The People Called That Day

A very intense night and dawn. After sunrise, we were both slightly late for morning exercise together and got scolded by the instructor. We weren’t the type to take her scolding to heart, but Zhou Lizhi’s eyebrows twitched as if guessing what had happened last night when she saw us.

But she herself had told me to eat Briar Churchill if I could. She couldn’t be dissatisfied with that. Even if she was, she couldn’t confront me about it.

As expected, Zhou just sneered at us being late together but didn’t inquire further about the issue.

On Friday morning, there was combat training in a training ground within the school that ‘simulated’ a volcanic area. I was oddly paired with the hypnotist Hoang Thi Linh. It seemed they paired people with and without physical combat abilities, but Hoang Thi Linh’s ability was not only useless in this tactical terrain training but would be fortunate if it didn’t become a hindrance.

“Eek… This lava, is it… is it real…?”

Hoang muttered, looking down at the hot liquid bubbling on the floor. I changed part of my arm into tape, then tore it off and dipped it into the lava pit.

The duct tape melted instantly.

“Seems to be real.”

“Isn’t this too dangerous… It feels like we could really die if we make a mistake…”

“I’m sure the school has taken proper precautions.”

I had heard that among the types of barriers, there are ones that only harm objects, not people. The barrier mage protecting this school seems quite skilled, so they probably took appropriate measures. But there was no need to deliberately put a foot in to check. It’s never bad to be careful.

Although it was called tactical training, it seemed like a program created just to show off their facilities. It wasn’t particularly about making us fight, but rather a safe class that could only be seen as physical training or terrain experience.

They say that as you move up in grades, there are times when you compete with each other in places like this… but to do such training for real would be difficult while Zhou Lizhi is managing alone. Just looking at the lineup of ability users gathered here, there seem to be too many people too strong for Zhou to control alone.

The training itself wasn’t much, but it was good that it gave me time to talk privately with Hoang Thi Linh for a while. I brought up the topic first:

“Come to think of it, Hoang. Somehow, we’ve ended up meeting as the first witnesses from that murder case that day.”

“Hee, heek! So, it’s not that I reported you and sent you to jail, Lieutenant, ah, I didn’t say you were the most suspicious, but still…”

“I don’t intend to blame you. It’s a bit much that you specifically said I was the most suspicious, but even if you had just properly testified what you saw, I would have been arrested anyway. I might have resented you if I had stood trial and been executed, but now, not particularly…”

“So please spare me from being thrown into the lava…”

“Would I throw you in?”

I said with a smirk. Hoang Thi Linh carefully rolled her eyes and put her hand in her pocket. I shook my head and grabbed her wrist.

“No coins.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Hoang Thi Linh obediently pulled her empty hand out of her pocket. It would be good to break the habit of trying to use hypnosis first when feeling at a disadvantage. Perhaps it was a method that worked outside this school, but this is Huangpu Women’s School. As the name suggests, it’s a place where only heroines gather, and there are many people with strong mental powers densely packed together, too strong to be manipulated by a mere hypnotist with just their ability.

“By the way, I heard that you were also called by Chen Yayuan and came there that day, is that right?”

“H-how do you know that, Lieutenant?”

“Zhou Lizhi told me during the interrogation. You were less suspicious because you had reported it to Major Zhou in advance… Well, that’s what she said. Actually, it was a statement too ambiguous to use as evidence in the investigation.”

“Do you… suspect that I committed the murder?”

“Anyone could be the culprit. But I’m not considering the possibility of you killing Chen Yayuan as high.”

Of course, I’m not excluding it either, but for me, saying “I’m not excluding the possibility” wasn’t a statement I made with great significance. Both Zhou Lizhi and the self-proclaimed detective Katerfeld agreed on the basic premise regarding this Chen Yayuan case: ‘Any possibility is open.’

It’s not just the people who were at the scene or nearby. Anyone could be the culprit. For a non-superhuman to cut someone’s throat with a knife, they would have to swing the knife right in front of them. Even if not, it’s something that could only be done by creating some scientific and complex mechanical device or trick.

But for superhumans, that category isn’t clear. It’s even difficult to fully grasp the limits of their abilities, so no one knows ‘how far’ each suspect can go. For example, Barbara Tikhonov, known as the “Bicycle Master,” was confirmed through observation to have the strange ability to control bicycles at will.

The maximum speed of the unicycle she rode could accelerate up to 300 km/h. I once saw the Soviet colonel circling the school walkway faster than a racing car without pedaling, which was truly a shocking and strange sight.

But being able to control bicycles, where does the category of such an ambiguous ability end? What is a bicycle in the first place? Only mass-produced products from companies, or individually made models too, are mini bicycle models or toys considered bicycles? Is it possible to control just the disassembled parts of a bicycle separately, not the bicycle itself? Can she control at will even ‘artifacts presumed to be early bicycles’ in museums?

It’s a difficult story. Therefore, since we can’t determine how far that person can use their ability for murder, we can’t investigate. If Tikhonov can control bicycle parts separately, she could perfectly succeed in murder just by placing a bicycle gear in that room in advance. Since gears are sharp enough to cut a person’s throat, if she secretly controlled just the gear remotely to kill someone by cutting their throat and then secretly disposed of the weapon again remotely, there would be no way to uncover it during the investigation process.

We don’t know how many suspects might be capable of murder in such unknown ways. We can’t particularly suspect Hoang Thi Linh, nor can we particularly exclude her from suspicion.

“B-but I really didn’t do it…”

“Well, let’s talk assuming you didn’t. There’s no evidence that you did. More than that, what I’m curious about is this. What on earth did Chen Yayuan say when she called you?”

“She was saying things I really couldn’t understand…”

“Things you couldn’t understand?”

“She said she came to the school looking for someone… That China would soon face big trouble and whether Vietnam was aiming for that time too… She kept asking me if I had anything to do with America, but I was so scared I couldn’t say anything… So she told me to come on Monday…”

Chen Yayuan asked Hoang Thi Linh if she was a CIA agent?

“Do you perhaps really have some connection with America?”

“Far from having a connection with America, I’ve never even been there… I would like to go once though… They say even though they’re both anti-communist countries, America and Asia are completely different, hehe… Maybe I could use hypnosis to seduce a handsome white man…”

“…”

“M-more importantly, what kind of story did you hear that made you go there that day, Lieutenant…”

“It’s a coincidence. I heard a similar story.”

There’s no need to hide it here. I just need to hide the fact that I’m really a person related to America. Hoang Thi Linh nodded, widening her eyes.

“Then were you really the one related to America? Have you been to America?”

“I have no connection with America either, let alone having been there. I have been taught by American teachers for English study, but that’s all.”

“So you can speak English… At least you seem to have more connection with America than I do…”

“If you put it that way, it’s not wrong, but whether it’s enough for a senior student to call me out separately is a bit…”

I have a strange thought. If Chen Yayuan called out not only me but also Hoang Thi Linh in the same way with threats, did she really know the identity of the agent from the CIA? I can’t rule out the possibility that a department I don’t know about might have separately infiltrated Hoang Thi Linh into this school.

The commonality between the summoned Hoang Thi Linh and me is that our countries of origin are in East Asia.

And, that they are countries with very close relationships with China… is that it?

Perhaps Chen Yayuan wasn’t certain that I was a CIA agent. Maybe she just had information that the CIA had sent an agent of Asian origin, or she had deduced so.

Then did she try to gather the suspicious me and Hoang Thi Linh in one place to figure out which of us was the person she was looking for? What was she trying to do after finding out?