Volume 4 - CH 1.6

The next day.

It was a hot Monday morning, two days before the long summer break.

As usual, Kazuya woke up at exactly 7:00 a.m. without an alarm clock and got out of his bed with bleary eyes. He washed his face in the bathroom, brushed his teeth, put on his uniform and tie, and left the room with his bag, containing textbooks and notebooks that he had already put inside last night.

When he went down to the dining hall, it was still empty. The children of nobility were not morning people; they all slept until the very last minute. Kazuya greeted the sexy, red-haired dorm mother, who served him breakfast.

“By the way, Kujou,” the dorm mother said, pouring him another cup of tea. There was a cigarette in her mouth. “You went to the movie theater yesterday, didn’t you?”

“I did. Wait, you too?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not me, but my friend. She said she saw an oriental man at the movie theater. The only oriental guy around here is you.”

“Oh… Yeah, I guess.”

“She said you were with a red-haired hunk. How do you know him? The girls in the village are dying to know who he is.”

“A red-haired hunk?” Kazuya wore a puzzled look.

I was with Avril yesterday.

After thinking about it for a while, he realized that the oriental man the dorm mother was referring to was not him, but the pair of guys he had seen on the way back to the academy. One of them was an oriental man with a sharp look in his eyes and the other had fiery red hair peeking out from his hat.

“That wasn’t me,” Kazuya said. “I was with my classmate the whole time.”

“Is that so? Apparently they winked at my friend, and she got all fidgety.”

“You should’ve realized that it wasn’t me when she mentioned the winking part. There’s no way I could do that!”

“Really? Wanna give it a try, then?”

The dorm mother winked at Kazuya, and he blushed.

Kazuya finished his breakfast and left the dormitory. Straightening his posture, he walked straight toward the school building.

As he walked along his usual path, his gaze went to the old clock tower that he had never paid attention to before.

Hmm?

The gray stone tower was dark and shadowed, as though it was still nighttime. The door that Avril had kicked down yesterday was dangling open.

Ms. Cecile said she’d have the door fixed right away.

Feeling somewhat responsible, Kazuya turned down the path and trotted toward the clock tower. A closer look at the door revealed that it had been fitted with a new lock, but there were traces of it being pried open.

Kazuya peered into the tower. He saw the exact same thing as yesterday. A dark and dusty corridor and a staircase leading to the darkness at the end.

Warily, he stepped inside. “Is anyone there?” There was no answer.

I better tell Ms. Cecile about the broken door.

As he turned back, he heard a faint squeak, the sound of a door opening inside. Kazuya whirled back around. “Is someone there?” he asked, a little louder this time.

Still no answer.

After some hesitation, he stepped into the tower.

As he walked down the corridor, he felt dizzy as he did yesterday. It was difficult to explain. He felt stifled, like space itself was distorted, as if his head was being squeezed. Kazuya went up the stairs and stumbled over the same spot where Avril had tripped. Perplexed, he continued up the stairs and found the second door that Avril had kicked in yesterday, the mysterious door to the workshop with the giant clockworks and pendulum.

The door was open. He could hear the springs squeaking.

Slowly Kazuya stepped inside and peered into the workshop.

A man was lying on the floor.

Kazuya rushed to the man and helped him up. They had the same skin color—it was the oriental man that he saw yesterday. When he sensed Kazuya, the man slowly opened his eyes, almond-shaped and bearing the same jet-black color as Kazuya’s.

He extended a trembling hand toward Kazuya. His eyes were wide open, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, the veins looking as if they would pop. His pupils were dilated, and a faint moan escaped his lips.

Kazuya noticed a strange smudge on the man’s forefinger, a purple-colored bruise the size of a coin. Shaking, the man clung to Kazuya and whispered in his ear. His voice was ominously raspy, as though coming from the depths of hell.

“The alchemist…!” he groaned.

“What?”

“Leviathan!” the man screeched. Then his head dropped.

Kazuya shook the man repeatedly, but he wouldn’t respond. He was dead. Kazuya left the man there and dashed out of the room. As he stepped out into the corridor, his eyes caught a flicker of motion, a black shadow zipping past outside the small window.

Kazuya scrambled down the stairs. “Wait…” He turned around. Slowly, he returned to the small window.

“A shadow? That can’t be right.” He glanced back at the stairs, flummoxed. “This is the second floor. There’s no way someone could pass by outside the window.”

The wind whistled outside, followed by a rattling.

Kazuya recalled Avril’s frightened expression and trembling voice.

“We can’t stop halfway, or something evil will show up.”

Behind him, gears squeaked as they turned.

The police arrived about thirty minutes after receiving the report. Kazuya, who found the body, Ms. Cecile, who had received the news from Kazuya, and several senior teachers were gathered at the scene.

