Bungo Stray Dogs - Volume SS1 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Inside Passenger Train / Morning / Cloudy

The black train car transporting Kubo and Ayatsuji made its way forward beneath the suddenly cloudy, gray sky. The railroad tracks screeched, the car wobbling like an elderly herbivore running as quickly as it could.

It wasn’t long before the train found its way into an underground tunnel, making it no longer possible to track from aboveground.

Two men were inside the brightly lit train car, leaning against the wall near the door. One was Kubo, a murderer known as the Engineer, still gleefully grinning as he stared into the darkness outside the window. The second man—the Homicide Detective, Yukito Ayatsuji—remained perfectly still with his eyes closed and his arms crossed. The conductor’s car was empty; instead, there were multiple machines stacked on top of one another, which automatically controlled the train’s speed.

“Hey, Detective. How long have you been at this job?” the Engineer suddenly asked.

“Twenty years,” Ayatsuji replied, his eyes still closed.

“Seriously? So ever since you were in diapers, eh? How many cases have you solved?”

“Fifty thousand.”

“Sheesh. And how many people have you killed?”

“Two billion.”

“…Detective,” Kubo said, frowning. “I get that you don’t want to talk to a criminal, but do not underestimate me.”

“Oh? Why should I?” Ayatsuji asked, opening his eyes a crack.

“I’m just taking a joy ride back to my hideout. You, on the other hand, were coerced into being here. We’re not the same. You should be trembling in your boots trying to study me. Do you even realize that?”

“Yes,” the detective replied coldly. “You’re absolutely right. We’re not the same. I don’t go around committing crimes and acting like I’m special after being spoon-fed information from someone in a well.”

“Excuse me?” Kubo’s expression changed.

“Did you honestly believe that no one else knew about the well?”

Ayatsuji glared back at Kubo, then took out his pipe as leisurely as he would at home before placing it between his lips.

“A well that grants people evil. It sounds like any other urban legend: very cliché and unimaginative. But beneath it is an extremely elaborate, clever selection system for finding someone with the brains and malice to commit the perfect crime.”

Kubo looked flabbergasted. “You’ve…already figured that much out, huh?”

“The trick to breaking a case is to solve the easy stuff the fastest,” Ayatsuji replied. “At the bottom of the well was an ISBN code for the first edition of The Selfish Gene. It’s a very famous book even today. You can find it just about anywhere. But the original 1976 edition has collector’s value.”

The detective lit his pipe and slowly inhaled.

“Of course, that also means it’s not so easy to obtain. I had the Division search secondhand bookstores throughout the country for a copy, but they came up empty-handed. The only other option is overseas auction sites. When I looked into it, I found multiple used foreign-book sites that had been tampered with. This ‘program’ detected people who purchased The Selfish Gene at a specific time and place and sent them certain other information with the book.”

Ayatsuji glanced at Kubo out of the corner of his eye to gauge his reaction.

“That’s how you ‘adherents to the well’ first learn about Kyougoku. His information, his intentions, and the extent of all the murders he was behind. The book contained either his contact information or knowledge on how to commit murder; I would have to see the actual book for myself to confirm. Regardless, you adherents must meet some very strict conditions in order to acquire this knowledge. You need the persistence to dirty yourself examining the well, the intellect to figure out the code, and the fervor to spend a few hundred thousand yen on a book—only then do you gain the right to become ‘evil.’ Starting with the botulinum murderer, you’re given the knowledge of how to commit the perfect crime. And that…”

The detective paused his breathing for a second to send Kubo a piercing glare.

“That’s the real demon lurking in the well.”

Kubo neither confirmed nor denied the claim. Instead, he simply met the detective’s gaze with a faint grin.

That was when Ayatsuji noticed something and pulled the communicator from earlier out of his pocket.

“Looks like I’ve got a call.” Ayatsuji put in the earbud. “What do you want, Kyougoku?”

He narrowed his eyes, listening carefully and nodding from time to time.

“All right. Sure.”

Suddenly, the automatic brakes started to slow the train down, wheezing over the dark tracks before coming to a full stop.

There was the squeaking of compressed air as the automatic doors opened.

Ayatsuji glanced over at Kubo and growled, “Get off.”

“What about you?” asked Kubo.

“Looks like my train ride continues for a little bit longer. Kyougoku’s waiting for me.”

“I’m out of the loop, huh? Oh, well. Gotta focus on escaping pursuit first.”

“You heard him, Kyougoku,” Ayatsuji muttered into the microphone. “By the way, how does your radio work so deep underground? I know you’re very thorough, but—” He suddenly paused midsentence and frowned. “He hung up.”

“You’re dancing on his palm, too,” Kubo said, grinning. “I enjoyed our little escape together. Say hi to the man for me.”

But after Kubo hopped out the opened door onto the tracks, Ayatsuji stopped him.

“Let me ask you one more thing.”

Kubo turned around. “Yeah?”

“Why do you think I haven’t killed you?”

The Engineer’s face tensed.

“Surely, you know what my skill does: It makes criminals die in accidents. And you almost certainly murdered Deputy Director Sakashita. If I do a little research, my skill will kill you no matter how far you run. So why do you think I haven’t done that?”

Kubo was now white as a sheet. “What…what are you trying to say?”

“Because you’re not even worth punishing. That’s why.”

Ayatsuji coldly glared down at the man.

“If I prove that Kyougoku is behind your crimes, I can have him die in an ‘accident’ for being your abettor. And I need you alive to do that. In essence, you’re a complete nobody.”

“How dare you!” Kubo furiously shouted as he slammed his fist against the train. “I… I’m different! I’m not a nobody, and I ain’t someone’s puppet! I’m special!”

“Kyougoku once said, ‘The cries of the foolish are music to my ears.’ And for once, I agree with him.” The detective shrugged. “It’s only a matter of time before the Division nabs you. I look forward to seeing you again, Engineer.”

“I will kill you. You can count on that,” Kubo hissed, his eyes flickering murderously. “Only after I make sure I’m safe, though. I need to decide exactly how I’ll make you suffer.”

“Until next time, then.”

“Yeah.” Kubo slowly got off the train, his entire body radiating fury.

“Oh, there’s one thing I forgot to ask. Have you had any hallucinations recently?” said Ayatsuji. “Any visions you can’t distinguish from reality over the past five years? Of a dog, or a fox…or perhaps a monkey?”

Kubo’s shoulders twitched when he heard the word monkey. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he managed to reply.

“Huh… So a monkey, then?” Ayatsuji quietly muttered. “Thanks for the valuable information. You can go now.”

Kubo started to say something, but he soon changed his mind. He glanced at Ayatsuji with disgust before jogging down the tracks.

Once he was far away enough, the train door automatically closed. The locomotive grunted a few times and continued its journey.

“The Engineer’s signal is on the move.”

I was at the military-police investigation headquarters, in a spacious room where numerous agents were going in and out of. In front of me was a monitor connected to a satellite that detected signals emitted by a tracking device.

“Where is he?” Sakaguchi asked as he stared at the screen.

“An emergency subway exit near the harbor.” Asukai tapped the screen. “He probably got off the train and came up to the surface here. That’s when the satellite picked him up.”

“Good thing we put that tracking device on him when we had him,” Sakaguchi replied with a blank expression.

They’d apparently hid a tracking device under one of the lapels of the Engineer’s coat when they shoved him to the ground. It’d been nerve-racking when he first went underground and we lost the signal, but fortunately, we could track him now.

“The harbor, though… He must be attempting to flee by boat.” Sakaguchi grunted. “He’ll be outside satellite coverage on the open sea, so we have to move fast.”

Let’s do this.

I wasn’t gonna waste any more time standing there. I pulled my car key out of my jacket and strode brisky toward the exit.

“Tsujimura.” Sakaguchi suddenly called my name, stopping me in my tracks. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To capture the suspect, of course!” I answered. “We can’t let him escape! There’s so much I need to get out of him!”

But Sakaguchi didn’t immediately reply. He adjusted his glasses, a blank expression on his face.

“Do you mean as part of your job?” he asked. “Or for your own personal revenge?”

“Of course, it’s…”

But I hesitated before I could even finish.

The mastermind behind Reigo Island. The man who’d dragged my mother to murder…

“Your mother was eating out of my hand. Want me to show your body how I managed that?”

“Of course, as my job,” I replied, looking him straight in the eye. “As a member of the Special Division, it’s my duty to capture the deputy director’s killer by any means necessary.”

