Hadn’t some goddamn bastard already twisted everything completely out of shape?
That was right. This world was already smeared all over with uncertainty. In truth, agonizing over such worries was foolish in itself.
“......It’ll work out somehow.”
Even so, after wrestling countless times with that lingering hesitation, I eventually picked up the handgun.
After that, I ran as fast as I could and arrived at the owner’s room.
The fourteen club members each wore expressions of different kinds of shock.
“W-What is this......”
In a space wider than five or six ordinary living rooms put together, the owner lay on the bed with a knife driven into his heart. Amid that scene of slaughter, the sobs of the maid who seemed to have discovered him first sank eerily into the air.
“M-Mr. Bedel......”
Kim Suho blankly murmured Verbet’s alias. Well, of course it would be shocking. Verbet had probably treated the cadets as generously and kindly as the grandfather next door. While he was at it, he would have thrown in some sentimental sob story like, ‘My good-for-nothing son who died before me also dreamed of becoming a hero......’
“Wait a moment. I’ll... I’ll check.”
While all the cadets stood dazed in shock, Yoon Hanhyun’s lover appeared.
The doctor, Natasha. I watched her actions closely. She slowly approached Verbet and checked his pulse. Then she shook her head.
“......He’s already passed away.”
After closing Verbet’s eyelids, which had remained wide open in death, Natasha returned to Yoon Hanhyun. The way she leaned on his shoulder, pretending to be fainthearted, looked entirely natural.
“W-What is this......”
Just then, even the butler came running in.
Now the butler would sob his eyes out and recite, one by one, all the fake good deeds Verbet had supposedly performed, along with the threats and assassination attempts he had allegedly suffered at the hands of wicked men.
But I had no intention of watching until the end.
Verbet would one day become an irritating schemer. With his tenacious survivability and cunning mind, he was the kind of bastard who would attach himself to the Djinn side and cause trouble all over the place. Since he was a hastily created villain, there was no telling what he might do in the future.
If possible, it was right to bring him down now.
“In the end, those bastards! Those bastards finally......”
“Please calm down, Mr. Butler.”
While the cadets were busy comforting the sobbing maid and butler, I turned on the lights first. In an instant, the room became brightly illuminated.
“Ah, what the hell. Why’d you turn on the light!”
When the murder scene and the state of the corpse were laid bare, Chae Nayun flinched and shouted.
I scanned the room and slowly approached Verbet.
“Excuse me! Don’t go near him!”
Natasha cried out urgently. Lightly ignoring her, I pretended to examine Verbet’s face and condition in detail. I lifted his collar to look at the wound and pointlessly pressed down on the blood-soaked bed. In other words, I was playing detective.
“Please come out at once. Until the police arrive......”
Unable to endure it any longer, Natasha approached me herself and tried to drag me away. But I took the gun out from my chest and aimed it at her.
“Don’t come closer.”
“......!”
Natasha raised her hands in surprise, and the butler, who had been crying until just now, hurriedly stood and shouted.
“W-What are you doing!”
Not only the butler, but the cadets gathered here also cried out in astonishment.
Facing those voices head-on made me feel extremely dizzy. Maybe it was because I had only just collapsed from exhaustion. It pissed me off. I gritted my teeth and shouted loudly.
“Shut the fuck up already!”
A voice so resonant that even I was surprised rang out from my mouth. In an instant, the room fell silent.
I let out a sigh and calmly spoke again.
“This man is running a scam. He isn’t dead. He’s in a state of, well, apparent death.”
“D-Don’t say something so absurd. I’m a doctor, who are you to—”
“I’m explaining that right now.”
Still keeping the muzzle aimed at Natasha, I continued.
“First. This wound is too unnatural. It’s too shallow to have been made by stabbing someone downward from above.”
I observed the scene however I pleased and recited the results. For now, I was just blurting out whatever I could see; to be honest, it might have been right, or it might have been wrong. But whatever the case, I knew the ending for certain, so the process didn’t matter.
