Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG

Chapter 410

Shinobu stood by himself in the middle of an aisle between rows of pachinko machines. The rest of the fang that’d blobbed up around him were gone. “You three finished?”“For now.” Seth King sauntered ahead of the group like he was the one leading the charge instead of just being a nuisance. 

“Send his corpse to get a toxicology test.” Detective Bradton jumped straight to the point. “The sooner the better.”

“Uh… I’ll have to check with the elders. We probably have someone that can do that.” Shinobu frowned and subconsciously rubbed at his metal arm. It was outlandish to expect him to know absolutely every Fang, so it wasn’t much of a surprise he’d have to check with an elder. “He was shot, though, no?”

“He was.” Mira leaned against one of the pachinko machines and crossed her arms. Vox perked up, and her ears shot straight into the sky. “We suspect it was a post-mortem shooting, and the cause of death lies elsewhere.”

”I still think the shooter is the killer. Why would someone shoot a corpse otherwise?” Seth King moved to one of the machines and tried to imitate Mira’s posture. 

He set the pachinko machine off as soon as he leaned against it, causing it to flash erratically with bright lights and loud noises. After a few moments, the machine played a ‘better luck next time’ tune and flashed a couple more times. 

All of us just stared at him. For his part, he didn’t look embarrassed in the slightest. “Something on my face?”

”Yeah, egg.” Bradton snorted and shook his head. “Seriously, where’d they find you?”

”My penthouse apartment in the Corporate Quarter—“ Seth’s face twisted into mock surprise. “Oh, wait, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Can’t even afford a retirement home, eh?”

“Is it mommy or daddy’s money that you live off of, leech?” Bradton shot a glare at the rich investigator. “If you came to just play around, then why are you—“

”Enough.” Shinobu said heavily, and ended their argument. “Act your age, detective.”

”Heh—yeah, act your—“

”And don’t even get me started on you.” Shinobu glared at Seth and completely cut him off. “Don’t forget where you are. Your parents won’t save you from a bullet to the brain. Do you even know where you are?”

I took the opportunity to slip in Fear the Reaper at a moderate level. His attitude had been pissing me off too. The bravado and confidence Seth had been projecting this entire time melted away. For this first time, he seemed to finally realize just where he was and who hired him for this job. Seth’s face paled, and he instantly shut up.

Mira coughed lightly and covered her face with her arm. I could see from her squinted eyes just how hard she was trying to keep in laughter. “B-back to the case… What kind of chrome did Elder Toro have?”

Shinobu took a breath and shot the two of us an appreciative look. “The basics. A Medtech Biomonitor, Raijin Fresco Artificial heart, and a Shen Kang Omnivore Stomach. We can get the list from Dr. Fugen when we see him.”

Raijin’s Fresco heart was a life-extending measure for the elderly, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. Omnivore stomach, though? Heh—the elder must’ve really liked to eat. It was the type of chrome that broke down food super efficiently so a person would always remain skinny no matter what or how much they ate.

”Biomonitor?” I whispered to Mira. “Why wasn’t he picked up by a Medevac instantly, then?”

”What’s up with the biomon?” Mira forwarded my question to Shinobu. “Get us the logs, too?”

”We’ll have to ask Fugen.” Shinobu frowned and shrugged. “I’m not too clear on the state of Elder Toro’s chrome, but he would know.”

Fugen had a lot of answers, it seemed. Mira nodded a couple times. “What about the audio files from the shooting? You have those?”

”Yosh.” Shinobu pulled out his phone, and tapped around on it for a moment. A recording started to play. It was almost absolutely silent outside of the occasional pachinko—

Three shots rang out. They sounded just like any other bullet to me, but Mira seemed to pick up something more from them. She frowned and crossed her arms. “Play it again.”

”Here.” Shinobu just handed his phone over to her.

Mira played the recording again and again. After the fifth round through, she tossed the phone back. “He was shot by a .357 magnum, like I thought. It would match the tissue destruction… though the bullets should’ve gone through the elder?”

”Maybe the shooter cleaned them up?” I asked aloud. It would’ve thrown us off. We didn’t do a super deep search, so it was possible. 

“Maybe…” Mira shrugged half-heartedly. “Either way, it’s a Raijin Dunestalker or a Shen Kang R34. Maybe a Knight Security Rattler, but I doubt it.”

”Something to check for when we return to the scene.” Bradton pulled out a small pad of paper and quickly jotted down a note.

“Damn impressive, Mira,” I muttered quietly. They sounded just like normal shots to me. No idea how she managed to pick out the exact gun used.

“If that’s all, Kake Street’s heads await us.” Shinobu motioned down the aisle and back out onto the street. 

“That’s all,” Detective Bradton said after a moment of silence.

Shinobu led us back through the pachinko parlor. My mikata motioned to me subtly. Mira and I slowed down ever so slightly, falling slightly out of step with the rest of the group and lagging behind. Nothing too obvious, but just enough that we could whisper without any issue.

“This is kinda pain in the rear, Skunkstripe.” Mira peeled Vox off her shoulder, and held the metal fox in her arms. Vox, for her part, just wiggled around for a moment and then made herself comfortable.

”Which part?” Dealing with incompetents like Seth? Or trying to figure out who our killer was when it could be literally anyone in the city? Sure, the safe was open. That was a clue. Anyone could’ve done that with the right know how and a little patience though.

”You pretending to be a fang.” Her halo pulsed softly over her head, and she stared directly into my eyes.

”I dunno what you’re talking about,” I muttered and looked away from her.

”Guilty conscience?” She laughed softly. “Usually I’m all for your antics, but this one’s a bit… .”

