Episode 70 – Handshake

Handshake

It was 1 a.m., after the script reading and the part-time job at the barbecue restaurant had ended.

As soon as I came out of the small theater, I called a taxi.

“Please drop me off here.”

I stopped the taxi in front of some alleyway in Geldio, near the capital of Edsilla.

I had arrived here, prepared for the late-night surcharge. This was the place where Knightmare first revealed himself and committed murder.

The victim was a senior at the Edsilla Magic University’s Knight Department. He was a promising knight who was expected to join the Parliamentary Knight Squad, and the successor of the prestigious ‘Tan’ family, Berryo Tan.

Case name: The First Nightmare.

“Have you arrived?”

Someone was already there in the alleyway.

A hooded stranger, Soliette.

“I’ve read this first case file many times myself.”

She looked around as she spoke.

“But it’s been over a year, and there won’t be any evidence left. Can you reconstruct the scene here?”

“There’s no evidence, you say.”

I shook my head.

“It’s all over the place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Here. There.”

I pointed at the surface of the alleyway. Soliette murmured in a puzzled tone.

“……Sword marks?”

“Yes.”

The scars from two years ago were still vivid on the asphalt.

They were the traces of a man who had desperately tried to survive, and Knightmare, who had torn him apart like a toy.

I bent down and touched them.

“What are you doing there?”

“……Wait and see.”

I had always wondered.

Is the Memory that 「Notepad」 can call up only limited to mine?

It’s not that, we know that Notepad has many other functions besides Save and Load, right?

Why, ‘Files I did not create’ can also be ‘downloaded’ and opened.

Now I’m trying to do such things.

The cracks engraved on the asphalt.

The Memory that these traces hold, the process of that day, I’m trying to download it through 「Notepad」.

Suddenly—!

A momentary clash like a lightning strike.

The scene of Berryo Tan’s resisting sword scratching the asphalt several times, and one of them slightly cutting Knightmare’s shoe, passes through my brain like a bullet.

The cost is nearly 30% of my magic power.

“What is it?”

Soliette’s face had suddenly puffed up like a blowfish. She seemed quite sensitive because it was a crime scene.

“Was there a piece of shoe in the evidence list?”

“Yes. It was the remains of an ordinary shoe.”

“I see…… ugh-”

I tried to get up but almost fell due to acute anemia. Soliette made a mouth shape that didn’t look like a smile at all.

“Hmm. Berryo Tan cut off a part of Knightmare’s shoe at the scene. Quite a lot of it.”

If it had been a shoe of the correct size, at least the big toe would have been cut off.

“But Knightmare didn’t even bleed, let alone shed skin.”

When the shoe was cut, there was no bleeding from Knightmare. If it was because of the Magic Body, the skin would have blocked it and the shoe would not have been cut.

“So you’re saying he deliberately wore big shoes?”

“Yes.”

“That’s common. It’s the easiest way to hide oneself.”

“But isn’t it strange? The foot size of the suspect who was later framed was exactly the same.”

Knightmare deliberately deceived his footprints to be 310mm, and the ‘fake’ who was framed also had a foot size of 310mm.

“……Yes. That’s true.”

“Also.”

I pointed to the wall of the alley. Berryo Tan died with his sword stuck in the wall, but Knightmare didn’t bother to retrieve his weapon.

“He left his sword at the scene.”

“You mean to say he’s left-handed.”

“Yes.”

“He is left-handed. The wounds of all the victims, including Berryo Tan, were mostly caused by a sword swung with the left hand.”

When a right-handed person swings a sword and when a left-handed person swings a sword, the position, rotation, and traces of the sword are clearly different.

This kind of fact would have been naturally caught by Soliette and the investigators, but Knightmare conspicuously revealed that he was left-handed.

“The person who was framed is also left-handed.”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

“Isn’t it strange? It seems like he decided who to frame from the first murder.”

A 310mm foot, left-handed male prosecutor.

It’s not an especially rare case, but if you add the case ‘an expert who can easily play with and kill Berry Tan, whose entry into the parliamentary knights is almost certain’, the Spectrum narrows down quickly.

Indeed, the person who was framed is also a master from the desert.

“More than anything, do you know why Berry Tan came to this alley?”

“Yes. He was on patrol.”

“This kind of alley?”

“He didn’t have to, but he volunteered.”

“No. He came to buy drugs.”

I made a definitive statement. Soliette flinched and shook her head.

“No. Berry Tan had a pretty good reputation. There were rumors that he was an inspiring person-”

“Believing such rumors is foolish… no, it’s naive. I’ve seen nobles licking each other’s boots more than once or twice. Here, take this.”

I threw the [Berry Tan Back Investigation File] to Soliette. She caught it in surprise.

“To know the killer, you need to know the deceased.”

“……”

She read it without a word.

The record of Berry Tan exchanging messages with someone, SNS notes containing slang for drugs, even call records and the use of cash with an unclear source.

The dark web is full of all kinds of experts, and among them, cyber grave robbers are not only common but obvious. It’s information obtained by hiring them.

“This back alley was a drug deal contact point.”

“……Ah?”

Soliette’s expression hardened seriously. I shrugged my shoulders and looked at the other side of the alley.

“Knightmare already knew about the knight called Berry Tan. His disgrace, and what he would do here.”

