The words filled her head. The next morning, she found herself sitting in math class with a sense of dread. The seat next to her, however, was empty. Class went on as usual, but the further she thought, the further that dread filled her.

A singular thought filled her mind. What it meant by victim. Why was it called the Falling Forest? Just what sorts of misdeeds went on in those woods?

That’s when the door flung open and he stepped inside. The detective persona he wore the previous day vanished and in its place was a new identity. His deerstalker hat and magnifying lens were both gone. The boy allowed his long, dark hair to let loose, like black curtains around a mysterious and youthful smile.

Compared to the other plain looking students, Sen had the air of a pretty boy — fit to be a future fashion model. He had the confident yet playful smile that expressed a dangerous air of charisma and intrigue.

He stepped into the class, turned to face everyone, then bowed his head.

“Good morning,” he said in Cobellian, his accent cutting through each and every letter. “I am your new transfer student.”

“New transfer student?” the teacher muttered out loud, and he nodded.

“I am no longer Ieri Sen,” he stated. “Rather, I am Searcher.”

“Searcher?” Beatrice said, and he looked at her and smiled.

“Dante Searcher.”

For that display, he was smacked once more on the back of the head, then sent to sit down. He strolled down with a sort of ‘grandeur’ before seating himself down. Sitting down, he was quick to turn to her with a smirk of a smile.

“Morning, sunshine,” he said, brushing his hair back with his hand before tying it into a low ponytail. “You got that note, didn’t you? If you will, I’d like for you to hand it to me. By the way, you didn’t read it, did you?”

“No!” she answered, all nervous. She was quick to hand him the note, and Sen — or Dante, as he called himself — took that note and lifted it up above his head and towards the ceiling lights that shone down.

“Impressive,” he said to himself. “It looks like they got the same kind of paper I use for writing notes.”

“Wait… what do you mean by ‘they’?”

He turned to her with a smile, saying, “Indeed. If that hint wasn’t enough for you, I will confess it myself. This note wasn’t written by me. Rather, it was by one of the girls in your dormitory.”

“What!? By the other girls?”

“It’s shocking, I know, but the girls — they look kind on the outside, but they have their own way of bullying as opposed to the boys. Boys will beat each other up physically, but the girls play a different game — a social game.” and he folded the note in half, saying, “They wrote this note to try and play a prank on you. They even went as far as to get the same kind of paper I use.”

“It’s a fake?”

“It’s possible it’s a fake, but since you are my detective, I know for a fact that you are smarter than that. My detective would never take things at face value,” he said, half sarcastically, as if it was a reminder for her.

Hearing that, she learnt a valuable lesson in the form of a reminder. Sen — or Dante, as he called himself — was not a person to take lightly.

With that, class continued on as normal and midway the teacher ordered them to pair up. Immediately, Sen turned his desk towards hers. Beatrice found his enthusiasm a bit odd, but in a way it was comforting, knowing there would always be someone who’d welcome her in with a smile.

Of course, she had her own questions, beginning with his general demeanor.

“Sen?” she asked. “Just how do you get away with… all of this?”

“All of what?”

“The hat, the outfits — the different personalities. A regular school would kick you out for disrupting class like that.”

He smirked, then pulled out a piece of paper from his bag — his pride. It was the results of an entrance exam and marked on the front was a big fat hundred.

“A perfect score like this does wonders.”

A perfect score? She remembered studying day and night just to get a passing grade — a fifty percent. It was a sort of public barometer that measured all subjects, sifting between the dull and the genius.

Getting a forty nine meant you were smart, but didn’t make the cut. Meanwhile, getting below forty five placed you above average, but not above enough. However, getting a fifty one meant you were in the top percentile of all people. The average grade of her class on that exam was a fifty two — a humbling reminder that they, while smart, had a lot of diligent work to do.

The thought of anyone getting a hundred was sickening — a compound sickness brought forth by the sheer difficulty of the exam she took combined with the incomprehensible thought that was getting a perfect score.

