Saturday, November 23rd, 2024, 8:55 P.M.
"This round's contestant is... Fuwa Shinichiro! Which incident will you be starting with?"
Six people were gathered around the round table in Megalodon Manor's lounge.
Because Answer Time had to be held in the real world, the monitor on the round table was once again projecting a 3D image of the VR space.
Fuwa looked painfully stiff as he answered "Let's start with the MICHI case, then."
"No problem. Please, state the full name of the person you're accusing."
This time... the reasoning once again began with the incident created by Kamo.
As expected, Fuwa firmly declared "I'm going to expose Kamo Touma. I'm going to repeat Mr. Munakata's reasoning as the basis for him being the culprit of the MICHI case."
Kamo gave up and just smiled.
"That's nothing... but how did I do it?"
"There are two questions that need solving. First, how did you render the avatar MICHI unconscious after she walked into the warehouse? Second, how did you barricade the warehouse door with a rubber dinghy and a shelf from the inside, making it a locked room?"
As expected of a private investigator with experience solving numerous cases, Fuwa laid out his deductions in a much more organized way than Munakata.
Seeing that Kamo had nothing else to say, Fuwa continued. "There may seem to be two puzzling problems, but in fact, they have the same root and the same origin. As long as one is solved, the other can be solved along the way."
It was clear now... that was something that only someone who'd seen through to the truth could say.
Kamo struggled to control his expression, but he couldn't keep his face from draining of blood. Fuwa narrowed his eyes with a grin and continued "Let's start with how the avatar was rendered unconscious. It's actually quite simple. The cause of MICHI's collapse was a lack of oxygen."
"Lack of oxygen?" the victim, Michi, asked. Fuwa nodded.
"That's right. As I said, Mr. Kamo drained the air out of the storeroom, causing your avatar to enter a state of hypoxia."
Michi didn't seem to understand right away. Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn't speak. Fuwa gave her a sympathetic look.
"Large airliners fly at an altitude of ten thousand meters, and that high in the air, the air pressure can get as low as 0.25 atmospheres. In that low pressure state, the human body will instantly fall into a state of oxygen deprivation and lose consciousness in a short period of time."
Michi reflexively covered her ears.
"Is that why my character's ears were bleeding?"
"Bleeding from the ears and nose are both symptoms of exposure to ultra-low-pressure environments. Travelers feel pain in their ear canals when sitting in a cabin where the air pressure has changed, so I'm afraid your character couldn't stand the sudden decompression and ruptured her eardrums."
"And the chills all over my body before I fainted?"
"Explaining that requires a bit of specialized knowledge. Expanding the air in a state where there's no transfer of heat between indoors and outdoors causes a drop in temperature due to adiabatic expansion. Applied to this event, the air pressure inside the storeroom rapidly decreased, and the temperature followed suit. Of course, what the real Ms. Michi felt was only the amount of cold that the VR operation suit could simulate."
In the face of this completely accurate explanation, Kamo forced himself to remain calm. "It's true the storeroom has an air distribution control feature... but do you really think it would be able to draw enough air out of the room to lower the air pressure until it could knock someone out?"
"It's the only way to explain the avatar MICHI's unconsciousness without using poison. Mr. Kamo, you have to admit that the door to the storeroom isn't exactly normal."
Saying that, Fuwa pulled up an image of the storeroom door on the 3D monitor.
In addition to the round doorknob, the door was fitted with an integrated lock which opened and closed by turning a wheel like on the door to a submarine.
"These integrated door locks usually double as handles. The music classroom at my old school had one like this. They're often used in places where soundproofing is required. In other words, they're locks that are highly airtight."
Hearing his words, Kamo felt a cold sweat bloom on his back. He couldn't think of a retort, so there was nothing he could say.
Michi thought for a moment and interjected "I see, all the other interior doors in Puppet Hall have either gaps or cat flaps, so there's absolutely no airtightness whatsoever. It's weird that the storeroom is the only room fitted with an iron door with a submarine lock, it's like it was perfectly made to create a low-pressure environment."
...This is bad, this is bad, this is really bad.
Once the truth was out there, the Murderer had no more room to struggle.
Knowing that resisting like this was pointless, Kamo desperately pondered how he could derail the current path of the conversation. Meanwhile, Fuwa gave him a terrifying grin.
"After locking the victim in the storeroom, Mr. Kamo used his smartwatch to turn the air control system to empty the room of air. After about five minutes, the air pressure in the storeroom was lowered to the point that would cause unconsciousness, at which point the avatar MICHI fainted."
Reasoning seemed to come as naturally to him as breathing. His words flowed without a single pause.
Kamo just sat to the side and watched, falling deeper into an abyss he was powerless to escape.
His plan had been seen through. Instead of waiting to die, it would be better to just give up and admit it... The memory of Rena and Yukina was all that stopped him.
Fuwa continued unflinchingly "After the avatar MICHI fell unconscious, you quickly refilled the air to the storeroom."
Even though he knew it was useless, Kamo tried to retort. "...How?"
"On the map, it says that Megalodon Manor is equipped with an exhaust system, while Puppet Hall has air distribution control. From the beginning, I wondered why they used different terms for the air system... In fact, the exhaust inside Megalodon Manor can only remove air from the room, while the air conditioner in Puppet Hall can add it."
Azuma said with wide eyes "An air supply system to transport fresh air into the room, right? It's true that if the air distribution function was used, the air pressure in the storeroom could be restored."
Fuwa nodded with a grin.
