In a crossover anime, do you believe that a machine spirit can defeat a fake human?

"Understood. I'll help gather some urban legend cases while I'm at it." Hiratsuka Shizuka readily agreed on the other end of the phone, chatted casually for a few minutes, and then hung up.

"..." After putting down his phone, Chen Yi checked the time and went into the kitchen.

I'm a little hungry, let's eat something first.

......

"Hey?! Kasumigaoka-senpai and Yukino actually went to find evil spirits with Chen yesterday too?" Chen Yi heard Yuihama's lively voice shouting as soon as he entered the Service Club, and he facepalmed.

Thanks to being so engrossed in researching last night that he ended up staying up all night, Chen Yi looks visibly much more haggard today.

"I can't let Chen Jun complete the task all by himself, while I do nothing and take credit for it," Yukinoshita replied slowly, still holding a book.

"But shouldn't evil spirits be just as dangerous as fake humans?" Yuihama asked hesitantly.

"Actually, junior-kun has some kind of exorcising quality that evil spirits don't dare to show themselves at all," Kasumigaoka Utaha casually remarked, playfully poking Chen Yi's arm.

"Oh dear? Why do you look so haggard, junior? Did you stay up late last night doing something shady?"

Chen Yi didn't react at all, slumping in the chair like a dead dog; anyone who didn't know better would think he had passed away.

"Oh, I see... Then I'll go today too!" Yuihama followed suit, afraid of being ostracized by others.

"Why are you going to join in the fun... After all, evil spirits are dangerous too." Hachiman interjected; he was one of the members who hadn't participated in the request yesterday.

“Hikigaya is right, Yuihama. This kind of request is inherently risky, and because of its nature, it doesn’t get the support of any authoritative force…” Yukinoshita advised.

"I see..." Yuihama said, somewhat disappointed.

"...Senior, don't go too far." Chen Yi finally reacted when he felt a certain evil claw poking at his face.

"Why is this guy so annoying? He has no sense of boundaries." Chen Yi opened his bloodshot eyes and glared at her fiercely.

"Are you angry? Waaah, how scary~" Kasumigaoka showed no remorse, only the pleasure of a successful prank.

"I can't be bothered with you," Chen Yi chuckled to himself.

“After I got back last night, I looked up some information about evil spirits.” He turned to the crowd and took out a stack of documents from his shoulder bag.

"Huh?" Yuihama asked, puzzled.

"Seriously... such strong drive." Yukinoshita unconsciously bit her lip, feeling a little resentful.

Why didn't I think of that...?

“These documents contain a lot of unverified information, and we will need the president and everyone else to work together to deduce it.” Chen Yi moved a table over and placed several bound documents on it.

"As for me..." Chen Yi pointed to himself, wanting to say that he wanted to rest for a while, but Professor Hiratsuka was still waiting.

"I asked Professor Hiratsuka to help me gather some information last night, and I'm going to look for it now..."

"You little brat, daring to sleep in my class!"

Said Cao Cao, Cao Cao.

Service Department: Chapter Thirty-Four Analysis

"Hiratsuka-sensei is here? Perfect, let's start the discussion right away." Chen Yi saw Hiratsuka Shizuka standing at the door, perked up a bit, and pulled her in without further ado, reaching out his hand to her.

"...I'll let you off this time." Hiratsuka Shizuka, looking like she couldn't do anything about him, gritted her teeth and handed over the little clue she had gathered through her connections to Chen Yi.

"This is a batch of information I collected online. I personally agree more with this hypothesis, which is that evil spirits and false humans share the same origin." Chen Yi took the document from Hiratsuka Shizuka, glanced at it, and placed it on the table, lining it up with the other intelligence he had collected. He then picked up a document with a red label in the upper left corner and spoke to everyone.

"This hypothesis comes from a forum blogger who seems to have made significant contributions to the theoretical science of physics; he may be a PhD in physics or something similar."

Everyone was intimidated by his confident expression.

"How do you know?" Yukinoshita asked.

He believed that evil spirits were pseudo-humans based on special particles, that is, life forms with particularly sparse density but still maintaining a certain stable state, a special kind of pseudo-human.

“That sounds plausible…” Hiratsuka Shizuka nodded.

