Ivaris was speechless, the words freezing on her tongue like morning frost.

Was this a test tossed at her feet, or was Yekase digging in her heels like a stubborn mule refusing to think?

No rise in chest or back, flat as still water; for realism, she’d almost evolved skin-breathing like a river stone in the stream.

That blood… fine, it was hers; to keep it from glittering like starlight, she’d stripped out the dissolved Flash Energy like threads drawn from silk.

Wait—Yekase’s armory held a staff, a dagger, and a Gunblade, a trio like moon, blade, and thunder, but no real firearm at all.

So someone in the restaurant really shot her, a sudden crack in the night like a fox’s cry?

Did Ivaris misread her—maybe she faced the killer head-on, played dead like a crane folding its wings, and watched from the reeds?

If she took a bullet and then stood up like a willow brushing off dust, the killer would scatter like leaves, and Ivaris would lose her live mystery play.

Meanwhile, she could ride the chaos like a storm to pressure the inn, force a response, lift the cognition-blurring charm like mist burned off by sun, and verify every guest’s true face.

Then That Person would have nowhere to hide, a shadow dragged into daylight like a fish hauled from the deep.

Do it, do it best—blade-sharp and silk-smooth—that was Yekase, a comet cut across dark sky.

Ivaris understood the intent, her fist tightening like a knotted cord, resolve glowing in her chest like a banked ember.

She would not waste the game Yekase had set, a chessboard laid out under a paper moon.

…If it were Ling Yi, she’d take it straight, like rain soaking into thirsty soil.

But by Ivaris’s measure, that woman’s thinking was breathing—effortless as wind through pine—maybe three percent work, and the other ninety-seven drifting like a lazy cat in the sun.

“Such a pitiable victim,” a firm voice rang out, clear as a bell through fog. “A life cut in the spring of her youth… This lady will find the killer and see justice done!”

Why don’t you check the cameras, Ivaris thought, a dry cough in her mind like dust—oh, right, no cameras, a blind hall of mirrors.

As the only one who roughly knew the truth, awkwardness pricked her like nettles; she blended into the crowd like a sparrow in the hedge and glanced at the speaker.

It was a girl with poise, a lantern glow in human form.

Bright brows, light makeup like dawn brushed on; mixed-heritage contours; emerald eyes flashing pity and anger like twin leaves in a storm; long hair curled into dramatic waves like rolling surf.

She wore not the inn’s yukata, but a high-end bathrobe, silk humming like a low river, gold thread at the shoulders embroidering a family crest.

As the girl stepped forward, the crowd rippled like wheat under wind, whispers running like water.

“It’s her!” “The high school detective, Hagiwara Kazuki!” “The Hagiwara family, no wonder…”

A celebrity, then, a name ringing like a temple bell?

Ivaris’s brow knitted like silk folded tight, and she slipped to the back like a shadow under lantern light.

Hagiwara spread her slender arms, rhetoric rising like thunder, and her voice carried to every ear like a drumbeat in a valley: “Without a doubt, we are in a ‘snowbound manor’ scenario, a house sealed in white like a pearl in ice. The killer hides somewhere in this lodge—maybe in this very restaurant—right among us!”

“!!!” “N-no, please!” “I’m going back!” Panic flared like sparks in dry grass.

“—Nobody move!!” Her shout cracked the air like a snapped bowstring.

Thin body, but the sound hammered like a mallet; it pinned everyone like moths under glass.

She swept the crowd with her gaze like a hawk, each word laid down like stones: “I did not use the Bystander Charm.”

“Knowing that this lady is in this lodge, yet daring to kill, the culprit is bold as a tiger. It’s outright scheming—an open challenge thrown at my feet like a glove!”

After staking her presence like a flag planted in snow, Hagiwara crouched beside the corpse and examined it, careful as a calligrapher’s hand.

“In her right hand she clutches a yogurt bar, and her left index points like a compass—this is her dying message, a last ripple in the pond. First, does anyone know the victim?”

Heads shook like wind through bamboo.

“Manager?”

Fujiwara Nozomi walked to where the face pointed, peering like a night watcher over ink-dark eaves.

“Huh? Strange,” she murmured, surprise lifting like a bird. “Do we have such a guest in the lodge?”

The restaurant erupted, chatter like rain on tiles.

A sealed lodge reachable only by plane, yet a stranger even the boss didn’t know—a stone dropped into still water.

“Then the killer might’ve slipped in too!” voices surged like a tide.

“Yeah! Why say the killer’s among us?” Two agitated tourists pushed back like waves against rocks.

“What? You don’t know her?” Hagiwara blinked, surprise flaring like a struck match. “Is it the Charm’s effect? Then lift the cognition blur like fog and show us who she is!”

“No can do,” Fujiwara said, rules heavy as a lacquered box. “At Fuji Lodge, the Bystander Charm guards guest privacy—passed down like a family sword. It can’t break in my hands.”

“Which matters more, rules or a human life?!” Hagiwara’s words snapped like ice.

Fujiwara only shook her head, stubborn as a gatepost in snow.

With a sigh like wind through reeds, Hagiwara walked to the food cabinet and looked where that left hand pointed—eyes narrowing like a blade.

There, a window stood fully open, a mouth in the wall breathing night.

“When was that opened?” she asked, voice cool as a stream.

