After sending a few messages to Rina, Alistair chose to leave, not wanting to disturb Rina as she disciplined the "slackers" in her team. Anyway, there would be plenty of opportunities to date later. Since they were both (presumably) working for Yuri Shibasaki, they would likely be able to spend time alone together soon enough.
Alistair had mostly lost the idea of inspecting other clubs. They all seemed similar and quite harmonious on the surface. As for the hidden undercurrents, Alistair didn't feel the need to interfere, so he simply went up to the third floor and casually made his way toward the sports fields, intending to check out the girls there and satisfy his eyes.
Because the school was originally built to the specifications of a small university, many buildings were connected by extended corridors. Alistair planned to check the indoor gym first, so he took the third-floor route to walk across.
"Is this... the Aikido Club?"
As Alistair was about to exit the building, he noticed a club room that looked completely different from the norm. It was extremely quiet—no, not quiet, but empty. It seemed the club activity for the day had been suspended for some reason. This was the club that Natsuha Shinomiy and Minako Morita both belonged to: the Aikido Club.
"Why is no one here? Was today's club activity canceled?" Alistair walked over and stood by the window, looking at the empty dojo in confusion.
Club activities couldn't just be canceled on a whim. Usually, the person in charge would announce a complete suspension only when a significant event prevented members from participating, such as a school-wide issue.
Alternatively, if most club members were affected by some incident, the activities might be suspended to prevent similar things from happening to the remaining members.
Currently, the school wasn't holding any major event, nor was it using the dojo for anything else. If it were a school matter, the dojo wouldn't be completely empty. This left only two possibilities.
First, most members had run into trouble, affecting their ability to train, thus halting the club activities to prevent further incidents. The second possibility was that the president or person in charge unilaterally suspended the activities, which was strictly forbidden. Normally, this would result in a written apology and a reprimand.
Alistair remembered that the Aikido Club had competitions. The higher-ups were invested in this. Unilaterally suspending activities would disrupt the members' training progress, potentially leading to a loss of competition prizes, which was detrimental to the school's interests. Such actions were usually punished severely, potentially resulting in a major demerit.
"What in the world is Senior Madoka up to?"
Alistair knew that the president of the Aikido Club was Madoka (which was her surname; Alistair didn't know her given name). She took good care of Natsuha Shinomiy and Minako Morita, and she was very straightforward when Alistair asked her about Hikari Matsuda previously. Therefore, Alistair had a favorable impression of this girl, whose looks and figure were no less impressive than Minako Morita's. This positive feeling was genuinely based on his subjective impression of her attitude, not on any carnal desire.
"Forget it. Maybe she has her own considerations. I might as well go in and have a look. I haven't been in here before." Alistair mumbled as he approached the door, opened it, took off his shoes, and walked in.
The Aikido Club's dojo wasn't as large as the Judo Club's, but it wasn't small either, just one or two sizes smaller. Alistair was the only one in the dojo now, making it feel very desolate. Training equipment and protective gear were scattered along the walls.
The way the training gear was placed raised Alistair's eyebrows. These items shouldn't be left here. Regardless of the club, equipment should be properly stored in designated places, such as cabinets or specialized rooms.
While there were cabinets near some corners of the dojo, a fair amount of training equipment was left on the floor or leaned against the cabinets. This was quite strange. If club activities had been officially suspended, this gear should have been put away, not left lying around. Such carelessness would only worsen the "judgment" of Madoka's actions.
"It's not cold at all? Someone was using this recently?" Alistair picked up a piece of protective gear and found it still retained a bit of residual heat. This meant someone had been using it shortly before, perhaps just one or two people, as the items left out weren't numerous. Alistair counted roughly enough for two people to train.
Was it Minako Morita and Natsuha Shinomiy? Probably not. They wouldn't leave things randomly if they had to leave suddenly. So, it must have been others.
"Whatever, it's none of my business." Alistair tossed the gear onto the floor. It didn't concern him, and he wasn't going to clean up someone else's mess.
He then walked to the window and looked down. Below was a small garden, where several students were walking together, chatting and laughing, suggesting they were quite close.
