This bland answer, coupled with Mr. KING's matter-of-fact attitude, created an indescribable deterrence.
Child Emperor's string of questions—"When did you go out?" "Did you see anyone suspicious?" "Can you provide a more specific time?"—
At this moment, they all got stuck in his throat, and he couldn't ask a single word.
Are you kidding me? To question The Strongest Man on Earth? To suspect he would steal a knife in the middle of the night to stab someone?
That would be even more absurd than believing monsters and humans could coexist peacefully.
Even if Mr. KING wanted to kill someone, would he need such trouble? Wouldn't the other party just explode with a single glance from him?
The investigation seemed to have reached a stalemate.
Everyone's statements sounded flawless, yet the "murder" had indeed occurred.
Just as Child Emperor was racking his brain, preparing to use high-tech methods to search for fingerprints and DNA, the person everyone thought was the "victim" suddenly let out a painful groan.
"Ugh... Is it morning? So noisy..."
Zombieman slowly opened his eyes, sat up, and looked down at the katana plunged into his chest, a look of extreme distaste on his face.
Then, under everyone's gaze, he extended his right hand, gripped the hilt, and, without changing his expression, pulled the long sword out of his chest with a "thwack."
The moment the blade left his body, the terrifying wound that had pierced him healed at a visible speed, taking only a few seconds, leaving behind only intact skin, without even a scar.
"What the hell..."
Zombieman stretched his somewhat stiff neck, making a "crack, crack" sound, and without even looking, casually tossed the "murder weapon," still stained with his blood, to Atomic Samurai beside him.
"Last night, I think something bumped into me, and I felt something poke in. I was too lazy to bother, so I just lay down and slept. Do you really need to make such a fuss?"
"..."
The entire scene fell silent.
Child Emperor's carefully constructed "murder mystery" play was instantly shattered by the victim's casual remark.
He stood there with his mouth agape, unable to utter a single word for a long time.
"You... you're okay?" Atomic Samurai subconsciously caught his beloved sword and asked.
"What could be wrong with me?" Zombieman stood up, patted the dust off himself, looking half-asleep.
"Alright, alright, everyone can go. I still need to go have a smoke to wake up."
With that, he really did walk towards the smoking area without looking back, leaving a group of S-Class Heroes with various expressions, bewildered in the wind.
A tense "murder case" thus ended inconclusively in a way no one could have predicted.
Everyone looked at each other; although they found the whole process bizarre, since the person involved said he "couldn't be bothered," it seemed pointless for them to pursue it further.
So everyone shrugged their shoulders and dispersed in twos and threes.
Only Child Emperor remained stubbornly in place, biting his lollipop fiercely, making a "crunch" sound, his handsome little face filled with the thought, "My deductive abilities haven't even had a chance to shine yet."
Meanwhile, in another luxurious room at the hotel...
"Ugh... My head hurts so much..."
Terrible Tornado turned over on a soft, large bed, rubbing her temples, which were throbbing from a severe hangover, and slowly opened her eyes.
Sunlight streamed through the window, casting a soft glow into the room.
The room seemed to bear traces of psychic power, with several pillows and a magazine suspended haphazardly in mid-air.
She sat up, her mind a jumbled mess, with fragmented memories swirling within it.
"Drinking..." she murmured to herself.
That's right, it was drinking. She remembered.
At the banquet last night, she had been in a good mood. Until she passed by Mr. KING and that damned bald man's table.
She had just glanced over when the bald man raised a glass of orange juice and, with his egg-shaped face, smiled and said, "Ah, Terrible Tornado, children shouldn't drink alcohol. Have some juice."
"Boom—!"
This seemingly ordinary sentence instantly ignited the powder keg in Terrible Tornado's heart.
She was so angry that she almost used her psychic powers to overturn the entire banquet hall on the spot.
To prove she wasn't a child, she fumed, psychically "grabbed" a bottle of wine whose label she couldn't even read, and hid in a corner of the courtyard to drink it all.
Then... then she felt the world spinning, everything swaying.
She seemed to have stumbled down the corridor, bumping into someone who walked silently and exuded a monstrous aura.
The anger in her heart flared up instantly, and she wanted to teach him a good lesson.
In her hazy memory, she seemed to sense a knife in a nearby room, so she casually used her psychic powers to control it and fiercely stabbed it towards that "monster"...
As for what happened next, she had no recollection whatsoever.
Just as she was trying to recall, Metal Bat and Sexy Prisoner's loud voices came from outside the door.
"That really scared me! I thought Zombieman was really dead!"
"Yeah! But Atomic Samurai's sword is really sharp. Didn't you hear Zombieman say, when he pulled it out, he even praised it as 'a good sword'? What a weirdo!"
"Who did it anyway? Seriously, you can't play such pranks..."
The conversation outside clearly drifted in, striking Terrible Tornado's muddled thoughts like a bolt of lightning.
"Zombieman...?"
"Atomic Samurai's sword...?"
The blurry "monster" in her mind instantly overlapped with Zombieman's perpetually expressionless face.
That sharp metallic aura was undoubtedly Atomic Samurai's prized sword!
So... she, Terrible Tornado, the S-Class Rank 2 psychic,
Actually... because she was mocked as a child by that bald man, got drunk in a fit of pique, and then... "stabbed" Zombieman, another S-Class Hero, mistaking him for a monster?!
A mix of shame and dread surged through her like a volcanic eruption.
Terrible Tornado's face flushed crimson, the blush spreading visibly from her delicate cheeks all the way to her fair neck and earlobes.
She violently pulled up the blanket, burying her head completely, and let out a shriek that only she could hear.
"Ah ah ah ah—! I don't know anything! I didn't do anything!!"
The pillows and magazines suspended in the air exploded simultaneously with a "bang" due to Terrible Tornado's uncontrolled emotions, and cotton fluff and paper fragments fell like a silent snowstorm in the room.
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