Beesekai [A Monster Reincarnation Isekai]

The Knights stood with their rifles outstretched towards the mercenaries, standing off in the narrow section of the shoe store. Seyorohon, whether still under the effects of Greyan’s aura or simply due to the sudden development, was white as a sheet. Ben watched the standoff with bated breath, relaying the image to the rest of the hive. For a while, everything was silent. Finally, Greyan broke the hanging quiet.

“Put the mask on the floor and kick it to us. Make no sudden movements.”

Grehn did as instructed, keeping one arm in the air as he slowly put the mask down. Vlugh had both arms raised, but he was still tense. Every instinct told them to fight, to escape, but both refrained. Being framed and captured wasn’t even, in theory, a bad deal on their end. But they knew such a thing wouldn’t be acceptable as long as they were controlled by the bees.

A kick sent the mask tumbling along the wooden floor, coming to a precarious stop a pace or two from Greyan’s feet. The Knight Commander, whose rifle was held up in a peculiarly casual manner, holstered the weapon and picked up the mask. He inspected the thing for a moment before looking at the mercenaries once again. His gaze lingered the longest on Elofan, who wasn’t even raising her arms. Either she didn’t care at all to surrender, or, based on her confused stares, her people didn’t share the universal sign of giving up.

“This settles it, right Commander?” Herwen asked. His smug grin was just asking for him to get stung right on the nose.

“No.”

Greyan’s word was apparently surprising enough to make the Knights do a double take, as if they hadn’t heard him correctly. He had gone back to inspecting the mask and was stroking his beard in classic Greyan fashion.

“No? What do you mean, no? The message told us everything we needed to know. This is what we’ve been looking for,” Herwen said. Despite his mannerisms, the hands holding his weapon stayed steady and true.

“Uh, can I ask what’s going on exactly?” Vlugh asked. The Knights stared daggers at him, but Greyan simply waved the mask around.

“To be honest, Vlugh, I’m as puzzled as you are.” With his other hand, he pulled out the slab of wood. “The message on the piece of wood is the reason you’re in this situation right now. We were, in truth, deceiving you. The message in encoded in a somewhat dated version of the cipher used by the Royal Knights of Somuia, and it gave us a damning message condemning you and your group of murder. Of course, we weren’t going to perform an arrest based purely on a mysterious message left at our door, so we waited.”

As if testing their fates, Greyan weighed both objects with his hands. “You were quick to point out the shoe store, and quick to find this mask. The message told us you, the ‘friends of the fiend’ would ‘know where to look’ to find the ‘killer’s true self.’ It said nothing about either this store or the mask. So I must now ask this. Did you murder Lord Sawah? Well, Seyorohon?”

Greyan turned to the old man, whose pale face was slick with sweat. It took a moment for the accusation to register, but when it did, Seyorohon tried to speak. When his mouth flapped without a response, he vehemently shook his head.

“Commander…” Meyara said. Unlike before, her gaze was more uncertain than accusatory. “I can sense you’re going somewhere else with this. We already agreed that if they acted, it would confirm our suspicions. Why are you acting coy?”

“Well, Meyara, there is still the question of the messenger’s identity. I admit, it is strange that they would happen to find this bizarre mask in Seyorohon’s store, but it is far from concrete proof. They could have found anything mildly suspicious anywhere, and thanks to the message’s vagueness, it could be construed as evidence of foul play. I’m not fully convinced. And besides. I expressed my concerns about the message to you already.”

Herwen groaned. “Yeah, yeah, the thing about the Knight’s cipher. I’m sure mercenaries or some other faction could easily discover our older codes, like this one was. Maybe some rival mercenary is keeping an eye on them or something. Who cares? This is evidence enough for me.”

“Shut up Herwen.”

Greyan ignored Herwen’s incredulous look and strode over to Seyorohon. The man looked to be on the brink of collapse, he was shaking so badly. Greyan found a chair nearby and offered it to the man, who fell into the seat like a bag of rocks.

“Now, mister Seyorohon. You say you did not kill Lord Sawah. But do you know this mask?”

The mask with x-shaped eyeholes was dropped into Seyorohon’s lap. The man stared at the mask in silence, long enough for Greyan to clear his throat. Seyorohon looked up at the Knight Commander and seemed like there was something he wanted to say, but he continued to hold his tongue. Eventually, Greyan spoke again.

“The truth of the matter is, I have been wary ever since I received our mission brief. A Knight Commander and their personal squad, sent to a small town to investigate a bad batch of produce? Practically unheard of. We are under enough stress as is without our forces stretched thin to work petty errands. Any random government official could come speak with the Lord about matters of state. No, this mission has been rotten since the beginning. And you mercenaries are equally embroiled in this whole rotten thing.”

It was difficult to tell in the dim room, but thanks to Ben’s eyesight, it was clear that whatever color had been left in Seyorohon’s face quickly drained away. Greyan paced, stroking his beard. At this point, Meyara and Jey were staring at Greyan as if he had gone mad, not even paying attention to the mercenaries anymore. Herwen, on the other hand, seemed to have a case of twitchy fingers.

