"Inspector..."
"Inspector? Are you all right?"
Was that the setting here?
I was dressed in nothing but an ordinary T-shirt and sweatpants, and even my hair color and length had to look pretty suspicious.
But since they were calling me an inspector without the slightest doubt, the Tower must have taken care of it.
"...I am fine. Could you explain the situation first?"
I gave an awkward smile at the old man looking up at me so deferentially.
I still had no idea what was going on, but shouldn’t I play along for now?
"Yes, then I shall gather the people at once. Please go to my house and wait for a while."
"Yes, understood."
I gave a suitably vague response to the village chief, who kept bowing his head over and over.
After roughly explaining where his house was, the village chief put the key in my hand and called out for the villagers at the top of his lungs.
‘Is this... some kind of Mafia game?’
The village chief had said there was a “suspicious person.”
Maybe this was about finding a culprit. The Tower’s instructions and the Wiki’s guide had yet to appear, so it was hard to be certain.
Just as I found the village chief’s enormous house on one side of the village and was about to unlock the door—
Swish.
"..."
‘A woman?’
I turned toward the presence I felt and saw a woman with disheveled hair and deep, heavy dark circles beneath her eyes.
"..."
"...?"
For some reason, she was staring right through me.
A chill ran down my spine at her face, which held not a trace of life.
Standing in the middle of the road with her head slightly lowered, she started walking toward me.
Her right arm, tucked inside her outer garment as though she were concealing something, was twitching.
"What is it?"
"..."
"...Don’t come any closer."
How long had it been since I had faced a woman?
No matter what I said, she gave no response at all.
A hollow laugh escaped me at the tremor in my own voice.
-Seol, when are you going to grow up and make your big sister feel good?
The sensation of a hand stroking down my cheek came back to me.
My head spun at the disgusting feeling of bugs crawling all over my body.
"Fuck, I said don’t come any closer!!"
"..."
The woman’s appearance gave me chills. Trauma aside, there was something suspicious about her appearance—about that staggering gait.
Whether I yelled or not, she kept approaching me with that shadowed face.
Her unseen arm twitching, she slowly came closer—
Creak.
"I’ll kill you..."
"..."
Muttering words I couldn’t make sense of, she brushed past me and went into the village chief’s house.
"...What was that?"
I grimaced at the sight of her disappearing beyond the door. My body was trembling without me realizing it.
This was why I hadn’t been able to leave the house, but it hadn’t been this bad before.
Maybe because I had grown accustomed to Tower life, where being alone was the norm, a nauseating feeling filled my body.
-Pull any funny business and I’ll kill you. Do you have any idea how much money that bitch pours into our orphanage?
-You just have to go smile at her, okay? You’re top-grade, so she won’t touch you. Not yet, anyway.
"Haha... fuck..."
I had put an end to all of it with my own hands, but when would I be free of it entirely?
‘It’s not as if this village only has men.’
Of course there would be women too. There was no way this could be a village inhabited solely by men.
If I was going to find the “suspicious person” here, I had to get used to it.
‘She’s gone now. It’s all over.’
After putting myself through self-hypnosis for what felt like the first time in ages, I took several deep breaths.
"Phew..."
Still, the air was nice.
Memories I never wanted to recall kept surfacing one after another, but the sunlight pouring down on me felt good.
Having crawled out after being stuck only in dark, suffocating spaces, at least my body was happy.
Step.
As I slowly steadied my breathing, I heard footsteps coming this way.
One, two, three...
The villagers the chief had called for were gathering one by one.
"..."
There were people glaring sharply at me, people trembling as they looked around, and elderly people whose bodies were bent with age.
Every one of them entered the village chief’s house.
"Inspector?"
"Ah, my stomach was feeling a little unwell."
"I see... Please come in first. Everyone currently remaining in the village has gathered."
I forced a smile at the words of the village chief, who appeared last.
He tilted his head at my trembling appearance, then smiled and pointed to the door of his home, telling me to come in.
*
"And so—"
Ten villagers sat around a long, round table.
The old man at the center—the village chief—was explaining the village’s situation to me.
‘It really does seem like a Mafia game.’
That was the conclusion I reached as I listened to him.
Only thirty people lived in this village.
It was an isolated village, with no cities or other villages nearby.
A small village where people with no hometown, or nowhere else to go, had gradually gathered and lived self-sufficiently.
Aside from the occasional freight wagon or passing traveler, there was nobody but them.
After more than a decade of helping one another in their own small society, someone was suddenly murdered one day.
Two days later, another person was murdered. Then another two days later. Each corpse looked different.
Faced with such an obviously horrifying phenomenon, the village chief had asked a traveler who happened to be entering the village to report the incident to the capital.
‘And that makes me the inspector dispatched a month later.’
At least, that was the setting.
There might be details left that I could only learn by investigating, but the minor parts had probably been glossed over.