"That's right. Mr. Kamo used the air conditioner to send in a large amount of air, quickly restoring the air pressure inside the storeroom. Once the air pressure had risen to an acceptable level, he entered the storeroom, strangled the avatar MICHI to death, and dragged her body to the back of the room... How's my reasoning so far?"
It was so accurate you'd have thought he'd seen it done. There wasn't a single hole in his logic.
Kamo suddenly started laughing at himself.
...What am I even thinking? Right now, I shouldn't want to poke holes in Fuwa's logic. If he's right, then as long as he can also solve the remaining two incidents, it'll be total victory for the Detective Team. Then everybody wins!
"Why are you laughing?"
When he returned to his senses, Kamo realized that Fuwa was staring at him with a somewhat fearful look. Kamo shook his head.
"No, I just realized that I can't find any way to rebut you."
Fuwa's expression suddenly turned to one of scorn, and he continued to explain his deductions.
"Next is the method of the locked room. Actually... this also utilized the air conditioner and the exhaust in the storeroom."
Then, Yuki spoke up with a rare biting tone. "It's true that using the air conditioner to increase the air pressure inside the storeroom would create a pressure differential between the inside and outside and make it impossible to open the door. However, that doesn't apply to this incident."
"Why not?"
"Because before we discovered the body, the storeroom door wasn't immobilized. I was able to push it open a few millimeters."
Azuma immediately joined in the rebuttal. "He's right, I even crawled down on my stomach to try and see into the storeroom through that gap."
"Right? Even if it's only a few millimeters, as long as there's any gap, the pressure difference between the kitchen and the storeroom will vanish and the door will be openable again."
Although Yuki's claim wasn't wrong, Fuwa immediately replied in that same sympathetic tone.
"You fiction authors always over-complicate things, and that's why you usually fall over. Creating this locked room was actually very simple... and it was a trick that could only be done in a VR space."
Kamo couldn't help but close his eyes.
...He's right. There wasn't any pressure difference between the kitchen and the storeroom at the time. And when I locked the storeroom door, I did use a simple trick that was only possible in VR.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw the 3D monitor displaying an overhead image of the storeroom. Fuwa continued.
"When Mr. Kamo inflated that rubber boat, he only filled it to an eight of its total capacity, so it wasn't fully inflated. Then it could easily be flattened and placed in the space behind the door, right? That way, even if the shelf was placed 45 centimeters away from the door, the dinghy wouldn't block the exit."
That was exactly what Kamo had done last night.
The storeroom door could only be opened 30 centimeters or so due to the obstruction of the shelf and the flattened rubber dinghy behind the door. But that was enough to allow a thin person to pass through. Kamo carefully avoided the doorknob as he walked sideways from the storeroom into the kitchen.
He made up his mind and threw out what would probably be his last question.
"If the rubber boat wasn't fully inflated, the door should have been able to open much further when Yuki and Kenzan pushed it. But something inside the storeroom was blocking the door. How do you explain that?"
Fuwa scoffed and raised his hand to point at the 3D display.
"As you can see, the air conditioner's hole is directly across from the storeroom door, so the strong winds blowing from here would hit the door."
"............Huh?"
Kamo didn't understand, and his whole body froze. After a moment, the realization dawned in his head, and his head fell into his hands.
Since Kamo suddenly stopped speaking, Kenzan asked a question instead.
"So, do you mean... the door couldn't be opened because of the wind's force?"
"Once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
After saying what sounded like a declaration of victory, Fuwa raised his index finger at Kamo.
Kamo had to stifle a groan.
Unexpectedly, at the last possible moment, Fuwa had fallen for his own lack of common sense, and his deduction had veered wildly off course.
By all accounts, this was the worst case scenario.
Fuwa had given a wrong answer and was about to face defeat and death. No, maybe Kurata would let him keep deducing a while longer, but that would only be delaying the inevitable.
Meanwhile, Kamo was forced to fulfill his obligation to present his counter-evidence. That would be fine if it was just overturning a wrong theory. The problem was that Fuwa's theory was 80% correct.
If he wanted to make a counterargument, he just needed to overturn that last 20%. But... Kamo wasn't sure that he could prove with evidence that Fuwa was wrong.
But the most crucial problem was that even if his counterargument was successful, he had no way back.
Any of the other detectives could reason out the last 20% of the truth and solve the entirety of the MICHI case with just a slight change of perspective.
...What do I do in a situation like this?
Fuwa, unaware of Kamo's racing thoughts, began to draw a diagram in the notebook. It was the same book that Munakata had left on the round table after giving his theory.
Fuwa put down his pen and nodded fervently.
Michi looked at his diagram and said "I see. The rubber boat, being deflated, would have been blown like a sail, and the wind would be able to seal the storeroom door with just a rubber boat."
"Mr. Kamo turned off the air supply feature when we tried to break down the door. With no more wind blowing on the door, it was instantly slammed open, and then the door just pressed against the rubber dinghy and hit the shelf inside. Just a bit of subtle positioning to make sure the shelf would cut the rubber dinghy when it fell, and it was perfect."
"As long as there's a hole in the dinghy, there's no way to tell how much air was originally inside."
"This is the truth of the MICHI case."
Fuwa looked at Kamo without even blinking. He was still convinced that his reasoning was flawless.
Feeling helpless, Kamo slipped on a glove controller.
"Unfortunately... your theory is wrong."
After saying that, Kamo operated the 3D monitor to show the shelves along the walls facing the storeroom door.
"On the top panel of the shelf directly in front of the air conditioner, there are two puppets."