If she had to guess, his score placed him in the top percentile of all people, the top percentile of the intelligence quotient.

“Between you and me, I want you to keep this a secret,” Sen said, and he leaned it close to whisper, “I cheated on the exam.”

“You cheated!?”

“Or perhaps I didn’t,” he answered, as playful as always.

Thinking about it now, it probably was impossible to get a hundred percent score without cheating as a way of humbling kids with a harsh but passing score. However, Sen made the answer obscure as always. Whether he cheated or not, his score was taken in and made valid, allowing him special privileges from intelligence alone.

Sen, however, didn’t seem to use that intelligence very well. He was like a legendary hero using a mythical blade as a tool to cut carrots. He used that intelligence to play with the other students the only way he wanted to.

And that was by leaning in and beginning a new game.

“Tell me, Beatrice,” he asked. “What brought you to this school?”

“My parents,” she answered, swift and immediate like always. “They wanted me to attend a prestigious boarding school, and so they did.”

“Well, I came here because I was bored.”

“Bored?” she asked, and while she never asked him why he came to said school, she was interested in learning just why he’d say something as frivolous as ‘bored’.

“Bored of the regular kids back in the plain old public school I attended,” he answered. “Noone there could entertain me. Noone there wanted to do anything more than get a good grade, get into a good school and get a good job. They were like robots, pre-programmed to do as they were told.”

“Well, it’s not their fault,” she answered. “They want to get a good job, that way they can live a better life.”

Hearing that, Sen paused, then stared off and out the window with a different, more serious expression.

“If only life were that simple.” and with that, he pulled out a black fountain pen and spilled ink into splotches.

He dug into the first of many questions, and together, they spent that class chipping away at the mountain of studies and homework that was to come. He cut through the questions in a breeze, meanwhile it took the rest of the class the entire class to do a fraction of what he completed in just ten minutes.

Sen was a computational machine, and Beatrice discovered the benefits of a partner like him. She completed her work ten minutes before the end of class. For the first time in a while, she found she had time for herself. She turned to Sen who, despite having finished his work, scribbled away at a notebook.

“What are you doing? Studying for another subject?”

“I don’t study, I cheat on every test,” he answered. “Instead, I spend my time preparing for my future career.”

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“Future career? Like what? An engineer, scientist, or maybe even a doctor?”

“None of those. Instead, I’m studying to become the world’s greatest serial killer,” he said, and he pushed a novel he brought out from his desk towards her, saying, “This is my killer’s tome where magic is born.”

A serial killer? The words shocked her until she took that novel and looked at the cover.

It was a cheesy looking detective fiction novel. Marked on the front was a man in that familiar deerstalker hat with a magnifying glass in his hand. The title was ‘Dante Searcher and the Case of the Big Earner’, with Dante being a distinguished looking gentleman with one Hell of a mustache.

She looked at him with a disappointed look, asking, “Is this what you mean by Dante Searcher?” and she threw up her arms, saying, “This novel looks cliche as Hell. I can’t believe someone as smart as you enjoys something as cheesy as this.”

He put a hand to his chin, then shrugged.

“Cheesy or not, I enjoyed it. Even if the world thinks it’s worthless, so long as I enjoy it, it carries value — does it not?”

Before she could answer, the bell rang. They would have to continue their conversation for later. Later at lunch, however, Sen was nowhere to be seen. Sitting outside, all alone, Beatrice watched as the sun shone over the school. Sitting alone reminded her of one thing.

Just why was she here?

Why, of all places, come to a nation where she would be treated like a foreigner and excluded? No amount of high quality education could outweigh the damage that came with that sort of isolation. If anything, she longed to be in a school full of people like her.

In the end, it was all the fault of her genetics. The blame laid at the feet of her being two ends of the world combined together oh so crudely. Now, she suffered the consequence that was that split heritage.

