Chapter 1
The gang is the place to(not)go
"Listen up everyone! as you can see we seem to have a mafia to deal with his stab wound seems to be on his left side hip, judging by the mark on the man's arm this could mean one of two things, number one is that a possible war between gangs could happen, and possibility number two is that a sudden argument occurred and boom this man was killed by his own man"
The chief was giving us all a speech about the sudden death of a member from a gang he seemed to be stabbed on his right side, its the chief's duty to solve stuff like this before it gets out of hand, which is why she told everyone including me to join in and help out
"Malliyo, Aikawa in my office" The sudden call of the chief was to be expected
"Yes chief something you wanted to ask us?" Aikawa became the person to do the talking, something that I can accept
"Yes, as you guys know you were big help bringing Mark down, but now we need you're help again with a big case and I was wondering if you guys are down for the job as consultants or not?"
"Why wouldn't we cheif?"
"You see Aikawa cases like these tend to put ones life in danger and of course you guys are great help, but I'm not sure how well you can defend yourselves"
A sudden shock became apparent to Aikawa as she hit me with her elbow, it was her way of telling me to get my act together
"That won't be a problem chief as long as we get payed"
"That's good, you guys shall be dismissed"
Jut like that Aikawa made her leave, I decided to stay as I had a question I wanted to ask the chief
"What's the problem Malliyo?"
"You see cheif, as much as I love working these type of cases, I have been wondering when I can possibly make a move toward working on cases that involve the website"
"I see, well I'll assign you to those types of cases once I find yourself ready for it"
"Thanks chief" I bowed my head and made my leave to where Aikawa was waiting for me
"How about we talk to the people in the gang?" Aikawa offered an idea
"As much as I hate this, I think it's the only way we can get some information"
We had one problem and it's the fact that the person that was killed didn't represent any big gangs as a matter of a fact, that gang hasn't even fully established itself as a gang at all.
"Aikawa the chances of this being an argument between the same men is quite low, right?"
"It depends, this gang hasn't been fully established so loosing someone already would definitely harm them"
"We should probably ask for more details about the guy that was killed, depending on that it should tell us how valuable the guy was though he did strike me as quite a weak guy, mainly because of the way hes built..." once we got to the crime scene where we assume we'd find some evidence that would point us to where the gang is hiding, I happen to stumble onto something "Oh its a video game console!"
"What?!, let me see that" Aikawa reached out to get it, but ofcourse I stepped further back before she could reach it
"No way! It's my game"
"No its not! We are supposed to share information, this could be a valuable clue to this whole thing"
"Are you being serious?"
"Nope, but I still want to see it!"
"Absolutely not-" as I said that we heard a couple of footsteps appear, they were subtle almost as if they wanted to be quite
"Who's there!" It was a feminine voice
"Quick hide!" Aikawa grabbed my hand and pushed me over to be behind the trash bins
"My console!" During the sudden grab I happened to have dropped the console on the floor
"It's fine we'll get it once she's gone"
"B-but-"
"No buts!"
Even though Aikawa told me not to, I couldn't help but to reach out for the console, to which I happened to knock over some trash bag while trying to reach it
"Who's there!" I managed to get a hold of the console, but by doing so the footsteps of the woman got closer
"You Moron!"
"Shh!"
The woman walked right past us, Knife on her left hand and the same tattoo as the victim on the right hand she had red hair, she stood there for a couple of seconds before going back
"She's from the same gang" Aikawa whispered
"Why would she come back to the scene of the crime?"
"Not sure"
We waited a couple of minutes before leaving, once I got to my house I couldn't help but get excited about the game it also seemed as if the game had some type of glue stuck to the side of it
"Hey mom!"
"Hey son" my mom smiled, this was the first time in a while
I got into my room and opened up the console, it seemed to only have one game it followed a similar style of you're regular parkour game, just a small dude avoiding obstacles and killing monsters...
