Listening to her, Yuria was confused at first. Then she understood.
"You could've gone and mapped out the area by yourself. Why did you have to drag me along? From what you've said, you shouldn't get lost, right?"
And here she'd thought this girl wasn't familiar with the area. She'd even been nice enough to show her around.
"Wouldn't that be boring? Think of it as helping me see this through. Since you agreed to help me deal with the Shepherds, going around and mapping the nearby area isn't that big a deal, is it?"
"You're just wasting my time."
Yuria had already made plans for the weekend: she'd spend the whole day learning how to use Spiritual Power from Takeda Mie. But this girl—Yuria glanced at her—had proven herself to be a master at manipulating people. She'd called and claimed she had something urgent to do, forcing Yuria to seek Miko's advice that morning, only to reveal that all she wanted was to wander around.
However you looked at it, she was wasting Yuria's time.
"Oh? If I hadn't come looking for you, what would you have done?"
"What's it to you? I can go shopping and exorcise spirits by myself if I want to."
Yuria was seething, and her tone grew increasingly irritable. She was snapping at anyone in sight like a machine gun.
But the other girl seemed not to notice. Her next words, however, left Yuria silent.
"By yourself?"
Kaishoku Shugaku gazed at her, her dark eyes seeming to see right through her.
"No matter what it is—whether you're trying to hide it or putting it out in the open—you don't seem to get along very well with the students at that school. Even when you exorcise spirits, you insist on working alone so you can