Sitting alone at lunch, she could do nothing but lament — lament the fact that her father carelessly stuck her in a school where she’d stick out like a sore thumb. That’s when her hand brushed against the book Sen gave her.

Dante Searcher… that’s when she noticed it was written in Cobellian. The inner text, too, was all in that ‘foreign’ language.

The realization dragged her attention over to the first page, and soon, she found herself plunged into a mystery — the story of the Big Earner and how the ‘dear detective’ caught the culprit.

At first, she thought it was cheesy and heavy handed with its cliches, but for some strange reason she couldn’t put it down.

I wonder, why can’t I put it down?

Why, it’s because it’s fun.

It was good, lighthearted fun, and the lunch break flew by like a whirlwind, forcing her to shut the book close or else risk losing the pages. She worked through the other classes without Sen’s help — which dropped her back down to the speed of the other students — and eventually the day came to a close.

For once, she found herself enthusiastic to come back to the dormitory where she was excluded as a foreigner. Once she made her way back inside her room, she threw her schoolwork onto her table and threw herself in bed — book in hand.

She took care of all her schoolwork, excluding math, seeing as she had a smart partner to fill in the gaps for her. With the free time that was spared, she tore away at the novel with ferocity, all the way till she reached the ending.

But for whatever reason, she couldn’t push forward. It was as if her pride prevented her from being spoon fed the answer.

The next day came, and with it, Sen helped her get a better grasp on the math subject they were currently learning. He was quite the expert — probably better than the teacher — but he had one problem. He loved to be vague. He sat next to her, and he noticed something peeking out of her bag. It was the novel.

Seeing that, he opened up his notebook and began drawing a rectangle, then a strange quarter circle. That’s when she recognized it.

“Is that —”

“It’s the diagram of the victim in his room,” Sen answered. It had a doorway in, a window and a bed and closet duo. In the bed, he drew a stick figure with a big fat X on its head. “In the case of the Big Earner, we’ve got ourselves the classic closed room mystery,” he said. “In the middle of the night, while everyone was asleep, the culprit came and killed our victim. The question is how?”

“There was a suppressed pistol in the room along with a gunshot wound to the head,” she said, “but from the way things were set, it looked like a sort of suicide. The gun, however, had fingerprints that matched one of the passengers on board.”

The murder was set on a small boat filled to the brim with the board of directors for a powerful company. The victim was none other than the CEO who invited them all on that boat ride with him. Other than the nine board members including the CEO, the only other people on the boat were the captain and a secret eleventh passenger, Dante Searcher. Dante was a veteran homicide detective and he was brought on via an invitation from the CEO himself.

“Dante was brought on by the CEO, as if the CEO knew he was going to be murdered that night,” Beatrice said, and Sen nodded.

“If you’re worried and rich enough, you can hire as many hands as you want,” Sen said. “Makes you wonder, though.”

“Wonder?”

“Why bring a detective? A single unarmed man at that, too.”

Following the murder, the next morning the body was discovered. When the eight gathered together to find their CEO’s corpse, Dante made himself present — pipe in hand. He did the forensic work, all while the eight members stopped the Captain, forcing him to stay away from shore, that way the culprit couldn't escape.

The ten were trapped on that boat in the middle of the sea, and all together, Dante grew suspect.

“At first glance, it looked like the nine company members were all on good terms, but after Dante interrogated them all, he discovered that there was a bit of animosity between them all,” Beatrice explained. “The fingerprints on the gun belonged to one of the members, though Dante kept that fact a secret.”

“There’s also another problem,” Sen said, and she nodded.

“The CEO’s room was special. It had a chain which was reportedly set.”

She looked at the diagram, then pointed to the bed. The bed was placed in a position where, even if the door was opened, the gunman couldn’t shoot the victim without entering completely.

Looking at the situation at hand, it was plainly impossible. There was no way for a killer to enter, chain the door shut, and vanish, leaving a locked window and door.

