Chapter 446 – Episode 50. Hollywood Murder Case.
“I came to America because I wanted to rest for a while with Aris, right? And since I’ll only be there for the weekend, I don’t think I’ll have the physical time to take on the request…”
How many psychics are there in America? I didn’t think there was any need for me to step forward, so I expressed my refusal to Diana Ricci. However, Diana Ricci was smiling confidently as if I would definitely accept this request.
“I know. “Are you saying you want to be with Miss Aris for the first time in a long time, so you’re turning down her request?”
“What… “Yes, but.”
When I met Diana Ricci at the Tijuana airport, Aris was there too, so she probably knows our relationship, but why are you so confident?
“For this request, if an unexpected situation occurs at the VR filming location where Ms. Aris is filming, you can lend her a hand. There is no need to set aside a lot of time.”
Oh, the confident expression Diana Ricci had on her face won’t help when something happens on the set of your girlfriend Aris, right? Aris could be dangerous? That was the expression on his face.
Actually, neither I nor Aris had much interest in the request from the U.S. Federal Superpower Management Department, but when I heard that something was happening at the filming location, I became curious about what was going on.
“What’s happening to our filming location?”
“I can’t tell you the details unless you accept the mission.”
Aris asked, but Diana Lich shook her head. Because Aris was so curious, she looked at me with a very curious expression. It was a subtle signal for her to accept. She said that if something happens while playing together, she will help, so it doesn’t seem like it will take up much of her time.
“There’s really nothing I can do before something happens, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then I will accept the mission, so please explain.”
“First, let’s get in our vehicle. Our agent will drive Aris’ car, so I’ll explain as we go.”
I couldn’t keep standing in the airport parking lot and talking. Because it was an airport, there was a lot of floating population, and since both Aris and Diana Ricci were beautiful women, both men and women passed us by, glancing at us. It was a security issue to stand here and talk, so it was better to talk while moving around in the car.
“Get on.”
Aris and I got into the SUV that Diana Ricci was riding in, and the agent who would drive Aris’ car gave Aris her keys and got out.
The interior of the SUV was like an undercover vehicle from an intelligence agency seen in movies, with several monitors attached to the walls, and a brown-haired man in a suit with sunglasses who told anyone he was an agent was sitting in the passenger seat, turning his head to look at us.
“This is Manuel Murdock, a combat agent for the Federal Superpowers Administration (FSA).”
“Are you the Black Knight? Nice to meet you. Please call me Murdoch.”
“I didn’t name myself Black Knight, but… Nice to meet you. “This is Taira Ryuta.”
Manuel Murdoch looked at me kindly, as if he didn’t think of me negatively, although he kept calling me the Black Knight. If he were a combat agent for the FSA, he would be a combat agent with superpowers. I was very curious about what abilities he had.
“I’ll leave right now. “Let’s talk as we go.”
“Are you heading towards the studio?”
“Yes.”
Then it will take about 30 minutes. As the agent in the driver’s seat started the engine and the car began to move smoothly, Diana Ricci opened her mouth.
“To get straight to the point, there is a serial killer with supernatural powers hiding around hotels and mansions near Hollywood filming locations.”
I see. A serial killer with superpowers is also something the FSA should step up to do. At Diana Rich’s words, Aris tilts her head and looks as if something like that had happened.
“Serial murder? Is this your first time hearing this? There wasn’t even a story on the news…”
“Currently, crimes committed by people with psychic abilities are rapidly increasing. However, in most countries, in order to recruit people with superpowers, they are trying to control public sentiment toward superpowers. So, the crime of supernatural powers is not reported and is managed by a secret organization like ours. That’s why Miss Aris doesn’t know this.”
Well, seeing the incredible power of the famine a few months ago, each country was making a great effort to recruit people with psychic powers, so there is no need to hurt the public’s feelings by making it widely known that people with psychic abilities are causing trouble.
“If you are a serial killer, how many people have you killed so far?”
“We estimate at least seven people and up to twenty-three. After we became aware of it, we were able to identify the murders more accurately, but before that, we were not able to accurately estimate them, so the deviation is quite large.
Isn’t there a huge difference between a minimum of seven and a maximum of twenty-three?
“At first, they randomly killed people in the back alleys, but that’s because the number wasn’t accurate.”
