The Daily Life of a Salted Fish Assassin in Various Anime Chapter 12

Then Jiang Hang saw a gleaming metal hidden blade materialize in front of him.

He couldn't help but mentally complain that the system had really gone all out with this compensation.

Forget the hundred million yen—that Legendary Hidden Blade definitely wasn't some ordinary item, and the skill that maxed out his hidden blade proficiency in one go, plus the virtual space training—the system had really pulled out all the stops to shut him up.

Thinking this, Jiang Hang even started wondering if he could trick the system into producing another bug to scam, ahem, acquire some more advanced skills.

But while the system had indeed spared no expense... when he thought about it carefully, the hidden blade was a total trap.

Never mind the tired clichés about assassins versus detectives—what use was a hidden blade in 21st-century Tokyo, Japan?

Even with the "legendary" prefix, it was still a tool for assassination. Was this supposed to be him wiping out the Black Organization single-handedly with a hidden blade?

System-sama, the times have changed!

He was just an ordinary detective-slash-assassin, not that Shimada Genji yelling "There's a guy opening my pants zipper!"

Considering that in Japan, ninjas were basically assassins, if he were going to get something like the ability to deflect even rockets, he'd rather have a pair of Rinnegan. One Chibaku Tensei and he could pack the entire Black Organization off to outer space, then casually drop a line like "A detective has limits—I quit being a detective," and transition into a behind-the-scenes "reveal myself to the world, the sole master of the supernatural" style. Wouldn't that be great?

Getting off track—back to the hidden blade. Two hundred years ago, this would have been a fantastic tool. But now, it was probably only good as a cosplay prop.

And even as a cosplay prop, it was too dangerous. Back in the game, Bayek had messed up and cut off his own ring finger, which led to the Assassin Brotherhood cutting off ring fingers as an initiation ritual for over a thousand years.

Sure, later versions were improved, but Jiang Hang was still terrified that strapping this thing to his arm might cause an accident. Even if the earliest hidden blades were mounted on the back of the hand rather than the wrist, it was still risky.

Like, what if he scratched his head and the blade's mechanism malfunctioned, popping out automatically? Then Jiang Hang would become the first assassin to successfully commit suicide with a hidden blade.

In these matters, Jiang Hang always developed a weird persecution complex.

On that note, the previously rewarded Ezio's Outfit was not only exquisitely crafted, several tiers above ordinary cosplay costumes, but also had some defensive capability—ordinary cold weapons couldn't necessarily pierce it.

Even if this world didn't have the Assassin's Creed games, wearing that outfit to a convention would absolutely make him the coolest guy there.

Right now, that outfit was hanging on the coat rack in the agency's lobby as a showpiece. Sometimes, when Jiang Hang's chuunibyou acted up, he'd wear it at night and go rooftop parkour.

As for the hidden blade, it would probably just end up stored in the agency as a collectible. Taking it out casually might get it mistaken for a weapon by the police, and it wouldn't even pass the security check at a convention venue.

At that moment, perhaps the system couldn't stand Jiang Hang's complaints anymore, and a prompt appeared.

"System rewards are automatically bound to the host. Once equipped, the hidden blade can be freely deployed and retracted according to the host's will, posing no danger to the host. Additionally, the host can choose the blade's sharpness state. Please use it with confidence."

After hearing the system's explanation, Jiang Hang instantly had a change of heart.

He changed into a loose-sleeved outfit and concealed the hidden blade under his cuff, finding a new toy to play with as he repeatedly deployed and retracted the blade.

Even when Shizuka Sakaki brought him breakfast at work, Jiang Hang was still playing with the hidden blade.

He directly raised his arm toward Shizuka, and the hidden blade shot out with a flash, startling her.

"Jiang Hang-kun, what's this? Isn't it dangerous..."

"A self-defense tool. As a detective, sometimes you run into danger with no weapon around—this might come in handy." Jiang Hang said with a serious expression.

But he might have sounded too scary, because Shizuka's face twisted with unease.

Why would a normal person prepare something like this for self-defense?

He took the breakfast from her, but seeing how wary she was of his wrist, as if afraid the blade might pop out at any moment...

"Just kidding. I only got this thing recently, so I've been playing with it a bit. Normally, I don't wear it. It's not sharpened—can't hurt anyone." Jiang Hang said, removing the hidden blade he'd been playing with all morning and showing Shizuka its completely dull edge.

Shizuka finally breathed a little easier.

But her expression was still off.

After fidgeting at her desk for a while, she quietly asked him.

"I heard... when you went to the art museum with Yoshino yesterday, someone was killed there?"

She thought that was why Jiang Hang had specially made this "self-defense tool."

"You could put it more formally, like 'a murder case occurred at the art museum,' since this is a detective agency." Jiang Hang replied, confirming her question.

As he spoke, he glanced at the breakfast Shizuka had brought him—milk and oatmeal bread. A perfectly unobjectionable combination.

He even considered using his Poison Mastery, which he'd only obtained after dying 305 times yesterday, to check if his food was safe. But after testing, the only conclusion he could draw was that the nutritional balance was lacking.

