Chapter 102: Sleuth’s First Step

  The polished stone halls of Kah-Kamun Palace echoed with the rhythmic tap of a crutch. Yukari walked slowly, her pace measured and sluggish, leaning slightly on the wooden support with each step of her left foot. The pristine white bandages wrapped around her ankle stood out starkly against her adventurer's garb.

  "Does that hurt?" Samira asked, walking beside her, her usual boundless energy tempered by concern. She looked down at the bandaged ankle, her brow furrowed with guilt.

  "A bit," Yukari admitted, shifting her weight to test the joint. A dull throb answered her, but it was manageable. "But it's not my first time. I've had worse, like that one time I got knocked out in Hanyuun."

  "Sorry," Samira said, her voice small. "Because of us..."

  "Don't be," Yukari interrupted firmly, stopping to look the princess in the eye. "It was me who decided to jump back into the fire. No one forced me." She offered a reassuring smile. "Besides, the healer already said it's only a minor sprain. It will heal naturally in two to three days. Pretty much a small inconvenience."

  Samira’s expression brightened, relief washing over her face. "Thank you again," she said, returning the smile.

  "Ah, Malik!" Samira shouted, waving as she spotted a familiar lanky figure approaching them from down the corridor.

  Malik jogged up to them, clutching a thick, leather-bound book to his chest. He looked slightly out of breath, his glasses askew.

  "What is that?" Yukari asked, eyeing the book.

  "A handbook," Malik explained, opening it to show pages filled with neat, grid-lined paper. "We need someone to keep track of all the notes, statements, alibis, and evidence, right?"

  He sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping. "Even though I really don't want to get involved... why me?" he lamented, turning a pleading gaze to his fiancée.

  "Because it would be fun!" Samira declared, poking him in the chest. "And you certainly need more sun and socialization! So I insist you come with us!"

  Malik groaned, adjusting his glasses in defeat. "I liked my quiet life in the archives..."

  "But something is missing," Samira said, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she looked between Yukari and Malik. "We have the muscle, the brains, the charm..."

  "Yeah," Yukari sighed, scanning the hallway with a mix of annoyance and fondness. "The idiot. Where is he anyway?"

  The supposed "Great Detective" Shilook Huang was noticeably absent.

  As if summoned by the insult, the sound of frantic, slapping footsteps echoed from the far end of the marble corridor.

  Step-step-step-step!

  "Sorry! Coming through!"

  A familiar voice, breathless and panicked, grew louder. Raito burst around the corner, skidding on the polished floor before correcting his balance in a clumsy, flailing dance.

  "I'm here! I'm here!" he announced, finally coming to a halt in front of them, bent over with his hands on his knees, panting.

  "You're... la... te?" Yukari began, her brow furrowing. But the sentence died in her throat as she actually looked at him. Her mouth fell open.

  Standing before them was Raito, but not in his usual adventurer’s gear. Instead, he was dressed in an ensemble that defied all logic, taste, and climate norms for the desert-forest region of Zarateph.

  He wore a heavy, brown plaid tweed suit—jacket, vest, and trousers—that looked itchy just by looking at it. Draped over his shoulders was a matching, caped coat that swished dramatically with his movements. On his head sat a deerstalker hat, the earflaps tied neatly at the top. And to complete the look, he held a curved wooden pipe in one hand, though it remained unlit.

  He looked like he had stepped out of a foggy street in a bad novel, completely out of place against the sandstone walls and sunny windows of the palace.

  "What... are you wearing?" Yukari snapped, her voice a mixture of horror and confusion.

  "Wow," Samira breathed, her eyes wide.

  "Awesome, isn't it?" Raito straightened up, striking a pose he clearly thought was dignified, holding the pipe near his chin. "A one-to-one replica of the clothes Shilook wore in Shilook Huang: Mystery of the Missing Bodies!" He beamed proudly, adjusting his lapels. "I figured this is the perfect time to wear this. A detective needs his uniform!"

  Yukari facepalmed, the sound of her hand hitting her forehead echoing in the hall. She dragged her hand down her face, groaning. "When did you even make that? You idiot."

  "In Spica," Raito answered cheerfully. "Between the shopping trips."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" Yukari asked, peering through her fingers.

