Chapter Eight: Demo Playtest, Day Two, Round Two, Investigation Time ③, Scene Two

Back in the VR space, Kamo went to the main hall first. MICHI was already there.

She was looking into the foyer.

“Tell me... What do you know about the glove that fell here?”

After the two of them entered the foyer together, the knob of the door that connected to the corridor turned gently, and KENZAN emerged. He must have heard MICHI's voice from outside.

“I was curious about that too, actually.” KENZAN said as he walked into the foyer and looked at the floor. MICHI nodded at him.

“That glove is right-handed, and when Kamo's hand was injured, even his glove was cut... so it's safe to assume that the glove that fell here is the Executioner's glove.”

“But as evidence, it seems too deliberate.”

“I feel the same. The material of this black glove is very elastic, and there's a band at the wrist, so it shouldn't be possible for the glove to have just come loose.”

“...We should consider the possibility that this is a trap.”

Kamo had actually already considered that possibility.

In YUKI's case, the VR Crime Time was three hours long, so even if the murderer had dropped something, they should have had plenty of time to retrieve it.

...And yet this glove was thrown away. Why?

“What I'd like to ask is... what do you two plan to do next?”

“Split up, definitely. This isn't the real world, so there's no need for us to act together.”

KENZAN dodged MICHI's hand, and MICHI smiled at him meaningfully.

“But Kamo, the Murderer, is in our group. It's better for all three of us to act together to avoid trouble later on.”

“...That's fine.”

Kamo replied quickly. He knew that as soon as their group split up someone would accuse him of destroying evidence.

“I guess it doesn't matter to me, either.”

After KENZAN declared his stance, MICHI immediately elected herself leader.

“Now that that's decided, let's all go investigate YUKI's room! I was so focused on the storeroom investigation earlier that I didn't even get a chance to look at it.”

After they arrived at YUKI's room, the three of them began the investigation, with MICHI taking the center while Kamo and KENZAN focused on areas they hadn't checked earlier.

They took about thirty minutes looking around the room, however, just increasing the number of times they looked didn't mean they'd find something new.

After they finally ran out of new places to check, MICHI grabbed a tissue off the table and reached for the barbed wire high above Kamo's head.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to see if... ah, why can't I reach?”

Seeing her bouncing in place, KENZAN laughed out loud.

“So the number written in your profile really is your height.”

“Yeah, converting that 5.31 feet in my profile, it's 162 cm exactly.”

Kamo remembered he'd had this same talk with MUNAKATA and voiced the thoughts he hadn't back then.

“...But why did they write it so confusingly? Usually, heights are written as feet and inches, right?”

MICHI didn't seem to care about his question. Dragging over a chair and standing on it, she once again put her hand over the barbed wire.

“No matter how precisely the VR operation suit is designed, there's no way it can replicate the breeze blown from an air conditioner, can it? That's why I want to visualize the airflow in the VR space.”

The tissue MICHI held up swayed gently in the breeze, proving that there was one originating from inside the wire mesh.

“I can't really feel it in my hand, but the my wrist feels a bit warm, so it must be from the A/C”

Kamo couldn't help but stare at her.

“You can't feel it with your hand?”

“We're using the same glove controllers that were used in the original Mystery Maker.” MICHI slapped the back of the chair and continued. “Sure enough, while our body inside the VR operation suit can precisely experience pain and the differences between hot and cold... the glove part can only replicate the sense of touch, so no matter how hard you smack 'em, you won't feel any pain.”

But that was impossible. Because when Kamo's avatar cut his finger, he'd felt pain like an electric shock.

...Why did that contradiction exist?

KENZAN had been looking at Kamo and MICHI with a helpless, annoyed expression, but finally he couldn't stop himself.

“Stop wasting time on these boring experiments... Actually, you didn't even need to move that chair. I could have told you that was an A/C through process of elimination.”

“Wah!”

MICHI almost lost her balance on the chair. KENZAN opened the menu with his smartwatch and continued “Look, it's all written on the map. Every room in Puppet Hall is equipped with air conditioning and ventilation, and the air conditioners have temperature control and air distribution functions.”

MICHI climbed off the chair and opened the map with a pout.

“Really, why didn't you say that earlier... The vent is installed in the bathroom. So then this is the air conditioner, yeah.”

As she said, there was a vent high on the wall, but of course they'd already confirmed it was also covered by barbed wire.

KENZAN shrugged in a way that looked mature for his age.

