TRPM 128

chapter 128

I felt relieved when I watched the police subdue all the hostage-takers and drag them out.

“What happened?”
“Beats me…?”

The kids stared at the police with puzzled looks, but it didn’t seem like anything major. More than that, I was a little impressed watching the officers take down the criminals without any casualties.

‘… Well, unless it was before I went back in time—these days the police should all be proper officers.’

Before my return, many officers had gotten promoted by corrupt means, and there simply weren’t enough properly trained cops to handle the criminals running wild across the country. The high number of criminals was the real problem.

So many officers had been killed or injured fighting those criminals that fewer people wanted to become police, and that created a vicious cycle of manpower shortages. Many officers went into the field without proper training, and I heard that because of graft by the powerful, proper equipment often didn’t get supplied.

‘But now there’s nobody high up siphoning off the budget, and most of the criminals have been pushed out… so the police can be properly trained and sent to the field with good equipment.’

Also, with enough personnel, response times aren’t long. Thinking that relaxed me, and I noticed the shop assistant who’d slumped to the side. I understood—she was a civilian involved in an incident like this, so it made sense she’d be shaken.

“… Ah!”

She looked around from where she’d sat down, made eye contact with me, startled, and stood up. She dragged her trembling legs toward the kitchen. And then…

“Sorry—did you wait?”

She brought my ordered strawberry parfait.

One was packed with an ice pack. The other was in a cup ready to eat. I wondered if she had the presence of mind to prepare them with her legs shaking like that.

“Hmm… what can I say, I feel bad. It’s a bit melted.”

She had nothing to feel bad about.

“It’s fine.”

I’d chosen parfait out of all the desserts precisely because it’s a menu item that takes a while to make. I’d expected the police could burst in while the parfait was being prepared, so I wasn’t going to be angry that it had melted. In fact, a bit of melting makes it easier to mix the contents.

“Whoa… is this a parfait?”
“We’ve never tried it because it’s expensive… they don’t sell it anywhere else….”
“……”

As they were about to ruin the parfait with their spoons, the kids looked at mine with regretful faces. Honestly…

“Everyone, spoons up.”
“Waaaah!”
“Really?!”

If each of them took a spoonful, I’d probably need to open both the parfait in front of me and the packed one to be able to share, but… whatever. It’s not like I’m out of money; I can always order more. Sorry to the trembling shop assistant who had to drag herself to make the parfait, though.

‘By the way…’

What on earth were those guys thinking to stage this incident?

‘It doesn’t seem like money was the goal…’

This dessert shop is famous as a place that makes great desserts, so it probably does better business than most dessert shops, but the owner and her daughter, the shop assistant, probably aren’t extremely wealthy. It’s hard to believe they stormed the place just to extort money.

‘And what’s bothering me is how sloppy they were in some ways.’

They hacked the security system and tried to hack my smartphone—equipment capable of that—but they attacked a shop operating openly in broad daylight. Logically, a crime committed at night is much less likely to be noticed. And they didn’t even cover their faces, as if they didn’t care if they were seen. Did they plan to kill the owner and the assistant after the job, or did they commit the crime expecting to be caught?

‘Why target this dessert shop in the first place?’

The shop is known for difficult-to-make desserts like parfaits, so it has some fame as a dessert hotspot. But that’s pretty much it. There are so many stores—why pick this one?

“……”

For now, since those guys are all arrested, I figured there wouldn’t be immediate trouble, but there are too many strange things about this incident. I’m sure the police know that, so they’ll focus their investigation on those peculiar aspects…

‘This is strangely frustrating.’

Just then—

“Seems like you’re frustrated for some reason.”
“Huh? Yeah, I guess so.”

Elena said that to me. My expression must have shown I was a bit vexed. Come to think of it, the reason we all came to this dessert shop together was because of this guy, wasn’t it?

“Whatever the reason for your frustration, wouldn’t it be better to focus on eating the parfait now?”

If we don’t, the other kids will eat Han Geon-woo’s share too.

“…You’re right.”

She was correct. The police aren’t incompetent. My influence in Korea might have been so great that the police sometimes seemed weak by comparison, but their role isn’t insignificant. Especially since there are psychometry-capable officers, tracing the perpetrators’ past deeds shouldn’t be too hard.

‘… Unless they were people who erase memories like the Oracle organization’s members, but the people who caused today’s incident don’t seem to be that far.’

