The sharp-featured Puppeteer tenant chuckled. "What else could it be? Of course, it's the wronged soul who died unjustly—I've always wanted to make a matching puppet, but I could never get a clear look at the ghost in this building. But this time..."
Halfway through his sentence, he suddenly noticed that the faintly glowing figure outside the window was disappearing. He rushed forward in a single stride and yanked open the screen window amid Mouri Ran's scream. "This time, I'm going to get a good look at what it really looks like!"
With a clatter, the window flew open. Yet the figure that had been floating outside had vanished completely.
Everyone froze where they stood.
"Move!" Calvados was the first to recover. Refusing to believe it, he rushed to the window and leaned out to look below.
—To the others, a figure suddenly appearing outside a second-floor window and then vanishing might have seemed bizarre. But as an Organization Cadre, he knew there were plenty of highly skilled people in the world. Forget the second floor—even the twentieth could be traversed as easily as level ground.
Yet after craning his head out and looking up, down, left, and right, Calvados found nothing.
—Let alone a person, the entire exterior wall was bare, with nowhere to set foot.
A street away.
"Dr. Araide" stood in the shadows, holding a portable monocular. Seeing this, she fell silent for a moment.
...What was Calvados doing?
Calvados's solid worldview was undergoing a violent shake-up.
He stared at the bare wall, then recalled the figure that had stood steadily outside the window moments ago. "How is that possible...?"
"How could it not be?" The chubby otaku tenant waddled over and gave a sinister smile. "You've seen it now, haven't you? That was a