Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 7 - Chapter SS1

Side Story: The Case of the Unknown Murders — The Situation 
Lost Heart, Rook Holmes 
That day, I was in Gideon’s first district, carefully observing all the people passing by, immersing myself in deep thought while at the same time gathering information regarding my surroundings. 
My father had trained me in that, along with other such skills as lipreading, lockpicking, and reading mystery novels in a... somewhat peculiar manner. 
Specifically, rather than trying to unravel the tricks and mysteries within the work itself, I’d been trained to read while getting into the mind of the author and trying to understand his personality well enough to guess what kind tricks he would be inclined to use in his story, which... might be a sub-optimal way to read a book. 
Regardless, on the day Ray was kidnapped and the day before that, I was undergoing a change in my schedule that had me skipping out on the training from my father. 
I had to attend the hellish training prepared for me by Ray’s brother. 
Of course, “hellish” is not an adjective you use lightly, but all things considered, there was just no better word for it. 
After all, I was told to turn on my pain setting and come close to the death penalty over and over again. 
I couldn’t even describe the pain I felt when I had only 1 HP left. 
Most would surely think that anyone providing or accepting this training had issues with their sanity, but Shu had said, “You’re the type of guy who’s fine with this, aren’t ya?” 
And yes, indeed I was. 
According to him, “It’s not guaranteed, but people-like Embryos sometimes have their evolutions influenced by the Master’s needs or intense feelings. The more hardship you face, the more likely it is that your Embryo will be able to counter difficult situations.” 
And looking at Ray, I could fully understand what he meant. 
Nevertheless, Shu’s training had been so hellish that Marilyn and the other girls became cross with him, and I couldn’t quite fault them for that. 
I was supposed to be undergoing that training today, as well, but there had been an issue on Shu’s end, so now I was just sitting here in front of the knight offices, thinking about... his arrest. 
“Rook,” Babi spoke up. 
“What is it?” I asked. 
“I was sleeping, so I didn’t hear the reason. Why did they arrest the bear man? Food fraud?” 
“No. Nothing like that.” I could concede that the materials used in his popcorn were a mystery in itself, but that had nothing to do with his arrest. 
The reason for that was... 
“Serial burglary and murder.” 
Indeed. Shu was suspected to be the one behind a case troubling the city.

It all began in the evening two days prior, when someone discovered the gory remains of a certain head of a merchant family. 
It was in such a terrible state that they didn’t even realize it was him until they restored his body. 
It was obviously no accident or suicide, so Gideon’s authorities instantly took to action, and as soon as they began the investigation, they discovered that all the money and goods in the hidden safe had been stolen. The evidence suggested that they’d been taken before the murder. 
But they hadn’t been able to find a single trace of the culprit even after mobilizing all those with investigative sense skills. 
The household also had an alarm system with potential equivalent to high-rank magic, but there were no signs that it had been triggered. 
They failed to find a single piece of evidence that the culprit had even been there. 
The only exception was a strange card placed next to the remains. 
None of those officers were able to read the language on it, so although it was an important piece of evidence, it wasn’t quite good enough to be considered a clue.

The following evening, there was another burglary-murder at another merchant’s household. 
Like in the previous event, the remains were in a dreadful state, the money and goods had been stolen, the alarm had failed to activate... and there was a card left nearby. 
That was more than enough for the officers to become certain that the culprit for both incidents was the same. 
The details of the investigation hadn’t been made public, so it was impossible for it to be a copycat killer. 
Now, about the cards... they both had the exact same text on their front, but different text on their backs. However, the text of both the front and back were written in languages unknown to the investigators, so they weren’t able to read them. 
They created copies and spread them out to the relevant institutions, but no tian working at them recognized the letters or characters. 
But then there was a ray of light. Marie happened to visit the offices due to Elizabeth-related business, and when she caught a glimpse of the card the Knights had, she read it aloud, saying, “‘I am Unknown?’” 
That was the nickname of Ray’s brother, Shu Starling, the King of Destruction. 
Though his identity had become unveiled during the previous incident, he had yet to be given a new one. Then again, his face was still a mystery, so people were probably fine with keeping the nickname “Unknown.” 
“Oh,” Marie continued, “and this weird character on the other side looks like a bear. Did the furball write this?” 
With that new piece of information, the case moved from its standstill, resulting in Shu’s arrest. 
He protested verbally, saying, “I’ve been fur-amed!” But he didn’t resist his arrest, possibly because he wanted to be considerate of the investigators who’d been given the absurd, unreasonable task of taking him — a Superior — in. 
Their expressions as they did were both venerably resolute and heroically tragic. 
Apparently Shu logged out every now and then, but he respected his situation and always returned to the knight offices. 
Currently, he was being subjected to investigation and questioning using various skills. 
Naturally, one of them was Truth Discernment, but its results weren’t considered all that important because they assumed that a Superior could have a means to fool the skill. 
Ironically, the man’s status and the unknown extent of the power that came with it actually worked against him, keeping him as the prime suspect. 
Truth Discernment was one of the most important factors in this world’s judicial system, yet even that was considered inadequate against a Superior. 
Additionally, there was circumstantial evidence that suggested that he was the culprit. 
First, of course, the card implied the connection. Second, his Mythical special reward, Kim-un-Kamuy, had camouflage and presence manipulation skills powerful enough to fool the alarm systems. 
As for motive... he was currently short on money, so it was not unreasonable to believe he would commit burglary. 