Sakaguchi observed me in silence for a few moments, his piercing gaze boring a hole right through me.

“…Very well,” he eventually said. “However, I want him back alive. We still need to catch the real mastermind behind all this. I doubt you would let your personal feelings cloud your judgment, but if you kill him, I’ll have to—”

I cut him off. “You can stop there. I swear I will carry out my mission.”

I didn’t wait for Sakaguchi to respond, instead heading straight out the door. I strode to my car without even glancing behind me.

It’s all right, I told myself. I’ll bring him back alive. I won’t kill him. It’s all right. I’m sure it will be all right.

After coming to a complete stop, the train heaved a slow sigh like a tired old man.

Ayatsuji stepped out the door and began following the orders being given to him over the radio until he was led to an emergency ladder out of the abandoned underground passage. He promptly opened the iron door leading to the surface, revealing an empty field with no buildings in sight. The train had used a long-abandoned underground route. Ayatsuji could tell he was being watched, but he continued to push forward as instructed.

Before long, he noticed a tarp with a steel underground hatch underneath it. He surveyed his surroundings; there wasn’t a soul nearby. It was as silent as a graveyard. While he probably didn’t need to worry about being ambushed or surrounded, there wasn’t a single general facility that he could secretly use to call for backup. Ayatsuji expected as much, however, so he simply shrugged, then stepped down the hatch.

The narrow underground passage eventually led him to a spacious hollow cavity a dozen yards below the surface—a square room fortified with concrete but otherwise empty. Near the center was yet another hole that led even farther underground. It was closer to a manhole than anything, and he could see a faint light coming from it, sort of like an ominous bonfire.

Ayatsuji peeked into the pit and discovered there was another room below, around thirteen feet from the floor to the ceiling. He’d be able to enter safely by hanging on to the edge of the hole and slowly lowering himself inside. And that’s exactly what he did.

“Welcome, Detective. You’ve had a long journey.”

Hearing that voice made Ayatsuji’s entire journey worthwhile.

Standing in the corner of the room was the Sorcerer, practically within spitting distance.

“Kyougoku.”

Kyougoku nodded back with evident satisfaction. “Apologies for dragging you every which way. But that smile of yours made all my efforts worth the trouble.”

Ayatsuji touched his own face. He was smiling…like a beast eyeing its prey.

“How could I not smile? The man of the hour has finally shown himself.”

The detective had fought Kyougoku countless times, but only a handful had been face-to-face. An encounter this rare was worth even more than its weight in gold.

Ayatsuji slowly walked toward Kyougoku, all while carefully observing the room.

It wasn’t that big. The room was shaped like a cube, with each side around thirteen feet long. There was hardly anything inside, save for some scraps of metal scattered about. It was like being inside a thirteen-foot-long die. None of Kyougoku’s lackeys seemed to be hiding in wait, and there weren’t any traps, either.

In other words, nobody was going to disturb their duel.

“Kyougoku.”

“Ayatsuji.”

They faced each other. If either one of them had a dagger, they could slit the other’s throat in the blink of an eye.

“Damn.” Ayatsuji slightly tilted his head to the side. “I’ve waited so long for this day…but now that it’s happening, I don’t know what to say.”

“I feel the same way.” Kyougoku laughed. “But of course, we both know what needs to be done. Don’t we?”

“There are so many things I want to ask you,” the detective said in almost a whisper, “but I know you won’t tell me even if I beg.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Try me.”

Ayatsuji stared at the Sorcerer and considered the offer for a few moments. “Then let me ask you this—are you prepared to die?”

The detective’s frigid craving for death came almost out of nowhere. The air began to freeze over, nearly burning the man in front of him. Kyougoku was unable to even speak for a brief moment. No one could stand before Ayatsuji’s intense bloodlust without being shaken up a little.

“…My answer is not particularly important,” Kyougoku eventually said. “What’s important is whether we can continue our game here. I brought a little souvenir with me, though it’s rather inelegant.”

The Sorcerer pulled back the collar of his kimono, revealing a sealed pack around his neck with some sort of yellowish liquid inside.

Ayatsuji clicked his tongue. “Tsk. Poison?”

“Nerve gas.” The phantom faintly smirked. “If I was to pull this string, the liquid would fill this entire room with a deadly poison. It smells like fruit, but one sniff sends your entire body into convulsions until you’re no longer able to stand. The muscles you use to breathe are paralyzed within seconds, and you die while spewing the contents of your stomach. But I have absolutely no intention of killing you with this. Think of it as a boorish device to ensure nothing gets in the way of our game.”

“Yeah, betting your own life on a game has always been one of your quirks.” Ayatsuji calmly met Kyougoku’s eyes. “So? What’s the game?”

“A battle of wits,” Kyougoku mirthfully revealed, causing Ayatsuji to quietly knit his brow. “Simple, isn’t it? Several months ago, a certain someone died in this very place in some inexplicable way. If you solve the murder, you win. And if you win…”

Kyougoku paused, shifting his gaze back at Ayatsuji.

“…I will tell you how you can save your partner.”

I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t even know how I felt.

The uncertainty was incredibly depressing and painful.

I should’ve been glad that I already knew which path to take. I didn’t need to focus on anything else. All I had to do was grit my teeth and move forward.

Now was the time. I stepped on the gas, staring straight at the road ahead.

Just gun it and catch that man as soon as possible.

“Tsujimura, you should drive a bit more carefully—”

“Keep your mouth shut, Inspector Asukai. I don’t want you biting your tongue!”

I spun the steering wheel, flying through the light right before it turned red.

We were on a major street in an urban area, heading toward the harbor. My silver Aston Martin sped by numerous cars like a bullet, the red patrol light on the roof flashing.

I continuously switched lanes in a desperate chase to catch the Engineer. I hadn’t even glanced at my speedometer since we left. All the while, Inspector Asukai was bouncing off the passenger seat, groaning.

“Man, what a stupid criminal, huh?!” I shouted to him. “I can’t believe he really thinks he can get away from us! He’s about to get a tough lesson on modesty—that arrogance is going to be his downfall!”

“Ts-Tsujimura! Just wondering—how many car chases have you been in?”

“This is my first one!” I swung the steering wheel, causing the car to drift. “You’re goin’ down, asshole!”

“I’ve never had a more reckless partner in my life!” Asukai wailed.

The car caught air, and the bumper scraped against a telephone pole on the side of the road. Normally, a sound like that would make me worry about repair costs, but now it was just musical accompaniment to the drums and electric guitar playing in my head as we gave chase.

No way in hell I’m letting him escape!

“Tsujimura, look!” Asukai pointed up ahead. “That’s his car!”

Far down the intersection was a white sports car—a stolen vehicle with a broken window on the driver’s side; the Engineer had probably shattered it when he stole the car.

I had a good idea of the car’s specs just by looking at it, too. An older urban model, but a high-torque one whose specs rivaled my Aston Martin’s.

Let’s see what you’re made of.

Our target noticed us and immediately stepped on the gas, and I did the very same.

“Tsujimura! Red light!”

The transmission roared like a beast as I changed gears, sending my Aston Martin into the intersection like a blazing fireball. I slipped between the cars and trucks until I passed under the red traffic light.

“Ahhhhhh!!”

I caught a glimpse of Asukai clinging to his seat belt.

The white sports car and my silver Aston Martin shot down the road like two streams of blood being pumped furiously out of a heart. Numerous other cars frantically tried to get out of our way, but my eyes were no longer focused on anything except my target. A fire was burning inside me.

Making me your enemy will be your downfall!

I shifted into a higher gear, pushing my car to accelerate even more, which created a cloud of smoke under my tires as they rubbed against the road. The silver bullet—my Aston Martin—left black streaks on the asphalt like a never-tiring predator.

My target turned right, so I headed right as well. If I was remembering the map correctly, we should’ve almost been at the harbor. Then we would no longer have to worry about other cars.

“There should be less cars to worry about once we get to the harbor!” I shouted. “Which means I can drive a little more recklessly, right?!”

“This gets worse?!” Asukai cried.

The Engineer’s car and mine almost ran parallel into the harbor’s lot. The roadway here was considerably larger, probably to allow large trucks to pass. On the right was shipping container storage, on the left was a customhouse. Our two cars were racing down the street between them.

All of a sudden…

…I noticed a strange group of people among the containers. There were six men wearing black suits and sunglasses, and they were collecting multiple duffel bags from people who appeared to be working security at the port. Around them were three SUVs with tinted windows.

