As I made my judgment, I realized that I might have exposed myself.
After sizing me up, the old man nodded with a smile. "Looks like you're the esper Greenleaf found."
So I really was famous now?
Wu Ling had told me this might happen, but I'd imagined that people in the supernatural world only knew I existed vaguely.
The old man's smile was kind, his eyes holding the fond warmth of an elder looking at a younger person.
"Don't be nervous. I'm not planning to do anything. We're all in this together now. Killing each other will only make that young exorcist girl happy. Well, she might not be happy now, either. She may have lost all human emotions." The old man sighed.
"Was this her doing?" I asked suspiciously.
"Do you have someone else in mind?" the old man asked in return.
I hesitated.
The people I'd met here had all attended that gathering. On the surface, the obvious answer was that the girl was behind everything. But my experience told me the toy spirit was responsible. Perhaps it had made use of the girl's soul and abilities, but the girl wasn't the real culprit. The toy spirit was.
As I thought it over, the old man didn't interrupt. He simply waited quietly.
After some consideration, I told him about the toy spirit, which Greenleaf and I had always considered an enemy and a target. I kept the thin man's ability and Wu Ling's situation to myself, of course. I didn't mention my own dream-related ability, either. I only said that Greenleaf's people had found clues about it, and that Greenleaf and I had both seen the teddy bear and met Lü Qiaolan, which was how we discovered the toy spirit's existence.
"If that's the case, then it