You know what's great about discussing a mystery set in a world that works like in a Japanese fantasy role-playing game? The fact this one isn't even the first I discuss here! We really should have more and more of them!
Death in mystery fiction is usually a permanent thing: it is usually what makes the act of murder a criminal one, an act that deserves investigation and a reaction fueled by justice. There are of course a few mystery stories where death isn't permanent per se (see for example Yamaguchi Masaya's Death of the Living Dead, translated by me!), but we can safely say the vast majority treats death as a permanent state. That is not the case in video games of course, where death is very often reset with just a push of a button or simply a "state" in a game that can be rewound via the use of a Phoenix Down or... visiting the church to have your party member ressurrected. The latter is of course a Dragon Quest staple and it's a Dragon Quest fantasy world that forms the basis of Ryuu's Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou: like in those games, death isn't permanent and the church can undo deaths with a ceremony, but unlike Dragon Quests, dead team members don't conveniently float behind you in a coffin as you make your way back from a dungeon. In Pick up a Corpse in the Labyrinth, corpses are just... dead people, with mass and weight. Often people die in dungeons because they're underleveled and one death soon leads to another as enemy attacks start focusing on fewer and fewer people, so people often have to leave their dead party members behind and flee the dungeon, lest the whole party dies. People like Glacia pick up these corpses upon the request of their clients, or if the deceased is insured against their death via the guild. While death is not permanent in this world, life is still a valuable resource though: the resurection ceremony uses a rare magic resource, meaning it does cost quite a lot to have a person resurrected and you do need someone to actually bring you to the church to do that: it means that while murder can be "undone", it is not viable to just undo every death, not even in the case of murder.
Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou is an interconnected short story collection, in which August and Glacia encounter three different cases across three chapters, though there's an overarching storyline in which August, and the reader, learn more about Glacia's background. The first story, Housekigui no Ryuu ("The Jewel-Eating Dragons") shows us the first encounter between the stoic and proud August, and the money-obsessed and manipulative Glacia as they go on their first quest together. The quest itself sounds simple: they are hired by two adventurers, who lost a party member in a dungeon when they tried to get away with a jewel treasure. Fast dragon-monsters protect the jewels in this dungeon, and many adventurers underestimate their lethalness Glacia gladly takes the case, and during their first quest, we see how August and Glacia learn to work together to enter a dungeon, with August being a frontline fighter and Glacia casting support magic. As the story develops however and August and Glacia make their way to the corpse they're supposed to retrieve, we learn Glacia has figured out not all is "normal" about their objective, but what is this truth hiding beneath the surface?
This first story also serves as an introduction to the world of Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou: while most of it sounds a lot like Dragon Quest, author Ryuu of course introduces some specific rules regarding how resurrection works and what you actually need for the ceremony in order to craft their mystery plot. Because of that, the core mystery plot remains a rather simple one: it is awfully easy to guess what Glacia also suspects about the quest they're undertaking. Ryuu does make good use of the world, magic and its rules crafted for this book and certain things laid out here will become relevant in the remainder of the book too, but the plot itself is somewhat obvious, which makes this more a story that is remembered for the potential it shows for the rest of the book.
The second story, Zangeshitsu ("Confessional") has Glacia and August visiting the local church to have a corpse resurrected. Glacia is a long-time "customer" of the church's services, but even so, even August can sense some reserve from the clergyman and his clerks in their attitude towards Glacia, hinting at some stigma surrounding her background. Nonetheless, they are happier with Glacia than with their latest resurrection, a wealthy wannabe adventurer who uses his family's wealth to bully everyone around them and even brings people around him in danger, while he himself has the financial means to get himself resurrected all the time thanks to his life insurance. He bullies the clerks in the church too, which is why everybody is happy when they find him dead in one of the rooms in the church, especially as it appears he committed suicide: the church generally does not resurrect people who have chosen their way out of life, as that'd be a waste of valuable magic resources. Glacia however soon sees not all is at seems, and even sees a chance to profit from this death.
This second story is definitely more engaging, with more suspects, a clearer-defined mystery and a more inspired use of the fantasy world and its rules. Whereas the fundamental concept behind the trick of the first story always works in a "realistic" world, the trick in this story is more firmly grounded in the magic rules of this work, making it a more satisfying story to read. What Ryuu again does well is naturally introducing the magic elements in the story and then incorporating them into the mystery plot. While not all of the misdirection works for me personally, I do appreciate the more intricate plotting of this tale, as well as the way Glacia deals with this case, as we are again shown that she's not a detective per se: she simply sees business opportunities, which also happen to rely on her detective skills at times.