The instant the men in black suits noticed the sirens on my car, they started to panic.

“What are they doing…?” I murmured.

The men fled out of sight.

The next moment, my car shook, and it sounded like it was being bludgeoned with hammers.

My heart practically stopped.

“Wh-what was that?!” I shouted.

“This is bad.” Asukai turned pale. “We’re under fire!”

The three black SUVs were now chasing us. One man leaned out the window with a submachine gun.

“Damn it! What’s going on? Did the Engineer call for backup?”

After I looked through my rearview mirror to confirm exactly what kind of cars and guns they were using, I hurriedly searched my mind for the documents I’d memorized…which led me to the worst conclusion possible.

“I can’t believe it,” I groaned.

So that’s what’s going on.

The Engineer hadn’t been heading for the harbor for no good reason. He actually had a plan to shake us off here. This place was like a foreign country, one run by inhabitants of the night—a darkness outside the government’s reach.

“They’re the illegal syndicate that runs things here!” I shouted. “What we just saw was a backroom deal going down! That’s the Port Mafia!”

“Tsujimura is under attack?”

Ayatsuji’s words echoed throughout the underground room.

“Precisely,” Kyougoku quietly replied. “I figured I’d devise a little scheme. I gave Kubo a tip: The Port Mafia was cutting an illicit deal today, and I told him to go interrupt it. I just love those violent mafiosi. They’re so predictable.”

“So you’re saying that they attacked her because they saw a police car pass by during one of their not so wholesome deals?” Ayatsuji snorted with disdain. “That does sound like one of your shallow ideas, Kyougoku. But those men fear authority. They would roll over to appease those in power. If they started randomly attacking police cars, they’d be getting two life sentences a month.”

However, Kyougoku was unfazed. His lips curled into a smirk. “Perhaps if this was an ordinary deal, they wouldn’t have attacked.”

“…What?”

“But what the young Ms. Tsujimura witnessed was an illegal transaction being carried out by low-level members behind their boss’s back. Discipline and profit are absolute principles in the Port Mafia, which means that unauthorized transactions are prohibited. Drugs and illegal weapons in particular would attract the government’s attention. However…in rare cases, some street-level dealers become blinded by money—this being one of those times.”

“A transaction they were keeping secret even from their boss.” Ayatsuji clicked his tongue. “They wouldn’t just be arrested, then… Anyone who breaks the rules of the underground world are hunted like animals.”

“They would most likely be tortured until they began to regret ever being born.” Kyougoku mirthfully laughed. “Fear—fear is what moves people to take action, and that is why they would be more than happy to kill a government agent if they had to.”

Metal scraps of what was once a storage container flew through the air as bullets passed it by. Each bullet that hit the car sounded like a wind instrument being played out of tune.

“What the hell is going on?! Did all those police crackdowns make the Port Mafia lose their minds?!”

“They’re probably trying to keep us from talking because we drove by while they were making some sort of shady deal!” I shouted, quickly turning the steering wheel. “We’re not going to be able to catch the Engineer if we don’t do something!”

Despite weaving my car to throw their aim off, a few bullets still landed, creating sparks; others hit my back window, leaving a white radial crack. But the glass didn’t shatter.

“This thing’s surprisingly sturdy. Bulletproof glass?” Asukai asked with his gun in hand. “Never expected a rookie government employee to have a car like this.”

“Every agent needs a bulletproof car, even if they have to skip a few meals to pay for one! You know what they say: Better to be a little hungry than shot in the head!”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Me!” I shouted, stepping on the gas even harder. “But the undercarriage isn’t bulletproof, so if a bullet ricochets and hits the drivetrain, then the car might flip over!”

“Let’s pray that doesn’t happen!”

Asukai stuck his arm out the window and began shooting at the SUV behind us.

After a few bullets hit the enemy’s vehicle, they briefly slowed down, so I turned the steering wheel sharply to the right. My car screeched, the left tires almost lifting off the ground, until Asukai used his body weight to bring us back down. Stacks of cardboard boxes flew into the air, and iron rods littered the asphalt.

Slipping in between warehouses, I sped down the narrow path so quickly that everything I passed was merely a blur. The engine roared as loudly as it could.

“They’re still on our tail!” Asukai shouted, looking behind us. “They clearly don’t plan on letting us get away!”

I swung the car to the left and continued to race through the warehouse district.

The situation was dire. We had three SUVs chasing after us, and they had submachine guns. It didn’t help that they were used to fighting like this, either. To make matters worse, this harbor was basically their home; they probably knew every path like the back of their hand. Meanwhile, we just had pistols, and I couldn’t even control my skill.

What are we gonna do? They’re going to catch up with us at this rate.

My hands, gripping the steering wheel, were dripping with sweat.

Think, Mizuki.

If only I had Detective Ayatsuji’s help like when we’d been surrounded by that special task force…

“Hurry up and give me the test,” Ayatsuji dryly demanded.

“Oh? Are you sure you wish to accept the challenge?” Kyougoku asked in an amused manner.

“Stop playing around. You’re wasting my time,” the detective spat. “If this is all part of your scheme, then there’s one thing that’s clear. You’re not going to use a gun, or poison, or physical violence to kill me. You want to defeat me in one of your games. You want me to surrender so you can take control of my life, and only then will you try to kill me. In other words, nothing has changed. Now give me that test.”

“You truly are one of a kind.” Kyougoku smirked with evident satisfaction. “Everything you need is right there. I call this unsolved case the ‘Murderer’s Box.’ It’s a personal favorite of mine.”

After the detective picked up the stack of papers lying in the corner of the room, he looked at the type on the cover and realized that these were clearly files stolen from the city police. Ayatsuji began flipping through the pages.

A murder had occurred in this room.

The murderer was a corrupt con man who embezzled money from an accountant at a major company. However, three months prior, he found himself in danger. The accountant became overwhelmed with guilt and ran away. If she went to the police, he’d be done for, so the con man desperately began searching for this accountant.

And before long, he found her.

She’d been right where Ayatsuji was standing in this underground shelter. The con man killed her, but he somehow ended up getting off scot-free.

Ayatsuji continued flipping through the pages.

Why was the murderer found innocent? Because it’d been deemed impossible for him to have committed the crime.

The accountant was stabbed to death in this room. The con man didn’t have an alibi for when she was killed, and they even found a coat with blood on it at his home. The blood, of course, matched the accountant’s.

However, nobody could have killed her because there was no escaping this room. It had a one-way entrance.

Once the accountant ran into this shelter, she destroyed the metal ladder—the only way in and out. In other words, this was an improbable crime. Even if someone killed her inside the shelter, they wouldn’t be able to escape.

In the end, the con man was found not guilty due to insufficient evidence.

“So he and I are in the same boat.” Ayatsuji gently shook his head. “I won’t be able to escape if I don’t solve the puzzle.”

He looked up at the ceiling. The round hole he’d come in through was thirteen feet overhead in the center of the room. The entire room was empty—no clues, no footholds to climb. Even if he wanted to call for help, his phone wouldn’t get a signal this far underground.

“By the way, there was no evidence of him bringing a hook or rope ladder to the scene of the crime.” Kyougoku grinned with delight. “He found himself in the same situation you’re in now. Only after he came down here and killed the woman did he finally realize that he couldn’t leave.”

“Interesting. Now it makes sense. Put simply, this is yet another case you had a hand in, which was why he was able to pull it off,” Ayatsuji said. “You told the murderer how to escape this bunker. After all, you wouldn’t be here right now if you didn’t know how to get out.”

Kyougoku looked calm. “I believe you’ve already gotten enough outside help. Hearing the game master narrate his life story would suck all the fun out of the game, would it not?”

“Good point.” Ayatsuji went back to surveying the room.

The walls were made of a white resin-based plywood, so the con man could have broken them with a hammer or something. But the walls looked intact, and breaking them wouldn’t have helped him escape an underground room.

Each side of the cube-shaped room was thirteen feet long. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all square. It was like being inside a thirteen-foot-tall die. That must have been why Kyougoku called this room a box.

There was nothing that could be used as a step…because the room was almost empty. In one corner were the remains of the iron pipes that had been part of the metal ladder the victim broke. They’d probably once been partially buried in a hole in the ceiling to connect the room to the exit, but now all that remained were dozens of metal scraps.

According to the case files, the victim felt her life was in danger, so she contacted the police before coming here to hide. She knew she wouldn’t be able to escape this shelter without their help, which was evidence of how desperate and serious she was.

However, by the time the police arrived, she was already dead.