”I know.” I sighed, and my shoulders drooped. It made properly investigating the murder a bit harder. There was a bit of fun in that challenge, though. Or, that’s what I told myself.

It was the best I could do on such short notice. I really didn’t want the ex-inquisitor to link me to the Crusade. Sure, yeah, Commander Ligh and Inquisitor Hope probably already knew about my link to the Fang. They could feign ignorance as much as they wanted until someone, like Bradton, brought it up. 

The thing with the Crusade was this—as long as there was no proof, they wouldn’t care. If that changed, though, and Bradton linked an active-duty squire to the Jade Fang, that could change. The commander could pull some strings, but HR might get involved and complicate things. ‘Course, he’d be burning himself too, but some people just didn’t follow logic.

“It’ll help you a bit.” I was forcing Mira into the spotlight for this one, but I didn’t feel too bad about it. If anything, it worked out pretty well. She was a troubleshooter in need of getting her name out there. Doing a job for an organization as large as the Jade Fang would look good on her resume.

She, of course, knew that as well. Probably why she wasn’t fighting being put in the spotlight all that much and instead just rolling with it. It was a win-win situation. I could stay hidden, and she could get some limelight.

”Still… as long as this doesn’t fuck up the investigation.” Vox’s paw dug into her shoulder slightly, causing her to shoot an annoyed look to the metal fox. “Could you seriously look Shinobu in the eye and explain to him you couldn’t solve this because you weren’t trying hard enough?”

“If it comes to that, I’ll call in the big guns.” Luna and Saint might be able to pry out who the murderer was. Saint was an investigative journalist, so he had a ton more experience in this kinda thing. Luna was, well, . She could probably just ask one of the pachinko machines with her technokinetic abilities and it’d tell her.

”As long as you’re aware.” Mira nudged my shoulder and nodded up toward the group. “Let’s pick up the pace before one of them notice.”

“Probably already did.” Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Bradton noted it down. He seemed the type to be a hyper-aware old stooge.

Mira and I slipped back into the group and separated. I tailed the group like a diligent watchdog while Mira shimmed around to the front alongside Shinobu. “They in a different building?”

”Across the street.” Shinobu stopped just in front of the doors to the place and two Fang opened it up for us.

Our group stepped out onto the rain-clad street. It was dark—the sun had set a long time ago, and it left a cool chill billowing across the heavily guarded street. I pulled my hands into the sleeves of the Jade Fang jacket. It wasn’t nearly as warm as my poncho was.

Red neon cast a dim glow over the entire street from the sign hanging above the pachinko parlor. It mixed with a slight fog that rolled up from the ocean while we were inside, creating a weirdly eerie vibe that saw me moving a bit closer to the group. The ends of the streets were entirely covered, and dark silhouettes stood against the fog.

A group of Fang surrounded us like guards. Seth’s actual guards, on the other hand, were nowhere to be seen. It was like they’d vanished into the wind. Being surrounded made me even more uncomfortable than the dense fog and red glow.

”Got a bit creepy while we were inside, eh?” Mira spoke up and completely killed the relative silence of the street. There was still the sounds of the city in the distance, but they were almost muted and quiet compared to this street.

“This place’s got bad fog at night,” one of the nearby Jade Fang muttered, “we got even worse mutie’s crawling up out of the manholes.”

”Oi, quite trying to scare us!” Seth cried out righteously. “You lot… I b-bet you wouldn’t even know a mutant if it hit you over the head!”

Mira broke into quiet laughter. She sped up and twirled around to walk backwards along the dim street. She was fully facing back toward the group while keeping perfect pace with us. “Me an’ my team wiped the floor with a bunch of muties in the heights. You hear about that in your penthouse, richling?”

”’Course I did…” Seth snorted. “Saw it all over the news. Even bought VIP tickets to City of Sorrow. Do you even know what that is, peasant?”

I choked and broke into a coughing fit. Nobody but Shinobu and Shiro seemed to care or even notice. Mira, for her part, just glanced at me with a wide grin splitting her face. Her golden hair billowed out, making her look a bit unhinged. “Ah, so you saw me!”

Seth froze midstep, and almost tipped forward onto his face. He stumbled to keep up a beat later. “W-wait, you’re Seraph?”

”In the flesh.” She waved to her halo. “You couldn’t tell by this?”

”I-I thought it was a cheap knockoff!” Seth’s attitude did a complete one-eighty and he took on a fawning expression. “You were so cool back then! What was it like? Oh! And your teammate, Eclipse, they were totally badass too!”

Eclipse… that was me, right? Ugh, I forgot about that name. A shiver went down my spine. No way we ran into a fan here of all places, chek? I whispered lightly, “all yours, Mira.”

“Eclipse keeps to himself.” Mira winked at me. “It was pretty easy. You should’ve seen the bastards that weren’t streamed, though. Put everything to shame that was on COS.”

“Ahem.” Shinobu coughed with a confused expression on his face. “We’re here. If you’d rather go get dinner, Bradton and I will continue.”

”Ew, no.” Mira shuddered. “We’re all professionals here, right?”

”Right, right!” The rich little idiot didn’t even seem to care about Mira’s insult. “Totally. We’re totally professionals.”

Shinobu just sighed and slipped through the doors into Mina’s Diner just across the street from the pachinko parlor. I was starting to doubt our professionalism more and more as the moments passed. The rest of us followed right after him into the diner.

– — —

AN: Sorry I’m so late. Unfortunately, some stuff happened and I might be off on timings this month. Hopefully everything will get sorted out soon.