Chapter 21: Interlude. Black Shadows of the Police Station (1)

Chairman Peterson wept for a long time before finally leaving as night fell.

He left behind only a single sentence: “I will pay the commission fee handsomely.”

‘It should be fine. Surely the chairman of Feathering Corp won’t stiff me on the money.’

Even if he did, I didn’t think I would regret taking on this case.

“Sir! We’ve run out of tea for the office.”

“Let’s… wait a few days before buying more.”

Emotions and the state of one’s wallet were always two separate matters.

‘I wish I could at least pick up a small case for some pocket money.’

However, several days passed, and no new requests came in.

“Our story isn’t in this paper either.”

“I’ve checked everything down to the third-rate gossip rags, and there isn’t a single article mentioning the Heiss Detective Agency.”

Lure and I sighed in unison as we set down the stacks of newspapers.

The mainstream media had not turned this case into an article.

A few gossip magazines ran sensationalist titles like [The Illegitimate Son Driven Mad by Inferiority, Kills the Top Student!], but that was it.

The detective who solved the case was never mentioned.

“Like the Chairman said, it seems the people who want to bury this case have made their move,” Lure lamented.

I remained silent at her words.

‘Who knows. Whether it’s the case they want to bury, or me.’

I remembered why Chairman Peterson had entrusted the case to me in the first place.

‘He said it seemed I had earned the grudge of someone who could control the media.’

If that someone was blocking the articles this time too?

‘Whoever they are, it’s likely not for a good reason.’

A reputation is vital for a detective.

I had no choice but to think that anyone blocking my exposure to the media harbored ill will toward me.

But was the person who held that grudge truly ‘me’?

‘There’s no way.’

Since being possessed, the human relationships I had built weren’t that many. It didn’t seem likely that I had made an enemy of someone without knowing.

The opponent was most likely someone connected to the past of this body before I took it over. Someone who knew the past that even I didn’t know.

Suddenly, the old wound in my chest throbbed.

‘Someone who harbors bad feelings toward me…’

I already knew of one such person.

The individual who stabbed this body in the chest and fled before I arrived.

Is the person blocking my articles the same person who stabbed me? Or are two or more people holding a grudge and targeting me?

‘Just what kind of identity did the owner of this body have to get caught up in such bothersome business?’

It was frustrating, but thinking about it wouldn’t bring any answers.

‘I have to find out about this body’s past somehow. Even if it’s just to figure out who my enemy is.’

The enemy was in the darkness, and I was exposed. That was why I was being attacked unilaterally like this.

At this rate, I didn’t know when I might get stabbed again out of nowhere, so digging into the past was the top priority.

‘Until now, I had no choice but to stay still because there was no way to find out…’

Recently, a method worth trying had appeared. I stood up from the sofa and put on my coat.

“Lure, could you watch the office for a bit?”

“Are you going somewhere?”

I pulled my hat down low and spoke.

“I’m thinking of heading to the police station.”

That day, Detective Beren had said to me:

[Come find me once things are settled. I have something to tell you.]

‘I don’t know what he wants to say, but thanks to that, I have a reason to visit.’

I planned to meet him and ask for an investigation into my past and any potential grudges.

‘Since I solved the case for them, surely they’d do me a small favor like that?’

Wasn’t it also the primary duty of the police to identify unidentified individuals anyway?

If I could borrow the power of the police, I might be able to find out a lot.

‘No harm in trying!’

I headed to the police station with a light heart.

***

“Oh dear, what should we do?”

A goofy-looking officer knit his brows together in trouble.

“Detective Beren is currently away on other business.”

“When will he return?”

“Well… it will probably take two or three hours?”

Sigh. I swallowed a groan inwardly.

‘This world is so inconvenient because of things like this.’

Since there were no phones, missing each other like this happened frequently.

“If you’re going to wait, shall I bring you some tea?”

Wasn’t it a bit much to sit around drinking tea for two hours?

‘I’d be better off going for a walk around the neighborhood.’

Just as I was about to decline his offer.

“The hell it wasn’t! It was you!”

A loud noise erupted from the side.

“No, it wasn’t! I wasn’t the only one in that park!”

“You’re the only one with a criminal record for theft!”

A policeman was shouting at a man who appeared to be a suspect.

‘As expected of a world where the crime rate is going crazy.’

Until then, I hadn’t thought much of it.

“It was you! The one who stole that old lady’s wallet!”

But the moment the policeman finished those words.

-Whoosh!

The appearance of the ordinary-looking suspect was instantly covered in shadows.

‘What… what is this?!’

This was the first time. I had seen shadows lift, but I had never seen a person swallowed by shadows.

‘What exactly was the trigger for this? Why at this very moment?’

I knew that shadows appeared on criminals, but for a shadow to appear suddenly in the middle of a police station rather than at the moment the crime was committed? Why now?

“…Sir, Sir?”

Startled, I snapped out of it to find the officer holding a teacup with a troubled expression.

“Would you like the tea, or not?”

“…I’ll take some black tea, please.”

I sank my half-risen body back deep into the police station chair. I needed to see exactly what was happening here.

***

“…And so I, Charlie, thought to myself! I definitely have to become a policeman!”

“Ah, yes.”

“The policeman I respect most is, of course, Detective Beren! Although there aren’t many people who recognize his true worth, I still think the Detective is truly…”

“I see.”

