Professor Niger, Let's Commit a Murder. (4)

It had been a peaceful day, one that paid no heed to what was going on inside my head.

Because it was the final day of the festival, the crowds had swelled even thicker than before, and the voices of street vendors hawking their wares with feverish intensity—as if burning through the last embers of the week—echoed in my ears.

Just like the uneventful Wednesday and Thursday, it almost seemed to whisper that nothing would happen today either.

Quite the opposite, in fact: my heart kept pounding a heavy thud, thud, its rhythm surging through my whole body, and beads of nervous sweat soaked into my collar.

Unlike the last two days, which had offered a brief reprieve, today was the day things would truly go wrong.

Because the absurd notion that no terror attack would occur wasn't something even Uncle Charles, sleeping next door, would believe.

Which is why I'd made the same request of Elia, who had come looking for me insisting we stay together again today.

"Professor Elia, since today is the last day of the festival, wouldn't it be better for us to split up and patrol the area more thoroughly?"

"No, but... it's been fine the past two days. Do we really have to..."

I could see her expression crumpling into a sulk at my words.

No.

That is genuinely unfair, you know.

"In exchange, I'll make it up to you for not being together ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠today. This weekend."

"Huh? Is this a d-d, date invitation...?"

"Yes, it is. So please, I'm counting on you."

"Oh! Then of course! I'll search everywhere and arrest every single suspicious person I find!"

That's really not necessary, but.

"Yes, please do."

"You got it, Professor Niger! Hehe!"

It was a rather wonderful thing, being able to draw out that much enthusiasm with a single weekend meal.

And so I wandered the academy grounds alone, eyes peeled.

There was a good chance the bomb had already been planted. Even the culprit wouldn't want to blow themselves up—they'd set it in advance and simply press the detonator from a safe distance.

Which is to say, I searched places that didn't even need searching.

I rummaged through the trash cans wedged into the far corners of the academy grounds.

Honestly, if I were the villain, I didn't think I'd have planted it somewhere like this.

For good reason—an old man hunched over a garbage can, digging through its contents, is quite an ugly sight.

Ah.

Life really is a grind.

Twenty-two years old—no, twenty-six now, following Niger's age, an age where I'd eaten my fill of life—reduced to pinching my nose and rooting through trash cans.

But it's not like I could just not look for the bomb. Honestly.

I straightened up.

As expected, there was nothing remotely suspicious in this trash can either.

The pitiful spectacle that had begun in the morning carried on until midday, when the sun hanging high in the sky shone down on me.

I'd checked practically every tucked-away corner, every path few people walked. The only problem was that there were places I couldn't verify—places I couldn't exactly enter.

I was thinking exactly that as I stared at the small building standing boldly before me.

What am I supposed to do about the women's restroom?

Should I ask Elia?

The dilemma kept circling. Even with the justification of finding a bomb, the thought of intruding into the women's restroom kept pricking at my conscience.

It would only take a minute.

I was genuinely confident I could check and be out before anyone noticed.

But if I got caught going in—what excuse could I possibly offer?

'Ah, I'm currently searching for explosives, you see. I thought one might be planted in the women's restroom, so I popped in and out.'

If I said something like that, even Elia would be horrified.

And so I was loitering in front of the restroom, letting precious time slip away, when—

"Professor...? What on earth are you doing?"

Oh, my salvation.

At the sight of Bellatrix approaching, eyeing me with narrowed, suspicious eyes, I broke into a bright smile.

"Sister, I have a favor to ask."

"...Is it truly beyond you to think of anything but training and favors whenever you see me, Professor?"

"Well, it's not as though I can walk into the women's restroom, now is it?"

"...Professor. As I've said time and again, I do wonder whether you might refrain from behavior and statements that invite suspicion."

I'm sorry, but these are urgent circumstances. I'll have to decline the pervert treatment.

"Please. I've been searching every corner of the academy just in case, but I couldn't very well enter the women's restroom myself."

