There's Someone Who Spent Twenty Years Trying to Legally Kill Bizarre Food? (2)

I settled the now-calmed Inquisitor into a chair and decided to hear the rest of the request in proper detail.

"So... if you're an Inquisitor, you ought to have obtained just about every authority there is. Is this truly something even that can't resolve?"

"If the information gained through that authority had been enough to find them, would I have come here? You ask what is obvious, and my confidence in you falls."

"Well, I suppose that's fair."

If it had been something she could settle on her own, she would have had no reason to come here at all, so the question had its answer baked in from the start. Choosing to deliver that answer with quite so little manners was a separate matter. And with that tiny frame of hers, it felt uncomfortably like being lectured by a child. Even so, I could hardly tell a client to her face that she was getting on my nerves, so I beckoned to Dias and took the bat.

"Might I ask your name, Inquisitor?"

"Heresy. My race is half-elf."

"Half with which race, if I may?"

"Haah... Does my height not make the answer plain? Dwarf and elf, mixed bl—"

CLANG!!

Before the irritable answer to my question could finish, I brought the bat down on Heresy's head. Dias, whose physical ability far outstripped mine, had already swung at full strength twice and left her none the worse, so there was no real harm I could do. At most I could cut her off mid-sentence.

".........?"

"Again."

Struck out of nowhere, Heresy rubbed her head without quite grasping the situation. Only after a brief moment did it finally register, and an expression of pure disbelief crossed her face.

"Have you lost your mind?"

CLANG!!

"I am ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an Inquisitor. One such as you, I could kill the moment I wished—"

CLANG!!

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"That's enou—"

CLANG!!

I kept bringing the bat down on Heresy's head, and only after the beating had gone on for a while did she fall briefly silent, then open her mouth again.

"...A half-blood of dwarf and elf."

"There. This is a conversation between people. Is it really appropriate to lose your temper like that?"

"....You would be the only one alive who treats an Inquisitor this way."

An Inquisitor ought to be forty at the very least, and yet there had been no sign of it — elf blood, then. The way she bristled as if thorns had sprouted in her heart was elf ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠blood as well. The astonishing part was that this was already the diluted version, some of the venom drawn off by the other blood mixed in. Now and then the gallery claimed that humans and elves were about equally vicious, but as far as I could see the two weren't even comparable. The gap was that wide.

"Anyway, let's hear who this heretic you're after actually is. What could drive someone who only kills bizarre food to call them a heretic?"

"I said it before, but I shall explain again, kindly. That wretch passed it off as dessert and fed me a sardine pie. A sardine pie!!"

"Is it really that seri—?"

"Suppose the game you bought for a hundred bucks turned out to be nothing but a lump of code. And over that, rigged odds, sprinkled on like seasoning."

"Aha!"

As expected of someone who had endured something on the order of a doctoral program, the metaphor landed perfectly. Put a game like that on the market for real, and I didn't even dare imagine how many trucks would plow straight into the studio.

"I went in at once, wanting at least a look at the face of the cook who'd produced such bizarre food, and what do they tell me? The chef had vanished."

"The chef?"

"Yes. Later the real chef was found bound head to toe, and I learned that the one who gave me the sardine pie was a doppelganger."

A doppelganger. A race said to be rarer even than succubi, who were already hard to glimpse even once. Their racial ability was a downright broken power to turn into anyone at all with no drawback, and they were born holding it as common sense that stirring shit was simply what one did. That was also why there were so few of them. I'd heard plenty crossed the line while trolling and died before their time. And even after watching the doppelganger beside them die, they went right on causing chaos with a baseless I can do it. If it's me! — so there you had it.

"Oh! I know that one! When the Anons suddenly multiply like crazy on the gallery!!"

"That is not a doppelganger. That is the Anonymous Clone Art. The shitstirring is the same, I grant you."

"In any case, a doppelganger's nature makes them anything but easy to catch. A photo of bizarre food goes up on the gallery, I rush over, and the doppelganger has already fled."

So saying, Heresy pulled up what she had saved on the gallery.

Spread out before us was a parade of bizarre foods that could kill an appetite just by being looked at. Dias, who had once claimed a cucumber hot dog was delicious, was gagging — which said everything.

"Do you see what they have in common?"

"They all happened at restaurants."

"Correct. They stir trouble only in restaurants, and since we cannot catch them, the restaurants themselves say they are in quite a bind."

For a restaurant, flavor matters, but so does whether it can give a customer any sense of trust. Even if it happens only once, the bizarre food a doppelganger produces does enormous damage to that restaurant's image and reputation. Say a doppelganger did it, and most people simply decide you're making excuses and move on.

"I have been tracking this wretch for a month now, and still there is no progress. That is why I came."

"Hmm...."

Having heard the request through to the end, I sank into deep thought. I was grateful that an Inquisitor of Heresy's standing had trusted us enough to come here, but a doppelganger, optimized as they were for trolling, was an exceedingly troublesome creature. The moment they transformed, they could copy not only a person's face, but their manner of speech and their voice as well.

"Ah. So all we have to do is find that doppelganger, right?"

"It is so."

"Then let's try making a trap."

"A trap?"

"Yes. A tempting trap so good the doppelganger couldn't possibly stay away."

The places doppelgangers mainly appeared were restaurants famous enough that most people could name them on hearing. If we couldn't find them, we only had to make them come to us. I leaned in and whispered the plan I'd just formed into Heresy's ear, and once she had heard it, she nodded.

"That method would work, certainly... but how will you tell the doppelganger apart?"

"The moment bizarre food comes out, I'll hold them somehow with my ability, so please stay and pretend to be a customer."

"Understood. Then I shall see what my authority can procure."

Heresy nodded, then left Arim's Errand Agency to put the operation in motion. The moment she was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out the door, Dias — who alone had not been told the plan — turned to me and asked about it.

"What kind of plan did you come up with?"

"Nothing much. They only show up at famous places, and they never show up twice at the same one, so I'm going to artificially make one place famous."

"If it gets that famous that fast, won't they get suspicious?"

"You ever seen the trolls who roll into the gallery check beforehand whether something's actually true?"

"Well... no."

No matter how famous a chef was when they opened a place, it still took a good long while to become famous. Heresy had said she would secure the restaurant itself one way or another, so what we had to do was gather people and promote.

"What kind of poster are we making this time, I wonder."

"You're not going with a rainbow background again, are you?"

"Rainbow doesn't suit a restaurant. It needs a food image in it, and it needs to be provocative. You get ready to promote it on social media too."

"I feel like my socials are getting filthier and filthier."

"This time it's fine to mix in a few lies, like last time."

"We made it the truth back then, so doesn't that make it the truth?"

First, while Heresy was securing a restaurant, I turned over how to promote it so it would stick hard in people's heads. I was in the middle of sketching out an aggro poster, the same way we'd baited the gallery last time.

BRRRRR!!!

My phone flashed and buzzed as if begging me to look at it. Wondering if what I'd asked for earlier was already done, I glanced down — and the screen read Inquisitor. Thinking something might have gone wrong while she was securing a restaurant, I hit the call button.

She hadn't been gone an hour, and Heresy had already secured a restaurant. I was thrown by how much more capable the work was than I'd expected, but faster was better, so I took the restaurant's name and location from her and set out to promote.

"All right, let's go promote."

"I have a question, Senior."

"Hm?"

"Why are you bringing dynamite to go promote, and why does Arim's Errand Agency even have dynamite in the first place?"

"Dynamite at an errand agency is common sense, isn't it?"

To Dias's question, I only offered a bright little smile.