Chapter 66: Case file
The Mystery Research Club was quieter than usual.
Afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows, casting long shadows across the desks. The evidence board from the exhibition had been taken down, leaving only a blank whiteboard at the front of the room.
Noah placed the newly acquired club room key on the table.
"I know everyone expected today’s meeting to be about planning future activities."
Ryan nodded.
"I even brought snacks."
Marcus looked at the bag of chips in Ryan’s hand.
"I noticed."
Noah remained standing.
"But something happened this morning."
The room grew noticeably quieter.
"What happened?" Daniel asked.
Instead of answering immediately, Noah reached into his backpack and removed a thick brown envelope stamped with the academy’s official seal.
"I received this from Professor Ellis."
He slid several newspaper clippings onto the table.
Old newspapers.
Some were yellow with age.
Others were only a few months old.
The headlines immediately caught my attention.
LOCAL UNIVERSITY STUDENT FOUND DEAD.
BODY DISCOVERED INSIDE ABANDONED WAREHOUSE.
POLICE RULE OUT SERIAL CONNECTION.
Ryan’s smile disappeared.
"...These aren’t exactly cheerful."
Noah nodded.
"They aren’t."
He spread the articles across the table.
"There are nine confirmed cases."
Marcus frowned.
"Confirmed cases of what?"
"Murder."
Silence filled the room.
Even Ryan stopped joking.
Daniel carefully picked up one of the articles.
"The dates..."
"They’re spread across almost eight years."
"Exactly," Noah replied.
"Different districts."
"Different victims."
"Different methods."
"The police treated every case separately."
Marcus folded his arms.
"So why are we looking at them?"
Noah looked toward the largest photograph in the center of the table.
"Because Professor Ellis believes they’re connected."
Ryan blinked.
"Our professor?"
"He spent several years working with historical criminal archives before becoming a teacher."
"He noticed similarities that were never officially investigated."
Marcus leaned closer.
"What similarities?"
Noah pointed to the photographs.
"Every victim disappeared exactly three days before their body was found."
He pointed at another article.
"No signs of robbery."
Another.
"No defensive wounds."
Another.
"Every victim was between eighteen and twenty-five."
Daniel slowly lowered the newspaper.
"That’s... unusual."
"It gets stranger."
Noah pulled out another sheet.
It wasn’t a newspaper.
It was a photocopy of handwritten notes.
"Professor Ellis compared every crime scene."
"There was only one object consistently reported."
Ryan looked confused.
"What object?"
Noah turned the page around.
A simple pencil sketch stared back at us.
An old-fashioned pocket watch.
Its glass face was cracked.
Its hands had stopped at exactly 11:17.
Nobody spoke.
Noah finally broke the silence.
"Every crime scene contained one."
Marcus frowned.
"A serial killer leaving trophies?"
"That’s what Professor Ellis first thought."
"But..."
He looked around the room.
"Police records say the watches weren’t registered as evidence."
Ryan blinked.
"What?"
"They disappeared."
Daniel looked confused.
"How do pieces of evidence disappear?"
"They were logged."
"They were photographed."
"They simply... weren’t there anymore."
A cold feeling settled in my chest.
The System remained completely silent.
Too silent.
That worried me more than any warning.
Noah slid one final photograph across the table.
It showed a dark alley behind what looked like an abandoned factory.
Near the center of the image lay a broken pocket watch.
Stopped.
11:17.
Then I noticed something else.
Someone stood in the background.
Only partially visible.
Tall.
Wearing a dark coat.
His face hidden by distance.
But even from the blurred image...
I recognized the posture.
Lucien.
"...Impossible," I muttered.
Noah looked at me.
"You recognize something?"
I quickly shook my head.
"No."
"I thought I did."
Ryan picked up the photograph.
"I can’t even tell if that’s a man or a lamp post."
Marcus took it from him.
"It’s definitely someone."
Daniel leaned forward.
"Can the photo be enlarged?"
"No."
"It was taken almost six years ago."
Noah closed the folder.
"Professor Ellis wants to know whether our club can organize the available information."
Ryan stared.
"...We’re investigating murders?"
"No."
Noah answered immediately.
"We’re organizing historical records."
"Nothing more."
Marcus nodded.
"That’s safer."
Ryan let out a relieved breath.
"For a second I thought we were about to hunt serial killers."
Noah gave him a tired look.
"We’re students."
"We leave investigations to the police."
I looked down at the photograph again.
Lucien.
If that really was him...
Then he hadn’t appeared at the exhibition by coincidence.
He had been connected to these incidents for years.
Or...
Someone who looked exactly like him had.
The familiar blue screen finally appeared before my eyes.
______
[Main Story Updated]
The Pocket Watch Murders
Status: Unlocked
Difficulty: Unknown
Investigate the historical records surrounding the unexplained murder cases.
Warning:
Do not investigate alone.
Reward: ???
Failure: Story Progression Uncontrolled.
______
My breathing slowed.
This wasn’t a side quest.
This was the next Chapter of the story.
Noah began collecting the newspapers.
"We’ll divide the files next meeting."
"Until then..."
He looked at each of us.
"Don’t spread this information."
"If Professor Ellis is right, we don’t know what we’re looking at yet."
Everyone nodded.
As we prepared to leave, my eyes drifted one last time toward the old photograph.
The figure in the background seemed almost insignificant.
Just another passerby.
Yet the more I looked...
The more certain I became.
Lucien hadn’t entered my life during the exhibition.
He had always been standing somewhere in the background of this story.
Watching.
Waiting.
And somehow...
He hadn’t aged a single day in six years.