Kamo moved his fingertips and quickly zoomed in on the bloody dolls. It was the red and purple clown puppets in the tuxedos.
The moment they saw the puppets, everyone except Fuwa stirred.
Fuwa was the only one who kept his cool and confidently asked "So what?"
"The puppets in Puppet Hall have a certain amount of weight to them, so ordinary air conditioner breezes definitely wouldn't be able to knock them down. But switching to a wind strong enough to force a door closed, that would be another story. If the air conditioner was really blowing that much wind at the time, the puppets on the shelf would definitely have been blown off. But... we didn't find any puppets on the storeroom floor when we found the body of the virtual MICHI."
Showing those bloody clowns was a high risk maneuver for Kamo. But it was the only defense he could think of.
Yuki nodded reassuringly next to him.
"Great, that proves the door wasn't blocked by the wind's force."
However, Fuwa's face still wore that same smile.
"I believe they call this 'being too smart for your own good'. You think I didn't notice those clown puppets? Those two puppets prove that the air conditioner was used in the crime."
Kamo felt cold sweat under his glove controller. Yuki skeptically asked "Proof?"
"As you can see, there's blood on those clown puppets. At first glance it kind of looks like it's decorative, but don't you think it actually looks more like real, drying bloodstains?"
The moment he heard those words, Yuki sucked in a breath.
"Is that really blood...?"
"Ms. Michi said that her avatar was standing inside the room facing the storeroom door when she fainted, and it just so happens that that's where the shelf with the two clowns was located... You all can tell what happened now, can't you?"
Azuma took over.
"Before the virtual MICHI was murdered, the Murderer used the air conditioner to restore the air pressure inside the storeroom. But he had to finish the crime before the oxygen-deprived virtual character regained consciousness... Then a large amount of air must have been blown in in a short period of time. At that time, the puppets were blown to the ground by the wind from the air conditioner, right?"
"That's right. The puppets that fell to the ground were stained with the blood from the avatar's nose, so Mr. Kamo applied more blood to them in an attempt to disguise it as decorations that were there from the start."
Recalling the scene when he'd committed the crime, Kamo once again couldn't help but close his eyes.
At that time... he'd seen the clown puppets and frozen in shock.
He quickly realized that they'd been blown down by the wind from the air conditioner. No puppets had been in the building during the testing stage, so he hadn't looked at them carefully and assumed that the situation would be the same during the actual crime. You could only call it an oversight on his part.
...No doubt those puppets were deliberately placed there to stop me from committing the crime.
Faced with those two puppets, Kamo was in a dilemma.
Should he put them on another shelf and try to trick everyone? Should he take them back to his room? Or should he put them back where he found them? Perhaps it would be safest to bring them back to his room and mix them up with the other puppets. But... combined with where Michi had been when she fainted, there was a good chance that she had seen those puppets on the shelf.
If she was as confident in her memory as Kamo was in his, the odds that she'd remember the clown puppets were high.
After a moment's hesitation, Kamo decided to put the clown puppets back in their original location.
Luckily, the two clown's tuxedos were purple and red, so getting blood on them didn't change the color that much. There shouldn't be anyone who'd remember the puppets' clothes in that much detail, so it was safe to say that noticing the change was almost impossible.
...I didn't expect that Michi would wind up not remembering the puppets at all, but I still made the right choice, didn't I?
Kamo regained some of his composure and made his counterargument.
"How you want to explain it is up to you... but none of it changes the fact that those clown puppets were on the shelf when the body was found. The fact that neither was on the floor at that time is proof that your theory is flawed, Fuwa."
Upon hearing this, Fuwa let out a loud laugh.
"Failing to spot the puppets while activating the air conditioning was certainly a mistake on your part... but you aren't the sort of fool who'd make the same mistake twice in a row, are you? After the first failure, you could have just moved the puppets somewhere they wouldn't be blown off again."
"...Huh?"
Kamo wasn't a little kid anymore, so he didn't get angry every time he heard someone say something stupid. But he was in a position where he had to disprove this stupid reasoning.
Kenzan crossed his arms and spoke up. "I'd like to ask, does anybody remember where those clown puppets were when we found the body?"
Nobody answered.
Fuwa continued smugly. "Mr. Kamo quietly moved the puppets back in front of the ventilation hole when he was investigating the storeroom. There aren't any ladders in the storeroom, but you're nearly 180 cm tall, so you could have reached the top just by stretching out your arm, right?"
If Munakata were still alive, he could have proved that Kamo hadn't moved those clown puppets at that time. That was because he had known Kamo was the Murderer from the beginning and had been closely monitoring his movements. However, thinking that now was useless.
Kamo closed his eyes again.
Whose words or actions... could be the turning point that can resurrect my counterargument?
Kurata's gleeful voice resounded through the lounge.
"Then, it's time to declare Kamo's defense a failure–"
"You said earlier that those two clown puppets were 'two weird dolls on that shelf', right? What did you mean?"
Kamo suddenly opened his mouth and asked Michi, and even though his question wasn't clear, Michi immediately answered.
"Oh, I tried to move the puppets when I was checking the A/C, but for some reason those two were a bit stuck to the shelf. I moved them with a bit of effort."
Kamo got the answer he'd expected, and after a slight smile, he asked Kurata something.
"There should be blood on top of the shelf in front of the air conditioner, can you show that on the 3D projector?"
Kurata answered him with an unpleasant silence, and then the screen quickly showed the puppetless top shelf.
