Not a detective

Page 210

Is this the kind of thing that caused the murder?

In terms of combat, this thing isn't particularly difficult to deal with. If she didn't have to take care of her assistant's safety, she could handle it even more easily.

But... this strange creature gave her a warning, as if telling her that this wasn't its true form...

What if it's just some kind of summoned monster, and its mastermind can easily conjure up a whole bunch of them...?

That would be difficult to deal with.

"Lord Kirisame... what should we do now?" The assistant's lips twitched. "It's still moving..."

Yes, the black chunks of flesh that were being chopped into even smaller pieces did not completely stop; they were still gathering together, as if the attack from Misty Rain Sunflower could only slow down its regeneration.

If left unattended, who knows if it will evolve into other, even more bizarre abilities.

Wu Yu Kui remained calm and said nonchalantly:

"Call for backup, let the people from the department come and collect the bodies. Even if it's an immortal monster, just put it in cement and sink it in the sea, or simply launch it into outer space."

The Inspection Department is specifically for handling difficult and complicated cases, and she is not responsible for the aftermath. Wu Yu Kui knows that she is not the kind of person who is good at using her brain.

Whatever the target is, she can just take care of it.

...By the way, I wonder if he would be interested in such a strange thing?

...Hmm, it seems too deliberate to make an excuse to go see him specifically.

...Wouldn't this be too frequent? Or should we keep a certain distance?

"Lord Kirisame, what are you laughing at? Is something making you happy?"

“…You are mistaken.”

Tamamo no Haru: Tamamo no Haru AFTER 2

"I lost."

Asakawa Riku sincerely admitted his defeat.

To be honest, the moment he saw that densely written paper, he was completely convinced of his admiration and had no complaints whatsoever.

While Asukai Shi's reasoning wasn't entirely accurate, it almost perfectly captured all of Asukai's tricks, even explaining the method of "not violating the scarlet letter."

He only got the idea after meeting Moyue and seeing Xingyu, the "unknown third person in the room." He never expected that such a whimsical trick would be foiled.

That's an exaggeration.

"You're truly amazing, senior."

Asukai Shi was so arrogant just now, but I didn't expect her to suddenly become so polite after winning.

"I've never seen a puzzle like this before. It really stumped me and I almost couldn't solve it. It's truly an eye-opening experience."

"I really didn't expect you to be able to solve it. How come you can deduce it so accurately? Do you really have the superpower of mind reading?"

"I really do have superpowers and stuff."

"Oh... what is it?"

Asakawa Riku immediately perked up upon hearing this. He hadn't expected the other party to actually confess. Could there be some unexpected good news?

Asukai Shi... Could this guy have a superpower like Shinonome Suetsuki, that makes his mind exceptionally sharp, allowing him to think and reason quickly?

However, that guy just smiled and said:

"Superpower. I like you super much."

"Do not make jokes."

Asakawa Riku scoffed, knowing that this fox-like girl would never easily reveal her true colors; she would cleverly deceive him.

"Hehe, I really had a lot of fun! You're the only one who can play this with me, senior! It's so much fun~"

"Is it really useful for your writing? It's just a word game."

Asakawa Riku asked in confusion, knowing that such a trick could only exist in this game and could not be written into a novel.

After all, using superpowers to commit crimes in a mystery is too outrageous. The moment the truth is revealed, the reader will probably curse them mercilessly.

"This puzzle was something I created to win. It was all about exploiting loopholes in the red text, deliberately choosing a viable path from the cracks. If you think about it carefully, you'll find the method very strange. Why would a tycoon have the superpower of resurrection? Why would an assassin attempt to kill him without knowing anything about him? Why wouldn't the tycoon call the police after successfully killing him, and why would he deliberately stage his own death, create a locked room, and even have his wife, servants, and doctor pretend not to see the body? There are too many strange things..."

Therefore, this is impossible in reality; it's just a product of the game.

"It actually gave me some very interesting inspiration."