What the Tower of Wisdom wanted from me was likely the culprit behind this case. Nothing else would matter much.
"Therefore, this is the inspector who will remain in the village for three days starting today and aid us with the investigation."
"...I’m Han."
At the old man’s gesture, I stood up and bowed after giving a brief introduction.
I deliberately didn’t give my full real name, in case it felt awkward.
Part of me thought the Tower would take care of it anyway, but I simply didn’t want to reveal my name.
Clap clap clap.
‘What a hostile bunch.’
Only about half of the ten people reacted.
A young nun, a middle-aged woman, an old woman with a head full of white hair, a boy who looked no older than ten... and the village chief.
The rest did not react at all.
More precisely, they either glared at me, ignored me, or refused even to look my way.
‘Do they not trust me?’
I wasn’t sure.
Until I knew their personalities, and until I properly understood what had happened here, I didn’t think I could know what those looks meant.
"What happens if that guy fails to catch the culprit by the end of the third day?"
"I see... If that happens, there will be nothing we can do..."
"Hmph. So he’s just some useless soft-handed scholar after all."
The village chief answered bitterly to the man glaring at me.
His face was covered in scars. He wasn’t huge and intimidating so much as wiry and quick-looking... honestly, he looked like a thug.
It wasn’t because he called me a soft-handed scholar or useless that I thought so. Fucking thug.
"So? What are we supposed to do? Tell stories or something?"
"What would you like us to do?"
"..."
At the middle-aged woman’s question—the one who had applauded for me earlier—the chief turned to ask my opinion.
What should I do?
If I was here to investigate, there was no need to hear everyone’s stories while they were all together.
It wasn’t as though someone would step forward and confess, “I’m the culprit,” so interrogating them one by one was probably the right choice.
"Please carry on as usual. I’ll come find each of you separately."
"That is what he says. Since he says we should carry on as we have been, let us adjourn for today—"
Crash!!
Thud!!
Just as the village chief rose to end the meeting, the woman who had kept her head lowered all this time violently shoved herself up from her seat.
‘That woman from before...!’
"Dieee—!!!"
The chair she had been sitting in flew far behind her and crashed into something. Climbing onto the round table, she drew a sharp knife from her clothes and screamed.
Her eyes were crazed. I didn’t know whether it was rage or something else, but apart from my trauma, those eyes alone gave me chills.
"A-Aaah!!"
She rushed straight at the village chief.
With murderous intent, without the slightest hesitation.
Crash!
The startled village chief fell backward onto his ass.
Unable even to think of running away, he froze where he was.
Of course, I was frozen too in the face of the sudden situation.
"Die!!!"
The woman reached the village chief, leapt down from the table, and raised her knife—
Thud!
"That’s enough."
"Let go!! I said let go—!!!"
The enormous man sitting beside the village chief grabbed the wrist holding the knife and spoke in a low voice.
‘How tall is he...?’
He looked nearly two meters tall even at a glance.
Built like a bodybuilder, the man looked at the woman with impassive eyes.
"W-What are you all doing?! Take that knife from her right now!!"
"Y-Yes, sir!!"
At the trembling village chief’s shout, a young man hurried over and took the knife away.
Since the big man had her completely subdued, taking it was no problem.
"Throw that... throw that thing out at once! That, that crazy bitch...!!"
"Aaaah!!!"
At the chief’s words, the big man began dragging the woman away almost by force.
She thrashed as if fighting for her life, but the difference in strength was obvious, and she was dragged away without being able to do anything.
"..."
"..."
Once the two were gone, silence fell over the table.
Snort.
As I frowned, wondering what the hell that had been, I heard someone laugh.
"Guess you really are a soft-handed scholar. You froze up over that and couldn’t even move, yet you think you’ll catch the culprit? A monster whose identity nobody even knows?"
"..."
"What, are you going to arrest me? Or point at me and call me the culprit? Oh dear~ I’m in big trouble now that I’ve offended you~."
The man who had been glaring at me ever since outside.
Apparently finding something amusing, he rested his chin on the table and shrugged at me.
I wanted to say something to him, but I should act coolly here—
"Yes, you are in big trouble."
...Did I need to? I was an inspector dispatched from the capital right now.
I was here to help this place. What good did he think acting like that would do?
‘For all I know, he could be the culprit.’
There was nothing to gain from letting him bait me into doing what he wanted.
I could feel the suspicious gazes directed at me.
"...What did you say?"
"I possess privileges granted to me by His Imperial Majesty. Do you know what you just did? Do you know what my status is?"
"What kind of nonsense is that over a few words..."
"I could summarily execute you right here and it would not matter. If you’re so confident, would you like to try me? Do you think someone earns the title of Imperial Inspector just for show?"
I got it entirely just for show.
They just gave it to me when I came in.
"For what crime—"
"Treason, insult, and obstruction of official duties."
"..."
"Would you like me to explain them one by one?"