A body.

“There’s no body,” Ayatsuji noted. “If she was stabbed to death, then there should be bloodstains somewhere.”

“Allow me to show you,” Kyougoku said, beckoning the detective over.

Hidden on one side of the room was an ordinary door that led to an even smaller room when pushed. If the original room was a thirteen-foot-tall die, then this one had to be a roughly ten-foot-tall die.

Both rooms were almost exactly the same, with the only difference being the obvious bloodstain on the floor in the smaller room. The coagulated blood was the one unique feature of this simple, lifeless place, and what an intense, vivid feature it was. The neighboring room must have been jealous.

Surrounding the bloodstain were pieces of iron pipe—remnants of the metal ladder—stuck in the floor. The five pieces outlined how the victim’s body was found, similar to white crime scene chalk. The longer ones were around sixteen inches, while the shorter ones were not even six.

Ayatsuji crouched before the bloodstain and observed the metal. “Why are there pieces of pipe stuck in the floor?”

He returned to the larger room and began to observe the partition.

The door was well-built. There were also four black lines drawn in a square on the wall, as if to indicate the size of the smaller room. The door was in the center of the wall, as was the black square, which was larger than the door. Above the square was a dark cavity.

“So there’s a hole up here?”

The detective reached for the cavity to no avail. It didn’t look like jumping would help, either. If someone as tall as Ayatsuji couldn’t reach it, then the criminal wouldn’t have been able to escape this way. All Ayatsuji could see in the dark cavity were the metal reinforcement rods used to connect the walls and ceiling in the smaller room—the framework. But he couldn’t easily jump up and grab them.

Even if he did manage to pull himself up to the cavity, there wasn’t anything else he could do. It was about seven feet from the cavity to the hole in the center of the big room; not even the greatest escape artist of the century would be able to clear that jump.

Ayatsuji returned to the center of the big room and gazed at the exit above once more.

“The exit’s around thirteen feet high,” he observed. “A professional athlete’s vertical jump is said to be around twenty to twenty-eight inches, so the highest the suspect described in the files could get would be roughly eight feet and two inches. There’s no way he’d be able to reach a thirteen-foot ceiling.”

“That is correct. Now, I believe it’s about time you give me your solution.” Kyougoku faintly smirked.

Ayatsuji scrutinized the Sorcerer. “I don’t remember hearing about a time limit.”

“Don’t tell me that the great Homicide Detective is intimidated by a little time limit?”

The detective clenched his jaw. He couldn’t possibly argue with that…but he still didn’t have nearly enough information.

The Aston Martin’s body bounced as the car sped almost out of control down the harbor, hitting numerous empty shipping crates along the way.

We were gradually closing the distance between us and the Engineer, but I had no idea just how much longer my vehicle was going to last. Since this was the Port Mafia’s turf, it’d probably take a while for military-police reinforcements and the coast guard to arrive.

“Damn it! I’m out of ammo!” Asukai shouted while staring at his locked-back pistol.

“Take my gun!”

Not like I’m in any position to use it.

“Even their vehicles are bulletproof!” Asukai yelled. “They have more firepower, too. I don’t know how much longer this car’s going to last…”

By the time I realized it, we were on a seaside path near the embankment. Our enemy really did know these streets like the back of their hand. They were going to corner us at the end of the path against the edge.

This isn’t good.

“Tsujimura!” Asukai pointed ahead. “That’s his car! It’s on that ship!”

When I shifted my gaze, I noticed a cargo ship at the wharf. The Engineer’s white sports car was parked on the deck. It looked like he was going to try to use that ship to escape.

“I’m taking us to that ship!” I turned the steering wheel. “Besides, it’s not like we’ve got anywhere else we can go!”

My Aston Martin careened so hard to the right that the bottom of the vehicle scratched against the asphalt. Our destination now was the wharf.

There’s no way I’m letting the Engineer get away with this.

He claimed he’d manipulated my mother, and if that was true, then maybe she wasn’t inherently evil. Maybe he’d coaxed her into doing those terrible things.

I hated my mother when I was younger. When I got older, she basically became a stranger who was always working and rarely came home. But to my surprise, I still blamed the Engineer for her death, and I still wanted to hurt him.

I’m going to catch him, no matter what, and once I get my hands on him…

The car soared toward the bridge like a bullet. It was a large one-lane drawbridge that opened at the center to let ships enter the bay. However, there were numerous crates stacked in the middle, blocking our path. The workers had probably been loading them onto the ship when they heard gunfire and ran away. The bridge was narrow—I couldn’t drive around the crates.

“I’m charging through those boxes!” I shouted.

“Are you sure about this?!” Asukai shouted back. “What if someone’s hiding behind them?! You’ll run them over!”

I was momentarily speechless.

There he was, right in front of me. My mother’s murderer.

“Well, we don’t have much of a choice now! We’ll just have to pray that nobody’s there!” I gripped the steering wheel. “Hold on tight!”

I charged right into the stacked boxes.

The car shook. Radishes, sponges, toilet paper, fruit—countless commodities flew into the air before falling into the ocean. My Aston Martin bounced from the impact and tore across the drawbridge.

“No one was in those boxes after all!” I shouted, my foot still on the gas pedal.

“Owww, my hip!” Asukai’s voice was trembling.

It felt like we’d run over a lot of products, but not any people, so I was relieved. It’d be next to impossible for anyone not to notice a roaring car speeding toward the bridge and being shot at.

“I’m driving up that ramp!”

Turning the steering wheel, I changed course for the transport ship.

All of a sudden, something came flying through the air from the opposite shore.

Everything began to shake. Something had exploded right before it could collide with the car, swallowing the vehicle in orange flames as it was thrown into the air.

“Gah…!”

Everything turned white; my body hurtled through the car until I had no idea which way was up and which way was down. The airbag deployed, smashing my nose in and knocking me out.

I saw meaningless images within the darkness. My mother gazing into the distance. Me at target practice at the Division. The Ayatsuji Detective Agency’s dim interior. After that, I started to see memories of my childhood that I had long forgotten.

And for a moment, I’d even forgotten where I was and what I was doing.

“Hey! Wake up! We’re still under enemy fire!”

When I came to, Asukai was yelling and shaking my arm.

The car was stopped by the wharf; smoke and fire had started to sneak inside. I’d regained consciousness just as Asukai was dragging me out of the car.

I crawled onto the ground and hid behind what was left of my Aston Martin. Countless bullets came flying from the opposite shore and struck my car; the resulting noise sounded like a brass instrument.

“Those assholes hit us with an airburst launcher!” Asukai shouted from behind the car, shielding himself from the gunfire. “What kind of weapons-smuggling operation is the Port Mafia involved in?!”

Airburst launchers were a relatively new type of firearm capable of launching high-speed grenades. They came equipped with a laser range finder, which calculated the distance to the target and automatically detonated the grenade right by them. This was 100 percent a military weapon used in heavily armed warfare, not something that gangs should be blasting willy-nilly in a residential area.

This must have been what they’d been purchasing earlier when I witnessed their illegal transaction…which also meant that they weren’t going to let us get out of here alive, no matter what.

“Tsujimura, how many bullets do you have left?” Asukai asked from behind the car.

I checked my pistol. “Just a few.”

“All right… I have some good news, though.” Asukai looked toward the bridge. “It’s about time for the drawbridge to rise. They won’t be able to follow us after that.”

I glanced in the same direction. He was right. The bridge was starting to split down the middle—where I’d hit all that cargo—and rise. At the very least, the enemy would no longer be able to drive after us.

“That is good news,” I replied. “Now that they can’t catch up to us, they’ll just have to keep shooting from the shore while we sit here with nowhere to run or hide. Things can’t get any better.”

“You can say that again.”

The car wasn’t going to be able to take another hit from an airburst launcher. If some of them went around the bridge to attack us, then we’d be done for. Once the drawbridge lowered to its original position, they’d simply corner us.

Am I going to die here?

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the crates of products fall into the opening of the rising bridge. Fruits, vegetables, and even heavy wooden boxes hit the water, creating splash after splash.

Guess this means I won’t have to pay for all the stuff I ran over, I thought in passing.

Ever since I became an agent, I’d pictured myself dying in a gunfight more times than I could count. I’d imagined dying in a shoot-out, just like in the movies. I’d imagined myself writhing in pain in a filthy back alley before perishing. I had gone through the scenario so many times that the bullets and looming death still didn’t feel real right now.

