Chapter Nine: Demo Playtest, Day Two, Answer Time ②, Scene Two

“Fuwa, I'll also give you a chance to continue your theorizing... Will you take it?” Kurata asked with a smirk. Apparently, a single victim still wouldn't be enough.

Fuwa seemed to have expected that and immediately looked up.

“I was waiting for you to say that.”

His eyes were red and bloodshot with excitement.

Another person was about to be accused... Thinking that, Kamo felt intensely unnerved. Looking at him, Fuwa had lost all composure and likely couldn't reason soundly.

“Then please, choose the event you want to theorize about.”

“The murder case in the real world.”

Kamo had expected him to start with a theory about YUKI's case, but that guess fell through. Everyone around the round table sat up straight.

Fuwa looked around at everyone before speaking. “Let's discuss this in Mr. Munakata's room.”

Fuwa was the first to enter the room, where he let out a noise of unrestrained disgust.

“...Who was it? Who did something so horrible?”

The four left other than Kamo all rushed in to see what was going on, not only pushing Fuwa into the room but also getting into a brief shoving match at the door.

Kamo could vaguely guess what Fuwa was talking about and looked over Michi and Fuwa's heads before saying “I was the one who took out the knife. We needed to examine the murder weapon.”

Fuwa stared at the wound on Munakata's back, his expression hard for just a moment. But it seemed he didn't intend to argue about it, and turned to everyone and spoke. “I've examined it carefully, and this room can be called a perfect locked room. Not a hair can be put through it.”

Everybody appeared to agree with that statement. At the very least, nobody refuted it.

Fuwa took a steadying breath and declared “Like I said before, the only possible explanation is a secret passage.”

Kenzan impatiently interjected “Why are we even talking about this? We all searched the entire building already, there aren't any secret passages.”

Fuwa smiled softly, and turned to Kamo once more.

“The last time we saw Mr. Munakata was in the main hall of the VR space. What did you do at that time after you were dismissed to your rooms?”

Kamo didn't understand why he was asking, but he answered truthfully.

“I went straight back to the real world and stayed in my room at Megalodon Manor the whole time.”

“Did you hear any suspicious noises in Megalodon Manor?”

“It was raining quite loudly at the time, so it would have been weirder if I did. That said, shouldn't you be asking Yuki this? The soundproofing in Megalodon Manor is strong, and my room's pretty far from here.”

Yuki was about to open his mouth, but Fuwa beat him to it. He once again pointed at Kamo and said “That proves it. You, Kamo Touma, are the Executioner.”

“.........Me?”

Having already provided counter-evidence in his role as the Murderer, Kamo had been worried for the sake of the next person to be accused... things had gone in a completely unexpected direction.

Fuwa relentlessly continued “Even though Mr. Munakata thought you were the Murderer, I suspected from the beginning that you were the Executioner.”

“What!? Why!? If I was Kurata's accomplice, why would I have done something as stupid as get my hand cut and expose myself?”

Kamo couldn't keep from yelling, but Fuwa turned a deaf ear.

“It's because you're Kurata's vile accomplice that you'd definitely be able to deliberately trigger the doorknob's trap and then innocently pretend to go 'I'm the Murderer!'”

...This so-called great detective's a goddamned fraud!

Kamo furiously glared into Fuwa's eyes for a moment before finally sighing and saying “Then please make an actual argument for me being the Executioner. I can't counter a theory that doesn't exist.”

“I admire your thick skin.”

“...Whatever you say.”

“Ms. Michi and little Kenzan might not know this, but you can go above the ceiling of Megalodon Manor from the storeroom. And the murder that took place in this room utilized the ceiling.”

Listening to Fuwa's deranged explanation, Kamo couldn't help but smile at the audacity.

“What could you do with the ceiling?”

“I'll explain exactly how the crime was committed in detail later, what's important right now is that the access hole in the storeroom... is deteriorated, and if someone tries to use it to climb above the ceiling, it'll make a loud noise.”

Kamo remembered that Yuki had said the same thing.

“So?”

“Your room shares a wall with the storeroom. Even if it was raining loudly and the building has good soundproofing... there's no way you wouldn't have been able to hear the loud noise of the access hole from your room.”

Kamo shook his head firmly.

“The fact that I didn't hear the crackling sound is proof that nobody went above the ceiling during the time of the crime.”

“No, the only way to kill Mr. Munakata is to use the ceiling. If you say you didn't hear the sound... then that means your testimony is false, and you're the Executioner who climbed up to the ceiling.”

Further argument would get them nowhere.

Kamo remembered the map and everyone's information from his smartwatch and fell into deep thought.

