NOVEL WEB 0032 – Captain Dioh And His Suspicions
The familiar melody of "Für Elise" fills the lazy afternoon. It's a pure piano piece. The song's serene melody conjures images of a girl joyfully strolling along a forest path.
Light and smooth, it brings a sense of pleasure to both body and mind. However, Zoe, lying on the couch at home, hasn't opened any music player.
In fact, she's using her Transparent World ability to listen to the music of the family next door, who are taking a nap. By lowering her perception of other ambient noises and heightening her perception of the neighbors' sound system, she can directly listen to their music as if it were her own.
This practice helps her enhance her Transparent World ability, making her control more stable and precise.
Of course, the downside of listening to others' music like this is that she has no control over song selection. These days, Zoe often samples the musical tastes of her neighbors.
Besides the family she's currently listening to and the recently departed Benny in gentlemanly suit, most of the others seem to enjoy lively ethnic tunes. It's no wonder this place is known as a retirement community. While Zoe doesn't dislike this piano composition of classical era, she also doesn't want to listen to it all day.
But she doesn't mind; although she can't change what she's hearing, she can choose not to listen.
Today's "Für Elise" is tolerable enough. This is a solo piano piece composed by German composer Beefhaven in 1810. Though it's quite old, it's still enjoyable and soothing to the mind.
As Zoe listens to the song, she idly fiddles with her smartphone. Earlier in the morning, the police had visited, saying he could either pick up her laptop from the Hampsterburgg District Police Station tomorrow or wait for them to deliver it later.
Either way, her laptop is currently unavailable. So, for now, she bids farewell to pc games. After a brief session of bug-killing with her Transparent World ability, she decides to spend a week or two relaxing without exercising, eating, or sleeping much.
She spends some time playing mini-games on her smartphone. Currently, she's playing the once-popular "Jump Jump," where the goal is to accurately time jumps to the next platform without falling off. In the past, she'd start losing around a few hundred points, but now, as long as she doesn't want to fall, she won't.
The game tests her ability to calculate the effect of pressing the screen for different durations. For Zoe, such calculations are almost instantaneous. Coupled with her superb coordination, she ensures that her controlled piece lands perfectly in the middle of the next platform every time, without error.
Suddenly, Zoe's movements come to a halt. Through her Transparent World perception, she clearly "sees" Benny sneakily poking his head out from the staircase.
Benny seems to be carrying some sort of iron device. Although Zoe, who doesn't have true X-ray vision, can't see what Benny is carrying, she can hear the footsteps clearly. Benny first returns to his own home, then slowly and carefully checks every corner.
Muttering to himself, "There are no bugs or pinhole cameras here..." he then wanders around the hallway before stopping at Zoe's door.
Moments later, the doorbell rings, and Zoe opens the door to find Benny wearing a British-style hat and formal attire, panting heavily, with an iron device strapped to his back and an antenna extending from a box connected to a metal stick he's holding like a mine detector.
"You look... out of place and... era," Zoe remarks after a long silence. It's really hard to evaluate. The gadget Benny carries, seemingly capable of detecting listening and surveillance devices, is both technologically advanced and oddly out of place, conflicting heavily with his formal attire.
"An ancient greek, Aristotle once said, 'Even if our arms and legs are broken tomorrow, our collars and cuffs will still be equally neat,'" Benny says, adjusting his British-style hat with his free hand.
Zoe shakes her head in resignation. Regardless of whether that quote was from Aristotle or some unknown egyptian philosopher, she's now curious about one thing. "Why are you here like this?" she asks, looking at Benny with curiosity.
This morning, when the police came, she noticed Benny peeking through the peephole, only turning away when she led the police inside. After the police left, Benny immediately left without saying a word. Now he's back with some strange equipment, and Zoe wonders what he's up to.
After hesitating for a moment, Benny asks cautiously, "Those people this morning... were they police?"
Seeing Benny's demeanor, Zoe squints, feeling a hint of suspicion.
Could it be... that last night's thief is really related to Benny? But... she checked the thief thoroughly and found no trace of Benny's scent. Could it be... because she didn't sniff around? But the thief's methods were too rough; it didn't seem plausible that he was connected to Benny.
Contemplating, Zoe answers, "They were looking for me. I lost something earlier."
Her response is half-truth, half-lie, confirming the police's visit while implying that they were looking for her. Benny's subsequent reaction instantly dispels Zoe's worries.
Benny lets out a sigh of relief, saying, "You scared me. I thought they were coming to get me."
"Well, crisis averted," Benny adds with relief. Then, as if in a hurry, he prepares to take the elevator downstairs with his equipment.
Using her Transparent World perception, Zoe can sense Benny's breath and pulse, essentially functioning like a lie detector. From this, she can roughly tell that Benny isn't lying.
So... Benny and last night's thief really have no connection; the suspicion can be completely ruled out. It's just her bad luck that her house got burgled. Or perhaps... it's the thief's bad luck for choosing to break into her house.
Benny's panicked behavior today is a result of rich experience; he recognized this morning's visit as the police and instinctively feared them, like a mouse seeing a cat.
Just as Benny had mentioned during his time in Hampsterburgg City, he has a hypersensitivity to "Yes, sir." But seeing Benny in a rush to leave, Zoe immediately stops him.
"Benny! Wait!" Suddenly, she has a new idea. Since her extreme coordination control has granted her powerful throwing skills, why not ask Benny to customize some throwing knives for her?
