Bungo Stray dogs : Dazai's Entrance Exam - Light Novel 1

Proluge

What are "ideals"?
There are countless answers to this question. Ideals are stories, or they are ideologies, or they are the source of all meaning.
But if you were to ask me, the answer is quite clear.
"Ideals" is a single word written on the cover of my notebook.
My notebook has many uses. It leads me like a guiding light, a master, and a prophet. And incidentally, it is also the key for unlocking my weapons.
Ideals.
I write down everything in this notebook of mine. I always carry it with me, for this notebook contains my entire future.
It has every plan from tonight's dinner menu to where I should move to five years from now, from tomorrow's list of work duties to the locations of record low radish prices. Schedules, plans, and goals all guide me. I write them all down in my notebook and always carry it with me to utilize it.
If I may exaggerate a bit- This notebook with "ideals" written on it is the written prophecy of my own future.
My ideals are always held in there.
I think it wise to follow them and nothing else.
I follow the plans in my notebook to such an extent that my future is entirely under my own control.
To control the future- what a beautiful, brilliant phrase.
However- no matter the brilliance of ideals, if the road which connects them to reality is long and dark, then the brilliance is nothing but a fantastic illusion, the ideals nothing but garbled words.
And so I have written in the first page of my notebook the simplest rule for following my ideals.
"Do as one should."
My name is Doppo Kunikida.
The man who follows the demands of reality is an idealist, and the man who follows ideals is the realist.
This is a story of myself, a man who begged for the actualization of my ideals, and a certain new employee, born under the star of chaos and messing up said ideals, and our fierce fighting with one another.

The tenth.
I turn to this fresh page in my notebook to recount the past two or three days.
The following are such events which have transpired during that time concerning myself which I deem of particular importance.
Called on Takekoshi. Took an evening walk with him.
Received a message from the hacker Taguchi concerning the matter of the foreign warships.
Ate a pear. It was not sweet.
I should not worry about trifling matters.
I must not become warped and prejudiced- ah, and I still wish for nothing beyond this.

