The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume1 Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Regarding Uchimaku Hayabusa

Part 1

I’ll be blunt.

I don’t like rural areas that much. That is why I jumped at the chance to start living alone in the city while going to a college prep high school. It also has a lot to do with why I joined the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Unfortunately, I’m only in a low ranking, dead end position. I went as far as to use the old branch family system to alter the family register despite being unmarried in order to escape the confines of Intellectual Villages. No matter how bad for your health it’s supposed to be, I wanted to live in the city and die in the city.

The thing is…I hate Youkai.

I don’t know how things were in ancient Edo, but Youkai don’t appear among the asphalt and concrete of a city. The only exceptions are places that thoroughly prepare the scenery like Nara or Kyoto. That is why I had always longed to live in Tokyo.

But the funny thing is that Tokyo has rural areas too.

And when certain pain-in-the-ass incidents crop up, I have to head there.

“…So this is the third victim.”

Zashou Island was a lone island close to the Ogasawara Islands but just far enough away to not be considered a part of the World Heritage Site. And that is exactly why a lot of businesses wanting to use its abundant resources for business purposes financed the creation of one of the country’s leading Intellectual Villages even though the island technically fell inside the Tokyo metropolitan area.

At first glance, the blue sea looked like something out of a documentary, but a closer inspection showed something like buoys floating at fixed intervals. They used sunlight and buoyancy to generate enough power to constantly monitor the flow of the currents and the amount of oxygen and plankton in the seawater.

Apparently, fishermen these days moved their fingers smoothly across waterproofed and salt-proofed tablet computers when they fished.

I was standing on a small fishing pier that was (made to look) run down. On that pier that was held in place with concrete sat a metal drum you could just barely reach your arms around.

The outside of the drum was wet, so it had likely been floating in the ocean.

A police officer in a soaking wet navy blue uniform gave me a report in a bewildered tone. The officer had likely pulled the drum out of the sea with the help of a local fisherman.

“We tried to deal with this on our own at first, but this is the third in a week. To be honest, this has gotten to be more than we can manage. I know it is a bother, but we have been forced to leave this with your department.”

“Don’t worry about it. This is my job. But…this is a rather unpleasant corpse.”

“Is there such a thing as a pleasant corpse?”

“Well, no. But this one is off-the-charts levels of unpleasant. He wasn’t just killed. They didn’t end there. They gave it more thought. This gave the victim fear greater than that of a simple death and it gives the same sort of fear to anyone who sees it.”

I suppose I should thank them for saving me the trouble of laying a blue tarp over the body, I thought as I peered down into the drum.

Inside was a single adult man, dead.

He had likely died two or three days prior. Due to floating on the sea, he had no maggots or flies on him, so he was in a better state than a normal corpse would be after that long.

He certainly did not look like a decent Tokyo citizen though.

The thickness of his neck was much greater than normal and he had a very aggressive-looking face. Also, I could glimpse a tattoo through the collar of his shirt. Western tattoos had become pretty common, but this looked like the “real deal”.

The man’s arms and legs had been severed and blood covered the insides of the drum.

“The other two were the same,” said the uniformed police officer. “The limbs seem to have been forcibly severed with a dull blade such as a machete. Also, wires were tied around near the point of amputation, seemingly to prevent as much blood loss as possible.”

“So the cause of death was…?”

“You will need to ask the medical examiner for the details, but it does not seem it was due to blood loss. It was multiple organ failure due to dehydration. …In other words, it is highly likely he died of starvation.”

Tch.

This was exactly the method used by the pirate mafia near Okinawa. I believe “exile” is the term used. The victim had his arms and legs chopped off, was put inside a barrel or a drum, and then set afloat in the sea. The poor victims would either flip over and drown or be dried up after days of direct sunlight. Rumor said a third fate of being pecked to death by seagulls also existed, but there was no saving you either way.

“What a pain.”

“I know.”

I had no idea if this was really a job for Department 1. If the pirate mafia was really involved, it seemed more like something for the anti-organized crime department or the PSIA. You didn’t often hear about people getting promoted by getting into turf wars, so it seemed I had gotten stuck with a horrible job once again.

