(A beautiful mature woman?! I can’t tell at all?!)
I take back what I said earlier! Even though I’ve seen many gaps between exterior and interior, this is shocking!
Her actual age – I forgot I was in the middle of a deduction show and ended up staring intently.
(No matter how I look at her, she doesn’t look like she’s in her sixties! Ah, but maybe her neck area looks a little wrinkled, I guess?)
Adeno-san became wary as I blatantly stared at her.
“What is it?”
[I hope she hasn’t figured it out! Oh, come to think of it, I’m not very confident about my décolletage! I have an appointment at the beauty salon today, so I need to get thorough care!]
Adeno-san staring intently at her schedule – ah, that was President Eijiro’s and her own schedule.
I called out to her so as not to upset her further.
“Ah, excuse me. Looking at you again, you’re so beautiful I was captivated.”
“Thank you.”
[She didn’t figure it out, okay okay. Well, if you round to the nearest ten, sixties and thirties are the same, right?]
(This person is overly positive.)
But maybe that positive attitude is the secret to her youthfulness… But this isn’t the time to be impressed.
(Next is Arima-sensei, the lawyer.)
So is this person the one? Thinking that, I peered into his mind.
“You’ve already figured out who the culprit is. As expected.”
[No way! There’s no way she’d realize I’m the culprit!]
(Oh my, so the lawyer was the culprit after all. Well, at least it wasn’t an outsider.)
Having found the culprit so quickly, I chuckled to myself.
(Okay, if I press a little more, I should be able to figure out where the will is.)
Now, this is the winning pattern. I’ll keep them on edge by being mysterious.
I paced around the room even more dramatically, speaking as if I had seen through everything.
“Let’s put the culprit aside for now. What’s important is where the will is… isn’t it? I still don’t have complete confidence in this trick.”
“I see. That’s certainly true.”
[She’s already figured it out? As expected! Hurry and find the will, retrieve the information about the fraud!]
Eijiro-san’s inner voice is loud. I understand how he feels, but I wish he’d calm down.
(Now, the crucial Arima-san, please tell me where the will is.)
I used the word “will” to shake him up. Probably the location where the will is hidden is being recalled in his head.
—But then, something unexpected happened.
[The location of the will?! But! Hidden things ○×△※——]
(Huh? What?)
[As expected ○×△※○×△※——!]
What’s going on? Has he gone crazy from confusion? No, it doesn’t feel like that… Wait?!
(N-no! Could it be! This is…)
A language that doesn’t register in my brain at all.
A flowing tone that slips right through.
This… this! Could it be!?
“Ga! Foreign language?!”
“Wh-what’s wrong?!”
Mukashino-san looked surprised. Having accidentally voiced my inner thoughts, everyone looked at me strangely.
“S-sorry, um, how should I put it, it’s like a seizure or something.”
Even I think this is a nonsensical excuse, but I can’t help it.
“A seizure?”
[Are seizures trending among high school girls lately? Is this what comes after “choberigu”?]
TLNOTE : ’90s gyaru slang; short for chō very good → “super very good.”
Adeno-san started writing something in her notebook. I’m sorry for planting wrong information in you. Also, what’s “choberigu”?
While I was apologizing with “I’m sorry,” Arima-sensei’s mind wouldn’t stop.
“Where exactly is the will? I’d really like you to tell me.”
[○×△※——○×△※○×△※!?!?!?]
(Calm down, calm down! And please speak in Japanese! Please!)
To calm down the runaway Arima-sensei, I chose my words carefully.
“No, sorry, I don’t know where the will is yet.”
“Hmm, is that so?”
[○×△※——Good. It seems she hasn’t figured it out yet. It seems she doesn’t know that I’m the culprit either, which is fortunate.]
(Good, good, he’s calmed down.)
Seeing that Arima-sensei had calmed down, I tried shaking him up little by little.
“Well, I think I’ll figure out where the will is soon. Just a little more.”
“Oh, oh I see.”
[No way! But ○×△※——]
(Could you please calm down at just the right level?! I can’t hear the important parts!)
Arima-sensei screaming in his mind in rapid foreign language… I don’t even know what language it is.
Is it English or Chinese? Well, even if it were English, I wouldn’t understand with my terrible listening skills. But this isn’t the time to be giving up!