“Next. There’s too much blood. The fatal wound is clearly only the one in the heart, yet the blood soaked this entire wide mattress and even flowed down to the floor. As if someone deliberately wanted to emphasize, ‘This person is definitely dead.’”
I glanced at Natasha’s face. There was still no sign of agitation.
“And lastly. This is the most decisive part.”
On my smartwatch, I pulled up the ‘International Wanted List.’ Even if everything else was sophistry and lies, this much was real.
The conman Verbet.
He looked much thinner in the photo, but he definitely resembled the face of this corpse.
Around this point, the cadets began to stir.
“Of course, compared to the photo, this corpse is so fat that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say they’re different people. But when combined with the two clues above, it’s enough to form reasonable suspicion.”
“......Mr. Butler. You called the police and an ambulance, right?”
But Natasha remained calm.
At Natasha’s words, the butler hurriedly responded.
“Yes, yes. I called them.”
“Then we can ask them when they arrive. There’s no need to make a scene like that man.”
That couldn’t happen. Once the bribed police and paramedics arrived, Verbet would smoothly escape from this place.
I had to press them before that.
I gave a small laugh and moved the muzzle from Natasha to Verbet. Only then did Natasha finally show signs of wavering.
“W-What are you doing! You!”
“What do you think? I’m going to fire one shot.”
“I told you the police are coming soon anyway!”
“You said he was dead anyway.”
I placed my finger on the trigger. The cold metallic sound rang out rather eerily.
“Th-That ruffian—honey. Stop that man!”
Natasha shook Yoon Hanhyun back and forth, urging him to step forward.
The butler, Verbet, and Natasha.
All three of them were in this together.
“Um, Student Hajin......”
Yoon Hanhyun cautiously called out to me.
“If you move even one step, I’ll shoot immediately. Kim Suho, especially you. I’m watching only you right now.”
“......Got it.”
Kim Suho, who had been trying to sneak closer, raised his hands.
I made the cadets back away. Then I spoke to Natasha.
“There are live rounds loaded in here, you know?”
“I told you we already called the police! Put that gun down, you!”
Sure enough, Natasha was trembling all over. That dramatic reaction alone was enough proof, but I still needed something more decisive.
“If you don’t talk by the time I count to three, I’m really going to shoot. He’s a corpse anyway, so it doesn’t matter, right?”
“What are you telling me to say! He’s already dead!”
I began the countdown.
“Three.”
I paid attention to the cadets. Just in case any of them tried to act out some useless sense of justice.
“Two.”
Unexpectedly, however, Kim Suho was calm, while Yoon Hanhyun was the one attempting to activate his magic power.
But someone stepped forward and stopped him.
“Please stay still.”
It was Yoo Yeonha.
Thanks to her, I was able to finish the countdown.
“One.”
Even now, Natasha gave no reaction.
“Then you’d better die.”
Click.
I actually pulled the trigger.
“No!”
It just wasn’t loaded.
But Natasha, unaware of that, rushed over, pushed me aside, and threw herself over Verbet as if to protect him.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
“......Hmm.”
I quietly lowered the gun. Now this was enough proof.
Verbet and Natasha were father and daughter. The reason Verbet, a fugitive, had gone out of his way to settle in France, and the reason he had invited Korean cadets, were all because of Natasha.
“Call a Hero, not the police. Tell them you caught a wanted criminal.”
As I said that, I loaded a magazine into the handgun. Then I fired. The magic bullet grazed the calf of the butler, who had been trying to run away.
“Aaaagh!”
After that brief scream, only a deep silence remained.
Feeling the renewed gazes of the other cadets, I walked outside.
My heart was pounding like mad.
* * *
The assassination case was a self-fabricated act staged by Verbet and Natasha. Verbet, a vicious criminal wanted throughout Europe, had come up with this plan in order to evade the investigative net that had tightened right under his chin. The fact that the easy mark his daughter Natasha had apparently hooked was a Cube cadet was also a positive factor.