Was I really going to die? Was I really going to be nothing more than some enemy’s target practice and perish without even using my skill? Was that how my life was going to end?

The man responsible for my mother’s death was so close, and yet…

I grabbed my gun, quickly stuck my arm out from behind the car, and fired. A mafioso on the other side of the water flew back and hit the ground.

I’m an agent. This is no different than an action-packed film scene. Like hell I’m gonna let this scare me.

I immediately saw a different man preparing to fire an airburst launcher.

“Tsujimura! Another grenade incoming!”

I didn’t even blink. I kept my gaze and my pistol pointed forward.

“I’m shooting it down,” I told Asukai.

“Are you out of your mind? You, hit a 25mm grenade going over four hundred miles per hour? With that tiny pistol?!”

“I won’t know until I try.”

I had my gun aimed right at the enemy.

If I could hit the grenade the instant it launched, I’d blow up the remaining rounds in the magazine and take out the entire group. I didn’t have any other option.

The enemy aimed the launcher at us.

It’s okay. This is no different from training. Just maintain good form and hit the nonmoving target. I wouldn’t be doubting myself if this was training.

The enemy peeked into his laser range finder.

Not yet. It’s too soon, I told myself.

The sea breeze suddenly died down, giving a brief millisecond of silence.

Now!

I pulled the trigger.

……

Nothing happened.

My stomach began to twist into knots.

My gun’s jammed!

The blast from earlier must have gotten some dirt in the chamber, and now the slide was stuck.

Why did something like this have to happen at a time like this?!

It was almost strange how clearly I could see the enemy start to pull the launcher’s trigger.

It’s over.

This is the end.

But the end never came.

I’d shut my eyes and clenched my teeth, yet there was no blast wave or impact.

I slowly opened my eyes and noticed that the mafia members were shouting on the other side of the water. They weren’t even looking this way.

What the…? What’s going on?

One man had a cell phone to his ear and was talking into it, his face white as a sheet. He then immediately turned around in a panic and began furiously giving orders to the others; they all yelled and ran back to their SUVs.

And just like that, they were gone. They hadn’t even glanced in our direction.

Asukai slowly peeked out from behind the car. “We’re…alive?”

“They fled…,” I muttered as I lowered my gun.

“Must’ve been an urgent order from their boss,” Asukai added. “But still, why would they just leave? They could’ve cooked us if they stayed a few more seconds.”

This sudden retreat—it was all too convenient, something that never happened in our line of work without reason. That is, unless someone was watching out for us from behind the scenes.

And only one person could do a thing like that.

“It’s obvious why,” I insisted. “Detective Ayatsuji foiled the enemy’s plan.”

“It’s a simple but creative escape trick,” Ayatsuji explained, leisurely walking in front of Kyougoku. “The exit is thirteen feet from the ground. There’s no staircase. Not even a relatively tall man could reach any higher than eight feet if he was lucky, so how was he going to reach something another eight away?”

Ayatsuji crossed the room, then placed a hand on the door to the smaller room.

“If this was any ordinary locked-room murder case, I would start with searching for inconsistencies. A pointless double-layered door, an unnecessary spare key, an inaccessible basement—each one of these added components would be crossed off the list. On the other hand, the barer a room is, the fewer clues there are to find. In this bunker, there is almost no foreign matter. We have a room and blood. That’s it. So what then? Well, if nothing looks to be out of place, then you’ll just have to make something look out of place yourself.”

“Oh?” Kyougoku, who had remained silent the entire time, suddenly smirked faintly.

“There’s a room inside this locked room. That’s what’s off about it,” Ayatsuji declared, pushing the door and peeking into the smaller room in the back. “This larger room is a cube with a thirteen-foot-high ceiling, while the smaller room is a little under ten feet high. Now, if we use the Pythagorean theorem when each side of the cube is just under ten feet, then the hypotenuse is around thirteen feet, which is also the height of the larger room. And that…allows you to do this.”

The detective opened the door, grabbed the top of the frame, and pulled as hard as he could.

The smaller room tilted to one side.

“If there’s nothing to stand on, but you have another room, then all you have to do is stand on that room.”

Ayatsuji put even more muscle into it, using the black lines on the wall as a guide to tilt the smaller room forward. He then adjusted the height and carefully moved back.

“What appeared to be black lines were the room’s joints. The cavity provides space to rotate the smaller room. The floor above this shelter has an even larger cavity, so if this floor was built the same, then there would be extra space, and that extra space became the cavity you see here. It was just as you said when I first got here. This smaller room was not only a room but a box as well.”

The smaller room, which had been pushed diagonally on its side, stopped at a forty-five-degree angle with its top edge sticking out.

“And now we have something to stand on,” Ayatsuji continued. “The newly created slanted step is around seven feet tall, which is already halfway to the exit directly above, allowing you to easily reach it.”

He tapped the slanted corner, which was slightly towering over him. On the corner was the metal framework of the room; anyone could easily jump off it without slipping.

“Impressive, Ayatsuji. I truly wish I could congratulate you.” Kyougoku narrowed his eyes, which held a sparkle deep inside. “But surely, I don’t have to explain to you that your solution is incomplete, right? There’s more to the trick. Go on.”

Ayatsuji slapped the outer walls of the slanted smaller room. “If the room was slanted like this when the police arrived, it wouldn’t have been a locked-room case. Anyone would’ve seen how the murderer escaped, which is why the slanted room needed to be returned to normal… That wouldn’t be particularly difficult, though.”

After the detective lowered his head and walked through the door, he used his body weight to slowly start pushing the room back to where it’d originally been.

“This is why the victim’s body was found in the smaller room, surrounded by pieces of pipe.”

As Ayatsuji stood where the body once lay, the room slowly leveled itself to its original position.

“The iron pipes were stuck in the floor to keep the body from moving. After the criminal escaped, the weight of the corpse shifted the room back to normal.”

Ayatsuji left the smaller room and stood in front of Kyougoku.

“This is the trick he used to escape the so-called unescapable room.”

“Marvelous.” Kyougoku clapped with delight. “To think you solved the case in such a short amount of time… The ‘Murderer’s Box’ was truly a favorite of mine…”

The detective scowled in disgust. “Hmph. If only I could find evidence that you were directly involved, then an ‘accident’ could take care of you permanently for me…”

Ayatsuji looked around the room. The murderer was probably no different than the others. He’d decided to kill the victim on his own, and he chose how he was going to kill her as well. All Kyougoku did was set the stage for the “Murderer’s Box,” which meant that he wasn’t an accomplice to the murder nor a target for Ayatsuji’s skill.

Ayatsuji had been in this situation many times before. There was no way Kyougoku would ever make a mistake.

“Now for your end of the bargain. Tell me how to save Tsujimura.”

“Oh my. I’m getting jealous.” Kyougoku took a piece of paper out of his pocket. “This is the contact information of the men attacking your assistant right now. Someone of your caliber should have no trouble stopping them with this information alone, yes?”

Ayatsuji memorized the number on the paper instantly, then whipped out the phone in his pocket.

“There’s no signal here. I’m heading back to the surface.” He turned away from the phantom. “I’ll deal with you after that. Prepare yourself.”

“Show a little more kindness to your elders, Detective.”

“Shut your mouth.”

Ayatsuji tipped the smaller room on its side, then nimbly pulled himself through the hole in the ceiling.

“Ayatsuji,” Kyougoku called while Ayatsuji was making his way through the exit. “Let me give you a word of advice.”

“What?”

“Even if you save your assistant, you’ve already lost. You will never get another shot at victory. Do not forget that.”

The detective ruminated on those words for a few moments.

“I don’t want another shot at victory,” he said. “All I want is to see you die.” He began to climb toward the exit before adding, “I’ll be back soon. Be ready for me.”

Cell phone in hand, he rushed down the one-way underground passage while staring at the screen, searching for an area where he could get a signal.

Only after reaching the halfway point of the passage did it finally happen. Ayatsuji inputted the phone number and was promptly connected to the Port Mafia attackers.

“The Division knows what you’re doing, and Sakaguchi has your boss on speed dial. If you do not stop the attack this instant, the Division will have no choice but to inform your boss of your disloyalty, and the Port Mafia’s commando unit will hunt you down until every last one of you is ripped to shreds. So back down now if you don’t want that to happen.”

Ayatsuji hung up without waiting for a reply.

The Port Mafia grunts no longer had any reason to kill Tsujimura or Asukai. The only thing those two had to worry about was running away.

“Now, then…”

The detective shook his head a few times, then started returning to the sealed room.

