The sky grew increasingly darker, and the number of people playing around in Sakura Park gradually dwindled.
After the Urban Legend Club members had gathered enough information from their investigation here, they naturally left the park as well.
“Let’s call it a day here. Everyone head home, and be careful on the way,” Izumi Shirayuki said as she bid everyone farewell.
“Goodbye, Senpai.”
Mizuhashi Yuzuki and Inoue Keiko each departed.
Izumi Shirayuki looked at Tsukiyomi Ruri and asked, “Tsukiyomi-san, aren’t you leaving?”
“Izumi-senpai, when shall we go to the hot springs?” Tsukiyomi Ruri asked very directly.
“Well, let’s wait for a weekend. Preferably after the Faceless Man incident is completely resolved,” Izumi Shirayuki thought for a moment and replied.
This answer was fairly acceptable. Tsukiyomi Ruri nodded. “Alright, that’s settled then. I have no other questions. I’ll head back now.”
“Be careful on your way,” Izumi Shirayuki waved to Tsukiyomi Ruri.
The streets at night seemed rather silent, the streetlights stretching the shadows of pedestrians long.
As Tsukiyomi Ruri passed a small alley, her ears twitched, and she turned her head to look inside.
“Come on, come on, keep drinking, don’t stop!”
A young girl with long red hair tied in a single ponytail, with a very nice figure, held a bottle of alcohol and finished it in one gulp with a bold and heroic demeanor.
A large group of yankee-looking individuals were also gathered around, gulping down alcohol. The pungent smell of booze wafted out of the alley.
‘This gang is out again?’
Tsukiyomi Ruri watched this scene, the corner of her mouth twitching.
Staring at the yankees before her, a thought stirred in her mind, and an idea gradually formed.
Seeing that this bunch of yankees probably wouldn’t be changing their location anytime soon, Tsukiyomi Ruri decisively turned and left. Relying on her memory, she found a shop specializing in selling masks.
She bought over a dozen masks in one go, all of them featureless—masks without facial features, which could be called Faceless Masks.
Because a recent anime had become popular, and a character with some degree of popularity was a faceless man, Faceless Masks were therefore relatively easy to buy.
Holding the stack of Faceless Masks, Tsukiyomi Ruri quickly headed back.
‘Come to think of it, could the Faceless Man legend just be a misunderstanding caused by someone wearing a Faceless Mask?’
Tsukiyomi Ruri couldn’t help but ponder this question and felt there was some possibility.
But she didn’t need to worry about that now.
Returning to the small alley from earlier, Tsukiyomi Ruri looked inside. The yankees led by the Ane-go were still here, and each person was so drunk they were reeling, probably not even conscious anymore.
Holding the Faceless Masks, Tsukiyomi Ruri swiftly rushed in and put a Faceless Mask on every single one of them.
After completing this step, Tsukiyomi Ruri returned to the outside of the alley, took out her smartphone, and began filming the group of “Faceless Men” inside.
‘Later, when I get the chance, I’ll tell Izumi Shirayuki that the Faceless Man legend arose because someone wore a Faceless Mask. I should be able to fool her, right? Once this conclusion is established, if the Faceless Man legend appears again, it’ll just be assumed that someone wearing a Faceless Mask scared people again.’
Tsukiyomi Ruri thought for a moment and felt the probability of this plan succeeding was quite high.
As for why she picked the Ane-go and her crew?
It was all a coincidence.
Feeling she had filmed enough, Tsukiyomi Ruri pocketed her smartphone and turned to leave. As for the Faceless Masks, they were a gift to the yankees.
Quite a while after Tsukiyomi Ruri had left, the drunken Ane-go clutched her head and groggily propped herself up.
After getting up, she felt something off on her face. She reached up and pushed it, taking off the Faceless Mask.
Looking at the Faceless Mask in her hand, then at the state of the others, the Ane-go chuckled happily. “I wonder which cheeky little brother or sister did this, but it seems pretty fun.”
The Ane-go put the Faceless Mask back on, then kicked her underlings awake one by one.
“Let’s go, let’s go, what are you lying here for? Let’s find a comfier place to crash. No one’s allowed to take off the mask on their face. Today, we’re the Faceless Men, hahahaha.” Laughing loudly, the Ane-go led her yankees, also wearing Faceless Masks, staggering out of the alley three steps at a time.
The early morning wind was always so chilly, causing some who had already ventured outside to shrink their necks.
Kiryoki was completely oblivious to the temperature. She returned to the vicinity of the original Demon Spirit Group’s base. With a leap, she jumped onto a rather tall tree and retrieved a surveillance camera hidden among the branches.
After removing the camera, Kiryoki connected it to the laptop she had brought and quickly read the footage from the device.
This was a camera she had installed after discovering the Demon Spirit Group had been wiped out. She wanted to see if the person who destroyed the group would return here. She had heard that some criminals liked to revisit the scene of the crime—a strange psychological quirk. Perhaps the person who annihilated the Demon Spirit Group would have this quirk too?
Even more so, if the one who destroyed the Demon Spirit Group was someone with a personal grudge against the group, they would surely want to deal with her too, right? So returning to the scene to look for her was also a possibility.
In any case, Kiryoki had made preparations.
She sat on a thick branch, swinging her pale, slender legs, eating bread bought from a convenience store while watching the footage on the laptop.
The footage quickly pointed to yesterday evening.
Kiryoki took a heavy bite of the bread in her hand, her tongue, stained with bread crumbs, licking her lips. “So you really did come back.”
In the footage, under the cover of the branches, a petite figure emerged.
However, the picture wasn’t very clear. One could barely make out what the person was wearing. As for their specific facial features, it was truly impossible to identify them from the image.
Kiryoki tossed aside her bread and chuckled darkly. “Sold me a poor-quality camera? Once I’m done with this matter, I’ll go kill the seller’s entire family.”
Her gaze, tinged with a hint of madness, was fixed intently on the blurry footage.
The uniform worn by the figure in the picture—had she seen it somewhere before? It seemed somewhat familiar.
Taking a screenshot of the footage, Kiryoki sent it to the few new underlings she had recruited, tasking them with investigating it.
Not long after the message was sent, someone replied. Kiryoki raised an eyebrow in surprise.
It was an underling she had just recruited yesterday, named Inoue Keiko, a Low-Level Reincarnator.
“Commander, that’s our school’s uniform,” Inoue Keiko said.
“Your school? Which school is it?” Kiryoki sent a message asking.
After sending the message, a cold smirk curled at the corner of Kiryoki’s mouth.
