The sound of heavy rain was filling the house. Thunders were still roaring from time to time. In the living room, a few people gathered for a sleepover; Rena, Chung, Lu, Rose, Nisha, and Noah. Aside from the rain, they could hear Noah eating his snacks.

"What kind of story?" Noah asked as he tilted his head. He was used to horror stories and hoping for a new genre.

"Hm… Mystery, I think?" Rena smiled at everyone. "I never told you about my time in that timeline. Aren't you guys curious?"

"Not really. You can't even think properly," Nisha said bluntly. Judging by Rena's decision to make dating a plaything, she didn't expect any good stories coming from her.

Contrary to Nisha, Lu's eyes widened in excitement. "This will be fun! Tell us!"

Here is a list of everyone's class in the detective agency timeline!

Elsword - Knight Emperor

Aisha - Aether Sage

Rena - Prophetess

Raven - Nova Imperator

Eve - Code: Antithese

Chung - Dius Aer

Ara - Surya

Elesis - Flame Lord

Add - Doom Bringer

Lu/Ciel - Diangelion

Rose - Tempest Burster

Ain - Opferung

Laby - Eternity Winner

Noah - Celestia

Unlike our local El Gang, it was easy for the detective agency's members to spot Rena's difference with Prophetess. "I was using potions, then somehow I got here and couldn't go back after a day…" Rena muttered with a sad look, her ears pointed down.

Code: Antithese didn't blame her and simply found the best solution for the time being. She looked at Celestia, who was Prophetess' partner. "Noah, take her with you. Pay for her food and send me the bill."

"Of course! Shall we explore the universe?" Celestia smiled, grabbing Rena's hand and casually taking her out of Code: Antithese's office.

As they walked to the crime scene, Noah explained what was happening in their timeline. Massive crimes were happening, police lines were placed almost in every neighborhood, police cars and ambulances were driving around everywhere. As bad as it looked, the current situation was way better ever since Code: Antithese's detective agency was working.

They arrived at a burned apartment. The firefighters were still working on extinguishing all the source of the fire. Noah showed his badge to the police working there as an entry. An ambulance rushed to their direction, and from the apartment, some people were taking out the victims, including the burned victims.

Rena's stomach acted up right away, she covered her mouth and turned around. She didn't get to look at the whole body, but the image was visible in her mind. "O-Oh, uh, I thought you guys are used to this," Celestia said with a forced smile.

Rena took a deep breath and released it. "W-Well, not in that condition…" she said with a concerned look. Elrios in her timeline involved killing too, but it was mostly demons.

Celestia took out his phone and dialed a number. "Hello? Ara? Is Chung ready to go to the hospital yet?"

"I don't think he will ever be ready. What happened there?"

"Fire at Lanox Apartment. An explosion came from a certain room and killed several people," Celestia answered as they entered the apartment.

"O-Oh… Oh my… Surely it's just an accident?"

"I saw one of the dead bodies being tied up," Celestia informed as they walked up the stairs to go to the certain room.

"Tied up?! Ah… Today is going to be a difficult time… I'll go there right away! Call me again if you need anything."

"I overheard it. What does she do?" Rena repeated with a curious look.

"Oh, don't tell anyone. Ara hates it when people ask about her real job," Celestia smiled, offering her pinky finger to make a promise. Rena agreed by nodding her head and did their pinky promise. "She's not a doctor yet, but she will be one in a few years. Her side job is to do an autopsy at the hospital. Laby will always be with her to gather evidence about the individual."

"I see…" Rena thought about it as they walked to the 'accident' scene. They showed their ID cards to the police, wore their gloves, and walked carefully to not tamper with evidence.

"Weird. Why are these porn magazines not getting burned up?" Celestia wondered with a confused look. Most of the items turned into ashes already, but somehow the porn magazines on the floor were still visible, mostly half burned.

"E-Eeeh? Was the victim a pervert?" Rena asked while looking away from the indecent image. "Maybe he happened to be in some kinky stuff, then an accident happened?"