All that was left was Kyougoku.

The detective had already come up with a few measures to handle the nerve gas. Although Ayatsuji was more of an intellectual, he still had the physical strength to incapacitate an elderly man. The only reason why he hadn’t done that earlier was because he’d been prioritizing Tsujimura’s safety and had to play along with the phantom’s game. But the game was over. He could break every bone in that feeble man’s body, and the Division could come handle the rest once they got Ayatsuji’s coordinates. All the detective had to do was keep Kyougoku from escaping until then.

Ayatsuji ran back down the one-way passage and returned to the underground shelter.

But Kyougoku was gone.

“…?!”

The detective grunted in shock.

He had just proven that the only escape route was the hole in the ceiling, and the underground passageway after that was undoubtedly a one-way path. There was neither nook nor cranny that Kyougoku could have used to hide while Ayatsuji was out. Plus, if there was even something vaguely off, Ayatsuji would have noticed.

The detective checked every inch of the two rooms and all their crevices, but Kyougoku was nowhere to be found. On the other side of the cavity were concrete walls, and unless there was a third room, then there was no secret passage, either. Ayatsuji found himself in the exact same situation he’d just been in.

In fact, this was even worse because he had far fewer clues.

A disappearing act.

Ayatsuji groaned. So this was the real mystery that had to be solved.

Tilting the smaller room allowed him to reach the exit. There was absolutely no other way to leave this underground bunker. Nevertheless, Kyougoku seemed to have disappeared like smoke, without breaking any walls or getting help.

In closed-off rooms, the simpler the problem seemed, the more difficult it was to solve. But even with that being said, this bizarre simplicity went beyond what could be possibly solved.

Ayatsuji stood motionlessly in the center of the room.

What was the last thing Kyougoku said?

“Even if you save your assistant, you’ve already lost.”

Kyougoku was going to get away if the detective didn’t solve this mystery, and he was going to lose the opportunity of a lifetime.

Ayatsuji continued to stand absolutely still, like a statue, in the center of the room.

After some time went by, his furious shouting and the sound of his fist hitting the wall echoed down the underground passage.

Asukai and I rushed inside the cargo ship.

The military police had barred it from leaving the port. There was nowhere for the Engineer to run now.

The cargo ship was divided into three floors. The bottom floor was for loading trailers, the middle for commercial vehicles, and the top for cargo. It was highly unlikely that the Engineer was still in the sports car, so Asukai and I split up to search each floor. I had my pistol; Asukai was carrying an emergency breaching hatchet, since he’d run out of bullets.

The top floor was extremely spacious, with hardly anyone working on it in order to keep transportation costs down. Therefore, it was eerily quiet. I could hear a car slowly moving on another floor somewhere, but it was so far away that I could hardly make out much more than that.

My pistol drawn, I carefully moved forward.

The enemy couldn’t have picked a worse location.

There was an ungodly number of hiding spots here: behind stacked crates, in the shadows of a yellow forklift, inside countless boxes big enough to fit a single person. If this were a movie, then this would be where the villain tried to ambush the secret-agent main character from behind. I didn’t want to pursue the Engineer in a place like this.

I aligned my pistol with my sight while continuing farther into the maze.

Then I suddenly heard a rubber shoe squeaking against the floor. Alarm bells went off in my head: red alert.

“Who’s there?!” I shouted, pointing my gun. “Show yourself!”

A black shadow moved on the other side of the crate near the wall. It looked as if someone was trying to run away in a panic.

“Stop! Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

The flustered individual was so startled that they tripped and fell on their face and pathetically groaned. “Okay, okay. Ya got me. I’m sorry. I’ll tell ya whatever ya want. Just don’t shoot. Please—I’m begging ya.”

Panicking on the floor was a small middle-aged man in a navy collared shirt.

It wasn’t the Engineer. A deckhand, maybe?

Wait a sec—

“That golf bag—that’s the Engineer’s, isn’t it?” I motioned to the black golf bag with my gun.

“Th-thi-thi-this is just—!” The man tried hiding the bag behind his back, only to fall over again.

“Where’s that bag’s owner?”

“I, uh…I can’t say.” He frantically shook his head, white as a sheet.

I brought my gun closer.

“O-okay! You win! I’ll talk! Just get that thing away from me!”

He was like a small, trembling child.

This guy’s…a real piece of work.

The man pushed the bag forward with his shaking arms. “The fella on the run—it’s his. After he drove onto the ship, he handed me this here bag and hid in his designated spot. Told me to throw it in the ocean. It wasn’t part of the deal, but he seemed desperate, so—”

“Wait. Hold on.” I held out my hand to stop him. “This person ‘on the run’—you mean the Engineer? And what do you mean, ‘his designated spot’—?”

“Well, that’s what smugglers do, right?”

“Who’s the smuggler?”

“Me!” The man grinned.

All the strength in my pistol hand gave out. So much for feeling like the main character in a movie.

“The police already blocked this ship from leaving,” I said as I lowered my gun. “The Engineer you’re trying to smuggle out of here can no longer escape, so tell me where he is.”

Some smugglers helped clients flee the country via illegal means. They provided passports and assistance for these clients’ new lives at their destination. It was a relatively popular underground profession nowadays in this bizarre era of skill-related crime. Some smuggled dangerous goods on the side as well, and those people were often heavily armed. This guy didn’t seem to have a weapon on him, which meant that smuggling people must’ve been his sole specialty.

After pressuring him to answer, the man told me that the Engineer was “over yonder” and began to walk ahead on trembling legs.

The more he walked, the more his lips loosened. He seemed to be gradually gaining confidence.

“After I had him leave the car, I got him to hide among the cargo. It’s easy to find people in large containers and trailers, so I usually have folks hide with the precision machines and food. ’Cause if you break open one of those crates, the product might get ruined, and whoever opened it’ll have to pay for damages. Even the police save crates like those for last. Just in case, I also give the crates false bottoms and have folks lie under that. Kinda like the salted salmon ya buy in those special boxes. Know what I mean? Ever bought salmon like that?”

I didn’t reply.

“Anyway, the fella I’m helping escape is in that there crate…” He confidently pointed at a pile of cargo. “Hmm?”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

The man suddenly looked around in bewilderment.

“It’s gone,” he squeaked.

“What…?”

“It was the third one from the top. Crate number fifty-eight. Strange… I coulda sworn it was right here. Crates fifty-seven and fifty-nine are here, too. Only fifty-eight’s gone. Maybe he got spirited away?”

“Yeah, right… He probably heard the commotion and took off.”

“But the whole crate is gone. If he thought he was in danger, why take the crate with him? Those things weigh a ton.”

He had a point. These wooden crates were big enough for a single person to comfortably lie down in. Not only were they heavy, they were too big to carry by hand. Also, crate fifty-seven was neatly stacked over crate fifty-nine with no signs of having fallen over. Even if the Engineer heard our gunfight with the Port Mafia, would he really have had the time to neatly stack the crate that was on top of his before running away?

My cell phone rang, so I pulled it out to see who was calling: Sakaguchi.

“Tsujimura speaking. Sakaguchi, the Engineer—”

“Tsujimura, don’t worry about him. I need you back here. An MP investigator already found the Engineer.”

“What?!”

I squeezed the phone in surprise.

They found him? But he was supposed to be on this ship. He was supposed to be trying to sneak out of the country…

“They caught him?!”

“Yes.” A few seconds of silence followed, as if Sakaguchi was thinking about something. “Tsujimura, please relay Detective Ayatsuji’s next order. He needs to unravel what happened to the Engineer.”

“‘What happened’…? I thought you found him—?”

But that was when it hit me. I finally realized why Sakaguchi needed Detective Ayatsuji’s help.

“When we found the Engineer, he was already dead.”

There was a door in front of me. A rugged, cast-iron door—black, heavy, and small with neither a decoration nor even a handle to open it. It was as if once it was closed, it could never be opened again.

And that door was closed, never to be opened again. The truth on the other side was sealed off from me forevermore.

I gently opened my eyes, and the door, burned onto the back of my eyelids, disappeared. The iron door didn’t exist in reality but in my mind. But even then, that door was closed. Nobody would ever see what was on the other side.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a dead body washed up on the shore.

It was a small beach not so far from the Port Mafia’s turf. A body was lying on the gray sand, like a filthy bag of trash that had washed ashore, with numerous agents and crime-lab experts crowding around it.

