Chapter 52

“Well, that’s how it went. I went outside with a life-or-death determination and told Mr. Bent that he absolutely had to send a rescue team immediately. You could all stand to be a bit more grateful,” Eni said, puffing out her chest with pride.

Kirio ignored her and turned back to Shirona. “And what about the countermeasure you mentioned—the one for the possibility of you being killed?”

“It was simple. I decided it was better to ‘die’ before I could actually be killed.”

“What?” Kirio nearly jumped out of her seat.

“Oh, I see. That makes sense,” Kirio quickly realized. “You made the culprit believe you were already dead.”

“Yes. To achieve that, the best way was to make it look like we had turned on each other and fought to the death. I wrote that plan down on the paper.”

“The idea seemed sound,” Watch said, closing his eyes as if recalling the moment. “Especially since, after hearing Jin’s theory, we could predict that the culprit was monitoring our every move.”

“And then we decided to refine that plan even further,” Watch continued. “In other words—”

“We decided to stage a scene where everyone fought until we all took each other out. He-he. That way, the culprit would be satisfied and leave. Or, if they were foolish enough to crawl out to check if we were still breathing, we could cut them down right there.”

Henya made a sharp cutting motion with his hand against his throat.

“While we were whispering amongst ourselves, Watch brought up that proposal, and Henya was surprisingly eager to go along with it,” Jin said with a wry smile. “The two of them seemed so confident that the rest of us decided to play along.”

“Even so, the two of you are still a mystery to me,” I admitted.

I hadn’t noticed it before because I had been so desperate, but the relationship between Henya and Watch was still an enigma.

“The two of you seemed to have such a deep grudge—honestly, you seemed to hate each other. I couldn’t understand why you were the first to agree to something as dangerous as faking a lethal brawl, which requires an immense amount of mutual trust. Was that story about your families’ rivalry true? There’s still so much about you two that I don’t get.”

“Ah, well, it’s not that big a deal,” Henya said, scratching his cheek. “If you’re that curious, I guess it doesn’t hurt to tell you now, right, Lord Watch?”

“There is no longer any reason to hide it,” Watch nodded.

“The story about the Houou family—how they were crushed after competing with my master for the position of instructor—that part is true. But everything else was total nonsense. For starters, Lord Watch isn’t even a Houou.”

“What!?” everyone except Henya and Watch exclaimed in unison.

“Yes, it was a pseudonym. I am no noble. My name is simply Watch—nothing more,” Watch explained.

“He’s a shadow,” Henya added. “Specifically, my master’s shadow.”

“A shadow?” I tilted my head in confusion. What did that mean? Did it have something to do with the ‘Shadow’ monsters?

“I see,” Jin said, looking as though the pieces had finally fit together. “I’d heard rumors. Because the Sekiun family serves as official sword instructors, they cannot resort to cowardly tactics and must accept every challenge. To handle the ‘adjustments’ behind the scenes, they keep operatives known as Shadows.”

“Basically, he’s a fixer for the dirty work. Lord Watch has looked after me plenty of times,” Henya supplemented.

That explained it. I had thought that spear with all its hidden gadgets seemed uncharacteristic of a traditional warrior, but it made sense if he was a man from the underworld.

“He-he. Of course, when I saw Lord Watch was joining this expedition, I figured he was on some kind of mission from the Master,” Henya said, relaxing his weight against the back of his chair and glancing at Watch. “But he was acting so distant. And to top it off, during the introductions, he chose to use the name ‘Houou’—the Sekiun family’s arch-nemesis. I thought he was telling me to act like a stranger, so I tried to be standoffish, but, well…”

Henya let out a laugh at his own expense. “I guess I’m not very good at that. I overdid it, and it ended up looking like we had a blood feud. I had no choice but to shift my performance midway to lean into the grudge.”

“Hmm. So, in the end, what was Watch’s reason for being there?” Eni asked bluntly, diving into a topic others might have found awkward to broach.

“I was a mere chaperone. It seems the Master intends to make Henya the successor to the Sekiun style. It would have been problematic if Henya had gotten into some strange trouble while playing at being an adventurer.”

A bit overprotective, I thought, feeling slightly exasperated.

“At any rate, Henya and I have sparred many times in the past. We knew each other’s techniques and character well enough. I was confident we could deceive the culprit with a staged fight,” Watch said, steering the conversation back on track. “That was why I proposed it, though I must admit Henya’s overly bellicose nature was a miscalculation. He went further than I expected. I can see why the Master was worried.”

