Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 9 - Chapter 1.05

  An extraordinary graduation trip

A week after that, I was on a plane. In first class, actually—a privilege I barely ever got. Just before takeoff, having gotten permission from a familiar flight attendant, I called Natsunagi. “So, Natsunagi, I’m headed over to Scandinavia for a bit.”

It was spring vacation, and I told her I was taking advantage of the time before our university classes started to travel. Of course, this wasn’t for fun, but for a certain job.

“Why are you leaving me behind like that’s normal?”

The voice coming through the phone sounded resentful. I’d only decided to take this trip a few days earlier, and I hadn’t had time to talk it over with her before now.

“You’re in India right now yourself, remember? On some ‘graduation trip’ with your friends.”

That’s right: Natsunagi was overseas now as well. It sounded like her trip had been in the works for quite a while… I was genuinely jealous of the fact that she had friends she could go on graduation trips with.

“Kimizuka, if you were going by yourself, it wouldn’t have bothered me, but…”

“But what?”

“That girl’s right next to you, isn’t she?”

Hearing that, the girl in question leaned over toward me and joined the conversation. “Hello. Just leave your ex-boyfriend to Rill.”

Reloaded sounded as if she was teasing Natsunagi. Her hair was done up in space buns, and she was wearing regular street clothes.

“—How did this even happen…?”

“Kimizuka insisted on coming along when Rill went back home, so what choice did she have?”

Right now, we were headed back to Rill’s hometown in northern Europe. I didn’t recall pitching a fit and demanding to escort her home, but it was true that it was just the two of us on this trip. Besides, as her former familiar, maybe acting as my master’s legs was a mission to be proud of.

“Going back home with Rill isn’t the only reason for this trip anyway. I might find Marie’s hometown.”

As part of the report I’d made to Rill last week, I’d told her a little about our latest request. Incredibly, Rill told me she’d seen a village similar to the one in the picture a long time ago. That village wasn’t too far from her hometown, so part of the reason I was going with her was so I could take a look at it.

“Let’s meet up in a few days when we’re both back.” We were just about to take off, so I said good-bye to Natsunagi.

“Mm, okay. It looks like I’ll make some progress on that one matter as well; I’ll fill you in on it later.”

“Sure, thanks.”

Natsunagi wasn’t just having fun overseas, either. She was also taking on an important mission there. Detectives and their assistants needed to split up the work sometimes.

“I’m sorry for complaining. Thanks for taking care of things on that end.”

“Yeah. I know you’ve got stuff that needs doing, but don’t forget to enjoy the graduation trip.”

Even Siesta had wanted Natsunagi to enjoy high school right up until the end.

“…Thanks!” Natsunagi told me she’d bring back souvenirs, then hung up.

It sounded as if my place was going to acquire some more weird knickknacks from around the world.

“Aha.” Rill struck a “thinking” pose once I ended the call. “She was jealous at first, but in the end, that girl demonstrated how understanding she is. She really is picking up the sense of moderation required of a principal wife.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if I hadn’t heard that analysis?”

We both smiled faintly at one another, then sank into silence. It wasn’t actively uncomfortable, but I didn’t know what to talk about. Whatever the two of us were, it wasn’t friends.

Two months ago, when Rill defeated Gluttony, it had left her unable to walk. Between then and now, we’d met at the hospital a few times to talk about her condition and current affairs, but it had been a while since we’d met in a personal capacity like this.

“Say something.” Unable to endure the silence any longer, Rill tugged lightly at my sleeve. “You’re a pet. That means you should be able to ‘talk’ when I ask you to, right?”

“Even if I’m a pet, I thought I was a dog, not a parakeet.”

“You did it. Good job.” Rill smiled and patted my head. That had been a fiendishly clever trap. Since I’d fallen for it, I had no choice: I let her pet me a little while longer.

“It’s thanks to you, you know,” Rill said, averting her gaze slightly. “Rill thought she wanted to start over in a number of ways. She doesn’t know what she’ll do with the rest of her life, or what her goals should be. She’s going back home to give those questions some good, solid thought, and you are the one who gave her the push she needed.”

Rill had left home years ago to become a track-and-field athlete, and she said she hadn’t contacted her family once since becoming a Tuner. I was the one who’d suggested taking this trip home. And as the one who’d brought it up, it was only natural that I would decide to accompany her.

