Chapter 21
“Ruri Is Being Watched”
After Foss and the others arrived,
they bombarded Ruri with questions every single day.
It was a bit exhausting for her,
but thanks to her ability to use magic,
she could try all sorts of new things —
and in its own way, each day felt fulfilling.
For Foss and the others,
everything in this world was something their Gem Kingdom didn’t have,
so everything they saw was endlessly fascinating.
They opened the refrigerator and cheered in delight.
They flushed the toilet and gasped, “It moves on its own!”
Ruri could only tilt her head, wondering,
What kind of life did they have back in the Gem Kingdom?
Still, thanks to that curiosity,
they started learning to do for themselves
things that magic couldn’t quite manage properly.
One example was the microwave.
They had tried to use magic on it once,
but it hadn’t turned out well,
so ever since then,
they would take frozen food out themselves
and heat it up properly in the microwave.
When it came to food, it seemed a bit tricky for them.
Even with instant cup noodles,
they would boil water themselves,
pour it into the cup, and wait three minutes.
They might use magic for the cooking part,
but for everything else,
they carefully followed the correct procedure.
Since they didn’t understand basic dangers like
“boiling water is hot and dangerous,”
Ruri had drilled those lessons into them early on —
and made sure to warn them loudly and often.
Even though they could use magic,
and even though Foss was there to watch over them,
Ruri couldn’t fully relax during those first few days.
Because her house was a single-story flat,
she switched from a regular vacuum cleaner
to an automatic cleaning robot —
and it was Foss who got the most excited about it.
Seeing him talking to the little machine as it moved around
made Ruri laugh out loud.
At the same time ————
Headquarters of the Counter-Unidentified Lifeforms Division.
This was a new department established
within the Public Security Intelligence Agency.
Ishibashi, who had just been assigned there,
grumbled lightly as he stared at the monitors.
“We’re basically the dropouts, aren’t we?”
His senior, Takagi, a man in his forties, chuckled at that.
“You think of yourself as an elite — that’s your problem.
No matter the world, only a handful can ever stand at the top.
By your logic, half the population are ‘dropouts.’”
“Come on, Takagi-san, you’re at that age where promotions are out of reach anyway.
But I haven’t given up yet.”
Leaning back in his chair, Ishibashi glared at the monitor.
“So this house has been under surveillance for decades, right?
I heard Public Security used to handle it before us.
I’ve only been on this for a year,
but you’ve been watching it for what — five years now?”
“Until the old lady in that house passed away,
all sorts of big names came and went —
people you’d never get the chance to meet in your life.”
“That old woman was really that important?”
Ishibashi’s expression shifted to surprise.
“Who knows? But the year I was assigned here,
even a cabinet minister came to visit.”
“To that house?”
“Yes. Quietly, under the radar.”
“…What exactly is in there?”
“Beats me. But after the old woman died,
before her grandchild could inherit the property,
our division conducted a full search of the house —
and found absolutely nothing.
So we installed hidden cameras instead.
If that grandchild ever discovers anything,
we have to secure it no matter what.”
“That sounds… illegal.”
“Not when it’s a government order,”
Takagi said with a smirk as he watched the monitor.
“So what are we looking for, exactly?”
“The Three Sacred Treasures.”
“The Three Sacred Treasures?”
Ishibashi frowned in confusion.
