—Help me.
A short message Frondier had sent to Dierre.
Along with it, Frondier had sent a single map and marked a location.
Dierre headed straight for the place Frondier had indicated.
His running speed rivaled that of a horse, and he dashed on without rest until he reached his destination.
He already knew the place.
And he had already predicted that Frondier would call him there.
'...The scene of the incident where Senior Atjie died. Senior Frondier is there.'
He had probably sent a similar message to almost everyone.
That was why Dierre felt a rush of exhilaration.
'Senior contacted me.'
Frondier had asked him for help.
He had thought that would never happen in his entire life.
That Frondier de Roach would ever have a time when he needed someone’s help.
And the fact that that someone was none other than Dierre himself made him steel his resolve as he ran.
“...I can see it.”
At the location he’d been told, a crowd had already gathered.
As Dierre checked the faces while still running—
Screeeech!
He spotted one particular face and slid to a halt.
“I–I greet Your Majesty the Empress.”
In front of Philly, he dropped to one knee in perfect form. Of course, a long mark had been carved into the ground all the way from where he’d started sliding to his feet.
“Yes, welcome, Dierre Aiger.”
Dierre’s shoulders trembled at Philly’s words.
The Empress knew his name. That was both an honor and a terrifying thing.
“Mr. Frondier is waiting for you.”
With a light jerk of her chin, the Empress pointed in one direction.
At the center of the gathered people. Frondier’s back was visible.
'Senior was waiting for me?'
Among all these people, Dierre.
Just that was enough to make Dierre’s heart rate quicken.
Dierre swallowed and nodded.
“Then I’ll go.”
He rose and walked forward slowly. With each step he took, the people around him shifted aside, opening a path.
The ones gathered here were not just anyone. From the Imperial side, starting with Empress Philly, the three Imperial Princesses—Elicia, Salle, and Aten—were present.
And somehow, arriving early, there were Constel teachers Jane and Vinkis, and even the headmaster Ospreet.
'...This lineup, don’t tell me.'
As he passed each face in turn, Dierre thought.
This lineup was made up of the strategists you could count on one hand in the Empire. He could roughly guess what Frondier intended by gathering them.
When he had passed them all, he finally reached Frondier’s back.
Noticing Dierre’s arrival, Frondier turned his head.
“Thanks for coming. It’s been a while.”
“...It’s been a while, Senior.”
Dierre gave a small bow.
On the surface, Frondier looked the same as always. His face was so unchanged it was as if they had met just yesterday.
Dierre knew that Frondier did not show his feelings, but seeing it to this degree was almost chilling.
“I’m sorry to put this on you the moment you get here, but I have a favor to ask.”
“Yes, please tell me.”
This was exactly what Dierre had hoped for.
Frondier had gathered so many people and then waited for him. It was only right that he live up to that.
Frondier turned his gaze forward.
“Over there, you see Atjie lying down, right?”
“...Yes.”
A short distance away, Atjie lay on the ground. Within a certain radius, no one was near him.
“As you probably already know, no one can touch Atjie right now. So it’s hard to know exactly how he was taken down.”
“...I see.”
“But we can at least see. We also did our best not to damage the scene.”
At those words, Dierre looked around.
Sure enough, there was quite a wide space left empty around Atjie’s corpse. They had likely restricted access.
It was only natural. This was a crime scene. And since they couldn’t even take away the body, they’d put all the more effort into preserving it.
“Could you look over this scene and figure out the situation in your own way? I want to hear your opinion.”
Dierre looked at Frondier at those words.
Frondier was now asking for Dierre’s deduction.
Not only Frondier—many other eyes were also fixed on Dierre.
'...This is...'
No doubt, before Dierre arrived, the people here had already completed their rough understanding of the situation.
But Frondier had not told that to Dierre, and instead wanted Dierre’s own reasoning.
In other words, there was something here they still had not resolved.
'He doesn’t want to give me information outside the scene itself, so I won’t fall into the same trap they did, is that it?'
Dierre nodded.
“...Understood. I’ll take a look.”
Leaving everyone’s gaze behind him, Dierre walked toward the fallen Atjie.
'This is my first time at a scene like this.'
Dierre was already a third-year. Through PRO training, he had often examined incident scenes. On top of that, he himself had a knack for this sort of thing and had produced excellent results.
