Why are there only loser heroines around me?

23:00

Another villa 1.6 kilometers away from Youjing's house.

The group intends to continue with the originally planned crime scene reconstruction.

There were four other people in the room besides Ukyo.

Yoshiki, Yanami, and Mori.

Yanami held the hilt of the knife, ready to swing it at any time, while Yoshiki kept his eyes open vigilantly, ready to report the situation to Yanami at any time.

Maori was holding a basin of water in his hand. He thought the safest way was to wake Ukyo up before the fox demon came, so this thing was a tool for Waiteng to wake up. He added a few drops of holy water in it. If the thing that came was not a fox demon but a devil, then he would be able to make a contribution.

Before falling asleep, Ukyo suddenly thought of what he saw in the old lady's description.

She said that she would wake up late at night every night and see a baby standing at the head of the bed, bending down and looking at her.

It has now been confirmed that the baby is a low-level demon that has not yet absorbed Nishio's soul and flesh.

What they still need to solve is the cause of death of Assistant Nishio.

There are many doubts in this matter, but as long as we can attract the monster to appear, everything will be solved.

Youjing pondered the appearance of a fox demon in his mind. Her temperament might be cold and mysterious, with a pure cherry red color. She used ancient rouge, so her lipstick lacked layering. Her eyes were narrow and long like a fox, with eyeshadow smudged with peach and light red. She must have the charm of a classical oriental woman, but there must be an unnatural demon-like quality in her.

Or perhaps...the fox demon has the ability to understand people's hearts and can transform into the image that people most want to see. She doesn't need to guess what humans like, she can find out by just entering their memories.

If that were the case, then things would be easier. He would never be bewitched by the charm because he knew clearly that his girl was dead. The more the image constructed by the other party resembled "her", the more beautiful the sweeping movement of Youjing's blade would be.

He had already thought of the possible form the fox demon might take, and was ready to chop off the fox's brain with one blow.

But after Youjing fell asleep, what appeared in front of him was a clown with a painted face.

His face was like a pale canvas, carefully painted with a thick layer of white foundation, and the eye sockets were exaggeratedly outlined with black eyeliner, making his golden eyes even more eye-catching.

The corners of his mouth curled upward, a smile seemingly frozen in that chilling arc. His lips were painted a vibrant red, creating a striking contrast with his pale complexion. His hair was a mess of green, but his teeth were perfectly white. His smile was tinged with cruelty and amusement... and a faint hint of... anticipation!

He was pointing at Ukyo in his dream, but he wasn't just pointing at Ukyo—

"To all the brave detectives dreaming right now:

I am the Pope you all know.

The game "Asphyxiation" was completed by a brave warrior, so I decided to present a new game to you... "Heart"!

I've hidden someone's heart! Find it, and we'll have the next game. You have seven days to search. Let me see... Haha~, there are only five days left! If you haven't found the heart after five days, I'm sorry, the great Clown Pope will have to take your heart away!

He began to laugh heartily in the darkness, and his image gradually moved away from everyone's eyes and disappeared into a black dot.

It couldn't be called a nightmare, so Ukyo was calm when he woke up from it.

All over the world, countless psychic detectives woke up from their dreams at the same time.

They all looked down at their hearts.

They were threatened!

By that self-righteous clown!

Sometime last night or this morning, all the paranormal detectives, due to various "coincidences", discovered a body without a heart.

No one thought there was anything unusual about them discovering the body at the same time because they didn't know each other at all!

But after falling asleep tonight, all the detectives began to re-investigate the heartless body they found yesterday. But unfortunately, a day had passed and most of the bodies at the crime scene had been moved away. All that remained at the scene was the white handwriting that circled the body.

In order to lure the "weird creature" hiding in the dark, all the "brave detectives" cleared the scene and chose to fall asleep in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, all traces of the crime at the scene were also cleared because of this dream, and they all became headless flies.

After Youjing woke up from his dream, three pairs of eyes were staring at him at the same time.

Yanaijian was the first to ask, "How was it? Did you see the fox demon?"

Ukyo said, "No, we have to think long and hard about this."

"You look so pale, are you okay?"

"It's okay." Ukyo said, "It might explode on the news tomorrow morning, no...it might explode tonight."

Hearing this, Yanaijian took out his cell phone.

Pope's third game, "Heart", has quickly become a hot search on major platforms.

Yanami read the rules carefully, then looked at Ukyo worriedly and said, "What should we do now? Go find the heart?"

"No." Ukyo said, "Go to sleep and go to school normally tomorrow morning."

"I knew you had a way." Yanai smiled knowingly.

"No." Ukyo said, "The scene has been cleared. The police turned the villa upside down when they investigated the scene, so the heart is definitely not in the villa. We need to collect intelligence first. Since other detectives have also received the Joker's invitation, our "colleagues" will be the source of our intelligence this time."

"Our club is usually quite independent and doesn't keep in touch with other psychic detectives. So we need to go back to school to find Tamaki. He must have other psychic detectives in his circle of friends."

Volume 77: Chapter The other detectives are getting anxious, why are you still drinking coffee?

The next morning.

