Asakura took out the armband he had worn while on duty at the entrance and put it back on, then walked forward.
"Little sister, did you get separated from your parents?"
The little girl seemed startled by his sudden approach, her shoulders trembled slightly a few times, and she visibly curled up like a frightened rabbit, giving the impression that she would spring up and run away like a rabbit at any moment.
"Don't be afraid, big brother isn't a bad person. Look—" Asakura tugged at his armband and said in a serious tone, like coaxing a child, "This is proof of identity for festival staff, you can hand over any difficulties you encounter to me."
The little girl paused at his words, then turned around and looked at Asakura timidly.
She was a little one who looked to be only about seven or eight years old, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Although her features had some European three-dimensionality, her underlying features were still the delicate ones of East Asians, so she was probably a mixed-race child. At such a young age, she already had the makings of a beauty.
The little girl was holding a hardcover children's picture book, which was larger than a normal book. From the cover, which clearly featured a Chibi of "The Last Supper—" it was probably a picture book telling short Bible stories.
At this moment, the picture book covered half of the girl's small face, revealing only her delicate nose and a pair of teary blue eyes, looking incredibly soft, adorable, and heart-melting.
"Eriri…" The girl hugged the picture book, sniffing and sobbing softly, "Eriri can't find… can't find Daddy and Mommy…"
"It's okay, don't cry." Asakura reached out to pat the head of the little girl who called herself Eriri, but she shook her small head to avoid him, making him subtly awkward.
What happened to the special attack of head pats on lolis?
"Big brother will take you to find Daddy and Mommy, okay?" He said, ignoring the good-natured chuckles of a few passersby, and casually retracted his hand.
"Really?" The little one's eyes, still teary at the corners, instantly lit up.
"Absolutely." Asakura gave a thumbs up.
His time was limited. Under normal circumstances, if he encountered a child separated from their parents, he would probably choose to take them directly to the Student Council and let the Student Council members be responsible for finding the child's parents.
However, Eriri's situation was a bit special.
The girl looked mixed-race at first glance, so one of her parents must be European.
It was true that the wind at Soubu High School was a bit boisterous today… no, that wasn't right, it was because Amakusa Shino's wish caused an abnormal surge in tourist numbers, and naturally, there were some foreigners among them.
But no matter what, this was Chiba, not Okinawa, and the number of newly spawned foreigners still only accounted for a small portion.
Asakura spent a few seconds using the snake groups wandering in the campus drains and pipes to locate the blonde foreigners.
Adding to that, narrowing down the possible age range of her parents based on the little one's age, and excluding all foreigners outside this range, the actual number of people to confirm was not many. Even if his luck was so bad that he had to visit everyone to find the girl's parents, it wouldn't take much time.
With this thought, he took a picture of the little one with his phone, uploaded it to the Magic Club's group chat, and sent a message saying, "I'm going to find the child's mom—" to inform the others. Asakura then ignored the pile of question marks that appeared in the group chat, directly took the little one's hand, and quickly walked towards the foreigners targeted by the little snakes.
…Sure enough!
Even after visiting the last targeted foreigner, Eriri's parents still hadn't been found.
Asakura: "?"
He scratched his head.
He felt that things weren't developing as he expected.
Could it be that Eriri's parents were very young when they had Eriri? Or did they have a child late in life?
No, no, that's highly unlikely no matter how he thought about it. Perhaps this child is only a quarter mixed-race, and her European ancestry comes from her grandparents' generation, and her parents just look like ordinary islanders?
But if that were truly the case, finding this child's parents would be very troublesome, at least in terms of the time it would take.
In fact, more than half an hour had passed since Asakura completed the goldfish scooping challenge.
Asagumo Chihaya was still stuck at the sugar painting—she said she had failed once and was now attempting it for the second time.
"Other than my mouth feeling a bit cloyingly sweet, there are no other problems—" she said.
"No, there are still problems—" Asakura retorted, "like insulin and such…"
Yuigahama Yui, after being mentally polluted by the rotten girls of the Manga Research Club for a while, finally began to unleash her cheerful and sunny personality, like a husky. She persistently tried to get the Holy Grail from her classmate and good friend Himeko Ebina, but the other party told her that the Manga Research Club's Holy Grail had already been taken by another guest.
It was said that the person stumbled badly on a few questions about rotten girl manga, but was quite knowledgeable about other manga, answering with overwhelming momentum, and easily passed after two attempts to figure out the answers to the rotten girl questions.
"She even knew exactly how many doujinshi Kashiwagi Eri had published… even those ancient versions that are hard to find concrete evidence for. She's too strong!" Himeko Ebina exclaimed at the time. "It feels like everyone in the Manga Research Club couldn't defeat her even if they tried their best…"
Now, Yuigahama Yui had already met up with Yukinoshita Yukino and were together looking for the guests who had previously obtained the Holy Grails from the Nervous Breakdown stall and the Manga Research Club stall.
Interestingly, the student in charge of the Nervous Breakdown stall said that the ones who took the stall's Holy Grail were also two girls, a combination of a somewhat cold, long-haired black-haired girl and a cheerful, long-haired pink-haired girl. The two standing together also gave off an 'uneven' feeling.
"What does 'also' mean?" Yuigahama Yui told Asakura over the phone. "When Yukino asked that question, that student was so scared by her low pressure that she trembled…"
By the way, according to Himeko's testimony, the person who took the Holy Grail reward from the Manga Research Club 'was dressed tightly even though it was summer, and wore sunglasses and a mask, feeling just like a celebrity on a private outing.' In short, there were no other clues except that the person was a girl.
But Asakura, based on the other party's testimony, activated the snake network to search, but did not find such a person within Soubu High School. He didn't know if the person had changed clothes or had already left Soubu High School.
As for Yanami.
The good news was that it was impossible for anyone to break her record and get the eating challenge reward anymore.
The bad news was that she was still eating hamburgers.
Additionally, although she was addicted to hamburgers and couldn't stop, the girl had also carefully confirmed that at least the Holy Grail at Big Bang Burger had not been taken by anyone else.
It's really you, Yanami.
Asakura felt a headache coming on.
It would be noon soon, and if they waited until the event officially began and the existence of the 'Holy Grails' was announced to the tourists, the obstacles to collecting them would be even greater. Perhaps he should stop the Student Council's activities in advance?