“There’s no way,” Beatrice said. “There’s no way for the killer to get away with this. There’s no way they left the room. This murder was impossible. I stopped before the end. There shouldn’t be any more clues left for me to work with.”

“You aren’t thinking of giving up here, are you? You’re free to flip the page and read the ending, but if I were you, I’d mull over the details one last time.”

“One last time?”

With that, she pulled out her own notebook where a thousand clues laid.

“First clue,” she stated. “The CEO’s relationship with the others. He had a strained relationship with the other eight, but most importantly, he had a particularly bad time with the one whose fingerprints were found on the gun. It suggests a motive.”

“Second clue,” Sen read. “Our suspect is close friends with one of the eight directors, close enough to have their families marry into one another’s. Essentially, they’re brothers in law.”

“Third clue. The holster,” she said. “The suspect has an empty holster where the gun he owned was kept, meaning the gun used to kill the victim was definitely his. Additionally, the gun he owned was given to him by the CEO, as a sort of business present. It looks to me like he was killed by his own gift.”

“Fourth clue, blackmail,” Sen said. “The suspect confessed to having blackmailed the CEO, which he used to his favor, causing the CEO to lose almost all of his own personal assets. Their business relationship was strained before, but after that, it was ruined for good.”

“Final clue. Gloves,” she said. “Everyone there was wearing gloves, including the CEO whose body was found wearing gloves.”

The clues were all laid out. Now all that was left was to convict their suspect with hard evidence.

“The problem is, the room was a locked room,” Beatrice said. “No way in, no way out. It was reported by one of the eight directors who went to wake the CEO up for breakfast. The murder was proven to be impossible.”

“Proven?” Sen asked, and she looked at him like he was mad.

“Proven? Of course. They said it themselves, that it was a locked room.”

“Says who?”

“Says the director… who was the suspect’s brother-in-law.”

The gears began to turn, and immediately, she realized what was going on. The director lied about the chain. He must have cut the chain himself to create the illusion of a closed room to protect the real suspect.

“Then the suspect really was the killer, with his brother in law as an accomplice!”

“Stop.”

She stopped and turned to Sen who sat, arms crossed.

“What motive did the suspect have to kill?”

“His blackmail, of course.”

“He blackmailed the victim, not the other way around. Did you forget about the very beginning?”

“The CEO, he invited them all — including the detective,” she said, and she put a hand to her chin to ask, “but why? If he was worried, then why not hire bodyguards? Why even host this party in the first place?”

“Because he knew he was going to be killed.”

There was something she overlooked, and that was the detective himself. At the very beginning, when the body was discovered, Dante said something strange.

He said that, no matter what evidence comes out, that they were all innocent of any crimes committed on that boat.

It was a premonition — not some grandeur statement with no backing.

“The suspect wasn’t guilty,” Beatrice said, realization striking her. “That’s because the CEO wasn’t killed. He committed suicide.”

The silenced pistol, the gloved hands, the easy-to-access room of his.

It was all a set up, an open and shut case, hand delivered to their dear detective who the CEO himself invited.

She took the novel, then flipped open the ending.

It was like she said.

The CEO lied and framed the director who blackmailed him as a means of revenge, giving him a gun, getting it covered with the director’s fingerprints before stealing it back — using it to commit suicide. The director’s brother-in-law took it upon himself to protect him by creating a closed room murder through a single lie.

And it was the detective who shed light upon both lies, reaching the singular conclusion.

No one was guilty of any crimes committed on that boat.

“The case of the Big Earner has come to an end,” Sen said, and he pulled her hand into a handshake to say, “Congratulations, detective. You solved this impossible case of murder. How could I possibly ever thank you?”

She was shocked at the twist of an ending. At one point she was stumped by the impossible case, then electrified by the realization of the in-law’s lie, then trumped by the truth that was the second lie that started everything.

She understood how it felt to solve — to detect. And with that, she twirled her own hair as if it was a mustache to say, “It’s all in a day’s work.”