“I thought you must have already known something so basic.”

A moment later, MICHI, who was still in the menu, exclaimed something.

“Hmm? It looks like my ID doesn't have permission to change the air conditioning or ventilation.”

“Same here. I guess the Detectives don't have that permission. Maybe the Murderer and Executioner do.”

KENZAN's speculation was correct.

In fact, Kamo, as the Murderer, did have several special permissions.

One was the ability to extinguish the lights in the whole building to escape. That permission could only be used during Crime Time. However, there was another privilege that didn't have a time limit, and that was the ability to control the air conditioners and vents in each room. In other words, whenever Kamo wanted, he could change the room temperature at will. However...

Kamo told KENZAN “Even if I can adjust the temperature in the room, that won't explain the incident. Whether the temperature is set to that of a sauna or below freezing, it won't open the locked room, will it? And if the temperature had changed that drastically, the VR operation suit's feedback would have let Yuki know immediately.”

“Good point. It was a bit chilly in the second half of last night's VR Crime Time, but that should have just been because of the temperature in the real world dropping at night...”

“Ah! It looks like I found something!” MICHI suddenly exclaimed.

She looked up at the ceiling as she elaborated. “I don't know if it's related to the incident, but did you guys notice? All the lights and air conditioners and stuff in Puppet Hall are on the walls.”

Kamo and KENZAN looked at each other.

“She's right. In the real world, the lights and air conditioners are ceiling-mounted.”

“I'm pretty sure that's normal, and it's the setup in the VR space that's weird.”

MICHI looked at them both and spoke again with a smirk. “Incidentally, that's not the only difference between Megalodon Manor and Puppet Hall. On the map in the real world, our names are all represented by our kanji characters, while in VR, they're represented as English letters in all caps. Not only that, but the colors of the walls and the round tables are different, and the air conditioners and lights are installed in different places.”

“That's all done so players can tell which world they're in.”

KENZAN's expression showed the thought she was obsessing over obvious details. MICHI sounded amused as she replied “Oh, and here I thought the differences might have had something to do with the tricks performed in the VR space.”

The threesome then went to MUNAKATA's room.

The person who suggested that they investigate that room was Kamo,

“It's possible that Munakata was attacked while he was in the VR space. If we can confirm the state his character was in, we might be able to find out what he was doing when he was attacked by the Executioner.”

They broke down the door to MUNAKATA's room, but their hopes weren't answered, as his avatar simply sat frozen in his chair on the save point.

His right hand was raised as though saluting, which should have been from lifting his VR lenses. Kamo tried to move the avatar's hand, but it wouldn't budge no matter how hard he tried.

KENZAN shook his head at the sight.

“He really is frozen, you can't move him at all.”

MICHI rested her hand on her cheek and said “...Looking at this, it should be safe to assume that Munakata returned to the save point of his own accord then raised his lenses. Well, that makes it more likely he was in the real world when he was attacked, right?”

Her analysis should have been correct.

However, what Kamo was concerned with was the expression on the avatar's face. Because the frozen MUNAKATA bore an expression of fear and surprise.

That said... there was no conclusion he could draw from that.

When you took a picture of someone without forewarning them, you often got strange, unexpected expressions. The face the virtual figure was making was probably just a moment captured as Munakata was mid-action, and didn't necessarily reflect his emotions at that moment.

Finally, the trio went to investigate the storeroom again.

“Really... investigating alongside the guy who killed me, what even is this?”

MICHI grumbled and complained as KENZAN brushed his hair with one hand and said “Whatever the case, this is actually to our advantage. Once we notice Mr. Kamo react to something, we'll focus on that point and investigate it thoroughly.”

Kamo sighed as he followed the two of them.

For Kamo, who was himself the Murderer who'd killed MICHI, investigating the storeroom was meaningless. At best, he could keep track of how much progress MICHI and KENZAN had made in their investigations.

Should... Should I disrupt their investigation? As long as nobody finds out the truth, Rena and Yukina won't have to die.

However, if MICHI or anyone else gives a wrong answer based on my tampered evidence... that would be the same as if I'd killed them myself.

Is crushing others underfoot the only way to win this game?

Kamo watched them investigate with conflicting feelings.

Except for the west side, three walls of the storeroom were filled with tall shelves. KENZAN looked at the neatly arranged shelves and said “This room should also have A/C and a vent. Has anyone checked the wire mesh?”