But as the words almost escape her lips, she holds back. Wanting cool throwing knives is understandable, but there's no need to ask for help from others. She can just carve some wooden pieces herself.
Wooden pieces might not be as effective as bladed throwing knives. However, if she really needs to harm someone, wouldn't the subtle method of using her Transparent World ability be better, leaving no traces?
Besides, if the knives have blades, it might leave a paper trail of purchasing controlled items. Even if Benny can quietly obtain them through some gray channels, Zoe would still owe him a favor.
So... Zoe decides that wooden pieces will do just fine. But as she looks at Benny, who has been stopped, Zoe pauses for a moment before saying, "Help me pick up a parcel from the rookie station over by the garden."
She indeed has a parcel waiting for her, the video recorder she bought the day before yesterday. She wants to use it to record her possible third slumber.
"Sure, just send me the pickup code on Sahara," Benny nods and promptly heads for the elevator. Through Zoe's perception, she can "see" Benny anxiously making several phone calls in the descending elevator, instructing the people on the other end not to prepare fake IDs, cash, plane tickets, etc.
Seeing this, Zoe shakes her head helplessly. It's clear that Benny, scared by the police, who is eager to flee, is not suspicious. Benny may have gotten involved in something else, but it's unrelated to last night's thief incident.
That thief must have just had a stroke of bad luck, stealing from her. With that thought in mind, Zoe continues her multitasking practice and entertainment.
Before her laptop returns, engaging in Transparent World, honing her killing intent, and listening to music are her top priorities. As for the short-term plan 2.0 that involves writing, that can wait a few days. It's not that she's succumbing to laziness; it's just that she's not accustomed to writing on her old phone.
At the Hampsterburgg District Police Station, Captain Dioh furrows his brows as he looks at the test report and the identification report from the hospital. The theft discovered today seems to have become a puzzle, yet it's not quite a puzzle.
In the evidence, nothing special was found. Basically, they're all valuable items from six different households. This morning, he led a team to interview these households, and they all received threatening notes left behind by the suspect.
They also collected fingerprints and other traces, all matching the suspect found by the riverbank this morning. Obviously, the vegetable-like person found by the riverbank is the culprit of this theft.
Through investigation of the vegetable person's past criminal record, it can basically be confirmed that this man, who has a history of theft, is the culprit. However, there is a crucial question that hasn't been answered: why did this thief become a vegetable after stealing?
He was found lying by the riverbank along with the stolen goods until this morning.
Obviously, a vegetable person couldn't have committed the theft, so what happened to him after the theft? What made him lose consciousness?
This question doesn't affect the guilty verdict of the thief, nor does it affect the closure of the case by the police. But it's still puzzling and makes no sense to a professional detective like him.
My intuition is screaming, there must be more to this. Not only the crime was only theft but somehow, I felt the same vibes similar to murder cases. What exactly is going on? After stealing, he became mentally unstable. Why?
According to the hospital report, the thief's cerebral cortex suffered extensive damage, resulting in a significant loss of consciousness. While the brainstem still functions, maintaining heartbeat, breathing, and blood pressure.
Higher neurological activities such as consciousness, perception, and thoughts are completely lost. There are large amounts of adrenaline residues in his body, signs of severe cardiac expansion, and severe gallbladder rupture...
Most likely, he was scared to the point of losing his mind.
The only explanation was the thief was scared to death, extreme fear similar to victims of tortures.
What situation could have scared a thief?
Captain Dioh, a former criminal investigator, is curious about this question. Even though this case is almost entirely clear, this one puzzle of why the thief was frightened remains unclear.
His colleagues are already organizing the files. The thief, who has no relatives to take care of him, has already been sent to a dedicated ward and is being kept alive by the state, hanging on by a thread.
Yet Captain Dioh is still curious. If he was frightened in extreme degree, maybe he's afraid of the dark?
No...
Why would a thief who operates in the dark be scared? People who do this kind of thing, especially those with previous records, shouldn't be afraid. At least, they shouldn't be afraid of the dark. But what else could scare him? It couldn't be something supernatural, could it? Or maybe it's just karma?
Thinking this, Captain Dioh subconsciously looks down at his police badge. He recalls the solemn oath he took under the national flag. Then he immediately shakes his head to dismiss such a possibility.
He's a staunch materialist; how could he entertain such thoughts?
Pondering, Captain Dioh looks at the clock on the wall, showing that it's almost time to finish work. Helpless, he shakes his head. After ruling out all possibilities, there's only one left: the thief had a sudden illness, and some hallucination made him lose his mind.
Perhaps it's some sort of family medical history or unknown mental disorder that has yet to be found.
Matters related to the human body aren't always explainable. Biotechnology and entirety of science isn't advanced enough to explain everything. So, comforting himself with this thought, Captain Dioh seals the files related to this case and hands them over to his colleague in charge of managing the archives.
This will become just another case among countless others. After all, the owners have gotten their lost items back, the thief has faced consequences, and there are no relatives causing trouble because of his dementia. The riverside where the thief collapsed is remote, and his discovery this morning didn't attract any social attention.
The police officers have thus completed their task calmly and easily. Everything has ended happily, seemingly without anyone feeling dissatisfied.
Having recently been transferred from the criminal investigation unit, Captain Dioh thinks it's best to enjoy his semi-retired life after being transferred back to the ordinary police unit for a while.
Looking at his busy colleagues around him, Captain Dioh picks up his phone to check the time. It's 5:30 now, just in time to finish work. There's no need to think too much. It's time to finish work and pick up his daughter from school.
