Chapter 384: The investigative report regarding Mr. Uehara
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Seiji noticed during dinner that Shika's condition seemed to be rather strange and that she kept avoiding his eyes.
'Is it because she's feeling too embarrassed about secretly looking at my ero books, or… is she finding it difficult to look at me after knowing that I look at such things?' Seiji wondered to himself.
This was a question that Seiji had been doing his best to avoid thinking about—just what his adopted sister would think of him after looking through his ero books.
Although he wasn't into anything too outrageous, having such a large sack of ero books was bad enough already!
The most common genre among his ero books was harem, which definitely exposed his true preferences. The worst would be the sis-con books… he was unable to imagine what Shika would think of those after seeing them.
'Well, she's probably just too embarrassed, she'll be fine after a day or two… I hope that she won't get any strange thoughts,' he thought to himself hopefully.
Not long after they finished dinner, Seiji received a phone call from the student council president.
When he saw on his caller ID that the call was from Natsuya, Seiji instantly imagined her again in her cosplay outfit. He also felt things were rather subtle regarding how she asked Kanna for his own cosplay photograph.
He accepted the call.
"Good evening, Seiji."
"Good evening, Natsuya."
"I've received a report regarding the investigation into Mr. Uehara and the origin of his collection items."
"Oh… what does it say?"
"I haven't read it yet. I wanted to show it to Uehara-san first. Do you have time to come over to my place together with her?"
"I do."
"I'll wait for you here then."
"Alright."
They ended their conversation.
Seiji put away his cell phone as something flashed in his eyes.
This investigative report… just what truth would it contain?
Seiji and Mika arrived at the president's residence.
On the way, Mika did her best to mentally prepare herself for anything she might learn. However, she was still quite obviously tensed up.
The maid Mai led them inside.
In the living room, Seiji saw two girls that he hadn't seen for quite a long time already—Hitaka Shuho and Rana Kirin!
The red-haired beauty in sports attire and the cat-eared loli wearing a down coat were currently playing chess against each other.
When Seiji and Mika entered the living room, Hitaka and Rana both turned to look at them.
"Long time no see, you guys…"
Before Seiji even finished his greeting, the cat girl flew towards him!
Rana suddenly jumped up from the sofa and hugged him, which surprised him greatly. He was pushed one step backwards by the impact.
After he steadied himself, Seiji saw the cat girl tightly hugging onto him with her eyes closed as she rubbed his chest with her face.
'So cute!'
He reflexively hugged Rana back as he smiled.
"Long time no see, and good evening, Kirin-san."
"Meow~" The cat-eared loli mewed gently.
"This is…" Mika who watched all this widened her eyes in surprise.
"One of Natsuya's Spirit-branded Retainers, Rana Kirin." Seiji did the introductions for her. "She's the one known as the 'legendary creature' in our school…"
The twintailed girl dazedly stared at the cat-eared girl before her and was unable to come up with any words to say.
"Long time no see, Haruta-kun," another voice spoke up.
Seiji looked towards the red-haired girl.
"Good evening, Shuho-san. I'm glad to see that you're out of the hospital."
Hitaka Shuho had been seriously injured in the duel against Okubo Yoshiaki. The last time Seiji saw her, she was still weakly resting in a hospital bed.
Currently, she seemed like she was fine. There was nothing wrong with her complexion.
"This is Mika Uehara, my classmate and neighbor who's a good friend…" He did the introductions.
"I know her," Hitaka said as she turned towards the twintailed girl. "Good evening, Uehara-san."
"Good… good evening, Vice President Shuho. Sorry for the bother late at night," Mika answered.
Since they knew each other already, there was no need for further introductions.
While Seiji was asking Hitaka how she was doing in concern about her health, Natsuya arrived at the living room.
"Hitaka, Rana, could the two of you play chess somewhere else? I need to discuss something with Seiji and his friend."
Hearing her master say this, Hitaka immeditely cleaned up the chess pieces and the chess board.
After she swiftly packed everything away, Hitaka left. Rana also unpeeled herself from Seiji's body and hopped away.
Mai poured tea for her master and the guests before leaving the living room as well.
"This is the investigative report."
Natsuya placed a document folder on the table and moved it right in front of Mika.
Mika looked at the document folder for quite a while before reaching out and slowly picking it up.
She opened it up, took out the report, and began reading.
Seiji quietly sipped on his tea.
Natsuya also quietly sipped on her tea.
Neither of them spoke as they patiently waited for the twintailed girl to be the first to finish reading the report.
At first, Mika was still quite tense as she began reading. However, she soon calmed down as she read.
The report had a life history about her father—Akiya Uehara.
It wasn't particularly detailed, but it tracked what he was doing in what stages of life, starting from elementary school, then middle school, high school, college, working, being married, having a daughter, all the way until his death.
All in all, he had quite an ordinary life.
There was only one exception.
There was an elderly man by the name of Zhao Guanlou who came from the country of Huaxia.
When Akiya Uehara was in middle school, he got acquainted with this elderly man and they became extremely close friends irrespective of the difference in their ages. They interacted with each other for a rather long period of time.
As for the specifics of how they got to know each other or how they became friends… the investigation was unable to find that out. However, the investigation concluded that Akiya Uehara's spiritual items collection was highly likely to have been given to him by this elderly man!
The detective… the person that wrote this report instinctively felt that this Zhao Guanlou was the critical key to this investigation and tried searching for him.
The detective found out that this elderly man from the country of Huaxia had long since left Sakura Island. However, Zhao Guanlou's residence that he lived at was still around and the deed to the property still belonged to him. It wasn't being rented out, nor was anyone maintaining his property. It was basically abandoned.
The detective found out Zhao Guanlou's phone number, but upon calling it, a young-sounding Huaxia girl answered the phone.
This girl rejected the detective's request to speak to Zhao Guanlou.
The detective could only change his approach and instead searched through Zhao Guanlou's abandoned property. Judging by what remained behind and traces within, it was basically confirmed that this elderly man from Huaxia was an incredibly powerful Spiritual Ability user and might have been a master craftsman of spiritual artifacts! This was how the detective came to the conclusion that Akiya Uehara received his spiritual items collection from Zhao Guanlou.
After Mika finished reading the report, she told all of the abovementioned important information to Seiji and Natsuya while skipping over the personal life details.
"Zhao Guanlou…"
"A master craftsman of spiritual artifacts from Huaxia…"
They never expected that this would have anything to do with the country of Huaxia!
Seiji and Natsuya were equally astonished as they exchanged glances.
"Those spiritual artifacts… weren't they all in Sakura Island's style?"
"Yes, but it's still possible that they were crafted by a Huaxia master craftsman." The president furrowed her eyebrows slightly. "I can't tell anything from the surface, but if I show them to spiritual artifact craftsmen for a specialized analysis, perhaps they'll be able to find something out… such as special crafting techniques from Huaxia or specialized spells that are from Huaxia."
A moment of silence fell between them.
"If Mr. Uehara and Zhao Guanlou were simply close friends irrespective of their age, then this situation is…" Seiji rubbed his chin as he told them what he thought of it.