The next day came around as I realized how i haven't gotten a wink of sleep last night I've stayed up all night playing the game as I made it all the way to Floor Ten door Six, each floor has a total of Ten doors
"Man I'm tired" I muttered to myself
Floor one had you're basic tutorial with some mispronounciation on some words, for example *Doble Jomp* was spelled incorrectly as well as *Knuck duwn* which what I assume meant Knock down those were the only ones, as for floor two there was a glitch on door six where the screen went suddenly black flashing a code error in just 0.1 seconds, Floor three had nothing wrong while floor four was a rhythm game, floor five through the rest had nothing wrong it seemed like the game improved the higher the floor you go
"Malliyo?" I got a sudden knock on the door, judging by their voice it was Aikawa
"Yes?"
"We need to go, the chief called telling us t get there ASAP"
"Well then what are we waiting for?"
We got to our bikes as we made our way over to the police station
"Malliyo are you going to turn off this game?, you do know that the chief will get annoyed if you play that while she's talking right?"
"Yeah yeah, I'll stop once I finish floor ten"
"..." I turn to look at aikawa as she rolls her eyes, a couple minutes later the chief begins talking
"Listen up everyone! After doing some background checks on this guy we've found out that he was a rather rich individual, he also worked for two gangs we also know-"
"Ah No!" To my surprise I found myself with a first proper challenge when it came to this game
"Is something the matter Mr Polis?" This was probably the first time I've heard someone call me by that
"Is she talking to me?" I whispered over to Aikawa
"Yes I'm talking to you Malliyo!"
"Ah no chief nothings going on here, please do continue"
"Okay as I was saying, we've got reason to believe that this guy was caught cheating out one of the two gangs for the other, we find the gang he was cheating on and we find-"
"I can't do it!" A sudden change of silence filled the room as everyone turned to look at me "I-I was talking about the game, not the case, please you can continue"
"Malliyo can I see you in my office?"
"Y-yes ma'am"
"Listen Malliyo is something bothering you? Or is it that you're not interested in working such case?"
"No!, you got the wrong idea I really do find this case important, but I mean look at this!" I put the console infront of the chiefs face showing her one of the rooms I had to beat
"What's wrong? It's just a bunch of spikes, man give me that!" The chief ended up snatching my console and ended up giving the floor a try
"You can't do this! You see the little man is afraid of pointy things" I pointed at the character in the screen
"Is he afraid of pointy things or are you afraid of that?"
"Both"
"Look at this" the chief showed me the screen it said *Room Complete*
"Wow! Cheif you're my hero!"
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
"Oh please I used to want to be a streamer"
"A streamer?"
"Yes, one that plays games with their viewers in order to get money"
"I see! well thank you cheif I shall get going!"
As I made my exit I looked toward my right to where I saw Aikawa talking to Miyu and Kai, they both seem to be on this case
"Oh Malliyo finally, surely you remember these guys right?" Aikawa seemed to try her best in order to get on these people's good side
"Aikawa I saw them last week"
"Right, but yknow you got a minor concussion so I thought you'd forget"
"What?! I didn't have a concussion of any sort!"
"Yes you do, remember that car crash"
"We aren't even old enough to drive-..." After noticing the way this conversation was playing I finally realized what was going on "And I don't have a minor concussion!" Even so I can't have anyone spreading such false words about me onto other people
"Malliyo can I talk to you" Aikawa spoke in a rather threatening way
"Yes ofcourse"
"Listen we want to get into their good side, that way we can easily access files as well as their cool mini fridge"
"They have a mini fridge?"
"Yes"
"You should've told me so"
"It's fine, before you could ruin it I secured ourself some tickets to go see the gangs"
"W-we are going to talk to them?"
"Yes"
Chapter 2
The gang is actually the place go
The thought of talking to a gang will forever terrify me, mainly because they can just beat my ass right no matter the time nor place which is why my strategy shall be full proof, one that would guarantee my safety no matter what happens...
