“Club activities? Can we observe?” Laeticia immediately asked after confirming that what the two girls were talking about was indeed legendary club activities.
Bai Ya, standing beside her, also had her eyes shining with excitement. She was also very curious about what kind of club activities the demon girls would engage in.
Would it be chess or sports like human students? Or perhaps magic battles?
Either way, Bai Ya felt it would be quite good.
This request made Teresa’s expression a little strained. “Um, our club is a little, well, abnormal.”
“How is it abnormal? We’re the trio that’s going to be the great detectives of the Demon King’s Castle!” Aileen retorted indignantly, waving her fist. She excitedly took Laeticia’s hand and began to introduce their club to her.
According to Aileen, their club had gathered the three most brilliant minds in the magic academy (a point Laeticia doubted) and had solved many troubles for teachers and students in the school, making it a well-known major club in the academy.
“Our name is, Junior Detectives…”
“You’re getting your lines mixed up!” Teresa punched Aileen on the head, interrupting the girl’s chanting. “I told you not to underestimate the manga from the human world!”
“High school detectives are super cool, aren’t they!” Aileen covered her head, her eyes teary as she retorted. “Even Xiao Luo thinks it’s super cool.”
Laeticia’s eye twitched. She could vaguely guess what manga these two girls were referring to.
The parallel to “Detective Conan” in this world was a national-level manga in the human world.
“Could it be that you two have also read that manga, ‘Detective Nan Nan’?” Bai Ya asked instinctively.
As soon as the question was out, the two girls who were still bickering turned their gaze towards them.
In Teresa’s eyes was surprise, and in Aileen’s eyes, it was delight.
“I didn’t expect little sister to have read that masterpiece! I’ve decided, you’re an honorary member of our detective club!” Aileen grabbed Bai Ya’s hand, her face showing the expression of finally finding a kindred spirit.
This left Bai Ya unsure how to react. Were all demon girls this enthusiastic and wildly unconventional?
In the end, under Teresa’s strong suppression, Aileen did not pull Bai Ya into her club, but Laeticia’s request to visit was accepted.
“If you like that manga, then we are sisters by different parents!” Aileen said.
The magic academy had extremely lenient management of students. The strict requirement was that personal grudges should be resolved in the arena, and fighting within the academy was forbidden.
Even non-personal grudges also had to be resolved in the arena, but such situations were rare and only occurred between a few long-standing major clubs.
“The student council and the self-governance committee have small skirmishes every three days and major battles every five days. Members of these two clubs are basically fighting in the arena every day.” As they were heading to the detective club, Teresa introduced the daily life of the academy’s students to Laeticia and Bai Ya.
Generally, students had a lot of free time, especially the excellent students. As long as they finished classes and homework, all other time belonged to themselves.
With so much free time, students had to find something to vent their excess energy, and thus the academy’s clubs were born.
First were those two largest clubs, the student council and the self-governance committee. Although they sounded like official organizations of the school, they were pretty much that in reality.
These two clubs had existed since the founding of the academy and were rivals. Members of the two clubs often exchanged opinions in the arena with rather intense methods. Every day, the students of the academy could witness the exciting battles contributed by members of these two clubs in the arena.
Below these two major clubs were numerous smaller clubs, with larger ones having nearly a hundred members and smaller ones having only single-digit members.
For example, Teresa and Aileen’s club had only three official members, which in human daily manga, would generally be on the verge of being disbanded.
Fortunately, the rules here were different. Even if your club only had one person, as long as you could prove that you were genuinely engaged in activities, the academy would allocate a space for you to use as an activity venue.
“So I have no idea why anyone would join meaningless clubs like the afternoon tea club,” Aileen said indignantly. “I heard that their club activities are gathering for afternoon tea. That’s such a waste of life.”
Laeticia had a different opinion. Such a club for slacking off suited her just fine.
However, today she was accompanying Xiao Ya for a tour, so it would be better to visit these two lively girls’ club. Given their personalities, the remaining member of the club should also be an optimist.
“Right, Xiao Luo might have a bad temper, so please be prepared, ladies.” Teresa then reminded them.
“Oh, well.”
After walking for about half an hour, Laeticia arrived at a small wooden house amidst a field of light purple flowers with Teresa and the other two.
A wooden sign was planted in front of the wooden house, with several crooked characters carved on it: Detective Club, Keep Out for Outsiders.
This wooden sign was likely carved by Aileen, Laeticia thought.
Laeticia didn’t think Teresa would carve such ugly characters, and the other member they hadn’t met yet, according to Teresa and Aileen, seemed to be a more steady type.
“This is my masterpiece, isn’t it beautiful!” Indeed, Aileen started shouting upon seeing the wooden sign.
“Aileen, could you lower your voice… Who are you?” Seemingly alerted by Aileen’s voice, a black-haired girl impatiently pushed open the door of the wooden house and poked her head out to speak to Aileen.
She had only spoken half of her sentence when, noticing strangers here, she abruptly cut off the latter half and began to ask about Laeticia and the other’s origins.
“They are here to visit our academy, and Aileen stopped them on the way,” Teresa briefly explained what had just happened to the black-haired girl.
“I see. It’s indeed something that idiot would do.” The black-haired girl opened the wooden door and said to Laeticia and Bai Ya, “Since you are guests, please come in. But let me be upfront, it’s not as interesting here as you might imagine.”
“It’s super interesting, okay!”
“Shut up, you idiot!” The black-haired girl glared fiercely at Aileen.
