The Ryabolsk Serial Murders

Lupin had come to a very large realization the day before.

If you cracked a Secret Safe in the dead of night, you didn't have to look at any blood!

It had been the same with Milwi, and with every Secret Safe since — how much blood had she seen? Bad people, by their very nature, spent every trick they had guarding the things they'd piled up by doing bad things.

And that was where the Jade of Spontaneous Life proved nothing short of exquisite. Sleep only half as long, and she could scatter her pigeons before sunrise, pop the safe, and still get her rest. No need to fuss over blood on a blade. Just pluck the treasure chests out, one after another, neat as you please. Pigeons on the wing at night glittered, too, so their positions showed up beautifully.

And so, with that extraordinary brain of hers, Lupin established her daily schedule. By ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠day, wander about at a lazy stroll ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and hunt for Secret Safes. By night, three hard hours of focus. Bam. The perfected routine of a student cramming the night before an exam.

Astonishingly, the routine turned Lupin into a person. The beast who opened her eyes around lunch, ate a halfhearted lunch, opened chests, ate dinner, opened chests, ate a late-night snack, and then planted her rear and passed out had finally become human.

Reborn, Lupin was clever. She even knew how to pace her treasure chests now!

"A person ought to be able to look ahead."

No matter how many Secret Safes spawned in proportion to the number of villains, she had to remember that those, too, might someday vanish. She must not forget the resolve she'd made when she lost every treasure chest. Practice restraint, even with a chest sitting right in front of her. Invest steadily in growth, and try her hand against the world's true powers.

The first step was aura training. The first step toward opening treasure chests without flinching, no matter what powerhouse stood in the way.

Pa-pa-pa-bam.

Did I have a spirit root I didn't even know about...?

Lupin's inborn constitution, however, was anything but ordinary. Training simply became easy mode, as naturally as breathing. She hadn't even done anything that deserved to be called training. Climb the hill behind the Association, send a pigeon into the sky, and a two-star breakthrough was available on the spot. One click, the currency spent, and congratulations, dear customer — you are now two stars.

Wait, I'm really two stars? Just thinking about it makes me way too happy~!!!

"At this rate, ten stars will be here in no time."

Climbing slowly might stress you out, but climbing fast had not a single downside. Anyone who had played an open-world gacha even once would understand. There was a brutal difference between stocking currency in advance and maxing a character the moment they launched, and slowly piecing them together after release. You want to enjoy the shiny new character right away, and growth and gear slam the door in your face. Only someone who had felt that particular suffocation knew it.

The gallery would already be nothing but talk of that character, and you'd be the only one falling behind. That was a quiet kind of stress.

Why would any of that stress Lupin, who only had to open chests? Because the moment a character appeared who soared clean through the sky, or glided at ridiculous speed, or sprinted straight up a cliff — a disgustingly broken character, by Lupin's standards — she would have no choice but to raise it. Even the Dimensional Wanderer (Phantom Thief) that served as her current base was, by her measure, an insane, universe-transcending meta pick.

"Getting stronger fast can't hurt."

Lupin bounced in place, taking stock of her body. She wanted to be sure she still had vitality to spare before trying the two-star pigeon magic. Aura was wonderful in every respect; its one flaw, if it had one, was that it drank her life. Invest in the related Growth Value, Life Trade, and the penalty would shrink, so she would have to keep promoting it.

But what did raising Life Trade require? Using aura. Steadily.

She remembered what a trainer had told her at the one gym she had ever visited in her life.

"Repetition, mastery, habituation — that's the answer, member."

"There are no shortcuts. Don't run."

A chill crawled up her spine for no good reason.

Surely flicking out a handful of pigeons wouldn't make her just drop dead.

"Big Bro Taechang, Big Sis Star — watch over me."

Lupin offered up a prayer that wasn't quite a prayer and snapped her fingers.

"Hnk—?!"

Lupin's body was flung out into the cosmos. She blew past the limit of speed a person could perceive. If you were moving at something like ten times the speed of light, would the world look like this? Tear it apart frame by frame and still it was the stratosphere, the moon, Saturn, and anyhow a countless smear of stars she didn't know, and then, all at once, she was in the heart of a galactic cluster.

For a long while after that, Lupin only blinked.

"What. What just happened."

Look this way, look that way — an endless river of stars. The star-shoal ran on without end, and she couldn't tell where the river came from or where it was going. She twisted her body this way and that, but this was open space, and it would not let her move freely. Was she going forward? Was she stopped dead in place? Staring at the stars scattered so far away, distance and the line between real and false all blurred together until she was dizzy.

"Big Bro Taechang? Big Sis Star? Hello~?"

What was this? Had summoning the pigeon been a bug trigger? No — this wasn't inside a game. Then why, exactly, was this happening?

How long did she lie there, unable to produce a decent answer? Something caught her back, and her body spun in a slow, helpless turn. Soft skin. A familiar feel.

A goddess without a neck, lying sideways amid the star-clouds. Each motion of her hands painted a whole river of stars. Her endlessly spreading skirt was the night sky's aurora, meeting the star-clouds. Big Sis Star, whom Lupin often met in dreams. Destiny's Star, who appeared alongside the status window whenever she had nothing better to do.

Looking at her, Lupin felt as if she were being crushed. As if an invisible hand had closed tight around her and meant to burst her. As if a pure and malice-free power were about to tear her to pieces. She shrank in on herself without meaning to.

