The twelve sinners were also angels in the past. They admired humans and sought to coexist with them, which enraged God so much that he stripped them of their powers and banished them to earth as humans. The play was titled The Living World Is a Dream, the Nocturnal Dream Is Reality. The plot involved former angels banished from the celestial world and rendered mortal who gathered at an old theater to earn God’s forgiveness.
During all of this, the twelve characters were killed one after another, so they tried to uncover whether it was an angel killing them or one of their fellow men. In a sense, it was a mystery story as well. Between the mystery parts, it focused on the relationships among the characters, their love, and their hatred. The former angels worked together as lovers, siblings, and enemies, but at the same time, they doubted one another. They wandered the old theater, wondering if their brethren could be the killer. Their goal was to find a certain skill user who lived there.
“What’s a skill user?” Ranpo suddenly asked.
Fukuzawa hesitated for a moment, but not because he didn’t know how to explain that skill users weren’t very well-known to the public. It was the middle of the performance—they’d stick out like a sore thumb if they started talking in the first row.
“You’ll see” was the only thing he ended up saying.
What was unique about this play was that it mentioned the existence of skill users. Revealing their existence wasn’t prohibited, but there was a darkness that surrounded it. Due to the war, the number of skill users legally working decreased, and most of them either disappeared from public eye or started working for an underground organization. In addition, there was a government agency managing domestic skill users, so broadcasting the existence of skill users could become a problem. Not many people knew of their existence outside of rumors and fairy tales; thus, a play that included one of them was an anomaly. Due to these circumstances, the skill user was depicted in good taste but as total fiction.
One skill per person.
Some could freely use their skill, while others were uncontrollable and happened automatically.
While some people were born with skills, others suddenly developed theirs.
Skills do not always make the possessor happy.
The characters in the play were searching for a skill user who fit these rules. One after another, their fellows disappeared. They grew suspicious of one another, but they continued wandering the theater in search of that one ray of hope, for that one skill user was the only one who could forgive them of their sins.
During the play, it was explained that skill users were former angels who were once kicked out of the celestial world but allowed to return. They would get back a small portion of their unlimited powers and be allowed to stand before God again. They were new angels who finished atoning for their sins—skill users.
Fukuzawa couldn’t help but think about this creative interpretation. He had encountered countless skill users due to the nature of his work. The assassin who killed the secretary was m
ost likely one as well. There would be no way he could have made that shot with his arms tied behind his back and a sack on his head otherwise.
If he was an angel who was atoning for his sins, then the heavens were going to be chaos. Regardless, it was clear that the person who wrote the script knew about skill users and probably had hoped to accomplish something by making it into a play.
Was that somehow related to the death threat?
A murderer who referred to themselves as V…
A play about the search for a skill user…
Fukuzawa’s gaze wandered among the crowd. Not a single soul opened their mouth as their eyes were glued to the stage. They forgot to make expressions. They even forgot who they were as they gazed intently at the play. The power of performance was making the audience forget they were there—taking them somewhere far away. The audience had come all the way here and paid for the event. They knew it would happen; that was why they came. Everyone let the drama, the eccentric script, and the breathtaking acting, especially Murakami’s, take them away as they temporarily left their bodies behind.
But Fukuzawa couldn’t allow himself to do that. Leaving his body behind now would lead to trouble. He focused his attention and stared at the crowd.
Surely the enemy wasn’t shamelessly sitting there with the audience, but acting like a customer to sneak in was common. Fukuzawa casually looked behind himself as he sat in the front, searching for someone acting suspicious or getting out of their chair for no good reason during the act.
Straining his eyes in the darkness, he saw someone every now and then who wasn’t necessarily suspicious, but who didn’t seem to be very enthusiastic. A mother and her child. A young couple. An old man scowling. A middle-aged woman dozing off, having succumbed to her fatigue. A man wearing an overcoat who seemed to be focusing on the theater itself rather than the actors on stage.
The last man in the suit slightly caught Fukuzawa’s attention. There was nothing about his appearance that really stood out. He was your run-of-the-mill kind of guy. He wore a navy suit with a broad-brimmed bowler hat and held a T-shaped cane in one hand. He was reminiscent of the typical Western gentleman. It wasn’t clear what about him bothered Fukuzawa, exactly, but there were a few things that made him suspicious. He was sitting in the front row, he sat up completely straight and didn’t fidget in the least, and his overcoat was slightly large for his overly skinny appearance.
Upon closer inspection, the man had a piercing gaze contrary to his gentlemanlike appearance, almost as if he were looking inside the actors. They were the eyes of a predator, like a hawk or leopard moments before pouncing on its prey. One thing was for sure; they were not the eyes of someone enjoying the play. Was the large overcoat being used to hide a weapon? Was the cane in his hand a sword cane? Fukuzawa would be able to stop him from this position if the man were to commence a surprise attack, but…
Fukuzawa quietly measured the distance with his gaze. He played out every move the enemy could make in his mind and calculated. That was when…
“Hey, can I ask you something?” asked Ranpo suddenly. “Everyone here paid money to see this, right?”
“No talking during the show,” scolded Fukuzawa. However…
“Why would anyone pay to watch a story this predictable?” asked Ranpo. He looked incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening.
Fukuzawa had a bad feeling about this.
“I mean, even the twist is so predictable! That’s the murderer! Even a child wouldn’t need more than five minutes to figure it out!”