Chapter 68
The view through the open elevator doors.
A line of people stood along the long corridor.
As if something had happened, they stood at the restaurant entrance whispering among themselves.
“What’s going on?”
“I heard someone died. Found in their room, in a horrible state.”
“What? Is that true?”
Rather than living people, it was like the awkward back-and-forth of NPCs in a game. Glancing at the various roles written above the heads of the chattering citizens, he walked toward the restaurant with Seoa.
“Ah, it’s Detective Shin Ian.”
“Famous? He’s supposed to be the best in the field. I heard there isn’t a case he hasn’t solved.”
“Really? And beside him is… a card shark. His assistant?”
“Who knows? Maybe he was caught.”
Ignoring the openly audible whispers, the two of them entered the restaurant with stiff expressions.
The restaurant was packed with people. Just as Ian was pushing through them to head deeper inside, someone tapped his shoulder.
Ian reflexively slipped a hand inside his coat and whipped his head around.
“Detective. I’ve been waiting for you.”
The owner of the hand was a rather intimidating-looking middle-aged man. Seeing Ian’s stiff expression, he gave an awkward smile, stepped back, and scratched his head.
“Oh dear. I didn’t mean to startle you, but I’m sorry. Given the circumstances...”
“……”
“Ah, I’m a detective in the violent crimes unit. My name is Bae Dohyun.”
He bowed to Ian. Rather than answering right away, Ian casually checked the role floating above his head.
[Detective Bae Dohyun]
The words matched exactly what he’d just said. After confirming that he wasn’t lying, Ian calmly sorted out what to say next.
‘A detective doesn’t have much standing in Korea. There’s no reason for a cop to be this deferential.’
He didn’t know how seriously Mystery took this roleplay, but he could at least tell they lacked enough prior knowledge.
Come to think of it, these guys were the type to get worked up only about ways to kill humans; they didn’t care much about building a coherent structure. That was why loopholes existed, and why a strategy could be written up. If Mystery were meticulous and intelligent, humanity would already have fallen into their hands.
Anyway.
Since the other side had exposed a flaw first, there was no reason not to exploit it.
An absurd situation in which a violent-crimes detective bowed his head first to a private detective.
It was worth using.
“What is it?”
After finishing his thoughts, Ian answered with a deliberately calm, intelligent expression. Seoa frowned for a moment at his sudden change in demeanor, but she quickly put on a similarly haughty expression.
“Oh my, Detective. You do know how valuable our detective’s time is, right? If you keep wasting it on something trivial, that puts us in a bind too.”
“……Gambler, be quiet. I’m speaking to the detective.”
Bae Dohyun ground his teeth and muttered. His hostility was blatant. But Seoa only shrugged and didn’t react much.
“Then say it quickly. I’m hungry.”
“……What kind of attitude is that?”
“Detective.”
Ian cut off the increasingly irritated detective.
“Please get to the point.”
“……Understood.”
Bae Dohyun gave a slight bow and led him out of the restaurant. Ian told Seoa to wait there for a bit, and followed after him with one hand held out in front of him, ready to react at any moment.
“It’s a murder case.”
Bae Dohyun said.
He already knew that from the chapter title, Shipboard Murder Case, but Ian still put on a serious expression and let out a low groan.
“……A murder case.”
“Yes. A woman in her twenties has been found dead in a horrific state. The scene has been preserved. Would you like to take a look?”
“Please lead the way.”
At Ian’s immediate reply, the detective nodded and took the lead down the corridor.
A little later, he arrived in front of a small room on the cruise ship’s third deck and looked back at Ian.
“Here it is.”
“There are no police guarding the scene.”
“Yes. It can’t be helped. The police can’t exactly come all the way out here.”
He was right. It was a murder case on a cruise ship; how could the police quickly seize and control the scene?
If it had happened in Korean territorial waters, maybe it would be different, but unfortunately this was the Atlantic. Korean police storming in here was impossible.
“Shall we go in?”
Bae Dohyun said, gripping the doorknob. Ian nodded with a cigarette between his lips.
Creak.
With an ominous sound, the door opened and a thick stench of blood and the sea’s salty tang wafted out. Blood was already pooling on the floor, slowly coming into view.
“No matter how many times I see it, it’s fucking disgusting.”
Bae Dohyun whispered that and opened the door all the way. Ian lit the end of his cigarette and stepped inside.
Click.
When he switched on the light, the room lit up. The whole scene inside also came into view.
“……”
Red. That was his only impression.
Blood covered everything indiscriminately, from the walls to the floor and ceiling. It was as if the room had been painted over in red.
The blood on the ceiling was still warm, dripping down in drops, and the flesh and organs strewn across the floor lay not far from the corpse.
A revolting space. But Ian calmly examined the scene instead of panicking.