Due to all that together, he continued to be held as a suspect. 
I had received all that information directly from Ray’s brother by using Telepathy Cuffs. Thankfully, they hadn’t confiscated his possessions.

“Considering the motive, means, and opportunity, Shu happens to be the only suspect the investigators have,” I muttered. “Which makes him the prime suspect.” 
“But Mr. Bear wouldn’t do that, right?” Babi asked. “Don’t you think so?” 
“Babi, detectives are human, too, and yes, we do have our share of preferences when it comes to people, but those shouldn’t be incorporated into our investigative deductions.” 
In both reality and fiction, there had been countless cases of detectives believing that a suspect was too good a person to be the culprit, and then gone on to have that belief betrayed. 
“Then... what’s your deduction?” she asked. 
“Shu isn’t the culprit,” I said. “That’s far too obvious.” 
Indeed, I could take it for granted that him being the one who did it was downright impossible. 
“If all he needed was money, then there was no need for him to kill anyone,” I explained. “Not to mention that he wouldn’t leave a card saying that he did it. He is not some phantom thief you’d find in fiction.” 
In fact, not even my mother would do work this... trifling, I thought. 
“This is definitely a crime committed by a person who’s trying to make it seem like it’s Shu. The true culprit... is someone else.” 
The unknown murderer was still at large, laughing after having transferred the blame to someone else. 
It was in my nature — in my genes from my father — to want to expose his identity and close this case for good. 
I knew exactly what I had to do now. 
Shu might’ve had told me all that information because he’d guessed what course of action I would take. In that case, this might be part of the training. 
Regardless, for the first time in a while, I once again had an objective. 
When it came to using my parents’ lessons, the only thing I’d been doing recently was teaching Elizabeth my mother’s thieving techniques. But now, I would put into practice what my father had taught me. 
“I’ll expose the culprit... and bring him to light.” I swear that upon my father’s honor. 
“Rook... That line is a biiit...” 
“I know. I regret saying it now.” 
Anyway, I began the investigation. 
“First we have to find out how the culprit got in, right?” Babi asked. 
“No, actually. The ‘how’ is thoroughly meaningless here.” 
This world had an awful lot of skills, including ones from Embryos that were unique to each Master, so the means of passing the alarm system were far too many. Even I personally knew of two people who could do it — Shu and Marie. 
“So we will look into the method last,” I said. “First, we have to work out the culprit’s mentality.” 
“How will you do that?” 
“I’m thinking on it now while I’m recovering my detective’s intuition.” 
I sat on a bench in front of the knight offices in the first district, observing the people passing by. It was both preparation for my first detective work in a long time, and part of the investigation. 
On the nearby notice board, the authorities had left a brief explanation regarding the murders. 
This was true for many other incidents, and the text on them followed the format of “This and that happened, and this and that person was caught.” 
I was observing the reactions of the people looking at the board. 
If the culprit was interested in how the case was proceeding, he might come to take a gander at it, and depending on his reaction, I might find my target early in the investigation. Still, it wasn’t too likely that the culprit would come here, so my hopes weren’t high, and most of my focus was on recovering my intuition and gathering my thoughts. 
“’Male suspect,’ eh?” I muttered, still on the bench, looking at the notice board several meters ahead. 
The explanation for the murders described what had happened and ended it with just a “We arrested a male suspect.” 
Shu’s name was nowhere to be seen, partly because it wasn’t certain that he was the culprit yet, but mostly because the news of one of the kingdom’s Superiors getting arrested would be far too shocking. 
During the incident started by the Giga Professor, Shu had revealed his identity as the King of Destruction and destroyed Pandemonium and the horde of monsters attacking Gideon. 
The significance of those feats couldn’t be taken lightly. Just like the moment of Ray defeating the RSK, Shu’s feats had given hope to the people of this declining kingdom. 
In fact, that might very well be the reason why the culprit was framing him. 
Arrest alone wasn’t enough to send a Master to the gaol, and if they had save points in other countries, they could come back through those. According to Shu, he had marked save points in all seven countries, so that wasn’t a problem. 
However, if he was put on Altar’s wanted list and lost his nationality, he would obviously disappear from the country’s rankings, making it impossible for the King of Destruction, the top of Altar’s kill rankings, to participate in the war. 
And with him being the hope of the kingdom, his exit would mean far more than just a severe loss of war potential. It would be a severe blow to morale. 
Then... was this another strategical move by the Giga Professor? 
“...No,” I murmured. 
It didn’t make sense for these murders to be part of a plot to remove Shu from the war. 
If someone truly wanted to achieve that, they would have framed him for a crime grave enough to get him on all the wanted lists. 
If that had been my objective, and I’d had the means to do it... I would have killed Elizabeth, who happened to still be here in Gideon. 
If I framed Shu for that, he would instantly become wanted everywhere — no two ways about it. 
His next death penalty would send him to the gaol, and the fact that their own Superior had killed their princess would drop Altarian morale to an all-time low, giving Dryfe a great advantage in the war. 
“But as things are now...” I murmured. 
Since this was just a case of two merchants being murdered and having their possessions stolen, it was likely that the country would suppress this whole event. The crime was certainly severe, but it was nothing compared to the future that would come if they lost their greatest force in the upcoming war. As the idiom goes, “desperate times call for desperate measures.” 
From Shu’s standpoint, it would be quite disgraceful to be released despite not being proven innocent, but even if it made him feel bad, he would become free nonetheless. 