"Phew, time to go. Off to the gym to look at beautiful girls."
Alistair turned, intending to leave for the sports field. As his eyes scanned the wall, he suddenly felt something was off.
"Were there two more windows than usual?"
Alistair's eyes skimmed over the windows, confirming that he had counted four windows in total. He had been standing at the third window from the left, looking left, and there should only be four windows in the dojo. He hadn't even counted the window he was standing at, meaning there were two extra windows.
Where did these two windows come from? This dojo was the outermost room of the building. Was there a hidden room? If there was a hidden room there, there was no door facing the corridor after the dojo's door, meaning the only way to that room was through this dojo. Was there a hidden door here?
Alistair walked toward the wall where the hidden room would be, examining it from left to right. He didn't notice anything unusual; on the surface, it was just a wall.
The entire dojo was divided into two sections: a small area, about one-seventh of the floor, was tiled, and the rest was a raised wooden platform. The walls were either normally coated in white plaster or made of wood. The wooden section seemed integrated with the floor, forming a right angle when viewed from the side, but the wood only went halfway up the wall. He wondered what its purpose was.
Wait, why was half of this wall, the one with the hidden room, made entirely of wood? That was a clear indication of a problem.
Alistair hadn't paid attention before because he had subjectively assumed this was how the dojo looked. The thought of a problem hadn't crossed his mind until he realized there was a hidden room beyond this wall. Now that his brain was catching up, the problem was obvious.
So, where was the door?
Alistair walked closer to the wall, intending to inspect it thoroughly. Suddenly, a rectangular recess appeared in the wooden wall in front of him. This rectangular block was pulled inward like a door and opened. At that moment, Alistair found himself face-to-face with the person inside.
The person inside was clearly startled to see someone right there when they opened the door. They jumped, and the handbag they were carrying fell to the ground, causing a box inside to slide out.
"Senior Madoka, what's wrong?"
A very familiar voice came from behind the person inside, sounding confused as to why she suddenly froze and dropped her bag. When the speaker walked over and saw Alistair, she also froze instinctively.
"Yo, hello there, Senior Madoka, Senior Matsuda."
Alistair was the first to react, greeting the two girls directly. He then looked down, preparing to kneel and help pick up the items, but paused when he saw the box.
The box was dark, leaning toward black, and had a dark purple pattern on it—the exact same pattern on the "flyer" that Shizuku Hatsufuji had shown in the Student Council room.
It seemed that Hikari Matsuda being a follower of this religion was beyond doubt. But Alistair hadn't expected that she wasn't the only secret believer; Senior Madoka was one, too. This was starting to get problematic.
Alistair sighed inwardly. A significant number of the people around him who were exceptionally beautiful and well-figured were followers of this strange religion: Shizuku Hatsufuji's mother, Hikari Matsuda, Senior Madoka, and Rimono Momoki. Their public behavior was entirely normal, and they didn't seem to follow any particular faith, yet they secretly possessed items related to this religion. It was surprising.
Speaking of which, Alistair recalled Shizuku Hatsufuji mentioning that her mother's family expenses hadn't increased, meaning there was no fee. Instead, the religion provided gifts to devout followers, all of which featured the dark purple religious symbol. The pattern on this box was extremely obvious, clearly another one of these rewards.
From the cake at Rimono Momoki's house last time, Alistair knew that these rewards were only strange in appearance; the taste was similar to what normal food should be. However, they all seemed to cherish these rewards, keeping them until they were used or consumed.
Alistair's pause was fleeting, and he managed not to let the two girls notice it. His expression remained neutral as he naturally knelt down, picked up the dark purple box, put it into the bag, and handed it to Senior Madoka.
"Here you go, Senior Madoka."
"Oh, oh, thank you, Junior Koan." Madoka was speechless for a moment, only managing to thank him a few times before falling silent again, clearly unsure how to talk to Alistair.
"Junior Koan, what are you doing here? Do you need something?" Hikari Matsuda, on the other hand, didn't seem concerned about the box, perhaps confident that Alistair wouldn't recognize what it was, and simply questioned his presence.