Asukai Shi laughed: "If you're thinking about proper methods of committing crimes all day, all you can think of is boring stuff like melting ice skates with 3D printing."

She spread her hands and gathered up the scraps of paper scattered all over the table; those were things they had just written down.

Judging from her expression, it seemed like she wanted to take it home as a keepsake.

"...You're not really going to use this as a gimmick for a new book, are you?"

Asakawa Riku was somewhat surprised: "Speaking of which, I'm a little curious. Why did you only write down the [murderer] and [method] on each piece of paper, but not the [motive]?"

These are the famous three elements of reasoning: Whodunit, Howdunit, and Whydunit.

That is, the murderer, the method, and the motive.

However, in the puzzle designed by Shizuka Asukai, there are only the [murderer] and [method], but the [motive] is missing.

In a normal mystery story, it's not just about the first two parts; the story doesn't end until the final motive is revealed.

"Motivation doesn't matter."

Asukai Shi said with little interest.

I feel like I've heard others say similar things, but their core meanings seem to be different.

"For example, why would a tycoon hide himself after killing someone? Maybe he didn't want to reveal his superpower of resurrection? Or maybe he wasn't as glamorous as he seemed on the surface, and was heavily in debt and just wanted to use this as an excuse to get out of trouble. His family members didn't care about his life or death... You can make up as many motives and reasons as you want."

She seems to be the kind of classic mystery writer where everything serves the plot, and it doesn't matter how outrageous or absurd the motive is, as long as it's added later.

But Asakawa Riku felt... that wasn't the case.

Asukai Shi is not as indifferent to motives as she appears on the surface.

She gathered all the manuscript papers, neatly stacked them, put them in her pocket, and then stood up, seemingly preparing to leave.

That concludes today's club activities.

She then flashed a sly smile: "From now on, I'm the president. Senior, you'd better come on time every day. If I can't find you, I'll come to your house to check up on you."

"That's a stalker."

Asakawa Riku sighed. He had to honor his bet and keep his word.

As for reviewing for the exam, it's perfectly fine to do it here; after all, this guy does seem to have a pretty good head for brains.

Just as Asu Asai was carrying her schoolbag and preparing to leave the activity room, Riku Asakawa suddenly called out to her.

"Wait, what about 'Summer of the Crimson Ray'..."

"what?"

Asukai Uta turned her head: "Senior, you lost, right? According to the bet, I'll only tell you if I win. If you lose, you won't know the truth."

She blinked, as if to say, "Senior, you're not going to try to back out now."

"I won't renege on my debt."

Asakawa Riku shook his head. Since he had already lost, he naturally wouldn't disband the mystery club.

However, since the author himself has been found out about all the mysteries surrounding "Summer of the Red Stingray," he won't let them go easily.

"I did lose that game before. But I'm wondering, if I can solve a new puzzle, could you tell me the truth about 'Summer of Red Rays'?"

"A new bet?"

The girl tilted her head, neither immediately agreeing nor denying, but instead asked, "Tell me about it?"

"I might not be so sure about other mysteries. I still don't understand what 'Summer of Red Rays' is. If I could, I would have figured it out myself long ago."

Asakawa Riku closed his eyes for two seconds, remained silent for a moment, and then answered:

"But this is the only thing I've always had a question about, and I only understand it now. I think I've figured it out—the truth about why you got first place in the entrance exam."

Why did you get first place?

She squinted her eyes, her smile becoming even more innocent and pure, without any impurities: "Of course it's because I'm an excellent student, that's why my grades are good."

On today's list of entrance exam results, her name appeared first in the entire grade—an astonishing achievement and an unimaginable accomplishment.

Reaching a position that only hundreds of people can achieve requires not only skill but also luck, especially in a school teeming with talented individuals.

but……

Asukai Shi's voice was melodious and pleasant, and even against the backdrop of night, her face resembled a blooming cherry blossom.

"Could it be that you're implying I cheated, senior?"