Thinking that, I decided to just hang out with the kids. As a middle schooler, Han Geon-woo, I didn’t have anything to do.

“So that’s what happened.”

Yeon Mirae said that to me—more precisely, to my doll. I told her what my original body had seen and experienced today. Oh, and Mirae wasn’t the only one beside my doll.

“Elliot almost lost to a boy weaker than him, Lee Dumin… he’ll need remedial training when we get back to England.”
“… Poor Elliot.”

First, there were Arthur and Rachel, who had been traveling with us since Japan. By the way, the two of them said they’d go back to England with Elliot and Elena when they return to England. If that’s the case, they should be tracking them down instead of following me, but that’s beside the point.

“Hmm…?”

Then Chairman Shin Han-ji was watching my doll with interest. She’s also a mage, so she could tell it was a doll and was intrigued.

“Arthur and Rachel are one thing, but Chairman Shin Han-ji, why exactly are you following me?”
“Curious, are you?”

She answered my question with that. Of course I’m curious. More importantly…

“What about the academy? To put it bluntly, the Seoul Awakener Academy wouldn’t run properly without you.”

Of course the academy has capable staff. The head of the swordsmanship department is an Aura Master known to be less skilled compared to Chairman Shin Han-ji, but still an Aura Master. The academy wouldn’t collapse just because the chairman was absent, but a grand mage’s absence is no small matter. There are things only she could handle—like, for example…

“Maintenance of the barrier surrounding the academy.”

The barrier around the academy was cast directly by the grand mage, Chairman Shin Han-ji. She wouldn’t hand over its maintenance to someone else.

“It’s fine. I expected the job in Japan to take at least a week, so I strengthened the barrier beforehand.”

So it’s no big deal if she shadows the artist for a day.

“… I see.”

I didn’t detect any sign of lying in Chairman Shin’s voice. So whether she stayed with me out of curiosity or returned to the academy from boredom, I decided not to worry much. I was more curious about how the police investigation into the dessert shop incident was proceeding.

‘… Normally I’d drop by the special investigations team’s office at the police station and ask, but…’

Nominally the special investigations team was set up to catch me, but at some point it had become more like a contact point between us. This time, however, I wasn’t asking for info as an artist.

“Yeon Mirae, put my doll in your pocket dimension.”
“… Huh?”
“Tell them you learned about the incident through the complainant Han Geon-woo and ask around appropriately.”

Mirae was right there beside me. Since publicly I’m known as her disciple, and the incident indirectly involves her supposed student Han Geon-woo, if she asked the police about it they wouldn’t find it strange. They might even be more forthcoming, thinking to get help from an Aura Master, and reveal everything they’d found.

“Yes, got it.”

Mirae nodded—she knows the police are on friendly terms with her.

“We should start by asking their motive, right?”
“Right. That’s the biggest mystery.”

Why this dessert shop? There was nothing particularly special about it. The mother and daughter who run it weren’t special either. As I thought that—

“Asking about motive is good, but I’d ask something else first.”

Chairman Shin Han-ji said that. Naturally, all of us turned to look at her.

“What do you want us to ask first?”
“For example…”

Why did they choose today to commit the crime?

“… I more or less know that. The shop assistant told us what she overheard—the perpetrators mentioned that the artist is in Japan. They must have thought today, when I’m not in Korea, is the only chance to act.”

“If that’s the case, a new question arises.”

How did they get that information?

“The things that happened in Japan were unofficially commissioned and didn’t show up in the news… and the people who saw the artist there were limited.”

“!”
“!”

Everyone’s face showed surprise at Chairman Shin’s words. It’s true. The times I revealed myself in Japan were in front of these four people here, at the senator’s house who headed Oracle’s Japan branch, briefly inside the dungeon, and as I was leaving the dungeon.

“We either killed or turned the people at the senator’s house into idiots, so exclude them. That leaves the strong people inside the dungeon and the Japanese officials guarding the dungeon’s entrance…”
“While those in the dungeon might have told others about the artist, it’s unlikely that such information would have leaked to ordinary civilians. So…”

One of the Japanese officials leaked the information.

“And coincidentally they told it to someone who had been preparing to commit a crime for several years.”
“We need to identify which Japanese official passed along that information.”

If Chairman Shin is right, things get a bit more complicated. It means someone was encouraging or arranging the crime from behind the scenes.