  "Because knowing you, you would've tried to throw it away," Raito claimed, pointing the stem of his pipe at her.

  "Yes, that is true," Yukari admitted instantly, dropping her hand to glare at the offending outfit. "And right now, I really, really want to tear that thing away from your body. It's embarrassing! We are in a palace! Take it off!"

  "No!" Raito clutched his cape protectively. "I need this! How else am I going to connect with my inner Master Shilook? It's essential for the investigation!"

  "By going back to reality, idiot!" Yukari shouted.

  She swung her crutch, aiming a low sweep at his shins.

  "Whoa!" Raito hopped nimbly over the crutch, the heavy tweed coat flapping.

  "Stand still!" Yukari hissed, taking another swing.

  "Nope! Can't catch me!" Raito laughed, dancing just out of range, using her limited mobility against her as he bobbed and weaved around the hallway pillars.

  Samira watched the spectacle—the hopping detective and the furious, crutch-wielding invalid—with a look of pure delight.

  "They are so interesting," she whispered to Malik, her eyes shining. "Just like Uncle Bob said."

  "I guess... I think?" Malik responded, adjusting his glasses nervously. He stared at Raito's hat. "Is that wool? In this heat? He's going to get heatstroke before we solve anything."

  Whap.

  A swing of the wooden crutch.

  There was no impact on bone. Raito’s hand had shot down, catching the wooden crutch mid-swing with a reflexes honed by training. He blinked, looking at his own hand in genuine surprise.

  "Oh... I caught it," he murmured, a look of mild wonder on his face.

  He quickly let go, stepping back before Yukari could try again. He cleared his throat, adjusting his heavy tweed coat with a sharp tug.

  "Anyway!" he declared, his voice dropping back into the deep, gravelly register of his detective persona. "Here is the plan, gang."

  He gathered them in a conspiratorial circle, though the heat of his wool suit was already radiating off him.

  "Let's start at the museum again," Raito began, pointing his unlit pipe toward the distant structure. "We need to find anything that is both out of place... and in place."

  Silence followed.

  "Sorry..." Malik raised a hesitant hand, his brow furrowed so deeply it looked painful. "But what you just said is very paradoxical, Sir Raito. How can something be both out of place and in place simultaneously? Logically, an object's state of belonging is binary. Unless you are referring to a quantum superposition of—"

  "Because, my dear Wang-Son," Raito interrupted, pointing the stem of his pipe directly at Malik's nose. "Sometimes... you have to think outside the box."

  He said it with such profound gravity that for a second, it almost sounded smart.

  "Wha... huh?" Malik blinked rapidly behind his thick glasses, completely lost. "Wang-Son?"

  "He's just making those words up," Yukari sighed, stepping in to save the poor scholar's sanity. "I don't even think he knows what he just said. Just... don't think too deeply about it, Malik. It hurts less that way."

  "Oh! Oh!" Samira raised her hand high, bouncing on her heels. "If Malik is this 'Wang-Son' fella, who am I? Do I get a cool name too?"

  Raito turned to her, appraising her with a squinted eye. He took a thoughtful puff of his empty pipe.

  "You, my dear, are Ai-Ling, of course," he declared.

  "I don't know who that is, but that sounds cool! Haha!" Samira cheered, clapping her hands.

  "Wait," Yukari interjected, her eyes narrowing. "How come she gets a female character—a femme fatale, no less—and I get stuck being the dog? Why am I 'Ruboo'?"

  "Because who else will play Ruboo?" Raito asked, breaking character for a fleeting moment to give her a genuine, teasing look. "You are fierce. And you tend to bite."

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  "Rude," Yukari deadpanned.

  Raito snapped back into character, spinning on his heel and pointing a dramatic finger toward the high arched ceiling, or perhaps the sky beyond it.

  "Well then, gang! To the mystery wagon!"

  "OH!" Samira pumped her fist in the air, matching his energy perfectly, and fell into step right behind him as he marched off down the corridor, his cape billowing ridiculously in the still air.

  Yukari and Malik were left standing in their wake. They watched the pair go—the cosplaying detective and the enthusiastic princess—and then, in perfect sync, they let out a long, heavy sigh.

  Yukari reached out, placing a sympathetic hand on Malik's bony shoulder.

