It had been a few days since the three of us had begun to live in Random play, and things have been calm.
Hecate hasn't tried to cause any problems for the siblings, only focusing on promoting the store, Hecate herself also tried to do so.
However the customers kept their distance from her, since how she looked was something out of the ordinary.
All In all, things have been slow, no news from Nightingale about any new sinners, no spikes in mania.
"I don't like this." I said after a customer left the store, catching the attention of both siblings.
"You don't like working here?" Belle asked me, I shook my head at her question.
"No, not like, that, I just don't like how calm and quiet it is, I'm not used to this." I motioned to outside, showing how calm and relaxing the atmosphere it is.
"Yeah, I have to agree with chief on that, it's so slow and boring." Hella whined, her head was on the counter, and she was blowing her hair.
While a bangboo jumped to her side and patted her head, trying to comfort her.
"I actually quite like this, it gives me more time to practice on my sketching." Hecate spoke up, turning her sketchbook around and showing a picture of me.
"That's… pretty good Hecate, I didn't know you could draw this well." Wise complimented her, Hecate only nodded in gratitude and soon continued to sketch.
"By the way Eros, do you know how to track a sinner that's outside the hollow?" Hearing Belle ask, I began to think on her words.
"Besides using Hella, Hecate, and myself to sense mania, there's no other way." I stated, I then stood up and soon grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper.
"I told this to you both back in the hollow, mania itself is like a disease." Both Wise and Belle nodded, watching me write on the paper.
"However, the only ones that can sense it, is either sinners or myself, and with ninety percent of the mania in this world, that means two things are possible." I then drew two circles.
Both overlapping one another in the center, in one circle it had the words mania trapped in the hollows, while the other had the words, sinners accumulating the mania.
"Either that the mania itself is trapped in the hollows, causing changes to the ethereal's, or, the sinners are containing the mania within themselves, causing changes to their surroundings." I said with a grim look on my face.
"Then that's the first item on the list." Belle said with a smile on her face catching me, and Hella off guard.
"W-what?" Belle then ran back to the staff room, followed by me, Hella, Hecate, and Wise, leaving the bangboo alone in the front.
With the five of us in the back, Belle stride towards the H.D.D with confidence in her step.
"Fairy, check through the inter-knot to see if their are any news abut mania." She pointed at the monitor.
Fairy soon appeared with its singular eye and blinked, soon the wall of monitors began to flash, hundreds of words and letters began to flow through each monitor.
[Alert. no known information on the term "mania' was found, please try again.]
Hearing this, Belles ears turned slightly red from embarrassment, and turned to face us, chuckling nervously.
"Ehehe, whoops, guess I'm not good when it comes to searching information." She scratched the back of her head.
"Fairy, search for any information to unknown mutations, or, unidentified readings. Including any rumor's that have been appearing around the city." I said, Fairy then turned its eye to me, and then began to search once again.
[Located, three hundred and twenty five reports on ethereal mutation, including two hundred and thirty five posts about rumors on multiple topics.]
"Huh, Fairy is quick when it comes to these things." I said with an impressed look on my face.
[Of course, i am an A.I that is capable to help my master.]
"That's an impressive feat, can you show us the news?" Fairy began to pull up a few articles.
All which were talking the ethereals new mutation, causing the people to grow in concern.
The H.I.A were reporting these new mutations, through the news, while at the same time, multiple posts about the ethereals new mutations began to flood the inter-knot.
"Seems it's only focusing on the changes in the hollow, that's a good thing, right?" Wise asked, I however shook my head.
"Like I said before, either the hollow has the mania trapped, or the sinners have the mania within themselves, slowly affecting the people around them." I replied.
"Then, how do we locate any mania outside the hollows? It's not like there's going to be someone who's going to create a machine that can detect it, right?" Hecate, Hella, and I turned to Belle, who suddenly looked nervous.
"W-why are you looking at me like that? D-don't tell me there's actually someone who can make it." Seeing our prolonged silence, she looked away.
"What's their name?" I then made my way to the monitor, and soon contacted Nightingale.
"Chief, what can I do for you?" She asked as soon as she answered.
"Bring up the files on Summer, she'll be the first sinner we want to locate." Hearing my order, she soon sent multiple files.
Once downloaded, I had Fairy use the rest of the monitors to show images of Summer.
"Designated number S-011, Summer herself is a genius amount geniuses." I explained and showed Summer.
Summer had pink hair, with the right side holding a small bun. Her attire consisted of a Highschool uniform, with a white dress shirt, along with a dark blue skirt.
She wore socks that reaches her thighs, and her shoes were meant for researchers. Finally, she swore a pair of glasses.
"She was born with a lower than average physical health but her intelligence makes up for it, and was blessed with talent when it came into mechanical engineering, at the age of fourteen, she had received all of the doctoral diplomas with flying colors." Hearing this, Wise only raised his brow, while Belle widened her jaw in shock.
"Fourteen, you mean to tell me, an actual fourteen year old, a junior Highschool student, was able to graduate, and receive the doctoral diplomas at fourteen years old?" Belle asked, I nodded my head.
"Besides that, she was accepted into the central research institute, or, C.R.I for short. Which focuses on multiple branches that focuses on mania itself. The one topic that summer chose, was Ring weaponry, which had drastic consequences." I typed on the key board a few times, and a video popped up.
