So that was why Yimi hated school. In the last world, not being allowed to cook during class had been bad enough. Now she wasn't even allowed to sleep or play games.
"Detective Boys?"
During break, Yimi finally spared the textbook she'd been doodling all over and tilted her head at the group that had gathered around her.
Once she stripped away the three extra characters, the only part she cared about was "detective."
"That's right. We officially formed yesterday, and I'm the leader. We get tons of requests every day," Genta replied proudly, puffing out his chest.
Conan, who sat beside Yimi, gave an awkward laugh.
Did you even hear what you just said? You officially formed yesterday, yet you get tons of requests every day?
"I want to join!" Yimi agreed without hesitation.
"Then you're one of us now," Ayumi replied happily.
Yimi nodded and opened the System panel, only to see that the mission still hadn't been completed.
The kitty's face fell. "I want to quit."
"No! You can't do that! Once you join, you can't just quit!" Mitsuhiko anxiously pressed both hands on the desk, as if that could hold Yimi herself in place.
They called themselves a detective group, yet joining them hadn't completed the mission.
"So what do you detectives, do?" Yimi asked. Kisaki Eri's answer had been extremely vague.
Mitsuhiko counted on his fingers. "Detectives track down murderers, investigate kidnappings, missing-person cases, affairs..."
"None of those are things kids should be doing, right?" Conan cut in.
Mitsuhiko turned to him. "But Conan was following your detective uncle around before too."
"Exactly. Conan gets to take part in exciting cases every day. That's so unfair," Genta chimed in.
Yimi pointed at Conan in shock. "People die around you every day!"
"Of course not! A detective is someone who goes wherever a case happens, brings the truth to light, and solves it. Don't make detectives sound like some kind of jinx! How could there possibly be that many cases in the world?"
Whenever the word "detective" came up, Conan defended the profession with everything he had. "This kind of work is dangerous. I... my uncle doesn't just have to look at mangled corpses. If a culprit gets desperate after being cornered, they might even attack him."
Yimi stared at Conan without blinking.
His uncle was a detective. She needed to find a chance to see what his uncle actually did.
School let out relatively early in Japan, but their guardians had been keeping a closer eye on them these past couple of days, so the Detective Boys didn't run off to play together like usual.
"Bye-bye. I'm going back to the Queen's house." Yimi waved to the others, then turned and left.
Kisaki Eri was a prominent lawyer. There was no way she could always find time to escort Yimi to and from school, but before enrollment she had repeatedly walked Yimi through the route. On the main roads of a big city, there shouldn't be anything like child trafficking or abductions.
People in this world had a strange amount of faith in seven-year-olds. Maybe it was also because Japanese schools let out so early. Other than housewives or househusbands, hardly any adult could pick up a child at this hour.
Kisaki Eri was still very responsible. Before Yimi officially started school, she'd first taken her along the route both ways and worked out one that crossed as few streets as possible while staying on major roads.
But Kisaki Eri had overlooked one thing: Yimi hated noise. She didn't like the major roads with all their traffic, so she picked a smaller side street herself.
That seemed to be going rather badly.
Ran, who had gotten out of school—or more accurately, left early—was following behind Yimi.
Picking up a child for a friend's family should be perfectly normal. Ran and Conan didn't exactly have much of a relationship either, yet hadn't she still brought him to school?
The problem was that this morning, Mom hadn't merely brought the white-haired child to the school gate. She had walked right inside with her!
Her brain hadn't caught up at the time, and she'd simply left with her thoughts in a complete mess. For something this important, she should have waited outside the school until Mom came back out and asked her face-to-face!
Mom and Dad had been separated for so long, and Dad was still like that. What if, during this time, some better man took advantage of the separation and made a move? What if this child was that man's daughter...
The more Ran thought about it, the more terrifying it became. She didn't even notice that she had kept exactly the same distance behind Yimi for quite a while, neither drawing closer nor falling behind, as they walked down this little accident-prone street.
Yimi's steps paused for a moment. Only then did Ran realize that following an elementary-schooler from behind like this looked a little suspicious.