  "We both have it hard," she said, her voice thick with the weary solidarity of the sane.

  "Yes... we have," Malik agreed, adjusting his glasses.

  In that moment, a shared camaraderie was born between the ex-general and the anxious scholar, forged in the fires of dealing with an idiot in a costume and a princess who was far too easygoing for her own good.

  The air in the museum ruins was thick with the smell of wet ash and scorched timber. Where a roof had once been, there was now only the open, cloudless sky, the sun beating down on the blackened skeleton of what had been Kah-Kamun's pride.

  Raito, Yukari, Samira, and Malik stood amidst the devastation. The floor was a treacherous landscape of charcoal debris—the remains of scrolls, tablets, and ancient relics now nothing more than black sludge under their feet.

  "All of those documents... artifacts... relics..." Malik whispered, his voice cracking. He reached out a trembling hand to touch a blackened plinth that had once held a golden vase. "All gone in a single event." The pain in his eyes was palpable, a scholar mourning the death of history itself.

  Samira moved closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder in a silent, comforting hug.

  "Whoever did this..." Yukari muttered, her knuckles white as she gripped her crutch. She kicked a piece of charred wood aside. "They have absolutely no respect for the archeological effort the adventurers and scholars put in to build this place. It's disgusting."

  "So," Samira asked, turning her head to look at the tweed-clad figure beside them. "What are we looking for, Mr. Detective?"

  "Ye... yeah," Malik added, sniffling as he pulled out his handbook and a charcoal pencil. "What are we looking for? Didn't Mr. Tanvir and the guards already sweep this place clean? I don't understand why we are starting back here."

  Raito turned, his cape swishing with a dramatic flair that kicked up a small cloud of ash. He adjusted his deerstalker hat and cleared his throat, dropping his voice back into the gravelly register of Shilook Huang.

  "Like I said, dear companions," Raito declared, holding up a finger. "We need to find something that is both out of place... and in place at the same time."

  He began to pace, his heavy boots crunching on the debris. "Not to mention, this is the first crime scene. And if my memory serves me correctly—and it always does—the culprit will always come back to the scene of the crime eventually!"

  "Yeah, no," Yukari said flatly, giving him a withering side-eye. "That small head of yours absolutely has no memories like that. You forgot our anniversary date three times."

  "Nonsense, Ruboo!" Raito waved a dismissive hand, letting out a boisterous, fake laugh. "Hahaha! We have been through thick and thin together! You must have just forgotten!"

  He stopped pacing and pointed his pipe at her. "Now! Be a dear and start sniffing out clues for me! Find something that rhymes with 'starting a mysterious, almost alive fire'!"

  Thwack.

  Yukari didn't even hesitate. She swung her crutch up and whacked him smartly on the back of the head.

  "Ow!" Raito yelped, clutching his hat.

  "For good measure," Yukari stated. She sighed, adjusting her grip on the crutch. "But... yeah, sure. Let's entertain that idea."

  She turned to the scholar. "Malik, if I remember correctly, the fire started at the basement level, right?"

  "Yes, that is correct, Miss Yukari," Malik said, flipping through his handbook to a page filled with diagrams. "It started in the basement study area. And I believe the one who spotted it first was Lady Tala, one of the senior scholars."

  "The basement, then," Yukari said, leading, hobbling the way toward the charred remains of the stairwell. "Let's go see what the fire left behind."

  They descended into the darkness, the air growing cooler and heavier with the scent of stale smoke. At the bottom of the stairs, they faced the reinforced ironwood door that separated the stairwell from the basement study. Or what was left of it.

  The wood was scorched black, its surface cracked and peeling like burnt skin.

  Raito stepped forward, reaching out a gloved hand. He barely touched the surface.

  Thump.

  The heavy door didn't creak open; it simply fell backward, collapsing onto the floor in a cloud of fine gray ash that billowed up around them like a phantom fog.

  "Cough! Cough!"

  The group waved their hands frantically, trying to clear the air. As the dust settled, the extent of the devastation was revealed.

  Inside was a tomb of knowledge. The massive study tables were reduced to charcoal skeletons. The shelves that had held centuries of records were piles of ash. The chalkboard, once covered in theories, was cracked and blackened, the writing erased by the heat.