When he asked that, MICHI had been investigating the storeroom door. As if she hadn't heard KENZAN's voice, she said as though to herself “There aren't any gaps above or below the door, and it's made of a sturdy material. The wheel to the integrated lock is only on the kitchen side, so the door can't be locked from inside the storeroom.”

Everything MICHI said was correct. Meanwhile, KENZAN let out a long sigh.

“...Ms. Michi?”

The woman in question was busy eyeballing the thickness of the door, and continued murmuring “Five centimeters, it's thick for an interior door.”

“Are... Are you ignoring me?”

When KENZAN finally started letting his irritation show, MICHI looked up and smiled.

“Calm down. We confirmed the presence of barbed wire during the last investigation, there should be one on the left side and one on the right of that wall.”

She pointed to the south wall of the storeroom.

There was a row of shelves along the south wall, all of them made of heavy, purple-black walnut wood.

KENZAN looked up and said to MICHI “Maybe it looks like I don't trust you, but I'm going to take a look myself.”

“Be my guest.”

KENZAN walked first to the east side of the southern wall, which was shared with the main hall.

He reached for the top of the shelves, but wasn't quite tall enough. Then he looked around the storeroom and realized that there wasn't anything he could use as a ladder.

So KENZAN decided to climb up the shelf itself to take a look. If left unchecked, the shelf surely would have fallen right on top of him, so Kamo scrambled over to hold on.

KENZAN climbed up to the second level of shelving and was finally able to reach the top. Then he reached for the wire mesh a bit above the top of the shelf.

“Well... it isn't hot or cold, so this should be the vent.” KENZAN muttered before reaching out to grasp the barbed wire and give it a hard yank. The barbed wire was securely affixed and didn't give.

...The worst was yet to come.

The vent didn't matter, but Kamo didn't want him investigating the air conditioner.

Not long afterwards, KENZAN walked back towards the shelves facing the front door on the west side of the southern wall. Just like earlier, KENZAN climbed up with Kamo's assistance and reached above the top shelf.

“Hm? Are these puppets?”

As he said, there were two strange puppets on the shelf. MICHI seemed to remember something and suddenly burst into laughter.

“I remember now, there were two weird dolls on that shelf.”

KENZAN ignored her and reached for the puppets directly in front of the barbed wire mesh.

Sitting cross legged on the top shelf were two clown puppets in purple and red tuxedos, respectively. Seeing KENZAN grab the puppets, Kamo couldn't help but tense up.

Those were the two clown puppets that Kamo had seen before he killed MICHI.

Last night, Kamo had put the fallen dolls back where he thought they'd been originally. Although he'd hidden them, there was no way to cover up the bloodstains on their legs and hips from MICHI's nosebleed.

Has... KENZAN noticed the blood on the dolls?

Kamo looked up at him nervously, however, KENZAN ignored the clown puppets and pushed them aside, then reached out to probe the barbed wire mesh and announced “Well, my wrist feels warm, so this one should be the air conditioner. The barbed wire's firmly fixed here, too.”

KENZAN reset the puppets and climbed back down the shelf. Kamo let out a secret sigh of relief.

Last night, Kamo had taken a gamble when he put those puppets back on the shelf below the air conditioner.

...If part of the puppet is stained with blood, that would be quite eye-catching. But what if the entire puppet was just a little dirty?

So, he'd purposefully bloodied the puppets' arms and torsos before placing them back on the shelf.

He didn't know if it was lucky or unlucky that the storeroom was stocked with horror themed puppets.

KENZAN must have seen the clown puppets, but he should have interpreted the bloodstains as part of the design and ignored them. Although the bloodstains should have started changing color by now,

Kamo's plan to hide them seemed to have worked.

But Kamo had made one mistake with his bet.

He'd put the puppets back up without waiting for the blood to dry. If KENZAN had more closely examined the top shelf, he should have noticed that it was stained with blood.

...It was lucky that the storeroom didn't have a ladder. That was what had allowed Kamo to escape.

Due to climbing up the unsteady shelf, KENZAN hadn't cared about the state of the shelf itself. In addition, the shelf was a walnut color close to that of roasted tea, and the bloodstains weren't obvious.

That said, Kamo knew he couldn't ride by on luck forever. Even if he'd gotten away with it now, there was no guarantee it wouldn't be found later.

With a heavy heart, he looked up and gazed at the air conditioning hole.

***

Their investigation of the storeroom lasted an hour... Kamo returned to his room in the real world feeling mentally exhausted.

