The Beginning of a Legend
The Beginning of a Legend
Winet Holmes, Isaac's partner, came to the cabin as soon as the train arrived at the station, having been contacted in advance.
As a mage belonging to the Magic Investigation Unit and a specialist in crime scene analysis, she took over the investigation from Isaac, looked at his notes, and immediately mentioned murder.
Isaac couldn't help but be startled by her words.
He had thought something was off, but he never expected her to call it a murder case right away.
「What basis do you have for that judgment?」
The precise analysis hadn't even begun yet, and she was drawing conclusions just from what he had jotted down in his notebook.
「Because I figured out the murder method.」
Less than ten minutes had passed since arriving at the scene.
Isaac was astonished at Winet's claim that she had identified the method without even examining the scene properly.
He knew his partner was competent, but this was beyond competent.
「What? What's the method? How did you know?」
Startled, Isaac asked, and Winet let out a small sigh.
「I should be asking you that. You've already worked out the clues, so why can't you get the answer?」
Winet pressed her forehead, complaining of a headache as she looked at her partner—sharp yet oblivious.
Winet was the brains, Isaac the instincts.
The two were like oil and water in terms of personality, yet at the scene, they displayed explosive synergy and chemistry as a duo.
This time, that duo had pulled it off again.
「In your scene notes, you said that when you entered the cabin, you found it strangely hard to breathe and stuffy, right?」
「Ah, yes. Even though I took it easy during the vacation, I didn't slack off on training...」
He had been feeling a sense of shame as a knight, wondering if he had gotten tired just from moving around inside a cramped train.
「It wasn't because of your lack of training. The carbon dioxide concentration in the cabin was abnormally high.」
If you trap a person in a sealed room and flood it with carbon dioxide, the oxygen runs out, and they die as if falling asleep.
「These two died from the poison called carbon dioxide.」
It was a cold winter.
Both windows and doors had been tightly shut.
The carbon dioxide that filled the naturally formed sealed room killed the two men.
Because Isaac entered the cabin while it was still full of carbon dioxide and investigated things, he felt unwell.
The proof was that now, after some time had passed, he was fine.
That meant the cabin door had been opened, ventilation had occurred, and the carbon dioxide evidence had been blown away.
「Now, all that's left is to figure out how the cabin was filled with carbon dioxide and who could have done such a thing...」
There's no way the cabin was accidentally filled with carbon dioxide.
That means someone deliberately filled it with carbon dioxide.
Winet began backtracking based on the murder method she had identified.
「Team leader-nim! Team leader Holmes-nim! We've finished identifying the two deceased.」
While interrogating the people at the scene again, a subordinate came running.
「It's gotten a bit troublesome. The deceased are nobles. Both of them.」
At this report, Winet's cool poker face twisted into a grimace.
Nobles.
Beings who are both envied and resented.
As such, for better or worse, there are many people targeting them, and their relationships are complicated.
Thinking about tracking all of that down to find the culprit and motive already gave her a headache.
Actually, that's not so different even for commoners.
The real problem when the victims are nobles is that their families aren't very cooperative with the investigation.
From autopsies to various cause-and-effect investigations, some even go beyond non-cooperation to outright obstruction.
There are cases where they ignore public authority and cause a stir, saying they'll catch the culprit themselves.
There are various reasons: political issues like dissatisfaction with the strong authority of the Magic Investigation Unit, and the complaint that they dare to conduct investigations that could tarnish the honor of a noble's death.
To be blunt, there aren't many nobles who wouldn't stir up dust if shaken, so the Magic Investigation Unit's investigation could lead to awkward situations—that's why they dislike it.
「Haah...」
I really hate this.
With a sigh that clearly conveyed that feeling, Winet spoke to Isaac.
「You handle meeting the bereaved families. I'll stay here and continue the analysis.」
「No, that's not right.」
A knight and a mage.
They had a status comparable to nobles, but only quasi-nobles.
Dealing with nobles was a pain, and they pushed the task onto each other.
Logically, Winet should handle this.
But Winet sometimes makes illogical choices.
「Let's go together.」
Not wanting to die alone, Winet dragged Isaac along, visiting the families of the two victims respectively to deliver the situation and listen to their circumstances.
「M-my son died?」
「We'll handle this matter ourselves, so the Magic Investigation Unit should step back.」
Through that exhausting process, Winet and Isaac gradually began to approach the truth.
In mystery stories, outlandish crime tricks are fun, but it's also enjoyable to uncover human relationships and truths, like motives.