"Professor, asking me to protect the students was absurd enough, but I fail to see why you must go to such lengths during a festival."

"I know it's excessive. But these are things that must be done. The students are precious."

After all, if I told people who knew nothing to gather up and patrol in preparation for a terror attack, all I'd get were looks of incredulity.

"...Fine. I'll help. For now."

"Yes, I'm truly grateful."

And so I sought Bellatrix's aid.

She grumbled and complained as though it were a terrible bother, but in the end, she would help—that much I knew.

"But you'll have to explain everything later, Professor."

"Yes, I'll tell you everything in due course."

"And compensation. For granting not one, but two of your requests."

"...Hmm. Yes."

If compensation is what you desire, Bellatrix, your efforts and sacrifices will be repaid in the comfort of your fellow students.

You're the lead actor here. You've got to carry the production.

Ah, of course, I kept that last part to myself.

I wasn't exactly eager to be hated, either.

When she finished the search I'd requested, Bellatrix sighed and walked away.

She told me not to bother her so much, but she didn't glare at me the way she used to.

Moreover, for all her complaining, she examined the interior of the restroom so thoroughly that I was a little moved.

And if that was the kind of person Bellatrix was, then the protection of the other students I'd asked of her earlier seemed safe in her hands as well.

She was, after all, the one who cast protective barriers with mana alone, no divinity required.

I had also asked her to keep a barrier up at all times in preparation for any eventuality—someone like her could absolutely handle that role.

No lives could be lost, even if the explosion went off.

Time dragged on relentlessly.

Despite my frantic, contorted searching, the bomb was nowhere to be found.

Not enough time. Not enough people. The surging crowds kept getting in my way.

The sun that had hung at its zenith began its slow descent, and my heart sank even faster than the sun, dragging along the ground.

Back in the plaza once more, I stood amid the tide of swaying people.

I saw children beaming with joy, giggling as they held their mothers' and fathers' hands.

The crisp weather, the fluttering petals—the festival's atmosphere climbed higher and higher. The hands of the clock tower swept past afternoon, ticking toward seven o'clock.

And amid those happy sounds, my heart pounded its anxious thud, thud.

Dusk arrived.

The scent of flowers that had drifted on the spring breeze, the laughter that had rippled through the crowd—both were drawing to their close.

My gaze kept sweeping the plaza.

Turning my head, shifting my body, searching through the crowd.

Please, let me find the villain before it's too late. Let this dread of an explosion end as nothing more than dread.

I wished it with all my heart.

The cry of a child knocked over by the jostling crowd.

The sky, bleeding into twilight.

The heavens traded their colors for violet.

The second hand of the clock tower ticked away, tik-tok. Despite my desperate, unspoken wish, time flowed on, and beads of sweat fell in time with my worry.

Tik—

The light chime should have been swallowed by the noise of the crowd, yet it rang out precisely in my ear.

The clock tower pointed exactly to seven, and as the bell tolled—a deep, resonant dong—I lifted my head.

There was no reason I should know this scene, and yet, strangely, it was familiar. As I watched it unfold, one thought filled me.

Too late.

KWAAAAAAAM—

The ceaseless clamor of the crowd fell silent, if only for an instant. The explosion was quite that earth-shaking.

And that silence, as if matching its breath to the blast, transformed into screaming. The cries and murmurs that spread one by one rolled through the crowd like a wave.

From the distant site of the explosion, smoke began to rise.

It was the very direction in which I had sent Bellatrix—the woman who had nodded along to my request with those narrowed, suspicious eyes.

I drew a breath.

After pounding once at my thud-ing chest, I made my body move.

The thought that I had failed to stop even a single attack kept churning through my skull. Thoughts overflowed, spilled, soaked into the ground.

My body froze.

I planted my feet toward the site of the blast—but my dazed mind rooted them in place.

A scene from the novel flashed through my head.