I found it hard to believe that the true culprit would be unaware of that, so I still couldn’t tell what the culprit’s goal was. 
I needed more information, and quite a lot of it, as well, so I made my way to a place that could give me what I wanted: the local DIN branch. 
I went inside and bought copies of the documents relating to the murders and the cards found on the crime scenes. The fact that the DIN had documents for an ongoing investigation as though it was nothing made me somewhat wary of their organization, but for now, I decided to use it to my advantage. 
Besides, not even they seemed to know who the real culprit was, and they said they would pay a lot for that information. 
It was pretty evident that they didn’t believe Shu was the culprit, and according to the documents, many of the knights seemed to feel the same way. 
Due to the incident’s prime suspect being a Superior, and due to the crime having happened in Gideon, which was currently hosting the second princess, the Royal Guard were also taking part in the investigation. 
Liliana and a number of other Paladins in the group were strongly asserting that Shu wasn’t the culprit. 
“Is this an example of that?” Babi asked. “That thing you said was bad?” 
“Yes and no, Babi,” I replied. “What I said was bad was for detectives to let their preferences warp their deductions. Everyone else should believe in whoever they want, so Liliana and her knights aren’t mistaken to do so.” 
And that was why I’d taken it upon myself to find the culprit. I knew enough to assume that Shu wasn’t the one who’d done it, but I would do my best to not let my investigation become warped if I discovered proof to the contrary. 
“Rook, will you be on the lookout tonight?” she asked. 
“No. I haven’t the slightest clue where to go on the lookout. Not to mention that no murder would happen with things as they are now.” 
“Why? Shouldn’t it happen tonight, too?” 
“No. Because Shu is currently in jail.” 
If I was the culprit, I would never do anything while he was still arrested, for that would greatly reinforce his innocence. 
The next murder would surely happen the next time he was released, or if he logged out and disappeared from jail. Shu was almost certainly staying inside because he was thoroughly aware of that. 
“Instead, tonight, I will focus entirely on deciphering these cryptograms,” I said as I looked at the cards in my hand — the copies of the ones left behind by the culprit. 
They had cryptograms on their backs, and I would spend the night solving them to see if they had any hints. 
Let’s see what secrets you hold, I thought while eyeing the characters. 
 
And so came the next morning. 
Just as I’d expected, nothing special had happened during the night. I’d spent the whole time deciphering the cryptograms on the cards and, well... my silence as I looked at the results said all that had to be said. 
“Rook, you look so displeased,” Babi commented. “How rare.” 
Of course I’m displeased, I thought. 
The cryptograms were basically sets of words written with their characters randomly switching between different languages. While the one making it had only needed to type it down into some dictionary app, I, as the solver, had to use all the possible combinations for every character. 
The base was clearly the alphabet, and he replaced a lot of the letters with the corresponding characters from other writing systems, but every now and then, the rules of conversion changed, and there were some actual mistakes. 
For example, despite using readings or order until that point, he eventually equated “E” with the Japanese hiragana for “i.” Going by the rules used for the other letters, it had to be either the Japanese “ii,” the “e” in their transliteration of Latin characters, “o” — their fifth character overall, or “ho” — the fifth character in the Iroha. 
It’d taken me far too long to understand that part was nothing but a mistake by the culprit. 
It wasn’t the only mistake, either, and I’d spent a lot of time racking my brain trying to figure out if there was any meaning to those things, only to finally realize that they were nothing but pointless errors. Honestly, it made me more vexed than I had been facing that young lady back during the incident. 
This person was highly insincere when it came to making cryptograms. He’d clearly intended to have someone solve them, but he’d also neglected to check how solvable they were, and that, in my eyes, made them some of the most abysmal cryptograms I’d ever encountered. 
Insincere as these cryptograms were, however, I’d still solved them, which made me aware of an even more annoying fact: the culprit didn’t care about them at all. 
That was the reason for both the mistakes and for the actual content: 
Card 1: “Today’s lunch is a hamburg steak at Tricellas.” 
Card 2: “Today’s dessert is a pudding parfait at Café White Sugar Peach.” 
And that was it. 
Those establishments did exist here in Gideon, but the lines were clearly just some basic social network posts, turned into cryptograms for seemingly no reason at all. They had nothing to do with the incident, and all they did was irritate the one who solved them... but that was exactly what made me realize something. 
Since these cryptograms used Earth’s languages, a tian could never, ever solve them, and if there was any non-tian who might lay his eyes on the cards, it would be none other than Shu. 
The criminal had figured he might try to prove his innocence by solving them, only to get these meaningless words... and that would surely get on his nerves. 
If there was any sort of purpose for these cryptograms, that was exactly it — to anger Shu after having framed him. That was the only real damage being done to him by this whole situation. 
And, assuming that was the culprit’s intent, it led me to another realization. 
The fact that Shu was the prime suspect was being kept hidden from the public, and the only ones who knew that he was in jail were he himself, the authorities, personal acquaintances such as me and Marie, the DIN, and the real culprit. 
That knowledge would never have stayed contained if the reason for it was a personal grudge. 
For example, if Franklin had successfully framed one of the Starling brothers, who were his sworn enemies, he would have made sure that all of Gideon and Altar knew about it. Then he would have followed it up by spreading vile rumors about them, both here and on the Internet, in order to make sure they never recovered. 
If this was personal, the culprit would’ve done at least that much, and yet he hadn’t. 