"Malliyo you can't keep on playing that game to distract yourself"
"Malliyo? Sorry but from here on out I'll like you to call me Francesco" I try my best to imitate an Italian accent
"You don't sound anywhere near Italian"
"Aikawa just play along, unlike you I'm not trying to have a gang track me down!"
"Malliyo just give me that stupid console!"
"Aikawa stop!"
"Malliyo give me that on 3"
"Absolutely not!"
"3,2,1-"
"Excuse me" a sudden member of the gang came along, it was another girl black hair, and piercing on her nose
"W-where did Kai and Miyu go?" I whispered to Aikawa
"I don't know, they were right here seconds ago!"
"I'm sorry but who exactly are you people!" The voice of this girl is the most menacing thing I've ever heard
"Ah!" Before we could answer the ladies question we decided to do what I would call a quick exit as we both decided to escape before the lady can kill us
"She's the killer" I said
"Yup, most definitely have you ever heard such a menacing voice from such a cute face"
"I think I can" I looked over at Aikawa before turning away real quick
"How about we never accept a job that involves a gang?"
"That's the best thing you've proposed"
"How about we get a meal?"
"I'm down for some noodles"
"It's on me, and when I mean me I mean us as we share the same check"
We decided to head over a local restaurant that specializes on noodles once we got there though we didn't expect to see the person we saw
"Oh for the love of god Aikawa, it's the same girl that was about to kill us
"Malliyo we must face our fears head on"
"Yeah well I want you to continue saying that once you die"
"Let's go I'll do the talking and you can do the eating"
"Bet"
We decided to make our way over and sat down to our surprise the waiter happened to be the gang lady her name tag suggested that her name was Eno though the likelihood that it's an allies is pretty high to my surprise she also happened or used to be married since you could see the tan on her ring finger
"Oh its you guys" Eno smiled, she seemed to be happy about our presence
"Eno, do you mind if we have another chat?"
Just like Aikawa suggested I let her do all the talking
"Another chat? I wouldn't consider our first interaction to be a proper chat"
"How come?"
"Well it isn't like you guys ran off like a bunch of little girls"
"Surely I have a pass, I am a girl after all"
"Guess so"
"Eno we wanted to talk to you about the death of one of you're gang members"
"I see how about I talk after I bring you the food?"
"We would love that"
"I'll be right back with you're food then"
Eno left to get us the food, even though she seemed nice it could just be her work persona which could be extremely different compared to her actual persona
"I say we leave, we shouldn't risk this"
"Indeed, Malliyo you go check through her locker while I talk to her"
"Nope, I'll stay here and play my video game"
"Put that game away for once man!"
"No! This console could make us millions"
"What are you even talking about?"
"You'll see later today"
Eno came back with our noodles before taking the seat next to mine, she smelled like trash
"Eno we were wondering what you were doing at the night of the murder?"
"Well I work here every night and I can tell you some juicy stuff"
"Go on"
"Just recently I've heard that they had plans on attacking so called fakes and how they'd send the message through some code"
"And why should we trust the words of someone who's in that same gang?"
"I'm only in the gang for my past, to explain further I was 17 when I decided to begin doing mischievous deeds like vandalizing properties and ect, although things would take a turn when I got caught mid vandalism, she was a lady I can't tell you more than this or else I'll be in deeper trouble"
"Thank you, we'll be going now" Aikawa looked at me signaling us to leave
The fact that this started since she was 17 and now she looks to be in her late early 30's, how can a gang fail to grow with such a long period of time? How come nobody knew about this gang?
"You find this wierd too, huh?" Aikawa seems to also have a wierd feeling about this
"Something isn't right" I told her that before we went our separate ways, my mom was away for today in order to look for a job, also giving me the perfect opportunity to earn some cash!
