“...... Deed, Cheruth, and this ......"

"Hello Senior Sister Xia Li, my name is Nanoha, and I am a first-year student in the Department of Magic Guidance of the National Academy like Cherus. ”

“...... Well...... Hello Nanoha. ”

Thinking that half of the corpses and seriously injured people on the ground were from the hands of the chestnut-haired girl in front of her, who looked polite, humble, and had no ferocity at all, Xia Li couldn't help but suddenly feel a strange emotion.

This year's new student of the Magic Guidance Department...... It's a great place to recruit children.

"Senior Sister Xia Li, I'm sorry to say this when you are working so hard, but there are some things I need your help with. ”

Nanoha looked at Cheruth with some curiosity, not knowing why the wolf girl suddenly came up with this very serious tone that was completely different from usual, but naturally she wouldn't go to dismantle Cheruth's stage.

"Uh, please say ......"

It is not at all like the fierce combat power and serious aura that children and students should have, and sure enough, Xia Li was suddenly frightened by Cheruth.

"Senior Sister Xia Li, I hope you can keep the secret for us in the future...... Nanoha and I are ostensibly new students this year, but in reality we are alternate members of the Royal Guard's Covert Operations Group, and under certain circumstances, we have a great responsibility to protect the safety of Her Highness Sekaria as a member of the Royal Family. I wonder if you know what is going on with Her Highness Sekaria now?"

The reason why such an unreliable lie was concocted was naturally because in the current situation, it was naturally easier to gain trust with a more official identity of justice. Sure enough, after hearing Cheruth's words, Xia Li seemed to understand the truth about why Cheruth and the others had such strength and killing methods at such a young age, and her emotions suddenly calmed down a lot.

"Sekaria? she wasn't ...... just now."

"That's not the real Sekaria," said Cherus, shaking her head, "we...... As the core security force of the royal family, she has her own set of identification methods, although the woman is no different from the real princess in appearance, she is indeed not Her Royal Highness Sekaria...... But I'm sure that Her Royal Highness Sekaria who left the crowd with you at halftime is the princess herself, so I want to know if anything noticeable happened to you on your way out of the crowd to the arena?"

Chelus knew that if Ali Ali was delayed by that, even if she had caught up with the impostor Sekaria who was now presumably leading the royal guard to attack the Knights Templar, in full view of everyone, everyone would probably only believe the impostor they thought was the real princess, and regarded her, the one who knew the truth, as a poor child who had been bewitched, or directly considered a rumor-monger and included in the attack. And after the Nolan retreated, it is estimated that they should all be together now, and it is obviously not very realistic to catch up and arrest someone to ask about Sekaria's whereabouts.

Judging from the course of the whole incident, it was definitely Sekaria herself who was in the team when the main competition team of Loris Academy left the audience of the players, but it was only a short ten minutes later, and Sekaria, who entered the arena from the entrance of the arena again, had been replaced by the impostor that Chelus had not been able to stop from a series of subsequent behaviors.

In other words, the Nolan's chance to exchange the real Sekaria and the imposter is only ten minutes for their team to travel from the audience to the entrance of the arena alone. If they could know what Sekaria and their actions had done in the past ten minutes, they might have been able to grasp some clues about their methods of dropping Sekaria, so as to deduce some useful information.

With this in mind, Cheruth gave herself and Nanoha a very bluffing name of a member of the royal family's special covert force, and then began to ask Xia Li if they had any memories of encountering strange things along the way.

“...... You mean, come with us and then leave the ...... Isn't she really Sekaria?"

To the surprise of Cheruth, after hearing her words, although Xia Li was slightly surprised at first, she soon did not show any too much surprise, but nodded in agreement, but then shook her head again.

"Yes, I had a vague idea just now, if it was really Sekaria herself, she would not have been able to command these assassins, nor would she be the kind of person who would make irresponsible statements that would cause chaos so hastily...... However, I don't agree with the idea that the man wasn't 'Sekaria', and I think Sekaria must have been controlled by psychic magic. ”

"Mind Control ......"

