Real Murder? Part 1

At Felix's request, all the students gathered again in the hall of the building.

"And so, dear students. You are great, you quickly cope with the tests of our academy. But fighting skills and intelligence alone are not enough to be a good detective," said Chief William.

"Quickly? Seriously?" someone said in the crowd.

"So now the most favorite test of our students will take place - murder disclosure. You need to concentrate all your will and intellect into your fist. And make the only correct decision, based on which you will achieve the truth."

"How do we do it?" David asked.

"How to do it? First, we must remember that nothing is final in life. There is nothing definite and precise. Everything is relative. You cannot even trust your own eyes and other senses. Secondly, you must remember that the truth is always buried deep within. Despite this, the obvious things should never be overlooked. Everything in life is easy and at the same time everything is very difficult."

"What is he talking about? Just empty words," someone from the crowd asked.

"It will seem frivolous to you now or it maybe doesn't make sense," Felix continued as if answering a question from students, "but you will understand the essence of these words only at the scene of the crime."

"But this is already interesting," Aram said.

"Murder, hmm…" Reia mused.

"Riddles, riddles," Ksyu said. This idea was clearly to her liking.

"We will divide you into several groups and you will investigate one murder together," Felix added.

"I wonder if this is real murder?" Reia asked.

"Of course, the murder is not real," Felix said as if answering Reia's question.

Everyone next to Reia turned towards her. She was standing quite far from where Chief William and Felix were. This was the third time that their question was answered directly.

"Did they hear everything we say?" David asked with surprise and fear.

"Or is it just a coincidence," Aram said. "Relax."

"He certainly alarmed everyone," Ksyu said and giggled.

"Instead of a corpse, we will have something like a hallucination, or rather a hologram. It seems to me that it will be more pleasant than touching a dead body," Felix said. "Of course, during real investigations, you will come across real corpses and the process of searching for evidence, identifying the body, understanding the cause of a person's death, all this will not be very pleasant and easy. Of course, it would be more correct to use a real corpse, but for the first time, a hologram is enough for you."

"I would not mind examining a real corpse," David said.

"You probably haven't seen a single corpse in your life, but you want to touch it?" Aram said angrily.

"I…" David began.

A lot of incomprehensible images and memories were spinning in his head. All thoughts were confused.

He remembered the river. It was crystal clear, so clear that you could see its bottom. The girls lay motionless by the shore. Then the river began to turn redder and redder. The light blue eyes of a very beautiful girl with long blond hair looked at him. The ends of her hair were already stained with blood, and her body was hanging from a tree. It slowly swayed from the wind and because of this, it seemed alive. But suddenly the trees began to resemble huge red ones from the fire of the mouth. The forest wanted to eat the girls lying by the shore to hide the murder of its master. There was something mystical, incomprehensible in this terrible nightmare. And completely creepy. It was so unbearable that David for a moment forgot about the terrible face as if frozen in the branches of a tree. Seeing green wild eyes, which were staring at him, David came to his senses.

"There is nothing wrong with my desire to find out the truth and learn to do it as soon as possible," David finally said.

"And if you happened to find out what kind of torment a person went through, would you answer as well? If touching the corpse, you felt all the pain, all the suffering that this person experienced, how would you respond then?"

David thought for a second.

"It does not matter. I would answer the same."

"You would also answer just because you never get to experience it all. That's all."

"You mean I'm a weakling, right? Are you hinting at this?" David shouted.

"Boys!" Reia shouted.

"Yes! This is what I want to say!" Aram said. "All only know how to wag their tongue."

"I feel all the pain of people. I see it. I don't need to touch the corpses of people for this. I do not need to invade their head and know what they experienced while dying. When you talk to the acquaintances of a deceased person, through their stories, memories, photographs, you bring all these emotions through yourself, and your heart breaks. Isn't that enough?!"

"Yes! Exactly! It is not enough!" Aram shouted.

"Oh, you! Selfish creature!"

Voices began to appear in Aram's head again.

"Die, die bastard. Fool, selfish scum!"

Aram bent down to the floor holding his head. Reia knelt down on her knees and tried to help him up, but he fell again.

"David, that's enough," Ksyu said with a serious face.

David's rage began to subside. His eyes were still looking with hatred at Aram.

"If you do this again, I will put you in hundreds of chains and squeeze them so hard that your body will simply burst in front of everyone."

"Haa? Let's try then!" David said and was about to activate his superpower as he received a scalding slap in the face.

"I said enough," Ksyu said. Her gaze became even scarier.

David did not expect this. He looked at Ksyu with a sad and pitying look, from which she felt uncomfortable.

"Maybe I've overdone it," she thought.

"You're both wrong," Reia said. "This is the first thing. And secondly, we missed everything because of you."

"Thanks, get ready for the test," Felix said at that moment and left with Chief William.

"So what are we going to do now?" Reia asked.

The guys didn't say anything and just stared at the floor.

"Nothing, we'll figure it out on the spot," Ksyu answered. "This is a group assignment. It is unlikely that we will all fall into the same group together. So someone will definitely know what to do.

The announcement of groups again was heard in students' heads:

"Aram, Zen, David, Ksyu, Kano, Alex, and Reia, you go to the first room on the third floor."

"I am laughing, I'm just laughing, I can't do anything anymore," Ksyu said and began profusely laughing.