Chapter 5

**Chapter 5** is the fifth chapter of the *Dead Mount Death Play* manga.

## Synopsis

While Clarissa Kuraki has sexual intercourse with a blonde subordinate, her onlooking brunette subordinate asks if the situation with the fake "Polka" is going to be all right. Though Clarissa is bemused by the extremely off-topic questions, she replies she will have no trouble controlling someone with such a 'weakness'—in this case, "Polka's" soft spot for children—and that she is not one to make enemies without cause.

Clarissa vacates the bed to answer an incoming call on her cell phone. Impatient, she reminds the caller she already explained 'that' to them the day before: to believe the lie that 'Polka Shinoyama' is an ordinary high school student is a grave error, as doing so was exactly what led one of Clarissa's "star members" to become a walking corpse. She declares a moratorium on communications with the caller's "people" for the time being before ending the call.

The blonde questions Clarissa's last statement, asking if Polka was not at least an ordinary high school student right up until his death. Clarissa says it is a good question without actually answering it; instead, she takes a bottle of wine and two glasses and suggests that they celebrate losing a 'disagreeable client'. Privately, the brunette thinks that Clarissa is making enemies left and right.

In the exterior stairwell of a certain building, a black-haired man bows deeply to three security guards and apologizes; he does not have the means to pay for his glass of beer, which he had no idea at the time would cost ¥60,000 (~US$600).

Elsewhere, a blond man slumps over the bar counter at Youtoukorou—Clarissa's establishment—and asks out loud if the area needed yet another overpriced bar. The bartender Urai has heard such a bar can be found on the fourth floor of the adjacent building, but the blond supposes that both bars have the same exorbitant prices. Sitting upright, he asks where "Clarissa-chan is," to which Urai replies that Clarissa starts the night shift at midnight.

The blond shrewdly observes that this is not Clarissa's usual shift and asks if something happened. With Urai's physical reaction tantamount to affirmation, the blond remarks that his colleagues were discussing the Shakuzawa Building fire at work—including the skeleton sightings within the fire. Evidently tipsy, he dismisses his colleagues' fears as baseless before inappropriately patting the waitress who serves him—a gesture that earns him a physical warning from the bouncer on duty.

In the abandoned torture building, about an hour after Misaki Sakimiya was shot, Takumi Kuruya asks the Corpse God what will happen to Misaki's body over takeaway pizza. The Corpse God, "Polka," replies 'nothing', given that Misaki's body is essentially preserved and self-repairing. However, she may be stronger and have more muted senses, and should eat raw meat if seriously injured. Furthermore, her saliva contains a powerful paralyzing agent.

Misaki promptly bites Corpse God's shoulder, causing him to fall to the floor in full-body paralysis. She offers to kiss Takumi next, an offer which Takumi vehemently rejects; meanwhile, the Corpse God—uninterested in their conversation but trapped in his immobility—idly wonders if this world has any unconventional monsters in the mode of the Calamity Crusher.

At the site where Misaki and the Corpse God carried out their job earlier that night, a hooded figure swathed in bandages examines a sphere of packed dirt and entangled humans. With a punch so swift and strong that it sounds like a gunshot, the figure smashes the ball apart. The sound attracts the attention of two nearby patrolmen, who are soon horrified upon discovering the plight of the entangled men.

In the exterior stairwell of the bar, the bowing man headbutts the three security guards into unconsciousness. When he straightens to survey his handiwork, blood splattered on his face—he smiles. His smile fades when his cell phone rings.

The blond man's cellphone rings as well. He swears, stands, and laments how close he was to meeting with Clarissa; despite his grin, the ill-boding glare in his eyes causes Urai to shiver.

On Takumi's monitor, a live camera feed of Youtoukorou's front entrance shows the blond exiting the premises. Takumi is too busy interrogating the Corpse God on his homeworld to notice, finding it strange that the Corpse God's world and this world have so many similarities. The Corpse God muses that their words may truly be connected after all.

When the Corpse God expresses his approval of having a variety of way to neutralize someone, Takumi remarks on the creative way with which "Polka" disposed of the corpses via the aforementioned sphere of soil. "Polka" says he actually left those men alive, albeit utterly senseless and unable to kill everyone ever again.

With the patrolmen having called the scene in, the soil sphere site now swarms with emergency personnel. The black-haired and blond-haired men from before arrive at the scene together, evidently partners, and beeline for the men the hooded figure freed: currently laid on the ground with their limbs tied into knots. The attending personnel have never seen anything like this before, unsure whether the men are alive or if it is worth taking them to the hospital.

The black-haired man—Kōzaburō Arase—quips that this is why the riot squad contacted *them* while he and the blond don latex gloves, since their jurisdiction is likely the only one that would or could handle such a thing. His blond companion—Tsubaki Iwanome, manager of the third Materials Compiling Group of the Shinjuku Police's community safety division—muses that this crime's perpetrator could potentially be beyond the likes of Lemmings, "The Grim Reaper", and the Fire-breathing Bug.

Such a prospect, he says, excites him.