The first day of school at Shifu High School.

Youjing sat cross-legged on the cushion in the hall. His Tai Chi teacher had taught him to meditate. The more tense the environment, the more he had to learn to calm his mind. His movements were very standard, just like the Taoist priests on Mount Wudang. As long as he tied his hair up and put on a set of Tai Chi uniform, he could go straight to the mountain to work.

He had a notebook in front of him, and on his desktop, the LINE app he logged into was buzzing with messages of concern from his club members.

Xiaoju: [Ukyo, do you think we might be hiding something from you? The villa has already been searched, but maybe the heart is inside. How about we all take a collective day off after school today and help you search the villa?]

Tamaki: [President, I do know a few authors whose main business is paranormal detective work. I have added them to your Night Watch channel.]

Lemon: [(Lemon pokes his head in), what are you guys discussing?]

Lemon is a complete outsider in this circle. She rarely pays attention to the dynamics of the supernatural circle, but she is very concerned about the safety of her running friend Xiaoju. When she learned that her dear Xiaoju might only have five days to live, she began to browse information related to the Clown Pope, hoping that she could be of some help.

Shikiya: [I told you long ago... there's a curse behind you...]

Tsukinoki: [Friendly reminder, you can use normal word order when chatting. Without the ellipsis, everyone can imagine you're about to die. Also, why are you in our club's group chat?] For unknown reasons, Tsukinoki seems to have a strange hostility towards Shikiya.

Shikiya: [Ukyo was the one who brought me in, saying I was a candidate member.]

Ukyo, sitting cross-legged on the futon, completed his breathing this morning. It was indeed him who brought Shikiya in. Although he did not agree to him joining the "Ukyo Paranormal Detective Agency", if it was just a small "college club", there would not be so many restrictions and rules. Moreover, Shikiya Yumeko was a member of the student union. Ukyo thought it would be good to have one more student union member in the club. With this relationship, the student union might not make things difficult for him anymore.

After the revival of the supernatural, the supernatural club went from being "on the verge of being disbanded" to being "very popular". Many students would rather leave their original clubs to join the supernatural club. High school students are at the age when they have a strong curiosity about the mysterious corners of the world.

But Ukyo wouldn't let just any guy into his club office.

The Japanese government seems to have issued certain mandatory tasks to middle and high schools in various countries, requiring schools to popularize supernatural knowledge among students. For this reason, a large number of teachers at Shilu High School have participated in "secret" supernatural training.

The principal hopes that his clubs can become more formal, with professional instructors and professional training like the "Kendo Club" and "Athletics Club". This year, major universities will also open a new "Exorcism Major". The score line is set high, but it requires a good history score and proficiency in various exorcism skills. Its nature is similar to that of specialty students such as "Athletics" and "Physical Education".

High schools are responding to this policy, shifting their "psychic clubs" from hobby clubs to professional clubs. They are also hiring professional Onmyoji from places like Tokyo and Shibuya to serve as instructors. This offers another avenue for talented students, and many, seeing this "opportunity," are even considering developing their schools into specialized schools similar to the ancient Onmyoji schools.

But Ukyo would definitely disagree. If the school leaders wanted to establish a professional club, they should start a new one and not target him. Ukyo's current status was different from before. In today's internet-savvy society, the more developed the social network, the more aware the undercurrents are. The fact that several school leaders could still sit together and discuss the future career paths of their graduates was all thanks to Ukyo for repeatedly saving Toyohashi from danger and extinguishing the signs of the resurgence of the supernatural in Toyohashi.

The school leaders wanted Ukyo to be the "mentor" because at least he was more reliable than the Onmyoji in Tokyo and Shibuya in terms of performance. No matter how many demons those people wrote on their resumes, the leaders had never seen them in person, so they were far less reliable than Ukyo. Most of the demons he killed had been seen on the Internet, and those that had not been seen had been heard from students about them.

But the leaders didn't know that Youjing was going to die, so the mentor invitation they sent at this time seemed very inconsiderate. These old men didn't like to send LINE messages, but liked to make phone calls, so Youjing blocked all their numbers.

He wondered why he didn't see Yanami in the literature club's group chat.

Usually she loves to flood the group with messages.

At most, he was just curious about whether Yanami showed up, but he didn't try to find out the specific reason why she didn't show up.

Ukyo went over in his mind what the clown had said in his dream last night, then stood up and began to prepare breakfast for the three of them.

.......

"Taking away the heart" should not be some kind of exaggerated literary rhetoric, but a literal meaning. The Joker wants to take away the "hearts" of all the psychic detectives, and all of them will die.

Yanami was worried about Ukyo's condition, so she didn't go home last night.

There are many guest rooms in Ukyo's house, and his mother picked one for Yanami to stay in.

In the morning, she received a private message from her father via LINE. Her father seldom used LINE, but recently he started to learn it for some reason. Moreover, he became very fond of paying attention to the news in the supernatural circle and would circle all the news related to the supernatural in the paper newspaper.

He not only circled the most recent newspapers, but also all the newspapers from a long time ago. He might have wanted to help his daughter in this way, but the old print media, as a news carrier, had many reports that were untrue and exaggerated, especially the supernatural pages that were mainly for attracting attention, so those things could not help her.