“It should’ve been closed at night,” came the reply, a chill like frost.

“Then the killer opened it,” she said, nodding like a magistrate.

“I can see the process,” she went on, laying it out like stones on a path. “The victim felt hungry late at night, came to the restaurant like a moth drawn to light. She saw the food cabinet, opened it, and took a yogurt bar. At that moment, the killer waiting outside fired into her back—several shots, lightning in quick strokes—almost killing her on the spot. So the blood’s only in this one pool, a dark pond.”

“Looks that way.” “Poor thing…” “So it’s random?”

“—Hold on! I have a question!” Ivaris stepped forward, cutting the crowd like a silver fin through water.

“She’s not Ultraman,” she said, voice cool as dew. “If she was shot with her back to the window, why did she fall facing the window, like a compass swinging north?”

Hagiwara frowned, a crease like a cut in paper. “Who are you to challenge my reasoning?”

“I’m a high school detective from England,” Ivaris said, words bright as steel, “known as the Gray Wolf of Wit—Ivaris de Fenchy.”

It sounded French as cream, but the locals wouldn’t tell; the thought passed like a cloud.

Tourists ringed them like a lantern-lit circle; every gaze fixed like nails in wood.

A deduction duel straight out of a novel, two blades flashing in moonlight—and both were pretty girls, a bonus like plum blossoms in snow.

A silver-haired stranger and the famed strategist’s daughter—each alone a magnet; now their twin auras aimed at each other like crossed spears.

“Gray Wolf, huh… never heard of you,” Hagiwara said, a smile thin as paper.

Of course not. It took five seconds to make up, a paper mask over a fox’s grin.

But Hagiwara couldn’t dodge the question; she explained like a teacher drawing lines: “She didn’t fall at once. First she knelt, then collapsed—see the yukata hem spread around the legs like petals. In that struggle, she tried to turn to glimpse the killer, so her final direction faced the window.”

“Makes sense!” “As expected of Miss Hagiwara!” “Then that—”

“That’s absolute bullshit,” Ivaris cut in, words landing like stones.

What?! The shock crackled like dry thunder.

Crude as a slap, the attack was a whip crack in air, and even in another language it bit like frost.

Ivaris pressed on, relentless as winter: “Let Miss Hagiwara herself simulate that struggle-turn-fall. Let’s see if she can end up stretched out exactly like this, body straight like a drawn blade.”

No way she would, Ivaris felt, certainty hard as iron in the gut.

Not because the pose was hard, but because Hagiwara Kazuki—who reapplied light makeup after a bath—would never get down like a dog on a public floor.

Sure enough, her face reddened like a maple leaf, and no rebuttal came, a silent bell.

“Then what’s your better guess?!” Hagiwara snapped, desperation like sparks. “What ‘method’ gets a victim shot in the back, yet falling face-first toward the window?”

“Hmph. You can’t even reach that branch?” Ivaris’s smile was a cat’s, lazy and sharp.

She mimicked a certain famous prosecutor from a detective game, spreading both hands like empty sky, a look that said, can’t help you.

“Submit your detective title as evidence,” she said, voice light as a knife, “and start from scratch.”

“I’d love to see a dog spit ivory! Say it!”

“How to stage this death scene?” Ivaris’s answer rang like a gong. “Use supernatural power.”

“—?!” The gasp was a wind-sucked flame.

“Isn’t it odd?” Ivaris’s words rolled like thunder. “Given this lodge’s clientele and its mountain-to-cloud location, among us, people who can use magic, Infinite Power, onmyo arts—there are many, like stars scattered in a river. Then why not consider a supernatural method? Why did Miss Hagiwara, who calls herself a detective, ignore that path like a gate she refuses to open?”

The small restaurant blew up, voices boomed like drums, pressure rising like steam in a lidded pot.

Hagiwara stepped back half a pace, forced by words like bullets, the weight turning solid like ice pressing on a reed, shaking a heart once iron-hard.

But Ivaris kept coming, each line a blade drawn from its scabbard.

“What made her fixate on ‘method’?” she asked, voice steady as a metronome. “What made her sidestep Infinite Power like a puddle in the road? If you’ve ever developed a mecha, you know this: a design only ‘coincidentally similar’—once you glimpse another team’s blueprint, a subtle awareness sprouts like moss. You dodge overlap to prove your design stands alone.”

Several tourists nodded, agreement bobbing like boats in harbor.

“Her awareness is the same vine,” Ivaris continued, calm as ink. “She’s avoiding something—she’s shaping the scene into a fair-play mystery’s frame. Even earlier, she stressed ‘snowbound manor’ like a title card. That way, she can step up as the ‘detective role’ and slip herself off the suspect list like a silk worm from its shell.”

“I didn’t!” Hagiwara’s denial cracked like ice.

Ivaris lifted her left hand, index finger thrusting like an arrow at Hagiwara—the gesture mirrored the corpse on the floor like a shadow’s echo.

“But you forgot one thing,” she said, words cold as moonlight. “Modern fair-play mysteries, hungry for fresh snow on old peaks, already broke the rule that ‘the detective can’t be the culprit.’”

“Are you accusing me,” Hagiwara shot back, fury like fire, “of killing this girl?!”

“That’s exactly my claim,” Ivaris said, the line falling like a judge’s hammer.

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