The special interrogation room of the Municipal Enforcement Bureau, Brightlight Road Branch was completely insulated from outside noise.
The walls were covered in dark gray sound-absorbing material, and the only furniture consisted of a metal table bolted to the floor and two chairs that were equally impossible to move.
The lights were not kept on continuously. They only came on when needed, spilling a cold, shadowless glow evenly from the ceiling.
Every detail in the room was laid bare, while the person being interrogated was denied any hidden sense of how much time had passed.
When the lights suddenly came on again without warning, the young man in the interrogation chair merely raised his eyelids a fraction.
His movements were so composed that he seemed to be waking from a brief nap rather than emerging from a prolonged stretch of darkness and psychological pressure. His eyes quickly adjusted to the light, his pupils contracting to reveal a pair of clear eyes that even carried a hint of innocence.
His name was Wilson. He looked no more than twenty-five or twenty-six, with refined features and simple but well-made casual clothes that had been temporarily provided to him. His hands were secured by a standard restraint-field cuff to a ring fixed into the tabletop.
Yet in stark contrast to his helpless situation was the faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth, as though everything remained firmly under his control.
It was not forced composure. It felt more like genuine calm born from a sense of superiority.
Even inside an interrogation room, his straight back, relaxed shoulders, and unnaturally tranquil eyes made him look less like a suspect trapped with nowhere to go and more like a well-bred young aristocrat attending some tedious salon and maintaining his manners despite his boredom.
The lead interrogator was an experienced criminal investigations captain with a stern face and hawk-sharp eyes. He opened the electronic case file again, his voice steady and heavy with pressure.
"Wilson, listen carefully."
"I'm listening." Wilson answered at once. His voice was clear, with just the right touch of politeness, as though he were merely cooperating with an ordinary interview.
He calmly met the officer's gaze without avoiding it or showing the slightest hint of provocation. Somehow, that only made the sense of bottomless detachment and control surrounding him even stronger.
The officer began listing the accusations one by one, his voice echoing through the sealed room.
"Based on the evidence currently available, we strongly suspect that over the past three years, you planned and carried out at least fifteen brutal murders. The victims shared highly similar characteristics.
All were young men or women who lived alone, had limited social connections, and no record of any obvious personal disputes.
The methods used were exceptionally cruel and displayed a highly ritualistic nature, including but not limited to precise dissection, organ removal, and the arrangement of wounds into patterns with specific symbolic significance..."
Wilson listened quietly. His expression barely changed from beginning to end.
When the officer mentioned words such as cruel, dissection, and organs, not even the slightest ripple appeared in his eyes. He might as well have been listening to a mildly tedious news report about strangers.
Only after the officer finished and stared at him sternly, waiting for a reaction, did Wilson let out a soft, helpless sigh. His expression was like that of someone dealing with a stubborn child who refused to listen to reason.
"Officer," he began, his tone so sincere it bordered on innocent, "I truly don't understand what you're talking about. I've always been an ordinary, law-abiding citizen. I pay my taxes on time and treat people well. What you're describing is... horrifying. I can barely bring myself to imagine it. Are you sure you haven't arrested the wrong person?"
He shifted his cuffed wrists slightly, producing a faint scrape of metal, and a perfectly measured trace of confusion and grievance appeared on his face.
"Besides, if you're going to arrest someone... don't you need evidence? Out of all these 'clues' and 'suspicions' you've mentioned, which one actually proves that I committed any of those crimes? The law is supposed to require conclusive evidence, isn't it?"
Over the next several hours, the interrogation turned into a long and fruitless tug-of-war.
The officer switched between several questioning strategies. At times he applied intense pressure, at others he tried to find an emotional point of connection, and occasionally he presented carefully selected pieces of indirect information that seemed capable of linking Wilson to the crimes.
Wilson, however, maintained the same courteous yet impenetrable defensive posture throughout.
He never directly denied specific details, since doing so might reveal that he knew those details. Instead, he repeatedly insisted that he didn't understand, didn't know, and wanted to see evidence.
When faced with sharper questions, he deftly responded with questions of his own, changed the subject, or offered answers that sounded cooperative while saying virtually nothing.
His reasoning remained clear, his emotions steady. Even after hours of interrogation, he showed not the slightest sign of fatigue or irritation.
It was as though he genuinely regarded the whole thing as an intellectual game and was enjoying himself, savoring the process of matching words and expressions against seasoned law enforcement officers.