“Just to make sure, he’s Japanese, right? He isn’t some foreigner who was involved with some pirates, is he?”

“He is most likely Japanese. His nationality may be hard to tell from his looks, but the implant in his front teeth seems to have been done in the Japanese style. And no matter how quickly the current might have been, he would have mummified if he had floated all the way from the open sea.”

“And he seems to have a tattoo. Maybe a large criminal organization is involved.”

“It could have been forcibly given to him before he died or even after he died.”

“True. But a tattoo is basically a type of injury. The medical examiner will be able to tell.”

I may have sounded a bit cold and uncaring, but that was my stance on things, so it couldn’t be helped. To be honest, I had no interest in corpses themselves. When there was a murder, I of course wanted to catch the criminal, but that was only for the sake of the victim’s family and to prevent the next crime. In other words, my desire to work was for the sake of living humans.

That said…

This did seem to have the possibility of future crimes, so I did have some motivation. Some.

“Now then…”

There was one more annoyance I had to deal with.

I turned my gaze away from the gruesome drum and to the pier.

“Hey, mystery freak.”

“What?” said a girl in response.

However, the voice came from lower than you would normally expect. It came from about the height you would expect of someone wearing a swimsuit and lying on a beach chair placed on a pier.

Oh, that is no analogy.

A middle school girl with a mostly flat chest really was sunbathing in a yellow two-piece swimsuit.

“What are you doing here?”

“How rude. I was here before you were, detective. I’m simply trying to make the best of my summer break.”

“That’s not what I mean!! Look! See this tape!? You’re inside it!! You’re supposed to keep out of here!!”

“Give that a rest and just let yourself be enchanted by my lovely body.”

“Quit writhing around creepily like a snake shedding its skin and get out of here. Move, move.”

I picked up the entire beach chair and carried the kid named Enbi outside of the yellow tape.

Why didn’t someone else kick her out already?

“Oh, that’s because of my bold presence.”

“You may have the aura of a Dosojin, but you’re just a middle school girl. Nothing more than a middle school girl.”

Unlike me, she was interested in the corpses. Unless there was a murder, she had no interest in other people. As such, she had no discretion. However, this actually brought excess benefits along with it, so I suppose society was fairly well balanced.

It did seem she thoroughly hated the higher ranking police officers who were always focused on demarking their own turf, though.

After moving the beach chair away, I started to head back to the crime scene, but Enbi’s slender fingers grabbed at the collar of my suit.

She then whispered into my ear.

“…You don’t really think this was the work of the pirate mafia, do you?”

“What?”

“Once you’re done here, I’ll tell you.”

She way she set that up was incredibly noncommittal.

That mystery freak then pulled out a leather memo pad hooked to her swimsuit bottom. No, it was actually a smartphone with a cover that made it look like a leather memo pad. While still lying on the beach chair, she moved her index finger smoothly across the screen to operate it. She seemed to have completely lost interest in me.

She was happily sunbathing next to the corpse from a bizarre murder. That middle school girl had held complete control of her conversation with a police detective from Department 1. For some reason, she had a way of destroying the boundaries of how things normally worked like that. There was certainly something wrong with her mind, but I was a bit jealous of how she could do that. That said, I had no interest in walking down the same path as Enbi.

Mine may have been a completely dead end job, but I had enough of an attachment to it that I was not willing to completely abandon it.

I did not have the guts to quit and open a ramen shop or something.

Of course, it was possible that lack of guts was exactly how I had ended up in this dead end anyway.

I reentered the taped off area and the uniformed police officer asked me a question.

“What should we do now?”

“Good question.”

If the man had been both killed and stuffed into the drum on the island, we would only need to do a thorough search of the entire island. Unfortunately, he had floated here.

This was not the kind of crime scene where forensics could search for hair or fingerprints.

If the victim was from outside the island, turning over every stone on the island would not even turn up his identity.

Of course, the island would be investigated, but there was not much guarantee that anything would be found. Things you had to do but could not expect results from had a way of really eating away at your motivation.