If I wanted to investigate properly, it was better to establish my position to some degree.
If they looked down on me or started wondering whether I could really be trusted, everything I did from then on would take longer.
"You are not worth dealing with. I would have no problem leaving this village. You’ll all just suspect one another and destroy yourselves anyway."
"..."
The thug grimaced and lowered his head, avoiding my gaze.
He clearly wanted to say something but held it in. He looked like a dog with its tail between its legs, whining for mercy.
"I-Inspector!! Please, if only for the sake of this old man, don’t say that...!!"
"I’m joking, I’m joking. Still, I think I need to make this clear. The reason I remained still earlier was because I judged there was no need for me to intervene."
"Ha!"
"That man reacted already, so I knew he would stop her. I merely calculated everything—the woman’s gaze and speed, and the variable of the table."
"Ah... If it was Otto, then certainly... As expected of the inspector...!"
Otto must have been the big man’s name.
I had just tossed that out there, but the gazes directed at me changed somewhat.
Under the looks as though they were seeing some extraordinary person, my shoulders lifted slightly.
"For now, everyone return home. I will come see you separately."
"Tch..."
At my words, the thug from before was the first to get up.
As he stomped away, the others began vacating their seats one after another.
"Phew..."
"Are you all right?"
"Ah... Thank you."
Once only the village chief and I remained, I extended a hand toward him, where he was still half-sprawled on the floor.
He took my hand and rose, dusted himself off, then grimaced deeply.
Bang!!
"The culprit must be among those bastards..."
"..."
"I am absolutely not the culprit. Perhaps everyone except me is the culprit..."
‘You’re making yourself fucking suspicious by suddenly saying that...’
I gave an awkward smile at the village chief muttering to himself while slamming the table.
This guy and that guy—every single one of them was suspicious. I had no clue where to begin or how to solve this.
"...Do you know why that woman attacked you earlier?"
"...She must suspect me."
"Is that all?"
"About a month ago, after the second victim appeared, I sealed off the village. There are no other cities near this village. It is remote, and hardly anyone passes through, so moving about is difficult under normal circumstances."
He sealed off the village...
I had heard earlier that this village was remote. But why had he sealed it off?
"I could not allow the culprit to escape. We must catch them by any means necessary...!"
"And what does that have to do with the woman attacking you earlier?"
"Her husband was murdered a few days ago. She had been saying since a month ago that she needed to get out of here, but because I sealed off the village, she could not leave."
"...How did you seal it off so thoroughly that they can’t leave even if they want to?"
The village was wide open. It was not a prison; it seemed like someone could just run away in the middle of the night.
"Food."
"Food?"
"I hid all the preserved food in the cellar. I alone know where the key is. It would take weeks to walk to another city, and in this place untouched by human traffic, it is practically impossible."
"There’s no need to walk—"
"I slaughtered all the horses and oxen with my own hands."
"..."
"Absolutely, absolutely no one can flee this village... Not until we catch the culprit...!!"
The village chief clenched his fist, his body trembling as he shouted.
I squeezed my eyes shut at his expression, as though he had moved himself with his own speech.
‘Isn’t this bastard the culprit?’
Otherwise, how the hell had he stayed alive until now?
*
"...Ha."
After talking with the village chief for a while, I made my exit.
The bright sunlight still enveloped me. I found myself laughing at the sight of a street without even a single ant in view.
Honestly, I could not understand the village chief’s madness, but if it was a mechanism the Tower had put in place to preserve this story, it was not completely impossible to accept.
He had said the village chief’s grandson had also been murdered near the beginning, so perhaps the man had been blinded by his desire for revenge against the culprit.
‘The real problem is what I do now...’
I had three days.
I had heard that one person would be sacrificed tonight.
Since someone was sacrificed every two days, today must be that day.
I didn’t know whether I could stop it, but I probably could not.
Thinking about it coolly, it would be a problem in its own way if no incident happened.
‘...It would be better if there were at least one piece of evidence.’
I did not want to see someone die, but perhaps because I thought they were holograms anyway, I did not feel that repulsed by the idea.
If I failed to find the culprit, I would die. I did not want to cling to fake lives that were not even real people.
‘Should I interrogate them one by one first?’
With that thought, I trudged down the steps in front of the village chief’s house—and the instant my foot touched the ground—
[Find the culprit behind the serial murder case by the morning meeting three days from now.]
[If you identify the wrong culprit, you will die immediately.]
"Yes, yes, naturally..."
As though it were only now beginning, the Tower’s message appeared in the air.
I did not know whether I could find the culprit within three days, but I would have to solve this somehow again.
Ding!
[Tower of Wisdom]
-50th Floor Guide, First Run: Analyzing.
‘Could you hurry it up this time, Wiki?’
With a hollow laugh at the Wiki, which was beginning with analysis as always, I started toward the homes of the villagers I had heard about.
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