If there was any window of opportunity to run, this would be it. But the hive’s wisdom kept the humans in place. Elofan had flopped onto the ground and was cupping her chin with her large hands, apparently enjoying the show.

“A strange, seemingly useless mission. A sudden, high-profile murder. Suspicious mercenaries in the wrong place at the wrong time. Messages encoded with information that should only be known to Royal Knights. And you, Seyorohon, are suddenly thrust into the middle of it. A close friend of the late Lord. A simple shoe salesman. This is a fine collection you have, by the way.”

As he spoke, Greyan perused the rows and rows of shoes adorning the shelves. The entire place was stuffed to the brim. He picked up an elegant black dress shoe.

“This is a nice brand. Difficult to find. I believe their only official stores are in the capital, are they not?”

Seyorohon didn’t respond.

“And this, oh, this is nice. I’m friends with the son of the owner of this store. I recognize the craftsmanship - he taught me of a few techniques they used when we were in the Knight Academy together as potential recruits. And speaking of! These look like an older version of the standard-issue boots provided to all Knight prospects. How about that?”

The final pair of shoes Greyan grabbed were a pair of black leather boots, the same ones Ben had seen Seyorohon wearing when he snuck back into the store only an hour or so earlier. Seyorohon, finally having enough, let out a withering sigh. The man seemed practically brought to tears.

“…The mask is mine. It’s a private thing, something I can’t really talk about with outsiders.”

“The boots seem to imply a history with the Knights. They appear worn, recently even. So?”

“If you’re trying to say I wrote whatever damn message you keep talkin’ about, I have no idea. Yes, I tried to join the Knights when I was younger, but I couldn’t hack it, alright? I don’t know about any code or whatever.”

“Then what is your connection to these mercenaries?”

At that, a bit of spark finally seemed to return to Seyorohon’s eyes. “These outsiders came into town a couple years back, and that’s about all I know. Tried to sell ‘em some shoes. The only ones they bought were these great big slippers. Some girl who’s not with ‘em right now put them on her fuckin’ bird. But that’s all.”

Greyan strode over to the man once again and picked up the mask. “Well, there are still many pieces missing in this puzzle. If you’re not the one who wrote the message, despite your apparent connections to the Knights, that leaves few options. It’s even worse if you’re not connected with the mercenaries. You’re refuting those, so I won’t continue asking after them right now. Just know that the evidence is absolutely overwhelming that you are, at least, involved. But you are openly concealing the purpose of this mask. Seyorohon, I need you to tell me what this is. We are lacking information to find the true killer.”

When Greyan posed those questions to Seyorohon, the old man clammed up even harder than before. After several minutes of coaxing, it was clear that the man wouldn’t be talking, so Greyan pat him on the shoulder and told him to go to bed. The Knights became even more confused when he did that. At this point, Grehn and Vlugh had put their hands down despite Herwen’s warnings, and the man still had his weapon trained on them. But he was the only one. Greyan ended up putting his hand on Herwen’s shoulder, and the man finally relented. At that, Greyan sighed, and tucked away both the mask and the slab of wood into his pockets.

“Mercenaries, I want you to know you’re not off the hook yet. Every moment we spend in this town, you three become increasingly interesting cases to keep an eye on. From now on, the Knights will take over the investigation in full. You three and mister Seyorohon will be confined to a secure location in town while we work. For tonight, we’ll stay in the inn together once again, this time so we can monitor you.”

“This isn’t fair,” Grehn said, “and the fact you’re taking a suspicious message so seriously is frankly concerning. We are not involved in the Lord’s murder.”

“I believe it is fair, and your claims are yet to be proven. Though the message was vague, you all clearly knew something about this shoe store, and were even quicker to find the mask. As far as I’m concerned, either you all and Seyorohon are complicit in murder, or you have ulterior motives even I can’t begin to understand.”

“We couldn’t help it.” Vlugh groaned. “I don’t know. There was just something weird about the bundle of cloth. I was sure there was something off about it. How were we supposed to know there would be a creepy mask inside?”

Greyan’s ears perked up at that. Jey was silently berating Herwen, who was arguing with her about how they could just shoot the mercenaries and be done with the whole thing. Meyara, however, also must have caught something odd in what Vlugh said, because she cast a look towards Greyan.

“Interesting. Say, Vlugh. You seem to have given some thought about what the message said with your method of decoding. Were there any other combinations of note?” Greyan asked.

Vlugh looked at Grehn, who shrugged. Giving the hive a moment to relay a few of the combinations the Mother had deduced, Vlugh finally spoke. “Sure, there’s a bunch. ‘Ore of set shore,’ ‘hero toss foe,’ ‘rose of ethos,’ ‘host see roof.’ And that’s just to name a few.”

Meyara and Grehn looked at each other. It was a quick look, but obvious enough for the mercenaries to know something was up. Jey and Herwen just continued arguing. Greyan waved his hand in front of their faces, and they immediately stopped, though they were still giving each other stormy looks.

“I see. Well, for right now, it is late, and I think we are all a bit tired. Let’s go, get a good night’s sleep, and we can continue pointing fingers in the morning."