The Culprit Is You (Everyone's Dead Except You)...! (2)

"Seol Miho is dead...?"

Wi Do-woon looked down with a vacant face at Miho, a red flower blooming across her chest. Beads of sweat welled on his forehead. To think a catastrophe like this would erupt in a special lecture he — a disciplinary committee member — had joined. He had no face left to show the head of the disciplinary committee, nor the student council president.

"The Wi family's heir-apparent is fidgeting♡ First time seeing a corpse?"

Dongbaek Rinje, clad in nothing but mercury, tilted her head. Sorcerers and corpses were inseparably bound; as a rule, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Jujutsu Bureau collected every body that turned up.

"Hold your tongue, harlot."

"Uhohoho. Wouldn't people think the guy in swim trunks and glasses is the bigger pervert?"

"Hey hey~. What's going on?"

A sudden, noisy voice cut in, and Do-woon and Rinje both turned.

Rumira appeared, slime splattered across her entire body, a chainsaw in her hand.

"Wooooow! Wow. Oh my gosh~! Is this even real~!? Yellow cards are a no-go, so I'm just gonna go feral~~!"

The moment she saw Miho's corpse, Mira's eyes went round and she bounced on her feet. A small tablet that had been flapping its wings dropped into her hand.

"Holy crap. Brutally murdering someone who's already down? That's insane~. Was it you?"

"Hmph. What a narrow-minded conjecture. She was already dead when I arrived. Late, are you? Why is that?"

"Ha. Unfortunately you guys all skipped the High Undine raid, so I had to take care of it myself, y'know. Pwah— I thought I was gonna drown in slime."

She twisted her mouth and shouted her complaints, then added, "Well, Deneb being in the mix played a part too."

Do-woon pushed his glasses up with his index finger and replied.

"I merely made the efficient choice. This special lecture has been a game of tag with the Swordsman from the very beginning. Spending time hunting Nephilim is actually a loss. There is no way Tanlangseong would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not have known that."

Rinje chimed in as she picked up the fox scarf, its eyes crossed into X's as if to make the death obvious.

"She's right. Miho was using Ho Baekgu, the Seol family's heirloom, to search for Swordsman-kun. She had the advantage over us."

"I can't tell if this is a jujutsu academy or a detective school~? So?"

Mira drew the word out, and Do-woon opened his mouth as if the whole subject made him uncomfortable.

"The Swordsman must have murdered Seol Miho."

A beat of silence passed. The two girls reacted with utter indifference.

"Wheew~~. What a delightful change of subject. Didn't you see him praying to the Nephilim earlier?"

"Oh my, I dueled him in a demonstration match. He certainly doesn't have the skill to take out the first-year runner-up without any resistance."

A rumor had circulated for a while that he'd taken down a divine beast on his own, but judging by Tanlangseong's affectionate attitude, it had probably been a special hire through connections.

Wi Do-woon, however, did not yield. His composure held.

"Well, I suppose a cadet branch of the Dongbaek family, or someone from a house of no pedigree, would not know. There was a vagrant girl who, under the pretext of pilgrimage, barged into the great houses and struck down their daughters and sons."

"Who are you calling a house of no pedigree~! What's a beggar kid got to do with anything?"

He answered Mira's whining with a face devoid of any humor.

"When it came to light that the girl was a sorcerer who creates stars, the jujutsu world shuddered, they say. Heaven and earth, overturned. They said she would be the genius to realize the Grand Cursed Technique Reaching the Forbidden — that which creates a new world. That girl is the present Tanlangseong, Hwi Eunha."

"Ayayaya. This story is insane~~?"

"And what's this about being childhood friends with Swordsman-kun?"

"The one sticking to Tanlangseong's side back then, playing her hypeman, was the Swordsman. Strength aside, she is a girl lacking common sense in any number of ways. Without the Swordsman, she would have starved to death — or been scooped up by a rogue sorcerer outfit."

"However," Dongbaek Rinje countered.

"Swordsman-kun is a non-sorcerer, isn't he? Even if he trained swordsmanship with the Namgung, he would have frozen solid before he ever touched Miho's body."

The Yongso princess incident had been an unexpected result, but it was understandable. It was common knowledge that with Summoning Type jujutsu, you had to target the main body first. Even a non-sorcerer could win by subduing the summoner. But Seol Miho, who exhaled a cold of 196 degrees below zero with a mere breath, was another matter entirely.

"He could have sweet-talked Tanlangseong into lending him all manner of cursed tools. There is precedent for a non-sorcerer killing numerous sorcerers."

"Well... I think otherwise."

Rinje narrowed her eyes and leveled the tip of a mercury tentacle at the boy.

"You're the first to find her, aren't you? And you brought a greatsword to the island. Didn't you stab Miho and pin it on Swordsman-kun?"

"Wh-what──?"

