The butler was behind every single murder in the family.
He pushed the eldest son off the top floor. He drugged the daughter with edibles and forced hallucinations upon her, eventually driving her to madness and then suicide. He put lofty ideas of freedom and exploration in the third son's head and on the day he tried to run, the butler's hired murders were already waiting to make it seem like an accident.
And when the master was about to kill himself, he reminded the master of his bastard daughter. The master welcomed her back, not knowing that the butler was secretly in contact with her.
He swore to get her the master's wealth. This was his means to do it.
There was one complication however. That was the master calling the detective over. Throughout the years, Sebastian managed to trick the lord into believing these were all random events caused by the children themselves.
But once the master's daughter came back, he decided to do this to reassure her of her safety. Fearing that a connection would be drawn to him, Sebastian staged a murder.
While the detective was performing his checks, he would stab the daughter's son, absolving her of all guilt. That meant, there were only three culprits left. Himself, the lord and the cook. He planned to accuse the cook by using one of his knives.
But to kill the child, he made the woman do it herself.
A dark twist no one would ever see coming.
Once Alexi was done explaining, the whole crowd was even more silent. Even the heavy rain and thunder seemed to be dead silent, afraid to make the first move after such a heavy reveal.
"As you can see. It's all in my notebook."
"Yeah, this is all a buncha nothing.", The chief muttered.
"No, chief. Look closer. Everything he said actually lines up.", Buck argued, pointing out certain pages in the notebook.
"Nah, doesn't change the part about him being a scammer. For all we know, both he and the chef are really in this."
'Ah? What the hell? None of this was enough? I said the culprit and gave the correct answer. Why the hell am I still here?'
"Kekeke!"
Interrupting Alexi's turmoiled thoughts was Cain and his terrible cackle. His black eyes, filled with nothing but sheer malice towards Alexi, sent a message.
"You didn't really think it'd be that easy, right?"
Alexi bit down on his fingernail.
Easy? How in the world was this plot easy? It was honestly a ridiculous murder mystery with clues that one under normal circumstances shouldn't be able to figure out. There was a reason why readers felt this arc was dragged out and it was because Chris spent quite some time understanding the characters and their history to arrive at this conclusion.
Saying what Alexi just did was easy was not even an insult. It was plain stupid.
So, what exactly did Alexi need to do in order to win.
The chief pocketed Alexi's notebook, then grabbed him by the forearm.
"Unless you got something more to convince me, yer gonna be sleeping in a cellar tonight."
It suddenly hit Alexi.
The solution to this riddle. It was right there in front of him. They said it to him blatantly multiple times. If Lazy God was changing certain aspects of the story, it made sense they would also try to change this part.
Rather than the solution being to point out the true culprit, it was to convince the officers.
This scenario was entirely different from the one he'd made and not just because Cain was present.
Rather than this being something like a basic game with the same two responses to any statement, Alexi had to think of it as a carefully constructed Visual Novel with multiple conversation threads and endings.
With that thought in mind, he formulated a winning card.
'Might as well get rid of him permanently now, then.'
"I'm not done. You want the final piece of the puzzle, right?"
"Hm?", The cops
The officers were waiting for Alexi to continue. They then noticed his stare was being directed at someone. They traced is directory and finally settled on the other shady detective, who was smirking.
"Ask him.", Alexi said. "Since he's the real detective, he should have figured out the final piece already. I've found it quite weird that this man who's been looking for me hasn't said a word other than accusing me of being a scammer."
"Eh?", Cain coughed, caught off-guard by the sudden attention he was receiving.
"That is true, chief.", Buck innocently said. "His behaviour is quite suspect."
"Ah, n-no. Th-that-"
"What's wrong, Detective Cain. Cat got your tongue?", Alexi, with the widest, relaxed smile on his face asked.
"No! I was just about to ask to see your notebook. Such a simple puzzle is beneath me."
Cain stretched out his hand, rudely demanding the notebook from the officers. His behaviour earned him a snarl from the chief.
