Chapter 114

Because both of them seemed very determined, even preferring to have one of them stay with him rather than let Bo Yezaki go with him, Bo Yezaki hesitated for two seconds and then compromised.

"Then I'll stay."

Matsuda Jinpei and Hagiwara Kenji both breathed a sigh of relief and then hurriedly ran to the changing room.

While putting on his yukata in the changing room, Kenji Hagiwara hesitated, thinking, "Isn't this a bit inappropriate? Fukaru is a police officer too, this kind of blatant discrimination..."

Matsuda Jinpei was speechless: "I don't think he actually cares about this, otherwise he wouldn't have remained unresponsive until we were about to leave, at which point he stood up and followed us—what was the point of having him come along, just so he could continue spouting nonsense?"

Hagihara Kenji: "..."

"Besides, you'll be going to the First Investigation Division later, right? Are you going to rely on others to solve the case? If you can't figure it out, you can call Kankawa to take a look later," Matsuda Jinpei said deliberately.

No man can withstand such provocation. Kenji Hagiwara's eyes turned serious: "Let's go, but it would be best if nothing happened."

After all, girls have plenty of reasons to scream, like seeing a cockroach or a rat...

Unfortunately, as soon as they came out, they heard shouting and yelling coming from the locker room, and they knew that the situation must be very troublesome.

"What? You can't come?!"

The girl inside, who was calling the police, shouted, "Why?! Heavy snow? What about heavy snow? People are dead here! Aren't you police officers?!"

At this moment, the proprietress and a girl rushed over. When they arrived at the door, they found that Matsuda Jinpei and Hagiwara Kenji had also come out. Looking at them with puzzled expressions, they bowed to them and explained.

"Excuse me, there seems to be a problem here. If it affects the guests..."

"Someone's dead inside!" the girl next to her exclaimed urgently. "Quick! Go in and see!"

This girl was clearly a customer, and she must have gone there specifically to call the proprietress over. The sash of her yukata was tied in a messy knot, and judging from her expression, she seemed to be trying hard to be polite and not drag the proprietress directly into the changing room.

The person inside seemed impatient and came out on their own, their yukata disheveled: "Reiko! I called the police! But they said they can't come!"

The proprietress immediately bowed and apologized: "I'm so sorry, there was an avalanche an hour ago. The police station is at the foot of the mountain, and it's too dangerous at night. We may have to wait until daytime to come over."

The girl named Lingzi panicked: "What's the use of just apologizing? What do we do now?!"

Kenji Hagiwara raised his hand: "Excuse me, we're actually police officers... Could you let us in to take a look?"

"…………"

The atmosphere suddenly became quiet.

"Are you...are you really police officers?" The girl who called the police seemed a little hesitant. "What a coincidence?"

Matsuda Jinpei scratched his head and sighed, "My police ID is in the room. Should I go get it now?"

"No need, officers, we'll leave this to you."

The proprietress spoke decisively.

Since people have already died, there's no way to enjoy the hot springs inside anymore. If the case can be solved quickly, the impact will be less.

It would be best to conclude that it was just an accidental sudden death, since such incidents are quite common when soaking in hot springs... that would have a smaller impact on business.

Kenji Hagiwara and Jinpei Matsuda passed through the women's changing room and entered the women's bath in the courtyard.

A corpse was soaking in the hot spring pool, its long black hair floating like seaweed.

The winter sky darkens early, and the streetlights were already on at this time. The dim yellow light barely illuminated the pond, adding an eerie touch to the scene.

Matsuda Jinpei went to examine the body, while Hagiwara Kenji asked the two people who found it what had happened.

“Mina said she wanted to come before it got crowded, so she came here early to soak in the hot springs,” Reiko explained. “Xiaoxue and I were in charge of packing our luggage, and we went over after we finished… When we came in, Mina’s posture was very strange. Xiaoxue went to call her and found that she was already dead…”

In other words, the scene had already been disturbed, but we can't blame them for that.

"And the screams we heard..."

“It was me,” said Xiaoxue, who was in charge of calling the police. “I was startled because I didn’t expect to come across a corpse.”

"Excuse me, may I ask what position she was in when you found her?"

After gathering some information, Kenji Hagiwara noticed that Reiko seemed a little unwell, so he said, "I've asked enough questions here. You guys go back and rest first. If there's anything you want to know, we'll ask you later."

Lingzi nodded repeatedly, while the girl who had called the police earlier seemed a little hesitant, but Lingzi still dragged her away.

"Why are you still standing there? Don't you feel uncomfortable being in a room with a corpse?" Reiko muttered under her breath.

"I just feel... even if she was like that before, she's dead now after all..."

The two talked in a somewhat tense atmosphere as they walked out of the changing room, nearly bumping into someone as they turned a corner.

The man had just come out of the men's bath next door. Although the skin they accidentally touched was warm, for some reason, it seemed as if he was carrying a chill, making them shiver involuntarily.

Because of the height difference, from their perspective, the light shone down from above, and the shadow cast by his bangs made it impossible to see his face clearly, only a pair of dark, scarlet eyes coldly looking down at them.

