Chapter 100
Chapter 100
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 100
Chapter Title: The Culprit at the Crime Scene... (1)
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Inspector Julia cackled loudly before pulling out another cigarette.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
Standing with the wind at her back, she lit it and mumbled around the cigarette clamped between her teeth.
“Relax your expression. I’m just saying that’s how the circumstances point. It’s empty words after reviewing all the trial records, but Cadet Cruise handled it very wisely.”
“…I just told the facts as they were. So, what do you plan to do with this case in the end, Inspector?”
“What plan? You probably know better than I do, but there’s nothing left now.”
She turned her head and exhaled a long stream of smoke, then scratched at her stomach with an awkward expression.
“By the way, where do you eat around here?”
***
I guided Inspector Julia to the dining hall.
It was past mealtime, and the staff looked baffled at the sight of an outsider, but once I vouched for her identity and explained the situation, they brought out warm food.
“Hahaha, sorry about this. Investigator Henry doesn’t get seasick, but I do, so I skipped meals.”
“You’re doing important work. You need to eat hearty. None of the cadets will think it’s strange.”
“Ah, so considerate.”
“…….”
Now that I looked closely, Inspector Julia had something in common with my mother.
Every action she took was underpinned by a conviction that whatever she truly believed was absolutely correct.
That conviction fueled a driving force that allowed no waste, making her seem reckless at first glance.
“I figured you’d start getting angry by now, but you don’t seem bothered at all.”
“Why would I get angry?”
“Well, I’ve been irritating Cruise here in all sorts of ways today, haven’t I?”
“If I got mad over every little thing like that, I couldn’t survive at this school.”
I wasn’t hungry, so I just sipped water throughout Inspector Julia’s meal.
Inspector Julia let out a small “hmph” through her nose before devouring the day’s main course of smoked duck and stir-fried vegetables.
“Life at the academy has been a bit tough, you say?”
“Yes. …You really know everything, don’t you?”
“It’s basic investigation work. If someone’s even remotely connected to the case, we dig through their entire background. That’s why we make a lot of enemies and come off as rude. We can’t afford to get attached to people.”
“Having your secrets exposed without even knowing makes sense you’d feel that way.”
“…Hoo…….”
Inspector Julia narrowed her eyes and smiled.
Her smile, as if sizing something up, made my mouth go inexplicably dry.
I wiped the rim of my empty glass and waited for her meal to end.
Inspector Julia, knowing I was waiting, paid it no mind and ordered another main course before wiping her mouth and standing.
The silence didn’t last long.
“Shall we head to the student council room now? Investigator Henry is probably there.”
“Me too?”
“Don’t you feel a lingering unease? From what I said earlier, perhaps.”
Inspector Julia smiled so warmly that wrinkles formed at the corners of her eyes, pointing a finger over her shoulder.
It meant follow if you’re curious.
-Aegis Academy seems to have concluded the murder was roughly the work of a magical beast, but to my eyes, trained on humans, this was a human’s doing.
-Circumstantially, the closest to the culprit is still Cadet Arma Cruise.
The case had practically been wrapped up as the work of a magical beast, but Inspector Julia thought otherwise.
I, too, had come to believe the culprit couldn’t be a magical beast given the circumstances.
I had meant to tell Makina about it, but
Anyone who saw the violent ritual carried out by the drugged literature club cadets in a cave at night would think the same.
‘If it was a drug that completely stripped away human reason and granted superhuman strength…’
Even the scene too horrific to attribute to a human gains plausibility.
And if that were true, I’d be back on the suspect list.
That day had been endlessly long.
As Inspector Julia said, Investigator Henry was waiting for us in the student council room of the Black Lily House, and I ended up reviewing all the prepared evidence and footage recorded in the image stones.
My testimonies, the scenes I’d witnessed objectively captured in the image stones, Cale Ace’s movements that day, and more.
‘I thought it’d be quick, but it’s already this late…’
By the time we finished reviewing, it was past midnight.
Makina left the room, saying she’d escort Inspector Julia to civilian lodging outside the academy, and I, not being part of the student council, collapsed into bed.
***
〔I’m hungry.〕
A voice both familiar and strange echoed.
I was forcibly viewing clumsily reconstructed past memories in the form of a dream.
Opening my eyes, the first thing I saw was an ornate mural on a dizzyingly high ceiling.
Somehow familiar.
The very scene I’d seen countless times in nightmares.
〔I need to grow stronger. Stir up anxiety, fan fear, and fill my belly.〕
Ah, that familiar resonance.
Something I never wanted to grow accustomed to, yet had somehow become so—something that shouldn’t be defined, couldn’t be stopped—
‘…‘It’ definitely couldn’t think at this level back then.’
Had it evolved in the meantime? The near-perfect sentence structure and logical progression were nothing like the simple ‘prompts’ it used to give me depending on the situation.
This couldn’t be.
