Side Story: Jan
I am a genius.
Some would sneer at hearing me say it—what's so genius about that? Listen to her praising herself. Others might click their tongues and call me an insufferable woman. And if not that, then surely someone would wag a finger and declare that my arrogance pierced the very heavens.
It made no difference to me.
What was so strange about a genius calling herself a genius? I was merely stating a fact.
My name is Jan.
Tagging along after my father, the town sheriff, I had haunted crime scenes since before I could remember. I grew up in a world where the stench of blood and the crack of gunfire were nothing out of the ordinary.
While other children played tag, I read case files. Instead of playing with toys, I amused myself by staging make-believe crime scenes and deducing whodunit.
At first, everyone laughed.
"She's just playing pretend because she's the sheriff's daughter."
But as the years passed, people's reactions began to change. I found lost belongings. I saw through a thief's lies. In a case with not a shred of evidence, I predicted the culprit's every movement.
Even those who had brushed it all off as coincidence could no longer deny it, not after the same thing happened three times. Four times.
"If Jan says it, it's true."
At some point, people had started saying that. Honestly, who wouldn't feel good hearing such a thing?
No... to be precise, it was nothing more than the natural outcome.
Because a genius being recognized is the most natural thing in the world.
Today, too, my desk was buried under case files. Maps, memos, photographs, and newspaper clippings covered every inch of its surface—and at the very center of it all, a single name was written.
[ Salvatio. ]
It was the most bizarre criminal organization in the world.
Who the boss was. How many members it had. Where its stronghold lay. Nothing—absolutely nothing—was known. But one thing was known...
They killed without reason. No—perhaps there was a reason. But no one could even guess at what it might be.
Not for money. Not for power. Not for glory, either.
They moved as though the act of killing itself were the point.
An entire village had vanished overnight. A famous mercenary company had been wiped out without leaving so much as a trace.
And yet there was never a culprit to be found.
Salvatio. I alone could find that name where no one else could. It felt, at times, as if the traces were being shown to me and me alone.
The world feared that organization.
I did not. If anything, I found it fascinating.
Erasing every trace of themselves perfectly meant—conversely—that there had to be a crack somewhere.
A perfect crime does not exist. I knew that better than anyone. Staring down at the map, I felt the corner of my mouth curl upward.
"Wait for me."
With my fingertip, I tapped the name written there—Salvatio.
"I'll be the one to find you."
Whoever the boss was. However great a monster they might be. The moment of capture always comes in the end. And all that glory would belong to me and me alone.
Just thinking about it made laughter bubble up.
As expected—this case is mine to solve, too.
That was the moment.
"Mmm... almost there..."
I was muttering to myself, riffling through the records, when—
"Sweetheart."
"Eek!!"
The sudden voice at my back very nearly stopped my heart. I whipped around to find my father wearing his trademark good-natured grin.
"Dad!"
"My, my. I didn't expect you to jump like that."
"At least knock before you come in!"
"You were just so focused, sweetheart."
Stroking my hair, Father looked around the room. His eyes fell on the documents swamping my desk, and he broke into a grin.
"Working another case?"
"...Yeah."
"What's so hard about it?"
"...Not telling."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll offer to help."
Father snorted a laugh.
"I am the sheriff, you know."
"Which is exactly why—no."
I thrust out my lower lip in a pout.
"It only counts if I'm the one who solves it."
"Hahahaha!"
Father threw his head back and laughed.
"Our girl's got quite the appetite for glory."
"It's not about glory."
"No?"
"Nope."
Arms crossed, I declared with my chin held high.
"Because I'm a genius."
A beat of silence. Then Father laughed again.
"That's right. You are."
"...Huh?"
"Our daughter is a genius."
I was caught off guard for a moment. Ordinary people would scold you for saying such a thing.
Don't show off.
Be humble.
But Father had never once said anything of the sort. He had always simply believed me.
"So."
He gave my shoulder a light pat.
"See it through to the end, the way a genius should."
"..."
"But."
He raised a single index finger.
"If it ever gets too hard, say the word."
"It won't."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Not even once?"
"Never."
"Even if Dad offers to help?"
"Nope."
"Really, really?"
"Dad, you're a nuisance."
"That one hurt, you know?"
"You'll live."
I flashed a grin and pointed at the door.
"Because I'm solving this one all by myself."
Laughing in resigned defeat, Father raised both hands in surrender.
"As you command, Miss Genius."
With that, he left the room, and I heard the door click shut. I turned my gaze back to the materials.
I'm sorry.
I whispered it only inside my head. It wasn't that I didn't trust Father. If anything, it was because I trusted him too much.
But what people wanted wasn't the result. What mattered was who had delivered it. If Father had worked the case alongside me, people would inevitably say:
"In the end, her father's the one who cracked it, isn't he?"
