[Alright! I can make it back with this race! Go! Pass them! Pass them all!]
(This person is doing horse racing!)
I slumped my shoulders at the cheering voice for horses that I could hear even without trying to read minds.
I mean, sure, there are guys at school who pretend to study while reading manga, but this is what you’d call a serious-looking slacker. I can’t count on this person.
“Well, as long as we can see the surveillance camera.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Ah, no, just talking to myself.”
After that, we were shown the surveillance camera in the security guard’s office. Compared to the gorgeous entrance, the inside was rather messy. Documents and materials were carelessly piled in the corner of the room, giving more of a warehouse impression than an office.
Eijiro-san skillfully displayed the president’s office footage on the large monitor in front.
“This is footage extracted showing only when people were in the room. If necessary, we also have all the recorded footage.”
“Ah, this is fine for today.”
And so the screening began. At first I watched intently, but as far as the footage showed, there was nothing particularly unusual, so I gradually lost concentration… it was that ordinary.
There were scenes of president Eijiro-san working hard at his desk, and footage of a serious-looking man who appeared to be a lawyer putting what looked like a will envelope into the safe and leaving the room while adjusting his glasses.
There were also just scenes of a woman who seemed to be a secretary coming and going several times, chatting with a frivolous-looking middle-aged employee.
And on the day they noticed it was missing… no one touched the safe until the secretary woman opened it.
(No suspicious points in the surveillance camera footage so far…)
If I were a great detective I’d investigate thoroughly, but I’m a mind-reading detective, so I don’t make such efforts. You could also say I can’t because I’m not smart enough.
(The safe can only be opened by certain people… if I gather those people and read their minds, I’ll know who the culprit is and where the will is, unless it’s an external crime.)
Thinking so optimistically, I—
“Then, I’m sorry for the trouble, but please gather the people who can open this safe at a later date.”
I only told Eijiro-san that much. He readily agreed.
“I understand. Um, please, especially to the police… I’m counting on you.”
Eijiro-san bowed his head deeply, and both Koyomin and I bowed our heads in response.
(I can’t tell him that we’re being watched by someone from the police.)
With apologetic feelings in my chest for being so politely seen off, we left Logic headquarters.
“It would be easy if it just fell in the gap between the wall and sofa.”
While muttering something pointless on the way home, Koyomin was checking her smartphone.
“There’s an email from Naomi-san. She wants to meet up at the office.”
“I see, understood.”
“……By the way, my first impression was that he seemed like a serious person. How was his mind?”
Koyomin’s casual question, but it’s a bit hard to answer.
I answered while being vague… though she probably figured it out at that point.
“About that, it’s not good to talk about it outside, so I’ll talk at the office. But……”
“But what?”
“He doesn’t seem like such a bad person.”
From reading the minds of various people, I know – that kind, gentle tone of voice doesn’t seem like that of a villain.
However, I could tell from his anxiety that he was doing something quite bad… with such mixed feelings, we headed home.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT LOCALIZERMEERKAT.PAGES.DEV
“Aaah! So annoying! I don’t get it! I don’t know!”
Upon returning home to the office, I immediately flopped face-down on the sofa.
“Again, something unseemly is showing……”
To Koyomin’s bland warning, I turned a half-lidded gaze.
“It can’t be helped! Try being thrown into such a place without adults, using your nerves and getting exhausted! I won’t let you complain about sofa diving!”
“Please let me complain about your panties showing.”
To me demonstratively flailing my legs, Koyomin retorted “Are you a child?” She’s doing good tsukkomi work today too.
“By the way, did you grasp something? Please tell me before you sleep.”
Koyomin, who knows I fall asleep immediately when I flop on the sofa. She tried to get important information out of me before I fell asleep – that’s so like her.
I rubbed my eyes as I started to get drowsy and answered.
“Uh, what was it? Cashless payment? Prepaid payment? Ah right, accounting fraud. Something like that seemed to be what he was talking about.”
Hearing that word, I could see one of Koyomin’s eyebrows twitch.