He used the rest of his time to rest. It was less than thirty minutes, but he took the chance to rehydrate and eat some energy gels.

It was almost 7:30 P.M. when Kamo stepped out of his room in Megalodon Manor.

He was making his way towards the lounge when he ran into Yuki trying to open his room door with his smartwatch.

“...Aren't you going to the lounge?”

Kamo asked him, causing Yuki to jump in fright.

“Ahh, Mr. Kamo! What are you doing in the real world!?”

Yuki seemed a bit relieved when he saw that it was just Kamo, but there was still a hint of caution on his face. Kamo gave him a wry smile.

“It's already 7:30, you know.”

Yuki glanced at his watch and mumbled “We still have five minutes, I was thinking I'd go inside and drink some water before going to the lounge.”

“Where are the other two?”

“They should both be in their rooms. They just finished noisily examining the inside of the ceiling above the storeroom.”

That was unexpected, and it made Kamo's eyes widen.

“Inside the ceiling?”

“Yeah, apparently the access hole in the storeroom goes all the way to the ceiling above Mr. Munakata's room... But the area around the access hole is deteriorated, so if you seriously try to go up, it makes this loud crackling noise.”

Kamo was lost in thought as he listened.

“An electrician might go up to a ceiling to overhaul it, but it's too dangerous for an ordinary person to go up there, isn't it?”

The ceiling wasn't strong enough to support a person's weight, so when moving through it, one would have to carefully walk along the beams and other sturdy places, and if they took one wrong step, it was likely that they'd smash through the ceiling and fall.

Yuki shrugged.

“Mr. Fuwa just poked his head in to take a look and didn't climb up. Besides, the ceiling in Mr. Munakata's room didn't even have any holes or cracks, right? The ceiling in his room is the same as the one in mine, completely separating the crawlspace from the room, so I'm afraid there isn't any point to investigating further.”

At 7:30 P.M., all six detectives had safely assembled in the lounge.

The group agreed to meet again at 10:00 P.M., and once again split into the groups of three to investigate the real world and VR space.

Kamo's group stayed in the real world and started with Munakata's room.

Night had already fallen, and the room was so dark that almost nothing could be seen. There was a starry sky outside the window, but no moon.

Kamo fumbled for the lights.

The lights in Megalodon Manor were all low intensity, so it was difficult to see into the corners of the room even with the light on. However, the crime scene was close to the ceiling light, so it didn't affect their investigation.

Kenzan looked down at Munakata's body and said “Actually, I've been thinking, you can't stab yourself in the back, can you?”

Kamo nodded.

“Well, it isn't completely impossible... if you fix the knife vertically into the ground and fall backwards onto it.”

“Still, I don't think Munakata committed suicide.” Michi picked up the train of thought, and continued “Judging from the location and depth of the knife wound, Munakata should have been incapacitated immediately after he was stabbed, so even if it was possible for him to stab himself, he couldn't have removed the evidence of suicide.”

“What about using frozen blood? The hilt of the knife was frozen in blood with the blade facing upwards, and when it melted, the blood mixed with the blood coming from the wound and became indistinguishable from it.”

“No, that shouldn't be it, either.”

“Why not?”

Kamo pointed to the knife in the corpse's back, the exposed hilt white and unsullied.

“If frozen blood were used, then the hilt should be covered in blood.”

“What about using regular ice, then?”

“I don't think using ice would work for this, ice is melty and slippery, and if the carpet got wet as it melted, it would get ever more slippery... it's not really suitable for holding things in place.”

Michi nodded her head and added “And it takes time for ice to melt when it's assembled into something the size of a knife holder. Whether it would be completely melted within two hours of the crime is hard to say.”

But Kenzan remained adamant.

“Isn't that hexagonal nut suspicious? That could have been used to fix the knife to something.”

Michi scratched her face and thought for a while before finally asking with a stiff expression “...Why don't we pull out the knife and take a look?”

While Kenzan sucked in a breath, Kamo wasn't that surprised. He'd been thinking the same thing for a while now.

None of them had examined the murder weapon yet. Although touching it was a total violation of the principle of not disturbing the scene, they couldn't count on the police to intervene right now, so, frankly, Kamo just wanted to grab as much information for himself as possible.

Kamo took a breath and once again crouched next to Munakata's body.

“I'll do the pulling.”

The others didn't object.

It was only when he took a closer look that Kamo realized that the back of the VR operation suit had absorbed a large amount of blood, which had already dried and hardened. It seemed the 3 cm thick layer of polyurethane in the suit was highly absorbent.