"...I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..." Reiko apologized, her voice trembling. "I...I wasn't looking where I was going..."

The other person's cold gaze swept over the two of them, and Lingzi inexplicably felt as if she had been seen through in an instant.

The person asked, "Are you very happy?"

"...Huh?"

"nothing."

After saying that, he walked around them and left as if nothing had happened.

Lingzi was stunned and stood there for a long time before she came to her senses and belatedly realized a problem.

The yukata that person was wearing wasn't a work uniform, but a guest's, and their demeanor didn't seem like it... In other words, this person had been soaking in the hot spring next door and was only coming out now.

Although there is a wall separating the women's and men's hot springs, they are both outdoors without a ceiling, so the sounds can still be heard.

...They made such a racket just now, screaming, calling the police, and giving incoherent explanations to the two police officers who happened to be on vacation. She didn't believe that the men in the bathhouse next door couldn't hear anything, and that he could still be soaking in the tub peacefully like that!

Someone's dead!

Reiko was confused and deeply shocked, especially by the sentence she hadn't understood...

"Hey, Xiaoxue, what did he just say?" Lingzi asked, both frightened and confused. "I think I heard something about being happy... Did I hear wrong?"

She was too terrified to hear clearly… She must have misheard, right? People are dead, how could someone possibly say something happy… Or was it a message to cheer them up and not be sad? No, the tone didn't sound like friendly comfort at all; it sounded almost mocking…

Xiaoxue's expression wasn't good either. She was shaken by Lingzi and only then came to her senses. She mumbled, "I don't know. I didn't hear clearly. Did he say he was very happy?"

"What a strange person," Reiko said fearfully. "Let's hurry back to our room. I'm a little scared. We'll leave as soon as the avalanche area is cleared tomorrow!"

The person these two girls bumped into was, of course, Usakata Saiki, disguised as someone else.

Kenji Hagiwara and Jinpei Matsuda said they wanted Saiki Usaba to continue, but they were just being tactful and telling him not to go with them for the time being. Most people wouldn't be in the mood to continue after hearing that someone had died.

However, Usakabe Saiki was no ordinary person. Since the water at the inlet was clean and it was a separate pool, and he hadn't soaked a corpse in it before, he stayed in the hot spring for a while longer. Hearing the chattering next door, he timed his change into his yukata.

Just as he had predicted, he ran into the two girls as soon as he stepped outside, without him having to create any conditions.

He glanced at it and the series of skills he had exchanged for under the pseudonym Han Chuan Shen Liu, such as [Micro-expression] and [Cold Reading], instantly fed him a bunch of information.

"I knew the killer was one of them." Bo Yezaki mentally complained to the system. "I know this routine all too well. When a group of people go out, and someone dies, the killer is always someone they know."

The system asked: "Why not consider accidental death?"

"[That might be possible in my original world, but the probability is relatively small in this world.]" Usaba Saiki chuckled twice. "Especially since Matsuda and Kenji are both here… Have you forgotten their accident-prone nature? They're in school, how many cases have they encountered! Even if it were an accident, it couldn't be this uneventful; it would at least be like a truck driver nearly causing a crash due to fatigue."

System: 【…You truly understand the rules of this world.】

"Thank you for the compliment." Bo Yezaki hesitated for a moment, then added, "However, although I know that guy is the murderer, I haven't figured out the specifics yet... Let me ask."

He called Kenji Hagiwara, only to find the line was busy.

So he had no choice but to call Matsuda Jinpei again. Matsuda Jinpei answered immediately and cleverly realized that if someone was calling him, it must be because they had called Hagiwara Kenji and he hadn't answered. So he immediately explained, "Hagi is asking his friends at the forensic clinic about some things. After all, we're not professional enough."

It's so much easier talking to smart people, Bo Yezaki asked again, "How is the situation?"

"It appears to be a drowning death, as slight signs of struggle were found," said Matsuda Jinpei. "Because it was a hot spring, the time of death is difficult to determine, and many traces have been washed away by the water... We'll have to wait for the coroner to come and examine the body tomorrow; the conditions are currently quite limited."

“Then I’ll offer a clue that isn’t really a clue,” said Bo Yezaki. “This shouldn’t be an accident. One of the two girls is the murderer.”

"...Where's the evidence?"

"intuition."

"…………"

Matsuda Jinpei paused for a moment, then his tone became serious: "...I understand. I'll pass that on to Hagi. Would you like to come over?"

"No, I'll just follow them for a bit," said Bo Yezaki slowly. "Maybe I'll make some unexpected discoveries. By the way, I wanted to ask, did they come together as a group of three? Do they know anyone here?"

"How did you know? There was also the deceased's boyfriend who worked here; he was the one who served us food."

"...I knew it."

"What?"

"Nothing, I'm hanging up."

Completely bewildered, and having even contributed a tiny bit of suspicion, Matsuda Jinpei remarked to the system: "I always thought two suspects were too few. As expected, it ended up being a classic three-way choice..."

—Now that the situation is roughly clear, what's the best course of action for him?