From that perspective, Poison Mastery also meant knowing what was bad for the body and selectively avoiding unhealthy food combinations—didn't that make him half a health guru now?

But thinking about those fitness fanatics who precisely calculated every calorie, Jiang Hang decided he'd rather eat whatever he wanted. He admired those people, but he didn't have the willpower to live like that.

"I knew it... I texted Yoshino last night, and she only replied this morning with a 'mixed feelings' emoji..." Shizuka licked her lips nervously.

"I saw it on the morning news... Did Yoshino go to the crime scene with you?"

"To be precise, I was at the scene calming down the murderer, while Koharu worried about my safety and followed the police there. Then she ran to the bathroom and threw up for half an hour before coming out." Jiang Hang said casually.

But he was immediately contradicted.

"—It wasn't half an hour... at most twenty minutes..."

That rebuttal had absolutely no force behind it.

Jiang Hang looked at Koharu Yoshino, who had arrived a bit later than usual.

She seemed to be in rough shape—her hair was unkempt, her collar was crooked, as if she'd rushed over in a hurry.

"Yoshino... what's wrong? Didn't sleep well last night?" Shizuka instinctively assumed Koharu had been kept awake by the crime scene, which was why she looked like this in the morning.

However, Koharu Yoshino's face flushed red, and she shook her head with some embarrassment.

"It wasn't a nightmare at all. I just slept too soundly by accident. When I woke up, I realized I was almost late, so I hurried over as fast as I could... haha..." She let out an awkward laugh.

"???" Shizuka Sakaki wondered if she'd misheard.

Not being unable to sleep from fear, but sleeping too well?

Was that something a girl who'd just encountered a murder scene for the first time should say?

Chapter 29: Eri Kisaki Law Office

After learning that Koharu Yoshino had followed Jiang Hang's guidance the night before, using some strange meditative sleep method to sleep straight until after eight in the morning, Shizuka Sakaki first breathed a sigh of relief—she hadn't time-traveled, and this world was still the same one. But once she came back to her senses, she felt something was off.

A meditative sleep method? How could this world have something that sounded so fake?

"It's real, I swear. I tried it myself, and it's super effective. Last night, when I was lying in bed, I was still a little scared, but after I tried the poses and breathing from the meditative sleep method, I fell asleep in no time. I don't even know when I dozed off." "And I didn't have a single nightmare all night. If I hadn't woken up hungry, I feel like I could've slept until noon today."

"That's because your sleep quality hasn't been great lately, so the first time you try it, you'll feel like you haven't slept enough. Later on, six or seven hours a day will be enough to keep you energized." Jiang Hang pointed at Koharu Yoshino's messy hair. "Alright, go tidy yourself up in the bathroom. If a client shows up, they'll have no idea who you are."

After Koharu Yoshino went to the bathroom to freshen up, Jiang Hang felt a mysterious gaze from Shizuka Sakaki.

"You want to learn? I can teach you," Jiang Hang said, seeing what Shizuka Sakaki wanted to express, and a "kind" smile spread across his face. "But you'll have to come out with me later. Let Koharu hold down the fort at the office today. Oh, and you have your driver's license on you, right?"

At first, Shizuka Sakaki was a little happy to hear Jiang Hang's words. She had another audition in a few days, and after her last failure, she'd been too nervous to sleep well at night. If she had this meditative sleep method, it should let her get a good night's rest before the audition. But when she heard the rest of Jiang Hang's words, she instinctively shrank back.

Yesterday, Koharu Yoshino went out with him and ran into a murder case. Today, she was going out with Jiang Hang—would she run into some weird incident too?

"I have it with me, Jiang Hang-kun... where are you going?"

Jiang Hang could tell from Shizuka Sakaki's expression what she was worried about. He wanted to tell her that it was all Conan's fault—or more accurately, some manga artist's fault—and had nothing to do with him, but no one would believe that.

"I'm going to a pretty impressive law office. I have some things I want to consult about."

Shizuka Sakaki's mind immediately conjured up strange ideas like "Famous Lawyer Dies in Locked Room Case," and she looked at Jiang Hang with a shiver.

Unlike Koharu Yoshino, who dozed off at the sight of a mystery novel, Shizuka Sakaki took this job seriously. Lately, she'd been reading Japanese orthodox mystery novels, and the most classic ones were full of all kinds of impossible locked-room murders.

"Don't look at me like that. I promise nothing unexpected will happen this time. You're not thinking I'm some kind of jinx, are you?" He was not taking the blame for Conan. He wasn't a jinx; he just happened to be near one.

With a grim-faced Shizuka Sakaki, he first went to the art museum to pick up the 86 he'd left there yesterday.

Standing at the entrance of Beika Art Museum, Jiang Hang let out a faint sigh.

Since the murder yesterday afternoon, the museum had been temporarily closed. Even now, there were still police officers coming and going at the scene, clearly with plenty of things to document.

Without disturbing the working police, Jiang Hang sat in his ordinary 86 and had Shizuka Sakaki drive toward Eri Kisaki's office.