This had been sent up to a larger investigation headquarters since it was a case of serial murders, but the detectives including myself, the forensics team, and the others who came only added up to about 20. This was because of how unlikely it was we would find anything on the island. The nearby islands also had to be investigated, the records of the ships that had passed by had to be checked, and the companies on the mainland related to the Intellectual Village known as Zashou Island had to be investigated. Since it was unknown where the actual crime took place, the area of investigation had to be spread wide. This had lowered the number of personnel working at each individual place.

“For now, we can go with the standard practice. Call in the islander who first discovered the drum and the one who helped you pull it out of the water so I can question them.”

“I can do that much. You’re a Department 1 detective from the mainland, so isn’t there anything a little…y’know…flashier you can do?”

The uniformed police officer made some kind of gesture on the word “flashier”, but I’m not quite sure what he was trying to get across. He was a surprisingly absurd person. It was possible he had gained a mistaken admiration for people in my position from watching too many police dramas. In reality, if a Department 1 detective went off on his own in a “flashy” way like on TV, he would only end up being shot by the killer he was trying to catch. The power of the police was the power of an organization. Going off on your own was the same as casting aside the power of that organization, so it was quite dangerous.

If you wanted that kind of thing, you would be better off going to that mystery freak.

Or perhaps Enbi’s older sister.

At any rate, it was true there was one thing I had to do as a Department 1 detective.

“I guess I’ll go get our rooms at the inn.”

“Hah?”

“I need to make sure we have a place to stay tonight. We’re a group, so that can be surprisingly difficult.”

Part 2

The department chief yelled at me over the phone when I told him it would be 50,000 yen a night. When I argued that the price was quite reasonable for a high class Intellectual Village inn and asked if it would be good for the image of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department if we were sleeping out on the street, he gave approval amidst more angry shouting. It likely would not have been so easy had a director or official intervened.

It goes without saying that all the others cheered at my successful negotiation.

The value of tax money could become a bit unclear when it made its way to those who used it.

And then…

“…Why are you here, you damn mystery freak?”

“As I said before, I am trying to make the best of my summer break. I was here before you. Also, this inn is the only lodging facility on the island.”

Tch.

The police could hardly reserve the entire inn, so there wasn’t much I could do about it. I decided I needed to speak in hushed voices when discussing the case with my coworkers.

For the present, I desperately searched for something else to complain about.

“By the way, what’s with that English gentleman-style pipe? You have guts to use that in front of a police officer, minor.”

“Non, non. This is just mint, detective. A little bit of deduction should have told you that. The people of Intellectual Villages practically deify the branding of ecology and health, so I could very well end up being ganged up on and beaten if I was puffing on an actual pipe and disposing of the ashes just anywhere.”

As she spoke, Enbi put the mint pipe in a long, narrow case and hooked it to the edge of her swimsuit. Her two-piece swimsuit had no pockets to store small objects, so she hooked things like her memo pad-style smartphone and her magnifying glass to her swimsuit bottom. (She did not have a wallet, but she likely used electronic money for everything.)

But with all that hanging there, the weight isn’t going to pull her swimsuit down, is it?

“I have it calculated out to ensure no accidents like that happen. …But if you’re hoping for one, I could always arrange one to happen.”

“Mh!? Cough cough!!”

Did she just read my mind!?

“Girls put a lot more effort into their looks than it looks. Should I tell you how much of a pain it is each and every day to maintain that impression of a ‘sweet-smelling girl’? I calculate everything out for my entire body.”

I did not like the direction that conversation was headed.

In an all-out attempt to change the topic, I focused in on Enbi’s items.

“…Is there ever any situation where you actually need to use that magnifying glass?”

“It’s more for setting the mood. It’s something like having empty cans that look like smoke grenades during a survival game. They might not be of any use, but they put you in the right state of mind. Of course, once they make electron microscopes small enough to carry around, most cases will probably be solved that way.”

“As a mystery freak, I would have thought you would lament the advancement of scientific investigation techniques.”

“I just think of it as the shortest course to solving the case. If it can be solved easily, nothing could be better. We have no duty to go along with the criminal’s gamble every single time.” Enbi’s tone then changed to a light one as if she were inviting me out for a walk. “Well, whatever. I have something I want to speak with you about, so will you join me?”

