A Scientific Urban Detective

"Not too clear yet, let me ask again," the mind-reading esper who volunteered replied.

Of course, a Level 3 "Mind Reading" ability is far from comparable to a Level 5 "Mental Out." Without relying on other linguistic techniques, it's actually difficult to directly extract useful information from the target's thoughts.

Therefore, as a "consultant" to the security force, this mind-reading esper possesses interrogation skills no less than those of a professional security guard.

Of course, facing Shibata Saburo, who had completely given up resisting, there was no need to use these skills.

"So, you admit you made a false report, right?"

"That's right," Shibata Saburo nodded, confessing directly, "I did everything myself, there were no accomplices. I just wanted to hide the real whereabouts of that 100 million yen, so I chose this method."

"So, there was never any money in the safe, and the briefcase the liquid metal robot took was also empty?"

"Yes, that 100 million yen never existed in the first place."

"So, you embezzled public funds, and after realizing you couldn't cover the shortfall, you came up with this method to try to escape punishment?"

"...Yes."

"Where did the money go? Is there any possibility of recovering it?"

"Impossible, it can't be recovered," Shibata Saburo shook his head.

"Like you just said, it's related to that underground fighting arena?"

Shibata Saburo shook his head: "I won't say, unless I'm in the Security Force headquarters' prison."

The mind-reading esper came to the security teacher and said in a low voice, "He's seeking self-preservation. He believes that only prison is safe enough right now."

"It seems that the money involves a lot," the security teacher thought for a moment, then called headquarters for support, wanting to send the person to prison for protection without fail.

The Security Force has been focusing on investigating the underground fighting arena recently, but has been unable to make progress. Now that they finally have a breakthrough, they will of course pay close attention to it.

Not only Misaka Mikoto, but even Lin Wuming and Hu Feng Toumi became interested in this case.

They also knew something about the "underground fighting arena" case—the one the SKILL OUT trio were involved in yesterday.

Coincidentally, yesterday Hamazura Shiage and the others were also planning to obtain 100 million yen in cash by robbing an ATM to pay the bounty.

"Could it be that the entrance fee for the underground fighting arena is 100 million yen?" Lin Wuming complained, "Why is everyone staring at this amount?"

The result was of course not just 100 million yen. According to the Security Force's subsequent investigation, Shibata Saburo, the executive vice president of "Silver City Insurance Company," embezzled a total of over 10 billion yen from the company!

To be precise, it can't be considered "embezzlement," but rather a business failure.

Because according to the information provided by the insurance company, the 10 billion yen was all paid out through normal claims procedures.

They are an insurance company, and it is normal business operation to pay insurance money to customers. Although the amount is a bit large, since it went through normal procedures, it did not attract the attention of other people in the company.

If it weren't for this false alarm incident backfiring, "Silver City Insurance Company" really wouldn't know when they would discover Shibata Saburo, this internal mole.

In the Security Force's interrogation room, Shibata Saburo revealed everything he knew.

It turned out that he was one of the partners of the underground fighting arena—mainly responsible for providing the prizes for the matches...

The specific method was that the match organizers would buy life and accident insurance for each participant before the match.

Then, due to the extremely high mortality rate of the matches, often only one competitor would survive to the end and become the final winner.

Thus, the insurance compensation for all the other fallen fighters in the entire season was the prize money that the winner could obtain...

"No wonder..." Misaka Mikoto said thoughtfully, "What Serigaya said makes some sense."

Yesterday, during the discussion, Serigaya Tsugio had briefly introduced how the 10 billion yen prize money for the underground fighting arena was composed. Except for not guessing that the source of the prize money was insurance compensation, everything else was no different from the information Serigaya Tsugio had gathered.

"But..." Lin Wuming frowned and couldn't help but say, "In this situation, will the insurance company really pay?"

It was said that they bought "accident insurance." Participating in this kind of dangerous fighting competition is essentially the same as courting death. Lin Wuming didn't think that shrewd insurance companies would allow others to exploit this loophole.

Hu Feng Toumi snorted coldly: "Isn't there a boss acting as an inside man!"

That's right, it was because Shibata Saburo, this internal high-level executive, cooperated that the underground fighting arena was able to "defraud insurance" so smoothly.

"In addition to the prize money paid to the winners, the underground fighting arena has other real ways to make money," Shibata Saburo added, "Such as betting and guessing. Because the VIP viewers selected by the underground fighting arena are all rich and powerful figures, the odds they support are large enough. In comparison, the 10 billion yen reward for the winners is just a small amount."

The main reason why Shibata Saburo dared to act so recklessly without being discovered by the company was that he always replenished the embezzled money in time—with the money he earned from betting and guessing...

Therefore, even if the company's financial development showed abnormal fund flows on the books, as long as the final amount matched, they wouldn't meddle too much—after all, the one making the moves was a high-level executive of the company, so they couldn't be too serious.

But in a recent season that just ended, Shibata Saburo was very unlucky. All his guesses were wrong—a strong and outrageous competitor suddenly emerged, forcefully breaking all the original predictions—as a result, not only was the company's book funds unable to be replenished, but he himself suffered heavy losses, and he didn't even have the capital to try to make a comeback.

Therefore, he had to set his sights on the 100 million yen in the safe.

That 100 million yen in cash had already been taken away by Shibata Saburo last night, exchanged for anonymous savings cards, and then used to buy "entrance tickets" to the underground fighting arena—only those who bought entrance tickets could obtain the qualifications to watch the fighting matches and participate in the subsequent "prize guessing" session.

From this point of view, the information that Komaba Ritoku and the others stumbled upon cannot be considered wrong.

They really must first have 100 million yen before they can further contact the underground fighting arena.

"As a partner, I originally didn't need any entrance tickets," Shibata Saburo said resentfully, "But because I can't continue to provide match prizes for them next season, those bastards just kicked me away!"

Due to the losses caused by the previous season not being replenished, "Silver City Insurance Company" had a deficit of up to 10 billion yen on its books. Although there were complete and formal procedures, it absolutely couldn't withstand scrutiny.

"Silver City Insurance" is certainly a large company with a large business, but if it were to cause another huge compensation of 10 billion yen...even if he was the executive vice president, he couldn't cover it up.

Thanks to Shuluo Mozun for the monthly ticket support!!