Chapter 30

“Assuming Leo switched places, let’s re-examine the incident once more.”

I made the declaration, but most of the people present had blank expressions, seemingly unable to keep up with the shocking developments.

The exceptions were Leo, who was clearly enjoying himself; Geralt, whose quiet eyes seemed to be measuring me; and Queen Ice, who was desperately trying to maintain her composure and dignity.

“The only possible timing for Leo to have switched places was immediately after his own presentation. If we think about it logically, Princess Victie should have been killed at that moment. However, neither I, Kirio, Jin, Raika, nor Bob—all of whom entered the cathedral afterward—saw her body, and we all confirmed the room was not bloodied. When Leo, disguised as the Princess, left the cathedral and Jin and Raika performed their final check, there was still no abnormality. Correct?”

“Ah… y-yes, that’s right. There was nothing,” Raika replied, snapping back to her senses.

“By the way, did you see the ceremonial longsword at that time?”

“What?”

Raika froze, blindsided by the unexpected question.

“How about you, Mr. Jin?”

“I… no, I can’t say for sure… but we believed there were no abnormalities. At the very least, I’m certain there was no blood-stained longsword.”

“I see. Understood. Now, after that, the cathedral was locked, and Leo—acting as the Princess—entered the ceremony hall guarded by the two of you. Once he reached the second floor, he detonated the explosives. Under the cover of the smoke, he discarded the tekito-cloth and the veil he was wearing. Did you incinerate them on the spot with magic? There would be plenty of burnt remains at the blast site to hide them, after all.”

“Who knows?” Leo shrugged, still smiling at my question.

“In any case, after returning to your true form as Leo, you only had to pretend to come out of your room, appearing surprised by the explosion. One fact we mustn’t forget here is that one of the cathedral keys vanished from Mr. Jin’s possession. You found it mysterious, didn’t you, Jin? You said you should have noticed if someone approached or attempted to pickpocket you.”

“…I’m not trying to be conceited, but unless it was a highly skilled expert, one does not steal a key from me so easily. I believe I have that much competence.”

Because he had actually lost the key, Jin looked as though he were enduring a physical sting, his body tensing slightly even as he spoke with forced confidence.

“If that’s the case, it must have been stolen at that specific moment. In the instant the explosion occurred, the key was lifted by the very Princess you were supposed to be guarding. It’s no wonder you didn’t notice.”

“But my key wasn’t stolen? Why? Or was it a fake, like in Geralt’s deduction?” Raika asked, puzzled.

“Because it wasn’t necessary. The important thing was to steal just one key.”

Raika scratched her head at my explanation. “Wh-What do you mean by that?”

“You’ll understand in a moment. What matters is that afterward, we were all confined to the Grand Hall, and a large number of knights arrived at the ceremony hall and its vicinity. In this situation, it would be impossible to sneak out and head to the cathedral.”

“That is correct. Even Uraenus or I, who can give orders to the knights, would have found it impossible,” Ice said, her back still perfectly straight. Her refusal to lose her dignity even now felt somewhat tragic.

“Which means it was impossible to enter the cathedral until the very moment Master Merlin forced the door open. No matter what method was used. Yet, the moment it was opened, the room was blood-stained and the corpse was there. This leads us to one conclusion.”

I paused for a moment, then spoke slowly.

“In a cathedral where there was nothing, a corpse automatically appeared and the room became blood-stained without anyone realizing it.”

“That’s impossible. No way,” Bob said, his face twitching.

“Yeah, that just doesn’t happen,” Arle agreed, looking bewildered.

“You’re right, it’s impossible. That’s why we have to change our way of thinking. Let’s rephrase it like this: ‘In a cathedral where the corpse and blood were hidden, the corpse appeared and the room became blood-stained automatically.’”

“The ceiling!”

A sharp, heavy thud echoed through the Grand Hall.

It was the sound of Geralt, having lunged to his feet, striking the floor with his cane with all his might, his excitement plain to see.

“The ceiling… the body was hidden in the ceiling! It’s the only place in the cathedral left to hide anything. That cathedral has high ceilings. The light from the candles alone couldn’t reach that high. It was swathed in darkness. If the body was hidden there… but wait, how would it fall to the floor automatically? Why? There was supposed to be nothing there; only time had passed. Through the passage of time…”

Geralt’s voice trailed off as he muttered to himself. His eyes widened in realization, and he sank back into his chair.

“I see… how could I have missed it? That’s why the room was so blood-stained.”

“It seems Master Geralt has arrived at the truth,” I said. “Yes, the only place to hide the body was the ceiling. It was cloaked in shadows, and since Princess Victie was present, most people would be hesitant to look up anyway—it was the perfect hiding spot. All that remains is to explain the mechanism that caused the hidden corpse to fall to the floor automatically after a certain amount of time.”

“But the knights said they found no mechanical traps,” Mintz countered weakly, looking between Geralt and me.

“Leo used water and ice magic to crucify Princess Victie’s body against the ceiling,” I explained.