Chapter 3
Streaming The Grind
In the past I wouldn't be thinking of doing this, as I'm not really a big fan of huge crowds, luckily for me streamers always have had the option to show their face or not, my choice will obviously be the latter
"Hello everyone!, Today we will be playing my friends very own game!" The game isn't necessarily owned by my friend but they have no way of knowing that, one of reason is because nobody is even watching this
"Uhm as you can see I'm currently almost done with the game, and just need one more level, so I thought It would be wise to stream this" people began joining the stream, a total of 15 viewers were currently watching me! It was only a matter of time till I could feel the stress building up to me
"Okay, uhm..." it was only a certain amount of time before I began stressing out about the amount of people watching me "Man! This level sure is hard, huh?"
The viewership went down to 12, on the top right of my screen you could see the amounts of deaths I've had, so far I've managed to keep my death record to a perfect 0, but that didn't seem to slide too well with the viewers or maybe they just wanted to see something that would give them joy? It's obvious and common that people would want to see someone else feel failure, it might not be the same reason, but as long as they feel what they felt it would fix them, if not just a bit
"Wow Look at me! I'm having so much fun!" As a way to retain my audience I'd have to fill them with the desire that they want, steaming is a set scenario where the viewers fill the selfish role perfectly, don't succeed and retain you're viewers and you'd end up being labeled as a failure.
"Ah! Oh no I died! My perfect record!" The streaming world is a mixed world some are there just for you, while the rest are selfish individuals who just care about their own interests and opinions
"Ah?!" A screen popped up, it showed me my checkpoints its also saved my recent floor and door indicating that any time I die it'll probably set a checkpoint, the checkpoints were on floors 1, and floor 2 door 6
Just that moment a sudden realization came as I took a look at what the comments were saying
*Man the guy practiced!*
*He only has a perfect record because he's played before*
*he faked his death count!*
And just like that I was now officially named as a failure in this industry "So much for earning money, huh?" A sudden bang came from the front door and before I knew it I've been surrounded by three ladies, in which they've got a hold of my game to which for the first time I managed to see the underneath part of the console, to my surprise it had the exact same logo on the other people's tattoos it blended in really well...
"Malliyo? Wake up!" I could hear a sudden voice, unable to open my eyes I was able to make out the voice and connect it to a person, it was Aikawa
I could hear other noises as well, a beeping noise as well as other people talking, it seemed to me like I was sent to a hospital
"Eno? What are you..." that's all I managed to hear, Eno made it here to see me?, but why? None of this is making any sense so far
"Aikawa I managed to hear that their next attack will be coming later today"
"Really?" I could hear their footsteps getting further and further away, how come the second they got my console is also the time they'd attack? How come Eno is telling us all of this with risking her chance of getting caught? How come the second I play my console next to Eno is also the time I get robbed of that console?
"Would you look at that, Ha!" Judging by the footsteps two new people came in, and also judging by their attitude its safe to assume who that is
"Kai be quite!"
"Oh please Miyu, I mean look at this guy he's totally knocked out"
"Still we should've at least let his friend see him" F-friend? George? It's been awhile since I've seen him, I haven't bothered keeping contact with him
"Please this guy is only using us for his own benefit"
"U-using us?" You could tell that any type of deception tends to have some type of discomfort with Miyu
"Yes, you see I've done research turns out the little love necklace he always wears is from someone who recently died, she was killed by one of the streamers"
"I don't see why he'd need us though?"
"He can't keep track of every stream 24/7 it's impossible, which is why he's making us do the tedious work in hopes that one of these days he'd be put on a case that involves his little streaming friend"
"B-but"
"No buts, let's just go"
Their footsteps got futher and further away, it wasn't just a couple minutes later till someone else entered
"Hey Malliyo" their voice, they sound familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it
"It's fine if you don't remember me, after all it's probably for the best" I-I don't know who he is, I'm usually so good with voices and putting said voices into names, but this with this guy I can't quite tell
"I can't wait till we see eachother next, my love" Love? If there's one thing I can connect about this is the fact that their voice sounded manly rather than feminine
Their steps got further and further away, it was only a while after that I managed to see again.
The first thing I did was call Aikawa
"Aikawa I think I solved the case, but I need you to get far away from Eno, got it? I don't want her to hear our conversation"
"Oh Malliyo you gained you're consciousness back!"