It wasn't easy to see due to the walnut color of the wood, but the thin layer of dust did show bloodstains left by the hips and legs of the two puppets.
Kamo pointed at those bloodstains and continued "It looks like nobody's examined the top of that shelf. The blood left on that shelf proves that puppets were replaced immediately after getting blood on them, and afterwards, it can be proved that they were already on this shelf last night."
Fuwa's expression twisted and warped as he retorted "That's nonsense! You just made the rookie mistake of putting the bloody puppets back on the top shelf. But you quickly realized that they'd prevent you from carrying out your locked room trick, so you waited for the blood to dry before you moved them somewhere else."
"That isn't possible... When MICHI was investigating, those clown puppets were stuck to the top shelf, and that's because the blood had dried into the dust and gotten sticky. In other words, those puppets were placed on the top shelf before the blood dried, and they weren't moved until Michi took them away."
It had been a mistake on Kamo's part to put the puppets on the shelf without waiting for the blood on them to dry. But by pure chance, that mistake had come back and saved his life.
"Then the blood on the clown puppets dried and stuck so firmly that the air conditioner's wind wasn't enough to blow them off!"
Fuwa's tone grew more heated, and the precision of his arguments plummeted.
Kamo sighed and said "Michi also said earlier that she took down the dolls with 'a bit' of effort. I'm afraid that level of stickiness wouldn't be able to withstand a wind strong enough for your theory."
Fuwa finally fell silent and lowered his head, his teeth clenched.
***
"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?"
***
"You said earlier... that you gave the Executioner and the Murderer each a pair of black gloves, right?"
Kamo asked Kurata after the group returned to the lounge.
"It's true that I gave each killing role a pair as starting items, yes."
Kamo put on his glove controller and pulled up a picture of the Main Hall in the VR space on the round table, then zoomed in on the light switch on the southern wall.
There were three vertical finger marks on the switch, arranged in order from thumb to middle finger, apparently left by someone touching the switch with their right hand.
"50 minutes after midnight, there were no puppets on the round table. From this... we can deduce that the marks on the switch were left by the Executioner when they placed the puppets on the round table.
Then, he explained the conclusion he'd come to while investigating with Yuki and Azuma.
The switch had been stained with black pencil lead, which Yuki had left when he investigated the main hall at 12:50. The three fingerprints showed the shape of non-slip coating unique to the Crime Gloves. Since only the palm side of the glove had non-slip coating, that proved that they were indeed marks left by a right handed Crime Glove yadda yadda yadda.
Fuwa heard those words, but his expression didn't change at all as he said "The only information we can derive from that is that this trace appeared after 12:50, right? The fingerprint doesn't have any identifiable characteristics that could identify its owner."
The other four people around the table all watched Kamo and Fuwa without a word, as though they were afraid the slightest sound would disturb them.
In the face of Fuwa's claim, Kamo nodded.
"The switch is 10 cm long and 4 cm wide, so it's not surprising that it would leave such a mark if the whole hand was pressed on it. Except, of course, if the person had exceptionally large hands."
Fuwa's expression finally faltered, then he looked down at his right fist, wrapped in a handkerchief to stop the bleeding. He was extraordinarily tall and his hand was much larger than average.
...If his fingers were that thick, it was definitely impossible that he could leave three clear fingerprints on a switch only 4 cm wide.
In other words, even though he had killed YUKI, he wasn't the Executioner.
Kurata had clearly stated that there was only one Executioner...
But never once claimed that there was only one Murderer. That's because there were two Murderers from the beginning.
In other words... besides Kamo, Fuwa was also a Murderer.
The Executioner... was someone else.
"What's the point of proving I'm not the Executioner? Why do it?"
There was intense confusion in his voice. Maybe it was because he'd been misled by Kurata and firmly believed Kamo was the Executioner.
In fact, even Kamo hadn't realized his mistake until he saw Fuwa's fist smash into the wall.
...To have made such a basic error is really embarrassing.
Since the beginning of the Answer Time, though, things had been changing at a dizzying rate. Kamo had only figured out "the truth of YUKI's murder" fifteen minutes ago, and he hadn't had time to confirm if there were any discrepancies between his theory and the actual evidence.
Kamo and Fuwa had hated each other, and tried to make each other fail, be defeated... and die.
If Answer Time ended like that, Fuwa wouldn't listen to anything Kamo said anymore. Not only that, he would persuade everyone else to veto all of Kamo's proposals and stop him from acting even at the risk of their lives.
In that case, things would get so difficult they could probably never be fixed.
That was why Kamo had taken the risk of continuing on to prove he wasn't the Executioner. It was all to make Fuwa realize that the Executioner was someone else before the end of Answer Time, so he could get Fuwa's full cooperation next Crime Time, so they could open a path to overturn their current situation.
Kamo was about to go on when Kurata suddenly cut in.
"Kamo, if you say anything else that isn't relevant to your defense, you'll be penalized, okay?"
It seemed Kurata sensed that Kamo was approaching the truth and once again interrupted him with perfect timing.
Kamo shook his head.
"No, I haven't said anything unrelated. Whether or not these three fingerprints belong to me is an extremely important question. Speaking of which, I'm sure you all know that my avatar's right index finger was cut, right?"
Fuwa shrugged.
"You don't need to remind us of that, we know."
"Then let's assume I did fall for Munakata's trap. In that case, the piece of glove that Munakata found was from when my right hand was cut along with my glove. Do you think that a glove torn like that could leave fingerprints on a light switch where even the particles of non-slip substance are clear?"