However, most of those scenes were ones where the body had already been removed. As a student who had not yet reached adulthood, his participation always came quite some time after the incident.
On the other hand, Dierre was good enough to find new information even at scenes long after the fact. That was probably the very thing Frondier was counting on.
'The expectations feel heavy.'
Dierre swallowed and lowered his body.
He had always examined scenes after the body was removed, but now Atjie was right before his eyes. Dierre reached out a hand.
'Just like I heard, I can’t touch him.'
It felt like his hand was being extended, yet in reality it was not. It was a strange sensation.
But even if he could not touch the body, just being able to look was enough to gain a great deal of information.
And Dierre immediately found the most troublesome problem.
'...I can’t tell the cause of death.'
Atjie’s body had small wounds here and there. Probably traces of battle. His clothes and the ground where he lay were soaked in blood, so it must have been quite a desperate fight.
The problem was that Atjie was lying face down. So he could not see what kind of wounds he had on the front of his body. Since he could not touch him, it was also impossible to turn him over. At least the wounds visible on his back and limbs were nothing serious.
Considering that Atjie was an exceptional warrior, the wounds visible now were nowhere near enough to kill him.
'Did he receive a fatal wound on the front of his body?'
Dierre raised his head.
His distant gaze landed on the roadside.
There was a vehicle there, as if it had been abandoned without care.
When Dierre went to check it, he found the front bumper crushed in.
'If Senior Atjie was driving and crashed here...'
Dierre examined the ground.
There was something missing that was always present in traffic accidents.
'...No skid marks.'
If the scene had been properly preserved, there should have been traces of the tires braking. Skid marks—long streaks left by the tires when the vehicle slid—but there was no sign of them around here.
In other words, Atjie had not used the brakes. He had crashed into something without braking.
Dierre looked again at the front bumper.
'...The crumpled shape is strange. The hood has been folded inward. Don’t tell me...'
When a front bumper is crushed by an impact, it usually shatters and falls off or is crumpled inward. As a result, the hood is either lifted slightly or broken together with it.
But on this car, the hood had been folded inward. From the top, toward the inside.
'...Did someone grab the car in their hand?'
At that chilling thought, Dierre’s eyes narrowed. Maybe aura was used or something else, but this was no ordinary brute strength.
'Senior Atjie must have already known his opponent was an enemy from the moment he got in the car. That’s why he didn’t brake and crashed straight into them.'
In other words, Atjie’s enemy had been waiting for him without hiding their killing intent.
And they were confident they could beat Atjie even head-on.
'They had targeted Senior Atjie from the start, and knew he would be coming this way.'
Of course, knowing Atjie’s route was not difficult. On the day of the incident, there had been a meeting at the Imperial Palace that Atjie attended. Naturally, it would not have been hard to intercept Atjie on his way back to the mansion.
What was important here was that Atjie had not diverted anywhere else and had returned to the mansion exactly as the enemy predicted.
So Dierre could make the same prediction as the culprit.
'Since they were aiming for Senior Atjie on his return, the car must originally have been coming from this direction.'
Dierre stood in the center of the road. Then he pictured Atjie’s car, invisible from the front. A car driving along the route from the Imperial Palace to House Roach’s mansion.
Atjie had seen something, and without braking, had crashed straight into it. Judging from the marks on the hood, the enemy had been hit directly by the car, then grabbed it with their hand.
“So they threw it like that and it flew over there.”
Dierre looked at the car again.
If Dierre had been the one facing Atjie, he would have thrown the car toward Atjie as well. In other words, Atjie must have been near where the car was now damaged, if only for a moment.
'Judging from the positions, when the car collided with the enemy, Senior Atjie had already gotten out of the vehicle. So the culprit threw the car toward where Senior Atjie was.'
If he had been hit by that, Atjie would not have come out unscathed either. He had probably dodged. The place where Atjie now lay was some distance from the car.
Above all, it was impossible to imagine someone like Atjie getting hit by a mere thrown vehicle.
'...And that over there.'
This time, Dierre turned his gaze elsewhere.
Not near the wrecked vehicle, nor near Atjie.
There was a severed spear there. Dierre walked toward it.
'It’s Senior Atjie’s spear. No doubt about it.'
Most of the scene was like this, but this area in particular was full of traces of battle. And in the midst of that battle, Atjie’s spear had been cut in half.