  "Just as we thought," Yukari murmured, her voice hushed in the grim silence.

  "Everything is charred," Malik whispered, stepping over the threshold. He knelt beside a pile of ash that used to be a stack of scrolls, his fingers hovering over the remains. A single tear traced a path through the soot on his cheek. "Most of the proof... the data we collected on the mysterious structure in the desert... it's all gone. All of our hard work."

  "Malik..." Samira placed a hand on his back, her face pained.

  "But we must press on," Raito said, his voice surprisingly gentle, dropping the detective act for a moment. He looked at the scholar. "We need to find out who did this so their work wasn't destroyed in vain."

  Malik sniffled, then nodded, steeling himself. "You're right. Let's look."

  "Alright, gang," Raito said, clapping his hands, kicking up more dust. "Split up. Each take a corner. Look for anything... weird. Anything that could be evidence of a 'firestarter'."

  Minutes slowly turned into hours. The group combed through the wreckage, their hands turning black with soot as they shifted through piles of debris and ash. But there was nothing. Just more charcoal, more burnt wood, more lost history.

  "We've searched everywhere," Samira complained, wiping sweat from her brow with a blackened sleeve. She kicked a piece of rubble. "There's nothing here!"

  "Yeah, this is getting nowhere," Yukari supported, leaning heavily on her crutch, frustration etched on her face.

  "Perhaps we need to re-evaluate our approach," Malik suggested, adjusting his glasses which were now smudged with ash. "Maybe Mr. Tanvir is correct. There is nothing here. Maybe we should ask the people who were there at the event first? Interview the witnesses?"

  "No," Raito said, his voice firm. He stood in the center of the room, his eyes closed, his head tilted as if listening to a distant song. "My companions... it is here. I can sense it."

  Yukari rolled her eyes. "Maybe you are not cut out for detective work like your idol," she said with a shrug. "Let's go."

  She turned to leave.

  "Wait. Shuuush."

  Raito’s hand shot up, a sharp command for silence. His eyes were still closed.

  "Hear that?" he whispered.

  "Hear what?" Malik asked, straining his ears against the silence of the ruins.

  "A draft," Raito said.

  The group fell into a profound silence. They stood perfectly still, holding their breath, listening. At first, there was nothing but the settling of ash. But then...

  Whoosh...

  A faint, low whistle. The sound of wind billowing through a space where it shouldn't be.

  Yukari's eyes widened. "I hear it."

  They all nodded. Following Raito's lead, they moved slowly toward the back of the room, navigating the maze of burnt furniture, their ears guiding them toward the source of the sound. It led them to the backmost wall, a dark corner that had been heavily damaged by the fire.

  They searched the area, their eyes scanning the blackened stone.

  "Bingo," Raito said.

  He pointed up.

  High on the ceiling, tucked away in the corner shadows, was a small, circular hole. It was barely big enough for a single fist, its edges perfectly round. But what was strange was the color.

  "Look closely," Raito said, reaching up. He was too short. He grabbed a piece of unburnt wood and swiped the side of the hole. He brought the wood down. The tip was coated in a thick, black substance that wasn't ash nor soot.

  "As I thought," Raito said, showing them the wood. "Not ash, nor soot. This is paint."

  He pointed back at the hole. "The sides were painted black to camouflage it against the shadows. To make sure people wouldn't spot it."

  "But who... and why did they make this hole?" Samira asked, staring up at the ceiling.

  "Isn't it obvious?" Raito said, a grim smile touching his lips. "The hole is here to drop whatever started the fire. Or perhaps to lead the fire this way, feeding it air." He looked around the devastated room. "Then it would make sense why people think the fire started here, in the study."

  He turned sharply to the scholar.

  "Wang-Son!" Raito barked. "Where does this hole lead to?"

  "Huh? Me?" Malik blinked, startled by the sudden address. "Oh! Um... based on the blueprints..." He closed his eyes, visualizing the building's layout. "Directly above this corner... I believe that leads to the janitorial closet on the ground floor."

  Raito’s grin widened. He spun on his heel, his cape swirling.

  "Then that is where we shall look next!" he declared, marching toward the exit. "Onwards, gang!"

  As they followed him out, Yukari leaned close to Samira.

  "Not gonna lie," she whispered, a hint of grudging respect in her voice. "That was a little bit impressive."

