12 o'clock, 12th Country (4)
"The starting point, huh…"
Shirone muttered while Iruki and Nade stayed tense, scanning the forest.
"Mika."
No response, as expected.
"Only the entrance manifests in reality? Then we've already left phase space…"
Eden said.
"I don't see the people we saw in the smoke. Seems each of them has a different starting point."
A woman's voice asked.
- Are you accomplices?
"Accomplices?"
- If you don't choose between solo and accomplice, the Crime Dice will not activate.
Nade interlaced his fingers behind his head and asked,
"What would you recommend? I mean… there must be pros and cons to each."
- Solo has many advantages. Above all, nobody wants to entrust their life to someone else.
Silence followed.
"Anyway, we're about to do something dangerous."
Iruki stepped forward.
"But if solo is better, wouldn't everyone just pick solo? What's the point of accomplice?"
- There isn't really one. Only that if you choose accomplice, the mission that makes you kill each other will not trigger.
It sounded like there was no real choice.
"I'll go accomplice."
When Shirone decided, two dice materialized before them, glinting.
They were six-sided dice, numbered one through six.
- The Crime Dice determine your fate. The moment the Crime Dice touch the land, judgment begins. Accomplices cannot roll consecutively. However, if you roll doubles, you are granted an extra turn.
Nade snatched the dice.
- Let the murder the left hand commits be unknown to the right. May you find rest in Melkidu.
When the system signed off so bluntly, Nade yelled,
"Hey! You at least have to tell us what this is! Hey—!"
Iruki said, "It's useless. It's just a system message. It has enough processing to converse, but it can't predict reactions or read psychological states."
Eden asked, "So what are we going to do? The Crime Dice decide our fate, remember."
Nade shook the dice in his hand. "Well, we don't have much choice, do we? No one's exactly chasing us right now, but we have to save Seina."
"You said one person can't roll consecutively. Who goes first?" Nade offered the dice.
"Go on, roll, Shirone."
"…Why me?"
"You said nobody wants to entrust their life to someone else. But I want to entrust mine to you."
Eden raised his hand. "Same."
Shirone, taking the Crime Dice, turned his head. "You said judgment starts the moment it touches the land. What exactly counts as 'land'?"
Iruki said, "Probably natural terrain. Artificial surfaces—special panels that could mess with the dice—or high-friction ground like deep mud likely wouldn't count."
That made sense.
"Alright. I'll try." Shirone threw the dice; the cubes hit the ground and bounced off stones and roots.
"It stopped."
As they watched tensely, the dice glowed and displayed numbers. A plus sign appeared between the 2 and the 4, merging into 6.
Nade said, "Six, huh… Now what—"
The system's voice stretched into a drawn-out noise, and the scenery changed at tremendous speed.
"…that's what it becomes, right?"
When the voice returned to normal, they were already inside the entrance of a village.
About a hundred households, people walking between buildings.
- Dorian Village.
The woman's voice announced.
- C-rank mission. Kill three villagers. Succeed and Crime Points will be awarded.
"What?"
- Collect Crime Points to upgrade the dice. Points are also used when stealing items in shops.
"Huh. I see."
Nade murmured and shrugged.
"I don't get any of this. What are Crime Points anyway? Are they like money?"
- Crime Points support your desires. Your current points are 100P.
Shirone said, "This feels exactly like the system from the other world. There, too, it told us purification times."
Iruki nodded. "Makes sense—this place is tied to Satan. But what do they mean by 'support desires'?"
No answer came.
"This is my take." Eden held up a finger. "In the real world, criminals are always on the run. If the desire not to be caught gets desperate enough, Melkidu appears to them at certain times."
"And on top of that…" Iruki walked to the entrance and reached out; a transparent barrier rose, blocking exit. "The interior is an isolated space. Melkidu's locations might be arranged like blocks."
"Dice!" Nade snapped his fingers. "You move across tiles based on the dice numbers. Each tile has a village."
Iruki nodded. "So it's a refuge for criminals. If a fugitive ran in, the guards would go in, too. But unless you match the dice numbers exactly, you can't catch the culprit."
Eden said, "Now the only question is points. The idea of upgrading dice is suspicious—surely it ties to survival."
"They told us to kill three villagers. Are the villagers real humans? Or system-made phantoms?" Shirone said, thinking of Siok.
"In any case, we only advanced six tiles. No matter how big Melkidu is, this is just the entry. Let's meet people and gather information. Decide after that."
