Transmigrated as a Playboy: I Solve Crime With Forensic

Shattered Reflection

CRACK-BOOM.

The sound was singular, violent, and absolute.

My tungsten-tipped pile bunker met the Mist-Walker’s fist of solid ice. Physics dictated the winner instantly. Ice, no matter how magically reinforced, is a crystal lattice. It is brittle. Tungsten is one of the hardest metals in the universe.

The Mist-Walker’s arm didn't just break; it detonated.

Shards of blue ice exploded outward like shrapnel. The force of the 2,000 PSI punch traveled up his arm, shattering the elbow and blowing the shoulder joint apart.

"ARGHHH!"

The killer screamed—a sound of grinding glaciers—and stumbled back, clutching the stump of his arm. Steam hissed from the vents of my gauntlet as the piston retracted with a metallic clank.

"Solid state has its drawbacks," I panted, clutching my bruised shoulder. The recoil had nearly dislocated it. "You gave up fluidity for strength. Bad trade."

"You... insignificant... insect!"

The Mist-Walker roared. The fog swirling around him darkened to a bruised purple. The shattered ice on the floor began to vibrate.

"Regeneration," Eleanor warned, raising her Cryo-Sprayer. "Silas, get back! He's pulling ambient moisture!"

The Mist-Walker didn't just regenerate his arm. He expanded. The fog billowed out, filling the workshop with a thick, blinding haze.

"I am the storm!" his voice echoed from everywhere at once. "Try punching the wind, Detective!"

The Hall of Mirrors

Visibility dropped to zero. I couldn't see Eleanor. I couldn't see Nyx.

"Girls, sound off!" I yelled, backing up until my spine hit the workbench.

"Here! Three o'clock!" Nyx shouted.

"Nine o'clock!" Eleanor called out.

Whoosh.

A blade of ice slashed out of the fog, missing my nose by an inch. I flinched back, stumbling on my bad ankle.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

Two more blades struck from opposite directions. Nyx parried one with a clash of steel. Eleanor blasted the other with the sprayer.

"There's three of them!" Nyx yelled.

I squinted through the gloom. She was right. Three distinct shapes of the Mist-Walker were circling us.

"Clones?" Eleanor asked, panic rising in her voice. "Mirror Images?"

"No," I whispered, my brain racing despite the poison clouding my thoughts. "Conservation of Mass. He can't create matter. He split his density."

If he split into three, each one was only 33% as dense as the original. They were weaker. But they were faster.

"Silas, which one is real?" Eleanor screamed as a clone hammered her ice shield.

"They're all real!" I shouted. "He's a hive mind. We have to hit the Core! The Anchor!"

"Where is it?" Nyx dodged a strike, rolling under a workbench.

I scanned the three figures. They looked identical. Glowing red eyes. Jagged ice armor. Vaporous cloaks.

Think, Aris. Think.

How do you find a solid object inside a cloud?

Air displacement.

"Eleanor!" I yelled. "The ventilation fans! On the ceiling!"

"What about them?"

"Turn them on! Use your telekinesis on the blades! Create a draft!"

"I'm a little busy!" Eleanor grunted, ducking under a massive ice hammer.

"Just do it! Spin the fans!"

Eleanor let out a frustrate shriek. She threw a hand upward, pushing her magic into the rusted, giant fans hanging twenty feet above us.

CREAAAAK.

The ancient bearings groaned. Then, slowly, the massive blades began to turn.

Whirrrrr...

A downdraft hit the room. The air began to cycle.

The fog swirled.

Two of the Mist-Walkers wavered in the wind. Their forms flickered, the vapor being pulled apart by the airflow. They struggled to maintain cohesion.

But the third one—the one in the center—didn't waver. He stood solid. Heavy. The wind flowed around him.

"Center!" I pointed with my gauntlet. "The heavy one! That's the Core!"

"I'm on it!" Nyx launched herself from the shadows.

She didn't aim for his head. She aimed for his legs. She slid across the floor, her daggers flashing. She severed the ice encasing his knees.

The Mist-Walker stumbled.

"Eleanor! Flash Freeze the floor!" I ordered.

Eleanor dropped the fans and aimed her sprayer at the ground beneath the killer's feet. A stream of liquid nitrogen hit the stone.

The floor turned into a skating rink of absolute zero.