A line I had written, merely to make the novel entertaining, spread out before my eyes as reality.

In the end, it was a scene I myself had created.

The explosion had happened after all.

Rushing to a site already shrouded in smoke would accomplish nothing. There was nothing I could do there.

Which meant that I...

I...

I had to find the culprit.

I turned on my heel.

My eyes swept the crowd, searching for the silhouette of someone short, someone hunched-backed. Amid a chorus of countless screams, I frantically combed my surroundings.

But I couldn't see him.

The panicked crowd was bolting in mad flight, and picking out a single culprit—a man who would surely slip away with his head bowed through all that confusion—was no easy feat.

I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pushed through the throng, shoving past the people who kept jostling me, determined to break out of the chaos and find him.

A child's and a parent's desperate faces flashed before my eyes; I saw faculty members scrambling to restore order.

The merchants abandoned their stalls and fled into the chaos; the students whipped their heads about, at a loss.

I took it all in. And tried to see still more.

Only, I couldn't find the culprit anywhere.

A shrill riiiiing pierced my ears. I blinked against the ringing that filled them.

It was only an instant.

An instant in which my head was filled with the pathetic thought that I had no idea what to do, standing there uselessly.

In that instant, my hand rose naturally toward my chest.

Not by my will, divinity flowed, and an enhancement incantation was recited.

Then I heard it.

A calm voice that should have been impossible to hear rang out—not in my ear, but deep within my skull.

And my vision flipped upside down.

The dull, vacant gaze blinked once—then turned glacial.

That body, which had stood alone and silent amid the crowd's chaotic din, began to move.

Cold light gleamed in his eyes as they swept the surroundings. The frozen frame slipped naturally between the fleeing people.

The jumbled panorama of the plaza streamed past like a scroll. He lifted a child who had lost her parents' hands and was sobbing into the dirt, then broke into a run once more.

He charged ahead alone, like someone for whom chaos like this was an old acquaintance.

It must have been a wholly sudden situation for him, and yet he calmly fit the necessary tasks into place, one by one. The gears that had jammed under clumsy, halting responses began, at last, to mesh.

He stretched out a hand and scattered vast divinity across the air. That radiance, blanketing the entire plaza, flowed into the screaming crowd.

The people began, little by little, to settle—and the body that had been threading swiftly through the crowd locked onto a single point.

The academy's garden—and within it, a dense thicket of shrubbery.

He stared straight at that thicket, like a man who already knew the culprit was hiding there.

His gaze never wavered elsewhere, and the enhanced body shot forward like an arrow, a hunter who had caught the scent of his prey.

And then—something flinched.

A figure hiding in the undergrowth was exposed.

A small frame, a hunched back, an arm and face mottled with burn scars. That shocked expression, that scrambling motion to flee—they were familiar.

He had found the bomber.

The body lunged, snatching the nape of the retreating man's neck.

And I—

I watched it all through eyes that were mine and yet somehow not mine at all.

He found the culprit with terrifying fluency. He stared the man down with a gaze so cold that even I, feeling it from within, shuddered.

Niger's true face—something that could never be fully felt through peace alone.

I couldn't hear his inner thoughts, but his emotions rippled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠across me.

A thick killing intent crashed over me. And yet, along with it—or rather, even more than it—other feelings seeped into me.

Sorrow. Gloom. Anguish. Despair. Despondency. Joy. Delight. Euphoria. Longing. Disappointment.

Emotions that no single heart should be able to hold ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at once kept cycling, over and over.

Midway through his agony, joy would bloom. Euphoria would well up, only to spread into melancholy. He rejoiced, and grieved; despaired, and yearned.

Feelings that were not mine kept surging and subsiding. Even without my presence, he was already, like a man of two souls, crossing through every emotion there was.

So I hadn't been wrong, all this time, to call him a madman. He really was half-insane.

That was what I thought.

