Locked

(Miluno)

"..."

Before I even Past, Aunt Yuehan appeared on her own.

No...

Generally speaking, if someone sees an unknown passage leading to an uncharted territory, would they really go inside?

It's like a silly roe deer, so easy to catch!

"That's amazing!"

Aunt Yuehan is circling around me, taking the opportunity to admire my new look.

"Miluno Pro is amazing! She can actually go straight home from the City School!"

Don't add suffixes to people's names casually.

"That GOLD Miluno!"

"Prefixes won't work either!"

My mother-in-law was as eccentric as ever, not even noticing that her clothes were now tattered and she looked like a little beggar.

Until Ceruno spoke up to remind him...

"Mom, why don't you change your clothes first?"

"Huh? What's going on?!"

Did she really just realize it?

Ceruno offered an explanation.

"Mom, without my protective shield, any object passing through a wormhole would experience pressure from all directions. Although ordinary people can pass through short-distance teleportation, if the teleportation distance is too long..."

She glanced at her mother's tattered pajamas, which barely covered her body, and shrugged.

"... It seems to be the same."

"I knew everything was fine before."

Aunt Yuehan muttered something to herself, then asked, "So, what are you doing?"

Clearly, she knew nothing about what happened yesterday.

I replied, "It's a secret mission. Please help me cast the invisibility spell one more time and then go back."

The gray-haired girl puffed out her cheeks and said with dissatisfaction:

"Huh? You just brought me here and then just let me go back like that!"

Hey, didn't you come here by yourself?

Ceruno advised, "Mom, SpiCa has been captured by Dad. We need to go to 'the Other Side' to rescue her, otherwise the entire Association's plans will fall into enemy hands."

When Sun Ji was mentioned, Aunt Yuehan's expression wavered somewhat.

"A-Ji... has he come back?"

"I've been back," I replied.

Although I tricked him into coming back, he turned around and kidnapped SpiCa again... This man really can't stand being taken advantage of.

Ceruno suddenly asked:

"By the way, how's the intelligence on Ptolemy?"

She was trying to shift the topic away from her own father.

Principal Xiao Yi replied, "We already have results. Through several 'clients' who had direct contact with 'Ptolemy,' we've identified some key characteristics..."

She looked at her father as she spoke.

Dad adjusted his glasses and replied:

"First, Ptolemy is a young man around twenty years old, and everyone we interviewed said the same thing, which basically confirms that he is a hacker operating independently."

This is not what I imagined, I confirmed:

"Wait, in-person meeting?"

Dad nodded.

"That's right. No matter where the client is, he always contacts them in disguise. It's his habit. But he always manages to avoid surveillance and sting operations. This doesn't mean he's easy to deal with. On the contrary, it shows that he is extremely sensitive to intelligence and good at disguising himself."

The fact that he managed to gather intelligence on offline transactions without ever giving himself away clearly indicates that he is no ordinary person.

But just the fact that they're male is enough to filter out 90% of magical girls, right?

Ceruno pressed further:

"What about the other characteristics?"

Xiao Yi replied, "Secondly, he might be a chuunibyou (a person with delusions of grandeur)."

Second-year middle schooler...

The image that popped into my head immediately became that of a chuunibyou (delusional) girl who called herself the Night Witch and would casually take her head off and wander around.

But that's impossible.

Based on our interactions over this period, that kid is actually a bit slow-witted; a slow learner can't be a hacker.

"Uh, how should I put this?" I asked.

The key part was still the father's answer; he and Xiao Yi were like a two-person comedy act.

"Basically, he has always been providing services to the disadvantaged, and the fees he charges are not high. Coupled with his high-profile personality and love of fame... perhaps he is not in it for the money, but rather as a partner of justice."

I scoff at this conclusion.

"A ally of justice? Helping 'the Other Side' infiltrate the Magical Girl Association's branch? And even kidnapped SpiCa? What kind of ally of justice is this?"

My mom closed her eyes, put her hand on my shoulder, and sighed.

"Sigh, Xiao Yezi, you were also dissatisfied with the Association's actions before, right? There are quite a few people who share your thoughts. As the world's largest neutral organization, public opinion has never been one-sided in its support for the Association. Various conspiracy theories have never stopped, and there are even dedicated anti-corruption groups... There are quite a few people who believe that the Association is an evil organization. These negative comments exploded out all at once some time ago, stimulating the sense of justice of a considerable number of radical young people."

There is more than one kind of justice.

But can doing that kind of thing really be called justice?

"But there's no reason to cooperate with 'the Other Side,' is there? For humanity, they are an insurmountable enemy."

"Since he has been in contact with Sun Ji, who knows how they communicated? Ultimately, we still don't know what Sun Ji is planning..."

Mom glanced at Ceruno and her daughter, but didn't finish her sentence. Dad seized the opportunity to chime in.

"Well, besides gender and motivation, there's another definite characteristic."

He adjusted his glasses.

"We found his earliest activity time, which was about two years ago... He's not a veteran hacker, but his skills are very advanced, and he's usually very high-profile. With his memorable style, he's made a name for himself in the industry."

Young men

The motivation is not to seek profit, but to seek fame;

Two years is not a long time to become a seasoned hacker.

The image of the suspect has formed in my mind, but I don't know who it is.

"Is there any way to lock onto the target?" I asked.

Xiao Yi nodded.

"Of course, the Intelligence Division has already identified the target by comparing information on the magical girls from the City School, so we hope you can go and talk to her."

After all that talk, it turns out you already knew who it was!

Who is it?

Judging from this, it's someone we know.

"Your roommates."

Dad took out a photo from behind his back.

The girl with droopy eyes wore a dejected, bitter smile.

It looked familiar to me, and after thinking for a moment, I remembered that it was one of the faces that Liu had turned into yesterday when he was biting his hair.

"Didn't you say it was a man?" I asked.

Dad said, "But this is a boy."

"Ha?"

I looked down to check the photo.

It's clearly a very gentle face; it's hard to imagine it being a man's.

So who exactly is this handsome man... our roommate?

"Ah! Could it be Extinction?"

She did mention that she used to be a man...

My dad also handed me the photos.

"Was it lucky? His registration information with the Association was fake, and he also used a female identity when he enrolled, so he had already Past the first round of screening... But thanks to those photos yesterday, we were able to see through his false identity."

I see.

She didn't repeat a grade for two years.

She was a hacker for two years!