Evian received an exceedingly warm welcome upon returning to Edelfight. A policeman who could dash off and promptly bring back two runaway children—even ones who had fled in an automobile—looked positively like a magician.

The adults shot Ellie and Dev looks full of pent-up anger, waiting for Evian to release them. Apparently, they intended to hand out a good thrashing for the first time in ages.

But Evian shouted before they could.

"Wait a moment. I've located the alchemical fabric."

"Didn't those two steal it?"

"No. Someone else took the fabric."

Having secured everyone's attention, Evian headed straight for Bern's house. Bern followed silently part of the way before asking in haste.

"Wait. Why are you going to my house?"

"I received a tip. I'm going to look for it. Come with me, please."

"... Ah. I see."

Bern sighed and followed Evian, looking utterly resigned.

There was no need for Ellie to testify herself. The signs of her digging the night before were obvious, and her attempts to cover them up had been hopelessly clumsy. Evian fetched a shovel and dug into the pit.

There, he found bones. He turned them over in his hands, examining them for clues.

The villagers murmured around him.

"Good heavens... There really are bones in Bern's field..."

"Has anyone died recently...?"

"We'd know if someone had. Everyone was cremated, weren't they?"

After examining the bones with a grave expression, Evian spoke, his face rigid. The frightened villagers all fell silent at once.

"These aren't recent. Roughly thirty years old... The body was buried around then."

His examination complete, Evian slowly rose. His eyes blazed.

"And as far as I know, only one person disappeared around that time. Just one man, said to have run away from the village before I was born, leaving my mother behind. Everyone believed it because Bern personally came forward to testify."

Evian stared straight through Bern as he murmured,

"My father."

Bern closed his eyes, looking as though he had given up on everything in the world. Evian glared fiercely at him, once again the cold, merciless policeman.

"Bern. You are under arrest on suspicion of murder and unlawful disposal of a corpse."

The village buzzed. This time, the murmuring was incomparably louder than before.

A nephew was leading away his uncle; a policeman was taking away the village headman. Bern shuffled along in custody, his shoulders hanging limply.

One of the village adults muttered.

"Th-then what's going to happen to Bern...?"

Evian answered.

"I don't pass judgment. I have no authority to do so. However, if the accused confesses and the circumstances are clear, a military magistrate may issue a summary judgment."

"Judgment? The sentence for murder is..."

"Premeditated murder carries the death penalty."

Evian's voice was cold. Murmurs spread through the village, and someone shouted,

"Evian! He's your uncle!"

"What does that matter? To a policeman, he is nothing but a criminal!"

Evian looked around and shouted,

"Obstructing an officer in the performance of his duties is punishable by up to three years of hard labor, depending on the severity of the offense. Everyone, stand aside!"

A hard-labor sentence was no trivial matter.

Factories, mines, training units, military logistics.

Convicts were assigned to places like those and worked like dogs every waking hour. People even said that six months of hard labor left you sick for three years.

Only now beginning to grasp the extent of Evian's authority, the villagers groaned and backed away. He pushed through the crowd, radiating the terrifying presence befitting an inspector of the Military State.

But when one particular woman blocked his path, Evian could no longer maintain his bearing as an inspector.

"... Evian."

"Mother?"

Evian's mother approached in tears and clung to him. The hands gripping his clothes trembled faintly.

"Arrest me. Arrest me instead."

"What? What are you saying?"

"... It was me. It's all because of me. It's my fault..."

"What is?"

Even Evian could not brush aside the mother who had raised him alone. All the authority he had worked to establish came to nothing as he stood there helplessly.

Meanwhile, a long-hidden story spilled from his mother's lips.

"... Your father used to beat me savagely. I'd come from far away to marry him. He was the village headman's eldest son then, and no one could stop him..."

"What?"

"He was a violent man. He hit me even while I was carrying you. Bern happened to come home, and they argued. Then they fought, and in the end..."

"What?"

"I buried his body myself. I'm sorry, so sorry... I couldn't tell you. I lied and said he'd run away from the village..."

The truth, heard from his own mother, was shocking.

Evian's father had been so violent that no one liked him. The villagers had readily accepted the explanation that he had run away.

In fact, they said they had felt no need to question it. Nothing was worse for his absence.

Besides, the establishment of military rule had thrown everything into confusion at the time.

"You missed your father, and I didn't want to disappoint you... so I talked him up as though he were someone wonderful. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you the truth..."

His mother had been an accomplice too. Evian stared blankly at her wrinkled face.

The Military State was harsh. Whatever the circumstances, it tolerated no violations of the law. Evian knew that better than anyone.

Yet he could not bring himself to lock them up with his own hands. After sitting in the police station agonizing over it, he rose.

"They said a captain was staying at the inn..."

This was a problem Evian could not solve. At a time like this, he had to at least report it to a superior. He trudged wearily toward the inn.

"... That is what happened."

Inspector Evian had risked imposing on the captain to make his report.

The blond officer, whose head was wrapped in bandages, heard him out and answered in a dry voice. It sounded oddly familiar.

"Understood. However..."

Evian closed his eyes and awaited judgment.

His own rank was nothing to scoff at, but that only held true among the "residents." A captain or anyone above was of a status far beyond his reach.

The "soldiers" who ran the Military State. Monsters governed by an entirely different set of rules. From their authority to their strength, they were in a different league from Evian.

'What will happen? I might even get on the higher-ups' bad side.'

But the words that followed surprised him.

"Cases dating to before military rule, twenty-five years ago, are left to the discretion of the investigator in charge."

"Pardon?"