The framing, the disgraceful release that was sure to come, and the cryptogram wasn’t quite enough to ruin Shu. It seemed as though all the culprit was doing was playing around with society and Shu in order to upset them. 
“But what does he gain from all this?” I murmured. 
Money was the first thing that came to mind, but if that was all the culprit wanted, he wouldn’t have left the cards. They’d made Shu into the prime suspect, but if he hadn’t left anything, there wouldn’t have been any suspects at all, and the case would never have been solved. 
Due to that, it was safe to assume that there was meaning in the very act of playing around with Shu — that the culprit’s desire was to toy with the King of Destruction. 
“It’s as if he wants to show that the KoD is an entity so meager that he can get him to dance on his palm,” I muttered. “Or perhaps it’s the other way around? This whole plot would never come into fruition if Shu hadn’t been powerful and famous. The framing itself would have failed.” 
In that case, this could be the culprit’s way of asserting that he was above Shu. 
“Is he merely trying to show someone who knows that he’s the culprit that he can lead the KoD around by the nose?” 
Is it a strange sort of sales promotion? I thought. 
It wasn’t certain if this assumption of mine was correct. With all the mental leaps I was making here, that deduction wasn’t all too reliable. 
However, it fit all the details I knew so far... not to mention that my intuition was telling me that I was on the right track, so I decided to search for the culprit from that particular perspective. 
“Currently, the only clues I have are these cards,” I said, looking at them. 
The cryptograms on them had been written by the culprit, no two ways about it. I momentarily considered that he could’ve made a tian write this and then killed them to hide the evidence, but I quickly dismissed that idea. 
The cryptograms used many Earth languages, so tians would find it extremely difficult to copy them properly, and I didn’t see a single bit of hesitation in the writing. Despite the errors, this had been written with confidence. 
Then perhaps the culprit had another Master partner-in-crime? 
No, that couldn’t be the case, either. After all, this culprit seemed to feel a dark sort of exhilaration due to playing around with someone as strong as Shu, so I found it unlikely that he would share this “great deed” with another Master. 
Not to mention that Masters couldn’t be silenced, and due to the risk of them revealing the truth on the Internet and the like, the culprit was most possibly a solo criminal. 
Additionally, with these cryptograms, the culprit was both hiding and asserting his existence. That might seem contradictory, but it was evident due to the fact that the hidden text revealed what he was doing. 
It seemed to me that he wanted to show that he was here while at the same time avoid being exposed. 
Honestly, I could probably find him by waiting for a few more cryptograms and deciphering them, but it wouldn’t be good to let the number of victims increase, so I needed to find the culprit before that happened. 
“Sooo... will you analyze his handwriting?” asked Babi. 
“Babi, that’s only effective if you have handwriting you can compare it to.” 
Without any writing by the culprit, I couldn’t match it to what I had on the cards. People had to give signatures whenever they took quests from the adventurers’ guild, but if the person in question hadn’t taken any quests here in Altar, that wouldn’t mean much to us. 
All I knew at the moment was that the handwriting on both cards was a perfect match. 
“This would be far easier if there was an Embryo that could trace a person just by looking at their handwriting,” I said. 
“But Rook, wouldn’t that be boring?” 
“Babi, making things interesting is the domain of the phantom thief,” I said. “A detective’s sole interest is in unraveling the truth.” 
To that end, I would do many plain, difficult, and yes, even outright boring things. I wouldn’t hesitate to request the help of a person with the aforementioned Embryo. Sadly, I wasn’t aware of anyone like that. 
“Wait...” I murmured. 
I actually did become acquainted with someone similar recently, I thought. Her Embryo’s power might prove to be a great help. I’ll have to contact her. 
“To find anything that could lead us to the culprit, we should first take another look at what he did,” I said. 
During the murder-burglaries, he’d stolen the goods and money from the hidden safes before going on to kill the heads of the households. 
The murder had come after the theft to make it easier for the culprit to escape once the smell of the blood and the like led to the incident’s discovery. 
This implied another fact about the culprit — instead of uncovering the locations of the safes by interrogating the victims, he’d known where they were ahead of time and had removed the contents before the murder. 
Now that I think about it, I haven’t yet investigated anything about the residences besides the hidden safes and the alarm systems, so let’s try approaching this case from that angle. 
I paid another visit to the DIN and bought the additional information regarding the two crime scenes. The organization knew so much that it felt as though its sole purpose was to make detectives’ jobs easier. 
“So both of the hidden safes were coupled with something in the houses, eh?” I noted. 
Apparently the walls slid open and exposed the treasure only upon pushing a bookcase or inserting a gem into the eye of a statue. Being a fan of retro games, Shu would probably call it a “Capcom-like design.” 
Such mechanisms seemed to be quite popular among Gideon’s wealthy, and it was imperative that they were installed during the construction phase... and both the households that had suffered the murders had been built by the exact same contractor. 
I see, I thought as I considered the three possibilities of why the culprit had found the safes so easily. 
One: he had an Embryo with such abilities. Since this theory left little room for a detective to work in, I skipped it for now. 
Two: he’d decided which houses he would commit the crimes in ahead of time, and then gone in to secretly take a look at the blueprints in the contractor’s offices. Considering how skillfully he’d snuck into the residences, that wasn’t too far-fetched. 
Three: he was an employee of the contractor who’d designed the houses. 
Also, I asked the DIN, and they confirmed that the culprit couldn’t have bought the info, like I’d done — I was the first one to ever show interest in it. 