The operation was called ‘Return After Apparent Death.’
Medicines that could put a person into a state of apparent death were expensive, but they certainly existed, and Natasha, a doctor who had once belonged to Cube, could obtain them easily.
The rest was simple.
With the help of a back-alley mage, he would create a fake fatal wound on his chest, enter a state of apparent death, and scatter blood packs around the scene. The paramedics who arrived would be unable to distinguish apparent death from actual death, and the police on the outskirts of Paris had already all been bribed by Verbet.
Then, while transporting the corpse, they would switch it with a body of similar build and face that they had prepared in advance.
Once that was done, the Cube cadets would testify. The credibility of their status as Korean nationals, and Cube cadets at that, went without saying.
Afterward, the officials he had already buttered up would work together, and the person known as Verbet would die on paper, while the real Verbet would be reborn under a new name.
Kim Suho would learn that truth much later.
But now, the story involving Verbet itself had been destroyed. I had destroyed it. Verbet was arrested by a Hero while still in his state of apparent death, and he would probably be in prison when he woke up. In other words, he would open his eyes and find himself in jail.
[The ‘Verbet’ requested by the questioner has currently been arrested by a Hero belonging to the local French Association and is in the process of being transported.]
[Congratulations, event winner. Since you are today’s first member, no question fee will be charged.]
And now, it was 9 a.m., after everything had ended.
I was sitting roughly on the floor, writing a reply to one of Verbet’s victims who had sent a question to the Truth Agency.
“......Are you Sherlock, by any chance?”
At that moment, a shadow fell over me along with a voice.
It was Yoo Yeonha. Without replying, I grinned.
In truth, the things I had said at dawn today didn’t quite add up. Because of the special circumstances of a murder case, everyone had been in too much of a hurry to think deeply about it.
But surprisingly enough—perhaps this, too, was thanks to luck—the precise forensic examination revealed that almost everything I had said was correct.
“From the Yoonhyun case to today. You could open a detective agency.”
“A shooter has a good eye.”
“That may be true, but how did you know the faces of criminals?”
I froze for an instant. Yoo Yeonha’s curiosity was always a sharp point.
“That is a family matter.”
That was all I could say.
“What’s with the formal speech?”
Yoo Yeonha replied curtly, but soon her face turned meaningful. Family matters, family matters...... She seemed to be repeating the words to herself and flying away on wings of imagination. Whatever misunderstanding she was trying to have on her own this time, I wasn’t even curious anymore.
But the words family matters suddenly made me think as well.
What were Kim Chundong’s family circumstances again? There were no official records besides ‘entered an orphanage.’
When I went home later, I would have to look into it in detail at least once.
End
To the world, the ‘Evil Society’ was branded as a synonym for evil. The UN and the Association had also officially designated the Evil Society as the number one target for eradication. In truth, there were many groups more brutal and tyrannical than the Evil Society, but its name had spread so widely into every corner of the mundane world.
However, that did not mean someone had fabricated that perception. The Evil Society had caused countless incidents in countries all over the world. From the struggle over Three Kingdoms era relics in China to the Battle of Suwon, there were almost no recent wars, large or small, in which the Evil Society had not been involved.
“Say that again.”
The base of such an Evil Society was, surprisingly, not very far away.
Russia, an artificial cavern built beneath the sea off Vladivostok.
That place was the base the Evil Society had kept secret for over forty years, and as time passed, its interior had continued to develop and develop again, until now it had become a cutting-edge facility so advanced that calling it a cavern was almost embarrassing.
“I apologize.”
“No, don’t apologize. Say it again, Silasen. So you’re telling me some...... cheetah showed up and interfered with the job?”
“It was a leopard. A suspicious man wearing a leopard mask.”
