The next morning, while everyone was having breakfast, another guest joined them before Chisato could find Duanmu Huai to explain the situation.
"I've run into a bit of trouble. Could you help us?"
Nanami Yachiyo was clearly reluctant to come here, but... judging by her appearance, she really had no other choice.
"What happened?"
Duanmu Huai didn't mind, and the others were curious as well. Under everyone's gaze, Tamaki Iroha finally began explaining her situation uneasily.
It turned out that since yesterday afternoon, a slip of paper had fallen from the sky every hour, landing right in front of Tamaki Iroha. The first one read 24, followed by 23, then 22. Tamaki Iroha had grown uneasy and gone to discuss it with Nanami Yachiyo, but the latter had no clue either, merely telling her to be careful.
Then, when Tamaki Iroha woke up that morning...
"I found all these slips of paper beside my pillow..."
As she spoke, Tamaki Iroha nervously pulled out a stack of slips and placed them on the table.
"Well, this is..."
At the sight of them, the other girls' expressions changed. Even Mami Tomoe and Akemi Homura looked much more tense, while Chisato wore the expression of someone watching a horror movie. She kept rubbing her arms as if she had goosebumps all over.
"Is it really that frightening? They're just a pile of slips with numbers written on them."
Duanmu Huai picked up the slips and examined them. They were neat square pieces of paper with Arabic numerals written on them. There didn't seem to be anything special about them.
"Huh? Xiao Ai, you're not scared? You open your eyes and find a pile of slips that appeared from who knows where! Couldn't this be some kind of curse?"
"You watch movies all day