Conquering Villains and Capturing Targets Is Harder in Real Life than in Games

31: Not everything the villain does will come together logically!

"I think I've heard of this place," Fuyuki disclosed. "They're popular but they're pricier than most bubble tea shops right?"

"Uh huh. It's because they make all of their milk teas with a homemade almond milk blend that has twenty times the amount of almonds in it than any commercially prepared variety."

"Twenty times? Wow, that seems really concentrated," noted Satoru.

"Well, normally the almond milk that's in stores actually contains very little almonds in it," explained Shizuka. "It is estimated that only about 2% of industrially produced "almond milk" is actually almonds. So only about a handful of almonds are used to make one carton."

"Are you allergic to peanuts or any other tree nuts?" asked Madoka curiously.

"Nope, strangely enough it's just almonds. The doctor said that although it's rare, sometimes people are allergic to just one strand of type of nut," answered Shizuka before taking a sip of tea.

"In any case, the almond milk used at Teasers is what gives their teas a distinctive flavour. However, since using almond milk costs more than regular milk, the price of their milk teas is higher than other stores. If you want regular milk used instead you have to indicate it on your order."

"Okay, but where are you going with this, Mi-chan? So they use almond milk by default, so what?"

"Teasers is located about forty minutes away from our school. Don't you think it's strange that if someone was going to send drinks to KiGaku, they'd pick a shop so far away?" Mika pulled out more papers and pointed to them. "There's seven drink shops situated around our school and four of them deliver for free if the place is within a certain distance. I checked Teasers' website. To get them to deliver this far, someone would've had to pay quite a hefty fee, especially because they also bought enough drinks for the entire class and the student council. I believe that someone went through all that trouble and paid extra, precisely because they knew of Shii-chan's allergy. It wasn't a secret that she was allergic. It was posted to her fansite."

"Yeah, but we can't be sure those drinks were specifically meant for Shii-chan. They could've been from one of Madoka-kun's fans too. Among all of their fans there's sure to be some rich patron just itching to spend their money in reckless ways. Maybe whoever it was didn't know any better."

Satoru sighed. "I don't get how rich people think."

"I see your point, Fuu-chan, but think about the gift they chose to send. They chose milk tea out all things. Milk tea is something you want to drink cold so naturally, if you were going to send it to someone, you'd choose to send it from a place nearby so they get it while the drink is still chilled. Nowadays, people can call or make orders online so for the mysterious sender, they could've ordered from anywhere. Yet, this person specially chose Teasers. Don't you find that even the least bit strange?"

Fuyuki bit her lip nervously.

"This attack was deliberate. The culprit acted to harm Shii-chan."

"If we adopt that line of thinking, then the culprit has to be someone who goes to our school," finished Madoka.

Mika nodded. "That's the conclusion I've drawn as well."

"What makes you say that?" queried Satoru.

"Because the culprit knew too much insider information to not be. Firstly, the culprit knew which class Shizuka's in and more conclusively, the culprit knew how many people are in our class as well as the student council."

"You're right. That makes sense." Satoru stroked his chin as he reflected on his friend's observations. "Now that I think about it, it's kind of weird that the student council was involved in this at all. Maybe whomever did this roped the student council into this because they had to get Takagi-sensei involved. In theory, this plan can only work if the drinks get to Shizuka-chan's hands, right? Out of all our teachers, Takagi-sensei would be the most likely to accept free drinks without questioning them too much. Of course, for the culprit to know that, they would have to be a student here."