Transmigrated as a Playboy: I Solve Crime With Forensic

Abyss and Truth

The adrenaline that had carried me through the ballroom, the explosion, and the teleportation finally ran out.

And when adrenaline leaves, it doesn't say goodbye politely. It slams the door on its way out.

"Silas!"

I heard Eleanor’s scream, but it sounded distant, warped by the rushing blood in my ears. The pain in my ankle—which I had been ignoring—exploded into a white-hot agony that shot up my leg and settled in my spine. The Nightshade Essence, momentarily suppressed by the antidote, saw its chance. My heart stuttered. My vision grayed.

I collapsed.

I didn't hit the ground. I hit leather.

"I’ve got you, pretty boy," Nyx grunted, catching me under the arms. She was strong for her size, but my dead weight made her stumble. "Don't you dare pass out. We have company."

Company.

I forced my eyes open. The cavern was alive.

The clicking sound was deafening now. Thousands of Clockwork Spiders—each the size of a large dog, made of rusted brass and glowing red glass—poured over the stalagmites like a mechanical wave. They didn't roar. They just clicked. Click-whir-click.

"Ice Lance!" Eleanor shouted.

She stood between us and the horde, a solitary figure of blue light in the encroaching darkness. Spears of ice erupted from her hands, skewering the lead spiders. Metal screeched as brass shattered under the magical impact.

But for every spider she destroyed, three more climbed over the wreckage.

"There's too many!" Eleanor yelled, her voice straining. "My mana... the air down here is thin. I can't pull enough aether to sustain a barrier!"

"We need a choke point!" Nyx shouted, dragging me backward. "The tunnel behind us! Go!"

"I can't leave him!" Eleanor fired a wave of frost that froze a dozen spiders mid-jump.

"I have him, Princess! Move your ass or we all die!"

Eleanor hesitated, glancing back at me—limp, pale, and useless in the thief's arms. Then she gritted her teeth and sprinted toward the narrow fissure in the rock wall.

Nyx hauled me up. "Run, Vane. Or hop. Just move."

I tried. I really did. I put weight on my left foot, and my knee buckled. I vomited bile onto the stone floor.

"Damn it," Nyx cursed. She didn't complain. She didn't leave me. She threw my arm over her shoulder and practically carried me, her boots skidding on the damp moss.

We scrambled into the tunnel just as the mechanical wave crashed against the rock face.

"Seal it!" Nyx screamed.

Eleanor spun around, hands glowing. "Glacial Wall!"

She slammed her palms into the tunnel floor. Thick, opaque ice rushed upward, sealing the entrance.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

The spiders slammed against the other side. We could see their red eyes glowing through the semi-transparent ice. The metallic scratching sound was horrific, like forks on a chalkboard, magnified a thousand times.

But the wall held.

For now.

The Quiet in the Dark

We were trapped in a narrow service corridor. The air was stale, smelling of ozone and ancient grease.

Nyx dropped me against the wall. I slid down, gasping for air, clutching my chest. My heart rate was dropping too low. 35 BPM... 30...

"He's crashing," Nyx said, kneeling beside me. She ripped open my velvet coat, checking the wound on my forehead. It was inflamed, the veins around it turning black. "The antidote wore off."

"Antidote?" Eleanor loomed over us, her own chest heaving from the magical exertion. Her dress was torn, her hair ruined. She looked at Nyx, then at me. "What antidote? What is happening to him?"

"He's poisoned, Your Highness," Nyx spat, pulling a flask of water from her belt and forcing it to my lips. "Nightshade Essence. He's been dying for two days. Didn't you notice?"

Eleanor froze. She looked at the wound on my head. Then she looked at my face—the sweat, the pallor, the trembling.

"I thought... I thought he was just hungover," Eleanor whispered. The realization hit her visibly. Her arrogance crumbled into shock. "He fought the Porcelain Lady... while dying?"

"Drink," Nyx ordered me.

I choked down the water. "I need... sugar," I wheezed. "Glucose. To spike the metabolism."

"I have dried fruit," Nyx rummaged in her pouch. She shoved a piece of dried apricot into my mouth.

I chewed slowly. The sugar hit my bloodstream. It wasn't a cure, but it woke my brain up.

I leaned my head back against the cold stone, closing my eyes.

"We're safe for the moment," I whispered. "The spiders... they operate on thermal sensors. The ice wall hides our heat signature."

Silence stretched in the tunnel. Heavy, awkward silence.

Then, the interrogation began.

"Who are you?"

It was Eleanor. Her voice wasn't angry anymore. It was quiet, shaking slightly.

I opened one eye. She was standing over me, her arms crossed, holding her own elbows as if she were cold.

"I'm your husband, Eleanor," I rasped.

"No," she said firmly. "My husband is a fool. My husband cries when he gets a paper cut. My husband doesn't know what 'Resonance' is. He doesn't know how to make explosives out of... whatever that was."

She took a step closer, her blue eyes piercing the gloom. "And my husband certainly doesn't know about the scar on my shoulder. I got that scar when I was ten. I fell from a wyvern, not a horse. I never told anyone. Silas was the only one who saw it... on our wedding night."

She knelt down, grabbing my collar. Her hands were trembling. "You have his face. You have his memories. But you are not him. Are you a demon? A shapeshifter?"

Nyx watched us, her hand resting on her dagger, eyes darting between the wife and the husband. She stayed silent, enjoying the drama.