"Or someone else was trying to make it look like that," Celestia said as he gathered the remaining of the porn magazines and put it in plastic bags. "Did you find anything?"

Rena forced herself to laugh. "Um… no. I'm following you."

"That works too. You're about to anger the victim's soul from disrespecting them by making that conclusion, so follow me," Celestia smiled as he walked to the next room.

"D-Don't leave me!" Rena panicked and followed Celestia. Before she left the room, she put her palms together and bowed down to the burned sofa in the living room. "I'm sorry for making assumptions."

They went to the nearest hospital. A lot of nurses and doctors were walking around between rooms. A lot of patients were queuing and waiting too. They walked deeper into the room in the corner, slowly losing the crowds. "Noah! Rena!" Eternity Winner waved her hands to greet them.

"Hi Laby! I have something for Ara to check," Celestia said as he casually opened the door. Surya was in the middle of doing the autopsy, and ever since that day, Rena couldn't unsee what she just saw.

The investigation didn't feel like it was long and thorough, but the sun was set already. Both Rena and Celestia went back to their office–which was one of the empty rooms below the floor of Code: Antithese's office. Celestia put the files on top of the table and read through them all over again.

Rena looked around the room that was surprisingly tidy. "Sorry, I'm not really helpful," she apologized with a sad look. She really wanted to do something, but this wasn't her expertise. Analyzing every single detail, questioning everything that seems off, or creating deductions weren't something she used to do.

"Don't say that when you haven't even told me anything aside from that random accusation," Celestia said, narrowing his eyes at the elf and unintentionally pressuring her. He let Rena sit on the sofa, giving all the files in his hands to her, and sat next to her. "Tell me what you think! Don't feel stupid or anything. Just tell me anything."

Rena was confused, especially when she didn't know where to start reading. She opened the files, which was the apartment's owner data, who was also the victim of the accident.

The victim's name was Berthe. Unlike the Berthe she knew from her world, Berthe in this case was a 42 years old male human, with blue hair and eyes. He was single and lived alone in the apartment.

According to his neighbors, he was a weird guy with unusual creepy taste, which explained why his apartment looked like a haunted place. Other than that, the neighbors remarked that he was a nice and diligent person, always helping the others.

He worked as a mailman. The boss and co-workers admired him, despite his weirdness. He always delivered the mail correctly, even helping the others when they had too much mail in their hands. In short, he was one of the best employees.

The gas in his kitchen exploded, making a fire throughout the building. He was found dead on his sofa. He was tied up to it and burned alive, confirmed by Surya's autopsy report. There were remains of porn magazines on the floor, but the other nearby books were burned completely, leaving only the hard cover. The security cameras found no other individuals entering his apartment on the day of the incident.

"It's weird. He's a good guy, so who wanted him dead?" Rena uttered the first question that came to her mind. "But it's also weird to call it an accident. He's tied up."

Celestia nodded his head. He didn't comment and kept listening to her.

"I… think my imaginations are too wild. I don't know anything," Rena smiled wryly and gave the files back to Celestia.

"It's fine, tell me. What did you imagine?" Celestia asked.

Rena forced herself to laugh and looked away from him. "Well, you know, since nothing is connected… What if the one making the files is lying? Like, what if he's actually a bad guy? We didn't ask around!"

Rena was expecting Celestia to laugh at her, but he didn't. He read the files once more, thinking about what Rena just said. If the police were actually involved in this 'crime', it made sense why nothing added up.

Knock, knock!

Code: Antithese entered the room. Rena greeted her right away while Celestia was still busy reading the files. "I see you're handling it just fine. How's your first day?" Code: Antithese asked.

"It's… a bit overwhelming, to be honest," Rena smiled slightly with a sad look. "There are more questions that come to my head instead of answers. I don't really know what to do."

"Eve, did Berthe have a criminal record?" Celestia asked as he looked into Code: Antithese's eyes.