The space inside the wooden house was not small. Even with the arrival of two guests, it still seemed relatively spacious.
However, the interior of the wooden house appeared rather cluttered. This wasn’t to say it was dirty, but simply messy.
There were no dirty things, but the papers scattered all over the room clearly made the room deviate from the concept of neatness.
“It’s a bit messy because we’re still in the early stages of investigation, and there’s too much information, so we can only classify it this way,” Xiao Luo explained, pressing her temples.
Laeticia bent down and picked up a photo from the ground. She recognized the black-haired girl in the photo.
That girl named Mo Zili.
“It’s her?”
“Hm? Miss recognizes the girl in the photo?” Xiao Luo did not miss Laeticia’s mumbling.
This was not something they couldn’t talk about. Laeticia nodded naturally. “I met her at the dance a few days ago. Why, are you investigating her?”
Aileen, the lively and unconventional girl, answered Laeticia. She loudly confirmed Laeticia’s guess. “Yes! A demon calling a human teacher is too strange.”
“But how do you know her teacher is human?” Laeticia pressed, as none of them had recognized Bai Ya as human.
Laeticia herself could distinguish between humans and demons at a glance because of her strength, just as Bai Ling could also distinguish between demons and humans at a glance.
People with insufficient strength could not distinguish between humans and demons at a glance… unless that demon’s hair was too brightly colored.
As it happened, both Mo Zili and her teacher had black hair, and Mo Zili was a demon. Therefore, generally speaking, no one would think her teacher was human, right?
“I have special information channels,” Xiao Luo said proudly, looking up.
“Xiao Luo is Marquis Oz’s youngest daughter…” Teresa whispered to Laeticia.
Laeticia suddenly understood. With family connections, it made sense.
While Laeticia and Teresa were whispering, Bai Ya was tiptoeing to look at the photos pinned to a wooden board.
There were many photos on this wooden board, taken in various locations. The only commonality was that the protagonist in all the photos was that black-haired girl.
“Are these all candid shots?” The innocent young girl asked a question that silenced everyone present.
Were these not candid shots? Could it be that the detectives could overtly follow Mo Zili and record her daily life?
They were investigating, so of course they had to be as discreet as possible.
Even to avoid the residual magic from the keepsake stones attracting Mo Zili’s attention, Xiao Luo specifically brought out her treasured camera obtained from humans.
“This is called ‘necessary investigative means.’ Children don’t understand, so don’t talk nonsense,” Xiao Luo retorted dryly.
However, her rebuttal seemed too weak, and even Bai Ya didn’t believe what the girl said.
“But…” Bai Ya wanted to say more, but Laeticia gently patted her shoulder. “What is it, Sister Qianqian?”
“There’s nothing wrong with investigating suspicious individuals appearing in the academy,” Laeticia said with a smile. She waved the photos. “This girl is clearly not a student of the academy, yet she’s been wandering around. As a member of the academy, it’s normal for Xiao Luo and the others to be suspicious of her.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right!” Xiao Luo immediately seized the opportunity Laeticia provided. “Miss is absolutely right. As members of the academy, how can we let a suspicious person wander around carelessly?”
Teresa glanced at Laeticia in surprise, not expecting her to be so adept at telling lies with a straight face. Was this the talent of nobles?
It was truly a bit terrifying.
Ah, you ask how she knew Laeticia was a noble?
Isn’t it obvious? In what way did Laeticia not act like a noble?
Being able to bring people to visit the academy and having met Mo Zili at a noble ball, how could she not be a noble lady?
Moreover, this person might even be a noble of considerable status.
“But if you want to know the answer, why not just ask her directly?” Bai Ya raised another question.
This time, Laeticia didn’t need to intervene. Xiao Luo could come up with a long string of reasoning to argue that this was the only way to uncover the truth.
“People can lie. Even if we ask her, not to mention what reason we would use, even if she’s willing to answer our questions, how would we know if she’s lying?”
“The trustworthiness of words spoken by suspicious individuals is less than what we uncover. At least these things have evidence.”
Aileen chimed in from the side, “Yes, yes! And we’re just following behind her to see if she does anything suspicious. As long as we’re not discovered, who would know she’s being watched?”
But her chime-in was worse than not chiming in.
“In short, to solve this mystery, these things cannot be avoided. For the sake of the truth to be revealed soon, someone must bear this profound darkness.” Xiao Luo placed the khaki beret on the table onto her head. “This is our duty. If you two ladies cannot stand us, then please proceed to the afternoon tea club next door. We are about to begin our battle.”
A powerful belief, impossible to ignore, seemed to erupt from Xiao Luo’s small body, astonishing even Laeticia.
Bai Ya was even more stunned; she felt as if she were the villain now, and Xiao Luo was the protagonist in a passionate manga who was misunderstood by everyone.
This aura of “though a million men stand in my way, I shall go forward” truly shocked the young girl Bai Ya, who was only sixteen or seventeen.
Oh, speaking of which, Xiao Luo also seemed to be only sixteen or seventeen?
“Sister Qianqian, perhaps we should go and see the afternoon tea club instead.” Bai Ya lowered her head and whispered, feeling very embarrassed. “If we follow Miss Xiao Luo and the others, our target will be too big, and we’ll be too conspicuous, right?”
“You’re right. Although I’d like to participate in your club activities, getting involved right now would actually mess things up.” Laeticia could use magic to make herself less noticeable, but that wouldn’t be much fun.
“Miss Xiao Luo, will you continue this activity later? If you do, we’d like to participate as well.”