  Samira giggled behind her hand. "Should I tell him?"

  "Absolutely not," Yukari said instantly. "His head is big enough already."

  Moments later, the group found themselves standing in the ruins of the ground-floor janitorial closet. It was a small, cramped space, the air thick with the acrid scent of melted plastic and harsh chemicals. The floor was littered with the charred remains of mop handles, half-melted buckets, and blackened rags. In the corner, a row of steel lockers stood warped and blackened by the heat.

  "Hmm..." Raito walked over to the lockers, his gloved hand running reverently over the scorched metal surface. "Locker model AF-31740B. A nice model." He sighed, a sound of deep, personal loss.

  "How in the world did you know that?" Yukari questioned, her brow furrowing.

  "I used to be somewhat of a janitor myself, remember?" Raito pointed out, looking back at her over his shoulder.

  "Right..." Yukari answered slowly. She had accidentally forgotten that particular detail of his past.

  "I used to beg Mr. Zhang to get this model at the warehouse," Raito continued, turning back to the ruined metal. "They are solid, robust, and built to last." He patted the warped door gently. "Oh, the irony that we would meet in this situation. You poor, poor thing." He clenched his fist. "I swear I shall avenge you."

  "Hey, Detective," Yukari snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Back to the mission, please. Can we mourn the locker later?"

  "Ehem." Raito coughed, straightening his coat and dropping his voice back to its gravelly depth. "Right. Now... where is that hole?"

  "Here, Sir Raito," Malik called out from the corner. He pointed to a section of the floor where the tiles had been removed, revealing the dark, circular opening that led straight down into the basement darkness.

  "So," Raito mused, crouching beside the hole. "Either the device was dropped down here... but since there was no such thing found down there, the device must still be here."

  "How can you be so sure it's not magic?" Samira asked, her eyes twinkling with excitement. "Maybe a fire spell?"

  "Nonsense!" Raito waved a hand dismissively. "There is no such thing as magic, my dear Ai-Ling! In this line of work, only facts and logic are our friends."

  "Facts and logic... got it, Mr. Detective!" Samira pulled a pen from her pocket and pretended to scribble notes on her hand before snapping a sharp salute.

  "Good! That shall make you an ever better sleuth, Miss Ai-Ling! Hahaha!" Raito threw his head back in a stilted, fake laugh.

  Yukari rolled her eyes so hard it hurt. She turned away from their theatrics, scanning the floor. As she shifted her weight, something near Raito's boot caught the light. A tiny, almost imperceptible glitter amidst the soot.

  "Idiot, move," she said, shoving Raito aside with her hip.

  "Hey!" Raito stumbled.

  Yukari ignored him, kneeling on the dirty floor. She reached out, her fingers brushing away layers of gray ash and black soot. There, half-buried in the debris, was a small, translucent crystal.

  "A core crystal?" she whispered to herself, picking it up.

  Malik leaned in close, adjusting his thick glasses as he squinted at the object in her palm. "But this one has no color," he stated, his nose almost touching the gem. "It's almost... transparent."

  "Yoink!"

  Raito snatched the crystal from Yukari's hand before she could examine it further.

  "Great job, Ruboo!" he declared, holding the crystal up to the light. "I knew your nose wouldn't betray us!"

  Yukari’s eye twitched.

  "Let's see..." Raito continued, ignoring the murderous aura radiating from his wife. "This, gang, is our first step to solving the mysteries! Hahaha!"

  He spun around, pointing his pipe at the scholar. "Wang-Son!"

  "Yes?" Malik gulped, standing at attention.

  "Bring us the evidence scanner!" Raito commanded.

  "Do... do we have such a thing?" Samira muttered to Malik out of the corner of her mouth.

  "No," Malik whispered back, sweat beading on his forehead. "But I'm too afraid to say that to him."

  WHACK.

  The crutch swung through the air with practiced precision, connecting solidly with the back of Raito's head.

  "Ow!" Raito dropped the crystal, clutching his skull.

  Yukari snatched the crystal out of the air before it hit the ground. She glared down at him, her silver eyes flashing.

  "Do not call me Ruboo, nor mention my nose, ever again," she scolded angrily.

  "Sorry," Raito whimpered from the floor.