High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1135: Chapter 197: Secret Realm Clue Obtained

North Beta Town, Gu Diao Street.

Sakura Pub.

Upstairs, in the lounge of Jini Cottage, before the bar.

A black cat arched its back, shoved its front paws into a basin of water, and vigorously scrubbed them. Pink bubbles spilled over the edge, nearly submerging half the cat’s body, but it did nothing to hinder its engrossed cleansing task.

Behind the bar, two witches laughed so hard they bent forward and backward, unable to control themselves.

”Don’t cats usually lick their paws to clean themselves? Did you try licking your paws just now?” Korma held a Green Bee drink, wiping the tears from her eyes. She had cried from laughing too hard after hearing Elena’s account of the black cat’s ordeal.

”It was a nightmare,” sighed the Gypsy witch, shivering with pity as she glanced at the black cat. ”I bet that skinned toad had been rotting there for over a week.”

”I suddenly fancy some anchovy paste,” Korma grunted, beginning to giggle foolishly again.

The black cat continued scrubbing its paws with a dark expression, ignoring the two of them.

Around eight or nine o’clock at night, Jini Cottage was at its liveliest. Young Tricksters who had gone to the Silent Forest to gather, served as servants in the Alchemy Workshop, stood on the streets as clowns, or labored at the dock, began to appear in the hall in groups, starting to pray together and exchange learnings about ’magic’ with each other.

With its highly sensitive hearing, the black cat easily overheard that the so-called ’magic’ the Tricksters were discussing mostly did not touch upon real power—the most they could do was produce sparks by snapping their fingers, as the young Tricksters enthusiastically discussed the different shapes of sparks produced by rubbing their fingertips at different angles.

The serious discussants even took notes on the spot, sketching the shapes of different sparks and the finger movements and angles in their notebooks.

This discovery only added to the cat’s frustration.

The two witches behind the bar seemed not to notice the black cat’s low spirits, as they laughed for quite a while before calming down.

”Let’s get to the point,” Korma cleared her throat, glanced at the black cat who was inspecting its pink paw pads, and slightly lowered her voice, ”You all know about the message on the paper crane, right?”

”I don’t know,” the black cat retorted gruffly. It carefully examined its paws, which had been washed pink, constantly feeling an urge to lick them, but its reason was telling it that even if the paws were thoroughly clean, it must not lick them.

It was a wizard, not a real cat.

This conflicting struggle repeatedly clashed within the black cat’s heart, causing it some agitation.

The owner of Jini Cottage blinked.

”Alright,” the witch was in a good mood that night. She pulled out a substandard Barrier Charm from a drawer under the bar, slapped it onto the table, and a faint protective dome expanded, enveloping the witch, the mage, and the cat. Then she proceeded leisurely, ”It’s actually good news, so I don’t mind repeating it.”

She couldn’t help but start laughing again.

The black cat gave her a skeptical look, wondering whether to suggest she get her brain checked at the school hospital.

”Mr. Hamster wrote to us today, stating he received our Sincerity, so he sent us the exact location of that place,” Korma said, opening her hands as if by magic, unexpectedly revealing a small roll of parchment tied with a black ribbon in her palm, roughly the thickness of a little finger and an inch or so in length.

It took a good while for the black cat to realize who Korma referred to as ’Mr. Hamster’.

”Sincerity?” His eyes widened with surprise, and dismissing the concern about whether to lick his paws, he sprang from the floor to the countertop with a bit of effort.

The owner of Gini Cottage deftly brought his palm to the black cat’s nose.

The black cat sniffed.

Indeed, the smell of Fei Rui was all over that parchment scroll.

But I haven’t told him the news yet, have I? The black cat wondered to himself, his gaze lingering on the two witches for a moment before he asked, ”Or rather, which one of you told Mr. Hamster about Doctor Du Zemu’s message?”

The smile finally faded from Korma’s face.

She exchanged glances with the Gypsy witch, ”Wasn’t it you? The two of us have been investigating for quite a while without any results. Then suddenly tonight the hamster sent a message saying he’d received a reply... We’d always thought you were the one who told it.”

The black cat’s face darkened, and his tail drooped as he paced up and down the narrow countertop.

At that moment, he had the feeling of a thorn in his back—if neither of the witches knew Du Zemu’s whereabouts, and Fei Rui claimed to have gotten the clues from the three of them, then there was no doubt the leak had come from himself.

Perhaps the hamster had simply placed a tracking mark on him, perhaps Fei Rui had sent professional Mouse Secret Agents to follow him, or maybe it was using him as an anchor for a third-party divination to calculate Doctor Du Zemu’s whereabouts.

Zheng Qing didn’t know which scenario was worse.

He only knew that some of his secrets were definitely exposed before Fei Rui and the Rat Immortal. If those two mice were even slightly greedy, perhaps the Wandering Wizard’s archives had already been enriched with new, salable data.

Zheng Qing felt like he had been stripped naked and thrown onto the street to sprint in his birthday suit, and he finally understood why wizards placed such a high value on privacy. In The Magical World, respecting privacy meant respecting the safety of wizards themselves.

”Where is the location of the Secret Realm, and are we going now?” The black cat paced around the table for a while before finally asking a question.

Korma stretched out her hand to scratch the base of the black cat’s ears, ”Don’t always have such a stern face, you’ll age faster... It’s too late today, and there are classes tomorrow. I plan to go next Saturday morning, same time as usual for the meetup, but I’ll notify you of the new location later.”

”Okay,” Elena agreed without objection, ”Do we need to prepare anything else?”

”If you could borrow your little boyfriend’s Charm Gun, that would be great,” Korma made a face at the Gypsy witch, ”The word around school is that his Charm Gun was crafted by a legendary Alchemy Wizard, which is why it could nearly kill Sepulano with a single shot... If we have his Charm Gun, I believe our adventure will be safer.”

Meow meow meow?

The black cat looked at Korma filled with question marks.

Crafted by a legendary Alchemy wizard? I had no idea. And what the hell is ’our little boyfriend’?!

A tinge of red appeared on Elena’s face.

”His Charm Gun has been confiscated by the school,” the Gypsy witch tactfully rejected Korma’s suggestion, emphasizing, ”This has nothing to do with him, don’t drag him into this... He’s not your boyfriend either.”

The black cat crouched beside Elena, letting out a deep sigh.

He had already been dragged into this, even if it wasn’t intentional.