The Demonic Society’s foremost task had always been the recovery of relics. From the very beginning, its roots lay in a kind of consultative body formed by demons pondering how they might seize relics.
And the Ring of Homeros was an item that Kim Hakpyo, an executive of that Demonic Society—or, in more modern terms, the “team leader of the relic recovery team”—desperately wanted.
A ring of wisdom that amplified every power connected to magic, such as magic utilization, resonance, and cohesion. For a demonkin with an abnormally high amount of magic, it would be an especially useful relic.
“So, a leopard that looks like this?”
Kim Hakpyo thrust out the composite sketch. It had been drawn according to Silasen’s testimony: a man wearing a leopard-shaped helmet, with only the area around his mouth exposed.
“……Yes. He was no ordinary opponent.”
“I know. I heard you even lost one subordinate.”
“We lost Sidious. After observing his biological clock, it seemed he died in a single blow.”
“……”
Sidious. His defense was pathetic, but his swordsmanship was outstanding, and even Kim Hakpyo acknowledged his offensive power. He had been considered a promising prospect in his own way, a force capable of easily handling heroes up to at least the lower-mid rank.
“Did he seem like a demonkin?”
It was surprisingly common for demonkin to kill one another.
“No. But he didn’t seem like a hero either.”
“Then a mercenary or a hunter. Sweep through them from the top down. And tell them that even if they find him, they’re not to think of going after him alone.”
The Ring of Homeros was something Kim Hakpyo had vowed to obtain from the moment he heard about it from the “Collector.” He had no intention of letting it slip away.
“And the weapon?”
“Pardon?”
“The magic sword Sidious had. Do you know how much that thing costs? Did you recover it?”
“Ah…… no.”
A magic sword was a weapon humanity had created that—though of course it depended on the user’s magic—could exhibit power on the level of a relic. As such, it was extremely expensive. If a low-grade relic was worth 500 million, it was right around that mark.
“Right. Of course. Anyone with eyes wouldn’t have left something that expensive behind. It’s worth 500 million.”
Kim Hakpyo had no choice but to accept it. If 500 million had fallen on the ground, only a madman wouldn’t take it.
However, the sparks flew elsewhere.
“But why are you going around advertising that you’re a demonkin?”
“……Pardon?”
“That face of yours.”
Kim Hakpyo pointed at Silasen’s face. At that face still maintaining its black skin and blood-red pupils.
“Why are you so desperate to say, ‘I’m a demonkin’?!”
Kim Hakpyo’s rage became a tremendous reverberation that shook the interior. Silasen quickly changed his face.
“I apologize!”
In truth, this had been to disguise his identity. Since his appearance before and after demonization was completely different, it was an effective way to avoid having his face exposed.
But demonkin society was not so generous as to allow such excuses.
Silasen hurriedly dropped to his knees.
* * *
“……What am I supposed to use this for?”
Sunday evening.
I turned the magic sword this way and that as I thought. It was a trophy I’d obtained after taking down one of the demonkin back then, but it was utterly useless to me. I couldn’t handle magic through ordinary means, after all.
Of course, I could sell it for a high price, but something about it bothered me. No matter how much the Purple Banquet guaranteed anonymity, if the buyer happened to be a demonkin, I’d end up getting needlessly anxious.
So for now, I shoved the magic sword into a drawer.
“What am I supposed to use this for, too?”
This time, it was the Ring of Homeros. Since it had yet to bloom, it looked shabby, as if it had been molded out of dirt, but among relics, this ring belonged to a fairly unique category.
====
[Ring of Homeros] [Relic] [Unbloomed]
A ring once worn by Homeros.
Its ability is hidden.
===
To make this bloom, a fair amount of effort was required. But I had no intention of going through that trouble.
I simply used Setting Modification to erase the “un” from “Unbloomed.”
[49 SP will be consumed.]
It didn’t consume all that much SP. That was because the method to make this ring bloom was quite simple. Just—