Beatrice picked up the golden chain and asked, somewhat uncertainly, "Is this enough?"
"Of course! You can try it out; it should work quite well." Patchouli adjusted her glasses.
Beatrice took the chain, coiled it around her hair, and then unfastened it into a whip with a thoughtful smile. "I naturally trust your word, Patchouli. However, this is a weapon after all, and a special one at that. As for testing, I'll wait until I get to the police station and test it in a professional facility."
Her desire to hold off on testing wasn't due to a lack of trust in Patchouli and Flandre. On the contrary, it was precisely because she trusted them implicitly.
Since they insisted the weapon was electrified, it was guaranteed to pack a genuine punch. The real question was the specification: direct current or alternating current? How many volts? If she cracked the whip, would a suspect simply go half-numb, or would they be cooked medium-well? All of those variables needed proper calibration.
Otherwise, if she lashed someone in public and accidentally turned an arrest into a homicide, it would cause a massive administrative nightmare. Since she lacked the proper diagnostic equipment at home, she would have to wait until work the next day to run it through the Lungmen Guard Department's equipment division during a break.
Even if she never used it to strike a criminal, she genuinely adored the little gold chain. It was, after all, a gift from Flandre. Furthermore, the dense, intricate runes etched into the metal gave it an aura of quiet mystery, and its bright gold finish complemented her blonde hair to perfection.
After carefully storing the chain in her pocket, Beatrice scooped Flandre up and carried her toward the dining table.
"Time to eat, time to eat! I've been running around outside all afternoon and I'm starving."
At Beatrice's call, everyone gathered around the table. The maid sisters served dish after delicious dish, and the household spent a warm, joyful evening wrapped in laughter.
"Gurgle... Sister Beatrice, it's time for bed. Can you let me go now?" Flandre tilted her head, blinking innocently up at her.
Beatrice—who had been utterly thrilled to receive her own gift earlier—had spent the entire evening holding Flandre on the sofa while watching cartoons. Though Flandre didn't mind the affection, her bedtime routine brooked no delays.
"Ah, is it really that late already?" Feeling the swift passage of a wonderful evening, Beatrice wore a look of comical regret. She checked her watch and realized it was nearly eleven, prompting a wide stretch that brought a wave of accumulated fatigue crashing over her.
"Alright then, see you tomorrow, Flandre!"
"See you tomorrow, Sister Beatrice." With a quick wave, Flandre went to wash her hands and face before slipping off to her room for the night.
The following morning, after everyone rose, the conversation naturally turned to the big racing event scheduled for the day. Following breakfast, Beatrice pulled up in a flashy convertible sports car, loaded up Flandre and Hong Meiling, and drove them down to the circuit bright and early.
During the drive, Beatrice explained that today's motorcycle rally was split into two distinct blocks. The morning session served as the qualifying rounds, while the afternoon was the grand final. Only the top thirty racers from the morning would secure a spot in the afternoon showdown, making the morning qualifiers fiercely contested. Toward the end of the session, when only a handful of qualifying slots remained, the riders would pull out all the stops to squeeze into the top tier.
"Hmm, 'pull out all the stops'?" Flandre tilted her head, her crimson eyes curious.
Arriving at the track shortly after, the three quickly found their seats in the grandstands.
Their section sat right near the starting grid, giving them a crystal-clear view of the racers tuning their machines below and letting them catch snatches of conversation from the paddock. As Flandre scanned the commotion, her eyes landed on a familiar towering figure: the green-haired officer Hoshiguma, straddling a heavily modified motorcycle that matched her bold, rugged style as she surveyed the course.
Flandre waved cheerfully to catch her attention. Spotting the girl in the stands, Hoshiguma broke into a warm grin and raised a gauntleted hand in greeting.
From beside them, Beatrice mentioned that Hoshiguma had burned through her accrued leave and traded shifts with half the precinct just to enter this race, meaning she hadn't had a single day off in half a month.
"Sister Hoshiguma is in the Major Crimes Unit, and you aren't, Sister Beatrice—so how do you know all about her schedule?" Flandre asked, delivering a remarkably sharp verbal jab with an innocent blink.
Beatrice's face stiffened instantly, and she lunged forward to pinch Flandre's cheek. "We're all personnel in the same Lungmen Guard Department building! Even if I don't work her cases, office gossip travels fast."
Flandre let out an "ah" of sudden comprehension. Then, her gaze shifted. "Then what about Lady Fumizuki...?" She pointed toward a racer standing near Hoshiguma who wore a full-face racing helmet, completely obscuring their identity.
"Shh!" Beatrice threw a hand over Flandre's mouth. "Keep your voice down!"
Even though she had received word that Lady Fumizuki intended to join the race, seeing her actually standing out on the tarmac made Beatrice's scalp tingle with anxiety. After all, a motorcycle rally of this scale was hardly a gentle Sunday drive. What if something went wrong? Fortunately, Hoshiguma was riding alongside her, and with the oni's monstrous combat prowess, protecting Lady Fumizuki was practically guaranteed.
Moreover, Beatrice's trained eyes had already picked out several disguised Higashi ninja operatives scattered throughout the starting grid—Lady Fumizuki's elite personal bodyguards, currently posing as regular contestants.
Flandre, meanwhile, spotted another peculiar detail on the track. "Sister Beatrice, are people actually allowed to strap baseball bats to their motorcycles in this race?" She pointed down at a competitor's bike with a puzzled tilt of her head.
"Ahem... that's probably for aerodynamic weight distribution," Beatrice said, deliberately looking away.
"Really? Then what about the hockey stick on that bike over there? Why does their weight distribution look so different?" Flandre pressed on, embodying the quintessential model student pursuing knowledge wherever she could find it.
"Alright, fine, it's not for weight distribution..." Beatrice sighed, knowing concealment was futile once the starting gun fired. "This is a half-course item race."
"A half-course item race?" Flandre blinked, failing to see what items had to do with motorcycles.
"It means that once the racers hit the second half of the circuit, physical interference and tactical equipment are officially permitted to knock rival riders off the track. That's why there are fully staffed emergency trauma ambulances stationed along the back half of the course," Beatrice explained uncomfortably.
"Goodness, that sounds intense. If someone crashes out like that, can they even be patched up?" Hong Meiling asked, her eyes widening in disbelief.
"That's why strict safety rules exist—lethal force and intentional pillar-smashing are banned, and participants have to clear rigorous physical fitness and equipment checks. While injuries happen every year, they're rarely fatal. Worst case, the riders just spend a month or two recovering in a hospital bed."
Beatrice's casual explanation left Hong Meiling completely speechless. She hadn't expected the people of Terra to approach motorsport with the bloodthirsty enthusiasm of a gladiator arena—they had practically invented a live-action version of Road Rash. But then again, only Terra could pull off something so absurd; the baseline physical conditioning of ordinary citizens here vastly outstripped elite special forces soldiers back on Earth, not to mention the heavy-grade composite armor everyone wore. If average people tried playing this game, surviving a single lap would require a miracle.
"Well," Hong Meiling muttered, shaking her head, "there's simply too much to unpack here. I don't even know where to start."