Cheruth frowned slightly, she hadn't thought about this possibility, but thinking back to the experience of meeting with that "Sekaria" in mid-air, the wolf girl was not very optimistic about this possibility.

After all, as the name suggests, mind control magic focuses on the caster's control over the target being cast. This is just like the fact that no matter how anthropomorphic the functions of a machine controlled by a human are, it is absolutely impossible to be the same as a living person with autonomous consciousness, and a puppet without autonomous consciousness can never speak and behave as freely as a real person.

Even if the controller knows much about the controlled, he will not be able to control the other party's body movements and expressions as much as he controls his own body, after all, people's consciousness and sensory abilities are always limited, and a brain has to deal with all external reactions from two pairs of eyes and two bodies at the same time, and the difficulty is not something that can be described by a simple number superposition. Therefore, people who have been released from mind control will more or less have some stiff and strange unnatural details in their movements and mannerisms, which is especially evident in the immediate aftermath of mind control.

However, in the sky above the arena more than ten minutes ago, whether it was the gentle expression that she pretended to plot against her, or the cruel look that Sekaria herself had never seen after being pierced by Cheruth later, Cheruth did not find any stiffness in the face and movements of that "Sekaria" at all, it was as if the same person had changed into a completely different personality...... This is also the reason why Cerus thinks that Sekaria must have been dropped and not controlled.

But Xia Li also has her own reasons.

"After all, from the time we left the audience until the incident took place, we were almost always with Sekaria, at least during this time, Sekaria was not out of the sight of all of us, so I don't think those assassins had a chance to drop Sekaria along the way, but if it was mind control...... There is such a person, if Sekaria was really cast a mind control magic before the game, then eight or nine times out of ten it will be the hand and foot of that person, and only that person will have the opportunity to do it. ”

"Who is it?"

Seeing Xia Li so determined, Cheruth asked with some surprise.

"Edus. ”――

From the perspective of the management system of the temporary arena, people who can enter the athletes' activity area inside the arena are only qualified for special VIPs who are accompanied by staff, except for the venue staff and competitors.

In the pre-match period, how did Eders directly enter the inner area of the arena with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, and found Sekaria and the others who were waiting in the entrance passage without being stopped by anyone, Xia Li and the others have not been able to figure it out until now.

However, Xia Li thought very clearly, except for Edus, who appeared there inexplicably at that time, and then mysteriously called Sekaria to walk a few meters away from the team and said a few words, they had not met anyone else along the way, and no one could unleash any control magic on Sekaria.

After hearing about this pre-match episode from Xia Li, Cheruth naturally fully agreed with Xia Li's reasoning. Abnormality is a demon, not to mention that this thing is simply not an ordinary abnormality, it is completely strange everywhere, and a strange person appeared in a strange place at a strange point in time...... To say that there is no conspiracy in this, even she herself does not believe it.

So, after listing the clue provided by Xia Li as an important clue, the wolf girl asked Nanoha to stay behind to take care of the remaining members of the two main teams of Loris and Solan Academy, and she took Xia Li and the two back to the entrance passage.

Although Cheruth is still not sure whether Sekaria is controlled or dropped, one thing she can be sure of is that once Sekaria is really controlled, then there is absolutely a chance that Eders will be the controller or play a very important role in the activation of this control magic, although I don't know which nerve has gone wrong with Edus, the future Duke of Mana, to cooperate with the Nolan clan to cause such a big mess for the current king of the Loris Kingdom, but at least now if you want to find the real Sekaria, this Eddes is undoubtedly a key person.

Originally, Cheruth had planned to use the wolf's nose's sensitivity to smell to track Edus's whereabouts from the passage - if she thought of pouting her ass and smelling the floor, she would go to the wall now - but what she didn't expect was that the process of finding Edus's whereabouts was much easier than she expected.