Every single one of them was focused and taking their work extremely seriously. No surprise there; this wasn’t some unidentified, unfortunate soul. It was the serial killer who’d murdered the deputy director, and the criminal whom both the military police and the Special Division had been doing everything in their power to catch. It was the Engineer.

Standing closest to the corpse was Sakaguchi. His expression was blank, and he was staring at the Engineer’s body as if it were an old can littering the beach.

“Too much time has passed since he died. The body is heavily damaged as well,” Sakaguchi noted with a brief glance in my direction. “Even the Division is going to have trouble retrieving any information that forensics can’t already get.”

He wasn’t joking. The corpse was mangled in such a bizarre way. In fact, I couldn’t even say with confidence that this was actually the Engineer. His entire body was battered and bruised as if he’d been beaten with something heavy, and he probably didn’t have a single intact bone left. Furthermore, he had so many cuts that his skin was peeled almost completely off. Whatever attacked him must have been powerful.

Before long, forensics confirmed that the fingerprints in the white sports car matched the ones Kubo left at the train station.

Kubo was apparently the Engineer’s real name.

At any rate, this meant that he was, without a doubt, the Engineer. The man who’d driven my mother to murder, the only one who knew her.

And now he was gone.

How was I supposed to feel?

A nearby fisherman happened to find the body washed ashore earlier that day. Although we still needed to wait for an autopsy for a more accurate time of death, the rigor mortis in his jaw muscles, alongside the postmortem lividity, suggested that he’d died just two to three hours earlier—around when I was in a gunfight with the Port Mafia.

In other words, the Engineer—Kubo—was killed right after boarding the ship.

After a few moments of thought, I said, “Whoever killed the Engineer—Kubo—in such a short amount of time had to have known about his escape plan. In other words, it has to be someone who was involved in Kyougoku’s plot to kill the deputy director.”

“Or perhaps even Kyougoku himself. Kubo was most likely no more than a pawn to Kyougoku.” Sakaguchi nodded. “Tsujimura.”

“Yes?”

“As I told you already, this case is the Special Division’s top priority. We can’t afford to lose to the Ministry of Justice in this struggle for power, which means we have to find the criminal truly responsible for the deputy director’s death at all costs and prove that they are guilty. And to do that, we need to use a certain skill to bring the absolute truth to light, since nowadays, physical evidence and confessions can be faked. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”

I nodded.

“We have to assume that whoever killed Kubo was using him,” Sakaguchi added. “Namely, the mastermind behind the deputy director’s murder. It’s extremely likely that Kyougoku is behind all this, but we still can’t say for sure that it was him. Regardless, we don’t necessarily even need to.”

“We don’t?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“What’s important is proving that the Division wasn’t behind the deputy director’s murder. Right now, the only person who can do that is Detective Ayatsuji.”

So that’s what’s going on.

“I’m going to ask Detective Ayatsuji to kill whoever did this to Kubo,” he flat out admitted. “His skill is completely different from anyone else’s. It activates solely based on absolute truth. Put simply, it’s not going to activate from an incorrect answer, so being fooled by someone pretending to be the criminal or an error in his reasoning won’t get anyone killed. His skill only eliminates the real criminal; it is absolute proof of their crime.”

An omnipotent skill.

Most skills were subjective, but Detective Ayatsuji’s was different. His skill was objective; it only granted death to people who truly committed a crime. In other words, it completely eliminated the possibility of a false charge or accusation. The reason why his skill was feared and considered dangerous was because it was extremely rare; it administered absolute truth and justice in this uncertain world.

And that was why the Division hired him for work, despite understanding just how dangerous his skill was.

“This is an order of the highest priority,” Sakaguchi stated. “If he refuses, fails, or is unable to solve the case within the time given to him, then he will be dealt with as a Special A-Grade Dangerous Skill User. Make sure you remind the detective of that when you talk to him.”

Dealt with as a Special A-Grade Dangerous Skill User. In other words—eliminated.

“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I heard Detective Ayatsuji just defeated Kyougoku in a battle of wits. I’m sure he’ll be able to find the truth behind the Engineer’s murder, too.”

Yeah, it’s gonna be okay, I told myself.

There wasn’t a case that this detective—this shameless, cold, arrogant detective—couldn’t solve.

There was nothing he couldn’t solve.

Ayatsuji stood in a daze.

He could hear nothing except the roaring waterfall. All he could see was the pale mist that rose like a mirage.

This was the basin of the waterfall.

The spot where Ayatsuji and Kyougoku had settled their score—the site of Kyougoku’s fall. The detective simply stood there in a daze.

He was in search of an exit.

An end to this puzzle.

An escape from this trap.

He stepped into the basin, unconcerned that his knees were getting wet, and the cold water weighed down his clothes, slowly robbing his body of its warmth.

It was a waste of time. There was no exit, and there certainly was no solution.

The path of escape had been sealed.

“You cannot defeat me, my dear bloodthirsty detective. This battle was doomed to fail.”

“So that’s…what he meant,” Ayatsuji said to himself.

He was ghastly pale—his skin, his lips. It was almost as if his frigid thirst for blood, which had sent chills down the spines of countless criminals, was turning on him.

“That’s…what you meant, Kyougoku.”

Ayatsuji took another step deeper into the waterfall basin—another step closer to the source of the mist.

This, too, was a locked-room mystery—Kyougoku’s ultimate scheme. It was a sinister chamber that one could enter but not leave.

The detective shoved his arm into the water, and it splashed over his entire body. He felt around the bottom of the basin until he eventually found what he was searching for, pulled it out, and held it up to the dim sunlight. It was a dull copper coin.

“I’ve solved the mystery,” the detective muttered to himself. “I know how you did it, and I know what you’re scheming. I’ve figured it all out, Kyougoku.”

The words spewed out of his mouth as if he was vomiting blood.

He had solved all the mysteries.

How Kyougoku survived the fall from the top of the waterfall. Why his skill didn’t kill Kyougoku. The well. Why Kyougoku used the Engineer. Kyougoku’s escape from the underground box.

“So that’s how you did it, Kyougoku? That’s what you meant by doomed to fail.”

“You’ve already lost.”

Kyougoku’s smile and what he truly meant when he said those words…

Ayatsuji gazed into the sky. It seemed so distant; the mist dulled the sunlight, making everything look like it was underwater.

“You were right, Kyougoku,” he softly wheezed, quietly closing his eyes. He didn’t sound like a predatory snake, but rather, a mouse. “I……lost.”

Asukai was sitting at his desk, silently lost in thought and not even touching the pickled vegetables waiting for him. Everything was as busy as always. Thanks to the shoot-out at the port and the Engineer’s death, there were countless tasks that needed to be dealt with.

All of a sudden, the phone rang, so Asukai shifted his gaze toward it. What could it be? he wondered. He didn’t recognize this ring. It sounded different when there was a murder or a burglary. Asukai was skilled in predicting what kind of phone call it was simply by listening to how the phone rang, and yet he had no idea what this could have been about. He had never heard anything like this before.

After listening to it ring three times, he gave up trying to guess and answered. However, saying he was taken aback by who it was on the other end of the line would have been an understatement.

“…Detective Ayatsuji?” Asukai brought the phone closer to his ear. “Yes. Huh? A list of hospital patients in critical condition from traffic accidents…? Well, sure, I can absolutely get you that, but…”

Flesh was being hacked apart at the Ayatsuji Detective Agency.

The persistent sound echoed over and over again until the knife’s wide blade was swung between flesh and backbone.

I pretended I couldn’t hear what was happening. I kept my gaze fixed on the documents in my hands and similarly pretended to concentrate on them.

The tip of the knife was then shoved into flesh between the backbone and ribs. There was neither hesitation nor mercy—only a silent sense of duty.

It was Detective Ayatsuji holding the knife.

When I glanced at him, his expression was as emotionless as always. And yet, something felt slightly different. There was some sort of emotion swirling behind that frigid gaze, but I couldn’t tell exactly what that emotion was.

The tip of the detective’s knife was now peeling skin from flesh, quietly and patiently. Once the spine and ribs were exposed, he shoved the tip of the knife into a joint connecting them, then twisted the blade. The sounds of bone being stripped apart filled the agency.

I glanced at him once more and couldn’t help but wonder:

Why’s he using an army knife and not a butcher knife to cut open a sheep?

“Detective,” I said.

No reply. Every part of him was focused on scraping the rest of the flesh and skin off the ribs.