Yanami looked at the message from her father. This time, unusually, the message wasn't a greeting to her, but to Ukyo—

"Is your boss okay?"

He used "your boss".

Yanami felt that his father was very afraid of Ukyo, and every time he mentioned him, he chose his words carefully.

"He's fine." Yanai replied.

Ukyo didn't seem to be in a hurry at all, as he was watching the morning news while preparing breakfast for the three of them.

His mother, knowing that her son might die in five days, surprisingly showed no signs of worry. Women are very sensitive and fragile. She thought that Ukyo's mother's calmness after hearing the news was all fake, and that she would definitely cry secretly in her sleep at night. So Yanai tiptoed to Ukyo's mother's door last night, but all she heard was the sound of her steady breathing.

Their lives went on as usual, as if nothing had happened.

Yanami felt that someone like Ukyo certainly wasn't afraid of death. He could accept being slashed in the neck by a demon due to a mistake in his sword strike while slaying demons, but he certainly couldn't accept being teased with death by that clown...

The reason why Ukyo acted so calm was that he might have already thought of a plan to find the heart. Yanami firmly believed this in his heart.

Yanami used the word "tease" because the Joker was indeed teasing these self-righteous detectives.

"The Pope" is probably the toughest opponent that the detectives have faced in this supernatural revival. His abilities are unknown, and so are the works in which he will appear. Too many novels have recreated the character of "Joker", treating it as a villain in the early, middle and late stages. In many cases, the decent characters can even pretend to be the Killing Clown to achieve their goals. No one knows what the abilities of this fictional character are.

Human organs will be eaten clean by bacteria and roundworms in about a week, so if the clowns want to ensure that they can find the heart within seven days, they must keep the heart safe and sound for seven days.

So maybe the place where he hid the heart is in a freezer somewhere in the city?

Or whose refrigerator?

The area is too large to be found.

Or perhaps, this game was nothing more than a trick played by the clown to fool them. The madman just wanted to find a reason to take their hearts, watching these detectives who thought they were smart change from their initial composure to anxiety, and quietly admiring the process of these "righteous people" falling into evil.

After all, when it comes to the Joker, the first virtual image that comes to mind is always the one from DC, the typical antisocial madman whose favorite thing to do is to cause trouble for Batman.

And there is no Batman in their world.

Hidden in the darkness of the world, silently guarding it, are these psychic detectives. The target of the clown's prank will definitely change from Bruce Wayne to "Ukyo Tachibana".

Besides, the Joker has no goals, no rules, he doesn't care about money, nor fame, he creates explosions and carnage, endless chaos...

There is no purely crazy villain like him in the real world. All criminals have their own behavioral logic. They always have some purpose when killing people or creating chaos, but the Joker does not have that, so people can't guess him, and no one can predict what he will do next.

If the Joker who plays tricks on detectives in the shadows also inherits these traits, then things will be tricky. Is there anyone in real life who can defeat the villain ranked number one in Empire magazine?

What's more, the settings mixed in that guy may be far more than the DC comics that everyone is familiar with.

.....

"Be careful on the road."

Ukyo's mother helped Yanami pick up her schoolbag and only let go of her hand once she had put her arms through the straps.

Yanai was flattered.

Kusaki's mother used to be so kind to her, but Ukyo's mother's gentle smile always made her shiver.

After the two arrived at school, the way others looked at them changed significantly.

If the girls in the past saw that she had the opportunity to be with Youjing and not be driven away by him, their eyes would mostly be full of envy and jealousy, but now, there is a hint of... pity in these eyes.

Not to mention the way he looked at Ukyo, it was like he was looking at a walking corpse.

Every high school student has their own frequently used social media on their mobile phone, and the hot searches on these platforms are all about last night’s “clown incident”, so no one doesn’t know that Ukyo is about to die.

"What are you looking at? Ukyo will definitely break through!"

"Don't say bad things about him!" I often hear girls say this when I pass by certain classes.

Occasionally, some boys would speak up to defend him.

It seems that he has a lot of "fans" in school, but these people are useless.

September 9st is the first school day of Shifu High School.

Ukyo was dubbed the "moving corpse" and completed a morning of activities in full view of others. Today, many high school students across Japan took leave for strange reasons, but Ukyo, who was also at the center of the storm, completed his four classes in the morning normally, and in the afternoon he went to the club office to start repairing his antique coffee machine.

A draft blew in from the wide-open windows. This year's summer seemed to have passed by too quickly. The bitter taste of coffee mixed with the coolness penetrated deep into people's hearts. In the usually noisy activity room, the only sound left was the sound of different people tapping the screen with their fingers. In a short while, everyone connected their mobile phone data cables to the power strip.

Youjing did not disturb them. He knew that everyone was collecting information online, hoping to help him, and Youjing would not stop others' good intentions.

When I was inadvertently looking at the scenery outside the window, I saw a familiar girl holding a huge cardboard box, which seemed to be about to fall over at any time. She walked around in a circle and came to the main entrance of the community office.