"Wild Duck Country"

A lone duck woke up beside a boiling stove, smelling delicious food from the pot, an unknown amount of blood flowing all over the floor, and the wooden door rattling.

It starts like a classic horror movie, but it's impossible for me to keep the duck form. Readers don't want to see a person chasing a duck all over the place, so there must be a moment when I turn into a human.

But the bad thing is that I seem to have forgotten what I wrote.

Duck, man, and then... my memory is completely blank, but I remember everything else clearly, except for the selective amnesia about the story of "Wild Duck Country". Is this a sequela of becoming a duck? I don't know. I have no memory of it.

The noise outside the door was getting louder and louder. I could only suppress my chaotic thoughts and look for a place to hide. At this moment, the banging stopped, and the surroundings instantly returned to deathly silence, with only dust drifting like a silent drama.

The next second, with a loud bang, a half-broken axe broke into the door!

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

In just a few hits, the door was covered with hacking marks. The marks spread from top to bottom, which made the already not very thick wooden board even worse. Until finally, the entire upper part of the door was hollowed out, leaving only a door frame.

A tall humanoid figure slipped through the hole.

Ah, isn't this even better? The hole is on top, which is almost the same as nothing to me. A secret room, one person and one duck. I think this is a plot murder.

I lay behind the firewood, listening to the heavy footsteps approaching little by little. When they stopped not too far away from me, I could hear the rough sound of sharpening a knife.

A moment later, the footsteps became farther away, and then the cupboard was opened with a creaking sound. There was silence for two seconds, followed by a loud noise of pots and pans being swept down from a high place.

"Ouch!"

A man's roar and the sound of footsteps told me that someone was walking towards me quickly.

To be more precise, I was heading towards the firewood pile, after all, it was the only place where a person could hide. The footsteps came from the right side of the firewood pile, and I was forced to move slowly to the left, and finally I was facing the hole in the door.

There were blood-stained tiles scattered on the door, and the blood splashed onto the wall. Due to gravity, it slid down, and a series of huge bloody footprints on the floor showed the movement of its owner.

On the table next to the cabinet there was a chopping board covered with knife marks and splattered with a few round drops of blood. Next to the chopping board there was an empty bowl waiting quietly, as if hinting at something bad happening.

Me: Pupil earthquake!

It's a plot murder, everyone! He wants to kill me for my blood!

On the left was a waiting chopping block, and on the right was a fat figure. He bent down and reached out his huge hand towards me.

There is no other way. Let's try flying.

I took a few quick steps toward the door and began to flap my wings.

Although I have completely forgotten the original story, I still remember that night when thousands of arrows were fired.

call--

The white duck hit the not-so-big hole hard, completed the jump smoothly, and instantly regained its human form after making an emergency landing outside the door.

The locked door frame was opened immediately, and the butcher held the knife in his hand without stopping.

"Ouch!"

He continued to remain angry, as if he wanted to cut the person in front of him into pieces.

I have become an adult now, why? Is it because of location restrictions?

But I didn't have time to think about it, so I could only quickly look around: everything outside the door was completely different. There was a closed, brand new metal door in front of me, and on the right was an upward cement staircase with no handrails. It looked like it had just been built and had not been renovated in time, which made people worry about stepping on empty air.

Make a choice.

I ran straight upstairs from the right.

The reason was simple. I didn't know whether the metal door in front of me was locked, so the chances of escape were slim. Admittedly, there might not be anything good upstairs, but at least there was a glimmer of hope.

The butcher came up closely, and his heavy steps made me worry that the stairs would collapse. Then I immediately started to worry about myself. Upstairs was a roaring machine. On the tall device were hanging ham sausages, and the inverted hooks pierced the necks of the ham sausages and transported them to the next link.

Fortunately, the machines are very tall, so maybe I can hide there for a while.

I was keeping an eye on the pursuit behind me, and when I passed a huge cooking device, I suddenly saw a man hiding behind the device.

Edogawa Ranpo's green eyes were staring at me.

This is called buy one get one free.

"All memories of Wild Duck Country have vanished from my mind."

He didn't care about my panic at all, but said this in a more urgent tone.

"Hey, I too..."

"No, there is no such plot in this story."

He retorted loudly, his glasses still on his nose, and a white light flashed by.

By thinking back on his own actions, Edogawa Ranpo realized that he had not taken the "forgetfulness" part into consideration, so forgetfulness itself did not exist as a premise of the story.

If a place is embodied from a story, and eventually even the story itself is forgotten...

“It’s changing from a story to reality.”

A circular steaming pot, the sound of water as the sausages were scooped out covered the sound of our conversation, but it also covered the butcher's heavy footsteps, making it impossible to tell which side he would pass by.