The hand gripping the nape of his neck, as if to vent everything it had churned through, began to squeeze—crushing the throat of the hunchback pinned beneath Niger.

Perhaps because the storm of emotions had settled, leaving only killing intent behind.

"Gghk, khh...! S-save... grrk... ghaaack..."

Damn it.

What are you doing right now?

Stop.

Stop committing murder in front of all these people, you lunatic—stop!

I screamed it inside my own head, but the body paid me no heed.

"Grrk... ghk..."

The hunchback's eyes had rolled back to whites only, and foam was beginning to bubble from his lips.

What a fool I'd been, thinking it a mercy, even for a moment.

How much worse a thing was happening instead—who had given anyone the right to call it mercy?

The Imperial Audit Department flickered through my mind.

And in the very instant of that thought, I heard a voice calling out to me.

"Professor Niger!!"

Elia's voice made the body tremble. It was my trembling, but it wasn't I who had reacted.

The killing intent subsided.

The hand squeezing the hunchback's throat gradually loosened, and the ragged breathing of a man pulled back from the brink of death became audible.

The emotions that had churned uncontrollably, like a madman's, gently eased—and a quiet voice spoke.

"...I will leave him to you. I shall take charge of this man's fate."

And with those words, my vision flipped once more.

I blinked.

The experience was so alien—my first—that I clenched and unclenched my fists, waking the strange sensations in them one by one.

"Professor Niger! Is that man the culprit?!"

"Ah... yes. It seems so."

I pushed out an answer to Elia's voice, forcing the words through, and rose to my feet. A weak groan escaped the hunchback who had been pinned beneath me, but that was no concern of mine.

"Whew... thank goodness, truly. With all the chaos, I thought we'd lost the culprit in the confusion."

Elia said it between one long breath and the next.

And behind her stretched a scene of academy staff and guards doing their utmost to calm the crowd.

"More importantly—what happened at the site of the explosion?"

But right now, neither the sight of the rattled crowd nor the fact that we had caught the culprit was what mattered most to me.

Whether anyone had died in the blast. Whether, heaven forbid, something had happened to Bellatrix because of me. Those things mattered far more.

If they had, the blame would rest entirely on my shoulders.

Things had dragged on this long, and in the end I couldn't prevent the explosion. Unable to bear it alone, I had heaped the burden onto Bellatrix.

So please, please let there be no harm done.

I waited for Elia's answer.

"Ah, thankfully there were no casualties from the explosion. Part of the academy building did collapse, but apparently Bellatrix raised a protective barrier the moment the blast went off. No one was hurt."

Ah.

Truly.

I had heard it with my heart in my throat, but her words were more than enough to calm the madly trembling thing in my chest.

I let out my relief. My eyes closed as the tension drained from me.

I drew a long, deep breath and clenched my fist tight.

Thank goodness.

Truly, thank goodness.

Deep in the night.

A wagon rumbled and clattered along the road.

Painted on its side were the words Imperial Security Corps, and true to that name, an excessive—almost overkill—lattice of iron bars wrapped the carriage.

Inside sat a man bound in chains: a serious offender who had dared to detonate a bomb within the Imperial Academy. The wagon was headed, it seemed, toward the prison camp where such felons were held.

That is, until divinity flowed into the driver, the horses, and the guards alike.

The wagon, which had been moving at a brisk pace, came to a halt on a mountain road utterly devoid of travelers.

Then a figure came into view, approaching the carriage. He wore a black hooded robe, but beneath it the faithful garb of a priest flickered briefly in the wind.

The mace he had drawn long ago dragged along the ground. Moonlight caught its tip, and it gleamed. Between motes of dust, a red stain that would not wash away was visible on the stone.

"Wh-what...? Why did we suddenly stop?!"

From inside the wagon came the hunchback's voice, shrieking without a hint of understanding of his situation.

Niger raised the mace.

And quietly, he spoke.

"Repent your sins, with death."