Diana Ricci seemed to have read my eyes and spoke as if making an excuse. But… Because American security was so messed up, it could have been difficult to figure out everything that happened in the back alleys.
The United States already had many problems with drugs and criminal organizations, but the poor security situation became even worse after World War III.
Many veterans and refugees poured in and became homeless or criminals, and the drug epidemic spread even further, to the point where cities were created where the rate of addicts was higher than that of the public. Naturally, due to the deterioration of public security, the public’s distrust of the government was growing significantly. . Several factors were added to this, leading to the opening of the Megacorp era in the future.
“Most serial killers have their own victims. It is understood that this super-powered serial killer kills anyone who has even the slightest connection to the Hollywood film industry.”
“If it’s a little, how much?”
“Studio cleaners and bellboys at hotels where actors stay near Hollywood are also targets of serial killers. In the beginning, it seemed so unrelated that it was difficult to find the culprit’s taste.”
If an actor was going to kill the bellboy of the hotel where he was staying, it would seem that anything remotely related to the film industry would be a target for a serial killer. I guess my tastes are unique.
This is the same for Aris, who is a model and actress, and if she had an actor boyfriend, she and I would also be included in the murder list, right? Aris holds my hand as if she’s a little scared. I reassured her by squeezing her hand as if telling her not to worry.
“But what are the serial killer’s abilities?”
In fact, since her enemy was a psychic, I was more curious about the psychic’s abilities than the psychic’s target. Since I know most of the characteristics, you will be able to roughly understand it if you listen to the explanation.
“Well, it’s hard to explain… Because all we see is a corpse. The body…”
Diana Ricci manipulates the screen to answer my question. She seemed to think it would be better to show it on screen rather than explain it with her mouth.
On the screen, there was a corpse with numerous circular indentations the size of fingernails all over its body. It looked as if a finger-sized piranha had bitten off her entire body, one bite at a time. This… I’m going to develop trypophobia. Aris takes one look at her and turns her head to see more.
A wound this unique would have reminded me of something, but I couldn’t guess at all. As I just thought, I thought it might be a summoner class that summons numerous finger-sized creatures, but I’m not sure. Or maybe he’s just an ordinary serial killer who uses tools to inflict similar wounds…
“It might not be a person with superpowers, but an ordinary person who uses a tool that causes such injuries, right?”
“That is impossible for several reasons. First, one of the FSA’s investigators, who had psychometry skills, was unable to identify the culprit. That means there are other abilities that can neutralize psychometric abilities.”
Psychometry refers to people who have the ability to see or feel events or memories that occurred when they touch an object or person.
Certainly, as Diana Ricci said, the fact that a psychometrist cannot read the past means that there is another ability that can neutralize psychometric abilities, or that they can use the power of a higher being such as the Daughter of the Abyss. The former literally means that psychometry can be powerless, so we’ll skip over it. The latter is very powerful, but because it exists in a different dimension from us, there was a setting that people with psychometric abilities cannot read the past. 〈 Br〉
“And after we became aware, victim number three was last seen alive, and ten minutes later, he was found in an alley with these exact same injuries. An ordinary person wouldn’t be able to get scars like that all over his body and disappear in just ten minutes. “It’s physically impossible.”
Looking at the victim’s photo, there were circular wounds so dense that it caused trypophobia, but as Diana Ricci said, it didn’t seem like an average person could do this in 10 minutes.
“So what do you want from me? “The combat ability is pretty good, but the tracking ability is not so good.”
“As I said earlier, if an unexpected situation arises, you can lend us our strength. If you look at the map here, incident number 4 occurred here, incident number 5 occurred here, and incident number 6 and 7 occurred here. Therefore…”
Diana Ricci displayed a map on the screen and pointed out the location where the crime occurred. This… It matched our destination.
“We’re getting closer to where the Hollywood filming studio is?”
Aris also opened her mouth as she looked at the map to see if she had the same thought as me. At those words, Diana Ricci nods her head.
“Yes, the Thousand Mouths Killer is gradually approaching the exact location where Ms. Arisu and Ryuta Tyra are.”
A murderer with a thousand mouths… I got a little interested.
—
Diana Ricci
Deputy Director Mode
Swimsuit mode
Cyber Suit Mode