Several hologram screens popped up from Code: Antithese's black drone. It was data of Berthe that looked similar to the one they had in their hands. "He didn't. Why?"

"I can't connect anything in this case. There's too little information," Celestia reported their investigation of the day. "If he's really a good guy, why was nobody trying to help him? Hm… actually, maybe they were."

"Did you make sure the security camera footage wasn't edited?" Code: Antithese asked. Rena and Celestia just faced each other, since they didn't think of that possibility. "There would be a lot of reasons to kill a good guy. For example, maybe his neighbor kept comparing her husband with him, then the husband was enraged."

"That's unnecessary, though," Rena commented as she looked through the files again.

Code: Antithese chuckled at the comment. "It's just an example. It happened before."

Celestia smiled, placing the file inside the drawer and preparing to go home instead. "Then there's a lot of things to explore tomorrow!" Celestia said as he looked at Rena. "Good work for today. I'll escort you home. Oh, maybe we could grab dinner first?"

"Huh… Berthe as a good guy?" Lu asked in disgust. The gang had too many bad memories fighting the demonic beast in the past. Even worse, the beast was still alive somewhere. They never killed him.

"Did they actually tamper with the security camera footage?" Nisha asked. She was interested in hearing the ending now, since she already heard the case.

"Maybe he got a huge debt. Who knows? He's a weird guy, right?" Rose asked with a confused look.

Rena was startled when she heard Rose's words. "Y-Yeah! We found out he got a huge debt everywhere! His bank account and debt list were revealed the day after. One of the people he was in debt with got furious and decided to kill him and took his cash."

"Does that mean you can investigate this house after leaving for a few weeks?" Chung asked in curiosity.

Rena just forced herself to laugh. "Sadly, I can't. Celestia did most of the job…"

The group finally realized Noah wasn't even eating his snack anymore. He was smiling with sparkly eyes. "I want to be awesome like Celestia!"

"You have your own way to be awesome and you already are!" Rena smiled back and patted Noah's head.

"Crossdress and Rena will be more proud of you–"

Lu smacked Chung's head slightly to stop him from talking. With how lively the small group was, Rena stared at them with a serious look. "Well? What happened while I was gone? All I know is Prophetess measured Chung's body size," Rena asked with a pout. For some reason, nobody was willing to tell her about it.

And for some reason that the gang knew, they were reluctant to tell her. What happened at the hot spring was still a 'memorable' moment for some people. Chung, Lu, and Noah were looking at each other, but none of them were willing to say anything.

"Prophetess thought you're a pervert," Nisha said, deciding to be blunt with everything. Rose was trying to stop her, but Lu grabbed Rose from the back to let Nisha say everything she wanted.

Rena blinked her eyes several times. After convincing herself that she heard it right, her face flushed red. "Is that why she measured him?!"

Rose finally burst out laughing. She found it funny how Chung was just listening to all this with a straight face, despite what happened.

"Prophetess also tried to lift up his skirt in public when he was wearing his maid outfit. Long story short, we thought you lost it and decided to be a shameless humiliator," Nisha said with also a straight look. "Luckily, Add found out Prophetess was acting strange, so that's that."

"How are you not reacting to any of these?!" Rose asked Chung with a laugh, even tears came out of her eyes.

"It already happened. What do you want me to do?" Chung asked back.

Rena sighed heavily and forced herself to laugh. She wasn't sure what to feel anymore. "You know what? We need our last bedtime story for tonight," she said as she placed a box that she hid behind her the whole time. Inside of it was a lot of colorful potions. "Let's do it! Which color do you guys want to pick? Maybe Noah?"

Noah was startled when his name got mentioned. "H-Huh? Why me?"

"Because you're the only person that hasn't seen this in this group," Chung said as he pushed Noah to move closer to the box.

But Chung's words drew suspicion from Rena. "What do you mean by that? Have you seen this before?"

But Chung didn't answer her. He just gave a smile, and patiently waited for Noah to pick a potion.