Discretion? In a murder case? Evian asked stupidly,

"Do you mean there's a statute of limitations?"

"The Military State has no statute of limitations. Only discretion."

The captain simply spoke in a stiff voice, as though that alone were the officer's duty.

"Flexible application makes enforcement easier. However, you will not be held accountable for failing to make arrests over events preceding military rule. That was a period of administrative vacuum."

More convict laborers were always welcome in the Military State. There was plenty to do and not enough hands to do it.

Thus, it established no statute of limitations and granted broad discretion, so that anyone arrested could be put straight to work.

The law even applied retroactively. A crime committed before the relevant law existed could still get you arrested if you rubbed the authorities the wrong way.

But since no one was held responsible for administration before military rule, whether to bury or pursue what had happened then was up to Evian.

"Why didn't I know about this?"

"It is best not to publicize things like statutes of limitations. They allow those who have committed crimes to relax. Thus, although the authorities maintain such guidelines, they do not disclose them. Not even to investigators."

Too few arrests were a problem, but too many cost them nothing. It was quintessentially the Military State.

Having understood that, Evian saluted the captain in bewilderment and withdrew.

"Loyalty! My apologies for disturbing your rest. I shall take my leave!"

Through the closing door, he heard the captain give a quiet sigh.

"... Just what on earth have you been up to?"

"... Apparently, the Military State does not pursue crimes committed in the days of the kingdom. You were lucky, Bern."

The lucky one was actually Evian, who no longer had to arrest his mother, but he let none of that show. Instead, he released Bern before the villagers.

Freed from the handcuff packet, Bern rubbed his wrists and spoke mournfully.

"... I'm sorry. Whatever I say, I still killed your father..."

"That's enough."

Evian's reply was curt.

In truth, there had been another reason he had come to dislike Bern.

His mother and Bern would sometimes leave him out of their whispered conversations. At times, they would look at him with guilt on their faces.

As a child, Evian had resented Bern out of a jealousy he didn't understand. But if all that had actually been about his father...

"Good work, Inspector Evian."

Just then, Sergeant Beruo, the administrative supply officer, approached. Evian greeted him warmly.

"Sergeant Beruo. Thank you for accommodating me. Without the captain, I would have been in quite a predicament."

"It was the captain's decision."

"I'm simply grateful to everyone. Phew. At any rate, that settles things for now."

"Settles things?"

His ominous tone suggested their troubles were far from over. Beruo tilted his head and got to the point.

"... So where is the recovered alchemical fabric? I need to take inventory in an hour."

Evian immediately kicked off the ground and sprinted away.

The village was small, and he had just been poking around everywhere, so he soon found the culprit. Mrs. Malport from next door, who had needed cash in a hurry, confessed everything.

As for why, she said that cutting off and stealing small pieces of alchemical fabric had practically become customary among some of the inn people. But Ellie's coincidental flight had blown things out of proportion and exposed their activities.

There was no room to imprison the dozens of people involved to varying degrees, so Inspector Evian ordered them confined to their homes for the time being. His work done, he collapsed exhausted into a chair at the police station. His entire body was drenched in sweat.

"Phew. It feels like decades' worth of trouble happened in a single day..."

—And I, leaning against the police station wall, smiled inwardly as I listened to him mutter.

Of course it did. I'd stirred it all up myself.

A sleepy country village like this was bound to harbor a few hidden incidents. Starting with the people around him, I had patiently read their memories and prepared a stage just for him. Then I'd scattered dozens of clues throughout the village.

Only a handful had actually come into play, but they had netted the biggest case, so I was quite satisfied.

"The worst day of my life... It really was hell."

That was the policeman's hell I had prepared for you.

Still, you'd weathered it fairly well, Inspector Evian. And after I'd put so much effort into your gift.

"Heh. Take good care of those epaulets until I pass through again."

I hadn't had enough time to prepare this time, so I'd only managed to touch the big stuff. There was still the affair, and the mystery of who was stealing pumpkins from the fields.

And actually, between your mother and Bern... Ahem. Let's leave that there.

Well, anyway. This would do. If I ever passed near Edelfight again, I'd show him another kind of hell. Hahaha!

I was walking past the police station, laughing to myself, when it happened.

'... What's this? That man. I don't recognize that silhouette.'

Inspector Evian, who had been utterly exhausted, suddenly seized his steel baton and strode outside.

No, wait. What's wrong?

I was just Innocent Passerby Number One. So why was he suddenly coming after me with a steel baton? He didn't have any evidence!

But only a third-rate criminal would panic and run here. A first-rate criminal like me stayed calm even under suspicion. I walked on at a steady pace, paying him no heed.

With neither evidence nor grounds for suspicion, he'd eye me for a bit and then give up...

"You there. Stop."

What? How had he singled me out so precisely?

Normally, this was where I should stop. Then I'd answer calmly and dispel his suspicions. Bolting like an amateur was as good as admitting guilt.

But why? What was this peculiar certainty I could sense from Inspector Evian...?

'He looks like a criminal I once saw from behind. There's no mistaking it. Whatever else might fail me, my instincts are never wrong.'

No, they could be wrong!

They weren't wrong right now, admittedly! But that kind of certainty could get an innocent person arrested! The Military State's motto—better to wrong a hundred innocents than let a single criminal escape...!

You were following it to the letter.

'Subdue him first. Then we'll talk.'

All right. Time to run.

I bolted.

"Stop right there!"

Evian roared at the top of his lungs, whirling his steel baton overhead.

The fading sunset glowed red. Darkness descended once more on Edelfight, where a single day had brought so many long-held secrets to light.