Chapter 53

“According to Shirona’s assessment, Brad died of poisoning. Now that we know for a fact that Shirona wasn’t the culprit, there is no reason to doubt her diagnosis.”

I began to narrow down the possibilities from that starting point.

“The focus, then, becomes how the poison was administered. I believe everyone can agree on that much.”

I looked around the room; everyone gave a slight nod of assent.

“If the poison was put in the food, there would be a few indiscriminate ways to do it. For example, poisoning all the portions and having the culprit alone take an antidote. But that didn’t happen, because we are all still sitting here alive.”

“What if they poisoned just one portion, not caring who it hit?” Kirio’s question was logically sound, but I shook my head.

“Either way, unless there was a method to ensure a specific person ate the poisoned meal, I don’t think they would have risked it. If the culprit ended up eating their own poison, even if they had an antidote to survive, the murder attempt would have been a total waste. If they didn’t care who died, it would have been more natural to poison everyone.”

“So,” I continued, “it’s highly unlikely the poison was administered during the meal.”

“And it’s not like someone could have crawled over to that iron box in the middle of the night while we were sleeping,” Henya added. “I hate to toot my own horn, but even when I’m out, I stay alert. If anyone made a strange move, I’m confident I would’ve noticed.”

I remembered Henya saying something similar back then.

“Even without that, the idea of a secret midnight poisoning is hard to swallow. We were sleeping in cramped tents separated by gender. It would have been far too risky to slip out and try to kill someone right in front of the others.”

“That is true. Then, when was the poison administered?” Watch asked, prompting me for my conclusion.

“It had to have happened before the meal—during the descent to the camp. If it was a slow-acting poison, that wouldn’t have been a problem.”

However, everyone tilted their heads in confusion at my answer. Finally, Shirona spoke up to voice the group’s doubts.

“I have two objections. First, I don’t believe there was an opportunity to administer poison during the descent. Second, no matter how slow-acting it was, if he had been poisoned that far in advance, he would have complained to me—his medic—about pain or feeling unwell.”

“I don’t think the poison was ‘administered’ in the traditional sense,” I said, though I lacked physical evidence. “I think it was ‘injected’.”

“Huh?” Eni knit her brows, clearly failing to see the distinction.

“Specifically, I believe he was stabbed with a poisoned needle or knife. I agree that there was likely no chance to make him ingest anything orally.”

“Preposterous!” Bent spat the word out. “I knew that man. He was not the type to let down his guard so easily. If he had been attacked with a weapon, he would have noticed immediately and sought treatment from Shirona, regardless of whether he knew it was poisoned. He was a man who was cautious to a fault—almost pathologically so.”

“Yes, he was cautious,” I agreed.

I recalled Brad in the dungeon, always positioning himself so that his back was never exposed.

“He was wary of drinking anything, and he was wary of anyone approaching his back. I found it incredibly strange. His fighting style involved smashing enemies with a giant sword while completely disregarding their counterattacks. That ‘cowardice’ seemed to contradict his combat style. But that mystery was finally solved when Jin told me about Brad’s past.”

“Wait, me?” Jin looked skeptical.

“The story about the burns on Brad’s palms.”

“Oh, that one,” Jin muttered.

“It’s a famous story,” Eni chimed in. It seemed to be well-known lore among the adventuring community.

On the other hand, Henya, Watch, and Kirio—none of whom were professional adventurers—looked completely blank.

“Well, actually…” I summarized the events of how I discovered Brad’s scars and the anecdote Jin had shared with me.

“And what does that story have to do with anything?” Henya asked, still blinking in confusion.

“Regardless of how much ‘grit’ a person has, the idea of someone grabbing a suit of red-hot armor with their bare hands never sat right with me. It’s a matter of reflex. If your hand touches something hot, you pull away. That’s normal. But he grabbed on and saved his life. It’s an incredible story. Sure, with training and experience, you can control your reflexes to an extent. But Brad was a rookie back then.”

That was when the thought hit me.

“I realized he might have been… dull. I wondered if he was able to do that because he simply didn’t feel the heat properly—as if he had some kind of resistance. Once I thought of that, I realized it linked perfectly to his fighting style. Attacking while taking hits is only possible if you aren’t flinching from the pain.”

“I see… so you’re saying Brad…”

Shirona nodded, her eyes rounding in surprise.

“I have never heard such a story before. It was clever of you to think of it.”

It didn’t feel bad to be admired, but the truth was, it was only because I was a reincarnated soul. I had come from a world where one could gather information on rare incidents, physical constitutions, and medical cases from across the globe just by watching television.

