Officer Kudo Has Something to Say

[Kudo 2.0: “Officer Kudo Has Nothing to Say” is complete. See my profile.]

Kudo found a manga tied to the fate of the world.

In the manga, he had made a name for himself at a young age. Hailed as the savior of the police force and the Holmes of the Reiwa era, he was the high school detective known as “Kudo of Kanto.”

With such an impressive protagonist setup, he got knocked out in the very first chapter and turned into an elementary schooler. From then on, he lived with his childhood friend and girlfriend, and eventually helped bring down the organization with everyone else. He turned back into a handsome high schooler and got to be lovey-dovey with his girlfriend.

That was Kudo’s own summary of the manga, but he felt that either the world had gone crazy or he had.

For starters, he was the chief of the Seventh Investigation Unit of the First Investigative Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Bureau, and he was twenty-five years old.

…And Ran, the girlfriend he was supposed to get lovey-dovey with at the end of the manga, was a first-year student at Teitan Junior High, only thirteen years old.

Kudo stayed up for three nights straight to read the entire manga, then slammed it down on the table in a rage and decided that he absolutely could not let the fate of this world become tied to the manga.

Otherwise, Senior Mori and that menace Sonoko would definitely team up and break his legs!

Due to forces beyond his control, Kudo learned that the world he lived in was actually a spin-off of a manga. In other words, even if their world developed in a way completely different from the original, no one could escape the so-called character settings of the original plot. Otherwise, they would be out of character, or OOC.

Both the Kudo inside the manga and the one outside it loved solving mysteries, so such restrictions never applied to him. But not everyone in the world was as “lucky” as he was.

In other worlds, everyone Kudo knew had completely different identities.

For example, the kindergarten teacher who was cold on the outside but warm-hearted on the inside was actually an assassin; the seven-year-old next door was a king of part-time jobs; the superstar of the music scene was an undercover agent who died young; the dependable senior in Public Security was an FBI agent; and the world-famous magician was actually a master thief…

If no one intervened, they would all eventually be forced to become the people they were in that manga world.

As a police officer who had sworn an oath beneath the cherry blossoms, Kudo refused to imagine such a scene. He also couldn’t bear to see law-abiding citizens inexplicably controlled into running off to take part in a gunfight. Of course, there was another reason: he didn’t want Senior Mori to break his legs.

So he picked up the manga again.

Reader’s Guide:

1. Kudo has no pairing. Little Ran is still a child.

2. Red and black factions are all mixed together. There is no purely black side, and the characters’ settings may differ from the original.

3. Kudo still loves Sherlock Holmes and solving mysteries. I just wanted to write about what he might be like as an adult.

4. Happy ending. Everyone gets saved.

“Being a CoC Investigator Is Such a High-Risk Job!” ID: 9236124

When creating a character, Taochuan chose random and left everything to fate.

[…So 40 Dexterity and 90 Appearance are your destiny?] the KP asked cautiously.

“And what about the other 40?” Taochuan said, touched. “A ridiculously handsome guy with a limp and incredible charisma. Perfect.”

The KP, who knew the plot, glanced at the name of a certain curly-haired police officer at the top of the character sheet, then looked at the still-alive curly-haired police officer in this world, and fell into deep thought.

Does Matsuda know you’re spreading rumors about him out there?

*

Maybe he didn’t know at the time, but he found out later. Taochuan was really going all out to clear the scenario, after all.

So the people from the real world who were also inside the scenario saw this:

Facing the scenario’s BOSS, who was about to start a fight, [Matsuda] rolled a critical success on Dexterity. He spun around at an unbelievable speed and dodged the attack with his glowing prosthetic leg.

“That startled me.” The curly-haired investigator calmly adjusted his sunglasses. “So that’s all there is to it. Even a cripple can dodge that.”

Beside him, Furuya, who had failed his Dexterity roll and fallen over: …Is this guy taking a shot at me?

When faced with a scenario NPC who needed to be coaxed into talking, [Furuya] critically failed his Persuade roll and tried to run, only to be dragged back by the deranged NPC, who proceeded to confess his love passionately.

“Calm down…” The investigator, an elementary schooler with a Size of 15, shoved the NPC’s face away as it drew closer. “It’s illegal to like me!”

Edogawa, standing nearby, was horrified. “Someone help! There’s a pedophile here! And he’s going after a mini version of Mr. Amuro!”

When faced with whispers carried on the sea breeze, [Kudo] rolled a critical success on his Idea roll and went insane on the spot, showing everyone what it meant to master the art of being mentally ill.

“Ran? What a coincidence, you’re here too.” The black-haired investigator, who had only just reached adulthood, smiled and greeted him. “Want to head over there together?”

The master thief, who had only been passing by before getting dragged over, stared at him and gasped. “You’re calling me Ran?”

And so on.

The locals gaped in astonishment. Even with the truth right in front of them, they still didn’t want to admit these people were their counterparts from a parallel world.

In response, Taochuan asked the KP the friendliest question he could think of: “Are you a coin?”

It’s either a critical success or a critical failure. Are you messing with me?!

*

Some time later, Taochuan, whose investigator career was thriving, spoke casually about his past.

“Becoming a legendary investigator is easy. I was only sacrificed to cultists an average of three times a week, destroyed a cult’s plan to end the world twice, and almost got assaulted once…”

“…How are you still alive?”

“Yeah, how am I still alive? (^▽^)”

*

Reader’s Guide:

1. The rules are generally based on CoC 7th Edition, but sometimes I use house rules depending on how lazy the author is feeling and how the plot develops. The main goal is for the investigators to have fun and for everyone to enjoy reading.

2. Non-mainstream cosmic horror. The scenarios serve the story.

3. Apart from essential plot points, most dice rolls are left to the dice maiden’s mood. No fudging.

4. Don’t believe the first rule XD

Theme: The future should be in our own hands. Only action can change our fate.