...What I have to prove first is that I didn't climb above the ceiling. I'm 5.87 feet tall, second only to Fuwa, and directly beneath me is Yuki, who's 5.81.

Kamo wanted to try and see if he could form a counterargument from his height, but the conversion from feet to centimeters was too troublesome. How much work would they have saved if they'd just used metric from the start...

The moment that thought passed through his head, Kamo screamed. He felt as though he'd received an electric shock to the back of the neck, and he went numb all the way to his fingertips.

As though in a daze, he said “The glove, the poison vial...”

All the fragments of information that had previously not fit together fell into place all at once, and the darkness that concealed the truth was swept away. ...He'd had all the information in his hands the whole time, and several opportunities to discover the truth had already arisen.

Kamo cursed his own carelessness. If he hadn't been so busy covering up his own crime, he could have at least discovered the truth about YUKI's case much earlier.

Someone grabbed his left arm, and Kamo almost jumped in fright.

He was so engrossed in his own thoughts just then that he'd completely forgotten where he was. He turned his head to see Yuki, who let go of the arm.

“...Are you alright?”

Fuwa's expression was cold.

“It's no use trying to change the subject. Forget what happened in the VR space, what I'm about to explain is the murder you committed in the real world.”

Looking at the faint smile on Fuwa's face, Kamo felt the hairs on his body stand on end.

Because the person he'd just deduced was the murderer of YUKI...

Was Fuwa.

...He isn't a fraud or someone with no common sense.

He's the Executioner.

There were probably two reasons for his current approach.

For one, by forcing an Answer Time followed by a Crime Time, he could physically interrupt Kamo and the others' investigation of his murder. Secondly, he was trying to get rid of Kamo, the Murderer.

If Kamo couldn't defend himself here, it would immediately trigger a Real World Crime Time. Fuwa was most likely planning to kill Kamo... then commit suicide and disguise it as a murder, setting them all up for death by failed deductions or the time limit.

Don't tell me... Is he trying to stall and create more false trails to make sure nobody can deduce the truth before noon tomorrow? He's pure evil.

Kamo fought the intense anger that welled up from the bottom of his heart, anger that focused into a sharp glare into Fuwa. Fuwa narrowed his eyes.

“Looks like you've finally realized what you're in for.”

“Don't make me laugh. You're the Executioner–”

Kamo was about to reveal the truth when Kurata cut him off.

“QUIET! This is Fuwa's Answer Time, and all you can do is defend yourself. If you make any more irrelevant statements, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave the stage, got it?”

The implication was clear: Expose Fuwa, and you get the needle.

Kamo shut his mouth and grit his teeth.

...I saw the truth of YUKI's case too late. If I can't successfully defend myself and survive here, I won't even have a chance to share the information I've found.

Looking at the cornered Kamo, Fuwa shrugged.

“I don't have time to play with you, so let's get back to the reasoning.”

Almost nobody interfered with the battle between Kamo and Fuwa, just standing and quietly watching. Yuki was the only one to interject.

“The ceiling crawlspace is totally separate from this room, and there aren't any cracks in the ceiling, so how on Earth could the killer have committed a murder from up there?”

Kamo waited for Fuwa's answer.

If he was the Executioner, he definitely wouldn't reveal his real method for killing Munakata here. What Fuwa was about to say next was bound to be a false theory that just sounded plausible.

Fuwa showily pointed his index finger at the light above the corpse.

“Mr. Kamo used the ceiling light.”

“What?”

Yuki glanced up at the ceiling with a puzzled expression. It was because there wasn't anything unusual about the LED light installed in the ceiling.

Fuwa seemed to enjoy Yuki's reaction as he said with a grin “Ceiling lights are installed by cutting a hole in the ceiling and affixing them with screws. Unlike with fluorescent lights, that hole in the ceiling won't have been sealed.”

Looking at his confident demeanor, what he said about the structure of the ceiling light was probably true. Kamo gave up on refuting that part for the time being.

“No, your idea won't work, right? If someone were walking around on the ceiling and tampering with the light, Munakata would have heard it immediately.”

“Not if Kurata was an accomplice.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Kurata told him 'I'll give you another chance, let's meet in the VR space and discuss it in detail', Mr. Munakata would definitely go. Even if he thought it could be a trap, someone desperate for survival will take that gamble, even if it's only a one percent chance of success. That's human nature.”

It was hard to believe Munakata had actually entered the VR space, leaving his real body defenseless.

However, the possibility of Kurata threatening or luring him into doing so wasn't zero. Since there was no way to assert it was impossible, it was a weak basis for a counterattack.

As a last resort, Kamo asked a question.