"What evidence is there? Or rather... what concrete data supports his theory?"

"Okay, please look at this page." Chen Yi quickly flipped through the documents in his hand.

"Most evil spirit attacks are wrongly classified as attacks by pseudo-humans. The reason for this is that there are many types of pseudo-humans, and evil spirits, as a more covert threat, are easily mistaken for a newly emerging pseudo-human species, right?"

“Yes…that’s true.” Yukinoshita agreed.

"So... so far, the pseudo-humans have diverged in two directions."

"One type is the monster-like pseudo-human that has abandoned its disguise and some intellectual thinking. They often have a variety of abilities, such as mental interference."

"The other type is a completely disguised pseudo-human, which looks almost exactly like a human and at the same time has intelligence, almost indistinguishable from a normal human."

"The latter fits the definition of so-called 'fundamentalist' pseudo-humans better, because they really are like humans."

“However, the reason they are both defined as pseudo-humans is simple: their gene sequences are highly overlapping.” Chen Yi picked up a comparison report, which showed the DNA comparison of the two pseudo-humans, from a Nature paper.

"So, what you mean is?" Yukinoshita suddenly realized.

“Yes, that’s right.” Chen Yi gave a thumbs up. “If we can obtain a tissue sample from the evil spirit, we might be able to analyze its nature.”

"Then all we need to do is hand this sample of the organization over to an authoritative person for comparison, and we can conclude whether the evil spirit is a false human or not."

“I don’t think we have a chance to reach the authorities in the scientific community.” Yukinoshita rubbed her temples, feeling that the last few sentences the other person said were a bit unrealistic.

"Furthermore, how can you observe or even collect samples of 'evil spirits' when they are completely invisible?"

Hmm, right, the inability to observe evil spirits is indeed a rather tricky problem at present.

"Um..." Hachiman raised his hand hesitantly. "What was the issue we discussed at the beginning?"

"..." Chen Yi was stunned for a moment.

How to eliminate evil spirits?

“I think our first encounter with evil spirits was through Yotsuya-kun, right?” Yui Hama prompted from the side.

“I understand what Hikigaya-kun means.” Kasumigaoka glanced at Hikigaya.

"What he means is that we only need to resolve Miko Yotsuya's request; as for the nature of evil spirits... that's not something we can interfere with."

"Does Hikigaya-kun intend to back down?" Yukinoshita retorted.

"What I mean is, there's no need to deal with a crisis that has nothing to do with us." Hachiman put away his nonchalant attitude and participated in the discussion with a somewhat serious tone for the first time.

"Ultimately, evil spirits are entities that only begin hunting when they are 'observed,' right?"

"If that's the case, then the inability to observe them means that we ordinary people are not naturally chosen as targets by those things. And the very thing you've been discussing about how to observe them is a practice that puts you in danger."

"Isn't this just asking for trouble?"

"Doing what you can is the way for ordinary people to survive."

“However,” Chen Yi refuted Hikigaya’s statement.

"Evil spirits are objective beings that cannot be affected by human will. Putting aside Yotsuya's request, we cannot guarantee that we will not encounter a situation in the future where we need to escape from them."

“Yotsuya Miko said that her ‘yin-yang eyes’ were not natural.”

"Can you guarantee that one day you won't wake up and see something you shouldn't see?" Chen Yi's tone was calm, but his words carried a chilling undertone.

"Moreover, I have never liked waiting for disaster to happen; I prefer to take preventative measures."

"A truly brilliant debate." Hiratsuka, sitting to the side, nodded repeatedly.

"I feel a bit... unable to get a word in edgewise." Yuihama sat next to Hiratsuka Shizuka and muttered to herself.

"After all, what the two of them are discussing now can be described as the direction of their lives," Kasumigaoka explained from the side.

"Huh? It's that serious?" Yuihama exclaimed in shock.

"It's quite obvious, isn't it? Their viewpoints are quite different. Hachiman is just like any other person; he doesn't care about big things that don't concern him, which is normal. But Chen seems to be overreacting. To use an old saying from the University of Tokyo, he's 'worrying about things that are unlikely to happen.' However, this is also related to his experiences," Hiratsuka Shizuka and Yui Hama said.

