Chapter Sixty-Six: The Truth of Kawanokawa City
Dusk.
The staff at the SEMA branch of Kawanokawa City have mostly finished work for the day.
It was as quiet inside as always.
No, it was a bit too quiet to the point of being eerie.
Alice repeatedly called her partner, Junki, on her phone, but there was no answer.
Whether this extraordinary disaster was real or not was still uncertain for Alice.
She did not have the authority or reason to directly mobilize the operatives of SEMA.
In desperation.
She could only send a message to the head of the SEMA branch, hoping that the man would believe her.
After all, if it were true, he would be her greatest ally.
Then.
“Why is Amamiya also here?”
Alice looked somewhat helplessly at the two people following her.
Not to mention that they needed DD-chan’s knowledge and information.
Chika was an utterly ordinary person, and although Alice did not know why she could remember the hidden person, it was still puzzling.
“This, this is about whether we can find Senior…. so, I also want to….”
Chika nervously lowered her head, her water-colored bangs hiding her eyes, but she still summoned her courage to respond.
“….. Until we are within SEMA, I allow you to accompany us, but you absolutely cannot go to the other world,” Alice said.
“On the other hand, I will help you find information regarding Kuzutsuka Chika.”
After Alice signaled to Kanade with her eyes, “you too.”
She turned to the now-spiritual DD-chan and said, “This is an emergency situation, so I won’t worry about why you know about the internal conditions of SEMA.”
“First, tell me how to get to the information room you mentioned.”
Alice had no memory of the information room DD-chan spoke about.
She had previously investigated materials within the Kawanokawa SEMA branch but found no related records.
As Alice and the others walked through SEMA, they did not encounter a single person along the way.
This made Alice increasingly anxious.
“Wait, let’s first head to the equipment room…”
Her intuition told her that it was best to prepare fully right away…..
In the equipment room.
Alice took off her school uniform and changed into a black combat suit while also removing her cosmetic contact lenses.
For the first time, her golden eyes were revealed to Chika.
She glanced at Chika and noticed no magical response.
“A-Alice, you look so beautiful…” Chika couldn’t help but exclaim.
“….. Thank you.” Alice smiled, thinking that Chika was indeed a friend of Naginobu.
They were all kind-hearted children.
She had to protect these children well…
With such thoughts, Alice led Kanade and the others to her room.
In Alice’s room, there was a box that had been sent recently.
Inside were the equipment that would completely expose her “ACE” identity.
After experiencing even a half-dragon transformation and not being able to easily overcome a threat level 6 Doppelgänger.
She realized that she needed to retrieve her usual equipment.
Then, everyone followed DD-chan’s directions and headed towards the mysterious information room.
“Here…… there’s actually a secret door?”
Alice didn’t know how many times she had exclaimed today.
DD-chan led them along the route that she had been taken by Naginobu.
They arrived in front of the information room door, which had several identity verification instruments.
“I can’t believe there’s such a place in the SEMA branch…”
Alice murmured in disbelief.
“Could it be that what the chief mentioned about… something hidden in Kawanokawa City is related to this?”
While Alice was contemplating, she took out her identity card from her pocket.
The red card was swiped in front of the instrument.
【Access request denied】
“How is that possible? This is ACE-level authority!”
If there was no permission for the initial swipe, then there was no way the subsequent verifications of iris, fingerprint, blood, etc., could get through.
—But if it was his card…
Alice opened the inner pocket of her clothes and took out a black card.
The card was covered in various scratches and chips, making one wonder what experiences its owner had gone through.
【Authority confirmed】
Just one swipe was all that was needed to pass all verifications.
It served as a “master key.”
The heavy door slowly opened.
The scene that DD-chan had once seen with Naginobu appeared before Alice and the others.
“What is… this?”
Walking ahead, Alice stepped into the room piled high with papers.
Kanade couldn’t help but pick up a stack of plans laid on the table and started flipping through them, but soon gave up.
It was filled with a lot of coded text and terms that he couldn’t understand at all.
“This LOGO…. Tenjouin Corporation…”
Alice touched the logo of intersecting wings on the computer and said softly.
“Is this an urban legend?”
Chika, curious, imitated Kanade and picked up sheets of paper from the table, which were various manuscripts about urban legends.
Alice took a few steps further inside and saw a row of photos and written materials about the Hakurei Shrine on the wall, as well as numerous hand-drawn pictures of foxes…
Recalling the title of the plan that Kanade had just picked up.
“…… The Artificial Spirit Plan.”
To confirm her suspicions, Alice turned back to the manuscripts of urban legends and cursed tales.
“Everyone, please help me look for any manuscripts regarding ‘Doppelgängers’… and the ‘Evil Spirit Dokidoki-chan’.”
“About me?” DD-chan asked, looking confused.
But Kanade and Chika still followed Alice’s orders and began rummaging through the pile of papers.
“Shouldn’t we first save that little girl?” DD-chan urged, before she was turned into a shrine maiden by her mother…
“I believe that if we can clarify the essence of the Hakurei, the success rate of rescuing that child will greatly increase.”
“No, if it really is as I suspect… perhaps battles can be avoided…” Alice explained.
The essence of the mother?
“Alice, I found something—”
The first to make a discovery was Kanade.
He held several manuscripts filled with text, and one of the writings looked very familiar to him.
He had seen this text and content.
In the reference room at Seikage High.
This was material related to DD-chan.
Although it was titled not as Evil Spirit Dokidoki-chan, but—
【Investigation Report on the Mascot DD-chan of the Original Kawanokawa Grand Mall that was Destroyed in a Fire】
Alice took the paper from Kanade’s hands and quickly scanned