“That’s a rare reaction,” I thought as I woke up. I raised my upper body from the sofa and peered into her face.
“Eh, what? Is it that bad?”
“Yes, well……”
CRASH! BANG!
Just as Koyomin was about to say something, as if timing it perfectly, Naomi-san appeared with the momentum of kicking down the door.
“I knew it! I thought it would be something like that!”
This entrance completely woke me up – I mean, it’s way too bad for the heart, I could have died.
“Wait!? Naomi-san, please stop that entrance every single time!”
“……That’s how you enter when there are barricaded criminals.”
Koyomin’s tsukkomi.
Naomi-san showed absolutely, absolutely, absolutely no sign of remorse, even rubbing her nose. It was a mischievous child’s gesture.
“Nahaha, when I don’t make entrances like this, think that something happened. But anyway……”
Sitting down heavily next to me, Naomi-san began putting her arm around my shoulder.
“So what was it? I heard up to ‘accounting fraud,’ but what? What kind of accounting were they hiding?”
Grinning Naomi-san.
Koyomin asked “Did you know?” with obvious disgust. It’s rare to see this child make such a face.
“If so, please tell us from the beginning. There would have been various ways to handle it.”
“That’s right! Think about the person who has to read minds!”
To my protest, Naomi-san pointed at me sharply.
“Koyomi aside, there’d be no point telling a big idiot like Kanako, and you’d probably act suspiciously and be suspected.”
“That’s true.”
“Besides, you don’t even know what accounting fraud means, right?”
“That’s true.”
Koyomin… putting in “that’s true” like a straight man is a bit hurtful, so could you stop? It’s true that I don’t know what accounting fraud means though.
While my heart was about to break from the polite dissing, I revealed Eijiro-san’s inner voice.
“Logic Consulting’s Akamichi Eijiro-san’s request was to find a will.”
“Ah so it was a will. But that place has an only son, so inheritance and succession issues wouldn’t be a problem… not that side anyway.”
Naomi-san crossed her legs with a meaningful smile. Her gestures are like a villainess.
“So, what was in Eijiro-san’s mind?”
“From reading his mind, it was like [notes about accounting fraud are enclosed with the will] and [it would be bad if this gets sold to weekly magazines] – he was extremely troubled.”
Of course he’d be troubled, Naomi-san chuckled.
“Notes about accounting fraud, huh. Maybe he forgot to convey something important and hurriedly wrote it on his deathbed? Well, my hunch that he lost something problematic was right. He certainly can’t call the police – if the contents are seen by chance, it’s game over.”
Naomi-san, who should be a police officer, was laughing wickedly like a villain.
“Won’t you tell us soon? What do you know and how much, and what are you trying to make us do?”
When Koyomin asked this question, Naomi-san seemed to have been eagerly waiting for someone to ask, as she began speaking eloquently with a “Finally, you asked!”
“I mentioned before that those guys might have lost something, right? Something they can’t rely on the police for… I suspected it was related to the former The President Keitaro’s misconduct. I was right on the money—the authorities have been pursuing Logic’s fraud for a long time.”
“That major company’s accounting fraud… it’s a big incident, isn’t it?”
Koyomin was surprised… but before that, I decided to ask something important.
“Um, by the way, what is accounting fraud?”
“……”
(Ah, I can tell even without reading minds. They tought : As expected, this kid didn’t know.)
Setting aside Koyomin’s cold stare, Naomi-san, who had already factored in my low intelligence, was laughing while ruffling her hair.
“Sorry, sorry. Koyomi, give her a quick explanation.”
Naomi-san completely delegated the explanation.
Koyomin gave a small sigh and taught me about accounting fraud.
“accounting fraud… intentionally doing false bookkeeping to make management appear smooth, or reporting less than the actual amount.”
“Huh, it doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.”
I think people commonly try to make themselves look better.
Then Naomi-san supplemented with an example.
“For instance, say you got a hundred points on a test, right? What would happen then?”
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