Furiously, the senior student flipped through the pages, eyes thoroughly scanning each inch. The longer he went on, the harder his face contorted with a mix of rage, confusion and betrayal.
"W-What's this!? It's all scribbles."
Both officers furrowed their brows at Cain's outburst. They looked over into the notebook, then at Cain.
"The hell are ya talking about? That's perfect hand writing.", The chief remarked.
"Honestly, it's quite elegant hand writing.", Buck added.
"Are you two insane? This says nothing!", Cain roared in utter disbelief.
"Heh.", Alexi silently cackled.
He expected Cain's confusion. Obviously, anyone would be confused upon reading that notebook. Its contents were written in a language only a select few could understand.
It went without saying that Alexi was not one of these individuals himself. He quickly confirmed that soon after opening it. In the novel, Chris was one of the few characters that could understand this language.
Alexi was doubtful of Cain being one of those characters, so he set him up.
'I knew it.'
Cain was no mastermind. Someone brought him here. Someone told him to give the officers that piece of paper. That was the reason he hadn't said a word.
Alexi was willing to bet he didn't even understand the situation.
The senior student was a simple idiot deadest on getting revenge for Alexi embarrassing him. Whoever the real mastermind was, took advantage of Cain's hatred for Alexi.
All that thinking was pushed to the back for the moment. Currently, Alexi found himself having too much fun poking at Cain's intelligence.
"Oh, come on, big guy. I'm a scammer, right? Then you should easily piece the final piece of this dumb scammer's puzzle together, right?"
He drew closer and leaned in to whisper to Cain's ear.
"Aww, shit pants can't read too?"
"Gah! To hell with it! I don't need any of this to kill you, you infernal gutter rat!", Cain finally lost it. His fists went ballistic as they swung wildly.
"Gutter rat. That's a new one. I don't like it very much.", Alexi, on the other hand, found himself in his element with many more jokes starting to rush out.
Before Cain's fists could touch Alexi, the officers managed to pin him down with ease. Alexi had no fear of Cain using his abilities to overwhelm the human officers.
Afterall, if it was possible to brute force his way out of the third floor, the protagonist would have done so in the novel.
Once handcuffs had been placed on Cain, alongside a fair share of clubbings, Buck finally turned to Alexi, flashing him a gentle grin.
"What's the final piece of the puzzle?"
"Oh, you see, there is no final piece."
"What?"
Alexi scratched the back of his head.
"Truth is, I already told you everything. But because of that guy, you guys wouldn't believe a word I said. So I had to make you believe me."
It was a simple yet ingenious plan. If Alexi couldn't get the officers to believe him, then he could at the very least get them to not believe Cain. Once trust in both of them had been turned down to zero, the officers had no choice but to believe the only one who had shown a semblance of intelligence or competence.
The only logical choice in this matter was Alexi.
"Ha, I see. Very clever, detective.", Buck commented, tipping his hat off to him. "We hope to get your help again."
"We'll see about… that…?"
Ironically, much like a game, the entire cast faded out, leaving Alexi with in the mansion alone with the lord of the manor.
"Thank you, detective. For years, I assumed that my family was cursed, but now, with their murderers brought to justice, perhaps their souls can finally rest in peace."
The old man had tears in his eyes as he weakly thanked Alexi. The young man felt awkward as he listened to the old man thank him.
"You will be paid in gold, of course, but I wish to give you this as well."
Saying this, the lord pulled out a chest from behind his chair. The chest had a marble-casing with twin golden elephants on opposing ends. Their interlinked trunks acted as lock, holding a ruby jewel down.
The old man twisted the ruby jewel, and Alexi, although not certain, felt he could hear the elephants tooting their trumpets.
The lid of the case flipped open, revealing a single crystalline quill, resting gently in the box of velvet pillows.
"Please, don't be shy. Take it."
Alexi reached his hand into the case and took it. The quill was about the size of his forearm, yet weighed less than a ballpoint pen.
"Now then. I believe you best be on your way, young man."
With that statement, Alexi felt a cool breeze blow over him and his eyes snapped open to meet a black marble ceiling.
He was back in the first floor of the dungeon.