Speaking of Eri Kisaki, Jiang Hang recalled a few things.

Japanese creators always liked to put thought into the names of their characters. Leaving aside those with negative ideas, Aoyama Gōshō, when designing character names, liked to reference famous detectives and Gundam. For example, Conan Edogawa's name was a combination of two mystery writers, and as the "Heisei-era Sherlock Holmes," the main setting of Conan's story, Beika City, was a romanized phonetic conversion of Holmes's residence, Baker Street.

If all the origins of these names and the works of those famous detective writers were written out, it would probably take a full page or more.

And the lawyer Jiang Hang was about to visit, Eri Kisaki, had a name derived from the "King of Logic," Ellery Queen.

For those who didn't know much about mystery works, it didn't matter. There was no need to discuss Ellery Queen's cases here; just know that he was a detective character co-created by a pair of cousins. What those cousins loved most was presenting all the clues related to a case and then openly challenging the reader, asking them to make a reasonable deduction about the true culprit with the same information as the Queen in the book. Most of the time, the result left the reader convinced.

Ellery Queen was that "arrogant and forceful" detective and creator. And Eri Kisaki, whose name came from him, was just as forceful in her field of law.

With over a decade in practice and still maintaining a 100% win rate, that was the biggest golden sign for a lawyer.

Heaven knows what it would be like if she faced off in court against that lawyer played by Masato Sakai, who also had a 100% win rate but used far more unscrupulous methods—what a clash of titans that would be.

Last night, Jiang Hang had sent a reservation request to Eri Kisaki's office. Perhaps because Ran had mentioned him to her mother, he got a reply this morning.

The decor of Eri Kisaki's office was quite modest—just a set of rooms in a high-end office building. But in her office, there was an entire wall of bookshelves. Jiang Hang glanced over and saw they were all filled with professional legal books. Just looking at them seemed to put clients at ease.

Seeing this, Jiang Hang couldn't help wondering if he should get a few bookshelves too, but would filling them with detective mystery novels give clients any confidence?

Eri Kisaki was already working in her office. When she saw Jiang Hang arrive, she stood up and led him to a sofa nearby to sit.

Eri Kisaki gave off the impression of an especially forceful ice queen. Standing next to the usually slovenly Kogoro Mouri, it was hard to see any resemblance of a married couple.

"Hello, Queen of Lawyers. I'm Jiang Hang, a detective. Here's my card." Jiang Hang handed her one of his business cards. He'd made a bunch of these, but so far, he'd only handed out a few.

Eri Kisaki had heard of Jiang Hang from her daughter. This was one of the few men besides Shinichi that Ran had mentioned. She didn't think her daughter had developed feelings for this rookie detective, but she had casually asked Ran about him.

Helpful, and though he'd just started out, he'd already helped the police solve a few cases?

An interesting detective—at least he seemed more reliable than Kogoro. That was her first impression of Jiang Hang when she met him.

She took the card and glanced at it.

Pathfinder Detective Agency... Unlike most people who use their own name for their agency, but that wasn't unusual.

The content of the business card was very simple. The only thing that caught her attention was a line of text written in beautiful script on the patterned area at the top of the card.

Not English... nor German. Was this... Italian?

Eri Kisaki planned to look up the meaning of that line of text after this meeting ended.

Chapter 30: Self-Satisfaction

Inside the Eri Kisaki Law Office, Shizuka Sakaki felt a bit out of place in such a serious environment, especially when occasionally caught by the gaze of that imposing female lawyer.

She felt her body stiffen from maintaining a proper seated position for so long.

So impressive. Was this what a legendary elite lawyer looked like?

When the secretary, a woman named Midori Kuriyama, brought her a cup of hot tea, Shizuka Sakaki felt her own smile and thanks came out dry and awkward.

On the way here, she had already learned from Jiang Hang about how formidable this person was. When she tried searching for information about the other party herself, the results were even more exaggerated than what Jiang Hang had described.

For Shizuka Sakaki, who had grown up barely seeing a professional lawyer, let alone several, Eri Kisaki—someone standing at the pinnacle of the legal profession—was quite simply the most impressive person she had ever seen up close.

But for her, this was also an extremely rare learning opportunity. She kept observing the tone of their conversation, thinking that maybe someday during an audition, she could put these observations to use.

Jiang Hang was more relaxed, as if Eri Kisaki's aura couldn't suppress him at all. But to Shizuka Sakaki, that wasn't surprising. Her boss, though a shut-in by nature, was a shut-in who had weathered storms and was mysteriously wealthy. Handling a scene like this was no problem for him.

As for Eri Kisaki, she spoke with the logic befitting a lawyer, using just a few sentences to lay out a matter clearly and making it hard to find flaws in her words.

At least Shizuka Sakaki, still trembling as a junior assistant, couldn't manage that level.

"The art gallery murder case? I saw it in the news this morning. So that's how it played out."

Eri Kisaki looked at Jiang Hang.

"As the detective who made the culprit confess, I don't think you're here to ask me to defend the curator. That kind of case would be meaningless to you."