Wi Do-woon was so stunned he nearly bit his own tongue.

"Stop, stop... that's the pot calling the kettle black. You could reshape that squishy mercury into a razor and stab someone too, y'know. The only innocent one here is this great me!"

Rumira spread her palms, wearing a supremely confident smile. Rinje's Innate Cursed Technique, Quicksilver Surfer, was a jujutsu that manipulated mercury at will. It was, in fact, entirely possible.

"Fufu. You could make a wound like that just by jabbing with the edge of a chainsaw, you know?"

"Now, now, now. Let's not talk about scary things. The tropical island tour's already turned into a teenage slasher movie, which is problem enough."

Mira said this in a fluster and contacted Eunha, who was outside the island, via the tablet.

As a bright, ringing voicemail utterly devoid of any sense of responsibility played, the three each muttered to themselves.

"We can hardly expect Tanlangseong's mediation. She was never a woman who'd so much as twitch just because somebody died."

"Nyaha─. Tanlangseong can't enter the barrier according to the rules anyway."

"Miho's death is a shame, but the game of tag over the Star's Fragment isn't over, is it?"

The three, each harboring their own ambitions, scattered their separate ways.

As dusk settled, darkness dyed Lost Paradise.

"I was worried because of the volcanic zone, but there's a natural hot spring."

I slipped into the hot spring water pooled in a hollow and savored my tropical island vacation. Climbing into a hot spring in a swimsuit made it feel like I'd come to a spa. To set the mood, I'd picked up a wild coconut and even stuck a reed straw in it.

"Cheers, my dudes~" I muttered, and took a sip.

...It tasted like crap. Tasted like spoiled water.

Prrrrblub.

An Undine popped out of the hot spring water and shot me a curious look. I'd promised not to kill the High Undine and her kin, and besides, the point gap was already plenty wide — no reason to go after a 4-pointer.

Poroe too — am I just the type these beasts like?

I gave a wry smile and transfused coconut milk into her transparent body through the straw. She rippled violently—

...Huh!? The Undine's condition?

Even for a jujutsu lifeform, evolving with zero direction like that — what was this, Digimon instead of Pokémon?

As if to repay me, the Kelpie let out a high hiiiing of a neigh. I climbed onto its back, and it broke into a run. Before long we ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reached a stretch of white sand without a single footprint, like a blank sheet of paper.

I was in the middle of sightseeing the exotic beach from atop the translucent horse when I witnessed something terrible.

"Thanks for coming this far. Let me down."

The Kelpie let me down, then dove straight into the sea with a glug. I kicked through the white sand in my sandals and approached.

Rumira.

A girl with a flashy impression, a fairly famous influencer — a Jutuber with three million subscribers. Mira, who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was also a first-year in Class A at Seonggwan Academy, had been separated into body and head. Judging by the clean, straight cross-section, someone had cut her down in a single stroke. Her head, still wearing a bewildered expression, was rolling across the sand. She probably hadn't even known until the moment her head came off.

Even if she was cocky, she was the most decent of the four.

I bit down on my lower lip and let out a small sigh. Don't tell me they couldn't find me — the 3,000-pointer — so they were slaughtering each other? You'd have to catch seventeen Kelpies just to roughly match a single person, but still.

I can just knock them out. There's no need to kill.

In fact, I'd received 100 pt for defeating Seol Miho. No matter how badly they wanted the Star's Fragment, did they not realize Eunha would come down on them if they took a life? Naturally, they wouldn't get their hands on the Star's Fragment either. There was a sorcerer among the Seven Asterisms who could resurrect the dead, but the side effects...

That was the moment.

Wi Do-woon's voice, steeped in horror, echoed across the white beach. The glasses-wearing committee member's face was deathly pale, at odds with his bold words. Anyone watching would think he'd just laid eyes on a real murderer and frozen in terror.

It was common knowledge that the culprit always returned to the scene of the crime. In other words, that guy was the one who'd killed Mira.

Mercury tentacles extending from Dongbaek Rinje's body coiled around someone from every direction, like invertebrates craving prey. I'll leave what those tentacles were doing to them in there to your imagination.

Licking her lips, Rinje wore a seductive smile.

"Ufufu. You can surrender yourself to the pleasure♡ The Purgatory prison you're headed for will be as bland as a thousand days crammed into one, after all."

But before long the mercury prison writhed violently, then burst apart with a ringing clang, scattering into silver fragments.

Mercury was a highly fluid liquid, but it had a weakness: once frozen, it shattered easily. Nitrogen Flake, which commanded liquid nitrogen, was the natural enemy of Quicksilver Surfer.

Strange. But Seol Miho was already dead, wasn't she? How had this person frozen the mercury tentacles?

"Kyaaaaaaah──?"

Before Rinje could even demand an answer, a hook punched through her belly...