The club meeting ended in near silence.
Unlike the cheerful conversations that usually followed our gatherings, nobody seemed interested in joking around.
Ryan was the first to sling his backpack over his shoulder.
"...This feels weird."
Marcus locked one of the classroom windows before turning around.
"We just spent an hour reading murder reports."
"I know."
Ryan forced a weak laugh.
"I don’t think detective novels prepared me for that."
Daniel zipped up his bag.
"They weren’t exactly graphic."
"No," Ryan admitted.
"But knowing they were real makes it different."
Noah gathered the newspaper clippings into the brown envelope with deliberate care.
"Remember what I said."
"No discussing this outside the club."
"If Professor Ellis entrusted these files to us, we shouldn’t treat them like gossip."
Everyone nodded.
"I’ll return the originals once we’ve organized everything."
Marcus glanced at the envelope.
"Why us?"
"Why not the police?"
Noah paused before answering.
"Professor Ellis doesn’t believe he has enough evidence to convince them."
"He isn’t asking us to investigate."
"Only to organize eight years of scattered records."
Daniel frowned.
"And if we find a connection?"
"Then we hand everything over."
Noah’s answer came without hesitation.
"We’re students."
"We don’t play detectives in real murder cases."
His voice was calm.
Firm.
No one argued.
We switched off the lights and stepped into the hallway.
The old building was unusually quiet.
Most clubs had already finished for the day, leaving only the distant hum of fluorescent lights and the occasional creak of old floorboards.
Ryan stretched.
"I suddenly don’t like how empty this building is."
Marcus looked at him.
"You were begging for a permanent club room yesterday."
"I still like the room."
"I just don’t like creepy hallways."
Daniel laughed.
"You watch too many horror movies."
"They’re educational."
"For what?"
"What not to do."
We walked down the corridor together.
As we reached the staircase, Noah suddenly stopped.
"...Did anyone else hear that?"
Everyone froze.
"Hear what?" Ethan asked quietly.
Noah looked back toward the end of the hallway.
"I thought..."
He frowned.
"...Never mind."
The hallway was empty.
Only rows of closed clubroom doors stretched into the distance.
Ryan let out the breath he’d been holding.
"Please don’t do that."
"I almost had a heart attack."
Marcus looked toward the hallway one last time.
"I didn’t hear anything."
Neither had I.
Yet...
Something felt wrong.
Not dangerous.
Just...
Off.
Almost as if someone had been standing there a second ago.
The feeling disappeared as quickly as it came.
We continued downstairs and eventually separated at the academy gate.
Ryan and Daniel headed toward the station together.
Marcus left for the sports complex.
Ethan caught a different bus.
Only Noah and I remained.
For several minutes, we walked without speaking.
The evening traffic filled the streets beyond the academy walls.
Finally, Noah broke the silence.
"You noticed something during the meeting."
It wasn’t a question.
I looked at him.
"What makes you think that?"
"You stared at the last photograph longer than everyone else."
"I noticed."
I smiled faintly.
"You notice too much."
"I’ve been told that before."
He adjusted the strap of his shoulder bag.
"You don’t have to answer."
"But if there’s something you remembered..."
"...it might matter."
I considered my response carefully.
The System hadn’t forbidden me from speaking.
It hadn’t encouraged it either.
"I thought the figure in the background looked familiar."
Noah’s expression sharpened.
"Someone from the academy?"
"I don’t know."
"It could’ve been my imagination."
He accepted the answer without pressing further.
"I’ll see if Professor Ellis knows where the original negatives are."
"If they still exist, perhaps we can enlarge the image."
My heartbeat quickened.
If they enlarged it...
Would they recognize Lucien?
Or would the photograph reveal something entirely different?
"I’ll let you know if I find anything."
We reached the intersection where our routes separated.
"See you tomorrow," Noah said.
"Tomorrow."
He walked away.
I remained standing for another moment before heading toward my apartment.
Night had fully settled by the time I arrived home.
After a quick dinner, I placed the brown envelope containing Lucien’s letter on my desk.
Beside it lay a notebook.
I opened to a blank page.
At the top, I wrote a single name.
Lucien
Below it, I began listing everything I knew.
Appeared at the Inter-Club Exhibition.
Solved the mystery unusually quickly.
Sent a letter addressed personally to Adrian Cross.
Knew my name before introducing himself.
Advised me not to look for him.
I hesitated before writing the final point.
Possibly present at a murder scene six years ago.
I stared at those words.
It made no sense.
Lucien looked no older than twenty-five.
If the photograph really showed him...
Then either it wasn’t the same man...
Or age simply didn’t apply to him.
A blue notification flickered into existence.
______
[Analysis Updated]
Subject: Lucien
Known Information: Insufficient.
Probability of Normal Human: 4.7%
Further data required.
______
I frowned.
Normal human?
The System had never categorized people like that before.
Before I could think further, another notification appeared.
It wasn’t blue.
It was crimson.
______
[Emergency Story Event Detected]
A Narrative Deviation has occurred.
Location:
Eastbridge District.
Estimated Time:
21:43.
Participants:
Unknown.
Recommendation:
Observe.
______
The message vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
I shot to my feet.
A Narrative Deviation?
This was the first time the System had issued an emergency alert.
I grabbed my jacket.
Just as my hand reached the apartment door...
My phone vibrated.
The caller ID displayed only one name.
Noah Walker.
The moment I answered, his normally calm voice came through the speaker.
"Adrian."
There was a pause.
Then he spoke four words that instantly erased any thought of staying home.
"Professor Ellis is missing."