“I heard about Detective Heiss’s heroic deeds from Detective Beren. It was truly amazing. It reminds me of someone I know…”

“Aha.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being polite to a guest who came looking for Detective Beren, or if he was just naturally a chatterbox. The goofy officer talked incessantly.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t pay close attention to his words. The events unfolding before my eyes were drawing my gaze far too much.

“Um, Officer.”

“You can call me Charlie!”

“Yes, Officer. Is it usually… this busy here?”

“Ah, yes. I suppose it is.”

The officer let his eyebrows droop as he continued.

“Almost all cases that aren’t too serious are handled here. Oh, I don’t mean that I don’t take the cases seriously! I mean it mainly deals with relatively minor offenses like theft or light assault.”

“……”

“Because of that, quite a few cases tend to pile up. We try to clear them as quickly as possible, but it might look a bit chaotic.”

‘A bit’ chaotic, he says.

This mess?

“Agh! Listen to me! I’m telling you this bastard is the thief!”

“I’m not!! You’re catching an innocent man!!”

“Come along while I’m being nice, you punk!”

“Uhuhhh! It wasn’t me, it was that guy over there!”

“Ah, wait! He’s hitting someone! Detective! Detective! Detectiiive!!!”

My ears weren’t just ringing; they hurt. It was so noisy I couldn’t think straight. The line for reporting cases stretched endlessly, accusers and the accused grabbed each other’s collars, and screams echoed from all over. People were being dragged in and dragged out.

This alone was distracting enough, but in my eyes, there was even a feast of countless shadows.

“So, you’re saying you weren’t the one who drew obscene graffiti in the plaza?”

At a single word from the police, a person was swallowed by a black shadow.

“Give up and just admit it! There’s no other suspect but you!”

“A-alright! It was me! But it was just a prank!”

Then the black shadow spat the person back out. This was happening in almost every space visible to me. Black shadows flickered and vanished repeatedly everywhere, making it so dazzling my eyes stung.

I realized for the first time that darkness could be just as dizzying as strong light.

‘Still, after watching for a bit, I think I’m starting to understand.’

I was dizzy enough to die, but it wasn’t without results.

‘I can roughly guess the principle of how the shadows are created.’

I only just realized it now, but the core of my ability was my perception.

It wasn’t that a criminal automatically appeared as a black shadow. Only when I perceived a specific incident did the perpetrator of that incident become covered in shadow.

If I didn’t pay attention to the commotions happening here and there, no new black shadows were created. Only when I listened to a specific interrogation and grasped what incident had occurred did the black shadow swallow the suspect of that case.

The process of the shadow peeling off was the same.

The shadow didn’t automatically peel off just because the culprit was revealed. Only when I perceived that the truth had been uncovered did the shadow finally peel away.

‘What I see changes thoroughly according to my perception.’

To think I didn’t know something this important until now. No matter how few opportunities I had to see the shadows, this was too much.

‘It’s not too late. Let’s make the most of this opportunity now.’

When else would I get the chance to witness the creation and disappearance of so many shadows? I widened my eyes and tried to see and hear as much as possible.

As a result, my eyes were stinging and I felt lightheaded—plus, I unintentionally seemed to have hurt the feelings of the officer in front of me—but it was a price worth paying.

‘Hm?’

However, while observing the cases for a long time, something strange caught my eye.

“I’m telling you, it must have been that woman who stole it!”

“It really wasn’t me!”

“Hmph. Then where on earth did that diamond ring go? I also think the door-to-door sales lady is suspicious.”

Two women were bickering.

And a police officer was looking suspiciously at the accused woman. Even though I had perceived the incident, none of the three were covered in shadows.

Actually, that part wasn’t particularly noteworthy.

It was a well-known fact that the police’s investigative accuracy wasn’t that high, and there was always the probability that a third party not present was the culprit.

But…

‘What on earth is that dark blotch?’

“If it wasn’t you, then who stole my ring? You filthy thief!”

The upper body of the woman cornering the other looked as if it were partially stained.

‘Only a certain part is covered by a black shadow?’

How could that be?

“Detective? W-where are you going all of a sudden?!”

Unable to suppress my curiosity, I slowly approached the place where the raised voices were coming from.

“There was no one else who could have stolen it! It’s either you or me, and am I a crazy woman who would steal her own ring? How dare you steal and then hold your head up high?”

“It really wasn’t me! I’ve never even seen that ring!”

“The nerve! You really are hopeless, aren’t you?”

As I got closer, the scene, which looked like something out of a soap opera, came clearly into view.

A woman clutching a basket to her chest with a face covered in tears. Another woman with heavy makeup who was fiercely cornering her. A bored-looking policeman.

I could also clearly identify the identity of the stain-like black shadow I had seen.

‘This is…’

“That’s enough. You don’t need to waste your breath any further. I’ll take responsibility for locking up the thief, so you should head home now, Madam.”

“Hmph! I’m glad you seem to understand!”

“No, it really wasn’t me! I said it wasn’t!”

I abruptly interjected into the conversation that was nearing its end.

“Excuse me, wait a moment. Are you certain there was no one else who could have stolen it?”

“Who are you?”

The woman snapped at me.

“I’m a detective. I only have one question to ask.”

“…A detective? What do you want to ask?”

“Were the two of you truly the only ones at the scene?”

I pointed toward the black shadow and asked the woman.

“Are you certain the one over there wasn’t at the scene?”

Yes. That wasn’t a black shadow covering the woman’s upper body.

“…My baby? What about my baby?”

The woman had been holding a small black shadow in her arms.

“The baby was with me, of course, but there’s no way my baby stole anything!”

Apparently, the culprit of this case was a tiny infant.