Finn was found dead.
I initially wondered if some enraged Parcionian had done him in, but it seemed he was killed despite being under twenty-four-hour surveillance. His throat had been slit from behind with a razor inside the hotel. It was undeniably a homicide.
The Chronos Police who handled the investigation were reliable, but the Parcion Army—including their police force—was utterly useless. They were the kind of lot that couldn't even march in a straight line. I felt like I was witnessing the darkest depths of a ration-based society; their morale was so low it wasn't even a joke.
The ones tasked with the surveillance were the Chronos Police. They were trustworthy. The ones who had been loitering outside, squatting and chatting away, were the Parcion detectives. Apparently, they had even been drinking with their colleagues. They were practically alcoholics. I considered going down there to punch them myself, but it seemed the Chronos Police had already beaten them to a pulp.
Violence? Harassment? I’ve never heard of those words! If you slack off on a job where lives are at stake, you’re going to get hit. That’s just how it is.
...Still, the places beyond my immediate reach remained a hellscape. And at the time, I hadn't yet realized that this was merely the opening move of a massive conspiracy.
On the Parcion Capital Planet, a certain man was making his morning commute in the capital. He held a rank roughly sixth from the top within the Parcion Police. Major Marcel was riding the subway to head to the Capital Police headquarters where he worked.
This was all deduced from security camera footage.
It was raining that day, so Marcel had an umbrella. He descended the stairs toward the subway station as he did every morning. The stations in the Parcion capital were all needlessly extravagant. Apparently, it was all for show to impress foreign diplomats.
A short way down the overly luxurious staircase sat a shopping center, where an escalator led down to the platforms. The shopping center was just a hollow shell; every store was deserted. There were Lepsitol brand shops and the like, but who their target demographic was supposed to be remained a mystery.
Taking the escalator further down revealed a beautiful station, the kind often found in dictatorships. A traditional piece by a Parcionian composer played over the speakers. A crowd had gathered to wait for the train.
Among them was a man wearing a coat. The moment he passed behind Marcel, he jabbed the tip of his umbrella into the major's leg. In the next instant, Marcel began to convulse and collapsed. It appeared the umbrella had been tipped with poison.
A few minutes later, the emergency squad arrived and rushed him to the hospital, but he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
This was the Major Marcel Assassination Incident.
While Finn’s death felt like it was meant to make an example of him, Marcel’s murder seemed driven by a pure intent to kill. The truth behind it remained a total mystery.
Major Marcel was in his forties and single. In the Parcion bureaucracy, it was common for officials to marry the relatives of their superiors to form factions through blood ties. That was the norm. The fact that Major Marcel was under no suspicion of corruption was likely because he sat outside of those factions.
He was clearly a capable man, but in Parcionian society, a rank like Major was a dead end for someone like him. It felt very much like the Galactic Empire back when Maro was in charge. That’s why it was so puzzling. Why bother assassinating him?
In a drama, the cause would be a case he was pursuing. But the major was a manager. If there had been a case, there would have been an extensive paper trail. Looking at the records, his work involved economic crimes—specifically, monitoring illicit wealth accumulation in Parcion.
In other words, in a society where corruption was the status quo, his job was to clean up after the idiots who were dumb enough to pick fights with the major factions. There was no real need to assassinate a man like that. It was hard to believe he had been killed for earning a faction's resentment; he was a professional in his field. He would have cleared everything with the various factions and coordinated with them before taking action.
If anything, the core of Major Marcel’s job was likely mediating the interests of the different factions.
"Since Marcel is the one asking, I suppose we can compromise." "Release so-and-so’s cousin. In exchange..."
That kind of backroom dealing. In a way, he seemed similar to me, yet fundamentally different. And yet, he had been killed.
"Hey, Fairy. Why do you think Major Marcel was killed?" "I'm scanning the database, but I honestly don't know."
Figures.
I decided to change my perspective and look at the factions themselves, even though they had technically been dismantled. Because of the long-standing marriage policy, every faction was linked by blood. It was functionally no different from a nobility system. Considering the Galactic Empire and Chronos are tied to specific territories and destined to fall with them, I felt our systems were slightly better. Democracy always seems to have this lingering issue with social system maintenance.
Anyway, there was no reason to kill that agent from the other day, or even Finn. It would have been more advantageous for the Zen God Race to let me dispose of them and then use that as a reason to harass me.
I didn't get it... I didn't get any of it.
In the end, I was stumped. I knew there was some kind of Zen God Race community operating within Parcion, but I couldn't catch a glimpse of their tail. Those bastards were far too good at hiding. The Lepsitol Ninja Squad was giving it their all, though.
About a month passed. My shaved head had finally grown back into its usual style. I had been waiting for it to get long enough to have it properly shaped at a salon, so for now, I had the back tied up.
By then, five separate murders had occurred. All the victims were either Parcion government officials or scammers who had tried to get close to me. The government officials weren't people who had been purged for angering me; rather, they were people who had kept their distance from the corrupt factions while acting as mediators between them.
Because everything was so baffling, I left the palace and headed for a warehouse I had rented in Parcion. It was a Kamishiro Group property. I had a room set up in one corner, much like the secret spots where I hid my bikes. If I made it available for others to use, it wouldn't count as personal appropriation of state assets.
This place was actually used as a regular conference room. Even the bikes were officially managed by the military as emergency vehicles for agents, with electronic locks and everything. It was just that I happened to have a master key for those electronic locks. I had applied for and rented this space through perfectly legal channels. I even paid monthly for a locker.
I kept things like notebooks for brainstorming in there. Furthermore, I had intentionally built Kamishiro Group restaurants and gyms outside the warehouse, allowing the Imperial Guard to take breaks there in shifts.
I began jotting down names in my electronic notebook. The data was transferred to my terminal in real-time. Still, the information was a jumbled mess that refused to come together.
"...I don't get it."
The Fairy chimed in with a retort. "The police are already working on this, you know."
"I know, but why bother killing them? The factions are dismantled and barely clinging to life. In a state like this, these people are in minor positions at best. Killing them achieves nothing." "I'm stumped, too. Is there really no common link?" "Just that they all attended a Parcion Church."
The Parcion Church was a branch of the Chronos religion. The doctrines were mostly the same. To someone with the typical, relaxed religious view of a Japanese-descended person—who sees no problem mixing shrines and temples—the differences were indistinguishable. Most religions just tell you to cherish your family, be good to your neighbors, and be a productive member of society. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of different restrictive playstyles.
Every so often, a religion pops up that preys on people by saying "Destroy society! Kill everyone!", but even if they manage to take over a society, they never last long. The Parcion religion was firmly in the "Be a member of society" camp. Just because someone attended didn't mean they held dangerous beliefs.
"I wonder what it is? Hmm... I've got it! I'll pay them a visit openly as the King."
It wasn't that I had been ignoring them entirely, but the Parcion religion side hadn't shown any interest in meeting me, so I had just let it slide. I’ll try talking to them once. Then I'll try to drag them into some Newaza (Political Maneuvering) under the guise of a joint project or cultural restoration so I can exert some influence.
"...You're thinking of something wicked again."
I wasn't thinking of anything. Kawagon was a good guy.