“Cause of death is exsanguination?”
he asked. Bae Dohyun nodded.
“That’s what I’m thinking for now. There’s just too much blood.”
“Hmm.”
Instead of answering, Ian walked over to the corpse and carefully checked her condition.
There were no signs she’d been stripped. No obvious signs of beating, either. Looking at the empty eye sockets, it seemed the eyeballs had been removed, but there were no signs of resistance at all.
[Clue Found 1. Missing Eyeballs]
The status window message appeared at the same time he thought it. Ian furrowed his brow and dismissed the status window.
There was a small hole in the corpse’s abdomen. The organs that had spilled out from it stretched all the way to the entrance, and the outlines of torn internal organs were faintly visible beyond the hole.
‘It’s internal injuries.’
The internal organs had ruptured, despite the absence of any signs of beating.
At the very least, it was certain this wasn’t human work. Ian straightened up, staring at the corpse’s gaping mouth and severed tongue, and his lips parted.
“What is the captain doing now?”
“He’s trying to find the nearest port and dock the ship. But he said we’re still in the middle of the sea, so it’ll take some time.”
“Did you speak with him directly?”
“Yes. For a moment, but yes.”
Ian nodded as if he understood and left the room. Bae Dohyun followed behind him.
“So, Detective. Have you figured anything out?”
Ian didn’t answer right away; instead, he blew out a plume of cigarette smoke.
What was there to know? No, absolutely nothing.
He wasn’t even a real detective to begin with, so there was no way he could simply look at the scene and whip up an answer.
But he didn’t show it. Ian leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling as if he were making deductions. The detective seemed to buy the act and backed off a little without interrupting him.
That was fortunate for Ian. He stroked the cover of the grimoire tucked inside his coat as he sorted out his thoughts.
‘There’s no need to follow the scenario Mystery set up.’
Ian wasn’t an agent of the Bureau. He had absolutely no reason to investigate Mystery’s traits or dig into them to find a way to counter it. What he needed to do was clear from the start.
Find it and kill it.
It was what magicians did best, and the best way to solve the problem.
He didn’t know what Mystery’s true form was, or what had caused this phenomenon, but if Mystery started acting in earnest, finding it would just be a matter of time. Searching the whole cruise should turn up at least some trace.
And more than anything, that woman he had seen first thing that morning.
The sight of her legs split into three, with tentacles writhing between the flesh, was far too grotesque to belong in an ordinary shipboard mystery game.
Could a mystery game with monsters still function as a mystery game? It would just be a monster-avoidance game.
So it was right to assume there was something else going on. Thinking that, Ian carelessly rubbed the finished cigarette against the wall to snuff it out and tossed it away.
“Ah, the cigarette butt….”
“Is this really the time to worry about that?”
He casually ignored the detective’s complaint and swept his hair back.
“I’m going to talk to Seoa for a bit. Detective, please gather everyone aboard the cruise ship and send them to the theater.”
“Everyone… you mean all of them? By myself?”
he asked, looking incredulous.
Ian gave him a couple of taps on the shoulder in affirmation, then headed to the restaurant where Seoa was waiting.
Once he boarded the elevator, the newlywed couple still caught his eye, furiously making out.
Blood was streaming from their swollen lips, but as if they felt no pain, they kept biting and sucking at each other’s lower lips without pause.
Since leaving them alone didn’t seem like it would cause any life-threatening problem, Ian ignored them and pressed the elevator button.
A moment later, the elevator reached its destination.
Leaving the murmuring citizens behind, Ian walked toward the seat where Seoa was sitting. She hadn’t touched any food, and when she spotted Ian, her lips moved.
“How was it?”
“Not good. It looks like they were killed by Mystery.”
Scrape.
Ian pulled out a chair and sat down.
“The room was a bloodbath, the tongue was gone, the eyes had been gouged out, and the organs had ruptured and spilled out.”
“……They killed her pretty brutally. Still, at least they didn’t hide the evidence. The tongue, huh? That’s way too big a hint.”
Seoa said, leaning back in her chair. Ian asked, staring out at the dark sea beyond the window.
“Any idea?”
“Roughly. It looks like it was those guys from the ‘Bleeding Tongue Sect’ or something.”
“Bleeding what?”
At the name of a religion he’d never heard of, Ian frowned. Seoa, as if it were nothing, propped her chin on her hand and took out a bottle of bone ash.
“The Bleeding Tongue Sect. It’s a religion from the Cthulhu Mythos, but it exists in reality too. Its hallmark is that they brutally sacrifice people and cut out their tongues to take them. Historically, even a few famous people belonged to it—Hitler and Goebbels, and maybe the rest of the Nazi officers?”
The appearance of an even bigger heavyweight than expected left Ian speechless.