedule freely, as long as tasks are completed satisfactorily. I appreciate my boss; he willing to “lend” the company’s resources if we, the core members, need them – this is how I dig for information in the government’s databases. I believe this is possible because of his ability to handle situations in which we might be involved improperly.
Most of my colleges have no use for this bonus, but I occasionally employ it for analysis. Currently, I depend on it to search for information about that girl.
Our first meeting was no coincidence – no one in their right mind would walk for an hour in suburbs along a pitch-black pathway during midnight just to return to their parents’ home for a nap. Of course, I deliberately went down there to locate her!
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It all happened when I was browsing the internet, trying to gather ideas for a new project. That’s when my mana-field monitoring system alerted me to an abnormal incident – an experiment to determine if abnormal mana-field activities could be an indicator of natural disasters. The data was very weird, and I spent hours searching to pinpoint the exact location causing the abnormality. Immersed in the search, I forgot about my dinner, rushed toward the location in my car, and started wandering in the field to see what caused the abnormality.
Then, I found that girl who looked like a MahoShojo but definitely wasn’t one.
She piqued my curiosity, and I sensed she might be hiding a big secret. So, during the weekend when not many people were working overtime, I headed to my office, ignoring my colleagues who stayed overnight because it was too comfortable there, and search for her trace.
With my previous experience, I located her in just a minute. However, I had a feeling that if I were to appear in front of her now, she would disappear again, just like she did this morning. So, I decided to observe her from afar, just to satisfy my curiosity. Perhaps I’ll stop being too fixated on her when my urge to dig deeper is at rest.
I examine her through the surveillance I hacked near her. She still looked the same as she did this morning, but now she wrapped her hair with a shawl she found from who-knows-where and wore a pair of shoes that didn’t fit her…Oh, she left without shoes this morning. Where did she find those anyway?
She walked slowly, from one place to another, taking a casual stroll. However, after a few hours of observation, I noticed that she was just wandering without any specific destination, making a conscious effort to avoid crowds and circling in places with very few people. It seemed like she was observing others too.
The surveillance footage wasn’t in high definition, so I couldn’t see her expressions clearly. Nevertheless, I got the impression that she started to mimic the people she observed as she passed by streetwalkers, trying to learn their poise and testing if it fit her style or something.
I had to admit, she had piqued my highest interest now.