"I see.." She was avoiding the main conversation indicating that she's with Eno as we speak "Here's the full story, This group was unlike any other the reason for that is because it was full of females, I remember when I was attacked it was all females no males once o ever, so how come that guy got to be apart of the gang? That's simple, it's the fact that he was Eno boyfriend"
"Really? Wow how come..." Aikawa took a quick pause before continuing "Man Malliyo how did you piss yourself!"
"Really? That's the best you can come up with"
"Just continue"
"That girl that caught Eno doing the mischievous things was the girl we saw during the scene of the crime, Right arm tattoo left arm having a gun, indicating she was left handed and the wound on his boyfriends dead body was on his right side. They must be targeting everyone who's having secrets from their gang, that person's next target is..." I remembered how in the first level of the game it had misspelled some words, the letter U was missing when the letter O was present in that word, while the letter O was missing and replaced with the letter U when the letter U wasn't in the word to begin with the letter U can mean the word You and a name that has similar sounding to You is the Japanese name Yū a common name for boys, meaning the next victim is likely someone with the name Yū and the letter O? "Okay Aikawa I want you to locate someone with the name Yū, someone who might have any relation to anyone in that gang"
"I'll check it out later"
Yū was missing whenever O was present, but Yū replaced O whenever Yū wasn't there. Who is O? Ah! I got it!
"Aikawa listen to me, let's go hypothetical here, if the name of the lady that found Eno vandalizing happen to start with the letter O and it happen that Eno was behind most of this then It'll make perfect sense"
"What?!"
"Yū missing whenever O was there means O didn't meet Yū at that time, while O being replaced by Yū whenever Yū wasn't there was trying to tell us that Yū is currently being framed he wasn't involved with anything going on, what this riddle is saying is the fact that Yū has found a replacement for O and that shes no longer needed, Eno's reason for making O kill the other guy is because Eno was married to him and it just so happened that the guy had a juicy reward for her once he died, he was rich after all"
"Then why yknow make yknow go for yknow"
"O was the one to make Eno's life misery so It makes sense to make her life misery by making O believe the person she trusted most was the one to betray her, also by making it seem like he was cheating on Eno this hint came from the rythem game which i remembered all the lyrics to and once i typed it in it gave me the name *Weakest Person Gets The Best Love* , this would make her target Eno's Husband, as she can't target Eno since that'd just cause a ruckus with her whole gang, the next hint came along with the sudden error flash, it happened fast, but the numbers were 14358 probably an address of some sort, it also came clear to me that the guy that was killed used some type of glue in order to time when the console was to fall, he must have stolen the console and planned to explain things to O, sadly though she didn't listen as a result she couldn't figure out where the console was, and when we got there the console luckily fell off and we managed to get it before O double checked"
"Got it, I'll call my friends you should take a rest"
"Right" I did exactly what she told me, as I layer down and closed my eyes
How come Aikawa wanted to call Miyu and Kai? She was at a higher risk so why maje her risk bigger? Either way I need to check something out
Chapter 4
A mastermind always has it all covered
"Got it, I'll call my friends you should take a rest"
"Right"
Just like that our call ended it could also be our last call, as I Asami Aikawa am currently being held at gun point
"Well done, you seem to have quite the smart friend" Eno was the one having me gun point
"Yeah he is quite smart"
"How about we go see the show? From there I'll probably have to frame you instead for the murder of Mr. Yū"
"Or we don't do all of that"
"Hurry up"
A rather quick chat we had as she pushed me into the back of the truck as we made our way over to a small village.
On my left side I could see summer crops getting ready to be planted, as Christmas did end a while ago
"So why have you made such an overcomplicated plan to trap her?"
"She was a narcissist always thinking she's better than everyone else, so I decided to pit that up to the test by not only giving her hints that this was all staged, but as well as to see if she'd be a fool to follow these traps I set up for her"
"I see" I took a look to the left where it seemed to be some type of church, next to that church was a nun she seemed to be rather tired though I was quite far away so it's hard to see if I was right it also doesn't help the fact that the window was foggy
"Aikawa do you mind telling me what type of person Malliyo is?"