"Wait!" I shouted to the criminal I dashed after into the heart of Yokohama.
The shopping district's streets roared with the usual traffic. You could hear the sounds of food stall vendors calling out to customers, the hubbub of the crowds walking down the avenues, the cries of customers begging for discounts, and the rush of cars racing in every direction. An argument on the right side of the street would be all but unnoticed on the left side of the street.
I brushed past the pedestrian traffic and chased after the criminal.
The criminal was a petty thief who had caused a commotion in a jewelry store when he seized a few articles and fled. The items were all small, but three such incidents had already occurred by this time, and as such the shopping district entrusted the matter of apprehending the criminal to us.
I chased the thief fleeing from the scene of the crime of the fourth incident. The criminal had great stamina, never slackening his pace. He dashed down an alleyway at the end of the line of shops, and I lost sight of him. I ran through the flow of traffic.
"You're late, rookie!"
My coworker running after me shouted, "Hold on a moment, Kunikida. I need to tie my shoelace."
Accompanying me on today's venture was my new coworker. He joined the company only a few days before this incident.
His name was Osamu Dazai.
I could have done quite well without this name ever entering my life.
"Oh man, I'm so tired. Kunikida, you're so fast! Can't we run a little slower? I'm not in shape right now."
"Enough of your whining already! Hurry up and run, you lazy bum. You make me sick to my stomach!"
"Wow, that's so cool!"
"Enough!"
I knew nothing of this Dazai's true capabilities, nor his personal history, but it was clear that he had little to no motivation. He did whatever he pleased whenever he pleased and disrupted thousands of my plans. And to make matters worse, he had this bizarre interest in-
"Oh by the way, Kunikida, the thief just got away."
While I had been distracted by Dazai, the runaway had crashed through a vegetable stand, turned a left, and ran off.
I clicked my tongue automatically.
I called to mind the map of this entire area. The man had run off into a residential district bordered by a thin hedge. Said area had multiple hiding places for a runner to get lost in.
"Look, Dazai! He's gone off and escaped into a place where we'll be hard pressed to find him, all because you were dawdling!"
"It's all good. I figured that would happen. Oh and by the way, I saw the most amazing thing a moment ago. Want to hear about it?"
"Later!"
"It was this super rare book called The Complete Guide to Suicide. I've been looking for it for ages, but then I just stumbled across it on display in an old book store and- Ah, if I don't hurry up and go back, it might sell out!"
I tuned him out as he continued to prattle on.
"If you want to die that badly, should I shoot you to death myself?!" I yelled.
Dazai said with a bashful smile, "Oh, really? Sorry for all the trouble." There was absolutely nothing to be bashful about.
This man practically never put in any effort at work. Day in and day out, all he thought about was suicide. His was a world I couldn't even imagine: doing whatever he wanted, even superficially, and always earnestly groping about for the means to end his own life. He was, in short, a suicide fanatic.
A suicide fanatic?
Goodness, what an absolutely disgusting phrase.
At any rate, my partner's interest in somehow kicking the bucket got in the way of our work and was the reason we had failed to apprehend the criminal.
For you see, I did not have "Fail the case" written in my notebook plans.
I turned down a side road after the criminal.
The path ahead was narrow, crooked, and gloomy. The road was deserted. Both sides of the lane were lined with hedges; beyond them I could see water wells, backyards of old residential lots, and the like. Laundry flapped from the eaves of the houses.
I called up a map of the area on my phone. The screen displayed our location as a bright dot to signify the surrounding buildings and backstreet. The street was surrounded on all sides by residential buildings, but the criminal was running straight through here to the outdated warehouses in the old factory district. If he managed to run away and hide there, he would be nigh on impossible to find.
Farther off down the lane, I saw a tiny figure of someone's retreating back. It seemed like he was bound for the warehouses too.
"Shit!" I swore. I wouldn't be able to catch up with him at that distance. If I failed to catch him, he would just go on to commit more crimes. Our clients' shops would not only struggle to stay in business, but the Agency would also gain a bad reputation.
What was I to do? What could I do?
"Well now, we'd better hurry up and get this over with, or else I won't be able to buy my book. Should I go block off his escape route?" said Dazai with a grin.
Dazai took a deep breath and then yelled so it carried quite far, "Fire!"
Instantly, the path before the fleeing criminal became a swarm of townsfolk fleeing from their homes- women in the middle of cooking clutching pot lids, drowsy-looking young men, and old people carrying their chess boards. All rushed out one after the other, the neighborhood a flurry of people as one by one they materialized in the narrow street and obstructed it.
It was impossible for the criminal to flee.
His escape route teemed with confused people; he could neither go on nor return the way he came. Even as he attempted to threaten them to press on, no one paid him any mind as they frantically searched for the source of the fire. Retreat was likewise impossible for the opened gates were also plugged with people.
"How's that?"
"You idiot! You've certainly stopped him, but we can't get through here either!"
"It's all right, aren't you the ever-so-skilled detective Doppo Kunikida? I made it so it's your turn now, so go ahead and give it your all."
I swore, I would sew that mouth shut later!
I opened my favorite notebook and quickly scratched a few letters down.
I tore off the scrap of paper with my scribbled writing of "wire gun" on it and focused my attention on it.
"Doppo Poet!"
Abilities.
There must be a rational explanation for how they manifest themselves, right? There is no other way to say it than 'They simply exist as they are'. Why only pages from my notebook? Why do they possess the ability to defy natural law and change their shape? But there is no one with a theoretical explanation for the phenomenon.
The notebook scrap I had torn off and concentrated on reformed itself until it was a wire gun, just like I had written.
Jumping upon a nearby fence, I aimed my gun at the fugitive.
From my point of view, the criminal had reached the end of his escape path in the crowded streets and in order to frighten the people, seemed on the verge of pulling a handgun from his pocket.
Here on the edge of town, this thief having a handgun would spell no end of trouble.
At any rate, it would be horrible to fire a gun in this swarm of people!
I took aim and then pulled the trigger on my wire gun.
A harpooning fish hook shot out from the gun which left a trail through the air as it sped towards the target.
My wire gun smacked his handgun flying and pinned the fugitive's sleeve to the wall behind him.
"Jackpot."
Dazai whistled lamely.
I leapt over a hedge while winding up my steel wire, and then kicked my way past another hedge. I sailed over the heads of the people and landed directly in front of the criminal.
I raised my eyes at the same time as the criminal pulled a dagger from his pocket.
He slashed the dagger down at me from point-blank range.
He was an amateur at using weapons; it was a lazy strike and did not connect.
I nimbly turned my head to the side and evaded the attack. Seizing the opportunity, I also grabbed the criminal's elbow and wrist.
While twisting his wrist one way, I struck his elbow in the opposite direction.
The fugitive flew into the air.
After tracing an arc against the sky, he slammed upside down into a wall.
He looked like he had not the faintest idea what had just happened as he slumped over and fainted.
This technique was called Tenchi Nage, a throw utilizing the opponent's strength.
The townspeople stood silently, dumbfounded, as they looked back and forth between the criminal and I.
Dazai finally caught up and addressed the townsfolk with a smile, "We apologize, everyone, for disturbing you today. Everything is fine now. The fire was a false alarm."
"Who... who are you guys?" one of the people asked.
I pulled my detective license out from my pocket and held it up high for all to see. "There is no cause for alarm," I said. "We are the Armed Detective Agency."

Word Count : 2,054