The smell of rotten fish vibrated, and cigarette butts were scattered like grass on the path. At the end of the darkness, the full moon rose in full.

“He knew……”

Soliette dropped the case file she held in one hand. She looked around the black stains in the area with sharp eyes.

“A serial killer… But the victims of the subsequent murders are too unrelated to each other. There’s even a knight in his 60s among the victims.”

The official name of the Knightmare case is— Indiscriminate Knight Murder Case.

In fact, the only thing in common among the victims is that they are ‘knights’, and Knightmare seems to have killed any knight without any correlation.

“Not a serial killer. There’s another possibility.”

“What-”

“Contract killing.”

“!”

Soliette’s eyes widened. Her entire face rounded like a full moon.

To her, I told her what I had been thinking so far.

“Berry Tan was the drug heir of the ‘Tan’ family, and now his younger sister, Bella Tan, has inherited the position.”

The truth that the future Soliette had been tracking.

“From the first murder, a puppet was prepared to be framed, and from the first murder, there was a planned intention.”

The answer she tried to uncover even if she had to stake her soul.

“The Knightmare we know… might have been a planned contract killing from the beginning to the end.”

It might be far more massive and intricate than anyone’s imagination.

“It’s still a possibility, but if so, there would be many high-ranking nobles involved that we don’t know about.”

There might be a formidable villain lurking, too difficult to handle.

“……”

Soliette fell silent for a moment. I stood still.

Whooosh… The night wind blew. The streetlight flickered faintly, as if it might shatter at any moment.

The scene of the incident was eerily quiet.

“……It’s a reasonable inference.”

Soon, Soliette spoke. I glanced down obliquely. Her face held a certain degree of certainty.

“Reasonable……”

Looking at Soliette here and now, I think of Soliette in the future.

The most imperfectly perfect being, blooming on the most precarious edge of the cliff of despair.

“If we dig into these incidents, won’t we be in danger too?”

What path had that Soliette walked then?

What did she desire, and what truth did she reach?

“Are you scared?”

…What on earth did she see that she had no choice but to kill herself?

I didn’t know until the day I died.

“No. That’s not possible.”

Therefore, I will start to find out now.

“I’m curious, rather.”

The truth that only you knew.

The darkness you didn’t tell me about.

I will illuminate it with you, and I will not let you walk alone.

I will not let you die.

“Then…… let’s go together.”

Soliette looked at me and said. Her eyes under the hood shone like stars.

“……That’s reasonable.”

I reached out my hand to her. She hesitated for a moment, but soon grabbed my hand with a relieved face, as if she realized there was no need to worry at all.

As if she were gripping the Inspector’s own sword.

“Yes. It’s reasonable.”

______________________________________________________________________

30 minutes later.

A 24-hour diner near the city of Geldio.

After parting with Soliette, I’m sitting by the window, eating a late dinner.

In the midst of almost inhaling fries, cola, five burgers, a whole chicken, chicken nuggets, and more.

[Is it delicious? You’re enjoying it.]

A sentence appeared in the shared notebook. I looked out the window and was surprised. Soliette, in her hooded outfit, was staring at me from right in front.

I thought she had gone home.

I wrote a reply in the notebook.

[Yeah. Why?]

Then Soliette swallowed her saliva and entered the diner. She looked at the counter and ordered.

“Please give me a plate of ham and burgers.”

“You mean a set?”

“A set?”

“Yes.”

“Give me anything.”

“Okay~”

Soon, she sat down with a burger set. After chewing a few times, she wrote something in the shared notebook with a slightly strange expression.

[It’s not very tasty.]

I smiled quietly.

The Soliette I know is not a gourmet. She dislikes eating anything, and ironically, she eats everything well because of it. There’s no difference to her between eating a bug or a burger.

She swallowed the burger with difficulty. Her face looked like she was being tortured.

[See you next Sunday.]

Then, after only 3 minutes, she got up from her seat and went outside.

I focused back on my meal without much thought.

“Huh? What’s this?”

Suddenly, a staff member approached me.

“Excuse me, sir. Did you see the person who was sitting here?”

“……She just left.”

I pointed out the window.

“Ah, I knew it! She dined and dashed!”

The staff member rushed outside. Unfortunately for Soliette, she hadn’t gone far and was quickly caught by the employee.

—”Excuse me! Aren’t you going to pay? I’ll call the police!”

—”Oh? Right.”

—”You look perfectly fine!”

—”……Ahem.”

She rummaged through her pockets. Finding nothing, she subtly glanced at me through the window, like a dog asking for help.

I had no intention of helping.

“She needs to learn her lesson.”

Of course, it was probably because she wasn’t used to paying in cash. After all, Soliette is a forbidden golden leaf of ‘Arkne’, a family even older than Petra, and if we’re talking about rank, she’s at least on par with Libra.

I got up.

—”You don’t have money? It’s 10 Ren.”

—”I……”

Soliette’s eyes were still fixed on me, but I pretended not to notice.

—”Ah, I’m going crazy! If you don’t have money, at least do the dishes!”

The staff member grabbed Soliette and shoved her into the kitchen. As she was dragged away, Soliette kept looking at me.

Crash-!

“What are you doing! What if you break that!”

With the sound of a dish breaking as my last memory, I left the diner.