"experience?"

"You saw the injury on his right hand, it's quite obvious, right?"

"Besides that, he has an unhealed scar on his left palm, and both of his legs under his trousers are wrapped in bandages of different sizes..." Hiratsuka Shizuka said, feeling a pang of sympathy herself.

"He has only been in Japan for a month and has already been attacked by fake people several times."

"This is too..." Yukinoshita, who had been listening for a while, couldn't help but interject, her eyes filled with disbelief.

“That’s true. I met you during the attack,” Kasumigaoka chimed in.

"..." Snow fell silent. Born into a wealthy family, she had never experienced an attack, nor had she ever taken the initiative to learn about the tragic situation of the victims in the attacks by the puppets.

"So, what is he doing...?"

“I suspect Chen might have some degree of PTSD.” Hiratsuka Shizuka shook her head, finally speaking out about something she had been keeping to herself for a long time.

“When I visited Chen’s home more than a week ago, I noticed that he seemed unusually sensitive to the doorbell or any sudden noises.”

"Speaking of which, when we were in the Service Department, Chen would sometimes react differently to sudden silence or sudden noise," Yukinoshita recalled.

Basically, he would put down what he was doing and look up to check on things whenever something happened.

“So, I’m planning to give Yukinoshita an additional request.” Hiratsuka Shizuka patted Yukinoshita’s shoulder, but she dodged it.

"When you have free time, please help take care of Chen. He's very sensitive."

P.S.: I've been having writer's block lately... QAQ, please give me some recommendation votes!

Service Department: Chapter Thirty-Five - Encountering a Ghost

"Alright, it's almost time. I should go take Yotsuya home." Chen Yi checked the time and picked up his guitar bag.

"In that case, Yuihama, we'll be leaving now. Remember to close the door when you leave." Yukinoshita and Kasumigaoka stood up at the same time and followed Chen Yi.

"Bye...bye-bye?" Yui Yuigahama waved at the open door, her expression somewhat stiff.

The three of them have such a good relationship...

"Phew... I hope that brat knows his limits and doesn't deliberately put himself in danger..." Hiratsuka Shizuka stood up and stretched. "You two should go back early too."

With Shizuka Hiratsuka gone, only Yuihama and Hikigaya remained in the Service Club.

“Um…” Hachiman finally spoke after a long silence.

"I'm leaving now." Hachiman glanced at her and left the activity room as well.

......

"You don't need to go today, Yukinoshita." Chen Yi walked down the stairs and glanced back at them.

"Kasumigaoka, could you please take my guitar back with you? Carrying this thing home with Yotsuya-kun would be a bit tiring." Chen Yi unstrapped the shoulder straps and handed it to Kasumigaoka Utaha, emphasizing the word 'guitar'.

"Chen-kun, what's going on?" Yukinoshita asked, puzzled by his series of nonsensical actions.

"Do you really have to take it back?" Kasumigaoka did not accept it.

Why aren't you carrying weapons? What are you planning to do next? Chen Yi understood the subtext of Kasumigaoka.

"You must take it back; it wouldn't be good if it got bumped or scratched," he replied.

"For my safety... what about you?" Kasumigaoka sighed inwardly.

"It's okay, trust me."

“…I understand.” Kasumigaoka bit her lip lightly, suppressing the urge to ask further questions.

"..." Listening to the two people's completely illogical conversation, Yukino felt a sense of being excluded and stifled.

......

While he was in the Service Department, a conjecture popped into his mind, and he decided to test it out.

The question is whether the disappearance of the evil spirit was related to him personally or to his gun.

Therefore, he needs Kasumigaoka's cooperation to help bring the rifle back, and Yukinoshita doesn't know he brought a weapon to school, so she's not entirely trustworthy for now.

The reason why we don't allow people to walk under the snow is simple: it's too dangerous.

As Hachiman said, ordinary people should not get too involved in dangerous situations.

"Good afternoon, Yotsuya-kun." Chen Yi, who was waiting by the school gate, waved to Yotsuya Miko, who was running over.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Chen..."

"Let's go." Chen Yi put his phone back in his pocket and gestured for Yotsuya Miko to lead the way.