In response, Fuwa pondered for a moment before replying "It's impossible. Together with the fact that it was previously stated that the Executioner also only had one pair of black gloves, the possibility of wearing a spare to press the switch is ruled out, too... But it's just a matter of the order, isn't it? All that you've proved is that the black powder appeared around 12:50, and that the light switch was pressed later, but it's entirely possible that you weren't injured until after that..."
Halfway through his sentence, Fuwa's eyes flickered, perhaps because he'd noticed the contradiction.
Kamo laughed and said "That's right, Munakata also found that piece of the black glove at 12:50. In other words, I couldn't have left those fingerprints after 12:50."
But Fuwa still didn't budge.
"No, that fragment could have been faked, you deliberately put it there to mislead the investigation."
Hearing that, Kamo operated the 3D monitor to view the table in his room. Upon seeing what was on it, everyone around the round table sucked in a breath.
"...The Crime Glove!" Fuwa almost choked.
Kamo said dubiously "Why are you all so surprised? I found it in the corridor this morning. Sorry for not telling everyone, but that's not against the rules."
Of course, that was a lie.
On the table was one of the black gloves Kamo had used to commit his crime. The fingertip of that right-handed glove was cut open and stained with virtual blood.
Kamo pointed at the glove and continued "The piece of the glove that Munakata picked up should be a match for the missing part of this glove. As long as it is... then that proves that the person who fell into the trap set by Munakata wasn't the Executioner."
Fuwa plopped down on the round table, mumbling something inaudible.
Kamo quietly waited for his reaction.
The person who had pressed the lightswitch wasn't Fuwa, something he himself must have know best. Judging from the size of the hand and what he had done within the VR space... there was no way he could have left those prints.
Kamo had just proven that he couldn't have pressed the switch either, so there was only one possibility.
A third pair of Crime Gloves existed in the VR space... and the owner of that pair of gloves was the Executioner.
Kamo wasn't worried. Fuwa's previous reasoning proved he could be trusted to draw that conclusion on his own.
No one moved to break the silence. Not even Kurata said a word.
When Fuwa looked up again, his expression had changed to one that understood everything. But when he saw Kamo, it quickly twisted again.
"Ah... I did something stupid again. My theory was horribly wrong. I'm sorry... I'm sorry."
Hearing his words, Kurata scoffed coldly. "Honestly, you're the same as twenty six years ago. The moment you open your mouth, it's just nonsense dressed up as reasoning, and you don't care how many people die because of it."
A look of fear appeared on Fuwa's face. But it wasn't Kurata he was afraid of. It was himself.
After a moment, he nodded, accepting the scorn.
"What you say is true... However, I finally understand the truth."
"There's no point in seeing it now, because your Answer Time is over."
Kurata's voice was vicious, and Fuwa smiled sadly.
"I recognize that I failed. If it's my destiny to be killed by the Executioner, I'll accept that. Maybe this really is what I deserve."
"That's an admirable attitude you've got there. What's with this sudden 'a new wind is blowing' moment?"
"But in exchange, before this Answer Time ends... as the contestant, I want to ask two questions."
Those words caught Kamo by surprise as well. He silently cast a questioning look at Fuwa, while the other calmly continued "This might be the last useful thing I can do."
A full thirty seconds passed before Kurata gave an answer.
"What do you want to ask?"
"My first question is simple. You said that there's only one Executioner among us, so how many Murderers are there?"
Fuwa deliberately asked the question in a roundabout way, worried that his question could be interpreted as surrender.
"Oh, that's all you want to know... It's not like I was trying to hide it. There are two Murderers among you."
There was a commotion around the round table as soon as Kurata's words arrived.
It wasn't that the other four people around the table were slow, it was just that the secret communications that Kamo and Fuwa had exchanged could never have made total sense to anyone other than a Murderer.
Meanwhile, Kamo once again felt a chill.
The fact that Kurata had so casually admitted the existence of the second Murderer unnerved him. It was as though this thing that should have put the Executioner in an unfavorable position was totally acceptable...
"What's your second question?"
Fuwa's expression instantly grew tired.
"Before I ask this question, I'd like to explain what really happened between me and your father 26 years ago. After all, this is my last chance to explain it, and I want everyone here to know."
Kurata said nothing as Fuwa spoke.
"It was over thirty years ago now. I was a young man in my twenties working for a credit bureau. At the time, I got involved in investigating and solving countless cases... But I probably made countless mistakes."
"Mistakes?" Kenzan asked, sounding confused.
Fuwa nodded.
"You're still young. You don't know what it's like to have hardship, do you? All these years, I've given what I thought were correct answers. But in the end, no one can know if a theory is actually correct or not. Because, as we all know, no matter how much humans struggle, they can never become gods."
"But can't you just make deductions from decisive evidence to identify the culprit and see through their schemes?"
"Can you guarantee you haven't made any mistakes in interpreting that evidence? That your 'evidence' is even related to the crime and not something that was there by pure coincidence? Or... that the real culprit isn't someone familiar with the way 'detectives' like us think, and used forged evidence to leave a trap for you? Can you definitively assert that none of those things happened?"
Kenzan sounded annoyed hearing that, and he retorted "Then what if the murderer confesses? With evidence and a confession, there shouldn't be any flaws, right?"
"Confessions can also be fake. Moreover, human memories are deeply flawed, so even if they aren't intentionally lying, a person can have their memories misled and falsely believe they committed the crime."
"...So by your logic, we're going to need to seriously expand our suspect pool." Kenzan had stopped taking this seriously and mocked Fuwa. "Because I guess we also need to consider the possibility of aliens and people with superpowers! After all, you can't argue that they're completely impossible either."
