A Scientific Urban Detective

"There's such a thing? That 'Eternal Princess' is that amazing?" Misaka Mikoto was surprised, as she had absolutely no interest in things like factions, so this was really the first time she'd heard of such a setting.

But recalling the intense atmosphere of competition between the three major factions in the school, she felt that such a 'reward' seemed quite reasonable.

"Anyway," Shokuhou Misaki said loudly, "from now on, we can't spend too much time outside of school, we must focus on managing our faction!"

It was also because all of the Misaka sisters had been found—except for the final signal—that Shokuhou Misaki had the余裕 to make such a decision.

"But who will take care of the sisters?" Misaka Mikoto asked again, "We can't just abandon them, can we?"

Without even thinking, she knew that these 20,000… no, even if halved to only 10,000, it would be absolutely impossible to arrange for them to enter Tokiwadai Middle School like Dolly and Tolly—speaking of which, the entire Academy City combined wouldn't have that many students.

Among the people present, only Lin Wuming was not a student of Tokiwadai Middle School, and had not joined the Shokuhou faction, so only he had the opportunity to 'stay outside' and take care of the Misaka sisters.

But obviously, that wasn't enough.

"There's no need to worry about that, anyway, none of us know how to take care of people, so it doesn't matter even if we can't come out often." Shokuhou Misaki seemed to have been prepared for this, and said confidently, "I've decided to hire suitable people to take care of them…"

"Suitable people?" Misaka Mikoto asked, "Have you found them already?"

"Just come with me." Shokuhou Misaki said confidently.

That evening, Shokuhou Misaki took Misaka Mikoto to a roadside stall.

"Wow, there are still places like this in Academy City!" Seeing the mobile stall and the curling smoke, Misaka Mikoto looked quite interested, as if she was about to take out her wallet to try something.

"That's a mobile izakaya, it doesn't serve underage students." Shokuhou Misaki reminded her.

Sure enough, after the reminder, Misaka Mikoto saw the sign next to the stall with alcohol sales indicated.

Although there was no explicit rule, in order to avoid trouble, such shops usually did not serve underage customers.

—After all, most of the people who patronized these stalls were teachers, and mostly part-time security guards, once they discovered an underage person drinking alcohol…

Misaka Mikoto was also well aware of this, which was why she felt even stranger—

"But why is there an elementary school student in the store? It made me think it was a normal store."

Through the half-hanging shop curtain, she could roughly see the back of the customer sitting at the stall, at least she could distinguish between adults and children.

"Well, maybe it's because they're accompanied by an adult, so it's okay." Misaka Mikoto immediately explained to herself.

Shokuhou Misaki gave her a glare: "Who told you that's an elementary school student? Don't judge people by their appearance, Misaka-san."

"Huh? But that…" Misaka Mikoto looked over with a surprised expression, pointing at the "elementary school student" sitting at the stall, suddenly suspecting that Shokuhou Misaki was playing with her.

Shokuhou Misaki didn't explain, but walked straight forward, and then greeted her very naturally, as if they were long-time friends.

This time it was Misaka Mikoto's turn to roll her eyes, without guessing she knew that this must be the effect of "Mental Out".

Because the distance was relatively far, Misaka Mikoto couldn't hear what they were saying, so she stepped forward.

"Misaka-san, come quickly~" Shokuhou Misaki showed a "well-behaved girl" expression that she had never seen before, and said with a smile, "Let me introduce you, this is Tsukuyomi Komoe-sensei."

She pointed to the girl who Misaka Mikoto had always thought was an "elementary school student", and then emphasized: "She is a teacher at a certain high school… of course, she is an adult."

"Huh?" Misaka Mikoto couldn't help but exclaim, she was clearly just a little girl in appearance, but she was actually an adult!

—Could this be the effect of some kind of superpower? Or the result of some experiment?

Misaka Mikoto couldn't help but mutter in her heart.

But she still greeted her politely.

"This is Yoshikawa Kikyou-sensei," Shokuhou Misaki continued to introduce, "Although she is not a teacher employed at a school, Yoshikawa-sensei is a professional researcher, responsible for the education and management of children in research institutions."

"!" Hearing this name, Misaka Mikoto immediately forgot about the concerning "little girl" next to her.

She knew Yoshikawa Kikyou, a core researcher of the "Level 6 Shift Project", whose position in the project team was second only to Kihara Amata!

Because she understood these inside details, Misaka Mikoto didn't have much goodwill towards this name. It could even be said that she harbored some hostility.

She didn't understand why Shokuhou Misaki would find Yoshikawa Kikyou. Also, why this woman hadn't been arrested and investigated—clearly the entire project team of the "Level 6 Shift Project" had been arrested and shut down by the security forces.

It was unknown what kind of suggestion Shokuhou Misaki had used, but in short, Tsukuyomi Komoe-sensei, slightly drunk, took the initiative to pay the bill, and then staggered home.

The owner of the mobile stall also neatly packed up his things and moved away.

Yoshikawa Kikyou seemed to have been forgotten by the two of them, standing alone on the side of the road, her expression stiff and tense, but she didn't dare to act rashly.

—After all, the people opposite her were two Level 5s, and they had plenty of ways to keep her here.

As an ordinary person, Yoshikawa Kikyou knew very well that any resistance of her own was meaningless.

When the surroundings were quiet and deserted, leaving only the three of them, Yoshikawa Kikyou sighed and said, "Are you here to judge me, Misaka Mikoto, Shokuhou Misaki-san?"

"Judge? Not at all." Shokuhou Misaki shook her head, "That kind of thing is enough for the security forces to do, and you've already been acquitted, haven't you?"

Misaka Mikoto remained silent. She had quickly searched online and found that Academy City had indeed acquitted Yoshikawa Kikyou.

A considerable number of her colleagues, researchers who had worked on the "Level 6 Shift Project" and even the subsequent "Absolute Power Evolution Project", had received the same verdict.

In fact, because the truly cruel "human experiments" had not yet begun, apart from the clones themselves, the only "victim" in this series of related events might have been Dolly, who was initially used for validation experiments.

Therefore, Academy City made the decision to "only punish the ringleaders", attributing the main responsibility to Kihara Amata alone, and almost all other researchers were given lenient sentences.

In fact, this was also a kind of unspoken rule in Academy City—they were also quite tolerant of researchers.

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