Killed Again, Mr. Detective Volume 1 Case 1 Chapter 2 part 2

Volume 1

Case 1: Queen Irie Class Murder Incident

Chapter 2 I’m telling you I no' wanna die (Part 2)

TLed by: TanoshiKara

Disclaimer: This part contains a certain topic that starts with S and ends with e. Please seek help immediately if you are mentally unwell whether it be consulting someone you trust, calling the helpline(s) of your respective countries, or seeking treatment. If you know anyone who is mentally unwell, please help them to seek help. You can visit the links (by clicking/tapping on mentally unwell/helplines) for more information.

That is why I cannot seem to turn people down outright when they plead this hard. I, as a person, have such a side. Due to this, I did lose out on quite a lot up until now.

"Haa......alright. Do as you please. I do not think it can be used as material to prepare for your role though"

Rather than push her away awkwardly, it will be better to reasonably fulfill her request.

It may be possible that I will lose out once again but Humans cannot change that easily.

However, to be this proactive in preparing for her role shows that she has quite the zeal. She might just make it big as an actress.

"However, please keep it a secret from everyone else that I am a detective. It is one of those rules of the industry"

"I understand! Your lineage is top secret I see! Just like a spy!"

"I am telling you I am a detective. So, where did you say you saw the cat......Lulu? Did you say she is a Calico?"

"Erm, it was at a place deeper in on this floor. I could only catch a glimpse but there is no mistaking this. But......"

Her enunciation became bad all of a sudden.

"Did she get hurt?"

"Uh-uh. She looked well. But, it seems like Lulu-chan is carrying something strange on her back"

"Carrying? What specifically?"

"Who knows? Something like......a rucksack?"

A cat running away from home with a rucksack? Sounds too much like a fairy tale.

As the uninvited detective apprentice, also known as Yuriu Haigamine said that she saw Lulu-chan, we arrived at the rear section of the second floor.

"Luluuuu! Luluuu-chaaan!" Yuriu calls out to Lulu, paying the passersby no mind. 

How do I put it, she is trying her hardest.

"We cannot find her as expected. She went like whoosh down the hallway and ran that way......"

"Wait a bit Yuriu-chan. Look at this"

I found something interesting at a low spot on the corner of a wall. I got on all fours and examined the spot; Scratch marks.

"Found a clue"

"You did it! Nice job master!"

Yuriu, who, similarly, got on all fours and examined the marks, tilted her head and looked at me, her face close to mine.

That unassumingness made me panic and I stood up. My heart unconsciously skipped a beat.

"To think that she was polishing her claws on such expensive wallpapers. She sure is one mischievous cat. Perhaps we should stop searching"

"Please do not say that! So what should we do now?"

When I raised my head, I noticed that there were stairs ahead. One heads up to the third floor, and the other, down to the first floor.

"Up or down"

"Split up?"

"That is it"

Let's use this opportunity to use our manpower effectively.

And so, I had Yuriu head upstairs. I headed downstairs. We exchanged contacts since we were splitting up.

"Yuriu-chan, contact me immediately if you are in any danger"

"O-okay. I should immediately turn to my master for help right!"

"I will contact you so run to my side"

"......I see that I am the one who is running"

"Ah! That is not it! Hmm. Of course, I will also come to help you. Let us help each other"

"Yes! I will also be cautious! Dying is a no-no Master!"

"I am overjoyed to have a kind disciple"

"K-Kind is an exaggeration! I shall return those exact words, with a bow knot tied, to Master!"

Those words being returned that politely give me a feeling that they have been completely rejected, making me a little sad.

"Anyway, I will be fine as well. I won't die. Let us find Lulu and meet again"

Putting an end to the exaggerated charade we somehow started accidentally, I split up with Yuriu.

That is right. Uneasiness towards Death, this habit of mine made me say those embarrassing words. However, if searching for cats made people die every time, then no matter how many lives I have, they will not be enough.

Anyway, this is not a fictional world so it is not like murders are around every corner just waiting to happen.

I walk straight along the hallway of the first floor. The area ahead is designed to resemble a storage room. It does not seem like entry is forbidden but the place is bleak, with no plans for passengers to enter.

Explaining the situation to a male crew passing by, I tried to ask if I could search for the cat. He is very tall but is slouching his back slightly. He gladly gave me the permission to.

When parting ways with him, I tried asking if he had seen Lulu just in case.

"A Calico you say? Sorry, I have not seen her"

He pinched the tip of his cap, worn over his eyes, as he apologized politely.