Hearing Kenzan say that, Kamo couldn't help but laugh.
"Let's not argue whether it's right or wrong to apply reductio ad absurdum right now... The problems Fuwa just described aren't unique to the world of great detectives. Any time an investigation is done, problems like that are bound to arise. Whether the investigator is a policeman, a prosecutor, or an amateur, it's all the same. There are times even judges rule based on false presumptions."
Kamo, who had investigated and reported on a number of wrongful convictions, knew well the horrors that they brought.
Fuwa smiled sadly.
"When I first started doing this kind of work, I thought I understood the dangers very well. I even secretly teamed up with the police behind the scenes every time I investigated an incident. I thought that would be enough to help me avoid any incidents of severe negligence."
Fuwa's gaze drifted into the distance as he continued somberly "I sincerely hope that most of the reasoning I've done these past thirty years has been correct. But... I know there have been cases where I learned later that my theories were wrong. And one of those cases claimed the life of Kurata Youji."
Kurata Youji – that was the name of Kurata Chikage's father who Fuwa had mentioned before.
"29 years ago, I became acquainted with Mr. Youji. At the time, I was still a rash young man of less than thirty who couldn't even make rent consistently. Finally, my landlord got fed up with me and kicked me out. I was homeless and penniless."
"Mr. Youji was ten years older than me, and was a regular at a fast food place next door to the credit bureau I was working for at the time. He and I... we often sat next to each other as we ate lunch. Slowly, we grew familiar with each other and started to talk."
"I remember once I complained to him about my situation, and to my surprise, Mr. Youji said to me 'Then let me help. We all have to help each other out when times are hard.' I learned later that he'd recently inherited a two story apartment building, and he rented me a second floor room for almost nothing."
"At the time, my salary was entirely performance based, and as my income gradually stabilized, I begged him again and again to raise my rent to the normal rate. He never agreed, and I felt terrible about it."
"The apartment building was far from the station, and the road it was on was too narrow for a car, so three of the four rooms there were empty. I was the only occupant. Mr. Youji had no plans to tear down the apartment and sell the land, saying that it was full of memories he had with his grandfather. Because of that, I never moved out, even after I got the money. I wanted to thank him for always taking care of me."
"In retrospect, that was the first of my many mistakes..."
"Mr. Youji's wife had passed away at a young age, and he worked at a real estate company to raise his two children. The first time I saw those two kids... would have been when I visited Mr. Youji at his house to say thank you before I moved into the apartment. I remember the older sister was ten, and the younger brother should have been around eight."
"Unfortunately, I don't remember their names. But the sister, that should have been Chikage, right?"
"The older girl, Chikage, never greeted me and would even run away in fear whenever she saw me. The younger brother, on the other hand, always glared at me fiercely to protect his sister."
"I'd been to Mr. Youji's house several times, but neither sibling ever wanted to approach me. But... I could tell that they were very close. Though I did think it was strange that they didn't look alike."
"Once, Mr. Youji told me about that. It turns out the sister, Chikage, was actually Mr. Youji's niece, who had been adopted by Mr. Youji."
"And the reason Chikage had lost her parents and her happy life... was a murder."
"Three years before she met me, Chikage had lived with her parents in Tokyo. One day, a couple was brutally murdered near their home. The police investigated and concluded they had been victims of a home invasion. However, there was something suspicious about the scene."
"At the time, Roppongi Shido had just retired from the police department and started working as something like an amateur detective. Yes, the same Mr. Roppongi we all know..."
"He publicly declared that he would be investigating the murder of the couple. Of course, he'd hadn't been commissioned by the police and he wasn't part of the official investigation. It seemed he wanted to use the investigation to kickstart his own fame."
"I don't know exactly what happened at the time... but in short, Roppongi claimed that the man who'd been murdered had been having an affair with Chikage's mother, and that Chikage's father had found out and broken into their home to kill the man, and also killed the man's wife, who'd witnessed the crime."
"Mr. Roppongi even went so far as to interrogate both of Chikage's parents."
"Of course, his claims were baseless. If there had been any evidence of that, the police would have acted long ago. All Roppongi did was exploit someone else's tragedy to become famous."
"But a lie can run a thousand miles, and the rumors that Chikage's father had been having an affair and was the real culprit spread in an instant. They might even have been spread by Roppongi himself."
"Chikage's parents were so overwhelmed by the humiliation and harassment that they both took their own lives. They even did it on the same day. They addressed their last notes to each other, each asking the other to forgive their weakness... and for the other to take care of Chikage. And just like that, they left this world."
"It's so sad... The husband didn't know his wife was going to commit suicide, and the wife didn't know her husband was going to commit suicide, and they gave up their lives without a second thought. Chikage, who'd been left behind, was a smart kid, and she already knew that it was Roppongi who'd driven both her parents to suicide."
"Her parents had been taken away from her by Roppongi, a detective, and only later did she regain a peaceful life under the roof of Mr. Youji. Mr. Youji was a kindhearted man, and no doubt Chikage was happy during the years they lived together. Then I came along. Once again, a detective threatened her peaceful life."
"It wasn't unreasonable that she was afraid of me. I sympathize with Chikage very much. ...No, if I really thought that, I should have gotten away from Mr. Youji much earlier."
"In the third year of my friendship with him, I thought I'd finally reached the top of the world."