(This might be the biggest crisis.)
I should have been fine as long as I knew where the will was, regardless of the motive or trick, but to be unable to read minds at the most crucial moment.
Noticing my panicked state, Koyomin smoothly stepped between me and Eijiro-san and the others, throwing me a lifeline.
“Excuse me. Detective Oba is currently in a kind of trance state where her brain can’t keep up with the overflow of possibilities and information processing.”
“O-oh, as expected of a great detective… a trance state.”
Mukashino-san looked suspicious. Well, of course – I pretended to know who the culprit was and then ended up like this.
“Ah, yes, I’m sorry… Once I can organize my thoughts, I’ll let you know at a later date. I’d like to investigate the scene more and work out the details, so could I have a little more time?”
With that, I had everyone disperse for now and sheepishly left the president’s office.
The moment I left the office building and reached the street, I let out a “phew.” I felt like I’d just survived the deep sea.
“Hii, phew, hah… man, you saved me, Koyomin.”
Koyomin looked at my face with a serious expression.
“That level of panic – I guessed that something unexpected had happened, and it seems I was right. What exactly occurred?”
“Well, you see…”
Buzz… buzz…
Just then, my phone alarm went off at perfect timing. The caller ID showed “Terayabashi.”
“It’s Naomi-san. Hello—”
The moment I answered, lively chatter poured from the phone without listening to what I had to say.
“I heard through Koyomi that there was some trouble! I want to hear about it too, so shut up for now! I’m waiting at the coffee shop below the office!”
Click! Beep beep…
Talking one-sidedly and hanging up one-sidedly… she’s like a storm of a person.
“As expected of the Metropolitan Police’s ‘Tera-yabai’ woman, Terabayashi Naomi.”
“That person keeps talking about promotions, but I don’t think we can entrust Japan’s police force to someone like her.”
I almost burst out laughing at Koyomin’s reasonable observation.
“Pfft! Well, when that time comes, the country will figure something out.”
Saying that, we arrived at the coffee shop below the office.
An old-fashioned pure coffee shop named “Mariposa.”
Above it sits the Oba Detective Agency… At first I was embarrassed by having my name written so prominently, but you get used to it surprisingly quickly.
Inside the shop, the bald shop owner glares at horse racing newspapers, making it quite difficult to enter, but the food is exquisite. They serve delicious Napolitan and the coffee is good too, so it’s popular.
“Since it’s a coffee shop, I suppose Naomi-san is having a meal?”
“Hmm, maybe this is the flow where she’ll treat us.”
I opened the door with anticipation.
The old-fashioned coffee shop’s nostalgic bell rang throughout the interior.
“Hey, over here.”
Naomi-san beckoned us over. She seemed to have already finished enjoying her Napolitan and was slowly sipping her after-meal coffee.
“Naomi-san, can I have a cream soda?”
“I’ll have black coffee and toast.”
Naomi-san nodded with a smile.
“Sure, that’s fine. Today it’s on the expense account, so drink as much as you want. Shop owner, cream soda and toast set, plus an additional red bean toast.”
The shop owner, who had been reading the horse racing newspaper in the back of the kitchen, scratched his bald head with a face that said “still eating?” It seems they had eaten quite a lot before we arrived.
Once all the menu items were lined up, first was snack time. It’s common sense for girls.
“Yummy! Yummy!”
“Mmph, mofh.”
Koyomin silently stuffing her cheeks with toast… she’s so cute! But this isn’t the time to be eating leisurely.
“I completely forgot about the case! This is terrible!”
I couldn’t help but raise my voice.
“Oh, you finally remembered. So? How did it go?”
This person is always like this, enjoying other people’s troubles. A pure rubbernecker, I guess?
“Well, you were suddenly flustered, so was there some problem?” asked Koyomin.
Sensing something bad, Naomi-san leaned forward on the table.
“H-hey. Don’t tell me it was an outside perpetrator? That would be quite troublesome.”
“No, it was internal. Actually—”
I explained the sequence of events.
That Arima-sensei was the culprit, and that when he gets excited, he rattles off his internal thoughts in a foreign language, so I have no idea where the will is.
Naomi-san, who had initially been relieved to hear it wasn’t an outside perpetrator, gradually became more serious as she listened.
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