"No, no"

"Ahh, but if it is a cat, then she may be headed for the kitchen drawn in by its smell"

"Where is the kitchen?"

"Upstairs"

This area is a miss I guess?

Even so, I briefly looked around the area at the back just in case.

Heading further in, I eventually reached a place somewhat resembling a hall. Whether it is because they were storing goods for the ship, large wooden crates, stacked a meter high, towered over me in all directions.

"This place is quite dark"

Even though I was that stern with Yuriu, I was quickly getting overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the place.

"If it is this dark, it would suree be impossible to tell if anything is hiding behind in the shadows of the goods. Might just get split in half by a man, two meters tall, carrying a chainsaw"

I prepare myself for something impossible.

"I will then get hung in a refrigerator together with processed pork......"

I unintentionally imagine a possibility that is the worst, most hideous, and does not need imagining. A bad habit I can do nothing about, one that is useless and etched deep within me.

"Even if that does not happen, should the wooden crates fall over on me in a flash...... It will still be nice if I died instantly, but the lower half of my body crushed, unable to move and my life slowly fading, which I definitely do not want"

I imagine this all on my own and my body trembles all on its own.

I am afraid of death. I do not want to die.

However, I unconsciously think about it the more afraid and averse I am to it.

At that time, the phone in my pocket suddenly vibrates almost startling me.

"G-Geez, a mail from my father huh...... He did not have to send it now" I grumble as I open his message.

—Oh Peacefully Dying Worm of a Son.

I thought its content was important but it was merely a taunt.

"What do you mean by Peacefully Dying Worm of a Son? You think you were saying something cool!"

It got on my nerves so I decided not to reply.

"Ahh, no, no. I am done being wimpy"

I desperately try to get a mental reset. I then search the area around me.

Other than wooden crates, the storage area has things like pipes that are stacked like a mountain, unicycles, and flags of all countries.

"Unicycles? Flags? Why are these things......Ahh, I see. These are from earlier"

"The stage and tools are stored here after the performance I see"

However, I do not see the giant clown's unique balloon. This is probably because most of them are left as is on the deck due to the performance tomorrow.

Even those aforementioned Motocross bikes are lined up nearby, something that tickles the hearts of men.

"Still, the circus members sure have it rough. Are they doing the maintenance of the bikes here as well?"

I squat in front of a bike and try touching a wheel with my fingertip.

"It will get chilly with the sea breeze after all"

Just then, I hear creaking. Drawn to it, I look up to my right. There—I find an unfamiliar man hanging in midair.

"............Eh-!?"

No, it is a hanging head to be exact.

The body swings from left to right with the rocking of the ship, much like a pendulum.3 The nails of the body are around one and a half meters above the floor.

That man, cheeks slightly hollow, a seemingly annoyed expression on his face, has his single-eyelid eyes wide open and a large, almost man-made tongue peeks out from his mouth. His blood-congested face looked like an overly ripe fruit.

"De......!"

He's dead. I understood that both intuitively and instinctively. That the man is already dead.

I am scared, I am afraid. It hurts, it aches. 

Death that I despise, that makes me reluctant, makes me insecure, makes me feel unpleasant. That very Death hangs down right in front of me.

"Argh......Why did I have to find this thing (Situation) I wonder......"

This is not my first time seeing a dead human body but it is not like—seeing them many times will get me used to it.

I think it is a grotesque topic but, honestly, the gloominess won out over the pain. After all, discovering it meant that I must get involved with it.

Although inexperienced, turning a blind eye to it is not something that a detective, can do right?

Even as I feel the confusion and shivers reverberating within me, I first walk to the body and put my hands together to pray.

"......No good.......huh"

I then tried to examine the man's body again but, as expected, he was totally dead.

"He looks to be in his late twenties, I guess? Hm? This is the bike maintenance's......?"

The man was hung with a belt, fixed to the hook of an electrical hoist. A hoist is a machine that uses a wire rope to move heavy objects up and down.

A remote control, connected to a cord, hangs in mid-air. It has an up and a down button. The type that moves the hoist while it is pushed and stops the hoist when released.

A rider from the circus probably fixed it to the ceiling to perform maintenance on their beloved bike. Being able to hang a bike in mid-air does indeed make its maintenance easier but this also makes suicide by hanging easier.

Mrrww.

Suddenly, I heard a sound that did not fit this place. I am sure I heard it. I did not hear it clearly as it got distorted by the engines of the ship though.

"What was that......?"

I could no longer hear it even when I tried to strain my ears.