“Let me describe Leo’s actions after entering the cathedral. Immediately upon entering, he killed Princess Victie. However, he didn’t do it by cutting her throat. I believe he chose a method that involved almost no blood—strangulation or breaking her neck with his bare hands. For someone with Leo’s strength, it would be simple.”

Uraenus turned away, unable to bear it any longer, looking as though he wanted to cover his ears. Queen Ice remained in the same position, staring straight at me, but her pupils were trembling minutely.

Don’t hesitate, I told myself. A detective only thinks about closing the case.

“First, he stripped the majority of the tekito-cloth from the Princess. This was for his own disguise. He set that aside and used magic to char the small amount of cloth remaining on her. He likely wanted it to look like the cloth had been mostly incinerated rather than used for a switch. Then, Leo used ice magic to freeze the area around Princess Victie’s neck.”

“What?” Kirio gasped. “He… froze it?”

“Exactly. Leo, with your skill, you could freeze a part of a non-resisting corpse at point-blank range in mere seconds. You had all the time in the world for incantations or preliminary gestures. Am I right?”

“Of course. It’s well within my capabilities,” Leo admitted without a hint of hesitation.

“Once the neck was frozen, you decapitated her with all your strength using the ceremonial sword. The crucial point is that, because it was frozen, no blood sprayed out.”

“So that’s why the cross-section was so clean despite being done with a ceremonial blade… I see, it all makes sense now.” Geralt closed his eyes, the puzzle finally complete in his mind.

“All of this could be done in about a minute. After that, you wiped up the small amount of blood from the initial killing using the remaining cloth on the Princess. Then, carrying the headless corpse in one hand, you climbed to the ceiling. It sounds impossible, but for Leo, it’s not. Kirio and I both know that.”

I remembered Leo carrying Kirio as he effortlessly scaled the walls of the Great Cathedral. For him, this would be trivial. A headless girl’s body would be lighter than Kirio, and he could have simply climbed the corner of the room rather than a flat wall.

“Once at the ceiling, you used magic to thaw the neck’s cross-section. Then, using water magic, you manipulated the blood from the neck. You didn’t need fine control—you just had to splash the blood against the ceiling and let it soak into the cloth the Princess was wearing. Finally, you ‘crucified’ the body to the ceiling by freezing the blood. To lead people away from the idea that you climbed the walls, you placed the body as far from the walls as possible so it would fall into the center of the room. That attention to detail is just like you.”

As I finished my explanation, a heavy silence fell over the room. Everyone was staring at Leo now, not me. They were looking at him with a mixture of horror and disbelief, wondering if this person truly was the culprit.

“All that was left was to climb down, don the tekito-cloth and veil, and use body manipulation to become Princess Victie. Eventually, as time passed and the frozen blood thawed, the body would lose its grip, plummet to the floor, and the impact would spray blood everywhere, while more would drip from the ceiling. That’s when the blood got on the ceremonial sword. The lacerations on the body were caused by the skin tearing away where it had been frozen to the ceiling. And the reason you stole the key? To buy time for the blood to thaw. Though, given the temperature this season, it seems the blood didn’t thaw completely.”

I thought back to the frozen blood I had seen in the cathedral. At the time, I thought it was just the ambient temperature.

Before I knew it, the space around Leo had cleared. Everyone had stood up, instinctively distancing themselves from him. Amidst it all, Leo remained relaxed, leaning back in his chair and swinging his crossed leg.

“I have a few questions. Do you mind?”

Leo’s tone reflexively reminded me of the times the three of us—Leo, Kirio, and I—would play “guess the culprit” games. After I gave the right answer, Leo would often use this exact tone to poke holes in my logic.

“No, go ahead.”

“Doing all of that in five minutes might not be impossible, but even for me, it would be exhausting. You’re saying this was a premeditated crime, right? Was the plan one that would simply fail if I didn’t make it in time?”

“Not necessarily. You were confident in your abilities, so you expected to make it, but you had a backup. You would have heard the cathedral door unlock. Between the key turning and me actually entering the room, there’s a small window of time. And you know better than anyone that I’m not the type of person to come barging in confidently, right?”

“True. You are a timid friend, after all,” Leo chuckled. He acted so normally that it made me, the one who had him cornered, feel like the strange one.

“If you heard the key turn while you were mid-task, you could have just swapped to the Princess immediately. You could have extinguished the candles and conducted the ceremony in total darkness. Even if it was forced, as long as you kept us from noticing the body, you could have managed. It would have been suspicious, and Jin and Raika would have been puzzled when they checked later, but as long as you showed your face to Kirio at the end, the timing for a switch would have technically vanished. But that was likely just a last-resort safety measure.”

“Then what about the frozen blood? What if it started thawing during the ceremony? Even a single drop falling like rain would have given me away.”

“Isn’t that why you were looking up? As if you were praying? You were using magic to re-freeze it. Since you were in the cathedral the whole time, your eyes would have adjusted to the gloom enough to see the vague shape of the body near the ceiling.”

As long as he could see it, the distance wasn’t that far—medium range at most. Well within the reach of his magic.

“It seems… there is no evidence left to sufficiently deny your theory.”

With that, Leo let out a long breath and relaxed his entire body.