We stood just outside of Violetta’s management building, appropriately named the ‘Succy Talent Agency’. For a place that supposedly housed the Violetta, it was pretty plain. The kind of multi-floor office building you could find anywhere. Come to think of it, why weren’t all these buildings made of skulls or something? What kind of demon world was this?

“Ryley?” Yaika looked up at me with her big, tired eyes. “You aren’t looking so good. Do you get car sick?”

Car sick. Car sick. The fact that we came by car had totally blown my mind. Did that mean that cars naturally came about in every dimension? Was there a demon Karl Benz or something? There were too many questions to even know where to start.

“N-No,” I said. “It’s… just a lot to take in.”

“Are you not used to the big city?” Yaika gave me a lazy smile. “Hellacia must be pretty amazing to you, huh?”

“I’m more amazed by how normal it is.”

“Normal?”

“I mean, other than the occasional medieval touches, the buildings really don’t look that different from the ones where I’m from,” I explained. “I guess I was just expecting pits of flames and eternal damnation… Rivers of lava. You know, demon stuff.”

“Oh, we have rivers of lava,” Yaika said, twirling a lock of her hair with her finger. “Eternal damnation too, if you want to work in an office.”

Maybe the demon world was even more similar to the human one than I thought.

“So…” I glanced around at the empty side street we were on. “I guess I need to thank you.”

Yaika stood there for a few moments before finally answering. “For what?”

“For saving me from losing my head,” I said. “You cut it close, but… I owe you.”

“I guess you do,” Yaika smiled, her mouth hanging open slightly. I wasn’t sure if I should feel grateful or scared.

I cleared my throat. “How did you know before everyone else?”

“What do you mean?” Yaika asked.

“About the murder,” I said. “You knew about it even before your dad did.”

“Oh that.” Yaika laughed her death rattle laugh. “Let’s just say… I have quite the information network.”

“You’re sneakier than you look.”

“You’d better be careful.” Yaika’s ‘laugh’ intensified. “I have eyes everywhere.”

“…Cool.”

Speaking of eyes everywhere, it looked like our waiting was over. Brad undulated over to us.

Stolen story; please report.

“Sorry about the wait, Princess,” Brad said. “Parking is tough to find around here.”

“Let’s go inside.” Yaika grabbed my hand. “I’m looking forward to seeing… how an expert operates.”

Oh goodie.

We walked through the front doors and into an air conditioned lobby. Standing in the center of it, was a blue-skinned woman with two small horns poking out of her forehead. She had a small build, and if I had to guess, she was probably in her early thirties.

“We’ve been awaiting your arrival, Princess Yaika.” The woman bowed. When she looked back up, her eyes met with mine. “And you must be Mr. Allard.”

I nodded. “And… you are?”

“I’m… I mean, I was, Mr. Volk’s assistant.” The woman frowned. “I’m Rayne. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Uh, yeah, likewise,” I said. Honestly, I just wanted to get this over with. “Are you a, uh, Succubus like Violetta?”

“Oh, heavens no,” Rayne said. Apparently even demons used the word ‘heaven’. “I’m an Ogre. Mr. Volk… was an Ogre as well.”

“Sorry,” I said. How the hell was I supposed to know? So many of these different demons had horns, I had no idea how to tell the difference. For an ‘ogre’, she really didn’t look all that different from a human other than the blue skin.

“Can you show us to the scene of the crime?”

Rayne looked confused. “Cry-m?”

I almost forgot. The idea of law was completely foreign to these people. I wasn’t a walking dictionary, but I guess I would have to explain things like this.

“A crime is anything someone does that goes against the law,” I said.

“…Law?”

Fuck this was annoying.

“My father is making a new system to deal with things like murder,” Yaika spoke up. Her father wasn’t creating shit, but I was thankful that I didn’t have to answer anyway. “Ryley’s an expert, so he might use some new words that you’re unfamiliar with.”

Rayne nodded. “I see.”

Yaika paused for what seemed like forever before finally turning her head to me. “Explain… for… us.”

I wasn’t sure if Yaika meant to look scary, but she had the eyes of a psychopath. They were the kind of eyes that said, ‘Cross me and I’ll cut off your most precious asset and throw it into a meat grinder’. And she’d say it with a smile, too. Some guys were probably into that. I wasn’t one of them.

“Laws are just… rules,” I said, almost stumbling over my words. “One of the rules I’m adding is ‘no killing’.” Yeah, I know. Good law.

“Oh!” Yaika yelled like she just remembered she left the stove on back at the castle. “Brad, make sure you write all that down. Father wanted me to keep track of what Ryley says.”

Brad whipped out a pen and paper. “You got it.”

“Good,” Yaika said. “Go on, Ryley.”

“Uhh… someone here broke that ‘no killing’ rule, so it’s a crime,” I said, looking back over to Rayne. “The crime scene is where that rule breaking happened.”

“Umm… The crime… scene?” Somehow, Rayne looked even more confused than before.

“…Just take us to where Volk’s body was,” I said.

“O-Oh, of... course,” Rayne fidgeted with her short black hair. “Please, right this way.” Finally. She led us over to an elevator and pressed the up button. “It’s on the third floor.”

Seriously? Demon elevators? I mean, the fact that demons had cars was even more confusing, but still.

“What’s on the other floors?” I asked.

“Each floor is devoted to a different group under the Succy label,” Rayne said. Heh.

I had to hold back a laugh before I could continue. “Was anyone else in the building last night when Volk was killed?”

Rayne shook her head. “No. The Succy Girls and I were the only ones. They’re our most popular group, so we end up staying later at the office almost every night.”

I supposed even being in a girl group was work. “How can you be so sure you were the only ones?”

“Do you see that?” Rayne pointed at a camera above the elevator. “Our employees don’t know this, but it’s actually a motion sensor. If anyone comes in front of the elevator or stairs, it snaps a picture. There weren’t any unexpected pictures taken last night, so I know we were the only ones.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I said. In reality, this was the ideal situation for me. The smaller the pool of suspects, the better.

The elevator door finally opened, and we stepped inside. I looked back to see Brad sitting there in the lobby. There was no way he was going to fit inside with us. Not unless he crammed in, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs. I had already been closer to Brad than I ever wanted to be.

Brad waved a tentacle. “I’ll take the stairs, bro.”