He knew that he needed to read the military police’s report in my hands. It contained the Engineer’s—Kubo’s—background check, the identity of the smuggler I ran into on the cargo ship, and footage from the ship’s security cameras. In other words, making a rack of lamb wasn’t on his to-do list, and neither was peeling potatoes to go with it. Neither were grinding herbs and mashing garlic. What he needed to focus on right now was solving the case.

“Detective,” I called, “I need you to listen to me.”

He was in the kitchen.

“I’m going to season it with some herbs. You fine with that?” he asked.

“We don’t have time for this!” I shouted.

The detective immediately stopped what he was doing and shot me a piercing glare.

“Uh… Yeah, I love herbs,” I stammered.

He nodded, then returned to cooking.

Two voices were simultaneously screaming in my head. The first one: We don’t have time to be worrying about seasoning! The Division is going to “dispose” of you if you don’t solve the case!

The second one: Wait. You’re cooking for me, too?

Despite my confusion, the detective continued to peel the garlic, smash it with the side of the knife, then evenly mix it in with the meat. Once that was over, he sprinkled coarse salt into the slits of the meat, ground fresh black pepper over it all, then topped it off with some herbs and olive oil.

Only then did I finally escape the shackles of the seasoning’s mouthwatering aroma and regain my sanity.

“Listen,” I said. “The smuggler made a full confession. After receiving payment from an anonymous source, he was asked to sneak Kubo out of the country.” I thought back to the strangely humble smuggler who I’d run into on the ship. “Anonymity isn’t anything unusual in the business, so the smuggler apparently thought nothing of it.”

I paused for a moment to see how Detective Ayatsuji was reacting.

“I’m listening,” he simply stated while still cooking.

“Judging from the way Kubo was acting at the train station,” I continued, “I highly doubt he had any idea about the plan to sneak him out of the country. Therefore, it wasn’t Kubo himself who paid the smuggler. Also, the smuggler apparently explained in great detail to this anonymous source how he was going to smuggle Kubo. In other words, this source knew which crate Kubo was in, and that allowed him to take the Engineer somewhere else to kill him.”

It was highly likely that this anonymous person was behind Kubo’s murder. At the very least, that was the conclusion I’d reached after reading the case files.

“That checks out,” Detective Ayatsuji told me.

“Right?!”

I was an exceptional agent, so obviously, I could solve a mystery or two without the detective’s help.

Detective Ayatsuji turned on the stove, poured some olive oil into the pan, and put it on high heat. He then turned down the heat, placed the meat into the pan, and sprinkled it with garlic until it started to turn a light golden brown.

The aroma was enough to make my stomach growl.

But I was a top-class agent, so there was no way I was going to let a little food distract me.

“And?” Detective Ayatsuji said.

“…Huh? Oh—where was I? Uh… Well… Ah, right. The pieces of wood in and around the corpse’s wounds matched the wood of the crate that the smuggler had hidden him in…which means that Kubo was either killed inside the crate, or at the very least, he was on or near it when he was murdered. At any rate, I decided to take a close look at the ship’s surveillance footage.” I thrust one a photograph in the detective’s face. “And I noticed that a van was seen leaving the ship during our shoot-out.”

It showed a small, box-shaped vehicle with no window in the back to reveal what it could be carrying.

“This is the vehicle that carried the crate containing Kubo off the ship. Unfortunately, the camera didn’t catch the driver’s face on video…but if we find out who was driving this van, then we’ll find whoever killed Kubo. It’s most likely the person who hired the smuggler and manipulated Kubo in secret.”

I pictured the one person it had to be: Kyougoku. The Sorcerer. The Puppet Master.

It was time to put an end to this. Detective Ayatsuji and I were going to settle things with that man once and for all.

However, what the detective said next squashed this resolution of mine in the blink of an eye:

“No.”

I stared at him. “…Huh?”

“You’re thinking that the driver was heading to Kyougoku’s hideout, right? But you’re wrong. Kubo was murdered by an ordinary man.”

“But—!”

“Look at the photo on the desk.”

I followed his gaze.

“Hisashige Kakeba, a college professor. That’s the man who killed Kubo.”

“What?” I was puzzled. “You already found the culprit?”

Flustered, I grabbed the photo.

It appeared to be some sort of ID. The man had this quiet, gentle look to him that you’d expect from a professor. He appeared to be around thirty years old, give or take. Either way, he didn’t seem like the type who would conspire to commit murder or such an unhinged act of violence.

Was this really the man who’d brutally beaten Kubo to death?

“Your detective work wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t correct. This is the man who killed Kubo and knew about his plan to escape. Once Kubo was inside that wooden crate, Kakeba took it to another room in the ship where nobody would see him, then smashed the crate with an iron pipe until he killed Kubo inside it. All he had to do after that was toss the body in the ocean.”

Toss it overboard… True, then he wouldn’t need to carry an entire wooden crate off the boat, which would be difficult with all the security cameras.

But even then…this guy beat Kubo to death with an iron pipe? Was any human strong enough to mangle a body like that?

Compared with most other cases the detective had so brilliantly solved, something about his explanation felt lacking.

“But then…if this really has nothing to do with Kyougoku, what was his motive?” I asked.

“Revenge for a case you know very well: the ‘Reigo Island Massacre.’ One of Kakeba’s friends was a tourist killed on that island.”

“What…?”

Kubo was part of the Reigo Island murder ring and had played a central role in the massacre.

“Now, how Kakeba found Kubo all on his own is something we need to investigate,” the detective said. “Anyway, food’s ready. Get the plates.”

“W-wait. Hold on.” I rushed to stop him. “If that’s true, then we need to arrest Kakeba and hand him over to the Division! This is a top-priority case. You’ll be disposed of if we don’t solve it, and if we don’t hurry, then we risk letting the criminal get away and—”

“The criminal isn’t going anywhere.”

But before I could even ask him why, I saw a chilling glow in his eyes that told me everything.

“He already died in an ‘accident.’”

A skill that went beyond fate and killed criminals…

“I stopped by Kakeba’s house and found the iron pipe with blood on it. I even found evidence that he most likely wiretapped Kubo. That eliminated the need to search for him,” the detective explained. “Kakeba was driving on the highway when he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into a semi, and died.”

Detective Ayatsuji’s skill would never kill an innocent person. So if this man died in an accident, then that meant he really was the murderer.

“Okay,” I replied. “You want me to get the plates, right?”

I started setting the table.

“I was a little worried to be honest,” I admitted while placing the forks and knives. “You’ve been acting kind of weird ever since you had your face-to-face confrontation with Kyougoku, so I totally thought you weren’t interested in solving the case anymore. But…I’m guessing you cooked this rack of lamb to reward us for solving it?”

“‘Us’?” the detective said in bewilderment as he arranged the fragrant meal onto the plate. “Who said you’re part of this?”

“Huh…? Huh?! Uh…?” I unconsciously twitched in a weird way. “Hold on. This meal is for both of us, right?”

“I hate to break it to you, but as you can clearly see, this is only enough food for one person.”

Detective Ayatsuji lifted the frying pan and showed me the meat.

“What? Wait. Uh…? Then why did I have to suffer through smelling all this delicious meat and garlic and frantically set the table…?”

“It sounds like you need to be put in your place.”

The detective brought the frying pan closer to me.

“Ahhhhhh.”

A strange noise escaped my throat before I could even process what was going on.

Without missing a beat, he brought the frying pan even closer to my face.

“Ahhhhhh.”

Another strange noise escaped my throat.

“You are the Ayatsuji Detective Agency’s private jester.”

I then collapsed.

My mind grew hazy. My vision blurred, and my stomach rumbled.

I could faintly hear Detective Ayatsuji in the background tearing me apart with joke after joke until he could joke no more. By the time he went back into the kitchen for a moment and returned with what vaguely resembled another serving of meat, it was already too late.

The initial shock of being told that I could only smell, not taste, this delicious-looking meal was too much to handle. I passed out, and the detective promptly took my photo.

Incidentally, the rack of lamb ended up tasting so good that I almost wanted to start making strange noises again.

……

Why didn’t I pursue the question more?

Something felt off. There was a slight contradiction, and if I had searched harder, I would’ve figured it out.

Why wasn’t I able to take that first step forward?

If only I was a little more intelligent, I could have seen how dire the situation was for Detective Ayatsuji. Why was I not smart enough to have noticed that? If only I had a tenth of foresight that Kyougoku and the detective had, then this would have never happened.

But it was all too late now.

That night, Detective Ayatsuji slipped past our surveillance network again and vanished, never to return.