“Yes, exactly. I believe Brad was a person whose sense of touch—specifically his cutaneous sensation—was either extremely dull or entirely non-existent.”

If one assumed that, both his fighting style and his contradictory cowardice could be explained.

“Assuming that, it was only natural for him to be obsessed with his back. If someone were to stealthily attack him from behind where he couldn’t see, he wouldn’t even notice. He became hypersensitive even to his allies approaching him. He knew that from any angle where he couldn’t see or hear, anything could be done to him without his knowledge. It was terrifying; in a sense, there was no one less suited to be an adventurer. Yet, Brad sublimated that into a combat style that did not fear pain and made a name for himself. In retrospect, I think he had a fairly warped personality. He might have been a fascinating person, though he died before I could get to know him deeply.”

“So, you’re saying that during the dungeon crawl, he was secretly stabbed with a weapon coated in poison?” Jin asked, his face still clouded with skepticism as he sought confirmation.

“In fact, I witnessed a scene where Mora was warned for getting too close to Brad’s back. I suspect that was when she secretly stabbed him. She likely used something like a long needle that wouldn’t cause much bleeding.”

To be more precise, I thought it was something like an ice pick. There might have been similar tools used for breaking rocks.

Perhaps the most appropriate murder weapon for such a case would have been a metal syringe like the ones Shirona carried, but those were specialized medical instruments; if Mora, a Digger, had been caught with one, it would have aroused immediate suspicion. A needle or an awl-like object was a more plausible choice.

“Any trauma he received at that point would have been healed by the recovery magic, herbs, or potions used to treat wounds from monsters. That would be especially true for a small, inconspicuous puncture.”

“Even if we could handle the Poison Lizard venom, we couldn’t counteract other poisons,” Shirona said, her hand sliding across the table as she pressed it down in a gesture of regret. “We didn’t know the type of poison, and above all, the victim himself wasn’t aware he had been poisoned.”

She looked as though she were blaming herself. “Still, if I had been more attentive, I might have noticed the change in Brad. If I had, we might have realized he was poisoned, identified the type, and perhaps even saved him.”

“It’s impossible, totally impossible,” Kirio interjected with an intentionally bright voice, attempting to console the groaning Shirona. “Even if it was a slow-acting poison, no one normally expects a situation where the victim doesn’t complain of a single physical ailment. You aren’t a god. Trying to behave perfectly in such an abnormal situation is just impossible, impossible!”

“…Thank you,” Shirona said, pulling her hand back and offering her thanks.

“Huh!? What are you thanking me for?” Kirio asked, wearing a blank expression, though her ears had turned bright red.

“To get back to the topic,” I said, though I couldn’t help but grin as I watched Kirio.

She was so easy to read.

For some reason, Eni was watching me with a look of displeasure.

“Assuming Brad was killed in that manner, one crucial premise becomes necessary.”

“A crucial premise?” Eni asked back, her face still sour as she failed to catch the point.

“Well, it’s obvious, but no one would employ such a method unless they knew Brad lacked a sense of touch and physical sensation.”

“Ah, that’s true enough,” Jin agreed. “But someone as cautious as Brad wouldn’t normally tell such a vital secret to others, would he?”

“Exactly. And it’s unlikely the culprit—well, Mora—discovered that secret by chance. Since she used that secret to kill him, she had to have known for a fact, not just a guess, that Brad lacked sensation. I can’t really imagine a situation where someone ‘confirmed’ that by pure accident. Therefore, we can infer that Brad confided in her directly—which means he and the culprit shared a somewhat close relationship. Are we good so far?”

“Yes,” Kirio nodded obediently.

“Yeah, no problem there,” Watch agreed.

“Right. So, Mora and Brad were close. Furthermore, Mora and Hunt were in a sort of conspiratorial relationship. And Brad and Hunt had a master-disciple relationship. Which means, regarding these three…”

“I see. It’s more natural to think they were all part of the same gang,” Jin said, finishing my sentence.

“Exactly. And when you consider that Mora was one of the members who originally discovered the Labyrinth of No Return, and that Brad was the sole survivor of a party that once failed to conquer that dungeon and died there, and…”

I stole a glance at Bent, who was unable to hide his haggard state.

“…and the fact that Hunt was an adventurer and the son of Bent Treasure. If you combine these facts and use a bit of imagination, a story or two starts to emerge.”

I paused there for a moment.

From this point on, it was a literal story, built by layering imagination upon the assumptions and deductions I had made so far.

I prayed that this story would be exactly what a great detective should provide: a “narrative that convinces all involved.”

I prayed that I could bring this incident to a close.

With that silent prayer, I began to tell the tale.