A sound not of a machine's; A unique sound, strangely deep and haughty.

What in the world was that? Did I mishear?

I am curious but I decided to leave that for later.

"Hello? Lilithea?"

Once I finished checking the scene, I called my hardworking assistant. She picks up after merely a single ring.

"A lot actually happened and I am currently at the storage room on the first floor, but something somewhat terrible happened here......Eh? You are at the good part in darts? Why are you enjoying darts for real!? Enough with that, tell this to a nearby crew immediately. A dead body! I found a dead body in the storage room on the first floor! Suicide......Ah"

While I was going on and on about the incident, I realized that that man's smartphone was dropped several meters away. In the slightly dim storage room, the light from that screen signals its existence to me. Perhaps it is because of the shock from the drop, it has cracks all over the screen.

"I see that it is unlocked. No, rather than that, if I think about it—"

I finally realized the fundamentally suspicious aspect of this suicide-by-hanging incident.

"Come to think of it, it is too high. The position of the body......"

If this man were to press the hoist's remote to hang himself, his head would snap when he was several centimeters off the ground. Of course, at that point, he would not be able to breathe and his consciousness would become hazy. In this situation, anybody, no matter how burly, would loosen their grip on the remote. If they do, the fingers would move away from the button, stopping the ascend.

However, this man's body has been hanged one and a half meters above ground. In other words—.

"The one controlling the remote is not him. It is someone else. Someone was pressing the up button"

Die, die, please die—.

Whether it is in rapture or with strong killing intent, they hung him high up to be doubly sure.

"Killed by someone else......Murder......"

If that is the case, whoever was controlling the remote should be guilty. Guilty of killing a man.

Restaurants, a bar, a circus, a pool. This ship has everything. She is just like a town. However, she does not have a police station. In that case, someone has to find the guilty no matter what. Even if they cannot be judged, they must be caught.

Just then, the smartphone went into sleep mode due to inactivity. Its screen dims as if to follow in the footsteps of its owner.

Due to this, I realized another thing I had overlooked.

"......Going into sleep mode now? At this kind of timing?"

I got on all fours and looked at the smartphone, screen now black.

"Hm? This is......?"

There are traces of fingerprints on the screen. They appear on the black screen based on the angle of the ceiling's lighting.

"Are these traces from when their finger was used to unlock the smartphone?"

Thinking about it logically, this should be traces of the owner's fingerprints.

The type of lock that involves repeating the recorded pattern in one stroke across nine dots.

Letting their guard down because they did not tell anyone about the pattern, their wife or lover, however, sees the traces of fingerprints on the screen during their sleep, and the phone gets unlocked—or so I have seen on television or something. Something I do not know first-hand.

I seem to be able to unlock the smartphone by following the trace of fingerprints. If all goes well, some information will be left behind regarding his death, such as a diary or a note. Even if there is nothing, it increases the probability that he was killed by someone else but they masked it as a suicide.

"I feel bad as this is like desecrating a coffin but please pardon my intrusion for a bit—"

Just as I was about to touch the screen—I suddenly got grappled from the back.

"Ug......!? Wh......agh-......ugh!?"

Who is it?!, or so I tried to shout but a large amount of blood came out from my throat instead. Thick red liquid.

After that, I was no longer able to breathe.

Breaking away from whoever it was at the back, I fall over on the spot. While writhing in pain, I looked down to realize that a knife had been stabbed deeply into my throat.

"W......ha......!"

Blood continues to spurt out even as I try desperately to press both my hands against my neck.

My death is now inevitable.

Strength seeps out from my legs. As I look up, I see the shadow of a human. Someone is standing there, looking down at me as my life fades. That someone who stabbed my throat, with a knife, from the back...... This very person is the culprit responsible for covering it up as a hanging.

The culprit is......right in front of me.

Even though they are—damn it. I lost too much blood. My eyes......are blurry and I cannot see too well.

Who is the culprit? Are they male? Are they female? Their age......their characteristics......are......

Really, detectives are an occupation where it will never be enough no matter the number of lives one has. Yes, this is true.

Death is terrifying. That is why I do not like death. Whether it is my death or the death of others, I hate them all equally.

Anyway, I am glad that I finished writing a will yesterday.

3 - It may seem confusing but what the author is trying to say is that Sakuya saw the head when he looked up and wellll, he saw the entire body

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Feel free to comment/pm me if you find any mistakes. Once again, please seek help immediately if you are mentally unwell. Thank you very much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed the 2nd part.