Chapter 134 - 134: Darkness Under the Lamp
"Chika, go put your luggage away first. Your grandpa and I need to discuss your father's responsibilities."
The old man's gentle tone made Chika nod without hesitation.
"Alright, I'll put my luggage away first."
"I'll come back down to chat with Grandpa and Grandpa later."
The smile on the old man's face grew even wider.
See? His granddaughter was so sensible.
As they watched Chika leave, the old man turned his gaze to his son. But now, his expression was far less kind.
"You brat, what have you been doing?"
"???"
Daichi stared at his father blankly. What did I do this time?
"Dad means, why didn't you investigate Chika's school transfer more thoroughly?"
Seeing her husband's confused face, Fujiwara Maho, the daughter-in-law of the Fujiwara family, stepped in to remind him.
"Didn't you think it was strange from the beginning?"
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"How could an ordinary private high school attract the attention of the Shinomiya family's children, and even those of the Sanzenin family?"
Daichi scratched his head, puzzled.
"I did investigate, but I never found a solid answer."
"The Sanzenin involvement in the Shinomiya family's affairs is already odd enough."
"Shinomiya Oko isn't incompetent, yet he was easily overthrown and even the Sanzenin head personally stepped in."
"I looked into Kaguya, but her connection with Sanzenin Nagi feels completely unexpected."
Maho didn't doubt her husband's investigative skills.
If he had already looked into the matter and still couldn't reach a definite conclusion, it meant there were deeper secrets involved.
"Even if we don't base our suspicions on the outcome, we can at least tell there's something connecting them."
"Then, did you investigate the club Chika joined?"
Daichi nodded.
"Of course I did. Otherwise, I wouldn't have agreed to let Chika participate in its outdoor activities."
"What about the club members?"
"I checked them too."
Daichi had thoroughly investigated the club's main members.
"Suzuki Sonoko, the second daughter of the Suzuki family. Her childhood friend, Ran Mouri. The heir of the Sanzenin family, Nagi Sanzenin. The strongest shrine maiden of the Miko family, Saginomiya Isumi."
"Then there's Kaguya Shinomiya and her exclusive maid, Hayasaka Ai. And finally, our daughter—plus a boy."
Maho raised an eyebrow. And what about the boy?
She couldn't help but ask, "What do you know about him?"
"The boy... According to my investigation, he's completely ordinary."
Daichi thought about it carefully.
From everything he had found, the boy seemed to be nothing more than a regular student.
"He grew up in an orphanage. Nothing remarkable about him—he doesn't socialize much, rarely speaks, and has almost no friends."
"After the orphanage closed during his middle school years, he started working part-time while continuing his studies."
"Since high school, he's been renting a house where a large-scale murder took place. He's lived there ever since."
"His life hasn't been great, but there's nothing unusual about his character or behavior."
Seeing her husband's obliviousness, Maho sighed helplessly.
The old man looked at his son with an expression of utter disbelief. Even the maternal grandfather glanced at his usually sharp son-in-law, speechless.
"You idiot! Doesn't it strike you as odd that there's only one ordinary person in a club full of elite young ladies?"
"In a group where everyone has significant status and background, there's just one person who is so unremarkably 'normal' don't you think that's suspicious?"
"Where's your brain? Did you eat it or something?"
Daichi blinked, then suddenly realized.
"Since Teitan High School is just a private school, I assumed he was just a regular student who happened to join the club."
Both old men sighed.
Who would have thought their son would make such an obvious mistake?
But, upon closer thought, the boy's background was extremely ordinary. At first glance, he was the definition of an average student.
His identity and history were completely clean. No deep social connections, no entanglements, just an unremarkable teenager.
No apparent ties to the other club members.
And crucially, he had enrolled at Teitan High School through normal means, with nothing suspicious in his records.
The only anomaly was that he had joined a club full of high-status young ladies.
Even so, the two grandfathers understood why their son hadn't noticed the oddity sooner.
After all, the school they were investigating wasn't a prestigious academy for nobility, it was just a standard private institution.
The only truly notable student there was Suzuki Sonoko, the daughter of a wealthy family.
Their realization was only possible after the fact, because they were piecing things together from the results.
If they had known from the beginning that Chika, Shinomiya Kaguya, and Sanzenin Nagi had transferred to Teitan High School because of a mystery, they would have reached this conclusion much earlier.
If that had been clear from the start, they were sure Daichi would have noticed how out of place the boy was.
"...Forget it. Some things aren't your fault."
The old man sighed.
Considering how unbelievably normal the boy appeared, it was understandable that Daichi hadn't been suspicious right away.
Even the old man himself had to admit, the deception was effective.
At least Daichi had thoroughly investigated the boy's background.
If anything, it was because he had investigated so deeply that he was misled by the very normalcy of the information he found.
"If we had foresight, we would have realized something was off about him long before you did."
"We're only recognizing the issue now because we've pieced together the bigger picture."
Mystery.
That was the real reason Chika was connected to Kaguya.
The old man was certain, his granddaughter had transferred to Teitan High School because of Kaguya.
But somewhere along the way, the reason had changed.
With mystery as the missing piece, it made perfect sense why an utterly normal boy had ended up in a club full of high-status young ladies.
Perhaps... aside from his background and identity, that boy was anything but ordinary.