#065 – Helping solve your own murder doesn’t happen everyday

#065 – Helping solve your own murder doesn’t happen everyday

There were three people in the new ‘Police’ group chat. It felt incredibly surreal.

The quest I had did involve reporting my kidnapper to the police, but I hadn’t expected it to actually happen. But why not? Just because of weird isekai nonsense? If I could report it, then why wouldn’t I?

With John stowed away to look at the serene view of a flowing river – which hopefully produced enough noise to muffle my voice – I mentally pressed the buttons.

Initiate voice call with user: BrandonStew?

Y/N (13245 DP available)

Call with BrandonStew

Requesting voice call. Please wait…

It only took two rings until he picked up.

“Hello?” a deep masculine voice spoke.

“Uh, hi! Detective Stew?”

“It actually works?” said another voice.

“That is me. Am I speaking to Shawn Brown?” said the first voice again.

I instinctively grimace.

“...That’s my legal name, yes. Could you call me Nana instead, though?”

“Right… Sure. Hold on… Okay, better?”

“Umm…?”

“Never mind. So, you say that you are the person we are looking for, but is there any way for you to prove it?”

That caught me off guard a little.

“Uhm… How would I–achoo!” I sneezed and then groaned in annoyance as I sniffled. “Sorry, I’m a bit sick right now.”

“No worries.”

“I, uh… I could tell you my citizen ID and whatnot…?” Which felt really wrong to do, but I was pretty much certain that he really was a cop, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

“Not ideal, but I guess we’re not going to get anything better.”

“Right…”

I rattled off my ID, my date of birth, my address, my landlord’s name, the names and dates of birth of my biological parents…

Ugh…

“Right. This is as certain as we’re going to get I suppose. For now, we’re going to believe you are who you say you are.”

Well, that was something, I guess.

“I’ll get straight down to business then. You are wanted for several crimes, including hacking into a privately owned website, breach of contract, and destruction of property–”

“Wait, wait, what

?! Okay, first of all, I didn’t hack anything! Secondly, what breach of contract?! What destruction of property?!” I yelled out before sneezing again. “Ugh, stupid cold…”

Then I remembered that I was talking to a police officer and maybe I shouldn’t shout at him.

“Calm down, miss Nana. You didn’t let me finish,” he calmly replied and I cringed at my outburst. “All of these charges were filed against you by the legal department of Snitch incorporated and that’s what made us launch the initial investigation.” I refrained from interrupting him again and simply nodded even if he couldn’t see it. “They cited you breaching your contract as a Snitch partner due to you showing extreme violence and potentially seizure-inducing flashing lights on your stream.”

I gaped at that.

What the hell? There were plenty of other streamers who played games that were way more violent than what I had to deal with in that waterpark dungeon. And what flashing lights? My fire skills?

“The destruction of property was apparently due to the fact that one of their data banks, on which they wanted to download your stream to present as evidence, went up in flames in a way that shouldn’t be possible.”

“Huh?!” I blurted out right as I sneezed. “That’s bull– nonsense!” I cursed as I sniffed and rubbed my nose.

Ugh, gross…

Also, what the heck did he mean ‘in a way that shouldn’t be possible’?

“Why yes. It is.”

I blinked in surprise at his agreement.

“Unfortunately, they served you a subpoena via mail to your address, which you didn’t respond to in any way, and so we had to get involved.”

I couldn’t help but groan.

Why did I have to deal with legal nonsense while stuck in another world? Or rather…

“Well, yeah. That would be kinda hard to do since I’m in another world right now,” I grumbled.

“Yes, about that. You understand that we were very skeptical of those claims.” I bristled and was about to blurt out something nasty when he continued. “But then we discovered the ash in your apartment, which, according to our forensic department as well as the scientists we handed it over to for further investigation, makes absolutely no sense under normal Earth laws of physics.”

I stopped and blinked.

I managed to hold in a sneeze this time.

“Uh, right. The ash that was in my bed, right? I, uh, I’m pretty sure that’s… my old body,” I said with a wince. Because wow, scientists were apparently researching my corpse.

I never thought I would say a sentence like that.

“...Right. We’ve taken the time to catch up on what was going on with your stream in the other world since then and we assumed the ash had something to do with… the Phoenix.”

Wow, with the way he said ‘Phoenix’, he was probably having a hard time taking that seriously.

“Which brought us to the other oddity in this case. The mysterious website with your stream that works from any device even without an Internet connection.”

“Oh, yeah… That. I have no clue what that’s about,” I said honestly.

“We had our IT department investigate it, but it’s apparently, and I quote, ‘bullshit magic nonsense that shouldn’t work’.”

I resisted snorting at that.

“And then, of course, there is this very call. I’m speaking into thin air and yet we can communicate. And none of my colleagues could hear you until I put you on the loudspeaker.”

Huh… Interesting.

“Right… So… Where does that leave us? Will you be trying to arrest me or…?”

It would be pretty awkward if I were to find a way back to Earth only to immediately get arrested. Especially since the charges were either total bullshit or I hadn’t even done the crime they were accusing me of.

“Not exactly. Even if we could, there were clearly extenuating circumstances. And even then, this whole situation is extremely unusual.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“So the case is paused until you return. And instead, we opened a new case about your disappearance and that’s why I’m here now. I’m the lead detective for your disappearance case.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“We don’t usually get to speak to the disappearance victims themselves for obvious reasons. But since it’s possible with you, I wanted to ask you a few questions. I’m hoping to at least begin to understand what exactly happened.”