"Because I managed to solve a serial murder case that was on the verge of going unsolved. I discovered an unknown connection between the victims the police had missed... and then I got the real killer arrested in one fell swoop."
"I thought for sure that now I'd be able to get the trust of major clients and that my detective work was about to get much busier. I started thinking about leaving the credit bureau and starting my own business."
"It's true, at the time I was blinded by fame and fortune. In a way, I wasn't any different than Roppongi."
"That day... I was chatting with Mr. Youji at the fast food restaurant when I suddenly remembered that I'd left the bathroom faucet on back home... That was the first time I'd ever made such a careless mistake, and I was extremely flustered. Mr. Youji laughed when he saw me like that and said:"
"'Busy with work, huh? I'll just go turn off the water for you then... It's fine, the apartment is near where I was going after this anyway, and it just so happens that I forgot to return the spare key when I stepped out today.' He joked that if he found the room flooded or the water heater broken he'd charge me for the repairs. In fact, I knew that he was the sort of person who wouldn't charge me a penny no matter what happened to the room. He'd just say he'd 'wait until I got settled'."
"Mr. Youji died in that room."
"The person who killed him was the mother of the person I'd gotten arrested for the serial killing case."
"Yes, back then... I'd gotten it wrong then, too."
"The connections I'd found weren't complete, and the information I gathered was also incomplete. So the man I'd accused had nothing to do with the serial killings."
"The police didn't convict him without evidence, but the fact that he'd been questioned by them as a suspect had made national news and everyone believed he was the real culprit. The man had been subjected to severe harassment, assailed on the street, been bombarded with phone calls, had his home graffitied... the behavior escalated, and finally people were even throwing rocks his house."
"Early in the morning the day Mr. Youji was attacked, he was hit in the head with a rock and fell to the ground, hitting his head again... and he died."
"His mother said later that as she held her son's body as his warmth slowly faded away, she vowed then and there to kill the detective."
"Why had things gone so wrong?"
"I just forgot to turn off the faucet, the odds of that were less than one percent. But if I hadn't made that mistake on that day... or if I hadn't remembered it in that fast food place... or if I hadn't asked Mr. Youji to turn it off instead of doing it myself..."
"The mother waited to ambush me at my apartment, saw Mr. Youji open the door and go inside, and viciously slashed him again and again with a kitchen knife. Then when she saw that she'd killed the wrong person, she waited where she was for me to return."
"When I got back to my home that night, I found Mr. Youji's body at the door, and saw the mother rushing at me with a knife, and I realized everything."
"It's true that what I'd done was a crime worthy of dying for, but Mr. Youji hadn't done anything wrong. I should have been there to protect him, but... why did I get to live when Mr. Youji died? The kitchen knife pierced my shoulder, but I barely felt a thing. It pierced into my side, but I just watched as though it were happening somewhere far away. It felt like nothing even mattered anymore..."
"Then someone from the neighborhood heard the noise and called the police, and they were able to save my life. The moment I woke up in the hospital, I cried as I realized how precious life is. It's true I'd once felt that nothing mattered, but I still didn't want to give up my life."
"After a few months of recuperation, I was discharged from the hospital. I found Mr. Youji's house empty, his children gone."
"Later, I heard that Mr. Youji's funeral was long over, and that his children had been adopted by relatives. But I didn't bother tracking down where they'd gone."
"Because I was afraid."
"What would I say if I ever saw them again? How could I apologize? So... eventually, I chose to run away."
"I didn't want to think about anything anymore. In order to escape the unbearable memories, I kept pursuing new cases. Because when I was on a case, I didn't need to think about anything but the evidence in front of me. That was how... I buried everything in the deepest recesses of my mind, and hardened the soil it was under."
"And that's how I became the second detective to take away Chikage's family."
"Taking away the siblings' father, ruining their lives, and prompting Kurata to plan such a horrible game – there's no way around it. It's all my fault."
***
Fuwa interlaced his fingers and continued in a voice full of nothing but self-loathing. "When I accepted the invitation to come here, I never thought that the host, Ms. Kurata, would have any connection to Mr. Youji... I'm afraid that itself says a lot about me."
A contemptuous sigh came from the speakers.
"Fuwa, don't you think you're being just a little bit self-absorbed? You and Roppongi did show me how amateur detectives can harm the world, but that was just an opportunity."
"Even I... was just an opportunity?" Fuwa said, stunned.
Kurata sarcastically replied "I've met so many other 'great' detectives since then, and I've seen what they're like, and they're all just unbearable. Setting aside the sloppy reasoning for a bit, I've even seen people accept bribes to falsify evidence... But the ones who accepted bribes weren't qualified for the game, so I sent them straight to hell ahead of you all."
Kurata continued taunting them. "I realized early on that fighting detectives like you one at a time would take for~e~ver. That's why I came up with the plan to gather you all here at Megalodon Manor."
Yuki froze. "It was... to wipe out all the amateur detectives at once?"
"Such great opportunities only come around once in a lifetime, so of course we should try to get as much out of them as we can."
The lounge fell into silence. After a long time, Fuwa spoke up again.
"So, my second question is... just who are you?"
The voice that came from the speakers sounded a bit surprised.
"What do you mean by asking that? I'm Kurata, y'know? ...I really didn't expect you to ask that at a time like this."
"The last time I saw Kurata Chikage was on the boat to the island. After we arrived at Megalodon Manor, she didn't appear in front of us a single time, did she!?"
Hearing Fuwa's words, Kamo remembered the ferry – where he'd see Kurata Chikage speaking closely to Juumonji. That was indeed the last time he'd seen her.
