1 — Betrayal And Reincarnation

I was Shibuya Kou, a detective with the Metropolitan Police Department. Not just a local precinct detective, either, but one in the MPD’s Second Investigation Division. The Second Investigation Division was the department that investigated white-collar crimes such as fraud, currency counterfeiting, and bribery. I had built up achievements there and risen as far as assistant inspector. This had nothing to do with work, but I also made an effort to be seen by those around me as a dashing middle-aged man.

The case I was currently handling was a bribery case involving a construction company.

“Shibuya-san, is it really okay to keep investigating? Section Chief Toda told you to back off, didn’t he?”

My junior detective, Mitsukoshi, said that. Apparently pressure had come from a politician connected to the construction company. It was a common enough story, but I did not back off.

It was not because of justice or because I had some conviction that I would never bow to power. I had simply thought that if I could arrest a major figure here, promotion would be guaranteed. Still, I knew I should not say what I was really thinking. Keeping up the appearance of someone burning with a sense of justice, I turned my eyes to Mitsukoshi.

“It’s fine. If we get the evidence, even the section chief won’t complain. More importantly, Mitsukoshi, that internal tip-off is genuine, right?”

“It’s fine. It’s information from a reliable source.”

One of the employees working at the construction company in question had leaked information to the police that a certain politician and one of the company’s department heads would be meeting in secret. According to that information, the two of them would secretly meet in a building still under construction and hand over a bribe.

Given the nature of bribe money, I could understand why they would hand it over in cash rather than by bank transfer, so Mitsukoshi and I decided to stake out the building under construction and secure the evidence.

After getting out of the car, we entered the unfinished building using a key we had received from the employee who had leaked the information. Then we climbed the stairs and headed for the fifth floor. We had heard that the handoff would take place in a room on the fifth floor.

When we arrived on the fifth floor and looked around, I saw windows that still had no glass in them and walls of bare exposed concrete.

“Is it really here?”

When I checked with Mitsukoshi, he nodded with a dark expression. Just as I felt that something was wrong, three rough-looking men appeared from around the corner and approached us.

Then Mitsukoshi moved away from me.

“This is your fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“When the section chief told you to back off, if you’d just done as you were told, this wouldn’t have happened.”

This was bad, bad, an extremely terrible situation. My partner Mitsukoshi had betrayed me. At this rate, I was going to be killed. The three men approaching had the air of professionals who lived by violence. I had trained in Shorinji Kempo, but that did not mean I was good at rough fighting. I bitterly regretted not having trained seriously.

“Did they get some kind of leverage on you?”

“That’s right. They found out I caused an accident while driving drunk.”

If he reported it honestly, he would probably have to quit being a detective, but I said that would still be better than being an accomplice to murder. Mitsukoshi, however, shook his head with a frightened face.

I was driven back against a window with no glass in it. Then one of the three men launched a front kick. It was a sharp kick, but I somehow managed to scoop it up with my right arm and kick him up into the groin.

The man screamed and went down. In that instant, another man’s fist drove into my stomach. Unable to remain standing, I doubled over. Then I was shoved out through the window.

As I flew through the air, I wondered what I had done wrong. It was less than a second, and in the next moment my consciousness was swallowed by darkness.

To the south of the Shiei Continent, there was a mountainous region called the Seiren Mountains. It was a landscape of high peaks lined one after another, with plains of all sizes spread at their feet. Moreover, each one of those plains had its own small country, and in the frontier of one nation near the center of that region, there was a single child.

“Why? Why did you betray me?”

A small child lying on a bed sat up while muttering incomprehensible words as if in delirium. A woman who had been watching anxiously raised her voice.

“Kou, are you all right?”

It was not Japanese, but for some reason a gentle voice speaking a language I could understand reached my ears, and I nodded reflexively.

“I’m all right.”

I had been born as the fifth son of Den Sei and his wife Yien, who ran a small shop in the frontier, and I had been bedridden with a fever for the past three days. The reason I had come down with the fever was because I had recalled the memories of my previous life.

From that day on, I had become a nine-year-old child named Kou who possessed the memories of having once been a detective named Shibuya Kou. It seemed that my brain had overheated and caused the fever during the process of Shibuya Kou’s memories and Kou’s memories merging.

“Do you want something to eat?”

When I nodded, my mother brought me water and mantou, a kind of steamed bun. As I ate the mantou, I thought about what had happened.

I had the memories of Kou, the fifth son of Den Sei, who ran a shop. However, I also had memories from when I had been a Japanese detective before that. I was confused. That exhaustion made me tired, so after I finished eating, I fell asleep again.

When I woke the next day, my father and older brothers had gone to the shop, and only my mother remained behind. Kou’s family consisted of his parents and four older brothers, but only the eldest son, Wen, had stayed home to inherit the shop, while the other three older brothers had left home to enter service. The only ones left in this house were my parents, Wen, and me.

After somehow reassuring my worried mother, I returned to my usual life. Even so, Kou was only a nine-year-old child, so there was no proper work for him to do. Other than helping with cleaning the house, drawing water, and preparing meals, I had nothing to do.

When evening came and my father returned, he looked at my face and nodded.

“Looks like you’re better. That means what I begged Lu-san for won’t go to waste.”

Hearing that, I frowned. Lu was a person who arranged servant placements, and he had also found the place where I would enter service. It was a store called the Chian Trading Company, which ran a textile wholesaler’s business in a town called Boushin, the second-largest town in the country.

The master there was said to be a great merchant named Chian Shaou. The Chian family was one of the country’s leading merchant houses, and its head, Shaou, was apparently connected to various influential people. My father wanted to send me into service at the Chian Trading Company and use that to build ties with the Chian family.

“Kou, you’re smart. Study before you go into service and make your master take a liking to you.”

My father looked pleased. At that point, I asked him to introduce me to the head priest of the town temple. Nine-year-old Kou knew almost nothing about this world. So I thought I should hear about it from the head priest, the most knowledgeable person in town.

The next day, my mother took me to the temple. It was a small temple and rather shabby.

“Thank you for seeing us.”

My mother explained the situation and made the request.

“If it is something this humble monk understands, I shall teach him.”

My mother bowed her head and went home. Left alone, I sat on a bench in the pavilion within the temple grounds and began talking with the head priest. The pavilion was an open-sided shelter with only pillars and a roof. The head priest was a small, thin monk of about fifty, but his back was perfectly straight.

“This country is ruled by a king, right?”

The head priest smiled when he heard that.

“It is not that simple. It is not as though the king rules over everything. There are also those who stand outside the king’s rule.”

I tilted my head.

“What kind of people are they?”

“Those who study the arts of immortality and seek eternal life. They are called ‘taoists,’ and among them, those who have become immortal are called ‘saints,’ or ‘immortals.’“
When I listened in more detail, it became clear that these were not merely legends or superstitions; Taoist practitioners and immortals truly seemed to exist. Because of that, I understood that this place was, at the very least, not Earth.