Kiyomi Liuli was disappointed. Nanahara Takeshi had pondered all night but failed to figure out what treasure might be hidden in that unnamed mountain, and it seemed that the puzzle wouldn't be solved any time soon. Nevertheless, the investigation had to continue.
The next day, she changed into sportswear and sneakers at school, shouldered her already-packed mountaineering backpack, and followed Kodaka Hiromi and Nanahara Takeshi to the Iwafuji family's unnamed mountain—they might have to spend the night on the mountain, so they brought some daily necessities. If they couldn't return in time for classes tomorrow, they might even take the day off.
But to call it an unnamed "small mountain" was relative to its larger "brothers"; it was over nine hundred meters tall and part of the Xu Zhang Mountain Range. It covered a large area, and it was late spring-early summer, so the vegetation was lush and the woods dense. Once inside, the light even seemed to dim.
