Unresolved Case (3)
"Nade!"
Before his friends could stop him, Nade took the thief's longsword and swept it aside.
"Ugh! Not bad!"
Even without special abilities, his combat sense and experience were undeniably top-tier.
He drove a dagger into the thief's side and twisted; the man gave a shocked groan.
"Huuagh!"
'What a filthy feel. So damn real.'
After a quick follow-up to the abdomen, he flipped the dagger up and slit the thief's throat.
"Grrrrr…"
Nade held on until he could feel the full weight of the body against the hilt, then stepped back.
The thief collapsed like a rotten old tree.
"Points?"
-Current Crime Points: 58 points.
'Eighteen points to kill one person. Is defense counted as part of the crime? That's ridiculous.'
If the mission had targeted civilians, he was sure he could have finished it with only five points.
"You insolent brats!"
When the thief shouted, Iruki and Eden were already moving around the longsword to avoid it.
"Running away's where you're good!"
Iruki dodged the blade as if he'd toppled, skimmed the ground with his hand, and twisted his torso sharply.
He lashed his right arm like a whip; a spray of dirt burst into the thief's face.
"Aah! My eye!"
At the same time Eden ran up and smashed a brutal blow between the man's legs.
"Ugh—!"
He couldn't even scream.
The thief's eyes rolled back and he hit the ground with a thud; Nade cut through the back of his neck.
"Points?"
-Current Crime Points: 17 points.
"What?"
Whoever had used whatever moves, it had consumed far more than a single blade strike would have.
Nade looked at Eden.
"You—"
"Sorry."
She stuck out her tongue and shrugged. At that moment Shirone's voice rang out.
"Nade!"
Shirone had rolled behind a thief and was choking his neck.
"Get off! Get off!"
The thief on the ground grabbed the fallen longsword and raised the blade toward Shirone's face.
"Shirone!"
The instant Nade threw the dagger he was holding, the thief's fingers curled and he clutched the hilt.
-You do not have enough Crime Points to commit this crime. Current Crime Points: 14 points.
'Damn!'
It seemed finishing blows cost even more points.
"Die!"
As the thief lifted the longsword to bring it down, Shirone let out a kiai.
"Yaaa!"
He twisted the man's neck with everything he had; there was a sickening crack as the head turned.
The thief's arm dropped limp. They were all left speechless at the gruesome sight.
"Hah. Hah."
Shirone panted, shoved the corpse aside, and climbed to his feet.
"Shirone, you okay?"
Although his basic stamina exceeded an ordinary person's by far, his back muscles ached.
"Yeah. I'll be fine after a bit."
The civilian investigation team gaped at the group that had subdued a band of thieves with a single sword.
'What are those kids? They all look so young.'
Knowing rookies only start with 100 points made the whole thing even more baffling.
"You people—"
The moment someone spoke to them, time froze.
-Mission complete. Reward event has begun.
Nade waved at the frozen onlookers, but there was nothing to grab.
"Is this another hidden code?"
"Probably," Iruki said. "It's a system that makes it impossible to find how many points we got as a reward by any method. Fair, since points are everything."
-Perk! Honorable Wrongdoing cleared. You will receive double the Crime Points earned.
The instant the announcement finished, two Crime Dice clinked down at their feet.
No one moved to pick them up. Nade spoke first.
"A perk, huh. Must be for clearing a hidden event. Doubling is pretty good, right?"
Iruki shook his head.
"Not necessarily. There's the trouble of finding the hidden event, and as you saw, killing through combat is always wasteful. Defense, evasion, striking weak points—every action costs points."
Eden added, "Honestly, I think it's inefficient too. I get what Curtis meant."
"Evil…?"
Shirone murmured.
"They called it 'honorable wrongdoing.' The ones we took out were a vicious band of thieves, after all."
In other words, it's still called evil—they were saying you're no different from us.
Nade tried to reassure him.
"Don't worry. This is a game made by villains. You know as well as anyone—hesitate for a second and it's over. That's exactly what the Catacombs are banking on."
"Yeah. Of course, but…"
Maybe that was true, too.
"Nade, I'm going to stick with this strategy until the end."
"Of course."
Shirone gathered himself and picked up the Crime Dice on the ground. A transparent plane formed beneath his feet and rippled like water.
'Random number structure.'
If Havitz had written the code, it would be perfect.
-Reward details. Base reward: 100 Crime Points. Additional reward: Crime Points equal to the numbers rolled on the Crime Dice three times. Perk: Honorable Wrongdoing. All rewards are doubled.
Iruki said, "Looks like ownership of the Crime Dice still belongs to Shirone for now. If we'd played normally, you'd get up to 36 extra points on top of the 100."