The ground on both sides was white and reflective, and there was no telling when a figure would appear.

To be honest, this is not a good place to talk. The noise is loud, the steam is unbearable, my heart is beating faster and faster, almost exploding, and I don't have the strength to suppress the upward curl of the corners of my mouth.

Although it is inappropriate, but——

“It’s exciting.”

He must be dealt with.

I thought about it, looked at the shadow emerging on the ground on the left, grabbed Luanbu beside me, and circled to the right in sync.

The shadow was approaching and disappearing until the entrance to the staircase appeared in front of me again, just like the door with a hole cut out in front of me. I smiled sincerely, and then gently pushed Luanbu to the left.

At the same time, I quickly ran towards the corridor.

"Ouch!"

The butcher swung his butcher knife, not paying attention to Edogawa Ranpo who was out of sight, but followed in an extremely awkward posture. His whole body leaned forward, his neck stretched out in a posture that was completely unbearable for humans, so that the center of gravity was completely in front of the body. Even though the posture was strange, he had a speed that was completely inconsistent with his huge body. The knife extended his arm, and it was swung with great force.

The sound of the blade cutting through the air reminded me of the distance between us. To be honest, even if I fought three of us alone, I couldn't beat him, and I couldn't even outrun him. When I ran to the stairs, I could even feel the chill of the butcher's knife.

It was so close that when I bumped into the wall, I kicked with all my strength and kicked him down because his balance was unstable.

There was a dull sound as the floor hit flesh, followed by the crisp sound of a knife chopping.

Stairs without handrails are really dangerous, and people always worry about stepping on empty air.

"Kill an NPC. Well, I learned this from someone else."

I stuck my head out to see if the butcher could still move, only to see a duck lying in a pool of blood with a knife stuck in its body.

Yay!

It was super exciting. I will remember this experience well!

Although my whole body felt like it was falling apart and my heart was in the pain of surviving a catastrophe, my thoughts were still clear.

I need to go and see the door downstairs.

After all, the most fascinating thing is always the door that is not opened.

But even after making up my mind, I still leaned against the wall for a while until an arm appeared in front of me.

"Ranbu-sama can lend you a hand."

Luanbu pulled his hat and didn't even look at the tragic scene downstairs.

"Thank you?"

As I stood up, holding his hand, I heard him continue the second half of the sentence.

"But in return, please give me your glass beads in exchange."

His lazy voice sounded in front of me.

Glass beads?

So that's it.

“Why did you find out?”

I asked gently, "Besides, you are not originally from the same organization, so you don't have to go to this extent for each other."

Why did you ask me for the glass bead? I never showed this item from the beginning to the end... a special ability... Damn it, what kind of special ability is this? I want one too!

[Sleepless Night] Of course it's good, but isn't he handsome like that? It's like he knows exactly what I'm going to do.

"Ranpo-sama's special ability is [Super Reasoning]. As long as I wear these glasses, all the truth will appear in my mind like divine revelation." As if he saw my surprise, he tapped his glasses proudly. "Although I don't care much about what you are going to do, if a famous detective is here, I will never let my own agent disappear inexplicably."

"Besides, do you think Mr. Hat is stupid? After hearing the sound of the marbles, he won't be fooled."

"Pay it, pay it!"

Finally he opened his palm.

I hesitated for a moment and handed him a transparent glass bead.

This was originally prepared for Nakahara Chuuya. I, who borrowed the existence of "Ohara Yuko", cannot easily create supernatural beings, but if I return to being a supernatural being, I will not be able to become Ohara Yuko again. Of course, the people who were "missing" by me will never come back.

However, this glass bead itself is a spirit. Anyone who responds to the sound it makes is answering me loudly: "I agree that you can borrow my existence."

Saying is borrowing, writing is replacing.

If it's your first time seeing it, you'll probably be fooled easily.

After he put the marbles in his pocket, he waved his hand forward like a small fan and said, "Let's go find Mr. Hat."

"I hate to say this, but if we don't go find Mr. Hat, he won't be able to get out by himself."

“It’s amazing.”

I made an envious sound.

"It can't be helped. [Super Reasoning] is the best supernatural power in the country. So it's unacceptable for everyone to rely on me like this."*

Although he said this, he still showed a proud smile, a smile that a cat would show, obviously happy but not wanting others to see.

"However, I admit that your special ability is not bad, but it is still far inferior to [Super Reasoning]."

"Hi."

While dealing with the famous detective, I carefully looked at the stairs below to avoid stepping on empty air. After all, the ghost of the duck might not have disappeared yet.