"She became a sinner." Belle connected the pieces together, I nodded at her words .
"Her ambitions soon caused her to bond with the device, telepathically controlling it to her desire. She is the sinner we must find, only then can we locate the rest of them." I finished.
"I see, seems we have a whole lot of ground to cover." Wise spoke up, seeing how tense the atmosphere was getting, we all decided to take a break.
Wise and Belle would stay behind to work on the store, while the three of us went to the convenience store that was down the street to get some snacks.
"And remember, I want vanilla pudding, not chocolate!" Belle called out to us as we left, I chuckled at Belles request and the three of us left.
"Eros, where would we go to locate Summer?" Hella asked me with a bored look on her face, while she had her hands behind her head.
"Well, it's Summer, we just find the most interesting thing that catch's her eye, and we'll find her there." The three of us knew it was going to be the hollows.
But the only question, which one is it going to be? As the three of us arrived at the convenience store, I collided with someone hard, causing the both of us to fall to the ground.
But before landing on the ground, I wrapped my arms around the person who ran into me, using my body as a sort of pillow to soften their fall.
"Oh my goodness, are you okay, nya?!" I opened my eyes to see a girl with tan skin, she wore what looked like a jumpsuit that focused on her upper body.
The sleeves were separated from the suit itself, with both having a large white rope tied.
She wore what looked like mechanical high heels, with two handles on the knees.
Behind her, was a large ball of fur, with two tails sticking out of it, and finally, two cat ears were on her head.
"I'm fine, what about you?" I asked, lifting her up and placing her on her feet.
"O-oh I'm fine, Nya. Thank you for picking me up." She smiled and gave me a small bow.
"It's nothing, just make sure-." Before I could continue, she widened her eyes and soon ran passed me.
"Sorry, but I have to get to find Random play!" She shouted, rushing towards the video rental store.
"Hecate, Hella." I didn't need to say more, the three of us then rushed towards her following her to the store.
She barged through the front door with Hella on her heels, and was about to barge through the staff door.
"Oh no you don't, ain't no way you're robbing this place!" She said, holding her pipe against the girl's face.
"E-eh?! I'm not trying to rob the place, I swear!" She said with panic, I didn't notice before, but in her hands was a bangboo.
Only this time, this one had a green exterior, with one of its eyes covered with a red circle and a white x.
"Hard to believe you when you when you came in barging like that." Hella placed the edge of her pipe under her chin.
Hearing the shouting, Belle and Wise soon came out of the staff room to see what was happening.
"Eros, what own earth is going on out here?" Wise asked, only to stop when they saw the girl in front of Hella.
"Nya! You two must be Phaethon!" Belle was the first to react, she acted confused to what she said.
"Who? I don't know what you're talking about. What about you Wise?" Wise then looked at the girl, them shrugged his shoulders.
"Can't say I have an idea, is that a name to a band?" The girl pouted at the two of them acting innocent, and soon held up the bangboo.
"I already know about you guys, Nicole told me about you two!" She shook the bangboo in her arms.
"Ehna-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!" (Please make her sto-o-o-o-o-o-o-op!) Seeing the poor bang boo suffer, Belle snatched the bang boo and began to pat its head.
"Okay find, you found us, how did you know?" The girl smiled at knowing their identity, and placed both of her hands on her hips.
"I'm a client to the cunning hares, Nicole told me on where to find you." The only response she received was a small hit to the head, not enough to hurt her.
"Yeah, still finding it hard to believe." The girl panicked at her words and soon rushed behind me, using me as a shield.
"I-it's true, my name is Nekomiya mana, Nekomata for short, check the visual date on the bangboo, it has the data from the past few days!" Nekomana said.
"That's… going to be hard to do so, since Nicole is the original owner, she can view it, if we want to extract it by force, we would have to contact the manufacturer company." Wise explained, soon the six of us heard Fairy beep.
"Hey bro, why don't we use Fairy?" Belle suggested, Wise nodded his head in agreement and soon took Bell and Nekomata to the back.
"Eros, mind coming back here a well?" I turned to look at both Hecate and Hella, the both of them nodded, and I soon followed them.
I then noticed the T.V was on, and saw an announcement about a construction company called Vision.
Mentioning that they would renovate an old metro from the old capital, specifically, Canvas street.
"Belle, what's this about?" I motioned to the T.V, Belle then looked at the T.V herself and soon turned her focus to the Bangboo.
"Oh, they want to create a new metro station on the street, so they're going to demolish the old." Looking at the map, I noticed that there were homes nearby.
"Did they relocate the people that live close to it?" I asked, worried that they had left the people with no homes.
"Mhm, they said that they relocated every single one." Nekomata only growled at Belle's words.
"That's a lie, the people are still inside the hollow!!" This caught the three of us off guard and looked at one another.
"Fairy, access the footage please." Fairy then appeared and soon began to do her magic, causing the bang boo to go limp.
"Nya?! What just happened, and who's Fairy?!" Nekomata shouted in panic.
"Oh, fairy is a virtual assistant we had installed a while back." Wise answered her.
'More like an invader to privacy.' I thought, soon, the monitor began to flicker and switched to a video footage of Nicole running.
[Ohoho the kitten has arrived, will the chief help the poor defenseless kitten, or abandon her with a cold heart? Anyways, see you soon, Bye Bye!]