Reincarnated Into A Dead Woman's Body In Another World-Chapter 323: Arc 5, - 17: A Case From Long Before

A few knuckles tapped at the door, interrupting them, "The files," Peter brought in several beige folders that barely kept in the papers.

Kazuo turned with the envelope in hand, "Did you bring the old files?"

"Not that you asked for ’em Kaz, but I figured," he shifted the file on top and placed it beneath the other files, "Everything you’d need," he dropped them on his desk.

"Thanks." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"I ain’t lookin’ to ask again, but-"

"Then don’t," Morgana interrupted Peter as she folded her arms, "It’s not like he’s gonna give a different answer."

Peter sighed, "That’s true."

Kazuo didn’t give a second glance as he flipped the envelope over and read the pink lettering. ’Heyyy detective~~ Guess what? I got a follow-up on that little spook case down in Mandrake—something suspicious.’

He could almost hear her bubbly voice creeping into his mind; he shook it off as he turned, "Did Alicia say anything about the latest case when she dropped this off?"

"She came in the morning and wanted to say it to you, but you weren’t in yet. She grabbed a pen and wrote all over the envelope she had," Morgana replied.

"If there’re supposed to be ten detectives here, are you a detective or just the director?" Jotou glanced to Peter.

Peter laughed and said, "Both. Though, I’m the third best."

"Third?" Fumeko squinted.

"I’m the second here—second to your father that is," Morgana leaned her hip against the desk. "It leaves him to be..."

"I’m surprised you’d have rankings like that. Wouldn’t it create competition and, be bad for cases?" Hotaru’s ears folded.

"We don’t let it get to our heads," Morgana stared at Kazuo.

Kazuo shook his head, "Regardless, the ranking system doesn’t really mean much."

"Say whatever ya want, it ain’t the case in the eyes of the government," Peter departed the office with those words.

To that Kazuo sighed, "The ten greatest detectives in Burnetrout, working in unison under one umbrella cooperation. Personally, I don’t focus on it too much."

"Just keep doing your work; easy to say when you’re the first," Morgana jerked her brows.

"Where are all the other detectives then? On vacation?" Asobi tilted her head and scanned the office.

"Rupert’s still on his case in Fordwin. Flintlock, Diana and Rose are all down in South End. Maevis is offshore in Hefaloss; Quinn and Heath haven’t come in today yet. Heath called the company, he’s hungover," Morgana listed.

"I figured..." Kazuo shuffled through the documents.

"Is this all about the case? Are you gonna fill us in?" Fumeko surveyed the documents.

"There’s obviously the current case, but you know the cult’s involvement. Which means, you need to know the previous operations of the Deuctus Cult," he flipped a few pages. "Or at least a brief summary so you can understand."

"There’s more to tell?" Hotaru took a seat at one of the dark-hued leather chairs.

"You roughly know their modus operandi and that they were extremists, which is not too detailed," Kazuo replied.

"If that’s all you told them," Morgana spoke. "And all of you want to join the case, there’s a lot more to know about them. At least, things you should know if they do come up at any point."

"Better to be prepared," Jotou replied.

"Where’s Kira?" Kazuo searched.

"Thought you hated cleaning up feathers?" Morgana raised a brow.

"Might as well introduce her to them before they get startled."

Morgana raised her hand promptly and snapped her fingers, causing a small wisp of light green whizzed up and dissipated. "Kira," she called and looked to the open door.

The flapping of wings wooshed wind into the door and two long, narrow, scaly, pinkish-grey legs scrambled to a halt at the entrance. What walked in, cocking its head, was a tall pearly white bird nearly Fumeko’s height.

Its upper legs were clad in black feathers like it was wearing shorts. The ends of its pearly white wings were black feathers and black feathers were mixed a few white ones going down its tail.

While its head had white feathers all over, most notable was its featherless, red-orange face where it had a bluish-grey hooked beak. The back of its head had several dark black plumes poking out distinctly like a flower in full bloom.

It almost looked like it wore impressive mascara as it blinked a few times fluttering its lashes, before it strutted in with a crane-like grace.

"What the hell is that!?" Fumeko took a step back from the large bird that could almost meet her eyeline.

"At least she doesn’t pull back her words detective," Morgana peered to Kazuo. "She’s Kira, my assistant."

"She’s so... pretty," Asobi’s eyes glittered in white light as she gazed to the bird.

"What kinda affinity gives you birds...?" the blonde knitted her brows.

"What affinity, I can’t really tell, but the element has to be nature at least," Hotaru answered.

"That’s right," Morgana said indifferently. "Kira, close the door will you?" she gave a hint of a polite smile to the bird.

Kira stopped advancing and turned around to look for the door. She approached it and whacked the door with her leg. Then kicked it again to close it with a light slam.

"Great... scratch marks on my door," Kazuo’s eyes glazed over.

"You asked for this."

"Kid- Fumeko?"

Fumeko had blinked away into the corner of the office and pulled her dagger out. "Why is it that big?" she perhaps calmed down a smidgen.

"She’s not that big; have you seen an ostrich?" Jotou turned.

"Easy for you to say!" Fumeko stepped into shadow and reappeared next to her father. "You’re not seeing it the way I am right now..."

"Huh, so your kid does have magic," Morgana affirmed.

"Kiddo, that’s just a secretary bird. You can probably find them pretty commonly in the savannah regions if you go along the Black-Sand River."