The finale has a more ambitious set-up than the previous two stories: in Necromancy, the guild sends August and Glacia to join a party on an academic quest: because the place is so dangerous, the guild has decided to combine the necessary party members for two different quests together and have them work together. They are to visit the Inverted Castle, a castle which was once cursed by a powerful sorceror after the king cheated him on a deal: as punishment, the people in the castle were magically bound to the castle by a barrier, the castle itself was turned upside down and necromancy magic was used to make the people in the castle living dead. The latter deed in particular is quite grave: a dead person can not be resurrected if they have been manipulated as the undead, as the original soul is "bumped out" of the body if they're put under the power of a necromancer, making it impossible for them to come back alive. These undead now still roam the castle and make the place incredibly dangerous, as the undead are particularly nasty enemies that are hard to stop. The party is to explore the dungeon this castle has become for academic reasons, but August and Glacia's quest is different: they are to retrieve the bodies of two people dear to Glacia, who died in this castle and whose bodies have not been found yet. While they are exploring the castle however, one member in their party is found murdered, and oddly, all the clues left on the scene seem to point at Glacia as the murderer.
This last story in the collection feels like a proper culmination of everything that has occured so far, utilizing the magic rules and specific uses we learnt about in the previous stories and also featuring characters from previous adventures and expanding on the hints we've had until about Glacia's background. Which is perhaps why it's a bit disappointing this is just a short story: the Inverted Castle is a great setting for a finale, but as the book features no maps and this is ultimtely not a very long story (in a not very long book), it does feel like the castle could've been developed a bit more. We ultimately don't see (read) that much of the entire castle. After The Underground Maze of No Return in Isekai no Meitantei 2 and the labyrinth dungeon in Sword Art Online Alternative: Mystery Labyrinth - Meikyuukan no Satsujin, the Inverted Castle feels like a place that could've been so much more: had this story been a full novel, or at least a novella, we could've seen more of this upside-down castle, which could've served as the scene for more mysteries. Anyway, we have "just" one murder now, when the body of one of the party members comes crashing down the ceiling during a monster attack: Glacia's dagger is sticking out of the body and more importantly, the fact the body had been hidden in the floor above points at Glacia: the inverted layout of the castle (which has the stairs upside down too) means no other person in the party can climb a floor up, as only Glacia possesses levitation magic. With Glacia being the obvious suspect, the other fighters in the party soon turn against her, vowing to kill her to incapitate her. August is of course Glacia's only ally, but can he protect her against multiple enemies?
The seemingly impossible murder is original, as Glacia's guilt relies on her knowledge of a certain magic spell, which seems a bit strange if you're not really used to mystery fiction set in fantasy/science-fiction worlds, but it works very natural here. Of course, the solution to this conundrum also relies on clever use of the established rules to magic, and again, I do like how Ryuu took the time to tell and show to the reader how everything works over the course of several adventures, because it makes the payoff to seeing how the magic is used here more rewarding. Meanwhile, Glacia and August are also dealing with the fact they're being hunted by the rest of the party as the suspect on the murder (and her ally) and here the book does take on the form of a more "conventional" fantasy-action story, but fortunately, Ryuu does also make great use of its world to set-off a few clever turnarounds, that are nonetheless properly foreshadowed and clewed. The motive for the murderer for picking Glacia specifically as the fall-girl is also memorable, being one that really only makes sense in this specific world.
For those interested in RPG-inspired mystery stories by the way, besides the aforementioned Isekai no Meitantei series and the Sword Art Online book, there's also Hayasaka's excellent RPG School.
On the whole Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou is a pretty amusing book. It certainly uses an original premise, with a team that's just there to retrieve dead bodies in order to resurrect them: a premise that seems to go against the whole idea of a murder mystery as you can simply undo every murder and then ask the victim what happened, but Ryuu does a good job at explaining why it's not a "go-to" solution to every mystery in this book. While the book is a bit short, meaning some themes and settings are left not explored as deeply as I had hoped, the overall book is worth a recommendation, showing the fun possibilities that arise when you mix the mystery genre with other genres and their tropes.