The arrogance rooted deep in his bones showed not only in his absolute confidence in his own intelligence and psychological resilience, but also in the faintly condescending way he regarded the interrogators, and even the law and the entire enforcement system itself.
---
In the observation room next door, Medici had been standing silently behind the one-way glass for several hours.
He had never sat down. His hands remained in his pockets, his body leaning slightly forward, his gaze fixed on Wilson like the most precise scanner imaginable.
He was not watching the testimony.
He was not looking for flaws in the man's logic, or even subtle physiological reactions.
He was watching posture, rhythm, minute changes in the eyes, the emotional undercurrent that surfaced under different kinds of pressure, and the internal logic that allowed someone to treat a deadly real-world interrogation as a game to be enjoyed.
This was completely different from designing game characters or constructing an experience for players.
This was a living, breathing, dangerous human being with extraordinary intelligence and a twisted mind.
And yet, strangely enough, some of the underlying principles were the same.
Both required understanding the target's core motivations, behavioral patterns, psychological weaknesses, and... how to design a situation that could influence, or even manipulate, the choices they made.
When the interrogation finally paused and the visibly tired officer entered the observation room, Medici slowly withdrew his gaze, deep in thought.
"Medici, you saw it yourself." The officer rubbed his brow, frustration clear in his voice. "Nothing gets through to him. Pressure doesn't work, sympathy doesn't work. The psychological profile says he craves novelty and control and is extremely arrogant. But every attempt we've made to surprise him or shake his confidence has been like punching cotton."
Medici remained silent for a moment, one finger unconsciously tapping lightly against the glass.
His mind rapidly assembled the fragments of information he had gathered over the past several hours.
Wilson's underlying fixation on ritual and refinement.
The pleasure he took in treating his conflict with law enforcement as an intellectual contest.
The deeply rooted superiority complex and arrogance that placed him, in his own mind, on a higher level than everyone else.
His complete immunity to conventional interrogation methods, along with the faint contempt he showed toward them.
"I have a few ideas," Medici finally said, his voice calm but carrying the certainty of someone who had thought the matter through. "He really is an extraordinarily arrogant man. You could even say his arrogance is at the core of who he is. It's his armor, and also his greatest source of pleasure."
He turned to face the officer.
"Conventional frontal attacks, moral condemnation, legal intimidation, none of that works on him. Within the framework of the 'game' he's constructed in his own mind, those are all low-level challenges. He may even enjoy the feeling of toying with his opponents."
"If we want to break down the psychological defenses of someone like him," Medici continued, his eyes sharpening, "then attacking from the outside may not work. We may need to collapse them from within."
"Not by proving that he was wrong, but by proving that the 'game' he takes so much pride in is actually crude and amateurish. That the 'control' he believes he possesses is full of holes. That the 'superiority' from which he looks down on everyone else is built on laughable ignorance."
"We need to construct a situation, or perhaps a conversation, that strikes precisely at the pride and intellectual superiority he values most. Something that makes him experience the humiliation and panic of losing control and being seen through for the first time."
"When his 'game' stops being fun, when he realizes he isn't the elite player he imagines himself to be, but merely a predictable and clumsy imitator in someone else's eyes... that's when cracks may finally appear in that shell."
The officer listened intently, hope returning to his eyes.
"How exactly should we do that? We need your advice."
Medici shook his head.
"Not yet. A few hours of observation and the descriptions in the case file aren't enough. I need to understand the 'rules' of his game more deeply. The 'aesthetic' of his crimes, if it can even be called an aesthetic. The underlying patterns behind how he chooses his victims. Even his personal upbringing and academic background... I need to go back and properly 'design' something."
He paused, then emphasized, "And I have to remind you, all of this is only speculation based on behavioral patterns. Reality isn't a game. There's no save file to reload. Any strategy has to remain within legal and procedural boundaries, and it should only be carried out after professionals like you have assessed the risks. All I can offer are ideas and possible directions."
The officer nodded solemnly.
"We understand. Thank you very much for the preliminary analysis. You've already given us a new angle to work from. We'll organize the remaining materials and get them to you as soon as possible."
Medici left the Municipal Enforcement Bureau, Brightlight Road Branch.
When he returned to his technologically advanced yet unusually lonely home, he did not rest. He did not even touch the unfinished lunch still sitting there.
Instead, he walked straight toward the enormous immersive creation pod in the center of the room.
He lay down inside.
The hatch closed.
The neural interface connected.