However, distinctly, Kira’s eyes were piercing green eyes, very similar—if not exact—to Morgana’s. Even so, they were still bird-like eyes rather than human.

"Can I pet her?" Asobi held her wand in both hands.

"Sure, she doesn’t peck—unless I ask. Kira, do you mind if she pets you?"

Kira strut forward and tilted her head to Asobi. Asobi did the same in the opposite direction. The bird’s neck stretched out slightly and bowed, causing all her black plumes at the back of her head to press down.

Asobi titled her head back and with a bright beam gave Kira a few gentle pets. Kira showered in her pets and would follow the magician’s hand with her head.

"Whatever, can we get on with the case?" Fumeko brought the topic back.

"Right, a brief summary of the case I solved. I’d rather focus on whatever Alicia got me this morning as fast as I can if possible. Kid, pay attention," Kazuo spoke to the elf.

Asobi stopped petting Kira and stood upright. Kira strut over towards Fumeko as Fumeko recoiled towards Jotou. Kira walked past examining the faces in the room till she made it to Morgana’s side.

"I don’t need to go into too much detail, you can check the files if you want more. After I started investigating the cause of the great fire, it took me down a lot of rabbit holes.

I described the Deuctus Cult as extremists, but obviously they don’t see it that way. They’re delusional, with the idea that they’re a vigilante organisation working as a type of shadow force of Burnetrout.

It could be said that their goal is to wipe out any threat to Burnetrout. That includes any sort of attempt of attack—like war.

They’re a strong reason why the Malecise Regime was significantly taken down seventeen years ago and are rarely a big threat to our borders these days.

But Burnetrout claimed the cult to be its own organisation since they didn’t care for civilian lives and broke several wartime laws.

The cult itself, has hundreds, if not thousands of followers under its banners. Many of them fled the country, went into hiding or just took the opportunity to get out of the cult after they were exposed.

But it’s not hard to see why so many people would flock to them. They had seven heads of the organization, who referred to themselves as ’new gods’.

Each of them had a division of devotees, ranked in order of unyielding loyalty. The higher ranking members usually had an affinity.

Regardless, despite there being seven heads, there was one overall leader of the cult. And after four years of investigations, I was able to finally apprehend him," he said with a sneer. "His name, the Unknown."

"You mean, there was no trace of him in any records? How’s that possible?" the redhead furrowed her brows.

"The cult’s targets aren’t just attacks towards invaders, they have other agendas too. What I could find, was that there was cult activity in locations where governmental documents would be stored.

As well as hospitals, real estate companies and even schools—including, Dolpool Academy. All in an effort to cover their tracks and erase the true identities of not only a lot of members, but also the seven heads."

"So they wanted to erase everything about their past. But you still caught the leader, the Unknown." Fumeko held a hand to her chin.

"What did he not know?" Asobi riddled with an illusory question mark.

"It’s unknown to this day and his skeleton in the grave is probably still smiling for it," Kazuo furrowed his brows.

"You got, absolutely nothing?" Jotou squinted.

"After I caught him, the cult was able to scatter and the so-called gods went into hiding. So the other heads were never really found or caught at the time.

And at the time, I believed the Great Fire of Burnetrout was a show of power. But even then, my intuition told me there was some other reason for the fire other than terrorism or showing their might as protest. Never mind that actually...

Regardless, when the leader stood trial and was questioned, he remained silent; same goes for any and all cult members that were caught.

Some bit off their tongues, but healers were able to regenerate them immediately. They were compelled via enchantment to speak the truth, but it didn’t work on any of them mysteriously.

Nothing could be gained from them. Any and all moles in the cult were killed; they were very thorough and devout. Same goes for anyone wanting to even leave.

I later found out, after the whole trial, that needles filled with a certain ’god’s’ blood was injected directly into a cult member’s skull and it gave them the immunity to tricks of the mind.

I’m not one hundred percent of how or which god, I just know the injection point and something was transferred that allowed any cult member to resist compulsion through magic. It was too late to reverse it, since the leader was given the death penalty."

"Something just doesn’t make logical sense in your story," Fumeko replied.

"There’s absolutely no way they found and killed every mole in the cult," Jotou doubted alongside the brunette.

"Exactly. I mean, at least a few should be able to slip out of a cult of literal thousands."

"They did," Morgana voiced from behind. She bluntly put with an expressionless face, "Not a single one slipped out. That’s why they were such a problem. One whistle-blower could’ve destroyed half their operations."

"They’re willing to go that far," Kazuo confirmed.

’Resistance to compulsion... So no mind reading, nothing to trick the mind... Like, me? Is there a connection?’ Jotou went silent in thought.

"So... he’s dead and the cult’s coming back? That must mean a new leader, a ’new god’," Fumeko theorized.

"Hold it kid, we have no solid proof it’s the cult just yet. We can all assume and put pieces together with loose details and clues, but we can’t prove it till something concrete shows up," Morgana folded her arms.

Kazuo continued, "What I’m trying to say is that, the cult’s operations, even though I may’ve put a big dent in them, didn’t just make them come to a complete stop.

Whatever their operations are, it’s still a mystery because they don’t only deal in terrorism. Their motives and goals aren’t one thing—they’re multiple.

So this isn’t the same as some gang or mob, not the same as catching some group of thieves robbing a bank and not the same as the Velatos Case. Them resurfacing, isn’t to be taken lightly," he warned again...