Anyway, the only real connection between the two murdered merchants was the fact that their houses had been built by the same contractor. What they’d traded in and the scale of their business had been entirely different. 
If I were urged to name another similarity between them, I would add that both had dabbled in methods which, though not illegal, were definitely crooked. 
They had probably been chosen because they seemed like people Shu might’ve targeted, but he certainly wasn’t the kind of person to do it, and even on the off chance that he had, he definitely wouldn’t have been secretive about it. In a way, this choice of targets was proof that the culprit hadn’t observed Shu for long enough. 
Additionally, according to the DIN, there hadn’t been any recent assassination contracts in Gideon lately, so it was highly unlikely that the murders themselves were the goal. 
In fact, the city was currently being patrolled by a group of ninjas hired by the count, and the intelligence network they provided made it extremely difficult for assassinations to occur, as they would quickly get wind of a disturbance of public order as major as an assassination plot. 
...On the other hand, that meant that the culprit was above not only the house alarms, but the ninjas, as well. 
Now, if it wasn’t a hired murder, it could also be a personal grudge, but I’d already established that the link between the two victims was far too thin to think the culprit would kill them both two days in a row using the same method. 
And according to the DIN, I was the first to acquire the info that both residences had been built by the same contractor, so if the culprit was someone uninvolved, he couldn’t have known where they’d been designed or where to find their blueprints. 
A part of me felt like he’d chosen his targets based on who had safes he could easily rob of gold and goods, and that would make the third theory highly likely. 
“I should go for a little questioning,” I said, preparing to pay a visit to the contractor in question.

Before going there, I first went to one of my contacts, little Elizabeth, and asked her to make me a temporary investigator. 
She immediately replied with a lively, “Anything for my teacher!” 
I went straight to the one in charge and asked if they had any Masters among their employees. 
The answer was “No,” and from his expression, it didn’t seem like he was lying. 
I followed it up by asking whether they had designers working at home, and he said that they had a total of eight, so I asked for their addresses and took my leave. 
“Sooo... there was no culprit, huh?” asked Babi. 
“We can’t be certain of that yet, Babi.” 
“Ehh? But there aren’t any Masters working for the contractor, right?” 
Indeed, I thought back. At the very least, the chief was being honest about that. 
“However, Babi, Masters may pretend to be tians,” I said. 
Though it was a severe crime for tians to pretend to be Masters, there was no law or punishment for the reverse. 
Consider Ray: he’d lost his left hand and now used a prosthetic. The left hand was where we Masters had our crests, and losing it made it move to a part of the left arm that was still healthy, be it forearm or — as it was in Ray’s case — upper arm. 
I didn’t know what happened when a Master lost his whole arm right up to the shoulder, but I was certain that it moved in that case, as well. 
Now, what if someone who’d lost their left hand began using a prosthetic that, unlike Ray’s, focused not on function, but on looking as much like a real hand as possible? 
You would have a person who didn’t have a crest on his left hand. 
Now, all he’d need to do was to proclaim himself a tian, and he would appear to be such, even under the scrutiny of Reveal. Though that skill had no trouble with names, jobs, and stats, it didn’t give any information about Embryos. 
That person would look like a tian as long as you weren’t around to see the moment he summoned his Embryo from his crest. 
“Oh, I get it,” Babi nodded. “But why are you only looking at those working from home?” 
“No matter how well they fake being tians, Masters are still Masters,” I replied. “They log out every now and then, and if someone found that suspicious, it would invalidate the rest of what made up the façade. Because of this, a fake tian cannot work alongside others.” 
They could only do jobs from home, where they were by themselves. 
In that case, our culprit could easily come to see the plans of the houses he’d committed the crimes in if he’d just went and said something like, “I need to see the previous blueprints to help me with my work.” 
“Wouldn’t he just quit right after seeing the blueprints?” asked Babi. 
“Anyone would be able to see the link between a person who quit upon getting a gander at the blueprints and the incidents that happened at the residences based on them,” I said. “The culprit should still be working there, in order to avoid that scenario.” 
If all my deductions aren’t off the mark, anyway. 
“Also, there’s probably another reason,” I added. 
“Another reason? For pretending to be a tian and working at the contractor?” 
“There are Masters that do such jobs and do them properly, but this time, we are dealing with someone who commits burglary and murder. For all we know, he might be planning something.” 
If I was correct in my assumption that the culprit wanted to flaunt the extent of his power, it was likely that he had someone who knew of his situation — someone who, the culprit believed, would be impressed by his deeds. 
In that case, there might be some sort of secret organization involved here. 
“The culprit and his ally were planning something, and he began working for that contractor as part of the preparation for it,” I said. “These murders were a personal plot that had nothing to do with the original plan. That’s what it seems like, anyway.” 
That assumption gave me a decent idea of what the culprit was like. He was part of an organization, but his position there wasn’t all that great. He was dissatisfied with that and didn’t have the patience to hold back from acting on his own authority to prove his ability. 
He was also so imprudent that he hadn’t considered what it meant to use the blueprints he had handy for a crime. He’d thought leaving behind cryptograms would be more than enough. 
“Hm...” 
The really troublesome part about this person was that, despite all the flaws, he actually had an impressive set of abilities. 
Just as I’d told Babi, the “how” of this incident wasn’t too important. 
Even so, his feat was such that I only knew three people who could do it: Shu, who had his Mythical special reward; Marie, a Superior Job from the onmitsu grouping; and the King of Assassins, who’d kidnapped Ray. 