“I think we’re probably all just getting started.”

Rill removed her hand from my head, and we gazed at each other, smiling a little.

Before I knew it, the plane was in the air, and our journey through the sky had begun.

“—Huh? What are you making me watch?” said a voice from out of nowhere. As I was looking around, I heard it again, right in front of me. “Over here.” The monitor on the back of the seat displayed the blue-haired Oracle, Mia Whitlock.

“Why are you here, Mia?”

“Olivia just sent me a URL, and when I clicked on it, it brought me here.”

So this was Olivia’s doing, huh? We’d spoken a little right after we’d boarded. Who’d have guessed she’d been plotting something like this…?

“Perfect timing, though. I had something I wanted to tell you.”

“Confessing your love?”

“Don’t be dumb.”

She’d developed quite the mouth.

Mia cleared her throat with a cute little cough, then said:

“Beware the undead mummies.”

Mia was in her Oracle uniform, and her face was deadly serious. Apparently, this was an official prophecy.

“It’s a future I just saw. Undead mummies are going to be dragged into it.”

“So it’s mummies this time, huh? It’s been nothing but horror movie tropes since Pandemonium.”

“No. They may all be monsters, but this prophecy is connected to the vampire rebellion, not Pandemonium. The image of them came to me in fragments.”

…So it had to do with that instead? True, the words “undead mummy” could easily be associated with vampires.

“I only have a vague prophecy this time. Just be careful.”

“All right. I’ll relay it to Natsunagi later.”

We nodded to each other through the screen. Then Mia started darting glances at the seat next to me. She was looking at Reloaded. Come to think of it, those two got along like cats and dogs, didn’t they?

“Mia Whitlock.” Rill made the first move; she looked straight at the screen. “Do you remember our fight at last year’s Federal Council? At the time, Rill rejected your opinion outright, but now that she thinks about it, she was wrong.”

The sight of Rill apologizing seemed to startle Mia; her eyes went wide.

“When you encounter a crisis or come up against a problem, it’s okay to rely on other people. Everyone has the right to reach out and ask for help. That’s something Rill learned just recently,” Rill said, her expression softening.

It had happened at the Federal Council in New York last summer: Mia and Siesta had cooperated to combat a global crisis, and Rill had been fiercely against it. She’d been influenced by her past and her own circumstances, but she’d changed her mind since then.

“O-oh. I mean, I didn’t particularly…” Mia was bewildered by this unexpected development, and her gaze wandered. “…I understand, though. Thank you for telling me,” she finally murmured, a little bashfully.

A rather awkward silence fell again, and Mia coughed. “S-still, I never thought you’d make such a modest apology. Well, I guess as Tuners go, I do have seniority here. I’ll continue setting a good example for you, as your senior.”

Mia had pushed her chair back, but now she brought it forward again, and for some reason—seriously, why?—she puffed her chest out with pride. She’d tensed up, then relaxed again, and the conversation had taken so many unexpected turns that Mia had ended up getting carried away. The experience of having a meek junior for the first time in her life might have made her a little giddy.

“Huh? Um, Rill wasn’t apologizing.”

As Mia sat there looking satisfied, Rill arched an eyebrow at her.

“Huh? But you just said you were wrong…”

“All Rill did was admit that summarily rejecting your idea was a mistake. She never said her way of thinking was wrong. You were right, and so was Rill. That’s all.”

“Wha—! Y-you could’ve just genuinely apologized, you know.”

“Huh? What are you muttering about? Rill can’t hear you.”

“Olivia! How do I turn this thing off?!”

On the other side of the screen, Mia was panicking. “Olivia’s here with us,” I told her, but she didn’t hear me. Why did this sort of thing always happen whenever she got anxious? She did a lot of online gaming, so there was no way she was bad with technology.

“You haven’t changed a bit.” I smiled wryly, then I heard a little burst of laughter from the seat next to me.

Mia hadn’t noticed, but Rill definitely sounded like she was enjoying herself.

“What a weird girl.”

Rill had lost a close friend—or rather, her one and only rival. Would she make another friend she could open up to someday? Could this cowardly, pessimistic, stubborn, and impossible-to-abandon Oracle be that person? Or was that a future that could never happen?