Tamamo no Haru: Tamamo no Haru AFTER 3

Asukai Shi waved the white paper and the red pen in her hand.

“I can write it down: [Red text: I did not cheat on the entrance exam]”

Faced with accusations of "cheating," most people would be angry and indignant. It's only natural to feel angry when the fruits of one's hard work are treated as an unfair means.

But the girl in front of him seemed to be playing around and didn't look serious.

It even... felt like a fox's tail.

In their previous game rules, the red text meant "absolute truth." If she wrote it down, it would prove that she did not cheat.

But this is reality, not a game. Even if Asukai Shi writes it down in red, it won't achieve the effect of a law or prove anything.

"You did not cheat."

Asakawa Riku answered calmly.

He didn't think the guy was lying.

Because... it won't be that simple.

The fox wouldn't be satisfied with such a simple method, and it would never allow itself to be caught.

"That's great~" Asukai Shi opened her arms and said with a grin, "I didn't cheat and I still got first place, doesn't that mean I'm an excellent student?"

Is this really equivalent?

Asakawa Riku lowered his eyes and began to speak and reason:

"When I saw the report cards posted on the school bulletin board, I felt that the scores were lower than usual. Although I didn't remember how the entrance exam for the first year of high school went, or what the normal score was, there were many students lamenting their poor performance on the bulletin board, saying that it was completely different from what they had expected. If this were just the usual complaints after exams, I wouldn't have been suspicious. The real problem was when I passed by the teachers' office and heard them saying that this year's exam results were indeed not ideal, with the average score lower than in previous years, and whether the exam was too difficult or something like that... That's when I started to feel something was wrong. The school's admission standard deviation value hadn't changed, and the source of students wouldn't have changed much either. The scores shouldn't have fluctuated significantly. If there were changes that even the teachers were reflecting on, then someone must have manipulated it. She wouldn't change one person's score, but the whole group."

"You are the murderer, Shii Asukai."

"Your method is to spread the leaked entrance exam questions and answers in advance, misleading the freshmen who are preparing for the exam and leading them astray."

"Only in this way can a large number of students experience a serious decline in grades, underperform, and even affect the average score of the entire grade. You might say that there aren't that many people cheating in a school, but we all know that this entrance exam is very important. It can even affect class placement, evaluation, and future transcripts and college application resumes, so everyone is putting in their best effort and absolutely doesn't want to fall behind. When suspected exam answers appear, people will definitely try to memorize them, and once they start memorizing, they'll be fooled because they've made them up."

“You didn’t cheat yourself, because getting caught would be a serious stain on your record. But if you change your approach [let everyone cheat], you can reach the top on your own.”

Asakawa Riku paused for a moment, then looked at Asukai Shi's face, which still had that same smiling expression, without the slightest change.

It seems that even the thoughts I had just had in the game were more serious than they are now.

Does she really not care?

So he continued speaking:

"But what I don't understand is, even without this method, with your intelligence, you could have achieved good results, right? You're first on the report card, and Yukie is second. Knowing her as I do, she would never cheat, which is why she got second place. This shows that you could have beaten her without cheating, so you had a chance too. Why did you do this?"

Asakawa Riku couldn't understand why Asukai Shi would deliberately spread false leaked exam questions, thus harming an entire grade.

Although theoretically, it was the students' greed that led to their own downfall, from this perspective, she may not necessarily be considered to have done anything wrong.

Is it wrong to test human nature?

...Asakawa Riku simply didn't understand her motivation—her determination to get first place no matter what.

"Senior, this method is indeed quite good, very interesting, but are you sure the murderer is really me?"

Asu-i Uta simply tilted her head slightly: "What if the culprit is your sister Yukie? She spread fake exam questions and ruined everyone's lives, but I didn't cheat, and she couldn't beat me even after trying her best? What if we're not the culprit, and the culprit is someone else, and we just got first and second place normally? Why must the culprit be me?"