The direction of the blood flow was clearly visible. Munakata's body lay on his right side when it fell to the ground, so there was blood blotting the right side of his back, while another part flowed towards his waist and over the connection point... The fact that the blood had flowed in that direction implied that Munakata had been standing or sitting when he was stabbed.

Kamo thought that idly as he grabbed the knife.

He carefully withdrew the knife in a way that wouldn't widen the wound. There was a slight, peculiar pulling feeling, but the knife came out easier than he'd expected. Maybe it was because so much time had passed since Munakata's death, but the open wound didn't bleed much, either.

Kamo looked down at the knife in his hand. The blade wavered slightly at the edge as he moved, reflecting the light of the LEDs overhead.

The blade was about 15 cm long and about 3 cm wide at its widest point, and the tip hadn't broken.

“...This knife is so light.”

The handle was made of a rubberized material that weighed almost nothing. The metal blade was sharp and thin, but seemed strong.

Kenzan held out his hand to Kamo with a face hard as iron.

“I'll be in charge of seeing what it does when combined with the nut.”

Kenzan spent five minutes fiddling with it before finally giving up and tossing the nut away.

“It doesn't work. It doesn't match the shape of the handle or the blade... Plus, it's only four millimeters thick, so there's no way to use it to fix the knife vertically on the ground.”

The three of them gave up on studying the murder weapon for the time being and began examining the rest of Munakata's room.

They checked the walls, ceiling, and floor, and found nothing suspicious.

There wasn't even the tiniest crack in the ceiling, and none of the equipment, including the ceiling light and the air conditioner, showed any abnormalities.

Finally, Kamo and the others decided to check the building for secret passages.

“Incidentally, I'm quite good at finding secret passages... no, it's secret vaults.”

Led by the somewhat incoherent Michi, the three of them checked the hallways and the room for any discrepancies in size. The results confirmed that there was no room for a secret passage in the walls and no secret basements lay underground.

“Based on my experience, I can confirm there aren't any hidden spaces here.”

Seeing Michi's brazen expression, Kenzan couldn't stop himself from laughing.

“You really are a former criminal.”

“Honestly, I haven't reformed in my heart. Following the detective's rules just makes things harder for me... But Roppongi threatened me and half-forced me to go straight.”

Kamo was skeptical that there was any truth to her words, but asked back “He threatened you? How?”

“Don't get me wrong, I'm not the sort of idiot who'd get caught by a guy like Roppongi. He threatened to go after my favorite failson.”

“...Failson?” Kamo and Kenzan asked near-simultaneously.

“Yeah, the guy I've been living with for almost ten years. Oh, the failson's a real useless guy who can't keep a job because he's too lazy, and his favorite hobby's gambling. But Roppongi put the screws to him... and things turned out like this.”

Kenzan suddenly looked confused.

“You think he's 'useless'... but you still changed the path of your whole life for him?”

Hearing this, Michi got uncharacteristically shy.

“Ahh, even though he can't take care of himself at all, his looks and personality are both exactly my type. Except for his finances, which are always in crisis, he's just the best guy I've ever met. I know you probably find it strange, but... I just can't let him go.”

Kamo decided not to dig any deeper into Michi's relationship with the failson, which seemed like a private matter... besides, he got the feeling that it wouldn't make sense no matter how much she explained.

Michi let out a long sigh, and her smile turned sad.

“Honestly, ever since I met him, nothing good has happened to me. One minute I'm being coerced by Roppongi, the next I'm being taken hostage by Kurata. But... I still really want to see him again.”

At some point, Michi had sat, or rather, collapsed helplessly onto the bed. Kenzan and Kamo looked at each other, then Kenzan said “As soon as this incident is resolved, you can. I also... deeply miss my friend.”

Hearing that the person he wanted to see wasn't even a family member, Kamo was a bit surprised. For a boy his age... it seemed his family situation was rather complicated.

Just as Kenzan was about to speak again, a familiar voice came from the surveillance camera.

“Thank God, I was getting tired of waiting.”

Kamo felt a chill run down his back. That was the second time he'd heard those words.

Kenzan's face had also turned pale, and he said under his breath “That wasn't addressed to us... Did someone in VR space just offer to give a theory?”

Kurata laughed happily. “In that case, please put on your glove controllers and head to the meeting in Megalodon Manor's lounge. Answer Time will begin soon.”

Previous Chapter                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Next Chapter