When the Detective Work is Done, I'll Die

Chapter 27

The logic she was asserting was definitely strange. Even at this point, I already understood. She was a detective who was trying to mess up the crime scene.

In other words, she was my enemy.

It was disappointing that she wasn't Azuma, but it couldn't be helped. There were many detectives in this world. To make every single one of them give up would take an enormous amount of time. Even so, I had decided to kill detectives. Even if it was a small-time detective, I wouldn't hold back.

I would crush her with my reasoning.

If I kept doing that, surely Azuma—who must know Miiko's circumstances—would appear too. Consumed by jealousy of my success, he would jump out. It was a small possibility, but I would believe in it to the end. To avenge Miiko, I would keep fighting detectives until that girl appeared.

I had made that resolve long ago.

With the force of a raging wave, I raised doubts about the detective's reasoning.

"Wait... just a minute. You're not seriously saying that, right? You really think this was the work of an outsider?"

"Oh, what is it?"

Perhaps because she was offended at being challenged, her expression turned sullen.

This detective hadn't even heard what the suspects had to say. She probably didn't even know who the suspects were. In that state, she was trying for a speedy resolution. With this, her fame might indeed rise, but the victim would never be avenged.

To let her know that the culprit was among these people here, I voiced my objections to her words.

"First of all, a curse—what do you mean by that? Such an unscientific explanation—"

She lowered her face for a moment. I thought she was looking at her smartphone, but she immediately shattered my words.

"What's so strange about it? It's an accurate deduction based on psychological behavior."

"Huh?"

"The victim seems to have been a straight-A student. But this private school's academics are strict, and the daily stress must have been intense."

"And that leads to a curse... how?"

"Haven't you heard? Among believers in occult cults, there are famous entertainers and top students from elite universities. Those kinds of people come to believe in another world to escape from their empty present reality. There are people who get hooked on the occult."

"...Ehh... wasn't this supposed to be a werewolf setup...?"

I couldn't deny it. Words vanished from my mind.

In a way, that line of thinking might make sense. Because the culprit framed the murder as a werewolf, arrows, an occult book, and a fox mask were left at the scene. That was more persuasive. The victim had an interest in the occult. There was no evidence that could let me say "that's absolutely wrong" about this story.

As I was on the verge of being overwhelmed, the detective gave a faint smile while looking at her smartphone. When she raised her face again, she spoke further conjectures while reflecting my eyes in her pupils.

"Ah...! Certainly, the werewolf setup. Some people might think that way. But to me, they're all tools for a curse. The occult book—she had probably read it. And arrows too, they were used in sorcery and religious rituals long ago, so there's no mistake."

"The fox mask too..."

"Yes. The mask, the fox—everything is perfect as tools for a curse."

"I... I suppose so..."

As a curse, it made sense. I couldn't tell anyone that her reasoning was wrong.

"In short, Kanbara-chan here was trying to perform some kind of cursed ritual. Then a suspicious person appeared and killed Kanbara-chan. To throw off the investigation, the culprit scattered belongings that Kanbara-chan happened to have on hand, and while at it, also placed a dead cat... so."

As I hung my head, she suddenly looked down. She checked her smartphone for the third time.

Was she reading from her reasoning notes? If so, there must be parts she was deliberately leaving out of her story.

I approached her, looking for something I could object to.

I glanced at her smartphone from the side. While she was absorbed in the screen and hadn't noticed my movement, I confirmed it.

At the end of my gaze was not a memo... but SNS. A perfect networking service where, whenever she posted, many people reacted with "likes."

What the detective had been staring at were messages of reasoning sent to her. I positioned myself so I could escape at any moment, and asked her timidly.

"Could it be that the reasoning you just gave wasn't thought up by you?"

When she noticed me, she flailed her arms and shouted "Awawawawa!" Then she backed away several steps and immediately hid her smartphone in her pocket.

The suspicious detective turned bright red and pointed a finger at me.

"W-wait! Peeking at someone's phone is terrible manners! Manners!"

"Before you scold me for that, please explain this. That reasoning just now wasn't yours, was it? Why did you leak information about the case to others and act as if you solved it yourself?"

As I pressed her, a voice from the side stopped me.

It was the female detective who approved of the detective's existence.

"W-wait! No fighting. This person is Eniwa Chikage. What she's doing is strange, but... she uses SNS to gather all kinds of information. And... she doesn't rely only on herself—she mixes her own reasoning and also refers to other people's opinions. In other words... it's not like she's not reasoning at all..."

Eniwa Chikage.

That was this female detective's name. After the female detective's explanation, she put her hands on her hips and showed me a proud face as if to say "so what?"

But in the end, it was just SNS.

She and the people giving her advice couldn't possibly know the crucial thing. That was why they concluded it was an outsider.

There was no guarantee that all the information had been conveyed; there might be a hole somewhere.

The moment I thought that, a certain piece of evidence flashed back. I had forgotten. I had gathered evidence to throw at the detective when she appeared.

I had been distracted by that outrageous reasoning that Kanbara-senpai had tried to perform a curse. But with the evidence I was now thinking of, I could completely deny Chikage-detective's reasoning.

So I told her in a heavy voice.

"Excuse me. You said the victim was performing a curse. But I have one piece of evidence that makes me truly doubt that."

"Huh? What is it?"

"I'll show you. Evidence that can only be obtained when everyone present does their utmost to move. Evidence you could never see by relying on SNS!"