“I’m on duty.”

“You left the questioning to the local police and are just waiting for the results. Also, this is the third death, so the speed of the initial investigation is of little importance.”

Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about.

Even if you’re right.

Somewhere out there was a murderer who had killed several people in such a gruesome way. That meant we had to work hard to stop the next murder. However, each additional corpse meant an additional plaything for Enbi, so she was getting excited.

I left the inn with Enbi and we entered a small bamboo thicket. As I walked along a promenade that crossed the terrain that swelled up like a hill, the middle school girl next to me pulled out her smartphone that had a memo pad cover.

“You always have to ask for my help, you cute detective, so what questions do you have for me today?”

“Sorry, but it doesn’t seem to be related this time.”

Unlike the incompetent police detectives from mystery novels, I did not come crying to her because I did not know the answer.

There were problems in this world that you were not allowed to solve even if you knew the answer.

“And it doesn’t look the investigation will reach a dead end due to diplomatic reasons either. So I also don’t need your help in creating the setting of ‘the police investigation is stalled due to international pressure but a certain civilian happens to solve the crime on her own’.”

“Even though this is a complicated situation where someone is continuing to murder people while pretending to be the pirate mafia?”

“…Pretending to be?”

“After all, they have no reason to do this.” Enbi lightly waved her index finger. “What were the common characteristics of the victims? You won’t have enough information on the third victim who was just found, but the other two will do.”

“Adult males. In good health. Japanese. From the mainland and with no connection to this or any other island. They had their arms and legs severed before being stuffed into a drum and set afloat in the sea.”

“And one other thing.” cut in the mystery freak. She operated her smartphone to bring up some kind of data on the investigation. “The victims had brand name rice seeds stored in a clear plastic bag.”

“…Plant hunters.”

“A bunch of grapes from an Intellectual Village costs 30,000 yen. It isn’t unusual for people to try to sneak into the village to steal the brand name genetics.”

“So were the victims plant hunters who were trying to sell the seeds to the pirate mafia, but negotiations broke down so they were eliminated?”

“Um, hello? Don’t you think the pirate mafia would take the seeds for themselves before setting them afloat? If they took the time to stop the bleeding with wires after severing their arms and legs, I think they would at least check them for any possessions,” said Enbi. “Also, an Okinawan group would have no reason to want this brand name rice.”

“Why not? It’s from an Intellectual Village.”

“Mainland rice only tastes so good because it matches mainland cooking. The ingredients made in their land go best with their local cooking. Their primary customers are the Chinese but the Taiwanese Japanese food boom is fading, so I doubt it is something worth risking your life over. With fruits or other things you eat as is, things would be different. There are a lot of people that go to the effort of having those kinds of things shipped in by air to avoid using preservatives.”

“Are you saying we can eliminate the possibility of the pirate mafia being involved based on that alone?”

“I can’t make the police do anything, so feel free to waste all sorts of effort looking into that if you want.”

Damn, do I hate her.

“…If we do rule out the pirate mafia, are there any other possibilities left?”

“I can’t be absolutely sure, but I do have one guess.”

“?”

“The stage here is Zashou Island. Now, what is its primary industry? Yes, Uchimaku-kun.”

“Pearl and oyster cultivation. It’s a bit ironic that the cultivated ones are more valuable than the natural ones.”

“Technically, the term is mariculture. Instead of doing it in a completely isolated area, they leave the hatched fish in the ocean as they grow. A quite high-level smart system is used for this. Instead of just letting the fish grow and then taking them once they are grown, a large number of baby fish are used to interfere with the base of the food chain. That way, more of the rarer and expensive fish can be grown. The amount of certain fish and which there will be more or less of can all be predicted with a program.” Enbi operated her smartphone as she spoke, so she was likely looking this up as she spoke. “Mariculture is their primary industry and the inland areas grow things like dragon fruits and mangos. They use global warming to their advantage and make a killing off of tropical fruits.”

“And how does that tie into your guess?”

“Well,” said Enbi with a grin. “Where exactly did those plant hunters steal the brand name rice seeds they had?”

Notes

Back to Chapter 1

Return to Main Page

Forward to Chapter 3