「So that scandal was true.」
「These scumbags...!」
And the two learned the story of a woman whose life was ruined by the antics of the two noble scions.
Recently, a nasty trend had been circulating among idle noble young masters who couldn't contain their boredom.
It was to pick out a commoner woman, toy with her heart and body, and then discard her.
This culprit was also a victim of such antics.
Worse, she was toyed with by a particularly malicious one.
Not only did he approach with words of love, toy with her, and discard her, but he also committed a double kill—giving the woman, who was suffering from the pain of heartbreak, a healing medicine called new love, only to kill her again.
The two young masters had colluded to inflict a kind of hope torture on her. It was truly nauseating.
If it were up to her, she'd want to side with the woman and say the trashy noble scions deserved to die, but reality wouldn't allow that.
No matter the reason, murder was a crime.
Moreover, she had planned and killed two people, and they happened to be nobles.
No matter how much the two understood the culprit emotionally, their job was to pursue the truth and catch the murderer.
『And... there's something that bothers me.』
Winet was lost in thought.
In any case, there was no choice but to arrest her.
Thinking that inwardly, the two apprehended the female suspect.
Whether she had anticipated this as the investigation net closed in, the female culprit accepted the arrest quietly.
Then the interrogation began.
They had already found and secured the tools of the crime in the woman's home, and more than anything, she didn't seem to have any intention of denying that she was the culprit.
She confessed to everything willingly.
She said she had a grudge and took the opportunity to take revenge.
She confessed that it wasn't just her—seeing the two calmly scouting for their next plaything, she thought that if she left them alone, more victims like herself would appear, so she committed the crime.
At the end of her blazing fury, the woman misused a tool used to extinguish fires at the scene, killing the two men by carbon dioxide poisoning.
She confessed everything, saying she had acted as if she were a witness and disposed of the carbon dioxide generator.
And so the culprit was arrested, and the case was closed.
They thought this one was a done deal, all finished—but──.
「It's strange.」
Unlike Isaac, who wore a complex yet relieved expression, Winet showed a uneasy reaction.
「Strange? What is?」
As he blinked at her, thinking everything had been neatly resolved, Winet sipped her coffee and explained.
「Isn't it? This crime required a certain level of magical knowledge to even plan, let alone execute. But a woman who's just a florist planned a murder using carbon dioxide and fire extinguishing equipment...?」
「Maybe her grudge was that deep, and she researched by reading books or something?」
Isaac suggested that she might have prepared, driven by a blazing fury, like exerting superhuman strength at a fire scene.
His words weren't wrong, but Winet's troubled expression didn't ease.
「Hmm...」
Normally, Isaac's words would be correct.
But ironically, Winet, who usually prioritized logic and analysis unlike the instinctive Isaac, couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, relying on a strange intuition this time.
Still, what could she do?
The culprit was already caught.
There was no situation where there was a different real culprit, and even though something nagged at her, it was a discomfort that was hard to explain, so the case was closed.
Of course, she never thought that someone might have "consulted" on the murder method. And so, one case came to an end.
And Noel, who had put the final period, thought:
'Huh? I wasn't planning to make this a series...'
As she wrote, the chronic disease of a web novel author had unconsciously activated.
That was: cutting off with a cliffhanger and planting seeds.
Just like Hollywood movies always leave something like a post-credit scene hinting at a sequel, Noel had done the same out of habit from writing web novels.
"Should I──."
She considered editing it, but in the end, she didn't want to touch it at this point.
She thought that the current lingering feeling was just right.
After a brief moment of thought, Noel decided to just go ahead, do the final review, and complete it.
Ending the story in a way that suggested a sequel or that there was more to come wasn't necessarily a problem, was it?
She could just say that's how it ends, and besides, ending it this way might stimulate her younger sister Noah's imagination and help her emotional development.
However, there was one thing.
"Is it okay for the kids to read this?"
Noah was already 13 years old, but she wondered if it was okay for her to read about planned murder and such.
So after a moment's thought, Noel decided to use her editor card.
She would ask for a preliminary check on whether she should censor it or if it was fine for a 13-year-old girl to see.
And so, Sophie Ember read 「Magic Investigation Unit」.
She recalled a sensation she had momentarily forgotten, as Noel had been churning out manga, pure literature, games, and the like lately.
This flavor!
This thrilling flavor!
The high-quality taste of dopamine that only Noel could provide!
For the first time since 「Diary in My Heart」, Sophie spoke in a voice thoroughly intoxicated by the dopamine she was encountering through text.
"So, author-nim? When does the next story come out?"
Well... that's how it turned out.