“If you say the crime was committed from the ceiling, then you'd have to lure Munakata right below the ceiling light and make him turn his back to the ceiling, otherwise it would be impossible to stick the knife in his back... How are you going to explain that part?”

“You threw the hex nut through the hole in the ceiling as Mr. Munakata was entering the VR space. When Mr. Munakata bent down to take a closer look, you took the opportunity to throw the knife through the hole.”

Kamo listened to Fuwa's explanation and pondered how to respond.

...Would the question of why the hexagonal nut was bloody work? But if Fuwa said that I stained it with blood in advance to increase the odds that Munakata would notice it, that would be hard to refute.

What about how light the knife was? If the plan was to drop the knife from the ceiling to stab the target, a heavier and sturdier knife should have been used. No, that isn't enough.

Fuwa smiled at Kamo with the certainty that he would be victorious.

“Suddenly stabbed in the back, Mr. Munakata must have been shocked. He staggered forward a few steps before his legs finally gave out from under him and he fell to the ground. That's why his body wasn't underneath the ceiling lamp.”

To organize his thoughts, Kamo took a breath. Then, he asked Fuwa a pointed question.

“After we talked to Munakata for the last time in the VR space, we returned to the real world all at once. That was... around 1:35 P.M., wasn't it?”

Fuwa frowned in a wary expression, and it was Yuki who nodded and said “Yes, it was around then.”

“By then, it was already raining heavily outside. That rain continued for over an hour and didn't lighten up until 3:00 P.M.”

Not everyone there should have been able to remember the time when the rain let up, but nobody contradicted him. So Kamo continued “Back in the real world, after lifting our VR lenses, there's one thing every one of us must have done.”

Yuki grinned and took over. “I went and turned on the lights because the room was too dark to maneuver by daylight.”

“But... the ceiling light was turned off when we broke down the door. I remember Yuki turned on the light when we examined the hex nut on the carpet.”

Fuwa stared viciously at Kamo and said “Then, Mr. Munakata was killed after the rain stopped. After the clouds cleared and the sun came out, there would have been no need to leave the lights on.”

“No. Based on the progression of livor mortis and the body temperature, we surmised that Munakata was killed before 2:40 P.M. The rain hadn't even begun to let up then.”

Fuwa was dumbfounded. Kamo looked down at the hexagonal nut on the carpet and opened his mouth again.

“According to your reasoning just now, Munakata entered the VR space right before he was murdered. It was dark outside because of the rain. The moment he lifted his VR lenses, he couldn't have instantly adapted to the darkness around him, so it would have looked even darker. In that case, there's no way he could have seen a tiny nut on the ground.”

In fact, Kamo had kicked his pen in a similar situation, which proved that the natural light at the time was extremely dim.

Kamo squinted one eye as he continued “In other words, Munakata was killed without turning on the ceiling light... and of course, without finding the hexagonal nut. In that case, there's no reason he would have crouched directly below the ceiling light, so the theory that the knife was thrown to stab him in the back doesn't hold up.”

“...How is this possible!?”

Beads of sweat were already pouring down Fuwa's face.

Kamo spoke again mercilessly.

“Your reasoning is utter nonsense. If it hadn't been for that rainstorm, I'd have narrowly missed my chance to defend myself.”

“Shut up!”

Fuwa yelled and slammed his right hand into the wall. It left a large dent, and his huge fist was suddenly bloody.

“I know you're the Executioner! I can't let you get away...”

Fuwa was breathing heavily, still glaring daggers at Kamo. His fists trembled with the searing heat of his killing intent.

Kamo wasn't afraid of the violence Fuwa now displayed.

The reason wasn't because Fuwa was on the verge of defeat. It was because the eyes that glared at him now were full of hatred and malice. But also, in the depths of Fuwa's gaze Kamo saw total honesty without a trace of falsehood.

Blood dripped from Fuwa's fist, forming a pool on the floor beneath.

From the silence came Kurata's voice.

“The opportunity to continue answering has been used up, so I rule that the only loser in this Answer Time is Fuwa... It's a pity, but who's the one who let Kamo beat them in the debates twice in a row?”

“No, my counterattack isn't over yet.” Kamo said almost automatically.

Fuwa, who had been asking to continue his reasoning just a moment ago, now looked disoriented, while Kurata also locked up for a long moment before asking “What else is there to disprove?”

Kamo knew the choice he was making was a dangerous one, but he was convinced it was the best thing to do. He raised his head to look at the security camera and said “Fuwa still suspects me of being the Executioner right now, so my defense won't be considered complete if I can't prove I'm not the Executioner.”

After a few seconds of silence, Kurata let out a playful laugh that came from deep inside.

“Very well, but if you can't disprove it, you still have to die, K?”

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