Chapter 441 – Underwater City Beautiful Sheriff
In the underwater city where mysterious disappearances take place, I selected a few mermaids who could be the culprits.
Investigating Sheriff Maring looked at the people I found with suspicion.
“These two mermaids are… Toto.”
“Yes! Sheriff!”
“Take the kids and find out. I’m going with Jageun.”
“Okay! “
A group of people moved with Toto.
They went out of the building under Maring’s instructions.
We moved to investigate the anchovy and shrimp mermaids.
“Let’s take off too.”
“We have to leave… But I know where the first and second mermaids are, but the puffer mermaid you mentioned has no address.”
“Really? The fact that there is no address is suspicious.”
“Ha. I wonder if what you think is right.”
It was Maring who felt that I was finding the culprit through luck.
I felt like no matter what excuse I made now, they wouldn’t believe me.
So, I thought the best option was to prove it in person rather than by words.
“You don’t have to find out where he is.”
“Huh? Why?”
“That’s because it’s nearby.”
“Are we nearby? Where!”
Maring began to look into her family after hearing my words.
“It’s not in the house. I think you can look around the building where you can see this building clearly.”
“… That’s what I meant.”
Maring said she didn’t trust what I said, but she did quite well.
That behavior is cute in its own way.
There was something about her that suited the dog image well.
That’s how Maring and I moved.
I swam straight to the place where I felt the red energy earlier.
“This is the energy I felt earlier.”
“Hmm. Since there was no address. That motel looks a bit suspicious. Let’s go.”
“Oh. He’s the sheriff after all. He’s seasoned, isn’t he?”
There were several buildings where we arrived following the red energy.
While looking around… I found a motel located high up in Maring.
Is he also a sheriff?
At first, I felt like I should take back what I said about not having an instinctive feeling.
To find a motel that smells like a criminal like this.
-Tingling…
This motel was exclusively for mermaids.
So, the building was also full of water.
Looking around the lobby.
It was well decorated to resemble a wild sea, so you could see sea anemones, clams, and fish moving around.
I felt like I was in a fishbowl.
“Is there an owner?”
“Who are you?”
A counter table with no one around and a lot of trash piled up.
I stood there and called the owner.
A voice was heard from the ceiling.
And.
-Sooo…
A mermaid with a moray eel face jumped out of a hole in the ceiling.
“This is Sheriff Marling. Are you the owner of this motel?”
“What brought the sheriff here?”
“Have you seen this mermaid?”
“Mermaid. Let me take a look.”
I showed the mermaid data photo I found earlier to the moray eel owner.
The moray mermaid looking attentively seemed to know this puffer mermaid.
“Hmm. Why are you looking for this mermaid?”
“There was a disappearance recently. I need to find this mermaid and ask her a question.”
“Is this mermaid the culprit?”
“I can’t tell you that because it’s part of the investigation.”
“I see.”
“Master, is it right for you to be here?”
“I saw it there until recently. 300. What room it was. I don’t remember the details.”
“Room 300… I understand.”
When I heard that they were staying on the 3rd floor, I decided to knock on everyone’s doors.
We started from room 301 and moved on.
And let’s knock on the door of room 306.
“What is it?”
“This is Sheriff Marling. Are you Scope? ‘
“… But.”
“I’d like to talk to you for a moment.”
We found the puffer mermaid according to the data photo.
It looked unique that the chin was made of thorns.
If there is anything different from the data, the body size is quite large now.
“Of course. What are you curious about that you came to see me for?”
“Recently, there was a disappearance case in this area.”
“So?”
“Everyone has gone missing. I came here to see if you were involved.”
“Me? That can’t be possible.”
I caught it and said it was not a pufferfish mermaid.
“I heard that your body size will become much smaller. I’d like to see it.”
“Why do I have to show that…?”
“This is to prevent crime in the city. Please cooperate.”
“Well.”
The puffer fish mermaid frowned and glared at Maring.
“I’ll show you. After you see it, go right away. I’m tired and want to sleep.”
The puffer mermaid glared at us in a very unpleasant way and showed off her tricks.
She spat out the water that was inside her body.
Then, its body quickly shrunk, becoming almost the size of an insect.
“Enough now!”
As my body got smaller, my voice also got smaller, like that of an ant.
It was a unique puffer mermaid.
It’s kind of cute, too.
“Your performance is certain… No, your abilities are good.”
“Please leave now!”
It was an angry puffer fish mermaid.
We had no choice but to leave the room.
“Are you done now?”
Maring looked at me as if I had mistaken her culprit.
“Yes, that’s enough. I looked around the room for a moment and saw traces of several people. Be it hair, the shell of another mermaid, blood, etc.”
“What? Blood?”
“Yes, I am a blood mage, so I can feel someone’s spilled blood very well.”
I checked the blood of many people brought from the room with blood gushing from my entire body.
It’s like doing a scientific investigation.
“This is a mermaid-only motel, and there’s a lot of blood from people I don’t know. I guess they kidnapped it and brought it to this room.”
“…”
Maring said she heard what I was saying, but she didn’t know what I was seeing or feeling.
“Well, even if you knew, you can’t actually prove that the mermaid is the culprit. People donate blood and sell it on the market too.”
Maring was right.
Even if I say this mermaid is the culprit, without accurate evidence and confirmation that everyone can accept, my logic is just fake.