I looked at Eleanor. I could lie. I could tell her I hit my head and became a genius. But she was too smart for that.

"The Silas you knew is dead, Eleanor," I said softly.

She flinched.

"He died three days ago," I continued, the lie blending with the truth. "When the Syndicate poisoned him. When I woke up... something had changed. Maybe the poison rewired my brain. Maybe the near-death experience woke up parts of me that were sleeping."

I reached out and took her hand. She tried to pull away, but I held on.

"I remember the wedding night," I said, looking into her eyes. "I remember you crying in the bathroom because you didn't want to marry the 'Hollow Lord.' I remember promising I wouldn't touch you unless you asked. And I remember breaking that promise of distance by drinking myself into a stupor every night to forget the look of disappointment in your eyes."

Eleanor’s breath hitched. A tear slipped down her cheek. Those were intimate, painful memories. Only Silas could know the depth of that misery.

"I am Silas," I lied, forcing conviction into my voice. "But I'm done being the victim. I'm done being Hollow."

Eleanor stared at me for a long, agonizing moment. Then, she pulled her hand away. She didn't hug me. She didn't kiss me. But the hostility was gone, replaced by a wary confusion.

"If you die down here," she whispered, standing up and smoothing her dress, "I will never forgive you."

"A touching reunion," Nyx drawled, breaking the tension. She stood up and pointed down the tunnel. "But unless you two want to make out in a sewer, we need to move. The ice wall is cracking."

CRACK.

Right on cue. A spider leg punched through the ice barrier.

"Up," Nyx hauled me to my feet. I groaned, leaning heavily on her.

"Where are we going?" Eleanor asked, summoning a ball of witch-light to illuminate the path.

"Deeper," I said, pointing to the markings on the wall. They were faded, covered in moss, but I recognized the geometry. They weren't magical runes. They were Schematics.

"This isn't a dungeon," I realized, tracing a brass pipe running along the wall. "It's a factory. The Old Infrastructure... it predates the Kingdom."

We limped down the corridor. The air grew warmer. The smell of rust got stronger.

We reached the end of the tunnel. It was blocked by a massive, circular door made of iron and titanium. There was no keyhole. No magical seal.

Just a panel with nine buttons.

"A number pad," I muttered.

"It's a rune-lock," Eleanor said, stepping forward. "Let me try to blast it."

"No!" I grabbed her arm. "Look at the material. That's Star-Metal. It reflects magic. If you hit it with ice, it will bounce back and kill us."

"Then how do we open it?" Nyx asked, looking behind us. The sound of shattering ice echoed down the tunnel. The spiders were through. "We have maybe thirty seconds."

I looked at the keypad. The numbers were worn off, but some buttons were shinier than others—oils from fingers, pressed centuries ago.

1... 5... 9... 3...

"It's not magic," I said, my brain switching into detective mode. "It's a permutation."

I looked at the inscription above the door. It was a riddle in Old Vesperian.

The Gears Turn When the Three Suns Align.

"Three Suns," I muttered. "Triangles. Geometry."

I looked at the keypad layout. It was a 3x3 grid.

"1, 5, 9 forms a diagonal line," I calculated. "Three points. A line isn't a sun."

SCREEE!

The first spider skittered around the corner, its red eyes locking onto us.

"Silas!" Eleanor shouted, charging a spell.

"I need a second!"

Think. Three Suns. Cycles. 3... 6... 9. Tesla’s numbers? No, too modern.

Wait. The City of Vespera has three distinct layers. The Sump. The Tier. The Spire.

Lowest, Middle, Highest.

Bottom row, middle row, top row.

I pressed the buttons: 8... 5... 2. (Bottom Middle, Center, Top Middle). A vertical line of ascension.

CLUNK.

The heavy gears inside the door groaned. Ancient hydraulics hissed. The door slowly spiraled open.

"Get in!" I shouted.

Eleanor blasted the lead spider with a cone of cold, then dived through the opening. Nyx dragged me through.

I slapped the control panel on the inside.

CLANG.

The door slammed shut just as a spider lunged. We heard the metallic thud of its body hitting the titanium.

We were safe.

I slid down the wall, exhausted.

"You opened it," Eleanor breathed, looking at the door. "Without magic. How?"

"Math," I wheezed. "The universal language."

Nyx didn't care about the door. She was looking at the room we had entered.

"Uh... Boss?" she said, her voice echoing. "You might want to see this."

I turned my head.

We weren't in a hallway. We were in a vast, cathedral-sized workshop. The ceiling was lost in shadow.

But in the center of the room, illuminated by dormant amber lights, stood something that made Eleanor gasp.

It was a suit of armor. But not knight's armor.

It was ten feet tall. Bulky. Made of brass, pistons, and glass tubing. One arm ended in a massive pneumatic drill; the other in a crushing claw.

A Steam-walker. A relic of the pre-magic era. An industrial exoskeleton designed for heavy lifting... or war.

And sitting on the workbench next to it, covered in dust, were blueprints.

I limped over to the blueprints. I wiped away the dust.

My eyes widened.

"This isn't just a workshop," I whispered. "It's an armory."

I looked at my hands—weak, shaking, magic-less hands. Then I looked at the massive, steam-powered suit.

"Eleanor," I said, a slow smile spreading across my face despite the pain. "Can your ice magic freeze water instantly?"

"Yes," she said, confused. "Why?"

"Because," I patted the cold metal leg of the giant machine. "This thing runs on steam. And if you can be my boiler... I think I just found a way to fight back."