That alone was shocking, but what was even more shocking was how far the spear was from where Atjie now lay.
In other words, when he collapsed, Atjie had not been holding his spear.
'Did he lose his spear in the midst of the fight? Or did he discard it himself?'
Either way, there came a point when Atjie had to face his opponent barehanded. It must have been a grueling fight.
'...And after several bouts of fighting, he died over there...'
Dierre’s eyes turned again to the spot where Atjie had fallen.
Atjie, on his way back in the car, encountered the culprit en route and crashed straight into the enemy.
Then he dodged the vehicle thrown by the enemy and used his spear to fight. But in the midst of the battle, the spear was cut, and he had no choice but to fight barehanded. In the end, he allowed the culprit a fatal blow and died on the spot.
“How is it?”
Frondier approached the motionless Dierre.
“I think I’ve roughly read the situation.”
Dierre answered, and at the same time furrowed his brow.
“...But it seems I’ve probably reached the same conclusion as everyone else here.”
If Dierre’s deduction was correct, then the way Atjie had died only became clearer.
The culprit remained unknown, and only the reality that Atjie was dead became more distinct.
Everyone here had likely arrived at the same line of reasoning.
At that, Frondier let out a wry smile.
“Yeah.”
A short reply.
If even Dierre said the same thing, that was probably the correct answer.
Dierre lowered his head with a heavy heart.
He wanted Atjie to be alive. Of course, that wish was not Frondier’s alone. Dierre hoped for it as well.
So he had secretly expected that, if he saw the scene for himself, he might find something different.
Besides, the fact that Frondier had called him here meant there was something suspicious, didn’t it? He had to admit he had harbored that hope as well.
But Atjie lay there, face down, bleeding, dead.
The situation was crystal clear.
...?
At that point, Dierre raised his head.
“...If the situation is this clear,”
“Hm?”
“Why did the culprit bother to use such a troublesome magic?”
“What do you mean, why? Whatever it does, that magic was probably used to kill Atjie...”
Frondier started to answer, then realized the contradiction himself and brought a hand to his mouth.
“No, that doesn’t make sense. If they defeated Atjie in battle, there was no need to use magic.”
At first, Frondier had thought that Atjie had fought some unknown entity and lost, and that this phenomenon was the result.
That being unable to touch Atjie’s body meant he had fought a battle Frondier knew nothing about.
But looking at the situation, that wasn’t the case.
Atjie’s fight with the culprit had been a human battle, one anyone could understand. The traces of battle made that clear. For a fight with some unknown thing, this scene was far too ordinary.
There was only one thing that stood out as strange: the current situation, where Atjie’s body could not be touched. A magic that even countless magicians and healers could not dispel.
But if this was something the culprit had done separately from the battle—
Then it meant the culprit did not want anyone to touch Atjie’s body.
Dierre looked around.
'There are bloodstains only around where Senior Atjie fell. Nowhere else.'
Judging by the vehicle’s position, the broken spear’s position, and where Atjie lay, the fight had unfolded in multiple directions.
And during that battle, Atjie had not received any wounds that made him bleed.
Only at that spot.
Only where he collapsed had he bled.
'If you think about it simply, he had been handling things smoothly until then, then got caught off guard by an unexpected blow. And that led to his death.'
That was the natural way to see it.
But the one who died this time was Atjie de Roach.
What kind of “unexpected blow” could catch him off guard?
With that small question, Dierre approached Atjie again.
“Dierre?”
“I just have something ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) I want to check.”
Dierre examined Atjie.
As expected, he could not touch him, so a detailed inspection was impossible.
But what Dierre wanted to check right now was not Atjie’s body.
It was the blood.
“...!”
Dierre moved his hand close to the bloodstain Atjie had left.
And he knew.
He could not touch this blood either. It wasn’t only Atjie’s body that he could not contact. He could not approach these bloodstains either.
What did that mean?
He didn’t know yet.
But if the culprit really had used magic because they wanted to hide something, the way Dierre was thinking—
If there was something they did not want known about Atjie’s body or this blood—
Then that was—
“...If this bloodstain, by any chance,”
Dierre said to Frondier.
To the one who had already arrived at the same thought.
“What if it isn’t Senior Atjie’s blood?”
