Editing Internet Shrine Maiden Tsugumi-chan:Volume1 Chapter6 (section)

===Part 2===

The space was deserted.

The Hisame Detective Agency was empty and the air inside was dead. Her social media messages received no response.

The online shrine maiden used the nap room to change into her shrine maiden outfit.

Once back in the office, she found the old oil lighter sitting on the shelf. For some reason, it wasn’t locked up.

The Imperial Exorcism Igniter.

“…”

She said nothing.

Yahirodono Tsumugi took the lighter.

“That idiot…”

A deep male voice came from the laptop on the desk. The call through a free talk app was apparently from a Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department detective back on Honshu.

“If you want to play the hero in tights, then don’t quit your civil servant job. Thinking the ends justify the means isn’t the logic of a private detective – it’s the logic of a terrorist.”

“How far do you think he will go if he really has snapped?”

“As far as it takes.”

That was so exactly the answer she expected it gave her a headache.

That detective was such a good detective he could easily determine what secrets people most treasured just by observing them.

That led him to empathize with people on the verge of breaking and he would solve their problem no matter how much it cost him.

“I assume you would know that better than anyone since he took you in after your shrine burned down.”

“What about the Nagatacho Leaders Case!? He left the police to pursue it, but he’s just going to abandon it now?”

“He was solving that to save someone. Sacrificing another life to focus on it wouldn’t make sense.”

“You mean he can make detours?”

“There was a hostage situation a few years ago. They couldn’t gather the ransom money and it wasn’t looking good for rescuing the hostage. …But the kidnapped child was saved. By amazing good luck? By a whim of the hostage taker? No. Because one detective obsessively tracked down and arrested the hostage taker before anyone died. He really did ''force'' it to work.”

“…”

“That’s how Kouga saves people. Including all the low-level officers, how many hundreds of thousands of people do you think work for Japan’s National Police Agency? Kouga outdid that colossal organization all on his own. He is a pure tracking expert. So he doesn’t judge things like a mercenary or a bodyguard. He judges them like a detective.”

Hisame Kouga gained nothing by doing all that.

Civil servants earned a set monthly salary. And because he had shamed the higher ups who had quickly deemed it impossible to rescue the hostage, making them look like coldhearted bastards, it actually worked against him in less tangible ways.

But he didn’t care.

Because he could make that kind of decision without hesitation, he had gone a step further and quit his job to free himself from its shackles.

“This is my first time speaking with you, isn’t it?” said the man. “I’d love to help if I could, but I’m 500 kilometers away. Even if I hopped on a train now, I still might be too late. Young lady, can I leave that idiot to you?”

“Yes.”

The online shrine maiden turned toward the detective agency’s exit with the old oil lighter in hand.

She didn’t look back.

“I will settle this before it’s too late.”