Prelude of Humanity

Chapter 17

April second.

It was another fine day. I forgot to mention that Kyoko, that one hell of a detective woman who came here the other day, had been visiting me on a regular basis in the mornings. That's why I have this sort of habit of waking up somewhat early even when it's still spring break.

Simply put, there were just minor follow-ups on the murder case, nothing too significant. Just like Aka, today she also made mention of a new prowler-like case springing up in this side of the country, so she really told me to be vigilant and give her a call whenever related information comes up."

"Who would get in love with that sharp-tongued woman anyway?"

Just like last time, I figured men who are masochistic are the only demographic who'd love that. As for the rest of us including me, we're like cats with fur tailing up in anxiety.

Anyway, it's ten o'clock in the morning. Kyoko recently visited here earlier, and I had nothing to do until later.

"Hold on a second."

I walked out of my room then went downstairs. Around the premise of the apartment here, there's a wall where the mailboxes of each room are, and are conveniently laid out the way the rooms look from the front. I looked for my mailbox and it was filled, but padlocked for some reason. Cleverly, your room key is the one of two keys—the other being the postman's key—who can unlock it.

I did so then opened it, got its contents, left the padlock in the mailbox and closed it. I walked back to my room and locked the door.

"What do we have here?"

I settled down on the table and placed the contents in front. It was an A4-sized envelope reinforced in cork material. I bet Portuguese people would be proud by now. From the rear of the envelope were obviously the delivery details thingamajigs.

"Oh of course."

It was everything, no wait—something I asked from Sayre.

So I slid all of the contents out of the envelope, revealing cleanly stapled A4 sheets of paper with a texture feeling like it was printed out of a LaserJet printer. And to my surprise, there's one flash drive and a SmartCard with a chip and a familiar neon teal-color finish. It's not to be confused with my debit card as that one has my name and the cardholder company etched in there. This SmartCard is completely neon teal in color front-to-back except the chip in place.

Now that's what I call a negotiation.

But I slid them all back to the envelope.

"I'll check on it later."

I grabbed it and stashed it very deep into my closet. It's about the most secret place I ever had. I mean things getting stolen around these parts is out of the question, but this is just to be on the safe side of things.

What worries me is the manner this envelope got to my place. At first, you might be tempted to think that she opted for a priority snail mail service, but the contents are questionable, plus that's way snappy than the world's fastest priority shipping.

I shrugged, "Maybe she has done things her way."

I realized.

That's how she is.

I stumbled across my shelves of books and decided to spend some time reading light novels. I picked one of the two still-wrapped latest volumes of A Witch's Last Tour. Yeah, they're still wrapped in plastic even though I bought these a month prior. I went back to my futon which I didn't wrap and folded it neatly yet, laid down, and read for the remainder of the time.