I couldn't stand that. This case above all... Salvatio above all. I wanted to end it with my own two hands.
Time sprinted past. For days on end, I barely slept.
I drew lines across the map. Cross-referenced testimonies. Calculated routes of movement.
One small contradiction. One trivial detail in a witness statement. A single set of wheel ruts from an abandoned carriage. Everything locked together like pieces of a puzzle.
And then—
"Found it!!"
I shot to my feet. It had finally connected. Dozens of cases, all pointing toward a single place.
"So this is where you've been hiding."
My fingertips trembled. Salvatio's stronghold. At last. Laughter spilled out of me and wouldn't stop.
It was almost over.
Gather the sheriff's men. Hire mercenaries. Strike all at once. No matter how fearsome Salvatio was, they could never stand against a force that size.
Victory was a sure thing.
I arched into a long, deep stretch.
"Whew."
All that remained was to report.
But...
"...Sleepy."
My eyelids drifted shut on their own. I hadn't slept properly in days.
I'll sleep deep tonight and report first thing tomorrow.
I flung myself onto the bed. It took less than ten seconds for me to black out.
The next day, the weather was impossibly fine. Blue sky. A gentle wind.
My steps felt strangely, absurdly light this morning. Why, I wondered? Because I'd found Salvatio's stronghold? Because the apple I'd eaten at breakfast had been unusually sweet? Or... because the long investigation was finally, finally over?
I didn't know the reason. All I knew was that I felt wonderful.
Humming a tune, I stopped in front of the sheriff's office and flung the door wide open.
"I'm here! Morning, everyone!"
No answer. It was far, far too quiet.
On any ordinary day, someone would have tossed back a teasing greeting. Someone would have been nursing a cup of coffee. Someone would have been buried to the ears in paperwork.
But.
The silence was wrong. A little. Just a little—a chill slid down my spine.
I walked slowly inside. And then...
—Splat.
The sound of my foot landing in liquid echoed off the walls.
"...Huh?"
Red. The liquid soaking the floor was an impossibly vivid red.
A familiar color. One I had seen a hundred times over, helping out with the sheriff's work.
Blood.
Blood that looked still warm—like it had been spilled only moments ago.
"...What..."
My heart began slamming against my ribs. Slowly, I raised my head.
The corridor was silent. Too silent.
The laughter that should have been ringing through it. The shuffle of turning pages. Someone's habitual grumbling—none of it. The only sound was blood crawling along the floorboards, seeping into my ears.
"...Hello...?"
No answer.
"...Anyone...?"
Nobody. I started to run.
"Where is everyone?!"
The instant I threw the door open, a reek of copper flooded my nose.
Bodies.
Not just one. A man slumped dead against the wall. A woman face-down on her desk. Someone torn apart past all recognition. The people who had always laughed with me lay scattered about like butchered meat.
"......"
My mouth wouldn't open. No scream would come. My eyes only grew wider and wider.
And then—
"So you finally came."
A man's voice—low, and cold as a blade. I looked toward it on pure reflex. In that very instant, someone seized the back of my neck.
—SLAM!!
My face was driven straight into the floor.
"Ugh...!"
The breath jammed in my throat. The force pressing down on my neck was so absolute I couldn't so much as flex a finger.
"Eri."
The man's voice—serene, unhurried.
"Control your strength."
"Tsk."
The woman pinning me down clicked her tongue.
"She won't die from this much."
Gritting my teeth, I lifted my head. Hair streaked half violet, half white. A body sheathed in muscle. A woman holding a yellow spear.
And... a man standing behind her. Black clothes. A face warped beyond all reading.
"Who... are you people?"
The man didn't so much as curve his lips at my question.
"I."
He said it flatly, as if remarking on the weather.
"Am the boss of the Salvatio you hunted so desperately."
"...What?"
For a heartbeat, I doubted my own ears. The boss of Salvatio? Here? In front of me?
"And."
He walked unhurriedly to my desk and leafed through the materials stacked there. The evidence I had bled night after night to collect. Skimming over it, he smirked.
"You found more than I expected."
"..."
"So I came in person."
"Why?"
"A warning."
"...A warning?"
"To tell you to stop flailing at things far beyond your place."
The single sentence closed around my throat like a hand. And yet—something was off. He wasn't killing me.
Why?
Wasn't Salvatio an organization that left no witnesses alive?
"...I won't ever investigate again."
I forced the words out through a trembling voice.
"Truly?"
"Yes. Never again."
He nodded, slow and easy.
"Ha... you're a hopeless liar, you know that?"
"..."
"You're the sort of person who doesn't know how to quit."
For a moment, my heart seemed to stop dead. How did he... know what kind of person I was?
He glanced quietly beneath the desk. Took hold of something, and dragged it out.
"...Dad?"
