Eh?
Ashley was stunned. She hadn’t expected her teacher to have such a chuunibyou phase.
But to enemies, it would only seem perverted and terrifying.
Answer wrong, and you’d be turned into human art. They probably wouldn’t even bring you back for trial—just executed in some lawless place.
So, what did her teacher’s artworks look like? She was really curious.
Ashley’s discussion with Moracha didn’t last long, but she extracted two key pieces of information.
First, the Spirit Secret Medicine and “Emergence Law.” Second, her cousin had prepared a surprise for her.
She’d have to consult her teacher or Little Cousin about Emergence Law to figure out what it really was. As for the surprise… damn it, why didn’t you translate that for me? What the hell kind of “surprise” was it?
Vice Captain Linden’s face stiffened for an instant. His disconnected thoughts reconnected, and he scratched his head in confusion, looking around in a daze.
Ashley keenly noticed the illogical part—why not use a random passerby to pass the message, but target a Tribunal agent instead? That only increased the risk of discovery.
The only possibility was that Moracha’s mission in Fountain City was to infiltrate the Tribunal, plant moles, or control agents or even executives.
Since he saw her as one of their own, he exposed a pawn to deliver the message, while also creating an aura of the family’s omnipotence and mystery.
Linden had clearly been under supernatural control just now. It wasn’t triggered in real-time, since Time Bird hadn’t recorded it, but the man’s reaction was suspicious in itself. He might be a mole too.
The two returned to the office in silence, without any exchange on the way.
A quarter of an hour later, the captain walked in after the morning meeting.
Roy was a middle-aged man with impeccably groomed hair and beard, wearing a well-tailored suit. He looked competent and steady—a strategic type, the team’s brain.
The other woman in the Seventh Investigation Group was Elsa Bradley, who had joined last year. A second-year at seventeen, she had a thick purple braid and a very low presence.
On her first day, Ashley didn’t integrate into the team right away, but it was relaxed. The whole group stayed put—after all, regular incidents were handled by the police. Only supernatural events or emergencies required the Tribunal.
After work, Ashley slipped over to Letisia’s office.
She planned to report the Linden incident. Better to clean up the mess early. If he was still cozying up to the family, he’d be a mole whether he knew it or not.
She tapped on the door with her knuckles. No response.
She stood there for a bit, gathered her courage, gripped the doorknob, and found it unlocked. She cracked it open and peeked inside.
The office wasn’t big—just enough room for a desk. Even with only a bookshelf and coat rack besides the furniture, it felt cramped.
Ashley suddenly remembered: her teacher had no home in the city and lived in Whitehall. Maybe there was a hidden door from the office to her living quarters?
She spotted the white trench coat and jazz hat on the coat rack, growing more convinced.
Ashley slipped inside, boldly picking up the jazz hat and pressing it over her vibrant blue hair. She fiddled with the feather, full of bounce.
“I’m Little Teacher~”
Ashley imagined herself circling Amber, who was prostrating on the ground, waving a thin riding crop. She snuck behind and whipped the soles of her feet one by one.
That dumb loli would definitely curl her toes, sobbing, “Wahhh… Disciple doesn’t understand… what did I do wrong…”
“Heh heh heh, a dummy will never understand!”
Lost in her role-playing fantasy, Ashley grew bolder and snooped around.
There was a prominent hanging curtain on the wall behind the desk. Lifting it revealed a “hidden door”—a narrow, opaque glass door, also unlocked.
If Teacher asked, she’d say she just wandered in…
Ashley’s courage went numb; she was totally floating. She opened the door and poked her little head inside.
It was an irregular geometric space, made of a milk-carton-shaped main body and a pitched roof with a square glass tube. Light slanted down from the tube—not sunlight, but a bright, cold glow.
The beam illuminated easels and sculptures. Ashley’s gaze swept over them; the paintings and sculptures had a familiar style—Picasso’s Cubism.
Ears grew where noses should be, eyes were two-dimensional but extended into three-dimensional noses.
Sometimes it was hard to tell if color blocks formed a person, or if a person hid behind the lines, planes, triangles, and rectangles, gazing lonely at the world.
Her gaze suddenly sharpened. In the room’s center sat a long-haired girl down to her waist, a beam of light shining right on her head. Her hair was soft and glossy, her skin glowing with a hazy, pearlescent white.
Amid the pale gray, strands of silver mingled in her waterfall-like hair draped behind her. Her shoulders were slender and frail, and the loose pure-white nightgown hanging on her emphasized a heartbreaking thinness.
The nightgown was splattered with multicolored paint in an abstract style. The hem extended over her slim, snow-white legs, dangling bare, soft, and enticing little feet off the stool.
“Heh…”
Ashley inwardly exclaimed. Letisia kept a young canary in the back of her office? For what—cuddling when tired?
Didn’t expect you to be like this, Teacher. Hmph, I misjudged you!
She suddenly worried about Amber. If the perverted big sis liked toying with immature, fresh bodies, would she go after Amber?
So scary!
Must investigate thoroughly!
“Ahem…”
Ashley coughed lightly to get the long-haired girl’s attention, but the girl focused on her painting, as if she hadn’t heard. Her fingers whitened from gripping, repeatedly smearing oil paint, occasionally adding turpentine to the palette.
So the Blue-Haired Loli tiptoed closer, standing behind the little painter to watch.
Cubist style—looked like all the works in the room were hers.
But the subject wasn’t human—it was an ancient colossal monster filling the entire canvas!
The beast was layered from countless iron blocks into a wedge-shaped, three-dimensional body. Hard to tell head from torso, it churned the clouds, blotting out the sky, with mountains prostrating at its feet.
The wedge’s surfaces were pocked with dense, cheese-like holes hiding barnacle-like insects with sharp beaks—somewhat like Undying Corps members’ bodies, but magnified countless times.
Countless insects wriggled in the pores with soft, tough abdominal feet, propelling the whole forward.
It didn’t look like a monster, but an alien structure, a bizarre nest.
“What is this…” Ashley murmured.
“【Iron King】, the horrifying entity we found in the crater—a ‘King Insect’ in its ‘pupa’ stage. It had only unlocked the first node of ‘God’s Lock,’ but killing it still cost unimaginable sacrifices. That activated node is the source of the Tribunal’s core technology. The remaining nine unopened nodes are stored at Miles Research Center for decoding. The ‘key’ production progress is top secret.” The girl’s thin lips parted, answering.
The more Ashley heard, the more off it felt. Suspicious, she asked, “How do you know such secrets? I’ve never heard of it—modern history has no record. And why tell me?”
“Because teaching students is a teacher’s duty.”
The girl turned her head. Though her face was much more youthful than her big-sis form, those deep purple eyes were unmistakably familiar… It was Letisia!
Aaaahhh…
Ashley’s hair stood on end in an instant, like a bristling cat, then she shuddered all over.
She instantly understood the riddle—Teacher had three forms! Big sister, girl, and loli!
The usual one was big-sis form, the Trial Judge known to the world.
This artistic girl was the second—<i>Noon Maiden</i>.
But why? Unique hobby? Choppy legs? Insect-like metamorphosis? Or some secret?
“You’ve got some nerve, barging into your master’s private space, you insolent disciple!” The girl turned fully, an aura surging forth. Her face calm, but dignified without anger.
“I-I was just wandering…”
Guilty, Ashley shrank her neck, ears drooping.
“Oh? Wandering…”
The girl was amused, but her eyes grew icier. She dipped the brush and drew a line of paint across the Blue-Haired Loli’s little face, then another.
Three lines on each side—turning the Blue-Haired Loli into a little mouse.
“Quick, squeak for me!”