“Right. Yeah, sure! I also really wanna know what’s going on!” I said with a bit of cheer finally creeping into my voice. “Oh yeah! And I know you already know all this, but I also need to report my own murder, kidnapping, and reincarnation to you!” I sneezed. “For the quest!”

There was a moment of silence.

“...Right. Of course.”

Yeah, you and me both buddy. I was also weirded out by this.

I briefly checked my quests and sure enough, the ‘Report them to the police’ line had [ACHIEVED] next to it now.

Well, progress…?

“Anyway, if there’s nothing else…?”

“No, no, nothing. Ask away!”

“Right. So let me preface this by saying that I don’t want to give you false hopes. I don’t think we’re actually going to figure out what really happened, since we are dealing with things that defy conventional physics.”

My shoulders dropped a little.

I hadn’t expected them to have all the answers, but for him to outright say it…

“I mean… That’s fine.”

“Alright then. Let’s start with what you last remember before you woke up in the other world.”

“Well…” I hummed and leaned back on the tree as I thought. “So, this was… Friday. I was streaming late into the night like usual. I think I ended it at like two AM.”

It was kind of funny how my sleeping schedule was better out here in another world than back home.

“I turned off my computer, took a shower, and hopped into bed.” I frowned. “But I couldn’t sleep. It was way too hot, even though it’s early March, right? So I ended up tossing the sheets and even the pajamas aside. But it was still really hot and I tossed and turned for a bit and… Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t really remember falling asleep. It felt more like… um, like an out-of-body experience…? I felt kind of detached for a moment and then I felt the heat getting stronger and stronger and… and then I blacked out and woke up inside an egg.”

Huh. Now that I said all of that out loud, everything about it seemed incredibly suspect.

“...I see. That’s all you can remember then?”

“Yeah. Well, we later discovered that apparently the phoenix talked to me while I was in that egg, but uh, yeah. That’s about it for before the egg… I guess I was really burned to death in my sleep, huh?”

“Right. Do you have any idea on who this phoenix might be or why they were targeting you?”

“No clue.”

“Could it be someone you know?”

I pursed my lips.

The phoenix had said that she was my mother… but she’d also said she was a different kind of mother, so they were probably different people…

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you think the culprit was in the room with you when you were burned?”

I frowned. I had just kind of assumed yes, but on the other hand, I hadn’t noticed anyone breaking in.

But then again, they could have teleported, or even done it remotely.

“Uh, I don’t think so? I live alone and I don’t think anyone was there with me… But I was pretty out of it by the end there, so maybe I’m misremembering.”

There were some grunts of acknowledgement and I heard some mutters in the background before Stew spoke again.

“Hmm. It could have been something remotely activated, then. You said that you started feeling hot even before going to sleep, so it’s even possible that you were poisoned. Did you ingest something unusual before going to sleep?”

…Poisoned? I hadn’t even thought about that. Had I accidentally eaten something that then immolated me from the inside?

I shuddered at the thought.

“Um, I have no idea. I didn’t eat anything special that night. Just some take-out like always.” I stopped as I remembered getting poisoned just a few days ago. “But honestly? You never know with all the magic happening here… Maybe someone teleported something into my drink while I wasn’t paying attention.”

“...Right. We should probably consider something like that.” He grunted. “But we also have no idea what is or isn’t possible according to the laws of the other world. Assuming that’s what we’re dealing with here.”

“Yeah…” I grimaced.

When put like that, it almost felt pointless trying to figure out what had happened. At least until I had more of an idea on what the limits of the whole system and the three energies were.

“Well, I guess we’ll mostly be waiting for the experts to come back to us with any discoveries about the ash or even the website. For now, I have one last question.”

“Yeah?”

“...How are you holding up?”

I blinked and stared for a moment in surprise.

“Uh, good?”

I sneezed.

“Well… good, all things considered, I mean. Could have been worse…”

I grimaced as I remembered how close I had to have been to dying to that stupid poison.

“Well, that’s good. Can’t imagine what it’s like to be in your situation. You got someone to talk to about it all?”

“Well, yeah? I have chat!”

“No, I mean… a close friend. Or a therapist.”

“Err… Well, I have a friend who comes around to chat. Not like I can get a therapist around here…”

“What are you talking about? You can talk to one just like you are talking to us right now.”

I paused for a moment as I stifled another sneeze.

“Uh, I guess so? I mean, they would kinda have to come to me. I can’t just call someone…”

“True enough. Well, tell you what. If you’re open to the idea, I know a few shrinks and I’ll tell them to stop by your stream from time to time.”

“...Sure, I guess?”

“Good. Well, that’s it from me, then. Anything else you wanted to discuss?”

“Can’t think of anything right now.”

“Right. I’ll get going then. If there’s any developments, I’ll let you know.” He chuckled. “Which isn’t the usual procedure. Usually, all of that info is classified. But there’s nothing usual about this case. After all, we never had to contemplate whether we should let the murder victim give updates on their own case or not.”

I couldn’t help but crack a small smile at the absurdity of the statement.

“Hah, true.”

“Well, see you then, Ms. Nana.”

The call cut off.

I took a deep breath and let out a sigh as I leaned my head back on the tree and looked up at the leaves.

I gave myself a few minutes to process everything Mr. Stew had told me. From the ash, to Snitch actually trying to charge me with stuff, to the idea of getting a therapist–

“Oh, wait… Even if one visits the stream, they’ll get lost in the chat.” I groaned. “Maybe I should get that overseer subskill soon… Or maybe just turn more people into mods to make it all more manageable…”

I sneezed.

First though, I needed to recover from this stupid cold or whatever fantasy equivalent I had.

At least I wasn’t poisoned anymore.