The Mist-Walker tried to step, but he had no traction. He slipped, crashing onto his back with a thunderous thud.

"Now, Silas!" Nyx yelled, jumping onto his chest and stabbing her daggers into his shoulders to pin him down. "Punch his lights out!"

I ran.

My bad ankle screamed. My lungs burned. The gauntlet felt like it weighed a ton.

But I ran.

The Mist-Walker saw me coming. He opened his mouth to unleash a blast of steam.

"Oh no you don't," Eleanor shouted. She threw a chunk of scrap metal into his mouth, gagging him.

I reached him. I stood over the fallen monster.

I looked into his glowing red eyes.

"This is for Lydia," I snarled.

I didn't aim for the face. I aimed for the center of his chest, where the vapor was densest—where a dark, pulsing Mana Stone sat protected by layers of magical ice.

I placed the tip of the pile bunker directly against his sternum.

"Checkmate."

I pulled the trigger.

KA-CHUNK!

The tungsten spike punched through the outer ice. It punched through the ribcage. It hit the Core.

CRACK.

The sound wasn't loud. It was the sound of a lightbulb breaking.

The red glow in the Mist-Walker’s eyes vanished instantly.

The fog in the room lost its cohesion. The clones dissolved into harmless puddles of water. The main body under Nyx crumbled into a pile of dirty slush and old bones.

Silence returned to the workshop.

Nyx rolled off the pile of slush, panting. "Gross. I have slushie in my boots."

Eleanor lowered her sprayer, leaning against a pillar for support. She looked at me.

I stood there, staring at the pile of ice. The gauntlet hissed, releasing the last of its air pressure.

I reached into the slush. My fingers brushed against something hard.

I pulled it out.

It wasn't a Mana Stone. It was a mask. A gray, porcelain mask with a sigil carved into the forehead.

And beneath the mask... was a man.

He was old, shriveled, his skin gray from years of dark magic usage. He was dead—the spike had pierced his heart.

"Who is he?" Eleanor asked, walking over, her dress trailing in the wet grime.

I checked the man's pockets. I pulled out a pocket watch. It was gold, engraved with a crest.

I recognized the crest from my history books.

"Lord Blackwood," I whispered. "The former Minister of Health."

Eleanor gasped. "He disappeared ten years ago. Everyone thought he died of the plague."

"He didn't die," I said grimly, pocketing the watch. "He joined the Gallery. He became the Mist-Walker."

"Why?" Eleanor asked, horrified. "He was a good man. He built orphanages."

"Power," Nyx said, picking up the fallen Ledger from the slush. "Immortality. The Gallery promises eternal life in exchange for mana harvesting. He traded his humanity to become a monster."

I looked at the corpse. It was a stark reminder of what we were up against. These weren't just criminals; they were the pillars of society.

"Silas," Nyx said, her voice serious. "He has a key."

She pointed to a heavy iron key hanging around the dead man's neck.

I yanked it off.

"The exit?" Eleanor asked hopefully.

"Or the entrance to something worse," I said.

I looked around the workshop. At the far end, behind the excavator suit, was a small service elevator. It had a single keyhole.

"That leads up," I deduced. "Probably to the sewers beneath the Onyx District."

"Home," Eleanor breathed.

"Not yet," I said. "We can't go home. Draven thinks we're dead. The King thinks we're dead. If we show up at the Manor, they'll kill us instantly."

"Then where do we go?" Eleanor asked, looking lost. The Ice Queen was gone; she was a fugitive now.

I looked at Nyx.

"We go to the one place the King can't see," I said. "The Slums. Nyx's turf."

Nyx grinned, spinning a dagger. "Rent is expensive, My Lord. I hope you're good for it."

"Put it on my tab," I said.

I tried to take a step toward the elevator.

My vision went black.

The Stoke-Salts wore off. The adrenaline crash hit me like a physical blow. My heart skipped a beat, then fluttered weakly.

I pitched forward.

"Silas!"

I felt soft arms catch me. I smelled lilies and ice. Eleanor.

"I've got you," she whispered fiercely, holding my weight. "I've got you, husband."

"Just... a nap," I mumbled, my consciousness fading. "Wake me... when we're rich."

The last thing I saw was Eleanor lifting me up, her blue eyes filled with a fierce determination, and Nyx opening the elevator doors to the long climb back to the surface.