That made it safe to assume that the culprit had powers matching theirs. 
To summarize: our person was an extremely rash, thoughtless, Superior-tier fool with a strong desire to stand out. 
“Oh, dear,” I muttered. 
I was capable of finding the culprit, but it didn’t seem like I would be able to do anything about him. 
The situation would turn quite dangerous if the situation became rough, so I had to think of someone who could fight against him. Marie, Figaro, and little Xunyu came to mind, but they were all outside of Gideon right now, so the only one I could rely on was... him. 
At first I would have to handle the situation all by myself, but I was sure I could do it long enough for him to finish the culprit off. 
I’ll probably have to ask Elizabeth to help me with the legal process, I thought. This incident certainly has me relying on her a lot. I’ll thank her by teaching her a high-level thief technique. 
I couldn’t imagine Liliana and her Royal Guard liking that, though. 
“Nngh...” Babi groaned. 
“What’s wrong?” I asked. 
“Your thoughts just now were either toooo fast or allll over the place. They’re hard to understand.” 
“I don’t feel that way myself, but I guess it might seem that way to someone else,” I conceded. 
Oftentimes, I had developed convictions that looked like far-fetched gambles to others — mostly my mother and father. 
“But enough about me,” I said. “Let’s go question those working from home.” 
“Okay.” 
Before that, however, I had to go meet someone. 
I’d contacted her ahead of time, so all I had to do now was go to the designated place.

“Hello, Kasumi,” I greeted the girl. “I’m glad you could help me.” 
“I-It’s nothing... I-I’ll do my b-best!” she meekly replied. 
The girl was Kasumi — a person I’d partied up with many times before. 
Her Embryo, Taijitu, would be invaluable in this case. 
It was capable of locating nearby Masters, and if it discovered one of them among the “tian” employees we were about to question, it would greatly increase the chances of them being the culprit. 
“Rook, I feel that you’re bringing something waaay too useful and boring to this mystery,” Babi complained. 
“Babi, just as I said, a detective’s job is to unravel the truth. If a method is effective, it has to be used, even if it’s excessively convenient.” 
Not to mention that I have no obligation to be considerate of a culprit who is so insincere towards the mystery genre. 
“We should go, then,” I said. “Oh, before that, though...” 
There was another bit of preparation I had to do before walking around the houses. 
“Babi.” 
“What is it?” 
“Can you break my right arm?” 
“Okay.” 
“Eh?” Kasumi became perplexed as Babi took my right arm with both of hers... and snapped it in the middle of the forearm, just like that. 
It was now bending in a direction it shouldn’t be. 
“E-Eeeehhhhh?!” 
“There we go,” I said. “Looking good.” 
“N-No you aren’t!” 
“No, this is good because I now have a reason to use my left hand.” 
Assuming the culprit was hiding his left hand using a prosthetic or something else, it was necessary for me to touch it directly to check if there was anything strange about it. 
A handshake was a good method to do that, and if I had a broken right arm, it wouldn’t seem unnatural for me to shake hands using my left. 
Handshakes, questioning, Kasumi’s Master detection, and one more thing — I would search for the culprit using this four-layer check. 
“Y-You could’ve just put on a cast...” said Kasumi. 
“If the person has Reveal and takes a look at my stats, it would be off if I wear a cast while not having the ‘Broken Right Arm’ status effect,” I explained. “Don’t worry. I will definitely heal it after all of this is over.” 
Kasumi looked at me like she didn’t know what to say. 
I guess seeing an acquaintance break another acquaintance’s arm was a bit of a shock to her, I thought. That’s no good. I’ll have to make it up to her, somehow. Both for her help and for giving her a scare. 
And so came the time to walk around the houses of those working at home. 
I started by showing my investigator badge and exchanging a left-handed handshake with each person. 
Not hiding anything, I revealed that both of the buildings in which the serial murders had happened had been designed by the contractor they were working for and that I was investigating the case from that angle. I then gave them a few questions made with the assumption that they weren’t the suspects and keenly observed their reactions. 
Along with asking Kasumi if the person ever showed up as a Master, I repeated this process on seven out of eight of the employees. Some among them hadn’t known that the residences had been designed by their own, while some hadn’t even known about the murders altogether. 
None of them seemed to be lying, and I never saw anything strange in their reactions to my questions. 
“Missing the mark this many times makes me think that my deductions were mistaken,” I muttered. 
Or perhaps, like I’d once considered, the culprit might have an Embryo that could discover safes. 
But since I had only one more employee to check, I decided to redo my deductions after finishing this. 
And so, we arrived at the eighth person’s apartment building. 
I looked at Kasumi, and she silently shook her head. 
So she’s not detecting any Masters here, too, eh? I thought. 
Nevertheless, I wanted to be absolutely certain, so I left Babi and Kasumi behind and made my way towards the employee’s apartment. 
I rang the bell, heard a “Coming!” from inside, and a moment later, the door was opened. 
“Ah... Umm... Yes? Who are you?” 
The person behind the door was a young woman — probably in her late teens. Assuming she was a tian, she was clearly an adult by this country’s standards, and she didn’t have a crest on her left hand, either. 
“Good day. I am Rook Holmes,” I introduced myself. “I am a temporary investigator on a quest to investigate the series of burglaries and murders that began three days ago.” 