As soon as she entered the passage of the contestants where Xia Li and the others entered, she didn't have time to use the sense of smell of the demon wolf when she saw Edus, who was leaning against the wall behind her unconscious and half-sitting on the ground.

“...... Well, at that time, because the game was about to start, Sekaria only talked to him not far away and came back with a very calm face and led everyone into the venue, so we didn't pay much attention to how Eddes appeared there, and we didn't pay attention to where he went after that......"

Xia Li's expression was a little surprised, obviously in the previous reasoning, she and Celeth agreed that Eders was definitely the perpetrator's side, but no matter how you look at this scene in front of you, it is impossible to connect the unconscious brother who fell to the ground with the perpetrator.

“...... So, you don't know what's going on?"

Chyruth said, crouching down with a little headache on her temples, and gently patting Edus's face with her hand.

"Hey, hey, are you still alive?"

Edus didn't react, Chyruth's heart sank, put her hand on Edus's neck carotid artery, and after feeling the faint pulse beating, the wolf girl breathed a sigh of relief, and then viciously raised her hand and slapped Edus.

"Hurry up, soul fade! Now is not the time for you to pretend to be a quiet sleeping beautiful man here, waiting for a passing princess to come and give a kiss, idiot! Don't delay the time for the old lady to save Leah here, hurry up for me!"

"Uh, Deeds, Chelus?"

Xia Li couldn't stand it anymore, although she also didn't like Edus, the first prince of the kingdom who always pestered Sekaria to be both hypocritical and annoying, but after all, he was the rightful heir to the four dukes, so he swollen his face even if you were in a hurry......

Under the power of Cheruth's series of slaps, Edus, whose face was already slightly swollen, snorted softly, frowned, and slowly opened his eyes.

"Hmm......"

Seeing Edus's unconscious appearance, Cheruth, who was eager to find out the information reasonably from him, couldn't help but feel a burst of anger, and raised her little hand to give him a few more slaps to speed up the activation of his brain, but this time it was Xia Li who quickly grabbed the wolf girl's claws, and then spoke very kindly.

"Lord Edus, why are you here?"

However, Eddes didn't answer Charlie's question at all, or he probably didn't hear Charlie's question at all. The pupils of the heir of the Mana family who woke up were obviously a little dilated, and the whole person seemed to be in an extremely dazed state, after Xia Li finished speaking, Eders was stunned for nearly a few seconds, and then raised his head as if he had reacted to something, but he didn't mean to answer at all, but looked at Cheruth, who was standing closest to him, and then suddenly his dazed and dull eyes actually recovered a little brilliance.

"...... Cheruth"

Whether it was his expression or tone, Edus, who was sitting on the ground and calling Cheruth's name, looked as if he had seen the closest person from the bottom of his heart, and the wolf girl was caught off guard, and was provoked by this simply kind "Cheruth" to give a cold shiver and goosebumps.

However, the culprit does not seem to be self-conscious, and even more excessive.

"Cheruth...... Where am I...... What's going on? I feel like my head hurts......"

Edus's appearance and voice belong to the more sunny aristocratic handsome type, but at this moment, the tone and expression of Eddes and Cheruth all reveal a girlish atmosphere...... With the handsome face that had been swollen by Cheruth beforehand, it simply made the wolf girl feel a feeling of discomfort that she had never felt before.

"You, you...... What's wrong with you......"

Disgusted, Cheruth showed weakness to Eddes for the first time, she straightened up, involuntarily took a few steps back, and looked at Eddes with the corners of her mouth twitching.

"Cheruth...... What's wrong with you? Why are you so far away from me......"

Eddes looked at Cheruth away from him, and his originally happy expression suddenly became a little incredible, as if he didn't think that Cheruth would treat him like this.

Now even Xia Li on the side can't stand it anymore, the situation is urgent, what's the matter with this boy and brother being disgusting here......

"Lord Eders, you...... Are you alright?" )