“Then, shall we take a look at how they kidnapped us?”
“What are you looking at.”
“I’m telling you how that puffer fish mermaid caught that person.”
“Can you see that? How?”
“With the blood I got from that guy like this…”
I created high-level blood magic with the blood of the puffer mermaid that I secretly extracted.
His blood slowly began to change.
“Blood clone disciple.”
“I can’t believe it.”
The blood changed to look exactly like the puffer mermaid in the room.
Except the whole body was blood-red, it was exactly the same.
“Amazing. This is diamond grade.”
“Well, that’s it. Since you said you wanted to see it, I’ll show you.”
-Just right!
I snapped my fingers and the cloned blood-red puffer mermaid moved.
I slowly swam down the hallway and went all the way down to the lobby.
The owner of the moray eel was waiting at the counter.
The moray eel owner looked at the red puffer mermaid and glared at it curiously.
“Huh? What is it?”
“…17811.”
I took out a pen and sea anemone paper from the lobby, wrote the number I just mentioned, 17811, and placed it on the counter.
And the cloned pufferfish mermaid went out of the motel.
“… You already did it. No. What is this? Who are you? Where are you going? Where are you going!”
I didn’t care if there was an owner or not.
I just acted and moved like what happened in the past.
We also followed the cloned puffer mermaid and went out of the model.
“Where are you going!”
The owner called us urgently, but we didn’t pay any attention.
Following the cloned puffer mermaid.
It stopped at one point.
“This is the sewer pipe of the missing person’s building.”
“Oh. I was wondering how I got into the house, but I guess I got in here?”
“…”
The body of the puffer fish replicator has become smaller.
I followed the foamy sewer pipe and entered the missing person’s house.
“Let’s go inside the house!”
Maring hurriedly entered the missing person’s house.
And in the house…
“Not there yet?”
“Where is it.”
I haven’t seen him yet.
But since I made it, I could feel it when I closed my eyes.
“I’m in the bathroom.”
“Toilet.?”
I went into the bathroom.
“It’s near the toilet.”
When I looked at the toilet, I couldn’t see the replicator yet.
“Is it going to come out when I flush the toilet?”
“I’ll take a look…”
Because I flush the toilet.
“Damage!”
-Shoot! Tuk-tuk!
A red puffer thorn appeared as it bounced all the way to the ceiling.
“Oh my. I can’t believe it!”
“It’s not something I’ve done once or twice.”
It was like that. The puffer fish mermaid, with its small body, climbed through a sewer pipe and entered the toilet bowl of a missing person.
And most people had to go to the bathroom right away when they woke up in the morning.
The missing person sitting in the toilet went about his business and flushed the water…
It was a disaster after discovering a small puffer fish mermaid.
“… There is a trace that I couldn’t find… It’s the thorn of a pufferfish mermaid.”
I couldn’t find any evidence or traces, but Maring finally found it.
There was a fine thorn stuck in the corner of the toilet that the criminal missed.
Traces of thorns were found on the ceiling.
However, this alone could not prove that he was the culprit.
“How did I get out.”
“I guess I left the same way, right? That’s how I came in. When I left, too.”
“People are not puffer fish. How do they get smaller?”
“Hmm. I guess that guy’s thorn poison was a poison that made you smaller?”
“… That’s right. It’s written in the data. It’s a puffer mermaid with thorn venom that reduces its volume. Furthermore, it says that if a human hits it, its body suddenly shrinks, and it faints from shock.”
After looking up the data on the puffer mermaid, Maring clenched her fists and frowned.
He seemed very angry.
“Wait. Do you remember that number from the motel?”
Maring made her angry. She asked because she remembered the number she had mentioned earlier at the lobby counter.
“17811.”
“What does that mean?”
“At a glance, it looks like the date. The 17th… 8 o’clock. That’s the estimated time the incident occurred.”
“Then what’s the next 11?”
“. I don’t know. No. Looking at the note I left for the motel owner earlier.”
“I guess that means we’ll meet at 11 o’clock.”
“There is a high probability of that happening.”
“Then the owner will have another note similar to the note you wrote earlier.”
“I guess so. If you shake him off, he’ll come out. Moray eels are lazy and don’t throw away trash quickly.”
I felt like the investigation net was somehow narrowing.
So she headed to the motel lobby with Maring.
“I have a question. 17811. What does it mean?”
“Huh? That weird thing from earlier! You guys did it!?”
“So?”
“What on earth are you doing? You caught a strict mermaid and pointed her out as the culprit! When I went up earlier and told her, I heard you were making fun of her by making her body smaller!”
As soon as the motel owner saw us, he got angry and pointed out.
“Business is not going well today because of you guys! This! I’m going to contact the higher-ups and tell them they’re doing strange things!”
“You can tell me. You can go to jail.”
“What. What!”
“Because you are an accomplice too.”
“Woah… Don’t be funny! Why am I an accomplice!”
“This note in the trash here. The note written by the replicator just now. The numbers are the same, 17811 and 17811. You are also an accomplice.”
“No.! What are you talking about? Get out of here right now!”
The moray mermaid got annoyed and tried to send us out.
Of course, Maring and I were not on good terms.
I immediately tied up the moray eel and put it in the corner of the counter.
“What is this!!”
“Are we going to catch the culprit first and talk about it separately later?”
So Maring and I smiled and headed back to room 306.