It was my father—bound hand and foot, his mouth taped shut. Every inch of him was soaked in blood.
"Dad!!"
The man ripped the tape from his mouth.
"Give your daughter one last lesson."
Father looked at me. His face was not afraid.
If anything...
It was sorry.
"Sweetheart..."
His voice shook.
"What you did... investigating Salvatio..."
"..."
"I never once regretted—"
In that instant.
"Eri."
One word. That was all it took.
Without a flicker of hesitation, the woman drove her hand into my father's mouth.
—Crunch.
With a sound I will never be able to forget, half of his head was torn away. Red blood and shreds of flesh sprayed across the room.
"...Ah."
The world went white. No scream came out. My body wouldn't move. All I could do was watch.
The man crouched down in front of me.
"Look carefully."
"..."
"This—"
He seized my chin and forced my eyes up to meet his.
"—is the price of meddling with me."
And then. His left eye ignited.
Gold.
Beautiful—dazzlingly, achingly beautiful.
But at the same time... the most terrifying light in existence.
"A fascinating ability, isn't it?"
"..."
"You won't remember my face."
He gestured at his own face.
"My hair color."
His voice dropped lower.
"My voice."
And last of all, he pointed to his left eye.
"You won't remember any of it."
"..."
"But."
The golden pupil burned brighter still.
"This eye—you'll carry for the rest of your life."
When the words ended, even breathing became impossible. My body shook. I wanted to run.
But I could not move.
"Eri."
"What."
"Burn it."
"This bitch too?"
"Don't worry. She won't die."
The next moment, the very air warped. A monstrous heat swallowed the room whole.
The curtains went up in flame. The desk sagged and ran like wax. The walls charred black.
"AAAAAAAGH!!"
The stench of roasting flesh. The agony of skin melting away. A sensation like blood—no, not tears—streaming down my face.
But worse than any of it—far worse—was the fact that I could do nothing at all.
I couldn't save my father.
When I opened my eyes, an unfamiliar ceiling stared back at me.
"You're awake."
One of Father's colleagues asked quietly,
"What happened to you?"
"..."
I had to tell them. About that day. I had to tell them all of it.
But my mouth refused to open. The moment I tried—
That eye rose up before me.
The golden pupil. It felt as though it were watching me still, right now, this very second.
"..."
In the end, I never said a word.
Years went by. I never left my room. I never opened the window. Because if I stepped outside—
I felt that eye would come looking for me.
Father's last words circled my ears without end.
Regret...
Yes. I regretted it. No—I had to regret it. If I had never investigated—
Father might still be alive.
Every single day, I took myself apart with those words.
Then one day, a rumor swept through town: Salvatio had been annihilated. Some said the Hero had destroyed them. Others said the organization had torn itself apart from within. I had no way of knowing what was true.
But.
I didn't believe it. Those golden eyes.
He was still alive. I was certain of it.
—Knock, knock.
A familiar voice drifted in from beyond the door.
"Jan."
"..."
"Found this while cleaning up, a while back."
An envelope slid through the gap in the door.
"It's a letter your father left behind."
I didn't move. The envelope lay where it had fallen on the floor.
Months passed.
Then one day—
For no reason at all. Truly none.
I picked up the envelope. Carefully, I unfolded the letter inside.
Familiar handwriting. Father's handwriting.
I knew you were investigating Salvatio. I knew full well how dangerous it was.
But I do not regret it. Not the road my daughter chose to walk, in the name of justice.
I am proud of you. Even if I should die.
I will never regret it.
"...Ah."
My hands shook.
That day. The words Father had left behind.
Were not I regret it.
They were I don't regret it.
Words he died at Eri's hand before he could ever finish. I had misunderstood them all this time.
"...Dad."
The tears wouldn't stop. I wept for a long, long while.
For the first time in years, I cried out loud.
A few days later, I gripped the doorknob of my room.
I was terrified. Even now, that eye flickered behind my eyelids.
But.
This time.
I didn't want to run.
I opened the door. The light was blinding.
"Jan?!"
A voice, astonished. I smiled, slowly.
"I want to start again."
My voice still trembled.
"I want to protect people."
A beat of silence. Then the middle-aged man smiled back, the rims of his eyes red.
"Good."
He brought me the sword that had hung on the wall. Old and worn—but more precious than anything else in the world.
"It belonged to your father."
I took the sword in both hands.
"...Thank you."
"I oiled it every day so it would never rust."
"...Really."
Tears welled up all over again.
"Thank you."
I am still afraid. The golden eye. The nightmares of that day. Neither has gone away.
But.
Now I understand.
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is walking forward even while you tremble.
I buckled the sword at my hip. And for the first time—I walked forward, head held high.
That day, a hero took her first step into the world. And though the road before her might lead straight through hell, she set out all the same—to change it.