“Oh, my.” Despite the lack of crest, I didn’t see the need to shake her hand to confirm whether it was a prosthetic — it was obviously flesh and bone. 
However, this person was clearly the culprit. 
Upon first seeing me, there had been a brief moment of surprise on her face. Then she’d quickly put up an expression of confusion. It was obviously a reaction one would make if they recognized me, but tried to hide it. 
And it wasn’t far-fetched to believe she would know me. She’d tried to frame Shu, so it was only natural for her to look into those around him, and since I was being trained by him, I would definitely be among them. 
As indelicate as it would be for me to say it myself, I didn’t exactly have a face so plain it could be easily forgotten, and that was exactly why the last part of the four-layer check was my own face. 
Her reaction to it had been far stronger than that of someone who’d merely caught a glimpse of it before, and she’d instantly tried to hide it. That was more than enough to make her seem suspicious. 
Still, since I didn’t have any positive proof, I had to dig deeper. 
“The two residences that have been targeted were both designed by Fródi Construction — your place of employment,” I said. “I am currently visiting the employees to see if you might have any useful information.” 
“Oh, I see,” she replied. “We shouldn’t stand around while talking. Care to come in?” 
“...If you don’t mind.” 
I walked through the door to her apartment, feeling like I was entering the lion’s den. 
The young lady introduced herself as Gerbera. As I sat down on the sofa, she presented me with tea and doughnuts, saying, “Here you go.” 
“Oh, thank you very much,” I replied. 
“Heh heh. Those are the new doughnuts from White Sugar Peach Café. They’re delicious.” 
...Eh? But that was the name of the shop in one of the cryptograms. Why would she present me with pastries she’d bought there? 
“Well, they certainly look like they are,” I said. 
“They’re more than just looks, I assure you. The café had some great pudding parfaits, too, but their doughnuts are just amazing.” 
Was she aware that I was suspicious of her? Was she trying to confuse and trick me? Her expression didn’t make it seem like it was so. Still, there was a hint of ulterior motive towards me. 
Did she actually assume that the cryptograms still weren’t solved? In fact, it almost felt like she wasn’t even aware that the cryptograms and this conversation could be linked. 
...No, surely she couldn’t be that unobservant. 
It made me wonder if I was just misunderstanding things, and she was just a simple tian. 
“So, you wanted to talk about the serial burglaries?” she asked. 
“Yes,” I nodded. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?” 
“Not at all.” 
And so, I began giving her the same questions I’d given the other employees. 
Ten minutes later, I had to struggle to keep my eye from twitching. 
Why? Because the thoughtlessness behind her answers was even greater than I’d expected. 
During the first half of the questioning, I asked, “Have you seen the blueprints of the two residences where the murders happened?” to which she replied with a “Yes.” 
But then, during the other half, I asked, “Have you shown any of the contractor’s blueprints to anyone not involved in the company?” to which she said, “No. I only recently became an employee, so I haven’t seen any of our previous blueprints.” 
She was blatantly contradicting herself. From what I could tell, she’d made the decision to act like she didn’t know the blueprints while I was still questioning her. 
It was common practice in police inquiries to ask a question, wait a while, then ask a similar question in order to see if the questionee slips up, but this was the first time I’d seen a person contradict herself so quickly. Not only that, but she didn’t even seem to realize she was doing it. 
She could’ve at least prepared a proper, polished cover-up story, I silently lamented. 
“Thank you for your time,” I said. 
“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m glad I could help,” she replied. “But... this is awfully troubling, isn’t it? I mean, this incident got the King of Destruction arrested.” 
“...Truly,” I said. 
Lo and behold — what a finishing blow. 
Once again, I momentarily thought that she was trying to trick me, but that didn’t show on her face. 
She actually, honestly believed that speaking of the KoD’s arrest — information currently unknown to anyone but a select few — was good small talk material. She obviously hadn’t even checked to see how the incident had been described to the public. 
This woman was thoroughly convinced that, because she framed and had him arrested, society surely knew about it already. 
It was only natural to expect the public to show a far stronger reaction if that had actually happened, yet she’d failed to even check, feeling absolutely nothing strange about the unchanged state of the city. 
I already knew from the cryptograms that the culprit lacked sincerity towards the mystery genre, but not even I could predict that the extent was this immense. 
My deductions were mistaken. I’d pictured the culprit as “an extremely rash, thoughtless, Superior-tier fool with a strong desire to stand out,” but it also turned out to be “a person so exceedingly careless that she constantly piled up mistake upon mistake, yet never recognized them as such.” 
Father... The situations you put me in during my detective training never had a criminal as hopeless as this. She’s a bit... beyond the boundaries of my hypothesizing. 
Nevertheless, it was settled — this person going by the name “Gerbera” was definitely the culprit. 
She didn’t have a crest and couldn’t be detected by Kasumi’s Taijitu, but that was probably just because her Embryo was specialized in concealment. All I had to do now was leave her flat and prepare to corner her, but... 
“To think that the King of Destruction would do such a thing...” she said. 
Those words compelled me to respond. 
“He’s not the culprit,” I said. Though my tone was plain, I probably wasn’t so composed on the inside. 
After all — I wasn’t ignoring what I probably should be. 
Careless as she was, this woman had definitely killed two tians and framed Shu for the crime, and the fact that she’d said such a thing as though she had nothing to do with it made me so vexed that I simply had to retort. 
As evidenced by her twitching cheek, she was displeased with my response, which probably didn’t fit her plot, so she asked, “Then, in your opinion, what kind of person is the culprit?” 