I took another glance at the windows to where I see that we've now officially entered the main town a fountain was in the middle of that town, the people there also looked rather shocked "Hey Eno can you lower the window down? It's getting hot and you're air doesn't work back her"
"Fine!"
"Anyways what do you want to know about him?"
"I want to challenge him, I want to go against someone who can actually deduce my exact intentions"
"I see, well it would be quite the interesting battle"
"Do you think I can win against him?"
"Not sure" we've then officially left the main town and kept going further
"How come? Do you think I can be a good opponent for him?"
"You seem to have grown quite the interest on him"
"Yes! I just always thought that I'd be quite cool to have a battle against one of the best detectives!"
He's only worked 2 cases if we include this one, seems like he's growing in popularity quite a bit
"Okay here we are"
The house looked like a burnt down church, for some reason some of the burned up ashes are still here
"Get out, we need to find a better spot"
"Right" Eno ended up taking me from the hand as we made our way over toward the side of the church in which we had a good angle to see this play out
"This is going to be good" I didn't need to look at her just to know that she was having one of those creepy grins
"Eno by any chance have you already been here?"
"Yeah? So what?"
"Just wanted to ask" The looks of the people when they saw us as well as the fact that this church was recently built and the fact that the nun was tired is all connected to Eno's previous arrival, good to know that my strategy isn't in vain
At first when I looked at the nun I didn't think much of it, then when we saw the people and how they looked somewhat anxious I had a feeling that something wasn't right, which is why I decided to ask Eno to let the air in, by doing so I was only able to fit in my fingers which wouldn't matter as I was able to deliver my message to these people
"Yes! They're right here!"
At the same time though Eno's plan was also in action, it was just a matter of time if I can't save them then too bad, but all I can hope from them is the fact that they delay their death for as long as possible
The two began chatting it up, from where we were it was quite hard to hear what they were saying
"It's about to happen!" Eno couldn't seem to hold her excitement, she was beet red from her cheeks to her ears
"Hey there she is!" A sudden voice came it was a voice that is way to familiar, Miyu and Kai!
"Hold it you're under arrest!" Kai instantly jumped at her and after Miyu explained the situation to Yū and Olivia, even so Olivia did end up killing a person so she wasn't saved even if Eno was the one to somewhat set her up
As we made our way back I was told that not only did Malliyo tell them something was up, but so did the villagers as at the end with the foggy windshield I managed to write help me and to call the police
Chapter 5
The forever gone game
"Hey Malliyo, is something the matter?" Nothing looked bad about him, but I still felt the need to ask
"Nothing much, just the fact that someone came to my room, I couldn't recognize their voice and they somehow managed to maneuver through the 8 cameras they had leading to my room without getting noticed"
"Do you think it's yknow"
"I'm not sure how you know this much, but It's pretty possible that it was them"
"I have my ways" I smiled a bit "You're gonna miss you're game?"
"Nope, the game was bad the background was always switching up it kept on bothering me"
"Was it a glitch?"
"Nope, just lack of dedication as every time It was an outside floor it was supposed to be the same background yet 1 or 2 trees would go missing out of the 25 or so they had"
"And you can notice that?"
"Sadly, I do have a lot more instances if you care to listen"
"How many more?"
"28"
"Yeah I'd pass"
"Well there was this one with the pot in the background where it had 5 flowers inside 1 red 1 blue 1 purple 1 green and 1 yellow in that exact order yet the order switched up and the green and yellow switched spaces"
"Malliyo I don't want to hear anymore alright?, how about instead we go get something to eat?"
"Okay! I'll tell you about the other 27 on our way over"
"S-sure" I couldn't help but be somewhat annoyed though it's also somewhat reassuring to think that I have a genius watching my back, even if this genius is sometimes a wuss, well mostly a wuss and sometimes a genius can fit as well