An unfamiliar, attractive young man strolled across the dewy path toward them. He had long golden hair hanging down his back, and the chiseled features of a noble. His green eyes held a hint of distress, and he was dressed fashionably in a pure-white shirt blouse and riding pants.

The handsome man immediately approached the discoverer, Kazuya. “Good morning, Kujou.”

“Good morning…? Wait, do I know you?”

The man regarded Kazuya uncomfortably. He then gathered his long, silky blonde hair with both hands and pulled it forward into the shape of a cannon.

“It’s me,” he said.

“Whaaat?! The inspector?!”

Ms. Cecile’s mouth dropped open as she stared blankly at Inspector Blois. Kazuya watched the inspector for a while, unable to speak.

The inspector let go of his hair, letting it slide back down behind him, framing his scowling, yet stunning face golden.

“Did you change your hairstyle?” Kazuya asked. “You look decent.”

“I didn’t,” Inspector Blois huffed. “It’s so early, I didn’t have time to fix it.”

“I-I see…”

The inspector began fidgeting, his silky hair swaying from side to side. He smelled good.

“It’s so silky,” Kazuya remarked in an uneasy tone.

“Mind your business. So, where’s the crime scene?”

“Inside, in a room with clockworks. Smells like flowers.”

“It’s shampoo! Stop making fun of me. Let’s go.”

Designating Kazuya as his assistant, the inspector entered the clock tower, walked down the corridor and up the stairs. He was momentarily surprised by the huge clockworks and pendulum in the workshop. Upon seeing the corpse, he knelt down, and began studying it.

“An oriental man,” the inspector said. “Is he related to you?”

“No! Sure he’s an oriental, but he’s probably from a different country. His face is a little different.”

“Hmm?” Inspector Blois continued observing the body. “If I recall, a couple of strangers came to the village yesterday, and one of them was an oriental man. Must be this guy.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Through the grapevine. Gossips among young girls, in particular, are a valuable source of information for us. I also know that you went to the village yesterday. Apparently a couple of young students caused a ruckus at the movie theater.”

“I-I wouldn’t call it a ruckus…”

The inspector lifted his head. “I heard you were with a pretty girl with short blond hair. Is that her?” He pointed behind Kazuya.

Kazuya looked over his shoulder and saw Avril standing there in her school uniform, rubbing her blue eyes blearily.

“Avril!”

“K-Kujou! I heard something happened at the clock tower!” Avril ran up to Kazuya, then looked at Inspector Blois. She stared at the man for a bit, then frowned a little.

“…What?”

“Who’s this guy?”

“Inspector Blois. He’s from the police.”

Avril continued observing Inspector Blois, then brought his mouth closer to Kazuya’s ear.

“Wh-What is it?” Kazuya asked.

“He’s very handsome, but there’s something off about him.”

“I can hear you!” Inspector Blois barked.

When they left the clock tower, Inspector Blois’ men had just arrived, looking sleepy and still in their nightclothes. As usual, they were holding hands. There was a man with them, wearing a hat that hid his fiery red hair. It was the deceased’s companion.

“We found him at the inn in the village,” one reported.

“He was sleeping soundly!” the other added.

The red-haired man’s face was obscured by his hat. He was tall and slender, and he carried himself nimbly, walking down the pebble-strewn path with a spryness that made him seem as if he were dancing on a cloud.

He had chiseled features reminiscent of ancient sculpture, and he looked sinister with his dark-green upturned eyes and thin lips twisted in a sneer.

“Why did you come to the village?” Inspector Blois asked.

“Wong, my companion, seemed to have his own reasons, but I had no idea what it was,” the man replied.

“Where were you this morning?”

“I was at the inn the whole time. I’m sure the innkeeper can vouch for me. For the record, it’s physically impossible for me to have killed Wong. Unless, of course, I was at the inn and the clock tower at the same time.”

“Why did you come to the village?”

The man’s lips quirked up, and his cat-like eyes narrowed. His entire body seemed to emit some sort of invisible energy.

“I came looking for a monster,” he said in a low voice.

The man started laughing. Kazuya and Inspector Blois exchanged glances.

Kazuya felt a poke from behind. He looked over his shoulder and saw Avril looking worried.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I was thinking… with this incident and all… that maybe it had something to do with what we did yesterday.”

“What did we do again?”

Avril turned pale. “The planchette!”

“Oh, that…”

“What if this happened because of that?”

“N-No way. That’s just superstition. Don’t worry about it. There must be another reason for this. A living person killed him, not a curse or something evil. Ah, right! Sorry, Avril. I’ll see you later.”

Kazuya hurried away from the tower.

The morning sun was shining on the garden. The crystal fountain sparkled, and bright-green foliage rustled in the breeze.

Avril stood in front of the fountain, brooding over the planchette for a while, until she realized something.

“Oh, no!” She frowned. “He must have gone to the library again!”