Whose youth romance story begins with a witch's trial?!

"I—I understand."

Naoya Kaori obediently took the spear off her back and placed it aside, then raised her hands to Hasumi Ryoya.

"Phew... Thank you for your cooperation, Nanoha Kaori. Now, let me check on An-an's condition, okay?"

Hasumi Ryoya breathed a slight sigh of relief. Regardless of whether Kurobe Nanoha was a suspect or not, at least she hadn't been corrupted by the witch. Otherwise, if she had intended to fight to the death, she, with her short arms, would have had almost no chance of winning.

This isn't a game; you can use your sword skills to deflect bullets while simultaneously performing a close-range stealth kill on your opponent.

While sorting through Baosheng Mag's belongings, Sakura Emma did find a revolver, but after discussion and with Chang Rong's suggestion, everyone decided to destroy all the bullets to render them harmless.

— Leia… I almost forgot that she was actually this kind of character.

Chang Rong thought to himself as he watched Renjian Leia's decisive and resolute actions.

In the previous witch trial, it was Hasumi Ryoya who was in charge of the 'autopsy'.

"Wait, wait a minute—! Click, okay, all done, please go check on Xiao An's condition quickly!"

Saeki Miria suddenly interrupted Hasumi Ryoya. The 'uncle' took out his phone and pressed the shutter button on the scene in front of him before hurriedly asking Hasumi Ryoya to check on An'an.

Ryota Hasumi entered the room, suppressing her fear and nausea, and half-squatted beside An An.

"I got the first-aid kit! Who needs it—"

"No... An'an is already..."

Arisa Fujito ran over panting, carrying a first-aid kit, but Ryota Hasumi returned to the door and simply shook her head at everyone.

"What... Hey, what do you mean by that bean sprout brat...?"

Arisa Zierto still didn't understand the situation, but even she could read something from the desperate expressions on the faces of the (surrounding) witches.

Beep beep beep—

Almost simultaneously, everyone's phones beeped. Arisa Fujito immediately pulled out her phone to check, and there was only a short message:

[It appears a murder has occurred. Everyone, please assemble in the meeting room.]

"Damn it...why does this kind of thing happen again...!"

"Calm down, Wisteria."

Chang Rong patted Arisa Zifang on the back. Although the boy's voice was trembling, he still tried to comfort the girl in front of him.

"You bastard... well, of course I know what to do!"

Arisa forced herself to calm down and turned to follow the others to the reception room.

"..."

Chang Rong stood in front of her study, looking at the small, motionless figure, her mind completely blank.

——Yi yesterday afternoon#Yin Shihoushan, Erziji 9 (in this room) was sitting on the sofa with Natsume An'an, eating cookies together.

Today, Natsume Anan has become a victim. The sound of a pen scribbling across sketch paper will never again reach her ears.

The girl who kept saying she wanted to 'kill the monster,' but could only clumsily try to hypnotize me with magic... is dead.

Right in my room, right in front of me, holding that sketchbook that was pierced through, I will never wake up again.

When faced with the victim of the first case, Chang Rong didn't even examine the body closely. He only vomited after realizing that 'someone died, right within his reach'.

When facing the deceased for the second time, Chang Rong couldn't bear to look away and even hoped to have the magic of 'writing with his mind' to remember the girl named Natsume An'an forever.

If I had been more assertive and invited her to fly a kite back then, would the tragedy have been avoided?

if--

"It's time to go, you idiot rabbit. Do you want to be executed for disobeying orders? Dying like this is hardly 'right'."

Her chaotic thoughts were interrupted by Hero's voice.

"Honestly, it's all Watson's fault for looking like this, it's ruined my mood... But defending the dead is a detective's mission, and if it's a mission, then a detective should go to the 'battlefield' to fulfill it, right?"

Sherry's voice also reached my ears.

"...Okay, let's go."

An evil witch killed Natsume Anan.

In that case, I will—execute the witch.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

-

Inside the reception room, everyone was gathered together, the atmosphere incredibly gloomy, a nauseating, dizzying silence filling the room.

Even the usually carefree and easygoing Tachibana Sherry was now quietly fiddling with and caressing the edge of the magnifying glass.

—This is really interesting. I encountered a similar scene right after I transmigrated. Back then, the feeling of being watched and suspected by everyone was nauseating.

I felt that it was bad enough and I never wanted to go through it again in my life, but... everything came full circle.

If there's any difference, it's that the two prospective witches, 'Hosho Mag' and 'Natsume An', are missing.

"An'an... Waaah... Why, why did it turn out like this, Rongrong..."

"...I'm sorry, Noah."

Looking at Noah Kinosaki, who was sobbing in his arms, Chang Rong's brain, which could usually come up with a whole list of prank ideas in a flash, was now completely unable to form a single sentence. He could only apologize again and again and try to soothe Noah Kinosaki.

When Noah Kinosaki first arrived at the reception room, he thought it was a prank by Anan Natsume, because Anan had a similar plot of faking death to deceive the world in many of her poorly written scripts.

However, when Noah Kinosaki saw the warden fly into the room to announce An An's death, and saw the image of An An's death on Emma Sakura's phone, she realized that this was not a prank by An An's 'inferior, abstract, and divine' nature.