Even ‘it’ at its most powerful never wielded such sophisticated language.
Then ‘it’ spoke.
〔An isolated island cut off from the world is precisely the space where I can unleash my full power…〕
And this was a thought I’d had while speculating on that entity’s connection to Hazard Island.
〔I’m hungry.〕
〔Hungryhungryhungry.〕
I needed to examine it closer, but my eyelids weighed a ton.
I wanted to stay awake, but they kept drifting shut.
‘Please wait just a moment…’
I spoke as if soothing someone.
In my mind, ‘Her’ intense hunger raged.
The altar was prepared; all that remained was the sacrifice.
-Creak.
“Who’s there?”
And the sacrifice arrived.
The brief wait felt like an eternity.
I heard cautious footsteps entering the chapel and slightly lifted my eyelids.
‘Come closer. Just a bit closer.’
The footsteps drew nearer.
In this moment, I was bait.
A sacrifice in appearance, and in this academy, relatively weak and easy prey.
“Why the hell did they send me this way—?”
The sacrifice took the bait.
Spotting me on the altar, he—
With anger in his voice, he began demanding answers from me.
‘Yes, a little closer.’
Darkness settled over part of my closed eyelids.
If shadows had substance, we were touching now.
〔Then, bon appétit—!〕
A massive beast born from me pounced on the sacrifice.
Cale Ace didn’t even have time to finish his words—
-Crunch!
“O, oo, urk, o, urk! Oo.”
He was devoured.
She has no form.
What swallowed Cale Ace was the most terrifying monster born from his own psyche.
That’s what I’d written on the note that lured Cale Ace.
“[The hideous being spawned from you has come here].”
They had likely waited for this day for ages.
Because the entity devouring Cale Ace was the indescribable, primordial incarnation of ugly collapse—inexplicable and distant.
For now, Her unstable flesh borrowed my shell, Arma Cruise’s, but soon, once flesh was perfected and a complete soul summoned, our trials would end, and wondrous chaos would begin…
‘…What?’
I was the priest prepared to offer fresh sacrifice to Her.
“What is this?”
She used my body like a tool to butcher the sacrifice.
The blood splattered everywhere came from superhuman strength beyond my physical limits, and Cale Ace met death not by magical beast or demon, but by me.
“C, C, Cale Ace…”
“Guh, guh…oo, o.”
Cale Ace could no longer speak human words.
All his organs for it were ruined.
Bewildered, I looked down at the sharp claws like a beast’s and the excessively thick, gnarled muscles on arms too burly to be mine.
“No way.”
Last autumn, it was none other than myself who proved Arma Cruise innocent in Cale Ace’s murder.
But what was this scene, this strangely vivid memory?
“I killed Cale Ace…?”
-Arma!
“Guh, guh, urgh.”
“No. Open your eyes.”
Cale Ace, made to spew blood, kept gushing it out.
Now the blood sprayed onto my hair, face, shirt, the altar, wax candles, floor, and chairs.
“No way!”
I, none other than myself, with these hands, Cale Ace—
“Arma Cruise! Open your eyes!”
“Gasp! Heave!”
Someone grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up.
The monstrous arms that had gripped the rolling-eyed Cale Ace were firmly held by that someone.
“Th, this—let go!”
“Arma Cruise. [Hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit].”
“Let go—please! Cale Ace!”
“It’s okay now. Open your eyes properly.”
Struggling with my arms held, I snapped my eyes open.
Right before me were icy blue eyes, like a slice from the heart of a glacier.
“Can you say my name?”
“…Makina…”
“Makina, and next?”
“Christy… Makina Christy…”
“Good. I’m going to let go of these arms now. Can you promise not to attack me?”
“Yes…….”
Whether from thrashing or accumulated fatigue I hadn’t noticed, my upper lip felt hot.
“Nosebleed’s fine. I’ll treat it right now. Still confused?”
“What the hell is—gasp, gasp.”
“Looks like a nightmare. Not a good omen, but breathe deeply and stay calm.”
My head drooped naturally.
The jumbled memories in the chaos tormented me further.
‘Where’s the truth? Did I kill Cale Ace? Was it that bastard’s scheme? Is Cale really dead? What does Makina Christy know? No, what if all this is just a dream?’
The memory confusion was horrifying.
I couldn’t find answers no matter how I tried.
It didn’t take long for the crashing waves of emotion to plummet into devastating emptiness, turning into unbearable fear.
But more terrifying than anything was the horror that I might be Cale Ace’s murderer.
“I’m sorry—…Makina Christy…”
“What’s there to be sorry for? You just had a nightmare.”
A nightmare.
Everything I’d seen until now was a nightmare.
“No wonder, after seeing that stuff right before bed.”
Makina was calming me to keep me from spiraling into excitement and delirium.
I stared blankly at Makina busily wiping under my nose and chin with white cloth, steadying my breath.
‘Am I really…’
Going insane?