Watch frowned with rare exasperation as he looked at Henya. “Halfway through, it felt like he had forgotten we were supposed to be deceiving the culprit. His comments became far too blunt—talking about wanting to cut something other than monsters, or wanting to act rather than wait.”

I remembered those comments; they had certainly made my heart race at the time.

From our perspective, it sounded almost like Henya was directly stating, “I want to cut down the culprit.”

“He-he, my bad. But you lot were just wandering around in indecision forever,” Henya said.

“That is true,” Shirona admitted.

“If it hadn’t been for Henya’s brute force, it’s debatable whether we would have ever started the act of killing each other. It was a dangerous gamble, after all,” Jin added. His words rang true. And the fact that the performance had worked and we were alive now was also proof of that.

However…

“That’s just hindsight speaking,” I said pointedly.

“The result is everything, he-he-he,” Henya laughed, brimming with confidence.

“No, no, because the brawl started as if forced by Henya, there were a lot of strained moments. Even now, thinking back gives me cold sweats.” Jin’s face paled slightly, perhaps remembering the tension of that moment.

“I agree,” I said, recalling the anxiety of that time. “First of all, none of us had any obvious wounds or were shedding blood, so that alone was extremely unnatural.”

“He-he, you’re right. Well, Lord Watch spitting blood from his mouth helped mask things a bit, didn’t it?”

“It was a desperate measure at best. If biting my own tongue could lower the culprit’s guard even slightly, there was no room for hesitation,” Watch replied calmly.

“Oh, that’s right! Shirona, your part was incredible too,” I said, clapping my hands together. “The way you died with your eyes wide open. I honestly thought you had died in an accident.”

It had been that realistic. That was why I had fallen into such despair and confusion, thinking everything had gone to ruin.

“If you drink the paralytic held in your mouth and simultaneously use magic to slow your blood flow, you can induce a state of suspended animation,” Shirona explained tonelessly.

“Heh, you managed something that sophisticated in such an extreme situation?” Kirio remarked, sounding impressed as a fellow medical practitioner.

“By the way, what kind of drug was injected into my body?” I asked, the thought suddenly occurring to me. I was starting to feel uneasy. I hoped it wasn’t a poison with lasting side effects.

“Oh, that was a paralytic. However, it was the most potent one I possess. Depending on the circumstances, you might have died right then and there.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!?” I shouted.

“I didn’t intend to stab you. It was an accident that it hit Van. However, it was a blessing in disguise. Thanks to that accident—and Van’s genuine confusion—we were able to give that unnatural sequence of ‘killing’ each other enough reality to deceive the culprit.”

“That’s certainly true. Good job, Van,” Jin praised me, but I didn’t feel happy about it at all.

“Since we jumped into the performance with almost no time for a detailed briefing, accidents like that were bound to happen,” Henya analyzed, speaking as if he weren’t the very person who had started the whole thing.

“Anyway, all’s well that ends well. I jumped up and slashed at Mora when she crept closer to check on Shirona,” Jin said.

“What are you talking about? You let her escape in the end. If it had been me, I would have taken her head,” Henya grumbled, pouting. He was likely just frustrated that he hadn’t been the one to land the blow.

“Wait,” Bent interrupted, his voice sounding exhausted. “I understand the general flow of events now—how things happened and how they ended for you all. But in the end, the truth of the incident itself remains unclear. I still don’t understand the motive, nor how Brad and Kijiitsu were killed. Or… what happened to my son, Hunt.” His voice choked up at the end.

“Well, about that…” Jin cast a quick glance toward me. “Detective, this is your specialty, isn’t it? Don’t you know?”

He was asking the impossible. However…

“I can’t say anything for certain, and now we can only imagine, but I do have a theory.”

As I spoke and recalled the incident, and as I listened to everyone’s accounts, the scattered pieces were slowly forming a larger picture.

“Oh, as expected!” Kirio beamed happily.

“Really?” Eni’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Well, it really is just a complete theory, so I don’t have any solid evidence. But if you’re okay with that…” I began to build the explanation in my head, setting up my defenses while deciding on the clearest order to present it.

Right. First of all…

“I think the quickest way is to start by considering how Brad was killed.”