They entered the village. Six shop buildings filled each side of the block.
"There's a tavern. Check it out?"
At that moment, a man came out of the weapons shop holding a twenty-centimeter blade. The group froze instinctively. He flipped the blade to check the edge, then yawned lazily and, before closing his mouth, approached a passerby.
The passerby's eyes widened as the blade struck. The man plunged it repeatedly into the abdomen.
"Waaah! Help—someone—!"
The man collapsed, spurting blood, but nobody paid attention.
"He—help…"
In less than ten seconds the person was dead. The killer wiped blood from the corpse and stood.
"These beginner missions aren't worth it." Iruki said, stunned.
"How strange. Why doesn't anyone care? The victims must have felt fear—could've been one of us."
Even with a body on the ground, passersby kept walking as if nothing had happened.
The man who'd wiped his blade strolled over to a woman selling candles in a basket.
"Hello. Buy some candles—"
His twenty-centimeter blade plunged through the woman's throat and withdrew. Even as blood spurted, he slashed a few more times until she went still.
"One left."
He turned and met the eyes of Shirone's group watching him.
Just being interested in the murder was enough to mark them as players.
"Tch."
He showed no fear, only a sour expression, and passed by Shirone.
"Wait a second." Nade stepped up behind the man. "You, you were carrying out a mission, right?"
"So?"
Nade glanced at his friends; they nodded. "Then tell us—why don't people react to you? The murdered must've been terrified."
The man blinked, then his shoulders shook as if he'd realized something.
"Heh heh. Heh heh heh."
Shirone's group waited.
"You're rookie players. Rookies who haven't even gone through one cycle."
'Cycle'—some kind of full rotation?
"Whatever. Still, I'm curious. Tell me why the villagers ignore murder."
He risked exposing himself because asking a person directly was the fastest way to get info. Besides, what could go wrong? Shirone was here, after all.
"No thanks," the man said. "Do what you want. You've lost your fear of dying. Consider yourselves lucky—if your points weren't so pitiful, I'd have eaten you."
"What do you mean by that?"
They pressed, but the man, annoyed, turned away. "Get lost. Pray you never meet me again. Next time will be miserable for you."
As the man receded, Nade watched him with a blank look, then smiled. "If that's how it is… we'll have to make him talk by force."
"Lightning of Truth and Lies."
It was the Brain-God Rebirth technique that had immobilized worshippers in the Village of Heaven.
- You lack the Crime Points required to perform the crime. Your current Crime Points are 100P.
"Huh?"
When their spell didn't activate, the group snapped to attention and checked their magic.
The same woman's voice came through. "Magic won't work. Actually, according to the system voice, you need points."
The killer snorted, "Idiots."
Without looking back he raised his hand and flipped them off; Nade lunged forward.
"That bastard—!"
Even if their magic was blocked, they were veterans of the world's front lines.
'Some petty criminal stabbing passersby—'
Just as Nade went to strike, someone called from beside them. "Stop!"
Nade turned and saw a deeply lined, world-weary-looking man standing there.
The killer, unflinching, asked, "Who are you?" He didn't avert his eyes even when met by the man's cold, piercing gaze.
"I'm telling you not to do something you'll regret. If you attack that guy, you're the ones who'll suffer," the man said.
The words "you're the ones" snapped Nade back to reality.
The murderer clicked his tongue. "Tch."
He glanced at the middle-aged man, then moved away faster than before.
Shirone kept his guard up. "What happens if my friend had attacked him?"
"Points would be deducted. You're accomplices, right? If this village is your first, you'd start with 100P."
The middle-aged man pointed at the killer. "How many points do you think that guy has? No way of knowing. But even if he only had a measly 200P, you're done. Once a Crime Attack judgment starts, points are deducted until one side hits zero."
"So we'd be at zero, and they'd have a hundred left."
"Right. And 100P is enough Crime Points to stab a body twenty times." Nade went pale. "Don't freak out too much. Zero points don't restrict normal actions. You're mages, right? In reality you could knock that guy down easily, but this is Melkidu. Points are everything."
The man gestured toward the tavern behind him. "How about it? I can probably help you—though you'll have to buy me a beer."
Shirone said, "That's fine. We need information too. But… being in Melkidu, doesn't that mean you're a criminal as well?"
"Good to be suspicious, but I'm a detective. I'm tracking the Edrina case."
Shirone's eyes widened. "The Edrina case?"
It was the notorious unsolved case that once shook the Iron Kingdom: four women of the same age who'd vanished.