Chapter 3

After finishing breakfast, I made my way over to yesterday’s park.

I walked around the park under a heavy rain, holding an umbrella.

True to expectations, there wasn’t a single soul in the park.

I scanned every corner of the park and confirmed there were no surveillance cameras, letting out a relieved sigh.

With this, maybe the police wouldn’t be able to sniff out my presence.

And then, I finally headed to the spot where I had killed the man yesterday.

“…Eh?”

The man’s corpse was gone.

I looked down at the place where the man had collapsed, but there were no traces left.

Thanks to the heavy rain, the blood I shed yesterday and the man’s blood had all been washed away.

However, the stone I had hurled at the man was lying in the exact same spot as yesterday.

So where on earth did that man’s corpse go?

“…Ah, damn you!”

While I was racking my brain in the heavy rain, a woman’s high-pitched voice pierced my ears.

Reacting on reflex, I spun around toward the direction of the voice, and there stood a blonde woman in a T-shirt and sweatpants, holding a smartphone and an umbrella, glaring at me with her mouth half-open.

The woman widened her sharp-gaze eyes, and—

“It really was you! Hey, where the hell is Shin-chan?!”

She threw away her umbrella and closed the distance between us.

“Eh, S-Shin-chan…?”

“You did this, didn’t you?!”

The smartphone the woman shoved right in front of my face was playing a video of me being beaten and kicked by Goda Shinichi.

My tearful figure, desperately pleading for them to please save me, was also captured in crystal-clear detail.

Now that I thought about it, yesterday’s man seemed to have been recording me with his smartphone while I was desperately apologizing.

“Ever since you sent this video to me yesterday, I haven’t been able to get in touch with Shin-chan at all! You did something to Shin-chan, didn’t you?!”

The woman closed in, pressing right up against my face.

“N-No, I didn’t do anything…”

“Where is Shin-chan?!”

“That’s why—”

“I’ll kill you if you don’t answer!”

In the middle of the downpour, the woman even tossed aside the smartphone she was holding and pulled a butterfly knife out of her pants pocket.

“!”

Without a moment’s hesitation or asking any questions, the woman thrust the knife straight at my face.

“Tch…”

I reacted instantly and dodged to the side, but the woman’s knife grazed my temple.

Blood splattered.

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“Where did you put Shin-chan?!”

With her pupils fully dilated and her eyes bloodshot, the woman brandished the knife again.

This is bad, is this woman on drugs or something?

She’s completely unhinged.

There was no way she was going to listen to anything I had to say.

Prepared to get my hands stabbed, I lunged forward to grab the woman’s wrists with both hands.

“Gwah…!”

Even while suffering a slash wound on my hand, I managed to get a firm grip on the woman’s wrists.

“Let go, damn you!”

“Ugggh…”

“Y-You bastard… you son of a—!”

Trying to shake off my hands, the woman went wild with her entire body like a broken washing machine.

“Let go, you damn—!”

“Like hell I will!”

And the next instant—

Thud.

“Ugh…-!?”

Following the struggle, the knife plunged straight into the woman’s left chest.

“Gah… y-you…”

Collapsing as if her knees were giving out beneath her, the woman fell to the ground in the heavy rain.

Shooting a resentful glare at me, she weakly gripped my ankle.

However, she seemed to breathe her last almost immediately, burying her face straight into a puddle on the ground with a splash.

Right after,

Tetetetetetette-n!

Just like with Goda Shinichi, a strange sound effect echoed inside my head.

Following that, a flat voice with a robotic tone rang out in my head.

‘By killing Iijima Yuko, Onitsuka Yamato’s level has increased by 1.’

‘Max HP increased by 3, Max MP increased by 0, Strength increased by 2, Defense increased by 2, and Agility increased by 1.’

‘Onitsuka Yamato has learned the spell Ku-do-ge.’

“Hah… c-couldn’t be helped… hah, it was either kill or be killed.”

Looking down at the woman collapsed face-down on the ground, I shook my voice as if trying to convince myself.

Coming to my senses a moment later, I looked around, but there was no one inside the pouring park.

Standing in the rain, I pondered how to handle this situation.

Would self-defense hold up?

But the other party is a woman; considering the difference in physical strength, wouldn’t I still be suspected of excessive force…?

As I turned my thoughts over in the rain, something unbelievable reflected in my eyes.

Just as the woman’s corpse began to turn translucent, it completely vanished from right before my eyes.

“!? I-It disappeared?!”

The knife stuck in the woman’s chest and the blood had also completely vanished without a trace.

All that remained were the umbrella and the smartphone the woman had thrown away earlier.

“W-What kind of…?”

What on earth does this mean?

Did yesterday’s man disappear like this too…?

Is that why it never turned into a public case…?

There were still countless things I didn’t understand, but there was one thing I did know.

And that was that there were no surveillance cameras in this park.

There were no witnesses this time, just like last time. There was no corpse either.

Which meant this was… a perfect crime.

“Ha-ha-ha…”

I found myself laughing naturally.

Even though I was surprised at myself for just having killed a person, and even though the sensation of killing someone still lingered on my hands, there wasn’t a shred of guilt.

Instead, I even felt a surge of euphoria.

“Have I gone crazy…?”

Or was I naturally this kind of person to begin with?

As the rain grew heavier, I cast my gaze down at my own hands and asked myself.

Then,

“Who knows about that?”

A childish voice echoed from right behind me.

“——-!? Wh-Who’s there?!”

Startled, I whipped around, and—

“Me? I’m Akira Ishigami, twelve years old, an elementary schooler. But as a killer, I’m way senior to oniisan, you know.”

A single boy holding an umbrella stood smiling cheerfully as he looked up at me.