Fuwa continued in a stern voice "Since we were imprisoned in Megalodon Manor, we've only seen a virtual avatar modeled to look like Kurata Chikage once, and other than that, you've only spoken to us with voice communication for one reason or another... Why have you been communicating with us in such an abnormal way? There's only one reason. You aren't the real Kurata Chikage."
"Oh, so you think I faked Kurata Chikage's voice and used her avatar's appearance to fool you guys? Interesting. So, then, who do you think I really am?"
"Earlier, I noticed that among the people involved with Megalodon Manor... there was a person who bore a slight resemblance to Mr. Youji."
"And who might that be?"
The voice that came out the speakers didn't sound the slightest bit nervous. If anything, it seemed to be enjoying itself.
"The director, Juumonji Kaito."
The speakers were silent.
"Juumonji is also a famous illustrator. Although most game developers today use their real names, artists often don't, and many debut under pen names. Sometimes they even use their aliases when working in another field."
"So?"
"Juumonji is just a pen name, and your real name is Kurata... You're Mr. Youji's son, and Kurata Chikage's brother, aren't you?"
The sound of tapping on glass suddenly came from the south. Kamo followed it with his eyes and nearly let out a gasp. Standing outside the floor to ceiling window, smiling and waving at them, was Juumonji.
"Hey there, everyone... This is a rare event, so I thought I'd come by and say hi. We've already met a few times now at briefings and such, and some of you arrived alongside me on the first boat."
Juumonji's headset was illuminated by the lounge's light, and his real voice was blended with the voice of Kurata Chikage coming from the speakers.
The two mingled into a surreal noise.
That amiable teddy bear face still had the same smile.
"It's just like Fuwa said, Juumonji Kaito is just an alias. The name on my birth certificate is Kurata Kaito... I'm Kurata Chikage's younger brother."
His bright expression looked the same as it had during the preparation for the event, but now, it made Kamo's skin crawl and stomach turn. Even Fuwa, the one who had revealed his true identity, gasped.
Kamo had felt before that the way the two of them had talked so closely on the ferry... looked more like siblings than coworkers.
Seeing the crowd's reaction, Kurata Kaito frowned embarrassedly.
"I guessed things would go a bit like this before I came out to meet everyone. Guess I didn't soften the blow enough."
Kamo managed to find his thoughts and asked "What about the real Kurata Chikage? What have you done with her?"
Kurata Kaito narrowed his eyes unhappily from the other side of the window.
"Even if we disagreed on the subject of revenge, how could I possibly hurt my sister? Sis is doing just fine."
After saying that, he pulled something from the side. It was a wheelchair that had been sitting just out of sight of Kamo and the others.
The outdoor lights illuminated a woman wearing nothing but a bath towel. She had another towel stuffed in her mouth, and tears fell freely from her beautiful almond eyes.
"Kurata Chikage!"
On impulse, Kamo stood up. Kurata Kaito immediately pointed to her left wrist. He probably meant to activate the poisoned needle if anyone tried anything rash.
Kamo stood and glared daggers out the window.
...That fear isn't an act. I'm sure now, the mastermind behind this death game is Kurata Kaito, and he's even using his own sister, Chikage!
Kurata Kaito knelt in front of the wheelchair and caressed its back with a sad face.
"I did all this for my sister who got her life ruined by amateur sleuths, you know? But... she just didn't get that. If she hadn't resisted, I wouldn't have had to do all this."
So saying, Kaito left the wheelchair and walked up to the floor to ceiling window.
"My sister's a talented woman. She was the one who saved me from the despair I fell into after losing my father, and showed me the path to become an illustrator. She was promoted to producer while still in her twenties, and went on to produce multiple million-plus selling works in a row. My sister is the family genius... I just live in her shadow."
With a proud look on his face, Kaito continued "Now, as the executive director of MegalodonSoft, Kurata Chikage has become the top producer in the industry... Without my sister's fame and glory, my plan would have never been anything but a dream."
He clearly worshiped her fervently like a true believer, and yet he'd used her fame to plan such an appalling revenge without the slightest twinge of guilt.
It went without saying... This man wasn't normal.
"It was also thanks to Chikage's negotiation skills that I was able to gather all eight of you here."
Kamo shuddered and continued to glare at Kurata Kaito, who kept smiling at them through the floor to ceiling window.
"Now I see, you took advantage of your sister's identity. But.. after you locked us all in Megalodon Manor, there shouldn't have been any need for you to keep up the ruse, was there?"
What Kamo didn't expect was for Kurata Kaito to look surprised by that.
"What are you even saying?"
Immediately, he changed his expression to one of pity and continued "My sister had lost a mother and two fathers to amateur detectives, you know? The greatest sin in this world is to arrogantly proclaim oneself a 'detective'. ...In the end, my brother-in-law also lost his life because of your sins."
Michi shuddered and asked "Could it be that Kurata Chikage's husband... also died because of an amateur detective?"
"Oh, my sister is the one who should be the hero of this revenge drama. The only way this incident has any meaning is if it's done under the name Kurata Chikage."
"...You're insane." Fuwa muttered.
Kamo thought that comment would enrage Kurata, but there was still only a faint smile on his teddy bear face.
"Guilty as charged. Now if you'd said that you understood Chikage, that would really give me chills."
Saying that, Kaito pulled out his cell phone and glanced at it.
"We are way over time, so I'm declaring the Answer Time's ending here... Fuwa, I'm afraid I'll have to have you turned into a new mystery. I hope it hurts."