Huddled as small as she could manage, Lupin asked.

"I didn't... die, did I?"

Destiny's Star shook her shoulders from side to side: no.

Classic Big Sis Star. When she shook her shoulders, the whole universe shook with them.

"So this is you, barely clinging to a breath."

"Whew. We only ever met when I was dreaming. I thought I was dead."

"Thank that bead at your waist. You were lucky."

The Jade of Spontaneous Life — you again? Letting her sleep less and saving her life besides. Just wait until this pretty little thing woke up. She was tying it around her waist in twenty layers, thirty, so it could never run away.

"So you knew too, Sis? Wow! The Jade of Spontaneous Life. It is seriously the ultim—"

"Stop chattering and head back already, won't you? If you stay here, my entertainment disappears."

Big Sis Star flicked a hand, telling Lupin to go down. But Lupin, her curiosity unsatisfied, could not have been stopped even if Star's own mother had shown up!

"Wait, the Jade had an immortality coin in it too? I didn't see anything like that when I apprai—"

As if delivering a flick to the forehead, a gigantic finger sent Lupin hurtling.

"Hngh-yah?!"

The feeling of being flung in from the far side of the universe, of a dizzying plunge, of being driven into the ground. She felt it often when she woke from dreams, and every time she found she had rolled off the bed or off somewhere high. This was no different. Lupin had tumbled a good ten meters down from where she had been standing.

She pushed herself up and swayed. Her arms and legs trembled as if she had starved for days. She really had nearly died. The realization settled in, cold and late.

"Ow. From now on... I'll have to use it... carefully..."

For no particular reason, Lupin fiddled with the Jade of Spontaneous Life at her waist. If she had died fighting the great evil of the world, that would have been one thing. A person who died swinging their proud greatsword because they simply had to have one last happy time before facing the great evil of the world would vanish without even a line in the histories. Just now, Lupin had nearly claimed that particular disgrace. The price ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of forcing out white pigeons.

"So even when I'm unconscious, the recovery speeds up enough to keep me clinging to a sliver of health...? This relic is completely insane."

Lupin bowed twice toward no direction in particular. Maze Rat — the only villain among villains to receive a courteous reception.

In a half-wrecked state where she felt about to die, she couldn't do a thing. Sleep first, think later. Lupin closed her eyes.

Another murder. The culprit had grown bolder still. Ten people died, and minutes later pigeons came winging in and ten more lost their lives. As if to say, go on, try and catch me.

Fortunately, Lupin never made the list of suspects. The sunlight was too dazzling to permit anyone to look up, and so no one had witnessed where the pigeons came from. Perhaps she had decided that launching them by day was safer than by night?

But this was Lupin.

Since when has she been someone who thinks before she acts...

Vatslava simply could not swallow the brimming bowl of facts in her heart. Whether or not anyone knew of her worries, the mood at investigation headquarters was a festival, buoyed by the hope that the case would soon be solved.

"If we close it tomorrow evening, how about a team dinner?"

"The drinks you have after solving a chest— no, a case — are just that sweet. I'm in!"

"Spread the word to everyone for now. Our hero, Miss Vatslava, will of course be attending?"

Vatslava met the pressure to attend with no response at all. She hadn't meant to ignore them. She was busy chasing the source of a feeling that kept snagging at her, unpleasant and persistent. She didn't know why, but somehow the pigeons of day and the pigeons of night felt as if they served different purposes. Today of all days her luck was booming. A great detective, sixth sense exploding.

"Um. I still think it's too early to celebrate victory. We haven't even caught the culprit."

That single remark dropped the room into silence. People who had been buzzing over the dinner went quiet all at once.

"Ah. I'm sorry. The mood was nice, and I went and said something unnecessary..."

"If you've come to investigation headquarters, focus on the investigation. Why is everyone already talking about drinks?"

"The case is not closed yet! All of you, take some responsibility and give everything you have to the roles you've been assigned!"

Unexpectedly, Vatslava had a talent for handling people. Once the unruly mood had been put in order, the head of the investigation spoke.

"Yes. Regrettably, we failed by a hair to stop the second set of victims. But I believe we can stop the third. Once again, I ask for your insight."

The place chosen this time was the second of the three locations she had discussed with Lupin.

"Here. I expect the Noveka tree in the Eastern District."

The moment they heard it, the eager police bolted. So did the detectives. Aside from the rarest occasions, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠detectives were treated like sacks of barley set out for show — when had there ever been a case in which one performed this brilliantly?

In the investigation headquarters, hollow now that everyone had cleared out, Yegor asked.

"So. What now? Do we have to keep playing along with this ridiculous farce?"

Vatslava sighed and nodded.

"Yes. For now. There's more I need to find out."

At the whisper that followed, Yegor went pale with shock.

A loss of life force severe enough to kill was settled by half a day's sleep, with the Jade of Spontaneous Life for company.

"Nnnnngh—!"

Lupin rose, stretching with everything she had. Her body felt as refreshed as if she had just received an emperor's spa treatment. The world around her had gone pitch-dark. On the hushed hill behind the Adventurers' Association, there was nothing but the chirring of insects.

"Secret Safe!"

Two places surfaced in her mind. The nearer of the two was the giant tree in the Eastern District. A refreshed body meant a good mood, and when the fun rose on its own, a song she had been brainwashed with in childhood sometimes came floating up.