Chapter 37
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 37
Investigator Jillian moved fast. Two days later, he reached out to me.
His face appeared on the screen of my terminal. He was walking down a street, looking like he'd just wrapped up an investigation.
"I met with Calesa's boyfriend. Or her ex-boyfriend, I should say, to be precise. Just like you told me—his family, his personality, his ability... he was never the kind of man who could stand up to Calesa Kano."
Exactly as I'd expected. Calesa had deliberately arranged for her boyfriend to make contact with Barbara. She'd needed a pretext to torment her.
"Sounds like you've made progress. Looks like choosing you was the right call."
"If I point out a suspect, do you actually have the authority to investigate them, Investigator?"
"I can poke around one or two of them. But if I'm barking up the wrong tree, it'll come down hard on me too."
"Then you don't really have much reason to investigate so diligently."
I questioned Investigator Jillian's zeal.
"Counting your case, there have been six android rampage incidents. This time there's even a death. Anyone can see it's the work of a human. And yet, because it happened inside the Academy, we haven't even been able to conduct a proper investigation until now."
"I didn't take you for a man with such a strong sense of justice."
Jillian burst out laughing and shook his head.
"It's nothing like that. My personality's just twisted, that's all. I want to slap the cuffs on the wrist of a culprit who pulls this kind of crap... and feels absolutely certain they'll never be investigated, never get caught."
I felt a strange kinship with him. In his position, I'd feel the same spite. Even if it meant carving away at my own flesh, I'd want to catch that culprit.
"Have you looked into Barbara?"
"Barbara? You think she's the culprit?" Jillian asked, sounding skeptical.
"I know that if we assume Barbara's the culprit, the motive itself falls apart. It doesn't make logical sense. She only attacked her own friends, isolating herself within the Academy. But she's been on my mind."
"Barbara's from the Lower District. She stood out in robotics and artificial intelligence engineering—earned herself special admission to Cracia Academy."
"With that kind of talent, wouldn't she be more than capable of manipulating androids?"
"According to the experts, it's practically impossible in reality. You and I are both laymen when it comes to engineering, so it's best to trust the specialists. If Barbara manipulated them... that would mean a mere student neutralized the Academy's security. The Academy's androids run on a closed network, so they say you'd have to breach the Academy's security network first before you could touch them."
"Then, assuming a noble's child is the culprit, how would they have manipulated the androids?"
"For a noble, it's physically possible. They could tamper with the manufacturing and distribution of the androids entering the Academy, or pre-install malware. With enough power and money, there's always bribery."
"That doesn't seem very realistic either."
"It's more plausible than your theory. There have actually been similar cases."
Once he brought up precedent, I had nothing to counter with. He was the expert on crime, after all.
"Oh, and I don't know if this helps... but Barbara's being sponsored by the Custoria family."
"...I think it helps a great deal."
After trading information with Jillian, I hung up.
It feels like the pieces are almost connecting—but not quite.
Everything was linked. But facts and motives were missing here and there, like gaps in a stepping-stone bridge. The direction was clear, yet it didn't line up perfectly.
"Hmm."
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling.
The surest method is torture.
Giselle and Barbara were nothing more than exceptional students. They'd never received training to endure torture or build pain tolerance.
The problem is, I can't do that.
There was an easy way—but I had to take the long road instead.
* * *
For the first time, I went looking for Giselle Custoria myself. Until now, she'd always been the one seeking me out.
Whirrrr.
Giselle was practicing cybernetic prosthetic maintenance. She stood at a workbench where a prosthetic leg and a prosthetic arm lay separated. The way she handled her tools was remarkably deft. Clearly, she hadn't ridden into Cracia Academy on her family's prestige alone.
"Give me a moment, Luka," Giselle said, turning her focus back to her work.
Keeping my distance, I glanced around the maintenance room. The students worked with serious expressions. Being nobles didn't mean they coasted along without effort.
Noble society is competitive in its own right.
Incompetent nobles get weeded out. Fail to fulfill your role within the family, and you're treated like trash. Even at the Imperial Guard Training Center, children of prestigious families trained themselves to the bone. Sometimes they even risked their lives.
Even fiercely proud Giselle Custoria was keeping tabs on me—a commoner from the Lower District—all for the sake of her standing and reputation within her family.
"What brings you here?" Giselle asked, taking a sip of water after finishing her work.
"I wanted to see you," I said flatly.
Giselle spat out her water, choking.
"Have you lost your mind?"
She didn't so much as blush. She just stared at me, her face a blend of contempt and disgust. She truly, genuinely couldn't stand me. Good.
"Just like you said—I must've gone mad from the side effects of a high-performance prosthetic body."
"Your sarcasm's top-tier. Just tell me the real reason you're here. I'm a busy person."
I scanned the room. There was no one else in the lounge but Giselle and me.
"From here on, I'd appreciate it if you didn't lie to me or hide the truth, Giselle Custoria."
"I don't appreciate that interrogative tone."
"I've officially received a request for cooperation from the Public Security Guard."
Giselle's eyebrow twitched.
"Are you seriously planning to play detective?"
"A soldier only follows orders. The Imperial Guard told me to cooperate, so I have no choice."