Nade clicked his tongue. "That's stingy. So that's why that killer was being petty. You'll barely break even."
Eden said, "At least Curtis had three Crime Dice. He had more dice than us. The stronger the dice, the bigger the rewards."
"Guys…listen."
Shirone stared at his friends with a dazed face.
"I think I can pull off a 'double.'"
"What do you mean?"
"Here we're not bound by magic or avatar constraints. So… I can do it. Quantum collapse."
It was the trick used even in High Gear to get legendary-grade items.
Iruki tested, "It's true. When time's frozen, the signals that normally constrain us can't get through."
It was a world of pure probability.
"I'll try."
Shirone rolled the dice on his palm and fixed his gaze on the trembling plane.
"Whoa—mental observation."
As the quantum collapsed, the ground stilled, and the two dice flew across it.
'Completely observed. In other words, 100 percent probability.'
The dice clacked over the bumps and came to a stop, scattered to the sides.
They showed six and six.
"Got it!"
With an electrifying click the numbers combined into twelve and the dice dropped back in front of him.
-Double. You gain one additional chance.
"Nice."
The second roll also produced six and six, but this time there was no system voice.
"Huh. So you can only get the extra chance from a double once per roll. But we still have two more chances left, so we can roll up to four times total—if we keep getting doubles."
"No problem."
Shirone snatched the dice that fell before him and flung them far away.
The extra reward they gained from that was 72 points.
Add the base reward and they had 172 points; with the perk doubling applied, they received a total of 344 points.
"Yes! Jackpot!"
As Shirone and the others cheered, Nade hopped up and down.
"This is insane! This method—ahhh…"
Time resumed and Nade collected himself with a satisfied smile.
"Huh? Oh?"
Hawk Eye and the civilian investigators looked at them with blank faces.
"Ahem."
"What happened just now?"
"Uh, nothing."
While Nade instinctively clamped down on information leakage, Shirone was honest.
"We got rewards. And—sorry."
He could've told them they'd slipped into the mental plane, but the investigators didn't ask.
"No, we were the ones helped. Thank you."
"Are you going to wait again—until the thieves raid the village?"
The investigator's expression darkened.
"We can't delay any longer. We know Melchidew's rules. The criminals have probably fled far away. So we have no choice… we'll have to kill residents."
"Actually, they're not even real people—the dead residents revive, I confirmed that. I don't know why I'm telling you this. I just…don't know. We have to go."
Shirone pressed his lips together.
'This is why it's so hard.'
Unlike extremes like utter righteousness or pure evil, public good and charity can't hastily decide what's right or wrong.
'Are humans evil?'
Maybe. But before that, one must ask—
'Is the system wrong?' Perhaps humanity, society, even we ourselves are being pushed toward evil.
'Because we have to survive.'
We compete because we must, pull others down, feel jealousy and envy…
'I hate evil people too. I feel the same unfairness Miro feels about evil.'
But a perfect system—
'If someday, under rational intelligence, a world comes where disease and suffering are no longer concerns, and even then humans continue to hurt, deceive, and torment others… then by all means condemn them.'
'But not yet. We simply haven't reached that level of intelligence.'
Being hurt by being called evil and warmed by being called good—that's human.
'Why can't people see how remarkable that is? Valuing good over evil means… that sometime far in the future, we'll reach that place.'
As history shows.
'You can't define humanity already. Don't give up ahead of time.'
Evil will disappear one day.
'I'm human too.' He wanted to believe it wasn't all there was.
"Yes. Good luck."
Shirone couldn't put into words all the things spinning through his head.
'My ideals are delusions to each individual.'
Even now, everyone is passing around a bomb of suffering.
'I'm right.'
Thinking of those living in the present, closing the world shut might be acceptable.
As the civilian investigators limped away, Eden came close and whispered, "Let's do what we have to."
o ≫
…Huh.
Until good, evil, and charity are integrated.
"Alright, then—shall we move out? One person can't roll the dice continuously. Who's next?"
Iruki pointed at Nade.
"If it isn't Shirone, no one can artificially force a double. So it doesn't matter who rolls."
"Oh, right. Damn, we could've had it easy."
Eden patted him. "Still, we've got 344 points. If we'd played normally, we'd have only about a hundred. Not bad for a start. Meeting Curtis was luck, too."
Nade took the dice.
"Okay. Let's go all out. The god of dice watches over me."
"Alright. Just throw them."
"Here I go! Shine on our destiny!" Nade hurled the dice with all his strength and a red number flashed along the path.
One and two.
Shirone's group, turned to light, advanced three spaces.