“An idiot.” 
There was no hesitation in my response. It came out reflexively, not giving me a single moment to consider my words. 
Apparently, this criminal’s insincerity towards the mystery genre had made me more irritated than I thought. 
My response was so unexpected that her eyes were wide in shock. 
However, I wasn’t able to take back what I’d said, so I chose to continue instead. 
“An idiot with a poor grasp of the personality of the person he’s trying to frame. An idiot whose whole ‘steal, murder, leave a card’ schtick is nothing but a ridiculous mess. An idiot who doesn’t even realize that even a child could understand that this is merely a plot to frame Shu. An idiot who ciphered some of the most immature text on the cards. An idiot who made mistakes in his ciphering, but didn’t even bother to check. An idiot whose crimes are so basic that even leaving cards doesn’t make him seem like any less of an idiot. An idiot who might actually be idiotic enough to believe that this was enough to successfully frame Shu. An idiot who considers other people idiots to a downright unbelievable extent. An idiot who thinks other people are idiots despite he himself being such an idiot that he doesn’t even notice his own mistakes. An idiot who — and this is just conjecture, by the way — despite having such strong convictions regarding other people, doesn’t understand why he’s being thought of as an idiot, is thoroughly convinced that none of it is his own fault, and thus ends up going around in circles like the idiot he is. To summarize: he’s an idiot.” 
With that, I released all of the frustration that’d been building up since I’d solved the cryptograms. 
And yes... not even I had realized I was this upset. 
Still, it was too late for me to take back what I said, so I just prepared to take my leave, leaving behind the culprit — who looked shocked beyond words. 
“Apologies for the intrusion,” I said. “I have to continue the investigation, so I will be leaving now. Thank you for the doughnuts and tea.” 
And so, I walked out of Gerbera’s flat. 
Right after I left, I heard an enraged scream and the sound of porcelain being shattered in a fit of rage. 
Hearing that made me assume that, if I’d taken just a few moments longer to leave, she’d have attacked me regardless of the fact that it would’ve exposed her. 
When I entered an alley that couldn’t be seen through the apartment building’s windows, I was approached by Kasumi and Babi. 
“H-How was it?” asked Kasumi. 
“If that’s not the culprit, I’ll give up on being a detective.” 
She was just that undeserving of any sort of investigative deduction. 
“Also, I’ll probably be attacked tonight,” I added. 
“Eh? W-Will you be all right?!” 
“I should prepare for it, at least... She might prove to be troublesome.” 
“Ehhh?” Babi voiced her confusion. “But she’s sooo hopeless that you easily found out that she’s the criminal, right?” 
Indeed — Gerbera truly wasn’t suited for crime. Not because of her disposition as a person, but because she was just that inept. 
“Even so, she made it past the alarm systems unnoticed and fooled the sense skills of many investigators,” I said. “She herself isn’t fit for crime in the least, but... I think that her Embryo is an entirely different story.” 
Its category was most likely in the Guardian series. 
Other categories would’ve probably had her going out to the scenes herself, so there would’ve been even more mistakes on her part. 
And assuming it was a Guardian, its current form would be... 
“The situation could become even more dangerous than the night Franklin’s Game happened.” 
Worst case scenario, we might’ve been dealing with someone on the level of a Superior... or an actual Superior. 
“Still, it isn’t like we don’t have ways of dealing with her,” I muttered. “Babi.” 
“What is it?” she replied with a smile. I couldn’t tell why, but it looked like she was having fun. 
“There’s something I’d like you to do...” I said. 
And I named two things I wanted done. 
 
Dead Hand, Gerbera 
“THAT SHITTY WEAKLIIIIING!” I shouted as I threw the cup with tea in it towards the wall. “That non-Superior weakling thinks he can say whatever he wants just because he has a pretty face!” 
I really liked that part of him — he was a total freakin’ cutie-pie — but everything else was a “no” from me. 
I’d tried to soften him up with doughnuts and tea to casually seduce him, but no — he was no good. 
I’d wanted to make him fall for me, but now, I just wanted to tear his insides apart. 
“Heh heh,” I giggled. “He said he’s investigating it, but he still doesn’t know that it’s me.” 
If he had, he never could have said all those insults straight to my face. But he could still get in my way and stop me from cornering the King of Destruction. 
“I would be done with that in just a few more days, so I’ll give him the death penalty to take him out long enough for that.” 
I’ll make him regret saying those baseless insults about the true culprit: me. 
Of course, he would never know why he’d even gotten the death penalty. No one knew what my Embryo was, and no one could kill it. 
“My Embryo... is the strongest,” I said before looking to my side. 
Common people wouldn’t see anything there, but I did. 
It had a body covered in hard leather. A set of bull-like horns. The teeth of carnivorous beasts. A head without any eyes. An arm similar to that of a praying mantis. A human-like, bipedal lower body. 
It looked like a monster from a horror film, but that was very fitting for what it was. 
This was my Superior Embryo. 
Only I could see it. Only I could hear it. Only I could smell it. Only I could taste it. Only I could feel it. Only I could realize it was even there. 
It was my very own “Ego Sublime, Alhazred” — the strongest Embryo that wouldn’t lose to anyone. 
“Ahahahahahahahah! I’ll rip you to pieces, you shitty weakling!” I yelled. 
Tonight, I would repay him for that humiliation, and imagining the moment made me laugh out loud.