At the mention of the Imperial Guard, Giselle could no longer argue.
"I hate to say this, but let me remind you once more—I am the daughter of the Imperial Guard Captain."
A warning, leaning on her status. She was implying she could make life difficult for me. But it didn't work on me in the slightest.
I knew the Imperial Guard Captain's character well. He wasn't the type to punish me over his daughter's word.
"Are you tormenting Barbara because you want her expelled from the Academy? I found out the Custoria family is sponsoring her. Does it have something to do with that?"
I didn't bother dancing around it. Something existed between Giselle and Barbara. I had to define their relationship to find a lead.
"You know I was the second victim of the curse, don't you? Isn't that reason enough to hate her? We were friends before it happened."
"If you were real friends, you wouldn't hate Barbara this much over what happened. You'd have tried to break the curse together instead."
I said it, pressing in.
"We weren't close enough for me to help her like that."
Giselle tried to leave. She was hiding something.
"The Public Security Guard views the android rampages as deliberate manipulation. Based on the motives uncovered so far, you—Giselle Custoria—are the prime suspect."
I spoke quickly, cutting off her exit.
"You're saying I did it? I'm a victim of Barbara's curse too."
"A culprit disguising themselves as a victim is a common alibi. You're of the Custoria family, an aspiring engineer with knowledge of androids. You'd have the ability to subtly manipulate them."
"You've genuinely gone insane, Luka. Stay out of this."
Giselle flew into a rage. A perfectly natural reaction.
"I don't actually think you manipulated the androids, Giselle. So if you know anything, tell me all of it. My real suspicion is probably..."
My instincts pointed at Barbara. I was about to say it—then clamped my mouth shut.
Hiss.
The lounge door slid open. Barbara stood there, holding a lunchbox.
"Ah! Luka, I was looking for you. You weren't in your usual spot."
Barbara beamed. It looked like she was mocking me. How the hell had she found me? If I'd been followed, I'd have caught on long ago.
I narrowed my eyes. My teeth ground together without my meaning them to.
I exercised restraint. I suppressed the urge to grab Barbara by the scruff and slam her into the wall. I wanted to scrape out every secret buried inside her through fear and pain. Truth extracted through violence was of the highest purity.
"Don't smile, Barbara. It's annoying," I said, curling one corner of my lip.
I was in a foul mood. Barbara was acting like she stood a step ahead of me. A mere civilian—not even my superior.
"Lu-Luka? Why are you... talking to me like that...?"
Barbara looked flustered, eyes going wide. Soon they welled up with tears, as if to ask who in the world could possibly be more pitiful than her.
A culprit disguising themselves as a victim.
The exact words I'd just spoken. They fit Barbara perfectly, too.
A monster in sheep's clothing.
Barbara was no sheep. She had fangs and claws.
Her acquaintances were attacked one after another, and she was bullied for two years straight.
No sane person would wear a bright smile in a situation like that.
But there was no evidence. To name Barbara as the culprit, I needed proof.
Even if I have a talent for investigation... it's not my calling.
Confronting someone with evidence and interrogating them—that wasn't my style.
Lock the door, take ten minutes. Just ten minutes, and I could drag the whole truth out of Barbara's mouth. But I had to hold the urge down. My specialty was breaking people.
"I-I like you, Luka. You even saved me. S-so, if there's some misunderstanding, I want to talk it out."
Listening to her made me physically sick.
Crash!
I hurled a chair down right beside Barbara. The metal frame crumpled like it had been hit by a car.
"Luka! What do you think you're doing?!" Giselle screamed.
Having vented a sliver of my anger, I stared calmly at Barbara. Her smile slowly faded.
"Up until now, this was just entertainment to kill the boredom. But from here on, I'm serious, Barbara. You took me too lightly."
Barbara didn't scream. She just stared at me, blank. That lifeless, inorganic expression—that was her true face.
"Barbara... doesn't know... what you mean~"
She pushed the corners of her mouth up with her index fingers and thumbs, forcing a smile. She tilted her head to the side and looked at us. Her pupils were unfocused, utterly empty.
"Ah..."
Giselle's face froze. Her shoulders trembled visibly. A vivid terror coiled around her body like a snake.
Click-clack, click-clack.
Barbara walked over to the frozen Giselle.
"I'll leave the lunchbox right here. Enjoy it, Luka. And... Giselle, it was nice seeing you. See you again."
Setting down the lunchbox, Barbara brushed her hand across the back of Giselle's as she stepped back. Giselle wrenched her eyes away and turned her head aside.
"Haha..."
I laughed where I sat. Even I had gotten it wrong.
The power dynamic in this room had just been laid bare. Giselle was terrified of Barbara.
Click-clack, click-clack.
Barbara kept backing away, eyes on us, until she finally vanished through the door.
"Giselle," I called her name.
She had her face buried in both hands. Why was a young lady of the Custoria family trembling in such fear? Especially with her father being the Imperial Guard Captain of the Empire.
"Don't ask me anything. Just... spend your time quietly and leave the Academy. Please, Luka."
Unlike before, there wasn't a shred of hostility or contempt in Giselle's voice. It was nothing but a raw, pure plea.