Should she slow down?
Yimi listened carefully. The person following her slowed their footsteps.
Ran patted her own cheeks.
Why was she slowing down? She had come to ask this child about everything directly, hadn't she? She should just catch up.
Ran sped up again.
The kitty heard the person behind her slow down, then suddenly speed up again. "..."
Yimi broke into a run, her little legs pumping furiously.
"Wait! I'm not a suspicious person!" Ran shouted, displaying astonishing stamina as she chased after her.
"Meow!"
They reached a dead end. Yimi planted one foot on the wall and vaulted over it. Her amazing athletic ability startled Ran too. Because of the angle and where her attention had been, Ran hadn't noticed the wall in time to stop and kicked straight into it, leaving a few cracks across its surface.
Ran at least showed the wall a little respect. She backed up several steps to get a running start, then sprinted forward and vaulted over it as well.
But in that brief gap, Yimi had already disappeared. Only a strangely patterned cat padded lightly past up ahead.
"Ah... I lost her." Ran lowered her head in disappointment, then rallied herself again.
She didn't have to ask that child to find out.
From a cat's-eye view, Yimi looked up at Ran for a while. She thought the woman was a little strange, but she stayed in this form and ran back to Kisaki Eri's home first.
That woman didn't seem to mean any harm.
But suddenly being chased through an alley was extremely intimidating.
Kisaki Eri was still busy at work and hadn't come home yet. Yimi could watch television for a while, even if TVs in this world were still those bulky CRT sets.
"Ding-dong!"
The doorbell.
"Mm?"
Because of her height, Yimi wasn't in the habit of checking who was at the door. She simply opened it.
When the person who opened the door really was this child, Ran's expression stiffened for a moment. She still forced out a rather awkward smile and greeted her. "Hello."
Yimi suddenly remembered the countless warnings every guardian in her previous worlds had given her: don't open the door for strangers.
"Meow!"
She tried to shut the door, but Ran held it open. "Wait, little girl! I'm not a suspicious person. Look, I even brought cake!"
"Cake."
Yimi stopped pushing the door closed, accepted the cake, and casually let her inside.
Wait! She had also been warned countless times not to eat things given to her by strangers!
Yimi looked at Ran warily again and saw her glancing around the house.
The kitty had heard Tomohisa explain this before. She was checking whether there were any adults at home, and once she confirmed there weren't, she'd carry Yimi away!
Ran, however, was actually trying to imitate her childhood sweetheart, using a detective's way of thinking to work out how many people lived here.
There were only high heels and children's shoes in the entryway shoe cabinet. There didn't seem to be any men's dress shoes.
"Little girl, are your mom and dad not home?"
See? She even asked directly! Did she think this kitty was a three-year-old? That was an expression Yimi had learned from TV.
"Can you put your hands, behind your back for a moment?" Yimi patted Ran on the back.
"Behind my back? Like this?" Ran froze for a moment, then unconsciously did as she was told because she was completely off guard around a child.
Still, this pose felt strange. Almost like...
Yimi pulled a rope out of her storage space and, quick as lightning, tied Ran's hands the way Flandre had taught her.
Ran: "?"
The only reason I didn't use psychokinesis to drive you crazy is because you gave me cake.
Imitating what she'd seen on television, Yimi declared, "Surrender, human trafficker."
"I'm not..." Ran tried to snap the rope directly, but having her hands bound behind her made it hard to exert force. If she used her legs, she might hurt the little girl.
"You have the right to remain silent." Yimi had forgotten the next line, so she stopped there.
She rummaged through a cabinet, found a roll of tape, and sealed Ran's mouth. Only afterward did she belatedly remember to tie her legs too.
She hadn't even needed psychokinesis the whole time. Kitty was amazing.
Yimi ran to the phone cabinet, picked up the extremely advanced landline, and prepared to call 110. She'd heard that this was the normal way to handle a criminal.
Then she suddenly remembered that she had no idea what number to dial for 110.
She called the landline at Kisaki Eri's workplace instead. "Hello? I caught, a human trafficker at home."
Fishing for praise.