Then, Noah threw himself into Chang Rong's arms and began to sob.

[Oh dear... another murder has occurred. I'm very sorry about this. I need to work overtime tonight to fix the underground elevator, even though I was just watching the exciting part of the drama—so, as usual, please 'vote' first and choose the most likely suspect to be temporarily detained. Since this isn't your first time experiencing a witch's trial, please don't ask me any questions, okay? *cough*]

"No, I still have a question—why did they step on my head?"

Chang Rong frowned and asked the warden who was standing on his head.

"Why? It's the feel of the shoes... Please don't worry about the details."

"..."

Chang Rong resisted the urge to grab the stinky bird's claws and pluck all its feathers to make a boiled owl.

Fine, let them criticize me if they want. At least now no one will think I'm behind this anymore.

Chang Rong gently shook her head, which was also a way of changing her mood.

From this moment on, Natsume Anan's 'Witch Trial' has actually begun. I, this [idiot monster dog], must find the hidden witch.

Chang Rong gently patted Noah's hair, got up and came to the group to discuss who should be sent to jail to work on the sewing machine.

"So, Yin...Ming...how do you mean, is it true that Qi is the most likely suspect in Nai=Ye>Xiang's death? Oh, right, Chang Rong, you can keep this gun for now. We just discussed it, and this is the best way to handle it at the moment."

Ryota Hasumi took the lead in starting the discussion. After seeing Chang Rong walk over, she handed the magic spear that Kurobe Nanoha had been carrying on her back to Chang Rong.

"Give it to me? Well, I'll keep it for you until we rule out Kurobe-kun's suspicion."

Chang Rong didn't refuse much. Since Lian Jian Leiya said that this was the result of everyone's discussion, it meant that they trusted her.

Instead of being indecisive and wishful thinking, it's better to cherish this trust and carry it on your shoulders.

"...?"

"What's wrong, Chang Rong? Do you feel it's too much of a burden to pick up?" Renmi Ryoya noticed that Chang Rong's expression seemed a bit strange after taking the spear, and quickly asked.

"No...it's nothing, leave it to me."

After confirming that the safety of the magic spear was engaged, Chang Rong slung it over his back.

—There was a subtle sense of familiarity about it compared to when I was monitoring the gun in the study back then.

After confirming that this body was a clone, or perhaps some form of himself, who had been to this prison island, Chang Rong became more cautious about many situations where she thought, "Huh? It was just a hallucination!"

The fleeting glimpse of the shrimp catcher might indicate that he had seen or used this gun before.

However, this is not something we need to consider right now.

“I did not kill Natsume Anan…! Although I was indeed trying to repair and clean the lock on Chang Rong’s study, I absolutely did not kill her.”

—I forgot to tell you, Kurobe-kun, from now on you won't have to waste time picking locks during the day. Just turn the handle and push it in to go straight in for the buffet.

"Huh? It sounds just like Nanoha Kaori is trying to sneak into Watson's room!" Tachibana Sherry keenly caught the key point.

"Kurobe Nanoka, you really are..."

Nikaido Hiro seemed to remember something as well, and she immediately frowned and stared at Kurobe Nanoka.

"Nanoha Kaori—now that you mention it, Noah seems to remember too—"

Even the little girl recalled the time she went to her mother's house to catch her husband cheating on her with a mysterious woman.

"No, could it be that Nanoha Kaori also has a key... Ugh!"

Emma Sakura's eyes widened, but she immediately shook her head to interrupt the rest of her sentence.

Although I don't know if Emma accidentally pressed the wrong key by changing her own key bindings, I felt that there was a hint of dark will in her eyes when she looked at Kurobe...?

Although the specifics were unclear, Kurobe Nanoha only made one statement, and in an instant, at least three or four people on the field had already decided to first put Kurobe Nanoha in there to work on the sewing machine before talking about anything else.

"...Stop fooling around. We have limited time. Let's focus on the case first."

None of these older women were easy to mess with, so Chang Rong could only sigh and choose to play it safe, while forcing herself to block out the faint audio from the short video coming from near the warden's head.

The only piece of good news was the warden's intermittent voice, which sounded like someone questioning another person about why his mother had been born.

Judging from this pace, the warden will probably be so angry about the finale that he'll die before the witch's trial, and then maybe everyone can just escape without a trial.

"Even analyzing the case itself, this guy is still the most suspicious—wait, why is he raising his fist like that?! I was serious—right, uncle!"

Ze Du Keke pointed at Kurobe Nanoha Kaori and said, but she was startled by Chang Rong's cheerful gesture of raising his hand to lean in halfway through her sentence.

"Don't worry about Coco-chan, I just adopted her—I misspoke, I just had an itch to do it."

"You've got your true feelings and polite words mixed up, haven't you...! Anyway, Uncle and I think this should be a 'locked room murder'! In that case, the first person to discover it is even more suspicious."

"Sawatari Coco said, hiding behind Saeki Miria.

"A secret room?"

"It's finally here! It's finally here! The episode where Detective Sherry shines the brightest: the greatest detective in history versus the greatest locked-room mystery in modern times!"